BlackFive

A recent piece making the rounds of the interwebs has a junior Naval Officer sharing her reasons why, in her frustration, she must resign from the US Navy.  In it she lays out her rationale, which has drawn both support and (significant) derision.  There have been a number of rebuttals, the most eloquent of which came from the Duffellblog.

At the top of the piece is the picture of a female Navy officer, saluting.  Here's the problem:  the woman pictured is NOT Anna Granville, the discontented officer and authoress.

Apparently the original publisher (Task and Purpose) opted to use stock DOD footage to headline the public resignation.  And many of us presumed the saluting woman was the writer.  

This was brought to my attention by a colleague, Ben Armstrong, who shared the following (emphasis added by me):

You know who I feel bad for? The saluting Lieutenant in the DoD stock photo which Task & Purpose decided to use to "illustrate" the most recent "why I'm leaving" article. The woman in the photo isn't the author of the uber-hyped article. But now Duffleblog used the same stock photo and her face is all over FB for something she hasn't done, said, or was even involved with. Maybe DoD's fair use policy is nice for pictures of ships and planes, but when it comes to people the Media can really hose somebody for no reason.

One would have to surmise that the pictured officer (still serving) is not very happy about this.   

As bloggers we use cool photos for our posts because, lets face it, it adds pizzazz.  And, as Ben notes above, while that's no issue with ships and planes, we ought to be much more careful when we use pictures of people - particularly where an association between pictures and content may be made.  

Shared for your consideration and comment.

Former Paratrooper, now Officer and father, is headed somewhere dangerous.  From Tuesday night:

...Tonight I will be leaving everyone and everything I love and begin another journey to Afghanistan. It's much more difficult to leave this time now that I have a family and have been out of the fight for a few years, but my situation is no different than the vast majority of the other soldiers who are deployed.

Despite the fact that the news rarely brings it up, we are still actively at war in Afghanistan. Men and women are still taking the fight to the enemy every single day. Once I get my platoon, I will be responsible for kids who were as young as 6 or 7 when 9/11 happened. This is not their war, but yet they still chose the honorable route of joining the Army. I will also have soldiers who are on their 4th or 5th deployment. They've embraced the suck time and time again and been through more misery than any civilian could ever imagine or truly appreciate, yet they'll be there willingly fighting side by side with me one more time.

My point is this: The one thing I do not want to hear about my service(and I hate even calling it that) is sympathy. Sympathy is exactly what I received from the cashier at Best Buy last week when I bought my new camera for deployment and she asked what it was for. When I told her, she made a sad face and said "oh I'm so sorry".

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All I am asking from anyone who reads this is their prayers. My soldiers and I will need them every day. I'll do what I can to keep this updated while I'm overseas, and if my guys are needing anything important I'll be sure to post it on here.

Thanks in advance to those who still read this despite these past couple years of boredom. Hopefully things will pick up soon.

Keep up with the new LT at Life In the Infantry (although now he's an Armor Officer).

UPDATE:  link to the original essay here (my opinion remains unchanged).

I try not to spend my time poop-hammering veterans that don't need it.  Everyone's experience is different, and the fact that you served is 99 percent of all I need to hear.

But that being said, I, along with my combat MOS/Combat Service brothers and sisters, am a bit of an elitist.  The guys that have spent their time living in places with light, noise and litter discipline with Death not only tuggin at their elbow, but tying off on it with a swiss seat are more likely to be the people that I tend to bond with.  People who have seen the elephant are my people.

Long days in the Finance Office at Camp Phoenix or scheduling aircraft maintenance at Bagram are likely to get me shoveling a mountain of well deserved poo-poo on you.  

So I don't feel bad for what I am about to do.....

It's the first blogiversary of the Victory Girls blog.  Go check them out, bookmark, link, etc.

ZenPundit has composed a piece that is a thoroughgoing sketch of what has been done wrong in Afghanistan and, to a lesser degree, was done wrong in Iraq.  I suspect all of you will find much to agree with in his commentary, and most of you will find at least one or two things to object to as well.  

It should make for a good discussion.

One of the early milbloggers is calling it quits.  If you want to get a good feel for what it was all about, and read some of posts that show the best and how it should be done, go start from the beginning and read forward. It was a hell of a good run, and it was an honor, a laugh, a tear, and occasionally this wolf probably looked like the dog in the spoof about the old lady driving.  Thanks brother. 

LW

This is speaking just for me, but I hope you will take a moment to help out my friend Cassy who was nominated (much to her surprise) for Military Spouse of the Year.  Those of you who have been around a while will recoginze the name I think.  She was crazy enough to marry a Marine, which means she already needs all the help she can get.  So, take a moment, go here and click vote, and let's see what we can do to help.

LW

Note:  I will ask for an e-mail addy, and to describe yourself.  I have an addy I use for such (valid), and always choose other as my descriptor.  So, no real fuss or muss to vote to help a good lady. 

UPDATE:  Voting has closed, and we will know more on Friday. 

Glad to see this guy joining the rest of the crew for a weenie roast with Mephistopheles.

Spent a good chunk of 2007 chasing this douchebag after mid-tour leave in the cold with some fellas from 3rd Group and the 82nd.

Couldn't have happened to a juicier target...

So argues Marine Corps wife Cassandra:

Here the Editorial Staff will pause to allow the assembled villainry to pick their jaws up off the floor. Let's walk through what Ignatius just told us:

1. Obama "allowed himself to be talked into" sending 30,000 young men and women into a battle he didn't believe in?

2. Having stepped up the war effort against his better judgment, our Commander in Chief proceeded to support the men and women he had sent into harm's way by "undercut[ting] the surge strategy from the outset"?

Stop and think about that one for just a moment. Think about the American lives - and American families - who paid the price for a change their leader didn't believe in...

...How can anyone praise the "Commander in Chief" for sending 30,000 of America's finest to war for a cause he not only doesn't support but actively tries to sabotage?

Easy. They are, after all, expendable to him (if not to us). They should not be.

This is a pretty serious charge.  I'd like to think she deserves an answer.