Rainy Day Dreaming

 Ever just day dream about getting away?  Find yourself looking at real estate ads for cabins on 5-10 acres of land in a rural part of the state?  No?  Just me?  Well, you should try it sometime!!

Let me see your WARFACE!!!!!

 

Marine Corps Ball 2004.  Probably the best I ever attended be cause of Gunny.  Damn happy I wasn't on the ceremonial guard detail for this one as the man in the pic on the right, R. Lee Ermey, had the entire place laughing and having a damn good time!  

Afterwards, he stood in the back and took pictures with every person who wanted one...and of course, every one did!  The man had so many beers lined up on the table behind him he could have stayed looped for a week!

When I got to see him I told him I wanted to see his warface.  He looked at me, smirked, and said he thinks we could do that.  

Rest In Peace Gunny.  

 Well, it is said that everyone has an excuse for everything...and I am no exception.  Truth be told, when I was working from home I had lots of time to do things on this blog...that no one ever read!  But, unlike many folks out there, I absolutely hated sitting at home working so, an opportunity came up in the company I work for and I jumped.  I am now a Program Manager overseeing contracts for the repairs to US Navy ships.  So consequently, my time for bringing you "fascinating" pictures and witty commentary is limited!

It is a pretty good gig and I enjoy it...for the next 3 1/2 years!  I plan on retiring at 62...which means that I will still work, just not doing this anymore!  My dream is an orange apron or red (camouflage for vets) vest at either Home Depot or Lowes running herd on the bolt aisle!  "Say, what do you have there?"  "A 2" long, 3/8" course thread  carriage bolt."  Come right over here...I got you covered"!!

The crap they wnat us to believe.....

 

Coffee....all sorts of coffee...I love COFFEE!!!!!

 

Random thoughts....

 "Our forefathers’ worst nightmare has now come upon us. They created a free government, limited in its powers and a servant to the people. But today the United States has become an empire, fast decaying into tyranny, and we their children have become strangers and subjects in the land our fathers won. Instead of a free and just social and political order, today we are threatened by a Godless national culture and a corrupt, despotic federal government that knows no limits to its power.

We are NEVER going back to the America that was. The America we once knew is DEAD! Our children and grandchildren deserve so much better.

Freedom is not reserved for those unwilling to fight for it."

The above was lifted from the "Bayou Renaissance Man" blog, who lifted it from "NC Renegade".  

It sums up exactly what i have thought about for a very long time.  The America that I grew up in is long gone and my children will never enjoy what I was able.  Before my weapons were lost in a "tragic boating accident" to avoid controversy in my neighborhood, we used the secret hte "evil black rifles" out of the house to the open doors of a vehicle to go targe shooting.  

When I was a kid, maybe 12-13, I walked down the street with a .410 single shot shotgun over my shoulder and a pocket full of birdshot shells to go shooting BY MYSELF just out of the city limits.  Police drove by and did not even look my direction.  Try that these days.  

So many things have changed, not all for the better.  I do not even know the neighbor next door to me and i have lived in my house for over 15 years.  They are private and I leave them to themselves.  But still, growing up I knew literally everyone in a 3 block radius of my house.  

I am sure it is like that somewhere.....just not where i am now.  And that is too bad. 

No pics but I became intrigued....

 I have always read about war.  Something about it has always fascinated me.  How a country like the US can start from a full peace time standing and roll into an industrial powerhouse seemingly overnight.  How ships, tanks, planes, rifles, bazookas......everything could be built and sent off to fight in record numbers.

I think that is something that should have fascinated me but it rarely facisnates anyone....except professionals: Logistics.  The art form of getting everything required to where it needs to be at the time it is needed.  And having served in the Marine Corps as a logistician, I am surprised I never really focused in on it.  

A friend at work and I were talking the other day and he mentioned about how the US Navy got its collective ass kicked off Guadalcanal.  And he asked me why I thought the US did not pull any of the undamaged battleships down there to fight.  For the life of me, I had never thought of that.  

There were plenty of battleships available, in 1942 the Atlantic Fleet had:  the New York (BB34), the Washington (BB56), Arkansas (BB33), North Carolina (BB55), and the Texas (BB35).  

In the Pacific Fleet, of the 9 battleships, one was undamaged during that attack at Pearl Harbor: the Colorado (BB-45).  

The reason?  It came down to LOGISTICS.  What do ships require most?  Fuel.  How many fleet oilers were there in the Pacific in 1942?   11 total.  

Kanawha (AO-1), Cuyama (AO-3), Brazos (AO-4), Neches (AO-5), Ramapo (AO-12), Sepulga (AO-20), Tippecanoe (AO-21), Neosho (AO-23), Platte (AO-24), Sabine (AO-25), and Kaskaskia (AO-27)

Neches and Neosho were both sunk.  

Neches was sunk by a submarine while supporting the failed Task Force heading to support Wake Island.

Neosho was sunk during the Battle of the Coral Sea.  

Of all the Task Forces set up during that first year of the war, none included battleships?  Task Forces 8, 11, 14, 16, 17, and 18 were all centered around a carrier with its cruiser and destroyer escorts.  

Where were the battleships?  

One therory is that Nimitz held them back in the Pacific so they could support the Carrier Task Forces...not enough to go around.

I am now intrigued enough to dig deep into fleet oiler operations in the first year of WWII.

Down the rabbit hole I go!!