LOL Your mother sounds like my house-mate! I’m the same. 😆 If we watch some show and it has someone who’s supposedly a *sniper* or some military or spook movie, I usually get royally annoyed and will say things like “What a load of BS! Never happen! If I was there, he’d be dead before he knew what hit him!” and various other comments… To which she will usually reply something like “It’s just a movie! It’s not real!” And I’ll usually say “Tell that to the kids and assorted idiots who watch it and believe it!” 😆
I’ve been watching the new (2010) Hawaii Five-0. It’s better than the original (The guy who play’s McGarret now isn’t such a huge ham at least! And he’s an ex-SEAL etc.) I find it funny actually! 😉
Funny you mention hunting afterward… Yeah. I hadn’t thought about it, but I haven’t been hunting or even fishing since. And I used to love both before. Interesting.
]]>My Mother hates to watch shows with me because I’m constantly pointing out when people leave weapons behind them, or fail to switch to weapons better suited to the situation when they become available. Most of the “good guys” are morons who wouldn’t last in their first firefight.
I gave up on hunting. Too many bad memories, and too much empathy for the “prey”, having been in their “shoes”.
]]>I was kinda lucky I guess. I was fastracked because of my civilian skills. I’d been in the Scouts (from Cub to Rover), so I had most of the basic skills (and the badges to prove it), including woodcraft (exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, hunting/gathering, survival and self-reliance), orienteering/navigation, camping, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, sports and leadership. Also, I’d worked in civilian security and had a security license that included crowd control and control room op’s. And then of course, my Grandfather had taught me how to shoot! And I could use a handgun (I’d used a revolver and a German Navy 9mm Luger) and everything from a slug (BB) gun through a .22 to a Weatherby Mk4 that my Grandfather had made into an accurate sniper rifle (he was an armorer, and one thing he hammered into me was: “Never! Ever! Use a weapon you don’t know without striping it and checking it first!” 🙂 I’d also embarked on a martial arts program starting with Judo & 10, to Karate which I left because I found it boring. I joined a junior weightlifting program at 14, and loved it! I also took up Shodokan Aikido to give me balance, speed, concentration etc. (A misconception with weightlifting is that it’s all about muscles & strength. That’s only 1 aspect.) One additional aspect of the Dojo I chose was that they also had a Kendo & Shurikenjutsu programs. So, anyway… they decided to give me a trial. 🙂 The first thing was unarmed combat, and I did very well in that (almost too well at one point). Then they took me to the Willamstown rifle range that had a long (1 mile) range, and gave me a rifle (Parker-Hale). I smiled and remembered what my gandfather taught me, then stripped it and checked everything, cleaned it & reassembled it. Then I asked for all the *books* (ballistics, service records, manufacturers spec’s etc). They gave them to me, and I saw that it’s had a trigger problem and it had been replaced. I’d have to check that (a typical problem is that a trigger will *catch* occasionally, which messes up the shot). Then I asked for weather reports etc, and balistics on the ammunition and the range. Then I asked for a ‘scope to check out the range, and then asked permission to sight-in the weapon. The Range Sargent gave me three rounds. I adjusted the scope and trigger etc., and settled and did what I’d been trained. I was in my element. 🙂 I hit the target at 1KM slightly high, and 1.5cm from center. A very good first shot. 2nd shot was to adjust height, and third to center it. Then I took 6 shots and had a spread of just over 2cm around center target. I told the Sargent that if they allowed me to load my own shells, I could do better (I wasn’t being a smart-ass, was perfectly matter of fact. And they took it that way.) 🙂 Anyway, after a few more trials and eval’s, I was told to pack and headed for Sunny Qld. And the rest, is history! 🙂
And yeah… It’s the smell that get’s you. Especially when an entire village has been killed and burned to the ground, and you have to search for survivors.
I couldn’t go to a BBQ for years after my discharge. Had nightmares for a long time too. Kids don’t think about that stuff. Nobody ever thinks about *afterward*, not even Governments it seems.
