AlaskaVillageTales

Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D., author of "On Killing." One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me: "Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably...

This month 5 yrs ago the fun began for me in uniform. Little did I know that I would learn so much about being a Law Enforcement Officer up here in Alaska. And certainly I never knew that I would end up loving this "Calling" so much. Because it indeed is a calling for me. Alaska is indeed the Last Frontier. It is still wild, still untamed and uncivilized throughout much of theState. As I drive the lonely highways of the Interior and along the Coast it still pristine throughout. The only thing more beautiful than the untouched wilderness is Alaska's people; theWhites, theNatives. Each group in each City, town, community & village is unique and has much to offer the World. In my journeys here I have met many of these people. And I have recorded much of the experience. As the 5 year mark passes for each month, starting now Feb 2006 and continueing until Oct 2008, I am no longer required to keep any field notes & journals that I made while I was a VPSO. But old habit...

KILLING PAIN She walks around theVillage each night. Steady as the earth's march around the sun and the waxing & waning of the moon. I wonder what demons haunt HER nights, what ghosts tug at HER apron strings during the day because SHE wears a long dress all year long. Like HER skirts, SHE wears sadness long faced. The fabric halts HER gait at times, like a child upon a foot, it's arms wrapped around the leg. A dirty child along the edges, frayed and worn by time as it clings to HER it's mother. A sad child, a long dead child. SHE doesn't need to tell me because I see it in HER eyes. I got invited to eat at HER family's house one day. Everyone was there; thePreacherman and his wife, many drunken friends, some Village Council members, HER son & daughter's friends and lots of Village children. For a moment I forgot about my problems and just focused on immediate things at hand. Happiness for some is measured in how many chicken breasts are in their paper ...

INSIGHT on Freedom: Freedom in Peril ?#links

This is a follow up from a few posts down regarding the TFT Group & SCARS related write up that I cut & pasted. I originally wrote this to my VPSO site on Tripod and decided to post my words here as I wrote them a few years ago. +++++ Some things are genetic. And although I've rejected Alcoholism I cannot reject the Warrior mentality and traditions of my Lakota culture. Even now I don't want to sleep at night, I want to stand guard over my family, over my village. I had some childhood scuffs and a couple of gradeschool fights, then I started boxing in high school. I was intrigued by martial arts but I never learned any of that. Instead I've learned some sobering things about hand to hand combat from my war veteran relatives as a youth. I entered "man hood" by dropping my first opponent ever at 16 yrs age, when a former stepdad re-entered our lives and then got violent with my mother and sister one day. I put an axe handle to his head and he crawled...

Shimmy, Shake Rattle & Roll (without thePole) Once in awhile during my working tenure out in theVillages, the communities would have musical gatherings like Weddings, Funerals, Birthdays and would invite some rock band from around the YVC Inc!! (Doh!!)region and from across the state to come play for us. Many is the time I’ve danced like a WhiteMan and many is the time I’ve ended up spraining an ankle as well, eh. Maybe it was the same thing? People still don’t believe that it was my Dad in South Dakota that invented Break-Dancing. I still remember the times he’d stagger home blind-drunk at 0300hrs and would struggle against theCold winter wind walking up to the house-Only to be moved back by the strong winds while his feet were still moving! He was an old fashioned man too because he always wore a hat of some kind. He’d grab his Fedora or cowboy hat on his head and spin around briskly while grabbing his crotch. Probably due to the fact that he forgot to zip up after using the t...

.....the televised YVC Inc regional Exorcism DVD will be out on video after this coming Spring. Some time ago I received yet another round of emails from well meaning friends and relatives. One memorable letter who's dubious origins claimed to be from Microsoft and AOL, urged all recipients to forward the message to their friends and as the Email was "tracked" across the Internet each person that received AND SENT the Email would eventually be reimbursed $5,000. for doing so. I replied to my friends that sent me this particular chain mail by directing them to Snopes dotcom, a popular Internet "myth busting" site. Then I followed through by purchasing Online & sending my most favored Email contacts a nice soothing ointment, which should reach their doorsteps later on this week via FedX. Damn parcel rates , I'm just using 2 week postal service next time this happens. YVC Inc was bitterly disappointed this month because they didn't make the Snopes ...

(theSam!! gets a newsletter from http://www.TFTGroup.com/ I will post 2 recent letters I received. This is the man that helped create the SCARS / HCS system and then moved onto creating Target Focus Training. I trust anything that SCAR/HCS-Jerry Peterson and TFT-Tim Larkin have to say about hand to hand combat. I trust my Life to these men and their associates, my Trainers.) Combat Training Principles -- Secrets For Staying Alive When 'Rules' Don't Apply HE GAVE MUGGERS ALL HIS POSSESSIONS BUT THEY WANTED MORE... HIS LIFE ***************************************************************** When the situation is obscure, attack! -General Heinz Guderian ***************************************************************** One of my Expatriate UK clients forwarded this story of a murder that recently rocked both the residents and media of London. What made this murder so shocking? Just this: the victim did everything you all THINK you should d...

theSam!! found this on the Internet, I didn't write it. To Kill an American Written by an Australian Dentist... To Kill an American You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. So an Australian dentist wrote an editorial the following day to let everyone know what an American is, so they would know when they found one. (Good one, mate!!!!) "An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani or Afghan." An American may also be a Comanche, Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, Seminole or one of the many other tribes known as Native Americans. An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, th...