Saturday, May 24, 2008, 10:55 PM - USMC
I found this online while I was reading some news from Myanmar. All I can think about is that the people in Myanmar are waiting for aide and we're waiting to give it to them. I come to work early every morning HOPING that we're given the green light to expand beyond the 5 C-130 flights a day we're doing. It's so heart wrenching to know that we're right here with an incredible ability to deliver and distribute aide to all of the affected areas and we can't do anything. I just want to scream: WE'RE RIGHT FUCKING HERE, LET US IN!!! This is really taking a toll on us.
Burma's Non-Political Flood
by
Thu I Sann
Water, water, all around me
But I am so..so… thirsty.
Here, there, human bodies' everywhere
But none alive accompany me and share.
And I look at myself
Broken hopes and empty handed.
And I look further around
Just like a post heavy-battled ground.
Wild cyclone has wiped all things down.
Where are those kids from innocent playground?
Where are students in the green and white uniform?
Where is my town always singing along country rock songs?
Where are my mates who search for freedom and independent?
Where are those local chicks with new-leaf-color lips?
Where are those parents with a too busy habit?
All my questions disappear,
All my answers whisper…and whisperer.
Collaborated disaster of the nature and the dictator!
And I constantly hear voices from my empty stomach
Asking me food, forcing me speak out and stand up.
I silently speak with my loudest, to the entire world
Then mankind's sympathies come and knock my door.
Let me now open my door
'Cause those sympathies will help to fix my wounded floor.
Let me invite them with an open heart
'Cause those sympathies will help my life reconstruct.
Hello Mr. militarists,
Your guns are currently useless,
My demands are urgently needed,
Here, I'm alive, not a corpse yet,
Neither much time left.
Together, let's work out as a nice diplomat!
(Dedicated To My Mother And People Of Burma Who Lost Lives And
Who Are Hardly Survived Under Both Natural And Political Weathers!)
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Sunday, May 11, 2008, 09:00 PM - USMC
More info to follow soon, but I'm now a Thai TV star. I've been told by a few people out in town that they saw me on TV.
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Monday, December 10, 2007, 06:42 AM - USMC
On November 15th, Cyclone Sidr came in from the Bay of Bengal and devastated the country of Bangladesh. A few days later, III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) sent a Humanitarian Assistance Survey Team (HAST) into the country to assess the damage and what role, if any, III MEF would play in the Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR) to the country.
On Saturday, 24 November Lisa, Nathan, and I were at some friends house eating dinner when I got a call from my unit saying that I was being called in to work the next day in order to prepare to leave for Bangladesh on Monday morning. Wow...talk about short notice! I do have to admit that packing was pretty easy since I hadn't unpacked from when I got back from the Philippines! Needless to say, Lisa was not happy with the line: "I don't know how long I'll be gone for...it could be a couple of days to a couple of weeks to a couple of months". That kind of ruined the four day weekend for us.
Sunday came and went. I spent the entire morning through afternoon planning the movement and communication pieces of our mission. Granted, we didn't entirely have a complete mission yet. That's okay, cause we kind of made it up as we went along. Essentially there were going to be three Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU) in the area providing relief, so the MEF commander wanted to send a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) command element to sit on top of the three MEUs. The short lesson in Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) doctrine is that a MEF is the largest combat organization in the Marine Corps. A MEB is smaller than a MEF and a MEU is smaller than a MEB. All ya need to know
So my role in all of this was to provide communications and command & control functions to the MEB Air Cell (pilots from my unit) as they directed the MEU aircraft when to go where. Sounds good to me!
Monday came and went, waiting at the passenger terminal on Futenma just to hear that the flight slipped to Tuesday. Tuesday came and we finally took off...with my 3,000 pound pallet of comm gear!! Hey, it's better to take it and not need it than it is to need it and not have it. Due to the distance we needed to travel, we ended up staying in Pattaya, Thailand for a night. When I say night, I really mean it. We got to the hotel around 10pm and left at 7am. Most people took advantage of the endless..."nightlife" and rested on the plane the next morning.
When we landed in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Wednesday the 28th, it was full of the hurry up and wait game. After a few hours going through immigration and what not, we finally made it to the hotel and headed to the Embassy. After some SNAFUs there, we finally were allowed in and tried to scout out an area that we'd be working.
The next week and a half was full of 16 hour days trying to command and control these forces in order to meet the priorities of the local government with the resources we had. It was exhausting but very rewarding to say the least. Most of the damage was along the coast in southern Bangladesh rather than around the capital of Dhaka, but we could see remnants of the cyclone around us as well.
Below are some links to articles on the web about this high profile cyclone and our efforts in the country. Stay tuned for my next post about the experience of being in Bangladesh.
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000. ... endocument
http://www.e-mela.com/page.php?id=1845
http://www.pacom.mil/special/0711bdesh/index.shtml
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000. ... endocument
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000. ... endocument
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007, 04:09 AM - USMC
I was in the Philippines for the last month. Maybe there will be more to come later. Maybe not. Ahhh...the mysteries of life![ add comment ] | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
Thursday, July 5, 2007, 03:39 AM - USMC
Happy July 4th! I'm on duty today and if you've read any of my other posts while I'm on duty, you know that this will be corny too.
Some of us are sitting in an office watching TV, surfing the Internet, reading, etc waiting for something to happen. We represent the command while everyone sleeps. We're armed with email, telephones, cell phones, M9 pistols, and quite a bit of ammunition. In a sense, we're the lucky ones because we're standing duty in an environment where the worst thing that is likely to happen is that someone does something stupid and we have to report it up the chain.
