Gruber-gate, the Gift that Keeps Giving

Posted on November 17, 2014November 17, 2014 by Denise Simon

Jonathon Gruber should not be the villain. He is an expert on how to finesse government and he made money doing it. The villains are ONLY the Democrat lawmakers and powerbrokers as it is exclusively the Democrats that forced the deal-making and cunning objective to pass the law known as the Affordable Care Act.

Several government agencies paid Gruber for his consulting, including the Department of Justice paying $1.7 million for his expert witness testimony. Then a handful of states paid Gruber for his services.

It is remarkable that it took so long for Gruber’s presentations and truths to bubble to the surface. The Democrats punked America and the costs into the hundreds of millions continue to be tabulated. Gruber WAS NOT the only one to profit in this historical and epic conspiracy.

Grubergate shines spotlight on Obamacare profiteers

Remember when Nancy Pelosi declared that Obamacare was a jobs bill? “It’s about jobs,” Pelosi said in 2011, during a news conference to mark the first anniversary of passage of the Affordable Care Act. “Does it create jobs? Health insurance reform creates 4 million jobs.”

Like many other promises about Obamacare, that hasn’t worked out. But there is no doubt that Obamacare created a lot of work for at least one American — MIT professor Jonathan Gruber. Gruber’s frank admissions that he and others deceived the public about Obamacare have drawn a lot of attention in recent days. But the money that Gruber made from Obamacare raises yet another issue about his involvement in the project. Throughout 2009 and 2010, he energetically advocated a bill from which he stood to profit. And when it became law, the money rolled in.

In 2009, as Obamacare was moving its way through Senate committees, Gruber, who had achieved a measure of fame as the architect of Romneycare in Massachusetts, was a paid consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services. In March of that year, he received a contract for $95,000 to work on the project, and in June he received a second contract to continue that work; it was worth $297,600. Together, they comprise the “nearly $400,000” that critics have said Gruber received to work on Obamacare.

But after the bill became law, Gruber made a good deal more from it. The Affordable Care Act provided for states to set up exchanges to sell taxpayer-subsidized insurance coverage. For those states that chose to do so, exchanges would have to be built from the ground up. Studies would have to be done. Contracts would be let.

In 2010, the state of Wisconsin, under Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, paid Gruber $400,000 to do a study of the impact of healthcare reform. By the time Gruber finished his report, Republican Scott Walker had been elected governor and wasn’t much interested in using Gruber’s study. “State officials did not invite Gruber to Wisconsin for the release of his study nor did they set up a conference call with him for reporters or even provide them with his contact information,” the Madison, Wis., Capital Times reported. “That is unusual for an important report like this, which cost $400,000.”

In the two years between March 2011 and March 2013, the state of Minnesota paid Gruber $329,000 to study how to make its exchange conform with Affordable Care Act requirements.

In 2012, the state of West Virginia signed a contract with Gruber to study its healthcare system. “The state will pay MIT professor Jonathan Gruber $121,500 to understand the states health insurance landscape and revisit key assumptions about state health care policy,” the Charleston Daily Mail reported in September of that year. “Gruber is a policy rock star of sorts. He’s advised more than a half dozen states on health care reform.”

In November 2011, the state of Vermont hired a consulting firm that used Gruber to study the state exchange. Gruber was paid at least $91,875 for his work.

In 2012, the state of Michigan included Gruber in a multi-firm, $481,050 contract to study its exchange system. It’s not clear how much of that went to Gruber himself.

The bottom line is that Obamacare has been very, very good to Jonathan Gruber. Now that he is in the news for other reasons, the public is also learning how much he profited from the bill he did so much to promote.

Of course others profited from Obamacare, too, and still are. Republican Mike Leavitt, a former governor of Utah and Mitt Romney adviser, has a consulting firm that has made millions off the exchanges. But Gruber’s recent admissions might put him in a special category. He is, by his own account, a man who intentionally deceived the public in order to pass a measure from which he stood to profit handsomely.

