Cheers!
Veteran’s Day has changed a fair amount, for me, over the years. It started out with me thanking Dad and Uncle Jack for what they did.
Dad, 1946
Uncle Jack, 1943
Then I joined up, and it was mostly a day of “Hey, I am one of them now!” … but not in the same league.
Then Bosnia, then Afghanistan, then Iraq. Suddenly the day was filled with meeting up with, or calls to my buddies from old units and the like. I really was one of them now!
This year, it is changed again. Afghanistan crumbled, and most of the people I worked with there are dead or have gone to ground somewhere. I don’t feel like talking to my old Afghanistan buddies, because it is still too bitter and too soon.
I suppose someday I might get back to enjoying the day, but today I am just going to gnaw on some boneless wings from a local place, and hoist a couple of strong beers.
Comment section is open.
*waves at Swiss*
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/bloomberg-burns-another-2-million-on-virginia-elections-yields-a-negative-roi/
🙂
That’s not very much.
But if I had to spend 2 million I bet I could spend it on way cooler stuff and get a similar roi.
I’d buy about 3 million tacos.
You can get a taco for $0.666666666 {and so on to infinity} USD?
Are they edible?
approximately yes. edible? marginally.
Your ROI would be a horrific case of the runs?
worth it
The headline isn’t really the big deal.
That’s a big deal.
It will be a big deal if they break the mold and actually pass legislation rolling back the big Dem gun control push.
Rather than saying “Thank you for your service.”, I’ll say “I’m sorry we sent you to those hellholes.”
Thank you. That sums up how I feel, but was having trouble expressing it.
Same.
Thanks for taking your turn on the wall. Sorry it was the wrong wall.
Does veteran include only all those who served in wars or just served at all?
Generally served at all. Can depend on for exactly what purpose,
but I at least have heard the phrase “wartime veteran” if the
distinction wanted to be made.
Well, we have been at war (for practical values of war), without any appreciable breaks, since 1941, so I’m not sure “wartime” really adds much any more.
I don’t mean wartime so much as actually going somewhere where there’s fighting.
Sometimes “combat veteran” is used. Again, only if for some reason
a distinction needs to be made. Note that anyone who has served
is a “veteran”, but not necessarily a “wartime” or “combat” veteran.
I have seen distinctions between Vietnam Era and Vietnam War veterans and now same with the more recent. I would fall under the WoT Era, not veteran according to whoever is making these distinctions. I think it is disingenuous and diminishes persons that didn’t get their line number plucked for deployment but still served the effort in a different capacity.
Yeah, one of my uncles was a Vietnam war veteran. He spent his time
with the sixth fleet in the Mediterranean.
My Dad was a Korean War veteran, he spent his time in Arizona.
I didn’t ever even think of it until it was mentioned at his funeral.
The government defines specific periods of time as what counts
as wartime service. They also define theaters. Mostly affects veteran’s
benefits. I’m in a different category for VA health care than I might
be otherwise due to my time in the desert.
I have a conflict of interest in noting, wartime, combat or otherwise, veterans don’t typically get the choice of where they serve. I have 2 NDSM, the GWTSM, and AFRM with mobilization device. I went were I was told, but never left the US.
Veterans Day free meals etc
I got up this morning at 2:30 AM, took Mrs F to the local airport and dropped her off close to 6 AM. Anyway, I went into town for breakfast, always stop at Perkins, without realizing it being Vets Day. I got the free Vets Day breakfast, bacon, eggs, and pancakes. I left a bigger tip than usual for my free breakfast, had to pay for the coffee though.
I’m still bitter that 60K of my generation died in VN for no reason other than to satiate some politicians’ egos. . Worst of all they didn’t learn anything.
We had 8 in our VN buddy group. 2 have died, 2 were unfriended, the other 4 have drifted apart, though I’m still in contact with them. The only thing we had in common was VN, memories fade.
You left off “…and neither you nor the country got anything for it.”
yep.
Well said pistoffnick.
Cheers.
This Veteran’s day seems to be drawing more attention than usual. Maybe I’m just oversensitized to media takes lately.
Yeah. Was just thinking that. I never paid much attention to it before.
It’s just not you. I thought of my 6th great grandfather and his role as a drum major in the Revolutionary War today. That thought led to how much my family has given to this nation and how this nation does not give a flying fuck about that. *Not all the people of course.
I’m surprisingly well today, given last night’s zoom. I can’t
decide if I should go get free lunch or do something with
some of the pile of beef in the freezer.
I should work on my order for more spices and stop
watching the trial. Maybe do some recreational reading.
Spices? Watcha gettin’?
Anyone here ever try Grains of Paradise? Saw them used a few times on Alton Brown years ago and I’ve been intrigued ever since. Never actually pulled the trigger and bought any though….
