Free Republic

Dan! You know better! You know how REMF policies are!

It was a building under the control of an upper level Air Force headquarters. There is bound to be a big bright red 55 gallon drum full of sand, half buried at an angle, at every entrance. At best, all the USAF instructors had dutifully unloaded their sidearms at the clearing barrels. At worst, the command requires them carry a weapon, but does not authorize the issue of ammunition.

The M240 is a belt-fed, quick change barrel version of the BAR. FN first updated the design as the MAG-D by adding a quick change barrel to keep up with guns like the ZB 26 and the Bren. Next, they essentially turned the action upside down and put an MG42 belt feed mechanism on it and call it the MAG-58.

Springfield passed on the MAG as unsuitable for US troops while virtually every other non-Warsaw Pact country found them highly effective. The M240 was reintroduced to the US Army in the late 70’s as a replacement for the M73/M219 series coaxial machine gun found on tanks. For those unfamiliar with the M73 it is easily the most abominable excuse for an automatic weapon ever issued to US troops. It proved beyond all doubt the given enough time and money that Springfield was capable of producing a machine gun more unreliable than the French Chauchat!

The M60 is largely considered adequate only because most folks had no experience with better.

If she is certifiably crazy as you say she will already FAIL the background check if she tries to legally buy a gun. No gun dealer will knowingly risk his FFL and livelihood selling to someone who has been denied by the NICS check.

On the other hand, if she buys the gun for the same guy who sells her her dope, who are you gonna sue?

I am about to the point where I think all the little bastard teen age gangbangers should be encouraged until and as long as they exterminate each other. What does it matter if the spawn of some crack smoking whore is killed by some pimp wannabe?

Fort Knox Veterinary Treatment Facility is staffed by Army Veterinary Corps personnel with the primary mission of providing complete veterinary care for all government owned animals. They are part of Medical Department.

Mortuary services also come under the Medical Department although those patients rarely come back to bitch about anything, much less violations of their privacy.

I think a very creative JAG officer stretched the HIPPA definition of patient and health care provider to be as “lawyerly” accurate as possible so some Public Information Officer had a dodge to hide behind while someone else tried to figure out how bad it was all going to look and apply enough ‘command influence’ to keep the shit from splashing too high.

I believe it! The housing area at 9th & Wilson will be changed from Littlefield Loop to Lying Lips Loop to honor recruiters. During PT in the morning you will hear clerks chanting, “I wanna be a chairborne ranger......”

First aid training on paper cuts instead of sucking chest wounds. Fobbits and REMFS!!!!

Any news if the dog has been returned?

It’s gone downhill since they painted over the Armor insignia on the water tank! Brooks Field is no longer the parade field and Post Headquarters is no longer across the way. The names on Knox will have no meaning to those folks. They won’t know, or much care who Skidgel, Sadowski, Wickham, or Yano were or how those places came to bear those names.

I am not even sure that Quarters Six was good enough for the new CG.

The pound on post is run by the Veterinairan, so it does come under the MEDDAC, Still using HIPPA as a dodge is a real stretch. I wonder which JAG came up with that one?

But since the post is now commanded by the ultimate in staff weenies, U.S. Army Accessions Command, I don't hold much hope for an honorable solution. But the Army did pull a similar stunt with a 1904 Maxim gun stolen from a New Jersey VFW. When it turned up years later in the museum at West Point, the Army refused to return it. Look up Wheaton v. Caldera. The ATF testified that the NFTR was never intended to reunite stolen property to the owner.

Used to be a State police detective around here that went after several cop killers. Tracked one down across the river in Indiana. Found every one he went after, but never managed to arrest one. They all qualified for a toe tag during the proceedings.

About the mid Seventies the Provost Marshall on Fort Knox used to send MPI agents to every gun shop, pawn shop, etc to “ask” for the 4473’s looking for any GI who might have purchased a gun and not registered it on Post. He tried to coerce soldiers who lived off-post to register their firearms.

I remember having to go sign out soldiers from the MP station who had been detained by the MP’s while traveling to and from their quarters and Hunt Control and a hunting area for having a weapon in their vehicle. Having the hunting area assignment and paperwork from Hunt Control office was meaningless.

He was an avid gun collector, but when it came to his view of soldiers, he made it abundantly clear he had little use for the enlisted swine.

Cowardly actions from a local Dhimmi-crat. Yet they scream those on the right are hateful?

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-1521.pdf

240 pages, including concurrences and dissents. I think Thomas’ opinion that states the basis should be the Privileges & Immunities clause is the most well-reasoned of the decisions.

John Taliaferro Thompson had the solution in 1921. Although I might be persuaded not to fire on southbound Mexicans.

I am disappointed with the cop. When I was a kid, the cops were smart enough to avoid injuring their hand by using a nightstick to full advantage!

Our troops should guard the border and be cautioned not to shoot southbound Mexicans.

