Oligo

Maybe Finland will join NATO. And maybe we'll finally get to participate in some wars. It really sucks that our government doesn't send troops to shooting wars, not even volunteer troops. Kind of removes the point from being in the army, I mean, soldiers are meant to make war, right?

Here there be Steel Beasts This happened during my basic training period. Our platoon had just been through a weeks worth of AT training during which the brass taught us how to sneak up to an enemy MBT and blow it away with a LAW. Luckily I had enough sobriety of mind NOT to point out that assaulting an MBT with a LAW is a suicide. You can just hope to make the MBT pissed at best. In the end of the week there was a practical test. One by one we were invited to the test range. When I got there, the 2nd Lieutenant briefed me: "There is an enemy T-80 100 meters behind that ridgeline. Get into position on the ridge and blow it away with this LAW." I agreed to do so and swiftly proceeded into this convenient foxhole on the ridge using proper infantryman movement modes. I had this mental image of an enormous steel beast, racing through the forest machineguns blazing and main gun coughing off once and a while. So I peeked cautiously from the foxhole. I couldn't see a goddamn thing. Absolutely no tank anywhere. So I said: "Sir, there is no enemy T-80 anywhere to be seen." I got a yelling reply: "What do you mean, private? Are you blind? There is an enemy T-80 and its pounding your position with machineguns! What are you going to do?" I peeked again, this time raising a little higher. And no, there were no frightening steel monsters to be seen. Not even anything resebling a tank. So I rise higher and higher, until I finally stand on the bloody ridge and I swear, there is no MBT. Says the officer: "You fucking retard! You stood up like that and the goddamn T-80 blew you away with the main gun." I reply, totally puzzled: "Sir, I cannot see any T-80s from this position. I swear. Even if it did blow me away." The officer gets totally pissed and runs down the side of the ridge for some 50 meters. He points at this olive colored thing the size of a beer case. And sure enough, it is a crude miniature model of a generic tank. I'm pretty sure my retinas had caught the picture of this thing, but since I was looking for a huge steel beast raging through the countryside (my mental image of a T-80), my mind just didn't manage to connect this pathetic thing to a T-80. Try explaining that to an officer going ballistic...

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Pete @ Feb. 23 2002,03:07)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Pete baba and the 40 deers?<span id='postcolor'> Ha! I heard about this incident when I served. Seems your legend lives ever on...

