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At the FReeper Canteen!
C'mon and take a break ! Walk on over to the water cooler and lets chat. Post your thoughts, opinions, news of the day, rantings, ravings, pontificates, hypothesis, hyperboles, your soap box cause, your mantra, your baggage, your garbage, your blogging, your secrets, whatever you feel would make talk around the water cooler real interesting!
Please remember that The Canteen is here to support
and entertain our troops and veterans and their families,
and is family friendly.
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I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: - 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.' - Eleanor Roosevelt
Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement.. - Mark Twain
The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible - George Burns
Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year. - Victor Borge
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. - Mark Twain
By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates
I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury. - Groucho Marx
My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe. - Jimmy Durante
I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back. - Zsa Zsa Gabor
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat. - Alex Levine
My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying. - Rodney Dangerfield
Money can't buy you happiness .... But it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. - Spike Milligan
Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was SHUT UP . - Joe Namath
I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap. - Bob Hope
I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.. - W. C. Fields
We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress. - Will Rogers
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you. - Winston Churchill
Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty .. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out.. - Phyllis Diller
By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere. - Billy Crystal
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*Guess what this is a commercial for*
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~The Dog That Cornered Osama Bin Laden~ Cairo, like most canine members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs, is a Belgian Malinois. The Malinois breed is similar to German shepherds but smaller and more compact, with an adult male weighing in the 30-kilo range.
(German shepherds are still used as war dogs by the American military but the lighter, stubbier Malinois is considered better for the tandem parachute jumping and rappelling operations often undertaken by SEAL teams. Labrador retrievers are also favoured by various military organizations around the world.)
Like their human counterparts, the dog SEALs are highly trained, highly skilled, highly motivated special ops experts, able to perform extraordinary military missions by SEa, Air and Land (thus the acronym).
The dogs carry out a wide range of specialized duties for the military teams to which they are attached: With a sense of smell 40 times greater than a human’s, the dogs are trained to detect and identify both explosive material and hostile or hiding humans.
The dogs are twice as fast as a fit human, so anyone trying to escape is not likely to outrun Cairo or his buddies.
The dogs, equipped with video cameras, also enter certain danger zones first, allowing their handlers to see what’s ahead before humans follow.
As I mentioned before, SEAL dogs are even trained parachutists, jumping either in tandem with their handlers or solo, if the jump is into water.
Last year canine parachute instructor Mike Forsythe and his dog Cara set the world record for highest man-dog parachute deployment, jumping from more than 30,100 feet up — the altitude transoceanic passenger jets fly at. Both Forsythe and Cara were wearing oxygen masks and skin protectors for the jump.
Here’s a photo from that jump, taken by Andy Anderson for K9 Storm Inc. (more about those folks shortly).
As well, the dogs are faithful, fearless and ferocious — incredibly frightening and efficient attackers.
I have seen it reported repeatedly that the teeth of SEAL war dogs are replaced with titanium implants that are stronger, sharper and scare-your-pants-off intimidating, but a U.S. military spokesman has denied that charge, so I really don’t know (never having seen a canine SEAL face-to-face). I do know that I’ve never seen a photo of a war dog with anything even vaguely resembling a set of shiny metal chompers.
When the SEAL DevGru team (usually known by its old designation, Team 6) hit bin Laden’s Pakistan compound on May 2, Cairo’s feet would have been four of the first on the ground.
And like the human SEALs, Cairo was wearing super-strong, flexible body armour and outfitted with high-tech equipment that included “doggles” — specially designed and fitted dog googles with night-vision and infrared capability that would even allow Cairo to see human heat forms through concrete walls.
Now where on earth would anyone get that kind of incredibly niche hi-tech doggie gear?
From Winnipeg, of all places.
Jim and Glori Slater’s Manitoba hi-tech mom-and-pop business, K9 Storm Inc., has a deserved worldwide reputation for designing and manufacturing probably the best body armour available for police and military dogs. Working dogs in 15 countries around the world are currently protected by their K9 Storm body armour.
Jim Slater was a canine handler on the Winnipeg Police Force when he crafted a Kevlar protective jacket for his own dog, Olaf, in the mid-1990s. Soon Slater was making body armour for other cop dogs, then the Canadian military and soon the world.
The standard K9 Storm vest also has a load-bearing harness system that makes it ideal for tandem rappelling and parachuting.