There are other types of duty standers today though. Those are the people currently deployed all over the globe in harms way. The difference is, people are actively trying to kill them. They are acting on behalf of our country to help secure independence and freedom for the countries they're in. Freedom from tyranny, oppression, violence, terrorism, etc.
For everyone who looks up at the sky tonight and sees fireworks instead of mortars, hears joyous pops in the sky instead of car bombs in the distance, and thinks about what our country had to go through over the last 231 years versus thinking about your best friend who was just killed in combat: Happy Independence Day.
On this day, don't think about the military, Iraq, war, etc. Look within yourself and your family to find ways to improve our homefront. Are we better or worse off than when our founding fathers declared our independence from Britain? That's what I think you all should be thinking about today.
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Friday, June 22, 2007, 05:23 AM - Family, PC, Japan, Pictures, USMC
Last Friday, I had one of the greatest opportunities of my career: to go visit Iwo Jima. That was one of the very few things I really wanted to do before I left Okinawa and I'm stoked that I got to go. Our Ops Chief was re-enlisting and was able to get a flight from Okinawa to Iwo Jima for 40 people. He swooped up most of the officers and SNCOs of the unit and off we went!
With only 4 hours on the deck and an hour and a half hump up to the top of Mt. Suribachi, we didn't waste any time. We humped up to the top, took some pictures, did the ceremony, humped down to the beach, walked up the beach, got some sand, jumped in the shark infested ocean, and finished humping back. All in all, it was amazing.
;)
;)
On a more somber note, if you're not familiar with the battle of Iwo Jima at all, here's a little history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima
Over 27,000 US troops (mostly Marines) were casualties. Over 6,000 were killed in a battle that lasted a little more than 30 days. More than 20,000 Japanese soldiers died. This battle is one of the most important battles in the history of the Marine Corps, which is why it was such an honor to be able to walk those same grounds.
"Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue"—Admiral Chester W. Nimitz
BTW, I made this image by merging a photo of the landing with one of my photos. I think I'm going to mount it in a shadow box style frame and put some sand in it. What do you think?
;)
Click the related link below for some more pictures.
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Sunday, June 17, 2007, 02:04 PM - Family, PC, USMC
About two weeks ago I got back from a conference in the Philippines with about 11 other Marines. Without going into too many details, we had an entire KC-130 to ourselves. A few days before coming back we were told that the primary mission of our flight had changed from "picking us up" to what's called an "HR mission" or Human Remains mission.
Apparently a Navy Chief who was on terminal leave (meaning he was a few weeks shy of retiring) in the Philippines had drowned and we needed to take his body back to Okinawa to make it back to the US. This was my first opportunity to be part of the transportation of remains and it was really neat. One of the other officers with us had worked at an I&I unit (Inspector & Instructor == basically a handful of active duty Marines who run a reserve center while the reservists are at their civilian jobs). Unfortunately, the I&I units have been doing the majority of all burials since the war began which means they have a lot of experience with this kind of thing.
We formed a 7 man honor guard and practiced the ceremony of loading the casket onto the plane and then removing it on Okinawa over the period of an hour just before the casket came. As the hearse drove up, we unexpectedly saw a large number family members which we didn't expect at all. We performed our ceremony, took off, then unloaded the casket in the same manner on Okinawa.
I have to admit, although we didn't know this person and he wasn't even a Marine, we all felt a sense of obligation and duty to make sure that we showed his casket the same amount of respect we would want someone to show us. A few days later the LtCol who runs the Joint US Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG) in the Philippines wrote an email to our Commanding General and his boss thanking us for the cermony we put together on such short notice. He mentioned that the family was in awe of the dignity we showed this person.
It's the little things that make me feel good about what I do.
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Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 03:33 PM - USMC
Need I say more?
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Sunday, November 19, 2006, 02:42 PM - USMC
So Thursday night I was both excited and sad at the same time because that was the night of my unit's Birthday Ball but Nathan got sick that day also, so Lisa had to stay home. The reason I was excited was because it was my 4th Birthday Ball but the first one that I've been to with a unit. All of the other ones were TBS, Comm School, or the Wing Officer Ball the week prior. So basically this was the first one where I was going to celebrate with my Marines. Sweet!
I'm happy to report that it was better than I could imagine. I. LOVED. IT. Now, the actual setup of it all was kinda crappy. I'm really pissed off about the MCCS Mafia that controls all Birthday Balls over here. But I had an AWESOME time hanging out with my Marines and talking to them about different stuff. I didn't even eat dinner!!! I spent so much time walking around and having conversations with all my Marines that I missed dinner. Oh well, I'd pay $80 to have that good of a time any day.
BTW, how much fun is it to watch people cut a rug? So fun! One of my Marines even split his pants doing it. Sweet! Unfortunately I have no pictures because a) they might be too incriminating and b) Lisa had the camera with her when she took Nathan out to get medicine. Oh well!
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Friday, November 17, 2006, 12:51 AM - USMC
Coincidence? I think not. I showed some of my Marines the picture of the two Hos in my post about the Philippines and it turns out that the one in the pink skirt had "relations" with one of my Marines. And it seems that he's going back there over Christmas to relate some more. Sweet.[ 2 comments ] ( 16 views ) | [ 0 trackbacks ] | permalink
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