I’ve always been a fan of old-school diving and octopus/mermaid iconography.
Why the Diver Did Not Return. Illustrated by Walther Püttner, Jugend, 1897
I even have some inked on me.
So I tried my unskilled hand at a more comical version.
Meh. Nobody said it was “good art.”
I decided to try my hand at an egret.
I need to keep trying, haha.
The truth behind this photo, taken in 2011:
“A massive pack of 25 timber wolves hunting bison on the Arctic circle in northern Canada. In mid-winter in Wood Buffalo National Park temperatures hover around -40C. The wolf pack, led by the alpha female, travel single-file through the deep snow to save energy. The size of the pack is a sign of how rich their prey base is during winter when the bison are more restricted by poor feeding and deep snow. The wolf packs in this National Park are the only wolves in the world that specialize in hunting bison ten times their size. They have grown to be the largest and most powerful wolves on earth.”
Photograph: Chadden Hunter/BBC NHU
Contrary to the viral post that have circled the globe in the past few weeks that inaccurately says:
“A wolf pack: the first 3 are the old or sick, they give the pace to the entire pack. If it was the other way round, they would be left behind, losing contact with the pack. In case of an ambush they would be sacrificed. Then come 5 strong ones, the front line. In the center are the rest of the pack members, then the 5 strongest following. Last is alone, the alpha. He controls everything from the rear. In that position he can see everything, decide the direction. He sees all of the pack. The pack moves according to the elders pace and help each other, watch each other.”
Good morning. Merry Christmas. This one is appropriate this year.
Watch out for those roadblocks today, campers.
Was standing on a rug and it got pulled out from under me.
Meh.
With last month’s terror attacks in Paris, in which a handful of determined extremists brought an iconic European capital to its knees, coupled with 2008’s similar attack in India, do we need to worry about a similar model being reproduced here? If so, what can we do as citizens and gun owners to be prepared?
French Foreign Legion soldiers with FAMAS rifles patrol the Eiffle Tower following November’s terror attacks. (AFP: Joel Saget )
Mumbai
On November 21, 2008, 10 terrorists left territory friendly to their cause and started out to strike their target. Each of the 10 men is given one AK-47 style rifle, 6 to 7 magazines of 30 rounds each plus 400 rounds not loaded in magazines, 8 hand grenades, a pistol, prepaid credit cards and a supply of dried fruit. Two days later, they hijacked a trawler on the open ocean and transferred to that boat. Once they came to within four miles of their target, they killed the captain and crew of the trawler and proceeded to shore in three small boats at dusk (further reason why you never trust terrorist). Over the next four days, they conducted 11 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India’s largest city.
At no point during the attack did the terrorists attempt to overcome armed guards or police. The terrorists attacked largely unguarded “soft” targets, which had been scouted in advance. These included two large hotels, a hospital, and a railway station. Working in small 2-5 man teams they killed 164 people and wounded at least 308 before being taken down themselves. The resulting panic sent tremors throughout the country. The New York Times, in July 2009, described the event as, “what may be the most well-documented terrorist attack anywhere.”
Paris
Over the evening of November 13, 2015, almost 7 years to the day of the Mumbai attacks, 9 terrorists whose actions were attributed to ISIS attacked no less than six different locations spread around the French capital. Armed with suicide vests, hand grenades and AK-47s acquired through Eastern European sources, they took the lives of 130 victims and wounded more than 400. As with the Mumbai attack, the action sent shock waves throughout Europe and the U.S. and prompted a large scale military mobilization in the EU, even more gun control proposals through the European Commission (although the weapons used were by and large illegally acquired), and reactionary police responses in large U.S. cities just in case.
Can it happen here?
For an investment of three small boats, ten rifles, ten pistols, a half dozen cases of ammunition, 80 hand grenades, and a some spending money, the terrorist organization behind the attacks in Mumbai reaped a terrible blood soaked return. All told, the operation could be replicated for under $75,000 and ten volunteers. When you take into account that the entire 9/11 operation is estimated from start to finish, costing al Qaeda only $500,000, you can see that the figure could be covered.
