Recently, while cleaning out the garage one weekend, one of my sons found a copy of the Deluxe Revised Recon® by Palladium Books. RECON was the first Role Playing Game that I was a game master for and spent countless hours hosting games.
The boy was interested. Having played many so-called console “RPG’s” and a year of D&D3.5 under his belt he felt he was ready to give a modern RPG a try. So I flipped through the book to brush up on the rules then set about looking for ideas for a few missions to like together for a campaign.
RECON is a violent game that doesn’t forgive mistakes easy, just as the real Viet Nam was. Saturday night the players found that out when they became bait for a NVA sniper team.
One of the things I noticed was how much more attention the boy is paying to history in general and Viet Nam specifically. After viewing a few shows on the Military Channel and some research he did on the internet he pointed out to me that every time the military was allowed to do the job such as Line Backer II strikes that North Viet Nam was almost beaten and had the US just pushed we could have won. He then asked why are we not allowing the Military to fight a real war in Iraq. All I could offer was that he asked a good question.
Out of the Mouth of Babes
Avast Ye Scurvy Dawgs!
No, it is not National Talk Like A Pirate Day. It is a good day for historians though. Archeologists off the coast of North Carolina have been excavating a ship wreck for the past few weeks. The sight is believed to be the wreck of QUEEN ANNE’S REVENGE. For the uninformed, that is the flagship of the pirate Blackbeard.
Blackbeard for all his notoriety only sailed under the fabled skull and cross bones for about a year. He was quite successful though. He audaciously sailed Queen Anne’s Revenge into Charleston Harbor with just four sloops to accompany him. He proceeded to block the harbor and demanded a ransom before he left. Captain Blackbeard got his chest full of treasure and set to the sea, leaving without firing a shot or harming anyone.
Blackbeard and his fleet also had captured some forty ships before he lost his flag ship to an unintentional grounding off the coast of North Carolina. It is believed that this dig site (more of a sift site in the tide) is the famous Queen Anne’s Revenge. The Historical implications are that nautical historians will be able to look at a real pirate ship. This will enable us to learn more about the age of sail and the true nature of pirates.
It will also give us a peek at how his ship was modified from being a slaver to a man-o-war.
Undoubtedly it will also add to the mystique of a man that tied lit slow burning cannon fuses into his beard to intimidate his prey rather than fire the lead at them, after all, unlike today, you couldn’t plunder what you sank.
USS TEXAS BB-35
After Church I packed up the Evil SUV and took the little vultures down to a place near and dear to my heart. We went to visit USS TEXAS BB-35. TEXAS has been a museum since the 1950s when school children raised money to save her from the ship breakers.
She is moored at the San Jacinto Battlefield Park. She is in great shape for a ship that is 93 years old. 
