:: Gandalf23's Blog ::

:: Monday, June 30, 2003 ::

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Heading out to Europe tomorrow! My friend Thilo is getting married the 4th and he invited me to the come. One good thing came out of all this flying to the middle east, I had all but 386 frequent flier miles to get a free trip to Europe. So, $95 and 2500 miles later (that was the minimum purchase), I'm headed to Europe!

I'll fly into Amsterdam, arriving about 8am. Head to the Van Gogh museum, then take the train to Arnham, the city with the bridge that was too far. Go to teh Airborne Museum, then train on into Cologne. Find a hotel and crash. Wake up, go vist a super-sized cathedral that took 632 years to build, then train on into Muinich. Hopefully crash at Thilo's place. Friday tour Munich, maybe visit Dachau, not sure if I'll do that or not. Definately see the Glockenshpiel. Then Saturday morning get up and ride into Laupheim with some of Thilo's friends and go to the Wedding party. That should last most of Saturday and might go into Sunday.

On Monday I'll head from Laupheim to Bastogne. I may try and go through Orberndorf Nassar (sp?) which houses both Heckler und Koch (who make some really cool weapons) and the Mauser Museum. That evening I will either stay in Bastogne or head on into Brussels. Tuesday I'll tour around Brussels then head into France's Normandy region to visit the D-Day beaches. I should leave this area Thursday to head to Pari to catch the train through the Chunnel to London. In London I plan on visiting the Tower of London and the Imperail War Museum, as well as walking past Parliment and Big Ben. I catch my flight back to the US from London on Friday at 1pm.

Whew!

It's a whirlwind trip, and the plan, like many plans before it, may change once I get there. This is why I made no reservations. The only things I have to do are go to Thilo's party (which I really want to do) and be in London at 1pm on Friday.

:: gandalf23 6:48:00 PM [+] ::
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Well, I finally finished my first knife. Yea!!

So far everyone who's seen it has said words like "magnificent" and "outstanding" with very little prompting from me :)

It's a Knifekits.com GPC1000 model. I originally was going to put mesquite handles on it, but I could never get the curve to look right, so I ordered a pair of cocobolo handles from the site. After they arrived I realised that my cut was just as good, I was just being waay too critical. But since I paid for the cocobolo, I went ahead and used it. I also replaced the stock washers with phosphor-bronze washers. There is a huge difference in function, the p-b washers are much much slicker. Also enlarged the heck out of the thumb cutout and modified the thumbstud a bit.

It's by no means perfect, in fact the more I look at it the more flaws I see, but I think it looks nice and should make a good wedding present. I engraved the backspine with the names of the bride and groom and the date of their wedding and after I did that I took the backspine off so that it would not get damaged and used a spacer. Well, as you can guess, I did a little more work on the back of the knife and now the backspine is a little bit above the rest of the knife. I think you can see that in one of the pictures.

Here are some pictures of it (sorry, my digital camera is not so good on close ups):

:: gandalf23 6:24:00 PM [+] ::
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Fascism is the last refuge of the inept.


:: gandalf23 10:00:00 AM [+] ::
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"When I'm president, we'll have executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day," said Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

That's scary. We have three branches of government for a reason. And this clown wants to knock it down to just two?
:: gandalf23 8:09:00 AM [+] ::
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I find it imensely funny that Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah), who just the other day said that anyone who pirates music should have their computer destroyed, uses pirated software on his website! So I guess it'd be ok for the guy in England that created the software he is pirating to destroy Sen. Hatch's server?


:: gandalf23 7:27:00 AM [+] ::
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Happy June Teenth!!!!


:: gandalf23 6:41:00 PM [+] ::
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This is why nationalized health care is a bad idea.


:: gandalf23 7:57:00 AM [+] ::
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Wow

Full auto BB gun

Looks horrible, but it shoots 100 BBs a second! and holds 6000 BBs!!!!!!!

How cool is that? Man, I wish I'd had one as a kid!


