Grim's Hall

One of the Sharp Ones:

Uncle Jimbo, during an interview with Sgt. Boggs, lets the sergeant ask him a few questions back. Here's one of the exchanges:

What do you think when people call those in the military the “best and the brightest?” Since you are prior service I am expecting a different answer from you then say a politician might give.

I don't believe that the military, by and large represents our best and brightest, as it would normally be defined, I think it represents an excellent cross section of middle America. If you define best as offering to serve a greater good than yourself, then that certainly fits, but brightest?.....hardly. There were plenty of smart and even brilliant people I met, but there were also plenty of raging dumbasses, and even an entire class of people we termed oxygen thieves.

Well, OK, fair enough -- reference the LT from the previous post. But let me point you to one of the sharp ones: Specialist Phil Van Treuren of "Camp Katrina." One of the things about the Reserve and National Guard is that the "part-time soldiers" are often extremely qualified professionals in their civilian lives; I remember Marine Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Coulvillon praising some of his reservist enlisted Marines in Iraq, who were often very highly educated and able to bring their education and experience to bear on the tasks of the day.

I don't know exactly what Specialist Van Treuren does 'in real life,' but he's got a brain on him. That link is to his new "Weapons Cache Database," in which he's compiling DOD reports on captured war material:

Camp Katrina's 2006 Weapons Cache Databank, updated daily, now gives you the ability to check out a current list of MSM-ignored stories showing every bomb and gun our military takes out of terrorist hands this year. Check back daily for more stories proving that the U.S. military does much more than just kill people and break things!

Now, why didn't the DOD think of that? A tally of deadly weapons removed from the hands of professional killers is just the sort of thing to counterbalance the constant "Today, we passed X casualties" stories that the MSM loves to run. Good job, Spec.