Book Review- Gunny’s Rules…

I was asked to provide a review of Gunny’s Rules- How to get squared away like a Marine.

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So…  I sat down and read it in one sitting… 🙂

I have met R. Lee Ermey, AKA Gunny, a couple of times; and I’m amazed by his ability to ALWAYS be ‘on’ when he is meeting the public.  Now having said that, he IS a Marine…

In other words he does use words that your momma would have boxed your ears for…

He defines the image of what we think a Marine Drill Instructor is, and I can tell you from experience at AOCS, he’s dead on…

He’s also rather obviously PRO-military and more specifically pro-Marine (after all he credits with the USMC with turning his life around).  The book combines part autobiography and part motivation into an interesting set of ‘rules’.  The bottom line is to help people in getting control of their lives and getting things “squared away”. The stories Gunny tells about his life, if you read between the lines there isn’t any sugarcoating, illustrate the principles he is trying to drive home.  He wasn’t a choir boy, has NEVER been one, he might have owned a choir or two…

He’s always taken care of self, family and most of all his troops.

Early in the book there is this quote- “For me, getting and holding a job has always been goal one in civilian life.  No matter what job I was holding, I was always looking for a better one… I’m a proud man, not a dependent.  I will still be providing fro my family long after I’m dead and gone.  Unemployment checks, welfare and food stamps won’t cut it, in my view.”  

He’s been up and down in his life, but the key point is he NEVER gave up, and that is what his rules do-  Get you squared away in life and motivated to keep moving forward, never giving up by preparing, going that extra mile, and reacting to ‘malfunctions’ in life…

To me the keys the Gunny brings to this are his honesty, bluntness, confidence and ability to get the point across.  None of what he says is really new, but the WAY it’s said and pointed directly at the reader through excellent examples is well worth it!

I don’t think those on the left will like the book, because it’s NOT politically correct; it talks openly about winning and losing, and how to be a winner.

Highly recommended, and just deepens my respect for the Gunny!

Yes, I was provided a copy of the book for review, but I will be paying for it, and giving it to my grandson for Christmas.  So there…

Contrary numbers…

While out and about today I heard the statistic on the radio that only 35% of homes now own guns and that 68% of Americans ‘favor’ gun control…  Needless to say, I felt this was a ‘tad’ slanted…  And since I have no idea who the commentor was, I don’t know the background but I can guess…

I did find this list from Business Insider, and it’s pretty interesting HERE.

It takes a bit to load and get through the blather, but it’s a fairly interesting set of polls.

Now I’ll be the first one to admit I don’t tend to believe polls, because they are notorious for giving the ‘desired’ answers based on the way questions are asked, and to whom…

But it’s better than putting up a blank white space, cause I’ve got zip, nada right now…

Apparently I got 22K hits yesterday from stumbleon.com over the bad puns…  That’s pretty sad when PUNS get the most hits I’ve ever seen… 😀

 

Thank you…

To Morill Worcester and Wreaths Across American

Our mission, Remember, Honor, Teach, is carried out in part by coordinating wreath laying ceremonies a specified Saturday in December at Arlington, as well as veterans’ cemeteries and other locations in all 50 states and beyond. We also organize a week of events including international veteran’s tributes, ceremonies at State Houses and a week-long “Veteran’s Parade” between Maine and Virginia where we stop along the way to spread our message about the importance of remembering our fallen heroes, honoring those who serve, and teaching our children about the sacrifices made by veterans and their families to preserve our freedoms.

This week of events is made possible by thousands of volunteers who organize local ceremonies, raise funds to sponsor wreaths, and participate in the events.  The cost of our programs is paid by individual wreaths sponsors, corporate donors and volunteer truckers.

It was a grey day at Arlington this morning, but thankfully the weather held off…

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This was from where I was parked- A shot of the back side of the Air Force Memorial.

Somewhere over 120,000 wreaths were placed today at Arlington in memory of those who lie there.

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Apparently donations were down significantly this year, but in this economy/uncertainty it’s understandable… Please if you can, donate something next year.

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God Bless everyone who came out today, not only at Arlington, but all over the country…

Worth reading…

Emily Miller has a good editoral up at the Washington Times today…

Saturday marks the first anniversary of one of the saddest days in American history. A homicidal maniac, xxxxxxxxxx, shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 young children and six teachers.

While the families of the victims and the Newtown, Conn., community have asked the media to stay away during the memorial, gun-control activists are shamelessly using Dec. 14 to push their own agenda.

Read the whole thing HERE.

