“I did”

Washington Voted Britain’s Greatest Foe

Makes sense to me.

LONDON (Reuters) - American revolutionary leader George Washington has been voted the greatest enemy commander to face Britain, lauded for his spirit of endurance against the odds and the enormous impact of his victory.

In a contest organised by the National Army Museum, Washington triumphed over Irish independence hero Michael Collins, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

Making the case for Washington, historian Stephen Brumwell said the American War of Independence (1775-83) was “the worst defeat for the British Empire ever.”

“His personal leadership was crucial,” he said.

Washington was a courageous and inspirational battlefield commander who led from the front but also had the skills to deal with his political counterparts in Congress and with his French allies, Brumwell said. Above all, he never gave up even when the war was going against him.

“His army was always under strength, hungry, badly supplied. He shared the dangers of his men. Anyone other than Washington would have given up the fight. He came to personify the cause, and the scale of his victory was immense.”

Final Voyage of the Enterprise

So long... and thanks…

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — When the makers of “Top Gun” were filming on board the USS Enterprise, they donated a set of black fuzzy dice to liven up the ship’s otherwise drab interior.

A quarter-century later, the dice will still be dangling inside the tower of “the Big E” as the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sets sail on its final voyage Sunday.

The trinket is a reminder of the ship’s storied 50-year history that includes action in several wars, a prominent role in the Cuban missile crisis and serving as a spotter ship for John Glenn’s historic orbit of the earth.

“To serve on this ship, certainly in this capacity, you certainly have to be a student of the ship’s history,” said Rear Adm. Walter Carter, commander of the Enterprise strike group. “Fifty years of service, in our nation’s history, we’ve never had a warship in service that long.”

The Enterprise is the longest aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. It is also the oldest, a distinction that brings pride as well as plenty of headaches for the ship’s more than 4,000 crew members. The ship is effectively a small city that frequently needs repairs because of its age. It was originally designed to last 25 years, but a major overhaul in 1979 and other improvements have extended its life.

Two Soldiers Murdered

Murderers.

Updated at 1:52 p.m. ET: A gunman killed two Americans inside the heavily guarded Afghan Interior Ministry in the center of the capital Kabul on Saturday, as protests against the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book roiled the country for a fifth day.

The Americans, who were U.S. Army officers serving as advisers to the Afghan security forces, were sitting at their desks inside the government ministry building when they were shot, NBC News reported.

Supreme Court to take on Stolen Valor

Interesting case.

The Supreme Court will take up Alvarez’s case Wednesday to decide whether the 1st Amendment protects not just the freedom of speech but a right to lie about military honors.

Congress enacted the Stolen Valor Act in 2006 to make it a crime to falsely claim a military honor. And Alvarez, once he was exposed, was convicted and fined $5,000.

But his “everyone lies” defense won at the U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals, which struck down the law on free-speech grounds on a 2-1 vote. It would be “terrifying,” said Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, if the government’s “truth police” could go after people for the “white lies, exaggerations and deceptions that are an integral part of human intercourse.”

While lying about military honors is a reprehensible act, I think the SCOTUS should uphold the 9th Circuit. Unless someone lies about military honors in order to gain some benefit through fraud, lying is protected speech.

American Navy Rescues Iranians

You’re welcome, Iran.

Just days after Iranian and American military officials traded warnings over a U.S. Navy vessel’s departure from the Persian Gulf, the United States Navy has rescued 13 Iranian fishermen and their fishing dhow from Somali pirates in the north Arabian sea, the Pentagon said Friday. And in a side irony that punctuates the rare instance of Iranian-American co-operation, the rescue operation was carried out by a ship belonging to the very U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group that Iranian army officials had earlier boasted of evicting from Gulf waters.

RIP Sgt. Altmann

May he rest in peace.

Army Staff Sgt. Joseph J. Altmann’s plans and dreams were coming together: He married in February, re-enlisted in October for another four years of service and expected to return by March 2012 from a deployment in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, his father, John, said.

His wife, Nikki, planned to quit her Texas-based job with a charter air transport company serving armed forces personnel when Altmann ended this deployment, his father said Tuesday. Then the young couple could live together and start a family.

But the couple’s plans abruptly ended on Christmas Day.

Altmann, 27, died Sunday of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked his unit in Kunar province, a mountainous region in northeastern Afghanistan. His parents were notified around 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

“Christmas will never be the same in the Altmann home,” his father said. “He will be sadly missed.”

The family is “devastated,” even though they knew the risks Altmann faced by re-enlisting, his mother, Janice, said.

“As a mother, you worry about your child no matter what they do,” she said, “but we talked about it, and we supported his decision 110%.”

Iran Hijacked Drone?

Wow. If this is true, it’s a HUGE deal.

Iran guided the CIA’s “lost” stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone’s systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

“The GPS navigation is the weakest point,” the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran’s “electronic ambush” of the highly classified US drone. “By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.”

