Tag: Millitary

Amusing

Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt Teaches The Insurgents Marine Sign Language

This story is a few years old but is inspirational all the same. It really epitomizes the never say die attitude of our troops. Of course it was never reported as it should have been by the “Main Stream Media”.

The best part of this, it checks out as true on Snopes.com.

Leading the fight is Gunnery Sgt Michael Burghardt, known as “Iron Mike” or just “Gunny”. He is on his third tour in Iraq. He had become a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze S tar for disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his second tour. Then, on September 19, he got blown up. He had arrived at a chaotic scene after a bomb had killed four US soldiers. He chose not to wear the bulky bomb protection suit. “You can’t react to any sniper fire and you get tunnel-vision,” he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and = standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term “the longest walk”, stepping gingerly into a 5ft deep and 8ft wide crater.
The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire leading from it. He cut the wire and used his 7in knife t o probe the ground. “I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs,” he says. “That’s when I knew I was screwed.”

Realizing he had been sucked into a trap, Sgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, an insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant’s feet. “A chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded,” he recalls. “As I was in the air I remember thinking, ‘I don’t believe they got me.’ I was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road, not able to feel anything from the waist down.”

His colleagues cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None could believe his legs were still there. “My dad’s a Vietnam vet who’s paralyzed from the waist down,” says Sgt Burghardt. “I was lying there thinking I didn’t want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to see me like that. They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought, ‘Good, I’m in business.’ “As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and anger kicked in. “I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn’t going to let my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher.” He stood and gave the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute. “I flipped them one. It was like, ‘OK, I lost that round but I’ll be back next week’.”

Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of Col John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as an exemplar of the warrior spirit. Sgt Burghardt’s injuries – burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks – kept him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home. But, like his father – who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts for being wounded in action in Vietnam – he stayed in Ramadi to engage in the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more ingenious ways of killing Americans.

God Bless our American Heroes.

Other

The Weapon Of The Day: The Active Denial System

This could be something straight out of Buck Rogers. The Pentagon has developed a “Ray Gun” that is a non-lethal way to disperse angry rioters and unruly crowds. The weapon is called the “Active Denial System”.

I think we should provide a few prototypes to the Border Patrol until the supposed fence is built.


Part 1

Part 2

The Active Denial System (ADS), an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD), provides a new non-lethal capability helping to fill the gap between the ‘shout’ or ‘shoot’ alternatives faced by our troops

Amusing

Last Ball That Brett Favre Threw Owned By An Army Officer Who Lost Both Legs

This is the feel good story of the day! Football Hero’s meet a REAL American Hero.

Wounded O-5 has last ball thrown by Favre

The ball that Brett Favre threw on his last play in the NFL is owned by an Army officer who lost both legs in a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Greg Gadson, who has been an inspirational figure for the New York Giants during their Super Bowl run, was given the ball by Corey Webster after the cornerback intercepted Favre’s pass in overtime in the NFC title game Jan. 20.

The pick set up a game-winning 47-yard field goal by Lawrence Tynes in a 23-20 win that sent the Giants to Arizona, where they beat the New England Patriots 17-14.

“That Saturday practice before the Super Bowl, I told Corey he could have the ball back,” Gadson said in quotes provided by the Giants after Favre announced his retirement on Tuesday after 17 seasons.

“I said, ‘Just let me know and you can have it back,’ but he told me that he wanted me to keep it, and that really symbolized to me what this Giants team was about,” Gadson said. “That was such an unselfish act.”

As a fan, Gadson said he is going to miss watching Favre play.
“He should be proud of the run he had last season. Getting his team to the championship game just shows what type of competitor he is,” Gadson said.

A 1989 graduate of West Point, Gadson played football for the Cadets along with Mike Sullivan, the Giants’ receivers coach.

After Gadson was wounded in an attack on his convoy May 7 and eventually lost both his legs, Sullivan told coach Tom Coughlin about his friend.

After losing their first two games of the season, Coughlin had Gadson address the team in Washington before a game with the Redskins. His message was to concentrate on the mission, never give up and believe in each other.

The Giants won the game and turned their season around. Gadson was on the sidelines for most of the playoffs and he addressed the team the night before the Super Bowl, speaking of “pride, poise, team and belief in each other,” according to Pat Hanlon, a team spokesman.

Previously:
Green Bay Packers Quarterback Brett Favre Retires After Brilliant Career

Amusing

Video Of Jet Vaporizing May Offer Evidence To Skeptics Of The 9/11 Pentagon Crash

This is an interesting video from the Sandia National Laboratories website that may provide evidence to skeptics who cite lack of debris after the Pentagon crash. The U.S. Sandia National Laboratories conducted and filmed the test in 1988.

