Whomever continually passes gas in my row of office cubicles, please stop. It’s not only impolite, but makes us less efficient since we have to vacate the area for a short period of time while your noxious fumes are slowly evacuated through the building’s ventilation system. It’s rude and distasteful, so please don’t do it anymore.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I’m not sure who keeps doing it, but they need to be blanket partied. That’s how we’d handle it back in the Army. The last thing I want to smell is the air that was recently inside someone’s colon unless they ate potpourri for breakfast and washed it down with a vanilla bean frappuccino before crop dusting our row. That would smell pretty sweet, even after intestinal processing, don’t you think?

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
I’m not sure that eating air freshener would help with this problem, nor would drinking coffee since this person probably already does (don’t we all? LOL). I also don’t think blanket partying is the right answer, though I admit I’m not really sure what it means. But it sounds scary. This person just needs to stop.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I don’t think I just heard you laugh out loud since you’re only three cubes away from me. Working in such close proximity to each other is like being on an airplane-it’s very easy to get into everyone else’s business (and easy to smell each other’s business too) LOL (did you hear me actually laugh out loud just now?).
Blanket parties were the vigilante justice that kept the Midwest together in the formative days of this country, but if you don’t like that method, how about getting torches, pitchforks, and other farming tools and running the “eau de toilet offender” out of the office like Frankenstein? Would that be politically correct? Or should we just make a false claim of sexual harassment and get them fired the way Peter was run out of here?

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
I don’t think you used “eau de toilet” correctly. That’s French for perfume. And what did you mean by that crack about Peter? You’re being rude, Jim. I just want the smell of man ass around my workplace to cease.

There it is again! Whomever keeps doing it just did it again! I didn’t hear anything or see anyone walk by because I was typing this. Did you see anyone?

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I didn’t see anything just now except a polar bear pass by the northern window. This crop duster must be a ninja, so I’ll be sure to keep a suspicious eye out for anyone of Japanese descent. What makes you so sure it’s a man by the way? That sounds sexist. Can’t it be woman ass? Don’t females bubble the ghost occasionally? I know it’s not attractive to think about, but women take craps too, right? Unless you’re like a sloth and excrete waste through your skin as a defense mechanism to keep predators away (like Peter). In that case, you would be the perpetrator here, right?

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
This has gone too far. You’re being mean now. I’m easily emotionally traumatized. We have a problem that needs a solution. No one should have to put up with farters in the workplace. Even if this person just went to the stairwell to relieve pressure, that would be better than walking down our row and doing it.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I’m sorry if I caused you pain (isn’t that an 80’s song?). I sometimes forget how easily civilians are rattled, kind of like this reporter I knew in Afghanistan before he got injured (his name was Peter, ironically). I just want to help find the office flagellator before you’re permanently damaged.
It could be the person who’s releasing these air biscuits has Crones disease and is unable to regulate their bowel movements and is actually pooping his or her adult diaper at their desk. In that case it would be inconsiderate of us to label this person as a farter when in fact they’re sitting in a warm pile of last night’s corn and kielbasa, too ashamed to get up and go clean themselves. In that case they’d be the company pooper. What a nickname!

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
It doesn’t matter what we label him and the thought of someone sitting in their own…#2…is just sickening. Whether it’s solid, liquid, or gas, I don’t enjoy the odor this person is putting out and we don’t have to stand for it. If you have a solution to the issue, please say so. Otherwise, just let me get back to work.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
Didn’t we all sit in our own poop as toddlers? Didn’t you make stinkies? And if by “work” you mean getting back to your chatting on Facebook, then go ahead. I’m going to take action. I’m going to set a trap for this person. You know that chemical they put in pools that makes pee turn green? I’m going to find a chemical that does the same thing to the air. When this person walks by stinking up the place, the air around him will turn a fluorescent green. Then I’ll throw a fishing net on him (or one of those man-trapper nets like in Planet of the Apes) and then you nail him with a baseball bat until he stops moving.

