Theodore's World

The New York Police bomb squad investigates an explosion, outside the U.S. Armed Forces Career Center in New York’s Times Square March 6, 2008. A small explosion caused minor damage to a U.S. military recruiting center in New York’s Times Square area in the early hours of Thursday but there were no injuries, police said. The U.S. Homeland Security Department said it was investigating whether there was a terrorism link to the explosion.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Bicyclist sought in Times Square bombing
NEW YORK (CNN) — Authorities are searching for a man on a bicycle as a possible suspect in the Thursday bombing at a military recruiting station in Times Square, investigators said.
The blast, around 3:45 a.m., caused no injuries, officials said.
A witness and an officer at a police substation just steps away from the recruiting office saw a man riding a bicycle, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a news conference.
They did not see the man’s face, but he was wearing a backpack, he said.
The bomb consisted of some kind of “low order explosive” contained in a military-style ammunition box, Kelly said.
“This was not a particularly sophisticated device,” he said.
No one saw the device being placed, and no one has taken responsibility for the attack, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

“Whoever the coward was that committed this disgraceful act on our city will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Bloomberg said.

Authorities were reviewing tapes from security cameras, but the process “will take many hours,” the mayor said.
The recruiting office, one of the nation’s busiest, has been the site of periodic anti-war protests, The Associated Press reported.

“If it is something that’s directed toward American troops, then it’s something that’s taken very seriously and is pretty unfortunate,” Army Capt. Charlie Jaquillard, commander of Army recruiting in Manhattan, told AP.

“The fact that this appears deliberately directed at the recruiting station insults every one of our brave men and women in uniform stationed around the world fighting to defend our freedoms and the things we hold so dear,” Bloomberg said.

After the incident, the Army sent an alert to the 1,650 Army recruiting stations across the country, said Douglas Smith of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command.
The blast is similar to two other incidents in New York, one in October and one in May 2005.
Both times an explosive device was detonated around 3 a.m.
In the October incident, a bomb was detonated near the Mexican consulate, shattering windows. At that time the authorities said the explosive device was similar to the ones used in a May 2005 blast at the British consulate.
In both cases, authorities were looking for a person spotted riding a bicycle in the area.
Police stopped several bicyclists for questioning Thursday morning near Times Square, but no one was detained, WABC-TV reported.
The recruiting office, whose neon lights help it blend in with the bright atmosphere of Times Square, sits on a triangular traffic island across the street from the Hard Rock Caf.
Two witnesses, a man and a woman, told a local TV station they heard a “huge bang” from their hotel rooms, but there were no police or fire reports of serious damage or injuries.

“I was on the 44th floor and I heard it. I could feel it from up there,” a woman told WABC-TV.

The office’s front door and window were shattered by the explosion, and the door’s metal frame was bent. A large television screen above the door was working intermittently.
Investigators from the New York police and fire departments as well as the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sifted through the shattered glass by hand, placing small pieces of material into evidence bags.
The evidence was sent to the FBI’s crime laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, Kelly said.
Police and fire squads initially cordoned off part of an area around Times Square. Later, vehicular and foot traffic resumed in the area, but the traffic island was closed to pedestrians.
Before the mayor’s news conference, several people in military uniforms walked unimpeded through the scorched door. Recruiters will work from an office in Union Square until repairs are made, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told AP.
Subway service to Times Square was briefly halted but resumed in time for the morning rush hour.

“New York City is back and open for business,” the mayor said. To prove his point, Bloomberg walked across the busy street after the news conference and bought a cup of coffee at a cafe.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Found this too…. ABC news
For a half century, the station was the armed forces’ busiest recruiting center. It has set national records for enlistment, averaging about 10,000 volunteers a year.
And this is in from the NY GOE website:
“From the photographs and video it is obvious that this was not the work of kids playing with firecrackers. The safety glass windows are shattered. The steel door is sprung from its hinges. The large video screen above the entrance is damaged. Witnesses on the 21st floor report feeling the building shake at the Marriott Hotel two blocks away. ”

