Frank Buckles, the last American Doughboy from WWI is dead. He died Sunday in Charles Town, WV at 110 years old. Mr. Buckles was instrumental the last few years in promoting/speaking about the need for a TRUE WWI Memorial, and was a national treasure…
You can read the article in the NYT HERE. And Borepatch has a nice tribute up HERE with video…
Rest in Peace Corporal, your work is done… And God Bless you…
With all the kindness I can muster, I give this one piece of advice to the next pop star who is asked to sing the national anthem at a sporting event: save the vocal gymnastics and the physical gyrations for your concerts. Just sing this song the way you were taught to sing it in kindergarten — straight up, no styling.
Sing it with the constant awareness that there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines watching you from bases and outposts all over the world. Don’t make them cringe with your self-centered ego gratification.
Sing it as if you are standing before a row of 86-year-old WWII vets wearing their Purple Hearts, Silver Stars and flag pins on their cardigans and you want them to be proud of you for honoring them and the country they love — not because you want them to think you are a superstar musician. They could see that from the costumes, the makeup and the entourages.
Sing “The Star Spangled Banner” with the courtesy and humility that tells the audience that it is about America, not you.
If you can’t or won’t, then don’t do it again…
Got a little range time with Me from Lagniappe’s Lair today, and got to meet Murphy for the first time… 60+lbs of friendly, shedding German Shepard does “interesting” things to a fleece jacket…LOL
I don’t particularly care for shooting in the cold, but it’s good ‘practice’… And it looks like 340+ rounds without cleaning are about all the FN Tac 45 will take without cleaning, as it did start having FTFs, so tomorrow it gets a detail strip and cleaning tomorrow.
I was breaking in a new 30-06 and Me was trying to get the final zero on his lefty Savage Tactical in .308…
Those last half inches of scope alignment are hell… 1 click up, 1 click left; lather rinse repeat, drop a flyer, shoot two, adjust… sigh…
ME ran out of ammo, and I ran out of shoulder… 30-06 in a Featherweight DOES get your attention, trust me!
But a fun time was had by all 🙂
In other news, I’m beginning to believe the dems ARE going to try to close down the government… I think these idjits in DC are looking at what the dems are doing in WI and thinking they can do the same thing and blame the Republicans (and they are already positioning themselves to do that on the political programs)…
Libya has truly blown up, with Gaddafi hiring mercenaries to come in and kill his ‘opponents’ (his own people), and the US has ‘finally’ said they will embargo him and have frozen his US holdings. The ‘delay’ was waiting for US citizens to get out of Tripoli (on a boat that was WAY too small)…
Hello State Dept? Ya ever hear of HEAD COUNT??? 210ft boat is NOT BIG ENOUGH!!! The Greeks, with half the number of people, had a boat twice as big!
And Zercool has an excellent post up HERE on situation awareness when you are buying or selling via any list… Well worth the read, and good common sense!
Now back to gun cleaning, y’all enjoy the weekend!!!
From Politico… By Glenn Thrush…
The Democratic National Committee wanted to honor Nancy Pelosi Thursday — but its praise wasn’t good enough for the House minority leader.
When the DNC’s Resolutions Committee brought up a resolution commemorating Pelosi’s years as speaker of the House, Pelosi’s daughter sought to alter the proposal at her mother’s behest, adding some of the accomplishments that the elder Pelosi felt the committee had overlooked.
“I have some friendly amendments,” said Christine Pelosi, a political strategist, at the committee’s session during the DNC Winter Meeting at the Marriott Wardman Park hotel Thursday afternoon. She is a member of the committee.
“You think I’m kidding,” Christine Pelosi added, to surprised laughter from the room. The proposed changes, she indicated, came out of a discussion with her mother.
First, Pelosi wanted to add a mention of her fight against HIV and AIDS, because it was “why she went to Congress.” Then, she wanted to insert a paragraph on her “accomplishments for equality,” mentioning the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 and the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in December.
“Finally, since, as she said, ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she wanted to add, in the final ‘whereas’ clause, ‘…and will continue the fight for America’s working families,'” Christine Pelosi said.
The committee applauded that point, and approved the amended resolution on a voice vote.
