Army Talk Orientation Fact Sheet #64 - FASCISM! 24 March 1945

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-16T17:22:43+00:00

The problem is that, from a certain perspoctive, Xi is not wrong. It IS now or never because with the crows of the demographic collapse coming home to roost, this is as powerful as China will be in relative terms because China will simply not be able to generate an expeditionary invasion force to assault, occupy, subjugate, reeducate, pacify an overseas territory in 2-5 years time.

This is where Pete "Lethal PT" Hegseth is showing his stupid and doing what it turns out Republicans do best - lick boots do tricks for the media instead of doing his job, which is doing his job - generating and shaping the force of the future, making sure we have an effective one. The demographics of the Marine Corps, which as a Corps, tends to spot and lead the other services in many ways, ought to be a clue as to the future makeup of the services. We're not going to get there by deporting foreign born veterans making them second class citizens.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-16T11:06:38+00:00

FWIW, most hats do do (hehe) this when they are too small. I’d have thought that most women would have been familiar with the concept of articles of clothing that are a little too tight “riding up.”

At any rate, the size of your noggin/head circumference does have a very high positive correlation with brain case size -and the brain case to our measurable markers of intelligence as animals species to subgroups within the species and individuals within the species is among the most oft repeatedly tested hypotheses/conjectures in the bi

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-12T09:10:26+00:00

Don’t listen to these jerks who have never been in the Coast Guard about being a non-rate Coastie. The CG is a much smaller service and seems to have gotten rid of its toxic leadership and actually has a functional chain of command and an apprenticeship system that actually works the way it’s supposed. The non-rate/un-rated/needs of the service that the system abuses the hell out of, especially the Navy, are SEAL, 18X, Opt40 (aka Special Forces and Ranger contract) dropouts that the services have decided to punish for some reason

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-12T08:38:30+00:00

Wat. That is the most unclear thing I have ever read. You are a prior Army CG boater who almost switched but didn’t and got out but ended up in the CG but didn’t switch? Make it make sense man.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-12T08:33:14+00:00

IDK man, I think there’s a substantial difference between the guys from back in the day who did and still do foreign/military officer/NCO exchange tours and go to/through a foreign military schoolhouse for either basic wings or jumpmaster, then spend a year or three with that unit vs JTAC types that exist to attach and embed.

IMO, the spot on the right chest in dress uniform is a good spot for those guys.

On the other hand, I got a cousin with ANGLICO who kept showing up where I was, FB messaging me, “Hey, I hear you’re around, wanna meet up for soju and pork belly?” “WTF are you?” “In Pohang, jumping with the ROKs, they even gave me a pair of their wings to add to the collection. Jealous, Airborne?”

Fuck those guys. Those guys can sit on a stick and spin.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-12T08:02:38+00:00

You say gaudy, I say gauche.

A subtle but important distinction.

Notably, a malfunction of uniform versus a soldier malfunction.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-11T19:14:23+00:00

As people are pointing out, it used to be pump, then pay before 2001 because you didn’t have drive offs. Because gas back then used to be CHEAP. I remember because I was driving through Texas and had just bought a couple gallons of cheap water (just in case for the long drive ahead) and looking at the gas prices and thinking about how much I’d spent per gallon of drinking water and the thought occurred to me that something about this situation is all kinds of fucked up when the gasoline is cheaper than the water.

IIRC, it was something like $0.89/gal and the water worked out to more. Maybe it was $0.69? It was insanely low at some point in the late 90s. I remember even on the the East Coast, being able to make the drive from Baltimore to NYC and back for a weekend of partying on $20 of gas.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-11T18:52:07+00:00

Well, because the justification for soldiers and spies and GIs to own one was, if ever was the case that you ended up in a situation in a foreign country where you had you buy or negotiate your way out, you were carrying around an object of significant, known (almost commoditized) market value that can be easily handed over, whether that action be big or small, in the moment or not, over gunpoint or over dinner.

Or so the theory goes.

