A Fobbit’s opinion on guns
I love, which actually means “I hate”, how after every mass shooting, Fobbits come out of the woodwork to claim some sort of moral superiority on the issue of gun control. The first one this season is another intelligence analyst named Manning, who, like the other more famous intelligence analyst, is smarter than the rest of us, in Newsweek. This one is Josh, who claims to have served two tours inside the wire in Iraq. He has to tell us how he left the wire once;
When I served in Iraq, my unit and I would sometimes leave the base and head out onto the local highways. We each had a 20-round magazine in the well and a round in the chamber. After passing the front gate, our rules required us to switch off our safeties.
No matter the job (I was what infantry would call a base-sitting intelligence wimp) we kept our fingers on our triggers in the back of a half-ton Army truck.
Yeah, no you didn’t. You only put your finger on the trigger when you have your sights on a target and you’re about to fire, otherwise, you get the back of your head slapped by the nearest NCO, after he has made sure you have the trigger cleared of digital impetus. I haven’t seen a twenty-round magazine for the AR rifle in decades, maybe my memory is faulty, but that’s just odd that soldiers in combat would get something from the Vietnam era to fight in a modern battle.
He defends calling modern sporting rifles “assault weapons” because that’s what the Army uses them for – assaulting stuff.
Josh Manning, our moral better, who ran as a Democrat for a State Senate seat in Montana last year continues;
Instead of sensibly prohibiting civilian use of assault weapons, they are still legal in most places and in the wake of the Las Vegas tragedy, you can still make one fire automatically with a “bump stock.” The fact that only semi-automatic, and not fully-automatic rifles are legal, isn’t the point. What is the point: a tool meant for combat situations is widely available in civil society for no apparent reason other than to let civilians feel like they are soldiers. So we wind up with men carrying a legally-purchased weapon of war. No, they are not designed exactly the same, but when the bullet leaves the barrel at subsonic speeds to shred bones and organs, the results are often the same.
It is beyond time that we ask our representatives in Congress if the massive casualties over the past several years are worth the sacrifice. In the Army, you certainly learn to value your rifle. But the men and women around you are far more important. Let us finally put our neighbors’ interest over those of the National Rifle Association and change America’s gun laws.
Yeah, um, in 1984, I bought a rifle that Manning would call an assault rifle, I’d spent ten years in the Army and had another ten to go before I retired and I didn’t buy that rifle to “feel like I was a soldier” – I was already a soldier. I liked having a rifle that I could take to the range with it’s thirty-round magazines and maintain my weapons proficiency during my off-duty hours.
I’ve owned that rifle for more than thirty years now and it’s never been pointed at another human being, but this pipsqueak thinks that I shouldn’t own it because of some nebulous “interests” of my neighbors (who, by the way, are more heavily armed than me and I’m not worried).
I never considered the NRA’s interests when I’ve bought a gun, only my own and the interests of the criminal element. Stephen Willeford, the hero of Sutherland Springs, shot the gunman with his own AR rifle, and he’s an NRA instructor. That kind of ruins your whole piece in Newsweek, doesn’t it?
By the way, if you have to use your military service to defend your support of gun control, you have no moral superiority in the discussion. If you can’t speak to the subject by without dredging up something that you never really did, you’re just some guy with a unsupportable position on the subject.
Thanks to David for the link.
Toxick found his DD214;
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
I am trying to remember ever using a “20round magazine” in the Army. I believe it was at FLW 1989 and full of blanks like Manning.
I think we might have used them on a zero range, but other than that, never.
I brought a few 20 round magazines with me on my first deployment to distribute to my squad. Our reasoning was to mot all run out of ammo at the same time during a firefight. I also brought a couple 40 round magazines for the same reason, but the 40 rounders were cumbersome, did not function reliably and the first time I stepped out of my truck on Route Irish, the 40 round magazine fell out of my weapon. It was quite embarassing to be crawling around in full battle rattle picking up the rounds that were knocked out in front of a bunch of HCNs. Mt Tacticool here.
I am trying to remember switching the fire selector from safe to semi or burst after leaving the gate.
You train to switch the selector before firing, and I have never had a problem with, nor have I met any Soldier who had a problem with it.
I guess that scene from Black Hawk Down when a dude says that his finger is his safety have gone more mileage than required.
I have never seen that in the Army, but then, I joined up in 2005 so I don’t know what was going on before.
Weekend Warrior, are you fucking kidding me?
You willingly reduced the number of rounds your Soldiers could deliver on the enemy so you don’t all run out of ammo at the same time?
This is the most retarded thing I have ever heard. Did you try training magazine switch in all firing positions?
It takes one friggin second. And what about fire control. Did your team leaders control the rates of fire and target allocation within their fire teams? Did they force their grenadiers to use their M320s or M203s? When under fire, grenadiers tend to forget they a tube attached to their weapon that can fire a 40mm grenade. That’s your guy with one mag that will not run out at the same time, even if you all do something as retarded as going full cyclic on the first Talib that shows his head.
Unbelievable.
He was MI – the terms you are using have no meaning for him.
He is self-righteously chewing out Weekend Warrior in Texas, not Manning.
Have ask, what is with that picture of Manning – did he photoshop the eyes or something?
Yef, I am not fucking kidding you. I did not willingly reduce anything for anybody. It was optional. After we got in country, and found out what our MTOE & mission was, we did not use the 20 round magazines, but since you brought it up, if it only takes one friggin second to swap mags why does it matter. Like I said though, it did not really matter that much on our mission. Yes we trained on controlling rates of fire, target acquisition, using the 203 onpoint to locate the threat blah blah blah. We had our shit together.Do you really want all the details of the shitpile mission we got? Believe it Hero.
