justbarkingmad.com

Marcus

Just wanted to let all of you know that the proprietor has reached a day of Mammoth proportions. The great QM will be hitting the 1/2 century mark as of midnight.

Mrs. QM and the MicroMammoth, with the aroma of Devil’s Food Cake wafting through the house

Well, sometime after the Tour de France anyway.

That’s okay with me I suppose.  I mean, Al Franken is proof that any fucking idiot can win an election and serve in the congress, so why not Lance Armstrong?

Just sayin’.

(H/T Drudge)

Marcus

The Pissed Off Tree Rat and I have long been making plans for the future.  World domination is naturally the ultimate goal, but one must eat the elephant one bite at a time as they say.  So POTR has decided that sometime in the not too distant future he would like to run for office—and I would get to be his chief of staff (insert evil laugh here).

In order to make this plan work though, I am convinced that his first step must be to legally change his name.  He will have to change it to Bush, Clinton, or Kennedy.  That way he’ll be sure to landslide his ass into office and get started accepting sweetheart real estate deals and padding the budget with yummy pork-tasting projects.  Since he’s living in New Jersey now I recommend Kennedy.  The people out east seem to like them critters.

The plan is sure to work because nobody has the patience (or the literacy) to read history books anymore.  I mean, our plan wouldn’t work if people actually realized that our country was founded specifically to rid ourselves of monarchists and dynastic rule.  It’s a good thing that that quaint little ideal has become anachronistic or else my plan would be dead in the water.

I can’t wait to get started.

Marcus

The sixth stanza of the Ranger Creed:

Readily will I display the intestinal fortitude required to fight on to the Ranger objective and complete the mission though I be the lone survivor.  Rangers Lead The Way!

I executed a dynamic parachute landing fall (PLF) and began immediately extricating myself from the harness.  My heart was racing and the adrenaline was running through my veins like a fire hose.  I was just happy I was in one piece and uninjured.  Of course I gazed over to my left and noticed that the drop zone safety personnel were standing next to their pickup truck about twenty meters away.  Which meant that I had just come damned close to landing on the pickup, and probably fucking myself up pretty badly.  Oh well, coulda, shoulda… woulda.  I didn’t land on it and I was in fact not injured.  All good.

Everyone jumps with a canvas bag to put the parachute into after landing on the drop zone.  I quietly stuffed the harness, weapons case and chute into the bag, then hooked the reserve to the handles.  I put my rucksack on then flipped the cargo bag over my head and onto the top of my ruck.  Sweet.  I looked for the chemical lights that signalled the drop-off point for the parachutes and then made a beeline for it.  Then whole time I’m walking, Rangers are hitting the ground all around me.  Other than the normal grunts a guy makes when he impacts the Earth at speed, there was very little noise.  Nobody was screaming for a medic so I assumed that everything was going reasonably well.

I dumped the chute at the collection point then scanned the northern woodline with my night vision goggles.  Each platoon would have infrared chem lites set up in different patterns to designate their rally points.  I spotted mine and moved out smartly.  I also gave a call on the squad radio to try and raise anybody on the platoon internal frequency.  I got a response and a decent SITREP, notifying me of how many of the guys had made it to the rally point thus far and were accounted for.  Everything was going fine.

As I neared the rally point I called ahead on the radio then exchanged far and near recognition signals with the IR flasher on my nigh vision goggles.  Again, no issues and I entered the perimeter.  As patrol leader I started getting everyone organized to move out and to complete our mission, which was to set up a blocking position on a remote forest road.

One of the RIs asked me if I was “up” on men, weapons and equipment.  We weren’t, but things were going smoothly so there was no reason to expect that we wouldn’t be assembled very quickly.  Then it dawned on me.  I was going to have at least one curve ball thrown my way before “leadership turnover,” and the RI was simply waiting until I had everyone before he pitched it.  So I knew it was coming, and I even knew what was in store for us.  I had done a little “G-2 work” ahead of time with the recycles, and I knew that right after hitting the DZ we would receive a FRAGO (fragmentary order) to attack a bunker prior to getting to our primary objective.  We all knew what was coming and we were prepared… or so we thought.

More later…

Marcus

Seems another Hamas leader has bitten the dust.

Hamas said the airstrike in Gaza killed Abu Zakaria al-Jamal, a senior leader of the armed wing of the militant group.

Meanwhile Israel is getting ready to go in and get the rest of Allah’s Assholes. Troops are just starting to cross the border.

The IDF said that the purpose of the ground operation was to eliminate launching pads in northern Gaza from which specific long-range rockets had been fired into southern Israel.

They aren’t going in deep. I suspect the main push to come as the sun rises over Gaza.

