January 2012 - Argghhh!

Featured Jan. 12, 2011- Photo by Spc. Edward A. Garibay. Command Sgt. Maj. Ronald T. Riling, U.S. Army Forces Command, looks through the scope of an XM-25 Individual Airburst Weapon System, Jan. 12. The XM-25 is a semi-automatic, magazine-fed grenade launcher that allows the user to manually set detonation distance.

Feast your eyes on this finely crated piece of Vietnamese "hillbilly" Mortar...

A village approach is a much better approach.

It's been a long time since I've shown pics of the M38A1 engine (in her original 24v configuration) - as in, since I first got the thing. Og, these are for you! [This pic embiggens] Now, just click these words and you'll see the rest of the pics .

I lived through the post-Vietnam era RIFs as an Army brat. Believe me, the impact was noticeable - if not in the way Our Bill lived through it. I lived through the post-Desert Storm RIF (reduction-in-force, in case you don't know the acronym) as an eliigible year group Major. To counter some of the pain caused by the brutal nature of the post-Vietnam RIF, Congress gave the services some shaping tools, including the 15 year retirement, which has recently been reauthorized. So, now I see this sort...

We just missed the memo. The Taliban have declared victory. Time to come home, boys and girls. Who are we to argue with the indigenes? Especially since... they are probably just being premature, vice wrong, in the final analysis of the Western Way of War in the Orient. So why not just short cut it and come home. We did in Iraq, what makes this different? We've given the Iraqis and the Afghans a chance to choose a different future for themselves. It's up to them to actually *choose* it.

Being a native born 'Rican, I do relate with many of the issues that she is tussling with: And if you don't like it... Bite ME! Boq