As I’m sure others have and will allude to, the lefties/gun banners CONTINUE to dance in the blood of the children killed at Sandy Hook, Va. Tech, Aurora, Columbine, etc.  NONE of them want to address the real issues, which are mental health and reporting that properly to allow these people to be blocked via NICS.

Thank you to Ms. Miller for putting this in perspective…

My heart goes out to those families, I know they will never completely heal.  But at the same time I’m angry at those who would use their grief for their own ends… The families deserve the private time to grieve and try to gather up their lives…

Hehehe…

Gunny strikes again!

Bottom line, regardless of WHAT you carry, carry it everyday…

It just might save your life!

At it appears my post yesterday set off you know who… 335 by this morning…  Total last WEEK was only 92…

Coinkidink???

Any one of  these ‘coincidences’ when taken singularly appear to not mean much, but when  taken as a whole, a computer would blow a main circuit if you asked it to  calculate the odds that they have occurred by chance alone. Sit back, get a  favorite beverage, and then read and ponder  the Obama-related  ‘coincidences’ …  then super-impose the bigger picture of most recent  events i.e. Fast and furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal and the  NSA revelations … then pray for our  country.

Obama
just  happened to know 60s far-left radical revolutionary William Ayers, whose father
just  happened to be Thomas Ayers, who
just  happened to be a close friend of Obama’s communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, who
just  happened to work at the communist-sympathizing Chicago Defender with Vernon Jarrett, who
just  happened to later become the father-in-law of Iranian-born leftist Valerie Jarrett, who Obama
just  happened to choose as his closest White House advisor, and who
just  happened to have been CEO of Habitat Company, which
just  happened to manage public housing in Chicago, which
just  happened to get millions of dollars from the Illinois state legislature, and which
just  happened not to properly maintain the housing—which eventually
just  happened to require demolition.

Valerie Jarrett also
just happened to work for the city of Chicago, and
just  happened to hire Michelle LaVaughan Robinson (later Mrs.Obama), who
just  happened to have worked at the Sidley Austin law firm, where former fugitive from the FBI Bernardine Dohrn also just happened to work, and where Barack Obama
just happened to get a summer job.

Bernardine Dohrn
just  happened to be married to William Ayers, with whom she
just  happened to have hidden from the FBI at a San Francisco marina, along with Donald Warden, who
just  happened to change his name to Khalid al-Mansour, and Warden/al-Mansour
just  happened to be a mentor of Black Panther Party founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and a close associate of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, and al-Mansour
just  happened to be financial adviser to a Saudi Prince, who
just  happened to donate cash to Harvard, for which Obama
just  happened to get a critical letter of recommendation from Percy Sutton, who just happened to have been the attorney for Malcolm X, who
just  happened to know Kenyan politician Tom Mboya, who
just  happened to be a close friend of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., who
just  happened to meet Malcolm X when he traveled to Kenya.

Obama, Sr.
just  happened to have his education at the University of Hawaii paid for by the Laubach Literacy Institute, which
just  happened to have been supported by Elizabeth Mooney Kirk, who
just  happened to be a friend of Malcolm X, who
just  happened to have been associated with the Nation of Islam, which was later headed by Louis Farrakhan, who
just  happens to live very close to Obama’s Chicago mansion, which also
just happens to be located very close to the residence of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who
just  happens to have been occasional baby-sitters for Malia and Natasha Obama, whose parents
just  happened to have no concern exposing their daughters to bomb-making communists.

After  attending Occidental College and Columbia University, where he
just  happened to have foreign Muslim roommates, Obama moved to Chicago to work for the Industrial Areas Foundation, an organization that
just  happened to have been founded by Marxist and radical agitator Saul “the Red” Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, who
just  happened to be the topic of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s thesis at Wellesley College, and  Obama’s $25,000 salary at IAF
just  happened to be funded by a grant from the Woods Fund, which was founded by the Woods family, whose Sahara Coal company
just  happened to provide coal to Commonwealth Edison, whose CEO just happened to be Thomas Ayers,  whose son William Ayers
just  happened to serve on  the board of the Woods Fund, along with Obama.

Obama also worked on voter registration drives in Chicago in the 1980s and
just  happened to work with leftist political groups like the Democratic Socialists of America  (DSA) and Socialist International (SI), through which Obama met Carl Davidson, who
just  happened to travel to Cuba during the Vietnam War to sabotage the U.S. war effort, and who
just  happened to be a former member of the SDS and a member of the Committees of  Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, which
just  happened to sponsor a 2002 anti-war rally at which Obama spoke, and which
just  happened to have been organized by Marilyn Katz, a former SDS activist and later public relations consultant who
just  happened to be a long-time friend of Obama’s political hatchet man, David Axelrod.

