#Army Officer Candidate School

[worldwide-blackfolk]

X: @AfricanArchives

Did you know Sports legends Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis were stationed at Fort Riley during World War 2! The legendary number "42" and the "Brown Bomber" are pictured in 1942 during their time serving our country. Robinson was drafted and sent to Fort Riley for basic training. During Robinson's time at Fort Riley he passed all the requirements and applied for Officer Candidate School. Robinson along with several other black candidates' applications were dismissed due to their race. Louis used his popularity to campaign on behalf of Robinson and other prospective officers. As a result, the candidates were granted acceptance into the program due largely to Louis's efforts.

[historyofguns]

The article "Dabbs: My Time in the U.S. Army Rotary-Wing Flight School" by Will Dabbs, MD, recounts the author's lifelong passion for aviation and his experiences in the U.S. Army's Rotary-Wing Flight School at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Dabbs reflects on his childhood fascination with World War II aircraft, leading him to pursue a career as a military helicopter pilot. He describes the competitive selection process, the various training phases, and the challenging yet rewarding journey through flight school. Dabbs particularly highlights his time training with the UH-1 Huey helicopters, his transition to flying CH-47 Chinooks, and the intense camaraderie and friendships formed with fellow soldiers. The article also touches on the inherent dangers of military aviation, including the loss of friends, and concludes with Dabbs expressing gratitude for his military experiences.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

1968 [Chapter 6: Athena, Goddess Of Wisdom]

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 5.2k

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged! 🥰

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Here at the midway point in our journey—like Dante stumbling upon the gates of the Inferno—would it be the right moment to review what’s at stake? Let’s begin.

It’s the end of August. The delegates of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago officially vote to name Aemond the party’s presidential candidate. His ascension is aided by 10,000 antiwar demonstrators who flood into the city and threaten to set it ablaze if Hubert Humphrey is chosen instead. At the end—in his death rattle—Humphrey begs to be Aemond’s running mate, one last humiliation he cannot resist. Humphrey is denied. Eugene McCarthy, dignity intact, boards a commercial flight to his home state of Minnesota without looking back.

Aemond selects U.S. Ambassador to France, Sargent Shriver, to be his vice president. Shriver is a Kennedy by marriage—his wife, JFK’s younger sister Eunice, just founded the Special Olympics—and has previously headed the Office of Economic Opportunity, the Peace Corps, and the Chicago Board of Education. He also served as the architect of the president’s “War on Poverty” before distancing himself from the imploding Johnson administration. Shriver is not a concession to fence-sitting moderates or Southern Dixiecrats, but an embodiment of Aemond’s commitment to unapologetic progressivism. Richard Nixon spends the weekend campaigning in his native California, a gold vein of votes like the mines settlers rushed to in 1848. George Wallace announces that he will run as an Independent. Racists everywhere rejoice.

Phase III of the Tet Offensive is underway in Vietnam; 700 American soldiers have been killed this month alone. Riots break out in military prisons where the U.S. Army is keeping their deserters. The North Vietnamese refuse to allow Pope Paul VI to visit Hanoi on a peace mission. President Johnson calls both Aemond and Nixon to personally inform them of this latest evidence of the communists’ unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. Daeron and John McCain remain in Hỏa Lò Prison. The draft swallows men like the titan Cronus devoured his own children.

In Eastern Europe, the Russians are crushing pro-democracy protests in the largest military operation since World War II as half a million troops roll into Czechoslovakia. In Caswell County, North Carolina, the last remaining segregated school district in the nation is ordered by a federal judge to integrate after years of stalling. On the Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific, France becomes the fifth nation to successfully explode a hydrogen bomb. In Mexico City, 300,000 students gather to protest the authoritarian regime of President Diaz Ordaz. In Guatemala, American ambassador John Gordon Mein is murdered by a Marxist guerilla organization called the Rebel Armed Forces. In Columbus, Ohio, nine guards are held hostage during a prison riot; after 30 hours, they’re rescued by a SWAT team.

The latest issue of Life magazine brings worldwide attention to catastrophic industrial pollution in the Great Lakes. The first successful multiorgan transplant is carried out at Houston Methodist Hospital. The Beatles release Hey Jude, the best-selling single of 1968 in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. NASA’s Apollo lunar landing program plans to launch a crewed shuttle next year, just in time to fulfill John F. Kennedy’s 1962 promise to put a man on the moon “before the end of the decade.” If this is successful, the United States will win the Space Race and prove the superiority of capitalism. If it fails, the martyred astronauts will join all the other ghosts of this apocalyptic age, an epoch born under bad stars.

The night sky glows with the ancient debris of the Aurigid meteor shower. From down here on Earth, Jupiter is a radiant white gleam, visible with the naked eye and admired since humans were making cave paintings and Stonehenge. But Io is a mystery. With a telescope, she becomes a dust mote entrapped by Jupiter’s gravity; to the casual observer, she doesn’t exist at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

What was it like, that very first time? It’s strange to remember. You’re both different people now.

It’s May, 1966. You and Aemond are engaged, due to be married in three short weeks, and if you get pregnant then it’s no harm, no foul. In reality, it will end up taking you over a year to conceive, but no one knows that yet; you are living in the liminal space between what you imagine your life will be and the cold blade of the truth. Aemond has brought you to Asteria for the weekend, an increasingly common occurrence. The Targaryens—minus one, that holdout prodigal son, always glowering from behind swigs of rum and clouds of smoke—have already begun to treat you like a member of the family. The flock of Alopekis yap excitedly and lick your shins. Eudoxia learns your favorite snacks so she can have them ready when you arrive.

One night Aemond takes your hand and leads you to Helaena’s garden, darkness turned to twilight in the artificial luminance of the main house. You can hear distant voices, chatter and laughter, and the Beatles’ Rubber Soul spinning on the record player in the living room like a black hole, gravity that not even light can escape when it is wrenched over the event horizon.

You’re giggling as Aemond pulls you along, faster and faster, weaving through pathways lined with roses and sunflowers and butterfly bushes. Your high heels sink into soft, fertile earth; the air in your lungs is cool and infinite. “Where are we going?”

And Aemond grins back at you as he replies: “To Olympus.”

In the circle of hedges guarded by thirteen gods of stone, Aemond unzips your modest pink sundress and slips your heels off your feet, kneeling like he’s proposing to you again. When you are bare and secretless, he draws you down onto the grass and opens you, claims you, fills you to the brim as the crystalline water of the fountain patters and Zeus hurls his lightning bolts, an eternal storm, unending war. It’s intense in a way it never was with your first boyfriend, a sweet polite boy who talked about feminist theory and followed his enlightened conscience all the way to Vietnam. This isn’t just a pleasant way to pass a Friday night, something to look forward to between differential equations textbooks and calculus proofs. With Aemond it’s a ritual; it’s something so overpowering it almost scares you.

“Aphrodite,” Aemond murmurs against your throat, and when you try to get on top he stops you, pins you to the ground, thrusts hard and deep, and you try not to moan too loudly as you surrender, his weight on you like a prophesy. This is how he wants you. This is where you belong.

Has someone ever stitched you to their side, pushing the needle through your skin again and again as the fabric latticework takes shape, until their blood spills into your veins and your antibodies can no longer tell the difference? He makes you think you’ve forgotten who you were before. He makes you want to believe in things the world taught you were myths.

But that was over two years ago. Now Aemond is not your spellbinding almost-stranger of a fiancé—shrouded in just the right amount of mystery—but your husband, the father of your dead child, the presidential candidate. You miss when he was a mirage. You miss what it felt like to get high on the idea of him, each taste a hit, each touch a rush of toxins to the bloodstream.

Seven weeks after your emergency c-section, you are healing. Your belly no longer aches, your bleeding stops, you can rejoin the living in this last gasp of summer. Ludwika takes you shopping and you pick out new swimsuits; you’ve gone up a size since the baby, and it shows no signs of vanishing. In the fitting room, Ludwika chain-smokes Camel cigarettes and claps when you show her each outfit, ordering you to spin around, telling you that there’s nothing like Oleg Cassini back in Poland. You plan to buy three swimsuits. Ludwika insists you get five. She pays with Otto’s American Express.

That afternoon at home in your blue bedroom, you get changed to join the rest of the family down by the pool, your first swim since Ari was born. You choose Ludwika’s favorite: a dreamy turquoise two-piece with flowing transparent fabric that drapes your midsection. You can still see the dark vertical line of where the doctors stitched you closed. Now you and Aemond match; he got his scar on the floor of the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, you earned yours at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. There are gold chains on your wrist and looped around your neck. Warm sunlight and ocean wind pours in through the open windows.

