Webster

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." --American Statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)


Friday, August 1, 2025

Ultimate Gibbs Rules.

 

I have published "Gibbs Rules" a few times, along with the "Moscow Rules" which I may publish in a few days :).  Gotta get in a rant first ya know.  I happen to see this video when I was looking on how to take a shotgun apart that I got a couple of months ago and I am cleaning up and repairing.  It is taking a lot of work, but for the price I paid, I ain't complaining.   Besides there is something about old shotguns:) but I digress.  

    I know the real NCIS isn't the same as portrayed on the show, but I did like how they portrayed the services as honorable and serving an ideal as more than themselves.  And as a former serviceman I appreciate that especially since I remember how the TV shows used to portray the services as evil, corrupt and inept (Looking at you 70's and 80's TV, with the exception of "Tour Of Duty".



   Well it was the first one that referenced the phrase "Listen to your Gut, it don't lie" and I believe that phrase, the "Gut" don't lie...what is the "Gut" well the gut is the subconscious , it picks up all the information and it processes it true.   It don't deceive you or mislead you unlike the conscious mind due to societal factors like Political Correctness training.  Basically when everyone is telling you that the poor misunderstood minority urban yooth is not a bad person but your GUT is screaming "Red Alert" and you don't listen and get your head caved in because you are "Woke" and ignored the signals because because it conflicted with your "enlightened" personality.

     The Character of Gibbs does favor my Father greatly especially the past few years, the facial structure are similar to my Dad's and since my Dad was "El Cid" for over 20 years there is that symbolism. also  I first published "Gibbs Rules" back in 2013 and have referenced the "Gut Phenomenon" several times in various blog posting over the years.  I consider that a very useful feature and "Gibbs" talks all the time about Listening to your gut and for some reason it ain't one of his rules.  Funny about that one.

Gibbs's rules originated from his first wife, Shannon Gibbs, who told him at their first meeting, "Everyone needs a code they can live by." Years later, after their wedding, Gibbs began writing his rules down, keeping them in a small tin inside his home. Though he uses it often we almost never see the tin.


The knowledge of the rules' origins is left as a mystery to the people that Gibbs works with, though some of them do make concentrated efforts to find out.Tony makes several attempts to find out who taught Gibbs the rules, though he has not yet met with any success. On one occasion, he quoted Rule Nine as a rule that "they teach you in the Marine Corps," but the Marine in question was unaware of what he was referring to. On another occasion, Tony asked Jackson Gibbs if he had taught the rules to his son, but the older man denied any involvement.
On the other hand, when Rule Twenty-Three was once referred to during a case, a nearby MP quoted the rule correctly.




Rule 1Never let suspects sit together. This rule was first mentioned in an episode titled “Yankee White,” which aired during NCIS’ very first episode in Season 1.

Other Rule 1Never screw over your partner. Gibbs has two No. 1 rules. This one involves having your partner’s back. .

Rule 2: Always wear gloves at a crime scene. 

Other Rule 3Never be unreachable. Gibbs wants to make sure team members are always able to contact each other. That’s why he insists that no one is unreachable.

Rule 4Best way to keep a secret. Keep it to yourself. Second-best, tell one other person—if you must. There is no third bestGibbs and secrets go hand in hand (until recently, that is). He believes the best way to keep a secret is to only tell a select group of people. 

Rule 5You don’t waste good.

Rule 6Never say you’re sorry. It might sound rude, but Gibbs strongly believes in keeping the word “sorry” out of your vocabulary. 

Rule 7Always be specific when you lie. If you’re going to lie, be specific. 

Rule 8Never take anything for granted. No one knows better than Gibbs that you never know how long you’re going to have someone or something. 

Rule 9: Never go anywhere without a knife. Gibbs always makes sure he has a weapon. There is a lesson, if you can't have a gun, have a good blade.

Rule 10: Never get involved personally on a case. Gibbs recommends separating yourself from a case, so you can remain objective. 

Rule 11When the job is done, walk away. Gibbs doesn’t recommend dwelling on a closed case.

Rule 12Never date a co-worker Self Explainatory.....You don't fish from the Company Pond..

Rule 13Never involve lawyers. Gibbs also isn’t fond of lawyers.

