The Down Range Forum
Member Section => Down Range Cafe => Topic started by: Big Frank on April 22, 2019, 01:34:49 PM
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Have you read any good books lately, or not so lately?
I'm reading FBI Miami Firefight: Five Minutes that Changed the Bureau by Edmundo Mireles, Jr. and his wife Elizabeth Mireles. They were both FBI agents and Ed Mireles was the one who ended the shootout single-handedly. Literally single-handedly because half of his left arm was hanging by a narrow ribbon of skin and muscle. The bones in his forearm were shattered and after several operations and using bone grafts from his hip they were able to put his Humpty Dumpty arm back together again.
If anyone thinks the FBI was outgunned consider this. The good guys had an AR-15, an H&K MP5SD, 6 shotguns, 4 pistols and 14 revolvers for a total of 26 guns. One of the bad guys had a Mini-14 and the other had a shotgun, plus they each had a revolver, and that's it. 26 guns and I don't know how many men against 2 men with a total of 4 guns. But it seems like fate was against them and everything that could go wrong did. One guy was out of commission when his pistol took a round to the middle of the slide and couldn't cycle. Another guy couldn't reload his revolver because it was full of blood and jammed with pieces of his hand or arm.
This book is a real page-turner if any book deserves to be called that. It's not very thick but it's very interesting and hard to put down. You can get a copy at edmireles.com (http://edmireles.com). The one I'm reading has been autographed by Ed Mireles.
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I forgot to mention that he calls the Mini-14 an assault rifle in the book. And there are a few things that he says too many times. But if you focus on the big picture it's an amazing story. He was the first living FBI agent to have a building named after him. Later there was another FBI agent that had a building named after him, former Navy SEAL Thomas R. Norris. The movie Bat*21 was based on him and another guy rescuing a pilot downed more than 2 miles behind enemy lines in North Vietnam. Norris and Mireles were roommates at the FBI academy.
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I believe they renamed the streets where the gunfight took place after the 2 agents that died in the gun battle. This is the address if you punch it into Google Earth.
12201 Southwest 82nd Avenue, Pinecrest, Miami, Florida
If you explore the area around where the shootout took place, there is a memorial plaque for agents Dove and Grogan who were killed.
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I don't have Google Earth on my computer anymore. I took a quick look at Google Maps and didn't see those street names but I looked mostly at main the roads.
The FBI created a new medal, I think it was the Medal of Honor, and gave the first one to Ed Mireles. Later on they gave them to the whole team and he was happy about that. When he was taken to the hospital President Reagan called to talk to his wife who was there with him, but she wasn't ready to talk to the president. After Ed got out of the hospital he got a tour of the White House and met the president. I think there was only one other agent with him for that, maybe his boss.
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I can't remember, but wasn't the Mini-14 illegally converted to full auto?
You are the second person to recommend this book. I just might order it.
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Knowing how good the book is I would have bought it if I couldn't borrow it. I have the book in front of me right now and it's only 175 pages. I have less than 30 pages to go and I don't recall anything about the Mini-14 being full auto. I was going by the picture when I said how many guns everyone had. Here's a little of what it says from what I read last night.
Of the 10 people involved in the shootout 9 were wounded and 4 died, 2 agents and 2 bank robbers.
"First of all, out of the fourteen agents, five were SWAT agents and had SWAT-type weapons."
The SWAT agents all carried high capacity 9mm semiautomatic pistols.
Regular agents carried six-shot revolvers.
"Bob had in his possession a full auto Colt M-16."
"Terry had in his possession an H&K MP5 submachine gun..."
"Most of the remaining agents had shotguns with them on the surveillance."
"In total we had one assault rifle, one submachine gun, and seven shotguns, along with 20 handguns. We were each armed with everything we were authorized to carry that day."
So The FBI agents had 29 guns against the bank robbers' 4 guns, but not everyone was in a position to use them. I deleted what I typed after that. You'll all have to find out on your own what happened.
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Massad Ayoob did a write up of what happened that day that went into detail of how the shoot out played out. There were mistakes made by the agents and one of those was that they underestimated the bank robbers abilities with their chosen weapons.