Weekend Warrior, do I really need to splain to you why having a 30 round magazine matters?
I got you setting up your Soldiers for failure, and you didn’t like it, and now you are trying to break contact.
Too late. You are that type of squad leader that comes up with great ideas.
“Oh, I got a brilliant idea, let’s half our guys use 20 round mags so we don’t all run out of ammo at the same time. Brilliant!”
I think you are making shit up. The only contact I am trying to break is your lips on my member. You are the type of hero that does not know shit, so you make stuff up. Do I need to splain myself why you may go shove your smarmy splenations where your cabeza seems to be? You were not in my squad, yet you seem to know all about what we did and how we did it. I said I brought twenty round mags with the idea of using them under a philosophy that we had discussed as a squad. We did not use them because the situation did not present itself blah blah.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
I called you out and you didn’t like it.
Constructive criticism is for you to get better at your job.
It’s like an AAR. I am giving you feedback on your brilliant idea of using 20 rounds mags.
Yef,
Respect is a two-way street.
Learn some manners, or reduce yourself to clown status.
Your choice. Be effective and respectful, at least to start, or wind up a blogfart: noisy, highly noticeable, but unloved except in absence.
You -can- be a respected participant.
What I’ve seen so far, fat chance of that. He’s like a “friend” and VFW brother I used to have. He was a 68W Wolfhound. Respectable. However, every word out of his mouth concerning my branch was Chair Force this, Air Farce that. When he and I transferred to different posts and cities, I “lost contact” with his sorry Cable Guy ass. As for Yef, most of us here were in (and out) LONG before you joined. Keep that in mind, pup
^^^PAY ATTENTION, Yef, ^^^^^^
VERY sound advice.
ARE youse guys saying that Yef is younger than even ME?
Well, if that don’t just beat the rugs clean!!
So, you are saying I should sugar-coat my comments. Got it.
Actually, yef.. I agree with you. First, I NEVER took my weapon off safe until ready to shoot. Second, only used 30 round mags. Trusted my squad and team leaders to ensure combat loads. Trusted team leaders to control rates of fire and squad leaders for target designation outside of my perview and accurate reporting of weapons and ammunition status. If I had caught one of my soldier’s John Wayning it, well, I never did, so my team leaders did their jobs. That being said, and I’m not good at this, diplomacy in speech is a good thing I guess.
No need to sugarcoat anything for me cupcake, I am not that sensitive. I do not appreciate when someone makes shit up or tries to put words in my mouth. I did not feel that my original comment needed the amount of detail that you decide to make up.
This comment is a response to Yef’s. We carried full combat loads and then some. I carried the basic load, and an additional 180 rounds in 30 round magazines. We accomplished our mission without JohnWayning and everyone came home unharmed and alive. None of th soldiers on any mission I was on was placed at unnecessary risk due to any of my actions or decisions.
Weekend Warrior, that was some mighty lawyer speak disclaimer right there.
I think you need some resilience training. You are too thin skinned.
You are melting faster than a millennial at a Trump rally.
So. You are saying now that you overloaded your Soldiers, compromising their ability to react to contact, to fire and manouver, by forcing them to carry almost DOUBLE the combat load when on dismounted missions?
Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?
You are just trying to be cute.
Lost in the Woods had a few kicking around the training side in 1980. Eventually the 30s showed up for BRM and the 20s became FTX mags. Footlockers of them for blank issue.
If I remember correctly, at one point they were teaching BRM with one hand on the bottom of the 20rd mag as a standing position.
Getting old sucks.
Wow. Holding your weapon with your non-firing hand by the bottom of the mag? Times have definitively changed.
You tuck in your elbow to your body and raise the other elbow when shooting off hand like this and its very stable. We were taught that in the Marine Corps for qualifying since part of it was shooting off hand.
I never saw anyone do it other than at the range in the training pipeline though.
That’s where I remembered it!
The KD range at PI
Yef,
There is a century-long tradition of basing Rifle Marksmanship upon what works best at the Camp Perry National Matches and other major rifle matches.
The aspect of “perfect trigger press” is a fundamental, in that if you lack it, you cannot do much precision work, or shoot to any significant distance. However, I know very few folks that have ever worked a rifle “match style” in combat, now or in prior wars.
“Point shooting” / “instinctive shooting” / “fast kill” / “The Applegate Method” were all controversial because they violate “the fundamentals” as “proven” at rifle matches.
And rifle instruction is fundamentally a “rear echelon” undertaking. Thus there is always a tendency for over-emphasis on “match” methods versus “this is how you clear a structure” and “this is how you fire from awkward positions”.
The trigger press, use of sights, etc, is fundamental to all else, but the purpose of the Rifleman is not bringing home the big trophy from Perry. But you will again and again see the echos of match thinking.
Is it just me, or does Yef often babble like a lobotomized cherry 2LT on LSD?
Wrong.
I am enlisted, I don’t do drugs, and I am extremely intelligent and cute.
*WHOOOSH!*, that flew right over your head!!!
What? Where?
I do more push-ups than you!
Take that API!
Yef, it’s VERY likely that I put on my first set of Army Issue BDU’s while you were either sucking on a bottle and shitting in a diaper or hugging your teddy bear while watching Barney!
Barney was a great show, though my favor characters were BJ and Riff. I didn’t like Baby Bop too much.
I knew it.
Yef’s really a girl.
It’s okay. We all have issues.
And obviously a Blonde as well!!!
No no no, where did you get that from?
Okay, a red-headed girl. Just wasn’t sure.
