This made it onto the 17 floor of the North Tower of National Defence
Headquarters from a contact in Oz, and it struck me as good enough to bring to
the attention of c.c.m and a.f.m.
Action Upon Encountering a Snake
- The Differential Theory: -
- Infantry: Snake smells them, leaves area.
- Airborne: Lands on and kills the snake.
- Armour: Runs over snake, laughs, and looks for more snakes.
- Aviation: Has Global Positioning Satellite co-ordinates to snake.
Can't find snake. Returns to base for refuel, crew rest and manicure.
- Commando: Plays with snake, then eats it.
- Field Artillery: Kills snake with massive Time-On-Target barrage
with three regiments in support. Kills several hundred civilians as
unavoidable collateral damage. Mission is considered a success and all
participants (i.e., cooks, mechanics and clerks) are awarded service
medals.
- Special Forces: Makes contact with snake, ignores all Department of
Foreign Affairs directives and Theatre Commander Rules of Engagement by
building rapport with snake and winning its heart and mind. Trains it to kill
other snakes. Files enormous travel settlement upon return.
- Combat Engineer: Studies snake. Prepares in-depth doctrinal thesis
in obscure 5 series Field Manual about how to defeat snake using counter
mobility assets. Complains that manoeuvre forces don't understand how to
properly conduct doctrinal counter-snake ops.
- Navy Landing Party: Expends all ammunition and calls for naval
gunfire support in failed attempt to kill snake. Snake bites sailors and
retreats to safety. Hollywood makes fantasy film in which US Navy SEALS kill
religious extremist snakes.
- Navy: Fires missiles from various types of ships, kills snake and
makes presentation to Senate Appropriations Committee on how Naval forces are
the most cost-effective means of anti-snake force projection.
- SASR: Kills snake by accident while looking for souvenirs. Local
civilians demand removal of all Australian Defence Force from Area of
Operations.
- Cavalry: Follows snake, gets lost, buys sunglasses.
- Air Battle Controllers: Guides snake elsewhere.
- Combat Medics: Wounds snake in initial encounter, then works
feverishly to save snake's life.
- Ordinance: (NOTICE: Your anti-snake equipment is on backorder.)
- Transport pilot: Receives call for anti-snake equipment, delivers
two weeks after due date.
- Macchi pilot: Misidentifies snake as enemy Mil-24 Hind helicopter
and engages with missiles. Crew chief paints snake kill on aircraft.
- F/A-18 pilot: Finds snake, drops two CBU-87 cluster bombs, and
misses snake target, but get direct hit on Chinese Embassy 100 Km East of snake
due to weather (Too Hot also Too Cold, Was Clear but too overcast, Too dry with
Rain, Unlimited ceiling with low cloud cover etc.). Claims that purchasing
multimillion dollar, high-tech snake-killing device will enable it in the
future to kill all snakes and achieve a revolution in military affairs.
- AH-64 Apache pilot: Unable to locate snake, snakes don't show well
on infrared. Infrared only operable in desert Areas of Operations without
power lines or SAMs.
- UH-60 Blackhawk pilot: Finds snake on fourth pass after snake builds
bonfire, pops smoke, lays out VS 17 to mark Landing Zone. Rotor wash blows
snake into fire.
- F-111 pilot: Pulls ARCLIGHT mission on snake, kills snake and every
other living thing within two miles of target.
- Medium gun crew: Lays in target co-ordinates to snake in 20 seconds,
but can't receive authorization from Melbourne Air Traffic Control to use
high-trajectory weapons.
- Intelligence officer: Snake? What snake? Only four of 35
indicators of snake activity are currently active. We assess the potential for
snake activity as LOW.
- Legal Corps: Snake declines to bite, citing grounds of professional
courtesy.
- Construction Engineers: Build pub, gut and stuff snake, mount over
bar, name pub "The Snakepit".
- Petroleum Handlers: Catch snake, introduce free snake with every
full tank promotion.
- Military Police: Wait for somebody else to capture snake, beat up
snake, deny responsibility.
[Note - originally posted by Andrew Chaplin to
can.community.military, reposted with his permission - ed.]