I have got to deviate from my HDQ/Ask Nic today to bring up something of importance that is really on my mind. My friend Jack Kinsella of the
Omega Letter wrote this today and I just had to share b/c every word that he says is true. It seems like the men and women who fight for our freedom and the freedom of others are getting shafted by the MSM. Of course, the MSM shafts pretty much everything conservative, right-wing and patriotic. One would actually think that being those things are akin to being a pedophile or child abuser (b/c in
my mind those are two of the worst kinds of people in the world). Heaven FORBID that we should take pride in being an American, in saluting the Red, White and Blue, and in honoring those making the ultimate sacrifice for us and our country! This is why I LOVE country singers like Toby Keith ("American Soldier" anyone?!), Aaron Tippin, Big and Rich and Gretchen Wilson. They GET it! They support our men and women in uniform.
I was watching the Memorial Day Celebration from Washington on PBS and two people really stood out. Oh, they had the usual celebs out there supporting our troops and the memory of those who have died to keep us and others free from domination and oppression. One was the country group Big and Rich. They had befriended a bar tender from either North or South Dakota who was a Viet Nam vet. He told them stories about his experiences over there when they asked. They kept in touch, became good friends with him and they actually ended up taking him back there to see it all. (I'm getting chills just relaying this story) They wrote a song about him and one fight that his platoon was in. He was one of the very few survivors. Maybe y’all have heard it. It’s called the “8th of November”. Anyway, they brought him out at this celebration and sang the song for him and his fallen friends and it was just beautiful. I cried while listening to it.
Anyway, the 2nd one was Gary Sinese. Love him or hate him as an actor, he was amazing. He MEMORIZED and recited this recollection of this one soldier in Iraq who lost 4 friends to an IED attack - right in front of him - and he tried in vain to save them. The letter that this soldier wrote was describing the lives of these fours soldiers, how he hadn't wanted to be part of their group (but they were persistent and soon they had become his closest friends over there), who they were, who their families were, etc. As he got to this particularly difficult part, he had to stop a few times and gain his composure before he could go on. His voice broke as he tried to not openly cry while telling this soldier's tale of his lost friends. I cried for him, with him, for the soldier, the friends he lost and their families. What crossed my mind is that he had to memorize this letter which took easily a solid 5-7 minutes of speaking to do tell it all. How many times did he go over it? How many times did he repeat and practice it until he got it down? And he still was broken up over it after all those times and I thought that was pretty neat and spoke a lot about him as a person. But that is my opinion.
And, one more thing before I get to the briefing. A cousin of mine sent me the following information in an email.
How long has it been since you shopped at Sears? I assume some or most of you have seen the reports about how Sears is treating its reservist employees who are called up? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available for 30 days, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and lose benefits as a result of being called up...Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years. I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution.
I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves.
Pass it on.
My cousin took it upon herself to do some further investigation before passing on something that may not be true. These are her words:
I decided to check it out before I sent it forward. I sent the following email to the Sears Customer Service Department:
I received this email and I would like to know if it is true. If it is, the Internet may have just become one very good source of advertisement for your store. I know I would go out of my way to buy products from Sears instead of another store for a like item even if it was cheaper at the other store.
Here is their answer to my email......................
Dear Customer:
Thank you for contacting Sears.
The information is factual. We appreciate your positive feedback. Sears regards service to our country as one of greatest sacrifices our young men and women can make. We are happy to do our part to lessen the burden they bear at this time.
Bill Thorn
Sears Customer Care
webcenter@sears.com
1-800-349-4358
Please pass this on to all your friends, Sears needs to be recognized for this outstanding contribution and we need to show them as Americans, we do appreciate what they are doing for our military!
I also checked this out on http://www.truthorfiction.com/ -- Yes, folks it really is TRUE.
I did a double check myself at http://www.snopes.com/ and they verify it as TRUE as well.
Now...the article that my friend wrote. It should shock the hell out of you and get you plenty hopping mad. I should add that Jack, the one who wrote this, is a former Marine and a Texas State Trooper for several years.
At Least Respect Them Enough To Tell the Truth What is it with the mainstream media? When some low-life terrorist whose handlers taught him to lie as needed claims he was tortured by US troops at Gitmo, the headlines read, "Detainees Tortured by US Troops."
But when two young American soldiers are abducted, tortured, and then brutally murdered by beheading, the New York Times headline reads, "US Says 2 Bodies Retrieved in Iraq Were Brutalized." Note the difference -- it is more than just a distinction.
If a scumbag terrorist claims he was tortured, the headline is unqualified; 'Detainees Tortured' -- period. If a murdering swine captured while trying to kill Americans claims a government he despises above all else claims he was mistreated, the media reports it as fact.
Like when the murdering swine who claimed that their guards flushed a Koran down the toilet -- it was reported as fact first, then investigated later.
When fanatical terrorists, hoping to call attention to themselves by going on a hunger strike, are force-fed by US troops (to keep them alive) -- well, THAT, according to the mainstream press, is 'torture'.