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber has billed federal and state governments at least $5.9 million for advice, as more videos surface showing him undercutting the landmark law

Four U.S. states and the federal government have padded Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber’s wallet to the tune of $5.9 million since 2000, including millions connected to his work on the Affordable Care Act.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist has been pilloried for collecting $392,600 from the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services Department while the law was being written, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Gruber’s consulting contracts give states and the feds access to a proprietary formula that can determine how changes in a health care system’s structure will affect costs.

The ‘Gruber Microsimulation Model’ is what he sold to the White House. It helped Obama’s team anticipate what the influential Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would say about various features of the final plan – and whether their costs would officially be considered ‘taxes.’

You MUST read more here and videos of Gruber-gate are included.

UAE Gets Aggressive on Terror Organizations

Posted on November 16, 2014November 16, 2014 by Denise Simon

In late August, UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahayan enacted federal law number 7, which mandated the list to be published and circulated by the media to further “transparency” and “increase awareness” of terrorist threats.

The move follows a similar step taken by Saudi Arabia in March.

The groups blacklisted by the UAE were as follows:

1- UAE’s Muslim Brotherhood called Al-Islah
2- UAE terrorist cells
3- Karama organization
4- Uma Parties in the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula
5- Al-Qaeda
6- Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
7- Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)
8- Yemen’s Ansar al-Sharia
9- Muslim Brotherhood, both the organization and movement
10- Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyya in Egypt
11- Bait al-Maqdis group in Egypt
12- Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt group)
13- Majlis Shura Al-Mujahedin Fi Aknaf Bayt Al-Maqdis (Mujahidin Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem, or MSC)
14- Yemen’s Houthi movement
15- Hezbollah party in Saudi Arabia’s Hijaz
16- Hezbollah in the Gulf region
17- Al-Qaeda in Iran
18- Badr organization in Iraq
19- Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, also known as the Khazali Network in Iraq
20- Fath al-Islam in Lebanon
21- Osbat Al-Ansar or Asbat an-Ansar (League of the Partisans) in Lebanon
22- Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)
23- Ansar Al-Sharia in Libya
24- Ansar Al-Sharia in Tunisia
25- Al-Shabab in Somalia
26- Boko Haram in Nigeria
27- Al-Murabitoon brigade in Mali
28- Ansar Al-Din movement in Mali
29- Haqani network in Pakistan
30- Lashkar Taiba in Pakistan
31- Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement headquartered in Pakistan
32- Mohammed Army in Pakistan
33- Mohammed Army in India
34- Indian mujahideen in India/Kashmir
35- The Caucasus Emirate by Chechen militants
36- Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
37- Abu Sayyaf Islamist group in the Philippines
38- Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
39- Alleanza Islamic d’Italia or Islamic Alliance in Italy
40- Islamic Association in Finland
41- Islamic Association in Norway
42- Islamic Relief Organization in the UK
43- The Cordoba Foundation in Britain
44- International Islamic Relief Organization belonging to the international Muslim Brotherhood
45- Taliban movement in Pakistan
46- Abu Thur al-Fiqari battalion in Syria
47- Al-Tawheed and Iman battalion in Syria
48- The Green Battalion or Al-Khadraa battalion in Syria
49- Al-Tawhid Brigade in Syria
50- Abu Bakr brigade in Syria
51- Talha bin Ubaidallah in Syria
52- Al-Sarim Al-Batar brigade in Syria
53- Abdullah bin Mubarak brigade in Syria
54- Convoys of Martyrs brigade in Syria
55- Abu Omar brigade in Syria
56- Ahrar Shumar or Free Shumars brigade in Syria
57- Hezbollah brigades in Iraq
58- Brigade of Abu Al-Fadl al-Abbas in Syria
59- Brigades of Al-Yom Al-Mawood (Destined Day in Iraq)
60- Battalion of Omar bin Yasir in Syria
61- Ansar Al-Islam group in Iraq
62- Nusra Front in Syira
63- Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham Al Islami (Islamic Movement of the Free Men of the Levant) in Syria
64- Jaish Al-Islam (Islam Army) in Palestine
65- Abdullah Azzam Brigades
66- Kanvaz in Belgrade, Serbia
67- The Muslim American Society (MAS)
68- Union of Muslim Scholars
69- Union of Islamic Organizations in Europe
70- Union of Islamic Organizations of France
71- Muslim Association of Britain (MAB)
72- Islamic Society of Germany
73- Islamic Society in Denmark
74- Islamic Society in Belgium
75- Sariyat Al-Jabal brigade in Syria
76- Al-Shahbaa brigade in Syria
77- Al-Qa’Qaa’ in Syria
78- Sufian Al-Thawri (Revolutionary Sufian brigade) in Syria
79- Abdulraham brigade in Syria
80- Omar bin Al-Khatab brigade in Syria
81- Al-Shayma brigade in Syria
82- Al-Haq brigade in Syria

