Jack_Crow
Enlightened
Hi guys,
I got a e mail letter the other day from a guy I consider my 'father in law', he was the stand in for the Father of the bride, when the wife and I eloped. It's a long story and I don't expect you to know that. Let's say that Joe and I have a long history togther from the radio club in New York. He is from the WWII generation and served in the PTO. He also lost family in europe to the Nazis. So his attitude has caused me some grief.
How I usually answer a letter is to inject my coments into the text. Since this bd strips off the bold lettering Im going to mark my notes with ( ).
Ready?
........................................................................
(Joe,
Greetings on the day. After reading your letter twice, I guess I'm going to have to disagree on some things. I'm not one of those who view a second Bush term as the end of the world. You can't live here, and see this stuff, and not be affected by it.
I don't expect to change your point of view, but perhaps share some ideas.
As per my usual style, answers interlaced.)
Hi Again Mike,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. This new server runs hot and cold. Last week I was blanked out a few times, and had numerous complaints about my voice breaking up while on Echolink. I searched and searched for the problem, but it was not with me. I would check out the Test server on Echo and the report back was terrible. No wonder I got so many bad reports. Last night I checked out again and it was fantastic.
(This is one of the things Stan and I disagree on. I'm of the old school, that "Real Men Use Tubes"; this sold state stuff is not trustworthy. If it's based in software, look out!)
My one report from my Brother in Law in South Jersey told me that I never sounded so good. I wonder how long it will remain that way.
Sorry to hear about your Mom. That is the way it goes when we get up there.
(No kidding. At least you took care of your self. Mom's problems are self inflicted over the last 70+ years.)
Right now I have 4 family members either in Assisted Living homes or in a Nursing Home. I am sure your Mother will perk up when you get back and pay her a visit.
(The ethics of the situation are raw. The family is using my expected return as a carrot for mom to stay alive. I don't feel real good about this but there is not much I can do.)
Your description of the weather there made me feel better thinking about the kind of weather I endured in New Guinea. Fortunately our tent area was on a plateau and the radio station where we worked around the clock in 8 hour shifts with no days off was on an adjoining plateau. The days were hot, like over 100 deg. But it cooled down in the evening to the mid 80's. The soil was so fertile that I had tomatoes on the vines from seeds in 6 weeks.
(We never did talk about your WWII experience. Temps here maxed at about 140F. Current day time temps are in the upper 90's now and almost cool in the mornings.)
My garden was just outside the tent that I shared with 3 other RadOps.
Unfortunately, I never did get to taste the fruits of my labors. We broke camp and shipped out to a forward base on a tiny island off the Northwest
coast of New Guinea across the channel from a much larger island, Biak.
(We don't even pretend to grow anything here. Plants attract bugs, and there are plenty of bugs that are not healthy for people here.)
I could write a book but I will spare the world my exciting exploits (ugh).
Tell you one thing. If I was an 18 or over draftee at this time, I would find me a hole somewhere and hide. Not in this country.
We used to say back then, that if we had a choice, we would join the enemy, surrender to the Americans and get treated like Kings. Isn't that the truth. These days you try to do some country good and the terrorists capture you and cut off your head. Nice people. I thought this was now a civilized world. Looks like I was wrong.
(See my comments below.)
What happened to the Bible reading that tells us to banish all wars beat our weapons into plowshares etc?
(Not in our lifetime. Too much ignorance, too much religious faith, not enough tolerance.)
Believe this Mike---The United States is very close, if not already there--
Bankrupt--I doubt there is enough gold in the entire world and galaxy to back up the paper money we use. Heaven help us if Mr. Bush is reelected. I dread to think of what will be for the next 4 years.
(Joe, guess you have to live here for a while. Since you can't do that and expect to survive, let me tell you some facts as they exist.)
(Arab culture is depressing. Stagnant. The Arabs with money are the only ones trying to improve their situation. Saddam ran this country into the dirt. It was a crime family with the resource of a nation state. So many of our locals tell us stories about family that got taken in the night. Makes the near genocide of National Socialism look like a practice run. The only thing they want in common with us is the machine gun. They know their Koran, and what line of bull their local religious leaders give them. Anything else is nearly impossible for them to accept.)
(We are in a culture war. Its 16th century fanatics vs. rule of law. We didn't fire the first shot.)
