Hi, everybody, this is Mr. Average. You might be wondering why I haven’t answered email or posts this week. Well, I’m afraid there’s a flu epidemic here in New England right now, and I’ve caught the damn thing. I made the unwise choice of trying to work through it this week, and now I’m really laid up. It’s viral, they tell me, so there’s nothing I can do but wait it out. I can’t really even draw a straight line, or focus on working on anything other than sitting in my chair here and waiting for my immune system to fight this damn thing down. So with deepest apologies, I’m afraid there’s not going to be a new page this week. I’ll see if I can dig up something entertaining from my underground hard drive here to fill in the gap, but for now I’m on a strict regimen of rest and no stress until things clear up.
Sorry about this, guys. Just have to roll with it I guess.
Well, I gotta tell you, I guess I need to speculate about the nature of my personal philosophies more often, because last week was one of the most in-depth and interesting discussions I’ve had in recent years, as well as setting a record for a single week for comments on 6-Commando (even excluding my own responses!) Thanks to everyone for taking the high road, as well – there can be a temptation for these things to to turn into flame wars and nonsense, but everyone really put in their best and I found it all very interesting, not to mention uplifting. It’s nice to know that this comic attracts a higher mental caliber than, say, CNN. Which is just the worst, if you want my honest opinion. The only thought I’ll add to last week’s discussion is this, from my ten years as an architect: it takes an enormous amount of effort to build beautiful things, and very little effort to destroy them. That’s the nature of entropy, I suppose – but we can all make a choice to be on the right side of it, if we want to.
As for me, it’s just been another week in the can. I’m tired out. Nothing more for for me to do for this week, though. Just putting one foot in front of the other. Maybe in a year I’ll feel silly for worrying about these things. Maybe we’ll all find our way. Either way, I’ll just keep drawing until they make me stop.
“If everything is going smoothly, it’s probably an ambush.”
Oops, slightly misquoted.
“If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush.”
From http://www.heavymetalpro.com/MurphysRules.htm
At the other hand: “If your ambush is properly set, the enemy won’t walk into it.”
In essence, there is probably a way or two out, though presumably at a high cost.
Damn I missed that discussion last week. But I moved to a new place and there is no way I could write lenghty comments with my BlackBerry. ’bout time I get access to the internet again.
Well worth reading though. Nice food for thought.
Many of us could really use it, a lot of people seem to be “starving” nowadays…
I didn’t take part in last week conversation, because all was already said and I didn’t feel it was necessary to add anything.
But each time I have to go to a nearby city to see friends, I pass through several small towns and villages. Each one of them has a monument to people who died in a war, either the 2nd World War, the 1st, the French Revolution, and so on… And from time to time there’s an old castle of the Middle Age, or some Roman ruins… it makes me feel like most of my past is made of violence and decay.
But I think it serves as a reminder, to never forget that violence do not make things better. Hiding or forgetting about violence will only makes us do the same mistakes again.
This, is exactly why landing your helecoptor, right in the middle of a city, in an area surrounded by tall buildings, is utterly boneheaded. You have basically just put yourself, right in the middle of probably the most efficient meat-grinder, ever devised by man, without cover from the plunging fire coming at you from all sides.
Blackhawk Down anyone? Yeah hot LZs with high angle return fire are a miserable as all heck place to be.
I have a bad feeling about this; I think we’re about to see Col. Haulley’s traumatic event. You know, the one he’d prefer *not* to relive in agonizing detail? 🙁
Also brings to mind the battle for LZ X-Ray, as described in “We Were Soldiers Once, and Young,” the book the movie “We Were Soldiers” was based on.
“…it takes an enormous amount of effort to build beautiful things, and very little effort to destroy them.”
Agreed. From my 15 years in the entertainment business it is very apparent how a show can take up to 3-4 weeks to physically assemble, not counting prep, and 24-48 hours to take down. Less if you’re junking it all into a dumpster.
But to the deeper point, social and cultural institutions and structures are also not fixed objects since they are consistently in the process of building and deconstructing. This makes them fairly resilient, for good and ill, to determined efforts to change them and change needs to be estimated on a generational level. However, overwhelming force can and will wreak them in short order and will eliminate much good while trying to eliminate “bad”: war, genocide, revolution, uprising, massed social restructuring, etc. In the end we have to identify the best qualities and consistently nurture them while responding to worse qualities that are out to cause problems.
fucknibblets!
It’s a …TRAP!?!?
Hopefully those Howlers are still in the immediate vicinity and can provide fire support for the landing troops. If not then this is going to turn into a horrible blood bath.
On the Howlers in this time what exactly are they? Are they hover vehicles that function light light tanks or can they go airborne as well and act as escorts for the transport helicopters.
Just asking because landing in a city area is bad enough but going in without aerial escort is also a terrible idea.
What rifle was that? an polymer-furnitured AK or a copied M16?
Whatever rifle it is it has the gas tube under the barrel, so it can’t be an AK variant or an M16.
Instead, I’d say it’s something more akin to the BAR M1918, FM 24/29, Zb vz. 26 or Bren light machineguns, since those have the gas tube underneath the barrel.
In fact, the closest in terms of looks to what we see (although not identical) is the Bren L4A9 in 7.62×51mm NATO, the latest variant of this venerable gun, which got retired from active service in 2006.
Russian-made PKM GPMG.
Oh man tell me they aren’t all GPMG firing from those windows. If so that is one well equipped enemy force and those infantry are in real trouble.
Ah, indeed. So I was correct in assuming it was a LMG, but I never even thought of the PKM, because the one I handled in RL (Romanian made “Mitraliera md. 66”) has a completely different flash suppressor, the barrel is a tad longer and the butt has a cutout in it for the left hand (not to mention the furniture was wood rather than polymer). Will we see the whole weapon at one point, or will there be only glimpses and muzzle flashes?
I always wonder why people feel the need to shout out the glaringly obvious in these situations. “It’s an ambush!”, yeah, no shit Sherlock :P.
Proof you don’t have to hold an actual officer’s rank to be Captain Obvious.
Get well soon, take as long as you need to recover. No need to put your health at risk.
You yell it to alert the guy who was scanning different sector. He might have been on the radio with HQ or helping a unload a running helicopter which can be kinda loud. Also if the sniper was far enough away, the bullet and the sound of the shot would not have arrived at the same time. If you have half a second warning before the full up firing starts people might be able to find some sort of cover.
I do question Haulley’s choice to be grammatically correct, wasting time with “It’s an” Living soldiers are just yelling the third word while finding their own cover. The next two words he says are the redundant ones.
I also wonder why some idiot has to knock out the window just before firing projectiles through it. The bullets wont mind and when you are first shooting though it you can see through it fine. All it does, is to warn the person you are shooting at that someone is about to shoot at them.
I just realized that that LT also did a no no by emblazoning his rank on his helmet. “Hey look at me I’m a target!”
this was supposed to be a reply to MattStriker
Get well soon Mathieu, most of us know what it is like to be so sick you can’t see straight, this year was particularly brutal in that reguard.
Landing without concussion blasting the buildings leaves any snipers ready to cut you down like they are doing. I guess they thought preserving the buildings was more important. Unless they use nerve gas….