Saturday March 29, 2008, 3:43 pm
The Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo is one of the most cruel and brutal rodeos in the country. SHARK has repeatedly documented, and the media has exposed, the brutality, maiming, and deaths that are part and parcel of this rodeo.

Some of the most prominent sponsors of the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, as well as other rodeos include, Coca-Cola, Sams Club/Walmart, Dodge vehicles, and McDonalds. SHARK has supplied these companies with overwhelming and irrefutable evidence of the cruelty that they "proudly" support. We were, however, profoundly dissappointed and surprised to find The United States Air Force Thunderbirds Aerobatic Flight Team supporting this cruelty contest.


Here members of the USAF Thunderbirds wave to the crowd at Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo 2007, while injured animals are behind the scenes.

The Thunderbirds are very popular with the public, and in the interest of maintaining their shining reputation, the aerobatic team should not lower itself to supporting animal abuse. SHARK's documentation of the abuse at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo should be more than enough to persuade any decent, self-respecting organization to steer clear.

Possibly even more appalling is SHARK's discovery that the Air Force recently spent the day giving joyrides to two rodeo announcers. Read more about this here.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

You can help in a big way by contacting the Thunderbirds and asking them to withdraw from any future involvement in the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, or any other form of animal abuse. Please take the time to learn more at ShameOnCheyenne.com and CorporateThugs.com.


Seen here, the Thunderbirds provided flyovers and a complete air show at the rodeo - at taxpayer's expense - while our soldiers overseas are injured and dying from lack of protective equipment.

SHARK and many other compassionate fans have sent the Thunderbirds letters protesting their involvement and requesting a meeting on this issue. Additionally, SHARK sent informational packages including video footage and still pictures of horses being shocked, and animals being injured, as well as newspaper articles exposing the abuse.

Write: USAF Aerial Events
1690 Air Force Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20330-1690
Phone: (703) 695-9664 / (703) 695-9776
Fax: 703-693-9601
Email via Web Form: http://www.af.mil/main/contactus.asp

Saturday March 29, 2008, 4:05 pm
NOTED TY

Saturday March 29, 2008, 4:07 pm

Noted with disgust. Thank you, Bea.

Saturday March 29, 2008, 4:10 pm
Oh my...why is this all so surprising? They assault and humiliate female service members habitually, so we should be surprised that they are ready and willing to engage in and support animal abuse? *snort*

Saturday March 29, 2008, 4:30 pm
Noted, knowing the mindset of the people who run the show and the contestants, our work is cut out of very tough hide. I grew up next door farm to the Dorchester family and the grandson of old Tom is now running "chucks", which are the 4 horse teams of thoughbreds racing around the track at breakneck speed. I have witnessed many crashes, and the death of many animals, and my heart breaks at the memories even now. I won't even say what I know they think about the activists trying to end the Rodeos. Suffice to say once more that $$$$$$$$$ are the end game and if animals die "shrug" and OH well, that's just another trip to the "broomtail" track and find some likely horses in "claiming races". These are loaded into trucks and go to the farm for intensive training to pull wagons in harness, in concert with the rest of the team. Racers who have never seen a wagon before are hooked up to that thing that cannot be outran. Until the horses learn the job, they are terrified of the thing they are pulling. The Calgary Stampede comes just before the Cheyenne show, meaning any "chucks" that are attending leave Calgary by horse transport straight out across the boarder to run the very next week. The Calgary show now pays $1,000,000.00, and the rush to be invited the following year depends on the standings of the previous year. THIS IS BIG BUSINESS to them and is drawing contestants from as far as Australia.

Saturday March 29, 2008, 4:41 pm

Noted, thanks Bea

Saturday March 29, 2008, 4:41 pm
Don’t they know that these are very barbarous? Thanks Bea!

Saturday March 29, 2008, 4:54 pm
I don't go for Rodeos, Circus's zoo's or any other Bull jiven crap that has any kind of abuse to animals. I would like to ride them and do them and see how they would like to be shocked and punched with long prongs in there body if they find it so amusing!!. This stinking animal abuse makes me sick I wish I had a place where I could take them all and shelter them and noone would hurt them again. Thank Bea noted

Saturday March 29, 2008, 5:00 pm
By the way do you think the Thunderbirds are going to stop doing this? Heck no they will do what they want after all we pay them!! We don't have a say so about any thing else anymore. We use to we did, they raise taxes when they want they raise car insurance when they want, property taxes, do we get to vote on that any more NO!! but, there was a time when we did. Things are changing fast people right before our eyes. And Big brother is going to continue.

