thekirk
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I'm assuming you've developed some wondrous technique to ensure that the person in your sections who manages to get wounded is always the lightest and smallest one in it? Could you share it, please? Oddly, I've always taken the opposite view, which is that I train and plan for the worst-case scenario, which is that my biggest man will be the one hit, and the only one available to carry his ass off the battlefield will be the smallest. So, yes, that's precisely how I trained doing CASEVAC under fire. Silly me--Obviously, you know so much better than I do. I do wonder what "point" I was trying to prove when I was doing that while the units were all-male, though. Maybe you could enlighten me? Funnily enough, I never had a problem with the little guy being able to cope, until they forced women into our units. Even when I had to match a Samoan who weighed upwards of 270, in full kit, and his partner was a little guy who weighed 140 soaking wet, they always managed to do it. Might not have been a fireman's carry, but they got the body out of the line of fire, in training. When we got the ladies in, that expectation changed. You'd think that they would recruit field medics from among those who can pick up and carry the average-size casualty, but you'd be wrong. They don't.
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Who's the misogynist, between someone who wants to put people into harm's way who are inherently unfit for doing it, and the fool who insists that "gender doesn't matter"? Shall we start putting kids with Down's Syndrome into the Infantry, next? They mean well, and they want to serve, don't they? Shouldn't they have that right? Oh, but I'd be a hater for saying that was utterly inappropriate, wouldn't I? I must be prejudiced against the mentally handicapped, or something. I would contend that it's a peculiarly passive-aggressive sort of misogyny to put women into jobs that their bodies are not suitable for, in general terms. The issue under discussion is not whether some hypothetical female Olympian could do the job or not, it's whether or not little Suzy Jones from down the street ought to be doing it. To state that as a class, women are not suitable for use in direct combat roles is hardly misogyny, especially when you reflect the price they're going to pay to participate on a male playing field. There is no Ladies Professional Infantry Association running a separate battlefield, there's just the one we have. Which the enemy gets a vote on running, if I remember rightly... Fuzzy thinking and political correctness is going to be the utter ruination of Western civilization. Of course, I look at things like this, and I have to reflect that it may well already be ruined.
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You remind me of a lot of the people I used to work for, and from that, I'm going to assume you were probably a senior officer when you were on active duty. Most of them didn't listen, or pay attention to the issues either. That VW quote from my earlier posting? I actually got that from one of my field grades, as an example for why my fueler shouldn't have an issue changing tires that were twice as big as she was. Notably, the man was never, ever in my motor pool, or out in the field with us while something like this had to be accomplished. But, he was utterly certain that it couldn't possibly be a problem, because... His teen-age daughter could change the tire on her VW. Leverage? Technique? I had her using a jack stand to support the lug wrench, and put a six-foot extension on it. She'd be literally jumping up and down on the damn end of that thing, and still couldn't break the lock on most of those lug nuts. Either myself or the other guys could put the bar through the other way, and lift from the ground up to break them loose, and do so without breaking a sweat, with no extension on the cross-bar. Oh, and did they have any cute little battery-powered impact wrenches for us? Nope. Wouldn't buy them, either. At the time, I couldn't afford buying one myself, either--The only ones with enough power to do it at the time cost close to a thousand dollars, well out of the reach of casual "solving the Army's problem with my own money". As for why I was sending out vehicles on missions with one driver? MTOE, again an issue hacked off by some idiot staff officer who'd traded our personnel slots for something else. Read my reply to RETAC, for more on that one. When you're sending out vehicles for cross-attachment, and you don't have the manpower, what then? I was not at all happy that the unit we'd cross-attached to just decided to leave her on the side of the road, but I can't say that I really blame the company for doing that, either--It's not their job to keep vehicles that don't belong to them on the road, now is it? Especially for something that should be operator-level maintenance. You keep accusing me of claiming that the Royal Artillery is not as capable as it once was, turning the general point I'm making about this issue into some sort of personal attack on the honor of the British Army. If you insist on interpreting it that way, that's your look-out, not mine. My contention is strictly that this current fad for placing women into jobs they're unsuitable for has a price, and that price is a reduction in ability to cope with things when everything turns pear-shaped. Which, as I recall from experience and history, it has a way of doing when the bullets start flying. Oh, and as a side note? Flipping a tractor tire is a far road from putting a two or three hundred pound tire back onto an axle, and lining it up with the lug bolts. The one is not at all the same as the other.
