(Non Sequitur via GoComics.com)
.
.
That was the most deplorable thing my late school-teacher mother could say about anyone…
Trump’s tweets include grammatical errors. And some are done by aides on purpose, who relish the scoldings from elites and believe debates over presidential typos fortify the belief within his base that he has the common touch. Via @AnnieLinskey: https://t.co/vW5JT1skc7
— Matt Viser (@mviser) May 22, 2018
People get paid to make Trump look stupid. https://t.co/NpELoAmQad
— John Aravosis (@aravosis) May 22, 2018
Now we can say conclusively that EVERYBODY thinks the Trump base is made up of goobers. https://t.co/LlqP27JmxN
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) May 22, 2018
TenguPhule
This is now a job?
schrodingers_cat
विनाशकाले विपरीत बुद्धि
oatler.
“Let the learning of clerks die.”
some medieval SOB
dmsilev
@TenguPhule: We’re assuming Trump is paying these people?
Cermet
They are getting far overpaid since the orange fart cloud is doing far away better a job looking stupid himself when ever he speaks on any subject.
TenguPhule
More Volcano Pictures!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
following Pierce: Republicans, and it’s as true of Romney and Ryan as it is of trump, despise most of the people they con into voting for them
“We love the poorly educated!”
Cckids
Cue line from The Producers:”He didn’t need our help!”
Major Major Major Major
What a week. And it’s only Tuesday!
I have far too many job interviews.
TenguPhule
@dmsilev:
How else can he stiff them on most of what he owes them?
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Its Infrastructure week, didn’t you get the memo?
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Show off.
GxB
Saw an interesting parallel elsewhere – Nigerian prince scams also use poor grammar and spelling on purpose. They know their marks have to be extraordinarily stupid and that is part of the screening process.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s a good problem to have.
I came in 11th in my last contest, so I feel like the slightly new direction I took the story is the right one.
Mnemosyne
@GxB:
I would bet that Nigerian Prince scams use poor spelling and grammar to make the marks feel superior. That’s one of the most reliable ways people get scammed — assuming that you’re smarter than the con artist.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: it’s a better problem to have when you don’t already have a job.
Fortunately they seem to keep forgetting about me here.
ETA and yay! Did you mention that the other day? Or is this another?
SiubhanDuinne
Waiting for Georgia primary results. We have some good Dems running for a number of offices, and I’m eager to see how it shakes out. I will cheerfully vote for any of the D candidates in November, but I treated this primary as a way to make symbolic statements. In general (not in every race), I preferred female to male, A-A or ethnic minority to white. Even if my candidates don’t prevail this time, I think it’s important to send a message that black folk and immigrants and women and LGBT can be a force in future elections.
Obviously, in the best of all possible worlds, I’d love to see a woman, especially a black woman, be elected Governor of Georgia. And I’m not stupid, I know it’s a very long shot. But every time we choose candidates who have previously been locked out, we make I think that much easier for their counterparts two or four or six years out.
TenguPhule
Trump says ‘very substantial chance’ North Korea summit could be delayed
Now this is just getting embarrassing.
Shana
@Major Major Major Major: Better than not enough job interviews.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Don’t worry, the Trump administration is cutting the emergency fund for CHIP, so all those kids on the Big Island who are developing respiratory problems from the ash and gases are shit out of luck when it comes to getting medical care for it.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
‘Now’? ‘Just’?
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
I entered 3 contests in total and found out how I placed in two of them. I can probably ask the third contest exactly where I placed.
I got good comments back, too. The main consensus is that my pacing is too slow, but I’m not going to worry about that until the next draft. Right now, I need to get the structural problems fixed (those weren’t visible to the contest judges because they only saw the first couple of chapters).
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: I need to start updating LinkedIn and my resume. I’m approaching the point where I’m going to need to bail in the next year or so, and I’m only getting a small amount of feelers at the moment.
Too many interviews is a good problem to have.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major: Well, more then usual.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: Its actually worse then that as far the drop in air quality. Winds are pushing the vog into Oahu, which does wonders for us here. And by wonders, I mean it triggers coughing, sneezing and runny noses.
kd bart
You people and your fancy book learning. So Coastal Elite.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@TenguPhule:
I really want it to fail. But Trump’s humiliation is also ours since he represents us. This is truly a moral dilemma that even Kant couldn’t solve.
