MLPFC Shit Posting

[vailhusker]

It hits me in the feelers whenever someone mentions Agent Orange. My dad died of Cancer from it but the worst part is he was the one spraying it. They were told it was safe. The pilots even did a shot of it as initiation plus used the drums it came in as bathtubs when they were in the bush. Early on Operation Ranch Hand was run from the kitchen table at my dad's apartment in Saigon.

His plane Patches is in the Airforce Museum in Dayton, OH. I met with the curator who restored the plane a couple years ago. He told me there were over 2,000 bullet holes in the plane that they had to repair. They flew without colors on their uniforms or on the plane so basically everyone was shooting at them as it was a Top Secret Mission. The members were not allowed to be married or have children. The missions typically flew 10-15 feet above treeline so even soldiers on the ground were taking pot shots at them. The planes were getting so shot up they tried figuring out how to make runs with less danger. They tried Full Moon runs at night and even did runs right after planes had dropped Napalm. Nothing really cut down on everyone shooting at them as they got friendly fire and the enemy.

As a kid I can remember we were watching a war movie and I was asking him about his helmet and if a bullet would go through it or if he had ever been shot in the head. He said the didn't wear those metal helmets but instead sat on them because the last thing you wanted was a bullet coming through the bottom of the plane hitting you in the junk. I think they alter adapted the planes with more protection below the pilots seats.

A reporter did a report on my dad and Agent Orange last year. Was a wild read. He got kicked out of the Air Force because he started raising a stink about them dropping Biological Agents and how it wasn't safe. That whole thing read like a spy movie. I'll have to see if I can post the article as it wasn't published in a magazine or on a website. It was part of a Research Investigation.

Ranch Hand | Air & Space Forces Magazine

Even then, the defoliation missions over Vietnam were controversial.

www.airforcemag.com

My dad died of cancer from exposure to Agent Orange too, a little over 4 years ago he was only 66 years old. He was in the 10th Calvary in Vietnam 70-72.
One of my cousins was there and was exposed also, the skin just literally peels off his feet because when he was there, they would have to walk through areas that were recently sprayed, and their boots would get soaked with the stuff.

 

[MtnHusker]

My dad died of cancer from exposure to Agent Orange too, a little over 4 years ago he was only 66 years old. He was in the 10th Calvary in Vietnam 70-72.
One of my cousins was there and was exposed also, the skin just literally peels off his feet because when he was there, they would have to walk through areas that were recently sprayed, and their boots would get soaked with the stuff.

That sucks. Tough situation for all of them. My dad was involved with the first 2 years of spraying. He started having issues with Throat & Stomach Cancer at age 49 and died at age 53. 3 years of misery with 13 surgeries and countless days in ICU, General Care and the Mayo Clinic. They had to remove his throat. We fed him through a tube in his stomach and he had a hole in his throat for drainage of any saliva. His last 3 years were not pleasant. He was discharged from the Military because once he realized that the Chemicals they were spraying were Toxic to humans he raised a stink. Went to his commanding officer and then above his head to a General.

Sad part is my mom couldn't even file for the Agent Orange proceeds from the Lawsuit Settlement against Dowe Chemical because since it was a top secret off the record operation there is no record of him being in the military when he was spraying Agent Orange. We weren't even able to get his Military Benefits. Fuck with the Bull and get the horn. My old man did what was the right thing to do, and unfortunately the military didn't agree with his actions.

 

[MtnHusker]

My dad died of cancer from exposure to Agent Orange too, a little over 4 years ago he was only 66 years old. He was in the 10th Calvary in Vietnam 70-72.
One of my cousins was there and was exposed also, the skin just literally peels off his feet because when he was there, they would have to walk through areas that were recently sprayed, and their boots would get soaked with the stuff.

