Thought it was very classy when Obama included a satellite interview with the Illinois National Guard on Inauguration evening.

what’s the military service record of the bloggers over at Redstate?

No nicknames, no booty.

My father (who served three tours of duty in Vietnam) was a solid supporter of Obama before I was.

saw that speech live…. marines doing what they were ordered to do…. at least they didn’t look like they were trying to sleep like in many of bushes back drops …

Why they have yellow ribbons and “I support the troops” bumper stickers on their SUVs. What more do you expect them to do? Enlist?

Digg BT’s post here!

I didn’t like when Bush used military people as staghe props and didn’t like it when Obama did the same thing. But you called it right. The idea that these people hate him or don’t respect him is just another chickenhawk dream

Buy Limbaugh’s book. That’ll get it done.

Old news…this has been circulating for almost a week already.

RedState’s post is from this morning.

Thanks for letting us know. I can now pretend like it never happened.

Hey newt, did you forget to close the door again ?

Why wouldn’t the troops love the Republicans who slashed their benefits, yanked them back into battle zones via “stop loss orders,” stood in the way of expanded educational payments* and consigned them to convalesce in filthy, underfunded VA hosptials?

*John McCain actually had the nerve to say this was for their own good, because they would go on to become noncoms instead of getting an education. Then he had the inconceivable nerve to inform Obama that Obama was not allowed to criticize him about this because he had been a POW.

Yes. So ashamed.
How goes Petro?
When the PM enters, do the Mounties rise and applaud?

Actually no, most times they mistake him for a Horse’s ass !

Not to mention sending them to fight an unnecessary, immoral, unwinnable war in the first place.

Well they ought to know.
Damned colonies.

Every time I mention McCain’s miserable voting record regarding troops to a wingnut, they are truly shocked. I bring it up every chance I get. They truly don’t know about his voting record because they listen to sources who don’t want to tell them. And, because it’s all about kicking ass.

LOL … we don’t call him HarPutz out of endearment …

How do the top brass view Obama?
Sec Gates: Obama is a lot more analytical

Exactly what point does the RS post serve?
Patriotism at it’s finest.
“Well his numbers among the voters may be skyrocketing, but the troops will do as told and no more.”

I don’t see Obama’s visit to LeJeune as using the troops as stage props. He went to the people most affected by this insane and unsustainable deployment schedule to tell that relief is on the way.

It’s created a lot of uncertainty among the troops. My son was expecting to deploy late this spring, now it’s up in the air. His fiance is now maybe deploying this summer, but maybe not.

For us, we’d rather have the uncertainty than the certainty that either or both of them are heading down range.

Quantico precinct, headquarters for the USMC as well as the FBI training ground, voted for Obama. Somehow when people talk about the political views of the military they never look at the precinct returns of communities where military families live.

They’re desperately projecting themselves on the actual troops, since they’re chickenhawks.

The Crazies have been tryin’ to stir up serious trouble ever since Election night.

Their self- appointed leader – Wanker, Texas Ranger says, “Thousands of right wing cell groups have organized and are ready for a second American Revolution.”

I knew that inverter board would f*ck up his brain …

Iraq soldiers contributions to Obama 6 to 1 over McShame
Veteran groups analysis of voting records
Obama 80%
McShame 0-20%
What is it about facts that RS is opposed to.

I was on a panel on the current and prospective st5ate3 of the economy last night with a Red-Stater. His presentation was, to put it generously, simply embarrassing. He’s an old friend, and I only called him out on about 75 percent of the falsehoods he was throwing out. The embarrassing part, though, was his sheer intellectual laziness. Never looked up anything, gave all the standarde Limpball lies. He was a caricature of himselof. Some of these guys, I suppose, are dangerous. But most are simply pathetic.

Recall the Palin events in VA and other states, when there was a strong insurrectionist slant to the crowds. Signs, interviews and lots of violent talk.

NPR made sure we knew it was his birthday yesterday. Wasn’t that sweet?

Yes … and it took McCain how long to make her stop ? Commander in Chief, indeed !

so what, we can’t find george w bush’s photoshopped army

has everyone forgotten when george bush once forced our soldiers to serve as his backdrop for a speach, and then photoshopped the ONE SMILING SOLDIER in the crowd into hundreds of smiling soldiers in the crowd ???

kinda closes the case here

NEXT

I can’t locate where I saw this last week, or maybe Saturday, but it compared the two vid clips and concluded that the military bloggers were manipulating readers by using vids from very different types of assemblies.

