• Archive through April 02, 2003 April 03 - 01:29 am [20]

• Archive through April 16, 2003 April 16 - 07:28 pm [20]

• Archive through April 18, 2003 April 18 - 01:33 pm [20]

BTW, I once read the moon is made out of cheese.

That's what I heard, "the moon is made of cheese" I also heard a man lives in the moon. I imagine he is quite constipated most of the time. I mean a strict diet of cheese could leave one a bit impacted!

Bob #2,

I heard it was made of green cheese. Is that what you heard too?

Tim,

The story of "the amazing SEAL-seeking grenade"...

Background: (1) not all US Navy SEALs are assigned to one of the 7 SEAL teams, as some serve in other capacities; (2) the Department of the Navy started a new program for SEAL Corpsmen candidates (Corpsmen are US Navy "medics," with more training than typical/average US Army medic, yet the SEAL Corpsmen have about equal training with US Army Special-Forces medics): the candidates had to first pass US Marine "Boot Camp" (being taken out of "Boot Camp" during the last two weeks when the recruits are only drilling on the parade deck in preparation for the graduation ceremony) before being accepted for susequent US Navy & US Navy SEAL training (all other SEAL candidates didn't have to go thru such a Marine program -- only the SEAL Corpsmen candidates did this).

...Now, the amazing story: There was a joint-service training mission being conducted with US Marines & US Navy SEALs practicing urban warfare; one joint-service training group had with them a US Navy SEAL Corpsman who had gone thru US Marine "Boot Camp;" one of the group tossed a live grenade into a building, but the grenade must have "made a left turn at Albuquerque," because it rolled right back out & into the middle of these Marines & SEALs... KABOOM!

The one who took the most shrapnel (being peppered into really bad shape... and doing a number like Daniel DaFoe in "Platoon:" falling to his knees with his hands raised & body jerking) was the only SEAL in the group actually assigned to one of the 7 SEAL teams; the other SEALs were also injured, but to a lesser degree, except for the SEAL Corpsman/Marine; this Corpsman's -- US Navy SEAL -- clothing was torn by the grenade's shrapnel, but he (who had gone thru most of Marine "Boot") had only a light, bloodless scratch; the (graduate) Marines were entirely unscathed!

Thus that grenade was dubbed "the amazing SEAL-seeking grenade." Everyone survived (but some may still set off metal detectors).

Shane,

http://www.gooff.com/NM/templates/Breaking_News.asp?articleid=780&zoneid=2

GRANDMA BEATS UP AIRPORT SECURITY GUARDS

Charges were dropped yesterday against Ruth "Grammy" Gordon, an 83-year-old wheelchair-bound grandmother, who was originally charged with assault and battery, and assault with a deadly weapon, because of an altercation
she had last week with six airport security guards, that left all six hospitalized.
"Justice has been served," said the 95-pound mother of three and grandmother of six, as she sat in her wheelchair, aided in her breathing by an oxygen bottle. "Now I'm going to sue every fool in the federal government for ignorance, stupidity, and just plain general incompetence. I'm an American, and I won't be treated like this."

The problem began last month as Gordon was attempting to board an airplane. "These guys are supposed to be some kind of professionals," she said, "but they're dumber than rocks. Here they were letting guys who looked just like terrorists walk through without searching them, and then they pull me aside and tell me they're going to search me? I don't think so."

According to one witness, Bud Cort of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, one guard, "who weighed about 300 pounds, looked like he was drunk, and had his shirt out, told this woman she couldn't board the plane unless they searched her. He was
really rude. That's when the trouble started."

Videotapes showed that Gordon ran the guard down with her motorized wheelchair, then sat on top of the screaming man while spinning her chair in
circles. "Doofus was so fat he couldn't get up," said Gordon with a giggle.

One guard who attempted to pull Gordon's wheelchair off of the screaming man from behind was hit over the head with an oxygen bottle and knocked unconscious. A third guard, who approached Gordon from the front, was also
left dazed on the floor. Witnesses said she was cackling, "Put your hands on an old lady, will you?" as she bashed both guards.

The tape also showed a fourth guard attempting to grab Gordon's wheelchair. Gordon removed a
knitting needle from her purse and stabbed him in his left buttock. "What a wimp," she told reporters. "He started screaming and grabbing his butt and running like a puppy that someone kicked.•••••• was amazing," said another witness, a Scott Ryan. "The whole crowd just stood there cheering and clapping. I mean, she was whupping butt."

