Wackenhut firefighter iraq

Currently in rehab in Topeka, Ks. For treatment. I spent 10 years on active duty in the Army. First 5 years 01’-06’ I was in the Airborne Infantry. Second half of enlistment was spent as a Firefighter.
I deployed 3 times. Iraq 03’ 05’ and Afghanistan in 09’.
I self medicated with alcohol and couldn’t handle the depression anymore. Last month I tried to end it all.
I have 3 beautiful kids 10, 9 and 7. (The only reason I hung on to hope was them growing up not having me around).
Wife called the sheriffs department and they arrested me for unlawful use of a handgun.
Got out on bond and now I’m in rehab until my court date.
AMA

New & depressing climate research & data drops, a spate of record temperatures is broken, and bird flu alarms fall on deaf ears—as the world re-arms for a conflict that’s closer than some might believe.
Last Week in Collapse: April 7-13, 2024
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter compiling some of the most important, timely, useful, soul-crushing, ironic, stunning, exhausting, or otherwise must-see/can’t-look-away moments in Collapse.
This is the 120th newsletter, and it’s the longest yet. I feel obligated to put a general content warning on this edition, as the cumulative heap of Doom may be exhausting to some readers. You can find the March 31-April 6 edition here if you missed it last week. You can also receive these posts (with images) every Sunday in your email inbox with Substack.
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The European Court of Human Rights delivered a landmark ruling claiming that Switzerland was in breach of its obligations to protect its citizens from heat waves, and from failing to meet climate targets; also that Switzerland had not drafted a national carbon budget. You can read the ECHR press release here if you’re interested.
For the first time ever, NASA is releasing its data to the public collected from its Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite—empowering scientists, journalists, and the curious public to look at images & data regarding environmental pollution and air quality. The move expands access to earth sciences, particularly the study of aerosols. Access some of the breathtaking ocean/cloud images here if you’re interested—or even if you’re not.
Soil inorganic carbon (SIC), a mostly overlooked source of carbon when compared to organic soil carbon. However, a study in Science suggests that the quantity of SIC is huge, and desertification and runoff is sending SIC into rivers and oceans. The impact on the hydrosphere and atmospheric carbon concentrations has been underestimated, experts claim.
El Niño is being blamed for 40-year lows in Bogota reservoirs. Colombia’s capital (metro pop: 11.7M) will begin rotating days on which no water will be supplied to certain districts in an attempt to conserve the fast-depleting resource. El Niño, and invasive wild hogs, were also blamed for wildfires in the Philippines. Parts of New Zealand faced their driest summer on record. Canada is expecting a fierce wildfire season ahead, and hoping to train 1,000+ new forest firefighters this year. Nepalese wildfires killed 3 army firefighters.
Sweden experienced summer-like conditions for the earliest time in the year, after parts of southern Sweden saw five consecutive days of at least 10 °C (50 °F) temperatures. Across the Asia-Pacific, 240M children are at mortal risk from heat waves—according to a UNICEF report.
Glaciers in Central Asia are melting, and the on/off droughts & floods are worsening a water management crisis for the region. Afghanistan is building a canal to siphon 20-30% of the Amu Darya River which supplies Uzbekistan & Turkmenistan. Morocco’s second-largest reservoir is drying up—and taking down the agriculture industry (which accounts for 90% of the nation’s fresh water use) with it.
Despite the talk of wildfires & droughts, March 2024 was supposedly, on average, the wettest March on record, for the planet. Flooding in Hubei, China, killed at least 8. An environmentalist group is claiming that fast fashion brands are linked to deforestation in Brazil, replacing trees for cotton plantations connected to violence & corruption.
Record April heat in southern Mexico: 42 °C (108 °F). Phuket, Thailand, saw its hottest day & night, peaking at 39.4 °C (103 °F). Overseas France also saw several new records drop, including Mayotte’s hottest day ever, around 36 °C (97 °F). Heat waves are blasting Nigeria all around; Ghana, too. 100+ people died from a heat wave in Mali. A few local April records were broken around the Mediterranean basin, in Spain, Algeria, and Morocco. Some daily records in Bosnia, and Germany saw its earliest 30 °C day ever—ahead of the old record of 9 days. Scientists blame a group of factors for the recent heat, including manmade climate change, El Niño, aerosol demasking, effects from the Indian Ocean Dipole, and random weather events.
Although average sea surface temperatures tend to drop around March 22, near the first day of spring, temperatures have not yet dipped down—an anomaly that may linger long. We are heading into “uncharted territory”.
The Great Barrier Reef is reportedly experiencing its most serious coral bleaching ever, as new footage shows coral carnage 18 meters (59 feet) deep. Historic flooding is worsening in southern Russia and Kazakhstan, displacing thousands more; it is the region’s worst flooding in decades. A paywalled study’s summary claims that rainfall patterns are being disturbed so much that “in most regions, more than half of the total yearly rainfall occurs on the 12 wettest days of the year.”
A study in Communications Earth & Environment concluded that climate change will result in ocean coastlines experiencing 38 days of “concurrent heatwaves and extreme sea levels” (CHWESL): a one-two punch of swelling warm tides—usually found in tropical areas, usually in summer. However, “87.73% of coastlines experienced such concurrent extremes during 1979–2017,” posing a danger to many coastal communities and maritime megacities.
Experts are urging municipalities to plant more native plants to prevent landslides and stabilize vulnerable soil. A study found that earthworm populations in the UK are shrinking about 2% each year. A UN climate official said that humanity has two years to save the planet… A retrospective on a 2022 heat wave in Antarctica found that a large atmospheric river was the immediate cause.
The grounding line of a glacier is the outermost point(s) where a glacier sits on solid ground. A Nature Communications study concluded that changing ocean currents are bringing warm water deeper, eating away at the grounding lines of glaciers, exposing more glaciers to ocean currents, and accelerating the Collapse of many glaciers & ice shelves.
Arizona’s Glen Canyon Dam, on the Colorado River, has a problem: its water level is dropping, and its backup pipes, which conduct water through the Dam, are not functioning. This could pose a problem if water levels drop too low. You can read the full 14-page March memo from the Department of the Interior here if you’re interested. The President of the environmental nonprofit Utah Rivers Council claims “the archaic plumbing inside Utah’s Glen Canyon Dam is the most urgent water problem facing the 40 million people of the Colorado River Basin.”
Since 1990, homo sapiens have transformed 250,000 acres of estuaries into farmland and/or urban development—so says a study in Earth’s Dismal Future. 90% of these developments occurred in developing middle-income countries.
An analysis of 122 glaciers in the Kashmir Basin determined that, from 1980 until 2020, the total glacier mass had shrunk from about 26 km2 to 16 km2—roughly 39%. A Royal Society study forecasting the 500-year long view of forests concluded that boreal forests will decline the most from rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
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Bird flu reached New York City birds: a chicken, some geese, a hawk, and a falcon. Perhaps a number of pigeons are carriers as well. H5N1 has also been detected in North Carolina cattle, and, two weeks ago, a human in Texas. Experts worry that “pandemic fatigue” may leave us unwilling to monitor this virus closely enough to prevent an even worse health disaster. Spillover risk is low, the scientists say, but there is a risk that certain mammals may provide the genetic material needed for a catastrophic jump to a human-to-human transmission.
The price of gold has reached a record high—$2,364 per ounce. Vandals in Peru, reportedly illegal gold miners, took down two electrical towers using dynamite, towers which supplied energy to a government-approved gold extraction operation.
Iraq, where the annual deficit totals some $61B, would face a sudden economic Collapse if the price of oil sinks; if it continues to rise (a barrel is around $90 now), the American economy will be hard hit. In Ghana, energy debt is rising, and officials are preparing possible schedules for load-shedding. South Africa continues to suffer from daily load-shedding, and is trying to invest more in generators & renewable energy.
Air pollution is being linked to mental & neurological problems more and more. The Seine River, scheduled to host Olympic swimmers this summer, has unsafe levels of E. Coli and other bacteria, according to 13 of 14 tests conducted. In Denmark, where a massive deoxygenation event killed most life in a beloved fjord, 1,000+ people gathered to host a funeral ceremony for the fjord.
A major Chinese property developer, Shimao, already in default of some loans since 2022, is now in default over another $202M debt to a state-owned construction bank. Saudi Arabia’s hubristic city of the future, so-called The Line, is being scaled back significantly over financing difficulties.
The cost of managing refugees in the UK is “wreaking havoc” on government finances, according to one official. The EU passed a large migration & asylum deal, sparking fears that migrants & refugees might be forcibly relocated into member states who oppose their arrival particularly strongly. The new plan will not quell old debates.
A cholera scare in Mozambique prompted 122 people to flee the coast in a ramshackle ferry; it capsized, killing at least 96 people. A cable car pylon collapsed in Türkiye, killing 1.
A growing water crisis in Hawai’i has been caused, experts say, by a combination of Drought, pollution (jet fuel & PFAS), and the commodification of water. Officials fear that energy-intensive desalination plants may become necessary to support drinking water supplies.
An upcoming study of microplastics in Antarctic seawater found that microplastic concentrations are higher in all 17 tested samples than in previous tests—which did not account for certain plastics too small for their detection. Although the study is published in 2024, the water samples date from 2021, and do not account for recent plastics pollution of our oceans. A similar study in Nature Geoscience says that PFAS concentrations are also underestimated in surface & groundwater. The American EPA made new guidelines restricting PFAS chemicals in drinking water supplies.
An Environmental Sciences & Technology study into plastic’s GHG emissions across five sectors—packaging, building and construction, automotive, textiles, and consumer durables—found that plastics actually produce fewer emissions than their common recyclable alternatives, usually metals, paper products, and glass. The only solution is to cut our consumption altogether—a hard sell to a hungry population.
A Royal Society study into the growth of cities compared their mostly-organic growth with the development of cancer—with transportation networks mirroring vascular channels, and other population expansion dynamics paralleling biological systems. Drought in the Pyrenees has lasted for 3 years and counting. Flash flooding in Kenya killed 13 and left 15,000+ displaced.
The Canadian dollar hit a 5-month low amid its fastest monthly decline in almost a year. Although macro-figures indicate the Canadian economy isn’t as bad as people claim, individual polls say otherwise, with about two thirds of the population feeling their purchasing power declining.
A blood analysis study suggests that about 21% of COVID survivors develop Long COVID. That tracks with a batch of Mississippi data which says 20% of adults have Long COVID. Yet another study00211-1/fulltext) from The Lancet confirms that, yes, Long COVID can linger in your body for years.
UK farmers are warning of declining agricultural productivity ahead, mostly as a result of recent flooding—some of which is too far from the rivers to be compensated by government bailouts. A 23-page report on African food security & production paints a mixed picture, with hunger particularly bad in West/Central Africa, and relatively manageable farther south.
A hailstorm blasted 36,000+ hectares of crops (360+ km2) across India. Dengue fever in Peru. A 160-year-old total abortion ban in Arizona—passed long before Arizona was a state (1912) & before women could vote (1920)— was defended by the state’s Supreme Court, and is set to go into effect in less than a fortnight.
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Israel is pivoting to the north in its growing focus for a War against Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia, which is scaling up cyberattacks against Israel. Israel’s “C-Dome,” a naval-based version of its Iron Dome missile defense system, went operational for the first time ever. The IDF is finalizing its preparations for their offensive into Rafah, where reports of dangerous levels of pollution and trash are piling up. IDF efforts have now damaged Hamas’ ability to fight & govern—and slain many innocent Palestinians—but Israel is far from winning the peace. Some American officials expect the assault into Rafah to begin next week—and Iranian strikes may have expanded the War by striking Israel with 300+ drones, almost all of which were intercepted. Iran also seized a Portugal-flagged cargo ship connected to an Israeli billionaire.
Three Tanzanian soldiers were killed by a mortar attack in the DRC. Ecuador is becoming more violent, as drug gangs are scaling up their armaments, and fighting for territory & respect. Quebec citizens are reconsidering separation possibilities amid Canada’s bottomless housing, immigration, and economic problems. Canada’s military is also experiencing what some have called a “death spiral.” A deadly stabber in Australia killed 6, and shocked the country. Researchers remain concerned about how bad actors may weaponize AI & deepfakes to undermine our information ecosystem.
In Haiti, a transition council is being convened soon to establish new political authorities; they will be unlikely to manage the carnage unleashed upon the failed state. The last evacuation flights of American citizens landed in Miami on Friday. The capital is suffering from chaotic sieges, random violence, and worsening supply shortages.
South Korea launched its second military satellite into orbit. China performed naval drills in the South China Sea, as a response to recent U.S.-Japan-Australia-Philippines exercises in the region. President Biden reassured the Philippines and Japan of American promises to defend the two nations if they are attacked by China anyone.
Amid calls for more defense spending, European officials are concerned that their military-industrial complex (MIC) is too reliant on Chinese cotton for their nitrocellulose, a flammable compound also known as guncotton. The Chinese MIC is also heavily supporting Russia’s military expansion—not by selling weapons, but by providing the tools, electronics, and materiel-adjacent materials necessary to wage a prolonged campaign. Russia also tested a ground-based missile that some experts interpret as a nuclear threat.
Despite fighting a high-casualty War against Ukraine for 2+ years, Russia’s army is 15% bigger than it was when its full-scale invasion began. Ukraine’s government has shelved its plans to demobilize soldiers who served over 3 years. The move was necessary to maintain critical manpower levels, but came at the expense of front-line morale. Ukraine is also increasing mobilization, as well as penalties for draft dodgers. Russia and Ukraine are blaming each other for another drone strike at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where the last operational reactor was thereafter put into cold shutdown. Weapons & defensive missiles to Ukraine are not meeting demand; Russian strikes in the Kharkiv and Odesa regions killed 7 on Wednesday.
Reports indicate that Russia may try an offensive to seize Kharkiv in the near future, as Ukraine’s eastern front grows brittle after a brutal year of a bloody near-stalemate. Analysts are talking about what Ukraine losing the War would look like, and how it could happen. Russian forces also arrived in Niger last week.
Over 500,000 Afghans were deported from Pakistan since operations began in October. Since then, Iran and Türkiye have reportedly increased persecution & deportation of Afghan refugees living outside the Taliban’s regime.
Sudan’s latest War turns one year old on Monday. The conflict has unleashed suffering unto millions of people in the country. Over 8.5M have been displaced, with almost 2M fleeing into neighboring countries, mostly Egypt, Chad, and South Sudan. About 16,000 people have been reported killed, though real figures are likely much higher—particularly in Darfur. The rebel forces, the RSF, drawn mostly from the ethnic Arab militia known as the Janjaweed, have committed atrocities, particularly against ethnic Africans in southwest Sudan. Control of Khartoum (pre-War metro pop: 6M+) remains divided. About 5M people are experiencing emergency levels of famine, and another 18M facing food shortages. Since the War began, food production was cut in half. Schools have also been closed in some regions, and water infrastructure damaged. Only 20-30% of hospitals are operational. A ceasefire seems far away, and negotiating with so many levels of authorities and militia subgroups is difficult. The conflict also threatens to spill over into South Sudan and beyond.
Myanmar’s heavy-handed attempt to expand mandatory two-year conscription to all men & women of certain ages has backfired hugely: the intimidated & rebel-sympathetic middle, who have long-sought to keep their heads down and survive the complex ethno/tribal Civil War around them, are being forced to pick a side—and many are fleeing to the rebel cause struggling against the losing, ruling military junta. Some experts believe the momentum against the government may hasten their Collapse faster than expected. But what happens afterwards?
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Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-Phone addiction, depression, ADHD, alienation, and a number of other aliments are afflicting the young—and old—and taking down the education system with them—according to this weekly observation from Denver, Colorado. Long gone are the days of limiting screen time, effective discipline, physical books, and meaningful interventions. It’s like we’re all half-assing it into the grave—faster than expected.
-Basically nobody is paying attention to avian flu, if this observation and our anecdotal experience is accurate. Are we just resigned to a future pandemic, too distracted to care, or do we have faith that our institutions have learned their COVID lessons and are better prepared to handle this one?
-Collapse is a complex process—and this Friday meme from u/SaxManSteve highlights how narrow the focus of some organizations & governments & people are when thinking about our problems. We could fix ten of our serious threats (lol) but still be taken down by the other 40.
-An image of Europe from Europe projects what its climate zones would look like in a near-worst-case scenario, RCP 8.5, some 1000+ ppm, more than 4° C increase—and all within the next 60 years. The pessimistic forecast shows a dry continent, and it probably doesn’t account fully for the AMOC Collapse…
Got any feedback, questions, comments, complaints, upvotes, eclipse stories, sea levels maps, doomy fanfiction, climate nightmares, etc.? Check out the Last Week in Collapse SubStack if you don’t want to check collapse every Sunday, you can receive this newsletter sent to your (or someone else’s) email inbox every weekend. What did I miss this week?

