The following movie trailer is awesome. Real Navy SEALs were used in the filming of this action movie.
Enjoy the trailer and pass it on; this is a movie for real Americans who want to see real good guys in action - without the typical Hollywood gratuitous bull:
Charles M. Grist
Author of the award-winning book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Victory In Iraq - Now It's Up To The Iraqis
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| Me at Baghdad's Camp Victory in early 2004 |
You see, I remember what it felt like to sit in my living room in April, 1975, staring at the television while enemy tanks rolled into Saigon. Only then did I have the painful realization that my fellow soldiers and I had fought and bled for a lost cause.
I'm not ashamed to say I cried that day. I remembered the hardships of my own months in Vietnam's jungles, and I saw the faces of my lost friends in the dark corners of my mind. To be honest, I still see them almost every day. You know - those couple of hours in the middle of the night when sleep won't come and the mind refuses to rest. Such is the legacy of Vietnam.
Although the losses are just as painful, the story in Iraq is a different one. When our last soldiers arrive home before Christmas and Iraq's security rests in its own hands, we can honestly say we have been victorious.
There are now over thirty million people living in Iraq. Because of the sacrifice of America and its coalition partners, there is a democratic government elected by the people. Is everything perfect? Of course not. But the problems that remain can only be solved by Iraqis. Whether it is sectarian differences or problems caused by foreign terrorists, it is time for Iraq to take care of itself.
What do I fear most now that we have pulled our soldiers out of Iraq? I fear the influence of Iran, a Shiite country that provides training and equipment to radical Shiites in Iraq like Muqtada al Sadr and the Mahdi Army.
But Americans cannot stay in Iraq forever. The truth is that wherever we go, we become a lightning rod for those with ancient reasons for hating foreign intervention. It was this way in Vietnam, in Iraq, and it is also the same in Afghanistan.
We must welcome our troops home from Iraq as the victorious warriors they are. We shall help them recover both physically and mentally, and they should be proud of all they accomplished.
We shall also continue to extend the hand of friendship to the Iraqi people. While many fundamentalist Iraqis will always hate us, there are a lot of Iraqis who will never forget the generosity of America or our sacrifices on their behalf. We have done all we can to give them a chance for a free and prosperous future.
The rest is up to them...
Charles M. Grist
Author of the award-winning book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Ambassador Ammon Presents German Medal of Honor to U.S. Staff Sergeant Peter Woken
Extraordinary ceremony honoring one of America's warriors. The YouTube video comments posted by the German Embassy are as follows:
"The deep bonds of the German American friendship, and the deep bonds between soldiers, were on display on December 8, 2011, as German Ambassador Peter Ammon presented one of Germany's most significant military honors to a US soldier who was instrumental in the rescue during battle of a Bundeswehr soldier in Afghanistan.
U.S. Staff Sergeant Peter Woken was awarded the Medal of Honor for Gallantry in Action of the Federal Republic of Germany, bestowed on him by German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière, in recognition of his role as part of the MedEvac crew that landed in heavy fire to evacuate German Corporal Tim Focken in Afghanistan on October 17, 2010."
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Well done Staff Sergeant Woken.
Charles M. Grist
Author of the award-winning book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Remembering Pearl Harbor: The Greatest Generation's 9-11
For the members of my parents' generation, that day of infamy will remain December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked America's naval fleet in Hawaii, also killing thousands.
The members of the Greatest Generation are fast fading from the scene, but I hope each of you will take the time today to pray for the victims of the 1941 attack and their families. For some of these veterans, the memories are as real today as they were then.
Those of us who are veterans of other wars can understand that...
Charles M. Grist
Author of the award-winning book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq
Friday, December 2, 2011
Obama and Iran: The President Fails To Lead - Or - How To Twiddle Your Thumbs While Iran Gets The Bomb
Sadly, even the 2012 elections may be too late...
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Senate Passes Iran Sanctions 100-0; Obama Objects (Really)
December 2, 2011
Washington Post
Think about this: By a vote of 100-0 the Senate passed its most stringent Iran sanctions bill to date. The administration opposed it. The vote was on the amendment by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) The measure would: 1) Prohibit the opening or maintaining in the United States of a correspondent account or a payable-through account on foreign financial institutions engaged in non-petroleum-related transactions with the Central Bank of Iran after 60 days; 2) Impose sanctions on foreign financial institutions, including central banks, engaged in petroleum-related transactions with the Central Bank of Iran after 180 days with 180-day special exemptions tied to the availability of non-Iranian oil on the market and a country’s significant reduction in purchases of Iranian oil; 3) Provide a humanitarian exception for food, medicine and medical devices; and 4) Provide the president with an unclassified (with classified annex, if necessary) national security waiver authority every 120 days.
Take about seven minutes to hear perhaps the most critical words spoken by any senator in recent memory. That they were spoken by a Democrat, a liberal one at that, only lends additional weight to his message. At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Menendez read Obama officials the riot act.
Menendez’s damning words should be remembered as we go forward:
What is more, Menendez’s comments confirm that this is not a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats are in perfect agreement. As a snior Senate advisor put it, “The Obama Administration runs the risk of losing control of Iran policy. The 100-0 vote on Menendez-Kirk was effectively an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the White House’s efforts thus far to stop Iran’s nuclear drive. Sarkozy’s initiative last week, calling for an international effort to sanction the Iranian Central Bank and stop Iranian oil sales, and now the Senate action show that -- as the Washington Post editorial rightly put it -- the President is no longer leading from behind on Iran. He’s just behind.”