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2 points, must be hell serving in an Army that has as many trucks as it has drivers and no one around to be an assistant driver - there shouldn't be any need to hump around anything, there will always be a truck... Second: so you had a problem and had to think of a way of solving it? as a senior NCO wasn't that your job description??? Retac, if you pay attention to what I wrote, you'd note that the issue was an MTOE one. I had 8 HEMTT cargo trucks and four fuel trucks assigned to me at that time. The personnel authorized to me? I was supposed to have four fuelers and a qualified NCO fueler to run that section. I had three. The cargo HEMTTs were supposed to be crewed by seven enlisted soldiers, and the expectation was that I'd be driving one of the damn things myself. My platoon leader was apparently supposed to drive himself around with the HMMWV. Should I mention that we had one radio, two SAWS, and a pair of M203s assigned, in order to provide security for an element that was envisioned to be able to support a battalion spread across a division-size area, in wartime? D'you see a few problems, there? I sure as hell did, and that's basically the same MTOE the unit took into Iraq in 2003. To fill the holes, they stripped troops out of the line companies in the battalion. There's also the problem of where you get trained drivers for a 10-ton 8X8 to serve as the assistant operators. They don't grow on trees, and you can't pick them out of the company at random, if you want to comply with the safety regs. I tried that one, for convoys: "Hey, Captain X, I've got a good idea--Why don't we train up some of the extra people you're sticking into my trucks as co-drivers for convoys so they're actually licensed on the vehicles?" "No. We don't have the time or money to waste on that. Find a solution." DId I mention that I was expected to do night operations under blackout conditions with precisely one trained operator, and one pair of NVGs per truck? That the safety regulations mandate two licensed operators and two sets of NVGs per vehicle for that? Let's not add in that I was never up to full strength, either manpower or vehicle-wise. Most of the time I was "fortunate" enough that only six of the HEMMT cargoes were running, so when we went to the field it wasn't that big a deal. Somehow, it always worked out that I had as many operators as I had vehicles, just due to blind chance. As to your second issue with what I'm saying, what the hell do you think I was doing? We tried the PT route, and got shot down. Where the f**k do you go, after that? As far as I know, there isn't anyone making magic wands that enable the physically weak to do the work of the strong, so what then? The equipment doesn't get lighter, or the torque values any lower on the bolts because the person doing the job is smaller and weaker than her peers. The fun thing was, I had three of my male HEMMT drivers on remedial PT around the time frame this was happening, one for overweight, and the other two because they couldn't pass the PT test. None of them had a problem with doing the work required. Hell, half the time when the young lady in question needed help on her assigned vehicle, I wound up putting one of the PT failures on it with her. Why? Because he was the strongest guy in the section, and could usually get one of those truck tires back up into the rack without using the crane, just by himself. Take a look at a HEMMT, sometime, with someone standing beside it for scale, just to get an idea of what that actually means. The tire storage is about five feet off the ground, and the tires weigh around 200-300 pounds. No crane. By himself. APFT "failure". And, yes, the irony of that never ceased to amaze me. The kid could bench a small car, but couldn't do enough pushups and situps, or make the run time fast enough to pass the damn test consistently. I'm sort of curious to know what you think would have been a solution to that set of issues. Because, if you don't have one, you sound like my bosses at the time, whose only participation in solving the problem was to tell me that we couldn't do additional PT, and that they wouldn't buy any additional "unauthorized" equipment that might make it possible for her to do her damn job. I'm guessing your solution would amount to "Well, you can't make it happen... You're a poor leader, then.". Here's a clue for you: You can't "lead" your way out of a problem that exists due to an actual physical deficiency. That's like me trying to "lead" my way out of my hair loss issues...
