Question:
my brother sent me this….it’s really funny – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Murphy’s Laws of Combat: 1.If the enemy is in range, so are you. 2.Incoming fire has the right of way. 3.Don’t look conspicuous; it draws fire. ( For this reason aircraft carriers have been called "Bomb Magnets") 4.There is always a way. 5.The easy way is always mined. 6.Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo. (Trivia devotees will recall the sudden disappearance of rank and distinctive caps on the uniforms worn by Soviet officers in Afghanistan) 7.Professionals are predictable, it’s the amateurs that are dangerous. 8.The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: a. when you’re ready for them. b. when you’re not ready for them. 9.Teamwork is essential, it gives them someone else to shoot at. 10.If you can’t remember, then the claymore is pointed at you. 11.The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack. 12.A "sucking chest wound" is nature’s way of telling you to slow down. 13.If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush. 14.Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you. 15.Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing. 16.Make it tough enough for the enemy to get in and you won’t be able to get out. (This seems to be the guiding design principle behind the Soviet’s BMP and our Bradley infantry vehicle, both of which nicely package the troops in armored boxes for group destruction) 17.Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself. 18.If you’re short of everything but the enemy, you’re in a combat zone. 19.When you have secured an area, don’t forget to tell the enemy. 20.Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder. 21.Friendly fire isn’t. 22.If the sergeant can see you, so can the enemy. 23.Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep. 24.The most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass. 25.There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole. 26.A grenade with a seven second fuse will always burn down in four seconds. 27.Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping. 28.If at first you don’t succeed call in an air-strike. 29.Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan. 30.Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the colonel’s HQ.
– Spider `((/ 
,/((
Response:
my brother sent me this….it’s really funny
I’m saving that one. anyone for some online Close Combat some evening? I’ll add: A clear front indicates a falling flank. If everything seems quiet to the rear then an enemy insertion is between you and the chocolate stores. The most valuable thing in the field is a can of peaches. Worth two pairs of fresh socks. When you have a can of peaches your can opener is missing and your bayonet is already being used to replace the broken fire control on the mortar. However, you will be able to get the can open, one quarter second before someone yells "incoming!" Yesterday’s successful tactic is today’s operational weakness. When resupply arrives in combat, all MRIs will be canned eggs and ham or chili, there will be no new cans of peaches, all belted ammunition will be all tracer, all pyrotechny and incendiaries will be dropped just outside the perimeter toward the FEBA, there will be no new barrels for the machineguns – instead, all barrel carriers will contain stale but soggy baguettes, mail received will be for the battalion that yours relieved, stores will have forgotten the socks once again. However, mail containing Dear John letters for members of your unit will be faithfully and successfully airdropped in whenever your base comes under siege. All new men will appear adolescent, all new junior officers juvenile, all senior officers infantile, all general officers senile. Any politicians on fact-finding missions will look surprisingly similar to satellite photographs of members of the enemy high command and will be known to have heavy personal financial investments in Maltese eggeries. When on LP you will develop tinnititus. On OP you will experience visual migraine phenomena. When you are ordered to jump in, the DZ will be a minimum of 20K from the objective. Also, the DZ will be a waist deep bog, dense triple canopy jungle or a wide open plain for as far as the eye can see. Otherwise, no jump, insertion will be on foot, 60K from the objective, along the FEBA. When you go in heliborne the enemy will have the very latest in STAMP missiles. Made by a division of the same company that built your choppers. If the choppers make it to any of the planned DZs whichever they make it to will be unmarked enemy anti-personnel minefields. Also made by another division of the same company that made the choppers. Free enterprise. A further division of the same company will also be a major Maltese poultry supplier. Just when you hear that the Brits have entered the melee and are sending the Gurkhas in support, the French will show up with the Legion and your unit will be assigned to some portion of the perimeter of the Legionnaire base camp. And you will have to eat their food, french cuisine. Legionnaire MRIs are mostly boiled rat and spoiled turnip with an occasional tin of mystery meat pate. Once your unit is based with them you will no longer receive resupply of canned ham and eggs and will only fondly recall the taste of canned chili. And they won’t have any socks either. Silk stockings, yes, but socks, no. Most of them will have never heard of canned peaches. They will however be