Silent code

Duty and Loyalty

Honesty & Clarity

Polite Courtesy

Compassion

Complete Sincerity

Heroic Courage

Honor & Justice

To fully understand the meaning and purpose of this blog, you must understand warriors, true, genuine warriors. The culture and mindset of modern-day military special operations and intelligence set in unspoken tradition, standards and thinking handed down from generation to generation, across borders from warriors to warriors all over the world. In this small and very private community, a silent code shares dictating behaviors and expectations, internally consistent values and beliefs.  Known for fierce independence and autonomy, threaded throughout devotion to duty, actions and behavior prove physical strength and mental resilience, intelligence, discipline, fearlessness, self-sacrifice, loyalty and honor to the death.  To learn more, read Silent Code.


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The Experience v.2

The ride. When performed right, the ride becomes another level of thought. The true ride is when your motorcycle becomes the well oiled piece of industrial art it was meant to be. While on distant roads far away or near home, your bike reaches a rhythm state or pattern on the road, specifically a back road in the middle of nowhere. Much preferred over interstate or major highways, it’s here where these rides define the meaning of your bike. The experience resembles how relaxed you get near an ocean or perhaps when you play golf. Alone doing what you love. At the whim of the environment no matter what the weather is, one way or another, you find yourself immersed in what nature throws at you.

Something as simple as noise dictates how well your motorcycle ride goes. The wind. In your face, covering your eyes. Without protection, your eyes flood with tears, yet, flowing past your ears, the rush of the noise is only topped by two things. The throaty sound of it’s chrome engine combined with the hacked off split exhaust pipes without baffles. Together, they bark out orders pleading you to find more asphalt. Even the feel of the pavement moving below your feet, leaves a sensation of a steady vibration putting you at ease at one point, on a high the next moment. The smells of the sweet fuels and toxic fumes mixed with the pine forests you breach onto salt water in the air near the beaches you by-pass. It’s your sight capturing the entire ride in the roads in front of you plus catching every detail of trees passing by to your left crossing through your right side, finally those in your mirrors left behind.

Once you get the repeated patterns of traffic down, speed fluctuates with your mood. If you are at peace, you cruise. If you are filled with angst about the days gone by or she never calls, kick your bike into fourth then fifth gear going from seventy into eighty hang on for the ride. Or, simply relax and enjoy a wide open road alone crisscrossing a far off mountain pass or distant desert valley.
It’s here the ride becomes the very reason you chose to climb on the bike that day, or every day for that matter.

Rain showers and slick highways depress you. No matter if at home or work, every day you find yourself daydreaming about the next ride. It all comes down to your very source of peace. Letting the bike do the work while all you do is hold on for what’s next, steering with the chrome handle bars accelerating with your right hand.

With the twist of your grip, the bike opens up as you force more fuel into the pistons speeding the bike up faster. Your searching for that next bend in the road, hunting for the way of new beginnings. The feeling of the experience is what your motorcycle is all about. The rush of power unleashed beneath your feet is like no other. The ONLY thing making your bike better…is the beauty sitting right behind you hanging on you enjoying the same ride.

Together, the bike, the ride and this woman are the simple things in your life. It’s your experience.

Not Yet

Today, I think about John Chapman.

The song and it’s image listed at the end of this blog reminds me of a close brother in arms.  Don’t look at the image below of a Gladiator and think of the actor.  Instead, as you read this post, for a second of your time, look at the images and see a true American warrior.

The title of the song…”Not yet” means one warrior to another…I will see you on the other side, just not yet.  There is more work to do and we will care for your daughters.  From there, we will continue the good fight.  So long brother, but, never good bye.  To read John Chapman’s Air Force Cross Citation, please go to this link: Not Yet.

 

Not Yet, posted with vodpod

Warrior Reality – Family

No different from you, yet very different.  It’s the way of warrior life, the community and the mission that is different.  Everything else is the same as you.

Pearls and sons

He waited for his mom and dad patiently being the warrior son he is. The anxiety of …separation of the family and how young he was. A symbol of innocence from a boy who never whined, complained or pleaded for his parents.  Just like every other kid in America, at 5 yrs old our boy knew what his mom and dad and their friends were doing and why.  Eventually, being in the arms of his grand parents (Both sets) we were able to focus on the mission. His mother eventually made it back to America. The day she arrived she dumped her gear in our empty house. Fueling the truck, she departed that day driving 12 hours to recover her son.

