Off the net for awhile

The CI Roller Dude will be off the "net" for awhile

Bosnia and War Crimes

From the Soldier side: When I look back on my "military" times, I wonder if the time I spent doing things overseas was worth me being gone. Yeah, it was kind of exciting and interesting at times, but the deployment we did in Bosnia kind of seems like we just spun around in circles and never really got much done.

Then my old buddy Sergeant Grumpy posted something on Face Book (I barley use that thing, but once in awhile there's something I read). His post was about one of the assholes we were looking for in Bosnia.

The news article started with:

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb general held responsible for the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995, was arrested on Thursday, signaling Serbia’s intention of finally escaping the isolation it brought on itself during the Balkan wars, the bloodiest in Europe since World War II.

I went to Srebrenica many times. One of the times we noticed that they were building something. It turned into a giant graveyard for all the folks murdered there. We went by one of the buildings where they'd line folks up and kill them.

Warehouse of death

Each time we went back, we saw they'd added more and more grave markers. The field was large enough to bury a lot of people...a hell of a lot.

I will NEVER forget one day we were driving around after first arriving in Bosnia.  One of my very young SECFOR (Security Force) guys saw all the empty and blown up homes and asked: "How come all the people haven't moved back home?"

I thought the question over for a few minutes and said: "well, I'd assume they are all either dead or ran to another country to be safe." 

CI Roller Dude at the "new graveyard"

I hope my grand children can grow up in a world that's not so messed up.  Bosnia is at peace now...but how many people had to die and how long did it take the UN and NATO to get their shit together to stop it? 

If you have Netflix, there are a few movies about the war in Bosnia that are worth watching just so "you know." 

Happy Father's Day....dad

From the Son side:  When I was growing up, I wanted to be just like my dad.  He taught me to shoot, to fix cars before I could drive them, to fix things around the house and when I was going to join the Army he told me: "you should join the Air Force, they'll treat you better."

The CI Roller's Dad's resting place

He was right.  When I my Army duties had me on some Air Force base in my travels, I saw they had better chow and stuff.  The typical Air Force base was built like this:
1. Build the flight line for the air craft to fly on
2. Build the mess hall
3. Build the golf course
4. Then ask for more money to build the rest.

The US Air Force spends more on one fighter plane than the US Army and the US Marine spend on all of their small arms combined. 

Aim High Dad, and thinks for teaching me stuff. 

Now back to watching the wind blow the fire around....

Reversed roles...

From the citizen side:
As a cop for 32 years, and a CA Army National Guard Soldier, I had helped evacuate people in all kinds of disasters...floods, fires and earthquakes.  I can recall many times when I was standing at a traffic check point and citizens drove up and asked: "How bad is this fire?" 
Many times, I had no answer for them....I always felt sorry that they had to leave their home or I was blocking them from getting to their home. 

Yesterday, I was in the citizen's position when deputies from the Cochise County S.O. drove into my yard and told me we had to leave soon. 

I was busy hosing down the yard and the house...and the fu--ing propane tank.....I heard several of them explode yesterday.

As the fire got within a few miles, I saw the air tankers start dropping that orange/red shit on the fire....

If I ever find them pilots, I'll buy them a beer. 

The fire is still going....and the winds change every minute.... so I'm going back out on the hose...

If you look close, you can see the air water dropping plane.

...and another fire started near the Army Fort.  Home of the MI.  Hopfully the Army can do a better job at stopping it. 

Incident Command System???

From the Civilian side: 
The fire that started south of the US/Mexican border and spread into the Coronado National Park, is still out of control. 
So far at least 50 structures have been damaged or lost...
One of the most frustrating things is, I was in charge of our disaster planning before I retired from Police Work...and the locals here seem to have no effective way of advising citizens of emergencies besides the FM/ AM radio.  Perhaps they don't know of the modern methods to warn citizens of emergencies via text messages and e-mails. 
So, I'm doing it the old fashion way, watching the flames and listening to the radio. This is hard to do for a guy who's written disater plans and shit like that....

looking at the fire from the front yard....

Should we be afraid that the Feds' are in charge of this fight? 

Monument Fire.... great fire control.

From the Citizen side:
For the first time in over 30 years I'm very close to a disaster, but I'm not invovled in working it. 
I'm living near the "Monument" fire in South Arizona.  Being from California, I'm not used to such ineffective fire fighting....they let it get out of control and now it's buring homes. 

This started Sunday, and

now it's Tuesday and it's jumping the highway and coming near us.

See you later...