Monday, September 3, 2012

FOD 2012.09.03

A couple of obama-related items today -- a two-fer, if you will.

First, a commentary on his recent speech to soldiers at Ft. Bliss, Texas. But before that, please allow me a brief personal observation:

Ft. Bliss is located outside El Paso. It is without a doubt the most misnamed military installation in the world. There is nothing blissful about it. It consists of around 1700 square miles of Texas desert. Originally built back in the mid-1800s to protect settlers from Apaches and Comanches, it transitioned over the years to a training area for artillery and air defense units. Back in the 1970s I was sent there a couple of times on TDY for FTXs (for you civilians, that's Temporary Duty for Field Training Exercise). Nothing but dirt, cactus, snakes, scorpions, and heat - lots and lots of heat.

Back then there was a contingent of German Army troops stationed at Ft. Bliss. I felt sorry for them. Not only were they out of their element -- there's nothing like West Texas anywhere near Germany -- they were condemned to drink American beer instead of German suds. They tolerated the heat fairly well, but felt that being forced to drink that American swill was a fate worse than death. Can't say as I blame 'em.

But I digress ... back to obama's speech.
President Barack Obama was greeted with fleeting applause and extended periods of silence as he offered profuse praise to soldiers and their families during an Aug. 31 speech in Fort Bliss, Texas.
His praise for the soldiers — and for his own national-security policies — won cheers from only a small proportion of the soldiers and families in the cavernous aircraft-hangar.

The audience remains quiet even when the commander-in-chief thanked the soldiers’ families, and cited the 198 deaths of their comrades in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The audience’s reaction was so flat that the president tried twice to elicit a reaction from the crowd.

“Hey, I hear you,” he said amid silence.

CNN and MSNBC ended their coverage of the speech before it was half-over.

The troops’ silence continued through several obvious applause-lines.

The White House’s video-feed cut off 10 seconds after the president finished his speech, before the audience’s reaction overall could be gauged by viewers.
Of course, all this should be taken with a grain of salt. The source is the Internet, which is always suspect. Take the following story, for example.

President Obama To Receive Honorary Green Beret, Induction Into Special Forces Association
The White House Press Office announced today that President Obama will soon be inducted into the Special Forces Association and receive an honorary Green Beret.

Officials have said the honor will be bestowed in an upcoming September 11th ceremony at Fort Bragg.

The honorary beret comes in recognition of the President’s decisive role in covert operations throughout the world during his term — including the killing of Osama bin Laden last year in Pakistan, and his combat action in Afghanistan months ago.

Army Public Affairs has confirmed that Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland will personally present Obama with his beret and a specially engraved Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife.

The knife, traditionally used by elite soldiers world-wide since the beginning of the 20th century, will have the President’s name stamped on the blade, along with the names of deceased Special Forces Medal of Honor recipients Randall Shugart and Gary Gordon, immortalized in the novel and film Black Hawk Down.

The presentation will be in a small but highly anticipated ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.

The White House released a statement saying that the President is proud to be recognized for his accomplishments and role in ridding the world of dangerous enemy actors, and restated his firm determination to “continue doing his best to keep the country safe from those that would do her harm.”

Obama also stated that although he had never seen the Black Hawk Down film, or read the book, he was still proud to be counted among the ranks of the most elite Special Operations soldiers.

During a late afternoon briefing, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney fielded questions, including one about the possibility of the President also receiving a Navy SEAL trident.

“The President has in fact already received his Trident from the SEAL community,” said Carney. “He was honored to accept the insignia during a private ceremony in California, a week after his gutsy call where he singlehandedly took out bin Laden.”

When Carney was asked who had initiated the calls for President Obama to be given the illustrious honors, he hesitated before replying, “we’ll dig into it.”

Pentagon officials, taking note of the President’s extensive knowledge and experiences in special operations throughout the world, is also exploring the possibility of making him an honorary member of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, the Air Force 24th Special Tactics Squadron, and Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance Company.
When I first read this story I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe that even obama could be so arrogant and narcissistic. Or that the military's top brass could be such blatant ass-kissers.

Then I noticed the source: The Duffle Blog. It's the military equivalent of The Onion - a blog devoted to satirical articles and commentary on current events.

But it speaks volumes about the empty-chair-in-chief that my first reaction was that the story was true...

Now for the second part of today's post. As we all know, Hurricane Issac recently battered parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. It did tremendous damage to a portion of this country.

Left unreported, however, was the much greater damage wrought to the entire country by another disaster.


 And finally, we have this observation from Larry the Cable Guy.


“Even after the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl victory, I have noticed a large number of people, implying with bad jokes and anecdotes, that Louisiana Cajuns ain’t smart. I would like to state for the record that I disagree with that assessment.

Anybody who would build a city five feet below sea level, in a hurricane zone, and fill it with Democrats who can’t swim is a damn genius”.

(H/T Ellie via Bots.)

2 comments:

Pascvaks said...

Too Much! I don't know where to start. Feel like a kid who'd just found $10, went into a KrispyKreme and bought a dozen-box of fresh, warm, assorted donuts, and had just sat under a tree in a park and opened the lid and was totally stumped on what to grab first. Beautiful!;-)

CenTexTim said...

Pascvaks - glad you liked it. I had fun putting it together.