Caption: insanity featuring cheerful delusions
And THAT is your sermonette.
Historical Corner
Squadron-Corporal-Major 1st Life Guards, The Navy and Army Illustrated 20th March 1896
Until 1834, every British regiment had its own “Squadron Standard,” one for each squadron comprising the regiment. This was a survival from the old feudal days when each leader brought his separate band of followers to join the general muster of the horde.
Squadron Standards were abolished throughout the service in 1834, except in the Household Cavalry, where the tradition of historical distinction is still preserved.
Squadon-Corporal-Major, the senior grade of Non-Commissioned rank in each Squadron, is also a historical survival. The Household Cavalry knows no “Sergeants,” maintaining instead the historic and older term “Corporal ” for all Non-Commissioned grades.
The Dallas Light Cavalry (irregular) still has a Regimental Horse Sergeant Major billet. I wonder why. Perhaps LSP (regimental commandant) can explain why that is the case.
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Bullet Points:
** The crows that live and fly around the White Wolf Mine are now known as Halloween Eagles.
** At Al Kirk’s request, here is a photo of formerly Senior Chief (now just Chief) Grisel Marrero USN, formerly of the USS Manchester (right). Body Mass Index used to be a thing in the Navy, but that must have gone by the wayside. Also, a photo of the former commanding officer of the Gold Crew, CDR Colleen Moore (left), who could strut around the relatively small superstructure and not notice the Starlink antenna mounted there illegally. Moore looks as if she’s seated on a penetrating object. Does that explain gross dereliction of duty – perhaps it’s double penetration? She has a chest of fruit salad and awards, proving they mean nothing.
** Do you know what a zombie is?
** Expert marriage tip – breakfast in bed. Your wife will thank you for arranging it.
** “Sir, do you know they’ve cut us off? We’re surrounded.” “Those poor bastards,” Puller said. “They’ve got us right where we want them. We can shoot in every direction now.” ― Burke Davis, The Life of Chesty Puller
** A visit with LSP. LSP offers counseling in Hillsboro, Texas, for those in need.
** Behind every frustrated woman is a clueless man who doesn’t know what he did.
** Interviews, testing, and then the practical application.
** Truth in business models.
***
Crawling Through the Lava Tubes
near Flagstaff, AZ (on public land) (self-guided)
Enter
It’s Tube City!
Lava River Cave is a lava tube in northern Arizona‘s Coconino National Forest. At approximately 0.75 miles (1.21 km) long, it is the longest cave of its kind known in Arizona. Some lumbermen discovered the cave in 1915, and it has historically been referred to as “Government Cave” due to its location on the eastern edge of Government Prairie and southeast of Government Peak. Today, Lava River Cave is freely accessible to the general public.
Geologists believe the cave was formed between 650,000 and 700,000 years ago when molten lava erupted from a volcanic vent in nearby Hart Prairie. The flow’s top, sides, and bottom cooled and solidified, while lava in the middle flowed out, leaving a hollow space to form the cave. Examples of both ʻAʻā and Pāhoehoe basaltic lava can be seen in the cave.
The cave is mostly dry, but due to the temperature change, there is a lot of condensation on the walls, ceiling, and floor near the entrance, which makes it slippery. Temperatures inside are around 40 °F (5 °C) during the summer. The cave can range in height from 30 feet (9.1 m) to only 2 to 3 feet (0.61 to 0.91 m), although the latter is only at a side passage that rejoins the main tunnel. There are no light sources inside.
The entrance to the cave is around 14 miles (23 km) west of Flagstaff, Arizona. The cave is in Coconino National Forest and is managed by the United States Forest Service. There are no entrance or use fees. To enter the main lava tube section, you must crawl about 30-40 feet of rough scree. There is no “trail” over those rocks. Bring stout shoes, long trousers, a long-sleeve shirt, a headlamp (Petzel), and a spare flashlight.
It’s time for an Engineered Sermonette.
There was good cause for them to want to destroy Earth and everyone on it. You can’t blame them. It just didn’t go to plan, that’s all.
