Saturday, August 23, 2014

An Unlikely Weapon



 
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Here is the actual background to this picture, contrary to what the Bleeding-Heart-Liberals espouse.

 The VC under this man's command had just gone through an ARVN compound and killed all, including the women and children. Colonel Loan knew this when this man was bought before him, and acted quite compassionately, I believe, for the culprit would not have been so lucky if I had been in charge.

Colonel Loan was later saved after being wounded on a Saigon bridge by an American MP who got a medal for his action.

Colonel Loan made it to the states where he ran a restaurant in Northern Virginia.


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Eddie Adams, who took the original photo, apologized in person to General Loan and his family for the damage it did to his reputation. When Loan died of cancer in Virginia, Adams praised him: 

"The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him."

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#8 Myth: Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running
naked from the napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June 1972.....shown
a million times on American television....was burned by Americans
bombing Trang Bang. Fact: No American had involvement in this
incident near Trang Bang that burned Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The planes
doing the bombing near the village were VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and
were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in support of South Vietnamese
troops on the ground. The Vietnamese pilot who dropped the napalm in
error is currently living in the United States . Even the AP
photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese. The
incident in the photo took place on the second day of a three day
battle between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied the
village of Trang 

Bang and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam ) who were trying
to force the NVA out of the village. Recent reports in the news media
that an American commander ordered the air strike that burned Kim Phuc
are incorrect. There were no Americans involved in any capacity. "We
(Americans) had nothing to do with controlling VNAF," according to
Lieutenant General (Ret) James F. Hollingsworth, the Commanding
General of TRAC at that time. Also, it has been incorrectly reported
that two of Kim Phuc's brothers were killed in this incident. They
were Kim's cousins not her brothers. 


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Kim is glad to be alive now, but she describes her attitude growing up in Communist-dominated Vietnam this way:
I got burned by napalm, and I became a victim of war … but growing up then, I became another kind of victim. … I wished I died in that attack with my cousin, with my south Vietnamese soldiers.
From her telling phrase “my south Vietnamese soldiers,” it is clear that Kim does not see them as the villains of the piece.

1967 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible 427/435 HP, 18,688 miles

 http://photos.motormutt.com/trade0413/5342dd494f7358322500005b/120958186/1967-Gold-1967-Chevrolet-Corvette-Convertible-427-435-HP-Bloomington-Gold-Benchmark-1-1024px.jpg

This 1967 convertible is almost without peer in every sense of the term. The 1967 Sting Ray was the fruit of five eventful years spent fine-tuning the second-generation Corvette, from the 1963 introduction of the dramatic Shinoda-designed split-window coupe. With the cleanest styling of its generation, the ‘67 was one of the best-looking cars of its era in either coupe or convertible form and a heck of a ride. Rally Red with a Black Stinger stripe, Black top and interior and shod in Red Stripe tires, it presents in one of the most elegant and iconic Corvette color schemes.

More @ MECUM

Blockade Running From Bermuda

 http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h54000/h54154.jpg

It is said that masters of private blockade runners could expect $5,000 in gold for a successful round trip from Bermuda to Wilmington and back, and the Captain Roberts mentioned below used his profits to rent the opulent residence of Wilmington Mayor John Dawson while in port. Confederate commerce raiders John Newland Maffitt, John Wilkinson and others performed such a work of destruction on the North’s merchant marine, that it never recovered after the war. The Dawson home is visited on the “Confederate Wilmington” walking tour.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Blockade Running From Bermuda

“In July 1863 Captain [Hezekiah] Frith loaded his sturdy little Bermuda schooner, the Harkaway, with a cargo of boots, shoes and cloth and ran the blockade into Wilmington. Frith was evidently proud of his contribution to the Southern cause.  [US] Consul [Charles M.] Allen noted that upon his return he “flew the Confederate flag a considerable time while in port.” 

Another captain who often called at Bermuda . . . [was] “Captain Roberts” . . . the nom de guerre of the Honourable Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden, a younger son of the Earl of Buckinghamshire.  Roberts/Hampden held the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy and at one time served as commander of [Queen Victoria’s] yacht. 

Roberts started blockade running in 1863 . . . On one run he earned a 1,100-percent profit selling corset stays, Cockle’s Pills and toothbrushes to Southerners starved for consumer goods.  

Another raider to call at Bermuda was the CSS Florida, under the command of Lieutenant John Maffitt, CSN.  She left Liverpool as the Oreto in March, 1862, and received her guns from the CSS Nashville in Nassau a month later.  After capturing a number of prizes in the South Atlantic, Maffitt turned north, threatening US shipping along the eastern seaboard. 

Arriving in St. George’s in early July for coal and repairs, the Florida exchanged salutes with the British garrison at Fort Cunningham.  While in port the Florida . . . took on all the coal then available in St. George’s.  She also transferred . . . captured items from various prizes to the Robert E. Lee, which ran them into Wilmington.  While his ship was being repaired, Maffitt was “handsomely entertained” by the island’s British garrison, who, according to Georgiana Walker, “believed that Capt. Maffitt had achieved gallant deeds upon the sea & . . . [and] honored him accordingly.”

In mid-1864 the blockade runner Edith was converted to a commerce raider and commissioned as the CSS Chickamauga.  She left Wilmington for her first cruise on October 28, under the command of Capt. John Wilkinson, CSN, former captain of the runner Robert E. Lee. 