Hunting isn't combat. Target shooting isn't combat. IPSC, 3-gun matches, etc are “Bowling with Bullets”

If you have not personally experienced real bullets cracking past your head fired by people who mean to kill you, you are like a bunch of 11 year old boys who have stumbled upon their dad's stash of Playboys “wondering what it be like.”

Regardless, the fight in the jungles of Viet Nam was different from a four man stack kicking in doors in Baghdad, and different from slogging up a mountain in snow, at 6000 feet under 40 pounds of body armor.

The soldier's task has always been to figure out how to make the best of what he's got against the terrain and enemy he's up against.

Good leadership is developing and evolving techniques, tactics and equipment that works. Bad leadership, 22 divisions straight into prepared defenses. 60,000 British casualties, the first day, Battle of the Somme.

The National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice (NBPRP), an advisory board to the Secretary of the Army and the ,The Office of the Director of Civilian Marksmanship (DCM) was created by the U.S. Congress as part of the 1903 War Department Appropriations Act. The original purpose was to provide civilians an opportunity to learn and practice marksmanship skills so they would be skilled marksmen if later called on to serve in the U.S. military. Between WW1 and WW2 every big city high school built had an indoor rifle range as part of its design.

If we really were a nation of riflemen before WW1 like the good Major supposed, Congress would not have needed to act in 1903. In fact you see the results of Teddy Roosevelt's Spanish American war experience all over in the, the Dick Act and other sweeping changes in military policy.

How bad off are we now? Hairy-legged women are storming school boards when they discover an old rifle range in a school building.

There are recruits now whose only exposure to firearms has come from watching TV. They are disappointed when they shoot someone and the results are not up their expectations. The goal of BRM training is to get the maximum number of recruits, minimally safe, and moderately effective in the shortest amount of time. That most soldiers get no training beyond that is shameful.

800 or so Spaniards held off 3 US divisions (15,000 troops) at San Juan hill using 7x57 Mauser. An experience which lead TR, as president, to ask the Chief of Ordnance, “Why not just buy the Mauser?”

A bunch of scruffy Dutch farmers using 7 Mauser demoralized enough Tommies that the P13 rifle in .276 (Brit for 7 Mauser) would have been the next rifle had the Great War not intervened.

The Marines did well during the Boxer rebellion with the Lee Navy. Cupro-nickel fouling doomed that cartridge. If you have read Hatcher, we didn't figure out the solution was gilding metal for another 30 years!

Short rifles with long barrels are bull pups. The Steyr AUG approach has some merit.

Having had more than a little experience shooting people with 5.56, the old 12 inch twist ball M193 combination was evil and deadly. The M885 had penetration as it's goal and that it got. It will poke holes in helmets at ranges greater than 7.62 NATO M80 ball.

The M16A1, at 6.5 pounds, is a good weapon for the 300 meter fight. Targets beyond that range are engaged with the PTT switch on the radio.

The M16A2, at damn near 9 pounds, is good for shooting “over the course.”

The M4 is handy, but when you are shooting a cartridge that needs speed to work, the 14.5 in barrel loses.

If the infantryman is overburdened now with the M4, how does an M14 lessen the load? Fire discipline should improve, 120 rounds don't last long.

I wonder what might have been if we had opted for the FAL and the .280 back in 1952, but we didn't. An increasingly anti-gun government has destroyed much of our domestic arms industry and too much of our smalls arm procurement is driven by hide-bound bureaucrats who are cheap, and whose only interest is domestic pork, not the soldier's welfare.

Were that not true, the US pistol, Model of 2011 would look like

The perfect rifle for Afghanistan and the perfect rifle for Iraq are not the same rifle. Never were and never will be.

Most soldiers I knew that could REALLY shoot, didn’t learn in the Army.They did it on their own time and dime.

“In the Military, you are Guilty until proven Innocent”

That is an oft-quoted slander. First, read Article 32 of the UCMJ. A defendants rights are more clearly defined than they ever were in civilian courts, and a generation before Miranda.

Secondly, having served on both courts-martial and civilian juries, I'd far rather take my chances with soldiers over civilians, particularly if I was innocent.

Lastly, since the Manual for Courts-Martial clearly outlines what the elements of an offense are. No JAG will recommend a Commander convene a court unless the evidence is pretty solid. That is what accounts for the generally good conviction rate; not going to trial with a flimsy case and lousy evidence.

Firing squads were traditionally used for peculiarly military offense, like desertion. For regular crimes, like murder, the sentence was hanging. The current method is lethal injection.

The last execution in the Army was April 13, 1961, U.S. Army Private John A. Bennett was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder of an 11 year old girl.

In this case, the crime was committed by a soldier, against soldiers, and on a military installation. Clearly the Army has jurisdiction, and murder is a violation of Article 118 of the UCMJ.

At present the are 9 service members on death row in the US Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth. No service member can be executed unless the President personally confirms the death penalty.