“
It wasn't aliens that first made us gear up for war; it was our fellow humans.
”
”
Rick Yancey (The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave, #1))
“
War has changed.
It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines.
War--and it's consumption of life--has become a well-oiled machine.
War has changed.
ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities.
Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control…everything is monitored and kept under control.
War…has changed.
The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history.
War…has changed.
When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.
”
”
David Hayter
“
I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears; and caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts; and buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts; and rusted every bayonet with His tears.
”
”
Wilfred Owen (The Poems of Wilfred Owen)
“
There is an efficiency inspired by love which goes far beyond and is much greater than the efficiency of ambition; and without love, which brings an integrated understanding of life, efficiency breeds ruthlessness. Is this not what is actually taking place all over the world? Our present education is geared to industrialization and war, its principal aim being to develop efficiency; and we are caught in this machine of ruthless competition and mutual destruction. If education leads to war, if it teaches us to destroy or be destroyed, has it not utterly failed?
”
”
J. Krishnamurti (Education and the Significance of Life)
“
...much of modern military tactics is geared toward maneuvering the enemy into a position where they can essentially be massacred from safety.
”
”
Sebastian Junger (War)
“
I shall remain vigilant and unyielding in my pursuit of the enemies of the Coalition.
I will defend and maintain the Order of Life as it was proclaim by the Allfathers of the Coalition in the Octus Canon.
I will forsake the life I had before so I may perform my duty as long as I am needed.
Steadfast, I shall hold my place in the machine and acknowledge my place in the Coalition.
I am a Gear.
”
”
Karen Traviss (Aspho Fields (Gears of War, #1))
“
Time can play all sorts of tricks on you. In the blink of an eye, babies appear in carriages, coffins disappear into the ground, wars are won and lost, and children transform, like butterflies, into adults. That's what happened to me. Once upon a time, I was a boy named Hugo Cabret, and I desperately believed that a broken automaton would save my life. Now that my cocoon has fallen away and I have emerged as a magician named Professor Alcofrisbas, I can look back and see that I was right. The automaton my father discovered did save me. But now I have built a new automaton. I spent countless hours designing it. I made every gear myself, carefully cut every brass disk, and fashioned every bt of machinery with my own hands. When you wind it up, it can do something I'm sure no other automaton in the world can do. It can tel you the incredible story of Georges Melies, his wife, their goddaughter, and a beloved clock maker whose son grew up to be a magician. The complicated machinery inside my automaton can produce one-hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and it can wrote, letter, by letter, an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred and fifty-nine words. These words.
THE END
”
”
Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret)
“
That’s the problem with indoctrination—the whole point of the First Order’s kind of education is to stop someone from thinking and instead kick their emotions into gear. Make them hate everything else so they’ll cling to what you give them. It’s hard to think for yourself when fear and anger are driving the shuttle.
”
”
Delilah S. Dawson (Phasma (Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, #2))
“
They said the world was divided into those folks who ran away from danger, and those who ran toward it.
”
”
Karen Traviss (Gears of War Aspho Fields)
“
Hope was evil. It seduced you, then it dropped you on your ass so hard and so fast that you were worse off than when you started.
”
”
Karen Traviss (Jacinto's Remnant (Gears of War, #2))
“
There was no damn way we were ever gonna put our people into the ground again.
Beneath us was hell.
Heaven's above...
...and that's where we all deserve to be.
”
”
Joshua Ortega (Gears of War: Volume One)
“
Just take your flak jackets and some gear because we’ll be back for dinner.
”
”
Mark Bowden (Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam)
“
Work harder; not smarter
”
”
Joseph Perry Grassi (The Little Guy (or The Motor Scooter): The story of a diminutive soldier in the rear with the gear)
“
A military life attracts young people for many reasons—duty, comradeship, purpose, the opportunity to test life to the limits, to learn a trade, escape from home, adventure—even patriotism.
”
”
Karen Traviss (Gears of War Aspho Fields)
“
But all was fair in love and war. If I had to fight dirty to keep him, then I’d be the dirtiest motherfucker there ever was. “So what’s it going to be, Trent?” I pressed. “Are you going to protect my heart and the love it holds for you, or are you going to walk away?
”
”
Cambria Hebert (#Rev (GearShark, #2))
“
In the nine years I’d known Snake, this was the first time I’d heard him reference Star Wars.
”
”
Project Itoh (Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots)
“
It wasn’t the aliens that first made us gear up for war; it was our fellow humans.
”
”
Rick Yancey (The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave, #1))
“
wasn’t the aliens that first made us gear up for war; it was our fellow humans.
”
”
Rick Yancey (The 5th Wave (The 5th Wave, #1))
“
Their minds were geared to the old problems and to their own problems and their own politics.
”
”
C.J. Cherryh (Downbelow Station (The Company Wars, #1))
“
So they duly arrived
in their grim war-graith and gear at the hall,
and, weary from the sea, stacked wide shields
of the toughest hardwood against the wall
”
”
Seamus Heaney (Beowulf)
“
My body’s been here before a thousand times, and it gets on with the job without asking my brain if it has anything to say about opening fire.
”
”
Karen Traviss (Gears of War Aspho Fields)
“
The dark war consciousness and pride have seized upon the weak, with great cynicisms and glib, soulless intellects, that grind away like robotic gears at what they despise and can never understand.
”
”
Bryant McGill (Voice of Reason)
“
Be patient. Be strong. Fight back where you can. The Imperial war machine falls apart one gear, one gun, one stormtrooper at a time. The New Republic is coming. And we want your help to finish the fight.
”
”
Chuck Wendig (Aftermath (Star Wars: Aftermath, #1))
“
I've never met a soldier who knew he was a hero. It's not false modesty. They simply decide to do something that they know they must do, usually for there comrades, because if they don't, those people will suffer in some way. For them, that compulsion is far stronger than any fear. The fact we find it exceptional is a sad indictment of the human race. I'd like to live in a world of heroes. If we did, there would be no wars.
”
”
Karen Traviss (Aspho Fields (Gears of War, #1))
“
Laura Carmichael is Edith: During the war, Edith learns to drive the family car. "I haven't got a driving license, so I think production were a bit nervous! But in some ways it was an advantage that driving isn't second nature to me because I wasn't so surprised about where the things were. My heart was in my mouth - the car is one of the last of its kind and worth half a million pounds. The gears are all in a straight line and neutral is a tiny point in between, you have to do double declutching - so I just kept it in first. On the second take I thought I was thought o kill the cameraman! We were filming in Bampton so all the locals were watching, just to add to the pressure...
”
”
Jessica Fellowes (The World of Downton Abbey)
“
But I suspect the reported number of good novels this year is a result of 9/11 and all the other alarums of recent years. I think it set a certain gear into movement, unseen, silent, at the heart of many writers. Writers with children, writers with that hope of a peaceful century; a sort of literary battle stations. I was not surprised to hear Ali Smith describe her wonderful book The Accidental as a war book.
Sebastian Barry, in interview with TMO (2005)
”
”
Sebastian Barry
“
A friend of mine tells a story about some Israeli students who were called up in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As soon as they were notified, they went back to their rooms at University, and each packed his gear, a rifle, and a book of Yehuda Amichai’s poems.
”
”
Chana Bloch (The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai)
“
This book is just not meant for pretty reading. It’s not for coffee-table curiosity and other such cameo appearances. Think of it instead as industrial-grade survival gear. Duct tape and superglue. Leather straps lashed around it. Old shoelaces maybe. In tight double knots. Whatever it takes to keep it all together. Because this is war. The fight of your life. A very real enemy has been strategizing and scheming against you, assaulting you, coming after your emotions, your mind, your man, your child, your future. In fact, he’s doing it right this second. Right where you’re sitting. Right where you are. But I say his reign of terror stops here. Stops now. He might keep coming, but he won’t have victory anymore. Because it all starts failing when we start praying.
”
”
Priscilla Shirer (Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer)
“
At the center of all that gear was the opening DJ, R2-D2, hard at work, using his various robotic arms to work the turntables. I recognized the tune he was playing: the ’88 remix of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” with a lot of Star Wars droid sound samples mixed in.