:: gandalf23 7:56:00 PM [+] ::
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I can't make up stuff this funny:


Adult Christianity: Your Inner STRUGGLE

"We take in God through our mouths, and expel the Serpent through our bowels. You see, food is a type of Christ, while bodily waste, or fecal matter, is a type of Satan. This is why we bless our food, and flush our waste down into the underworld. And just as we spend time in properly preparing our food, that we may receive God's blessing through it, so too must we prepare our colons to be properly flushed of the feces Satan would have become impacted, robbing us of our colon's ability to absorb important vitamin and nutrients and hence, the natural vitality, clean mind, and fresh skin we need to bring Christ to others: A constipated Christian simply cannot be an effective witness for Christ!"


:: gandalf23 2:04:00 PM [+] ::
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A good reason to pre-pay your funeral expenses: if your friends/family get stuck with the bill you never know what they'll put on the headstone.




:: gandalf23 9:00:00 AM [+] ::
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"You will perform DOWN to your level of training, not UP to your expectations."

I don't know who said that, but it's true.


:: gandalf23 8:55:00 AM [+] ::
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UN Congo observers slaughtered after unanswered pleas

"BUNIA, Congo - For six days, two terrified United Nations military observers phoned their superiors - as many as four times a day - begging to be evacuated from their remote outpost in northeastern Congo.

They were receiving death threats, they said. They were alone and unarmed in Mongbwalu, a former gold-mining town ruled by the cannibalistic Lendu tribal militias. A U.N. helicopter from the town of Bunia could have retrieved them in 35 minutes.

But the United Nations, handcuffed by its own rules and bureaucracy, never sent a chopper. On May 18, 10 days after the two peacekeepers made their first distress call, the United Nations finally flew some armed peacekeepers to Mongbwalu.

They found the mutilated bodies of Maj. Safwat al Oran, 37, of Jordan, and Capt. Siddon Davis Banda, 29, of Malawi.

Their decomposed corpses had been tossed into a canal and covered with dirt, according to those who saw the bodies. They were shot in the eyes. Their stomachs were split open and their hearts and livers were missing. One man's brain was gone. "

That's ridiculous.

:: gandalf23 1:12:00 PM [+] ::
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Good article on the New York Times faulty reporting.
:: gandalf23 10:40:00 AM [+] ::
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http://www.xs4all.nl/~hulsmann/ardennes.html


:: gandalf23 9:07:00 PM [+] ::
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You know, I can't feel too sorry for this guy, but what a horrible way to be killed:

"The elderly woman suddenly grabbed Kazingizi's genitals and started pulling them until he lost consciousness.

Maramba continued pulling until Kazingizi died on the spot."




:: gandalf23 8:30:00 PM [+] ::
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ummm....

I don't know what to say about the proper way of cooking the goat head.

"It may sound a bit put offish, and it is not a dish that appeals to everybody, since some people don't fancy finding the eyes, ears or tongues of the animal in their dish. And also, it usually causes terrible diahrea in everybody who eats it for the first time, since a laxative leaf is part of the mixture."

...

"If the goathead you get is still hairy, you will need to place it over an open fire and singe it. You then scrape off the hairs, and continue to singe it. In the end, you should end up with a blackened and hairless goat head. Note, this process will cause a terrible stink. Burning goat hair smells very strongly and the odour sticks around long, so it is better done outside.

Wash the head thoroughly to remove the residue ash. Chop the head into small pieces with an axe. Alternatively, you can use a wooden mortar to crush it. Depending on your taste, you can either discard the brains, or lay it by the side to use in the stew."

... and my favorite quote from the article:

"The meal is eaten with the fingers, each piece of meat taken out at random, examined to make sure it is nothing gross like an eye or the ear, and then chewed and swallowed."


:: gandalf23 10:22:00 AM [+] ::
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It really saddens me that we live in a society where children are allowed access to dangerous weapons and anyone can go into a store, like Walmart!, and purchase a deadly weapon with no background check, no license needed, and just walk out the door with a deadly, dangerous weapon. Who knows how many millions of these deadly weapons are lurking in the closets of Americans, waiting to corrupt and ruin the lives of our children? I am speaking, of course, about high heeled shoes!


