I could tell you stories when we were playing C-C-T – - one was – I would lock my door so could use the door handle to get leverage on the steering wheel that I would palm and dirt track the wheel with my right hand. I would always lose my opponent that was it by making the fast right left on two roads that paralleled between 200 and 400 row. There was a power pole at the turn and if you did not do it right you’d wreck the truck. One time I forgot to lock the door and when I pulled up on the handle to slide thru the turns the door opened and I flew out. My co-driver (passenger) yelled. I caught the bottom of the steering wheel as I flew out the door. Right hand on steering wheel, left on door handle two feet still on the mat with my butt two inches from the stones as the truck ground sideways to a stop. The other patrol pulled up and asked if I was ok. I pulled myself back into the cab and said I was. He lobbed the can into my truck bed…laughed, told me I was it and drove off. I was it!

We also called it the Goodyear Proving Grounds. I remember once on a 24 hour platoon rotation I changed the right rear on truck 24 at 11:25PM with a new Goodyear sticker tire. Now 24 hours and 45 minutes latter at 12:20AM I had to change that same tire, on that same truck and the tire was totally bald thru the bi-plys.

We would play Spot Light Chicken with the barges that rode up and down the Mississippi.. They would use the spot to let each other know about oncoming barges. Now obviously we were not on the water.

Quick draws, M -1 -1 3’s, I ran the movie theater and helped with the bowling alley, we’d got cat fishing in the patrol boat at night.

Also I was top NCO on a “Helicopter Escort Squad” that we ran out of the Detroit area for 2 months….as always fully loaded and flack jacketed.

On the softer side we also regularly did Flag duty, or got really good at Foosball, Pool, Euchre and Double Deck Pinnacle while on SAT and BAF. Or when Sgt Barneys green 8’x 4’ Platoon Sign got tossed into the Mississippi just as Wardock and Morgan did in 1973. Another funny story was when Kaminski discharged his 16 into the clearing box that someone forgot to fill with sand. Bullet took out the 1st Sgt POV windshield, rear window and hit Special Services.

A reunion at the Kennedy’s, or Irish Inn or Bill and Mils (with the peanuts on the floor and Hamms Draft – would be fun…..I doubt any are still there.

eja

I have watched the Pitbull problem for more than 30 years because I am in the pet industry and responsible for roughly 200 employees. We refused to provide services for Pitbulls, which is certainly not popular with Pitbull owners, but, time and time again Pitbulls that are supposed to be docile will “go off” and hurt or maim someone, many times it’s a family member. What is amazing to me is even at times like this Pitbull supporters will come up with a fairly tale excuses of how something like this happened and never reach the logical conclusion that Pitbulls have a very long history of aggression. The early breeders of this breed would cull any Pitbull that showed aggression to humans, they obviously understood what a dangerous animal they were creating and didn’t want the risk that it might attack them. If you study ownership of Pitbulls or simply go to any shelter across the US you will find many adult Pitbulls available for adoption, which means they have probably worn out their welcome at least at one home, the sad thing is when they create a problem owners turn them into shelters and then unsuspecting people adopt them, creating a risk for not only everyone in their family but everyone in their neighborhood.

Pitbulls have been banned in many communities and some Countries. This is a national problem that needs to be dealt with. Every 21 days someone is killed by a Pitbull. This number doesn’t take into account the number of people who are seriously maim and required amputations. There is a woman in Orlando in the past week who was attacked by a Pitbull and lost both of her legs and an arm. Can you imagine the horror of this attack? It’s incomprehensible, being torn apart by a dog, a pet, what kind of pet is an animal that can bring about such human misery and destruction?

The only logical solution is a systematic breed extinction. The Pitbull would not by any means be the first breed to become extinct because of aggression. The problem needs to be addressed on a national level and every Pitbull needs to be sterilized, breeding Pitbulls needs to be illegal and within 15 years this breed needs to be extinct. Unfortunately even with this solution there will most likely be at least another 100 to 200 people killed by Pitbulls in that time frame. Even though this compromise would allow Pitbull owners to keep their dogs they own now, they will not agree with this solution, to them everything is fine and the Pitbull is a wonderful family pet which never causes any problems and sleeps in the same bed with their children.

Kissed by my Enemies