I want to start with I have been a police officer for 6 years now and prior to that I was active duty army where I deployed two times to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
This story has recently gained some traction nationwide and id assume many of you will find out what department I work for and will be able to get the details of the case.
It was a normal rainy. I was sitting in my normal sitting spot when I looked down at my computer and saw a DOA about to be dispatched.
I quickly self dispatched myself and read the run.
DOA caller states 5 year old female not awake not breathing.
A trailer park I’m familiar with and very close too. I turn on my lights and sirens and quickly make my way to the address.
I arrive and jump out of my car where I’m met by the mother who is waiting for me at the front door.
“She is in there in the back bedroom” the mother states .
I then opened the door and immediately hit by the smell of dog feces and funk. Scattered all over the living room are clothes and trash. The trailer is not livable.
I see 2 doors down the hall and I make my way to the back. The first room is a bathroom. Toilet piled with toilet paper, no flushable, trash in the shower , sink full of more garbage.
I step over a pile of trash and look into the bedroom where I see more trash and a baby doll in the middle of the floor. I scream out to the mother where is she!!
The mom looks at me from the living room with a blank face and says “on the floor in front of you”
I step into the room and approach the doll that is lying on its side with its back to me. As I get closer I quickly realize I am looking at a real child. I roll the baby over.
A blonde girl with matted hair, covered in poop head to toe, she weighs less than 20 pounds. The weight of the run hits me and I begin to shed a tear as I’m looking at this child who is very clearly dead. I then ask for my back up to step up and for a supervisor to respond to the scene.
I then wipe the tear from my face and walk back towards the mother. I grab her and put her in handcuffs and walk outside where I’m met by the medics. I tell them the back bedroom and they walk in.
My emotions are running high and my back up officer arrives and sees the look on my face. I hand the mother off to him and begin to walk back inside with the medics who are now carrying the baby out. Medics gave me the “she’s dead look” and quickly loaded up the child and rushed her to a nearby children’s hospital where she was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Due to the nature of run homicide detectives and child abuse detectives arrive on scene and conduct interviews with the mother.
I’ve been in firefights, I’ve seen death, I’ve seen the worst of the worst and what humans are capable of. Nothing could have prepared me for this run.
During the interviews the mother attempted to blame the abuse on the child father but quickly detectives were able to determine that the mother was the culprit.
Detectives were able to get a confession where the mother stated that she had locked the child in a closet in the bedroom and that the child has been there since thanksgiving. The mother went on to state that she knew her daughter would end up dying due to the conditions that she was in but simply didn’t care. It was then revealed that the mother had placed a large dresser in front of the closet keeping the small frail child locked in the room with no food, water or anything for days at a time and only moved the dresser just prior to my arrival on scene .
Detectives later arrested the mother’s boyfriend who stated he knew the girl was in the closet but didn’t feel it was his place to call 911. He then told detectives he loved the mother and believed she was a good mother.
I spoke with a detective who told me that the child was almost 6 years old and barely weighed 23 pounds. The child had died from malnutrition. He went on to tell me that the closet was completely dark and converted in the child’s feces with no covers. No change of clothes . Nothing. A dark room for a 5 year old to sit in for months.
I’ve never felt so much disgust or hate for a human in my life. 5 months this child sat in a closet no concept of time. No feeling of want. Just her in a dark room no bigger than a broom closet.
It’s only been a days since this happened and I’m struggling. This is the first time in my career that I thought I was not strong enough for this.
God knew if I knew the details of the child’s last few months that I would react and he must have kept me from staying in the room longer. These runs are rare and this is only my 2nd child to die from abuse but I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my composure if I’m faced with something similar again.
I’ve never wished pain or death on someone but I hope the mother and her boyfriend have the worst things done to them imaginable. It still wouldn’t come close to what they did to that child for months.
I’m 34 years old and contemplating starting another career. This is something that will haunt me for life.

I want to start with I have been a police officer for 6 years now and prior to that I was active duty army where I deployed two times to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
This story has recently gained some traction nationwide and id assume many of you will find out what department I work for and will be able to get the details of the case.
It was a normal rainy. I was sitting in my normal sitting spot when I looked down at my computer and saw a DOA about to be dispatched.
I quickly self dispatched myself and read the run.
DOA caller states 5 year old female not awake not breathing.
A trailer park I’m familiar with and very close too. I turn on my lights and sirens and quickly make my way to the address.
I arrive and jump out of my car where I’m met by the mother who is waiting for me at the front door.
“She is in there in the back bedroom” the mother states .
I then opened the door and immediately hit by the smell of dog feces and funk. Scattered all over the living room are clothes and trash. The trailer is not livable.
I see 2 doors down the hall and I make my way to the back. The first room is a bathroom. Toilet piled with toilet paper, no flushable, trash in the shower , sink full of more garbage.
I step over a pile of trash and look into the bedroom where I see more trash and a baby doll in the middle of the floor. I scream out to the mother where is she!!
The mom looks at me from the living room with a blank face and says “on the floor in front of you”
I step into the room and approach the doll that is lying on its side with its back to me. As I get closer I quickly realize I am looking at a real child. I roll the baby over.
A blonde girl with matted hair, covered in poop head to toe, she weighs less than 20 pounds. The weight of the run hits me and I begin to shed a tear as I’m looking at this child who is very clearly dead. I then ask for my back up to step up and for a supervisor to respond to the scene.
I then wipe the tear from my face and walk back towards the mother. I grab her and put her in handcuffs and walk outside where I’m met by the medics. I tell them the back bedroom and they walk in.
My emotions are running high and my back up officer arrives and sees the look on my face. I hand the mother off to him and begin to walk back inside with the medics who are now carrying the baby out. Medics gave me the “she’s dead look” and quickly loaded up the child and rushed her to a nearby children’s hospital where she was pronounced dead upon arrival.
Due to the nature of run homicide detectives and child abuse detectives arrive on scene and conduct interviews with the mother.
I’ve been in firefights, I’ve seen death, I’ve seen the worst of the worst and what humans are capable of. Nothing could have prepared me for this run.
During the interviews the mother attempted to blame the abuse on the child father but quickly detectives were able to determine that the mother was the culprit.
Detectives were able to get a confession where the mother stated that she had locked the child in a closet in the bedroom and that the child has been there since thanksgiving. The mother went on to state that she knew her daughter would end up dying due to the conditions that she was in but simply didn’t care. It was then revealed that the mother had placed a large dresser in front of the closet keeping the small frail child locked in the room with no food, water or anything for days at a time and only moved the dresser just prior to my arrival on scene .
Detectives later arrested the mother’s boyfriend who stated he knew the girl was in the closet but didn’t feel it was his place to call 911. He then told detectives he loved the mother and believed she was a good mother.
I spoke with a detective who told me that the child was almost 6 years old and barely weighed 23 pounds. The child had died from malnutrition. He went on to tell me that the closet was completely dark and converted in the child’s feces with no covers. No change of clothes . Nothing. A dark room for a 5 year old to sit in for months.
I’ve never felt so much disgust or hate for a human in my life. 5 months this child sat in a closet no concept of time. No feeling of want. Just her in a dark room no bigger than a broom closet.
It’s only been a days since this happened and I’m struggling. This is the first time in my career that I thought I was not strong enough for this.
God knew if I knew the details of the child’s last few months that I would react and he must have kept me from staying in the room longer. These runs are rare and this is only my 2nd child to die from abuse but I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep my composure if I’m faced with something similar again.
I’ve never wished pain or death on someone but I hope the mother and her boyfriend have the worst things done to them imaginable. It still wouldn’t come close to what they did to that child for months.
I’m 34 years old and contemplating starting another career. This is something that will haunt me for life.

If you browse this subreddit in the new reddit browser format you have noticed the images in the sidebar. We are calling this feature "Profiles in Courage" to borrow the title from the book written by Ted Sorensen (yes, he ghostwrote it for Kennedy). The purpose of this feature is to have a small reminder of great American citizens who can provide examples for how we may work together in difficult times for our democracy.
If you don't recognize every photo or ever person, here is where you can learn the stories!
Abraham Lincoln (President, March 4, 1861 – April 15, 1865)
Lincoln was perhaps the greatest President the United States has ever had, guiding the country through the peril of the Civil War. The Union has never been more divided than in Lincoln's adulthood. He rose to the challenge to preserve it and work to make it more perfect. His work ended prematurely unfortunately. Here, in this sub, he has many students. Critical students, but students nonetheless.
Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906)
Susan B. Anthony was a feminist, educator, suffragist, and abolitionist. She organized for women's rights as teachers. She worked to organize an anti-slavery convention in Rochester, New York in 1851. She organized the Women’s National Loyal League and worked the rest of her life to lay the groundwork for the passage of the 19th Amendment fourteen years after her death in 1920.
Newsboys on Strike (1899)
Newsboys were not yet citizens, yes, but they have a spot here because well, not everyone on this sub is a citizen at this moment. Young adults who are not yet 18 can be civic actors, Newsboys worked to sell newspapers and periodicals and not only did they do that, they organized, and went on strike to advocate for themselves 40 years before their federal government passed the Fair Labor Standards Act and regulated child labor. Newsboys were great Americans. If you're under 18 and you're here to discuss politics, kudos.
Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005)
Rosa Parks was a seamstress by trade who in December 1955 refused to give up her seat when a white bus driver demanded her row of black riders move back to make room for additional white passengers (the rest complied, she did not). She was arrested and fined the equivalent of $153 in 2022 for her action of civil disobedience. She was not the first to resist, but her action played a role in making the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-1956 a powerful symbol of black civil non-violent resistance.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)
Martin Luther King Jr. was a legendary paster, civil rights activist, and orator. He was one of the youngest ministers in Montgomery when the resistance on buses began, and as such he was asked by his elders to lead because his youth made it easier for him to speak out. From 1955 to his death in 1968 by an assassin's bullet in Mempis, Tennessee MLK was a shining light for all Americans who sought to push for equality, justice, and prosperity under the law. You can find links to his "I Have a Dream speech in the sidebar.
Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)
Cesar Chavez was a social activist, farm laborer and former U.S. Navy serviceman who lead Mexican-American labor groups during the Delano Grape Strike from (1965-1970). The strike covered 400 square miles and the agreement that came from it affected more than 10,000 farm workers. Afterwards Chavez continued to work as a labor activist and was a prominent figure in the Chicano Movement.
Hugh Thompson Jr. (1943-2006)
In one of the worst moments in American military history as the My Lai massacre was going on warrant officer Hugh Thompson Jr. showed true courage. Thompson prevented the killings of numerous Vietnamese civilians by threatening and getting between American servicemen and the civilians. Furthermore, after the fact Thompson and his crew courageously testified to what they had seen on that day in Sơn Tịnh district, despite that making him no friends stateside.
John McCain (1936 - 2018)
John McCain was a 31 year-old Naval Lieutenant Commander and A-4E Skyhawk pilot when he was shot down over Hanoi, North Vietnam in 1967. Seriously injured, he was beaten, tortured, and interrogated while his captors refused to render medical treatment until they found out his father was an admiral. For five and a half years McCain endured torture and captivity until he was released in 1973. He went on to a life of Service in the U.S. Congress.
John Kerry (photo circa April 22, 1971)
John Kerry was a Navy Lieutenant who served in Vietnam honorably and was wounded though never took time away from duty. After his service he turned to anti-war activism, joining the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. His oratory skills helped him become a leader in the movement and in 1971 he spoked to Congress about the injustice of the war and the lack of leadership in D.C. ( Full Transcript Partial Video ). John Kerry, like McCain, went on to a career in service in the U.S. Congress and as an appointee of the President.
George Johnson, Dan McWilliams, and Billy Eisengrein (September 11, 2001)
Johnson, McWilliams, and Eisengrein were New York City firefighters raising the Stars and Stripes the on the day that 2,603 Americans died at Ground Zero in NYC. 343 of their fellow FDNY firefighters, one New York Fire Patrolman, and dozens of other public safety personnel were among the dead. In 2022 the FDNY confirmed that 299 firefighters had died in the two decades plus since the attack of 9/11 related illnesses. The sacrifice of these public servants in the face of an act of monumental terror remain as a testament to civilian courage.
Eugene Goodman (circa January 6, 2021)
A former Iraq War Veteran, Officer Goodman found himself a lone officer confronting a group of angry rioters in the halls of the Capitol building. With chants of "Hang Mike Pence" ringing out across the Capitol that day, Goodman was the lone man between a wave of rioters and the Senate chambers where the Vice President was. He lead the crowd away from the chamber entrance, potentially saving lives of ranking members in the line of succession and other senators.
Would you like to nominate a photo? Feel free to do so in this thread. All we ask is you have a story to tell and can say why you think it is particularly relevant in this current day. The mods will try to rotate the photos to keep things fresh and so we can all tell more stories from history that can teach us lessons applicable to the current moment.