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
Your propensity for violence is disturbing. First the blanket party comment then advocating we beat a man (okay…or a woman) until they stop moving? Are you sure you’re recovered from your time in combat? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with sitting in your row anymore.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
Recovered? Probably not. I once went to Dunkin Donuts and ordered a Boston Cream Pie doughnut, but instead I got a cream-filled chocolate one. It did terrible things to my insides. I tried to sit quietly in the store and enjoy it anyway, but the clerks kept going off in Arabic, saying something about the smell (of the doughnuts I assume) that was keeping the customers away. My friend (the one I told you about from Afghanistan) told them it was their own nasty body odor that made the place so foul, but they persisted. So I flipped out and beat them up pretty badly with a one-gallon milk carton (those things are heavy, huh?). It was really messy.

-Jim

–

MAIL DELIVERY SYSTEM FAILURE
YOUR MESSAGE HAS NOT REACHED THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS:

Betsy Flanders

THIS ACCOUNT IS NOW BLOCKED.

“Wait…trip flare? What the fuck are you doing with a trip flare?” I replied.

Where he got it isn’t important (especially since the statute of limitations does not apply to “acquired” military ammunition). The only thing you need to know is I had a friend in need. He was a fellow National Guardsman who was moving (after six years in school) and didn’t want to take the aforementioned trip flare with him. So he brought it to a bar to pawn it off on some dumbass. Instead he found me.

“Let me see that,” I said snatching it from his hands. As a recent graduate of Infantry Basic and AIT and (more importantly) a Senior in Army ROTC, I was practically Rambo. All I needed was a grenade pin to rip out with my teeth. And I found it.

“Dude…you want to get rid of this? That’s easy.” Before anyone could move, I had the pin out and tossed it toward the street in front of the bar. I momentarily pondered why everyone was diving for cover, but then figured halfway through the flight of the now white hot magnesium ball of fire slowly arcing over some poor schmuck’s parked car to bounce carelessly into Ohio Street. You see, trip flares light up the second the spoon is released, hence the name trip flare. It wouldn’t do much good with a delay because during the five seconds between the pin being pulled and the miniature sun lighting up, the enemy could be in your foxhole stabbing you in the face. Which is what I hoped someone would do to me when I saw an entire Kansas neighborhood lit up like ground zero of a nuclear blast as this trip flare settled in the middle of the street.

I have never been so amazed at the power of the Army Ordnance Corps as that very moment. Were Eddie Murphy on scene, he would have run around yelling, “Now that’s a fire! That’s a fire!” Five hundred meters down the road, a man walking his dog appeared and just before he fell to the ground shouting in pain and covering his eyes, I could see they were a deep shade of blue. A Stargate opened up on Ohio Street. Waiting for the darkness to reclaim the night was the longest sixty seconds of my life.

“What the fuck, dude?” my buddy yelled as he got up off the ground and turned his back to the boiling hot white dwarf as it melted the world around us. I had to cover my ass.

“You said you wanted to get rid of it right? Problem solved. Now buy me a beer.” He wasn’t buying anything.

“I wanted you to turn it in to the armory for me. You know, like amnesty. Not light up half of campus!”

“The cops are going to come down here for sure,” my other friend said. He was always the “glass is half empty” pessimist of the group, but he was probably right. The Lawrence PD frequently cruised this neighborhood and finding an illegally procured and expended piece of government hardware on a college kid was just the thing redneck cops lust over. Besides, the flare (STILL burning) was attracting the attention of a slew of sorority chicks who were moths to a flame when it came to shiny objects. Only an idiot would have stayed at the scene. Then again, only an idiot would have tossed a military-grade trip flare into the road in front of a bar.

“What is that?” a petite blonde asked, emerging from the bar shielding her eyes. “Did you do that?”

“I’ll hang here,” I said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

It’s an annual thing – Army units have to expend all remaining ammunition in their accounts by September 30th or they don’t get any the following year. The logic goes like this – if Uncle Sam gives you 10,000 rounds of ammunition and one fiscal year to shoot them off, then failing to do so means you don’t need 10,000 rounds of ammunition. You probably only need 9,000 rounds and therefore you get a smaller allocation the following year.