Obama joined Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), whose pastor was Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a fiery orator who  just happened to preach Marxism and Black Liberation Theology and who delivered anti-white,  anti-Jew, and anti-American sermons, which Obama
just  happened never to hear  because he
just  happened to miss church only on the days when Wright was at his “most enthusiastic,” and Obama
just  happened never to notice that Oprah Winfrey left the church because it was too radical, and
just  happened never to notice that the church gave the vile anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan a lifetime achievement award.

Although no one had ever heard of him at the time, Obama
just happened to receive an impossible-to-believe $125,000 advance to write a book about race relations,  which he
just  happened to fail to write while using the cash to vacation in Bali with his wife Michelle, and despite his record of non-writing he just happened to receive a  second advance, for $40,000, from another publisher, and he eventually completed a manuscript called Dreams From My Father, which
just  happened to strongly reflect the writing style of William Ayers, who
just  happened to trample on an American flag for the cover photograph of the popular Chicago magazine,  which Obama
just  happened never to see even though it appeared on newsstands throughout the city.

Obama was  hired by the law firm Miner, Banhill and Galland, which
just  happened to specialize in negotiating state government contracts to develop low-income housing, and which
just  happened to deal with now-imprisoned Tony Rezko and his firm Rezar, and with slumlord Valerie Jarrett, and the law firm’s Judson Miner
just  happened to have been a classmate of Bernardine Dohrn, wife of William Ayers.
In 1994 Obama represented ACORN and another plaintiff in a lawsuit against Citibank for denying mortgages to  blacks (Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Federal Savings Bank), and the lawsuit
just  happened to result in banks being blackmailed into approving sub prime loans for poor credit risks,  a trend which
just  happened to spread nationwide, and which
just  happened to lead to the collapse of the housing bubble, which
just  happened to help Obama defeat John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.

In 1996 Obama ran for the Illinois State Senate and joined the “New Party,” which
just  happened to promote Marxism, and Obama was supported by Dr. Quentin Yong, a socialist who
just  happened to support a government takeover of the health care system.

In late 1999 Obama  purportedly engaged in homosexual activities and cocaine-snorting in the back of a limousine with a man named Larry Sinclair, who claims he was contacted in late 2007 by Donald Young, who
just  happened to be the gay choir director of Obama’s Chicago church and who shared information with Sinclair about Obama, and Young
just  happened to be murdered on December 23, 2007, just weeks after Larry Bland, another gay member of  the church just  happened to be  murdered, and both murders
just  happened to have never been solved.  In 2008 Sinclair held a press conference to discuss his claims, and
just  happened to be arrested immediately after the event, based on a warrant issued by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, who
just  happens to be the son of Joe Biden.

In 2003 Obama and his wife attended a dinner in honor of Rashid Khalidi, who
just  happened to be a former PLO operative, harsh critic of Israel, and advocate of Palestinian rights,  and who Obama claims he does not know, even though the Obamas just  happened to have dined more than once at the home of Khalidi and his wife, Mona, and  just  happened to have used them as occasional baby-sitters.  Obama reportedly praised Khalidi at the decidedly anti-Semitic event, which William Ayers
just  happened to also attend, and the event Obama pretends he never attended was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network, to which Obama
just  happened to have funneled cash while serving on the board of the Woods Fund with William Ayers, and one speaker at the dinner remarked that if Palestinians cannot  secure a return of their land, Israel “will never see a day of peace,” and entertainment at the dinner included a Muslim children’s dance whose performances
just  happened to include simulated beheadings with fake swords, and stomping on American, Israeli, and British flags, and Obama allegedly told the audience that “Israel has no  God-given right to occupy Palestine” and there has been “genocide against  the Palestinian people by (the) Israelis,” and the Los Angeles Times has a videotape of the event but just  happens to refuse to make it public.

In the 2004 Illinois Democrat primary race for the  U.S. Senate, front-runner Blair Hull just  happened to be forced out of the race after David Axelrod just happened to manage to get Hull’s sealed divorce records unsealed, which just happened to enable Obama to win the primary, so he could face popular Republican Jack Ryan, whose sealed child custody records from his divorce just  happened to become unsealed, forcing Ryan to withdraw from the race, which just  happened to enable the unqualified Obama to waltz into the U.S. Senate, where, after a mere 143  days of work, he just  happened to decide he was qualified to run for President of the United  States.

h/t JP

‘Another’ unenforceable law…

Philthydelphia strikes again…

They have apparently passed a law saying it is illegal to use a 3-D printer for a ‘gun’…

While it is now illegal to use 3-D printers to manufacture firearms without proper licensing, some Penn professors question the significance of that legislation.

