On Veterans Day the Brave New Foundation released this video to place pressure on President Barack Obama not to deploy more troops to Afghanistan. The proposed escalation, which Obama is expected to decide on in the next few weeks, means sending up to 40,000 more troops to the region. In this video, US Marine Corps Veteran, Sgt. Devon Read, said that: "Further troops in Afghanistan is going to escalate the violence, it's going to escalate the Taliban recruiting effort and its certainly not going to create a better situation."

Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway is opposing President Obama's pledge to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," the Washington Times is reporting today. Citing a former senior Pentagon official, the Times says that Conway "has emerged in internal Pentagon deliberations as the most outspoken opponent of permitting gay men and women to serve openly in the U.S. military."

Jim Fontella of Michigan is one of 22 male breast cancer survivors from Lejeune, says fellow survivor Mike Partain , who was raised in a Marine Corps family. As we have reported many times in the past, the Camp Lejeune Marine base in North Carolina is heavily contaminated with PCE (tetrachloroethylene) and TCE (trichloroethylene) as well as other cancer causing agents. Jerry Ensminger's was a Marine at Lejeune who lost his daughter to cancer. Once he connected her death to the base pollution, he became a one man force strictly and utterly determined to get to the bottom of the base's toxicity issues. (see: Male Breast Cancer: a Hard Bullet to Dodge for Marines at Camp LejeuneTim King Salem-News.com) Letters went out to Marines and former Marines a couple of years ago, indicating the government's understanding of the magnitude of the issue. Then in recent weeks, practically out of nowhere, the Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy, the two agencies responsible for handling the cost of the pollution, gathered a group of scientists, the National Resource Council, and had them reevaluate the issue.

Do wingnuts like Rush Limbaugh represent conservative Americans? Eric Wattree says NO."While President Obama is going about his valiant and statesman-like attempt to rescue America and restore our image at home and abroad, the GOP politics as usual, diehard operatives are acting like spoiled brats determined to undermine the president–and America's–effort. But in their blind attempt to regain power they seem to have forgotten one important fact–the vast majority of true conservatives are fiercely loyal Americans, and don't share their view of power at any cost. While "true conservatives" have a vastly different view from "true liberals" regarding the policies that make America great, the two groups have one very important thing in common–both groups understand that even as we indulge in our sibling rivalry, we are all Americans--family–which means the viability of our nation and proud American traditions must come first."

I want to keep my name hidden and have sent this from a friends email. I'm an active duty Marine I would never kick in doors and take guns from people like something out of a bad movie. I would never have thought this would be something we have talk about, but we talk about it a lot lately. I first saw the Marine in the youtube video a couple weeks back and then found this. We've all been reading it. I agree with the ten orders we won't obey and so do my fellow Marines. Note: My idealism is showing having been an Air Force baby. But I happened across this site and I like it very much. I hope we still have guys out there that do believe this. Here's the oath, all 10 declarations: http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/2009/03/oath-keepers-declaration-of-orders-we.html

Man arranges haul of magazines and other materials to Iraq; Marines dump them in landfill.

Up to 20,000 U.S. Marines could be deployed in Afghanistan as part of a planned major troop build-up to battle worsening insurgent violence, the top U.S. Marine officer said on Friday. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway said any buildup of Marines in Afghanistan would have to be accompanied by an equivalent cut in the 22,000-strong Marine force in Iraq to maintain the corps' schedule of seven-month deployments. U.S. military planners have proposed injecting up to 30,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan over the next 12 to 18 months to combat an intensifying insurgency from Taliban militants and other fighters. The United States now has 34,000 troops in the country, including 2,200 Marines.

"More active-duty Marines committed suicide last year than any year since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, although the suicide rate remained virtually unchanged because the Marine Corps is increasing in size, according to a report issued Tuesday. Forty-one Marines are listed as possible or confirmed suicides in 2008, or 16.8 per 100,000 troops, the Marine Corps report said. Nearly all were enlisted and under 24, and about two-thirds had deployed overseas."

