A WORTHY CAUSE

Junior's Bullet Pens - proceeds go to families of fallen military & wounded disabled veterans.

Junior’s Bullet Pen Company is dedicated to one of our fallen heroes, Staff Sergeant Chris Falkel, KIA, of the 3d Special Forces Group.

I met Chris's Dad this week at Fort Bragg, and he told me the story of his son, and the Bullet Pens.

SSG Chris "Junior" Falkel was weapons sergeant Operational Detachment "Alpha" 316. Between 7–9 August, 2005, Chris and his Special Forces team were involved in a 54 hour battle “that will live in the annals of Special Forces history. On the evening of 8 August 2005, Chris paid the ultimate price and died saving the lives of his team and 16 members of the Afghan National Army attached to ODA 316. SSG Chris Falkel was awarded the Silver Star for his bravery and heroism.

In early 2005, Chris attended Special Operations Target Interdiction Course – SOTIC - the Special Forces sniper school. After he graduated, Chris shared with his Dad the concept of making pens out of 7.62 NATO shell casings - the round used in US sniper rifles. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to make a bullet pen because shortly thereafter Chris deployed to Afghanistan for his fateful Rendezvous With Destiny.

Chris's Dad thought about Chris’ dream of making a “bullet pen” for a couple of years, and ultimately Junior’s Bullet Pen Company was created. These pens are dedicated to his son.

Most of the brass used to make Junior’s Bullet Pens is once-fired military brass.

Junior’s Bullet Pen Company is Veteran owned. Foundations supported by Junior's Bullet Pens include:

Special Operations Warrior Foundation

Task Force Dagger Foundation

Fallen Heroes Project

Operation Shower

Green Beret Foundation

AmericanSnipers.org

Remembering The Brave

Worldwide Rangers Inc.


When you buy a Bullet Pen, you help support a U.S. veteran and/or his or her family. If you are a veteran, you have just supported yourself.

- STORMBRINGER SENDS

GI GETS SILVER STAR FOR STOPPING ATTACKER

Master Sergeant Ian Dunbar shakes the hand of Silver Star recipient SFC Steven V. Kimsey on Thursday at The Carolina Hotel Grand Ballroom in Pinehurst.


Fayetteville Observer March 18, 2011

PINEHURST, NC - Sergeant First Class Steve Kimsey received the Silver Star Thursday for his actions last year during an attack in an operations center in Afghanistan that left two Fort Bragg Soldiers dead and threatened at least six other people.

On Jan. 29, 2010, an Afghan interpreter, who had just been fired, attacked the center with an AK-47 and four full magazines at Camp Nunez in Wardak Province.

Kimsey, who was wearing a Beretta M9 pistol, was the only other person in the room who was armed. He stepped in front of the unarmed people and shot the interpreter to death.

"It all happened really quick -- shots the first time, shots the second time," Kimsey said. "I keyed in it's not right. I was a little bit prepared, hair on the back of the neck standing up."




Kimsey saved at least six people. Read the rest of it HERE



LESSON TO BE LEARNED: COMBAT WILL SEEK YOU OUT WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT

• Never go unarmed in a combat zone.

• Never go unarmed, period.

• Never, EVER give a pissed-off Muslim with a sense of betrayal a chance to get the drop on you.

- S.L.

CONSTANT DRUMBEAT OF INSANITY CONTINUES

The continual assault on our culture continues. If I had time, I would document the many ways the destructive, anti-Western Civilization forces within our society have attacked all that is good and decent. The inversion of our morals and values has become an almost daily occurrence. This time the very method we honor our heroes is cheapened, made meaningless:


”A three-year-old federal law that makes it a crime to falsely claim to have received a medal from the U.S. military is unconstitutional, an appeals court panel in California ruled Tuesday.”

“A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with him in a 2-1 decision Tuesday, agreeing that the law was a violation of his free-speech rights. The majority said there's no evidence that such lies harm anybody, and there's no compelling reason for the government to ban such lies.”






August 17, 2010 SAN FRANCISCO - A federal law making it a crime to lie about receiving the Medal of Honor or other military decorations violates freedom of speech, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.