Probably a natural redhead, too. They tend to be bumptious.
IDC_SARC may concur.
I hate Camp Perry. I competed in the President’s Hundred rifle match a few years back, and didn’t make it. They were cheating.
I mean, 200m standing? Who shoots at 200m standing? You only shoot standing on CQB doing reflexive fire, battledrill 6.
The 300m was ok. Drop to prone, fire 2 rounds, change mag, fire 8 rounds. Too easy.
The 600m was an excellent challenge, though nobody shoot at 600m with iron sights, but I had a 6 o’clock zero so I was right on the money.
Still lost though.
I was pissed. I am the best shooter evah, combat proven, and I had 300 shooters scoring higher than me.
Rigged, I tell you.
Is it that, or are you still pissed about not getting a participation trophy?
We had twenty-round magazines in BCT (late 1970/early 1971). I think mostly in the CA-ARNG when I enlisted in 1975. But, by 1985, they were gone; replaced by thirty-round magazines.
We used them in Nam. Big heavy M-14 mags.
Man am I old.
My unit, 327th Airborne Infantry, was one of the first units issued the M-16 in Vietnam and all we had were 20 round mags.
20’s used to fit in the ammo bandolier. Nice way to keep handy but the strap bit on the neck.
On his Twitter he lists Combat Veteran yet in the DD214 I can’t see a CAB or a CIB. Is it just me or is the term “Combat Veteran” getting thrown out there by everyone who put their toe in a combat zone.
Yes, “Combat Veteran” has come to mean anyone in theater.
Technically I’m a “Combat Veteran” sitting on my ass in the JOC in Iraq on this tour.
now those fobbitts in Kuwait are a different story…..
Whether people like it or not, “combat veteran” means those who did their duties in a combat zone for which they received combat pay. It isn’t about whether they personally experienced being shot at from 100 meters away…or 500 meters…or IED’ed…or took cover from rockets on the base…or [insert hazardous situation that doesn’t necessarily warrant a specific award here].
What a jerk off.
How’d me make it to E6 being ignorant of Army stuff as fuck?
So much BS in his comments, but this one really stands out ” No, they are not designed exactly the same, but when the bullet leaves the barrel at subsonic speeds to shred bones and organs, the results are often the same.”
What the hell kind of AR is he using that the bullet leaves the barrel at subsonic speeds??? (yes, I know about 300blk, 459socom, and others, though i doubt this clown does)
And is it just me, or does that look like a meatgazers grin he’s sporting??
Well, he does have a well coiffed spooge strainer.
That have to be a typo.
There is no way anyone would mention muzzle velocity to try to scare people as “subsonic”.
He was probably going for supersonic and his editor, being even more clueless than he is, didn’t catch the typo.
Now Clueless, that was a great movie.
Sounds like an FOIA request in the making…
I was going to ask if one was already in the works… Sounds like a poser from the get-go.
A few minutes of digging led to his Twitter account, which led to this post:
https://twitter.com/joshuamanning23/status/872293710129745922
Going to the SCRA single-record search:
https://scra.dmdc.osd.mil/scra/#/single-record
…for Last Name = Manning and DOB = 06/06/1974, it confirms he was Active Duty Army from 4/23/2002 through 4/27/2009. Sounds like a four-year enlistment and a three-year re-up, all during a time of war. Dude is about twelve shades of jacked up in this article, but it seems like he’s a legit veteran.
I believe we called them REMF’s Rear Echelon Mother Fucker. If memory serves me correct.
Bradely’s pansier little brother…
Holy. Crap.
20-round magazine? Weapon on semi? Finger on the trigger? Sounds like FOIA time on this assbag, because anyone who made it to Week 3 of BCT knows better.
Subsonic? From a friggin’ M4?
And a side point – I WISH the TX asshole had used a bump stock in his rampage. He’d have hit maybe one or two people per magazine if he was lucky, and probably would have jammed it before he reloaded twice. REQUIRING bump stocks on all semi-auto rifles would save more lives than banning them would…I would never own an accuracy-prevention device like that…
Douchebag level achieved: Expert
I have tweeted him and Newsweek (@EpicSwoleness)…even though he’ll never let go of his narrative, it feels good to vent
They switched off their safeties and kept their fingers on the triggers in the back of a truck? Really? I wonder if the red cap was still on his barrel at the time he was dreaming this up.
“No matter the job (I was what infantry would call a base-sitting intelligence wimp) we kept our fingers on our triggers in the back of a half-ton Army truck.”
“Half-ton Army truck” as in CUT-V or ‘civilian UTILITY vehicle’ as my Army Shipmates called pickup trucks. Outside the wire? Jacked up for the Coke run? Locked and loaded for vending machine resupply? There isn’t anything in this tale that rings true. Maybe he was under duress and trying to let us know?
DOUG out
I remember them being referred to as CUCV’s, Civilian Utility Cargo Vehicles.
Out in a local’s white Toyota Hilux pickup to a Manlove Thursday party?
As a former intel weenie and fobbit, I have to humbly apologize for this nutsack.
Weapon on semi and finger on the trigger? While driving on bumpy roads? What could possibly go wrong? And a 20 round magazine in an M-16? And what is a “half-ton Army truck?” IIRC the HMMWV is rated at 1 1/4 tons as are the CUCVs (Chevy pickups.) The old M151 Jeep was officially known as a “truck 1/4 ton” but AFAIK the Army hasn’t had “half ton” trucks since the Dodge WC series of WWII. I smell LOTS of BS coming from this. Even my Fobbit ass knows that nonsense.
Can we FOIA this guy? I’m skeptical that he ever served in a combat zone.
