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It's just a few days past the fifth anniversary of one of the most magnificent accomplishments of combat arms ever in the history of the US military. Yet I could not find one mention of it anywheres in the media, focused as they were on the antics of Hillary, Obama, and the rest of the Dems failing in their attempts to pose one semi-intelligent question to Gen. Petreus, or shedding crocodile tears over the 4000+ American heroes who have made the supremee sacrifice in Iraq. I have excerpted for you below a few paragraphs from the great book by David...

THE eldest son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was plotting to overthrow his father just as US troops advanced on Baghdad in March 2003, journalist Peter Arnett claimed in Playboy magazine. Uday Hussein, known for his ruthlessness and flashy lifestyle, had won the support of the leadership of his father's Fedayeen militia to overthrow Saddam's 35-year rule, according to an advance copy of the April edition of Playboy obtained by AFP. The controversial reporter, who was fired by the US Cable News Network in 2003 after suggesting the US war plan in Iraq had failed, made the claim following an...

THUNDER RUN, The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad By David Zucchino Atlantic Montly Press (Link goes to Amazon) ISBN 0-87112-911-1 From the Mark Bowden (Blackhawk Down author) forward to the book just published: By far the most important and decisive part of the stunning American sweep of Iraq in 2003 was the suprise armored thrust into the heart of Baghdad. While pundits at home and around the world (myself included) were predicting a potentially bloody, protracted siege of Saddam Husein's capital, and while the notorious "Baghdad Bob" was before microphones in the Al Rashid Hotel denying that American forces were...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2004 – The "Thunder Runs" of the war in Iraq seemed to come from nowhere. One day the fighting was far to the south, and seemingly the next, soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division were liberating Baghdad. The Thunder Runs were the audacious answer to charges that American forces were stuck in a quagmire in Iraq. Army Col. David Perkins commanded the 2nd Brigade of the "Rock of the Marne" Division. There were two armor battalions – the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor and 4th Battalion, 64th Armor – and an infantry battalion – the 3rd Battalion, 15th...

Marine awarded Bronze StarSubmitted by: MCRD Parris IslandStory Identification Number: 2004359350Story by Lance Cpl. Brian Kester MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C.(March 5, 2004) -- The recruits of Platoon 1033 have a hero in their midst, a man who has achieved what some can only dream of achieving -- a Bronze Star for actions on the battlefield. The heroic efforts displayed by this Marine in battle are a direct result of a humble man who was only "out there doing the job." Sergeant Edward R. Ferguson, drill instructor with Platoon 1033, Alpha Company, 1st RTBn., was presented with the Bronze Star for...

The western part of Baghdad is now under the control of Fort Hood's First Cavalry Division. Soldiers with the Army Taskforce 2/70 "Thunderbolt" Division handed over responsibility to their newly arrived comrades today (Tuesday). The soldiers of 2/70 spearheaded the invasion of Iraq and fought their way up to Baghdad with battles in Nasiriyah, Samawah and Najaf. After spending nearly a year away from home, the First Armored Division will head home to Fort Riley, Kansas. The First Cavalry will officially take over all of Baghdad in April.

On the afternoon of April 4, Army Lt. Col. Eric Schwartz was summoned to a command tent pitched in a dusty field 11 miles south of Baghdad. His brigade commander, Col. David Perkins, looked up from a map and told Schwartz he had a mission for him. "At first light tomorrow," Perkins said, "I want you to attack into Baghdad." Schwartz felt disoriented. He had just spent several hours in a tank, leading his armored battalion on an operation that had destroyed dozens of Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles 20 miles south. A hot shard of exploding tank had burned...

A squad of Marines were driving up the highway between Basra and Baghdad. They came upon an Iraqi soldier badly injured and unconscious. Nearby, on the opposite side of the road, was an American Marine in a similar but less serious state. The Marine was conscious and alert. As first aid was given to both men, the marine was asked what had happened. The Marine reported; "I was heavily armed and moving north along the highway. Coming south was a heavily armed Iraqi soldier." "What happened then?" the corpsman asked. "I yelled to him that Saddam Hussein was a miserable...

Iraqis welcomed U.S. troops, local Marine says BY BRIAN WILLIAMS Times Staff Writer KOUTS -- On a peaceful rural porch overlooking a broad stretch of cornfield, with silent hummingbirds hovering at a feeder, Pfc. Jacob Cristea shows photos of blown-out tanks, himself assembling shrapnel grenades and the grim discoveries in a mass grave. Cristea has blood and guts war stories from his six months in Iraq and Kuwait, but he says the last thing he wants to do is to tell them. Instead, the Marine prefers Americans see beyond the fighting and dying in Iraq and know the good he...

WASHINGTON -- As U.S. armored columns drive single-mindedly toward Baghdad, deliberately bypassing Basra and other cities in southern Iraq, they are taking a calculated risk. The downside of the strategy is apparent: Iraqi soldiers and paramilitary fighters are finding it easier to attack U.S.-led forces bringing up the rear and their thinly protected supply trains. But the Pentagon maintains that it's all part of the plan. Like Gen. Douglas MacArthur's "island hopping" in the South Pacific during World War II, commanders chose to open the invasion of Iraq by sidestepping potentially bloody, time-consuming battles to occupy Basra, Nasiriyah and other...