highly endowed with case upon case of Maltese eggs. The advancing unit you took out with the most successful indirect fire ever from your battery will be the Gurkha reconnaisance platoon returning from a penetration that mapped all of the enemy’s 3C and supply lines. And they also seized all of the enemy’s canned peaches. There will be no survivors and all cans of peaches will be lost in collateral damage. When your unit and the Legionnaires come under fire the Legionnaires will immediately break out the brandy and begin singing songs of the Battle of Camerone all the while seeing which of them can catch the most incoming fire between their teeth or eyelids for those that have no teeth. (man, those buggers are old) Once the Legionnaires are, at minimum, decimated they will begin to pick up arms. Loyalties will be decided at this stage. If anyone in your unit has jars of *brandied* peaches from home you may be able to use them to buy the loyalties of some of the Legionnaires. Legionnaires do not care about fresh socks, don’t waste your time. If the operation is a counterinsurgency your unit will also be attached to a much larger indigent force. This indigent force will perform with all the skill and honour that was presented by the RFPF during the Vietnam conflict, have confidence in that. If the operation is in support of an insurgency you will have all new uniforms and weapons. This is the only time you will ever receive new socks in the theatre but they will be itchy and made of unknown textiles. You will note that all of your kit is imported from a country aligned with the government. Your shiny new dogtags will be stamped in farsi. Your radios will not work. There will be no peaches in your rations, none whatsoever, however you may get some canned apricots if your government is trying to make the afrikkaners look bad. Note that this last possibility is related to the current market value of diamonds rather than the price of eggs in Malta. The only operations that will be truly effective will be black ops outside of 3C and formulated by on-the-ground junior field officers, senior ncos and that juvenile recruit everybody is calling Murph if you’re American, Greggy if you’re Canuck, Rick if you’re Brit, and this will not happen if you’re a Legionnaire, drink up. APCs will only be available if the enemy is fully supplied with PAA munitions. If you lose your legs, fresh socks will be delivered to you in the infirmary. This is as close as fresh socks ever come to a battlefield. You must be a double amputee to receive this issue. Single amputees are urged to remuster and try again. Once the price of Maltese eggs is again stabilized the conflict will be over. A staff general will receive all the accolades for ending the conflict as well as some shares in the helicopter, STAMP missile, and AP mine companies previously mentioned. He will soon retire and take up civilian office on a Maltese egg regulatory board. Your experience in combat will not carry any marketable job qualifications outside of third-world fruit plantation security forces. However, from doing so much with so little for so long you will now be capable of doing anything with nothing. Be thankful for that as nothing is exactly what your government will give you to work with once you return home. http://members.tripod.com/~Veb/index.htm
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24.The most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass. Spider `((/ :D ,/((
old military joke revisited. what do you get when you give a lieutenant a map?? lost! what do you get when you give an aggie lieutenant a map?? captured. no joke it happened to me. btw an aggie is a graduate of texas a&m university corps of cadets. insert aggie into your favorite ethnic joke and you get an aggie joke. dennis Oh! somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright; The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light. And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout; But there is no joy in Mudville — mighty Casey has Struck Out. Written By Ernest Lawrence Thayer, circa 1888
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Newsgroups: alt.support.depression snipped for length Your experience in combat will not carry any marketable job qualifications outside of third-world fruit plantation security forces. However, from doing so much with so little for so long you will now be capable of doing anything with nothing. Be thankful for that as nothing is exactly what your government will give you to work with once you return home.
Bev: You have just distilled my 3 years of service into a couple of pages. I loved my job, liked most of my co-workers, couldn’t stand the bureaucracy and bullshit, and the mindset that said my appearance was far more important than my combat skills. One of the best things about being a disabled vet (even if the condition is not battle related), is the knowledge that I will never have to break in another Lieutenant, or West Point student on summer vacation. Mcavity "Before I can heal, I must first learn to feel" Melissa Etheridge "Here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice" Bob Dylan
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The disabled part burns me. I got rheumatoid arthritis while in the infantry. Unknown etiology they say – not pensionable. However, the stats indicate that RA occurs at 5X the normal frequency for personnel in ground combat trades. Something is definitely coincident there. what is etiology???
