Soldier's Home : Videos

Video: First Gurkha to Die in Afghanistan

David Botti — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:21:30 GMT

A new video posted yesterday features footage from a battle in which the first Gurkha to die in Afghanistan was killed. Gurkha's are Nepalese soldiers recruited to serve with the British army which they've done since 1815, fighting throughout all the major wars including Iraq and Afghanistan. The UK Guardian provided this account of the battle in which the fallen Gurkha, 28-year-old Yubraj Rai, was killed:

Braving withering fire from fortified Taliban positions, men from the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Gurkha Rifles, located the body of Rifleman Yubraj Rai and then carried it more than 100m across open ground.
In previous years the fighting in Helmand has subsided in November, but the latest dispatches from the region reveal concerted resistance from the Taliban forces. Rai, who had been in Afghanistan for only two weeks, was shot during an operation to clear the southern districts of Musa Qala after intelligence revealed that the Taliban had consolidated their forces almost a year after British troops seized control of the town.
During the operation earlier this month, a Gurkha platoon was ambushed on a stretch of open ground. Amid the chaos, Rai was hit almost immediately.
Colleagues initially believed that the 28-year-old was just diving for cover. But after he realised Rai had been hit, Lieutenant Oli Cochrane began planning to rescue his body, but suddenly lost all radio contact as a bullet hit his radio. Further rounds then pierced his rucksack.
As Taliban fighters found their range, Captain Gajendera Angdembe, Rifleman Dhan Gurung and Rifleman Manju Gurung ran 100m across open ground to retrieve Rai's body.

Here's the video via ITN:

A second Gurkha was later killed in Afghanistan when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.

New Ad Tells Vets They're Not Alone, Offers Social Networking

David Botti — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:52:42 GMT

Sometimes one needs to restate the obvious to point out what's right in front of us. That's what New York Times columnist Bob Herbert did recently when he wrote these words:

With so much attention understandably focused on the economy and the incoming administration, the struggles being faced by G.I.’s coming home from combat overseas are receding even further from the public’s consciousness.

If you’re in your late teens or early 20s and your energies have been directed for a year or more toward dodging roadside bombs and ambushes, caring for horribly wounded comrades and, in general, killing before being killed, it can be difficult to readjust to a world of shopping malls, speed limits and polite conversation.

Herbert was discussing the launch of a major new ad campaign by the advocacy group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, that aims to send a message to returning vets: you are not alone. The ad touts an online social networking Website called communityofveterans.org which not only provides useful information (such as how to navigate the VA), but also gives vets a chance to correspond with each other. Because the site was designed by veterans, attention is paid to aspects of veteran life the general public may not be aware of, such as an excellent portion that deals with homecoming. Put simply, the site got it absolutely right:

It’s good to be home. Or is it?

That day you dreamed about the past few months – it’s finally here. Sure, it’s great to be back, but after a while something sinks in. “It’s not as sweet as you think it is,” one vet recalls of his return.

After riding high those first few days or weeks, the honeymoon period can end abruptly. It doesn’t take long before everything that used to be familiar feels unfamiliar. You might feel like a stranger in your own town. You may feel you’ve changed, but nothing else has.

On top of that, after living on alert for so long, life at home can feel like living “with the volume turned down,” in one Iraq vet’s words. Disappointment and disorientation can mount early.

It helps to find an outlet, something you’re passionate about. “Everybody needs something to focus their energy on other than what’s going on,” one vet says. “You need something to get your mind off everything else.”

The new ad campaign (below) features a young vet returning to a desolate New York City, where only the handshake from another veteran makes the scene come alive again. Herbert talked with the returning veteran in the video ad, Bryan Adams, and relayed his experiences:

Bryan, now 24, was an Army sniper in Iraq from February 2004 to February 2005. At an age when many youngsters go to college or line up that first significant job, he and his squad-mates were prowling Tikrit with high-powered weapons, looking for bad guys.

He was shot in the leg and hand during a firefight, and he saw and did things that he was less than anxious to talk about when he came home.

“I wanted to go to college,” he told me. “I had all these plans, but I couldn’t seem to make them happen. I couldn’t focus. I would get, like, depressive thoughts.”

He said that he would party a lot. “Party” was a euphemism for drinking.

The drinking made him more depressed, and then he would get angry that he was “partying but not having a good time.”

Bryan said he would “flip out,” and friends began to shun him. “I just didn’t care what I did or who I affected with my actions. I would break stuff. I’d break, like appliances. It was bad.”

