Dog Soldier

I think that the "genetically engineered super soldiers" are coming along in and almost reverse engineered fashion.

I recalled this from back in 2010 The Navy is Seriously into Sports and realized that though it's not a breeding program or mouth swabs and lab testing as the sports they favor will be populated by young men who are constitutionally inclined to participate.

Take a look at water polo players to see what a genetically engineered Navy SEAL might look like

that is really cool

As those of you who know me on facebook know I've got a jet black daschund named Roscoe whom I rescued

After sharing space with Roscoe for a while, walking and exercising him and all that jazz I discovered a number of things about that race of dogs outside the fact that they are pretty funny looking and are hard headed

They are savage hunters and are totally fearless within some very broad limits

Yes indeed, they were bred and developed to go right down a hole with a badger laying in wait

My point here is that the Dackel is a finely honed hunting beast who was developed based on performance rather than appearence.

So why is it that whenever we see some sort of genetically engineered uber-mensch they always look a certain way?

What I'd like to discuss is what exactly would a specialized genetic human being look like? It's not a problem to look at the body types of Olympic athletes and see what morphology predominates in particular sports.

Happy Birthday!

Now I am truly disturbed

I was out of town that weekend...I have witnesses!

Besides, I'd never let my beard grown out that much anyway

Too soon?

Kalishinkov to be buried in mud for a week, dug up and cleaned up then put back to work

I'm watching "how the earth was made" and listening to my daschund snoring

2014 shall have operation tax evasion... I mean, romantic wedding. Totally romantic wedding.

Remington Arms is already looking forward to 2020

Current Selection

Well I don't know what's the worst of the three theories I've seen.

A: the official reason is "There's just so much stress that they have to leave"

Which is sort of made to look stupid when ...

B: They get BIG BUCKS signing with PMC's...which is really not as great a deal as you'd think since you're going to be totally responsible for your own medical expenses and a variety of support functions that Uncle Suggah took care of....

C: My personal theory that they are creating military units comprised of individuals who hate the military

Possibly it's all 3

It's not at all difficult to find numerous incidents by the official "High Speed Low Drag" guys in the military and their PMC counterparts doing really sketchy stuff

It doesn't matter whether they are awesome or not. A few grams of lead drop them just any joe average.

 

Doesn't matter if it was an illiterate Afghani goatherder with an AK older than himself, who doesn't even know what "budget" means, pulling the trigger...

That's not really my point.

What I am getting at is that despite giving them all sorts of leeway in matters of discipline and in all probability overspending on those units that the majority of the ones who are selected don't seem to have the motivation to stick with it once it comes time to reenlist.

Perhaps rather than selecting for the mentally toughest that what in fact may be going on is that they're selecting for individuals who will put up with BS hazing rituals just like those inflicted in college fraternities. If that's in fact the case then slacking on military discipline is exactly the wrong thing to do

Oh, as for a few ounces of lead killing....one of the things that initially triggered my research along these lines is decorated ex-SEAL Chris Kyle getting his ass lit up by another vet at a TX shooting range. Seems that the deceased Mr Kyle thought that the way to treat PTSD was to take the sufferer around lots of guns and gunfire....

How stupid can you get?

For a number of years some terms that are thrown around sort of puzzled me. Terms you see tossed out in various FPS games nowadays as well

The funny thing about some of those terms is that the explanation is quite simple though not always obvious

Tier One

Go back to the history of Seal Team Six and you can find that right after being formed that "unit" had an ammo budget that exceeded the ammo budget for the entire Marine Corp.

That's the sort of thing that Tier One refers too.

It's a budget priority term.

STT was "hot" and could ask for ridiculous amounts funding for whatever they wanted.

That sort of funding and the lack of oversight that went with it was what led to Richard Marcinko, founder of STT, doing some prison time.

Operator:

Back when the US Army's Delta Force was origanized along the lines of the British SAS detachments of those soldiers would be assigned to work with CIA field operatives.

The CIA is civilian and did not want to admit to having "soldiers" working with them at that time. Nor did the CIA want to call them "Operatives"

So...Operators!

Really not that imaginative when you think about it.

Further along, if you study on selection of members you will find that the "Elite" (another screwy word really) Units reserve the right to essentially Shanghai soldiers/sailors who have a skillset that they are lacking and don't have the time to wait for an applicant or train on their own.

Case in point, I have a friend whose MOS was 98Gulf, a Cryptological Linguist. He thought that he'd joined the Army to get a cushy position sitting in a nice airconditioned office someplace.

