Military stories from past to present, both wars.

CJ Grisham, the fight for his freedom and ours

April 17th, 2013 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | 18 Comments »

CJ Grisham, the fight for his freedom

IMG_2006

(shot of CJ at my house during his trip to Fort Hood in conjunction with his vacation to his new duty station. Yes this is a “I love me” gun shot, we like our weapons in Texas)

CJ Grisham is a personal friend of mine and I only wish a Marine recruiter had found him first 18 ½ years ago but alas, he joined the Army and wouldn’t have it any other way.  I am proud to call him brother and for his backbone to stand up to straight out abuse by a local Police Department in Temple Texas.

This case has been going on for weeks and is now being picked up by some of the National media outlets like National Review, Fox News, the Drudge Report, the Blaze and others.  It shows that even in my great state of Texas, things can go wrong when training fails and our own Police refuse to uphold the laws they are sworn to protect. It is easier to buy 5.56 ammo online these days for people that own guns.

Our Nation is so fixated on getting rid of weapons like the AR-15 instead of focusing on eliminating the real problem of mental illness that plagues us as a nation.  Instead we allow an inanimate object to be the scapegoat to all of our problems.

That is another subject, I digress as CJ’s plight has the Temple Police Department calling the Mayor asking “How much will this jack up our insurance premiums?” I mean, if the dashcam video (which they are dragging their feet on) comes out and the initial encounter matches CJ’s claim, then we have sunk to a police state much like Nazi Germany in the late 30’s of “Show me your papers now.”

Crazy huh?  Speaking of absolutely obsessed is the side note of a former Soldier who was once a great reporter in my opinion and now is fixated on CJ.  I mean to the point that he leaves hundreds of spam comments on any news source that covers CJ while posting straight up hateful and libelous falsehoods.  I truly think this will be the tipping point in terms of his loyal fan base seeing an unhealthy obsession with CJ’s case or at least they see him now for what he is and I only bring this part of the story up so if folks want to take one side or the other, they have all the facts.

I do thank Yon for giving CJ a lot of attention on his site though to help out with his fundraiser which has now topped over 20,000 dollars.  How is that for a laugh? Enough people agree with CJ’s case that they are willing to put their hard earned money where it counts the most vice a Malware infested website from Thailand.

Oh well, this person is residing in Thailand although his twitter feed still says he is located in Afghanistan.  You can read all about him here where he is exposed for the stalker he has become by “Loopy Libertarian” http://asp.militarygear.com/2013/03/29/lets-talk-about-stalking/

(Yep, Yon, sue me because this will all be entered in the case and I will win not that you have anything worth taking.)

CJ is a lot more restrained then I am and finally wrote about it here….

http://asp.militarygear.com/2013/04/11/michael-yon-integrity-check/

All I can say is that when CJ runs for Office, I will work for him in any capacity that he desires.  You heard me right…when this Soldier runs for office and I know he will one day, I will be honored to empty his trashcans and clean the head although I would like to be his pilot…ha!!

Here are links to all the stories coming out on him and I hope you enjoy this.

Semper Fi, Taco

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/345714/free-cj-grisham

http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/war-veteran-arrested-for-rudely-displaying-rifle.html

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A Band of Brothers in search of Posers

March 25th, 2013 Posted in Military | 3 Comments »

One thing that always drives me nuts (aside from the ranting comments of a former war reporter) are posers.  My wife thinks I’m nuts for putting so much time and energy into exposing folks, but to me they deserve it.  If you want to wear the uniform, well go earn it.  Take the time to attend a three month vacation and a few years of your life exploring new lows of humanity around the world.

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Recently, I found a young man pretending to be a Sgt. In the Marine Corps.  I befriended him on Facebook and made snap shots of his photo’s posing as a decorated war hero.  He was exposed over on Jonn’s site, “This Ain’t hell” (one of my daily reads) and to his credit, he wrote an apology letter for his actions.  He is one of the few to do that but in this day and age but you are and will always be exposed as a poser on the internet forever.

