Eagle Scouts…

Posted on by March 6, 2013



100 years ago this year, the FIRST Eagle Scout completed the required merit badges and interview August 21, 1912. Arthur R. Eldred of Oceanside, New York, became the first young man in America to earn the Eagle Scout award, which is pictured above.


I got mine in 1967 at age 16, and Order of the Arrow in 1968; I’ve never regretted the time or effort required, and I STILL use those life lessons learned in Scouting…


Anthony Thomas of Minnesota became the 2,000,000th Eagle Scout in 2009, and today there have been a total of 2,043,375 Eagles awarded…


As you probably know if you read MArooned, Jay and his son are active in Scouting and his son is ‘advancing’ from Cub Scouts this year.


What you may not know, is there are currently 62,226,396 Cub Scouts and 52,077,933 Boy Scouts registered with the BSA this year for a total of 114,304,329 kids in Scouting and 33,364,261 adult volunteers!


And since I’m on a roll (yeah, I know, shaddap)…


Two major artists have been closely identified with Scouting for many years, they are Norman Rockwell, who did 51 paintings about Scouting and Joseph Csatari, who has carried on the tradition with 24 paintings.  All of them can be viewed HERE.


This was the first one Norman Rockwell did in 1925…


Another little ‘oddity’ is that 181 of the Astronaut corps has been Scouts.


There is an organization called the National Eagle Scout Association that welcomes all Eagle Scouts and continues to support Scouting!


And honestly, THIS is the best thing I could come up with to post today, as NOTHING in the news was positive…


I’m curious, how many of y’all were Scouts (Boy or Girl)???

Training Guns…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

Have you, or are you looking at .22 caliber pistols for training? With the cost of ammo these days, and the crowds at the more popular ranges, we have less ‘time’ to adequately train ourselves or maintain
currency with our carry pistols.


Another thing a ‘trainer’ does for you is it will show you any flaws in your shooting, especially in the flinch reaction, and also lack of grip continuity. Also, it allows you to concentrate on sight picture, trigger press, and back on target; rather than recoil mitigation and trying to remember everything else too.


Both Smith & Wesson and Colt have built fine .22 cal revolvers that support most of their lines of more powerful revolvers. Taurus seems to only build one .22 revolver and it’s in a compact size, but it’s the same grip angle, etc.


When you move into the semi- auto category, you have roughly the same sets of choices by manufacturer, everything from Sig’s almost perfect matches of .22 cal pistols to their larger caliber ones;
to the 1911 slide replacements (and a REAL Colt one can run $600!!!), to slide replacements for Glock, and many others.


One specific one I’d like to address is the Ruger MkIII, 22/45. Ruger came out with this pistol to mimic the 1911 grip angle precisely, and the controls are in ‘similar’ places to the actual 1911. HERE is the link



At roughly $340, I spent the $$ to pick one up, as I really didn’t want to start changing slides out on my 1911s (and didn’t have the $600 for a real Colt one). I took it a step further though, in that I also wanted to match the trigger pull, and the sight picture (white dot front, plain rear notch), so I spent an additional $130 for a Volquartsen trigger and a new front sight. Volquartsen link HERE.


For rifles, you have similar options, but they are much more varied, and just about every manufacturer makes a .22 rifle. Of note, is the proliferation of .22s in the AR platform, and the colors…


My original .22 trainer was an old break-top Stevens single shot .22, which is still sitting in the safe at home, I wore that thing slap out… it’s beyond a hair trigger these days 🙂



And my grandson is getting a Marlin Model 39A…


Saw a PINK tiger striped S&W M&P .22 trainer the other day… sigh…


Edit- Peter said this in comments and it’s a point I had neglected…
I’ve used .22 training weapons for years, both for myself and friends, and to train disabled shooters.


Edit2- Keads has a post up HERE on his training weapons! Worth the read!

Heroes’ Welcome???

Posted on by March 6, 2013

So New York can’t have a parade for the Military returning from Iraq/Afghanistan, but today…


They have a parade for the New York Giants, and call them ‘heroes’ for winning the Super Bowl???


And in the last 20 years, there have only been 10 parades, ALL for sports teams…


WTF???

How available IS your carry pistol???

Posted on by March 6, 2013

It’s winter, you’re bundled up; coat, sweater, gloves… AND suddenly you need to get to your carry pistol.


Can you?


Why am I asking?


Look at the last couple of months of attacks on females/elderly, and think about this from a slightly different point of view…


How do we dress? Inside out, right? Shirt, pants, belt, all the stuff that hangs off the belt (including that carry pistol); next comes that new loose knit sweater (don’t wanna be printing, don’t ya know), over than we put on the jacket, then the gloves.