(Did it ever occur to you what this war is doing? It's drawing off the supply of fanatic idiots to try and kill our troopers. The fanatics end up killing Iraqi civilians and children. It's a form of evil that I can identify. The people who do this should not share our air!)
(Why do you think Israel has been having a quiet time of it lately? Between the new wall and this war here, we are getting rid of a bunch of idiots. We are killing off a generation of low level terrorists. A few here, a few there. At the end of the week the body count is mounting. Watch the news and noodle the numbers your self. Each car bomb takes with it at least one 'guidance package'. It's a kind of sick math. The jokes on them when a bomb goes off in the wrong place or when it takes out a car full of ninnies.)
(I saw a photo taken recently. Care to guess what's heading north? A great many self propelled guns. Paladins.)
(You don't need heavy artillery for what we are doing. I have to wonder what the plan is.)
(Want to bet that a town like Faluja get's an offer to turn in its non Iraqi fighters and their leaders, or it gets pounded into the Stone Age. When they get done, they will pound the next rebel's town flat.)
(Eventually the US will duplicate the Israeli tactic of trashing the homes of the terrorists. If they can't hide, they will be in the open. If they are in the open, we can send them to Allah with greater efficiency.)
(Sooner or later the locals will get the joke that killing of troopers and contractors is a bad idea. If they want to live in peace, then turn in the trouble makers. This happens more often than is reported in the news.)
(Iraq will pay a price in blood.
An expense for 'smarts'.)
(In today's news we have 49 dead Iraqi cops. Why? )
(Because so much of the third world has no sense of professionalism. Apparently a small kill team was able to capture them. According to the news they were un armed. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Cops, no matter how green, unarmed in this country! I hope their CO. is among the dead as an object lesson to the next class of cops and their leaders. US troopers never go outside the gate here without a magazine in their personal weapons.)
(I saw this kind of stupidity in Brazil, Argentina, and now here. Idiots in charge of losers. The only way this country and the Iraqi people are ever going to wise up is to pay a price in blood. The blood of cops, the blood of women and children. To a lesser degree, ours. The sooner they smart up, the less blood will be spilled. It's a slow sad process to watch. Seems you can't teach humans any other way.)
(I've been through IP (Iraqi Police) check points on my way back from Baghdad, and its nuts. In the dead of the night they sit in lighted areas and sip tea. One guy looks at cars, and the rest either sleep or count prayer beads. There is no effort spent on securing the perimeter, it's as if their AK's are a magic wand, and it just has to be present to be secure and safe.)
(I could take them out with an air rifle at 100 feet. The current trick is the Army puts these guys (the IP) "out front" of our check points and they take the car bombs rather than US troopers. A human trip wire if you will. )
(Give you a hint the Israelis are the only decent people in the area. )
(I see Israel as responding to insults and murders, not starting problems.)
(You don't see Israeli citizens strapping on 30lbs of plastic explosive and wandering into a café. The Israelis are educated, and sadly blooded by the last 60 years of history. They have learned the hard way about life with unhappy neighbors. The Israelis are so good with security now; the bad guys are going to hit them away from home. Like that outrage in Egypt. Guess what? The Egyptians are hobbyists too.)
(This place makes me twitch. You may flinch when a traffic accident happens on your corner. But when a mortar lands five tents away, and you wake up to explosions and hearing your own side calling for medics? I slept in my clothes for a week afterwards.)
(When you see what happens to women and children when a road side mine rips through their bus, because someone thought it was a way to kill US troopers. War has changed me, and not for the better. I am going to have problems with people when I get back. People who don't want to or can't see the ugly truth of life here.)
(Remember I was near the Pentagon impact, and saw first hand what a team of five guys with box cutters can do. I smelled the smoke, I saw American Citizens running in terror on our own soil. That is a crime I can never forgive. )
(At least my service here has done some good. I am working out my own personal demons from 9-11.)
("The winners will write the history books". If we don't finish this war, the next war will cost 10 times as much and kill a huge amount more people. I can't imagine the Senator being able to finish this war in a useful way. He might be able to compromise a short term peace that will flair into a new war only a few years later. )
(How would it have turned out if WWII was ended w/o the total destruction of the Nazi party and all it stood for?)
Enough of the soap boxing.
What are your plans for when you get back to a normal life?
(I have this day dream of taking a drive around the country with Myla dog. The mom situation may cancel that.)
(Ordered a new '05 Ford Focus for Joanne. She wanted a car with an auto trans, and I get the same discount that troopers do. It's a 16k car with a 3k off of list with the PX buying service.)
