Clipmarks | Rustee's 'marines' clips

Victory in Anbar

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:58:45 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: outsidethewire.com

The road Abraham travelled passed through villages and cities whose names have changed or been lost to the ages.

One of those is the ancient city of Anbar.

Persians, Romans and Arabs all fought battles over this ancient city.

The Roman leader Gordian died at Anbar.

The Arab General Khalid wrested the city from the Persians.

Centuries later, U.S. Marines and Soldiers fought house to house in the same city. We know it now as Fallujah.

Scarsely two years ago, Al Anbar province was thought to be lost. But just yesterday, control of the province was handed over to the Iraqi government.

This victory will not be splashed across the headlines above the fold. It will be buried under a hurricane, a Vice Presidential nominee and the Republican Convention.

But it is a victory worthy of the ages as the coalition and Iraqi citizens defeated one of the greatest evils of our time.

Like Abraham, Gordian and the others of history who tread the banks of the Euphrates river--they have made their mark.

Wacko Church Still Protesting Marines

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:28:25 GMT

clipped by: Rustee

Clip Source: www.marinecorpstimes.com

The commander of Camp Lejeune, N.C., ordered her leathernecks to stay away from an anti-military and anti-gay group that has promised to demonstrate at the base following the death of a pregnant Marine.

The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church, which frequently pickets the funerals of military members, said it will demonstrate at the base at noon Saturday.

“God hates the U.S. Marines,” the group said in a statement.

“The wonderful, spit-and-polish Marine [Lauterbach] is over eight months pregnant and says another wonderful Marine raped her, and … now she turns up dead,” the statement reads. “Based on our extensive experience with Marines for over a decade, we can testify that these are typical Marines.”

The fundamentalist church has received national attention in recent years for picketing military funerals, claiming that God is punishing the U.S. for allowing homosexuality.

Tags: marines, military

New Memorial for USS Oklahoma (Pearl Harbor)

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 01:46:30 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks:

“Even though 429 soldiers and Marines died, I believe they’re still with us. I think they’re looking down and saying, ‘Thank you.’ ”

Clip Source: www.militarytimes.com

“We’re honoring the people who were killed. We’re not here for ourselves, we’re here for them,” said George A. Smith, 83, who was on board the Oklahoma the morning of Dec. 7, 1941.

Smith, of Olympia, Wash., was standing watch on the Oklahoma when he saw planes darting through the sky over the harbor.

“One plane came in, circled, came right down to us. The guy opened the hatch to his plane and dropped his torpedo, waved at me and took off,” Smith said. “The next thing I knew there was a big explosion.”

The Oklahoma lost 429 sailors and Marines — the second greatest loss of life among any of the battleships in Pearl Harbor.

Smith was among 18 survivors of the Oklahoma who came to Hawaii to help dedicate a new memorial to the vessel after the main ceremony.

The $1.2 million monument includes 429 white marble standards, each with the name of a fallen sailor or Marine, surrounded by black granite panels etched with a silhouette of the battleship

Clip Source: www.ussoklahoma.com

Tags: military, history, wwii

Validity of Charges on Haditha Marine Questioned

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:37:59 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: "Our position is that if this had not been Haditha and everything around it, he never would have been charged." - Attorney for defendant, Joseph Casas

Clip Source: nctimes.com

A military hearing officer said Saturday he has serious doubts over the validity of criminal charges filed against a Marine lieutenant

The hearing officer, Col. Robert Stahlman, said that if 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson was guilty of dereliction of duty for not ordering an investigation into the slayings, numerous other members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment command staff should have been similarly charged.

Testimony during the hearing showed that Grayson had ordered the destruction of 70 photographs taken by a member of the intelligence team he led at Haditha. The order, however, was in keeping with a military policy that photographs deemed not to have any intelligence value be destroyed.

The man in charge of intelligence gathering for the 3rd Battalion at Haditha, Maj. Jeffrey Dinsmore, testified Saturday that he considered the photos "extraneous" and that Grayson and his team were responsible for developing intelligence leads and not probing civilian killings.

Tags: haditha, iraq, marines

"Living" Pictures

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:45:34 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: The Statue of Liberty picture was formed with 18,000 men!

Clip Source: www.snopes.com

During the WW I years, Arthur S. Mole and John D. Thomas made some incredible human pictures by using thousands of sailors or soldiers in uniform to create images.

Clip Source: www.hammergallery.com

The Living Uncle Sam

1919

The Human Liberty Bell, 1918

Living Emblem of the United States Marines, 1919

Human Statue of Liberty , c. 1918

The Human U.S. Shield, 1918

A Living Flag, 1917

Entire Personnel 1^st Division, Formed a Living Insignia, 1940

1^st Field Artillery Brigade, 1^st Division, 1919

The Human American Eagle, 1918

Machine Gun Insignia – Machine Gun Training Center, 1918

Living Portrait of Woodrow Wilson, 1918

Tags: photography, pictures, history, military, patriotism

West Point Honors Legendary Marine with Highway Marker

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 06:43:11 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: "Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller was a force to be reckoned with...Long before he retired as a lieutenant general, he had become a Marine Corps living legend."

"The highway marker will be placed on state Route 33 in West Point, where Puller lived before enrolling at Virginia Military Institute."

