Blog letter

Dear blog reader,

My name is Tyler Newman, and I am the author of Front Lines of America's war. I thank every reader that has taken the time to read this blog, due to the fact that I had worked very diligently on it. You are a great audience. This blog has had its ups and downs with the information I had learned from it, so once again thank you for reading it.

This blog compromises of almost a school's year worth of work about the Frontlines of War. This blog should be read knowing that I used new skills and some old skills. One of the old skills was just writing a Book response. A new skill was doing a Vlog.

The Vlog was something new, I have never done anything like it. I felt really good about myself ranting about the stupid shit people do, and just stating my opinion where people can't interrupt me to voice theirs. As for the book response, it was nice to do, because I haven't done one of those since I was in middle school. The better part is, is that I actually read the whole book instead of just looking at it and writing the response. As you can see I learned how to do sources and learned how to link sources to certain sentences and words! This assignment has provided me with better English skills that I will be able to use later in life. I thank my teacher for giving me this assignment, because I have a better perspective on how to write better.

Overall, this blog has taught me some new skills and made me remember the old skills that I had learned that I had forgotten. This assignment has given me a better perspective on the front lines of war and how writing a blog actually works. Learning how to do these new skills has helped me out greatly, I have currently used my some of my new skills for work.

Sincerely,
.

Book response

Damn. Another book I had to read for class. Reading isn't an all time favorite activity that I would like to do. It seems like when I hit a certain age reading just seemed to be well, boring as all hell. Normally I hate reading books and just bullshit my way past any book I have to write about, I actually read this book, very strange for me. The part that is even more strange is that I actually enjoyed reading this novel.

William Manchesters',  "Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War" had me on my toes just about the whole time, except for well, those boring moments in the book where it seems to just make your eyes run dry and make it painful to even blink. Ah memoirs, the seemingly only descriptive novels that can be written, just because you know it's not made up. This memoir was about the war in the Pacific. It accurately describes Manchesters time he spent battling the Japanese in World War two. He gave vivid descriptions of some actions he had done during this book. One that was quite humorous was right after he had killed a Japanese sniper that was killing his fellow brothers. Pg. 18, "Then I threw up all over myself. I recognized the half-digested C-ration beans dribbling down my front, smelled the vomit above the cordite. At the same time I noticed another odor; I had urinated my skivvies."

Basically in a nutshell this book was one of the best novels I have read in a long time, it made me feel like I was actually experiencing his battles with him and everything that had ever happened. It's a no wonder why I had such a decent time reading this book. No time was wasted on it.

Female infantry in the Marines

Females already play combat roles, they are engineers, they fly warplanes, etc. Demographics say that women make up only 6.2% of the Marine Corps (enlisted). So why is everyone worried about them going infantry? Females can hold their own, just as well as males. There are even males who don't belong in infantry, because they don't have the right mind set to do so. My point exactly. Women can do stuff just as good as men. Not letting them go infantry, because they won't be able to do the same things as men is a bullshit reason on why they can't go infantry. There are reasons why I can see they shouldn't go infantry. One reason is that if a group was captured what would the captors do to the women that they wouldn't do to the men?
The real problem I do see with this, is that the standards would have to be lowered to make it fair for women. Which is yet another bullshit thing they would do. It's a bad thing, because then lesser qualified pos' would be then qualified to join. Why do the standards need to be lowered just so they can qualify? I think if they want jobs that are open for just men, then they should be able to pass the normal standards. Just make the physical fitness standards for going to certain jobs more fair.
Just to sum all of this up, I am all for women going infantry, i'm just not all for the standards being lowered, just so they would be able to qualify.

More of the SSR's

Washington Times has given their salute to America's warriors out there on the front lines of war. It's incredibly nice to see something like this, other than people bashing on them. This post that i'm writing on isn't a long one, due to it just being a quick, "thank you." with a few complements to the military personnel in the pictures that they have. It may not seem like much, but to other people, it could mean a lot to them, just because they are being thanked for their hard work or that one of their family members or friends who are in the military. There is nothing really bad that I have to say about this post, it was just a great post and it makes a lot of military personnel happy.

Time to get creative

The desert is very hot,

I have no idea who's shooting me,

Let us nuke them all.

Is it a hateful passion?

There are many things that I love about this topic, the fact that i'll be doing basically what this topic is about, learning more about it, etc. Then there are some things that I hate. For example I hate that even though military people bust their butts for everything, there are these punk kids who think that it's cool to treat them with disrespect. There are also the people who try and make everyone believe that they were once in the military, when they were not. All of these kinds of people anger me. It's just something that I don't understand. Why do you even need to do this? This all just makes no sense to me. People do some pretty stupid stuff with their life, and this just happens to be one of those things.