Writing on Veterans Day, Paul Rieckhoff founder of IAVA, explained the intentions behind this Public Service Announcement (PSA) [via Talking Points Memo]. The title of the piece was aptly named Veterans Day 2.0.

These PSAs, which will soon be running nationwide, were created in partnership with the Ad Council. You might not know the organization, but you definitely know their campaigns - these are the folks responsible for "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" and "A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste." This new campaign will be just as iconic and just as effective.

Sure, it's a powerful ad. But what is this PSA going to do to help vets?

It will bring them together and connect them with the veteran's hall of the future. Veterans coming home have told us again and again, the thing they need most of all is to reconnect with other vets. So this innovative campaign links veterans to a new private social network, exclusively for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans...

Vets can sign up for the Website here.

Criticizing Obama, Iraq Vet Helps McCain Online

David Botti — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:44:53 GMT

A young Iraq veteran's unofficial video letter to Barack Obama criticizing the candidate for his Iraq policy now ranks fourth in the number of online videos watched in the past 30 days, as compiled by Viral Video Chart. The message of 23-year-old Joe Cook's two minute address is simple: he repeatedly states that the invasion of Iraq was not a mistake, and to call it such dishonors the memories of those who've died. Cook says:

Do you rescue a fireman just as he's about to save a child? When you call the Iraqi war a mistake, you disrespect the service and the sacrifice of everyone who has died promoting freedom. Freedom carries with it a price. Because you do not understand nor appreciate these principles, sir, I am supporting Senator John McCain for president. He, too, made a huge sacrifice promoting freedom, because he understands the fundamental truth, freedom is always worth the price.

At a time when four out of the top 10 online videos feature Sen. Obama or are pro-Obama, Christopher Rhoads of the Wall Street Journal writes that Cook's video signals an online victory for Republicans in an arena long dominated by Democrats:

"This might be the Republicans' first real runaway hit," said Micah Sifry, executive editor of Personal Democracy Forum, a nonpartisan group studying technology in politics...the Republican campaign is gaining traction with online video, most notably at the end of July when it launched a segment mocking Sen. Obama's celebrity. Then Gov. Sarah Palin joined the ticket. The number of subscribers to Sen. McCain's YouTube channel has increased by nearly 50% from a month ago, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Democrats still remain well ahead in using the medium. The number of subscribers to Sen. Obama's YouTube channel dwarfs that of Sen. McCain, 16.2 million to 1.5 million. Whether the clips will matter in the election is another question. Many of these videos likely reinforce opinions, rather than change them. Still, in campaigns today, "images are very powerful things that can stay with voters more than words can," said Amy Mitchell, deputy director of the center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Cook, who was injured in Iraq (his prosthetic leg is visible in the video), met the film's producer during a welcome home parade thrown for the soldier when he returned home to Wauconda, Ill. The producer, Michael Brown, described himself to the Wall Street Journal as a maker of Christian-themed videos. He's made two subsequent pro-McCain videos although he has no official connection to the campaign.

Video: A Nighttime Raid in Eastern Baghdad

David Botti — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:36:22 GMT

This video shows a recent nighttime raid made by Charlie Company 2-30’s platoon of soldiers partnered with the Iraqi National Police. The platoon, nicknamed Team ISF (Iraqi Security Forces), was tasked with entering two target houses in the Beladiat area of Baghdad, and arresting all military-aged males.

The soldiers and policeman were after a militia team suspected of firing rockets into the Green Zone, and of operating as a sniper team in 2007 that killed an American soldier.

For Team ISF, this type of raid was nothing new (in fact, they assisted in a similar mission the next night). Because they’re partnered with the Iraqi National Police, and live in a police compound closer to the civilian population, the soldiers often find themselves tasked to execute these joint actions.

First Sergeant Brian Disque, who accompanied the soldiers on the raid, said having to arrest all military-age males in the target houses was the least preferable option. Most of the time, he said, an informant will go along on the raid and point out the suspects during the operation. This time, however, because the informant refused to go along with the soldiers, Disque’s men were forced to bring all possible suspects back to police headquarters. Once there, photographs of the suspects were taken and showed to the informant.

From the two target houses the raid netted 11 men who spent the night in a small jail cell on the floor above Team ISF’s living quarters. The next day all but two of the arrested men were freed, given a bottle of water, and escorted to the police compound’s gate where they were to make the short walk home.