Yep. Think of them as a pepper substitute, smaller and a bit harder to grind. Back in the long ago, they were used as substitute for black pepper, because at the time the grains of paradise were cheaper. That is not the case now.
They’re also traditionally used in some styles of beer.
Thanks. They’re expensive but not fennel pollen expensive (seriously, I was going to try to make authentic porchetta at home but screw that). I might just have to give GoP a try then.
Another interesting pepper substitute is papaya seeds. A bit more difficult to buy, but if you like papaya, save and dry the seeds next time you buy one.
Yep, I have used them in beer a few times.
Sweet italian sausage seasoning, turmeric, peruvian
kebab seasoning, dill weed, guajillo chile flakes,
kosher salt.
I’ll need to check our levels of ancho, chipotle meco,
and lumbre chili powders and a couple of other things.
The jalepeno powder looks interesting.
I feel ya.
Went to a hole-in-the-wall diner for a greasy breakfast. Guess a lot of vets had the same idea. That’s about the extent of it for today I think.
The Willow Trading Post is offering free on-menu meals today for current and former military members. That will be our observation.
The social club I pay too much money to with all the restrictions
offers free lunch to veterans today. I went last year, but
mostly feel like just sitting around today. So I’ll probably just
work up something here.
I hear ya.
I come from a long line of US Veterans with someone serving in nearly every war in US history (forget the fictional Lt Dan reference).
I’m sure they were glad to defend America and its principles as I was.
As we progress into Civil War 2.0, my family is still here to defend America and its principles.
Happy Veteran’s Day to those who survived their military service to America.
My generation is the first in my family to not serve (back to the revolutionary war). Some of my cousins’s kids are serving. Thank you to all the veterans, and as nick says above, I’m sorry about where we sent you.
Wow. Defense expert is showing video. Slow motion.
Grosskreutz raises his hands. Rittenhouse then lowers his
weapon, after that, *then* Grosskreutz rushes him.
Either just a defensive raising of hands and not a surrender
gesture at all, or a false surrender if I ever saw one.
I really looks like a false surrender to me.
I don’t see why Grosskreutz isn’t the one up on attempted murder here.
He’s pretty clearly the aggressor, at least as I see it.
The video is good…the questioning about timing is good except it shouldn’t be as boring. You spend an hour explaining 5 seconds, it gives a feeling that 5 seconds is a long time, at least to me.
When someone is pointing a gun at you and you are facing a realistic chance of being murdered, five seconds feels like forever.
That I get absolutely. I just think it could have been presented better for the jury to convey that. It is an extremely quick period or time that has a 1000 things happening in it. I didn’t get that from the testimony or rather, the defense’s questioning.
Grosskreutz still being alive also should be submitted as evidence that Rittenhouse wasn’t there with the intent to kill protestors. Grosskreutz clearly hadn’t been mortally wounded, yet Rittenhouse did not continue shooting.
+10000
Heroes are disposable when they are no longer useful.
Rudyard Kipling.
Perfect.
Cheers, veterans. Some of us GAF.
Also Kipling:
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, wait outside “;
But it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide.
Full thing here: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_tommy.htm
While this is more apropos for Memorial Day, 6,792 US military have died since Sept 11, 2001.
United States military casualties of war
I know it was especially brutal and the US was taking both sides of the casualty ledger in the Civil War, but it still always surprises me that that was the deadliest war in US history. 450 deaths per day(!), compared to 300 in WW2 and 200 in WW1 is unfathomable.
Even more so when you consider how small the population was at the time.
Indeed. That wiki article states that it consumed 2% of the population. 2% of the population today would be six million people. The only other war that comes close is the Revolution, at 1%, with WW2 coming in at third deadliest proportionally at 0.3%.
The numbers are biased by the lack of disease control.
I haven’t run the numbers but if you factor out deaths due
to disease in the civil war, I suspect the numbers even out.
Not that it matters much a hundred fifty years later if
the deaths were from a bullet or a bug. Just noting
that they’d have been lower with better medical care.
While true about deaths from disease, there were probably untold deaths that were never counted because it was the 1860s and apart from the Census, there was no running total of people in America. people didnt carry IDs.
Immigration records, census records, military pay records, and baptism records were some of few official documents to show you were alive.
Different cultures see and conduct war very differently. In a nutshell, some cultures see war as an act of intimidation. Modern western civilization doesnt see it that way so much. We see it as killing and crushing the enemy, no questions asked. Keep letting the hammer down, let the bodies and rubble pile up until the enemy concedes defeat. At least we used to…these days our wars are about grifting the American tax payer with no thought of victory in sight.
Happy Veterans Day to all the Glib vets. I know there are a lot of you.
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and becoming friends with a lot of vets through sled hockey. Unfortunately all of them were disabled, and that is very humbling. But they are some of my favorite people.
This Veteran’s day seems to be drawing more attention than usual. Maybe I’m just oversensitized to media takes lately.
