I’m gathering from the comments in the previous thread, social media and regular old media that Saturday’s #NoKings events were smashing successes. I’m the worst at estimating crowd sizes, but there were several thousand at the Detroit rally, and hundreds if not thousands more in the various suburban events. The signs were excellent, and every single one correctly spelled. Here’s my favorite of the Detroit crowd:
Mine was ridiculous, but I stood in one place for the most part, and people stopped, read it all, looked up at me and said, “I’m so glad someone is pointing this out,” so there:
Most heartening: The range of people in attendance. There were old people sitting on their walkers, young children running around waving little flags. (I saw a video on Bluesky of a bunch of old people leaving their assisted-living home for a march, on electric scooters and walkers. It was…moving.) All the colors humanity comes in, as well as all the colors tattoo ink comes in. Some trans folk. Dogs wearing signs. People passing out water and snacks. And no violence, except for a brief scuffle when some bikers wearing Detroit Highwaymen colors tried to start some shit. It ended quickly, and good for them, because they looked, for the most part, overweight and slow, and the young men who opposed them, lean and strong. It was over in a few seconds, the crowd chanted “Nazis go home,” and they did.
The best estimates I’ve heard for total numbers nationwide is in the millions, and I believe it. The No Kings organization asks for RSVPs (which I never offer, because who needs more email) and the number is based on that. It’s good to know I — we — are not the only angry ones out here.
In contrast, Tubby’s birthday party in D.C. sounds like it was ridiculous. I didn’t watch, but I saw a few clips. It looked pretty…what’s the word? Wan. Give the Russians and North Koreans this: They know how to do this. We don’t, and it showed. May we never follow their example. The best recap of it is here, and I’m sorry threadreaderapp is so ad-clogged, but as Xitter circles the drain, I guess its spinoffs must, too. (It scrolls better on desktop/laptop than on a phone.) But it’s good, the writer is an event planner and knows his stuff:
The whole parade was this: green vehicle after green vehicle. Not many bands. Not much variety. Single file. Lots of space between each thing. Would have been better if it was shorter, with the gear more densely packed. Which maybe isn’t safe? But live a little, who cares, let’s go three wide with the tanks like it’s Talladega.
Now that might have been crazy, but it would have been better TV. Watching those single tanks roll by, I was imagining the smell, the greasy diesel exhaust wafting over the crowd. Yuck.
Afterward, we attended a little birthday party for a friend who’s doing the urban-farm thing in a depopulated Detroit neighborhood. Alan remarked that we could have been sitting in a state forest campground, and he was correct.
In other words, it was a cheerful, fun Saturday. God knows we all needed it, after last week. Let’s hope the one we’re bearing down on is better.
Deborah said on June 15, 2025 at 9:53 am
When I started typing this comment there wasn’t a newer post, when I finished there was, so I’m shamelessly copying and pasting this into this newer post:
Apparently there actually were 100,000 people at Trump’s parade but the planning of a mass attendance venue was so poor that it stretched the whole thing out for such a long way that it appeared sparsely attended. They expected 250,000 people but that didn’t happen. Here’s an article that breaks down the logistics https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1934052056878243848.html
Trump is always so concerned about optics, this poor planning probably pisses him off tremendously.
Meanwhile the No Kings protests numbered about 4-6 million people nationwide, which is approx 1.5% of the total population. It needs to be 3% to make a dent in effectiveness.
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Deborah said on June 15, 2025 at 10:18 am
OK, my bad, I realize now that Nancy’s link to the description of the parade was the same as my link in my comment.
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Suzanne said on June 15, 2025 at 1:25 pm
My husband & I attended the local protest and I never registered. I even turned off my phone’s location thing and put it on airplane mode purposely so no one could track me. Call me paranoid! So, I am guessing there were quite a number of uncounted people like us attending.
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Julie Robinson said on June 15, 2025 at 1:50 pm
We had non-refundable symphony tickets bought back in February, but we could see the protesters across the way as we left. Huge crowd, very peaceful, streams of people still arriving. A couple signs I liked: you can’t spell hatred without red hat, and the only orange monarch we want is a butterfly.