You have *got* to be forkin’ kiddin’……NPR announced it was chuck norris’ birthday??? If I understood you correctly, that place is getting *worse* than faux noise.

Jane Hamsher upstairs!
Talking Economic Accountability with Blogger Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism

Yo Freep … Where were you all mornin’ ?

We’ve had an infestation and our PCO dude wasn’t around.

More militarization of the Presidency, and more inversion of the purpose of our armed forces. They serve us, not the other way around. And sometimes they are horribly misused by their civilian leadership, which they have no business applauding.

I don’t even like Obama returning salutes; he’s the President, who shouldn’t salute.

Yep, especially the salute part. Somebody got the protocol wrong.

Barely listen to it these days, except sometime the news at the top of the hour. It was just before that that they mentioned it. *click*

Prior to abolition of the draft and Bill Clinton’s Presidency, I believe any behaviour by troops, other than reserved respect would have been considered to be unmilitary. All forms of respect, from saluting to the use of “Sir”, were delivered to the rank or position, rather than to the individual. That was considered to be a fundamental rule for the coninuity of good order and discipline. I don’t think you would have seen demonstrations of camaraderie or of disapproval for any President, from Truman through the Elder Bush. During the Clinton Administration, I was shocked to see all sorts of derogatory bumper stickers on the auto of a Navy Lt.Cdr who worked as a Liaison Officer with the FAA. The rousing greeting for Bush on this video is equally destructive of good order. Somehow, if the military doesn’t understand that they work for the civilian leadership, and anything other than reserved respect is insubordinate, they must be made to understand. Anything else is ultimately dangerous to the nation.

The idea that these people hate him or don’t respect him is just another chickenhawk dream

Do they even bother trying to make up a reason why the military supposedly doesn’t respect him? Or is it just another of those “totally obvious” memes they throw back and forth at each other?

One day, during a joint exercise, I picked-up the extra-duty, rotated amongst the Army Lieutenants, of Officer of the Day, or ‘Commander of Tent City.’ My main job was to process paper-work and make sure the Dining Hall kept cranking out great food.

The tent next to the Admin Tent housed most of the ‘attachments’ from the other services – Air Force CCT’s (Portable air-traffic controllers), a Navy SEAL Operations Support team, and a squad of Marine Force Recon guys.

That morning, an Air Force CCT came to the Admin tent and said he’d been out all night on a mission, and when he got back, a few minutes ago, his Army-provided Goretex Rain Jacket was missing from his rucksack.

I asked him all the usual questions to verify if he was certain he didn’t accidentally misplace it – to which he emphatically said he was certain it was under the flap of his rucksack when he left for the field the day before.

‘How would I know which rain-jacket is yours?’ I asked.

‘When it was issued to me, I turned the inner pocket inside-out, and used blue and red chalk to mark a ‘Q’, for my last name.’

That meant the ‘right’ thing for me to do was called a ‘health and welfare’ inspection of his tent, in an effort to find the missing equipment.

Before I could do that, however, I had to ‘walk’ the tent to see if anyone inside out-ranked me – offering them an opportunity to ‘take a walk.’ Sure enough, a Navy Lieutenant (equal to an Army Captain) was inside, and he instructed his Ensign to provide whatever support/equipment I might request, before going for a smoke.

I grabbed another Army Lieutenant for help, and then called the tent to attention and announced I was about to do a health and welfare inspection for the missing rain-jacket – but, first, I gave the occupants 5 minutes to solve the problem among themselves, no questions asked.

Nothing happened. So, I had everyone show their Army-issued rain jackets. They all had one. Next, I had everyone dump their rucksacks out on their cots.

The other Army Lieutenant helping me was working his way down the row of Marines when he found a second rain-jacket in a Marine’s ruck.

With the Marine, his Gunny, the other LT and the CCT, we adjourned to outside the tent. The Marine swore to his Gunny that he ‘had his own rain-jacket’ that he brought with him, in addition to the one the Army assigned him for the exercise. I took the suspect rain-jacket and handed it to the CCT, saying – check this out?