During the first Afghanistan trip (Oct 2001-March 2002) I chose not to take pictures of Little Man or my ex-wife. Also, I chose not to bring “moleskin” journals.  Concerned if we were caught, I chose to go into Afghanistan stripped of memories.  For fear, what we carried would enable people to track down our families.

This first trip to Afghanistan was different from any other deployment I had been on.  One difference was the immediate loss of American warriors.  While overseas, Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was in Pakistan working on a story/mission about Pakistani extremism and the source of the “Shoe Bomber.” On his own, Mr. Pearl finally started to crack the code of Al Qaeda. With his work, researching alone, he was hot on their trail.

The pen is mightier than the sword. Mr. Pearl’s pen had active impact against Al Qaeda. Soon enough, when they caught on, his mission came to a halt January 23, 2002 after being kidnapped by the very terrorists he hunted. The kidnapping occurred within 150 miles of our site, making the event more sickening. While ground zero in New York City and the Pentagon still burned and smoldered, over international TV, Al Qaeda took Mr. Pearl, dressed him in an orange jump suit. In front of the world, they slit his throat killing him.

Within weeks of his death, Daniel Pearl’s wife Mariane would later leave a legacy of Daniel Pearl through their first-born baby warrior son. Giving the world a gift, a new symbol representing what Daniel Pearl and his mission meant to this world.  For his son, he will always be in good hands.

Daniel Pearl

Image via Wikipedia

Infiltration

Journal Entry November 23rd, 2001

Somewhere in southeast Afghanistan heading directly for Kandahar, it is nine weeks after 9/11/2001. America as a whole, all of its citizens and the world are still in disbelief from the surprise Al Qaeda attacks against the New York Twin Towers, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania. It is our country that tries to heal from the most horrific attacks on U.S. soil since the Japanese surprise attack on December 7th, 1941…60 years earlier. Now over 3,000 innocent people have been killed by Al Qaeda, a global Islamic terrorist organization led by Bin Laden and Al Zawahiri.

We are the first 200 Americans on the ground in Afghanistan following 9/11.  All of us are trained and highly skilled.  We’ve all trained and been hand-picked experiencing rigorous selection courses where 85% of those who try out, fail to succeed. Trained in advanced communications, I’m skilled as a SCUBA diver, Military Free fall and Static Line Parachutist. A parachute Jump Master. Dive Supervisor. Qualified in over ten assault rifles, pistols, heavy machine gun and sub-machine gun weapons. Capable of infiltrating in any helicopter, aircraft or assault vehicle and motorcycles. Trained in advanced navigation on foot, vehicle or animal. Specializing in air to ground tactics using aircraft, space and Cyber assets. I’m the integrator of the air war with battles on the ground.

The afternoon is hot and dry with piercing brilliant blue skies free of clouds.  We have over a hundred vehicles formed in a “V” formation all moving forward heading towards the home of the Taliban.  Kandahar. I’m in the backseat of a maroon Toyota Hilux pickup truck sitting behind the driver, Ken, a US Army Special Forces 18D Medic.   I’m assigned to move with a US Army Special Forces 12 man “A” team.  I’m their primary source for “air support” or aircraft for security. With a small silver hand-held “Garmin” Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver in one hand and an outdated survival map in the other, it seems I’m the only Air Force operator for several hundred miles.

Balancing an M-4 Assault rifle between my knees, my personal weapon from work I spray painted brown and tan despite the Air Forces regulations telling me no. My rifle has an ACOG scope, BE Meyers miniature infrared pointer also a 40mm grenade launcher mounted on the rail system attached to the stock. Feeling the weight of a load bearing vest over my shoulders and around my waist, I also carry a black Beretta 9mm pistol. With suppressors on both weapons, I’m carrying over 500 rounds of M-4 ammunition, 9mm rounds, 40 mm grenades and survival gear.

My unit has joined an American armada of forces from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard mobilizing and moved out all over the world. Allies from countries like Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Norway and Denmark have joined America. The Global War on Terror or GWOT has officially begun.