Thought I would share this with you:
That is me, on my 21st birthday in 1991 in Kuwait, being hogtied by my platoon. Good times. One of my buddies from the Army just forwarded it to me.
Feels like it just yesterday.
by John Cole| 66 Comments
This post is in: Military
Comments are closed.
fasteddie9318
Somehow this feels like a violation of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
greennotGreen
Except if it had happened just yesterday, you’d still be in pain today. Ah, the joys of aging!
RosiesDad
Looks like an outtake from “The General’s Daughter.”
Chyron HR
No, that was when you were hog-tied by Tunch.
Biscuits
Ah youth. I remember you commenting on the grief you caused your mom when you were young. What did it take for you to become who you are today (a good one!) I have a 19 year old son who is just lost and drifting. My husband and I are perplexed and concerned.
But happy birthday! Hog tied today too?
Cat Lady
And then what happened?
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Kinky. Is there a newsletter to which I can subscribe?
Citizen_X
Green balloons! Green balloons!
This does appear, however, to continue the theme of “Cole’s injuries.” WTF did you do to get that road rash (or bruise?) on your elbow? Take a header into the sand while tank-surfing or something?
NobodySpecial
In 1991, I was a Lions fan in Dallas. Talk about dangerous.
Starfish
@Citizen_X: It just looks like his elbow is dry. Are you teasing him for not moisturizing properly before an evening of bondage?
Beauzeaux
So what was the point? There must be a reason. Or did you just hogtie each other to relieve the boredom?
trollhattan
Have to admit, I miss the days when our wars lasted a hundred hours.
Hippo birdie two ewe, JC.
http://www.thedadproject.com/?p=360
jon
“Hogtied by my Platoon” sounds like a short story I would never read on a website I’d never admit to looking for. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Mary G
Is your camera broken in the present time? Or are you just too mad at Rosie to take any pictures of the pets? We haven’t seen Lily in what feels like months.
I bet looking at that now makes your shoulder hurt and you feel old and sad about it. Tempus fugit, dude.
ETA: Sorry to be cranky, it’s raining here and cold for California and I am projecting my feelings onto you.
jon
@Beauzeaux: A friend who was a Marine and was there on the Saudi border with Kuwait about a week after Saddam’s invasion told me about the boredom. He read the same books about six times, as did the entire platoon. And they caught big bugs to make them fight each other. Sounds like a blast. Nothing like months and months of sleeping under a Hummer and waiting around to inspire whatever it is that happens.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, either.
WyldPirate
@Citizen_X:
Clambering around inside, onto and off of stationary armored vehicles you get dings and nicks like that all the time. There is all sorts of metal to bang your head, elbows, knees, etc on, fall off of or skin above mentioned parts on. It gets even more hazardous riding around in the damned things in the daylight and even worse in the dark when you’re sleep-deprived.
In short, that skinned arm is nothing.
M-1 Abrams are Cadillacs as far as riding comfort is concerned compared to other armored vehicles like M113s, Bradley’s etc., as well.
ETA-to fix spelling foul ups
Chris Grrr™
@jon: I came here to snark, but there’s no shame in realizing when the thread has been, um, conquered.
(Still boggling at how much alcohol, or toxoplasmotic-parasite pressure, it would take for me to post a photo of myself hogtied. If such images existed. With or without my knowledge.)
Mike E
@trollhattan: Too bad it wasn’t 100 hours + 15 mins; Stormin’ Norman had Saddam’s RV zeroed, literally, but then Gen Powell thought the American people had had enough of “war” and talked Poppy into yanking the plug on the operation. Ahh, what coulda been…
Good thing Colin P was one of the adults in that admin, and furthered his sterling counsel to the rest of that family!
/Spock w/a beard
Eyeball
Did you too have a rockin ‘stache like your buddy there?
JonathanW
What is it with you right-wingers and tying people up?
Chris Wolf
Now we know where the shoulder problem started.
Nicole
Happy birthday, John!
What was with the hogtying on the 21st birthday? Is that a tradition? Is it an attempt to give the feeling of a miserable post-birthday hangover leaving you unable to move, without having to imbibe all the alcohol because you are on duty?
Joey Maloney
You are a very, very strange man.
Cacti
Bush 41 did a much a better job of making Operation Desert Shield/Storm seem like a noble undertaking.
When in reality, it was based on an equal amount of mendacity as Bush 43’s war.
nestor
Is it true they used to test tank crews’ skulls for durability, or is that just an urban myth?
Don K
@NobodySpecial:
I would think the Cowboy fans would take pity on you for suffering from this strange delusion that the Lions are an actual pro team (I say that as someone who’s lived in the Detroit area 32 years, but who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about pro football).
geg6
Kinky. Have a happy one, Cole.
Corner Stone
And you finished your military career even without DADT in place?
Corner Stone
Honestly, the very idea that other men wanted to hog tie me for some kind of ritual/prank.
Boggled, I am.
licensed to kill time
I’d just like to say that it figures….John Cole finally posts a picture of himself and it’s from the back, 20 years ago.