The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to crack the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.

Happy Veterans Day

To all of you veterans out there… THANK YOU.

West Bend Council Honors Vets

Very cool.

Because of a gesture by Alderman Ed Duquaine, each of the members of West Bend’s Common Council had the opportunity to personally meet each of the approximately 20 World War II veterans in attendance at Monday night’s meeting.

  As the aldermen were going around the room and making comments in tribute to the heroes of that war in Europe and the Pacific, Duquaine asked his fellow members of the council to join him in personally shaking hands with each of the veterans in attendance.

  It was a touching scene that capped off a ceremony intended to honor those veterans and all veterans. Mayor Kraig Sadownikow read two proclamations declaring Monday World War II Veterans Day in West Bend and this Friday, Veterans Day, as Veterans Appreciation Day.

  The opportunity to meet and see the living members of what has been called “The Greatest Generation” had appeal to even to some of those people who came before the council with business of their own.

  West Bend School Superintendent Ted Neitzke, who made a presentation on the state of the school district about two and a half hours later, said he brought his fourth-grade son with him because of how important he felt it was for him to see those veterans. Neitzke noted that those World War II veterans, when they were that age, might have had the opportunity to witness ceremonies honoring Civil War veterans.

  West Bend VFW Post 1393 Commander John Kleinmaus said there are certain events that occur in one’s life that stand out and that was one of them.

Qaddafi Dead

A dead tyrant is a good tyrant. I guess now that he’s dead, we can say that that was the purpose of the war.

According to the Pentagon, that was the cost to U.S. taxpayers for Muammar el-Qaddafi’s head: $1.1 billion through September, the latest figure just out of the Defense Department.

And that’s just for the Americans.

The final totals will take some time to add up, and still do not include the State Department, CIA, and other agencies involved or other NATO and participating countries. Vice President Joe Biden said that the U.S. “spent $2 billion total and didn’t lose a single life.” NATO does not track the operational costs to each member country, but the funds directly taken from a common NATO account for Libya operations have totaled about $7.4 million per month for electronic warfare capabilities and $1.1 million per month for headquarters and command staff, a NATO spokesman said.

America Caves to China Pressure

Ouch.

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — A U.S. decision not to sell Taiwan new F-16 fighter jets is being seen by many U.S. allies in Asia as a sign of China's growing clout.

The pre-eminent military power in East Asia for a half-century, the U.S. has explicitly and implicitly provided a security umbrella for countries from Singapore to Japan, helping to keep the peace that has fostered stunning economic growth.

While few of these allies believe the U.S. is lessening its commitment to the region, they still see Washington's refusal to make the F-16 sale — privately confirmed by congressional aides Sunday and then made public Wednesday — as showing a new deference to Chinese interests.

Here's the idiocy of this... unless America is abandoning the region, which I don't think we are, then it is in America's best interests to sell Taiwan the means to defend themselves. Otherwise, if the region flares up, it will be American fighters and warriors on the front line. If we are abandoning the region to its fate, then that's an entirely different story.

Worker Uses Veterans Cemetery as Dump

What a disgrace.

The sprawling Southern Wisconsin Veterans Memorial Cemetery stands on 105 acres outside Union Grove, about 30 miles south of Milwaukee. About 8,400 veterans and nearly 1,900 spouses have been laid to rest there. The cemetery earned an excellence in appearance award from the National Cemetery Administration in April.

The state DVA has released several news releases about the trash, including one last month saying the supervisor resigned in November and cleanup efforts had begun, but the statements offered few other specifics. DVA and state Department of Natural Resources emails and other documents the AP obtained through an open records request reveal more details.

The documents show a whistle-blower approached the DNR with a tip that the supervisor was ordering his employees to dig holes and bury all manner of trash from his rental properties, including refrigerators, mattresses, furniture and chemicals.

“I am outraged that such a sacred place such as the final resting place for the men and women who served our great country are allowed to be disgraced in such a manor (sic),” the whistle-blower wrote in an undated letter to DNR Warden Mike Hirschboeck. The tipster also wrote to then-U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold on Sept. 30 asking for help.

Battle of New Orleans

High-Density Reactive Materials

Great.

This new approach from the US Office of Naval Research replaces the inert casing with High-Density Reactive Materials (HDRM) that combine and explode only when the projectile hits the target.

According to navy researchers, recent tests have shown that the HDRMs are durable and significantly enhance the explosive effect. They increase the chances of what the military scientists term a “catastrophic kill”.

Clifford Bedford, a researcher involved in the development of the new material, explained its advantages over existing weapons.

“In the case of a steel missile you explosively launch it, it goes through the target and all the kinetic energy is dissipated into the target,” he said.

“With the reactive material missile, you have the same explosive launch - however, it disintegrates within the target and liberates chemical energy, and this chemical and kinetic energy combined gives you the enhanced effect.”