Bryan Strawser

Sgt. Hook writes today about two anonymous Marines that gave their lives this week:

The two headlights coming our way caught my eye initially, and then the sounds of the HUMVEE rhythmically driving over the steel plates of the beach sounding like a slow moving train on a rickety old rail system filled my ears. As the vehicle passed the first group of onlookers, they silently snapped to the position of attention and rendered a hand salute. A VIP perhaps? It became obvious that there was a second HUMVEE following the first, as group after group of Soldiers now lining both sides of steel beach snapped to and saluted. It would soon be our turn.

As the lead vehicle arrived at our location we too assumed the proper position and rendered honors though there was no command given, we acted on instinct. We stood rigid holding our salutes until the second of the two flag draped caskets riding in the back of the desert tan HUMVEEs passed, and we silently dropped our salutes. Two Marines had given their all in defense of our country and were now going home, to the land of the free, receiving a final goodbye from a group of tired and sweaty Army aviators, mechanics, crewmembers, and technicians some with their flight suits tied around their wastes, others saluting with hands turned black from oil and dirt and still others fighting back tears for the two anonymous men whom they’ve never met, but knew all too well. Silently we went back to work as the sun rested behind the craggy mountain tops turning the sky orange. The winds continued to blow.

The Marines who Sgt. Hook saluted were:

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two Marines who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Pfc. Daniel B. McClenney, 19, of Shelbyville, Tenn

Lance Cpl. Juston T. Thacker, 21, of Bluefield, W.Va.

Both Marines died June 24 from hostile fire near Bari Khout, Afghanistan. They were both assigned to 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Semper Fi

Sitting on my three-season porch with the Kitty, sipping some coffee, and listening to Dido being streamed via the wireless lan via iTunes, and plugging away on a work project that will take me all day.

It’s amazing how much more productive one is when away from the office. For me, I think it’s partially about the environment. My office lacks windows (I do, however, have a door, which can be a luxury item), and just isn’t the same.

Having a wooded lot helps.

More later, back to work…

Today’s Boston Globe has a story about Harvard Professor Roger Porter’s allegation that Clinton made up a story about him in his book My Life:

Porter is aghast at Clinton’s allegation. “It’s not true,” said Porter, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “There was no such phone call.”

Porter said that he had only one conversation about the presidency with Clinton. It occurred in 1989, when Clinton was Arkansas governor and the two men discussed education policy. Porter said he told Clinton that he was more moderate than other Democrats and should consider changing his political affiliation to Republican.

Porter said he cannot fathom why Clinton tells the tale. The two talked briefly at the unveiling at Clinton’s portrait at the White House last week, but the subject didn’t come up because the book had not yet been made public. Clinton and his staff could not be reached for comment. Porter, the author of “Presidential Decision Making,” said in the telephone interview yesterday that he is dumbfounded by Clinton’s allegation. “I don’t know why he would make this story up,” Porter said.

Why should one be suprised? We’re talking about Bill Clinton here.

Off to lovely Newport, RI, forty minutes south of here, for two days of meetings.

I abhor meetings, but lately I’ve been doing them for a living. At least I’ll be with a group of good people, at a nice hotel, on the beach no less.. and we’re having a clambake tonight. Whee!

Play nicely amongst yourselves….

Robert Alt has written The Liberal’s Creed. Some excerpts:

We believe that soldiers deliberately target women and children;
We believe that the soldiers abuse and kill Iraqis because they are racists;
We support our troops.

We believe that no one should question our statement that we “support our troops;”
We believe that the best thing that could happen for this country would be for Bush to lose in November;
We believe that the best way for Bush to lose in November is for the Iraq effort to go poorly, even if that means that more Iraqis and troops will die;
We believe that most of the troops are minorities and the poor;
We believe that when the word “heroes” is used to describe our troops, it should always be enclosed in scare quotes.

We believe in quagmire.
We believe that when fringe Iraqi groups attack hard targets and are soundly defeated with relatively low Coalition casualties, that this is inescapable evidence of crisis;
We believe that Iraq is Bush’s Vietnam.

We believe that Vietnam is the lens through which all wars should be viewed.
We believe that soldiers in Vietnam were baby killers;
We believe that John Kerry is a hero for his service in Vietnam.

We believe that because John Kerry is a hero, he necessarily has the national security expertise necessary to be commander-in-chief.
We believe that any attempt to question his national security expertise based on his voting record, including his decision to vote against a supplemental bill used to buy the soldiers body armor, is an unfair attack on the patriotism of a hero, who by virtue of this honorific has the expertise to be commander-in-chief.

Reminds me of those repetitive conversations with protesters in the streets of Boston.

Enjoy!

In today’s Slate, Christopher Hitchens writes of Fahrenheit 9/11:

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.

I don’t think Mr. Hitchen’s liked the movie.

And people ask me why I don’t like Michael Moore’s films - now you know.

Ron Bell writes today of Al Qaeda and SpaceShipOne:

What a difference a day makes.

Less than a week after Al Qaeda beheaded American Paul Johnson in its continuing effort to restore the Middle East to a medieval caliphate ruled by religious fiat comes the successful suborbital flight of SpaceShipOne, a private initiative that represents the best of which humankind is capable.

Could there be a starker study in contrasts?

On the one hand, murderous religious zealots caught up in the imagined glories of a bygone era, dedicated to the proposition that all learning must be filtered and all understanding tempered by the repressive flame of orthodoxy; on the other, individuals committed to opening new frontiers of knowledge, not because it is easy or certain but because it is hard.

Outer space embodies freedom. It is the final frontier, the last unclimbed mountain in an era that has seen more accelerated technological and social change than any that came before. Such rapid metamorphosis can’t help but frighten those who take comfort in certitude. So it is not surprising that some would demand that the world slow down, rest apace, even rewind its historical clock.

Ron’s post reminds me of something that Victor Davis Hanson might write. A fascinating comparison between western civilization and the fundamentalists clinging to a past that they can’t hope to save.

As I watched the news reports of SpaceShipOne yesterday, I was reminded of President Kennedy’s speech:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is the one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intended to win, and the others, too.

Burt Rutan and his team have chosen to do the other thing - because it is hard.

And the world has changed, yet again…

My good friend Mary has started up her weblog - a recent post about her car thief problem:

Thank you for taking the time to break into my car last night. I hope that my amp and subwoofer are to your liking. The sad truth of the matter is that (as far as I could tell) the subwoofer is blown and the left channel of the amp went all shades of screwy. Hopefully you will have better luck with it than I did.

Truthfully, I actually appreciate how neatly you removed it from my car. You carefully unscrewed and unplugged the connections. I thought that was very thoughtful, as most people would have just made one ugly cut.

Mary is one of the funniest people I know - she even draws cartoons and other great stuff. Check her out!