Read more HERE and HERE


You know, they're absolutely right. All a military decoration is, is a little piece of tin or brass, with a bit of silken ribbon around it - these things are ultimately meaningless.

Unless you attach meaning to them, of course. Stolen Valor is about giving meaning to the symbols we drape upon those who have bled on our behalf, those who came back in bits and pieces, and those can no longer defend themselves; the Honorable Dead.

During the course of my career I had the dubious pleasure of personally busting out two phony wannabe's - shamed the shit out of these kids and tossed them out of Special Forces training. I've seen too many good men die in that uniform, seen too many families suffer the consequences of such sacrifice, to tolerate fake heroes.

But now the Bozo's of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals have determined that this is OK. They have stripped honor from the real heroes, and their families, on behalf of the fake, phony wannabe's who mock our heroes by portraying themselves as something that they are not.

Have we gotten to the point where nothing has any meaning any more? If not, at what point will we get there?

Burning an American flag - that's okay, that's Freedom of Speech. Erecting an al Qaeda Victory Monument on Ground Zero - that's good too, that's Freedom of Religion - in the meantime, try to get a copy of the Ten Commandments into a U.S. Courthouse, or a nativity scene on a church lawn and see what happens next. Two boys holding hands and getting married - that's good, that's Freedom of whatever-it-is.

Hordes of undocumented foreigners to stream across the borders and infest our land - and the same crowd that is against all that is good and decent in our society goes out to demonize and punish those who wish to take action, those who suffer at the hands of these hordes. Let these non-Americans wave Mexican Flags and dance and sing in the hallways of our schools on Cinco de Mayo - a non-holiday invented by Adolf Coors Brewing Company to sell beer - that's OK too; but dare not to wear an American flag on your t-shirt or to defend the American flag on this High Holy Day of Mexican Meaninglessness - "we cannot have this, no, no, no, no, NO!"


My only question is how come nobody ever tries to burn an American Flag whenever I'm around?


Thanks to Jason, Thomas H., and of course Theo, who each sent info on this sad state of affairs, to me.

- SEAN LINNANE SENDS

PARDO's PUSH

Pardo's Push was an aviation maneuver carried out by Captain Bob Pardo in order move his wingman's badly damaged F-4 Phantom II to friendly air space during the Vietnam War.

Captain Bob Pardo (with back-seater 1st Lt. Steve Wayne) and wingman Captain Earl Aman (with back-seater Lt. Robert Houghton) were assigned to the 433rd Tactical Fighter Squadron at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. In March 1967, they were trying to attack a steel mill in North Vietnam just north of Hanoi.





THE PUSH

On March 10, 1967, the sky was clear for a bombing run. Both F-4 Phantoms were hit by anti-aircraft guns. Aman's plane took the worst damage; his fuel tank had been hit, and he quickly lost most of his fuel. He did not have enough fuel to make it to a tanker aircraft over Laos.

To avoid having Aman and Houghton bail out over hostile territory, Pardo decided to try pushing the airplane. Pardo first tried to use Aman's drag chute compartment to push the plane. However, turblence was too great and this failed.

Next, Pardo tried to use Aman's tailhook to push the plane. Pardo moved behind Aman until the tailhook was against Pardo's windshield. Pardo told Aman to shut down his engines; Aman was nearly out of fuel and the engine jets interfered with Pardo's plan. The push worked, reducing the rate of descent considerably, but the tailhook slipped off the windshield every 15 to 30 seconds, and Pardo would reposition his plane. Pardo also struggled with a fire in one of his own engines and eventually had to shut it down. For the last 10 minutes of flight, Pardo used the one remaining engine to slow the descent of both planes.

With Pardo's plane running out of fuel after pushing Aman's plane almost 88 miles, the planes reached Laos airspace at an altitude of 6000 feet. This left them about two minutes of flying time. The two pilots and their partners ejected, evaded capture, and were picked up by rescue helicopters.

Although Pardo was initially criticized for not saving his own aircraft, he and Wayne eventually received the Silver Star for the maneuver.

COL. LEWIS LEE MILLETT, MOH

by PETER WORTHINGTON


I first spotted him at a banquet and awards ceremony in Seoul, marking the 50th anniversary of the Korean war – a grizzled old colonel with a white handlebar moustache and the Medal of Honor around his neck.