In Washington, D.C., a Vet Refuses Iraq Service

David Botti — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:15:47 GMT

Late last week a U.S. Army soldier stood in the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building and announced during a press conference that he's now refusing orders for deployment to Iraq. Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, who served as a military photojournalist, gave his statement soon after a number of anti-war veterans testified before Congress -- the first time such veterans have done so. AFP gave this account of the hearing:

Former army sergeant Kristofer Goldsmith told the landmark hearing of "lawless murders, looting and the abuse of countless Iraqis." He spoke of the psychologically fragile men and women who return from Iraq to find little help or treatment offered from official circles. Goldsmith said he had "self-medicated" for several months to treat the wounds of the war...Another soldier told AFP he had to boost his medication to treat anxiety and social agoraphobia -- two of many lingering mental wounds he carries since his deployments in Iraq -- before testifying. A group of veterans in the packed hearing room gazed blankly as their comrades' testimonies shattered the official version that the U.S. effort in Iraq is succeeding. Almost to a man, the testifiers denounced serious flaws in the chain of command in Iraq.

As for Sgt. Chiroux, he said his position as a military journalist gave exposed him to countless disturbing stories he was afraid to publish for fear of retribution by the Army. He arrived in Washington, D.C. with Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), which coordinated the testimonies before Congress. Below is a video of Chiroux's speech, where he also said he will remain in the U.S. despite the great number of war resistors who move to Canada.

New Looks at Military Blogging

David Botti — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:09:09 GMT

Since the start of the Iraq war, the importance and viability of military blogs has stirred up tremendous debate. There have been issues of military censorship, journalistic viability, and ethical dilemmas. Recently, talk of where (and how) military blogs fit into the war's narrative has seemed to intensify to some degree. Here's a look at what's happening:

The Columbia Journalism Review published a lengthy article in its last issue profiling Bill Roggio, a U.S.-based military blogger who's set up his own media operation aimed at reporting on terrorism and "small wars" beyond what the mainstream media can do. Before the piece gets to Roggio, the intro takes a look at the gap military blogs aim to fill:

When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, among the seven-hundred-odd journalists who embedded with combat units were few who were familiar with the military in any intimate way. To many critics, especially those with military experience, this revealed itself in the press’s coverage of the war, which they felt often missed the mark when it came to explaining the hows and the whys of the fight, as well as the mundane realities of military life and culture.

Army veteran Roggio first started blogging about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to put the events in perspective for his family. But, as CJR notes, a transformation took place that's changed the way Roggio operates—and underscores the significance these blogs can have:

It was during the second battle for Fallujah in November 2004, however, that he began to focus his effort. He had been posting detailed battle maps of Iraq’s Anbar province on his site, showing where Marine and Army units were meeting the stiffest resistance from insurgent groups who harassed them with roadside bombs and the occasional ambush. In the spring of 2005, a new group of readers began logging on to Roggio’s site. The Marines in Anbar province were embroiled in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse, and looking for any tactical advantage they could find. Officers with the Regimental Combat Team 2 discovered Roggio’s site and began using it as an information source, calling his site the “Command Chronology of Western Iraq.”

While Roggio continues to build up his Long War Journal, a contributing writer to An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog said he was recently fired from his job working for a USCG contractor after writing posts critical of the branch. Mike McGrath, who comes from a Coast Guard family, wrote of his firing:

Was told that my position would have been downsized anyways within the next few months, my behavior on the blog sites just made it easier to make me the first to go...Did I mention that I just had my performance evals completed within the last 2 weeks, scored perfect all across the board, got a raise (which I will never see) and that there was no indication from anybody that there was anything wrong occurring; no feedback, no counseling, no pointing out of where I might be violating any written policy, nothing - no indication whatsoever.

There's a brand new beginning for British military bloggers detailed by the Guardian. Corporal Lachlan MacNeil will be one of the first British soldiers allowed to blog about his experiences during an upcoming Afghanistan deployment. He'll be blogging directly for the Guardian, but as the paper points out this is quite rare:

Last year, the MoD introduced new guidelines barring military personnel from speaking about their service publicly. Soldiers, sailors and airforce personnel are not able to blog, take part in surveys, speak in public, post on bulletin boards, play multiplayer computer games or send text messages or photographs without the permission of a superior if any information they use concerns matters of defence.

Wired's Danger Room blog wrote of a 2006 U.S. Army report that considered secretly hiring military bloggers to "promote a specific message." The military's comment on the story is that this report was simply an educational exercise intended to be thought-provoking. Here's an excerpt from the Joint Special Operations University report titled "Blogs and Military Information Strategy":

The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect. Still, there are people in the military today who like to blog. In some cases, their talents might be redirected toward operating blogs as part of an information campaign. If a military blog offers valuable information that is not available from other sources, it could rise in rank fairly rapidly.

