Friend from the army sent me a picture of me in 1990 Germany rocking the latest in Army headgear:
I have no idea what the hell was going on other than probably me being a jackass and entertaining people with my stupidity. Some things don’t change. Not sure where we are, but those are field billets because we are on cots.
New SNL with Peter Dinklage tonight.
Baud
Except for gaining weight.
redshirt
2 questions:
1. What’s in your hands?
2. What is “The Great Aussie Lifesaver”?
Major Major Major Major
Aw, you made a new post just for us!
redshirt
3. Who are the haters?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Third post with this title? Really? Interesting.
Can’t quite make out what the shirt says. “The Great Aussie Life Saver” maybe?
Cheers,
Scott.
dr. bloor
@redshirt:
1. My bet is either portable nuke or sex toy.
2. #1
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@redshirt:
Yeah, also my first question. Is that some kind of toothpaste or what?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Apparently the T-shirt is a reference to “Castlemaine XXXX” bitter ale.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Who’s the other guy (to the left)? Why is he (apparently) so sleepy?
Cheers,
Scott.
scav
first two thoughts.
a) that seems a more realistic view of army life
b) that’s a very German window.
Tim C.
*slow clap at about a rate of about .66 hertz*
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@redshirt:
#2: Castlemaine XXXX Bitter Ale
… .The Great Aussie Life Saver
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@efgoldman: Genius.
I hope the campaign continues.
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
field billets
Ah, beautiful Grafenwoehr.
I spent six months there over the course of two years.
The German woods and hills are beautiful where the military hasn’t torn them up, and in the 1970’s, the local bier, Grafenwoehr Hell, had a perfect name and came in bottles with the “flippy” ceramic-stopper seal that Grolsch still uses.
Other than that, it’s one of the universe’s many nether orifices.
Tent City in winter was an endless sea of mud flavored with spilled diesel.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@efgoldman: I can act, so I’m considering acting like an Indiana resident and calling – or emailing – the governor’s office with an update on my fictional menstrual cycle status.
ruemara
I like the headgear. And you’ve really changed since then.
In other news, I’ve found there’s some structural leak in my apartment. The carpet under my workstation is soaked and moldy. Nothing galvanizes depressives like a threat to their gaming rig, I mean, editing station.
Amir Khalid
Never mind.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Can it really be a “field billet” with drapes? Or did your unit just have a superlative sense of style?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
Well, I’ve emailed most of the local journalists that cover Gopher women’s hockey to ask if they’d like to help me promote Becoming Phoebe. That was actually really stressful. Now my list of weekend projects is down to putting together a sell sheet, which doesn’t induce anxiety, just acknowledgement that I’m terrible at design and will be passing it off to my consultant to spiff up, and writing the neighborhood paper and asking if they want to cover it. I also need to get copies in the mail to my various editors and endorser. Jacy, I need your new address, and it might be a couple of weeks, because I’ve been procrastinating about something else, too.
Oh, and there’s the signing tomorrow. 2pm at the Har Mar Barnes & Noble, for you local denizens.
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
I was looking at the drapes and thinking no wonder Cole lost his mustard. His subconscious didn’t want the reminder.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: That kind of thing happens.
Applejinx
Everybody’s haters around here, don’t sweat it. Maybe it’ll settle down post-election, or maybe it’ll get worse.
redshirt
@ruemara: Forget gaming, think about mold. If you’ve got a lasting damp area, then you’ve probably already got mold, and are probably already breathing it in, doing FSM knows what to your body, but nothing good, that’s for sure.
Applejinx
Huh. Testing, one, two, three? Complete lack of FYWP words? I just wanted to tell John not to fret.
opiejeanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I bought your book and am looking forward to reading it. We are on a road trip so maybe tonight I will get to start it, if I don’t pass out from exhaustion first.
Gin & Tonic
Can’t get a fucking basketball thread for love or money. Instead it’s stupid picture day.
I want my money back.
seaboogie
@John Cole:
Nice legs, Cole….hubba hubba!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Gin & Tonic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhBa12DobiM
GiveMeApplejinxOrGiveMeDeath
You know, I thought I was being pretty laid back, even talking with JR about photography and stuff.
