ArizonaTeaGuy1979

A&P Aircraft Mechanic, AIM teachscale modeler (1/35 armor), reader, especially the Deathlands Saga and the Outlanders by James Axler, and all around dog lover.

[Larry Alex Taunton @LarryTaunton]

The Greeks suffered under Muslim rule for ~400 years.

They remain deeply embittered that their holy city, Constantinople (Byzantium/Istanbul), remains under the Muslim yoke.

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

LMAO

Germany banned Citizen Vigilante so Elon posted the entire movie 😂

Germany really doesn’t want you to see this!👇

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

Communism has left far more graves than gardens.

It begins by promising heaven. And it always ends by rationing bread.

Put simply, Communism is what happens when envy acquires political power.

Communists are just the incels of capitalism.

They must be defeated.

[Sherri Unfiltered™ @FFT1776]

This brutality has to end.

They’re going to k*ll or permanently injure her.

Sue the league.

Let’s hear it … is a one-game suspension enough?

Justice. #caitlinclark

[🇺🇸 Bull Moose American 🇺🇸 @BullMooseMemes]

Immodest White women are too braindead to see it:

Your tiny bikinis at the beach, butt-crack leggings at the gym, and sports bras in the grocery store only exist because Christianity built a high-trust society that tames men and shields sluts from consequences.

Try that shit in a Muslim country, Africa, Hindu, or any Third World shithole, you’d be harassed, beaten, or worse within minutes.

Oh wait, you voted in tandem to IMPORT those very same people.

You mock the very faith and men protecting your degeneracy while sawing off the branch you sit on.

Peak entitled, suicidal stupidity.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

When George Custer died at Little Bighorn in 1876, his wife Libby was 34.

She had followed him everywhere. Lived in tents on the open plains. Slept in forts on the edge of nowhere. Then in one afternoon he was gone, and she was a widow with almost no money and a husband whose name was already being dragged through the mud.

Most women in 1876 would have remarried. She had offers. She turned every one down.

Instead she picked up a pen. Three books. Lecture tours. She built his legend with her own hands.

And she defended him so fiercely that the officers who blamed Custer for the disaster just kept quiet. They were not afraid of the Army. They were afraid of her.

So they waited. Year after year, for the widow to finally pass so they could talk without her tearing them apart in print.

She made them wait almost 57 years.

Libby Custer died in 1933, four days short of 91, having outlived nearly every man who ever doubted her husband.

She is buried right next to him at West Point.

That is what loyalty looks like.

[The Buddy CSM @TheBuddyCSM]

I think the biggest “high” from the military that I’ll never be able to chase down again is that feeling during an exfil.

Specifically rotary wing exfil.

Firefights were intense, but not a feeling I wish to chase.

>Calling up “Post assault procedures complete, moving to exfil.”

>Rangers in PZ posture.

>Hearing the birds inbound.

>An MH-47 coming in hot on a strobe and a bouncing IR laser with gnats ass precision.

>Hunkering down against the rotor wash and moving through that point were the exhaust feels like a hair dryer on your face with Doc to the ramp to establish a choke point.

>Touching every Ranger’s shoulder as I count them on the bird.

>Hooking into the floor, plugging the aircraft’s internal comms into my Peltors and reporting eagles/crows to the crew as we go wheels up.

>Knowing our part is complete and slowly falling asleep to wake up to blue taxiway lights an AAR and mid-rats (hopefully).

I will forever miss that feeling.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A gas station in Texas, called Buc-ee's. A hundred and twenty fuel pumps. A building the length of two villages. A grinning beaver, three stories tall, painted on the wall, holding a corn snack and saluting the parking lot.

I read the signs three times.

This was not a gas station. This was a temple, and the bathroom was its inner shrine.

A man in a cowboy hat named Hank was refueling beside me. He saw me bow to the beaver and lit up.

"Hey buddy, first time at Buc-ee's? You came for the bathroom, didn't you?"

"...I came to relieve myself."

"Yeah. Same thing. Wait till you see it. We got two awards. Two years running."

"...I will pay my respects first."

"You don't have to pay nothin', it's free."

"I am not paying with money, Hank. I am paying with respect."

Hank stopped. He looked at me, slowly. "Buddy, I have been coming to this Buc-ee's every Tuesday for nine years. I drive an hour out of my way. Nobody has ever said that to me about the bathroom, but it is exactly correct."

A trucker at the next pump, named Carl, leaned out of his cab. He had been listening. "Hank's right. I run this route twice a week. Always stop here. Always."

I followed the painted arrows inside. RESTROOMS. I rounded the corner. I stopped.

Sixty stalls in a single row. Marble underfoot. An attendant in a yellow shirt wiping a counter that was already clean. Two framed awards on the wall: CLEANEST RESTROOM IN AMERICA.