Rule 14Bend the line, don’t break it. Agent Gibbs is all for his team members bending the line a bit, but he doesn’t want them to go too far.

Rule 15Always work as a team. For Gibbs, teamwork makes the dream work.

Rule 16If someone thinks he has the upper hand, break it. As you can see, Gibbs isn’t afraid of a little confrontation.

Rule 18It’s better to seek forgiveness than ask permission. So far, rule 17 hasn’t been revealed. 

Rule 20Always look under. You never know what (or who) might be hiding underneath something. This rule is first mentioned in “The Artful Dodger” (Episode 17, Season 12).

Rule 22Never, ever bother Gibbs in interrogation. The man doesn’t like to be bothered when he’s interrogating suspects. 

Rule 23Never mess with a Marine’s coffee if you want to live. Gibbs is quite serious about his morning cup of coffee

Rule 27Two ways to follow someone. First way, they never notice you. Second way, they only notice you. If you’re going to follow someone, don’t be obvious–or be very obvious. 

Rule 28When you need help, ask.This advice could save you at work

Rule 35Always watch the watchers.Is Gibbs paranoid? We don’t know, but this rule seems to work for him. 

Rule 36If it feels like you’re being played, you probably are. This rule can be followed in love and life. 

Rule 38Your case, you’re lead. Gibbs is all about taking ownership of your work.

Rule 39There is no such thing as a coincidence. Gibbs doesn’t believe in coincidence.

Rule 40If it seems like someone’s out to get you, they are.Don’t ignore your instincts.

Rule 42Never accept an apology from somebody who just sucker-punched you. This one makes sense. Why would you trust someone who tried to hurt you?

Rule 44First things first, hide the women and children. Gibbs is all about protecting women and children. 

Rule 45Left a mess I gotta clean up. Gibbs doesn’t like a mess. 

Rule 51Sometimes you’re wrong. Gibbs doesn’t apologize, but he does acknowledge when he’s wrong.

Rule 62Always give people space when they get off an elevator. We wish more people would follow this rule.  

Rule 69Never trust a woman who doesn’t trust her man. We bet Gibbs is speaking from experience.

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Social Aggression Vs Asocial Aggression.

 

By now y'all have seen the video of that white couple in Cincinnati that got set upon by that sub saharan nubian mob and got the crap beat out of them.  The cops finally snagged 3 of them at last reading and they are out on some shockingly low bail(Not surprised really, it is a minority democrat city afterall) but such violence is becoming more prevalent and I personally will not go downtown ATL except at daylight and that is reluctantly.  Because I know there are many "GFZ" in the city and if I have to defend myself against one of the protected class, it will not go well for me. so to use a I think it was Jeff Cooper that said it, I know my Dad did, "Don't go where stupid people hang out, and especially where crowds of stupid people hang out, they can turn into a mob before you know it and it will suck to be you."  

I got this article from "AOM" .  I saw the article and thought it would be pertinent to what is going on here.  I have commented that in the times gone past, 20 years longer or more people would just rob you, now they would kill you just for sport or "street cred". More people are borderline feral, they are totally soulless and will quickly use violence to support their desires.  Now with the violence that the antifa movement uses in attacking what they consider "hate speech", the violence that antifa uses is mostly "social violence" used to dominate, there is also the possibility that the violence can change from mostly intimidation to serious harm.  It is important to understand the dynamics of mob violence and how fast it can change.



Editor’s note: The following article was adapted from When Violence Is the Answer: Learning How to Do What It Takes When Your Life Is at Stake by Tim Larkin.