Well, I'd have to say Talvisota (The Winter War) is the best war movie I have ever seen. Just because it has no flag waving or patriotic crap at all. I also liked some russian war movies that i don't remember the names of. Das Boot and Staligrad were excellent. Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now were also good. Tour of Duty was a brilliant series (I loved the old private 'Pops' who had been promoted four times but allways soon busted back to private). Saving Private Ryan is nice if you fast forward all the U.S. flag waving.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (4ntifa @ Feb. 22 2002,09:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Natural instincts can not be used as an excuse. The life of a modern human is very far from natural. For example, monogamy is quite unnatural. Any man with a normal sex drive can tell that his natural instincts would cause him to have sex with just about every willing woman. Also, if the instinct on ownership was considered somehow "uncontrollable" (sex drive - the most powerful instinct excluding the survival instinct - can be controlled, why not the will to own?) , wouldn't stealing be okay? It's only natural to act on your instinct, you know? Humans also have natural tendency to work as a group, pack, society or whatever. Humans are not solitary predators. If there weren't an instinct of solidarity and altruism, how come the majority of people (excluding Americans to whom selfishness is a religion) are willing to cooperate and share? The idea of selfishness and individualism is a newcomer, so it is quite reasonable to assume that humans are cooperative and altruistic by nature. Humans are highly social animals and selfishness only arises from the survival instinct. Capitalism is very unnatural and disconnects the human from his "pack", making him alone and vulnerable and his fellow humans enemies, members of a competing pack (well, everyone is considered a pack of his own). In such a situation, it's his survival against the others' and selfishness becomes acceptable. You can observe the results of this unnatural behaviour in every western society: mental illness, murder, etc are much more common than in more "primitive" societies.<span id='postcolor'> Monogamy is not unnatural. There are many animals with absolute monogamy meaning they are totally incapable of cheating their spouse. But the human case is a little more complicated. Humans developed from monkeys living in forests as packs. In the forests, the monkeys ate fruit. They needed no monogamy, since the alpha male could always watch over the females and kick the ass of every other male trying to screw the females. But during their development, humans became pack predators living on plains. It became necessary for the males to leave the pack in order to go hunting. Monogamy started to develop so that you wouldn't constantly have to watch over your spuse. The glitch is, not enough time has passed for a full monogamy to develop. So humans have this sort of half-monogamy where they are jealous of their spouses, but still want to fuck around. This applies to both sexes by the way, not just to males. So when you talk about controlling the sex drive, you're actually talking about how humans are still developing towards absolute monogamy by suppressing the obsolete and partially eradicated want to fuck around. Your argument therefore fails, because we are absolutely not controlling any of our instincts. Stealing is not okay for the individual you're stealing from, because of his property instinct. So the anti-theft laws are designed to protect the fulfillment of this instinct. Humans have a natural tendency to work as comprehensible packs. This means that humans are willing to share with people they know and care about a.k.a. their pack. But don't get this the wrong way. Everybody inside a pack is still naturally in some degree competing against each other for the spot in the sun. Thus selfishness is nothing new. In capitalism, you make money for yourself and if you want, you can share it with your pack. Sharing it with complete strangers is not natural, since they do not belong to your comprehensible pack. See your pack is not even your country or your town, it's just the people you personally know and care. That's the reason why soldiers in wars mostly die for their buddies (=their pack) and not for some vaque country thingy. Mental illness, murder, etc. in western societies is in my opinion caused by the simple truth that modern society has made men obsolete. Our society is so safe and regulated that male properties (protection of your pack, etc.) are no longer needed. So some males become frustrated and vent their anger on violence. This is however only my view of this issue.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Longinius @ Feb. 22 2002,10:51)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Most of the time most of the soldiers spend their time in service whining about how much it sucks. Years later they visit forums like this and tell tales of how fun it was <span id='postcolor'> Yeah. Most of the stories I told, I sure as #### wasn't laughing when they happened. And in service, I did constantly think how much it sucks. But now after years in civvie life, I realize my life sucks even more now than it did back at the service. Guess even sucking is relative.

It's quite sad that I'm probably the only one in here who understood everything said in the first post. It's not spam to me.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (4ntifa @ Feb. 21 2002,21:01)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Yes, I know there is inequality based on socio-economical status and I devote a fraction of my time and energy to opposing it. (I just came home from a meeting of the local Leftist Youth) Inequality is nothing new, but that doesn't make it a bit more acceptable. My fears about genetech increasing inequality are based on exactly what you said: "Now if you want to have a mod for your kid, you just cough up the dinero and your offsprings evolution goes to that direction." In that scenario, privileged status is even more inheriditary (sp?) than today. Not only can the elite afford better education etc, but also better genes! If genes ever become subject to large scale testing and modification, they will surely become a part of job interviews etc. There will be an uncrossable barrier between the privileged and the pariah. Now is that the kind of society you want for future generations? And is that the kind of society which can exist in peace and wellbeing, or a society that gives birth to huge conflicts and possibly the end of civilization?<span id='postcolor'> You know, there is an instinct on ownership in the human psyche, just like there is the instinct to breed. This ownership instinct is very wide spread in the mammalian kingdom (just try to take a bone from a dog for example). While your dreams about a socio-economically equal world are very noble, it will never work, since it is in the human nature to feel good about having more property than thy neighbour. This instinct has formed during the course of evolution, because it improves the chances of survival of individuals. Leftism just doesn't work, because it is unnatural for humans in their current state. So it is your opinion that the rich should not get better genes just because the poor cannot afford them? You'd ban better life for everybody just because not everybody can have a better life? Your nobility sounds very scary. Don't you understand that if improved genes are at first the priviledge of the rich, the procedures will get cheaper in time and genetic modification will eventually spread down to the reach of the poor as well. You know, pretty much everything new was at first only the priviledge of the rich. There will always be huge conflicts, it's the human nature. There is going to be no peace for us. And about the end of civilization, only science can postpone it. That's why science should be our ultimate priority.

