Posted: 8/1/2007 9:22:23 AM EDT
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There is a DART rail station right next to my office building. Well, just a little while ago I was out front having a smoke and watching the people go by. As I'm sitting there I see a clean looking, casually dressed (not a bum) guy with a rather large backpack standing on the corner right next to the train tracks. The guy sets his backpack on the sidewalk, starts fidgetting around inside it for a minute, then zips it up, runs across the street and out of sight while leaving the backpack sitting there by the tracks. My heart lept into my throat. There is a police station on the other side of my building, and I started scanning the street for a cop. For a minute I was worried that I had just seen a guy place a bomb next to a train line. After a minute the guy came back, picked up his back pack and headed off. I don't know what he was doing across the street, but he wasn't carrying anything when he ran over there, so I wasn't worried about that. I guess all this talk about gut feelings and attacks on public transportation lately has me more spooked than I thought. 
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Years ago, I was in Tel Aviv. Watching TV in my hotel room, the Israeli version of Candid Camera came on and one of the skits was a hidden camera watching people react whan an Arab-looking man walks up to a bus stop, sets down a briefcase...then runs like hell! The audience thought it was hysterical to see people scrambling and running! As if the Israeli public wasn't jumpy enough, they put this on TV as comedy? I couldn't fucking believe it... |
Well it is funny. Do that around here and you would probably be arrested. |
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Wierdbeards? First time I have heard that one. Jumpiness is not a bad trait. The worst case is reporting what ends up as a "misunderstanding", while the best case is averting a tragedy. I admit that I engage in profiling when I try to see what the drivers of tanker trucks look like when I am on the highway. Some good old boy chewing away on his skoal never looked so good! 
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I was standing in line at the Post Office a while back, after awhile I noticed a backpack on the floor about ten feet away. Long minutes dragged by, the line moved, none of the people in front of me seemed "attached" to it, finally I was right next to it. I couldn't help but think "is it going to go boom?" I was about to take action when some ditsy flower child looking woman picked it up on her way out. F#@king empty headed idiot! |
Interesting. I once spoke with an Israeli soldier after 911. He claimed that shit like that isn't taken lightly in Israel. He said the general public is on point if anything suspicious looking is around it gets reported immediately and the people evacuate the area. |
years ago (pre-9-11) I set down my soft sided briefcase outside the doors to the ATF office to use the pay phone down the hallway. 3 agents came back from lunch, one noticed the pack and all three stopped with  looks. Before I could explain (I was out of view in a cubbyhole where the phone was) one of them reached forwarded and POKED my briefcase. I came up and said it was mine and they sort of nodded and went back into the office to continue whatever creepy assignments they had. I am guessing poking a potential bomb is a bad idea, but they are the experts.
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yeah, good reaction. im getting jumpy from just reading the thread. im always looking over my shoulder and scanning the area. always follow the gut! |
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Some jackass drove right up to my guard shack in off-base housing during the fist gulf war. He hopped out and ran away. Stupid SOB probably never realized just how close he came to getting a load of 00 buck. Turned out that he was just a fool who was going for a jog. |
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Again, good thinking, Steve. My own experience with this was at an Army school several years ago. The classroom was locked, and the instructor showed up and realized he had forgotten his key. He left his briefcase with us (more than a dozen students) and went to retrieve the key. When he returned, he jumped dead in our s**t for just letting someone set a briefcase down by the classroom and walk away.  At the time we were all just dumbfounded that anyone could be such an idiot. It's not like we didn't see him every frigging day or he didn't have access to the classroom in our absence. In retrospect I kind of wished we could have anonymously alerted security so we could play an object lesson game of our own, but who could have known how stupid this guy was? Your situation was nothing like this, though. |
SUUUUUUUURE they are. 
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| I'm jumpy but to be honest groups like MS13 have me way jumpier than the threat of Islamic terrorists. Seeing groups of these dead-enders hanging out in front of the doors to the mall make me want to call and report them to someone, the only problem is, outside of the local 88'ers no one else around here seems to give a crap if latino gang members from a foreign country congregate in front of malls. |
The OP packs a Garand? ETA: Dangit, I got beat. Oh, and I'll be paranoid as well and assume it was a dry run. I'll bet his cell is happy to know that nobody gave a crap. |
Yeah, and it's easier than you would think. Most people just assume that I'm happy to see them. 
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I've seen that show. Damn... just damn. |
the timer or cell phone receiver didna work.. the bomba failed.. he came back to get it so he can fix the issue and try again.. |
Technically, BQ is a catalog, not a magazine although it does have a few articles.  Its main purpose is to sell cool stuff.
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Nah, its a Glock, bought it cause it's ceramic and goes right thru a metal detector. |
I'm thinking it's more likely a broom handled Mauser. You charge the magazine with clips. |
You know, actually I find that absolutely, utterly cool that Israelis would react like that. With all the terrorism and crap they've put up with for so long, to be able to laugh about it shows, to me, an amazing resilience and it's a fantastic way, as a culture, to say *SCREW YOU* to terrorists!
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Not jumpy, ALERT I would have been suspicious too. In 2003, I called U-Hual once to report a guy that was loading five 55 gallon drums of diesel into a U-HUAL moving truck. After giving the manager the plate number, he told me that, as I suspected, moving such material was a violation of thier policies, as the truck was not ventalated. I gave him a call back number and he said he would let the proper authorities know. I probably wouldn't have reported him had he not been in "traditional" Muslim garb. Oh well I guess nothing big ever happened as I never heard about anything.
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