First you remove the heat shield which is an easy removal of 4ea 8mm head bolts

Easy build day today.
Got the exhaust , seat belt things and the CV guards installed. Tomorrow thinking about tackling either the windshield or Fox Shocks.
The muffler replacement was about as straight forward as it could possibly could be. The factory muffler does a descent job, but the aftermarket one supports more flow which gives a 5% power boost right now up to 52.5hp. That estra flow rate will get a lot more important when it comes to turbo time.
Here's the before shot:

Then the parts started to arrive

This will be my John Deere Gator 825i build thread. My hope is to take an already capable utility vehicle, and build it for use as a farm utility vehicle and a security/recon vehicle for possible bad times

I'll focus on suspension, lighting, redundancy, extra range, horsepower, weapons, and a good selection of auxiliary equipment

What are the plans for mounting on the truck? Standard hitch mounted rack or something else up your sleeve?

Definitely something else up me sleeves

Picture a 4' X 4" square tube hinged with a gigantic hinge, more like you'd find on a track loader affixed to the left side. It rests on a support on the right side of the bumper and is pinned vertically to retain it in position with a 1" through pin
Everything is close tolerance (No-slop) and has zerks
The hinge on the left side is multi-axis
Below the box tubing is a hydraulic jack, one end affixed to the hinge, the other to the section of 4 X 4
The top of the bar has fixtures to guide and capture the bike. The wheels will drop into large "Catches, through which a series of nylon protrude and affix to the bike in several locations. Those straps anchor in a lever affair that simply pushes down to lock the bike into place.

To deploy the bike: Lift up the lock pin. Rotate the bike left until it presents at about a 30 degree angle away from and relative to the Cl of the vehicle. Turn a valve to release hydraulic pressure and the end of the steel tube settles to the ground.
Release the straps in a predetermined sequence, then roll off the bike and it's ready to use

It's happening right before our eyes
But weakened, mostly now-coward Americans are not willing to rise up

The Conquest of Aztlan

Could Mexico retake the southwestern United States?

Illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border have doubled recently, and possibly even tripled, since the latest congressional push toward "comprehensive immigration reform" – which many consider a euphemism for amnesty.

Indeed, as journalist Katie Pavlich has reported, some border patrol agents claim illegals are coming to the U.S. in much higher numbers in just the past few months, with data from Customs and Border Protection showing 504 illegals were detected crossing in just one border sector between Feb. 5 and March 1. Only 189 were caught on camera, and just 174 of the 504 were apprehended. Of those spotted on camera, 32 were carrying huge packs believed to contain drugs and several were heavily armed.

But could, as some immigration activists openly advocate, Mexico actually retake the Southwestern part of the United States?

Not only are the Mexicans capable, but an invasion is underway, insists immigration expert Glenn Spencer.

Gotta love a grunt!




Captain Terry M. Hestilow, United States Army, Retired (Examiner)


On Saturday March 23, Terry M. Hestilow, a retired Army officer with nearly 30 years of service under his belt, postedthis letter he sent to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) this week. Hestilow wants DHS to hand over their war weapons to the Department of Defense.


The Honorable Senator John Cornyn, State of Texas
United States Senate
517 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510


Re: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and that agencies preparation for war against citizens of the United States of America


Dear Senator Cornyn,


It is with gravest concern that I write to you today concerning the recent appropriation of weapons by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that can only be understood as a bold threat of war by that agency, and the Obama administration, against the citizens of the United States of America. To date, DHS has been unwilling to provide to you, the elected representatives of the People, justification for recent purchases of almost 3,000 mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) armored personnel carriers, 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition (with associated weapons), and other weapons systems, when, in fact, the DHS has no war mission or war making authority within the limits of the United States of America.


Significant is the fact that at the same time the Obama administration is arming his DHS for war within the limits of the United States against the People of the United States in accordance with his 2008 campaign speech claiming,



•“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve gotta (sic) have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded [as the United States military]”–Candidate Barack Obama, 2008.


The Obama administration is deliberately defunding, overextending, and hollowing the Department of Defense; the only legitimate agency of the U.S. government with a war mission.

This act of the Obama administration stands as a glaring threat of war against our nation’s citizens! This act of the Obama administration can only be understood as a tyrannical threat against the Constitution of the United States of America! If left unresolved, the peace loving citizens who have sworn to defend the United States Constitution “against all enemies, both foreign and domestic” are left no option except to prepare to defend themselves, and the U.S. Constitution, against this Administration’s “coup” against the People and the foundations of liberty fought for and defended for the past 238 years. We have no choice if we honor our oaths.


The only proper response to this threat against the American people is for the representatives of the People, the members of the U.S. House and Senate, to demand in clear terms that the Administration cannot ignore, that the Department of Homeland Security immediately surrender their newly appropriated weapons of war to the Department of Defense (DoD). Further, since the DHS has assumed a position in the Administration to enforce the tyrannical acts of this president against the People of the United States against the limits of the United States Constitution, it remains for the United States Congress to exercise its limiting power in the balancing of powers established by our founding fathers, to disestablish and dissolve the DHS as soon as possible. One needs only to look to the rise of Adolf Hitler, and his associated DHS organizations, the SA and the SS, of 1932-1934, to see the outcome of allowing an agency of government this kind of control over the free citizens of a nation. The people of Germany could not have imagined, until it was too late, the danger of allowing a tyrant this kind of power. We must not be so naïve as to think it will not happen to us as well if we remain passive toward this power grab by the Marxist Obama administration!


Finally, for more than two centuries the nation has lived in peace at home because of the protections of our legitimate military and the many appropriate state and federal law enforcement agencies, supported by Constitutional courts. We stand today at a cross-road. Will we allow this present Administration to overthrow our United States Constitution and its legal processes to amend injustices, or, will we honor our obligations to defend the Constitution against a “domestic” enemy? Our Constitution lays out the proper methods of resolving our differences; and it does not include its overthrow by a rogue agency of a Marxist leadership at home. You, sir, are our constitutionally elected agent to defend our Constitution at home. We are counting upon you. We remain aware, however, of this present threat and will not expose ourselves as an easy prey to the authors of the destruction of our nation.


I know that this letter demands much of you. We elected you because we, the citizens of the State of Texas, believe that you are up to the task at hand and will, against all threats, honor your oath and office. We are also writing to your fellow members of the House and Senate to stand in integrity with the Constitution and against this present threat by the Obama administration and his DHS.


We refuse to surrender our Constitution or our nation!


Resolved,


Captain Terry M. Hestilow
United States Army, Retired
Fort Worth, Texas
March 23, 2013

…More about Flies!

Refer back to Nate's comments about the flies...not your normal stateside variety.

U.S. flies die when you swat them...not combat flies!

These things zero in on moisture

Sources like your eyes, lips, nose...stuff like that.

They are made of something stronger than Kevlar, Army labs have been trying to isolate the material so we can make new bullet proof vests that stop 105mm rounds and weigh 6 ounces! You swat these flies with a normal swat calibrated for, say a Texas horse fly, and sure enough, the combat flies will fall away.

A seasoned soldier is quick to stomp them for the micro second they are immobilized. The nubee watches in amazement as the thing stirs for a second then leaps back into the air and makes it straight to the corner of your lip in one fourteenth of a second.

We veterans jab other veterans in the ribs to watch the spectacle unfold.
The new guy is both amazed that the fly is alive, that it is right back to the same spot that got it wacked before, and is so persistent. THe Nubee will usually offer a minute or two of entertainment before uttering some profanity and some version of, "Man can you believe this fly? I smashed it, it fell dead, then a second later it is right back in my mouth."

The funny part is that while uttering that dribble, the fly actually gets into his mouth! Finally as some point the victim leaves the scene or finally knocks the fly out long enough to put a number 12 Batesville combat boot on him. That doesn't always work either...the boot has voids in the thread which the combat fly can easily find.
The veteran kills the fly quickly with several stomps then checks th make sure the wings are all caty-whompus to ensure that at least if it isn't dead, that it won't be able to fly again!

Not sure where these flies come from...Some say the bio labs of China, others say they were developed by the US Army and released over Nazi Germany. I don't know, but I do know they serve proudly in Satan's Army and are the most formidable adversary we soldiers face other than over bearing mothers-in-laws and prying Jehovah witnesses!

Soldier on!

Here's another one.
Didn't publish it yet

Yup

Totally new stuff here!

I'll post it up in two parts, here's the first...

Please enjoy


FLIES!

That big old fly was angrily buzzing all around the cockpit. He kept bouncing off the Plexiglas windshields followed by a couple quick aerobatic maneuvers, then back into the glass once again. On some of his wildly flown “evasive” maneuvers he had clipped my nose or slammed straight on into my cheek. I’m sure he would have careened into my eye had it not been for the visor on my HGU-56 helmet which I wore down at all times while flying. His presence was getting quite annoying. First because he was ramming my face at his maximum speed, and secondly because at any moment I awaited his maneuver to carry him out one of the windows into the one hundred fifty knot slip stream anxiously waiting just outside the door. He was extraordinarily lucky or gifted, for after some fifteen minutes since we took off from TK he was still at it!

Watching him try to fly through the Plexiglas, and waiting for him to be sucked out the hole of death that’s steady suction silently awaited its prey was definitely distracting me from looking outside. Below us in the ragged cliff faces were thousands of shadowy areas that no doubt concealed some hate filled eyes. Some might even have been or were concealing a heavy weapon, one big enough to turn me into aluminum scrap in a couple seconds. There was a reported 12.7mm Diska heavy machine gun in the area, but intelligence was betting it was low on ammo and would probably only be employed on a high value target. I don’t know how much higher value there is than a fifteen million dollar helicopter full of troops, but other than Air Force one doing low passes overhead, I’m thinking we were near the top of the list.

Deciding that smashing the fly was quickly becoming a matter of tactical importance so I batted at the critter a time or two in vein. Becoming ever more sucked into the fly killing game, I spent good time watching my evasive little target before striking out at just the right moment, then Ahhhh, another miss! I was so distracted, in fact, that on one lightening fast stab of my hand, I somehow touched and turned off the aircraft’s GPS!