Aemond appears in the doorway and you turn to show him, proud of how you’ve pulled yourself together, how this past year hasn’t put you in an asylum. His right eye catches on your scar and stays there for a long time. Then at last he says: “You don’t have something else to wear?”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Labor Day, and Asteria has been descended upon by guests invited to celebrate Aemond’s nomination. The dining room table is overflowing with champagne, Agiorgitiko wine, platters of mini spanakopitas, lamb gyros, pita bread with hummus and tzatziki, feta cheese and cured meats, grilled octopus, baklava, and kourabiethes. Eudoxia is rushing around sweeping up crumbs and shooing tipsy visitors away from antique vases shipped here from Greece. Aemond’s celebrity endorsers include Sammy Davis Jr., Sonny and Cher, Andy Williams, Bobby Darin, Warren Beatty, Shirley MacLaine, Claudine Longet, and a number of politicians; but the most notable attendee is President Lyndon Baines Johnson, shadowed by Secret Service agents. He won’t be making any surprise appearances on the campaign trail for Aemond—in the present political climate, he would be more of a liability than an asset—but he has travelled to Long Beach Island tonight to offer his well-wishes. From the record player thrums Jimi Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower.

When you finish getting ready and arrive downstairs, you spot Aegon: slouching in a velvet chair over a century old, hair shagging in his eyes, sipping something out of a chipped mug he clasps with both hands, flirting with a bubbly early-twenties campaign staffer. Aegon smiles and waves when he sees you. You wave back. And you think: When did he become the person I look for when I walk into a room?

Now Aemond is beside you in a blue suit—beaming, confident, his glass eye in place, a hand resting on your waist—and Aegon isn’t smiling anymore. He takes a gulp of what is almost certainly straight rum from his mug and returns his attention to the campaign staffer, his lady of the hour. You picture him undressing her on his shag carpet and feel disorienting, violent envy like a bullet.

Viserys is already fast asleep upstairs, but the rest of the family is out en masse to charm the invitees and pose for photographs. Alicent, Helaena, and Mimi—trying very hard to act sober, blinking too often—are chit-chatting with the other political wives. Otto is complaining about something to Criston; Criston is pretending to listen as he stares at Alicent. Ludwika is smoking her Camels and talking to several young journalists who are ogling her, enraptured. Fosco and Sargent Shriver are entertaining a group of guests with a boisterous, lighthearted debate on the merits of Italian versus French cuisine, though they agree that both are superior to Greek. The nannies have brought the eight children to be paraded around before bedtime. All Cosmo wants to do is clutch your hand and “help” you navigate around the living room, warning you not to step on the small, weaving Alopekis. When Mimi attempts to steal her youngest son away, he ignores her, and as she begins to make a scene you rebuke her with a harsh glare. Mimi retreats meekly. She has never argued with you, not once in over two years. You speak for Aemond, and Aemond is a god.

As the children are herded off to their beds by the nannies, Bobby Kennedy—presently serving as a New York senator despite residing primarily on his family’s compound in Massachusetts—approaches to congratulate Aemond. His wife Ethel is a tiny, nasally, scrappy but not terribly bright woman, five months pregnant with her eleventh child, and you have to get away from her like a hand pulled from a hot stove.

“You know, I was considering running,” Bobby says to Aemond, chuckling, good-natured. “But when I saw you get in the race, I thought better of it! Maybe I’ll give it a go in ’76, huh?”

“Hey, kid, what a tough year you’ve had,” Ethel tells you, patting your forearm. You can’t tear your eyes from her small belly. She has ten living children already. I couldn’t keep one. What kind of sense does that make? “We’re real sorry for your trouble, aren’t we, Bobby?”

Now he is nodding somberly. “We are. We sure are. We’ve been praying for you both.”

Aemond is thanking them, sounding touched but entirely collected. You manage some hurried response and then excuse yourself. Your hands are shaking as you cross the room, not really seeing it. You walk right into Lady Bird Johnson. She takes pity on you; she seems to perceive how rattled you are. “Oh Lyndon, look, it’s just who we were hoping to speak to! The next first lady of the United States. And how beautiful you are, just radiant. How do you keep your hair so perfect? That glamorous updo. You never have a single strand out of place.” Lady Bird lays a palm tenderly on your bare shoulder. She has an unusual, angular face, but a wise sort of compassion that only comes from suffering. Her husband is an unrepentant serial cheater. “I’ll make you a list of everything you need to know about the White House. All the quirks of the property, and the hidden gems too!”

“You’re so kind. We’ll see what happens in November…”

“Good evening, ma’am,” President Johnson says, smiling warmly. He’s an ugly man, but there’s something hypnotic that lives inside him and shines through his eyes like the blaze of a lighthouse. He pulls you in through the dark, through the storm; he promises you answers to questions you haven’t thought of yet. LBJ is 6’4 and known for bullying his political adversaries with the so-called “Johnson Treatment”; he leans in and makes rapid-fire demands until they forget he’s not allowed to hit them. “I have to tell you frankly, I don’t envy anyone who inherits that den of rattlesnakes in Washington D.C.”

“Lyndon, don’t frighten her,” Lady Bird scolds fondly.

“Everyone thinks they know what to do about Vietnam,” LBJ plods onwards. “But it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t clusterfuck. If you keep fighting, they call you a murderer. But if you pull the troops out and South Vietnam falls to the communists, every single man lost was for nothing, and you think the families will stand for that? Their kid in a body bag, or his legs blown off, or his brain scrambled? There’s no easy answer. It’s a goddamn bitch of a quagmire.”

Lady Bird offers you a sympathetic smirk. Sorry about all this unpleasantness, she means. When he gets himself worked up, I can’t stop him. But you find yourself feeling sorry for President Johnson. It will be difficult for him to learn how to fade into disgraced obscurity after once being so omnipotent, so beloved. Reinvention hurts like hell: fevers raging, bones mending, healing flesh that itches so ferociously you want to claw it off.

LBJ gives Lady Bird a look, quick but meaningful. She acquiesces. This has happened a thousand times before. “It was so nice talking to you, dear,” she tells you, then crosses the living room to pay her respects to Alicent.

The president steps closer, looming, towering. The Johnson Treatment?? you think, but no; he isn’t trying to intimidate you. He’s just curious.

“Do you know what Aemond’s plan is for ‘Nam?” LBJ asks, eyes urgent, voice low. “I’m sure he has one. He’s sworn to end the draft as soon as he gets into office, but how is he going to make sure the South Vietnamese can fend off the North themselves? We’re trying to train the bastards, but if we left they’d fold in months. It would be the first war the U.S. ever lost. Does he understand that?”

“He doesn’t really discuss it with me.” That’s true; you know his policies, but only because they are a constant subject of conversation within the family, something you all breathe like oxygen.

“We can’t let Nixon win,” LBJ continues. “It’s mass suicide to leave the country in his hands. The man can’t hold his liquor anymore, getting robbed by Kennedy in ’60 broke something in him. He gets sloshed and shoves his aids around, makes up conspiracies in his head. He’s a paranoid little prick. He’ll surveille the American people. He’ll launch a nuke at Moscow.”

You honestly don’t know what he expects you to say. “I’ll pass the message along to Aemond.”

“People love you, Mrs. Targaryen.” LBJ watching you closely. “Believe it or not, they used to love me too. But I still remember how to play the game. You’re the only reason Aemond is leading the polls in Florida. You can get him other states too. Jack needed Jackie. Aemond needs you. And you’ve had tragedies, and that’s a damn shame. But don’t you miss an opportunity. You take every disappointment, every fucked up cruelty of life and find a way to make it work for you. You pin it to your chest like a goddamn medal. Every single scar makes you look more mortal to those people going to the ballot box in November. You want them to be able to see themselves in you. It helps the mansions and the millions go down smoother.”

“President Johnson!” Aegon says as he saunters over, huge mocking grin. He thumps a closed fist against the Texan’s broad chest; the Secret Service agents standing ten feet away observe this sternly. “How thoughtful of you to be here, taking time out of your busy schedule, squeezing us in between war crimes.”

“The mayor of Trenton,” LBJ jabs.

“The butcher of Saigon.”

Now the president is no longer amused. “You’ve never accomplished anything in your whole damn life, son. Your obituary will be the size of a postage stamp. I’m looking forward to reading it someday soon.” He leaves, rejoining Lady Bird at the opposite end of the room.

You frown at Aegon, disapproving. You’re dressed in a sparkling, royal blue gown that Aemond chose. “That was unnecessary.”

Aegon is wearing an ill-fitting green shirt—half the buttons undone—khaki pants, and tan moccasins. “I just did you a favor.”

“What happened to your new girlfriend? Shouldn’t she be getting railed in your basement right now? Did she have a prior commitment? Did she have a spelling test to study for? Those can be tricky, such complex words. Juvenile. Inappropriate. Infidelity.”

“You know what he brags about?” Aegon says, meaning LBJ. “That he’s fucked more women by accident than John F. Kennedy ever did on purpose.”

“That sounds…logistically challenging.”

“He’s a lech. He’s a freak. He tells everyone on Capitol Hill how big his cock is. He takes it out and swings it around during meetings.”

“And that’s all far less than admirable, but he’s not going to do something like that around me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s not an idiot,” you say impatiently. “He was perfectly civil. And I was getting interesting advice.”

