A 19-year-old Texas woman is the first woman in the Battle of Afghanistan to earn the Silver Star and only the second woman since World War II to earn the nation’s third-highest medal for valor.

The only other female to earn the Silver Star since World War II was Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester of Nashville Tennessee who received the award in 2005 for gallantry during an insurgent ambush on a convoy in Iraq. Prior to that four Army nurses were the first and only women to receive the medal. Just last year three women who served as nurses in World War I were given the medal posthumously.

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown

Army Spc. Monica Lin Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers after a roadside bomb tore through a convoy of Humvees in the eastern Paktia province in April 2007, the military said.

After the explosion, which wounded five soldiers in her unit, Brown ran through insurgent gunfire and used her body to shield wounded comrades as mortars fell less than 100 yards away, the military said.

“I did not really think about anything except for getting the guys to a safer location and getting them taken care of and getting them out of there,” Brown told The Associated Press on Saturday at a U.S. base in the eastern province of Khost.

Brown, of Lake Jackson, Texas, is scheduled to receive the Silver Star later this month. She was part of a four-vehicle convoy patrolling near Jani Kheil in the eastern province of Paktia on April 25, 2007, when a bomb struck one of the Humvees.

“We stopped the convoy. I opened up my door and grabbed my aid bag,” Brown said.

She started running toward the burning vehicle as insurgents opened fire. All five wounded soldiers had scrambled out.

“I assessed the patients to see how bad they were. We tried to move them to a safer location because we were still receiving incoming fire,” Brown said.

~~ snip ~~

Brown, of the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, said ammunition going off inside the burning Humvee was sending shrapnel in all directions. She said they were sitting in a dangerous spot.

“So we dragged them for 100 or 200 meters, got them away from the Humvee a little bit,” she said. “I was in a kind of a robot-mode, did not think about much but getting the guys taken care of.”

For Brown, who knew all five wounded soldiers, it became a race to get them all to a safer location. Eventually, they moved the wounded some 500 yards away and treated them on site before putting them on a helicopter for evacuation.

“I did not really have time to be scared,” Brown said. “Running back to the vehicle, I was nervous (since) I did not know how badly the guys were injured. That was scary.”

The military said Brown’s “bravery, unselfish actions and medical aid rendered under fire saved the lives of her comrades and represents the finest traditions of heroism in combat.”

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Trackposted to Debbie Lee on A NEWT ONE!, Rosemary’s Thoughts, 123beta, Right Truth, Oblogatory Anecdotes, The Amboy Times, Big Dog’s Weblog, Adeline and Hazel, Pursuing Holiness, Nuke Gingrich, third world county, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Wolf Pangloss, A Newt One, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Newsweek is reporting that a Taliban commander gave them a call the other day to let them know that they knew Prince Harry was in Afghanistan all along. Naner- naner-naner!

But talking to newsweek via satellite phone from that region last week, deputy commander Mullah Abdul Karim recalled getting an urgent message from Taliban intelligence in late December or early January that “an important chicken” had joined British troops in his area of operations. Karim promptly sent his men hunting for the prince. “He is our special enemy,” says Karim. “Our first option was to capture him as a prisoner, and the second, to kill him.”

Karim told Newsweek that they thought they had a few sighting of the Prince and his unit as it traveled around the province but they never got close enough to actually take him.

As everybody knows by new, Prince Harry was suddenly pulled out of Afghanistan after The Drudge Report blew his cover and it was publicly revealed where the Prince was stationed. You know the story about loose lips sinking ships. We apparently have to be reminded of that again. It turns out the British Royal Family had bribed their own tabloids to keep quiet about Prince Harry’s deployment with promises of lots of pictures and stories when he returned. One would think that the ‘journalists’ would have done it for the love of their country, but apparently the promises of photos worked for a while at least.

Karim did give a very nice compliment to the young Prince’s ability to conduct himself as a warrior …

“He may be a prince, but he didn’t have a prince’s heart,” says Karim. “He proved as cruel and brutal as other British soldiers, bombing and shelling innocent Afghans and Taliban.”

Good for Harry!!!!

British and American intelligence officials think that Karim is just spreading propaganda to try to save face that they didn’t know Prince Harry was in their country. However, there’s no telling what they knew considering Karim and his comrades can just pick up the phone and give Newsweek a call to have a chat. Also considering that so some journalist are more concerned with telling everything they know than with the security of the nation or the deaths of our soldiers, there’s just no telling who told what to who.

Hey Newsweek, the next time Karim calls would you please forward the number to Prince Harry’s unit in Afghanistan so they can take care of Karim? Thanks.

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Trackposted to Rosemary’s Thoughts, 123beta, Right Truth, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, third world county, Wake Up America, The World According to Carl, Pirate’s Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, Wolf Pangloss, , Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Stageleft, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

There were a few minutes of anxiety today when reports came in that a helicopter carrying three US Senators had to make an emergency landing in Afghanistan. The Senators visiting the region were John Kerry, Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel.

Senators’ Copter Makes Emergency Landing

WASHINGTON (AP) — A helicopter carrying three senior U.S. senators has made an emergency landing in Afghanistan.

Sens. John Kerry, Joseph Biden and Chuck Hagel were aboard the aircraft., according to Jon Summers, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The lawmakers are on a trip this week that includes stops in India, Turkey and Pakistan.

Kerry and Biden are Democrats from Massachusetts and Delaware, respectively, and the Republican Hagel is from Nebraska.

Fortunately, the story had not been out long when we learned that there had been a mechanical problem on the helicopter and it had landed, been fixed and was airborne again before we even knew it had happened. All was well.

Senator John Kerry’s application for a Purple Heart as a result of the incident has been received and is being processed.

AP

CAIRO, Egypt - One al-Qaida’s top commanders in Afghanistan, Abu Laith al-Libi was killed in Afghanistan, a Web site used by militant groups said Thursday.

Al-Libi was a key link between the Taliban and al-Qaida. He led and al-Qaida training camp and appeared in a number of Internet videos. The U.S. says he was likely behind the February 2007 bombing at the U.S. base at Bagram in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney. The attack killed 23 people.

While the claim could not be verified independently, the announcement of his death appeared as a banner in a section of the Web site reserved for affiliated militant organizations, according to the Washington-based SITE Institute which monitors such sites.

“As the banner was posted … by a webmaster of the forum, it seems as if the announcement of his death has been confirmed to the forum administrators,” SITE said in an e-mail to news organizations.

Another one bites the dust!!! Mark up one for our guys!!!

KABUL, Afghanistan - A mother who tried to stop her son from carrying out a suicide bomb attack triggered an explosion in the family’s home in southern Afghanistan that killed the would-be bomber, his mother and three siblings, police said Monday.

The would-be bomber had been studying at a madrassa, or religious school, in Pakistan, and when he returned to his home in Uruzgan province over the weekend announced that he planned to carry out a suicide attack, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said.

Surviving family members told police that the suicide vest exploded during a struggle between the mother and her son, said Juma Gul Himat, Uruzgan’s police chief. The man’s brother and two sisters were also killed.

Family members said the would-be bomber gave his family $3,600 before telling them he intended to carry out the attack, Himat said.

I don’t even know how to respond to this! Obviously, the family was not supportive of the suicide mission in the way we see mother’s celebrating their sons killing themselves and others in Palestine. I guess the question for me is, where did he get that $3,600 to give to his family before he went on his mission? Since the family didn’t support it, then whoever gave him the $3,600 would be the link to whoever is using young impressionable boys to do these suicide missions.

The White House has announced that Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Navy Seal killed in Afghanistan will be awarded the Medal of Honor. It is the first awarded to Troops serving in Afghanistan and the first for a Navy Seal since the Vietnam War.

Lt. Michael P. Murphy, 29, who had SEAL training here and was assigned to a SEAL team in Hawaii, was killed in June 2005 during a mission in the Hindu Kush mountains to find a key Taliban leader.

Ambushed by insurgents, Murphy’s four-man SEAL team engaged in a fierce firefight and was in danger of being overrun.

Although he was wounded, Murphy risked his life to save fellow SEALs and then maneuvered into an open position to send out an emergency call and to continue firing at the enemy. While making the call, he was hit again.

Only one of the SEALs on the team survived. Eight other SEALs and eight soldiers aboard a MH-47 Chinook helicopter sent to rescue Murphy’s team also were killed when the craft was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

The incident was the worst single-day loss of life for Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.

“Mike Murphy was a true warrior, a true leader. No one cared more about his men than he did,” said a SEAL officer who asked to be identified only as Sean. Because their missions are secret, SEALs prefer to remain anonymous.

President Bush will present the Medal of Honor to Murphy’s parents on Oct. 22 at the White House.

Only two other military personnel — Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham and Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith — have been awarded the nation’s highest honor for bravery for actions undertaken since Bush sent troops into Afghanistan in 2001. Both of those awards were for bravery in Iraq and were posthumous.

The three other members of Murphy’s team — Matthew Axelson, 25, and Danny Dietz, 31, who were both killed, and Marcus Luttrell, 32 — have each been awarded the Navy Cross, second only to the Medal of Honor.

Luttrell is the author of “Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10.”

Murphy grew up on Long Island and graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1998 with degrees in political science and psychology. He was commissioned a Navy ensign in 1999 and graduated from SEAL training in Coronado in 2001.

