Headgear

> At 6:12 PM -0500 11/26/03, Ryan Gill wrote:

Actually, it strikes me that I'm seeing lots of photo's of British Troops in
the Southern areas wearing soft berets and 'belt order'. Could this attitude
from the troops on the way up to those in command make a difference in some
areas?

What we need is a kevlar beret?

To quote Foghorn Leghorn, "That's a joke, son, a joke!"

Gracias, Glenn

Hx, SF, and Fx: 6 mm figures, Starships and 1:6K "Wet Navy" warships are my
main interest. But I have forces in 6 through 25 mm FWIW...

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 18:38:45 -0500 Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
writes:
> At 6:12 PM -0500 11/26/03, Ryan Gill wrote:

Hi folks,

In relation to the "boonie hats vs. helmets" discussion, I'm including a link
here that probably won't work...

http://www.combatcamera.forces.gc.ca/scripts/PortWeb.dll?query&field1=Ke
ywor ds&op1=contains&join1=and&field2=Keywords&op2=contains&value2=athena&joi
n2=a nd&field3=Description&op3=contains&join3=and&field4=Filename&op4=contain
s&jo
in4=and&field5=Description&op5=contains&join5=and&field6=IPTC_City&op6=c
onta
ins&join6=and&field7=IPTC_DateCreated&op7=on+or+after&jon7=and&field8=IP
TC_D
ateCreated&op8=on+or+before&sorton=IPTC_DateCreated&ascending=0&catalog=
comb
at&template=searchResults_e&Submit=Search&offset=96

This is a photo album on the Canadian Forces website, with pics of the current
operations in Kabul (and incidentally there are a bunch of interesting photos
of all kinds of stuff throughout that site).

What struck me about this particular page was the Canadian soldiers on patrol
in boonie hats. The page I'm trying to link here is number 9 of
lots.  Page 5 has some pics of Cdn troops in our new CADPAT arid-area
camo uniforms that is darned effective.

Canadian troops often try to patrol with "less offensive" looking attitude
(hence boonie hats) though they're fully tactical and have helmets if needed.
We lost two guys recently because their vehicle was destroyed by a
big-ass mine, and that causes a ruckus in the media here about their
light vehicles being insufficiently protected, etc. What didn't get much
airtime was the fact that based on the size of the explosion, they probably
would
have died if riding in a tank let alone a jeep, and several army-types
said they preferred the light vehicles because it enabled them to interact
with the local populace much easier. This must have paid off because a few
days ago locals reported to the Canadian troops that someone had hidden
rockets in an abandoned building next to the Cdn base. The Cdn's investigated
and discovered unguided rockets set to fire on the base with a remote timer or
something equiv., and disarmed them.

Hi folks,

In relation to the "boonie hats vs. helmets" discussion, I'm including a link
here that probably won't work...

An easy fix.......)

 http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q656527A6

Adrian Johnson schrieb:
> Canadian troops often try to patrol with "less offensive"

> This must have paid off because a few days
The Cdn's
> investigated and discovered unguided rockets set to fire on the base

This is pretty much the attitutde of the Bundeswehr operating in Kabul and now
in Kunduz, too. The go to great lengths to be on good terms
with the people around them. They get extensive peace-keeping training
before going there and there are a number of anthropologists in their teams to
advise about behaviour and relations. Seems to work quite well.

Greetings Karl Heinz

Matt Tope schrieb:
> To be honest the Brits do seem to have taken a lot less

I guess this depends on how you define 'a lot less'. The Brits have
roughly 1/10th the troops of the US forces in-country (10.000+ vs.
100.000+) . At least from May to October, they also had roughly 1/10th
of the deaths. It's only on November that the US have, in proportion, suffered
more heavily. (For the statistics, see:
http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx )
This site tracks incidents in a fairly detailed fashion, but it a "Forest for
the Trees site" i.e.it does not give a good overview
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com
(just ignore the leftist rhetoric)

Given the heavy filtering / biases / propagandizing in the media by all
sides, I find it very hard to come to a solid picture about how things are
going.

> I don't know how long Malaya took to sort

I guess you mean in Borneo?

Greetings Karl Heinz

The Boys Up North did good. Much to be said both approaches, different horses
for diferent courses. Now if they can convince the locals to finger the people
(term used loosely) who set this...