And now we have eaten beef, a new electric razor has been opened, and our son took dad off to the latest bangbang movie, so Father’s Day is sorted.
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Dexter Friend said on June 15, 2025 at 2:42 pm
I watched on CNN to see the fireworks to compare to 1975’s kickoff to the Bi-Centennial which we witnessed from The Mall. Hard to compare.
The news: from snippets I heard between phone calls, Mossad had their bead on Ayatollah Khomeini to assassinate him, and something about Netanyahu checking with Trump and he (Trump) said “no”? What the hell is going on?
Netanyahu is a goddam madman who is trying to rally support for his own ass to not be overthrown by the Knesset. And he’s gone completely crazy launching salvos trying to bring the USA into another global war…and guess what? America is already defending Israel against incoming missiles. What is next? Total commitment by air, sea and LAND for the US military?
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Suzanne said on June 15, 2025 at 5:48 pm
Never, never forget that a certain brand of evangelicalism has deep apocalyptic beliefs and welcome war in the Middle East. They believe this war has been prophesied in the Bible (mostly Revelation) and will bring about the physical return of Jesus who will judge all mankind and send unbelievers to eternal hell. So, they will support Netanyahu’s attacks on just about anybody else in the region, not out of love for Jewish people but out of a desire to fulfill a prophecy.
Also, this ties in with the suspected Minnesota assassin:
https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/on-the-christian-education-of-dr
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Jakash said on June 15, 2025 at 6:07 pm
We attended the event in Chicago and certainly didn’t RSVP, either.
“a cheerful, fun Saturday” seems like a kinda odd way to describe a gathering of thousands of folks who are in fact very angry, but I’d have to agree. In the end, we opted against creating signs, partly because we’re not particularly creative and partly because we figured the American flag is essentially the OG symbol that means “No Kings.” I hate how right-wingers have long tried to co-opt the flag for their “side,” especially when so much of what they do is in direct opposition to what it stands for.
It seemed even more apropos for Flag Day, so we kept waving little flags along the way and I was pleased that we were not alone. There were lots of flags — though, yes, a number were being displayed upside-down.
I loved the “No Faux King Way!” idea shared in the last thread and saw a number of versions of that. Also saw a nice sign festooned with monarch butterflies making the point that Julie referred to. I think my favorite sign was something like “We haven’t come this far to only come this far!” Seems to me in keeping with Benjamin Franklin’s response to the question, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” “A republic, if you can keep it.”
We kept an eye out for you and your husband Deborah, but were probably about 15,000 people behind you in the march… Given your story about people stepping on a rat near you, perhaps that’s just as well! 😉
And Julie, we also attended a concert, managing to score some half-price tickets for the Chicago Symphony after the march, as long as we were downtown.
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Peter said on June 15, 2025 at 6:38 pm
My favorite sign: “Happy Birthday ASSHOLE”
There’s a picture of the turnout in Boise with somebody commenting: “Do you know how badly a republican has to screw up to get this type of turnout in IDAHO?”
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JodiP said on June 15, 2025 at 10:39 pm
I attended the St. Paul rally. I joined a group I was connected with through an acquaintance. We found out about the assissinations on tbe way there. I brought up the question of if we still go on. We decided to, and our total group was about 25 people. They had organized and made signs and practiced various songs on kazoos.
We enjoyed playing This land is Our Land, We shall not be moved and When the Saints Come Marching In.
But there was definitely a pall because we lost a great legislator and her husband.
Grateful for my friends who help keep Me sane during these awful times.
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Carter Cleland said on June 15, 2025 at 10:42 pm
Although I sorta think the No Kings-conceit is vague and unfocused, I was thrilled to be among 1500 other rally-ers at the event in St. Joe, MI.
And I cribbed the sign-wording that you thought too flip – What Bathrooms Do Castrated Republicans Use, and got alot of play out of it. I’ll happily express appreciation to the “Parasites” chart/sign, and the woman wearing the t-shirt bearing the billion-dollar question.
