We wish to honor Memorial Day and the Soldiers and Contractors who have fallen wile serving our country
For the guys here with a couple of bucks lying around (I know things are tight and it is the end of the month) please go to www.treatanysoldier.com and buy a care package for a Soldier. You can choose several different care packages from a pack of cookies for 18 bucks (guys in Iraq LOVE these) to a Male Entertainment Package with magazines and DVD’s for 155 (great package of stuff, oddly gay name).
If funds are short you can just buy a 1 buck mini US flag and go to any cemetery, look around for a grave of a solder and place the flag there.
You may not be able to kill a goat by staring at it – but can your subconscious mind forewarn you of imminent danger?
During one of my tours in Iraq, with the 82nd Airborne (2-505 to be exact), one of my platoons primary duties was escorting the Explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams around the Area of operations; usually saving units passing through from bags of trash or dead animals, but one in three calls was actually an improvised explosive device. (Kinda like that movie “The Hurt Locker”, except more real and less gay).
On one such day, I got that feeling, that gut paranoia that all was not right in the world of Iraq surrounding us, I got on the radio and told the front truck to switch sides of the highway. Less than a mile down the road an explosion rocked the side of the road we were previously on as we passed. How did I know?
Studies done are full of similar and more amazing stories from the British accounts of John Masters all the way through WW2 and Vietnam where Army scientists and psychiatrists did studies. The result was always the same and that was that they couldn’t explain it.
Your new Chief, Sheriff, or Commissioner just bought you all new AR15 style rifles because the pumps were rusted shut on your 1970’s era shotguns. Everyone is excited on your first range day and can’t wait to get that perfect zero and dial in your optics (they did buy you optics right?). You zero in and do a few shooting drills, everyone is feeling great and ready to take on your local drug dealers.
You start gathering your gear and your crusty old range master hands you two magazines with 60 rounds and says go get em’ champ. He adds he was kicking ass with a six shooter when you were in diapers. Your dreams of thwarting the next al-Qaeda attack are gone and the realization that your local drug dealer still rocks more firepower than you has just set in.
This is pretty much what went through my mind when my agency let us carry AR’s. I must admit I was a little jaded as I had just left the Army and was used to carrying a “combat” load of ammo. I know your thinking here is another PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) victim thinking he’s back in Afghanistan but this is America man, simmer down.
Be wary of using your cell phone for anything but casual conversation
Who reading this article has a cell phone. I’d probably be pretty close in saying that at least 95-98% of the people reading this article have a cell phone of some sort. It may not be a smart phone (iPhone, blackberry, ms mobile, etc), but I’m willing to lay money that you’ve got one.
These are one of the most destructive pieces of personal privacy ever invented.
How you ask? – Well, let’s take a look.
There are applications out on the public market (and ones in the government sector that we’re not going into) that can track you, listen to your phone calls, read your e-mail and text messages, get your calendar items and MUCH more. it can even turn on your video camera and take photos through your phones camera.
Any and all of these items can be done without your knowledge and/or consent. Spyware can be installed either through a text message, e-mail, physical or remote connection to the phone via Bluetooth, wireless or Wi-Fi. Some services online will allow tracking of someone based on their phone number and what cell towers they are connecting to.
successfully break contact with the enemy after an IED/EFP strike or RPG hit
We all carry big guns, ride in tricked out armored vehicles, and wear the latest in body armor and gear swag, but it’s all for shit if you’re team can’t produce at the moment of truth.
To produce effective results on the ‘X’ takes the refined use of combat power by all those involved – drivers, gunners, and leaders. Everything falls apart in the friction of the moment when you’re under fire and your team has not been effectively trained in the arts of fire and maneuver, and then drilled to the edge of failure on its relative importance to your individual and collective survival.
I am talking from experience. When you are ambushed, the surprise of the moment disorients you, and the confusion of the pitched battle that follows an IED/EFP strike, RPG hit, or other complex attack can only be turned around by a savvy team using their prior training and experience to establish a base of fire, maneuver for effect, and destroy or successfully break contact with the enemy on your own terms not theirs.
SAR MEDICS – THE NEXT BEST THING TO CALLING AMBER LAMPS
Following on from “The SAR Callout Bag”, in this article I’m going to run down the contents of a team medic kit for search & rescue. I’ll be using the medic bags which a pair of EMTs put together for my team as an example – this is the basic module issued to team medics and can be built upon with appropriate training.
Personal additions have been left out as every medic has a preference for what’s in their kit and comfort meds for the team have been left out as they’re more of a personal carry item.
two female Israeli soldiers training in Krav Maga (keep your mind out of the gutter!)
It is an understatement that mixed martial arts has dominated the conversation where martial arts are concerned over the past five years.
Schools have been popping up everywhere emphasizing instruction in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Thai Boxing, and Boxing, the most notable arts making up most the arsenal used by mixed martial arts practitioners and fighters.
But UFC, Strikeforce, and Bellator contracts are few and far between. For most people, the primary aim of martial arts training remains the ability to defend one’s self.
MMA training sometimes misses the mark when we get down to where the rubber meets the road martial arts wise: neutralizing a threatening situation effectively, then getting the hell out of Dodge!
How hot your zone is will determine the medical care you give or receive
There’s a lot of discussion on pages like this and forums about what you carry in your FAK (first aid kit), but not much discussion about the use of it.
I don’t necessarily mean the use of the tools in it, but rather, when is it appropriate to provide care to a team mate, and when should you expect to have to treat yourself. So here’s the quick and dirty rules that you should expect to play by.
If you’re in the:
- Hot Zone (or Red Zone) – self-care and extrication only
- Warm Zone (or Yellow zone) – rapid assessment and treatment of immediate life-threatening injuries
- Cold Zone (or Green Zone) – Definitive care, I.V. support, packaging for transport, rehabilitation (rest/fluid replenishment)
Definitions:
- Hot Zone – direct contact with threat/ some concealment and minimal cover may be available
- Warm Zone – some cover available and good concealment but engagement with threat still potential
- Cold Zone – still in the operations area but has excellent cover/concealment and distance from threat
My self-worth is based on how many FB farm friends I have
When you sign up for Facebook, they tend to want you to fill in as much information about yourself as possible. They will then take that information and make it available basically to anyone who wants it.
There are 2 ways around letting Facebook just give your information away.
• Don’t sign up for FB
• Control your account
The first way is obviously the easiest and best, but then how would you be able to stay in touch with all of those high school plebes that used to pick on you and now want to be your friends?
After you set up your FB account, you’ll want to head on over to the account section.
Once there, you will have a number of options to choose from as far as privacy is concerned. Someone did a chart of all of the privacy options and I am presenting it here for your review. It was published by The New York Times and it’s a pretty decent representation of their privacy issues. It also includes some eye opening statistics on their policy.
I am guessing if you are reading DVM you already know about the all-time greatest fictional gun ever used in a movie – the M41-A Pulse Rifle.
I first saw ALIENS when I was a kid all I could think after watching it was “I want a Pulse Rifle, Flamethrower and Sigourney Weaver is sexy as a Motherfucker”
For those of you who didn’t see the post about this over on Soldier Systems last December – a company called LAGE Manufacturing made a real M41-A Pulse Rifle based off of the one from ALIENS.
The original M41-A Pulse Rifle made for the movie was actually a 45. Thompson and a Remington 870 shotgun (with SPAS-12 parts) wrapped in a shell to make it look cool.
The movie M41-A Pulse Rifle was the standard issue rifle for the US Colonial Marines, it fired 10mm caseless, light armor-parsing explosive rounds with a 20mm pump action grenade launcher underneath.
