AATN

AATN is All About The Numbers, a term used in geocaching that some cachers are only concerned about numbers, not the quality or location of the geocache. This makes my 41st post and with the exception of my very first post, I have steered away from geo-politics and other controversial topics.

This post will be a controversial post and will reflect my views. In times past, issues of the micro vs. ammo can, rural vs. urban, interesting location vs. non-interesting location used to pop up from time to time on the GOWT forums but more available on the River Valley forums in more recent past. On GOWT, I did respond often and sometimes the matter became a little heated. Didn't bother me that much since I was a forum veteran from the History Channel Discussion forums and often got into heated discussions with Marxists. Even had one poster say he was going to buy a gun and shoot the conservatives on the board. I kept the porch light on, no one came by. I held my ground on GOWT and didn't mind seeing the parking lot caches come up in Jackson and later in Memphis and especially the LTL series along Interstate 40, at the displeasure of others. In 2006, I was on a warpath to reach the 1K by my 2nd geo-anniversary and took any cache I could find. I guess it's only fitting that my 1,000th cache was a geocache in a parking lot. In 2006, my average was 12 finds a week.

After reaching the 1K, I did slow down and doing more quality caches, more hiking, working some of the puzzle caches in Memphis. The quality cache issue has come up from time to time on the River Valley site. One cacher made a trip to Clarksville and came home disgusted with the parking lots, guard rails and storm drains. I personally know him and he is in for the numbers and I should have prepared him for the types of urban caches he would encounter. I did reply to his comment. But other topics that included the influx of earthcaches in the RVG area, I have pretty much stayed out. Can't say much since I have 3 earthcaches of my own, one that requires to pay admission and the place is closed more than it's open. An artisan well earthcache right next to a micro geocache and an very out of the way earthcache at Ft. Pillow State Park.

While reaching the 1K maybe somewhat easier today than it was in 2006 and prior, since there are more caches around. Going for the Golden Ammo Can takes much patience, stamina, drive and perseverance if they want to complete the goal in a timely manner. Cachers will have to do the guard rails, storm drains, skirtlifting and seeing more of today, the stop sign caches. Cachers will have to endure long days, early mornings and sometimes stomping in the woods at night.

For the cachers that want the quality and long hikes and like to maintain the 2.0 difficulty and/or terrain average caches, you do have my respect. In the last few months, I have found more of the hard terrain caches including two 5/5 caches in the last 6 months. However, when out of town and on business, I normally have to stick to the 3 or less star terrain caches since I am not dressed for the occasion.

AATN has also produced an issue where final coordinates were given out for a puzzle cache, this topic came up on the Uncle Mack's Blog. Was it ethical? Probably not. We can go further, are PAF's ethical? It is the choice of the cache hunter whether or not to take the coordinates or not. The blog also has a recent post of using the ignore bookmark. I also have an ignore bookmark, it's more for caches that I have no intention of doing, being the caches are behind stores, where I can have a police/security encounter, something I really don't care about, such as a micro in the woods, or a cache that I will never want to go find.

These are only my opinions.

Memorial Day "Everything",,,,"for me"

This Monday is Memorial Day where we honor our war dead. I plan to attend the Memorial Day event at the Weakley County Courthouse in Dresden as I have for the past few years. A committee of people read the names of the war dead from Weakley County. The flag is lowered and later raised by members of the 1171st Transportation Company of the Tennessee Army National Guard. A guest speaker will be asked to share some words or memories. To finalize the event, the Weakley County Sheriff's Department deputies will fire a 21-gun salute.

Last year, my oldest daughter complained that she didn't want to attend the event. I guess she preferred to stay home and watch TV, a teenage thing. Afterwards we talked about it, I asked her how much time of her day she gave for the event, she replied "I guess about 1 hour". I asked what did the men etched on the wall give? She replied "Everything". I asked a followup question for who? The reply "for me." 100% correct, the men and women who have their names etched on the memorials at courthouse lawns, city halls, parks and other places didn't serve for themselves but for others.

Tigrett Bottoms - A Duck Hunters Paradise

Completed my first water cache today with my caching partner from Martin, Pharmd93. Recently I purchased a 2-person inflatable kayak over the Internet from Wal-Mart. Kayak cost $88, with tax and shipping was about $100. Today was the maiden voyage of the kayak and was an adventure. It was Pharmd93's first experience in a kayak and my second time.

While blowing up the kayak, a couple of local fisherman investigated what we were doing. We did ask questions about the TWRA lake since they were familiar with it. They left about the time we put the boat in the water. Being that it's summer time and venomous snake such as water moccasins and copperheads are out, we armed ourselves with 9mm handguns.