I removed my hat. I bowed at the threshold. I stayed bowed for a long second.

A boy of perhaps seven, clutching a brown paper bag, watched me bow from beside the sink. He raised his bag with both hands.

"Sir. Beaver Nuggets."

"...A bag of small valors named after the beaver."

"...What?"

"Nothing. They are the offerings of this temple."

"They're really good. Get a bag."

His mother, behind him, smiled apologetically. "He has been talking about them all week. I told him we would get one bag. He has already negotiated me up to three."

I used the facility. I washed my hands. I bowed to the attendant in the yellow shirt, who nodded back the way temple keepers nod at a pilgrim who has performed the rite correctly. I returned to the great hall.

I bought six bags of Beaver Nuggets. The cashier, a kind woman named Becca, rang them up with a smile.

"Big day, huh? You drove a ways to get here?"

"...I drove from New Jersey."

"Oh honey. That's a haul."

"...I will return next Tuesday. Hank told me he comes Tuesdays."

Becca paused. She looked at Hank through the window, who was still by his pump, waving at me. She looked back at me.

"Honey, I have been at this register for four years. People drive in here from Arkansas, from Oklahoma, from Louisiana, on a Tuesday, because of the bathroom. You are not the strangest thing I have heard this week. But you are the kindest. Drive safe now."

I walked out with my six bags. Hank was leaning on his pickup, finishing a cup of coffee. "See you next Tuesday, buddy."

"...Until Tuesday, Hank-san."

A temple does not visit you. You visit it. And the temple, in its kindness, places a man named Hank at the gate every Tuesday, so that the pilgrim is not, on his second visit, entirely alone.

I have visited the bathroom in Texas. I will visit it again.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

Ever since my posts started going viral in America, one thing has honestly surprised me the most:

How kind Americans have been.

When something goes viral on Japanese X, you usually get flooded with people hunting for mistakes, criticizing every little detail, or pointing out tiny errors.

Here, though, so many people simply enjoy the joke, encourage me, and say kind things.

I'm not saying everyone is like that.

But I have to admit...

I'm starting to genuinely love Americans. 🇺🇸❤️🇯🇵

[Art @ZarkFiles]

Communism through (my) ages:
1) When I was 15, a teacher told me "It isn't as bad as they say, and makes a lot of sense."
2) At about 19, college friends, "Socialism isn't communism."
3) At 20, on meeting my grandfather-in-law, "They are evil. We escaped in 1949."
4) At 30, "China is a wonderful developing Democracy"
5) At 35, I was sent to communist China on business. It was a crowded, smelly, dirty, factory of despair and hopelessness. This I saw with my own eyes.
6) At 36, "China doesn't count. Successful socialism is in northern Europe."
7) I moved to northern Europe when I was 40. It was much nicer than China, but also felt like I was living in the past. I had to wait 6 months for a hernia operation.
8) When I was about 45, the migrant crisis began. The socialist/globalist/pacifist allowed them entry into every country, regardless how many crimes they committed along the way. Just 20 minutes from my house, in Calais, I was shocked to see migrants jumping onto trucks, breaking open the doors, scattering the contents across the highway, then climbing in. They went through the Chunnel and got out in England.
9) At 52, the soft socialism around me had transformed into globalism. I was told I had to call people by their preferred pronouns, though it was a lie, and even if I didn't know what the preferences were. I quit.
10) I returned to the US, and am now 60. "Socialism" is no longer a dirty word here. People openly espouse the virtues of it. Politicians run as socialists and win.

Socialism has taken many forms, from the Bolshevism of Russia, to the CCP in China, the Nazis in Germany, Fascists in Italy, and the many forms of it found in Latin America. It is one of the two most destructive ideologies on earth. It is designed to deprive, despirit, and murder everything that comes in contact with it.

Socialism is a great lie at every level. It helps no one, not even those who benefit the most. This is because the cost is the imposition of one's will on everyone else, and that destroys the soul of the usurper and the life of the oppressed.

Socialism always fails on its own, but only after destroying almost everything in its train. It can also be conquered. Those are the options.

[J&L Historical @Jason_R_Burt]

In the late 1950s, funding dried up for the building of the USS Arizona Memorial.

By 1960, less than half of the roughly $500K needed had been raised & the project that would honor the 1,177 sailors & Marines killed on board was in real danger of never being built.

Enter The King, Elvis Presley.

Fresh out of the Army & looking for a meaningful way to reconnect with the public, Elvis heard about the stalled effort.

His manager, Colonel Tom Parker, saw an opportunity, but Elvis didn’t need much convincing because the cause hit close to home for the patriotic star who had served his country.

He agreed to headline a benefit concert at Bloch Arena at Pearl Harbor.

On March 25, 1961, Elvis took the stage before a packed house of 4,000 fans. Tickets ranged from $3 to a whopping $100 for ringside seats.

