Pictures

This is actually the last post today, but it'll be the first you'll see so I'll let you know what's going on. I started posting pictures of people that I've collected and whatever else I hadn't posted that was interesting. The first post today had an explanation and is a ways down the page. Hope this satisfies those of you who keep asking for pictures, because I don't have many more, and really none more that are interesting.

Judging by the lack of oil at this IED blast site, looks like they didn't hit anybody this time.


Detainee release


A detainee praying at a stop


Some Iraqi Army types, Sgt. Galvan, Fareed, and my roommate Tank


Coates, Powell, Sgt. Goodman and Cpl. Cox


Powell, Richardson, Cpl. Cox and Raines


Gunny Stuart, SSgt. Valdez, Doc V and a 14-year-old IA

More

Iraqi Army


Controlled detonation of an IED we found


Looks to me like Ramadi


Some M1A1 Abrams


Can't tell who this is, but it looks like Maharaj doing a puppet show


A little town on the Euphrates


Tent City rules in Fallujah


Sgt. Evans' HMMWV post-blast


Another of Sgt. Evan's HMMWV


Iraqi Police station

More

Mathisen and his turret-shield artwork


Nario, Cpl. Call (then a LCpl.) and Longworth, apparently on their flight to Kuwait


Painter on an early overnight mission


Powell, our other gunner, in the full APES suit we wear in the turret


Jackson, Sgt. Galvan, and Fountaine with some local kids


(top row) Fountaine and Sanchez, (middle row) Powell, Coates and Painter, (front row) Summerour and Sgt. Torres


Sanchez and Cpl. Galvan, catching some shade under the mortar shelters


Me, inundated with rifles at the EMP range in 29 Palms

People pictures, and a few others

I've been collecting other people's pictures, mostly of the different people I spent time with over there. I'll try to post the pictures of different people I've probably referred to a bunch first so I can provide a caption, then just any event pictures in a rapid-fire style, probably without caption. We'll see how this works.

HM2 "Doc V" Vanderlois


Grey (David, LCpl.-type)


Doc Cintron and Neely


Horner and Neely


Neely and I, testing out a theory


Sgt. Miranda and Neely


Somebody I don't remember, Cpl. Call, Stevens, and Maharaj


Mathisen and Cpl. Call

The death tax

This may seem as coming from out of nowhere, but I was doing some thinking about estate/inheritance taxes today and what is good and bad about them. What's "good": basically, they're taxes so some necessary and many unnecessary government programs are funded at least in part by inheritance taxes. Also, I suppose they help assure that the wealthy have earned their wealth and are knowledgeable about how to manage wealth (I won't even begin to speak on whether or not it's government's place to determine for you how to spend your own wealth...which it's not). What's bad: it undermines long-term investment, since if you know you can't pass on your wealth you will find other means of passing it on or instead just spend it. It is causing the death of family farming in the United States, since heavy taxes on estates means if all you have is land and farming equipment, it's going to become much harder to keep that land over several generations if you have to keep paying large inheritance taxes in order to keep the land in your family. Most importantly, though, it's bad because it hinders one of the most basic American dreams, which is creation of prosperity for your family...oh, that, and it's simply a literal tax on death. You died? Well, that means you owe us.

Here's an article that I was reading while I made this post: http://www.myheritage.org/Issues/MythBusters/DeathTax.asp It's perhaps a touch incomplete/abridged, and I basically hit the main points it brought up, but there it is.