*shrug*
]]>You can’t trust people who like killing, you don’t know what they’ll do. People don’t ever seem to understand that the military is about groups, not individuals. You survive by putting the group first. If you aren’t able to do that, stay away from the military.
Too many young people go in and just can’t deal with the necessary loss of individuality. Special skills are worthless if they don’t help the team. I hated mission on which I was the odd man out because they needed language skills. I was a burden, and a danger to everyone around me because I didn’t fit and couldn’t automatically react as required.
I hope you caused the kid to rethink his future. A tour in military might do him some good, but he doesn’t even know if he can adapt to military life, much less Special Ops.
When asked I give a detailed explanation of Basic Training, what will happen and why, which is always met with “the recruiter never said anything about that”, and most are really upset when they find out that their choice of jobs is dependent on their skills and ability, as well as military needs, not on that silly piece of paper the recruiter handed them that included their “preference”.
]]>I just got home from dinner at a friend’s. Turns out I was invited mainly because the 18 YO son wants to join the Army, and wants to get into SF. (Kid’s play way too many games that make everything seem easy and simple!) *sigh* So I kinda had to burst his gung-ho bubble and bring him down to Earth (because our Recruiters can’t be trusted any more than yours! I’m pretty sure it’s universal.) 😉 Anyway, it took about for hours to explain *how things work in the Real World*tm. To his credit, after initial disappointment, he asked some good questions. 🙂 One thing he was keen to do was a HALO jump! 😆 *sigh* So I explained (kinda thus):
“OK. First off, HALO’s are rare and dangerous. A HALO jump is only used when you have to get to ground as fat as possible. the major problem with a HALO is that low opening a ‘chute can be heard from the ground, and you better pray that intel did there job and there’s nobody within a klick of the LZ! If there is, you better pray they are blind or can’t shoot straight. What we trained for and used mostly, was HAHO jumps. High-Altitude, High-opening. All the gear and chutes are black low-reflective, low noise.”
Then he asked some questions and we chatted about options. In the end, I told him:
“In any case, it doesn’t matter what you want. At least, until you prove yourself in one of the regular units. To get entry into SSR or SASR, you better score better than 300 on fitness, be very agile mentally, be good at math, and shoot 9 of 10 at 1km! Oh, and scoring very high on C3 (Command, control, and communications) will help a lot also. Do some advanced courses. Your best bet is to get into a Commando Regiment, which will make it easier to transition to SASR or SSR (if you are asked or if you qualify and are put forward) because they are all under the Special Operations Command. Transitioning within a Command is easier than cross-Command, and it’s easier to get into one of the Commando Regiments from outside SOCOM. But you will have to have been in a regular Regiment for 3-4 years and have a very distinguished record. One black mark, and forget it.”
Then, he said: “It would be easier to kill someone from a long distance than up close, I mean mentally, right?” Which, I have heard before.
“The answer is a HUGE “NO!!” It’s easier (mentally) to kill someone in close quarters, because it’s you or them! It’s usually self-defense. When you are a sniper, you spend time planning, target selection, and then when you are on the mission, you have to select the target, and kill them. And they never know it’s coming. And you have to deal with that. If you are even a half-decent human, you will wonder if that face you now know so well had a family, if it was the right target, what they did to deserve to die. We are trained to deal with that, and we have constant Psych eval’s & counseling… But no, it’s not easy. If you thought it was, you wouldn’t even be considered for the job! If you think it will be easy to kill someone, then I hope someone get’s you first, and they probably will!”
