Foiled Robbery
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58 responses to “Foiled Robbery”
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First!
Mornin’ Gang -
“If
America and PakistanAfghanistan really want[s] it, peace will come to Afghanistan,”There Mr. Karzai, I fixed it for you!
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In one of my camping forums we’ve had a new member come on who is a little—-off. He recently made a post that intimated he used to be deeply involved in the War On Terror in some sort of capacity that involved lazing individual targets. In reply, I posted my own War Story, which I’ll share here.
No sh*t, there I was.
Sitting in my trophy room when the phone rang. When I heard Jackson’s gravely voice on the other end saying “We need you, come on in.” it sent a chill down my spine. I hadn’t heard that voice since my days in one of the most elite units in the US Army: the 5051st Mess Kit Repair Battalion. That’s right. The legendary 5051st. Don’t believe all the stories you heard, things weren’t that tough, although things were pretty hot and heavy during The Nam. We were just a bunch of highly trained GIs doing a job nobody else would do. I did get the worst of it though. My MOS was 1040Zulu: Left Handed Rivet Wrench Operator/Repairman. I tell you, those extra six weeks of training was tough, but worth the effort in the end, as you’ll see if you stick around to the end of the story.
“Well, Jackson,” I said, “Should I send my dress greens to the tailor to be let out?”
Jackson chuckled. “It has been a while hasn’t it? We’re wearing dress blues now. We’ll get your measurements when you get here and if you need it after you get back from this mission, it’ll be here waiting for you. Get your azz to Ellington, there’s a C5 waiting to take you to Langley. You’ve got a briefing at 1000 and if you don’t pizz anybody off, you’ve got another plane ride waiting for you at 1700. Sh*t, go ahead and pizz people off—you’re the only one who can do this job.”
I gotta admit, I was a little scared. You see, back in ’89 DARPA developed the Ambidextrous Mess Kit Rivet and my days in the service were numbered. Sure, the Army would follow the old “existing supplies will be used until exhausted” rule for a while, but you know that every snot nosed kid in Woodland Camo BDUs would want the shiny new models and somehow “lose” the older ones then go to the Supply Sergeant with some sob story . Probably send them home to use camping. I had to wonder what was up to call in a geezer like me.
I knew this thing was urgent because I had that C5 all to myself, other than the flight crew, and it was a skeleton crew—just enough to keep it airborne. The pilot was a cute young Air Force Lieutenant named Barbara and all I’m gonna say about that is things got pretty interesting when she put that plane on autopilot and paid me a visit. I think she enjoyed it so much she put in for a transfer to the Army when we landed.
Three identical armored SUVs met me at Reagan—SOP for escorting targets like me that the enemy might try to take out before he even gets his briefing. They have to take out all three SUVs to make sure they get the target, so I rubbed that rabbits foot on my key chain and calculated the odds. The motorcade to Langley was uneventful though, and soon I found myself in a soundproof room six stories underground face to face with Jackson and an Admiral I’d never met before. The Admiral didn’t waste any time, not even so much as a howdy do, he just said
“Show him, Jackson.”
Jackson opened the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist and laid out 27 8×10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows on them and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was onto the table.
“God God, man!” I said. “That’s a ’42!” I haven’t seen one of those since they were pressed into service when the C Ration Rigatoni did all that damage to the ’75 model and we had to repair dam near every one of them in the inventory.”
The Admiral put both palms on the table and leaned towards me, the harsh fluorescent light casting weird shadows on his face.
“We know what it is. What we want to know is: Can you fix it?”
I examined the pictures carefully. The Left Hand Rivet was severely damaged and definitely needed to be replaced.
“I don’t know. Spofford used to take care of these old ones, you should call him, and Lord knows what I’ll find once I open it up.”
Jackson cast his eyes to the floor.
“Spofford’s out. Had an accident. Lost his index finger pulling on the D ring trying to open a ’92.”
I looked at him and said coldly “I told you those things were widow makers.”
He just nodded. “Can you do the job?’
I said “All I can do is promise I’ll try.” and in a couple of hours I was in the jump seat of an SR-71 winging my way towards Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. The mess kit belonged to a Navy Seal. It had been given to him by his Daddy who had been a LRRP in ‘Nam, and before that his Grandaddy had used it on the Makin Raid with Carlson’s
Raiders in WW2. He wouldn’t go on Ops without it—–and he’d been picked to be the button man on Osama Bin Laden.Luckily I’d packed my old M53 Rivet Wrench with the M54 Left Hand Modification—-those modified babies were even better than the original M37’s. It takes a lot of time to keep one of those babies maintained and, OK, maybe a little bit of Love too. Mine looked like the day it came out of Picatinny Arsenal back in the year I was born.
Turned out not to be too big of a job, but I did have to use one of the last Left Hand Mess Kit Rivets in existence to get it done. I gave the kid a quick briefing on care and maintenance and told him his kid could probably take it into space to fight aliens or something if it was taken care of.