When obituaries of Kashmir militancy had been written long back, ‘everything,’ in the words of Indian Army Chief General Bipin Rawat, ‘turned upside down in a few days time’ after the killing of Burhan Wani on 8 July 2016. Since then more and more young boys are disappearing into the woods to follow Burhan’s path. Why is Burhan proving more dangerous in his grave than in his living room? Kashmir Narrator revisits the young rebel’s life to know the answers
In 2013, a militant trapped in a cordon along with his two associates in south Kashmir’s Tral makes his last wish in the signature last phone call minutes before dying in a gun battle with government forces: ‘Tell Aarif Khan to pray for my forgiveness.’
The unknown speaker on the other side did not hear clearly due to deafening gunfire sound. Aarif Khan was the nom de guerre of a local militant who, in next few years, would singlehandedly revive militancy in the Valley after it was decimated many years ago.
To ensure that his last wish was realised, the dying militant, who was hit twice during the gunfight, shouted: ‘Tell Burhan to pray for my forgiveness.’
Once the trapped militant, Aijaz Ahmad Bhat of Lurgam, Tral, received the answer in affirmative, he gave the phone to his other associate and continued the fight. By the end of the firefight, Aijaz and his two associates, Shabir Ahmad Bhat of Hayina and Shahnawaz Ahmad Mir of Dadsara, were dead.
This was the first mention of militant commander Burhan Wani on social media whose charismatic figure and novel techniques drew a new fault line in the three-decade-long insurgency in Kashmir. As the Kashmiri youth began to share the audio message on their Whatsapps and Facebook profiles, the legend of Burhan Muzaffar Wani was born that would, ultimately, reach to the World Parliament – the UN – at his death to be projected “as a symbol of [Kashmir’s] intifada”.
“A dying militant’s last wish is very significant. People ask him to pray for them during the last moments, while as here he is asking a living man to pray for him,” says Muhammad, a close companion of Burhan who later served him as one of his dozens of Over Ground Workers (OGWs).
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Burhan joined militancy as a teenager in 2010
This explains, Burhan’s trusted OGW tells me, the reverence of rebel commanders and veterans towards teenager Burhan even when he was just a foot soldier.
The little-known teenager Burhan overnight became the talk of the Tral town, as people wished to know more about the young boy whom a dying rebel wished to pray for his forgiveness.

In August 2013, a profile in the Guardian on Burhan and his new technique of using social media to galvanise militant recruitments propelled his rebel image. The newspaper inferred that with active use of cyberspace, the young kid shall be instrumental in drawing fresh recruits to swell the militant ranks in Kashmir.

In 2013 itself, Hizbul Mujahideen’s Divisional Commander for south Kashmir and Burhan’s mentor and cousin, Adil Mir, was alive. Burhan took the reins of Hizb following the killing of Mir along with his two associates in the 2014 summer.
Before taking the social media by a storm, Burhan would easily slink off the battlefield and melt into local population. No one would have mistaken him for a rebel as his teenage looks made it hard for one and all to believe that.
Up to mid-2013, there were passing references in media reports about the teenage-son-of-a-school-principal joining militancy. Except for a news report that erroneously claimed Burhan was killed in an encounter in Buchoo, Tral on 24 May 2013, nothing was known about him. Interestingly, Kashmir Uzma, a sister publication of Greater Kashmir, published Burhan’s picture on its front page in 25 May 2013 edition, inferring that he was the rebel killed in Buchoo encounter, though the text stated that Saifullah Ahangar was killed.
In August 2013, a profile in the Guardian on Burhan and his new technique of using social media to galvanise militant recruitments propelled his rebel image. The newspaper inferred that with active use of cyberspace, the young kid shall be instrumental in drawing fresh recruits to swell the militant ranks in Kashmir.
The Guardian was the first newspaper that profiled Burhan. Jason Burke, a war reporter for the newspaper who covered Afghanistan and Iraq war, shot Burhan to fame with a story on his techniques to glamorise militancy, says Abdullah, another OGW of Burhan, who now lives a ‘normal life’ after cutting all ties with militants after Burhan’s death.
No one knows when was Burhan’s first picture leaked on the internet. Though there was an exchange of pictures locally through messaging apps even in 2010 itself, what triggered the move to publish them on Facebook and make them viral remains a mystery.
The first picture that was uploaded on the web showed a young smiling Burhan of 17 years of age with two AK-47 rifles in two hands and the third one slung across.
“That picture was not noticed too much, but a year later, his another picture used by the Guardian went viral,” says Abdullah. The picture showed Burhan leaning nonchalantly against a tree while a bag lay at his feet.

Burhan had a battery of OGWs who were always at his beck and call. No one but him knew how many he had. All were assigned different works: recharging mobile phones, arranging funds, buying weapons, acting as couriers, etc.

But social media was not his only strength. Those who knew him since his childhood tire not while narrating the tales of “his good character and lovable nature.”
“His strength was his character and his utmost cautiousness to not kill an innocent person. His friends and foes loved him equally. Even the police appreciated him, for he would tell his cadre to fight the Indians, not your own people,” says Muhammad.
In March 2016, when one of Burhan’s men killed a woman in Noorpora village of Tral, it’s said he took a strong exception to the killing.
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Burhan with this cousin and mentor Adil Mir
“There was a heated argument between Burhan and his associate who killed her. Though the latter tried to convince him that the woman was ‘fit to be killed’, Burhan clearly distanced himself from the act. He categorically told him that he has not joined jihad to kill locals, even if they want to harm him,” says Abdullah.
This he had imbibed from his mentor and cousin, Mir. He would tell his flock to not kill civilians even if they spy on them. He had two things always close to him: his rifle and the Qur’an, says Abdullah.
After Burhan left to woods in October 2010, Dadsara and Shariafabad villages of Tral were in a flutter as the word had gone around that a 16-year-old son of a high school principal had joined militants. But Burhan’s parents waited patiently and thought maybe their son may return to home, says Abdullah.
“I remember when Burhan called his father for the first time after joining the militant ranks,” Abdullah says. “His father asked him whether he satiated his heart by roaming with militants for quite some days and is he planning to return?”

Was Zakir then a mere extension of Mir and Burhan’s ideology? “Yeah, but Adil Mir and Burhan were unlike Zakir. They had strong differences with leadership but they did not want to throw it open. But then Zakir did what he did and there was no one to guide him,” says Abdullah.

But the word surrender was not in Burhan’s dictionary, says Abdullah, as his only wish was to play a long innings and recruit as many youth as possible for militancy.
Nevertheless, Burhan had his times of hardship during his militant life. He had to face a lot of trouble soon after he assumed the Hizb’s mantle in 2014 after Mir was killed in the Buchoo encounter.
Local reports pointed the needle of suspicion towards two women from the vicinity for tipping off the Special Operations Group of police about the presence of Mir and his associates in the area. Also, Burhan and his associates could not believe the fact that Mir, who a year earlier in 2013, killed four soldiers in the same area, could have fallen “so cheaply”. But there was no strong evidence to support the claim.
“Burhan made it amply clear that he will not kill the two women on mere suspicion. He even said that even if he had proof that the duo were informers, he shall not kill them and quoted Mir, whom he used to refer as Bhaigash*,* that the fate of informers should be left to Allah for He shall give them their recompense,” says Abdullah, who himself conversed with Burhan about the matter.
But Burhan had to face a lot of problems after it was rumoured that Burhan was a mole in the militant ranks, says Abdullah, adding that the police was quite successful in “tarnishing his image for quite some time.”
“Those were the most disturbing moments for Burhan. When Bhaigash (Adil Mir) was killed, something was eating Burhan up inside. And one day in 2014, he exclaimed, ‘Waen wuch soorie, waen gasoo shaheed gasin! (Let me become a martyr now, as I saw everything),” says Abdullah.
Abdullah believes that coincidence coupled with vicious police propaganda propelled the idea of labelling “Burhan as a traitor.”
“Police milked some coincidences in which Pakistani militants were killed in shootouts and Burhan would come alive miraculously. They planted the idea that it is impossible to come out alive from such tight cordons except you work hand in glove with the agencies,” says Abdullah.
Recalling one such incident, Abdullah says that Burhan along with Zakir Musa, who had joined Hizb in 2013, and a Pakistani militant were ambushed by the CRPF troopers at Tral bus stand. In the brief shootout, says Abdullah, the Pakistani militant of Jaish outfit, who was called Arshid bhai, died instantaneously while Burhan and Musa fled from the spot.
“Not only that, Musa took the dead Pakistani militant’s rifle before leaving the place, as he had only an Insas rifle then and not an AK-47. And when police saw only the dead body and not the weapon, they started the propaganda that Burhan killed him during a group clash,” says Abdullah.
However, when Burhan’s brother Khalid Muzaffar Wani was “tortured to death” by the army in April 2015, all allegations and speculations were put to rest.
Earlier, even Adil Mir was in a fix in similar situations. In one incident, when a Pakistani militant was killed in a shootout while he and another local militant escaped unhurt, Mir asked the Pakistani militant to speak about their innocence before dying so that he may record his statement.
“But unfortunately the foreign militant died before he could record his statement,” says Abdullah.
The propaganda was so vicious that the Pakistani cadres of Jaish-e-Muhammad outfit parted their ways with Mir and his cadre and shifted their base at a distant place in south Kashmir.
Mir, who took the reins of Hizb from commander Shabir Ahmad Bhat in 2013, had a tough time with Pakistan-based militant leadership. “Even though Shabir was the commander, the brainchild behind the movement in Tral was Mir. Trouble started for Mir even before he joined the militant ranks. When his brother Naeem Mir, a B.Tech student from Awantipora’s Islamic University of Science and Technology, was killed by forces in a gunfight, he did an independent ‘survey’ and found a local man involved in tipping off the police,” says Danish, a childhood friend of Mir, who remained aloof from all militant activities.
All efforts to convince PaK-based militant leadership that the local had a hand in Naeem Mir’s killing could not fructify, says Danish. “When people sitting across the border did not buy Mir’s argument, he decided to take the matter into his own hand and shot at the informer.”
Though the man survived, Mir had to face the music from across. All supply to the group he was a part was immediately snapped, says Danish.
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Zakir Musa with Burhan, three months before the latter’s death
But Mir did not budge. He changed his military tactics and resorted to gun snatching from government forces. In a gunfight in Buchoo, Tral, Mir killed four soldiers and fled with two rifles, which has now become a regular practice with militants.
“Trouble intensified in 2013 when Mir headed the Hizb’s south Kashmir unit. He was demonised and made to suffer for want of money and ammunition,” says Danish.
While all this was happening, Burhan and Zakir were all eyes and ears to the events. What transpired in May 2017 when Zakir finally parted ways with Hizb and floated Al-Qaeda’s branch in Kashmir had roots in Mir’s friction with PaK-based leadership.
Zakir was himself recruited by Mir in 2013 when he showed an inclination towards militancy. Though almost all the new recruits had either a family history or were OGWs of some local rebel, Zakir had neither of them. Since his village, Noorpora, had no active militant for a long time, Mir chose him.
Mir’s methodology was, says Abdullah, to activate different pockets where no trace of militancy was left. Though many youth from Dadsara were ready to join him, he chose Zakir for a purpose. But not before passing a test.
“Zakir was made to stay all day in a field while his handler told him to wait there till he returns. When in the evening the handler came, he found Zakir waiting patiently for him. He was instantly taken in,” says Abdullah.
Zakir, however, at one point “decided to quit” and return to his home. But, says Abdullah, Mir was a sheet anchor and knew how to convince the youth.
“When he arrived, he told others to leave him and Zakir alone. The duo conversed behind closed doors for some time. And when the door opened, what people saw amazed them: Zakir was sobbing with streams of tears flowing from his eyes,” says Muhammad, adding that Zakir never had any thought of quitting after that.
This connection surfaced in September 2017 when Zakir issued an audio statement on the occasion of Eid and enumerated legendary rebel commanders like Abdullah Bangroo, Ashfaq Majeed, Yaseen Yatoo but started the list with the name of Adil Mir.
After breaking one cordon after another, the legend of Burhan grew in entire Kashmir. While many would question his cordon-breaking techniques, his close circle had full faith in him. “He was blessed with intuition. The moment he would get a whiff of being cordoned off, he would jump out and flee with a lightning speed,” says Muhammad.
His recruitment was spot on. When one of his OGWs requested him to take a local as a fresh recruit, Burhan did not, citing weapon shortage as a reason. “And ultimately, that would-be recruit joined police after the death of Burhan,” says Muhammad.
Burhan had a battery of OGWs who were always at his beck and call. No one but him knew how many he had. All were assigned different works: recharging mobile phones, arranging funds, buying weapons, acting as couriers, etc.
These OGWs used to upload his pictures and videos on Facebook through fake accounts and make them viral. Burhan had not uploaded a single picture of himself on social networks, claims Muhammad. “He had his fake accounts, but he would only further his message and not his image.”
Though many accounts used by Burhan are defunct now, many are still working. It was through these accounts Burhan used to communicate with his OGWs and well-wishers.
Why the Valley lit up at his death
Vinay Kaura, an insurgency expert who has studied the use of social media in Kashmir, says that the suppression of their rights to freedom of expression in the physical space has pushed the Kashmiri youth towards the ‘virtual’ space to vent their resentment and feeling of alienation. The battlefield is now a multidimensional one, encompassing both physical territory and cyberspace.
This explains the best why Burhan shifted to cyberspace to further his goals.
“Though he had no military strategy, he found the mass participation of Kashmiris as the viable option to destabilise security apparatus of the State. And he found Facebook the best platform to do mass mobilisation. Amazingly, he had grand success in doing so,” a south Kashmir-based police official tells Kashmir Narrator.
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This is one of the last pictures of Burhan that made their way to the cyperspace
Those who were close to him say that Burhan did not kill a single policeman or soldier in his militant tenure. “He always fired in self-defence during cordons. There is not a single offensive attack done by him,” says Gulzar, another OGW of Burhan, who too avoided rebel circles after his death.
“Only once he decided to plant an IED at a place in Tral. But it failed to explode and they never tried it again,” says Gulzar. “Burhan had, probably, this proverb in his mind: ‘what the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over’,” says Gulzar.
As soon as Burhan’s pictures started to flood the cyberspace in Kashmir, youngsters began to link themselves with him. Dr Kaura explains this: “Social media has shifted the paradigm in terms of the tools available to protesters in Kashmir. They no longer need to resort to illegal measures to protest and, instead, social media has given them the space to raise awareness, spread information and plan protest rallies through completely legitimate means.”
The number of people in Kashmir with access to social media has increased significantly from 25 percent in 2010 to about 70 percent by the end of 2015, says Dr Kaura, an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies at the Sardar Patel University of Police, Security, and Criminal Justice in Rajasthan.
This may also give us an inkling of where from the rage came that took the entire Valley by a storm.
Indian Army Chief, General Bipin Rawat, may also take a clue from here to understand “where from the rage came” after Burhan was killed. General Rawat says he’s baffled why the killing of a local rebel put the Valley on fire.
In an interview recently to Indian Express’s Muzamil Jaleel, General Rawat said: “Until June 2016, everything was fine. What is that incited people so much because of that one encounter? Everything was turned upside down in a few days time. The entire south Kashmir was out in the streets, throwing stones at us, attacking our posts. By October-November, I was getting messages that people say ‘azadi dur nahi hai’ (azadi is not far away). Somebody was feeding this to people, telling them azadi was around the corner. Our posts were being regularly attacked. Stones were being pelted at our men. We had to bring the situation under control. We could not afford all that. We needed to tell people azadi is not happening. We had to establish the writ (of the State)”.
It seems the new-age tech-savvy militants achieved with selfies what the militants of the 1990s failed to achieve with their guns: perplex the General of world’s fourth largest army.
There are many explanations propounded as to why Kashmir erupted after Burhan’s killing. But none offers a convincing answer. Some say the government was caught on the wrong foot and mismanaged the initial protests badly at Verninag, Kokernag, Acchabal, Vailoo, Arwani, Nilow and Nehama where most of the killings took place on 9 July.
Others say the opposition National Conference’s cadre was instrumental in instigating violence at many places, a tit-for-tat for 2010 uprising when PDP was in the opposition.
Jama’at-i-Islami, say others, organised protests and was the force behind sustaining the protests in south Kashmir in particular and other places in general.
However, there is more to this than what meets the eye.
Soon after the death of Burhan along with his two associates – Sartaj Sheikh and Parvaiz Ahmad – Al-Qaeda released a message to the “Mujahid nation of Kashmir” asking the youth to follow the footsteps of Burhan Wani.
“If you truly believe in the message and life of Mujahid Burhan, let you follow his footsteps,” the message said. This was for the first time in Kashmir’s long insurgent history that Al-Qaeda praised a local rebel.
It seems that Al-Qaeda had been closely monitoring the Kashmir situation after Burhan put it on cyberspace through his video messages. In his penultimate video message, Burhan stated that the rebels of Kashmir are fighting for the “establishment of Caliphate not only in Kashmir but in the entire world.”
Also, it’s noteworthy that in 2014 Al-Qaeda released a video, calling on Muslims in Kashmir “to follow the example of brothers in Syria and Iraq and wage a jihad against Indian rule.”
Interestingly, an audio released on Zakir Musa-led Ansar Gazwat-ul-Hind Telegram channel this year purportedly of PaK-based militant Abu Hamas claimed that Burhan was always talking that “we had to implement the Shariah, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda way.”
Was Zakir then a mere extension of Mir and Burhan’s ideology? “Yeah, but Adil Mir and Burhan were unlike Zakir. They had strong differences with leadership but they did not want to throw it open. But then Zakir did what he did and there was no one to guide him,” says Abdullah.
Speaking of his patience and forbearance, Abdullah says that when police started harassing the families of militants in Tral, Burhan called a police officer and told him to not harm their families.
“The police officer instead abused him profusely. But a calm Burhan kept listening and told him patiently that he has a tongue too to reply but he would not ‘because you are my elder and we respect our elders’,” says Abdullah.
What Burhan gave to the Kashmiri youth who are attached to the rebel cause is something his predecessors failed: a mandate to be a militant without a weapon.
In his last video, Burhan asks youth to disrupt cordons and help militants escape by throwing stones at forces. In 2017, it became a common trend to storm gunfight scenes and help militants escape from the spot. Many videos emerged wherein youth were giving a live commentary of ground zero happenings while putting their lives in the harm’s way. At least 30 civilians have died so far in recent past while saving militants.
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Burhan with his comrades-in-arms in this 2015 picture Photos Courtesy: Burhan’s Family
General Rawat realised it only a year later when he asked Kashmiri youth not to disrupt forces’ operations by throwing stones. The youth considered it their moral victory which boosted their morale when the Army Chief said that those trying to disrupt anti-militancy operations in Kashmir would be treated as “overground workers of terrorists.”
On the first death anniversary of Burhan in 2017, a Pakistan-based newspaper published a report wherein it was alleged that Burhan had conversed with a local mainstream politician in 2016 and sought his help to convey an urgent message to Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. However, people close to him and who have worked with him rubbish this allegation.

