AmericanMercenary

Iran

2012-01-29T16:59:00.000-08:00

The main stream media has been trumpeting Obama's policy towards Iran as "good" because Iran is doing the "crawdad" with nuclear talks and military adventurism.

In a perfect world that would be the end of the story, that sanctions are working and Iran is deciding that peace is worth it. Unfortunately that is never the end of the story.

The other side of the story starts in Europe. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120126-713966.html as I see it right now the Eurozone has to pull together or fall apart. Either option is a valid outcome to the current economic troubles. If Europe pulls together we see the finalization of a pan-European political state that has been in an embryonic state ever since the "league of nations" first came around. If Europe falls apart, well then the Euro won't be competing with the Dollar as it will by necessity become a dead currency, the same as old Mexican Pesos or East German Marks.

Now that Europe as done its best to placate America by saying "No Euros for Iranian Oil" we see a devaluation of Iranian currency. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/26/us-iran-econcomy-rial-idUSTRE80P1J020120126 This devaluation is once again proof that economic warfare works. However it only works against fiat currency (the only way to devalue a commodity currency is to flood the market or somehow make it not a commodity that people desire or need). However since China is producing more and more of Iran's imports the sanctions by the rest of the world will matter less and less in the long run. Like the underdog in a boxing match right now Iran is simply riding the ropes and waiting for the bell to ring. Iran doesn't have to deliver a knockdown punch, just stay in the ring until the big man gets tired.

As a side note the Saudis are sitting pretty to make a profit no matter which way this goes. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2012/01/26/iran_s_crisis_the_saudis_in_the_catbird_seat.html

And while the mainstream media trumpets Obama's triumphant international realpolitik I can't help but wonder if Iran might become "Libya Part Two" in the future. http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/improbability-of-conflict-with-iran-1.971765

When you can't do what you want...

2012-01-26T15:08:00.000-08:00

One of the lessons I've learned is essential to success in the military, "when you can't do what you want, do what you can."

If you want to take a hill, you literally "can't" do that until you have done the things you have to do to enable that. Set a support by fire position, called for indirect, set up an echelon of fires that lets you get within halitosis range before turning off your support. If you just try to take the hill you and your men will get slaughtered.

So do what you can. This post is brought to you by John Mosby http://mountainguerrilla.blogspot.com/2012/01/public-service-announcement.html since I would like to add on to and wax poetic about what keyboard commandos (and even seasoned professionals) don't know about an insurgency.

If you are a middle aged (I'm in my thirties now, it used to be that 30 was old, but now it is the new 20 I've been told) guy like me you can probably still hump a ruck enough to keep up with the 18-23 year olds that make up the Infantry. But it hurts like hell and that is why they give CO's and 1SG's humvees to roll around the battlefield.

Now my father is a machinist (I have mentioned this before). I don't expect him to put on a rucksack and leave my mom to go play guerilla in the woods any time soon. But who do you think I turn to when I need a rifle repaired? In addition to rebarreling old rifles and adding scope bases my dad has spent more time under beat up old cars and trucks helping me get back on the road than I ever deserved. Thank you Dad, I appreciate it and hope someday I can pass it on.

My sister just got certified as an LPN and hired full time. Next year she'll go back to school to finish up her R.N. degree and certification. I don't expect her to put on a ruck and go play guerilla any time soon. But who do you think I'd trust to clean and pack a wound at 0300?

Some folks talk about being a "week long prepper" or a "month long prepper" as if it were anything other than second nature to my mom. My mom could feed a squad of hungry Infantryman a delicious meal on a moments notice with nothing more than what she keeps in the walk in pantry. Not many people in todays world know how to turn an animal into a meal from start to finish, but my folks do (and thank you for passing that skill on Dad). So if you can't do what you want, you do what you can.

A family is generally a built in support network, now that I'm half a continent away from mine I don't have their skills available to help me. My family supports me, they have stood behind me through a whole heap of military life. If push ever came to shove those are the folks that I would run to (or my older brother who is also well prepared for bad things to happen). But right now I don't have them available so I have to rethink survival plans.

But what is the point about all this? Every successful insurgency depends more on an active and passive support network than on insurgent fighters. How many safe houses does it take to support just one fighter? Do you have a buddy who is a realtor, property manager, or landlord and can stash you in empty apartments or houses? How many "money men" does it take to keep the food, medicine, weapons, and ammunition flowing for an operational cell? Do you have a buddy who is an accountant, bank manager, or financial planner? Do you think that even simple things like food become easy to get when you are being hunted and food is being rationed? How many housewives does it take to add just one extra can of food to their weekly shopping trip to support one fighter?

The fact of the matter is that in an insurgency the Powers That Be will use any and all tools including purchasing habits (when cash is outlawed there will be no "anonymous" transactions), social networking (how many dumb crooks are caught because they updated their location on Facebook?), surveillance via satellite, spy plane, and drones (already in use round the world). If your network can't keep you out of the limelight you are effectively screwed.

When JM is talking about building a support network he is talking about building people and facilities that allow those who are willing and able to fight to stay in the field. I can't stress how important it is for those support personnel to be in place. Fighter win engagements, but logistics wins wars. Or as Patton liked to say, "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics."

What genocide teaches us

2012-01-25T20:01:00.000-08:00

The organization "Genocide Watch" has recognized that the persecution of a white minority in South Africa by the black majority is "genocide." The only difference between the actions of Hitler and the African National Congress is one of competence and scale, there is no moral difference.

I believe it was Confucius who taught that there are three ways to learn, the most noble is by reflection, the easiest is by observation, and the most bitter is by experience. So it would be foolish not to observe the situation in South Africa and reflect on what we see. There won't be too many answers here, each and every situation is unique but it is always good to look at a problem set or situation with an open mind.

Gun control works to disarm the law abiding and those either too poor or incompetent to obtain otherwise legal firearms through illegal channels. People are dieing from machete hacks, shovel hits, strangulation, arson, rape, stab wounds, but not from a whole lot of gunshot wounds. The purpose of gun control has always been "victim control" and not "crime control" to anyone with a functioning brain. An armed mob singing "Kill the Boer" would take pause before charging against a farmhouse defended by 2 to 4 AR-15 wielding farmers. Those farmers then make contact with the next few farms who come as a quick reaction force and finish "providing security" until the "constabulary" arrives.

So, if you find yourself being faced down by a mob, ammunition and the ability to make good use of it are key. A Mauser rifle has been a Boer symbol since the very beginning, but it seems to be not enough of a deterrent to keep a persecuted minority safe. I know the old saying "fear the man who only has one rifle, he probably knows how to use it" makes sense when it comes to being a master of one firearm. However that wisdom is not holding up to reality in South Africa, and "Farm Survival courses" are teaching how to build a resilient community that can provide mutual support in case of an attack.

For what it is worth the death toll stood just over 1,600 when the linked article was written (10 years, from 1994 to 2004), and the current death toll is about twice that. Numerically the attacks are on the increase. I think that possibly the 2005 gun control legislation might have something to do with why attacks are on the increase. Even in South Africa gun control brings nothing but misery and death. The very definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results...

So, resilient communities aren't enough to stop the attacks. The government continues to try to destroy the ability of resilient communities to conduct mutual defense against attacks by "criminal elements" of society... It becomes very clear that the government is giving de facto permission to persecute the minority. I believe that the statement "never attribute to malice what incompetence will explain" is largely true, and while the incompetence of the ANC run government is legendary, I cannot see anything but evil behind the ANC obstruction in the rights of people to defend themselves.

In the United States our gun laws were originally drafted to keep firearms out of the hands of free blacks. That turned around and bit everyone in the ass until the "right to carry" movement took hold and now only the most draconian of states (with also the most corrupt state governments, I'm looking at you Illinois where your governors make your license plates) fail to honor basic human rights.

So what is our situation here? Would resilient communities have a better chance in Lockhart TX or Dogpatch MS? I think so, but geography becomes key. If your "QRF" neighbors in your "Resilient Community" are 15 minutes away they are little better than the police, so you have to plan to survive for that long (and hopefully longer).

The sustained rate of fire for an M4 is about 15 rounds a minute, or one shot every 3 seconds. So if you plan on 15 minutes of sustained fire you are looking at 225 rounds, or 5 rounds over an Army standard basic load. Now most "gunfights" don't happen with long periods of sustained fire, but shorter periods of "semi-automatic" fire. So the ability to rapidly change magazines is a good skill to have.

Another thing to think about is the "stoppage rate" for an M4. Various "dust tests" have concluded that stoppages occur at various rates for various firearms. No firearm has a stoppage rate of 0, or a reliability rate of 100%. So those who only have one firearm had better know how to clear a stoppage.

I knew a sniper who had his M14 jam up in the middle of a firefight. Instead of clearing the weapon he drew his m9 and kept firing in the direction of the bad guys, while calling for his buddies to increase their rates of fire so he could clear his rifle. Having a backup of some sort is a good thing, and a buddy with a rifle sure beats the heck out of a pistol.

So what am I going to take away from this? Well I have plenty of rifles, but none of them are in compatible calibers with each other. The fix to this is to buy/build another upper in 5.56 for my wife to use (currently I have 2 ARs, one set up as an A2 match rifle, and the other set up as an M4-22 in 22lr). I have confidence my wife could do just fine with an M4 style setup. It would be silly of me to give my wife the heavy A2 with irons when I could easily put together something lighter with a red dot on top.

New Garand owner

2012-01-24T20:34:00.000-08:00

So my wife, being the best wife in the world, took me on a gun store crawl of Louisville and surrounding areas on Saturday. Went to the Kentucky Gun Company (nice folk, good store), Knob Creek (still overrated), Tilfords (very s-l-o-w service), Lotus Gun Works (overpriced), Danny's (nice guy, he might get some of my business later if I need a gunsmith), and Biff's (which had reloading equipment from the stone age still new in box), and didn't find a single k98 worth buying.

I did however see an M1 Garand at Tilfords that was advertised as "needing an op rod." Now oprods are an expensive part, but I'm thinking that some of those 86,000 Korean Garands will get parted out and oprods will get a little less scarce. Buying a used rifle is like buying a used truck, sometimes you just know you'll have to tinker under the hood (or in the case of a Garand, under the wood).

So I took a chance and bought the Garand on a return trip. It is on a "CAI" reciever but has a Winchester bolt and trigger group. I'm sure if I shopped around for a Win receiver/barrel combo I could increase the value of the rifle to a collector. I got it home and pulled out the spring and follower rod the oprod and bolt didn't move under their own weight until the rifle was tilted around 90 degrees.

So I guess that is a "tilt test" fail, but the place where the oprod is rubbing is just under the chamber of the barrel, which from what I can gather is a normal contact point that needs to be greased. The old wisdom is that if it goes round and round it gets oiled and if it goes back and forth it gets greased. I'll pick up a tub of grease tomorrow and see if the oprod is rubbing in any other spot. If it isn't I'll take it to the range and toss the dice with some M2 ball ammo for a functions check.

The biggest reason for buying a Garand was the massive number of "Garand Matches" that seem to be held in Kentucky and Indiana. I may not be the worlds best shot, but I've got the better part of 6 pounds of IMR 4064 and 1k of M72 match bullets already on my reloading bench.

Now I know that I went shopping on a non payday weekend, but having visited more than a hands worth of gun shops in the Louisville area I didn't see any particularly frantic gun buying. However, if just every gunshop in America sells one more gun per week than they did over last year, that is still enough to make people sit up and take notice. A Republican would say, "Great! my stock in Colt will go up!" and a Democrat/Communist/Fascist (but I repeat myself) would say "There oughta be a Law!"

I look forward to the day when voting is made every bit as easy as puchasing a firearm. After all, they are both specific Constitutional rights, it would make sense to treat them as such.

Reintegration

2012-01-21T06:42:00.000-08:00

I've been home for just over a week now. Things I have learned.

The kids now are not the kids I left. I intellectually knew this before, now it is a concrete reality. My wife has done an amazing job being a single parent and I'm very happy to come home to a healthy family that did just fine without me.

Prices for milsurp rifles at any of the gun stores outside Louisville are marked up over what I consider "reasonable" based on the going prices in the Shotgun News and gunbroker.com. Anyone know where I can get a k98 with good headspace, bore, and crown for around 200 bucks?

If you want Alliant Power Pro 2000-MR powder you will not find it any closer than 1.5 hours in any direction. Couldn't find any TAC either. On the flip side I found a brick of 1,000 CCI 400 small rifle primers that I didn't remember buying, so it is kinda like getting a late Christmas present.

The idea of a "quiet Saturday morning breakfast" is not going to happen any time soon. I woke up before the wife and kids, went downstairs and made hashbrowns and eggs (when you haven't cooked in 7 months it's a good idea to start out on the basics). I brought my wife a plate of eggs (over easy, I crack them directly into a hot skillet, pour a little water in to make steam and then cover the skillet so that everything cooks up nicely without burning the bottoms of the eggs) and hashbrowns and a bottle of ketchup. My 1 year old didn't wait thirty seconds before doing a head dive right into Mommy's plate and spilling the contents everywhere. My wife was mortified, I thought it was par for the course (I managed not to laugh, but it was freaking hilarious).

In Iraq I checked my boots for camel spider, in Afghanistan I checked my boots for scorpions. At home I have to check my boots for forks, blocks, cars, and other assorted toddlers toys. I am of the opinion that toddler toys are vastly preferrable to scorpions and spiders.

So things are definitely an adjustment from living in a plywood hooch to living with my wife and two rugrats. But I truly believe that to be a good Soldier you have to be able to deal with transitions. One day on patrol you deal with an explosion, the next day you deal with losing a buddy, the next you counsel a soldier who had his wife leave. The hits keep coming, but the key is to roll with the punches and focus on the mission at hand. Leave Afghanistan behind for a while, don't suppress it, just let it lie until the appropriate time comes to deal with any baggage. Cause transisioning from "Warrior" to "Daddy" is way too important to mess up with any sort of baggage.

Update, my apologies to Wideners

2012-01-20T10:27:00.000-08:00

Turns out that Wideners sent the 1,000 173gr FMJBT bullets I ordered in a separate box than the rest of my order. My wife had them packed in a different area and got them to me.

Life is good.

Fire and Maneuver

2012-01-20T10:25:00.000-08:00

Practice the Simple Things HARD, and the hard things become simple. I can't remember which of my buddies has that as part of his signature line, but it is largely true. SF, Rangers, SEALs don't really train on anything different than a regular Soldier or Marine, they just train on the basics until they never get it wrong.

I don't know if Squids or Zoomies get a block of "Buddy SET!" and "Buddy MOVING!" buddy team exercises during their version of basic training but I know that even paper pushers in the Army get some live fire training on covering their battle buddy during a buddy team exercise. This isn't saying that the Army/USMC is better than the Air Force or Navy, just that every Soldier and Marine should be familiar with the concepts of fire and maneuver. The "Buddy Team" is the basis for all maneuver. But this isn't rocket surgery, it's a simple concept that is scalable from a two man team all the way up to Echelons Above Reality.

Corporals and Sergeants are expected to be able to control a FIRE TEAM (4 men in two buddy teams) to set one buddy team to cover the other while they move.
Squad Leaders, (E-6's) are expected to control a SQUAD by maneuvering FIRE TEAMS.
Platoon Leaders are expected to be able to control a PLATOON by maneuvering SQUADS.
Company Commanders are expected to control a Company by maneuvering PLATOONS. Three platoons, one fire, one maneuver, one reserve.

Battalion commanders are expected to control a Battalion by maneuvering COMPANIES. Three companies (not including any specialty companies), one fire, one maneuveuver, one reserve.
This goes all the way up the food chain to Corps and Army level commanders that move Divisions and Brigades around the battlefield. But the only real difference between a Buck Sergeant Fire Team Leader and a 3 Star General is one of scale and experience.

I'm not saying that an E-5 is every bit as capable a commander as an O-5, it just isn't so, but that the basics of fire and manuever are the same. Things just get a little more complicated as you go up the food chain and get different enablers to work with. You don't start getting dedicated Machine Gun support until the Platoon Leader level (Squad in the USMC) and mortars to provide indirect fire until you get to the Company levle (Platoon in the USMC). Having gone through the process of planning a Mech Infantry Battalion defense I can assure you that the level of planning is also much more in depth the higher you get (which is why BN Commanders have a dedicated Staff to help them analyze and plan missions).

So what does this have to do with "A Nation of Riflemen?" Well first is that a nation of Riflemen is NOT a National Army. The vaunted "Hunters of Wisconsin" being the whatever largest Army in the world is pure horse crap. Yes they can shoot, and yes there is potential there, but it takes more than a rifle and the ability to shoot it to make an Army. It is easier to teach a Soldier to shoot than it is to teach a shooter to soldier. I'm not going to say that shooters don't have the skills to provide a credible threat against a modern miltary force, just that if you can't transition your INDIVIDUAL skills into a TEAM EFFORT then you are likely to get destroyed by those who can. As a historical note, the Boers were excellent at combining their individual skills into a group effort.

As a recent historical example the Taliban has been fighting US Forces for over a decade now. Individually they are fine warriors. Collectively they fail to add up to a sum greater than its individual parts. While the Taliban have the ability to mass forces, they aren't good at fire and maneuver. Their cell structure doesn't give much scalability and their commanders keep getting killed off. But to become more effect than a few disjointed teams here and there they need to be able to move teams the way a buddy team moves individuals.

So what do you need to know about Fire and Maneuver at the ground level? First off the basics all apply, Shoot, Move, Communicate. You shoot so your buddy can move, he moves, then he gets set and communicates to you that he is shooting so you can move. It really is that simple, but when other guys are shooting back at you things get complicated in a hurry.

The basics:
Know where you are, know where your buddy is, and know where the bad guys are. Don't run in front of your buddy who is trying to give you cover. Friendly fire is even more accurate than enemy fire.
Maintain Situational Awareness, don't "tunnel in" on your objective. The "lone sniper" you see is really the point man for an Infantry Platoon.

When things go to hell, a "Break Contact Drill" is just fire and maneuver AWAY from the enemy. Using disciplined fire to suppress or kill the enemy while you gain space in as orderly a manner as you can manage.

When you are the "Fire" element you need to be smart with your bullets. Belt Fed Machineguns can provide suppressive fire to make them keep their heads down. You can't carry enough ammo or reload fast enough to do the same with an M4gery (and if you can then you can't do it accurately). If every time the bad guy sticks his head up you put a ding in his helmet that is every bit as effective "suppression" as you can achieve. Don't waste bullets, but use them to achieve the effect you desire, which is keeping the bad guy pinned down until your buddy can move to a position to decisively end the fight.

SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-18T04:27:00.000-08:00

I don't have enough regular readers that a "strike" against SOPA/PIPA would do any good. So until they take it my keyboard from my cold, dead hands, I'll use my little corner of the internet to speak my mind.

Only someone who is mentally challenged would believe that creating a law in the United States to combat "overseas online piracy" would actually do any good. Like the DMCA before it, SOPA/PIPA is so full of fail that the only people hurt are those exercising thier first amendment rights. And as with the DMCA, the piratesbay.org will simply send a letter back to RIAA saying "Sweden isn't part of the US, you fuckwits" and continue with business as usual ignoring our laws because they simply don't apply to them.

Anytime someone wants to limit your freedom based on activities outside of our borders they should just be a little more honest and say "we want to limit your freedom and lack sufficient brainpower to think of a more plausible excuse."

Standing with Israel doesn't mean invading Iran

2012-01-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

Arctic Patriot wrote a post about Iran. I know that speaking out against Israel is dangerous in American politics, but let me say that this isn't speaking out against Israel, this is speaking out against needless warfare. Wars cost lives and treasure. I'm not saying the all volunteer military couldn't handle another war, we can, just that another war is not in anyone's best interest (including Israels).

Now, it is true that Iran controls about 20% of the worlds oil supply. However they sell mainly to China. China doesn't want the flow of oil to stop any more than Iran does. If war were to come then that would be the first thing to stop flowing. So China doesn't want Iran to go to war (the same way they don't want North Korea to go to war because it would frustrate trade with South Korea).

I've got mud from Iraq and Afghanistan on my boots. Don't need mud from Iran on it. For the last decade Iran has been "two to three years away from a nuclear warhead" according to the talking heads.
If I have to go fight in Iran then I have to go, I signed on the dotted line and I keep my contracts or die trying. But I think it would be better for Iran to start shooting at other nations before we try any "pre-emptive" bullshit. The policy of "containment" against Communism was an utter failure in terms of stopping the spread of Communism, but it DID create stability through international treaty.

I'm all for normalizing relations, as we did with China, as a method to stabilizing the Middle East. Say what you will about China, they are more interested in keeping the trade flowing than in conquering Taiwan at this point. Even as we have normalized relations with China SEATO has worked the same way NATO worked to keep open warfare away in Europe. So I am all for another "Middle Eastern Treaty Organization" or METO with our allies of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Turkey, and now Iraq create a mutual defense block to counter Iranian aggression (instead of trying to halt the spread of Communism).

It has been my experience that people around the world really like Americans, but they really don't like American Foreign Policy when it affects them negatively. In the first Gulf War over 30 Nations sent troops to fight against Saddam Hussein's aggression. The Arab world can work together to keep the status quo when it suits them. On the flip side, the Arab World has also worked together to attack Israel all at the same time. Our alliance with Israel (and Israel's teeth) have kept that mass attack from being a repeat performance.

In the 1980's NATO wasn't exactly a "paper tiger" without teeth, between the US and UK the Naval capacity alone was a significant detterent. The ground forces of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq are more than enough to prevent Iranian aggression (they have Abrams and Bradleys which will beat the crap out of the Combloc stuff Iran has). So yes Iran is a terrorism supporter, yes they are working on nukes. However, China and Russia are allies with Iran, and officially we are friendly with China and Russia. Letting Iran's regional ambitions be checked by Iran's regional neighbors is a much better policy than starting something bigger.

So it is my opinion that peace with Iran is achievable by creating an international entity that makes the cost of war for Iran heavier than the cost of peace. This is achievable with the allies we currently have, and what international goodwill we have left.

