This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here …but you can see it from here

A Georgia woman was forced to ventilate an intruder in her home office where she was hiding after she saw the stranger outside her home. She fled along with her twins to a crawlspace;

“The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at that time he’s staring at her, her two children and a .38 revolver,” Chapman told Channel 2’s Kerry Kavanaugh.

The woman then shot him five times, but he survived, Chapman said. He said the woman ran out of bullets but threatened to shoot the intruder if he moved.

“She’s standing over him, and she realizes she’s fired all six rounds. And the guy’s telling her to quit shooting,” Chapman said.

The woman ran to a neighbor’s home with her children. The intruder attempted to flee in his car but crashed into a wooded area and collapsed in a nearby driveway, Chapman said.

So, folks in Logansville, Georgia are marginally safer tonight since the fellow is being restrained by police. He’s lucky that she was only using a .38.

At Digital Journal, they have a video of the police at the Newtown shooting scene when they discover the long gun which they discovered in Adam Lanza’s car. That’s not a Bushmaster or an AR-15-style weapon that the officer clears.

I also don’t see the officer removing a magazine before he clears it. The weapon looks like a tube-fed shotgun sorta maybe, but it’s certainly not an AR-15 or a Bushmaster. The bolt on an AR is charged from the rear of the upper receiver, not on the side like the officer appears to be doing. The cartridge that ejects from the gun looks too large to be rifle ammo. Again, to me it looks like a shotgun.

But, seein’s how now one wants to show us the actual weapons that were used, we can only speculate. And, I guess Lanza could have had another long gun in the school, but why are we being kept in the dark while politicians are charging head blindly with their rhetoric and legislation?

Chief Tango sent us a link to this article. Yeah, retired General Paul Eaton wrote that. Eaton has also appeared in VoteVets campaign ads, he’s a frequent guest on Bill Maher’s show, wherever that plays these days, he was an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, then he campaigned for Barack Obama, and now, SURPRISE!, he thinks that Kerry and Hagel are a fricken Dream Team.

Kerry and Hagel share qualities and experiences sure to resonate with those who execute U.S. national security and foreign policy – on the battlefield and in the increasingly dangerous world of diplomacy.

Both men demonstrated great bravery in war and moral courage throughout their lives. Hagel, as an infantry sergeant and squad leader in Vietnam, was twice wounded, saved by his squad mate brother and then returned the favor. Kerry, not far away, operated riverine craft in an equally dangerous environment and sustained several wounds.

After such experiences, they understand the implications of deciding to use military force like few others in our civilian leadership. They know at a gut level that the decision to put our soldiers in harm’s way can traumatize those who have answered the call of duty, and affect their families, like few of life’s endeavors.

I guess, he wants to forget that Hagel called the surge in Iraq the “most dangerous blunder since Vietnam”. Who can forget how Kerry supports the troops by testifying in front of a Senate Committee in 1971 (while Eaton’s father was MIA in Vietnam and Eaton, himself, was at West Point, by the way) that they were war criminals and don’t forget Kerry’s “botched joke”; “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.“

Yeah, the troops were real appreciative of that joke;

Eaton continues;

Kerry, having voted to approve the use of force in Iraq with, among others, Senator Hillary Clinton, declared his intent to ensure all foreign policy tools remained on the table.

Both men later voted against the surge in Iraq in the face of substantial push-back from their colleagues.

So they waffle and bend with the political winds. That’s what the troops really appreciate, someone who will send them to war and then go wobbly when the political heat is turned up. Remember that Kerry as a citizen tried to undermine the war effort in Vietnam and peace negotiations by traveling to Paris and made offers to the North Vietnamese delegation that he couldn’t deliver on.

So yeah, that’s a real dream team you have there, General. Maybe he thinks getting Kim Il-sung for Energy Secretary would be a real coup for us. Or Joe Biden would make a good Education Secretary.