“Social media has shifted the paradigm in terms of the tools available to protesters in Kashmir. They no longer need to resort to illegal measures to protest and, instead, social media has given them the space to raise awareness, spread information and plan protest rallies through completely legitimate means.”

“Burhan would have never sought help from any pro-India politician. He had a firm belief that no good could be expected from them. It was only after seeing entire Kashmir turning upside down overnight after his killing, the said legislator, out of fear, praised Burhan so as to carve a soft corner in local populace,” says Muhammad.
The death of Burhan and its aftermath was a watershed moment in Kashmir’s long insurgent history. With Zakir Musa thriving on anti-Pakistan sentiments, it shall be interesting to see whether Mir’s pupil and Burhan’s aide succeeds in fighting India without Pakistan’s help.
—Some names have been changed to protect the identities
This cover story was published in Kashmir Narrator’s June issue. To subscribe to Narrator’s print edition, mail us here: [KashmirNarrator@gmail.com](mailto:KashmirNarrator@gmail.com)

Last year, on the 20th anniversary of crossing the border into Iraq, I posted a picture of the convoy up. Now, on the 20th anniversary of coming home from OIF I, I present to you more things that I don't think most people know/appreciate about that very bizarre chapter of literally INVADING ANOTHER COUNTRY. I know: this is the content you've all been waiting for. You're welcome.
The roads- If you were going west during the invasion towards Karbala, you stopped riding up MSR Tampa and hooked onto ASR Boston. This...was not a road. It was a legit compass heading, and driving that route (for two days) was one of the more memorable things I did the entire time I was in the Army. We went into Baghdad about three days after it fell and that was all on interstates. I was struck by the fact Baghdad was not at all a third world city. People had cable, etc. (until we fucked up the power grid).
Hygiene- We crossed the border in March and had literally no showers until June. No haircuts until May, with us just shaving each other heads to not get lice/fleas, which were a huge problem. We were so dirty several of us got skin infections that were pretty gnarly. I got covered in bites once we started sleeping in old Iraqi schools or office buildings...and then a bunch of us got leishamaniasis and had to get medevaced to Walter Reed. Google it. Its a real crowd pleaser.
A laundry and bath reserve unit came in June and I swear, I never made fun of that MOS again. I mean, I probably did, but that was an amazing shower and they had fresh uniforms for us after our DCUs could literally stand up on their own.
Food- Strictly MREs from March-beginning of June. An occasional Hot A maybe three times. By May, we were either not eating very much or just mixing all of the meal packets into the entree packet and filling it with tobasco and swallow. I went from 170 to 145 during that time. We also lived off filling our canteens with kool aid from home...yes, we actually used our canteens a fair amount until the endless pallets of water showed up. Our cooks tried to, uh, cook from time to time in the MKT but we were just on the move so much and our mess sergeant sucked so...MREs. After July, we had a decent DFAC nearby.
Related to food was of course, dip and smokes. We all ran out pretty quickly, because none of us had any clue we were going to be literally homeless, sleeping on our trucks, for months. The best we could do was 1) bum smokes off of resupply bird crew chiefs that came in...yes, we had chinooks bringing in palletized food and water, just like Nam, or 2) buy terrible cigarettes from locals. The first PX tobacco wasn't around until July. it was a long 4 months.
Hostile fire- eh. During the convoy, we were moving fast and we weren't 3ID who was fucking shit up ahead of us. We took some potshots near Nasiriyah and then some fairly accurate RPG fire near Najaf. We were on the outskirts of Najaf during a wild-ass firefight that looked like something from "Platoon" but I think in retrospect was just 101 boiz lighting up a sniper position with every weapon in arms reach (CIBs for everyone!). Early on the SCUD attacks were alarming (pun intended heh heh) but then we got used to them and fucked around the whole time and THEN an actual fucking SCUD was intercepted over our position on 29 March and we were like, "Maybe we should take these more seriously."
Everything calmed down during the summer and then it got wild in the fall and as we all know, stayed that way until the surge. IDF was actually really bad at one point, nothing to laugh at. People were killed at the PX on our FOB at one point, and in October a huge rocket attack came in that blew up our fuel truck (92F NCOIC was so sad) and destroyed one of our platoon's tents.
Army stuff- We were in a completely Thunderdome / Mad Max/ Pirate army until June. It was glorious. Things started getting stupid in July and we were literally going to have a Battalion formation, and then the security situation deteriorated to the point that the Thunderdome returned- haircuts were rare, uniforms were pretty dirty, as all laundry was done by hand. "Going to the board" for SGT or SSG meant that you went to BN TOC and shot the shit with the CSM and S3 NCOIC. Garrison life poked in from time to time, but we were geographically separated from our unit and tbh, shit got pretty lax for much of 2003. One day a visiting 1SG from 1AD walked into our ops tent to see if we could move some gear for him (we had 10K forklifts) and he looked around at us (we had all grown handlebar mustaches and hadn't showered in a while) and just said "Uh, are y'all ok?"
Assorted other wild shit-

1. Every aviator in the theater of operation was flying like they were on amphetamines. Kiowa pilots were especially wild.
2. We had zero access to news or internet from March to August, and the only method of communication was mail, which we didn't receive after the drive up started until the end of April. Weird rumors got started that seemed to spread like wildfire, the most notable being that J.Lo had died. Literally it was all anyone was talking about and since we had no news access, it was just like "yeah the guy at the CSH told me..." and I was damned surprised when I found out in August that J. Lo was, in fact still alive.
3. During the quiet time in summer 2003, we were all pretty dumb and complacent. I used to drive into the local town with one other Joe to get ice, in a PC, no body armor, and two M4s and sixty rounds between us. Then some terrible stuff happened on an LP/OP nearby and we got sober, quick. We regularly went to the markets in Baghdad and honest to God did some sightseeing, which in retrospect seems so weird. All of that stopped after everything heated back up in late summeFall.

That's my submission that no one asked for. We were asked to do some truly insane things, and damn if a bunch of twenty year olds (my PSG was an ancient 29) didn't get pretty much all of it done. Most on this sub are still on active duty, and I would just say: when the call comes, your Joes (and you) will rise to the occasion. I always thought we must have been so soft compared to prior soldiers, and we absolutely held our own in shitty, uncertain and dangerous conditions for 12 months.
Now...I'll take a grand slam breakfast from the G's Pancake house outside FTCKY in Oak Grove.

Dear Governor Youngkin,
I am writing you as a concerned, free citizen. Full disclosure: I am not one of your constituents but a D.C. constituent who regularly conducts business in your state. I am gravely concerned about the gun control legislation currently making its way through your state's legislature.
I am sure you are aware of how strict and impeding Washington, D.C.'s gun control laws are on law-abiding citizens. For instance, it takes the average citizen 6-9 months to acquire a home protection or concealed carry firearm. And even after all the steps we go through, we are still severely limited on where we can protect ourselves. While your average criminal uses illegal means (theft, illegal purchases, murder, etc.) to acquire a handgun in a fraction of the time.
Virginia is not like Washington, D.C.; you do not have the gun violence or poverty problem that we have. And I have been around your state enough to know this.
Do not embrace the coming assault weapons ban and other gun control bills your House and Senate are pushing. Your constituents have been lied to time and time again that banning these "Assault Weapons" will drastically cut down on gun crimes and gun violence. If any sane person spends 5 minutes researching, they will see that the vast majority of gun violence is done with handguns, not semi-automatic rifles. In 2022, handguns made up 7,936 deaths, while rifles only made up 541 (Homicides by murder weapon in the U.S. 2022 Statista). Heck, more people were killed by knives, hands, and feet in 2022.
I also urge you not to endorse any magazine capacity limits as well. Magazine capacity limits do nothing more than limit the amount of ammunition a law-abiding citizen can use to defend themselves. It does nothing to impact criminals. I see in the D.C. news, time and time again, stories of individuals committing crimes with handguns with extended magazines, sometimes as much as 30-round magazines for a handgun, while law-abiding citizens like myself, are stuck following the law at 10. For a very real situation, I implore you to watch this from California, which has the strictest gun laws as to why magazine capacities put law-abiding citizens and their families at risk. WATCH: Armed Los Angeles Man Has Shootout With Would-Be Robbers To Save His Family (youtube.com). As someone who has been in multiple firefights in Iraq, and despite carrying 800 rounds with a Light Machine Gun, I can assure you that I never said, "I wish I had less ammo," despite how heavy it was.
I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution at 17 years old because I dearly love this country. I went to war to defend this country and our values. I spent four years of my life as a Marine infantryman, putting my body through absolute Hell and 14 of my friends in the ground to fight for our Constitution and its values. Make no mistake, the 2nd Amendment and its values are to protect the other amendments of the Bill of Rights. It isn't about hunting or self-defense; it is about the defense from both foreign and domestic tyranny and has been used on multiple occasions to fight back against it, going back to the American Revolution, which was kicked off in my home state because the British were trying to confiscate and disarm the colonists.
Thank you, and God Bless the Republic,
Corporal, Anti-Terrorism Battalion 2006-2010, United States Marine Corps
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"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson

There’s a discussion item listed on tonight’s agenda entitled, Proposed Urbana International Ceasefire Resolution. As allowed by council rules, this discussion item was added at the request of councilmember Grace Wilken, with a second by councilmember Chris Evans. I want to make it clear to the public this item was not initiated by city administration, and no draft resolution was submitted to the city council or the public in advance. No votes or formal action will be or can be taken tonight. Furthermore, I’m asking the sponsors of this discussion item to withdraw it completely from the agenda and seek a venue outside city council for this discussion for these reasons. (1) This is not city business. (2) There is no possibility of a productive outcome. The discussion will only divide us and permanently damage relationships within our community
and outside our community. No matter what position or side one chooses on this issue, it will be causing pain, anguish, and hurt for some residents, and to what end? What impact will this city council have on the outcome of this conflict? None whatsoever. I ask the sponsors of this agenda item, for the good of the community, the whole community, to pull this item from the agenda and seek another pass – path – to seek another path, outside city council, encouraging dialogue on this topic. Pursuing a discussion, a debate, in city council will do far more harm than good. // In itself, the mayor’s stunning statement, about a nonbinding peace resolution she did not read or study, says something about the displacement of her authority – not only in her capacity to take on complex issues – no one confuses the mayor for someone like that – but also
in her willingness to actively arrange for and promote such dialogues beforehand. The crime of political acquiescence is never worse than when an elected leader scolds a roomful of citizen-activists for endeavoring to do what the elected leader should have already done. The statement did not stop those in attendance from speaking, but it did make it clear that the mayor would be covering her ass with both hands before she considered what else might be done by way of civic engagement. A few words in her statement will be lifted before her eyes when the day comes to be judged – far more harm than good, she said, regarding the objections to genocide – but in the meantime, we might wonder why divine authority is sitting this one out, as another desperate population is massacred for the high crime of being adjacent to a source of violence that doesn’t
take a vote before doing what it does, doesn’t drop a poll in the field to wonder which way the wind is blowing. Among the desperately poor, what do we suppose is the right thing to do? Let the Israelis know it’s coming? In point of fact, the Israelis did know it was coming, as evidenced by reports written by Israeli soldiers tasked with guarding the southern border and whose job it was to observe for evidence of possible attacks. They knew it was coming, formally said so, and Israel’s high command likewise knew all the details of the Hamas attack plan a year in advance, as reported by the Times. Nothing about the Hamas attack on October 7 would pass the test of a simple police procedural, based on believability. Don’t believe me? Go ahead, put a poll in the field – ask an average moviegoer if they would stand in line for a perfectly avoidable massacre.
But that wasn’t what the local city council was asked to consider. They were asked to consider a nonbinding resolution in opposition to violence, antisemitism, and islamophobia, and this text was the impetus for the mayor to take a major stand – permanently damage, she said, regarding relationships in and outside the community, whatever that cryptic reference is meant to imply. Who in or outside the community inspires such fear that the mayor spontaneously evacuates a nonbinding peace resolution from her mind? We might likewise wonder why anyone would find grievance with a peace resolution, no matter the cause – but proposing peace in the Middle East, while the U.S. bankrolls it, bars oversight of weapons shipments, vetoes UN resolutions? This is cause for concern. In fact, the council received hundreds of emails in opposition, most
so badly written, I had to stop and wonder if these were Trump voters – I don’t think they are – and which trashy standardized text ended by contending that the council’s time should not be hijacked by political activists who try to buy time for terrorist organizations. Wow! Time! Time! See how the original author uses time in two different senses? Confusing, yes? A smarter poison pen would have thought through the intention a little more – for instance, the council’s souls should not be hijacked – doesn’t that ring loud and clear? I mean, the council’s time gets wasted all the time, week after week. If wasted time were the issue, we’d all be paddling for our lives by now. As for buying time for terrorists – no one likes it when peaceniks support the terrorists, but let’s be clear – the council is a municipal authority, and paying taxes is not exactly optional.
That ridiculous text, warning the council that its borders were about to be crossed, its chambers invaded, mainly in the form of people of color and their white allies, hoping to convince the city merely to consider endorsing a nonbinding peace resolution, against a massacre without an end in view, funded and enabled by the government we pay taxes to, with literally none of the usual oversight, such as whether the munitions will be used in the vicinity of prevalent human rights abuses – this early-warning-of-a-missive made clear this was none of the city’s business, though cities across the country have already endorsed similar resolutions. In fact, in 2003, this selfsame city council courageously passed a peace resolution denouncing the buildup to massacre about to be visited upon Iraq, its fallacious arguments laid out, its falsified evidence combed through.
When one mobilizes around any local issue, an enormous effort must be made to get any sort of mass response off the ground. Got a day? If you’re good, you might get a dozen people to step forward to speak. Got a month? Money to spend? Maybe you can get a few hundred people to step forward to have their voice be heard. Compare this to the mobilization against the notional nonbinding peace resolution, denouncing violence, antisemitism, and islamophobia – council received 553 email messages in a day and a half, most of them using that ridiculous form letter as their template, but many original to the cause – an unheard of response for a community this size. Whatever organizing juggernaut got that many people to sound off against peace knew a thing or two about putting the pedal to the metal. We peace activists were all but surrounded.
But by what? What local authority was scaring the mayor into all but resigning on the spot, lest ruin be visited upon the land by permanently damaged relationships? The meeting commenced with a mystery hanging in the air and the room flanked by firefighters all standing, some at the ready, and a few in dress uniforms. As it turns out, promotions were being formally recognized by the city, but you could tell the juxtaposition – an attempt to make a peep about U.S.-enabled genocide likened to those who respond to five-alarm fires – was part of that night’s program. At some point, someone’s radio came to life, and a half dozen firefighters raced out of the building. The ceremony continued at the front of the room, where oaths were taken, badges were pinned, salutes were exchanged, and everyone applauded. Then the firefighters flowed out of the space.
The ceremony was a reminder that this is a nation of rights and responsibilities, and people take oaths to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, so named because the document stands for a body in service to a kind of ghost that represents the nation and which body continues to grow, as a legal entity, generation after generation, certain to outlive everyone who contributes to it, is ruled by it. How normal this strange relationship! Of course we need a U.S. Constitution, just as neighborhoods follow covenants, corporations use charters, value is circumscribed by economy, and science builds bodies of knowledge – modernity, we call it, when humanity assumes the subordinate position, no matter who you are, relative to authority that is always more than the sum of its parts – for instance, the authority to engineer an ongoing massacre in the Gaza Strip.
Don’t get me wrong – the U.S. Constitution is essential for our survival, as are the legal bodies of other nations, but none of this is without consequence, which becomes especially difficult to comprehend when personal volition is formally interrupted. As reasonable as a constitution’s founders always are, they invariably proceed with a false definition of reality, a false notion of enlightenment, and while that might sound like a matter for theologians and philosophers to sort through, the subject takes on the mood of crisis when we realize we may never have been the ones in charge in the first place. When we see personal volition being interrupted on a daily basis – the domestic violence, the mass shootings, a genocidal massacre in the Middle East – we struggle to imagine this was set in motion centuries ago, even as we call it a crisis of modernity.
When the time comes, the lovely Ben Joselyn steps to the front of the room to make his case for a nonbinding peace resolution. The mayor reminds him he has ten minutes, and a digital clock at the front of the room starts counting down. Ben’s heart and mind have been inside this issue from the beginning, and he’s come prepared. His opening statement is of mutual recognition – all sides want to be safe, and thus we must combat all bigotries, including but not limited to antisemitism and islamophobia. The opening statement ends with a disclaimer – that his words and reasoning, about why ceasefire is necessary, are his own and do not represent those city council members who have given him the time to make his presentation. Such a disclaimer may well stand for activists all over the country, in their routine exile from formal political authority.
The substance of Ben’s presentation is a summary of the current conflict – its origins, the death and misery visited upon Israel on October 7, a bar graph indicating annual fatalities from Israel-Palestinian violence since 2008. The bar representing 2023 is the most depressing geometric figure imaginable. The rest of his presentation lays out evidence of genocide made possible by the United States. Though the death toll in Gaza has since topped 25,000, Ben cites a death toll of 22,000, indicating the approximate date he gave his presentation. He summarizes his case for ceasefire with these touching words: Ceasefire is a peaceful word. Ceasefire means, no killing – no killing by anyone. No conditions that lead to death. It is a morally necessary call, and I believe this will lead to a safer world for all. // Ben was deeply courageous for saying this for us.
During his presentation, I am aware that Ben is aware that militant pressure has presented itself already in the form of those hundreds of form emails. Just in case you, the reader, have already forgotten, be reminded it ends this way: The city of Urbana has much work to do to enhance the safety and security of our own community, its time should not be hijacked by political activists who try to buy time for terrorist organizations. // Yes, a comma splice, too – a sentence foaming at the mouth in its fervor. Ben knew all this when he stepped before the council to advocate for peace, to speak also to those who were already insinuating that he was not one of them. As we all know, those who can be linked to terrorist organizations also run the risk of being destroyed by the U.S. government – for instance, by having assets frozen, which is a polite term for steal.
And who were the authors of the letter itself? Presumably more than 500 citizens of the city – at least one assumes they were, but I admit I have doubts. Several key denouncers of the notional nonbinding peace resolution self-identified with the local leadership of the Jewish Federation, which is a front group for authoritarianism every bit as much as the NRA and the structure that unites the Christian right, and which organ of tyranny aims to destroy democracy in the U.S. by hijacking municipal authority in order to buy time for, uh, terrorists, then compile stats about self-identifying Jewish speakers being interrupted during civil engagements, such as the one we were having. In fact, the state’s attorney was sitting in the center of the room, her seat held by the Jewish Federation’s E.D. Our state’s attorney was sitting amid all that plausible deniability,
I mean militancy – our state’s attorney was sitting in the center of that militant statement sent to the city council in bulk, all of which can be plausibly denied later, in a few different ways, and as a last resort, the state’s attorney might just candidly admit how evil and scheming the Jewish people are at heart, always have been probably. Not what I would say, no, but I’m sure she has a story she can tell if she needs one, even one that throws vast populations under the bus – for instance, the people of Gaza. What I love most about the notion of the counted-up interruptions and the mysterious collations that follow is how scientific it is made to seem, as though the real takeaway is a will toward turning peaceful civic engagement into an opportunity for a little pre-crime management. Yes, your honor, I sat in the very center of the room, where hearing is ideal.
A conspiracy theory? Maybe so. Maybe it’s better just to notice the local state’s attorney is more like an instant cautionary tale, about what happens to someone who commands significant use-of-force authority while abiding a false theory of reality, one that doesn’t believe volition can be evacuated without some choice to give it up, as when the drunk tries to drive home. The state’s attorney, let’s face it, has it bad – demands, as a prerequisite of her sworn oath to uphold the constitution, that every case proceed as though the body was at fault, and the mind is better off admitting it from the start, even when it doesn’t ring true. If volition was a question mark, if the state had to prove volition was present before contending anything else, the state would walk off the job in a heartbeat. Manage your own system of justice, it would say, making for the door.
When I think about the true nature of antisemitism in the U.S., I observe that power, which is decidedly not Jewish power, is grateful to share the wealth, so long as it involves guns, bombs, other munitions. The Jewish people are a militant people – this is the true antisemitism within us, repeated everywhere all day long, until the authority in nature gets the message – oh, yes, the Jews, those peace-loving people with the guns. Imagine that becomes an existential ID for all of cosmic time. The Israeli people? Who command $3.8b every year in military assistance? Who manage an apartheid state? Who mobilize against notional nonbinding peace resolutions? Who routinely hack Congress, embarrass presidents, drive nations to war? Each call gets a response that makes it all seem reasonable. With interrupted volition, just go with whatever story works.
After a few minutes of summarizing, Ben steps away from the prepared text to speak from the heart – I’m not here because I want harm to come to anybody, he says – I’m here because there are atrocities happening in this world that our government is failing to address . . . I just wanted to talk to you about it, and the people care. // From the back of the room, I lead the applause, the first unambivalent opportunity to remember why we’re there. Ben wraps up his presentation by highlighting portions of the resolution, which is two or three pages of Where As statements, in the tradition of resolutions, and clearly includes perspectives from all sides. That a number of Jewish people are present at the meeting to speak out against the resolution is not lost on Ben, who is also Jewish, routinely denounces bigotries of every sort, a fulltime fighter of such things.
He finishes, and two-thirds of the crowd engages in a standing ovation. Councilmember Chris Evans wants Ben to clarify – he denounces what Hamas did on October 7, right? Ben pauses to collect his thoughts, says absolutely – the ceasefire resolution is meant to address grievance and trauma on all sides. I can hear the rightness of the statement, agree any act of war, by its nature, is reprehensible. But isn’t this where all the problems start? If Israel is exercising its legal right to make war, then doesn’t it stand to reason that Hamas was exercising its legal right to make war on October 7, in which case Hamas would be war makers, not terrorists, nor should there be any particular reason why anyone in the U.S. should be compelled to feel one way or the other about that. If they are terrorists, on the other hand, then a crime is what was committed,
and a police response would have been the right choice. Sure, the southern border should have been sufficiently fortified before any investigation could begin, but as a matter of policing, the international community as a whole would have been on Israel’s side, as it commenced to sift through the evidence, figure out the specific individuals who did it, work out systems to bring about justice. Is a will to criminal justice even plausible under circumstances like these? After the capitol attack in 2021, the perpetrators fled in all directions, yet more than 1200 individuals were eventually brought before the court, convicted for taking part, demonstrating that violence can still be responded to with civility. I also acknowledge that if the capitol attackers had killed the members of Congress in session, plus their aides, horror would have been met with horror.
Public participation follows – a chance for anyone to step forward and speak on any relevant subject for a few minutes. Instantly, a line forms around the room. Of the first ten speakers, eight speak in favor of the resolution and two are against. Those in favor speak passionately of their personal experience with bigotry, family histories adjacent to atrocity in various parts of the world in the twentieth century. Facts about the ongoing massacre in Gaza abound, and I’m not sure how much of this the council is taking in. The opposition says the city should not take sides, should promote dialogue instead, and maybe we need to define our terms, but isn’t that precisely what’s happening? People speaking and listening to each other on the city’s dime? If a ceasefire means taking sides, then is the military-industrial complex the real enemy at the gates?
I would readily agree with that, if that’s what the speaker meant, but I suspect the real point of the remark is that the massacre ongoing is really only up to one side to continue – no one in the room proceeds with the belief that Hamas or any other Palestinian is doing anything by way of making war against Israel. What is unfolding in Gaza is massacre, so the speaker is pointing out that the notional nonbinding peace resolution would, in effect, single out Israel as the only one of the two sides who would be responsible for abiding it. This extraordinary bit of reasoning can be heard more clearly in the absurd statement that Israel is defending itself – three months on, blowing up whatever it wants, 60% of all homes and residential buildings destroyed, all in service to defense. Genocide is perfectly plausible if what you are doing is defending yourself.
Do you know who that would make sense to? A racist. American racists, staring at a group of Black people, justify murder by calling it self-defense. As in the United States through most of the twentieth century, no authority existed to stop this sort of thinking from leading to massacre – yes, America was, indisputably, an apartheid state for most of the century, though we never say that, lest someone imagine we might still be one – for instance, by opposing peace messages in council chambers. This is when it dawned on me that everyone speaking against the notional nonbinding peace resolution was White, as were almost everyone I can think of on the national stage, while most everyone in Gaza is a person of color. Is this where white supremacy has gone to find respectability? Placing guns into the hands of the Jewish people to defend themselves?
Against the hordes of little dark-skinned kids in Gaza? During the council meeting, on January 8, an estimated 9000 children of color had been killed by the Israelis. Another running theme among those opposed to the notional nonbinding peace resolution is quaking fear – not a fear that Hamas might strike the city council next – no one believes Hamas is a threat to anyone anywhere at the present moment, nor did they think so last year or ten years ago. No, the fear by those in favor of massacre comes from the mere presence of those who oppose it – nothing but middleclass White people on one side, quaking with fear, while people of color plus their allies are on the other, citing statistics. This white supremacy still works somehow – the racists say it all with wide eyes, point to all those people of color, get $14.5b in additional military aid.
How might debate about the crisis be different if everyone knew the Hamas attack of October 7 was not an act of personal volition on their part? Sure, Israel saw it coming, in possession of the plan a year ahead of time. And yes, reports were submitted from troops in the field about clear signs of an attack upcoming – but what if the same ghost that disabled Israel’s command-and-control structure likewise displaced the authority of those engaged in the attack – gave them no choice in the matter? When personal volition is displaced, those afflicted have no good way of knowing it – not without revising their personal theory of reality, developing a new concept of identity, identifying new forms of authority. The bite is so big, we let the matter rest, live with the contradictions instead. October 7 was a terrorist attack. Israel is currently defending itself.
The horrifying prospect is that modernity has kept its promise, has taken over the project of authority by pitting us against one another when the timing requires it. As the BRICS nations expand into the Middle East by announcing new members in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE, all of whom support the Palestinian cause to varying degrees, their de facto rival – the Five Eyes nations, all based on White settler colonialism like Israel – parks two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, prepares to veto every UN resolution in sight. This is the true condition of power, whether we point to urban decimation in Gaza or a city council chamber denouncing notional nonbinding peace resolutions. At a certain point, I lose my willingness to debate the matter any longer – just give us a number, I want to yell, to the ghost haunting us all. Tell us –
How many more casualties must we order before your wish for vengeance has been sufficiently visited upon the world?
Afterward: The International Court of Justice, on Friday, admonished Israel to avoid genocide if possible, did not call for a ceasefire. Thank you, South Africa – a BRICS nation – for bringing the case before the court. Call it a beginning.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Israel intends to fully demolish all buildings in a 1,000-meter “buffer zone” along Gaza’s border with Israel, citing Israeli officials.
The move, which is a war crime under international law, would significantly reduce the size of the Gaza Strip.
The plan came to light after 24 Israeli soldiers were killed Monday as they were laying explosives in a building in the area to be demolished. As the soldiers were laying the explosives, they were attacked by Hamas fighters, leading the explosives to go off during the firefight.
The Times reported that “Israel wants to demolish many of the Palestinian buildings close to the border in order to create what they describe as a ‘security zone,’ according to the three officials.”
The Times also reported that “Two of the officials said that Israel’s goal was to create a buffer of up to roughly six-tenths of a mile along the entire length of Israel’s roughly 36-mile border with Gaza. At its narrowest point, the territory is less than four miles wide.”
In a news conference, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that Israel was seeking to “create the security conditions for the return of the residents of the south to their homes.”
The vast majority of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 25,000 Gazans and left over 7,000 missing.
Asked to comment on the plan, United Nations special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing Balakrishnan Rajagopal told the Times that “There is simply no provision in the Geneva Conventions for what Israel is doing along the border, which is kind of a preemptive clearing of property.”
He continued, “Israel, as the occupying power, has an obligation not to engage in what’s called wanton destruction of property.”
Israeli politicians have previously hinted at a plan for such a buffer zone, with former Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen declaring, “The territory of Gaza will also decrease,” and former agriculture minister Avi Dichter speaking of a “margin” along the border. “No matter who you are, you will never be able to come close to the Israeli border,” he said.
The revelation of Israel’s plan to reduce the territory of the Gaza Strip came amid warnings by the United Nations that half a million residents of the Gaza Strip face “catastrophic hunger.” Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications, said, “These are not conditions for human beings.”
The UN noted that “25,000 civilians have been killed, of whom 70 percent were women and children.” It also noted that “1.7 million are displaced,” and “health facilities are decimated.”
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said that 195 Palestinians had been killed between January 22 and 23, and that 354 had been injured.
As US President Joe Biden was giving a speech in Manassas, Virginia on Tuesday, he was interrupted by demonstrators who called him “Genocide Joe.” One of the demonstrators shouted, “Stop funding genocide. Ceasefire now.”
In a statement published Tuesday, the Euro-Med Monitor accused Israel of continuously attacking and killing residents of Gaza as they await aid trucks. “While famine spreads in the north of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army continues to kill Palestinians who are waiting to receive aid south of Gaza City,” the Monitor said, “confirming Israel’s intention to carry out genocide against the Strip’s civilian population since October 7, 2023.”
The Euro-Med Monitor further stated:

The human rights group documented the Israeli army’s use of artillery shells against hundreds of starving civilians who gathered on Salah al-Din Road near the Kuwait roundabout, southeast of Gaza City, to wait for UN trucks carrying limited aid supplies, killing and injuring a number of them. The Israeli army used artillery shells, live ammunition, and quadcopter drones to attack hundreds of starving civilians who had gathered in the hopes of receiving the meager aid, as reported by Euro-Med Monitor field teams.

It added:

Israel has not only used starvation as a tool of war against Palestinians in the northern Gaza Valley for more than three consecutive months now, but has targeted Gazans trying to secure some of the limited aid supplies that began arriving about 10 days ago—killing and injuring many of them as part of its genocidal war against civilians in the Strip.

On Monday, the United Nations reported that “Israeli forces reportedly raided Al Kheir Hospital in western Khan Younis, ordering women and children to evacuate towards Rafah, southern Gaza, and reportedly arresting medical staff. The World Health Organization expressed its concern that the facility was facing military incursions and that several health workers had been detained. Communication with the hospital is no longer possible.”
The UN also noted that “due to evacuation orders in neighborhoods surrounding Nasser Hospital and continuous hostilities in the vicinity of the hospital, the Ministry of Health reports that large numbers of wounded people are situated on the hospital grounds.”
As Israel’s genocide continues, the United States escalates its direct military involvement in a spiraling war throughout the Middle East. On Monday, the US and UK carried out airstrikes against eight sites in Yemen, allegedly targeting radar, drones and missile sites.
The same day, the US Defense Department released the names of two Navy SEALs who were killed during a commando raid in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Somalia.
On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the United States carried out airstrikes against “Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq.” Austin said, “The President and I will not hesitate to take necessary action to defend them and our interests,” adding, “We are fully prepared to take further measures to protect our people and our facilities.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/01/24/ynxf-j24.html

NOTE: This is a "wouldn't it be cool?" post. I am incapable of making this and am in no way implying TIS should do this.
A simple alternative to the minimal-disturbance "suburbs with zombies" model that PZ is currently using struck me recently while I was rewatching my fav zombie movie, Return of the Living Dead, which takes place in Louisville. At the end of that movie, spoilers, the military does a tactical nuclear artillery strike and incinerates the protagonists.
soo like, the initial thought was woaaah, what if Louisville was nuked in PZ, and like there was a huge crater in the downtown with a shattered periphery of collapsed buildings and you could get radiation sickness if you went there too early or without NBC gear. And I will admit, that's still awesome in my head.
But the idea fermented, and I thought about how in PZ, the military's presence is basically only conveyed through radios. Knox County should be looking a hell of a lot worse than Iraq after the Gulf war, that's for sure. We know there were tanks in Louisville, for instance, yet there's not even damage to the roads, or signs of machine gun fire, or anything! There could be so much more evidence of the battles that came before our arrival!
That's not even mentioning artillery. Now don't get me wrong, they wouldn't start shelling Muldraugh or the other smaller towns until things felt actually out of control, but artillery would've been critical once hordes started agglomerating in Muldraugh, West Point, Riverside, etc. So why not display some shelling? In fact, I daresay, all of Knox County should probably look like a deserted warzone. Blown out houses, craters in the street (like worse potholes. Wait, they haven't added potholes? inaccurate KY sim ngl), not a pristine window in sight, etc! Firefights and abandoned MILITARY checkpoints galore!
This vision diverges significantly from even the "many years later" scenario, where if it weren't for the zombies it'd just look like everyone vanished. This model would have a durable man-made impact on the playspace of Knox County. And it'd rock!
Thanks for reading.
tl;dr knox county should look like bumpkin fallujah, and maybe Louisville should be somewhat more radioactive than irl

Since the beginning of the Israeli Gaza conflict retaliation against US forces in the region have been increasing. It's no secret that Israel has wanted the US to attack Iran for decades. In fact, Israel celebrated when we attacked Iraq. America has directly threatened the Houthis in Yemen with military strikes, but this isn't the worst. Just the other day the US assassinated in Iraqi militia leader. This prompted the Iraqi Prime Minister to call it terrorism. The Iraqi government is now asking America to withdraw its troops again. We would be very wise to do so.

All politics are local, and in Iraq they are often armed. Unlike the dictatorships, dynasties, and monarchies surrounding it, Iraq remains a parliamentary democracy, generally responsive to public sentiment but also coercion from armed militias outside of government control. Iraq’s recent history shows the best and worst of democracy, free speech, and the right to assemble. In October 2019, widespread street protests over corruption, unemployment, inadequate services, and poor living conditions brought down the government of Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi. The Tishreen (“October”) protesters demanded the resignation of Abdul-Mahdi, commitments to reform, and early elections. While authorities responded with a relatively heavy hand, the government fell within two months. Abdul-Mahdi’s replacement, Mustafa al Kadhimi, enjoyed a full term in office but the process of replacing him with the current prime minister, Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani came after Iraq went through the longest period without a formal government in its modern history. Among other factors, his appointment was fiercely opposed by the powerful rabble-rousing Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr when Sadr was unable to form a government. Sadr’s party resigned en masse from Parliament but not before his followers stormed the Council of Representatives in July 2022 twice, and occupied the Presidential Palace the following month. The departure of the Sadrists from the palace led to a deadly firefight in the Green Zone which soon spread to Iraq’s southern provinces.

It's not a stretch to think that our troops could be in middle of yet another Iraqi civil war. Meanwhile, Israel continues to pour gasoline on the fire. Supposedly the Biden administration is trying to limit the risk to our troops and to the region. But he fails to take any meaningful step in order to do so.

America and Israel’s interests were never fully aligned on Gaza. But as Israel’s bombardment of the narrow strip has continued for almost 100 days, the Netanyahu government is shifting in a direction that directly threatens the stated goals of the Biden administration: Israel wants to expand the war into Lebanon and appears to welcome open warfare against so-called Axis of Resistance—Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the revolutionary government in Iran. The assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut yesterday makes that clear. So far, President Joe Biden has refused the one step that can prevent both this escalation and the US from getting dragged into yet another war in the Middle East: a cease-fire in Gaza... But as the war has progressed and more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed—almost half of them children—with weapons that Biden provided, the image of an American president that wants a cease-fire but is stumbling to find the leverage to force an end to fighting has fallen apart. Biden has shipped more than 10,000 tons of weapons and ammunition to Israel, twice sidestepped Congressional oversight to expedite the arms transfers, twice vetoed resolutions at the UN Security Council calling for a cease-fire, and even studied how to permanently transfer 2.3 million Palestinians from Gaza to the desert in the Sinai. While Biden has condemned Israeli cabinet ministers when they openly speak of their plans of ethnic cleansing, Biden, it has become increasingly clear, never wanted a cease-fire, because he has bought into the feasibility and legitimacy of Israel’s maximalist war objective: the complete military destruction of Hamas, come what may. Biden wants Israel to do to Hamas what the US couldn’t do to the Taliban.

Exactly how long will it take before American bombs cause the creation of another 9/11? Our interests in Israel's interests have never been directly aligned, but now they are almost contradictory.

There is an implication that by “fighting terrorism” we protect Israel, which is somehow crucial to our national security. In reality, our alliance with Israel harms U.S. national security, as demonstrated by the fact that we have been attacked alongside Israel. The War Party has gone from the spurious line of reasoning, “We have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here,” to not really fighting them “over there” but just leaving our troops as sort of reverse hostages to draw fire so that we have a pretense to get drawn into any regional conflict. The continuing U.S. presence across the Middle East is nothing but a depraved exercise in putting American personnel in harm’s way for its own sake.

Hi, I wanted to start by saying I've been reading as much as I can on this community (as well as other places) and the information here is amazing. Unfortunately, it's also a bit of a "there is WAY too much information here" scenario, and so I felt like I need to ask for help for my own particular circumstances. This will be a long post, but I appreciate any input anyone can provide.
First things first, I was in the Army from 2002 - 2008 and did 3 tours in Iraq with 5th Group as support (comms). While I was in, I had massive issues with my hip and ended up with a medical record about an inch thick, almost entirely dedicated to that singular issue. Before ETS'ing, I filed a VA claim and at the time was super annoyed and disappointed by the process. They sent me to a civilian doctor who basically checked everything, and in the end I got a 0% rating for both "allergic rhinitis (as sinitus)" and a thoracic spine back condition. Yet, nothing for the hip issue which 100% occurred while I was in, and had a mountain of supporting evidence (I think part of it is also that I'm pretty flexible, and so any type of "range of movement" test I'll come away as looking great). I filed the paperwork away and forgot about it for the next 15 years.
Around 4 months ago (September), I got some kind of notice from the VA about the PACT Act and burn pits. In 2014 I started suffering from cluster headaches (if you're curious, look it up, but they're one of the most painful experiences a person can have; they're informally called "suicide headaches"). I looked it up to see if maybe they were related and the conclusion seemed to be no. So I once again just wrote off the VA. Side note here: I looked it up earlier this week in regards to filing a new claim, and because mine are episodic (they occur for about a month, once a year), it seems like I'm still SOL on getting this covered.
Last week I was reading something and it sent me down the rabbit hole of "maybe I should look into a VA claim again" and I ended up here. My first thought was to find a VSO (one of the state ones) to help guide me through the process. Several calls and no one answering the phone, I did more digging and it seems like the consensus is that 90% of VSO's aren't worth the time, but if you get one of the good ones they're amazing. I'm guessing mine will end up being the "swamped" kind. The other part I should point out is that I really hate going to doctors, and I've been once since I got out of the military (a physical around when I turned 30).
So with that said, I'm attempting to get rated higher for my two 0% conditions which I now realize is amazing that they gave me. I also want to put in new claims for PTSD (explained below), three secondary conditions related to my 0% conditions, and have them reevaluate my hip. I saw an older Reddit post here from someone who was 35 and said (paraphrasing) "someone my age isn't supposed to have this much wrong with them." I'm about to turn 40 and feel like that comment nailed it.
​

• Condition 1 is my back, which pretty much always hurts. It's a situation where I sometimes don't even notice it anymore because I'm basically always in pain, so it becomes the new normal.
  • In addition though, I get frequent tension headaches (once a week?) because I think it's creating so much stress in my back that it causes extreme tightness in my neck/shoulders. I can't sit or stand for extended periods of time without having to move and try to stretch it out.
  • The second one is that since around a few months after I got out, I noticed my hands would go numb a lot. Mostly my ring/pinky fingers, which is ulnar nerve related. Which just so happens to be connected to the thoracic spine where I'm already rated at 0%. It probably happens 3-4 times a night, and maybe 2-3 times each day. Occasionally my whole hand will go numb (which would obviously not just be ulnar).
• Condition 2 is rhinitis/sinusitis. I just always assumed I had bad allergies, but they basically don't let up at any point during the year. The biggest thing though is that for around the last 2 years, I've had a chronic cough that won't go away. I did finally call a doctor's office because I'm getting pretty tired of it. But apparently doctors are still backlogged from covid or something, so I can't even get seen until April (start adding in if they order tests, and then follow on appointments, and this could take a very long time -- part of the reason I hate dealing with doctors). I'm guessing that the burn pits play a role here as I frequently went to them (my one memory is that we'd throw 5590 batteries and it was fun watching them explode).
• Condition 3 is my hip, which I saw from this subreddit, that I actually need to appeal and not file a new claim.
• And finally the PTSD. My first deployment was a rough one. It was around the time Fallujah happened and the Mahdi militia, and everything was kind of a mess. I wasn't involved in any firefights, and I wasn't doing regular convoys or anything. But it's the one deployment that shook me. I remember getting home and having anxiety driving anytime I saw trash on the side of the road, or any time I had to drive under an overpass. I had the typical "loud noises" reaction. But the driving thing went away, by the time my second deployment happened, and the loud noises diminished (they still bother me, but they bother everyone, right?). I spent the last 15 years basically saying, "yeah, I had bad PTSD after my first deployment but it went away." I don't get the nightmares and I'm not suicidal, so I'm fine, right? It wasn't until the last two days where I started reading more about PTSD symptoms where it hit me like a truck. Ever since I got out, I've had extreme anxiety about being in public places. I don't really have any friends because I don't socialize. I just figured I'm an introvert. I'm hypervigilant in public, always making sure I have an escape avenue and always scanning. I figured it was just my "training" (never mind that over these two days I've had to confront the fact that I did not, in fact, receive training that'd have me react this way) taking over and it was actually a good attribute to have. I get occasional angry outbursts whenever I feel like things aren't in my control (for instance, my wife tells me that someone is coming over that I wasn't prepared for; side note, if I have notice of things ahead of time, I can mentally prepare and generally do "okay"). I'll fly off the handle over nothing, but once I get it out, it's over and I move on. Anyway, that's all to say, the military does a piss poor job of explaining what PTSD actually looks like outside of the extreme cases. Recognizing it has been an epiphany to me that my quirks aren't normal and I probably need some therapy or something. It's also led me to a bit of a depressed feeling that my brain is wonky and I've wasted the last 15 years not doing anything about it.

