tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34860917246022489052024-03-05T22:39:39.232-08:00CI-Roller Dude(U//Unclassified stuff) These are some of the stories from over 30 years of police work and over 20 years of US Army and National Guard adventures.
“It’s not an adventure unless some part of it sucks!” ©2007-2013CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.comBlogger493125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-54993207570757457342020-03-20T16:24:00.003-07:002020-03-20T16:24:52.714-07:00I'm not deadIt's been a few years since I've written anything here. So, just to let you all know, I am not dead yet. <br />
<br />
Since our Gov of California has told everybody to stay home due the COVID 19, I have to find a few ways to keep busy. It wasn't that I had nothing to write about the last few years, I just got kind of busy. <br />
Memory refresh...I did retire from the CA National Guard several years ago, then retired from Police work. That didn't last long. A few weeks after I had my retired badge, the new police chief (who has since retired) asked me to come back part time to help with some complicated stuff. <br />
Then a year or so later, I went to work for another large LE agency as a "civilian". that was kind of strange.<br />
So after a few years of that, I quit and the next week my old police chief asked me to come back part time again. Nothing too exciting as I try to keep a low profile. <br />
<br />
Does anybody still use a Blog anymore? <br />
<br />
I still have some stories...CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-18127448938966950012015-03-30T16:25:00.001-07:002015-03-30T16:25:33.597-07:00Forty Thousand Rifles<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
<b>From the Soldier side</b>:
Back when I was a very young PFC (Private First Class, which had nothing
to do with any class) I was stationed at one of the greatest post in the US
Army. Charlie Company/ 2<sup>nd</sup>
Battalion, 6<sup>th</sup> Infantry- The Berlin Brigade. In 1975 I was due for promotion to Specialist
E-4, (Spec-Four). One morning I got up
and began getting ready for PT (physical training) like we did every working
day. We’d warm up with the usual
push-ups, sit-ups etc then go run until whoever was leading the run that morning
got tired. These runs would be anywhere
from a mile to 4 miles….and I hated running.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, that morning the company clerk told some of us that
there was a special detail that we might want to volunteer for. Now many of you with military service might
ask “why would the company clerk give us a head’s up for a special detail.” Well, we used to drink with him so he took
good care of his comrades. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, I found my squad leader and we told him we’d be happy to
volunteer for the special detail for the day.
He ran off and checked with the Platoon Sergeant, who checked with the
First Sergeant, who wondered how in the hell we found out about the special
detail. But, he figured if we had good
intel like that, then we were smart enough for the mission. He told us to go draw forty fives (Colt, 1911
A1 semi auto pistols) and ammo. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We drew our weapons and went to chow. (a good Solider never misses chow.) When we returned, we were told to walk over
to the shipping and storage area across the post. When we arrived, we found a small gaggle of
Army MPs, who we reported to. They told
us that we’d be guarding 40,000 M16 A1 rifles that had been sent to Berlin by
mistake. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiogm41IXTaV_5JBQ63TCwyJ-Awr_DJFK6i_VYUcUGubyTTJyIPiGBj1O3_bnsCGYkybIEsXMl0jq2JXAts4jC93OVdRv9WBSYzguqplQrNz7sPTM5liY1Z4EQ2C6Xw78gLhb7BoZ2cbLJh/s1600/CrationsBO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiogm41IXTaV_5JBQ63TCwyJ-Awr_DJFK6i_VYUcUGubyTTJyIPiGBj1O3_bnsCGYkybIEsXMl0jq2JXAts4jC93OVdRv9WBSYzguqplQrNz7sPTM5liY1Z4EQ2C6Xw78gLhb7BoZ2cbLJh/s1600/CrationsBO.jpg" height="242" width="320" /></a></div>
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Now, even as a 19 year old PFC, I could not help but wonder
how in the hell the US Army could ship even 40 rifles anywhere by mistake, much
less 40,000. We didn’t even have 40,000
Soldiers in West Berlin, even if you added the Brits and the French. What kind of idiot could make a mistake like
that. I knew if I even lost my own
assigned weapons that everybody in the Army would have known about it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, some of you are sitting there and asking: “how could
they ship 40,000 rifles to Berlin by mistake, this story sounds like bullshit.” But that’s what we were told. I didn’t open the cases and count all the
rifles…but we had a convoy of semi-trucks to guard. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, keep in mind that the US Army didn’t really trust it’s
Soldiers with loaded weapons….so we were only given one magazine for our
pistols…that held only 5 rounds of .45 ACP ball ammo. (I wish I had that pistol today, the one I
was assigned was made in WWII by the Remington Type Writer company) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We stood by with the MPs as the labor force loaded the cases
onto the trucks. Then the four of us got
into the cabs of the 4 semi-trucks and chambered a round into our 1911A1
pistols. We headed for Tempelhof Air
Base without incident. When we arrived
at the air base, a bunch of Air Force Security Police heard what we were coming
with, so they met us at the flight line and stood by as the cases of rifles
were loading into the plane. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIyizIAIcCZ9DAxOFdlAYnnC30VB2Qy09CHTRc5hanj7WTx-jyedwKOk8QdAXoTT7YeGJ8wH7SrJEmaHQLt2oACT2ILmK4D7bWwAhMxUCmOn5jyL7FelV34VRjPNlFlPk47oTIO3RuIBQ1/s1600/Berlin%20patch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIyizIAIcCZ9DAxOFdlAYnnC30VB2Qy09CHTRc5hanj7WTx-jyedwKOk8QdAXoTT7YeGJ8wH7SrJEmaHQLt2oACT2ILmK4D7bWwAhMxUCmOn5jyL7FelV34VRjPNlFlPk47oTIO3RuIBQ1/s1600/Berlin%20patch.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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Now, remember what I said about a good Solider never misses
chow. The AF Security Police asked us if
we wanted to go eat in their mess hall.
Hell yeah! They had fresh salad,
ice cream and they even cleared off the tables for us. After that, I’d always look for some reason
to go to the Air Force base. (years
later in Iraq, I did the same thing…they always had the best food!) <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Two of our guys got on the plane and stayed with the rifles
all the way back to the States. They
came back a few days later and said it was a boring trip. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another dumbass story with a happy ending. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Later. CI Roller
Dude. <o:p></o:p></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-24327076554259302122014-01-11T14:52:00.000-08:002014-01-13T19:07:03.725-08:00What don't kill you makes you stronger....<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<b style="font-size: 12pt;">From the Cop side</b><span style="font-size: small;">: and the Soldier side: In recent months </span>I've<span style="font-size: small;"> been hearing about a lot
of OIE/ OEF vets who are Enduring problems with pain or stress from the
wars. The things I learned as a cop helped me in dealing with my own
deployments….although the gang I deployed with to Bosnia and Iraq all admit
that we were changed by those experiences. I hope the change made us
better and stronger. </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">A nice Marine working dog at Camp Gannon, IZ 2005</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Some of my cop training taught me that when you are involved in a
critical incident, to talk about it afterwards as soon as possible---with the
others who were in it with you. Laugh, cry, do your AAR (After Action Review)
and whatever, but talk about it…and if needed, hug each other. (Man
hugs are OK)</span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">When a Soldier is wounded and everybody can see the wound, most
will show compassion and concern. A visible wound is something most
folks can understand. A non-visible wound of the mind is something
many people seem to have a hard time understanding. </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">“well, it’s all in your head, just act right and get over
it.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">When I hear a person who’s never been through something so
stressful say something like that, it makes me want to stop and help educate
that person. Some people are born with a mental problem; some gain
the problem from a traumatic event or events. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br />Either way it is NOT THEIR FAULT!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTlXYMiYnOJHLi-Wzn2Ra37KrMLz8KEEMe1lV0EhENdIldqVWXFH7-wJMhLQ618gqGPtg5XhXkANqVVuvJsSxQ4MOfd9QpaLgq5t2qnzs6SLfOJu9s4vq-ZTy9cWVQRX2ZjPYrE23FMtTo/s1600/B17-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTlXYMiYnOJHLi-Wzn2Ra37KrMLz8KEEMe1lV0EhENdIldqVWXFH7-wJMhLQ618gqGPtg5XhXkANqVVuvJsSxQ4MOfd9QpaLgq5t2qnzs6SLfOJu9s4vq-ZTy9cWVQRX2ZjPYrE23FMtTo/s1600/B17-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5geoSyWR_BS4Fndrsjfe6pdk8QovO4AZHOYfl0TQBbnOt1J6P7OsGH9YpwcUfB5uv5KYguBlY5MMo3wCo-ElnXzniTqF3q_gAWizZrErSHLRiHkv7kF3OWI5xc5z6P_ZCCfEhFK5pvMU/s1600/B17PimaAir1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM5geoSyWR_BS4Fndrsjfe6pdk8QovO4AZHOYfl0TQBbnOt1J6P7OsGH9YpwcUfB5uv5KYguBlY5MMo3wCo-ElnXzniTqF3q_gAWizZrErSHLRiHkv7kF3OWI5xc5z6P_ZCCfEhFK5pvMU/s1600/B17PimaAir1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"> B17 Flying Fortress!</span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I just read an article about WWII B-17 Bomber crews flying over
Germany. Everyday they had to fly over anti-aircraft fire (think of
purposely walking through bombs exploding all around you while you are trying
to deliver your own bombs to a precise point on the ground.) That
took a lot of guts to go out over and over. But the comments the
survivors had were “I just kept thinking I was going to be OK.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Well, I know our teams who went out in Baghdad 6 or 7 days a
week. They’d drive in a 3 Humvee convoy for about an hour or more
across the most dangerous place in the world at that time. They’d
take care of business, then turn around and drive back. The IEDs at
that time were easily cutting through the armor on the M1114 Humvees like a hot
knife through butter. If your vehicle got hit with a certain type of
IED, you were pretty much dead or
wounded badly. </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Every time we went out, there was gun fire. Some of it
was just random shit, some of it was directed towards somebody else, and some
of it was directed at our teams. (I was only shot at once by some
asshole with an AK who couldn’t aim and mortared a dozen times.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Stressful? Hell yes. How did I feel? I wasn’t
going to show my Soldiers any fear. But I had never done anything
scarier in my life (32 years of police work)… but I have to admit, I thought it
was cool. I was proud to go out with those teams. Most of
my teams went out a hell of a lot more than I did. </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">We were there a year, so if they went out 6 days a week for 11
months….do the math. </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Maybe it wasn’t as bad as the WWII bomber crews.. . I mean they
got shot at every time they flew. But I think that the attitudes and
bravery were about the same. When I took over as the NCOIC (Non
Commissioned Officer in Charge) of the teams, I only had one person request to
not go out anymore. That request was answered by half a dozen other
Soldiers volunteering to go out. Great troops! </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As tough as our jobs seemed, there were others who had jobs a lot tougher. I
have a friend who is a Combat Engineer. He did Route Clearance in
Afghanistan. This required them to go out on the roads that the
other troops were driving on and clear all the bombs the asshole insurgents
planted every day. Just think of the stress of looking for hidden
explosives that the person hiding got better and better at hiding. Then,
when you found it, trying to disarm it. That takes nerves of steel
and skills many people will never have. </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Or my young friend who deployed at 19 years of age. He
went through more stuff in his first month than I have in my entire life….