His father, Daniel, an attorney and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, said the assignment to Afghanistan was particularly important to his son. Murphy had friends in the New York police and fire departments and wore an NYFD patch on his uniform.

“He told me, ‘We’re going where the people who planned, plotted and recruited for 9/11 are,’ ” Daniel Murphy said.

Murphy’s mother, Maureen, said the Medal of Honor meant that “now the world will know what his family has always known: how special he was.”

At the SEAL base in Coronado, Murphy and his teammates were the subject of numerous conversations as word of the White House announcement circulated.

Though SEALs’ grief lingers, they preferred to praise Murphy’s steely determination and leadership.

“I’ll remember him and those other guys every day of my life,” said Cory, a SEAL petty officer first class.

hattip: Conservative Thoughts

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Stop the ACLU, Perri Nelson’s Website, , Big Dog’s Weblog, The Populist, Leaning Straight Up, Adeline and Hazel, Right Celebrity, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Church and State, The Random Yak, DeMediacratic Nation, 123beta, Phastidio.net, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Nuke’s, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Wolf Pangloss thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

from Lubbock Marine Parents

Paramount has made a movie, ‘The Kite Runner’, about cultural issues and ethnic tensions in Afghanistan. Now they are having to delay the release of the movie because of threats on the lives of the Afghan boys who acted in the movie. The movie producers had no idea there would be problem filming boys of rival tribes acting out the tensions between their tribes.

It seems that Paramount has gotten itself into a bit of a jam by going not understanding the culture they are dealing with.

Hangama Anwari, the child-rights commissioner for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said on Monday that she had urged Paramount’s counterterrorism consultant to get Ahmad Khan out of the country, at least until after the movie is released. “They should not play around with the lives and security of people,” she said of the filmmakers. “The Hazara people will take it as an insult.”

Of course, the hollywood execs are saying its the increased violence and tensions in Kabul that are creating the problem for these children actors. They said they felt safe and that they were impressed with the ‘innocence’ of the people prior to making the movie. Now that the movie is made, the Afghans are taking exception to its portrayal of their culture. They are particularly upset about a rape scene depicted in the movie.

They might have gotten a clue with Afghans living in the West wouldn’t cooperate with filming the movie.

The film’s director, Marc Forster, whose credits include “Finding Neverland” (2004), another film starring child actors, said he saw “The Kite Runner” as “giving a voice and a face to people who’ve been voiceless and faceless for the last 30 years.” Striving for authenticity, he said, he chose to make the film in Dari, an Afghan language, and his casting agent, Kate Dowd, held open calls in cities with sizable Afghan communities, including Fremont, Calif., Toronto and The Hague. But to no avail: Mr. Forster said he “just wasn’t connecting with anybody.”

‘Just wasn’t connecting with anybody’ means they weren’t getting cooperation. So that left them with going into Afghanistan to find actors who, apparently, didn’t really understand about the film making process.

Paramount is hoping around like crazy trying to rectify themselves and prevent themselves from being sued. They have gone so far as to hire a former CIA counterterrorism operative and a Washington-based political adviser to go to Afghanistan and evaluate the situation.

Mr. Kiriakou’s briefing, which he reprised in a telephone interview, could make a pretty good movie by itself. A specialist on Islam at the State Department nearly wept envisioning a “Danish-cartoons situation,” Mr. Kiriakou said. An Afghan literature professor, he added, said Paramount was “willing to burn an already scorched nation for a fistful of dollars.” The head of an Afghan political party said the movie would energize the Taliban. Nearly everyone Mr. Kiriakou met said that the boys had to be removed from Afghanistan for their safety. And a Hazara member of Parliament warned that Pashtun and Hazara “would be killing each other every night” in response to the film’s depiction of them. None of the interviewees had seen the movie.

Again, the hollywood tycoons say its because the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse by the day. It has nothing to do with their movie and how they depict the Afghans. They don’t have anything at all to do with how the Taliban could use the movie to incite violence and gain some form of a resurgence.

At this point, Paramount is delaying the release of the film until the boys involved are out of school. They will then move the boys out of the country, possibly permanently, in order to ensure their safety. They are even stating they are willing to make the commitment to financially take care of the boys and their guardians until the boys reach adulthood.

There are so many issues with this story. Of course, the boys parents could be taking Paramount for a major financial ride. Then again, its so typically narcissistic of the hollywood set to be completely oblivious to anything but their own agendas. Then top it all off with them assigning blame to everyone but themselves.

The problem is, we ARE at war and the Taliban really doesn’t seem to care how rich or famous they are. They don’t play by the same rules. We have Soldiers in Afghanistan right now who probably had to take time to guard these people while they were over there ‘getting a feel for the people’ and doing their casting calls and what not. We have Soldiers over there fighting the very same people who are threatening to kill these young boys who acted in this movie.