(Been buying stuff on Ebay. Got a service monitor for working on radios when I get home. Also got a good synthesized signal generator. Some radios for Joanne's car. Midland commercial two way radios. Stone axe simple units. Volume, squelch, and channel number. The transmitters will live under the seat. VHF and UHF. I got a similar radios for 6m for my truck and my Ford Contour. Plus programming cables and software.)
(Got a police style radio console for the truck. I have VHF and UHF mounted in Dash, but I want to rack up 10m, 11m, 6m, Scanner, and perhaps an XM radio. Also thinking of using this laptop with a GPS card and programming for the national navigation chore. Also if I do the APRS thing. Got some simple VHF high band radios for parts if I want to make some packet radio things.)
(Looking to adopt a replacement dog for Nipper. Got two that are in consideration. One is a JRT also named Nipper, and another is a smooth Toy Fox Terrier. Waiting on photos and letters back from the people caring for them.)
Have you investigated the stateside job situations?
(Got a few good leads. One is with a company that makes large scale communications simulators. Got a few leads on some indoor applications of GPS. One guy in Bahrain wants me to be his network ops guy and field trouble shooter for the mid east and North Africa. I can't say I like the idea of living and working in the mid east, at least Bahrain is fairly reasonable. About 30% of the population are out of Towner's. At least I won't have to come back to Iraq any more.)
Maybe you will take a nice long deserved R & R, then make your decisions for the future. With all the experience you have under your noggin' I doubt you will have much trouble fitting into the workforce.
(The best thing from this job is a reactivated security clearance. That's gold in Northern VA.)
Thank you for the photos. Nice camera.
(Got it from a Kuwaiti dealer. Sand locked up my Cannon. It's been repaired but Joanne can't seem to find the time to get it back.)
Just got the dinner bell, so will say Tally Ho for this one and you have a good week.
Until next time. Miriam and Joe
(Later boss, sorry to have to disagree with my father in law, but those are the facts as I see them. Better we fight terrorists (Tango's is what the troopers call them) here than on CONUS. Better we kill this generation of radical Islamic leaders than let them make a second series. )
(That's my poor attitude)
(Later dude)
(Mike)
I got a e mail letter the other day from a guy I consider my 'father in law', he was the stand in for the Father of the bride, when the wife and I eloped. It's a long story and I don't expect you to know that. Let's say that Joe and I have a long history togther from the radio club in New York. He is from the WWII generation and served in the PTO. He also lost family in europe to the Nazis. So his attitude has caused me some grief.
How I usually answer a letter is to inject my coments into the text. Since this bd strips off the bold lettering Im going to mark my notes with ( ).
Ready?
........................................................................
(Joe,
Greetings on the day. After reading your letter twice, I guess I'm going to have to disagree on some things. I'm not one of those who view a second Bush term as the end of the world. You can't live here, and see this stuff, and not be affected by it.
I don't expect to change your point of view, but perhaps share some ideas.
As per my usual style, answers interlaced.)
Hi Again Mike,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. This new server runs hot and cold. Last week I was blanked out a few times, and had numerous complaints about my voice breaking up while on Echolink. I searched and searched for the problem, but it was not with me. I would check out the Test server on Echo and the report back was terrible. No wonder I got so many bad reports. Last night I checked out again and it was fantastic.
(This is one of the things Stan and I disagree on. I'm of the old school, that "Real Men Use Tubes"; this sold state stuff is not trustworthy. If it's based in software, look out!)
My one report from my Brother in Law in South Jersey told me that I never sounded so good. I wonder how long it will remain that way.
Sorry to hear about your Mom. That is the way it goes when we get up there.
(No kidding. At least you took care of your self. Mom's problems are self inflicted over the last 70+ years.)
Right now I have 4 family members either in Assisted Living homes or in a Nursing Home. I am sure your Mother will perk up when you get back and pay her a visit.
(The ethics of the situation are raw. The family is using my expected return as a carrot for mom to stay alive. I don't feel real good about this but there is not much I can do.)
Your description of the weather there made me feel better thinking about the kind of weather I endured in New Guinea. Fortunately our tent area was on a plateau and the radio station where we worked around the clock in 8 hour shifts with no days off was on an adjoining plateau. The days were hot, like over 100 deg. But it cooled down in the evening to the mid 80's. The soil was so fertile that I had tomatoes on the vines from seeds in 6 weeks.
