Withdrawls...

OK, If this blog was a job, I'd have been fired for slacking.  I have several good idear's coming up...just need time to write them up.  I have been going through shooting withdrawals for the past few months.  I can "sneak out" to the Sheriff's range, but ammo is hard to come by.  For a guy who used to shoot 100 or more rounds a week from pistols, I'm hurting.

I know there's lots of speculation as to why there's so little ammo, but the sad part is when I do find it, the prices are insane!

So if you have any of the following type of ammo, please send me some:

.22
38 special/ 357 mag
9 mm
.40 cal
.45 ACP
45 Colt
5.56mm
303
30-06  

Or anything else you have...

I just bought a new Kimber and got to shoot it the other day.  Nice, accurate and fits my hands just right.

For all you mothers, have a great Mother's Day.  Mom, we miss you.

CI Roller Rules of Order for meetings

From the new job side: One of the things I have to do at me new “non-sworn” job is go to meetings.  With my quick observation skills, law enforcement and military training, I observed how many of these meetings went.  In most cases, these meetings have no or very few sworn law enforcement folks attending.  The meetings where they do have such persons, they are on time and go very quick. 

The county I work in now, has about two dozen cities, bus services, schools, colleges and other agencies I haven't even found yet! 

So, I came up with some rules to help MY meetings go better.  I showed them to my boss, and he sent the document out to have a poster made.

Rules for meetings with multiple agencies

1.)    Try to be polite to everybody and treat everybody with respect (but have a plan ready to throw them out of the room)

2.)    Don’t ask questions that are just asked to show how smart you think you are

3.)    Don’t ask somebody a question about another agency that they don’t work for if it’s an off the wall question

4.)    Speaking of “off the wall questions” avoid asking them.  (There are no “dumb” questions, just people who don’t think before asking them)

5.)    If you have a “special” question, or something that is going to suck up a lot of time and doesn’t impact anybody else, then consider asking it after or before the meeting 

6.)    Your lack of planning or reading stuff ahead of time is not a reason to ask a question.

7.)    If people cringe when you walk in the room or when you ask a question, consider not coming to the meetings…actually consider retiring and moving away

8.)    If all you do is go to meetings and never actually do any work, don’t ask others at the meeting to “summarize” information or to do your work for you, most of them have jobs

9.)    If you were supposed to bring something for the meeting or do a presentation, don’t wait until the last minute to find that everybody is using a Windows 9 type system but you have a Windows 3.0 and can’t hook it up.  Plan ahead. 

10.) If you always come late to meetings, sneak in quietly… don’t shout out “sorry I’m late…”.  Everybody knows you’re sorry for being late.  Most of the time we’re not starting the meeting until you get there because we know you violate all the above rules. 

11. If you need to make more than ten points, have another meeting next week.

12. If someone comes up with a good idea early in the meeting and that idea is still intact by the end of the meeting put that someone in charge of all the meetings. 

Never say the following phrases or words:

“Basically”.  “One quick question.”  “ Stake holders.” And the worst: “ With that said.”  or any other word or phrase that's used more than 20 times a day.  
 

SUPER BOWL....- 2005. Who played?

(As the Editor and Chief is busy getting ready to watch the San Francisco 49er’s win (update-Loose)  another Super Bowl, we’re running a re-run story today.  Go Niners!)

  

From the Soldier Side: (I told this story a few years ago... but it’s one of my favorites)

Super Bowl Sunday, Jan 2005! There I was, in Baghdad, Iraq. My team had just flown in that day from some shitty mission.... (Mosoul/ Telafar). We were worn out and tired. We had been sent to Mosoul/ Telafar to help after the Army mess hall had been blown up by a suicide bomber. Still, after all these years, I think one of the hardest things to investigate is something where the primary suspect has killed himself. In that case, I really wish he had made a mistake with his fuse and blown himself up outside the camp.

No, I didn't jump out of planes!

But the biggest hindrance in that investigation was not the insurgents, but the idiot Sergeant who had put herself in charge...she had no idea what she was doing and was just a retard.

Anyway, after we got off the Blackhawk chopper in Baghdad, we were trucked back out our rooms. We dropped our gear and headed for dinner….

We walked over to the mess hall, grabbing a tray of chow, I saw that they had a bunch of ice cold beer. I thought it was a celebration for our safe return.

Nope. I asked the sergeants guarding the beer,  It was Super Bowl Sunday 2005. This is the most important holiday in the US Army. The Marines have the Marine Corps Birthday, I'm not sure what the Navy and Air Force have, but the Army has Super Bowl.

