I don’t have much to say lately, but here’s a picture of me circa 1988 doing my best Johnny Rotten:
Teenage wasteland…
*** Update ***
Now that I look at that picture more, it is circa 1991 because that is my barracks locker in the background in Fulda (check out the locks hanging from the locker). My buddy Jason sent me this photo earlier, and he had traveled to Germany and stayed a couple days with me in Fulda while hiking across Europe.
That also explains why my fingernails were so dirty (it horrified me when I looked at the picture). As a tanker, I don’t think I spent a day in that three year period without hydraulic fluid or axle grease or gear oil all over me.
*** Update #2 ***
My buddy Jason confirms this was 1991, and sends this picture along that I took of him a few hours after the previous picture with a little bit of my own artwork:
Hehe. I love that even in 1991 we were joking about people hating America.
Redshirt
Fucking Hippy…
Violet
Hope everything is going well with you, John.
Francis
speaking of musical influences, i once again renew my suggestion that the new tbogg (who was posting Friday Top 10s years ago) be added to the blogroll.
thx kindly
Schlemizel
I think you should use that picture every time you post what a bunch of assholes we commenters are as it appeas that is what you are saying!
raven
@Redshirt: Hippy, you can’t be serious.
geg6
Isn’t that a DFH kinda outfit for a Young Republican? I like the giraffe better.
YellowJournalism
There’s a photoshop opportunity here. Can’t put my finger on it…
j
Is that a doobie, brother?
Mnemosyne
I survived my work presentation, even though more people came to it than I expected. Now it’s frozen pizza and Cabin in the Woods to try and recover.
Mnemosyne
@YellowJournalism:
Or at least a LOLcats-type opportunity.
Bob
Eleven years late. Not bad for a WV kid.
Redshirt
@raven: Look at the Drug Rug.
raven
That’s not a hippie, this is a hippie.
raven
@Redshirt: Hippies did not wear frat hats.
fuckwit
Greek cap duly noted.
But WTF was going on with that SHIRT? Holy shit.
muricafukyea
What is the over/under on a Libetarian curious Cole feeling sorry for himself post vs a Greenwald is awesome/Rand Paul has some good ideas post?
Yatsuno
@YellowJournalism: @Mnemosyne: Meme creation. This just screams meme creation.
raven
@fuckwit: It’s a hoodie that they wore to dead shows.
Omnes Omnibus
Never happened to me, and I was in an 8 inch artillery unit.
Knight of Nothing
Got a mailer from my junior senator the other day that opened with, “Dear Nice Person I’m Asking for Money”. Gotta love Al Franken! Are any other sitting senators so tongue-in-cheek in ther campaign solicitations?
It goes on to say that, while he wants to raise $20 million, the good newa is that I’m not on hook for the whole amount. Heheh. Gave me a good chuckle.
Shana
John, a while ago you posted about wanting to lose weight, cut back the alcohol if not stop all together, and work toward becoming a foster parent. You haven’t talked about that, and I’m not asking you to if you don’t want to share with the community, but I just wanted to say that I think about your projects and wonder how you’re doing on that front. Again, don’t share if you don’t want to, but I’m sure there are other folks here who hope you’re doing well with them.
Elizabelle
John: your teeth are too good to be Johnny Rotten. Nice try, though.
Ruckus
@raven:
I don’t remember ever wearing a hat like that.
Comrade Mary
John, you deserve to get your own butter commercial.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes but I seem to remember you had dingleberrys on your collar and John only had embroidery on his sleeve.
fuckwit
@raven: Cole amazes me with his range. Deadhead. Greek. Soldier. All at the same time, in this picture! And now college professor.
Ash Can
What are the chances an F-bomb was involved in the taking of this photograph?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rachel Maddow has on Jose Diaz-Balart to advocate comprehensive immigration reform, moments after mocking his brother congressman for saying we (Congress) don’t have time to pass comprehensive immigration reform
Cassidy
Pick your poison:
RWNJ gun fetishists
MIley Cyrus is more punk than punk
Wes Anderson’s new horror movie
A Humble Lurker
….Wow.
Richard C.
Can you take time after cleaning your fingernails Cole to fix the blog roll link to TBogg’s site?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Pic.
@Ruckus: Be that as it may, I still think the point is that tankers just are messy.
Ruckus
@Ash Can:
He was awake wasn’t he? Then I’d say 100%
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
She also pointed out his meeting with PO, which was scheduled for tomorrow, has been postponed.
David Koch
Is this photo from the filming of “Pineapple Express”?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not saying that isn’t true but wasn’t the actual point. But you know that.
