The Cool Blue Blog

Reading List

The President will spend this Christmas week at his ranch in Texas, and while he's there, it was revealed, he will take a few books with him. One of those books is Imperial Grunts : The American Military on the Ground by journalist Robert Kaplan. Hugh Hewitt's radio interview with Kaplan (transcribed by the Radio Blogger) reveals something the President and the planners in Washington need to know

Yes, one of the things that I think really kind of unnerved the elite, is that while there are all these conferences and discussions in Washington and elsewhere about should we support Afghan warlords or not, should we create an Afghan national army or not, what should our foreign policy be in Yemen or Colombia or in Iraq. I discovered a world of basically working-class people, who were operationally far more sophisticated and knowledgeable about all these issues, who spoke languages, who had personalities that didn't fit into any one neat division. They were evangelical, but they spoke two exotic languages. People like that who...so while all these discussions are taking place, foreign policy is being enacted on the ground by majors and sergeants and lieutenants, who are utterly oblivious to most of these discussions. And you know what? They're doing these things very, very well.

The Military is, more than anything else, a huge bureaucracy and functions like one. The saving grace of our armed forces is not so much our superior equipment (which is important) or our logistical ability (which is critical as well), but the ability of our small unit commanders to act autonomously within their operational objectives. Success on the battlefield has so often been the direct result of this quality which was severely lacking in Soviet military doctrine.

To get things right faster, mechanisms should be adopted to allow combat-level leaders, from Lt Colonels down to squad-leaders to be part of the strategic planning conversations.

(hat tip to Glenn Reynolds)

Changes

The changes taking place in Iraq are rarely noted in the Media, yet here and there the news breaks out.

On the streets of Sadr City where a year ago locals battled US troops, Lt. Col. Jamie Gayton is today a welcome man.

It's not so much that the residents of the sprawling slum, home to more than 1 million mostly poor Shiite Iraqis, have suddenly lost their wariness and suspicions of the American presence. But Colonel Gayton is the man with the money that is being used to slowly bury the open sewers, bring clean water to homes, and illuminate dark streets with new lights.

And because of that, Gayton, a ceaselessly smiling commander of the Army brigade responsible for reconstruction on Baghdad's east side, hears more cheers than jeers as he makes the rounds of completed or progressing projects.

"This is an area that was neglected by the former regime for 30 years, so the people are very grateful for what we are doing," says Gayton. "But at the same time, once they get a taste of some improvement, they can also get a little anxious for more progress or for things to go a little faster."

Similarly, Tal Afar, a city colse to the Syrian border and once a stronghold of Islamists shows similar improvement.

In the low-slung concrete buildings of Tal Afar, a city built on dirty sand and mud, George W Bush sees the potential for military success in Iraq.

In recent weeks it has been one case study the American president has consistently cited in order to buttress the rhetoric that the insurgency, and the killing, can be ended.

Tal Afar was the site of the largest military operation of 2005, when 8,000 US and Iraqi troops reclaimed it from armed groups.

It has since been used to test a new strategy of "clear, hold, build", in which areas would be purged of insurgents and then rejuvenated to win support from local people, before being handed over to the Iraqi security forces. It is also called "ink spot" strategy, whereby one area of control would spread to another - like an ink spot spreading on blotting paper - until the entire country was covered, in a model similar to that adopted by the British in Malaya.

And in Fallujah, one Marine returns a year later to something totally different

Lance Cpl. Anthony Hager, who provides security for the Civil-Military Operation Center in Fallujah, is among countless Marines who will spend the holidays in Iraq....

During his first deployment, Hager supported operations with 2nd Platoon, Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, as an assaultman.

The avid drummer served in Fallujah during Operation Al Fajr (Phantom Fury) in November 2004, when Marines pushed through the city to disrupt insurgent operations....

“It was like a ghost town,” he said. “I didn’t see one car move. None of the shops were open. The only people [we] saw on the streets were nine times out of 10 the bad guys.”

Hager said he has observed significant changes in the “City of Mosques” since the operation.

“Well, the biggest difference is obviously the threat level,” he said.