Here is the piece written about my dad's involvement and discharge from Agent Orange. The journalist kinda butchered this a bit but you can get the gist. She left out lots of good information plus my mom's memory isn't what it use to be. She didn't talk to some of us. She was doing a different investigative piece until we crossed paths then she spent a couple weeks on this. Hopefully she revisits it to get more in depth


Agent Orange Perspective about my father

Expanded Perspective and Elite Disobedience : The Case of Air Force Major Michael William Devlin

A scholarly article by author Lisa Martino-Taylor published in The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Civic and Political Studies

cgscholar.com

 

[vailhusker]

That sucks. Tough situation for all of them. My dad was involved with the first 2 years of spraying. He started having issues with Throat & Stomach Cancer at age 49 and died at age 53. 3 years of misery with 13 surgeries and countless days in ICU, General Care and the Mayo Clinic. They had to remove his throat. We fed him through a tube in his stomach and he had a hole in his throat for drainage of any saliva. His last 3 years were not pleasant. He was discharged from the Military because once he realized that the Chemicals they were spraying were Toxic to humans he raised a stink. Went to his commanding officer and then above his head to a General.

Sad part is my mom couldn't even file for the Agent Orange proceeds from the Lawsuit Settlement against Dowe Chemical because since it was a top secret off the record operation there is no record of him being in the military when he was spraying Agent Orange. We weren't even able to get his Military Benefits. Fuck with the Bull and get the horn. My old man did what was the right thing to do, and unfortunately the military didn't agree with his actions.

Wow, how terrible for you and your dad and family. My dad's started in his lungs with a small but inoperable tumor they thought they had it under control but eventually it spread. In the end the treatments had damaged the nerves in one of his legs and he was unable to walk and was in a nursing home my mom had made plans for him to come home from the nursing home so he could live his final days at home but unfortunately, he got sick again and had to be put in the hospital, after another long fight his heart finally gave out so he was never able to make back home. As for benefits luckily my dad's commanding officer had kept very accurate notes on where they had been (probably a little too accurate because they showed they had been in places and countries that US was not supposed to be in at that time). So, when the VA had the information on where he had been everything was completely taken care of so him and the others getting sick was obviously no surprise to them. One interesting thing that happened after my dad had been approved for his benefits from the VA. The VA set up a physical for my dad at one of the local doctors' offices. They actually flew in 2 high level military doctors to my hometown for the physical. When they did the physical it took them 4 to 5 hours to complete my mom said it was one of the oddest things my parents had ever experienced it was like they were studying my dad like he was some sort of lab experiment then just a normal routine physical. My poor dad who was not one for the military and its procedures anymore had to set there in only his boxers while these two doctors poked and prodded him for 4 or 5 hours with little to no conversation the whole time and then when they were done the said very little and left.

 

[bbenson67]

Thanks to a post by @redzoner, I was reminded that MLPFC will be having an anniversary soon. Founded on February 28, 2014, the day of the great purge on RSS.

https://www.theplatinumboard.com/index.php?threads/best-of-the-best-rss-post.4873/

As Jerry Garcia once said, "what a long strange trip its been."

 

[Adolph Coors]

Thanks to a post by @redzoner, I was reminded that MLPFC will be having an anniversary soon. Founded on February 28, 2014, the day of the great purge on RSS.

https://www.theplatinumboard.com/index.php?threads/best-of-the-best-rss-post.4873/

As Jerry Garcia once said, "what a long strange trip its been."

8 years? what the hell

 

[God is a Husker]

Thanks to a post by @redzoner, I was reminded that MLPFC will be having an anniversary soon. Founded on February 28, 2014, the day of the great purge on RSS.

https://www.theplatinumboard.com/index.php?threads/best-of-the-best-rss-post.4873/

As Jerry Garcia once said, "what a long strange trip its been."

8 years? what the hell

20 years now
Where'd they go?

20 years
I don't know

I sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they've gone

And sometimes late at night
Oh, when I'm bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin' a ghostly white
And I recall
I recall

@LoudHogRider

 

[Woodrow F Call]

@Mustangblood pulling some red angus cattle from your area for this week's sale

 

[LoudHogRider]

20 years now
Where'd they go?