Finally, PBS show Frontline has this "making of" video taking a look at a new documentary following Army soldiers in Iraq. One of the featured soldiers is the founder of milblogging.com. As the website explains:

To record their war, from private reflections to real-time footage of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on the ground, director Deborah Scranton (The War Tapes) creates a "virtual embed," supplying cameras to the soldiers of the Bad Voodoo Platoon and working with them to shape an intimate portrait that reveals the hard grind of their war.

First Iraq Vet Selected for Beijing Paralympics

David Botti — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 17:13:35 GMT

A young woman who lost her left leg to a roadside bomb attack in Baghdad recently became the first Iraq war veteran selected to compete in the Beijing Paralympics. Former Army 1st Lt. Melissa Stockwell was one of 18 women selected for the U.S. Paralympic Swim Team. As the Associated Press reports:

As a first lieutenant in the Army, she was traveling through Baghdad on April 13, 2004, when a bomb ripped through her Humvee and took part of her left leg with it.
Infection and surgery claimed another significant portion of her leg, leaving her with just a few inches of stump below her hip.

Doctors fitted Stockwell with a titanium prosthesis so she can walk around, but the leg comes off before she takes the starter's blocks and gets ready to swim.

"I definitely made a decision early on that I was going to put it behind me and move on and try to do something positive," Stockwell said. "I wouldn't have it any other way. I lost my leg. Of course I would like to have my leg, but I have no regrets. It's opened so many doors for me."

A Wounded Warriors Project profile of Stockwell notes that she received 15 surgeries as a result of the bomb blast. At the time of the profile's publication in 2006, Stockwell was earning a second bachelors degree -- this time in prosthetics.

[Stockwell] felt absolute joy when she made a prosthetic leg for a ten-year-old girl, watched the child put the leg on, then get up and jump around. In the future, she is hoping to help wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan get their lives back through prosthetic care.

According to a Washington Post profile of Stockwell, between four and 10 disabled veterans will eventually qualify for this year's U.S. Paralympic Team. And, by the 2012 summer games in London, 10 to 15 percent of the U.S. team may be comprised of veterans.

As part of her Paralympics trials earlier this month, Stockwell set a new American record for the women's 400-meter freestyle.

Below is a video profile of Stockwell produced by the Wounded Warriors Project.

Video: How to Loose Your Hearing

David Botti — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:05:16 GMT

ThisDudesArmy gave a personal response to a recent VA report saying that hearing loss (the "silent epidemic"), is the number one disability in the War on Terror. The report said at least 70,000 vets are on disability for having tinnitus--the "ringing in the ears" sort of hearing loss commonly associated with rockers such as Pete Townshend. Here's what ThisDudesArmy had to say:

Perhaps very recently they've started to evaluate hearing more closely, but when I returned from Iraq six months ago, we sat down for a simple hearing test like the one we did before we deployed. My roommate already was legally deaf in one ear and wasn't supposed to deploy, but he did anyway. He was on a patrol when an IED targeting dismounts went off right next to him, sending him sprawling to the ground with a concussion. He sat out for a few weeks to recover.

Back in the states, hearing in his bad ear was even worse than when he left. The only compensation, he was told, was free hearing aids for life.

The rest of us weren't lucky enough to receive that kind of slap in the face. Tests that showed degenerated hearing were looked at with suspicion and doubt, as if we had overstated our problems.

He then posts a video to illustrate the kind of noise troops are dealing with. The guns firing along with him are two M16's and a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon).

More from the blogger:

I had a trick where I covered my ear with my right index finger when my rifle was resting on the ledge. This did little but was far better than the cumbersome foam earplugs we were given. It's too little, too late for those of us who were already given our hearing to the wars. I'm now in a customer service job where I answer the phone constantly, and I can't use my left ear with the receiver.