But what caught my attention was two Canadian war medals nestled among the 26 medal ribbons he wore – the Canadian Volunteer medal with overseas clasp, and Victory medal from WWII.

“How come?” I asked him.

A mischievous grin spread his face. He introduced himself – Col. Lewis Lee Millett, a storied American fighting soldier, although I didn’t know it at the time.



Col. Lewis Millett


“I got the Medal of Honor thanks to the Canadian army,” he quipped. “The Canadians taught me bayonet fighting, and I led a bayonet charge in the Korean war.” He paused, waiting for inevitable questions.

I was with my friend, Vince Courtenay, both of us Korean vets from the same battalion of the Princess Pats in Korea.

Millett, then around 80 years old, told how he’d joined the U.S. army at age 21 in the summer of 1941 – and then deserted, because the U.S. wasn’t yet in the war. He came to Canada and joined our army to go overseas. He wanted to fight Nazis. “As I recall, the Canadian infantry was always doing bayonet training – stabbing straw-filled dummies, parry, thrust, shouting. It made an impression on me.”

After Pearl Harbor, when the U.S. entered the war, he transferred back to the U.S. army, served in North Africa and Italy, winning the Silver Star. When paperwork caught up with him that he had deserted in 1941, his commanding officer court-martialed him – fined him $50, and promptly promoted him to 2nd lieutenant.

“I believe I am the only colonel in the regular army who was ever court-martialed and convicted of desertion,” he laughed. In Korea, he also won the Distinguished Service Cross, next to the Medal of Honor in prestige, but he seemed inordinately proud of his two Canadian medals.

In the ferocious fighting of early 1951, Millett recalled reading a document that said the Chinese believed American soldiers dreaded hand-to-hand combat, and were fearful of “cold steel.”

“We’ll see about that, you sons of bitches,” he muttered. At a feature called Hill 180, under grenade and rifle fire, he led two platoons in a bayonet charge up the hill.



Painting of Capt. Lew Millett leading the bayonet charge up Hill 180 in Korea, February 1951, that won him the Medal of Honour. Painting hangs in the UN Command Officers Mess in Seoul.


“I always had my men fix bayonets,” he said. “I never forgot the Canadian training. We didn’t do much bayonet drill in those days, but I gotta say, those Chinese didn’t know what hit them when we charged.”

Millett led the way and routed the Chinese. His Medal of Honor citation reads: “His dauntless leadership and personal courage so inspired his men that they stormed into the hostile position and used their bayonets with such lethal effect that the enemy fled in wild disorder.”



Col. Millett's self-portrait of the charge.


In the Vietnam war, Millett was involved in a clandestine intelligence program aimed at subverting and killing Viet Cong in the countryside. He retired in 1973 when he felt the U.S. was abandoning South Vietnam.

He once told an interviewer: “I believe deeply in freedom. I’ve fought in three wars, and volunteered for all of them . . . I believe as a free man it is your duty to help those under the attack of tyranny. It’s as simple as that.”

Lewis Millett, old soldier, died on Nov. 14, age 89: A free man, a brave man, an American patriot.


Peter Worthington is the founding editor of the Toronto Sun, where he is a columnist.


This story first appeared on FrumForum and is reposted here by permission of the author.

THE EUROPEAN STRATEGY OF SURRENDER

In a move of strategic brilliance, a group of academics in Oslo Norway have effectively accomplished that which eluded the grasp of our enemies for over eight years on battlefields from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Philippines to North Africa to Ground Zero, New York City.




By handing the Nobel Peace Prize to the President of the United States they have effectively neutered and shackled our national leadership’s will to wage war. The world’s highest credentialed egomaniac – a man who’s never had an original thought in his entire life – has had the ultimate peace medallion hung around his neck - what are the odds Barack Hussein Obama will now be willing to commit further US forces to combat in our struggle against Islamofascism?




The day after the action that won my buddy R.D. the Silver Star in Afghanistan, his battalion commander and the Joint Special Operations Task Force commander came out to his firebase and told him to “stop taking so many risks, it’s not worth it.” What kind of command emphasis is that? No wonder morale is plummeting - our Commander-in-Chief cannot even abide calling it “the Global War On Terror”.