India has one of the largest and most modern coast guard and navies in the world. In size, they rank third or fourth depending on how you calculate them. They also have one of the largest and most dedicated counter-terrorism forces ever fielded, coupled with extensive domestic and overseas intelligence gathering agencies. Yet they were not able to prevent the attack or respond to it until it was underway.
While information is still being acquired on the Paris attacks, it seems they went off on an even smaller budget than the Mumbai model as many of the known terrorists were EU citizens and allowed easy travel through Western Europe.
As Paris is concerned, the French have a huge internal security apparatus put into affect by the De Gaulle government in the 1960s to counter an open revolt from the OAS (Organisation de l’armée secrète) terror group similar to our own Department of Homeland Security only argueably much more thorough and, when needed, ruthless. This allowed the government to respond very fast to the events as they unfolded– with the elite police BRI and RAID commando teams arriving at the Bataclan theatre where three terrorists held hundreds as hostages just 35 minutes into the siege.
Still, as with Mumbai, the terrorists were able to act before they were stopped despite the long standing French experience with both threat mitigation and counterintelligence.
Even though we have a large and well trained Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, nothing is terrorist proof.
What to do if it happens here?
Since 2008, many large and medium sized U.S. police departments have studied the “Mumbai Model.” This has led to more tactical training, active shooter courses, and issuing of patrol rifles (read= 5.56mm carbines) to officers. You only have to walk around LE expos and conferences such as IACP and see all the black rifle wares customized to carry in trunks and cruiser mounts to know this is the new normal.
Further, through the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, as many as 80,000 surplus M16A1s (some with the fun buttons, others modded to semi-auto only) have being issued out at large rates especially to huge metro agencies. For example, the Philadelphia Police Department employs more than 6,646 officers and had 1,356 Vietnam-era M16A1 rifles donated in August of 2009 to the agency by the US military– less than a year after Mumbai.
The thin blue line is being amped up for these threats and you can be sure that grant writers for any of the departments large and small that are applying for more gear and guns will be mentioning the Paris attack– with reason– as justification.
As a citizen, your best bet in a situation where multiple attackers are present with long-arms in an active shooter scenario is to take cover and shelter in place if you cannot immediately leave the area. Provide a description and location of the attackers from cover. One of the worst things to do is to flee on foot if you are being advised to shelter in place, this leads to more chaos for first responders.
If you are a CCW holder, carry your firearm with you at all times whenever legally possible. It is not advisable to get involved in a firefight with a group of terrorists equipped with longarms. Odds are, this will shorten your life expectancy greatly and further confuse the situation for responding LEOs.
However, if and only if, there is no cover or concealment, nowhere to displace to, nowhere to evaporate into, and you are confronted with a threat then make the choice that is best for you.
This is where choices made today about carrying a second magazine, spending time at the range practicing, or choosing a caliber can come into play. Now of course let us be sensible about this and refrain from bringing your favorite 556/223 to the mall food court strapped across your shoulder with 12 spare PMAGS while muttering something about Mumbai or Paris…that is just bad for everyone. Make sensible and most importantly, defensible choices.
I hope that this will never happen. I hope that the United States has seen the last of international or domestic terrorism. I hope so, but I think not.
So the Pentagon came out with its plan to trim the Black and Gold about 10 percent, from 490,000 to 450,000 within two years. Figuratively speaking, this takes the force below its pre-9/11 low of 479,426 (in 1999 at the height of the Clinton years), to its lowest spot since before WWII.
