This amount of arrogance, the sheer impardonable pretension, is bound to be popular.
It's from a whole blue-on-blue essay.
You're not a coward merely because you're afraid to seek the truth when it might not conform to your views ... rather your chickensh** views are shaped by the fact you're a coward.
He can't speak English, and doesn't know anything about our history, customs, or way of life. In fact, up until now in his life he has allowed others to care for his every need and want. He has lived his entire life thousands of miles distant from the United States.
But Michael has one thing that above all entitles him to American citizenship: the blood of a hero in his veins.
That's him, there on the right.
Because Michael H Ferschke III is the infant son of Sgt Michael H. Ferschke, Jr., a Marine killed in Iraq in 2008. He ought to grow to maturity among those who appreciate the sacrifice his father made for liberty.
And his mother Hotaru Ferschke is just the one to teach him.
[Originally posted at 20090114.0902, updated 20090116.1040
Thanks to FM in comments, I fixed the stupid name SNAFU.]
w/t Dan Collins
You've come a long way since Tunn Tavern, but in a way you're still there.
Oooraa!
Mike the Marine hits the target, capturing both the war-weary homesick irony and determined ass-kicking awesomeness that is the American fighting man. Click the title.
w/t Harvey.
Rest in Peace, 1LT Travis Manion
He could have done anything, but he proudly chose the warrior's path, and said that it would dishonor a man as a warrior not to continue the fight which felled him.
"The American people must know we too lost a close friend and brother this day," said Iraqi Army Col. Ali Jafar, Commanding Officer of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Iraqi Brigade, who previously spoke at Manion's memorial service. "May his family know we too lost family, and we share their loss, our loss."
Iraqi soldiers have since named a combat outpost after Manion.
(A rare cross-post at Modern Sourcery)
What do housewives, Marines, and graduate students have in common with bloggers?
Completeness is more than thoroughly doing a job, it's doing the job so well that you know, without looking, that every part of it is done. Completeness is examining and addressing the hidden and parts of a task and those which adjoin it in order to know that all visible and assigned parts of the task are completed.
US Marines learn "attention to detail" in boot camp, and then should practice it every moment of their lives thereafter. For the Marine, that means acquiring the habit of going beyond what is merely necessary, and covering the parts of the mission or duty that do not show, whether that means removing old residue before swabbing a deck or checking the closets and attic when clearing a building of hostile combatants.
Completeness is not just practicing a maneuver over and over again until everyone gets it right. That's proficiency. Completeness is knowing all of the roles that make up the mission, and being ready to take up the slack for a buddy who for whatever reason doesn't complete his part. To the Marine, completeness means looking for trouble before it finds him. That's why he joined in the first place.
For anyone who does household chores, completeness means moving all of the furniture to clean underneath it, so that there will be no surprises should a guest come calling, and no chance that pests or children will find dirt to put to the various uses they would put it.
For a graduate student, completeness means studying things that are tangential to his field, and becoming proficient or even expert at things in his field which have become commodity knowledge. For instance, a computer science doctoral conferee should:
