UFC at Miramar Today

And I can’t go because I’m covering the rifle range. This is the first-ever live UFC event to take place on a military installation. Wandering around base over the last few weeks, you would run these fighters at the gyms, clubs and individual units. It’s a great show of the support these athletes are putting up for us and we do appreciate it much.

Watch it on Spike TV right now.

Long ago in a galaxy far far away

I was about to depart MCAS El Toro and head up to NWS China Lake and the guys I worked with wanted one final chance to get back at the jokes I’ve pulled on all of them over the years. Back in the day, we were a bunch of party animals (I’m too old to hang these days) and on this final night of me being in Irvine we started playing a bunch of drinking games. Someone came up with this idea of doing crazy deeds and everyone else would do a round of drinks. Little did I know, every time I would leave the room, everyone would fill up their glasses with water and fill mine with alcohol.

The next morning I woke up with a checkerboard shaved on one side of my head and video tape of the entire night. It’s always good for the self esteem to check into a new command with a freshly shaved head.

Great night other then the loss of my hair, another good thing that came out of that night was this video. It’s likely something that you’ve never (belay that, some other people have posted something like it on You Tube) have rarely seen. At least my buddy kept down his lunch.

What can you do with a drunken Sailor?

Corpsman at the bottom of the barral

This info came from Corpsman.com, thanks Chief Crone

Did you know that HM advancement rates were in the bottom 6 of all rates this last cycle?

Here is the gouge on why:The issue is the POM 08 EPA (Enlisted Program Authorization). Each new EPA has 5 Fys in it. That EPA was approved just before we did the advancement numbers. In the new EPA was a reduction of 840 HM billets.

(stay with me, this can get confusing). N-12 RDML LaFevre makes recommendations to ADM Harvey(CNP) on what EPA to Advance to. That determination is made based on the checkbook, Advancement opportunity and the health of the force. They try to find a way to advance as many as possible without breaking the rate and the bank. We provided input on impact, numbers etc to him via his staff. This cycle HM1s were advanced to the 09 EPA, incidentally, that was the year HM1s took the biggest cut (173).HM2s were advanced to 08 EPA and HM3s to the 07 EPA.

Now, we advanced 50 to HM1, that's a 2% rate. The real need was 24 but we were able to get 2%, what we call a mercy quota. I am not a big fan of that because eventually that bill will come due.

Here's the bad news, we still have MRR and top 6 roll down coming.

The numbers may not be any better this spring. We will have to wait and see, it is much to early to tell at this point.

Clear as mud?

Thanks HMCS Collier

What does that mean for me? No matter how hard I studied, it was very unlikely that I would have been advanced.

A Doc and a group of Marines sneak out to see a girl in Iraq

This story has it all, a young sailor who breaks laundry list of rules, he talks his Marine buddies into providing cover for the endeavor. Each week, wearing night-vision goggles, him and a dozen other Marines would drive over to this young girls neighborhood, park a mile away and take a different route to her house. The Marines would provide cover while this young Corpsman, an HM2 Chris Walsh, did his loving deed in the dead of night.

End the end, there are broken bodies, strangers from around the world who are brought together and finally a young woman’s chance at happiness.

Just go and read. This is the story that should be on more front pages.

New family member

My wife and I woke this morning and drove up to the PetSmart store up in Lake Elsinore to take a look at a wire hair fox terrier mix mutt who we saw online and once we met him the rest was history. We’ve spent most of the day inviting Gatsby into our family and seeing how he would handle life in general.

Stats, he’s a ear and a half old, right at 25 pounds, looks like the dragon from the movie the never ending story, likes to kiss and hug and the only sounds I’ve heard so far is a light snoring and panting, not a bark.

Took him for a walk tonight around the block to look at the Christmas decorations with one of those 30 foot wind up leashes. Now I know what they mean by keeping a dog in a short leash, some guy down the street is going to be pissed when he comes outside in the morning. Gatsby’s leash caused a swath of destruction across a nicely set up yard full of Christmas stuff (this is where I found out that he’s also a good smooth running partner), this is a dog after my own heart, welcome to the family Gatsby!

Pictures of our day can be found here (no, none of that yard).

Red2Alpha is back

I don’t know why you are even here reading my blog, Red2Alpha is back. He stopped blogging a while back due to OPSEC concerns. I admit that I’m just a hack, most of my blog is made up words I just throw up, every once in while I do a post that might touch someone but most days my words are just place settings letting everyone know that I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth.

On the other hand, Red2Alpha is the real deal, his writing is magic and produces images in your brain that don’t fall out. With the guys I’ve deployed with, their biggest fear wasn’t of being blown up or shot but of returning to their lives in ruin. Here is R2A’s post on that. Thanksgiving home with his grand parents where he is now part the group of family vets and he finds that there was a price to being in that group and his grandfather finally tells about the bad parts about returning. Here is a post that shows that there are regular people out there who support us.

Six posts since he's been back and not a single wasted word, GO! NOW!