The meat of the cuts, which turn 3 brigades into 1 understrength one and 2 battalion task forces are as follows:
The Sledgehammers of 3rd Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 3rd Infantry Division, at Fort Benning, Georgia will shrink from a BCT to a battalion task force (go from 4,000 to 1,000 personnel). The Rock of the Marne was the go-to division that pulled off the “Thunder Run” into downtown Baghdad and took on the bulk of Saddam’s Republican Guard. However, the 3rd Team is weird as its the only unit of the division stationed outside of Fort Stewart, so in this case, the trim kinda makes sense (although its still going to be at Benning!) Still, with the Army making the case just weeks ago for wanting to be able to send heavies back to Europe fast and then cutting the very brigade that would help with that, is classic.
Paratroopers with Chaos Troop, 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, move to their assembly area after parachuting into Deadhorse, Alaska, Feb. 25, 2014, as part of the Spartan Brigade’s training for rapid insertion into any environment in the Pacific. (Photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Eric-James Estrada)
The Spartans of 4th BCT (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, will also shrink to a battalion task force, losing 4,000 to 1,000. This is a continuation of the apparent DOD withdrawal from the Great North, as some 4,721 military positions have been eliminated at JBLM since 2012. As 4/25 is a rapid deployment air-mobile force (two battalions of paratroopers, one of light cavalry squadron– the only one of its type on the West Coast) it would be one of the first moved to Korea or the Philippines if the balloon goes up there, this is confusing until you read the next step.
U.S. Army soldiers from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, “Gimlets” 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25 Infantry Division engage targets at 200 to 1000 meters during a live fire training exercise Sept. 19, 2012, at Pohakuloa Training Area, on Hawaii.
The Warriors of 2nd Stryker BCT, 25th Infantry Division, at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, will transition from its 3 Stryker battalions back to being a 2-battalion “leg” light infantry unit, losing its armor and about 1, 200 personnel. This makes the unit much more rapidly deployable and the brigade never really could train properly with the 19-ton wheeled armored vehicle on the islands, anyway.
Speaking of given too heavy of equipment, the Washington state Army National Guard’s 81st Armored BCT, will give up its Bradleys and Abrams for the Hawaiian Strykers, a move they have been bugging the Pentagon for in the past several years as they contend the tracked heavies are too much for their local roads (like you use an Bradley for storm relief).
The rest of the cuts come in training and admin posts, spread at roughly about 5 percent for each Army base with some HQ units dropping by almost 25 percent (though few general’s positions are being trimmed). In addition there will be 17,000 Army civilians on the block which will surely lead to more contractors being brought in.
The thing is, the writing may be on the wall, but Congress has control of the chalk and eraser. Lawmakers are already feeling their panties twist around the lower half of their bodies and getting a case of heartburn as a result.
“People who believe the world is safer, that we can do with less defense spending and 40,000 fewer soldiers, will take this as good news. I am not one of those people,” Rep. Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Wednesday.
Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the Army’s plan a “dangerous consequence of budget-driven strategy.”
“With global instability only increasing, and with just 33 percent of the Army’s brigade combat teams ready for deployment and decisive operations, there is simply no strategic basis to cut Army force structure below the pre-9/11 level of 490,000,” McCain said.
After the Army announcement, Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, shot back with a statement that he was “demanding answers” on the justification for the reductions in his state.
“I have talked in great detail with [Army] Secretary [John] McHugh today and will continue to fight to see to it that we preserve every soldier in Georgia that we can,” he said.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan said he was “extremely frustrated” that his state of Alaska is set to lose over 2,700 soldiers by 2017.
“Along with thousands of Alaskans, I find this decision devastating far beyond what it means to our state economy, but what it means to America’s defense,” Sullivan said.
Oh, and did we mention its an election year coming up? And that sequestration would drop the figure by another 30,000 Joes?
While yes, the next war will likely be either asymmetrical and run by spec-ops types and locals only, or an all out naval-air war that would have Tom Clancy chomping at the bit, and it either case three less brigades would likely not be needed, but hey, nobody asked me.
