| From The Editor March 5, 2007 |
Sick Teen's Military Dreams Come TrueWeakened by a lifelong struggle with cystic fibrosis, 14-year-old Riley Woina dreamed of being strong like the heroes he'd seen in war movies like "Black Hawk Down." He wanted to parachute, fire rounds, wear a uniform. He wasn't scared of some of the most grueling training the Army has to offer. So when he was offered the opportunity through the Make-A-Wish foundation to realize his dream, he jumped at the chance. Recently, the Plymouth, Conn., teen got to spend a week watching the U.S. Army's 6th Ranger Training Battalion train in Florida - and even try many of the tasks himself. "You always want what you cannot have and he'll never be able to join the Army because of his cystic fibrosis, so of course he wants that more than anyone else would. He would join the Army today if he could," said his mother, Susan Woina. Riley is the first child to ask Make-A-Wish to visit a Ranger camp, said Capt. Jeremiah Cordovano, spokesman for the 6th Ranger Battalion. It was an unusual choice - the foundation often grants wishes for Walt Disney World trips or shopping sprees.Full Story Gary Jackson |
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| QUOTE OF THE WEEK |
| Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. Oscar Wilde |
| PROFESSIONAL ARTICLES, EDITORIALS AND OPINIONS |
Vets on the StreetKevin Felty came back from Iraq in 2003 with nowhere to stay, and not enough money to rent an apartment. He and his wife of four years moved in with his sister in Florida, but the couple quickly overstayed their welcome. Jobless and wrestling with what he later learned was posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Felty suddenly found himself scrambling to find a place for himself and his wife, who was six-months pregnant. They found their way to a shelter for homeless veterans, which supported his wife during her pregnancy and helped Felty get counseling and find a job. A year later, he's finally thinking his future. "I don't want to say this is exactly where I want to be - it's really not," he says. "But it's what I can get at the moment."Young, alienated and often living on their own for the first time, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans increasingly are coming home to find that they don't have one. Already, nearly 200,000 veterans - many from the Vietnam War - sleep on the streets every night, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. But young warriors just back from the Mideast - estimated around 500 to 1,000 - are beginning to struggle with homelessness too. Drinking or using drugs to cope with PTSD, they can lose their job and the support of family and friends, and start a downward spiral to the streets. Their tough military mentality can make them less likely to seek help. Advocates say it can take five to eight years for a veteran to exhaust their financial resources and housing options, so they expect the number to rise exponentially in a few years. "Rather than wait for the tsunami, we should be doing something now," says Cheryl Beversdorf, president of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Full Story Military's Toughest Home-Front ProblemOne of the first sights greeting visitors to Fort Hood is a day-care center's playground, brightly colored evidence of the Army's commitment to be family friendly. A few blocks away is a more poignant symbol: an office building recently converted into a first-of-its-kind support center for women and children whose husbands and fathers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. From Fort Hood alone, the toll has passed 365. "It's our sanctuary," said Ursula Pirtle, whose daughter frequents a playroom at the center. Three-year-old Katie never met her father, Heath. He was killed in Iraq in 2003. Over the past 15 years, America's armed forces have taken huge strides to retain married service members - improving schools, health programs and child care. But now, as never before in this family-embracing era, the military is struggling with the toughest home-front problem of all: Doing right by the often outspoken and ever-growing ranks of the bereaved. Of the 3,350 Americans who died in Iraq and Afghanistan through early January, 1,586 of them - 47.3 percent - were married. Those fallen warriors left behind 1,954 children, according to the Pentagon's Manpower Data Center. More recent deaths have pushed that figure past 2,000. Full Story Taliban Preps for Bloody AssaultThere's no mistaking the thrill in Ghul Agha Akhund's voice. The Taliban field commander, speaking by mobile phone from his redoubt in Afghanistan's Helmand province, says the militants' covert network of couriers has brought him a vital message. It's a dark photocopy of a handwritten note, just seven lines to congratulate the group's fighting forces on "getting even with the infidel invaders" last year and to urge them to launch "a more intensive jihad" this year. But Ghul Agha views the scrap of paper as an almost sacred artifact: it bears the signature of the Taliban's Supreme Leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. "This message from our leader is like tonic medicine,"the chieftain says. "It makes us stronger."In fact, he's doubly excited. This is the second communication he's gotten from Mullah Omar this year - after not one word since the U.S.-led 2001 invasion. (Although not all the information in this report can be independently verified, it came from sources who have proved reliable in the past, and the details are consistent with the established facts.) This January, Ghul Agha received an audiocassette of Mullah Omar praising the virtue of self-sacrifice. "Carry out your Islamic responsibilities as I carry out mine," the officer quotes the tape as saying. "Don't look for promotions or benefits. Just serve the jihad." The message electrified Ghul Agha. "For the last few years, we heard only rumors about Mullah Omar," he says. "Now we hear from him directly!" The commander and his men are energetically preparing to launch an offensive as soon as the snow melts; he hopes this year they will cut off the provincial capital. Full Story |