It’s a diversionary maneuver, preparatory to fucking over anybody under the DoD umbrella who doesn’t accept their proper role as Chattel Property of Uncle Sam.
I had to bite my tongue yesterday on our all-hands with management as they slobbered over each other to make sure they gave thanks to the veterans. I was awfully close in saying “except those we are about to fire for being unclean”
Who the fuck ordered another helping of 1979?
Yikes.
Weak admin is weak.
Guess we’ll be sending some pallets of cash and arms, eh?
Oh, it’s been closed for years?
Never mind.
Yes this is what I get for commenting before reading the story. The hostages are Yemini staffers. Sucks for them.
I was going to say, if they had an active embassy in Yemen that would be where the real incompetence lies. You generally don’t maintain embassies in hostile war-zones.
We’re replaying the Carter years might as well have a hostage crisis too.
Courage!
Biden will likely hand-waive it away.
Welp, I pity my colleague that is on press duty this week.
Nothing on the US Embassy Yemen web site yet (the site can be updated from DC). Slow on the uptake, as everything in this administration has been.
Iran-Backed Militants Storm US Embassy in Yemen, Seize Hostages and Equipment — State Dept tells me it is ‘concerned about the breach of the compound,’ demands release of hostages & equipment
Oh. Well, ok then.
A happy Veteran’s Day to all our Glibs who served. One point of pride for this country is that even with “the draft” sidelined for ~40 years enough of our citizens have decided to serve for a period of their life to keep that involuntary servitude sidelined.
Also an adjacent Veteran’s Day thank you to those who were the children of service members. When I think about what my kids put up with compared to their peers I gotta throw a shout out to them and the other children of service members as well. In some ways the stresses on kids for the last 20 years is worse for the kids of Reservist/Guardsman. The communities around military bases can rally support for the kids because “everybody” is the same position when the Division deploys. For the reserve components, the children of a single family (or small group of families) is the only one feeling the stresses in their school.
Well said dbleagle. Military life is fucking hard on a family.
That was my kids…I was mobilized National Guard. Nobody else from the grade school had a parent deployed.
We have good friends and neighbors, though.
I’m a daughter of a career Army dad, but I was the youngest and thus didn’t have a lot of moving around to do. It was my brother who had to live with the uncertainty and absence of a Dad who was overseas in Vietnam.
I didn’t have a particular plan to work in defense, but after college it came up as an option, and by now that’s been nearly my whole career (now I’m DoE, but it’s defense).
I’m pretty sure Dad’s Army career influenced my own career choice.
My daughter thanked me today for her being a military brat but she was only 10 when I got out and she was too young to remember the earlier days.
My wife and I kept our neighbor and 3 kids safe and sane while her husband was deployed in the AF “reserves” for ~2 years. I was the handyman, grasscutter, and go to for emergencies.
My wife the confidant, child supporter, and mental health consultant.
They are good people. He was gone for quite while in one of those “mystery countries” in the Middle East.
The rewarded us with a beautiful Flag that was flown in a A10 framed with a picture. We have it hung prominently in our house.
My motherKs father was in the generation too young for WWI and too old for WWII. My father’s father was in WWII in France, “digging ditches,” my dad would say with slight disdain, although not necessarily directed at my grandpa. When I was 18-20 or thereabouts, I wore his dog tags.
My conception was inspired by the Vietnam draft. I had always thought it was cowardly and not very honorable, even when I was a kid. He derisively talked about my uncle (his sister’s husband) having gone and ridden a desk the entire time. I couldn’t figure out why riding a desk was bad if you were forced to go anyway. I don’t know if my uncle was drafted or enlisted.
When I was a child, I remember the elderlies in my family discussing WWII bitterly. They were convinced FDR knew Pearl Harbor was coming and did nothing because he wanted to get us into the war. They were still salty about WWI.
My dad died at 51 with a heart attack. My uncle died last year at 79 from complications of Agent Orange, but he suffered for a great many years from many different ailments related. He finally got a settlement, but I don’t know how much or when.
Being guided in the dorection of libertarianism has shown me the error of my rah-rah-sis-boom-ba fuck-yeah-‘Murka! attitude about war (and the death penalty), albeit I never really understood WHY we were sticking our nose in someone else’s business in the first place. Took me a long time to realize that war==money.
I have many conflicting feelings about the subject and my family’s involvement with the military because at this point, I’m convinced that enlisting would be the best decision my son could possibly make for his personal edification. He won’t. But I wish he would.
“…enlisting would be the best decision my son could possibly make…”
I was one congressional signature away from going to the Air Force Academy when I realized I REALLY don’t like being yelled at.
Instead, I listened to the stories my cousin had during his time there (demerits for improperly tucked bed sheets, etc.). I’m convinced not going was the right decision for me.*
*My cousin retired with full pension and benefits at age 45 though, so maybe I didn’t choose unwisely
I’m convinced that enlisting would be the best decision my son could possibly make for his personal edification
In our wokified military, I wonder if that’s still true.
