Overheard in the House

Irish Woman:  Some nuns were in the hospital today selling fudge as a fundraiser, so I bought a box.  Would you like a piece?

DaddyBear:  Sure.  munch munch munch.

Irish Woman:  Pretty good, huh?

DaddyBear:  Tell the sister that her fudge is good enough to make a man sin.  And you need to hide that box.

Code of Conduct

The Code of Conduct was brought into military doctrine in the 1950’s.  It is a reminder of what is expected of American servicemembers if they are captured.  I’ve used it as a reminder of how to conduct myself in the bad times.

I am an American fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life, I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

This is what I am, not what I do, and the lengths to which I am willing to go to fulfill my mission.  In the worst of times, this may be the only thing you’ve got to keep yourself going.

I will never surrender of my own free will.  If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.

I will never give up so long as I have the ability to continue to strive towards my goal.  If I am a leader, I will never give up on my people so long as they are still able to continue their missions.  Knowing that your leader believes in you and will stay by your side means more than just about anything else in tough times.

If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available.  I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape.  I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

Sometimes no matter how hard you try, the worst happens.  Even then, never give up.  Work with your people to either make the situation better or get out of the situation altogether.  I will not make my life better at the expense of the lives of my people.  Neither will I take comforts that are not available to them.  Everyone benefits or no one benefits.

If I become prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners.  I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades.  If I am senior, I will take command.  If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.

I will stand by my people, no matter what.  I will do nothing that will hurt my organization, no matter what personal benefit I may gain.  I will not be afraid to take charge in a difficult situation, even if that exposes me to ridicule, deprivation, or worse.  If someone else takes charge, I will follow their leadership wholly.

Should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth.  I will evade answering questions to the utmost of my ability.  I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies.

There are some things you have to do when you’re in a bad situation.  Other than that, don’t do anything to make it worse.  Don’t trade the lives of your comrades for your own personal gain.  Remember that there are some things more important than your own personal comfort or survival.

I will never forget that I am an American fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free.  I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

Again, this is who I am, not what I do.  I will take responsibility for what I say and do, and will remember why I should do the right thing in a bad situation.  I will remember that even though I may be isolated, I am never alone.

Ain't it the truth!

Actually, I can't complain.  All of my kids have loved their vegetables and fruit. 

H/T to GraphJam 

Thought For the Day

Today is the 9th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.  Others will memorialize the actions of the heroes on that day, and will do so much better than I could.

I just want to share a few quotes that remind me of what this day means to me:


Horatius

    Then out spake brave Horatius,
          The Captain of the Gate:
     "To every man upon this earth
          Death cometh soon or late.
     And how can man die better
          Than facing fearful odds,
     For the ashes of his fathers,
          And the temples of his gods,

     "And for the tender mother
          Who dandled him to rest,
     And for the wife who nurses
          His baby at her breast,
     And for the holy maidens
          Who feed the eternal flame,
     To save them from false Sextus
          That wrought the deed of shame?

     "Haul down the bridge, Sir Consul,
          With all the speed ye may;
     I, with two more to help me,
          Will hold the foe in play.
     In yon strait path a thousand
          May well be stopped by three.
     Now who will stand on either hand,
          And keep the bridge with me?"

Shakespeare's St. Crispin Day speech, from Henry V.

    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
    But he'll remember, with advantages,
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
    Familiar in his mouth as household words-
    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
    This story shall the good man teach his son;
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remembered-
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

And my own thoughts -

• I will never try to understand the motivations of those who attacked us.  They are barbarians in the most classic sense of the term, and I will not give them the honor of my thoughts other than to disdain them.
• Those who died in the attacks earned our respect and reverence.  Those who try to justify their suffering deserve nothing but wrath.
• It is to us, those who watched these horrible events unfold, to keep this day to remember what happened, and to make the world a place where barbarians will never have the ability to harm us again.

Thought for the day

One of the benefits of having a Siamese cat is that sometimes you get to stand in as prey. Usually just as you start to fall asleep.

Or you could just carry a gun

Badass of the Week looks at home defense.