Vermont towns vote to arrest Bush and Cheney
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for “crimes against our Constitution,” local media reported.
The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to “extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them.”
Vermont, home to maple syrup and picture-postcard views, is known for its liberal politics.
State lawmakers have passed nonbinding resolutions to end the war in Iraq and impeach Bush and Cheney, and several towns have also passed resolutions of impeachment. None of them have caught on in Washington.
Bush has never visited the state as president, though he has spent vacations at his family compound in nearby Maine.
Roughly 12,000 people live in Brattleboro, located on the Connecticut River in the state’s southeastern corner. Nearby Marlboro has a population of roughly 1,000.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
I wonder what would happen if the FBI and about 5,000 federal marshal’s showed up and took down the names of the voters and arrested them all for treason and shipped them all to GITMO?
Better yet, just throw a barbed wire enclosure around both towns and release the Gitmo detainees in their midst. Afterall McCain and the other candidates want to close GITMO anyway. Now we have found a place to store them with their friends. hahahahhahaa
Just have to make sure the Republicans are given notice to get the heck out of dodge first.
I would like to see Bush and Cheney walk cheerfully down the sidewalks downtown. Just call their bluff
Cheney has the balls to look them square in the eye, raise his eyebrow and say you want what???
heh heh

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani

Marine Lt. Colonel Chessani Thrown Under the Bus for Political Reasons; Fair Trial an Illusion
Thomas Moore Law Center
ANN ARBOR, MI

“Military Judge Colonel Stephen Folsom’s, USMC, ruling yesterday refusing our request to take the deposition of Congressman John Murtha, D-PA, is the latest indication that it will be impossible for Marine Lt. Colonel Chessani to get a fair trial regarding November 19, 2005, Haditha incident,” said Richard Thompson, Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, the Ann Arbor, Michigan based public interest law firm defending Lt. Col. Chessani.

“This entire prosecution is politically motivated and stinks to high heaven. Denying us the right to take Murtha’s deposition so that we could show undue command influence, as well as denial of our request for production of documents in the possession of Lt. Col. Chessani’s superiors makes it impossible for us to render this loyal Marine officer the effective assistance of counsel he deserves — they are attempting to throw him under the bus. In many ways this is a trial like the one in Alice in Wonderland—the verdict first and then the trial.”

Continued Thompson, “In the next couple of weeks we will reveal startling facts tracing the impetus for this prosecution to the highest levels of military and civilian command.”

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani is charged with “dereliction of duty” and “orders” violations stemming from the terrorist attack in the once insurgent-laden town of Haditha, Iraq on November 19, 2005. At the time, Chessani was battalion commander of the Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment – one of the most decorated battalions in our nation’s history. This battle cost the Marines fourteen casualties – including one Marine killed-in-action. The insurgents, hiding amongst women and children in civilian homes, caused the death of fifteen civilians as the Marines fought back.
Months before the investigation was completed, Congressman Murtha made the rounds on TV news programs claiming there was no firefight in Haditha on November 19, 2005, and that the Marines killed innocent Iraqi civilians in “cold blood” and officers “covered it up.” Murtha publicly stated he received his information from the highest levels of the Marine Command – this statement in itself is enough to cause a dismissal of the charges because of undue command influence.
Congressman Murtha holds significant influence over military appropriations and in the past has boasted he can get the Pentagon to do what he wants.
Murtha is the same person caught on tape negotiating bribes with Arab Sheiks during the FBI’s 1980 Abscam investigation – he was an un-indicted coconspirator in that case. Clearly, the Haditha incident provided ammunition for his well known anti-war stance.
Murtha also has ties to Navy Secretary Donald Winters. Winters had over 65 NCIS investigators assigned to investigate Lt. Col. Chessani and the Marines charged in the case. The NCIS Director claimed that to be the highest number of investigators assigned to an investigation in the history of the NCIS.
Hearings on the motions ruled on by Colonel Folsom were held February 20, 2008, and Thursday, February 21, 2008. Law Center attorney Rob Muise and detailed military defense counsel Lt. Colonel John Shelbourne, USMC, presented oral arguments on the five motions at Camp Pendleton, California.
Lt. Col. Chessani, one of America’s most effective combat commanders in Iraq, now faces dismissal (an officer’s equivalent of a dishonorable discharge), loss of retirement, and imprisonment of up to 3 years.
The actual court-martial trial is scheduled to begin April 28, 2008.