I believe the worst rot is in the officer corps, given the system (and environment) that has developed post WWII. Lower rank officers still seem to be pretty straight arrows, but the system demands that they accept being warped to get promoted. I hope it is far worse in the institutional side of the Army that I see, versus the operational side. The woke stuff is just the latest fad in the process of that corruption. Since the military is big, and highly values tradition, real acceptance of the woke crap will be very slow. If the push stops, I don’t think it will have much momentum to work its way deeper in. Of course that’s a big “if” on whether or not the push will stop.
Took me a long time to realize that war==money.
A lot of libertarians take this conclusion, but I can’t see why as the more apparent reason should be even more apparent to libertarians than to all others: control. War is dispute resolution for irreconcilable differences, therefor it is the path for politicians who prefer getting their way. Sure, there are many war profiteers, and many of these do tend to push for war, or at least hype up the dangers that necessitate purchasing their services, but war is not about money, not in the modern world. If it were only or primarily about money, we wouldn’t be going to war as frequently, as it is far easier and more profitable to plunder your own nation through peaceful means. Hell, right now there are factions in Congress plotting on spending more money in a single bill than was spent on the entirety of the twenty year war on terror.
War provides justification for the expansion of the state.
They were still salty about WWI.
Damn, I like your family!
Potentially of interest to those who have served and are interested in free beer:
Extreme Beer Box: Veterans Day (2021) Giveaway from BeerAdvocate
Yeah, not giving BA a copy of my DD214…with SSN on it.
Will need to provide their full name, shipping address, email, branch of service, rank, occupational specialty code….
You can skip the DD214 it seems.
I am retired….
Any reason you couldn’t redact the parts you don’t want them to see?
Worst that happens is they ignore it. Best is you get some beer.
Jealous.
I should get something for helping pay for all the bombs and guns.
You do, it’s called a tax bill,
enjoy, American!
Hey all you vets out there, Tall Cans to You! I missed the draft by an inch, you enacted my labor, and I thank you all!
/Cheers!
And a most Happy Veteran’s Day to all of them we have here, which seems like quite a few. I admire your courage and conviction. When I was younger and rudderless I made it as far as visiting a recruitment office, but backed out because I didn’t think I was made of the right stuff. To those of you who saw it through, cheers.
You must have had a terrible recruiter! A friend of mine was a former recruiter and even after everything I know of how it all goes, he could still convince me to sign on the dotted line.
Was it me? I was the world’s worst recruiter. I was more of a true believer at the time, and thought the Guard would sell itself. Turns out I was wrong.
Truth be told, looking back I’m not quite sure why I didn’t get the full court press much harder. There were of course some follow up calls at the time, but not pressure that I’d say was inordinate. Maybe the recruiter got the same sense I did about my fitness for the modern military….
Maybe your recruiter had already made mission (quota) that month. “Make mission go fishin”
Seconded — I was trying for the Naval Academy route (they hauled me up there between Jr. and Sr. year in HS based on PSAT scores), but was just too scrawny (inadequate weight for height). In hind sight, if I were as committed as Adult Me would tell Teen Me he should have been, I should have been working out starting around 8th grade.
As such, I’ve never really tested myself for physical or mental courage and always have to wonder. Those of you who have signed up and served — regardless if you had to stand a watch in peril or not have my respect for the commitment and courage that shows. All the best.
If I had the resolve and knowledge of the world I have now and could go back to 8th grade I would I would have graduated college a year after my cohorts graduated HS, or sooner. I would never have set foot in a recruiter’s office.
I met with several recruiters, and they definitely pitched me hard, but it was all about money. This much to sign up, this much if you reenlist, this much saved up when you leave, and so on. I tested high, so the Navy guy really wanted me for the nuclear engineer program. This was the height of the cold war, the military was huge, and they didn’t seem like they really needed me. Not one recruiter ever said “join because your country needs you” or anything like it, which probably would have worked on me at the time.
Oh, and my Dad, who was an Air Force lifer and very happy with his military career, warned me to not believe anything the recruiters said.
Thank you, veterans. Glad you’re still with us.
*Top picture*
That is a dapper fucking gentleman, right there!
My Blues still fit!
You must have paid extra for the special non-shrink fabric. All my old uniforms have mysteriously shrunk. Haven’t been able to wear them for years.
I’m too big for my britches too. I kept 1 set of each uniform, haven’t opened the box since I sealed it 45 years ago.
Thanks to all the vets here.
I’ll pour one
outdown for you later.Binger seems like a dim. wit.
There is a reason for that.
Did the judge just let the jury out of the room again?? Oh boy
Another constitutional violation?! Holy Fuck…at least it shows how the State will violate your rights even when you aren’t the one on trial.