Up to this point Brent was minding his own business and flying the one-three-nine. He had no doubt noticed the fly, and I think he smiled just a bit one time when the hapless creature had bounced off my face, but mostly he just looked out his side. He was riding right seat today, I was playing AMC (air mission Commander) , making radio calls, navigating, and day dreaming. When, however, I slapped at the tiny aviator and accidentally turned off the GPS, he noticed. He then looked over at me, but didn’t say a word. No need, his expression said it all. Sort of a smile, but not quite. He had me dead to rights. I had screwed up after slapping after a fly which I should have not been paying attention to. This area we were crossing while going over to Qalat was called the punch bowl and was an area of frequent Taliban conflict. Years earlier while flying a gunship through this area our convoy we were flying cover over had been engaged. Clearly the area had not changed, and would probably remain contested long after the Republic of Haiti invades the Stan in some future century.

Back to the GPS, turning it back on was not such a simple matter. You could push the switch, the same one that immediately turned it off and put into a deep, deep sleep, but engineers these days who must have some anxiety or remorse over losing their slide rules designed it to be a simple one hundred thirty two button push sequence to restart! First you press ON, Do you want to acquire satellites or enter a flight plan?” No, just turn on. “Your data base or stored points?” No, just turn on please! “Acquiring satellites, navigation unreliable at the moment, please wait.” Please, pretty please just turn on!” “Restore old flight plan, or enter a new one?” I don’t care about any stinkin’ flight plan now show me a picture!!” “Please make an entry, entry is required before position can be displayed.” Entry, you want an entry?? How about a 9mm entry, right through your freakin little screwed up silicon brain?” Position data not available, shutting down, please initiate start procedure again!

Now I know for a fact that some of these GPS unit operate autonomously but some of them are secretly controlled for a remote location. One such remote location is the lunch café and break room at Garmin. It’s a place where the engineers who are on break can select from a large number of in-operation GPS units. When they find one they want to “adjust” they take control of it, and make it do strange things. They do this to amuse themselves. If they get a pilot all flustered, there’s bets to be won and cubicle glory to be had. Get one to have a panic attack or have desires to kill something like me in this case, and man, you’ve got real entertainment. No doubt in my mind at all that some engineer was whispering into the guy’s ear who was on the keyboard, “Tell him to select flight plan B, see if he will go for that one?”

In the name of all that’s holy why is this Da#$*! F#*$!!G thing doing this to me. “Should have just left it alone.” “Alone, what, left what alone?” It was Brent, “should have left that fly alone, he wasn’t hurting anything.” Wasn’t hurting anything I thought to myself. You want to see hurting, I’ll show you hurting, I’ll. Just then the fly bounced off my face again. I almost drew on bastard, but then I remembered I didn’t have a pistol. No worries. I’ll just reach behind me and grab one of the M4 carbines the soldiers back there had. I’ll do a mag dump on his arse, that will show him. If Brent says anything I’ll include him in the sweep as well, yea, that will show them!

To be continued...

The story continues:


My personal best gag was my stealth paint removal system. The M60 tank had a heater system mounted beside the driver’s compartment. This contraption burned diesel fuel in a combustion chamber and had a powerful fan motor that blew cabin air over the hot core, both cooling it and warming the air. The warm air was then ducted to various locations throughout the interior of the tank. Theoretically, the system was ideal, in reality; however, it only worked in the motor pool. The designer had somehow created a unit that would fail within an hour of leaving the safe confines of the motor pool, condemning the crew to a miserable two or three weeks of cold wet field duty.

The fact that that heater was so unreliable gave rise to a local cottage industry on the German economy. There was a small engine shop in Bad Windsheim that specialized in tank heater repair, actually modification. There was quite a bit of underground business generated by the heater’s inherent poor design. The unauthorized repair procedure was not condoned by the Army, in actuality it was forbidden. The guys who wrote those rules worked in comfortable heated offices, far away from the reality of a cold tank turret and were probably second generation safety nazis. It was the responsibility of the tank commanders to remove the heater, carry it to our friendly German mechanic, and reinstall the modified unit without anyone knowing. There was a slight risk of an explosion and a possible fire since the heater was located next to a rack of 105-millimeter main gun rounds, but we felt the risk was acceptable when compared to the total misery of being cold and wet for weeks at a time.

My heater was even more special than the others. The mechanic had created a true hybrid; he installed an adjustable fuel flow screw, and gave me a better fuel pump. When we first started it up, the unusual sound cleared the tank of all crewmen immediately. It had a low growl, followed by a growing rumble, sort of like a jet engine starting. Suddenly it emitted a loud “burp,” then settled into a normal hum. More importantly, it really did it put out the heat! That thing could cook eggs!

The heater exhaust pipe snaked out of the hull, just under the right side of the turret-mounting ring. It made a ninety-degree turn around the air cleaner box, then straight along the rear edge of the front fender. My heater ran so hot that it produced an almost invisible flame several inches from the end of the exhaust pipe. The length of that flame could be adjusted by turning the fuel screw in or out, it was neat!

My first accidental victim was Captain Miller’s tank. He had called for me to rendezvous with him to discuss a battle position we were going to occupy that day. The side of the air cleaner box sits at about the same height as the heater outlet on the fender atop the tracks. Two tanks would often pull right along side of another tank to allow the crewmen to step from the fender on one tank onto the next, avoiding the always present mud. Garcia pulled up about three or four inches and right along side from Captain Miller’s tank. While we were talking, I could smell something burning, but paid no real attention. Later as we drove away, I glanced back to see all the lettering and paint burned off the side of his air box. My brain connected the dots instantly, and the game was afoot! My crew loved it and Garcia made sport of pulling alongside every tank we could, where we would butn sections of paint and lettering of the other tank, and before long, we had most of them!

Those wonderful times in Germany were oddly, made even better by all the dope smokers in the company. Other than providing entertainment from time to time when one would fall out of a window, (they normally smoked that stuff while perched on a second story window sill), or get arrested by the MPs, they were indirectly responsible for me touring the country. Every weekend that we were back at out little post, those dopers would light up all weekend. Starting Saturday morning around ten to eleven, the smoke would drift out into the hallway and begin to form a layer near the ceiling. The first few times this happened, my roommate and I would stuff a wet towel under the door to try and stop the smell from entering. Finally I was so tired of it and the commands inability to do anything about it, I began to spend more time out in the towns and countryside of Germany. This quickly grew into a passion to get on my ten-speed bike, pedal to some nearby town, and spend the weekend. Bad Windshiem was the closest town, but lacked any real fun things to do. Neuestadt was a bit farther, but they did not like Americans there at that time.

During world war two, as the story was told to me, a crippled B17 bomber was limping back to England but only made it as far as Nuestadt. The crew bailed out and landed in the fields surrounding that ancient town. The angered inhabitants, outraged by the horrors of war lost control and pitch forked the American crew to death. News of the heinous act got out, and members of the American Eighth Air Force bombed that city almost every day with at least one bomb for the remainder of the war. Our Battalion could seldom get permission to road march through that city, but when we did, we trained especially hard. For me and my weekend escapades, that only left Rothenburg as a possible destination and what a wonderful choice it was.

The beautiful walled city of Rothenburg was only thirty miles away, a perfect distance for a weekend visit. That city has been featured in a number of popular movies and is a summer tourist destination for Americans and other Europeans. It turned out to be an excellent place to meet American girls, well, that’s a story in itself. I spent many a carefree day there enjoying the place and explored with complete abandon and bliss. Oddly enough there was a total lack of end connectoritis anywhere near the town. I quietly resolved also never to “train” near this special place, and it became my sanctuary from the dopers of Stork Barracks

The saga continues!

The second platoon Sergeant, was a strange cat indeed. Something had happened to Staff Sergeant Kidwell in Vietnam, something which he or no one else ever talked about. What ever it was, it left him with a stutter that made listening to him a real chore. It was summer gunnery, 1977, at Graf, or Grafenwhoer, a pre world war two German training base in the middle of nowhere. Gunnery is a great time for tankers, you actually get to shoot the weapons and break things and feel good about it.

Kidwell wasn’t doing all that well, the slowness of his fire commands was costing him valuable seconds. A standard fire command sounds something like “Gunner, battle sight, tank.” Now that small command means, “hey gunner I want you to set your computer to sabot ammunition, set the range for one thousand one hundred meters, aim center of mass, and you’re shooting at another tank.” The tank commander’s job is to identify hostile targets, traverse the turret and lay or roughly point the cannon at the target. The gunner in the bowels of the turret is looking through his sight for the tank in question. During this process the loader uploads the correct round, pushes the safety lever to fire, and announces “up.” Once the gunner sees the target, he states, “identified.” The tank commander then orders, “Fire!” The gunner then takes over control of the turret, makes a final aiming adjustment, announces “on the way,” and pulls the trigger. If it all went correctly the whole thing took about four to five seconds and the projectile strikes the bad guy ending his day, and well, I guess pretty much everything else.

Kidwell’s command was more like “Gu, gu, gu, gu, gu, gunner, ba, ba, ba ba, ba battle sight, t, t, t, t, t, t, t, tank.” The non firing tankers all knew what he was saying because the internal communications were being broadcast over our internal radio and over the loud speaker at the base of the tower. In a flash, you could hear the loader say “up,” and the gunner say, “Identified.” Then an agonizing eternity later, “f, f, f, f, f, f, fire.” With Kidwell’s crew, the gun would normally fire long before the actual command to fire was given.

The Colonel’s briefing prior to the afternoon gunnery was straightforward. He was old school, “guys, kill the enemy anyway you can, use any thing on any target, run over them if you have to.” He was speaking rhetorically, of course, just doing a pep talk, and we all knew it, that is, all of us except for Kidwell.

Most crews were getting first round hits, the thing we trained for, and some were even shooting and hitting targets while on the move. These days with the technology available to M1 Abrams crews, that feat has been made much easier with automation, however with the M60, it took a skilled crew indeed. Kidwell’s tank drove up to the starting line and the tower commanded, “two three, move out.” They did, and the stuttering fire commands preceded each engagement. The commands were so long, the driver actually had to slow down to keep from driving too far during a firing engagement, fearful they would drive off the range before they completed the required firing sequences.

Our Colonel was a stickler for keeping costs down, he fretted over the smallest details, on that day it was the targets themselves. He had spent a ton of money buying us new plastic troop and tank silhouettes. The troop silhouettes were used for machine gun engagements in between the main gun shots. Kidwell had just shot a pair of tank silhouettes and was trying to shoot the plastic troops. This time, we listened to the incredibly long command to engage enemy troops. “Gu, gu, gu, gu gu, gunner, co, co, co, co, coax, t, t, t, t, t, troops.” The command should have been, gunner coax, troops, asking the gunner to use the coaxially mounted machine gun to engage the bad guys.