So to avoid getting their ammunition accounts cut, most commanders set up a range in late September to go gun crazy before the end of the fiscal year. When you think about it, that means most commanders are cheating the system to ensure they have more ammunition than they really need, which puts an unnecessary burden on the logistics of the Army, but that’s beside the point. This story is all about how one dumbass, butterbar Lieutenant (me) planned, coordinated, and executed one such range and nearly got a lot of people maimed doing so.

The sheer volume of the ammo we had to shoot was staggering. The breakdown went something like this:

15,000 rounds of 5.56 ball ammo for the M-16
10,000 rounds of 9mm ammo for the pistol
7,000 rounds of 7.62mm for the M60 machine gun
2,000 rounds of 40mm grenades for the M203 grenade launcher
8 hand grenades
15 claymore mines
1 AT-4 rocket

The first indication that this range was destined for lore were the elderly Korean civilians walking leisurely downrange. No matter how much our interpreter implored them to leave (through a bullhorn), they were intent on gathering up rare indigenous roots for some pagan ritual (or just to sell at a local market) and had no interest in petty American qualifications.

“Should I put a round downrange near them to get our point across?” an NCO asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

In hindsight, I’m an idiot. Thankfully this NCO was a good shot and the tracer round that flew over atashi’s (the Korean word for gentleman) head had the desired effect. He picked up his one-eyed dragon wheelbarrow and left quickly, probably to inform his local politician that Americans were trying to kill him.

Didn’t matter. The range was officially open.

The second indicator that this was noy your standard range was the fact that we had every weapon in our arms room on the same firing line. Normally we break up weapons systems into different ranges here in the U.S. The M16 has it’s own range, the M9 has a smaller one, and the M-60 has a longer one. Not in Korea. Realistic training is the name of the game there because hey…in combat would you split up your weapons into different zones? Hell no. So we had everything rocking at the same time, which was perfectly legal at this point. Major Good Ideafairy’s guidance was clearly being met – “Don’t come home with a single round of ammo.”

In hindsight, he was an idiot to tell me this because inexperienced Lieutenants don’t know how to interpret orders, just follow them. So I did exactly what he said to do. There was no way I was bringing a round home.

By mid day, it was hot and blowing off ammo as fast as possible made many barrel’s scorch. Someone joked about a barrel glow bright red from all the ammo we were shooting…until it wasn’t a joke. I’ve never yelled “CEASE FIRE!” so loud and flapped my arms so frantically in my 24-year career. I looked like Tiger Woods trying to deflect alimony suits.

With a ceasefire in effect (and no one injured), I figured it was time to walk down range and throw the 8 hand grenades we brought. Too bad only six of them exploded. Now I had a real problem. I couldn’t leave a dud on the range or some atashi like the previous one might step on it while collecting snipes. Luckily I had a stroke of brilliance.

“Let’s keep shooting and hope someone hits them.”

In hindsight…. this actually was a good idea, though I don’t recommend it. Within an hour of resuming fire I heard two distinct explosions downrange that could only be the two grenades that didn’t detonate. Cool. Now it was time for the big toe-poppers, but again, the Gods of EOD challenged me.

“There’s only two fucking clackers!” Sergeant First Class Snuffy said. We had fifteen claymore mines, but somehow the detonators had all disappeared. It was time for another stroke of innovative genius, but I was tapped having used mine for the day. Seconds later I heard one of the few phrases I hope to never hear again.

“Don’t worry sir. I know how to get rid of them,” Sergeant First Class Snuffy said. Major Good Ideafairy’s guidance echoed in my head again – “Don’t bring anything back,” so I nodded my head weakly. It was time for a red-barrel ceasefire anyway, so off he went with two other troops and a bag of mines. What could happen?

Thirty minutes later I was halfway through an MRE when my eyes wandered over a densely foliaged part of the range. There I beheld our masterful Sergeant First Class Snuffy waving his arm over his head. “What is he…” I said as I choked down a dehydrated beef patty. Suddenly he dove for cover and BOOM!!!