:: gandalf23 8:02:00 AM [+] ::
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from the "G in baghdad" blog:

"it was the first day of a "weapons controlling program" the Americans decided to do a sweep on one of the poor neighborhoods on the south tip of Baghdad, they rounded an area of 3500-4000 houses using a force of over than 400 men of the 82nd airborne division.
they did house to house search for weapons and guess how they were doing it ?
they divided themselves into squads of 30 men with one translator for every squad or at least the peopel i was with had one -we will speak about him later-they would go into the street start with the first house, knock at the door politely telling the peopel of the house that they r here to search for weapons asking them if they have any, and trying to explain for them that its allowed to keep only 2 pieces of arms ( a klashnikove and a pistol ),
then they would wait for a few moments while the women move to a different part of the house, the soldiers would go into the house usually two or three working there way very gently through the chickens, pots, boxes, children and bundles of blankets. they would ask the family member accompanying them to open the bedroom wardrops or any locked boxes shying away from the women and making sure they dont look at them.
to cut the story short they were professionals genteel and culturally sensitive."

Sounds good. Of course, it couldn't go that smoothly....

"so in the end of the day every one was happy, the Americans who did there job easily (apart from the hundreds of thousands kids chasing them), the Iraqis who were allowed to keep 2 pieces of arms which is more than the need of a normal household and they were treated extremely nice, it was a perfect day, or was it ?
of course it wasn't the iraqi who would smile to the America soldier standing at his door step or bending under the bed searching for grenades between dirty towels and underwear's would let the Bedouin inside him indulge immediately after that in a series of accusations of atrocities committed against his honor, religion and his poor little chickens.
why is that when something started as a perfect lesson in cultural understanding it ended in a boiling tense situation were the translator had to shout every 5 seconds the justifications of the American invasion of Iraq and how good it feels when a group of armed strangers from another part of the world who u have never met -apart from being "infidels" who never wash after going to the toilet -would come and search ur house.
i think its an old case as old as Babylon and its called communication, for some reason Allah decided to do his linguistic homework, hokus-pokus and there u go: languages everywhere. 5000 years after that it was up to a short man covered up to his ears with military gadget to save the world.
in the beginning he was doing a very good job explaining to the locals what they should and what they shouldn't do in a half complicit way using the Arabic codes of winking whispering and arm rubbing. at one point he even used the neighborhood kids as gospels spreading the word of god to the 4 directions, it started to get wrong when the people discovered that he is actually an iraqi collaborating with occupation forces "why do u allow them to come here and dishonor ure country" said one of the young men, as if the poor guy had control on anything.
so after 8 long hours.....
the Americans left, confiscating 6 antiaircraft heavy machine gun bullets form over than 40 houses.
the Iraqis were furiously talking of Americans searching our women, confiscating our protection weapons, and stealing our poor little chickens."


:: gandalf23 7:36:00 AM [+] ::
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Not too hot about any of them anyway and this way we get to blame the Americans for the screwing up of our future. They have been involved in creating the mess we are in now, they should take responsibility in helping us clear it up. Ummm, let’s put it this way so no one gets pissed off: Pretty please with sugar on top, don’t leave now and let the loony mullahs stick me on a pole and leave me in the sun to think about my “Sins”. Postponing the handover of government to Iraqis is a “good thing”, it gives everybody time to think and cool down.


:: gandalf23 6:49:00 PM [+] ::
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This comes from the 3ID:

"It happened while TF 1-69 Armor and TF 4-69 Armor were driving into the center of the city, and they stole the focus of the world media. TF 3-15 had been the unit that David Bloom was with, but of course he was dead by the time the unit fought on CURLEY, LARRY and MOE.

If Bloom had still been alive, the whole world would know of the battle for the three overpasses south of the Baghdad city center. It was the supporting effort that ensured success.