Aegon rolls his eyes, exasperated. “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry I crashed your cute little pep talk with Lyndon Johnson, the most hated man on the planet.”

“I guess you can’t stop Aemond from touching me, so you have to terrorize LBJ instead.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Aegon hisses, and his venom stuns you. And now you’re both trapped: you loosed the arrow, he proved you hit the mark. He’s flushing a deep, mortified red. Your guts are twisting with remorse.

“Aegon, wait, I didn’t mean—”

He whirls and storms off, shoving his way through the crowd. People glare at him as they clutch their glasses and plates, sighing in that What else do you expect from the worthless son? sort of way. You’re still gaping blankly at the place where Aegon stood when Aemond finds you, snakes a hand around the back of your neck, and whispers through the painstakingly-arranged wisps of hair that fall around your ear: “Follow me.”

It’s not a question. It’s a command. You trail him through the living room, into the foyer, and through the front door, not knowing what he wants. Outside the moon is a sliver; the light from the main house makes the stars hard to see. “Aemond, you’ll never believe the conversation I just had with LBJ. He really unloaded, I think the stress is driving him insane. I have to tell you what he said about—”

“Later.” And this is jarring; Aemond doesn’t put anything before strategy. He grabs your hand as he turns into Helaena’s garden, and only then do you understand what he wants. Instinctively, your legs lock up and your feet stop moving. Aemond tugs you onward. He wants it to be like the very first time. He intends to start over with you, the dawning of a new age in the dead of night.

Hidden in the circle of hedges, he takes your face roughly in his hands and kisses you, drinks you down like a vampire, consumes you like wildfire. But your skull echoes with panic. I don’t want him touching me. I don’t want another child with him. “Aemond…”

He doesn’t hear you, or acts like he doesn’t, or mistakes it for a murmur of desire, or chooses to believe it is. He has you down on the grass under the vengeful gaze of Zeus, the fountain splashing, the sounds of the house a low foreign drone. He yanks off your panties, but he doesn’t want you naked like he always did before. He pushes the hem of your shimmering cobalt gown up to your hips and unbuckles his trousers. And you realize as he’s touching you, as he’s easing himself into you: He doesn’t want to have to look at my scar.

You can’t ignore him, you can’t pretend it’s not happening. He’s too big for that. It’s a biting fullness that demands to be felt. So you kiss him back, and knot your fingers in his short hair like you used to, and try to remember the things you always said to him before. And when Aemond is too absorbed to notice, you look away from him, from the statue of Zeus, and peer up into the stone face of Athena instead: the goddess who never married and who knows the answer to every question.

“I love you,” Aemond says when it’s over, marveling at the slopes of your face in the dim ethereal light. “Everything will be right again soon. Everything will be perfect.”

You conjure up a smile and nod like you believe him.

“What did LBJ say?”

“Can I tell you later tonight? After the party, maybe? I just need a few minutes.”

“Of course.” And now Aemond pretends to be patient. He buckles his belt and returns to the main house, his blood coursing with the possibilities only you can make real, his skin damp with your sweat.

For a while—ten minutes, twenty minutes—you lie there on the cool grass wondering what it was like for all those mortals and nymphs, being pinned down by Zeus and then having Hera try to kill them afterwards, raising ill-fated reviled bastards they couldn’t help but love. What is heaven if the realm of the immortals is so cruel? Why does the god of justice seem so immune to it?

When at last you rise and walk back towards the house, you find Mimi at the edge of the garden. She’s on her knees and retching into a rose bush; she’s cut her face on the thorns, but she hasn’t noticed yet. She’s groaning; she seems lost.

You reach for her, gripping her bony shoulders. “Mimi, here, let’s get you upstairs…”

“No,” she blubbers, tears streaming down her scratched cheeks. “Just go away. Leave me.”

“Mimi—”

“No!” she roars, a mournful hemorrhage as she slaps your hands until you release her.

“You don’t have to be this way,” you tell her, distraught. “You can give up drinking. We’ll help you, me and Fosco and Ludwika. You can start over. You can be healthy and present again, you can live a real life.”

Mimi stares up at you, her grey eyes glassy and bloodshot but with a vicious, piercing honesty. “My husband hates me. My kids don’t know I exist. What the hell do I have to be sober for?”

You weren’t expecting this. You don’t know what to say. “We can help make the world better.”

“The world would be better without me in it.”

Then Mimi curls up on the grass under the rose bush, and stays there until you return with Fosco to drag her upstairs to her empty bed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next afternoon, you’re lying on a lounge chair by the pool. Tomorrow the family will leave Asteria and embark upon a vigorous campaign schedule that will continue, with very few breaks, until Election Day on Tuesday, November 5th. The children are splashing and shrieking in the pool with Fosco, but you aren’t looking at them. You’re staring across the sun-drenched emerald lawn at the Atlantic Ocean. You’re envisioning all the bones and splinters of sunken ships that must litter the silt of the abyss; you’re thinking that it’s a graveyard with no headstones, no memory. Your swimsuit is a red one-piece. Your eyes are shielded by large black Ray Bans aviator sunglasses. Your gaze flicks up to the cloudless blue sky, where all the stars and planets are invisible.

Jupiter has nearly a hundred moons; the largest four were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Europa is a smooth white cosmic marble with a crust of ice, beautiful, immaculate. Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system and the only satellite with its own magnetic field, is rumored to have a vast underground saltwater ocean that may contain life. Callisto is dark and indomitable, riddled with impact craters; because of her dynamic atmosphere and location beyond Jupiter’s radiation belts, she is considered the best location for possible future crewed missions to the Jovian system. But Io is a wasteland. She has no water and no oxygen. Her only children are 400 active volcanoes, sulfur plumes and lava flows, mountains of silicate rock higher than Mount Everest, cataclysmic earthquakes as her crust slips around on a mantle of magma. Her daily radiation levels are 36 times the lethal limit for humans. If Hades had a home in our corner of the galaxy, it would be Io. She glows ruby and gold with barren apocalyptic fury. You can feel yourself turning poisonous like she is. You can feel your skin splitting open as the lava spills out.

Aegon trots out of the house—red swim trunks, cheap red plastic sunglasses, no shirt, a beach towel slung around his neck, flip flops—and kicks your chair. “Get up. We’re going sailing.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Great, because I’m not asking you to talk. I’m telling you to get in my boat.”

You don’t reply. You don’t think you can without your voice cracking. Aegon crouches down beside your chair and pushes your sunglasses up into your Brigitte Bardot-inspired hair so he can see your face. Your eyes are pink, wet, desperately sad. Deep troubled grooves appear in his forehead as he studies you. Gently, wordlessly, he pats your cheek twice and lowers your sunglasses back over your eyes. Then he stands up again and offers you his hand.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says, softly this time. You take his hand and follow him down to the boathouse.

Five vessels are currently kept there. Aegon’s sailboat is a 25-foot Wianno Senior sloop, just roomy enough for a few passengers. He’s had it since long before you married into the Targaryen family. It is white with hand-painted gold accents; the name Sunfyre adorns the stern. He unmoors the boat, pushes it out into the open water, and raises the sails.

You glide eastbound over the glittering crests of waves, slowly at first, then faster as the sails catch the wind. Aegon has one hand on the rudder, the other grasping the ropes. And the farther you get from shore, the smaller Asteria seems, and the Targaryen family, and the presidential election, and the United States itself. Now all that exists is this boat: you, Aegon, the squawking gulls, the school of mackerel, the ocean. The sun beats down; the breeze rips strands of your hair free. The battery-powered record player is blasting White Room by Cream. When you are far enough from land that no journalists would be able to get a photo, Aegon takes two joints and his Zippo out of the pocket of his swim trunks. He puts both joints between his lips, lights them, and passes you one. Then he stretches out beside you on the deck, gazing up at the September sky.

You ask as your muscles unravel and your thoughts turn light and easy to share: “Why did you bring me out here?”

“So you can drown yourself,” Aegon says, and you both laugh. “Nah. I used to go sailing all the time when I was a teenager. It always made me feel better. It was the only place where I could really be alone.”

You consider the math. “Wow. You haven’t been a teenager since before I was in kindergarten.”

“It’s weird to think about. You don’t seem that young.”

“Thanks, I guess. You don’t seem that old.”

“Maybe we’re meeting in the middle.” He inhales deeply and then exhales in a rush of smoke. “What do you think, should I get an earring?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It might shock Otto so bad it kills him.”

“I’ll get two.” And then Aegon says: “It’s not cool for you to mock me.”

You are dismayed; you didn’t mean to hurt him. “I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were. You were mocking me. You mocked me about the receipt under my ashtray, and then you mocked me again last night. I’m up for a lot of things, but I can’t handle that. Okay?”

“Okay.” You turn your head so you can see him: shaggy blonde hair, stubble, perpetual sunburn, the softness of his belly and his chest, flesh you long to vanish into like rain through parched earth. “Aegon?”