basically – "cause". if you were diagnosed while in service the condition is automaticly service connected. reapply. dennis
I don’t have the original on here yet so I’m snaggin’ dennis’ response. Rheumatoid diseases are just a plain bitch aren’t they? Was in Immunology research for a while – it’s so very difficult to pin down these illnesses. Yes, there probably is a connection between your RA and your service. However, there may be a "predisposition" for you genetically such that had you been in some other similarly stressful (physically and mentally) situation would have triggered the RA. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not justifying the way corporations and HMOs and the like treat this illness. Anything but. My *rheumatologist* won’t even thoroughly diagnose me (she said "let’s call it aches and pains") because the most likely diagnosis (Lupus) is considered by some Am. insurance companies to be a fatal illness. Well, it is but not in all cases and in most cases your life span isn’t shortened by 30 years but maybe 10. So, until I’m in constant agony and crippled, I’m just suffering from lupus-like arthritis and aches and pains. Hows that for weasle wording? I wish there was some way to help. I have quit work myself in part because of the toll it was taking on me physically. The doctor’s just don’t understand this group of illnesses – probably less than any other category really. And it’s hard to see where much research is being done on it (mine was not focused on these illnesses). Problem is, RA, Lupus, Raynaud’s, MCTD, none of these are killing people in large numbers on a highly visible scale and at young ages. So there’s no money in research other than the slew of largely ineffective anti-inflammatories out there. grrrr…. I’m ranting. Anyway… I hope you find some relief. Sorry to have sort of used this post as my own little outlet. :( KCat <off to take her fourth daily aspirin dose ()() ().–.() (__) ()() ().–.() (__) *paws courtesy of Boyana* She is raging, she is raging, And a storm blows up in her eyes. She will suffer the needle chill. She’s running to stand - still. Bono — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:
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oh. us service assumes all disabilaties incurred during active duty service to be service connected, because you didn’t have it when you came in
That’s alright. There is the Americans With Disabilities Act too. Makes me jealous. and ashamed, that in some ways, in law and court, the US is becoming more socialized than my country. Makes me want to campaign for the same deal here. You people get to have demonstrations too. If we do that here in Canada the police gas, spray and beat us. http://members.tripod.com/~Veb/index.htm
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – what is etiology??? attributable cause identified. if you were diagnosed while in service the condition is automaticly service connected. reapply. Not in Canadian combat arms trades for the first five years of service. Then the etiology must be directly related to service. Modern medical practice assigns no known etiology to rheumatoid arthritis.The Veteran’s Advocate has a case, for everyone with RA in short service. There are cases all the way back to 1953. There is no way it will ever win, the resulting pensions would bankrupt the system. Prior to ‘53 I understand it was pensionable. http://members.tripod.com/~Veb/index.htm
oh. us service assumes all disabilaties incurred during active duty service to be service connected, because you didn’t have it when you came in dennis if you prick me, do i not…leak??? lt.cmdr. data starfleet
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what is etiology???
attributable cause identified. if you were diagnosed while in service the condition is automaticly service connected. reapply.
Not in Canadian combat arms trades for the first five years of service. Then the etiology must be directly related to service. Modern medical practice assigns no known etiology to rheumatoid arthritis.The Veteran’s Advocate has a case, for everyone with RA in short service. There are cases all the way back to 1953. There is no way it will ever win, the resulting pensions would bankrupt the system. Prior to ‘53 I understand it was pensionable. http://members.tripod.com/~Veb/index.htm
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young aren’t you??? i grew up outside DC during all the war demonstrations
Oh, yeah, I remember that now. On our news they called them riots. Then there was Kent State. Maybe that’s why demos are more tolerated now down there. http://members.tripod.com/~Veb/index.htm
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You people get to have demonstrations too. If we do that here in Canada the police gas, spray and beat us.
young aren’t you??? i grew up outside DC during all the war demonstrations
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The disabled part burns me. I got rheumatoid arthritis while in the infantry. Unknown etiology they say – not pensionable. However, the stats indicate that RA occurs at 5X the normal frequency for personnel in ground combat trades. Something is definitely coincident there.
what is etiology??? if you were diagnosed while in service the condition is automaticly service connected. reapply. dennis if you prick me, do i not…leak??? lt.cmdr. data starfleet
Response:
You have just distilled my 3 years of service into a couple of pages.
It is weird, eh? The only soldiers I’ve ever met that had a different military experience were Israeli. They are doing something different there, dunno what but it works. loved my job, liked most of my co-workers, couldn’t stand the bureaucracy and bullshit, and the mindset that said my appearance was far more important than my combat skills.
Yes, yes, once I didn’t get a course because I didn’t press and shine my combats. I later worked in the office and had access to the relevant reports. One of the best things about being a disabled vet (even if the condition is not battle related), is the knowledge that I will never have to break in another Lieutenant, or West Point student on summer vacation.
I once was cadre for an Arctic Warfare course for a bunch of US National Guardsmen. It was a hoot, all these weekend warriors. But what a bunch. We had to follow all their patrols with a snowmobile and trailer, picking up the kit they’d abandon along the route. Three separate courses with soldiers from three separate regions and they all had people that dropped kit when the going got heavy. The disabled part burns me. I got rheumatoid arthritis while in the infantry. Unknown etiology they say – not pensionable. However, the stats indicate that RA occurs at 5X the normal frequency for personnel in ground combat trades. Something is definitely coincident there. http://members.tripod.com/~Veb/index.htm
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