September 2013 - Argghhh!

They come in all sizes and shapes. It's an attitude. "DON'T MESS WITH MY TRIBE!

Interesting approach. 09/17/2013 - French soldiers prepare to fire a French TRF1 155 mm self-propelled howitzer as part of a live-fire exercise for Combined Endeavor 2013 at the Joint Multinational Training Command's Grafenwoehr Training Area in Grafenwoehr, Germany, Sept. 17, 2013. Combined Endeavor is an annual command, control, communications and computer systems exercise designed to prepare international forces for multinational operations in the European theater. (DoD photo by Gertrud Zach...

...which also doesn't appear to be working quite right, in that it doesn't appear in the comment box unless you hit the "Preview" button - but it has stopped the Chinese deader'n Colonel Lewis Millet's bayonet charge.

Every place I ever lived or served in Germany and France, to include where I was born, is now gone. There is goodness in that, in that when the purpose is no longer served, we should no longer linger. Oops - there is one exception - Patch Barracks, in Vaihingen, near Stuttgart. But there is also a lesson in this, one writ large: "Interviews with Germans and Americans who are still here or once served in Heidelberg suggestedthat the conflict that began on Sept. 11, 2001, spelled the end for American...

Doesn't that just figure. I'm old as a blogger, and I feel it. I opened the blog on Blogspot back in August 2003. On September 14, 2003, we turned on the lights at this URL and with this host. I started the blog to pushback against all the drivel about what was going on during the March Upcountry (the attack into Iraq) that was fountaining forth from the talking heads on the tube. A decade later, Syria, and the talking heads aren't any more informed, if they do handle the lingo better...

This is wrong, sailor. You can have your opinion, but you don't get to express it in uniform. You signed up to fight where the CinC sends you to fight. It is that simple, in the end. If you think what you are being told to do is illegal or immoral, remove the piece of paper, make your statement, take your lumps. You can refuse illegal orders and defend yourself in court. Otherwise, put on your big boy pants and Missiles Away! But wait! There's more!

New goodness in the Arms Room. Israeli 81mm training round (completely inert, d-uh). Flanked by Brit 3in (aka, 81mm) rounds (also completely inert). The two shiny ones flanking the light blue Israeli are Brit mid-production rounds - i.e., what they looked like after they'd been cast and machined and given a laquer protective coating, before being shipped off to be filled and painted and packaged for service. Usually shipped with plugs, but I've got two inert training fuzes in there, as when...

U.S. Army Sgt. Rice and Spc. Mike Seif, both in an M1A1 Abrams tank equipped with a recently updated tank urban survivability kit, conduct a counter improvised explosive device mission in Baghdad, Iraq, Dec. 22, 2007. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Luke Thornberry) (Released) (Released to Public)