Happy Birthday, Marines!
Ladies and Gentlemen, please join me in a toast to the greatest fighting force the world has ever known… The United States Marine Corps.
234th years of unwavering fidelity to Country and Corps, Happy Birthday, Marines! Semper Fi!
Sgt. Kimberly Munley: Hero
The word hero gets tossed around a lot these day but Sgt. Kimberly Munley, the civilian police officer who ended the Fort Hood gunman’s violent rampage has certainly earned the title:
The hero cop who ended the bloody rampage at Fort Hood by pumping four bullets into the crazed gunman even though she was wounded is known for her toughness, friends say.
Before relocating to Texas, civilian police Sgt. Kimberly Munley spent about five years as a cop in North Carolina where she forged a reputation as a no-nonsense officer.
“I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’m really not,” said close friend Drew Peterson, 27.
“She was born and bred to be a police officer. If you were ever to be in a fight, she’d be the first person to stand up next to you and back you up. She’s a tough cookie.”
Munley’s toughness and grace under pressure were on display Thursday when she and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire, said Army Lt. Gen. Bob Cone.
Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said.
“It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” Cone said.
Munley was only a few feet from Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.
Sgt. Munley was wounded in the exchange of gunfire and is reported to be stable condition. If it wasn’t for her bold and decisive actions there’s no telling how many more soldiers that murderous lunatic would have killed.
Bravo Zulu Sergeant, you and your family are in our thoughts and prays. As is everyone affected by yesterday’s events. May God Bless you all.
Breaking: Fort Hood Gunman Alive, in Custody
From Fox News:
A military doctor who reportedly feared an impending war deployment is in custody as the sole suspect in a shooting rampage at the Army’s Fort Hood that left 12 dead and 31 wounded, an Army official said Thursday night.
The news that the suspect, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was alive and in stable condition, came as a sudden reversal of early reports that the gunman was among the dead.
Two other soldiers who were taken into custody as possible suspects were released Lt. Gen. Bob Cone told reporters Thursday evening.
A female first responder who shot at Hasan who was previously thought to be dead, was also alive.
The Fox News report goes on to say that Hasan first came to the attention of Federal Officials were apparently still trying to determine if he was the author of those posts and an official investigation had not been opened.
According the Washington Post Hasan was a devout Muslim who attended service regularly:
Hasan attended the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring and was “very devout,” according to Faizul Khan, a former imam at the center. Khan said Hasan attended prayers at least once a day, seven days a week, often in his Army fatigues.
Khan also said Hasan applied to an annual matrimonial seminar that matches Muslims looking for spouses. “I don’t think he ever had a match, because he had too many conditions,” Khan said.
“We never got into details of worldly affairs or politics,” the former imam said of his conversations with Hasan. “Mostly religious questions. But there was nothing extremist in his questions. He never showed any frustration. . . . He never showed any . . . wish for vengeance on anybody.”
I’m not going to speculate on Hasan’s possible motives for a variety of reasons… Suffices to say I’m not buying the media’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder spin. At first blush the circumstantial evidence appears to in very disturbing direction, and it raises a number of questions that need to be answered, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to start jumping to conclusions about Hasan’s motives based on incomplete or inaccurate information. Lets give investigators time do their jobs, I’m sure they’re have answers to all our questions in do course.
Related
- Gunman kills 12 in shooting rampage at Fort Hood base – Reuters
- Local psychiatrist ID’d as Fort Hood gunman worked at Walter Reed – Washington Examiner
- Fort Hood: The largest “Terror act” since 9/11 – Counter terrorism Blog
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Breaking: 12 Dead, 31 Wounded in Shooting at Fort Hood
From Reuters:
Twelve people were killed and at least 31 were wounded when a soldier went on a shooting rampage at the Fort Hood U.S. Army base at Fort Hood Texas on Thursday, base commander Lieutenant-General Bob Cone said.
