Keeping it Real

Explicated in detail by the fine Deebow of BlackFive I knew of guys at the RAG based at NAS Miramar where they pushed through the first of the females; one was Pink Sheeted twice (DOWN flights) which normally caused review and often washing out of the community. The instructors were told she WOULD PASS, no matter how many flights it took. So, she moved on, and shortly thereafter auggered in a F14 during carrier workups. Loss of a life, an expensive aircraft, but some weasel gets to polish his crack at a star, because he was a good social 'engineering' worker. BS. Most folks know there are important differences between the sexes, but our erstwhile 'betters' insist on silence so that they can once again demonstrate the disasterous results of grrl power. Institutional irrational ineptitude, another symptom of societal decay.

For me, it is the wife, Hammer5 (aka H5). No it is not Jesus - He is my Lord, my Savior, not my buddy. There was a time when I was in that there were a few guys I was close to, but once you get out, have your own families, you just don't see that much of each other. That is just life. H5 was reading some of the comments over @ MMSL, and was cracking about how boyfriends and girlfriends have an opinion. That is kind of like a REMF having an opinion on how close the CAS was landing during a firefight. If you haven't been there, just stay quiet so you don't embarrass yourself. For his part Vox added some specifics of what you can count on a best friend to do. A classic for me that I have discussed with my daughters was - "Do you trust that person to reload for you and cover your 6 in a firefight?" If not, they are not marriage material. That means that you can trust them explicitly because:::> they are trustworthy (love that word), tough, level-headed, a...

I'm going to come back and expound on this at some later date, but we should have a simple rule for the shooters that we task with finding and killing/capturing bad guys. Simply put, if we tell them to spend treasure, and risk blood, the hunting license should never expire. Never. Once someone is on the list, they stay there. Just like every other mission a unit is assigned, they complete the mission, and guys rotate through the unit, but the mission remains. It was BS when I was in, and it has probably been BS since the first guys picked up weapons and identified enemies - something changes politically, and magically we are supposed to forgive and forget. BS. Take that one giant step further, and make the enemy the kind of monster who kills civilians, hinds behind them, and wears no uniform. If they are bad enough for us to name them and put them on the list, they should know that we WILL NEVER STOP. Thus, if they are a dead-ender, let's just help them along to the...

Don't know any of the men on the ground, but I've talked to several veterans over the last few days, and I have had my fill of blatering BS from talking heads. If you are surrounded, heavily outnumbered, and know there probably isn't a QRF or relief force going to reach you before the scum over-run the position, we concur that we would seriously consider calling whatever is the current equivalent of "Broken Arrow", and invite my brothers in arms to drop everything they have on our location and kill as many of the enemy as they can. I'd also rather a funeral pyre than to have my remains drug through the streets by a mob of backwards goat-rapists. Knowing that there was a Predator overhead, we had the tools in place for precise targeting. Would any of us really made the call that would have ended our lives? None of know for sure, but we owe it to folks we send downrange to make that call if the situation gets that grim. The satisfaction with calling to ...

When you train firearms squad tactics, you learn to call reloads, and you learn to keep track of how many rounds you have in the clip. The first time I was shooting a live-fire exercise and burned too much ammo, I came down to my last clip - and called "Last Clip". It left a knot in my stomach. It makes everyone on your team more aware, perhaps on edge. I know the saying;"Make it count!" True enough, but there is a finality to the circumstance. You're done, or you are done. Either way, as Chris Gardner says, "The cavalry is not coming." In that moment, you have to be OK with whatever comes next. Hammer5 and I have called, "Last Clip". It is stressful, I don't like it, but this is where we dig deep, trust our training, and advance. Never give up. I'm going to dig deep and then - I am bringing the Hammer.

Priorities are what you do, not what you say. If your priorities are jacked-up, that is fix-able, we all have moments when we loose track of the objectives. The real PROBLEM is when folks have jacked-up priorities and are proud of their supposedly squared-away life. Pride kills; people, relationships, opportunities. In the interest of clarity, let me just lay it out, and I'll come back later and spell out why this is the way that it is: #1 God Almighty [If you Don't Believe, then whatever is #1 You?] #2 Spouse - if you have one #3 Kids- if you have them #4 Work/Service/Passion - everything in Life that you juggle For followers of Christ, we need to clear up a couple of things; the most egregious is when people think 'ministry' goes under #1 - which means it comes before spouse and family - I call BullSh*t. It belongs in category #4. The second part of that 'ministry' doesn't mean what most people think it does, but that is a separate discussion. ...

BlackFive posts this, along with the link to the AllBlacks doing one of their Hakas. It has been a while, so I went back and looked up Hakas, and their background and history. http://www.blackfive.net/main/2012/08/kiwis-give-a-farewell-haka-to-a-fallen-comrade.html Grim and Beautiful.

It may just be my pet-peeve, but folks who have not served using military metaphors glibly without an appreciation of what they mean to someone who has served their country in uniform. Case-in-point, guys (or gals) using "Band of Brothers" to reference random groups of their friends or acquaintances. Listen up! Just because you had beers together or played some game with some folks does not make you anything like a "Band of Brothers". When you serve with someone, before you ever earn the right describe yourself with some appellation, you train, you drill, you sweat, you suck it up, you miss meals, you miss sleep, you keep the pace, you DON'T GIVE UP. Sometimes that means picking up the slack for a buddy, encouraging the guy who is faltering even when you feel like sh*t. In the normal course of realistic training, there is going to be pain, injuries, and blood; and that is just training. In an operational environment, folks go down range, they go over th...

There are some things that just take you by surprise.  I never expected to become so familiar with cancer treatment regimens this year. It is not the kind of place that you take field trips to visit; but when you sit down in the waiting area of a cancer treatment facility, you come face-to-face with how people cope (or don't cope) with the very real possibility of their own death. I have seen the faces of fear, resignation, determination, peace, and most sadly, the vacant stare of someone who is already checked out. There really is no way to understand the cancer experience unless you have walked that path; even then, Hammer 5 and I are walking this path as family members who are providing support.  We're not at the center of the storm, but we have a pretty good view of the havoc brought by the storm. Sitting down in the waiting area during one of our many medical appointments, this whole season became that much more surreal when we sat down next to a dear ...