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How does he know everything that happened in detail? Ed Mireles was there and he only knew a small fraction of it until he read all the reports and statements from other agents. Unless Ayoob had access to all those FBI documents as a civilian/part-time police officer and talked to the surviving agents like Mireles did, he must have been speculating. If he really did know that much about it I'd like to read that too. There were definitely mistakes made, but when they happened to drive right past the bank robbers they decided to stop them.
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This is just a little thing I copied a couple days ago after the made up word "uncleftish" came to mind. I read this in a science fiction book years ago and couldn't remember what the heck uncleftish meant. After the first few sentences you should know if you want to spend time reading it or not.
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Uncleftish Beholding
Uncleftish Beholding (1989) is a short text written by Poul Anderson. It is written using a form of 'Anglish' or pure English, using almost exclusively words of Germanic origin. Where most of the Germanic languages retain their own words for scientific concepts, English has adopted a huge number of words from other languages. This essay was intended to illustrate what the English language might look like if it had not received its considerable number of loanwords from other languages, particularly Latin, Greek and French.
For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life.
The underlying kinds of stuff are the *firststuffs*, which link together in sundry ways to give rise to the rest. Formerly we knew of ninety-two firststuffs, from laterstuff, the lightest and barest, to ymirstuff, the heaviest. Now we have made more, such as aegirstuff and helstuff.
The firststuffs have their being as motes called *unclefts*. These are mightly small; one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. Most unclefts link together to make what are called *bulkbits*. Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts, and so on. (Some kinds, such as sunstuff, keep alone; others, such as iron, cling together in ices when in the fast standing; and there are yet more yokeways.) When unlike clefts link in a bulkbit, they make *bindings*. Thus, water is a binding of two waterstuff unclefts with one sourstuff uncleft, while a bulkbit of one of the forestuffs making up flesh may have a thousand thousand or more unclefts of these two firststuffs together with coalstuff and chokestuff.
At first is was thought that the uncleft was a hard thing that could be split no further; hence the name. Now we know it is made up of lesser motes. There is a heavy *kernel* with a forward bernstonish lading, and around it one or more light motes with backward ladings. The least uncleft is that of ordinary waterstuff. Its kernel is a lone forwardladen mote called a *firstbit*. Outside it is a backwardladen mote called a*bernstonebit*. The firstbit has a heaviness about 1840-fold that of the bernstonebit. Early worldken folk thought bernstonebits swing around the kernel like the earth around the sun, but now we understand they are more like waves or clouds.
In all other unclefts are found other motes as well, about as heavy as the firstbit but with no lading, known as *neitherbits*. We know a kind of waterstuff with one neitherbit in the kernel along with the firstbit; another kind has two neitherbits. Both kinds are seldom.
The next greatest firststuff is sunstuff, which has two firstbits and two bernstonebits. The everyday sort also has two neitherbits in the kernel. If there are more or less, the uncleft will soon break asunder. More about this later.
The third firststuff is stonestuff, with three firstbits, three bernstonebits, and its own share of neitherbits. And so it goes, on through such everyday stuffs as coalstuff (six firstbits) or iron (26) to ones more lately found. Ymirstuff (92) was the last until men began to make some higher still.
It is the bernstonebits that link, and so their tale fastsets how a firststuff behaves and what kinds of bulkbits it can help make. The worldken of this behaving, in all its manifold ways, is called *minglingken*. Minglingers have found that as the uncleftish tale of the firststuffs (that is, the tale of firststuffs in their kernels) waxes, after a while they begin to show ownships not unlike those of others that went before them. So, for a showdeal, stonestuff (3), glasswortstuff (11), potashstuff (19), redstuff (37), and bluegraystuff (55) can each link with only one uncleft of waterstuff, while coalstuff (6), flintstuff (14), germanstuff (22), tin (50), and lead (82) can each link with four. This is readily seen when all are set forth in what is called the *roundaround board of the firststuffs*.
When an uncleft or a bulkbit wins one or more bernstonebits above its own, it takes on a backward lading. When it loses one or more, it takes on a forward lading. Such a mote is called a *farer*, for that the drag between unlike ladings flits it. When bernstonebits flit by themselves, it may be as a bolt of lightning, a spark off some faststanding chunk, or the everyday flow of bernstoneness through wires.
