Federal lawmakers have proposed making the victims of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting rampage eligible for the Purple Heart.

A bill introduced in Congress would remove the distinction between international and domestic terrorism, making any military victims of terrorist attacks in the U.S. eligible for the Purple Heart. It’s now awarded only to troops attacked in a combat zone.

The bill is sponsored by Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent, and Republican Rep. Peter King of New York.

A US Army Apache helicopter accidentally dropped an inactive missile over central Texas, forcing dozens of homes to be evacuated, officials said Wednesday.

No one was injured in the incident in which residents in Killeen told police they saw an object falling from an AH-64 attack helicopter into a field late Tuesday, according to a statement from the army’s Fort Hood base near Killeen.

The cause of the incident was under investigation, said Colonel Howard Arey, III Corps aviation officer.

Everyone in the military makes mistakes and this could have been worse. As in: with a live missile. Let’s hope the Army aviators figured out the issue. And it does not happen again.

Council Submissions

• The Colossus of Rhodey – “Distress”
• The Noisy Room – The Fascist Boogie Fever
• Simply Jews – Fahd al Quso’s demise, blame the previous manager, Obama’s campaign claims, etc
• Joshuapundit-The New Egypt’s Politics: Who Can Demonize Jews And Israel The Most??
• The Razor – The Myth of an Unbiased Media
• New Zeal – Communists in Congress? (1) Hansen Clarke (D) Michigan
• The Political Commentator – Syosset, New York: Political smear campaign or just a big old coincidence?
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Syrian Unsafe Zone
• Rhymes With Right – Shocking — Mitt Romney And Barack Obama BOTH Were Bullies In School
• Bookworm Room – Presidential Election 2012: Eddie Haskell versus Ward Cleaver
• VA Right! - A Million Souls Up In Heaven
• The Right Planet – Syria
• The Glittering Eye -It’s a Floor Wax and a Dessert Topping
• The Mellow Jihadi – Breastfeeding, By Any Weans Necessary
• Gay Patriot – Marriage to Ann seems to have ended Mitt’s adolescent unruliness
• The Independent Sentinel – Obama’s Bad “Investments” Keep Piling On the Taxpayers – the Auto Bailout Boondoggle

Honorable Mentions

• Right Truth – Romney’s Big Chance
• The Pirate’s Cove – Most Transparent President Evah! Initiates Cellphone Ban At Fundraisers
• Crime Victim’s Media Report – While the Experts Fiddle, George Soros Buys the Criminology Profession
• Mental Recession – Report: Team Obama Tried to Pay Jeremiah Wright to Shut Up

Non-Council Submissions

• Grantland – The Inquisition of Mr. Marvel submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• JC.Com/Melanie Phillips –A French-Greek wake-up call submitted byThe Noisy Room
• Barry Rubin – What Do Egyptians Want? A Democratically Elected Islamist Dictatorship submitted by Simply Jews
• Mark Steyn – The Spirit of Geert Wilders submitted by Joshuapundit
• Via Meadia –BBC And The Jews submitted by The Razor
• Tablet -My Mother’s Loving Silence submitted by The Political Commentator
• The Compass – Magic Democracy submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• The Daily – Big Hearted Mitt submitted by Rhymes with Right
• National Review/Victor Davis Hanson -The Doggy Wars submitted by Bookworm Room
• All American Blogger – How to Assert Copyright Over Your Work When It’s Been Plagiarized (Video) submitted by VA Right!
• FrontPage – The Rise Of The Saudi SuperState submitted by The Right Planet
• Ambiance – I, Weed submitted by The Glittering Eye
• 6079 Smith, W–U.S. lagging Rwanda in Healthcare? submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Commentary Contentions -Obama Drops His Name Into the Other Presidential Biographies submitted by Gay Patriot
• The Daily Caller – Heath Calls for Investigation into Labor Department propaganda posters featuring Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson submitted byThe The Independent Sentinel
• Thomas Sowell – A Censored Race War submitted by The Watcher
• Gates of Vienna – The Three Cs submitted by The Watcher

Here is Kabul’s only female driving instructor. Nevermind her student’s head covering, she deserves our support:

The living room of Sofia Merman’s West Hollywood apartment is filled with photos of her only son. Sasha in cap and gown, Sasha sitting for his Navy portrait, Sasha and his mother standing in the Black Sea in Odessa. The images are tucked inside stacks of photo albums and sit in frames beside his college and postgraduate diplomas, certificates of excellence as an art teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District and blown-up copies of his intricate pen-and-ink drawings.

Shortly after her son’s 2008 murder, Sofia sat in the living room with Sasha’s friend and financial planner, Daniel Becerril, who first met Sasha when he was invited onto the campus of Markham Middle School to help teachers invest their retirement funds.

If you like that sort of Masterpiece Theater, Twin Peaks, Columbo, Monk thing, check it out. To me, it is just grisly. And I can’t help feeling that my Shipmate here died too young.

Please ungird your loins. Go here for the answer. I may have to turn in my khakis.

A little gator.

Get it, litigator?

Hmmm, apparently I am not the first to think of this joke:

Oh well. I thought it was original.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Nightingale, left, was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal by Rear Adm. David Thomas

Let’s call today Hero Day. Because there were more than the usual share of heroic stories in the news. Two Sailors and two Marines made the cut. First, the Navy:

The Navy has awarded one of its highest noncombat valor medals to two local sailors who risked their lives to save a child from a burning car last year. One of the sailors, the child’s father, was killed in the blaze.

The Navy honored Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Nightingale and Chief Petty Officer Joseph Weschler last week, when Nightingale and Weschler’s widow each accepted the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the second highest noncombat medal awarded by the Department of the Navy.

An Iraqi War vet, just graduated from college, pulled a burning woman out of a plane:

But after taking off from an airport in Tulsa, something suddenly went wrong with the plane, which landed in a field and skidded around 200 feet before hitting several trees and bursting into flames.

The pilot, 23-year-old Luke Sheets died at the scene, as did 29-year-old Garrett Coble, and 22-year-old Stephen Luth.

Austin Anderson, a 27-year-old former marine who completed two tours in Iraq, had just graduated from Oral Roberts University with Luce on May 5. Anderson reportedly pulled Hannah Luce out of the burning plane, and the two were able to walk to a nearby road for help.

Anderson later died in the hospital, suffering burns over 90 percent of his body.

And straight from the mainland to the battlefield, this Marine exemplifies how to lead:

Sgt. Christopher Farias drifted back to consciousness to the sound of his fellow Marines screaming in pain.

Marine SGT Christopher Farias, La Porte, Texas

The La Porte High School graduate had been knocked out when Taliban fighters launched a surprise attack on his patrol base in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province. Eleven Marines were injured by explosive rounds, four of them critically.

Dazed, Farias scrambled to his feet and tried to make sense of the chaos. He noticed a puddle of blood on the ground, then touched his neck. His hand came away red.

This country was founded on bravery and leadership. Stories like this leave me optimistic.

WHY DONT SOLDIERS MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS?

THEY love to poke their nose in everyones affairs, they waste the nations money trying to look cool and stronger than everyone else. they eat up all donuts that everyday to day citizens can’t have a decent breakfast, they throw puppies over cliffs, and use babies as shooting targets, why are we supporting this!? soldiers deserve no freedoms when they take other peoples freedoms in other countries away. they dont deserve life when they take other peoples lives away!
sincerely, 17 yr old genius!

Darn Army. Why they gotta be eating up all the donuts? The Navy needs some too!