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Jan 31, 2005

Of MRE's and tears of both laughter and pain 

Just read this.

Hat tip to Smokin'.
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 23:35
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What could I possibly say? 

I had intended to give you a pearl of wisdom or two on the recent Iraqi elections... and then I went to Iraq the Model, and read what brothers Mohammed and Omar had to say after they had just returned from casting the first of what will hopefully be MANY votes in their lifetimes in a democratic (and someday peaceful) Iraq.

And I thought, "What the hell could I ever possibly add to the topic?"

So, go read it. It's their day, not mine... but what a great day.

UPDATE: Awesome quote over at Frank J's. Like I said, today belongs to the Iraqis... and they'll let the world know it.
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 17:27
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Jan 30, 2005

Promises kept 

So a couple weeks ago, Tom puts up this post. You know, one of those “"here’'s stuff about me" posts” that pretty much everybody has done. And then I realize, "“Hey... I haven'’t." ” So I tell Tom to remind me to do one if I don'’t get around to it.

So he did.

Quite rudely, I might add.

But I asked and he answered and he kicked me in the butt for not posting so much. So, to both get him off my back and do what I think might be an enlightening post for some of you, here it is (along with some extra questions he threw in for me to answer).


Three names you go by:
Mike
Michael
Mikey (there'’s about four people who can safely use this one on me)

Three screennames you have:
Mike the Marine
hallsandshores
Devilnuts

Last three books read (not necessarily completed):
“Combat (#1)” edited by Stephen Coonts, written by Larry Bond, Dale Brown, & David Hagberg
“Super Hawks: Strike Force Bravo” by Mack Maloney
“Silent America” by Bill Whittle

Three favorite books overall:
The “Super Hawks” trilogy by Mack Maloney (I count this as one book, I just haven'’t read the third chapter yet)
“Rainbow Six” by Tom Clancy
“The Princess Bride” by William Goldman

Three favorite liquors:
Jim Beam Black Label
Captain Morgan'’s Private Stock
Cabo Wabo Tequila

Three things you like about yourself:
Intelligent
Quick-witted
Imaginative

Three things you dislike about yourself:
Inability to shut up at exactly the wrong time
Tendency to go with the flow rather than take the bull by the horns
Indecisive (but mostly when it comes to what to have for dinner... this drives my wife insane)

Three parts of your heritage:
Irish
Scottish
Slovak

Three things that scare you:
Failure
Being alone
Going through life having never made a difference

Three of your everyday essentials:
News
Chow
The word "“Ooh-rah”"

Three things you are wearing right now:
Sweatshirt
Sweatpants
Beat up sneakers

Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment):
AC/DC
Metallica
Van Halen

Three of your favorite songs at present:
AC/DC -– "The Furor"
Metallica - "Wherever I May Roam"
Jimi Hendrix -– "Red House"

Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months:
Deploy to far away foreign lands.
Meet interesting people of a storied and ancient culture.
Weed out the ones that don'’t deserve to continue breathing and intro them to their 72 raisins.

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):
Laughter
Patience
Support

Two truths and a lie:
I would punch Michael Moore in face if given the chance.
I would then proceed to make him eat his ratty old baseball cap.
I would then walk calmly away from him without having mentioned anything about his mother.

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you:
Smile
Back
Legs

Three things you just can'’t do:
Sit calmly by and let Islamofascist terrorists dictate how things are gonna be.
NOT cry at the end of either “Braveheart” or “The Sands of Iwo Jima.”
Wrap my brain around the vacuum of stupid that exists between the ears of people like Ted Rall and Maureen Dowd.

Three of your favorite hobbies:
Playing video games
Building models (but I haven'’t in years)
Blogging

Three things you want to do really badly right now:
Play with my new XBOX
Watch the newest episode of “Battlestar Galactica”
Chug some water to purge the booze from last night

Three careers you’re considering:
Marine.
Marine.
Marine.

Three places you want to go on vacation:
Scotland
Hawaii
The Bay Islands of Honduras

Three kid's names:
Isabelle
Troy
Mike

Three things you want to do before you die:
Get rich.
Get famous.
Leave it all to my kids.
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 20:53
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Jan 24, 2005

Cheese it! 

Rodent, Marine Corps Issue, One Each
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 21:54
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Jan 23, 2005

Humiliations galore 

Europe needs to act to increase significantly the amount of US students visiting Europe.

