Eric Hepner

Waze volunteer editor, Missouri state manager

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@TKratman @MasterMaliq I have Muslim friends who are better human beings than I am. I cannot bring myself to believe that a good person is doomed to Hell because they don't believe in the "right" God. Jesus himself taught us that the greatest commandment is to love one another.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@TKratman @hoodfarquaad Aside from all of the cogent replies, one should note that the map is misleading. "Public" transportation doesn't mean "underground." There is a lot more light rail than is shown on that map.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@roybpreston @BrandenTel @TKratman @hoodfarquaad Endless miles of track that are generally shared with the freight trains that can actually make a profit on rail.

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

This is why Americans are the deadliest fighters on earth.

I met a priest yesterday who just got accepted to chaplain school in Newport. I asked him the obvious question: Marines or Navy?

Navy, he said. His face fell a little. He told me he could never be a Marine because every Marine is a rifleman, and as a priest he can’t carry a weapon.

He’s hoping to get assigned to a Marine unit anyway. All chaplains are Navy officers, so that’s the only door in.

I laughed. I feel a little bad about that.

Then I explained to him what “Devil Doc” means. The Marine Corps doesn’t have medics. They use Navy Corpsmen.

I told him: when you get out to the fleet, find a Marine sergeant with a couple of Purple Hearts and tell him Devil Docs “aren’t real Marines.”

Be prepared to duck.

Marines are violently particular about who gets to wear their uniform. Navy Corpsmen and Navy chaplains who have eaten dirt alongside them in combat qualify. Full stop.

My dad was Air Force. Not even Navy. I remember going to VFW halls with him as a kid. Someone would ask him what service, he’d say Air Force, and the room would chuckle a little. Then they’d find out he was a medic, and the air in the room changed. Something close to reverence.

Dad hated being honored. He had one line he used to deflect it:

“I didn’t do much. Save your praise for my cousin the PJ.”

That always broke the ice.

PJs are the Air Force special operators who go into hell to pull downed pilots out.

They will take casualties and are prepared to die to rescue a single pilot or crewman.

The math doesn’t math out. Why would any combat force take multiple casualties to rescue one air force jet jockey?

What the padre is about to learn is that the military has a hierarchy that has nothing to do with rank, and nothing to do with the service stitched on your chest.

Have you deployed?

Have you seen combat?

In every firefight there are men who move toward the guns and men who hang back. And when the guy at the tip of the spear is pinned down, bleeding, with rounds cracking past his head, there is exactly one word he screams into the radio.

“Medic.”

Here is the catch, and it is the whole reason America fights the way America fights.

That Marine is willing to push forward into fire BECAUSE he knows the Corpsman is coming. He knows the medevac birds will land in the hot LZ.

He knows the Devil Doc will drag him out by his plate carrier if it comes to that.

And, if the medic can’t help, if he has what Dad called “injuries incompatible with life,” he knows that chaplain will crawl on his belly to administer last rights and deliver him to heaven.

The F-15 pilot punching out over enemy territory knows the same thing. He knows the PJs will move heaven and earth to reach him, and turn whatever is shooting at him into a smoking crater of hell on earth on the way in.

This is the quiet math underneath American violence.

Our warriors are the fiercest on earth not because they are more aggressive, not just because they are better trained, or better equipped, though they are all of those things. They are the fiercest because they know, in their bones, that when they key the mic and call for help, help is coming in hot.

Take that away, and you don’t have the U.S. military anymore. You have a security force.

[Friday Gibson @KiltOfLove]

@monsterhunter45

In the Gulf War, one of my troops got word that her grandfather had died a few months earlier. (The Red Cross couldn't be bothered with telling her about it any earlier.)

Our CO decided to give her two weeks compassionate leave & I (and another NCO, natch) had to drive her to Riyadh to put her on a Herky bird back to the world.

It was several hours drive so after we dropped her off at the AF base we went to our parent unit to see about a place to stay for the night. We got there and were told "you're in luck! We got a shipment of steaks & there's still 30 minutes left in the dinner mess. Go get some steaks then come back here & we'll have a place for you to bunk tonight."