To all the folks out there who think they will get away with it and then cry foul when exposed, I say just don’t do it.  Not worth it and with the dedicated sniffer’s out there like myself, Jonn Lilyea, Mark Seavey, Sgt. Fred Campbell, Mary Schantag, Jug Burkett, Doug Sterner, Ex-PH2 and Hondo with hundreds of other Veterans actively looking around.  Don’t be surprised when your pictures end up on on sites like “This Ain’t Hell” or  “Stolen Valor” or “Guardian of Valor” or “The Fake Warrior Project” or “Home of Heroes” or maybe Scotty’s “Stolen Valor Offenders Exposed“, who will find you and expose your fraud to the world and like an Atom, will last a lifetime.  I was remiss and almost left out the greatest SEAL buster of them all, Don Shipley who just doesn’t mess around so if you want to pretend to be a Navy SEAL, heaven help your sorry butt….

Those of us who have served one tour or 27 years like me are proud of our service and will make sure that you don’t sully the honor and dedication so many have given to this great country.

Semper Fi,

Taco

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Goodbye to General James Mattis

March 21st, 2013 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | 2 Comments »

Goodbye to General James Mattis

There are some leaders who are particularly notable and General Mattis is one of them.  He is a living legend among all Marines and the closest thing to Chesty Puller that we have produced in many generations.   There are thousands of  Marines who would take a bullet to protect this man because he endears all that is special to our Marine Corps.  I wanted to post these classic one liners from this super Marine to help keep his legend alive…

Semper Fi Sir,

Taco

Mattis-Flickr

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff
March 18, 2013

Gen. James Mattis, known to his troops as “Mad Dog Mattis,” is retiring after 41 years of military service.

The Marine Corps Times is calling Mattis the “most revered Marine in a generation.

Mattis has been commander of the United States Central Command since 2010 and led the 1st Marine Division into Iraq in 2003.

According to reports, President Barack Obama decided to force the Marine Corps legend out early because he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way, and forced them to answer tough questions regarding Iran.

Mattis was an inspirational leader of men and his powerful words will go down in history.

Here are some of the best words that the “Mad Dog” has had to offer:

1. “I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word.”

(San Diego Union Tribune)

 

2. “The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some a**holes in the world that just need to be shot.”

(Business Insider)

3. “I come in peace. I didn’t bring artillery. But I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you f**k with me, I’ll kill you all.”

(San Diego Union Tribune)

4. “Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.”

(San Diego Union Tribune)

 

5. “Marines don’t know how to spell the word defeat.”

(Business Insider)

6. “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”

(San Diego Union Tribune)

7. “The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears.”

(San Diego Union Tribune)

8. “You are part of the world’s most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon.”

(Mattis’ Letter To 1st Marine Division)

 

9. “There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.”

(Business Insider)

10. “No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote.”

(Defense News)

11. “There is nothing better than getting shot at and missed. It’s really great.”(AMEN!)

(San Diego Union Tribune)

12. “You cannot allow any of your people to avoid the brutal facts. If they start living in a dream world, it’s going to be bad.”

(San Diego Union Tribune)

 

13. “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”

(CNN)

14. “I’m going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will write about what we do here for 10,000 years.”

(San Diego Union Tribune)

15. “Demonstrate to the world there is ‘No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy’ than a U.S. Marine.”

(Mattis’ Letter To 1st Marine Division)

16. “Fight with a happy heart and strong spirit”

(Mattis’ Letter To 1st Marine Division)

 

 

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USMC Summer Leadership and Character Development Academy at Quantico VA (SLCDA) July 21-27th of 2013.

January 9th, 2013 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | No Comments »

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USMC Summer Leadership and Character Development Academy at Quantico VA (SLCDA) July 21-27th of 2013.

There are kids out there who are starved and I don’t mean in the pit of their stomachs (there are many of those sadly) but kids who crave to be the best.  They desire to aspire above what the average teenager shoots for and are rough diamonds being chipped away daily with little doses of polish applied.

Those are the kids who apply for these Leadership programs across the nation.  They may not fully realize how this is setting them up for success down the road until years later, but they see opportunities and go for it now!