”
”
Ernest Cline (Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1))
“
When dressing my son before his hockey games, I am always careful with the gear, with each legging, each strap and buckle... Not only are his slight legs swallowed by the wide pads, but his chest and arms are covered only by a tight shirt, accentuating the contrast. Next the puffy upper-body protector, insulated sleeves, and jersey overtop. The final step is the helmet. I start crying as I place it on his head, cinch down the chin cup, and close the cage over his face... I just put my seven-year-old son in a bomb suit and sent him on the Long Walk.
p 183
”
”
Brian Castner (The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life That Follows)
“
Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death. In any case, each of the three superstates is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for labor power.
”
”
George Orwell (1984)
“
The revolution of 1917 is a revolution of trains. History proceeding in screams of cold metal. The tsar’s wheeled palace, shunted into sidings forever; Lenin’s sealed stateless carriage; Guchkov and Shulgin’s meandering abdication express; the trains criss-crossing Russia heavy with desperate deserters; the engine stoked by ‘Konstantin Ivanov’, Lenin in his wig, eagerly shovelling coal. And more and more will come: Trotsky’s armoured train, the Red Army’s propaganda trains, the troop carriers of the Civil War. Looming trains, trains hurtling through trees, out of the dark. Revolutions, Marx said, are the locomotives of history. ‘Put the locomotive into top gear’, Lenin exhorted himself in a private note, scant weeks after October, ‘and keep it on the rails.’ But how could you keep it there if there really was only one true way, one line, and it is blocked? ‘I have gone where you did not want me to go.’ In
”
”
China Miéville (October: The Story of the Russian Revolution)
“
Caroline leaned forward. “Now explain to me why this is perfectly normal and dressing up in Regency gear is not.”
He blinked. “Finley, because the Civil War is history.”
“So is Regency England.” She laughed, eyes bright. “Just because we’re not firing cannons or riding horses doesn’t mean it won’t be fun.
”
”
Mary Jane Hathaway (Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs (Jane Austen Takes the South, #2))
“
Owen, we've got to talk," Mosh said as he painfully ground the bus into a higher gear. He turned and looked at me. "Okay, what the hell were those things? What are you doing playing commando? You're an accountant! And these weirdos keep bowing and calling me War Chief." He waved his hand at the orcs. All three bowed simultaneously. "See? See!
”
”
Larry Correia (Monster Hunter Vendetta (Monster Hunters International, #2))
“
Fear so, sir. I’d be back in the fight, had we the gear.” If he were a Gold or Obsidian, he’d be back in the fight by month’s end, but we can’t spend our near-extinguished supply of prosthetics on regular infantry. Bad investment. I once thought the greatest sin of war was violence. It isn’t. The greatest sin is it requires good men to become practical.
”
”
Pierce Brown (Dark Age (Red Rising Saga #5))
“
When this all started, when the US of A got into this war and the Supreme Court decided what the hell, let's send women to, everyone wondered what effect it would have.
Could women fight my girl Rio has a shiny Silver Star, A fistful of Purple Hearts, and a notched M1 that say yes.
Could the men fight alongside women, or would the simple creatures be too distracted by feminine curves? Well, I won't spend a long night in a hole with Luther gear, who has never been a gentleman but he is a good soldier and he never made a pass at me. Possibly he was distracted by the artillery garage coming down on our heads. Possibly was that I hadn't showered in ... God only knows how long you have to ask my fleas. We were not a man and a woman in that hole we were too scared little babies screaming and cursing and so we could be grateful for the warmth of our own piss running down our legs.
It was not a romantic evening.
”
”
Michael Grant (Purple Hearts (Front Lines, #3))
“
The “Muslim speech,” as we took to calling the second major address, was trickier. Beyond the negative portrayals of terrorists and oil sheikhs found on news broadcasts or in the movies, most Americans knew little about Islam. Meanwhile, surveys showed that Muslims around the world believed the United States was hostile toward their religion, and that our Middle East policy was based not on an interest in improving people’s lives but rather on maintaining oil supplies, killing terrorists, and protecting Israel. Given this divide, I told Ben that the focus of our speech had to be less about outlining new policies and more geared toward helping the two sides understand each other. That meant recognizing the extraordinary contributions of Islamic civilizations in the advancement of mathematics, science, and art and acknowledging the role colonialism had played in some of the Middle East’s ongoing struggles. It meant admitting past U.S. indifference toward corruption and repression in the region, and our complicity in the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected government during the Cold War, as well as acknowledging the searing humiliations endured by Palestinians living in occupied territory. Hearing such basic history from the mouth of a U.S. president would catch many people off guard, I figured, and perhaps open their minds to other hard truths: that the Islamic fundamentalism that had come to dominate so much of the Muslim world was incompatible with the openness and tolerance that fueled modern progress; that too often Muslim leaders ginned up grievances against the West in order to distract from their own failures; that a Palestinian state would be delivered only through negotiation and compromise rather than incitements to violence and anti-Semitism; and that no society could truly succeed while systematically repressing its women. —
”
”
Barack Obama (A Promised Land)
“
Regional powers could redress the overall military balance by a strategy geared to prolonging any war beyond the willingness of the “advanced” country’s public to sustain it—as France experienced in Algeria and Vietnam; the United States in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Asymmetric warfare operated in the interstices of traditional doctrines of linear operations against an enemy’s territory. Guerrilla forces, which defend no territory, could concentrate on inflicting casualties and eroding the public’s political will to continue the conflict. In this sense, technological supremacy turned into geopolitical impotence.
”
”
Henry Kissinger (World Order)
“
We can't expect healthy individuals in a society geared towards war all the time. I think depression is a natural reaction to crisis. We can't isolate ourselves from reality no matter how much we try or deny it. We live in a world where there is an assault against the environment, constant war, social and economic crises and so many other issues; not to forget inequality and the prioritization of war. A dysfunctional world can only assault you as an individual in so many ways that you are not aware of, and you can never run away from it. [human agency] can never solve it. It can only make people more aware and stronger. On the contrary those forces take away agency.
”
”
Rowan Moses
“
Patriotism comes from the same Latin word as father. Blind patriotism is collective transference. In it the state becomes a parent and we citizens submit our loyalty to ensure its protection. We may have been encouraged to make that bargain from our public school education, our family home, religion, or culture in general. We associate safety with obedience to authority, for example, going along with government policies. We then make duty, as it is defined by the nation, our unquestioned course. Our motivation is usually not love of country but fear of being without a country that will defend us and our property. Connection is all-important to us; excommunication is the equivalent of death, the finality we can’t dispute. Healthy adult loyalty is a virtue that does not become blind obedience for fear of losing connection, nor total devotion so that we lose our boundaries. Our civil obedience can be so firm that it may take precedence over our concern for those we love, even our children. Here is an example: A young mother is told by the doctor that her toddler is allergic to peanuts and peanut oil. She lets the school know of her son’s allergy when he goes to kindergarten. Throughout his childhood, she is vigilant and makes sure he is safe from peanuts in any form. Eighteen years later, there is a war and he is drafted. The same mother, who was so scrupulously careful about her child’s safety, now waves goodbye to him with a tear but without protest. Mother’s own training in public school and throughout her life has made her believe that her son’s life is expendable whether or not the war in question is just. “Patriotism” is so deeply ingrained in her that she does not even imagine an alternative, even when her son’s life is at stake. It is of course also true that, biologically, parents are ready to let children go just as the state is ready to draft them. What a cunning synchronic-ity. In addition, old men who decide on war take advantage of the timing too. The warrior archetype is lively in eighteen-year-olds, who are willing to fight. Those in their mid-thirties, whose archetype is being a householder and making a mark in their chosen field, will not show an interest in battlefields of blood. The chiefs count on the fact that young braves will take the warrior myth literally rather than as a metaphor for interior battles. They will be willing to put their lives on the line to live out the collective myth of societies that have not found the path of nonviolence. Our collective nature thus seems geared to making war a workable enterprise. In some people, peacemaking is the archetype most in evidence. Nature seems to have made that population smaller, unfortunately. Our culture has trained us to endure and tolerate, not to protest and rebel. Every cell of our bodies learned that lesson. It may not be virtue; it may be fear. We may believe that showing anger is dangerous, because it opposes the authority we are obliged to appease and placate if we are to survive. This explains why we so admire someone who dares to say no and to stand up or even to die for what he believes. That person did not fall prey to the collective seduction. Watching Jeopardy on television, I notice that the audience applauds with special force when a contestant risks everything on a double-jeopardy question. The healthy part of us ardently admires daring. In our positive shadow, our admiration reflects our own disavowed or hidden potential. We, too, have it in us to dare. We can stand up for our truth, putting every comfort on the line, if only we can calm our long-scared ego and open to the part of us that wants to live free. Joseph Campbell says encouragingly, “The part of us that wants to become is fearless.” Religion and Transference Transference is not simply horizontal, from person to person, but vertical from person to a higher power, usually personified as God. When
”
”
David Richo (When the Past Is Present: Healing the Emotional Wounds that Sabotage our Relationships)
“
In the same breath, shining Hector reached down
for his son—but the boy recoiled,
cringing against his nurse's full breast,
screaming out at the sight of his own father,
terrified by the flashing bronze, the horsehair crest,
the great ridge of the helmet nodding, bristling terror—
so it struck his eyes. And his loving father laughed, his mother laughed as well, and glorious Hector,
quickly lifting the helmet from his head,
set it down on the ground, fiery in the sunlight,
and raising his son he kissed him, tossed him in his arms,
lifting a prayer to Zeus and the other deathless gods:
"Zeus, all you immortals! Grant this boy, my son,
may be like me, first in glory among the Trojans,
strong and brave like me, and rule all Troy in power
and one day let them say, 'He is a better man than his father!'—
when he comes home from battle bearing the bloody gear
of the mortal enemy he has killed in war—
a joy to his mother's heart.