There were no free tickets, not even for the performers. The show featured Elvis alongside other entertainers, & every penny went straight to the memorial fund.

The night was a smash. Gross ticket sales alone topped $52K, surpassing the original $50K goal.

With additional donations, concessions, & a personal contribution from Elvis & the Colonel, the total raised that single evening pushed over $60K. That is roughly $567K in today’s dollars.

Also important, the publicity reignited national interest. Donations began pouring in from across the country.

Thanks in large part to that one concert, the USS Arizona Memorial was completed and dedicated on Memorial Day 1962.

Elvis didn’t just sing that night. He helped turn a stalled tribute into a lasting national shrine.

All hail the King. 👑🎸🇺🇸

[Sandy Petersen 🪔 @SandyofCthulhu]

Starting around 2001, I was given the job of starting up an African expansion for Age of Empires 2 (yes I know they have one now).

Some guys told me firmly that there were NO wars or empires in Africa before the evil colonizers showed up. I demurred, and pointed out many cases of native African kingdom-building. Ghana, Songhai, Mali, Ethiopia, Kongo, Zimbabwe, etc.

They literally scoffed and smugly said, "The Africans were better than that." Because their self-righteousness prevented them from seeing facts.

My argument was that Africans were human, and had human goals, human virtues, and human flaws. They just flat-out refused to believe it.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A Five Guys in a strip mall. I had heard the burgers here were honest. A samurai goes where the food is described in the smallest number of words.

At the door, a barrel.

A wooden barrel, knee-high, full of raw peanuts in the shell. A small wooden scoop. A sign:

FREE PEANUTS - HELP YOURSELF

I stopped.

I read it three times.

In my country, when a host places food at the threshold of his house and tells you to take it, he is testing whether you understand the difference between hospitality and theft. The wrong man takes too much. The wrong man takes nothing. The right man takes a small handful, bows, and proceeds.

I took a small handful. I bowed to the barrel.

I proceeded.

At the counter, a young man, name tag MARCUS.

"Hey man, welcome to Five Guys, what can I get you?"

"...I have taken your peanuts."

"Yeah, that's what they're there for."

"What is the obligation."

"...The what?"

"What do I owe."

"Nothing, man. They're free. Help yourself."

"...Help yourself."

"Yeah."

"Marcus. In my country, when a stranger is told to help himself, it is a kindness given to a man who is far from home. I have not yet introduced myself. You have already addressed me as a man who is far from home. You are correct. I am."

Marcus smiled the way you smile at someone you have decided you like.

"Hell yeah. What can I get you?"

"A cheeseburger."

"Want any toppings? They're free."

"...Free."

"Yeah. Lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mushrooms, jalapeños, green peppers, mayo, mustard, ketchup, BBQ, A1, hot sauce, relish. All free. Bacon's the only thing extra."

I had not been read a list this long since I was made to recite the names of my ancestors.

"...You are giving a man as many options as he has weapons."

"Pretty much. What you want?"

"All of them."

"All the way?"

"All the way."

"You got it. Fries?"

"Yes."

"Regular or Cajun?"

I stopped.

The word landed somewhere inside me that had been arranged, recently, by a different meal.

"Marcus. Cajun is a people. From Louisiana."

"...Yeah?"

"I have eaten with them. They served me crawfish on newspaper. They called me brother. I did not know I had brothers in that country."

"Damn, sir. That's beautiful."

"Then bring me their salt. I will not refuse the seasoning of a people who fed me on a table without plates."

"Cajun fries it is."

"Size?"

"The smallest. I am one man."

"You got it. Little Cajun."

I paid.

I sat at a small table by the window with my brown paper bag. The bag was heavier than I expected. The boy at the counter had told me, as I picked it up, "bag's heavier than you think, sir." I had taken this as a piece of philosophy. It was, I now understood, a literal report.

I opened the bag.

The Cajun fries were in a cup. The cup was inside the bag. Around the cup, the bag was full of more fries. Loose. Spilling. As if the cup had given up trying to contain itself, and the bag had taken the overflow without complaint.

I lifted the bag and looked at Marcus across the room.

"...Marcus."

"Yes sir?"

"You give the man who asked for little, more."

"Yeah, that's how we do it."

"That is the most American sentence I have heard this week."

He laughed. I looked at the bag again.

I lifted one fry. The seasoning came off red on my fingertips. I ate it.

I had to set the cup down.

This was not the salt of the Cajun people. This was the war salt of the Cajun people. The men who had fed me on newspaper had been holding back. Marcus was not.

My eyes filled with water. Not from feeling. From paprika.

