Friday, 4/17/15, Public Square

Monday, 10/27/14, Public Square

Sunday, 10/12/14, Public Square

Tuesday, 7/22/14, Public Square

Thursday, 5/16/13, Public Square

Brendan Marrocco

“I cried because I had no shoes; until I met a man who had no legs”.

Brendan Marrocco has no legs. He has no arms, either.

He left them in Iraq.

A little over a year ago, Specialist Brendan Marrocco, then PFC, was driving an armored Hum Vee in a convoy near Baiji in northern Iraq, when a IED blew up, ripping the vehicle apart, killing his best friend and seriously wounding another soldier. A fourth soldier walked away, unharmed.

When Brendan was taken to the hospital, he also had a severed carotid artery. Doctors didn’t notice it at first, because it wasn’t bleeding. It wasn’t bleeding because Specialist Marrocco had no blood left to speak of, having lost 80% of his blood supply in the field.

Brendan Marrocco now lives at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center complex. His older brother quit his high paying job to serve as a caretaker for Brendan. They share a small apartment near where Specialist Marrocco receives physical therapy.

Amazingly, he did not suffer any brain damage from the bomb blast or the subsequent loss of blood. He was the first soldier to survive the loss of all four limbs in the Wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the attack on Specialist Marrocco, a second soldier has suffered a similar fate, and he too lives at Walter Reed.

The amazing and inspiring part of this story is not that Brendan Marrocco survived. It is that rather than lose himself to his war wounds, Specialist Marrocco has become an inspiration to all those around him, maintaining a positive attitude and even a sense of humor about his situation. At the Walter Reed complex, he is seen as a hero to other amputees, including the Marine that also lost all four limbs.

Where does someone faced with such adversity summon the courage to not only deal with the loss, but to become a role model for others dealing with severe war wounds?

This is the face of war. It is not the caskets lined up in the cargo bay of a transport. It is not pictures of presidents and generals. It is not the cold statistics on the page of the newspaper. It is not Senators and Congressmen debating the funding and strategies of the Wars.

The face of war is a 23 year old Army Specialist that is broken, but not defeated.

Specialist Brendan Marrocco is the face of war.

(The thread photo is of Specialist Brendan Marrocco outside Walter Reed.)

William Stephenson Clark

Cheney spits out some more hate

Cheney has decided to go public with his opinion of U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraqi cities.

“There is still a continuing problem. One might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks. I hope the Iraqis can deal with it,” Mr. Cheney said. “At some point they have to stand on their own, but I would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that has gotten us to this point.”

I wouldn’t mind one more “sacrifice,” if it could be Cheney!

fnord

Secretary Clinton asks for advice

North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan…the list goes on. So, how does Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cope? By requesting the advice of her predecessors, apparently. On Tuesday all but one of the living secretary’s of state convened at Madeline Albright’s home in Washington, D.C. to talk diplomacy. The list of those seated at the dinner table was full of political all-stars, including Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and James Baker. The only one missing was Alexander Haig.

And after she asks all those who have experience and knowledge she will be well prepared to make decisions for America. I’m proud of her.

What do you think of the job Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is doing?

fnord

The Male Advantage is in Violence; Democracy is Female’s Best Chance

Cheney’s attempts to justify the unjustifiable plus the Republicans screams of “get Nancy,” kept this news hidden or covered only in the middle pages with mere mentions.  Women were elected to Kuwait parliament.

The victory marked the first time women have won parliamentary seats since given the right to vote and run for office in 2005. For the past 50 years Kuwait’s parliament has been the sole preserve of men.

Another article states “Democracy is the best chance for women.”  Men have a natural advantage when it comes to a physical battle and the jackboot of a dictatorship leaves women conceding that there really might be an intractable difference between the genders after all.

Author, Clive James, says, “Men will always monopolise the means of violence if they can. Women can learn to shoot guns, but there are no all-female armies, and even the Amazons were probably a myth. Women, on the whole, would naturally like to do something else, whereas an army, for too many men, is a home away from home, and often their only home.”

And he argues the battles America is fighting to bring democracy are worth it.  He says,

“Despair can coarsen one’s judgment. I knew enough about what Saddam Hussein and his talented son Uday were doing to women to want that regime toppled. The price of doing so might have seemed too high, but at least now, six years later, it is no longer official policy to rape a woman in front of her family. There may be unofficial forces still on the loose in Iraq who would like to do that, but the government no longer does it.

Fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan still seems worth it when you have read about what the Taliban want to do with any woman who seeks an education, but it’s easy to despair when you think of how hard it is to stop them.

Sometimes despair overwhelms us when we read of just a single so-called honour crime in which the men of a family have ruined the life of a daughter for what seems no reason at all, and the men walk free because that’s the culture, and the culture runs the government.”

fnord

RUMMY’S FAVORITE BLOG

AN 11 ON THE MANLY SCALE

In connection with fnord’s excellent post about religous extremism, I must post this link. Really for no other reason than I love the picture (and the whole site is a hoot, unless you’re sensitive). MY JESUS has a sense of humor, and has approved occasional visits to the General. Your Jesus may be offended, check with him first. I think Turdblossom may hang out with Rummy over here: 

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/

~sekanblogger

Bush Six to Be Indicted

AG AG will have to defend his decisions.

A Spanish court will pursue a criminal investigation into former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantanamo.

The Bush Six labored at length to create a legal black hole in which they could implement their policies safe from the scrutiny of American courts and the American media. Perhaps they achieved much of their objective, but the law of unintended consequences has kicked in. If U.S. courts and prosecutors will not address the matter because of a lack of jurisdiction, foreign courts appear only too happy to step in.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-13/the-bush-six-to-be-indicted/

fnord