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 03:46:17 -0500 Adrian Johnson
> <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca> writes:

Coming from a cross-cultural (and technically bi-racial but I don't see
more then one 'human' race myself) background, the lack of
assigned/attached/on the ground cultural personnel in our (USA) units
has been a long term deficit organizationally. But then OOTW (Operations Other
Than War) aren't the historical roles for our military. That started after I
left the military (late 1970's) and I would have to defer to John A. and
others as to what training and assets are in today's
USA/USAF/Marines/USN/USCG.

Gracias, Glenn

Hx, SF, and Fx: 6 mm figures, Starships and 1:6K "Wet Navy" warships are my
main interest. But I have forces in 6 through 25 mm FWIW...

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 10:05:43 +0100 (CET) KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
writes:
> Adrian Johnson schrieb:

> Karl wrote:

> I guess you mean in Borneo ?

D'oh!

Correct. It's all these Jungles, I ended transposing an entire campaign from
an archipeligo to a continent and back in time 20 years. Its all these
accounts I've been sorting, they have warped my fragile little mind.

Note to self; Borneo in the 60's, Burma in 40's. Repeat until remembered.

Regards,

> On 26 Nov 2003 at 18:38, Ryan Gill wrote:

> Actually, it strikes me that I'm seeing lots of

Gosh, you're seeing British Troops? If you had to live with ABC, CBS, NBC,
Fox, and PBS, like I do here in Louisiana (without cable), you
wouldn't even _know_ British troops are still there...

What bugs me is that this isn't the fault of the American people.
Most of the Americans I know _want_ to be informed. It's the fault of
U.S. media who have a big disconnect with the rest of the populace.

Sorry for the off topic post... it's just something that gets my goat.

> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Actually, it strikes me that I'm seeing lots of

Down south is more warm-and-fuzzy towards the
Coalition. Besides which, killing Brits doesn't get nearly the media coverage
that whacking US troops does, so all the foreign fighters come after us
anyway.

> At 9:21 AM -0600 11/27/03, Allan Goodall wrote:

I see them on the AP stories we push through at CNN. I've also gone looking on
the the AP picture desk server that our folks use to

> What bugs me is that this isn't the fault of the American people.

I dunno, if they don't watch the stories, they aren't shown as much. Double
for news stories on the web site. We have enough metrics on the CNN.com web
site to know when and how much certain stories are clicked through to and
anyone with a bit of statistics knowledge can critique the newsroom on what
stories are really working and where they need to be on the page (T1, T2, T3,
the section page, etc).

> At 9:01 AM -0800 11/27/03, John Atkinson wrote:

I can ask the folks at work to stop reporting on it. Would that help?
:-P

> What bugs me is that this isn't the fault of the American people.
Most of the Americans I know _want_ to be informed. It's the fault of
U.S. media who have a big disconnect with the rest of the populace.

Per Congressman Ed Schrock, who my wife interviewed last week, over 100
congresscritters and senators have been to Iraq and they all agree that "the
situation in Iraq " as presented by the media is not at all like the actual
situation in Iraq. The Army gives briefings frequently (I think he said twice
a day) about the good news as well as the bad news, but the reporters Ed has
talked to say their editors have told them "if it's not blood and guts, we're
not interested."

John, if you want to write a news column, I'll make sure it gets printed.

> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> >Down south is more warm-and-fuzzy towards the

Frankly, CNN has one of the worst reputations for
biased coverage and body-count news.  Besides which,
as near as we can tell, they try to cover the war without leaving their cushy
Baghdad hotel. Reminds me of the stories my father tells of reporters from
Vietnam who filed every one of their stories from the Saigon bars.

[quoted original message omitted]

> At 1:56 PM -0500 11/27/03, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:

John Ringo would probably post it and use flour
from the 'grist' for his op-eds that go as far as
Fox News.

> At 11:48 AM -0800 11/27/03, John Atkinson wrote:

CNN's management have very little love for the Iraqi Regime. Having had
several contacts that our current Managing News Editor end up Dead in Kuwiat
(parts mailed back to the family) kind of tainted Eason's view of the
Baathist. We sat in a Division Town Hall meeting prior to the start of the war
and listened to this.