He looks over at you. “Io?”

“I don’t want Aemond to touch me either.”

He’s surprised; not by what you feel, but because you’ve said it aloud, a treason like Prometheus giving mankind the gift of fire. “What are we gonna do about it?”

If you were the goddess of wisdom, maybe you’d know.

[foxhopfics]

How the Squads, teams and ranks actually work in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare

The dissonance in tumblr users versus the actual branches of the military and how they've been written in fics.

Now, I'm very aware that's because no one here is an actual member of the SAS, and TF141 isn't real. So it's... not exactly like we've had the first hand knowledge about it.

However, I have noticed a lack of research having gone into understanding how the military actually works. The worst culprits are the people who've never actually played CoD, but to a degree, I've seen this in like 99% of CoD writing.

So, here's your OFFICIAL easy to understand guide to how the layout of the SAS and the British Military/Her Majesty's Armed Forces will Affect Your CoD:MW Fanfiction.

SAS:

All non-officer soldiers are returned to the rank of Trooper(Private) when joining the SAS, they then have to work themselves up again.

The 22nd Regiment SAS normally has a strength of between 400 and 600 men and is commanded by a Director-Special Forces of Major-General rank. While you may get ~125 candidates for tryouts, you're only going to end up with 10 new recruits who pass. Tryouts are held twice a year, once in summer and once in winter. A soldier must be a junior NCO to attempt, and only gets 2 total tries.

The regiment has four operational squadrons each consisting of 65 men commanded by a Major. Each squadron is divided into four 16 men troops commanded by a Captain and each troop is split into four patrols with each patrol consisting of four men, referred to as Alpha Company, Squad or Team, Beta Squad, Charlie Squad, and Delta Squad. Our boys from the 141 are part of the Beta company, which is why their callsigns are Bravo 6-0 (Price), B7-0 (Ghost), B7-1 (Soap), and B6-2 (Gaz, or B5-0 in '09) respectively. They are part of the normal British army, not the air force, despite their name being special air service. Where they normally are referred to in fanfiction as "tf141" which includes price, ghost, soap, and gaz. This is incorrect. What you're writing here is SAS Bravo Company, not Task Force 141

NCO, CO, DS, Sergeant, and Warrant Officers:

NCO- Non-comissioned Officer, or Enlisted: Ranked up from Private/Seaman/Airman. The "everyman", or basic infantry. Typically learns a skill and sticks with it (i.e radio techs, mechanical techs, vehicle mechanics, foot soldiers, etc). While any officer is a higher rank than a private, an NCO is never in a higher standing than a CO. After several years, they are eligible to become a senior non-commissioned officer (SNCO). This (NCOs) is who you're likely going to have working in the armoury.

CO- Commissioned Officer: "leaders" or "managers" from the beginning. Oftentimes completed a military degree (Royal Military Academy Sandhurst), or if not, was part of UOTC in college/university. Some others finish a degree and then attend officer training. They start as Lieutenants or Ensigns (navy) and often quickly rank up to Captain.

DS- Drill Sergeant: DSs teach Greenies/new recruits the Initial Entry Training (IET). They have their own Sergeant rank system that is separate from Sergeants. They must complete Drill Officer training to become a DS. Staff Sergeant, or a "regular" Sergeant, ranks up as an or NCO, and is in charge of infantry personnel, and doesn't really have contact with recruits (different from privates, you must complete IET to move from Recruit to Private).

WO- Warrant Officer: Higher than Enlisted, but lower than CO. Oftentimes keep their specialty skill, but without as much of the supervisor role. They come in as the "specialists" for things that the NCO's can't do (i.e complicated vehicle maintenance, machine overwatch, etc)

Ranks in the British Military:

NCO ranks:

- Private

- Lance Corporal

- Corporal

- Sergeant (Soap and Gaz)

- Staff or Colour Sergeant

- Warrant Officer class 1

- Warrant Officer class 2

CO ranks:

- Officer Cadet (officer school rank)

- Second Lieutenant

- Lieutenant (Ghost)

- Captain (Price)

- Major

- Lieutenant Colonel

- Colonel

- Brigadier

- Major-General (eligible to run the SAS)

- Lieutenant General

- General

- Field Marshall

So what does this mean for Task Force 141 and JTF Ghost Team?:

Task Force 141 was created by Captain John Price after Roman Barkov's death in MW1, but before MW2 as an international collaborative task force intended to tie up loose ends via Roman Barkov's associates.

It was approved by Laswell in the CIA and General Shepherd of the US Armed Forces.

Oftentimes TF141 is solely referred to with the British team which is where the confusion between Bravo Company happens.

TF141, while also consisting of Price, Ghost, Gaz, and Soap, is still an international task force consisting of Laswell, Shephered, and Alex (American), Nikolai (Russian), Farah (Urizk), and Alejandro and Rodolfo (Mexican) and ultimately existed for only one purpose.

JTF Ghost Team: Formed by Ghost and Alejandro after they were betrayed by Graves and Shadow Company, believing not many could be trusted at that time.

It was made to flush out the corruption of Graves and Shepherd.

Member consist of: Price, Ghost, Alejandro, Gaz, Soap, Rodolfo, "Ghost 2-4 Pilot" who I suspect is Nikolai, Laswell, and a few freed Los Vaqueros.

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

i wonder if yves has a picture of us as his lockscreen wallpaper... if yes (or no), what picture would it be :0 ?

As much as Yves would love to just... plaster your face on everything he owns, he simply can't and shouldn't.

Yves didn't rise up the ranks by being nice and kind. He rose up by pushing others down. Naturally, he made an army of enemies over the years that would jump at the chance of abusing his weaknesses. It would be much safer to not expose any of his information at all, which sadly includes who he associates with regularly.

His lock screen is just a black background. His gallery contains no trace of you or him. Not even pictures that have accidental reflections of either face. All the metadata from his photos would be expunged.

He does not have any social media applications or games on his phone- not even digital maps. He has his GPS turned off at all times. Yves memorizes his all contact numbers by heart and he never gets a number wrong. His phone is just a slab he used to call or text (sometimes hack into other devices), Yves would delete his call logs, and text messages including yours after documenting all of them in their respective dossiers. When he isn't expecting any communication, his phone is always switched off. Sometimes, he would even remove the battery.

Truly crucial matters will be alerted through the pager hidden in his reliable bag.

That is why you never see him entertaining himself with his smartphone, Yves usually brings a book or a magazine with him. He's living as if he's still in the 80's. If you gave his car a shakedown, you would find atlases and a compass.

But that is just his public phone. He has a few that never leave his office. They're full of you. Videos, pictures, voice recordings, and backups of your messages. One of them is a carbon copy of your current phone, with all the same data you're holding. The other one is an old phone that you sold or lost, one of his precious artifacts of you.

His 'home' phone has pictures of your happiest moments on its lock screen and home screen. It doesn't necessarily have to be photos he took after meeting you. It could be a picture of you graduating high school, it could be a candid picture of you on a vacation trip when you were 8, it could be a picture of your reaction the moment you received your first 'adult' paycheck, it could be a photo of you trying marijuana for the first time, it could even be your baby photos if you weren't that happy in life.

However, phones that store your information aren't usually used as a phone. It just becomes precious data banks. And any evidence that he's spying on you will never be revealed, hence you will never know of its existence.

There is an exception, though. One of his phones is used to analyze what catches your eye on social media. It mirrors your screen in real time, he would record how many seconds you would linger on a post, how many times you rewatched a video, when you would do a double take, your scrolling speed and what exactly would you consume. He would connect the dots and correlate your media consumption habits to the circumstance on that day; would you scroll slower on a cold or hot day? Do you seek out food content if you're hungry or actively avoid it? Why did you rewatch that thirst trap video?

You can go through his phone if you want, but that means he gets to go through yours in return. And you're at a huge disadvantage here because you willingly give up your privacy to him while he gave you nothing. It's not like you have to, he's never on his phone and he's a recluse. What is there to discover?

You know Yves is much older than you are, he used to fuel his past cars with leaded gasoline for god's sake.

So you already expected that at some point along the way, he would comment on this generation's excessive usage of their gadgets. But that oddly never came, because your habits are a treasure trove of information. He would only deride the act if it's actively harming your health.

If you want to put his face on your lock and home screen, go ahead. He would be flattered. Profile picture? Sure. Yves would do some digital magic to make sure the wrong people never see it. As a social media post? Go ahead. Only those whom he knows wouldn't be a threat to you can perceive it.

Of course, just as any paranoid man would do, he would educate you on the dangers of releasing your information to the world. Giving you real-life examples where it could lead to horrifying results. But he would be lying if he said his heart doesn't swell at your willingness to brag about him to your friends.

Obviously, he's also stealing a copy of your lipstick-print-ridden face and printing a physical poster of it to frame in his office. He would openly display it if he obtained it by asking you, but he would hide it if he got the photo by hacking into your phone.