Question 1: Without any doctors records to support any of this (since I haven't been to a doctor, no records exist), am I wasting my time just submitting personal statements? In my first experience, the VA just sent me to a doctor to look at everything wrong with me and that was enough. Would that be how this works again?
Question 2: Does the VA have copies of my military health records from my first claim, or do I need to work on getting copies to provide them?
Question 3: Would it be worthwhile to go ahead and file these claims with just personal statements, and then work on getting doctor's appointments to get some kind of medical support for the claims to appeal later? Ironically, the one doctor (besides the physical) I went to was a neurologist in 2019 for the cluster headaches, so I actually do have that, but since I'm certain I'll never get rated for them, kind of worthless.
Question 4: For the appeal on my hip, which was originally rejected, it seems like I do it in the system the same as my 0% rated disabilities? I haven't worked through all the windows yet, but that's what I'm seeing. It's kind of hard to tell what each condition is within the system, but maybe as I get towards the end of filing it makes more sense?
If there is any other advice you can give me that I didn't specifically ask a question about, but you notice might be helpful, please comment. And if you have any questions to help clarify your response, I'll answer as fast as I can. I appreciate any help you can provide because this whole thing is daunting and my first experience left such a bad taste in my mouth (although, getting two 0% ratings may have been a blessing in retrospect).

So first off, I'm a disabled vet(blown up in Iraq in 2007 spine is messed up) so I use the stationary boundary so I can sit down and play.
The issue with this is that the belt pouches for mags, holster for sidearm, and grenade pouch is not conducive to sit down play. It's near impossible to just "look down" and grab a mag or your sidearm. I have to constantly adjust the headset to be able to "look down" far enough to even SEE the belt. Then comes the next issue. I have to sorta flick my whole head to get the belt to rotate enough for me to actually grab my sidearm or the other way to grab a grenade. Reaching for a spare mag is a nightmare. I don't even have a big belly but yet I have to "push" my belly in an inch or so just to see the little grab icon dot pop up on a mag to even grab it. This is especially frustrating in a firefight. I wish I had a tall stool with a good back support to sit on.
Second.
Is the game supposed to be so empty? And not of enemies, I mean of things in general like trees, bushes, stuff like that? I always such large expanses of drab empty open space. Not sure if that's a quest 2 thing or not. And does it improve if I cable link to my PC (ryzen 5900x PBO, rx 6700xt, 32gb 3400mhz, nvme ultra SSD should run it ok?)
So far I've been enjoying collecting weapons to feed my hoarding addiction. It's fun.

Hit me up if you're over 18 please, semi-literate and detailed (1 paragraph minimum). 1st or 3rd is fine with me
1. Married detective couple that tracks down a serial killer.

1. forbidden romance between a knight and princess.
   
2. a succubus/incubus and a lonely nerd who sells their soul for the slightest bit of companionship.
   
3. 18 wheeler driver and their spouse.
   
4. country music star x Spouse
   
5. Two community college actors that had a friendly rivalry
   
6. pro wrestler and spouse (another wrestler or fan)
   
7. Wild West Outlaw and frontier woman.
   
8. Ranch/Farm hand x FarmeRancher's daughter.
   
9. Vampire Lord x Member of staff
   
10. a couple trying to survive the zombie apocalypse
    
11. Single dad x single doctor
    
12. mercenaries hired by the UN sitting in iraq
    
13. Army Veteran taking down the mob in his home town x daughter of the mob don.
    
14. Hexblade x princess
    
15. Biker x Girlfriend
    
16. Rival spies forced to work together
    
17. new neighbors.
    
18. Paranormal researchers
    
19. Younger sisters Best friend (still +18)
    
20. sister's bf/brothers gf
    
21. CEO/SECRETARY
    
22. coworkers who are FWB
    
23. Therapist x drunk divorced dad
    
24. Mob Boss x Mayor's daughter
    

26.YouTube Stars
27.Princess and prince planned wedding

1. Jock and cheerleader that are dating

29.Our school go on a trip to spain and we sit next to each other
30.New girl and jock

1. Famous bf and non famous gf

32.Famous gf and non famous bf

1. New teacher and other teacher
   
2. Firefighter and Teacher
   
3. Famous Model and NFL player that are dating
   

36.Quarterback and secret girlfriend from rival team

1. 2 serial killers in a relationship.
   
2. Nuclear fallout/nuclear winter slow burn relationship
   

Hit me up if you're over 18 please, semi-literate and detailed (1 paragraph minimum). 1st or 3rd is fine with me
1. Married detective couple that tracks down a serial killer.

1. forbidden romance between a knight and princess.
   
2. a succubus/incubus and a lonely nerd who sells their soul for the slightest bit of companionship.
   
3. 18 wheeler driver and their spouse.
   
4. country music star x Spouse
   
5. Two community college actors that had a friendly rivalry
   
6. pro wrestler and spouse (another wrestler or fan)
   
7. Wild West Outlaw and frontier woman.
   
8. Ranch/Farm hand x FarmeRancher's daughter.
   
9. Vampire Lord x Member of staff
   
10. a couple trying to survive the zombie apocalypse
    
11. Single dad x single doctor
    
12. mercenaries hired by the UN sitting in iraq
    
13. Army Veteran taking down the mob in his home town x daughter of the mob don.
    
14. Hexblade x princess
    
15. Biker x Girlfriend
    
16. Rival spies forced to work together
    
17. new neighbors.
    
18. Paranormal researchers
    
19. Younger sisters Best friend (still +18)
    
20. sister's bf/brothers gf
    
21. CEO/SECRETARY
    
22. coworkers who are FWB
    
23. Therapist x drunk divorced dad
    
24. Mob Boss x Mayor's daughter
    

26.YouTube Stars
27.Princess and prince planned wedding

1. Jock and cheerleader that are dating

29.Our school go on a trip to spain and we sit next to each other
30.New girl and jock

1. Famous bf and non famous gf

32.Famous gf and non famous bf

1. New teacher and other teacher
   
2. Firefighter and Teacher
   
3. Famous Model and NFL player that are dating
   

36.Quarterback and secret girlfriend from rival team

1. 2 serial killers in a relationship.
   
2. Nuclear fallout/nuclear winter slow burn relationship
   

For anyone unfamiliar with the subreddit whowouldwin, it entails a user proposing who would win in a hypothetical fight or any other contrived scenario, while the commentators are meant to argue and decide on who would be victorious.
While most of the posts are pretty fun to ponder upon, other submissions that may or may not involve actual military history are...not as fun.
https://np.reddit.com/whowouldwin/comments/56edcc/100_revolutionary_war_soldiers_with_muskets_vs/

The Americans are veterans of the Revolutionary War and served at Yorktown under George Washington. The English are veterans of the Battle of Agincourt under Henry V. Both are dressed in their standard uniform / armor and have their normal weapons and equipment. All have plentiful ammunition.The battle takes place on an open field, 500 meters by 500 meters. The armies start on opposite sides.

Before I get into some of the very insightful comments, it is probably fair for me to answer the question posed by the OP.
Given the condition that both sides have their normal weapons/equipment, it can be assumed for the Americans that their firearms and powder are in decent condition. Also, since they have plentiful ammunition, it is fair to infer that the OP intends for both sides to be in fresh condition.
And assuming that these soldiers are reflective of their time periods, the longbowmen would have been taller and stronger than the line infantry. While such an advantage would assist the former in a more physical fight, it does make them bigger targets.
However, there are still some unanswered questions. One, are both sides completely bloodlusted and willing to expend their ammunition as quickly as possible? If so, then the longbowmen could theoretically win due to their superior rate of fire that would overwhelm the Americans through sheer volume.
On the other hand, the first volley of musketry is generally the strongest because of the lack of smoke and fatigue, so casualties even from a distance of 100-150 yards or so would still be high. Moreover, one has to account for the morale effect if we were to assume that the longbowmen do not know what they are fighting against.
So if both sides behave normally and fire at expected ranges, then I would say that the line infantry win 6/10 of the time. But if both sides are bloodlusted, then I would argue that the longbowmen win maybe 7/10 of the time.* These are most definitely not arbitrary numbers.
While I do not consider this answer to be the most well-thought and comprehensive, especially considering the fact that standardized weapons did not really exist until recently, thereby rendering these types of comparisons somewhat futile, it is decently fair to say that it is more than justified than some of the stuff people had said in the comment section.
*EDIT: As u/notsuspendedlxqt has said, buck and ball would cancel out the advantage that the longbowmen have with respect to rate of fire. So assuming that the line infantry has this type of ammunition, I would say that they would win about 5-6/10 of the time.
Part 0: The Situation
For the sake of transparency, it is worth noting why exactly I am making this post.
In the comment section, a user committed the daring act of actually trying to argue that the musket was a better weapon than the longbow. Such an attitude was unacceptable to Big Longbow.

- I love how you keep making up "facts" and getting corrected. (+4)
- Man it's amazing when someone is not only flat out wrong, but so convinced that they're right that they use a lack of evidence as support for how "obvious" it is. You don't know shit about military history, son, so sit down. (+6)
- Thems some hard core examples, man. Awesome sources, great citing, and very good evidence to support your claim. You'd make a wonderful public defender, if I were a prosecutor. (+4)

And funnily enough, one of the repliers in the comment chain would end up citing a very familiar quotation to argue in favor of bows, followed up by a very normal and non-weird reply.

- Well, for the "bows better than early guns" I found a pretty nice quote by Russell Weigley (From The Age of Battles: The Quest for Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo). Not necessarily super invested in this debate but it's worth sharing (+55)
- Bravo, excellently cited! And a damning piece of supportive evidence to boot! I'm so proud of you, son. (+24)

Now that we have dealt with the background behind all of this intense drama, we can now address the specific points that are unfortunately bad history.
Part 1: The Logistics/Training Argument(s)

The advantage of the musket was that any farmer could pick it up and be lethal. A longbowman had to be well trained to accurately fire (200 lbs of strength for string?) if they hold their composure over the smoke, id say longbowmen 8/10

Interpreting the argument literally, it is not true that a farmer could just pick up a matchlock or flintlock musket and be immediately proficient, given that such weapons are ultimately more complicated to use than modern-day firearms.
Now obviously, the implicit argument is that the musket only replaced the longbow because it was far easier to use and learn. But of course, such a belief would also be mistaken for a couple of reasons.
1.) Longbows were replaced by matchlock muskets, which are far more technical and dangerous than even flintlock muskets, much less the guns that we see today. For a contemporary account of the risks associated with these early firearms, one can read how Robert Barret discusses the inevitable results of giving them to inexperienced amateurs.
2.) The replacement of longbows came at a time in which soldiers were largely well-trained professionals/mercenaries, not barely untrained conscripts.
3.) Out of all the contemporary sources recorded during the debate over musketry and archery in 16th/17th century England, only one pro-musket source (Humphrey Barwick) actually makes note of the faster pace in learning, and even then, the Englishman does not explicitly list this observation as a reason for why longbows should be phased out.
4.) If training were the sole reason for muskets replacing longbows, then why did crossbows fail to replace longbows?

The reason guns replaced bows is because you can give any schmuck a gun and he can kill people, whereas archery requires specialized training. Bayonets didn't factor into it.

While the commentator is correct that bayonets did not really play a role in replacing bows with muskets, mainly because bayonets were introduced far long after the effective demise of European archery (although they did play a role in replacing pikes), the reason they gave is also inaccurate as explained in the previous section.

The reason that archers were phased out was because the longbow had the strategic disadvantage of being very difficult to use effectively. Even before the widespread adoption of the arquebus, the crossbow was a much more popular weapon on the continent, not necessarily because it was much more effective than the longbow, but because it was easier to train. Once you get muskets, it's the same way: 10 longbowmen might be more effective than 10 musketeers, but each longbowman takes somewhere around 2 years to be effective, compared to the 6 weeks or so it would take to drill a musketeer to fire effectively
In addition, a functional musket is very easy to make with cheap parts: some iron cast into shape, any cheap hardwood for the stock, charcoal, sulfur and saltpeter (all very common chemicals) for the powder and lead or stone pellets for the ball. Compare that to a longbow, which requires good quality yew for the bow and well-made arrows, which are very labor intensive.

Given that the commentator is able to observe that the crossbow was easier to use, it is strange for them to not ask why then was the crossbow only more popular than bows on the Continent and not on the British Isles?
As for the economic argument, it is true that 16th-century powdelead was generally cheaper than an arrow. However, because a contemporary matchlock musket was so much more expensive than a longbow, replacing the latter with the former would still not have provided any substantial logistical benefits.
Part 2: George W. Bush was looking for longbows in Iraq

"It has been suggested that a flight arrow of a professional archer of Edward III's time would reach 400 yd (370 m)" a full on long bow of that time is extremely powerful and in addition to longer range archers could in some instances fire up to ten shots a minute. So in a rifle v long bow engagement, archers have the advantage in both range and speed

While 400 yards is close to the maximum range of an arrow from a longbow, it is more likely that engagement ranges would have occurred from 50 to 100 meters.
*EDIT: Moreover, as u/Hergrim pointed out, these numbers would have only been achieved with target arrows and not military-grade ones.
Even the Graz tests, which are somewhat dated and largely portray the muskets as being extremely inaccurate, still found that their muzzle velocities (and their velocities at further distances) exceeded anything that bows could ever hope to achieve.

However, at this point bows seem to still be the better weapon in almost every way. Without armor bullets and arrows are pretty much equally effective at killing. So I'd say the Englishmen take this.

Musket balls still had a much higher velocity at pretty much every effective range. This advantage is on top of the fact that since they deformed upon impact, the wounds they caused were much more difficult to heal all other things being equal.
The higher lethality of musketry explains why even soldiers that did not really use much body armor in the first place still generally switched from bows to arquebuses/muskets, with one famous example being the Iroquois Confederacy using early firearms to dominate the Great Lakes region.

