This collection was sent to me by a blog-fan, it’s one of those things that go the rounds, but funny and apt, nonetheless.

A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what’s left of your unit.”
- Army’s magazine of preventive maintenance ..
———————————————————–
“Aim toward the Enemy.”
- Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher
———————————————————–
“When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
- U.S. Marine Corps
———————————————————–
“Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs are absolutely guaranteed to hit the ground.”
- USAF Ammo Troop
——————————————————-
“If the enemy is in range, so are you.”
- Infantry Journal
——————————————————-
“It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.”
- U.S. Air Force Manual
——————————————————-
“Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.”
- General MacArthur
———————————————————–
“Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo.”
- Infantry Journal
————————————————! ——–
“You, you, and you … Panic. The rest of you, come with me.”
- U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.
——————————————————–
“Tracers work both ways.”
- U.S. Army Ordnance
——————————————————–
“Five second fuses only last three seconds.”
- Infantry Journal
——————————————————
“Don’t ever be the first, don’t ever be the last, and don’t ever volunteer to do anything.”
- U.S. Navy Swabbie
———————————————————
“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.”
- David Hackworth
———————————————————-
“If your attack is going too well, you’re walking into an ambush.”
- Infantry Journal
——————————————————–
“No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection.”
- Joe Gay
———————————————————-
“Any ship can be a minesweeper … once.”
- Anonymous
——————————————————–
“Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.”
- Unknown Marine Recruit
——————————————————-
“Don’t draw fire; it irritates the people around you.”
- Your Buddies
——————————————————-
“If you see a bomb technician running, follow him.”
- USAF Ammo Troop
——————————————————–
“Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death , I Shall Fear No Evil. For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing.”
- At the entrance to the old SR-71 operating base Kadena , Japan
—————————————————–
“You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3.”
- Paul F. Crickmore (test pilot)
———————————————————
“The only time you have too much fuel is when you’re on fire.”
——————————————————
“Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky.”
- From an old carrier sailor
——————————————————-
“If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it’s probably a helicopter — and therefore, unsafe.”
——————————————————
“When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash.”
——————————————————
“Without ammunition, the USAF would be just another expensive flying club.”
——————————————————
“What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If ATC screws up, …. the pilot dies.”
——————————————————–
“Never trade luck for skill.”
——————————————————
“Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.”
——————————————————-
Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight.”
——————————————————-
“A smooth carrier landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is prevarication.”
—————————————————–
“Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up there!”
——————————————————
“Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for the purpose of storing dead batteries.”
——————————————————–
“Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.”
——————————————————–
“When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was forgotten.”
——————————————————-
“Just remember, if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be held on a sunny day.”
——————————————————–
Advice given to RAF pilots during WWII: “When a prang (crash) seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity as slow and gently as possible.”
——————————————————-
“The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you.”
- Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot)
——————————————————–
“A pilot who doesn’t have any fear probably isn’t flying his plane to its maximum.”
- Jon McBride, astronaut
———————————————————–
“If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible.”
- Bob Hoover (renowned aerobatic and test pilot)
———————————————————–
Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you.”
——————————————————-
“There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime.”
- Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970
——————————————————–
“If something hasn’t broken on your helicopter, it’s about to.”
——————————————————-
Basic Flying Rules: “Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.”
——————————————————–
“You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full power to taxi to the terminal.”
———————————————————
As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives, the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks “What happened?”.
The pilot’s reply: “I don’t know, I just got here myself!”
- Attributed to Ray Crandell (Lockheed test pilot )

Add your own personal favorites in the comments…

1.) Just John: “Much as other soldiers suffered from the lack of bullets during practice due to budget cuts, The Al Gore Memorial Photojournalist Commando Squad was forced to do without cameras for several weeks.”

2.) Rodney Dill: “Mine Sweeping School - “You put left foot in, you pull your left foot out…””

3.) Adjustah: “Now, raise your hands in the air like you just don’t care…” (Edited for accuracy to the lyrics, but it cracked me up.)

From Cox & Forkum.

A La, over at Blonde Sagacity, has a Memorial Day post that includes suggestions of how to put the “Memorial” back into the day. She also lists out various wars since WWI, with number of deaths.