And then there are the special hi-tech add-ons that made the K9 Storm especially appealing to the U.S. Navy SEALs, who bought four of K9 Storm Inc.’s top-end Intruder “canine tactical assault suits” last year for $86,000. You can be sure Cairo was wearing one of those four suits when he jumped into bin Laden’s lair.
Here’s an explanation of all the K9 Storm Intruder special features:
Just as the Navy SEALS and other elite special forces are the sharp point of the American military machine, so too are their dogs at the top of a canine military heirarchy.
In all, the U.S. military currently has about 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed around the world, with roughly 600 now in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Here’s the link to a dandy photo essay about U.S. war dogs that just appeared in the journal Foreign Policy.
Several of the photos I have included here are from Foreign Policy, as you will see. Other photos are from K9 Storm Inc.
As for the ethics of sending dogs to war, that’s pretty much a moot point, don’t you think? If it’s ethical to send humans into combat, then why not dogs?
At least the U.S. now treats its war dogs as full members of the military. At the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. combat dogs there were designated as “surplus military equipment” and left behind when American forces pulled out.
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On This Day....
1883 - The New York Giants baseball team admitted all ladies free to the ballpark on this, the first Ladies Day.
1789 - This was the day the French Revolution began -- at the fall of the Bastille. It is still celebrated in many countries throughout the world and is a public holiday in France; generally called Bastille Day or Fete National. It is considered the day freedom was born in France.
1868 - Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, CT patented the tape measure. Alvin’s measurements: 40-46-42.
1908 - The Adventures of Dolly opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York City. It was the first film release for director D.W. Griffith.
1911 - For the first time, a pilot flew an airplane onto the lawn of the White House! Harry N. Atwood flew in to accept an award from President William Taft. There wasn’t a National Airport at the time, you see. Today, if you land a plane on the White House lawn, you do so at your own risk. If you don’t get shot out of the sky first, you’ll probably receive a hail of bullets from the Secret Service as a welcoming salute. It’s not that people don’t keep trying. In 1994, a small plane crashed on the lawn and slammed into the White House, killing the pilot.
1914 - Robert H. Goddard of Worcester, MA patented liquid rocket fuel on this day.
1942 - Helen O’Connell and Bob Eberly sang their last duet together as they recorded the famous Brazil with the Jimmy Dorsey band.
1951 - In his last race, Citation became the winningest thoroughbred in horse racing as he won the Hollywood Gold Cup at Hollywood Park. Citation earned a total of $1,085,760 in his career.
1951 - The first sports event to be shown in color was the Molly Pitcher Handicap at Oceanport, New Jersey. The historic event was seen over CBS-TV this day, but not by many. A color TV system for wide use wouldn’t be available until the 1960s.
1957 - Funnyman Stan Freberg debuted a new weekly comedy program on CBS radio beginning this night. Freberg was a late entry into the radio program race, though he was well known for many famous radio commercials over the years. The Freberg show only lasted a short time and that newfangled contraption, television, was blamed for the show’s quick demise.
1962 - Bobby Vinton’s Roses are Red became the top song in the U.S. The song stayed at the top for four weeks and was the first of four #1 hits for Vinton. The others were: Blue Velvet, There! I’ve Said It Again and Mr. Lonely. Roses are Red was also Vinton’s first million-seller. He had two others: I Love How You Love Me (which made it to #9 in 1968) and My Melody of Love (which hit #3 in 1974.)
1967 - Eddie Mathews of the Houston Astros hit career homer #500.
1968 - Hank Aaron hit his 500th career home run -- in Atlanta, GA -- leading the Braves to a 4-2 win over the San Francisco Giants. (In April of 1974, Hammerin’ Hank eclipsed the old home-run mark [714] held by Babe Ruth.)
1981 - The All-Star Game was postponed because of a 33-day-old baseball players strike. Still, some 15,000 fans showed up to boo the players and to see an imaginary game! The 52nd All-Star classic was not held until August 9th (in Cleveland Municipal Stadium).
1985 - Baltimore defeated Oakland, 28-24, to clinch their second consecutive United States Football League championship. The game was also significant, in that it brought the curtain down on the league’s spring schedule. Total losses were estimated at $63 million for all 14 teams. The USFL quickly faded away when owners refused to incur further losses. Plans calling for the league to resume play in the fall of 1986 never materialized.
1987 - The second-longest game in All-Star Game history was played as the National League defeated the American League in a 2-0 shutout in 13 innings. The game was played in Oakland, CA and lasted 3 hours, 39 minutes.
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