When we get to work we reverse the process to some extent, right? But ONLY when we get back home do we actually get all the way down to the carry pistol and by then the gloves, jacket and sweater are off.


Did you check that the new sweater doesn’t hang up on any protrusions on the pistol? Did you check that you can actually sweep the jacket back to get TO the sweater to get to the pistol? And those nice warm gloves, can you even get your finger IN the trigger guard without discharging the pistol?


I found out this last weekend the nicky neat new Isotoner gloves I just bought (that were all nice and warm) would NOT allow me to access the trigger with ANY feel whatsoever!!!


They went in the emergency bag in the truck…sigh…


We also discussed (and tried) accessing the pistols through various layers of clothes, and it did prove interesting.


Being an old fart, I’ve actually gone back through my wardrobe (especially sweaters and jackets) to make sure ALL of them will sweep/not snag on my carry pistols. I’ve also (with an UNLOADED) gun practiced drawing in front of the mirror to see if there are any possible hang ups.


Another point, you can shoot maybe one round from inside a coat pocket, depending on what you carry. If you have a revolver with a shrouded hammer, you ‘can’ get all the rounds off, but I’ll guarantee it’s gonna get a ‘tad’ warm in that pocket, and your accuracy will suffer (but then again, a snubby fired from a pocket is basically a belly gun anyway)…


Just a thought or two for y’all to ponder…

Blog Award… :-)

Posted on by March 6, 2013





I got an award! Somebody must have fallen asleep at the blog… 🙂 Thanks Lila!


Below is the rules of the award:
1. Copy and paste the award on our blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who gave us the award
3. Pick our five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs.


CenTexTim– College prof down in Texas, wide ranging interests, and humor!


ChristianLMT– The ho-hum life of a massage therapist and nursing student in Small Town Massachusetts.  Yeah, right… Sharp wit, good stories, and a female shooter!


My Daily Kona– Good stuff, various humor, guns, and what ever gets his attention!


My Tumultuous Adventure– Robert is a sharp young man, working hard, starting to get more and more involved in gunnie things, and tells it like it is! Good read!


New Jovian Thunderbolt– Good read, good guy, and a wide range of postings! Never know what he’s liable to put up on any given day!

Meh…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
You’d think for $3.5M per 30 second ad, the stupor bowl commercials would have been a lot better than they were…


IMHO, the best one was Clint Eastwood’s halftime for America, which had, to me, MULTIPLE meanings…


The Coke ads, were pretty much stock and trade.


Same for Chevy, VW and Bud.


Go Daddy sucked as always, the Honda spot was pathetic unless you were a Ferris Buhler fan, and I know NONE of the four kids watching at the friends even had a clue what that one was about.


Audi, well, they won’t be selling to any “twilighters” in the near future… 🙂


Probably the worst was the Seinfield ad, again references to a long dead show, slap dash, and in reality Seinfield would have just bought the dealership and kicked the guy to the curb…


The Fiat Abarth commercial was just strange, we all thought it was a ‘better’ Go Daddy until the end… 🙂


And that half-time ‘show’?  The lip sync wasn’t bad, but they had the volume too low (no great loss there) on Madonna’s voice, and WTF? with the guy shooting everybody the bird during his solo???


The game? Well it was not bad, one team won, one team lost. Since neither one was mine, I didn’t have a dog in that fight.  BUT my host probably slept on the couch last night, cause his wife is a Pats fan, and the wife and daughter are “twilighters”! 🙂 


At least I managed to get home before all the drunks hit the roads last night, I was hearing sirens till about 0130, when I finally dropped off to sleep…


Today will be interesting, in who shows up on time, who doesn’t and what shape they are in!

A Message from the Queen…

Posted on by March 6, 2013

A little humo(u)r for your Sunday…

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).


Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.  A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’  Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters,  and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’  Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels.  (look up ‘vocabulary’).

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2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ”like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.  The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the elimination of  ‘-ize.’

——————-

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

—————–

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists.  The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent.  Guns should only be used for shooting grouse.  If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.

———————-

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler.  Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

———————-

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect.  At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.   Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

——————–

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon.  Get used to it.

——————-

8. You will learn to make real chips.  Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps.  Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

——————-

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all.  Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of  known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager.  New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer.  They are also part of the British Commonwealth – see what it did for them.  American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

———————

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys.  Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters.  Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.