The United States Marine Corps is sponsoring a week long Leadership and Character Development Academy on MCB Quantico.  The considerable time and dedication put forth on this project is evident in the success of the test program.  The Commandant of the Marine Corps (General Amos) and the Director of Marine Corps Staff (LtGen Williams) our Commanding General (MajGen Osterman) are huge supporters of the program and recognize the value it provides to our youth.

The 96 kids across our nation who are awarded a slot to this program will be exposed over the course of a week to many Leadership and Ethics scenario’s that all tie in to one another.  Daily guest speakers on top of college prep courses will surpass our goal to provide training they can take back to their schools.  With new tools in their “Tool Bag” to help make them better citizens of our community, their families and peers.

If this will help feed your starving ambitious child, then I look forward to seeing their application.  You can download more information and the application here http://www.mcrc.marines.mil/unithome/slcda.aspx

Semper Fi,

LtCol Bell

SLCDA School Brief Nov 28a version b

2013 SLCDA Application

https://www.facebook.com/MarinesSLCDA

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Gun Control, how do I work against this?

January 6th, 2013 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | No Comments »

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/…n_control.htmlJanuary 6, 2013

A recipe for activism against efforts at gun control
Lee DeCovnick

“Obama Plans Broad Gun Control” screamed the Drudge Report headline. So what actions can a responsible gun owner take to stop this legislative insanity? There are, of course, the accepted channels of communications: email and phone calls to your two Senators and the Representative from your Congressional district. Having once worked as an idealistic political intern in a legislative office, I was flabbergasted at the utter contempt that the staff and “my” legislator held for the ordinary voters of the district. Respect was only paid to the large financial donors and their minions.

Emails and phone calls may have a modest but fleeting effect on most ordinary Congressional votes. However, the Obama Gun Grab is not an ordinary vote. This legislation is a direct assault on the 2nd Amendment, personal firearm ownership, and certainly paves the way for the indefinite detention of disarmed undesirable political and religious opponents and their families.

So, what actions can a responsible gun owner take to stop this legislative insanity? First and foremost, accept that you have fears and channel that anger and outrage into a productive and effective plan to defeat this legislation. Humans have an instinctual fear / threat reaction that saved our Pleistocene ancestors on the plains of Africa. Today gun owners must not wave weapons in the air and jabber mindlessly at those who wish to disarm us.

We are still thinking citizens of this great nation, not a mob. We must act calmly and rationally. We must let our legislators know exactly what the electoral consequences of their votes will be. Period. Everything else is just the mis-allocation of American gun owner resources. Money, time and stick-to-itiveness are exactly what is needed to defeat B. H. Obama’s gun grab.

Ok here is a recipe on how each one of us can have a significant and vital effect on the upcoming Congressional vote on Gun Control.

Ingredients:

a) A lump sum of money – $750 to $1,500 dollars (more if you can afford it) -transferred into your checking account.

b) A checkbook

c) Three stamped envelopes addressed to the NRA, JFPO, or your choice of any other pro gun organizations.

National Rifle Association of America

11250 Waples Mill Road

Fairfax, VA 22030

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JFPO)

JPFO Inc.

P.O. Box 270143

Hartford, WI 53027

d) A couple of days of your time.

e) The street addresses and directions to your Congressman and Senator’s local offices. Find out if they take appointments for Constituent Services and make an appointment, well before the Congressional vote on this issue.

Directions:

Dress well, be polite, do not carry any weapons including pocket knives, and show up for your Constituent Services appointment. No appointment, ask to speak to a staff member for just five minutes about your concerns regarding Obama’s gun control legislation. Some Congressional offices will ask you to wait, hoping you will just go away. Bring a book, some snacks and a truckload of patience. Ask every half hour when you can speak to a staffer. Never raise you voice or lose your cool because the staffers are trained to call security at the slightest show of anger.

When you sit down with a staffer, they will ask for you name, address and phone number. Give them this information and then show them your driver’s license proving you live in the Congressman’s district.

Tell them – calmly – in a few sentences, why you oppose the legislation. Use examples from history. Explain that the 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with ensuring that the people of the United States, not the government, back our 1st Amendment rights.