There still remains a Gulf Coalition that appears to remain aggressive on fighting terror. This coalition does include Qatar and the al Thani monarchy is pushing back hard on the pressure to be more aggressive on harboring terrorists and funding terror networks. So this weekend, the UAE delegation was led by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was assembled to smooth out unique positions.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the emir of Qatar, and Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, the emir of Kuwait, also attended the meeting.

The visitors were greeted by Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince, Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and the GCC secretary general Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani.

The GCC leaders had been expected to hold a meeting before their annual summit next month in Doha in an effort to overcome internal differences between Qatar and the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, who withdrew their ambassadors from Doha in March.

A GCC foreign ministers’ meeting scheduled on November 10 to prepare for the summit was postponed.

Kuwait’s parliamentary parliament speaker Marzouq Al Ghanem voiced optimism on the efforts by Sheikh Sabah, who has been leading a mediation effort, to end the differences.

“We hope the Riyadh meeting comes to a happy ending that strengthens the GCC,” he said.

It appears some differences were worked out as recalled ambassadors were deployed back to their respective assignments.

DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on Sunday agreed to return their ambassadors to Qatar, the Gulf Cooperation Council said in a joint statement, signalling an end to a rift over Doha’s support for Islamist groups.

The announcement came after an emergency meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss the dispute, which began in March and was threatening an annual summit scheduled to be held in December in Doha.

The question is now what will be the additional result and objectives with regard to Daesh (Islamic State), funding and providing safe havens to terror organizations? An even bigger question is just what will the U.S. State Department take from this meeting and will they follow suit? The last question is of the list of 82 above, how many have visited the White House and are those visitor logs even available or will they be redacted?

Death of Speech ‘Truthy Project’

Posted on November 11, 2014November 11, 2014 by Denise Simon

Alright, it has been proven that the NSA is mining our data, that includes friends, purchases, internet activity and more. Now sadly the government is providing earmarked money for data mining on thoughts and categories of thought and opinion.

A friend that I have had as a guest on radio show, C. Steven Tucker who is a subject matter expert on healthcare and most especially Obamacare had his Twitter account deleted under the ‘Truthy Project”. There were several more accounts that met with the same thought demise. What happened to Freedom of Speech, whether it is true and proven in words with evidence or even partially true or perhaps even false due to misunderstandings or poor assumptions? Demerits and deletions abound in all cases.

What has happened to America and how did we get here?

House Committee Demands Answers on Truthy Project

Taxpayer-funded initiative collected 600,000 political tweets in its ‘database,’ bragged about having conservative Twitter accounts suspended

BY: Elizabeth Harrington

The House Science, Space, and Technology Committee sent a letter to the head of the National Science Foundation (NSF) on Monday, demanding answers about the origins of the nearly $1 million taxpayer-funded project to track “misinformation” on Twitter.