According to Hager, Fallujah was a desolate place during his last deployment, but normal life has rekindled.

“This time I see people going to work [and] kids walking to school,” he said. “It’s good to see [one] year later that what we do does make a difference,” he said. “One of the biggest things out here is to being able to see the impact we have.”

(tips from Greyhawk contributed to this post)

The Little Red Hoax

The buzz on the 'net a week ago was all about a UMass student who supposedly was visited by Men in Black after he had checked out Mao's Little Red Book from the library.

The story, first reported in last Saturday's New Bedford Standard-Times, was picked up by other news organizations, prompted diatribes on left-wing and right-wing blogs, and even turned up in an op-ed piece written by Senator Edward M. Kennedy in the Globe.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

Alas, the whole thing was made up and retracted by the New Bedford Standard-Times its own self. The hoax was uncovered by the very UMass professor who had passed the story along to the Standard-Times in the first place. Oddly, the professor started to have doubts about the story only after talking with a reporter, and worse, the reporter had no doubts whatsoever.

What ever happened to critical thinking?

The professor, Brian Glyn...Williams, who praised the student as hard-working and likeable, said he was shaken by the deception.

''I feel as if I was lied to, and I have no idea why,"

Um, professor? You were lied to.

And as to why, I'd say that it is more than coincidence that the most ardent critics of the Bush Administration are Communists and many of those are Maoists. Further, one of the on-going "civil-liberties" criticisms of the Patriot Act relates specifically to the supposed confidentiality of library transactions. Of course investigators who might make use of library records are looking for people who are interested in how to make nukes or other weapons of mass destruction not necessarily people of the communist persurasion.

Unless, of course, they want to nuke stuff.

Border crossing

Even as Mexico debates the US plan to build a wall which is designed to curtail illegal immigration, some are working on ways to circumvent this new impediment

David Smith Sr., who holds the world record for the longest flight of being shot from a cannon, was blasted about 150 feet in August from Tijuana, Mexico, into California, uninjured, as part of an art project about ''dissolving borders.''

The report does mention that he showed his passport before blasting off, but not everyone will be so forthcoming in the future. On the other hand

a November 2002 catapult shot of a 19-year-old Oxford University (England) biochemistry student (who was a member of Oxford's extreme sports club) ended badly, as an inquest in October 2005 heard; he was propelled almost 100 yards, which was just short of his landing net.

All in all, I'm thinking the wall will probably work fine.

Cobra Black One

Platoon perfects art of locating weapons caches

By Sgt. Dallas Walker
December 22, 2005

BALAD, Iraq (Army News Service, Dec. 22, 2005) – A unique group of Soldiers are reeling in weapons caches and improvised explosive devices from the streets of Balad … They were the last platoon from their company to start doing patrols.

Composed of cooks, communication specialists, medics and a couple of infantry guys, the Soldiers of the Cobra Black One platoon, Company C, 100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry Regiment initially took to the streets outside of Logistical Support Area Anaconda with not much of a mission.

“We were like the black sheep of the battalion,” said Sgt. Alika Naluai, Co. C section leader. “We would just sit on a route and pull security.”

After a couple of weeks, someone gave them an idea – one they weren’t thrilled about in the beginning, but ended up paying off in the long run.

Master Sgt. Beau Tatsumura from training and operations, helped show the platoon the ropes of hunting for weapons caches.

“He really motivated and encouraged us to go out and find weapons caches,” Naluai said. “We figured we’d give it a try.”

Early efforts unsuccessful

The platoon spent several weeks searching, but to no avail.

“We really hated doing cache searching at first because we had no method,” said Spc. McHuy McCoy, Cobra Black One medic. “The team would go out and find nothing.”

They ended up getting advice from 1st Lt. Ranjan Singh, Co. B platoon leader, Naluai said. His platoon had led the battalion in caches found at that point.

Singh’s platoon started out much like Cobra Black One did – unsuccessful.

“We decided we needed a system,” Singh said. “One day, we were out on patrol and we saw something we thought could be used to mark an area for future reference. We saw a pile of brush near the marking. When we moved it, we found a mortar tube.”