Now, I figure a lot of you won't understand how important beer was....because General Order #1 said we could not have anything with alcohol in it...unless a General authorized it. But, even with a General's approval, there could only be a 2 beer limit per person. Now, to be honest with you, I don't normally drink that much anymore. But that time of the deployment, a cold beer sounded really good. 2 cold beers sounded even better. They went down quick.....ice cold, yummy.

When those “M” religions come in handy….

Then, my #2 guy looked around and found all the Islamic Terps and the Mormon soldiers.  

I’d ask: “Hey Joe, aren’t you a good Mormon?”

Joe: “Yes Sergeant, I am.”

Me: “Good, go get your 2 beers and bring them over here please.” 

We did this with Achmed, Whaid, Jim and a few others..... 

We convinced them that they should get their ration of beer and bring them to us.....only 2 at a time.

                             and the General said: "Have 2 beers!" and it was good.  So we had 2 more.

I lost count of how many beers I had. And wouldn't you know it, walking out of the mess hall (really kind of staggering) there was the battalion commander and the sergeant major. They were assholes, and I just walked by and said: "Gentlemen, dinner is on me."

We made it back to our rooms, laid on my rack and passed out. I never did watch that game and I have no idea who was even playing. But the 2 beers were sure gooooood! I admit.. I was feeling very good that night.

(For those reading this outside of the United States...the Super Bowl is kind of like the world cup soccer, except better ads on TV.) 

Slacker

From neither the Soldier or the old Cop side:  If I was doing this blog as a job, I'd get fired.  Come-on, I haven't posted anything since Christmas.  Well the new job does have me working long days, but it's good....it keeps me busy.
Speaking of busy.  There's a new "CI Roller Dude" in town.  My #1 son and his wife unit had a baby boy a few weeks ago.  He's already got his head on a swivel looking around the room...checking for bad guys.
His older sister has also been showing him some tricks....

(Big sis has the Irish red hair...little brother doesn't have much hair yet.)

Well, I keep thinking up old war stories, but by the time I get to the computer I forget them.  Maybe I should take a note book with me.  It's really hard to think about old stuff with two wonderful grand kids to think about.

Not worth dying (or killing) for

From the Cop side: It’s funny what jars my memory these days.  I had to attend some training the other day for my new job.  It was targeted towards hospitals…which I have nothing to do with unless I have to see a doctor or something.  But the training was about Active Shooters. 

It was OK training…but for a semi retired cop who used to train other cops how to do this stuff it was hard to stay awake for 8 hours.  Over 200 Power Point slides and lots of talking…lots of talking...but not much action.  Did I mention there was lots of talking and lots of Power Point slides?  

But, somewhere in the fog around slide #180 or 190, it jarred my memory of a copper call I went on many years ago. 

It was back in the 1980’s.  This was before all the high speed toys cops now have.  No pepper spray, no taser, no bean bags guns, and no hostage negotiators.  Just cops with guns, sticks, hands and our ability to talk and think. 

The call:  I was working in a very quiet area of the county.  I was the only officer on duty from our agency.  There was a county deputy who covered the area down the street…and about a half a mile further was another small department with one officer on duty.  Usually on a Sunday that was all you’d need.  There were several other cops, deputies and the Highway Patrol on covering the rest of the county….miles away.

Just down the street was what I called the “insane asylum”.  I swear it looked like something you’d see in a Alfred Hitchcock movie from the 1950’s.  A dark and dreary place.  All the patients were very, very crazy and usually locked in a room alone with lots of medication…and I suspect a few  had been given a lobotomy or had shock therapy. 

The loony bin had a policy if cops had to take somebody inside, no weapons.  This was a good idea because I’m sure some of the patients could have easily eaten one of us if they had the chance…then used our guns to shoot out the door and escape. 

However…some rules need to be bent or broken in some cases. 

The deputy who’s jurisdiction the loony bin was in got a call: 

Zebra 21, we’re getting a report of a patient with a knife and a club in the “……” hospital.  Can you respond code 3 and I’ll see if we can get a cover.” 

Zebra 21: “I’m a block away and I have CI Roller Dude following me.” (we were parked bullshitting)

The deputy and I arrived and a few minutes later the cop down the street showed up.  We were thinking about what we had and the deputy looked at me (since I’d been a cop a whole 5 years longer than he had been at that time) and he asked: “should we go in with weapons?”

