tvashtarkatena

Freshen up the tea all you want before handing it to a 3 year old. You'll still need the mop.

I guess it's like the guy on Hood - whenever a butterfly flaps its wings it China, FUCK YOU!!!!

Don't get your brain squirrel exhausted trying to figure that one out, GGK.

I'm just glad we have this forum so we can whine about this guy's FB post.

I'll drive. Just show me how to put it in reverse, first.

Will someone please play with me?

Perhaps you could contact him personally and have all your burning questions answered. I hear he's on FB.

Most SAR missions involve Alzheimer patients who've wondered off and the ever present "lost hiker on Tiger Mt". Spicing it up a bit once in a while isn't necessarily a bad thing for many SAR folks. They're also not necessarily in short supply these days, either. 150 folks showed up for the Green River body recovery (a car went into the drink). I'm not being cavalier here, but SAR exists to help folks in trouble, and most of those folks are going to be in trouble due to inexperience and resultant mistakes. It's, you know, kind of why SAR exists.

I know I'm confused. For some, the need to disagree is strong.

Yeah, 'don't get lost' is sage advice, as is 'keep breathing' and 'stay warm'. OK. Thanks for that. This guy wasn't in that situation. He was lost. Pick a direction, go down, get cliffed out, climb back up - repeat, exhaust yourself - or drop through a cornice and die - problem solved. Or hey, lets start doing blind raps into the vertical whiteout. No way that can go wrong. Awesome strategies. Good thing the guy had the presence of mind not to follow any of them. He did the right thing given his situation and experience - by definition. At that point, it was Pass/Fail, and he got the Alive at Five pin for the win. I imagine he's probably good with the inevitable armchair expertise in exchange for seeing his peeps again.

I'm the Pied Piper of soon to need rescue noobs. Just Go Down.

It's all still a felony, Rob.

Sounds like you don't have any good advice for him, either.

Now there's some excellent advice. Just pick a direction and go down! You'll eventually hit a highway - or the bottom of the North Face, Willis Wall, or Adams Icefall. If we could only bottle and sell this wisdom.

I will ask you as well. I put myself out there so I expect to be thrown under the bus....none of you seem to "put themselves out there"....come on now folks and buck up. Why am I the only one who has the balls to voice my own serious opinion on this matter? The rest of you are like school children who dont get along. A bunch of thugs you are. If you dont agree with me you simply call me names. How fucking childish. I will ask again. Rob... do you beleive that OBL was the mastermind behind 9/11. Yes or no. Excuse me? You "put yourself out there"? What kind of personal risk have you ever taken for a cause, you do-nothing innernut moron? What kind of effort have you made to make this joint better, in any sense, you worthless waste of low quality sperm? You are treated like the one note buffoon you are. Stop being an infant and own it.

There's more than one way to be a slave to something. It's OK to change the channel on that black and white TV set sans rabbit ears of a brain you've got there, Bone. No one will think the lesser of you - I can absolutely guarantee that at this point.

The view doesn't get much lower than when watching the House Teabaggers in inaction. That is one fragrant bowlful of crazy there.

I saw kids lose it at USNA - including two roommates and a couple of friends. Our company commander lost it the year he was supposed to graduate - in front of the entire brigade of 4000, no less. He was a Texan from a small town that was undoubtedly proud of him. Not the brightest guy - he struggled to make passing grades and it finally got the best of him perhaps. I guess I've got a soft spot for kids who go that route. A lot do at the academies. Its heartbreaking to watch, but perhaps hard to relate to unless you've seen it happen up close and personal.

Please tell me the Free Mason thing was a joke. I don't want my view of humanity lowered any further.

WHATS TRENDING ON DA .MILZ????????

No. He doesn't have to pay, presumably because the military denied him a commission for medical reasons. Seems fair. Their call, really. Page didn't know if he was going to have to pay or not when he quit - so much for the 'moocher' theory.

Well, his medical condition is new information - seems like it really manifest itself after his dad killed himself the year before - pretty much the soundest indication that his clinical depression just may have had some real genetic basis. Here's some more - he came to West Point from the enlisted ranks, so there, again, goes the 'coward' theory. Sounds like the kid had some tough breaks and genetics, and he's just trying to make it all mean something. Who knows? Frankly, if I went to West Point to get out of the grunt ranks, and West Point said, 6 months before graduation "BTW, you're going back to being a grunt", I might be inclined to say FU as well. Kinda puts a new light on the 'renig' argument, no? In any case, there are probably worse crimes against humanity out there. The kid went though nearly 4 years of grueling military academy - something neither AK or PissDog have accomplished.

It's important to remember that SAR folks are trained to put their own safety above those of they rescue, for obvious reasons. SAR's responsible for making that go/no go call, not the victim. Most rescues are for the inexperienced, and few (3%) involve climbers at all. A lot involve kids who get themselves treed. I have a little problem throwing kids under the bus before they've had a chance to make some really big mistakes. All of us start out as noobs. It's probably helpful to remember that period from time to time before joining the inevitable conga line of stay puff swagger every time SAR gets a call.

Nope. That was entirely your tuggy toy. You really ran with it, too - and still are, apparently. Weird fixation, frankly, but not my problem. Never had much of a taste for killing (or wishing death for members of the climbing community, for that matter). Rats are as far as I go, and I feel bad about that. Now back to our regularly scheduled (Near) Tragedy on Hood Thread.

Unless the rules of the military academies have radically changed, the cadet will have to serve as an enlisted man rather than an officer - so there go the 'coward' and 'oath' arguments. You cannot resign from a military academy after your second year without incurring mandatory service in the grunt ranks - which only ups the cadets odds of getting whacked in a war zone, no? This makes the cadet's protest very costly from a personal standpoint, and therefore quite selfless and brave, regardless of how one feels about the point object of that protest. It's standard procedure for folks who are way out front on an important issue - and the Christianization of the Army's officer core is certainly important, to suffer personal attacks on their character and motivations from the general dogpile. Maj. Margaret Witt took similar personal attacks from some jaggoff on this site when that was a big story. The inevitability of public vilification make such acts of protest are daunting even for the hardest nuts. Few folks have that in them. Sounds like Afghanistan is what it's always been throughout recent history - a predictable, utter waste of people and resources for any occupier stupid enough to take it on. And let's here it for the Surge! Patreaus' Vanity Project really calmed things down over there. The attack stats have gone through the roof since we Surged On In - with no abatement in sight. You've also got to love how the Wars on Drugs and Terror play together so nicely in Afghanistan. One policy helps keep the other policy going - although certainly not by design, I'd wager. Yes, we really got our money's worth over there. So much safer now. Now let's cut Medicare.