The last US President to receive the Nobel Peace Prize was none other that Jimmy Carter, the man personally responsible for paving the way to power for the Ayatollah Khomeini, and on whose watch the Soviets saw fit to roll into Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr. Carter, you gave the world the Islamic Fundamentalist revolution; here’s your Peace Prize.




Jimmy Carter has made a post-Presidential career of expressing anti-American rhetoric in support of America’s enemies. President Obama didn’t even wait until his term was over to badmouth his own country overseas, and true to form the Euros awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize.


Where is George W. Bush’s Nobel Peace Prize? He liberated MILLIONS.











Is the Nobel ever awarded posthumously? If so, when does Ronald Reagan get HIS Nobel Peace Prize?









The Reagan Doctrine of “Peace through Superior Firepower” resulted in the tearing down of the Berlin Wall without a shot being fired, and the subsequent collapse of global Communism.


It is a truism of history that peace is achieved by force of arms.

There is a reason they called the Colt model 1873 revolver - one of the most legendary small arms in military history – “the Peacemaker”.


“Any war is winnable, and just when both sides are convinced they're about to lose, they're both right.” - Murphy’s Special Law of Combat, #44


"When a nation is at war it is beyond folly, it is criminal to do anything other than to try to win it." - the Philosophy of STORMBRINGER


“War is simple, direct and ruthless.” - Patton


If I was the President of the United States, I’d take that Nobel Peace Prize and say, “Thank you very much. This is a very nice Prize, what an honor. Now for an encore I’m starting World War Three!” I’d go down in history as the guy who put the kibosh on al Qaeda, the Taliban AND Ahmadinejahd and the mad mullahs in Iran.


"Deal with me now . . . "



. . . or deal with me LATER."


Fat chance any of that is going to happen anytime soon. I guess all that Obama talk about how he would take fight to Pakistan was just that – talk.


"We don't really want to WIN this war if it means killing people and breaking things . . ."


'OBAMA WILL TAKE FIGHT TO TERRORIST ENEMIES IN AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN'
By Dan Balz, Washington Post Staff Writer - August 2, 2007

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the senator from Illinois said that the Iraq war has left the United States less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that if elected he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops and shift the country's military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won," he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, "The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

HEROES

Profiles of Valor: 10th Special Forces Group

On 10 September 2007, a team of three Army Green Berets led by Capt. Matthew A. Chaney, along with nine Iraqi police, began an assault from two helicopters near Samarra, Iraq. The team was targeting Abu Obaeideah, a leader of the Islamic State of Iraq in the area. The field designated for landing was covered with water, so the helicopters had to land closer to the insurgents' safe house, where they came under heavy enemy fire.

Practically blinded by dust from the second helicopter, the Iraqis were all but taken out of the fight from the start, so Chaney, Sgt. 1st Class Michael D. Lindsay and Staff Sgt. Jarion Halbisengibbs led a charge against the building where the hostile fire was originating. Halbisengibbs threw in a fragmentation grenade, killing two, and the soldiers rushed in. Lindsay was hit in the throat by an AK-47 round, and Chaney took a hit to the pelvis. Then both were thrown from the doorway by a grenade blast. Lindsay, who couldn't raise his rifle, fired at the enemy with his pistol. Chaney couldn't feel his legs, but he kept firing, killing a jihadi.

Halbisengibbs "continued to clear the structure in complete darkness as his night vision goggles and personal radio were all destroyed by enemy gunfire at point blank range," the official narrative read. He was shot in the thumb and knocked down by a grenade blast but continued fighting, killing another terrorist. As he moved back to the courtyard to protect his wounded comrades, Halbisengibbs was shot through the abdomen but managed to kill another jihadi on his way to the ground. He then directed the Iraqi police to finish the fight. Obaeideah was killed, along with 12 other insurgents, six by Halbisengibbs.

All three Green Berets have recovered from their injuries. Chaney and Lindsay were each awarded the Silver Star; Halbisengibbs received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second highest combat medal.