Daniel Keighran, a member of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment, has been awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry in Afghanistan.
According to news reports:
Corporal Keighran “…was involved in a firefight between Taliban fighters and Australian and Afghan troops. He repeatedly broke cover to draw fire, allowing the enemy locations to be identified and neutralised.
In the citation it was noted the enemy fire was “accurate and intense”. He repeatedly exposed himself to life-threatening gunfire coming from multiple directions.
On one occasion he moved from cover to draw fire away from a team that was treating a casualty, and then assisted in clearing the landing zone for an evacuation. The Australian and Afghan forces sustained no further injuries.”
The guy basically turned himself into a hunter’s decoy to draw fire from the enemy. Stunning.
Thank you for your service, Corporal Keighran.
Sorry to do this but couldn’t find an email:
Hi
I’m Terry from http://www.theconservative.co.nz and I’m in the arduous process of begging for backlinks in order to get some page rank for my new blog site. I really hate doing this but there is no other way, and I’m hoping you can help. My blog targets left-wing political correctness, social engineering, and the general failure of liberalism, and I’m linking to similar sites. Hope you can help by placing a link to my site using title ‘the conservative’ linking to: http://www.theconservative.co.nz
Regards
Terry
(formally of a popular blog called friedbrains a few years back)
G’day Terry. The owner of this blog is outside internet coverage at the moment – working in the Australian outback. I’m looking after things while KG is away, but I’m just the janitor and wouldn’t feel right adding you to KG’s blogroll. I’ll get KG to get in touch with you when he gets back.
Cheers
Job well done Corporal Keighran! :cheers
Good drills that soldier. Congratulations on the VC.
Three big cheers for the heroic Australian soldier!
…and for you Yanks out there – Australia is the only American ally to send fighting forces to all wars America has been involved since WW II. The Aussies even sent their best troops to Vietnam for many years, when even the British sat it out as being “too controversial.” This was done despite Britain being NATO and SEATO alliance members with the USA and were by treaty bound to send forces to Southeast Asia.
…But then the Australians take seriously their military treaties and their sacred honor more seriously than the British.
Cheers, Ronbo
Too right! An old friend of mine served in Vietnam,he remembers both Australian and Canadians,the Aussies were there officially and the Canadians were volunteers.Dam fine soldiers all!
@Darin:
Speaking of the Canadians (and the British) – I recall meeting numerous individuals, usually with a military background, who had volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army, as “ex-pats” who didn’t give up their citizenship in their mother countries under a special program in effect at the time.
I read somewhere, I think it was in “Stars and Stripes” – the U.S. Military newspaper – that the total number of “European Allies” who served in this program from 1966 to 1972 numbered over 100,000!
An ocean of ink has been spilled concerning the 100,000 worthless Americans who deserted to Canada and Europe in order to avoid the draft – but little has been written about the thousands of professional soldiers from NATO who served honorably in the U.S. infantry and special operation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Australian_Task_Force
Excellent article on the Task Force that included New Zealand troops as well. As I said earlier, I often ran across members of the Task Force in my three year Southeast Asia tours of 1967 to 1969. The TF troops always impressed me as fine professional soldiers and on the level of our Special Forces – an elite.
It kinds reminds me of the old days in Greece when they were faced with invasion by Persia. The most valued warriors of the Greeks were the Spartans – who were few in number, but great professional soldiers who usually carried the day.
Ron,look here-
http://youtu.be/InRDF_0lfHk
@ :53 in Men packing FnFal’s
Yes,Lot’s of good men have stood by us and we them.Heck I don’t think the Canadian government till this day acknowledges the Canadian volunteers.
You sure about that, Ronbo? I’m pretty sure New Zealanders have been there alongside you all the way too.
That said, I take your point that America has *very* good friends in this part of the world.
We always seem to be able to find men like Corporal Keighran, don’t we?
The warrior gene will never die out, thank God.
I do fear we will find fewer of them in our every-child-wins-a-prize, no-bullrush, no-tree-climb, clipboard-carrying, elfin-safety nanny state though, KG. I fear in the future we will find a situation where a Keighran is needed and a Quisling will appear instead.
Something I fear too, Gantt. But nature/evolution (call it what you will) has a way of asserting itself over puny human re-engineering in the long run.
Robert Ardrey described man as the “killer ape” and those canine incisors aren’t ever going to disappear.
Aggression is as necessary to man as any other trait and battle isn’t going to lose its attraction to young men. What else can replace that ultimate rite of passage? Lighting the barbecue without the appropriate safety gear?
From the latest Woodpile Report (Remus has the link):
‘Here’s a new rotary engine with only three moving parts, 13 major components, burns a variety of fuels, requires no valves, cooling systems, radiators or mufflers, promises a thermodynamic efficiency of 75 percent and it’s one-tenth the size of a comparable diesel engine, says David Szondy in this article, LiquidPiston unveils 40-bhp X2 rotary engine, at Gizmag. [Taken from a somewhat breathless corporate press release but good information nonetheless]‘
http://www.woodpilereport.com/
I’ve got the embed code for a video clip of the firefight and if anyone wants to see it I’ll put it up.
Stuff it, I’ll put it up anyway.
I’ll watch it,got nothing better to do anyways. :popcorn
Here is another good one-
http://youtu.be/Oi_KaZ53eDg
You could use the time to go into dry-dock and get your barnacles scraped.
With as much industrial polution as I have coursing my veins I’m practically anti-fouling
Great video clip. Whether you’re religious or not, that man sure has a handle on the sheer stupidity of blacks who support the Dems.