I looked at the deputy and said: “I’m not going in there without my stick and .45.”  (at that time I was packing a Colt 1911A1 .45)

The other copper who showed up had about one year of experience and had no idea what to do.  I suggested that we have the dispatcher call the loony bin before we went inside and tell them to lock all the other patients up in their rooms...because we were coming in with weapons. 

In a few minutes, we were advised by dispatch that the loony bin folks had everybody locked in their rooms except the nut job with the knife and club…who was barricaded in the kitchen. 

So we went in with sticks and guns (in our holsters) and proceeded towards the kitchen.  We found one of the hospital psyche nurses yelling at the guy with the knife and club.  As we entered the kitchen, we could see that the nut was a little guy, but very amped up for some reason.  He was very upset.  The nurse continued screaming at the dude and she was starting to annoy me. 

I told the nurse:”Mam, can you back out now, we’re the cops and we’re here.”  She finally shut up, then I asked her why the guy was so upset. 

About that time, the crazy dude said he was going to stab us all, so we pointed our guns at him and he backed into the corner and shut up. 

Since the nurse wasn’t helping, I suggested to the deputy that he talk to the crazy guy and see what he’s so upset about. 

He wanted another glass of orange juice.  The nurse told him he couldn't have anymore.  So, he broke off a table leg (for a club) and got into the cooking area and grabbed a big ass butcher knife.  

I asked the nurse if he could have another glass of OJ.  She said “NO.”

I looked at the deputy and said: “damn it’s shame we’re going to have to shoot this guy over a glass of orange juice.” 

The nurse got pissed off…but the nut heard what I said and threw down his knife and club. 

Problem taken care of and nobody hurt. 

….and the bitch nurse made a complaint because we entered the nut hospital with our weapons.   

Guns UP!

From the "Non-Sworn" side: My new job is keeping me busy.  Funny, I always thought when a person retired; they sat around and grew old.  But I’m not ready for that wheel chair yet.

I work for a large law enforcement agency as a non-sworn manager now.  The other day they asked if I was a certified POST (California Peace Officer Standards and Training) firearms instructor.  Yep. 

Then they asked if I would be able to help at the range on a weekend.  I responded with: “Sure, can I shoot afterwards?”

The boss copper said: “Oh yeah.”

We ran a lot of folks through the courses that day.  Not only does this agency have the nicest shooting ranges I’ve ever seen, but some of the best folks I have ever worked with. 

After those who came to shoot left, one of the guys broke out some of the “toys” for us to shoot.  It was a good day.  

                                            Yeah, it was a real, full-auto Tommy Gun...

Read about Tommy Guns

What do you miss most about the Army?

From the Soldier side: Veteran's Day is coming next week.  For my Vet friends who read this dribble, let me know what you miss the most about the Military.  If you were not in, then you can comment on what you think you missed.

Here's a couple of things I miss:

M-11 9MM shoot

and

Using a SAW

Operation: Payback, CI Roller Dude style:

From the Soldier side: I still tell folks my Bosnia deployment was one of the “Best Jobs I ever had”.  I didn’t like it when we got stuck on Eagle Base (too many officers running around with nothing to do) but when we went out on a “mission” it was extremely cool. 

Camp Cody in Ugljevik was our Area of Operations

Some of the folks I considered “cool” were in the EUPM mission (European Union Police Mission).  These folks were from civilian police departments all over Europe.  Since my normal job back home was a civilian cop, I got along very well with these coppers.  We shared stories and stuff…and I became good friends with some of them.  They were given a very large per diem to live on, so most of them spent what was left over on alcoholic beverages…and there were many “meetings” I had to attend where folks were well lubricated…and the spoke in many languages—trying to speak English.  My ear was tuned to compensate and I could actually understand most of them most of the time.

Camp Cody- our base of operations for this mission

The one lad I had a hard time understanding even when he was sober (which was usually before noon) was a copper from Scotland.  I mean I was impressed with anybody who enforced laws and made arrest without a handgun, but this guy was awesome…and very Scottish—including the kilt on occasions.

One such event was a going away party where he wore his kilt.  And yes it’s true they wear nothing under the kilt.  I usually brought my compact digital camera with me everywhere, and this one night I made the mistake of leaving it on the table when I went to the bathroom.  (make a note to never do this around some folks). 

I returned and my camera was still on the table, but it appeared to have been “on”.  I was pretty sure I had turned it “off”, but dismissed it all to just being forgetful. 