Dulce bellum inexpertis. (War is sweet to those who have never experienced it.) —Pindar

You don’t have to look very hard on YouTube to find videos of long-suffering kids reaching their breaking point with bullies and finally fighting back. The scenes vary in geography, gender, and the size and age difference of the kids involved, but each scene generally goes down the same way.
The video picks up mid-conflict. The bully is in full aggressor mode: stalking after the victim, cutting them off, pushing them, taunting them, and getting in their envelope of personal space, sometimes looming over them like a beast. The bullying victim is folded over, trying to make themselves smaller. Or they’re turned to the side, as if subconsciously hoping the teasing will just go away. Sometimes they’re backed against a wall, as if they are hoping to melt into it.
Then, suddenly, there is a shift. The victim stops, stiffens, and bows up. There is going to be a fight. The bully is almost always caught off-guard when this happens. Bullies typically pick their victims based on the likelihood that they won’t fight back. The fight might happen right then and there, it might have to wait until after school. It doesn’t really matter, though, because once the bully’s victim has had enough and finally decides to defend himself, the decision ripples through the playground or the schoolyard like a shockwave. The other kids start getting super excited. If the fight is going down after school, it’s all anyone can talk about. They can’t wait. If it happens right there in the moment, the kids immediately encircle the pair chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” In the lead-up to the actual physical confrontation, the bully will often start talking trash in an attempt to humiliate or intimidate and regain the upper hand in his relationship to the victim. If the victim responds, it’s to show that the bully’s taunts aren’t going to work this time. They’re going to have it out once and for all.
Fights likes these are instances of what I call “social aggression.” They are quasi-violent scenarios that stem from conflict and jockeying within the social hierarchy. I call them quasi-violent not because I don’t take them seriously, but rather because they don’t always involve violence as we understand it — sometimes it’s just talking or threatening — and they’re less about physically destroying the other person than they are about asserting social dominance, gaining some advantage, or elevating social status. That’s why people instinctively want to gather around and watch these types of conflicts, because they want to see what happens.
Kids get so excited about these playground fights because there is valuable social information to be gleaned from them. Both fighters’ positions in the school’s social hierarchy are in flux. The bully occupies a position of power, and when his target finally fights back, that means his position is being challenged. When it’s all over, will there be a change in social standing? Will the bully get his comeuppance and be reduced to a pariah and a laughingstock? Will his victim be elevated to the position of nerd hero or defender of the meek and helpless? Or will the bully get the upper hand and the social status remain the same? This kind of aggression isn’t exactly tolerated — it’s the kind teachers usually break up and punish, after all — but it doesn’t destroy the social order in the school, either. Afterward, the kids will be talking about it excitedly in the lunchroom for the rest of the week.
And then there is the other way these playground fights and bully takedowns can go. These are the kinds of incidents that do not show up on YouTube. The victim has had enough, but he has only stiffened and bowed up in his mind. He — and it’s almost always a he — has no interest in fighting back at the center of a ring of classmates. Instead, he opens his backpack, pulls out a revolver and shoots his bully in the head at point blank range. Do you want to guess what happens next? There is no excited chanting for a fight. No one is hoisting the bully’s victim on their shoulders and marching him triumphantly around the schoolyard. There is only complete and total pandemonium. Everybody runs and no one looks back. There is no social information to be gathered here.
That is the rough outline of any number of the school and workplace shootings that have dominated our news over the last fifteen years, and become (along with ISIS-style terrorism) the scariest, most urgent form of violence we face today. I call violence of this nature “asocial.” Asocial violence is violence that has nothing to do with communication or reshuffling the pecking order. Asocial violence is nothing like that: it doesn’t try to change the order, it tries to wreck the order. It’s the kind of violent interaction we instinctively run from — the kind in which there is only mayhem, death, misery, and horror. (The knockout game is asocial violence.) At the end of the day, all violence has the potential to be a matter of life or death. The difference with asocial violence is that death and destruction are not its by-products; they are its purpose.
It is essential we understand this distinction between social aggression and asocial violence right now. Social aggression is about competition; asocial violence is about destructionCompetition has rules; destruction has none. Social aggression is about communication — implicitly with status indicators but explicitly with lots of taunting and posturing. There is no talking with asocial violence. Open your mouth and you are likely to eat a lightning-fast punch or a jacketed bullet traveling at 2,500 feet per second.