Including having his Humvee blown out from under him and seeing his driver and
team leader die.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">There are lots of them out there, but only about 2% of Americans
have served in recent wars. Not all of them are stressed out…but
just breathing the air in a war zone will change you forever. </span><span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> For the Vets who are having some problems, don’t give
up. (Hell, just driving to and from my
job makes me wish I had a .50 cal gunner on my truck to clear the bad drivers
out of the way). Some injuries take time
to heal. This includes physical and non-physical
injuries. When I first got home from
Iraq, it took a year to figure out how to go to the VA for medical
treatment. (I stayed in my National
Guard unit, so I asked them what I needed to do…and they didn’t know.) I have since found out faster ways for others
to get into the VA—just ask VA.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Many Vets are having problems with drugs they were
prescribed. Some problems related to
addiction, some because of the side effects, and some because the drugs are
simply not doing much good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">One of the many things I did as a cop was drug prescription
forgery investigations. I had half a
dozen new cases every week from the small city I worked in. Almost all of them started out about the
same. A patient was issued a
prescription for some really strong stuff to take care of pain—usually from an
injury or surgery.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">What I found out from talking to good doctors and pharmacist was
most of the really strong pain drugs SHOULD NOT be taken for a long period of
time- a person will get addicted to them.
Some get addicted easier than others.
So, when the real prescription for the drug ran out, the patient would
do things to keep getting them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">As a cop my goal was to determine if they were addicted to the
drugs or if they were selling them. If
they were selling them, I’d get a criminal complaint. If they were addicted, I’d try to lead them
down the path of getting help. Some cops
didn’t care and just filed complaints on them all and let God and the courts
sort it out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, anytime I got hurt, I’d ask the doctor if there was something
for the pain that was not addictive. Or,
I’d throw half of what they gave me away.
I did not want to get addicted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">So, now, I hear so many stories from groups I’m associated with
about Vets with problems. Many were
physically injured and often but not always, they suffer PTS (No “D). A
buddy of mine who did the same two deployments I was on, got wounded and sent
home from Iraq early. He had really big
balls to do what he did in Iraq. I made
sure he knew how I felt as soon as I saw him when the rest of us got home. He still has pain from his wound, but doesn’t
let that stop him from doing stuff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">My feeling is many doctors don’t try to heal a patients, but try
to “manage the pain” for them. I think
many doctors must think most people are too weak to handle the pain, so the
prescribe things that not only handle to pain, but cause major side effects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’m not a doctor, but whenever a doctor decides to prescribe something
for me, the first thing I ask: “Is this stuff something I can get addicted to
and what are the side effects?” If I don’t
like the answer, I’ll tell the doctor to pull something else out of their magic
bag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Pain? Yep, I’ve some sort
of pain for many years. When I feel it,
it reminds me that I’m alive and what I was doing when I got the injury that’s
causing that pain of the day. Some were
from police work, some were from doing Army stuff….and most were because I wasn’t
smart enough to think I could get hurt or at the time the need to do what I was
doing was important (like responding to crimes in progress.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">About 25 years ago a doctor told me I would have to get out of
police work because of a back injury. I
didn’t listen because I liked being a cop and was too young to retire. Some think that’s being tough, nope….it’s being
stubborn. I never gave up, and I never
will. All things will heal, some take more
time. </span> <span style="font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-65726621989452454182013-12-10T19:34:00.001-08:002013-12-10T19:34:27.558-08:00Dreaming of a white Christmas.....<b>From the Soldier side: (Some of the following is true.) </b>I can’t figure it out, but over the last few years, a few Soldiers and former Soldiers I know have moved out of California into places where it snows. The mid-west, upstate New York and Ver-cold-mont are some of the places these Joes have moved.<br />
<br />
I hate the cold. I hate my teeth chattering, I hate it when I can’t feel the ends of my fingers or nose…and I hate it when snot freezes. I really don’t like being cold…that’s why I’ve always tried to live in warm places. (and I didn’t mind the heat in Iraq) Most of my childhood years we lived in snow country. It was fun when I was a kid, but having to work in the snow and cold is something I hate. (Did I mention that I hate getting cold?)<br />
<br />
So, when I see pics on things like Face Book from some of my old buddies in the snow, I ask them: “and why did you move there?” The first winter I was stationed in West Berlin (Weapons Platoon, C/2/6) we had the coldest winter they’d had in 100 years in Germany. I remember a few times driving my Gamma Goat truck around with a trailer full of 81MM mortar ammo (HE – High Explosive rounds) and sliding across the road in 6 wheel drive. Or the convoys we drove on where there was always at least one truck heater that would break and the crew would be freezing their ass off for hours.<br />
<br />
Or the time our brilliant company commander took us out into the forest in Berlin for a training day. We had all this really good cold weather gear that we never used…that we asked if we could bring it. The commander said we wouldn't need the gear, so we left it in the barracks. After we got out in the woods, he thought it’d be a great idea to spend the night out in the cold. We froze our asses off at 10 F.<br />
<br />
We ran the truck heaters all night rotating troops in the cab to thaw out. When we ran out of gasoline for our squad stoves, we tried running them on diesel. That failed. We burned C-rations boxes, twigs and anything we could find to keep warm. To this day, I still think that company commander was an idiot.<br />
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Then, many years later I joined a National Guard unit that’s “world mission” was to respond to Korea. So guess what we did…. Cold weather training. I was even tasked with giving some of the training. I got very good and cold weather survival, but I still hate getting cold! We’d go up to places like Truckee, California and sleep outside in the snow. Nuts.<br />
<br />
I changed National Guard units years later and we went to Minnesota in the winter to train for Bosnia. Many of our California troops had NEVER been in the snow. The California first sergeant we had thought we were supposed to go outside for our morning formation.<br />
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One time in Minnesota, we were standing outside in company formation. We were in our spit shined boots, starched field jackets and all. Standing tall. But it was so damn cold outside, that when the First Sergeant started talking, his words froze solid and hit the ground. We picked up everything he said, took it into the barracks and thawed the words out. But, we got them all mixed up, so we had no idea what the hell he said. We think he was drunk, so it didn’t matter.<br />
<br />
When I asked the Minnesota First Sergeant where they had formation, they said: “ya know it’s too cold outside, we have our formations inside the barracks.” I helped do some of the vehicle training for our troops. I found a frozen pond that we could spin a Humvee around on and we had a good day.<br />
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When we got to Bosnia , it was summer. By the next winter, we had pretty cold weather (for us California troops). Whenever I got to drive one of our NTVs (Non Tactical Vehicles) I ‘d find a big parking lot, make sure it was clear, then grab the parking brake and spin the car around. One day, our dumbass team leader tried this…on the road and sent his NTV into the ditch. He was a dumbass and got fired later. Bosnia was as cold as a well digger ass in Alaska in the winter.<br />
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Did I mention that I hate getting cold? CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-10193353939628000542013-10-25T19:10:00.002-07:002013-10-25T19:10:21.555-07:00Hill 375....<b>From the Soldier side:</b> Some of my long time readers may have noticed some of my past post have been about leadership. Leadership is one of my favorite topics, but not something I ever thought about in my younger days.
If you’ve ever been involved in critical incidents, or working around stuff that can hurt people, you know how important good leadership can be. Right up there with good training. You have to have both to be effective….I’d even say that good leadership with good training is more important than “who has the best equipment.”<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Late 60's vintage 5 Ton Dump</span></i><br />
There’s been many times when I’ve seen cops or Soldiers with the best equipment fail because of poor leadership and/or poor training.
These are two important needs, but I’m only going to talk about one in this post. That need is Leadership. Most folks who’ve been around for a while can think about the good & bad leaders they’ve had.<br />
<br />
We tend to remember the bad ones more often. Why? Because when we had bad leaders, things usually went from bad to shitty and we don’t forget the shitty times. When we had good leaders, things usually went like they were supposed- without incident- and we forget them.
To understand leadership, maybe we should think about what kind of leaders there are in Military and Law Enforcement. Some are micro managers. Some are hands off. Some are too bossy, some are dumb and some are always right. The best ones are able to get their people to do a job with little loss of life and make it look easy.<br />
<br />
I know when you read all the best books on leadership, they have a lot more detail and they even give you the number of tips you need to be a good leader.
A bad leader can take good troops and waste them or turn them into ineffective troops. A good leader can take a turd and turn them into a diamond. A bad leader will waste time, money and get troops killed. A good leader will save time, money and keep the troops alive by caring for them.