Accurate AR: New Trigger

2012-01-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

In terms of what makes an accurate rifle, it really boils down to barrel, trigger, and sights. Even rifles that have a weird final lockup like a FAL or weird fluted chamber like an HK can be made to shoot quite accurately. Obviously you won't shoot benchrest with a FAL, but judged against other rifles of the same weight and capabilities there isn't a person alive who can look at 5 shots on paper and say "Obviously this was shot by a FAL and not an AR-10 or Saiga 308."

Yesterday I installed a Geisselle SSA trigger on my match rifle. My rifle started as a used Colt HBAR upper to which with the help of a buddy who has a set of action blocks I added a Rock River National Match free float tube. The lower is a Rock River with A2 pattern buttstock. The sights are still stock, but I'm looking at having a gunsmith pin the rear sight for consistency. I'd do it myself but access to a milling machine or even quality drill press is lacking at this point in time.

Anyways, a quick lowdown on the SSA trigger. Very simple to install, no problems with the Rock River lower. It is obviously a 2 stage trigger, and since it is roughly half the cost of a Geisselle match trigger and meets EIC/Service Rifle requirements (4.5 pounds, no obvious external modification) it was my choice to upgrade from the stock trigger. I'm a fair shot, but not good enough to take full advantage of a Geisselle match trigger at this point, but when I am at that point I'll just transfer the SSA to another AR and upgrade again.

First impressions. Since I believe that dry fire practice is key, I ran through a bunch of standing dry fire drills and have come to the conclusion that this trigger will help me tighten my shot group. Not only is lock time cut roughly in half, but I was able to "call the shot" more easily whenever the "click" happened and I wasn't on target. The first stage of the trigger is a long pull until you meet "stiff" resistance, and the second stage breaks cleanly. Not like a "glass rod" on some of the better triggers I've used, but very clean with no grit and no additional takeup. Now I just need to get some 2000-MR powder in....

Who patrols your neighborhood?

2012-01-15T02:53:00.000-08:00

Anonymous left the comment that if I ended up "Patrolling his neighborhood" then I needed to "choose sides quick." I'm not exactly sure if that was a threat or just a random once off comment from someone who talks big on the internet.

However, whether or not I end up patrolling a neighborhood in the US there are those who are already patrolling your neighborhood. They are your local Law Enforcement Officers. They know where you live, they know the rhythms and habits of your particular stretch of the hood, and they are not above putting on body armor and kicking in your door based on a bad tip. They know that no matter how bad they shred your constitutional rights under the heels of their jackboots that they will have immunity for their actions. It doesn't matter if the intel was bad (like Jose Guerena ~~or that Grandma in Atlanta~~ UPDATE, Thanks Tam for the info that those officers recieved prison sentences) they will not go to jail for killing your dog, wife, kids (like in Detroit), or you. They have power over you that I don't want, don't need, and frankly think is a very bad thing. Click on the link to "Photography is Not a Crime" and feel your blood boil at the abuses people take for exercising their first amendment rights.

The biggest reason that we are having a hard time in Afghanistan is the idea of "shared risk" with the Afghans. You can't live on a fortified FOB and earn the respect of those who have lived in a war zone their entire life. One of the big reasons why we see "TSA=STASI" sentiments coming up, and we make fun of the overweight douchebags who raid grandmas house in the "War on (SOME) Drugs" is that they are losing respect. Our law enforcement personnel have sacrificed legitimacy in the name of "officer safety."

Do you know the names of those who already patrol your neighborhood? If you don't, then don't waste your time worrying about random Soldiers who haven't received any orders to patrol inside CONUS. I don't care how smart or tough you are as a fighter, if you can't see the 50 meter target right in front of you then you have no business prepping for that 500 meter shot.

One of the tenets of success is asking yourself what you will give up to get it. Are you willing to give up "safety" to get "victory?" Our cops sure aren't willing to give up "safety" to gain "legitimacy."

Setting up the man cave....

2012-01-14T14:47:00.000-08:00

So one of the first chores I've set out for myself in the new house is carving out my little nest of relaxation. Right now this means my reloading bench in the basement. I knew coming back that I couldn't totally immerse myself into "family time" without going crazy. So I started buying reloading stuff in Afghanistan in preparation for High Power season.

The good news is that the Lee Pro1000 reloader with double disk setup I ordered from Midwayusa was waiting for me when I got back from Afghanistan. I like to tinker, the unit was on sale, so we'll see how it works for me once everything is properly mounted. Need to stop by the hardware store and pick up some 4" bolts.

The bad news is that the 1000 308 caliber 173 gr FMJBT bullets I ordered from Wideners wasn't in the box with the 5000 224 caliber 75 gr HPBT bullets. Considering that I placed that order six months ago and it was delivered to my old address outside Joint Base Lewis McChord and my wife drove it cross country to our new home, I'm likely out $180.00 (which is almost our two week family food budget) not including shipping. Lesson learned? Don't buy from Wideners if you aren't physically there to inspect the package when it arrives, which is probably a good thing to do for every internet purchase.

More bad news. Somewhere in the packing one of the linkage pins for my RCBS Jr. Press went missing. Will need to order a new one. On the flip side I have a backup single stage press available.

On the awesome side, today I got to play in the snow with my boys. Don't care how you slice it, that's pretty cool.

Home again

2012-01-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

So I'm back at my undisclosed location stateside. Coming back is weird, construction that was just started when I left is now complete and open for business. My sons are definitely older, both are very different from the boys I left.

Blogging will probably be on the light side for a while as my family gets used to me being around, and I in turn get used to sharing my life with my family. Any husband worth his salt will tell you that marriage is work. Being a father is work too, and I've got to remember how to be both. I came home to a house that I've never lived in before, so it might take a little bit before it feels like "home" and not just another place in a long stream of COPs and FOBs where I've layed my head at nights. But humans are resilient, and we reach a "new normal" relatively quickly.

Pulled my competition AR out of storage to check the bore, no rust. A quick pmcs on the weapons showed me that they all stored nicely, and I just need to set up the reloading press to start cranking out the match ammunition before the High Power season really starts up.

As seen on AFN...

2012-01-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

During a PSA for hygene they actually found someone dumb enough to say:

"Using hand sanitizers based on alcohol can dry out your skin, a better method is plain old soap and water."

I don't know what planet they are on, but soap and water strip oils from your skin every bit as much as alcohol ever did.

I ain't home yet...

2012-01-11T03:29:00.000-08:00

But I ain't going back to Afghanistan anytime soon.

I landed in Manas Air Base 9 June 2011, and flew out of Bagram to an undisclosed location in Europe on 11 January 2012. This was a "short" deployment, but by this time tomorrow I should be well on my way to an undisclosed location in the continental US.

I can't say exactly how the mood is in the Army as a whole, but in my little microcosm of experience the feeling of wasted time marks this deployment. There are Generals and Politicians who look at reports on Afghan Security Force progress and think that things are looking better. And from measurable metrics like "does Mohammed have a government issued gun to shoot and truck to ride in?" then things are getting better.

On the ground, it is hard to sell that sort of "progress" to a grunt and expect him to take a bite of that shit sandwich and think it's a shrimp po'boy. This deployment leaves Afghanistan quite a bit like we found it, and it feels like prisoners finally getting paroled to go back home. A lot of the talk was "what you gonna do when you get stateside?" from Company B sounded a lot like "what you gonna do on the outside?" from Cell Block B. Instead of talking about how we made a difference, we talked about how we were barely relevant.

I won't say that I'm demoralized entirely, the mission in Afghanistan could be done right if we were given the freedom to do it right. The problem lies in that we would have to accept an increase in casualties to increase our effectiveness. That is politically untenable, even for those who cause leg tingles. We have definitely "won the hearts and minds" of the Afghans serving in the Security Forces. I have yet to see any sort of real progress showing that the Afghan Security Forces are winning the hearts and minds of Afghans.

Normal Americans love the military because our relationship has a long history that has (until NDAA 2012) been largely "we don't really do domestic except for disaster relief" and they can get behind what our MISSION really is. We are a deterrent to large scale conflict directed against the United States. When it comes right down to it, that is the role of all branches of the military. Everybody likes that mission, everyone understands that having a big stick can keep a pack of rabid dogs away.

What people really DON'T like is the idea of a squad of grunts patrolling their neighborhood, confiscating private property, and "detaining" those suspected of terrorism. If that happens we are so far lost that there is no recourse to honest citizens but to oppose tyranny or roll over on their backs and wet themselves for their new totalitarian dictator. Because it is a very real option to have a well equipped Army and Police Force, and a population that views them as hostile to their way of life, kinda like that dusty old place I just left.

Mars Needs Women

2012-01-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

Last night I popped a Rob Zombie CD into the laptop and listened to "Mars Needs Women, Angry Red Women" and it has stuck with me. Made me think of the old couples therapy book "Men are from Mars, women are from Venus." Then I watched "Boondock Saints" again.

The gun control movement seeks to tell women that they need to be protected. The gun control movement tells us that we really can't fight back. The government tells us not to take matters into our own hands (even a 911 operator wouldn't tell a 19 year old mother to shoot the bastard, just "do what she had to do" as if mincing words made a difference). It is almost as if we really are from different planets, call it "Planet Reality" and "Planet Wishful Thinking."

I'm a big fan of strong female characters. The list keeps growing. Xena and Buffy had good runs on TV. Angelina Jolie played "SALT" and Zoe Saldanada in "Columbiana." If a little girl wants to be an international spy she doesn't have to look to being an accessory on James Bond's arm anymore, she can be one all on her own. Breda shut down her blog because she feels her mission is over to empower the women she knows. These qualify as "very good things" in my mind.

As much as the gun control advocates say that the rise of female shooters is a "fluke" or "bad data" it doesn't change the fact that there are a lot more pink available in the gun world than there used to be. Love or hate Charter Arms I found the the "Pink Lady" 38 snubby that my wife carries to be reliable and actually pleasant to shoot.

When my wife and I got married she wouldn't touch a gun. Now when I get home we are going to get her a rifle of her very own. I think a Marlin 795 is a good starter gun, and if needs be I can modify the stock to fit her frame. After she gets good with the 795 I'll see about building her an M4 clone if she is interested.

You know why the media and liberals absolutely hated Sarah Palin? Because she doesn't need to be protected, because she advocates fighting back, because as feminine as "Caribou Barbie" is, she's still more man than most Democracts I know. It is almost as if were are being separated into two seperate species, one where we maintain our dignity and rights, and one where the iPod People have convinced everyone to buy Apple, drive Subarus (Volvo and Volkswagon also acceptable) and serve as sheeple to their masters. We really are on different planets, a planet based in "reality", and a planet based in "how things should be" according to liberal utopian ideology.

Getting back to Rob Zombie, "Planet Reality" needs women. Not necessarily angry red women, but women who are either shooters, or supportive of shooters. So I'm absolutely tickled pink that more and more women are stepping up and reclaiming their strength. Not in some sort of poetry reading kumbayah drum circle BS, but reclaiming their strength in the gun shops, ranges, and sporting fields of America. Now if we could just get more gun store clerks to treat women like actual customers....

But they have armor!

2012-01-08T04:17:00.000-08:00

While Kevin Costner is not my favorite actor by any means, "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" wasn't a bad film, at least in my memory. During the "inspirational speech" portion of the film Robin tells the disbelieving peasants "Even a child can be taught to find the chinks in armor!"
Robin was right, all armor has weak points.

With the proliferation of body armor, commercial and surplus, it makes sense to think about defeating body armor with the tools you have. So far only limited crime has been committed by criminals in body armor, but I can only see that number going up as it is part of the Zetas MO. In the criminal arms race, body armor is the next step for organized crime.

Modern armor is usually a vest with ballistics inserts and a ballistic helmet. This armor is specifically designed to protect against the "center of mass shot" that most of us train to deliver. That being said, you don't have to take the center of mass shot. Specialized armor such as an EOD suit is unlikely to be used by an attacker as it is unwieldy (however improvised armor as used by the North Hollywood Bandits covered more area than standard commercial body armor).

Generally the soft portion of the vest is multi layered kevlar, a polyarylamine with very high tensile strength. The ballistic insert can be made of ceramic, plastic, or metal (AR500 steel makes dandy inserts if you don't mind the weight). Each insert has pros and cons. Ceramic is great for one or two hits. Plastic stops hypervelocity rounds from rifles, but not always low velocity high momentum rounds from big pistols. Metal inserts are damn heavy and interfere with a compass for dismounted movement.

A ballistic helmet is generally made of kevlar fiber stiffened with a synthetic resin although there are many more surplus "steel pots" on the market than kevlar. The steel pots can be defeated by nearly any firearm, but the kevlar ballistic helmets require something in the centerfire rifle category. Spider silk has been considered a future replacement for Kevlar, but despite advances in manufacturing technology it hasn't matured as a technology.

Tools for defeating armor.

VEHICLES:

Doesn't matter how much body armor you are wearing if a tank rolls over you. That is why tankers call infantrymen "crunchies." I'm pretty sure that a soccer mom SUV will do sufficient damage to stop body armor clad criminal. The big armored "battle wagons" that the Cartels have been making south of the border will definitely crush someone in a ballistic vest.

BOMBS: Specifically IEDs

I mention this only because it is something that has become a reality on the battlefield. First in Iraq before being exported to Afghanistan this is a tool/tactic that will not go away. While I don't consider myself a jack booted thug I am plenty sure that is exactly how the goat humping jihadists see me, so their preferred method of defeating armor is a really big bang. It works.

The drug Cartels have adopted the IED as a tactic in Central America, and Brownsville, Texas, is the first place I could find where an IED was used on US soil.

INCINDIARY DEVICES:

Dowsing someone in a burning fluid defeats body armor. Molatov cocktails anyone? It isn't like you'll have access to white phosphorous or napalm bombs, and surplus flame throwers are getting rare as hens teeth....

CHEMICAL WEAPONS:

While the civilized world continually disarms itself of chemical munitions a lot of tin pot dictators are getting their grubby hands on all the chemical weapons they can find. I don't recommend using chemical weapons to defeat body armor. If you you want to understand why chemical weapons are a really bad idea, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10408124

GUNS: use a RIFLE.

People have eyes, and eyes need unobstructed line of site to function. So until they make bulletproof face shields (like the NH Bandits improvised), the triangle created by eyes and nose is a good place to aim if you can. If your target is looking at you and you hit anywhere in that triangle then you can move on to the next target. Disrupting the central nervous system is a good way to stop an attack, and shooting glasses aren't designed to actually be shot.

Another thing that armor wearing criminals have is joints. Specifically hip joints. Shoot someone there and if you don't kill them, then you should be able to immobilize them. The hip area represents a sizeable target, although much smaller than "center of mass." The North Hollywood Shooters covered themselves in body armor, but had the police used AR-15's with high velocity bullets against the shooters hips they could have shortened the engagement nicely. Ballistic inserts don't cover joints just yet, but I have some pretty good ideas on how to incorporate that feature into the next generation of body armor.

Branch arteries in the neck, legs, arms, are also good things to disrupt. Unless you make your own armor like the NH Bandits did (or are wearing an EOD blast suit), some limbs will be exposed. Lethality is achieved by disrupting the flow of oxygen to the brain, and cutting through an artery or two is a relatively quick way to achieve that disruption.

Another thing to consider is that a kevlar vest has holes. A torso hole at the bottom, a neck hole at the top, and arm holes on each side. Each of these holes is a good target if you have an angle to shoot it. This means elevated shooting down for the neck and arms, and depressed shooting up for the torso hole. Had the Police got off the street with a 308 caliber patrol rifle and shot down the NH Bandits neck hole from a rooftop it would have stopped the fight much more quickly.

In the extreme case of the North Hollywood Bandits, they made armor to cover their entire bodies. Good for them but in the end they still died from multiple gunshot wounds. Pistols turned out to be relatively useless, shotguns only slightly less worthless, and patrol rifles were in short supply. A 308 or 223 rifle would have punched easily through the layers of kevlar. Guess what the North Hollywood Police did not have?

Finally, there is a tactic that I have never personally used, but some hunters have called "breaking down" an animal. Bullets are shot not to kill the animal but immobilize it, aiming for the knees, hips, spine. If your bullets cannot penetrate the armor, they can at least transfer kinetic shock through it to crack bones, burst blood vessels. This is the only way to really describe what happened to the North Hollywood Bandits, the police just shot them until enough armor was damaged that bullets started getting through.

The great thing about direct fires, if you aren't achieving the effect you desire, just pour on more. It worked for the North Hollywood Police.

The slow collapse into the soft dark ages....

2012-01-08T00:38:00.000-08:00

This is a long winded and winding post. Sorry there isn't more spit and polish on it but sometimes I write just to put thoughts down before they flit away like butterflies at dusk.

The veneer of civilization is pretty thin. However like all veneers, it is also pretty broad so if a piece gets scratched away it isn't too hard to fill in the gaps again. I've been pondering the quesiton "what is civilization?" quite a bit lately. Is it roads? Is it agriculture? Is is book learning, such as engineering? Or is it culture such as sculpture?

Here in Afghanistan they have a sort of a civilization. They could have more and better everything if they decided that they wanted more and better. Often times they are simply content with what they have and don't see the benefits of drip irrigation instead of flood irrigation. In Iraq they had plenty of roads, plenty of relatively modern agriculture, but still have horrendous corruption and tribal conflicts. So civilization isn't just any sort of infrastructure, or any sort of art or culture, it is the appropriate mix of infrastructure, legal standardization, and social culture.

Infrastructure allows economic mobility. Legal standardization combined with a culture that respects honesty minimizes the corruption that eventually hurts everyone. China is a good example of a "civalization" that is rapidly turning from agriculture to industry. However, because of the social climate of corruption corners are cut, contractors pay party officials to look the other way, and next thing you know a major earthquake flattens substandard housing. But the corruption continues, because it is good for business in the Chinese culture. And the Chinese know that business is good for China.

So what frightens me most about the United States is the death of Rule of Law. When the Administration breaks contract law to support the UAW in the GMC Bankruptcy, when MF Global is legally allowed to raid customer accounts to pay off debt in total violation of established practice and law, when "Recess Appointments" fail to meet recognized legal standards, we have POWER unconstrained by our Laws. Our civilization is falling apart. Rule of Law is good for business in America, and the only replacement for rule of law is corruption. However multinational corporations have learned how easy it is to operate in a corrupt society like China, do you think they will have any compunction of applying those lessons to a corrupt American Government?

It isn't our "crumbling infrastructure" that makes economic powerhouses like China, India, and Brazil drool with envy that is causing our civilization to fail. It is our rising culture of corruption. Corruption allowing a modern Cesaer to turn the Republic into a Dictatorship.

Now, I believe that you should never assign bad intent to an action when simple incompetence will do.

But right now Americans are worse off economically than any time since the Great Depression. This is creating a culture of reliance on Uncle Sugar. A culture of reliance that is tolerating the obliteration of the Rule of Law one piece at a time.

Of course this time the Barbarians won't invade in a horde from the north. They will emerge from the underbelly of our society. The Crips and the Bloods, the Mafia, the Cartels, each will do their best to attach themselves like life sucking tics to the bloated imobilized behemoth that our society will become. In turn the bloated behemoth will turn into a rotting carcass and the tics will keep order in order to keep the money flowing.

The real losers are the people. Would Cesar have killed himself if he knew his actions would cause the downfall of the Roman Empire? No, in the history of the world very few men seize power only to serve the people. Hate Pinochet all you want, but once he was done putting the country back on course he let go the reins.

The old saying "Rome wasn't built in a day" also has a corrolary "Rome didn't fall in a day" either. The UAW was protected because they had "their man" in power. So far everyone has lost, and the only "redistribution" that has gone on is the spread of poverty to an ever growing population of "the underclass." But we have our bread and circuses. Or as we like to call it "foodstamps and Kardashians."

There are those who believe, with plenty of anecdotal evidence to back their claims, that this collapse has been engineered by those who want to "take all the worlds wealth." I don't believe that. I believe that we are in an death spiral of our own creating. Congress buys votes with social programs. Social programs start costing more than Congress can cover. We borrow from China. Social program spending increases. More votes for bread and circuses. The public coffers are dry, and the only question now is will their be real cannibalism as a result of the inevitable collapse?

Our civilization is ending by all the measures that I can see. I cannot see any avenue of saving it that will fly under the current system (we have too many people voting to keep Uncle Sugar handing out the dole). So the question remains, what will replace the current system? If we are smart and put the pieces in place now, we will plant the idea of a Republic and Individual Rights and Responsibilities so deeply in the American psyche that we won't fall into a worse sort of despotism that always seems to follow the fall of an Empire (Rome to Cesaer, France to Napoleon, Russia to Lenin, Germany to Hitler, China to Mao, etc).

This isn't exactly cause for alarm. Many Empires have rebuilt themselves and maintained a national identity and character. The Germans got rid of a Monarchy, built a Republic, turned it into a Dictatorship, then into a Democracy all in the last 120 years. History does march on, even when you are in the middle of making it.

Honors, Lineage, and Titles

2012-01-06T22:51:00.000-08:00

On facebook debate is raging about whether or not Jesse Ventura is a SEAL based on the report of a SEAL Sniper punching Jesse Ventura in the face. It is an honest question, one that any Reference Librarian can look into the history books and say, "No, he was not a SEAL, he wore the UDT Badge and was assigned to UDT 12, clearly he was not a SEAL." However he was assigned to SEAL Team One as a Reservist for two years, 1973 to 1975. Kinda like being a Special Forces Operator in the National Guard, you wear the same tab as the active guys, but get less respect.

In the Army we have the same debate over "who is a Ranger" quite often, but let us look at some history. The 5307th Provisional unit fought its way through Southeast Asia without ever using the term "Ranger", but that unit affectionately called "Merrill's Marauders" became the parent of the current 75th Ranger Regiment. But in 1945 if you asked a Marauder if he was a "Ranger" he might have looked at you funny and asked, "What's a Ranger?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill's_Marauders

Conversely, on the other side of the planet, the 29th Provisional Ranger Battalion was training with British Commandos, the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions were prepping for Operation Overlord. So Which one of these units was a real "Ranger?" It is a good question. It gets even fuzzier when you look at when the Airborne Ranger companies popped up in the Korean War. Still to this day if you earned the Ranger Tab you are a "Ranger" or if you served with a Ranger unit you are a Ranger (even if you didn't earn the tab).