The Chickamauga prowled the shipping lanes as far north as Long Island Sound, taking seven prizes before calling at Bermuda to provision. One of the vessels she captured southwest of Bermuda, the US merchant ship Harriet Stevens, carried a supply of gum opium that Wilkinson consigned to a runner for delivery to Southern hospitals. 

(Rogues & Runners, Bermuda and the American Civil War, Catherine Lynch Deichmann,  Bermuda National Trust, 2003, excerpts pp. 46-57)

Tueller Drill On A Moving Target


We’ve made numerous references to the Tueller Drill (reacting to a short-range knife attack when armed with a holstered handgun) in recent days.

More @ Bearing Ams

Notes from the Drains: What Cops Really Do

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The police are out of control all across the country. They can kick in your door at three al.m., shoot your dog, and handcuff your daughters, and you have no recourse. All of this happens with the explicit, intentional help of the federal government. There is nothing to be said for them, police or government.

That having been noted, it might be interesting to look at the world as seen by a normal cop from before the budding of the dictatorship.

To that end, let us suppose that you, the reader, are an average white cop in, say, Washington, DC. Let us further agree that you are not swatted-out, do not have ninja fantasies. You are not evil and do not want to hurt anyone. Evil cops exist, but you are not one of them. You are just a real cop in the real city—not the city as imagined by the humid orchids who write editorials at the New York Times.
How will the world seem to you, a new cop just out of the Academy?

"Words fail me"


Georgia dad files lawsuit to bring gun to daughter’s elementary school


A Georgia father has filed a lawsuit after he says the principal at his daughter’s elementary school told him he was not allowed to bring his gun on school grounds.

MyFoxAtlanta.com reported Friday that the lawsuit claims that the principal told Hugh Myers that he could not bring his gun onto the campus of Beulah Elementary School other than when he is dropping off or picking up his daughter. The principal allegedly threatened to have him arrested if he did so.

Myers’ attorney John Monroe is arguing that Myers is allowed to bring his gun under a new Georgia law that took effect last month, according to MyFoxAtlanta.com.

More @ Fox

SWAT team responds to college staff member carrying umbrella

 California State University San Marcos faculty member and umbrella owner Bill Craig surrendering to a police response team with an apparent cargo-short load out. (Photo: ABC 10)

A SWAT team on the campus of California State University San Marcos surrounded a staff member equipped with protective rain gear this week.

The incident, which occurred early Wednesday morning, was prompted by a call to the San Diego County Sheriff’s office of a bald white male, wearing a black shirt and jeans and walking across campus carrying a rifle. This resulted in a shelter-in place order for some 400 staff and students going through orientation before the start of the fall session. Rapidly, facility and classmates banded together to barricade doors with tables and chairs, expecting the worst.

The situation resolved itself after 30 minutes when an umbrella-bearing teacher figured out he matched the description of the alleged gunman and surrendered to law enforcement.

More with video @ GUNS

Open Letter of Warning to Governor Nixon From Missouri Oath Keepers

 
There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. - Marine General Smedley Butler - Two-time recipient of the Medal of Honor.


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Governor Nixon:

The events in Ferguson have shown us daily that the looting and violence by a few is not being stopped, while the right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition government for redress of grievances is not being respected. The current riot control tactics of the local police, rooted in outmoded techniques developed in the 1950's - and only made worse by the ongoing militarization of our police - are failing the people of Ferguson, giving them a false choice between rampant looting on the one hand, and hyper-militarized police and curfews on the other (which also fail to stop the looting, leaving the mistaken impression among many of the American people that even more militarization and curtailment of free speech and assembly is needed).  Our local boots on the ground, made up of retired police officers, military veterans, and intelligence workers (with critical input from current serving Missouri police officers) have answers that could provide the people of Ferguson the relief they need and deserve while respecting their rights.   It is time to change a losing game.

The militarized police response we saw in Ferguson did not work.  All it did was violate the rights of peaceful protesters and media, alienate the community, and make our country look even more like a police state, with big, intimidating displays of heavily armed, militarized officers, in full "battle-rattle" and backed by BearCat type armored vehicles, firing CS gas and rubber bullets into peaceful protesters and even at media personnel, while failing to stop those relative few who were actually looting, throwing Molotov cocktails, and shooting.

The police focus on peaceful protesters, with lines of policemen equipped in riot gear, in fundamentally static positions - at best, slow, plodding, on-line advances - are easily thwarted by modern looters and thugs with cell phones and team work.  Such outdated tactics fail to apprehend those actually looting and shooting.

What they do succeed in doing is alienating the local population while risking additional shooting incidents due to unsafe gun-handling.  There were multiple instances of police officers pointing M-4s and sniper rifles at unarmed, peaceful protesters, media, and local residents just going about their business, in displays of spectacularly unsafe weapons discipline and methodology.   As one of our police sniper veterans pointed out, even police snipers deployed in response to prior incidents of shots fired should have used spotting scopes to observe the crowd and search for potential threats, not their rifle scopes.

Even worse were the well-publicized incidents of officers routinely pointing M-4s at unarmed protesters at close range for no apparent reason other than to intimidate.  An officer facing an actual lethal threat should be moving to cover, not standing there in a static bunch with other officers, using the rifle as a threat display. 

More @ Oathkeepers