Ack, 3000 miles in 2 weeks

Pictures are here of the second half of the trip. I feel like that family in that Chase bank commercial, it's very good to be home in my own bed. We had a great time but both of us are getting too old for these endless road trips. It's time to buy stock in Southwest.

Other news, we're getting ready to move into our new house and soon thereafter become the parents of a new dog.

Below is a picture of me, my wife and son at the Winchester House (damn he's getting big)

Gear Adrift

There’s a new website poking fun at the Navy from the inside called GearAdrift. I guess you could say this is our version of the Air Forces Chairforce only most of the stuff isn’t written by a cranky Airman called Joe the Fat.

Check them out, I think the site has some good potential.

Plus check out their plans on refurbishing our carrier fleet!

Hitting P-town

I’m just about to finish off my Prescott leg of my trip. A bunch of really old friends from high school had a get together at one of the bars here Coyote Joe’s. Being the smarter older versions of ourselves, not as prone to making the same mistakes of our youth, we decided to time our get together at the beginning of happy hour.

Back in the day, I was known for being somewhat of a party animal but it’s been a while since that version of me has reared its head. Yes we have had parties at my house but in reality, its been very rare to see me drink more then 3 drinks in one sitting. I’m getting old and slow and my body doesn’t recover like it used to.

Friday night was another story. Two of my oldest friends Larry and Justin and a small collection of people who we haven’t seen in years took over the bar. Had a great night and caught up with ages of lost time and the next morning, there were a bunch of pictures on the digital camera and a deadly serious hangover that made me feel at like one of those zombies from Dawn of the Dead.

Whew, what a night, thanks for coming, those who did.

Update: Pictures that cover the entire trip are here!!!

In case anyone was looking for me

I'm vacationing in Prescott Arizona with my wife so don't expect me to post much from out here. Oh, hi visitors from Blackfive, Murdoc Online and Defense Tech, thanks for the ping guys! No, don't flinch when I meet you in person, I won't throw a camel spider on you.

Untold Stories of Kindness

A milblogging buddy, Combat Doc and author of the blog A Candle in the Dark, had an essay he wrote and read aired by NPR’s “This I Believe”. Now you might not think that this is a big deal but Bill Gates, David Copperfield, Tony Hawk and Albert Einstein (yes it's been around for a while) have all read pieces placed on this program.

The pieces are sharp biting and whatever their view are, honest. Ernesto’s piece is called Untold Stories of Kindness. His writing goes to show you that there is such things as an atheist in a fox hole and contrary to stereotypes, enlisted men can be intelligent and observant and maybe the path to peace isn’t a battle to be won by the government but by a change in vision of the people.

Great essay Ernesto and I'm proud to be in the same line of work as you.

Marines Vs Camel Spiders

Or what Doc did in Iraq when he was bored.

My original post about this was called "When stress comes calling" I just couldn't edit the video in country because it was filmed in a Quicktime format. Enjoy!!


A little back story behind me and bugs, back in 6th grade I got the tar beat out of me by two girls named Dian and Lynn for throwing beetles on them. Needless to say, I didn't learn my lesson, that camel spider at the end eating the lizard was Tito who is gracing my bar encased in fiberglass. Poor poor Tito, you can read his story here. No camel spiders were hurt in the making of the video (the one I threw had been squished and left for dead by one of my pilots outside my door)

I'm actually part of that 6 percent

This is a poll that Glenn Reynolds ran on Instapundit on the 6th of November,

Selection Votes
Republicans win both houses 61% 3,850
Republicans win one, Democrats the other 34% 2,145
Democrats win both houses 6% 349
6,344 votes total

It gives you sort of a demographic about his readers, I don't think he agreed with them though, I was just reading the signs. Lots of small issues over the last few weeks, months and years adding up.

Whoop, there it is...

I made a trip to the ER last week and it wasn’t for work. My wife was having coughing fits and after pouring my considerable medicine cabinet full of anti-coughing drugs into her without any improvement, I know we had to do something more. After each coughing fit, she had a harder and harder time catching her breath and the coughing started to get a seal barking like quality so I did what any good medical guy does when he’s over his head and brought her to the ER. On the drive there her voice went out and every breath was a gasp and by the time we went through the door, the veins in her neck were sticking out and she really did sound like she was about to croak.

One way to always ensure quick service in a crowded full of people is to have a loud barking cough, have your eyes roll up in your head while doing it and turn blue at the same time and not being able to communicate a word. She beat all of my personal records for getting quick service to my Marines. A very nice staff (thank you Naval Medical Center San Diego) brought her to a bed and had an IV into her arm in minutes. After pressing some IV steroids and antibiotics into her vein and an inhalation treatment she was able to whisper, whew. During all of this, they did a CT and X-ray of her throat and chest and drew a bunch of other labs. Finally the friendly resident came by and let us know she had whooping Cough.

Whooping Cough? That’s still around?

Guess so, there’s been an 11 fold increase in whooping cause cases in adults in recent years and if you google any news search engine you’ll find plenty of stories and sites dedicated to the subject. Figures it would have to hit us. Well she’s now hopped up on some high priced government sponsored drugs and we're buying stock in cough syrup.