Little more nuanced than that I suppose…
Probably mostly for lunch time. They’re just continuing this discussion now.
Apparently hiring an attorney is evidence of bias. Ok. His argument was
slightly better than that, but it took the prosecutor a while to get there.
LoL. Judge just made a joke about the ships piled up unable to unload in the
harbor.
Well, using your 5th Amendment right to stay silent is evidence of guilt, so why not?
I watched that part. Being a Glib, I didn’t even blink when they mentioned an attorney was used as a go-between when the witness handed off video evidence. I find it not at all unusual for someone to hire an attorney whenever they deal with the police.
Is it just me, or is that prosecutor annoying has hell? I feel like he’s constantly trying to GOTCHA every witness for the most irrelevant things. It can’t be just me, the judge has this “What the fuck are you even trying to get at?” look on his face.
One last thing, did you notice the prosecutor is trying to downplay the “so called riots”. And the witness was like, “Oh it was definitely a riot.”
Yeah. I saw that part. I kept thinking it was entirely likely that the prosecutor
himself called them riots at some point.
Has literally no-one else been charged for anything? You’d think there’d be
charges for vandalism, arson, assault, battery. It’s not like there’s a shortage of video.
My favorite attempted gotcha was yesterday:
Prosecutor: “You said you ran towards the fire. What was so urgent?”
Rittenhouse: “Uh… it was a fire?”
In my fantasy universe:
[sometime in 2022]
Prosecutor [to firemen]: What took you so long? I called 911 like an hour ago to
report my house was on fire. Now I’ve lost everything.
Firemen: Yeah, that didn’t seem urgent.
“…hiring an attorney is evidence of bias.”
In Louisiana you have an absolute right to council if you are being questioned by the police whether you are a suspect or not. Council is specifically defined as friends, family or attorneys.
Almost no one knows this. If you try to council a family member or a friend and. you are not an attorney. you will likely be arrested for interfering with the police.
Joe has gone bye-bye.
Truly a gifted orator.
Stating the Negro League was okay but referring to Satchel Paige as a negro was unnecessary. However, that is the basis of all these race views now. We must recognize their color.
Did he mention that Satchell was a great ball player?
His handlers must get nervous as hell when he goes off-script.
I think on day 1 they did and then realized they have the media in their corner so it doesn’t matter.
He’s the President we deserve here in Clown World.
“His handlers must get nervous as hell when he goes off-script.”
In other words, if Joe isn’t shitting his pants his handlers are.
That’s just grandpa muttering pointless stories. Harmless unless people that hate you rigged a system to make him President.
“You ain’t black.”
Lulz.
That’s awesome. Amazing what you can do with GPS.
“I’d like to file my flight plan…”
That. was. Awesome!
Mayor Pete will step in and probably force the FAA to revoke his license.
I want to do something like that but my tail number is registered in my name, not an LLC…
CNN: Worst airline terror attack since 9/11.
JP keeps killing it.
People Who Fake Gluten Intolerance!
That was entertaining and a welcome break from politics.
The vast majority of gluten-intolerant people dont know what gluten is evidenced by labelling and advertising of various products. My favorite was a box of sea salt I saw in the grocery store that proclaimed in large red letters and an exclamation point that it was ‘GLUTEN FREE!’.
Half of the products in the store have that printed on their labels.
Technically correct is the best kind of correct.
My honey has no HFCS or artificial flavoring/color added.
As someone who has a mild gluten allergy, they theoretically put that label on packaging to alert customers that the company tries extra hard to prevent wheat protein contamination during food processing. Wheat is added to almost everything and you would be surprised what wheat is added to. Wheat products are added to quick rise yeast as a medium. Wheat products are added to ice cream as a thickner.
I get the skepticism of allergy claims but gluten allergies are a thing . for me it gives me 30 minutes of post nasal drip.
Its really annoying because I developed it later in life.
I dont expect anyone to cater to my allergy.
Thanks for you and your family members service. God bless the lot of you.
Yeah lets rush and get the kids vaccinated.
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/taiwan-blocks-second-pfizer-doses?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozMTYyNjE4MCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDM5MDE3NTAsIl8iOiIyRnNkWiIsImlhdCI6MTYzNjY1NTg3OSwiZXhwIjoxNjM2NjU5NDc5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzYzMDgwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.vPFeEJ_fyrrEE9YXDJiROMMAaWN2H0yix8OHcQ8w_AQ
Relevant.
Like Mo above, my mother’s father was too young for WW1 and too old for WW2. He tried to sneak off to join the Army for WW1, but was discovered and turned away. My father’s father was in the Army for WW2, but was already in his 40s. He had had his own construction company before the war made it impossible to get materials, so he was sent to build the internment camp at Tule Lake. As a reward for refusing to sign off on some bogus invoices, he was sent to the east coast to prepare to ship off to Europe, but luckily the war in Europe ended before he got on a ship.