The Truthy project, being conducted by researchers at Indiana University, is under investigation for targeting political commentary on Twitter. The project monitors “suspicious memes,” “false and misleading ideas,” and “hate speech,” with a goal of one day being able to automatically detect false rumors on the social media platform.

The web service has been used to track tweets using hashtags such as #tcot (Top Conservatives on Twitter), and was successful in getting accounts associated with conservatives suspended, according to a 2012 book co-authored by the project’s lead researcher, Filippo Menczer, a professor of Informatics and Computer Science at Indiana University.

Menczer has also said that Truthy monitored tweets using #p2 (Progressive 2.0), but did not discuss any examples of getting liberal accounts suspended in his book.

“The Committee and taxpayers deserve to know how NSF decided to award a large grant for a project that proposed to develop standards for online political speech and to apply those standards through development of a website that targeted conservative political comments,” wrote Chairman Lamar Smith (R., Texas) in a letter to NSF Director France Cordova.

“While some have argued that Truthy could be used to better understand things like disaster communication or to assist law enforcement, instead it appears Truthy focused on examples of ‘false and misleading ideas, hate speech, and subversive propaganda’ communicated by conservative groups,” he said.

Smith is asking for the original application for the study, and “every internal and external e-mail, letter, memorandum, record, note, text message or other document” sent or received by the NSF about Truthy since the study began in 2011.

Smith’s letter references a publication co-written by Menczer which explains how the project was used to track tweets before the 2010-midterm elections.

In “Abuse of Social Media and Political Manipulation,” a chapter for the book The Death of the Internet, released in 2012, Menczer writes how his team successfully had Twitter accounts suspended.

“With the exploding popularity of online social networks and microblogging platforms, social media have become the turf on which battles of opinion are fought,” the chapter begins. “This section discusses a particularly insidious type of abuse of social media, aimed at manipulation of political discourse online.”

Truthy tracked up to 8 million tweets per day in the run up to the 2010 midterms, and stored 600,000 political tweets in their database, contrary to Menczer’s claim that Truthy does not “have a database.” This section of the Truthy website was recently deleted, following an editorial by FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai warning the project could be misused.

“The streams provided our system with up to 8 million tweets per day during the course of the study,” the paper said. “These were scanned in real time by our system. In total, our analysis considered over 305 million tweets collected from September 14 until October 27, 2010.”

“Of these, 1.2 million contained one or more of our political keywords; detection of interesting memes further reduced this set to 600,000 tweets actually entered in our database for analysis,” the paper added.

“We don’t have a database,” Menczer said when attacking the Washington Free Beacon’s initial story on Truthy.

The database was used to identify “several Truthy memes, resulting in many of the accounts involved being suspended by Twitter,” the chapter said.

Truthy was able to suspend the account of C. Steven Tucker, a health insurance broker, who often used the hashtag “American Patriots,” or #ampat, from his two Twitter accounts.

“This activity generated traffic around this hashtag and gave the impression that more people were tweeting about it,” the chapter said. “These two accounts had generated a total of over 41,000 tweets.”

Another account, @PeaceKaren_25, was suspended after tweeting in support of Speaker of the House John Boehner (R., Ohio) over 10,000 times in four months. “A separate colluding account @HopeMarie_25 retweeted all the tweets generated by @PeaceKaren_25 supporting the same candidates and boosting the same websites,” the paper said.

Smith said it is troubling that the project was able to delete and suspend Twitter accounts.

“Whether by amazing coincidence or on purpose, it appears that several social media accounts highlighted by Truthy were subsequently terminated by the owners of the social media platforms, effectively muzzling the political free speech of the targeted individuals and groups,” he said. “In presenting and publishing the findings of their work, the Truthy research team proudly described how the web service targeted conservative social media messages. Their presentations featured examples of what they found to be online political speech ‘abuses’ by supporters of these groups.”

A spokesman for Indiana University said that they are “aware of the letter but have no comment.”