[girlactionfigure]

Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who put his family and career at risk by issuing thousands of hand-written transit visas to Jewish refugees fleeing Eastern Europe.

Chiune was born to a middle class family in Mino, Japan on the first day of the 20th century – 1/1/00. In elementary and high school he was a top student, and his father wanted him to become a doctor. Chiune’s own dream was to enter the foreign service, and he deliberately failed the medical school entrance exam by writing only his name on the test. Instead Chiune attended Waseda University and majored in English. He also joined a Christian fraternity to practice his English.

In 1919, Chiune passed the Foreign Ministry Scholarship exam, and served in the Japanese Imperial Army as a 2nd Lieutenant stationed in Korea. He resigned his commission in 1922 and trained for the Foreign Ministry, learning Russian and German in addition to English. He aced the qualifying exam and was sent to work in the foreign office in Harbin, China.

Chiune’s strong moral compass led him to resign his post as Deputy Foreign Minister in Manchuria because of rising Japanese violence against the Chinese (just two years later was the horrific Rape of Nanking by the Japanese Imperial Army.) Chiune returned to Japan, where he married Yukiko Kikuchi. They later had four sons.

Next Chiune went to Helsinki, Finland, where he worked as a translator for the Japanese delegation. In 1939, Chiune became vice-consul of the Japanese embassy in Kauna, Lithuania. Part of his job was to find out if Germany planned to attack the Soviet Union, and to relay any information about this to his bosses in Berlin and Tokyo.

In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania. At that time, approximately 1/3 of Lithuanians were Jewish, many of them Torah scholars. The USSR viciously persecuted Jews, especially religious ones, and the Jews of Lithuania were desperate to escape the country – especially because Nazi Germany was occupying more and more of Eastern Europe and would soon be in Lithuania. Hundreds of them, mostly Orthodox, visited the Japanese consulate to beg for exit visas to Japan. The official Japanese policy was that candidates for visas must go through elaborate bureaucratic procedures and pay significant sums of money. Chiune contacted his superiors at the Japanese Foreign minister to ask if the rules could be relaxed to help Jewish refugees. His request was denied, as were his next two requests.

Chiune could have thrown up his hands and told the Jews there was nothing he could do for them, but instead, as he did in China, he was governed by his strong sense of right and wrong, rather than soulless bureaucrats. He ignored his orders and started issuing ten-day visas for Jews to travel through Japan on their way to safe havens like Shanghai, China, where 20,000 Jews rode out the war safely.

As word got out about the Japanese visas, Jews from all over Lithuania as well as Poland began to swarm Chiune’s office. He simply wouldn’t say no to anybody, and spent 18-20 hours a day (!) painstakingly writing visas by hand. He created a month’s supply of visas every single day from August to early September 1940, providing an escape route for thousands of Jews. On September 4, the Japanese consulate in Kauna was closed and Chiune had to leave the country. He was determined to create as many transit visas as possible, and continued doing so up until the last minute. At Kanuas Railway Station, a crowd of Jews gathered to say goodbye. Right before boarding the train, Chiune bowed deeply and cried out, “Please forgive me! I cannot write anymore. I wish you the best!” Someone in the crowd shouted, “Sugihara! We’ll never forget you! I’ll surely see you again!”

Chiune was reassigned to East Prussia, then Prague, and then Bucharest, Romania. When the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1944, Chiune and his family were imprisoned in a POW camp for a year and a half. Finally they were released in 1946 and returned to Japan, but the foreign office had heard about his unauthorized visas, and he was forced to resign. At about this time, the Sugihara’s youngest son died of leukemia at age seven.

Unemployable in Japan, Chiune made use of his excellent Russian language skills and spent the next 16 years working in the Soviet Union while his wife and sons stayed in Japan. Chiune’s exceptional heroism was unknown for many years, until 1968, when he was contacted by Yehoshua Nishri, an attache working at the Israeli consulate in Tokyo. Nishri spent his youth in Poland, and heard stories of the legendary Japanese hero. Nishri made it his mission to publicize Chiune’s heroic acts, and the next year, 1969, Chiune traveled to Israel as an honored guest of the Israeli government. Jews he’d saved lobbied for him to be recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem, and in 1984 he received the honor. At that time he was too sick to travel, so his wife and son Nobuki accepted the award on his behalf.

Chiune was asked why he risked everything to help thousands of strangers. He answered, “You want to know about my motivation, don’t you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes. Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent. People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people’s lives… The spirit of humanity, philanthropy… neighborly friendship… with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation – and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.”

Chiune Sugihara died in Japan on July 31, 1986. Despite being a hero in Israel, and among Jews worldwide, he was completely unknown in his own country. Even his own children didn’t know what he had done. A huge delegation from around the world attended Chiune’s funeral, and only then did he become known in Japan.

Chiune received many awards and accolades, most of them posthumous. Among them are Sugihara Streets in Vilna, Lithuania, and Jaffa and Netanya in Israel. There is a Sugihara House Museum in Kaunas, and a park in Vilna where 200 trees were planted on his 100th birthday. There is a life-sized statue of him in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, featuring a plaque with a quotation from the Talmud, “He who saves one life, saves an entire world.” In 1998, Chiune’s widow Yukiko traveled to Israel and was warmly received by survivors who’d been saved by her husband. There is a Sugihara park in Jerusalem, and he was featured on an Israeli postage stamp in 1998. The Lithuanian government declared 2020 “The Year of Chiune Sugihara.” He has been the subject of multiple works of art, including books, films and a play.

It’s estimated that over 100,000 people are alive today because of the brave actions of Chiune Sugihara.

[coolcarsntrucksngunsnusa]

1971 Green Beret Captain Richard Flaherty stands next to 6'6" Pfc. Nipps.

Richard J. Flaherty, due to complications at his birth, only grew to 4-foot-9-inches tall, 97-pounds. Coming from a family of military heroes Richard also wanted to do his part and serve his country.

People laughed at the idea of a man his size in the military and all the branches turned him down. But that didn't deter Richard, he spent the next 3 years writing letters until he finally received a medical waiver. With the waiver the Army allowed him to join... but no one ever believed he would make it through basic training.

His uniforms didn't fit, the equipment was too big, and he was required to carry a back pack during long marches that was almost the same weight as he was. Because of his leg length marching in step with the rest of his company was incredibly difficult but Richard kept up. All the obstacle courses were built for average size men but Richard conquered them all. No rules were ever changed for Richard - either he would sink or swim.

Richard didn't just make it through basic training he volunteered and become an elite paratrooper, with the 101st Airborne. When he would jump out of planes the instructors would have to strap machine gun parts to his body to help his descent so he wouldn't "float away."

He graduated Officer Candidate School in 1968 as a 2nd Lieutenant and deployed to Vietnam. Within weeks he would lead his platoon in some of the bloodiest battles during the "Tet Offensive." In that week he was wounded twice by grenade fragmentation and a grazing bullet wound to the head but as soon as he was patched up he jumped right back into the battle.

After several months of fighting on the front lines many officers would accept assignments in the rear away from the action but not Richard. He would request to be transferred to Echo Company to lead a RECON unit which engaged in dangerous search and destroy missions deep into enemy territory. By the time his first tour in Vietnam was finished, Richard would receive the Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars with Valor, & 2 Purple Hearts.

If you think that's where Richard's story ends, think again. Richard would become an elite Green Beret with the 3rd Special Forces Group and be promoted to Captain. He served with the 46th Company based in Thailand where some of their clandestine missions sent them into Pink Zones "across the fence" fighting Malaysian and Burmese guerrillas.

As incredible as all his accomplishments seem that's just the first half of his life story as his next chapters of undercover operations around the world seem closer to something out of a Tom Clancy book.

Richard had one last surprise when it came to his final wishes. Even though he knew he was qualified for the highest military burial in Arlington National Cemetery he instead chose to be buried in a small anonymous cemetery in W. Virginia so he could be next to the women he loved for eternity.

To learn more about the unbelievable life of America's smallest war hero please check out, "The Giant Killer" Book, Audiobook and Documentary available worldwide.

Flaherty Military Bio:

Special Forces Capt. Richard J. Flaherty AKA The Giant Killer - In December of 1967, was sent to Vietnam with the 101st Airborne Division. He served as a Platoon Leader with companies B, C, and D and as a Recon Platoon Leader with Echo company.

In January of 1969, he returned to CONUS and attended the Special Forces School at Fort Bragg and was then assigned to the 3rd Special Forces Group. Later that year he returned to South East Asia with the 46th Special Forces Company A-110 in Camp Pawai, Lopburi Thailand.

Captain Flaherty earned the Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, 2 Purple Hearts, the Air Medal, Gallantry Cross W/Silver Star, Army Commendation Medal, Combat Infantryman’s Badge, 3 Overseas Bars, Sharpshooter Badge W/Rifle Bar, Air Medal, Parachutist Badge, Vietnam Service badge.

[elvisomar]

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Let's Win This!