In the wake of the shootings by evil doers lately, politicians are doing their best appear to as if they’re doing something. In Connecticut, one politician contemplates releasing the names of legal and registered gun owners in the state for some stupid reason. Another noodles about controlling ammunition instead of guns;

State Rep. Stephen Dargen, a Democratic legislator from West Haven, wants the names and addresses of about 170,000 handgun permit holders in the state to be made public.

Names of gun owners are now confidential, but Dargen believes if people know how many guns are spread across communities, they’ll be safer.

State Senator Martin Looney, of New Haven, is proposing ammunition control legislation, which would prohibit anyone barred from owning a gun from owning bullets or any other kind of ammunition.

“A gun without ammunition is only a club. We really need to restrict access to ammunition,” Looney said.

Um, aptly-named-Looney, didn’t you read the bit about the FBI claiming that more people are killed with clubs and hammers than rifles? Are you trying to make a bad situation worse?

Old Trooper sends a link from the Washington Examiner which reports that gun control legislation in Illinois was stopped late last night;

The Illinois Senate pulled the plug on legislation to ban assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammo clips late Thursday, a stinging rebuke to Democrats and a wake-up call to the president and his supporters who think the Newtown, Conn. school child slayings will make it easy to pass gun control.

NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam told Secrets Friday, “This was the first of many challenges gun owners and hunters will face this year. We will face many more and we need to keep our focus on those upcoming challenges.”

Gun advocates predict that the Illinois Senate will offer watered down legislation next year, likely limiting the number and types of guns to be restricted. “This is in no way a victory and nobody is doing a victory dance,” said a state gun advocate. “This is a minor win and we have to keep on.”

I wish they’d stop mentioning hunting – that’s what fuels that specious thing about semi-automatic rifles which they call “assault weapons” not needing high capacity magazines. I used to hunt since I was 14 years old when the state of New York said I could, but my interest in weapons aren’t for the purpose of hunting these days.

But like I said, politicians aren’t in the business of solving problems. Since the Left is having a massive melt down because of the sorrow they feel for the children of Newtown, and since politicians don’t have the wherewithal to actually do something successful about nuts with guns, they’ll be happy to stage a little theatrical performance and do their level best to write more rules that will affect only the law-abiding and then pat themselves on the back afterwards about how they stopped the NRA from committing another mass murder.

And it’s not really about the children, it’s about their own selfish feelings – they don’t want to be confronted with the thoughts of more children in danger. It’s perfectly acceptable to them to disarm the law-abiding, because that’s something they can accomplish. And if criminals have guns, well, that’s the fault of the evil corporations who somehow make a profit giving guns to criminals.

Man I have missed this dude.

NSFW language warning.
Go Colts (that hurts me), fighting RGIII’s of DC, Minn and Cincy!

Saw this over at Twicthy earlier, and started looking around, not because I am knowledgeable about Canadian Politics (I’m not) but because it seemed a fairly interesting story.

Let’s start here with what I know about Canada:
* Robin Scherbotski was a child star there singing “Two Beavers are Better than One” and “Let’s go to the Mall (TODAY!)”.
* Two of my favorite Infantrymen are Canadian by birth (Toby Nunn and MOH Recipient Peter Lemon.)
* It’s cold there.
* The TV Show Psych (best show on TV) is filmed there, not in Santa Barbra.
* You are NOT supposed to refer to it as our hat.

That said, if you have some time today, watch this video.

I also know that occasionally we have a reader at TAH that shows up from Nunuvet, and if you read this, I want to come visit.

Anyway, I became a fan of watching Ezra Levant from watching this, and although I had heard his name before, he won me over here.

Here’s one I came across from our buddy Scotty. Albert Valentine Bustamante claimed service from 1973 – 1979 and time with the Marine “Special Forces Recon” units and here’s his DD214 to prove it;

Everyone knows that they type out your Bronze Star citation on your DD214, right? What? They don’t?

Well, that DD214 conflicts greatly with his FOIA;

Go over to Scotty’s link and read the discrepancies between his claims and reality. It’s a hoot, he even lied about his high school years. The internet is a real bitch when she wants to be.