Even so, Hollywood doesn’t get it. They have no clue how their activities impact the bigger picture. I guess in their world the pictures they make are the only ones that matter.

Not to worry, they are covered up with attorneys and will buy their way out of this one way or the other.

The New York Times

This is unbelievable!

The leftards are wanting the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, AKA Abdul Hamid set free. I just heard a segment on Fox news in which some leftards were actually defending this guy and saying he was just ‘misguided’. MISGUIDED.

They argue that he should be let free because he didn’t really join that Taliban to fight AGAINST Americans but to fight against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. They leave out the fact that he DID fight against Americans and did not own up to being American until he was captured.

The LA Times (of course!) says it’s ‘unfortunate’ that he’s been ‘labeled the American Taliban’. They call him ‘Our Talib’. Isn’t that cute? And isn’t that familiar? And doesn’t that make him seem cute and cuddly?

Our Talib - give me a break. Have they forgotten that the Taliban shoots people in the back of the head as entertainment for stadiums of people for ‘crimes’ like letting their ankle show in public? That’s not so cuddly or cute.

These are the very same people who want the heads of our Troops for any real or perceived misdeeds - without the benefit of trial or even a minimal amount of evidence. These are the same people who scream bloody murder if they perceive our Troops might even defend themselves.

What kind of mind does it take to have sympathy for enemy combatants while slandering our Warriors at every turn? What do they think will happen to them should the Taliban take up house next door to them?

There are enemy combatants that have been let go from Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay that are at home with their families, healthy and well enough to bad-mouth America to the leftist media. Those guys have American blood on their hands and they get more sympathy and spend less time in jail than our Marines who were ACCUSED of defending themselves in Haditha.

Shame on America for that.

Our enemy is encouraging this kind of twisted thinking all the while laughing at us. They will kill us and/or we will find ourselves in a position of having to fight for our very way of life in the not so distant future. We can thank this kind of craziness for the escalating boldness of our enemies.

Seriously, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

You can get a reminder of who Johnny Taliban is at at Moonbattery.

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Big Dog’s Weblog, Shadowscope, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, Leaning Straight Up, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Conservative Thoughts, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, The World According to Carl, Nuke’s news and views, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Planck’s Constant, Wyvern dreams, Republican National Convention Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

In the video above, Jude Law is speaking from Kabul, Afghanistan following up on a documentary in which he appears promoting ‘Peace One Day’. They say he traveled to the ‘most dangerous areas of Afghanistan’. (Yeah, I’m so sure he did! lol). The U.N. has filmed this documentary to promote this day of peace on September 21st.

Jude makes a point of saying this is apolitical, independent, impartial. He implores anyone who sees his film to make a commitment for peace for one day.

Okay, that’s great. I’m absolutely certain his intentions are good.

So, what I wonder is whether or not he will talk with the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Iranian operatives and others bent on our destruction and get the same commitment from them.

We ALL want peace. Those of us with loved ones in harms way want it more than anyone other than our Troops. No one wants peace more than the fighting men and women.

You can preach to the choir - but how do you get the other side to stop killing?
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US Soldiers call in an A-10 strike to take out a Taliban position in the mountains of Afghanistan.

The video above is a BBC report about American Troops saving a woman and her unborn child. A male relative had shot the woman in the stomach, apparently trying to kill the baby. This incident happened in the tribal areas on the Pakistan and Afghanistan border.

Fortunately, for this woman and her baby American troops were in the vicinity. She and the baby were saved.

Thanks to LindaSog for bringing the video. As she points out, it’s pretty amazing for the BBC to do a piece like this on American troops.

Also, the BBC does imply that the woman is a ‘victim of Afghanistan’s conflict’ as pointed out by Beth in LindaSog’s comments. I noticed that referred to ‘the culture of the gun’ in Afghanistan. I don’t see it as a ‘culture of guns’ as much as a culture that completely disrespects women. In that culture the male relative was probably within his rights to kill the woman and child. If not with a gun than with whatever he wanted to use.

The truth is that the woman and baby would both be dead if not for the intervention of our Troops.

It’s nice to that someone mentions once in a while that our guys are the good guys!!!

Linda also posted it at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

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Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, No Apology, The Random Yak, DeMediacratic Nation, Big Dog’s Weblog, Right Truth, Maggie’s Notebook, Webloggin, The Amboy Times, Phastidio.net, Leaning Straight Up, Colloquium, The Florida Masochist, , Pursuing Holiness, stikNstein… has no mercy, The Uncooperative Blogger, The World According to Carl, 4 Time Father?, The Right Nation, The Pink Flamingo, Azamatteroprinciple - A new blog dedicated to fighting pork barrel spending, and CatSynth.com, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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