Saturday March 29, 2008, 5:34 pm
Noted; Thanks

Saturday March 29, 2008, 6:03 pm
And the price of jet fuel is ...what???

Saturday March 29, 2008, 8:15 pm
Hate rodeos. Will not go to one. Have signed against them for awhile and will continue to. Noted with anger. Thanks Bea.

Saturday March 29, 2008, 8:40 pm
Thankyou Bea noted

Saturday March 29, 2008, 9:45 pm
LIVING IN MONTANA AND LORD HOW I COULDN'T STAND HEARING THE RODEO IN THE SUMMER MONTHS FROM THE PLACE I WORKED. MEAN, CRUEL AND JUST PLAIN TOO DAMN EVIL TO ITS ANIMALS.

Saturday March 29, 2008, 11:45 pm
Oh, this is terrible. I am calling my sister tomorrow. Her and her husband are retired USAF, and this isn't right. Noted, and thank you.

Sunday March 30, 2008, 12:12 am
Bingo, I was hoping to get that attention. If your sis and her husband came sure that the squad knows, that we are talking about them in that fashion they may just stop performing at RODEO's, sometimes people like that just don't think about the cruelty aspect, I will want to hear back from you, curious what your sis and husband say.

Sunday March 30, 2008, 1:21 am
I AM SO GLAD I BECAME PART OF THE CARE 2 COMMUNITY OTHERWISE I WOULD NEVER HAVE HEARD ABOUT HALF OF WHAT OCCURS WITH OUR ANIMALS AROUND THE WORLD.I AS MUCH AS I CAN HERE IN ENGLAND WITH MY ANIMAL CHARITY'S BUT IF BY PUTTING MY NAME TO A PETITION OR ANYTHING SAVES ONE ANIMAL,CHILD,PERSON FROM VIOLENCE ETC I WILL BE SIGNING EVERY TIME.

Sunday March 30, 2008, 1:52 am
Unbelievably horrible - 2008 ,and mindless humanity-less people are still supporting primitive and barbaric spectacles that consist of inflicting torment and pain on terrorised animals - a real concern that mentalities like this are at large in the community.

Sunday March 30, 2008, 10:42 am
wow just so awful,i never knew the thunderbirds were involved.
so sad and it never stops.
bren

Sunday March 30, 2008, 1:01 pm
At the bottom line, all militaries
and branches thereof are death cults.
Death, maiming, pain, suffering, and
the infliction of these things are
glorified. I'm not too surprised that
the USAF is involved with this. More
macho chest-pounding from the "fly-boys".
Thanks, Bea.
noted.

Sunday March 30, 2008, 3:17 pm
Thanks Bea for bring this to our attention. I unfortunately do believe that the Thunderbirds will continue to do what they do--but more to the point--isnt there anything that we can do to stop the rodeos??There are generations of COWBOYS out there that think that this acceptable. And they are probably breeding another generation of prople that see nothing wrong with this horrific behavior. I agree that the Thunderbirds should stop promoting this but cant we somehow take it to the next level and try to stop the rodeos?? Am I being naive?? However I can help--please advise. Thank you for this disheartening news...

Sunday March 30, 2008, 3:32 pm
Shame on the Thunderbirds and all rodeo's that are so abusive to our precious animals..noted.

Sunday March 30, 2008, 6:09 pm
noted..thank you

Sunday March 30, 2008, 6:46 pm
Noted. Thanks, Bea

Sunday March 30, 2008, 11:49 pm
It's is horrible that a family event that could be made to be kind to animals and people instead is just totally the .... so what is learned at these events ..... animal abuse, preach hate, drink, brawls, cheat on a spouse then it's time to go home and more of the above mentioned.

Thanks Bea - Noted: With Total Repugnance

I always figured that the rider and bull/horse should have the same advantages/disadvantages .... the human/rider should get his "you know" tied up while playing bronco billy just like the bull/horse ..... of course the bull/horse aren't given that choice. I they were given a choice I be a cattle prod would be used on the rider too along with spurs and the "other".