I like Kamala Harris a lot. I'm excited she is going to be the Democratic nominee, and I want her as my President. She was initially my preferred candidate in 2020, before she withdrew her name. I was delighted when she was chosen to run as Vice President.

Tim Walz? He's a great choice. He's my governor, and he's the real deal. I know people who have met him and spent time with him, and all reports are that he is a very genuine, honest man. He is exactly what he seems to be. The midwestern dad energy is not artifice, it's sincere. He knows how to fix his car, and he knows how to make legislation happen in a legislature.

If you know nothing about him, know this:

He was a teacher and he supports strong funding for schools and early education. He has the endorsement from the NEA.

While serving as a high school geography teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, Walz was the faculty advisor of the school's first student gay-straight alliance organization.

Also at Mankato West High School, Walz was the coach of the boys Football team, which he coached to the school's first State Championship in 1999, winning first among class AAAA schools.

He has been a strong union man, and he supports the rights of workers to organize and negotiate. He has enthusiastic AFL-CIO support and endorsement.

He is a hunter and gun owner that supports reasonable gun control and licensure.

He is the father of teenaged children who are well-adjusted, and he spends time with them in a genuine and supportive way.

Walz advocated for, and signed into law, the legalization of recreational cannabis use in Minnesota.

He was in the U.S. Army National Guard where he rose to the highest possible non-commissioned rank in any battalion: Command Sergeant Major. Those are among the most important and respected members of the military, and the senior enlisted advisor to a battalion commander. You don't even get close to that job unless you are as reliable and competent as they come.

As a member of the Nebraska National Guard, Walz was selected as Nebraska Citizen-Soldier of the year in 1989.

He is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, serving Minnesota's First District from 2007 to 2019, when he took the office of Governor. While in Washington he served on the Agriculture, Veteran's Affairs, Transportation & Infrastructure, and Armed Forces committees.

His Lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan, is a Native American activist and community organizer, and a member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. If Harris-Walz win the presidential election, Flanagan would become the first Native American to serve as U.S. State Governor, and I'd be thrilled to see her in the Governor's mansion.

There is even more about the guy to like, but I hope this helps to get to know him.

[qs63]

Amestris Military Training

This is the fourth of my series of long posts about the Amestrian Military. This is the speculative part of this meta. Little is known about the training the Amestrian soldiers receive, the most we have seen about it comes from the OVA “Another man's battlefield” and a few scenes in the manga. However, as we have seen through this series of posts, Arakawa took a lot of inspiration from the real world. The Imperial Japan military training seems to match a lot of what we see in FMA. Brace yourself, this is long and history heavy. 

Once again, I'm not a historian and I'm not fluent in Japanese. Please let me know if there's anything I missed or got wrong.

To see the rest of this meta series check out the Main Post.

First a little background about the Empire of Japan. It was the Japanese nation-state that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the reformed Constitution of Japan in 1947. Its history is divided in three periods named after the emperors that presided over them: Meiji (1868-1912), Taishō (1912-1926) and Shōwa (1926-1947).

This is a period of transformation for Japan, where they opened to the world and tried to modernize themselves and catch up with the western nations… by copying them. Meiji Japan is almost a pseudo European country. Their laws, government organization, education, etc. was reformed and modeled after the contemporary European nations and the United States of America. The influence of the third French Republic was especially strong in the early Meiji period, with it getting revised and remodeled in favor of other systems — mostly German as the relationship with the USA and its allies soured — throughout the years.

This is also the case in their military education. 

Officers training  During the early Meiji, the military cadets (meaning candidates to become officers) received a French style training which was later changed to a German style cadet system. The main difference between the two systems is that the German style required for the cadets to gain experience as Non-commissioned officers before graduation, while the French one didn't. 

Based on what we see in Fullmetal Alchemist they follow the German style system that lasted from 1887 to the American intervention in 1945. The main indication of this is that we see Riza Hawkeye in Ishval as a NCO.[1] She would've never been there under the French system. The time frame of the German style training also matches what we see in FMA. I'll explain this a bit later. 

For now let's concentrate on who and how someone could enter the Imperial Japan Army Officers Academy.

Three types of students could enter the academy: graduates of the Army's Children School, graduates of  Junior high school (both these schools covered ages 12 to 16), and selected active Non-commissioned officers who applied for officer training. 

The graduates of the army's children school didn't need to pass any exam to enter the academy, but only the best were selected. They had to compete for positions with the external candidates, those aged 16 to 19 who passed the recruitment exam (which required at least a junior high school education). Both of these students would enter the academy as cadets.

While the program was revised many times, the longest standing program was the 2 courses 4 years system. 

In this system the cadets would first take a two year military officer preparatory course that was equivalent to regular higher education. They were taught science, history, geography, etc. by civilian teachers. Their rank (the equivalent of private first class), military branch, and unit were designated upon graduating the preparatory course. 

After graduation the cadets would serve in their designated unit for six months (during which time they were promoted to corporal), afterwards they would be given the rank of sergeant upon entering the main military officers course. 

The main course was 1 year and 10 months long, and it was where the actual military training happened. The cadets would be taught tactics, military history, military system, weaponry, marksmanship, etc. they would also receive training in camp duty, shooting, swordsmanship, gymnastics, horsemanship, etc. in addition field trips were also conducted. 

Upon graduating they would become Apprentice Officers (a rank equivalent to Sergeant Major, the highest of the NCO ranks) for a trial period of about six months. Afterwards they would be officially appointed as 2nd Lieutenant (the lowest of the officers ranks) on the recommendation of their original troop's officer corps.

Now you might be wondering why I think Arakawa used this system (or rather one inspired by it) in Fullmetal Alchemist. I have a few reasons.

The first is the characters' ages. We know Roy and Hughes are 18 in “Another man's battlefield”, and we see them training in marksmanship and military tactics. We also see they have upperclassmen which implies the course is longer than one year.[2] We also know that Roy is 20 years old when he graduates the academy and visits the Hawkeye family, thanks to brotherhood giving us the date of Berthold's death.[3]

This all matches with the imperial Japan German style cadet system, where the majority of students would enter the preparatory course at 16 upon graduating from junior high school or the military school, they would then be 18 at the time of starting the main course, and 20 upon graduating from the academy. The ages of the characters and what we see on screen matches the system’s time frame.

Riza Hawkeye is yet another example three years after her father's death and conversation with Mustang, during the Ishval war, she is yet to graduate from the academy.[1][3][4] Either the Amestris academy lasts more than the two years we see Roy and Hughes go through, or she waited about two years to enter the military Academy (otherwise she would have already graduated by Ishval). I don't think it makes sense for her to wait so long to join the academy, specially if it has an age cap (of 19 in Imperial Japan). So assuming she entered right after her father died, that would put her in the last year of the German style system by the time we see her in Ishval, perfect for getting pulled into a war with her already assigned unit. 

This brings me to my second reason for believing Arakawa is using this system: the ranks.

I mentioned before that the cadets in FMA don't seem to have a rank, this makes sense when you consider that in imperial Japan they were given ranks that do not exist in FMA. Instead of adding ranks or messing up with the system Arakawa might have just completely skipped them (much like she seems to have done with the military police). 

I also mentioned that graduates (the so called Apprentice Officers) are assigned a temporary rank of Sergeant Major. In FMA we know that you graduate with a rank of Warrant Officer[1][3][4]. But hold on, that's not the same… well not in name, but yes in practice. Sergeant Major was the highest NCO rank in Imperial Japan. It's not in FMA, that's Warrant Officer. So technically they're equal ranks. Furthermore, It doesn't make sense for a graduate of the OFFICER school to be officially assigned an NCO rank, unless that's for a trial period like in the German style cadet system. For reference, the French style system assigned graduates the rank of Second Lieutenant (the lowest officer rank) upon graduation, since it didn't require the cadets to gain NCO experience. The fact that we are shown both newly graduated Riza and Roy with the rank of Warrant Officer can only mean there is also a trial period in Amestris.

Further proof of this is that within a year of us seeing the freshly graduated Warrant Officers Riza Hawkeye in 1909[1][3], she's already a full fledged 2nd Lieutenant by the time we see her in Resembool in 1910[5], and again she's a 1st Lieutenant a year later when Ed becomes a State Alchemist[5]. Riza is good, but that's a lot of promotions in a short time. It makes more sense if you think that she was officially assigned her 2nd Lieutenant rank after completing her 6 months trial period, and then she was promoted around the same time as Roy got his Colonel promotion, perhaps for her work in Ishval + whatever cases they worked together. Now, that seems a lot more reasonable than Riza averaging a promotion per year in her early military days.

Another hint towards this system is the number of 2nd Lieutenants we meet: Havoc, Breda, Ross, Catalina, Henschel, Darius, Heinkel, Jerso, and Zampano. This is the rank we see the most of, and it makes sense if they all got it by going through the Officers Academy. We know this to be true for at least Havoc and Breda.