Pathetic condition in America without so much as a whimper from informed patriots.

Iran’s 9 Points to Destroy Israel

Posted on November 10, 2014November 10, 2014 by Denise Simon

Iran general: ‘Our hands are on the trigger’ to destroy Israel

Revolutionary Guard air force chief quoted as saying his forces are ready to act as soon as they receive the order

The air force commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was quoted by Iran’s Fars news agency as saying Tuesday that Iran’s military has its finger on the trigger to destroy Israel as soon as it receives the order to do so. Iranian leaders regularly issue threats against Israel and the United States, but the wording ascribed to Salami on Tuesday was particularly aggressive.

—–
But is the White House and SecState listening? Of course they are and they are dismissive. John Kerry should be recalled as SecState and needs to be tried for high crimes and misdemeanors as Israel is the sole democratic ally in the Middle East. Israel and the United States have a historical deep partnered relationship as mentioned hundreds of time even by the Obama administration.

So Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei repeats his threat and then just lays it out specifically. Ayatollah Khamenei says West Bank should be armed like Gaza, and Jewish population should return to countries it came from

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called over the weekend for the destruction of Israel, stating that the “barbaric” Jewish state “has no cure but to be annihilated.”

A plan titled “9 key questions about the elimination of Israel” was posted on his Twitter account Saturday night, using the hashtag #handsoffalaqsa, in reference to the recent tensions on the Temple Mount.

The sometimes grammatically awkward list explained the how and why of Khomeini’s vision for replacing Israel with a Palestinian state.

The first point stated that “the fake Zionist regime has tried to realize its goals by means of infanticide, homicide, violence & iron fist while boasts about it blatantly.”

Due to the above, Khomeini argued, “the only means of bringing Israeli crimes to an end is the elimination of this regime.”

Embedded image permalink

However, he noted that destroying Israel would not mean the “massacre of the Jewish people in this region” but rather “the Islamic Republic has proposed a practical & logical mechanism for this to the international communities.”

The “proper way of eliminating Israel,” he suggested, is through a “public and organized referendum” for all of the “original people of Palestine including Muslims, Christians, and Jews wherever they are…” However, “the Jewish immigrants who have been persuaded into emigration to Palestine do not have the right to take part.”

The resulting government would then decide if the “non-Palestinian emigrants” can remain in the country or should “return to their home countries.”

Khomeini charged the international community with overcoming the “usurper Zionist” objections to his “fair and logical plan.” Until the referendum, Israel should be confronted with “resolute and armed resistance.”

The Iranian leader also called for arming the people of the West Bank and Gaza to fight against Israel, and rejected “arbitration by UN or other international organizations” because “the fact that Yasser Arafat was poisoned and killed by Israel…proves that in the viewpoint of Israel ‘peace’ is simply a trick for more crimes and occupation.”

“This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated,” Khamenei wrote in an earlier tweet on Friday.

“West Bank should be armed just like #Gaza. Friends of Palestine should do their best to arm People in West Bank,” he declared in another.

The Iranian supreme leader first called for the arming of Palestinians in the West Bank in July, during the summer’s 50-day conflict.

In late August, Iran said it was stepping up efforts to arm West Bank Palestinians for battle against Israel, with Basij militia chief Mohammad Reza Naqdi saying the move would lead to Israel’s annihilation, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

“Arming the West Bank has started and weapons will be supplied to the people of this region,” Naqdi, who heads the nationwide paramilitary network, said.

“The Zionists should know that the next war won’t be confined to the present borders and the Mujahedeen will push them back,” he added. Naqdi claimed that much of Hamas’s arsenal, training and technical knowhow in the recent conflict with Israel was supplied by Iran.

Stuart Winer

Marissa Newman Marissa Newman is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

AP, AFP contributed to this report.

10 Years, Fallujah, then and now

Posted on November 10, 2014November 10, 2014 by Denise Simon

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. – It has been a decade since Marines fought for their lives — and their brothers-in-arms — in Iraq’s bloodiest battles, which would spark a turning point in the eight-year war.

