B36 News - 27 September 2006

Ever wondered what the American version of the RPG is? Here it is! A high-ranking, anonymous military official leaked this picture of a new weapon that is described as a shoulder-fired bad-guy-blower-upper, or SFBGBU (pronounced es-ef-bug-boo) as it's known by its developers. The troops who have tested it have affectionately named it the 'bugger' not only in reference to the acronym, but for the effect it has on the bad guys.

Yeah, and if you believe that I've got some seafront property in Afghanistan to sell you too.

Leaks
On the topic of leaked sensitive information, the NY Times is at it again. The NY Times is not a friend of America or those of us who defend her. Their track record of violating the integrity of classified information is proof of this. This organization isn't operating under the freedom of the press, it's abusing it and those responsible for these injuries to America should be held just as accountable as the terrorists who use the information they divulge to attack our country and my brothers and sisters in arms.

As a result of the leak the President declassified a portion of the report which you can read for yourself here.

Doing My Part
While not news from Iraq, this story is something near and dear to my heart. When asked by Marine CPL John Stukins was being done to counter the negative media coverage in Iraq and Afghanistan, GEN Pace replied with the following:

[It's necessary] to make ourselves more available to the American people so that we can, in fact, get more of the story out here so that the American people -- whose center of gravity is really very, very solid -- have the opportunity to digest all that information and judge for themselves what’s really going on.

Anbar Assessment
Fellow Military.com/Blog contributer Noah Shachtman published a letter he received from a Marine in Anbar that worked in an intel section during his most recent deployment. The email was a sort of 'Most Amazing' list of people and events that the Marine encountered and I though I'd share some of them here. You can read them all at DefenseTech.org.

• Most Surreal Moment - Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. I had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels.

• Most Profound Man in Iraq - an unidentified farmer in a fairly remote area who, after being asked by Reconnaissance Marines (searching for Syrians) if he had seen any foreign fighters in the area replied "Yes, you."

• Biggest Surprise - Iraqi Police. All local guys. I never figured that we'd get a police force established in the cities in al-Anbar. I estimated that insurgents would kill the first few, scaring off the rest. Well, insurgents did kill the first few, but the cops kept on coming. The insurgents continue to target the police, killing them in their homes and on the streets, but the cops won't give up. Absolutely incredible tenacity. The insurgents know that the police are far better at finding them than we are. - and they are finding them. Now, if we could just get them out of the habit of beating prisoners to a pulp . . .

• Biggest Outrage - Practically anything said by talking heads on TV about the war in Iraq, not that I get to watch much TV. Their thoughts are consistently both grossly simplistic and politically slanted. Biggest offender - Bill O'Reilly - what a buffoon.

• Best Chuck Norris Moment - 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in the small town of Kubaysah to kidnap the town mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the bad Guys put down his machinegun so that he could tie the mayor's hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machinegun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can't fight City Hall.

82nd in Bayji
by SPC Joshua R. Ford
3rd BCT, 82nd (AA) PAO

...
During engagements between the Paratroopers and key figures in the neighborhood, children flooded the street, surrounding the Paratroopers and greeting them with laughter and smiles.

The fact that the children were approaching the troops showed that the citizens of Bayji did not see the Soldiers as a threat to their safety or security, which were some of the issues discussed.

“The resounding answer from the civilians is that they like Americans because we treat them with dignity and respect,” said Peterman.
...

Full story posted in comments.