Ah no, the range for longbows would be way more than 200 metres, you can easy shoot 200 metres with a modern crappy bow that kids would use for archery practice. Granted the archers wouldn't be super accurate but since they'd be shooting en masse that wouldn't matter

Firing at a formation is certainly easier than firing at an individual target, but there would still be an issue with the longbow (and bows in general) even in this context.
To explain, in order to have the arrow reach that far, it would be necessary to aim the bow relatively high and not parallel with the ground. But because there is now an arc to the trajectory of the arrow, it would mean that the projectile would hit the enemy at a non-perpendicular angle, which makes the arrow ultimately less efficient at penetrating surfaces than had it been launched straight into the enemy. Once one takes into account air resistance, the penetrative ability of the longbow becomes even less impressive.

Ever heard of Agincourt? English longbowmen dumped arrows on French knights then demolished them in melee.

While the longbowmen were certainly effective at Agincourt through their suppression of the French attack and not their supposed ability to penetrate plate armor, it is a bit strange to not mention the dismounted knights and men-at-arms that supported the archers, along with the fact that the terrain at Agincourt (muddy field surrounded by woods) was not at all ideal for a cavalry charge.
When these advantages were lost, English armies often suffered defeats, with a few examples being the battles of Bannockburn, Formigny, and Patay. At other engagements like Verneuil and Valmont, heavy cavalry was able to break through English lines easily in spite of the longbowmen.
Part 3: The Myth of the American Guerilla

My understanding from gradeschool history is that what made the British effective in the period up to the American revolution was that they'd line up and all fire, with other musketeers behind them ready to go while they reloaded. This was good on an open field, but bad against guerilla warfare. So I'm wondering how each side engages the other. I don't think it's a weaponry issue, but rather a tactics issue.

Firing by rank (along with firing by section) was pretty common throughout early modern armies around the world and not specific to merely one country.
It is also inaccurate to imply that British soldiers knew no other way of fighting. Indeed, in the aftermath of the disastrous Braddock Expedition that took place during the Seven Years' War, military leaders responded by training their infantry in more open-order formations that were better suited for the American terrain, which was epitomized by the British Light Infantry but also displayed in regular units as well.
As for the other side, while American hit-and-run attacks did play a role in disrupting enemy logistics, especially in the Southern theater of the conflict, the decisive victories were secured by the Continental Army that fought and was trained conventionally. So from a tactical perspective, American regulars generally used formations that were very similar to their British counterparts.
Now in the strategic sense, the Continental Army did certainly avoid pitched battles besides ones that would be under highly favorable circumstances, which makes sense given that the approach arose in the aftermath of the horrendous defeat at Long Island. Such an attritional style of warfare caused figures such as John Adams to lambast the plan as a disastrous Fabian strategy. However, this aspect of warfare is not inherently related to the matter of guerrilla tactics.

American continental soldiers weren't using muskets for the most part. They were all about the Kentucky rifle. Of course there were plenty of muskets, mostly captured but the Americans had been using rifles for quite some time, their dual nature as a hunting weapon and martial weapon was useful and they were more effective at wilderness combat on the frontiers against Native Americans. An experienced shot could hit a target at over 200 yards. The rate of fire will definitely be slower than a bow but the range and accuracy are better. Longbow tactics weren't that different from musket tactics. They would primarily use massed volleys. It was hoped that by concentrating fire you could overcome the individual inaccuracy by putting enough projectiles in the air. Rifles on the other hand can be fired independently and the riflemen can pick out their own targets. Revolutionary soldiers also preferred ambush tactics in all but the largest of engagements, 100 combatants on each side would probably not warrant a stand up fight in the American's eyes.

Most soldiers were still armed with muskets, although the average American soldier was indeed more likely to be armed with a rifle than the average British soldier (unless you count Hessian jaegers and Loyalist militiamen).
Part 4: Look how they massacred my boy (the musket)

I'd give it to the English Longbowmen. Revolutionary War era muskets were not accurate at all and would not be able to accurately hit the longbowmen over 500 meters. The max range on a musket would be around 250-300 meters. Even if the muskets were equipped with bayonets its unlikely that the 100 musketeers would be able to rush across 500 meters before most if not all were shot by the longbowmen.

Luckily for the line infantry, the longbowmen would also not be able to hit anything over 500 meters.
And as for the max range of a musket, a number of primary sources collected by Michael Barbieri indicate that 250-300 meters would actually be around the point blank range for a musket ball. In other words, if one were to aim the musket parallel to the ground, then the ball would eventually hit the ground at approximately that distance.
As for the actual maximum range, a study in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology found that a Brown Bess replica musket would have been able to reach 1200 meters. For an earlier type of firearm, the English soldier Barnabe Rich believed that the maximum range of a matchlock musket would have been about 600 yards.

You're seriously overestimating the range of the muskets the Americans have. For example, the British Army's standard firearm during the Revolutionary War, the Land Pattern Musket, only had an effective range of 45-90 meters.

If "effective range" is defined here as the range at which a musket can accurately hit an individual target, then this number would not be too far off.
But if "effective range" is defined as the range at which a musket can accurate hit formations, then it would be inaccurate given that engagements generally occurred from 100 to 200 meters, with ranges being higher for skirmishes and ranges being lower leading up to a bayonet charge.

Muskets are some of the least effective guns historically. They could take minutes to reload after a volley, the guns themselves were largely inaccurate and, under the best conditions, they were mid-range weapons. Their inefficiencies were so prevalent, the armies using them had to invent new formations and tactics just to make them worth anything in a battle - see: line infantry and the guerrilla tactics of the American Revolution.I mean, there was a reason swords and bayonets were still a viable option when muskets were in use.

A well-trained musketeer of the 18th century could fire 3-4 shots a minute, although this number could drop to 2 once battle conditions started settling in. "Largely inaccurate" and "mid-range" are vague terms, so I cannot really respond to them.
Additionally, the suggestion that close-order linear warfare was a new invention of the gunpowder age is...not correct, to say the least. Such a revelation would have been news to pretty much every general and warrior from antiquity to the early modern period.

Right, but the military drill at the time will decrease that accuracy--men are encouraged NOT to aim, but simply to put lead down range as fast as possible.

There was certainly a debate among contemporary military circles over whether to prioritize accuracy or rate of fire when drilling infantry, but it would be absurd to suggest that the universal suggestion was to completely ignore accuracy at all.
Part 5: Miscellaneous, Pedantic Points

There are no battles where one side only had muskets and the other side only had longbows since longbows (considering they were phased out by 16th and only england had them?) were phased out completely by the time 17-18th century muskets came in. They have never fought each other.

While longbows were being phased out as muskets were being phased in, there were battles between the two weapons. In fact, the very last recorded engagement between longbows and muskets apparently resulted in a victory for the side with the longbows! Such an outcome is akin to how the very last cavalry charges in history were actually successful for the horsemen.

Chinese war history isn't a very good point, because they continued to favor bows for centuries after they invented early firearms.

...They did not???
While it is true that Manchu horse archers chose to kept their bows instead of replacing them with muzzleloading firearms, which makes sense given the difficulty of using such weapons on horseback, the reality is that Qing infantry generally used firearms or spears.
And even before the Qing dynasty, military leaders such as Qi Jiguang (who is well-known for having led Ming efforts against Japanese pirates) would adopt firearms and incorporate them into their drilling, with these figures even seeing them as superior to their own native bows.

- Then you wouldn't mind listing off those multiple battles where a major conflict was decided solely because one side had bows and the other had guns, would you?
- Let me explain to you how an argument works. You made an assertion - that in multiple battles throughout history, guns have shown themselves to be superior to bows. I have asked you to give me evidence to back that up. It is your responsibility to prove that by giving me examples. That's how a debate works.

Given that the martyr was tragically unable to give any specific examples, I can help them out.
- Ottoman victories against the Hungarians at Mohács and the Safavids at Chaldiran (although the Ottomans had also been using composite bows at this time
- Japanese arquebusiers and their successes against Korean archers in the Imjin War
- Korean musketeers holding back Manchu horse archers during the latter's invasion of Joseon, with Manchu leaders later employing these musketeers against both Ming loyalists and Russian Cossacks
- Defeat of the Songhai Empire at Tondibi by the Sultunate of Morocco and its musketeers (although they became less effective over the course of the Moroccan occupation due to malaria/attrition...)
- Blaise de Monluc leading French arquebusiers to victory against English longbowmen in the 1500s
- Baron Marbot and his men defeating TataBaskir horse archers at Leipzig
It should be noted that firearms were obviously not the only reason why these military victories occurred.
Sources
"16th Century Prices of Weapons." Bow vs. Musket, 2015, July 1.
Ágoston, Gábor. Firearms and Military Adaptation: The Ottomans and the European Military Revolution, 1450–1800. Journal of World History. 25: 110, 2014.
Andrade, Tonio. The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History, Princeton University Press, 2016.
Barbieri, Michael. "How far is 'musket-shot'? Farther than you think." All Things Liberty: Journal of the American Revolution. 2013, August 26.
Barret, Robert. The theorike and practike of moderne vvarres discoursed in dialogue vvise. VVherein is declared the neglect of martiall discipline: the inconuenience thereof: the imperfections of manie training captaines: a redresse by due regard had: the fittest weapons for our moderne vvarre: the vse of the same: the parts of a perfect souldier in generall and in particular: the officers in degrees, with their seuerall duties: the imbattailing of men in formes now most in vse: with figures and tables to the same: with sundrie other martiall points. London, 1598.
Barwick, Humphrey. A breefe discourse, concerning the force and effect of all manuall weapons of fire and the disability of the long bowe or archery, in respect of others of greater force now in vse. London, 1594.
"Bows Vs. Muskets in the Imjin War, Part 1." Bow vs. Musket. 2016, February 29.
"Bows Vs. Muskets in the Imjin War, Part 2." Bow vs. Musket. 2016, May 6.
Burns, Alex. "How Accurate were Regular Soldiers in the Mid-Eighteenth Century?" Kabinettskriege: An Eighteenth-Century Digital Humanities Project. 2017, November 30.
Burns, Alex. "How Close Ranged were Mid-Eighteenth-Century Firefights?" Kabinettskriege: An Eighteenth-Century Digital Humanities Project. 2018, January 31.
Burns, Alex. "How Rapidly Could Soldiers Load in the Mid-Eighteenth Century?" Kabinettskriege: An Eighteenth-Century Digital Humanities Project. 2018, May 1.
Hagist, Don N. "The Aim of British Soldiers." All Things Liberty: Journal of the American Revolution. 2013, August 23.
Kaba, L. Archers, Musketeers, and Mosquitoes: The Moroccan Invasion of the Sudan and the Songhay Resistance (1591–1612). The Journal of African History, 22(4), 457-475, 1981.
Kang, H. H. Big Heads and Buddhist Demons: The Korean Musketry Revolution and the Northern Expeditions of 1654 and 1658. Journal of Chinese Military History, 2(2), 127–189, 2014.
Krenn, P., Kalaus P., Hall B. Material Culture and Military History: Test-Firing Early Modern Small Arms. Material History Review, 41, 1995.
Loades, Mike. The Longbow. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013.
Martin, James Kirby, and Mark Edward Lender. A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763–1789. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
Marbot, Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marceli. The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot. Translated by Oliver C. Colt, Project Gutenberg, 2000.
Monluc, Blaise (1500?-1577). Commentaires de messire Blaise de Monluc. London, republished 1674.
"Musketeers Were Not Easier to Train than Archers." Bow vs. Musket. 2017, May 29.
Rich, Barnade. A right exelent and pleasaunt dialogue, betwene Mercury and an English souldier contayning his supplication to Mars: bevvtified with sundry worthy histories, rare inuentions, and politike deuises. London, 1574.
Roberts, N.A., Brown, J.W., Hammett, B., & Kingston, P.D.F. A Detailed Study of the Effectiveness and Capabilities of 18th Century Musketry on the Battlefield. Journal of Conflict Archaeology, 4(1-2), 2013.
Silverman, David J. Thundersticks: Firearms and the Violent Transformation of Native America. Harvard University Press, 2016.
Smythe, John. Certain discourses, vvritten by Sir Iohn Smythe, Knight: concerning the formes and effects of diuers sorts of weapons, and other verie important matters militarie, greatlie mistaken by diuers of our men of warre in these daies; and chiefly, of the mosquet, the caliuer and the long-bow; as also, of the great sufficiencie, excellencie, and wonderful effects of archers: with many notable examples and other particularities, by him presented to the nobilitie of this realme, & published for the benefite of this his natiue countrie of England. London, 1590.
Spring, Matthew H. With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783, University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
Stoker, Donald, Kenneth J. Hagan, and Michael T. McMaster, eds. Strategy in the American War of Independence: a global approach, Routledge, 2009.
Williams, Roger. A briefe discourse of vvarre. VVritten by Sir Roger VVilliams Knight; vvith his opinion concerning some parts of the martiall discipline. London, 1590.
Wright, Jr., Robert K. The Continental Army. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1986.

I would like to introduce you to Kevin Boxberger. He is a candidate for Wake County District Court Judge running for the seat in Judicial District 10D. This district covers most of Cary so you will likely see him on the Democratic party primary ballot in Feb/Mar. Now, on to learning a little about him.
Kevin is originally from Ft Wayne, IN. He joined the military at age 18 where he was a firefighter in United States Air Force. While serving, he earned a bachelors degree in Business Administration and an Associate’s in Fire Science. After serving a tour in Iraq he opted to end his military journey when his commitment up.
He met his wife while stationed in Charleston S.C. She is from NC and wanted to settle down back in Raleigh. She is a NC native and graduate of NC State. With the plan to move to Raleigh, Kevin applied and was hired (one of 34 recruits out of ~900 applicants) by the City of Raleigh Fire department.
After a few years at the fire department, he had an urge to serve the community in a different capacity. He applied and was accepted to NCCU School of Law. He focused his studies on criminal law. Aside from one year clerking for administrate law judges at the federal Social Security Administration, he has practiced criminal defense the remaining 9 years.
Kevin worked in private practice but primarily represented indigent clients. At the time, he had the largest contract with Indigent Defense Services (IDS). He later worked for IDS where he oversaw over 60 attorneys in 7 different counties. In his capacity, he also served as a mentor to attorneys, ensuring indigent citizens were getting quality representation.
He’s currently running against an opponent who has not practiced law in a number of years. Kevin is highly qualified for the job and has a reputation of being a great attorney in the legal community. Unfortunately, the public is not aware of his prestige nor his diverse experience. We are working hard to inform as many voters as possible.
I can’t speak on what he “stands for” or discuss his opinion on any current cases or policies due to ethics rules. I can say that he has committed to running a courtroom fairly and to treating everyone who comes before him with respect and dignity.
If you want to learn more about him, please check out his website at www.boxbergerforjudge.com.