We heard the command maybe three times followed by a single shot, indicating the machine gun was malfunctioning. Then for the first time ever in a clear voice, we heard “Gunner HEP, troops.” HEP is the acronym for, High Explosive, Plastic. The HEP round is just a big dumb shell loaded with lots of explosive material used for gererally blowing things up like bunkers, houses, bridges, and the like. All at once it seemed like everyone watching yelled “NOOOOOOO!” Ka-Boom, the main gun went off and about fifty plastic troop silhouettes disappeared as the high explosive round detonated next to the leading edge of silhouettes obliterating the colonels expensive investment. Yea, he was wrong, but that sure was cool!

Stay tuned for moooooore...

OK people, shut your yaps for awhile and read this:

Captain Miller was a real guy, an officer, but not the west point type, he was down to earth and he was my new company commander. Known for working on his own tank along with the enlisted men he was well liked and highly respected. Serving under him, First Sergeant Tucker was just as fine a man and they made a great team. They had been briefed on my “activities,” but also knew through the grapevine that I did not indulge in the gaseous form of inebriation that was so rampant in those days. They had decided to give me a little character test, and what a test it turned out to be.

The First Sergeant or “top” as soldiers call him, assigned me to third platoon. The platoon sergeant from the first day we met called me “hemorrhoid,” a nickname I later used from time to time for my son. He drove me to the motor pool and showed me my tank. It was the oldest tank in the battalion. It had no engine, needed new tracks and was filthy. He then introduced me to my crew. Garcia, the driver was a street-smart kid from Los Angles who had been a gang member. Melton, the loader had a stutter, a sixth grade education, and a heart of gold. He had another problem that I would learn about in the days to come. Smitty was my gunner and the second in command. A buck sergeant also, he had been relieved for drug use as Garcia had been, and the both of them were participating in a voluntary drug rehabilitation program.

I eyed them for a few minutes not saying a word, they were standing at parade rest staring back at me. I decided life for this motley crew was going to get decidedly harder in the weeks to come, and I inwardly accepted this considerable challenge to get this collection of parts and people functioning as a tank crew. I explained I had only one name, and that name was sergeant, that I didn’t like time off, and in fact would rather spend my time working on the tank or practicing gunnery skills. I further explained that free time was reserved for the guys who would rather be the targets for a superior enemy tank crew. I was convinsed, another European war was coming, one which we would eventually fight against the Russians and their neighboring Warsaw Pact allies. My new crew had different ideas about their use of time, but had heard of my reputation for applying bruises to people so they remained silent. We reached a basic understanding that day, I gave them the rest of the day off, but warned them that their life would change at 0600 the next morning.

The first report to top about me was favorable. I was later told, I had passed my first test. The next morning after PT, at breakfast, I sat with the other sergeants, who I knew who didn’t smoke dope. Top made a mental not it but didn’t say a word. The weeks that ensued were filled with fourteen hour days of hard work but after about a month or two we had completed the first step of my plan. That sad looking rusting lump of metal had been replaced by a freshly painted tank boasting two new tracks, and a freshly rebuilt engine and transmission. As a reward for their considerable efforts, I allowed the guys to paint their names on the side of the hull, a practice that was not allowed. The platoon sergeant noticed and told me to paint back over the names. I told him I would do no such thing, and he had better not get near my tank without my permission, and, finally, that my name was Sergeant Harward, not hemorrhoid!

My crew saw the whole exchange, and immediately united behind me. That very instant we jelled as a crew and I knew they would have fight for me when the time came. The platoon sergeant smiled, said “OK, Sergeant Harward, now, if you’re done, report to the first sergeant’s office at 1700.” Oh no, a visit with Charlie Tucker, top, that couldn’t be good, what was it about, I’ll bet it’s insubordination, or worse, what had I done?

I knocked on that door at precisely 1700 and heard the “come in,” then I reported with crisp movements to a position of parade rest. Inside was the platoon sergeant, top, Captain Miller, another Lieutenant, and a couple other NCOs. Top told me to relax and take a seat. He explained to me the people in the room were probably the only soldiers in the company that were not smoking dope, and that they had been watching me for some time. He asked me directly, do you smoke dope? I answered no, which was the truth, and top said “call me Charlie, but only behind these closed doors.” I had just been inducted to the “insiders” the very power base of the company and they trusted me. From that day on I have stood a little taller, and tried to do things just a little better, I loved those guys.

Charlie Tucker, from El Paso Texas, had no hair and a smile as big as the state he hailed from. He was one of the few people in my life that helped shape who I am today. He was careful to keep me away from the “dark” element in our little military society, the dopers, and the racial prejudice, which was rampant in the Army those days. He was an island of good and righteousness who tried to do his job amidst all the negatives. He taught me how to drink at the NCO club. Not to get drunk, but to just milk a couple beers, all the while building camaraderie with fellow NCOs. He and the Sergeant Major shared different views about me, something that never seemed to bother me at all. Charlie Tucker, taught me to have compassion for my men. He taught me to eat last, after the other soldiers, and not to complain to them about personal problems. He showed me it is sometimes better to do without. He taught me how to make tough decisions, and how to stand up for what I thought was right. Our heavenly Father definitely did something right in the Lone Star State for I have met many a good man from that place, but none finer than Charlie Tucker.

Melton my private first class with the stutter, was, to put it mildly, a little slow. His “other” problem came up about a week into our first meeting. Seemed he had a problem controlling his bladder while under duress. I discovered it one afternoon while I was chewing him out. He had just shoved the .50 caliper machine gun barrel into the tank cannon optical sight port, thinking it was where the machine gun was. What kind of a numbskull could make a mistake like that and miss the correct port by over six feet? The barrel cracked the lens, destroying the sensitive sighting instrument. It turned out to be a good thing since it netted us a new sighting mechanism, but at the moment I was mad as hell. I was yelling at him, he was trembling, Garcia was cussing and Smitty was pacing back and forth, when suddenly the wet circle appeared in his trousers. No way, it couldn’t be, but it was. He had just relieved himself! For some reason it had the opposite effect on me than I would have expected. I suddenly felt compassion for this person, and for the first time saw him as a teenager, a scared young boy and not some Army warrior. The crew must have felt the same thing because they huddled around Melton and took him back to the barracks. I later got him medical help, which eventually helped him to control himself and gain the dignity he lacked.

Garcia, the Mexican-American prankster, however, never actually completely laid off Melton. He continued to tease and have fun, but Melton seemed to be handling it well enough, and I felt it would be best to watch and control it from a distance. Garcia had a pretty big bag of tricks, and Melton was purpose raised to be susceptible to all of them. There was the time I was in the Battalion Maintenance office discussing the need for a new engine and in walks Melton in search of “squelch oil.” When you tune a radio from one frequency to another or simply turn it on it might emit a squeal, which was perfectly normal. Garcia explained to our hapless victim that the sound was caused by a low oil level in the radio, and we needed a fresh quart of “squelch oil.” Everyone and their brother knew the radio had no oil in it, everyone except for Melton.

I would sometimes stop the prank, bu,t other times allow it to proceed in hopes Melton would learn. Sadly he seldom did. Field exercises were times when boredom would serve as the catalyst for Garcia to kick into overdrive. We often had to go days or longer without showers while moving around the German countryside. After a few days, the interior of that tank would become a little “gamy.” We created a neat little system to stay clean and shower. The back deck of an M60 battle tank had thick armor steel plating and vent doors on the topside that allowed cooling air to be ducted to the huge engine. This same mass of steel absorbed and stored heat for long periods of time. We would place several five-gallon cans of water inside those doors next to the engine. After a couple hours of driving about or even remaining parked, the water would become nice and hot, just perfect for a shower. With the engine running, two huge fans blew the exhaust and the engine warmed air out the back armored and vented grill doors and down toward the ground. All one had to do was to place a wooden pallet on the ground just aft of the tank a couple fo feet, strip down, stand in the warm exhaust air and scrub away. Using a buddy to pour the warm water over you, one could clean up in a snap with a minimum of effort. Granted this wasn’t perfect, but given the option of living with yourself or others without washing, it was just fine.

The day was really cold, it was in January, we had been out for a couple weeks and it had been several days since our last warm shower. Tonight was the night. Water was short, but we were able to fill two cans and warm them in the bowels of the M-60 for the showers. The last light brought a light snow but it was shaping up to be a good night. Top would be along before long with warm chow, we were all going to get a shower, and the snow was naturally camouflaging our tank so we had little work left to do. Smitty went first, then me, Garcia was next and finally Melton. By now the engine had been idling a couple hours and had settled into an even rumble. Melton got into position. Sitting in the commanders position, the cupola, I could see Melton’s head just below the rear grill doors. Smitty was pouring the last of the warm water over Melton, rinsing him of suds when all of a sudden the engine unexpectedly revved to it’s redline. Drivers would sometimes do this to clear out the cylinders of the soot that would accumulate in an idling diesel engine. Looking aft I could no longer see Melton, only a thick black sooty smoke blowing out of the rear. The next second the engine settled down to a nice idle, the smoke cleared, and there stood Melton covered from head to toe with black oily soot! The soot had collected on every inch of his naked body! Garcia popped up, “just clearing the jugs sarge’” chuckled, then disappeared inside. Unfortunately for Melton we only had one five-gallon can of half ice, half water for him to rewash himself. Garcia’s pranks could be brutal sometimes!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk46HZzuG48&feature=player_embedded

Originally Posted by Armalite View Post
Great write up Don, as usual. Very good stories there. Only the bad part is now I want to read the whole book!!

I haven't finished it,
in fact
I'm not working on it!

One of my publishers, following "distant Thunder" which as you know jumps all over the place dealing mostly with the war(s), wanted me to write a biographical story, for those who might be interested.
I just don't see myself as being interesting and after 50 or so pages just quit writing. As you can see, I was focusing on the funny stuff I saw along the way, but, I'm just not into writing about me.
Unfortunately, when doing that sort of work, you can't help it!
Anyway, someday, I'll finish all of that but in the meanwhile I was working on two other projects.
I wanted to write a survival book, from the military perspective. Where there is as much emphasis on surviving a home invasion or gun fight as there is in purifying water or starting a fire. I wanted to deal heavily with some of the more military skillsets that "survivor man" does not go into. I don't care how good you are at trapping game, if a bunch of lawless bikers is threatening you, it's game over unless you know your stuff!
The other work I wanted to do is about my personal Christian walk. It has been an amazing one and the stuff that has happened would encourage many and prove to the doubting Thomas's out there that God is very real and very much an instant part of your life. Not like someone who after days of searching in the wilderness, finally hears your calls...
I have a lot more good stuff from that first book, if you boneheads want to read more, you only have to ask.