Arctic Survival You don't realize it until you think about it, but in sub zero weather lack of drinking water becomes a major survival problem. There is water everywhere in snow, but you don't want to go eating it, because the repercussions range from hypothermia via diarrhea to intestinal parasites. Our platoon was fucking thirsty, because the drinking water we kept in a plastic twenty liter container had frozen stiff and wouldn't come out of the little nozzle the container had. We had the bright idea of heating the container to melt the water. The bloke with the most initiative that day hoisted the container next to the fireplace in our tent. We waited and dreamed about nice water streaming down our throats. Pretty soon the water had somewhat melted, since the container made satisfying splashing sounds when moved. We were overjoyed (and thirsty). Somebody tried to turn the knob of the nozzle to enable the streaming function. But the plastic nozzle had melted shut in the heat. Next we tried to open the big screw cap on the top of the container. But it had melted shut also. What we now had on our hands was twenty liters of water hermetically sealed inside three millimeters of olive green plastic. Everybody was very thirsty and pissed. So the bloke with the most initiative took an axe and showed that MOFO container who is the boss. We got our water, but the container couldn't be closed anymore. Back at base the logistics guys asked what happened to our container. We told them it was run over by a tank. Â My friend who served as a field artillery forward observer got into similar situation, but they didn't even have a container of water to help. They radioed the HQ for water resupply. HQ promised to send water. What my friend and his squad got was a pile of tea bags and no water. Â

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (4ntifa @ Feb. 20 2002,13:42)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Dragging evolution forward to a destination of our picking is exactly what I ment by "imposing our values on human genome". On what moral grounds do we decide where to take evolution? Which attributes are to be considered desirable, which unwanted? Who's to decide that? Most westerners technocrats have a naive belief that we, the people of today (especially people in the western world), are the ones who are "right" about everything. What we consider "good" or "valuable" is assumed to be some kind of absolute, rational and non-subjective truth. You really should see Gattaga, it's a good movie which deals with the moral issues of gene technology. I fear that gene technology will be an exclusive right of the elite and will be a major factor in the success of an individual (much like in Gattaga, in which people had their genes mapped as part of job interview). It is a great threat to democracy and equality.<span id='postcolor'> In case you haven't noticed, people today are very inequal, since some of us have a lot of dough a.k.a. squirrel skins a.k.a. dinero and some of us have none. This is a great threat to democracy and equality, not genetech like you said. Having piles of money is an exclusive right of the elite and is a major factor in the success of an individual. Anyway we don't have to collectively decide where we will drag the evolution. We'll just have corporations who develop genetic manipulations and offer these as products. Now if you want to have a mod for your kid, you just cough up the dinero and your offsprings evolution goes to that direction. So everybody decides for themselves what attributes are desirable and which unwanted. Since people are so different in what they want, the diversity is easily maintained. I, as a western technocrat (genetic engineer), am insulted by your implication that we technocrats actually believe that there are such things as right and wrong. And I sure as fuck don't believe that westerners are in some way superior to other people. Unfortunately all movies dealing with gene technology are written by people who don't know bollocks about gene technology. We're already inequal. Genetic modification won't make it better or worse.

Combat Mission rocked!

