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Showing posts from 2006

The Helmet

The picture is me on the deck of the USS Okinawa, an LPH (Landing Platform Helicopter) probably around September of 1967 . I still had an M-14 rifle, which I consider to be the best combat rifle ever made. I had traded my M-16 to a sergeant who didn't want to carry the weight. They took the M-14 away from me not long after this picture and made me get an M-16. I had three different M-16 rifles in Vietnam and they all jammed every third round and would only work with seventeen rounds in the magazine instead of twenty. The defects in those early versions were paid for with American lives. The picture also shows my second helmet. My first helmet had contained a morbid surprise. I had arrived in Danang from Okinawa aboard a C-130. I was assigned to the 1st Battalion 3rd Marine Regiment. The battalion rear was on Hill 327, but they were getting ready to go on float aboard the LPH. From Hill 327, we could see for what seemed like miles of super-heated ground in a hazy and humid mist.

Korea And How The U.S. War Will End In Iraq

I took a lot of heat a few years back from the fanatic (you're with Republicans or you're a traitor) people when the war started because I said it would be another Vietnam. Turns out I was right. But that was a no-brainer for someone who had been in military combat. There are no real surprises during war; there are only options, and those options are always limited. Why they couldn't see that in Washington is beyond me? Guess it was because none of them had actually been in combat or active military. They just didn't have a clue... Each time things go bad (or get worse) in Iraq, Korea rears up and draws attention away from just how bad things are in Iraq. Sudden numerous terrorist threats infect the news. Our government scares us with information that North Korea may sell nuclear devices to terrorists. Using common sense, a person could figure that if the terrorists wanted nuclear bombs, they could get them in Pakistan, where they operate base camps and you can buy alm

The Scary Guy Gets Mellow

People often say I'm a scary guy. My youngest daughter always tells me how all her male friends were terrified of me. I grew up rough, in the tenement Bottoms and Over the Rhine in Cincinnati. By age six, I had fought in over 100 street fights, had been slashed three times with a knife, and had broken my nose in a fight where the other boy almost died from head injury. My Italian mother often fought in the street. She made me fight my first battle at age five: some shoeless kid wearing a womans' stocking on his shaved head because he had ringworm. I didn't know why he wanted to hurt me. I was afraid of him because of the ringworm. The kid kept pushing me. My mother came down, grabbed my arm and pushed me forward. Something snapped inside and I went after him. I punched him down fast and kicked him several times in the head with my heavy shoes. It was over quick. I had won my first fight. My father was ox strong and a street fighter from the West End. My grandfather, Tony

The Baseline Killer, Plumber Bob, and Military Magazine

I became interested in the Baseline Killer a few months ago because my daughter moved to Phoenix to attend school. The police have been trying to catch this monster for a year. He's responsible for eight murders, two dozen robberies, a dozen rapes, and is known to wear different disguises. I had the DC snipers figured out within a few days, but was ignored by the police and FBI. My profile could have saved lives. This time, I used limited available information and created a profile on the Baseline Killer and sent it to the Phoenix police. I felt I could add a new angle that the overworked police may not have considered. Sometimes a fresh outlook can open new direction. I was shocked yesterday when my phone rang and it was Commander Frank Sweeney of the Phoenix Police Department. He told me he liked my profile, believed it was plausible, and he was going to make sure the Homicide detectives working the case got copies. The odds are slim that I'm right (mainly because I don

The Nuclear Heart Test and The Bad Season

I turn 60 in a few months, and I guess I've been lucky healthwise, despite feeling like I was born smoking. I actually started smoking at 14 and have never quit, except for the first five days in Marine Corps boot camp when I didn't have any cigarettes. Everyone else I grew up with started at age five. (Some are dead, but no one I ever knew died from lung cancer.) No one in my family has ever died from cancer. We all get heart attacks and strokes. If you don't get cancer, chances are strokes and heart attacks will take you out eventually. I've been a light smoker and really have never had problems with breathing, no bricks on the chest, cough, etc. That could be bad because I haven't suffered for it. I've lifted weights all my life, and I've been taking blood pressure medicine for the past five years. But that's about it. Every time I go to the doctor my blood pressure is high. I take it at home and it's normal. I go to the doctor in the afternoon an