Clip Source: www.inrich.com

Yesterday, a grateful hometown honored its hero, remembered that he is the only Marine ever to receive five Navy Crosses for bravery and expressed thanks that he was on our side.

World War I ended days after he enlisted, and his request for active duty in Vietnam in 1966 was denied on account of his age -- after all he was 68.

Puller fought in Nicaragua and also saw expeditionary service in China and Haiti. He and his men endured a relentless Japanese assault on Guadalcanal in World War II. In Korea, as commander of the 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division, he repelled brutal attacks from surrounding Communist troops that vastly outnumbered the American forces.

"All right," Puller was said to declare as he summed up the bleak situation, "they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us and they're behind us. . . . They can't get away this time!" They didn't. The Marines destroyed seven of the enemy divisions.

Puller died in 1971 while living in Middlesex County.

Tags: marines, military

Happy 232nd Marines!

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 03:07:41 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: As they say, "no better friend, no worse enemy."

Clip Source: www.marinecorpstimes.com

The Marine Corps celebrates 232 years on Nov. 10. That's 2,784 months of devil dogs, 84,680 days of leathernecks and 7,316,352,000 seconds of the world being a safer place for democracy and the American way.

Tags: marines

Marine's Grave Desecrated

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 04:13:55 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: Some have no decency. Liberty is just on the other side of Houston from me.

Clip Source: www.chron.com

To Jeremy Burris the word "liberty" was more than the name of his hometown. It was something worth fighting for.

An all-American kid from a little all-American town, the 22-year-old Marine lance corporal died heroically in Iraq. More than a thousand people turned out Wednesday as a white hearse carried his body to burial in the historic 1800s Cooke Memorial Cemetery.

Within hours, the grave was desecrated. About 30 sprays of flowers were ripped apart, petals strewn over the loose earth. Flags decorating the gravesite were also torn down and sentimental notes and posters shredded.

"It looked like a big debris field about 40 feet square," said Liberty Police Chief Mike Cummings. "This wasn't done by the wind or animals. It was obviously intentional.

Minutes before his death, he rescued two soldiers wounded when a device exploded under their military vehicle. When Burris returned to the vehicle to retrieve some sensitive equipment, another bomb detonated, killing him, his family said.

Tags: marines

Marine Receives Silver Star

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 05:15:42 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: Remarkable.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Marine 2nd Lt. Chad Cassady, 33, shows his Silver Star to his wife, Summer, and to his mother and father after he received the medal at Camp Pendleton

As a sniper, Sgt. Chad Cassady, a quiet Texan with a master's degree in political science, helped protect his fellow Marines during the battle in Fallouja, Iraq, in late 2004.

But when insurgent mortars fell behind and in front of the Marines -- a tactic called "bracketing" -- Cassady and other Marines were forced to run across a rubble-strewn street. When another mortar landed in their midst, two Marines were knocked to the ground and Cassady was thrown into the courtyard of a home.

Although he was bleeding and dazed, he immediately went back into the street to drag two wounded Marines to safety as insurgent gunfire rained down

"It was one of those days when Marines were doing what had to be done," he said

Sgt. Aaron Beckett agreed. "He's definitely a lead-from-the-front type," he said -- which in the infantry is a compliment second to none.

Tags: marines, iraq, military, bravery

The Shame of Haditha

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:07:07 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: The tragedies of war aren't limited to the military engagements.

Clip Source: www.opinionjournal.com

It seems Haditha, though tragic, was exploited politically, and the allegations were exaggerated, if not unfounded.

In March 2006, Time magazine broke the story, which erupted in the press. The accounts relied on a narrative that the Marines had gone berserk after the killing of Cpl. Terrazas and murdered Iraqis in retaliation. "Eyewitnesses" reported that the riders in the car had been lined up and executed, and that there had been a rampage through the houses targeting women and children. A coverup by the top brass was also asserted.

Yet neither was Haditha the atrocity or "massacre" that many assumed--though errors in judgment may well have been committed. And while some violent crimes have been visited on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, overall the highly disciplined U.S. military has conducted itself in an exemplary fashion.

The critics rushed to judgment; facts and evidence were discarded to fit the antiwar template.

This is the deepest shame of Haditha

Tags: iraq, haditha, media, marines

San Francisco Rejects Marines...Again

Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:42:24 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: "The Marines we spoke with also make the point that the city allows street demonstrations, anti-war protests and other events which snarl traffic, such as Critical Mass."

Shame.

Clip Source: abclocal.go.com

San Francisco is, once again, the center of a controversy over how city leaders treat the U.S. military. This time, it involves an elite group of Marines who wanted to film a recruitment commercial in San Francisco on the anniversary of 9/11.

The tension has been building in the two weeks since the city turned away members of the Silent Drill Platoon, and it boiled over Monday afternoon at a meeting of the San Francisco Film Commission.

Film Commission Executive Director Stefanie Coyote would only allow the Marine's production crew to film on California Street if there were no Marines in the picture. They wound up filming the empty street and will have to superimpose the Marines later.

At today's Film Commission meeting, she said she wouldn't let the Marines film because of rush hour.

However, the Marines would have just shut down one lane of California Street for a few minutes at a time, and Captain Corrales points out the Film Commission often approves shoots for rush hour.

Clip Source: ww2.abc7news.com

Tags: marines, san francisco, military