Halloween

We celebrated Halloween last night, first at a family party for the kids.

That's our newest family member, Lucas. All the kids took part, we did all the traditional Halloween stuff, to include bobbing for apples.

Afterwards, Milady and I went to a gala event, the annual, much ballyhooed party hosted by the esteemed physicians at the Rayburn clinic. Doc Rayburn is Milady's boss. A true gentleman, a gracious host and a renowned surgeon. Milady dressed as the legendary Witch, Marie Laveau.

This morning we went to church, came home and cooked lunch for everyone in the assembled clan. We're having Mulligan Stew.

Sunday Morning Dawg

The dog and I go outside regularly, about half the time we go through the door, we go into the front yard. The dog, being an inquisitive fellow, is intrigued by the smells and sounds of the front yard.

He loves sniffing tires. When he's sniffing tires, he doesn't have time to look at the camera.

live FromThe Stand

Live from my deer stand! Who'd a thunk it? Damned feeder didn't go off this mornin and I'll check that later, but it is a beautiful morning to be in the woods.

Long Day

I'm going to put my boots on in another half-hour and head to the school where I'm looking at a fifteen hour day. A day of fun and frolic, with a Homecoming parade and the big football game filled with pageantry and gala. It's going to be quite an event and my earnest hope is that it goes well and that everyone gets home safely tonight.

It's going to be fun for the kids, but it's going to be one long drudge for the adults. Y'all have fun today.

The only thing that will maintain my sanity today is knowing that deer season starts tomorrow. I've got all my gear in one pile and as soon as I get home tonight I'll swap the duty gear pile for the deer-hunting pile and fall into bed.

Homecoming Week

It's Homecoming Week at the high school and to say that the kids are a little bit crazy is understatement. Every day is another theme and the costumes are getting more and more interesting. Tomorrow, for some God-awful reason, they scheduled school pictures. Like this week hasn't been weird enough. Then tomorrow night we have a bonfire scheduled, then on Friday, the Homecoming Parade and the Football Game.

The bonfire tomorrow night has me cringing in my boots. The Weather Service is calling for rain and that would be wonderful. Lightning, sideways rain should put a damper on that nonsense.

As for the big game, I'm praying for rain there too. A gentle, tropical rain with no lightning. Lightning would cancel the game and they'd reschedule on Saturday. No, just a steady, half-inch per hour downpour would be wonderful. The crowd would stay home and it would be easy to clear the parking lot after the game.

They've got a dance scheduled for Saturday night and I frankly don't give a crap. I've got two deputies paid to work the dance. I hope that they have a safe, enjoyable detail. Of course, if they have to use pepper-spray on the assemblage and call for all available units, that would be okay with me too.

Regardless, I'm getting up Saturday morning and going hunting even if it hair-lips the Pope and every cow in Texas.

Last year, I begged the Principal not to schedule anything on the last weekend of October. I also talked to the Athletic Director and asked that they keep this weekend free. To no avail. Some folks think that there are more important things than the opening weekend of the deer season. Folks like that shouldn't be trusted with our children's education.

This Year's Rifle

I've been trying to decide on which rifle I'll use for the opener of the deer season this year, and I believe that I've made up my mind.

The rifle for the early season this year is the Remington 700 ADL I bought this past January. It was built in 1983 and it's chambered in .308. This is the rifle that I used to experiment with Alliant's new powder, Power Pro 2000 MR. The ammo is my handload with the new Alliant Powder and the Hornady 150 grain SST bullet. That new powder drives that bullet to 2947 fps and the group size from the bags runs about 5/8 inch. Off my palm, it opens up to 9/10ths of an inch, which ain't bad for the deer woods. The rifle wears a Leupold VX1 scope.

Here, my Grandson Ethan models the rifle so that I can get a picture. He's left handed and knows that this rifle isn't slated for him. He'd rather shoot the Ugly Rifle. I've told him that he's in line for a left-handed rifle. I think that he's old enough to handle his own centerfire and we'll start looking for one soon.