Paying homage to all who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country (always, but especially today):
1917-1918 World War I 116,708
1941-1945 World War II 408,306
1945 Okinawa US Navy 5,000, USMC/Army 8,000
06 Jun 1944 D-Day 1,465
1945 Iwo Jima 6,503
1950-1953 Korean War 54,246
1957-1975 Vietnam War 58,219
1983 Beirut Lebanon 241
1990-1991 Persian Gulf, Op Desert Shield/Storm 363
2001-Present Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan 295
2003-Present Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq 2,464

She also links to a Memorial Day Quiz. (I got 7/9)

Capt Ed remembers an Operation Iraqi Freedom Medal of Honor winner.

Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers.

Citizen Smash posts a letter from the mother of a fallen hero.

God may have been ready to call my Marine to heaven on April 18, 2004 but I wasn’t, and I can’t wait till the day we will be together again. Rick is a hero to me and all that knew him and loved him. He left behind a legacy that will endure forever. A Marine camp in Iraq was named for him (Camp Gannon). An award for Leadership to the top graduate at the Naval Academy carries his name. These are two reminders of his dedication and sacrifice to his country, but there are thousands of personal reminders that are seared in my heart forever.

His Memorial Day post will be up later.

And Sgt Hook brings it home with memories of a career-long buddy and former roommate, who volunteered to help rescue 4 Navy Seals trapped and surrounded on a mountaintop in Afghanistan. MSgt Tre Ponder was in the ‘Stan for training, not duty, but he went anyway, and died with most of the rest of the rescuers and rescued when the helicopter crashed.

Most of the crewdogs could be found at our place on the weekends where we would bar-b-que meat from the commissary and share war stories over several cold beers. The old adage of “working hard and playing hard” certainly was our mantra, and nobody worked harder than Tre.

Tre could always be counted on, with his easy going, dedicated attitude you never doubted that he’d come through. He always did, and usually with a “shit eating” grin on his face.

Some of the fondest memories from my days as a crewdog involve Tre Ponder.

When our tour on the ROK was over, we went our separate ways, I to Italy, Jay to Georgia, and Tre to Kentucky. I ran into Tre five years later, after my Italian adventures, when I moved to Kentucky. He and his then pregnant wife helped me move into my apartment, lending me some tools and a ladder. Though a little older and now a family man, Tre was still that same old easy going southern boy that you could count on.

Update:
I just popped back over to Smash’s site and read his official Memorial Day post.

Every year, two days before Memorial Day, hundreds of Boy and Girl Scouts from all over San Diego County converge on Fort Rosecrans to honor these veterans by placing a single American flag in front of every gravestone and internment marker – all 85,000 of them.

After the opening ceremony, I grabbed a bundle of flags and rushed ahead of the torrent of Scouts, towards the far end of the cemetery. I had some people that I needed to visit. (snip)

My final planned stop was the resting place of Lieutenant Thomas Mullen Adams, my brother’s friend who was killed in a tragic helicopter accident in the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I arrived at Tom’s grave just ahead of the leading edge of the scouts, and reverentially planted the flag. We had a few moments of quiet before the masses arrived, so I told Tom about Grant’s wife and new baby, and their new home in Hawaii. (snip)

I stood up and walked a few feet away while the scouts passed through, taking only a few seconds to methodically place a flag on each grave, salute, and move on.

A man, one of the scoutmasters, paused in front of Tom’s grave. “He’s just pining?” he said, “What does that mean?”

“It’s a joke.” I told him. “It’s a line from Monty Python’s ‘dead parrot sketch.’ You know: ‘E’s not dead, e’s just pining for the fjords.’”

“Oh!” he said. “Did you know him?”

“Yes, he’s my brother’s friend; they served in the Navy together.” I told him the whole story;” (snip)

I could see it on the man’s face, something had changed. These weren’t just tombstones anymore, they were real people.

Let’s remember that, if nothing else. These honored dead, these hometown heroes, were real people. They lived, loved, and laughed, and because they served, we are free to live, love and laugh. May we also serve as honorably as they did, in whichever way we choose to serve.

