Category: bad memories

Posted on

It Is a Disheartening Time in Afghanistan. Many People Killed and Many still Stranded

+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know.

____________________________________

Military news…

It is still very disheartening in Afghanistan. Americans stranded. Afghan people being killed by the thousands. No signs of many getting out safe.

Afghans were clinging to the sides of U.S. military aircraft to escape the Taliban’s sweep of Kabul. Worst of all, some of them lost their lives falling from the aircraft as they left the runway. It’s only the latest in a terrible situation happening at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

_____________________

“Like many, I struggle to make sense of it all,” wrote Air Force Special Operations Command chief Lt. Gen. James Slife in a heartfelt Facebook post he penned about the fall of Afghanistan this weekend. Like many other veterans and service members, Slife spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, so it’s difficult to watch it all unravel before his eyes.

_______________________

M4 rifles, M24 sniper rifles, M2 .50 caliber machine guns and MRAPS make up only some of the vast quantity of U.S. military equipment captured by the Taliban in recent weeks.

“Now is the time where you bend the rules to save people’s lives.” That’s from Marine veteran Ryan Schalles, who’s prepared to bend a few rules of his own to get Omar, the man who served as an interpreter for his Marine Corps platoon during his 2012 tour in Afghanistan, safely out of the country.

You too can help Afghan interpreters and refugee. There are nonprofit groups trying to help Afghan refugees navigate the special immigrant visa process and find housing for new arrivals; and there are lawmakers with resources to get them moving sooner.
________________________________________________


American citizens and Afghans who worked with Americans are on their own if they want to get past the Taliban’s many checkpoints outside of Kabul’s airport. That’s because the U.S. military, the most powerful armed force in the world, isn’t prepared to send any of the 4,500 troops at the airport into the city to do it.

____________________________________

It has been a tough week for me. I am so saddened by what is happening in Afghanistan. I feel helpless, and I am sure the people stuck there do to.

I see visions of Vietnam in my head constantly, only this is much worse. Our president struck out on his leadership. Not much of support from him.

We need a leader who won’t take what is happening there lightly, and go there NOW to help more.

______________________________

A reminder that I have slowed down my sharing of excerpts from my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.

A whole section of the book will be interviews with veterans who have been in the trenches. Some share about losing friends. Many had near death experiences. One WWII veteran had not one, but three near death experiences. Amazing story.

The book will come out soon.

_______________________________

How is your life going? Do you remember lost friends from the military?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 12,820 fellow veterans here who have your back.

If it’s just too much for you, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number to call 24/7. There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until they know you are OK.

Do not live the death of your friends alone.

1-800-273-8255…texting 838255

________________________________

Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

___________________________________

+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know.

Posted on

Panic is High in Afghanistan, Especially at the Kabul Airport

+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know.

__________________________________

I told you I would keep you up dating on my SFC friend who is in harms way in Kabul, Afghanistan. The city has been over run. We have all seen the panic at the airport.

i haven’t heard from my friend in two days. Has me worried big time. She is part of the military that is the last in Afghanistan. She is a huge harms way situation. Please pray for her.

___________________________________

Military news….


The Coast Guard belatedly commemorated its 231st birthday last week with a record offload of illegal drugs.

_______________________

For some reason, White House officials still believe the conquering Taliban will settle for a negotiated peace with the collapsing Afghan government, rather than total victory. Then again, when it comes to Afghanistan, U.S. presidents rarely like to face reality.

_________________________

The scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul has devolved into chaos as both Afghan and foreign nationals seek to flee Afghanistan amid the Taliban’s violent campaign to reclaim the country. Social media footage captured at the airport shows hundreds of people on the airport flight line, apparently blocking the take-off of at least one commercial airliner.

The Taliban captured Kabul on Sunday as former President Ashraf Ghani fled to neighboring Tajikistan, leaving Taliban fighters to occupy the presidential palace and mark the return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan almost exactly 20 years after the United States initially invaded the country.

While President Joe Biden has ordered another 1,000 troops to bolster the roughly 5,000 U.S. troops already a the airport to help evacuate Americans who work at the Kabul embassy and some Afghans who have applied for visas, the U.S. embassy in Kabul warned on Sunday that the airport had come under fire amid the Taliban’s push into the city.

“The security situation in Kabul is changing quickly including at the airport,” the embassy said in a statement. “There are reports of the airport taking fire; therefore we are instructing U.S. citizens to shelter in place.”

The U.S. military’s focus right now is evacuating Americans from Afghanistan.

For Afghans, the prospect of getting a flight to another country is virtually non-existent for the foreseeable future. While Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has claimed that the evacuation from Kabul is “not Saigon” the U.S. government is once again leaving a country as tens of thousands of people in the capital are terrified of retribution from the new regime.

One Kam Air flight was apparently unable to take off because hundreds of people tried to board it.

“The runway of the airport was filled with a constellation of uniforms from different nations,” the New York Times reported. “They joined contractors, diplomats and civilians all trying to catch a flight out of the city. Those who were eligible to fly were given special bracelets, denoting their status as noncombatants.