Europe needs to be more worth visiting.
...and that's the nicest thing he has to say. Smokin' lays the smack down.
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 22:25
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Quote Log 

In many Marine units, the “Quote Book” is alive and well. I’ve seen it called the “Quote Log,” the “Book of Hard Sayings,” and a few other titles. All it is, is a collection of things that were uttered by someone - often an unsuspecting fool - who didn’t realize that somebody with a quick pen would record their verbiage for posterity and thereby pass down through the ages the speaker’s ineptitude.

Either that, or just something damn funny that deserved to be written down so as not to be forgotten.

A planning conference is fertile ground for stuff worthy of a Quote Log.

Such as:
“EOD – Proudly solving any problem through the proper application of high explosives.”

“I regret that I have but one liver to give for my country. -– Chauncy Hale, distant relative of Nathan.”

“The mission is not over until every Marine is back, has turned in his ammo, and is asleep in his horizontal time accelerator.”
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 19:09
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A very funny man who will never be equaled... 

Who is Carnac the Magnificent, aka Johnny Carson.

Late night has basically sucked since he left the air, with Leno and Letterman getting progressively unfunnier by the season. First Dick Clark craps out on New Year's Eve, and now this. I must be gettin' old...

We'll miss ya Johnny.
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 18:35
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Jan 17, 2005

Old joke, but still... 

Courtesy of my buddy, Dumass:
A college professor, an avowed Atheist, was teaching his class. He shocked several of his students when he flatly stated that there is no God, the expression "One Nation Under God" was unconstitutional, and further, he was going to prove there is no God.

Addressing the ceiling, he shouted: "God, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I'll give you 15 minutes!"

The lecture room fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop. Ten minutes went by.

Again he taunted God, saying, "Here I am, God! I'm still waiting!"

His countdown got down to the last couple of minutes when a Marine just released from active duty and newly registered in the class walked up to the professor, hit him full force in the face, and sent him off his lofty platform. The professor was out cold! At first the students were shocked and babbled in confusion.

The young Marine took a seat in the front row and sat there quietly. The class fell silent... waiting.

Eventually, the professor came to, shaken. He looked at the young Marine in the front row. When he regained his senses and could speak he yelled, "What's the matter with you? Why did you do that?"

"God was busy. He sent me."
Semper.

PS - Like I said, it's an old joke... nowadays, nobody would be "shocked" to hear this from a college professor...
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 21:08
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Jan 11, 2005

Yeah, what HE said 

CD makes a great point about gun control advocates... basically the same point that I made last week. But dang if he don't sum it up perfectly.
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 20:56
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zzzZZZzzz...[snort]...zzzz..WHA! 

OH... it's you...

Sorry this place has turned into a virtual "snoozex," but well... I'm tired.

My dad told me once, a long time ago, that the one thing he remembered about being in the military more vividly than anything else was being tired. All the time. CONSTANTLY. Couldn't get enough sleep. Waking hours were coffee supported battles against the Sleep Monster. There was a time where I felt like that right after I got in. Anybody else out there experience this phenomenon?

Then there was this great time where I was doing something I loved, and though I'm a fully qualified Rack-Time Ranger (as Dr. Evil might say, I have "low-grade narcolepsy"), I was ready to take on all comers. I was on top of the world. You could have run the Empire State Building with what I was puttin' out.

Then slowly, the Sleep Monster began beating me over the head. It took him over a year, but this last week, he finally dropped me to the mat for the first time really since that first year after I joined this Big Green Machine. He's been kicking the crap out of me. And he's got no intention of letting up.

WORKUPS.

The word that most people in the Corps fear worse than the word that follows it: DEPLOYMENT. I think if you asked people what they'd rather do, deploying would win in a landslide. But the workups prior to shipping out can be just miserable... or so I'm told.

I have never been in a deployable unit. Marine for better than half a decade, and I've never once left American soil. I told that to a guy once and he looked at me and said, "Well done." He had just come back from his second overseas tour, his first trip to Iraq. He's there again right now. But I have been nowhere.

And so, as my unit starts the roughly six month process to get ready for the roughly six month main event, I tell you this: somebody better turn up the drip on my Yuban to about 15000cc... STAT.

It hasn't helped that I've seen or done nothing blogworthy in the last few days. Weeks, really. At least not anything that isn't covered like a blanket somewhere else.

Tsunami: covered
Rathergate: covered
Dead people voting back home: TOTALLY covered

What's a guy to talk about that's unique?

Well, maybe the next few months of workups will yield some kind of fruit. And maybe when I'm not working my butt off, I'll have time to post something about it... but only if I wake up.
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 20:20
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Jan 5, 2005

From the referrer logs... 

I'm the number one Google hit for "Marine's drink of choice".

How cool is that?