At the end of World War II, when the Army returned to recover the bodies of American dead on the island, it would find fewer than half of those records claimed were buried there.

The Marine Corps has been buying Tasers for years. But the military has only used the stun guns sparingly in the field. Now, all that is set to change, thanks to new training guidelines for the electroshock weapons.“We would expect the use of [devices such as the Taser] to grow over time, now that we have this long-term policy in place,” Maj. David Nevers, a tells Marine Corps Times. Meanwhile, the Army is starting to field Tasers. The 3rd Infantry's 1st Brigade Combat Team has already been issued with Army's first ever package of "nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them," including Tasers and bean-bag rounds. And although the 1st BCT is now stationed in the U.S. for "on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks," the Army Times makes it clear that they won't be using non-lethals to control civil distrubances at home. "The package is for use only in war-zone operations, not for any domestic purpose." hmmmmmm may I ask why the 1st BCT needs them while being deployed in the U.S. then? Is the way to declare the U.S. a"war zone", the declaration of martial law?

This is the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Marines. President Reagan sent in U.S. troops to try to help stabilize Lebanon after the Israeli invasion (and massacres by Israeli proxies in Palestinian refugee camps)

A review of Tyler Boudreau's forthcoming book: Packing Inferno. From the review: "he harnesses our attention, oddly enough, is by associative forays into politics, memory, military history and confession, moving us from contemplating the appeal the Marine Corps has for abused kids from broken homes, to detailed anecdotes of boot camp, and through the waysides of ‘safe’ duty in the Combat Operations Center (COC) in Iraq, frustratingly far from the dust, smoke, flies and firefights of action, though not from the terror, elation and adrenal highs."

About 870 prisoners escaped during a Taliban bomb and rocket attack on the main prison in southern Afghanistan that knocked down the front gate and demolished a prison floor, Afghan officials said Saturday. And in western Afghanistan on Saturday, a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military vehicle, killing four Americans in the deadliest attack against U.S. troops in the country this year, officials said.

Afghanistan supplies some 93 percent of the world's opium used to make heroin, and the Taliban militants earn up to $100 million from the drug trade, the United Nations estimates. The export value of this harvest was $4 billion - more than a third of the country's combined gross domestic product.

A member of the House Armed Services Committee said Thursday that he wants the Department of Defense to review what he called a botched investigation of a pregnant Marine's rape allegations against a corporal now charged in her death. See also: http://www.military.com/news/article/rep-wants-lauterbach-rape-claim-review.html?ESRC=eb.nl

Since 2003, at least 12 service members have died in Iraq as a result of electrocution, according to the Army and Marine Corps.When the hell is enough ever going to be enough for this administration?

Marines headed to Iraq will go through training built on advice from big-game hunters.Combat Hunter, a program begun at Camp Pendleton and now being rolled out nationwide, is designed to help Marines stalk and kill insurgents by using their senses and instincts.“These are primal skills that we all have but that we evolved out of,” he added. “We are going back in time. The Marines who go through this program will never be the same.

The Marine Corps has ordered a civilian scientist to stop work on a report critical of its efforts to obtain new armored vehicles, saying he exceeded his authority, a Marine official said Tuesday."Gross mismanagement" of the program to quickly field Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles had resulted in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of Marines in Iraq."He's been told to stop any further work," said Col. David Lapan, a Marine spokesman. "It's gotten beyond its initial purpose."

An Associated Press story about a leaked internal study that accuses the Marine Corps of delays in providing mine-resistant vehicles to its forces in Iraq provides ample reason why good journalism is a social and political must, government whistleblowers ought to be fully protected from retribution, and journalists should not be compelled to identify anonymous sources.

The 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., planned to spend their weekend engaged in urban patrol exercises on the streets of downtown as well as inside the mostly vacant Madison Building, 607 Madison Ave.Members of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marines have trained periodically in downtown Toledo since at least 2004 and most recently in May, 2006.Past exercises have involved mock gun fights, ambushes, and the firing of blank ammunition.