Military Marriages Words to Live By

These are things I wish I'd either known or done before I was married in the military.  By saying this, I admit that I followed mostly none of these:

1. Never give her a reason to mistrust you.  Don't even take the chance of a mis-perceived operational necessity such as shared sleeping quarters to surprise her.
2. Corrolary - Always make sure she knows who you work with.  If going out for a beer with the guys includes a ravishingly beautiful brunette hardbody in your squad, make sure she knows her beforehand. Failure to do this may tend to get your belongings thrown out into the yard between the hours of 10 PM and 2 AM.
3. Corrolary - If you're working late, make sure it's not alone with said brunette.  If you have to work alone with a member of the opposite sex, if at all possible, take your work home and do it at the kitchen table where your wife can see you.
4. If you're a one income family, budget her expenses before you budget your own.
5. If you're a two income family, her money is not your money, but your money is probably shared.
6. Always have money she doesn't know about and can't get to.  I once met a retired sergeant major who spent seven years in a Vietnamese POW camp who came back to an empty apartment, no money in his accounts, and nothing but the uniform on his back.
7. Corollary - Giving her General Power of Attorney when you deploy is a good way to come back from deployment penniless and several tens of thousands in debt.
8. Always be honest with her.  If your orders are for a 179 to 364 day deployment, tell her you'll be gone a year.  If you're not there on day 180 after you told her you'd be gone 6 months, you're in deep kimchi.
9. "You knew I was a soldier when you married me" is probably not a good thing to say when trying to end an argument.
10. If you're a dual military couple, make sure you're in separate units.  You may worship the ground she walks on, but spending almost every waking hour together for several years would wear Ward and June Cleaver out.
11. Corollary - If you outrank your spouse, it never gets mentioned at home.
12. Corollary - If you outrank your spouse, do anything you have to in order to avoid being their supervisor.  Nothing says marital bliss like putting your blushing bride on KP duty, or even worse, giving her a counseling statement because she's taking advantage of being the mother of the team leader's eldest son.
13. You may be the most bad ass mother in the valley when you're at work, but when you get home, put on your apron and do some housework.  "I make the money, you clean the house" is a really good way to find yourself sleeping in your shelter half in the back yard.

Dinner Tonight

Redneck Yakisoba

Fill up a one gallon stock pot with salted water and put on high heat until it comes to a boil.  Add one package spaghetti or fettucini noodles, broken into pieces of two to three inches each.

While the water and pasta are cooking, finely chop a strong white onion and two cloves of garlic.  Saute in a wok with olive and sesame oil until the onion is soft.  Add one pound of stew meat from your favorite meat producing animal.  Add one pint of sliced mushrooms and saute until the meat is browned and the mushrooms change consistency.  Add half a cup of white cooking wine, a quarter cup of soy sauce, and your favorite seasonings (pepper, sesame, chilis, etc.).  Add one bottle of your favorite terriyaki, kung pao, or General Tso's sauce, along with double that amount of water.  Add one bag frozen peas and carrots.Bring to a boil, then lower the temperature and allow to simmer uncovered until the sauce starts to thicken but is still slightly runny.

When the pasta is cooked to your tastes, drain well.  Put back in stock pot.  Pour meat, vegetables and sauce into stock pot and mix thoroughly with pasta.  Put over low heat, stirring very often, until the sauce is absorbed into and coats the noodles.

Serve hot with your favorite cold refreshing beverage.  Makes enough to feed a mongol horde.

Out of the Park

Chris Muir puts one into the parking lot this week:

Our country has been providing billions of dollars in aid to majority Muslim countries for decades.  But for some reason we're shown as being anti-Islam by the world press and Muslim leaders.  Kinda makes me think it's time to shut off the tap for a few decades.

NFL Picks, Week 1

Here we go again.  Another regular season starts this week.

Here are the rules:  I will pick every regular and post season game.  I will pick against the straight score, not against the spread.  I will almost always pick against Dallas and New England.