I've fired that rifle enough this summer that I'm very comfortable with it. Just last Sunday I fired a nice under-an-inch group off my palms, no bags, just my elbows resting on a table. That settles it for me. It'll be the Remington until I make meat. Then we'll try with another rifle.

Jambalaya

It's been a while since I cooked a jambalaya and I got hungry for it this afternoon. I hied myself to the store and picked up a rotisserie chicken and a pound of sausage, a bag of rice and an onion.

Upon my return home I chopped the onion then started it saute-ing in a little vegetable oil, chopped the sausage and added it to the onion and let that cook together while I de-boned the chicken. Yeah, I cheated with an already-cooked chicken, but I've make lots of jambalaya from scratch. From scratch, I mean that I wrung the chicken's neck, plucked and cleaned him before he was in the pot.

Once that chicken was peeled from the bone, I added him to the pot with the onions and sausage, gave it a stir, then added three cups of rice and three cups of water. Lowered my heat to a simmer, covered it and let it simmer for 12 minutes, until the rice was done.

Jambalaya is a Cajun food, made from whatever happened to walk, crawl, or fly past. I've made jambalaya from duck, from rabbit, from squirrel, from shrimp, If you like, you can add raw oysters when you add the water and let the simmering water cook them in the rice. Like most folk foods, it's got its roots in whatever was available in the area to feed a hungry family. It's quick to make, it's flexible enough to lend itself to expanding in case the kinfolks show up at mealtime, and it's filling.

You can make a red jambalaya by adding tomato products, you can make a brown jambalaya by adding a roux or a gravy mix, or you can make a white jambalaya like I made tonight.

I decided at 5:00 I wanted a jambalaya, went to the store, came back and cooked it, served Milady and washed dishes. I was done by 6:15. Jambalaya isn't something you slave over. It's quick, easy, tasty and something different on a Sunday evening.

Bon Apetit!

Sunday Morning Dawg

Cool temps this week and the dog has been enjoying his outside time. He's staying outside more without becoming overheated in his overcoat.

We'll have to see about getting him a haircut soon.

Nine Rounds

Tomorrow is the opener of the Louisiana Primitive Weapons season. We get a week to hunt deer before the regular gun season rolls through and in my area, it starts tomorrow. At daylight, I'll be in my stand.

I started muzzleloading in 1980, when Louisiana had a muzzleloader season. I shot a Thompson/Center Renegade rifle. I came to prefer a .54 caliber patched ball and got very, very good with that rifle. Confident enough in it that for several years I carried nothing else. I could hit with that rifle and it was all I needed for the terrain I was hunting, which was mainly swamp bottom tangles that ran near small hills that were hillside tangles. A long shot was mainly 75 yards and you never had the chance for a second shot. In those woods, a single shot muzzleloader worked just fine. I killed several deer with that rifle, then got out of the habit.

Several years ago, Louisiana liberalized their muzzleloader season to the point where a muzzleloader isn't even necessary. They publish a list of rifles that the hunter can use, but most of us use the Handi-Rifle, in either .45-70, .444, or .38-55.

I'll have the Handi rifle with me in the stand tomorrow, although I haven't sunk so low as to put a scope on it. Mine wears a Williams peep sight and I'll shoot that setup until my eyes get to the point where a scope is necessary.

I use a butt-cuff on my hunting rifles and they generally hold nine rounds of ammo. That nine rounds is my standard hunting load and I'll often go through a whole season without shooting those nine rounds. I just loaded the rounds into the butt-cuff on the Handi-rifle and those big slugs make the rifle decidedly butt-heavy.

I may have to re-think this practice for this rifle.

Qaddifi Captured

The big story today is that Libyan strongman Moammar Qaddifi was captured today outside his birthplace. He soon succumbed to his wounds, the most notable one being a shot to the temple.

The rebel forces say that he was killed in a crossfire between loyalists and rebels. Footage from the scene shows him in the back of a pickup truck then being pulled out to take a rebel ass-whipping. According to reports,

Moammar Gadhafi was killed in the crossfire of a battle between his supporters and fighters loyal to the opposition that topped the dictator’s regime, Libya’s interim prime minister told NPR this afternoon.

