President Reagan D-Day speech at Normandy
In honor of D-Day, which occurred on this day in 1944, here is a speech given by President Ronald Reagan at Normandy.
Update: The official US Army D-Day page.
Originally posted on June 6, 2009
Monday Book Pick: Act of Valor
Act of Valor by Dick Couch and George Galdorisi
The Memorial Day edition of the Monday Book Pick is the book version of the movie Act of Valor. Filmed with real Navy SEALs playing Navy SEALs, the story follows a SEAL team on a series of missions that starts with the rescue of a DEA agent being tourtured by drug dealers. We’re not talking faux tourture like water boarding either. Intelligence gathered on that mission puts them on the trail of a terrorist planning on bringing death and destruction to America. Multiple reviews by combat vets state that this is one of the most realistic military movies they have ever seen.
Monday Book Pick: SEAL Team Six: The Novel
SEAL Team Six: The Novel by Chuck Dixon
A nice action novel about SEALs in the unit formerly known as SEAL Team Six. Here they are hunting Islamic terrorists who are finding and grooming “home grown” terrorists. It’s not about the fancy gear, or the politics behind the scenes, it’s about Good Guys finding and killing Bad Guys. For a $0.99 Kindle ebook, it certainly delivers value for your money. When I finished it, I was happy to find out it was the first in a planned series.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Navy SEALs
This movie was made in 1990, back when Hollywood wasn’t afraid to have Muslim terrorists be the bad guys. Charlie Sheen pulled off what was a badly written character as well as it could be expected. It was Michael Biehn who really shined in this film though. This was the first of at least three times he play a Navy SEAL. A good action flick where the bad guys get shot, stabbed, drown and blown up. Think of it as low budget way to get ready for Act of Valor, which is current playing in theaters and has real Navy SEALs playing the Navy SEALs. It also has Muslim terrorists as bad guy, which bucks the trend Hollywood has been following. A trend that has resulted in movies that suck and don’t make much money.
Part 2 of J.R. Dunn’s “Beating Decline”
Baen Books published an interesting Miltech article by Mr. Dunn, and has recently published Part 2, War in the Dirt.
Interesting reading on Miltech
BEATING DECLINE: Miltech and the Survival of the U.S.
Monday Book Pick: Seize the Day
Seize the Day by Richard Marcinko and Jim DeFelice
Wow, the Rogue Warrior series is up to fourteen with this installment. It’s a good action yarn, and Marcinko like to remind you that he does have a Masters in International Relations and has more than “shooting and looting” in his world travels. In this book, he reminds that you sucks to be an average Cuban under Castro’s brand of Communism and that there are worse prisons on the island than the terrorist holding cells at Gitmo. My favorite in the series is still the first one, his autobiography written to pay his legal bills.
Two US Air Force airmen killed. Murderer yelled out “Allahu akbar”
That’s according to the New York Times. The killer made an effort to determine who in the crowd were US Military personnel before opening fire.
No mention of the killer’s religion or the shout in the sanitized CNN story. Hardly a surprise.
The shooting occurred at the Frankfurt airport. So much for Germany’s strict gun control laws.
Christmas Cards for Recovering American Soldiers
When filling out your Christmas cards this year, take ONE CARD and SEND it to this address:
A Recovering American Soldier c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center 6900 Georgia Avenue NW Washington, DC 20307-5001If we pass this on and everyone sends one card, think of how many cards these soldiers could get to bring up their spirits!
Black is back!
When the US Army adopted the ACU (Army Combat Uniform) with a new digital camouflage pattern, the color black was not to be found in the pattern. The argument was the the color black is not found in nature. I’ve talked with members of the military who were on exercises with people wearing both the ACU and the older BDU uniforms (the BDUs had the woodland pattern) and was told that it was much easier to spot the people in the ACU at night.
It has been announced that the US Army is now producing a variant of the ACU with the MultiCam camouflage pattern. If you look closely at the MultiCam pattern, you will see that it includes the color black.
For now, the MultiCam pattern is only being issued in Afghanistan, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the more effective pattern make its way through the Army supply chain.
There are other changes being made to the ACU, based on feedback from soldiers in the field. One that caught my attention was replacing the Velcro ™ seals on the sleeve cargo pockets with buttons. Makes sense. Buttons are quiet.