I don’t remember this site banning people for who they were, and I certainly don’t remember flipping out at anybody today. I guess sometimes you get a little wake-up call telling you the thing you thought was okay, really really wasn’t okay all along.
This is still the site that got me volunteering for Obama, and I’ll remember some things about it fondly, but damn, people. Epistemic closure, much? I’m not even remotely the trolliest berniekin.
Have fun, I guess. Jesus, I’d expect that from Red State.
schrodinger's cat
You look like a babushka from the old country.
ETA: Sometimes I will put scarves on my kitteh’s heads and give them Ruski names.
Omnes Omnibus
It sure as hell isn’t Graf or Hohenfels.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: I never once saw drapes at Graf – and I was an officer.
ruemara
@redshirt: Thinking about it. Nothing I can do about it though. I’m sending it to the apartment manager and clearing the area to see if it can dry. And of course, killing the mold. I don’t need that shit in my body again.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: What did you use for window treatments? Blinds? Shades? Nothing?
Davebo
I had an old roommate send me a 3 dvd set from our Med Cruise on the America in 1986. Someone had checked out a camcorder from the library and started a “documentary”.
I slogged through all 6 hours of it and was grateful that I never appeared! Then, I forced my wife to slog through it as well.
He did manage to get some pilots to carry the camera on board flights and that produced some good footage from sorties over N. Africa and southern France but overall it was pretty painful.
But going through that video in berthings and chow halls etc. with all of us (about 230 in our squadron) made me remember how we all got along, white, black, hispanic and others. And that was 30 years ago.
Forked Tongue
“Not sure where we are, but those are field billets because we are on cots.”
Surely I can’t be the only one who read that as “because we are on cats.”
Davebo
@Gin & Tonic: If only there were dozens of sites with up to the moment scores and commentary including user comments!
And if only you had a small hand held electronic device to access and interact with those sites.
That would be cool! ;0)
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodinger’s cat: These buildings were one room open spaces. No furniture. We brought in our cots. Window treatments? Hah! It is to laugh.
Lamh36
1990…hmmm I was bout 14 years old. how old are you here John?
we’re you a raging RWNJ by then? or did that come later after ur time in armed services?
trying to decide if my 14 year old self would have considered you a douche or cool dude … ??
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
[ no drapes at Graf ]
Good catch.
The entire window thing and the ceiling height make it not the Graf I knew, but I was last there in 1975, and things change in fifteen years.
Mike J
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s also not the business floor of the Frankfurt City Centre Hilton. I love the showers there. One handle for pressure, one for temp.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s when we had buildings.
In Tent City, one just rolled up the wall to suit
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: Your Germany experience differs for that of others.
Gin & Tonic
@Davebo: Like I said before, I’m so old I can remember when people would discuss major sporting competitions here, and one of the hosts would provide a place for that, and might even feign interest.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: Never did Tent City there. IIRC you were artillery out of Bamberg?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
So the first serious backlash to HB2 got reported this week:
High Point Market says House Bill 2 causing businesses to cancel attendance
And the protestors are out:
Family protest against HB2 in front of Governor’s Mansion
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: It must have been the alcohol.
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
Come to think of it, we had no drapes or other “window treatments” in our permanent kaserne barracks either.
joel hanes
@Omnes Omnibus:
8-inch howitzer out of W.O. Darby Kaserne in Fuerth.
Downtown Nurnberg was only a few blocks walk and a few miles of strassenbahn away.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t I could have lasted one day in the military.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: Now you are remembering…
Mike J
@Davebo:
My dad’s squadron did quals onto the America when it was brand new, before it have ever been on a cruise. He was in the back of the airplane in VAW-12.
raven
@Davebo: My Bn Commander from Korea sent me a copy of an hour long home movie he shot during our 67-68 tour. I put it up on YouTube and get pretty positive feedback from time-titime.
joel hanes
@schrodinger’s cat:
In point of fact, about 98% of people adjust and do just fine in the military.
The human ability to adapt is truly amazing.
Omnes Omnibus
@joel hanes: It is 8-inch howitzers we have in common. I remembered it was something.
@schrodinger’s cat: Because of the window treatments?
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: No, I remember it clearly.
raven
@joel hanes: If I was black I would still be in Leavenworth.
raven
@joel hanes: Redlegs!
raven
@joel hanes: As it is I end up in a group like this!