Some very basic leadership tips I was taught were: Take care of the troops. Your troops eat before you, they can talk to you they know you will look out for them and thus, they will look out for you. And, you lead by example by knowing more about what you’re doing than your troops do. If you don’t then maybe you got promoted too fast or you’re a 2nd LT.<br />
<br />
<b>1990’s at Summer Camp:</b> One of the many examples I use for a really suckey leader is a guy I’ll call “Sergeant Bumble” SB for short.
Many years ago I was in a National Guard Engineer company. Now, for most Regular Army guys you’d think that all of the National Guard was a bunch of useless guys who got together one weekend a month to drink beer and play poker. In some cases that’s a good summary of the old days and some of the old troops. However, about the time I had signed up, they were trying to get rid of the bums. It was really hard to get rid of some of them, especially once they got promoted and put in charge. <br />
<br />
Well, SB was one of got promoted to a semi senior sergeant position. At that time, he out ranked me by one stripe. Our battalion had just been reorganized from wheeled engineers to mechanized engineers. In simple terms that meant we got rid of our 5 ton dump trucks and got M113 A1 APCs (Armored Personnel Carriers). These were hard aluminum, tracked vehicles that had been made around the time of the Viet Nam war- and the US Army had not purchased any new ones since that war.<br />
<br />
I was one of the sergeants who was taught how to operate the M113 so I could train others. We learned as much about these creatures as you could learn without actually removing things like the engine. We learned how to drive them, load troops and equipment, repair and replace damaged tracks, and how to do things like cross water. It was actually fun!<br />
<br />
We learned battle tactics and the last thing we were going to do was go to the “Fifty Cal” range and learn to shoot the M-2 HB .50 caliber heavy machine gun from the track.
But, to get to the machine gun range, we had to first get there in our “tracks”. Guess who they put in charge to get to the range that day. SB.
Now, if you’ve read enough military blogs, or been in the military, everybody thinks that the worst person to navigate is the new Second Lieutenant…all though that is usually true, SB was worse than any officer I had ever seen in over 20years of Army service! This dumbass would get lost going from the latrine to the mess hall if it was only 100 meters away on flat ground with nothing else I the way. He’d get lost trying to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions written on the bottom of the boot.<br />
<br />
He was what we commonly called a “retard.” (no offense to the mentally ill). What made him even worse was he was a drunk.
To get to the range in our tracks, we had to ride on the unpaved dirt roads. At the training camp these roads were easy to follow. First we had to go to “range control” and check in and let them know we were going to the range. From range control it’s easy to get to any of the ranges. The big gun ranges are on the back side of a big hill. So, as you travel, you go straight past range control, then make right turns. At no point do you ever turn left. This is easy to see on the map. So easy nobody should get lost.<br />
<br />
But guess what…
SB took off in the lead track. I was in the second track and two more followed behind me. As soon as we left range control SB started down the wrong dirt road. We should have been going west, and he was going south. He only stopped when the road he was on came to a dead end. There was barely enough room for all of us to turn around, but we did and followed SB. A few times I saw him stop and pull out his compass. I guess he didn’t understand that all the metal around him was not going to allow the compass to work. So we headed off in another direction…of course it was wrong.<br />
<br />
I finally figured out his method of navigation….just keep wondering round until you found what the heck you were looking for. I guess it would work if the space you were in wasn’t bigger than your fuel tank.
So we went in another direction making left turns. Now remember, I said that once we left Range Control, it should have been all right turns. So, we went south, then east, then north, then west, then south again….coming to a very, very tall hill.
Now, to tell you the truth, I don’t recall the max angle that the old M113s were supposed to climb or descend, but I’m pretty sure that hill was pretty close to our danger point. (later I looked on a map and that hill was about 375 meters, so we called it Hill 375.)<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i> A bunch of M113s.</i></span><br />
Now, if you got to a hill and were pretty sure that it was not the way to go, what would you do? Turn around? Well, that would have been smart….but remember we were dealing with Sergeant Bumble. So he proceeded to have his track driver go up the hill. I wanted to close my eyes because I don’t like to see good Soldiers get hurt. But somehow the retard made it up the hill and told us all to follow him.<br />
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I could not get him to stop and listen to reason. He just said: “I’m in charge *&&^^%$%, listen to me and let’s go!”
When we all got to the barbed wire fence at the top and had a dime size area to turn around on, I was sure we were all going to roll over sideways and die going down the hill. But God looks out for fools, drunks and idiots and we made it. However, this time I out smarted the idiot and got in front and lead the way to the machine gun range.<br />
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Years later I transferred to a different unit. I ran into other Soldiers who worked with SB. They said he somehow got drunk on a deployment and got busted down in rank. The deployment was not to a war zone, so he wasn’t able to get any of his troops killed. He got out before the unit actually deployed to a real war--- Thank God!<br />
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<b> January 2005, Baghdad, Iraq:</b> (In a different unit) After my team and I had returned from our first mission in Iraq, I was told that I’d be going back to Fallujah to show some officers some stuff. I asked who was in charge of the convoy and they said: “Don’t worry about it; you’ll just be a passenger.”
The morning we were forming up the convoy, I walked over to one of the sergeants I knew and asked who was leading the convoy. He said: “you are.”
Well, for our trip to and from Fallujah, I did not lead it and really had no idea how to get there. I asked who had been there before and knew how to get there.<br />
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All the drivers and truck commanders knew how. So we got out the map and I had them show me the route. (We did not have any GPS stuff at that time).
I made sure all the drivers knew how to get there and put the one who was most sure in the front. I was not going to get us lost in a war. Once we got close to the camp, I knew the way in and felt good about my decision.
We made it there and back without any drama. Just the way things should go.
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-46427519385305058532013-09-12T19:56:00.003-07:002013-09-12T19:56:53.456-07:00Weapons cache???? <b>From the Soldiers side:</b> The first four month of my visit to Iraq, I had a special team...we traveled around and had chats with some not so nice folks. Besides smelling really bad and often having the I.Q. of a donkey, they did not value human life as most of us do. <br />
At the time we were in Iraq, the weapons laws for citizens there were more liberal than they are in many parts of the United States. For example,<i> each adult male</i> could have one semi or fully automatic SKS or AK 47--without any special permits. <br />
They could not have RPGs or belt fed machine guns. <br />
The confusion that often came up was when there were more than one adult male in the home...well, hell many of the males had two or three wives and 25 kids.... so as the kids grew up, a guy might have several adult males living in one house. <br />
<br />
Then some GI out on patrol would come across a home with more than one rifle and make a detention for a "Weapons Cache." <br />
When they came in with the evidence, I'd sort through it and tell them: "Shit, I know lots of folks back home who have more than that in the garage."<br />
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<br />CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-18075762374463053462013-07-07T15:31:00.001-07:002013-07-07T15:51:34.380-07:00We need them.....<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>From the
Firearms Instructor side</b>: As most of my regular readers know (both of you) that
in my Army and Police careers I was a firearms (weapons) instructor. I tried to add up how many Cops and Soldiers
I’ve run through ranges and advanced courses… I’m not good at math, so help me
out. For the Army/ Cal Guard we qualified
at least once a year, for 19 years (the first year I was too dumb to know
anything). … About 70-100 troops per
range. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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A handy off duty weapon: M249 SAW</div>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For police
work, 32 years (the first year I was cop, I helped on the range base on having
been a grunt). We’d have ranges about 4
times a year, with between 20-40 per range.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And then there
were the Boy Scout ranges I ran on vacations when my boys were in Scouts. Round that off to about 200 kids and
adults. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, I know a
little about weapons and teaching others to shoot. What have I learned?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">1.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Firearms very rarely shoot by
themselves. They need a human to load
and fire them. Most “modern” handguns
have 2 or more safety systems built into them- they will not fire unless the
trigger is pulled. This takes a human,
or in some cases a monkey. (Firing pin blocks, trigger safety, and some have a thumb safety. the 1911 of course has the grip safety)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">2.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many Cops and Soldiers do not
practice with their duty weapon as often as they should. In some cases this is due to budgets, in MANY
cases it is because they don’t like shooting….and often they suck at it. This can be corrected with good training. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">3.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Many senior Cops and Solders will not
listen to a range master when he/she tries to help them shoot better. Funny, the civilians who’ve paid lots of
money do listen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">4.)<span style="font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are a few citizens, public
officials and others who are afraid of all guns. This is to the point of being a mental
illness. We can’t correct this
problem. If you know anything about
phobias, like arachnid phobia, hydra phobia, clown phobia, you know that these
people can’t help it. They are very much
afraid of these things and we can’t change that. However, we don’t like folks who are freaked
out by spiders write laws to kill all spiders.
