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Whoa, Chris, not so fast! They may be Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, but they ain't all dummies. Three of the top five in my fast track Avionics "A" School class were Marines, one of them female, and our class was only 15% Marine and 5% female. All the Marines were in the top quarter of the class. Semper Fi where it's due. Good thing, because they had to endure hand-me-down equipment.
The militarization of policing is a problem. People should join the police for the same reason they want to become a nurse or firefighter, to help people, not to play soldier.Several local law enforcement agencies have received vehicles from them like HumVees and even a South African Army Casper (armored car).
I'm told a Crayola Kindergarten Special fits neatly in the pitot tube of a MiG. Preflight test of the pitot heat melts and cures it in the Russian winter, and by launch time it's polimerized and invisible. How's your accelerate-stop distance with full ordnance on a wet runway? "Roll the equipment, Comrade!"Chris never identified what the Marines would DO with the crayons...but one suspects it has little to do with making pretty pictures. Rapid insertion up an adversary's nostril, for example, is a very Marine-like thing to do with a crayon...they probably learned the trick in kindergarten.
Whoa, Chris, not so fast! They may be Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, but they ain't all dummies. Three of the top five in my fast track Avionics "A" School class were Marines, one of them female, and our class was only 15% Marine and 5% female. All the Marines were in the top quarter of the class. Semper Fi where it's due. Good thing, because they had to endure hand-me-down equipment.
"Militarization" of LEO has been a response to a part of society that increasingly glorifies "gang culture" and disregards the laws of society.The militarization of policing is a problem. People should join the police for the same reason they want to become a nurse or firefighter, to help people, not to play soldier.
We had a wave of police militarization here in Canada in the 2010s, mostly about replacing friendly, bright paint on cruisers to black and greys, and officer's uniforms changing from light blues to blacks. But we also saw municipal police buying armoured vehicles for that one riot every decade that gets out of hand. Everyone wants to feel like they're in Starship Troopers I suppose.
Up until at least about 20 years ago, the government published a GSA surplus list. The top of the pecking order was other Govt agencies, then state agencies, then counties within the states.
Just before I reported to my Permanent Duty Station NAS, a destroyer squadron was disestablished at the NavBase downtown, and a little later a sub squadron followed (old diesel boats), resulting in a major downsize of the Ships Repair Department. Suddenly all kinds of machine tools and other paraphernalia appeared on the GSA surplus list, so our E7 Chief OIC went downtown on a shopping spree. He just couldn't let that stuff get away and scored a lathe, a small milling machine, two drillpresses, a table saw, a bandsaw, a radial arm saw, a joiner, two sanders, a bending brake, and several lots of tools and cutters, all in top condition. These promptly got installed in a large open space in our shop that the Air Station CO had been considering taking away from us and moving another activity into.Seeing it had a very limited use in the late 80s, I asked why he had it. His response was, "I just couldn't let this machine be scrapped."
Well, according to various sources, the civil war raging in Donbass since 2014 claimed some 13000-14000 lives. The hatred between ethnic groups must be quite strong.
It had a lot of wishful thinking I thought.
This reminds me of a Cal Worthington commercial.
"If you're looking for an auto or a tank,
GO SEE CAL!
If you're looking for an auto or a tank,
GO SEE CAL!……
If you buy a tank, I'll eat a bug!"