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It is an argument that has been lost, where it matters: The public is not going to open its eyes to the realities of the situation until something like Task Force Smith happens, and the evidence gets laid out for all to see, without the distortions imposed by preconceived fantasies. When that happens, it's going to be ugly, and I feel the responsibility will lie at the feet of those in positions of authority who forced this, and who will also likely evade accountability. Here's the thing: I once thought the issues were something that could be worked around, as well. I was a believer. I wanted the integration of women into the combat arms to work. I'd bought into all the fantasies, believed all the fairy tales--Although, at the time, I considered them valid theories. Then I actually tried it out, and had to be the guy making things happen. It took awhile, but the issues created by these policies finally created enough cognitive dissonance that I had to admit there are huge problems with this entire idea. Enough that I'm now of the opinion that as the military culture exists, especially in the US Army, it just cannot work. The system is too delusional, and refuses to acknowledge issues, or authorize possible remedies because those remedies would first requiring that they admit a problem exists. Where it breaks down is when the margins are gone, the materials handling equipment is either broken or not present, and reality has reared its ugly head. Your five-foot four 120 pound female fueler can't actually break the lug nuts on her assigned vehicle free, and is physically unable to horse the flat tire and spare around? No problem, in garrison--All you do is have one of the full-size, full-strength males who's working on his own truck take care of it, and use her to do something else productive. Then, you try to put her on some kind of PT program to where she can develop the strength to actually, y'know, do the job she's paid for and assigned to... Now, translate that out into the somewhat more realistic world of a training exercise, and you've sent her out on a mission to refuel one of the companies involved in a heavy equipment construction mission. Due to the geniuses who designed your MTOE, you have only the one operator for each vehicle, and she's now by herself when she drives the truck over some road debris, and flattens a tire. What happens next? She can't change the thing alone, despite extensive training designed to correct that issue--She's just totally lacking the necessary body strength to do it, despite passing her PT test with flying colors every damn time she takes it. Every one of her male peers can do the job of changing the wheels on one of their trucks, but she can't. What happens then? In a training exercise, you wind up having to jump through your ass, drop what you're doing and go look for her and her fuel truck after the report comes back from the company First Sergeant that he had to leave the fuel truck behind on LOGPAC because a.) he didn't have time to help her change her tire, and b.) it's not his damn job to keep a Headquarters truck operable and on the road. Translate that to something like Iraq, and in all likelihood, that truck is going to get left behind during the fighting because nobody has enough time or manpower to keep someone else's gear running. Then, you're out a damn fuel truck, and are essentially screwed until it gets replaced, because all you're likely going to recover is a burnt-out frame. That exact scenario happened numerous times during the advance north, to my certain knowledge. We lost one of our Volcano minelayers that had been shipped north on a HET when a bunch of the trailer tires got flattened for one reason or another. The female driver and co-driver were unable to change the tires out quickly enough, and the trailer got dropped in order to allow the convoy to move out on time. By the time the recovery people got there, the trailer and cargo were burnt to the ground. Extrapolate that to a combat situation a lot less benign than the post-combat move north into Iraq in 2003, and you're going to see that repeated ad infinitum. Now, do be noting: The examples I've seen are from the support realm. Up until now, nobody has been stupid enough to actually try putting women into direct combat roles, up where the bad guys are taking an active role in things, and the job is to directly deal with them. The issues of what happens out there on the edges of things aren't obviously apparent to the public, because nobody in authority considers them important. No matter how many times the guys like me tell them, they just don't listen, because they don't want to hear that their cherished theories don't work when they encounter reality. That fueler issue I highlight above? Do you think I wasn't in the commander's tent, trying to explain why it was that the battalion asset that I was responsible for wasn't capable of taking care of itself for an emergency as minor as a flat tire? Oh, but I was there, reamed up one side and down the other: "Why can't PFC Jane change her tire?" "She isn't strong enough to break the lug nuts, and can't move the tire around, either..." "What have you done about that?" "Well, we had her on remedial PT, until you and the First Sergeant told me we couldn't do that because she wasn't failing her PT test, and she's not overweight..." "Why didn't you send someone else with her?" "We only have the one fuel handler per truck, and the rest of the drivers were already tasked out..." "Why did you let this happen?" "We've talked about this before, ma'am, and you told me that I had to make it work, and that I had to treat the women just like everyone else... This is what happens when you do that." "Get out of my tent..." You tell the powers that be that there are issues with assigning physically inadequate personnel to jobs that require brute strength, and they respond by sticking their fingers in their ears and ignoring you. Then, when things don't work, they blame the people who've been warning them of issues, and accuse you