| BREAKING NEWS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
False Stories Abound in Chaos of IraqYesterday's lead news story from Iraq was on the accidental deaths of eighteen children in Ramadi from a bomb blast at a soccer field, which had supposedly been caused by the U.S. military. There was only one problem with the story: it was entirely wrong. Although thirty-one people were injured in an American detonation of a truck bomb, and subsequently given medical care by U.S. doctors and nurses, nobody was killed in the blast. The destruction -- which had happened near, not on, the soccer field -- had caused a larger explosion than ordnance experts had anticipated, scattering debris in a massive blast wave, according to eyewitness reports from American military personnel. In a press release, Marine spokesman Capt Paul Duncan demurred, calling the initial reports "erroneous."In Baghdad, U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mark Fox went further. "There was no blast [at the soccer field] and there were no eighteen children killed," said Fox at a news briefing. The inaccuracy of the initial reports was covered in detail as a feature story in the Los Angeles Times.Full Story MIlitary Matters: Learning from SwedenSometimes, single words can say more than whole essays. The Swedish captain in the Fourth Generation War seminar I lead at for the U.S. Marine Corps at Quantico, Va. recently introduced me to such a word. It is the Swedish word for military intelligence: underrättelser. The literal translation of underrättelser is "correction from below." What a remarkably instructive term for military intelligence! The more I have thought about it, the more "correction from below" has seemed to capture the essence of what good military intelligence requires -- and what American military intelligence too often lacks. To understand why this is so, we must first remind ourselves of the two most important facts about military intelligence: one, it is always incomplete, and two, some of it is always wrong. It has become fashionable in Washington to regard military intelligence as "hard data." Nothing could be further from the truth. As "data," most military intelligence is as soft as the Pillsbury Doughboy.Full Story Signs of a New Sunni OffensiveThis week's bomb attack on Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan and the murder of four Frenchmen in Saudi Arabia are harbingers of a new "Sunni offensive" - likely to unfold in Afghanistan, Iraq and maybe Lebanon. And, while there's no hard evidence for it, we shouldn't be surprised if Qaeda-affiliated groups try to take the offensive to Europe and the United States. The term "Sunni offensive" is of course misleading. There is no Sunni army, Sunni general or Sunni battle plan, though Bin Laden may wish there were. But neither he nor any other Sunni Muslim has day-to-day control over the faithful. In fact, Bin Laden's recent call to sabotage world oil facilities to punish the United States has gone so far unheeded. But that does not mean a "Sunni offensive" is any less of a threat. Militant Sunni strength lies in believers' uncompromising conviction that they are divinely bound to fight in the Jihad and either succeed or die in ending the "foreign occupation" of Muslim lands. They believe the Koran is unequivocal about this; they accept no other legal authority. With that kind of conviction, militant Sunnis don't need a general, an army or a battle plan.Full Story Why I'm Not Embedded in IraqThe Army isn't helping win the war at home.MOST PEOPLE WOULD rather undergo several root canals than go to Iraq. Most reporters would, as well. But there are a tiny number who actually feel the need to do so--even to the extent that they're willing to pay all their own expenses in the hope, but nothing more--of recovering part or all of those expenses through donations and selling articles about their experiences. These are the citizen embeds, and I am one of them. I was supposed go over in February, but I didn't, and the reason I didn't is of more than personal interest. Originally I had planned to go to al Anbar Province for the fourth time in February. Then I decided that it was more important to cover the "surge" in Baghdad. My editors at THE WEEKLY STANDARD agreed. Yes, I knew the area would be swamped with mainstream reporters--all the more reason for some citizen embeds to be there. I asked for two embeds in the Baghdad area or one in Baghdad and one in Diyala, a hotspot on the Iranian border. These would allow the reporting I specialize in, which isn't "war" generally but combat. I like to report on the men doing the fighting (see this and this, for example).Full Story Untreated WoundsPrivate Atiya was driving a heavy truck on the outskirts of Baghdad when he saw the flash. Then, a deafening boom and darkness. When Atiya came to, he was lying on the side of the road and the truck, still carrying 11 of his colleagues from the Iraqi National Guard, was rolling on without a driver. He looked down. "I saw my leg was gone," he says, squeezing his eyes shut at the memory. "It was the worst pain." One of his arms was broken, the other severely burned. Atiya (who asked that only his first name be used for safety reasons) is one of thousands of members of the Iraqi security forces who have been wounded on the job. That attack, near the town of Abu Ghraib last Wednesday, was the third time Atiya, 32, has been hit by an IED since he joined the Guard last year. He was quickly taken to the American-run Combat Support Hospital, known as the Cash, in the Green Zone, often the first stop for critically wounded soldiers. "These guys are in harm's way more than any other slice of the Iraqi population," says an American doctor at the Cash who asked not to be quoted by name.Full Story |