Identify the Armor/SPG
1
Not a Hummel or a Marder
2
3
51 built
4
174 built as SPA, 24 built as command and control vehicles. (2 graphics to aid you)
Identify the Feature Films
A
B
Parting Shot
t-shirt h/t Stringshot – boost the signal!
End
Film A is PAPILLON 1973 version starring Steve McQueen.
B is Sean Connery possibly in “A bridge too far.”
Identify the Armor/SPG:
1. Sd.Kfz. 124 Wespe
2. 8.8 cm Flak 18 (Sfl.) auf schwere Zugkraftwagen 12t (Sd.Kfz 8)
3. OA vz. 30
4. 4.7 cm PaK(t) (Sfl.) auf Fgst. Pz.Kpfw. 35R 731(f)
Identify the Feature Films:
A. Papillon
B. A Bridge Too Far
100%
IDA:
1. Sd.Kfz. 124 Wespe (Wasp)
2. 8.8 cm Flak 18 (Sfl.) auf schwere Zugkraftwagen (On heavy Tractors) 12t (Sd.Kfz 8)
3. OA vz. 30
4. 4.7 cm PaK(t) (Sfl.) auf Fgst. Pz.Kpfw. 35R 731(f)
IDFF:
5. Papillon
6. A Bridge Too Far
comment BC (before cawfy)
At first I thought it was an ‘E’: grading the government on a scale of ‘A’ to ‘F’ but it’s just a traffic light>
I, for one, am very happy to see the return of your artwork.
I was hiking the Ape Cave lave tube (named after an alleged Sasquatch sighting) on Mt St Helens many years ago when I encountered a couple and their young kid sitting in the total darkness. I could tell the wife was THIS CLOSE to total panic. They had set off with one (1) flashlight with used batteries. I loaned them one of my backups. I had a candle and lighter with me too, I should’ve given them that instead.
Two is one, one is none.
Just back from Harbor Freight where two cheap flashlights were purchased. One to replace a light kept in the driver door side pocket that went AWOL and one in the trunk for a third spare.
I have an H/F led torch light, rechargeable, great beam…but when it quits it’s boom, done. Yeah, one is none.
A dozen AA batteries are in the trunk.
If your budget allows it, Surefire lights are exceptional. The Surefire 123A batteries are superior to AA, C and D cell batteries.
apropos of absolutely nothing (except pehaps related to “At Al Kirk’s request…”) the first I (in the AF as a dentist) remember hearing about enlistment problems arising was in late ’67:
1° reason: there were AF wives who had expressed interest in training to the position of dental assistant,
2° reason: dental corpsmen could be re-trained to much more needed/important jobs (e.g. helicopter mechanics).
interesting aside: this was also just about the time that the minimum IQ required for entry into the Air Force had been lowered
A Bridge Too Far. “Do you think they know something we don’t?”.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGOcyjHUnAg
(Modern) man is trained/taught to see/appreciate/understand beauty.
Who taught him to hate/despise this beauty and the belief system that engendered such works (from architecture to art to music: from intricately carved porticos to blank staring glass walls, from the Mona Lisa to Piss Christ, from Bach’s “Jesus bleibet meine Freude” to any piece of rapcrap you care to name)?
Are they being held responsible for this dereliction/destruction, for replacing G-d with The State as the Creator of All?
I went high school in Tulelake, CA. Went through the Lava Beds National Monument part more than once. Skull Cave is a huge lava tube.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPruLbHIgAk
Marrero — The Officer’s Club food must be rich and lot’s of it at ‘free will’. (Me, the Penn State cafeteria dispensed all the chocolate milk you cared to drink). Marrero’s “transformation” reminds me of Victoria Nuland’s cute to…well…you can make up your mind…https://en.interaffairs.ru/article/victoria-nuland-is-leaving-but-are-the-new-times-of-us-foreign-policy-coming/
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Old World Beauty in Architecture- To add to the Sermonette…”because modern man has lost it roots, believing they know better than their predecessor’s while having no clue – as to the why – of those old magnificent structures and the meaning behind them being constructed in the first place…so they attack those who can no longer set them straight. They fail to see the point therefore decide – unilaterally – that those structures have no meaning because they have dismissed the muse of the designer and builder (often God and Heavenly) using some form of reduced sense of place and awe. Modern nudges fail to recognize the soul of the building…yet will fawn over some elephant (or Hunter) “painting”.
