Oh Two Bravo- Team Leader, part 3...

From the Solider side: If I haven’t mentioned it before, we had Oxygen Bandits on our Bosnia deployment. Yeah, I know every soldier, sailor, marine and maybe even the air force has enlisted folks who’re the thieven’ O2 bandits, some in a felony capacity, but with the lower enlisted, I figure there’s hope, or at least they’ll not re-enlist. The bigger problem is the O2 thieves who are NCOs and Officers. These types can do more damage.


The Bosnia mission (called SFOR for Stabilization Force) was considered a hazardous duty assignment. We were also supposed to be armed at all times- on or off the camps. In our case, we packed 9mm M-9 (Beretta) pistols concealed while in civilian clothes. I bet most citizens didn’t know that Mess Kit Repair soldiers did such missions, but we repaired mess kits regardless of the danger.

..went there...got the T-shirt...

To be honest with everyone, I actually felt 10 times safer in outside the camps in Bosnia than I did in any major city in the USA. When I go into some large cities at home, I carry 2 friggen pistols and lots of spare ammo. In Bosnia it was only one pistol and two 15 round magazines. …oh and my Emerson folding knife.  We drove un-armored Volks Wagons...and traveled light. 

No kidding...

So, to tell ya’ all about my team leader. At first, he seemed like a great guy. He seemed to listen, seemed to care, and seemed to want to do a good job. Since he was the team leader for the first 5 months, until he got relieved, I never checked his work. You see after each mission, we were required to write reports about what we’d done etc. I checked the other team members work, but the team leader told me I didn’t need to check his.

I can’t emphasize how important it was for us to write reports…it was really important. Many of the things we did, needed to be passed on. Without a proper report, what we were doing was pointless. All the other team members, including the CI Roller Dude himself, were good about doing this.
Many times in our official missions, we might be invited to some sort of festive occasion. At such events, alcoholic beverages were always available. Our General Oder #1 said soldiers were not allowed to drink. We had a “special” order that actually allowed us to drink for official visits, but there was a two drink limit. Since I was always armed and I tend to get “loose” when I drink, I chose to not drink. My team leader more than made up for my dryness by getting drunk everytime.

He not only got drunk, but would hit on every single women at these events. He told me his goal was to get laid. I reminded him that our orders and training made it mandatory to avoid doing things like that. You see, I do have control of myself…a skill that has served me well for years. My team leader was doing his best to spread “American” love around Bosnia.

The Oh Two Bravo team leader went so far as on several occasions to tell me that he was driving to the main base, when in fact he was going to sleep with some local woman. The captain at the main base often called asking for the Oh Two Bravo team leader and I’d say: “Sir, he told me he was on his way to see you….4 hours ago.”

The Dumbass captain, who himself was stealing oxygen, would just say: “Oh, I’ll look for him.”
This went on for months until one of the officers who actually had a brain figured out what my team leader was up to. The dumbass captain was ordered to call our team in for another investigation.

…and this is where I got really pissed off….the dumbass retarded, lazy, stupid ass, dipshit, know-nothing, oxygen bandit, stupidass captain tried to blame me for my team leaders indiscretions.  I had busted my ass and the team leader was just out screwing off.  He had to balls to call me in and try to interrogate ME. Wrong move. At that point I had been a cop for over 20 years, and had interrogated hundreds of bad guys.

The Dumbass Captain called me into his office and started to question me about my team leader. After he asked 3 questions, to which I had not responded to a thing, I asked in a polite way: “Sir, am I under investigation for something?”

He looked at me and said: “What. What do you mean?”
I responded with: “Sir, with all due respect, if I’m under investigation for something my team leader has done, then you need to advise me of my rights. If I’m not under investigation, then tell me so, and I’ll answer your questions. However, I should point out, that for this type of investigation, you are neither authorized to investigate nor are you qualified. If you insist on continuing, you yourself will be under investigation. …with all due respect SIR.”

That really pissed him off and he threw me out of my office. My team leader was relieved of his command and his weapon. I was put in charge---without a promotion. Thank God neither that captain or my former team leader went to Iraq with us. The team leader was forced to “retire” when we returned home. And that’s an Oxygen Bandit story.  I have many more...

The End...

Just a side note on good friends...