They shall grow not old

as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them

nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun

and in the morning

we will remember them.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Monday is for rememberance of those who paid the ultimate price, but it also gives me a chance to say “thank you” to those who are currently serving, or have ever served.

Thank you Dad, Uncle Jack, Aunt Ruth, Uncle Bill, and Grandpa, for your service. Thank you Paul, Sgt Mom, Timmer, Sgt/Cpl Blondie, Radar, Detailed Recruiter, & Joe (R.I.P.) for serving. Thank you, wounded veterans, for your sacrifice. Thank you, those who gave all, whose names are written on a black wall in DC, on stone columns in towns all over the country, and in the hearts of those who loved them.

I don’t know that I’ve ever known anyone who’s died in the service of our country, but I know that those who have gone before did not die in vain, and that those who serve today stand on the shoulders of giants who look like ordinary people.

My heart is full, and I raise my glass to you, in gratitude, and in salute.

To all of you, past, present and future warriors, SALUD!

Wow! That was a blast. Not to mention a total geek fest. There are nods to almost every classic science fiction movie and some books to boot. Bonus points to the first one to post the obvious Heinlein reference.

In case no one’s told you yet. There’s one more brief scene after the credits run. I’m not sure if it was worth it or not and the folks at the movie theater didn’t seem to care as they turned on the lights and were cleaning before it was over, but it does make you wonder how much of a “last X-Men” movie this is really going to be.

Oh, and nobody even mentions Jesus in this movie. Feel better?

UPDATE: Spoiler in the comments for those who saw the movie but walked out before the last scene after the credits.

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

“You know when you talk,” says one of my co-workers with some exasperation, “Sometimes it sounds to me like the parents and teachers in those “Charlie Brown” cartoons… you know, just ‘bwah-bwah-bwaw’? I know you’re saying something, but I can’t understand a single word of it!”

My bad, making an allusion to a 19th century poem in casual conversation, but then I grew up thinking Osbert Lancaster was hilarious (especially “Here of All Places” which permanently warped my tastes in architecture and descriptions of same ) . She probably won’t get much from the funniest take on the Da Vinci Code that I have read so far… but perhaps some of you might… especially if you took a class where the prof insisted on playing recordings of Old English readings.

(link found through Manolo)

Since our company got involved in torque sensing for F1 racing a few years ago and the divorce between Champ cars and Indy cars played itself out, the only open wheel racing that I follow outside of F1 is the Indy 500. Before it was televised, I remember listening to it on the radio even as a child, having lived in a family with a long history of involvement in stock and super-modified racing throughout NY, PA and New England in the fifties and sixties. Women drivers have been an on and off presence at Indy since 1976 (previously Janet Guthrie, Lyn St. James, and Sarah Fisher), but, in my view, were more of a novelty than a serious trend.

Last year’s Indy 500 was absolutely GREAT because Danica Patrick showed, finally, that a woman driver could mix it up with the best the IRL had to offer. Although finishing fourth, she led for several laps and showed a degree of cool fierceness that was lacking in those of the fairer sex who preceded her (Sgt Mom and Cpl Blondie, I am being careful here). This year she starts somewhat lower in the field (inside row 4), but I am confident she will put on a great show. Check it out (Sun. 1:00 CST)

Next week the Indy teams will race at Watkins Glenn, former home of the U.S. Grand Prix. Back in my day, I worked a food concession there all through high school and got to (sort of) see the Trans Am (Camaro, ‘Cuda, Mustang), Can Am (anybody remember Chaperral?) and F1 races from ‘68 through ‘72. What a dream job. After having been closed for a couple decades, Nascar has raced stockers and trucks at the Glen the last few years, but it will be great to see open wheel racing there again.

Also note that the Monaco F1 Grand Prix is Sunday morning - televised early on SpeedTV. I personally think that Monaco is the premier F1 event because of (a) the difficulty of the street course and (b) the decadent wealth that permeates the entire event (including the 100+ ft cruisers in the harbor).

See you at the track.

