One Bullet Away

Nathaniel Fick was in the Marine Corps, during which time he was stationed in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In his book, One Bullet Away, Fick tells us about all of the things he experienced as a Marine officer.

Fick went to college before joining the Corps, a situation that people don't really consider. People think that the military is a way for young punks to straighten out their troubled lives, they rarely if ever consider the possibility of a college graduate student being in the military. Well Fick tells us that his decision wasn't all that hard to make. He remembered a time when his house was broken into when he was standing right there, and the burglars just looked at him and laughed when he tried to stop them. He says that he'll never forget the look his dad gave him. He joined the Marines to become a man,to discover who he was.

He takes us through the training he had to do to become an officer. To become an officer is a little different than becoming an enlisted Marine. First off the requirements are a lot more strict, the military doesn't want it's enlisted men to be in the hands of a bunch of dumbasses. Second the training is different. They learn how to lead men. Enlisted men spend their training being taught to follow orders and obey their seniors, not so with the officers. Yes they are taught to follow the orders of their seniors, but they are also taught to give orders, how to get the respect of their men, and to stay calm in the face of danger to give them confidence.

After completing training Fick was deployed on what was basically a practice tour. He sails with a company of men to get accumulated to commanding. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 happened during his deployment in the South Pacific, and his company was used as the first troops into Afghanistan so America could extract her revenge. He describes being proud that he was the one who got to retaliate against these men in the place of every American. He spent the remainder of his deployment on the ground in Afghanistan and when he returned home he transferred to First Recon.

The majority of his book is based on his experiences while commanding in First Reconnaissance division. He conveys the stupidity of the way things were handled, the incompetence of the senior officers, and the overall experience of combat. Most of the problem lay in that the senior officers were there. Normally in Recon the highest ranking man on the ground are the sergeants, these teams within the platoons are trained and able to function as independent killing machines, and when you throw the seniors in there with them it inhibits the ability of the team.

Fick gives us all of the details of combat and of his experiences in Iraq, good and bad. It's an excellent book and I recommend it to all who want to learn more about what we're doing over there. He lays out the military hierarchy in a way that is easily understood by even those who are completely ignorant of the military. Have fun reading it!

Nuclear Payload

When the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it set in motion a fierce race between the Soviet Union and the U.S. to have weapons more superior than the other.

Whoever said that a little competition was good for you wasn't referring to the Cold War. Atmospheric tests of the Atom Bomb and soon after that, the Hydrogen Bomb released radiation into the air to drift where the wind took it. At the time we didn't know enough about radiation to be testing it in the atmosphere, but have no fear the government had the answer to that to. The U.S. government at the time was conducting secret experiments to test what radiation does to humans. They did this on people, often without having the consent of the victim.

The U.S. and Soviets competed for nuclear arms superiority until 1991 when a tense truce was reached. Since that time much has been done to disarm both nations and government run organisations are slowly dismantling the two nation's warheads.

Why do we feel the need to be armed with enough nuclear weapons to kill of the human race? That answer escapes me. Or maybe the answer to that question is above all our pay grades.

As of today the U.S. has more than 20,000 nukes, with half that number on hairline triggers, already pre targeted, fueled up, just waiting for the signal to fly their destructive path. All it would take is one accidental firing of a nuke from either side and within twenty-four hours, the world would be uninhabitable. Pretty scary when you think about it, but most people don't know any of this stuff. Ignorance is bliss right?

The War

The War in Iraq has been going on for the better part of a decade, or if you wanna get technical you could say for the better part of a few decades with small intermissions. It's been going on for so long that most people couldn't even tell you what we're fighting for anymore. The reason anyone even considered setting foot in the Middle East in the first place, is the huge oil field that lie beneath it's surface.

But in his infinite wisdom president Bush decided to give our occupation of this foreign country a noble name. The War On Terrorism. How valiant he made the invasion sound in the wake of 9/11 to get the support of the American people.

We let Bush get us so rooted in Iraq that now that a new president wants to pull us out he's finding it more difficult and facing criticism of his own. Well I for one am not happy, because not only are our troops still over there, they aren't always as protected as we would want them to be. Because this war has lasted so long the financial support that it had at the start has deteriorated. Add to that the growing recession and you find our troops a thousand miles up shit creek without a paddle.

Even at the start of the war some of our troops were going to Iraq ill equipped to fight a war. Their mode of transportation, Humvees with little or no armor, and with little hope of stopping a round from an AK, much less a direct hit from an RPG. We have to face the facts. When we sent our troops over there it was an act of retaliation. We didn't give them time to prepare properly for what they were to face, and the situation has hardly improved. In some cases, soldiers used scrapes of metal to add extra protection to the doors of their Humvees.

I'm sick of our our troops being neglected. It's time to either stop this war, or give them sufficient supplies to fight the enemy. If we don't there will be many more problems in the future.

Generation Kill

Generation Kill is an 7 part HBO mini series that follows the first recon marines as they invade Iraq. Recon Marines are the best of the best. They're used in war to gather Intel on enemy positions and other missions where stealth is essential. On average the U.S. military spends a million dollars to train each recon Marine. Which is a huge jump from the $300,000 spent on the average grunt. The reason they spend so much more is that recon Marines have to be train in every field imaginable, from common fighting to diving and parachuting.

But in this war, the geniuses behind the planning decided to use First Recon Battalion as shock troops. This means that they were the first ground troops to enter Iraq at the start of the invasion. Is this starting to sound like a bad idea? Good.

The series is based on a novel by Evan Wright and is sort of a shot to the command of the Military. The series shows the stupidity of Bravo Company's commanding officers in their need to impress their superiors. It's really frustrating at times to be watching and know that they had to face some of the stuff they did. The extent of the stupidity ranges. In one episode it shows the Marines in light armoured Humvees strong pointing towns so units of tanks and other armoured units can roll through. One of the Marines commented: "Why should battalion send a five million dollar tank to be destroyed, when they can send us in our piece of shit Humvees?"

The series is all about their journey both physically and mentally through Iraq. You see how the war affects each of their personalities, and the actors do a great job of portraying these changes. But one thing that stays consistent through the whole thing is the brotherhood that has formed between these men. It left me yearning for that kind of bond, knowing that any one of the guys would give their life for you and you would do the same in return.

Here's a highlight real from Generation Kill




This war is far different from any war that has ever been fought. World War One start modern warfare and the War in Iraq has started the future of warfare. The Soldiers fighting in this war have been more prepared to kill the enemy. The art of war has been industrialized in the sense that our troops are semi-skilled workers to work the machines of death. I just hope that we don't get too carried away and lose sight of the reasons we fight.