“Back when I was tail gunner, I was so scared. On our last mission, we almost got shot down. Just one engine was still running and that got us over the channel. One of the waist gunners got shot up real bad over the target and was bleeding like a stuck pig. He was screaming ‘oh god Jesus it hurts! Help me! Help me! Help me! Help me! I don’t wanna die!’ So I ran up to him to put on a tourniquet and he was still bleeding like Niagara Falls, and so I finally I lost my temper and yelled: God damn it you stupid son of a bitch! Stop squirming so I can tie off this fucking tourniquet! We had to crash land because the gears were all shot to shit. I forget how many bullet holes they counted in our bomber. ten of us went out and three of us came back. Glory, glory hallelujah and all that.”
“Holy shit, dad. Had no idea.”
“Yeah, and when I finally got back here, your mom wanted a divorce.”
“No fucking way!”
“Yes, way. Being alone and pregnant while I was away for a long time was too much for her, I guess.”
“But you told me mom died when I was young.”
“Yeah. That was a lie. Sorry. She found a better man and left me. At least we stayed together long enough to make you though.”
“I’m not sure what to say to that except thanks for being honest.”
I decided it was time for a change of scenery. I bid my dad good night and fell asleep on the couch.
The next day, I went to Shepherdstown because I wanted to try the food at the new Vietnamese restaurant there. It was nice to see all the hippy chicks milling around the college. I could smell their fear though. Hastily shuffle enough souls off this mortal coil and the rest are scared you’re about to do the same thing to them too.
I looked like death and smelled worse, so I was left wondering why this pretty hippy chick was smiling and batting her eyes at me. Finally, some rando hippy dude cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted: EARTH TO MORON! SHE LIKES YOU! ASK HER OUT! It was nice to get such direct and useful advice. So I did ask her out.
“Hello, madam. You like nice. My name’s Thomas. What’s yours?”
“Alexandra. Nice to meet you. You look like nice too. Were you in Vietnam?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d like to hear more about it. I’ve been protesting the war with my friends because we think the war is stupid, pointless, and wrong.”
“I have a complicated response to that because I’ve been there. We should talk more soon.”
“We will. Here’s my number. Call me.”
“Thanks, I will. See you later, alligator.” Then I flashed the peace sign. I always liked hippies even though I wasn’t one. Just thought they were happy, chill people. I like that vibe. At the time, there was still a draft, which meant every month, thousands of American young men were forcibly sent off to war. Slavery is evil and forcing people to kill and die is the worst form of it.
So I ended up meeting Alexandra again later after I called her number from a pay phone. We ate pizza, and then she invited me back to her place.
It’s hard to describe how wonderful it feels for a man when a woman invites you to her bed. Before that, we smoked some joints and looked that the stars for a while.
Her room was pretty and smelled of incense. She had a lava lamp on the table by her bed.
It wasn’t too long before nature took its course, and we did the horizontal mambo. That felt real good. Gals always like to talk after sex, and so she did.
“So…did you kill anyone?”
“Yeah. Lots. Also, it is not polite to ask that question.”
“Sorry. I was just curious.”
“When you’re interrogating, it’s best to capture two at a time; a valuable guy and a worthless guy. You tie them to chairs so they’re facing each other. Then you shoot the worthless guy in the side of his head so the other guy can see all the blood and gore and bone fragments. Then you point a pistol in the other guy’s face and tell him: start talking or you’re next!”
“Jesus Christ! Jesus fucking Christ! Why are you telling me this? Are you a fucking psychopathic mass murderer or what?”
“Shooting one enemy in the head is better than napalming a village and killing a bunch of women and children. It’s war and my job is to help my side win. Also, we did just have sex, and so I thought I owed you the favor of being honest.”
“Well, thanks soldier boy. I still think you’re the scum of the earth for being part of a brutal war machine that’s relentlessly terrorizing people 10,000 miles away from here. People who never did anything to us.”
“The only reason I’m still there is because if we lose, the communists will burn down that village and kill everyone in it. I know what burning human flesh smells like.”
“Why the hell are you still in the Army? Wake up from that nightmare!”
“I have two years left on my enlistment and I always finish what I start. The war is not going well because our leaders refuse to understand the enemy. Win, lose, or draw, I’ll save everyone in that village. Nobody dies on my watch.”
