The #AfghanAdjustmentAct is a national security bill that provides the stability our Afghan allies so desperately need. Over 70,000, brought here during the evacuation, are in limbo come the new year. Our allies put their lives on the line for a new vision of #Afghanistan
People across #Afghanistan risked their lives and the lives of their families to work with US and #NATO forces - this moral obligation lies heavily on us. At least, it does to me as an OEF veteran. If we truly believe the values we preach, we need to pass the #AfghanAdjustmentAct
Millions across the globe have felt a stir at "All men are created equal" since 1776, and have striven for self-determination. Do we not owe it to those who most recently fought for this ideal, who risked their lives for US troops? That's why #ISupportAAA
The #AfghanAdjustmentAct is modeled after similar legislation used after Vietnam, for Cuban refugees, and for Iraqi Kurds. It is not an immigration bill, it is a national security bill with bipartisan support. It's also the right thing to do for our allies
If you feel like I do, please vocalize it. Why today? Because today is the last chance to get the #AfghanAdjustmentAct into the FY23 omnibus bill. If you're an OEF vet, please join me in requesting @LeaderMcConnell & @ChuckGrassley to pass the Act and do right by our allies
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BTW, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" isn't the only Christmas carol with Civil War connections
Y'all like "Jingle Bells?" Of course ya do, everyone does.
Sorry to say, the composer was a Bostonian who went traitor in 1861 and fought for the Confederacy
James Pierpont, for that was his name, wrote songs there, too. Like "Our Battle Flag," "We Conquer or Die" (lol), and "Strike for the South."
And in case you're wondering WHY Jimmy P would do this, well, his dad was an abolitionist Unitarian pastor...
His dad, Rev John Pierpont, was a minister in Savannah until 1859, when his Unitarian church had to close because, well, Georgians didn't like being told not to own humans
Daddy Pierpont would spend 2 weeks serving as the chaplain of the 22nd Massachusetts, at age 76
In the waning days of November and early December, 1863, the U.S. Army of the Potomac engaged in a series of abortive offensives in Virginia known as the Mine Run Campaign. It was inconclusive from the operational perspective and the armies went into winter camps
But the strategic or operational perspective never captures the individuals who die or are wounded - they are glossed over by fancy-sounding words, as I used earlier: "inconclusive," "abortive." The loss of families has no place in those words. But there were many losses.
Among them was a young lieutenant of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry, one of the US cavalry units always in the thick of things. While on recon, he was shot in the back. His name was Charley Longfellow, son of the famed poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
ASO was born from Twitter, and I believe I shall let it die with Twitter. I'll still post to the blog every now and again, and I'll still be over on Instagram under this same name, but that's about it
Fun fact: my original commission has field artillery on it, not engineers
I've always had a soft spot for the people who make things go boom at a distance rather than up close, so, hell, let's do a thread of my favorite field artillery moments in the US Army, shall we?
Item number one. It's 1778 and it's damn hot day at Monmouth. Seriously hot. But there's (at least) one woman who's manning a gun, and while in the act of bringing a cartridge up, has a British round shot pass between her legs "carrying away all the lower part of her petticoat"
Apparently unfussed, she said it was lucky that it didn't pass any higher and kept on working the gun. Which is just like. WHAT. This might be Molly Pitcher, it might have been someone else, there were many reports of women serving guns at that battle. Whoever it was...DAMN.