Nearly 100 Americans, mostly Marines, would die in the battles of Fallujah during some of the toughest fights in the campaign. Fallujah secured its place in Marine Corps heritage, alongside battles fought during the same era, like that in Sangin, Afghanistan, as well as those of past wars, like Iwo Jima and Tarawa.

WEBCAST: Commemoration of the Second Battle of Fallujah, Operation AL FAJR

On Sept. 14, 2004, Maj. Gen. Larry Nicholson, then a colonel, was medevaced from the city that had become an al-Qaida stronghold after he was wounded in a rocket attack the day after taking command of 1st Marine Regiment. Back stateside, Nicholson recovered at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, as Operation Al-Fajr, a door-to-door fight in Fallujah, kicked off on Nov. 7.

Within months, Nicholson was back in Iraq, seeing the last moments of the operation and how the city would change for years to come.

“I think Fallujah will always be remembered as that gritty, hard fought, room by room, house-by-house battle where our Marines and soldiers prevailed,” Nicholson told Marine Corps Times. “It will always be synonymous with an urban fight where small unit leaders won the fight.”

It was Marines and soldiers fighting block-by-block, street-by-street, kicking in doors during the most intense urban warfare the Corps waged since the battle of Hue City in Vietnam in 1968.

Nicholson, now the commanding general of 1st Marine Division, planned a reunion and commemoration here for Marines who fought in the deadly battles in Fallujah. He shared his thoughts about the battles during an interview here on Nov. 5. Excerpts, edited for space and clarity:

Q. What made the battles of Fallujah important, and why will they be studied by recruits and senior officers?

A. I think it was really a turning point in the war there in the sense that no matter what we were trying to do, the largest city in Anbar province was occupied by al-Qaida, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There was no Iraqi government, no police — this was a terrorist stronghold. By the time of the battle, a city of normally 400,000 people was just 10 percent of that, determined to be the elderly, the infirm and the enemy.

It was very challenging for Marines going house to house to house to identify who was left. And of course, many were abandoned, and when you hit a house where the enemy was well-entrenched and well-supplied, there were some incredible fights.

Q. What sorts of changes did you start to see?

A. After the city was cleared, it really began the awakening. Giving that city back to the Iraqi people was critically important. It facilitated elections in Fallujah, and also in Ramadi and all over Anbar province.

When we came back with the 5th Marine Regiment in 2006, we started to see a lot of dramatic change in terms of Iraqis taking responsibility for their own security. We started to see Iraqi tribal leaders turning against al-Qaida.

That really hit full throttle in late 2007. The Sons of Iraq was exploding all over Anbar, all over Iraq. By 2009, it was relatively quiet, and we left and turned Fallujah over to the armed forces of Iraq. None of that would have been possible without taking Fallujah away from the enemy.

Q. What are some of the major accomplishments that stand out when you remember Fallujah?

A. Lance Cpl. Chris Adlesperger’s Navy Cross citation is one I’m very familiar with, having known his family. He’s one of eight Navy Crosses Marines earned in Fallujah, and what that young Marine did was so far above and beyond any reasonable expectation and is what helped characterize this as an iconic battle. And I’m a beneficiary of it still today.

When I talk about Marines about Fallujah, I think about the individual actions. There weren’t great formations of battalions or companies or platoons. We were down to squads and fire teams. The amount of trust and confidence and responsibility put on young lance corporals and corporals was phenomenal. And they answered the bell every time.

When I think of Fallujah, It’s not the generals and the colonels. Our job, I think as leaders, is to man, train and equip our young Marines to make them successful in the fight. And if ever there was a validation of that, it occurred in Fallujah, where young lance corporals and corporals and sergeants were leading fire teams and squads and doing incredibly heroic things. That’s what won that battle.

