No, cited a very strong reference for alternate uses of the bangalore. A military history compendium to be exact. Lay off the kratom tea.
I was born in Pennsylvania, raised as a blind child in Maryland until the Navy fixed my sight, then on the Philadelphia, then outside Detroit, back to Philadelphia, then on to the Endlesssss Mountains of NEPA, after which I returned “home” to Massachusetts, where I rediscovered my family roots and met Mrs. Rabbit.
We moved to NJ after 9/11, for obvious reasons. She wanted to be closer to her family, I needed to help save the world from terrorism.
We almost ended up back in Maryland, but I told the NSA to fuck off. Over the phone.
You’re leaving out the part about not being able to join the military or possess firearms. Why is that?
NSA? Really? Some would say you are prone to embellishing the truth. Other’s would say you lie. I’m with both.
Get yer shit straight.
Your timeline for the use of bangalores was off if I remember correctly. You did a little Google fu on a term you’d heard from your ordinance father. Like usual, you had less than a cursory knowledge of the subject.
Well to be honest, I was in the military for a few weeks (I have the paperwork). I passed the physical exams, but they found something in my medical history.
Years later though, they injected me with some sort of super serum and now I do the stuff they can’t.
Firearms are cool. Rockets, cooler. But I have better weapons to play with.
The Hunter Safety Course in Idaho is one week, and covers firearms and archery. There is a more specialized course for archery that you can take if you want.
I attended it with my kids and the Wife Unit, who had been shooting a long time, and in fact at one time was a NRA firearms instructor. But had never done hunter safety because never hunted before. So she took the class. Already had concealed carry permit.
It is an excellent course.
The hunter’s safety class I took in Texas when I was a kid was OK, as I recall. Not as good as the Idaho one, but that was in the 70s. I had already been hunting for a while and had killed multiple deer and assorted varmints and small game/birds by then.
I often wonder exactly what kind of training people think is necessary to handle firearms safely in a basic manner.
I imagine online courses have already been developed.
Of course, the best thing would be to integrate into the school system. Would save a lot of time and trouble.
I took the hunter safety course in Alabama. This was after I had been through the academy, munitions squad training, completed, and had my CC. I thoroughly enjoyed the course. It covered a lot of stuff about harvesting game that I hadn’t really thought of, even though I’ve hunted my entire life. They did some cool things like: You are carrying your rifle and walk up to a barbed wire fence that you need to cross. What do you do with the firearm?
They did a big lecture on muzzle loaders by some grizzled old dude that thinks the only legit hunting with with a bow or a muzzle loader.
It was a fun course. I’d do it again and probably will when my kids want to do it.
Current state of residence. Mrs. Rabbit actually said the other day I’ve finally gone “full Jersey”, because of something I wore to the gym. Fuhgetaboutit.
My ashes will be interred on Mount Sugarloaf in western MA, across the Pioneer Valley from my grandfather’s on Mt. Holyoke.
My spirit’s still in Montana, though, and will likely always be there, along with Forrest’s.
I just have mild asthma, and after the first Gulf War, the Department of Defense declared war on asthmatics. No matter how well controlled. Ironically, they didn’t give a shit that I spent the previous 1.5 years running, lifting, pushups, pullups, and standing leaps, and could easily handle the PT. There’s a whole pre-arrival training requirement you have to beat. I did.
They literally told me, via phone call from the Commander who recommended me, a letter from Bill Clinton, and a letter from the Commandant of Midshipmen, “Congrats, you’re now a midshipman!”.
Then I got this dumb little 4F letter and it was all over. One of the worst days of my young life, bro. A big dream was destroyed that day, but I adapted well. Still got to attend a US senior military college, just not in uniform. A free radical.
I feel you. I would have been 4th generation Navy. I had done 4 years of ROTC. Played rugby in college for 4 years, including on the deep south all-star team. I passed the PT test with flying colors. Then I passed all of the entrance exams to get into the Naval Flight Officer program. Already had my spot in the program. I traveled to Jacksonville and a group of us who were in the program were taken out to dinner by the CO of Mayport the night before, who had been an NFO. Obviously I was hyped as this had been my whole and only plan since high school and through college.
I arrived at MEPS early and was ready to go. Filled out shit tons of paper work. Then we started on the physicals. Everything was normal, and I was having a good time, feeling like I was finally starting my true journey in life. I went in to get my EKG with a hot nurse. She hooked me up and started reading the print out and I asked if I was alive. And she didn’t say anything. I mentioned that I felt alive. Still nothing and she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. She said, I’ll be right back. I started to get a little worried, but though maybe this was normal. A doctor came in and asked me if I had any kind of heart condition. Which I said, nope. He said he would be back. They sent another nurse in and did another EKG. I asked if this was normal and she said, she couldn’t say. The doc came back in and told me to put my clothes back on and that I would need to speak to the head doctor.
I went in to his office and he said, Son, I regret to inform you that you have a heart condition called WPW that disqualifies you from military service. I said, that didn’t make any since because I’m perfectly healthy. I explained my athletic experience, quoted my PT score. He said, he was sorry. I asked him what that heart condition meant. He said, it means that at any given moment when you stand up, you could collapse unconscious and the Navy can’t have that kind of liability in million dollar aircraft or on the battlefield. I explained that this had never happened to me in my life. He apologized again and said that my career was over before it started.
The drive back to my college dorm in Pensacola, from Jacksonville was long.
Big bummer which words cannot convey how much I think that sucks. Watched a couple of recruits wash out from what we called “fat body”. Never made it through. Was stationed at the then called Infantry Training School and saw others who just couldn’t hack it.
To have prepared so much to have it yanked at the end.