Then pull out you checkbook, and write a check to the NRA (or other organizations) for a third of the funds you have allocated.

Show them the check, seal it in the envelope and politely ask them to mail the check for you. Some offices will, other won’t. Don’t sweat it.

Finally, softly tell the staffer an equal amount of money will be given to the Congressman/ Senators opponent in the next election if they vote for the gun control legislation.

Thank them for their time and for listening to your concerns.

Repeat at the other two Congressional offices on your list.

That’s it. Just money, time and stick-to-itiveness are all you need to make a strong impression that will be carefully reported to the Congressman. Count on it.

Pass these instructions to all your friends who support gun ownership and want to stop gun confiscation. If tens of thousands of citizens show up at their local Congressional offices and demand that this bill be defeated, it will be defeated. It’s that simple and that hard.

I know some gun owners dislike the NRA, tough tinsel. We must stick together in this legislative effort or eventually face tyranny unarmed and unprotected. And we all know how that worked out for the Jews of Germany, the Kulaks of Ukraine, and some 60 million Chinese slaughtered by Mao and the Red Army.

The 2nd Amendment is not about hunting or self-defense. It’s there to protect the individual citizen from the abusive powers of a tyrannical government.

Do the readers of American Thinker trust this, or any Administration, with the lives of our family and loved ones? Me neither.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/…#ixzz2HER5qXBS

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Post 9-11 Education Benefits and transfer commitment

December 28th, 2012 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | 3 Comments »

Welcome to the New Year…

After almost 27 years in the Marine Corps (joined in 1986) with a six year break in the IRR, I thought that maybe I should retire or at least think about it since I was going on my 22nd “Sat Year” according to my MOL CRCR report.

Well, last April I looked into transferring my education benefits to my children since I rated the Post 9-11 education with the tours over in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I remembered they changed that law back in ’09 that you could do this but didn’t really explore that option since I planned reviewing that when I put my papers in.

You can imagine my surprise when I found out that I now incurred an additional three year commitment to receive this awesome benefit.  Yeah, actually it was a mixture of anger at myself for not reviewing the new order like I should have and some serious disbelief.

I made calls to Marine Corps Man Power and Reserve Affairs, then all the way to OSD looking for a waiver.  I found out that there are no waivers to this and it’s so discombobulated that you have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

So let me enlighten you all as to what will happen when you are thinking about putting in your papers…

First, if you are eligible to enter this program, do it RIGHT NOW, don’t wait one single minute.  Go Google “How do I transfer my college education benefits to my children” that will take you to the OSD/DOD website where you will sign up for this.  Sign up and put how much you want for your spouse or kids to get and hit enter.  That will then go to a Major up at M&RA who approves it and you get a notice back telling you of your new drop dead date of when you can retire.  The OSD website gives you a notice of yes you are enrolled and when your new separation date is.

Then you have to fill out “Post 9-11 educational Benefits transferability commitment and SOU” form.  You have to initial your form, have your CO sign it and then have it entered into your OMPF.  A good contact for that would be Gunny Washington (Washington GySgt Tracy A <tracy.washington@usmc.mil) and once it’s in your record you are set.

Now for the gotchas that I see:

You have to stay in a paid IMA or SMCR unit for the next three years or (four if you are active duty )and as a reservist, you can’t have ONE day in the IRR.  Let me repeat this, you cannot have ONE SINGLE DAY IN THE IRR in between jobs or this venture is null and void.

What drove me nuts is that I have served that time since ’09 when the law was made but they don’t take in account time served.  Also if you are retired, it’s too late you can’t go back.  So you have to do this now.

So, to my fellow Service members (all branches) if you are close to retirement, get this done now so that the rest of your time runs concurrent with your commitment.

Just my thought for the day so that you start this New Year out on the right path and not frustrated…  Good Luck and Semper Fi,

Taco

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Merry Christmas

December 24th, 2012 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | 1 Comment »

Merry Christmas to all our troops overseas today.  Away from your family 8 thousand miles around the world.  You are with your other family and some of my fondest memories are from the times on the road with my brothers from a different mother.

