Osborne Ink » veterans

Morning Awful: Grave Problems

Matt Osborne — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 12:00:42 +0000

At last, Arlington National Cemetery can give the complete casualty figures of neglect and mismanagement:

An accountability task force has photographed every burial marker and uploaded the information to a database where it was double-checked against more than 500,000 paper records that have been scanned into the system.

So far, the task force has found no problems with 195,748 sites, according to the report. Of the other 64,230 sites, there have been some discrepancies that warrant further review. Arlington officials emphasized that those problems could be minor, such as typos in names or dates of death, and would not necessarily indicate improper burial.

Cited as sources of error: missing logs from the Civil War, markers with eroded lettering, and funeral procedures that changed with time and administrations over 150 years. We still don’t know exactly how many bodies are in the wrong graves.

Morning Awful: Scumbag Hates the Troops

Matt Osborne — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 12:00:48 +0000

Via ThinkProgress, a study of psychological projection: deadbeat dad and representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) is spoiled, pampered, unfocused, and clueless. He doesn’t understand America and advocates anti-American solutions to problems. So when he calls veterans in the Occupy movement “socialists” who “don’t understand this country,” remember that he is actually describing himself. What’s more socialist and un-American than failing to pay child support and letting your kids wind up on the public dole? I have news for Joe Walsh: veterans always lead the way in all social justice movements. Having sweat and bled for it, we take our freedom very seriously.

We had a word for guys like Walsh in the Army: “scumbag.”

Morning Awful: NASCAR Fans

Matt Osborne — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 12:00:29 +0000

It’s not a sport known for arugula, but I’m floored by this scene. Booing the First Lady as she supports veterans? That requires an extraordinary lack of class and decorum. Given the force’s insistence on respect for the Commander-in-Chief, maybe the Army should rethink their $7 million annual sponsorship and partnership.

Lone Marine Versus NYPD, Flawless #OWS Victory

Matt Osborne — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:00:00 +0000

This is why it’s so important to have veterans take part in a movement. Via p0pkult.

Lori Diaz at Alabama Community Leaders Institute

Matt Osborne — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:00:13 +0000

I met Lori Diaz, Executive Director of Holiday Help for Heroes, at the Alabama Community Leaders Institute on the campus of Alabama A&M on August 27th to find out more about the needs of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq to civilian life.

My First Front Page VetVoice Diary

Matt Osborne — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:00:42 +0000

My first front page diary, Let’s Call War Spending “Foreign Aid” is up at VetVoice. This is a new and rewarding online role for me, so please read, enjoy, and share often.

Morning Awful: Linguist Seamen in FLPP Flap

Matt Osborne — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:00:02 +0000

The Pentagon last stopped paying linguists in the early 1990s, when I met dozens of Russian, German, Polish and Hungarian language speakers learning Arabic to keep their jobs in the Army. Now the Navy’s Japanese, Korean, Haitian Creole, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Amoy Chinese speakers are all seeing the same cut in pay, though not all of them have missions for which languages are critical. Leo Shane at the Stars & Stripes:

The languages are now considered “enduring” and “prevalent in the force,” meaning they are still strategically important, but that the numbers of speakers in the Navy exceeds mission needs.

Several European languages, Thai and a few others fall under the same classifications.

Only career linguists, sailors assigned to a job coded for the language and expeditionary forces, will still receive extra pay for prevalent languages, according to a May 13 instruction signed by Vice Adm. Mark Ferguson, chief of Navy personnel.

America never, ever has enough linguists. A language code is the easiest way to find them when you need them, and Foreign Language Proficiency Pay (FLPP) is an incentive for sailors to keep their skills current. This move seems penny-wise and pound-foolish to me.

Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen, Veterans: WAKE UP

Matt Osborne — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:00:34 +0000

The VA case backlog is over 700,000. Fake veterans charities have scammed Americans out of millions of dollars. The catfood commission not only wants to cut Social Security, it recommends a three-year freeze on military pay, housing, and food allowances with higher Tricare premiums as well as the curtailment of veterans care programs. What’s happening to us is exactly what’s happening to Americans at large: we’re getting the short end of a sharp stick so the twentysomething titans of Wall Street can have one banner year after another.

Politicians are quick to praise us, but if that’s as far as their appreciation goes then we must make it cost them. Nor can we allow the yellow-ribbon jingoism of fake patriots to win easy affections from us, or we will keep getting that short, sharp end. Chickenhawks — who talk tough, but never sacrifice or risk anything themselves — must become our bane. We cannot let militancy replace substance.

Congressman-elect Allen West of Florida, who lost his Army commission after threatening an innocent Iraqi man with death and set his biker-gang friends after Democratic campaign staffers during the campaign, wanted to bring a radio shock-jock to Washington as his chief of staff; but her on-air screeds about ballots and bullets led to a lockdown at three hundred Broward County schools yesterday. So when she declined West’s job offer on the air, how did he respond?

You will continue to fight on your battlefield and your voice there, and I’ll continue to fight on the battlefield in Washington, and we’ll meet in the middle after the enemy is soundly defeated. (Emphasis mine)

And who is the enemy? Why, YOU ARE. You, with your base pay and BAH and Separate Rations. You, homeless with PTSD. You, missing a limb. You, who served your country and now expect the VA to keep you healthy. You, taking advantage of the expanded GI Bill Democrats passed over Republican objections. You, serving overseas right now in a mine-resistant vehicle that Republicans didn’t want to build.

Whenever you hear a politician yapping about “big government,” remember that they mean YOU.

Golden Chickenhawk Award

Matt Osborne — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:00:06 +0000

As many readers know, I have little patience for fake veterans. I include in that category the Gulf War cook who regales me with the tale of how he parachuted into Baghdad and killed twelve Republican Guards with a coat-hanger. So I’m giving this jerk a Golden Chickenhawk award:

(W)hat is striking about Mr. Blumenthal’s record is the contrast between the many steps he took that allowed him to avoid Vietnam, and the misleading way he often speaks about that period of his life now, especially when he is speaking at veterans’ ceremonies or other patriotic events.

Sometimes his remarks have been plainly untrue, as in his speech to the group in Norwalk. At other times, he has used more ambiguous language, but the impression left on audiences can be similar.

There is no apologizing for this. Every time Blumenthal has told this lie or allowed the implication to stand he has cheapened the sacrifices of every man or woman who ever served this country, including himself. He should man up and apologize.

John Allen Mohammed Checks Out

Matt Osborne — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000

I was in uniform and among a small crowd of very motivated soldiers when it was announced that Timothy McVeigh had been put to death. The sound we made was something like the Spartans responding to Leonidas in 300.

Soldiers have no time for former soldiers who stop defending America and start to kill random Americans. Something like that scene is probably going on across the Army today with the news that John Allen Mohammad, the “DC sniper,” was put down by lethal injection last night.

Next to check out will be Major Nidal Hasan, about whom there seems to be no end of nebulous connections for media headlines. I’ve really passed beyond caring whether he communicated with al-Qaeda or Yemeni imams: he’s awake, he’s talking, and now he can start the checkout process with a guilty plea.

We can talk all day about “lone wolf” attacks and where they come from, or how their minds are warped by dangerous ideology; but ultimately, Nidal Hasan is responsible for what he did. He chose to pull the trigger. He chose to believe in death more than others believed in life, and for that he will burn.