Now we know what his arm, his feet and his old back look like. Some day we may assemble all the pieces into a whole but I ain’t holding my breath ;)
¡Feliz Cumpleaños a ti, Señor Cole!
jeffreyw
Lunchtime
NobodySpecial
@Don K: Well, you see, in ’91 the Cowboys finally got back to the playoffs after a prolonged absence…and were pummeled by the Lions 38-6. Well, technically it was ’92, but it was the ’91 season.
Corner Stone
That one guy in the middle? With his belt undone?
Loneoak
SNOW! I know the rest of you are sick of it, but we only get it one week per year at my place.
Lesley
Drudge hogtied you?
The only thing that could make that funnier is photoshopping Tunch in as the moustachioed guy.
bago
@licensed to kill time: His back is his weak point, obviously. Even the Bitches and mops know this.
Church Lady
I’ll bet you wish you still had that boyish figure.
Mr Stagger Lee
What was your MOS or where you in Military Intelligence like Kos(snark)?
srv
Not very good knot work, straighten your arms and the loops would become loose.
I guess they weren’t expecting many prisoners.
licensed to kill time
@bago:
The bitches and the mops they on my back
Hogtied by my platoon man that’s so whack
I post for them a picture back from ’91
Can’t see my face bitches I’m just havin’ fun
With all y’all, take that!
Sarah in Brooklyn
Happy birthday! I’m glad they untied you so you could go on to make the internet worth looking at.
Corner Stone
Do you ever stop and think “Holy Fudge. I’m over 40!”
dr. bloor
Yep, you were a Republican back then all right. Got any featuring wetsuits?
Happy Birthday.
Citizen_X
Vodka buttshots or GTFO.
@Corner Stone: You know what they say about getting older: it’s better than the alternative.
Corner Stone
@Citizen_X: I’m just wondering if anyone ever looks around and says, “Yeah, 40. Feels right.”
TaMara (BHF)
I guess this photo answers this question Junebug.
Scamp Dog
@Cacti: Really? The basic idea was that Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait shouldn’t be allowed to stand: Kicking ass so you can steal stuff (Kuwaiti oil, etc), should be fought against, and that’s something of a principle (or what passes for one) in international relations.
I am aware of some of the propaganda lies, like the one about stealing of incubators from hospitals. That didn’t happen, and shouldn’t have been pimped like it was, but the bottom-line justification for war was reversing the invasion, which was true. Unlike the latest war justifications: the non-existent WMDs and imaginary Al-Qaeda connection, and the democracy promotion nonsense that was the backup reason after the WMD story fell through.
Tim
Hmmm…hot, sadomasochistic man-love disguised as macho, military buddy “friendship.” HAWT
How was the subsequent gang butt rape?
Or can I ask that without danger of initiating another epic Lara Logan thread?
Suck It Up!
omg! for a second I thought it was one of those torture pics.
Mike E
@Scamp Dog: As much as I hated our forces having to re-install the perfumed asses of the Kuwaiti rulers back on their golden thrones, this was one of those “slam dunk” cases of beating back an invasion. I just wished they had continued
strafingclearing the Baghdad Highway, as Gen Schwarzkopf was very keen on doing at the time, thus eliminating a very shitty timeline.Violet
Happy Birthday! Is this when your shoulder problems started?
Citizen Alan
@Corner Stone:
Honestly, I have believed for many years now that opposition to repealing DADT on the part of military brass was not truly driven by homophobia per se (that is, actual fear of gays) but by other related factors. One of those factors was the fear that allowing gays to serve openly might shine a spotlight on this sort of late night male-bonding/horseplay, some of which might have homoerotic overtones if you look at it from the right perspective.
For instance, look back at that picture. Now imagine that one or both of the people in it were openly gay. How would that knowledge change the way most Americans (and especially, most conservative Americans) would view this harmless bit of fun? And this pic is nothing compared to stuff like the Shellback Initiation.
Svensker
The guy with the stache is Tunch before the witch changed him, right?
Happy Birthday, John.
vtr
i bet those little rascals gave you quite the pinkbelly, too.
Zuzu's Petals
Do they know you are now a pet blogger?
Happy b’day also too.
Phoebe
More of this, please.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
nice ass
asiangrrlMN
Happy birthday, Cole. Stay grumpy.
JWL
The good part about getting older is that you wise up. Assuming, of course, a person had anything on the ball to begin with. Age does impose a certain wisdom. A person can roll with punches that would have KO’d them in earlier times.
That noted, may God help me, if, in my lifetime, the Niners ever get back to the Super Bowl, only to lose.
Should that happen, I will reflect on your courage and stoicism, Cole, and sup on your strength.
Yutsano
O-tanjyoobi o omedeto gozaimasu and all that crap.
EDIT: I put something up in Japanese, then misspell it. I need more sleep.
Ruckus
Four of us
connedtalked a guy into a straight jacket when I was in the navy. He didn’t like it much. But we were bored and it seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was.uila
Could somebody please photoshop Lynndie England in there? At the very least give that guy a cigarette and a thumbs up.
Beauzeaux
Sigh…for the third time since I started reading this blog, my username has been taken by someone else. Guess it’s time for me to quit!
Tattoosydney
@srv:
That was my first thought. It’s not proper hog tying unless your hands and feet are tied together behind your back. Most people could get out of that wimpy rope work in about ten seconds. Amateurs.
Jamey
“Tunch” is the safe-word…
Sasha
You were a Republican then, so where’s the wet suit?