COB ADDER — First constructed more than 5,000 years ago in the marshes of what is now southern Iraq, the mudhif is a unique local meeting place assembled entirely of reeds, straw and other natural materials.
In a project designed to honor the customs and traditions of the region, members of Human Terrain Team 8 recently served as advisors on the construction of a mudhif here, at the 4th Brigade's Regional Center of Excellence for Civil Capacity.
The HTT has worked in the Southern Iraqi provinces of Maysan, Dhi Qar and Muthanna for the last two years. They work to gain an understanding of the local culture and share that knowledge with the Soldiers operating in the region.
As part of their work, they regularly take part in engagements with local leaders and conduct field research among the Iraqis who live along the many canals in the region and in the Hawizah Marsh.
Task Force Pathfinder will use the mudhif they helped construct to conduct meetings with local leaders in a comfortable, traditional background.
The Pathfinder Mudhif is being built by a crew of local craftsmen entirely from materials harvested from the local marshes.
The lead builder of the mudhif is a man with skin darkened by years of exposure to the elements. Although unwilling to give his name, he commented, "I have built nearly 100 mudhif structures in my lifetime."...
TAPS TRAINING WEBINAR THURSDAY DEC. 3RD EXAMINES SECONDARY TRAUMA AND COMPASSION FATIGUE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Dec. 1, 2009
WASHINGTON – James S. Gordon, MD, author of Unstuck: Your Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of Depression, will lead a professional education Webinar Thursday on concerns for emotional caregivers for the military community.
Doctor Gordon, who has worked extensively with US military, will lead the training entitled “Professionals Working with the Grieving and Traumatized: Recognizing and Caring for Your Own Secondary Trauma and Compassion Fatigue," to educate care giving professionals working with military trauma about the dangers of ignoring their own compassion fatigue.
“This is such an important issue,” says Dr. Gordon. “Before we can help others deal with trauma, stress, and grief, we need to learn to come to terms with and successfully address these issues in our own lives. As Hippocrates long ago pointed out, we cannot help others until we have begun to heal ourselves.”
The TAPS Continuing Education & Training Series for Caregivers provides information for thousands of professionals including (but not limited to): chaplains, military leadership, family readiness officers, social workers, nurses, counselors, marriage and family therapists, case managers, employee assistance professionals, school counselors, program directors, and other health and mental health professionals interacting with and providing services to military service members and their families.
“Our goal for the Continuing Education & Training Series for Caregivers is to increase awareness and educate professionals about current mental health challenges faced by U.S. military service members and their families,” said Jill Harrington LaMorie, TAPS Director of Professional Education.
The seminar will be offered Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 12pm Eastern Time, 11am Central Time, 10am Mountain Time, and 9am Pacific Time. Offered via a webinar interface, attendees can interactively participate through their computer and view the presentation while listening through a phone.
All military personnel, Department of Veterans Affairs personnel, and Give an Hour professionals with a valid work email address are invited to attend free of charge.
Civilians who are not working for the military or the VA are asked to pay a small program fee of $25. Students with a valid college or university email address can attend for a reduced price of $15.
Certificates of Attendance can be provided for those who attend the entire webinar. This program is approved by the National Association of Social Workers, Provider # 886505639, for 1.0 continuing education contact hours. Provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, Provider # CEP15218, for 1.0 continuing education contact hours. The Association of Professional Chaplains will accept certificates of attendance for use in reporting continuing education hours. Please check with your state licensing board for professional requirements for continuing education.
About Our Speaker Doctor Gordon is a clinical professor of psychiatry and family medicine at Georgetown University’s School of Medicine and director of the Center of Mind and Body Medicine.
About TAPS Since its founding in 1992, TAPS has provided comfort and care to more than 25,000 surviving military family members. TAPS provides ongoing emotional help, hope and healing to all who are grieving the death of a loved one in military service to America, regardless of relationship to the deceased, geography, or circumstance of the death. TAPS meets its mission by providing peer-based support, crisis care, casualty casework assistance, and grief and trauma resources. Services are provided free of charge. For more information go to www.taps.org or call the toll-free crisis line at 800.959.TAPS.
On Monday, I posted details about this rally here.
Today, from Family Security Matters comes this:
Exclusive: Rally in Foley Square: Stop the Terror Trial in NYC!
For Americans angry about the decision to try terrorists in civilian court, the chance to make our voices heard has arrived.