We headed out and quickly figured out we were going to have a tough time. Trying to keep the boat on course was difficult and didn't help both of our GPSr's had a hard time keeping a course. We ended up going the long way around. Fighting the wind was not easy either. We made a beeline to the other side to get out of the wind and then coasted towards the cache. Ended up in still water and expected to see snakes. Thankfully, we didn't see any snakes. Took some steering to maneuver to the cache location. I wanted to make certain where we made land fall, we were in the correct place.

Getting out of the boat was a chore and found out my waterproof shoes were not waterproof when submerged. Ended up getting my camera wet and my handgun was soaked. Found the cache and unable to take any pictures with the damp camera. Headed back and had less trouble due to the wind being at our back and we were finally figuring out how to steer the craft.

Some lessons were learned.

1) Wear crocs or sandals. Kayak and geocaching, one will get wet.

2) Find a pond and practice steering the boat.

3) With the kayak I am using, I will have to stick to water caching in the summer time. I will get wet.

Urban Assault Training

During my short time (3 1/2 years) in the 438th Military Police Company in Murray, KY; I did participate in Mout training at Ft. McClellan, AL. Training took place over a couple of days to include rappelling, entering a high window, crossing open terrain to deal with enemy snipers and room to room clearing. Currently, I am in the 1171st Transportation Company of the Tennessee Army National Guard and have been involved in training for a future deployment to Iraq. During training this past April at the Milan Training Center, the company participated in urban warfare training.

Combat in our modern times is now in urban settings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to World War II, armies generally wanted to avoid combat in urban settings. Early during Operation Barbarossa, German forces placed Leningrad under siege than to endure the high casualties assaulting the city. Lessons were learned by many armies in the battles of Stalingrad, Berlin, Manila, Mogadishu and in Hue. Lessons learned were that tanks and other heavy armor, and defenders using fortifications in open streets were not effective. Urban warfare is generally fought with infantry.

Which leads to why does a Transportation Company need urban warfare training? Our training we received in April were provided by infantry from the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Tennessee Army National Guard, which has served a tour in Iraq. Our training was for general purpose to know the fundamentals of urban combat but not to be experts since our primary job is to transport materials.

I have found the tactics to be interesting.

Room Clearing: In Milan, we used paintball guns to simulate rifles. A 4-man team is used. A team is stacked to one side of the door and communicates using touch. After the door is opened, the first man takes the path of least resistance, takes out enemy, finds windows/doors and alerts the team verbally. Second man, goes opposite of the first man, takes out enemy, sweeps part of the room. Third man which is the team leader, sweeps part of the room. Fourth man, is rear security and is armed with the M249 SAW. The first three men are armed with M-16 or M-4. Enemy encounter will be shot using the double-tap or the politically correct term "controlled pairs". Since the M-16 using the 5.56 mm or .223 caliber round, it does not have the knockdown power and two shots are needed.

Dealing with a sniper: Tactic may have changed, but during my 1990's training at Ft. McClellan, a team will form up in a V formation, each member holding onto the web gear of the person in front, the team will run across open (street) to cover and disperse. The idea is if the first man is hit, the others will hold him up (hence a human shield) to take further rounds.

Building Clearing: If possible, clear buildings from top to bottom from one end to the other and leaving one end of the building unblocked. Leaving one end unblocked lets the enemy escape were our friendly forces are in position to ambush the enemy in the open.

Shelby Farms

For nearly a year, my job takes me to Memphis on at least a monthly basis. Normally, I would choose to do the P&G caches, good for numbers and keep going. Back in August, I was busted by Circle K contract security at a gas station micro. They are not pleased with the game, me being where I was (side of a car wash) and the cache being there. I began to rethink my caching efforts and now I am gun-shy of P&G caches that are in busy areas, can't disguise what I am doing (pretend to use the payphone) or use my truck to block what I am doing at a light pole or guard rail.

In 2008, my cache numbers are down to 6 finds a week, verses 12 per week in 2006. But on the bright side, I am going after more physically challenging caches and targeting Shelby Farms more often. While there is a muggle presence in Shelby Farms, I figure any encounter in the park will result in a positive experience.

I have been to Shelby Farms once before. In spring of 2006, I drove down to participate in the GOWT CITO. My time was very limited and had my two young daughters with me. We knocked out the virtual and attended the CITO. I been back to the park again to go after the West TN Mega Multi Up the Creek Up the Wolf. This week, I returned to look at getting Alexis' Cache, but unable to go after it with the high winds. I spent the rest of the lunch hour and found Welcome to Geocaching, Christmas 2005, A Sturdy Bridge and Pandora's Box. I enjoyed the adventure in the park and plan to return on future visits to Memphis. I will only be about to get 1-3 caches at a time and will probably stay away from the long hike multi's for the time being.