Radar

After reading Sgt Mom’s outstanding post last night, and adding my own rosy commentary, I came across this article in The Daily Standard on the Moroccan approach to relations between Islam and other religions that offers hope. For example:

“Abaddi’s visit to the United States underscores this point: It was part of an ongoing campaign to reach out to religious groups in the United States. One aim is to raise the profile of what he calls the “Moroccan model” of moderate Islam. Evangelical leaders, for example, have been invited to Casablanca for high-level meetings and inter-faith dialogues. In March of this year, the Moroccan government helped sponsor a conference of “Rabbis and Imams for Peace” in Seville.”

I have tried to make sense of this issue for years now; tried to express the conclusions at which I have arrived without coming off as being cut from the same cloth as the Muslims that I have been critical of - more often than not unsuccessfully, I think and particularly with the left. It has been a challenge to reconcile the theme that Muslims-in America-are-not-like-those-zealots-in-Iran-they-just-want-to-live-the-American-dream with the stories about long standing mosques in the U.S. being hijacked by radical imams (I am looking for a link to a series by the Chicago Trib on this topic), and organizations like CAIR that, despite their moderate appearance, are a front for the radical fringe. I have no doubt that the former premise is largely true, but so is the latter. A question that I grapple with is why the moderate multitudes are so silent on the subject; why they do not loudly, openly, and with great frequency disavow the subset of the Muslim belief system that spawns the likes of what we see in the news on a nightly basis. Comments and emails to previous posts on the subject have chastised me for being ignorant of some supposed vocal repudiation, but were absent any sort of citation. To some extent, the print media must take some responsibility, for if they expended as much effort researching the Muslim counterpoint to radicalism as they spend in their attempt to sensationalize the horrible acts of (what I hope to be) the radical minority, perhaps average people like me would not have these questions.

Getting back to Morocco, I think a large part of the problem is that in many nations the Muslim majority is poor and illiterate, and hence easily led by corrupt leaders. I am skeptical that the moderation practiced by Morocco, and hopefully a future Iraq, can turn the tide in the apparent time frame that we have. There are too many people over there both serving and drinking the KoolAid, and too long a history of distrust for the west.

Geez, I started this with an upbeat attitude and end up at the same place. Maybe I need to take a trip to Casablanca. Maybe stop by Rick’s Place. I hear the Nazi’s are gone.

Radar

Other Bloggy Caption Fun:

Wizbang.
Outside The Beltway.
Venemous Kate.
Hook.
The Gone Rick Motel.

Winners will be posted on Tuesday so as not to make light of Memorial Day.

“The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air…”

From “The Fellowship of the Ring”

There is a change in our world, and in the world of the blogosphere, that most sensitive of organisms, like a jellyfish that flinches at the slightest change in the water, the temperature or the flow of it, curling in upon itself, tensing in readiness against something harsh and horrible. I thought it was just me, for the last six months or so, feeling a jangling unease, thinking it was just me that found it hard to write, finding it all sad and wearying and depressing, finding it all too horrible, words and ideas not flowing easily, thoughts all incoherent, un-climbable mountains of trollage and spam piling up, of editorial issues and looking for a new job, of temp wage slavery at the Enormous Corporate Behemoth… all of that, and thinking it was just me and my personal issues, not finding blogging to be fun any more, just another grim job to be dealt with, until I read this, and thought with no little relief; “Oh, it just isn’t me, after all.”

I have really enjoyed blogging over the last four years— it is a lifeline and outlet, a useful purpose and a voice, my connection to others of like mind… and if not of like, at least of interesting and stimulating minds. And sometimes I am touched by fire, and write something interesting and cogent and relevant, and someone on the other side of the world or in the next city reads it, and is touched by the fire also, and lets me know about how I have made it possible to understand something, or feel something, or be able to see an event with someone elses’ eyes. Blogging here is an opportunity to educate about the many-splendored weirdness of the military world and I would hate to think I was at the point of giving it up, after the fun of the coaster-ride over the last four years… and since it only this last week the NY Times, the magisterial paper of record, had to publish a correction about muddling a Purple Heart and a Gold Star in a story about the funeral of a serving military member, it would seem that there is still a heck of a lot of educating to do. (Sheesh! Three years of war, and they’re as bone ignorant today as they were then, another reason to be slightly depressed… ok, breath deeply, and repeat the mantra…. It is not my job to reform the NY Times, it is not my job to reform the NY Times, it is not my job to reform the NY Times… better be someone’s job soon, otherwise they will just be a local fish-wrap with an amusingly elevated sense of its’ own importance, and about thirty readers, who all live in expensive condos in a very small part of town. See the LA Times, which used to be a fine and respected newspaper.)