Havoc's and Breda’s graduation.[6]

Now you might notice I haven't mentioned the third type of student, the active non-commissioned officers (aka Second Lieutenant candidates). This is because while they go through the academy too, they're very different from the cadets:

They must be under the age of 38 and pass the Army Preliminary Course recruitment examination, which is different from the cadets exam.

They do NOT live on campus.

Their training only lasts 1 year (during peacetime), unlike the cadets 4 years. 

Because they are older than the cadets at the time they become officers, their promotion ceiling is lower as they hit the active duty retirement age before achieving high ranks.

Falman would fall into this category as he was a Warrant Officer for more than six months and clearly looks older than the rest of team Mustang. However, a year does not pass between him getting appointed to the North and him getting his promotion. My explanation for that is that the North has a shorter program for Second Lieutenant Candidates. In imperial Japan not only was the program shorter during war time (10-2 months), but the time also depended on which branch, region, and school you enrolled in. Since the North is quite hostile and is technically in a cold war with Drachma, it makes sense their Second Lieutenant Candidate program is short. The other explanation is that Falman started the program before being transferred. 

That more or less covers the Officers military training and education. Feel free to ask me if you want a more day to day explanation of the cadets’ life at the academy. You can also check this article. There's at least one documentary about it, available on Amazon Prime Japan.

Non-commissioned officers training  NCO’s training in Imperial Japan was first performed by the training corps (1871–1899), then by each unit (1899-1927), then after a decline in quality it was done at a training school (1927-1938), and finally back to the training corps until the American intervention. It's impossible for me to know if Arakawa used this system for the NCOs, and which period she chose to use, given how little information we have about the NCO characters. I still mentioned it in case anyone was curious about Fuery’s training. The training school lasted just one year and it was focused on general education, military education, and technical training.

The military police To end this, I will mention that the military police had their own academy separate from the officers’. They also had their own ranks equivalent to those of the army, i.e. Police First Lieutenant. It is possible this is the case in FMA. They're at the very least not trained together with the military personnel.

Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please don't hesitate to reach to ask questions or just rant about this. I love discussing FMA.

Source Fullmetal Alchemist Manga

Chapter 24: Fullmetal Alchemist [5]

Chapter 58: footsteps of ruin [4]

Chapter 59: the immoral alchemist [1]

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Episode 30: The Ishvalan war of extermination [3]

OVA: Another man's battlefield [2]

The complete art of Fullmetal Alchemist [6]

[bossboudicca]

welcome to my little at home museum!

hello hbo war pals! and anyone else who likes this kinda stuff~

i recently acquired a collection of memorabilia from my dad, which came from his father (my grandad) and an old family friend. both these men served in ww2, and brought back/earned quite a few medals and other trinkets, american and german.

under the cut are photos and some information i found about some of the pieces, but just a quick content warning- some of these photos contain real nazi memorabilia, and if that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable then here's your warning. anyway, enjoy some artifacts!

this one is my personal favorite- the man who originally wore this would have served in both world wars. the darker medal with the dates is called a Hindenburg Cross

this is a german land mine marker/warning flag. also used to denote any hazardous objects/gas/etc.

this is a german Panzer Badge, given to tank crews who actively participated in at least three armored assaults on three different days.

this is a german Black/3rd Class Wound Badge, given to men who were wounded once or twice by hostile action. basically a nazi purple heart.

i was told this pin was german, but upon further research i believe it's actually an american ww2 honorable discharge pin. im not sure if it was my grandpa's or the family friend's.

and here's the piece everyone loses their mind over. your standard nazi armband. it is very spooky to touch/handle.

this was my grandpa's American Campaign Medal, and i'm guessing he got it from one of his jobs which was being the navigator on a B-25 Mitchell bomber assigned to flying the length of the west coast looking for any Japanese military aircraft/ships/etc. (the same kind of plane involved in the Doolittle raid)

this is his World War II Victory Medal, essentially a participation trophy. Every member of the United States Armed Forces who served from 7 December 1941 to 31 December 1946 was eligible for this medal.

this is his Army Commendation Medal. it is awarded to "any member of the Armed Forces of the United States other than General Officers who, while serving in any capacity with the U.S. Army after December 6, 1941, distinguished themselves by heroism, meritorious achievement or meritorious service". i am not entirely sure about the bars on the right side of the case, more specifically the blue and white with the three stars. any ideas?

beyond the rank badges, i honestly have no idea what these patches are for. however, for my band of brothers fans, that circular patch is an OCS/Officer Candidate School patch from Fort Moore/Benning. My grandad went to the same place Winters and Nixon did (i'm sure tons of guys did too but i think it's cool)

more of my grandpa's random little pins. i do not know what the "G" one is, but the one next to it with the propeller is an Army Air Force pin. i really like the U.S. ones and the lieutenant bar because you see those in the show lol. there is something on the backside of the lieutenant bar, but i can't quite figure out what it is. any insights are welcome!

these are some of his Army Air Force navigator specific pins

lastly, these were my grandpa's hats. i have an old photo of him somewhere, in uniform, wearing the one with the pin. makes me miss him a lot.

AND THAT'S IT! I hope you guys enjoyed your trip to the museum. if anyone has more information, please let me know! or if i misnamed anything!

[kweldas]

«Just because I'm an Oberstleutnant doesn't mean I know what the hell is going on».

⇀ Wolfric Ehlers. Abhors any abbreviation of his given name, such as "Wulf," "Wolfe," or other derivatives.

⇀ Forty-five years. Holder of the Latent soul.

⇀ Wolfric embodies old-world values, instilled with a sense of duty from youth. He adheres to traditions until they become inconvenient. A meticulous and organized leader, he brooks emotion in favor of logic and action. His steadfast principles and rigid beliefs make him a formidable figure, demanding professionalism and unwavering loyalty from his followers. Only with close friends and family does he occasionally display a gentler side. Otherwise, Wolfric appears weary and has little interest in frivolous pursuits. Personality type: ESTJ.

The Ehlers family tree (excluding numerous Wolfric's nephews and cousins) to understand what their lineage represents. Those relatives who kept their titles in their names passed away before the fall of the nobility in Bremen.

⇀ Born into Bremen's military aristocracy on August 25, 1897, Wolfric embarked on an army career at a young age. He studied at a prestigious officer cadet school, completing his training with distinction just as the Great War erupted, — the same place where he put his learned skills to brutal use, — and as a result, emerged from the carnage as a decorated Leutenant.

When the conflict paved the way for a new candidate in the political arena, sensing the shift in power and despite initial personal dislike, Siegfried saw advantage and instructed Wolfric to align with the emerging clout of Kaiser, a move aimed at securing the family's position.

That same year, 1919, Ehlers married his wife, Frauke Teufel.

When a populist uprising in Bremen toppled the monarchy and nobility, the Von Ehlers lost their titles and most of their property but kept their lives. Wolfric continued his military career, becoming Hauptmann in 1926 and Major in 1930.

With the beginning of the Second Great War, he was promoted to Oberstleutnant. Wolfric protected his eldest son, Ulfric, from combat by using his connections to send the lad away.

More about it.

Wolfric accepted the invitation to join the Elite Imperial Troops in 1941 and participated in the Bohemian Campaign the following year.

Character height headcanons.

The attitude towards the contestants (and, as a bonus, the representatives of Bremen).

Wolfric is not inclined to trust anyone in Prehevil and certainly does not want to allow strangers near him; therefore, he judges (excluding Karin and Olivia, about whom he already has his own formed opinion) solely based on appearance and the first impression they make of him from the outside. Despite his negative feelings towards the Sylvian trooper or the Kaiser, Wolfric does not confront them, which cannot be said about Pav, whom he will at best regard with great suspicion and under any pretext will throw out of the city or engage in direct conflict with further escalation.

Battle dialogues in the White Bunker.

Doodles, arts, etc.

«Dear troops, please remember to shine your boots, salute the Kaiser, and avoid eye contact».

[havegaysex]

Why are you telling people to vote for the guy committing genocide :/

because voting is not an endorsement it's harm reduction.

Trump is going to be at best doing the same as Biden and likely much worse for Palestinians and all the countries suffering from American Imperialism than Biden is.

Republicans want to bring back child labor and get rid of social security, medicare, Medicaid. As someone who is surviving on Medicaid and social security I don't want those taken away. The Republican majority house already put a lot of limits on food stamps in this past term and I don't think we'll still have food stamps if we get a republican Congress and a Republican president.

They've made it pretty clear that if they get a republican Congress and a Republican president they're going to enact project 2025 and call a conference of states and try and take our rights back to the days when only wealthy white men had any rights when women and racial minorities had no rights, they want to make it illegal for LGBT+ folks to safely exist in public and get lifesaving healthcare.

In short

Do I support every single thing Biden has done as president?

No.

Do I like him?

Not particularly. But I'm still voting for him because apathy is not a choice.

Do I think that Joe Biden having another term means that we can actually make more progress for labor rights, trans healthcare, abortion access, advancement of the rights and protections for disabled people and so much more?

