Source: My Old USMC Website Time: Unknown Location, Action: Vietnam War
Story - While on patrol we found a dead gook, who had been speared through the chest with an unexploded rocket from one of our helicopter gunships. The VC was hanging on about a 45 degree angle with the rocket through is torn mutilated body with the tip of the rocket stuck in the ground, unexploded. We took a picture and then carefully backed away.
Note: Unexploded ordnance are not uncommon in any military from any country around the world.
Source: My Old USMC Website Time: Unknown Location, Action: Vietnam War
Story -
From intelligence gathering officer tells this story. A Cobra Gunship (helicopter) caught this North Vietnamese soldier out in the open. The soldier wanted to surrender as the helicopter descended to hovering just off the ground and about 20 feet from the enemy soldier who then threw his gun down and raised his arms over his head. The soldier, apparently alone and cut off from his comrades, backed up to a large tree. Unfortunately, Cobra Gunships are two manned choppers and can't take prisoners. So the helicopter open fired with its mini gun (Gatling Gun) and literally buried the enemy into the tree. This was reported by the helicopter pilot, and a few days later a patrol found what was left of the gun completely embedded into the tree as reported.
From Kuwait, this friend will soon be going north into Iraq. He's one of my former students and a VERY PROUD MARINE!!! He e-mailed me this morning with a little story he thought I'd enjoy, and I thought you guys would to.
He said that earlier today, a convoy of army trucks came into their area. The doggies were all smiles, and painted on the side of their trucks in white paint were the letters...USMC! They said they had not been fired upon during their entire trek south into Kuwait. The Marines who saw it just laughed their butts off. Army dogs impersonating Marines to avoid enemy contact! Hey, if it works, more power to 'em!
Source: My Old USMC Website Time: Unknown Location, Action: Vietnam War
Story - America wasn't the only contingent forces in South Vietnam. The South Koreans and Australians also had forces there. The South Koreans when on a search and destroy mission would cut the ears off the killed VC (Viet Cong). They would often leave one with the body, sometimes placing it in the mouth of the dead they killed, but they would always keep one. This one would be hung around the neck of the ROK Solider (South Korean Special Forces Solider) that killed the VC. This was later adopted by some U.S. Forces such as the Green Berets, Air Cav, and Marine Recon but was forbidden under U.S. Policy.
Source: My Old USMC Website Time: Iraq Invasion Location, Action: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Story - I was part of the 1st MEF Marine Corps Unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom, that's the second Gulf War. The Marines were first in as usual. We were the first official unit to cross the Kuwait border spearheading the invasion forces enroute to toppling Saddam Hussein and his Iraq Regime.
Along the way, one of our Hummer scouts encountered a heard of Camels blocking the road. We were ordered to kill and destroy anything in our path. So, this young Marine stops his hummer, gets out and tries to move the Camels thinking it's easier to move a live one than a dead one. The camel bit the Marine right on the shoulder. Well he shot it. I could hear the Gunny yelling at this dumbass like he was still a recruit in Boot at Camp LeJeune.
I never went anywhere without carrying two condoms.
One was for covering my M16 when it rained, and wow did it ever rain in Nam.
The other was when I went to a village or into town, their would always be a mama son (whorehouse mother of the girls); or sometimes just a village girl who needed money ... and the lonely GI (me) with my horny penis and a condom.
Yes I was in Desert Storm and I always carried the following ...
1) Box Condoms, mostly to protect my rifle. 2) 2 Plastic Bags with 2 twisties. 3) Roll of Duck Tape. 4) Rated 50 or above Sun Block. 5) A Tube Super-Glue. 6) A Bag of Beef Jerky.
The military should make these Standard issue for all U.S. Service personnel, but they don't.
I was an observer in a helicopter that was shot down by ground fire. The copter was hanging from a tree upside down and getting out wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done. As I was making my way to an erect position on the ground there was a lot of enemy fire. I looked up and there was a pit viper (deadly snake) about 12 inches from my face. All the sudden I had snake guts all over me. One of the other guys in the copter saw the snake and shot it.
You had to be there, but every time I see that movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison Ford and the snakes, it reminds me of that day!
I was in Operation Iraqi Freedom...... In fact I did two tours in Iraq (the current war). The one thing many of us have learned is that the Idiots who make the rules, i.e. 'Rules of Engagement' sit behind a desk on their fat asses. So to avoid being court martialed for some idiotic rule, such as...You can't fire your weapon unless they shoot first! Many of us pick up an AK47 and use it. If we kill someone, especially a civilian, we just dump the weapon somewhere else and get another one. Hell they are everywhere.
The military, and politics don't mix. the idiots are in the appeasement business of not offending anyone. This goes without saying and is personified by those ass wipes in JAG.
I was in Somalia, and Clinton with his idiot directives don't fire unless you are fired upon first was the dumbest damn thing anyone has ever come up with, and it is still in effect today.
That's why I got out of the military. It is being run by desk jockey moron idiots.
On a personal note, I never waited for shit - if you were carrying a sharp stick I shot your ass on the spot.
I did two tours in Afghanistan, what a shit hole. The only thing I see we accomplished there was creating the world's largest poppy fields for heroin distribution.
Again these silly ass rules of engagement is ruining the U.S. Military.
My story is simple, like so many others, I grabbed me a short stock AK-47, and when it called upon to shoot these scum-bag Muslims, a.k.a. Taliban or Taliban supporters they got shot with the AK-47.
