I Win

My readers often ask what victory in this war looks like, so I wanted to share this.

I got a email from Mike Yon!

Here it is:

Greetings,

A new dispatch on Afghanistan is up: PENGUINS OF AFGHANISTAN.

My intentions were to write several more dispatches about missions, yet there seems to be so little interest in Afghanistan that it hardly seems worth the time to write about real missions.

There is little embedded work coming from Afghanistan. McChrystal's censorship seems to be working. (For now.) He's losing the war and covering it up. The deception is easy when so few people are paying attention. We are losing the war. At this rate it will be lost.

--
Very Respectfully,

Michael Yon

I was thinking he was going to point out how all the women over there run around in penguin suits, but Mike's title is about all the Afghani people, "Like penguins on the ice, they are born, they live and they die, and that’s all."

But see how he ended his email? "VERY RESPECTFULLY."

Lot's of people ask me why I still treat that no good useless ignorant McChrystal and his stinking band of foreigner generals and PAO monkeys respectfully even though they are incompetent and losing the war that no one cares about and covering it up by throwing out all the good embedded journalists like me and Mike Yon. Well, the answer is that's just the way our mothers raised us.

Thank you for your support!

In Afghanistan, was signing autographed pictures of myself for everyone who has supported my efforts. But then McChrystal stole them. I think he might have given them to the Canadians to use as toilet paper.

Anyhow, if you were expecting a nice autographed picture from me that's what happened. So if anyone ever tells you I just blew it off and went to Thailand for something called a "fishbowl" they're a liar.

Almost forgot... before I got disembedded for the crime of being the only journalist with the courage to tell it like it is in Iraq and Afghanistan I went along with a Company Commander to visit a local Afghan district honcho of some sort. I interviewed him through an interpreter.

Me: Where are we going?

Him: (through interpreter) to visit some local Afghan district honcho.

When we got there I interviewed him, too.

Me: How's it goin'?

Honcho dude (through interpreter): Can't complain.

Me: Where'd you get that scar?

Honcho: I was beaten in prison.

Me: Ever killed anybody?

Honcho: I have been in many battles. Many of my relatives have been killed, but many of my enemies are dead too.

Me: Got any kids? (These people love to talk about their children.)

Honcho: Several.

Me: Can I see their pictures?

But then the captain said he had a radio call and we had to leave.

Blame Canada

Everyone knows by now that Brigadier General Menard is going to get a court martial. Menard is the Canadian guy who shot down a US helicopter while "accidentally" discharging his rifle because he was distracted by a hockey game. Was it really an accident?

Now the Canadians claim that Menard shot his gun at the airfield, and didn't shoot down the helicopter. How many PAO monkeys randomly pecked away at typewriters before that piece of fiction was written? Good thing I was there, on the front lines of the base at Kandahar Airfield, to tell the real story.

This Menard is the same guy who blew up that strategic bridge in Kandahar while watching another hockey game. Why was hockey more important than that bridge? I could maybe understand if it was the Superbowl, but hockey? That's like gay lacrosse on ice. Good thing he didn't blow up the hockey game itself. But with Montreal still in the playoffs, who knows what this guy is capable of.

He leads American soldiers. A Canadian. Why are Canadians commanding U.S. troops anywhere? Ever? Many of our soldiers don't even speak Canadian. The deadliest weapons Canadians grow up handling are snow shovels. They drive uparmored zambonis. In Manitoba, it's legal to marry a moose. And don't even get me started on the war crime that is Labatt Ice. Between the cultural and language barriers, this is dangerous. They should just go back to Canada and blow up bridges and helicopters and hockey games there.

Incredible that the U.S. media is ignoring Menard's antics here in Afghanistan.

But some people are standing up and taking notice.

Just got a email:

Dear Michael,

A group of us patriots are concerned that this Menard guy is in command of our troops when he shoots down our helicopters and blows up our bridges. We are organizing to get this Menard person out of the picture.

We are going to run a campaign much like Moveon.org did with General Petraeus. We hope to place an add in The New York Times, with the headline of: General Menard or General Retard? Do you want this Filthy Canuck leading American soldiers?

We hope to raise $500,000 to run this add. We suggest that readers hit your tip jar, and then you can reimburse us. We know you're good for it.

