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arg, I'm disappointed in your lack of judgement. It was inconsiderate of you not to precede your post with a trigger warning.

A lot is the daily grind for a solid year. Riding a dirt road in a Humvee day in day out wondering if the next turn has an IED. Think Bob Woodruff of ABC News north of Baghdad in 2006. He did a special where he returned to the scene of the attack about a year ago. Pretty powerful and its online. IDF can put everyone on the front line or as some would say the enemy is airmailing you the IED. Hell a guy in the gym on the squat rack was killed by a rocket in the Green Zone. I will certainly admit flying an aircraft any aircraft is way more fun. Though Tammy Duckworth and her Blackhawk caught the RPG not far away near a town called Tarmiya in late 2003. The town was a former "resort" on the Tigris River for the Bath Party, so they didn't think much of Americans. One way to look at it is the randomness of it all. You can patrol all day long and nothing happens so nothing memorable. The Humvee 5 minutes behind you gets hit and for them certainly a "significant emotional event" As many of you noted Afghanistan deployments had a wide variety of flavors depending on when you were there and your mission at the time. Same as it was in Iraq. My trip to Afghanistan was for me actually pretty tame by comparison but back to that one word "random"

Makes me remember fondly the one and only time in 2018 when I was given Type 3 control after a dude stepped on an IED and the GFC wanted the city block leveled. It was definitely the unicorn and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, but the absolute authority to sling hate for the following 20 minutes was glorious.

Reminds me of the idiots arrested in Georgia protesting the police training facility referred to as "cop city.". Almost all the people arrested were from places far from Atlanta. Who pays for their traveling and lodging expenses? They obviously don't have a job if they can spend time playing protestor. The money is coming from somewhere to support the chaos.

Also, I’m screwed in the old western movie reach back memorabilia watching these lever action movie heroes go to town. Even the opening of the series “The Rifleman” starts out just daring you to not buy one of these lever actions to include a live cocking plus stare down at the end. Unsure why he does it as he’s out of ammo, but undeniably cool. I dare you Lord Ratner to watch 30 secs of the opening scene. You will hunt me down with one. Definitely placed a time stamp on myself and it was worth it.

Don’t get a Remington-manufactured one (called “Remlins”), roughly 2007-2020 manufactured. Get a 2006 or earlier with a “JM” stamp…or get one of the new ones from Ruger. Leverguns are awesome. 45-70 Marlin is my favorite, killed many things with that. Next project is a Winchester 1895 rebarreled to 35 Whelen - need a woods gun that I can still reach out 2-250 yds (45-70 is a great gun at 100 yds and in).

5 minutes of internet snooping, and that guy’s Linked In is for a 40-year career in sleeping commercial real estate and some buyout stuff of mom and pop medical practices. So, let’s consider the options… A) This guy was some sort of CIA asset California doing deep data analysis and he’s spent a ton of money buying what would be very expensive data if it’s even available. Now, he’s coming out of the shadows to share his critical insights about the election. B) Some schmuck lawyer is bored and realizes he can make shit up on X and get a ton of attention that the commercial real estate world doesn’t give him. He’s making it up, but probably takes some “ends justify the means” rationale. C) Someone creating a bot account (or probably hundreds), happens to scrape his photo and name off of Linked In and has been using it to spew garbage that some people are lapping up. My money is not on Option A.

Will you fuckers please stop talking about all the guns that I can't get out of my head once I've seen it? I'm still recovering from the Rattler. I always toyed with the idea of getting a lever action, but it never even occurred to me that 357 Magnum was a good option. Since I'm not buying anything in a caliber I don't already own... And they are threaded? Damn it.

Don’t you love lining up a tight shot between clouds chasing squirters while someone shouts like an auctioneer “1-3 N/A, your sensor your sensor, call pushing with time to release, call in, call…. Standby…. You still in position for immediate release?” 😂 Pro tip the answer is always yes, even if the truth is no. They told me it shows the highest degree of control, making the CG most comfortable. Nevermind the strikes that were aborted because procedures were incomplete, we can do it another day. Better to cancel than take a risk, there’s always tomorrow, we’re not really here to win…. The outcome of AFG didn’t surprise anyone who fought it.

What? Who are the people we risk our lives for that are not also us? The people who listened to Trump in 2015 were surprised with how he actually ended up governing. Myself included. My assumption is that he will run the same playbook, but this time with fewer cabinet members who are actively subverting him.

It’s amazing the information gathering possible with publicly available big data analytics. I’d love to see something similar for Trump rallies.

Well it’s a good thing none of those sites you posted are heavily biased against Trump. And if I didn’t know any better, I would maybe assume you were biased against Trump as well.

It's always pointless trying to guess what Trump will do, but he is the only politician with the balls to play hardball with Russia. Okay, Vladimir, if this whole thing is about preventing having NATO right up against your border, then you have two options. You can vacate all Ukrainian territory, affirm the sovereign borders Ukraine as they stood in 2013, and in return you will have a binding treaty that the United States will never support or allow Ukraine membership in NATO. Or, we can lock the borders where they are now after your incursion into the East, we will consider this new Russian territory to be the buffer between NATO and Russia, and immediately recognize what remains of the newly defined Ukraine as the newest member of NATO. Otherwise I'm willing to bet that we can print money to supply Ukraine for longer than you can draft citizens to fight them.

As the fight went on there was a lot of data that showed MANY of the fighters were coming from foreign lands. The primary motivation is as you have noted, the Americans occupying. Most of my deployments were early on and the ROE, especially in the beginning, was very permissive as compared to later in the war. My first two deployments we were often cleared into a kill container and given free reign to shoot ANY vehicles. I can't tell you how many Toyotas we zapped, once we started shooting dudes with guns would pour out like a clown car. Interestingly, at least 50% of what I shot in that time period I found with my NVGs. Sensors are great but they are a soda straw. Using my NVGs I was able to scan large areas and would usually find a target within a few minutes. There were nights I went Winchester with a full combat load two hours into the Vul, landed at Bagram or Jalalabad, took another combat load and did it again. Gun over-heating limitations were a real thing. On my last two deployments I do recall the tight ROE, that being said, I never had a deployment where I did not shoot. Impossible to know it would have changed the national debt. Remember we can't view the conflict with only a 2024 optic...In the days after 9/11 we were sure there would be more attacks unless we acted and we would be a vastly different country had we just taken that hit on the chin and turned away. Beers, whiskey, coffee at my casa anytime for anyone that needs it.

Dibs...

Whatever. This thread needs pics.

Instead of listening to talking heads, just listen to what Trump actually says out loud. Seems to me that most of us won’t have a significant life change if he’s re-elected. However, that is not the case for millions of people…the same people we risk our lives for so they can have the freedom to choose how they live their life.