We went to the parking garage that was being used to serve meals & saw the strangest thing: the locals doing the cooking had metal disks, about 12 feet in diameter, sitting on top of 4 or 5 gas burners. The metal disk had a few dozen steaks on it & they were using 10 foot long poles to flip them & pull them off the plate. We got there 15 mins before dinner was to end, & they were encouraging everyone to take 2 or 3 steaks so they wouldn't go to waste. We did.

My mouth was watering and we were starving. Debbie & I just made straight for the nearest picnic table, sat down & started eating.

I slowly noticed that all the conversation had stopped at the table; there were maybe 20 people at it when we sat down. I looked up at the silence & realized we'd inadvertently walked right past the sign that said "Officers" & had sat at the officers table. Nobody had said anything, they were just staring. Every officer at the table was clean, wearing ironed BDUs. A captain sitting near me said "Soldier - how long has it been since you had a hot meal?" I had to start counting on my fingers, & Debbie did the same. We conferred & I said "I think about 7 weeks. They cooked one hot meal for the PWs, but then the numbers overwhelmed us & they had to switch to T-rats & MREs. But the T-rats are for the PWs - we've just been living on MREs."

I expected then to get a polite nod & the suggestion that since we were sitting in the officers mess we'd "probably feel more comfortable if we sat in the enlisted section." Which would have been fair.

Instead, a 1st LT sitting directly across from me just reached over & grabbed a bottle of Heinz57 and a bottle of A1 sauce, put them right in front of us & said "Here - enjoy the hell out of that. And you can probably get another steak if you want it." Then she got up & went & got a couple of baked potatoes & some corn, brought them to us & set them down.

I will always, always, always remember how those HQ troops bent over backwards to give us a good meal. That meant more to me than the food. The Army invests tremendous resources to give us a good meal from time to time; not just then but in other times as well. I was able to bring my family to Christmas dinner at Ft. Campbell one year. IYKYK - soup to nuts.

That meal in Riyadh where I was covered in months' worth of ground-in filth from sleeping in a hole in the sand is my single best memory of Army life. And I know most veterans have a similar memory. We even got hot showers that night - again, first time in months.

Fuck the REMF political bastards trying to insinuate that buying a lobster tail once or twice a year is too good for enlisted swine.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@monsterhunter45 I'm not a veteran but I assume that the majority of the ribbons were awarded for making it through a tour at a rear echelon duty station without contracting the clap. As for the marksmanship medal, a veteran I trust once remarked that the CIB was the only one that counts.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@Luscombepilot @esrtweet That bar is so low an ant could clear it

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@ML3democrats Dude, I don't and never have given even 1 shit what color this opportunistic whore is. You're delusional and projecting. Watch the videos of Trump and Netanyahu or Hirobumi to see how serious world leaders view us. Gasoline, even in Illinois, is nearly a dollar less per gallon.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@Victoria00025 Well, it really was SecWar Hegseth. But, yep.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@zxq9_iwao @KieranEleison @LuckyMcGee Not that I'm opposed, but are they still doing that sort of thing at Leavenworth? Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not only unopposed, I'm actively in favor of the son to be ex service member spending some quality time with a sledgehammer. She's fat.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@Bossy_Leah @TheMaineWonk Room temperature seems appropriate

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@DJG6940 @MAndersSFF The only way to stop "the circle of hate" is to acquiesce. Because the left will never stop hating us.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@TKratman @KellDA Col. You're uncharacteristically kind to the human who doesn't have sense enough to pour piss out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel. The fucktard can't even make the distinction between civil and criminal proceedings and the different penalties available in either.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@CrackerBarrel I honestly couldn't care less about the logo. Fix the food. Right now the only viable option for me is abln oversalted barely choice grade strip steak prepared by a cook who wouldn't know medium rare if the cow got off the grill and bit him in the ass

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@Os_Supremacy They hit rock bottom and started digging

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@Hap_Hazzzzard @monsterhunter45 @DivergentZen If a work's sole redeeming quality is that "it contributed to the history of literature" it should contribute to starting my fireplace.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@DimitrisSoudas Or he was expressing sympathy that you're stuck in Canuckistan

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@wyqtor @peterrhague This post is severely hampered by it's cognitively impaired author

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

@SpaceX Amazing how many rocket scientists there are on X these days.

[Eric Hepner @ericrn1977]

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