How to Tell the Difference Between Social Aggression and Asocial Violence

If there is one reliable way to distinguish between the two kinds of violent encounter, it is the presence or absence of communication. If a man comes upon you from behind as you’re walking home from dinner and he puts a gun to your head and says, “Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your brains out,” that is fundamentally an act of social aggression. It may feel asocial, because you feel powerless when you’re taken by surprise, but how you feel has nothing to do with whether a situation is social or asocial. What matters is the intent and the action of the attacker. In this scenario, his primary motive is not to destroy, it’s to dominate. He’s using the threat of violence to make it easier to get what he wants. If the situation were asocial, if what he wanted to do was destroy you, you would not hear any words. You probably wouldn’t even hear the hammer cock before the trigger got pulled and the bullet left the chamber.
Social aggression doesn’t wear off after adolescence; fast-forward twelve years to a bar fight between rival fraternity members and the outline is the same. It’s still two guys exhibiting their inner-male aggression, thrashing, ranting, raving. It’s the silverback gorilla banging his chest. It’s the butting of rams’ heads. It’s the clashing of male grizzly bears. These are all bids for a kind of social status, and they’re all meant to be witnessed.
The schoolyard brawl and the bar fight aren’t usually life-or-death situations. Rather, they’re a form of primitive communication. It’s a social display that communicates, “I’m really agitated. I’m mad. I want to run this other guy off my territory.” And the other guy is responding, “I’m not willing to be run off my territory. I’m going to stand my ground.” The intent is not to inflict grievous bodily harm. It’s only to exert social dominance.
In these situations of quasi-violence, people rarely punch their opponent’s throat or kick them in the testicles or gouge out their eyes. They rarely try to inflict permanent damage. If you were to look at such a confrontation simply from the perspective of causing bodily harm, you’d call it wildly inefficient. I have studied video of countless epic bar brawls that have gone on for ten or fifteen minutes that left the combatants bloody and bruised, but also conscious, uninjured, and able to walk away. I’ve also seen guys beat each other senseless and then hang out afterward — like it was something they just needed to get out of their systems.
Many of us know how to act like jerks and add fuel to the fire, how to turn an argument into a shouting match that turns into a fistfight. It can be scary. It can be wrong. It can be extremely intimidating. But the aggressor is not deliberately trying to maim, cripple, or kill. He’s not trying to break down the social order, to sow terror and mistrust. The goal is to dominate, not to destroy. This is social aggression.
Asocial violence, on the other hand, is brutally streamlined. It’s quiet. It happens suddenly and unmistakably. It’s one person beating another person with a tire iron until he stops moving. It’s stabbing somebody thirty-seven times. It’s pulling a gun and firing round after round until he goes down, and then stepping close to make sure he has two to the brain, just to be sure. If you’re a sane, socialized person, thoughts like those can make you physically ill. That’s because you recognize them for what they are: the breakdown of everything we, as humans, hold sacred. Indeed, they are often a breakdown of the perpetrator of the violence themselves. They are no longer in control, they are no longer thinking rationally, they are no longer thinking at all. These acts represent the destruction of the social fabric. They’re devoid of honor. They’re acts without rules, where anything goes. That is asocial violence.

How to Respond to Social Aggression and Asocial Violence

So why am I harping on the difference? Because our responses to social aggression and asocial violence ought to be fundamentally different.
Social aggression is avoidable — and you should avoid it. You can choose not to participate. You can employ social skills to remove yourself from the situation, or to de-escalate it. It comes with big, flashing warning signs — loud, dramatic, and recognizable social posturing. You can see it coming a mile away. These sorts of problems can usually be handled with social tools that we all know how to use. We’ve all talked our way out of a bad situation. We all know how to calm another person down. We all know how to back down ourselves. If we didn’t, none of us would have made it this far in life. Similarly, threats of violence with a clear purpose — like a robbery — can be terrifying. But they remain social interactions, with generally clear demands and big, flashing warning signs of their own; the lines of communication remain open. When he says, “Give me your wallet or I’ll blow your brains out,” give him your wallet and live to see another day.
You can rarely, if ever, talk yourself out of asocial violence. You have no idea whether the movie theater you chose is the one where a shooter with a full arsenal will show up looking like The Joker and acting like Bane. You have no idea if your child’s school is the one where a deranged mind will decide to make his mark. Asocial violence doesn’t care about your social skills.
Negotiating with a serial killer is like arguing with a bullet. If it’s coming your way, words won’t deflect it. If somebody has decided to stab you to death, capitulation doesn’t appease them. It only makes their work easier. When it comes to asocial violence, if you have not been able to foresee and escape it, you must render your attacker one of three ways to survive: incapacitated, unconscious, or dead. Understanding and accepting that reality, then training to deal with these unlikely scenarios, will give you the confidence you need to quickly and calmly identify the difference between social aggression and asocial violence, while setting your mind at ease that you’ll be able to handle whichever comes your way — de-escalating where it’s possible to de-escalate, and fighting to save your life where it is not.