Either way, check back on these cuts in 2016…
PHOTO CURTESY OF SEASHEPHERD.ORG — Japanese Whaling Vessel Kaiko Maru Confronted by Sea Shepherd 12 February 2007
Farley McGill Mowat* was a Canadian novelist and a pretty good one. Odds are you may have read People of the Deer or Never Cry Wolf (which was made into a film in the 1980s that wasn’t all that bad a retelling). His non-fiction account of the HMS Frisky/ salvage tug Franklin, The Grey Seas Under, is one of the best ship tales ever written.
If you come across a used copy at a great price, pick it up.
Mowat also chipped in a fair amount of bread late in life to the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling fleet of piratical environmentalists and the group repaid the honor by naming a couple of their “Neptune’s Navy” patrol ships after him. The most current is the former USCGC Pea Island (WPB-1347), bought by the group earlier this year. (Somewhere a Coastie CPO is twitching.)
The first Mowat, however, was a 172-foot (650-ton) Norwegian fisheries research and enforcement trawler who started her career as the R/V Johan Hjort in 1956. The Norwegians laid the old girl up after 40 years of hard times in the Arctic and Barents Seas and the S/S group picked her up for a song.
In service to the pirates she carried the moniker Sea Sherpherd III, the Ocean Warrior, then finally Farley Mowat as well as a number of various groovy paint jobs as she shuttled her port of registry at least four times in her 12 year career as a hooligan afloat, conducting 100 cruises for the group all over the world. (Images via Shipspotter et.al.)
Well in 2008 the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans seized the S/S flagship over Fisheries Act violations during the seal hunt off the west coast of Newfoundland and she sat tied up at dock for a year when Ottawa ordered her sold at auction, where she brought just C$5000. A breaker picked her up and she apparently changed hands again to a group looking to put her back in the oceanography game in 2011, which never materialized and she sank at her moorings in Nova Scotia last week while being scrapped.
The scrapper owes some C$14,000 in dock fees on her and she is leaking oil.
According to the National Post :
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, for the most part, has expressed delight its former flagship has become an administrative headache for marine and municipal authorities.
“Farley would be smiling to know that the ship that bears his name continues to be an annoying irritation for Canadian authorities,” wrote Sea Shepherd’s founder, Paul Watson, in a 2014 social media post.
However, Watson has since claimed his plan all along was to have the ship seized by Canadian authorities, arguing that it was cheaper than paying to have the Farley Mowat decommissioned.
“The retirement didn’t cost Sea Shepherd a dime and for that we thank the Canadian government,” wrote Sea Shepherd member Alex Cornelissen in a 2008 post to the group’s website.
*(As a sidebar, Mowat was a subaltern in the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment during WWII and helped bring back tons of captured German kit for museum use all over Canada after 1945, so when in the Great North and you see something heavy and Teutonic on display, thank Farley)
The Navy, and goats, just go together.
When I was 13, the coach of my youth soccer team was a Naval Academy ringknocker (and the captain of the Aegis cruiser USS Princeton’s PCU that was being built at Ingalls). Well, he inundated us with Navy Soccer shirts and gear at his own expense that featured the USNA’s mascot, Bill the Goat (who has his own page at the USNA’s site and has been the official school mascot since 1893)
For those who know, the CPO mess on Navy ships is also referred to as the ‘goatlocker.’
Stay with me here.
Mascots on naval vessels probably go back to the first neanderthal war canoe and I’ve often brought them up here on LSOZI (for instance, last week’s Warship Wednesday had an image of the Soviet light cruiser Krasnyi Kavkaz‘s live-aboard bear while in 2013 I have the adorable war kitten of the Australian Navy’s first cruiser, HMAS Encounter peering out from the muzzle of a 6-inch gun– the scamp!).
Back in the old school iron navies, it was extremely common.
When the Tsar’s Baltic Fleet made the 18,000 mile trip to Tsushima Straits to line the bottom of it in 1905, they collected an exotic menagerie along the way to add to their domestic dogs and cats.