From that point on, they looked for areas with similar markings and soft dirt, Singh said. “We didn’t have mine sweepers at the time, so we would look for soft dirt and stab at the ground with bayonets.”

From April to June, Singh’s platoon found 44 weapons caches.

“It kicked off a cache craze,” Singh said. “Everyone wanted to check out a mine sweeper and look. Of course, they found nothing because they didn’t know what to look for.”

Singh and his Soldiers changed missions to finding high value individuals, so he decided to share his secret to finding caches with the Soldiers of Cobra Black One.

New training pays off

“Sergeant Naluai and 1st Lt. [Sam] Tagavilla came over the radio one day and said they thought they found something,” McCoy said, who was pulling security at the time. “Everyone got excited and waited by the radio to hear what was going on. Then they pulled out their first mortar.”

According to Naluai, there were 49 mortar rounds in that first cache – 30 60mm rounds and 19 82mm rounds.

“After that, we were hooked,” Naluai said. “We would sit on a route pulling security and decide to search a canal road.”

Since that first find in July, the platoon has found 37 caches.

“After we started to find the caches, our status has risen among our peers and our command,” Naluai said.

Finding caches has become like second nature to the Cobra Black One Soldiers. It is the main focus of their daily mission, McCoy said.

“We find scrap metal all the time,” McCoy said. “All day, you long for a cache. Finally, you hit something and you hear that clunk. Now you have to dig a little more [carefully]. Eventually, you find that burlap bag. Everyone comes and waits with anticipation to see what’s in the bag, and then it comes across the radio, ‘Cobra black has done it again!’”

The platoon has become so successful at finding caches, they share the tactics, techniques and procedures they have developed on finding weapons caches with other platoons, including the one who helped them get started.

“It’s beginning to work because elements who have never found a weapons cache before are beginning to find them,” McCoy said.

Persistence bares fruit

“For us, it’s exciting. It’s like a treasure hunt. It made us feel like we were contributing to this war,” Naluai said. “That makes less ammunition on the streets and less improvised explosive devices that can be made.”

“It’s hard work,” Naluai added. “This is the glory of cache hunting. Sometimes you get it. Sometimes you don’t. You have to be self motivated. It’s a job with no glory. I guess the trick to success is to think like [the enemy]. You have to learn to read the land.”

The team has found that not every mission will be one where they return with a large stash of weapons, but every mission is one where they make their presence known in the villages they patrol.

“I can truly say it has reduced enemy activity in our area tremendously,” McCoy said. “We are coming from a point where we were dealing with [a lot of] IED attacks a week, and now the number of attacks has decreased tremendously.”

On more than one occasion, the platoon has come across a site that was freshly dug up, indicating they are putting pressure on the enemy to move their activity, McCoy said.

Starting off their deployment as the “black sheep” platoon, with a mix of military occupational specialties, the Soldiers of Cobra Black One have made their time in Iraq invaluable to many.

“Being a medic, this job is far from what I thought it would be,” McCoy said. “I’m okay with it because we have cooks driving and we have commo guys gunning. This war is different. As a medic, taking IEDs off the street, I am still saving lives, just in a different way. To me, that’s satisfying enough.”

(Editor’s note; Sgt. Dallas Walker serves with the 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs Office.)

Politics aside

When it comes to service men and women fighting a war which the American people condoned, many put their politics aside and do what they can to bring them a little joy and happiness while they are far away from their loved ones.

And this is true of some you may not expect. Take Al Franken, for instance.

In the Christmas tradition of the Andrews Sisters wowing World War II GIs with Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, comedian Al Franken is headlining USO shows at military bases in Iraq this week. Franken's troupe is touring the desert circuit from Baghdad to Balad, putting on a show that he calls "very Bob Hope."

Like Hope, the entertainment legend who died in 2003 at age 100 and was the mainstay of USO shows for three generations, Franken opens with a monologue about Army chow. Two Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders follow with dance routines. Country singers Mark Wills, Craig Morgan and Keni Thomas then belt out odes to patriotism. Franken, dressed as Saddam Hussein, then does a comedy skit with TV actress Traylor Howard.