”
”
Homer (Iliad)
“
On 28 June 1914 the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia, a heartland of the South Slavs. Philosophers refer to ‘the inevitable accident’, and this was a very accidental one. Some young Serb terrorists had planned to murder him as he paid a state visit. They had bungled the job, throwing a bomb that missed, and one of them had repaired to a café in a side street to sort himself out. The Archduke drove to the headquarters of the governor-general, Potiorek (where he was met by little girls performing folklore), and berated him (the two men were old enemies, as the Archduke had prevented the neurasthenic Potiorek from succeeding an elderly admirer as Chief of the General Staff). The Archduke went off in a rage, to visit in hospital an officer wounded by the earlier bomb. His automobile moved off again, a Count Harrach standing on the running board. Its driver turned left after crossing a bridge over Sarajevo’s river. It was the wrong street, and the driver was told to stop and reverse. In reverse gear such automobiles sometimes stalled, and this one did so - Count Harrach on the wrong side, away from the café where one of the assassination team was calming his nerves. Now, slowly, his target drove up and stopped. The murderer, Gavrilo Princip, fired. He was seventeen, a romantic schooled in nationalism and terrorism, and part of a team that stretches from the Russian Nihilists of the middle of the nineteenth century, exemplified especially in Dostoyevsky’s prophetic The Possessed and Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes. Austria did not execute adolescents and Princip was young enough to survive. He was imprisoned and died in April 1918. Before he died, a prison psychiatrist asked him if he had any regrets that his deed had caused a world war and the death of millions. He answered: if I had not done it, the Germans would have found another excuse.
”
”
Norman Stone (World War One: A Short History)
“
Eric Steele was strapped in and rubbing a rag over his father’s 1911. Demo had brought the pistol with the rest of Steele’s
gear on board the C-17. In the cockpit, the pilot pushed the throttle forward, shoving Steele back in his seat. He barely
noticed because he was thinking about the first time his father let him hold the pistol. It had felt so heavy in his hands
back then.
So much I never got to ask him.
He ran his thumb over the spot where the serial number should have been. It was silver and all traces of the file marks were
smoothed out by years of use. The pistol was one of John Moses Browning’s masterpieces, the same design that the American
infantryman had carried in the Battle of Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, Korea, and Vietnam. It was the only thing he had to remind
him of the father he never really knew.
Steele had made the pistol his own by modifying it to shoot 9mm, adding a threaded barrel, and installing suppressor sights,
which were taller than the factory ones. It was his gun now, and he slipped it away before taking an amphetamine tablet out
of his pocket and downing it with a sip of water.
”
”
Sean Parnell (Man of War (Eric Steele #1))
“
Last night I watched the television news. I shouldn't do that, it's bad for the digestion. There's another war somewhere, what they call a minor one, though of course it isn't minor for anyone who happens to get caught in it. They have a generic look to them, these wars - the men in camouflage gear with scarves over their mouths and noses, the drifts of smoke, the gutted buildings, the broken, weeping civilians. Endless mothers, carrying limp children, their faces splotched with blood; endless bewildered old men. They cart the young men off and murder them, intending to forestall revenge, as the Greeks did at Troy. Hitler's excuse too for killing Jewish babies, as I recall.
The wars break out and die down, but then there's a flareup elsewhere. Houses cracked open like eggs, their contents torched or stolen or stomped vindictively underfoot; refugees strafed from airplanes. In a million cellars the bewildered royal family faces the firing squad; the gems sewn into their corsets will not save them. Herod's troops patrol a thousand streets; just next door, Napoleon makes off with the silverware. In the wake of the invasion, any invasion, the ditches fill up with raped women. To be fair, raped men as well. Raped children, raped dogs and cats. Things can get out of control.
”
”
Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
“
The next morning, I went over to pick them up. I’d spent the night thinking of more things I should tell them--everything about Chris I thought they needed to know.
It was all too much.
“I don’t know how to tell you everything,” I confessed to Bradley as he got into the car. I started to cry. “There’s so many things and we have such a short amount of time.”
“Just being here is all we need,” he said. “I’m not an impersonator. I’m just here to feel Chris’s life--I feel him here with me right now.”
Bradley put me at ease and I calmed down. Back at the house, he and Clint became almost like family. Little bits of their personality came out as well--and I saw a glimmer of Clint’s famous Dirty Harry character later on in the day when I had to leave to go to Bubba’s basketball game.
They’d talked about coming with me--which frankly would have created an impossible circus. But I did give them the option. As they stood trying to make up their minds, I snapped into anxious mom mode.
“All right,” I told them both. “You’re welcome to come. But if you’re coming, we’re leaving now.”
I guess my tone was a little too strident.
“So you want to get tough with me, huh, lady?” said Clint in his best Dirty Harry voice as he raised his eyebrow.
It’s amazing how threatening a simple facial tic can be.
I left them home to study some of Chris’s replica guns and gear. Our own already had its ample share of lawmen.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
The world recoiled in horror in 2012 when 20 Connecticut schoolchildren and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. . . . The weapon was a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle adapted from its original role as a battlefield weapon. The AR-15, which is designed to inflict maximum casualties with rapid bursts, should never have been available for purchase by civilians (emphasis added).1 —New York Times editorial, March 4, 2016 Assault weapons were banned for 10 years until Congress, in bipartisan obeisance to the gun lobby, let the law lapse in 2004. As a result, gun manufacturers have been allowed to sell all manner of war weaponry to civilians, including the super destructive .50-caliber sniper rifle. . . .(emphasis added)2 —New York Times editorial, December 11, 2015 [James Holmes the Aurora, Colorado Batman Movie Theater Shooter] also bought bulletproof vests and other tactical gear” (emphasis added).3 —New York Times, July 22, 2012 It is hard to debate guns if you don’t know much about the subject. But it is probably not too surprising that gun control advocates who live in New York City know very little about guns. Semi-automatic guns don’t fire “rapid bursts” of bullets. The New York Times might be fearful of .50-caliber sniper rifles, but these bolt-action .50-caliber rifles were never covered by the federal assault weapons ban. “Urban assault vests” may sound like they are bulletproof, but they are made of nylon. These are just a few of the many errors that the New York Times made.4 If it really believes that it has a strong case, it wouldn’t feel the need to constantly hype its claims. What distinguishes the New York Times is that it doesn’t bother running corrections for these errors.
”
”
John R. Lott Jr. (The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies)
“
But what should he wear?
I thought about having him laid to rest in his uniform. But the truth is he hated wearing it. He really needed to be dressed in something he was comfortable in.
And that wasn’t going to be in a suit, either: he hated being in a jacket and tie even more than in a uniform.
Tie? Ha!
I got a pair of his best pressed jeans. They had a nice crease in the pants leg, just like he liked. I found one of his plaid button-down shirts, another favorite.
Kryptek, which produces tactical gear and apparel and was one of Chris’s favorite companies, had presented him with a big silver belt buckle that he loved. It was very cowboy, and in that way very much who Chris was.
“You think I can pull this off?” he’d asked, showing me how it looked right after he got it.
“Hell, yeah,” I told him.