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Its not Baumholder either – as far as I can tell. Klay Caserne before they did all the building and retrofitting when USAREUR relocated there?
raven
Cuse closes to 10.
Adam L Silverman
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: The Department of Transportation has intimated it might withhold highway funds.
Mike in NC
We spent a week in Germany in December and it seemed like every other freaking town or village had until recently housed an American military installation, 70 years after WW2.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: I have a close friend, who I recruited for my team in Iraq as a research manager and analyst. During Vietnam he was a medic stationed in Germany (every time they thought they were going to Vietnam they got sent somewhere else…). Anyhow, he somehow got busted for once starting a mutiny in the dining facility in garrison.
joel hanes
@Mike in NC:
Until the war in Kuwait, the US Army had about a quarter million troops stationed in Germany.
trollhattan
Since when do we let kids fight our wars?
Oh, wait….
Just think, the tank they paid you peanuts to drive cost more than all the cars you’ll ever own, put together. They entrusted you with all that, so that’s something.
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: It’s well proven that decreases in drinking will lead to less sportsball watching. And thus less posting.
raven
@Adam L Silverman: My entire bat in AIT went to Germany and I went to Korea. I think it was because I volunteered for the Nam but I was only 17 and couldn’t go there. . . yet. Lotsa crazy shit went down.
redshirt
@joel hanes: Was that considered an occupying army?
Steeplejack
@schrodinger’s cat:
“Field billet” sort of presupposes being “in the field”—or it used to—where a tent would be the order of the day and something with hard walls and a real window would be sheer luxury. Drapes don’t even come into it.
raven
@Steeplejack: I lived in a GP medium for a year and was damn lucky to do so!
joel hanes
@raven:
I’m glad you survived the ‘Nam.
My enlistment NCO explained that if I enlisted with a 3-year hitch before I actually got drafted, the Army would “guarantee” that my first TOE unit would be in Europe. I jumped at it.
If I had been willing to sign up for four years, I wouldn’t have been in combat arms; probably in Signal Corps.
Adam L Silverman
@raven: The really good part is that the Forward Support Battalion of our Brigade Combat Team was the Support Battalion he was a member of during Vietnam. He was a bit worried that someone would pull his name up, wind up with a forty some odd year old file, and he’d wind up back in detention for something…
I was pretty sure he was joking, but given some of the stories…
raven
@Adam L Silverman: My old man was always sweatin me about my record. It ain’t meant shit.
Steeplejack
@Mike in NC:
That was to keep the Russkis from invading.
raven
@joel hanes: I was in a 105 outfit in Korea and an Honest John Battery at Lewis. Three of us paid a guy at post replacement to get into a unit going to the Nam. That’s how I ended up a truck driver in a Signal Bn.
Ruckus
@Davebo:
A rare thing. We both were on the same ship in the same area. Many years apart though. We, DDG18, served as plane guard for the America in 71 in the Med. Had to go aboard a couple of times to pick up supplies for our work group. Also refueled a number of times from her. One big ass boat.
raven
Peace out, gotta rack.
Steeplejack
@raven:
Nite-nite.
joel hanes
@redshirt:
Was that considered an occupying army?
“Occupying army” segued into “NATO defense” at some point; our stated mission was to delay the Warsaw Pact forces by about 30 minutes after they came through the gap in force, after which point we would probably no longer be in good enough shape to be militarily useful.
With special “white bag” powder, the eight-inch howitzer could lob a quarter-kiloton tactical nuclear warhead about (IIRC) ten kilometers, and we trained for that nuclear-war nightmare scenario. I particularly remember one hot afternoon, running through the woods doing squad tactic drills in gas mask and full field gear over the rubberized protective outfit, sweating like pigs, thowing ourselves on the ground and shouting “BANG”!
Reading _Catch_22_ every six months really helped me keep my sanity.
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Not just that, as a kitteh I need comfortable surroundings to be happy.
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
Reading _Catch_22_ every six months really helped me keep my sanity.