The man that kept the Corps alive has passed at age 95.

Born in Denver, Colorado January 7, 1913, General Krulak graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1934 and served as a “paramarine” during World War II. His remarkable heroism in leading a diversionary raid associated with the fall 1943 invasion of Bougainville earned him the Navy Cross and a Purple Heart. Widely credited for his role in fighting post-World War II attempts to abolish the Marine Corps as a separate service, “Brute,” as he came to be known, went on to serve as a counterinsurgency advisor to the Joint Staff and to command Fleet Marines in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. His son, Charles C. Krulak, followed his father’s footsteps to the Naval Academy and Marine Corps, eventually serving as the Marine Corps commandant.

There’s a lot of Marines welcoming him Home.

We’ve seen countless billions thrown into the toilet to combat the mythical global warming, and can’t point to a single life that has been saved as a result.  Yet, a tsunami a few years back kills hundred of thousands, when spending even .01% of the total wasted on “global warming” could have provided an effective early warning system against such tsunamis. 

Likewise, a similar fraction of that money directed towards viable infrastructure along the Gulf Coast would have severely dampened the effects of Hurricane Katrina…but who cares, it was only poor black people who died, and we can all blame Bush anyhow for that one, rather than for misdirected “environmental” priorities (yes, that was sarcasm).

Now, we’re reminded again (at least those of us with a functioning brain) that nature is a harsh bitch and will deal out death and mayhem on her own schedule and her own style.  Rambling aside, it seems there might have been another reason for the large mammal extinctions of North America 13,000 years ago. 

No amount of solar power, windmills, hybrid automobiles, or organic gardens will prevent something of this from happening again.  As also happened at Tunguska (really REALLY lucky it hit where it did), and with the aforementioned tsunami (and many other incidents not listed here).

Comets wiping out North America?  Tsunamis gutting 1/2 of the Indian Ocean’s coast line?  Bah!  Even yesterdays legit environmental concerns (i.e. clean drinking water, urban air pollution) are pushed aside in the face of the true menace:  human-caused global warming!

-BLT

Marcus

Here in the land of sand and…

…more sand. So far, the only things to report are that Army bureaucracy is alive and well. Unfortunately. We have yet to have a training day, either back at Riley or here, that has occurred as planned or have a training calendar that was worth more than toilet paper.

Oh, and today the unit that provides our life support ‘lost’ their 5-ton. On the day we loaded our four duffles per Soldier into a Milvan for onward movement. I’m not sure how you ‘lose’ a 5-ton, but I think it’s related to the guy in our hootch (not on my team) that ‘lost’ his PSP and reflective belt. Me, I suspect camel spiders. I’ll bet there’s a 5-ton sitting in the middle of the desert with a shit load of camel spiders in it, holding a rave and hosting a PSP tournament. The belt is for safety…don’t want to get run over when crossing the road.

The wireless here is fairly spotty. This is the first time I’ve been able to log into anything. Once we get settled in country, our connections will be much better, at least according to the guys we’re replacing.

The good news is that we officially arrived in December, so there’s a nice tax-free X-mas bonus for us.

Anyhoo, we get to shoot our bang sticks tomorrow, so at least there’s that.

-Blackhawk

Read the rest of this entry »

(H/T Pat Dollard)

Marcus

Dude.  Put the drink down before watching this.

Seriously.

(Courtesy of Uncle Jimbo)

Marcus

Heh.

(H/T Dad’s Deadpool Blog)

Marcus

Yesterday, all across the world Zune 30s locked up and died. Seems that no one figured out that 2008 had an extra day. A part of this has to do with the security measures that Micro$oft places on the player.

Should your player come back to life sometime today there is no guarantee that that you will be able to play any of your music. DRMA software may need to be synched.

Micro$oft provides yet another sales tool for Apple’s Ipod.

Until we meet face to face or on the intratubes may God take a likin’ to ya!

Tom Blumer at PJM recalls mocking Medea Benjamin six years ago. He was right and she was, of course, wrong.

Code Pink is nothing more than a batch of harridans thinking their cool anti-war stance would get them laid by the new studs. Sadly, no.

As Tom says in his letter to Medea:

Don’t let it go to your head, but anyone who examines the tripe you believe comes away shaking their heads in wonder that anyone can be so ignorant. You have hurt your cause more than helped it. Even ultra-liberal Ashleigh Banfield couldn’t stomach your point of view when you were on Podunk’s News Channel (MSNBC would probably get a bigger audience if they ran a test pattern instead of programming).

Read the whole thing; it’s interesting to see how the idiots fall over time.

The fifth stanza of the Ranger Creed:

Energetically will I meet the enemies of my country. I shall defeat them on the field of battle for I am better trained and will fight with all my might. Surrender is not a Ranger word. I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy and under no circumstances will I ever embarrass my country.

