caloriegram.

I just received a package from my friend Thorsten in Germany. Contents: thirteen pounds of Kinderschokolade, one of my vices acquired during childhood in the old Fatherland.

I notice they've replaced the smarmy kid that has graced the front of the box since I was running around in diapers. I guess his 1970s hairstyle was getting a bit dated, so now the boxes have a picture of an entirely different smarmy kid, this one with an updated haircut.

Also in the package: two pairs of the old-style German Army "Moleskin" olive green BDU pants. They look and feel just like the ones issued to me one cold January day in Weingarten, back in 1989. Like Thorsten says, they're half as expensive as 5.11 pants and last about twice as long. Come to think of it, I don't recall ever ripping a pair, and they take eons to wear out.

Ah, nostalgia. I feel like an old geezer whenever we talk about our time in the service, back when the Bundeswehr was staffed and equipped to fight WWIII against the Soviets in Fulda Gap. Those were the days...

Back then we had real rifles, yessir! G3 in 7.62x51mm, not those lightweight plastic Lego rifles they have nowadays! We were wearing olive green, not blotchy camo, and our helmets were made of steel, not that lightweight Kevlar stuff! Our Bundeswehr had twelve divisions, half of which were Panzer divisions stocked to the teeth with Leopard 2 MBTs, not the handful of Rapid Reaction "Team Germany: Peace Police" divisions they have now.

Now excuse me while grab my cane and chase some kids off my lawn...

long overdue honors.

LTC Bruce Crandall received his belated Medal of Honor today, for his actions during the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang Valley. He joins his wingman, Ed "Too Tall" Freeman, who received the Medal of Honor in 2001 already.

Together, Messrs. Crandall and Freeman medevaced 70 wounded soldiers from Landing Zone X-Ray with unarmed and unarmored UH-1 Hueys under intense fire, having to switch helicopters due to battle damage several times in the course of their day-long rescue operation.

public service announcement.

If you happen to receive "spiritual advice" from geese flying over your house telling you to stab your toddler granddaughter, you should probably just go ahead and disregard it...or maybe park yourself in the front yard with a Remington Wingmaster and give those birds some advice of your own.

Sick, sad world.

On a side note...who lets their certifiably nutso mother (who had been committed to the funny farm just weeks earlier) watch their toddler? That's some super parenting right there.

update.

Ha-haa!

Not only did I beat LawDog to the punch when blogging about the 70-ish vet who snapped a mugger's neck in Costa Rica, but I was also correct with my hunch about the vet's branch of service: he is a Marine.

Yeah, the other services are all highly trained professionals, and together they comprise the most powerful military in the history of civilization, but they don't emphasize snapping necks at the Air Force Academy or Great Lakes, if you know what I mean.

If you have any doubt, just go to a recruiting center that has offices for all services side by side, and take a look at the guys inside. Then ask yourself: which one of these guys looks and carries himself like he could snap my neck like a twig?

Eight out of ten times, the gentleman in question will be wearing a globe and anchor.

go, grandpa.

A retired serviceman in his Seventies recently joined in with some other elderly tourists who decided to not be food, fighting back against a trio of armed muggers which held up their tour bus in Costa Rica.

He put one of the young miscreants into a headlock, snapped his clavicle, and sent the other two fleeing. The hoodlum died at a hospital, and police are looking for the other two.

The local constabulary has no plans to file charges against the tourists, recognizing their right to self-defense.

It's not the weapon, it's the mindset.

Oh, and I don't know the service branch of the retired serviceman, but I have a pretty good idea...

the good old times...

...when they were taking out full-page ads for "assault rifles" in hunting magazines.

Here's a Colt ad for a "hunting rifle" that dates back right about to the decade when our pal Jim Zumbo started spilling ink as a gun writer.



Check out the price tag.

Oh, boy...if my local Gun Haus started selling factory new Colt AR-15 Sporters for $189.99 tomorrow morning, I'd buy as many of them as the minivan could hold, and my Dearly Beloved's anger at the credit card bill would evaporate at the sight of sweet, sweet profits as I turned all of them on Gunbroker for seven bills a pop. (All except for maybe a half dozen for the personal stash, that is.)

worst case of foot-in-mouth disease i've ever seen.

zumbo [zuhm-bow]: verb -boed, noun

-verb
1. to screw up royally in a public fashion; to commit a career-ending mistake in writing; to shoot off one's foot in a particularly gory way.

-noun
2. a clueless elitist in flannel; a turncoat; a living embodiment of Elmer Fudd.

From the looks of it, the next episode of "Hunting with Jim Zumbo" is going to be centered around dragging the old duck blind to the unemployment office. What kind of scattergun shot for the elusive "new job", Jim?

Update: It looks like Mr. Zumbo's employer and main sponsor wasted no time calling out the damage control teams to stave off the threatening boycotts. His blog has been taken offline, which is why the links above are now dead, and Remington announced that all business ties with Mr. Zumbo are being severed immediately.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.