Now the UDT/SEAL story is similar. In 1975 the US Navy declared the UDT Badge "obsolete" and all UDT Badge holders needed to apply for the Naval Special Warfar (SEAL) badge instead. So the question is, is Jesse Ventura a SEAL?

The answer is, he earned the right to wear a SEAL badge, whether he ever put in the paperwork to change badges is another matter considering it wasn't until the year he left the navy that his UDT Badge became obsolete. The same way a Marauder might not have known what a Ranger tab looked like in 1944, but when the 75th Regiment was formed the Marauders were retroactively authorized the Ranger Tab. So to a Marauder who was enjoying civilian life in the 1970's when the Regiment stood up, what would the retroactive award of a Ranger tab mean? It means he is a Ranger. The same way that Jesse Ventura is a SEAL.

Bottom line is that anyone accusing Jesse Ventura about "lieing about being a SEAL" is either uninformed or simply trying to split hairs to sling mud at Jesse Ventura. This is a non-issue as there are plenty of other aspects of Mr. Ventura's colorful life to take umbrage against, but the whole UDT/SEAL distinction is non-existant the same way a Marauder is a Ranger.

There is no undefeatable Buddha Palm Death Punch

2012-01-04T04:44:00.000-08:00

There is no single tactice, technique, procedure, or piece of equipment that is a "silver bullet" that will win a fight. Anyone who says differently is selling something to Pentagon procurement managers. Avidus left this point, largely true, about why closer is better.

Another saddening point to consider is that most people in a resistance role will not have the training to successfully make long range shots. Your success rates will likely be much higher at closer ranges.

However, being largely true doesn't mean completely true. Why are we having the debate about the 5.56 being inadequate in Afghanistan? Why are the Taliban and Haqqani fighters choosing Enfield rifles over AKs? Personally I'll keep taking my chances with the illiterate goat humpers as opposed to the folks who show up to my left and right at the High Power matches.

Because closer is deadlier for both sides. By choosing antiquated bolt action rifles that outrange an M4 the bad guys are able to maintain "standoff." In Desert Storm the Iraqi Army was obliterated on the ground, even tank on tank battles were one sided because of "standoff." If you go to any website or reference book about the capabilities of US Tank Crews, you'll see a "maximum effective range" listed that is *ahem* highly conservative. Similarly other "maximum effective ranges" are for planning purposes only. The "maximum effective range" of the m24 sniper rifle has been listed as 800 meters for years even though I have yet to meet a sniper who doesn't have data on the m24 and m118lr out past 1000 meters. For what it's worth the old m118sb ammunition was less accurate, but still capable of 1k shots. I know snipers who have data out to 1400 meters in their data books.

To a very large extent the hardware you have available dictates tactics. If all you have is a pistol that limits your options. When you have an international network of financiers and weapons smugglers funneling Dshkas, RPGs, and SVDs into your organization that opens up possibilities. The Taliban may be illiterate goat humping cavemen, but they do know how to pack a Dshka up a mountain to conduct a long range ambush. A large portion of learning to use terrain is learning to minimize the standoff advantages, or to gain a standoff advantage (hence climbing a mountain with a Dshka).

There really is a manual labeled "Tactics" http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/3-90/index.html and it is a good place to start for thinking about how men, weapons, and terrain interact. I won't say that the terrain will dictate the tactics you use, but if you are going to do something "audacious" you had better know if the terrain will support that. The 6th Rangers crawled several hundred meters through open fields on their approach to Cabanatuan, and the German Army displaced an entire battalion undetected through a single hole in the wall to set up a base of fire in Stalingrad, all because they knew that they could get away with it because of the terrain.

You can get away with anything once.

2012-01-02T03:01:00.000-08:00

Avidus left this comment to "2 minutes of precision"

The counterpart to that tactic is to emulate "Flame and Citron" and get very close, very calmly, shoot, then carefully leave the area.
I will suggest that since Hollywood and video games have turned the sniper into a figure of popular culture, a well dressed fellow calmly walking away is less likely to even be considered.

Everyone will be looking up and away for the big gun with the big suppressor.

This is a true statement, however there are some serious caveats. First off, in the realm of military tactics, "You can get away with anything once." is a good rule to follow. But "better lucky than good" only gets you so far in any endeavor.

There is a reason that Soldiers in Iraq went to "aggressive scanning" in urban areas. Things like RKG-3 anti armor grenades have to be deployed close. However, an Iraqi student was able to walk up behind a Soldier, shoot him in the head, and then leave unmolested a few years ago.

So, you can get away with anything once. Eventually the odds catch up and the enemy adapts to your tactics. Warfare is like the "Red Queen" theory of evolution, sometimes you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place. Think about the evolution of American Football. The "Shotgun" the "I Formation" and other such "tactics" each had their day in the sun until other teams caught on and developed the appropriate technique to counter those tactics.
Right now "flame and citron" will not work against any of the NATO forces that learned hard lessons in Iraq and Afghanistan. It might work against a different force such as the Norks or Iranians but getting close to a well armed opponent who is looking to kill you is a quick form of suicide.

Let me ask this, if you want to remain anonymous, with all the cameras in our world, would "Flame and Citron" be a viable tactic in an urban area? The answer is no in the developed world, and maybe in the developing world (like Iraq). In an rural area, where will you find a crowd to calmly walk into?

I'm not saying that "flame and citron" should be taken out of the playbook. I'm saying that you can't rely on it, you need to look specifically for terrain that would allow it to succeed, and then you need to have balls of steel to pull it off.

On the flip side Snipers don't live forever either. Anyone remember Juba? That bastard got hit with a 500 pounder. Do the same tricks over and over again and your number will come up. Fighting smart means thinking through options, in both time and space, and setting yourself up to conduct follow on operations. Conserve your combat power, think asymetrically.

If every chowhall in Iraq had burned to the ground in 2008 what do you think the EFFECT would have been on morale? It would have crushed morale.

First it would have conveyed the message that you weren't safe on the FOB. Everyone knows this is true in the back of their mind but a lot of people really want to FEEL safe even if it is a lie.

Second it would have meant MRE's, T-RATs, and UGR's for at least a few weeks. Bad chow sucks balls.

Third it would have shifted resources from rearming and refueling to rebuilding chow halls.

So fight smart.

A New Year

2011-12-31T09:11:00.000-08:00

Tonight is New Years Eve. It is a day of hope for many. It is a day to set goals, and make promises. The tradition of a "New Years Resolution" is part of my culture. I guess my resolution for last year was to "live fearlessly, no regrets."

It doesn't mean that regrets didn't come along. But I resolved to live with the consequences of my choices, and knew that I simply can't have it all. Wanna be a Soldier? Good for you, it just means that a rewarding family life will be twice as hard. Want to avoid a midlife crisis? It means having to work to make your dreams a reality before they become a ball and chain of "might have beens" that drag you down into bitterness.

There is a campaign for gay/lesbian/transgender teens called "It Gets Better" that has some pretty powerful messages for surviving the High School years. My HS years kinda sucked, being an outsider to a rural school doesn't win you many friends, especially when you are as socially awkward as I am. But my life did get better, my 20's rocked, and while my 30's got off to a rocky start things are looking up. My life did get better. Better hasn't always been easy, and it hasn't always been fun, but having some control over the helm of my soul in the storm of life has given me no one to blame for my state of affairs but myself.

In High School much of my misery was simply from trying to not be awkward, not be an outsider. As an adult I found that I can live with who I am. I found a wife who manages to love me for who and what I am. I have two sons who I will hopefully get to see grow into men and take control of their own lives.

So I don't know what to change that would make my life better. I do know that I have already made some changes that I am not sure were made out of cunning or cowardice. When I was picked up for a functional area job it took me out of the running for taking over a company. There are a lot of great things about company command, training men and building a team are two things I excell at.

However there are things that will break your heart too. Dealing with a soldier who beats his wife and children, fishing kids out of the drunk tank, watching a good soldier throw his career away during a divorce, watching young privates piss hot on a urine test. Dealing with it all, counseling, chaptering, taking pay away, rendering honors as a casket is lowered into the dirt. I've done all of that and I don't want to do it again. Somehow I'm not as tough as I thought I would be at this point in my life.

I wish that I were a better leader, and so I resolve to become one. I'm at the point in my career where I know that I'm not a bad leader, but I am no Matthew B. Ridgeway or "Terrible" Terry Allen. You want to read about a leader who "rose to the occaision", read about Captain Robert Prince. The book "Ghost Soldiers" and the movie "The Great Raid" go into length about his leadership style. But the truth is that you don't rise to the occaision, you sink to your lowest level of competence. So becoming more competent means I will become a better leader when it is hardest, when it is toughest, and when it counts.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were one set of rules that applied equally?

2011-12-28T20:08:00.000-08:00

Senator Bacon felt the hood coming off of his head, and a single bare lightbulb, not CFL he noted airily, swung overhead.

The idea that a sitting US Senator would be kidnapped by terrorists was something that they all had to prepare for, but Senator Bacon wasn't prepared for the reality, his bodyguards going down with the muffled flashes of sub-machine guns, the black masked bad guys kicking him down and flex cuffing his hands behind his back. The hood over his head was the part where he knew that it had to be terrorists.

"Do you know who I am?" Senator Bacon demanded, sensing a presence behind him.

"Yes, we do." A cold voice said. A folder slapped down on the table in front of the Senator and pages of correspondence and photos of meetings with Saudi princes came out. "You are a terrorism supporter. There is no use denying it."

But Senator Bacon couldn't NOT deny it, his meetings with a Prince of the house of Saud was purely business! "I met with Prince Saud as part of official business! I was part of the envoy to Saudi Arabia for the last energy deal!" The Senator's voice held plenty of righteous indignation. "What are you? Some sort of fringe homeland group? Let me go now and I won't press charges."

There was nothing but laughter from multiple voices now.

"So you admit to having correspondence with a known terrorism support, you admit that the correspondence in front of you is actually yours?" The voice held a hint of bitter humor.

"Of course it is, I was doing my job! Let me go and I promise you immunity." Senator Bacon began to feel that something wasn't right. The desk in front of him was a simple field desk painted olive drab. The bare light above him was powered by a faint generator noise he heard in the distance. The room he was in wasn't a room at all, but a field tent. The sound of helicopters in the distance told him he was close to an airport.

"We can't do that Senator, you've made yourself an enemy of the state and will be held without counsel until we decide what to do with you." The voice was calm.

"Screw You, I AM the state!" Senator Bacon yelled, angry beyond reason. "Nothing gets done in this town without my hand in it, NOTHING!"

"No one is above the law" The voice replied. Silence followed. Minutes ticked by.

"What do you want?" Senator Bacon realized that bargaining and anger didn't affect his captors.

"Simply to do the job that you gave us to do." The voice said.

"What job did I give you to do?" The Senator asked, bewildered. He may have known the Prince wasn't entirely a savory character, but that is just the cost of doing business in the Middle East right? The Senator couldn't recall hiring the services of a terrorist cell or mercenary group to do anything....

Footsteps came slowly around until a man in uniform, three stars on his chest came into the light of the single bulb.

"We are to detain all who are suspected of terrorism and supporting terrorism." The Lieutenant General smiled a weary smile. "And you have already admitted to supporting terrorism. Unfortunately I cannot let you have a phone call or access to a lawyer since it would tip of your terrorist buddies. The good news is that this is all perfectly legal. You made it so."

"I demand to see an attorney." Senator Bacon felt dead calm.

"That is impossible Mr. Bacon." The 3 Star replied. "You will be held until we feel we have a case strong enough to go to trial."

"But that could take YEARS!" the Senator wailed.

"It took us years to get Jose Padilla, but we got him."

"But I'm up for re-election in 18 months!" The senator couldn't imagine what was happening to him. The law was supposed to PROTECT people from bad guys who wanted to blow them up, not a crooked politician who threw some business to a Saudi Prince who had arranged for several boys to entertain him on his last trip to Riyad...

"You are a terrorist supporter, not a sitting US Senator." The 3 Star walked back into the shadows behind the former Senator Bacon.

"Stop Tape" The 3 Star said. "Seriously Ben, what the heck did you think would happen when you turned the military into your personal attack dogs? I told you it was a bad idea two years ago. I'll let Melinda and the kids know you are all right but will be incommunicado for a while. It is the best I can do. Start Tape"

The 3 Star walked out. Ben Bacon knew where he was now, in a field outside Fort Lee, in an impromptu detainee camp where thousands of others had already been processed. Taken into custody and whisked away to Gitmo or some foreign country for interrogation. Ben Bacon knew for the first time in his life true powerlessness.

The truth of the matter stunned Senator Bacon into silence. The light went out, and Senator Bacon was thankful for the darkness so he could weep unobserved. Unobserved save for the IR camera recording his every tear.

2 minutes of precision

2011-12-27T02:11:00.000-08:00

Recently ArcticPatriot did a post on "the whites of their eyes" and explained why that is a very poor tactic for a freedom fighter (or terrorist if they lose) to adopt. The practice of holding your shot until you knew it would count is fine when the enemy is on par with you. When the enemy has an advantage in numbers, equipment, armor, and logistics support you need to adopt better tactics. A little fish can eat a big fish, but only by taking many bites.

For an insurgent to "take many bites" he needs to out range the oppressor, or adopt a technique like an IED that negates some of the advantages of having armored vehicles. But in the vein of "taking many bites" I'd like to talk about historic sniper rifles.

The old British L42A1 sniper rifle was topped with the Mk32 scope. This scope had very "crude" 1 and 2 MOA adjustments compared to the 1/8 moa, 1/4 moa, and .1 mil (right around 1/3 moa) adjustments found on current scopes. The 1903A4 sniper variant was aimed using the "holdover method" by many GIs. The M91/30 PU sniper variant still remains the most produced sniper rifle ever fielded, all with a 3.5 power scope with no ranging capabilities built into the reticle, and the accuracy standard was 5 shots of 147 gr Light Ball ammunition into a group around 1.2 MOA at 100 meters.

But what does this tell you about the art and science of sniping? First off that repeatability is more important than fine adjustment. In practical terms 2 MOA is fine for chest shots out to about 600 yards. The human chest is a plenty big target, and it isn't difficult to disrupt something that makes the blood go round and round or the air go in and out in that area. Defeating body armor makes that a different story, so shots either need ammo capable of defeating body armor, or aim for something that isn't covered by Kevlar or ceramic. Trust me, no one wears body armor all the time.

Second, huge magnification isn't required to place effective fire on target. A good rule of thumb is 1x magnification for every 100 meters that you would like to shoot, but you can get by just fine with .5x magnification for every 100 meters. A 10x scope is overkill for most shots under 400 meters, but it is a pretty good compromise for a weapon system designed for shooting between 400 and 800. Most European nations issued a fixed 6x scope for snipers until the recent rash of high power variables made everyone want to go all high speed low drag modern. However, most of those variables hover around the 6x to 10x average power (Schmidt & Bender 3-12x, or any of the 4-16x scopes on the market).

What you want is good glass with repeatable adjustments. If your optic is off 1/4 MOA when you return to zero don't let some snob tell you that you need to go out and buy a Nightforce or Leupold Mk4. Practically anything under 1 MOA is insignificant to the target on the receiving end. Don't let the quest for "one ragged hole" interfere with "first shot on steel" at any given range.

Now, I'm not going to say that long range marksmanship is easy. I will say that it isn't impossible. It is something that you can get started doing by reading books freely available from your local library. Most snipers I know have a really hard time keeping below 1 moa without an artificial rest. Most high power shooters when fully slung up are good for 1 to 2 MOA, I don't know many who can stay sub MOA even fully slung up every trigger pull. There are some masters out there who can clean the X ring standing unsupported, but that comes from years of practice.

Practice is still largely unregulated and there are no laws against dry firing. And I'd rather someone have a 1,000 extra trigger pulls with their match load behind a 300 dollar optic than a 1,300 dollar scope with no trigger time.

It doesn't take benchrest level accuracy to put a bullet where it needs to go. This is why Grandpa's Rem700 in 30-06 with a 3-9 power scope on top is considered a "dangerous long range murder weapon" by those who want to ban guns. They understand that the capabilities of a 2 moa rifle off the shelf that can kill a deer at 500 meters can do the same to a jack booted thug.

Now, as far as ultra long sniper shots, yes they happen. It also takes a dang long time and a little bit of luck to get good enough to pull them off. The Brits teach their snipers that the "sweet spot" for sniping is between 400 and 800 meters, and there are good reasons for this. Most jack booted thugs don't shoot well past 200 meters so return fire is largely ineffective, and a longer distance raises the detection threshold so you might stay concealed longer and have more time to leave unmolested.

None of this is "secret" data, folks can get this from watching the History channel and reading books in the library. But put it all together and you can turn knowledge into skills. And skills can save your life. Train with what you've got, get to know your limitations in terms of range and weather conditions, and above all, fight smart.

The Christmas Post

2011-12-25T03:30:00.000-08:00

I have a list of names in my head. Everyone on that list is someone who I would die for, suffer permanent maiming to my body, and even kill for. Those are the people that are America to me, those are the people whom I serve to the best of my ability. There are some people who will never make it on to my list because I truly believe that the world would be better off without them. Jesus had such love that his list contained everyone. I'm not that guy, I don't have that kind of love in my heart. On occasion I have a lot of anger in my heart, but not the all encompassing self sacrificing love of Jesus.

While the origins of Christmas are a mixture of paganism and Christianity the story of a Savior who came to die for the sins of everyone so that they could live is a powerful story. If you don't believe in Christ I'm not going to judge you, a persons faith is personal. But this is my faith, and today is a holiday that can often bring out the best in people. Being a Christian doesn't mean you are perfect, only that you believe in perfection and that we humans cannot attain it.

Last night I gathered with other soldiers in a candle light Christmas Eve service. Most of us were middle aged men, gray peppered a lot of hair. And we were all armed save the Chaplain. But it calmed my soul to remember that even though my list is very small, that the one I worship is limitless.

I've been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan, I've lost friends. Sometimes I feel guilty that I survive when kids not old enough to buy beer end up in the grave. One of the ways I deal with that guilt is to remind myself that while my mission to Uncle Sam may be over, God still has work for me to do. I'll get to die when that work is done, and I pray that I'm up to whatever challenge that it may be. In the end Christ's birth was a moment that we celebrate, and his death and subsequent resurrection were moments that we celebrate. But it is how he lived his life that made both his birth and death important. The lesson is that if you want to have a meaningful death you need to have a meaningful life.

I may not add any more names to my list any time soon. I know me, and I've become very familiar with my personal limitations over the decades. However, the Bible is a long book about flawed people who were put to a task that they could only accomplish through the Grace of God. So the next time a 1000 pound VBIED goes off at the gate and puts the guy next to me in the TBI clinic for a month and I come out without a scratch I need to remind myself that God has a plan for me and I need not feel guilty that he is saving me for whatever it is. He gave his Son a sheltered life up until the point where it really sucked, and Jesus withstood the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil to the end.

Careers...

2011-12-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

If you don't like what you are doing, do something else. That was career advice given to Private AM during basic combat training in the winter of '98. So next year I'll take on my third career change for Uncle Sam while still in uniform. Some folks go their entire career without changing an MOS. Now I've loved every MOS I've held, but not every job I've been given to do in that MOS.

On the flip side, I'm getting a little long in the tooth for the Infantry, and I was already turned down for a job as a network engineer. So onward and upward into a different field. Can't talk about it it, all hush hush and whatnot. Actually I'm not going to count my chickens until I graduate the school next year, I've signed the contract but ain't nothing over until it's over.

Which reminds me of a rather good quote from the movie "Killer Elite" which is "A war isn't over until both sides say it is over." Profound wisdom in that statement. We roll from Iraq and the first thing they do is start rounding up Sunni politicians, which is not a good sign in my opinion. I wonder if the Sunni and Shia ever sat down and decided it was over. Doesn't matter much to me now, I don't have a dog in that fight.

Here in Afghanistan things aren't as bad or as good as the media makes it out to be, but the future is very uncertain and I am doubtful of getting an outcome favorable to America.

Although the world doesn't look like it will have a spontaneous outbreak of peace anytime soon. Peace is bad for business, at least mine. Although now that AFRICOM has stood up the odds of deployment to third world hell holes only continues to increase. I guess you have to stay in the game a long time before they send you to invade Fiji the Bahamas.

How contractors save money

2011-12-20T03:12:00.000-08:00

Contractors save the .gov money in a few ways.

1. Training, contractors require no training time.
2. Benefits, contractors don't get any.
3. Flexibility. The maximum end strength of the US Army is dictated by Congress, there is not limit on contracting.

So there you have it, the bottom line why it is cheaper to pay a contractor 100,000 dollars a year to do what you could have a buck private making 23,000 a year do. The math is simple, 400,000 over 4 years for a one time contract verses a 20 year career plus a 30 year retirement, in the long run it saves over a million dollars.

Now, in the short term contractors are expensive, they cost more than the equivalent .gov employee (whether in the military or on the GS side of the house) but in the long run you don't pay a contractor a retirement pension.

Now a lot of current contractors are former or retired .mil personnel, so the .gov has already sunk the cost of training in most cases, and in the case of the retired contractors is already paying benefits. Still, the current spate of "contracting" will continue because it defies the Congressional end strength limitations, and Congress won't authorize an Army big enough to do what it wants to do.

So either Congress authorizes a bigger Army to provide both depth of personnel and strategic flexibility (not going to happen in this day in age) or Contractors will continue to sign on the dotted line and provide the "mercenary" force needed to augment the normal .mil forces. I expect that contractors will remain a growing force in future conflicts. When it gets to the point that our government is contracting out the traditional services of the combat arms (Infantry, Armor, Field Artillery) then we will have gone full spectrum. Executive Outcomes proved that a small amount of professionals could deliver you a country, and Blackwater/Xe/Academi proves that no matter how dirty you get you can stay in the game. We are in for interesting times, unless a spontaneous outbreak of peace occurs and puts us all out of a job.