As for the Thunderbirds .... They fly high ... They aren't blind ... I can't believe they don't realize what they are supporting. Boycott!!!

Monday March 31, 2008, 2:15 am
There is lots of ways you can help stop this Rodeo cruelty:
First go tho their website and subscribe to their newsletter, makes great reading, then you can support them financially or by deed, letter writing to the sponsors, just follow Shark's lead in the newsletter. Corporate Thugs.com (side menu), makes interesting reading, see which of them support Rodeo's, and last but not least, write to the Counties/Shires, that are still allowing Rodeos. http://www.sharkonline.org

Monday March 31, 2008, 3:05 am
And don't forget to write a short email to the Thunderbirds, stating, that you are outraged, that they are supporting animal cruelty and wasting taxpayers money. The email address is above in my first comment. Thanks

Monday March 31, 2008, 6:49 am
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0329-06.htm
Published on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 by the Guardian/UK
'If You Start Looking at Them as Humans, Then How Are You Gonna Kill Them?'
They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans

by Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith

At a press conference in a cavernous Alabama warehouse, banners and posters are rolled out: "Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf coast!" A tall, white soldier steps forward in desert fatigues. "I was in Iraq when Katrina happened and I watched US citizens being washed ashore in New Orleans," he says. "War is oppression: we could be setting up hospitals right here. America is war-addicted. America is neglecting its poor."

A black reporter from a Fox TV news affiliate, visibly stunned, whispers: "Wow! That guy's pretty opinionated." Clearly such talk, even three years after the Iraq invasion, is still rare. This, after all, is the Deep South and this soldier less than a year ago was proudly serving his nation in Iraq.

The soldier was engaged in no ordinary protest. Over five days earlier this month, around 200 veterans, military families and survivors of hurricane Katrina walked 130 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq war. At its vanguard, Iraq Veterans Against the War, a group formed less than two years ago, whose very name has aroused intense hostility at the highest levels of the US military.

Mobile is a grand old southern naval town, clinging to the Gulf Coast. The stars and stripes flutter from almost every balcony as the soldiers parade through the town, surprising onlookers. As they begin their soon-to-be-familiar chants - "Bush lied, many died!" - some shout "traitor", or hurl less polite terms of abuse. Elsewhere, a black man salutes as a blonde, middle-aged woman, emerging from a supermarket car park, cries out, "Take it all the way to the White House!" and offers the peace sign.

Michael Blake is at the front of the march. The 22-year-old from New York state is not quite sure how he ended up in the military; the child of "a feminist mom and hippy dad", he says he signed up thinking that he would have an adventure, never imagining that he would find himself in Iraq. He served from April 2003 to March 2004, some of that time as a Humvee driver. Deeply disturbed by his experience in Iraq, he filed for conscientious objector status and has been campaigning against the war ever since.

He claims that US soldiers such as him were told little about Iraq, Iraqis or Islam before serving there; other than a book of Arabic phrases, "the message was always: 'Islam is evil' and 'They hate us.' Most of the guys I was with believed it."

Blake says that the turning point for him came one day when his unit spent eight hours guarding a group of Iraqi women and children whose men were being questioned. He recalls: "The men were taken away and the women were screaming and crying, and I just remember thinking: this was exactly what Saddam used to do - and now we're doing it."

Becoming a peace activist, he says, has been a "cleansing" experience. "I'll never be normal again. I'll always have a sense of guilt." He tells us that he witnessed civilian Iraqis being killed indiscriminately. It would not be the most startling admission by the soldiers on the march.

"When IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] would go off by the side of the road, the instructions were - or the practice was - to basically shoot up the landscape, anything that moved. And that kind of thing would happen a lot." So innocent people were killed? "It happened, yes." (He says he did not carry out any such killings himself.)

Blake, an activist with IVAW for the past 12 months, is angry that American people seem so untouched by the war, by the grim abuses committed by American soldiers. "The American media doesn't cover it and they don't care. The American people aren't seeing the real war - what's really happening there."