My father served in Korea. On a lark he went to take the test for Officer’s Candidate School for the Navy, figuring it was better than being drafted. “By some miracle I passed.” Then he was sent to Pearl Harbor. “What the heck? I don’t know anyone in Hawaii. This is going to ruin my social life. Best thing that ever happened to me.”
I’m behind again so…that blonde lady detective in the Rittenhouse trial can investigate me any day.
She can collect my evidence anytime she wants. I won’t insist on a warrant either.
Oh I missed that…rewinds live feed….oh she can rack my gun any time.
Pater Dean was in the Marine Corps in the early 60s. His artillery unit was one of the first to be sent to Viet Nam, shortly after he was scheduled for discharge. They asked him to stay and he declined (I suspect in part because he had young RC and Bro Dean toddling around). As I recall, only one Marine that he knew personally was killed in Viet Nam. In a drunk driving rollover accident.
To Mojeaux’s point, being a Marine was absolutely a good thing for him. Got him squared away following a rather dissolute college career (when I saw Animal House, I swear I had already heard half the stories from him, and most of the others he told would not have been suitable even for an R-rated film). The Commandant during Gulf War I was a friend of his – I think they went through OCS together – so after he saw him on a TV appearance during the leadup, he just . . . called him up. And got through.
I’ll be raising an extra glass tonight to the lot of ye.
Rather than saying “Thank you for your service.”, I’ll say “I’m sorry we sent you to those hellholes.”
Word.
Vin Scully gets it.
National treasure.
Yes he does.
House officially listed today with the realtor.
Going through some boxes last weekend, my wife hands me a metal and asks if it’s mine. It’s her father’s WWII Victory Medal. My chest hurt a bit as I explained it to her.
Medal
Aw. ?
Did you get a medal from the Jackson’s Victory tour?
It is interesting. I have been telling my kids in the past that if they join, join as an officer. Now that we have seen how that has been twisted, I tell them, join the Air Force, get your skills and get out – if you want to. Not because of me, or family tradition…do it for yourself if you want to do it.
Company “meeting” today. Lots of “thank you veterans” after a half hour of explaining what spineless pussies they personally are on the vaccine mandates (including the pos ceo saying that DoD had the right to impose a vaccine mandates on contractors ?♂️).
I’m going to go pick up some tools from Home Depot and flash my illgotten va card for a discount. Thank you real veterans who put up with hurry up and wait and a lot worse. Those also served, who served chow (so thanks TCNs).
Dad was in the Air Force between Korea and Vietnam.
He got stationed to the VLF in the Azores. His stories of misconduct are legendary and not in a good way.
I distinctly remember him telling how he and his Latino buddy would torture the Mormon recruit in the barrack by flicking their crabs at him.
It goes downhill from there.
My uncle Army in Germany same time period – sounded like good times.
The last person in my family who was in the military fought in the Napoleonic Wars. I guess my dad never got drafted on account of his PhD and family.
So, anyway, thank you for your service, and sorry about all the bullshit wars.
Don’t know if Swiss is actually lurking the comment section here or not, but this would be a question specifically to him and simultaneously in general to any active duty/veterans:
I think the general consensus around here is that Afghanistan was far past its sell-by date and needed to end. I also believe that the general consensus here is that Biden fucked things up *massively*, cost lives and dishonored people that sacrificed to try and build something there. My question:
To those that have direct experience, what was the best possible outcome for ending engagement and pulling out there? How should things have gone differently?
No direct experience, but I’d start with honesty. Seeing things as they are, not as we wish them to be. The lies about readiness and capability were stacked lie upon lie. Reality is a harsh disinfectant.
I don’t think there could have been a good ending given the assumptions of 10-20 years of being there (depending on when we left under this speculation). At best, better retrograde planning and destruction of records and materiel. What’s really depressing is after 40+ years of embassies being overran, and we still aren’t any better or prepared at emergency destruction. Seems to be, next time won’t happen again.
Great question. The pullout was obviously a fuckup of epic proportions, but what was the best case scenario, given that it had to be ended at some point?
The ATO was definitely past the “sell by date” and Gustave is spot on with the edifice built upon the lies over graft, drug production, Afghan security force readiness etc. The truth was well known in the military but the the leadership in the DoD, military, and three administrations didn’t speak the truth. When Trump gave the order to pull out the senior leadership should have planned the retrograde and executed it. We have experience since in 2011 we closed out the ITO in a much more competent manner. Here is a recent article about how the fix was in early on: https://www.aier.org/article/bitter-belated-afghan-vindication/
I wonder what the record about the bug out from Afghanistan will show in 2046 when the records become unclassified. It almost seems that Bagram was abandoned early to try and force biden to adopt a different course of action. I could go to work tomorrow and grab any four Majors at random from the crowd and they would come up with a better plan on how to retrograde out of Afghanistan. After all rule 1 is don’t give up a known large logistics hub on defensible terrain (aka Bagram) for a smaller logistics spoke surrounded by a city (aka Kabul).