Britain, circa 1955

2011-12-17T10:44:00.000-08:00

They say history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes...

So I'd like to think that at the sunset of an Empire the United States will follow the same pattern as other declining empires. Particularly if we look to (formerly) Great Britain we can see some interesting parallels.

After WWII ended war rationing continued in Britain through the mid 1950's. Britain paid back the last of its "war debt" to the US not too long ago, more than five decades past the end of hostilities.

Today the American Empire has spent a decade fighting and largely funding (through NATO) two wars, and there is no telling how long it will take to pay off the "war debt" from these excursions. However, unlike Britain, the overall "war debt" is but a small portion of our overall debt.

But if history does indeed rhyme, we will see our land forces decrease to a very small, very competent fighting corps which will be used in a series of "police actions" throughout the world for the next few decades. We will see our Air and Naval forces continue to be "world class" but reduced in size and focused more on deterrence than any sort of force parity with potential rivals.

I can't predict the future, but I can see the past. And as Empire's fade into the sunset they have awesome might, like an old heavyweight boxer who still has a few rounds in him. However, like we found in Libya, there is not a whole lot of endurance behind those take down punches.

So as our ability to outfight opponents decreases, our focus will shift towards defeating opponents before they have the power to fight in any sort of parity. Smart policy would dictate more human intelligence collectors, more "Special Forces" working in conjunction with intelligence agencies, and a decreased conventional force. I think that we will see the US leave South Korea before I retire simply because the token forces we have on the peninsula wouldn't do any more good than an extra bomber wing stationed out of Japan. Our four remaining combat brigades in Europe offer no advantage in deployment time to those brigades housed at Fort Hood, or Fort Bragg.

So, for better or worse, the decline of conventional forces stationed overseas will continue. In the early 1990's we had 18 active Army Divisions. By the year 2000 we had 10. If you reconstitute our "modular brigades" back into Divisions then we could still field 10 Divisions worth of combat power. That each Brigade is around 5,000 people and there are 4 brigades in each Division, simple math tells us that 200,000 Soldiers are part of the Army's "combat power."

What that doesn't tell us is what the jobs are of the other 280,000 Soldiers. Obviously some are part of combat formations such as Fires Brigades (bringing the big guns and rocket artillery) or Engineer Brigades (providing mobility, counter-mobility, and survivability services) or whether they are part of something like a Theater Sustainment Command. You can look it up if you like.

But my point is that for the size of the Army there is a lot of "tooth to tail" going on (hence the need for so many contractors to free up "fighting power" that would be otherwise sucked into logistics). So expect the Army to get downsized but have more "fighters" and fewer "fuelers" and many more "contractors" to fill in for the lost logistic support.

In short, America's Army will get leaner, meaner, and much more "mercenary" in terms of how business is conducted. However I could be completely wrong and we could go to the "strategic" Army of the 1930's where an active duty cadre provided the "skeleton" of a unit to be filled out by draftees, although in this case the draftees would come from an enlarged Reserve and National Guard. We didn't get into too many "brushfire wars" in the 30's, discounting some actions by the Marine Corps. However, the threat of a 12 million man Army wasn't enough to keep the peace with Germany and Japan.

We truly do live in interesting times.

The system is broken

2011-12-14T05:27:00.000-08:00

What do the movies "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", "The Next Three Days" and "Law Abiding Citizen" have in common?

They are all about how the system is broken, and the only way to come to a moral conclusion at the end of the story is to break the rules. Lisbeth Salander had to hack into computers to expose the truth. Russel Crowe's character had to bust his innocent wife out of jail and flee to Venezuela. Gerard Butler's character had to kill off person after person in order to get those who are supposed to make the system work actually make it work, and even then Jamie Fox had to break the law to get results.

So whether you are on the side of angels or the side of demons, the agreement is that the system is broken. The problem with "the system", particularly a "justice system" is that it is inherently flawed by human activity. There is no way to introduce an all seeing, all knowing, arbiter of justice that produces a morally justified outcome each and every time.

So why do we keep reading books and watching movies about people who break the rules? Harry Potter has been described as "seven books about a boy who breaks all the rules and gets away with it." Why?

The answer is hope. That deep down we recognize that "the system" is broken, but still chugging along like the mindless machine that it is. We hope that when our time comes to face the beast that we will have the courage and wisdom to know when to obey the rules, and when to break them.

I do not believe that our legal system could be replaced by something better than what we have now, and that steals some of my hope for the future. I do believe that the 360,000 pages of Federal regulations that choke the opportunities out of our future can be simplified. But governments do not exist to simplify and assist.

Why Trolls are funny

2011-12-11T00:07:00.000-08:00

Trolls are funny because of "impotent rage." "crankyyankee" who inserted an "i" into his handle recently has told me "you've already lost" and "your time is short" and other impotent threats from the addled mind of a burger flipping nobody. I mean, how stupid is it to misspell your own screen name?

I logged on with glee today hoping that we would have been showered by the brilliance of someone who wrote that he was "ten times smarter" than yours truly. Unfortunately all I got was fragmented sentences, improper capitalization, and punctuation errors. How badly do you suck at life when you suck at being an internet troll? If "crankyyankee" keeps this up he is going to suck all the fun out of this and this is going to end up like a telethon for Jerry's Kids with folks chipping in to pay for remedial English classes for dear little "cranky."

Come on "crankyyankee", I'm giving you your big shot to show us all your hidden talents and worth (note the proper use of the word "your" for future reference). So are you going to just sit back and stew in your own juices? Hating the world and all the Jews in it? Or are you going to step up and explain how my "time is short" and how I have "already lost" and dazzle me with your keen intellect and cutting insight? The world is waiting, bring your A game. Please for God's sake don't be as pitiful as you were yesterday, that was just embarrassing for everybody.

They see me Trollin' and Hatin, they try to catch me ridin' dirty

2011-12-10T09:19:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of ways to deal with internet trolls. One is to get into a pissing match with them (which is stupid, never argue with idiots, they will only drag you down to their level and beat you with experience) and another is to enjoy the show in all it's Jerry Springer glory. You could just delete the comments but where is the fun in that? So we are going full on Jerry here at randomthoughtsandguns.

Trolls put their insecurities out there for the world. Anything that challenges their worldview must be struck down with all the pent up fury that a pimply faced burger flipping nobody living in his mother's basement can generate. See what I did there? I painted a mental picture for the reader to enjoy, take notes "crankyyankee", cause I managed to insult you without ever resorting to the words "coward" "fuck" "douche" "prick" or made any sort of reference to Judaism.

"crankyyankee" has been fun, I appealed to his narcissism with a post about him and he responded to the bait like a bear to a garbage can. Each of his responses was an insult to my intelligence, or the intelligence of others, and yet he wrote, and I quote,

Thanks AM, Just proves the point... Thank you for the validation. Must have hit a nerve, Wow, and your upset, guess what, I'm ten times smarter than you, pardon the following pejorative, Asshole, But your time is short, I revel in that fact. But inclusively, Thanks for making me a household word, usually that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, made me an Icon, on the cheap, I'm great-full, Jackass.................... And your still a Fucking Coward...............

Remember kids, if you want to impress people with your rapier wit, understanding the difference between "your" and "you're" is important. Using "your" and "you're" correctly makes you sound at least educated enough to avoid the fate of living in your mother's basement and writing out hate filled screeds to people who find them mildly amusing. Later on if "crankyyankee" decides he needs more lessons in grammar by continuing to amuse me we will cover the proper use of commas.

So far "crankyyankee" has hinted that I am "IDF" which I think he thinks is an insult (to a professional soldier being called IDF or Israeli Defense Force is like being called a Ranger when you happen to be a Paratrooper). He has also said "your yellow star is showing" which makes me think that he thinks being called Jewish is some sort of insult. I'm actually quite fond of Jews having worked with a few and worshiped with those of the Messianic variety. Of all the things he could have called me which would have been true, such as "Jew Lover", he didn't, instead tried to insult me by implying I was Jewish.

Now, since my "time is short" I can only assume that the Great Noodly One has touched our special boy and gifted him with special knowledge of the future. Or maybe it was Uncle Badtouch in the bathroom who gave him special powers as long as he promised not to tell. Either way I'm not sure that "crankyyankee" can put any more "names on his list" to make people's "time short."

So there you have it folks, another post about a troll. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show, we are watching the birth of a star as "crankyyankee" showers us with his brilliance, right before going back to his day job. I hear next week they'll trust him to make the fries on his own.

CrankyYankee, put down the bottle...

2011-12-08T12:31:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while I'll write something that doesn't jive with someones worldview, and they will take it upon themselves to "educate" me.

Some chick said she told a Green Beret on me because I didn't see things her way about a journalist. Nothing came of that. So far the super secret world of Special Forces hasn't come down on me for not thinking that Michael Yon is the devil. Heck, the last few times I spoke with long tabbers they had no clue who MY was, or why he was supposed to be such a scourge of written words.

Some guy with the handle of "CrankyYankee" thinks that if "Operation Barbarossa were successful we wouldn't have our current troubles" to paraphrase the drunken ravings of a madman. If history were different then history would be different, unfortunately arguing about alternate history is about as useful as tits on a boar hog. Then again, arguing over fiction seems to be largely what the internet allows to happen, along with the convenience of the most massive repository of pornography in human history.

So, here is some hints about how to engage in discussions on the internet.

1. If your sentences look like the drunken ravings of a semi literate high school dropout (such as the number of punctuation symbols rivals the number of actual letter characters) you should probably just save the world the trouble of having to listen to your genius.

2. If the extent of your insults comes down to "knucklehead", "cunt", or "douche bag" you are obviously not rubbing both brain cells together. Do the world a favor and suck start a pistol.

3. If you think that going to someones blog and calling them a coward as a taunt and challenge to post your thoughtless and abusive comments is a good idea you might want to try rethinking that little gem of wisdom. Dale Carnegie wrote a book, and I am sure that it is still available in dead tree format from your local public library.

4. If you routinely get into pissing matches on the internet, a place where everyone has a voice, the problem just might be you. I don't think having two opinionated folks comment on my blog over multiple years of blogging makes me the problem.

5. If you can't find someone else to publish your thoughtless and abusive comments, make your own blog and show the world your genius. If you end up with three to nine hits in six months from your Mother then maybe you should tailor your blog to that particular demographic.

6. Don't drink and post.

Wizard's First Rule

2011-12-06T10:41:00.000-08:00

SciFi and Fantasy aren't genres that get much respect from the "intellectual elite" but they sure are fun to read.

Case in point is Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series which puts human emotions and motivations to Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy. One point that the series makes without ever saying it is that a person who wants freedom for other people will always be acting in a moral manner, and that someone who wants to rule other people will always be acting in an immoral manner.

The basic premise is that freedom is good, and that it is better to be free and miserable than a well cared for servant. I tend to agree with this, however the Bible is another great book that spells out the human condition and we know that some people who are slaves love their master. The difference between being force into slavery and choosing to serve a master is all in the choice.

As a soldier I have chosen my position, chosen to serve, and understand that I entered into a contract of my own free will. Back to "Wizard's First Rule" and that the first rule is "People are stupid. They will believe a lie because they want it to be true, or because they are afraid it is true."

In the series, Richard is able to make people face the truth. In human history, the great leaders lead with falsehoods. More people know of Hitler than of Churchill. Churchill was reviled because he spoke the truth, and Chamberlain proclaimed "Peace in our time" because he wanted it to be true. Politicians need to give people something to believe in, and it is easier to believe a palatable lie than a bitter truth.

Great leaders have lead through charisma, greed, leadership, terror, hope, desperation, and even a few who were loved. But how many of them lead by offering the truth, unvarnished and whole? Leadership is the art of getting people to do something they don't want to do, and I don't think you can do that for most people with the truth.

I'm not sure how we can draw the line between "afraid" and "informed" in today's age. I don't want to believe a lie because I am afraid it is true, I want to believe the truth because it is the truth. Joe Huffman has a pretty good method for determining truth from falsity, and my background in Chemistry has left me very familiar with the scientific process. It is the dimension of human interaction, where someone is leading by lie or being shunned for the truth, where I think I need a little work.

Linking up, more awkward than any first date

2011-11-27T11:30:00.000-08:00

Joseph has kept his band alive, moving from place to place, and conducting successful operations for over two years now. He is a seasoned commander who has been offered a new opportunity; outside help.

An OSS agent has parachuted behind enemy lines to link up with the resistance to prepare operations for the coming invasion by Allied Forces. Joseph has heard about this operator through the grapevine and is willing to make a small risk to see if this can be a legitimate source of aid.

Word comes down that the man will wear a blue scarf at a certain bus stop on a certain Tuesday at noon. This is a "far recognition signal." Once the partisan that Joseph sent to fetch the man has identified him he will ask about the bus schedule, and the OSS Agent will give a deliberately incorrect answer, saying that the bus won't be around again for thirty one point four minutes, this is the "near recognition signal."

They make the man give up his weapon, be blindfolded, and searched. They move him around randomly to disorient him. And finally, they bring him to a tent set up inside a barn so that the man can't pinpoint any details. Joseph talks to the man from the other side of a hung sheet to keep his face hidden.

This man has obviously risked a lot to reach Joseph, so what should Joseph do? First off every link up requires each side to produce some sort of "bona fides" to prove to the other that they are legit. The man says that he can get heavy weapons for Joseph, and Joseph replies that with some high explosives his men can take out a supply train scheduled for ten days from now. The man agrees to provide high explosives and bazooka type rocket launchers. The man is blindfolded and returned to where he was picked up.

Think of that first meeting as a first date. You want something from the other party, but you can't really trust them. The goal of the first meeting is to get a second meeting.

So the man delivers weapons and explosives, and Joseph derails a supply train and destroys the cargo. These are the tokens of good faith that make the second meeting happen. This time the OSS agent is allowed to keep his pistol, but Joseph still talks through a sheet hung in the tent. The man promises trainers, in tactics, weapons use, medical treatment, and demolition. This is the wrong move for the OSS Agent, telling a seasoned guerrilla that you can "train them" is like telling your Grandmother how to suck eggs. It doesn't come off well, but Joseph is also a patient man, and he accepts that his band can accommodate two medical trainers. The OSS Agent participates in a successful sniping operation against a local SS Officer.

This is the second date, the OSS has got an agreement to build rapport and proven himself a Nazi killer. Once trained outsiders start providing assistance it changes the human dynamic of Joseph's band. If the OSS agents are smart they will always support Joseph in public and keep any doubts to themselves. If the OSS agents are stupid they will "armchair quarterback" operations and spread doubt amongst the band.

The OSS Agents have been well trained, they support Joseph and supplement his leadership with added tactical expertise. If the OSS Agents had been poorly trained, or let their egos get in the way they could splinter Joseph's group and make it combat ineffective. This is why building trust has to take time. Only a fool, or someone desperate, gets into bed with a stranger on a first date.

Think about all the things that could have gone wrong. The OSS Agents could have been Gestapo using the "False Flag" approach to compromise Joseph and his band. The OSS Agents could have caused dissension in the ranks and made Joseph's band ineffective. Linking up is a very dangerous time, and going slow is the best way to build a solid operational relationship. A good link up has mutual risk, if the other guy wants you to risk everything to come to him then he either doesn't respect you, or he is setting a trap for a fool. Don't be a fool. The OSS Agent had to risk a lot to get that first meeting, but Joseph risked a lot simply by having that first meeting.

How does this story end? I'd like to think that Joseph and his band serve as Scouts for the invading liberators, similar to the Filipino Guerrillas. There is really no telling how much the Filipino Guerrillas shortened WWII by keeping Japanese soldiers pinned down searching the jungle for them. But in war, every effort counts.

Hide with Pride

2011-11-26T11:34:00.000-08:00

Joseph and his band have been so effective at evading the Nazi patrols that our 1960's alternate Hitler has decided to take assets away from the front lines to hunt down the partisans. In the real 1940's Nazi Germany the "Vampire" night vision scope came into being, we will assume that the "Vampire" was a First Gen thermal imaging device and that the alternate timeline 1960's Nazi regime is on to thermal imaging systems on par with what anyone can go into a security store and buy today.

So the spy planes are flying, the helicopters are scouting, and Joseph has to work twice as hard to avoid detection. So, what does Joseph do?

First, move away from historical areas of action. Joseph has been taking detailed notes of his operations so that he can avoid setting a pattern. Every time his band conducts and operation Joseph updates his time wheel chart, his map board, and tries to avoid creating a pattern. But let us say that he has created a pattern, and now that the heat is on Joseph needs to avoid that area because it is likely a "Targeted Area of Interest" or "Named Area of Interest" being watched by the Nazis. The best way to avoid detection is to be somewhere that your enemy isn't watching.

There is tactical risk in keeping records. But Joseph figures if he is captured he wouldn't get a fair trial anyways and so he accepts the risk.

Second, move towards a place where you don't stand out like a sore thumb. A band of thirty resistance fighters in the middle of the black forest stands out. A band of thirty resistance fighters sleeping in a barn, a farmhouse, tending sheep, is much less difficult to pick out from 2,000 meters above ground level. Safe houses usually work. (As a side note to reality, only about 50% of night raids in Afghanistan are successful, so in 1960's Germany Joseph might have even better odds.)

Lastly, Joseph has acquired a "thermal space blanket" for each member of his unit. The IR reflective properties of the silver side provide some protection from observation. To further enhance the camouflage properties they use a wool blanket to enhance the IR dispersion and provide some visible spectrum camouflage.

There is increased risk in moving alone when you are hunted. But a single person moving through the woods draws much less attention than a platoons worth of combat power. By dispersing his men to move separately and in roundabout ways between rendezvous points Joseph actually increases security for the bulk of his men.

And finally, Joseph pulls back on offensive operations. Instead of just "waiting" for the heat to die down Joseph uses this time to rest, reset, and prepare for future operations. A pound of explosive at a time moved to a collection point. Sniper rifles smuggled into cache points. Safe house provisions set up. Target areas scouted. Intelligence gathered.

Joseph knows that he can't win in a stand up fight. To win he MUST stay in the game. Joseph can never succumb to the temptation to "go all in" in this poker match, because the deck has been stacked against him. Keeping people focused on staying alive instead of fighting for revenge is the hardest leadership challenge that Joseph has right now. But Joseph is patient, and he reminds his compatriots of the sojourn in Egypt, of the Babylonian exile, and with patience they can see another empire fall.

Joseph's Choices, an Army moves on it's stomach

2011-11-25T11:36:00.000-08:00

Joseph, our hypothetical freedom fighter in an alternate 1960's Germany has found that city life got too hot after he was successful in getting martial law declared. However the popular uprising he was counting on never came about, the people bought into the propaganda that the security measures were "Temporary" and "Secrecy is the enemy of Security, report Suspicious Individuals" propaganda put forth by the Nazi Regime.

So Joseph has retreated to the forest and farmland regions between cities. The enemy patrols are more dispersed here as the cities have become the main effort for the Army and Police.

But Joseph no longer has access to supermarkets for food, dry goods stores for clothing, and so his problems have moved from tactical to logistical. How do you keep a band of freedom fighters from being discovered and still keep them fed, clothed, and housed?

The Nazi Army has food, medicine, munitions, everything a guerrilla band needs to survive. However those are also the hardest targets to hit. Through hard experience Joseph has found that warehouses and trucks parked at truck stops are easier targets for food. Stealing from corporations seemed to bring less public outcry than stealing from farmers or shopkeepers who could be interviewed on camera.

Joseph's shopping list whenever possible? Meat, rice, beans, flour, potatoes, carrots, broccoli, hard cheeses. It isn't a varied diet, but it provides the nutrition necessary to survive and keep going.

Occasionally his band will venture into a populated area and "dumpster dive" behind a grocery store for tossed canned goods or frozen meats past the pull date. This adds variety to their diet with little tactical risk.

You can't fight when you are starving, and so Joseph's first order of business as a guerrilla is to keep his men in fighting condition. Logistics will not be denied.

Urban warfare, use the terrain

2011-11-21T10:23:00.000-08:00

Urban warfare is not just "Close Quarters Battle" and "Enter and Clear a Room" that many people seem to think. That 14.5 inch M4gery with a red dot on top? Fine for that sort of thing, but if you wanted a 300 meter gun why not just get an AK?

Urban terrain has very long fields of fire along roads, from rooftops to street level, from storm drains to hill tops. Would you put a machine gun on a rooftop or on street level? If you said "rooftop" I'm not saying that you are wrong, only that you have now limited yourself to plunging fire. There may in fact be very good reasons for putting a machine gun on a roof top, but there are equally good reasons for street level.

As our Jewish Resistance Fighters in alternative 1960 Germany are finding out, terrain is your best asset when you can't win in a stand up fight.

Joseph, the leader of our resistance band has found some military manuals listing the characteristics of the offense and the defense. The German Army has for centuries tried to break down warfare into an exact science. But Joseph has some insight of his own, and realizes something very important. The purpose behind military lists isn't to get you to follow the list, it is to get you to THINK about the effects you want to achieve with the assets you have available. If you have a few rifles and a fair sized town it is different than a backpack full of RPG's and a road running through a canyon. Joseph begins to take stock of his assets, and of the complex urban terrain that has hid his little band for the last month.

Urban terrain has sewers, tunnels, basements, and sometimes even buildings tall enough to BASE jump off of (as seen in any good heist movie).

Next time you are in a city, stop, look around. How far can you see in any given direction? Can you use those lines of sight to set up a snipers firing solution to those distances? The longest shots in Iraq were not taken in the desert, they were taken in cities. Cities are challenging terrain for an occupying force, and they are a rats nest haven for an insurgent. Joseph can walk freely in the city most days, he doesn't look "Jewish" and is known as a hard working handyman. It is common to see him with his toolbox fixing pipes or replacing an electrical outlet.

Joseph uses his mind like a weapon, analyzing everything around him. How long does it take to get from Avenue A to Intersection Z? Where are the police stations, and how often do they patrol?

Joseph is using the "human terrain" to blend in and mask his reconnaissance efforts. And Joseph is planning to use the physical terrain to his advantage in setting up a long range ambush in an area of the city that isn't his safe house. By making the Nazi's crack down on a neighborhood that contains no hidden Jews he thinks he can win sympathy for his cause.