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: come to New York, take the whole family!
Ping me when you do start looking though, I can refer you to some
kickback opportunitiesrecruiters.TenguPhule
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Accept that failure is inevitable and look for ways to survive the fallout.
TenguPhule
Breaking on Wapo (with corrections for accuracy).
Doug R
Unpresidented.
TenguPhule
Never change from where you are now, Cole.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: They’re on the White House staff, specifically on the staff of Dan Scavino, the President’s caddy who now holds rank equivalent to a 3 star general and is the White House Director of Social Media. We’re paying for them.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: Likewise – I have some friends at a few good companies you might enjoy working for. If you need MORE interviews, let me know.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
I demand a refund.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Are you enjoying Infrastructure Week?
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: In more ways than one.
Planetpundit
“Being paid to make Trump look stupid”…..so easy it amounts to Wingnut welfare.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Major Major Major Major: Too many interviews is a good problem to have.
Peale
@Adam L Silverman: how long before he’s made an actual 3 Star General. At some point it’s going to happen, you know.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: But the date’s on the challenge coin…
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@TenguPhule: But…but…we have the coins and everything.
Peale
Reading how the trade war with China is shaping up…Jesus we look stupid. And old. And cranky. Fighting verbally in earshot of the Chinese? Bolton had more tact as UN Ambassador.
MomSense
I hate this timeline.
Ian G.
If Isaac Asimov were still alive, I’m afraid he’d have to update his famous line about the false belief that democracy means my ignorance is as good as your knowledge. These days, ignorance is considered SUPERIOR to knowledge.
raven
We’re waiting for election results in Georgia. There are some stupid motherfuckers running for governor.
Schlemazel
@GxB:
That was the first thing I thought of when I read the story about intentionally stupid tweets. But we have to understand and respect the racist, ignorant agents of chaos or they will never ever vote for decent people.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: It’s so much better than the last Infrastructure Week, that one sucked.
Adam L Silverman
@Peale: He only has a high school degree. You have to have a bachelors degree and have attended a Senior Leader College (war college) in order to be promoted to general or admiral.
JPL
@raven: hmm all the repubs are stupid mother fuckers.. It appears that Abrams will win easily, but I still hate the national coverage on that race. The two Stacey’s are more alike than different. I’m watching my house district hoping Price goes down in flames and the 6th.
ljdramone
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Checkmate, libtards!!
Humdog
I need to ask the jackals – when you talk to people who do not follow politics and discuss how awful things are shaping into, do they look at you as if you are crazy? Too many people do not perceive that their lives are or are going to be affected. White privilege cocoons them. I am the crazy person because I see big troubles!?!?
Sometimes I fear I am surely in the wrong and my perceptions must be off. I do no like living in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” distopia.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
G is still convinced that the Cubs broke this timeline. I want to know which asshole Cubs fan from the future used his time machine to screw us up. ?
raven
@JPL: Did you see the AJC story that said it’s 2-1 turnout pukes over dems?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Haven’t you learned that rules and norms no longer matter?
But her emails!!
@Adam L Silverman:
This no longer matters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: I warned y’all about this during the 2016 World Serries. Did y’all listen to ‘ol Bill, NO.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne: my die-hard Cubs fan, and passionate liberal, cousin is convinced they derailed the universe by winning
JPL
@raven: That actually didn’t bother me because I think lots of folks are waiting until November. Turnout across both party lines was low.
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
To be fair, the Redsox started it in 2004.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s the problem with curses — getting one lifted usually just lands you in a worse problem. That’s what makes them curses.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Ha! I’ve been thinking the same thing.
Tokyokie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You folks should read W.P Kinsella’s short story, “The Last Pennant Before Armageddon.”
One of my best friends, and the most die-hard Cubs fan I’ve ever known, was fully aware of it, but cheered on the little bears all the same. He died of prostate cancer last New Year’s Eve.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: And look what happened in November of 2004.
JPL
@JPL: I was suppose to go check results at local precincts, but sadly someone else volunteered to do so. Locally Fulton Cty is late but they post results on precinct doors.
Doug R
@Mnemosyne:
The city that hosts the Winter Olympics is SUPPOSED to win the Stanley Cup later that year. Boston ROBBED the Canucks, that’s why we had the riot. Timeline is wrong.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: It was a monkey paw wish.
Redsox were wish 1.
Cubs were wish 2.