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (4ntifa @ Feb. 20 2002,11:18)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Now you're making sense. In your previous post, the elitism (me=smart, masses=stupid) combined with the word "superhuman" simply made an alarm ring in my head. I do agree that genetic manipulation is a far too beneficial technology to go unused. There are very serious moral dilemmas, though. Not to mention possible unforeseen risks. I would, for example, allow use of human embryos in research. The benefits are obvious, and I don't believe an embryo is no more a human than an egg or an embryo of another mammal. People are being way too sentimental and irrational in these issues. I don't think "improving humans" is something to take lightly. In doing so, we are imposing our values on the human genome and taking huge risks. Genes work in combinations and we propably cannot even hope to comprehend all the interactions involved. BTW have you seen the movie Gattaga?<span id='postcolor'> Did I call myself smart? If I did, I didn't mean to. Anyway, genetic engineering would be very costly in the beginning, so it could be applied only to few humans (volunteers). From there, we could work out the risks. And if somebody had moral dilemmas with this tech, they shouldn't use it. The real problem is that they try to prevent others from using it as well. Lets consider "imposing our values on human genome". With modern medicine we already do this, since we treat hereditary diseases by attacking the symptoms and not the cause. Thus there is no selection pressure on our genome and poor genes spread like a wildfire. We have ended our own evolution. Now we have the technology to take control of our evolution and drag it forward to a destination of our picking. We could end the deteriorating of our genome and improve it further. The risks are really not an issue, because not everybody will be engineered since it should be a volunteer thing. If something goes wrong, we always have old fashioned humans to carry on. Of course, much research is needed before any of this can be done. But since the tech is banned, no research is being done. I haven't seen Gattaga.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (4ntifa @ Feb. 20 2002,09:25)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">BTW you sound like a nazi. I admit that the masses are, frankly, stupid. But it doesn't have to be that way. The System â„¢ wants them to be stupid. The problem in democracy is, that everyone's free to speak but money can buy you quite an amplifier. The masses don't read my (or anyone's) rants, they read newspapers or watch cable TV, and the guys who decide what gets aired certainly want the masses to stay stupid and ignorant. That's how corporate "democracy" works.<span id='postcolor'> That's what always happens when you talk about genetic manipulation of humans. You're a nazi. Right. Maybe I can clarify: What the nazis did is called eugenics, which aims at bettering the humanity by killing or otherwise getting rid of all individuals manifesting hereditary diseases. Eugenics has been proven not to work, since disease carriers are not eradicated. Furthermore every human on the planet is a carrier at least a few hereditary diseases. Somebody might even whine about the non-morality of killing sick people, but I won't go to that, since I already scientifically pointed out eugenics doesn't work anyway. The genetic manipulation of humans however is a completely different thing. Now that we know the whole human genome, we can screen for hereditary diseases. And if genetic manipulation was allowed, we could also cure the diseases by changing the faulty gene to a correct one. End of hereditary diseases and you don't have to kill or get rid of anybody. The next step would be to IMPROVE humans. The human body could be moulded to suit the needs of the particular individual. The possibilities are endless. But our fucked goverments are listening to the fucked masses. And the masses are stupid. The masses resist change. So this beautiful new technology is almost completely banned. Interesting comparison: Do you think industrial revolution would have happened if the rulers had listened to the masses? When did science turn from the saviour to the nemesis? And good luck for trying to educate the masses. It has been tried and it won't work. You have to realize that 90% of people are just too stupid to think beyond sex and food and beer (this we could change with genetic engineering). This has always been so and probably will always be.

Yeah, the new world order rocks. I'm perfectly happy with corporations taking over, since the governments are just fucking it up. The noble democracy is actually a system that gives the power to the idiots (=the masses). Fuck democracy. I want rulers who legalize genetic manipulation and cloning of humans. Let's create Homo Superior. Muahahahaaaa!!!

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (4ntifa @ Feb. 19 2002,13:44)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">"I don't wanna be a soldier I don't wanna kill, I don't wanna be a soldier I don't wanna die." -- John Lennon Refusing to serve the System is the way to go. You decide what to kill or die for (if anything), not some fat politician a-s-s-hole!<span id='postcolor'> Frigging John Lennon... Right. Let me quote you some Mark Knopfler. "I'm a soldier of fortune, I'm a dog of war. And I don't give a #### who the killing it is for. It's the same old story with a different name. Death or glory, it's the killing game. Gonna ride across the river, deep and wide. Ride across the river to the other side." Man, the cause is not important. It's the soldiering itself, which is so much fun.

How to Lose You Respect with the Troops Here's an instructional tale for all the officers out there on how to lose your respect with the troops. It's about our company commander, who didn't have much respect to start with, but eventually lost even the little he had as a result of this little mishap. During a long exercise in scalding cold (-40 degrees Celcius), some people from artillery companies had to be medevaced because of severe frostbite. Not so in our mortar company. The only casualty was our company commander. This "officer and gentleman" sitting in the warmth of his electrically heated command post tried to cut some frozen bread with the serrated blade of his Leatherman, since he didn't have the patience to wait for the bread to melt first. The idiot managed to cut open the artery in his right wrist. They had to call in a helo to evac the poor commander to the nearest hospital, because the cut was so bad it required hospital level care. He was the only casualty medevaced with a helo from that particular exercise. You can guess how much we "respected" that doofus after that. I can only hope he never gets to command anybody in an actual life/death situation.