Soon after his schooling ended he found himself being sent to Jump School

He has a lot of funny stories about that.

I've considered, over a few beers, asking him "So really, you were one of those nonexistant Tier One Operators, right?"

But he'd probably shoot me.

That brings me to my next ponderings....I understand why my friend didn't re-up and spent a few years working for a PMC before deciding that was even more FUBAR than his time in the Army. But what about the guys who volunteer?

It seems that retention is a HUGE problem for those units. The "selection" process is suppose to find guys who aren't going to quit, who can take the worst that you can dish out and keep on going but it seems the median time spent in service for them is less than 10 years. This is very bad because in order to even qualify you're going to have to have spent at least 4 years doing other stuff first and have at least 2 more years on your current enlistment.

So we have a situation where we have units with the highest spending, lowest military discipline with the theory being that letting guys grow long hair and combat beards is good for morale...and they quit.

What's the problem here? I know everyone, myself included, think that those sort of units are just awesome...but are they really? Are the "Tier One Operators" genuinely THAT godlike?

I can think back to a week long course at Chapmans Academy when Ray Chapman was still alive and getting a good laugh watching a couple of IPSC Sportman Class shooters win bets off of a couple of Navy SEALs during lunch break...

There are some .50 caliber air rifles around.

I've always been 'troubled' by the militarised-hobo aspect of Edgerunners...

 

I think of them as travelling 'consultants' who are just very, very hard to arrest, because to do so would unearth such a tangle of alliances and crime that it would embarrass everyone. Better to just bait them into a gunfight and shoot them in self defence.

 

I want them to be living a high life of golden credit cards, expensive toys and dramatic crashes to Earth...fear of failure & desperation makes them more pliant, the better for their Corporate overlord's will...

I fully agree here!

Briefly going back to the Chi-town mobsters. Those guy did live the high life because during their time it was all cas and even cooperation among police agencies was problematic and strained.

Good examples from literature for what I'd want would be Barry Eisler's characters from his series. John Rain, Dox, Delilah, Daniel Larison (scariest gay character imaginable) and Treven. Also Cort Gentry from Mark Greany's Grey Man novels.

All of these characters are examples of people who are connected and do live well...well most of the time.

Greany is informed in the PMC world from dealing with training centers that specialize in keeping up the skill set of "Tier 1 Operators" and Eisler is a former CIA field operative who interacted with Military Liason Elements.

With all due respect that beats the hell out of running a gypsy housepainting crew as a cover

Malek quite succintly points out the reality of being Zero

Society and its agents is aware that Zero's exist. They aren't really invisible, they will leave tracks, and not having those connections they'll be totally unprepared for what will ultimately drop on their heads.

All it takes is to be spotted ONCE.

To be Zero you have to be "lucky" all the time. The system only has to get lucky once.

Zeroing will work better as a punishment rather like "shunning" than as a lifestyle

Speaking of license plates and other official stuff consider the the Sovereign Citizen movement

In 2010 there was a shootout in West Memphis AR involving some of those types. What's most notable about them is that quite a few of them work very hard to become Zero's

Another incident I am aware of occurred in Louisiana

In game terms....how about a team of Edgerunners who serve as bounty hunters who track down and capture or kill Zero's such as the ones I've linked in the above stories?

Let me use an example of something I personally saw.

Friend of mines brother had a child with a stripper/waitress. He got custody eventually.

Now strippers live in a cash economy.

The stripper became ill and went to the emergency room and was subsequently booted out when they found that she couldn't pay.

She had colon cancer and died within a month in hideous pain.

My point is that being a Zero in no wise would ever mean that you really aren't somewhere in the system. It doesn't mean that some enfranchised "entitled" elite fear you at all.

They just don't give a flying freak at a rolling donut.

The Zero concept is really popular among those who imagine "going off the grid" which in its purest terms simply means living a miserable life sustenance farming in the mountains and growing a beard. In short pretending that the sole definition of freedom is humping a Kalashnikov around everywhere you go.

You'd only be able to remain a Zero until you were physically apprehended. Likely there'd be some protocal developed specifically for identifying Zero's

What I did was tear a bunch of the interstitial muscles holding my ribs together on the left side of my chest while moving a copier up a flight of stairs....

Intense chest pain and shortness of breath followed closely

I'm too old for that shit

Got one of these now --> Powermate LE-1

I wasn't hospitalized but I was in and out running tons of tests

Oh an arrest for making gunpowder as well!

Y'all are making me feel better about my fake heart attack of a month ago. I'm still miffed that the Nuclear Stress Test didn't give me any super powers though!