I was in country in 69. Things were pretty crazy in Vietnam and the place was overrun with draftees. Anyway, here is just one of my stories.... This big Marine, about 6'-3" and 260 lbs and all muscle was in a Saigon bar. He got this gook upset so the stupid little fart sucker jumps up and kicks the Marine in the face with some kind of karate bullshit. The Marine just looks at him ... ?? So the idiot tries it again, the Marien catches the gook in mid air, holds him straight out and snaps his back like a twig. They arrested him. I got him out and made in into a special ops guy doing solo LRRP work in Laos, but that's another story.
Absolutely anyone who has been in Iraq or Afghanistan and has an ounce of intelligence about how JAG, the media, and so-called host country forces / government thinks of U.S. combat soldiers shooting some piss ant civilian that either doesn't stop when they are told too, is carrying a weapon and approaching you, or tries to kill you; and you get down and nasty and kill them and the locals raise hell about some innocent being shot ... see the results of some of the court martials handed down and how the brass suddenly gets a memory lapse of what they ordered you to do....well smart soldiers and marines carry a local AK-47 and dispose of it soon after the kill.
Seizing the Opportunity - I was stationed in Germany when the so-called iron curtain came tumbling down. The East German girls were hot to find rich guys from the west. So I told them I was rich, which I wasn’t, said I wanted to marry them, which I didn’t, fucked them, left them for the whores they were. So I lied, find me a man who isn't gay that doesn’t lie to women.
I was in Somalia. We used duck tape and a magic marker to put our name and blood tape around our leg just above our boot so we could be identified. This was in case our dog tags were removed or lost. Knowing your blood type is very important in an emergency situation.
And, yes I agree that the military should issue condoms, duck tape, and super glue to every soldier before going into combat.
I was also there. In many instances I wish I had a 12-gauge shotgun versus that damn M-16 they issued. A rifle is often a hinderance in fighting inside a building.
The combat planners that come up with these little wars (conflicts) obviously are desk jockeys and have never been shot at.
I did one tour and found the military bureaucracy too damn much for me to handle.
In The Valley of Elah with Tommy Lee Jones. It reminded me of something he said ... In cold weather you can stay warm by wearing women's pantyhose. But you sure don't want to get shot with them on.
This actually works. And, yes I am glad I never got shot wearing pantyhose under my military uniform, but then I didn't freeze my nuts off like so many of my buds who wouldn't wear them!
I was stationed in Korea on the DMZ. It gets damn cold there. I an from Detroit it gets cold there too but not like Korea. After about two weeks I noticed some GI's were colder than others, I was one of them. So asked, and one guy took me to the side and said wear pantyhose, they work. I thought he was gay (queer). After about another week of freezing my stones off, I went down to the market to get some. The Korean girls are too small so they wouldn't fit. So I wrote home to my Mom and asked her to send me some pantyhose that would fit my big size. She did, and I was still cold but not as cold as I was!
I was a Marine Corps Sniper in Afghanistan. I would lie waiting for these idiot Taliban Muslim jackasses to pop up their turbines so I could blow their filthy useless towel heads right off with my 50 caliber. I got quite a few ... Like shooting monkeys from a tree.
Look this concern over animals is bull. During my in-country Vietnam days I ordered the slaughter of countless animals. I am sure that any military person has participated in some form of that. It would be hard not to be in any war zone and not kill them. Throughout history it has been proven if an army cannot eat it can't fight.
Discharged now. I joined to serve but that war was created by idiots ... the rules of engagement are endless. So here is what I know many do, not all, but many...
1) Pick up an AK47 and kill anything that may be considered a No No by your superiors, most of whom are flipping ass morons in a cushy office somewhere like the Pentagon. 2) Never shoot anything or anyone when the press is around. 3) If you kill an unarmed civilian DON'T tell anyone you did it. Make sure you kill them with the AK and discard it right away, get another! 4) Many areas are controlled by locals, not Iraqi Police or Military but tribal militias or street gangs calling themselves neighborhood watch patrols. Never trust these guys and if they even look like they are going to give you an attitude, kill them ASAP with you AK. 5) We are NOT winning in Iraq and we never will. We need to get out and let these Muslim scum kill one another off. We have NO friends in the Middle East and we are only fooling ourselves if we believe different!
Now for my story ... I killed as many of these assholes as I could. Every chance I got I killed or blew up something.
My Personal Message - Don't join up, its a con game...you will be lucky if you return alive or at minimum fucked up in some way like physical permanent injury or mental or both and the VA and the military don't give a shit about you.
'Miracle' Marine refused to surrender will to live
The young Marine came back from the war, with his toughest fight ahead of him. Merlin German waged that battle in the quiet of a Texas hospital, far from the dusty road in Iraq where a bomb exploded, leaving him with burns over 97 percent of his body.
No one expected him to survive.
But for more than three years, he would not surrender. He endured more than 100 surgeries and procedures. He learned to live with pain, to stare at a stranger's face in the mirror. He learned to smile again, to joke, to make others laugh.
He became known as the "Miracle Man."
But just when it seemed he would defy impossible odds, Sgt. Merlin German lost his last battle this spring an unexpected final chapter in a story many imagined would have a happy ending.
"I think all of us had believed in some way, shape or form that he was invincible," says Lt. Col. Evan Renz, who was German's surgeon and his friend. "He had beaten so many other operations. ... It just reminded us, he, too, was human." ___
It was near Ramadi, Iraq, on Feb. 21, 2005, that the roadside bomb detonated near German's Humvee, hurling him out of the turret and engulfing him in flames.
When Renz and other doctors at the burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio first got word from Baghdad, they told his family he really didn't have a chance. The goal: Get him back to America so his loved ones could say goodbye.
But when German arrived four days later, doctors, amazed by how well he was doing, switched gears. "We were going to do everything known to science," Renz says. "He was showing us he can survive."