Cone told reporters at the base that the gunman was killed in the attack at the facility, the biggest military base in the world and a prime point of deployment for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Two other soldiers were apprehended as suspects.
Cone said the shooting took place at a “Soldier Readiness Facility” where soldiers preparing for overseas deployment were getting last-minute medical checkups. The shooting took place at about 1:30 p.m. CST.
“The shooter was killed. He was a soldier. We since then have apprehended two additional soldiers that are suspects. There were eyewitness accounts that there may have been more than one shooter,” Cone said .
ABC News is reporting the shooter has been identified as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a convert to Islam:
The suspected gunman was identified by ABC News as Major Nidal Malik Hasan.
The shooter was killed and two other suspects, who are also soldiers, have been apprehended, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone said.
The gunman reportedly used two handguns.
Update (6:15 p.m.): CBS News is reporting that Maj. Hasan, 39, was a a licensed psychiatrist from Silver Spring, Md. He was apparently scheduled to deploy to Iraq and was upset about it.
Update (6:50 p.m.): The Austin American-Statesman is reporting that the two suspects arrested shortly after the shooting have apparently been released. The Statesman also points to an AP report questioning what Hasan’s religion was or whether he was a convert.
Update ( 7:30 p.m.): The guys over at This ain’t Hell have some how gotten their hands on a copy of Hasan’s ORB… Contrary to media reports he’s never been deployed overseas. I guess that blows the PTSD theory out of the water…
Additional updates here…
Related
- Army: 12 dead, 31 hurt in attacks at Fort Hood – Associated Press
- 12 dead Fort Hood shootings – United Press International
Breaking: Military Recruiter Murdered in Arkansas
A gunman opened fire on two soldiers outside an Army Recruiting center in Little Rock Arkansas earlier today. Both of the victims were taken to a nearby hospital, where one of them died a short time later:
A gunman opened fire Monday at an army recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark., killing one army recruiter and seriously wounding another, FOX16.com reported.
A man in a black SUV drove to the recruitment office and began shooting at around 10:19 a.m., a spokesman with the Little Rock police department told FOX News.
Police reportedly have a suspect in custody.
Jonn Lilyea has more at This Ain’t Hell.
Update (Tuesday, June 2, 2009):
The shooter has been identified as 23 year old Carlos Bledsoe (A.K.A. Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad) a Muslim convert with a grudge against the U.S. military. Bledsoe plead not guilt to capital murder at his arraignment today:
A Muslim convert who said he was against the U.S. military pleaded not guilty Tuesday to capital murder in connection with the shooting of two soldiers outside an Arkansas recruiting center.One soldier died in the attack Monday, police said.
Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, was ordered held without bail at a hearing Tuesday in Little Rock. He is charged in the death of Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, outside the Army Navy Career Center in Little Rock.
“This individual appears to have been upset with the military, the Army in particular, and that’s why he did what he did,” Little Rock Police Lt. Terry Hastings said.
“He has converted to (Islam) here in the past few years,” Hastings said. “We’re not completely clear on what he was upset about. He had never been in the military.
“He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them. That’s what he said.”
Obama Administration Considering Plan to Charge Veterans Private Health Insurance for the Treatment of Service Related Injuries
My Father, a World War II veteran, passed away in January… I hate to say this but I’m glad he’s not here to see this:
The Obama administration is considering a plan to charge the private health insurance of veterans for treatment of service-related ailments that currently are paid for by the Department of Veterans Affairs — a potential change that has veterans’ groups outraged.
“Such a consideration is wholly unacceptable and a total abrogation of our government’s moral obligation and legal responsibility to the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our freedom,” said a letter to President Barack Obama signed by the leaders of 11 prominent veteran organizations.
Several leaders of veteran groups met with Obama administration officials Monday at the White House about the overall budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Last week, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed to the House and Senate committees on veterans’ affairs that the idea to bill veterans’ private individual insurance was being considered by the administration but was not yet a formal proposal.