“Jesus Christ!” more than one of us yelled. While explaining himself to the Sergeant Major after lunch, we learned that Sergeant First Class Snuffy had daisy-chained all fifteen claymores to two clackers to detonate them. He told his two soldiers, “when you see me wave my hand and dive for my life, clack away.”

Oh. My. God.

At this point I figured I was too fucked to continue any semblance of a military career and started cutting my Lieutenant bar off my collar. But the mission wasn’t complete. There was still more ammo to expend and as much as I’d screwed up this range, I wasn’t a quitter. No one was dead after all. Just scared shitless. What we needed was a night fire!

In hindsight…we didn’t need a night fire. But we did it anyway. After all, tracers are really cool. Is there anyone who’s served in the Armed Forces who hasn’t ogled at the site of pretty red lights flying downrange at nearly the speed of sound and bouncing into the stratosphere? Who hasn’t wanted to shoot those same tracer rounds straight up into the air directly over the firing line?

Straight up!? Again I screamed ceasefire while flapping my arms, only to realize it was night and no one could see me. As I ran to the firing point where I’d just seen tracer rounds fired vertically over the line, I recognized my buddy (another Lieutenant) aiming his pistol straight up in the air and pulling the trigger as fast as he could.

“Dude!” I yelled. “That shit comes down! Aim downrange!”

“Alright,” he says before turning the danger knob up a thousand notches. “When are we gonna fire that AT-4?” he asks me.

AT-4? Oh mama.

Incredibly, though I offered it to every troop several times, no one wanted to fire the AT-4. I took this as them being so appreciative of me skillfully running this range that they wanted me to have the honor of firing it myself. In hindsight, the fear of grievous bodily harm coupled with the burning desire to abandon this range from hell was palpable. Nearly every man had had a brush with death at some point (there were other incidents that I’ll leave out for brevity) so firing off the biggest Roman Candle the Army made was somewhat daunting.

In hindsight, I will never fire that sonofabitch again. Being dark as five feet up a bull’s ass, there was no way I could have been expected to read the directions on the missile casing, despite the flashlight dangling from my web gear. So I simply aimed it downrange, checked the backblast area (which was not clear) and fingered the weapon for the BOOM!!

“Those triggers are sensitive, aren’t they?” Lieutenant Colonel Bearclaw, my Battalion Commander asked me two days later while I stood at attention in front of his desk. I would have responded had I heard him, but the ringing in my ears was persistent. There was not a hint of sarcasm in his voice, so I had the impression I was Phooked.

“Let’s see,” he started. “Sniping at a civilian, destroying two weapons, firing dud-producing rounds, shooting at hand grenades, firing up but not down range, daisy chaining mines together, and firing an anti-tank weapon without clearing the backblast. Are you really even surprised this happened?”

“Uh…,” I stammered. “Yes?”

“Not you,” he replied. “You.” He glared at Major Good Ideafairy with the white hot intensity of a million suns. When I realized who he was addressing, I leaned ever-so-slightly to my left so he could get a clear shot at him.

“Sir?” Good Ideafairy replied.

I’ll never forget Bearclaw’s response.

“He did exactly what you told him to do-shoot off every round. And though the ends don’t justify the means and he is the dumbest moron in stupidville (his actual words), he at least showed creativity in accomplishing his mission and didn’t let petty obstacles, like civilians in the line of fire, stop him. I hold you responsible. You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”

I was a cartoon character leaving a puff of smoke and a dangling hat behind me.

Major Good Ideafairy didn’t say much to me for the rest of our time in Korea. We all live with some regret and in hindsight, I was his.

The martial arts have been the backbone of fighting for thousands of years and Ranger Up’s Kelly Crigger has captured the true essence of these fighting styles better than anyone, anywhere, anytime. Okay, maybe not, but he did write a nine part series on the most effective martial arts for MMA and published them in FIGHT! magazine. With special permission from FIGHT! they’re reprinted here exclusively for the Rhino Den. Click a link to read an article.

