XBradTC

He was a hated man.

He was an admired man.

Anyone I’ve ever talked to who served under Captain Herbert Sobel—the one-time commander of Easy Company, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne—has an opinion about him.

Some of the veterans from this elite group (the WWII paratroopers commonly known as the Band of Brothers) describe Sobel as an inflexible tyrant of a drill sergeant. They say he was a man who drew hard lines over petty issues. He was a poor map reader and an all-around lousy leader. He was so incompetent he was going to get others killed in battle, thus he needed to be removed from his position of leadership, which he was.

Yet other describe Sobel as a strategist. They say he became an integral part in shaping the company into the best it could be. Sobel’s role as a drill sergeant was not to win any popularity contests, but to harden young men into combat soldiers. Men lived because Sobel chiseled them into top warriors.

Sobel died in 1987 at age 75 after shooting himself in the head, and none of his family members attended his funeral, but even these parts of his life have not quite been portrayed accurately in times past.

via www.marcusbrotherton.com

Here's a more nuanced look at Herbert Sobel.

He's far more human that David Schwimmer's portrayal of him in the HBO series.

Read the whole thing.

We're deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. A strong, strict constitutionalist, and stalwart defender of individual liberty, he was also a brilliant mind and writer of the most logical, coherent decisions. He was, quite possibly, the most brilliant justice to ever serve on the Supreme Court, and the greatest legacy of the Reagan administration.

Our condolences to his family and loved ones.

We're deeply fearful of the thought of another Obama appointment to the court, and urge Senator McConnell to defer any confirmation until after the election.

An Army laboratory has figured out how to make ready-to-eat pizza that lasts for three years, and perhaps most surprisingly, it actually tastes good.

"It's a fully assembled and baked piece of pizza in one package," said Lauren Oleksyk, a food technologist at the US Army's Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center, a lab that helps create the military's meals-ready-to-eat (MRE) rations.

via www.businessinsider.com

MRE pizza has been the holy grail of Natick since the early 1990s. And as the article notes, it's a very, very tough challenge. We sometimes take for granted the miracles that processed food provide.

Now, as noted in the main article, it's not particularly good pizza. It's likened to a school cafeteria.

But I have very fond memories of the grease bomb pizza served at my school.

For the edification of millennial Marines: A “map” is defined as a paper representation of terrain that some say newly minted second lieutenants use to get their troops lost.

While Marines now have high-tech gadgets to help them figure out where they are, future adversaries can jam such devices, said Commandant Gen. Robert Neller.

“Think of all the stuff that we do that requires space-based, satellite-based communications: GPS, munitions, precision,” Neller said. “If you were to lose that, what would that do to the way you thought you were going to fight?”

via www.marinecorpstimes.com

A healthy "back to basics" approach. First you master the old ways, paper and protractor.

Maps don't break.