We need spiders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We also need guns. Guns are used
for lots of GOOD things everyday. Today,
for example, over 2 million guns were NOT used to commit any crimes today. Because they are owned by honest, law abiding
citizens. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, not far from where I live, there are dozens of good citizens
knocking little round clay things out of the sky with some very expensive
shotguns. There are others at another
range shooting all kinds of rifles, pistols and shotguns at paper targets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Before this day is over, there will be some good citizens somewhere who
are legally using some type of firearms to defend themselves or others. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Remember, the cops are only 6 minutes away, when you need them in 20
seconds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The anti gunner nuts never mention the good things firearms are used
for. They want to ban all guns…they’ll
start with some now, and work on the rest later. This year it’s semi auto rifles that they
like to call “assault rifles.” However,
most citizens I know who legally own these types of guns, use them for target
shooting. Why? Because they are very accurate. The M16’s we qualified with in the Army were
able to fire a 3 shot group at 25 meters with the holes touching each
other. That’s accurate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The problem is you can’t explain anything to an anti gunner. When they see or hear “gun” they freak
out. Remember, it’s like somebody who’
afraid of spiders or clowns--- you can’t reason with them…it’s a mental
illness. Their eyes glaze over, they
start having fits, frothing at the mouth, a big rise in blood pressure….and
their brains shut down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s a form of mental illness. I
hope the NRA will soon recognize this and start a collection to get these poor
assholes some help. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I also think that if you study the
gun laws in the US, you’ll see that the cities and states with the most
restrictive gun laws, also have the highest violent crime rates. Cities and states that have “shall issue”
concealed weapons permit laws have lower violent crime rates. Why? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-37255126292039129432013-06-16T14:16:00.000-07:002013-06-16T17:11:28.354-07:00US ARMY: 238 YEARS OF TRADITION ….Happy Birthday US Army..<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="line-height: 115%;">From
the Old Soldier side</b><span style="line-height: 115%;">: When I was in the “regular Army” back in the 70’s, we had
changed many of the sayings and </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">motto's</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> for the Army and our Battalion. It was something I carried on many years
later when I joined the California Army National Guard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">Some
of those old sayings we changed: “US Army, we can break more shit before 9, than
most people break in a year” or my favorite: “US Army, we can waste more time
before 9, than most companies waste in a month.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitdHy0mnTL9IG4RsRWkEwQBB9g3361g2FfQk5VmguWrwp196ezFZVxQX0cSfdzkc5m6Csi4B3_QlfsDVwzLs8WtRcDn4R5EG_RdYia6sM4kis1B9485MYQUo5TaItmBa3rMNPjPtIHJqPb/s1600/CrationsBO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitdHy0mnTL9IG4RsRWkEwQBB9g3361g2FfQk5VmguWrwp196ezFZVxQX0cSfdzkc5m6Csi4B3_QlfsDVwzLs8WtRcDn4R5EG_RdYia6sM4kis1B9485MYQUo5TaItmBa3rMNPjPtIHJqPb/s320/CrationsBO.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Spec 4 CI Roller dude somewhere in Vest Germany</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbo4ptKiljbScuByWoss-so_-LCU1hxGZ9ye0l07oa0bRSaEe_v-FJ1xtF6DV1N50r2iNrdPBzK0prV9k-7bkyjHG1a7oyWBRTg8hpdzjrCn7A7xxZHwzpCWNhDffNsLlvkrmBoYvD39RC/s1600/Berlin%2520patch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbo4ptKiljbScuByWoss-so_-LCU1hxGZ9ye0l07oa0bRSaEe_v-FJ1xtF6DV1N50r2iNrdPBzK0prV9k-7bkyjHG1a7oyWBRTg8hpdzjrCn7A7xxZHwzpCWNhDffNsLlvkrmBoYvD39RC/s320/Berlin%2520patch.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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The only US Army patch with the name of a city on it</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">I
was in West Berlin for the July 4</span><sup style="line-height: 115%;">th</sup><span style="line-height: 115%;"> parade in 1976. We had every Soldier who could walk (and a
few who </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">couldn't</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> march in that parade. “I
love a parade….as long as I don’t have to march in it.” Was our motto for the
day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRT0Lm21bb43vix1uzoKjz7DF3Jgv7rOy_YjER2i12ykChMgZ9joFVpZTrjwxQV9a_0vKXnmZLc-aw8yrNo9QTvQ3oaCY2901nrTelbLurFGs7Gp_nInpmHeWB7qzaQSdZ9TBAQbtuyCZz/s1600/aSoldierinReal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRT0Lm21bb43vix1uzoKjz7DF3Jgv7rOy_YjER2i12ykChMgZ9joFVpZTrjwxQV9a_0vKXnmZLc-aw8yrNo9QTvQ3oaCY2901nrTelbLurFGs7Gp_nInpmHeWB7qzaQSdZ9TBAQbtuyCZz/s320/aSoldierinReal.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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"There's DUMB and there's ARMY DUMB"</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">One
of genius Spec 4’s (E-4, now just called a “Specialist” because they did away
with Spec 5, 6’s and 7’s) came up with something I never forgot: “The US Army,
200 years of tradition, history and shit unchanged by progress or common sense.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">I
continued using that motto, just updating the years for the rest of my career. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">Some
of the silly shit the US Army does is just baffling. Some of the leaders I had to work for were
very good, and I’d follow them anywhere…but many others were less than
useless. Why anybody would have put some
of these dummies in charge of people was something I could never figure
out. Usually what I heard was: “I’m the senior
ranking person here, so I’m in charge.”
In my last years in the Guard, on deployments, fires, earthquakes etc,
that sort of system failed many times.
In some cases, the smarter bosses wouldn’t put the dummy in charge even
if he did have more stripes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHnTF_KWCpXKAEBpBBz6bStmyH69K8SgyW7e75Mwy5KoxaWUR5kz_0nSumaW3aF0G5EhobBUo3f5Nx14Y3hLXBvKlS2WGFOnt39PNIQE01-EcIktd1vqRPgR0ZqiCg5QCCUvz0jHwlMwn3/s1600/chickenattackBO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHnTF_KWCpXKAEBpBBz6bStmyH69K8SgyW7e75Mwy5KoxaWUR5kz_0nSumaW3aF0G5EhobBUo3f5Nx14Y3hLXBvKlS2WGFOnt39PNIQE01-EcIktd1vqRPgR0ZqiCg5QCCUvz0jHwlMwn3/s320/chickenattackBO.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />Never sleep when the rubber chicken is loose...</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">Well,
we can look back at the last 238 years and see what our Army has done…where it’s
been, what it’s done. How much it’s
changed history (along with the Marines, Navy and Air Force.) I still read history books about past wars…and
I still wonder if our leaders have read any of them. If you don’t study history, you are doomed to
repeat it. It seems like we have at
least a few times. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">There
were many stories I’ve read of past wars and thought that the players were the
same, just different equipment and different enemies…but the story seems to repeat.
I read a story about soldiers in the
civil war being issued food rations for 3 days…then eating them all the first
day because they were so hungry. One
training mission we did at Fort Irwin many years ago, we were issued MREs for 3
days to get us through the “battle”. By
the end of the first day, half my guys came up to me and said: “Sarge, we’re
starving.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">I
just looked at them and thought that the troops really haven’t changed over the
years….just the crap we carried.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgul1uAsQ_xyEKAk2jInPwepol_n35kQhbCFYSm1YGyQpzNvOuI9_q8dwd_bUMpnIodp0H9lzJg8swjyJdc83orog2GHoRfe3PG2GwxjEKnk1QEMDSoEyhxFUD8tZB1tLvMD5oRHa11361e/s1600/BeltsBo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgul1uAsQ_xyEKAk2jInPwepol_n35kQhbCFYSm1YGyQpzNvOuI9_q8dwd_bUMpnIodp0H9lzJg8swjyJdc83orog2GHoRfe3PG2GwxjEKnk1QEMDSoEyhxFUD8tZB1tLvMD5oRHa11361e/s320/BeltsBo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Ft Ord about 1990? Getting ammo ready for the M60 range</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">The
US Army uniforms have changed many times since the 1770’s. Many times in the Army’s history the uniforms
and weapons they were using at the beginning of some wars were not what they
were using by the end. This history
lesson repeated around 2005. Our unit
was wearing BDUs’ before Iraq (we wore them in Bosnia). Then for Iraq we were
issued DCUs. Part way through our
deployment, troops were arriving wearing the ACUs’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">The
ACU’s are the worst piece of shit uniform ever issued in our Army’s
history. Polyester and Velcro that fails
when needed the most. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;">In
my Army / National Guard career, I wore 4 combat uniforms. In 1974 we were issued 2 sets of Class A’s
(dress uniform) with a Class B (minus
the green dress jacket) 2 sets of khakis, 4 sets of OD Green fatigues, and a
set of PT shorts and shirt…and 2 pairs
of black combat boots and 1 pair of black low quarter shoes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1geXMTE4xHfRUqkeXrGjtBHuMFQFf_cF7eezWIZD2g1ctKrDBNnrhuAhNXwlsamCYM9cj76CwKC2SuhvbFTHX3vWmJBlkTYhRGpSLW2cPjTwCqvB20s0e71WQu2z6X66vXtE5tc5RiqiN/s1600/at+Mosul,+BO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1geXMTE4xHfRUqkeXrGjtBHuMFQFf_cF7eezWIZD2g1ctKrDBNnrhuAhNXwlsamCYM9cj76CwKC2SuhvbFTHX3vWmJBlkTYhRGpSLW2cPjTwCqvB20s0e71WQu2z6X66vXtE5tc5RiqiN/s320/at+Mosul,+BO.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For more History of Army uniforms: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=history+of+us+army+uniforms&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=EyO-UcPmA4Xh0gHb-oA4&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=675"> US Army Uniforms</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOTEW8fYVDw38tylxb3G0qSOwXKLKyrDNROgMvfldsCWaHuiWzNbXdBGRATiOk5e25-J6fOOIMqkptz0SvGUnn7ccP0ZgizW_ldWIGaONcQ0KmCfeDQF_Hn9iDnPrI-JMITCmITYQOX_jC/s1600/ArmyFat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOTEW8fYVDw38tylxb3G0qSOwXKLKyrDNROgMvfldsCWaHuiWzNbXdBGRATiOk5e25-J6fOOIMqkptz0SvGUnn7ccP0ZgizW_ldWIGaONcQ0KmCfeDQF_Hn9iDnPrI-JMITCmITYQOX_jC/s320/ArmyFat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
How come the Marine uniforms always look better?</div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-48145986175075296732013-05-26T13:13:00.002-07:002013-05-26T18:39:12.943-07:00Just another 3 day weekend.... For Mike and Roberto. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5yJLEgXBAKMwWK7AMTfXJBm_hrtgqimyqOETqClt1C71E89oKYBxbyPG5pJFXs4fWcPeAvAjBfFuDGH1K3SN-10tZovvHMe0cc7KU3tdRSDSV3Gc1Wap8X4w2oTIcLHLUZt1y48AUjHbc/s1600/iraq-map2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5yJLEgXBAKMwWK7AMTfXJBm_hrtgqimyqOETqClt1C71E89oKYBxbyPG5pJFXs4fWcPeAvAjBfFuDGH1K3SN-10tZovvHMe0cc7KU3tdRSDSV3Gc1Wap8X4w2oTIcLHLUZt1y48AUjHbc/s320/iraq-map2.gif" width="311" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Like 1500 BC with cell phones....</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>From the
Soldier side:</b> I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older and sometimes have
a little less patients for people who should try harder. I had to sleep through
another boring sermon in church today, given by somebody who still hasn’t a
clue what Memorial Day is for. (I know
some of you are wiping liquid off your keyboard after laughing about me going
to church. It won’t make any difference,
I’m still going to hell.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Memorial Day
is to honor those in the military who died serving for their country. It is NOT about those of us who made it
home. OK, get it right or I’ll have to
start bitch slapping people. (sorry, my
old Army Sergeant thing kicked in for a minute.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, let’s
think about this. What does a hay truck
driver and a US Border Patrol Agent have in common? They, like thousands of others were in the US
Army Reserves or National Guard and died in Iraq. Both were friends of mine, but I’m sure
neither knew the other and they were from two different units. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mike
Ottolini was in the 579<sup>th</sup> Combat Engineers. This was one of my old