We are in a Mexican diner in Mississippi when Alan Shackleton, a quiet 24-year-old from Iowa, stuns the table into silence with a story of his own. He details how he and his comrades in Iraq suffered multiple casualties, including a close friend who died of his injuries. Then he pauses for a moment, swallows hard and says: "And I ran over a little kid and killed him ... and that's about it." He has been suffering from severe insomnia, but later he tells us that he has only been able to see a counsellor once every six weeks and has been prescribed sleeping pills.

"We are very, very sorry for what we did to the Iraqi people," he says the next day, holding a handwritten poster declaring: "Thou shall not kill."

As we get closer to New Orleans, the coastline becomes increasingly ravaged. Joe Hatcher, always sporting a keffiyeh and punk chains, reflects on his own time in the military and the hostility he has met from pro-war activists at home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a town with five army bases where he campaigns against the war at town hall forums. He says: "There's this old guy, George, an ex-colonel. He shows up and talks shit on everybody for being anti-war because 'it's ruining the morale of the soldier and encouraging the enemy'.

"I scraped dead bodies off the pavements with a shovel and threw them in trash bags and left them there on the side of the road. And I really don't think the anti-war movement is what is infuriating people."

When we reach Biloxi, Mississippi, the police say that there is no permit for the march and everyone will have to walk on the pavement. This is tricky because Katrina has left this coastal road looking like a bomb site.

Jody Casey left the army five days ago and came straight to join the vets. The 29-year-old is no pacifist; he still firmly backs the military but says that he is speaking out in the hope of correcting many of the mistakes being made. He served as a scout sniper for a year until last February, based, like Blake, in the Sunni triangle.

He clearly feels a little ill at ease with some of the protesters' rhetoric, but eventually agrees to talk to us. He says that the turning point for him came after he returned from Iraq and watched videos that he and other soldiers in his unit shot while out on raids, including hour after hour of Iraqi soldiers beating up Iraqi civilians. While reviewing them back home he decided "it was not right".

What upset him the most about Iraq? "The total disregard for human life," he says, matter of factly. "I mean, you do what you do at the time because you feel like you need to. But then to watch it get kind of covered up, shoved under a rug ... 'Oh, that did not happen'."

What kind of abuses did he witness? "Well, I mean, I have seen innocent people being killed. IEDs go off and [you] just zap any farmer that is close to you. You know, those people were out there trying to make a living, but on the other hand, you get hit by four or five of those IEDs and you get pretty tired of that, too."

Casey told us how, from the top down, there was little regard for the Iraqis, who were routinely called "hajjis", the Iraq equivalent of "gook". "They basically jam into your head: 'This is hajji! This is hajji!' You totally take the human being out of it and make them into a video game."

It was a way of dehumanising the Iraqis? "I mean, yeah - if you start looking at them as humans, and stuff like that, then how are you going to kill them?"

He says that soldiers who served in his area before his unit's arrival recommended them to keep spades on their vehicles so that if they killed innocent Iraqis, they could throw a spade off them to give the appearance that the dead Iraqi was digging a hole for a roadside bomb.

Casey says he didn't participate in any such killings himself, but claims the pervasive atmosphere was that "you could basically kill whoever you wanted - it was that easy. You did not even have to get off and dig a hole or anything. All you had to do was have some kind of picture. You're driving down the road at three in the morning. There's a guy on the side of the road, you shoot him ... you throw a shovel off."

The IVAW, says Hatcher, "is becoming our religion, our fight - as in any religion we've confessed our wrongs, and now it's time to atone."

Just outside New Orleans, the sudden appearance of a reporter from al-Jazeera's Washington office electrifies the former soldiers. It is a chance for the vets to turn confessional and the reporter is deluged with young former soldiers keen to be interviewed. "We want the Iraqi people to know that we stand with them," says Blake, "and that we're sorry, so sorry. That's why it was so important for us to appear on al-Jazeera."

A number of Vietnam veterans also on the march are a welcome presence. For all the attempts to deny a link between the two conflicts, for both sets of veterans the parallels are persuasive. Thomas Brinson survived the Tet offensive in Vietnam in 1968. "Iraq is just Arabic for Vietnam, like the poster says - the same horror, the same tears," he says.