I have been watching the early edition of CNN Presents: The Road to Baghdad. The show will also be shown during prime time on Sunday. I can not watch it any longer. It is so disgustingly biased in an anti-administration, anti-american way tht it is making me sick. It is so bad and so biased that it could have been produced by Mikey Moore. In the first half hour, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, positive shown about this military victory. If you can stand to watch it, be prepared to be shocked. After that, please send a blistering Email to...

WASHINGTON – U.S. Marines had to go on a "logistics-light diet" to blitz Baghdad. How did they march so far so fast with such a short supply of food, water and fuel? According to an unclassified report by the 1st Marine Division, they improvised in classic American fashion. For example, they filled canteens using funnels to avoid spilling water. They went online to find cheap gas-tank racks to mount to their Humvees, doubling their fuel capacity. And when those tanks went empty, they seized Iraqi fuel. Jim Mattis, the division's commanding general, said he "accepted the risk that units would...

Tanks for the Memory By Ralph Kinney Bennett TCS One of the enduring images of the recent war in Iraq is a column of M-1A1 Abrams tanks barreling down the streets of Baghdad on a "thunder run," deep into the city. This spring, American tanks in Iraq gave a small reprise of their astounding successes in the 1991 Gulf War. The superiority of both American and British tanks (and their superbly trained crews) was beyond question. When they engaged Iraqi armor directly, their ability to get off the vital first shot and make it count was decisive. Iraq is littered...

<p>The Army's only retreat in the lightning-fast war to oust Saddam Hussein came after an Iraqi general in the town of Najaf cell-phoned ahead to his troops that a regiment of Apache attack helicopters was on the way.</p> <p>"He used it to speed-dial a number of Iraqi defenders," Lt. Gen. William Wallace, the commander of Army V Corps in Iraq, told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday via a teleconference hookup from Baghdad. "As our attack aviation approached the attack positions, they came under intense enemy fire."</p>

AS THEY roared north to Baghdad, US forces knew that they had a powerful secret weapon on their side - finely-honed insults that would make Iraqi troops’ blood boil. Through enormous loudspeakers mounted on their humvees, troops broadcast messages proclaiming that Iraqi men were impotent. The insult had been carefully chosen to so enrage Iraqi troops that they could not resist rushing from their defensive positions to attack the American troops in open battle, with terrible consequences. According to Newsweek, US Central Command was delighted that the carefully constructed plan "to mess with their heads" seemed to be working so...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Apr 19, 2003 (Knight Ridder Washington Bureau - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) -- Iraqi military commanders, certain they could never counter overwhelming American air power, thought they could defeat the United States by making a bloody stand for Baghdad that would so sicken the American public that the United States would withdraw its troops and go home. So Iraqi field commanders were surprised April 8, as they were preparing to battle American incursions into the capital, when they were ordered to withdraw and return to their bases north of the city, according to an Iraqi major...

Confused Start, Decisive End Invasion Shaped by Miscues, Bold Risks and Unexpected Successes By Rick Atkinson, Peter Baker and Thomas E. RicksWashington Post Foreign ServiceSunday, April 13, 2003; Page A01 BAGHDAD, April 12 -- It was the low point of the war for the two generals. On March 27, outside the city of Najaf, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of the U.S. Army's V Corps, met with Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. As they sat on gray folding chairs in the desert wasteland, the war seemed to be in dismal shape.The critical crossroads...

April 13, 2003 Doubt and Death on Drive to BaghdadBy STEVEN LEE MYERS AGHDAD, Iraq, April 10 — The sandstorm lasted two days, sapping morale and twice turning the setting sun the color of blood. Lt. Col. Steven E. Landis called the slanting and choking sands "the wrath of Allah." Supplies of water and ammunition ran low in these first days of the war as Iraqi fighters launched unexpectedly fierce attacks on troops and supply lines that now stretched nearly 300 miles to the rear. The Army's Third Infantry Division swept across the harsh, open deserts of southern Iraq in...

Miscues, Confusion, Unexpected Successes Shaped Invasion Plan BAGHDAD, April 12 -- It was the low point of the war for the two generals. On March 27, outside the city of Najaf, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of the U.S. Army's V Corps, met with Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division. As they sat on gray folding chairs in the desert wasteland, the war seemed to be in dismal shape. The critical crossroads city of Nasiriyah had degenerated into a shooting gallery for U.S. convoys. An Army maintenance unit was ambushed on an overextended supply...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.OUTSIDE BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Grinding hot gears and belching black smoke, the "hog" roared into life with only one destination in mind. "Baghdad or bust, baby, Baghdad or bust," muttered the U.S. Marine driver into the intercom. Tracks rumbling, armor plates rattling, the metal beast hammered up the highway. The machines -- Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs) -- are now one of the strangest sights on the roads to Baghdad, thundering north in convoys taking Marines into battle. Ugly, brutal looking contraptions, the vehicles look something like a giant tank with a small...