Numbnuts here is either outright lying about his military experience or has forgotten what he was taught in basic.
You know what they say, Military Intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
I used to always carry 2 20 round mags full of tracers for directing my machine guns . Brownells used to send out platoon boxes of pretty much whatever we wanted. This was 04-09 time frame.
Also, “1/2 ton trucks”. Haven’t been in the inventory since the early 1960s.
This guy lies like a civilian douchebag valor thief. Which is probably what he is.
What a cheesedick!!
Let’s see, to start off with, I agree with all the comments above.
►20-round magazine (very unusual – not unheard of, but we’ll get to that in a minute)
►”In the well” – Don’t think that term gets used by many people who actually load and make ready with any frequency
►required us to switch off our safeties – no
►fingers on our triggers – no
►make one fire automatically with a “bump stock.” – no
►half-ton Army truck – HMMWV is 1/4 ton; 5 tons are, well 5 ton; MTVRs are 7; MRAPs weigh 14 to 18 tons
And of course, ►subsonic speeds
All that being said, I did actually have and use 20 rounders in Iraq in 2004. I was at Camp Virginia in February of 2004 and some of my Marines noticed some 20 rnd magazines in one of the dumpsters. Being good Marines, they dove in and grabbed all they could find. I ended up with 6. I liked them as my carry magazine because they were easier to move around in a HMMWV than a 30 rounder. I did, however, carry 30 round magazines in a 6 magazine pouch, however, because I figured if you needed more than 20 rounds, you would probably need a lot!
https://get.google.com/albumarchive/104745627018165888181/album/AF1QipPKWNaZSUNkdypldku6M8LxbBwRF80S5xYyE_Xg/AF1QipMrk46N3PSQWnODBO7D5_6zrrkPW3jjs9-RisNz
On some munitions we found, rifle was placed there for size reference.
https://get.google.com/albumarchive/104745627018165888181/album/AF1QipNN3E2KPUsIzK5q6iwm2FZnD2dyA-p-fqkkxYMO/AF1QipO_rWh-CXlksoYOSqBl0-nDKZVAkgV7XAOF8Ldn
At some Iraqi hospital in some village north of Al Taqqadum – I’m on the right.
All that being said:
►the pre-surgery Manning in question here is still a douche and
►Was probably not given 20 rounders for his subsonic weapon of war
Note: In the end, I only fired three rounds in anger during an ambush, so the 20 round magazine sufficed.
Woops, Martinjmpr’s post made me notice I’m a ton short on my HMMWV weight – should be 1 1/4 ton.
NEK in the house!
Hey, ease up on the poor guy. I totally believe that he lost his virginity during bandcamp. Everyone knows that women love it when men yank on the clitoris repeatedly for an hour, with a firm and demanding grip. His description of events seems totally legit. I mean that’s like how it’s done! Amiright? Amiright? Guys?
“No matter the job (I was what infantry would call a base-sitting intelligence wimp)”
No, wrong again. We called you a Pogue POS and a REMF.
he is just another FOBBIT who saw the shadow of his weapon once and had 6 more weeks of PMS.
Not all FOBBITs are also douchecanoes, but this one certainly qualifies….
Well, I saw Fobbits complaining about chow in the main mess hall of Balad Air Force Base.
We went there only a few times, and it was Heaven on Earth, I mean, Iraq.
The Ugandans let you in?
Yeah, that’s just way too many syllables for anyone to want to spit out regularly. I’ve never heard anyone say that before. It is always Fobbit or REMF.
No matter how much Gears of War he played while he was there…
He’s as fucked up as a truckload of broken football bats and more full of shit than a dozen stockyards, I hereby make an official motion for Josh Manning to receive The Official TAH Wall of Insults®™.
Second that request
“Continue the operation. You may fire when ready.”
…
“Commence primary ignition!”
CALLING ChipNASA, CALLING ChipNASA…
In reading Mr. Manning’s stuff, and then following up with responses by people who dispute his information or the lack thereof, I’d guess that if he was, indeed, in the military at all, he spent his entire time in an office with no windows, and manned a desk and computer, and not much else.
My impression of him is that he either didn’t learn anything at all, or never picked up any of the “tech talk” you’d have available when referring to weapons. He seems to be afraid of them, which compels me to question his claim of service because my understanding of it in the 21st century is that everyone gets weapons-training, period, and should know the technology and handling methods better than he does.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
There may be someone who served who has the same name as this ‘fobbit’, which is not unlikely.
many cup cakes get training, but remain cup cakes.
He is a prime example of a cup cake with extra sprinkles.
Probably a Brony as well.
True, but there are too many gaps in his vocabulary to include ‘cupcake’ in this. I think he’s faking it.
I never picked up all the slang sailors generated, but what I did pick up, I tend to remember.
Honestly, I thought he was Air Force and wound up getting stuck with scary Army people for his “extended” 4 months in theater…
Riding in back of a half ton, weapon off safety, and your booger hook on the trigger?
Give me all your ammo and start doing pushups!!!
I thought the correct word for that part of a gun was ‘bang switch’.
…. and the Fire Selector, if you are fortunate enough to have one, is the Giggle Switch. Alas, no class 3 license.
Cruising around Iraq with a “20-rd magazine”, with safety off and finger on trigger in the back of the “1/2-ton” truck?
Yeah, I’m going with “bullshit.” Add me to those who want to see this dude’s FOIA.
The only 1/2 ton vehicles I know about are pickup trucks.
As someone else has so kindly pointed out, that hasn’t been in the military’s budget since maybe the 1970s?? My Escape would probably qualify as a quarter-ton truck if it didn’t have a roof over the storage area in back, but it’s an SUV, not a true truck.