Coming back to the uncleft itself, the heavier it is, the more neitherbits as well as firstbits in its kernel. Indeed, soon the tale of neitherbits is the greater. Unclefts with the same tale of firstbits but unlike tales of neitherbits are called *samesteads*. Thus, everyday sourstuff has eight neitherbits with its eight firstbits, but there are also kinds with five, six, seven, nine, ten, and eleven neitherbits. A samestead is known by the tale of both kernel motes, so that we have sourstuff-13, sourstuff-14, and so on, with sourstuff-16 being by far the most found. Having the same number of bernstonebits, the samesteads of a firststuff behave almost alike minglingly. They do show some unlikenesses, outstandingly among the heavier ones, and these can be worked to sunder samesteads from each other.
Most samesteads of every firststuff are unabiding. Their kernels break up, each at its own speed. This speed is written as the *half-life*, which is how long it takes half of any deal of the samestead thus to shift itself. The doing is known as *lightrotting*. It may happen fast or slowly, and in any of sundry ways, offhanging on the makeup of the kernel. A kernel may spit out two firstbits with two neitherbits, that is, a sunstuff kernel, thus leaping two steads back in the roundaround board and four weights back in heaviness. It may give off a bernstonebit from a neitherbit, which thereby becomes a firstbit and thrusts the uncleft one stead up in the board while keeping the same weight. It may give off a *forwardbit*, which is a mote with the same weight as a bernstonebit but a forward lading, and thereby spring one stead down in the board while keeping the same weight. Often, too, a mote is given off with neither lading nor heaviness, called the *weeneitherbit*. In much lightrotting, a mote of light with most short wavelength comes out as well.
For although light oftenest behaves as a wave, it can be looked on as a mote, the *lightbit*. We have already said by the was that a mote of stuff can behave not only as a chunk, but as a wave. Down among the unclefts, things do not happen in steady flowings, but in leaps between bestandings that are forbidden. The knowledge-hunt of this is called *lump beholding*.
Nor are stuff and work unakin. Rather, they are groundwise the same, and one can be shifted into the other. The kinship between them is that work is like unto weight manifolded by the fourside of the haste of light.
By shooting motes into kernels, worldken folk have shifted samesteads of one firststuff into samesteads of another. Thus did they make ymirstuff into aegirstuff and helstuff, and they have afterward gone beyond these. The heavier firststuffs are all highly lightrottish and therefore are not found in the greenworld.
Some of the higher samesteads are *splitly*. That is, when a neitherbit strikes the kernel of one, as for a showdeal ymirstuff-235, it bursts into lesser kernels and free neitherbits; the latter can then split more ymirstuff-235. When this happens, weight shifts into work. It is not much of the whole, but nevertheless it is awesome.
With enough strength, lightweight unclefts can be made to togethermelt. In the sun, through a row of strikings and lightrottings, four unclefts of waterstuff in this wise become one of sunstuff. Again some weight is lost as work, and again this is greatly big when set beside the work gotten from a minglingish doing such as fire.
Today we wield both kind of uncleftish doings in weapons, and kernelish splitting gives us heat and bernstoneness. We hope to do likewise with togethermelting, which would yield an unhemmed wellspring of work for mankindish goodgain.
Soothly we live in mighty years!
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I recall Ayoob's essay in one of his gun mag columns. I think he interviewed Mireles and others about that day, but it has been quite a few years and I don't recall 100%.
I may have recalled the Mini-14 bit from one of the several video commentaries on the shootout made back in the 90's.
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Jumbo, He did have access to the survivors and the reports, He ststed that in the article. He wasn't trying to make the officers look bad, Just wanted to point out their errors to enlighten other LEO's.
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Thanks for educating me Majer. I never saw that article. Since it was just an article I won't look for it, but if it was a book I would. I know some of the mistakes they made that day, and they changed the ways they do some things because of it. The only reason Mireles had access to all of that information was because he was involved with making a training film, a don't do what we did film. I didn't think anyone that wasn't working on it too would have that information.