When the Rules Don’t Apply 

Though these kinds of conflict — social aggression and asocial violence — look and sound quite different from each other, our instinct is to apply the same set of rules to both, because our socialized minds don’t want to accept the possibility that the rare and unthinkable has found us, by no fault of our own. If we don’t have rules governing how we deal with the rare and unthinkable, then the rare and unthinkable can’t happen, right? Alternatively, we try to shove this unseemly business out of our minds by dismissing the distinction altogether: Why are we talking about this? Violence is violence; it’s all bad. We get ourselves into deep trouble when we take either one of these approaches, because you can’t play by rules that your attacker refuses to recognize even exist.
Rules, as a social construct, only work in a conflict when both sides honor them. Major League Baseball has a broad set of rules that generalize across the American and National Leagues. But when teams from each league play against each other during interleague play or in the World Series, they have to agree on which league’s rules govern or else the whole thing collapses. The idea that rules of any kind go away the second the other guy ignores them is generally unsettling and downright terrifying in the case of violence. But when you think about asocial violence through that prism, you start to realize that it’s a horrible mistake to use the same social contract that governs social aggression, to understand and navigate true asocial violence. During true violence, our usual social categories—good guy/bad guy, right/wrong, attacker/defender — cease to apply. These dichotomies are useful, but only before and after a violent confrontation has occurred. During the actual fight, they are utterly irrelevant, if not misleading and dangerous.
It is an issue of practicality in the most literal sense. In the midst of a violent encounter, to think merely of “defending” yourself — rather than incapacitating your opponent — is essentially to curl up in a ball and hope for the best. Waiting for your attacker to give up — or worse, expecting him to follow the rules — is, putting it bluntly, to risk participating in your own murder. Your only reliable course of action to save your life is to do what your attacker is trying to do to you, but do it more effectively and efficiently, and to do it first. To use the very same tool of violence.
And yet, as sane, socialized beings, we continue to drag our rules into these places where they don’t belong. We want to somehow keep everything fair, on a level playing field. This is why most confrontations involving real violence go terribly wrong for the good guy. We’re constrained by a litany of social rules while the asocial predator is bound only by the laws of physics. All he cares about is how best and most quickly he can do you grievous bodily harm and end the situation. He’ll stab you when you’re not looking. He’ll kick you in the throat when you’re down. If things don’t look hot for him, he’ll capitulate to get you to let go, then pull his gun and shoot you. He’ll use your socialization against you — he’ll turn the social rules that normally protect you from harm into his most powerful weapon. But all his weapons are tools that you can use in turn.
When you’re staring down the barrel of a gun (literally and figuratively) with a violent asocial predator on the other end of it, you must remember that this is not a movie or a video game or a hero fantasy. This is not high noon at the O.K. Corral. There is no Good, Bad, and Ugly — there is just ugly.