I don’t think we get a do-over from wish 3.
Redshift
@Mnemosyne:
That’s probably part of it. From what I read, it’s selecting for gullibility. People who are dumb enough to believe that high government officials would send ungrammatical and misspelled official messages are dumb enough not to see through the scam.
Of course, it should also be compared to the Republican base, which has also been selecting for gullibility ever since Weyrich discovered in the 70s that he could make a bundle renting political mailing lists to telemarketers.
Manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: An embarrassment of riches? Also, too, knock em dead!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tokyokie: thanks for the heads-up on the story
sorry about your friend
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: please, everybody knows that David Bowie was singlehandedly holding reality together.
Mnemosyne
@Redshift:
And I’ll go even further — the reason it’s a poorly spelled letter from a “Nigerian” Prince is to play on people’s feelings of racial bigotry. See, they speak better English than actual royalty because that royalty is, well, you know …
scav
Next thing, in addition to arresting and deporting all bilingual people as un’-Merkan, they’ll start complaining about having to press 2 for ungrammatical English. The Goldilocks of the spoken
wordwerd.woodrowfan
Our little wiener dog had his 3d back operation. Another $9,000. He comes tomorrow evening to a lot of very gentle pats and kisses…..
Redshift
@Humdog:
I don’t seem to ever have that problem. Even with friends who weren’t into politics before, they’re almost all at constant maximum outrage now.
Tokyokie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks. I’m just getting to the point where when I’ll learn of a new movie or concert date of which he would have been interested that my first thought isn’t “I need to call him. … Oh yeah.”
Manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: That becomes clearer every day.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and Paul Cmpos’s theory about Elliott Brody paying off (or laundering the payment to) trump’s mistress to cover up trumpy paying for an abotion makes it to the Tee-Vee, on the night trump is accepting an award from a “pro-life” group
Chris Haye’s closing segment
Peale
@TenguPhule: someone went and wished for more wishes, didn’t they. I knew it!
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: wiki sez,
Out here, we’ve all been getting slammed with Chinese robocalls that I understand are some international cartel doing a similar scam.
Wag
@schrodingers_cat:
Interesting take on our current situation. Truly and without snark.
Adam L Silverman
Someone needs to adjust Rudy’s meds!
No Drought No More
“He feared the [War in Vietnam] had endangered the nation’s historical identity..”. So notes the Wiki entry about David Shoup, congressional medal of honor winner (Tarawa) and USMC Commandant (1959-1963).
It’s not hard to imagine what Shoup would have said concerning the 2003 War in Iraq. He would never have insulted Americans by calling it any kind of “mistake”, much less one made by honorable people. Lest We Forget- those same “honorable people” remain unrepentant of that war to this day. Indeed, they remain proud of their war crimes (that, or ashamed and quiet as mice about their role in those crimes).
In 14 May 1966, Shoup began publicly attacking the policy in a speech delivered to community college students at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California, for their World Affairs Day. (Wiki)
Shoup said that day: “…I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own—and if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the “haves” refuse to share with the “have-nots” by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don’t want and above all don’t want crammed down their throats by Americans…”.
Redshift
@Mnemosyne: Oh, definitely. Though there was a time it was actual Nigerians, and it was the second largest industry in Nigeria.
The most nakedly bigoted one I ever got claimed to be from an ousted member of the ruling family of some country, who said that he was a Christian, but if you didn’t help him transfer the money, his wife’s Muslim relatives would get it.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Not enough booze in the world.
Peale
@Adam L Silverman: they want to investigate Clinton and appoint a special prosecutor to do so. I’m not hopeful that they won’t.
scav
For any needing a critter break, here are some cheerful ones.
L85NJGT
@Major Major Major Major:
There is a Jamaican outfit that does heavy handed and false collection calls.
Adam L Silverman
@woodrowfan: We’re keeping good thoughts.
LAO
@Adam L Silverman: Trump and his enablers are really living in an alternative universe. It’s frightening.
germy
Humdog
@scav: thx, I needed those!
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Comey…is the psychopath here?
Rudy, you’re not allowed to get that high. As Sam Kinison once related, God will be PI$$ED if she sees you floating up past her that way…
Shell
@woodrowfan: Omigosh. Good wishes for all of you. Pats and kisses sound like a good plan.