A fifth guard that attempted to grab Gordon had the seat of his pants set on fire with a cigarette lighter than had escaped detection. "He just went whoosh across the concourse, screaming and slapping at all these flames flying out of his rear," said Ryan.

A sixth guard did finally manage to get Gordon in a body hug. "I think that was the wrong thing to do," said another witness, who declined to be
identified. "She just grabbed him by his greasy hair with one hand and cracked him across the jaw with her skinny fist. And down and out he
went."

After all this, Gordon's chair was still sitting on top of the first guard. The tapes clearly showed her leaning over and yelling, "Apologize to me, you fat sumbitch, or when I'm done with you you'll just be a greasy spot on the floor!"

As the crowd roared, the guard cried, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Uncle! I won't do it again!"

Finally, Gordon surrendered without further incident, and was taken to jail and released on her own recognizance. "We didn't have any choice," said an unidentified officer of the court. "Over 200 people showed up to support her. I think if we had demanded bail, there would have been a riot."

Over 20 lawyers offered to defend her for free. However, realizing the precariousness of the case, Gordon was not charged with anything. "I
doubt there's a jury in the whole country that would have found her guilty of anything," said one of the lawyers.

"I'm flying again tomorrow," Gordon told reporters. "And I suggest no one at the airport so much as look at me wrong."

-- sorry, Shane, other than the internet address above, I forgot the source (after re-reading I see I forgot some details as well... she even did better than I had remembered); also, I couldn't get rid of the red dots; it should be a new paragraph, starting "It was amazing...

BulletproofPunk,

Don't dismiss Dim Mak entirely -- there are conditioned people that can drop others with a simple finger jab (but these proficient, finger-jabbing people are usually highly skilled & are therefore quite uncommon; one exception I know of is a man whose hand was damaged... his forefinger healed straight, stiff/unbendable & without much feeling... he could end fights very quickly with that finger).

Kenneth Sohl,

There are quite a few people teaching pressure-point material openly, all over the world these days; but few are emphasizing the prerequisite set ups. Also, many of those whose results are fairly consistant, are often very heavy hitters (and they're hitting the point to be demonstrated upon several times prior to the actual demo; Dillman may say he's just tapping people, but I heard through the grapevine that he's actually unleashing on those poor volunteers); so you're really better off studying Shen Wu to learn how to become a heavy hitter & how to gain a superior angle first; then study the finer points of Dim Mak later (knowledge of Shen Wu will make your Dim Mak studies more fruitful). If you hit hard enough just about anywhere, then you will almost certainly affect some nerves & other important stuff (sorry, I only got a "B" in biology, so "stuff" it is).

Remember, that with light-to-moderate pressure, & with just one strike or press, results will vary greatly. A buff, former US Marine martial-arts hall-of-fame aquaintance of mine & I met an old Filippino martial artist who used pressure-points as part of his self-defense system; the old man had my buddy in great pain; I asked him to do the same on me; it was a bit uncomfortable, but not unbearable & it had no great effect upon me. I once saw a Dillman video that demonstrated a calve pressure point (billed as a friendly but effective point for law-enforcement use); I tried it out on Tim & it had no effect (other than to embarrass me).

I've tried &/or have seen a lot; there's some amazing stuff & amazing people out there in the martial arts community (as well as staged stuff & con men); I'm recommending, based upon my thirty-some years of dabbling, that you study Shen Wu first &/or foremost. I wish I had started with Tim's Shen Wu.

actually, I'd very much like to study Shen Wu, the CIMAs have always fascinated me, and I'd like to see how similiar they are to what I do, which is supposedly "internal/external". When firmly ensconced in Chattanooga in a couple of months, I will visit the various karate schools to drum up interest in a study group. I'd like to point out to bulletproof that vital points are not necessarily acupuncture points, so that we all have a good idea of what we are referring to.

Somewhat off topic.

1. The Marine Corp is part of the Navy, although pretty much independant.

2. The Marines have no medical personel. Navy medical personel (Hospital Corpsman and physicians) are selected with or against their will to serve in Marine units. Enlisted Navy medical personel attend a five week course called Field Medical Service School before the assignment. This is to orient them to the Marine Corps.

3. Navy personel do not at any time go through Marine boot camp unless at one time they were marines.

4. Any Navy person has the option to attempt to become a SEAL, you could be a truck mechanic, electrian, cook, etc., and if you can quality they will teach you what you need to know.

5. There are many diferent specialities that Navy medical personal may go into, one of these is Advanced Hospital Corpsman. This is commonly refered to as Independant Duty training. A SEAL team corpsman will be Independant Duty and like all SEALs, will have at least one other job skill, this will be combat related. Special forces are the only parts of the military where medical and combat roles are combined.