This shocking decision by the administration and Attorney General Eric Holder effectively gives war criminals the same rights as American citizens, endangers New Yorkers, and gives Islamic terrorists a platform to air their grievances against the United States - a platform that is sure to be monitored by not only our allies throughout the world, but our enemies as well. As we have stated previously here at FSM, the decision to try these terrorists - who already tried to plead guilty in a bid to advance their own martyrdom - in federal court is a slap in the face not only to New Yorkers, but to all Americans.
December 1, 2009
Exclusive: Rally in Foley Square: Stop the Terror Trial in NYC!
For Americans angry about the decision to try terrorists in civilian court, the chance to make our voices heard has arrived.
A rally will take place on Saturday, December 5th at Foley Square in New York City to protest the administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and four other masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon in federal court New York – just blocks away from where the towers collapsed on that fateful day.
This shocking decision by the administration and Attorney General Eric Holder effectively gives war criminals the same rights as American citizens, endangers New Yorkers, and gives Islamic terrorists a platform to air their grievances against the United States – a platform that is sure to be monitored by not only our allies throughout the world, but our enemies as well....
This latest outrage has been making the rounds among milsupporters, and I happily join in to spread the word. Three of our nation's finest SEAL operatives have been caught up in a legal tsunami that threatens to punish them after they completed a dangerous mission on our behalf.
Background: Three Navy SEALs took part in the capture of Ahmed Hashim Abed, one of the most wanted enemy agents in Iraq. Abed is believed to have orchestrated the brutal murder and desecration of four Blackwater USA operatives, two of whose bodies were hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. After he was captured, Abed - who clearly knows his ICC regs well - complained that the SEALs roughed him up a bit.
Predictably, the US Government pressed criminal charges - against the SEALs.
The charged men are as follows.
Matthew McCabe, a Special Operations Petty Officer Second Class (SO-2), is facing three charges: dereliction of performance of duty for willfully failing to safeguard a detainee, making a false official statement, and assault.
Petty Officer Jonathan Keefe, SO-2, is facing charges of dereliction of performance of duty and making a false official statement.
Petty Officer Julio Huertas, SO-1, faces those same charges and an additional charge of impediment of an investigation.
The three will be arraigned on December 7 at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, VA....
Sitting majestically atop a utility pole at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a bald eagle is king of all he surveys. Kennedy co-exists with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which provides a habitat for 330 species of birds including bald eagles. A variety of other wildlife--117 kinds of fish, 65 types of amphibians and reptiles, 31 different mammals, and 1,045 species of plants--also inhabit the refuge. For information on the refuge, visit http://www.fws.gov/merrittisland/Index.html.
Spc. Michael P. Garton, a gunner with the Personal Security Detachment, with the 36th Sustainment Brigade out of Temple, Texas, and a Texarkana, Texas, native, relaxes on a Humvee and shares a laugh with Spc. Rolando R. Flores, a gunner with the PSD and a San Antonio native, during a break in preparations for a mission Nov. 23 in the maintenance yard at Contingency Operating Location Adder, Iraq.
Photo Courtesy U.S. Army
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived
This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
Who is Barack Hussein Obama?
Today Barack Hussein Obama is taking to the airwaves to tell the American people what decision he has made in regards to his latest strategy for the Afghanistan theatre in the Global War on Terror. No, I know he won't be calling it the GWOT, since he personally discarded that most appropriate title a while back. But this war we are all involved in IS global, just as the implications of who he IS are also global.
When BHO appeared on the national political scene, and began his never-ending campaign to become the President of the United States, many questions were asked about who he was/is. Valid questions that had been asked - and answered - about other candidates, were brushed aside. This man, who many touted as the great unifier of a supposedly divided nation, has spent many hours, and many dollars, ensuring that documentation of who he is are out of reach. We have no idea of his educational record, since not only are his transcripts unavailable, but no school mates have come forward and said "Yeah, I know him. We were in so and so class together.." This extends to his wife, who apparently has a Masters degree, but we can't prove that, since her thesis is under lock and key. I have commented before that this is unheard of, since, in my experience, any thesis becomes public domain material once defended.
BHO supposedly wrote two books, and speculation abounds as to whether he actually wrote them, or if Bill Ayers was the ghost writer. Bill Ayers is another gaping hole in BHO's past: he of the proven terrorist past, along with his wife. But the campaign strategists expended much energy (as Ayers remained silent) to ensure that no valid questions, no valid examination of BHO's suitability to be POTUS were answered. For a candidate who felt that his life warranted not one, but two, autobiographies, his life has been anything but an open book.