units and I had the honor and pleasure to work under Mike many years ago. He was one of the nicest guys and best
leaders I had ever known. In his normal
life, he drove a hay delivery truck. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mike was
killed by cowards using an IED in November 2004. Just a few weeks before I got to Iraq. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://projects.militarytimes.com/valor/army-staff-sgt-michael-c-ottolini/503952">MIKE</a> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Roberto
Arizola was a US Border Patrol Agent and in the US Army Reserves. He was also a range master for the B.P., so
we had started a conversation about shooting one day in Baghdad. We never got to finish that conversation. I had to fly out on a mission, whilst Roberto
stayed in Baghdad to run his mission. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In June
2005, just a few weeks before he was due to go home, another coward got Roberto
with an IED. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://projects.militarytimes.com/valor/army-sgt-roberto-arizola-jr/907861">ROBERTO</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I guess if I was going to give the sermon in church, I’d say
something like: “War is bad, and it’s started by really bad people. Until we can get rid of all the really bad
people, we’ll have to send really good people off to fight them wars. War sucks, but have a world run by insane
assholes would be worse. When you think
about Memorial Day this weekend, lets put a face or a few faces on it. When we watch the news on TV, we can pretend
it doesn’t matter, and it’s happening somewhere else. But for ever troop killed in war, he or she
had a mom, dad, bothers, sister, wife, husband and friends. Tomorrow I will have 3 beers. One for Mike, one for Roberto and one for
me. Thank you lord, now carry on, amen”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Yeah, I'm going to hell.<br />
<br /></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-239132467055989732013-05-12T10:08:00.002-07:002013-05-12T10:08:52.543-07:00Withdrawls...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. <br />
<br />
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! <br />
<br />
So if you have any of the following type of ammo, please send me some:<br />
<br />
.22<br />
38 special/ 357 mag<br />
9 mm<br />
.40 cal<br />
.45 ACP<br />
45 Colt<br />
5.56mm<br />
303<br />
30-06 <br />
<br />
Or anything else you have...<br />
<br />
I just bought a new Kimber and got to shoot it the other day. Nice, accurate and fits my hands just right.<br />
<br />
For all you mothers, have a great Mother's Day. Mom, we miss you.<br />
<br />
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-33982043530325191552013-03-18T19:52:00.001-07:002013-03-18T19:52:45.195-07:00CI Roller Rules of Order for meetings<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">From the new job side: </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">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. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The county I work in now, has about two dozen cities, bus services, schools, colleges and other agencies I haven't even found yet! </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">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. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rules for meetings with multiple agencies</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">1.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Try to be polite to everybody and treat
everybody with respect (but have a plan ready to throw them out of the room)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">2.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Don’t ask questions that are just asked to show
how smart you think you are</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">3.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Don’t ask somebody a question about another
agency that they don’t work for if it’s an off the wall question</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">4.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Speaking of “off the wall questions” avoid
asking them. (There are no “dumb” questions, just people who don’t
think before asking them)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">5.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">6.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Your lack of planning or reading stuff ahead of
time is not a reason to ask a question.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">7.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">8.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">9.)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 7pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">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. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">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. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.95pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">11. If you need to make
more than ten points, have another meeting next week.<br />
<br />
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. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 11.95pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Never say the following
phrases or words:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 11.95pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“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. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-552228728245489052013-02-03T11:39:00.000-08:002013-02-03T20:18:04.632-08:00SUPER BOWL....- 2005. Who played? <br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<i>(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!)</i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<strong><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">From the Soldier Side:</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">(I told this story a few years ago... but
it’s one of my favorites)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<strong><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Super Bowl Sunday, Jan 2005</span></strong><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">! 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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /></div>
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<div align="center" class="separator" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">No, I didn't jump out of planes!</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">When those “M” religions come in handy….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Then, my #2 guy
looked around and found all the Islamic Terps and the Mormon soldiers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">I’d ask: “Hey Joe, aren’t you a good Mormon?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Joe: “Yes Sergeant, I am.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Me: “Good, go get your 2 beers and bring them over here please.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: medium;">We did this with Achmed, Whaid, Jim and a few others..... </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">We convinced them that they should get their ration of beer and
bring them to us.....only 2 at a time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="separator" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtkH3EMOwPCTc7fZemFffBFZTUBEJd0F12qYWbzaYbQP196irTvlOfPc_EH-bMCT0INuqD1vaTwO7YXjf1yc6OCeHhhNk9qHisSM7Wd9_rFf1Wv26g2zUjJkw_XLJi9H7mGXgH42TH3L0/s1600/2BeerBO.jpg" imageanchor="1"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-no-proof: yes; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><v:shape alt="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtkH3EMOwPCTc7fZemFffBFZTUBEJd0F12qYWbzaYbQP196irTvlOfPc_EH-bMCT0INuqD1vaTwO7YXjf1yc6OCeHhhNk9qHisSM7Wd9_rFf1Wv26g2zUjJkw_XLJi9H7mGXgH42TH3L0/s320/2BeerBO.jpg" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHtkH3EMOwPCTc7fZemFffBFZTUBEJd0F12qYWbzaYbQP196irTvlOfPc_EH-bMCT0INuqD1vaTwO7YXjf1yc6OCeHhhNk9qHisSM7Wd9_rFf1Wv26g2zUjJkw_XLJi9H7mGXgH42TH3L0/s1600/2BeerBO.jpg" id="Picture_x0020_2" o:button="t" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 180pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 240pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="2BeerBO" src="file:///C:\Users\Dan\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape></span></a><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisg4ki3qejrIDM9jXEYB01ZynpslKfpRlxPUDeIqo9L4D10b8uePVYNXUKnRRGehw-x-UZauMPeK2O4u5t3938o1HtDWeBNg5U5mYvL-cy21W8SvLCYiVw_PnTkBOMknxacsJ5ecn1WmuN/s1600/2BeerBO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisg4ki3qejrIDM9jXEYB01ZynpslKfpRlxPUDeIqo9L4D10b8uePVYNXUKnRRGehw-x-UZauMPeK2O4u5t3938o1HtDWeBNg5U5mYvL-cy21W8SvLCYiVw_PnTkBOMknxacsJ5ecn1WmuN/s320/2BeerBO.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">and the General said: "Have 2 beers!" and it was good. So we had 2 more.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">(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.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-23270268066839424882012-12-06T20:35:00.001-08:002012-12-06T20:35:56.622-08:00Not worth dying (or killing) for<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b>From the Cop side:</b> 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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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? </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
But, somewhere in the fog around slide
#180 or 190, it jarred my memory of a copper call I went on many years
ago. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b>The call:</b>
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.</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
However…some rules need to be bent or
broken in some cases. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
The deputy who’s jurisdiction the loony
bin was in got a call: </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.” </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
Zebra 21: “I’m a block away and I have CI
Roller Dude following me.” (we were parked bullshitting)</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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?”</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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)</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
I asked the nurse if he could have
another glass of OJ. She said “NO.”</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.” </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
The nurse got pissed off…but the nut
heard what I said and threw down his knife and club. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
Problem taken care of and nobody
hurt. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
….and the bitch nurse made a complaint
because we entered the nut hospital with our weapons. </div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-46174271962999101082012-11-04T18:45:00.002-08:002012-11-04T18:47:17.145-08:00What 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. <br />
<br />
Here's a couple of things I miss:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0WziuJAfaI">M-11 9MM shoot</a><br />
<br />
and<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w23Cec-ws0Q">Using a SAW</a>CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-59654497349451252402012-10-13T14:04:00.001-07:002012-10-13T14:59:29.194-07:00Operation: Payback, CI Roller Dude style:<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b>From the Soldier side</b>: 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. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFLWBn9S1YPF9RPVVcCRGeGyMex5nbcMXjk2-LUPMWFS13xF3WbRILoIsn2Kto8w4-rgPYXJusjR1Qbq2kCJt8QLJDkxZ7TuDJdwh72WMQe5HPQXz3TzAYakphQePtGbcj48UGCadF1WlJ/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFLWBn9S1YPF9RPVVcCRGeGyMex5nbcMXjk2-LUPMWFS13xF3WbRILoIsn2Kto8w4-rgPYXJusjR1Qbq2kCJt8QLJDkxZ7TuDJdwh72WMQe5HPQXz3TzAYakphQePtGbcj48UGCadF1WlJ/s320/1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>Camp Cody in Ugljevik was our Area of Operations</i></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTuI25JBKMvM-n6FYWV97vdSiqi75e3apOEbM3vlVHHrle26pisPMk85B48QQdt1peVkn8MlRDVO50dvlQz8BWs9FxC7BDpa4gM90sSohIBgWrwTBxLRtIEOHlVjPMmLEQ3TjGz1t6mFD4/s1600/32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTuI25JBKMvM-n6FYWV97vdSiqi75e3apOEbM3vlVHHrle26pisPMk85B48QQdt1peVkn8MlRDVO50dvlQz8BWs9FxC7BDpa4gM90sSohIBgWrwTBxLRtIEOHlVjPMmLEQ3TjGz1t6mFD4/s320/32.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>Camp Cody- our base of operations for this mission</i></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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). </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.