Getting into the aircraft was a hoot. I think my legs achieved “muscle failure” after moving all of ten meters up the ramp, and I wasn’t even seated yet.

When the C-130 is set up for dropping paratroopers all over God’s green Earth, there are four rows of “seats” set up in the back for everyone to sit on. Really they are a sort of red colored webbing that act like a sort of hammock-like bench seat. It’s comfortable enough, particularly if you are wearing over a hundred pounds of stuff on and you just want to get off of your feet.

We packed into the back of the aircraft like sardines and stared at the guys across the “aisle” from us while we listened to the loud droan of the engines. Actually it wasn’t much of an aisle, since our legs were all pretty much intertwined. The aircraft fuselage was beginning to resemble one big sausage container (or intestine if you prefer) and we were the meat getting stuffed into it. We were fairly snug to say the least.

The jumpmasters (who were all RIs) did their rounds checking our rigs and making sure that we were all belted in with our K-Mart special seat belts. Of course since we were all jammed in tight and there was no room to walk around, the jumpmasters simply walked on top of us moving from man to man, checking his rig. They looked as if they were trying to cross a creek by gingerly hopping from one stone to the next, except that in this case the creek was a bunch of sickly looking dudes and the rocks were rucksacks resting on our laps. Nice.

To the uninitiated this may sound somewhat unpleasant, but the fact of the matter was that it was quite pleasing. It was warm in the back of that plane, particularly since we were crammed in there so tight. Also the “roar” of the engines was dulled a bit inside, and it had quite the hypnotic effect. Talk about a lullaby. The sound of those turboprops churning the air and the vibration they created was like donning a mask in the dentist’s office and sucking down a lung-full of nitrous oxide. We were going down quick and it was fantastic.

The next thing I knew we were approaching the drop zone and we were being roused from our slumber. Now the time from takeoff to the DZ couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but that was ten minutes of wonderful slumber we wouldn’t have ordinarily gotten. It was perhaps the best ten minutes of my life. Well, except for that ten minutes I spent with Michelle in my mom’s Ford Escort on prom night. That was the best ten minutes of my life.

The jumpmasters started going through the old routine of counting down the time and giving out the jump commands. “Outboard personnel stand UUUUPP!” And they stood. “Inboard personnel stand UUUPP!” And then we stood. “HOOK UUUUPP!” We then took the the static lines afixed to the front of our reserve chutes and hooked them to the cables hanging above our heads. “Check EQUIPMENT!!” We then started started feeling around our helmets for sharp edges that weren’t there, chin straps and velcro jump straps that were firmly attached, and other stuff we didn’t want to find wrong at this point in the venture.

And so it went.

All I know was that I was staring up the row of Ranger students at the open door that I was going to be shortly stepping out of. My heart was racing. My guts were twisting in knots. My my palms were sweating and I kept telling God that I promised to start going to church after all of this was over.

“GO!”

Dudes started jumping out the doors on each side of the aircraft. Everyone else started shuffling like big green penguines toward the exit, carefully keeping the static line taught and not getting wrapped around anything like arms, legs, or necks.

I jumped.

One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand… ugh… the chute deployed. Thank you Jesus.

I grabbed the risers and looked up to see if there were any problems. I was scared that since it was a night jump I wouldn’t be able to see anything. Luckily the illumination was somewhere near 100% and the moon was beaming down on us like a second sun.

The parachute had deployed without any problems. Unlike when I was in jump school, I didn’t have any twisted risers or any other issues along those lines. A perfect deployment. Sort of.

I looked around at the other jumpers then. Yeah, we did a mass exit alright, and it showed. There were parachutes everywhere and Ranger students dangling from them. Unfortunately I was a LOT too close to a couple of other jumpers and I had to pull the old “Slip Away!” routine. This was simply the act of pulling on certain risers to sort of “steer” the parachute away from other jumpers. I was the prescribed method of preventing a “sky shark” event and it was nominally effective. In any event, I didn’t run into anybody else and nobody ran into me… so mission accomplished.

The rest of the trip down to Mother Earth was uneventful. I would have actually been beautiful under any other circumstances—or if I weren’t scared shitless of heights. The chutes around me looked angelic under the moonlight drifting down to the ground. The only sound was that of the breeze.

I watched the ground coming toward me. At the proper time I dropped my ruck and it descended down its retention line. At treetop level I gauged my direction of drift, pulled the proper slip on the risers, looked straight out at the horizon, and braced myself for impact.

Marcus

It makes me giggle.
UPDATE: Two more of Allah’s Assholes fail 11C course (below the fold)

giggles below