Photos from the Frontlines...April 24, 2003.

Ap , Rueters, Various, Yahoo News, Etc

[wndycndy]

I'm right there wishing I was a younger babe too ;)

[Bahbah]

LOL. HUA

[blackie]

Great Pix ... Bump!

[Hila]

Thanks a million for these wonderful photos!

[William Wallace]

Awesome photos. Thanks for the heads-up, Linda.

[TruthNtegrity]

Bumping and bookmarking

[Republic]

Especially loved the shot of the little girl tearing up Saddam's picture-class assignment and the shot of Capt King greeting his 21 month old son-WHAT JOY!

[Happy2BMe]

A Salute To The Fallen Heroes - They Gave Their All - God Bless Them

MEGA-

[Uncle Jaque]

Re.:

The Marine wounded by what may have been child-delivered ordnance; this would be nothing new; it was fairly common during VietNam.

From what Veterans told me, (I was stationed in Korea at the time) the VC would train unsuspecting little children to run up to a GI and stick a grenade in their pocket while he was distracted with a crowd of their peers begging or whatever.. after pulling the pin, of course.

They would train them with a dummy grenade and a "Charlie" dressed up in a US uniform, and when they accomplished the mission, the phony "GI" would give them a special treat, so it became a game to them. Then they would take them into Saigon or wherever, hand them a live grenade, and turn them loose on the streets to play.

Another popular trick was to chain them to a tree with an old weapon in a concealed position to cover their retreat, and tell them that the Americans would eat them when they found them. Of course when the US patrol came under fire the results were predictable, and it did even the most hardened "Grunt"s morale no good when he discovered that he'd just whacked a little 7-year old girl or some such. Of course "Charlie" got secondary propaganda benifit out of these things as much as he could.

Children were considered to be expendable ordnance delivery systems to the Commies, and I suspect that some of the Islamonazis over in Iraq and surrounding environs may hold similar tactical sentiments.

"Charlie" used to have a lot of other nasty tricks up his sleeve than we are seeing pulled on Coalition forces over there... yet. No doubt we have some VN Veteran FReepers in here who know from personal tragic experience a lot more than I do when it comes to that.

A lot of these terror techniques I'm seeing reported from Afghanistan and Iraq as if they are something new were old hat to the VietNam Veterans, and I hope that our Military does not have to re-learn a lot of hard lessons since forgotten - the hard way.

[eureka!]

Thanks so much for the ping. I love these threads--they tell more than all the presstitutes combined. Especially the children defacing the evil doer. Thanks again....

[cavador]

Thank you Dio-these pictures are awesome!

Caption says(quote-unquote)"POW's back home : Former prisoners of war Joseph Hudson (R) and Patrick Miller (L) respond to their welcome from the hatch of their C-130 airplane upon arrival at Biggs Army Airfield Deployment Center at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. (AFP/Paul Buck) "
(Paul Buck certainly DOESN"T know anything about aircraft(unless of course they probably make C-130's with jet engines!))It's probably a Galaxy Starlifter
Below is a classic example of a C-130