of sabotaging their noble efforts at integrating women into the force. The demands placed on you doing this are maddening--They want the job done the same way, and as well as it always has been, but refuse to acknowledge that their desire to be politically correct has the one minor flaw, in that is completely at odds with reality. So long as you're talking a situation where the materials handling equipment is available, and/or it's possible to have someone else do the heavy lifting and strength-related tasks, women are fully capable of doing the job and contributing to the mission. The problems come in when you stick them in jobs that we know are going to have moments where those aids are unavailable, and that brute strength is an occasional requirement for mission accomplishment or survival. For a support, or combat support job, putting women into these jobs is generally survivable. For a direct combat role? It's utter insanity. And, the really fun part about it? You'll have just about as much luck talking to the leadership above you about it as you would trying to have a conversation with an inmate of a rubber room. They just won't listen. We see this demonstrated time and again, here in this thread. I particularly loved the precious allusion to the senior officers being the experts on this, too--How the hell do you think they'd even know? The silly bastards are hardly ever around when the work is being done, and generally exist in a bubble of self-assurance and semi-delusion about things like this. "Oh, my daughter can change the tire on her VW... Why would anyone have an issue with changing a tire in the Army?". Which sort of ignores the scale differences present. But, that's what they do--Ignore things that don't conform to the poor extrapolations they've made. They sure as hell aren't down making things at this level happen on a daily basis, which would likely enlighten them a bit. Another side to the die is what happens to the guys assigned to jobs adjacent to these mis-roled females. Not only do you have the problems of the females getting injured doing physical tasks that the men don't have issues with, you have the side-effects of what happens when the males are forced to compensate for their weaker sisters. They wind up overworked, at a minimum, or they wind up injured from things that probably wouldn't have happened if we hadn't chosen to assign women to these jobs in the first place. I lost one of my best junior NCOs to a back injury he got when he was trying to help load a truck and had the females he was working with drop their end of the load. I can remember more than a few like incidents over the years, although none with as dire consequences for the victims. The blithe certainty most possess over this issue is what I find staggering. "Oh, it's working... We've successfully integrated women into job X, things are going well...". The reality as experienced by those who are down at the level where the women actually are is generally quite different. You're not allowed to even discuss the problems, let alone take corrective measures that might work to reduce issues. "Hey, we need to have extra PT for the women we've got... They can't physically do the job they're supposed to be doing..." "Are they failing their PT tests? Are they overweight?" "No, to either question... But, they can't do the job they're supposed to be doing, either..." "Well, you can't punish them with extra PT. That's punitive, and unfair. Unless they fail a PT test, or come up overweight..." "They can't do their jobs... What am I supposed to do about it?" "That's your problem... Use your leadership to solve it." "?!!?!??" We, being the NCOs in my platoon and I, actually got in trouble for trying to get the females we had assigned to us to go to the gym after-duty on a voluntary basis. An EO complaint was filed, saying we were harassing them by doing so. It was about that time that we all said "f**k it", and just did work-arounds. The news stories that get published, and the breathless reports given by the staff officers responsible are always, always at odds with the experiences and opinions of the leaders down at the lowest level. Somehow, that never seems to be noticed. I had to sit through a very self-congratulatory briefing/class about two years after we "successfully" integrated women into support roles in the Combat Engineers, and the really mind-boggling thing was how completely they'd bought into the concept, and what they'd focused on as being important. None of which, I might point out, had anything to do with whether or not the women could physically do the jobs they were supposed to be doing. It was like they'd leased a piece of heavy equipment for a job, and then focused the analysis on whether or not to buy the damn thing for the company based on how it looked when parked on the job site, not whether or not it was doing what it was supposed to be doing. Which, in a long way, is why this crap pisses me off. I know, from bitter practical experience, what goes on when this sort of BS is pushed on the units by higher. There are pretty pictures taken, and people come down and say things like "Look at us!! We've put girls into the Combat Engineers!! We're so enlightened!! We are so cool!! It's just like your favorite storybooks and movies!! G.I. Jane is REAL!!" Then, the sonsofbitches leave the scene, their opportunity for fame and notoriety having been fulfilled, and they leave it to the idiots like me who have to try make it work. Make it work, with hands tied by unrealistic policy, and no acknowledgement of reality. Hell, I couldn't even get them to buy me the ratcheting lug nut tools that might have allowed the women we had to get those tires off--"Is it on the MTOE? Does the manual have it on the AAL? No? You can't have it...". There's a set of reasons why I was planning on dropping retirement paperwork the day I was eligible in November of 2001, and quite a few of them were related to this very issue. Then, 9/11 happened, and I stayed in for five more years. They're still in denial, system-wide. And, it would appear, world-wide.
