Oh wise moderator... please do tell me what exactly is flamebait. If the moderator is a communist, and my anti-communism statements disagree with his philosophy, does that make me a troll?

Yeah, I have thought about the real situation in Vietnam: a small tin hat group of asshats who will stop at nothing to manage and control the society in which they govern. Being a "small" or a "weak" state militarily these days means nothing... good countries (as in the freedom loving kind) will always find friends amongst strong free states. Unfortunately, the same is true for communist states. Keep drinking the koolaid, friend. I know, communism just needs a little more tweaking and adjustment in order to work... it's sound in theory... ad nauseum.

"If you understood what Communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that one day we would become Communist." (speaking to students at the University of Michigan in 1970)

Yeah, I'll bet the Vietnamese are really loving that communism now. Good thing the U.S. withdrew and left an entire region of the earth to the whims of that benevolent political philosophy.

One of the niftier missions I flew was delivering bomb-resistant vehicles to a few Army units (poor bastards... they didn't join my beloved Corps :-). The reason the Army wanted them was 1) Roadside bombs suck 2) Shortage of armored humvees and 3) armored humvees don't hold up for shit against anything but grenades and small arms fire. We always used to joke that the truly roadside bomb resistant humvee was the Abrams... which unfortunately holds true. So, the DoD, really in a very wise move decided that rather than trying to hob-job jerry rig humvees and the like to be minimally resistant to roadside bombs, it would be better to avoid the bombs all together by sweeping convoy routes just prior to a convoy deployment. Guess what? During the first few months' use of those vehicles, there was an over 90% drop in successful (ie bad for us) roadside bomb attacks. Bombs were being either 1) destroyed by the vehicle's raking action 2) dug up by the vehicle and detonated with little effect, or 3) discovered and dismantled by EOD personnel called onto the scene. When I was home after that deployment, I turned on 60 minutes to watch an ENTIRE segment they did about how we're ill-equipped for roadside bombs by showing the home-made armor guys were putting on their humvees. CBS completely ignored the bomb sweeping vehicles in use, and in so doing lied by the sin of omission. As for the mod who gave me a -1, eh... I don't really give a shit. He is king of his little anthill, and would rather check -1 than debate my argument. Bravo, Mod, bravo.

Absolutely. Great post... I wonder why it only received a score of 1. Oh, that's right, the scoring Gods of /. have about the same amount of objectivity as the Gray Lady.

When I was a young lance corporal, fresh out of MOS training and a newly minted crewman on the KC-130 in Iraq, I had my fair share of ferrying politicians, reporters, and high-ranking officers into Al Asad and Baghdad. This is purely anecdotal, but Fox reporters never carried an air of arrogance about them that I, my aircraft, and my fellow crew, where there for the reporters' benefit. I never had to remind a Fox reporter that yes, they did indeed have to strap in, because a tactical low level flight involves some serious cranking and banking, and if g-forces didn't toss them into a sharp object and kill them, I would. These are the kinds of things that those of us who served with reporters remembers. As a Marine, we also remember other news agencies immediately picking up the story of Haditha, and using Abscam Jack Murtha's statements that it was an open and shut case of unlawful murder on civilian targets-- before an NCIS investigation was even underway. We also remember the initial invasion, when all news outlets were attached to ground forces pushing up from Kuwait, and the Safwan Hill offensive displayed one of the most awesome displays of military firepower since the Second World War, and the reporters gained ratings, awards, etc. They also couldn't really spew much bs at the time, because their safety depended on staying with the extremely valiant, confident, and capable forces, and even the looniest of the bunch couldn't spin much.

By the time Fallujah came around, many media reports would make you believe that the Marines (that were effectively squashing all enemy resistance) had met their match against hardened "militants" (I love that catchphrase), and it was doubtful they would be successful. For those of us who have dug a little deeper into military history and engagements, we realize that Fallujah turned out to literally rewrite the book on the effectiveness of operations in an urban environment amongst an enemy established for ambush... the last historical example being Hue city in Vietnam. While we were out there doing our jobs with what we had available at the time (as the military has always done, in every war of our nation), that wonderful, benevolent, caring media reporting on us and using us for their purposes, could only talk about how thin we were stretched, how poor our supplies were, how ridiculous it was to expect us to do our missions with the numbers and supplies we had. When the political pressure mounted and twenty thousand additional pairs of boots were sent to help, along with massive increases in logistics, it was immediately spun as "putting more troops in harm's way" or "the war's not working so we're throwing more resources down a hole." In reality, having extra boots on the ground and rifles pointed downrange meant greater safety for everyone. Units could take more time off between combat patrols because there were more units to cycle in. Assaults could be handled with more fire support and faster evacuations for the wounded. As much as the mainstream media hates to admit it, "the surge" worked.

Lastly, I want to talk about the thing I hate talking about the most: friends who never made it home. While the moonbats at CBS, ABC, and (MS)NBC typically would have a segment at the end of their evening broadcasts showing the photographs of those killed in Iraq, with little other explanation than to senselessly display the fallen on television to stir animosity toward the war effort, Fox sends real men like LtCol North into the field to report on our units on the ground, how they are adapting and overcoming adversity, how they are still keeping their morale high in the face of a long and costly war.

These are the kinds of things that we veterans of this war will remember. We will also remember when bloggers use that "hard reporting" provided by the "big guys," and put it through basic smell tests to see if it passes. Reuters can thank Little Green Footballs for showing what a bunch of Hamas-friendly tools they were during the Israel-Lebanon war by doctoring photographs to make fires and explosions look more destructive. Dan Rather can also thank Little Green Footballs for proving beyond reasonable doubt that the documents he had were xerox copies of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy from an original written on MS Word. Bloggers might be using "hard journalism" from the big boys, but unlike the big boys, they're putting it through the smell test of honesty.