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in the valley of darkness in the shadows of the night rising from the ashes of humanity he lives for honor THE REALM OF THE ROGUE MARINE |
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Recapping The Days Top Stories
Greetings,
Well, it's been an interesting last few days. I took the advice that I got in my last few reviews and decided to change the layout of the main pages. As you can tell, my "The Honors" section is missing. It's now actually on my side navbar and took the place of the "reviews/awards" section. Each link in there will take you to either the review site (if the review is pending) or take you to the actual review, which I copied onto this site. It also has a link to take you to the page of the site where my review was posted, so that the doubting thomases of you can verify that I'm not kidding when I get near-perfect or perfect scores. I also decided to get reviews from Xtreme Reviews, Star Reviews, Bop Reviews, Pimp Reviews, and My Reviews. It should be an interesting page when all is said and done, no?
Witch Medic had an interesting piece in her journal on the 19th about the movie Black Hawk Down. In it, she mentioned that someone in chat had told her that they didn't care about the history of the movie, just who starred in it. That really got to Witchy, and I can't blame her. I have actually stumbled on information about that incident. For those of you who don't know, the movie is based on the failed 1993 raid on a gang-leader's compound by U.S. Army Rangers in Mogadishu, Somalia.
It is believed now that our Army Rangers were lured there to be shot up by forces with suspected ties to al-Qaida. In a column dated 17 May 1994 by retired Army Colonel David Hackworth, he stated that "All the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing has found out so far is there was no unity of command, the top brass were divided and no one had the guts to stand up and sound off against bad policy." He also went on to write "In an Oval Office meeting held during a hearing recess, President Clinton told retired Col. Larry Joyce and others who lost sons during the raid that he was pretty much out of the loop. Joyce, a two-tour Vietnam vet and father of dead Ranger Casey Joyce, asked Clinton, 'Since you had decided on a diplomatic solution, why was the 3 October raid launched?' Clinton replied, 'That's the key question'".
When the chopper went down, our forces called for tanks and other armored vehicles to cover the Rangers so they could extract the survivors. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, sitting in a comfortable desk state-side, spiked the request, according to Hack, saying that he didn't know that the tanks were there to protect our forces. Hack went on to write "Former combat-grunt-turned-pilot Joyce asked why Air Force AC-130 gunships weren't supporting the Rangers instead of thin-skinned Army choppers. Ranger Gen. William Garrison, who ran the operation, said he asked for gunships, but Gen. Hoar and State Department officials -- again, far from Mogadishu -- spiked his request." Also factor in that a total 24 choppers had been shot up in the region prior to the raid.
In all, the raid was a disaster since it was obvious that this mission was entirely political, and a fourth-grader could have planned the op better than any of the UN or Polticos could have. Witch Medic also posted a picture of the chopper crewman that was dragged through the streets naked to be kicked by on-lookers. Who was this gentleman? It was Staff Sergeant Bill Cleveland. Kudos to the Witch for digging up that info. I was wondering who this guy was.
Nicki was talking to me last night, saying that she's going to finish the reviews that she has pending, and then stop doing reviews altogehter. She said that it was because she doesn't have time for them, but she also admitted that she's jealous of the popularity of my diary. More specifically, she's upset because I can just write, and write, and write, and then stop, and then write some more. She also mentioned that she feels that she can't write her true feelings online anymore because she gets a lot of people bugging her about what she writes. I asked if there was anything in particualr she was talking about, and she said that she didn't want situations like when she went off about her mom, which had her calling Nicki a day or two later to chew her up one side and down the other.
I explained to her that you can never write something that will please everyone, and if you could, it would be so bland and generic that people would go out and seek other diaries to read that are more interesting, thereby defeating a major reason to keep a diary that's online. I told her that I do not back down unless forced to when it comes to my writing. Some people just go around looking for something to cause trouble over, and those kinds of people you can't stop because they will always find fault in whatever you do. I write what I feel, and to hell with what others think of it. If they like it, great, come back and get more. If not, great, come back here more often so I can make fun of you. I have nothing else better to do with my life, come on! I can take you all! BRING IT!!!
Ahem. I seem to have gone off course. Sorry. She also said that she likes the theme-sense that goes with my diary. I told her that she needs to find something that she can totally relate to, and then use that as her design. I also said that I'd help her with that, but if I remember right, she told Tiara, the webmaster of Naked Reviews, that she wanted to go inactive here soon. I'll have to check on that.
I'll see about writing again later. I'm going to do some work on this diary now.
"We're going to grab them by the nose, and we're gonna kick'em in the ass! We're going to do that all the time, and we're going to go through them like crap through a goose!" - Gen. George S. Patton, in a speech to the U.S. Third Army in World War II.
Personal Log, 25 Apr 2004 - 2004-04-25
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