(We never did talk about your WWII experience. Temps here maxed at about 140F. Current day time temps are in the upper 90's now and almost cool in the mornings.)
My garden was just outside the tent that I shared with 3 other RadOps.
Unfortunately, I never did get to taste the fruits of my labors. We broke camp and shipped out to a forward base on a tiny island off the Northwest
coast of New Guinea across the channel from a much larger island, Biak.
(We don't even pretend to grow anything here. Plants attract bugs, and there are plenty of bugs that are not healthy for people here.)
I could write a book but I will spare the world my exciting exploits (ugh).
Tell you one thing. If I was an 18 or over draftee at this time, I would find me a hole somewhere and hide. Not in this country.
We used to say back then, that if we had a choice, we would join the enemy, surrender to the Americans and get treated like Kings. Isn't that the truth. These days you try to do some country good and the terrorists capture you and cut off your head. Nice people. I thought this was now a civilized world. Looks like I was wrong.
(See my comments below.)
What happened to the Bible reading that tells us to banish all wars beat our weapons into plowshares etc?
(Not in our lifetime. Too much ignorance, too much religious faith, not enough tolerance.)
Believe this Mike---The United States is very close, if not already there--
Bankrupt--I doubt there is enough gold in the entire world and galaxy to back up the paper money we use. Heaven help us if Mr. Bush is reelected. I dread to think of what will be for the next 4 years.
(Joe, guess you have to live here for a while. Since you can't do that and expect to survive, let me tell you some facts as they exist.)
(Arab culture is depressing. Stagnant. The Arabs with money are the only ones trying to improve their situation. Saddam ran this country into the dirt. It was a crime family with the resource of a nation state. So many of our locals tell us stories about family that got taken in the night. Makes the near genocide of National Socialism look like a practice run. The only thing they want in common with us is the machine gun. They know their Koran, and what line of bull their local religious leaders give them. Anything else is nearly impossible for them to accept.)
(We are in a culture war. Its 16th century fanatics vs. rule of law. We didn't fire the first shot.)
(Did it ever occur to you what this war is doing? It's drawing off the supply of fanatic idiots to try and kill our troopers. The fanatics end up killing Iraqi civilians and children. It's a form of evil that I can identify. The people who do this should not share our air!)
(Why do you think Israel has been having a quiet time of it lately? Between the new wall and this war here, we are getting rid of a bunch of idiots. We are killing off a generation of low level terrorists. A few here, a few there. At the end of the week the body count is mounting. Watch the news and noodle the numbers your self. Each car bomb takes with it at least one 'guidance package'. It's a kind of sick math. The jokes on them when a bomb goes off in the wrong place or when it takes out a car full of ninnies.)
(I saw a photo taken recently. Care to guess what's heading north? A great many self propelled guns. Paladins.)
(You don't need heavy artillery for what we are doing. I have to wonder what the plan is.)
(Want to bet that a town like Faluja get's an offer to turn in its non Iraqi fighters and their leaders, or it gets pounded into the Stone Age. When they get done, they will pound the next rebel's town flat.)
(Eventually the US will duplicate the Israeli tactic of trashing the homes of the terrorists. If they can't hide, they will be in the open. If they are in the open, we can send them to Allah with greater efficiency.)
(Sooner or later the locals will get the joke that killing of troopers and contractors is a bad idea. If they want to live in peace, then turn in the trouble makers. This happens more often than is reported in the news.)
(Iraq will pay a price in blood.
An expense for 'smarts'.)
(In today's news we have 49 dead Iraqi cops. Why? )
(Because so much of the third world has no sense of professionalism. Apparently a small kill team was able to capture them. According to the news they were un armed. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Cops, no matter how green, unarmed in this country! I hope their CO. is among the dead as an object lesson to the next class of cops and their leaders. US troopers never go outside the gate here without a magazine in their personal weapons.)
(I saw this kind of stupidity in Brazil, Argentina, and now here. Idiots in charge of losers. The only way this country and the Iraqi people are ever going to wise up is to pay a price in blood. The blood of cops, the blood of women and children. To a lesser degree, ours. The sooner they smart up, the less blood will be spilled. It's a slow sad process to watch. Seems you can't teach humans any other way.)