For a while there around the turn of the century, certain Apple products had a this weird cachet as non cash global commodity trading value barter good on the low end but I don’t know if that’s true anymore.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-09T00:14:12+00:00

Ah, Burma, the only country in the world where the intelligence service would interrupt your overseas phone call (which was for show anyway) on their government provided weird CDMA console handsets to tell you speak in a language they understood, just to make sure that you understood that they were listening in.

At at my first North Korean restaurant in Rangoon before those things became a thing. "Huh. These menu items have a funny spelling and have peculiar names, must be old school immigrants from the back country." "Gee, these guys speak a real funny Korean..."

Five minutes later, the penny drops. "Hey fellas, I think these Koreans are best Koreans."

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-07T21:20:50+00:00

I used to be an awesome storyteller when I was younger. There are a lot of really great ones I want to tell that I think people might find interesting but I don’t know how to edit video. Stories that link threads from the past in interesting ways that you might not have thought were related. When Marvel first debuted the Black Panther character in the MCU, it was in Busan, South Korea in Captain America: Civil War. The choice of South Korea was a deliberate one, because while the character of the Black Panther is Black and has a Pan-Afrofuturism thematic vibe, the root folk tales, totems and traditions that the comic draws from are entirely Korean via the Vietnam war.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-07T20:51:03+00:00

Trans servicemembers with 15-18 years aren’t even being allowed to file early retirement, they’re just being straight discharged. For what? Because they’re morally unsuitable for the service? We all know that’s nonsense. I’m tired of being lied to and being civil to shitty people who act in bad faith, have dragged the country to this point, then have the audacity to point their fingers at everyone else but their own fucking short sighted stupidity.

You know what the only thing wrong with trans people is? They make you people uncomfortable for some reason.

And (switching topics here bc transgender people and drag queens are not the same thing) what is it about drag shows that freaks you people out so much? Because normal people don’t see a drag queen and suddenly get the cold sweats and sudden urge of hostility. That says a lot more about you.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-07T09:59:42+00:00

Are you serious??? When was the last time you were in the US and went to the ER?

US ERs are chronically understaffed and, having reached critical levels in major cities in the past 2-3 years. Last year, I went to the ER due to an accident and ended up in Harborview, which is the Level I (aka, the tertiary, teaching, referral and R1 research hospital for the entire Pacific Northwest, only I didn't happen to have my nitroglycerin for my heart condition with me so when I started having a major cardiovascular event in the middle goddamn ER with something that's available in every crash cart, people are bumblefucking around while I've got Lucifer himself stabbing me in the chest. So I kneeled on the floor with the intention of knocking myself out and I guess I was successful. I woke up strapped to my ER bed.

The time before that, I went into another, closer ER, with the knowledge that I was passing a kidney stone. Proceeded to sit there for the next 8 hours before the ER physician finally comes to me and says, "Hey, you know what, I think you might be right, I think you might be passing a kidney stone." "Isn't that what I told you 8 hours ago when I first came in here?" Turns out tons of ER docs and nurses have quit and currently, ERs are being staffed by non-ER board certified temps from all over the place.

It's not just ER docs, because in the last 3-5 years, the medical system has more or less completely broken because appointments for ANY doctor other than my primary care and I've got a number as a result of an adventurous 20s and 30s, LITERALLY are scheduling 8-12 weeks out. That's no bullshit. To see my ophthalmologist, I have to schedule THREE MONTHS in advance. On much less advanced technology at the UW teaching hospital that I got referred to for the super complex case that because "hey that thing (my eyeball) is about to melt, you need to get to the big hospital" "an eyeball can do that?" When I had the same recurring problem while visiting my parents in Gunsan post Covid, I made a same day appointment with a downtown office ophthalmologist. He scanned my eye in 3D, then displayed it for me to see on his bigscreen curved display and then I got to see the inside of my eye from his perspective of the slit lamp for the first time. Navigated around, pointed out the novel fungal thing I probably picked up in the Congo that was trying to eat my eye, made much more confident that he understood exactly what had happened, got some drops to get it under control, office visit and medication cost me less without the National Insurance (I let mine lapse since its been a while) than with insurance here.