"It's the best thing since I've been here," Sgt. Thomas Harvey, 25, of Scranton, Pa., said after seeing the show Wednesday with 500 soldiers at Camp Victory, a U.S. base near the Baghdad airport. "Those guys gave up their time and came over here, and serve (the nation) with us."

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I often disagree with Mr Franken, but you know what, I laud his actions in bringing this show to the troops in a war zone. What's more, he keeps the show entertaining, not political.

Franken said he confines his political gibes to his books and his radio program....

Sergeant Major of the Army Ken Preston, the service's senior enlisted soldier who hosts the tour, said he often is asked why he includes Franken with his "left wing" politics. "What he says to the soldiers is: Even if there are different views ... the American people are united in our support for you," Preston said after Wednesday's show as the performers signed autographs.

And that's important for the soldiers to remember: the vast majority of Americans support you no matter what their political leanings. And when someone like Al Franken goes out of his way to bring them an entertaining show, and help them forget for a moment that they are separated from their loved ones, as far as I'm concerned that's Patriotism. And Franken's not the only one who opposes the war yet takes time out to entertain the troops. There's also Robin Williams and former lead singer of the punk rock group Black Flag Henry Rollins who regularly make the tour

"The troops, they're my heroes," Rollins said. "You don't need me out there like some Tokyo Rose. I wouldn't go on a tear on Bush out there, because it'd be distracting."

And of course there's the plethora of Bush supporters like Gary Sinese, Clint Black, and the "New Bob Hope", entertainment organizer Wayne Newton who entertain the troops as well.

There have been a few (unappreciated) slips

Williams said he did a few jokes about Bush's brainpower at a base in 2003 and got a chilly "red state" reception. So he turned to a milder joke about Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: "He kind of sounds like my dad after a couple of gin and tonics."

...Rollins said he breached his own no-politics rule in 2004, causing a stir at a U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan. He said the base commander briefed soldiers on how to re-adjust to life back home, then gave the microphone to Rollins.

"Your commander would never lie to you," Rollins told the crowd. "That's the vice president's job."

Rollins recalled, "I watched the USO people and some officers go, 'Ohhhh, boy.' Some people laughed. Some glared at me."

But all in all, they've put politics aside and were there for the troops when the troops needed them.

And that's all you can ask of anyone.

Unprecedented

An article in Slate points to issues which the Left would like to amplify and accentuate

The storm of controversy notwithstanding, Friday's revelation that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless eavesdropping in the United States should come as no surprise. The press tends to shy away from covering America's largest and most secretive intelligence agency, fearing precisely the kind of scolding President Bush delivered to the New York Times. But the truth is that the NSA—which has an estimated $6 billion annual budget bigger than those of the CIA and the FBI combined—has a decidedly checkered history when it comes to playing by the rules. Both before and after Sept. 11, 2001, the secrecy surrounding the eavesdropping agency has obscured a dangerous institutional tendency to overreach.

In 1978, congressional investigations revealed that the NSA had spied on civilian anti-war protesters during Vietnam. The response was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. To prevent future abuses, the act drew a line between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement.

Now doesn't the above make it seem that the NSA had gone rogue acting on its own just because? But, of course, that's not the case

In 1978 ... Attorney General Griffin B. Bell testified before a federal judge about warrantless searches he and President Carter had authorized against two men suspected of spying on behalf of the Vietnam government.

Interesting how the Slate piece left out the part about President Carter ordering the spying. And, perhaps, it's telling that the article inadvertently (or not) equated the anti-war movement with the government of Vietnam, no? I would also point out that America was three years out of Vietnam in 1978.

But Slate continues with the article painting the NSA as an agency "off the wire"

Two years before Sept. 11, members of the House intelligence committee asked the NSA's general counsel for the internal legal guidelines that governed eavesdropping on the conversations of U.S. citizens. The agency stonewalled—not a good sign. The NSA's flimsy excuse was a Procrustean extension of attorney-client privilege, whereby any document that happened to be sitting on the desk of an NSA lawyer did not have to be handed over to Congress.

