Bad Voodoo's War
Bad Voodoo's War, a PBS Frontline documentary that chronicles the lives of a platoon of California Army National Guardsmen serving in Iraq, premiered last night.
If I had to summarize a review of the documentary in a word: Wow.
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April 02, 2008April 01, 2008Breaking news from the KXLY4 Spring Break Hawaii BureauYesterday I blogged about the demise of long-time inter-island passenger carrier Aloha Airlines and I've got a first-hand, eyewitness account now of the chaos of the shutdown of the airline from none other than KXLY4's Jeff Humphrey. Every spring Jeff takes one for the team to man the KXLY4 Spring Break Hawaii Bureau. For a week Jeff hunts for stories while snorkeling, riding catamarans chasing dolphins and body surfing on the Big Island and Kauai. Jeff learned the ropes of being a TV reporter by going to work with his dad back in the day, so Jeff has done the same with his family, taking them to the Hawaii Bureau each year with him in search of great surf and a story or two. So without further adieu, here's Jeff's story: Getting out of Hawaii like the fall of Saigon KONA, HAWAII -- Travelers leaving Kona and Hilo Monday were greeted at airports across the islands with the stunning news that Aloha Airlines was unceremoniously canceling passenger service Monday, March 31st. "Oh my God Rob, it was like the fall of Saigon at the airport," Lori Humphrey said. "It was like everyone was on the rooftops scrambling to get on the helicopters." While the Humphreys had advance notice of Aloha's shutdown many travelers were unaware of what was going on until they got to the airport, leaving many stranded at the airports trying to find alternate connecting flights to other islands. "Pandemonium" was one word used to describe the frenetic activity at the Aloha ticket counter with frustrated fliers trying to find out what happened to their flights. The Humphrey family, which had flown to the big island from Honolulu last week on Aloha, were able to get on "the last flight" Aloha had out of Hawaii to their next destination, Kauai. Jeff Humphrey took the incident in stride, focusing instead on the more important news of the day for Kauai residents and tourists. "Dude they found a 10-foot long Tigershark in Hanalei Bay this morning and they closed the beach," he said. "Someone pulled a Chief Brody huh?" I asked, making what for people who were born after 1975 won't understand is a Jaws reference. In other news from the KXLY4 Spring Break Hawaii Bureau Jeff related the other big news was stepping on a sea urchin while surfing and have "an allergic reaction", which caused him to get a 104-degree temperature and inadvertantly miss out on a good 24 hours of in-depth investigating of the surf zone off Hawaii. "Dude, you're having like a Clark Griswold Hawaiian Family Vacation this year," I told him over the phone from the mainland. "Yeah but I'm all better now and I'm in Princeville and they're getting ready to seat us at our table with a beautiful view," he said as he was sitting down for dinner at a resort restaurant overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Coming up next from the KXLY4 Spring Break Hawaii Bureau: An in-depth comparison of body surfing on Hawaii and Kauai, how not to step on a sea urchin and a short, family-friendly commentary about how much more enjoyable the Hawaiian climate is in March compared to last weekend's snowfall in Spokane. March 31, 2008"Aloha" to Aloha
The airline shut down passenger service today and posted the obligatory "So long" message on its website. At first I thought wow, this is a big deal. I remember flying Aloha Airlines from Honolulu to Maui on vacation way back when. And then nostalgia slipped aside when I looked up on the Internet and found a Wikipedia list that documents all of the defunct airlines of the United States. Pan Am, Eastern Airlines, Western Airlines TWA, Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA, the planes with the smiley face on them) and Braniff all carry name recognition for those of us that have been flying "the friendly skies" for years, and all are out of business now. The list of airlines that have shut down also features scores of smaller regional carriers that have fallen victims to everything from corporate mismanagement and a turbulent ecomony to rising fuel prices and competition with no-frills, low-budget airlines. Earlier this month the list of defunct regional carriers grew by one when Big Sky Airlines which operated out of Butte ceased operations on March 8th, another victim like Aloha Airlines and countless other airlines of economic conditions and rising fuel costs. Aloha Airlines and Big Sky Airlines will be missed by some with passing nostalgia of that one time they flew on those airlines, but here right now, with an increasingly volatile American economy and fuel prices that have continued to shoot through the atmosphere, it will be interesting to see how long it will be before the government weighs in on whether or not its going to take steps to save the airline industry from financial collapse. If nothing is done I fear we're going to be saying Aloha to more airlines in the coming days. March 26, 2008Delta Airlines mixes humor, sex appeal to get seat belts fastenedHere's one that at first glance defies explanation. One of the hottest videos being streamed on YouTube right now is an in-flight safety video for Delta Airlines. The clip, an in-flight safety video that highlights those rules and regulations you're expected to follow when you fly the friendly skies, was posted last month and has attracted more than 360,000 views. The Delta flight attendant featured in the clip has been dubbed 'Deltalina' for her passing resemblance to Angelina Jolie and you know what ... I watched. And not just because I'm an Angelina Jolie fan. It was the first time in years of flying that I watched and paid attention to one of those safety videos because most have the quality and attention-grabbing skills of those teensploitation films of the 1950s we were forced to watch in elementary school. I won't even be flying Delta Airlines anytime in the near future, but I watched, I listened, I paid attention, and hundreds of thousands of other people are watching and paying attention too. And if you're