Never Been In Combat? Quit LARP’ing

BY Herschel Smith
1 year, 11 months ago

I’ll let you watch the video to see what Tim says, and I agree with them all.

But I’ll also tell you very quickly what I think.

Tim Kennedy’s remarks were stupid.  These remarks were stupid.  Dakota Meyer’s remarks were stupid.  And by the way, when I pass by a fat guy in the gym, I don’t think a single bad thought about him.  I give him an approving nod, and under my breath I’ll say, “You keep it up, you’ll get there if you persist.”  If he looks like he wants to talk, I’ll say something encouraging.  For all the overweight men in the gym, I take the position that “At least you’re there and trying.”

No one is experienced with warfare until warfare happens, and besides, a man may have body armor because his plan to defend his home includes sending his wife into a closet wearing body armor with the children and a shotgun, while he goes to confront the intruder.

So for all you detractors, shut up about LARP’ing.  It’s none of your business.


Comments

  1. On May 27, 2022 at 9:31 am, Furminator said:

    So the new rule is only Nascar drivers can buy Camaros.

  2. On May 27, 2022 at 11:05 am, Paul B said:

    Train, train, and train some more. If nothing else you will be in better shape than most other slobs.

    When things go pear shaped it will always be a surprise and most likely something you have not expected.

    As long as you don’t lock up and freeze you will survive.

  3. On May 27, 2022 at 12:34 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

    Every institution – including the various branches of the U.S. military – and every profession – including the profession of arms – was at some point in the past created according to first principles. In other words, every long-established activity had to start somewhere and with someone.

    Decades of propaganda and PR have shaped the public perception to believe that those in the military are somehow special, members of an elite, a breed apart. This is sometimes perhaps even often true, but just as often it is not. Meaning that members of the military put their pants on one leg at a time, just like everyone else.

    A mark upon the record of the professionals, one they’d rather the public forgot about, is how often the “pros” need to help of citizen-soldiers, a.k.a. “amateurs” to get themselves out of trouble.

  4. On May 27, 2022 at 12:35 pm, Drake said:

    Most of my old military field uniforms are in a seabag in my garage in case I need them again some day… I’d feel silly walking around in public in that stuff unless I was on my way to go hunting.

    The camouflage I wear in the civilian world – pants with deep pockets, a tee-shit or polo that isn’t flashy, a loose sweater, jacket, or sweatshirt when the weather is cooler. Nobody gives me a second look or knows what I’m carrying.

  5. On May 27, 2022 at 12:49 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

    @ Herschel

    Those of us old-enough to remember the Vietnam War first-hand, may recall the manner in which professional military men like U.S. Army General William Westmoreland and his staff looked down upon our adversaries there. On more than one occasion, the U.S. military establishment characterized the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army as “peasants in black pajamas,” yet those “peasants” ultimately humbled a super-power.

    The Vietminh had likewise humbled the French in a similar manner. The French high command sited their base at Dien Bien Phu in far-northwest French Indochina, hard by the Laotian border.

    Warned that the fortification was vulnerable to artillery fire from the surrounding mountains, the French command dismissed the threat by stating that the Vietminh had no means of getting heavy artillery into position that high up.

    Imagine their surprise, then, when the battle was joined in March, 1954, when the Vietminh began shelling the fire-base with heavy artillery. The Vietminh had overcome the artillery transport problem by breaking down each artillery piece into its parts, each of which was carried by hand, or on a bicycle or ox-drawn cart, into its final firing position and painstakingly reassembled.

    Once again, the “amateurs” had bested the professionals. The embattled French garrison was forced to surrender after a protracted siege and battle, on 7 May 1954.

  6. On May 27, 2022 at 1:01 pm, Red Man said:

    Once again, the arrogant Kennedy sticks his D*ck in his mouth. Awhile ago he bashed terribly disabled vets for taking advantage of the opportunities provided by wonderful charities free of charge. Got to the point when he was in the UFC cage, I got to hoping he got his mouth punched in.

  7. On May 27, 2022 at 3:48 pm, Old Bill in TN said:

    Hear, hear!
    2x combat vet here, this sort of talk is retarded “I’m special” talk. Pride never results in Godliness.

  8. On May 27, 2022 at 3:57 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:

    It bears remembering, too, that much of what makes U.S. military personnel effective and “special” has to do with the logistical and other resources which follow the individual serviceman into the field. I am not up on the current ratio, but at one time, the tooth-to-tail ratio was on the order of 20:1 – in other words, twenty service & support personnel behind each trigger-puller. That vast logistical machine behind the man in the field is what helps get the job done, because no matter how capable he may be as an individual, that man’s effectiveness is reduced by orders of magnitude if he loses his base of service & supply.

    As the old saying goes: amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics….