Sitting on a riverbed outside New Orleans, Blake turns reflective. "I met an Iraqi at one of the public meetings I was talking at recently. He came up to me and told me he was originally from the town where I had been stationed. And I just went up to this complete stranger and hugged him and I said, 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.' And you know what? He told me it was OK. And it was beautiful ..." He starts to cry. "That was redemption".

Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith's film on the March to New Orleans is on Newsnight tonight at 10.30pm on BBC2.

Monday March 31, 2008, 7:01 am
More the taxpayers have a right to know.


http://www.rense.com/general66/pssyh.htm
Psychological Armor
By JB Campbell
6-23-5

Here's one reason that so many American soldiers and marines have died in Iraq...

Back in 1981, I was the head of a bulletproof car company in Monterey, California. We'd construct a box made of Lexgard inside a limo or regular car. It was pretty effective but difficult to install. Lexgard is General Electric's transparent polycarbonate armor, very effective at stopping handgun bullets. If you put a hard surface in front of it, such as glass or sheet metal, it will stop rifle bullets. After the bullet hits the hard surface it is upset slightly on its axis and is then trapped in the dense but crystal-clear polycarbonate material.

The FMC factory was in nearby San Jose. I read a story about the troubles with the aluminum armor on their new Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The Bradley was having PR problems already but now the issue was the armor. Aluminum is a bad material for armor, since it doesn't stop bullets very well. When they come through, they cause something called "spall," which means that the pieces of the armor itself become deadly little weapons. And aluminum burns.

The army, though, wanted to save weight so they told FMC to make the Bradleys out of aluminum. (FMC was later sold and is today United Defense LP, owned in part by George Bush's Carlyle Group.)

So I went to FMC and proposed to line the inside of a Bradley with Lexgard, the way we did with limos. This would protect everyone from spall and fire, because Lexgard is fireproof and non-toxic. Installation would have been relatively easy in the boxy Bradley. I was politely turned down.

Puzzled, I called Dr. Charles Church, the head of research at the Pentagon. He said, "Listen don't try to modify an existing vehicle. If you want to do something, design it from the ground up and make your armor integral with your chassis."

So that's what I did. I came up with something I called "The FLEA," which stood for, "Forward Light Escort, Armored." I used an unknown but powerful fiberglass armor for the body with hardened Lexgard windows. It was to be hydraulically operated with its wheels almost two feet away from the body, for protection against tank landmines. My design was based on my experience with landmines in Rhodesia as a member of their security forces in the terror war in the 70s.

Shortly after my design was complete (1982), the army put out a request for proposal (RFP) for a new vehicle they called the "High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle," or "HMMWV." The new Jeep and light truck. I duly submitted the FLEA to Tank Automotive Command (TACOM) in Michigan.

After a month or so, I called TACOM and inquired as to the progress of the selection process. The officer said, "The FLEA yes, I have it here Oh, yeah this is armored. We don't want armor."

I knew the specification they wanted. The bodywork had to defeat the equivalent of a pellet fired from a pellet gun. Something like 19 grains at 435 feet per second. Something silly like that. I mentioned this to the officer. "Yeah, right. We call it psychological armor'"

"'Psychological armor?'" I let that sink in to my brain. "You mean, the guys just THINK they're sitting behind armor?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much."

"But, " I said, "I'm under the weight requirement even with the armor. Why not give them the protection?"

"That's not what we want."

I kept trying to get some interest in the vehicle for its own sake, as a tank killer, not as a Humvee. No sale. Well, actually, there was some interest. I got a retired general to promote it to the army's Advanced Development Experimental Agency at Ft. Hunter Liggett. They liked it and sent it to their commander at Ft. Lewis, who liked it and sent it to TACOM, who didn't like it again.

In 1993 I took a chance and put $80,000 into building the rolling (unarmored) chassis, so people could actually see its basic dimensions and logic. The army still wasn't interested, apparently not wanting to believe that a lightweight vehicle could do what I advertised.

Then I forgot about the whole thing til 2000, when my old friend, Skip, persuaded me to go to a symposium on humanitarian demining in Monterey. I made some good contacts, such as the general who became the head of Army Materiel Command. He was vitally interested in mine protection. But I became vitally interested in humanitarian mine removal. I thought the FLEA would be ideal for this noble effort, since I was by this time a serious opponent of the US Army, the US government and war. I also had been blown up by an anti-tank mine in Africa in 1973 while riding in a police Land Rover, so I appreciated the mine problem made famous by the late Diana, although she was involved more in the small but terrible anti-personnel mines.

