I think back to where I was this time last year… how life was so different.  I had just made one of the hardest decisions of my life; to leave a volunteer company that I had given so much of my high school years to… a company whose uniform I even wore underneath my gown at my class graduation (after all, that’s who I was).  After moving on from ( Read more... )

Military vs. "Victims"

by Rush Limbaugh

I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving our country in Uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11. Well, I can't let the numbers pass by ( Read more... )

We had just pulled into the Chow Hall parking lot on Friday night when we heard an explosion. I whip my head to the left, as does the rest of the crew on the Engine. It sounded like a car bomb, and from the cloud of grey smoke now beginning to mushroom over the main wall, it appeared to be also. I hopped out of the driver seat of the Engine and ( Read more... )

Hereford Mourns Local Marines

HEREFORD, Md. -- The Hereford High School community mourned a former student killed in Iraq last month. Now, the same community remembers a fellow Marine, Cpl. Josh Snyder.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Snyder died while on patrol Wednesday in Fallujah, Iraq. Defense officials said enemy forces opened ( Read more... )

Thanksgiving was a week ago today, and it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be.  We spent Thanksgiving morning cleaning out two of our storage units and reorganizing a third.  This task was handed to us the night before by the military, who needed our storage units for their purposes.  No big deal.  We got finished up around noon and ( Read more... )

It started around 9:30 last night, and lasted for quite a while. It was right on top of us. We could hear it on the roofs of our trailers. I knew that by the time it ended we would have to go to work, and we were dreading what we would encounter and the difficulties of dealing with it. Only of a few of the guys had been through something like ( Read more... )

Only 173 to go.

My address has changed. Effective immediately...

FF M. Justin Kinsey
WSI Fire Department
Abu Ghraib Prison / Site I
c/o 96th MPBN
APO/AE 09342

Do you ever feel like time passes you by and leaves you nothing to show for it? I am getting things accomplished, but when I think about the past few weeks, it is hard for me to remember ( Read more... )

11-07-2005 ( Read more... )

Quite a bit has happened over the past few weeks. Nothing of 'that' nature, but equally exciting. We moved into these trailer-style structures about a week and a half ago. That means no more tent for me. These trailers have two rooms, one on each side of a common bathroom (w/ shower). Each room holds two people. My roommate is Jim, one of the ( Read more... )

Suicide Bomb In Iraq Kills Md. Marine

BALTIMORE -- The U.S. Marines' motto is for God, country and The Corps -- Lance Cpl. Norman W. Anderson III loved all three.

The Marine married his high school sweetheart, Tori, in August, and they spent their honeymoon in a hotel at the Inner Harbor.

Less than two months later, his widow, his parents -- ( Read more... )