Category: Dumbass Bullshit

Several of you have sent us links to the story of seven Thai construction workers who found a suspected World War Two – era bomb. A spokesperson says that “they didn’t know what to do” with bomb, so instead of doing one of the thousand other things they could have done, they decided to cut into it with a welding torch. From Reuters;

“The explosion created a three-meter deep crater.”

Pools of blood and body parts were scattered on the floor of the warehouse.

Reuters camera footage showed just the shell of the building remained, its interior a mesh of twisted metal as firefighters doused flames and burning embers.

The guy who used the torch was pretty dumb, but not as dumb as the six other guys who stood around wondering what would happen. By the way, nineteen others were injured.

Chief Tango sends us a link to the Washingington Post which tells the tale of Marine Korey Nathan Pritchett who is assigned to the security detail at the US embassy in Montenegro, but detailed to The Hague during the president’s visit there last week. I guess being out of Montenegro kind of excited the young Marine;

According to witnesses interviewed by The Post, Pritchett and two colleagues began drinking at Club 19 in Noordwijk just after 12 a.m. on March 22, less than 48 hours before Obama was scheduled to arrive in the area. The trio said they were partying before reporting for duty for the summit and became progressively more intoxicated, patrons and a bartender said.

The bartender confirmed that the man in a photo taken that night was one of the Americans who had been at the club early March 22. He had talked about being a “bullet catcher” who was supposed to protect the president and described his team’s work as counter-assault.

“He said something happens, a bullet comes, he has to jump in between,” said Vasco Miguel Dos Santos, a local who had smartphone pictures from that night and said he drank with Pritchett.

He said the Marine was intoxicated but likable and entertaining with his stories. He lifted his shirt in the bar to show everyone tattoos that commemorated his tour in Afghanistan, Dos Santos said.

“I watch American movies, I know how they are,” he said. “American people are always showing off.”

Of course, this incident comes on the heels of the Secret Service agents who were sent back from the Netherlands for their intoxication and bad behavior. I guess the Marines are most upset that he was showing his CAC card to everyone and it was getting passed around the bar.

I’m old enough to remember a young airman who was killed for his ID card in the mid-80s which enabled actual terrorists to drive a car bomb into the parking lot at the Rhein Main Air Force Base PX in Germany. They detonated the bomb, but no one was injured, well except the young airman. I guess they don’t teach those lessons anymore.

This guy is a school security officer and he claims to have been a Marine – you can tell by all of the Marine slag on his desk there. But he was in a panic the other day when a student brought this into school and he called the bomb squad out to disarm something as harmless as a rock in the parking lot;

The boot in the picture is quoted at Oklahoma City’s Channel 4;

A former marine and former police officer, [Phil] Stewart knows these .50 calibers are some of the most powerful available to the public. The bullets are fit for a large sniper rifle. They can shoot something from a milie [sic] away. He says the bullet the child brought in looked to him like WWII era ammo. So, he called the bomb squad.

“If anything you would have had an explosion risk, and that’s it. But, we didn’t know what was inside that bullet or if it even had an internal core,” said Stewart. “We couldn’t tell just from looking at it.”

Well, what I can tell by looking at it is that it is inert. Blue bullets are for training. We had inert ammunition just like it to teach people how to load the Bushmaster main gun on the Bradley. It’s perfectly safe because it can’t be fired. It’s a lump of lead or steel or something – there’s nothing in it because it’s for training and we used to load them into the dismounted gun in classes in the barracks. We couldn’t do that if there was the slightest danger of it being fired.

If that’s not bad enough, it’s not even .50 caliber. It looks to be 20mm or 25mm. A .50 cal. is about 12.7mm – about half the size of the bullet they have right there. Our buddy, Bob Owens has a comparison photo at his place, Bearing Arms.

I think Phil was trying to make himself sound like some sort of weapons expert, when the truth is that he is the furthest thing you can get from an expert. Scotty says that he’s just another pogue, I think he’s a dangerous pogue, scaring the daylights out of the public for no good reason. Yeah, if I was in his position, I wouldn’t allow that stuff in school either, but it’s no reason to call the f’n bomb squad, dingus.

No this isn’t The Duffel Blog, it’s the Army Times. Sergeant First Class Steven Janotta has proposed to the Army that it should adopt a medal for reaching the 20-year mark of service in the Army. Of course, SFC Janotta has 25 years in service, an infantryman, and currently is assigned as the chief of operations at the Sabalauski Air Assault School at Fort Campbell, KY, so he has lots of time to think about stuff like this.

“Most people are probably going to tell you it’s a waste of time or a waste of money,” Janotta said about the retirement medal.

But Janotta believes in the idea, and is hopeful Big Army is paying attention.

On average, about 18 percent of people who join the military will stay in uniform long enough to retire.

The retirement medal would be something special for those retiring soldiers, who typically receive the Meritorious Service Medal or the Army Commendation Medal at the end of their careers, Janotta said.

Yeah, well, 90% of the people who earn the award won’t wear it, sergeant. “Something Special” isn’t all that special when everyone gets one, is it? I always thought that Army Service Ribbon was stupid, too, just like the Air Force ribbon for completing basic training. It’s like the Cold War Medal – I’m standing here, so give me a medal. I get my retirement award direct deposited on the first of every month.

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.