California Tanker
01-22-2008, 06:17 PM
This is kindof sad, it shows the onset of mental illness IMO.
In the Tanker World, there is one name which is known to all US tankers, second only to George Patton. His name is Michael Sparks.
He is famous not for his military prowess or valour, but for his dogged determination to get the US Army to convert to M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers (Yes, the one from the 1960s). In order to get the Army to look favourably upon the vehicle as an airmobile system, he has started a one-man-crusade to get the vehicle named a "Gavin", after the Airborne WWII General. He has a number of websites (all of which are single-pages several dozen screens long, usually with stirring music) in which he extolls the virtues of whatever his pet idea is, and denegrates counter-ideas. They are not just on the military, he also has theories on alien invasion and who killed JFK. On occasion, he has the occasional good idea, but unfortunately they are destroyed by his manner, and the whackiness of other ideas. Now, it's true that visionaries throughout history have been laughed at, but when his idea for conquering iraq involved fitting C-130s with sea-plane floats, landing them on the Tigris, dropping ramp, and swimming M113s out the back, one must raise an eyebrow.
If you want the full backstory to this individual, as best as the Web Community can figure out, you can spend 10 minutes here.
http://home.comcast.net/~genericdad/m113gavin.html
The short version, however, is that he got drummed out of the Marines twice for failing to make the grade, somehow got a comission in the US Army Reserves, somehow never made it to Captain (I guess the Army figured out its mistake) and wrote a reasonable and thought-provoking article in Armor Magazine in 1994 or so. Then he went downhill from there. He now spams on his Gavin crusade, has been known to create multiple profiles to post on the same thread to agree with himself, sortof inflates his service record a bit, and has an inimitable debating style.
Anyway, if you want to see the total loss of faculty, read the comments on this youtube thread. Bear in mind that this guy is/used to be an Army officer, a leader of men. (His main userID is "DynamicPara")
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. (http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=voCd5UJNrXQ&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3DvoCd5UJNrXQ)
It's disturbing/depressing.
NTM
In the Tanker World, there is one name which is known to all US tankers, second only to George Patton. His name is Michael Sparks.
He is famous not for his military prowess or valour, but for his dogged determination to get the US Army to convert to M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers (Yes, the one from the 1960s). In order to get the Army to look favourably upon the vehicle as an airmobile system, he has started a one-man-crusade to get the vehicle named a "Gavin", after the Airborne WWII General. He has a number of websites (all of which are single-pages several dozen screens long, usually with stirring music) in which he extolls the virtues of whatever his pet idea is, and denegrates counter-ideas. They are not just on the military, he also has theories on alien invasion and who killed JFK. On occasion, he has the occasional good idea, but unfortunately they are destroyed by his manner, and the whackiness of other ideas. Now, it's true that visionaries throughout history have been laughed at, but when his idea for conquering iraq involved fitting C-130s with sea-plane floats, landing them on the Tigris, dropping ramp, and swimming M113s out the back, one must raise an eyebrow.
If you want the full backstory to this individual, as best as the Web Community can figure out, you can spend 10 minutes here.
http://home.comcast.net/~genericdad/m113gavin.html
The short version, however, is that he got drummed out of the Marines twice for failing to make the grade, somehow got a comission in the US Army Reserves, somehow never made it to Captain (I guess the Army figured out its mistake) and wrote a reasonable and thought-provoking article in Armor Magazine in 1994 or so. Then he went downhill from there. He now spams on his Gavin crusade, has been known to create multiple profiles to post on the same thread to agree with himself, sortof inflates his service record a bit, and has an inimitable debating style.
Anyway, if you want to see the total loss of faculty, read the comments on this youtube thread. Bear in mind that this guy is/used to be an Army officer, a leader of men. (His main userID is "DynamicPara")
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. (http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=voCd5UJNrXQ&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3DvoCd5UJNrXQ)
It's disturbing/depressing.
NTM