reading this blog and clicked on the video clip above to see what I was talking about you watched too. How powerful is the message and the means of distribution when someone becomes a willing volunteer to spread the word about the perils of tampering with bathroom smoke detectors and the use of cellphones during your next flight? And what are the chances that this simple but sexy safety video helps sell airfares for Delta? I might have to talk my wife in to going on holiday. Movies are always better in the theater ... even if they're at 30,000 feet above the ground. The scoop behind KXLY.com's ginormous new video playerYou probably noticed if you've logged on to KXLY.com in the last few weeks, we changed the way we're serving video in a big way. Well, here's the behind-the-scenes scoop on the new video player and all of the cool little features our new player has in store for you. Continue reading "The scoop behind KXLY.com's ginormous new video player" » March 24, 2008Another deadly milestone at the Battle of Camden today ...Tonight's news headlines I can guarantee will carry the grim reminder of the cost of the war in Iraq. Just as news organizations highlighted when 1,000 troops died in Iraq, 2,000 died and 3,000 died now they will highlight another well-rounded number that 4,000 have died in just over five years of combat in the Middle East. Imagine if you will, the modern media's coverage if they had observed other famous battles in our nation's history. Aug. 16, 1780 CAMDEN, SC -- In other news tonight, the Army of the Republic led by Major General Horatio Gates suffered an overwhelming defeat at the hand of Major General Lord Cornwallis at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina today. Union forces suffered 1,050 killed, wounded and captured at the hands of the British Army, which suffered roughly 330 casualties. NOTE: The following September Lord Cornwallis surrendered his forces to General George Washington at the siege of Yorktown. July 3rd, 1863 GETTYSBURG -- General George Meade's victory over General Robert E. Lee's Confederate forces at Gettysburg has proved to be one of the costliest battles of the Civil War, with 23,049 Union and 28,063 Confederate soldiers losing their lives in the three day battle. Our sources reveal that there are additional grumblings about Gen. Meade's lackluster efforts in pursuing the retreating Army of Northern Virginia forces from the field of battle. Some in Congress are calling for a Congressional hearing on Gen. Meade's battlefield performance ... NOTE: While the war raged on for two more years, the Confederacy never recovered from its losses at Gettysburg. June 26, 1918 BELLEAU WOOD, FRANCE -- A forest in France is safely in Allied hands tonight, but the cost proved high for American forces as a combined US Army - Marine Corps force has secured the Belleau Wood, suffering more than 1,800 killed in action, one of the single costliest struggles for our doughboys serving over there. On the first day of the battle on June 6 the Marine Corps forces suffered their highest casualty rates from any single battle they've participated in for any war they have fought in since their inception during the Revolutionary War ... NOTE: The Belleau Wood was a key piece of ground that was located some 50 miles west of Paris. The failure of the Army - Marine forces in defending it would have caused a break in the front lines the Germans could have exploited to capture Paris. The success in the Allied forces in defending the wood likely changed the outcome of the First World War. June 6, 1944 NORMANDY, FRANCE -- American forces have landed on European soil today and while reports are still sketchy we can confirm that the invasion appears to have floundered, with US troops suffering more than 6,000 casualties on a strip of Normandy beaches military planners are calling Omaha and Utah. General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself had prepared a message accepting full responsibility for the failures of our forces ... NOTE: It's true that Gen. Eisenhower had prepared a message that confirmed the D-Day invasion had failed and he accepted responsibility for its failure. It was a message never released since the invasion, while costly, ultimately succeeded in opening up the long-anticipated second front in Europe, leading to Germany's downfall and surrender the following May. If today's media had covered these past conflicts the way they do today with Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom, I wonder if the results ultimately would have been the same? Would media coverage have fanned the flames of public opinion in such a way to have caused a shift in domestic or foreign policy that could have led to consequences we dare not contemplate? Beating the NCAA on showing game highlightsThe NCAA, like most sports organizations, holds the media hostage when it comes to showing game highlights while games are in progress. None of the sports video can show up on the web either, or you'll endure the wrath of the dozens of attorneys ready to pounce on the hapless local news website which posts sports highlights online. NBC17 in Raleigh, North Carolina found an ingenious way to show highlights of the Duke - Belmont game: I'm sure that once word gets back to the NCAA, they'll find a way to ban local stations from posting homemade highlights involving stuffed frogs and toy chickens, too. March 19, 2008Washington's Guardsmen heading to Iraq ... againI've known this message was coming for months now. I feel a lot different than the last time I got an e-mailed press release from the Washington Army National Guard about the 81st Heavy Brigade Combat Team getting orders to head to Iraq. The difference this time ... I'm not going. But some of my friends are, and I know what they're going to face when they're over there and all I can say really is having already endured one combat tour in Iraq they're better prepared than we were when we went over to Iraq back in '04. The message comes at a time of a covergence of events for the 81st Brigade: March 1st was the third anniversary of our return from Iraq in 2005. April 2nd will be the fourth anniversary of our deployment in Iraq. Today, the day they got their official notification, is the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq.
