This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Dave Hardin

  • Saturday morning feel good stories

    From Columbus County, NC

    A Columbus County homeowner reportedly shot and injured a man attempting to enter his residence late Thursday night.According to a spokeswoman with the Columbus County Sheriff’s Office, the homeowner told deputies that one of his neighbors tried to enter his home on Tillman Avenue — about 12 miles outside of Tabor City — around 11:20 p.m.

    The neighbor, identified as 28-year-old Edward Deron Riggins of Tillman Avenue, allegedly started firing gunshots into the home.  The homeowner returned fire from inside the home, eventually hitting Riggins.

    Riggins was taken by private vehicle to a Horry County, SC hospital for treatment. When he was released from the hospital, authorities took him into custody and booked him into the J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Conway, SC where he remains jailed as of Friday morning.

    From Charleston, S.C.

    A man has been shot to death after Charleston Police say he forced his way inside an apartment late Wednesday night, and first shot someone else.  The incident happened on N. Romney Street around 11 p.m. Wednesday, police say.

  • Horsing Around Southwest Airlines

    Horsing Around Southwest Airlines

    Good news for some of you people, Southwest Airlines will now allow you to take your Emotional Support Pony on flights.

    Come September 17, people will be able to carry miniature horses onboard Southwest flights as trained service animals, according to airline officials.

    Officials announced the policy change, via a statement on its website on Tuesday. In the statement, officials name miniature horses, along with dogs and cats, as some of the most common service animals that will be accepted onboard. Passengers, however, will need to be able to provide credible verbal assurance that the animal is a trained service animal.

    In addition, the company announced other changes, such as formally accepting Psychiatric Support Animals (PSAs) as trained service animals, after accepting them informally as such in the past, and will also limit each passenger to one Emotional Support Animal.

    Passengers with an ESA will, according to the statement, still need to present a complete, current letter from a medical doctor or licensed mental health professional on the day of departure.

    What kind of Mental Health Professional gives someone a “note” to take a horse on a plane?   My .45 1911 provides me with all kinds of emotional support, where do I get my note?  Please, I am not anti-quadrupedalism or prejudice against those who identify with a pronograde posture as a means of terrestrial locomotion.   Some quadrupeds serve a valuable and much-appreciated function.  A few even give me that warm fuzzy feeling.

  • Air Force Veteran Reality Leigh Winner

    Air Force Veteran Reality Leigh Winner

    I have never been in Reality and I cannot stand a leaky Leigh, Winner has lost.  I doubt this poor girl had much of a chance from birth.

    Prosecutors say a Georgia woman who pleaded guilty to mailing a secret U.S. report to a news organization faces the “longest sentence” ever for a federal crime involving leaks to the media.

    Ex-National Security Agency contractor Reality Winner is scheduled for sentencing Aug. 23 by a federal judge in Augusta. She pleaded guilty in June.

    Winner’s plea deal calls for a prison sentence of five years and three months. The judge isn’t bound by that agreement, and the charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.

    Prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday their recommended sentence is stiffer than punishments in prior leak cases.

    Winner’s arrest last year was announced the same day The Intercept published a story on a classified NSA report on Russian hackers and the 2016 election. She is a former Air Force linguist who speaks Arabic and Farsi and had a top-secret security clearance.

    I thought they stopped arresting people who leaked information to the press.  Link to story HERE 

  • Friday morning feel good stories.

    Friday morning feel good stories.

    From Dallas TX

    Police are investigating after a homeowner shot and killed one of three armed intruders shortly after midnight.  It happened on East Overton Road.

    The homeowner told police he was surprised when three armed men attempted a home invasion robbery. He grabbed his own gun, fatally shooting one of them, and the other two fled on foot.  The resident wasn’t injured and called police.

    Detectives later interviewed him at Jack Evans Headquarters.  Based on the interview and physical evidence at the scene to corroborate his account of the event, he was released pending a grand jury referral.

    From Suffolk, VA

    An argument over Aretha Franklin led to a shooting, witnesses told police in one Virginia town Thursday.  Suffolk Police responded to a report of a gunshot victim Thursday morning around 10:45 a.m. in the 300 block of East Washington Street.

    CBS affiliate WTKR reports a witness said he heard the two people in the argument were fighting over whether or not Halle Berry played Aretha Franklin in a movie.

    Police said the fight turned physical and then one of the subjects produced a firearm, shooting the other man at least once.  Both men got emergency medical assessment and treatment by Suffolk Fire & Rescue personnel before being transported to local hospitals for further treatment.  Police said the gunshot victim is considered to be in serious condition.