LTG Patrick O’Reilly, former director of the Missile Defense Agency, received a Christmas present this holiday season.  The SECDEF determined that O’Reilly  had “served successfully” as a Lieutenant General – thus allowing O’Reilly to retire at that grade.

I’ve previously written that O’Reilly was not exactly the best “boss” in the world.  He was allegedly abusive, and yelled at subordinates in public and private settings.  The DoD IG investigated O’Reilly and substantiated these facts.  Yet there appears to have been no clearly criminal behavior on O’Reilly’s part.  The DoD IG Report of Investigation (ROI) on O’Reilly can be found here; read it yourself if you like.  It’s fairly short, and very little is redacted.

When I wrote my earlier article linked above, I was convinced LTG O’Reilly was an abusive jerk who fully deserved to be relieved of duty.  After locating and reading the DoD IG ROI, I’m still convinced of that – but it’s also not exactly the “slam-dunk” case I expected.

Effectively all the DoD IG ROI says is that O’Reilly’s leadership style was very poor – e.g., that he chewed ass in public (sometimes profanely) , he sometimes was overly critical of subordinates; and he didn’t take bad news well.  That’s about it.  No other misconduct is alleged or substantiated.  Its conclusions, quoted verbatim, are:  “LTG O’Reilly engaged in a leadership style that was inconsistent with the JER and AR 600-100.”  I also see nothing in the DoD IG ROI I haven’t seen – though admittedly on a much smaller scale – in numerous otherwise excellent leaders.

Leadership styles vary; what’s appropriate in one environment may not be appropriate in another.  The same criticisms levied against O’Reilly in the DoD IG ROI can also be accurately applied to an individual named George S. Patton, Jr., between 1942 and 1945.  Or to a guy named Curtis LeMay pretty much anytime between 1945 and 1965.

In short:  I think the SECDEF got this one right.  O’Reilly apparently was the wrong choice to lead MDA and needed to go; the SECDEF was IMO correct in replacing him.  I don’t really “get” how O’Reilly ended up with 1 star, much less 3.  He appears to have been the proverbial “boss from hell”; in my experience, such behavior doesn’t develop overnight.  He simply doesn’t seem to have the leadership ability one would expect in a General/Flag Officer.

But being pleasant or even a good leader isn’t the regulatory criteria for determining retired grade; serving successfully at a particular grade is.  And it does appear that LTG O’Reilly served successfully – though not pleasantly or with distinction – for the requisite amount of time before being removed as MDA Director.  So based on what’s contained in the DoD IG ROI I don’t see how the SECDEF had much choice but to allow O’Reilly to retire at his final grade.  There simply doesn’t seem to be evidence of anything but an inappropriate leadership style.

YMMV, though.  And I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say on the matter.

Our buddy, Laughing Wolf, from Blackfive asked us to put the word out about one of his ventures; Culinary Command;

For veterans and troops who are interested in a culinary career, here is a program that can help you get started: Culinary Command. I was able to be a small help to a precursor program, and can highly recommend you check this out if you are serious about a culinary career. What says it all are the people from the precursor who are endorsing this.

I figured that since we’re probably the only milblog with a page of recipes, someone out there must be interested in cooking.

Toothless Dawg sends us the news that Alfie ‘Bill’ Fripp, the last living member of the Stalag Luft III World War Two “Great Escape” has passed on at the ripe age of 98. Alfie didn’t actually take part in the escape made famous by the star-studded movie, but it was his job to assemble the equipment they needed to make history;

One of Alfie’s official jobs was to marshal Red Cross aid parcels, a lifeline for prisoners.

His unofficial job was to filter out the parcels coded to identify secret contents such as valves for radios or maps.

He was relocated from Stalag Luft III less than two months before the Great Escape, but equipment from those parcels almost certainly contributed to the operation.

To his eternal regret, however, his friend Mike Casey would be among 50 escapees slaughtered on Hitler’s orders when they were eventually recaptured.