All posts by Jim

Left HS before report cards came out. Enlisted in the Marines for four years. By the time those years were over, I was hooked - they had me for life. Spent nearly ten years as enlisted. Received a Silver Star, Bronze Star w/V, Purple Heart as a Sgt during first RVN tour. Upon returning to the State's received a combat commission to 2Lt. Retired after 36 total years as a Colonel. Book follows my career, but is more about the heroes with whom I served, the great mentors I had, and the leadership principles they instilled in me.
Recent Posts

Thanksgiving 1966

2 Comments

iwoFifty years ago today, I and my Marines were not having a feast, in fact, we were starving having not eaten for several days. No food, but lots of water as it had rained for three days, which is why we had not eaten (resupply helos could not get to us — monsoon season). Despite all that, Marines always find a way to pass the time and even find a little humor in our despicable situation. This photo was taken atop Hill 71 in Antenna Valley on Operation Mississippi. On this day, as I have done for fifty years, when the family gathers around the table and my bride gives the blessing, I remain with head bowed and quietly give a special thank you to Lord for having the feast laid out before and that I am still alive fifty years after this photo was taken. Happy Thanksgiving to all my Facebook friends, and especially to my fellow brother Marines!
Semper Fi, Sgt B

Originally posted 2016-11-24 11:53:34.

Current Events, Recent Posts

Alice’s Restaurant

Nearly fifty years ago Arlo Guthrie produced a song that is appropriate to this day for two reasons. First it’s Thanksgiving and secondly, the sorry state of our society.  If you have never listened to the original recording of Alice’s Restaurant, you should. There is a link at the bottom should choose to do so — and you should. Warning, like most of his songs, it is long, but worth the time to sit back, listen, and learn. 

This post is so unbelievable I had to do some research to find out what college, town, city, state, and country would do something like this and here’s what I found. Edgewood College is a private “institution of higher learning” in Madison, Wisconsin which:

continues to be one of the least expensive private colleges and is committed to providing our students:

·         Challenging and engaging educational experiences

·         Small class sizes and personal attention from dedicated staff and faculty

·         An educational experience that connects learning, beliefs, and action.

I found that tuition is quite reasonable  at $13,765/semester , but what does your child get for that? Read the post and you decide.

‘Suck it up p***ies!’ sticky note mocking anti-Trump students being investigated — as a hate crime

suck-it-up

 

 

 

 

Following the election of Republican Donald Trump to the presidency, one of the ways students at Edgewood College expressed their emotions was by placing sticky notes on a designated table in the commons of the Madison, Wisconsin, campus.

But Vice President for Student Development Tony Chambers informed the campus that someone took that idea and perpetrated “an act of cowardly hatred.”

Seems a sticky note with the message “Suck it up, pussies!” — along with a winking smiley face and a stuck-out tongue — was placed on the inside window of the school’s Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion (what? Someone actually gets paid to run this office, hell I could do that). Chambers called it a “targeted act of intimidation and cowardice” in a three-page letter, which includes an embedded image of what appears to be the sticky note in question.

“A great deal of fear, sadness, and anger among students, faculty, and staff resulted, especially for those that gather in the OSDI space,” Chambers continued in his letter. “The message was hateful and harmful toward members of our community. It violated every value that this institution considers to be at its core.”

With that, Chambers said representatives from campus security, student conduct, human resources, Title IX enforcement and diversity and inclusion gathered to decide “how to address the hateful message.”

“The group determined that the message constituted a Hate Crime, based on guidelines from the Jeanne Clery Act and state law,” Chambers wrote, adding that the school reported the incident to Madison police and that it’s “currently being investigated as a hate crime.”

Chambers also observed that “covert micro-aggressions and overt macro-aggressions appear to have taken on new fervor in higher education since our national election” and that the “frequency, boldness, and severity with which hateful acts have been occurring has, for many, signaled a new era of intolerance, fear, and mistrust in higher education.”

“Let me be clear: These types of acts will not be tolerated at Edgewood College,” Chambers’ letter concluded. “They are inexcusable, and those who have been identified as perpetrators of such acts have no place in our community.” (OMG, the audacity of such people, hang the interlopers, )

 

 

Originally posted 2016-11-24 09:48:45.

Recent Posts

Could not resist this one.

3 Comments

 

LOL, sorry, I simply could not resist posting this one. It’s from Iron Mike himself, and you must know that he never minces words, so be careful, I have cleaned it up some. Enjoy my fellow warriors.

safe-space-proeliumI know you don’t know me. I know you don’t even think about me and when you do, it’s probably not anything nice. I’m the evil hegemonically masculine patriarchal oppressor to you feminists. I’m the jackbooted statist thug to you dope smokin’ long-haired hippies. I’m “The Man” to you racial activists. I’m the idiot who joined the military because I “wasn’t smart enough” to go get a liberal arts degree like you know-it-all 20-year-old college dipshits; and for some reason you hate me for that. I’m that guy with the rifle who signed on the dotted line for $24K a year so that you budding Marxist fucksticks could have the freedom to complain about me and the manner in which I provide it. I have a little message for you.