The Art of Eight Limbs – The History of Muay Thai

Maximum Efficiency, Minimum Effort – The History of Judo

All Powers – The History of Pankration

Defend the Motherland – The History of Sambo

The Intercepting Fist – The History of Jeet Kune Do

The Empty Hand – The History of Karate

The Way of Yielding – The History of Jiu Jitsu

Catch as Catch Can – The History of Catchwrestling

The Sweet Science – The History of Boxing

Ranger Up started sponsoring MMA fighters in 2006, but only the ones with military service under their belts. Since then we’ve sponsored over 40 guys and still maintain a steadfast policy that only veterans and active duty get our money. Check it out.

Read the full story here

While the bulk of this story comes from Crigger, when alcohol is involved we at Ranger Up like to infuse many perspectives to ensure a truthful recount.

For once this story isn’t about an act of incongruence by a member of Ranger Up. Instead it’s about an act of sheer stupidity enacted upon us by a vertically challenged apoplectic douchebag.

There we were, finishing up an average night of Rangeriffic partying in Vegas after UFC 114 at the Mandalay Bay’s Foundation Room with James McSweeney and MC Hammer when a little shit hit the fan. We were hungry, but the closest sustenance was 41 floors below us in the lobby. With our go-mugs in hand we stepped into the elevator along with a few other party goers when things went amuck.
I had not been paying attention much at this point, as I was enjoying the terrific buzz coursing through my body.

Reed’s Perspective

From my vantage point, the first exchange started when we piled into the elevator. Someone else said (maybe one of the girls) “are we all trying to fit in one elevator” and Lex said to no one in particular something like “yeah, it’s going to be a little scary.” (i.e. There were some big boys in the pack and it was going to be tight.)

Just as Lex had entered, then turned around to face front as the doors closed, Napoleon was already nose to nipple on Lex and says “Oh yeah? What’s gonna be scary? Who’s scared?” There was a lot of silence in between the first few comments, primarily due to the fact that no one realized who or why this guy kept speaking to an elevator full of strangers. On the 3rd or 4th comment he spit directly at Lex was when everyone in the elevator realized that some elevator midget tossing might be on the docket.

Moments before the Douchepocalypse.

Back to Crigger

Nick, chipper after a night of partying, casually says to the short, bald, Steve Austin wannabe, “It’s all good man. No need to be angry tonight! You’re going home with three girls.” Most people would have taken this at face value since his intent was to say, “lighten up dude.” But not this guy. He was chemically unbalanced and listed severely on the side of roid rage. If ever the term Napoleon Complex fit a small man, this was him…with a bottle of gay juice. And Nick had inadvertently just pushed his wee little button.

Due to imbibing on bourbon (and not really caring about anything other than my growling stomach) I must admit that I didn’t catch the next few words that were exchanged until Frodo Baggans (sans the hair) looked the hulkingly large Lex McMahon in the face and said, “You scared?”

That caught my attention. This runt had 235 pounds of Lex in front of him, Nick’s square 5’8” by 5’8” physique flanking him, and me (my nickname is Thor) behind him. Professional fighter Dale Hartt held the opposite flank while Reed Kuhn took notes for the eventual police report. Somewhere 40 floors up Matt Phinney’s spidey senses tingled (until his drunken brain told him it was a false alarm). In their hotel rooms Tommy Batboy and John Tackett felt a disturbance in the force, jumped out of bed, and loaded their Armageddon arsenals. In short, this guy was surrounded and facing his own personal Chosin…and Chesty Puller he wasn’t!

But there he stood talking shit. He had to look nearly straight up to see Lex as my hands slowly positioned for a rear naked choke in the case that he decided to strike. Nick snuck a leg in between his for a Judo throw as Dale Hartt pulled a ninja hood over his face. So props to this guy for not backing down. But the sheer insanity of the force he faced meant only one thing – he was a complete idiot.

“You don’t want this,” Lex said calmly. Still he pressed forward. His girlfriend stepped in between us. Still he jacked his jaw. The elevator door opened and I alerted security to avoid a massacre. Still he talked shit. What was it with this dude? Was he brain dead? Or was he the Andy Kauffman of pugilism? For a second I wanted to alert a special ed teacher that one of his students had wandered off without his helmet. But I thought better of it and for the most part we kept our cool and tried to walk past him to the nearest restaurant. Nick was getting bored and said, “we’re done here man, have a good night.”