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Cool lava tube/cave…bring gear in the just-in-case. Mother Nature invokes awe just as well as man’s cathedrals and such, usually moreso.
The fruit salad has very little meaning to me. I retired GA Air Guard. For 13 years I was in a Joint Communications unit. We had an officer that had a full time position where she had about 20 minutes of actual work every week. She had a BA in Journalism. She decided to read After Action reports and post deployment reports and write up personnel for awards and medals. She sat in that position all 13 of my years in that unit. My fruit salad rack is 2 rows heavier than the Chief’s. The remaining 8 years I received 4 more ribbons and 4 devices for ribbons I already had. I never did anything exceptional. All I did was my job.
I have salad too, one V device, which makes one little ribbon the only one worth wearing. The rest are fluff and make me look like a North Korean admiral.
Re the USS Manchester debacle, one thing I noticed was that CDR Moore is prior enlisted. I wonder how much ‘that’ played into her trusting the CMC’s line of BS, and the fact that she was the ‘intel’ chief too.
The LCS crews are tiny, and senior enlisted must wear many hats, as do the officers, if the ship is to function. As a result, trust is smeared around with a trowel. For a small combatant, they are also brass-heavy. Two crews, blue and gold, with FOUR commanders. Really. What about one crew with a LCDR? It’s far from being a destroyer (also a CDR billet). Oh, I understand. They want more command at sea slots – well isn’t that special.
I’m more than a little surprised at you, RHSM, questioning your own rank, which is prestigious.
Perhaps you find it somehow elitist? Or maybe your “comments” were somehow mistaken? Surely the latter.
DLC Forever,
LSP
CMDT
“God”, “little green men”, “round silver spaceships”, and Erich von Daniken’s “ancient astronauts” all coexist in the same physical universe. There is no such thing as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-overlapping_magisteria .
.
I can’t wait to see if signs of “life” are discovered on Mars, and if so, what data coding system it uses, and if it resembles ours then how then far back it seems to have diverged.
You may not have long to wait. SpaceX just made an announcement.
Regarding those ancient temples of architecture, they are beautiful even when dirty and the glass is smudged with centuries of soot and smut. Properly cleaned, the insides glow with the beauty of the stone and the amazing amount of light the cleaned windows bring in. Turns the ‘crushing power to make men feel small’ (which I was told by some art-fag was the reason they were built) into aerie clean beautiful spaces where you feel expanded in the universe.
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Still think all involved in the Starlink Affair should spend the rest of their career time in military prison and then discharged with a bad conduct mark. Even the ‘captain’ because she failed to do due diligence to find out what was going on. I mean, it’s a friggin LCS, they’re small, there’s not a lot of empty room or hidden places and the turds spend a lot of time as dock-queens. All she had to do was walk all interior and exterior spaces, as it was her job to know the ship, and that would take, what, half a day? Useless twit.
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Mendoza? Lock her in the goat locker with no ac until she starves off/sweats off all her excess weight and then put her to breaking rocks for, well, forever. Useless twit.
L.L. SIR: “They want more command at sea slits– well isn’t she special.” – fixed your typo! – No charge. And a E-8 with only 16 years on AcDu!! I had to retire after 26 years (16 yrs.(FMF) sea-service) BOARD eligible for HMCS,SCW because of a the 100% Combat disability that interfered with a PT Qual. required to maintain Board Selection. I believe I might be more suitable for a Berth in the Goat-Locker in the Pirates of The Caribbean than the “WOKE Modern USN.
HEB: A CDR (split-tail) is guarantied 20 yr retirement unless a capital crime.
I’m sure that she’ll make thirty to ensure diversity. Isn’t there an O-6 slit available on a staff somewhere studying something diverse?