As noted by Chief Engineer Eugene S. Politovsky, “Wherever you look now you see birds, beasts, or vermin. On deck oxen are standing ready to be slaughtered for meat, to say nothing of fowls, geese, and ducks. In the cabins are monkeys, parrots, and chameleons.”
One wonders how many of those animals washed up on the shores of Korea in 1905 to continue their lives in another continent.
And its not just a steam navy thing. Hell, when I did a research cruise on an active duty USCG 87-foot patrol boat for my zombie book (shameless plug) the cutter’s skipper, who had just graduated the USCGA the year before, had her pitbull mix aboard as a ship’s pet.
So sack up already, this is a pretty longstanding tradition. Which brings me to the USS Lake Erie (CG-70) .
It seems that the Erie’s skipper, Captain John Banigan was stripped of his command by after high-ranking officials discovered a three-year-old pygmy, (called Charlie), had made regular appearances on the vessel that included a 2600-mile trip between San Diego and Pearl.
Charlie…
Electronics Technician 1st Class Darren Wilks told the Navy Times: “We were initially thinking of getting a stuffed goat or something to hang in the mess. But we decided to get him a real live goat. We thought he’d get a kick out of it.”
Well Banigan got a kick the heck off the Lake Erie‘s bridge out of it some two years after the fact.
Also as noted by Navy Times, Master Chief Charlie, 3, could not be made available for comment.
This is a bit of a rant, so if you aren’t into that, click away.
So yeah, last week I covered the story of an 18-year old rural (town of 14,000) Missouri youth, a kid named Sawyer Shepherd. This guy, a high school baseball player and fair chase hunter went turkey hunting before school (its spring turkey season like almost everywhere in the country that has gobblers). Well, he bagged one and, in a sign of the times, shared a picture of it on “the facebook” as we say in the South, then went home, changed, put the bird on ice, and went to school.
Well, here’s the thing: he forgot to take his shotgun out of his truck.
But here is the other thing: it was unloaded, broken down, locked in a case, and under the seat of his vehicle. Now according to the Federal Gun-Free Schools Act, since the gun was all of the above, and since Missouri has a guns in parking lot law, he did not break any state or federal laws by doing so. This wasn’t a case of a kid bringing a gun to school to take on a bully or slaughter his classmates. This wasn’t an active shooter. It was a rural hunter that was not prohibited from having a firearm with a non-functional legal gun secured in a vehicle– accidentally on school property.
Now back to the story.
Somebody dimed old Sawyer out and made an anonymous call to the school that the third-baseman had said gun in his truck on school property (the parking lot). When the school asked him about it, he came clean and the cops were called. Then, since he violated school policy, he was immediately suspended pending possible expulsion— just a few weeks from graduation.
It kinda struck me because growing up in the rural south, as a high school kid in the late 80s and early 90s, I often had an unloaded shotgun in my vehicle as we would go dove hunting in September-October after school with my friends and, like Shepherd, turkey hunting on those cool spring mornings before school. Of course, that was back when the school had a supervised rifle team that I was a part of as well– even shooting .22LR Remington Model 40s on campus (The pearl-clutching horror!) and we also shot on Fridays (Mossberg 42s) in JROTC– IN CLASS!
So I wrote it up for Guns.com from local news reports and it was some of the first national coverage the story got (Guns.com has nearly a half million social media followers and gets something like 2~million page views a day).
Then other outlets started picking it up (including the NRA who put the Guns.com piece on their news feed) and the youth’s lawyer told me that, when the school decided to let the youth come back and play ball, attend prom, and most importantly, graduate, he said that they got calls and emails from all over the country who saw the story and wanted to help.
“Without the help of supporters, it would have been a more difficult battle to get Sawyer back in school,” he said.
The truth is, I think stories like this should be told. So I intend to keep doing it.
(Steps off soapbox, gets back up on high horse, well, more of a mule actually…)
Thanks for reading.