“Nobody can tell if the [fatal] shot was from the rebel fighters or from his own security guard,” Interim Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril told All Things Considered host Robert Siegel…

Really, guys? You had him in custody and his own people offed him? That's their story and they're sticking to it.

Qaddafi suffered the fate every tyrant has suffered, from Caesar to Mussolini. There is a lesson there, but Moammar Qaddifi goes into the lists of tyrants executed at the end of the reign. I understand that his last words were "What did I ever do to you?"

Heh!

Why We Win

The imagination of the US soldier is unprecedented, unequalled, and undeniably the greatest asset of the commander. Our soldiers are why we win. (And sailors, and Marines and Wing Wipers).

It seems that this Iowa Guard unit deployed to the sandbox has come up with a new way to carry ammo.

They welded some ammo boxes together, mounted it on an ALICE frame, and now the machine gunner can carry 500 rounds of linked ammo on his back. Better yet, the whole Army wants them.

We’ve already gotten email traffic from (one of) our science advisers that everybody in theater wants one of these — and by in theater, he means his specific area of operation, Regional Command East in Afghanistan — because word has spread. That (Iowa National Guard) unit is not the only unit on that FOB. As they’re walking around the FOB with that piece of kit, very senior people are taking a look at it. They recognize it as a game-changer.

It is a game-changer. When I was deployed to Desert Storm, the active Army guys complained that the Reservists had learned quickly how to game the system and we got good support when they had to wait in line. That's not altogether true, but when the guy at the supply base is married to your sister and you know him as Bob, rather Master Sergeant Schmedlap, you get stuff that other units might not get. When the guy cutting the finance checks happens to be your first cousin, your pay never gets screwed-up. Guard and Reserve units ain't like the rest of the Army. We think differently.

We're a great asset and that's why we win. Congrats to the boys in the Iowa Guard. Good job, soldier.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh My!

SO, this bozo turns loose all his animals then commits suicide.

The animals? Lions and tigers and bears, along with at least one chimp and a giraffe.

The cops in Ohio are shooting lions in the woods. I would have loved to hear the dispatch call on that one.

Just Wow!

Drudge linked to two stories today about inner-city violence. The first, from Richmond, CA tells us that a brawl broke out when members of rival gangs showed up at the "Operation Peacemaker" offices. The administrator was pleased, though:

The ONS director said he sees the unarmed brawl as a sign of progress, since the young men involved all have a history of gun violence.

Well, that's something I guess. Brawling in public is certainly preferable to shooting each other in public.

Our second heart-warming story comes to us from Philadelphia, where we learn that some bozo was getting out of jail and his family wanted to have a welcome home party. Of course, a knife fight breaks out and five people were stabbed.

A welcome home party for a teen released from juvenile detention resulted in gunshots and stab wounds for five people at the party.

Heartwarming, I tell you. Those are just the kinds of folks that I want to invite to a party.

I am in awe of the culture that produces folks like this.

Inequality, Consumerism, Corporate Greed

If you've been following the OWS protests, then at some point you've asked yourself what these people want. While the message is a little muddled, it boils down basically to redistributionist philosophy; an end to inequality, consumerism, and corporate greed. Kind of a Robin Hood, steal from the rich,give to the poor, kind of policy. They're pissed at Wall Street. That's plain, and the message is just a bit muddled, but basically, they want stuff for free.

Well, it seems as if some low-level redistributionist is hard at work, Ripping them off. He's gotten cash, computers, foodstuffs, all the things that they want for free. And, they're pissed that someone would be taking their stuff. You'd think that they'd be celebrating the way he has embraced their philosophy. But not when it comes to their stuff. Their stuff is off-limits.

The irony is strong on this one.

Tuesday Ramblin'

We had a cold front move through today, it feels like autumn outside with temps in the 50s. I'll need a jacket for the morning, the predicted low is in the 40s. Yee-haw! This is my kind of weather.

I began my ramblin' when I stopped at the Pawn Shop to pay some money on a layaway. Than stopped at the sporting goods store and bought my hunting licenses. Basic Hunting, Big Game, and Primitive Weapons licenses set me back $40.00, but I'm legal to hunt this year. Then, stop by the pharmacy to pick up the drugs that keep me alive for another 30 days. Good stuff.