I made sure that was with him as well.
But if there was any item of clothing that really touched deep into Chris’s soul, it was his cowboy boots. They were a reminder of who he was when he was young, and they were part of who he’d been since getting out of the military.
He had a really nice pair of new boots that had been custom made. He hadn’t had a chance to wear them much, and I couldn’t decide whether to bury him in those or another pair that were well worn and very comfortable.
I asked the funeral director for his opinion.
“We usually don’t do shoes,” he said. It can be very difficult to get them onto the body. “But if it’s important to you, we can do it.”
I thought about it. Was the idea of burying them with Chris irrational? The symbolism seemed important. But that could work the other way, too--they would surely be important to Bubba someday. Maybe I should save them for him.
In the end, I decided to set them near Chris’s casket when his body was on view, then collect them later for our son.
But Chris had the last word. Through a miscommunication--or maybe something else--they were put in the casket when he was laid to rest. So obviously that was the way it should have been.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
against the velvet rope force fields that kept everyone without an invitation at bay. As I walked toward the entrance, the crowd bombarded me with a mix of insults, autograph requests, death threats, and tearful declarations of undying love. I had my body shield activated, but surprisingly, no one took a shot at me. I flashed the cyborg doorman my invitation, then mounted the long crystal staircase leading up into the club. Entering the Distracted Globe was more than a little disorienting. The inside of the giant sphere was completely hollow, and its curved interior surface served as the club’s bar and lounge area. The moment you passed through the entrance, the laws of gravity changed. No matter where you walked, your avatar’s feet always adhered to the interior of the sphere, so you could walk in a straight line, up to the “top” of the club, then back down the other side, ending up right back where you started. The huge open space in the center of the sphere served as the club’s zero-gravity “dance floor.” You reached it simply by jumping off the ground, like Superman taking flight, and then swimming through the air, into the spherical zero-g “groove zone.” As I stepped through the entrance, I glanced up—or in the direction that was currently “up” to me at the moment—and took a long look around. The place was packed. Hundreds of avatars milled around like ants crawling around the inside of a giant balloon. Others were already out on the dance floor—spinning, flying, twisting, and tumbling in time with the music, which thumped out of floating spherical speakers that drifted throughout the club. In the middle of all the dancers, a large clear bubble was suspended in space, at the absolute center of the club. This was the “booth” where the DJ stood, surrounded by turntables, mixers, decks, and dials. At the center of all that gear was the opening DJ, R2-D2, hard at work, using his various robotic arms to work the turntables. I recognized the tune he was playing: the ’88 remix of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” with a lot of Star Wars droid sound samples mixed in. As I made my way to the nearest bar, the avatars I passed all stopped to stare and point in
”
”
Ernest Cline (Ready Player One)
“
In the year after Chris died, a friend organized a trip for the kids and me to use the time-share at Disney World in Florida. I felt exceptionally lonely the night we arrived in our rental car, exhausted from our flight. Getting our suitcases out, I mentioned something along the lines of “I wish we had Dad here.”
“Me, too,” said both of the kids.
“But he’s still with us,” I told them, forcing myself to sound as optimistic as possible. “He’s always here.”
It’s one thing to say that and another to feel it, and as we walked toward the building I didn’t feel that way at all. We went upstairs--our apartment was on the second floor--and went to the door.
A tiny frog was sitting on the door handle.
A frog, really? Talk about strange.
Anyone who knows the history of the SEALs will realize they trace their history to World War II combat divers: “frogmen” specially trained to infiltrate and scout enemy beaches before invasions (among other duties). They’re very proud of that heritage, and they still occasionally refer to themselves as frogmen or frogs. SEALs often feature frogs in various tattoos and other art related to the brotherhood. As a matter of fact, Chris had a frog skeleton tattoo as a tribute to fallen SEALs. (The term frogman is thought to derive from the gear the combat divers wore, as well as their ability to work both on land and at sea.)
But for some reason, I didn’t make the connection. I was just consumed by the weirdness--who finds a frog, even a tiny one, on a door handle?
The kids gathered round. Call me squeamish, but I didn’t want to touch it.
“Get it off, Bubba!” I said.
“No way.”
We hunted around and found a little tree branch on the grounds. I held it up to the doorknob, hoping it would hop on. It was reluctant at first, but finally it toddled over to the outside of the door jam. I left it to do whatever frogs do in the middle of the night. Inside the apartment, we got settled. I took out my cell phone and called my mom to say we’d arrived safely.
“There was one strange thing,” I told her. “There was a frog on the door handle when we arrived.”
“A…frog?”
“Yes, it’s like a jungle down here, so hot and humid.”
“A frog?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t think there’s anything interesting about that?”
“Oh my God,” I said, suddenly realizing the connection.
I know, I know: just a bizarre coincidence.
Probably.
I did sleep really well that night.
The next morning I woke up before the kids and went into the living room. I could have sworn Chris was sitting on the couch waiting for me when I came out.
I can’t keep seeing you everywhere.
Maybe I’m crazy.
I’m sorry. It’s too painful.
I went and made myself a cup of coffee. I didn’t see him anymore that week.
”
”
Taya Kyle (American Wife: Love, War, Faith, and Renewal)
“
It was clear to me that, if nothing could be achieved by means of voluntary discussion and negotiation in Geneva, we had to leave Geneva. Never in my life have I imposed on anyone. Whoever does not want to speak to me does not have to. I don’t care! We are eighty-five million Germans, and these Germans do not need that; they have a mighty historic past. They already had an empire when England was only a small island. And that for more than three hundred years.
For England these colonies are useless. It has forty million square kilometers [this forty-million figure consists mostly of the colonies]. What is it doing with them? Nothing at all. It is the avarice of old usurers, who do not want to give away what they possess. They are sick creatures. If they see that their neighbor has nothing to eat, they would still rather throw what they possess into the sea than give it away, even if they cannot use it themselves.
They get ill at the thought that they could lose something. And I did not even ask for anything that belonged to the English. I asked only for what they robbed us of and stole from us in the years 1918 and 1919! Robbery and theft contrary to the solemn assurances of the American president Wilson! We did not ask anything of them, we did not make any demands. Again and again, I stretched my hand out to them, and, still, everything was in vain. The reasons are clear to us: for one, it is German unification as such. They hate this, our state, irrespective of what it looks like, whether it is imperial or National Socialist, democratic or authoritarian. That makes no difference to them. And second: above all, they hate the rise of this Reich.
And here lust for power abroad and base egoism at home join forces. When they say, “We can never come to an understanding with this world,” then this world is the world of the awakening social conscience, with which they cannot come to an understanding. I can make only one response to these gentlemen on both sides of the ocean: the socialist world will be the victorious one in the end! The social conscience of all people will be roused. They can wage wars for their capitalist interests, but these wars themselves will ultimately pave the way for social upheaval among their people.
It is not possible in the long run to gear hundreds of millions of people to the interests of a few individuals. The common interest of mankind will gain the victory over the interests of these small, plutocratic profiteers! Just a short while ago, they conclusively proved to us that our officers and generals are worthless because they are young and infected with National Socialist thinking, that is, they have some contact with the broad masses. Now events have shown where the better generals are, over there or here! If this war lasts any longer, then this will be a great misfortune for England.
They will get to see real action. And, one day, perhaps the English will send a commission over here in order to adopt our platform!
National Socialism will determine the coming millennia in German history, which would be unthinkable without it. It will fade away only when its political planks have become self-evident.
Speech in the Sportpalast Berlin, January 30, 1941
”
”
Adolf Hitler (Collection of Speeches: 1922-1945)
“
Their code said to fight with fearlessness and restraint, to celebrate victories not death, and to know when it was time to answer a higher call. Franz gazed at the men in the waist tending one another’s wounds. He looked into the ashen face of the ball turret gunner. He thought about what his brother August would have done. A gear clicked in Franz’s soul. He laid a hand over the pocket of his jacket and felt his rosary beads within. This will be no victory for me, Franz decided. I will not have this on my conscience for the rest of my life.1
”
”
Adam Makos (A Higher Call: The Incredible True Story of Heroism and Chivalry during the Second World War)
“
I had eight magazines of 5.56mm bullets and ChemLights. As team lead, I carried flares, an extra radio, and an extra antenna stuffed in a cargo pocket. I had a computer and a medical pack containing QuikClot, bandages, needles, and tourniquets. I had water and food, too. I weighed about 250 pounds without my gear, and more than 325 with it. With every step I took, I could feel my spine compressing like a shock absorber.
