The Bill of Rights

If the Bill of Rights were put to a vote (under a different name and slightly different wording, of course), it would probably lose in a landslide. Seems about right.

Girls with Guns

...get it!

I've always been proud of being a Marine. They always seem to figure out how to do more with less. In this case, (not referring to female Marines as less) they realized what an asset that female Marines are to the mission in Iraq.

June 29, 2009: In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army and Marines found it useful to send a female soldier along on raids, as it was less disruptive to have a woman search the female civilians. There was no shortage of volunteers for this duty. The Marines, as is their custom, saw more opportunities in this. Thus the Marines began sending a team of women on such missions.

The Marines have a different attitude towards this. As they put it, "every Marine a rifleman." In practice, this means that the majority of Marines, who have combat support jobs, continue to get infantry training. So the Marines in Iraq called these all-female teams (3-5 women) Lionesses. Again, no shortage of volunteers, as female Marines, even more than their sisters in the army, were eager to get into the fight. But that's not what the lioness teams were created for. What the Marines had also noticed was that the female Marines tended to get useful information out of the women they searched. Iraqi women were surprised, and often awed, when they encountered these female soldiers and Marines. The awe often turned into cooperation. Most Iraqi women are much less enthusiastic about fighting the Americans than their men folk (who die in large numbers when they do so.) Being a widow is much harder in the Arab world than it is in the West.

The Marines also noticed that the female troops were better at picking up useful information in general. This is something Western police forces noted, in the last few decades, as women were allowed to work in all areas of police work, including detectives and crime scene investigators. Iraqi men were also intimidated by female soldiers and Marines. In the macho Arab world, an assertive female with an assault rifle is sort of a man's worst nightmare. So many otherwise reticent Iraqi men, opened up to the female troops, and provided information. Women also had an easier time detecting a lie (something husbands often learn the hard way.)

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Good stuff. Keep up the good work Devil Dogs!

How NOT to test a...

...bullet proof vest.

Col. Kenneth L. Reusser - Someone You Should Have Known

Yet, as a former Marine, it's my great shame to say that I've never heard of the man. For shame.

CLACKAMAS -- They came by ones and twos Friday, quietly slipping into the pews at New Hope Community Church. They smiled at the words honoring a man whose faith made him an inspiration and whose exploits in three wars made him a hero.

And when the last mournful drone of the bagpipes faded, they said goodbye to Col. Kenneth L. Reusser of Milwaukie, the most decorated U.S. Marine Corps aviator in history.

"He was the finest gentleman I've ever met," said Harley Wedel of Fairview, a fellow Korean War veteran. "I'm really going to miss him."

Reusser flew an amazing 253 combat missions in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He was shot down in all three wars -- five times in all. He earned two Navy Crosses, four Purple Hearts and two Legions of Merit among his 59 medals.

In 1945, while based in Okinawa, he stripped down his F4U-4 Corsair fighter and intercepted a Japanese observation plane at an altitude much higher than usual. When his guns froze, he flew his fighter into the observation plane, hacking off its tail with his propeller.

In 1950, while serving in the storied "Black Sheep Squadron," he led an attack on a North Korean tank-repair facility at Inchon, then destroyed an oil tanker -- almost blowing himself out of the sky in the process.

During the Vietnam War, Reusser flew helicopters. He was leading a Marine Air Group in a rescue mission, when his own "Huey" was shot down. He needed skin grafts over 35 percent of his badly burned body.

Truly, a man among men.

This nation is truly honored to have had men such as him to fight for it. Thankfully, there are still men like him fighting for it, but Colonel Reusser truly stood heads above shoulders.

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Honduras - Military Coup?

Wow, a lot has been left unsaid in most of the major media outlets. Everywhere I read, this has been a military coup. However, from what I am reading in the WSJ, the Military was acting on orders from the Honduras Supreme Court and following their Constitution.

It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking.

That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It appears to me that the Honduran Military was only complying with the Constitution and following the orders of its Supreme Court. Since when was it illegal for a country to follow its Constitution and its own law?

So why are we piling on Honduras?

Mrs. Clinton has piled on as well. Yesterday she accused Honduras of violating "the precepts of the Interamerican Democratic Charter" and said it "should be condemned by all." Fidel Castro did just that. Mr. Chávez pledged to overthrow the new government.

Shouldn't we be encouraging another country to follow its own Constitution and law?

Honduras is fighting back by strictly following the constitution. The Honduran Congress met in emergency session yesterday and designated its president as the interim executive as stipulated in Honduran law. It also said that presidential elections set for November will go forward. The Supreme Court later said that the military acted on its orders. It also said that when Mr. Zelaya realized that he was going to be prosecuted for his illegal behavior, he agreed to an offer to resign in exchange for safe passage out of the country. Mr. Zelaya denies it.

They've got my vote.

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