Litlebritdiftrnt
I have no idea what time it is because my brand new HP lap top computer will not allow me to change my computer’s time zone to anything other than International Date Line West. WTF? Oh and Flossie came charging back from the swamp with a dead squirrel in her mouth, and now I can’t find it, somewhere in my house there is a decomposing dead squirrel. Nice. I am sure at some point the smell will lead to me its general direction but should I really have to wait that long? For all I know she hid it in the bed. The best I can hope for is that Skeeter ate it and I don’t have to worry about it at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cassidy:
Dude has a point.
Yatsuno
@Ruckus: C’mon. He’s kinda cute when he’s playing Wisconsin naive.
(heh, Cheeseheads)
scav
@Litlebritdiftrnt: I love the bizarre specificity of that.
Yatsuno
@scav: Pre-trip stress. It’s adding to the freak-out level.
Anoniminous
Speaking of military things-that-go-boom …
Reading a silly article on the logistics of the Gettysburg campaign. Writer thinks all the horses not in cavalry units were pulling supply wagons. Guess he figures the artillery arrived using diesel powered pogo sticks.
Ruckus
@Yatsuno:
It’s all good man. Just a little enlisted to officer talk.
Cassidy
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t disagree.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yatsuno: My unit provided artillery support for the ACR that Cole wasn’t in. His (the 11th) was at the Fulda Gap and was designed to act as a speed bump for Warsaw Pact forces heading to the Ruhr. The 2d was further south and designated as the speed bump for Warsaw Pact forces heading to Munich and Stuttgart. I’ve worked with tank/cav guys – they require harassment.
JenJen
Total hippy shirt. And this, when we’re all feeling nostalgic after the VH1 TLC movie.
Ruckus
@Litlebritdiftrnt:
Now that is a bug. The time thing not the squirrel.
schrodinger's cat
One thing that hasn’t changed is your fashion sense!
Roger Moore
@Knight of Nothing:
It takes some skill to get away with that kind of thing, so it’s probably better if most politicians didn’t try. Franken has the professional skill to carry it off.
schrodinger's cat
@raven: Hippie or Amish?
piratedan
strange day today, just got the call this afternoon from my soon to be surgeon that my weight loss surgery appeal has been accepted, referral numbers and everything, I go under the knife in December. so roughly a year ago, I made the decision, took two months to “weigh” my options and pick a program and two more months to complete the preliminaries only to have Cigna move the goal posts for another six months…. sigh, excited/apprehensive/pensive and reflective all at once. Sorry if its TMI, just after sharing with my family, you folks here are kinda/sorta my extended one…..
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: Show this video. It’s British, but this is how light artillery moved and fired.
JenJen
@piratedan: Not TMI! Congrats, Pirate Dan!
Ruckus
@piratedan:
Good luck.
Have a friend that did this back in August and he thinks it was the best thing he ever did. Saw him about 2 weeks ago and he had already lost 40 lbs.
schrodinger's cat
@piratedan: Good luck with the surgery!
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: Good thoughts.
Roger Moore
@Anoniminous:
And all the high ranking officers walked.
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: No officers walked.
Botsplainer
@Omnes Omnibus:
I thought that the 3 inch gun was done away with at the end of WWII…
Knight of Nothing
@Roger Moore: yeah, good point. We’ve all heard him tell a joke, and there are probably more than a few on that mailing list who have read one or two of his books. But coming in cold with such a letter might fail pretty spectacularly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer: You might be thinking of the 75mm pack howitzer. The M110A2 was phased out in the early 90s.
Linnaeus
John, you resemble a friend and colleague of mine in that photo, although your politics then would have been the polar opposite of his politics then (and now).
joel hanes
It was occasionally my job to replace the cabled helmet commo on one of my Furth battalion’s 8 inch howitzers — howitzers with hydraulic leaks, so that the carriage well was dripping cherry juice. Fortunately I had fourteen sets of fatigues
That picture of Cole reminds me of fifty guys I knew on AIT at Fort Sill and never saw again.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes:
God, that is a term I haven’t heard in years. I can distinctly remember the smell.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree that is how it was supposed to work. Being a cynic, methinks things would have been a bit more ragged under actual battlefield conditions.
@Roger Moore:
And the ambulances, couriers, headquarters guards, the odd miscellaneous “extra to TO” & so on. Horses were widely distributed in the AotP until Grant (IIRC, it may have been Meade) came along and made everybody knock it off.
Here’s a fun video of a civil war bronze Napoleon firing cannister. Right after the fire there’s a noticeable ring. Also it demonstrates why smooth bore cannons were ~40% of the Union artillery at Gettysburg and why Pickett’s Charge was … ill-advised. (Put it.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous:
Well, yeah. But just look at the number of horses. Up through WWII, British combat arms units were informally considered either horsy or not horsy. Cavalry and artillery were horsy. Infantry and engineers were not.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
Same thing in the Union Army. But even “foot artillery” had upwards of 110 horses for a six tube battery in 1863.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I was just a few miles north of there in Bamberg. Weird factoid: my battalion’s buildings were those used by the unit Claus von Stauffenberg was in pre-WWII. The Stauffenberg family had/has close ties to Bamberg. I even met his son, at the time a German Brigadier General, at a couple of social functions.
cckids
@piratedan: Good for you! Best of luck.