And the story continues...


The mischief we tank commanders had learned from our previous assignments was honed to a fine edge while stationed at Knox. We would provide plenty of amusement for the safety nazi and others. One favorite trick was to blow up the bridge down range during a “mad minute”. The “mad minute” lasts about that long. It occurs when every tank on the range fires as fast as it can, usually to get rid of excess ammunition. The mass confusion created by eight main guns hammering out rounds provides the perfect cover for some “precision gunnery.”

The tank range in question had an access road located just outside the range boundaries. The road crossed a stream about half a mile from the firing line. The engineers had constructed a timber frame bridge across the stream big enough for a normal sized pickup truck. The bridge was used for routine range maintenance by engineer types and some of our folks. That bridge was a well sought after prize and had suffered accordingly over the years. There were always threats to our careers should someone accidentally shoot outside the range fan and damage the bridge. I wasn’t the only tank commander after that bridge that day.

The trick was not in hitting the bridge; it was not being seen while sighting the structure in or when actually shooting it. The main gun can be laid on any target selected, then precise measurements taken of its exact position recorded. The idea is to be able to point the main gun during low visibility based on these precise measurements and hit the target even if you couldn’t see it. The technique was effective and was a common skill amongst tankers. The system worked pretty well, so we would use things like bridges to train the recruits how to take and record the measurements.

During one such mad minute, I knew several other Tank Commanders intended to shoot the bridge. I picked my favorite recruit to be the last guy firing that night. He was the very soldier who had sighted in the bridge in the first place. When the time came and all the tanks opened up, we carefully laid the gun. Peering through the night sight, it looked like we had it, then “Boom,” the bridge took a hit from someone else. I ordered the gunner to fire and we quickly put two rounds into it. We moved the gun back onto the range and fired the balance of our rounds at legitimate targets. Before we finished, there was a brilliant blossom of flame as something blew up on the moving target side of the range. The moving targets were towed around by small gasoline powered remote control trains, and one had just been blown to pieces. Man, this night was really shaping up to be a good one. The safety nazi, as expected, called a cease-fire, and ordered everyone to leave the gun tubes exactly where they were presently pointed. The radio must have been garbled in every tank on the range that night, because when the lights came on, every gun tube was elevated as high as it would go!

The best part of the evening was yet to come. The range safety officer and someone else got into the truck and took off down range to try to fight the fire. They made it about half the way there when they happened on to the place where the bridge once stood. Yep, we had finished it off very nicely, thank you and no one was going to cross that stream anytime that night. Tank Commanders and recruits alike climbed up on the turrets and watched the spectacle for quite awhile as the fire department tried to get to the fire, I don’t think they ever did. Someone ought to build a better bridge!

Despite all the fun we would enjoy on the ranges, there were serious times also. We discovered a flaw in the method we used to train our recruits to unload and clear machine guns the hard way. Ed Kovacheck would pay a heavy price learning about that error. We were in the move-out phase of gunnery, and we were shooting the coaxial machine gun only. I had taught Doug on this same range about back scratching a few days earlier. Ed was running troops down range along with Smitty, Doug, and I that day, and things were going smoothly. Ed had just completed a run and was displaying the green flag as he drove off the range and pulled into the ammo pits where he would pick up a new crew and restock the machine gun ammunition. Smitty and I were off the range eating lunch as Ed’s tank pulled to a stop. He sprang out of the turret, walked down the side of the vehicle, and crossed the back deck. We watched as Ed suddenly rolled up into a ball and fell off the deck onto the ground. Incredibly, the machine gun was firing! Ed had been shot by his own tank, by his own crew! It seemed surreal, everything was happening in slow motion. I reached him first, bright red blood was coming out between his fingers which were clasped over his leg. He was cussing his bad luck more disappointed than scared. We quickly saw he had taken one round right through the thigh, and judging by the rate he was loosing blood, we thought the bullet had severed an artery or a vein. We applied pressure, and got a tourniquet on in a couple minutes. We held him still until the ambulance arrived which seemed to take too long. Some of us climbed in the ambulance and went to the hospital with him.

The injury looked a lot worse than it actually was. Lucky for Ed the bullet, had passed cleanly through the large part of the muscle making a 7.62 millimeter hole in either side of his leg. The ammunition the military uses is designed not to do very much damage to the body, but rather to have good penetration characteristics. Those traits allow it to dig into fortifications that bad guys might be hiding behind. The bullets are designed to maintain shape, having a shell of copper around a lead core. The construction of the bullet meant the round would simply pass easily through the tissue in the leg without doing any unnecessary damage. The accident bought Ed a couple weeks off from work and a well-deserved rest.

The young trainee came out of the hatch unaware of what had just happened. He knew the gun had gone off, and feared the wrath of the Sergeants more than anything, but had no idea he had just done what no Viet Cong had ever been able to do. The investigation revealed the fault lied with us, not the new recruit. We had trained the soldiers well how to unload and to clear the weapon; the problem was we never started with a loaded one. The exercise started with the trainee first loading a small belt of dummy ammo into the weapon. From there, he would proceed to remove the belt, clear the chamber, and place the safety on. This particular soldier thought you first had to load the weapon before you could clear it! Ed told him to clear all weapons just before hopping out. The trainee did just as we had taught him. He placed the belt of live ammunition into the opened feed tray, and then slapped it closed. Machine guns will sometimes discharge when the cover is closed to quickly, and this one did. It fired off five to ten rounds before stopping; all at the exact instant, Ed was in front of the barrel!

That particular gunnery cycle was a very active one for the instructors and drill sergeants of the company. Normally we lost about a quarter of the trainees during the basic training phase. For one reason or another, but this class was well above average. We had most of the recruits still in the ranks, having only lost perhaps ten to twelve soldiers. That meant the gunnery qualifications were going into overtime. We were working so hard and fast, the tanks were turning over crews and running back and forth on the range almost without stop. With all the extra traffic on those gravel tank roads, the damage to the range itself was considerable. Just to keep everything going the range people, who were not a part of our organization called for engineer support to repair the roads in between firing tables. The help they requested was in the form of a bull dozer. Fate was working against me, the bull dozer operator was the same guy from the garbage dump!

It took him about one millisecond to recognize me and one more to rekindle his anger over the day we “trained” in the garbage dump. There were words exchanged, but we managed to avoid one another, well until lunch. The conversation between the other tankers and the dozer guy started with the normal comment about “Hey, where’s the gun tube, you sure have one ugly tank,” and “What about it, you weren’t smart enough to get into tanks?” I said something about how underpowered and slow the bull dozer was, a comment I was very soon to regret. He countered stating that he could drag a tank all over the range if it were hooked to his dozer, we all disagreed, so we decided to test his theory. Everyone was into this Herculean test of power, so I was volunteered to champion the tank crews.

We pulled up, back end to back end and hooked up two, 2 inch steel recovery cables, used for pulling other stuck tanks out of the mud and fired up our respective steeds. That dozer was a huge D-something made by Caterpillar corporation, that I thought weighed approximately the same as my fifty tons. With the engines started we eased into low gear and idled out until the cables were tight. With the drop of an arm the tug of war started. I am sure the tank did not move the dozer one half inch. We actually were spinning both tracks and not moving, then with a lurch, we started to go backward. Judging from the exhaust plume from the dozer’s diesel, he wasn’t even pulling all that hard. We tried everything including locking the brakes, doing so would only stop the track movement, but not affect our increasing rearward speed. The driver reported that out transmission oil temperature was increasing so I called to halt the operation. The request fell on deaf ears. We just kept going backward. Finally we had to place the transmission in neutral while that dozer driver made a triumphant circle of the whole range firing area in full view of everyone. Amidst boos and down turned thumbs, I had to ride there in humiliation in the cupola of that tank in front of every drill sergeant, tank commander, and recruit on the range that day. The thought of shooting him with the cannon crossed my mind, but it was too late, I’d been had. I am now convinced that one of those Cats can drive straight through a mountain without stopping!

We often took other opportunities to “blow off steam” created by the long hours and frustrations of working with recruits. Some drank, some spent time with family and friends, I enjoyed long distance running and casual rides to and from work on my motorcycle. It was a jewel at that time, a black seven fifty Suzuki with a loud exhaust pipe and custom seat. By today’s standards it would have made a great lawn mower engine, buy in 1978 it was the cat’s meow!

One day after work I cranked the thing up and took off. Just down the hill just after a stop light and left turn there was a long straight away which was incorrectly marked with a 35 mile per hour speed limit. That speed equaled somewhere in the middle of first gear in a five speed gearbox. It felt good holding the throttle wide open all the way to the top of third, probably around eighty. My luck had been good, but not that day. The MP was sitting on the side of the road running radar. It must have read “tilt” or simply melted down when viewing me. I knew that MP was going to enjoy this catch, and I was definitely going to a room made with steel bars, so I went for it!

Braking hard, I turned off the main road with the blue lights and siren right behind me. The Army in all it’s brilliance had equipped the MPs with those same hopelessly under-powered Dodge Darts. My bike made short work of the Dodge, easily out distancing the MP’s. I rode quickly back toward the company I had just left. My buddies were standing there near the curb when I raced up to them. They were listening as I went through the first three gears a few minutes before, then heard a siren and me running at full speed. They put the rest together. When I stopped you could now hear several sirens headed our way. Smitty said “what are you doing back here?” “Open the door to the barracks, I’m driving inside.” A couple other sergeants quickly vetoed that idea and told me to get to the tank trail and take it off post. I watched as Smitty pulled his F250 across both lanes of the road behind me, get out and throw open his hood. He was pretending to be broken down, he yelled at me, “get out of here, now!” I didn’t waste any time, I headed straight for the tank trail.