Doctors removed his burn wounds and covered him with artificial and cadaver skin. They also harvested small pieces of German's healthy skin, shipping them off to a lab where they were grown and sent back.
Doctors took skin from the few places he wasn't burned: the soles of his feet, the top of his head and small spots on his abdomen and left shoulder.
Once those areas healed, doctors repeated the task. Again and again.
"Sometimes I do think I can't do it," German said last year in an Associated Press interview. "Then I think: Why not? I can do whatever I want."
Renz witnessed his patient's good and bad days.
"Early on, he thought, 'This is ridiculous. Why am I doing this? Why am I working so hard?'" Renz recalls. "But every month or so, he'd say, 'I've licked it.' ... He was amazingly positive overall. ... He never complained. He'd just dig in and do it."
Slowly, his determination paid off. He made enormous progress.
From a ventilator to breathing on his own.
From communicating with his eyes or a nod to talking.
From being confined to a hospital isolation bed with his arms and legs suspended so his skin grafts would take to moving into his own house and sleeping in his own bed.
Sometimes his repeated surgeries laid him up for days and he'd lose ground in his rehabilitation. But he'd always rebound. Even when he was hurting, he'd return to therapy as long as he had his morning Red Bull energy drink.
"I can't remember a time where he said, 'I can't do it. I'm not going to try,' " says Sgt. Shane Elder, a rehabilitation therapy assistant.
That despite the constant reminders that he'd never be the same. The physical fitness buff who could run miles and do dozens of push-ups struggled, at first, just to sit up on the edge of his bed. The one-time saxophone player had lost his fingers. The Marine with the lady-killer smile now had a raw, ripple-scarred face.
Lt. Col. Grant Olbrich recalls a day in 2006 when he stopped by German's room and noticed he was crying softly. Olbrich, who heads a Marine patient affairs team at Brooke, says he sat with him awhile and asked: "What are you scared of?' He said, 'I'm afraid there will never be a woman who loves me.' "
Olbrich says that was the lowest he ever saw German, but even then "he didn't give up. ... He was unstoppable."
His mother, Lourdes, remembers her son another way: "He was never really scared of anything."
That toughness, says his brother, Ariel, showed up even when they were kids growing up in New York. Playing football, Merlin would announce: "Give me the ball. Nobody can knock me down." ____
In nearly 17 months in the hospital, Merlin German's "family" grew.
From the start, his parents, Lourdes and Hemery, were with him. They relocated to Texas. His mother helped feed and dress her son; they prayed together three, four times a day.
"She said she would never leave his side," Ariel says. "She was his eyes, his ears, his feet, his everything."
But many at the hospital also came to embrace German.
Norma Guerra, a public affairs spokeswoman who has a son in Iraq, became known as German's "Texas mom."
She read him action-packed stories at his bedside and arranged to have a DVD player in his room so he could watch his favorite gangster movies.
She sewed him pillows embroidered with the Marine insignia. She helped him collect New York Yankees memorabilia and made sure he met every celebrity who stopped by — magician David Blaine became a friend, and President Bush visited.
"He was a huge part of me," says Guerra, who had German and his parents over for Thanksgiving. "I remember him standing there talking to my older sister like he knew her forever."
German liked to gently tease everyone about fashion his sense of style, and their lack of it.
Guerra says he once joked: "I've been given a second chance. I think I was left here to teach all you people how to dress."
Even at Brooke, he color-coordinated his caps and sneakers.
"If something did not match, if your blue jeans were the wrong shade of blue, he would definitely let you know. He loved his clothes," recalls Staff Sgt. Victor Dominguez, a burn patient who says German also inspired him with his positive outlook.
German also was something of an entrepreneur. Back in high school, he attended his senior prom, not with a date but a giant bag of disposable cameras to make some quick cash from those who didn't have the foresight to bring their own.
At Brooke, he designed a T-shirt that he sometimes sold, sometimes gave away. On the front it read: "Got 3 percent chance of survival, what ya gonna do?" The back read, "A) Fight Through, b) Stay Strong, c) Overcome Because I Am a Warrior, d) All Of The Above." D is circled.
Every time he cleared a hurdle, the staff at Brooke cheered him on.
When he first began walking, Guerra says, word spread in the hospital corridors. "People would say, 'Did you know Merlin took his first step? Did you know he took 10 steps?' " she recalls.
German, in turn, was asked by hospital staff to motivate other burn patients when they were down or just not interested in therapy.
"I'd say, 'Hey, can you talk to this patient?' ... Merlin would come in ... and it was: Problem solved," says Elder, the therapist. "The thing about him was there wasn't anything in the burn world that he hadn't been through. Nobody could say to him, 'You don't understand.'"
German understood, too, that burn patients deal with issues outside the hospital because of the way they look.
"When he saw a group of children in public, he was more concerned about what they might think," says Renz, his surgeon. "He would work to make them comfortable with him."
And kids adored him, including Elder's two young sons. German had a habit of buying them toys with the loudest, most obnoxious sounds — and presenting them with a mischievous smile.
He especially loved his nieces and nephews; the feelings were mutual. One niece remembered him on a Web site as being "real cool and funny" and advising her to "forget about having little boyfriends and buying hot phones" and instead, concentrate on her education.
But he was closest to his mother. When the hospital's Holiday Ball approached in 2006, German told Norma Guerra he wanted to surprise his mother by taking her for a twirl on the dance floor.
Guerra thought he was kidding. She knew it could be agony for him just to take a short walk or raise a scarred arm.
But she agreed to help, and they rehearsed for months, without his mother knowing. He chose a love song to be played for the dance: "Have I Told You Lately?" by Rod Stewart.