Use the terrain, it is like the force, it surrounds us. If you can't shoot 600 meters you need to learn how, and you need to start thinking in terms of angles of intersections, how to coordinate multiple teams from multiple angles. Imagine four teams stationed 500 meters from the center of a major intersection. With accurate fire, how much terrain do they now dominate? A simple land line phone system and a conference call could let them act as scouts for each other.

And what would the Nazi response be to such an act, a squad of Stormtroopers laying dead in a pool of their own blood? Would they crack down on that area? Would they increase restrictions on civil liberties? Would they alienate the populace?

Coordinated Defense, use the terrain.

2011-11-19T13:50:00.000-08:00

I have written before the words of men smarter than I, "It isn't a silver bullet, but the right mix of weapons that wins a war." One of the tenants of modern warfare is that "you don't win by withdrawal."

But you can't always be on the offensive, so what do you do? You become offensively defensive. Napoleon and Hitler both found out the hard way that "offensive defense" will suck the combat power out of your Army quickly. Let us set up a scenario, you are a German Jew in an alternate timeline where Hitler's rise to power happened in the 1960's. You've seen the writing on the wall and decide to be "Defiant" and resist to the end. You don't have a "silver bullet" weapon that will win your war, but you have access to a few hunting rifles and some captured military hardware.

So how do you get the right mix with what you have? By choosing the time and place of the fight. To choose wisely you need to know what you have, and what it can do, and where it can be most effective.

If you have four men with AK's, and four men with bolt action 30-06 Deer rifles, how do you match them up to kill the most of the jack booted thugs who come to kill them? Do you mate them up as sniper teams? Not likely, sniping and spotting is a skilled task. Better to make two teams of bolt rifle men at ranges 400 to 800 meters away from the kill zone, and the short range riflemen between 150 and 250 meters away. Spread them out so that a mortar round won't kill all four. Spread the bolt riflemen out so that their sectors of fire provide each other security.

What you do is set them up into three or four positions, so that the men with AK's can use a "reverse slope defense" of their position, and the bolt action long range teams can cover the flanks. A reverse slope defense is not intuitive, it is staying well behind the crest of a hill so that the enemy comes into view and gets shot. The downside is that if you lack the firepower to kill the enemy as they present themselves you will be overrun, but the tactical advantage is that the enemy cannot mass firepower against you.

A properly prepared defense is made by the acronym PMSDF. Preparation, Massing Effects, Security, Disruption, and Flexibility.

Never stop preparing, prepare fields of fire, prepare avenues of egress, prepare obstacles to channel the aggressor. Massing effects means that you coordinate your assets so that you kill the most of them for the least of you, do this by assigning sectors of fire and priorities of fire. Security, if you don't have 360 security you are killing yourself and your men, if you don't conceal yourself from the "eyes in the sky" then you are killing yourself all over again, even at night.

Disrupt the enemies movements, plans, and tempo. And flexibility, make sure you can flex out of any one position to fight from another. Even your "go to hell plan" needs to have two or three variations.

But use the terrain, find a slope that you can overwatch with long rifles and defend with shorter range weapons, keep a river or swamp between you and the enemy if you can. Natural obstacles are just as effective as concertina wire or a tank ditch. Complex urban terrain requires a lot more planning, and has more risks of civilian interference. However life is risky, and we reduce risk by planning.

So plan your defense. Then attack yourself and see if you can flank your planned position, or if you can find an avenue of approach that allows the attackers to set up intersecting grazing fire. Then adjust your defenses to deny the attacker those advantages. Accept some risk, but mitigate it to the best of your ability by planning, preparing, and practicing "offensive defense."

The "Hero Ceremony"

2011-11-17T12:10:00.000-08:00

Last time I was on a major FOB there was a "ramp side ceremony" to honor two Soldiers as their bodies began the long journey from Afghanistan to Dover AFB and ultimately to a funeral home in the Midwest. I can't remember when we stopped saying "KIA" and changed to the term "Fallen Hero" but I have come to understand why the change was made, and why it is important.

The ceremony was held up because thing never go smoothly, but hundreds of Soldiers, Seaman, even DA Civilians and contractors, lined the pathway from the medical treatment facility to the helipad where a UH-60 Blackhawk stood waiting to begin that long journey.

There are two families who will probably never know the people who stood silently, rendering a solemn salute as combat medics moved the litter slowly towards the air ambulance. The honor that we can bestow does not match the loss they have to deal with. We took a knee as the Chaplain prayed, and silently dispersed so the journey could begin.

This is my second tour in Uncle Sam's all expenses paid vacation to exotic locations, but it has been my first time seeing one of our own begin that long journey. As a Rear Detachment OIC I got my bellyful of the final end. Memorial services, where the family of a Soldier shows up with all their problems, to Funerals where the I joined a good man as we represented our unit while a young man was lowered into the ground. His wife was beautiful, a real southern belle, and his son had learned how to walk while he was away.

I know a minister, pastor, or preacher, call him by what title you will, who claims that "relationships are all that we can take to Heaven." While I am here it is as if all my relationships are on hold, but in truth they aren't. When I go home time will have passed, people will have changed. Life goes on whether I'm there or not to observe it.

I don't want this to seem like a pity party, my life has been richly blessed and I am thankful for that. But I have also learned that being sad when you lose a fellow Soldier is normal, and that we can honor our dead, our "Fallen Heroes" without becoming too numb inside to charlie mike. This time I didn't know the two Soldiers personally, they just happened to work in the same AO. That makes it a bit easier on me, but it doesn't make it any less hard for those who did know them, and love them.

Life is precious because it is a limited commodity. We have to choose how we spend it, but we don't often get the choice in how much of it we get. So while I feel guilty that I am not at home to be a husband and a father, this is my chosen profession. My job pays the bills, and I get paid well enough that I'm not in the job market looking for another occupation. But things that used to be important are nothing now. Now what is important are two little boys who are growing up so fast that I can only hope to keep up. And life goes on, pain fades, new loved ones come in to your heart, if there is room for them.

Absent Dads....

2011-11-14T12:28:00.000-08:00

Today I recorded my voice on a Hallmark "read along" book, "The Night Before Christmas" and mailed it back to my family.

I couldn't send a hug, or a Dad, or a husband, or a protector. The best I could send was a digital copy of my voice, recorded on a cheap circuit made in China.

Thanksgiving is coming up, this will be the third in a row that I've missed because of deployment, training, deployment, in that order. I've been lucky that I got the last two Christmases at home. This will be the first Christmas I've ever spent apart from my wife and children.

I feel like I am unable to fulfill my duties as a husband and father while still fulfilling my duty to Uncle Sam. Torn between two duties that I entered into of my own free will. I wish I could do a better job at both. A man can't serve two masters, and my wife knows that and why my family is coming second to my job right now. I just don't feel very good about it.

Veteran's Day

2011-11-11T11:55:00.000-08:00

Every year the eleventh of November comes around and I wish I were hunting. I wish I had something more profound to say about service and sacrifice, but I don't, at least not this year.

So I was reading in Stars and Stripes....

2011-11-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

And noticed the burning trash piles on the streets of Oakland caused by "a few rogue elements" in the Occupy Movement....

You know, when it is "a few rogue elements" in the Military there are investigations, Courts Martial proceedings, even Congressional level inquiries... As it should be really, the Military by the very nature of being a legitimate function of violence has to be held to a high standard.

However, Americans are starting to turn my home into Mogadishu, or Paris with the annual summer riots.

Not sure if I like this development. However, the Watts Riots and Rodney King Riots are now history, so possibly this will simmer back down into the rumblings of disgruntled leftists.

The deadliest little guy I know....

2011-11-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

LL brought up a point about the physical stature of the Master Sergeant that Michael Yon felt threatened by. And the description 5'6" with a neck so skinny he can't pass tape made me think of another warrior who fit that description.

SGT John Sutherland. John died shortly after the last deployment, but John was a true warrior. Sniper qualified, a true crack shot with anything you put in his hands. We earned our EIB's together. If John was pissed at me I would have taken it seriously.

I'll tell you a funny story. The Sniper Team stenciled "SYLB" onto their gear and I asked them what it meant. John told me "Swallow Your Last Bullet." And I thought it might have been a little morbid but I've heard worse mottos over the years.

When a biker wearing Banditos Red and Gold showed up at his memorial service I looked into that gang, and John must be laughing in the afterlife knowing that I found out "SYLB" means "Support Your Local Banditos." Maybe it isn't such a funny story, but I think John would be amused. I guess if Jesse Ventura could hang out with the Hell's Angels it is only fitting that John could hang out with the Banditos.

Rest in peace John. I miss you, and your smart ass mouth.

This Yon thing keeps bringing blogfodder...

2011-11-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

Michael Yon may try to sell himself as a warrior's warrior, but at best all I ever thought of him was as a reporter. I don't have much respect for reporters, there are a few exceptions, but invariably reporters screw up. Geraldo broadcast battle plans, Dan Rather broke a story with false documents, reporters are out to find a story and get it to market before anyone else. That is how they make their living.

I am not a reporter, I blog here because I like to blog.

But I'll be damned if people aren't coming out of the woodwork to try to convince me that Michael Yon is an unstable person who is a "parasite" or some other type of undesirable infestation. Truth be told I don't really care, there are plenty of oxygen thieves on the planet and my opinion won't make a lick of difference in that fact one way or the other.

The facts that I can determine are; a ~~Special Forces~~ MI Master Sergeant lost his temper and ~~told Yon~~ commented on Faecbook that he wanted to rip off his head and piss down his neck. Yon took that as a legitimate threat. (I thank LL for his correction, evidently I mushed two episodes into one in my head, turns out Yon has been busy pissing people off all over Afghanistan)

Personally that sounds like a pretty good reason for Yon to feel threatened, after all he is just a reporter. It seems that since he claims the title of "Green Beret" that the team he was with thought somehow he should have let the comment slide.

What is important to remember is that Yon is just a dang reporter. I don't care what sort of training a person has, a tab doesn't make you brave. There are cowards with triple canopies on their shoulders and brave men who might be lucky to wear a CAB. When a SEAL turned reporter wrote down that a "near miss with a 50 cal" would kill from the shockwave of the bullet I thought he was a faker. Turns out earning the SEAL Trident or "Budweiser" doesn't make you an expert on ballistics, or a very good reporter.

Getting into a pissing match with an SF team on active duty strikes me as a particularly dumb thing to do on his part. Like I said before, I don't really care one way or another about the man. I've got nine years and a few months before I hit twenty active years, I've got a wife at home and two little boys I want to see grow into men. If I hadn't been pulling someone else's duty while they were on R&R I would have never received that email from ISAF PAO's office revoking Yon's press credentials.

I sort of understand the resentment from the Yon Hate Club, when you earn your way into an elite brotherhood there are rules of conduct that come with it, and Yon has not upheld to those standards. But what can you expect, the man is just a reporter. I don't have high expectations of reporters, but that is just me, based on my personal experience.

Book Review: Monster Hunter Alpha

2011-11-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

Good. Whoever donated it to the MWR, thank you. A nice change from the OZP series, adds to it and provides more backstory to Earl Harbinger and MHI.

so you wannabe a SEAL?

2011-10-31T00:22:00.000-07:00

So Lynn Thompson, chief owner and bottle washer of "Cold Steel Knives" has a blog and posted a video with some training tricks. MadOgre, the "blogfather" himself commented on how utterly stupid some of the advice shown on the video located here: http://blog.lynncthompson.com/2011/08/glock.html

I'm not a professional firearms instructor (although Ogre is), nor do I play one on TV (or YouTube). I am however well trained in training riflemen for the US Army although it is not my primary function. My primary function is to ensure that my NCOs are proficient at training marksmanship (and usually they are, but sometimes they too need corrective training).

As far as Lynn's level of fitness, that is his issue. I've seen morbidly obese service members from every branch. The good thing about having a gun is that it kind of negates the advantage the other guys has in how many pushups he can do every morning.

The idea of "suppressive fire" is simple. Shoot to make the other guy keep his head down while your buddy flanks left (or sometimes right, we mix it up like that cause we can) who can then take a kill shot so you can move on to the next objective and do it all over again. This is a war zone tactic that is the very basis for "fire and maneuver" which means a STATIONARY base of fire and a MANEUVER element flanking. It ain't rocket surgery. Some people think "fire and maneuver" means shooting on the move, but that is not the case. You will shoot and move for CQB, but I don't care how good you get, you will never be as accurate or as effective as when you are stationary. Practice enough and you can get pretty darn good, and at pistol ranges that is "good enough for government work."

Now, at NO POINT IN ANY CIVILIAN SITUATION should you use "Fire and Maneuver" to "reduce a threat" because simply put you are not at war. If you are at war please disregard and go about your business. If you are a law enforcement officer and the Zeta's come to town, hit me up and I'll give you some good pointers on how to use fire and maneuver (and hopefully dedicated marksmen) to keep you from becoming another decapitated corpse hanging from a bridge.

However, if you aren't fighting off a ruthless Mexican Drug Cartel you probably don't have any reason to practice "fire and maneuver" or "suppressive fire" when defending your life or the lives of others. Shoot to stop the threat. If that means "shoot to kill" that is what you do. Don't shoot the dirt, don't shoot to warn, shoot to stop the threat.

I have seen Navy SEALs use the "stitch" technique to clear corners. It is like "pieing" the corners except you are pulling the trigger the whole time to keep whoever is on the other side of the corner from being able to pull their trigger back at you. This works when you have a lot of men with MP5's and plenty of ammo. It doesn't work when you have a 5 shot 38 Special revolver as your carry piece. And that extended mag on Lynn's Glock? Probably not something you are going to carry day in and day out unless you happen to by Jared Loughner....

Aim fast, shoot fast. Don't spray and pray. Don't "walk your rounds in" unless your rounds are coming from long distance assistance in the form of mortars or artillery. Remember that you are fighting to stop the threat, not kill Osama Bin Laden on a night raid in a foreign country.

The collapse of the dollar..

2011-10-29T11:42:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of talk by people who know that there is a coming collapse in the derivatives market. What a lot of folks aren't talking about is the range of options that a collapse can bring.

It could be a house of cards that falls down and leaves nothing. A true worldwide collapse. I think this is unlikely.

It could be a complete devaluation of the Dollar and the start of a reboot of the American financial system. "Nuevo Dollores" so to speak.

Or it could just be another "too big to fail" moment and some behind the scenes deals are made and the public gets screwed.

Or it could be much ado about nothing. After all, this is imaginary money we are talking about. The court system may handle this in the normal fashion of broken contracts and bankruptcy. I mean, 78 Trillion dollars doesn't exist, so it makes sense that as one company folds under and that debt falls into bankruptcy protection that the whole exposure on the derivatives market will be more of a controlled implosion than a sudden crisis.

So what will it really mean? Well I think there is a high likelihood that the dollar will lose a lot of international confidence and suffer as a result. I also think that people who have their money in the stock market will be somewhat insulated as the market increases in value to the same rate that the dollar declines. I think that commodities will be insulated simply because they are commodities.

Sacrifice

2011-10-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

Sacrifice sometimes mean "giving something up" but not everyone adds on the follow up "in order too gain something else."

Sacrifice without gain is failure. In chess you may sacrifice your queen to win the game. Sacrificing your queen to lose the game is utterly stupid.

So when someone says "You'll have to sacrifice a little more for the 'greater good'" they are telling you to give up something for no gain. That is not sacrifice, that is stupidity. When people talk about "shared sacrifice" but don't talk about "shared gain" they are simply telling you to give up something of yours for no gain.

People talk about the sacrifice those of us in the Military make. Yes we sacrifice our time and even our freedom of choice, but we do that to gain a paycheck and benefits.

The Occupy Wall Street movement wants to "eat the rich" and somehow make the rich "sacrifice" a little more in order to support some sort of social welfare scheme. Newsflash, social welfare is an utter failure wherever it is implemented. Cultures with social welfare stagnate, people stay in poverty, or stay in the middle class, and the rich stay rich. Social welfare doesn't spread the wealth.

So remember, when someone asks you to "sacrifice" you need to ask back, "what is in it for me?" and not be afraid to be labeled "cold hearted" or "heartless." Sacrifice must always be working towards a goal. Otherwise the player on the opposite side of the board is asking you to sacrifice the queen so that they will win.

An interesting rifle....

2011-10-26T06:28:00.000-07:00

I have often pondered the idea of a general utility rifle, one that could put meat on the table, be reliable, serve double duty as a sniper rifle out to 600 meters, and cheap enough that I could stash one somewhere for "just in case" ever becomes a reality.

So what do I see in the "Gun's and Ammo" that my wife sent in a care package but the "Mossberg MVP" 223 Rem bolt action rifle, heavy profile barrel, laminate stock of the "tactical" variety, and takes STANAG magazines? Well it fits the bill. 223 is a marginal round for big game, but marginal is better than a 22 rimfire, and if worst comes to worst big game will get scarce very quickly. The 1:9 twist will handle the old 69 gr SMK's just fine, and possibly 75 grain bullets if velocity is sufficient.

The MVP is like a lot of other entry level rifles on the market right now, shamelessly copied the features that make Savage rifles so nice, a barrel nut and wannabe "accutrigger." In the 308 realm I have a Saiga and a Savage, both with 20 inch barrels, both with "Tactical" scopes, but in 223 I only have an AR-15 that I use for High Power. So having another 223 in the stable makes a bit of sense, especially if I could get my wife hooked on rifle shooting.....

One of these days I'll upgrade the Saiga 308 to an AR-10 style rifle, maybe after I win the lotto?

Anyways, I would love to see the MVP in 308 and accepting M14/M1A style magazines. That would be the bees knees for an entry level "do it all" rifle. Fluted heavy barrel, good factory trigger, decent stock. It would definitely be a winner.

Three Percent Plan

2011-10-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

Less than ONE percent of US citizens join the US Military.

The good news is that if there really is THREE PERCENT out there, you've got the military outnumbered three to one. Very good odds for the most part.

However, a well disciplined team will prevail against a disorganized mob.

The founding fathers weren't guerillas in the woods and swamps, they set up a government. Here in Afghanistan the Taliban has often set up "shadow governors" of districts and provinces in the same manner that our Founding Fathers did over two centuries ago.

What that "shadow government" was able to do was gain legitimacy from the people (only really about a third of them, but enough to last on the field of battle against what had been their own countrymen). Had King George any idea of what was going on in Philadelphia he would have marched the Army in and hung them all as traitors.

So what can we learn from this?

First, you need a government to replace the government you want to overthrow. Right now Libya will be going through some intense "growing pains" but one of the first things that they did when the bullets started flying was set up a "transitional council" to deal with the international community. Imagine if there were a power vacuum, the infighting that is going on now is bad enough.

Second, you need to have said government in place before you make any overt moves (or be like Lybia and be able to declare such a government right quick). The transition from monarchy to democracy happened rather smoothly (although the Articles of Confederation were kind of a bust) in the US, but it hasn't been so smooth for countries like France (that whole reign of terror thing).

Third, it is literally a life or death gamble, there are no half measures.

Fourth, it was economics that won the war. England could have sent fleet after fleet after fleet, except it couldn't fund such an endeavor and still guard the home front. It was economics that lost Vietnam and Afghanistan for the Soviets. Not necessarily monetary economics, just that when the accounting was done, the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. In Libya it was NATO spending between one and three billion dollars to give the rebels an air force.

Right now neither the TEA Party nor the Occupy Wall Street movements have set up any "shadow governments" that I can see (doesn't mean they don't exist) so I am not to worried about "revolution" from either of those avenues. And until there is some sort of organization, at best all there is is a disorganized mob. And a well disciplined team will defeat an unorganized mob.

Historically militia movements have been easily penetrated by the FedGov in the US. Historically governments that get oppressive last for decades before collapsing (East Germany, USSR, Yugoslavia). So I don't think that ours is going to get any more free any time soon. There are no consequences to government for becoming increasingly oppressive. When we look at what works in bringing down those regimes it is massive civil disobedience. It is the people withdrawing support. It is much more than three percent. Armed resistance hasn't been the answer (except when backed by powerful international forces) for a long time.

But if massive, passive, civil disobedience fails? Then smart people would form shadow governments, reach out to sympathizers in the International Community, and prepare for the absolute worst in humanity.

Failure

2011-10-21T07:09:00.000-07:00

When people look at Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs they see the successes. Unfortunately it is the freedom to fail that allows people to succeed. Without the freedom to fail we don't have freedom to learn. Learning is sometimes a painful process, ask any Ranger student or Organic Chem major. One is a physical pain, the other is a mental pain.

But the possibility of failure, in my case accepting a double recycle in Ranger school in order to continue, gave me the motivation to succeed. If Steve Jobs had never been pushed out of Apple he would have never gained the insight into marketing that he got outside of Apple. Imagine if Steve Jobs never learned the leadership lessons that let him inspire others to innovate and think outside the "beige box."

Similarly we find ourselves in a conundrum in Afghanistan. We won't let the Afghan's have freedom to fail because that would mean we ourselves failed. Back home some institutions were labeled "Too Big to Fail" and all that did was stall the market. Things need freedom to fail so that they can move forward.

Abraham Lincoln was a dismal failure in most everything he ever did, but he did hold the Union together at a terrible price.

So accepting failure, how many times have you heard someone say "Failure is not an option"? Unfortunately simply by dictating something doesn't make it true. Failure is ALWAYS an option.

The key to not failing when it counts is to test yourself to failure before hand. That is why Infantrymen go through Ranger school. That is why Engineers conduct "Stress Tests" on systems and materials. This is why having a FEMA approved plan for New Orleans was a complete and utter waste of time, it had never been tested.

And you can always fail a test.

So how are your preparation plans for an emergency? Have you TESTED them? Failure isn't a bad thing. The bad thing is refusing to learn from failure. Here in Afghanistan we are refusing to let the Afghans fail, so when we draw down and leave they will be untested. That scares me a little. I think it would be better to let them fail a bit now instead of a lot later. Unfortunately so many decisions and actions out here truly are life or death that progress is slow going.