Looking over my shoulder as I crested the hill above the battalion area, I could see a MP slowing as he approached Smitty’s truck. I hit that tank road and opened that Suzuki up. I hadn’t crossed a mile when I came upon a troop formation marching on either side of the road. They were new recruits in the basic training phase of their life. The maximum speed to drive past marching troops on the road was ten miles per hour. My speedometer said something in excess of ten times that. If I attempted a panic stop I would likely have lost control of the bike and hurt myself or them. I rolled off the gas and “coasted” through that formation in excess of ninety. Well, if they caught me now I was surely going to be drawn and quartered, so I truly had nothing to loose. Those six cylinder, ninety horsepower Darts never had a chance of catching me. I reached an off post access road and was home free. You can bet I drove at exactly the speed limit until the bike and I were safely at my house. I parked it around back and went inside leaving the lights off. I never heard a thing about it, except for some well thought out words by Sergeant Williams the next day.

To be continued...

Another chapter from another book:

OK, I can't just write the smoking deer story. It is a part of a chapter in another book I am writing. So I'll have to share the whole stinkin chapter. So we'll do it a few pages at a time. Chew away on this and I'll get more on in the morrow

Enjoy (or not??

CHAPTER 3

D-3-1

Fort Know is the US Army’s Armor center and school. Following an assignment in Germany, it was normal for an aspiring tanker to serve one assignment at the Armor School to pass on your experiences, and to grow professionally to the next level. This was the place where most of the training main gun ammunition purchased by the Army was going, so this was the only place to be if you enjoyed shooting cannons and breaking things.

I was further assigned to D Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Training Brigade. I was just what they wanted, a young, in shape, single, warrior spirit filled, killing machine. The day I reported in was one filled with anticipation, coming from Charlie Company and the likes of First Sergeant Tucker, and Captain Miller, could this place possibly match up? My question began to be answered the moment I knocked on top’s door and walked in. First Sergeant Benjamin Whitt was a kind man, you could see it in his eyes. He stood to greet me, shook my hand firmly and asked me to sit down. His desk was adorned with pictures of his family. Later I would learn that one of his children had a serious illness and the Army had stabilized his assignment at Fort Knox so the child could receive the necessary care. His smile was genuine and I would soon come to know him as an honest and caring man.

My Platoon Sergeant, Sergeant First Class Williams was leaning against the back wall of the office. He wore the campaign hat of a drill Sergeant and the same warm smile. He too, in turn, introduced himself then went back to the leaning position as Top talked about the Company. We were an OSUT company, meaning “one station unit training, a new concept for the Army. New recruits would report to the company and go through the normal basic training routine for about four weeks. Afterward, they would enter a second phase of almost ten weeks of intensive armor or tank training. That was my piece; teach them the art of war fighting, using the M60A1 battle tank. The normal routine was for someone like myself to teach with the tanks for two years, then go to the Drill Sergeant Academy, then be stabilized as a drill instructor for three more years. Being in one spot for five years in combat arms is unheard of, so many family oriented soldiers sought out the assignment. I was having an internal struggle. one part of me wanted to teach the Armor skills, but another sought the blue skies as an Army pilot, I’d get both from this place.

Sergeant Williams was a hands off sort of guy. He expected me to show up, run my classes as scheduled and that’s about it. He shouldered the responsibility for showing up at 0430 every morning to get the troops up, although I offered to help, he never expected me to do it. Once the troops were finished with morning PT, showers, and breakfast, he would march them to the training site, where I would take over.

I had never dealt with new recruits before. Some were wild, most were scared, and then there were the lonely ones. You had to watch over the latter very closely, we had several suicide attempts every class or cycle. The most common technique was to jump off the building. Top was all over that one; he had planted a large flowerbed with literally tons of sphagnum moss and mulch. No one ever died jumping into his flower beds, the worst injury was a sprained ankle and several dead flowers. Top did have a mean streak in him when someone killed one of his flowers! There were other techniques those kids used, but none worse than the kid who poured liquid Drano into his ear!

The first time the new recruits ever saw the M60 was on a gunnery range. The set-up was awesome. There were a bleachers positioned near to the firing pads. The tank was concealed down the hill in trees where no one could see it. The veteran tank commanders manned the vehicle and were well practiced in it’s use. The speaker, normally the drill sergeant, would go on for some time about how awesome the tank was and then on command the tower would call us, cleared to engage. Down range was a multitude of old armored targets, plastic troop silhouettes. And hundreds of balloons. We would load a sabot round, drive up the hill, then just as the muzzle passed the forward row of bleachers, we’d open fire. The blast from the main gun normally swept a dozen or more troops right out of their seats. The Tank commander would fire the .50 caliber machine gun as the gunner alternated between the main gun and the turret coaxially mounted machine gun. During the spectacle, we would loft several rounds of white phosphorous, which would explode in brilliant white clouds of smoke and fire. Once we had achieved the desired effect, we’d turn to the balloons and fire a beehive round. That little beauty was filled with hundreds of nail-like fleshetts, fused to detonate about a hundred meters prior to the target, which were always troops in the open. We replaced the normal command, “Gunner, Beehive, Troops,” with, “Troops, nail em.” That last Beehive round would do away with any remaining balloons, but if there were some then we’d shoot them with another white phosphorous round. Then as quickly as we’d shown up, we would quickly drive away leaving everything burning, what a show!

Since the tank commanders were expected to prepare to eventually become a drill sergeants, we would sometimes march the troops from one place to another for practice. It may look simple, but to get a group of people marching in formation around turns, through doors, and around obstacles requires a degree of skill. If that wasn’t enough there were dangers from traffic and the eventual challenges to your authority. General George Patton once said, “The best defense is an active offense.” I interpreted that to mean having fun with recruits to keep them guessing what I would do next. My first act of torment was that they had to carry their tank gunnery manual FM17-12, (FM for field manual), with them, everywhere they went. If their manual was ever in danger, such as if they thought they were about to be run over by a car, they were to hold the manual safely out of harms way. I had two favorite commands which some enjoyed, some didn’t, but all quickly learned. The first was, “flash flood.” Upon hearing those words, you were expected to run to the nearest tree and climb it, theoretically saving yourself from quickly rising floodwaters. A good soldier can never be over prepared.

The second command was, “feet eaters.” That was handy when a platoon of female recruits from the nearby basic training brigade came marching by. At the first catcall from my guys the feet eaters command was surely coming in seconds. When “feet eaters” was heard, you dropped, rolled onto your back, extending your arms and legs into the air, and of course holding the gunnery manual away from the danger of the approaching feet eating critters. The troops were also required to yell “feet eaters” loudly to warn others of the danger. A soldier, I would explain in the early days of training, is no good without his feet, hence, the feet saving technique was necessary and should be used from time to time.

The best part of teaching at Fort Knox, by far, was the gunnery phase, where we would have to teach upwards of one hundred fifty recruits how to fire the various weapons and actually hit something while doing it. The second was teaching tank driving skills, both basic and advanced.

We taught the driving in several ways. Initially we began in a large flat area called the basic driving range. The best students would be allowed to drive the tanks back to the motor pool, a couple miles away. Tanks are not high mileage vehicles. An M60 was ready for retirement at five thousand miles!

The basic driving skills range was where Doug met that sassafras tree. It was also located right beside the post landfill. Has anyone ever seen a military landfill? It is a precision built, well engineered, non-polluting piece of work, and a fun place to play with bulldozers. We happened upon the Fort Knox landfill one day in the late afternoon. We were on the backside of the driving range, Doug and I were parked beside one another. We were watching an enormous Caterpillar bulldozer smoothing an area. I mentioned that we could tear up his work quicker than he could fix it. Doug thought about it, “naw, it’s no fair, they are too slow.” “Let’s drive over there, just to see if we can climb the loose dirt.” “OK, you lead.” Away we went, in low range, my M60 went right up the side about 50 feet high, then along came Doug. Right away I could see the guy in the bull dozer had stopped, so I commanded the driver to drive over to where the big cat was sitting, so we did. We got there, stopped and starred at the dozer operator for a second. I think we said something uncomplimentary about him not having a gun tube, being slow and heavy, and so on, then we took off, then immediately doing a neutral steer.

The Tank is designed so that in neutral, when turning, the tracks turn in opposite directions. It gets you turned within a minimum distance and leaves big piles of dirt from scraping fifty tons sideways. The dozer driver’s expression said it all, we had created three-foot high piles of dirt and scrapped down to the garbage he had just covered. He was signalling us the number one with his middle finger as we continued in spinning bliss. Then Doug’s tank started doing the same thing. We left the victors, disappearing over the side of the dump, descending back to the safety of the driving range. Funny, we never heard a thing about that, however I would learn that bull dozer drivers have long memories, and that day would come back to haunt me.

The advanced driving course was better. We had concrete walls to climb over, ditches to cross, a water obstacle, steep slopes, mud pits, you name it we had it. That place was also a popular spot for weekend recreation amongst the four-wheel drive jeep crowd. Many a jeep has been pulled out of a mud hole on Monday morning by a main battle tank. I personally disliked the ditch crossing the most. The driver would inch out over the abyss (about a four foot drop) until the vehicle started to lean forward. If it worked out, the track would catch the opposite bank before falling into the deep. The driver would throttle hard bridging the gap and successfully crossing the obstacle.Just as the back end of the tank cleared the ledge behind, the front end would rise, the rear would fall and somehow it would rock forward onto the opposite terra firma.

Should have said “In theory,” then the explanation, because normally it didn’t go that way. New drivers obviously lack the experience of a seasoned driver such as Garcia. They would creep out over the drop-off then just as the tank leaned forward, instead of mashing the accelerator pedal, sometimes would hit the brake. Sudden stoppage at that second would cause the whole tank to topple nose first into the ditch and crash hard to the bottom. The sudden stop there would sometimes propel the tank commander out of the hatch into the ditch by way of various parts of the tank, or knock him into the inside of the turret where there were many bad things to bounce off of. The best that would happen was being banged around the cupola ring where you could break ribs, arms, or accumulate contusions. I finally learned after taking a flying leap from the turret one day, that drivers didn’t really need to know how to cross wide ditches.

another CIEMR:

I heard wise and Godly man, a Neuro-Surgeon talk recently about the destruction of a culture. Using is vast reasoning ability and considerable intellect, he made the following observation:
He said if he were in a position of power, say in the white house, for example, and he wanted to bring down the nation he would do it by first creating division amongst the people. He would encourage a culture of ridicule of the basic principles that made the country great in the first place, such as our morality. He would continue to undermine the security of the nation through a systematic destruction of the financial system, and finally he would culturally and morally, weaken the military!
Did you get that?
1. Create division in the people
2. Create ridicule for our basic morality
3. Destroy our financial security
4. Weaken the military

Four tenants to get done and the ruin of the nation follows. Not just a nation which now lives in some depraved situation a bit worse off that we are now. No, a nation in ruin! Show me if you will some part of the nation of the Carthaginians? The Romans? The Vikings? Celts? Mayans? Incans? Apache? Ming Dynasty?