That night he donned his Marine dress blues and shiny black shoes — even though it hurt to wear them. When the time came, he took his mother in his arms and they glided across the dance floor.
Everyone stood and applauded. And everyone cried.
Clearly, it seemed, the courageous Marine was winning his long, hard battle.
"Some of the folks we lose — the fight to get better is too much," Elder says. "But Merlin always came back. He had been through so much, but it was automatic. ... Merlin will be fine tomorrow. He'll be back in the game. That's what we always thought." ___
Merlin German died after routine surgery to add skin under his lower lip.
He was already planning his next operations — on his wrists and elbows. But Renz also says with all the stress German's body had been subjected to in recent years, "it was probably an unfair expectation that you can keep doing this over and over again and not have any problems."
The cause of his death has not yet been determined.
"I may no more understand why he left us when he did than why he survived when he did," Renz says. "I don't think I was meant to know."
As people learned of his death last month, they flocked to his hospital room to pay their last respects: Doctors, nurses, therapists and others, many arriving from home, kept coming as Friday night faded into Saturday morning.
Merlin German was just 22.
He had so many dreams that will go unrealized: Becoming an FBI agent (he liked the way they dressed). Going to college. Starting a business. Even writing comedy.
But he did accomplish one major goal: He set up a foundation for burned children called "Merlin's Miracles," to raise money so these kids could enjoy life, whether it was getting an air conditioner for their home or taking a trip to Disney World, a place he loved.
On a sunny April afternoon, German was buried among the giant oaks and Spanish moss of Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell. The chaplain remembered German as an indomitable Marine who never gave in to the enemy or to his pain.
One by one, friends and family placed roses and carnations on his casket.
His parents put down the first flowers, then stepped aside for mourners. They were the last ones to leave his grave, his mother clutching a folded American flag. ___
Memorial Day is a time to remember the fallen with parades, tributes and stories.
Sgt. Joe Gonzales, a Marine liaison at Brooke, has a favorite story about Merlin German.
It was the day he and German's mother were walking in the hospital hallway. German was ahead, wearing an iPod, seemingly oblivious to everyone else.
Suddenly, he did a sidestep.
For a second, Gonzales worried German was about to fall. But no.
"He just started dancing out of nowhere. His mom looked at me. She shook her head. There he was with a big old smile. Regardless of his situation, he was still trying to enjoy life."
I was in Nam (Vietnam) in 1969. Jungle fighting in the heat, humidity and monsoon rain is bad enough but getting dysentery makes things worse with that uncontrolled diarrhea.
One of my buds got the running cheek butt drips and went off behind a tree to take his dump. After a while some of us noticed it was taking longer than it should, so when we went to take a look see, he had been bitten by a pit viper, a dangerous poison snake that will drop or hang from trees. It bit him just around the kidney area. He was dead when we found him. The doctors later told us he never had a chance. What a way to go I thought. As we where walking back Charlie came at us like no tomorrow. The firefight lasted about 25 minutes. I heard one of the gooks moaning, I went over, guess what he had stepped in our buds poop and shot himself. Now that was fitting!
I returned last August from Afghanistan. The terrain is treacherous. The people cannot be trusted. They are growing Poppy Plants and manufacturing opium to supply an off world planet and we are doing nothing about it. The Afghan Government in Kabul is useless, has no authority and exist to spend U.S. Taxpayer dollars. We are hindered everyday in our operations. The Taliban are getting stronger. al Qaida is stronger. They train and supply from Pakistan, often times with help from either the Pakistani Intelligence or Pakistani border patrols.
I refused to re-enlist. I didn't sign up for a bullshit war run by stupid ass politicians, my father had to put up with that same nonsense and rules in Vietnam.
This will never be resolved on it's current course. We need to bomb the hell out of everything on the Pakistan Frontier and forget the crap about killing civilians or damaging property like a Mosque or school. They hide their arms in these places. Fuck Pakistan. They know where these terrorist camps are, and do nothing about them. America, you are being sold a bill of goods form the White House down to every Congressman and Senator. They are all in on it. NATO Troops know this. They will not even participate in dangerous ground seek and destroy missions.
I have a hard time believing that the mere sight of USMC painted on the side of a truck scares every bad guy in Iraq. The Army don't need the Marines to save them, they're doing quite well on their own. Bullshit story or if you would rather a fairy tale
Army myself. anyway, I wasn't in long before I was in the guardhouse. Got drunk, stole a jeep, they would have busted me but you cannot take something away you don't have sent me into combat killed them stink pots I did still got drunk a lot came out a private busted 4 times all for drunk and fighting
34 comments:
Source: My Old USMC Website
Time: Unknown
Location, Action: Vietnam War
Story -
While on patrol we found a dead gook, who had been speared through the chest with an unexploded rocket from one of our helicopter gunships.
The VC was hanging on about a 45 degree angle with the rocket through is torn mutilated body with the tip of the rocket stuck in the ground, unexploded.
We took a picture and then carefully backed away.
Note: Unexploded ordnance are not uncommon in any military from any country around the world.
Source: My Old USMC Website
Time: Unknown
Location, Action: Vietnam War
Story -
From intelligence gathering officer tells this story.
A Cobra Gunship (helicopter) caught this North Vietnamese soldier out in the open. The soldier wanted to surrender as the helicopter descended to hovering just off the ground and about 20 feet from the enemy soldier who then threw his gun down and raised his arms over his head. The soldier, apparently alone and cut off from his comrades, backed up to a large tree.
Unfortunately, Cobra Gunships are two manned choppers and can't take prisoners.
So the helicopter open fired with its mini gun (Gatling Gun) and literally buried the enemy into the tree.