    Franklin had previously wanted Berry to play her in an upcoming biopic, but Berry claimed she couldn’t sing and wouldn’t do the role justice, according to E News. Instead, Jennifer Hudson was tapped to play the Queen of Soul in the film.

    The investigation is ongoing and the roadway in the immediate area is also closed.

    From Portland, OR

    Portland police say they have arrested a man who allegedly broke into a woman’s home and exposed himself to her while high on methamphetamine.

    Marques Seville Hardges, 43, followed the woman into an elevator at her northeast Portland apartment on July 31 and told her he had “just shot up crystal meth,” court documents state.  The man exited the elevator on the same floor as the woman and, when she opened her door, ran up and pushed her inside.  The woman told police the man “wildly looked around” her apartment, grabbed a pill bottle and $60 cash and then exposed himself to her.

    According to court documents, the woman then pulled out a concealed handgun from her purse.

    “The gun wasn’t the first thing that came to my mind…it was how am I going to get out of here,” Kim, who declined to share her last name, said. “I was in a sheer panic, I was just in a panic.”  The man dropped the bottle and ran out of the apartment with the $60 cash.

    “He saw it and ran,” Kim said.

    From Rutherford County, NC

    Two North Carolina children got ahold of a gun and fatally shot a man police said was assaulting and strangling their mother.  During the attack, Steven Kelley, 46, said he was going to cut the throat of Chandra Nierman, his girlfriend, and kill everyone in the home, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said.

    Police said Nierman’s 12-year-old son obtained a gun, and her 15-year-old daughter used it to shoot Kelley in the chest twice.  Nierman’s 16-year-old daughter was injured in the shooting after a bullet grazed her leg. She’s since been released from the hospital, according to police. Nierman also “suffered significant bruises and contusions from the assault,” police said.

    Police were called to the home just after midnight on August 8 and found Kelley already dead.  Kelley was a convicted felon who had two active domestic violence protection orders against him from women in Indiana and Ohio, the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office said.  He also assaulted Nierman just days before his death, police said. Then, investigators said, he fired a gun inside the house multiple times “to threaten and terrorize Nierman.”

    Police said they found multiple guns in the house and on Kelley’s body that belonged to him.

    Authorities have said that no charges will be filed against the children as the shooting is considered “justified.”

     

     

  • National Airborne Day!

    Jonn posted this years ago.
    COB6
    That’s COB6 giving you the six minute warning above.

    National Airborne Day is set on the day of the first parachute jump conducted by the Army’s Parachute Test Platoon on August 16th, 1940.

    On the morning of 16 August 1940 the jump began. After the C-33 leveled off at 1500 feet and flew over the jump field, Lt. Ryder was in the door ready to jump. Warrant Officer Wilson knelt in the door waiting to pass the Go Point. When this was reached, he slapped Lt. Ryder on the leg and the first jump was made. Now Number One moved into position. Slap! “Go! Jump!”

    Still no movement.

    It was too late now to jump on this pass. Mr. Wilson motioned Number One to go back to his seat. As the plane circled Mr. Wilson talked to Number One. Number One wanted another chance. Okay, this time we’ll do it. Back into the jumping position and once again, slap!

    Sadly, no movement. Number One returned to his seat.

    Private William N. “Red” King moved into the jumping position in the door. Slap! Out into American military immortality leaped Red King… the first enlisted man of the test platoon to jump out of an airplane. Number One was transferred to another post and anonymity. Now there were forty-seven. Was Number One a coward? I don’t think many experienced jumpers would say so. There are things some men cannot do at a given time. Possibly another time would have been fine. He wanted to. He intended to. He just could not… at least that morning.

    The first US airborne operation was in support of Operation Torch, November 1942, in North Africa when 531 members of the 2nd Battalion 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment flew 1600 miles in 39 C-47s, of which only ten aircraft dropped their pacs, the rest landed because of navigation difficulties and low fuel.

    Ten years ago, 3rd Battalion, 75th Rangers secured an airfield in Kandahar in support of Operation Enduring Freedom on October 19, 2001. On March 23rd, 2003, A Company, 3/75th conducted an airborne operation to secure an airfield in Northern Iraq a few days before the 173rd Airborne Brigade parachuted into Northern Iraq when the Turks wouldn’t allow the 4th Infantry Division to off-load and invade Iraq from their borders.

    In years past, the 82d Airborne Division Association, mostly the DC Chapter, had to lobby to get recognition for National Airborne Day from the Senate every year, until 2009 when the Senate made it permanent.

