Godspeed SSGT James Alford

I'm 99% certain that I've posted his story as a "Someone You Should Know" on my blog, but I'm not going to shift through 3 years worth of blog entries trying to find it. Also, I blogged about it while he was still fighting for his life.

So here's a quick re-cap:

By the time he shipped out for the war in Iraq in January, Special Forces Sgt. James Alford was a wreck of a soldier. For five months, he had been doing odd things. He disappeared from Fort Campbell, Ky., for several days last year. He lost equipment and lied to superiors. In December, he was demoted from staff sergeant to sergeant.

In the Kwaitidesert, he came apart. The hotshot Green Beret who a year earlier ran circles around his team members and earned a Bronze Star in Afghanistan was ordered to carry a notepad to remember orders. By March, he was being cited for dereliction of duty, larceny and lying to superiors. He couldn’t even keep up with his gas mask.

Finally, in April, his commanders had had enough. They ordered him to return to Fort Campbell to be court-martialed and kicked out of the Special Forces.

“Your conduct is inconsistent with the integrity and professionalism required by a Special Forces soldier,” Lt. Col. Christopher E. Conner of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group Headquarters in Kuwait, wrote April 10.

Confused and disgraced
Confused and disgraced, the soldier moved back into his off-base home where he ate canned meat and anchovies, unaware of the day, the month or the year.

Sensing something was wrong, a neighbor called Alford’s parents. They drove 600 miles from East Texas to find a son who’d lost 30 pounds and could no longer drink from a glass, use a telephone, button his shirt or say Amber, the name of his soldier wife who was still stationed in the Middle East.

They rushed him to an emergency room. A month and several hospitals later, Alford’s family learned he was dying of a disease eating away his brain. He had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an extremely rare and fatal degenerative brain disorder akin to mad cow disease that causes rapid, progressive dementia.

The Army reversed direction quite quickly, and re-instated his rank, re-instated him into the Special Forces, and dismissed all charges against him. They also allowed him to stay on active duty, even though he was bed ridden.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 90 percent of people who have Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease die within a year. Jamie survived for SIX YEARS. Unbelievable.

On December 1st, 2008 SSGT James Alford finally lost his battle with the disease.

Linky

Wash Yo Ass!

New Pentagon Football Rules

in honor of this week's Army vs. Navy game:

New SecDef Directive: Joint Rules for the Army-Navy-Air Force-Marine Corps Game.

The Pentagon announced new rules for the fall 2005 Army-Navy-Air Force-Marine Corps football tournament:

1. Only flag football will be played. The Joint Chiefs deemed tackle and touch football too dangerous. First, because of the CNN factor, the fact that the MSM will no longer tolerate even one field casualty. Second, touching another player today, even the congratulatory pat on the behind, is court-martial bait.

2. The phrase "making a pass" will be changed to the less ambiguous " throwing the ball." And the Army, Navy and Marines will be blocked from throws beyond 5 yards because of Air Force protests that it alone owns the long-range air attack mission.

3. The Marine Corps may run with the ball, but no more than 25 yards per quarter, the Pentagon ruled. It was prompted by Army objections to long-range naval ground operations.

4. The Navy may not use tailbacks. The term is too sensitive and should be avoided.

5. To promote inter-service cooperation, all teams will be ordered to use the same game plan, after receiving suggestions from all four services.

a. The Army's plan, called "The Game After Next," is calling for handoffs of a digitized football to the fullback, up the middle, on every play. The Army plan's last chapter, titled "Exit Strategy," was oddly blank, which would leave players with no choice but to set up bunkers and temporary housing on the 50-yard line.

b. The Navy's "Forward... From the Bench" plan will call for players, each called a ball "carrier," to be surrounded by other Navy football players in a pack called "carrier groups." These units would establish a roaming " presence" all over the playing field. Less important than crossing the goal line is the Navy strategy of being able to protect the carrier group wherever it patrols the gridiron. So threatening are these carriers, the Navy strategy goes, that no one would be foolish enough to even mount a defense.

c. The Marine's "Three-Yard War" plan will be predictable: Seize ground, every down, no matter how, regardless of the price, preferably while on the playing field. The linchpin of the Marine game plan called for packing the audience with members of Congress to ensure that the Marines' performance did not go unrecognized.

d. The Air Force's "Fieldwide Engagement" plan keeps calling for very long, accurate throws on every down, during huddles, timeouts, half-time, between games, in the parking lot and even in the showers. So fast and accurate would these throws be, went the Air Force strategy, no other team should even bother to take the field.

6. After examining each team's playbook the Secretary of Defense ruled that none could be used, and that each service was left to its own devices. The Navy will probably decide victory could be had by not taking the field. Instead, its players will patrol up and down the sidelines in breathtaking formation, hoping that would sufficiently deter the other teams from leaving their benches.

7. Likewise, the Army will probably decide against taking the field, at least until several conditions are met: one, that vital U.S. national interests were at stake; two, the conditions for victory were concrete and easily defined; and, three, the President would activate 550,000 reserve and National Guard Army football players if the game actually were to be played.

8. The Air Force feels victory could be achieved also by not showing up. Secret plans were just leaked to the press that the Air Force had spent $38.7 bazillion on a system able to fire the football into the end zone from space.

9. Bolstered by congressional resolution to be the "most ready football team when others are the least," the Marines stormed the playing field and declared themselves the winners in the fourth quarter, after finally getting the ball across the correct goal line.

10. And there was joy in Mudville.

Fantasy

Titties and Beer

I could use some of both at the moment.

Oh well.