The absolute and total destruction as shown in the video is amazing. It makes perfect sense to me that the same thing happened in the Pentagon crash.

Here it is from every conceivable angle and speed. WorldNetDaily has a shorter version with sound.


Sept. 11 redux: Video shows jet vaporizing

A video clip widely circulated on the Internet shows a test that pulverized an F-4 fighter on impact with a hardened target, providing evidence to answer 9/11 skeptics who question why so little identifiable airplane debris remained after the hijacked American Airlines Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon.

The test, conducted in 1988 at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., was designed to demonstrate whether a proposed Japanese nuclear power plant could withstand the impact of a heavy airliner.

A rocket-propelled, 27-ton F-4 Phantom jet, attached to a sled, aimed to hit a 3.7 meter thick slab of concrete at a speed of about 475 miles per hour.

The mass of jet fuel was simulated by water, as the effects of fire following such a collision were not a part of the test.

The test established that the major impact force was from the engines.

F-4 fighter jet engines are considerably lighter than a commercial jet.

According to the Sandia test report, about 96 percent of the aircraft’s kinetic energy went into the airplane’s destruction and some minimal penetration of the concrete, while the remaining 4 percent was dissipated in accelerating the 700-ton slab.

The concrete slab was not fixed to the ground but actually was floating on an air cushion.

The test showed the major portion of the impact energy went into the movement of the target and not in producing structural damage to the target.

Except for some slight indentation, the concrete slab was largely undamaged by the impact.

Real-world nuclear power plant containments are, of course, anchored to the ground.

The video shows the F-4 jet pulverizing on impact. The only parts of the airplane that remain intact and recognizable are the very tips of the wings, which exceeded the concrete slab in width and were not involved in the direct impact.

Four different video views of the test and three still photographs are archived on the Sandia website’s video gallery.

The test was performed under terms of a contract with the Muto Institute of Structural Mechanics, Inc., of Toyko.

Sandia is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility. Sandia Corp., a Lockheed Martin company, manages Sandia for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia Labs was first established in 1949 in Albuquerque.

Amusing

A Soldier’s Silent Night

This piece is generally credited to a Marine stationed in Okinawa, Japan. However, the original version, entitled “Merry Christmas, My Friend,” was written by Lance Corporal James M. Schmidt in 1986. It was later published in Leatherneck (Magazine of the Marines) in December, 1991. As usual, Urban Legends Reference Pages is the place to go when you need something cleared up.

Here is the link to the MP3 audio version (3.5MB) of “A Soldier’s Silent Night” – you can either stream it or right click and save as.

Twas the night before Christmas, he lived all alone,
In a one bedroom house made of plaster & stone.
I had come down the chimney with presents to give
And to see just who in this home did live.

I looked all about a strange sight I did see,
No tinsel, no presents, not even a tree.
No stocking by the fire, just boots filled with sand,
On the wall hung pictures of far distant lands.

With medals and badges, awards of all kind
A sober thought came through my mind.
For this house was different, so dark and dreary,
I knew I had found the home of a soldier, once I could see clearly.

I heard stories about them, I had to see more
So I walked down the hall and pushed open the door.
And there he lay sleeping silent alone,
Curled up on the floor in his one bedroom home.

His face so gentle, his room in such disorder,
Not how I pictured a United States soldier.
Was this the hero of whom I’d just read?
Curled up in his poncho, a floor for his bed?

His head was clean shaven, his weathered face tan,
I soon understood this was more than a man.
For I realized the families that I saw that night
Owed their lives to these men who were willing to fight.

Soon ‘round the world, the children would play,
And grownups would celebrate on a bright Christmas day.
They all enjoyed freedom each month of the year,
Because of soldiers like this one lying here.

I couldn’t help wonder how many lay alone
On a cold Christmas Eve in a land far from home.
Just the very thought brought a tear to my eye,
I dropped to my knees and started to cry.

The soldier awakened and I heard a rough voice,
“Santa don’t cry, this life is my choice;
I fight for freedom, I don’t ask for more,
my life is my God, my country, my Corps.”

With that he rolled over and drifted off into sleep,
I couldn’t control it, I continued to weep.
I watched him for hours, so silent and still,
I noticed he shivered from the cold night’s chill.

So I took off my jacket, the one made of red,
And I covered this Soldier from his toes to his head.
And I put on his T-shirt of gray and black,
With an eagle and an Army patch embroidered on back.

And although it barely fit me, I began to swell with pride,
And for a shining moment, I was United States Army deep inside.
I didn’t want to leave him on that cold dark night,
This guardian of honor so willing to fight.

Then the soldier rolled over, whispered with a voice so clean and pure,
“Carry on Santa, it’s Christmas Day, all is secure.”
One look at my watch, and I knew he was right,
Merry Christmas my friend, and to all a good night!

God Bless America again!

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