This was reported by the helicopter pilot, and a few days later a patrol found what was left of the gun completely embedded into the tree as reported.
IMPERSONATING MARINES:
March 20, 2004
Sent to my Dad via email …
From Kuwait, this friend will soon be going north into Iraq.
He's one of my former students and a VERY PROUD MARINE!!!
He e-mailed me this morning with a little story he thought I'd enjoy, and I thought you guys would to.
He said that earlier today, a convoy of army trucks came into their area. The doggies were all smiles, and painted on the side of their trucks in white paint were the letters...USMC! They said they had not been fired upon during their entire trek south into Kuwait. The Marines who saw it just laughed their butts off.
Army dogs impersonating Marines to avoid enemy contact!
Hey, if it works, more power to 'em!
Source: My Old USMC Website
Time: Unknown
Location, Action: Vietnam War
Story -
America wasn't the only contingent forces in South Vietnam. The South Koreans and Australians also had forces there.
The South Koreans when on a search and destroy mission would cut the ears off the killed VC (Viet Cong). They would often leave one with the body, sometimes placing it in the mouth of the dead they killed, but they would always keep one. This one would be hung around the neck of the ROK Solider (South Korean Special Forces Solider) that killed the VC.
This was later adopted by some U.S. Forces such as the Green Berets, Air Cav, and Marine Recon but was forbidden under U.S. Policy.
Source: My Old USMC Website
Time: Iraq Invasion
Location, Action: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Story -
I was part of the 1st MEF Marine Corps Unit during Operation Iraqi Freedom, that's the second Gulf War.
The Marines were first in as usual. We were the first official unit to cross the Kuwait border spearheading the invasion forces enroute to toppling Saddam Hussein and his Iraq Regime.
Along the way, one of our Hummer scouts encountered a heard of Camels blocking the road. We were ordered to kill and destroy anything in our path.
So, this young Marine stops his hummer, gets out and tries to move the Camels thinking it's easier to move a live one than a dead one.
The camel bit the Marine right on the shoulder.
Well he shot it.
I could hear the Gunny yelling at this dumbass like he was still a recruit in Boot at Camp LeJeune.
Circa - 1967, Vietnam
I was stationed in Saigon, working in Intel.
Dome of us got drunk and stole a General's jeep.
Drove it into the river.
Never did get caught.
P.S. _ I hate officers, especially top brass, that's probably why, even drunk, I stole a general's Jeep.
I am a Vietnam Vet.
I never went anywhere without carrying two condoms.
One was for covering my M16 when it rained, and wow did it ever rain in Nam.
The other was when I went to a village or into town, their would always be a mama son (whorehouse mother of the girls); or sometimes just a village girl who needed money ... and the lonely GI (me) with my horny penis and a condom.
re, always carrying 2 condoms.
Yes I was in Desert Storm and I always carried the following ...
1) Box Condoms, mostly to protect my rifle.
2) 2 Plastic Bags with 2 twisties.
3) Roll of Duck Tape.
4) Rated 50 or above Sun Block.
5) A Tube Super-Glue.
6) A Bag of Beef Jerky.
The military should make these Standard issue for all U.S. Service personnel, but they don't.
Conflict: Vietnam
I was an observer in a helicopter that was shot down by ground fire.
The copter was hanging from a tree upside down and getting out wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done.
As I was making my way to an erect position on the ground there was a lot of enemy fire. I looked up and there was a pit viper (deadly snake) about 12 inches from my face. All the sudden I had snake guts all over me. One of the other guys in the copter saw the snake and shot it.
You had to be there, but every time I see that movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark with Harrison Ford and the snakes, it reminds me of that day!
I was in Operation Iraqi Freedom......
In fact I did two tours in Iraq (the current war).
The one thing many of us have learned is that the Idiots who make the rules, i.e. 'Rules of Engagement' sit behind a desk on their fat asses.
So to avoid being court martialed for some idiotic rule, such as...You can't fire your weapon unless they shoot first!
Many of us pick up an AK47 and use it.
If we kill someone, especially a civilian, we just dump the weapon somewhere else and get another one.
Hell they are everywhere.
re- I was in Operation Iraqi Freedom -
Couldn't agree more.
Following up on items that the military doesn't issue that they should.
If I had a hundred dollars for every time I used duck tape or a condom in a combat zone I'd be a friggin millionaire.
I just returned from Iraq.
I was a convoy driver.
I carried an AK-47 and used it.
rules of combat....
The military, and politics don't mix.
the idiots are in the appeasement business of not offending anyone.
This goes without saying and is personified by those ass wipes in JAG.
I was in Somalia, and Clinton with his idiot directives don't fire unless you are fired upon first was the dumbest damn thing anyone has ever come up with, and it is still in effect today.
That's why I got out of the military. It is being run by desk jockey moron idiots.
On a personal note, I never waited for shit - if you were carrying a sharp stick I shot your ass on the spot.
I did two tours in Afghanistan, what a shit hole.
The only thing I see we accomplished there was creating the world's largest poppy fields for heroin distribution.
Again these silly ass rules of engagement is ruining the U.S. Military.
My story is simple, like so many others, I grabbed me a short stock AK-47, and when it called upon to shoot these scum-bag Muslims, a.k.a. Taliban or Taliban supporters they got shot with the AK-47.
I was in country in 69.
Things were pretty crazy in Vietnam and the place was overrun with draftees.
Anyway, here is just one of my stories....
This big Marine, about 6'-3" and 260 lbs and all muscle was in a Saigon bar. He got this gook upset so the stupid little fart sucker jumps up and kicks the Marine in the face with some kind of karate bullshit. The Marine just looks at him ... ??