Disturbing Iraq Video Addresses Wider Issues

David Botti — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:17:11 GMT

A disturbing new video out of Iraq has found its way onto the Internet and set off a flurry of condemnations and demands to reveal the identity of the U.S. serviceman involved. The video, which has been removed from YouTube, depicted a U.S. Marine grabbing a puppy by the neck and flinging the animal off a cliff. Due to the low quality of the video, there was no way to see where, or how, the dog landed. Some are still questioning the authenticity of this video, but it certainly did look real enough to solicit this interesting analysis of the video from media blogger Rex Sorgatz (via Gawker):

Logically, we know this soldier has possibly killed people in Iraq, so it feels misplaced to vent about a puppy in a war zone; emotionally, we find hurting a helpless puppy beyond reproach. If the video weren't shot in Iraq (if it were, say, some tweens torturing a dog in a backyard -- you'll find plenty of this on YouTube), the tension wouldn't be there, and it wouldn't be today's viral hit. The contradiction -- people vs. puppies; war vs. peace-keeping -- will probably catapult this thing to network nightly news.

As this blogger chronicles, a number of people immediately set off on a hunt to find the identity of the Marine involved in the incident. Some mainstream media sources picked up the story looking into the Marine Corps' response to the matter. From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

The named Marine returned to Hawaii in October from Haqlaniyah, Iraq, after a seven-month deployment, Maj. Chris Perrine, a Marine spokesman, told the Honolulu Advertiser.

"We're still trying to figure out, is this a legitimate video?" Perrine told the newspaper. "Was it edited? Is it [that Marine] who's in it? We don't know. We'll find that out hopefully sooner rather than later."

There seems to be larger issues at play here than just a disturbing video. Echoing Sorgatz's views on the matter, others are wondering why the death of a puppy in the middle of a war is causing such outrage. From Cenk Uygur, an AOL media blogger:

But I'm not writing to say what a bad guy this Marine is for throwing the puppy like he does. That's obvious. I'm not writing to implicate the whole Marine Corps for the act of two goofballs who are not representative of our troops over there...No, I'm writing about our reaction as a society. I have now seen this story everywhere from all over the internet to the local news. Everyone is outraged. Are you kidding me? We caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and we're outraged over a puppy?!

Some may object to Uygur's characterization of the death of "hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians"--others may think it's right on--but what's interesting is how debate over the tastefulness of the video has grown to how we judge the degrees of right and wrong in war. Is it because the puppy is a symbol of innocence? Is it because people wonder what kind of conditions drove this Marine to throw a puppy off a cliff? There are far more stories about U.S. soldiers adopting stray dogs in Iraq. So, how does this fact relate to the behavior in the video? Perhaps a discussion on the matter is just starting; there's a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of self-reflection still left.

Fallujah "Point Man" Earns Silver Star

David Botti — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:43:42 GMT

A young Marine who once tested positive for marijuana use, went AWOL, and never told his parents he was deploying to Iraq for a third time, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his fierce fighting during 2004's battle for Fallujah. Corporal Sean Stokes actually made it through that battle, but was killed on July 30, 2007 by a roadside bomb. It was his third tour in Iraq. As the Marine Corps Times reports of his actions in Fallujah:

In the chaotic, intense house-to-house gun battles with insurgent fighters during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah, the point man of Lima Company’s 1st Platoon barreled his way through gunfire and exploding grenades...Several times during missions from Nov. 9-11, 2004, Stokes braved enemy fire — “fearless in the face of danger,” according to the Marine Corps — to kill insurgents and enable his platoon to gain control of houses...On Nov. 17, 2004, after a grenade exploded near him, wounding him, the private managed to continue to use his weapon so the fire teams could reassemble and launch a counterattack.

A number of military blogs are pointing to this memorial piece written by Stokes' former platoon commander Lt. Jeffrey Sommers. Among his anecdotes Sommers reflects on his frustration at not being able to promote Stokes due to his prior drug use:

His work ethic and attitude prompted us to ask, almost beg, for his promotion. No matter what our argument (“He’s smart,” “He’s got charisma,” “Marines around listen when he talks because he’s dead on with his analysis,” “Give him rank, he’s not the drug pop that we thought we were getting hosed with, he’s making a difference”) the command couldn’t budge around the time restriction involved in his demotion; Pvt Stokes would remain a Private for the rest of the deployment no matter what he did or was capable of.

Later he reflected on Stokes' superior performance working as "point man" during the fighting:

The first man sees a lot, and a lot rests on his shoulders. The Marines behind him depend on what the point man passes back when enemy contact occurs, the squad leader’s plan is dependent on that flash of information the point man gives. Pvt Stokes found a deadly rhythm as the point man for second squad. Whenever a fight broke out, he would either kill the enemy immediately himself, or if he couldn’t give out a quick situation update so his squad could close with and kill.