Q. You were wounded right after you took over as head of 1st Marine Regiment. What was this like for you, following the battle as you recovered in Bethesda?

A. What a mix of emotions. For me, I went from being very angry I wasn’t there to feeling guilty. But you’re immensely proud as you’re watching and you’re glued to this thing. And you’re watching what’s occurring and you’re hearing from old friends and teammates and you’re incredibly proud of what your team is accomplishing, even if you can’t be a part of it.

And that’s not unique to me. Even tremendously, egregiously wounded Marines laying in a bed at hospital without a limb will say, “Sir, I want to get back in the fight.” And I’d say, “OK, OK, I get that. But let’s take care of you for awhile.”

All of us — Marines, sailors, soldiers — we build teams, we train as teams, we deploy as teams and we fight as teams. When you can no longer be part of that team, it’s tough, no question.

Q. You also have two sons who were deploying. How did your family take your return to Fallujah?

A. My oldest son was in Fallujah during my second tour, and my youngest son was in Afghanistan during my tour there. I served in combat with both of my sons.

It’s really much harder for my wife. She knew what I did for a living when she married me, but I don’t think she knew a part of that deal was that my sons would be deploying to combat as well. They’re both home now, and I know she’s very pleased. From 2004 to 2013, either I or one of my sons was deployed for seven of those nine years.

Q. When you went back, could you tell Fallujah was going to be so pivotal?

A. We knew early on. Of course, there were two battles — there was one in April that didn’t end the way we wanted. We knew that there was only one way we were going to dissolve what was happening there, and we were going to have to come in and take this city piece by piece.

Q. Just five years later, the Islamic State group is seizing portions of Anbar province. What do you say to Marines who are wondering whether the fight there was worth it?

A. We did our job and we did it well, despite what’s going on there today, or in the past or in the future — there’s not much we can do about that. While we were there, we did our job and we did it very well and at a hell of a cost.

I think this was one of those iconic and epic Corps battles; we knew exactly what we had to do. There was no ambiguity in terms of our mission. Our mission was to kill, capture and eject the enemy from Fallujah, and that was accomplished.

——

AFGHANISTAN – Every Nov. 8, Chaplain Ric Brown posts a photo and bio to his Facebook timeline of his friend, Command Sgt. Maj. Steven Faulkenburg.

This year will mark 10 years since he died.

It was during the opening hours of Operation Phantom Fury, the military name for the Second Battle of Fallujah, which commenced on November 7, 2004. Faulkenburg was at the head of a group of Iraqi soldiers, whom he led into an intense urban battle like they were his brothers. They were among the first to engage the enemy in their stronghold.

“The insurgents catch them cold. Buildings on both sides erupt with muzzle flashes… it is the first major firefight of the battle.” (From House to House: An Epic Memoir of War)

It is strange to think how quickly a decade has passed since that battle. What was once so emblematic now seems like a curious footnote.

The Islamic State has control of the city that Americans bled so mightily to secure. In a little over ten years, then, Fallujah has gone from Baathist control, to nominal coalition forces, to Iraqi security forces, to a foreign insurgency, back to Americans, to the Iraqi government, and now to a Sunni-led terrorist quasi-state.

As The United States quietly exits the war stage in Afghanistan, Soldiers and those who support them would do well to remember the ferocity and commotion in Iraq a decade ago. 2004 was the second calendar year of Iraqi Freedom. Troops were pouring into the country to quell a growing insurgency after the U.S. had toppled the government and dismantled its military.

Chaplain Brown was one of those nearly 100,000 troops.

I met him in May of this year. He was serving as the 4th Infantry Division chaplain as that unit prepared to leave Afghanistan. I was just arriving in Kandahar with my unit, and we were attached to the 4th ID. Brown was my chaplain.

At the time I was immersed House to House: An Epic Memoir of War, in an effort to acquaint myself with a chapter of American military history that was too quickly being forgotten.