(I've been through IP (Iraqi Police) check points on my way back from Baghdad, and its nuts. In the dead of the night they sit in lighted areas and sip tea. One guy looks at cars, and the rest either sleep or count prayer beads. There is no effort spent on securing the perimeter, it's as if their AK's are a magic wand, and it just has to be present to be secure and safe.)
(I could take them out with an air rifle at 100 feet. The current trick is the Army puts these guys (the IP) "out front" of our check points and they take the car bombs rather than US troopers. A human trip wire if you will. )
(Give you a hint the Israelis are the only decent people in the area. )
(I see Israel as responding to insults and murders, not starting problems.)
(You don't see Israeli citizens strapping on 30lbs of plastic explosive and wandering into a café. The Israelis are educated, and sadly blooded by the last 60 years of history. They have learned the hard way about life with unhappy neighbors. The Israelis are so good with security now; the bad guys are going to hit them away from home. Like that outrage in Egypt. Guess what? The Egyptians are hobbyists too.)
(This place makes me twitch. You may flinch when a traffic accident happens on your corner. But when a mortar lands five tents away, and you wake up to explosions and hearing your own side calling for medics? I slept in my clothes for a week afterwards.)
(When you see what happens to women and children when a road side mine rips through their bus, because someone thought it was a way to kill US troopers. War has changed me, and not for the better. I am going to have problems with people when I get back. People who don't want to or can't see the ugly truth of life here.)
(Remember I was near the Pentagon impact, and saw first hand what a team of five guys with box cutters can do. I smelled the smoke, I saw American Citizens running in terror on our own soil. That is a crime I can never forgive. )
(At least my service here has done some good. I am working out my own personal demons from 9-11.)
("The winners will write the history books". If we don't finish this war, the next war will cost 10 times as much and kill a huge amount more people. I can't imagine the Senator being able to finish this war in a useful way. He might be able to compromise a short term peace that will flair into a new war only a few years later. )
(How would it have turned out if WWII was ended w/o the total destruction of the Nazi party and all it stood for?)
Enough of the soap boxing.
What are your plans for when you get back to a normal life?
(I have this day dream of taking a drive around the country with Myla dog. The mom situation may cancel that.)
(Ordered a new '05 Ford Focus for Joanne. She wanted a car with an auto trans, and I get the same discount that troopers do. It's a 16k car with a 3k off of list with the PX buying service.)
(Been buying stuff on Ebay. Got a service monitor for working on radios when I get home. Also got a good synthesized signal generator. Some radios for Joanne's car. Midland commercial two way radios. Stone axe simple units. Volume, squelch, and channel number. The transmitters will live under the seat. VHF and UHF. I got a similar radios for 6m for my truck and my Ford Contour. Plus programming cables and software.)
(Got a police style radio console for the truck. I have VHF and UHF mounted in Dash, but I want to rack up 10m, 11m, 6m, Scanner, and perhaps an XM radio. Also thinking of using this laptop with a GPS card and programming for the national navigation chore. Also if I do the APRS thing. Got some simple VHF high band radios for parts if I want to make some packet radio things.)
(Looking to adopt a replacement dog for Nipper. Got two that are in consideration. One is a JRT also named Nipper, and another is a smooth Toy Fox Terrier. Waiting on photos and letters back from the people caring for them.)
Have you investigated the stateside job situations?
(Got a few good leads. One is with a company that makes large scale communications simulators. Got a few leads on some indoor applications of GPS. One guy in Bahrain wants me to be his network ops guy and field trouble shooter for the mid east and North Africa. I can't say I like the idea of living and working in the mid east, at least Bahrain is fairly reasonable. About 30% of the population are out of Towner's. At least I won't have to come back to Iraq any more.)
Maybe you will take a nice long deserved R & R, then make your decisions for the future. With all the experience you have under your noggin' I doubt you will have much trouble fitting into the workforce.
(The best thing from this job is a reactivated security clearance. That's gold in Northern VA.)
Thank you for the photos. Nice camera.
(Got it from a Kuwaiti dealer. Sand locked up my Cannon. It's been repaired but Joanne can't seem to find the time to get it back.)
Just got the dinner bell, so will say Tally Ho for this one and you have a good week.
Until next time. Miriam and Joe
(Later boss, sorry to have to disagree with my father in law, but those are the facts as I see them. Better we fight terrorists (Tango's is what the troopers call them) here than on CONUS. Better we kill this generation of radical Islamic leaders than let them make a second series. )
(That's my poor attitude)
(Later dude)
(Mike)