I can suppose this is only cosmic payback for a lifetime spent entranced in history, of the times before… of the times before things changed, of the times just out of reach of my own memory, the times of my grandparents’ and my parents’ formative years, of the worlds that they remembered, but which irretrievably slipped away. Grandpa Jim, Grandpa Al, Grannie Jessie and Grannie Dodie all were born into a world of horse-drawn conveyances, of gaslights and steamships, where the monarchies of Russia and Austria and Germany were seemingly set-in-stone eternal, and the sun never set on the British Empire… and then, hey presto by the time they were all teenagers or in their early twenties, three of those verities were gone and the fourth moved into twilight. But my grandparents moved on, did their jobs and made their homes, raised their families into that new world, and then there was that other seismic shift, the next war that shattered and reformed their established world, the one that I most particularly studied, almost to the extent of sometimes thinking I was re-living it.

In a curious way, I think that it is 1938 again, the very last year that it was possible for the well-meaning and well-intentioned to believe with a whole heart that total war was not inevitable, the year of the annexation of Austria, of Neville Chamberlain’s attempt to buy peace—followed promptly by the German annexation of the Sudetenland, and the Night of Broken Glass— the year that it became obvious to more than just the extremely far-sighted that no peaceful and well-meant actions on the part of the British and French administrations could swerve Hitler from his appointed path, that there was nothing to be expected from the League of Nations, that however much they wished otherwise, bad stuff would be happening. It might be soon, it might be later, but it would be happening, however much one wished and prayed for, otherwise… war would come. And there was nothing to be done that would stop it happening

Events and portents appear, flashing like lightning in one of our summer Texas thunderstorms, finally occurring so frequently that the sky is continuously lit with an eerie blue-white light…riots in Paris and in Australia, murders of Thai teachers, the Affair of the Danish Cartoons. The abject truckling in to threats and violence by western main-stream media, and now threats by Iran’s president to destroy Israel, twinned with Iran’s nuclear ambitions… and such threats reported not in fringy little foreign-affairs journals and blogs, but over and over again, on the front pages and in the headlines. Are they credible threats? Whose lives do we bet that they are not?

I wonder now, if some of the contemporary venom, and malice directed towards FDR, and to a lesser extent, Churchill— both of whom quite clear-eyed about the menace that Hitler posed from a fairly early date— might be a sort of displacement of their fears. There are terrible, lurking dangers, awful people that you can, in the long run, essentially do nothing about— more comfortable to be able to displace your fear and anger, aim it all towards someone that you can do something about, not some fanatic in a cave, or in Berlin, far, far away. Best to focus all your fears and apprehensions, and aim that at the closer and more comprehensible target, and comfort yourself that you have done what you could, that you are blameless and above reproach, sincere in not wanting any of that nasty war and violence. If it falls on someone else, then it must be all their fault then, it was something they did, or didn’t do, that caused war to be interested in them and their children, their houses and cities, and tall shining buildings on a lovely September morning.

What could our grandparents and great-grandparents do, in 1938, but wait for the inevitable to fall, knowing that all their safe and peaceful world would not be eternal and everlasting, but would be finite, and of short duration; that there would soon be an end to all the lovely, predictable joys of a settled existence. What better encouragement to enjoy them with bitter-sweet gusto, knowing that the ship was definitively and slowly sinking, that the ordinary pleasures of life would be at an end?

