Free Republic

Eleven months ago, he landed on the shores of the presidency, destroying everything in his path. A gigantic, fire-breathing monster wreaking havoc, consuming private sector industries, crushing institutions which have made America great, and destroying lives. With fear and trembling we dare to utter his name...Obamazilla! Though appearing indestructible and unstoppable, millions of brave patriots arose to challenge the beast, vowing not to sit idly by as America as we know it is terminated. As a patriot, I am totally focused on defeating Obamazilla, America's true nemesis. I will not allow myself to be sidetracked into participating in Tea-Party-movement family...

President Obama has made an awful lot of promises -- none more often than his vows of bipartisanship. He promised cross party compromise on foreign policy. He guaranteed bipartisanship on deficit spending and on the bailouts. In fact, right after he was elected he said: "In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people," Obama said. "Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long." He ... misspoke. According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, Obama is the most...

A principal argument of those who support the division of Israel's capital is the need to improve the city's demographic balance between Jews and Arabs in favor of Jews. They assert that this should be achieved by "removing" Arab neighborhoods and residents to outside the city limits. However, a higher Arab birthrate is not the primary cause for the decrease in the Jewish majority in Jerusalem. Rather, the main reason is that large numbers of Jews are leaving the city due to housing and employment difficulties. Each year some 16,000 Jews leave the city; the total over the past 20...

Folks, please excuse this vanity. It's my hope that my thoughts here will appeal to many of you, and more importantly, we can get some political mileage out of it, effecting change, if we came together on this. Many of us have spent years on this forum watching the media march right into the tank for the DNC. Today it's no longer a secret to any thinking individual that the major media outlets have shed all pretenses of being fair and balanced. What FoxNews heralded years ago as something of a quasi marketing ploy, is now the sad unabashed reality....

For more than 200 years, a nation of immigrants from all parts of the world, all races, all cultures, all religions and all languages, have stood together as one people united only by a simple single set of principles and values that made them the most free, prosperous and powerful people on earth. No matter their backgrounds, their past, they chose a brighter future united in the common purpose of individual rights and rejected the chains of division. Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution are blind to color, race, religious difference, economic status, family or national origin. Both documents set...

<p>This animated video is presented with a Red Tailed Hawk and Song, also bird watchers that run into a divided scenario that result in verbal declaration.</p> <p>I am ramping up creating videos and this may be the last one for awhile but if you wish to see all or some of my videos go to my web-page revski.org at the link below and on YouTube - o7jimmy or YouTube - lotis333 my wife Cheryl's page and her videos.</p>

His unforgivable sin is that he is a complete and unrepentant fraud! Like his spiritual leader, he sees America as only an evil empire of rich white folks who must be forced to their knees for the betterment of African-America. His campaign policy platforms say so. His spiritual leader has taught him this for more than twenty years. His wife became “proud of America” only when it began to appear that her husband might become President of a nation she otherwise despises. “...we really have to do some soul-searching to think about what kind of toxic information are we feeding...

PHILADELPHIA - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday tried to stem damage from divisive comments delivered by his pastor, while bluntly addressing anger between blacks and whites in the most racially pointed speech yet of his presidential campaign. Obama confronted America's legacy of racial division head on, tackling black grievance, white resentment and the uproar over his former pastor's incendiary statements. Drawing on his half-black, half-white roots as no other presidential hopeful could, Obama asserted: "This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected." Obama expressed understanding of the passions on...

Those who Divide Conservatives' Vote, provoking loss, will bear Heavy Responsibilities for ever ! (P.ex. in Va, etc) People will NEVER FORGET those who DIVIDE CONSERVATIVES' VOTE in 2008, stumb their fellow-conservatives in the back, risking to give an Artificial, Anti-Democratic Control of all DELEGATES to a Political MINORITY of Liberals, just by depriving of 1, 2 or 3 % those who dare Fight for Values and Principles able to lift Conservatives Banner", as US President GWBush recently said at the CPAC : - They had already done that earlier, but now, after seing the Consequences (a Liberal MINORITY of...