There are many documented examples of BHO and his campaign 'volunteers' denigrating and smearing Americans who genuinely wanted to know who this man was who determined to live in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Rather than answer the respectful, legitimate questions, BHO's response was to galvanise his own "Fight the Smears" team. No matter what question surfaced during the official campaign, BHO Obamabots energetically manipulated the msm, and the questioners' reputations were sullied in brutal ways. The message was loud and clear: You do not question the One.
The most basic question asked of BHO, and the question most vociferously rejected, is the eligibility, citizenship of BHO, the man who now holds the title of President of the United States.
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
As anyone knows, this IS the most basic question for a man who represents the United States on the global stage. It IS a question that can, and should, be easily answered, but to date it has NOT been satisfactorily answered by BHO. Fact is, BHO has refused to answer his critics. Not only has he refused, but he has spent huge amounts of time and money ensuring that this issue remains shrouded in mystery. What, for most of us, would be a 5 minute effort to produce a valid - OFFICIAL - document, BHO and his minions refuse to even address.
As many 'ordinary' American citizens attempt to have the issue addressed via US courts, BHO henchmen go into high gear ridiculing and shutting down any and all attempts to establish that BHO meets the qualification to be the POTUS:
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President;
To date, this man who is responsible for the lives of our military is determined that his own life, his own right to set ANY policy affecting the lives of all Americans, remains an enigma. To date, more than a few judges have thrown out challenges brought before them, usually on technical grounds. You can find an abbreviated history of such attempts over at Dr Orly Taitz's site here.
Still BHO refuses to settle this most basic question of his eligibility to be POTUS. There is another challenge coming before a US judge in January 2010. BHO and his minions may wish for this issue to disappear, but it will NOT be dismissed that easily. His supporters may derisively label their fellow Americans 'birthers', as they legitimately ask: 'Is BHO qualified to be the POTUS?' but still, brave citizens pursue a simple answer to this simple question.
From my inbox comes this of the latest attempt to answer the most basic issue:
Federal Judge Carter sets Trial Date for Obama's Eligibility!
The expedited trial has been set for Jan. 26, 2010!
Many concerned veterans and citizens attended the hearing in Federal Court in Santa Ana in the lawsuit against Barack Obama to determine his eligibility to be President and Commander in Chief. About 150 people showed up, almost all in support of the lawsuit to demand that Obama release his birth certificate and other records that he has hidden from the American people.
Judge David Carter refused to hear Obama's request for dismissal. [emphasis mine] He indicated there was almost no chance that this case would be dismissed. Obama is arguing this lawsuit was filed in the wrong court if you can believe that. Obama would prefer a "kangaroo court" instead of a Federal court! Assuming Judge Carter denies Obama's motion for dismissal, he will likely then order expedited discovery which will force Obama to release his birth certificate in a timely manner (if he has one).
The judge, WHO IS A FORMER U.S. MARINE, repeated several times that this is A VERY SERIOUS CASE which must be resolved quickly so that the troops know that their Commander in Chief is eligible to hold that position and issue lawful orders to our military in this time of war. He basically said OBAMA MUST PROVE HIS ELIGIBILITY to the court! He said Americans deserve to know the truth about their President!
The two U.S. Attorneys representing Barack Obama tried everything they could to sway the judge that this case was frivolous, but Carter would have none of it and cut them off several times. Obama's attorneys left the courtroom after about the 90 minute hearing looking defeated and nervous.
Great day in America for the U.S. Constitution! The truth about Barack Obama's eligibility will be known fairly soon - Judge Carter practically guaranteed it!
This IS a serious matter. As been proven time and again, BHO will go to any lengths to hide the truth of who he is. Lucky for us all, FeelTheChangeMedia has done a lot of research, and put together a video of Barak Hussein Obama's own words.
Obama admits that he is a Muslim. Obama bowing before a Muslim king. Obama talking about his Muslim family. Obama quoting from the Koran. Obama defending Islam. Obama visiting a Mosque. And many more clips of Obama and his Muslim connections.
Case closed!
As you listen to yet another of BHO's prime time national addresses, set this time in West Point (don't even get me started on that choice,) keep in mind WHO he really is. Yes, he may be speaking as the current President of the United States; yes, he will be sharing his latest strategy as Commander-in-Chief, but his OWN words prove he is not qualified for either of those roles.
I am reminded of those famous words:
Ask not what your country can do for you. Instead, ask what you can do for your country.