You all are not forgotten by the folks here and I wish you a safe Christmas and a Blessed New Year.

Semper Fi,

Taco

Take away all the guns NOW!!

December 17th, 2012 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | 13 Comments »

george

While we reflect today over the events Friday, I allowed myself to get agitated at one of my Cousins. It was more her friend, but I allowed that to push me into attack mode and for that, I’m sorry. So Candy, hope you understand. There is a problem out there, not with guns but with how we as a country raise our kids.

Before I start that me say that as we all fight each other over this issue, please remember the families who are about to bury their child, because, in the end it’s about that. As a Father my heart goes out to them all in terms of what they face from now until they pass.

There are many factors for how our children are being brought up that no one touches.  It’s too easy to blame the folks out in L.A., I mean Hollywood promotes these movies that are filled with just utter mass killings and we pay to see it. I was bored one night in my BOQ room and rented “Expendables 2” probably one of the worst films ever made.  I lost count after about 40 guys were shot, blown up and stabbed for no reason except to die.  Not even a great “Guy” movie at all.

That leads into the video games which aren’t the friendly PacMan types like we played as kids, it’s us against them, Taliban vs American’s. So we have a generation of kids playing Call to duty and watching these shoot up films.  No wonder we have it in our minds that killing is cool.  Kids sit on the sofa playing this crap for hours.

Of course this is the typical hype that folks like to throw out, shifting the blame from guns to what caused it.  Actually, I don’t think movies and video’s cause folks to go off the deep end, but it doesn’t help a kid grow into a productive citizen that’s for sure. 

This is a failure of the parents.  YES PARENTAL  FAILURE.  We try to raise our children in a manner that we think is good but face it; there are parents out there who have failed on this mission.  This could go on forever when you also break into the social and economic factors of say “GangBangers”shooting each other in the middle of Washington DC.

Guys like the shooter (I won’t ever say his name, may he burn in hell) had mental problems and maybe he had some issues that might have been identified years ago and enough to sequester is butt into the loony bin. I’d like to see him and others like him  sitting there leaking saliva from his mouth as he watches reruns of the Brady Bunch while popping pills daily to calm him.  Instead, he was 20, on the streets with some serious problems.  The Mom had a bunch of guns in her house. I doubt they were just lying around on the coffee table.  Did you ever stop to think that she might have had those weapons because she feared her crazy son? Too bad she didn’t have the chance to use them on this monster, it would have made a slight footnote in history vice the damage he did.

This is the perfect fear Storm as the fourth shooting in the last four years.  President Obama has spoken some lines about what he intends to do and something must be done…

I ask you what exactly needs to be done?

The shooter broke laws already on the books when he killed his Mother, stole her guns and her car and then took guns to a gun free zone.  What laws could change that? He was underage so it’s not like he could have bought the guns legally.  So what needs to be changed? Collect ALL THE GUNS in America?

I don’t see that working. You are just collecting the guns from responsible parties (I will concede that there are some wackjobs who own guns but the good ones outnumber them) and then when the bad guys show up to rob you, it’s bring a knife to a gun fight.

Really, think about it…DC is a gun free city.  You can’t own a gun there. Yet look at the stats of the number of shootings they have.  Same with Chicago.  Now that pisses me off in a weird way thinking of my Mentor, a highly decorated Army Colonel who lives in DC and he can only defend himself with a baseball bat against the armed gang bangers who like to rob the wealthy white guys homes.

Folks then say “why should you have high capacity magazines?  Why should American’s own an AR-15 or AK-47?” I mean, anti-gun folks really go nuts over this debate and don’t think you should have the ability to shoot that many rounds in a few minutes. The gun rights guys also froth at the mouth over the idea of taking them away too.  This is a subject that causes some heated arguments from the keyboard warriors out there.  Frankly some part of me agrees with that concept of why do we need to own an AK but that is up to the individual and it’s his right, but it’s back to the whole “where were the parents of all these shootings over the years?”