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The Coming Of Firearm Confiscation In The United States
thekirk replied to LT Ducky's topic in Free Fire Zone
Probably because they agree with most of the same seditious crap you do. Wow, I never imagined the day when someone like Paul G. would get that on this site. Just mind blowing. Awww... Are you offended when a serving officer (supposedly) who has taken an oath to support and defend the basic document of this nation advocates the subornation and subversion of it, and gets called on it? Too 'effin bad, snookums. I had to listen to Paul's ilk and suffer silently for 25 years, prisoner of the UCMJ while the likes of him advocated things like doing away with free speech, the right to vote, the right for citizens to bear arms, and freedom of religion. You may think these clowns took their jobs out of patriotism, but the sad fact is that most of them do it because they want the raw power they get being officers, and would gladly take part in oppressing the rest of us in a heartbeat. And, I hate to say this, but it's not just the left-leaning officers who come up with this crap--I've heard the same bullshit coming out of the mouths of some of the Bible-thumping "conservative" types, who thought the Army and Federal government ought to be used to suppress those who don't share their beliefs. It's enlightening sitting in a van full of company and field grade officers, and listening to them discuss how the right to vote ought to be limited to the "godly", whatever the hell that means. Of course, the fact that I volunteered to drive them to the church of their choice on a weekend probably makes it my own damn fault, but there you are. Oh, and by the way? Those guys were reservists from across the US, all of whom had some years on active duty. I don't think any of them even noticed I was in the van with them--I might as well have been furniture, driving the thing. It's really amazing what you hear when you don't express an opinion, and let other parties think you're in agreement with them. Wow, you suffered in silence for 25 years? Bullshit dude. You sound like a jealous little person who could never be what they wanted. You sound like a retired Skywalkre. That whine, given you're constant use of the "I've been there mantra", makes all the years of your BS seem so deluded now. Were those big, mean officers mean to you. Does Paul G. have some unique perspectives? Yes. Last I looked it was his right. He isn't trying to force his opinion on us. There used to be a time on TN where people could disagree strongly on an opinion, but defend the other's right to have an opinion. Since TN has gotten rid of the majority of differentiating voices, it's become a lot different place. These days were long before you showed up. Gee, let's start this again, shall we? Am I the one advocating the subversion of the Constitution, here? Because that's what is being suggested, whether or not you want to admit it. Transliterate any of Paul's ravings about the 2nd to one of the other amendments, and you'd be singing a different tune. After all, what's good for one is good for the other, isn't it? Why don't we start with freedom of speech, or religion? I mean, nobody really needs the right to be a Mormon, or a Unitarian, do they? And, then, there's all that high-volume speech represented by a printing press: Shouldn't we have common-sense controls on that, too? How about the freedom to assemble? Doesn't the Internet make that one obsolete? An officer of the US military has taken an oath to support and defend the Constitution. As such, it is beholden on them to actually, y'know, follow the damn thing. There's a process for that built into it, you know, and were Paul on here ranting and raving about the need to make use of that process, I'd have no problem with it. Hell, to be quite honest, I'd even respect that. But, he isn't doing that, is he? His idea is that the Constitution is null and void, and that he and his ilk should simply ignore it, because it's obsolete or something. Fine example of keeping an oath, that. Frankly, I have the opinion that the right enshrined in the Bill of Rights to have absolute freedom of religion is probably suicidal, given the realities of dealing with modern Islam. Freedom of religion only makes sense so long as the religions in question don't have a basic tenet of ignoring secular law, and actively seek overthrowing secular authority in favor of that particular religion's authorities. However, unlike Paul, I'm not going to ever suggest that we ignore that amendment, and any changes I would advocate would start from making an amendment to the Constitution. Until such time as that amendment happens, I'll support and defend the Constitution as it stands, even if it makes little or no sense to me to do so. That's how you keep an oath, and why I have nothing but contempt for the forsworn. -