Despite the panic that has engulfed the country in recent weeks, the Biden administration has held fast to its decision to rapidly withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan amid the worsening security situation there.

“When I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our Forces and our allies’ Forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict,” Biden said in a statement on Saturday prior to the Taliban’s march on Kabul. “I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.”

_______________________________

The article about Afghanistan is heartbreaking. How could the president not know this would happen, and why hasn’t he been taking people out earlier. Many people will die now because the Taliban have no mercy.

________________________________

I shared with you a couple of posts ago, that I was cutting back on my excerpts from my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.

You can see some of them by searching the archives.

I will be sending the book to my publisher soon.

________________________________

What’s happening in your world? Do you have friends still in Afghanistan? Do you worry they will not make it home?

FEAR NOT!

There are over 12,800 fellow veterans subscribed to this site. What don’t you join them by clicking on the subscribe button at the top of this page. When you do, all future posts will directly to your inbox.

If the days are just too much for you, GETHELP!

Here is a toll free number to call, 24/7.

There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. they will not hang up until they know you are OK.

Never fear the world.

1-800-273-8255… texting 838255

___________________________________

Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never forsaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

___________________________________

+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know.

Posted on

Many Soldiers Fear Going to Sleep, Because of the Nightmares That Are Waiting for Them

+If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know.

___________________________________

Military news…

A self-proclaimed ‘incel’ allegedly joined the U.S. Army to train for a mass shooting of women but washed out after four months. What’s an incel? They are men who preach violence against women out of sexual frustration, and at least 50 people have died in the U.S. and Canada from incel attacks.

Prosecutors allege that sometime between July and August 2019, 21-year-old Tres Genco wrote a note saying he “will get arms training in BCT [Basic Combat Training] and the “KC [kill count] needs to be huge! 3,000?” 

By the time Genco was arrested, Sheriff’s deputies found an AR-15 rifle modified to shoot fully automatic, a 9mm Glock pistol without a serial number, and plenty of ammo. “I will slaughter out of hatred,” he allegedly wrote in a manifesto.

__________

Getting attacked by a bear is one thing. Getting attacked by the same bear repeatedly, however, is the stuff of both nightmares and films starring Leonardo DiCaprio. A story about a recent Coast Guard rescue of a man fighting off bears in Alaska in a real-life version of ‘The Revenant.’

This was the experience of one unidentified man at a mining camp in Alaska before the Coast Guard rescued him last week, according to a news release from the service. And they came just in the nick of time: “He only had two rounds left,” said Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer First Class Ali Blackburn. “I’d imagine you’d be a little loopy after not sleeping for so long.”

_____________

What does the U.S. Army and the ‘Fast and the Furious’ movie franchise have in common? They both have robot mini-tanks that look ready to kick some serious butt.

_____________

Most people wouldn’t do push-ups after climbing up 20,310 feet of snow and ice, but it was easy-peasy compared to what these airmen just went through. a tory about a group of remarkable Air Force mountaineers. Last month, the airmen climbed Denali, the highest peak in North America, but not without a near-fatal incident that took all of their training and resilience to get through alive.

_____________

An Army Ranger who recently returned from Afghanistan has been accused of brutally murdering a security guard in Tacoma, Washington.  Spc. Patrick Byrne is now being held in a Washington jail.

___________________________________

Here is another excerpt from Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.

Skosh the Dog

While I was stationed in South Korea, we had a company stray dog that made our Quonset hut home. She was a loving dog that was pretty small, and that is why we named her Skosh.

We had to protect her as much as we could, because the Koreans consider dogs a delicacy. She wouldn’t last long in the village outside the Camp Red Cloud compound.

Much to our surprise she got pregnant. We didn’t know there were any other dogs in the area. I guess when a dog is in heat, any dog will find them.

She had four little puppies. As soon as they were born, right in our hut, she took them and hid them. We feared for the lives of those puppies, and we were right. Withen a week after Skosh moved them, she came back to our hut and never left again. She obviously lost her babies.

It was sad time for the soldiers in my hut. We knew what had happened, but there was nothing we could do about it. Skosh wanted to raise her babies her way.

I find that this happens in life today. We do whatever we can to guide our children, and show them what is best for their lives, but they still go into unknown territories and see what they can find out.

______________________________

There is much more to this chapter in the book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.

Come back often to see more. Better yet… Go to the top of the pages and click on “Subscribe.” When you do all future posts go directly to you inbox.

_______________________________

How are you doing? Does going to sleep frighten you?

FEAR NOT!

There are 12,525 fellow veterans subscribed to this site and they all have your back.

If the night a just too much for you, GET HELP!

Here is a toll free number for your to call 24/7.

There are highly qualified counselors there to help you. They will not hang up until the know you are OK.

Never sleep in fear!

1-800-273-8255 ….For texting, 838255

_________________________________

Remember:

You are never alone.

You are never fosaken.

You are never unloved.

And above all…never, ever, give up!

___________________________________

If you like what you see, please subscribe at the top of this page where it says, “subscribe.” When you do, all future posts will come directly to your inbox. Also, if you know some else who could benefit from this site, please let them know.