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Jul 30, 2009

TF Leatherneck - Helmand, AFG 

Posted by: Mike the Marine / 14:29
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Jul 21, 2009

Very cool 

We Choose the Moon

h/t to Theo
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 18:54
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Jul 11, 2009

"Lucky Strike means fine tobacco" 

Or at least it used to. Nowadays it would mean "tobacco fines."
Pentagon health experts are pressing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and ends its sale on military property, according to USA Today.
I enjoy the occasional cigar (on far fewer occasions now that there's a kid in the house), but I don't smoke cigarettes and I've never been a dipper... I can't even stand the smell of it. In fact, I find chewing to be a nasty, repugnant habit. However, there is no more sure fire way to ensure open revolt than to take away a fightin' man's tabaccy. Well maybe if you cut off his coffee...

The most laughable part of this whole thing however, is the reasoning behind it.
Tobacco use costs the Pentagon $846 million a year in medical care and lost productivity, according to the study, which was released last month and used older data. The Department of Veterans Affairs spends up to $6 billion in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses, the study found.
So, here we are in the middle of giving away TRILLIONS to looting free-loaders and the Pentagon is sweating $846 million!? You could find that in spare change recovered annually from between the couch cushions in the offices of the E-Ring. And besides, if we're all going to have government health care anyway, since when was money an object?

Look, we're the military. We follow lawful orders as passed down from our civilian leadership. And I suppose that if the civilians think that a smoke-free, all vegetarian, tofu snacking military is what they want protecting them, then that's what the US military will eventually become... for as long as it holds out before fainting while climbing a flight of stairs. But more typically what you get are type-A carnivores who have been known to have a bad habit or two. You start to take away their one outlet for relaxation (especially in a war zone, as booze has been taken off the menu) and you're going to run into issues.

And remember this: the military is often the testbed for concepts - be they good or bad - that are later dropped on the populace as a whole. Maybe people shouldn't smoke, but shouldn't that be up to them? You want me to mix the chocolate and peanut butter into a crazy taste explosion for you? Okay, try this on for size: EVERYONE will get government health care, right? WRONG for you smokers, who will be deemed a waste of cash and left to die. Or you'll simply be denied ANY treatment for ANY ailment, be it tobacco related or not, because you DARED break the first rule of Health Club: You do not puff about Health Club. And then the hard liquor goes, then the beer, and the caffeine too. And when the coffee is gone, that's when the feces has impacted the rotary impeller. Eventually we'll be subsisting on nutrient flavor cubes. And you can bet that they'll be introduced first in an MRE...


Yeah... those days are gone...
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 08:12
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Jul 4, 2009

The unanimous Declaration 



I was listening to talk radio the other day... as I am wont to do... and I heard a some people breathlessly inform the host that they just couldn't bring themselves to celebrate Independence Day, due to the outcome of the last Presidential and the personage that currently embodies the office at 1600 Pennsylvania. They were simply too downtrodden...

I wanted to reach through the radio and choke them.

If your opinion of this great nation, if your love of freedom and justice is so impacted by one person, if all your hopes for the future of this - our Republic - are tied to ONE MAN, then you are worthless and weak... and I have as much time for you as I would for the slimiest, most infantile member of Code Pink.

There are men fighting and dying tonight FOR YOU. And you can't bring yourself to light a sparkler and drink a brew, if for no other reason than in THEIR honor? You disgust me.

If you don't like the way things are going, f'in SACK UP and do something about it. But don't come sobbing to me about how shallow your life is that ONE MAN made you feel so sad you couldn't fight to set your country back to what you believe is the right course. And don't tell me about how you are so down in the dumps that you couldn't take the time to remember - and celebrate - that this is the GREATEST NATION that HAS BEEN or ever WILL BE. Your pity party bores me.
"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
Posted by: Mike the Marine / 18:09
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