Its author, Staff Sgt. David Bellavia, also knew Faulkenburg, counting him more a father figure than a friend. Bellavia was an infantryman whose prose matches the tempo and efficiency his military occupation demanded.

“A bullet strikes Faulkenburg just above his right eyebrow, a millimeter below the rim of his Kevlar helmet. He falls. The fight rages. Inspired by his examples, the Iraqis charge on and drive the enemy back. Others risk their lives as they dash to Faulkenburg’s aid. Our sergeant major lies unmoving in the street.” (From House to House: An Epic Memoir of War)

It is a harrowing account of what was probably the most ferocious battle in over a generation of Americans fighting. A character in his tale is his chaplain-the same one I had just met in Kandahar.

“Sergeant Bellavia,” said Brown one evening before the battle, “would you like to pray with me?”

Bellavia, a squad leader with Alpha Co., 2nd Bn, 2nd Infantry Reg., “Ramrods,” participated in some of the most hellish combat of the battle. He writes reverentially of Brown, whose calm and earnestness underscored the violence and chaos about to be unleashed on the men of 2-2.

“Lord, give this young man the strength and wisdom to protect his soldiers. Give him the courage and conviction to deliver them from the unknown. Give him the faith and guidance to know your path, Lord. Give him the perseverance to stay on it.” (From House to House: An Epic Memoir of War)

As I passed by the chaplain one day in southern Afghanistan a decade later, I asked him, “Did you serve in Iraq in 2004?”

“Yes,” he said with a smile. (Chaplain Brown almost always wears a smile).

“Were you featured in a book about your service in Iraq in 2004?”

“Come talk to me about it sometime,” he replied, knowingly, his smile growing.

So I did.

We sat for about an hour and chatted. It was not long enough for me to satisfy my curiosity about the Battle of Fallujah, and not long enough for him to do his experiences-or his fallen friends-justice.

He described, in spiritual terms, what Bellavia wrote about in House to House.

The story needed an inject of something good. According to Bellavia, Fallujah was hell. Empirically, it was the bloodiest urban battle since Vietnam. But you wouldn’t know that from talking with Brown, who seemed as comfortable as a little old lady in one of his stateside church services.

Brown was on the front as the task force prepared to breach the outer berms guarding the city. He took indirect fire in his soft-side Humvee, but made sure, according to his own recollection and that of Bellavia, to check on Soldiers under his pastorship.

“I went from vehicle to vehicle so I did the same thing when we got staged that day. Talking, praying, heading in one direction and then the mortars started coming in in like they were targeting me. My assistant yells, ‘mortars!’ ‘I know! but we gotta go check on these people,’ I reply. Besides, the safest place to be is where the mortar just hit, so we checked on one side and head to the other side of the perimeter. By this time the company commander says he wants everyone in the vehicles. But I’ve got a canvas top. Just then, a mortar round did hit close to one of my guys, so we had to go check on him.”

What motivates a Soldier like Brown to walk around in defiance of the enemy’s indiscriminate firepower?

“I like what Stonewall Jackson said,” he told me. “My religious beliefs teach me to feel as safe in battle as in bed.” Essentially, that’s the way I live my life. I try not to take unnecessary risks, but there are some risks that are worth taking. Being where your boys are, being in the thick of it… there is no way I was going to miss being in Fallujah. I was not fearful.”

Bellavia can’t make the same claim; he readily admits to the fear that taunted him in fits throughout the operation. His account of the battle is gritty and honest. But he was there to kill, while Brown was there to help young men like Bellavia find strength to complete their awful task, and to help remember those whose missions were cut short.

Today marks exactly ten years since Brown, Bellavia, Faulkenburg, the Ramrods, Task Force 2-2, and the rest of the Marines-led warriors that were part of Phantom Fury began amassing themselves on the outskirts of a city that would soon be awash in blood and brass.

And Chaplain Ric Brown will be posting more memorial photos to his Facebook timeline of some of those Soldiers who gave their lives a decade ago.