Sipsey Street Irregulars: Praxis: The three things you have to worry about.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Praxis: The three things you have to worry about.

Only three things you gotta worry about in the infantry. Your rifle and your two feet. -- Sgt. Rock, Fixed Bayonets!, 1951

Fixed Bayonets! remains one of my favorite war movies. I suppose this is partly because it was done by Sam Fuller, a combat infantryman in World War II who also made classics like Steel Helmet, Merrill's Marauders, and The Big Red One. It is also partly because the principal theme of the work is the natural reluctance and doubt that someone has when they are thrust into leadership and responsibility. This theme is also explored in another movie I like, The Immortal Sergeant, starring Henry Fonda.

Fuller's movies crackle with realism and Fixed Bayonets! is no exception. Sgt. Rock's lecture about the three things you have to worry about in the infantry is one mundane truth. Throughout the movie there's a constant theme about the search for dry socks and the care of infantrymen's feet. Someone is always looking for dry socks, finding dry socks, scheming to steal dry socks from another man, or wondering what's going to happen when the owner of the dry socks discovers they have been stolen.

In this scene, Rock has his squad bunch together for warmth and to massage their feet. I thought of this when I ran across this on the Military Times blog posted by Rob Curtis.

I had a chance to walk the floor at the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City last week and got lots of gouge on gear coming down the pike.

Mixed in amongst the treehuggers and corporate types were a cadre of buyers from DoD SOF, Army SF, Army Rangers, the Navy Seals, AF Pararescuemen, the FBI, local search-and-rescue units and acquisition professionals from all four services. I’ll pick out a few gems and follow up with lots more in coming posts.

One of these gems was this:

Said Rob:

Darn Tough Socks -- I found out that every Ranger in the regiment is getting a dozen pair of Vermont-made Darn Tough socks. This is in addition to the $1.5-million buy the Marines made to get good socks for every deploying Marine.

You can find Darn Tough socks on the web here.

Bob Wright, commander of the 1st BDE, New Mexico Militia, used to say that you could tell how serious a militiaman was by how many pairs of boots he owned. The same goes for socks.

While you're stocking up on ammo, beans and toilet paper, set aside a few dollars for some good quality socks -- a LOT of good quality socks.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...: Another good thing for feet, is silk sock liners. I also hit an army surplus store and found wool pants made for the Swedish Army that would keep anybody warm. It gets cold in the deserts and the mountains as well.

falcon; January 27, 2009 at 9:01 PM
Concerned American said...: Bass Pro RedHead Lifetime Hunting Socks

$10/pair; lifetime (!) warranty; can be worn for 5 days without matting and stench.

Don't ask me how I know.; January 27, 2009 at 9:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Socks are life itself. When I'm working, my day can go 12-18 hours, and sometimes a hell of a lot more. No matter how dragged-out I am, I'm worth another four hours on nothing but a fresh pair of socks. When I travel, I don't don't pack them by counted pairs: I pack them by the pound.

It's not for nothin' that socks were an enormous advance in civilization.; January 27, 2009 at 9:22 PM
Dakota said...: A light sock under a heavy warm sock is best for cold or hot weather. My feet sweat always when on the move. Getting the sweat away from the skin makes for happy feet. Have not tried this sock will now; January 28, 2009 at 6:13 AM
Anonymous said...: Thank you for the links. Having had to walk more than few clicks in miserable weather I can testify that hunger or thirst or even a hurting back takes second place to sore feet. Socks are second only to electricity in the progress of civilization.; June 5, 2009 at 3:29 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Praxis: The three things you have to worry about.

5 comments:

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