I don’t think this guy even knows what is what in regard to vehicles, period.
The smallest truck the army had was a 3/4 ton, and those were phased out in the late 1960’s. But then again, this lying propagandist is full of shit. His claims that he rode around in the back of any wheeled vehicle with a round chambered, safety off, and finger on the trigger is likely another lie. I suspect that this ex-fobbit effing REMF only handled a loaded M-16 or M-4 on a rifle range. Even in the Viet of the Nam if one got into a truck or on a helo with a round chambered and the safety off one would be looking at a potential Art.15. No one wanted to be shot by some dufus ignoring basic weapon safety, even in a combat zone.
Although the term was rarely used by troops, the official designation of the M151 Jeep was “truck, utility, 1/4 ton, 4×4, M151.”
When I was an MP in the CO National Guard in the early 80s my PL would occasionally refer to our Jeeps as “Quarter Tons” as in “go down to the motor pool and make sure all the platoon’s quarter tons have been PMCS’d.”
Weren’t those 3/4 tons like a Dodge Powerwagon? It’s been a long time.
The 3/4 tons were smaller than a Powerwagon. When I was in Germany in 1969-1970 they had been replaced by the 1 1/4 ton utility truck. They still had some of the 3/4 tons in RVN. I think Dodge made the 1 1/4 ton pickups. Anyway, they looked like a civilian fleetside pickup. The 3/4 tons actually looked like a military 4-wheel drive vehicle.
The Dodges were M880 series aka 5/4 tons aka five quarters. Horrible 3/4 tons with beefed up rear suspension and absolutely no get up and go. Maybe if you put helper springs in a Jeep you could call it a half-ton on the same basis?
The part that Jonn quoted above jumped at me when I read that article this morning. Not jut the no-nos like booger hook on trigger, 20 round magazines, weapon not on safe, etc., but his terminology. His terminology suggests that he has basic introductory knowledge, basic qualification, and the need for repeat basic BRM briefing as… In his case… He quickly forgot the basics.
In the well? We just said, “lock and load”, and we did that before crossing the wire. Our weapon was on safe, our fingers on the weapon and not on the trigger or inside the trigger guard, etc. A lot of this was muscle memory, but he can’t even go off that as an excuse for not remembering basic stuff.
His experience screams basic refreshers/briefings/BRM, and possibly STX/FTX, with deployment in his career possible but not in the way he portrays.
I think they gave him the broke shit for safety…
Don’t fret, Ms Fonda, erh, I mean Josh. There are plenty of men and women, much better than you, who leave the wire every day to go protect your snowflake butt. Now you just adjust your beret and head on down to Baskin and Robbins for your snack while the real soldiers go about their work.
This is hilarious. He did not get one damn thing right. I’ll bet he knows Kuntzman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gersh_Kuntzman
Josh Manning was apparently everybody’s favorite fuckhead: Carl
Who in their right mind puts their finger inside the trigger guard, just to be ‘ready’ in the back of a truck.
Good way to shoot yourself, or one of your fellow soldiers dumbass.
For someone that worked in intelligence, you sure lack it.
Well, maybe its supposed to be ironic, like that guy Tiny over in vice? He’s like 6’7″ but everyone calls him Tiny.
What a nasty ass POG.
His shitty appeal to authority fallacy still couldn’t hide his lack of firearm knowledge but that doesn’t stop his desire to infringe and other’s civil rights.
Get fucked, Pal.
Well, he also doesn’t answer this question: since a 1/2-ton vehicle is a pickup truck, why would you drive an open-bed vehicle like that in to a shooting zone?
I’m mystified by this.
The Iraqis did this, they mounted/loaded a crew serve in the back of it and used it as a gun truck.
Yes, but we didn’t do that, did we?
Yes in the beginning of OIF 2003 for invasion. We had soft back crew HMMWV’ not the turtles. They even had mounted weapons in dumps, the Combat Engineers did, also used that as Vic two was the rammer if needed to ram through a blockade. The Marine Recon guys both Force and LAR’s had soft top Mercedes 4x taticals. This all changed late 2003 when IED’s started up north at first. Then all Vic’s had to be hard toped and then armored home made at first, then kits came in.
Weapons condition on camps at first was condition three USMC/Navy and Yellow Army. You would come up to ECP get out of Vic go Hot or red Condition one/Red weapon on safe never on fire, only if contact, doesn’t take long to switch off safe. I am a support guy and know and did more then this jack ass.
That’s exactly my point, Chief. I don’t think he went anywhere except to the men’s head down the passageway.
Ex, just to be clear, a half-ton, three-quarter, or one-ton rated truck-chassis can have different body form factors. This can include pickup, SUV, and cargo or passenger van. The way to tell the difference if you’re standing in a parking is to look at the body numbers. GM and Dodge use 1500, 2500, and 3500. For Fords, it’s 150, 250, and 350.
Also, some trucks can be SUVs, but not all SUVs are trucks.
In Viet of the Nam the Jeep was 1/4 ton. Made by Ford. The 3/4 ton was the Dodge M-37 type truck and of course the multifuel “duece and a half” was the 2 1/2 ton truck.
The Air Force had civilian type 3/4 ton Dodge Power Wagons. Some were four door crew cabs.
Then of course we had Honda motorcycles from the ARVN’s.
Care to ride on top of a Lambretta loaded with chickens?
You are both correct and incorrect. My F250 would qualify as 3/4 ton according to your VERBALLY accurate rating. So you are colloquially correct. In the reality of modern vehicles it has a GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight) of about 9800 pounds but weighs about 7000 pounds, so it’s capacity is the difference between the two making it over a one ton truck.