By 2003, I moved to Las Vegas and became partners with a guy who liked my humanitarian plan. The FLEA was now patented and protected here and overseas. I began to seek support for the humanitarian version of the vehicle. It turned out that the US Army in charge of humanitarian demining, so they were invited to come to Las Vegas to view the now-armored rolling chassis. The two men who came were the director of combat development at Fort Leonard Wood and a man from Night Vision Labs in New Jersey, a retired colonel. The men were astonished on seeing the FLEA. One said that he'd been asking TACOM for just such a design for years, that is, a lightweight vehicle that could withstand the hit of an anti-tank mine. He was told repeatedly that such a vehicle was impossible. "But here it is," he marveled, "this is how you beat the tank mine, with your wheels way outboard."

It was clear there was no budget for a humanitarian demining vehicle, but there was great interest in this thing for Iraq.

The FLEA is designed to keep moving with the loss of one or even three wheels. By now the design had replaced the hydraulic operation with hybrid-electric drive and steering and air suspension. And it had six wheels instead of four.

The man confided several secrets to us, secrets about the Bosnian adventure and about the six-month old invasion of Iraq. American vehicles were unusable in Bosnia, he said, due to their gross weight. "The roads and bridges couldn't support them and they never left the airport." This would continue to be a problem even in Iraq, where the ballyhooed "Stryker" vehicle would collapse roads and bridges and roll over into canals and drown crewmen.

He said, "You've obviously solved the tank-mine problem, but the real threat in Iraq is the IED (improvised explosive device)." The IED would continue to cause 70% of US casualties to this day. He revealed that even the Future Combat System requirement for mine protection was only against anti-personnel mines!


But, of course, the real scandal is the ridiculous Humvee, perhaps the most preposterous idea of all, after the invasion itself. A preposterous invasion needs a preposterous vehicle.

First of all, the Humvee is just an aggressive-looking station wagon. It has four doors, unless they are removed. If you want to shoot out from the thing, the doors have to be removed, so you can swing your rifle around. That's what we did in Rhodesia, with our Land Rovers. Took the doors off so that when we drove into an ambush we could return fire and save ourselves. The Humvee's windows don't roll down, so you can't shoot with the doors closed. And it's pretty silly to open the door and try to stick your rifle out with the thing swinging around as you're trying to return fire, escaping up the road. A real tactical vehicle has no roof, either, so that you can see and shoot at an overhead threat.

As we saw with the "psychological armor" bit, it doesn't really matter if the doors are on or off, because you have no protection either way. With the doors off, you can at least shoot back. With the doors on, you're a sitting duck. And the real problem is not bullets, but blast from IEDs. Serious armor protection was called for! Duh.

So, when enough people started getting killed in these things, the army decided to armor them. It went from the ridiculous to the insane.

Meanwhile, TACOM (now TAACOM) sent engineers from its R&D group, TARDEC, to Las Vegas for discussions with us in January, 2004. We also had representatives from Michelin, Eaton-Vickers and the armor manufacturer in San Antonio (Safeguard Security) and others present, plus men from Senator Harry Reid, who was backing the project. The TARDEC men said that the landmine requirement for Future Combat System vehicles would have to be rewritten now, due to the FLEA's design. The FLEA would be funded for 2005 and Senator Reid's military liaison said that if TARDEC would go ahead and use some discretionary funds for 2004, the senator would pay them back in '05, so as to get this wonderful vehicle to the troops this year ('04). This was agreed to by the TARDEC men. By all accounts it was an unprecedented meeting of army, industry, political and us entrepreneurs. Michelin has a fantastic new plastic wheel/tire combo that is virtually indestructible. They were interested in introducing it on the FLEA. So were we. And so was the army. I regaled everyone with the story about Psychological Armor. The chief engineer from TARDEC squirmed and said quietly, "Let's hope that doesn't come out"

Later in January my partner and I flew to Washington DC to meet with Senator Reid's chief counsel, the US Army Materiel Command and the State Department's landmine removal personnel.

