Tag Archives: Iraq

Weinstein Calls for Court-Martial of Koran Burning Christians

As he has with every public controversy in the US military, perennial religious freedom critic Michael Weinstein claims Christians are to blame for the burning of Qurans at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

[The Koran burning] once again reveals a noxious undercurrent of fundamentalist Christian supremacist exceptionalism…This culture of religious bigotry is fueled by militant, unchecked Christian fundamentalism.

Weinstein pontificates for another thousand words (most of them adjectives, as is his tradition) without really saying anything more of substance.  He does make some fairly ridiculous Read more

Book Review: A Quiet Reality

Chaplain Emilio Marrero, Jr.
FaithWalk Publishing

A Quiet Reality, subtitled A Chaplain’s Journey into Babylon, Iraq, with the I Marine Expeditionary Force, is not just another war story.  A Quiet Reality is unique both for the perspective it lends — a chaplain to US Marines during the invasion of Iraq — and the story it tells — the interaction of the US military with the historic site of Babylon, Iraq.

Chaplain Marrero’s story isn’t told in pure narrative.  Rather, each chapter follows an almost sermon-like style, with a well-told narrative followed by a more deliberate explanation and analysis, with a concluding faith-based story or analogy.  In each case, no matter how dramatic the tale, Chaplain Marrero is able to articulate the “quiet reality” of his experiences. It is a formula that works very well.

The crux of the story is Chaplain Marrero’s work with local Iraqis and US Marines to protect and explore the historic site of Babylon, Read more

USAF Fighter Plane Reaches Significant Milestone

F-15E Strike Eagle #89-0487 recently achieved 10,000 flight hours, making it the first F-15 of any type to log that many hours.

It an interesting bit of trivia, 487 is the same F-15E that logged the only Strike Eagle air-to-air kill in Operation Desert Storm when it dropped a bomb on an airborne Iraqi helicopter. It also scored an air-to-air kill on a rogue Reaper in Afghanistan, fulfilling every fighter pilot’s dream…

US Army Chaplains Go Where It Sucks

A group of Army chaplains sat down with a local reporter and helped explain their role in the US military — a role that goes well beyond leading Sunday services.  Chaplain (LtCol) Paul Hurley was joined by five chaplains:

Major Moon Kim, a Presbyterian minister who serves as Deputy Division Chaplain; Maj. Clayton Gregory, a Church of God minister and Family Life Chaplain; Capt. Jared Vineyard, 4th Brigade Combat Team; Capt. Erik Alfsen, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, and Capt. William “Jeff” Sheets, 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion…

They talked about their service to the wounded and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, some they knew personally.  In fact, the personal relationship with the troops was a focal point of their ministry: Read more

The Failure of Ethical Training in the US Army

A US Army platoon leader has a fascinating article in Army Magazine: former US Army Captain Kevin Bell wrote How Our Training Fails Us When it Counts, recounting a story from 2008 in which he led a platoon in Afghanistan.  He uses his personal experiences to describe how the US Army woefully fails in its efforts to prepare its soldiers for ethical challenges in combat.

No infantryman who sits through the required PowerPoint classes on the Geneva Conventions and treatment of enemy prisoners of war (EPW) leaves the classroom with a new perspective on the ethics of war…As it stands, though, classroom and field training on detainee operations do almost nothing to help soldiers untangle the twisted moral landscape of anger, intelligence gathering and justice in wartime.

Without directly addressing it, he highlights the weakness of the situation-based ethics currently taught in much of the military academia:  Read more

US Troops Feel More Pity than Respect from the Public

Recent events have made a Washington Post article from November even more interesting, as it tries to put meat on the bones of the relationship between the American public and the American military.

While the relationship has avoided the animosity of the Vietnam era, some said a feeling of social “guilt” may be responsible for the change, rather than an actual respect or support of the troops and their mission:

“We, as a nation, no longer value military heroism in ways that were entirely common in World War II,” said retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Instead, praise from politicians and the public focuses largely on the depth of a service member’s suffering. Troops are recognized for the number of tours they have endured, the number of friends they have lost or Read more

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