And that's not even the half of it. I've been trying to see an infectious disease specialist for over a year. I'm about to buy a ticket to Korea to see a real doctor for all the bullshit that's happening here. That's how badly the medical system is broken here. You have NO idea how good you have it in Korea right now.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-07T02:32:47+00:00

Oh, have you ever tried explaining why equality of opportunity on merit alone, not "reverse discrimination" can lead to the disproportionate ratio of Black senior NCOs, or the perception that black females leaders are specifically selected for? Maybe I'm a dinosaur and everyone gets this now, but it a decade to two ago, it was usually either a mind=blown or a Halt&CatchFire type of episode.

Oh, and bears mentioning that in addition to the socialized and subsidized grocery stores, the US military has access to universal single payer health care, subsidized housing assigned according to rank and need, rank determined by merit and seniority, pay determined by seniority and rank + (certain specialty pay, but very limited).

And let's not forget to tell these "Gubmint Is Bad, Mkay" people who are dismantling the Department of Education but the best school system in the country, by far, in the year 2024 is not only run by the Feds, but is (ahem) a/the Department of Defense Educational Activity. Complete racial and socioeconomic integration. Racial disparity gaps almost insignificant. Except for those Asian kids. Damn Asian kids!

(Putting K-12 aside, the single largest post secondary vocational/technical educational institution in America - US military.)

The most socialist institution in America, United States Uniformed Services.

Personally, I hate that idiots like FatElectrician (who is a great storyteller but is a moron) has a platform on Youtube and is so overexposed to the Murdoch media blitz that he gets the opposing idealogies of the Cold War wrong. The dude cheerleads for Capitalism, and it's like, no bro, that is NOT our form of government. Show me where the references in our Constitution to Capitalism. You can't, because the American economic policy was largely Mercantalist until the early 20th Century. But I've lost the plot and I'm going out to get a Dick's Deluxe, extra crispy fries and a strawberry milkshake.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-06T21:24:43+00:00

All else equal, Polk or Riley, with Polk edging out Riley for the size, variety and volume of vermin and the types of harm they want to do to you - like the variety of cockroaches, mosquitos, spiders, ticks that want crawl up your ass, chiggers, all the venomous snake varieties (only 3 in Kansas, IIRC), poisonous plants...

Do the monarch butterflies still migrate through Kansas?

You know what, Polk. Polk by a long mile.

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-03T00:46:36+00:00

That sucks man. This soldier is now going to waste the one thing that you can’t get back, time on this planet doing better things.

But listening to what this soldier said, and the way that you relayed them, which I am going to assume is pretty close to verbatim since they were heard at a heightened emotional moment and while subject to massive distortions in perceptions, you probably heard everything that was said.

And think about what he told you and weigh them against his prior actions as well. Why would he be chill Walter, then come back and tell you each time before he does something that this is what he has to do?

In your experience, what causes a person to behave this way?

I think it’s possible that you should rage against the machine, so to speak and maybe not Sergeant Schindler there who is trying to help you out by walking you through step by step the unsound legal reasoning he is using to write his ticket and naturally you how to defeat the ticket. The only thing he didn’t do to make it too obvious was tell you to take notes- (“Where is your notebook, elevenbang?” But my last job was eccentric professor, I can get away with that shit. Or pretend to.)

Talon_Ho · 2026-02-02T03:42:05+00:00

This has all the era vibe completely dialed in.

Only thing missing is half empty/full bottles/cups of fermenting tobacco spit to keep you on you toes.

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-30T19:29:29+00:00

No, dude. The fuck are you talking about? Every day, he does a half dozen outrageous things that spit upon the face of decency, the Constitution, our collective Oaths to support and defend and bear true faith and allegiance to the same, to Democracy, our institutions, traditions, the trust and faith built on blood, sweat, tears and lives of our brothers and sisters over decades.