In September, Philadelphia became the first city to ban the use of 3-D printers to create part or all of a firearm by anyone other than a licensed gun manufacturer.

The legislation follows debate over 3-D printed guns, which stems from a public computer file released by the Texas company Defense Distributed in May, which could be used to create a firearm called “The Liberator” on a 3-D printer. This November, the manufacturing company Solid Concepts released a video revealing the creation of a metal pistol by a 3-D printer. In the video, the gun could hit a bulls-eye from nearly 100 feet away.

Full article HERE.

So… How are they planning to enforce this??? Cameras attached to each printer?  Monitor 24/7?  Do a file check of every print command sent to a 3-D printer???

I really don’t understand HOW they think this is really going to do anything…

Honest people will remain honest, and criminals won’t…

Sigh…

Well protected…

Dunno what is going on, but I ‘think’ this hotel is probably the best ‘protected’ in the area…  This morning I noted quite a few very fit young men and women in the lobby, and I’m betting every damn one had a weapon on them.  When I went out to get in my truck, I counted at least 11 Tahoes/Suburbans in the parking lot, plus a few ‘undercover’ cars.

Yep, I think I will be able to sleep ‘well’ tonight… 🙂

And I’m severely outgunned… sigh…

Questions…

That May Never Be Answered

If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?

Would a fly without wings be called a walk?

Can you be a closet claustrophobic?

If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their lights off?

If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?

When it rains, why don’t sheep shrink?

If the cops arrest a mime, do they tell her she has the right to remain silent?

Why is the word abbreviation so long?

If a book about failures doesn’t sell, is it a success?

Do cemetery workers prefer the graveyard shift?

What do you do when you discover an endangered animal that eats only endangered plants?

Do hungry crows have ravenous appetites?

Is it possible to be totally partial?

What’s another word for thesaurus?

When companies ship Styrofoam, what do they pack it in?

If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?

Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections?

Why is there an expiration date on my sour cream?

Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

How do you know when it’s time to tune your bagpipes?

Is it true that cannibals don’t eat clowns because they taste funny?

When you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?

Do they have reserved parking for non-handicap people at the Special Olympics?

Why do they call it a TV set when you only get one?

Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?

If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?

What was the best thing before sliced bread?

How can they tell that twin lobsters are really twins?

How does a thermos know when to keep something hot, hot…and something cold, cold?

What is the speed of dark?

Why are there Braille signs on drive-up ATM’s?

If women wear a pair of pants, a pair of glasses, and a pair of earrings ,why don’t they wear a pair of bras?

How come you never hear about gruntled employees?

What is a “free” gift? Aren’t all gifts free?

After eating, do amphibians have to wait one hour before getting out of the water?

If white wine goes with fish, do white grapes go with sushi?

What’s another word for synonym?

If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?

When sign makers go on strike, what is written on their picket signs?

Where do forest rangers go to “get away from it all”?

Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?

Another swipe at retirees…

Once again the congresscritters, in conjunction with the leadership under Hagel (spit) have come after military retirees…

They once again proposed charging retirees for health care services…

“If left unchecked, pay and benefits will continue to eat into our readiness and modernization. That could result in a far less capable force that is well-compensated, but poorly trained and poorly equipped,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said in July, when he outlined some of the findings in a Strategic Choices and Management Review.

Hagel’s view is shared by the White House and the service chiefs, each of whom has testified before Congress about the ever-increasing costs associated with payroll, benefits and healthcare.

Yeah, right… Service chiefs got their marching orders from Dempsey…  Thankfully the HASC stood up for us again…

By throwing out any new increases, the House Armed Services Committee said its members believe retirees’ access to quality healthcare services is “a benefit earned through prior service to our nation.”

Full article HERE.

But it makes one wonder how long it will be before they get us some other way…

The ‘new’ budget deal has one attempt…

Targeted in the Ryan-Murray deal is full inflation protection for “working age” military retirees, those younger than 62.  Retirees 62 and older, and those retired on disability, would not be impacted.  They would continue to get annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) that match inflation as measured by the government’s Consumer Price Index.

Retirees younger than 62, and future retirees including currently serving members, would see yearly COLAs in retirement cut by one-percentage point below inflation until age 62.  At that point they would receive a one-time catch up in their annuity to restore lost purchasing power going forward into old age.

Estimated savings (e.g. loss to the service person), $83K for a retired enlisted after 20, $124K for a retired officer after 20 years.  Between retirement and age 62…

They ‘promise’ they’ll give the points back… Yeah, right…

Full article HERE.

In other news, the F/A-18 is 35 years old this year…  The platform has amassed over 8.5 MILLION flight hours since introduction.

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Sigh, I can remember when that was a NEW airplane…