Week 1 picks:

Minnesota at New Orleans - Vikings!
Cleveland at Tampa Bay - Cleveland
Miami at Buffalo - Buffalo
Cinci at New England - Cinci
Indy at Houston - Indy
Denver at Jacksonville - Denver
Atlanta at Pittsburg - Steelers
Oakland at Tennessee - Raiders!
Carolina at New York Giants - Carolina
Detroit at Chicago - Chicago
Green Bay at Philadelphia - Green Bay
San Fransisco at Seattle - Seattle
Dallas at Washington - Redskins!
Baltimore at New York Jets - Baltimore
San Diego at Kansas City - Kansas City

Range Report

Well, yesterday morning, along with being my beloved Irish Woman's birthday, was also the first time I've been to Knob Creek in months.  I got out there about half an hour before they opened the range, and that gave me enough time to get set up and meet my buddies for a group shoot.  The range was eventually packed to the gills, so I'm glad I got there early.  You couldn't have asked for better conditions.  It was cool, with a slight breeze directly to my back as I shot. 

I took along the 91/30, the Garand, the 10/22, and a couple of pistols.  One of my friends brought along his new-to-him Garand, and we each shot a few clips of ammo through each other's rifles. 

I spent some time shooting the 91/30 now that I've extended the front sight post.  For the non-Mosin crowd, that rifle was designed to be shot accurately only with the weight of the very long bayonet sticking off the end of the barrel. It was probably the last infantry rifle designed around the "Fire off a few rounds, then charge the enemy with bayonets fixed" tactic.  Without the hog sticker on the muzzle, the force of the round going going off kicks the muzzle too far up, and it shoots very high.  To compensate, a narrow tube of some kind can be put in the end of the front sight post to make it longer.  A longer front sight forces the shooter to point the muzzle a touch lower, bringing point of impact down with it.  A few degrees down at the muzzle equates to several inches or more at 100 yards. 

My shots seemed to be low enough, but now I'm shooting about a foot to the right.  That's either lack of practice, or the extension to the sight may be off center.  I'll keep practicing and see if it improves.  If it doesn't, I can re-do the extension and make sure it's plumb to the existing sight post.

So, I put 24 rounds through the Garand, about 60 rounds through my Mosin, and another 25 or 30 rounds through my 1911 and .38.  The 10/22 only got fired for 20 rounds.  I'm going to have to do a range trip where all I take is the 91/30 and 10/22 so I can concentrate on things I need to improve on and not just on the things I really really enjoy.  Of course, any day at the range is fun, and the dull ache from my right shoulder still makes me smile.

Before you ask, yes I got back home before noon so I could spoil Irish Woman.  BooBoo and I got her some things, and we had really really good Italian food for dinner. 

Welcome Home

A United States soldier whose body has been missing for 60 years returned to his hometown this week.

Sergeant Charles Whitler's body was returned to Kentucky after being found in a mass grave in Korea.  He was executed by North Korean forces after being captured and interrogated.

Welcome home soldier.  You've waited too long for this.

National Attention to Border Inaction

OK, I've found the subject that I'm going to be shrill about.  I've been posting for a while about what I believe should be done along the US-Mexico Border.  I've pointed out what I believe is wrong, and I've posted a couple of times about what I think should be done.

The federal government has been delinquent in its duty to secure our borders for decades.  This is not an "Obama" problem, or even a "Bush" problem.  This is a problem where even Reagan failed to take sufficient action to stem the flow of illegal aliens.  

There has always been some enforcement along the border.  The government hasn't allowed itself to be seen as completely abandoning the border.  The Border Patrol has been beefed up several times in the past, and the president promises to do it again.  Shannon recently had an encounter with the Border Patrol that is pretty much indicative of what the present administration wants to do:  Hassle ordinary citizens well within the border, do things that can be seen but don't do much good, and act like the problem will go away.  I posted at one time about an area  in Arizona that's been marked as off limits.  Apparently whole sections of Arizona are being marked as no-man's land by the federal government.

And now the national press is starting to notice:

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

Emphasis mine.  H/T to Dvorak.

So now, rather than enforce our border and protect our citizens from foreign invaders, they're just warning us that some places over 100 miles from the border aren't safe for us to use and leaving it at that.

Someone please wake me up when the rest of the country gets as pissed off as I am.  Thanks.

Hint for the Day

If, when you get out of bed in the morning, your neck, spine, knees, elbows, ankles, and hands all crack like popcorn, it will not be a good day, no matter what you do.

That is all.

Non Sequitur has found me!

I personally don't care for this.  I never make myself available.