    We used to get a Presidential Proclamation every year, but for some reason, we haven’t had any since 2008.

    That’s me, on my ass as usual, in the days before Eric Shinseki;

    Thanks to Mr. Shackleford (I don’t think that’s his real name) for the link. And thanks to DrewM who pointed you Morons over here.

  • Hometown Hero, Army First Sgt. Brie Kotula

    Welcome Home

  • Mad Dog wants more UCMJ

    Mad Dog wants more UCMJ

    Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has issued new guidance to commanders across the military: Stop relying on administrative actions for discplinary problems and start using the military justice system more often.

    In the new memo dated Aug. 13, Mattis calls the military justice system a “powerful tool” for good order and discipline, and he says flatly it is a “commander’s duty to use it.”

    “Military leaders must not interfere with individual cases, but fairness to the accused does not prevent military officers from appropriately condemning and eradicating malignant behavior from our ranks,” Mattis wrote, according to a copy of the memo that was obtained by Military Times.

    Ok, but I do not think we are going to turn the hands of time backwards.  There was a time when service members could have 5 NJP’s and still make SNCO.  If they are going to start using UCMJ charges at the drop of a hat, I hope they also reward merit.

     “Leaders must be willing to choose the harder right over the easier wrong. Administrative actions should not be the default method to address illicit conduct simply because it is less burdensome than the military justice system. Leaders cannot be so risk-adverse that they lose their focus on forging disciplined troops ready to ferociously and ethically defeat our enemies in the battlefield.”

    I always thought a decline in punishment was a good thing.   Not sure I am with the Warrior Monk on all of this.

    “If a subordinate makes a mistake, leaders should learn to coach them better,” he writes. “But we must not tolerate or ignore lapses in discipline, for our enemies will benefit if we do not correct and appropriately punish substandard conduct. Time, inconvenience, or administrative burdens are no excuse for allowing substandard conduct to persist.”

    The UCMJ is a tool, no doubt.  I never wrote one charge sheet my entire career.  There are a bunch of Marines on my FB list that will tell you they wish I had instead of…  Never met a Platoon Sgt that earned the respect of his men by using a pencil to whip them.

    I am always concerned about booting good warriors to the curb because they like to mix it up.  This fantasy of having killers that mind their manners 24/7 is a joke.  My concern with those graphs is that we are getting too soft and mild mannered.  I earned every one of my NJP’s, all for drinking and fighting with a dose of telling someone to go phuck themselves.  I also went from being a Cpl to a SSgt in 6 months.  If we are going to start taking rank away quickly,  we better not boot the scrappers to the curb unless we are only going to war in the powder puff league.

    The entire article is HERE

     

     

  • Thursday morning feel good stories.

    Thursday morning feel good stories.

    From Houston, TX

    A teen suspect was shot several times after he and another person tried to rob two cable repairmen in north Houston, police say.  Police said the two repairmen were working on a cable box around midnight on Fulton Street and Veenstra when the gunmen approached them.  “It was just real quick. We were expecting the worst,” said one of the technicians, who did not want to be identified.

    He says his colleague, with a concealed handgun license, quickly drew his gun and fired back, warding off the suspects. Police say one of the suspects was shot in the leg. He collapsed at the scene and was taken to the hospital. Investigators say he is in critical but stable condition and charges are expected.  The other suspect and a getaway driver are still on the run. They were last seen in a grey four-door sedan.

    From BENZIE COUNTY, MI

     A homeowner armed with a shotgun confronted and shot an intruder in his pole barn Tuesday night.  When the homeowner, a 79-year-old man, heard an intruder in the pole barn around 11:20 at his home in Inland Township he grabbed a shotgun and confronted the man, according to Benzie County Sheriff’s Deputies.   After telling the man to get off his property, the homeowner reported the intruder came toward him in a threatening manner, deputies said.

    The homeowner kept an eye on the man until police and an ambulance arrived at the home.

    The 37-year-old intruder was taken to Munson Medical Center for treatment of non-life threatening injuries, according to deputies.

    The homeowner wasn’t arrested.

    From Des Moines, IA 

    Des Moines Police Department detectives determined the following:

    Bondhus and Grayson were at the home. They discovered what they believed to be intentional damage to the man’s tire. Wheeler, who is prohibited by a court order of protection from having contact with Bondhus, arrived at the home. Wheeler forced his way into the home and physically assaulted Grayson. The assault stopped briefly, then began again. Grayson, who lawfully possessed a handgun, fired one shot, killing Wheeler.

    The Polk County Attorney’s Office determined the shooting was lawful self-defense and no charges will be filed.