  9. On May 27, 2022 at 4:21 pm, MTHead said:

    After visiting “The Patrol Base blog”, and seeing what can become a Ranger Capt……
    I don’t feel so bad about being a larp’er.
    And then my favorite Vietnam joke. How many Vietnam vets does it take to change a lightbulb?….YOU WEREN’T THERE, MAN!

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment


You are currently reading "Never Been In Combat? Quit LARP’ing", entry #30436 on The Captain's Journal.

This article is filed under the category(s) War & Warfare and was published May 26th, 2022 by Herschel Smith.

If you're interested in what else the The Captain's Journal has to say, you might try thumbing through the archives and visiting the main index, or; perhaps you would like to learn more about TCJ.

26th MEU (10)
Abu Muqawama (12)
ACOG (2)
ACOGs (1)
Afghan National Army (36)
Afghan National Police (17)
Afghanistan (704)
Afghanistan SOFA (4)
Agriculture in COIN (3)
AGW (1)
Air Force (40)
Air Power (10)
al Qaeda (83)
Ali al-Sistani (1)
America (22)
Ammunition (277)
Animals (285)
Ansar al Sunna (15)
Anthropology (3)
Antonin Scalia (1)
AR-15s (373)
Arghandab River Valley (1)
Arlington Cemetery (2)
Army (86)
Assassinations (2)
Assault Weapon Ban (28)
Australian Army (7)
Azerbaijan (4)
Backpacking (3)
Badr Organization (8)
Baitullah Mehsud (21)
Basra (17)
BATFE (220)
Battle of Bari Alai (2)
Battle of Wanat (18)
Battle Space Weight (3)
Bin Laden (7)
Blogroll (3)
Blogs (24)
Body Armor (23)
Books (3)
Border War (18)
Brady Campaign (1)
Britain (38)
British Army (35)
Camping (5)
Canada (17)
Castle Doctrine (1)
Caucasus (6)
CENTCOM (7)
Center For a New American Security (8)
Charity (3)
China (16)
Christmas (16)
CIA (30)
Civilian National Security Force (3)
Col. Gian Gentile (9)
Combat Outposts (3)
Combat Video (2)
Concerned Citizens (6)
Constabulary Actions (3)
Coolness Factor (3)
COP Keating (4)
Corruption in COIN (4)
Council on Foreign Relations (1)
Counterinsurgency (218)
DADT (2)
David Rohde (1)
Defense Contractors (2)
Department of Defense (210)
Department of Homeland Security (26)
Disaster Preparedness (5)
Distributed Operations (5)
Dogs (15)
Donald Trump (27)
Drone Campaign (4)
EFV (3)
Egypt (12)
El Salvador (1)
Embassy Security (1)
Enemy Spotters (1)
Expeditionary Warfare (17)
F-22 (2)
F-35 (1)
Fallujah (17)
Far East (3)
Fathers and Sons (2)
Favorite (1)
Fazlullah (3)
FBI (39)
Featured (189)
Federal Firearms Laws (18)
Financing the Taliban (2)
Firearms (1,769)
Football (1)
Force Projection (35)
Force Protection (4)
Force Transformation (1)
Foreign Policy (27)
Fukushima Reactor Accident (6)
Ganjgal (1)
Garmsir (1)
general (15)
General Amos (1)
General James Mattis (1)
General McChrystal (44)
General McKiernan (6)
General Rodriguez (3)
General Suleimani (9)
Georgia (19)
GITMO (2)
Google (1)
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (1)
Gun Control (1,639)
Guns (2,309)
Guns In National Parks (3)
Haditha Roundup (10)
Haiti (2)
HAMAS (7)
Haqqani Network (9)
Hate Mail (8)
Hekmatyar (1)
Heroism (4)
Hezbollah (12)
High Capacity Magazines (16)
High Value Targets (9)
Homecoming (1)
Homeland Security (3)
Horses (2)
Humor (72)
Hunting (33)
ICOS (1)
IEDs (7)
Immigration (108)
India (10)
Infantry (4)
Information Warfare (4)
Infrastructure (4)
Intelligence (23)
Intelligence Bulletin (6)
Iran (171)
Iraq (379)
Iraq SOFA (23)
Islamic Facism (64)
Islamists (98)
Israel (19)
Jaish al Mahdi (21)
Jalalabad (1)
Japan (3)
Jihadists (81)
John Nagl (5)
Joint Intelligence Centers (1)
JRTN (1)
Kabul (1)
Kajaki Dam (1)
Kamdesh (9)