</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
“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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRD0t8h0EplUhUKSPQz4Ocr5e6THMvFeXC-NAF22imr4R0eg9pXnY3gFJjThSv7DpAYWmyr29t7MK2p-vBMk5QbCKPNMtFg8_KQYpItB6c9Ujrdc8LIG-O0IEKT6hWsDs_b10HKR9WsnI/s1600/72.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPRD0t8h0EplUhUKSPQz4Ocr5e6THMvFeXC-NAF22imr4R0eg9pXnY3gFJjThSv7DpAYWmyr29t7MK2p-vBMk5QbCKPNMtFg8_KQYpItB6c9Ujrdc8LIG-O0IEKT6hWsDs_b10HKR9WsnI/s320/72.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>General area of operation for this mission...</i></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">SPEW ALERT, swallow your coffee before going further!!!!</span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><i><u>One picture is worth a thousand words… </u></i></b> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeQ2_5cqTxequfzqJvrWv0vNrOPwK4FbRT7Otc70bzs3EkSMn9QUcuOb5xzu2wCzyULKFEmSnmk-J7TECyKBdhd2x4dxfy9HpACFoEiqlDzkwHauYsZJxiY52bnzjddrpxvbxpO_oaEuxp/s1600/248.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeQ2_5cqTxequfzqJvrWv0vNrOPwK4FbRT7Otc70bzs3EkSMn9QUcuOb5xzu2wCzyULKFEmSnmk-J7TECyKBdhd2x4dxfy9HpACFoEiqlDzkwHauYsZJxiY52bnzjddrpxvbxpO_oaEuxp/s320/248.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-44533308272568679512012-10-04T15:26:00.001-07:002012-10-04T15:44:23.602-07:00Have a good plan, have a better back up plan<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqSXYa9_Dw3soHZXym-7-VnpvsFTc7OyVcAS60li8cDR6Jc9EKNS9pAuNN_5e70S_zARAPiRQwz5fXNRZ7Xbe9LiY4GxCWrPHEDcExlDBFe5MgLq7zXdSVIOGd31XpHy-mYANw-KwU9qvL/s1600/191.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqSXYa9_Dw3soHZXym-7-VnpvsFTc7OyVcAS60li8cDR6Jc9EKNS9pAuNN_5e70S_zARAPiRQwz5fXNRZ7Xbe9LiY4GxCWrPHEDcExlDBFe5MgLq7zXdSVIOGd31XpHy-mYANw-KwU9qvL/s320/191.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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”. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.
</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4-BTncgQJU1UvbLhQoZQqpe0rsHpaqLTQo-hMbI7NCK0JOcnpcUx2SQkWelPqLnnFiAdwaE9g1dUHoYR2maHGXo8bH0kvQ-YMIbT9TzeB3qDnAVJ-FVQwYQhvhT6KU_NHw_sinCoKaZX2/s1600/NATOmedal.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4-BTncgQJU1UvbLhQoZQqpe0rsHpaqLTQo-hMbI7NCK0JOcnpcUx2SQkWelPqLnnFiAdwaE9g1dUHoYR2maHGXo8bH0kvQ-YMIbT9TzeB3qDnAVJ-FVQwYQhvhT6KU_NHw_sinCoKaZX2/s320/NATOmedal.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.”</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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.”</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
Damn it, I loved that job. Oh well, at least I have the stories and the
experience. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
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. </div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-34276403186730645052012-09-27T13:34:00.001-07:002012-09-27T13:37:55.430-07:00When "Abnormal" is "Normal"<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>From the Cop and Soldier side</strong>: 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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or,
we could say that “normal becomes transient, depending on the time, events and
what humans can tolerate.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think my first exposure to abnormal was when I joined the
US Army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean it shouldn’t be normal
for 40 adult men to sleep in the same room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nor should it be normal much of the other stuff we did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I made it through basic training and A.I.T.
(Advanced Individual Training) and was shipped to West Berlin, Germany.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now nothing about that was normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were in the middle of communist East
Germany with 20 Soviet army divisions around us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing normal there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other normal events in law were ---often
arresting the same people over and over again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean I could remember the dates of births for the bad guys better than
my own kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just got used to filling
all that info on the arrest forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing normal there.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then the California Army National Guard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On easy weekends we’d go “camping in the woods
and get up and eat MREs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On rough days
we’d go to floods, fires, earthquakes and riots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was funny how quickly I learned to adopt
to any abnormal situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then the deployments to Bosnia and Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember one time in Bosnia when I asked a
local citizen of something was “normal.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She responded with: “What’s normal anymore?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJptWPG8XbKjy2H2NVcEDXrY0yGI6q1iK4tLOblDRzeXQcD3SOeshGi00Beu8numHtI8pUT4wKehDaHkmvtqETCCEtnHO_HTxepHKNPqsduW_SwCDDLhZUOP-Uq-jEzYQ-uu_cTP60hLf/s1600/10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJptWPG8XbKjy2H2NVcEDXrY0yGI6q1iK4tLOblDRzeXQcD3SOeshGi00Beu8numHtI8pUT4wKehDaHkmvtqETCCEtnHO_HTxepHKNPqsduW_SwCDDLhZUOP-Uq-jEzYQ-uu_cTP60hLf/s320/10.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mean in Bosnia they managed to kill hundreds of thousands
of their neighbors and former friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>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!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing normal there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3VPvu6JEDUIHTBmHfHi8On9Z16mmLaKYbJKp5oMcPRJKsSUeAjn3ESZxbBQaxhMJnr6igI9QaeUuJgj_gZxSkqtBdMCdWJYN8pZlLTVTUCTn8uSqT6O19kfkMIu0t4kkCl6TT1t11ohw/s1600/55.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3VPvu6JEDUIHTBmHfHi8On9Z16mmLaKYbJKp5oMcPRJKsSUeAjn3ESZxbBQaxhMJnr6igI9QaeUuJgj_gZxSkqtBdMCdWJYN8pZlLTVTUCTn8uSqT6O19kfkMIu0t4kkCl6TT1t11ohw/s320/55.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then going to Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absolutely
nothing we did at any time there was what most folks in the US would consider
normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First of all, everywhere we
went, we had to be armed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We couldn’t
even drive anywhere with less than 3 armored vehicles , lots of troops with
guns and crew served guns on top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
a place where gun fire became normal…hearing of 2-6 soldiers getting killed
each day became normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yep, nothing
normal there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-39747711565712311552012-09-11T15:14:00.002-07:002012-09-11T15:14:34.993-07:00Hey! Turn on the TV NOW!!! - 9/11/2001<br />
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>From the Soldier side:</strong> One morning 11
years ago, I was doing my morning workout.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I had just finished one set and was getting ready to start the next and
catching my breath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phone rang.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Normally I don’t answer it when I’m working
out…figured they could leave<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But for some reason I
answered it. </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>“Hey, turn on the TV NOW!”</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I did and watched as the first tower of
the World Trade center was on fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was a little confused…then the second plane hit the other tower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew a few things at that moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>It was not an airplane accident, but a terrorist
attack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was simple to figure out.</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span>I knew with the new job I was training for in the
California Army National Guard that I would be going places. </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But my world didn’t change much….at
first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since I had just changed jobs in
the National Guard (MOS) from Combat Engineer to Mess Kit Repair, I was still
in training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second choice, the one I picked, was to
take the course spread out over 2 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One weekend each month doing the training locally and 2-two week
sessions at some fort in Arizona.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I had just started my new school…and
wondered if they’d just cancel it and deploy us right away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I figured I’d “lucked out” again and missed
another war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(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. </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Late Dec 2002.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were all ordered into the unit one Friday
night and start filling out paper work and reviewing our personal data.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>–then nothing happened.</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
--then nothing happened….</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Feb 2003- A bunch of us were sent to
train with the 34<sup>th</sup> 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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was funny.</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I re-enlisted for 6 more years while many others let there enlistment expire and a few officers resigned. </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Then around May-ish 2003 we were put on
Active duty orders and gone for 9 months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
3 months after we returned from Bosnia,
we were back at Camp Roberts, CA going through more prep for Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all said: “we just got back
from Bosnia.”</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Then they asked if we wanted to deploy
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all said: “do we look like
retards?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hell no.”</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But I went anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So, because of them assholes who crashed
them planes on 9-11 eleven years ago, I spent 2 years of my life on
deployments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
It’s one thing to kill a soldier; it’s
another to kill innocent civilians for no reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-68378568894129928752012-08-20T15:23:00.003-07:002012-08-20T15:23:29.566-07:00How to become a Firearms Instructor
<br />
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>From the Soldier and Cop side</strong>:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other day when I was working at one of my
part time jobs (since I retired) at the gun range…I was between classes, so I was
on the range getting a few rounds down range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I’m working this job, I have a very bright red shirt that say: “Firearms
Instructor” on it….so needless to say…I often get asked: “Are you a firearms
instructor?” </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
(I’m not going to say that everybody who
shows up at any given location is smart.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So, after I shot a few magazines from my “gun
of the day” (I wear a different gun each day of the week) a younger dude
stopped me to ask a question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
He asked: “How can I become an
instructor?”</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
A question and answer period followed</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Me:” <em>You ever been in the military?”</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Kid: “<em>nope, they wouldn’t take me”</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Me: “<em>You going to be a cop?”</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Kid: <em>“Nope, they won’t take me either”</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Me: <em>“How long you been shooting?”</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Kid: <em>“a few weeks”</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Me:<em> “perfect, no background, no training,
no experience, you’ll be perfect to train Afgan Army</em>”</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Kid: <em>“who are they?”</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Me: <em>“oh, they need a lot of training,
just go google them and find out.”</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Other than that kid, it was a very good day of teaching. I had 2 brand new pistol shooters who've never shot before. At the end of the class, all rounds were going into the bullseye. I was very happy.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-74060336757512864192012-08-08T13:12:00.002-07:002012-08-08T13:12:18.566-07:00Useful things I learned in 11Charlie AIT (Infantry mortar school)<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I’m watching my 1 year old grand daughter
today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s just learning to walk and
she often falls down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to explain
to her that the falling is caused by gravity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She just looked at me funny…so that leads into:</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>From the Soldier side</strong>: <s>Many, many
years ago, in a galaxy far, far away</s>…no, that’s from a movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me start over again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many, many years ago, in a place called Fort
Ord, California, I graduated from Army Basic training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all thought we were bad asses, but up to
that point, we really weren’t even trained to do any kind of real job in the
Army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
To be able to “get a job” and work for
the US Army, you have to have what they call a Military Occupation Specialty
(M.O.S.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and to obtain that, you have to
go through and pass Advanced Individual Training (A.I.T.) or what you might
call a “school.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once you have an M.O.S.