That said, I was the only protester present with a Genocide in Gaza sign, and nowhere was Climate mentioned except for my Close Line 5 placard. The plight of immigrants got a little recognition, but the No Kings “message” carried the day, fwiw. Here are the pics from SWMI Indivisible.
https://tinyurl.com/y5eude63
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JodiP said on June 15, 2025 at 10:45 pm
They caught the Bastard!!!!!
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Suzanne said on June 16, 2025 at 7:45 am
Caught the Minnesota assassin and guess what? Not an immigrant, not a Muslim, not a drag queen, not an ethnic minority, not an angst filled young man. Hmmmm. Wonder what kind of person he could be?
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Jeff Gill said on June 16, 2025 at 7:46 am
Licking County, Ohio in November went 64+% Trump, 34+% Harris.
Saturday, the rally at Courthouse Square was diverse in many ways you don’t always see in this county, age ranges as well as ethnicities and socio-economic groups. A guy who’s more OCD than me sat on a bench as we marched around the square three times, kept a careful count, plus his wife trotted around counting non-marching sitting folk. They came up with just over 1050 . . . in a county of 180,000 total population, county seat 52,000.
We did have three pickup trucks with the large banners circling during our gathering, yelling various silly things (like “we’re getting paid to be here, what’s your excuse?”). One driver I knew from our warming center ministry, he had the grace to look at least a little sheepish as I waved and hollered his name; another slowed down to round a corner near me, and I smiled, waved, and bellowed “it’s a beautiful day to be alive, isn’t it?” and he looked startled, then smiled, waved back and yelled as his driver gunned the diesel “you know, you’re damn right!” He kept waving at me as we went in different directions.
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Deborah said on June 16, 2025 at 9:40 am
I figured Trump would come out swinging today after his humiliating birthday parade and sure enough he came out with an incendiary “tweet”* about how Democratic cities harbor undocumented immigrants to illegally vote etc. It was quite derogatory and dangerous verbiage of course because he has to bluff and bluster to build himself up. Plus they’re trawling for more assassins so they have to come off vicious. Thats been done for ages, eventually you get a lone wolf nut who will carry out violence.
It seems that 4 to 6 million is the “official” number of protestors there were at the No Kings protests. And because they have the largest populations big cities had the most people out there, so Trump has to pounce on them. Also big cities are mostly Democratic because they have more highly educated and wealthier (and healthier) populations in general. Amazing that St. Paul had 80,000 and Boston had a million. Some claim that there were 10-12 million total, but I think that’s not accurate. I wish it were because they need at least 10 million to get closer to 3% of the population which for some reason is the magic number to make a dent.
* I use tweet as the generic term for posts on social media, kind of like calling all tissues Kleenex. Obviously there is no Twitter anymore but they were the first to coin a name for posts (that I know of) so I keep using it. I think they tried to get people to use skeet for tweets on Bluesky, but I think that’s weird.
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FDChief said on June 16, 2025 at 12:28 pm
Couple of things.
Sounds like whoever “organized” the logistics for Tubby’s Big Beautiful Birthday Party Perade would have a difficult time throwing a preschooler’s party. Which tracks with the overall tone of the 47 regime; bullshit boasting laid over incompetence. Chef’s kiss!
Re: the actual marching.
It sounds like that, too, was undercooked. Most infantry units can perform simple close-order drill, and marching a company or battalion in column is pretty damn simple.
But you need a bit of practice, and either some good Sousa-esque marching music or a cadence caller. Lacking the latter and the former consisting of instrumental covers of Trump rally pop songs? Ummmmno.
And same-same for armor. Treadheads don’t normally move in tight mass columns, and to do so would have required a fair bit of practice, which sounds like didn’t happen (or did and the armor commanders were unwilling to trust) hence the “one at a time”.
FWIW the 3rd U.S. Infantry and Pershing’s Own (the Army band) kicked off the march order and were, I’m sure, sharp enough to cut like a big knife.