”
”
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
“
by the time the Americans got their creaky war economy into gear, we would already be the masters of Europe, with the swastika flying from the Kremlin to the Houses of Parliament.
”
”
Various (Playboy Interview: Killers, Assassins and Revolutionaries)
“
Rock shrews. It had all started with damned rock shrews.
”
”
Karen Traviss (Gears of War: The Slab)
“
Once you master the basics, it is important to begin to reinforce the training with simple and realistic scenarios. The visualization phase of training needs to be confirmed with mission-oriented and realistic scenarios which require the individual to work with all the tools they carry on a mission. This training ensures that individual carries the proper gear and in the spot they can most efficiently use it.
”
”
Paul R. Howe (Leadership and Training for the Fight: Using Special Operations Principles to Succeed in Law Enforcement, Business, and War)
“
They feel that by simply being issued the special gear, they are qualified to do the mission. An old instructor said to me, “It takes five minutes to dress like a commando, but years to become one.” This attitude of the “the gear makes me” is false. You always make the gear.
”
”
Paul R. Howe (Leadership and Training for the Fight: Using Special Operations Principles to Succeed in Law Enforcement, Business, and War)
“
Machine learning also has a growing role on the battlefield. Learners can help dissipate the fog of war, sifting through reconnaissance imagery, processing after-action reports, and piecing together a picture of the situation for the commander. Learning powers the brains of military robots, helping them keep their bearings, adapt to the terrain, distinguish enemy vehicles from civilian ones, and home in on their targets. DARPA’s AlphaDog carries soldiers’ gear for them. Drones can fly autonomously with the help of learning algorithms; although they are still partly controlled by human pilots, the trend is for one pilot to oversee larger and larger swarms. In the army of the future, learners will greatly outnumber soldiers, saving countless lives.
”
”
Pedro Domingos (The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World)
“
Meera frowns. “Maybe the Little Warrior.” “Who is that?” A spirit, Meera explains, who appears in the form of a child dressed in war gear—eagle feathers and paint. “He comes to those alone in the forest to warn them of danger.” Susanna’s
”
”
Martha Conway (Thieving Forest)
“
a nation is totally geared to the waging of war, it had better ensure that war keeps occurring somewhere; and
”
”
James A. Michener (The Covenant)
“
The Gears of War are turning... You have 2 choices; Either move out of the way, or be Crushed by our Might.
”
”
World War Rising: Syndicate Invasion
“
if there really is no way you can win, you never say it out loud. You assess why, change strategy, adjust tactics, and keep fighting and pushing till either you’ve gotten a better outcome or you’ve died. Either way, you never quit when your country needs you to succeed. As Team 5 was shutting down the workup and loading up its gear, our task unit’s leadership flew to Ramadi to do what we call a predeployment site survey. Lieutenant Commander Thomas went, and so did both of our platoon officers in charge. It was quite an adventure. They were shot at every day. They were hit by IEDs. When they came home, Lieutenant Commander Thomas got us together in the briefing room and laid out the details. The general reaction from the team was, “Get ready, kids. This is gonna be one hell of a ride.” I remember sitting around the team room talking about it. Morgan had a big smile on his face. Elliott Miller, too, all 240 pounds of him, looked happy. Even Mr. Fantastic seemed at peace and relaxed, in that sober, senior chief way. We turned over in our minds the hard realities of the city. Only a couple weeks from now we would be calling Ramadi home. For six or seven months we’d be living in a hornet’s nest, picking up where Team 3 had left off. It was time for us to roll. In late September, Al Qaeda’s barbaric way of dealing with the local population was stirring some of Iraq’s Sunni tribal leaders to come over to our side. (Stuff like punishing cigarette smokers by cutting off their fingers—can you blame locals for wanting those crazies gone?) Standing up for their own people posed a serious risk, but it was easier to justify when you had five thousand American military personnel backing you up. That’ll boost your courage, for sure. We were putting that vise grip on that city, infiltrating it, and setting up shop, block by block, house by house, inch by inch. On September 29, a Team 3 platoon set out on foot from a combat outpost named Eagle’s Nest on the final operation of their six-month deployment. Located in the dangerous Ma’laab district, it wasn’t much more than a perimeter of concrete walls and concertina wire bundling up a block of residential homes. COP Eagle’s
”
”
Marcus Luttrell (Service: A Navy SEAL at War)
“
... It strikes me that if I'm in such a febrile and imaginative mood I ought to take advantage of it with some serious writing exercises or at least a few ideas for stories, if only to demonstrate that I'm not treating this here commonplace book solely as a journal to record my most recent attacks of jitters! Maybe I should roll my sleeves up and attempt as least an opening practice paragraph or two of this confounded novel I'm pretending to be writing. Let's see how it looks.
Marblehead: An American Undertow
By Robert D. Black
Iron green, the grand machinery of the Atlantic grates foam gears against New England with the rhythmic thunder of industrial percussion. A fine dust of other lands and foreign histories is carried in suspension on its lurching, slopping mechanism: shards of bright green glass from Ireland scoured blunt and opaque by brine, or sodden splinters of armada out of Spain. The debris of an older world, a driftwood of ideas and people often changed beyond all recognition by their passage, clatters on the tideline pebbles to deposit unintelligible grudges, madnesses and visions in a rank high-water mark, a silt of fetid dreams that further decompose amid the stranded kelp or bladder-wrack and pose risk of infection. Puritans escaping England's murderous civil war cast broad-brimmed shadows onto rocks where centuries of moss obscured the primitive horned figures etched by vanished tribes, and after them came the displaced political idealists of many nations, the religious outcasts, cults and criminals, to cling with grim determination to a damp and verdant landscape until crushed by drink or the insufferable weight of their accumulated expectations. Royalist cavaliers that fled from Cromwell's savage interregnum and then, where their puritanical opponents settled the green territories to the east, elected instead to establish themselves deep in a more temperate South, bestowing their equestrian concerns, their courtly mannerisms and their hairstyles upon an adopted homeland. Heretics and conjurors who sought new climes past the long shadow of the stake; transported killers and procurers with their slates wiped clean in pastures where nobody knew them; sour-faced visionaries clutching Bunyan's chapbook to their bosoms as a newer and more speculative bible, come to these shores searching for a literal New Jerusalem and finding only different wilderness in which to lose themselves and different game or adversaries for the killing. All of these and more, bearing concealed agendas and a hundred diverse afterlives, crashed as a human surf of Plymouth Rock to fling their mortal spray across the unsuspecting country, individuals incendiary in the having lost their ancestral homelands they were without further longings to relinquish. Their remains, ancient and sinister, impregnate and inform the factory-whistle furrows of oblivious America.
”
”
Alan Moore (Providence Compendium by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows Hardcover)
“
... It strikes me that if I'm in such a febrile and imaginative mood I ought to take advantage of it with some serious writing exercises or at least a few ideas for stories, if only to demonstrate that I'm not treating this here commonplace book solely as a journal to record my most recent attacks of jitters! Maybe I should roll my sleeves up and attempt as least an opening practice paragraph or two of this confounded novel I'm pretending to be writing. Let's see how it looks.
Marblehead: An American Undertow
By Robert D. Black
Iron green, the grand machinery of the Atlantic grates foam gears against New England with the rhythmic thunder of industrial percussion. A fine dust of other lands and foreign histories is carried in suspension on its lurching, slopping mechanism: shards of bright green glass from Ireland scoured blunt and opaque by brine, or sodden splinters of armada out of Spain. The debris of an older world, a driftwood of ideas and people often changed beyond all recognition by their passage, clatters on the tideline pebbles to deposit unintelligible grudges, madnesses and visions in a rank high-water mark, a silt of fetid dreams that further decompose amid the stranded kelp or bladder-wrack and pose risk of infection. Puritans escaping England's murderous civil war cast broad-brimmed shadows onto rocks where centuries of moss obscured the primitive horned figures etched by vanished tribes, and after them came the displaced political idealists of many nations, the religious outcasts, cults and criminals, to cling with grim determination to a damp and verdant landscape until crushed by drink or the insufferable weight of their accumulated expectations. Royalist cavaliers that fled from Cromwell's savage interregnum and then, where their puritanical opponents settled the green territories to the east, elected instead to establish themselves deep in a more temperate South, bestowing their equestrian concerns, their courtly mannerisms and their hairstyles upon an adopted homeland. Heretics and conjurors who sought new climes past the long shadow of the stake; transported killers and procurers with their slates wiped clean in pastures where nobody knew them; sour-faced visionaries clutching Bunyan's chapbook to their bosoms as a newer and more speculative bible, come to these shores searching for a literal New Jerusalem and finding only different wilderness in which to lose themselves and different game or adversaries for the killing. All of these and more, bearing concealed agendas and a hundred diverse afterlives, crashed as a human surf on Plymouth Rock to fling their mortal spray across the unsuspecting country, individuals incendiary in that having lost their ancestral homelands they were without further longings to relinquish. Their remains, ancient and sinister, impregnate and inform the factory-whistle furrows of oblivious America.
