Pat Dollard

Not Bane, but he might seem like that, often

I awake, I open emails and find

From: Andrew Breitbart
Subject: You Were Top Of His Blogroll
Date: September 23
To: Pat Dollard

http://banedad.blogspot.com/2008/09/god-has-called-him-home.html

I click the link and I find:

God Has Called Him Home

Bane passed away this morning surrounded by his family. They have given me permission to let you all know but this will not be the final post. His family will be putting one together so that he can say goodbye to you and so you can say goodbye to him.

I know a lot of you are aware of what his financial situation was like and I’ll be doing a fundraiser to help pay for funeral and hospital expenses. Please don’t donate anything into the paypal or amazon accounts because his banking accounts were frozen upon his death.

I will post the farewell from his family when they give it to me.

This isn’t one of his jokes and I ask that if you comment you are respectful to his wife and kids. Anything else will be deleted immediately.

He was my friend and I loved him dearly and he will be greatly missed.

~LL

Pat again: Some pretty fucking fascinating and cool emails to me, and comments on the site I got from Bane. Keep digging, you’ll see what I mean, and why I loved Bane, and why he really is irreplaceable:

On my Matthews/Olbermann post “Dumb and Dumber”: “Yeah, that was what I was thinking. I change any channel they come onto so fast I get a cramp in my thumb.”

On a picture of Helen Thomas hugging Bill Clinton and looking moonily into his eyes: “Clinton and Thomas had a child, and named it Dick Gregory.”

On defending Rachel Marsden, formerly of “Red Eye”, his defense of Tony Snow, as well as defending his assesment of another anchor he said “bites it:” “So what if she’s Canadian? Is there a law I’m not aware of? She’s viciously Conservative. Who needs a damn sense of humor in an attack dog.

And Snow never got viewers? Bah. He jumped ship (rightly so) from a cable channel to the World Stage in a heartbeat. Never looked back.

What part of ‘bites it’ confuses you? Good luck in the Marines, assuming you make it.

I’m just gonna put this: here, because hey, I like beer”

To a Marine recruit called Rumsfeld47 he was having a “Comments” fight with: “Yeah, Rummy, you keep on shootin from the lip. I bet you go home on a bus in a week.”

And a little more on that spat: “Rummy, you’re a no-hack little baby. I have two sons who are Marines, been to Iraq, and shit better turds than you. We are done. I’ll not shake your crib any more. You showed your ass when you brought my Mom into it.

One week, baby boy. And then the bus.Just because you want it, doesn’t mean you should have it.

No shame in going Coast Guard. Or maybe Salvation Army. Maybe they’ll let you ring a bell.

Rumsfeld47, the Marine recruit, apologizies: “Bane, I owe you an apology. The only reason you stepped on my dick is because I put it out there for you to step on.

For people who are concerned about my shit, I’m getting plenty of fiber, protein, et cetera. I’ve been reinventing my metabolism, going from eating nothing but crap to eating healthy stuff, but I’ve dropped fifteen pounds in the last twenty-five days, I’m the most fit I’ve ever been in my life, and I’m putting on muscle. My recruiter is pleasantly surprised with my progress, and that matters to me because he’s the one who knows me and where I’m coming from.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for active duty and veteran armed service members, particularly Marines. My desire to join your ranks in the coming months goes deeper and harder than any desire I’ve ever had in my life.

I have not been genuinely discouraged by remarks suggesting I won’t be able to hack it, for whatever reason–perhaps temporarily pissed off, but I find it motivates me when I PT, so I suppose I should thank you for your help.

I refuse to entertain, however, the slightest possibility that I won’t hack it. It simply isn’t an option, and the thought will never enter my mind. Anyone would get pissed off if they were told such a thing by someone who had been there and done that, who had never met them.

If you knew me better (in the real world), you’d like me, and you’d understand that I’m excellent at adapting to where I’m at. I know that I need to shut-up; it’s a process, however, and I’ll be fine at keeping my mouth shut.

I like this site because I can learn something here, from Pat and from people who are serving or have served. Any advice you have for me on PT and bootcamp is welcome.

I am more than determined to become a Marine, no matter what it takes. I’ve come quite a ways since I’ve sworn in, and I’ve got a long ways to go. I hope you don’t mind if I post here in my free time.”