Thompson concluded, “We remain undaunted despite these latest rulings. We will continue to vigorously defend Lt. Col. Chessani against this politically-driven prosecution. At least one more motion hearing is scheduled in April, and we intend to file several more motions that will be argued during that time.”

Also found here……………..
Murtha granted exemption from explaining
wnd
A member of Congress who publicly condemned U.S. Marines fighting the war on terror in Iraq for killing civilians in “cold blood” is being granted an exemption that means he will not have to answer questions about his statements, including his earlier explanation that his information came from the highest levels of the Marine Command. ….see liknk at WND for entire article

Wild Thing’s comment……..
He is a Traitor to The Marine Corps, he is a Traitor to his country and any fool that allows that jerk to remain in office is also a Traitor.
I know that some of the bible thumpers may beat up on me for this, but I hope this bastard dies slow and painful death… and then rots in Hell!
May God not have mercy on this bastards soul.

I will never for get this either that Murtha did……………
Watch this Senate Democrat John ‘ABSCAM’ Murtha run like a scared girl and order the peasants around when he’s confronted with Apologizing to the Marines he slandered.
When he wasn’t busy over the past year or so arguing that we ought to fight al Qaeda in Iraq from our bases in Okinawa and Diego Garcia, Rep. Jack “Abscam” Murtha has been busy stuffing his face with pork, behaving questionably over appropriations and smearing US Marines. Now that three of the Marines Murtha prejudged to be guilty of cold-blooded murder have been cleared of all charges, Murtha ought to answer for what he has been saying about them.
Jason Mattera of the Young America’s Foundation confronted Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) for accusing the Haditha Marines of murder “in cold blood.” Most of the charges in that trial have been dropped.
Democrat Murtha wrongly accused Marines of Murder, refuses to apologize…runs away from interview.

Obama says America is a ‘bully’
Presidential candidate calls for more diplomacy, less bluster
wnd
WASHINGTON
In his election-night speech from San Antonio, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama called for America to rely more on diplomacy and less on bluster, characterizing recent U.S. policy as “bullying.”
In the context of a blistering critique of U.S. policy in Iraq, Obama said: “It’s the same course that continues to divide and isolate America from the world by substituting bluster and bullying for direct diplomacy.”
Obama did not specify where America was acting in the bully role.
Obama, and his wife, Michelle, have been criticized by some Republicans for what appears to be increasingly harsh rhetoric critical of both America’s domestic and foreign affairs.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
Sure isn’t that what someone would say when running for President of the greatest country in the entire world? NOT!!!

America is ‘Just Downright Mean’
Newsbusters
Two weeks after making her disdain for the nation clear during a campaign speech for her husband in Wisconsin, Michelle further debased America by saying that we’re a country that is “just downright mean.”
Given how media made excuses for her comments in Wisconsin, it will be quite interesting to see just how much of her interview in the March 10th edition of The New Yorker.

“Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”

“You’re looking at a young couple that’s just a few years out of debt,” Obama said. “See, because, we went to those good schools, and we didn’t have trust funds. I’m still waiting for Barack’s trust fund. Especially after I heard that Dick Cheney was s’posed to be a relative or something. Give us something here!”

The Obamas’ financial standing has risen sharply in the past three years, largely as a result of the money Barack earned from writing “The Audacity of Hope.” In 2005, their income was $1.67 million, which was more than they had earned in the previous seven years combined.

“The life that I’m talking about that most people are living has gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl. . . . So if you want to pretend like there was some point over the last couple of decades when your lives were easy, I want to meet you!”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Keep her talking. LOL Michelle is all about gloom and doom. ‘Give me something.’ Great, a perfect First Lady she’d make. NOT!! And I think the ‘mean’ she is seeing is in her.
If Michelle were to look in her (Obama Mirror) she would see the true racist.(Herself)
“Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime.”
Jammed up? What kind of talk is that from someone wanting to be First Lady.
B. Hussein Obama`s rallying cry – “Yes, we can!”
Michelle Obama`s rallying cry – “Give me something!”

