[PokeyJoe]

Raw blog comments from a soldier.

btw - dog-spearing is used to control ferral dog populations around US camps. Dogs found that Americans would share food with them. BUT - SgtMaj's don't like dog crap all over camp from 40 dogs. Soldiers use a long pole with a bayonet attached to the end to "control" the population of dogs - removing aggressive ferral animals, or pregnant dogs.

Butt-stroking... (???) I'm not sure. Anybody recently back care to comment?

Anyhow.... I thought this was a good "read" from a young soldiers point of view. Our young men in battle are not necessarily warrior saints.... just warriors.

Semper Fi

(He doesn't cuss as much as I used to while wearing a pickle suit)

[PokeyJoe]

ugh... I missed a couple of XXXX .... Sorry. =/

[dan1123]

That's the closest thing to real news about what's going on in Iraq I've read since Saddam was captured.

Thank you for posting it here.

[hmmmmm]

Certainly this will be immediately picked up by the liberal, *gack* I mean "main-stream" press. :) I won't hold my breath.

[Freesofar]

Great read thanks for your service soldier . I hope you will be home slugging down some cold ones soon.

With all due respect for your ppredicament may I take the libety of a stab at this ? ..............
"[ As of this writing, the US government has not confirmed the fabled WMD that we expected to find.

So what was the point of this war? Why did we spend untold amounts of money, ruin countless marriages of US servicemen, and risk a potentially disastrous political gambit? ]"

Iraq is/was an out of control rats nest that had the potential to breed some pretty nasty consequences for the USA if left to fester unchecked.
This roach motel called Iraq could have brought us down, using some terror buds like Al Qaeda to make the delivery.
Just because no WMD's were found does not mean they were not there or that they could not surface again.
Iraq had months to hide /dispose of them.
The prosecution of war on Iraq was not so much a search for WMD's as an enforcement of the original treaty from Gulf War I.
Your service there is more meaningful than we will ever know thanks to you we wont have to find out.
see you when you get back, we all owe you big time for fighting over there.

[hoosier_RW_conspirator]

re: "Butt-stroking". From what I've inferred from conversations between my husband & my infantryman son, this would refer to creating contact between the butt of your rifle and another object, as in "I butt-stroked him upside the head".

[TexasBarak]

Butt-stroking... (???) I'm not sure. Anybody recently back care to comment?

Easy- a butt-stroke is giveing someone a loving caress with the stock (butt) of your rifle.
I'm not recently back- just remembering bayonet training from almost 20 years ago (was '85 really almost 20 years ago? It just doesn't seem possible).
A rifle is still an effective weapon in trained hands, even if you are out of ammo. That reminds me- about two years ago my wife injured her ankle and had to use a cane. I trotted out my bayonet techniques to teach her how to defend herself with it.

[Oatka]

Dogs found that Americans would share food with them. BUT - SgtMaj's don't like dog crap all over camp from 40 dogs. Soldiers use a long pole with a bayonet attached to the end to "control" the population of dogs - removing aggressive ferral animals, or pregnant dogs."

Boy, flashbacks from when I worked in Venezuelan oil camps.
One of the guys who came down from the States was a dog lover and was horrified at the way dogs were treated down there (as in abused). He started buying "hamburgesas sin sibolla" (hamburgers without onions) and feeding the strays.

He was pulled aside and told to knock it off for the reasons cited above - and for the fact that the day workers who showed up at the gate looking for work were starving - and watching the dogs being fed.

One expat down there, "Mata Perro" [Dog Killer], was greatly feared by the locals. He was working at a drilling site and found a bunch of locals poking a stick at a dog inside the machinery layout, trying to prod him out. "Hell, I just walked in, drew my .357 and shot the dog - we couldn't hold up production for a mutt."