So the idiot tries it again, the Marien catches the gook in mid air, holds him straight out and snaps his back like a twig.
They arrested him.
I got him out and made in into a special ops guy doing solo LRRP work in Laos, but that's another story.
re, current combat rules of engagement....
Absolutely anyone who has been in Iraq or Afghanistan and has an ounce of intelligence about how JAG, the media, and so-called host country forces / government thinks of U.S. combat soldiers shooting some piss ant civilian that either doesn't stop when they are told too, is carrying a weapon and approaching you, or tries to kill you; and you get down and nasty and kill them and the locals raise hell about some innocent being shot ... see the results of some of the court martials handed down and how the brass suddenly gets a memory lapse of what they ordered you to do....well smart soldiers and marines carry a local AK-47 and dispose of it soon after the kill.
Seizing the Opportunity - I was stationed in Germany when the so-called iron curtain came tumbling down. The East German girls were hot to find rich guys from the west. So I told them I was rich, which I wasn’t, said I wanted to marry them, which I didn’t, fucked them, left them for the whores they were. So I lied, find me a man who isn't gay that doesn’t lie to women.
Ref - The Movie, Blackhawk Down
I was in Somalia.
We used duck tape and a magic marker to put our name and blood tape around our leg just above our boot so we could be identified. This was in case our dog tags were removed or lost.
Knowing your blood type is very important in an emergency situation.
And, yes I agree that the military should issue condoms, duck tape, and super glue to every soldier before going into combat.
re, Somalia
I was also there. In many instances I wish I had a 12-gauge shotgun versus that damn M-16 they issued.
A rifle is often a hinderance in fighting inside a building.
The combat planners that come up with these little wars (conflicts) obviously are desk jockeys and have never been shot at.
I did one tour and found the military bureaucracy too damn much for me to handle.
When I was in the service I carried a 'Hush Puppy.'
AND,
I used it !!!
I just saw the movie .....
In The Valley of Elah with Tommy Lee Jones.
It reminded me of something he said ...
In cold weather you can stay warm by wearing women's pantyhose.
But you sure don't want to get shot with them on.
This actually works.
And, yes I am glad I never got shot wearing pantyhose under my military uniform, but then I didn't freeze my nuts off like so many of my buds who wouldn't wear them!
re, thinking back
I was stationed in Korea on the DMZ.
It gets damn cold there.
I an from Detroit it gets cold there too but not like Korea.
After about two weeks I noticed some GI's were colder than others, I was one of them.
So asked, and one guy took me to the side and said wear pantyhose, they work.
I thought he was gay (queer).
After about another week of freezing my stones off, I went down to the market to get some.
The Korean girls are too small so they wouldn't fit.
So I wrote home to my Mom and asked her to send me some pantyhose that would fit my big size.
She did, and I was still cold but not as cold as I was!
I was a Marine Corps Sniper in Afghanistan.
I would lie waiting for these idiot Taliban Muslim jackasses to pop up their turbines so I could blow their filthy useless towel heads right off with my 50 caliber.
I got quite a few ...
Like shooting monkeys from a tree.
Look this concern over animals is bull.
During my in-country Vietnam days I ordered the slaughter of countless animals.
I am sure that any military person has participated in some form of that. It would be hard not to be in any war zone and not kill them.
Throughout history it has been proven if an army cannot eat it can't fight.
re, re thinking back ....
yeah but it's a bitch too get a hard on when you are wearing them damn pantyhose
Just came about from 15-months in Iraq.
Discharged now.
I joined to serve but that war was created by idiots ... the rules of engagement are endless.
So here is what I know many do, not all, but many...
1) Pick up an AK47 and kill anything that may be considered a No No by your superiors, most of whom are flipping ass morons in a cushy office somewhere like the Pentagon.
2) Never shoot anything or anyone when the press is around.
3) If you kill an unarmed civilian DON'T tell anyone you did it. Make sure you kill them with the AK and discard it right away, get another!
4) Many areas are controlled by locals, not Iraqi Police or Military but tribal militias or street gangs calling themselves neighborhood watch patrols. Never trust these guys and if they even look like they are going to give you an attitude, kill them ASAP with you AK.
5) We are NOT winning in Iraq and we never will. We need to get out and let these Muslim scum kill one another off. We have NO friends in the Middle East and we are only fooling ourselves if we believe different!
Now for my story ...
I killed as many of these assholes as I could.
Every chance I got I killed or blew up something.
My Personal Message - Don't join up, its a con game...you will be lucky if you return alive or at minimum fucked up in some way like physical permanent injury or mental or both and the VA and the military don't give a shit about you.
'Miracle' Marine refused to surrender will to live
The young Marine came back from the war, with his toughest fight ahead of him. Merlin German waged that battle in the quiet of a Texas hospital, far from the dusty road in Iraq where a bomb exploded, leaving him with burns over 97 percent of his body.
No one expected him to survive.
But for more than three years, he would not surrender. He endured more than 100 surgeries and procedures. He learned to live with pain, to stare at a stranger's face in the mirror. He learned to smile again, to joke, to make others laugh.
He became known as the "Miracle Man."
But just when it seemed he would defy impossible odds, Sgt. Merlin German lost his last battle this spring an unexpected final chapter in a story many imagined would have a happy ending.
"I think all of us had believed in some way, shape or form that he was invincible," says Lt. Col. Evan Renz, who was German's surgeon and his friend. "He had beaten so many other operations. ... It just reminded us, he, too, was human."
___
It was near Ramadi, Iraq, on Feb. 21, 2005, that the roadside bomb detonated near German's Humvee, hurling him out of the turret and engulfing him in flames.
