Received via email:

The U.S. Navy Memorial has invited me to talk about <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/No-Higher-Honor-Roberts-Persian/dp/1591146615/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7710835-5954261?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174321459&sr=8-1″>”No Higher Honor:
Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf”</a> (Naval Institute Press, 2006) at noon on Wednesday, March 21. The talk is open to the public, and I warmly invite you to come. The memorial is located at 701 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20004 (Map and
directions; web site: http://www.lonesailor.org).

“No Higher Honor” tells the story of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, a small warship dispatched to the Persian Gulf in 1988. Its crew shepherded oil tankers through the chaos of the Iran-Iraq War — until disaster struck. On 14 April, an Iranian mine ripped open the Roberts’ engineroom, ignited fires on four decks, and plunged the ship into darkness. With seawater rising around their boots, the crew fought fire and flooding into the night. Four days later, the U.S.
retaliated, sinking a half-dozen Iranian warships and boats in the biggest surface battle since World War II.

The book has received good reviews; the current issue of Military Officer magazine calls it “one of the most inspiring books about modern naval history.” Now in its second printing, the book has also inspired a History Channel documentary that is slated to air this fall.

Hope to see you on Wednesday.

Brad Peniston
————-
“No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf”
available in bookstores or via http://www.nohigherhonor.com.

My book report is here.

Sounds like a great lunch time activity to me…how about it, Steeljaw Scribe, Smash and Pinch?

Posted after action reports will be appreciated!

‘Jack Army’, the former Army recruiter and now member of the 25th Division and deployed to Iraq has begun an interesting project: He writes a story in chapters, and then each chapter goes to a different blogger to post, and then to be linked for your reading pleasure. The link here goes to my piece, which is Chapter 12. I have sent my link back to “Jack,” so he can pass it to the others on each side of my, and I hope to get similar data in soon, so I can connect the dots for the effort.

Great idea….share you story and share readership. I would suspect the posts will get much more visibility as a result….

The Valour-IT site has been updated and if you link there, please find some time (quickly) to update your blogrolls/sidebars/etc…

If you are unaware of what I’f talking about, it’s a project to get laptops with voice activated software into the hands of our injured troops at the major medical facilities, so they can continue to keep in touch with family, friends and their units.

The link is now: http://soldiersangels.org/index.php?page=project-valour-it

Get to work!

A chaptered story told on many blogs starts here and continues here:

Chapter 11

Chapter Twelve: Great Americans
We have a great team assembled at my FOB, which could be considered unusual. My commander didn’t get to hand-pick his team, whether the members that came from our parent unit or the various attachments, some of which came from within our brigade and others from Reserve units or even other branches. The guys here take their jobs seriously and many take the initiative to find ways to support the mission despite an occasional lack of support or other challenge that may keep us from using “conventional” means to get the job done.
I am excited to have had the opportunity to serve in this position. I have grown professionally because of it. More than I thought I would, which is an unexpected surprise. I am a lucky man in this respect.
I would like to thank the folks working here at FOB X with me. These are truly great Americans. I look at all these troops and am amazed, not only at the tremendous effort they put forth under crazy conditions sometimes, but also because these are people that could be doing anything but putting their lives on the line for Iraqis. And yet, here they are, volunteers each and every one, working hard, sweating, laughing, crying, sometimes bleeding for something that is beyond day-to-day comprehension, something that transcends the individual and actually makes a difference in our world. I am privileged and honored to serve with such selfless and open-hearted people.
The irony is not lost on me either, how we are ready to kill those that would threaten us but we are dedicated to making life better for normal Iraqis who just want a taste of what many Americans take for granted: freedom.