Moreover, Menendez reminds us that the administration is not even using existing sanctions. (“You have been reluctant to sanction Chinese companies for energy sanctions when there is ample evidence that they are violating our laws, and there is precedence for us sanctioning Chinese companies for nuclear and weapons proliferation concerns. Even though we’ve given you the tools, you haven’t shown us the robust effort when the clock is ticking to use that which we have given you. So that causes us — that’s why 80 members of the Senate in a time in which it is very difficult to find bipartisan agreement — 80 members of the Senate have joined in our Iran/North Korea serious sanctions act.”)
If we get to the point when we are faced with a single option — war or a nuclear-armed Iran — there should be no doubt how we would have gotten to that point. Aside from the Iranians themselves, it would be solely the result of the administration’s sloth and foolishness. The consequence for the United States, Israel and the West more generally if Iran does get the bomb would be devastating. And Obama’s historical legacy (Clare Luce Booth’s one-sentence summary) will be: “Obama allowed Iran to get the bomb.”
Direct link to this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/senate-passes-iran-sanctions-100-0-obama-objects-really/2011/12/02/gIQA7yELKO_blog.html
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Posted by Charles M. Grist, author of the award-winning book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq.
Washington Post
Think about this: By a vote of 100-0 the Senate passed its most stringent Iran sanctions bill to date. The administration opposed it. The vote was on the amendment by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) The measure would: 1) Prohibit the opening or maintaining in the United States of a correspondent account or a payable-through account on foreign financial institutions engaged in non-petroleum-related transactions with the Central Bank of Iran after 60 days; 2) Impose sanctions on foreign financial institutions, including central banks, engaged in petroleum-related transactions with the Central Bank of Iran after 180 days with 180-day special exemptions tied to the availability of non-Iranian oil on the market and a country’s significant reduction in purchases of Iranian oil; 3) Provide a humanitarian exception for food, medicine and medical devices; and 4) Provide the president with an unclassified (with classified annex, if necessary) national security waiver authority every 120 days.
Take about seven minutes to hear perhaps the most critical words spoken by any senator in recent memory. That they were spoken by a Democrat, a liberal one at that, only lends additional weight to his message. At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Menendez read Obama officials the riot act.
Menendez’s damning words should be remembered as we go forward:
"At your request, we engaged in an effort to come to a bipartisan agreement that I think is fair and balanced. And now you come here and vitiate that very agreement. So that says to me in the future that when you come to me and ask me to engage in a good-faith effort, you should have said, we want no amendment, not that you don’t care for that amendment. Now, having said that, let me just say, everything that you say in your testimony undermines the credibility of your opposition to this amendment.
The clock is ticking. Published reports say we have about a year. Whenever you’re going to start our sanctions regime robustly, six months before the clock has been achieved? Before they get a nuclear weapon? . . . So I find it pretty outrageous that when the clock is ticking, and when you ask us to engage in a more reasoned effort, and we produce such an effort in a bipartisan basis, that in fact you come here and say what you say. Which really undermines, certainly as it relates to this member, the relationship with me in the future, because you’re not going to tell me that please engage with us in an effort to find a more refined solution, and then when we do that, say you don’t care for it. It would have been more honest to say, we don’t want any amendment whatsoever."The administration says it wants to avoid a military option in responding to Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapons capability. It says acquiring a nuclear weapon would be “unacceptable.” But in fact, Menendez makes the case that the administration does not want any effective policy. His argument certainly supports the view that the administration has thrown in the towel on preventing a nuclear-armed revolutionary Islamic state.
What is more, Menendez’s comments confirm that this is not a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats are in perfect agreement. As a snior Senate advisor put it, “The Obama Administration runs the risk of losing control of Iran policy. The 100-0 vote on Menendez-Kirk was effectively an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the White House’s efforts thus far to stop Iran’s nuclear drive. Sarkozy’s initiative last week, calling for an international effort to sanction the Iranian Central Bank and stop Iranian oil sales, and now the Senate action show that -- as the Washington Post editorial rightly put it -- the President is no longer leading from behind on Iran. He’s just behind.”
Moreover, Menendez reminds us that the administration is not even using existing sanctions. (“You have been reluctant to sanction Chinese companies for energy sanctions when there is ample evidence that they are violating our laws, and there is precedence for us sanctioning Chinese companies for nuclear and weapons proliferation concerns. Even though we’ve given you the tools, you haven’t shown us the robust effort when the clock is ticking to use that which we have given you. So that causes us — that’s why 80 members of the Senate in a time in which it is very difficult to find bipartisan agreement — 80 members of the Senate have joined in our Iran/North Korea serious sanctions act.”)
If we get to the point when we are faced with a single option — war or a nuclear-armed Iran — there should be no doubt how we would have gotten to that point. Aside from the Iranians themselves, it would be solely the result of the administration’s sloth and foolishness. The consequence for the United States, Israel and the West more generally if Iran does get the bomb would be devastating. And Obama’s historical legacy (Clare Luce Booth’s one-sentence summary) will be: “Obama allowed Iran to get the bomb.”
Direct link to this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/senate-passes-iran-sanctions-100-0-obama-objects-really/2011/12/02/gIQA7yELKO_blog.html
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Posted by Charles M. Grist, author of the award-winning book My Last War: A Vietnam Veteran's Tour in Iraq.
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