6. The idea of sending a prospective SEAL Navy corpsman to USMC boot camp is rediculous. It would be a waste of time, they have diferent missions which require diferent training. They would also be spending weeks relearning how to make beds, polish shoes, military law, etc. which they already learned in their own boot camp when they entered the Navy. Further, physical fitness entry requirements for SEAL training are well beyond that aquired in Marine boot camp.

I never knew any SEALs, I did see one on a bus once in Okinawa. I knew a number of BUDs dropouts and washouts. BUDs (Basic Underwater Demolition) is one of the schools taken on the way to becoming a SEAL)

I have heard that there is so much phony SEAL crap out there and so many phony ex-SEALs that some former SEALs created a website where one can try to validate somebodies claims.

These words come to you from 7 year Navy Hospital Corpsman, most of them spent with the 3rd Medical Battalion, 3rd Force Service Support Group (that's USMC).

Mark Hatfield,

You do err! Much of what you say is true (the US Marine Corps comes under the Department of the Navy -- for it's the men's department; Navy personnel just hate that). Now if you spent 7 years in the military, then you should know that programs get changed from time-to-time.

Do be informed that those in charge of such programs in the US Navy, in all their wisdom, decided to send Navy recruits (& only recruits) slated for both SEAL-&-Corpsman training (combined) to US Marine "Boot Camp" first, then on to other US Navy training; & yes, SEAL training is much more demanding, so if one washes out at Parris Island, then there's no need to send him any further into the SEAL program (I believe all of this was an experiment to see if there would be less drops during the actual, more difficult SEAL training).

Call it SNAFU, call it FUBAR, call it whatever you like... but that's how it went for some. So:

1) True

2) True -- that's why there was a (US Navy) Corpsman with the Marines during this exercise (but I joke & call my Marine-trained SEAL-Corpsmen buddy a "Marine" because he hates it so)

3) False -- already explained above

4) True

5) My Marine-trained SEAL-Corpsman buddy jokes that he used to scream (or at least felt like screaming) at the enemy that he was a non-combatant... as they exchanged fire; he's never mentioned (or I just don't recall him mentioning) a secondary specialty of his to me (although I know that such is a common practice with most special-forces types)... I'll ask him tomorrow

6) The US government should have made you one of the admirals in charge, then we wouldn't be having this discussion (you could have nipped it all in the BUDs -- har!)

P.S.: I'm somewhat familiar with FSSGs & a few other things USMC-related; but then again, I could be a fake... after all I was enlisted, & even made sergeant, & was never a PFC (& with no special programs either; how could that be? I must be a fake too... maybe I was just faking being a Marine during those 11 years -- just going thru the motions; yeah, that must be it); but now I'm a PFC!

P.P.S.: Because there's so many unusual things, & such a wide variety of things & experiences in the US military (including plenty of situations that are FUBAR), it's sometimes difficult to spot a fake at first; but if you spend a few days or weeks around such a fake (depending upon how much he talks -- how much rope he gives you to hang 'm by), then the truth will show. I've known my Marine-trained SEAL-Corpsman buddy for around seven years now; he's not a fake any more than I am.

P.P.P.S.: I hope you were one of those good Corpsmen who treated their Marines well & not one of those P-P types that used their position to just torture Marines for fun & profit.

I'm tired of these long posts (& so are you), so enough. To get back on topic, right now none of my pressure points are being covered with thick clothes (dirty clothes maybe, but not thick ones). Bye

You're right Mike that this is getting long off topic and I've thought about putting up some serious counterpoints but I still think you've been schmoozed.

Mark Hatfield,

No, not schmoozed. I recall now that his other MOS had something to do with helicopters (he was a search-and-rescue-type when not out humping with Marine recon/sniper-types... he spent most of his time doing the latter); he knows people that stayed in the Corps that I knew when I was in. He's for real, so don't sweat it. Thanks for the concern, 'though.

No pressure point was heavily covered or injured in the writing of this post.

Just because marine force recon are considered some type of specialized elite doesn't mean they rate SEAL medics. They get navy corpsemen, like other marines. Unless assigned for a unique real-world situation, an active SEAL-team medic is with his fellow members, period. Mark is correct that SEALs don't attend marine boot camp, although I seem to remember navy corpsmen doing so. Certain other schools, such as marine sniper school, would be attended by SEALs training for that particular speciality. But Mike is right, so many things change. I don't understand why a SEAL medic would be out humping with Force Recon unless they had nothing better to do in peacetime, but that website Mark talks about does exist. Perhaps you guys can go there and validate any claims. Let me know if you need any help, as I can contact the vets who run the SEAL/UDT museum here in Fort Pierce.