I lifted the burger. Two patties. Lettuce, tomato, onion, mushrooms, jalapeños, green peppers, pickles, mayo, mustard, ketchup, BBQ, A1, hot sauce, relish, and cheese. The thing was a small mountain wrapped in foil. I held it with both hands, the way a man holds the head of his enemy after a long battle, with respect and a small amount of fear.

I ate.

The bun was sweet. The patty was salty. The peanut oil it had been cooked in was, by some quiet miracle, present in everything. I was eating, I realized, a burger that had been raised on the same oil the fries had been raised on, and that oil had been raised on the peanuts in the barrel at the door, which were free, which were the same peanuts that were now still in my coat pocket because I had not eaten them yet.

I stopped chewing.

"...The barrel. The fries. The burger. They are all one animal."

The man at the next table, a man in a work shirt with the name CARLOS embroidered on it, who had been eating fries with one hand and looking at his phone with the other, looked up.

"Cajun fries, huh? Those'll get ya."

"Carlos. I have been gotten."

"Right? Best in the game."

"I yield. I have been ambushed by salt three times in one meal, and twice by people I did not see coming."

Carlos laughed, the small full laugh of a man who is finally understood.

"Welcome to Five Guys, man."

I finished. I finished everything. The cup. The loose fries. The burger. Even the small flecks of seasoning that had fallen onto the paper of the wrapper. A samurai does not leave the field with the enemy's salt still on the ground.

I crumpled the foil. I rose. I bowed to Carlos. Carlos raised his half-finished Coke and tipped it slightly toward me.

I bowed once more, to the barrel at the door, which I now understood was the beginning of the meal and not merely the lobby of it. I took out the peanuts I had stored in my pocket, cracked one shell, and ate it as I walked out.

The salt of the peanut. The fourth salt.

This entire restaurant was a single quiet declaration: that a man should not be allowed to leave hungry, that nothing he eats should cost the dignity of being measured, and that the smallest order in the house is still more than one man can finish alone.

This is a country that puts a barrel at the door and trusts you with it.

This is a country that gives a man as many weapons as he has options, and charges him for none of them.

This is a country that overfills the bag of a man who asked for little, on principle.

Tomorrow I will return. I will order the same. I will eat the same. I will lose the same battle. A man does not flee from a salt that has already named him.

The Cajun fed me crawfish on newspaper. The man at Five Guys fed me their war salt on a fry. I have eaten with the same people, in two states, on two coasts, and they did not know they were the same.

I knew.

I have been gotten.

[Sea Beggar 🪢🏴‍☠️⚓ @KnotSeaworthy]

"If all else fails, I will retreat up the valley of Virginia, plant my flag on the Blue Ridge, rally around the Scotch-Irish of that region and make my last stand for liberty amongst a people who will never submit to tyranny whilst there is a man left to draw a trigger." -GW

[A Soldier's Whisper @SoldiersWhisper]

“This is my husband Richard Bussard,  he served in Vietnam 70/72.

Even though he was told he had PTSD and was eligible for full benefits,  he only took part benefits. He worked all his life and asked for nothing. A few months ago he got sick.  As a result, he missed some work and soon after lost his job and insurance.  A week later he collapsed and was life flighted to Pittsburgh.

He was diagnosed with CIDP a neurological disorder that civilian doctors have linked to Agent Orange but the VA has not yet recognized it. So we have a fight on our hands with the VA…”
- Mrs. Bussard
#TheVietnamWar
#PTSD #AgentOrange

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

In GWOT, I once got a stern talking to for capturing the brigade’s #2 HVT while on a routine humanitarian assistance mission.

My commander thought I went rogue and just did my own thing.

Truth be told, the terrorist was just at one of the homes on the mission.

I remember being slightly disrespectful and saying something like “My bad sir, I thought we were trying to win the war. Won’t happen again.”

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

George Washington bred his own pack of hunting dogs and named them like a man with zero supervision. We're talking Sweet Lips, Tipsy, Tipler, Drunkard, and one named Vulcan who was so big a kid could ride him like a pony. Vulcan once stole an entire ham straight off the dinner table and bolted to the kennels. The General just laughed while Martha sat there furious.

But the dogs were only half of it. The man could DANCE. In 1779 he partnered with Kitty Greene at a ball and the two of them danced for over three hours straight without sitting down once. People at the time said he was actually elite at it. He called it "so agreeable and innocent an amusement."

And in his final years his big retirement hobby was building a whiskey distillery. Not a little hobby still either. By 1799 it was the largest distillery in America, cranking out 11,000 gallons a year.

So the real George Washington: breeds hunting dogs with names like Drunkard, dances for three hours straight, runs the biggest whiskey operation in the country. Founding Father behavior.

[William Shatner @WilliamShatner]

All has been made clear. 🔮✨
Now…should I or shouldn’t I?🤔🤷🏼😉

[Nick Cole @RealNickCole]

Every day is Gladiator Training