I am going to finish the touch-ups to the house this weekend, painstakingly climbing up and down a tall ladder borrowed from a neighbor, who most definitely will be wanting it back soon, since I have had it since early this month, carrying a small brush and a paint-can, my pockets filled with nails and tools. I have a notion to pave the center part of the back yard with concrete pavers of my own creation, set with black river pebbles set on end, to make flowers and geometric patterns, like the stairs and terraces I saw in Spain and have never seen again…. I want to set a small fountain in the middle of it, to hear the sound of running water in the afternoons of these brutally hot summer days, which is work that will take months to accomplish and about the same to pay for. And all the time I am doing it, I will have the radio on. And all these days to come, I’ll know that someday, some time, I’ll hear a news bulletin about a mushroom cloud someplace in the Middle East, or Europe, or maybe over an American city… and that these days of peace will be ended for once and all.

Frodo: “I wish none of this had happened. ”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
From “The Fellowship of the Ring”

So now it comes to light that (a) the civil servant from who the information was stolen has been routinely taking such data home for at least three years, and (b) it only came to the attention of management because of office gossip (it was never offiicially reported). The VA is scrambling to point out that this was an isolated incident, but I do not buy it. If employees are routinely bringing laptops in and out of the workplace, this security breach is likely only the tip of the iceberg. Hmmm. If I end up with a problem because of this it will be Radar v. U.S.

For those old war horses that think it doesn’t affect them, it was reported today the it affects records for GIs discharged as early as 1975. Why in the f*** are GS-dumbf***s carrying records that go that far back around on a laptop?

Radar

Except for the weather, I hate this time of year. With school ending, we are making the transition to Red Haired Girl’s summer schedule while still completing the school year schedule (dance, baritone, piano, theater, softball, odd cluster of birthdays – hence sleepovers, community pool time, College for Kids, Christian youth camp, etc.). She is now of an age where she demands a later non-school night bedtime, so that precious block of time is now parsed into a smaller block. Concurrently, the speculation begins with Real Wife’s teaching world as to who will get RIFed and other pending changes at the school. The voters recently approved a partial school convergence, so the intrigue is on a par with The De Vinci Code. Did I mention that all of the classroom animals move home for the summer? That would be about a dozen rats, several dozen waterborne South American frogs, some sort of millipedes (population unknown), and a gecko named Geico.

All of the above is a predictable and periodical disturbance. More baffling to me is why my job seems to suddenly place greater demands that seem to make the summer pass all too quickly due to deadlines, travel, anticipation of travel, and post travel follow up. There is no connection in the activities from one year to the next. My work duties are not in any way agrarian in nature. And while I worked within the automotive industry for many years (not agrarian but very predictable), my present responsibilities span several different industries, all but automotive lacking in any discernable circadian rhythm. Already booked at Travelocity is Washington DC next week, Irvine CA later in the month, and Munich in July. Shanghai is coming up later this summer, which is already giving me heartburn (not for the mission, but the logistics). I was asked today “being that I will already be in Irvine, could also visit a company in San Jose?” I said “sure”, not being all that familiar with California. Now I find that stopping by San Jose from Irvine is like stopping by Maine from Pennsylvania.

I am excited about the Washington trip, having never been there other than passing by on the interstate. The official purpose is to interview (read threaten, beg, plead; whatever) with the Patent Office on a couple of cases, but I do have a total of one day down time to see the sights. No time to visit the museums, but enough time to circumscribe the American Mall and visit some of the memorials (Lincoln and Vietnam being high on the list).

In the midst of all of this will be an Amtrak trip to NY (no flying for Real Wife since 9/11) for a family reunion. I won’t even go into my personal thoughts on the tradeoff between flying in a relatively secure environment and riding over 1000 miles on trains run by unbelievably poor management and no apparent security, with a six hour layover in downtown Chicago in the shadow of the (now) tallest building in America. To top it off, the Berghoff, a fantastic traditional German restaurant and Chicago landmark, recently closed. Oh well.

I long for the summers of my youth; for the ability to imagine, on that last day of school, that the summer would be endless. I don’t recall ever being involved in organized summer activities; each day was ad hoc – each experience an unexpected detour, each twilight filled with the sounds of both birds and children excitedly recounting the day. While I object to the degree of structure that Red Haired Girl and her ilk experience in this day and age, I will concede that it coincides with the fact that we, as parents, are not as willing to allow the degree of serendipity in our children’s lives that we enjoyed. For the kids though, what a loss.