Privates Strike Back During exercises, it is always very important (according to the brass) to keep guard like it was the real thing. I won't comment to the wisdom of that dogma since I don't care, but during exercises, the standing of guard of course falls solely on the privates. Not even the corporals can be bothered. Now during our two week military excursion to finnish Lapland, our platoon slept in two tents. One of the tents housed the officers and the NCOs plus some unfortunate signals privates. The other tent housed all the mortar privates, like me. The heating of the tents was handled by burning wood in a steel cylinder fireplace in the middle of the tent. Now us poor privates had to stand guard outside and after that, tend to the fire in both tents. We didn't get much sleep and started to get quite pissed at how things were handled. The final blow came, when the brass started to bitch that it wasn't warm enough in their tent. Being the troublemaker I am, I decided to have a little payback. I had heard about one trick during a drunken evening in some bar. This trick seemed to suit the ocassion perfectly. I gathered every empty plastic soda bottle I could find and stashed them away to wait for the night. When my turn to tend to the fire came, I took the soda bottles to the tent housing the brass and crammed the fireplace full of the bottles. I waited for them to melt a little and then crammed in the rest. I topped the coctail with all the firewood I could fit in. Survival tip for you all: If you need heat, plastic bottles burn REALLY well. After ten minutes, the whole steel fireplace and half of the chimney had turned red hot. I had to leave the tent, because the scalding heat was just too much. I waited outside and pretty soon a bunch of officers and NCOs ran from the tent in their underwear, half asleep, cursing the heat. Says I: "I hope it wasn't too cold in there tonight, sirs." Now you wouldn't believe what a pile of shit I got. Everybody was yelling at me for hours and making me do all sorts of shit. But I got out of it by acting stupid, like you always do in the army, since they cannot ban stupidity. They knew I am not stupid, but they couldn't prove it, which really pissed them off. Anyway, the brass took care of the heating of their tent after that...

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (L24A @ Feb. 16 2002,11:57)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">How come I do not see any of your army stories over here? It's mainly only Noone's and my stories which are filling this thread. So Unless I do not see any other stories come up, I am forced to believe that Noone and I are the only members on this thread who actually have served.<span id='postcolor'> I seem to recall to have written some stories...?

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (foxer @ Feb. 15 2002,13:33)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">But then everyone would go hide in cities.I think what the airforce gotta make is a special bomb for city bombing, something really small, but will cut through an tank and blow up, but not too big. Also the army can't go in an city with enemy people there, it would turn out to be another black hawk down thing.<span id='postcolor'> Everybody hides in cities allready. Still, the U.S. blows the shit out of them and a bunch of collateral civvies also. Maybe the U.S. is not a benevolent entity on a crusade to free the world of all evil? Maybe it is an entity on a crusade to free the world of all those who would attack it? Reality check: The people in U.S. are never going to be able to protect themselves. Nobody ANYWHERE is never going to be able to protect themselves. Whatever anyone ever does, somebody is going to hate him for it and thus, shit ocassionally comes your way. So you have to learn not to dwell in it. You have to learn not to justify anything. You have to learn to abandon all causes. You have to understand that one day you will die and that dying is the easiest thing to do, since you cannot regret it afterwards. And most importantly, you have to learn to laugh at all those who try to lead us, because they are all so very sad, power hungry people. (Rant Mode Off)

