Pete Monks

A black and white photograph of Australian soldiers (combat engineers) covered in mud after breaching obstacles for an amphibious landing. About half are shirtless, and they are relatively lean compared to modern-day western soldiers.

Here’s another example, Australian combat engineers after clearing obstacles for an amphibious landing on Tarakan in 1945.

All hard as nails, but not big dudes at all.

www.awm.gov.au/collection/C...

Kristi Noem's "Open to Work" LinkedIn Profile

War as a whole is terrible, but war at sea does have its own very specific horrors as well.

One was a fitter and turner for Queensland Rail and a RAAF NCO during WW2.

The other was variously a labourer, merchant seaman, dockworker, farmhand, taxi driver, hotel doorman and finally a parking warden. Oh, and a British Army infantryman in WW1 (WIA and a POW) and Australian Army NCO IN WW2.

That’s not true. But Australian PM Harold Holt swam into rough surf and disappeared at Cheviot Beach just to avoid being interviewed by Chotiner.

Great job. I enjoy - and learn a lot from - @jamellebouie.net ‘s work, and I enjoyed reading that interview.

Did the Canadian Army follow the US Army down the Pentomic force structure blind alley for a couple of years in the late 1950s - early 1960s like Australia did when we adopted the Pentropic structure of five big battlegroups per division (and no brigade HQs)?

As an Aussie who did multiple deployments to Afghanistan, you can imagine how much I love hearing Americans call Israel their greatest ally while slagging off their FVEY and NATO allies.

I’d say Come and See as well.

I had nominated Gallipoli for this as well, but on reflection that does inadvertently give off a bit of ‘cool, stylish doomed youth’ vibe.

The character portrayed by Woody Harrelson in the TV show “True Detective” leaning on the roof of a car telling his partner “I just want you to stop saying odd shit”

A fair chunk of all the counselling I ever gave subordinates boiled down to this.

I would have loved to give this advice to a few of my commanders and senior officers on higher HQs over the years, too.

They are just enamoured of being *important* and at the centre of things. Anything else is mere details.

Here’s a Trump commemorative meme coin to remember your loved one’s valiant sacrifice by. Only four easy payments of $59.99.

Rules of Engagement are woke and gay and would only stop you doing cool warrior things like killing kids at school or having friendly fire incidents.

“You made it Pete, you’re gonna be a made man. Just get in the car with these guys here”

A poster promoting the movie “The Battle of Algiers”. The poster features a stern-looking bemedalled French colonel in a beret and sunglasses, and a backdrop of a crowd protesting for Algerian independence

The Battle of Algiers

Promotional poster for the 1981 Australian movie “Gallipoli”, with actors Mel Gibson and Mark Lee dressed as Australian soldiers in WW1.

Gallipoli

I expect that the collateral damage guidance issued by Hegseth to CENTCOM is pretty loose.

And as for the Israelis…

I don’t think the post-Peloponnesian war analogy of the Athenians having lost an empire, stuck with a deeply divided and non-functioning polity, and reduced to being mercenaries for the highest bidders in the Middle East was exactly what they had in mind, but here we are 2/2

Early in my military career (Balkans, early on in Afghanistan) I would often hear British officers smugly quoting the Harold Macmillan line about the British being the cultured Athenians to the brutal and arriviste US Romans 1/2

I’m not ruling out a genuine error (although carelessness or indifference to CDE is a strong possibility), but “who puts a school there anyway” is a loathsome argument.

Look at any major US military base on google maps, search for ‘elementary school’ or ‘middle school’, and see what turns up.

If you are the home team wondering if your biggest blue friend will actually play (I’ve said this before, but I don’t think they will unless absolutely forced to) a drawn out blockade and pressure campaign will be extremely challenging to withstand 2/2

Exceptionally hard problem for red. Also an exceptionally hard problem for blue, especially when you don’t know if all the blue players are going to turn up, and/or let you play from your turf. 1/2

A paperback book - Nigel Townson’s “The Penguin History of Modern Spain: 1898 to the Present”. The cover features a colour photograph of a Spanish street scene in the 1960s or 1960s

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, “The Penguin History of Modern Spain: 1898 to the Present” by Nigel Townson.

I don’t know a lot about modern Spain’s history apart from the Civil War. I’m just up to the start of the Second Republic, looking forward to the post-Franco period

Distance running becomes more attractive when there is more misery in an average hour of your working day than in running for an hour

A four-panel cartoon from The Simpsons of Homer and Bart pursuing a BBQ pig that is alternately rolling/floating/flying further away: “it’s just a little dirty, it’s still good, it’s still good!” “it’s just a little slimy, it’s still good, it’s still good!” “it’s just a little airborne, it’s still good, it’s still good!” “It’s gone” “I know”

I couldn’t settle on just one

Homer Simpson telling Lenny and Carl that he knows they are members of the secretive “Stonecutters”, and that he knows the Stonecutters do “weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. … and I want in.”

For Epstein, Bill Clinton was essentially bait for his marks.

“Oh, yeah, Bill and I hang all the time. Great guy, lots of insights”

This is the core truth about the appeal of Trump, MAGA, and their imitators elsewhere (including my own country). It’s selling freedom from consequences, responsibility and accountability.

Certainly, the racism, misogyny, cruelty, etc, is appealing to many - because you can get away with it.

Come and See

And that improvisation will also include some personal score-settling, and a bit of “that snooty bitch gave me some side-eye”, “I like the look of that guys truck, I think he’s one of them”, etc, etc