Show me a land mass that is governed and solely regulated by those people or cultures. You can fly me to Rome for $849, but I will not be in the Roman culture, I will be in Italy. I can visit the coliseum as it exists in a museum state, but not what it was. You might argue I can enter an Apache Indian reservation and even find a few reservation police, but thousands of mighty warriors? Not going to happen.
All these cultures are gone. Only the scattered remains of their people remain. Those people are subject to the law, rule and culture to someone else who conquered them and essentially, rule them now. Those once great cultures and nations went through a terribly destructive process that led them by their own hand to their complete devastation and demise. What went on after Rome fell? Was it the age of enlightment? Or was it called the Dark Ages. That’s ages as in more than one, and for those guilty of being stupid, Read: a very long time!

When America falls, after we stop killing each other and roughly a fifth to a tenth of our population remains, we too will be added to my former list, to fade into the annals of history for some future generation to ponder about. If and when an America that remains on it’s present trajectory fails there will be destruction and suffering on a scale that has never been known by man. There won’t be any relief, just survival, and just barely by a few. I almost said a fortunate few, but that manner of living won’t be anything to, well, live for. Then on top of all that after we have gone against and through each other until barely two in ten remain, foreign invaders will come to our shores, and by the millions. They will come because despite our desperate situation we will still be sitting on top of the most abundant oil and natural gas supply on the planet. They, the invaders will not have a lot of resources to waste on us. We will be assimilated into their work force or disposed of.

Let’s take another look at that short list of four items the brilliant doctor mentioned:

The first, create division in the people. Hmmm, what would you call this constant pointing out of the wealthy and in light of the fact that the poor have nothing? Mending wounds? Understanding? I don’t think so. It seems more like the focus on the wealthy, who, by the way create the economic engine for everyone to work and earn money are being called out. The long crooked, hypocritical finger of government is pointed at them, center mass in a very accusing manner. They have so much…Isn’t it time to level the playing field just a little the government demands.

What about race? Isn’t that starting to crop up again with all its ugly ways. Are whites once again privileged and blacks oppressed? Amidst all our efforts and laws is it possible that black people are once again being prejudiced against. I think not, at least for the most part. I think it is nothing more than the effort of a few to gain unfair advantage while riding the coattails of some waning law to get a foot forward. Anyone with a brain knows that race should make no difference, just the quality of the person. To even go to a race based argument is archaic, hateful, inaccurate, and tends to paint too broad a stroke since we are all beautiful individuals created by God.

How about the 99% ers? Is that a group bent on understanding and working together? Or is it one set by design to destroy and disrupt the efforts of generations. It seems to this Kentuckian that the latter is very much in play and people of money and influence both spawn and finance this malignant effort to kill peaceful society.

So I think we can agree that there is division of our society taking place on many levels and in many ways. So on to item number two: What about creating ridicule about our morality? Let me see, in the past few years suddenly the values of the mainstream American is off balance. The America that knew the nuclear family was the root of our strength. Especially when that family was firmly rooted in a faith that honored and worshiped God. He is real of course, however a growing percentage of our population doesn’t seem to go along with that notion. So if we hear morality from the pulpit on Sundays, then a direct, however subtle attack on that pulpit could weaken the message, eat away at the morality that streams from it directly from the bible through the words of Godly inspired men. Take a whack at that and you are chopping down the tree of moral fabric.

So on that count, let me see…hmmm a gay bishop in the American Episcopal church comes to mind. Gay marriages does as well and of course the recent relaxing of our military’s standards against gay members. Let me caveat here, I do not like to single out the gay thing. I know gay people and they are often great people. In my view their lifestyle is against God and I disagree with it totally, but I try to love them as people. My book of morality NIV version, if you please, says to love the sinner, but hate the sin. OKey dokey, I’m good with that!

How about the gun control thing. Anyone with a brain knows gun control only involves things like a steady air, proper operation of the safety, trigger, magazines and so forth, and perhaps proper storage of the weapon.

But in the very modern context, certain powerful fools want us to believe that certain guns are more dangerous than others. Hog-wash, all guns are dangerous. AR-15’s are no more or less dangerous than a .22 single shot. If I give an infant the AR-15 and an ex military guy a .22 single fire, who do you think will create the most havoc?

Never the less the legal debate continues. The second amendment does not concern itself with defense of oneself against violent criminals. It was designed to give we the people the ability to march on Washington and take back our country if the need arises. Personally being a combat veteran, I would prefer 30 or even 60 round magazines as opposed to 10 rounder’s if I had to go up against those defending a dying government with all its magnificent killing devices.

I think we can agree that the good doctors second point is in valid and indeed underway. So on to his third point, the destruction of our financial system. Does this even require any explanation what so ever? It’s math. We take in X amount. We spend, however X + 100. So we have to borrow the 100. Who lends us the 100? Well, lots of places, but mostly foreign countries and mostly China. We borrow the money as well from ourselves! And how does that work? Well something called the Federal reserve is endowed to maintain the money supply. Lately they have been printing it. They print it, then loan it to banks at almost no interest. The banks in turn loan it back to us at, yup, you guessed it, with interest! Hmmm. Pretty good system until someone finally figures out that’s it nothing more than paper, and perhaps not even that, but just a number in a computer file somewhere.

So the money is not backed up. The extra comes from other countries. What happens when those countries try to collect the money we owe them in something like Gold or silver? Well, as long as there is a lot of the metal, nothing. I buy silver and I have noticed that that pretty metal is drying up. Becoming more and more difficult to find in quantity. China is buying all of it and of gold that it can. So when that magic moment finally arrives when they have 90% of the gold and we have say 1% and they both call in their debt and refuse to loan a penny? At that exact moment, the big banks will all stop operations. They will close. The smaller banks we deal with will also within hours. Now your debit and credit cards will not work. You will run out of gas and be stranded. Businesses will fail to open because they will exhaust what they have and or their employees will not show. Hunger will set start in as few as maybe a week. Rioting, stealing and escalating violence immediately follows that. The call for marshal law which will happen on day two or three will do little to stop the flash mob burning of our cities and urban areas that will quickly follow. With all of that infrastructure will be damaged to the point where it would take years to repair if ever, and, well, for all intents and purposed, we will never again get back to the carefree America we enjoy today. The rest is morbid and bad, but use your imagination…

So with scholars everywhere knowing all about this and talking about it, what are we doing? Well continuing to borrow money. We enact bail out after bailout, and adopt a healthcare system which immediately inherits 30 million freeloaders and punishes hospitals for not fixing things the first time. With the decreasing financial benefit to becoming a doctor, they have already started retiring by the thousands and fewer are being created. In Canada you might wait months for an MRI, where my daughter went to the hospital emergency room last night and got one while she was there within a couple hours. Canadians have long come to the US to get those MRI’s to take back to their socialized doctors in an effort to get treatment speeded up.

We continue to enact new programs, and build bigger government. We are actually creating another Army, the DHS, department of homeland security with recent purchases of 7,000 M4 carbines, 2700 MRAP, mine resistant wheeled fighting vehicles, and nearly 2 billion (2,000,000,000) cartridges! Rumor also has it that they are maintain and refurbishing around 800 prisoner confinement facilities! Hmmm, that’s a lot of military stuff! So why build a new military? If we are under that much threat, why not just retask the Army to defend us like they are designed to do? That’s another subject all together, but none the less, building an Army like that is a pretty expensive proposition given these difficult economic times. It makes me wonder that if that doesn’t play into the intentional bankrupting of our country, while giving someone the controls to a pretty well equipped extra police force!

Finally the weakening of the military. Anyone think the military is growing stronger? Well from a material and manpower standpoint, from over a decade of war, our equipment is getting pretty worn out. We are reducing the number of armed soldiers as a cost fighting measure. Personally, I’d rather take some welfare professional recipient off her SRX caddy and put her in a job, and save a soldier, but that’s just me. Or not provide a free home to some immigrant and save a squad of rifle marines, again, I’m old and stuck in my ways, so perhaps I just need to move on. On a footnote of interest, I apparently will be encouraged to do so from an ObamaCare standpoint. I think that cancer treatment for people over age 70 is now somewhat burdensome so they will not be offered it any longer. Whatever, I’m going to heaven and that’s a far sight better than this growing hell in the very place I once called the greatest country on earth.

The gays were always in the military. We knew it and it somehow worked. The idea of men necking on men is highly offensive to me and, well, most of my fellow warriors. So is the thought of a bare breasted, recently raped dead female soldier being dragged behind a truck being seen by the world. That happened to a crew chief in my unit and for my part, I just think that if that had been a female, it would have been worse. Frankly, when the first she is captured, the guys, being the macho bunch we tend to be will go crazy trying to protect “our girl” and that will get more of us killed than would have been the case, but foolish people who never served in dangerous billets like combat made those calls.

Having Gays openly serving in the military has weakened the strength of our force. Operational officers cannot tell you that, or they will be silently killed, through receiving less than glowing OER (officer evaluation reports) and therefore deselected for promotion. The bigger category here is political correctness. PC is death by a thousand paper cuts. It barely shows at first, but there is an injury. You see, even though the social liberal are pushing us forward at breakneck speed, fuelled by the stupidity of the administration, they are not at all in touch with natural law. Natural law, that flowing from our God is what is right. If you don’t find it there, endorsed by him, then it just isn’t going to work. So the Gay thing will only lead to destruction (Reference Sodom and Gomorrah). To introduce it into our military will only serve to weaken that moral organization like a growing tumor does the body.

In a more amazing way, the military is coming more and more under the control of the executive branch. I recently was forwarded a photo from a senior officer for whom I once served. It showed 5 nuclear carriers tied up at the same pier! Alongside them were several straight deck carriers as well! Let me say plainly, never once since the battleships were all anchored together at Pearl Harbor has this happened. All of our capital ships sitting together. Apparently they were ordered in for routing maintenance at the same time! W H AAA T????
No that doesn’t happen, well not since December of 1941!

