tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post8576431057505352162..comments2024-03-28T12:29:39.157-07:00Comments on Graphic Firing Table: Sailor SlightedFDChiefhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-18455074397229123092013-02-17T12:21:36.015-07:002013-02-17T12:21:36.015-07:00BigFred: Thing is, I don't have so much of a p...BigFred: Thing is, I don't have so much of a problem with this dude wanting to cut a slice for himself. If he wanted to cash in on his story I'd say it's not that much worse than any of the other war-porn bullshit that's come out of these fucking cabinet wars. The U.S. public is getting the wars and the "warriors" they deserve for letting our politicians convince us to go shopping whilst they go farkling about in land wars in fucking Asia.<br /><br />What DOES get up my wick is his conflation of his own situation - which you point out boils down to <i>"...(a)n M-60 gunner who wanted to cash in on the rest of the narrative, and ejected early. A shame."</i> - with the Special Forces/SOF as a group.<br /><br />No doubt that the SpecOps people get muled; one of the problems WITH "special" units has always been that commanders tend to abuse the shit out of them. And no doubt that some of the SpecOps guys probably they feel like they've been pulling the heaviest load for the past decade.<br /><br />But EVERY troop feels like every other troop has been jakin' it and THEIR unit has been doing all the work. Most of us have the common sense to realize that we're all part of a team and that pissing and moaning about who is working harder than whom is a waste of time and an insult to our profession. That's why good sergeants and chiefs tell their guys to quit bitchin', shut up and soldier.<br /><br />I wish to hell some salty old chief had told that to this guy before he got himself in print sounding like such a whiny bitch.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-71962689167469447702013-02-16T16:08:40.986-07:002013-02-16T16:08:40.986-07:00So with my dated association with Navy Special War...So with my dated association with Navy Special Warfare, circa 1999-2001, I know this fella to 95% fidelity. <br /><br />The Head Frogman has already dismissed him as a money grubber, trying to cash in on immediate fame and glory.<br /><br />The tattoos and anecdotes remind me of Fleet week in NYC at the turn of the millennium. Good guy, lots of tats, probably some steroids, and a lot of trigger time. The year group (2 to go) matches up.<br /><br />Bottom line? An M-60 gunner who wanted to cash in on the rest of the narrative, and ejected early. A shame.<br />BigFredhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10442240891955984577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-33848918434247561392013-02-14T19:23:31.004-07:002013-02-14T19:23:31.004-07:00:::::::::facepalm::::::::
Ok, my medically discha...:::::::::facepalm::::::::<br /><br />Ok, my medically discharged son, with almost ten years in before he came home to rebuild his much changed life, and for whom the VA didn't even grant a 20% disability rating until THIS year (after more than 6 years) ALWAYS has abused the Navy as the military dilettantes of the services.<br /><br />Wait till I tell him this....Syrbal/Labryshttp://www.herlanderwalking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-76582160372112206492013-02-14T19:12:12.108-07:002013-02-14T19:12:12.108-07:00Syrbal: It gets worse. Suddenly this guys is all ...Syrbal: It gets worse. Suddenly this guys is all over Chas. Pierce's place, talking to Congresscritters. Now turns out he wants retirement to phase in after 5 years...but maybe only for <i>speshul snowflakes</i> like special ops guys, so the warriors can get the bennies after a nickel instead of waiting around with all those lowly choir-singing squids and shit.<br /><br />Color me disgusted.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-47227072591163128462013-02-13T17:56:37.107-07:002013-02-13T17:56:37.107-07:00Yeah, Chief....something wonky for sure. I mean, ...Yeah, Chief....something wonky for sure. I mean, hell, after I got out I was just another military WIFE...and I knew and knew damn WELL exactly what would happen if the Minotaur got out short of 20. So all the "Oh, oh, oh noes!" are a bit of "protests too much" for me.<br /><br />And maybe the Navy 'code' is different? But guys I knew didn't talk about ANY of those 'jobs' at all. Something ringing just that off tone like a cracked bell...Syrbal/Labryshttp://www.herlanderwalking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-19885354285782180292013-02-13T16:43:18.992-07:002013-02-13T16:43:18.992-07:00Good points but I meant to imply that the article ...Good points but I meant to imply that the article might serve a larger intelligence purpose, i.e. be propaganda of some kind. That might explain the strangenesses.