My Father was not a man prone to the use of profanity but I can assure you the words he would have used to describe this proposal and the people making it, would not have been fit for polite company.
Lets cut through the bullshit here: private insurance companies did not send our wounded veterans into harms way… Our Government did, our veterans have already paid their premiums in blood and our government has an absolute moral obligation to pay for the treatment of their service related injuries. Anything less is a violation of trust.
As far as I’m concerned anyone who would make a proposal like this is a Rat Bastard, Son of Bitch not fit for public office!
Realted:
- The American Legion Strongly Opposed to President’s Plan to Charge Wounded Heroes for Treatment
- Hot Air: American Legion commander “angered” after meeting Obama
- This Ain’t Hell: President won’t budge on veteran insurance proposal
- Rachel Lucas: Ideas don’t get much stupider than this.
Taking Chance
Mark your calendars folks HBO will broadcast “Taking Chance” on Saturday, February 21, 2009 @ 8:00 p.m.
When I first read Marine LtCol Michael R. Strobl’s account of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps home I did it through clenched teeth and with tears in my eyes… That was over four years and it still feels like was just yesterday.
LtCol. Strobl’s story is incredibly powerful and deeply moving. You read his story here.
Lest We Forget: Gaspar Musso
This is a story that will undoubtedly bring a tear to your eye and warm your heart…
Last days for Marine were true Finest hours
Denis Hamil, Daily News, Tuesday, December 9th 2008, 6:49 PM
Sometimes when old Marines die they do fade away into unmarked graves in Potter’s Field.
Such might have been the case for Gaspar Musso, USMC 925050, who fought in the Battle of Tinian in the Marianas Islands in 1944 and who died Nov. 15 at age 84 in a Brooklyn nursing home.
Enter Police Officer Susan Porcello, a PBA delegate at the 68th Precinct in Bay Ridge and one of those big-hearted New Yorkers who still make this the best city on Earth.
“No way was I going to let this brave old Marine who fought for his country in WWII get buried in Potter’s Field,” she says.
Porcello first met Musso back in July when she responded to a 911 ambulance call to the retired insurance broker’s one-bedroom apartment on, appropriately, Marine Ave.
“When my partner, Eddie Ennis, and I arrived at his apartment Gaspar seemed a little bit down about himself,” Porcello says. “He said he felt alone in the world. We talked to him a bit and as I looked around his tidy apartment I noticed that he had served in the military – the Marines to be exact.”
Porcello asked him about family and friends. “Look around you, what do you see?” Musso said. “I have no family or friends.”
To which Porcello said, “Well, I’m your friend.”
Right there, with those four beautiful words, Gaspar Musso was destined to die with the dignity he’d earned with a rifle in his hands, fighting in a USMC uniform, in a war that saved civilization.
If she didn’t already wear a badge, you’d want to pin a star on Susan Porcello.
Musso, a diabetic with a host of other age-related maladies, had accidentally overdosed on his prescription medications. Porcello accompanied him to Lutheran Medical Center.
“I told him I’d be back to visit him and take him to a senior center where he could make some friends,” said Porcello, who comes from a big Italian family with a mom, dad, three sisters and a brother.
“I told him I was making him my ‘Grandpa,’ and if he liked, he could spend Thanksgiving with my family. Eddie and I discussed alternating holidays with Gaspar so he wouldn’t be alone for any of them.”
Two days later Musso was placed in critical care. Porcello asked hospital staff where he’d be buried if he didn’t make it. “Potter’s Field,” said one administrator.
“This infuriated me,” said Porcello. “There was no way I was going to let a man who fought for our country be buried in Potter’s Field. Not on my watch!”
Porcello told the hospital to keep her apprised of Musso’s condition. She had a local priest visit him. Porcello even asked NYPD’s Missing Person’s Squad to search for next of kin. Read the rest…
God Bless Officer Porcello… Godspeed Marine.