That being said, the BMV uses YOUR definition for the purpose of non-commercial vehicle registration and taxation so I’m totally cool with it and completely agree that it is a 3/4 ton truck.
It’s ride sucks accordingly, and I absolutely never want to find out what it looks like with 2000lbs in the bed. So there is that.
You would be pleasantly surprised, most trucks ride far better with a decent load in them. Unless things have changed in the last 30+ years, the numbers above (1F150, 1500 etc) were only applied to the civilian versions of trucks. I may be misremembering that last, though… I have killed a few brain cells since then.
Off to twitter. Hi…..hehehe
Locked, loaded, safety off, finger on trigger and ridding in the back of vehicle.
Every bump must have been a ND volley…
He says he’s a civil rights investigator for the state….that said it all right there
Hey, I’m a veteran, why didn’t Newsweak ask me MY opinion?
Oh yeah–cause they wouldn’t like it.
In 1971 we packed M-16’s with 20 round mags. However, we only loaded them with 18 or 19 rounds. When loaded with 20 rounds those mags were notorious for jams because of spring fatigue.
Nice weapon safety there Josh!
Dumbass!
The 30-round magazines at the time were even worse for reliability, IMHO. You might also remember that bulk 5.56 ammo back then came as stripper clips boxed inside cloth bandoliers. Once you loaded 10 of the 20-round magazines, they all fit just fine into one of the cloth bandoliers.
Basic load for us with A Co. 2/35th Inf. 4th Inf Div. was twenty one mags. Usually carried one bandoleer of seven around the waist and the other two were wrapped over the top of our rucks. As 3/17 Air Cav commented, all mags had 18-19 rounds loaded because twenty rounds seemed to jam them.
With the 1st. Cav, our standard load was 20 mags. Some in the cloth bandoliers, some in pockets. It seemed like at the time I had them just about everywhere. We always practiced safety.
Once I got out of the bush, and started flying, one of my jobs from the gunners well was to eyeball the troops we were carrying for weapon safety
SJ: We did the same 19 round magazine in 1st Recon. Additionally the safety did not come off until the sh*t hit the fan. We routinely practiced rapid fire where you dropped, leveled the M-16 while simultaneously shifting the safety, then firing. I can attest to how automatic these actions became ingrained. Had one guy do an accidental discharge while on patrol. He disappeared from the battalion very quickly. ADs were an extremely, monstrously, yugely big no-no in Recon.
Same drill in 2nd Recon. Safety on until engaging.
That was the late 70’s
Even as an everyday Army Leg in A-stan, AD’s were a guaranteed Article 15, nearly all of which happened at the clearing barrel.
We had the same basic load for riflemen in the 4th ID and the Americal. Except we were issued two 30 round mags. So SOP was to carry one in the weapon and the 21 20 rounders as you describe.
3/17 Air Cav. And remember when we CA’ed into an LZ, we always had the muzzle pointing up towards the rotors, round in the chamber, selector switch on auto and finger on the trigger just to get that extra edge. 😉
To coin a phrase from another TAH contributer….this guy is so full of shit, his ears stink!
Once again, New York City-based news media reinforces its echo chamber. Here’s a red-flag pull quote:
“This is not a comment on the Second Amendment. Clearly, the founders of our country gave civilians the right to bear arms. I don’t advocate a gun-free society. I live in Montana, where my views will ostracize me, but I also own a bolt-action rifle for deer and elk season and a shotgun for bird season.”
Actually, Manning’s piece is very much a comment on the Second Amendment. What he seems to ignore is that while it’s true the amendment was included to allow hunting for food, another aspect is that it also acts as a means of parity. The country’s founders wanted power to ultimately rest with the population. Facing tyrants unarmed is not the best way to water the tree of liberty.
Manning also cheerfully admits that his views will ostracize him in Montana. This raises the question: if he’s a minority in his own state to the point of being ostracized, why should his opinion matter? If a magazine really wants to feel the pulse of public opinion in a place, a better choice is to talk to those with a view matching the general consensus. Editors might also think Manning’s status as a veteran pushes some sort of hot button, but it’s actually irrelevant.
If Newsweek had not found Manning in Montana, they would have likely looked around until they found another Manning somewhere else. The goal being to find somebody to tell them what they wanted to hear.
Newsweek has become nothing but a leftwing propaganda rag. Anyone who would pay to read it is a progtard.
Fifteen seconds of fame, fourteen minutes, forty-five seconds of infamy, followed by permanent obscurity. Who’s next?
I’m a pogue, and neither I nor any of my pogue brethren I served with in Iraq would have EVER rode around in a fucking truck bouncing on the road with our rifles on semi and our fingers on the triggers. What a fucking clown.
The guy’s a demonrat political hack, nuff said…
I as a combat historian in OIF probably had more time outside the wire than he did, and I rode in an M1114, not whatever the hell he’s describing…
In my year in Iraq, I never saw a single 5.56 M16/M4 20-round magazine carried by anyone…
I bet this douche doesn’t even own a bolt-action deer rifle; the guy’s full of shit, so why should I believe he owns ANY firearms…
He got the Tour of Duty box set on DVD…
Across the board, while outside the wire, we were always thinking safety. Almost to the point of being paranoid. Putting your claymore out or retrieving it, take the clacker with you. While carrying hand grenades, I taped the spoons with electricians tape! Just in case a pin came out!
Absolutely, because the last thing we wanted to happen was to kill or get killed by our own weapons through carelessness or stupidity. A fellow company commander had several of his guys killed because they walked through another platoon’s mechanical ambush when returning from a patrol.