And so on… you get the idea. 😉 I have heard a lot of kids saying the same thing, wanting to get into snipers or SAS etc. They seem to think they can just walk in and sign up! 😆 Heh… I tol d his parents that they should take him to see some dead bodies and see how he reacts. I said that if he doesn’t throw up, they have a problem. They looked at me like I suddenly grew another head! 😆
Sad, isn’t it? *sigh*
Anyway… apart from that, dinner was very good. And I told my *friends*… they owe me bigtime! I was setup! Hmmph! 😉
]]>All of our mission aircraft were used and then later converted into RCs. That was 47s, 130s, and 135s. Needless to say, we didn’t have a lot of pull, basically because we didn’t have our own pilots and aircraft, they were all assigned to other commands. We were “just passengers”, even though there was no reason to launch the aircraft if we weren’t on it.
NSA is commanded by the three-star, and the Air Force segment was often a Brigadier. Not a lot of power in the Pentagon world.
Well, the refining process does require electricity, and that isn’t something that exists continuously in the natural world, so why would any creature use it? The US had a big lead in refining it because of abundant and cheap hydro-electric power. As the costs increased, the producers to be closer to cheap raw materials, having used them up where they started.
]]>List of Periodic Table Elements Sorted by Abundance in Earth’s crust
The % amount varies in this table slightly from the official CRC figures. 🙂
Most abundant 5 (in order) are: Oxygen, Silicon, Aluminium, Iron, Calcium.
And as for Alcoa… Curiously, most Aussies think it’s Australian. 🙂 They have a BIG presence here (We have a LOT of Bauxite). I worked in a small capacity on a project management team for the big Alcoa smelter plant here in Vic in the early 90’s. We had to plan every step in shutting down the entire plant so that comprehensive maintenance could be carried out, with a minimum of downtime. I had never imagined until then just how complex a task that is! You can’t just ‘flip a switch” (at least, you couldn’t then!) 😀 It was quite an exciting project actually. My role was as part of a team to ensure the computer systems were synchronized and they would manage the shutdown process properly and monitor everything, then (hopefully) start everything back up correctly after the maintenance cycle was completed. Amazingly… It all went to plan! (It was about a year from initial project inception, to shutdown/maintenance/startup.) The guy running the project (who was my PM mentor), was paid $2k/day! But when you are working on a plant that makes a couple million $ a day, even taking one day off the maintenance paid all our wages! 😆 And we shaved 4.6 days (from memory) of the previous maintenance cycle. So, Alcoa were happy! 🙂 The “Good ol’ days”, eh? 😉
The name of the Paratroop varient was driving me nuts… so I googled! 😉 Found a wiki (of course! What isn’t there a wiki for?) 😉 Was called the C-53 Skytrooper.
There are a LOT of varients! 😀
I had a look online about Aluminium. I knew it was abundant (though it’s never been found in it’s free form), but I didn’t realise it was more abundant than iron in the Earth’s crust (8.2% vs 5.6% (iron) are the official estimate according to the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 91st Edn). Scientists are baffled as to why an element so common isn’t found naturally in any organic organism. All the other common elements are present to some degree. Curious! 😀
]]>The question on the Senate is easy, the states of the Senators involved either have large military bases or large weapons manufacturers making the military vital to the economy of the states. That’s why both Senators from Florida are on the committee. The ability of the people is irrelevant to the wishes of the states’ business interests.
LIEberman lost the Democratic primary and won as an independent in Connecticut. He joined the Democratic caucus because the Democrats control the Senate. If the Republicans win he will join the Republican caucus, if the people of Connecticut don’t come to their senses and dump him forever.
Puff was the common name while Spooky was official [like Goonie bird vs. Skytrain]. The AC-130s are Spooky or Spectre variants based on the weapons. We were aware of the use of Dakota by others, as well as the Navy/Marines calling them R4Ds instead of C-47s.
OK, aluminum was the originally published name because it was refined from the mineral alumina, but it was changed to aluminium by the mass of chemists, as that was the style at the time. The US uses aluminum because Alcoa, the largest producer of the metal in the US, is the Aluminum Company of America, and they have always marketed it as “aluminum”. I don’t know why platinum isn’t called platinium.
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