He smiled and said to me “Thanks a lot. We’re taking off in a couple of hours to go get Bin Laden. I can get you suited up if you want to come along. From what I’ve seen here, you’d be an asset to the Team.”
I said thanks but no thanks, I leave the wet work up to you kids these days.
The rest is History.
The dress blues were waiting for me when I got back, just like Jackson said they would be–even had all my ribbons and Qual Badges on it. I put it on, the Admiral pinned another medal on my chest, and I dam near toppled over from the weight.
As I was packing to leave, Jackson came into my room and said “This little incident has got the Brass Hats nervous. They know you’re not getting any younger and want you to come in and train some of these kids in the old gear just in case it happens again. Get back home and set your affairs in order. You’ve been Activated again and you won’t be deactivated until you’ve got a full Squad of Left Hand Rivet Wrenchers trained up so they can do the job in their sleep.
I went home, closed the bank account, sent the wife to her mom’s, sold the house, and shot the dog.
I leave for Langley in the morning.
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Sarge 🙂
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I leave for Langley in the morning.
Izzat code for “special doctor”?
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#4 Sarge
Her Highness’ son lives down the road from Picatinny Arsenal and since he still carries his NROTC card in his wallet, he can get into their recreational facilities with his family – a beautiful pool, playground and park.
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Two things:
1. You just can’t kill the Warthog.
2. If there isn’t going to be any “boots on the ground” why do this?
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I always wondered where the whole Rapture thing came from. Very Interesting.
Via Donald Sensing and Gerard Vanderleun:
To the surprise of many, rapture-based theology has only been around for the past couple hundred years and predominantly in America. Indeed, the world’s leading biblical scholar, N.T. Wright, refers to it as an “American obsession” and notes that few Christians in the U.K. hold any sort of belief in it. I would say the same for biblical scholars (in fact, I can’t think of a single trained biblical scholar of Revelation* that endorses rapture based theology minus a couple at Dallas Seminary.)
The origins of rapture theology lie in 1830 Scotland where a fifteen year old girl name Margaret MacDonald claimed to see a vision of a “two-stage return of Jesus.” Enter John Nelson Darby, a British evangelist and the founder of the Plymouth Brethren. Darby took MacDonald’s vision and created an entire system based off of it in which Jesus returns not once (as Christians have always believed) but twice! Darby and others who were sympathetic to his views went back to the Bible to search for clues, signs, and verses which would justify thinking of worldly history in terms of “dispensations” which included a seven-year tribulation and a preceding evacuation of the church from it.
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Texpat says:
SEPTEMBER 24, 2014 AT 7:47 AM
#4 SargeHer Highness’ son lives down the road from Picatinny Arsenal and since he still carries his NROTC card in his wallet, he can get into their recreational facilities with his family – a beautiful pool, playground and park.
I did an emergency deployment to Picatinny back in the ’90s. The government hushed it up, but when MREs were first issued, the spaghetti had an acid in it that was etching the aluminum on the newer model mess kits. It really wasn’t too bad, but some of the Baptists thought they were seeing messages——–
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You get called up for the Great Potato Peeler Crisis of ’82?
I thought we would be done for if the Soviets ever found out about the potato gap.
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#9
The Rapture Trap by Paul Thigpen
It’s on my students’ reading list.
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Of course, I have a holy roller sister who devoutly believes in it. I just change the subject.
I like my sister, and she means well. And she’s had some pretty out-of-this-world experiences. She can’t be all bad! 😉
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#4 Sarge: Nice put down.
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Re rapture: When one reads the parable of the wheat and tares it is pretty clear that the wicked get taken out first.
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From my heartthrob Kevin Sorbo:
Here are the 10,535 pages of ObamaCare condensed to 4 sentences…
As humorous as this sounds…..Every last word of it is absolutely TRUE!
1. In order to insure the uninsured, we first have to uninsure the insured.
2. Next, we require the newly uninsured to be re-insured.
3. To re-insure the newly uninsured, they are required to pay extra charges to be re-insured.
4. The extra charges are required so that the original insured, who became uninsured, and then became re-insured, can pay enough extra so that the original uninsured can be insured, which will be free of charge to them. -
I hear he has a few new movies coming out:
Let the Lion Roar
The Secret Handshake
and one other that escapes me at the moment.“Lion” is supposed to be about the roots of anti-Semiticism, I believe.
“Handshake” is a family friendly comedy.
Oh, the last one is “Black Rider” something…kind of like Mad Max meets Revelation or some such.I like that there are more Christian friendly films coming out.
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Today is Heartcrusher’s 23rd B-day.
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A blessed Rosh Hashana to our Jewish friends. And a Happy New Year to follow.
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What she said.
And happy birthday to Heartcrusher.
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Good morning Hamsters. Another glorious Fall day begins at 64. Sun peeks through a lazy cloud with tendrils trailing off into the distance. Plenty of dew sparkles on the grass, and some leaves have fallen making the first round of raking necessary.
The acorn rain has begun with plenty of them bouncing on the garden room roof followed by squirrel footfalls scampering after them, sometimes heralded by a thump as they jump from an overhead branch. A wonderful time of year. -
Happy Birthday to Heartcrusher in the wilds of Illinois.