More from Fayett'Girl

2011-10-19T06:50:00.000-07:00

I had planned to write a post about the good I see in fellow Soldiers, self sacrifice, duty, honor, compassion, love.... But it is more fun to analyze Fayett'Girl's comments.

"However, as far as assault, negligent homicide and conspiracy to commit murder goes, it is only a false accusation if there is no truth behind it."

Exactly. There is no truth behind it. None. Nada. Zippo. I happen to be friends with one of the Soldiers he's falsely accused.

And you? Rather than do your own research on the matter, you wandered off and wrote several paragraphs about other men in other places at other times and held them up as evidence that Yon's accusations aren't baseless. Do you not see the problem with that logic, or lack thereof?

The great thing about pissing off commenters is that they are endless blog fodder.

Let me put some questions back to you Fayett'Girl, is your friendship with a soldier going to allow you to be objective at all? Obviously from your posts the answer is no, you have taken whatever version of events your friend told you and believe it to be the truth. There is nothing wrong with that, friends are supposed to take your side and I am sure that you are a very good friend.

Now, as far as historical examples, I picked a few that you really should look into. I don't know how old you are so you might have a Ph.D. in Military History and I should be taking lessons from you. The great thing about the internet is that everybody gets a voice, this blog is mine, and you are welcome to comment (very rarely do I ever delete comments, usually for spam or abuse towards other commenters). I wasn't trying to use historical examples as a proof that something happened in the present tense, just that similar circumstances have happened in the past tense and so Yon's claims don't seem so outrageous from someone who is familiar with military history.

I can't prove that Yon isn't a liar. I can't prove that Fayett'Girl's friend isn't a liar. Logically you CAN'T prove a negative. Since I can't prove that someone isn't telling the truth we can always try to prove a positive, that someone IS telling the truth. So far I haven't been able to find much evidence either way, just a bunch of accusations about character faults.

If there is a smoking gun out there, some video footage that proves Yon lied, or some audio tape to prove the circumstances of events, then we can be our own judge about proofs. Right now I'm too lazy to do my own research (quite frankly because I don't really care about Yon) so I'm sure that such proof will be forthcoming in comments. I'm sure "Brat" who graciously provided a link to a blog that aims to discredit Michael Yon will once again step up to the plate with smoking gun proof.

So Michael Yon has a "hate club"

2011-10-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

"Argument from authority is the weakest argument."

The most popular blog post I've written in a while has been about Michael Yon. Truth be told I don't follow the guy much but have never had a problem with his reporting. I try not to argue from authority, so what I write comes from my own thoughts and experience, nothing else. When I got an official email saying he had his embedded status revoked (without any official explanation attached to the email) I went to his site and saw a video of a what happens when an IED causes "battlefield amputations." I assumed that this was the cause of the revocation and posted my assumption. Then I went to bed. I think my actions were reasonable. However, the reaction I got was anything but reasonable.

So far three people have called me lazy for not doing my research and others have posted plenty of links to websites that say Yon is an exaggerating glory hound. I don't know why they would do this except that they have some emotional connection to the subject matter. Either this guy "CJ" is a misunderstood saint and Michael Yon is an unstable psychotic narcissist or the other way around. Of course since everything we read on the internet is true we can assume that both are true and reasonably conclude that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

So I ask you Michael Yon haters, what do you want? Do you want me to become part of the Michael Yon hate club? Do you want me to believe that everything he wrote is a complete fabrication? I simply can't do that, because I am a Soldier, and I know that Soldiers aren't plaster saints. I know that Soldiers get in fights, sometimes Soldiers rape each other. Sometimes Soldiers murder each other. I've been part of sending two soldiers to prison for kiddie porn. The Navy has relieved over 18 skippers this year for misconduct. Senior officers. How many Army Officers have been relieved? There have been multiple in my AO. So I can't dismiss what sounds reasonable based on my experience.

A few years back a buddy of mine from OCS was on a Human Terrain Team here in Afghanistan when a millionaire activists came through and wrote up a story about how "The helicopters had skulls painted on them" and people pounded him with accusations of "lies" until he produced a photo of a Blackhawk with a Grim Reaper stenciled on it, then the accusations turned to "Well you exaggerated, that isn't a skull." The truth is that the dude wrote it like he saw it and the military fanboys didn't want to have their hero's portrayed in that light. So when I contacted my buddy about the article he wrote back that the critics had a few points about some parts could be misleading but that the content was true.

I learned a valuable lesson there, that truth usually lies between the extremes when it comes to reporting. I also know the CPT who was in charge of the Cav Troop here in Afghanistan that had the "Kill Squad" and I know the JAG Attorney who prosecuted one of the murderers. Ten years ago I would have been vehemently denying any wrongdoing up until conviction then I would have been convinced that they had been railroaded. Ten years ago I had been an NCO for a year and was just another E5 going through SFAS (24 day non-select), what did my opinion count for?

People want to think that their Special Operations Community is filled with highly skilled warriors who kill the bad and protect the good, that the regular Army Soldiers enlisted because of a deep need to serve. In reality our SOCOM machine here in Afghanistan just killed two women who were members of a Senators household because their targeting is no better than 50% and most of our "Army Warriors" enlist because they need a job.

Michael Yon may indeed be a narcissistic glory hound. I don't really care. If you want to post comments on what a loser Michael Yon is be my guest. But being an uncritical fan of the military is every bit as stupid as being an uncritical critic of Michael Yon. And as far as suggested reading, history may not repeat itself, but it rhymes. LT Cally had protesters protesting the Government because they thought it was political interference with military affairs and that the fedgov should just let the military do what it does. It is the same cat fight now as it was back then, except now we have Al Gore's internet to let me waste time when I should be sleeping.

The right mix of weapons

2011-10-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

Great individual warriors will be utterly destroyed by mediocre warriors with good teamwork.

In any battle, there is no "silver bullet" or "superweapon" that cause you to win. What there is, on the other hand, is the RIGHT MIX of weapons and individuals that will set conditions for victory.

If simply having superior weapons, training, and tactics were all it took to win a war Vietnam would be a prosperous Democracy and Afghanistan would be a Soviet Protectorate State. So what are the conditions?

Well, if you want to win as the underdog you need a LOT of bodies to throw into the meat grinder. The Muslim world is awash with underemployed young men who embrace a culture of self sacrifice. Which is why you don't see Jewish or Canadian suicide bombers, but rather Muslim men from 17-45 who conduct most of the terror attacks. Conversely this was the same sort of population that fought the Soviets as mujahadeen. The Vietnamese took around 2 million casualties, and probably could have taken a million more.

My point is that a superpower that kills a lot of people can still lose the war. How did Ghandi bring about freedom for India? By changing public opinion, seizing the right moment to help the British public latch on to the "post imperial" though process that accompanied the breakup of the empire.

The right mix of weapons, the right mix of propaganda, the right mix of resistance. The Taliban aren't fighting to win here in Afghanistan, they are fighting to remain relevant. If we allow them to remain relevant they will eventually win. The question is what is the right mix for Coalition Forces to counter that and keep this place from turning back into a theocratic hell hole?

2011-10-12T05:23:00.000-07:00

Fayette' Girl left this comment:

Among other things, he's made false accusations of assault, negligent homicide and conspiracy to commit murder. He's named names, ranks, locations, email addresses etc of personnel in the unit with which he was embedded.

That is why he's persona non grata. Might want to fact check your writing before clicking, "post".

Any or all of the above would be a plausible explanation of why Michael Yon's press status was revoked. I can't comment on the facebook stuff as I don't follow Yon on facebook.

However, as far as assault, negligent homicide and conspiracy to commit murder goes, it is only a false accusation if there is no truth behind it. I knew the Company Commander who was in charge of the Cav Troop that contained the "Kill Squad", members of which are on trial at Fort Lewis. He had no idea what was going on in his troop because of the vast distance between platoon outposts that he had to cover.

I know that SF personnel have killed people simply for having a cell phone. I know that sometimes SF will come in, kill a few people, maybe women and children, then call up the land owning unit and say "fix this, bye" and leave. I know that SF night raids are the number one complaint I receive from the
Afghan Security Forces and GiRoA. So, pardon me for not being the Army's big cheerleader, but every single one of those "false accusations" has a high probability of actually having some truth to it, based on my knowledge and experience. Enough to convict? That is a different question.

Fayette'Girl should read the book "Soldier" by LTC Tony Herbert. In it he talks about some of the things he saw that were swept under the rug. This isn't some "Winter Soldier" BS either, this was a highly decorated American Hero who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming forward. Remember the pilot who interceded at Mai Lai? Yeah that did GREAT things for his career.

Now, is Yon a bit narcissistic? I don't know, could be. Normal people don't become journalists. Then again normal people don't become Soldiers so I might not be a good one to judge.

Michael Yon persona non grata....

2011-10-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Just got word that Michael Yon's press status was rescinded with the military here in Afghanistan. I wondered why so I checked his website. I guess showing video of a soldier getting hurt pretty badly is a one way ticket to the dog house.

I wonder if this is because he finally crossed a line that someone didn't like, or if because word came down that there would be "no bad news" during the draw down as we exploit our "security gains" from the surge the Administration wanted?

Anyways, if you are going to get your peepee slapped, might as well do it for telling the truth. For sake of clarity Yon can stay in Afghanistan and continue reporting, but US Military personnel are forbidden from offering any sort of support except for a ride to the nearest commercial airport.

I don't know maybe the current guy in charge of public affairs never saw "Restrepo" the rules of engagement have changed when it comes to reporters. Whatever the case, hang tough Mike, and good for you for telling the truth.

Ah, the results of fairness before talent...

2011-10-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

In Rhodesia a white government ruled and Rhodesia prospered, becoming known as the "breadbasket of Africa." Then the revolution came, and all the poor oppressed black people got to learn first hand how good life could be under Robert Mugabe.

Say what you want about apartheid Africa, it worked. Now, was it MORALLY right? Not by a long shot, but the real question remains whether or not white leadership was good for those nations, and the answer from every available metric is a "yes."

So how can people who believe that "communism will work if only the right people are in charge" also believe that "the right people" can't be white?

Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly operates under a revolutionary “progressive stack.” A normal “stack” means those who wish to speak get in line. A progressive stack encourages women and traditionally marginalized groups speak before men, especially white men. This is something that has been in place since the beginning, it is necessary, and it is important.
“Step up, step back” was a common phrase of the first week, encouraging white men to acknowledge the privilege they have lived in their entire lives and to step back from continually speaking. This progressive stack has been inspiring and mind-boggling in its effectiveness. Source http://biggovernment.com/publius/2011/10/07/occupywallstreets-racist-speech-rule-white-men-last/

I give you the above quote to show you how enforced equality looks. It doesn't matter what you have to say, your ideas are not judged by their content but by the color of your skin. Wait, didn't another great American have something to say about that?

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.

It seems that there are those who are unwilling to be colorblind, and in this day in age the content of ones character far outweighs the color of their skin. Had Herman Cain run against Obama the novelty of a main party black politician would have not been an issue, only the content of their character.

So while I agree with many of the points being made by Occupy Wall Street (chrony capitalism is an abhorrent deviation of free market principles), I do not agree with their end goals. I do not agree with their tactics. And I do not agree with their racist policy.

Financial Collapse

2011-10-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

I think a financial collapse is coming. I think it has already started and the best case scenario is a lost decade. Worst case scenario is hyperinflation.

How people will react to it is the big unknown. Collapses have happened before. Rome collapsed into the dark ages, the USSR collapsed into despotism. Chile collapsed into Pinochet.

History may not repeat itself, but it rhymes....

More on "Link Analysis"

2011-10-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.truth-out.org/how-mcchrystal-and-petraeus-built-indiscriminate-killing-machine/1317052524

So I've written on "Link Analysis" before and how it lead directly to the death of Jose Guerena.

The more I learn about people and organizations who rely heavily on Link Analysis, or Social Diagramming, or whatever else happens to be the flavor of the day when it comes to data mining the more pissed off I get.

Techniques are just tools. A wrench can't tell you anything other than it fits the nut or not. Think of Link Analysis as a tool that says "dig deeper" instead of any sort of oracle of truth.

But you know what is true? People are lazy, and as long as SOCOM and SWAT are both willing to barge into peoples houses and shoot them based off of nothing more than a series of phone calls to people who may or may not be actual "bad guys" then we will continue to lose Wars on Nouns.

Terror, drugs, poverty, crime, you name it, we've already lost. Lost the freedoms that were worth fighting for in the first place. Lost the character to accept responsibility for our actions. Lost any sort of idea how to live our lives as adults without an over watching nanny state. I grit my teeth and clench down on the rage at the lack of dignity enforced on all travelers by the improperly named TSA. Hell, no matter how bad it gets on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, at least we weren't American citizens into sexual assault victims.

But now that The Administration has used a drone and a missile to kill an American citizen overseas in the "war on the terror noun" how long do you think it will be before the missiles fall from the skies of New Mexico?

Overloaded

2011-10-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

I find that most people can do ONE thing well, two things ok, and three things poorly. There are exceptions to this rule, people who thrive on pressure and manage to push out sterling products almost effortlessly.

I am no exception to the rule. Since our Engineer and Public Affairs guy went on leave I have been filling down on two jobs for which I have not been trained. I guess getting into someones battle rhythm is a difficult task for anyone, especially when you are expected to maintain your own.

Anyways, enough of the "poor overworked me" crap. I am just disgusted that the quality of my work output is suffering. The regular guy will be back soon enough and I can sleep when I'm dead.

It isn't like I have anywhere to go for a while.

Everybody is CSI nowadays...

2011-09-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

So far this deployment I've picked up pieces of a VBIED and photographed remnants of a projectile tail fin. If I can get it back home I'm taking the dang half of a leaf spring from the VBIED and finding a bladesmith to make an officer's saber out of it. More recently I thought the finned remnant was aft piece on an 82mm mortar round, but it didn't look right. So I consulted an expert who identified it as the tail end of a Chinese 82mm recoilless smoothbore gun round.

For those who don't know, not all recoilless guns are "rifled." Recoilless rifles of the American persuasion use a rifled barrel (duh, right?) but instead of forcing the projectile into the lands and grooves, there are engagement lugs built right into the projectile. So when you load the recoilless rifle from the breech, you have to turn the round until the lugs engage the rifling and the round can be seated in the chamber. It is a simple and effective system. This ends up lobbing a very heavy projectile about as fast as your average Red Rider BB gun.

The smoothbore gun on the other hand, needs a stabilizing fin portion to keep the projectile going in the direction you want. Smoothbore guns are cheaper to manufacture, although I'm not sure about cost savings on the part of the ammunition. This also ends up lobbing a very heavy projectile about as fast as a Red Rider BB gun. Although if you shoot your eye out it will likely be from the explosion of the warhead propelling shrapnel back your way.

Anyways, there is much to be learned from open source intel on Chinese Type 65 and 78 recoilless gun systems. The bulk of good CSI work isn't getting DNA proof, it is simple gathering of evidence. If you gather enough to paint a picture, quite likely you will be able to fill in the blank spots with hunches.

Gluten Free Bleg

2011-09-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

To anyone familiar with the Fort Knox, Louisville, Radcliffe, Elizabethtown area, are there ANY restaurants that offer Gluten Free options?

My wife has a wheat allergy and just moved to the area. Also any grocery stores that offer a GF section would be awesome. The Commissary has a limited selection so she'll be OK, but variety is always a good option.

Thoughts on a speech by Major General Sacolick

2011-09-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

If you don't know who Major General Sacolick is that is fine, neither did I until I heard him speak. If you Google his background it is evident that he has "been there, done that" quite a bit.

As a Delta Force Commander he said this, "My boys are so good that if you tell us where the bad guys are we'll knock on their door and take them out in 24 hours." As a Major General he said this, "I now realize that the hard part isn't killing the bad guys, it is getting the intel to feed to the good guys. Taking out bad guys is relatively easy in comparison." These are not direct quotes, my memory is paraphrasing.

So prior to The War on a Noun our Special Forces really specialized in Foreign Internal Defense, training guerrillas, etc. After ten years of fighting pretty much all our "Elite" operators are busy doing direct action missions (which is code word for killing bad guys). In Afghanistan GEN McChrystal was very satisfied with a 50% accuracy on actionable intel. Think about that for a second, for every time SEALs went in and double tapped the worlds most famous terrorist they went into a dry hole and possibly killed women and children. And more than once those same "elite" operators would then call the "Land Owning Unit" and drop the entire mess into their hands for damage control.

As a consequence the Regular Army (and to a lesser extent the Marine Corps) got very good at damage control, foreign internal defense, civil support, Military Operations Other Than War, etc. Ten years of fighting has turned everything around to the point where the Commandant of the Special Warfare School stood in front of a few hundred Captains and explained his plan to keep the Regular Army continuing the "partnership" missions (training indigenous forces, FID, MOOTW, civil support) beyond the end of the War on a Noun.

Pretty smart guy, Major General Sacolick. This is not to say that SF will go away. We could not have executed the Son Tay Raid without SF, however regular Air Assault Infantry Company could have executed the raid on Bin Laden's house in Abbotabad and the bad guys wouldn't have known the difference, dead is dead after all. But there aren't enough Rangers, Force Recon, Special Forces, or SEALs in the inventory to actually do everything that falls outside the realm of traditional land warfare.

Doctrine has already changed to add "full spectrum operations" to unit mission statements. However, I have not seen "Conduct Civil Support Operations" on an Infantry Company Mission Essential Task Listy (METL) yet. There are very good reasons for that, training to perform wartime missions really does eat up your training schedule fast. However, training Joe when not to shoot is every bit as important, so the number of Situational Training Exercises has increased in doctrine to reflect the reality of present and future conflicts.

I don't want to say that your average Infantryman is every bit as effective as your average Green Beret, that is simply not the case. However, your average Staff Sergeant or Sergeant First Class (the two most common ranks in SF) will probably not have much difference. Of course an Infantry Sergeant First Class is likely to be a Platoon Sergeant or Operations NCOIC and an SF Sergeant First Class is likely to just be the senior specialist on the team.

So, until we change our force structure to reflect operational needs, SF will lack the grunt power of the Regular Army, and the Regular Army will lack the senior experience concentrated onto an SF team. What do I think is the answer? Well, the Army won't like it. Make Company Commanders a Major billet, the Company Sergeant position a Sergeant Major slot, Platoon Commanders a Captain billet, Platoon Sergeant a Master Sergeant Billet, Squad Leader a Sergeant First Class Billet, team leader a Staff Sergeant position.

Each Platoon has a squad of Infantry, Medics, and Engineers. A Commo team and Intelligence cell round out the fourth Squad.

Now you have a unit that has enough seniority at each level to act independently with maturity. You have enough skills organic to the unit that they can truly perform full spectrum operations.

How many of these Companies do I think the Army needs to field? At least a full Regiment (although two would be better). That is 12 Companies. With a "red/amber/green" cycle that means four companies could be deployed at any given time. If each company has 3 Platoons of 40 men that is 480 more personnel on the ground anywhere you need them.

These need to be SOCOM units, but they need to draw the personnel from FORSCOM, and those personnel need to rotate back to other FORSCOM units. Quite the same way that Infantry Officers roll in and out of the 75th Rangers over the course of their careers.

But this is all pie in the sky thinking.

Home Made Explosive

2011-09-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

The biggest car bomb in my memory was Tim McVeigh's attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. 5000 pounds is a lot of "boom" to have go off near you. Not exactly the same as 10 500 pound bombs (different explosive compound) but definitely big enough.

In Iraq and Afghanistan the bad guys have turned to the IED as the weapon of choice. And every time we get a better vehicle the bad guys change their bomb making skills. Deep buried IEDs just push a vehicle into the sky, maybe send it rolling a time or two. EFPs punch through armor the same way anti armor missiles do. None of this is new technology.

I won't teach anyone how to make a home made explosive, but your local library can help you on that all you want. I will however talk about the effects on the country.

In Iraq the people had vehicles, and because they don't win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi's by blowing them up the bad guys in Iraq were actually quite careful to target the "foreign invaders." You know, the ones trying to rebuild their infrastructure and help restore civil services.

In Afghanistan things are different. Here vehicles are much less prevalent, so the targeting is less precise. Also since much of the Afghan government employees drive around in pickup trucks civilian traffic is specifically targeted.

Imagine how much damage to our economy, our way of life, if IEDs did nothing but crater major freeways in the US? Sure the roads would be repaired, in some cases over night. But here the locals know that they drive at their own risk. As a weapon of terror the IED succeeds, like a hidden sniper that can strike at random.

You can Google the news of IED attacks over the course of the war. You won't find them making headline news. Of course since the invention of gunpowder we have gone from the petard, to foo gas and claymore mines. The IED is nothing new. What is new is how IEDs are literally tearing this country apart. When a local cop balks at going on patrol because he might get blown up it is not a good thing to be his partner in trying to establish civil services.

Shooting, riding, relaxing.

2011-09-21T11:02:00.000-07:00

There is a sense of calm and relaxation that I get from spending time behind the trigger, and time on the bike. I'm sure there are other activities that require relaxation to perform at your highest level, but for me it is shooting and riding.

I've had a lot of time to think about what life will be like when I get back to my family. How to balance the things that I like to do alone with the obligations of being a husband and a father. I think that the art of relaxing will be important to performing at optimum level as a husband and father.

Libya

2011-09-19T10:02:00.000-07:00

So taking the skies away from Qadafi forces allowed the insurgents to win. Taking the skies away from the Soviets allowed the Muj to outlast the Red Army. Taking the skies away from the Vietcong didn't give us victory.

So what can we learn from these three historical examples?

First that air power alone does not bring victory. The insurgents in Libya won the fight on the ground because they could. In Vietnam and Afghanistan air dominance did not translate into victory because victory is always won by "boots on the ground" to quote "This kind of war."

So how did the VC negate US air power? Well they simply kept throwing bodies into the fight, set up triangular machine gun ambushes, protected North Vietnam with a massive array of SAM defenses.

And how did the Muj negate Soviet air power? They simply kept throwing bodies into the fight, set up triangular machine gun ambushes, used man portable shoulder launched SAM systems (SA-18s, British Stovepipes, US Stingers) and based their HQ in Pakistan out of the reach of the Soviets.