Yes absolutely.

Do I think that the genocide in Gaza needs to end and the United States needs to stop sending weapons to israel?

Yes, I think that un restricted flow of humanitarian aid into Palestine needs to happen, the siege needs to stop, and the country of Israel and the United States need to be held accountable at an international level. I think that the soldiers of the IDF/IOF need to be held accountable for their war crimes and pillaging that they continuously post evidence of on social medias. I'm trying to put a read more here so ce I've put a few linked articles and quotes from them.

A quote from the article below:

"While our map focuses solely on high school aged youth (age 13-17), some states, such as Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina, have considered banning care for transgender people up to 26 years of age. "

I've seen lawmakers in some states try to make it felony punishable by life in prison to get your trans child healthcare to keep them alive because they want to make it illegal for us to exist and a legal for anyone who helps us exist.

some quotes from the article above:

"Led by the long-established Heritage Foundation think tank and fueled by former Trump administration officials, the far-reaching effort is essentially a government-in-waiting for the former president’s second term — or any candidate who aligns with their ideals and can defeat President Joe Biden in 2024. With a nearly 1,000-page “Project 2025” handbook and an “army” of Americans, the idea is to have the civic infrastructure in place on Day One to commandeer, reshape and do away with what Republicans deride as the “deep state” bureaucracy, in part by firing as many as 50,000 federal workers. “We need to flood the zone with conservatives,” said Paul Dans, director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project and a former Trump administration official who speaks with historical flourish about the undertaking. “This is a clarion call to come to Washington,” he said. “People need to lay down their tools, and step aside from their professional life and say, ‘This is my lifetime moment to serve.’” The unprecedented effort is being orchestrated with dozens of right-flank organizations, many new to Washington, and represents a changed approach from conservatives, who traditionally have sought to limit the federal government by cutting federal taxes and slashing federal spending. Instead, Trump-era conservatives want to gut the “administrative state” from within, by ousting federal employees they believe are standing in the way of the president’s agenda and replacing them with like-minded officials more eager to fulfill a new executive’s approach to governing. The goal is to avoid the pitfalls of Trump’s first years in office, when the Republican president’s team was ill-prepared, his Cabinet nominees had trouble winning Senate confirmation and policies were met with resistance — by lawmakers, government workers and even Trump’s own appointees who refused to bend or break protocol, or in some cases violate laws, to achieve his goals. While many of the Project 2025 proposals are inspired by Trump, they are being echoed by GOP rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy and are gaining prominence among other Republicans. And if Trump wins a second term, the work from the Heritage coalition ensures the president will have the personnel to carry forward his unfinished White House business. “The president Day One will be a wrecking ball for the administrative state,” said Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official involved in the effort who is now president at the conservative Center for Renewing America. Much of the new president’s agenda would be accomplished by reinstating what’s called Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the 2 million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired. Biden had rescinded the executive order upon taking office in 2021, but Trump — and other presidential hopefuls — now vow to reinstate it."

"There’s a “top to bottom overhaul” of the Department of Justice, particularly curbing its independence and ending FBI efforts to combat the spread of misinformation. It calls for stepped-up prosecution of anyone providing or distributing abortion pills by mail."

Personally I think that voting for Joe Biden is better than someone who wants to enact this stuff on day one. It's like they read handmaid's tale and want to make that the reality of this country.

"Chapter by chapter, the pages offer a how-to manual for the next president, similar to one Heritage produced 50 years ago, ahead of the Ronald Reagan administration. Authored by some of today’s most prominent thinkers in the conservative movement, it’s often sprinkled with apocalyptic language." Ronald Reagan is a big reason we have a lot of problems we have today with our economy and with a lot more things. The people that supported Ronald Reagan do not need another term in office.

A quote from the article linked below:

"Trump has given no indication that he would be more sympathetic to Palestinian claims, nor that he would place more pressure on Israel to agree to a ceasefire. “The approach of the United States would be that Israel needs to win this war, it was attacked brutally,” Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, describing how Trump would act. Friedman is now a campaign surrogate for Trump."

Personally I think Trump telling Israel to finish the job is indicators that another Trump presidency doesn't mean that weapons would stop being sent to Israel from United States

I fail to see how another term of Donald trump will be any better for the victims of the ongoing genocide in Palestine than President Joe Biden.

i think our system is absolutely messed up and broken but I don't think abstaining from voting is going to actually help.

[guitarhappyman]

What the Trump Nominees Have Not Done—And Will Not Do

5 Comments / December 5, 2024

Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

Deflated by the resounding November defeat, the left now believes it can magically rebound by destroying Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.

Many of Trump’s picks are well outside the usual Washington, DC/New York political, media, and corporate nexus.

But that is precisely the point—to insert reformers into a bloated, incompetent, and weaponized government who are not part of it.

Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, is already drawing severe criticism.

His furious enemies cannot go after his resume, since he has spent a lifetime in private, congressional, and executive billets, both in investigations and intelligence.

Instead, they claim he is too vindictive and does not reflect the ethos of the FBI.

But what will Patel not do as the new director?

He will not serially lie under oath to federal investigators as did interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a current Patel critic.

He will not forge an FBI court affidavit, as did convicted felon and agency lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.

He will not claim amnesia 245 times under congressional oath to evade embarrassing admissions as did former Director James Comey.

He will not partner with a foreign national to collect dirt and subvert a presidential campaign as the FBI did with Christopher Steele in 2016

He will not use the FBI to draft social media to suppress news unfavorable to a presidential candidate on the eve of an election.

He would not have suppressed FBI knowledge that Hunter Biden’s laptop was genuine—to allow the lie to spread that it was “Russian disinformation” on the eve of the 2020 election.

He will not raid the home of an ex-president with SWAT teams, surveil Catholics, monitor parents at school board meetings, or go after pro-life peaceful protestors.

Decorated combat veteran Pete Hegseth is another controversial nominee for secretary of defense.

What will Hegseth likely not do?

Go AWOL without notifying the president of a serious medical procedure as did current Secretary Lloyd Austin?

Install race and gender criteria for promotion and mandate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training?

Insinuate falsely that cabals of white supremacists had infiltrated the military—only to alienate that entire demographic and thus ensure the Pentagon came up 40,000 recruits short?

Oversee the scramble from Kabul that saw $50 billion in U.S. military equipment abandoned to Taliban terrorists?

Watch passively as a Chinese spy balloon traversed the continental United States for a week?

Allow the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to promise his Chinese communist counterpart that the People’s Liberation Army would first be informed if the President of the United States was felt to issue a dangerous order?

Rotate into the Pentagon from a defense contractor boardship and then leave office to rotate back there to leverage procurement decisions?

Oversee the Pentagon’s serial flunking of fiscal audits?

Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is certainly a maverick. He may earn the most Democratic hits, given his former liberal credentials.

But what will RFK also not do as HHS secretary?

Oversee his agencies circumventing U.S. law by transferring money to communist China to help it produce lethal gain-of-function viruses of the COVID-19 sort—in the manner of Dr. Fauci?

Organize scientists to go after critics of mandatory masking and defame them?

Give pharmaceutical companies near-lifetime exemptions from legal jeopardy for rushing into production mRNA vaccines not traditionally vetted and tested?

Leave office to monetize his HHS expertise and thus make millions from the pharmaceutical companies?

Trump’s nominee for Director of National Intelligence, former congressional representative and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard, will soon be defamed in congressional hearings.

But what has Gabbard not done?

Joined “51 former intelligence authorities” to lie on the eve of the 2020 election that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks” of a Russian information/disinformation operation”—in an effort to swing the election to incumbent Joe Biden?

Lied under congressional oath like former DNI James Clapper, who claimed he only gave the “least untruthful answer” in congressional testimony?

Encourage the FBI to monitor a presidential campaign in efforts to discredit it—in the manner of former CIA Director John Brennan, who lied not once but twice under oath?

Fail to foresee the American meltdown in Kabul, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, or the Houthis takeover of the Red Sea?

We are going to hear some outrageous things in the upcoming congressional confirmation hearings.

But one thing we will not hear about are the crimes, deceptions, and utter incompetence of prior and current government grandees.

The current crew, not their proposed Trump replacements, prompted the sick and tired American people to demand different people.

Voters want novel approaches to reform a government that they not only no longer trust but also now deeply fear.

[follow-up-news]

Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee for US president, has named Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, as her running mate ahead of the November election. The decision ends intense speculation over which candidate Harris would pick to go up against Donald Trump, the Republican nominee and former president, and his choice for vice-president, the Ohio senator JD Vance. Walz first ran for office in 2006 in a Republican-leaning congressional district, upsetting the incumbent. He kept the seat until he won the Minnesota governorship in 2018, then again in 2022. Under his leadership, the state has seen significant progressive legislative wins in recent years, including universal school meals, legalized marijuana, abortion protections and gun control measures. Before he entered public office, he was a school teacher in Mankato, Minnesota, teaching geography to high school students. He also served in the army national guard for 24 years.