Under normal circumstances, this election cycle would be gearing up for the coming explosion. We’d be waiting for the inevitable. At some point in the coming weeks, a Republican would be accused of being a racist. With that, it’s kind of fun watching the media scratch their collective oversized, dandruffed heads, contemplating why the current Democrat primary race is being plagued by the very infection normally reserved for their enemies. Democrats now have the shoe on their other foot. They have spent decades honing their skills, planting race IEDs on the sides of the Republican campaign trail, waiting for some...

JERUSALEM – A top member of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government today announced Israel "must" give up sections of Jerusalem for a future Palestinian state, even conceding the Palestinians can rename Jerusalem "to whatever they want."

When one hears the phrase, "A Nation Divided", or something similar, it should conjure up images of the Civil War. Fought from 1861-1865, it was a time when the Nation was truly split. Several Southern States seceded and went to war with those States that did not. A devastating war, it took many years and millions of dollars to rebuild the war torn South. While the war changed a lot things in America, making things "legal" so to speak, the attitudes and racism towards a group of Americans, shamefully, lasted for 100 years more. That was a time of true...

Sooner or later, the American people will have to face the very real fact that the partisan mess in Washington DC is nothing more than a reflection of the partisan mess across this nation. The divisions that paralyze Washington DC are now just a partisan tool for Washington hacks. But they were given birth and are perpetuated on Main Street USA. The divisions are real in our own lives and in our own neighborhoods, and that’s why they are very real in Washington DC. We no longer have one single agenda for America. We have two distinct opposing agendas now....

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2007 – A newly formed military division in Iraq is focusing on stopping the flow into Baghdad of what the unit’s commander called “accelerants of violence” from the south. Speaking to Pentagon reporters via satellite from the Iraqi capital, Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch discussed the mission of Multinational Division Center, which officially stood up April 1 to support Multinational Division Baghdad. The division’s area runs from just south of Baghdad to Iraq’s border with Saudi Arabia. “Our mission is inextricably tied to the security of Baghdad,” Lynch said. “Our goal is to stop the flow...

WASHINGTON, April 30, 2007 – A major clearing operation that wrapped up last week in Baghdad succeeded in preventing 3,200 roadside bombs, jailing 42 terrorists, and seizing enough weapons and explosives to outfit an enemy infantry battalion, the commander of the 2nd Infantry Division’s 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team reported today. Army Col. Steven Townsend described sweeping success in Operation Arrowhead Strike 9, which kicked off March 20 to clear west-central Baghdad’s Mansour security district. The unit’s ninth brigade-level operation since arriving in Baghdad in December “significantly reduced insurgent activity” in the region in support of the Task Force...

Major General J D Shaw CBE, General Officer Commanding Headquarters Multi National Division (South East) (right) meets the Iraqi Ground Forces Commander Lieutenant General Ali Ghaydan (center) and the 10 Iraqi Army Division, General Abdul Lateef Thu'ban (left) at the Headquarters building in Basrah. Ministry of Defence photo by Cpl Ian Forsyth. RLC. BASRAH -- The Iraqi Army division based in Basra has transferred from Coalition command, and is now - for the first time – taking its orders direct from an Iraqi headquarters in Baghdad. The transfer is a significant step toward Iraqi forces taking responsibility for security in...

ROK Marine Stages a Large-scale Landing Exercise in Pohang, S. Korea It was the division-level landing exercise. Click Here To Watch

Hospital Director Col Lee Hae Seol, left, talks with patients at Zaytun Hospital. Official Department of Defense photo. IRBIL -- When shared, sorrow is halved and happiness is doubled. So say the troops of the Republic of Korea’s Zaytun Division, which began civil military operations in Irbil in September 2004. At Camp Zaytun, not far from the Irbil International Airport, 2,200 Korean service members perform a variety of medical services, vocational training and reconstruction projects to better the lives of Irbil province residents and support economic development. “You are an example of what is possible for all of Iraq,” Maj....