”
”
Alan Moore (Providence Compendium by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows Hardcover)
“
This same complex but well-oiled machinery went into high gear during 1948 when Perón’s Nazi rescue group began working in Europe, principally out of Berne and Genoa. In a period of under two months that year, Immigration files similar to Stojadinovic’s were opened for four notorious SS officers: Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele, Josef Schwammberger and Erich Priebke. They arrived on separate ocean liners many months apart, but the paperwork for their journeys began together – in the case of Mengele and Priebke, simultaneously, as we have seen.
”
”
Uki Goñi (The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina)
“
Even seasoned military men found it difficult to believe what they were seeing, and admitted to feeling bewildered and disorientated as the attack unfolded. The notion that an actual raid was underway was slow to enter their minds. In the eyewitness accounts, that pattern of belated comprehension is repeated again and again. A plane approaches. ( “Why are those planes flying so low?”) American ground-based antiaircraft guns fire at the intruder. (“Why are the boys shooting at that plane?”) A bomb drops. (“What a stupid, careless pilot, not to have secured his releasing gear.”) It explodes. ( “Somebody goofed big this time. They loaded live bombs on those planes by mistake.”) As the plane turns upward, the Japanese “Rising Sun” insignia comes into view on the underside of the wings. ( “My God! They’re really going all-out! They’ve even painted the rising sun on that plane!”) An American ship explodes. ( “What kind of a drill is this?”) Even then, some men refused to believe that a war had begun that morning—perhaps, as Commander A. L. Seton of the light cruiser St. Louis first guessed, the attacker was “a lone, berserk Japanese pilot who somehow had gotten to Pearl and now would be in trouble with his navy and ours.
”
”
Ian W. Toll (Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942)
“
During the Great War, the German army occupied Kristóf’s village and forced the residents to use the German language. Upon liberating Hungary, the Soviets made learning Russian compulsory in school. In this way, Kristóf’s mother tongue was repeatedly stolen from her amid the ravages of war. As a result, she wrote in what she often called “an enemy language,” and when she wrote these three novels, she elevated the tragic loss of her native language into literature.
”
”
Hideo Kojima (The Creative Gene: How books, movies, and music inspired the creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid)
“
I worry about our shrinking industrial base and the loss of a highly skilled workforce that has kept America the unchallenged aerospace leader since World War II. By layoffs and attrition we are losing skilled toolmakers and welders, machinists and designers, wind tunnel model makers and die makers too. And we are also losing the so-called second tier—the mom-and-pop shops of subcontractors who supplied the nuts and bolts of the industry, from flight controls to landing gears. The old guard is retiring or being let go, while the younger generation of new workers lucky enough to hold aerospace jobs has too little to do to overcome a steep learning curve any time soon.
”
”
Ben R. Rich & Leo Janos;
“
I want to finish well. I want to return as a hero, a warrior worthy of the kingdom. I had this vision—I don’t know if it was an actual vision or just my heart’s expression. I saw myself, sword at my side, shield slung over my back, making my way up the main street of the City. I wore the battle gear of war, soiled by long years at the front. People lined both sides of the street to welcome me, the great cloud, I guess; I recognized hundreds of faces, the faces of those whose freedom I fought for. Their smiles and tears filled my heart with profound joy. As I made my way up the street toward Jesus and our Father, my friends and fellow warriors stepped into the street with me, and we moved forward as a band. I saw angels there, maybe the angels who fought for us and with us, walking alongside. I saw flower petals on the pavement; I saw banners flapping in the breeze. We reached the throne and knelt. Jesus came forward and kissed my forehead, and we embraced deeply, freely, like I always knew we would. Then my Father stepped forward and took me by the shoulders and said, “Well done, my son. Very well done indeed. Welcome home.” As we embraced, a great cheer went up from the crowd.
”
”
John Eldredge (All Things New: Heaven, Earth, and the Restoration of Everything You Love)
“
Ben may be a skeptic, but he's curious enough to be at my house Saturday afternoon when Maeve arrives along with her ghost-hunting team.
"This is Todd and Evan, who'll handle the technical aspects tonight," she says, introducing the two burly young men who are unloading camera gear from a white van. They are brothers with identical red beards and they look so much alike that I can only tell them apart by their different T-shirts. Evan's is Star Wars, Todd's is Alien. I'm surprised that neither is wearing Ghostbusters.
A VW comes up the driveway and parks behind the white van. "And that'll be Kim, our team sensitive," says Maeve. Out of the VW emerges a stick-thin blonde with cheeks so hollow that I wonder if she has recently suffered an illness. She takes a few steps toward us and suddenly stops, staring up at the house. She stands motionless for so long that Ben finally asks, "What's going on with her?"
"She's fine," says Maeve. "She's probably just trying to get a feeling for the place and detect any vibrations.
”
”
Tess Gerritsen (The Shape of Night)
“
When have cops not asked for more men, better gear, more training hours, or "community outreach program funds"? Those pussies are almost as bad as soldiers, always whining about never having "what they need", but do they have to risk their jobs by raising taxes? Do they have to explain to Suburban Peter why they're fleecing him for Ghetto Paul?
”
”
Max Brooks (World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War)
“
The Northern Pump Company hydraulic gear for our 5" fuze-setting shell hoists was found on the burn during some practice firings on the way out. No drawings available, of course. Local repair forces all stumped. Man being flown out from the states—Mr. W. Cody, of the N. P. Co.
”
”
David F. Winkler (Witness to Neptune’s Inferno: The Pacific War Diary of Lieutenant Commander Lloyd M. Mustin, USS Atlanta (CL 51))
“
The leaders of the plantation economy (e.g., Jefferson, Madison) feared a standing army, and would have none of it. One reason for resistance to a standing army was that any slave who served in the army would have a claim to emancipation. Such leaders did not want such an army, but wanted instead to assure that the reach of the federal government would not and could not do away with “state militia.” Thus the amendment guarantees the continuing right of such “organized militia” to work their unrestrained will in the slave economy, unhindered by federal check or restraint. The purpose of the amendment was to continue the means to control the slave population. The only ones who could rightly have a gun had to be a “citizen,” which of course meant a white property owner. Thus guns were safely withheld from any slave (or any Black) person, none of whom could qualify as a citizen. Thus Hartman can conclude: It didn’t take any time at all for white southerners to realize that if the race-based hierarchy of the Old South was to be preserved, white people needed to be the only armed people. . . . Today the genocide of Native Americans has settled into a slow simmer of malnutrition, poverty, and voter suppression; the enslavement of people of African descent has shifted from plantations to slums and prisons; and the modern police state constructed during the conquest era, the slavery era, and Reconstruction after the Civil War, and thrown into high gear in the 1970s with Nixon’s war on drugs, is still alive and well. All it requires to keep it in place is lots of guns. (65, 89)
”
”
Walter Brueggemann (Real World Faith)
“
About a half hour after his safe arrival, the daring private learned that several of his fellow soldiers of the 369th lay wounded in the mire back in no-man’s-land. McCowin gathered his gear and again climbed out of the trench into the torrent of German fire. He carried back wounded soldier after wounded soldier. It seemed as if the bullets could not hit him. Finally, he was severely gassed, but he still refused to fall back. Instead he crawled out again and carried back another wounded soldier. For his awe-inspiring bravery, Private McCowin was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In relaying the private’s story, one of his commanding officers stressed that McCowin did “all this under fire. That’s the reason he got the Distinguished Service Cross,” one of the army’s highest honors.38
”
”
Rawn James Jr. (The Double V: How Wars, Protest, and Harry Truman Desegregated America’s Military)
“
Adding to the danger, Pritchard disregarded Balchen’s advice about the best way to touch down. He hand-cranked the Duck’s landing gear into place, intending to treat the ice cap the same as he would a paved tarmac. It was a calculated risk. A belly-down landing might damage the Duck’s fuselage or curl its propeller, rendering it yet another squished bug on the ice cap. On the other hand, a wheels-down landing could lead to the same result.