then you may attend other training, like “air borne” school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, for those of us who were “straight
legs” jumping out of a plane was something for fools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why would you jump out of a perfectly good
airplane? </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
When I joined the US Army, I hadn’t
actually joined to be a grunt (infantry) but because I trusted some <s>assclown</s>,
(I can’t use that kind of language with my granddaughter around) that’s where I
ended up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After Basic Training at Fort
Ord, I was shipped to Fort Polk, LA<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
you look <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Polk">Fort PUKE</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
you can see that it is the <s>ass</s> butt of the state of Louisiana.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was hot and it was humid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was so freaky, that we’d go marching out
in the woods, it’d start to rain and before we could stop and put on our rain
gear, we’d be totally soaked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then by
the time we got our rain gear on, it’d stop raining. I think God was messing
with us to make us better Soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Actually, once we got settled in and
sorted out, being in 11 Charlie training <a href="http://usmilitary.about.com/od/enlistedjobs/a/11c.htm">CLICKY HERE</a>
was actually better than being in regular riflemen (11Bravo) training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had an older drill sergeant who was too
tired to run, so when we went to our training, he’d have us walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt sorry for the riflemen who had to run
to everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Since our training was more specialized-
how to set up and “lay in the gun” and fire it, and how to be a forward
observer and stuff like that, we trained away from the riflemen most of the
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only times we trained with
them was when we learned all the other grunt stuff we also had to know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see in battle, if needed, we’d pick up
our rifles and join the others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our main
job was to support them with “indirect fire” from behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was trained on the old 81 MM and the 4.2
inch (four duce) mortar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Many times we’d be tasked with being the
OPFOR (Opposing Force) for the riflemen when they were learning how to assault
a hill or building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’d be given
training hand grenades to throw and lots of blanks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong><u>Lesson</u></strong>: When throwing hand grenades uphill
or up stairs, gravity is your enemy! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
This was not in any Army manual, so how
did I learn this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, one day we were
out in the woods of Fort Polk (hereafter referred to as Fort Puke) and we had
some of the “enemy” up hill from us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
pulled the pin on my M-something or another Frag Grenade simulator and threw it
up the hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(these were real grenades
with a fuse, but no explosive charge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the pin was pulled, and thrown, you had about 7-9 seconds before
the fuse popped and made a noise). </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<em>Or course…it hit a tree, bounced
backwards, then rolled back down the hill to where I was prone</em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked over at it as it went “POP!” and
thought: “<s>Damn</s> darn, I’m glad that wasn’t<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a real grenade.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
A few days later, we were learning how to
clear buildings of enemy soldiers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
only 18 years old and not terribly bright, so as we were going upstairs, I
threw another M-something or another <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>frag up the stairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I threw it really hard…it hit the wall,
bounced around, then came back down the stairs towards me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it landed at my feet and went “POP!” I
made a mental note to try and work with gravity in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Now, if I can explain this to my
granddaughter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-60579825885460262142012-08-01T14:13:00.001-07:002012-08-01T14:58:42.445-07:00After the Deployments.....Transition back to civilian life.......<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>From the Soldier to Cop side</strong>: There’s
been some action being taken in recent days to help assist the troops being
discharged back into “society”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
personally think that this is a great idea for in many cases, soldiers (a
general term to include all in the military) often joined up when they were
young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They spent anywhere from 4 to 30
years following orders, giving orders but always dealing with some kind of “order”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, regardless of age or background, upon
discharge they are poured back into the real world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I know when I was discharged from the “regular
army” when I was 20 years old; I had no idea what I was going to do when I
returned home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lucky for me, my dear old’
dad let me stay with him while I worked and went to college full time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<em>Fast forward to 2004-05.</em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When my National Guard unit returned from
deployment to Bosnia, we had about 2 weeks of earned military leave that we had
on the books…so after we de-mobilized, we were getting our leave pay for 2
weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a great idea to have a
few weeks to rest before returning to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>However, the police department I was working for at the time didn’t
think I needed all that rest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As soon as
they found out I was home, they called me to get me to return to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I almost had a whole week off—counting the
time in Bosnia- I was usually working 6 days a week and usually 12-16 hour
days---so I hadn’t had a vacation in a few years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That deployment was a total of 9 months. </div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I was tired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But, I put on the blue uniform and went
back to work.</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
6 months later we were re-deployed to
Iraq (there were about 15 of us Bosnia vets with the unit who “volunteered” to
go to Iraq.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That deployment was a total
of 15 moths with the useless training before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So when I returned home and had 2 weeks of military leave I told the
P.D. that I’ was taking a whole month off – and I didn’t answer the phone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
After being home for a month and resting,
I went back into the patrol car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
time the police department got a little smarter and had me ride with another
experienced officer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was one of the
best cops I ever worked with…so the first day in the car she asked:”well, how
long do you want to ride with me?” <br />
I looked at her and said: “As long as they let me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like being driven around.” About 3 hours
into that shift we got a call of a bank robbery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some reason I was the only one not
getting all excited---- well, what the heck, there was no gun involved so what
was the big deal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(remember after a year
in Iraq, anything is easy.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
2 weeks later, the town had one of the
biggest floods in 20 years…and I was working 12 hour shifts so many days I lost
track.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I was getting OVERTIME
pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike the Army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">A good sense of humor did help......</span><br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I think I earned my retirement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both of them. </div>CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-39490443666046677902012-07-08T15:07:00.000-07:002012-07-08T15:07:49.630-07:00How to Hire Cops.....<strong>From the Cop side</strong>: As some of my readers
(both of you) may have heard, in the past years I had my part in trying to hire
new cops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It never helped that I worked
at a police department that had the absolute lowest starting pay in the
county.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The good thing was for those of
us on the very top steps, the pay was on par…..but where it took the other
officers working near us only 5 years to get to that kind of pay, it took us 16
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But this isn’t about the pay,,, I’m
retired now and I get a decent retirement check each month…this post is about
hiring cops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I had first applied to
police departments when I got out of the Army, the process—from the time you’d
put in an application to the time they’d put you into a uniform would take
between 6 months to a year!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In those
days, for a good sized department with 6 openings, they might have 600 people
show up for a written test.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They spent
most of the time weeding out those who should never be cops---missing body
parts, missing the IQ, missing the manners, missing the honesty and missing all
kinds of things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
But in the last years, we might have had
3 openings, and be lucky to get 6 people to even apply for the job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I figured it was due to not only the low pay
and high requirements, but that hour Human Resources office was less than
useless. I mean they only have to work twice- when somebody was hired and when
somebody was fired….in between they just went to meetings and seemed to never
be doing anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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In it's day...it was a great car!</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So to get decent cops, I’d go out and try
to recruit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d talk to other cops and
asked if they new anybody who’d want to work for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I had my own way to screen them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few years ago most government agencies
changed to doing everything online.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
go to a website and fill out the application etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
So, when I was in my Sergeant’s office
and I’d get a call transferred in regards to somebody looking for a job, I’d
talk to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d ask them if they had
this and that requirement, if they could pass a background check (that I’d do
in many cases.) and thing like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
they sounded good, then I’d ask: “Can you use a computer?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good, can you use Google?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now go find our website, find the HR part, and find the application and
fill it out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you can’t do that, then
you’ll never be able to investigate even a simple crime and we can’t use you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
That either got a laugh (good) or a
pissed off hang up (good, we don’t want you.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Then when they filled out the forms, then
they got looked over, I got them from the HR office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was always amazed at what HR thought was a
good candidate from just looking at the forms and what I thought was a good
one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Then the interview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always tried so hard to not laugh. …but
when a person who’s never been in any kind of uniform, and never under anykind
of life or death stress comes in and tells me how good they did in the police academy…”I
was the top in my class in pistol shooting…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’d ask: “so how many times have you been in a gun fight or had to draw
down on a suspect?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
The police academy is just a start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s how a cop works with people in the real
world that matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Give me a cop who
just got a “B” in the academy, but can talk to folks and get them to talk to
him or her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Give me a cop who’s not
afraid, but still has common sense to ask for help and can help other
cops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Give me a cop who cares about
everybody else- before him/her self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
…and then there was the ones who said in
the interview: “I plan on being a detective in 6 months….”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I’d think: “really, who are you going to
take out to get that job?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Too few times did we get a military vet applying. They were usually the best cops...but since we paid so poorly, we didn't get them very often. Now most vets know how to put up with crap, take orders and more important- Take Charge! </span></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">(Bonus Points for this police exam. What is wrong with the above patrol car? Something is missing...not the blotted out star) </span></div>CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-86397453426463840052012-07-02T20:59:00.000-07:002012-07-02T20:59:09.037-07:00Iraq War Vet hat.....<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><strong>From the Vet side:</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few days ago my best friend sent me an
"Iraq War Veteran'<br />
cap. I never had one of these before, and I was pretty hyped about it,<br />
especially because my friend was considerate enough to take the time to<br />
give it to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
Yesterday, I wore it when I went to Walmart. There was nothing in particular<br />
that I needed at the world's largest retailer; but, since I retired, trips<br />
to Wally World to look at the Walmartians is always good for some comic<br />
relief. Besides, I always feel pretty normal after seeing some of the people<br />
that frequent the establishment. But, I digress...enough of my psychological<br />
fixations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
While standing in line to check out, the guy in front of me, probably in his<br />
early thirties, asked, "Are you an Iraq War Vet?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"No," I replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Then why are you wearing that
cap?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Because I couldn't find the
one from the War of 1812." I thought it was a<br />
snappy retort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"The War of 1812, huh?"