From the Soldier and Cop side:  I'll get around to the Oxygen Bandit Team Leader pretty soon, but I wanted to say something first.  When you work in the kind of jobs I've done in my two lifes- Army and Police work, you make friends.  Some friends you have just while at a place in time or location.  Some of these friends my make in wars or during really hard times. 
Any friend will stick around when times are good, but you find who's the really best friend when things are not so good.  When you find a friend like that, you'll know and understand what I'm talking about.  And that's the friends you keep for life.  Keep in touch with them...and when they're in a bad spot, let them know you're there.  When you need an hand, they'll be there for you. 

If you don't understand this...hang on...but you might be an Oh Two Bravo.  If you know what I'm talking about....then I don't need to say anymore.

---------------Standby ---------------------------------

Oh Two Bravo- "The Team Leader"

Oh Two Bravo- The Team Leader.

From the Soldier side: To continue with the Oxygen Bandit story…actually I could write a series on this subject. The funny thing is, for many years I didn’t understand how some people were wasting oxygen. I always assumed that there was plenty of air…. But after doing some reading by Al Gore, I found that these O2 Bandits are really a major cause of global warming. If you know one, duct tape their breathing holes shut as soon as possible!

(Note: in regards to the teams we had in Bosnia and Iraq--- Most grunt units are set up with 10 man squads. Each squad is broken into 2 teams of five men. Our teams were 3-4 men and worked alone or with a security force –SECFOR team. These teams were supposed to be lead by a warrant officer, or senior sergeant. In Bosnia, I usually worked with one other person or alone. I took a terp if I needed one.)

Before we deployed to Bosnia for the SFOR 14 mission, a bunch of us had been pulled off the invasion of Iraq job. That was a big relief because the first soldiers in, didn’t have a decent PX or coffee shop. That would have been really rough. By the time I got to OIF 3, Baghdad was pretty well set up for nice shit.

So, about February of 2003, we were told we had to go to Minnesota for winter training. We flew there and learned lots of valuable stuff like don’t leave cans of beer outside the barracks when it’s 10 degrees F outside. The beverage will freeze if you leave it out overnight. See, I grew up in the snow and spent 2 years in the old Berlin Brigade, so I was very experienced at freezing my ass off. There is a reason I decided to live in California and not in snow country….cold weather sucks!
As we were muddling through our training, I met the dude who was going to end up being my team leader in Bosnia later on.  I'll call him "AH" for short.   He seemed like a good person, and when I got tasked to help train soldiers drive in the snow and ice, he listened to what I said. “Slow the fuck down when driving in snow and ice.”

I had soldiers spinning M1114 Armored Humvees around on frozen ponds. I did a combination of police driver and army driver training…it was fun.

We suspect they spent more on the logo than ammo...

All through the training, my future team leader seemed pretty good. Before we were put on active duty orders, we had over 60 days of mostly useless off the wall training.
By the time we were put on active duty orders, we knew the other soldiers we’d be deploying with pretty well. I found some people, a few rare people are very good at bullshitting about how good they are. After we were actually on active duty orders, we had 60 more days of even more stupid off the wall useless training.  Then we spent 7 months in Bosnia. 

To be cont…
-----------------------------Standby-----------------------

"Oh Two Bravo" Oxygen Bandits on SFOR 14

Oxygen Bandits!

From the Soldier side: As promised, I said I was going to write about “Oxygen Bandits” we’ve had on deployments. However, my goal this year is to try to be more positive…so I’ll start out saying that I’m positive that if we had not taken some of the oxygen bandits with us on my two deployments, things would have not only gone better for the rest of the good soldiers, but we would have had more air to breath.

CI Roller Dude with captured MG in Bosnia, early 2004

I am sure that many of you nice citizen readers out there are not familiar with this military term and may be a bit confused. Let me start by explaining that an Oxygen Bandit (O2 B or Bravo- pronounced “Oh Two Bravo”) can be of any rank, but in many cases the worst ones are on the small teams we had to go out with. (Many times during training I tried to tell my leaders that we didn’t always need to take Specialist Snuffy with us, because he just got in the way, did stupid things and ate valuable food, water and most of all sucked in good air.)

We also had Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, and Sergeant Major O2 Bravos.
Now please, don’t get me wrong, I worked with many great soldiers…and some true honest to God heroes. But I’ll tell stories of them later. It’s the O2 Bravos that wasted not only valuable air, but other resources, time and money. They’d often get in the chow line in front of the real workers when we were in a hurry to go on a mission. They just got in the damn way!

What we used to call some of the folks in the old days are “Guard Bums”. For the most part, these were soldiers who were in the National Guard, which was only a part time job, but that was their only source of income. In so many cases, these bums couldn’t hold a regular civilian job the rest of the month. I don’t know how some of them even ate, but when they showed up for training, you could see why they didn’t have jobs…they were retards.