”
”
Mitchell Zuckoff (Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II)
“
Worst Comes To Worst"
(feat. Guru)
[Babu mixing]
"Worst come to worst my peoples come first"
"Worst...come.....to worst"
"Worst come to worst my peoples come first"
"Worst come...to...worst"
"Worst come to worst my peoples come first"
[Evidence talking]
Yeah
It's goin down y'all
That's Babu
Yo, some people got good friends, at night I live my life right
Intense, on the edge
On the wild, I'm from the group where friction leads to fire
Stack your bricks, the time is take your pick
Do or don't, the track - Alchemist
My life is good, I got my peeps in the mix, so...
"Worst come to worst my people come first"
[Iriscience]
I got worldwide family all over the earth
And I worry 'bout 'em all for whatever it's worth
From the birth to the hearse, the streets, the guns burst
Words I disperse are here to free minds
And if mine are needy I need to feed mine
"When worst come to worst..."
[Evidence]
Set up shop and write a verse
Actually (what?), that's best come to best
My lyrics take care of me, they therapy
Get shit off my chest
Extra stress, three-four over the score
Different patterns of rhymin prepare me for war
So next time you see us we'll be deadly on tour
[Babu mixing]
"Oh, when you need me"
"Worst come to worst my peoples come first"
[Guru talking]
Word up, if worst comes to worst, I make whole crews disperse
You know it's family first
Gifted Unlimited with Dilated Peoples
Babu, Evidence, Iriscience
And a shout out to my man Alchemist on the trizzack
"Oh, when you need me"
"Worst come to worst my peoples come first"
[Iriscience]
I'm a glutton for the truth, even though truth hurts
I've studied with my peoples on streets and in church
We make it hard when we go on first
Long road, honor of the samurai code
These California streets ain't paved with gold
Worst comes to worst
"Worst come to worst my people come first"
[Evidence]
Uh, I got them back, at the end of the day
We could go our seperate ways but the songs remains, it won't change
Got my target locked at range
I might switch gears but first I switch lanes
Without my people I got nothin to gain
That's why...
"Worst come to worst my people come first"
[Iriscience]
Special victims unit, catalyst for movement
Creates to devastate, since '84 show improvement
Definitely Dilated Peoples comes first
Cross-trainin spar, we raise the bar
And we put it in your ear no matter who you are
[Babu mixing]
"Oh, when you need me"
"Worst come to worst my peoples come first"
"Worst....come...worst my peoples come first"
"Worst...worst....worst....come to worst my peoples come first"
"...my..my...my peoples come first
"Oh, when you need me
”
”
Dilated Peoples
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Pakistan has to recognize that it simply cannot match India through whatever stratagem it chooses—it is bound to fail. The sensible thing, then, is for Pakistan to reach the best possible accommodation with India now, while it still can, and shift gears toward a grand strategy centered on economic integration in South Asia—one that would help Pakistan climb out of its morass and allow the army to maintain some modicum of privileges, at least for a while. The alternative is to preside over an increasingly hollow state. (Cohen et al. 2009, emphasis
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C. Christine Fair (Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War)
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This initial impulse, this enduring faith in reading books to know them and to make them useful, has somehow been lost - not, I feel, because we are of lesser stature than our predecessors, but because, perhaps, there have been such pressures, such multitudinous forces at work upon the culture of our generation - economic, political, mechanical, and inventive - and the joyous obligation to read and to induce others to read seemed too simple a function in a world where everything and everybody were being mechanized, organized, industrialized, streamlined, geared for action in two wars, emotionally adjusted for a depression, progressively educated, and made socially conscious.
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Frances Clarke Sayers (Summoned by Books)
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On the ninth anniversary celebration of the Moncada Barracks Attack, Castro gave a speech in Santiago stating that the only thing Cuba had to fear was a direct attack by the United States. At the same time, the Russians were off-loading men and equipment from ships at the small, hardly-noticed port of Mariel. They transported their equipment, mostly at night, into a thickly wooded area in the mountains near San Cristóbal, which was 26 miles away from the port and approximately 50 miles from Havana. The CIA received a report that a twenty-six foot missile had been seen being transported on Cuban Highway A 1.
This was twice the size of a SAM missile and the CIA deemed it highly unlikely that the Soviet Union would send offensive weapons of this size to Cuba. However, with the cold war in high gear, Khrushchev thought that he could change the balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union by placing missiles on Cuban soil. This operation was conducted in strict secrecy, with Castro reluctantly agreeing to it. Castro still felt that Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet’s was risky and that this was a negative compromise undermining Cuban autonomy. Their secret however became confirmed by an Air Force U 2 surveillance aircraft, sent on a reconnaissance mission, dispatched over the western part of the island.
The United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a deal. In return for pulling the Russian missiles out of Cuba the U.S. agreed to pull its missiles out of Turkey.
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Hank Bracker
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[En Gears of War] El incontenible consumismo ha agotado la mayor parte de las fuentes de energía conocidas. Una excavación en el planeta Sera descubrió una sustancia denominada Imulsión que acabó con los problemas energéticos existentes, pero el control de esta sustancia llevó a varios países a luchar entre sí por su posesión..., setenta años de lucha que concluyeron el Día de la Emergencia. Un día que jamás será olvidado, un día en que los Locust surgieron de las profundidades de un planeta que habitaban durante milenios para exterminar a los humanos. Ese día se produjo la tregua entre los gobiernos de los diferentes países y se creó un grupo formado por prisioneros ex militares: la última oportunidad de salvación para la humanidad.
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Alejandro Crespo (150 videojuegos a los que tienes que jugar al menos una vez en la vida)
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But, he isn’t wearing anything at all!” Such plainspoken truth is urgently needed to dispel a myth that hobbles European strategic thinking: that Europe is too dependent on Russian natural gas to risk a serious row with Russia over its escalating war against Ukraine. As Moscow prepares to instigate a crisis over this winter’s natural gas supplies, Europe can secure its interests by remembering that Russia is dependent on Europe as its primary gas export market – and by preparing to weather the winter without buying Russian gas. This spring, while Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine were gearing up for action, President Vladimir Putin tried to intimidate European leaders by suggesting that the Kremlin might redirect natural gas from Europe to China in retaliation for any EU sanctions. On May 21, Mr Putin suddenly reversed a decade of resistance and caved in to Chinese demands for a lower gas price, accepting $350 per thousand cubic metres. That is 42 per cent less than the price Lithuania pays – so low that it risks depressing natural gas prices throughout the Far East, including for future Russian sales to Japan. Moreover, Moscow will have to borrow $50bn to pay for new pipelines and other infrastructure, costs that must be repaid out of the paltry revenues. Mr Putin was willing to accept such poor economics because his main goal was political: to intimidate Europe. But behind the grandstanding, the Russian president knows that Europe is the only viable market for Russian natural gas, and that it will continue to be so for decades.
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Anonymous
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Gears Of War 3 Beta Without Key 83555 Disk 2
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The impact of globalization and deindustrialization was felt most strongly in black inner-city communities. As described by William Julius Wilson, in his book When Work Disappears, the overwhelming majority of African Americans in the 1970s lacked college educations and had attended racially segregated, underfunded schools lacking basic resources. Those residing in ghetto communities were particularly ill equipped to adapt to the seismic changes taking place in the U.S. economy; they were left isolated and jobless. One study indicates that as late as 1970, more than 70 percent of all blacks working in metropolitan areas held blue-collar jobs.78 Yet by 1987, when the drug war hit high gear, the industrial employment of black men had plummeted to 28 percent.79
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Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness)
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The Stemwinders made the most bizarre ratcheting sound, like the stripping of gears combined with the metallic whine of an overstressed steel cable.
