Posted 11/11/2008 01:13:00 AM by Greyhawk

Army - small




Army - Large




Marines - Small



Marines - Large



Navy - Small




Navy - Large




Air Force - Small





Air Force - Large

Posted 5/06/2006 02:07:00 AM by Greyhawk

Mudville is temporarily down, apparently Hosting Matters is under attack again. We hope to be back up and running soon. Until then we'll post here.

Posted 4/28/2006 12:10:00 PM by Greyhawk

28 April 06

Mudville's main site - and several other blogs - are down, apparently due to a denial of service attack on the servers. Status updates should be posted here.

If it persists, we'll be posting here.

Posted 9/02/2005 02:42:00 PM by Greyhawk

Got Them Ol' Global Warming Blues Again

Or Hurricanes, and all that Jazz.

The National Hurricane Conference is an annual meeting of meteorologists, city officials, emergency managers, first responders, media/communications specialists, insurance industry types, medical folks, military reps, and a host of others who might have a role in preparation for and response to a landfalling hurricane. The yearly conference includes training, discussions, and presentations all designed to help communities prepare for such an event. This year's conference was hosted by New Orleans, and no doubt the impact of hurricane Katrina there was much reduced due to the enthusiastic participation of the city's key leaders in that event.

By odd coincidence the last time I was in New Orleans was to attend a previous National Hurricane Conference, an event I discussed here. (With a follow-up story here.)

Hopefully you stopped and read those two links - they're part of this discussion. But I'm no expert. If you're interested in what the nation's (no, the world's) recognized leading authority on hurricanes has to say about the recent "increase in intensity" of storms, you might enjoy reading this interview with Dr William Gray in this month's Discover magazine.

An excerpt:

With last year’s hurricane season so active, and this year’s looking like it will be, won’t people say it’s evidence of global warming?

G: The Atlantic has had more of these storms in the least 10 years or so, but in other ocean basins, activity is slightly down. Why would that be so if this is climate change? The Atlantic is a special basin? The number of major storms in the Atlantic also went way down from the middle 1960s to the middle ’90s, when greenhouse gases were going up.

Why is there scientific support for the idea?

G: So many people have a vested interest in this global-warming thing—all these big labs and research and stuff. The idea is to frighten the public, to get money to study it more. Now that the cold war is over, we have to generate a common enemy to support science, and what better common enemy for the globe than greenhouse gases?

Are your funding problems due in part to your views?

G: I can’t be sure, but I think that’s a lot of the reason. I have been around 50 years, so my views on this are well known. I had NOAA money for 30 some years, and then when the Clinton administration came in and Gore started directing some of the environmental stuff, I was cut off. I couldn’t get any NOAA money. They turned down 13 straight proposals from me.

I repeat, I'm no expert (just a guy who's survived a half dozen or so such storms) but if you're interested in more thoughts from this comparably dumb schmuck on the topic, see here. For the record I think there has been an exaggeration in the "intensities of recent storms" - and we're paying the price for it now.

But what about next time? Sensational type reporting - and exaggeration of minor storms into major stories - contributes to the lack of response on the part of many to a major storm when one does come along. People who erroneously believe they've survived a cat 3-4 storm will be in for a rude surprise when a real one moves in.

But now the global warming crowd has found their Cindy Sheehan, and her name is Katrina. They won't let her go.

Posted 8/31/2005 06:10:00 PM by Greyhawk

Wrong, wrong, wrong...

I hope this is wrong

I know this is wrong - factually correct but still just plain wrong

This is wrong as in morally repugnant

This is a wrong being made right.

Posted 8/31/2005 05:19:00 PM by Greyhawk

The View From Berlin

News from my current nation-of-residence

Apparently the Americans had it coming: "The American president has closed his eyes to the economic and human damage that natural catastrophes such as Katrina -- in other words, disasters caused by a lack of climate protection measures -- can visit on his country." Who wrote this? None other than Jürgen Trittin, Germany's minister of the environment.

But who calls him on the carpet for it? Germany's own Speigel Online - and in no uncertain terms:

Bullshit. Trittin's article is a slap in the face to all the victims. Let's just assume that the environment minister is right, that there is a direct relationship between greenhouse gases and Hurricane Katrina. Even still this would hardly be the time for yet another round of America bashing and finger pointing. Three years ago, just before the US election, former Minister of Justice Hertha Däubler Gmelin compared US President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler. This time, with German elections looming, the environment minister is using a natural catastrophe as an excuse to once again campaign with subtle anti-Americanism and to unabashedly pat himself on the back. A "Kyoto Two" is "desperately needed" screamed the headline over his insensitive attack.
<...>
It's not the American people's fault that the storm hit and they couldn't have stopped it. The Germans, on the other hand, could have done a lot to prevent World War II. And yet, care packages still rained down from US troops. Trittin's know-it-all stance is therefore not only tasteless, it is also historically blind.

