“Cover Me!”
I saw a link to this article from Parameters that has an amusing, albeit frightening, anecdote from the L.A. Riot:
Police officers responded to a domestic dispute, accompanied by marines. They had just gone up to the door when two shotgun birdshot rounds were fired through the door, hitting the officers. One yelled `cover me!’ to the marines, who then laid down a heavy base of fire. . . . The police officer had not meant `shoot’ when he yelled `cover me’ to the marines. [He] meant . . . point your weapons and be prepared to respond if necessary. However, the marines responded instantly in the precise way they had been trained, where `cover me’ means provide me with cover using firepower. . . . over two hundred bullets [were] fired into that house.
Reminds me of this joke:
The reason the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines bicker amongst themselves is that they don’t speak the same language. For instance, take the simple phrase “secure the building”.
The Marines will kill everybody inside and set up a headquarters.
The Army will post guards around the place.
The Navy will turn out the lights and lock the doors.
The Air Force will take out a 5 year lease with an option to buy.
May 6th, 2004 at 10:40 pm
BWAHAHAHA. I like the last part, that’s pretty solid.
May 7th, 2004 at 10:57 am
that’s great. ROTFLOL
May 8th, 2004 at 10:32 pm
200 rounds.
It was possibly a 4 man Marine fireteam. 3 M-16’s (with one of them being modified with an M-203 grenade launcher), and possibly an M-249 SAW. 200 rounds would be 3 full M-16A2 mags, then 110 rounds from the SAW… possibly a full belt of rounds.
It was also possible it was a full 12-man squad (which typically consists of 3 fireteams). But 12 men firing a 30 round mag each… that’s a lot more than 200 rounds.
My guess it was a fireteam.
(For you trivia buffs… 3-4 men to a fireteam, 3-4 fireteams per squad, 3-4 squads per platoon, 3-4 platoons per company, 3-4 companies per battallion, 3-4 battalions per regiment, 3-4 regiments per division. But don’t axe me how the army organizes themselves… they’re wierd.)
May 7th, 2004 at 12:56 am
Interesting things in the blogosphere
First of all a very sincere welcome back to Ms. Rachel Lucas. She was missed. Clayton Cramer has a post up about a Chicago city official demanding & then defending preferential treatment for elected officials (namely herself). Clayton asks if…
May 10th, 2004 at 9:03 pm
Rocketing Around the Blogosphere
I’ve been working on this as time allowed over the last few days, so if you find some of these links are a little… old, they’re not, they’re nicely aged like a fine wine. Yeah, that’s it. Fellow Munuvian Linda…