———————

11. You will cease playing American football.  There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders).  Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

———————

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball.  It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America.  Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.  You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

——————–

13. You must tell us who killed JFK.  It’s been driving us mad.

—————–

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

—————

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream)  when in season.


God Save the Queen!


h/t- JP

Band of Brothers…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Brother, life is too short to wake up with regrets. 
So love the people who treat you right. 
Forgive the ones who don’t, just because you can. 
Believe everything happens for a reason. 
If you get a second chance, grab it with both hands, those of you who served in Viet Nam know this. 
If it changes your life, let it. 
Take a few minutes to think before you act when you’re mad. Forgive quickly. 
God never said life would be easy, he just promised it would be worth it.

Today is Band of Brothers’ Day; send this to all your brothers, fathers, sons and fellow veterans you know. 
Happy Brothers’ Day!

I LOVE YA BROTHER!!!

To the cool men that have touched my life. Here’s to you!!! I was never a hero, but I am thankful I served among them.

A real Brother walks with you when the rest of the world walks on you.

Send to all your Band of Brothers, because the fake ones won’t.

h/t JP

Memories…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
Borepatch’s post HERE about Indigo Girls and travelling sent me down memory lane this morning…


I can remember hearing that song on the radio when it first came out, because driving cross country in the 70s, 80s, 90s, about all you got were country stations at night…


This song captured our feelings better than most back in the day, and another one I remember from when it was released…



And this was our ‘theme song’ when we were on the road, because of what we did…





One of the pilots was a country music fan, and lots of the military clubs still had juke boxes in them, usually with a few country songs on them… While Johnny Cash’s version is probably the ‘iconic’ version, Elvis had done a cover of this in 1970 and that was the one we ended up playing the most…


Memories are a funny thing, you mostly remember the good, very seldom the bad, and always remember the weird, humorous, or strange things that happened…





And sadly, this one is STILL pretty much my life, except there is no one left at home anymore…


I envy y’all that actually have stable lives, surrounded by family, friends and actually able to PLAN things more than two days in advance…


Oh well, enough of this mauldin crap… Y’all have a good weekend!!!

Marines…

Posted on by March 6, 2013
This is a poem sent from a Marine To his Dad. For those who take the time to read it, you’ll see a letter from him to  his dad at the bottom. It makes you truly thankful for not only the Marines, but ALL of our troops.

We all came together,
Both young and old
To fight for our freedom,
To stand and be bold.

In the midst of all evil,
We stand our ground,
And we protect our country
From all terror around..

Peace and not war,
Is what some people say.
But I’ll give my life,
So you can live the American way.

I give you the right
To talk of your peace.
To stand in your groups,
And protest in our streets.

But still I fight on,
I don’t bitch, I don’t whine.
I’m just one of the people
Who is doing your time.

I’m harder than nails,
Stronger than any machine.
I’m the immortal soldier,
I’m a U..S. MARINE!
 
So stand in my shoes,
And leave from your home.
Fight for the people who hate you,
With the protests they’ve shown.
Fight for the stranger,
Fight for the young.
So they all may have,
The greatest freedom you’ve won.

Fight for the sick,
Fight for the poor.
Fight for the cripple,
Who lives next door.

But when your time comes,
Do what I’ve done.
For if you stand up for freedom,
You’ll stand when the fight’s done
By: Corporal Aaron M. Gilbert , US Marine Corps USS SAIPAN, PERSIAN GULF 



And here’s the letter…


Hey Dad,
Do me a favor and label this ‘The Marine’ and send it to everybody on your email list. Even leave this letter in it. I want this rolling all over the US and Canada and The World. I want every home reading it. Every eye seeing it. And every heart to feel it. So can you please send this for me? I would but my email time isn’t that long and I don’t have much time anyway. 

You know what Dad? I wondered what it would be like to truly understand what JFK said in his inaugural speech. ‘When the time comes to lay down my life for my country, I do not cower from this responsibility. I welcome it.’ Well, now I know. And I do.. Dad, I welcome the opportunity to do what I do. Even though I have left behind a beautiful wife, and I will miss the birth of our first born child, I would do it 70 times over to fight for the place that God has made for my home. I love you all and I miss you very much.  I wish I could be there when Sandi has our baby, but tell her that I love her, and Lord willing, I will be coming home soon. Give Mom a great big hug from me and give one to yourself too.
Aaron 

Please let this marine (and all our military) know we care by passing his poem onto your friends even if you don’t usually take time to forward mail…do it this time!
Thanks,

So here it is… Let’s fulfill Aaron’s wish…