It's just a lazy Tuesday afternoon. I guess I better dig out my jacket. I'll need it by daylight.

Operation Elder Son

A great story about exploding ammo planted by SOG troops during the Vietnam unpleasantness.

In reality, this actual incident was the calculated handiwork of one the Vietnam War's most secret and least understood covert operations: Project Eldest Son. So secret was this sabotage effort that few G.I.s in Southeast Asia ever heard of it or the organization behind it, the innocuously named Studies and Observations Group. As the Vietnam War's top-secret special ops task force, SOG's operators - Army Special Forces, Air Force Air Commandos and Navy SEALs - worked directly for the Joint Chiefs, executing highly classified, deniable missions in the enemy's backyard of Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam.

By Major John Plaster.

The Haves and Have-Nots

There's been a lot of news lately from the Occupy Wall Street crowd, about the haves and the have-nots. You'd think that the pore folks in the US were doing... well... poorly, but that's not altogether the case. As it turns out, the pore folks in the United States would be considered rich folks in much of the world, those places that don't have the compassion that we have.

You don't believe me? Go read the New York Times and be educated. It's true! The liberal bastion that is the NYT gets it right once in a while, and what will blow your mind is the chart that accompanies the article.

You've got to read the article to get the full benefit from the chart, but basically, the pore folks in the USA have a better standard of living than even the very rich in a country like India.

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

Now check out the line for India. India’s poorest ventile corresponds with the 4th poorest percentile worldwide. And its richest? The 68th percentile. Yes, that’s right: America’s poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India’s richest.

The USA is a wonderful country, where even the poorest citizen is considerably better off than the rest of the world. When we start worrying about the pore and starvin' we should keep that in mind.

Sunday Shooting

Today after church, we went out to my private range to do a little tuneup with the rifles we'll use for hunting this year. I had three grandsons with me and a variety of firearms to determine who'd use what if the opportunity presented itself.

I verified the zero on the rifles I'm going to use, then sat the grandkids down at the bench and let them try. Everyone needed tutoring and we learned who shoots what rifle best. Grandson Ethan shoots the ugly rifle easily. We were shooting 8" paper plates and steel gongs. Ethan was able to tag the 9" gong at will. When he hunts with me, he'll shoot the ugly rifle.

Grandson Jeffrey showed an affinity for the .30-30, as did Grandson Quinton. Both of them were able to ring the gong with the .30-30 Handi. Jeffrey decided to try for the 6" gong and hit it easily at 100 yards.

Once the kids got finished with their tuneup, my soon-to-be daughter-in-law wanted to try a couple of rifles. She picked the Remington 700 in .308.

Although she could ring the gong with it, the length of pull was a little long. She tried the ugly rifle and professed a preference for that stock. She also shot the .45-70 Handi and surprised us by ringing the gong with that rifle as well.

Then, of course, my elder son had to try the .45-70.

He was able to ring the gong as well with that rifle. After he finished, we packed up an came home. It's not unpleasant to shoot with family on a Sunday afternoon

Sunday Morning Dawg

Sometimes, when the dog is playing with his ball, the darned thing rolls under the couch. What a disaster. The dog is beside himself trying to worry that ball from under the couch. His little legs are only four inches long and the ball is always six inches under the couch.



It's terrible, I tell you. At this point it's up to PawPaw to retrieve the ball.

Heading to the Lease

Grandson Zachary are heading to the lease for a last-minute tune-up before the hunting season. My brother-in-law wants a tree cut, so we've loaded the chainsaw. I want to put some eyehooks in my deer blind with a rope system to raise the windows. That's been loaded too. Zachary wants to check the game cameras and see if there are any tracks in the creek bed. We'll do that too.

This afternoon we have a family gathering in Jena, LA with some of Milady's kinfolks. In honor of that, I've got two boston butt roasts in the oven, they should be ready to transform into pulled pork by the time I get in from the woods.

The outside temperature is 50F under clear skies. It's going to be a great Saturday. You guys get away from the computer and get out to enjoy it.