Scott Rutter made an interesting observation while we were discussing his unit's missions during the war. He observed that if we are successful in focusing our strength against his weakness, then almost by definition, our supporting efforts will be directed against his strength.

Scott had a lot of really tough fights, almost never with his whole TF present, almost always as the supporting effort, but he saved 2nd BCT's ass by moving so quickly to support them after the 2BCT TOC was hit by a Surface-to-Surface rocket.

That was a horrible scene...dead and wounded laying everywhere amongst smashed and burning vehicles. The Sergeant Major had the skin peeled away from his forearms on both arms and it was hanging like a glove over his hands, but all he was concerned about was finding his driver, who unfortunately had been decapitated and had both legs blown off.

As badly as they were hurt, and it was REALLY bad, the TOC was back in limited operation and back in the fight in two hours! These are truly professional soldiers. They have a focus and drive that is awe-inspiring.

Scott's battalion has the only MOH recommendation for the war, so far. His platoon leader has an absolutely amazing story of good luck and heroism.

The mortar platoon leader, CPT Paul (promoted during train-up, Scott decided not to move him until after the war), was looking for a better firing position than the one that he had occupied in the dark the early morning before first light.

Along with his base gun squad leader, he walked less than 100 yards thru a screen of brush to look at a large open area shown on the map. While there, he hears a tank engine and turns to see an M1 towing another M1 drive up from the route they had taken the night before.

He waves, just to ensure the tank crew knows he is friendly, and turns back to the task at hand. Less than two minutes later, he hears another tank engine and turns to wave again. This time, however, it's a pair of T-72s, only 50 meters away. The Iraqi crew is actually waving at him, but he can hear their fire commands as the turret traverses towards him.

He dives into a shallow ditch next to the road, and the NCO with him runs thru the screen of bushes. The nearest T-72 begins to coax the ditch, but he is below the line of fire by inches. The tank fires several bursts at him while he is screaming into his radio for the Platoon Sergeant to move the platoon, that there are tanks only 100 meters away.

The platoon sergeant won't leave him! He orders the mortar platoon to break out the two AT-4s it has, and then does an amazing thing. He jumps in his HMMWV and drives into the field, waving his arms to draw the tankers' attention,trying to draw their fire to allow the platoon leader to escape.

The tankers find other targets, vehicles driving along an elevated roadway. First they shoot a FOX NBC vehicle, then they kill an M2 with a sabot round. The platoon leader is still in the ditch as the tanks advance to within 30 meters of his position. He knows that as soon as the loader sees him in the ditch, he will machine gun him from short range.

The platoon leader knew that he was dead, that there was no way to escape.

Suddenly, bursting thru the screen of bushes, came the M1 tank, still towing the other tank. As soon as they saw it, the Iraqi crew began to scream in terror, but before they could even traverse their turret, the M1 fired, then fired again, killing both of them in less than four seconds. The platoon leader escaped injury, but he was deaf for a while from the loudness of the explosion that close to him.

Can you imagine this stuff going on for day after day after day? Can you imagine the cohesiveness of a unit where rather than move away from a tank attack the platoon sergeant drives out to draw fire away from his platoon leader?

I am, as you have read, having my first "down" day since we got here. I have been going back over some of the messages I have sent to you guys, and I've been embarrassed about how little I have told you about the units here, and what they did and learned. I can only blame the pace of the work, and my natural laziness, demanding as I do at least five hours of sleep a night, and at least two meals. (that was a joke, I'm doing fine, just working hard, but loving it)

I spent all day yesterday interviewing the members of the 3-15 Infantry. They fought a two-day battle to hold objectives CURLEY, LARRY and MOE. These were each main east-west road intersections along the north-south MSR into the center of Baghdad.

The two tank-heavy TFs of the 2nd BCT had attacked north along the the main road to seize the heart of Baghdad. It was TF 3-15's mission to seize the intersections (large cloverleaf complexes) and retain them in order to allow movement of the ammunition and fuel resupply convoys that would be needed if the armor forces were going to be able to stay in the city.