It is more and more obvious Pelosi’s ego knows NO bounds… sigh…
I really don’t know what else to say, since I KNOW I’d have to start using four letter words to express myself…
Now THIS is the definition of accuracy… from the pointy end, not the usual view…
The attached video was filmed by some Air Force Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTAC) in Tal Afar, west of Mosul in Iraq . A marine unit got pinned down in the street. They set their video camera on the bumper of their armored HUM-V, which they were using for cover. Keep an eye on the opposing van parked just down the street. On the audio you can hear them shooting back and forth. The rounds you can hear are from the Marines, and the ones you hear pinging against the side of the vehicle with no accompanying pop are from the bad guys. When the Marine says they just fired the “rifle,” it means an F-16 aircraft just launched a Maverick missile. You can hear it come in and see it strike the vehicle the bad guys were using for cover.
Probability is the 16 used either TV or Laser designator…
I’d actually forgotten I’d ordered the rig below, as it’s been a “while” in the finishing, but it was well worth the wait!!!
This is old school holster work, done by a master craftsman! Kenny Rowe and his son Cody out of Hope, AR did this work for me, based on the old style floral (also called Mexican) patterns dating back at least to the late 1800s and popularized by Heiser around the turn of the last Century.
The belt matches the holster, and both are outstanding! And NONE of the work was done with machines, it was all done by hand, and I can’t find any mistakes anywhere!!!
Taking nothing away from the young holster makers (and I support them too), this is the kind of work it is almost impossible to find anymore, anywhere… Kenny has been doing this for over 30 years, and was trained by his Dad, who started doing this back in the 50s! They are a soup to nuts shop… Boots to saddles and everything in between.
And I gotta tell ya, given a choice between wearing Kydex and this…
Well, lets just say the Kydex will be residing in the back of the spare holster box…
A few of us got together at NRA today for a mini shoot, in attendance were The Miller and his son, Bus Error, New Jovian Thunderbolt, Newbius and myself. A couple of others couldn’t make it due to work/other reasons…
I got there at 0800, figuring a half hour early would be fine, but NOooo… I was about 20th in line… NJT, Miller and his son were there at 0730 and were about 4th in line (OBTW, they don’t even OPEN until 0830).
After sign in, they gave us three lanes, and a hard one hour stop, as there was a waiting list, and reminded us NO PICTURES… sigh…
Anyhoo, we set up proceeded to shoot a WIDE variety of weapons… I “think” NJT actually kept track. On a funny note, NJT asked me to watch him and see if I could see what he was doing wrong, so I handed off a pistol to Newbius and got behind NJT- He promptly proceeded to keep em all in the black, looked around at me and shrugged…
I told him I WAS NOT going to stand behind him every time just so he could get it right…
NJT tried the FN Tac 45 with the Trijicon optic and turned around and said, “This is so easy, it’s boring”…
Note to self- When you practice mag changes, KEEP YOUR FRIKKIN FINGER OUT OF THE WAY… Magazines WILL seat even if part of your finger happens to be in the way, and blood gets everywhere… sigh…
We got done about to the minute (I was still cleaning up the lane when the next group started setting up), and cleaned up and adjourned to the NRA museum for a walkthrough. They had changed a few exhibits since the last visit, so I was trying to find all the ‘new’ stuff since the last trip…
A couple are shown below…
Ironically, Bloviating Zepplin put up a video of this very gun today, so HERE is the link to see the video about it- This is the Lewis and Clarke Air Gun…
And for all you Serenity fans… Fillion’s pistol! Based on a Taurus of all things… sigh…
Breda and Tam have stirred up the masses with two different posts about the gun world, and the various commenters showed just about every perspective from agreement, to envy, to jealousy, to dismissal, to out and out stupidity because one or both tromped on “their” pet belief… Now Jay, on the other hand, just does it to stir the pot 🙂 And Peter chimed in with a bit of background on Tam…
Tunisia toppled Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali; now Egypt. It was interesting to watch the ‘variety’ of coverage between the BBC, CNN, and EuroTV on what was happening…
The WAPO does contests occasionally, and this is one of the better ones from them…
For Valentine’s Day, a romatic first line, followed by a unromantic second line 🙂
Enjoy!!!
1. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you has screwed up my life.
2. I see your face when I am dreaming.
That’s why I always wake up screaming.
3. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not.
4. Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss,
But I only slept with you ’cause I was pissed.
5. I thought that I could love no other
— that is until I met your brother.
6. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s empty and so is your head.
7. I want to feel your sweet embrace;
But don’t take that paper bag off your face.
8. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes
Damn, I’m good at telling lies!
9. My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?
10. My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe ‘Go to hell.’
11. What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.