Denali Trip

On Friday I drove down to Denali National Park with a couple other guys for a bit of hiking and camping. We climbed a couple mountains (smaller ones) and saw tons of wildlife and some amazing scenery. I'll definitely be going back down there every chance I get- there's lots of park still left to see.

These sheep seem to be pretty used to people- we got within 20 feet or so before he moved.

Yes, that is a wolf. We decided to drive through the park at night since some animals are more active then and people aren't. This guy just walked along side the car for about a quarter mile while we took pictures.

That's a fox there. It wouldn't let us get as close as some of the other critters.

Foot note: I'm currently watching the Stanley Cup Finals and they had Stephen Stills from Crosby, Stills, and Nash sing the national anthem. He was absolutely terrible. Someone could have belched it better than that guy sang. He should be kicked out of our country for disgracing the national anthem like that, especially on Memorial Day.

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' ... If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom...crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" -Samuel Adams

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
-Thomas Jefferson

A funny thing happened...

In case it sounds like the Army is boring, today someone set the dumpster outside our offices on fire. Whoever ignited the inferno probably didn't meant to, but the firefighters still had to show up in their full regalia. I used to think fire fighting was a cool job but now realize it's better to watch them and laugh at the fact that they wear oxygen masks to put out a fire in a dumpster. There will be more developments on the Southgate Rd. blaze, as some (me) are calling it. Let's just say there was more than cigarette butts in that dumpster, but some people could seriously get in trouble so that part will be left alone (for now). When I left the MP's were digging through the trash (which seemed appropriate) looking for clues as to why the office refuse of our entire battalion spontaneously combusted. Not bad for a Monday.

"Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid."

Lazy Sunday

Sorry for not having up-to-the-minute updates, but nothing too exciting has been going on. The past week was a mixture of good training and painful office work. I love the training piece but hate sitting in an office doing paper work. Dealing with all the bureaucratic nonsense is the price to pay to play Army.
Alaska remains awesome, but I'm starting to miss night time- it's rapidly disappearing. Hopefully next weekend will include another trip down to Denali. This time I'll actually get off the highway and hike and camp in the park, which should lead to some more pictures.

"They call me Aaron Burr for the way I'm dropping Hamiltons."

More Pictures...

... of a place called Denali.

The Politics of Guilt

This quote is from an article by R.J. Rushdoony:
"A guilty people are a more readily controlled people. Hence such politicians are prone to creating guilt...The purpose of a vast amount of political oratory is to create guilt in the people and all who oppose them. Too many 'liberals' are people who feel guilty for things they never did while feeling no guilt for unhappy things done."

That's a pretty good summation of liberal tactics on everything from global warming to the war in Iraq to reparations for slavery to wellfare and other government handout programs. Plenty of ink has been spilled on the politics of guilt, but what Rushdoony said about liberals 30 years ago remains sad but true.

Pictures & Videos

Looking down into Fairbanks. Too many power lines up there.

More of Fairbanks.

Fort Wainwright is down there.

Decided to take videos while riding down the mountain. Because I can. Look closely for the streaming snot.

Disclaimer

There's been some recent controversy over the update to AR 530-1, which deals with Operations Security. I wanted to demonstrate that this blog is incompliance with the following criteria:
1) this blog is not specifically military related. I may talk about some military stuff, but my primary purpose is not to talk about military operations.
2) All views expressed on this blog are my own and in no way represent those of my chain of command, the Army, or the Department of Defense.
3) I never write on or in any other way access this blog from any government computers. All blogging is conducted from my personal computer at home.

While most of the recent concern over blogging regards soldiers who are deployed, it is still applicable to soldiers who are stateside. Certain information is not appropriate to publish in a public forum, and I ensure that OPSEC is never violated here.

Now that I've covered my 6 from Big Brother, it's time to talk about non-sensitive information. Things have been pretty busy around here- I haven't even had time to get worked up over current events. We're doing lots of training and I'm having a great time being a rifle Platoon Leader, and it's a good thing because it's probably the best job I'll ever have in the Army. The weather up here is starting to get pretty nice so I've started doing some mountain biking and hope to go backpacking whenever there's a long weekend. Right now there's only about 5 hours of darkness, which is pretty weird. It'll only get weirder as the summer goes on but it is nice to stay outside longer and enjoy Alaska, except for the seagulls. An ornithologist I'm not, but those things are definitely seagulls hundreds of miles from the ocean.

"The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws."
-Machiavelli