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Actually, Ayoob is promoting Mireles' book as well. His write-up, along with excerpts are at the link below.
He also has an old video on youtube where he gives opinions.
https://americanhandgunner.com/our-experts/the-fbi-dadeland-shootout-hero-agent-ed-mireles-speaks-2/
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Alright! I should be able to finish the book tonight and can read that article sometime in the next few days. I put a shortcut on my desktop so I don't forget about it.
Besides my monthly American Rifleman magazine I got a free year of Popular Science. They switched to a new format where each issue is on one subject. I got one magazine for each season of the year and I was reading one from last year about life (and death and birth) when I borrowed that book. I have some crap that will take a night to read after that, then a couple of nights to finish PopSci, then I'll read the latest Rifleman. When I get caught up on my magazines I have a book of SF short stories to finish.
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E.B. Sledge, With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa
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not exactly reading, but i have been listing to dune on tape while driving. i had forgotton just how much detail he put into it.
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I bought paperback box sets of Asimov's original Foundation trilogy and Herbert's original Dune trilogy when I came home on leave from the army. The first 3 Dune books were some of the only books I reread, and they held my interest when I did. I can't remember if I reread the other 3 of his Dune books or not, but I can pull them off the shelves whenever the urge strikes.
A new movie based on the first Dune book is scheduled to come out on 11, 20, 2020 in IMAX and 3D. I hope this one finally does it justice. It will probably cover about the first half of the book, with a second movie to follow.
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Here's a book that's coming out in 3 weeks and is available for pre-order on Amazon. Vet TV sent this in an email about it.
Slap on your Birth Control glasses:
"Military Slang Dictionary" (by Veteran Television)
We speak the language of those who are bred to kill in the name of freedom and the constitution, and now it is in writing for all to see.
This book will teach you the language of the real American warrior, who, despite common perception, is usually a depraved 19-year-old guy who ran away from an abusive home, joined the military, and now lives with the intent to bang, break, and kill everything in sight. (Not necessarily in that order).
After you check it out, please come back and reply to this message with your thoughts.
The description on Amazon is below. I'm sure it will include some terms you can find online if you search for military slang, but I've never seen more than a page or so listed in one place before. The mention of stolen valor reminds me I downloaded a picture months ago that I haven't posted yet. I'm not sure what this guy's rank is called. Sergeant Colonel, maybe? That must rank above a Sergeant Major. How many years did it take to "earn" that rank and all the chest candy on his uniform?
There are many books about the U.S. military that'll help you understand our culture, history, and traditions. These books are written professionally and honorably, in an effort to reflect the values of the American servicemember - and can provide a respectful insight into the military experience. This is not one of those books.
This book will teach you the language of the real American warrior, who, despite common perception, is usually a bored, hormone-charged 19-year-old looking for something more exciting in life. So, they join the best military on the planet and now live with the intent to kill, blow up, and f*** everything in sight (not necessarily in that order).
Who is this made for?
If you're enlisted, a lot of this book will be familiar; use it for a laugh and a reminder that everyone thinks the military is just as ridiculous as you think it is. If you're an officer, use this book to relate to your troops, because they hate you. No, really, they literally HATE you. If you're thinking about enlisting, this book will help you understand the institution you're about to join, because the recruiters are definitely lying to you. If you're married to a service member, you will undoubtedly hear some of these terms during your next "domestic disturbance." If you're looking to steal valor, then this book will help you get any woman you want (below a 6), get free drinks at dive bars, and, of course, a free meal on Veterans Day.
You're welcome for our service, and for this one-of-a-kind book.
Disclaimer: While these are the words that veterans and active-duty military may know and understand, VET Tv does not endorse the actual use of them - especially outside of the context of war. It's important to understand that when your job is to take another person's life - your mentality and your language change in order to dehumanize the enemy and make light of the unfathomable experiences of war. Bottom line, this is a documentation of reality, not a recommendation to use any of these terms at the dinner table.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1736670506
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I am reading "The Unarmed Truth" right now about the "Fast and Furious" operation the ATF (And others) pushed on all of us. The link is below. So far it is a VERY good read complete with the people Dodson (The author) talked with and the total lack of any respect the ATF have for the lives this operation would cost. Well worth the read and if you have audible it is free.
https://www.amazon.com/The-Unarmed-Truth-John-Dodson-audiobook/dp/B00H2BVLYE/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&hvadid=78477693714973&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&keywords=the+unarmed+truth&qid=1620218602&sr=8-1
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I know we all like war and crime stuff, but I've started picking up some of the older classics that we all THINK we know because we've seen the movie.