He flipped the inner pocket inside-out, and there it was – a red and blue ‘Q’ in chalk. I looked right at him and said, ‘If you say this rain-jacket is yours, you’re accusing this man of stealing. Is it yours?’

‘No, Sir.’ He wasn’t prepared to call the Marine a thief.

‘Okay, but that means you have to pay for the rain-jacket that you ‘lost’, do you understand?’

‘Yes, Sir.’ So, I did the paperwork charging him for the rain-jacket ($90!), which he signed, and then I told him I wouldn’t file it until the end of my shift, the next morning. If the CCT could come back and show me his rain-jacket, I’d tear-up the paperwork and we’d forget all about it.

The next morning, the CCT came into the Admin tent, beaming from ear to ear, to announce that the missing rain-jacket was under his rucksack flap when he got back from his latest mission. He showed me the jacket – the same one from the day before – and I tore-up the paperwork.

About an hour later, the Marine Gunny came in to deliver his morning status report – all present and accounted for, with one man on sick-call, who ’stumbled in the dark,’ suffering two black eyes and numerous bruises.

From that time on, the Marines had my Total Respect. Semper Fi isn’t just a hollow shout-out amongst them, it really means something. That RedState guy should really think twice before he *speaks for the Marines* and alleges ‘dis-loyalty’ to the Commander in Chief.

In my experience, the Marines can speak for themselves, just fine!

Great comment. Thanks.

Of course they don’t like him — he’s a Democrat.

Nice one. I think they used to refer to that formally as “company punishment” in the old days. More colloquially, it was called a “blanket party,” named for the object thrown over the recipient, so that people handling the discipline could not be identified. It corrected a lot of behaviour without going on anyone’s record.

Officers are mostly gooper according to whatever polling is available. The ranks are not strongly one way or the other. ALL, however, want a government that will take care of them when they get home.

Officers hope that at the end of their military careers, they can double dip with a second job with a military contactor. They know that goopers are more prone to spend on “stuff” for the military, so they are better for second careers.

we called it the three minute motherfucker

We had a stupid buck sgt who was going home in three days turn about 4 of us in for smokin some bud up on a bunker. The 1st shirt called us on the carpet, raised hell but amazingly forgot to read us our rights. . . He was more upset when I chambered a round while this dope was sitting on his cot packing his shit. “Don’t ever threaten one of my NCO’s. . . ” Ha.

From my experience it isn’t about political party. It’s all about the military experience of the president. The less military experience, the less respect they shall receive from the troops.

That’s why they loved Nixon, Reagan and this last draft dodging punk huh?

In Bosnia, I was the Company Commander’s driver. I constantly heard shit talking about President Clinton by the junior officers when I had duty in the office, which was every day I wasn’t driving the old man.
During the Bush administration, I kept hearing about how great it was to have “one of us” as CinC.
This kind of shit continued for much of the Bush presidency, but towards the end it seemed to me that most in the service were just waiting for it to be over. People who were so thrilled about Bush and constantly talking about what a great man he was were denying they ever voted for him, all the while giving me shit because I was voting for any Democrat over John McCain.
When I was in Afghanistan last time, there was a Sergeant Major there with whom I’d get into political discussions. He was pretty conservative, but he encouraged me to speak my mind, and always let me have my say, even going out of his way to tell others to let me speak. He believed that conservatism was corrupted and dying and I was happy to agree with him although I didn’t have the melancholy about it that he did.
The lower ranks are a lot less political, just wanting to do their jobs and be left alone with whatever free time they might get. In my experience in Afghanistan, which was my most recent active duty, the field grade officers were apolitical, at least in front of me. It was the junior officers who were the most likely to be conservatives. The SF types I got to know and occasionally work with had no opinion whatsoever, and I didn’t push it with them. The only political opinion I ever heard from an SF soldier was from a Chief Warrant Officer 3 on an A-team who declared to a young lieutenant that the Bush presidency was “the afterbirth of a mongolian goat fuck.”

I saw the press conference that the red-assers are crowing about. The Marines stood to the position of Attention until they were given “At Ease.” They applauded several times, quite vigorously when the President announced that the Iraq deployments would be over in 19 months. The President concluded his speech, and the Marines stood to Attention as he left the facility. That was exactly what I, and anybody who knows anything about the military expected to happen.

Pretty soon, we will see a rehash of this bullshit story, and it will, of course be started around by someone with no military experience.