Drop-Out Rates

I was reading this article this morning, they complaining about the drop-out rate in Louisiana.

Lemme tell you one damned thing. I work in a high school, a fine high school with great accolades, listed as one of the top 500 high schools in the US. We routinely have students that excel on the ACT tests and we routinely have a goodly percentage of our students go to college with academic scholarships. We're not an athletic bunch, but we've got some scary-smart kids. Because we're located in a lower-economic zone (read: lots of low-income folks nearby), we also try to educate people who would rather hang out on the street corners, listen to hip-hop music, wear their pants sagging, and come to school only for the socialization and the subsidized lunches.

However, during the school grading period we just went through, the school got a "D" on it's report card purely for the dropouts. There is simply no way some of these kids are going to make it, and the school is penalized for it. If I get a freshman entering the 9th grade at age 16, he's got no chance in hell of graduating. His educational experience has already been set. If, by some miracle, he buckles down and studies, he won't get out of high school until age 20. What's the chances of that? Slim and none. Yeah, some of them make it, but they're the exception that proves the rule. The vast majority of those kids simply wake up one morning at age 18 and decide that they've outgrown high school. They become a dropout and they count against the school, regardless of all the efforts of the teaches and the staff.

If the parents don't care about school, the kids won't care about school. If the kids don't care, there's not a damned thing that an educator can do to motivate them. The best thing that the school can do is to identify those students early and get them out of there, before they taint other younger students in the facility.

As a school-house cop, I spend most of my time dealing with kids that don't want to be in school, don't have the skill-sets to complete the academics, yet are forced into the schools by the law. All those kids do is disrupt the high school experience for the rest of the student body. We're better off without them and it's a crying shame that those students count against the school averages.

So, for all you do-gooder educators out there, let me explain something to you. If a kid comes to school and wants to simply pass, graduate and move on, fine. He's got to have certain skills before he gets there. If you send that kid to us without that skill set, we don't have the time to bring him to speed. He's going to be a dropout, plain and simple and all the remediation in the world isn't going to change it. He's simply going to fall further and further behind and become a burden on us all. Better we recognize that early and shuffle him off to trade school or prison. That's where he's going to land eventually.

Charge Conference

The Methodist Church has, every year, a time of reflection and nomination and acceptance of church officers. We begin this process in August and continue it through September, reviewing paperwork, nominating officers, making sure that insurance is paid, reflecting on the pastor's salary, doing all the administrative things that make a church run. The process culminates in a meeting where we all agree that our signatures in the paperwork and our agreements on duties will continue for another year.

In a small church, it is is paperwork burden, one to be born with stoic faith that this too will pass. Then we meet with the District Supervisor, who blesses our efforts and we're free to carry on for another year.

Last night, our little church had our Charge Conference. The DS blessed the assemblage and now we can check that off the list of administrative nonsense. She was particularly verbose, turning what should have been a 45-minute meeting into a 2-hour marathon. The woman could talk the horns off a billy-goat. It's been a busy year for our little church, between the burying and the marrying and the baptising. We've been busy. Culminating all that with a 2-hour marathon meeting didn't help, but I'm not enamored of our District Supervisor. Simply being in the room with the woman tests the limits of my Christian charity.

Now that the admin nonsense is complete, maybe we can get back to the business of opening hearts, opening minds, and opening doors.

Holder subpoenaed

I hear that Senator Issa has subpoenaed Holder and the records from Fast and Furious. Good for him.

As far as I know, Holder is simply a political hack that enjoys the perks and privileges of being the Attorney General. The guys I'm pissed off at are the career law enforcement officers in several departments who went along with this little operation, knowing full well that they were jeopardizing their careers and their freedom by abrogating the oath they took when they put on the badge. It's simple, you can't break the law to enforce it, and lots of otherwise good cops broke the law when they started partaking in this little nightmare. I expect good cops to know better.

I've taken oaths and I've offered to arrest superior officers when they asked me to do something that was against the law. Different states have different statutes, but around here it's called malfeasance. I expected the federal cops in this operation to know better. If we don't obey the law, we can't expect anyone else to obey the law.

