#4mr

Not too long from now, I'll be taking the group currently known as "4 Mile Run" into Dog Den Studios to start getting their EP together. I'm awfully excited to work with these dudes and also, to do my first big project thats not electronically based. It'll be a treat to record big ole heavy guitars and punky vocals. I hope I make something great with them. 

Also, I'll be moving in with some other musicians to the East side of Nashville come the middle of July. Expect pics, insanity, flashing blue lights, and of course - a shit ton more music.  

Western Gambit valor.

Captain Ryan D. Schramel, the former commanding officer of Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, stands in front of a formation of Marines as Sgt. Maj. Gary T. Bow, the battalion sergeant major, reads Schramel’s award citation for the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V” for valor during a ceremony at the 5th Marines Memorial Garden. (Photo by Sergeant Michael Cifuentes, 16 MAY 2013.)

Schramel, a native of Taylorsville, Calif., was awarded the Bronze Star for leading his company of Marines through multiple combat operations and engagements with insurgents in the Now Zad district of Helmand province, Afghanistan. During an operation dubbed Western Gambit, Schramel was directly responsible for the tactical employment of more than 350 Marines and Afghan soldiers and police through an insurgent infested area of the Now Zad district, resulting in the control of the area.

And they rode off into the sunset together, and lived happily ever after.

Marines with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, patrol through the desert during the opening phase of Operation Double Check. Fox Company Marines, Afghan National Police and Afghan National Security Force personnel are currently operating in historically-troubled areas of southern Musa Qal’eh, such as Mosulmani, Khwajadad and Surkyan, which had no coalition presence prior to the start of the operation, 3 January.

Choose a direction, move decisively.

Marshall, Minn., native Lance Cpl. Ryan J. Merritt, the turret gunner for Truck Four of the mobile section with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, watches his sector while providing security overwatch. Merritt, 19, and his fellow Marines in Fox Company’s mobile section have worked day and night during the opening weeks of Operation Double Check, which started 3 January.

Where the streets have no name.

2/4 Marines and their detection K9 hold security in an isolated village in the Nowzad District of Afghanistan that has never seen coalition forces. The Marines were engaged in several firefights with insurgent forces during their movement through the area as part of Operation Western Gambit.

(Photo by Corporal Clayton Vonderahe, 27 November 2011.)

[And because there's some confusion:

The italicized heading is a reference to the title of a song that was performed by U2, written primarily about Northern Ireland and Belfast, "where you can tell someone's religion, political group, and income just by the name of their street."