He would soil his panties if he found out I can bump fire my AR-15 with nothing more than a rubber band (not totally necessary but it works pretty good) and my thumb hooked in a belt loop.
I’ve heard that boot laces and fishing line also work quite nicely.
I have a cat who has sneezed wads more often that his guy has ever fired a gun of any kind.
Dude looks like Gersh Kuntzman.
Ah, I remember FOB Mangina in Macho Grande like it was yesterday. We rolled out in heavily modified Chevy El Caminos. We had 100 round drum magazines and carried several 13 round clips in our fanny packs. As soon as we cleared the wire, we went full auto and didn’t let up until we returned. Sure we killed a lot of innocents and some of our own, but that’s why conservatives shouldn’t own guns.
We’ll never forget those lost in Macho Grande…war is hell, even for fobbits with itchy trigger fingers.
Right Striker.
This is what we carried….
https://youtu.be/Hd-0F4v1C54
Were yours big-block El Caminos or small-block El Caminos? It really made a difference when faced with a tricky tactical situation on a Macho Grande cruise night…
There was poor air support at Macho Grande
Over Macho Grande? Shirley you gests?
I don’t think I’ll ever get over Macho Grande.
And stop calling me Shirley.
Are y’all going into Airplane Mode over Macho Grande?
josh manning – splatter master
don’t give me shit about MI cause some of us might have saved your ass(es). ASA – assholes sign anything – LFCFer from the gitgo.
“Red is for the blood we shed, as you see there is no red-
White is for the flag we fly, yellow is the reason why”
ballad of ASA
The ASA Patch, for those who have never seen it:
Colors are black, blue, white and gold.
According to the Ballad of the ASA:
Black is for the night we fear
Blue is water we don’t go near
White is for the flag we fly
Yellow is the reason why
Red is for the blood we shed
And as you see – there is no red
One hundred men will test today
But not a one from the ASA
Fighting Soldiers From the Sky?
Fearless Men who Jump and Die?
Men who mean just what they say?
Those guys can’t be in the ASA.
😀
I worked with a lot of old ASA guys. I think they were officially disbanded in the late 70’s, and rolled into INSCOM (Intelligence and Security Command.)
30 men reenlist today –
none from the ASA;
that would be correct – disbanded , then rolled into MI/INSCOM.
too bad because the history of the ASA is being lost as members die.
You can check them out on google or facebook – nasaa.org
but to explain the patch and LFCF – lightning fast chicken f..ckers
hope the quote is self explanatory …
seriously a great group of folks going away without a lot of press…
sorry for taking the subject offline
back to the subject…
ASA – first army unit deployed to Vietnam. First Army casualty of the war – SPC4 James T. Douglas, 1961.
ASA paatch not worn in Vietnam at times due to bounty.
See “One to Count Cadence”.
correction\sorry – SPC4 James T. Davis. RIP.
In the Viet of the Nam, they called themselves “Radio Research Companies.” And their intel reports were called URI’s (Usually Reliable Intelligence) because it was supposed to be based upon what the enemy said in their radio transmissions.
No ASA in Vietnam hehehehe.
Wanted this reply earlier not after James Davis post, sorry.
ok, understood.
ASA was officially replaced by ISO in the 1970s.
It’s the reason Eastman Kodak is no longer doing much business. They just didn’t see it coming.
The Reference to ASA was that MI had a place in the battle space and contributed to battle plans and saving lives.
Your comment would infer that a group of professionals is equal to a sorry business.
It not funny, it could be an inferred slur and you lessen yourself be posting it in this context.
I can’t imagine any context in which you did not mean for this to be demeaning.
If I’m wrong its a shit attempt at humor.
If you want to claim its a reference to your PH background, well – it’s PH .. UCKED.
Lighten up, Francis. The joke wasn’t a knee slapper, but it wasn’t mean spirited either.
It always seemed to me that ASA tried to keep as low a profile as possible. The fewer people who knew about it the better seemed to be the general view. Given that ASA, NSG, and AFSS all had a Sigint mission that reported directly to NSA, it also seemed strange when things were folded into the larger MI framework. NSA could be very protective of its turf.
The comment above about ASA people not wearing patches in country because of a bounty was likely a myth. It was more likely that the lack of patches was to allow the ASA detachments to blend into larger parent line units. Another bullshit rumor floating around at the time, you might remember this one, was that ASA units in danger of being overrun or captured were subject to having B-52 airstrikes called in on them from Okinawa.
Get too far out among the little people and the NSA would Arc Light your ass…
One of the ASA tall stories I actually did tend to believe though was the one about the time they tapped a main NVA telephone trunk line running along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
We agree, if it was a joke it wasn’t very good.
Thanks for your response, I think about what you said.
98z, I suspect they are saying nothing we didn’t, too.. you ddin’t lose your sense of humor when you got that third rocker, did you?
The no patch because of a bounty story seems very far fetched, however for some reason ASA organizations were called radio research units in VN. There must have been some reason for this cover story/name.
I’d imagine it was for about the same secret-squirrel reason the in-country airline was called Air America instead of CIA Airways…
Yeah, it was a pun – a play on words. Get over yourself. AI used to be a specialty, even identified as a separate rate, and then it just disappeared in the 1960s, rolled over into PH. Never saw it coming.
I’ll take your word for it. I saw the pun, but obviously misjudged your intent.
I think the only time this twank has ever handled a weapon of any kind was when he was forced to do so in basic training, and then promptly forgot what he was taught.
I notice a lack of the highly-coveted gedunk medal. How’s that possible?