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Feb. 15 2002,11:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Maybe it should be accepted that military structures inside civvie areas should not be bombed at all, since it is immoral to kill the civvies as collateral damage...<span id='postcolor'> Blah. I can't believe I said that. What I meant was: Maybe it should be accepted that military structures inside civvie areas should not be bombed at all, since you cannot claim that you're a benevolent and honourable nation on a crusade to free the world of all evil, if you kill civvies as collateral damage... However, you COULD still say that you kill whomever you want and nobody can do shit about it, just because you got such big guns. Nobody could fight that statement with stupid humanitarian bullshit.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Wobble @ Feb. 15 2002,10:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">this is the first biggest.. Â "thousands of civilians".. where? in afghanistan? the Taleban themselves set up their military structures in the center id dense civilian populations for the exact reason that they knew if they were ever attacked there would be no way civilians wouldent be killed.. and the sniveling factless ifiots like yourself would try to blame they country attacking them for it..<span id='postcolor'> How much you think could be justified by this excuse of military structures being positioned in civvie population centers? Let's say there was one U.S. soldier inside the WTC during the attack, wouldn't his presence then justify the destruction of the whole building, according to your reasoning? I can see the al-qaeda trooper justifying: "The U.S. was so cowardly that they positioned a military target inside the WTC, so we had to bring the whole building down in order to get it. You cannot blame us for the collateral." Maybe it should be accepted that military structures inside civvie areas should not be bombed at all, since it is immoral to kill the civvies as collateral damage...

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (DigitalCenturion @ Feb. 14 2002,18:03)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Blah it's like 2,5 more years before im in to the FDF. I will prolly go to Nylands brigad but i am thinking of requesting another units since they are really badly equipped, any one who has went to FDF comment this? AF/SOF is out of question for me got a bad eyesight on my right eye (luckily i am a left-handed person: sniping still works if i get an ambidextrous rifle). My dad was in the mortar troops and he hated it <span id='postcolor'> The personal equipment you nowadays get in FDF is not that bad. At least in Pori Brigade we mostly got from the mark 91 patch of clothes. If you are unfortunate enough to get from the older lot (made in sixties), you're fucked. The armament... I guess it is adequate for a small country. The difference between liking and hating the mortar troops is a matter of calibre. If you end up in a light mortar company, it will suck all the way, because you have to lug that bitch around the grounds, since light mortar is "man portable". If you end up in a heavy company, it rocks, since heavy mortar is not man portable and so you drive everywhere with trucks. You do this even when the jaeger companies walk. So you can give them the finger when you drive past. It's a lot of fun. To qualify for sniping, you have to shoot awesomely with the assault rifle. And RK62 is not ambidexterous.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ChickenHawk @ Feb. 14 2002,17:24)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">People have done waaay worse than that.. http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html<span id='postcolor'> Heh. I like this site, since it only lists the atrocities committed by the losers of the war. Not a peep about atrocities committed by russians, etc...

Gentle Wake Up It was another one of those exercises in the wild. It had been raining for days and it was cold. A typical summer in Finland. We had dug in our mortars and set up camp, looking for a good nights sleep. Not so. The brass decided to have a night shoot out, so everybody was rushed to their positions around the trusty mortars. Did I mention it was cold and raining and now it was also pitch dark? We waited there for the orders to fire. Unfortunately, it all worked out as it usually does in the army. The "imminent" order to fire ended up delayed for hours and hours. So we all got a little pissed off. I was so tired, that I just lay on the ground next to the mortar, using my combat webbing as a pillow (the finnish combat webbing is a very good pillow, they probably designed it for that). I didn't mean to doze off, but I did. From that sleep, there was a very gentle wake up. The 120mm mortar barked about two meters from my ear (no ear muffs). I was so startled I jumped to the air while my legs got tangled with my assault rifle and my rain poncho. I tripped and landed onto a pile of 120mm mortar shells. Then I properly woke up. Man, I got bruised beyond recognition, but I didn't feel at all sleepy anymore.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (RedStorm @ Feb. 14 2002,11:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Ya, rather strange that we're one of the only species (not counting spiders) that kill their own kind...<span id='postcolor'> Dude, you're so wrong. Pretty much every species will at least seriously harm and very often also kill their own kind. Hell, ants, some other insects and some monkeys even have organized (intra and inter species) warfare, just like us. Somebody was reflecting on the serb atrocity of drowning some women and kids. A nice corresponding example from nature: If the alpha male of a lion flock is slain by a competitor, the new alpha male will kill all the cubs of the previous alpha male. No use for him tolerating some kids with the wrong genetic make-up. Face it people. We are all just so VERY natural in our behaviour. I guess we should try to be unnatural.