One Week Home

I have been home for one week now. I figured it was about time that I fired up the laptop and composed this post. I don’t know if this will be the final post or not. I might close this blog and start a new one. I haven’t decided yet because I have been quite busy since I returned home.

We arrived in Jefferson City early in the morning. My bride and sons were waiting for me in the drill hall and I was so happy to see them again. We had a welcoming home ceremony that was mercifully brief. We grabbed lunch at the Coffee Zone then brought the boys back to preschool. They didn’t want to go back to school that afternoon but my bride and I wanted some time for ourselves:).

Since I have been home I cleaned out the kitchen (I am the primary cook and I needed to do an inventory anyway), stowed some of my gear away, spent a day with my dad busting up a tree that fell on a fence and fixing the fence, took my boys to the Jefferson City Harvestfest, and other things.

I have a lot of catching up to do with my sons and my bride. A few days ago I started reading “The Hobbit” to my sons at bedtime and they are really enjoying it. There are improvements to the house I would like to do.

There are a couple of loose ends I want to tie up before I close this post. I turned off the anonymous post feature to this blog because the anonymous posters are getting annoying and are not contributing. If someone wants to be an ass, at least have the guts to register with Blogger or Google so I know who you are. My time is valuable and I can’t stand oxygen thieves. Most of my last post was dealing with a particularly annoying oxygen thief that if he actually is in the military and is enlisted, he can be charged with insubordination and disrespecting a senior officer.

Anyway, I have to deal with two more anonymous comments before I feel like I can close out this blog for a while. The following was written on 22 OCT 2006 and was commenting on my post titled “Embedded in Reality” which I wrote back on 21 AUG 2006!

Maybe you should have waited with your well argumented review untill you'd actually seen these countries in action. The Dutch have taken over Oruzgan and have been in heavy combat there. They also sent troops from their province to help out the Canadians in Operation Medusa including some 155 mm SPG. The Dutch Apaches and F-16 fighter jets have bombed the shit out of taliban providing CAS for British, Canadian and US forces as well.

So just because they build up a "nightclub" on KAF doesn't mean they "don't get it".

22 October, 2006 09:52

The whole gist of my post was who among our coalition brethren understand how Information Operations is supposed to work, not if they are actually contributing something. I am guessing that this guy can’t read because I started the post off by saying “I am now working at Task Force Aegis”. I have seen these countries in action due to my position and am very familiar with what the countries involved have contributed. This dude mentioned the Dutch contribution to Op Medusa. The planning for Op Medusa didn’t start in earnest until after I had posted “Embedded in Reality”! Their contribution to Op Meduas in the form of ground troops was extremely minimal. The Dutch took over a forward operating base (FOB), relieving the Canadians there so they can get to the fight.

I was in Oruzgan province for six months at the Provincial Reconstruction Team at Tarin Kowt. We had about one hundred and twenty personnel plus or minus twenty (incoming and outgoing). The Dutch are now running the PRT and they have around twelve hundred. That is a lot of personnel. I want to ask the dude who wrote the above comment, please define for me heavy combat? I have read their patrol reports so I know what they are involved in. Let us not mistake who is actually mixing it up in Oruzgan. US Special Forces and Australian SAS are in Oruzgan as well and they are the ones sticking it to the Taliban.

This dude should contact the Dutch Embassy and ask them how many missions the Dutch PSYOP company (two sections and a headquarters) have conducted. When I was in Oruzgan, the PRT had one, sometimes two PSYOP operators and they went on missions practically everyday, sometimes hitching a ride with the Infantry guys. The number of missions the Dutch PSYOP have mounted is far less, it is actually closer to zero at the time I left Kandahar which was on 27 SEP 2006.

The following comment is a real gem. It was written on 22 OCT 2006 like the previous one (it may be the same dude, I don’t know) and was commenting on my post “Stabbed in the Back” which I posted on 08AUG2006!

Sorry man ... but thats the democracy ur fighting to protect... Journalists are what they are and that is by all means unpredictable...Dont go crying for mommy when one writes something crappy...it's their job!

I triple dare u to not delete this post

22 October, 2006 10:03

I don’t need to be lectured by some anonymous ass about protecting democracy. I am not protecting journalistic incompetence or willful misrepresentation. It is their job to report the facts, all of them, not the selective facts.

In my post titled “Asymmetrical Media”, I answered some questions raised by Stephanie Guttmann, the author of “The Other War”. In it I stated that all that we cared about was that the reporters and journalists fact checked and reported everything. If the coalition screwed up, my boss and me wanted to get that out. The reality is that human organizations make mistakes and the military is no exception.

In my post titled “Stabbed in the Back”, I pointed out that Witte and Mosher did a hit job on the Gulf Region division of the US Army Corps of Engineers. If Witte and Mosher want to pose as impartial journalists, then they need to report everything, which Major General William McCoy pointed out in his rebuttal found here. We have a way with dealing with willfully biased journalists, we freeze them out. I am sure if Witte and Mosher want access with the Army Corps of Engineers again, they will have to come with hat in hand.

Like I said in the post, I will be damned if I will help Witte again. I wasn’t “crying to mommy”, I was stating a fact. Judging by the last remark about triple daring, this commenter is a juvenile little prick.

There, I am officially done dealing with anonymous commenters that are basic oxygen thieves.

Despite the recent spate of anonymous Asses leaving useless comments, I really enjoyed writing this blog. Many of you left wonderful comments on the blog or e-mailed them to me. I am glad you enjoyed my attempt at writing.

Like I said earlier, I am truly thankful to be home. Some of my coalition brethren didn’t come home alive, something my oldest son asked me about last night after dinner. It took every bit of self-control I had to describe to my son a ramp ceremony where we sent home a soldier in a casket.

I am proud of my service in Afghanistan. I did a very unique job where I had a hand in just about everything. I am especially proud of what we accomplished with Op Medusa.

I won’t be posting for a while. My next post will inform you all of my plans with this blog and whether I will continue posting to this one or start a new one. I have the blogging bug now!

CIAO’

CPT Thomas C. Nield aka “NightHawk”