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Al-Qaeda's ResurgenceReady to take on the worldAl-Qaeda will this year significantly step up its global operations after centralizing its leadership and reviving its financial lifelines. Crucially, al-Qaeda has developed missile and rocket technology with the capability of carrying chemical, biological and nuclear warheads, according to an al-Qaeda insider who spoke to Asia Times Online. While al-Qaeda will continue to operate in Afghanistan and Iraq, it will broaden its global perspective to include Europe and hostile Muslim states, Asia Times Online has learned. For the first time since its attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, this could be al-Qaeda's year on the offensive. According to the contact, "The time has come for a message to be communicated to Europe." Asked what kind of message this would be, the contact simply smiled. Nevertheless, he stated that with Western forces trapped in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was time to open up new fronts in Somalia, Algeria, Egypt, Palestine and other places.Full Story Love, stealth rout Abu Sayyaf terroristsMarine Lance Cpl. Steven Valls had used his M-16 in Iraq, but here on the Philippines' restive Jolo island, he is fighting terrorism with a labor of love - helping paint school buildings and pave a dusty road. At night, America's unique battle against al-Qaida-linked militants often turns stealthy. U.S. planes zoom in the sky over Jolo's thick tropical jungles with cameras that could pick up minute details like a flickering rebel bonfire, said two Filipino security officials who declined to be named, citing policy. Forbidden from local combat by the Philippine constitution, U.S. troops have embarked on humanitarian work to wean villagers from terrorism and trained its high-tech surveillance equipment to track militants. The combination has been lethal for the Abu Sayyaf, a small but brutal group that has launched deadly terror attacks across the country.Full Story Pakistan -- the nightmare scenarioCounterterrorism officials warn that terror groups like al Qaeda are trying hard to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The possibilities include dirty bombs -- that can be made from readily available devices used at construction sites and hospitals -- to chemical and biological weapons. A nuclear device would cause havoc if detonated in a European or American city. In October 2001, a CIA agent warned the government that al Qaeda had smuggled a nuclear bomb into New York. The Department of Energy dispatched a covert team to find it. There was no device. But the possibility so frightened the administration that Vice President Dick Cheney and several hundred key federal employees went into secure bunkers for weeks, in case a twin attack flattened Washington as well. Since then, Homeland Security has developed safeguards. Manhattan will soon be ringed with radiation detectors. New York City also has 800 hand-held devices to detect radiation spikes. U.S. Customs, meanwhile, has installed 321 detectors at seaports and uses smaller units at large public events. A pilot program by Homeland Security will add nuclear screeners to 18-wheeler weigh stations in nine states.Full Story U.S. Opens Push Into Baghdad's Sadr CityHundreds of U.S. soldiers entered the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City on Sunday in the first major push into the area since an American-led security sweep began last month around Baghdad. Soldiers conducted house-to-house searches through the densely populated grid of squat two- and three-story buildings, but met no resistance in a district firmly in the hands of the Mahdi Army militia led by the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Lt. Col. David Oclander. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, told Al-Arabiya television U.S. officials spoke daily with community leaders in Sadr City before entering the stronghold. "If you go to Sadr City today you will see joint Iraqi and American troops cooperating with the head of the Sadr City council," Caldwell said in comments translated into Arabic. "There is no problem between the two sides, and we are trying to set up a small security center there."Full Story Going it alone because we have toTONY BLAIR'S decision to withdraw 1,600 troops from Iraq is understandable. The prime minister had to make a difficult decision about where to allocate Britain's scarce resources, and he decided, reasonably enough, that the top priority was to send reinforcements to Afghanistan, where 5,500 British troops are struggling to hold back a Taliban onslaught. The tragedy is that he had to rob Peter to pay Paul because Britain can't maintain 7,000 troops in Iraq and 7,000 in Afghanistan. Those are hardly huge numbers for a country of 60 million with the fifth-largest national economy in the world. Yet even as Britain has continued to play a leading role in world affairs, it has allowed its defenses to molder. The total size of its armed forces has shrunk from 305,800 in 1990 to 195,900 today, leaving it No. 28 in the world, behind Eritrea and Burma. This downsizing has reduced the entire British army (107,000 soldiers) to almost half the size of the U.S. Marine Corps (175,000). Storied regiments such as the Black Watch and the Royal Scots, with histories stretching back centuries, have been eliminated.Full Story |
