Many things

1. Gurkha news: "Elite" Gurkhas from the 
Reconnaisance Company (I think it was a 
company) in some English shire are now being 
used to train conservation officers trying to 
protect rare bird populations. Why? The 
Gurkhas are trained (esp these ones) for covert 
surveillance activity in advance of a main force. 
Their combination of fieldcraft, communications, 
OP site selection, operational readiness, 
surveillance gear, professionalism and general 
"ghost in the woods" abilities make them ideal 
trainers for the conservation authorities who 
are unarmed, but whose job it is to (without 
being detected) surveil and record in evidence 
information about crimes (in this case rare bird 
egg abductions) being committed and then 
they relay this info to the Police for action. Kind 
of an interesting use for an elite force! 

2) Graveyard scenarios: Very neat idea actually. 
Of course, Nyarlathotep or Cthuga would be 
interesting visitors.... :) 

3) War of 1812: The foremost people who got 
screwed were the Indians led by Tecumseh. 
When Brock died, that pretty much doomed 
their agenda. They stayed and fought when the 
Brits kind of bugged out on them. But before 
that, Queenston Heights and a few other places 
saw to it that the USAians didn't end up staying 
up North here too long. Now, OTOH, Canucks 
like to trumpet about burning Washington. In 
some sense, people who lived or were 
stationed here did that... but it was BRIT REGS 
(maybe with some irregulars from local area) 
that did this, not really Canadians. OTOH, the 
only one who'd defend this war as a victory for 
the USA would be someone who thinks that they 
need to defend such weak claims....

4) Afghanistan: John, Adrian may not have it 
entirely right, but I'm afraid the NG flyboy that 
dropped the bomb may have gotten a bit 
trigger happy. The Canadians are over there 
under U.S. authority as an integrated part of 
the operation. How exactly is it that the 
controller did not say "We have Canadians 
training down there!". Did he not know? Did the 
pilot not read his advisories? Did someone in 
the US or Canadian staffs screw up in the chain 
and the notification not get passed on? And 
when the controller advised TWICE not to 
release ordinance, what was the pilot thinking? I 
think there are some screwups that happen. I'm 
not out for blood like some folk up here for 
several reasons: Bush shouldn't have made a 
big deal of it IMO (nor should we). To me, it 
was the sad and tragic result of operations in 
active theatres. And 4 guys isn't much to the 
USA.... you guys kill more soldiers than that in a 
typical weekend excercise! For us, that's 10% of 
our army! (I'm exaggerating, but the USAF 
routinely bombs stuff like US SF, USMC, etc so 
this is hardly a new thing for the US CinC) Also, 
I'm not about to jump on the pilot until I know 
he was the one that screwed up. I don't have all 
the facts, nor do you, at the moment. When 
both reports come out, we'll see who screwed 
up and what fubar situation led to the result. 
Was it a staff problem? Did the Canadians not 
have some key piece of gear? Was the NG pilot 
(and others of his formation) rushed through 
requalification courses in order to (on paper) 
get the unit combat ready when it really wasn't? 
(This has been alleged by former officers from 
the unit). Who KNOWS? I find the idea of asking 
for his ass on a platter at this point ridiculous, 
but so is blaming the Canucks for having the 
bad luck to be in the same theatre as the USAF 
and trying to do their job. The truth WILL come 
out, never doubt it. Someone screwed up. How 
about we wait until the reports are out before 
we start offending and defending? Or is a 
balanced viewpoint to much to ask?

5) Adrian, I'm not sure Canada has been 
involved in a war in the last 50 years. If so, only 
1. The current "War on Terror" (a lot like the 
"War on Drugs") is not a war by any act of 
parliament of which I am aware. You cannot, I 
believe, by definition, declare war on an NGO. 
This is semantic, but it has some important 
ramifications.

6) DAWG, I'm sure the people saved from 
genocide (and not everyone is, to be sure) by 
UN forces (even unarmed ones, by their mere 
presence and observation) are thankful. The job 
is tough, but I've met a lot of Canadian soldiers 
(maybe all the ones that didn't run off to the 
States in bitternness?) who seem to understand 
the importance of what they were doing and 
who understand the contribution they made. 
Sure, not every evil has been prevented by it, 
but some have. And that's more than not 
intervening ever stopped.....

7) Basques in Space: I too like this idea. I think 
the Basques would make an interesting and 
very distinct force. Anyone care to drum up 
some TO&E or notional futurehist?

8) Gurkha figs: Unlike KHR, I like the faces. I find 
they look less cartoony than a number of the 
NAC faces. Now, are they perfect? Nope. But 
they at least are differentiable from the anglo 
facial construction, and with some appropriate 
paint shades, they look pretty good. 

9) WW2: John, hate to break it to you buddy, 
but the Germans were going down in any event. 
If the US hadn't decided to launch Overlord, it 
just would have given the Russians carte 
blanche to take the rest of Europe. Yes, the 
Yanks had the bomb (sort of). But in-theatre, 
the T-34s and the Russian Air Force (often 
under-rated, but unjustly so) would have 
savaged the US forces if it had ever come to it, 
and the battle hardened soldiers who'd fought 
their way to the Reich itself could have pushed 
the US Army into the sea without the bomb. 
Of course, you will choose not to believe it, but 
Russia could probably have finished Germany all 
by its lonesome. 

BTW: I have read accounts from US sources that 
suggested that the US would not have been 
able to deploy another atomic warhead after 
Nagasaki for some months, perhaps even a 
long enough period for the Russians to push 
the Allied armies into the sea. I've seen 
conflicting reports in this area, but the most 
credible ones seem to indicate this may have 
been the case. Now, of course, the RUSSIANS 
had no idea this was true. It's probably one of 
the tacit reasons that Churchill was reined in 
from his plans to head to Moscow. 

PS - I too dislike web-boards. The list, esp with 
archives, is a treat. Killfile the people you don't 
want to hear from or use the awesome and 
godlike power of the delete key! It's kinda like a 
Jedi Mind Trick:

<with a wave of the hand> "I do not want to 
read this thread." 

<presses delete>

"I did not want to read that thread."

Tomb. 
---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
-- Mark 'Indy' Kochte