Obama Served On Board That Funded Pro-Palestinian Group
The Jewish Press
JERUSALEM
Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama served as a paid director on the board of a nonprofit organization that granted funding to a controversial Arab group that mourns the establishment of Israel as a “catastrophe.”
The co-founder of the Arab group, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, is a harsh critic of Israel who reportedly worked on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Organization when it was labeled a terror group by the State Department.
Khalidi held a fundraiser in 2000 for Obama’s failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Although AAAN co-founder Rashid Khalidi has at times denied working directly for the PLO, he reportedly served as director of the official PLO press agency WAFA in Beirut from 1976 to 1982, a period during which the PLO committed scores of anti-Western attacks and was labeled by the U.S. as a terror group.
While the Woods Fund’s contribution to Khalidi’s AAAN might be perceived as a one-time contact with Obama, there is evidence of a deeper relationship between the presidential hopeful and Khalidi.
According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the senator first befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university. The professor spoke on condition of anonymity. Khalidi lectured at the University of Chicago until 2003; Obama taught law there from 1993 until his election to the Senate in 2004.

Khalidi said he supports Obama for president “because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause.”

In addition to questions about his relationship with Khalidi, Obama may face increased scrutiny over his ties to William C. Ayers, a member of the Weather Underground terrorist group that sought to overthrow the U.S. government and took responsibility for a string of bombings in the early 1970’s.
Obama served on the Woods Fund board alongside Ayers (who is still on the board). Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has written about his involvement with the Weather Underground’s bombing of U.S. governmental buildings including the Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in 1972.
Although charges against him were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct, Ayers told a newspaper reporter several years ago that he had no second thoughts about his violent past. “I don’t regret setting bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough,” Ayers told The New York Times in an interview published, ironically, on Sept. 11, 2001.
In his memoir, Fugitive Days, Ayers wrote: “Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon” – though he continued with a disclaimer that he didn’t personally set the bombs but his group placed the explosives and planned the attack.
Besides serving with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama’s senatorial campaign fund and has served on panels with Obama at several public speaking engagements.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
This is the craziest election year since I’ve been voting age. The democrat party is pro Arab Islamic state in Israel in general and anti Christian and Jewish in works also. So of course they will do what Europe does as they are pro UN and anti American sovereignty anyway.
They all hate America in their love of perverse diveristy and the world citizen under totalitarion and cruel one world government is their end, even if they don’t think it is.
Run a candidate that has a Muslim name.
Run that candidate with the Muslim name with a Muslim background.
Run that candidate with the Muslim name and Muslim background with pro-Muslim connections.
Run that same candidate with those same connections in the U.S. during a war in which U.S. is battling Islam.
And do it during a time in U.S. history when the battle cry is diversity, multiculturalism, and nonjudgmentalism.
Run a candidate that is immune to ALL criticism of any kind, because to criticize would make you a racist, AND THERE’S NOTHING WORSE THAN THAT in today’s modern life.
I hope America’s sense of nationalism and self-preservation kicks in in time.

.

Susan Estridge: “Hillary looked great tonight. Barack Obama looked good, but tonight he was not born in the manger.”

John McCain has Won the Republican Nomination for President
Huckabee has just dropped out of the race.
B. HUSSEIN Obama wins Vermont.
Hillary wins Rode Island.
Hillary wins Ohio.
Hillary wins Texas.
She finally won something so now she stays in and keeps the heat on Obama. The longer Hillary stays in the race, the more the demorats will be divided and get nasty with each other.