Put them all in jail, every one of them.

Cry Havoc!

News reports are just coming out, but it looks as if Iran has committed an act of war against the United States.

If we’re charging an official of the Iranian government with complicity or worse in this plot, then it ceases to be a law enforcement issue and becomes a military and political issue instead. This isn’t a case of espionage but of sabotage or worse, which would be an act of war by anyone’s definition. If we’re not willing to respond in kind, we then send a signal to hostile nation-states around the world that attacks on the US are low-risk, high-reward affairs — and we’d better get ready for an avalanche of them.

If the Iranian government is willing to commit an act of war against the United States, then the law enforcement model doesn't apply. It's war, plainly and simply. The bombs should start falling on Tehran this afternoon. We've got to send a clear signal. A signal that even Imadinnerjacket can't ignore.

UPDATE** It seems as if the plotters thought that they were talking to a Mexican drug gang to commit the assassinations they wanted done. Barry Rubin at Pajamas Media asks the question:

if that had happened might the Mexican drug cartel have used weapons sold to them in a U.S. government program sponsored by the Justice Department to kill U.S. citizens in Washington DC?

Oh, snap!

Gong, Gone

Driving home from work this afternoon, I heard this song on a classic Country station. When I got home I had to find it. Kathy Mattea is one of the under appreciated artists from the '80s. She always had a clear, ringing tone that I find easy to listen to.



In a lot of ways, Kathy's music brings me back to a simpler time in my life.

Centerfire Sunday

This afternoon after church, my youngest son and I headed to our private range. He was just hired as a Probation and Parole Officer for the State of Louisiana and wanted to do some pistol drills before going to firearms training later this month. So, we went out to Momma's land and set up a target near our berm. I ran him through the major portion of our POST and he did well on it. I'm certain that he'll qualify handily, but he should work on his reloading drills.

After the handgun work was over, we moved back to the 100 yard line with new targets and shot some rifles. I didn't bring a benchrest with me, as I was shooting hunting rifles, both the .308 that will be my primary arm, and a .45-70 that I'll use for the primitive portion of the deer season.

The .45-70 is a Handi-rifle and Louisiana allows them for the primitive hunt portion of the season. I shoot the Lee 405 flat point bullet over a middling charge of IMR 4895. I'm not pushing that bullet hard, preferring to keep the velocity down to about 1300 fps. At 75 yards with iron sights I was able to keep the bullets in a 1.5" group near the bullseye. Certainly good enough for our deer in these woods.

At the 100 yard line, we got out some sandbags and got on the hood of the truck.

That's PawPaw hisself, stretched out over the truck hood. The rifle is a .308 Savage 11. I shoot 165 Gamekings through that rifle and it's sighted just about 2" above the aiming spot at 100 yards. That bullet is flying about 2600 fps and if it hits meat, it's going to leave a mark.

My son wanted to try it, so he fired a group after I was through playing. Interestingly, the way he holds the rifle is different than the way I hold a rifle. His groups are a full two inches below mine, centered closely on the bull. You wouldn't think that it makes that much difference, but it does. Two different guys, same rifle, same ammo, two inches at 100 yards.

Sunday Morning Dawg

The weather has been beautiful this week with sunny skies and moderate temperatures, so the dog has been spending time outdoors.

Milady and I have taken to enjoying a happy hour cocktail on the porch as well, and the dog takes that opportunity to get some scratching.

The dog loves his scratching, especially when that scratching is provided by Milady.

Woodworth Range

I got up this morning after a long game last night, drank some coffee and thought that maybe I'd drive over to the Woodworth Range to do a final sight-in with my rifle before the hunting season. Knowing the propensity of those bureaucrats to close the range without reason or expectation, I decided that it might be prudent for me to check the website before spending my precious gasoline getting to the range only to find a locked gate. Sure enough. In big capital letters: SHOOTING RANGE WILL BE CLOSED OCTOBER 8TH

On a beautiful Saturday in October, they decided to close the range. No explanation, simply closed. Can't use it, the taxpayer be damned. Oh, next weekend is the third Saturday, and it's closed every third Saturday until noon. Some private organization has it scheduled each third Saturday for a match and rather than inconvenience the private organization, they close the range to the general public. That's our Pittman-Robertson money at work.