Call me proud to be an American in Germany.

Posted 8/31/2005 05:00:00 PM by Greyhawk

Boots In Baghdad

But not for long:

Well friends, my time here is reaching an end. I am in my final days in Baghdad. This will be my last post from Iraq.

He hasn't left yet - you have time to say "thanks for a job well done." (Read it all, and leave comments here)

Posted 8/31/2005 04:54:00 PM by Greyhawk

Note

:Looks like the server problems are ongoing. Trackbacks and comments are currently not available on the main site - and the site itself is up and down. Welcome to our back-up site.

Posted 8/31/2005 03:57:00 PM by Greyhawk

The Upcoming No Home Homecoming

The AP reports on Louisiana Guard members in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Since Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, National Guard troops from Gulf Coast states serving in Iraq have followed the disaster, worried about families and friends back home.

"It's a significant emotional event. Their families are on the forefront of the disaster," said Lt. Col. Jordan Jones of the 141st Field Artillery of the Louisiana National Guard.
<...>
Asked how his troops felt being in Iraq while their state was in such difficulty, Jones replied: "Well, we all know our primary mission is the federal one.

"The secondary mission is to serve at the pleasure of the governor in disaster relief and other missions," said Jones, 44, who works for a company that manages the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

National Guard troops in Louisiana have been busy rescuing people from the deluge.

There are, of course, thousands of Guard, reserve, and active duty forces on scene or mustering for deployment to the Gulf Coast even now.

But it's a cruel irony that some of these soon to be returning GIs might have a homecoming without the home.

You can help.

Posted 8/31/2005 02:52:00 PM by Greyhawk

Trendspotting

The Washington Post is now including technorati trackbacks to blogs on their individual stories.

Newsweek added the same feature a few weeks back.

Posted 8/31/2005 11:26:00 AM by Greyhawk

It Ain't Over Til It's Over There over there

Ladies and gentlemen, the MilBlogs are proud to present the first review of "Over There" from a soldier actually over there.

Posted 8/31/2005 09:34:00 AM by Greyhawk

The Vicious Circle

From Iraq, former Saddam army "strongman" Colonel Watban Jassam:

Tips On How To Beat US From Insurgents' Consultant

To gauge US public opinion, he has become an avid watcher of satellite news channels, and never misses the White House press briefings
<...>
To win the war against the US military and Badr, Colonel Jassam advises the Omariyun to follow two short-term goals - to cement mujahideen control over the Ramadi area, and to stage operations that will increase pressure on US opinion to withdraw troops.
<...>
To achieve their second goal, turning Americans against the war, the mujahideen need to shape their operations "to support anti- war sentiment in the west", he says.

His customers respond:

Soldier formerly from Syracuse killed in Iraq

SYRACUSE, N.Y. A 23-year-old soldier formerly from Syracuse has been killed in Iraq.

Charles Rubado says that his son, Second Lieutenant Charles "Charlie" Rubado, was killed by a sniper Monday night while leading a patrol.

Rubado graduated in 2000 from Corcoran High School, where he played soccer, and moved to Florida with his parents to attend college. He graduated from the Reserve Officers' Training Corps in southern Florida in 2004 and trained at Fort Carson in Colorado before heading to Iraq in March.

His father, a Vietnam veteran, tells the Syracuse Post-Standard, "He's safe now, but there's a hole in my heart."

But even before the family had been notified Cindy Sheehan had completed the circle:

While George golfed yesterday, the worst hurricane ever struck New Orleans; oil went up to over 68.00/barrel; and an American soldier was killed in the charade and cataclysmic occupation of Iraq. The soldier's family doesn't even know what's going to hit them yet. The death is "Pending Notification." I continually ask myself: "How do George Bush and other death-mongers live with themselves?" While George vacations and bikes and golfs his way to the lowest poll numbers since Richard Nixon, other "patriots" are wrapping themselves in the Stars and Stripes and going along with the farce that the mission from hell: Killing more people in Iraq, because so many have already been killed" is somehow a good thing ordained by God. I can live with myself, but trust me, sleep does not come easily to me these days.

And the ball goes back to the "insurgents"...