So let’s talk about a few specific soldiers we had for the Bosnia deployment. Some key points you have to understand are, at that point in our unit’s history, we had very few soldiers who had ever been deployed or to any place like Bosnia- where we were required to be armed at all times. I don’t like to “pick on” soldiers who are lower in rank than I am, as I feel it’s my duty to make them a better soldier---thus harassing them does not achieve that goal in most cases. (I would put them on shit details to get their attention if needed.)

In this case, I’ll take a person who had been promoted above me. When I first met this guy, who was my team leader for awhile in Bosnia, I thought he was a great person and a great soldier. He seemed to care and wanted to do a good job. I was put on his team just before we left that states because, as the Commanding Officer (CO) explained it: “that team is dysfunctional and we need you on it to help guide them and unfuck things.”

I was happy because it meant that I was going to be on a field team in Bosnia instead of stuck in the office. I was so friggen happy!
I thought it must have been the lower team members who were not effective, which was also true, but as I found out as we were deployed, the real problem was in fact the team leader.
To be cont.

-----------------------Standby-------------

Coming soon...the Oxygen Bandits of deployments....

I'm working on the next post...I look it up in the Dictionary

.....Oxygen Bandit: Demeaning description of a human, who is of no use or benefit for our planet and/or society. As do all humans during their lifetime, he/she will always use oxygen to survive, but because of the nature of the human, they will never use this resource in a constructive, positive, or useful manner. Therefore they are deemed as stealing oxygen from earth’s atmosphere, i.e an Oxygen Bandit. Can be used in similar fashion as: scum , pathetic , loser, etc.

...Great Hippie Chase part II.....

From the Cop (Roller) side: Well, I was going to wait a few days to end the Great Hippie Chase, but America’s First Sergeant has spoken. Since the UNITED STATES MARINES (1st Marine Div) were kind enough to give my team ammo in the battle of Fallujah, I feel I owe the Marines a debt I will never be able to fully repay. So, here you go Top.

Let me say something about men and hair. I have my thoughts on hair and how people care for themselves. I really don’t care if some dude has long hair. However, I do think when most men reach the age of about 35 or so, if they have a pony tail, then need to cut the damn thing off. If a dude’s hair is falling out and/or going grey, cut the f—ing ponytail thing off. What do these guys think they are? Rock Stars? Nope, I worked with Rock Stars in Iraq…and they all had short hair and weapons.

So, as we were chasing this stupid %@($@##$ around the down town, we were amazed at how stupid he was. We had enough horse power, cops and weapons to take out a Taliban Cell, but this dude on a bicycle thought he could escape?

Mary 1 was still in on the road behind the dumbass who was riding the bicycle on the sidewalk. Behind Mary 1 was me, the Linclon units and the Xray.   Seemed like every few hundred feet,dipshit would turn around and flip the bird.

I know in my head I was laughing at this dipshit. But at the same time I was wondering if he was wanted for bank robbery or murder or something crazy. He was pedeling as fast as he could to get away from us…but not fast enough. And he wasn’t a very good bike rider. He could maybe do 10 MPH, and we could do over 100!

After going around blocks in circles for awhile, I figured dipshit must be getting tired. He was floundering and his movements were not as smooth and he was slowing down—all signs of him getting exhausted. We on the other hand were totally rested being that we only had to step on the gas pedal or Mary 1 have to roll back the throttle on the KZ1000.

Finally dipshit was going down a sidewalk where I knew it was about over. See, this area of the town was built over 100 years ago. The sidewalks were much higher than the newer building codes because of the horse and buggy days I guess. The sidewalk/ curb was too high for a poor bicycle rider to launch off from without crashing. There were also a lot of obstacles in the way that would impede an easy maneuver.

In other words, if a patrol car was to go further ahead and drive up a driveway and block the side walk, dipshit would have no where to go.

I took that option. I was far enough down the road where dipshit could easily stop without hitting my patrol car and scratching the paint (man I waxed that car once a week). As I blocked the sidewalk, I exited my car and ran around to where dipshit was coming. He had this funny look of “Oh shit, what do I do now” that I’ve seen many times. He panicked and tried to stop his bike, but got tangled up in the pedals. I caught him before he fell and hurt himself.

I told him in a very firm voice: “stop resisting dipshit, and you won’t get hurt.”