On Rush Limbaugh doing a piece on me on his radio show: “It’s weird. I’m listening to Rush read this to me while I’m reading it.

Good on ya, Pat. :beer:”

Going off on someone else who pissed him off: “‘Protect my ass’? Please, do not waste Mr Dollard’s bandwidth with such nonsense. And don’t make me go tell my sons about this silly crap, and let you see how real Marines terrorize a thread.

I am a real Veteran. You are a slimy recruit, a booger not fit to grace the sole of my boot, and a fly-person as well. Please, try to not bomb anybody I care about. And there you punks go with my mother again. I don’t like her all that much, but you insult her to bolster your ‘case’?

And who the fuck is ‘michael moore’, you fag, and how is it that you know about him?

And furthermore, quit blaspheming the name of the Holy City by using it as your ‘handle’, you dumb bastard.

I mean it, I’m about THIS close to calling in some real Marines to chew you wimp’s balls off and spit them into your faces. And MARINE is spelled with a capital ‘M’, you disrespectful, stuttering pusticular crawling pile of moronic ass-pustule drippings. The best part of you stayed in the pig’s rubber, when your breeding experiment went sadly awry, you flap-eared backwards ass country fuck.

To a fellow warrior: “Sgt. Rauback: Your words speak (mostly) true. My oldest Marine (SSgt) got stuck with recruiter duty, and he was so good at it they extended him in it, and put him in charge of a district in the mid-west. He hated it, and tried to discourage every recruit, by being brutally honest. He busted other recruiters for lying. And he couldn’t beat the recruits away with a stick. He’s so damn glad to be going on a float, soon. Thank God it’s not til this winter. Hopefully the Middle East will be all blowed up by then, and my boys can stay home. Nice Christmas present.

To a reader on retribution for Iran taking British sailors hostage: “Babs, you don’t even need to destroy the entire refinery. Just blow up a few strategic points and disable it. Those people can’t fix shit for themselves. Bahrain is freaking out right now over RUMOURS that US citizens are about to be pulled out. Their oil industry will collapse. How many Arabs does it take to change a lightbulb? None, cuz they don’t know how, and go get an American to do it.”

On the hostages: “Zegron, if we drop so much as a grenade, Iran has promised to ‘unleash hell’. So, assuming it’s not a bluff, we need all our ducks in a row to retaliate and such. We got a whole pile of scary boats there, Russki intel reports our troops massing on the Iranian border. Me? If I was a prisoner, I’d hang myself or chew my wrist open before I let myself be used as a pawn. But I guess that’s just me.”

On Chuck Hagel’s betrayals, and predictions of doom for the Iraq war: “I accept. It’s over.”

There’s plenty more, but I could go on forever, and you certainly get the picture. What do I have to say? Mostly, Bane said it. What I will say, is that he was a warrior, a real father, a conservative, a master of humor, insight, incitefulness and real eloquence, the eloquence of plain truth, well spoken, without pretense. And whether any of you knew it or not, he was your friend. He was your fellow fighter in the war against the enemy within, and the enemy without. In that, he was your brother. And he never stopped fighting.

Related: Blogging From On High A sample: LL got me reading Bane a good while back. At first, I couldn’t believe how someone could write like he did. I think I even took offense at one of the first things I read from him. But LL calmed me down, explained how Bane wrote, and I died laughing. Ever since he has been one of the main places I would go for a little stress release when work got to be a bit much. His humor, take no prisoners attitude, and tell it like it is style of writing will forever be remembered.

From Blackfive: Bane, blogging since 2002, was one of the first Commenters/Readers here for awhile before he and I got sick of arguing with each other. Bane was a Vet with two Marine sons and an Army son-in-law. He was the consummate cranky sonofabitch - a curmudgeon’s curmudgeon, and he will be greatly missed.

Related: “The Token Hippie”

And from Blog D’Ellison: “Other bloggers - Rob Smith comes to mind - may have been irascible, but Bane could be downright scary. You got the feeling that there was sudden violence lurking just under the surface of the Baneskin.

Love and seething fury. All of us have both, but most of us try not to acknowledge the delicate balance - the dynamic tension - that sometimes exists between the two. But Bane was proud of it. He thrived on it. And it fueled some remarkable writing.”