Jay
@Schlemazel:
” But we have to understand and respect the racist, ignorant agents of chaos or they will never ever vote for decent people.”
Worse yet, if we don’t respect them, according to the Ususal Suspects, they will turn into Nazi’s or Zombies, or worse, Deplorables.
debbie
@TenguPhule:
He must have forgotten he’d scheduled a golf game for that day.
schrodingers_cat
@Wag:धन्यवाद
I have felt that since the current President was elected. Voting for him was like a death wish.
germy
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
When I was looking for a job starting in late 2011 and running till early 2013 when I got the one I have now, I had 2 interviews. The interview for the job I have now was arranged by a friend. So about a year and a half, no interviews. I talked to a lot of people, but few were actually hiring, especially not someone over 60. (and yes I know what the law says)
germy
Brachiator
@woodrowfan:
Good wishes to you.
Schlemazel
@Jay:
Exactly. I wish we lived in a world where liberals had as much power & control as the asshole battalion says we do
Skepticat
@Ian G.:
That’s it; you’ve made me cry, so I’m going to bed to read murder mysteries for ideas.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
What ya wanna bet that numbnuts will get all pissed off it he said it was so and was told it can’t be done? Throw a tantrum in fact. A public tantrum.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
Congrats to Stacy Abrams!
Jeffro
@germy: That’s a rather novel approach: “the burglar, he just happened to rob my neighbor, and he just happened to drop my neighbor’s jewels in my lap, and I just happened to take them – no questions asked, no jewels returned, no FBI approached – to the nearest pawn shop and make big bucks off of this thing that just happened.”
germy
I had no idea Trevor Noah had a cameo in the Black Panther film.
I went back and watched the clip and recognized his voice. I had no idea the first time I saw it. (Someone spotted his name in the closing credits)
TenguPhule
@germy:
This is somewhere along the lines of the guy wondering why all these men are sucking his dick out of nowhere.
germy
@Jeffro: It’s A Gift.
jl
@Mnemosyne: Nigerian scammer are very careful to tailor their pitch to the specific mark. I remember seeing a TV report on a group that ran a multi-million dollar oil tanker scam (had a ghost ghost l fleet of tankers). IIRC, they adopted a lingo of naive and optimistic academic over achieving strivers, they thought would appeal to corporate business people. Said the scam was ‘like taking candy from a baby.”
Schlemazel
@Ruckus:
Hiring managers make their decision in the first 30 second & spend the rest of the interview justifying it – according to an HR friend.
The only time I was involuntarily unemployed was lat 2007, the market was shit and I was in my late 50s. I pulled every trick I could think of including dying the little gray I had and deleting the first 15 years of my career from my resume simply to remove any thought of why I didn’t get the job. Does not matter what the law says. Studies done show with identical resumes white sounding names get more call backs than black sounding names. Laws or human decency be damned
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
Unfortunately, it’s not just Rudy. From the Vanity Fair story linked to the Twitter comments.
It’s weird how some of Trump’s closest outside advisers are plugged into his resentful paranoia.
TenguPhule
@Schlemazel:
They are now.
Schlemazel
@Skepticat:
Don’t read Donald Westlakes “The Axe”! It is about a middle manager in a dying industry whose company moves overseas so he needs a job & there is only one job that he wants. Too many ideas
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
I’d be tempted to call it a hive mind.
But that’s insulting to hive minds.
Peale
@TenguPhule: he’s such a wretched man. He was this way as mayor, too. But he got a pass for it because he was America’s Mayor and Since his reform campaign targeted people above 96th street, the media loved him all the more.
sukabi
I call Bullshit on the typos, spelling and other nonsense being done on purpose. Drumpf has surrounded himself with a bunch of barely literate assholes, they may claim they’re doing it on purpose, but it’s so obviously the work of idiots…you can try and fake it but none of them have that kind of talent.
Adam L Silverman
@LAO: Yep. They’ve started believing their own bullshit. They’ve created a shared delusion and have decided to call it reality. It will be very, very ugly when reality actually intrudes.
TenguPhule
@Peale: Rudy is the human equivalent of “SMITE ME YOU ALMIGHTY SMITER OR FOREVER STAY YOUR HAND!!!”
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
For them or us?
Redshift
@germy:
I actually find this encouraging. We always knew they were going to get there eventually, and if they’ve gotten to “yeah, we did it, so what?,” it means they don’t think “you can’t prove we did it” is working any more.
