On Mon, 05 Jul 2010 11:00:13 -0700, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

I missed the Staff Meeting but the Minutes record that Shall not be
infringed reported Elvis on Mon, 5
Jul 2010 09:13:55 -0700 (PDT) in misc.survivalism:

Am I confident of victory? No, but I am sure of the battle. It is as
certain as the San Andreas Fault, and as necessary as the Declaration of
Independence. Let each of us fight for what he or she believes in, and
not try to avoid taking sides. There is no neutral ground.

Tell us something we don't know.

A known unknown: Who will stand firm, and who will collapse.

One of the "interesting" things about combat, are the number of
"super soldiers" who fail, and the "oxygen thieves" who suddenly
shine.
Rickenbacker almost washed out of fighter school due to low gunnery
scores, yet he became the highest scoring American Ace. Etc.

I graduated dead last in my class at EOBC (Engineer Officer Basic
Course), might have had something to do with "attitude" re gung ho
bull****, some creative problem solving with (scrounged) demolitions
that weren't part of the "school solution", etc. Qualities like
sneaky, devious, alert, cunning and sly were preached as combat
engineer values, but clearly not appreciated when practiced in
practical exercise response to a lesson plan.

This sorry sad sack sojer ranked 30 out of 30 though I was #1
academically. Bad attitude. Sorry 'bout that! Putting white rocks
around the orderly room is tactical idiocy, let's also issue sequined
purses to hold 5 rounds of ceremonial highly-polished not-to-be-shot
ammo fer chrissakes. Sir.

I painted rocks white while classmates got liberty to go drinking on a
weekend.

And so on. I prob'ly did 9000 pushups for attitude. I got so I could
do pushups until they got tired of watching and counting in heat or
rain or whatever. Like pushups are a measure of tactical proficiency
for chrissakes. Jeez! I was a feathermerchant, pushups and pullups
were trivial.

Coupla years later, when I was getting close to done with OBV and was
interviewing for civilian jobs, I got a personal letter from a 3-star
at the pentagon offering me railroad tracks (a captaincy) if I'd re-up
after my obligatory 2 years. Guess they liked my performance on
active duty here and there. My attitude never did improve, but it
didn't seem to be a problem when it produced results appreciated by
generals. I had some superb meals in general officers' mess tents.
Those guys travel first class.

I never met a general I didn't like. Most were quite arrogant, but I
didn't regard that as a fault because they really were that good at
their profession and craft. Even given their arrogance, they seemed to
have no problem with my "attitude". Generals like results.

I thought about another tour, but declined. I'm an engineer; I'd
busted my hump learning to be an engineer and, having done that, I
wanted to go design stuff that works. So that's what I did for the
next 33 years.

Don Foreman wrote:

I never met a general I didn't like. Most were quite arrogant, but I
didn't regard that as a fault because they really were that good at
their profession and craft. Even given their arrogance, they seemed to
have no problem with my "attitude". Generals like results.

I've never met a General but I did notice that if you did your piece of the puzzle well,
those above you seemed to know if you were pulling your weight. Even at my level.

Arrogance and confidence are sometimes confused.

Wes