Yet another SSR

This is another SSR that will be put on my blog here. My thoughts to this post are, well on the good side. When reading something about firefights, you can't help it, but from the beginning of it, your heart sinks a little bit. Just because you don't know how it's going to turn out and that possibly there is a loss of someone who is just trying to protect his country. In this blog that i'm responding to, there were casualties, sadly there was a loss of someone's life; that's not what this response is about. It's about what it's like to have responded to an attack and not have your squad mentioned, while others are, even though you are the first ones there. In my utmost opinion, I believe that they should have some recognition, but at the same time, they shouldn't. It's about being humble whether you are mentioned about something similar to this or not.

Here comes the poem

The people in the military,
The ones we respect and should fear,
Allowing us to sleep peacefully.

Dumba... SSR

This post has probably made me pretty angry. There are people who join the military for a job skill/college/career, etc. Then there's people who just join for the damn money, and just disrespectful to their brothers/sisters, and their flag. This girl is exactly the kind of people that I am talking about; they shouldn't be allowed to join or even be considered for the military due to their choices for joining are for all the wrong reasons. Personally this is a topic that has gotten me very mad! It's like why? How could you be so stupid to do that, let alone post it on instagram and let everyone see. There's going to be pissed off military personnel who will see this and will put her on blast, hopefully her platoon leader sees this and gives her hell!

Humor

Ssgt walks by and says, "I heard you like to party." You say "yes I do." He then says, "good thing the corps has a working party."

Found this joke on facebook.

Callabo Blog

Special Forces: US Army Rangers, written by: Reid Lewis

I’m writing as a guest blogger for Tyler Newman on his blog about the frontlines of war. When people think of the front lines of war the first thing that pops into their minds are infantry, tanks, and scout squads and not the Special Forces teams like Green Berets, Delta Force, Rangers, Marine Recon, or Navy SEAL teams. When in reality while the regular fighting forces do their jobs the Special Forces teams are conducting the more high danger things like rescue missions and sabotage missions during the day or night. The group I chose was the US Army Rangers. The reason is because a recent Humboldt recruiter Sergeant Carter from the US Amy. He was an Army Ranger and he supplied me the info about the Rangers and how they train and operate. Also what separates them from the other infantry squads like grunts and the airborne infantry that my recruiter Sergeant Banks does.The types of operation and jobs they do consist of levels of threats. Their jobs could be small as just training in spare time to going and fighting with the regular infantry or airborne infantry or even conducting night Intel missions. The Rangers training is broken into three phases and for more information click here.     

Response to war benefiting the Economy yes or no?

War has one major benefit (other than fighting off terrorists or stopping a ruthless tyrant, 'merica) it can help stimulate the economy. With the government needing to prepare the military for war with gear and munitions jobs are created. Not only for the military but jobs that cover reservists for private sectors are created. Then with all of these employees that aren't worried about losing their jobs they spend extra money than they normally do, so then the retail part of the economy boosts, thus making even more jobs! Just from the government preparing for war.

The jobs that are created from war eventually do go away and people will get laid off, because we don't need supplies for war after the war is over, which means our economic boost is done, and we slow back down and the economy slowly goes into a recession again until we get another boost from war again. So war does benefit the economy, but when it's over it's not benefiting the economy anymore, it's just how it always is. It's a never ending cycle until we can figure out how to create more jobs (in a never ending phase until we have jobs for everyone) our economy will always be bad until we get a boost. There is also another way we could look at it as the Broken window fallacy, which explains that when we go to war, it does not benefit the economy, because the excess money that will be spent on war will not be spent. This link states, "war can be funded in a combination of three different ways: Increasing taxes, decrease spending in other areas, or increasing the debt." You can look at it both ways and decide how you feel about it.

In my opinion, war itself is inevitable, due to the human nature of being destructive and violent. There will always be a war no matter how you look at it. We could have world peace and have a war with a different planet (in some sort of sense that life on other planets could declare war with earth at any given time, because the possibility of that happening is slight, but it's still possible) so, basically in a never ending nutshell, at one point or another we will go to war and the fact is that jobs will be created and boost the economy just like it always does. 

What are drones?

A drone also known as a UAV (unmanned air vehicle) is an aircraft that is controlled from a pilot from the ground or have a pre-installed mission. There are many different types of drones, but they mostly fall into two categories; the ones that are used for surveillance and reconnaissance, then there are the ones that are armed with bombs and missiles to attack certain locations.

The use of drones however has grown a lot in these past few years, because they can be used longer than a manned aircraft and they are also a lot cheaper to make than a regular aircraft. To add on to all of that, there is also no danger to the flight crew, well because they have none. Primarily these drones are mostly flying over Iraq and Afghanistan; however they are not necessarily always controlled from any locations in Iraq or Afghanistan. They can be controlled from places such as Nevada at Nellis and Creech USAF bases. It’s not just a one man team; they need a team of three. One ‘flies’ the drone, the second operates the screens and monitors, and the third keeps in contact with the troops on the ground.