20 years
I don't know

I sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they've gone

And sometimes late at night
Oh, when I'm bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin' a ghostly white
And I recall
I recall

@LoudHogRider

You have no idea how much you'll learn to appreciate the whimsical "looking back" lyrics in your music collection as the years go by and you get a little "longer in the tooth". Mr. Seger paints a picture and tugs a memory with his lyrics as well as anyone in the game, hence his enduring popularity across generations.

Christ, I need a porch and a sunset right now. Perhaps a Montechristo #2 and something to wet the whistle.

 

[Mustangblood]

@Mustangblood pulling some red angus cattle from your area for this week's sale

Who would that be?

 

[Woodrow F Call]

Who would that be?

Milligan way.


If I tell you, are you gonna drive past Junker in Fairbury?

 

[Woodrow F Call]

You have no idea how much you'll learn to appreciate the whimsical "looking back" lyrics in your music collection as the years go by and you get a little "longer in the tooth". Mr. Seger paints a picture and tugs a memory with his lyrics as well as anyone in the game, hence his enduring popularity across generations.

Christ, I need a porch and a sunset right now. Perhaps a Montechristo #2 and something to wet the whistle.

Was the bulk of your Transportation industry career in Omaha?

 

[Mustangblood]

Milligan way.


If I tell you, are you gonna drive past Junker in Fairbury?

That is pretty close. Taking the last load of calves down to Fairbury tomorrow to get worked, I’ll have to swing over his way and let him know there’s a new hot shot around taking business.

 

[LoudHogRider]

Was the bulk of your Transportation industry career in Omaha?

My time as a driver was 100% here as an in-city pickup and delivery driver, mostly during college and for a brief time post-college. I drove everything from straight trucks to single axle tractors w/22' "pup" trailers to 45-53 dry vans and refrigerated units. I also spent some time as a fill-in dock foreman before moving over to the operations side at another company (ABF).

At ABF, I started as the Operations Manager in Omaha, then left to open up the Lincoln, NE terminal. After two years in Lincoln, I moved to the Twin Cities as the District Sales Manager and after pestering the crap out of our corporate office during my three years up there for some kind of training support, corporate established a new training division and the squeaky wheel (me) got sucked in to help design, develop and deliver our sales knowledge and skills training.

We found an ideal location for delivering that training at Aberdeen Woods conference center in Peachtree City, GA, so I relocated there and set up shop doing that. We wrote our own "product" curriculum, but worked with Neil Rackham/SPIN Selling and Karrass Negotiating to craft our skills training. Got married whilst in GA, had a kid right away, and Mrs. LHR and I both came to the conclusion that we wanted to be closer to family to raise our kids so I left the trucking industry to go to work in the IT Consulting Services industry for a fraternity brother that needed "a sales guy he could trust" back in Omaha.

Crazy corrupt story #1: I'm the DSM in the Twin Cities, and one of my reps has finally gotten a meeting set with the Traffic Manager from a well known national brand. Wendy is excited, I'm excited and in we go. My preferred role in these kind of things was to allow the rep to lead the conversation, and I'd support and augment in a "corporate commitment" role, as needed and appropriate.

Wendy is about 2 minutes into her overview of our company when the Traffic Manager stops the conversation, reaches into the top drawer of his desk and pulls out a blank envelope. He places it on top of the desk, indicates he has to step out of the room for a second, and literally taps the envelope twice and says, "When I get back, I'll know how serious you are about handling our freight".

Wendy is freaking out, asking "OMG - how much cash do you have on you? I only have about $80 and he's looking for thousands!".