BAGHDAD, Sep. 1, 2006 – The Iraqi Ground Forces Command assumed command and control here today of one of its Iraqi army divisions from the Multinational Corps Iraq, marking what officials here said is the first step toward Iraqi sovereignty over the country’s armed forces. The 8th Iraqi Army Division, commanded by Maj. Gen Othman Ali Salih Farhood, which had been a subordinate unit of Multinational Division Baghdad, will now report directly to the IGFC as an adjacent unit to MND-B. When the division took the lead for operations in its sector on Jan. 27, it was the first to...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 9, 2006 -- The Iraqi army is halfway to its goal of 10 divisions as the 4th Division assumed command of the area north of Baghdad yesterday. Lt. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Abdel-Rahman al-Mufti (left), commander of 4th Iraqi Army Division, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad (second from left), present gifts to the division’s senior staff Aug. 8 during a ceremony at Forward Operating Base Dagger, in Tikrit. Photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika, USA  '(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The division assumed primary control of its area of responsibility from the 101st Airborne Division....

WUERZBURG, Germany, July 6, 2006 – The U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division, known as the "Big Red One," bid farewell to its host country of Germany at Victory Park on Leighton Barracks here today. The colors of Big Red One are scheduled to be unfurled at Fort Riley, Kan., Aug. 1, and the division will assume command and control of its units now there. Among other duties, the division is slated to take on the mission of training foreign security forces training teams in support of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Despite numerous deployments to distant countries within the...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, May 12, 2006 – As the Iraqi army takes over more and more battle space, there will be less need for American combat power in the country, U.S. officials said. Iraq's second armored brigade will assume battle space here soon and the Iraqi 9th Division, the country's only tank division, will assume the battle space in this area north of Baghdad in June. American military transition teams are working with the Iraqis to build and sustain the division. Army Col. John Hort is the senior Military Transition Team chief for the Iraqi division. He leads a group...

Rewind, please: Nature paper shows that cell division is reversible Discovery could open doors for treatment of cancer, birth defects Oklahoma City–Gary J. Gorbsky, Ph.D., a scientist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, has found a way to reverse the process of cell division. The discovery could have important implications for the treatment of cancer, birth defects and numerous other diseases and disorders. Gorbsky's findings appear in the April 13 issue of the journal Nature. "No one has gotten the cell cycle to go backwards before now," said Gorbsky, who holds the W.H. and Betty Phelps Chair in Developmental Biology...

<p>Scenes of hundreds of thousands of Latinos marching nationwide to support immigration reform have helped promote the perception that Hispanics are united on the issue..</p>

Iraqi soldiers from 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Mechanized Brigade, 9th Iraqi Army Division, conduct a simulated air-medical evacuation with a U.S. Army flight crew from Company C, 2nd Battalion., 4th Aviation Regiment, Combat Aviation Brigade, during convoy lane training at Camp Taji, Iraq, March 23, 2006. The flight medic is U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Pablo Garza from Eagle Pass, Texas. U.S. Army photo by Maj. David Olson 9th Iraqi Army Division Conducts Logistics Training The convoy lane training included reacting to various events that the Iraqi soldiers may encounter on a mission: snipers, small-arms fire and roadside bomb attacks....

RAMADI, Iraq, March 28, 2006 – “We are the soldiers of the 1st Brigade, 1st Division Iraqi Army. Our mission is to save the innocent citizens of Ramadi from the black hands of the insurgents that are shedding their blood,” said the 1st Brigade, 1st Division commander. ”We promise the innocent Iraqi citizens that we will be the sons who will be responsible to protect the families that live in the Al Anbar Province.” "The addition of the 1st Brigade, 1st Division Iraqi Army is a huge combat multiplier. Their ability to gain factual information is paramount to fighting the...

CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq (ARMY NEWS SERVICE, March 23, 2006) – Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, discovered four caches in Abu Ghraib during a five-day period beginning March 11. The caches contained 32,000 pounds of explosives. Officials believe the sites were possible cells of operation for improvised explosive devices due to their seemingly hasty placement. “Since we began exploiting these caches, the number of IEDs in our own area of operation has dropped to almost zero,” said Lt. Col. Kevin Brown, commander, 2-22 Inf. He added that finding the caches has...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, captured two terrorists in Abu Ghraib Feb. 26. Soldiers from the battalion’s Company B were conducting a routine inspection of vehicles in western Abu Ghraib. Prompted by his previous experiences in Iraq, 1st Lt. Scott Treadwell, Co. B, ordered his Soldiers to search a suspicious vehicle. Treadwell’s men discovered two known murderers of Iraqi civilians. The two men were carrying rifles and contracts for the murder of other Iraqis. A day prior, Soldiers from the battalion’s Co. C found a large weapon...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE (Feb. 28, 2006) -- The Marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen of the 2nd Marine Division returned home today after completing a successful year-long deployment in western Iraq’s Al Anbar province. The division conducted combined counter-insurgency operations alongside its Iraqi Security Force counterparts from March 2005 to February 2006 and transferred authority of the province to the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) before returning to Camp Lejeune, N.C. The 2nd Marine Division was the ground combat element for II MEF (FWD) and was supported by 2nd Marine Logistics Group (FWD) and 2nd Marine...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 21, 2006 – The 10th Mountain Division assumed command of Combined Joint Task Force 76 at a ceremony here today, replacing the Southern European Task Force. Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, 10th Mountain Division commander, assumes command of Combined Joint Task Force 76 in Afghanistan as he receives flag from Army Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, commander of Combined Forces Command Afghanistan, at Bagram Air Base Feb. 21. Army Maj. Gen. Jason K. Kamiya (second from left), who heads Southern European Task Force, is the outgoing CJTF 76 commander. Photo by Sgt. Douglas...

ORLANDO (Army News Service, Feb. 18, 2006) – The “world’s happiest place” has been invaded by some of the Army’s best entertainers. The Soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division “All-American” Chorus entertained hundreds of Mickey Mouse fans – young and old – at an outdoor performance pavilion in Downtown Disney Feb. 18. The concert was a part of Disney’s Magic Music Days program, which brings non-professional bands, choirs and orchestras to Disney World for the chance to participate in educational workshops with Disney musicians or perform for the thousands who visit the amusement parks daily. The program brings over one...

U.S. Army soldiers with Task Force Catamount arrive for duty at Forward Operating Base Sharona, Afghanistan, Feb. 10, 2006, to replace Task Force Fury. The Catamounts are assigned to 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Michael Pintagro 10th Mountain Troops Arrive in Paktika Province Task Force Catamount arrives at Forward Operating Base Aned, ready to replace Task Force Fury and for their induction into “Team Paktika.” By U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Pintagro 3rd Brigade Combat Team FORWARD OPERATING BASE ANED, Afghanistan, Feb. 16, 2006...

From left to right, Polish Maj. Gen. Edward Gruszka, commander of the Multinational Division Central-South, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, and Polish Maj. Gen. Piotr Czerwinski, former commander of Multinational Division Central- South, salute the guidon during a change-of-command ceremony at Camp Echo in Diwaniyah, Iraq, Feb. 4, 2006. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jason T. Bailey Central-South Division Gets New Commander The key priority of Multinational-Division Central-South staff will be cooperation with the 8th Iraqi Army Division for the training and development its combat capabilities. By Multinational Force-Iraq CAMP ECHO,...