Yes...these look like good guys to fight...

Dan Ostrower’s Perspective

I had taken the next elevator and was rushing to catch up to the guys. The door opens at the bottom and I am happy to find Nick standing by the entrance “waiting” for me with a new “friend”.

I notice the rest of the guys standing around the perimeter hanging out, a mini-strike force consisting of raw power (Krigger & Lex) a quick reactionary force (Dale)and my co-embed Reed keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings since I took a quick break upstairs.

I walk up to Nick, drink in hand, with a solid buzz and absolutely no clue what I was walking into. In other words- fat, drunk and stupid.

At this point I find myself standing side by side with Nick and a drunken Frodo Baggins look alike that I presume to be another facebook fan or friend that I haven’t yet met.

As the dialogue continues I notice said Hobbit becoming increasingly belligerent towards Nick, and Nick’s complete disregard for such animosity adding further fuel to the fire.

In light of Nicks complete and utter calm and the hilarity of the proposition, I continued to knock down my drink as we start walking towards the restaurant with the now increasingly irate Hobbit in tow.

With our chosen restaurant in sight and the Strike-force ready to get their feed on, Nick made a quick overture of reconciliation to end the ass-clownery from the Hobbit and hopefully call it night.

Nick’s Perspective

I want to eat. I have done nothing to this guy, have no idea why he wants to fight me, and don’t care. Eat then sleep. That’s my plan. I’m pretty much in Ranger School mode.

Baggins blocks my fucking path. “You think you can take me, don’t you?”

“Nope. I want nothing to do with this. You look like a tough dude.” I lied, giving him his eighteenth out of the night. “I’m really sorry for whatever it is I did. Have a great night.”

“Oh, you think you can leave that easily? You can’t,” the Hobbit adds, stroking his precious.

I’m done. I try to walk around him. He blocks my path.

I look at the bouncer. “Dude, do you see this?” He nods.

I take a step back. Baggins moves a step forward. I take another step back. No we’re cha-chaing.
My aggravation level is rising fast. I’m not 18 anymore, so I am perfectly willing to “back down” to the aggressor to not get in a fight, but an infantryman has his limits and after the military and 22 years in combat sports my instinct when I am met with aggression is to destroy.

I am fighting that instinct with everything I’ve got when Reed walks over to help out.

Reed’s Perspective

Thinking Nick must somehow not be getting the logic of the situation across to Frodo, I walk over and point out to the guy that he is really the only person there who wants to fight (since he kept repeating the same questions towards Nick and Lex : “You wanna go right here?”) He also continuously offered up mindless rhetoricals like “you think cause you’re big you can take me?” or “you think cause you got your boys you can take me?” Never liking to leave a question unanswered, at least three times I point out that if by some miracle he bested a thousand pounds of ex-military beefcake and 170 pounds of ex-military and professional fighter Dale Hartt, he would surely still spend the rest of the night in a hospital or a jail. “The only way you sleep in your bed tonight is to just leave them alone,” I emphasize. Amazingly, he perseveres. “I’ll fight anyone. I’ll fight everyone.”

Back to Crigger

Blah Blah Blah is all I heard Reed say. I was tired of this. We were all too weary (and yes, drunk) to lose our cool, especially knowing that once we did, the situation would get fugly at ludicrous speed. Nick stopped answering, but Baggins continued to close the distance between them. His girlfriend (the only voice of reason on the Hobbit’s side) got in between them and tried to defuse the situation, but Frodo stuck his hand past her and poked Nick.

“You only want to fight because you got all these guys with you.”

Oh no, you didn’t.

Nick suddenly had a crazy look in his eye. Troops and barn animals shudder at this gaze. “No…I want to fight you because you’re a fucking faggot!” he erupted.

Saw that one coming.