Shirt sleeves. Benign environment. Glacial pace of operations. Now, let's take that same crew and put them in a situation which more accurately replicates the "worst case": Add a foot of mud, full body armor and equipment because they're not operating inside of a secure FOB, and a situation where they're trying to provide fire support to a unit whose situation mimics what the Glosters were dealing with in the Korean War... The artillery unit I and my guys wound up helping out up on the gun line was under conditions a lot closer to that--We didn't have the luxury of sauntering up to the gun casually carrying the rounds in shirt sleeves, we were in MOPP2 and full gear at all times, including weapons. Along with the mud, the rain/snow, and a bunch of other general nastiness like wind. By the end of the first burst of rounds going downrange, I and the three guys I was with were damn near face down in the mud from exhaustion. There is no way in hell any of the women I served with and led would have been of any earthly use whatsoever on that gun line, not encumbered with forty pounds plus of field gear and God knows what weight of sticky clay mud built up on her boots. You can't base your manning plans based off of the best case and most benign conditions imaginable. Well, you can, I guess--But, you'd better be prepared for an awful lot of those oh-so-cute little soldierettes and their comrades in arms dying when the shit hits the fan. And, make no mistake--It eventually will. You may not mind the moral hazard, but I sure as hell do. My initial position with this issue was that we'd make it work, and I fully believed in the fantasy that there's no real difference between the girls and the boys. Practical experience, however? It's a huge error, and a colossal fraud that's being put over on these young women and men. The armies of the world are going to get away with it for only so long, and then there's going to be another Gloster Hill where we'll find out that there are damn good reasons this is a horrible idea. Not the least of which is going to be the rate of long-term debilitating injuries among the women we put into these positions. I wake up every damn morning with reminders of what goes wrong over the course of a lengthy career under the flag as an enlisted Soldier, and I'm pretty damn sure from the evidence I saw before me that the average woman wouldn't have lasted five years doing what I did as a young man, let alone make it to retirement.
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The Coming Of Firearm Confiscation In The United States
thekirk replied to LT Ducky's topic in Free Fire Zone
I too have had the odd argument with some real far religious conservative types on one or two gun boards. Usually in response to how they think gay or pagan folk need to be flogged out of society. Generally, I try to adhere to the live and let live dogma of how to deal with other groups or individuals. When their political push moves towards screwing me and mine royally then I have some issues. Generally speaking though, I spend FAR more of my time and money dealing with legal compliance with various liberal initiatives than I do with dealing with blue laws or other policy of religious bent. I have to fill out form 4473s and deal with all that tripe, I do not however have to pay a tithe or report why I'm not going to church each week. And quite honestly, it seems to be the religious liberals that REALLY screw with things around here. Put another way, I'm more worried about my head than my beard. One of the things I fear we're going to find out within the next few generations is just how poor a job we've done as a nation inculcating the values and morals that are needed in our officer and NCO corps. It is truly amazing to me how little attention is paid to making sure that the people we put into these positions really understand the document they've sworn an oath to support and defend. People like Paul are just the tip of the camel's nose, easing into the tent. We've allowed our nation's military, civil, and law enforcement structure to develop a vacuum in this regard, and when the system becomes stressed too far, there's no telling what choices these people will make. I'd have no problem with people like Paul saying "OK, here's the deal: I don't think the 2nd Amendment is working. It needs to be changed, so I think we ought to amend it or have another Constitutional Convention in order to fix the issues I see with it...". But, they don't--They deny the clear language and intent, advocate undermining it with laws and regulation that stand contrary to it, and lie to the rest of us saying that they aren't intentionally undermining the basic document of our nation--Which they manifestly are. If one doesn't agree with the document they swore to uphold and defend, why would one swear to do so in the first place? Why would one deny the clear language and precedent surrounding it? It would be one thing to say "I will uphold this, but I think it should be changed...". Paul's ilk never do that, though: They want to remake the world in their image through chicanery and fraud, and think the rest of us should stand by and watch while they do so. Which is why I regard him as a seditious coward who is afraid to make his intent clear. There's a reason these people won't take the steps required to amend the existing Constitution or write a new one, and that is that they're certain they'd fail. So, they keep nibbling away at the edges, like rats in the night. When an officer of the government even considers something like this to be legitimate, we have a problem as citizens. The end state of this sort of thing is the Pauls of this nation setting themselves up as petty little tyrants, imposing their will over the rest of us. The gun issue is just the opening wedge--You can believe that they'll go after the freedom of speech and religion not too long after, because they cannot bear either scrutiny or criticism, and the idea that there might be another moral code besides satisfying their own base desires for power over others is anathema. -
The Coming Of Firearm Confiscation In The United States
thekirk replied to LT Ducky's topic in Free Fire Zone