The State Department is still lying about how many Americans and green card holders were abandoned to the tender mercies of the Taliban. That is a small but important point. The military is now characterizing the last days as NEO operations- and NEO operations are run by the State Dept and not the military. So Austin and GEN Milley are trying to flick the booger onto State, “Wuffa you mad at me? It was State that was in charge.” Cowards both of them.
I blame all three administrations for abandoning the Iraqis and Afghanis that worked for us. Bush for establishing the program w/o sufficient means to make it work. Obama for actively not supporting the promises. Finally, Trump for when he made it clear he wanted the war to end for not ensuring the program was functioning before he left office. This fuck up not only imperils those who trusted us (bad bet there) but will make it harder in the future to obtain needed support.
I do wonder what records will be left. For decades we tracked, by serial number, the weapons the Vietnamese were gifting/selling across the world after Saigon fell. The records for what was left in the Afghanistan were established. But poopy joe’s minions are actively scrubbing websites to remove the public record of what we left. I fully expect the classified records will (were?) be destroyed as well. In fact it wouldn’t surprise when when the FOIA requested are adjudicated all the classified records will be found to have been handled like Hillary’s record’s and are unaccountably missing.
And we express concern about our military getting woke-ified?
Makes sense when you consider that Bushes, Obamas, clintons, bidens all want to isolate America from any potential allies and future spies that might consider helping America.
I don’t know if this is a direct answer, Q, but (IMO) the original entry was a legitimate causus belli. I got in-country on the 3rd anniversary of 9/11. Even by then it was pretty apparent that Bin Laden and crew had simply move east about 10 miles, across the mountains and the Durand Line into the FATA. I was there for the October ’04 election of Karzai and, at the time, (1) we had our boot on AQ and Taliban’s neck, and (2) we had broad support in Afghanistan. I thought it was a foregone conclusion that we would get bin Laden (in Pakistan) using Afghanistan as our safe staging area….
…Then the Iraq invasion changed everything about the war in Afghanistan.
I can’t properly put into words how much the Iraq War changed things in Afghanistan. The shift in strategic focus, materiel, support, etc. all went to the – *ahem* – “WMDs” in Iraq.
If Iraq doesn’t happen, we get bin Laden in 2005, we stop droning the fuck out of people in the FATA, and we begin the steady retrograde out of the Graveyard of Empires with gratitude from the Afghans. Perhaps an agreed-upon presence at BAF to help keep things stable, but… alas – it was not to be.
Any random E-7 in the Army or Marines could have drawn up a better withdrawal plan. It would started with keeping control of the defendable airport. It would included transporting all Americans out rather than a horde of random Afghanis who showed up at the airfield.
I think the answer to that depends strongly on when we’re
starting from. As of January 2021 probably has a different
answer than (say) January 2017. Or January 2004.
I wouldn’t know. I never pull out.
Biden’s pull out doesn’t even come up to the level of ALL of the lying about the Afghan military we allegedly built. Not even close. There are far too many people that are far more culpable for not telling the ground truth about that; and that spans the military bureaucracy (uniform and civilian), three administrations and 6 or 7 Congressional sessions.
With no direct experience in afghanistan but as a military historian, there is no sure fire way to get an expected outcome after withdrawal.
America has had its best experience with clear goals, accomplishing those goals, and then leaving. Being friendly as possible to the nation we left helps.
Afghanistan has a long history of never being full conquered. They just are okay with living in the Stone Age.
One possible alternative to invading Afghanistan was biding our time and looking for Bin Laden, then once we find him kill him. Another is seize all known assets with any of those fucking Saudis who allied with Bin Laden.
Trump didnt start a new war during his 4 years and tried to pull troops out of afghanistan. Democrats and RINOs in congress blocked that. That tells me that America stayed in afghanistan for reasons that were not in America’s interests.
My dad volunteered for Viet Nam when he was 18. After 9/11 I went to the marines recruitment office and tried to join. They sent me packing because of a tattoo that goes up the side of my neck. Told me to try the navy they take anyone. Riding on ships wasnt what I wanted to do.
Lucky you didn’t go back in 2005 or 2006. They would have stuck papers in front of you to sign faster than lightning.
Holy crap… it looks like one of my local concert venues is NOT embracing the ‘vid madness:
It turns out that’s where the Dropkick Murphy’s, the Bombpops, and the Rumjacks are playing in February. Not sure if I have enough faith anymore to pull the trigger on tickets for something three months out anymore…
/looks at the Slackers/Mustard Plug show I had to miss last night.
Wife and I were looking to go to the symphony – and then saw all of the wokified “you must be provide proof of vaccination!!” safety of our patrons and performers, blah blah blah – virtue-signalling horseshit on their website when trying to buy tickets.