Each of the overpasses/intersections was defended with a level of fanaticism unknown to us since the Banzai charges of the Japanese in the Pacific. The fighting was heavy on all three, but on CURLEY, the most southern, it was particularly fierce, and it was there that the TF came closest to being defeated.

LTC Stephen Twitty, the Commander of TF 3-15 did not have his entire force available to him at midnight when he received the brigade OPORD on the 6-7th of April. The WARNO that he had gotten three hours earlier had directed that he detach B Co with its commander, XO, and two Mech Infantry platoons to defend the BSA. He had under his command, a Tank Company from the 4-69th Armor, and one Mech Infantry company, along with the normal engineer, Scout, mortar, and FSO elements you would expect.

LTC Twitty had not been at the Brigade order. He had been with the main body of the TF as it finished cleaning up the battlefield after fighting a major engagement all day long at OBJ Peach, the last bridge over the Euphrates before Baghdad. He sent his S3 to take the order and met him at the designated assembly area later, after nightfall. As his companies refueled and rearmed, he and his staff huddled in a bombed out building to come up with the order for the attack the next morning.

At 0100 Hours, LTC Twitty called his commanders to the building, its missing roof replaced with a tarp, and the windows blacked out with ponchos. HE issued an order for the attack that had the attached armor company team seizing the farthest north objective (MOE), his Mech Infantry company seizing the center objective (LARRY) and TM ZAN seizing objective CURLEY in the south.

Team ZAN was a pick-up team consisting of a single Mech Infantry platoon, an Engineer squad, the mortar platoon, a Scout section, and the TF Command Sergeant Major with an M88 and a HMMWV. It was commanded by one of the battalions battle captains, CPT Zan Hornbuckle (isn't that a great name?).

CPT Hornbuckle had less than five hours from the time he received the mission to the time for crossing the LD. He used it well, meeting with all the different elements of the team and assigning them missions for the seizure and subsequent defense of CURLEY.

I can't tell the story of this fight in an email. It will take me at least an Infantry Magazine article, maybe a series of articles.

The enemy at CURLEY turned out to be fanatical Syrian Jihadists, determined to die. They attacked incessantly for 12-14 hours, firing small arms and RPGs from buildings, trenches, bunkers, and rubble along side the cloverleaf intersection.

They "charged" the US positions (the only word that fits), in taxis, cars, trucks with heavy machine guns mounted, and even in motorcycles with recoilless rifles tied to the side cars (not a war story, I saw one of them that the battalion captured). They drove cars loaded with explosives at high speed towards the US positions, hoping to take American with them in death when they exploded.

The mortar platoon occupied the southern part of the objective with two tubes aimed north and two aimed south. They fired simultaneous indirect fire missions south and north, while the gunners on the .50 caliber machine guns fired direct fire to defend their positions. The mortarmen continued to fire missions even while under ground assault and indirect fire.

They fired over 20 direct lay missions against buildings housing enemy forces and against "Technical Vehicles" firing against the position. They supported the forces on the two other objectives with nine DANGER CLOSE missions, especially after the supporting FA unit fired a mission that struck US positions and wounded two soldiers. The Bn FSO was so angry at the FA that he ceased calling them and used the mortars exclusively for over 12 hours.

The Combat Engineers earned that title. They were magnificent both as Infantrymen and as engineers. They exposed themselves to incredible fire to blow light poles down to make Abatis to stop the suicide taxis. The ACE drivers went outside the perimeter, alone, to build berms and remove guardrails to allow movement between positions. They formed up scratch teams, along with radio operators and drivers, and cleared trenches and bunkers against fanatical defenders, at least one of whom was a woman, armed and fighting to the death in the trenchline.

Everyone fought! There was not choice, it is not overly dramatic to state that it was a case of "fight or die".