Social Aggression Can Quickly Turn Into Asocial Violence

In 2006, a young British lawyer named Thomas Pryce exited the tube station by his home. It was early January, about 11:30 at night. It was cold. Tom had just left a work function in London and he was hustling back to the flat he shared with his fiancée on a quiet street in an up-and-coming suburb of London.
On this night, he was followed by two young men in hooded sweatshirts who had robbed someone else earlier in the evening and saw Tom as another opportunity. They circled around in front of him and drew their knives, demanding his valuables. He quickly complied, handing over everything. If the incident had ended there, we might say that Tom used his social skills to escape an instance of social aggression. He saw assailants who, however intimidating and dangerous, were still offering a recognizable, if coercive, exchange — his possessions for his life, straight up — and he accepted the exchange. He kept quiet, offered no resistance, and gave up his property exactly how the authorities tell you to do it in a robbery situation like that.
Thomas was shaken up, but he kept walking home. Then the young men came back. This time, their knives were already drawn, their heads were down, and they weren’t saying anything. Thomas broke into a sprint, but they quickly overtook him and began stabbing him repeatedly, in the chest, the hip, the face, the hands, and the lower torso. He yelled frantically, “Why, why, why? You’ve got everything!” But they didn’t have everything. They didn’t have the one thing they needed once they realized he had seen their faces. They didn’t have his silence.
“He could identify us,” they said to themselves, according to the Metropolitan police who interrogated the men upon their capture, “we need to kill him.” That quick realization was all it took for those two young men to go from opportunistic robbers to cold-blooded murderers. Social aggression to asocial violence in the blink of an eye.
The lesson I take from Tom’s murder is how essential it is to understand the difference between the two types of physical confrontation. You need to be able to identify them in the moment, and you need to recognize that one can turn into the other very quickly when circumstances change. The kind of encounter that Tom endured initially — no matter how frightening it must have been — still presumed a kind of communication. He was in the kind of conflict that we can escape with our social skills: after all, giving up your belongings in exchange for your life is a kind of negotiation, even if it happens under extreme duress. If you can comply with demands, it means there’s still communication happening, which means there’s still a chance of getting out of there in one piece.
Unfortunately, the situation turned asocial very quickly, for reasons Tom could not have foreseen. The rules that he believed were governing his initial encounter ceased to apply when the two men returned. His attempts to communicate, to negotiate, to make sense of what was happening, all of it fell on deaf ears and was met only with more violence. His only hope lay in recognizing, quickly, what kind of situation he was in, and acting accordingly. In a phrase: using violence. By the time he realized the shift from social aggression to asocial violence — if he ever realized it — it was too late.
When escape was off the table, the only thing that could have helped him was a fuller understanding of the tool of violence and greater preparedness to take immediate action. Instead of turning to flee, he needed to turn and fight. Because when an aggressor doesn’t care about your reasons or your rules, and isn’t interested in having a negotiation, no other strategy tends to work. Especially when you’re outnumbered. Tom’s only hope was to inflict injury first. But before his survival depended on that, it depended on recognizing, as soon as possible, that he was not in a situation of coercion and communication, but in a situation of life-or-death violence.

Social Aggression and Asocial Violence: Know the Difference, and Be Prepared to Act Accordingly

Remember: all of what I’ve been explaining goes both ways. Just as there’s no way to de-escalate a situation of true, asocial violence, there’s no reason to escalate a situation of social aggression. We learn the difference between the two not only to prepare ourselves to fight for our lives when we absolutely have to, but also to prepare ourselves to wisely back down when there’s no need for a fight.

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

The Zeppelin Accident at Echterdingen and the Captured Spitfire and some musing from my time there in the 1980's

 

I was talking to a couple of my Army buddies and we got to talking about where we were stationed and I had recalled the "Zeppelin Monument" and the area.

 I was stationed at Stuttgart Army Airfield for 3 and a half years, I got sent there in 1987 after doing a tour with the 1st Infantry Division(FWD) at Cooke Barracks at Geoppingen. SAAF was a good place to be and it was a good tour and during that time we got sent to the Persian Gulf.  I used to run 10K a day, I would run parallel to the road then cut cross country and work my way back to the gate.  It took me a smidge over an hour.  I used to run past the memorial and I never stopped, I wish I had, but back then I always figured "one day" and as much of a history nut that I am that I didn't do that.  It is on my bucket list to go back to Stuttgart and check out my old haunts and see how things look and visit one of my friends that lives over there and works at the "FlugPlatz"   Here is some pics and information that I saw on "google" about the Zeppelin Monument. 

Here is the monument to the LZ-4 is at Echterdingen where the LZ-4 met its fateful accident.