The insurgents in Libya started off with none of those benefits, but by working with NATO to get a de facto Air Force of their own the insurgents were able to win. Sure they ended up incorporating NATO forward air controllers to guide the planes, but the point is that having jet fighters destroy Qadafi's tanks and armored columns sure beats fighting them yourself. Especially when all you have for heavy weapons is a DSHK tack welded onto a Toyota.

High performance aircraft are really a luxury of the developed world. It takes a team of specialists to keep them flying, keep the pilots trained, keep the weapon systems operational, and even to load the bombs and cannons. Much easier to kill a plane on the ground than a plane in the air.

Anyways, now that NATO has decided to topple the crazy dude in the desert the precedent of "no one is safe" has been firmly set. Dictators everywhere will likely be trying to figure out how to minimize the advantage of Allied air superiority and precision munitions. Once again we are back to the tactics of WWII, placing military assets in neighborhoods to discourage bombers...

The feeling of powerlessness.

2011-09-18T10:38:00.000-07:00

There is nothing more violating than feeling powerless. Ask a rape victim, ask a former homeowner who went through foreclosure. Whatever the situation, sometimes we are simply powerless.

And that is why the people of the gun fight so hard to keep from being powerless. Because you don't need to be raped to know that being powerless, at the mercy of someone who lacks mercy, is a very bad thing.

There is the other side, those that believes simply that taking power from everyone will make the world better. Unfortunately the weight of history is rife with examples of ordinary men and women going to extraordinary measures to gain power over their fellow men and women.

I appreciate the kind words many have written to me here, I think that I will always feel guilty for being powerless to protect other people. I understand that the fickle hand of fate will deal with us as it chooses, but every time that I think I didn't give my all makes me flinch when I look in the mirror. My guilt won't crush me, but some days it weighs me down more than others. As a rational human being I know that guilt is not rational. But like all non-sociopaths I feel emotions that are not rational.

Now we don't get to judge our own impact on history. Who knows, maybe I'll end up inspiring the next George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. So while I have guilt about my past, I do have hope for the future. I also think things are likely to get worse before they get better which explains my continual investment in ammunition and shelf stable food.

Being powerless doesn't take away your hope. And hope is a powerful thing, it is what kept Primo Levi alive through his experience in a concentration camp.

I know that the vast majority of service members are like myself, simply doing a job and the vast majority of us never fire a shot in anger. It doesn't make me feel any better knowing that my circumstance is normal, I feel like my friends are dying and I'm powerless to help them.

I know in my head that working with the ANSF to secure their own borders and country is the "main effort" of this war. In my heart I wish I could do more. In the end there is nothing to do but trust that "The Big Green Machine" will do the best it can with what I think is at best a stalemate.

Guilt

2011-09-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

In 2003 I was activated from as an Army Reservist for the initial invasion of Iraq. My unit did not go anywhere, we ended up staying stateside and running SRP sites, resetting equipment, etc.

For years I felt incredibly guilty about not being able to prove myself by serving in a war zone. I finished college, signed another contract, went to OCS, Infantry Basic Officer Leaders Course, Ranger School, Airborne School, the Army Marksmanship Squad Designated Marksmen and CQB train the trainer courses, the Anti Armor Leaders Course, and even Sniper Employment Officer. And finally, six years after my mobilization got to go to Iraq as a Platoon Leader.

And we had two rounds fired at us the whole time. Either I was doing something very right, or the enemy was simply not targeting us. Considering we were rolling in less than 16 man "platoons" I really hope that we were doing something right.

But that experience ended way too quickly, and I was sent back stateside to handle the most difficult job of my career to date, handling the Rear Detachment. I gained twenty pounds and caught pneumonia. Four and a half months of "deployed" time which was really three months of "combat leadership" was way less than I was willing to do. I didn't sign up to be a baby sitter, but that was the job I was given.

So after nine months of misery I headed off to the Captain's Career Course and volunteered to join a brigade already in eastern Afghanistan, right on the Af/Pak border. So I graduate, dropping thirteen pounds in five months and managing to tear the crap out of my left shoulder. I make it to my new unit, abuse my rank ruthlessly to speed through the inprocessing paperwork and SRP shuffle and less than a month from signing in am on a plane across the pond to join my unit.

And I get sent to the Special Troops Battalion to do staff time. No leadership position, not surrounded by Infantrymen, just replacing another unlucky Infantry Captain who did two years in the job I'm now filling before he got a shot at Company Command.

So kids, the sad truth is this, if you choose a life of service you don't get much of a choice as to how that service will play out. The hardest part about my particular military career is that, aside from a few AK rounds and a 1000 pound VBIED going off 100 meters away, ten year of wartime service has really been "go here, do this, do that, go there."

Some days I feel guilty that I'm still alive when others aren't. I don't ever want to see another toddler with a concerned look on his face while his 20 year old mother balls her eyes out. I don't want to have to give condolences to grieving family members. I'll do it if it is my duty, but that isn't what I had in mind when I signed on the dotted line. I don't want to say goodbye to another hero as his family debates when to take him off life support.

Still to this day I feel guilty that I haven't done enough. I've volunteered for everything that's come down the pipe, I've never turned down an assignment. I've pushed and pushed to get into the fight. And it has gotten me nowhere. A companies worth of Soldiers have died not 100 miles from me in the last eight weeks and I couldn't do a blessed thing to prevent it.

“The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing”. Herodotus.

I'll continue to do my duty. I signed my name and entered into the contract of my own free will. To give anything less would be an affront to all that I hold dear. But I'll probably feel guilty for a while yet. In my head I know I'm not God and cannot hold power over who lives and who dies. But in my heart, I grieve that I couldn't save them.

2011-09-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Tam posted this:

I'm so glad that someone else has thought about this

Phil at Random Nuclear Strikes asks one of life's important questions. If you were about to be overrun by a necrotic tide of shambling zombies...
As you load your last mag into your chosen weapon, what song comes up your MP3 player/IPOD?
It's good to know that others have put serious consideration into this.

For me, it depends... Does the universe go into Zach Snyder-esque synchronized slow-mo as I dual-wield my 1911s into the hordes of the brain-eating undead, à la the apotheosis of Tallahassee in Zombieland? ‘Cause if it does, then it’s “For Those About To Rock”.

Otherwise, it’s “Bodies” by Drowning Pool.

And my answer? There are WAY too many good songs to go down fighting to. I have both "For Those About to Rock" and "Bodies" on my MP3 player.

I think I would have to choose Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" simply for the lyrics.

"In the shuffling madness,
of the Locomotive Breath,
Runs the All Time Loser,
Headlong to his death"

Of course I'll be fighting long after I run out of ammo. A katana is an antiquated weapon in these times, but when it comes to a last ditch stand I'll pull mine out and get to mutilating the undead until my arms can no longer swing the dang thing.

Alternately I think Lady Gaga's "Show me your teeth" would be a good choice.

Dead Space

2011-09-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

Today I helped an Army Engineer with a project involving an expansion to a Forward Operating Base. I mentioned that the "star fort" concept came from the angles of fire of cannon and he looked at me like I was speaking Greek.

The star fort took away the rounded walls of the Medieval period and replaced them with sharp corners and acute angles. This not only reinforced the walls by causing cannonballs to "glance" off, but also cut down on the amount of dead space between cannon emplacements.

The exact same concept happens today with guard tower and weapons emplacements. Look at your lines of fire, then make your walls match them so you don't get dead space (or worse, a friendly fire incident).

9/11

2011-09-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

For the past ten years I've served. I've served in war and in peace. Stateside and in two sandboxes.

I'm closer to retirement than not, I've lost comrades in arms along the way. Somewhere along the line I married a woman who has stuck with this whole lifestyle, even have two sons waiting back home. My life has significantly changed, but I'm not sure I have.

I don't serve because of 9/11. I was in a chow hall at Fort Hood eating breakfast when the world turned upside down. Ten years is a long time to be at war, a decade. I don't see it ending any time soon. AFRICOM has stood up, the Phillipines aren't cooling down, Pakistan and India are not getting any better.

We have a generation of professional soldiers who have served, and will continue to serve. We have a generation of military families who have never known peacetime service. The Army isn't broken, far from it. The Army is tired. Tired but still ready to serve.

What bothers me more is that while we do have real enemies on the ground the continual erosion of civil rights and liberties due to the encroaching police state makes my service a mockery. But at this point it is just my chosen profession. I get paid twice a month to do a job that I'm pretty good at. And as long as you are good at your job there is nothing dishonorable about honest work. I can't guarantee that the freedoms other soldiers fought and died to protect will be there for you, only that there are still those willing to fight and die for them.

Unrestricted Warfare

2011-09-06T11:38:00.000-07:00

I've been digesting a work by the Chinese entitled "Unrestricted Warfare" recommended by Brandon (thank you btw).

And while the point of the essay/white paper is that warfare is advancing into unpredictable branches through technological advances and a wise General/Nation/Leader accepts that anything can be used to advance the military/economic/national goals one little point hasn't been brought up.

Casualties. More and more people are talking about "Total War" meaning information, cyber attacks and defense, economic subterfuge and sabotage, all things that traditionally fall outside the realm of a teenager with a bayonet on the end of a rifle lacking adult supervision.

As we saw in Libya, a rag tag force of insurgents BACKED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY (I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want to win an insurgency you need international backers, it's a historical rule). Of course when fourth generation fighter bombers are helping out a rag tag insurgency it really does make a point.

So the ultimate goal of all this smart technology, intelligence driven warfare, is to REDUCE casualties, not inflict them. Humans want to fight, war is the natural state of humanity, but we are surprisingly squeamish about it. We want to win and still be "the good guy" instead of winning and being Lenin or Mao.

So what will we do when the advance of war towards "total war" with few casualties turns into "total war" aimed at causing casualties? We are not that far removed from firebombing Dresden or Tokyo. What happens when the old concept of crushing your enemy UTTERLY (like we did to the Germans at the Treaty of Versailles) is combined with the knowledge to destroy vital infrastructure, deny civil services, and cause mass casualties and panic?

What will war be then? Will people wander around muttering "I can't believe this is happening, this can't be happening" like some liturgy to turn back the hands of reality? What do we do when someone realizes that they can't win without truly unleashing the full power and might of leveraged technology to utterly kill and destroy?

Mutually assured destruction only worked because the situation became unwinnable. "The only winning move is not to play" so to speak. What if the power of nuclear weapons combined with a sophisticated virus to deny the enemy ability to respond? All of a sudden a nuclear war is winnable when you deny the enemy the infrastructure needed to assure mutual destruction.

So "unrestricted warfare" is a nice logical step to what war might be, but really somewhere the choice will be to commit mass genocide or lose a war. And I know that there are enough of us willing to make the choice to not lose to make the future of warfare a frightening thought.

As nuclear technology continues to spread to tinpot dictators and theocracies those who value their lives will fight back in a highly restricted means such as precision strikes, stuxnet virus, or economic sanctions. Our "unrestricted warfare" options ensure our enemies survival.

And when you ensure your enemy survives, you perpetuate the eternal state of warfare that defines humanity. We want to win, but we don't want to kill. We lock up those who want to kill, we call those who even envision a "final solution" as deranged monsters. And some of them are deranged monsters. But Stalin, Mao, and Hitler all would have disabled the US communications grid and nuked us to hell if they had the chance.

So who is the real monster? Those who will kill to impose their will, and those who will selectively kill to impose their will? Those who condemn North Koreans to die of starvation through sanctions, or those who firebomb Tokyo?

Corruption

2011-09-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

One thing that has stuck in my craw is the raid on the Gibson Guitar Company. Now other folks have done a very thorough job covering the hypocrisy of singling out the Gibson company by the DOJ.

Will you kill over a piece of wood? If the answer is yes then congratulations, you are either a terrorist or a a freedom fighter (depending on if you win or lose).

So we can all say that a piece of wood is not worth dieing over or killing over, but what about when that piece of wood will turn you into a Felon (not kidding, felony over importing Indian Rosewood) and take away your freedom?

Is your freedom worth killing for? Can you live like a fugitive to maintain your freedom?

It is my experience that anyone who is "just doing their job" and enforcing capricious rules on an apathetic public is no better than the train conductor hauling cattle cars of Jews to the gas chambers. "I was just doing my job" lost all legal defense at Nuremburg (unless you happen to be a member of the Civil Law Enforcement club, then you can commit murder as long as you do it in uniform) and "just doing my job" has NEVER had any MORAL defense.

So sometimes a piece of wood is more than just a piece of wood. Sometimes when the portions of the government meant to serve the people are turned into a club to discipline unruly (or unpopular) corporations, groups, and individuals, that the government has lost moral authority to govern.

This nation is headed towards a civil war, and it is not on the side of the "preppers" or the "Tea Party." This country is headed towards a thugocracy, Chicago style. No politician has the moral courage to roll back the encroachments on freedom. None, not even the much vaunted Reagan.

So while I wouldn't have resisted the SWAT team as it poured through the Gibson Guitar Company, fighting when it is futile is the act of men more righteous than me, I take it as the act of civil war that it is. I cannot see it as anything but a direct challenge to the sovereignty of the individual. Remember not all wars are won by violence, but they are won through concerted and consistent action.

33 out of a hundred? is that good or bad?

2011-09-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

So NPR released the top 100 SciFi books and the blogosphere is rating themselves against the list.

If I had read any books in the series I counted it as read. And while this list isn't exactly exhaustive of my reading history I think it is pretty biased towards new releases and recognized classics. I've read some of Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" series but not his "Alera" series. For the record I have read Max Brook's "The Zombie Survival Guide" from cover to cover but haven't read "World War Z" yet. Tight clothes and short hair people.

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
64. Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

Another year older, none the wiser

2011-09-04T11:01:00.000-07:00

September rolls around and the anniversary of my Mother successfully carrying another child to full term delivery is celebrated. Thanks Mom, and I'm sure that bottle of blackberry wine in the last trimester had nothing whatsoever with my slightly skewed outlook on life.

Second time in a "combat zone" that is only seeing sporadic combat. Working a lot harder this time as a staff Captain than as a Platoon Leader. But if the Staff is doing their job correctly then being a Leader is relatively easy.

I ordered myself a birthday present, a Scrapyard Knife Co 511. I have a Swamp Rat Knife Works Mischief 6, but after a month of carrying a solid pound of steel on my kit in Iraq I chose a much less sturdy knife to carry. Hopefully the lighter 511 gives me a good solid lightweight knife that can take some abuse.

Afghanistan is still being Afghanistan. Like Kim Du Toit saying "Africa Wins Again" this place has a way of grinding down your soul. Eventually I guess you just have to accept that backwards and stubborn people are that way because they want to be.

At this point in my career I'm closer to retirement than to enlistment. In four more years I'll have spent half my life in the service of Uncle Sam. Some things have gotten better, others have stayed the same.

Over a hundred years ago a West Point graduate traded in his "out dated" Henry repeating rifles for the "modern" single shot Trapdoor Springfield before Little Bighorn. Around a hundred years ago a British General opined that "The machine gun will never replace the horse as an instrument of battle." and that saw over 18,000 Tommies dead because of that statement. After the bloody battles of WWII showed the world the supremacy of the Tank and Armored Tactics the Cavalry Officers of many nations argued that the horse should still be an "alternate mode of transportation." In Vietnam US Army Officers were convinced they could win it "just like we did in WWII." When the US Army transitioned to "running shoes" the old timers were convinced it was the end of the world and that we wouldn't be able to run in boots in combat. Now we have a Sergeant Major who deems that "individual toed running shoes are unmilitary in appearance and will not be worn." It is the same old backwards thinking crap that mid grade leaders have had to deal with since time began.

Sometimes it makes me want to scream.

The difference between war stories and fairy tales....

2011-08-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

Fairy tails begin with "once upon a time" and war stories begin with "no shit there I was"

So my war story will begin the same way.

No shit, there I was, naked as a jay bird under the blankets sleeping like a babe.

BOOOOOM!!!!!!!

I jump up, naked, and scramble madly for my pants. Years of experience have trained me that loud noises and lack of pain mean I'm still alive and probably need to do something. The first thing I did was put on pants. After the pants, with 9mm pistol attached to the belt I forgo socks and slipped into a pair of boots and ran to the nearest bunker.

So there I was, armed with a pistol, pants, and boots, hunkering in a concrete bunker with three other guys in various states of undress. Small arms fire started going off in the distance, so a few of us take up positions at the mouths of the bunker and get ready to shoot at any bad guys coming over the walls.

To make a long story short, I then got the call for section leaders to assemble, helped gain accountability of my section, and finally put on a shirt. I'm still getting razzed for being shirtless in front of the most of my colleagues.

Anyways, the BOOOOOM turned out to be about a thousand pounds of explosive packed into a truck that was trying to force it's way through the entry control point. A half ton of boom will whack you pretty good out of your sleep, even if you are 150 meters from the boom point.

Lessons learned? Sleeping naked is good in the heat, not so good for react to bad guy drills. If you have time to grab your pants, you are obviously still alive and should grab a shirt too.

The original "double dip"

2011-08-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

The "stock market Crash of '29" wasn't one single crash, it was a series of crashes followed by mild recovery. This "double dip" may become "triple" or "quadruple dip" if it follows that trend.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes...

The "stagflation of the late 70's" actually started in 1972.

Commodities are going to take a dump this year if historical trends continue, and the dollar may or may not go into multiple year double digit inflation.

But the problem with a Democracy is you get the government you elect.

God loves fools, for he surely made enough of them....

2011-08-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
I have a Bushmaster AR (That I'm very happy with) that I've turned into quite the CQB rifle. With a furnishing of Magpul accessories and furniture it looks awesome and functions great.. Just what I want and need as a personal carbine. Now I've set my sights on a SPR type AR as a DMR-functioning rifle. Basically an AR that will compliment my other, and have a little synergistic role. Both will shoot 5.56 (granted if I was taking for making real *real* precision shots of course I would want better ammo in the SPR) but anyway, both use the same ammo, mags, and function about the same . I would also be configuring the R-15 to function as a SPR/DMR but also be 'able' to fight with it if necessary... i.e. I liked the SIG DMR when I first 'met' it but I strongly doubt you could fight a battle with it, it's too heavy/unwieldly to fight with, it's too much of a 'sniper rifle' which is not really what I'm looking for.
http://remington.com/products/firear...r-carbine.aspx
SO that's the link to what I'm thinking of , the R-15 'Predator Carbine' which features an 18" barrel and also a Free Float tube. Now the tube is what i'm wondering about. Does it have/allow for a bottom of the tube rail? Bec. I could deal with those "slots" around the tube if/when I needed to mount accessories by mounting those little screw-in mini-rails that you also use on the Magpul MOE handguard.
But on the bottom, I want to do some stuff. As an SPR I want it to have some fighting capabilities. I would mount a Magpul AFG on the bottom rear for gripping of course but also for holding if I needed to use it like that... and then a Bipod up front. so is there a way to put a rail on the bottom?
Also I'd want to make the rear A2 stock into a Magpul PRS, just seems so much better. And it looks like it takes BUIS pretty easy with a gas block mount, and then it would just need a nice great scope.
Waht do you think? eems like a real reasonable solution to a SPR/DMR instead of like $3000 for a Noveske ( no doubt better but so expensive)
from TAKticool

So that is from a post on thefiringline.com and as far as I can tell the guy is serious. Other than a serious case of "Magpulitis" he seems to have decided that whatever length of barrel he has on his bushmaster is just not enough to make a shot out to 600....

Obviously no one ever went to war with a 9 pound rifle that only had an 8 round clip. For "CQB" you obviously you need a "CQB setup" that obviously can't shoot out to 600 yards... Obviously the best shots out there use the Magpul PRS because it is so much better than the standard A2 stock that is used by high power competitors and actual Dedicated Riflemen....

The rifle is just a tool. All strength, power, and ability lies in the wielder. The accessories you slap onto a rifle are just toys. Good ammo helps, but training trumps toys.

The Drawdown

2011-08-02T05:35:00.000-07:00

At the end of Vietnam the brass was told "Do More With Less" and they tried their best. It all ended up with massive air strikes dropping thousands of dumb bombs at a time with no real plan to help the South Vietnamese government provide stability.

Today the timeline for "withdrawal by 2014" was made quite apparent. Battlespace owners are getting "more battlespace" and mentors are getting more Afghan units to mentor. Everybody is getting more of all the work to do. Plans for getting the Afghan National Security Forces to take over security have been prioritized and made abundantly clear.

This is like my last tour in Iraq all over again. My Battalion took the largest chunk of the Brigade battle space, and by the end of it had taken over the battle space for two other battalions. Well, with 10,000 soldiers leaving Afghanistan by the end of the year means everyone has to take a bigger bite out of the shit sandwich. 23,000 by the end of next year. This is all public knowledge, nothing secret about our well published withdrawl timeline...

I have my doubts about the ability of Afghanistan to ever emerge as a stable nation state given the culture of corruption, infighting, tribalism, and constant warfare endemic to this place. The good thing about this generation is that when I go home I won't be spit on like my Vietnam era brothers.

I wonder if those same Vietnam vets felt the same way about the Paris "peace agreements" that I do about the "talks with the Taliban." But the sad truth is that there are some folks who truly believe that you can take a Communist or Terrorist at their word. I can't predict the future, so I do not know how long Afghanistan will stand after US withdrawl. But if history is any judge, about 2 years after we stop giving them air support.

Electronic Warfare

2011-07-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

This is a small portion of electronic warfare, but it represents and enduring capability that insurgents in Afghanistan have had to learn to deal with.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/iraqs-invisible-war/all/1

A lot about capabilities, a little about the how, and very little about successful insurgent tactics. Still worth reading about twice over if you aren't familiar with the emerging realm of land based electronic warfare.

Days running into each other....

2011-07-22T00:49:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my career I'm a real staff officer. That means 14 hour days are the norm, 7 days a week.

Obviously that is why updates have hovered between "sporadic" to "non-existant" here at randomthoughtsanguns.

About the time that I get this job figured out they'll move me on to the next one, so wish me luck. And Afghanistan? Pulling out can hardly make the situation worse.