OBJ CURLEY had to be held. If it could not keep the MSR open, the rest of TF 3-15 and the two armor task forces further north would be cut off and isolated deep within the city. Already the BCT commander had ordered the tankers to shut off their engines in order to save the little remaining fuel. Everyone was critically short ammunition, but the company team fighting on OBJ MOE was "BLACK" on main gun, coax, and small arms ammo. If CURLEY fell, so would MOE, and TF 3-15 would face defeat in detail.

The Task Force commander called and asked the key question of CPT Hornbuckle..."Can TM Zan hold CURLEY and let the ammunition and fuel HEMMTs roll north to the other forces?"

CPT Hornbuckle said that he thought he could hold, but the TF commander heard the stress and worry in his voice. He knew that CPT Hornbuckle was a fighter, but he worried that TM ZAN was facing a crisis and he needed to know for certain. He called the CSM and asked him, straight up, did the team need help?

CSM Robert Gallagher, who had been wounded fighting with the 75th Rangers at Mogadishu, didn't hesitate. He told LTC Twitty that he needed to do something to help relieve TM ZAN, and he had to do it fast! At that time, CSM Gallagher was already wounded again, and he was standing on one leg beside his M88 firing his M4 carbine. The medics had armed themselves, and all the drivers and RTOs that could be spared were fighting to protect the company TOC against suicide attackers working their way through the rubble and along the off-ramps of the cloverleaf.

LTC Twitty had no other forces, but he did have the uncommitted elements of his last mech infantry Company, back a the FSB. Although they had been fighting a series of running fights themselves, they were ready to move. LTC Twitty called the Commander, CPT Ronnie Johnson, and told him get ready to send a platoon to CURLEY. CPT Johnson made a counter-recommendation. He wanted to take his entire company, the two mech platoons, the BFIST, and the Maintenance and 1SGS's M113s, all the armored fighting vehicles he could lay his hands on.

This was probably the crucial decision of the battle. LTC Twitty agreed, and asked the BCT commander to release the company, which he did.

B Co, 3-15 Infantry roared north, every gun in the convoy firing, to fight its way to Obj CURLEY. It arrived literally in the nick of time, although it lost a Scout HMMWV and one NCO KIA by an RPG. Witht the additional forces, CPT Johnson, who took over command at CURLEY, reinforced the defenders and pushed the perimeter further out, far enough that the vital resupply convoy that was right behind him had a chance to make it through.

Even then, the situation was not secure. The sight of 20 heavy trucks loaded with ammunition and fuel reinvigorated the Syrian Jihadists attacking CURLEY. They opened up with renewed fury. In a moment,several trucks were burning, and the fire was spreading. A sergeant ran out into a hail of fire to try to start one of the trucks to move it away, but it was already too damaged to drive.

At this time, LTC Scott Rutter, an old SGI from Fort Benning arrived with the lead elements of TF 2-7. He had been sent, with only an hour's notice, on a long circuitous route from his position near the airport to reinforce the 2nd BCT. He fought his way thru to the objective and assumed control at CURLEY. CPT Johnson moved the remaining resupply trucks to MOE and LARRY with his forces, and then escorted them further north for the armored task forces, thus ensuring that they could stay in the city for the night and the next day.

Scott had a hellava fight at CURLEY the next day, but after that, the heart had been cut out of the enemy forces, and the 3rd Infantry Division was in Baghdad to stay.

I have left out so much that I want to write, but there is only so much I can do. I have it in my notes, in my head, and in my heart. I have never in my life been more proud of the American soldier. I stand humbled before these men.

in Baghdad

20 MAY 2003"


:: gandalf23 3:00:00 PM [+] ::
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:: gandalf23 12:26:00 PM [+] ::
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the corruption of a child:





what a shame.



:: gandalf23 10:17:00 AM [+] ::
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This is exactly why everyone who wants to should own a firearm.



Edited to add (because some morons got the wrong idea): NOT so that you can shoot Jews in the back of the head, but to prevent yourself and your loved ones from being rounded up and shot in the head.

:: gandalf23 10:39:00 AM [+] ::
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