When I returned to my Sea Hut room on Camp Cody later that night…I down loaded my pictures to my computer.  The last picture made me laugh.  I won’t describe it in full detail because many readers might become ill.  But let me say this about that picture: I had digital proof that the Scots do in fact wear nothing under their kilts… and let me just say somebody was creative with toilet paper hanging out of a certain body cavity. 

So…how does a good Soldier and NCO get payback in a case like this?  I had already ordered some special bumper stickers on-line for another mission.  I figured when those arrived, I would divert some of them for another mission.  I even came up with a mission title and op order. 

“Mission EUPM Even the Score”.  I was not concerned with starting an international incident because my EUPM comrades had already established that there were no R.O.Es. (Rules Of Engagement).  My own moral values added that it would not be life threatening and would be nothing that could cause any mission member to be subject to any UCMJ action. 

Here's how the mission went, (redacted for Op Sec): Dress in all dark clothes.  Make sure we have a full load of ammo, fuel and commo plan.  Contact those parties responsible for the offense and insure that they are home and going to bed.  Go and park a few blocks from where the offenders live, walk in a stealth manner to where their vehicles were parked...conduct mission.  

General area of operation for this mission...

SPEW ALERT, swallow your coffee before going further!!!!

One picture is worth a thousand words…      

Have a good plan, have a better back up plan

From the Cop and Soldier side: One of the things my team got complimented on while we were in Bosnia was our Mission Planning.  Some guy from USAER (United States Army Europe) came around and checked out all the little teams we had scattered around Bosnia.  When he visited our team, he watched how we did our planning. 

Our style was to let the Soldier who was running the mission for that day do the plan.  It didn’t matter if he was a Specialist E-4 or the team leader…the plan was presented to everybody who had to go and we all looked at it to see if it was good or it sucked.  If it sucked, then I’d make “suggestions”. 

Then we had a backup plan because of Murphy’s Law.  No matter how good the plan was, just like the law of gravity, the law of Murphy was always there and it would mess up even the simplest of plans. 

I got everybody on our team to do this…except the guy who was the orginal team leader.  He later got fired and they gave me the team.  Now, if you’re not aware of it, the US Army will promote you with duties, but not always with the rank that should go with it--- so you are made to do the work, but without the extra pay….and no over time. 

Anyway, the team leader would never plan his missions.  Hell, most of the time he forgot to even tell anybody that he had a mission the next day and the first anybody heard of it was at breakfast.  Then he’d ask the SECFOR (Security Force) guys if they had the vehicles fueled and ready to go.  They always did because I trained them to always be ready.  The team leader was never ready.

After about the fifth mission the team leader messed up by being unplanned and late, I asked him why he didn’t plan ahead.  His response: “I always do better under pressure.”

I thought it over for a few minutes while I was driving like hell to get us to a “job” we were late for, then I said: “you know you may think you work better under pressure, but really all you do is fuck shit up, yell at everybody, and stress us all out, then screw up the job.”

He wasn’t used to people being so honest and blunt with him.  That day he didn’t say much--- you see he was in such a hurry he had forgotten to bring his weapon and we had no time to turn back and get it.  He knew I could cover him and outshoot anybody, so he didn’t worry. 

When they finally relieved him of the team, they gave it to me.  But by that time, we had reduced our number of Soldiers and I also had to take over another team.  So instead of 8 Soldiers to do the job, we did it with 2.5 (I could borrow a guy from one of the other teams if I needed.)  none of it mattered much, as SFOR (Stabilization Force Bosnia) was soon to go away. 

Damn it, I loved that job.  Oh well, at least I have the stories and the experience.

As a cop, I learned early that when going to make an arrest or do a search, the best made plans always were not perfect.  Include things that you don't know and be able to adjust and overcome.  

So, for planning…are you the type who waits until the last minute and thinks everything is OK, or do you plan ahead and have a good back up plan.      

When "Abnormal" is "Normal"

From the Cop and Soldier side: Looking back over 30 plus years of police work and army work, I realized that most of that time things that were abnormal became normal.  Or, we could say that “normal becomes transient, depending on the time, events and what humans can tolerate.” 

I think my first exposure to abnormal was when I joined the US Army.  I mean it shouldn’t be normal for 40 adult men to sleep in the same room.  Nor should it be normal much of the other stuff we did.  I made it through basic training and A.I.T. (Advanced Individual Training) and was shipped to West Berlin, Germany.  Now nothing about that was normal.  We were in the middle of communist East Germany with 20 Soviet army divisions around us.  Nothing normal there. 

