Lance Cpl. Sean Carolla, a rifleman with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, currently serving as the Battalion Landing Team for the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, trudges through stagnant water, narrow tunnels and barbed wire during endurance course training at the Jungle Warfare Training Center in Okinawa, Japan, on April 23.

From the new and improved Frontline Photos.

UPDATE: Story and more pics at USMC.mil.

Wal-Mart and Guns
Mostly Cajun on firearms at Wal-Mart and such.

Even with the sunsetting of the “Assault Weapons” ban, I don’t believe that all of this weapon’s fire selections are within legal limits for civilian firearms owners. (Naughty word warning.)

Carnival of Homeschooling, Week 16
Hosted this week at About.com.

State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth
Over 35 million blogs. The number doubles every six months or so. A new one started every second.

Program slashes maintenance time for the B-2 fleet
“Alternate High Frequency Material, or AHFM, configured aircraft have shown much lower maintenance manhours per flight hour and have maintained a fly rate more than double the rest of the fleet.”

It’s The Borders, Stupid!
I’ll admit that I don’t have a fair and practical solution to the illegal alien issue. But nothing anyone does will accomplish anything whatsoever until the border secured.

May 1 Illegal Immigration Protesters Hope to Close Cities
Lots of links and discussion. A Minister of Minor Perfidy writes “Looks like 1 May is the day to catch up on your shopping“.

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I don’t know if this is good or not. Cool little thingy found at Euphoric Reality (Which gets about four links today or something, counting the upcoming Linkzookery…that might be an MO record.)

When Hollywood Makes History
Invented Details in ‘United 93′ Raise Real Questions

Suddenly we should be cautious about Hollywood’s portrayal of historic events:

But the movie, which opens nationwide today, is a dramatic re-creation that includes scenes and images that go far beyond what is known about the attacks.

Those scenes raise questions: How far can a dramatic movie go in imposing its own reality before it distorts the public’s understanding of the event? And with memories of 9/11 still vivid and raw, is it too soon for such films to be made?

Umm, I guess I don’t recall a great deal of media angst over the portrayal of 9/11 in ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′. And that was, you know, a documentary. Facts are everything in a documentary, right?

Murdoc might actually go see ‘United 93′. Most of what I’ve heard makes it sound good. But I’ll admit that I’m not so sure about a film that tries to recreate events for which there is so little factual knowledge. A movie about the hijacked airliners is going to be filled with, at best, guesses. Most of the details will need to be invented by the writers because no one who knows is around to tell us about them.

I don’t have a problem with this film being made, and I don’t have a problem with guesswork being used to fill in the (rather large) gaps. Even when the events a film is based on are very well known there’s a certain amount of artistic license and dramatization. Heck, Peter Jackson and company even thought they needed to “punch up” ‘The Lord of the Rings’, which, I hope you realize, is a work of fiction. I can think of a lot of ways that the artistic license could be used to do something bad and unpatriotic, but nothing I’ve read or heard indicates that this is the case.

But knowing that so much of what we’re seeing is just made up makes it difficult to know whether it’s worth it. I don’t know how much of the film deals with the situation on the ground (which is far more documented and known) but I’d guess the more, the better.

What do you guys think?

A Young Boy Salutes The Troops

What are you still doing here? Git!

Missile defense radar returns to Pearl Harbor for repairs

Still more trouble for the troubled National Missile Defense program:

A powerful floating radar that will be part of the national missile defense system had to be shipped back to Hawaii for repairs to its platform, delaying arrival at its home port of Alaska.

The $815 million X-Band radar had set sail March 31 from Pearl Harbor but returned four days later. The Missile Defense Agency said the platform, which remained in the harbor Wednesday, suffered damage when water leaked through its ballast piping, affecting its ability to partially submerge and re-emerge from the water.

Pics of the beast first arriving at Pearl in January.

A collection of pictures taken by deployed military personnel:

For all who have served in Iraq in the past three years, plus everyone who cares about those quarter million Americans–their wives and husbands, parents and children, friends and colleagues–here are 250 glimpses into life in wartime Iraq, a singularly intimate soldier’s-eye view of their war. Neither pro-war nor anti-, not Republican and not Democratic, this book is what life is really like for the troops: a true, honest glimpse into the banal and the breathtaking, the horrific and the honorable, the silly and sad and heartbreaking.

This is the first digital war, not because of computer-guided smart bombs or CNN videophones, but because of the simple, inexpensive digital camera, a part of daily life for Americans in Iraq and the way our soldiers share that life–with their friends and family, with one another, and now in This Is Our War. These photos and in-depth narrative captions were culled from the ten thousand images that GQ collected, creating a striking, moving, and revealing work of contemporary American history. Part Day in the Life, part Medal of Honor, and part War Letters, this book is an instant snapshot of history in the making.

I’ve only flipped through it so far, but it looks good.

U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Jonathan W. Cheney provides security for fellow Marines sweeping for weapons near the town of Al Buhardan, Iraq, April 22, 2006. Cheney is assigned to the Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines Regiment. DoD photo by Cpl. Brian M. Henner, U.S. Marine Corps. (Released)

When all else fails, post a cool pic. I do it for the fans.

One of the big issues at the MiBlogger Conference was, of course, bias in the media. While there are those who will contest such claims, it seems pretty clear to Murdoc that (at the very least) the mainstream media suffers from gross ignorance of military strategy, tactics, and history. This, of course, is gross generalization, and there are exceptions to the rule. But the low number of exceptions do a lot to prove said rule.

The third panel at the conference, “Blogging from Theater”, was moderated by Col. David Hunt. He sort of tore into the panelists on several issues and he sparred with the audience when we complained about media bias. That didn’t really go over very well with many conference attendees.

To this unhappiness with Col. Hunt’s moderation, Murdoc submits the following:

A) It’s Col. David Hunt, for freaking cripes. He wasn’t chosen because he handles things with kid gloves. If you were surprised at his behavior, you obviously aren’t terribly familiar with the guy. He’s a prick. It’s his job and he’s damn good at it. That’s why we all like him. Should Andi have called the Welcome Wagon lady or something?

Hunt was challenging the panel. And the rest of us. Murdoc doesn’t know exactly where Hunt stands on the MilBlogging issue, but it’s clear that things are growing faster than authority’s capability to control them and he’s worried that good intentions might cause more harm than good with the general public. He wants to keep everyone’s feet on the ground by asking tough questions.

B) No one likes to be told that they aren’t the kings of the world. Especially after a long day of getting patted on the back. Trebly so when it’s a gruff old bastard like Hunt saying it. But we would all do well to at least consider his words. The risk for real damage to the American cause (and the safety of our troops) is always going to be there, and we have to be on constant guard against it.

One point of debate that came out of that panel was the role of and use for embedded reporters. Though this generally means professional journalists dispatched by members of Legacy Media, it can also mean lunatics guys like Bill Roggio who pay their way into the combat zone in an effort to uncover the truth. For the purposes of this post, Murdoc means the former variety: The professional journalist sent into the combat zone as an embedded reporter by what we lovingly call “Big” or “Legacy” Media.

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Just heading out, but this just came in: Langley Air Force Base Briefing: F-22 03-041 Stuck Canopy at the AR-15 forums. Here’s a pic:

There are more pics at the forum. Murdoc’s got no time to look, so your mission is to determine if this is freaking real by the time I look again this evening.