But, as it turns out, those legal guidelines were spelled out, not by the NSA, but by President Clinton's (in)famous Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick who said

"The Department of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general,"

What's more

One of the most famous examples of warrantless searches in recent years was the investigation of CIA official Aldrich H. Ames, who ultimately pleaded guilty to spying for the former Soviet Union. That case was largely built upon secret searches of Ames' home and office in 1993, conducted without federal warrants.

And

In 1994, President Clinton expanded the use of warrantless searches to entirely domestic situations with no foreign intelligence value whatsoever. In a radio address promoting a crime-fighting bill, Mr. Clinton discussed a new policy to conduct warrantless searches in highly violent public housing projects.

Previous administrations also asserted the authority of the president to conduct searches in the interest of national security.

Additionally the very same FISA Court from which Clinton Federal Court Appointee Judge James Robertson quit yesterday, supposedly "under protest" for the abuses of President Bush found

In a 2002 opinion about the constitutionality of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the USA Patriot Act, the court wrote: "We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power."

Indeed, previous administrations have used that same authority

Yet many in media are in one of two camps: One camp which embodies the most partisan group accuses Bush of an unprecedented abuse of Executive Power. It seems that you can only abuse this particular power if you are a Republican.

The other camp, which is smaller, simply wants to dismantle our intelligence gathering apparatus altogether. The neo-Marxists/neo-Maoist contingent of the Left form up here.

Because, you know, when the Revolution comes, it would be better if the Government were unaware

Planting stories in the press status update

In the spirit of keeping track of stories the media loses interest in when the reporting doesn't go their way, I offer the following

Iraq Info Ops Review Yields No Wrongdoing, Casey Says

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2005 – A preliminary investigation of alleged improprieties conducted by U.S. military information operations activities in Iraq hasn't found any wrongdoing, the top U.S. officer in Iraq said today.

"We concluded that we were operating within our authorities and the appropriate legal procedures," Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said from his headquarters in Iraq during a satellite news conference with Pentagon reporters.

Casey, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, was responding to a reporter's question on the status of the two-week-old review Navy Rear Adm. Scott R. Van Buskirk is conducting into U.S. information operations practices in Iraq.

The issue had been raised in a recent Los Angeles Times story alleging that articles written by U.S. forces highlighting anti-terrorist and reconstruction successes and mounting anti-insurgent sentiment in Iraq had been improperly planted in Iraqi media outlets.

The Times article also alleged that a U.S. contractor translated the articles into Arabic and paid Iraqi media outlets to run the articles.

Casey said he hasn't suspended any of the information operation processes in question, because Buskirk's review has so far provided them with a clean bill of health.

However, Casey said, the investigation isn't over and it will take another week or so to complete. Van Buskirk is a member of Casey's command.

"Scott has the direction that if at any time through the course of his investigation he comes across something that we're doing that makes him feel uncomfortable, that he should bring it directly to me and we'll evaluate it and take appropriate action," Casey said.

    

via Sgt Hook

Where's the LA Times update?

Quitter

U.S. District Judge James Robertson has quit the FISA court. This is the court used to secure secret warrants for intelligence purposes. The news reports all say its because he is outraged over the President's use of the NSA monitoring of international calls that may include American citizens. Though while they assert this, they don't really know for sure because he is not saying publically why it is he is quitting

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John D. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation....

Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Bill Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment when reached at his office late yesterday.

You may remember Judge Robertson from some other cases he decided as a member of the Federal Court for the District of Columbia. One in particular involved Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a terrorist from Yemen who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan and detained at the facility in Guantanemo Bay. He was scheduled to go on trial when Judge Robertson declared all

detainees at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may be prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions and therefore entitled to the protections of international and military law -- which the government has declined to grant them.

This despite the fact that Hamdan wasn't wearing a military uniform, as required by the Geneva Conventions, and he was a member of Islamic Jihad as well as al Qaeda. And terrorist organizations are not covered by the Geneva Conventions.