HG Wells's War of the Worlds is an example
Saw a recent British movie and it was so strange and different from the '53' Gene Barry or the '05 Tom Cruise version I thought I needed to "go back to the beginning".
Wells concentrated more on the way people reacted to the news and how they interacted than he did on the Martian's themselves. It's more about situational awareness and survival than sci-fi. He set it ~1898 and the two prime communications were newspapers and telegraph. The telegraph was mainly used by the railroad, so people would hang out at the train station for the latest news.
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Right now I'm reading "Flashman at the Charge"
It's one in a series, "The Flashman Chronicles" by George MacDonald Fraser.
If you don't know Flashman, you don't know history. ;D
Or people. ;D ;D
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I spent most of 2020 in the side yard soaking up UV and reading... nothing too serious... I read a ton of material for my degree from UF...
light reading
Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney and those writing on his by-line after his death
Lee Child... working on most of the Jack Reacher series... Child, a Brit, knows nothing about firearms, kinda like Ian Flemming
WEB Griffin and son after his death..
historical fiction
Herman Wouk....Winds of War, and War and Remembrance
James Clavell... Shogun.. TaiPan, King Rat,
for the Civil War buffs... the 3 volume set by Shelby Foote
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I lost interest in Child when he talked about how the M 92 was more powerful than other pistols.
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I’m reading Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty. The story is described so realistically that it seems to you that you are also now in Australia and watching the events. Every story of the main characters touches the soul and you are sincerely worried about them. It is an engaging story filled with murder and mystery. The idea is very interesting. On the first page you will find out that the murder happened. But throughout the story, you have no idea who is the victim. At the same time, the genre cannot be called a detective story. A fascinating book about relationships.
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sammybot...
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sammybot...
Be nice, maybe he'll teach us Chinese cuss words. ;D
Actually we need him to clue us to what actually IS offensive in Chinese.
For all we know "Bullshit" may translate as "Meat byproducts". ;D
Not offensive at all unless you're talking about hot dogs. ;D
And it's actually, sort of, on topic ! ;D ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXIfQwUB82w
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F YOU A$$hol3 is:
操你混蛋
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When I get my printer going again I should make stencils.
We may not be able to pronounce it,
but we can spray paint it well enough . ;D
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It's BACK...... :o :o
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Started Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell. Don't be fooled, while he does cover the history of bomber strategy, he's also working in the topic of Confirmation Bias and how people go about accepting or rejecting change.
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"Sun, Sand, and Somals"
It's by a British officer who served as a District Commissioner after WW I.
Pacifying Slave Traders was part of his job.
Forgot his name, Google it on Amazon, it's either very cheap or free.
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"Sun, Sand, and Somals"
It's by a British officer who served as a District Commissioner after WW I.
Pacifying Slave Traders was part of his job.
Forgot his name, Google it on Amazon, it's either very cheap or free.
https://www.amazon.com/Sun-Sand-Somals-Commissioner-Somaliland/dp/1331566290
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That's it.
Good story.
Another good one is "Scouting on Two Continents" by Fredrick Russel Burnham.
He's the reason Boy Scouts wear "campaign" hats.
There is another version of the book. by Steve Kemper.
It goes into detail on some of the things, like the Pleasant Valley War, that Burnham glossed over.
He is a liberal revisionist asshole, but the added detail makes it worth skipping his ignorantly judgmental BS.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Proenneke
Any one read the couple of books based off of his journals?
I have been looking for them at the local library ( you know the place that use to have books in it) but no luck.
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Amazon has several of them, dead tree or Kindle
https://www.amazon.com/One-Mans-Wilderness-50th-Anniversary/dp/1513261649/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Richard_Proenneke&qid=1626725506&sr=8-2