March 18, 20082008: Sir Arthur C. Clarke takes his final odysseyArthur C. Clarke, the renowned Science Fiction author who penned such classics as Rendezvous with Rama, died today. He was 90. I've read a few of his books, but the one piece of work that shook me to the core was the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I own a copy on DVD and a copy of the original theater poster hangs in my TV room. From the sighting of the first monolith at the dawn of man to Astronaut Dave Bowman's final journey I have always been left in awe at his and Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece. And there never has been a monster in cinematic or literary history quite like the cold, mechanical killer Arthur C. Clarke created in the HAL 9000. Rest in peace sir. You fired the imaginations of generations of kids that dreamed of the stars with your visions of what the universe really looked like. And now you finally know the answers to all of the questions you've raised in your work. My Iraq War, Four Years Later
For me the fifth anniversary doesn't carry much weight. I was working the assignment desk at a local TV station when Dan Rather broke into programming to report Tomahawks were dropping all over Baghdad. The troop buildup and UN Security Council meetings had been going on for months, so the first pictures of the fireworks show over downtown Baghdad came as a bit of an anti-climax. Less special effects than Die Hard 4. The war for me didn't start until a year later. My Iraq War started four years ago April 2nd and ended three years ago March 1st. I went overseas with a platoon of nearly 40 teenagers, fathers, alcoholics, college students, drug users, corrections officers, husbands and carpenters. I came home with a platoon of weary, tired, frustrated, disillusioned and angry men. More of them were using alcohol and drugs than before we left. One of the men suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) from a serious vehicle crash where he was ejected from the vehicle. Another one nearly had his left arm amputated from an improvised explosive device while he was a machine gunner on a Humvee. One came home in a casket draped with an American flag. Post-traumatic stress disorder and divorce were commonplace among the rank and file of the guys I served with. Some of them have coped well with their return to 'The World' while some not so much. One guy hasn't been seen by anyone since we returned home. It's rumored he's hiding out in his parents' basement at the bottom of a bottle. One guy I got to visit behind a plexiglass window at the Adams County Jail where he was doing a stretch for assault. One guy I got a phone call from at half past midnight when he was standing in a motel parking lot telling me he was waiting for some drugs and he really didn't want to buy the drugs but he couldn't live without them. Some coped by locking up Iraq in a cardboard box along with their salt-encrusted desert uniforms, photos, combat boots and memories and put them in the back of the closet. Some took the humiliating step of admitting they could no longer suffer in silence and sought out to climb to the summit of red tape in front of the VA Hospital to get treated for psychological wounds that don't rate a Purple Heart yet inflicted nearly as much damage as a gunshot or shrapnel wound. There are some guys who came home and got married, celebrated the birth of their children or are expecting children. Some went back to their jobs, got new jobs, went back to college and got their degrees. Regardless of how they live their lives back in 'The World' they are all good men. They may be wearing an orange jumpsuit and matching shackles, shaking from their craving for a Crack fix long overdue, packing up their lives into cardboard boxes because their wives just don't get them anymore, seeing a blurry world with their lips wrapped around the mouth of an upended bottle of Jack Daniels but they are all still good men. They are good men who stood their ground and fired their weapons as RPG rockets flew at them. They are good men who kept driving while their buddy lay in the back of the Humvee, his blood splashed all over the inside of the vehicle as the medic frantically tried to save his life. They are good men who fought back the fear as they put on their war gear, locked and loaded a round into the chamber of their rifle and stepped into their Humvee knowing there might be another IED out there on the patrol route today. They are good men who lost friends in combat one day and went back out on patrol the next. They chose to serve in the National Guard. They took an oath, they swore to defend the country. They didn't choose the war. The war chose them. They didn't debate the justifications for the war and then run to Canada like cowards, breaking their contact with the American people to protect them in good times and bad. My Iraq War wasn't about liberating a country. It wasn't about defending a new regime. It wasn't about enforcing UN sanctions or projecting American military might in the Middle East to protect our strategic national interests in that region. It wasn't about making sure the troops had their earplugs in, Wiley X sunglasses on and that they weren't wearing doo rags and cuffing the sleeves of their blouses so they looked good for the media which occasionally popped their heads out of their Green Zone gopher holes. When it comes down to remembering the legacy of the Iraq War for me it was all about serving with good men, looking out for the man in front and behind me in the patrol column as we spent a year walking through the tall grass along the banks of the Tigris. |
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I read the news this morning that Aloha Airlines was throwing in the towel, the inter-island passenger carrier a victim of rising fuel costs and a price war with a new upstart discount airline providing passenger service around the Hawaiian Islands.
This week major news networks, websites and even both The Inlander and The Spokesman-Review are focusing on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War.