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#4 Sarge
Ya had me buying it all, right up to the end. No way did you shoot the dog. -
It was so nice yesterday that my husband and I went for our first walk in ages. Just 3 blocks to the other end of our short street and then back, but it was a start. We saw heaps of acorns in the street under oak trees.
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#19, 20, 22: Todah rabah.
(Thank you very much) -
Waiting for our pecans to begin falling. And the invaders to arrive.
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Ojugears is lying his azz off at the UN and blaming America first.
/ SPITS
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And it’s not even Florida…
from Instapundit -
Jugears is now enlisting the aid of RFU’s to bolster his agenda. He is trying to chastise those in Islam who target civilians, yet didn’t Jugears do the same thing with the govt shut down?
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#28: Talk about the family tree not having enough branches, SHEESH!
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RE: WAR STORIES
I don’t indulge in them. But their is a sure way to determine if the story being told is a WAR STORY or a fairy tale.
Fairy tales start with
Once upon a timeWAR STORIES start out with
This ain’t no bulls*** -
Well;
We now know why those A10s are being sent.
You don’t deploy a Div HQ to run 1600 troops. You do it to run about 10,000.
I do remember telling people that if we took our troops out of Iraq, we’d just have to send them back in again once the killing started.
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I wonder if Obama is having an attack of conscience?
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Here is a neat product for those of you on the go.
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SQUAWK: world class Photoshop.
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The origins of rapture theology lie in 1830 Scotland where a fifteen year old girl name Margaret MacDonald claimed to see a vision of a “two-stage return of Jesus.” Enter John Nelson Darby, ETC ETC ETC
Actually that is not true that rapture theology begins in 1830 …………
Papias (60-130)
Clement of Rome (90-100)
The Sherpherd of Hermas (96-150)
Ignatius of Antioch (98-117)
Barnabas (100)
The Didache (100-160)
Justin Martyr (110-165)
The Epistle of Barnabas (117-138)
Irenaeus (120-202)
Tertullian (145-220)
Hippolytus (185-236)
Cyprian (200-250)
Lactantius (260-330)
From these men we see the doctrine of Christ’s soon return within a premillennial framework. The doctrine permeated the early church. Some of these men even had direct contact with the apostles.
I am not going to waste a lot of time on this subject because there is plenty of arguments concerning the history of rapture theology. Google is your friend and there are plenty of “other” books defending the rapture and the history. One guy’s writings do not a truth make especially when his premise begins at the point of defending a preconceived notion.
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#4 Sarge, very clever. 😀
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Happy birthday to Heartcrusher.
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Golly Gee.
The guy in this video sounds just like George Bush did 13 years ago.
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Damn. I thought I was going to get to witness an old tyme theological dust up.
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Damn. I thought I was going to get to witness an old tyme theological dust up.
Nope not from me.
What always happens is we end up with 12 hours of my links versus “your” links at best. At worst, 12 hours of name calling and wars of words. All I am saying is there is information out there that calls bovine processed hay on Texpat’s author that no one will read.
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Oh yeah and then the argument degenerates into my religion tops your religion and while I personally believe in a pretrib rapture it is not worth arguing about.
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blasphemer
😉
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blasphemer
LOL I have been called a heretic too.
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Actual Drudge Headline; STUDY: 10% OF ADULTS IN USA CAN’T SPEEK ENGLISH… 😀
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There is a raging fight in the comments, whether it is a typo or a joke. I say joke.
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There is a raging fight in the comments
It is all bunsonburner‘s fault.
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First adopters are sorry now
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#48 Texanadian: Thhe linkyou provided contains a link about the new Blackberry Passport and it has a real keyboard. I really despise the touchscreen on my phone. I think if I am going to replace my phone I will have to insist on a real, tactile keyboard.
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44
A hairytick. -
I think if I am going to replace my phone I will have to insist on a real, tactile keyboard.
I can type much faster on touchscreen than with a button “keyboard”. The buttons require too much force to push and I have big thumbs.
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I used to have a Blackberry but the company gave an i-phone. I miss the keypad and the simplicity of the BB
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Blackberry is struggling just to stay alive. Have you seen it’s new square phone…..
THE PASSPORTtuh duh duhhhhhhh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Prediction: DOA
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Looks like a Texas Instruments calculator, circa 1990.
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THE PASSPORT
tuh duh duhhhhhhh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Prediction: DOA
Yeah, they should have set it up so that it could be charged in the microwave oven just like an iPhone.
🙂
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We saw heaps of acorns in the street under oak trees.
The old timers say that portends a harsh winter … or maybe the Rapture … can’t remember which one.
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Depends on how wooly the caterpillars are.
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Wow, looks like you’uns dozed off early. I was out to a financial seminar and didn’t get home till 9:30. Then had to load the dishwasher and get the recycling rounded up for tomorrow’s pickup. Made me feel young again, up and about and doing all this at night. Well, not a day older than 67.
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