🇺🇸 A Note on "Supporting the Troops"
You cannot sincerely claim to "support the troops" while cheering for more wars.
True support for the troops means using extreme caution before committing them to open-ended missions with unclear exit strategies, vital-interest tests, and realistic assessments of what external force can actually achieve in fractured societies.
It prioritizes prevention of unnecessary deployments, better pre- and post-service care, honest after-action reviews, and avoiding the cycle where political rhetoric glorifies "strength" while the human ledger keeps growing.
Skepticism about "world police" or regime-change adventures isn't anti-troop - it's pro-troop in the sense of not treating service members as disposable props for foreign policy experiments that rarely deliver the promised stable, liberated outcomes.
The heaviest long-term burden falls on a small percentage of the population: the less than 1% who serve and their loved ones, while the rest of society moves on.
🇺🇸🪖🕊
9/11/2001 to Now – U.S. Military Casualties in Named Operations
Operation ENDURING FREEDOM
(Oct 2001 – Dec 2014)
• Total deaths (across all AORs): 2,350
• Hostile deaths: 1,845
• Wounded in Action: 20,149
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM
(Mar 2003 – Aug 2010)
• Total deaths: 4,419
• Hostile deaths: 3,481
• WIA: 31,994
Operation NEW DAWN
(Sept 2010 – Dec 2011)
• Total deaths: 74
• Hostile deaths: 38
• WIA: 298
Operation FREEDOM'S SENTINEL
(Jan 2015 – Sept 2021)
• Total deaths: ~70–109
• Hostile deaths: ~53–77
• WIA: ~570–620
Operation INHERENT RESOLVE
(Aug 2014 – ongoing)
• Total deaths: 124
• Hostile deaths: 25
• WIA: ~496–620
Operation OBSIDIAN NOMAD
(2017, AFRICOM)
• Total deaths: 4 (all hostile)
Operation EPIC FURY
(Feb 2026 – ongoing)
• Total deaths: 13
• Hostile deaths: 7
• WIA: 381
• Total U.S. Service Members deaths: 7,000+
• Total combat related wounded: 53,000+
(Does not capture the much wider toll of invisible wounds like traumatic brain injury (TBI), PTSD, depression, or moral injury that contribute to long-term mental health struggles and elevated suicide risk.)
Suicides among those who served post-9/11 represent a far greater loss of life than the combat-related deaths:
• Active-duty suicides (while still serving, from 2001 to now): 8,000–10,000+.
• Post-9/11 veteran (after separation) suicides: 120,000–140,000+
@thedelboy That doesn't answer my question at all. I believe in one God: He is an eternal Heavenly Father. When I say God, that is who I am referring to.
Sometimes I'm asked why I care about military issues still, even though I'm retired. Well... because nearly 9 out of 10 days of my adult life was spent in uniform. (88.11% to be exact as of today.)
It's an interesting way to think of things. My total adult days lived = 10,270 of which 9,049 were in the USAF.
It’s going unnoticed because so much other news is happening, but the war drums are beating again in D.C. The warmongers worry this is their last chance to get the white whale they’ve been chasing for thirty years, an all-out regime change war against Iran.
A new Middle East war would be a catastrophic mistake. Our military stockpiles are depleted from three years of backing Ukraine. Our effort to reshore manufacturing has only just begun and will take years to bear fruit. War would worsen our already immense deficit and national debt. Iran is larger than Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan combined. A war would not be easy and could easily become a calamity.
Thanks to President Trump’s restraint during his first term, America has a golden opportunity to pull away from Middle East quagmires for good. We shouldn’t throw that opportunity away so that sone D.C. has-beens can feel tough by sending young Americans to die yet again.
Sunday Perspective:
The sunlight warming your face right now left the Sun more than 8 minutes and 20 seconds ago.
You’re literally seeing the Sun as it was over 8 minutes in the past.
“From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.”
Psalm 113:3
"All the while we're told this is about defending the homeland. And that phrase is repeated like a mantra. It's simple enough to settle in your mind and vague enough to stretch across any policy that needs it. But there is nothing about this that resembles a homeland focused strategy."
Credit: Robert Arnold- IG: defiance13_
🚨THOMAS MASSIE:
"Some of my colleagues have suggested that we attach the SAVE Act to a clean re-authorization of the [FISA]... program... used to spy on Americans"
"Why take the 4th Amendment hostage and then shoot it in order to get safe elections? I don't buy into that."
"How can you have safe elections if the people in power are allowed to spy on the campaigns without a warrant? I don't think you can have safe elections. So it's an oxymoron."
"It's not a trade that anybody should make."
"I voted for the SAVE Act twice. We should keep supporting the SAVE Act. It's a federal requirement that you have an ID and US citizenship before you vote or are registered to vote in federal elections. But you shouldn't couple these two things."
"The premise there is, 'Oh, as long as I get this voting thing, I'll give up this 4th Amendment requirement. Why would you kill the 4th Amendment for this other thing, even if this other thing is great?"
This clip of Massie (@RepThomasMassie), a U.S. representative for Kentucky's 4th congressional district, is taken from a conversation with Matt Kibbe (@mattkibbe) posted to the Free The People (@freethepeople) YouTube channel on April 22, 2026.
Belated happy birthday! Also on 4/20 in history: In 295, the eighth recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet. In 1777, New York adopted its first state constitution. In 1898, McKinley signed a joint resolution declaring war on Spain, sparking the Spanish-American War. Birthdays on 4/20 include: Napoleon III (1808) & Luther Vandross (1951). Deaths on 4/20 include: Bram Stoker (1912) & Avicii (2018).
Of course there are darker associations with the day - but highlighting something lighter is good for the soul sometimes. 😉
Back in the fall of 1971, five high schoolers at San Rafael High in Marin County, California, known as the "Waldos" (because they were always hanging out by a wall, obviously), got handed a treasure map to some hidden cannabis patch out in Point Reyes.
The grower was in the Coast Guard and had gotten super paranoid about getting caught.
The Waldos came up with a plan. They would meet at 4:20 p.m. right by the Louis Pasteur statue after practice. They called it "420 Louis" at first, which quickly shortened to just "420", their secret code for "let's go smoke" or "time to get high."
They never actually found the patch, but the slang stuck hard. One of the Waldos roadied for the Grateful Dead, so it spread through the Deadhead scene. By the early 90s, flyers for 4/20 smoke sessions started popping up. High Times magazine ran with it, and boom, April 20 became the worldwide weed holiday we know today.
From a few California teens cracking jokes to a global vibe. 🔥🌿
I personally don't partake, but support the legalization of it. (It was also a super easy way to remember one of my best friend's birthdays back in the day. 😝)
Every "on the street" interview highlights the same failure of the "education" system.
When you're taught what to think, and not how to think, it's not surprising that many people tend to freely give someone else control over what they should believe.
So my neighbor is an awesome example of "you can just do things." He decided he wanted taller ceilings for the upstairs of his house, so he literally raised his roof.
Took him about 2 weeks, he did most of the work on his own, with some help from his dad on the weekends.
It's inspiring.
Trump's current and former US Ambassadors to Israel, Mike Huckabee and David M. Friedman, performed a rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama" in Israel titled "Sweet Home Yerushalayim."
The lyrics were changed to push for Greater Israel.
(Please forgive me for posting this.)