Kevin Williams, left, and John Paul Finnigan were battle buddies in Iraq
They saw a lot of combat. I was with them for some of it. Great Soldiers. Swift and Bold was the moto of their unit, the excellent 2-Rifles.
I do not know who made the photograph of Kevin. I made the photograph of John after a big firefight in which about 30 enemy were killed. The unit later was accused of war crimes for that firefight but that was a lie. I witnessed zero war crimes. Just a big shootout with thousands of bullets coming and going.
I am an author, photographer, war correspondent, and former cannibal hunter. Stick with me, and you might find this to be the most interesting fundraiser you’ve ever seen. The best parts are near the end.
According to Los Angeles Times, my simple website was once one of the busiest in the world. This success was accomplished with only a laptop, camera, and willingness to swim deeper into war than practically any correspondent.
According to the New York Times,
“…[Michael Yon] has spent most of the last three years in Iraq, writing prolifically and graphically, and racking up more time embedded with combat units than any other journalist, according to the United States military. He has been shot at, buffeted by explosions and seen more people maimed — fighters and civilians, adults and children — than he can count.”
I was just getting started when that article came out in 2008. The ‘best’ is yet to come. Readers who invested in me always got their money’s worth.
We attended Winter Haven High School together and sometimes worked out together and were on the same football team.
Scott went on to become the youngest Navy SEAL ever, at just 17. The same age that some students today say, "We are just kids, leave us alone." At 17, Scott was no kid. He was a man. And a SEAL.
If it were not happening to me so often, all these complaints might seem like exaggeration. They are not exaggeration. Of the recent about 120 days, my account has been blocked for 60 days. Why? This earned the first 30-day Facebook suspension:
Do not dare say any truth about Chong Dae Hyup on Facebook. Facebook blocked my account again, for 30 days, for this simple sentence: “Koreans sure are easy to fool. They even think Chong Dae Hyup is on their side.”
I researched Chong Dae Hyup (CDH) in Korea. Went to their headquarters, conducted long intervews with members there and on the Korean streets and in California. CDH is a straight up communist organization who works for North Korea and does bidding for China. One of their members already tried to assassinate our Ambassador.
Morgan Freeman and National Geographic Caught in Tall Tales
In the first minute of Season 1, Episode 1, Freeman launches with:
“When I was 18, I joined the Air Force. And I did well enough on my tests to qualify as an electronics countermeasures operator. But, I was told I couldn’t take that job. Apparently, no black man could fly with the Strategic Air Command.”
Freeman joined the Air Force in 1955, the same year Rosa Parks courageously refused to vacate her seat in the colored section of a bus, to a white person. The white section was full. There were special building entrances for colored folk, waiting rooms, and separate schools for children. In 1955, three blacks were lynched.
Morgan Freeman served his country honorably during a period of severe racism in the United States.
Reality check: Freeman was born in 1937.
The first black fighter pilots entered U.S. Army Air Corps flight school in 1941. The Airmen served valiantly in Europe in World War II and helped end segregation. They became the famous The Tuskegee Airmen.
President Trump thinks he can solve the AfPak dilemma. In his speech, Trump talked about winning. There is no winning to be had beyond safeguarding our national interests.
This is all a distraction from a gigantic problem: China. On our scale of concern, Afghanistan is microscopic by comparison to China and other challenges, yet on our scale of priorities, the price of nation building in Afghanistan dwarfs the price of securing our borders.
Afghanistan is at the periphery of our influence bubble. Pluto. Our footprint is a speck in the Asian beyond. The President called on Pakistan and India to do their parts. How often we have heard this.
Yesterday, a busy Facebook page published some of my work. This sparked lively conversation. Some Soldiers cued me in. The story revolved around an intense, close firefight in Mosul that ended with hand-to-hand combat and my finding an empty M-4 rifle, loading it and firing.
Pardon the language, but in the comments a reader named Mitchell Spillman asked: "Want to explain to me how the fuck the journalist reloaded a rifle? Whered he pull the mag from, his ass?"
Kingdom of Thailand: The body of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, has passed away. His Loving Soul is with us now.
With sad heart that I write these words. I was told by sources close to His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej that he passed away one hour ago, at about 1415 Thailand time. As I write these words, it has not yet been announced, but when you read these words, it will have been officially announced.
I read it several times. Generally speaking, we already knew of Saudi culpability in the 9/11 attacks. After all, 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudi, and there remains mountains of other evidence.
These 28 pages contain many specifics ranging from Florida and across the country to California to Oregon. These pages should be of great interest to journalists, and to people who live in neighborhoods where some of these mosques exist, etc.
Many veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and other such wars, likely view this news cycle through a different glass. Using Iraq as example, after things truly began to spin out of control in 2004, many people were fighting for vastly different reasons. The situation was difficult to track even for dedicated analysts. Just who was fighting whom, and for what reasons, often was a great mystery even to our intelligence people.
Amid the chaos of unstructured conflict and war, the always-there lunatic fringe is uncorked. Suddenly the actions of a serial killer look like the work of an insurgent or group. Criminality skyrockets, and what would earlier have been seen as just a bank robbery looks like part of a movement.
The British and others have much basis in fact for wishing to leave the EU and its nonsensical Eurocrats. This post explains a trivial matter by comparison, but by scaling up this example it becomes easier understand their anger and frustration.
My Canon DSLR cameras shoot video that is of sufficient quality to use in major motion pictures. The quality is extremely high. Many filmmakers use the Canon Mark III 5d.
I use the same model for interviews and other situations to capture maximum details. I just used this camera in 11 countries during ‘comfort women’ research.
This is unbelievably huge and complex. Many people already are blaming the British. Especially the English are to blame, they think.
But this is not their fault. This is the fault of the EU. British have been saying for years that they are unhappy, and they were ignored. They were taken for granted.
They do not like to be taken for granted.
They were shouting at the top of their lungs while smug Eurocrats ignored them.
Tim is a retired Marine infantry officer. I spent much time with Tim in various provinces in Afghanistan, such as Nangarhar, Kabul, Kandahar, Helmand, Nimoroz.
Good Lord almighty we went everywhere together, often alone or with just one other man, an ex-Aussie Soldier named Shem.
First time Tim picked me up in Kabul to take me to Jalalabad, Nangarhar, there was a bag beside me in the backseat filled with grenades. I said I'll just help myself to a couple of these.
We were going down roads sometimes passing burning and blown-up, shot up vehicles. IED holes, and people who obviously were Taliban and associates, yet somehow we got away with it. You had to be there to believe it.
I was not advertising this at the time due to the obvious peril, but we both learned a lot about the war which left both of us ahead of the curve when writing about it.
This morning I checked Tim's website and saw that he posted on the Orlando shooting.
Several years ago, Mr. Gingrich called me about something and I still have his private number. So I called him this evening from China to ask his thoughts about Donald Trump. This audio is short and unedited, though it kicks in about 20 seconds after we started talking:
This came from a former EOD officer and close friend who served two tours in Iraq and still teaches internationally on the topic:
Oh, before I forget, they really need some 256 kits to be sure on the chem from the Free Burma Ranger report. Some incendiary compounds can fail to ignite and look like a black oily mess with fumes on occasion. Given that various groups in that region typically modify ordnance I would not put it past them to improvise an incendiary.
I'm not sure either way and would have to defer to the blood test from the hospital on those who were exposed as well as a 256 kit or other detection to see, but black and oil could also be an incendiary as well as chemical. Just another potential.
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Kevin Williams, left, and John Paul Finnigan were battle buddies in Iraq
