User talk:Rogue164

Welcome!

Hello, Rogue164, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Rklawton (talk) 04:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
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Thunder Run
I was a tanker, too (pre-Gulf War 5/33 Armor and 5/77 Armor - home regiment 73rd Armor) and while your analysis is spot on, we can't use it unless it comes from a published source (not blogs, or other self-published sources). As one of our basic tenets, we simply can't accept what we call here "original research". I'll be happy to try and explain further if you have more questions - or point you in the right direction for more information about our policies. Best wishes, Rklawton (talk) 04:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Dear sir, I cannot yet figure out how to e mail you or send you a message other than in this awkward way, I cant find the link to reply to your message. My edit on the Thunder Run in Baghdad 2003 can be pretty much entirely backed up by David Zucchinni's book "Thunder Run". I did of course say everything entirely in my own words (anything else would be plaigerism) I appeal to you as another tanker to not let this part of our tankers history be incorrect. Are you going to leave a fellow tanker hanging like that? I would have thought that being a tanker you would have read "Thunder Run" but stranger things have happened. Have a nice day and no hard feelings. If you wish to speak with me further my personal e mail is ******. Sorry for any inconvenience this method of messaging you may have caused. I cant even get this message to enter properly on your page. Sorry I dont do computers well Im just a DAT. ( you know what that means dont ya?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rogue164 (talk • contribs)


 * First, your reply to me went to almost exactly the right place (we use user talk pages to communicate, not user pages). It's how we do things on Wikipedia. No worries. You'll pick it up quickly enough.


 * Second, I've revised and reposted your message above. Reposting here will help you follow the discussion thread more easily. I've revised the thread to remove your e-mail address. I checked Google, and your e-mail address links to information that would personally identify you, and you've expressed a desire not to be personally identified. I've also deleted the edit histories that contain this information so that others will not be able to look it up. Ordinary users can't delete entries, but by lucky coincidence, I'm an administrator here. If this sort of thing should happen again, just post a request here: WP:ANI and the kind folks there will help you out of whatever jam you're in.


 * Third, I agree that the story needs to be told. However, it needs to be told the "Wikipedia" way. The best solution would be for you to edit down the the entry (it's a bit long), and add specific citations (citing Thunder Run is probably OK, though I'm not familiar with the book) to the various facts claimed. Your edits aren't lost - they're in the article's revision history, so you can start from there if you like. Once you get the basic work done (the citations), others will join in, fix up the wording, and (hopefully) add more sources. The story won't be lost - it just needs to be told "our" way.


 * Forth, and it's just my own observation, based on the image (not the commentary - the reporters were clueless) I saw on the news, 1/64 was unable to recover their tank during the first run because they were using tow bars rather than tow cables. Tow bars are next to impossible to use while under fire because of the number of people who would be exposed (three) - though they clearly made the effort. When I was on M60's, we used tow cables instead. We'd pre-connect one cable to the front left and one to the rear left tow pintles. In this way, any tank could approach any other tank from the front or from the rear and expose only the one man to fire to complete the connection. We could do this because of the cable's flexibility. Tow bars require driving precision down to about 1 inch, and that's just not reasonable under fire. Sure, cables are prone to breaking, but on a hard, flat road, they would have worked just fine. At any rate, if this problem is mentioned in any published and reliable source, it might make an interesting note in an article dedicated specifically to the Thunder Runs.


 * Finally, yeah, I was a DAT and proud, though my vehicles are all museum pieces now, and sure, I'll be happy to help. It's tough being new and learning the ropes, but it's manageable, and I'm willing to help. Rklawton (talk) 18:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)