Here we are again with this week’s successes with respect to finding, identifying, and neutralizing a threat the media likes to categorize as a hopeless cause. The area of IEDs is just another example of the successes we’re having in the war in Iraq against terrorism. Here we go: For those that don’t know, 1st Brigade Combat Team soldiers are training an Iraqi Combat Engineer unit to be IED hunters. These soldiers are highly motivated to fight IEDs and insurgents and love working with Coalition Forces to learn how to combat this menace. One [Iraqi] soldier was on his day...

Bush to Deliver State of the Union Amid Partisan Division By Jim Malone Washington 27 January 2006 President Bush delivers his State of the Union address Tuesday to outline his policy objectives for the year ahead. But at the moment, there appears to be a great deal of disunity between Republicans and Democrats over issues like national security, congressional corruption and the Supreme Court. George Bush Over the past week, President Bush has mounted a vigorous defense of a domestic surveillance program being conducted by the National Security Agency that he says targets communications with suspected terrorists. "The program is...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2006 – The 8th Iraqi Army Division now has responsibility for military operations across two large provinces, a senior U.S. military officer told reporters in Baghdad yesterday. "Today is the day that the 8th Iraqi Army Division assumed control of battlespace inside of Iraq," Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a spokesman for Multinational Force Iraq, said. The 8th division is one of 10 such Iraqi army units now formed and will take the lead for counterinsurgency operations in both Diwaniyah and Wasit provinces, Lynch said. Those provinces make up a combined geographical area of about the size...

My rookie officers were third division, says 'bully' skipper By Stewart Payne (Filed: 17/01/2006) A submarine captain accused of bullying his officers told a court martial yesterday that some were so inexperienced it was like having lower division footballers on a Premiership pitch. Capt Robert Tarrant, 44, who was commander of the nuclear submarine Talent, told a court martial that he expected the very highest standards from his crew. He said he used a leadership style he had learned serving in the Falklands conflict. "I discovered that the margin of error between operational safety and therefore operational success and operational...

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq (Jan. 10, 2006) -- When Lance Cpl. Paul E. Harden was told he would be leaving for Iraq with Truck Company from the Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, he didn’t know what to think. He was young, enthusiastic and relatively new to the Marine Corps. The only images he could conjure up were those of the resulting damage left behind after the battle for Fallujah in November of 2004. When the 21-year-old, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., native and motor-transport mechanic got here in February last year, he was surprised. Instead of demolished buildings and a...

BAGHDAD (Army News Service, Jan. 9, 2006) – As Iraqi Army and coalition partners looked on, the 3rd Infantry Division transferred authority of Multi-National Division-Baghdad to the 4th Infantry Division in a ceremony Jan. 7. Maj. Gen. J.D. Thurman, the commanding general of 4th Inf. Div., along with Command Sgt. Maj. Ronald Riling, uncased the “Ironhorse” Division’s colors, signifying the division assuming the mantle of responsibility as Multi-National Division-Baghdad. The division cased its colors before deploying from Fort Hood, Texas, during a ceremony Oct. 28. Lt. Gen. John Vines, the commanding general of Multi-National Corps-Iraq, served as the reviewing officer...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20, 2005 – The staff of the 8th Iraqi Army Division was certified today in counterterrorism operations and tactics, which means the Iraqis can plan and conduct operations against enemy forces with limited support of coalition forces, military officials reported today. Division units now are striving to achieve full combat readiness, officials said, adding that final coordination with local and central administration will be completed soon to finalize the process of battlespace transfer. Long-term training, including exercises and combat operations, officials noted, preceded the certification process. Before the division staff was certified, six battalions and two brigades of...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (Dec. 20, 2005) -- With the holiday season right around the corner, the chaplains of 2nd Marine Division took an ordinary training event, hiking, and turned it into a prayer walk to pray for those servicemembers who are away from their families this year. The six-mile hike is a Fleet Marine Force (FMF) qualification for all naval officers to receive the FMF war-fighting device worn on their uniforms. But this year, the 2nd Marine Division Chaplain, Cmdr. Gary Carr, turned the training into a way for the chaplains of the division and all other...