GOP voters crossing over in large numbers
cleveland.com

Poll watchers throughout Ohio are noting large numbers of Republican voters crossing over to vote in the Democratic Primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
In the Republican roost of Chagrin Falls, veteran poll worker Liz McFadden was amazed at the number of people jumping the party’s ship. Democrats accounted for 70 percent of the voters in her precinct, one of seven at the village’s high school.
“That’s a complete reversal of what it normally is, even more so,” she said. “I’ve never seen a switch like this.”
The defectors had motives both pure and sinister.
One woman voted for Clinton in hopes of delivering John McCain a weaker debate opponent. Another picked Obama because her vote could help deny Clinton and her husband a return trip to the White House.
A 69-year-old Catholic nun, Sister Ann Marie, was converted to the Clinton camp because of the former first lady’s experience. John Baggett, another ex-Republican for Clinton, said he simply wanted to switch, and Clinton represented a known commodity.
“I’m happy with Republicans, in general,” Baggett, 50, said. “I don’t believe they’ve done a good job the last eight years.”
In Strongsville, middle-aged couple Lucy and Pete See — longtime Republicans — both voted for Hillary Clinton. “I like that she has more experience in foreign affairs,” Pete See said. “The Republican candidate was older than me.
Lucy See said she voted for Clinton as well. “I want to be part of makiing history,” she said.
In North Ridgeville, pollworkers said that by noon nearly 50 Rebublicans had switched to vote Democrat, the highest crossover since the 2000 election.
Voter interest was so high that a line was forming just after 6 a.m. at the polling site, the party room of the Ridgefield subdivision off Bagley Road.
In Chester Township in Geauga County, also a GOP stronghold, Democrats had outvoted Republicans by nearly 50 percent early in the going. Geauga Elections Board Director Arch Kimbrew said that trend was being duplicated throughout the county.
Kimbrew said morning turnout has convinced him that his projection of a 45-percent turnout will be too low. “There are a lot of Democrats out and at every polling place,” he said.

And there is this, they are already fighting……………….
Clinton Camp’s Conference Call Surprise
Howard Wolfson, communications director, acknowledged the “chaotic” nature of the caucus system but said that what was happening in Texas “is not typical. It’s actually quite extraordinary.”
The Clinton campaign said they had received hundreds of complaints to support their allegations. But they said they wouldn’t be taking any legal action Tuesday evening. Rather, the call with reporters was intended to “draw attention” to the issue.
Campaign officials got a surprise when they opened the conference call to questions. Instead of a reporter, they heard the voice of Bob Bauer, a legal adviser to the Obama campaign. Bauer accused the Clinton campaign of being anti-caucus, citing complaints from Iowa, where Clinton came in third, and a lawsuit the campaign filed in Nevada, a caucus state that Clinton, in fact, won.
Wolfson thanked him for his participation, denied his allegations and said that next time the Obama campaign held a phone call that they would look forward to being part of it. Woflson described Bauer as “someone we all know” and said he was “attempting a vigorous defense of the indefensible.”
The exchange between Bauer and the Clinton staff just CLICK HERE, it is near the top of the page.

.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
LOL I LOVE this!

…. Thank you Mark for sending this to me.

Obama’s Troubles Mount — Just in Time for the Latest Primaries!
New York Mag Daily Intelligencer

Barack Obama must be wondering how the worst press he’s received practically all campaign season came down just before today’s primaries — his chance to close the deal. He can look inward for answers.
The big story, of course, is the meeting an Obama advisor, Austin Goolsbee, had with a Canadian official about NAFTA. After Canadian TV reported that Goolsbee had assured the Canadian official that basically all Obama’s tough talk on NAFTA was political maneuvering, the Obama campaign denied the meeting ever took place.
Then, on cue, a Canadian memo surfaced confirming that the meeting did take place. The Obama campaign’s evasive answers and qualified denials have failed to placate a press corps determined to prove they’re holding Obama accountable.
At the same time, a former Obama supporter, Antoin Rezko, begins his trial in Chicago for influence peddling. While nothing unethical or illegal has been proven about Obama’s relationship with Rezko, the fact that new details are still emerging raises doubts about Obama’s previous claims that he has divulged everything about their association.
None of this meshes well with Obama’s claim to be running on a new kind of politics, and, from looking at the polls showing a Clinton rebound, voters are taking notice.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Will his devout followers care I don’t think so, mostly because they seem to be in some kind of la la land with their chanting and fainting and reaching out just to touch his hand.
There are so many things about Obama that move he is a dangerous man for our country. We could almost have our pick of what is wrong with him.