I can't get to the range on Thursday or Friday, for that matter, most Sundays. Saturday is the only day that I can use it, and of course that's the day they close it. The taxpayer be damned.

That's the attitude of the folks who run our taxpayer funded ranges in Louisiana.

Evil Corporations

If you've been watching the protests on Wall Street, you'll love this photo.

Those idiots couldn't make a single move without corporations. The very clothing they wear is provided by corporations. The phones they use, the cameras they snap, the signs they wave, all had a corporate background.

Stolen from Mostly Cajun, who stole it from Small Dead Animals.

In another half hour I'm going to pull my boots back on and head to the school house. It's Friday Night Football.

General? What General?

Did y'all read where some idiot General officer says that the Army has a discipline problem? Really!

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling told reporters over breakfast that only a small percentage of soldiers lack proper discipline, but he stressed his concern that it be fixed, now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down and more troops are returning to their home bases.

"In some cases there are discipline problems that we have not paid as much attention to as we should," he said, adding, "If you allow that to go unnoticed it becomes cancerous."

Hertling said soldiers need more training in the Army's professional values. And he said officers and commanders are guilty of too frequently overlooking what he called "acts of indiscipline." He cited as an example a failure to adequately punish soldiers for offenses such as drunken driving.

As far as I'm concerned, General, the mission of the Army is to close with and kill the enemy by fire and maneuver. If you've forgotten that, then you should turn in your flag immediately, because you're just a worthless REMF who shouldn't be leading soldiers.

The soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan have closed with the enemy and killed them with fire and maneuver. They've done that in spite of General Order #1, which forbids them from drinking alcohol while they're in the theater. When they come back from theater and want to have a little snort, REMFs like you criticize them.

As far as I'm concerned, General Order #1 is indicative of the political correct bullshit that pervades the uniformed services. I don't give a steaming, screaming crap if a soldier has a drink after a combat patrol. The fact that our leadership denies them that small luxury is indicative of the loss of testicular fortitude that pervades the upper ranks. When they get out of theater, General Hertling wants to make an issue of them having a drink, or two, or three.

In addition to having a problem with soldier's drinking, he also airs his dirty laundry before reporters. Hertling sounds like a political climber and he should be standing in front of his superiors, getting his ass chewed like a rookie cadet.

Lack of discipline, indeed. It sounds like the General has a lack of discipline.

Didn't Halsey say "I never trust a fighting man who didn't smoke or drink." You'd do well, General, to start doing both.

Goin' Out

I came home today and found my brother-in-law visiting from Florida. We've decided to go our for supper, so we're heading to Tunk's Cypress Inn, a little restaurant of some repute. I haven't been to Tunks in several years, so maybe it's time to see if they've upgraded the menu.

Y'all have fun tonight. I'm gonna get catfish.

Chicken Cheese Enchilada Soup

This is a cool weather favorite, and since it's cool weather and we've got a regiment of kids and grandkids, we figured we'd make this one for lunch today. It's a pleasant alternative to chilis or stews, and it's quick and easy.

Janes's Chicken Cheese Enchilada Soup

1 whole chicken, boiled and peeled from bone
4 cans Progresso Chicken Cheese Enchilada Soup
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can Rotel Tomatoes

Dump everything into a big pot. Really, that's all there is to it. One chicken, four cans of soup, a can of whole kernel corn, and a can of rotel. Let it simmer for a half-hour or so, that the flavors blend. That's one recipe. We serve it over Fritos corn chips, with shredded cheese and sour cream as a garnish.

In that big ole pot, that's a double recipe. Eight cans of soup, etc, etc. We've got a regiment coming here for lunch and that should feed them just fine.

Sunday Morning Dawg

It's been a busy week and the dog's been busy too. Lots of family and fun and work this week, so the dog and I had very little chance to play with the ball. I'm still learning to use my phone, so I tried to get video of him chasing the ball.



It's only nine seconds, but I can see that low-light video is going to be a challenge with the camera that's in the phone.