H/T: MsUnderestimated
Big Shoes To Fill
In a little less than a month Barack Obama will take the oath of office and become the 44th President of the United States. In some respects he’s going to have some pretty big shoes to fill…
From the Wall Street Journal:
The President Comforts a Marine Mom
By William McGurn, Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2003
This Thursday morn, Julie McPhillips will awake to the great hope that is Christmas Day. And amid her joy for the Savior born of woman in a Bethlehem stable, she will offer two prayers.
The first will be for her son, Lt. Brian McPhillips, killed in action in April 2003 as the First Marine Division fought its way into Baghdad. The other will be for the man on whose orders Lt. McPhillips was sent to Iraq: George W. Bush.
You see, Julie McPhillips knows a side of the president that never seems to make it into the newspapers. Since a meeting in the Oval Office a few years back, the two have exchanged letters, many written in the president’s hand. Through the sadness that binds them together, they look eye to eye and let their hearts do the talking. Read the rest…
And from the Washington Times:
EXCLUSIVE: Bush, Cheney comforted troops privately
Met with thousands of war injured, kin out of spotlight
By Joseph Curl and John Solomon, Washington Times, Monday, December 22, 2008
For much of the past seven years, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have waged a clandestine operation inside the White House. It has involved thousands of military personnel, private presidential letters and meetings that were kept off their public calendars or sometimes left the news media in the dark.
Their mission: to comfort the families of soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to lift the spirits of those wounded in the service of their country.
On Monday, the president is set to make a more common public trip – with reporters in tow – to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, home to many of the wounded and a symbol of controversy earlier in his presidency over the quality of care the veterans were receiving.
But the size and scope of Mr. Bush’s and Mr. Cheney’s private endeavors to meet with wounded soliders and families of the fallen far exceed anything that has been witnessed publicly, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials familiar with the effort.
“People say, ‘Why would you do that?’” the president said in an Oval Office interview with The Washington Times on Friday. “And the answer is: This is my duty. The president is commander in chief, but the president is often comforter in chief, as well. It is my duty to be – to try to comfort as best as I humanly can a loved one who is in anguish.”
Mr. Bush, for instance, has sent personal letters to the families of every one of the more than 4,000 troops who have died in the two wars, an enormous personal effort that consumed hours of his time and escaped public notice. The task, along with meeting family members of troops killed in action, has been so wrenching – balancing the anger, grief and pride of families coping with the loss symbolized by a flag-draped coffin – that the president often leaned on his wife, Laura, for emotional support.
“I lean on the Almighty and Laura,” Mr. Bush said in the interview. “She has been very reassuring, very calming.”
Mr. Bush also has met privately with more than 500 families of troops killed in action and with more than 950 wounded veterans, according to White House spokesman Carlton Carroll. Many of those meetings were outside the presence of the news media at the White House or at private sessions during official travel stops, officials said.
The first lady said those private visits, many of which she also attended, took a heavy emotional toll, not just on the president, but on her as well. Read the rest…
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Unbelievable: Sallie Mae Refuses to Fogive Fallen Marine’s Student Loans – Updated
I’m at a loss for words here… This is simply unbelievable, obscene, insensitive, awful… I don’t know what to call it:
Ungrateful Sallie Mae
By Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe, December 18, 2008
Ian McVey could have been anything. He chose to be a Marine.
It is not a path that most kids from Weston would take, but Ian Thomas McVey was not most kids. He coasted at Weston High. But when he transferred to The Rivers School, where his father taught Latin, he got serious and blossomed.
One day, he told his father, “I want to join the Marines.”
His father said he was proud of him, but had one caveat: go to college first.
Ian McVey went off to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in upstate New York, graduating last year with a double major in computer science and computer engineering. He spurned a lucrative career in the private sector to join the Marine Corps.
“I have wanted to be a Marine for as long as I can remember,” he wrote in his officer training application. “After September 11, 2001, I knew more than ever that this was what I wanted to do. I wanted to serve my country, and after the attack I knew I wanted to join the Marines’ ranks and go into harm’s way so others would not have to.”