The Army Materiel Command had tried to get us into business with United Defense, mentioned above. The general thought if UD went ahead and built the prototype, the army could purchase it that way. But United Defense wouldn't do it without millions of dollars being paid to them first. That's how they're used to doing things. It's the Halliburton method.

All went well until we got back to Las Vegas. The army had investigated us and found that we were both politically incorrect. Perhaps "incorrect" is not strong enough a word. Disastrous is the word. Actually, I'd been in a strange situation, a true enemy of the state wandering around the capital of enemy-occupied territory, going into the Senate and House office buildings, gathering congressional support for the FLEA. Several congressmen and two senators signed on with Senator Reid. Reid's senior counsel asked me to draft a letter from Reid to Rumsfeld, which I did do. Reid, Ensign and Carl Levin signed it, along with some congress-people on the House Armed Services Committee who had raised hell with the army chief of staff a couple of days earlier over the failures of the Humvee. My future seemed secure! Anything for the troops! I turned out to be quite an effective lobbyist.

Jeremy Hekhuis was Carl Levin's assistant in the Senate Armed Services Committee office. His eyebrows raised on hearing the Psychological Armor story, since by that time quite a number of GIs had been killed in un-armored Humvees. "Well, let's hope that that doesn't come out"

However, I was the guy who started the militia movement back in the late 80s, with my book, The New American Man. I had also written quite a bit since then against the US government and against the state of Israel, as I still do from time to time. In my book I had actually called for the overthrow of the Zionist US government. No one took me very seriously in 1989 except for the government. The militia movement did take off around 1991 but all it really did was stockpile a bunch of guns and ammo. The FBI and CIA, though, thought that I was very serious, which I was. They followed me everywhere for a year or more. They sent informants to get friendly with me.

The Secret Service in 1991 threatened to kill me if I was anywhere near President GHW Bush, currently the head of United Defense. There was irony all over the place.

Senator Reid's chief counsel now said that the army and the senator would have nothing to do with the FLEA because of what I had written about Israel! That was all that mattered, my criticism of Zionism and its control of the US government. The glaring need of a safe vehicle became irrelevant.

Frankly, I was relieved. The whole thing had gotten out of control. I, of all people, trying to protect the troops. Did the troops deserve a decent vehicle? Not really, since they're nothing but vicious, mindless war criminals, like their commander-in-chief and his Zionist controllers.

But maybe the parents of the 1,700 dead troops (or is it 9,000?) and the thousands of injured and maimed troops would not appreciate the army's need to avoid offending the Zionists by refusing on principle to deal with a helpful villain such as I. I'd had a bumper sticker on my truck since 2002, when it appeared that Bush was going to invade Iraq for his own personal reasons: "Bush Is A Liar And An Oil Thief." That was a year before the invasion. I had been severely injured by two poisonings in Las Vegas over that bumper sticker, or maybe the other one, which read, "Stop Obeying Our Zionist Parasites." I paid heavily for my "free speech" right.

I gave the patent to my friend, Skip. It's in his name now. What he does or doesn't do with it is a matter of complete indifference to me. My wife and I are involved in another, much more important project.

Before we leave this ridiculous (but true) story, let's see what happened to the Humvee. It got "armored."

While we were still friendly, Senator Reid had encouraged us to visit the Nevada Automotive Test Center near Reno. This is truly a fantastic if unknown place. Situated on a million acres in the desert and mountains near the ruins of Ft. Churchill, NATC is the test bed for most new military vehicles and many civilian vehicles. The engineers are the best and they know what is needed for vehicles to survive the worst military and off-road conditions. They even have a half-mile oval track with electronic controls under the pavement so that big rigs can be run for a million miles with no drivers, to be stopped only for fuel and maintenance.

The owners gave us the royal treatment and they were enthusiastic about improving the design of the FLEA so that it would pass all tests and be immediately accepted by the army, as well as perform even beyond what I and my design engineer, himself a Medal of Honor winner (Vietnam), had designed it to do. John Martin had also been blown up by a Soviet TM-46 tank mine, as had I. The FLEA is undoubtedly the only vehicle designed by two guys who'd survived tank mine explosions in lighter vehicles.