Jebediah, RBG
@cckids:
Hey there… I replied to you in an earlier, now-dead thread. Not that important, but I felt you were being too hard on yourself.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: Heavier guns merely required more horses and didn’t move as frequently. Heavy guns were, ideally, put into position early. Light artillery moved to the heat of the battle. Napoleon, an artilleryman, was a master at placing guns. The British horse artillery units were brilliant at moving to where they were needed. As time and tech changed, shoot and move became more prevalent. WWI is an exception.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
grr. Brain fart. “Field,” not “foot.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: Rather unrelated, but I love it.
“Leave the Artillerymen alone, they are an obstinate lot. . .”
– Napoleon Bonaparte
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not obstinate, refined.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: I have a framed print.
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
So did the other artillery officers I’ve run across. Did they hand those things out at the graduation ceremony at Ft. Sill?
Which is now “Fires Center of Excellence.” (Gag me with a fork.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: We all bought them. There is a store in the school building. It also sell ties of artillery red with gold crossed cannons. I just won’t buy polyester ties.
AxelFoley
@raven:
That’s no moon, neither.
Omnes Omnibus
People like the one in the first photo are the reason many junior officers look for new and different careers.
Draylon Hogg
Johnny Rotten? Looks more like Norman fucking Wisdom.
Patricia Kayden
@Litlebritdiftrnt: Seems like bringing home dead animals is a gift all dogs love to give.
barbara
@piratedan: best of luck!
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: She is doing her own thing now & seems to be having a shitstorm of fun doing it.
fidelio
@Draylon Hogg: I was thinking Shane MacGowan myself.
Paul in KY
@piratedan: Gnarrrr! Best of luck to you!
Paul in KY
@joel hanes: That’s a squared away troop! 14 sets of fatigues. At least you weren’t out blowing your paycheck at tittie bars ;-)
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
in Furth? When?
A decade later. Arrived William O’Darby Kaserne in May 1973, fresh out of AIT, and just after the last US troops left Viet Nam. In an intimation of things to come, my unit was already in Grafenwoehr when I arrived, and I rode up to field training on the company van on my second day in the country.
I loved Nurnberg and Bayern, and would really like to go back and visit. I’ve checked: Das Gute Zirndorfer is still made ten klicks away in Zirndorf, and that alone is worth a trans-Atlantic journey.
joel hanes
@Paul in KY:
squared away
I’m glad someone understands.
Five sets of fatigues in the quartermaster laundry, five to wear this week, two old sets for working under vehicles, and two ultra-starched razor-creased sets for show on short notice.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Never happened to me, and I was in an 8 inch artillery unit.
You were an officer. That’s a different life.
You carried a sidearm.
Your driver probably changed the oil on your jeep.
I, on the other hand, as a commo specialist, was privileged to pull first-echelon maintenance on a Gama Goat. Trying to extract the oil drain plug while reaching up through the six-inch port in the waterproof hull without having all the hot oil run down your shirtsleeve was something hardly anyone got right the first time.
sherparick
John, were you still in Fulda when this happen?
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-978836.html
I knew both the prosecutors and defense attorneys in the case.
sherparick
@Anoniminous: And the horses/mules had to haul their own hay/feed as they could not rely on what they found on the side of the road. Basically, the Civil War armies, even with railroad support, were logistically limited to at most 120,000 men.
I read Alan Guelzo’s book on the Gettysburg campaign this past summer and it highlighted a bleeding huge elephant in the room that about 140 year of civil war history writing for the most part has never mentioned (and I include recent, Northern oriented writers like Stephen Sears and James McPherson. The elephant is that the Army of Northern Virginia was supported by approximately 20,000 slaves who did most of the logistical labor for that Army, freeing thousands for combat roles, while Union soldiers were detailed to that work work in AoP (cooking, teamsters, supply quartermasters, etc.) Hence, the frequently proclaimed superiority of numbers between the AoP and ANVa did not actually exist, as in actual combat infantrymen and artillery, the numbers were approximately equal in most fights during 1862-64. http://cwmemory.com/2013/05/22/slavery-traveled-with-the-army-of-northern-virginia/
The thing where I think Guelzo went wrong, in an otherwise excellent discussion of the failings of the American civil war armies (and that they were closer to Napoleonic armies in actual fire power) was his discussion about the want of “heavy cavalry” in the Civil War armies and how that affected battle when compared with contemporary European armies. There are actual battles in Europe contemporaneous in technology and tactics to the Civil War armies (Solferino, 1859, 2d Schleswig War 1864, Austro-Prussian War 1866), and their use (or lack of use) of cavalry against infantry and artillery was not much different than the Civil War.