Radar

A Small Victory has closed. It’s gone, completely. Not even any archives. Sigh, I knew I should have saved “Don’t Pee in the Millineum Falcon.”

Michele’s moved her operation over to a new site, Faster Than the World, where she and The Turtle will be talking about cars, punk rock, or whatever else strikes their fancy.

Update: Michele sent me a link to where the story still lives.

Reader Scott sent me the full story, which is below the fold.

(more…)

So our relatively new computer starts making growling noises last night, right before I had to get to bed in order to wake up early to continue working off the flab I managed to put on at my last assignment. (20 pounds in 2 months thank you very much.) So when I got off work tonight I popped the case open, hoping and praying that it’s just a little dust and not a power supply getting ready to take a dive and OMFG THE INSIDE OF MY COMPUTER IS FURRY! I could knit another cat with the fur that’s accumulated in there.

So I power off the ‘puter pull out the Kirby Supersucker (a 2000 model that’s still working better than anything else I’ve ever paid that much for), attach the hose and begin to suck out the fur that has managed to accumulate in every nook and cranny of the box paying particular attention to the power supply fan, the CPU fan, and the fan that blows across the motherboard. I also got the bear rug that had formed on the bottom of the computer. Okay. Should be good now.

I leave the case open because…well because to close it would be a sure fire way to ensure that I’d have to open it again. It’s sort of a rule. I power up the box again and…no growl…no growl…everything is sounding right. All the fans are running at full capacity with great air flow. Cool. I go to put the cover back on the case and GROWLLLlllllllllllllllllllllllllll. I knew it.

Okay, where the hell is that coming from? I turn off the box again and hit all the fans with the vacuum again. I power it back up: GROWWWWWLLLLllllllllllllll. Instead of turning it off I start poking and prodding around with a finger. By the way, important safety tip, even though those fans are low powered and plastic, they really kinda hurt when you poke your finger in them when they’re running. None of the fans are vibrating…but if I could figure out how to hook the video card up to a bed, I could put magic fingers out of business.

So I undo the screw and pop the…pop the…push the little thingy that allows me to pop the card out and…exactly how can there be that much fur stuck in that teensy weensie little fan? That shouldn’t be possible. It’s like compressed fur. It’s fur concentrate. Hit that with the vacuum and…it doesn’t more. It’s staying there. Okay, take out the jeweler’s screwdriver set take out the tiniest screwdriver and see if I can’t…CLUNK. Okay, it’s more than fur concentrate, it’s now the Kevlar of cat fur. Okay, maybe I can get under it…and nowwwww…it exploded? The fur is now the consistency of…fur. Apply vacuum and it’s all gone.

I go to put the card back in it’s slot and…sigh…the slot is furry. Vacuum and it’s all gone. Anything else? I shine the flashlight all around. No more apparent fur.

I pop the…I pop the…I push the little thingy that lets you pop the card back into the slot. Screw the card back in. Plug the monitor back in, start the computer…ahhhhhhhhhh, no growl. I wait five minutes, still no growl. NOW I put the cover back on the case and all is good.

Cats.

UPDATE: Right before bed last night…GRRRROOOOWWWLLLllllllllllll.

To: The Usual “Give peace a chance” ‘Tards
From: Sgt. Mom
Re: Pseuds, Wanna-Be’s and War Crimes

1. Once more I take my trusty pen in hand and do my best to advise skepticism as regards your choice in “Exhibit A” in this year’s “Anti-war Veteran Sweepstakes!” (Film at 11!) Again, you seem to be hastily embracing yet another so-called veteran with a certain taste for resume-enhancing. Well, they are a useful part of your public witnesses to the horror and waste of it all… salt to taste, people, salt to taste.