The U.S. has two squadrons of armed drones; one is used by the Air Force and the other by the CIA. The CIA primarily uses their drones to assassinate terrorist leaders or other targets. The United States isn't the only country in the world to have drones, the UK also has drones, they have basically the same ones as the U.S. but their designs may be a little different from ours.

There has been some serious concern with the use of drones. Mostly pointed at the U.S. the UN (United Nations) would like to know how they justify killing valuable targets or terrorist leaders. The UN would also like to make how many civilians are killed by the drone strikes public; just to prevent any more casualties than that.

The drone manufacturers are also looking for civilian use as well. If the drones are used for civilian use, surveillance on civilians will be increased tenfold.  With technology increasing rapidly, drones could even possibly be used to recognize facial patterns, human behaviors, and even listen in on conversations.

As crazy as all of this sounds, in my opinion, I think that drones aren't worth our time. It may mean in military use that it’s a cheaper and safer alternative than using actual pilots, but they are a menace, because pilots of these drones will stop caring about the civilians, because they aren't experiencing the actual horrors of war and won’t be horrified to stop their actions. If you want to read more about it and watch the video on the drones you can do so here. 

Surrender was not an option

Words can't really describe how I felt about reading "Surrender was not an option" By reading just the first paragraph I can relate to this guy, on how he wanted to be a Marine.

Jack Cunningham recalls what he remembers when he served in Vietnam. He tells of CAP (combined action program) basically what is known as a peace corps with rifles and how it was basically a suicide squad due to all of the CAP forces being wiped out. A little after he arrived at CAP training communist rockets slammed upon a village that was a little outside the compound where he had conducted his training. A couple of weeks after he had been assigned to a village he was taking up guard on a forty foot tower when an enemy sniper had opened fire upon him. He dared not fire back, because of the fear of hitting a civilian. A week later he was stationed in the village of Phu Da."My first night in the village an intelligence report said that over 200 communists were coming to wipe us out. There were about eight Marines, one Navy corpsman, and twenty Vietnamese Militiamen called popular forces (Pfs) to hold them off. A Marine, who was there a while, who started telling George Dros and I how scared he was. He really thought this was it; and even started talking about our deaths. (We were actually figuring out when our parents would get our bodies for burial.)" Said Cunningham. That night he and the others did not night, because for some odd and unexplainable reason the communists had left. A few nights later while they were out on patrol the enemy had ambushed them by throwing a couple of grenades; their Sergeant and three other PF militiamen were injured, quickly they had returned fire on them sending them fleeing back into the jungle. They would have chased after them farther, but the Sergeant was too injured and they didn't think he was going to make it.

Cunningham goes on more about the rest of his stay in Vietnam and it's a really great story you can read it at, http://www.capveterans.com/ I just didn't want to bore anyone by going any further.

Vlog

How to prepare to be on the front lines

Preparing to be on the front lines is a difficult thing, but it's not impossible. An important thing you do need to have, is a lot of cardio, because if you are out numbered and you need to run 10 miles to get back to base or something like that, and if you don't have a lot of cardio, then you are basically screwed. Another important thing is to start working out, if you are cornered on the side of a cliff and you need to climb down the cliff, to the sides, and possibly even back up the cliff and you have no back muscles then you will most likely die. Be smart, don't do anything that will get you and your squad killed, always asses any situation that you are in before you go guns blazing, you might need to just leave that spot. Those are basically that basics that you need to know that will help you prepare to be on the front lines, your training will teach many other important things to help you prepare like fighting hand to hand all the way to surviving on only one MRE (meal ready to eat) and a canteen of water.

SSR

When you hear about people who come back from the front lines, they usually have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). For some people though, they don't have it, the biggest fear that they have outside of combat is adjusting back to civilian life. If you read the blog Reclaiming Fatherhood After Afghanistan found at http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/ you can see that it is a hard thing to do, readjust back to civilian life after being gone for several months at a time before you can see your family again. People just think it's so easy to return to civilian life after seeing combat, it's not. You don't trust your family, friends, etc like you used to. You have to be able to regain everyone you knows' trust back. It's a big deal. It's just something people need to take into factor when their loved ones come home from combat and they don't have PTSD and they don't feel like talking to you as much.

Passion for this topic

To be on the front lines you need to join a certain branch of the military, and for me, ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted to join the military and be on the front lines. Just deciding about which branch was difficult for me, but taking the extra step to sign up for the branch I wanted to go into was even more difficult. My grandpas friends used to tell me about them being out there on the front lines, protecting us and how the only guys you could trust were yourself and the brother to your left and the brother to your right. To me that just sounds like something I could see myself doing, which is what I intend to do. To think though, a kid listening to all these geezers talk about their war stories would make a kid not want to do any of the things they did, but scare the daylights out of him, instead just make him want to do it even more.
I also have this friend that wants to do the same thing, but in a different branch, but ever since we were kids, me and him always wanted to do this. So it just makes you think, I will be 18/19 (depending when my training is over) years old, living out one of my dreams while most people have to wait years just to do so.