The truth is I could do more damage with a good Remington 30.06 sporting a nice scope that is semi-automatic just like an AR.  The difference is my shots would be deadly accurate unlike pulling the trigger and spraying and praying so commonly shown in the movies.

Most of the shooters are mental.  They are not Tea Party Guys, they aren’t NRA folks or Red Neck hillbilly’s from West VA, for the most part they are Mental period.  If you really want to get into politics, they were Democrats at least a few were registered ones.  And mental!  Does that mean all Democrats who are anti-gun should be tested? The fun part of me says yes when you read the trash guys like Bill Maher spew on a daily basis.

John Fund wrote a great piece on the realities of mass shootings you can read here and the facts in here will blow you away. How many of them were unstable, mental jackwagons who went on to do something evil?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335739/facts-about-mass-shootings-john-fund#

(“First, the mental-health issue. A lengthy study by Mother Jones magazine found that at least 38 of the 61 mass shooters in the past three decades “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.” New York Times columnist David Brooks and Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson have both suggested that the ACLU-inspired laws that make it so difficult to intervene and identify potentially dangerous people should be loosened. “Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement?” asks Professor Jacobson. “I doubt it.”)

Actually, another great piece to come out is this is “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother”

This article was heartbreaking but talks about what steps some parents need to do when their kids go nuts, beyond what a normal child would be like.  It’s back to the parents and making that hard choice.

Then you have Clayton Cramer who put this together…

http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/madness-deinstitutionalization-murder

 

He has pieced together facts with sources to back them.  Well worth reading if you would like to present facts to a Rabid Anti-gun freak.  They won’t read this nor will anybody else on MSN or ABC because it doesn’t fit their agenda.  The folks at “This Ain’t Hell” one of my favorite sites also put up some great reading material you need to see…

So if you are Rabid Anti-gun person, feel free to comment but I know you will just spew hatred vice intelligent conversation.  How do I know that? Well, It already happened with a hate filled Liberal named Kim Price who said a ton of nice things to me on my cousins FB page. Oh well, I’m pretty thick skinned so they roll off my back.  Then you have Jessica (named changed to protect the crazy) who had some other choice things to say like this.  It was nice of her to apologize later for that comment but still, venom, toxic venom…

  • Jessica Boldfine It’s that important to you, huh? Well. I’m glad innocent Americans can die all across the country every year to protect your right to carry a semi automatic weapon. Hope it helps you sleep, all those 6 year old souls for your precious glock.

 

They don’t know me or my background, which actually led to some interesting back and forth chats. To them I was just another gun loving killer who would sacrifice little kids to keep my Glock and not the Marine of 27 years who has been around weapons all his life.  So I guess you can tell where I stand on the right to own a weapon.

So I’ll end my soapbox with this…hug your kids, love them and raise them with God in their hearts and do your best.  There are many families who are still sobbing endless streams of tears over the massacre on Friday by this Mental jackwagon.  If we as parents do our duty and separate our dangerous children from the masses, maybe it would have stopped about 38 of the last sixty-one shootings over the decades in our country as well as others.  As a Nation, we need to find those values we had years ago and instill them into our kids. Give them the Character to stand up for what is right and protect others. Find a moral base again. We have lost so much but where do you go to reclaim it?

S/F

Taco

 

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God Bless you Blake Page and Merry Christmas

December 7th, 2012 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | 2 Comments »

West Point Senior Blake Page, drops out this week citing Religion (or his lack of) as the reason why he had to leave.  Blake Page quit West Point and suffers from clinical depression which is probably the reason they didn’t make him serve on the enlisted side again to pay back the huge amount of money Uncle Sam spent on him.  I’m actually glad he is getting the help he needs so down the road as he ponders the meaning of life, we don’t read about him going Nuclear on his fellow Soldiers with an M-4 or harming himself like others have done who suffer from depression.  That is a real problem right now throughout our Military.

Blake as you sit there at your Grandparents house in Georgia, don’t blame religion on your departure, you are clinging to an excuse.  I ask that you own up to the fact you have some medical problems that won’t allow you to go on in a career in the Army.  Regroup, work on your depression and turn your life around.  You can do this! 