MomSense
@germy:
Oh my god. Did he really just say that out loud?
Gin & Tonic
@Schlemazel:
Absolutely true. At least it was for me when I was doing a lot of interviewing and hiring. Walk in, say hello, shake hands, sit down, and it’s effectively over.
Mary G
@germy: I just listened to his book “Born a Crime” about his childhood in South Africa. He read it himself, which I often hate, but he was charming. His mother was a remarkable woman. I highly recommend it.
Peale
@Brachiator: if they do appoint the special prosecutor (and I’m sure Congress will) to reopen servergate, Benghazi, uranium 1, and the foundation whatever gate, if I’m Hillary, I’m just leaving. Yeah, it would make her look guilty, but so what? Leave for Hong Kong, join the board of ZTE and spend the foundation money buying up plutonium for Iran and ISIS. What difference does it make, really. Open a pizza parlor on Bugis Street in Singapore and put out a sign that kids eat free. Troll and destroy.
germy
@Mary G: It is being turned into a movie.
Ruckus
@Schlemazel:
Oh I know. What I was pointing out was that I couldn’t even get an interview. Of course the first one, in late 2011, they were asking me to do the wrong job. One they didn’t need done and that I was not really up for, 3rd shift foreman, when what they really needed was an office octopus – 12 hands, 3 heads, can talk on at least two phones at once, while juggling 1/2 a ream of paper. Neither of those sounded good to me. Not at 62. At 32 I might have done it just for the money. Now I work 3 days a week, semi retired and that’s more than enough.
Redshift
@Jeffro: Don’t forget “he told me they were stolen when he offered them to me.”
Adam L Silverman
@germy: Excellent!!!!
Brachiator
@Humdog:
It’s not just privilege. Some people use optimism as a wall. Everything will turn out okay because this is America. Some people use fatalism. There’s nothing you can do about it because we are all little people.
Also, I had a co-worker, now retired, who was a great guy. But he was a Jehovah’s witness and didn’t vote because he saw no point in trying to make this world better.
Redshift
@Peale: Why leave? These guys aren’t smart, and anyone who would actually take the job of re-investigating will either be another none-too-bright ideologue or would write another”nothing to see here” report and close up shop.
They may used it to concurrently try her in the court of public opinion, but they’ve been doing that non-stop for over two decades. So?
Ruckus
@MomSense:
@sukabi: is probably closer to the truth that they are idiots, rather than they are trying to copy the boss. Think about it, would anyone here work for asswipe drumpf? Yeah I didn’t think so. The only people would be someone in very serious need of a job, or a fucking idiot/conservative moron. But I repeat myself.
Schlemazel
@Ruckus:
It sucks putting yourself out there & getting ignored and abused & lied to. It is hard not to let it eat at you
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Hang on — a former federal prosecutor is under the impression that receiving stolen goods is not a crime?
Jaysus, I know that just from “Law & Order.”
Mary G
@germy: Awesome – I love Lupita.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: come on, every first year knows that “ignorance of the law is an excuse.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: It is known.
Brachiator
@Peale:
Might be a reasonable option. The thing is, even the few sane Republicans left know that there’s nothing here, but you have right wing nutjobs who want to pursue this anyway, to please Trump and to protect him.
It will go nowhere, but it will feed the anger of the core of voters who need to permanently hate Clinton, Obama and the Democrats.
Mary G
Amy McGrath wins in KY, so more “Dems in disarray” stories to come. Tumulty can fuck right off. They had a primary and the voters spoke. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Dan B
Speaking of ‘dumbed down’ language, a number of us who are “communication” junkies have been trying to break through the ‘facts persuade’ crowd. They control the Democrats communication shops and the biggest liberal foundations. They don’t seem to understand the Powell Doctrine or the wisdom of Karl Rove and Frank Luntz. There are effective methods and affordable strategies for us but breaking through the facts-are-good, marketing-is-deceptive/evil mindset is tough. We’re hopeful for some of the new women pols. They’ve got a visceral understanding of the power of communication. They’ve been subject to the dark side of it.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Not trying to make it better is not as bad as actively trying to make it worse because you think that will bring the apocalypse and you’ll end up in heaven.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Jay:
Assumes facts not in evidence. I doubt they will ever vote for decent people.