Echterdingen, LZ-4 Monument
LZ-4 Monument at Echterdingen. Photo credit: Undetermined


The memorial was erected in 1908. The monument is decorated with bronze plaques, a portrait of Graf Zeppelin on the front and a rising eagle on the back. In addition to the portrait an inscription reads: "Here Count Zeppelin landed for on solid ground for the first time on the 5th of August 1908." The inscription under the portrait reads: "He struggled long and hard with the Spirit of the Air Successfully vanquished the grim opponent. From a sea of flames he rose up More magnificent than ever before. To the pride of Germans he soared up courageous; To him is set in stone (the name) Count Zeppelin!" (thanks to Alastair Reid for the translation). The back shows a rising eagle and the inscription: "As through the dark clouds of the Aar rises to the golden light, so by tribulation and need the hero struggles to victory."
The monument is located at (Lat Lon) 48.681222 009.180318.(You can cut and paste this on "google Maps" and see a map of the location and the area.
 was pulled from its temporary mooring by a sudden storm and destroyed when its hydrogen ignited.



    While I was reading up on Echterdingen, apparently my post in the 1980's was a test site for the Luftwaffe, they experimented with a captured Spitfire.  I remembered seeing the flooded entrances to the underground bunkers that had tunnels connecting all the kasernes around Stuttgart to protect them from the Allied bombings. Apparently "Organization Todt" had filled a lot of the tunnels with explosives so rather than try to disarm all the various boobytraps, the allies just filled them with water.  They also hid a bunch of industry in the tunnels to protect them.  I recall going to the U.S Hospital in Bad Canstantt (We called it Bad C) and there were 4 stories above ground and 3 stories below ground and tunnels going to other kasernes around Stuttgart.  I never been in them, but that was the "rumor" anyway.  They did have the rooms stocked up in case of war with the Soviets.  I personally didn't have a good impression of the U.S. Army hospital at Bad C, a friend of mine was riding his bike and got into an accident with a German on the "Economy.  Well the German "Krankenwagon" took him to the hospital at Bad C, and he walked in under his own power, and the people there told him to just sit down and wait.  after several hours after being blown off by the staff at the front desk, he finally went to the front desk and told the NCO there, "I don't feel well" and passed out.  THey finally took him back and discovered that his liver was separated in the accident, and he bled to death internally.  His remains were shipped back to the world, we raised money so his German girlfriend/fiance could go with him to be buried.  His parents called their congresscritters and launched a "Congressional".  We were pissed.  I remember telling several of my friends, "if I get hurt, take me to a german hospital, I don't trust the quacks at Bad C".  the others said the same thing.   Funny, the things I remember.  I still know his name but I will not post it here.

And a WWII Story.

Spitfire Vb (EN830/NX-X) fell into German hands late in 1942. On November 18th while being flown by P/O Bernard Sheidhauer of the Free French Air force, attached to 131 “County of Kent” Sqn RAF, he and his No.1
P/O Henri de Bordas had been on a “rhubarb” (an RAF World War II code name for operations by aircraft seeking opportunity targets).
Making land fall at St Aubin sur Mer they picked up and followed the Caen to Cherbourg railway attacking several targets along the way. During the mission they were met by flak and purposely avoided Carentan because of the concentration of flak in the area.
Over the small town of Ecausseville, de Bordas lost sight of his partner, he continued to circle for as long as he could, but to no avail. He returned to Westhampnett. Scheidhauer’s aircraft had suffered some sort of damage and started to lose fuel. By mistake he headed west instead of north, after crossing a stretch of water he sighted land which he mistakenly thought was the Isle of Wight.  Picking out a suitable field he place his aircraft down into a wheels up landing. Coming to rest in a field of turnips close to Dielament Manor, Trinity.
Climbing from the aircraft he was met by locals who informed him of his navigational error, he was in fact in German Occupied Jersey and not the Isle of Wight.  Scheidhauer tried to destroy the aircraft, he attempted to acquire some fuel to set fire to it, but there was none, he smashed the instrument panel as best as he could and gave away various items of equipment to the gathering crowd of locals.
The Germans arrived after about 20 minutes and he was taken prisoner, ending up at Stalag Luft 111. He was later murdered by the Gestapo for his part in the ‘Great Escape’.