Stokes' aunt described to the Marine Corps Times how her nephew sought to keep his family from worrying about his last deployment:

“To protect his family from worry, he told them before he left and during his third tour that his ship, the Bonhomme Richard, was stopping at different ports around the world and was not going to go to Iraq,” Leupp said by e-mail. “He had already been through so much during his first two tours. Sean was supposed to just see the world by stopping at different ports. So we thought he was safe during his third and we hoped his last deployment. But not the way we hoped.”

Here's a local television station's coverage of the Silver Star presentation ceremony:

UK Ad Aims to Galvanize PTSD Awareness

David Botti — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:01:44 GMT

When movie-goers in the United Kingdom sit down to watch the Iraq war movie "In the Valley of Elah," they'll first be greeted by a new advertisement by the organization Combat Stress: Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society. As the Guardian reports, Combat Stress was founded in 1919 to help WWI veterans recover mentally from shell-shock. Today, after growing concern over the lack of treatment available to today's veterans, Combat Stress is ramping up a public relations campaign to highlight the issue:

Combat Stress is alarmed at the huge increase in veterans from the Falklands, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, who come knocking on their door for help. A few are still turning up suffering long-term effects from the second world war and Korea. The oldest applicant for help recently was aged 100.

What's their reasoning for this alarm? Eight years ago 300 veterans sought help from Combat Stress; during the last fiscal year the number jumped to 1,000. The number of Falklands War vets who've committed suicide has risen to 300—more than the 256 British soldiers who were killed in the war itself. Of particular note is how many view the Iraq war's unpopularity in the UK as exacerbating vets' mental health issues. From the Guardian:

The problems of veterans today are compounded by the widespread recognition through much of the army that the Iraq campaign is unpopular, nasty, unpredictable and brutal—and, in the views of a significant minority of soldiers and officers in private conversation, a pretty unnecessary conflict at that. In the first and second world wars, the plight of service personnel was shared by almost everyone in the land. More than 1 million soldiers served in Northern Ireland over 30 or so years, so that became part of the national experience.

But combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is not a national experience, and the services are worried that they appear in the minds of many now to be detached from most of British national life. Though more American soldiers have been involved—more than 3,000 killed and nearly 50,000 injured, physically or mentally—Iraq is not a shared experience nationally for Americans in the way that Vietnam was.

Combat Stress' advertisement doesn't hold back any punches, as it tries to impart what's going on behind the closed doors of veterans' homes:

A well-trained fighting machine reduced to nothing more than an empty shell. Combat stress is their calvary, the infantry to fight off their demons. They were protecting you, now they need your help.

You can view the advertisement here:

Video: Soldier Pops Out of an Xmas Present

David Botti — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:06:23 GMT

This is just a great video from CNN. A U.S. Army soldier back from Iraq wraps himself in a Christmas present box to surprise his two young daughters.

Sergeant Miss America

David Botti — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:04:55 GMT

In lighter veterans news an Army National Guard sergeant is gearing up to participate in the next Miss America pageant. She's Jill Stevens, an Afghanistan veteran, a combat medic, and Miss Utah 2007. Stevens even has a personal website, hosted by the Army, detailing her Miss America run. "G.I. Jill," they call it.

Sgt. Stevens had just started nursing school at Southern Utah University in the fall of 2005 when the school's pageant director recruited her to run for Miss SUU.

"I was like, 'Yeah, right.' I wear combat boots; I don't do heels," she said.

Here's an interview Stevens did with Soldiers Radio and Television:

A Video Worth the 7 Minutes of Your Time

David Botti — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 17:25:54 GMT

An Army soldier was impaled by a Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) in Afghanistan last year—but the warhead never went off. The Military Times has a remarkable video interviewing the soldier, Specialist Channing Moss, the doctor who operated on him unsure if/when the RPG would explode, and the explosives expert on hand to deal with the warhead.

Moss was later treated at Walter Reed.

From the accompanying print story:

Moss was nearly dead as the Black Hawk landed at the battalion aid station at Orgun-E, about 20 miles from the site of the ambush.
Collier signaled wildly over the roar of the helicopter’s engines to alert the aid-station staff that this was no ordinary patient.
Oh recalled that it wasn’t apparent just how delicate the situation was until they began cutting away Moss’s combat uniform and unraveling all the gauze bandages.
When he saw the tail fin of the RPG round, he yelled, “everybody get out!”
“I had never even seen an RPG before, but I figured anything with a rod and fins on it had to be a rocket of some kind.”
Oh asked for volunteers to stay in the operating room and help him save Moss’s life. Several soldiers raised their hands.