the Walmartian queried, "When was that?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">God forgive me, but I couldn't pass
up such an opportunity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"1936," I answered as
straight-faced as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He pondered my response for a moment
and responded, "Why do they call it the<br />
War of 1812 if it was in 1936?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"It was a Black Op. No one is
supposed to know about it."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
This was beginning to be way fun!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Dude! Really?" he
exclaimed. "How did you get to do something that COOOOL?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I glanced furtively around me for
effect, leaned toward the guy and in a low<br />
voice said, "I'm not sure. I was the only Caucasian on the mission."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Dude," he was really
getting excited about what he was hearing, "that is<br />
seriously awesome! But, didn't you kind of stand out?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Not really. The other guys
were wearing white camouflage."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The moron nodded knowingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Listen man," I said in a
very serious tone, "You can't tell anyone about<br />
this. It's still 'top secret' and I shouldn't have said anything."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Oh yeah?" he gave me the
'don't threaten me look.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Like, what's gonna happen if I
do?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With a really hard look I said,
"You have a family don't you? We wouldn't<br />
want anything to happen to them, would we?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The guy gulped, left his basket
where it was and fled through the door. By<br />
this time the lady behind me was about to have a heart attack she was<br />
laughing so hard. I just grinned at her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After checking out and going to the
parking lot I saw Dimwit leaning in a<br />
car window talking to a young woman. Upon catching sight of me he started<br />
pointing excitedly in my direction. Giving him another 'deadly' serious<br />
look, I made the 'I see you' gesture. He turned kind of pale, jumped in the<br />
car and sped out of the parking lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
What a great time!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Tomorrow I'm going back with a
Homeland Security cap.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Whoever said retirement is boring
just needs the right kind of cap!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-32340977428377692322012-06-27T14:18:00.005-07:002012-06-27T14:21:21.704-07:00Retirement Parties for Cops....two types.....<br />
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>From the Cop side:</strong> (but this could apply
to most people who have worked at a job for 20 or more years).</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
I just got word that one of the captains
I used to work for at a police department is sort of retiring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can you “sort of retire”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, when different agencies have found that
it’s cheaper to combine one or more departments into one bigger police
department, sometimes folks get sort of “retired.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Now, this guy has been in law enforcement
for over 35 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Notice I didn’t say
he was a cop for over 35 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a
paperpushingpieceof----.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He loved to
start “I.A.’s” (Internal Affairs Investigations) on officers for little or no
reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He went out of his way to insist
that whenever he was there and a citizen came into complain about something, he
would always ask: “would you like to make a formal complaint against the
officer?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Now, this is the funny thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have worked with some cops in the last 33
years who should have been fired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But,
this jerk would start complaints against some of the best cops in the world for
no reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m talking about cops who’d
risk their lives for citizens and other cops and had total respect from
everybody they ever had contact with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<em>So, when a cop retires, there are a few
types of retirement parties.</em></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>Type 1: Class A Cop.</strong><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everybody loves him or her and shows up at
the retirement party and has a good time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When they congratulate the retiring cop, they shake his or her hand and
ask for any words of wisdom they can get- especially the semi seasoned cops who
are smart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rookies still don’t understand
and think they know everything, so all they’re thinking of is: “now I have a
little seniority in the department.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<strong>Type 2: Class F Cop.</strong> Everybody hates with a passion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many, if they saw this knucklehead lying
on the ground, they’d walk around him and just say they forgot the number for
nine one one. For this person, there will be a very big retirement party,
however the retiree is not invited and has no knowledge of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will be lots of happy cops, former
cops, retired cops and even some good citizens who will be there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At this type of party, there will be so many
intoxicated cops, that the Irishmen will even be sayin’: “you’ve had too much
to drink.” The rookies still don't have a clue.</div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Of course, being they they’re all DUI
experts, there will be designated drivers and a fleet of taxi cabs standing by….because
there will always be another paperpushingsonofabitch who loves to burn and fire
cops to try and make themselves look better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
We have a Type 2: Class F party coming up
soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But don’t tell the asshole captain
about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486091724602248905.post-27558514009808052772012-06-08T12:56:00.001-07:002012-06-08T17:15:54.815-07:00M9 9MM Beretta- my new old friend<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8tk4koWKnb2xlSuDRwX9zXwbZgW2CAAeU6x7XnSYi451MR3hyxvAZZFXY1BZQmAKlm_AEJHnEx9LI4zpExtQVVgTM4pmHqzT7O8Dob-EKkcUNfBWt037qjwq2hhEKDjGknTGNSD0zmN-/s1600/M9s+&+M11s.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT8tk4koWKnb2xlSuDRwX9zXwbZgW2CAAeU6x7XnSYi451MR3hyxvAZZFXY1BZQmAKlm_AEJHnEx9LI4zpExtQVVgTM4pmHqzT7O8Dob-EKkcUNfBWt037qjwq2hhEKDjGknTGNSD0zmN-/s320/M9s+&+M11s.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Pile of Army M-9's and M-11's</div>
<br />
<strong>From the Soldier side</strong>: I just picked up a
new old friend the other day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This will
be the third M9 I’ve owned…for some reason I parted with the other two over the
years... thinking: “I’ll get another one”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then there was the one I was issued in 2003 for Bosnia, then re-issued
the same weapon in 2004 for Iraq.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB_wPjs55Uohu2Q0LZ9ovEvXFLnvQOWkIRf4yPuWr5x8VViiBE3r4035j4cf2xMtfHUmXQ44MRw167ex2gqld60Mk46vVadaQCexL9m2mbzHgwYRnt-j9QA0mJeygJsKegqQNmkH4UbryQ/s1600/RSblkout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB_wPjs55Uohu2Q0LZ9ovEvXFLnvQOWkIRf4yPuWr5x8VViiBE3r4035j4cf2xMtfHUmXQ44MRw167ex2gqld60Mk46vVadaQCexL9m2mbzHgwYRnt-j9QA0mJeygJsKegqQNmkH4UbryQ/s320/RSblkout.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
My work clothes for Bosnia - SFOR 14</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZUjw8-fga8cHqijCxmn-zfELRuc7xgv_RkvcXGcLI_MMZa8gUA0eg2x0dn-TnY55x2Gl621eTyOe2eb0WH_EHeQyGcJr5qegLkyyIMP2rO_HIjz21cGUIaf8JAb-WYpjYn1NK7Bu5VXCc/s1600/CIRD+in'+Fallujah_bo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZUjw8-fga8cHqijCxmn-zfELRuc7xgv_RkvcXGcLI_MMZa8gUA0eg2x0dn-TnY55x2Gl621eTyOe2eb0WH_EHeQyGcJr5qegLkyyIMP2rO_HIjz21cGUIaf8JAb-WYpjYn1NK7Bu5VXCc/s320/CIRD+in'+Fallujah_bo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
In Fallujah, Iraq Dec 04</div>
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
For you gun folks, I don’t want to hear: “a
9mm is crap” because there are several reasons it is not crap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>#1 reason- it works every time I press the go
button.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>#2 in the civilian world, I’m
not limited to the Full Metal Jacket NATO ammo- in my case, I have 19 147grain
Winchester SXTs round in the first magazine and 15 round spares.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Find me a .40 or .45 that can easily carry
that many rounds from the start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> #3, the M9 empty makes a hell of an impact weapon.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
In Bosnia I carried my M9 every day of
the week- all day long whenever we left our hootch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Iraq, it was my back up weapon, but when I
was on a camp or FOB, I’d stick my M4 in my locker and walk about with my M9-
it was less cumbersome and easier to eat and stuff like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Since I've retired, one of my part time jobs has me training
citizens and others how to shoot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
usually go to work about an hour early and practice shooting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t practice too much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
Yesterday’s drill was the “failure drill”
or what we used to call the Mozambique drill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For this drill you assume your target has body armor or is just a tough
bastard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you fire 2 rounds center
mass, then one to the brain housing group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This will stop anybody.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I do this starting at 5 yards, then send the target out to 15 yards. I do this until a box of ammo is gone. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="yiv1507346682msolistparagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
When I started in police work, we were
forced to carry 6 shot revolvers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
usually carried an extra 12 rounds- for a total of 18 rounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I can carry more than that in my first
magazine…and put the all the rounds where they need to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbFyppY605aCspq1K92DhHs3b-28_tF7hI6ogU-R6RuQSHF8xRy5br7EU8VeZkIah1XuRemAiyVL1CqGOZ814QDX1bC1i7pNJt-hZO71c5RVVsyLoL5q0LfDfFskF_xAbxh5O1vux6eas1/s1600/blurryzombie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbFyppY605aCspq1K92DhHs3b-28_tF7hI6ogU-R6RuQSHF8xRy5br7EU8VeZkIah1XuRemAiyVL1CqGOZ814QDX1bC1i7pNJt-hZO71c5RVVsyLoL5q0LfDfFskF_xAbxh5O1vux6eas1/s320/blurryzombie.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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When the zombies come, 6 shots may not be enough!</div>
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Yes, I still have my .45’s, and with the
same amount of rounds, the .45 is better…but if you miss with a .45 it’s not as
effective as hits with a 9mm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
And here's a good manual on the M9 Beretta: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beretta-Manual-Training-Guide-ebook/dp/B004PVSORQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1339200761&sr=8-3&keywords=beretta+manual+on+kindle">M-9 manual on Kindle</a><br />
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<br /></div>CI-Roller Dudehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10850472230525879415noreply@blogger.com12