“You really care about the people there, don’t you?”
“Yeah. They saved my sorry carcass more than a few times. I don’t know how I’m going to adjust to civilian life. It’s just way too different from what I’m used to.”
One of the waist gunners got shot up real bad over the target and was bleeding like a stuck pig.
“help him!”
Dobbs yelled over the intercom, “Help him, help him, help . . . the bombardier.”
Confused, Yossarian answered, “I’m the bombardier. I’m all right.”
“Then help him, help him,” Dobbs begged. “Help him, help him.”
And Snowden lay dying in back.
It’s been 24 years since I read Catch-22. The Memphis Belle film and the original documentary had more of an impact on me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZeME80Q_ow
I saw a clip the other day of new Marines getting a lecture about 9/11 because evidently very few people under the age of 30, even military recruits, know about it.
WW2 ended 40 years before I was born, and by the time I was 12, I probably knew more about it than 95% of American adults.
If I can ever get Retired Rambo on Zoom he will tell you stories. He was a sergeant in Vietnam.
Today is the 79th Anniversary of the bombardment of Iwo Jima.
Before the days of instant communications we watched the Newsreel presentations at the movie theaters. We saw the war footage about 2 weeks after the event.
For Universal Newsreels in the 1940s, Ed Herlihy narrated editions describing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Allies’ early setbacks against the Axis powers, the turning of the tide of World War II, the death of President Roosevelt, the execution of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the detonation of the first atomic bombs.
Though I was just a tad us little kids supported the war effort by cheering as the US was kicking ass. 10 years after the war was over I got my own Ike Jacket and brown shoes.
Fourscore, when I think back to how life was when I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s it feels like an entirely different thing.
I can’t imagine how many changes you have seen.
+ John Lithgow
Been so long since I saw that movie that I forgot he was in it.
very few people under the age of 30, even military recruits, know about it.
Calling bullshit here, unless ‘know about it’ is doing a lot of work, and doesn’t simply mean ‘know of it’ but then you’re opening a whole can of worm regarding what is the minimum one must know about something in order to claim they ‘know about it’ which gets pretty circular and useless.
Or if ‘people under 30’ counts every living person on the planet under 30, not just ‘murican kids of military age. even then what is ‘a very few’, even a tiny percentage of every living person on the planet under 30 is going to be a huge number of people.
***
A new video released this week showed multiple young Americans expressing apathy over the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 American civilians, with one even asserting that younger generations “hate the military” and “hate America,” which is why “nobody cares” about 9/11 and the U.S. “deserved” it.
***
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2022/09/video-young-americans-say-nobody-cares-about-9-11-they-hate-us-military-and-us-deserved-it/
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1197055903/for-a-new-generation-of-marines-9-11-is-history
***
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. – It’s still pitch black and Marine recruits are scurrying around under garish spotlights, stacking their weapons and packs, all under the constant screams of drill instructors who loom over them.
Soon they’re filing into a cavernous auditorium. A long, surging stream of shaved heads and green T-shirts. They take their seats and get ready for a history lesson with Staff Sgt. Mark Anthony Ross.
“By a show of hands, who was born after the September 11th attack … most of us right?” Ross booms. “Do we know what happened during the 9/11 attacks? For those of us who may not know what happened, our country was under attack from the terrorists, make sense? They came within our borders and attacked us from the inside.”
***
So yeah, a great many young Americans are either ignorant or apathetic about what happened that day.
Ohh a video with multiple people saying stupid things, that’s pretty conclusive, I rescind my Bullshit call.
It’s still remarkable that there are many young Americans who both join the military and are ignorant of 9/11, which is the entire reason why the US has been at war in the Middle East my entire adult life. I see you chose not to address that for some reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polls_about_9/11_conspiracy_theories#National_opinion_polls
I, too, have a thing for hippie chicks. I can’t do the smell of patchouli though.
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-call-of-patchouli.html
Tail gunner
OT… enjoy a deep-dive into one of the most brazen boondoggles I’ve ever heard about.
I’m amazed he got this around city council. They must be pissed at losing out on such an epic grift.
Son…..Now THAT is some impressive, above-board, in-your-face, graft right there.