2. You are, of course, entitled to believe whatever you please, of someone who makes himself out to be a former member of a trained, selective and elite band of warriors, driven to madness by the horrors he was forced to participate in during our brutal and unjustified war in Vietnam…. Oops, sorry, dozed off there, thought I was watching an old episode of China Beach… where was I? Oh, trained, elite, hard-core… ever wonder why they appear to be such mentally-unbalanced, undisciplined, unsuccessful, scummy dirt bags, after their service in supposedly elite, selective units? Well, seriously, some of us do, even if you don’t. Your latest very public anti-war veteran…oh, dear, what to say about his credibility, except that you’d better start screening these losers, or you’ll have even less of it. Hint: DD214. What they did, and where, and how long, and with what unit, and what decs and awards they got for it, it’ll all be there. Really. Try it, you’ll be blown away… err, but in the non-military, non-explosive sense.

3. Here’s the thing: for those who were not paying attention in the first class. The military is not some huge, impersonal machine; it’s a series of very tightly controlled, interlinked communities. In a startlingly large number of them, if you stick around for more than an enlistment or two, everyone in said community knows everyone else, or has at least heard of them. And no matter where you go, and what you do, there are always other people there with you: Over you in command, under you as your subordinates, on either side of you as your peers and comrades. There are always other people there, who will remember strange and unusual events, especially of the possibility of a criminal investigation is involved. And the more recent the events, the easier it is to locate all of them. The internet greatly facilitates this process, as Micah Wright will no doubt attest.

4. Here’s another thing for you to consider at your next casting call; it’s very, very hard for a non-veteran to fake military experience and qualifications, and for the average single-hitch enlistee, almost as hard to fake very specialized, elite qualifications and experience. Veterans and serving military members, especially those of long-service, are extremely observant about all sorts of tiny clues in dress and bearing, deportment and language, about all sorts of service-specific arcane knowledge. And the more specialized the service, and the more selective the intake, and the more confined to specific times and places… well, the result will be a very specific pool of people who will either back up tales of extraordinarily events, or debunk them in with extreme attention to detail. Your choice, of course.

5. Jesse MacBeth is not the first anti-war veteran to add a lot of “interesting” qualifications to his resume, and not the last, not as long as you lot line up with your mouths all a-gape like a lot of baby birds, eager to be fed a heaping helping of crappy, easily-disproved, regurgitated fake atrocity stories. Take a swig of the Kool-Aid, people, it’ll take the taste of all that crap out of your mouth. Just ‘cause you want it to be true, don’t make it so.

6. Seriously, next time you feel this impulse to speak war-veteran truth to military power, spare yourself some heartburn, and go over the DD214s with a calendar, a map, some DOD Public Affairs releases, and maybe some reality-based military veterans. Really, you’ll be all the better for it

Sincerely,

Sgt. Mom

Thieves steal 26.5million veterans’ “personal data”

Apparently, a VA employee took home a laptop containing veterans’ information, in order to work on a project from home. The information included names, birthdates, and Social Security numbers. This is, of course, against all bureau policies. (interesting - the news vid I saw earlier said it was a disk - now it’s a laptop)

Sometime after that, the employee’s house was burgled, and the veterans’ data came up missing.

The employee, according to the news-piece I saw before leaving work today, is “on leave.” Why is the employee not fired? Or at least suspended?

Those of you in the know - what would be the result if a military person had done this? I keep wondering if it was really stolen, or if it was … deliberately mislaid… you know, where someone who paid a ton of money could find it. Have I gotten too cynical in my old age? Turned into a conspiracy-theorist in spite of my best efforts?

And should we be worried, that somewhere out there, someone has a disk that potentially contains data on all veterans from 1975 and later? Exactly the kind of data that identity thefts are happy to come across?

The VA has set up a hotline (1-800-FED-INFO) and a website for our further edification, or in case you have concerns that your identity has been stolen as a result of this fiasco.

1.) Detailed Recruiter: “Not quite what I had in mind when I answered the online ad for two dominatrix in uniforms.”

2.) Sgt Fluffy: “Phyllis Diller and Jacylin Smith on the set of “No time for Sergeants II””

3.) MAJ Loggie: “Paging Mr. Powers, The new line of “FEMBOTS” have arrived for your inspection”