He gave up like a little girl at that point. Then the swarm of blue was all over his ass. Still, it was all controlled no excessive force because he stopped resisting. Everybody was OK.
Turns out when the booking sheet was being filled out, he had no warrants or anything, he just didn’t respect the “man.” There are lots of little boxes to be filled in on the booking sheet. One of those is “type of employment”.
When dipshit was asked, he said he never has worked (maybe it was the pony tail and the attitude?) so he was asked: “Are you a hippie?”

He said he was a hippie. So that’s what was written into that box.


Man, you wouldn’t believe the fu---g drama that cause the next day.

-------------------Next, Oxygen Bandits on deployments-----------------

The Great Hippie Chase....

From the Cop side: It seems in my police and military career, I’ve often been right next to the “shit” when it happens. For 90% of the time, it was just little shit, but shit none the less.

Well, in California you don’t call shit “Shit”. Because you have to be nice. Sorry, sometimes I forget that. When I was 18 or so, that was OK because everybody figured I was just a dumb kid.

Anyway, on with the Great Hippy chase. (some details etc were changed to protect the insane) First of all, as is my policy, this is an event that happened many years ago and the Police Department I used to work for.

One thing I want to make really clear, I respect all citizens and treat them all with dignity, but have a plan to take them to jail if needed. I don’t care who a person is…treat them all with respect….that is, except lazy bums who won’t work to feed themselves.


(Note: Radio Call Letters: Xray- Sergeant, Lincoln-patrol officer, Mary-motor cycle officer, Radio – The person at the station on the radio who takes calls and dispatches the cops.)

It was a warm summer afternoon. I was on the “Cover Watch” working 3 PM to 3 AM. My primary duty was to make arrest and catch drunken drivers. At this time in my career, I had been a cop for over 20 years, so the only other cop working that shift with as much experience as me was the Xray unit. The other cops were fairly new, but good cops none the less.

I had just pulled out of the station in the down town port of town when I heard the Xray unit in pursuit. Being that he was a very calm person, he didn’t loose control, but called out on the radio something like; “Xray 123 I’m trying to stop a bicycle who’s trying to get away from me…are there any units in the down town area?”
I got on the radio and advised that “ Lincoln 5 I’m in the area, where’s he headed?”

Turns out I was only a block away…the story of my life, where there’s shit, I was right in it. The sergeant gave the location…not where he was, but where he was going…which is a better way to do such things.

The motor cycle cop, “Mary 1” was also heading towards the incident along with 2 other patrol cars. Linclon 1, 3 and 5.

So now we had four 275 horse power black and white Ford Crown Vics with Federal Vector light bars, bush bumpers, and a KZ-1000 Motor unit going after some guy on a bicycle. Each officer and the Sergeant had some kind of pistol of 9mm, .40 cal or .45. Each had a AR-15 rifle and a 12 gauge shotgun with bean bag rounds, pepper spray, hand cuffs, impact weaons defibulaters and a box of band aids. We had all kinds of cool police toys. Lucky it was a slow day, or we might have been out matched.
Mary 1 sees the dipshit on the bicycle and gets close and yells on his PA “Stop the bike, now, stop the bike.”

Well, as if you weren’t expecting it, the dipshit on the bike just raised his hand extending the middle finger. Mary 1 has a motor cycle that will go about 140 MPH, the Crown Vics can easily got 120 MPH and the bike dipshit might be able to do 20 MPH if was wasn’t so stoned.

To be cont….

Upcoming adventures:

Stay tuned for the upcoming adventers of the CI Roller Dude.

The Great Hippie Chase

The CI Roller Dude with Marine K9 @ Camp Gannon, Iraq July 2005

How can you be so stupid and still remember to breath?   

Oxygen Bandits on Deployments

and many more action fun filled stories.... coming soon.

Gun UP! 

The New & Improved %$#@&*^ VA college benifits....

From the former College Student side: Many, many years ago I was in the Regular Army. I joined within a few months after graduating from high school. My high school graduation was more of an “sort of honorable discharge” because I didn’t really do much but go to auto shop class in my senior year.

After I got out of the Army, I didn’t now what I was going to do. I figured my skills as an Infantrymen would either get me a job as a hit man for the Mafia, or into Police work. Some of my buddies from high school were going to the local Community College and said that the Administration of Justice (A.J.) classes were easy and you could meet "chicks."

(A point here, guys think about this…would you want to meet a chick who’s taking classes to become a cop?)
I was at an advantage over my friends who stayed home, getting drunk and smoking weed…I had VA benefits that would help me through college! I had it made in the shade.