The "not knowing" good and bad

2011-07-14T10:52:00.001-07:00

Communication has come a long way. From post mail on ships in WWI to air mail in WWII. Telephone calls in Vietnam. Telephone calls in the Gulf through MARS links where no land line or satphone existed. Email in Iraq. Twitter in Afghanistan.

Communication has made our world a smaller place. But it also brings distraction. Yesterday I learned that someone I knew did something terrible. It ate at me all day, my guts in knots over how someone could do that to a child.

Com blackouts

2011-07-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

Every time something really bad happens we go into a "coms blackout" until the Casualty Notification Officer has been able to deliver the message that starts of a long series of really bad days for the receiving family.

Hence sometimes the sporadic updates. I don't want to really talk about what happened, only because I don't have all the details and a google search will tell you everything I know about it. Working as a staff officer in a HQ element gives me a pretty broad overview of the battlefield, but some inherent detachment from the visceral reality of serious incidents.

Even here, after ten years of war, the border is still porous, the enemy still has a safe haven and significant amounts of international support. This war isn't "winnable" in any sort of traditional sense. We can kill the terrorists, but "winning" would be convincing Pakistan to kill terrorists. And that is something that is more outside of the military realm an into the diplomacy realm. But war is politics by other means, and battle is just honest diplomacy....

More random thoughts

2011-07-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

Why do people who protest war also protest "human overpopulation"?

Why do people who believe in "green energy" insist on polluting the land with windfarms and solar farms that don't put out anywhere near the electric power of a single nuclear power generation station?

Why do people who argue against genetically modified foods, synthetic fertilizer, and pest and herbicides cry the loudest when "organic sprouts" start killing people because of a E.Coli contamination?

Don't they know that "organic fertilizer" is nothing more than animal shit?

Don't they know that the safe process of irradiation would have saved peoples lives from their dirty organic poison?

And why do they care if someone dies from a totally preventable disease if they believe the Earth is "overpopulated" as it is? So maybe they do want people to die from food poisoning in the dark. Just as long as it isn't them, right?

Patchwork of problems

2011-07-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Afghanistan is a patchwork of security issues and stability. Much like Mexico.

There are places where you don't want to go. There are networks that don't like you. There are networks that don't like other networks.

But in the end the problems in Mexico don't stem from the US. As much as the Libtards want to say that Mexican violence is our fault it isn't (Dems in congress want to pass more gun control laws in the wake of "Fast and Furious" because they think the solution to government incompetence is to give the incompetent agency more power and authority). I want to tell them that corruption should not be rewarded. Not in Mexico, not in Afghanistan, not in Washington D.C.

So until you change that culture, you end up with Mexico. Or Afghanistan. It really seems quite simple.

Patchwork

2011-07-01T10:32:00.003-07:00

Deployment goals

2011-06-27T09:02:00.000-07:00

A lot of Joes deploy, become gym rats and put on a lot of muscle.

I want to lose some weight. Now I am not "fat" just that I've bulked up over the years and now look back fondly on being a tall skinny beanpole. So I've been doing my normal deployment routine, alternating days of cardio and strength building. But this time my cardio focus is longer, 45 minutes instead of 30. In 45 minutes I can burn 530 calories. The first fifteen minutes of cardio burns calories 50/50 between glycogen and fat, but after fifteen minutes it is over 98% fat burning, so 45 minutes gives me 20% (roughly) glycogen calories verses fat. So each cardio session I burn right around 400 calories of fat.

9 cal/gram of fat = 9000 cal/kg. 2.2 lbs/kg = 4090 cal/lbs of fat. So each workout can burn up to 1.6 ounces of fat. Or, every twenty days I'll burn a pound off. Over 180 days that equals nine pounds, over a year that is 18 pounds. None of this counts a metabolic increase, just weight lost due to the cardio (assuming I don't consume more to replace what I've burned). Since I want to lose just about 20 pounds to get back under 200, I think I'm on a pretty sustainable track.

Anyways, one of the reasons I'm heavy is that muscle does weigh more than fat. But I want to give my wife a set of six pack abs to run her hands over when I get home. And while I like being a big, intimidating, masculine man, I don't like all the pounding my knees take carrying around the extra muscle. So it is "slim down" time, and focusing on cardio endurance instead of muscle bulk.

And doing cardio at 7,600 feet? I'm making this altitude my bitch.

No thinky, just linky

2011-06-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

If the observations of De Toqueville about revolution following reforms pointed out here http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/06/20/everything_you_think_you_know_about_the_collapse_of_the_soviet_union_is_wrong then things will get worse for the US before they get better.

Cops using "home made silencer components" to trump up charges on a hacker. http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/23/6925925-fired-it-guy-puts-porn-in-ex-boss-powerpoint-gets-sweet-revenge?chromedomain=digitallife

According to liberal feminist "good is a meaningless word" when it comes to men. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-matlack/should-women-really-go-ug_b_880110.html

Buy Micron stock. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9O2CA200.htm

Afghanistan

2011-06-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

I'm cool, still alive and kicking. Got to ride on a CH-46 for the first time. Didn't even need a parachute. There is a lot I want to talk about, but I'm sure you all are farther ahead in the news cycle than I am.

However, there is a Rand study, Victory Has a Thousand Fathers, that is a free download.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2010/RAND_MG964.pdf

Highly recommended reading. Especially the part about the number one indicator for failure/success of a COIN campaign.

No more black beret

2011-06-16T01:09:00.001-07:00

Except with dress uniforms.

A smart decision all around. Even if we still look like Jr High AFROTC rejects in our A's and B's now.

236 years

2011-06-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

Today is the Army's Birthday. Part of being a soldier is carrying the torch of tradition given to you so that you can pass it on to others as they join the Big Green Machine.

Last year I was less than five hours out of my dress blues from the Army Ball when I got the phone call that a VBIED had killed two of our soldiers and wounded several others. This year I'm in Afghanistan.

While I am not an idealist about military service, I do believe that those of us who make the choice to serve can only do so with the traditional values of "duty, honor, and country" if nothing more than to satisfy our own moral and legal obligation to the contract we signed.

Gentlemen, Duty is doing what is expected of you. Honor is conducting yourself in a right and moral manner in all things. Country, well, I don't know what that really means to me right now. My country is very different from when I signed on in 97, and while I still love my country I'm not sure if my service is of any real benefit to her.

Ever wonder why the US Military continually ranks so high in Public Trust? It isn't because we are different people than Congressmen or Senators (who are just as human as anybody else from all medical reports), it is because we are the same as the people of the United States. The vast majority of the Legislative body is a bunch of lawyers creating work for other lawyers. The vast majority of the US Military is now a caste of warriors along family lines. Less than 20% of us now serving came from a family that didn't have an immediate family member also serving.

I worry about that some. Some say that our Military represents the very best of America, but I have no idea if that is true. But I will continue to do my best, if nothing more because I gave my word that I would do so. And if personal accountability and dedication are the only things I can pass on when I leave the Big Green Machine, I think that I will be fine with that.

When Groupthink fails...

2011-06-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

In any group there is some "monotony of thought" that those in the group believe. Sometimes these groups are voluntary like Church or the Republican Party, but sometimes these groups are simply happenstance such as socioeconomic background or neighborhood. And as humans we often have the tendency to believe that since we are rational that all other rational humans think as we do.

And it can be shocking to find out that this is not the case. For example Dragon Dan 31D obviously disapproves of some of my thoughts that I have written down. Maybe he is offended that I am not an unconditional cheerleader of the encroaching police state or "pro-military" that it left him unable to reason critically about what I said, instead of who I am when I say it. And this is normal because both Dragon Dan 31D and myself serve in uniform, and after all there really is a large uniformity of thought in the Armed Forces.

So what happens when people find out that other people don't think like they do? History tells us that groups will splinter because of it. The Catholic Church had a "schism" with the Coptic Church only a few hundred years into the history of Christianity. The "Bull Moose Party" ring a bell? Sipsey Street Threepers verses others?

Which makes the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the US Constitution so unbelievably miraculous. That a large group of intelligent, independent thinkers, could recognize that together they were smarter than any single one of them alone. That through rigorous debate a better decision could be reached. And that is the success of staying the course towards a group goal, even if you don't have "groupthink" to keep you together.

The goal is freedom. Internal dissent is completely fine as long as we keep working towards freedom. The moment someone says, "screw you guys, I'm going home" we have been divided. And a house divided shall not stand. In the words of Franklin, "if we do not hang together we shall surely hang separately."

Educating Dragon Dan 31D

2011-06-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

Dragon Dan 31D wants to compare the civilian casualties inflicted by the US Military in the "War on Terror" with the deaths of US Citizens by Law Enforcement.

Yes the purpose of war is to kill the enemy, not women and children. The fact we do not go out with then intent on killing women and children is what seperates the U.S. Military from all those 3rd world militaries. What is the difference between these and accidental killings by LE in the U.S. That is my point!

Fine. I will agree that the cops are acting very much like a foreign occupying army. Soldiers are protected from local prosecution by a "Security Agreement" (same as a Status of Forces Agreement) in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Cops are protected from local prosecution by "acting under color of law" which leaves citizens with only the option of non-criminal "civil" suits. Kinda like Iraqis or Afghanis are given "claims tickets" to get some cash for having the loved ones killed or property damaged. So it is clear that US citizens are seen as little more than "little brown hajis" by the boys in blue. I'm glad you made your case for this so strong Dan, it is nice when a law enforcement thug agrees with my assessment of the situation.

However Dan, wherever in the hell did you get the idea that killing innocent people is "just and right" when the military does it? Certainly not from this blog unless you are reading in your own biases.

Finally, when you say "we go out" I have to question how many combat patrols a 31D (CID agent) really goes on. Your job is to prosecute the guys in green, not the guys in man dresses. I lost all respect for CID when they couldn't/wouldn't prosecute a soldier of mine dealing heroin in the barracks and then got mad at me for chaptering his ass out.

As far as officer deaths go you wrote:

2001 to present: 1613 total deaths of U.S. Servicemen in Afghanistan. During the same time 1718 LE Officers also died in the line of duty.

When you take away all those LEO deaths from traffic accidents you cut that number in half. My point is that a police officer is much less likely to be shot at than a soldier in a combat zone and yet still there are cop apologists like yourself who believe that cops should use the same tactics as a soldier in a combat zone for some sort of "officer safety" benefit.

If you were using your brain for anything other than a beret holder you would come to the logical conclusion that when Cops act like soldiers they make citizens their enemy. I expect you to respond with "no, cops make criminals their enemy" but that is just complete and utter BS because I have already given you the number of innocent citizens killed by cop per year. You responded back with the UCR data for "justified homicides" as opposed to "death by cop", a data set that has nothing to do with my point. But way to slay that straw man, masterfully done.

And finally, way back from a few days ago Dragon Dan 31D wrote

Hmm! Ok now the fact you are serving in the U.S. Army and claim to be a Mercenary. This is interesting since it tell me you serve for money or maybe using Uncle Sam to get a college degree only and not love of country

I do love my country, but that is not why I serve. If we didn't get paid, how long do you think you would keep doing YOUR job? I bet you are a happy little soldier the 1st and the 15th. And since you are both a cop and a soldier, what type are you? Are you the type who is serving out of duty? No, because then you would be a medic or a grunt. Are you serving out of family tradition? Possibly, both cops and soldiers have family traditions of service. Are you serving because you need a job? I can't tell. But are you the fourth type? The type who wants power over other people? Are you just another thug with a badge? Since I seem to have struck a nerve you should really examine yours honestly and figure that out. Because if you were one of the first three types, you might have simply ignored my post. But something hit home deep enough that you keep arguing your straw man points trying hard to face the facts that cops aren't the angels you imply they are.

And since you are in CID, you know that soldiers aren't all angels. We seldom turn out to be plaster saints.

And finally, "Mercenary" comes from the route for "wages" while "Soldier" comes from the route for "shilling" and both refer to someone who is paid to fight. And that is what I am paid to do, by force of violence implement the harsh reality of American Foreign policy. Interesting side note, but the original meaning for "Foreigner" in French means "Barbarian." Fitting, no?

Necessarily skyrocket

2011-06-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

As part of the broad plan to increase the cost of energy in this country (why? I don't know) the current administration wanted to implement a "cap and trade" which is really "cap and tax" on CO2 emissions.

Since "cap and tax" isn't a viable solution for anything, it seems that the administration is using using the EPA to tighten down the screws on the "regulations" (when a regulatory agency re-interprets the rules to give themselves more power) to increase the cost of electricity.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/165651-aep-epa-regs-will-cost-billions-and-result-in-five-closed-plants

Remember kids, we didn't get the explosive growth of government until the Dems were able to stack the deck of the Supreme Court to strike down the "non-delegation of powers" doctrine in the 1930s. Sure wish we could get some lawmakers with enough spine to put non-delegation back on the books. That would keep the congresscritters arguing more about things that impact our lives instead of just looking to make bad legislation that screws us over and giving an unelected body power to interpret that garbage as they see fit.

Solutions to the increased militarization of thugs in uniform

2011-06-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

If we don't want Cops to act like occupying soldiers, then we the public need to demand a change to the "rules of engagement" the way Congress mandated "Knock and Announce" in 1917.

This is an uphill battle because organizations do not willingly give up power. And every time we try to make citizens safer there will be Pro Police organizations that condemn us for jeopardizing "Officer Safety". Here is the truth, most cops die in vehicle accidents. Cops do not need to be "safer" when serving warrants. If you really need SWAT, then you have more than enough firepower to "knock and announce" before throwing the flashbangs that kill 7 year old girls.

The truth is that more innocent citizens die from Cop than Cops die from accidents. Cop deaths run around 50 a year for the US. Innocent citizen death is over ten times that. And remember kids, if the cop kills an unarmed person before they can go to trial by definition they are an innocent citizen. Innocent until proven guilty no matter how badly the Leftists want to prosecute us for "pre-crime" or "thought crime."

And while I think that a top down solution would be nice, I don't think it is possible. The FBI will continue to use Ruby Ridge tactics and the ATF will continue to use Branch Davidian tactics, and any and all "investigations" will continue to clear the murdering bastards of wrongdoing.

And then pro police organizations like HS Precision will have people say that Vicki Weaver deserved to be shot in the back just because she was married to Randy Weaver. So we need to respond to the "emotional appeals to officer safety" with cool logic and appeals to constitutional law. Because we are pro law, not pro thug.

Hangin' out at an airbase...

2011-06-09T01:52:00.000-07:00

Kids, if you are thinking about joining the military then enlist in the Air Force. Sure you can get assigned to random air bases all over the world, but the living ain't so bad and the risk to life and limb is a bit different than the Army or USMC.

Seriously, how bad can life be when you work on an Air Force base?

Blog on hiatus

2011-06-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight I pack up the laptop that broadcasts as my inner monologue, often without a very effective filter.

I do not know when I will be able to post again, or if the security situation will make it advisable for me to post again. Every time I leave it gets harder. Tonight we had the traditional Denny's dinner, and the waitress received the traditional 20 dollar tip. I don't know what it is about routines, but there is comfort in them. Unfortunately routines also make you predictable. Although I don't think that going to a Denny's before deploying is really going to make me a softer target.

Last night my eldest son snuggled up to my side and pulled my right arm over him like a blanket before he fell off to sleep. I can't thank enough the people who have helped me experience that one last time.

Soldiers and Cancer patients get to live like they are dieing (not a true statement, but it gets the idea across close enough). The truth is that everybody is subject to the whims of fate. And being stateside doesn't mean you won't be die suddenly.

I hope that I come home to my family in half a year. I hope that they are safe and healthy.

I don't think I'll sleep well at all tonight. It is like this every time. It was hard enough when it was just me and the wife (and the yorkie). Add two sons to the mix and it gets harder and harder to separate myself from who I truly am to go do a job that I wanted to do ten years ago.

But the Army is my family too. At one point I was an 18 year old kid in over his head, and those who were older and wiser took care of me. Now it is my turn to take care of those kids, do my best to keep them alive so they can come home to their families.

Cops are bullies, even on this blog

2011-06-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

So a blogger by the handle of "The Bronze" left this little nugget.

"But more Americans have been killed EVERY YEAR by cops than servicemen have died in Afghanistan."

I call absolute BULLSHIT on that.

Where's your proof that this is true? Cite it or retract it.

Anyone else see the blatant disrespect for citizens here? Not only does he claim I am a liar, but ORDERS me to do something about it. The great thing about the internet is that it lets everyone have a voice.

Well Officer, my reply was made in comments, and my numbers still hold up. If you want to call "bullshit" then you need to prove me wrong. And you CAN'T do that. At best you can play cop games and say "well if they weren't resisting they wouldn't have been shot" or "if they hadn't been fleeing from the police then the police wouldn't have had to crash their cop car into an innocent bystander" which in and of itself complete and utter bullshit.

You can try to spin the blame for the deaths onto others, but at the end of the day it was a COP firing the gun and a COP behind the wheel. And sometimes it is the COP who kneels on an innocent mans neck and causes him to die from asphyxiation. And rarely, ever so rarely will we the little people win in civil court for a cash settlement, allowing the COPS to continue to murder people with a "never go to jail" card because they are "the only ones."

The more I think about the complete arrogance of TheBronze's the more I think he is one of the "Fourth" types of Cops and Soldiers. I mean, why else would he choose the Deceptecon icon for his avatar? Remember the Deceptecon cop car in the movie "Transformers" with the motto "To Punish and Enslave" written on the side? Man, evidently "to serve and protect" really is a thing of a bygone generation.

There are no short insurgencies

2011-06-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

Commenter Mark Matis wrote this:

For TPaine: You fail to understand that, if the conflict is not over within at most a few weeks, our Chinese and Russian friends will be more than glad to help the US Government subdue the "terrorists". There are plenty of Perfumed Princes and Princesses in the military to help them, and New York, San Francisco, and probably MANY other major ports will be glad to debark their soldiers. Somebody postulated that the Only Ones will not be willing to do "scorched earth" against fellow citizens. Not sure what ever gave them THAT idea. And let me assure you that neither the Chinese nor the Russians will have ANY concern about war crimes.

The bottom line? When the time comes, we either remove the sewage rapidly, or we lose. But even in losing, it is worthwhile to destroy as many OathBreakers as possible.

There are no "short victorious insurgencies" to speak of. There are "short, victorious military coups" but that requires a very popular General or Admiral who is willing to lead the military into open revolt to the elected civilian government.

But for an insurgency to work, to win, it will be a LONG WAR. Long hard, bloody, horrible war.

The Vietnamese fought the french for over ten years before they fought the US for another ten years. More than twenty years of conflict against two first world military forces. How did they win? By staying in the game. The Afghan Muj fought the Soviets for a decade.

If a US insurgency were to come to pass it would be a miracle if it ended in under a month with the insurgents on the victor side. Most likely it would end in under a month with WACO or Ruby Ridge repeated on a larger scale. The only way an insurgency ever wins against a superpower is with outside support over the LONG term.

There are a lot of fiction books that describe short insurgencies, and a few that describe long insurgencies. History doesn't support the short victorious insurgent. History says that those who take on a superpower have a long hard, but not impossible task.

List of Accomplishments? Rly?

2011-06-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

At this OpEd piece at the CSM about the "Big Lie that Obama isn't a leader" has a list of "accomplishments" that I couldn't resist skewering here...

He stabilized the worst economy since the Great Depression. Though unemployment remains stubborn, the stock market is basically back to where it was before the global economic meltdown. His stimulus bill kept America humming and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, while his rescue of General Motors saved an industrial icon.
His administration kept thousands of over-extended Americans from losing their homes by laboring mightily to forestall foreclosures.
In spite of ferocious opposition, he passed long-overdue reforms of our health-care system that had eluded the reach of many past presidents.
He signed into law a bold package of regulations to boost consumer protection and restrain Wall Street’s greed.
He negotiated a historic nuclear-arms reduction treaty with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev.

Ok, you can stop laughing now. Let us take a look at this one issue at a time.

The economy. Uh, hello? Stagflation? Jimmy Carter? Same bailout of Chrysler that Jimmeh Carter did? Seriously this is a rehash of Carter's policies and giving us the SAME results, a stagnant economy with double digit inflation. Evidently Mr. Walter Rodgers didn't have to study history to get his journalism degree.

Mortgages. His administration hasn't even managed to put a fucking bandaid on the mortgage crisis. And even people who qualified for the program had to fight to stay in it after their "provisional" repayment schedule was categorically denied.

Healthcare? What ferocious opposition? His fucking party controlled both the House and the Senate! And it still took them over a damn year to unfuck themselves. Are you serious? How the fuck could he write "ferocious opposition" without dislocating his thumbs from the sheer irony?

And as far as "negotiated a historic nuclear arms treaty with Dmitri Medved" I didn't know that rolling over and pissing on yourself was a recognized negotiation tactic by anyone but the French (apologies to Mr. Sarkozy who has single handed managed to increase my respect for France by showing more backbone than the autopen in chief). Maybe Mr. Rodgers is using the word "historic" in a you know, factual, meaning in that an event did take place and now it is history. Great. Mr. Rodgers you should know that I took a historic shit this morning. But unlike my excrement I can't simply flush your blathering down the plumbing.

Wall Street Reform? Bullshit. In one bullet Walther Rodgers claims that the DOW Jones being back to close to where it was before the "crisis" is a good thing, but somehow now it is "reformed", seriously? The economy sucks dipshit, why do you think the Military has been meeting enlistment quotas for the last two years?

And to end off his list of blatant falsehood, Mr. Walters writes this little gem....

It’s true that Obama hasn’t made tackling the debt a priority. But when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress for much of the past decade, US debt exploded. On that issue, the public will have to lead

No jackass, the Dems took over in 2006 and our public debt "exploded" like a liberal journalists head struck by a 750 gr AMAX at 2,700 fps. Before that we had a "debt problem" after that we had a "debt crisis" and if the Dems keep spending like..... well there really is no analogy for what the Dems like to spend like because even drunken Sailors stop spending when the run out of money... eventually we will have a collapse.

Hope the kookaid tastes good you fluffer for liberal stroke piece production.