Likely a clerical error on the part of whoever was typing up his DD-214. He qualifies for the NDSM so that’s the only explanation for it not being there.
I got one that he don’t got!
I got one that he don’t got!
I got one that he don’t got!
I got one that he don’t got!
Nyah nyah nah nyah nyah!
Nee boo boo
Heep How!
You don’t need a rubber band to bumpfire
Just stick your thumb in front of the trigger and rest it against your hip
Push forward with the other hand and you are bump firing!
I ruined the accuracy on my federal ordinance M 14 doing this
I broke the firing pin on my M1 carbine playing stupid fire.
Then I lost it in a boating accident.
I put a bump stock on my AR and it automatically fired so he is right. I couldn’t stop the damn thing from automatically firing all over the place. It sprayed bullets like water from a garden hose.
Here you go. Any pussy can beat this guy, any place, any time.
Finger on the trigger in the back of a moving truck. Wow. I’m reminded of that scene in the “A-Team” movie when the inept CIA guys are trying to execute Pike in the back seat of the SUV:
“Wow, you’ve handled a weapon like that before and you’re still alive? That’s amazing to me. Hey, last request? Don’t let *this* guy shoot me.”
[…] In State Legislatures The Political Hat: Public Schools And The Hajj This Ain’t Hell: A Fobbit’s Opinion On Guns, also, Vandalized Car Hate Crime Report Was False Weasel Zippers: Ted Cruz – Democrats […]
If he’d just admit that he was a desk jockey and quit tryin-a man-up to impress (not) people, that would be fine. He’s entitled to his opinion. Unfortunately, he makes an ass of himself while he’s at it, therefore, people point at him and giggle.
In a way, though, he sort of does by acknowledging that he’s not a “shooter.”
Which makes the whole premise of his article pretty pointless.
Boiled down, it goes like this: “I don’t know much about guns, but here’s what I think about guns.”
Ummm…ok. Thanks, I guess?
You know, when you’re talking about “gun control” you are talking about the intersection of two things: Firearms and Law.
And the reason these articles are so laughable and pathetic is that they demonstrate so clearly how the writer knows absolutely fuck-all about either guns OR the law.
You can’t talk about changing gun laws without at least acknowledging Heller and McDonald cases, even if you disagree with them vehemently.
If you don’t do that then you’re not actually serious and are simply pandering to people who already agree with you.
Ho-ly crap, would you all like some bananas? Cause the chest-thumping here is out of control.
I’m going to go against the grain here and defend said “fobbit.” Opinions on gun control aside, simply being intel doesn’t necessarily make him such. I was USMC intel who deployed to Iraq not too much earlier before this guy did and what he said about leaving the wire was actually accurate. Whether you personally agree with it or not, that’s how it was done. I know this, because I left the wire plenty of times. Doing tactical intel in a line unit means you sometimes have to actually go out to study the lay of the land your unit is operating in, not just briefing missions. Leaving the wire can be dangerous and the enemy doesn’t care what your MOS is.
I have several friends who were infantrymen. Some of them don’t have combat action ribbons, despite their combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan when they were still doing challenging jobs, armed, in austere conditions. Should I go ahead and discount their opinions on gun control because they weren’t placed in a situation that involved returning muzzle flashes from 18 year old farmers from 200 meters out?
I found when I got out that the people who make the biggest deal about stuff like this are usually those who barely earned their flair in the first place. A 15 minute firefight once the entire deployment and they are now lifelong, self-proclaimed experts on everything to do with weapons and combat. Give me a break.
And before someone replies with “nuh uh, during Desert Shield we had to keep our weapon on safe unless firing ’cause sarge said so,” just know that tactical SOPs at the time were generally unit-dependent.
Well, redhot, you’re entitled to YOUR opinion, just as Furbie the Fobbit is entitled to his.
BUT – (pay attention here, sport) HIS attitude is that everyone who does have guns of any kind should be forced by law to get rid of them, because HE is quite obviously afraid of those guns and the people who have them.
That, and his slacker don’t-wanna-remember attitude, indicate that he’s as ignorant as he can be of the subject matter at hand, AND prides himself on being that ignorant.
Furthermore, it appears that his sole intention in writing this article was to piss off as many people as possible by letting us all know how proud he is of his professed ignorance.
Therefore, you missed the point completely. So get bent, yourself, Tootsie.
I don’t agree with his opinion on gun control either but trashing his objectively legitimate service because you don’t like his ribbons/MOS/frequency outside the wire/whatever is totally sophomoric or E-3ish. Even the POGiest of POGs in a line unit will have more familiarity with firearms from workups than most civilians ever will, so he’s not entirely uninitiated.
“I’ve owned that rifle for more than thirty years now and it’s never been pointed at another human being…” It’s not just about you Jonn.
When you want to take my guns, it is about me.
Hey Joe, I see you took a break in between juicy bananas behind The Blue Oyster to troll yet again. Gun Control worked wonders for the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Castro, Pol Pot, Mao as well as many other dictators and tryrants because an armed populace will not quietly load themselves into boxcars.
You are correct Joe. It is not just about Jonn. It is about me and millions of others that want you to leave us alone as individual persons.
It’s about me, too. Carjackings are going up to the south of me. I’d prefer to shoot the carjacker and not be another quivering victim.
Stuff it, Joe.
One more thing Joe, and it’s that punks on YOUR side of the political spectrum that have been openly calling for violence against anyone that dissents with their views. I myself prefer to stay armed and God have mercy on anyone who messes with my family, Home, friends and neighbors in the wrong way BECAUSE I WON’T.
Yes, the terrifying antifa army is coming to get you!