JFC. NYC is determined to destroy itself.
Something…something…too big to fail…something…something
Gerald Ford, PBUH, disagrees.
The Late P Brooks gives some advice to Lackadaisical in the ded-thred that I just have to correct. He suggested using compression fittings and new line to splice in to replace old, rotted brake lines. Don’t use compression fittings, use flares unions. It is possible for a compression fitting to fail under braking pressure, especially a more modern ABS system where the ABS pump actuates. A flared union will hold significantly more brake line pressure and is nearly as simple/cost effective to install. Compression fittings are ok to use when replacing rotted fuel line (where the line pressure only hits about 60psi max), although a flared union would also be superior in this setting as well.
Two words, my friend…..just two.
Swage Lok.
I would get a set of hard lines from Napa with a bender and a flare tool, it’s not too difficult to replace the rusted out lines.
Sharkbites.
Sharkbites makes auto parts?
Great for water lines. Maybe not for your brakes.
New-ish McMansion owners at the outskirts of town backed up to a forest are mad an apartment development is planned in their back yard. 🙄
Kinda like when Dave Chappelle found out he was getting Section 8 in his backyard ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ_Gsq5QsdA
Chappelle followed through and purchased a lot of land in his neighborhood to keep it from happening.
That’s respectable indeed. Putting up his OWN money rather than misusing taxpayer money.
Guess they should have bought bigger lots.
The tiny airport here in Everett WS is expanding. I eagerly await they gnashing of teeth from people who bought land near the airport when the number of daily flights and the size of airplanes increase.
No sympathy from me unless there was a law protecting the immediate vicinity of the residences from expansion of airports/housing, etc.
Let’s see how unhappy they are when they sell it for airplane hangars.
My dad was career USAF and as a result my parents were happy to buy a place close to the airport for cheap. Right now they’re just far enough away for the city to not pay for home soundproofing when the airport last expanded, but they’ll probably be within the radius the next time it does expand. Not that the noise bothers either of them, or will bother me if/when I inherit the house.
I would be upset if someone built on my land.
Oh, how I laughed.
an AI summarizes Jaws: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W58zNJb8qRs
Ha!
I watched an other one: Titanic
https://youtu.be/xmx3RIMUI5Y?si=I_VRaWYCDJCqtCdb
Train misses truck by a hair:
https://youtu.be/YWKLzeIkHRk?si=qGdxmtxPQmwl5I3A
Whoa! That could not have been any closer.
Narrowly misses? Is that how she describes it? Yikes.
Australia?
Guten morgen Glibs!!
🍖☕🌞
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xS3GiUAvjJ8
🎶🎶
90s overload 👍
I was expecting Falco or something.
Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?
Good morning, Sean, rhy, Suthen, and TO’G, and good afternoon, Pie!
Back to work for about half a day, then a dental check-up. 🦷 😕
Mornin’, Ralph.
Don’t fall for that no lead vest thing.
https://www.wfmz.com/news/area/southeastern-pa/chesco-man-charged-in-bucks-cockfighting-ring-49-animals-rescued/article_6150f428-cf4e-11ee-9f81-f762d85248f4.html
Local news. 🐓🐓
For Rhywun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_DD2f2jmXg
Gah TW please
My apologies.
There’s a YouTube ad stealing Jordan Peterson’s voice as narration. Some anti-dementia supplement. 🤦🏻♀️
Took a spill on some ice this weekend. In between the trailer and the truck. I went to pivot to get in and on my rear I went. Luckily no damages other than Mrs. OBE poking fun afterwards. It was the one area I forgot to salt of course and the majority of snow/ice patches were nearly all gone.
Don’t do that. A tiny misstep can result in some forever problems.
G’morning!
Nothing like a decent night’s sleep, a happy dog, and good covefe to put you in a good mood.
Nothing like a decent night’s sleep – must be the ill gotten government money
It makes much better pillow stuffing than buckwheat hulls, that’s for damn sure.
Yeah, they’ve closed off half of the parking — I can only assume Moobs will be by today to tell us how we need to vote for him since he’s giving us OPM.
Flip em off for me, pls.
They’re only allowing 300 people into the room with him, but I can from my cubicle.
🙂
suh’ fam
whats goody
It’s a good day to sleep in apparently.