Overall I’m glad my Army brothers were bad at cosplaying Imperial Stormtroopers or North Koreans.
But I’m sorry our anniversary had to get wrapped into some sort of The Beloved Leader’s Glorious Birthday like some sort of goddamn banana republic. I get it – keeping the draft-dodging felon off soldiers now that HE’s in no danger is like keeping a pizza rat off a slice of pepperoni – but it’s still a shame.
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Sherri said on June 16, 2025 at 12:43 pm
I can’t decide if my favorite lowlight of the birthday boy’s parade was the squeaky tank or the soldier holding a drone over his head like it was flying.
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tajalli said on June 16, 2025 at 1:18 pm
Perhaps the parade organizers and/or participants were less than fully on board and did a bit of passive resistance. The lower ranks are historically more than happy to stick it to bombastic officers in creative ways.
Don’t have a link, but saw in passing that the ballot box electronic hacking issue is still under serious investigation, quietly moving forward.
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Brandon said on June 16, 2025 at 2:10 pm
I think they tried to get people to use skeet for tweets on Bluesky … .
!
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Julie Robinson said on June 16, 2025 at 2:33 pm
FDChief, your mention of Pershing’s Own band reminded me that an old friend’s son is in the percussion section. She was relieved when it was over, fearing disruption and violence. He isn’t the slightlest bit militaristic, but when a master’s in music leads only to freelance music lessons, a stable position like Pershing’s is highly valued. Besides, he marched drum & bugle corps every summer so basic training was no biggie.
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Dexter Friend said on June 16, 2025 at 3:49 pm
I had a little flashback when the tank crew waved peace sign fingers at the little crowd Saturday.
I trained at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where the 194th Armored Brigade trained. The tank crews usually flashed the peace sign at us trainees as we marched along, chanting “Sound Off…”
Later in San Antonio as we neared deployment overseas, the marching cadence was sung:
“Class 116 is going to Nam
Hurrah hurrah
Class 116 is going to Nam, hurrah, hurrah
Class 116 is going to Nam
We’ll lose a leg, we’ll lose an arm
And we’ll all be dead
By the summer of ’71.
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Deborah said on June 16, 2025 at 5:38 pm
Sometimes there’s a group of marchers walking down the lakeshore past our building, somebody does the calling out, those cadence chants or whatever their called. I don’t know where they come from but they’re quite good. Also there was a guy walking near us on the march up Dearborn from Daley Plaza to Trump Tower on Saturday. He was an older guy with a walker but he had the best chanting voice that rang out clearly, it was almost singing, a deep, deep bass. It was really impressive.
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Jeff Borden said on June 16, 2025 at 6:59 pm
FDChief,
I’ve read in a couple of places that the sloppy marching was indeed a big “FU” to Cadet Bone Spurs. I’ve seen high school ROTC units more with more precision and elan. Then again, my understanding was it was ungodly warm and humid, so perhaps that was a factor? I’d have hated to be in one of those ancient Sherman tanks in that heat. Yeeesh.
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Deborah said on June 16, 2025 at 7:08 pm
My husband was in the Army many moons ago and after seeing the way the soldiers marched (shuffled) in the stupid parade, my husband showed me how he was trained to march and he also recited one of the cadence chants he remembered. It goes like this, “I don’t know but I’ve been told, Eskimo pussy is mighty cold”. I said that surely that wasn’t something they chanted on the base and he looked at me like I was totally naive. I can’t believe how racist and misogynistic that was, he agreed, he said there were a bunch of different variations just as bad.
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FDChief said on June 16, 2025 at 7:27 pm
Cadence call story.
Army basic airborne school, early 1980s.
We the snuffies were just there to jump, so all we had to do was hang on thru the physical training, pass the equipment tests, get our five jumps, and be on our way.
But the NCOs and officers had “leadership” marks to hit. For the sergeants that meant marching. And in the Army that meant calling cadence.
For us it was second nature; we’d been doing it since Basic. But for some of the “sister services”, not so much. And one tall Marine sergeant it was a real struggle. As in “not happening”. He could “left-right” just fine. But actual songs? Nope.