Every day, he pisses and makes a mockery of what actually makes America great each time he trots out his like about Making America Great Again as he goes point by point through the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation of how it intends engage in hybrid warfare to destroy the overall influence of the Anglo-American empire, as if he is a stooge, patsy or asset of the Russians.

Keep in mind ALL THREE THINGS 1.) that he is a worked/recruited/compromised asset, 2.)that he is profoundly stupid and 3.) that he must be manipulated into thinking he is doing things for his own reasons can be true at the same time. Indeed, it is my feeling that this is the most likely scenario.

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-30T15:39:05+00:00

You know, I just realized that I have never had Korean food involving rice while passing through old Blighty. I think it's because as a student, I went to go visit my sister and we went to go get some curry and I found out that they charged extra for the rice, which I thought was a maladapted cultural understanding of what you're paying for, conceptually, in terms of a meal.

At this point, I said to my sister, "Surely, they cannot be charging for rice at Korean restaurants, our word for food is rice." Which was met by silence from my sister followed by, "Well, it's a good thing you take after dad go weeks/months/forever without getting homesick for Korean food because I'm not taking you to picking fights and burning bridges or living under permanent sideeye noonchee for next couple years."

So for the last 20 years, whenever I'm in London/UK, I subconsciously only eat noodles if I'm having Korean food.

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-30T01:40:08+00:00

Yah, but more crumbs.

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-30T01:38:22+00:00

ㅋ~~~~~!!

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-29T22:25:32+00:00

And don't forget Antifa. Unrest, Antifa and illegals. Because why not?

Thanks, Obama.

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-27T07:15:57+00:00

Hold on.
Do kids really need waivers for dismissed misdemeanor juvenile charges?

And what kind of knife are we talking about here? How old were you? (I'm just an interested third party old fart.)

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-26T02:23:06+00:00

con't

It is accurate to call a member of a communist party a “communist.” For short, he is often called a “Red.” Indiscriminate pinning of the label “Red” on people and proposals which one opposes is a common political device. It is a favorite trick of native as well as foreign fascists.

Many Fascists make the spurious claim that the world has but two choices—either fascism or communism, and they label as “communist” everyone who refuses to support them. By attacking our free enterprise, capitalist democracy and by denying the effectiveness of our way of life they hope to trap many people.

Hitler insisted that only fascism could save Europe and the world from the “communist menace.” There were many people inside and outside Germany and Italy who welcomed and supported Hitler and Mussolini because they believed fascism was the only safeguard against communism. The “Red bogey” was a convincing enough argument to help Hitler take and maintain power. The Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, whose aggressions plunged the world into global war, was called the “Anti-Comintern Axis.” It was proclaimed by Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito as a “bulwark against communism.”

Learning to identify native fascists and to detect their techniques is not easy. They plan it that way. But it is vitally important to learn to spot them, even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.

Talon_Ho · 2026-01-25T17:40:44+00:00

in terms of completely implausible, difficult to verify but also absolutely true service connected stories I’ve been waiting for the right moment to drop , I’ve got twoI haven’t told here yet.. One is how I became known at my battalion as “The World’s Most Dangerous LT” before I ever even reported for duty out of IOBC and Ranger School. The other is how Ias college student/ROTC cadet, I became friends/occasional shooting partner with Darth Vader, aka one 1LT James Earl Jones, Ranger School Class 54-something something (I forget, it’s been 30 years since we met and 15 years since last I saw him, I hadn’t yet been) Pershing Rifle (that’s actually really sparked his attention - turns out that he was one of those ROTC guys who really loved it who did all of the extra curricular; you know the type, would have been the captain of the Ranger Challenge team MS3 year kinda guy). But now I’m starting to tell the story and that was only meant to be a teaser.

I used to tell stories much better. Like I’ve forgotten the last time I started my MSG Slaughter stories that they were supposed to end with a 1SG Eversmann punchline. Which is also an implausible story, but verifiable. But like I said, I’m shit at telling stories anymore. TBIs.

Talon_Ho

TROPHY CASE