BTW, Mike, navy AND marines don't refer to their specialities as MOS, do they?

Kenneth Sohl & anyone else interested,

Still not tired of this subject, eh? At least it's main billing is "Off Topic;" so I'll play along & continue on a bit LONGer...

MOS (Military Occupational Specialty, or some-such-thing) is &/or was a Marine term... I think the Navy calls 'em something else, but they're still MOSs to me. I'm not about to commit to memory & adopt every services' nuances in terminology (get it?).

US naval personnel need Corpsmen. Certain jobs within the US Naval Service require/demand more fitness than others. SEAL teams & Marine recon units would be among those units demanding a very high degree of fitness from their Corpsmen. Apparently those in charge figured this one out for themselves. They also noticed just how few volunteers get thru the SEAL training (call it BUDS/UDT, whatever... I'm calling it SEAL training for the purposes of discussion here); so apparently someone came up with a plan to further screen/weed-out (or build-up) recruit-volunteers (trying to go a special-forces medical route) before they got to start SEAL training. This added screening involved having these particular recruits go thru a portion of US Marine Corps "basic training" at Parris Island.

Again, not all graduates of SEAL training end up on SEAL teams (there's only seven... that I've heard of); so the rest must be farmed out elsewhere (so why not with Marine recon/sniper units, eh?).

Marines aren't truly independant -- for Marines rely heavily upon their US Navy Corpsmen to keep them going (whether it's just to hand out large dosages of pain killers, or it's to stabilize, comfort & evacuate a wounded or otherwise injured Marine... or fellow Corpsman).

Four Corpsmen were killed doing their duty in Iraq recently (& I don't recall hearing of one US Army medic being killed). Corpsmen are like firemen (they're all crazy) because they put themselves in extreme danger in order to save others; they don't all wait in the rear for the wounded to come their way... instead they rush into the fray -- so the cost of saving others is often their own blood (note: there are some also in the rear with the gear as some are needed there as well; currently I believe that the US Army uses permanently assigned "stretcher bearers" to risk life & limb getting their wounded to where their medics are: in the rear -- special-forces-types excepted, of course).

My Corpsman buddy got wounded saving Marines while under fire; and he was also decorated (Bronze Star, Combat "V") for bravery (the powers that be should just hand those out to every good Corpsman -- but because a Corpsman's job is do to what is otherwise considered above & beyond anyone else's call of duty, they rarely get what most of them truly deserve). Now he says he went thru what I wrote about (above), and that's that.

And as for "peacetime," there's really no such time for SEAL & Marine recon/sniper units; there's always something going on in spots all over the world (you just don't hear about 'em often... that's what makes them "clandestine" operations... & you probably just don't realize it for what it is when you do hear about one -- because the US government lies/spins, the "news" media lies/spins, etc.).

Now that I'm on the subject of lying & spinning, I realize I have to practice more of that myself.

Oh, if you've gotten this far, the real topic is the covering/protection of pressure points with heavy clothing (really! I'm not lying/spinning -- although I should be). Bye, bye.

Just wondering why when I inadvertently ask a marine what his MOS is, he asks, "what does MOS mean?" But since you seem to know what you are talking about, I'll take your SPIN on it

YAWN! frickin YAWN!

As Ken picked up on before I did, the Navy doesn't use the term 'Military Occupation Speciality'(MOS), that's an Army term.

A lot of this might be more simply explained if perhaps Mikes' friend had been (incorrectly) refering to his Field Medical Service School as Marine boot camp. The course is partly medical and partly to 'marinize' the corpsmen. Even within my own class (Pendleton, 1981) there was great variation between each of the three Marine instructors as to how much they pushed (or not) their students.

Back on topic, I read somewhere regarding certain grapling moves of either Hsing Yi or Tai Chi that variations existed as one variation was originaly intended for battlefield use where both parties might be wearing the armor of 200 or more years ago, where other versions were geared for 'civilian' use.

Kenneth Sohl & Mark Hatfield,

You two are just too much (you just don't get it, yet... but I'm thru explaining here).

Concerning armor & grappling, regardless of what others have done in the past, I think it best to chose a few good grappling methods & principles that can be applied equally well to armored & unarmored individuals alike (skipping detailed pressure-point applications); exposure to some variations may be of help, but exposure to too many variations can become a confusing hinderance causing undue hesitation.