Still have my well worn copy.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/93/29/ce/9329cedc550aaa636a87be4fce20039c.jpg
and
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/2c/cd/89/2ccd898a1520d69095262adcfdc1dec4.jpg
So no excuses.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: And a bonus one:
http://i.imgur.com/mSPsYQz.jpg
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Adam L Silverman: There’s been a lot of insinuation. Feds, NBA, NCAA, etc. High Point Market is the first actual “Nope, we’re cancelling our trip this year” that I’ve heard. If enough furniture retailers and wholesalers refuse to do business here, we could see a major part of NC’s economy collapse.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: I actually knew the guy (though only online) in the second photo. He used to hang out on ICHC when ICHC was brand new, way back in 2006-07.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Its a very small Internet world. I’ve got lots of pictures of dogs and cats in Iraq that I took when I was there. We didn’t adopt any. I did go to one Patrol Base where they had adopted a donkey they’d found running wild. And almost every base had a bunch of feral/semi-feral dogs and cats running around on it/through it at times.
John Cole
@GiveMeApplejinxOrGiveMeDeath: What are you talking about? Who banned who?
Gin & Tonic
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: It’s not that the retailers and wholesalers might refuse to do business, but that market, especially at the higher end, relies on designers. And it’s designers who are saying they’re canceling trips. At least the people actually in the furniture biz understand that you can’t piss off gay people if you need to rely on interior designers.
Adam L Silverman
@John Cole: You may want to email him in case he/she isn’t coming back over whatever he/she thinks happened.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Gin & Tonic: I keep hearing talk about the designers cancelling, and I keep thinking, “But isn’t the designer’s job already done by this point?”
You’re not talking about the furniture designers, who are mostly local and are a part of a much earlier step in the process. You’re talking about the interior designers who drive a lot of the direct purchasing.
I can only plead Hugo blinders. (Nominations closed on 31 Mar. I’ve been doing a lot of last-minute reading.)
Steve in the ATL
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not sure if I should be impressed or calling 911….
Steeplejack (phone)
@John Cole:
I presume he thinks the nym Applejinx got banned.
Maybe FYWP ate a comment and he misinterpreted?
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack (phone): I’ve reached out and linked Cole in. Provided he/she was using a legit/real email address, we’ll get it sorted out.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Adam L Silverman:
So I can’t continue to offer random opinions from the sidelines and cloud the waters?
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack (phone): Whatever lifts your kilt.
Mike J
I heard applejinx was sent off to the camps.
James Powell
@joel hanes:
I always wondered how soldiers in Germany during the Cold War felt about being the people who were expected to die in droves come the Next Big One.
redshirt
@Mike J: They banned Apple Jax?! But it’s such a delicious cereal!
Ruckus
@James Powell:
Probably the same as anyone feels about being in the way of the bullet, no matter what the shape or delivery of it.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Many moons ago, while stationed at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge, I spent several weeks at a Luftwaffe base named Leipzig. I never thought I’d hear that name again.
Now I get word that the company I work for is relocating their Deutschland facility to an office park on the grounds of…that now-closed base.
Strange days indeed.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@Adam L Silverman: This one looks pretty dangerous.
http://1funny.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/kitten-gun.jpg
redshirt
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Synchronicity.
seaboogie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Were you also a gentleman?
Ruckus
@seaboogie:
One doesn’t tell.
joel hanes
@efgoldman:
Erlangen was a nice little town when I was there; I used to ride my bicycle up there from Furth on weekends. Cobblestones plus a hard leather saddle, but I was young and stupid.
joel hanes
@James Powell:
I always wondered how soldiers in Germany during the Cold War felt about being the people who were expected to die in droves come the Next Big One.
Because the combat was theoretical, it was better than ‘Nam. But productive of absurdity (grown men shouting “Bang!”, e.g.)
But yeah, fatalism about unimaginable horror.
We smoked a lot of hashish, drank a lot of great German bier and tax-free Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Spatelese and Auslese riesling wines from the Class 6 store, tried not to think about it realistically, and counted the days until our hitch was up.
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
… but if the Warsaw Pact forces ever _had_ blitzed through the gap, we wouldn’t have been the only ones dying in droves — much of the northern hemisphere would have been made into radioactive slag within a day or two.
Felixmoronia
@joel hanes: As a civilian I worked with the Berlin Brigade in 1988 and their fatalism was the prospect of being interned in the largest POW camp in the world.