Combined Joint Task Force-82
Public Affairs Office
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan
It’s a simple law: “If it can go wrong, it will.” Murphy’s Law is known and experienced by people all over the world.
Sometimes the law is followed by a special clause: “At the worst possible time.”
Paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division’s Long Range Surveillance Detachment are no strangers to the law or the clause that often follows it.
During a fire fight Sept. 9, 2007, near the village of Qaleh Saleh, Tag Ab District, Kapisa province, Afghanistan, Army Sgt. Jonas Jerome Allen and Spc. Charles Villasenor had a little run in with Murphy’s Law.
Fortunately for the two Paratroopers and their fellow Soldiers, a second law came into effect after the first. This time the law wasn’t named after Murphy; it was named after Sir Isaac Newton.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” is Newton’s third law of motion.

Paratroopers from the LRSD, along with a Marine Corps Embedded Training Team and soldiers with the Afghan National Army’s 3rd Kandak, 3rd Brigade, 201st Corps, were on a mission to assess damage from an earlier engagement when the unit began taking enemy fire.
Allen was manning a .50 caliber machine gun in one vehicle while Villasenor was behind a MK-19 grenade launcher when the fighting began.

“When we began taking fire, I began suppressive/terrain denial bursts at a low wall about 130 meters (429 feet) to my front,” Villasenor, a native of Santee, Calif., said.

Soon after the fighting began, Murphy’s Law came into effect.

“I fired four to five bursts and I had to reload due to a break in the link; when I charged the weapon I noticed that the right side charging handle was still towards the back of the weapon,” Villasenor said.

“During his reloading there was a malfunction with the MK-19,” said Spc. Christopher L. Baker, who was driving the truck Villasenor was manning the gun on at the time. “When he couldn’t fix the malfunction I called ‘gun down’ over the radio.”

“When I heard over the radio that [Villasenor’s] gun was down, I was still shooting my weapon and we were taking contact from a house and the rooftop,” Allen, then a specialist, said. “I glanced at [Villasenor’s truck] and saw that the gunner was having trouble and I knew we need the MK-19 rocking.”

“I could not fix the gun at that time because what I had was a major malfunction and it requires the weapon to be almost completely disassembled in order to fix,” Villasenor said.

“The driver, Spc. Baker, made the radio call, ‘gun down,’ and I had him back away from our position,” Villasenor said. “I yelled over to the Marine gunner to take our position due to the downed gun.”

“At this time, while taking small-arm and [rocket propelled grenade] fire … Sgt. Allen waved for our vehicle to pull up beside his,” Baker, a Newaygo, Mich. native, said.

Enter Newton’s Law.

“I jumped out and told the gunner (Villasenor) to get out and get into my turret,” Allen, who is Ranger-qualified, said.

“At that time, we were still taking sporadic small-arms and RPG fire when we jumped out and switched trucks,” Villasenor said.

Allen had more experience operating the MK-19 than Villasenor. He also had additional training from his team leader on major malfunctions, Allen said.
Once the two gunners swapped trucks, Villasenor began to fire the .50 cal., while Allen began to work on the malfunctioning weapon.

“I jumped into the turret and saw that the charging handle was stuck behind the bolt and I knew the only way to fix it was to disassemble the weapon system,” Allen said. “I knew I had to hurry because we were taking RPG’s and small-arms fire and I’d rather fire at the enemy than to have the enemy fire at me.”

Allen said he disassembled and reassembled the weapon as fast as he could.

“I just was thinking that if I hurry up and fix the MK-19, I could start engaging the enemy and kill them,” he said.

Once he repaired it, he had the driver of the truck move him into a better position then he put it to use.

“After checking the weapon, we both decided to stay where we were,” Villasenor said. “He had more knowledge on the MK-19 and I am more proficient on the .50 cal.”

“I fired the MK-19 into the house and the rooftop we were receiving contact from and after I unloaded an ammo can of 40 mm rounds, I reloaded it and kept engaging the enemy until we stopped taking contact,” Allen said.

Both troopers feel the weapon was necessary in the fight.

“I can say that if I didn’t fix the MK-19 the fire fight could have lasted longer because there is something about a loud boom that the enemy don’t like and it always usually gets quiet, meaning they stop firing or can’t fire once the MK-19 starts firing and blowing things up,” Allen said.

“There is no telling what would have happened. I do know that in a fire fight each heavy weapon is essential,” Villasenor said.

During the battle, the two laws caught up with each other. Murphy’s Law came into play when the weapon malfunctioned. Newton’s law answered Murphy’s with an opposing reaction from Allen.