The last day was approaching and the cadre were all over him. Gotta sing SOMEthing. Anything! Just once! Do it!
So he’s marching the class down to Lawson Army Airfield for jump #5. Last chance! Poor guy dredged his brain and bellows;
“I know your momma!”
Which we roar back.
“She’s a good ol’ whore!”
And it got worse. WAY worse.
And we were marching past a commissioned housing area.
Supposedly the poor joker was ditched when Captain So-and-so’s kid asked him that evening “Daddy, what’s a ping-pong p***y?”
Yikes.
Anyway, he got credit for calling cadence, so, there.
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Sherri said on June 16, 2025 at 8:50 pm
With the current Israeli assault on Iran, just a reminder of two things that probably won’t be emphasized much.
-Obama had negotiated a treaty with Iran that was the best opportunity to curb any nuclear intentions the Iranians had, the JCPOA, and Trump dumped it as soon as he got in.
-There is only one rogue nuclear state in the Middle East, that is not a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, does not allow inspectors, and does not admit to having nuclear weapons (but everyone knows they have them), and that state is Israel.
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Julie Robinson said on June 16, 2025 at 8:53 pm
No military experience, but I marched in band from 7th-12th grade, through the heat in wool uniforms with vinyl overlays, and through the cold when strips of skin peeled off my lips from my trumpet’s mouthpiece. Band camp was two weeks in August, all day long.
So you bet I look at technique and unity every time I see a marching unit, because with the exception of that one poor girl who never mastered right and left feet, marching precision is about discipline and practice.
I’m not giving the Trump parade any clicks, but if there was sloppy marching, it was intentional.
No calling cadence in bands, the drums did it for us. Forget the drum major; the true captain on that field is the lead snare player.
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FDChief said on June 16, 2025 at 9:51 pm
Jeff: I’d be surprised if there was a lot of subversion in the ranks. GIs tend to run pretty conservative, and there’s no upside to looking like shit when your unit is in the spotlight. I think it was just poor planning – like I said; no marching music, no cadence caller (and FWIW for “big” parades like this one – and my experience owes to the 82nd Division Review, an annual event that includes the whole division marching past a saluting base.
It’s unusual to have a caller; the idea is that you have the division band (or whoever) by the reviewing stand thumping out “Under the Double Eagle” and “Stars and Stripes Forever” (or whatever) so the whole battalion picks up the pace from that.
To me it was interesting to see that none of the infantry units I saw were under arms. As a former drill sergeant I could weep; as a former platoon sergeant/first sergeant I can imagine the huge sigh of relief knowing that PVT Black couldn’t ask cute girls if they wanted to “touch his gun”.
Deborah: as my little jump school story suggests…you have NO idea.
GIs are pretty awful. You gotta be one to love them.
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Mark P said on June 16, 2025 at 10:47 pm
Many years ago my father was the battalion commander of the local Army Reserve unit. On a few occasions they were asked to march in Fourth of July parades along with high school marching bands, antique cars, Shriners, and whoever else seemed like a good idea, and was available. The men marched in formation but they did not march in step. But as I remember things from 65 years ago, they looked perfectly fine. Just like soldiers. They looked professional, not like actual professionals who were being forced to march in a stupid parade honoring a man who was beneath honor. I think it was very much a thumb in Trump’s eye.
On a side note, my father always complained about marching too close to the high school band. Their cadence was way different from his unit’s normal cadence.
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basset said on June 16, 2025 at 11:19 pm
“Submarine sailors don’t be blue
Sewer pipes was made for you
Sound off…”
Recently saw. for the first time, a cyber truck actually carrying something in the bed – one white, kitchen size bag of trash. Hope they didn’t strain anything.
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Jeff Gill said on June 17, 2025 at 8:04 am
basset – laughed, out loud.
Dang, now I’m gonna have cadence counts rattling in my head all day. Thanks, y’all!