Probably because they agree with most of the same seditious crap you do. Wow, I never imagined the day when someone like Paul G. would get that on this site. Just mind blowing. Awww... Are you offended when a serving officer (supposedly) who has taken an oath to support and defend the basic document of this nation advocates the subornation and subversion of it, and gets called on it? Too 'effin bad, snookums. I had to listen to Paul's ilk and suffer silently for 25 years, prisoner of the UCMJ while the likes of him advocated things like doing away with free speech, the right to vote, the right for citizens to bear arms, and freedom of religion. You may think these clowns took their jobs out of patriotism, but the sad fact is that most of them do it because they want the raw power they get being officers, and would gladly take part in oppressing the rest of us in a heartbeat. And, I hate to say this, but it's not just the left-leaning officers who come up with this crap--I've heard the same bullshit coming out of the mouths of some of the Bible-thumping "conservative" types, who thought the Army and Federal government ought to be used to suppress those who don't share their beliefs. It's enlightening sitting in a van full of company and field grade officers, and listening to them discuss how the right to vote ought to be limited to the "godly", whatever the hell that means. Of course, the fact that I volunteered to drive them to the church of their choice on a weekend probably makes it my own damn fault, but there you are. Oh, and by the way? Those guys were reservists from across the US, all of whom had some years on active duty. I don't think any of them even noticed I was in the van with them--I might as well have been furniture, driving the thing. It's really amazing what you hear when you don't express an opinion, and let other parties think you're in agreement with them. -
The Coming Of Firearm Confiscation In The United States
thekirk replied to LT Ducky's topic in Free Fire Zone
Probably because they agree with most of the same seditious crap you do. -
Strength is irrelevant? To the Infantry? To any of the combat arms? This is me laughing hysterically, and pointing at you in derision. Do try to picture that, please: A retired senior NCO, who's been there and done that many, many times, listening to you make a fool of yourself. Have you ever had to put track back on an M113, or a Bradley? An M1? In the mud? God Almighty, have you ever even tried pulling recovery cable to a tank that's stuck up to the deck in mud? Ever been dropped off ten km away from your objective, with 140lbs of demo in each of your rucks, with ten men in your team, having only six hours to make the move, emplace the demo, and then get far enough away to safely detonate it? I want to see someone try that one, with three or four chicks in their squad. I really, really do--Because it's going to be very entertaining to watch as a training evolution. In a real situation, that ten-person team is going to fail the mission, and likely die. Strength is irrelevant. <snort> Dear God, the stupid... It burns, it burns...In all your years as an NCO, have you actually witness a mix male-female team fail solely because of the fault of the females? Or are you theorizing that they would fail if a male-female team was actually put through the test? That's not the point, perception is every thing. He will provide test that women can not achieve just to prove they cant achieve them. It does not matter that men would also have great difficulty achieving the test or some of them failing it, because they will not do it once the women have failed, point proven. Strength is not every thing, stamina and the will to get the job done is more important. We would not regularly over load a truck because we know it will break but we are quite happy to overload humans. Thekirk You made a disparaging remark about the Royal Regiment and have failed to provide any proof to back up your statement. You may be right, the inclusion of women in gun crews may have reduced the effectiveness, I do not know. Do you have any proof or are you just assuming it has because they have women in them. I have one question: Are you a serving soldier, or have you ever been one? If the answer to those questions is "no", you might want to stop making assertions you can't back up. I've done this thing for real, with real male and female US Army Soldiers. The UK does not have some vast pool of Olympic-caliber athletes from which to recruit their females, nor do they have some magic means of changing raw physiological facts. Said facts are that a gun crew with women on it is inherently less capable of performing physical tasks, and that there is inherently less margin in those crews for those little moments of potential disaster that can only be overcome by raw strength. That's not disparagement, that's reality. You put women onto a gun crew, then you're overworking the men, and you're not going to have the margin to deal with emergencies that crop up. Just because some female Soldier decides she wants to have the promotion benefits and so forth that accrue to their careers from serving in the combat arms is no reason to put them there, and that's the basic argument being made here in the US. There is no net benefit to putting smaller, less physically capable Soldiers into jobs that inherently require unpredictable and extreme physical performance. And, make no mistake: Even a male that is five foot five inches, and one hundred and sixty pounds has far more physical capability for work and effort than a woman with the same stats. On a woman who was 5'5", 160 lbs would be borderline obese, and most of that weight will be fat. On a male, that weight is usually muscle, and I can throw a hundred and forty pounds of gear on his ass and expect him to move it