Gen. Bolger also told me that a new soldier in the Iraqi Army makes around $300 a month, while the terrorists are offering about $300 per night for anyone willing to plant an IED. Yet Iraqi Army boot camps are turning out around 1,650 brand new soldiers every five weeks. That number is growing weekly, and is slated to double in 2006. Like the throngs of voters who queued up to the ballot box last week, volunteers who stand in the Iraqi army recruiting lines are not stupid. Nor are they so desperate for work they'll risk death for a...

On December 7, future U.S. President George H.W. Bush was a 17-year-old student and captain of the baseball team at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. "I remember it well," he says. "We had just left church and started to walk across campus when someone shouted out, 'Pearl Harbor's been bombed.'" On his 18th birthday, the following June, Bush signed up to become a Naval aviator. He completed flight school and earned his commission a few days before his 19th birthday making him the youngest aviator in the Navy at that time.

WACO, Texas (Army News Service, Nov. 28, 2005) — A day after Thanksgiving, more than 1,500 Soldiers bound for a 14-month deployment to Kosovo and Bosnia were honored in a ceremony Nov. 25 at Baylor University’s Ferrell Center. A circular sea of green seats was filled by excited and emotional family members and friends at Baylor’s indoor arena in Waco, Texas. They were there to say goodbye to their Soldiers one last time before they departed for the Balkans. It was the first time 36th Infantry Division Soldiers were deploying to Europe since World War II. During the ceremony, guest...

Insurgencies are not put down in a fortnight. But considering the successes in the recent counter-insurgency sweep in Iraq's Al Anbar Province, one fact becomes obvious to anyone with so much as a sliver of an understanding of ground combat operations: Eliminating the insurgency in Iraq is best left to those who best know how to do it.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2005 – The 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division formally took control of the southwestern Baghdad area of operations from the Georgia Army National Guard's 48th Brigade Combat Team on Oct. 31. Brig. Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, 48th BCT commander, and brigade Command Sgt. Maj. James Nelson cased the unit's colors, representing the end of their mission and responsibility for this area. Shortly after the 48th's guidon was cased, Army Col. Todd Ebel, commander of 2nd BCT, 101st Airborne Division, and Army Command Sgt. Maj. Brian Stall, the brigade's senior enlisted soldier, uncased the colors...

The older I get, the more I realize what an emotional and powerful experience it is to have served my country. And how incredibly strong the bond becomes between other men and women who have served.

U.S. Army medics from 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry treat and evacuate Iraqi soldiers and civilians Oct. 11, 2005, in the Khadra area in western Baghdad after terrorists detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in the area. U.S. Army photo 10th Mountain Division's Medic Training Pays Off in Iraq Training in a civilian hospital emergency room prior to deployment helped prepare Army medics for treating injured soldiers and civilians in Iraq. By U.S. Army Spc. Carlos Caro 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 3, 2005 — Thanks to the time they spent training in a Syracuse, N.Y., emergency room,...

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 21, 2005 – The Army's 82nd Airborne Division took to the water soon after it deployed to New Orleans to provide disaster relief assistance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the unit's two-star general said here Sept. 20. Elements of the 82nd Airborne Division arrived in New Orleans Sept. 3. They handed off their duties in the city to National Guardsmen earlier this week and are preparing to redeploy home to Fort Bragg, N.C. About 80 percent of the Crescent City was flooded after levees broke Aug. 30. That became a challenge for the paratroopers when they...

A few months ago, these same guys were fighting in Iraq. Now they were roaring down the highway in a long green line in central South Carolina, in the lane next to me. As I mentioned, they looked tough. But most also looked as if they were barely old enough to shave. Some of them probably had tubes of Clearasil (or whatever teenagers use today to fight acne) stowed away in their field packs.