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David C said on June 17, 2025 at 8:40 am
Should have followed the cybertruck. Who wouldn’t want to see one in the ditch with a broken frame?
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Deborah said on June 17, 2025 at 10:27 am
I didn’t think it was possible for Trump to get more vile, I knew he was going to be an asshole after his humiliating parade, but he has even gone down lower than bottom. I’m sure he’ll get even worse as his poll numbers continue to plummet. What he said about Gov Walz is despicable, and his tweet about Macron too. The guy is irredeemably horrible. How can anybody support him?
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FDChief said on June 17, 2025 at 10:46 am
Because they’re shit, too, and Tubby as president gives them the green light to let their asshole freak flag fly.
If the Trump Era has done anything it’s exposed how many of the people we thought were perfectly decent are, in fact, just wasting perfectly good oxygen. Depressing when you dwell on it, but there we are.
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Jeff Borden said on June 17, 2025 at 1:12 pm
It’s a terrible time to have a demented narcissist at the helm. Netanyahu launched his long-desired war with Iran knowing our befuddled and senile preznit wouldn’t lift a finger to stop him. Now, tRump is claiming “we” have total aerial control over Iran. There are also large numbers of USAF tanker planes heading to the Middle East. We’re in the soup now…a moron preznit and a party that wants to turn Iran into a parking lot. No, we’re not in the soup. We’re fucked.
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Dexter Friend said on June 17, 2025 at 3:33 pm
When it changed, who knows, but Marines and soldiers in public arenas like sports events and especially public parades dressed in battle fatigues is nothing but intimidation. Class C uniforms are for battle and physical work and military training, fatigues.
Summer wear, Class B uniforms were khaki trousers and a short sleeved buttoned shirt, for informal “office work” but also for traveling about the world in hot weather.
Class A uniforms are/were coat and tie suits, adorned either with a saucer cap or a garrison cap, the “c*nt cap”.
For decades now it seems I see soldiers in battle fatigues out in public, like with giant flags at football and baseball games. Not good.
OK if they’re armed and doing security only.
A yellow bird
A yellow bill
Was perched upon
My windowsill
I lured him in, a crust of bread
And then I stomped
His fucken head
…and then the one that I recoiled from:
I wanna be an Airborne Ranger
I wanna go to Viet Nam
I wanna be an Airborne Ranger
I wanna kill a Charlie Cong
I did not wanna be any goddam Army Ranger and I wanted the wanton killing of Vietnamese to cease. I was only in the fucking army because I refused to go to prison for an undetermined sentence just for not wanting to kill rice farmers and Vietnamese patriots defending themselves in their own nation.
The bullshit lies we were fed then !
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FDChief said on June 17, 2025 at 6:04 pm
The appearance of GIs in fatigues off-post has been the very weirdest Army part of the last couple of decades for me. As Dexter notes, back in the day if you wore uniform out in “public” it was your “nice clothes”, Class A or B uniform. Fatigues, Class C or D, were on-post only. In Fayetteville where I did my CONUS time the post commander sent MPs downrange to check and see if people were, say, going to the Piggly Wiggly on the way home in their fatigues and Ulysses Grant help you if you got caught. You could stop for gas – and only gas; no grabbing a Dr. Pepper in the stop-n-rob! – if you absolutely had to.
Now? All I see is GIs wandering around in their tree suits. The brown rough-outside boots complete the scruffy look. Go figure.
The real question re: Iran is “what now”? The current nasty theocracy is unlikely to kiss and make nice. But who wants to Let Freedom Reign by spending the next decade occupying the place? Brrrr! Not me, jocko! And what’s the alternative? I’d love to see a decent authority in Tehran, but the past, what, seventy years have been 1) the brutal sonovabitch Pahlevis we hoicked onto the throne after the Mossadegh coup, and 2) the brutal sonsofbitches mullahs that took over from them. Did we learn nothing from Saddam?
It’s like Republicans are the modern Bourbons; as the Chevalier de Panat said of them: “We see all of this up close and sigh: Nobody has been corrected; no one has forgotten anything, nor learned anything,”
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