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Ian Tregillis (The Mechanical (The Alchemy Wars, #1))
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Hannibal had no other sure source of reserves but the Gauls of Italy: he was dependent upon them, and the whole success of the expedition was dependent upon him staying alive. His hopes at this time must also have been geared to the possibility of seducing away from Rome the Latin allies, who in many respects formed the bulk of her armies. If he could shatter the confederation that held these states together he could deprive Rome of a principal source of manpower and isolate her. For this reason, both now and in the future, he was careful to make a distinction among the prisoners that he took: Romans were reduced to slave status, but the allies were treated kindly and, whenever possible, sent back to their homes with the message that the Carthaginian had no enmity against them. His war was against Rome.
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Ernle Bradford (Hannibal)
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Over the years I forced myself to be creative in how I covered the same scenes over and over. I started shooting refugee camps out of focus, sometimes in abstract ways, to try to reach an audience beyond the typical New York Times readership -- an audience geared more toward the visual arts. As ugly as the conflict was, the protagonists were beautiful, wearing brilliantly colored fabrics and, despite persistent hardships, wide, toothy smiles. The Sudanese were lovely, friendly, resilient people, and I wanted to show that in my work. It seemed paradoxical to try to create beautiful images out of conflict, but I found that my more abstract images of Darfur provoked an unusual response from readers. Suddenly I was getting requests to sell fine-art prints of rebels in a sandstorm or of blurred refugees walking through the desert for several thousand dollars. I was conflicted about making money from images of people who were so desperate, but I thought of all the years I had struggled to make ends meet to be a photographer, and I knew that any money I made from these photos would be invested right back into my work. Trying to convey beauty in war was a technique to try to prevent the reader from looking away or turning the page in response to something horrible. I wanted them to linger, to ask questions.
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Lynsey Addario (It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War)
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But the galaxy was full of game players, and it turned out that human war games translated well to many cultures. And then there were the flashy kitchen gadgets, a phenomenon unique to Earth that had caught the eyes and imaginations of many species. Kelly heard that the most complicated and expensive gadgets had even started selling to aliens who didn’t eat, in any normal sense of the word. Some saw the gleaming stainless steel hardware with gears, spinning handles and pincers as a form of primitive artwork. Others might have been purchasing can openers as torture devices. The
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E.M. Foner (Date Night on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador #1))
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The Arsenal,” said Mal, “is a place for people to live and work who would be … inconvenient on land. Imagine a security concern that supplies heavily armed and unsettling persons to guard ships along the southern Kathic coast from, well.” She grinned. “Pirates. Where should those heavily armed and unsettling people live between assignments? I defy you to find a port eager to welcome forty armed mercs plus gear. Better to find a place far from shorebound gods and Craft and cops where you could stash those mercs when they’re not in use, like action figures in a box.
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Max Gladstone (Wicked Problems (The Craft Wars, #2))
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After spending time at [Camp] Wilson, which felt like we were at war, Kandahar Airfield looked like an ugly American city filled with lots of European tourists. Soldiers from a handful of nations, thanks to NATO—the Netherlands, the UK, Canada—walked around unarmed and apparently unfazed by the war that was being waged around them. Overhearing their conversations, I got the feeling that their most serious concern was a shortage of coffee at the French PX.
But for the guys who were having to do without, like the soldiers at Camp Wilson, a PX run was a treat. Parking the trucks, the team peeled off their gear and bounded across the street into what can only be compared to a Walmart at home. The warehouselike building was filled with junk food, sodas, magazines, and even obnoxious T-shirts advertising Operation Enduring Freedom.
Only Americans would make T-shirts for a war.
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Kevin Maurer (Gentlemen Bastards: On the Ground in Afghanistan with America's Elite Special Forces)
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Look at what British military historian Basil Liddell Hart had to say: The issue turned on the time factor at stage after stage. French counter-movements were repeatedly thrown out of gear because their timing was too slow to catch up with the changing situation … The French, trained in the slow-motion methods of World War I, were mentally unfit to cope with the new tempo, and it caused a spreading paralysis among them.
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Chet Richards (Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business)
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And after all that,” Tisaanah said, “you expect us to go take the Capital, and give you your stolen throne.” I could practically see the gears turning in her head. “I object to that description,” Zeryth said, brushing the crown on his brow. It seemed to sit oddly on his head, like he wasn’t fully comfortable wearing it. “But yes. Of course we are to put down the rebels challenging the rightful line of succession.” “Rebels?” Nura snorted. “You make it sound like we’re talking about a bunch of ragged militiamen. Atrick Aviness has one of the best armies in Ara, perhaps even the world. And I see at least five other old-blood houses on that map of yours.” She was right. Some of the oldest, most powerful districts in Ara were among those marked in red. It was no surprise to me that these would be the families to object most strongly to Zeryth’s reign. For some, the loss of a royal bloodline meant the loss of their own claim to power. But even beyond that, many would oppose on principle alone. Zeryth had gained great power within the Orders, yes, but he had come from nothing. For Aran nobility, a throne held by a nameless bastard would be seen as a threat to their very way of life.
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Carissa Broadbent (Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts, #2))
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Other Books written by Daniel Schinhofen: Binding Words: Morrigan's Bidding Life Bonds Hearthglen Forged Bonds Flame of War Aether’s Revival: Aether's Blessing Aether's Guard Luck’s Voice: Suited for Luck Cashing In Apocalypse Gates Author’s Cut: Rapture Valley of Death Gearing Up Elven Accord Downtime and Death Can of Worms Unexpected Dev-elopments Alpha World: (Completed.) Gamer for Life Forming the Company Alpha Company Playing for Keeps Fractured Spirit The Path to Peace Darkhand Gamer For Love Last Horizon: (Completed.) Last Horizon Omnibus NPC’s Lives: (Hiatus) Tales from the Dead Man Inn Resurrection Quest: (Hiatus) Greenways Goblins
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Daniel Schinhofen (Lost Bonds (Binding Words #6))
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Delta to Control, any sniper teams to the south of Embry? Any Gears at all?
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Karen Traviss (Gears of War Aspho Fields)
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it is true of every believer and that we live in a daily state of spiritual war and must therefore live with eyes open, heart engaged, mind alert, and protective gear in place
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Paul David Tripp (Lead: 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church)
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But American science, spurred on by British appeals, was finally gearing up for war. Churchill had sent over Henry Tizard in the late summer of 1940 with a delegation of experts and a black-enameled metal steamer trunk, the original black box, full of military secrets.
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Richard Rhodes (The Making of the Atomic Bomb: 25th Anniversary Edition)
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During the war, the military tested its gases and gear on more than sixty thousand of its own men.
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Daniel Immerwahr (How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States)
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and perpetually enraged about the government, his most extreme followers felt the moment to act had come. But like Fundamentalists who rally behind a preacher reading Scripture they don’t understand, Trump’s marauders were ignorant of current events, American history, and the Constitution, yet full of false righteousness. They put on their costumes—combat gear, Revolutionary War getups, Trump regalia, and even costumes modeled after cartoon characters—and became a snarling, violent mob.
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Adam Kinzinger (Renegade: Defending Democracy and Liberty in Our Divided Country)
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Yoda said, “Stopped they must be. On this all depends. Only a fully trained Jedi Knight with the Force as his ally will conquer Vader and his Emperor.” As Luke stowed the last of his gear onto the X-wing, Yoda continued, “If you end your training now, if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will become an agent of evil.” “Patience,” Ben said with great emphasis, as if it was the one word Luke should remember. Patience? Luke couldn’t believe anyone would encourage patience right now. Facing Ben, he snapped, “And sacrifice Han and Leia?” Yoda answered, “If you honor what they fight for…yes!
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Ryder Windham (Star Wars: Classic Trilogy: Collecting A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi (Disney Junior Novel (eBook)))
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By the spring of 1941, there was no longer any doubt that America was gearing up for war. In March, Roosevelt announced Lend-Lease aid to Great Britain, and in May, he declared a state of “unlimited national emergency.” Such support for Great Britain did nothing to ease American relations with Japan. In July, determined to stop further Japanese expansion beyond Indochina, the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands acted in concert to shut off the flow of raw materials upon which the Japanese war machine relied. The three countries instituted an embargo against Japan of oil, steel, and other strategic imports. Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the United States, closed the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping, and recalled Major General Douglas MacArthur to active duty to defend the Philippines. Far from slowing Japan’s war-making capabilities, these actions, particularly the oil embargo, served only to increase the urgency Japan felt to subjugate China and gobble up oil and rubber from the East Indies. By
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Walter R. Borneman (Brothers Down: Pearl Harbor and the Fate of the Many Brothers Aboard the USS Arizona)