I calmly look at Wendy and let her know that's not how ABF does business, and tell her we're done here. I reached over the desk, grabbed the envelope and tore it in half, threw it back on the desk with my business card and we left. When we got back to the car, I told Wendy she had a couple of options if she wanted to pursue doing business with that company, but "payola" wasn't one of them. She could escalate the situation to the executive branch and let them know how the Traffic Manager did business, but if he was meeting his goals they weren't likely to care, and there was always the possibility that the entire bunch was sharing in the payola proceeds, so that was high risk. The other option was to simply to wait him out. He wasn't a kid, and those guys generally get found out and terminated and the companies they were doing business with get tossed out, too. Be visible in other parts of the company and hope you get your shot. Or ... walk away and find someone else to call on. Her territory, her call, but like everyone else in sales, you'll be held accountable for producing results. She wisely walked away.

 

[LoudHogRider]

Crazy corrupt story #2: I'm still the DSM in the Twin Cities and I get a call from my Regional VP of Sales in our Chicago-area offices letting me know that one of our sales reps in Temple, TX went "dumpster diving" in a competitor's dumpster and retrieved a green-bar printout of their top accounts, complete with tonnage and revenue. This right here tells you everything you need to know about the LTL trucking industry. Nonetheless, this is a veritable gold mine, and Art promptly starts riding my ass about an account that's serviced by our Watertown, SD operation that ships a LOT of product with this competitor. I got lucky as I happened to know all about this company and what a corrupt scumbag they had as a Corporate Traffic Manager, so I kind of fired back at my boss.

"Sure. Know all about them. They operate on a 3-year old rate base, discounted at 63% off of those three-year old rates, and the competitors bill it as FAK 50 rates (the lowest revenue per 100 weight possible under the rules of the day). So this stuff is moving from point A to point B really, really cheap, and if we were to beat those rates and secure some business from these guys, it would show up on our Profit Improvement Program (PIP) reports in the 2nd month, and our Economic Analysis Department will be sending me their new rate base, discount % and rate classification and expecting us to go in and sell that new pricing and retain the business. But wait, there's more ...

In addition to the crummy pricing on the account, the guy is a freight whore. You know those fancy, custom Winnebago's that (COMPETITOR #1) has for hauling customers to their entertainment events? Well, they simply parked one out there for his personal use. And they only haul 1/2 the LTL freight. The rest of it is hauled by (COMPETITOR #2), and since they don't have these "party buses" like the other guys do, they fly him up to Canada once a month to go fishing and make sure "Agnes Thunderblanket" is in his hut to keep him warm at night.

So what's our move here, Art? I've got unprofitable business that will cost me more than my entire $25K quarterly entertainment budget to secure and maintain. Going at this from that angle seems like a sure loser. I've got another idea.

Art: Go on. I'm listening.

Me: Well, it's no secret that the trucking industry has an affiliation with the Teamsters and most of these guys know a mob guy or two. So rather than pissing away $25K per quarter to haul unprofitable freight, why don't we pony up $10K and have the sonofabitch shot. It'll save us a bunch of money in the short and long term, and it's really going to put Randy on the map out there in SD. Word is going to get around pretty fast out there that when ABF comes to call, you'd better God damn well listen.

Art: (nothing - just the sound of the long distance lines "hissing" (analog days) ). After about 15 seconds, he finally breaks the silence and says, "Jesus Christ, LHR. I hope you're kidding. We can't do that."

Me (somewhat disappointed that I don't get to kill the guy): "Of course I'm kidding. And now that you know the whole story about these guys, I hope you're kidding, too about wanting Randy to go secure that freight. It's bad business, Art."

He agreed, thanked me for knowing what was going on in my territory, and promised that he'd never, ever call me again on something like that, then hung up.

Art remained a mentor and I considered him a close personal friend long after leaving the company and the business. Truly one of the good guys from that era. He went on to become the VP of Sales for the entire company before retiring in 2007.

 

[LoudHogRider]

Mob Story #1 - I'm now in Peachtree City, GA, and gathered around the bar area for story telling time with some of the RVP's of Sales/Operations that traveled to Aberdeen Woods to support the training held there. Big Don Henley - former Arkansas Razorback lineman who played in the same era w/Jerry Jones & Jimmy Johnson, tells the following story.