Sorry Eric, but I didn't see you anywhere on the list... [/ribbing]
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 17:43
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Jan 2, 2005

New year, same stupidity 

Have you ever had a line from a news story jump out and smack you in the face like a wet fish? You know... you just sat there... dumbfounded... what are the odds that THAT just happened?...

Well duck, cuz there's a Flounder at your 10 o'clock and he's headed right at ya.
"I don't feel like I need to own a gun to protect myself. Certainly, I am a high-profile elected official and now a lot of gun owners don't like me individually, but if I'm in a situation where I feel threatened, I'll call the police," Daly said.
Welcome to the land of the surreal: The People's Democratic Republic of San Francisco. To say that the people that run that town and a goodly portion of their constituency are Socialists is an insult to Socialists... these folks are well on their way to full-blown Communism. "...the 11-member Board of Supervisors [consists] of four Democrats and a Green Party member, [but] the group is nonetheless considered "ideologically diverse" by San Francisco standards..." Ve have come vor your pistols, Comrade... this iz vhat's best for the Motherland...
SAN FRANCISCO — - The city that bucked state law and sanctioned gay marriage is now taking aim at the constitutional right to bear arms by proposing a ban in San Francisco on private ownership of all handguns.

"When you get guns out of people's homes and off the streets, it means that that gun is not going to be used in a shooting that kills someone, whether a murder or an accidental shooting," said Chris Daly, supervisor of San Francisco.

San Francisco officials are pushing a ballot measure to prohibit just about everyone who isn't a cop, security guard or member of the military from having a handgun in their home or office.
I could not even begin to tell you how wrong this guy Daly is. It would take all day and more charts than Ross Perot brought to his first Presidential debate. But the kicker is this:
Despite state laws that prevent local governments from banning handguns, the city believes doing just that will stem a wave of homicides that's left 87 people dead this year.
Yes. That's right. Once again, San Francisco leads the charge in doing (AS A WHOLE CITY) that which is clearly defined as ILLEGAL. Come down on whatever side of the whole gay marriage thing you want to, but UNTIL THE LAW IS CHANGED what they did last year was ILLEGAL. And UNTIL THE LAW IS CHANGED, a ban on handguns is also ILLEGAL.

Does anybody else think that trying to pull off something like this in the wake of the Department of Justice stating "Hey dummy, it means just what it says: the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," is a bold flaunting of the rule of law? Is this some type of teenage rebellion thing? "I'm gonna do it because they told me not to?"

Not since the days of Wyatt Earp stopping every new cowboy that rode into town and taking his six-killers has this worked. And it's not like there isn't evidence out there that won't tell you that. Why, look! I need go no further than the very next line in the story!
Washington, D.C., banned handguns in response to its skyrocketing homicide rate in 1976. But nearly three decades later, it had more murders per capita than any other city its size.
Yet, if need be, you can always call: THE POLICE!

Remember, though, that squad cars - though faster - have a harder time making it through downtown traffic than White Stallions. And kevlar - though lighter and more protective - doesn't have quite the same blinding effect that Shining Armor does.

Are these people daft? When Little Timmy the Crackhead jumps out and yells "Gimme yer dough!," do you think that he's gonna wait for you while you pull out your cell phone and dial 911? God forbid you don't have a cell phone and have to find a phone booth. And then, you WILL be put on hold! (there is a Government funded satellite network that immediately searches out all 911 calls and alerts the operator to place you on hold if the situation is truly dire... believe it...) Do you think that'll work?!

I'll tell you what'll work: a well placed 9mm hydrashock into Little Timmy the Crackhead's frontal lobe! THAT'S what'll stop crime. It doesn't seem to me that all the thugs left D.C. when they banned all the legal handguns. I can't for the life of me figure out why...

As I stared deep into my Palantir and gazed across the expanse into Mordor, I fully expected to see the Orcs gearing up for war. What I got was actually a bit of a surprise. At Democratic Underground website who must not be named, I zeroed in on a message thread that was called (I'm not kidding) "Fuck guns." Expecting to see a giant orgy of stupid, I was greeted by an overwhelming call for the thread originator to pull his head out of his ass.

Could it be that the rank and file Americans on both sides of the political spectrum actually support and believe in the Second Amendment? Could it be that the Political Correctness Brigades of the Communist Party of America are trying to hijack the American political Left and drag it into the darkness? Could it be that if they succeed with this attempt in San Francisco, that Los Angeles will become a much safer town because a ton of enterprising criminals will head north, where the payoffs are bigger and the risks are lower?

Please excuse me while I go ponder...
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 16:01
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