When Renz and other doctors at the burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio first got word from Baghdad, they told his family he really didn't have a chance. The goal: Get him back to America so his loved ones could say goodbye.
But when German arrived four days later, doctors, amazed by how well he was doing, switched gears. "We were going to do everything known to science," Renz says. "He was showing us he can survive."
Doctors removed his burn wounds and covered him with artificial and cadaver skin. They also harvested small pieces of German's healthy skin, shipping them off to a lab where they were grown and sent back.
Doctors took skin from the few places he wasn't burned: the soles of his feet, the top of his head and small spots on his abdomen and left shoulder.
Once those areas healed, doctors repeated the task. Again and again.
"Sometimes I do think I can't do it," German said last year in an Associated Press interview. "Then I think: Why not? I can do whatever I want."
Renz witnessed his patient's good and bad days.
"Early on, he thought, 'This is ridiculous. Why am I doing this? Why am I working so hard?'" Renz recalls. "But every month or so, he'd say, 'I've licked it.' ... He was amazingly positive overall. ... He never complained. He'd just dig in and do it."
Slowly, his determination paid off. He made enormous progress.
From a ventilator to breathing on his own.
From communicating with his eyes or a nod to talking.
From being confined to a hospital isolation bed with his arms and legs suspended so his skin grafts would take to moving into his own house and sleeping in his own bed.
Sometimes his repeated surgeries laid him up for days and he'd lose ground in his rehabilitation. But he'd always rebound. Even when he was hurting, he'd return to therapy as long as he had his morning Red Bull energy drink.
"I can't remember a time where he said, 'I can't do it. I'm not going to try,' " says Sgt. Shane Elder, a rehabilitation therapy assistant.
That despite the constant reminders that he'd never be the same. The physical fitness buff who could run miles and do dozens of push-ups struggled, at first, just to sit up on the edge of his bed. The one-time saxophone player had lost his fingers. The Marine with the lady-killer smile now had a raw, ripple-scarred face.
Lt. Col. Grant Olbrich recalls a day in 2006 when he stopped by German's room and noticed he was crying softly. Olbrich, who heads a Marine patient affairs team at Brooke, says he sat with him awhile and asked: "What are you scared of?' He said, 'I'm afraid there will never be a woman who loves me.' "
Olbrich says that was the lowest he ever saw German, but even then "he didn't give up. ... He was unstoppable."
His mother, Lourdes, remembers her son another way: "He was never really scared of anything."
That toughness, says his brother, Ariel, showed up even when they were kids growing up in New York. Playing football, Merlin would announce: "Give me the ball. Nobody can knock me down."
____
In nearly 17 months in the hospital, Merlin German's "family" grew.
From the start, his parents, Lourdes and Hemery, were with him. They relocated to Texas. His mother helped feed and dress her son; they prayed together three, four times a day.
"She said she would never leave his side," Ariel says. "She was his eyes, his ears, his feet, his everything."
But many at the hospital also came to embrace German.
Norma Guerra, a public affairs spokeswoman who has a son in Iraq, became known as German's "Texas mom."
She read him action-packed stories at his bedside and arranged to have a DVD player in his room so he could watch his favorite gangster movies.
She sewed him pillows embroidered with the Marine insignia. She helped him collect New York Yankees memorabilia and made sure he met every celebrity who stopped by — magician David Blaine became a friend, and President Bush visited.
"He was a huge part of me," says Guerra, who had German and his parents over for Thanksgiving. "I remember him standing there talking to my older sister like he knew her forever."
German liked to gently tease everyone about fashion his sense of style, and their lack of it.
Guerra says he once joked: "I've been given a second chance. I think I was left here to teach all you people how to dress."
Even at Brooke, he color-coordinated his caps and sneakers.
"If something did not match, if your blue jeans were the wrong shade of blue, he would definitely let you know. He loved his clothes," recalls Staff Sgt. Victor Dominguez, a burn patient who says German also inspired him with his positive outlook.
German also was something of an entrepreneur. Back in high school, he attended his senior prom, not with a date but a giant bag of disposable cameras to make some quick cash from those who didn't have the foresight to bring their own.
At Brooke, he designed a T-shirt that he sometimes sold, sometimes gave away. On the front it read: "Got 3 percent chance of survival, what ya gonna do?" The back read, "A) Fight Through, b) Stay Strong, c) Overcome Because I Am a Warrior, d) All Of The Above." D is circled.
Every time he cleared a hurdle, the staff at Brooke cheered him on.
When he first began walking, Guerra says, word spread in the hospital corridors. "People would say, 'Did you know Merlin took his first step? Did you know he took 10 steps?' " she recalls.
German, in turn, was asked by hospital staff to motivate other burn patients when they were down or just not interested in therapy.
"I'd say, 'Hey, can you talk to this patient?' ... Merlin would come in ... and it was: Problem solved," says Elder, the therapist. "The thing about him was there wasn't anything in the burn world that he hadn't been through. Nobody could say to him, 'You don't understand.'"
German understood, too, that burn patients deal with issues outside the hospital because of the way they look.
"When he saw a group of children in public, he was more concerned about what they might think," says Renz, his surgeon. "He would work to make them comfortable with him."
And kids adored him, including Elder's two young sons. German had a habit of buying them toys with the loudest, most obnoxious sounds — and presenting them with a mischievous smile.
He especially loved his nieces and nephews; the feelings were mutual. One niece remembered him on a Web site as being "real cool and funny" and advising her to "forget about having little boyfriends and buying hot phones" and instead, concentrate on her education.
But he was closest to his mother. When the hospital's Holiday Ball approached in 2006, German told Norma Guerra he wanted to surprise his mother by taking her for a twirl on the dance floor.