The bigger problem is that you, America has become so under educated and stupid that you can no longer make intelligent choices. Most of you do not understand very much of anything. You see the government was set up this way so that an educated population could carefully watch over the goings-on of their government therefore preventing any missteps. But what happens when the population is no longer educated? Anyone think the 99%ers are really smart guys? They don’t even know personal hygiene.

So because so many of you have let your country down by not maintain personal standards of intelligence, the leftist few are and have been free to run amuck. The few remaining who actually have a brain are working overtime to try to plug the dyke, but we have about run out of fingers.

So in conclusion I say, get ready, for it is coming. Most of you created it through drinking the kool-aid and not questioning things. You have not served or done a single thing to help and only look out for your selfish needs. I think you will perish in the coming national tribulation, and it will be because of your own design. For the rest of us, build it, dig in, get healthy, prepare. And get right with God, for soon enough he will probably be all that you have left!

Folks, thought I'd start a thread to let you read new stuff I've written for books which I am currently writing.

I do not sit down and muscle out a 70,000 word manuscript. I do write when I feel so motivated, and add to the story until such a point that I consider it complete. I did that with Distant Thunder, well, sort of.

So in this thread you can ask questions about Distant Thunder and I'll see them, then disregard...or not...just kidding!

I also want a place to share fresh and new material for those who keep asking me to write more

Time for a national discussion on these DHS MRAPS and 1.6+ billion rounds of ammo:





1.6 Billion Rounds Of Ammo For Homeland Security? It's Time For A National Conversation
Ralph Benko
3/11/2013





The Denver Post, on February 15th, ran an Associated Press article entitled Homeland Security aims to buy 1.6b rounds of ammo, so far to little notice. It confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security has issued an open purchase order for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. As reported elsewhere, some of this purchase order is for hollow-point rounds, forbidden by international law for use in war, along with a frightening amount specialized for snipers. Also reported elsewhere, at the height of the Iraq War the Army was expending less than 6 million rounds a month. Therefore 1.6 billion rounds would be enough to sustain a hot war for 20+ years. In America.

Add to this perplexing outré purchase of ammo, DHS now is showing off its acquisition of heavily armored personnel carriers, repatriated from the Iraqi and Afghani theaters of operation. As observed by “paramilblogger” Ken Jorgustin last September:

[T]he Department of Homeland Security is apparently taking delivery (apparently through the Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico VA, via the manufacturer – Navistar Defense LLC) of an undetermined number of the recently retrofitted 2,717 ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ MaxxPro MRAP vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.”

These MRAP’s ARE BEING SEEN ON U.S. STREETS all across America by verified observers with photos, videos, and descriptions.”

Regardless of the exact number of MRAP’s being delivered to DHS (and evidently some to POLICE via DHS, as has been observed), why would they need such over-the-top vehicles on U.S. streets to withstand IEDs, mine blasts, and 50 caliber hits to bullet-proof glass? In a war zone… yes, definitely. Let’s protect our men and women. On the streets of America… ?”

“They all have gun ports… Gun Ports? In the theater of war, yes. On the streets of America…?

Seriously, why would DHS need such a vehicle on our streets?”

Why indeed? It is utterly inconceivable that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is planning a coup d’etat against President Obama, and the Congress, to install herself as Supreme Ruler of the United States of America. There, however, are real signs that the Department bureaucrats are running amok. About 20 years ago this columnist worked, for two years, in the U.S. Department of Energy’s general counsel’s office in its procurement and finance division. And is wise to the ways. The answer to “why would DHS need such a vehicle?” almost certainly is this: it’s a cool toy and these (reportedly) million dollar toys are being recycled, without much of a impact on the DHS budget. So… why not?

Why, indeed, should the federal government not be deploying armored personnel carriers and stockpiling enough ammo for a 20-year war in the homeland? Because it’s wrong in every way. President Obama has an opportunity, now, to live up to some of his rhetoric by helping the federal government set a noble example in a matter very close to his heart (and that of his Progressive base), one not inimical to the Bill of Rights: gun control. The federal government can (for a nice change) begin practicing what it preaches by controlling itself.

Remember the Sequester? The president is claiming its budget cuts will inconvenience travelers by squeezing essential services provided by the (opulently armed and stylishly uniformed) DHS. Quality ammunition is not cheap. (Of course, news reports that DHS is about to spend $50 million on new uniforms suggests a certain cavalier attitude toward government frugality.)

Spending money this way is beyond absurd well into perverse. According to the AP story a DHS spokesperson justifies this acquisition to “help the government get a low price for a big purchase.” Peggy Dixon, spokeswoman for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center: “The training center and others like it run by the Homeland Security Department use as many as 15 million rounds every year, mostly on shooting ranges and in training exercises.”

At 15 million rounds (which, in itself, is pretty extraordinary and sounds more like fun target-shooting-at-taxpayer-expense than a sensible training exercise) … that’s a stockpile that would last DHS over a century. To claim that it’s to “get a low price” for a ridiculously wasteful amount is an argument that could only fool a career civil servant.

Meanwhile, Senator Diane Feinstein, with the support of President Obama, is attempting to ban 100 capacity magazine clips. Doing a little apples-to-oranges comparison, here, 1.6 billion rounds is … 16 million times more objectionable.

Mr. Obama has a long history of disdain toward gun ownership. According to Prof. John Lott, in Debacle, a book he co-authored with iconic conservative strategist Grover Norquist,

“When I was first introduced to Obama (when both worked at the University of Chicago Law School, where Lott was famous for his analysis of firearms possession), he said, ‘Oh, you’re the gun guy.’

I responded: ‘Yes, I guess so.’

’I don’t believe that people should own guns,’ Obama replied.

I then replied that it might be fun to have lunch and talk about that statement some time.

He simply grimaced and turned away. …

Unlike other liberal academics who usually enjoyed discussing opposing ideas, Obama showed disdain.”

Mr. Obama? Where’s the disdain now? Cancelling, or at minimum, drastically scaling back — by 90% or even 99%, the DHS order for ammo, and its receipt and deployment of armored personnel carriers, would be a “fourfer.”

The federal government would set an example of restraint in the matter of weaponry.
It would reduce the deficit without squeezing essential services.
It would do both in a way that was palatable to liberals and conservatives, slightly depolarizing America.
It would somewhat defuse, by the government making itself less armed-to-the-teeth, the anxiety of those who mistrust the benevolence of the federales.
If Obama doesn’t show any leadership on this matter it’s an opportunity for Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, to summon Secretary Napolitano over for a little national conversation. Madame Secretary? Buying 1.6 billion rounds of ammo and deploying armored personnel carriers runs contrary, in every way, to what “homeland security” really means. Discuss.

From Nate:

Ok, lets see if I can get this out in words like it is in my head. Gotta remember that I am not as edumacated as don is.

What I am getting at here is that we really have no way of telling if they were good men or if they were bad men. Unless, we were alive during their terms and of such a state of mind to actually know the difference of what was going on and able to make our own determinations. Now with that being said, we only have 3 sources of information that we can use to make our opinions with. 1. being all of the one sided or biased litterateur that has been written about them (because how can we trust or know if what we are reading is the actual truth, because we do not know from our own experiences or that the person writing it wrote the actual truth being able to keep their own opinions and beliefs out of it?) 2. The same statement goes for all of the media coverage of said men. 3. The last thing that we have to go on is what we are told by our parents, family, people we know, etc. Now with that we are being told information that may or may not be actual fact and whether or not it has been spun with their beliefs, morals, etc?

Now being an individual that has seen many of things in this world first hand, I have come to rely on fact. Now when I say fact, I am talking about what can I actually see with my own eyes, what can I touch with my hands, what can I hear with my ears, etc. to me there are a few things that I know to be fact with Roosevelt that make me turn more to the side of him doing a good job as president. I will limit it to 4 examples, 2 of which somewhat co-inside with each other. 1. He was an avid outdoorsman and put a lot of things into effect to protect wild animals and our beautiful, yes I said beautiful outdoor areas from destruction. Now, if there was some idiot that has changed that over time (EPA nazi’s, too many to name) then?! 2. He was against huge trusts or as we know it in today’s terms as monopolies. 3. Our nation’s workers at the time of him taking office were in a world of hurt financially, and he not really knowingly started the minimum wage policy which F.D.R. eventually turned into Social Security and federal minimum wage act. 4. Roosevelt established the FDA.

So to sum it up, that is why in my opinion I believe that Roosevelt was a good president. Now can I say that about Clinton to our current BOOB, no! I believe that we as a country have let Washington get too damn big and too controlling, and the position of president has been so skewed from what our four fathers had intended it to be.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/is-a-civil-war-coming/

Originally Posted by mcle6103 View Post
The one huge thing that many people seem to forget....our country and our government are only worth something to the world at the moment because we buy stuff. That's it. The American people are huge consumers which is why countries like China put up with our huge debt and refusal to pay money back....do you think those countries are going to support a failing government whos people have rebelled and no longer fill the pockets of foreign countries as they once did? UH NO.

Our government is not nearly as strong as you think. They could be easily crippled at anytime. We have burned so many bridges and hold so many people under our thumbs that when the time finally comes when America needs help and is vulnerable...they won't help them(the US gov).

The people re-take govs just as a wild fire returns all life to the earth. Ours will fall, and it will be by our hands

Not picking on you here friend, but there is something else the rest of the world wants from us?
Any idea what that might be?
Who holds the largest known oil reserves on the planet?
Saudi Arabia?? Kuwait? Iran?
Not even close. One country's reserves dwarf's thise nation's reserves and that is us, as in the U.S. of A.
So will they come to help?
Yep they sure will. Under the peaceful trojan horse called the UN, if we fall into civil war, I'm betting that a million or so Chinese peace keepers along with some europeans and of course our close allies, the Russians (taking Alaska) will be here to help us out of our difficulties. THe problem is they will never leave!
China has the largest industrial economy on earth thanks to things like NAFTA which we did and on oil to run their machines. You think they are getting it from Russia? Nope, China and Russia are going to go at it some day. From Saudi Arabia?? Saudi is quietly running out. UAE has 2 years oil reserves tops. Iran has a bunch, but China has bought all of it until the year 3035. THat leaves south America, some fields in New Guniea, some in Africa and the already developed fields of America.
No Sir, this thing falls apart and our destroyed American goverment with it's military in disarray will not stop a millions of Chinese peace keepers from dropping right in.
The future does not look good. THe thought of fighting fellow Americans is too much to contemplate and the civil war, our bloodiest, is a good example to what awaits us down that road. But having knocked our heads againt each other for a while, and then having to face little people with AK-47's is not going to be a picnic...