> without leaving their cushy Baghdad hotel. Reminds me

I know for a fact that some of our embedded reporters were with the troops in
the field. Fred
Gamel's son had one of our guys with his Mar-Div
in Basra. Knowing that the guy who ran the phone system he was patching into
had a son in that Marine unit, the reporter found Matt and got him in touch
with his dad a few times.

Keep in mind that there were plenty of reporters from many different units
around moving all around. Part of the CNN mode is to gather news from
disparate sources including other international agencies and use that to
magnify what we report on (AP, Reuters, affiliates, etc). The source for CNN
might be a writer from another agency that exchanges news with CNN.

Hey, sometimes they (or at least some of them.. one of therm?) state a truth
just for it's own sake. No, I cannot give examples! <LOL!>

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 21:21:54 +0100 KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
> (K.H.Ranitzsch) writes:

KarlHeinz said:
> You know, I feel you still have a long way to learn in political

You know, I feel you still have a long way to learn about political
rhetoric too. ;-) And neither of us knows how well our feelings map to
reality. But unless we're planning to have Galactic News Network teams
wandering around the battlefield, it's increasingly off topic.

> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> CNN's management have very little love for the

And less for the US Government.

> I know for a fact that some of our embedded

How many are there now, though?

> At 3:26 PM -0800 11/28/03, John Atkinson wrote:

*Shrug* I dunno, there's less of a media conspiracy than one tends to hear
about.

> > I know for a fact that some of our embedded

Do you count the ones that work specifically for us or ones that are
affiliates that we exchange copy through? You have to realize, the reason CNN
is as big as it is, is due to the distributed nature or our New Gathering.

> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> > > I know for a fact that some of our embedded

Well, last time I saw CNN was some months ago (I've been avoiding the news
these past two weeks). There had been a bombing in Baghdad, and I was watching
on the screen things that flatly contradicted what the reporters were saying.
Besides which the folks at the desk (presumably in Atlanta??) managed to state
an incorrect date and time (Baghdad is 8 hours off of Atlanta, not 9). Didn't
do much for my impression.

At any rate, the embeds are pretty much gone, and reporters hook up for
specific stories or roam around looking for 'em. Every month I see fewer and
fewer reporters and watch fewer reports filed from anywhere but Baghdad. That
ain't CNN alone, either.

distributed nature or our New Gathering.

distributed nature or our New Gathering.

> Somehow, I have a hard time thinking somebody you call a

You have to ask? I'd say a hundred critters is a target rich enviroment.
(Load'em up boys! We're on a "BUG HUNT!")

But I think bug, as in congress-roach is more appropriate.  In which
case, the few the better.

> Of course, that the "Critter" Ed Schrock is a Republican (and thus

Now now, that's rather one sided cynicism. Are you trying to imply that

Democrats wouldn't circle the wagons either? Come now, I'm all for cynically
expecting politicians to do what's best for them, but be universal in your
sarcasm.

Rand.

> At 5:53 PM -0800 11/28/03, John Atkinson wrote:

Technical details are missed by all news agencies. Look at how often a basic
thing like caliber in metric or standard is confused (or "high powered pistol
round") they're not technicians. Its a continuing fight. They're anal about
spelling and grammar (yet you get some awful talking heads that don't seem to
understand the basic rules) and still screw them up sometimes.

> At any rate, the embeds are pretty much gone, and

That's kind of a problem with any agency that gathers intel or news. At this
point, the war has more minor things going on with a daily basis, so the
perceived need for embedded reporters is less.

> At 6:38 PM -0800 11/28/03, Michael Brown wrote:

Just a typo.

[quoted original message omitted]

I will comment nastily about Democrats when the discussion warrants it, and I
am not interested in advice on how to balance my friendly or nasty comments.

LOL, god that sounds so like my mom... I Marvel at the consistency...)

I thought he was just being specific about applying a universal truth (that
you stated.)

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 11:28:03 -0500 Randall Joiner
> <rljoiner@mindspring.com> writes:

KH said:
> I am not interested in advice on how to balance my friendly or nasty

<vbg> that's okay, I wasn't looking for commentary on my political awareness,
but I got it anyway.