Unique suggestion for care packages

[akflightmedic]

I do not know how many of you still send care packages to any soldier in Iraq or Afg, but I though I would like to let you know of a very unique idea a lot of the soldiers use.

Small children running up to the convoys are a huge security threat. These soldiers do not want to harm them but there have been times where it was needed. Several soldiers that I know, carry Super Soakers in the turret. When the kids run up, they are able to blast them from 25ft away and make them stop in their tracks.

A blast of water is a lot kinder than pellets, grenades and smokers.

Just wanted to pass this along in case anyone wanted to share with whomever and drop a few soakers in the next care package.

[GypsyMedic]

Actually I had sent care packages to a friend of mine who was out there for some time and had a ton of fun putting them together! Super soakers are a great idea and I'm sure they wouldn't just use them on the kids! Can you post how to go about sending these general delivery? Or give a website? I'd love to be more involved.

Thanks.

[akflightmedic]

http://anysoldier.com/

[Michael]

Send extras to the Denver Police.

(Yeah, yeah, I know.)

[Eydawn]

Rofl! These protesters are scared $h!tless at a RUMOR of a gun that makes you crap...

Perhaps I should tell my friend who's in the police/fire/EMS cadets to wear her rain pants! She's been conscripted into working this event...

On a side note, this has the potential to be a major cluster. I know where they're holding this convention... it's going to ROYALLY screw with Denver traffic, and the Pepsi center isn't far from some less savory neighborhoods. All it takes is one moron in a crowd of excited people to cause havoc.

I like the supersoaker idea. Should I get some spare cash, I'll send some the way of the fellas in the sandbox(es).

Wendy

CO EMT-B

[Richard B the EMT]

The idea of a demonstration being "controlled" with "Super-Soaker" water guns throws my alleged mind back to the early to mid 1960s.

You might want to remember the name "Chief Bull Conner".

Per the Wikipedia, at link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor

Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor (July 11, 1897, Selma, Alabama – March 10, 1973) was a police official in the Southern U.S. city of Birmingham, Alabama during the American Civil Rights Movement. He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and a staunch advocate of racial segregation.

As the Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s, Connor became a symbol of bigotry. He infamously fought against integration by using fire hoses and police attack dogs against protest marchers.[1] The spectacle of this being broadcast on national television served as one of the catalysts for major social and legal change in the South and helped in large measure to assure the passage by the United States Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; thus Connor's tactics dramatically backfired into helping to bring about the very change that he was opposing.

(Bold face type is my commentary)

Then, again, if I get squirted by a super-soaker, I might get one, and squirt back. On the other hand, I might respond to a water gun with a real one.

"Obvious" logic does not apply in war zones, due to, minimally, local attitudes versus foreigners thinking the "locals" think the same way they do.

My easiest example of that is, the holding up of a hand in the "Talk to the hand" position. In American and UK thinking, this means stop or halt. It has no such meaning in Iraq or Afghanistan, where a different hand positioning and motion means stop or halt. If I heard correctly, the US/UK "Stop/Halt" gesture is simply a kind of "hello" wave.

Here in New York City, we have had kids who used a super-soaker to squirt passing cars assaulted by the drivers. It is presumed they all speak the same language, so, again, logic might not apply.

[Kaisu]

I'd take AK's word for it... he's a pretty reliable source for what's what "over there"