Don was working in Operations at the Little Rock, AR facility and received a phone call from a newly relocated Branch Manager that had been sent up to NJ to "clean up" one of the facilities up there that was experiencing a high degree of theft. Pallets of electronics were just disappearing right off the dock. The new guy figured out who was involved, set up a hidden video surveillance operation (pretty cutting edge in those days), caught the guys and promptly fired them. Then things went south for him and he called Don to let him know his father-in-law was going to drop off a box with a pistol in it and could Don make sure it got put on the next outbound schedule to his terminal. Don immediately wanted to know what was up, and this is the story the guy told him.

"Well, after I fired those guys last week, I'm visited by three large guys in my office today. They just walked in and stood in front of my desk and didn't say a word. I thought I'd let them speak first, but the first thing they did was all look over to the left out of my office window. That's where I saw that my car was on fire - in the terminal's parking lot! I get up to run out the door, and the one guy stops me, reaches into his pocket and pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. Inside the envelope are three plane tickets for me, my wife, and my daughter on a flight back to Arkansas tomorrow.

The guy then tells me that I should be on the plane tomorrow, because if they stop by the XXXXXX school and little Sally (or whatever the daughter's name was) walks out the front door of the school at 3:15 and get's into the YYYYYYY car's name with ZZZZZZZ wife's name to go home, we'll know you didn't get the message the first time and things will get difficult from there."

Don: "You mean they lit your car on fire, know your daughter's name and where she goes to school, know your wife's name and what kind of car she's driving and you're seriously considering NOT getting on that plane? Are you out of your fucking mind? We'll send someone ELSE to run the operation. Pack your bags and get your family outta there!" And he meant it.

Welcome to the trucking industry.

 

[redzoner]

Thanks to a post by @redzoner, I was reminded that MLPFC will be having an anniversary soon. Founded on February 28, 2014, the day of the great purge on RSS.

https://www.theplatinumboard.com/index.php?threads/best-of-the-best-rss-post.4873/

As Jerry Garcia once said, "what a long strange trip its been."

I have no idea why I even saved that gif but I ran across it a couple weeks ago cleaning out some cloud storage.

 

[LoudHogRider]

Mob Story #2 - This one was told to me at an awards dinner by Robert A. Young, former President of ABF, and it has to do with the periodic salary and benefit negotiations that take place between the trucking companies and the Teamsters (the Contract). The "lead" negotiator on the Contract used to rotate between companies back then, and Robert got a phone call from his peer with a competitor reminding him that it was his turn to negotiate this go 'round. The guy asks Robert if he's ever been at one of those meetings before, and Robert indicates that he has not. "Oh, buddy. You're in for a treat." So off he goes to the east coast, armed with a briefcase full of cost, salary, revenue data & projections in support of the carrier's position for the negotiations.

Robert arrives at the meeting, and is seated at the table. Various industry types are behind him, but he's the only actually at the table. There is no table across from him - only a chair. After a few minutes, the door opens and two "gorillas" escort a frail elderly man to the chair. The elderly man is actually wearing a smoking jacket - not a suit and tie.

The elderly man thanks him for coming, and then announces that the pay scale will be increasing by 2.4% for the next four years, and the paid vacation will be reduced but the benefits will increase in these areas by X%. Then the gorillas help the guy up and lead him out of the room.

Robert is simply stunned, and remains seated. Eventually, one of the guys that was seated behind him taps him on his shoulder and say, "That's it. Nice job - they took it easy on you this time. Congratulations."

 

[slattimer]

@LoudHogRider MOAR

 

[BBTown Bomber]

@Mustangblood pulling some red angus cattle from your area for this week's sale

Out of every 3 or 4 pot bellies that rolled in at 2-3am to back up to the dock and unload all those black beauties there were always a couple of “reds” in each truck. Not sure why but always loved them.

.