How The West Was Won?

I went to bed last night when the big news was still the Alabama tornadoes. This morning the headlines are that Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan and buried at sea. Before sunrise there was a celebratory crowd at the gates of the white house and at ground zero. The president says justice has been served. If OBL’s goal was to lure us into jihad he clearly won a long time ago. To be clear, I'm glad we got him, but his death is only a side note to the fact that the United States of America has spent 10 years starting and fighting in 2 wars in 2 countries that had less to do with terrorism than the governments of their geographical neighbors, Iran and Pakistan. I can only say I'm surprised by all the public celebration. Could the last two days have happened without what has happened in the last ten years? I don't know. It's a question worth asking.

Discussing this with my mother this morning she said hindsight is 20/20. It certainly is, if our eyes are open. Now more than in times past America has been needing some good news but the planet's dilemma of world powers clashing is no football game. There are no winners, and there will be no winners. There's no score to keep no matter how hard we crave it to be so. This isn't a movie. There are no happy endings and there is no form of heroic justice. It is war, not just the military's war, our war, and it continues without a clear end.

Right now around the globe, as people die, military and civilians, even because of our efforts, we revel in patriotic colors. In a few days we'll go back to Trump's hyperbole, Snookie's face paint, and Charlie Sheen's psycho-babble, because it's what makes us happy. We are too quick to party. What may come next could show that we, in the global war on terror and the terrorists alike, have only begun to battle. There's nothing I would love more than to be as wrong as a person can be.



Afghanistan

American Military Casualties (05/1/11 11:23 am EDT), Total In Combat:

American Deaths

Since war began (3/19/03): 4452
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) 4311
Since Handover (6/29/04): 2876
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 224
Since Operation New Dawn: 15

American Wounded Official Estimated

Total Wounded: 33023
Latest Fatality April 29, 2011


As of April 21, 2011, there have been 2,340 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001. In this total, the American figure is for deaths "In and Around Afghanistan" which, as defined by the U.S. Department of Defense, includes some deaths in Pakistan and Uzbekistan and the deaths of 11 CIA operatives.

In addition to these deaths in Afghanistan, another 29 U.S. and one Canadian soldier were killed in other countries while supporting operations in Afghanistan. Also, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from Afghanistan died in Turkey on May 26, 2003, when their plane crashed.

During the first five years of the war, the vast majority of coalition deaths were American, but between 2006 and 2010, a significant proportion were amongst other nations, particularly the United Kingdom and Canada which have been assigned responsibility for the flashpoint provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, respectively. This is because in 2006, ISAF expanded its jurisdiction to the southern regions of Afghanistan which were previously under the direct authority of the U.S. military.



Casualties in Afghanistan as of Aug 10 2010:

Afghan troops killed 8,587
Afghan troops seriously injured 25,761
Afghan civilians killed 8,813
Afghan civilians seriously injured 15,863
U.S. troops killed 1,140
U.S. troops seriously injured 3,420
Other coalition troops killed 772
Other coalition troops seriously injured 2,316
Contractors killed 298
Contractors seriously injured 2,428
Journalists killed 19
Journalists seriously injured unknown
Total killed in Afghanistan 19,629
Total injured in Afghanistan 48,644


Iraqi Casualties
As of March 31, 2011
US Soldiers Killed, 4,444
Seriously Wounded, 32,051
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq 1,487
Journalists - Iraq 348
Academics Killed - Iraq 448
Other Coalition Troops, 318

Sources: DoD, MNF, About.com and iCasualties.com


Iraqi Civilians
100,000 to 110,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

All Downhill

Older video, fall 2010. Longboarding hills at Ft. Bragg.

The Kids In Sumar

Music, Neko Case, Vengence is Sleeping. Video, I took, the kids in Sumar Iraq.

Counterflow

Part One

Counterflow: So Love May Find Us. This is a long song/short film cut into two parts. Youtube and every other site I've looked at have a 15 minute time limit. The song is almost 20, so here's 10 and 8 in two parts. The footage and photos are mine, the music - Australian band extraordinaire ,"The Church."

Part Two

Iraq And Magic Tricks

2009: Remembering May

2009: Remembering February pt.2

At Zazzle.com, I made a couple T-shirts from a few of my favorite photos. One of the shirts is in this shot of me with my brother in Gainsville Florida over this holiday vacation.

2009: Remembering April

Roadside Camels, on the road to Nefer, west of Diwaniya.