But when the bodies of kidnapped American soldiers are found tortured and beheaded, it reported as A US 'allegation' -- not a fact -- and to New York Times, 'torture' is what Americans do to terrorists. When terrorists torture and behead helpless American captives, the best the Times can do to describe it is to say they were 'brutalized.'
The South African Independent Online ran as its headline, "Kidnapped American Soldiers MAY Have Been Tortured."
Ok, let's run with that. At Gitmo, it is alleged that detainees were sometimes kept in really hot or really cold rooms for hours at a time. The detainees (terrorists all) sometimes didn't get their meals on time. They would have loud music played in their cells for extended periods.
According to the liberal media and Leftist Democrats like John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi and, in particular, Dick Durbin, such tactics are 'barbaric', 'worthy of the Nazis or the Khymer Rouge' and, without question, 'torture' as the Left understands the term.
But when two young American soldiers (they were 23 and 25 years old) were captured, they weren't afforded a clean cell, three meals a day, time for religious observation and instruction, hot showers, medical care and visits from the Red Cross while being 'tortured' by having the a/c turned down too low.
These young American heroes were 'tortured' in the sense of what Americans understand as 'torture'. You know, beaten and stabbed, eyes gouged out, fingers broken, and finally, beheaded. Not a nice, clean, beheading by a large Nubian eunuch with a keen eye and a sharp blade.
Our forces were beheaded the way Nick Berg was beheaded; screaming in terror and pain as a depraved degenerate slowly cut through their flesh to the neck bone, until the terrorist, (who practice this on animals) find the place between the neck bones where he can expertly sever the spinal cord and separate the victim's head from his body.
The young soldier's bodies, after having been tortured and then beheaded, were not merely dumped in the street. First they were booby-trapped in the hopes that other US soldiers, in their grief, might rush to the bodies where this act of compassion would be used like a weapon to kill them, too.
Too graphic? Make you want to run screaming from the room?
If Pfcs Kristian Menchaca (who married his 18 year-old bride a month before leaving for Iraq) and Thomas Tucker could endure it on our behalf, we owe it to them to at least endure the description of what they suffered to preserve our freedom.
And we owe them, and the rest of our forces, any of whom risk a similar fate, enough respect for how they died to tell it like it is.
None of them can running screaming from the room. That would be called 'cowardice'. When we can't even endure the description of what our forces endured ON OUR BEHALF, then what does that make US?
Assessment: The Washington Post decided that it would cover how the US military was responsible for the kidnapping, torture and murder of two helpless captive GIs, giving the murdering scumbags who committed it a pass.
Under an ominous headline alleging "Question Arise After US Finds Two Bodies", the Post reports that; "top U.S. commander ordered an investigation into why the men were isolated from a larger force in such a dangerous part of Iraq." To the Post, the blame belongs to the US military.
The Post reported the killings in a concise, matter-of-fact way, as if it were perfectly acceptable for al-Qaeda to torture and behead captive prisoners, because that's what they do, going so far as to explain their justification as 'revenge' for the killing of abu Musab al Zarqawi.
The San Francisco Chronicle opined in its headline that the; "Killings of Two Missing GIs Possibly a Show of Force by Insurgents." According to the Chronicle, the GI's murders were evidence that killing al-Zarqawi was, as they claimed at the time, 'meaningless.' The insurgents are still a force to be reckoned with, says the Chronicle.
"A show of FORCE?" By brutally murdering two bound and helpless prisoners?
In the meanwhile, President Bush is in Austria attempting to 'improve' relations with the European Community after a Council of Europe report concluded the United States was mistreating terrorist detainees by allowing them to be interrogated outside the United States under a policy called 'rendition'.
Manfred Nowak, the United Nations special investigator for torture, told Agence France-Presse that the U.S.-EU summit "would be an excellent opportunity to demand, and to facilitate, an immediate closing" of the prison. Nowak participated in a U.N. investigation that produced a February report alleging treatment that "amounts to torture" at Guantanamo Bay.
It is worth noting [again] that NONE of the authors of the report even visited Guantanamo Bay. The report and its conclusions are based entirely on the testimony of the detainees who, given the chance, would have cheerfully participated in the torture and beheading of PFCs Tucker and Menchaca.
Noted the Baltimore Sun apologetically; "Human rights "is an issue that still causes considerable anguish in Europe. They almost go out of their way to put the issue on the agenda, because they need to demonstrate to their publics that they're putting pressure on Bush."
Evidently, American soldiers aren't 'human'.
AND
Finally...there are several thousand men and women in the military who do not receive care packages or letters. There is a website that was started by a soldier fighting in Iraq that will help you send care packages to “Any Soldier”. They have Military Personnel contacts on the Where to Send page. Click through the names and select the one(s) you wish to support. They list what the folks they represent want and need. They even have a search capability so you can easily identify what the troops need most. These packages all go to different fighting men and women who are in harm’s way. It is a very worthwhile thing to do to show your support for those who are fighting for freedom for others, which in turn helps to keep us free.
Click Here To Get Started!
Possibilities...and that’s all I'm going to say about that one.