En830 was dismantled and shipped to mainland Europe. It reached Echterdingen without guns and ammunition, with the gun ports closed. The radio equipment had been replaced with ballast, but it still had its original Merlin 45 engine. Several flights were made by Daimler-Benz pilots before conversion was attempted. A decision was made to replace the instruments and the entire electrical system with standard German equipment, because the Luftwaffe used a 24 volt system, whilst the RAF used a 12 volt standard.
A 3.0 m. diameter Bf.109G propeller was added, together with the carburetor scoop from a Bf.109G.
After a couple of weeks, and with a new yellow-painted nose, the Spitfire returned to Echterdingen. Pilot Ellenreider was the first to try the aircraft. He was stunned that the aircraft had much better visibility and handling on the ground than the Bf.109. It took off before he realised it and had an impressive climb rate, around 70 ft. (21 m.) per second. Much of the Spitfire’s better handling could be attributed to its lower wing loading.

The Spitfire’s wing area was about 54 sq. ft. (5m²) greater than that of the Bf.109. The Messerschmitt was faster at low altitude, but at 11,000 ft. the speeds evened out. The DB 605A engine gave better performance, according to the test group, than the Merlin, which was rated 150 hp below the DB 605A. It gave this “MesserSpit” a ceiling of 41,666 ft. (12700 m.), about 3,280 ft. (1000 m.) more than a Bf.109G with the same engine and 5,166 ft. (1475 m.) more than that of a Spitfire Mk.V.
After a brief period at Rechlin verifying the performance data, the modified Spitfire returned to Echterdingen to serve officially as a test bed. It was popular with the pilots during and after work hours. MesserSpit career ended on 14th August, 1944, when a formation of US bombers attacked Echterdingen, wrecking the Spitfire. The remains of the Spitfire Messerschmitt hybrid were scrapped at the Klemm factory at Böblingen

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

"How to use Bear Spray Effectively"

 I had preloaded this,   I used to go hiking in my younger days and when I was doing Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts, I had Bear Spray with me, just in case, we also made a lot of noise, as a rule, Bears will avoid people, I also taught hiking and backpacking classes and some of the stuff I taught wasn't strictly B.S.A. specifications.  I told them the B.S.A way, then I also told them, when you are out on the real world, the lawyers are in their offices and you are on your own.  I told the adults it is your choice, but I also carried...This


   I have a "Smif" 686 .357(The one on the right)with speed loaders I would carry.  It would be for both 2 and 4 legged critters.  I told the people in my classes, " when you are on the Appalachian trail or whatever you are, your personal safety is your own responsibility.  not everyone you will meet is a good person.  I'm not telling you to carry, but it is your decision."  I luckily never needed it and the kids never noticed it on my gear.

A link I pulled off the News in my home State.

     I shamelessly clipped this from "Art of Manliness"



Comic show how to use bear spray effectively.

     

An important part of manhood has always been about having the competence to be effective in the world — having the breadth of skills, the savoir-faire, to handle any situation you find yourself in. With that in mind, each Sunday we’ll be republishing one of the illustrated guides from our archives, so you can hone your manly know-how week by week.

Earlier this month, 71-year-old Donald Zimmerman was jogging near Pillar Mountain outside of Kodiak, Alaska. He was surrounded by berry bushes that were just starting to fill out, and he knew that encountering bears was a possibility, which is exactly why he carried bear spray.

He saw the bear out of the corner of his eye just before the attack. Zimmerman was mauled before he had a chance to pull the spray out, but during a brief break from the violence, he managed to uncap his spray and deploy it, scaring the bear away. Officials say the bear spray saved his life.

While bear attacks aren’t predictable (nor common), the outcome when victims use bear spray is. One study found that spray stopped “undesirable behaviors” in 92% of cases. And among people who carried bear spray, 98% were uninjured after having a close encounter with a bear.

The bottom line is, bear spray works. But like all tools, it takes practice to use it effectively; you shouldn’t just buy a can, stick it in your pack, and never consider how to use it until a 700-pound grizzly is upon you. 

Bear spray is much like normal pepper spray, but it typically sprays much farther and for a longer period of time. Training to use bear spray is imperative if you’re headed into bear country. Luckily, many of the companies that manufacture bear spray also sell inert training cans, so you can test out their functionality before you hit the trail. One of the things they’ll tell you is to store your bear spray in a hyper-convenient location where you can access it quickly — like holstered on your belt; you don’t want it buried inside your pack when you need it.