Downtown Diwaniya, smiling girls.

Two boys in Nefer. While parked and waiting we were usually treated with youthful curiosity, varied requests, entertained by antics, and occasionally taunted.

During my deployment I took a lot of pictures of the HQ kids, downtown. Very photogenic. They show up in several of my old entries, April and other months.

"...weather today: blue skies and hot with a mix of kids and Humvees."

2009: Remembering March (pt. 2)

It was bittersweet to see the way kids were unafraid of us, the Americans, but while just as curious, timid toward the soldiers of their own country.

Out in front of the Police Department.

A lone traffic cop, as our convoy rumbles through his intersection of swarming traffic.

A female beggar, on a bridge in Diwaniya.

2009: Remembering March

I don't intend to spend my whole leave this holiday season working on the computer. That said, there is a great number of recollections photographic and otherwise I want to review while I have time. I'll be going month by month here on Versa Vice over the next two weeks posting selections from the images I've collected in 2009.

I jumped head first into my March folder and it took me over an hour to select, optimize and post these five photos. I realize now what a productive month March was. There are a huge number of pictures to publish here, and I'll get to it. First though, I need to spend time with family.

2009: Remembering February

Over the past several months I've had various images of the past year pop up on my screen saver. I've been astonished at the number of pictures that are really good but still unseen on my blog or elsewhere. Over the next few days, till next month, in 2010, I'll reselect b-side images of the previous months, from the year 2009, and publish them here, like a rarities collection of tunes by a favorite band.


This one was among a series of "beyond a shadow of a gun" shots that I took. My vantage point, as a medic, in the back seat of a Humvee, waiting for traumatic action and reactions that never happened, but for one occasion, left me in the perfect spot to capture images that may never be seen by my the people in these pictures, but nevertheless left for me to publish on the Internet for a whole world to see. A tiny glimpse into another world.


This gal, this little princess or Diwaniya, still makes me think of "Angel of Harlem," by U2. Like a vibrant little rose, rising from the cracked concrete of a lost world. I can only imagine the life ahead of her and her friends.

All of these shots were taken in the more metropolitan areas of Diwaniya Iraq. My back-seat vantage point served my photographic tendencies well.

American Soldiers

A couple of friends asked me about my blog this morning. So I "tweeted" that I'm taking a break, on Twitter. Mostly because I'm in-between places right now, in transit, and on my way home. It's nearly a two week process, moving an entire army company from Iraq back to the states through Kuwait, and that's with all good weather. But this morning with a wireless connection and little else to do, I figured I'd post a counter balance to my previous theme.

It may or may not need to be said, but I'm proud of being a soldier and of the people I work with. I was primed to get stuck on the Hero/Soldier theme as I encountered those Facebook groups right after a couple weeks of hearing a lot of silly talk from soldiers on the subject of returning home. Some guys (and girls), particularly the younger set, see the return home as a license to do whatever they want when they get back. As if going crazy is something they deserve, like a spring break from school amplified. Perhaps it's all just, could it be?, me dealing with concerns or even worry for these guys doing something dangerous or regrettable? Am I really growing up finally?

But I've gone on enough about all that. What follows is a selection of photos taken over the last 15 months of my fellow American soldiers from the 110th MP Company, one of the very last units in Iraq (if not the very last) to begin and complete a 15 month deployment.

Gunner Spc. Amato giving a wave.


Sgt. Anderson and PFC Smith, we did a lot of training with ASVs (the vehicle), but barely used them at all in theater.


Spc. Chambers, a meet and greet with locals. Even if the young guys talk big, we're still fortunate that our mission involved this kind of contact, and not the kind of "contact!" we train for in basic.


Spc. Hackler


It was often interesting to watch how receptive, or not, the Iraqi Police were to our assistance or advice, particularly coming from an American female. Sgt. Irlbeck with the local cops.


Pfc. Johnson with the tough guy look, I think he forgot there was a purple bear on his vest.


Spc. Ward while at an IP station. The "shoulder pads" are called DAPs by us, only used by gunners by the end of the deployment.


This is a picture I got from another soldier's Facebook. Judging by the DCUs this was most likely '04-'06.


Ever curious, the local kids who have lived their entire lives with American presence, gather around whenever we would show up.


A muddy field the day after a day of rain, I think it was April, the only time I saw any precipitation in Diwaniya. The black mask is worn by an Iraqi interpreter.