And police work is really nothing like you see on TV and the movies…but it got to where I thought it was normal for people to get drunk and beat the hell out of each other or crash their cars into light poles.  Other normal events in law were ---often arresting the same people over and over again.  I mean I could remember the dates of births for the bad guys better than my own kids.  I just got used to filling all that info on the arrest forms.  Nothing normal there.

Then the California Army National Guard.  On easy weekends we’d go “camping in the woods and get up and eat MREs.”  On rough days we’d go to floods, fires, earthquakes and riots.  It was funny how quickly I learned to adopt to any abnormal situation. 

Then the deployments to Bosnia and Iraq.  I remember one time in Bosnia when I asked a local citizen of something was “normal.”  She responded with: “What’s normal anymore?” 

I mean in Bosnia they managed to kill hundreds of thousands of their neighbors and former friends.  Blow up homes and businesses, set out over 100,000 land mines and pretty much destroy one of the most beautiful places in the world!  Nothing normal there. 

Then going to Iraq.  Absolutely nothing we did at any time there was what most folks in the US would consider normal.  First of all, everywhere we went, we had to be armed.  We couldn’t even drive anywhere with less than 3 armored vehicles , lots of troops with guns and crew served guns on top.  It was a place where gun fire became normal…hearing of 2-6 soldiers getting killed each day became normal.  Yep, nothing normal there.   

Hey! Turn on the TV NOW!!! - 9/11/2001

From the Soldier side: One morning 11 years ago, I was doing my morning workout.  I had just finished one set and was getting ready to start the next and catching my breath.  The phone rang.  Normally I don’t answer it when I’m working out…figured they could leave  message.  But for some reason I answered it.

“Hey, turn on the TV NOW!” 

I did and watched as the first tower of the World Trade center was on fire.  I was a little confused…then the second plane hit the other tower.  I knew a few things at that moment. 

1.)    It was not an airplane accident, but a terrorist attack.  This was simple to figure out.

2.)    I knew with the new job I was training for in the California Army National Guard that I would be going places.

But my world didn’t change much….at first.  Since I had just changed jobs in the National Guard (MOS) from Combat Engineer to Mess Kit Repair, I was still in training.  In the National Guard if you change your job, you usually go through an abbreviated MOS school –cut down to 2 weeks instead of 8.  However, for Mess Kit Repair, I had two choices on how I went to school…the first choice was to just take the full 18 week school at some fort in Arizona.  The second choice, the one I picked, was to take the course spread out over 2 years.  One weekend each month doing the training locally and 2-two week sessions at some fort in Arizona. 

I had just started my new school…and wondered if they’d just cancel it and deploy us right away. 

They didn’t cancel the school, but they did take almost everybody in my new unit that was MOS qualified and sent them off to a few places- Fort Lewis, WA, Afghanistan, or Gitmo, Cuba.  I figured I’d “lucked out” again and missed another war.  (I was in West Berlin when Viet Nam ended, I missed a few little things in central American and I missed the Gulf War…so I thought I was lucky and was going to miss this little thing in Afghanistan…figured it’d all be over in a few months.

Late Dec 2002.  We were all ordered into the unit one Friday night and start filling out paper work and reviewing our personal data.  –then nothing happened.

Jan 2003- A bunch of us who had just earned our new MOS were sent to Camp Roberts, CA to train with another unit getting ready for possible deployement to Iraq. 

--then nothing happened….

Feb 2003- A bunch of us were sent to train with the 34^th I.D. “Red Bulls” in Minnesota for preparation for Bosnia. Then things started to happen…from that point on until we deployed to Bosnia it seemed we were doing training about every weekend.  Most of it was off the wall stuff the some knuckelheads made up that had nothing to do with our actual mission in Bosnia…some of the knuckelheads even thought they spoke Arabic in Bosnia.  That was funny.

I re-enlisted for 6 more years while many others let there enlistment expire and a few officers resigned. 

Then around May-ish 2003 we were put on Active duty orders and gone for 9 months. 

3 months after we returned from Bosnia, we were back at Camp Roberts, CA going through more prep for Iraq.  When we got to the end of the line after about 4 days of paper pushing, we were all asked if we’d deployed in the last year.  We all said: “we just got back from Bosnia.”

Then they asked if we wanted to deploy again.  We all said: “do we look like retards?  Hell no.”

But I went anyway. 

So, because of them assholes who crashed them planes on 9-11 eleven years ago, I spent 2 years of my life on deployments.  If I had to do it all over again, I’d go again….just for the chance to do my own Jihad on some camel smellin’ terrorist. 

It’s one thing to kill a soldier; it’s another to kill innocent civilians for no reason.