Keep fighting the good fight and keep that brass off your ass,

Richard Strokely

Right on, I hope this takes off. Menard reports to McChrystal, who hates Whoppers but loves to tell whoppers. The war is over both of their heads.

The Horror

As horrific as it is, everyone should read this horrific comment some commenter left in the comments of the last post:

Pleading said...

Mike, please, please, PLEASE stop writing stuff like this and get back to what you do best - writing truth from the frontlines! If I want to read romance novels I can get one from the stacks on the wife's nightstand or the bookshelves or the boxes full of them in the spare bedroom. But I hardly ever do! When I come here I want to read stories of real COMBAT - between you and General Brooks, or General McChrystal, or General Menard, or that Admiral, any of those British Generals, all the PAO monkeys, and anyone else who is stupid and incompetent and in over their heads and proves it by going mano-a-mano with you! Also I want to see pictures YOU took of guns and young boys and stuff, not photoshopped covers of the same damn books that I see in front of my wife's face so often that I can't even remember what she looks like.

Your shit list hasn't grown at all this week! Please come back to us, Mike, before it's too late!

That's what I get for trying to write something for the members of "the fairer sex." But don't worry, "pleading," I will be back to writing about McSpiders and his merry band of PAO Monkeys soon enough.

Like right now - because I wouldn't be surprised if "pleading" IS McSpiders himself, or one of his shifty-eyed foreign undergenerals or PAO Monkeys sent here to attack. A few years ago they tried the same thing with my fellow frontline non-blogger/non-journalist Mike Yon.

The dispute over the unattributed and unauthorized distribution of my photographs has been resolved in principle to the satisfaction of the involved parties. The dispute had been exacerbated by Army lawyers, but once the matter was brought forefront and examined by Brigadier General Brooks, Chief of Public Affairs, it was resolved by another more senior Army attorney. At the end of the day, the Army did the right thing. I greatly appreciate the efforts of those involved, including the blogosphere and Brigadier General Brooks, whose determined attention and immediate action removed the obstacle.

Whoops - sorry, wrong quote. This is the one I meant, it's from a year later.

I don't like being here at all. I really hate getting shot at, and even today as I write these words on March 20, 2007, Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks is evicting me from another trailer...

I am persistent to a fault when it comes to gathering and conveying raw information, especially the kind that no one else seems to cover. And even when reporting it will come back to hurt me. Like this eviction notice I received last week, ostensibly because of the surge, but in fact I was told the order came from Brigadier General Vincent K. Brooks, and there were still trailers available. General Brooks used to be the Chief of the entire Public Affairs. The man who would stand up there and give all those fancy CENTCOM briefings. (Which make for interesting reading.) Now his big office is just down the road.

That was from the early days of the surge, and those idiot PAO monkeys and their lying, no good, fancy-office-having general wouldn't even give him a trailer with internet access and instead expected him to report on the surge from a tent and get his own internet access somehow! Sure enough, one of those PAO monkeys attacked Mike in his comments, too. That is their modus operandi.

Michael,Let me give you some advice.First, quit pissing off GO's [General Officers], you should know as well as anybody that they all have some degree of God-like syndrome.Don't try on remove the tree from the top down; bottom up is the way to go. Seek out and make relationships with junior enlisted and junior NCO's, they can help you get it done.

Can you believe it? That's THE Mike Yon he was talking to! As if that wasn't bad enough, it got ten times worse - the guy would not let up!

When someone in a position to help reaches out and tries to open up a line of communication, perhaps you should reply directly rather than using the fact that they reached out to you as a point of irony in one of your articles, ;-)We might be able to help smooth out some bumps in your road, of course if we can smooth out those bumps, you won't be able to write about them anymore.

"We want to help," this lying liar lied, "Good luck and keep up the good work!Out." This didn't fool Mike Yon for a minute! "This clumsy, disingenuous, planted comment is coming from CENTCOM," he said.

...in an informal, off the cuff comment, probably intended to undermine the credibility of my complaints, CENTCOM's OKW Zig rattles off a list of "helpful suggestions" that ultimately prove the point that the military's media arm is shriveled to such a degree that it can only reliably deliver self-inflicted wounds.