Judge Robertson, it seems, was also part of a Cabal of Clinton Appointees that was investigated by Jerry Seper of the Washington Times

The eight federal judges appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. District Court in Washington meet privately every month in closed-door sessions that other jurists believe are improper and call into question the court's impartiality.  "I cannot imagine any legitimate reason for them to meet together once a month, even socially," said one veteran courthouse official familiar with the sessions.  "It's not only in bad taste, it certainly has the appearance of impropriety. It's hard to imagine any rationale for these meetings.

Another court official said they "reek with impropriety."  Concern among courthouse officials about the meetings, which are described in e-mail addressed monthly to each of the eight judges, comes at a time that Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson is being publicly criticized for selectively assigning criminal cases against friends and associates of Mr. Clinton's to judges the president has appointed.  None of the eight Clinton-appointed judges, all of whom were named to the bench between 1994 to 1998, would comment on the meetings or their content....

"The Clinton appointees have confirmed that they meet together, and we know they do, but where they go and what they discuss I just don't know," said one judge. "But a very important part of what we do here is our collegiality. We all come with political viewpoints but we try to leave politics behind. Unfortunately, the Clinton appointees have gone off on their own."

Now I'm not saying that Judge Robertson is making a partisan political statement by quitting the FISA court, but one could reasonably get that impression, you know what I mean? By publically refusing to comment he maintains plausible deniability while at the same time "leaking" a reason he might have left which true or not, would become headlines in the press.

And while we're sitting around discussing which terrorists we can spy on and which we have to leave alone, the bad guys are listening and adapting and taking note of our weaknesses

Hezbollah successfully recruits computer scientists and is very effective in telecommunications and in encrypting their messages in order to defeat national security agents in Canada and the U.S.," he said....

Hezbollah has become technologically more sophisticated to avoid detection. It's an ironic spinoff of having Western agencies monitor their communications.

(hattip to the CounterTerrorism Blog)

It's useful to remember that while we fiddle, terrorists plot burning.

Warrior Chef

Chef gets Bronze Star for convoy rescue

December 16, 2005

Chief Warrant Officer 3 David J. Longstaff, manager of the U.S. Army culinary team, has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal with Valor for rescuing five Soldiers pinned down in an ambush.

Longstaff was serving as Division Support Command food service technician for the 1st Armored Division, when he went on a procurement mission in the Al Rasheed district of Baghdad on Aug. 7, 2003.

It was early afternoon with temperatures reaching 113 degrees fahrenheit. During his first five months in Iraq, Longstaff had participated in more than 150 convoys into Baghdad. This particular mission had proceeded as normal, but while driving through a shopping district along the route back to camp, he spotted a burning Humvee in the center medium.

“The Humvee was hit by an RPG and an ambush was in progress,” said Longstaff. “We just happened to be coming down the road, so we got in there and supported them.”

Longstaff’s convoy included two Humvees and a 5-ton truck. Longstaff ordered two vehicles to secure the rear as the other vehicle, driven by Sgt. 1st Class Richard Bryant, 1st Armored Division, proceeded to assist the five ambushed Soldiers trapped behind a civilian vehicle.

Longstaff provided covering fire toward a building where most of the incoming rounds were shot from. With hostile fire coming from buildings on the north and south sides of the street, he continued engaging the enemy with suppressive fire for 10 minutes, and helped evacuate the casualties away from the area.

“I stayed behind our Humvee, walking as we maneuvered across the street,” said Longstaff. “Once we laid down suppressive fire, they were able to run across the two sections of the street and get back into their area.”

Longstaff also engaged enemy fire from the rear flank with 2nd Lt. Juan Florez, assistant DISCOM S-4..

Longstaff’s quick reaction to the situation allowed the ambushed Soldiers to move out of the kill zone without further injury, according to Bryant. Longstaff volunteered as rear security on the convoy out of the area and the injured Soldiers were evacuated for medical treatment. Longstaff’s team had no injuries.

“His actions are nothing short of heroic and are a true testament of his technical and tactical expertise,” said Bryant.

“I was intrigued that as a cook, I found myself in the middle of Baghdad taking fire,” said Longstaff. “It just goes to show what you can do when put into any situation. So you should just be prepared.”

“Regardless of where you compete in the world of chefs,” Longstaff said, “we are warriors first, and that’s important.”