<br /><br />Pure speculation on my part.Swanditchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15316455524375152972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-63609703205680331122013-02-13T16:36:56.186-07:002013-02-13T16:36:56.186-07:00Swanditch: I suspect that, if anything, the intel ...Swanditch: I suspect that, if anything, the intel folks provided OPSEC guidance on what <i>couldn't</i> appear in the article. As I observed somewhere in the comments above, the real "secrets" came in how we were able to spoof the Pakistani air defenses and civilian tracking radars, as well as whoever we were working with in the inside in Abbottabad (and I'm guessing we surely must have been working with someone...) and none of that ever comes up in the article.<br /><br />And most of the actual tactical stuff has already turned up in one form or another somewhere. The real risks are to the individuals involved if their names and locations are revealed to OBL groupies and AQ hardcores, but that, too, is absent from the narrative...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-4397815702608187302013-02-13T16:22:28.159-07:002013-02-13T16:22:28.159-07:00Given the amount of secrecy surrounding the OBL ra...Given the amount of secrecy surrounding the OBL raid, it's not impossible that the article was produced with significant input from the intelligence community.Swanditchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15316455524375152972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-65063930915207858112013-02-13T13:39:41.285-07:002013-02-13T13:39:41.285-07:00Syrbal: Again, the thing that really weirded me ou...Syrbal: Again, the thing that really weirded me out - perhaps more than anything else about this article - was the complete lack of anybody from the Navy either a) trying to re-up this guy or b) talking to the writer ABOUT stuff like re-up, early out, disability, etc...<br /><br />So I was left with a ton of questions. Is there something in this guy's 2-1 that stinks? Does he have a string of shitty EERs somewhere? Did he get a serious downcheck from the headshrinker that has made the Navy scared of keeping him?<br /><br />But, if so, why isn't he fighting for disability on PTSD or the many physical problems he's supposed to have?<br /><br />So either this dude WANTS to re-up and the Navy won't take him, which at least explains why he's got something to whine about but opens a lot of other cans of worms re: WHY this dude is on the street...or he's getting out because he wants to get out, in which case (picture me rubbing my first two fingers together) here's the world's tiniest violin playing a sad, sad song just for him. You terminate your jump status (which is still voluntary AFAIK) and, presto, you're off ST6 and riding out one more enlistment in some dead-head squid job somewhere, get your 20, and then pull the pin.<br /><br />There's just SO much that came across as really, really strange about the details behind this story. The actual operational details of the raid? Meh. Just another night raid - the real classified stuff was in how they spoofed the Pakis and he doesn't really go into that. But it's this guy's personal tale that rings so odd, and I can't figure it out.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-13853744940303643322013-02-13T12:16:47.262-07:002013-02-13T12:16:47.262-07:00I am so glad that me and my Manchild are not the o...I am so glad that me and my Manchild are not the only ones going "Oh, pleeeease, you want some cheese with that whine?"<br /><br />As the son said, "WTF, dude, 16 years and you couldn't discover GI Bill?" He just sounded like he wants to cash in ala-Sarah-Quitter-Palin to both of us. We were both aggravated and not very sympathetic. Try being the guy injured or shot up medically discharged with 3 years in or ten years in....and body hurts for life. THEN you can whine.<br /><br />Otherwise? Suck it the fuck up, oh, and yes. STFU about ops that are supposed to be kept hushed.Syrbal/Labryshttp://www.herlanderwalking.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-8337305164178535582013-02-13T10:14:14.218-07:002013-02-13T10:14:14.218-07:00Anon: I've never met a guy who has been shot o...Anon: I've never met a guy who has been shot over who doesn't think this way. There's "us" and there's "them" and that's how it is. One of the reasons that Sun Tzu said that no nation every profited from a long war has to be that if you fight long enough this us-them thing seeps into everybody's head, not just the soldiers.<br /><br />And I noticed that, too, about the night raids and this guy's own family. Ironic, if you will, but I don't think that there's any room left for irony after you've been downrange long enough. I thank God that I have never had to find out.<br /><br />The whole tone of the article bugged me. We've been doing this long enough to "get" that a hell of a lot of what we've been doing has be at best wasted and at worst actively harming our own national interests. It seemed a little late in the game to be mourning the fact that guys like this Shooter have been used up in a Game of Thrones that most of the U.S. public either never cared about, actively hated, or, at best, "supported" with a facile yellow-magnet sort of patriotism that faded as soon as the headlines did.