Turns out General Brooks was incompetent and in over his head. Fortunately they were able to work all that out just in time for Mike to be the first one to report the surge was working and we won the war. But now when I see comments like the one from "pleading," telling ME what I need to be writing or thinking or saying or doing I know what they are REALLY saying, and I know who is really saying it. And I know what language they are saying it in, even though I am not fluent in it like I am fluent in English and German. It is the language of the shit weasel.

A lotta knots

For the ladies....

The winds are gusting here. Maybe 35 knots sometimes. That's a lot of knots. If I've done the math in my head correctly, it's about 402 mph, give or take. I know it sounds crazy, but in the military we measure winds and temperature and moon illumination in knots. My Hello Kitty sleeping bag blew away but I found it and secured it with four bayonets, a roll of duct tape and a few knots of the old 550 cord.

I've noticed I've got several readers of the female persuasion. While most of my writing is of the virile, manly variety, this special post is dedicated to you. (And yes, especially you, my knotty little special one. You know who you are.)

But in addition to being manic fans of moi, it seems more than a few of you fawning femininities appreciate other types of literature, too. And one of the Yawnettes sacrificed a bit of sleep last night (which on? A true gentleman never tells... and I will NEVER BETRAYUS) to prepare this veritable feast for all our eyes.



"When I read the writings you write I feel as though I was reading a romance novel co-authored by Hunter S Thompson and Louis L'amour," she wrote to me in the email she emailed to me that I just read. But reading and writing and typing and emailing are two very different things, like love and lust and hate (MCSPIDERS!), or my stuff and that crap you get from the lamestream media or traditional bloggers.

I don't fully understand it, but I like the pictures (and I suspect you like it, too). If they bring even half the pleasure to you that it does to me than I dare say you will be satisfied...

Or perhaps unsatisfied. Believe you me, I understand that feeling, alone here because of McChrystal on the windswept plains of a foreign and savage land, the golden moon - that cold-hearted orb that rules the night - the sole witness to my solitude... out in the wild, so distant in space and time from the heat of your lips and the warmth of your passionate embrace...

Then, as the warm breeze ripples the walls of my Power Rangers Pup Tent, soft music lulls me towards slumber...



"How do you resist the temptation, my mighty warrior monk?" You might ask, in a throaty whisper... In truth it isn't easy - in fact it's often unbelievably hard - and even the mightiest of stout oaks bends to the stiff breeze from time to time.



But I remember what my grandpa said about hard things, and though it takes more effort than I think I can bear, I remind myself of this lesson, imparted to me by a ninja master so very long ago...



And to sleep I go, perchance to dream, my fist wrapped firm but gently 'round my 9 while my bandanna hangs drying close at hand.

Thailand can wait. There are stories to live, and some to tell, and new names to add to my shit list. That is my burden, the load I carry. I don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Don't forget to hit my tip jar.

Highway to the Danger Close Zone

I just got an email:

Mr. Yawn,

I was reading Michael Yawns Online and had an inspiration for this totally original song. Here is a link to the music, and the lyrics are below. Maybe if we all donate enough money, you can hire Bruce Willis to produce and sing it on Sean Hannity’s Freedom Concert Tour. Here are the lyrics:

The Highway to the Danger Close Zone (Ballad of Green Beret Mike Yawn)

Revvin' up his camera
Listen to it hum and whir
Shutter speed on slo-mo
Ready for helo lights to glow
Highway to the Danger Close Zone
Ride into the Danger Close Zone
Headin' into twilight
Strapping on his kevlar tonight
Combat got him jumpin' off the FOB
Stryker shovin' into overdrive
Highway to the Danger Close Zone
Yawn'll take you
Right into the Danger Close Zone
He'll never say hello to you
Till you embed a year on the front line overseas
He'll never respect what you can do
Until you embed as long as he can go
Out along the edges
Always where Mike Yawn burns to be
The further on the edge
The hotter the intensity
Highway to the Danger Close Zone
He’s gonna take you
Right into the Danger Close Zone
Highway to the Danger Close Zone

Jack Idema on YAWN

Listen up pussies, I now have a list of asses to kick that is so long it's going to take me a year just to read them all. What the hell is up with all these punk ass bloggers messing with Mike Yawn. Mike is a Super Patriot just like me. Hell I'd share a cell in an Afghan prison with Mike any day. Matter of fact Mike give me a call we could bunk up and get to know each other. You ever seen a grown man naked?