Originally Posted by mcle6103 View Post
The Gov is really insane if they think they're gonna be able to control any kind of civil unrest seeing as how every citizen owns a gun even with their mighty Navistar trucks. When sh!t finally hits the fan, it's gonna look like Syria on a large scale.

Unfortunately, you are wrong.
The population, which is totally unpreparred, in most cases fat, sick, and lost without "The bachelor" will be out of water in three days and starving in a week.

They will be coming to goverment centers by the millions looking for help. The ensuing run on critical infastructure will need a lot more than 2700 MRAPS to control those crowds, but the vehicles, along with the national guard will do little more than protection of critical infastructure, goverment facilities, and convoy protection. Every thing else and every where else will be no man's land.

The goverment almost has a collective intelligence all of it's own, which instead of saying "give my everything, then my dying breath to my people", through its actions seems to be saying, "at all costs, I must survive."

Only morons haven't figured that out yet. Personally, I don't see it as a negative. The dependent sheeple will find themselves a prisioner to their cities and that means they won't be out in our countryside!

Cities only work with civilization. MRAPS are needed when all of that breaks down...

Originally Posted by stlaser View Post
Don I agree loud and clear, one other thing that needs mentioned.

GOP head honcho Carl Rove just came out yesterday and said we need to find some "More Diverse Candidates" enough said.

This is exactly what is wrong, and that is the focus
Instead of staying on point and living or dyeing on a set of principals, some people focus on winning. That's how compromise works its way into the very moral fiber and character of a people, a nation, and a culture.

There are two Americas existing within a single border. One which strives to do things right, and one that works quietly at work, loves its neighbors and toils with the anticipation for something better with advancing years.
Then there is an evil America. This one is morally all over the place. It does not believe in strong family values. It abhors organized religion. It has no belief that people are good and smart at their core. It does not learn from lessons of the past, nor does it learn the lessons born of sacrifice and conviction. It is given in to ingratiating every fringe group you can think of and it is weak, pretty much everywhere you look within it.

Sadly I see our government running amuck chasing every whim of every kookoo dreamer in a Nazi fascist manner. They are becoming dangerous through this detachment from reality. They are moving farther and farther from the founding fathers concepts which have stood immovable for a couple hundred years. They probably believe in their hearts they are doing the right thing, and that this change is necessary and the push-back they get from us is merely the necessary birthing pains of the new American order.

But Oh are they wrong. What they really sense are the rumblings of a revolution. One that will destroy them and nearly all of us. It is coming, it seems to be engineered, and it is grossly miscalculated on their part. Unfortunately in the end and it will likely cost us our nation.

If you read my scenario in earlier writings, you already know where I see all this going.
There will, unfortunately, come a point where the Cumos, Obamas, Fenstiens, Schummers, and the like will push too far. They are doing it now. There is a point when the will of rural America will turn from one of passive obedience, and civil unrest will ensue. Make no mistake that is why Napolitano has created another Army. An Army with 1.2 billion cartridges, now feeding 7,000 automatic Assault rifles, carried by real trained troops, within military MRAPS, and protected by predator, Reaper and other aerial drone systems. That organization is being built for war. It does not have C17's and Navy ships to float or fly it somewhere to protect America. It has wheels so that it can drive from Pennsylvania to New York.

I'm just a soldier trained to see two and two and determine that I am looking at four and not twenty two. But without the benefit of a proper education, nor the strong values cultured and honed in a small little corner church, millions of Americans are convinced the leadership is correct that it is actually twenty two we are looking at. The good thing is that they are mentally weak without the resolve given through knowing a living God, and they will fail in the end. The end that is a burning, Chinese occupied America of few survivors wondering what happened.

The M-1 Musket of the revolutionary war wiped out the greatest military on the earth of the time. What do you think 100,000,000 modern weapons has the capability of doing? But an America that believes more in American Idol and Ironman than the God of Israel would not be listening or watching anyway. They are simply be swept around comfortably by the tides of change. With only one half of one percent of all of us actually ever having seen a real battlefield, that leaves 99.5% who don't know that horror in a personal way. Oh but the learning curve will be fast on that one, for those who are even around for round two that is.

We are at a precipice. Freedom is evaporating with every “makes no sense” compromise backroom deal our fat politicians make for the benefit of their particular special interest. When the rule of law is usurped, when the will of the people is disregarded, when our cultural tenants are thrown to abandonment, we are ruled. We live comfortably under tyranny. Under that encroaching system the assaults to our rights and freedoms become ever more spectacular. There will come a day in the not too distant future when an American(s) are turned into molecules by an American manufactured Hellfire, fired from a drone under the control of something like homeland security. It will be explained away as a necessary decision made by the commander and chief to protect Americans against some radical threat. And, in fact the victims may indeed be terrorists bent on destroying our country. So Americans will applaud the courage of the commander in chief. After all he just took decisive action to protect the people right??? I would however wonder where due process was during all those executive decisions. A thinking person would be able to connect the dots. Someone just assinated a person in America without any trial or due process of law.

Militarily speaking that could be necessary, I will admit. Frankly when I wore the uniform, if I was briefed that a group of Islamic terrorists were training in the mountains of North Carolina on a farm, I'd willingly vaporize them as well, but that's just me and according to the constitution as modified with its many laws, there should not be a outright killing, but a police type arrest, followed by an presentation of the facts in a court of our constitutional law.

If you throw all that out the window, what you have is tyranny. All you see is the proverbial tip of the iceberg with just a tiny little point sticking above the water. But to pull off something like that, there would have been organization beneath. That’s lots of people in high, middle and low places. That's resources. That’s a lot of good people who have been surgically extracted from the organizations to make the way of hell a ready path.
And where is America during all of this? Well, other than watching a rerun of Gold Rush, or consuming two more Big Macs on their way to a disease born of overeating of processed foods, or some other diversion, they are mostly asleep at the wheel.

But not all of us. No some, Americans have an independent, educated, and self controlled mind. A person capable of thinking being able to ferret out of the evening news the truth and not the crafted script that is being spoon fed to the stupid masses. If you want an example of our running intelligence level, gentlemen, look no further than the pages of this very web site. So many of the youngsters here write with a very telling absence of grammar and literary skills. Too large a number of people are pretty stupid these days. Most wonder what I just wrote while they wonder why it was that they actually voted for Obama.

Well, some day there is a reckoning coming. One where we will be judged. Where did we stand? What did we do when called upon? Did we just turn a blind eye to it all, or did we take a stand regardless of the consequences. Some things, you see, are worth living for, and if necessary, dying for. My God of Abraham is one and well beneath him the concept of a free America is as well. But America, where is your courage???

Another CIEMR:

Hmmm, been slacking here!
I was thinking about the lunacy of the left as most recently demonstrated by the calls for gun control.
Of course anyone with any sense at all knows that guns in the hands of honest, law abiding citizens are a huge deterrent to crime.
Note: This simple fact is proof positive that the people who think like that are really stupid, nuff said.
So Colorado is hell bent on removing more guns. I guess they missed the point with gun registration and gun control with their Aurora theater shooting. OK, the facts: That theater was posted with signs forbidding guns within the establishment. The town of Aurora is heavily controlled with regard to gun ownership. The police chief wants Aurora to be a gun free zone. The shooter bought the gun legally, and actually went through the background check process.
So what did the people of Colorado learn from all of that:
1. Background checks do not stop crimes from being committed
2. Increased draconian gun control does not lower crime rate
3. Police having an attitude that gun control is a good thing is found to be wanting.
4. Allowing no guns in the theater did not stop the criminal.
5. A reasonable man could ascertain that if the sign were not there, perhaps some armed citizen inside could have subdued the shooter, reducing the number of casualties.
OK, all of that make sense?
If not stop reading and go away, as in a long way, as in many thousands of miles, please.
If you do, I would consider you normal and rational, because you looked at the facts and they lead you to a logical conclusion.
So with this glaring light of logic screaming the facts that what we need is actually more armed citizens, our elected leaders want in large part to take them away from us.
To a guy like me, knowing the people pulling the strings are very smart, I draw the lines to that conclusion which is, THEY are simply using the momentum of recent shooting events as a catapult to get our guns.
With the fact that DHS is buying billions of bullets, thousands of assault rifles, MRAP armored fighting vehicles, and currently restoring something between 800 to 900 prisoner camps, I have to wonder. It makes me think someone somewhere either knows something or needs a disarmed citizenry that will be easily rounded up and managed. I mean that's what logic dictates. Not the lies filled stuff we hear daily from our leaders that many of our lost youth, adolescents, and some others drink like kool-aid.
So for that very reason, the suspicion that some knucklehead communist buried in our government or perhaps controlling it through proxy might make a run on my nation, well that in itself is justification for we the people to arm ourselves to the teeth, don't you think?
In my men’s ministry class last night we were learning about the seasons of a man's life. 0-20 growing and the spring of life, 20-40 the summer characterized by acquiring knowledge, 40 something-60 the fall where we become accomplished and become mentors, and 60's and beyond, the winter where we have wisdom, are sought out for advice, and so forth.
One problem I see is that American men refuse to become Real Men. They hold off as long as they can before embracing the mature manhood that God created us to be. There are a host of 30 something men still gaming 20 or more hours a week. Gaming? Isn't that just playing, like children do? Well, deny it if you want, you'd only be lying to yourself, it is. If that took time away from bible study, communicating with your spouse or children or perhaps helping a friend, then you missed the mark...the word coming to mind is selfish.
So if men aren't maturing, then they are still just big powerful kids. Mostly brain dead and unable to reason, because reasoning is something that is a higher brain function that follows the acquisition of information (Knowledge). So while you're making the killer sniper shot in your evening round of Halo 3, someone much smarter than you and much more wicked is planning to destroy you or at least planning to neuter you.
So that leave the very, very few rest of us, who grew up, who are as smart as God intended us to be, and are paying attention. I would suggest for your own selfish future welfare, that you with your head stuck in game boy (Named that for a reason, think about it) that you find someone who has been paying attention and listen to them.
The time is fast approaching, I'm telling you. Lots of people are telling you. Get off the 6" exhaust tip and figure out what's going on. You will perish when the spoon feeding abruptly stops!