I was about to learn how incompetent and fouled up one Federal organization could be on a daily basis. Almost as bad as FEMA is today.
I went to the college and talked to the college VA rep. He was pretty helpful and explained the tight procedures that I had to follow to get VA money to go to school. I was not going to be enough to live on, but my dad was going to let me rent a room from him until I could find a job etc.

I don’t remember in great detail all I had to do, but there was a lot of forms to be filled out…nothing any soldier wasn’t used to. There was an order of things to do, who to talk to, more forms, talk to this person, more forms, etc, etc.
I had a plan, filled out all the forms correctly and even spelled everything right. This was going to be easy.

I was given an approximate date, within a 4 week time frame on when I should start getting a check in the mail. It never came. I sold my favorite rifle to pay rent and buy gas. I sold tools, I was working a part time job that paid crap knowing I could count on the VA money.
I finally talked to the VA rep at the college and he let me use his phone to actually call the VA office in wheretheheck USA. I got ahold of a VA worker who must have been a brain injury patient from the VA hospital. He asked for my SS Number. I told him. I could here the keyboard on the (at the time) new computer system they were using. I could here the keys clicking away…a pause…then he’d ask: “Can you give my your SS number again?”

I did….I gave it to him 20 more times. I think each time he’d type it in, then hit “DE-f---ing-LETE” each time. After 20 tries, I suggested that he write the number on a sheet of paper. He sounded like I had just called his mother a name---and I was being nice an polite the whole time!
After 22 tries, he said: “I don’t see any files for you in our system.”

I felt like just telling him to forget it…I just spent all those years in the Army for nothing and then to have to deal with such retards was more than I could handle.
2 months later, they finally got things fixed. I almost dropped out of college, but my dad was smart enough to tell me to stay in. Things eventually got fixed and I got a little money each month.  It wasn't much, but it paid for most of my college expenses. 

So, for all those new former military folks going to college now and having to deal with a fu--ed up VA, just remember “The US Government, 200 years of tradition unchanged by progress.”
Never give up! Don't let the idiots win!

Fashion Advice that you won't get anywhere else....

From the Cop side:  I was reading some chic blog the other day. Yeah, I’m read things like that because some of them are interesting. One I looked at,  the poor woman was talking about her fashion problems. “What lipstick do I wear with bla bla bla.”

Then they have to worry about things like earrings should go with a necklace and things like which heels to wear with a red dress. I didn’t know how tough this could be…this world of fashion.

CI Roller Dude looking like he cares...

Then I started to think. Usually I put on my blue jeans and go to work. When I get to work, I put on a dark blue uniform. My fashion problems at that point have to do with: “should I wear a long sleeve or short (where I work this can be a question year round.)
But, since I got promoted to Sergeant, I now may have to dress up to do other duties. Then the fashion problems abound.

This in-the pants holser was made for me by a guy in Bosnia for my M9

Well, if I’m wearing a suit, should I use the .380 Beretta in the shoulder holster, or the XD .45?

If I’m doing a presentation to some citizens, should I wear the Para .45 in a hip holster, then should I use black or brown.  Oh, if it's going to be night time, should I wear the XD 45 with the light attached? 

Some basic weapons fashion concepts:
1.) Never use a nylon holster unless you are in a combat zone. They look crappy.
2.) If you are wearing a black belt, you must have a matching black holster, do not mix colors
3.) If you are dressed for the night out, bring a smaller pistol so it doesn’t show.
4.) Test all holsters by jumping up and down to make sure you are not going to drop something and be embarrassed in public
5.) Wearing a pistol off duty or in plain clothes is not supposed to be comfortable, it’s supposed to be comforting.
6.) Whenever possible, bring a pistol that starts with “FORTY”, like .40 or .45 caliber.

In some cases, no other pistol will work for the job, and you just have to take something small...

So, the next time you or somebody you know is worried about shit like lipstick and things, be thankful you don't have problems like this.  And this was only some of my holsters and pistols.  Somedays it's overwelming and I just carry it like this:

So you got a HANG OVER!

GO DRINK SOME COFFEE, DO 20 PUSH-UPS, AND DO SOMETHING.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

شرب القهوة

                                                         THE CI-ROLLER DUDE

Added: That's a Sherpa in the background.  Kind of like a file cabinet with wings.  Handy little plane. 



Be happy, it's not 120 F, nobody is shooting RPGs, or AK 47s at you, you can drink like an adult and breath in air that doesn't smell like brunt camel shit.