From this blog (and Facebook) you may only know Nick as a drunken rowdy when in reality he’s a professional guy with a cool head. But block his path, physically prod him, and accuse him of cowardice and the hyperlocks that keep him in check are off. Even a lethal cocktail of a Ritalin and Valium won’t stop his Italian blood from boiling over. If it weren’t for the uber bad security dude holding him back, Nick would have shined the Mandalay Bay’s floor with Napoleon’s pancreas (I prefer the spleen, but Nick’s still a little young). I give the security guy all the credit for avoiding a bloodsport because the rest of us would have merely watched. Dude deserved it.

Then Nick served up the ultimate insult. “Here’s my card,” he said. “When you sober up in the morning, if you still want to do this, call me. We’ll fight in a cage. Fair and square.”

I openly laughed. Lex heckled. Dale Hartt let out a “daaaaammmn.” The dude’s girlfriend stepped up and took Nick’s outstretched card and said, “you hunka hunka burning love.” It was epic. Only a challenge to have a dance-off would have been more hysterical. He had no recourse but to back away, but not before Nick reached over, shook Frodo’s hand, and delivered the backhanded coup de grace.

“Looking forward to your call.”

At that point there simply was no point in taking anything seriously.

Until ten minutes later when we stepped into Raffles diner and Tommy and Tackett crashed through the ceiling, rappelled to the ground, and violently aimed mini guns at everyone in the place screaming “Bad boys, bad boys..whatcha gonna do!” That’s when things got awkward.

People ride bikes across country for a charity all the time, so why is Nico special? Because she’s a veteran suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury who spent three and a half years learning to walk again after a disagreement with an IED in combat. Did we mention that her bicycle is a hand bike too? That’s straight up bad ass, so when met her at the Face of America ride in Gettysburg (after she’d ridden 110 miles) we felt we had to help her cause.

Take a moment and check out Nico’s crusade at www.nicolettemaroulis.com. You can donate or just keep track of her progress across country. Maybe she’ll be passing through your town and you can share a beer or ride alongside for a while. She’s easy to spot. She’ll be wearing Ranger Up shirts and a “Ranger the Fuck Up ” bracelet…and doing just that.

I want to bitch about the horrible over-congested traffic in DC, but when I realize I don’t have to flinch at every pile of rocks on the side of the road for fear of one being an IED, I become more tolerant.

I want to bitch about my 2-mile run time getting slower and slower with each PT test, but then I see a group of Walter Reed amputees riding their hand bikes 110 miles and suddenly revel in the blessing of bipedalism.

I want to bitch about the waitress who brought me a warm beer, but stop short when I remember all the troops willing to low crawl through Fallujah for a drop of boiling hot cereal malt beverage.

I want to bitch about not remembering where my keys are, but then I run into Nicolette Mauroulis and Lee Stuckey who can’t remember their names some days because of a bad encounter with an IED and realize forgetfulness is part of being human. TBI is not.

I want to bitch about not getting enough sleep, but stop when a vet tells me about the cocktail of drugs he has to take just to keep the nightmares at bay.

I want to bitch about getting sent to attend a last-minute conference in New Jersey, but I think you know why I won’t. I know a few thousand guys who would trade Helmand Province for Jersey any day.

When it’s all said and done, I want to bitch about the easy targets; the pampered athletes who transform into whining poopface toddlers on the field of play and irresponsible jackasses when they step off it.

As Andrew Brining on the Bleacher Report says – “It’s literally impossible to go more than 30 seconds in an NBA game without seeing a 6′8″ super-freak with granite shoulders on the verge of tears following a borderline tweet from the ref. They’ve even taken to blogging their feet stomping and fist-balling. Most coaches are a call or two away from sideline apoplexy.”

But as much as I want to bitch about those douchebags, I still can’t. All the sordid tales of Tiger Woods and Ben Rothlisberger sexcapades have become so commonplace that bad behavior is almost expected among our professional athletes and respect for them has become an outdated concept. There are exceptions (like Drew Brees who has visited troops overseas 9 times), but the glaring reality is that an American football star running a dog-fighting ring shocked us a few years ago, but now wouldn’t be surprising.