I see you there, in Portland… In Chicago… In San Francisco… In Bumf**k Directional School Liberal Arts College… You’re having your temper tantrums because ever since mommy dropped you off at Daycare 20 years ago you’ve been throwing them to get your way. Now you’re super pissed about the results of a presidential election where the other guy (and the only guy in the race for that matter) won.

I’m not here to talk politics, or explain the Electoral College, or to tell you what hypocritical douchebags you are for doing the things you’re doing. No. I have a much simpler conversation to have with you. See, I read what you post on Twitter, Facebook, and your various internet blogs. I see you on the news breaking things, setting fires, and assaulting people of the opposite political belief. I see you there with your fat ugly unshaven feminist women and black power slogan screaming race baiters, throwing rocks and bottles at the lines of police officers trying to keep order in your own cities. I know your rhetoric.  I know all your identity politics stems from the Marxist activists and ‘intellectuals’ who have pushed the American left farther left than ever before.  I know you believe your “progressive” views are the supreme moral authority on every single issue and somehow this perception allows you to justify your totalitarian social views and hypocritical violent outbursts. You profess to hate half this country for their alleged bigotry while carrying signs that say “Love Wins!”

I also know you’re a coward.

I know this because you keep screaming, and blogging, and protesting, and even rioting… but you won’t start this “uprising” you keep going on and on about. If you really believe that your cause is just, that the majority supports you, and that the United States needs to be overthrown to make way for your progressive social utopia of sunshine and free shit… pick up a gun and start your revolution like every other communist group in history. See, I come from an organization that spent the better part of the last century training to fight a bunch of little commie heathens, and I have a pretty healthy respect for any Ivan who was willing to pick up an AK- 47 and parachute onto the continent ready to overthrow the USA. That takes some guts. You’re not like him though. You’re quite different actually. Ivan was in shape. You’re a bunch of ‘fat acceptance’ advocates who complain airline seats are too small for your 9,000 calories per day diet. Ivan was a proud masculine man. You have drag queens and fat feminist women with green hair. Ivan grew up mining coal and hunting wolves in the Urals. You want socialism because you’re upset that you can’t get a 6-figure job at age 24 with the bullshit arts degree you spent all that loan money on and haven’t done a day of physical labor in your life. Ivan was a veteran of Stalingrad, Afghanistan, and a dozen bush wars. You think “Call of Duty” is too violent and sexist. Ivan packed an AK-47 and knew how to use it. Those among you leftists now who even have weapons ditch them after you rob the liquor store or 7/11 and go hide out at your aunt’s Section 8 housing. You don’t have the discipline Ivan did, at least he used the sights. Ivan killed jihadists by the thousands. You make excuses for them and want to invite them into our country.

You all have your reasons for hating America and whether or not I agree isn’t even relevant. I took an oath as did all of my brothers and sisters in uniform to defend this country against all enemies foreign AND domestic. I will always protect your rights to free speech and expression through lawful and civil protest whether or not your cause is something I believe in. However, you seem to believe revolution and violence are the answer now, and that makes you a domestic enemy of the United States I protect and serve. Do it and I’ll teach you how we make the f**kin’ green grass grow. You keep saying you want a revolution, secession, a new Civil War and the election of Racist/sexist/homophobic/Republican/Nazi/xenophobic/dictator/Islamophobic/rich guy asshole” Donald Trump is the catalyst for you to take action and destroy every evil you perceive this country to stand for…

Well… We’re waiting. Shit or get off the pot.

Iron Mike

Originally posted 2016-11-20 14:03:24.

Book News

Pardon My Advertisement

7 Comments

Christmas is coming. Do you know a Marine who might not have read that fantastic book about some young kid from the rural area along the Chesapeake Bay outside of Baltimore who was going nowhere, decided to get out of school in his senior year before the report cards came out and enlisted in the Marine Corps? Well, here’s your chance to give him a great Christmas present personally inscribed to him and signed by the author. How can this happen you may ask. Well, it’s simple. you see, I happen to know the author very well. It’s me. LOL

I still have about 20 or so of the hardcover copies left over from when I ditched the publisher once I determined just how much they were ripping me off. The publisher priced the book way out of line, but I had no say in it. We argued via emails, texts, and phone calls for over a month, but I lost out. They claimed it was all based on page count. It is a long book actually 564 pages, but for you Grunts (like me) it has lots photos, so they set the price at $42.95.  Would you believe that my profit on each book they and Amazon sold was $2.73.