| TACTICAL TRAINING & INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES FOR THE PROFESSIONAL |
Blackwater Language SchoolLearn the language... and the culture... then deploy.Operators, analysts, military and civilian support personnel working with a foreign country have four classes to choose from IRAQI ARABIC - 7 May - 11 May 6 August - 10 August 29 October - 2 November PASHTO - 14 May - 18 May 13 August - 17 August 5 November - 9 November DARI - 12 March - 16 March 21 May - 25 May 20 August - 24 August 12 November - 16 November SPANISH - 27 August - 31 August INTENSITY - Live and breathe Arabic, Pashto/Dari, or Spanish Blackwater Language School provides an intensive language learning environment in which participants challenge themselves and learn at a rate beyond normal limits. This intensive experience has proven to be very successful. Because you and your teammates have limited time to study the language and culture, we substitute time with intensity. Every student is encouraged to communicate as much as possible in the target language during the week-long course. This is no ordinary course of study- it is an endeavor that is emotionally taxing- and rewarding. SURVIVABILITY - Cultural Awareness = Situational Awareness If you don't understand the culture...you can cause real trouble. Our team of accomplished staff is dedicated to helping students survive and thrive in the subject culture. A series of cultural activities will take place throughout the program. Students will be encouraged to use their new skills as they eat cultural meals and engage in situational interviews- in the immersive environment. This highly intensive language environment empowers you to immediately put your language skills into action and test the boundaries of your cultural survival skills. At only $1495 per student, space is extremely limited. To reserve a space for you or your unit call or email us today. (252) 435-2016 languages@blackwaterusa.com | |
| FRANKS REVIEW |
Service Equipment ReviewTactical Hand Held Lights OverviewAcross the span of the past four years that Borelli Consulting has been performing and writing equipment reviews for Blackwater's Tactical Weekly newsletter we've covered a lot of different lights. It occurred to me this past week that out of that entire collection of lights there are a precious few that I still have and depend on. Realizing that I thought it would be beneficial to the community to go over the lights that are still performing and have proven reliable. While this review is titled "Tactical Hand Held Lights", there will also be a few weapon-mounted lights included, and it's important to realize that several of the hand helds can be readily mounted to weapons - specifically long guns. In fact, one of the tidbits below describes how a collection of contemporary warriors used duct tape and SureFire 6Ps to create field-expedient weapon lights under emergency circumstances.Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.borelliconsulting.com/evals/lights/tachandhelds.htm Recreational Equipment ReviewBenchmade Nimravus KnivesI was once taught that a combat blade needed to have a minimum blade length of 6.5" for proper penetration of the human thorax. As combat isn't something we anticipate doing with a knife we carry on a recreational outing we need to realize that there are a host of fixed blade knives ideally suited to the general purpose use often found on hiking, backpacking and camping trips. One of the knives that has proven to be efficient for general utility use is the Benchmade Nimravus. The Nimravus' 4.5" blade in various configurations, and provided in a sheath that has multiple mounting / carrying options, has come to be the "go to" knife for many outdoorsman. Let's take a closer look at it and what makes it so valuable as a general purpose field blade.
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| CHAPLAINS CORNER |
HUMOR AND ENJOYMENTJokes from the internet..."Don't mess with Seniors." We went to breakfast at a restaurant where the "seniors' special" was two eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast for $1.99. "Sounds good," my wife said. "But I don't want the eggs." Then I'll have to charge you two dollars and forty-nine cents because you're ordering a la carte," the waitress warned her. "You mean I'd have to pay for not taking the eggs?" My wife asked incredulously. "YES!!" "I'll take the special." "How do you want your eggs?" "Raw and in the shell," my wife replied. She took the two eggs home. DON'T MESS WITH SENIORS.. WE'VE BEEN AROUND A LONG TIME!! Full Story Can Be Viewed At: http://www.blackwaterusa.com/btw2007/article/0030507chaplain.htm
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The Blackwater Tactical Weekly is a free weekly e-publication. The BTW provides readers valuable information from diverse sources regarding tactical and strategic security issues. Editor-in-Chief – Gary Jackson (btw@blackwaterusa.com) Questions regarding Security Consulting or Training
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