Kandahar (12)
Karachi (7)
Kashmir (2)
Khost Province (1)
Khyber (11)
Knife Blogging (7)
Korea (4)
Korengal Valley (3)
Kunar Province (20)
Kurdistan (3)
Language in COIN (5)
Language in Statecraft (1)
Language Interpreters (2)
Lashkar-e-Taiba (2)
Law Enforcement (6)
Lawfare (14)
Leadership (6)
Lebanon (6)
Leon Panetta (2)
Let Them Fight (2)
Libya (14)
Lines of Effort (3)
Littoral Combat (8)
Logistics (50)
Long Guns (1)
Lt. Col. Allen West (2)
Marine Corps (280)
Marines in Bakwa (1)
Marines in Helmand (67)
Marjah (4)
MEDEVAC (2)
Media (68)
Medical (146)
Memorial Day (6)
Mexican Cartels (41)
Mexico (61)
Michael Yon (6)
Micromanaging the Military (7)
Middle East (1)
Military Blogging (26)
Military Contractors (5)
Military Equipment (25)
Militia (9)
Mitt Romney (3)
Monetary Policy (1)
Moqtada al Sadr (2)
Mosul (4)
Mountains (25)
MRAPs (1)
Mullah Baradar (1)
Mullah Fazlullah (1)
Mullah Omar (3)
Musa Qala (4)
Music (25)
Muslim Brotherhood (6)
Nation Building (2)
National Internet IDs (1)
National Rifle Association (95)
NATO (15)
Navy (30)
Navy Corpsman (1)
NCOs (3)
News (1)
NGOs (3)
Nicholas Schmidle (2)
Now Zad (19)
NSA (3)
NSA James L. Jones (6)
Nuclear (62)
Nuristan (8)
Obama Administration (221)
Offshore Balancing (1)
Operation Alljah (7)
Operation Khanjar (14)
Ossetia (7)
Pakistan (165)
Paktya Province (1)
Palestine (5)
Patriotism (7)
Patrolling (1)
Pech River Valley (11)
Personal (72)
Petraeus (14)
Pictures (1)
Piracy (13)
Pistol (4)
Pizzagate (21)
Police (648)
Police in COIN (3)
Policy (15)
Politics (970)
Poppy (2)
PPEs (1)
Prisons in Counterinsurgency (12)
Project Gunrunner (20)
PRTs (1)
Qatar (1)
Quadrennial Defense Review (2)
Quds Force (13)
Quetta Shura (1)
RAND (3)
Recommended Reading (14)
Refueling Tanker (1)
Religion (492)
Religion and Insurgency (19)
Reuters (1)
Rick Perry (4)
Rifles (1)
Roads (4)
Rolling Stone (1)
Ron Paul (1)
ROTC (1)
Rules of Engagement (75)
Rumsfeld (1)
Russia (37)
Sabbatical (1)
Sangin (1)
Saqlawiyah (1)
Satellite Patrols (2)
Saudi Arabia (4)
Scenes from Iraq (1)
Second Amendment (669)
Second Amendment Quick Hits (2)
Secretary Gates (9)
Sharia Law (3)
Shura Ittehad-ul-Mujahiden (1)
SIIC (2)
Sirajuddin Haqqani (1)
Small Wars (72)
Snipers (9)
Sniveling Lackeys (2)
Soft Power (4)
Somalia (8)
Sons of Afghanistan (1)
Sons of Iraq (2)
Special Forces (28)
Squad Rushes (1)
State Department (23)
Statistics (1)
Sunni Insurgency (10)
Support to Infantry Ratio (1)
Supreme Court (54)
Survival (185)
SWAT Raids (57)
Syria (38)
Tactical Drills (38)
Tactical Gear (14)
Taliban (168)
Taliban Massing of Forces (4)
Tarmiyah (1)
TBI (1)
Technology (21)
Tehrik-i-Taliban (78)
Terrain in Combat (1)
Terrorism (96)
Thanksgiving (13)
The Anbar Narrative (23)
The Art of War (5)
The Fallen (1)
The Long War (20)
The Surge (3)
The Wounded (13)
Thomas Barnett (1)
Transnational Insurgencies (5)
Tribes (5)
TSA (24)
TSA Ineptitude (13)
TTPs (4)
U.S. Border Patrol (6)
U.S. Border Security (19)
U.S. Sovereignty (24)
UAVs (2)
UBL (4)
Ukraine (10)
Uncategorized (98)
Universal Background Check (3)
Unrestricted Warfare (4)
USS Iwo Jima (2)
USS San Antonio (1)
Uzbekistan (1)
V-22 Osprey (4)
Veterans (3)
Vietnam (1)
War & Warfare (412)
War & Warfare (41)
War Movies (4)
War Reporting (21)
Wardak Province (1)
Warriors (6)
Waziristan (1)
Weapons and Tactics (79)
West Point (1)
Winter Operations (1)
Women in Combat (21)
WTF? (1)
Yemen (1)

April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006

about · archives · contact · register

Copyright © 2006-2024 Captain's Journal. All rights reserved.