twelve miles in four or five hours. We did that on a routine basis, and didn't break the guys. The girls I had working for me? You'd be looking at doing a medevac halfway through, and probably for a slipped disc in the lower back. That wider pelvis women come with translates into some severe issues when you load them down and expect them to move cross-country at speed. An MLRS battery is one thing--Everything there is more-or-less automated, so the only real issue is vehicle maintenance, and if the MLRS throws a track while on the run from a firing position, they're likely dead anyway. I see no problems with putting women there, because of that. A tube artillery unit, where the guns still need to be physically horsed around, and ammunition moved? In-'effin-sane. I spent one memorable exercise directly attached to a tube artillery battery that was short-handed, and me and my guys wound up helping the gun crews out while they fired after we built them their positions. The amount of sheer repetitive physical effort required made one hell of an impression on us, and we were all guys who spent significant amounts of time humping Bailey Bridge and MGB components around for days on end during our own training evolutions. None of us who did that ever talked shit again about the "gun bunnies" having life easier than we did, that's for damn sure. Just moving the shells and ammo from the storage pits to the guns was nightmarish, especially when they were doing the rapid-fire thing. I don't even like to remember helping doing the downloads of the trucks carrying the shells and ammo. There's a reason most of those guys had arms like friggin' apes, and that reason is how much a 155mm shell weighs.
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Have you looked at the Miles Vorkosigan Series yet? Book one. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2010/11/qhyperactive-gitq-lois-mcmaster-bujolds-miles-vorkosigan http://www.baenebooks.com/p-1290-warriors-apprentice.aspx That's just mean... Next. you'll be pointing out the Liaden 'verse, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller...
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Strength is irrelevant? To the Infantry? To any of the combat arms? This is me laughing hysterically, and pointing at you in derision. Do try to picture that, please: A retired senior NCO, who's been there and done that many, many times, listening to you make a fool of yourself. Have you ever had to put track back on an M113, or a Bradley? An M1? In the mud? God Almighty, have you ever even tried pulling recovery cable to a tank that's stuck up to the deck in mud? Ever been dropped off ten km away from your objective, with 140lbs of demo in each of your rucks, with ten men in your team, having only six hours to make the move, emplace the demo, and then get far enough away to safely detonate it? I want to see someone try that one, with three or four chicks in their squad. I really, really do--Because it's going to be very entertaining to watch as a training evolution. In a real situation, that ten-person team is going to fail the mission, and likely die. Strength is irrelevant. <snort> Dear God, the stupid... It burns, it burns...
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The Coming Of Firearm Confiscation In The United States
thekirk replied to LT Ducky's topic in Free Fire Zone
Are you serious? Are you really serious? This thread started off five months ago with much panic about the alleged firearm confiscation to follow the Newtown shooting. I pointed out then that over the last decade of this panic, the legal situation for gunowners has actually improved across the US. Five months later, what did we get? A motion in the Senate for the extension of background checks to private transfers which was pulled due to lack of bi-partisan support despite a reported 90-percent public support that looks unlikely to even exist with the drop in attention for Newtown. The state of the fever curve on TankNet? "OMG OMG OMG soon they will search door to door and cart us off to concentration camps in cattle wagons!!!!!111!!" because of a search for terrorists done by the Boston Bad PR Department. That's not merely crying wolf, that's crying "T-Rex in my bedroom!" ISTR some TankNetters took offence when Ken Estes spouted terms like "Heimatsicherheitsamt" back in the Bush years, but these days it seems all fashionable. Get a fucking grip. Maybe talk to some Holocaust survivors sometime before you go on screaming about the coming American Reich. It may look routine to you, coming from a German background where the Polizei have the right to do things that here in the US would traditionally have meant blood in the streets, but to a traditional American, those images are like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Y'all have vastly different expectations and understandings of police powers and limits than we do. When I was in Germany back in the 1980s, I saw the Polizei do things that would have resulted in lawsuits, ended careers, and mass public outrage here in the US. The native Germans observing the same scenes? Carefully looking the other way, while the authorities did their thing. It's a different culture. Frankly, were the cops to try that in my neck of the woods, I suspect there'd be a large percentage of the public which would just start shooting them, on general principle. But, our local cops would never do something like this, either--They know better. I'm aghast to see that happening in Boston, but not surprised. They've been working on domesticating those people for generations, now. It appears they've finally succeeded.