There's nothing that makes we want to open up a can of whoop ass more than to hear some lazy bastard chicken hawk son of a bitch mouthing off about his betters who had the balls to deploy to combat zones, break every rule, act like freakin' lunatics and then get their asses booted out of county.

let's start with that bald jackass Uncle Dimbo. I have super-secret sources in intel agencies so black they don't even take calls from Jack Bauer. Hell I think Yawn has been communicating with them recently as well and I'm sure they are the ones who got him those secret spider-proof moon gloves. But these folks tell me that Dimbo's entire Special Forces career consisted of banging midget Thai hookers and playing pool at Super Head in the Philippines. Compared to the months of time me and Mike have getting booted off teams his years of deployments and un-blemished career make a real Super patriot wanna puke.I still owe that miserable bastard a beat down from when he was talkin' smack while I was bravely serving my country from a jail in the Stan, and I don't mean that loser McChrystal.

The rest of you gutless chickenhawks better watch your asses, 'cuz Jack is back and I'm teaming up with other Super Patriots like Mike Yawn. And we will be bringing that kind of bad assery that only Napoleon complex-havin' rejects from Special Forces can bring.

Danger Close with Destiny

Some of McChrystal’s milblogger goons are trolling my comments demanding “evidence” that he is waging a smear campaign against me. Others want “proof” that he doesn’t know how to run this war.

The evidence has been sent to my lawyer. And the proof … well, the proof McChrystal doesn’t know what he’s doing is everywhere. The proof is in Afghan children making paper airplanes because they don’t know how to read. The proof is in Mayor McChrystal McCheese monopolizing whoppers. The proof is in the pudding.

Nevertheless, I have something bigger than evidence. Larger than proof.

I have destiny.

Six years ago.

There I was, there I was, there I was … in … the Congo.

I’d been hot on the trail of a pack of fugitive Nazi cannibals for months, and just stumbled across their abandoned camp. Crept into a clearing, pistol drawn. Heard no voices. No footsteps. A dwindling fire hissed its dying breaths under the sounds of the jungle. A rhesus monkey laughed at man’s impotence against nature. The macaw cried about something sad. The ominous notes of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung drifted from an antique victrola atop a tree stump.

Over the cooling firepit was a charred human body, split down the middle by a metal spit. A German eagle and a swastika set in silver relief from the handle. Some of the meat on the body was gone. Nazi cannibals were ass men, apparently. An Iron Cross glinted from the ashes. Its black and silver finish tarnished by oxidation and history’s judgment.

I’d just missed the Nazi cannibal bastards.

Suddenly, a crack. Gripped my revolver tightly. Spun and leveled it on the chest of an intruder. Fear was greeted by mirth. A small, brown man stood barefoot and naked, except for a scraggly white beard and a necklace of shrunken heads draped around his neck. His eyes hard to see past the wrinkled folds of his smile. The brown slits gleamed with wisdom and power. I recognized the mark of a shaman. He recognized the mark of a warrior.

“Away put your weapon, I mean you no harm,” he said with a raspy accent.

“Who are you?”

“Not important it is who I am, Michael Yawn,” he answered.

His gaze became serious. “To you more important – to the fate of the world more important – is who you are … uh, is.”

“I don’t have time for word footsie, little fella, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m hot on the trail of a pack of Nazi cannibals.”

“Take you to them, I will. But now, must eat.”

The old man reached into a pouch made from the skin of a panther. He rummaged around and pulled out a pack of saltines.

“No, will not do, this,” he harrumphed and tossed them aside. The shaman dug through the bag again, this time finding and discarding a pack of wet naps. After tossing away mints, Crest White Strips and a dog-eared Danielle Steele novel - the shaman finally found what he was looking for. His eyes closed and his long, pointy ears twitched in satisfaction. He pulled something out of the bag and thrust it toward me.

“Here. Eat this, you must.”

It was a human skull, top sawed off above the eyes. Inside was a creamy paste. Looked like peanut butter. Looked like danger.

It just so happens, I like peanut butter and danger. It’s my middle name. (“Danger,” not “peanut butter.”)

I ate the paste. It tasted like destiny.

“Well thee fare, Michael Yawn. Your destiny, you will find.”