So much for patronizing the arts.
That’s why I haven’t been to the Nutcracker, as I usually do. I believe it’s the Kauffman Center itself that’s mandating it.
I found out there is another swing dance in the Boston area starting up.
Like the one that is running now, proof of vaccination and masks at all times required.
No thanks.
I’ll drive down to Pennsylvania once a month where I know of a dance which is normal.
Swiss, I like the pictures.
My maternal grandfather served in WW1 but did not see combat. He was overseas serving as a driver for the brass.
My father was a mechanic for the Army Air Corps during WWII, he was supposed to get shipped overseas but his paperwork somehow got lost and by the time it was found the war was nearly over. So perhaps a government screwup saved his life, and enabled my existence (and 4 other siblings ).
Thanks Swiss for the pictures. I’ve never stepped foot on a battle field, so it’s interesting to read your stories from your time in Afghanistan.
Part one and Part two of something The Winecommonsewer wrote about Armistice Day.
When I was in high school, I considered joining the military. I looked at Bill Clinton’s wars and considered what I knew, at the time, about the problems my one grandfather had with his veteran’s benefits. I decided against joining the military. When I look at the shitty things the government has done with the military, I think this was a good decision.
My paternal grandfather served over in Europe during WW2. My dad told that me that he wasn’t the same after the war because he saw so many deaths and also sort of bitter at the idea that he was drafted to fight in a war for a country that at the time, treated him as a second class citizen.
I had to step away from my home office because I cannot concentrate due to the noise coming from the bikers and “hot rodders” today. It is literally unbearable this afternoon.
“You know, we have a society here!”
/George Constanza
Well, it’s broken IMHO when so many people are just irredeemable assholes.
/rant
*performs sweet 250yd rolling burnout past Rhywun’s “home office”*
I’m doing it for veterans so if you hate that then you hate America, bro.
Hey, don’t knock my “home office”.
I think it was supposed to be a kid’s bedroom but I can’t imagine shoehorning a bed in there. It used to be my cats’ litter box room; now it’s full of dead electronics and my work desk.
My home office is filled with guns, ammo, and gear.
My Home Office is keeping women safe. At night.
My home office has a Christmas tree in it.
Jeez. I thought you liked loud pipes. I’ll stop now. *sniffles
Bagpipes? Love ’em.
They’re not cheap but these
https://electronics.sony.com/audio/headphones/headband/p/wh1000xm4-b
work great. Highly recommend if the noise is getting to you.
An excellent Veteran’s day to all who wish it, including the Vietnam War lurkers and the Gulf War lurkers. You know who you are.
Uh…shit goes back a lot further than that. I would say there was shit going on every minute since WWII. We dont hear about it all or people just forget, but it was there.
My family has a checkered pattern of military service. On my dad’s side my Great Grandfather’s older brother had come to the US shortly before WWI started. After Italy entered the war he went back home and was killed on his second day at the front. After the war my great grandfather came to the US with my grandfather in tow. On my mom’s side one grandfather was drafted but never got closer to overseas than Ft Sheridan, IL. Her mother came to the US as an Finnish au pair in 1916. Both my grandfathers missed WWII. One was an essential railroad worker, and the other damn near blind and asthmatic. All their brothers served overseas. Only one was killed. (He was a gunner in a B24 and the bombs exploded in the bomb bay- probably from flak.) One great uncle was an infantryman in Europe and used the GI Bill to become a dentist and he returned to the Army for a career as a dentist. My dad was in the sweet spot between Korea and Vietnam. He was in during the Cuban Missile Crises and was in the railyard supervising his tanks being loaded for movement to Florida when the Soviets blinked. Several of my uncles serve during Vietnam but only one served in Theater, and that was on a carrier John McCain was not on. My generation skipped the military except for me. My kids generation also skipped.
Sandman: “…. he was supposed to get shipped overseas but his paperwork somehow got lost and by the time it was found the war was nearly over. So perhaps a government screwup saved his life, and enabled my existence (and 4 other siblings ).”
There was a guy my age, also in the Bay Area, that got drafted, went to basic then went home on leave (Petaluma IIRC) to “await orders”. Two years to the day +1 after he was drafted he shows up at the Presidio to be discharged – the orders had never come. The Army started to make a stink, but just let it drop. That guy has always been my hero. I avoided getting drafted by joining the AF. My ex-Navy FiL would get pissed when I called myself a draft dodger.
So I gIt is the government so it’s bound to happen occasionally. My brother had a,terrible draft lottery number so he went to join the Navy, turns out he had high blood pressure. I was a bit too young for Viet Nam.
Swiss, you look like the barkeep from the Overlook hotel.
Happy Veterans Day, all you people who have lived a life I could not even begin to comprehend or understand.
HAHA! He does!
Bravo limey!
I was thinking de-boner British Naval Officer. [ducks and runs for cover]