I promise you this, if you go down the route of “Oh poor me the atheist” then you will be used as a poster boy by those groups, your 15 seconds of fame will falter and soon you will be a Wikipedia footnote on failure as they dump you for the next druid from the Air Force Academy who is still in…

Get help, I mean that in a sincere way.  You have served our country and I respect that Blake…Merry Christmas and may God Bless you in the future with a great new year.

Semper Fi,

Taco

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Lindsey Stone-Fired and maybe laughing all the way to the bank

November 22nd, 2012 Posted in The SandGram v1.0 | 1 Comment »

The sad part is now that they have fired her and her idiot friend, the company will have to pay unemployment if it’s not in their company handbook. My wife who runs a Plumbing business says that unless they go through all the proper steps (in texas) verbal warning, written warning then fired the company may be paying for this for years. They have to be told in their handbook what they expect from them. So now she may get up to 80% of what she made until she finds another job. She may be laughing all the way to the bank. That is sad. My friend Jonn over at “This Ain’t Hell” who broke this on Monday, says it best…

“So, it looks like Lindsey Stone and her photographer have been fired, according to their employer. So it looks like someone in this country has discovered that actions have consequences. I sympathize with some people who claim she shouldn’t have been fired, but that was her employers decision, all I did was post the photo – and then I went to bed. By the time I woke up in the morning and logged on to the blog, it was completely out of my hands. There were over 250 comments and tens of thousands of visitors.

My former editor at Business Insider, Robert Johnson, a veteran himself, tried to defend Lindsey yesterday;

The blind adoration of the military and its personnel is getting creepy, and I’m talking from the inside looking out. While correcting the ugly way Vietnam veterans were treated is good, the over-compensation needs to stop. Putting on a uniform doesn’t change who you are, and questioning institutions and individuals, including the military and its troops, is good and healthy.

If there had been social media in the middle 70s, and a photo like this had been taken and spread around, it would have got guffaws and applause. Probably right up through the eighties, that photo would have elicited that response. The country had lost it’s way in the late sixties. People like John Kerry were heroes. Morals didn’t exist in the popular culture. Jimmy Carter awarded the folks who ran out on their responsibilities a pardon his first day in office. There were no consequences for bad acting.

What happened to Lindsey Stone this week had nothing to do with “blind adoration of the military”, it had to do with a line being drawn in the sand of the culture war. It turns out that some Americans are tired of the “Occupy” generation. Their outrage over this picture has been building in the last several years.

OK, Lindsey wants to make it about the sign, fine, the sign was there to remind people of how they behave in civil society, if the sign wasn’t there, most Americans would still know how to act.

That “blind adoration of the military” didn’t work so well for those Marines who urinated on dead Taliban. Some of them lost their jobs over that little photographic incident. How did Lindsey feel about that? What did Robert Johnson think about that? Me, personally, I thought it was stupid that they photographed their antics, but they shouldn’t lose their jobs over it, the same way I felt about Lindsey, but their employers thought differently. And I had no input in either case. I may be wrong, but I don’t remember Robert sticking up for those Marines either.

At Huffington Post, some yuppie turd named Chez Pazienza tells veterans how we should feel about this issue because, he claims, his father was a SEAL “for Christ’s sake”. I doubt that his father as a SEAL, that’s just something yuppie turds say because they have no moral authority in a discussion. In fact if you go through the comments, all of the yuppie turds claim that they have a dog in this discussion because someone they know was in the military, not that they themselves were in the military. Thanks, guys, but you are exactly the reason that most of America drew a line in the sand. “My cousin’s neighbor’s dog collar was made by a veteran” isn’t much moral authority at all.

Now that it’s all said and done, I’d like to thank The Burn Pit, Michelle Malkin’s Twitchy, Wizbang, Milblogging, The Shit Pile and Free North Carolina for recognizing that it was us who broke the story initially. And thanks to JP for sending us the link initially.

And, oh, have a Happy Thanksgiving. I have four generations of Lilyea women in my house today, so I might be a little disconnected from the blog today.”

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