The world swirled. Blurriness, then blackness.

Color. Swirling color. A tunnel of light. A strange figure, riding, walking toward me. On eight legs. A giant spider on a bridge of light. Only, its torso was that of a man with craggy features wearing a green uniform. Next to the spider man was a demon in a hockey jersey negligently discharging a weapon.

In front of them was a man. His steely gaze and rigid shoulders obviously marked him as an American soldier. Behind the soldier was an Afghan girl, making paper airplanes. The spider man and the hockey player were attacking the American soldier and the Afghan girl. They spotted me.

“There is nothing you can do to stop us, Michael ‘Danger’ Yawn,” they said in unison.

“Eh,” added the hockey demon.

“God damn you bastards, I must try.”

“Yes, try you must,” echoed the voice of the shaman. “Try you must, try you must, try you …”

“… must.”

I awoke on the wooden floor of a Thai cathouse. Naked. Two sleeping ladyboys tangled on straw mat next to me. Opium incense sticks burning. Empty tequila bottles. Pounding head. Was it a memory? Was it a dream? Was it a vision? I didn’t know.

Until now.

Another very nice email

Got a very nice email from Hactor Magillicuddy. Here is what it said:

"I linked your post at my blog"

That is very nice. At his blog he says this: "McChrystal is incompetent and dangerous. He is in over his head."

That confirms a lot of the things I've been saying here. People keep asking for "evidence" even as it keeps piling up higher and higher and higher.

Don't call me milblogger

I understand from email a number of "milbloggers" are suddenly concerned about my mental health. Where was their concern when we started losing the war? Suddenly I expose McChrystal for an incompetent fool and the "milbloggers" are concerned for my "health" and think I need a "vacation." That I should "take a break" or just "relax." "Get refreshed." "Come back later after "resting" for a while." "Soak my toes in the beach somewhere", or maybe "at least just go to Thailand for a weekend and get laid." Funny how that concern only appeared after I exposed McChrystal for an incompetent fool. Where was their concern when we started losing the war?

I don't even read milblogs. Never have. No one who is serious about the war reads milblogs. When the mainstream media wants to ridicule or marginalize me they call me a "milblogger." I have heard a thousand spiders scream beneath a flaming blood red moon. I do not have a blog and am not now and never will be a "milblogger." Name me any of the top five milblogs who have ever been embedded as a war correspondent for over a year. Not. One. If they did they would know McChrystal is incompetent and we are losing the war. Sleep is for pussies. I've been up for over 73 hours now an I will not rest.

Hell Yeah!!!!!

Now that's what I'm talkin about:



Another picture sent from a reader. I have no idea who thought this up, but it's sheer genius. Exacly right.

Incompetence

Some claim I don't have "evidence" that McChrystal doesn’t know how to run this war. I (and my lawyer) have lots.

Just received this email:

I am Robert Johnson, a sargent in the American armies, presently in Afghanstan among peace keeping force.

During the raid of the Osama bin Ladin hide out, which was also where he kept funds and valuables and cars and prize sexing goat, I smuggled out a box contain $13 million, which I have moved out of Afhganstan through a diplomadic channel.

The funds is presently in the custody of a securities and finance company in Europe. I want to move finally to safe bank account through a reliable person with good trust.

If you are willing to assist me in deal, urgently contact for further details.

Regard
Bob Johnson (a sargent in the US armies and marines)

I wonder if all the milbloggers full of hot air can please tell me: If McChrystal and his staff of switch-flipping monkey soldiers can’t keep track of Osama bin Laden’s confiscated treasure ... how can we expect them to win this war?

McChrystal must go. This war is over his head.

McWhoppers

McChrystal is trying to monopolize Whoppers and whoppers from Afghanistan. Whoppers coming out of Afghanistan will be coming from General McChrystal. I'm not surprised. McChrystal/McDonalds... he thinks he's a regular Mayor McCheese, but the troops all call him "Hamburgler". Soon enough he'll be asking "want fries with that"? He wants to have it his way. Well, hold the pickle, buddy. Special orders DO upset us. Yeah... I got your five dollar footlong right here. Send in the clowns, Ronald. Time to put Jack back in his box.



Eat me.

Message to McChrystal's Gang:

STOP EMAILING ME!

Fags.