As hard as it is to admit, their antics are part of being American and when I see the troops enjoying games broadcast on AFN into Iraq and Afghanistan, I realize that no matter how bad our athletes are, at least we have some. Even though they’ll never understand why some of us flinch at a pile of rocks on the side of the road, wake up with night tremors, leave post-its to remember our names, or deploy year after year to ensure they have the freedom to play their reindeer games back here, I’ll still watch my favorite teams. If that’s all I have to bitch about then life ain’t too bad.

Now if someone would open a combination sports bar-gun range.

I joined the Army anyway, not really knowing why except that my dad and step dad were both Soldiers and I looked up to them. By that reasoning I figured the military must have been key to developing good people. It wasn’t until basic training that I experienced the thrill of leading Soldiers and knew this was the right place for me. Taking charge was what I craved even if I wasn’t fortunate enough to be an Infantryman. I loved the Army and all it stood for.

As my career progressed it was all about adventure, jumping out of planes, and vanquishing the enemies of my country (too bad that last part never happened in the 1990’s). It wasn’t until after 9/11 that I discovered I was part of something bigger than myself that would have in impact on generations to come, which is what I’ll tell my sons when they’re deciding whether or not to join up.

So how about you? Why did you join the military?

We’ll arbitrarily give away free t-shirts to the best answers, so post away!

Entertainers exist (as their job title implies) to entertain us. They’re supposed to sing and dance and act and make us forget about our woes and in return we pay them money so they can stay off welfare. But at some point along the way, the entertainment community convinced themselves that they are important enough to make policy and change the world (ever seen Martin Sheen cover himself in fake blood outside Fort Benning? Sad). The vast majority are straight up narcissists who love their flawless mirror images and have lost sight of the relationship between entertainer and fan. They exist for us, not the other way around.

So who’s pissed me off this time? Sarah McLachlan. More specifically, Sarah McLachlan’s record label. You see, I invited the Canadian siren to a formal ball honoring the partnership of American and Canadian Special Forces (called Menton Day) because I thought she may be interested in singing the national anthems of each country to mark the event. It was for the troops and since we’re living in an era of abundant military support, it should have been a no-brainer. I followed up the invitation with a polite phone call three weeks after sending it, which I didn’t think an impertinence to anyone. By the time I got through to Alpha Prime records, all I got was voice mail. So I tried again the next day. Another voice message. I waited two more days to call again, thinking myself to be a burden if I kept calling daily. I got the voice mail once again. I knew I was calling busy people, but by now I was feeling a bit blown off. I’m not exactly sitting around with nothing to do all day except call a singer’s errand boys to see if she would play our gig, but it’s important to my organization, so I persisted. I called a fourth time and finally got ahold of a female who claimed to represent Sarah. Elated, I described my situation, asking if Sarah would sing at our function. The response:

“You know you’re calling a record label, right?”

“Excuse me?” I replied.

“This is a recording company you’re calling. You do realize how busy we are and that you’re asking her to sing for soldiers at no cost, right?”

Bruce Banner’s “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” echoed in my head. Rambo’s gigantic meaty hand crushed the phone to my ear. Were I an X-Man the phone lines would have melted spontaneously. Before I went 1955 and burned her satanic rock ‘n roll records in the nearest public square, I quickly went through the top five responses in my head:

5. Busy? I’m guessing you’ve got a crock-pot full of moose penis that you have to tend to. My bad.

4. That’s great public relations-ridicule the trained killer in the room. What’s the address of your building again?

3. If you represented those Canadian idols, Bob and Doug Mackenzie, I would feel bad about bothering you, but we’re talking about the chick who coordinated that man-hating Lesbian Fest, Lillith Fair.

2. If it wasn’t for soldiers like us,Canada would be a Soviet Republic full of socialist degenerates eating Borscht, singing Das Kapital, and learning to goosestep on the weekends.

1.The fact that you’ve mastered your opposing thumbs is a triumph of evolution. Now use one of them to turn the “Bitch” dial down a few thousand notches and be productive.

I went with response #1 and was hung up on.