Guerra thought he was kidding. She knew it could be agony for him just to take a short walk or raise a scarred arm.
But she agreed to help, and they rehearsed for months, without his mother knowing. He chose a love song to be played for the dance: "Have I Told You Lately?" by Rod Stewart.
That night he donned his Marine dress blues and shiny black shoes — even though it hurt to wear them. When the time came, he took his mother in his arms and they glided across the dance floor.
Everyone stood and applauded. And everyone cried.
Clearly, it seemed, the courageous Marine was winning his long, hard battle.
"Some of the folks we lose — the fight to get better is too much," Elder says. "But Merlin always came back. He had been through so much, but it was automatic. ... Merlin will be fine tomorrow. He'll be back in the game. That's what we always thought."
___
Merlin German died after routine surgery to add skin under his lower lip.
He was already planning his next operations — on his wrists and elbows. But Renz also says with all the stress German's body had been subjected to in recent years, "it was probably an unfair expectation that you can keep doing this over and over again and not have any problems."
The cause of his death has not yet been determined.
"I may no more understand why he left us when he did than why he survived when he did," Renz says. "I don't think I was meant to know."
As people learned of his death last month, they flocked to his hospital room to pay their last respects: Doctors, nurses, therapists and others, many arriving from home, kept coming as Friday night faded into Saturday morning.
Merlin German was just 22.
He had so many dreams that will go unrealized: Becoming an FBI agent (he liked the way they dressed). Going to college. Starting a business. Even writing comedy.
But he did accomplish one major goal: He set up a foundation for burned children called "Merlin's Miracles," to raise money so these kids could enjoy life, whether it was getting an air conditioner for their home or taking a trip to Disney World, a place he loved.
On a sunny April afternoon, German was buried among the giant oaks and Spanish moss of Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell. The chaplain remembered German as an indomitable Marine who never gave in to the enemy or to his pain.
One by one, friends and family placed roses and carnations on his casket.
His parents put down the first flowers, then stepped aside for mourners. They were the last ones to leave his grave, his mother clutching a folded American flag.
___
Memorial Day is a time to remember the fallen with parades, tributes and stories.
Sgt. Joe Gonzales, a Marine liaison at Brooke, has a favorite story about Merlin German.
It was the day he and German's mother were walking in the hospital hallway. German was ahead, wearing an iPod, seemingly oblivious to everyone else.
Suddenly, he did a sidestep.
For a second, Gonzales worried German was about to fall. But no.
"He just started dancing out of nowhere. His mom looked at me. She shook her head. There he was with a big old smile. Regardless of his situation, he was still trying to enjoy life."
I was in Nam (Vietnam) in 1969.
Jungle fighting in the heat, humidity and monsoon rain is bad enough but getting dysentery makes things worse with that uncontrolled diarrhea.
One of my buds got the running cheek butt drips and went off behind a tree to take his dump.
After a while some of us noticed it was taking longer than it should,
so when we went to take a look see, he had been bitten by a pit viper, a dangerous poison snake that will drop or hang from trees.
It bit him just around the kidney area.
He was dead when we found him.
The doctors later told us he never had a chance.
What a way to go I thought.
As we where walking back Charlie came at us like no tomorrow.
The firefight lasted about 25 minutes.
I heard one of the gooks moaning, I went over, guess what he had stepped in our buds poop and shot himself.
Now that was fitting!
Top 10 U.S. Marine Corps Slogans
10. We don't like collateral damage, but it helps to stay the hell out of our way!
9. Total destruction in 30 minutes or the next one is free.
8. Often mistaken for the wrath of God.
7. We kill foreigners so you don't have to.
6. If everything is exploding around you, that's probably us.
5. Dictator got you down? Ask about our new "regime change" program!
4. Just point at what you want dead.
3. Trying to win hearts and minds, but willing to splatter them if necessary.
2. When it absolutely, positively must be destroyed overnight ...
1. We're from the government and we're here to kill you.
Thanks for the Blog follow at:
The Patton Doctrine
http://www.pattondoctrine.blogspot.com/
Good site, I am a veteran myself.
I returned last August from Afghanistan.
The terrain is treacherous.
The people cannot be trusted.
They are growing Poppy Plants and manufacturing opium to supply an off world planet and we are doing nothing about it.
The Afghan Government in Kabul is useless, has no authority and exist to spend U.S. Taxpayer dollars.
We are hindered everyday in our operations.
The Taliban are getting stronger.
al Qaida is stronger.
They train and supply from Pakistan, often times with help from either the Pakistani Intelligence or Pakistani border patrols.
I refused to re-enlist.
I didn't sign up for a bullshit war run by stupid ass politicians, my father had to put up with that same nonsense and rules in Vietnam.
This will never be resolved on it's current course.
We need to bomb the hell out of everything on the Pakistan Frontier and forget the crap about killing civilians or damaging property like a Mosque or school.
They hide their arms in these places.
Fuck Pakistan.
They know where these terrorist camps are, and do nothing about them.
America, you are being sold a bill of goods form the White House down to every Congressman and Senator. They are all in on it.
NATO Troops know this. They will not even participate in dangerous ground seek and destroy missions.
I have a hard time believing that the mere sight of USMC painted on the side of a truck scares every bad guy in Iraq. The Army don't need the Marines to save them, they're doing quite well on their own. Bullshit story or if you would rather a fairy tale
Army myself.
anyway, I wasn't in long before I was in the guardhouse.
Got drunk, stole a jeep, they would have busted me but you cannot take something away you don't have
sent me into combat
killed them stink pots I did
still got drunk a lot
came out a private
busted 4 times all for drunk and fighting
the military has no sense of humor
Post a Comment