<br /><br />But as far as starching OBL rather than capturing him? Hey, it's MOUT; fucked up from the get-go. And GI would tell you that running around inside a building filled with armed or potentially-armed and angry enemies is about the most Numbah One Thousand thing you can do in war. I'm not going to second-guess these guys for who and how many times they ventilated the guy; I've come too close not to know the feeling.FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-46423611957143970872013-02-12T20:15:05.827-07:002013-02-12T20:15:05.827-07:00I have to admit being a bit put off by the 'da...I have to admit being a bit put off by the 'dark humour'. Obviously a coping mechanism and obviously I haven't been there yada yada yada. But I mean in seeing the way American troops have desecrated bodies and abused detainees in the past 10 years is it like a starting point? I mean perhaps its impossible for me as a civilian to understand but the anger and grief they show about one of their own getting killed is not at all registered the enemy might as well. I mean there wasn't any sense of irony on part of the so called 'shooter' or the author or anyone in America I meet that he has to fearfully train his wife for home invasion and getting killed in front of the children though its exactly what they do everyday in night raids (the whole Iraq if we'd kill 6-8 guys a night it wasn't enough). Though obviously they are carrying orders and would not be doing so if they weren't told to do so. I keep thinking about the raid in Gardez with the Seals digging out the bullets of the pregnant women and blaming the Taliban. And then Admiral Mc Raven coming later to vista the family and give condolences and reparations.<br /><br />He writes that all the Seals popped shots in the body and by the time they got back to A-stan there were at least 27 bullet holes in the corpse. Doesn't seem like the professionalism championed in the media. Maybe it was the whole macho retelling but this person didn't seem like quite the 'quiet professional', in fact the whole thinking about the Bush quote as he landed struck me as the writer trying to go over the top on what was a routine night raid though over the border. I don't know I just keep thinking if it were true and his gun was 10 inches from OBL's head and he was unarmed why not tackle the motherfucker so he could get ultimate humiliation in an American court like a criminal rather than dying in action as he vowed to. Water under the bridge, or rather the aircraft carrier I guess.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-69795178357024116122013-02-12T16:27:00.064-07:002013-02-12T16:27:00.064-07:001. I think the article does a poor job of explain...1. I think the article does a poor job of explaining how military service can develop qualities that ARE useful in the civilian world and yet makes it very difficult to make the transition from one to the other.<br /><br />The U.S. Army took a guy who had a George-W-Bush-level-C-average as an undergrad and instilled the discipline and ability to task-organize in me that enabled me to pull something like a 3.89 through grad school. But at the same time, I did that in two enlistments over something like 8 years; for a guy whose been in over a decade...that's a big jump.<br /><br />So there's some merit to the argument that it would help to have some better programs in place to help these long-service NCOs do that.<br /><br />But - and this was my main point - the thing is that a LOT of the sorts of skills these guys are developing are incredible task-specific. They're terrific light infantrymen; some of the best in the world. In that narrow lane they ARE great organizers, decision-makers, and task-managers.<br /><br />But I think the fallacy of the article is exposed by the way the Navy has been (apparently) fine with these guys getting out. They haven't - or at least the article makes no effort to show that they have - been intensely recruited to stick around as regular Navy chiefs.<br /><br />That tells me something.<br /><br />And in re: #2, I'd argue that it is in time of budget deficits (i.e. when tax revenues are down BECAUSE incomes are down) that governments SHOULD hand out largesse. Our problem is because at a time when we were running surpluses - back in 2000 and 2001 - the GOP used that as an excuse to give away the store to the wealthy. And then, when we started two wars we put THAT on the credit card, too...<br /><br />Since 2008, though...it makes actual sense to run deficits, and to pull back to "austerity" now would merely mean a collapse back into depression a la 1937...FDChiefhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10607785969510234092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31246093.post-17031650585592233802013-02-12T14:30:47.577-07:002013-02-12T14:30:47.577-07:001. If they're so entrepreneurial, why do they ...1. If they're so entrepreneurial, why do they need government help to get jobs?<br /><br />2. In a time of budget deficits, why are they asking for more government handouts?Swanditchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15316455524375152972noreply@blogger.com