(I know you were quoting for snark)
Ruckus
@Schlemazel:
Yeah but I was enlisted in the military so being lied to was pretty much a regular occurrence. You either get used to it or are too stupid to know. But if you are that stupid, remembering to eat is probably an issue.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Adam L Silverman: Or as drug dealers say, “Never sample your own product.”
I’ve thought about the long term effects of strategic lying down the down the years. To lie convincingly to even a portion of people, and make your body language sell it,unless you are a complete sociopath/psychopath/narcissist (who I will now call a hollow person). You have to make your self believe it just a little bit, and that adds to your memory. Lie like that long enough getting results and social reinforcement within your group and you will probably start to form false memories (unless you are a hollow person). Take this road down long enough, and you have a society made in large parts of the self-deluded following the lead of hollow people who can use what comes out of their mouths and faces to satisfy their own desires.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I disagree.
But then again, I think this is the only world there is, and so the only one there is to save.
ETA. Having a bite at a Chinese restaurant and Jeopardy is on TV. None of the players knew the Final Jeopardy answer. I blurted out the answer as soon as I heard the question, amazed the waiter.
Pushkin.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Aside from recruiters (who are notorious), who lied to you? My experience on the commissioned side was that we were trained to pass as much info down the pipe as possible and not to promise anything we could not deliver. Maybe people learned from your era. If I lied to my soldiers, they would never have trusted me again.
burnspbesq
@germy:
Ideally, that endoresement won’t turn out to be te kiss of death.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve had officers knowingly lie to my face. I’ve had lifers lie to my face.
Do remember that I was in during Vietnam and that a lot of the lifers/officers had been in 20 yrs or so. They missed WWII and now had to watch as people with educations and no real desire to be where they were, in a hated war, and a lot of them took out everything on the lower ranks. On the other hand there were some great officers and lifers. There was one captain out of 5 on the guided missile destroyer I was on for 2 yrs who I would have followed anywhere. Out of the 6 captains I had on ships, he was the best by miles. So my take was that about 30-40% of the lifers/officers were shit, 50-60% were there like me, to do their jobs and 5-10% were really good. I also was temp assigned to the SP for a while and worked with a Marine staff sgt who I also would have followed anywhere.
I understood my position/rank/job and did all of that to the best that I could. That’s how I roll. A dramatic amount of the lifers/officers either had no fucking clue, no fucking leadership ability, no fucking brains or all three.
The navy may also be a different place than the army, I can not imagine living on board ship to be as bad as being on patrol but it was a pretty shitty place to live and work. That was OK I actually expected that, it was getting treated like a left handed, red headed step child with TB and VD with the IQ of a houseplant that pissed me off. I actually got treated better in boot camp than I often did in the fleet. And I wasn’t the only one that felt that way. The navy wondered why retention was so bad. I’ve related here before that at the end of my exit interview with the XO of the second ship I was assigned to, upon being discharged, and he told me I’d be back, my kind always comes back. I told him that I had a friend whose dad owned a large dairy and that he owned a lot of cows and each one of those cows shit a lot, every day and someone had to shovel that shit. And that I’d shovel all that shit every day for the rest of my life rather than come back and work for people like him. It left him speechless. I just picked up my paper and walked out. Never looked back.
Most of the fellows I was in with were like me, we didn’t join to see the world we joined so as likely as possible we wouldn’t have to see Vietnam. I joined just before the draft lottery was announced and my number was 15. I would have been drafted and stood a 1/3 chance of being drafted into the marines. I admire marines, I’ve known quite a few and some of them were/are outstanding people, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be one. And the word was that a draftee into the marines had a life expectancy after boot camp and advanced infantry of 2 weeks in Vietnam. The US never should have been there, those 53+ thousand people should never have had to die. Between LBJ and Nixon, that’s a lot of American lives, for nothing then and nothing now.
TerryC
@Ruckus: Constant lies to enlisted men during Vietnam. A fake log entry on my ship about a fictitious cannon shot fired at us from land entitled all of us to combat pay for that month. And it just got worse.
In 1969, as an E-4, I handled all of my ship’s communications and documents. I ended up being instrumental in getting our Annapolis grad commanding officer permanently removed from command because I took a UCMJ correspondence course, knew everything going on in his racially bigoted world, and thought I was immortal ?
Boy, did I get lucky.
workworkwork
@Mary G: He has a very pleasant voice and he’s good at doing accents.