Last summer, Second Lieutenant Ian McVey got his orders. He was to go to Iraq as a platoon commander with the Second Combat Engineer Battalion of the Second Marine Division.
On July 19, not long before his unit was to ship out, McVey’s motorcycle was blindsided by a car driven by an 84-year-old woman near Camp Lejeune, N.C. He was killed instantly. He was 23 years old.
John McVey went through his son’s things. Cluttered bureau drawers. Photographs and memories. He also had to settle Ian’s college loans. He wrote to the lenders, asking that the debts be forgiven. Two wrote back, saying they would forgive the loans.
The third, Sallie Mae, the government-created college loan provider that privatized its operations in 2004, refused.
John McVey then wrote a very personal letter to Sallie Mae:
“In the process of his education, Ian amassed considerable loans. But Ian was steadfast in his desire to serve our country rather than begin a life in business where his income would have been double or triple his Marine service payment. Giving to our country was Ian’s calling, and we admired and supported his choice of service. He was a good and noble son and better friend.
“We are asking that you forgive Ian’s loans as his federal loans are being forgiven on the basis of Ian’s choice of service to our country as a patriot and so that our family may not have to bear these financial burdens while we deal with the inconsolable grief over the senseless, tragic and untimely loss of our son. While life has not been fair, we pray that you will be.”
Sallie Mae responded with a computer-generated letter that, aside from a “Please accept our condolences for your loss” stuck in the middle, was a demand for $53,144.
There was no name on the letter. John McVey’s attempts to get a human being to talk to him about this have been met with computer-generated voices.
“What bothers me most is we say our country is at war, but it’s only the soldiers, the Marines, and their families who are at war. We’re not in this together. Sallie Mae couldn’t care less,” John McVey said. “I put my heart and soul into that letter. And a computer wrote back.”
It is beyond obscene that a government now handing out billions in bailouts to boardroom executives whose idea of risk is using a 9-iron instead of a wedge on an approach shot could spawn a lender like Sallie Mae to soak the family of a young man willing to spill his blood for others.
Someone at Sallie Mae had to actually read Mr. McVey’s letter, they owe him more than a simple computer generated form letter.
H/T: Rachel Lucas.
Update: Good News Sallie Mae has decided to forgive Lt. McVey’s student loan:
Sallie Mae, the nation’s biggest provider of student loans, said today it would forgive the debts of a US Marine from Weston who was killed in an accident last summer shortly before he was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq.
Officials at Sallie Mae said they learned about the plight of the family of Marine Second Lieutenant Ian McVey in a column by Kevin Cullen published today in The Boston Globe.
McVey, 23, was killed when his motorcycle was hit by a car driven by an 84-year-old woman near Camp Lejeune, N.C., where he was awaiting deployment with the Second Combat Engineer Battalion of the Second Marine Division.
After his son’s death, John McVey, a Latin teacher at The Rivers School in Weston, had written three lenders who held his son’s college loans, asking them to forgive his debts. Two agreed, but Sallie Mae refused, responding with a computer-generated letter that demanded that John McVey, as co-signer of his son’s student loans, pay the outstanding $53,144 debt. The letter was unsigned.
McVey said his attempts to speak to a person about the situation were thwarted by automated answering machines. Sallie Mae officials said the letter should not have been sent.
“Somebody hit the wrong button,” said Tom Joyce, a spokesman for Sallie Mae. “The wrong letter was sent. Somebody should have handled this differently. It wasn’t handled appropriately. We didn’t live up to our service standard.” Read the rest…
I’m glad to see Sallie Mae do the right thing here… As I said in reply to a commenter to me the issue wasn’t the money or whether or not Sallie Mae forgives the loan. It’s the insensitive and ham-fisted way they dealt with Lt. McVey’s father.
There’s a right way and a wrong way to deal with grieving parents… A real live human being had to read Mr. McVey’s letter and could have – should have – responded in a more compassionate manner.
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