When we got there I was surprised to see fifteen or so stripped down Humvees parked around the place. Bolted to the front and rear of each vehicle were heavy weights. The chief engineer explained that the army wanted these Humvees tested with the added three thousand pounds to simulate the weight of the new armor kits and OEM armoring that was to be done. The army wanted to test tire wear with the extra weight. Early results showed that the tire wear had gone all to hell.

The NATC guys had just come back from Iraq. Talk about tire wear! Talk about well, you name it. The supply convoys out of Kuwait are run like this: 60+ miles per hour for the 900 mile round trip. If anybody gets ambushed or breaks down, he's on his own. The convoy keeps rolling! See you on the flip side. Or not.

When the vehicles get into the built-up areas, there are nine-inch square curbs along the streets. If there is a problem with a breakdown or ambush, all vehicles have to crash over the curbs to get around the stalled vehicle. This tends to destroy the front ends of all the vehicles. Alignment is not possible. Tires last a few thousand miles. No vehicles will be returned to the US after the war because they are all trashed. This of course makes the truck and car makers very sad, because they all have to be replaced. Se le guerre!

But here is the reality of the "armored Humvees:" These essentially half-ton civilian vehicles in camouflage paint are not designed to have three thousand pounds added to them. That's three times more than their payload in the first place, which means that with the armor added, they have no payload! Instead of carrying four soldiers, they can only carry three. But that's better because only three guys will be killed instead of four. Killed by an IED or by an RPG or killed by the heat.

An early modified Humvee was hit by an IED in Baghdad. The officer reported that "the ass end was blown off and we were stranded, but they couldn't hit us with bullets" They had to get out pretty quickly, though, and brave the bullets because the stranded wreck was soon hit by an RPG. This was the idea behind the FLEA: you have to be able to drive away from the kill zone without having to get out and walk.

There's no air conditioning on any military vehicle. The FLEA would have been the first because it was designed that way. What's the inside temperature of a vehicle in Iraq in the summertime? Pretty much like Las Vegas or Phoenix: over 140. In one of these jobs with sealed, inch and a half thick windows, we can just feel the heat stroke starting. And you still can't defend yourself in one of these rolling ovens because the windows don't open. The doors do, if you're on level ground they weigh 200 pounds. Don't stick your rifle out this open door because if it swings shut, it'll bend your barrel.

These are the kit cars, the ones with aftermarket armor kits. Then there are the new ones, the "up-armored" ones. These guys are so heavy that they had to be totally redesigned with more powerful engines, transmissions, suspensions, brakes just to handle the weight of the armor. There's no payload either because they're just barely designed to carry their own weight, which is pretty dumb.

Back in '82, when the HMMWV was being designed, the US Army must have thought it was never going to be shot at, ever again. That's the charitable view. A more realistic view is that the US Army doesn't give a damn if the troops get shot at or not. They're expendable, just like the vehicles. The army must come up with a way to procure more of them for our next excellent adventure in Zionist genocide.


Comment
From Robert Patrick
6-26-5

In the 1980s, I bounced around a lot of corporations as a temporary employee (a benefit and tax dodge used by corporations against the American people). At one particular corporation, I heard a rumor, I was not a witness, but this came from a reliable source who was a regular employee of this corporation.

The corporation had a contract to supply Humvees (at that time, I had only heard it referred to as "The new Jeep") and trailers that were constructed on site. The trailers were to haul very large diesel engines used for electrical generators.

The plans called for armor on the trailers, but NOT on the Humvees. The generators were not expendable on the battle front, and were to be protected; not so for the men.

There were some patriots working there at the plant (some how got past the personnel office and were hired at a corporation, don't think that could happen today), they approached the foreman, who approached a higher up, who approached the Pentagon. An offer was made to supply the armor on the Humvees at no additional cost. That offer was turned down. Another offer was made to provide "double doors" at no additional charge. The type doors where the top half can be opened, as the bottom half remains closed. That was also turned down.

The way this was pitched to the higher-ups at the corporation was that, right now, they had a small contract to supply a few vehicles. If they were able to sell the Pentagon on a couple of modifications that the vehicles obviously needed, then that small contract might turn into a very large contract. So the corporation was open to the idea of supplying a better vehicle to our troops, but the Pentagon was not. The Pentagon required a safe vehicle for their generators, but not for our troops. The contract was not expanded, and one employee was fired for embarrassing the Pentagon.

Robert Patrick