Davebo
@Ruckus:
Did the same summer cruise on the Ike in 88 and it made America look small. But of the 4 carriers I served on the America was my favorite which made me sad that they sank her. I got that they scrapped our old A-7’s for the F-18’s but at least they didn’t sink them.
The America was the last non-nuclear powered carrier built which at the time was nice as some ports didn’t want nukes pulling into their bay.
yet another jeff
Somewhere, there’s a joke where the punchline is “The Drapes of Graf”…
Daring to dream.
GiveMeApplejinxOrGiveMeDeath
@Adam L Silverman: Hey, all I know is the nick was dead (innocuous posts, including in this thread saying ‘take it easy, John, there’s always gonna be haters’, just didn’t work). No FYWP words, in one case I took pains not to include anything of the sort.
So, a funny nick and a secondary but valid email (which I don’t check but can, it’s my spamtrap at gmail), to see whether it was Chrome or something, a bit of moderation (which is a wordpress setting: I run wordpress sites too and know the drill), and it went through just fine. (predictably this one’s not even moderated: that stuff is stock WordPress and the initial moderation was just a setting in WP)
It seems like I agree with John on some things but there’s some people around here who are just not feelin’ it and, much like so many primary contests like the Nevada caucus, somebody with admin access figured I shouldn’t be there and took some steps to fix that.
This site is not an election. It’s a private place, and though I’ve had a lot of fun with the exchange of ideas here and (as I said) Balloon Juice got me volunteering for Democratic campaigns starting with Obama, if important people around here want me to disappear that much, presumably because I’m a darned killjoy (I suspect a post on the Authors thread about how it’s not really a paying job in practical terms was involved: it was there, and then it was gone and so was the ol’ nom de plume)… well…
You don’t automatically get a voice. I have websites of my own. There’s no rule saying I should control this one. I’ve seen a lot of flak, argument and lively language, all in good spirits (if not about the subjects, then about the tone of the discussion: bring it on, it’s a comments section!)
I’ve not seen a random ban before, at a time when I was taking pains not to ‘bern up’ unrelated threads and had even urged Bob from Portland not to drag that stuff into a non-primary thread.
I’d like to part friends, but if that’s a thing now, it feels like this place has changed. It’s not 2012 anymore, and maybe it’s best if I move on.
Steeplejack
@yet another jeff:
Okay, funny, and not just because I’m punchy from staying up all night.
joel hanes
@yet another jeff:
One suspects that that permanent quarters of the base commander, the range control officer, and their XOs must have had draperies. And perhaps wives and families.
A friend from high school, caught up in the same cold draft that caught me, his lottery number 64 to my 83, a brilliant musician, enlisted for six years and spent the entire enlistment at The Presidio, in the heart of San Francisco, studying, playing, and teaching the bassoon. (And flying kites. Later on he went to Julliard, subsequently was the leader of the Venezuelan national chanber orchestra; later still an unhappy computer tech in Austin TX.)
I’ve seen his quarters; they had no draperies.
I’ve had Easter brunch in the former Presidio Officer’s Club, a brilliant setting with a dramatic view of the Golden Gate.
Robert Sneddon
@Adam L Silverman: A Polish battalion in the Middle East during WWII adopted a bear cub. It grew up into a full-sized bear, as they do. When they were deployed to Italy later in the war they found the easiest way to keep their mascot was to enlist him. The bear, Wotjek, was trained to carry heavy mortar rounds for the battalion.
After the war was over Wotjek ended up at Edinburgh Zoo as a lot of the Poles chose to stay in the UK. There’s now a statue of him in Princes Street gardens, under the castle alongside other military memorials.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@GiveMeApplejinxOrGiveMeDeath: You’ve been around here long enough to recognize that FYWP breaks things for various people for various unknown reasons all the time (“I can’t edit! I can’t login! My posts disappear!” etc.). It might be as simple as someone needing to reboot the server, it might be a recent update that’s broken, it might be something on your end (broken cookies, busted browser cache, etc. – the usual things). Shrug, do what you need to do to get a working login, and post away. Don’t take it personally – life is too short.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Scott Alloway
@Davebo: I’m listening to the UConn-Oregon State game right now on http://tunein.com. Old Yankee, have followed UConn BB since Toby Kimball and Wes Bialosuknia (RIP) in the 60s.