Anyway, I bought a load of the book before I dropped the publisher. Of course they didn’t give me the same deal they gave to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I would like get rid of the books I have so I am offering a deal for this coming Christmas, but you have to hurry as we are leaving to attend my sister’s memorial service in Swansboro, NC on 9 December. Then we will continue north to our daughter’s house for Christmas in Pasadena, MD. We expect to be back home around 28-29 December. I will; however, have some books with me as we will travel north in our RV with the two cats and my new dog.

I will sell the hardcover version, which is a beautiful book by the way, personally inscribed to the person and signed by me. I have been selling it for $35.00, but for this one time Christmas deal, I sell it for  $30.00 and I will pay the postage, which is now $6.13. In the interest of full disclosure, I am making $5.94 on the each sale as I paid $17.93 per copy from the scumbag publisher. 

Anyway, if you are interested google my name on Amazon and it will take you to many reviews of the book. If your interest is then piqued, send me an email telling about this person you want to give it to, and whether you want it mailed directly to him/her or to you. That’s all there is to it. Email me at: sgt-b@comcast.net, or call me at (239)299-6738.

Here is the Table of Contents to give you a feel of what all the book covers if you’ve not read it.

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1                                                              “Brewed on the Shores of the                                                                                         Chesapeake Bay”

2                                                              From the Halls of Montezuma

3                                                              Parris Island

4                                                              Infantry Training Regiment

5                                                              The Private’s World

6                                                              Schools Demonstration Troops

7                                                              Republic of the Philippines

8                                                              Treasure Island

9                                                              Crossing the Pacific

10                                                           Welcome to Japan

11                                                           The Price of a Lucky Strike

12                                                           The Monkey House

13                                                           Battery D, Second Battalion, Tenth                                                                           Marines

14                                                           Drill Instructor School

15                                                           The DI

16                                                           The Platoon Leaders Course

17                                                           Schools Demonstration Troops—Redux

18                                                           Republic of Vietnam

19                                                           “Corpsman Up”

20                                                           Only a Sergeant

21                                                           Sparrow Hawk

22                                                           Sheer Terror

23                                                           Operation Hastings

24                                                           Anderson Trail

25                                                           LCpl Albert Brigham, USMC

26                                                           Cpl Gary Wayne Olson, USMC

27                                                           Bordering on Ridiculous

28                                                           WIANE

29                                                           The Silent Majority

30                                                           Oldest Post in the Corps

31                                                           “Who the Hell’s Jim?”

32                                                           Hail to the Chief

33                                                           Officer Candidates School

34                                                           Staff Sergeant “Chesty”

35                                                           Special Ceremonial Platoon

36                                                           Anchors Aweigh

37                                                           Company “E”

38                                                           Amphibious Warfare School

39                                                           Go Army!

40                                                           Methodist College

41                                                           Okinawa

42                                                           Marine Barracks, Lemoore, California

43                                                           Armed Forces Staff College

44                                                           Recruiting Station, Chicago

45                                                           College of Naval Warfare

46                                                           Huxley’s Harlots

47                                                           G-3 Training Officer

48                                                           Landing Force Training Command,                                                                             Atlantic

49                                                           The School of Infantry

50                                                           The Consequences

Epilogue

A                                                             Marine Corps Rank Structure

B                                                             Abbreviations/Acronyms

C                                                             Glossary

Current Events, Recent Posts

How callous can someone be?

What a disgrace. How callous can someone be? What have we become? Unbelievable!! I wish I would have been on that plane!!

perry

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — The father of a California soldier recently killed in Afghanistan says he felt disrespected and hurt by passengers who booed him and his family when they were on a flight to meet his son’s remains.

Stewart Perry, his wife and daughter were on an American Airlines flight Monday from Sacramento to Philadelphia with a transfer in Phoenix to receive the remains of his son, Sgt. John Perry, of Stockton, when the flight was delayed, the Stockton Record (http://bit.ly/2fFOIRc) reported Saturday.

Perry, an ex-Marine (former Marine) who lives in Stockton, said the flight to Phoenix was 45 minutes late and the crew, fearing the Gold Star family could miss their connecting flight, made an announcement for passengers to remain seated to let a “special military family” deplane first.

Perry said several passengers in first class booed, complaining that it was “baloney” and that they paid first-class fares. He said he doesn’t know if the passengers from Sacramento knew there was a Gold Star family on board or whether people sitting in the coach section complained.

“It was just disgusting behavior from people in first class; it was terrible to see,” Perry said.

Originally posted 2016-11-20 12:50:05.