Guidons, Guidons, Guidons!: Operation GRIM

For those of you who read the comments on this website, the following comes as no surprise. For the rest of you mouth breathers who just look at the pretty pictures and drool all over your screen...well you aren't even reading this, so why bother.

As a rule I try not to know too much about the babes we all regard as "the hottest woman on the planet"...because if you look too closely you might find something you really didn't want to know.

Case in point, the "Girl Friday" for the 13th ( yesterday) Tamara Witmer, who according to her website is involved in a reality show on VH-1 where, ala "The Flavor of Love", competes for the attention of the former lead singer of Poison.

I may have low standards but I do have some and that folks crosses the line. She may be hot (smoking) but you can rest assured that anyone who appears on TV vying for the attention of a washed up half assed "rock star" will never grace these pages again. There are plenty of other half naked women who won't stoop that low to choose from...which brings us to Operation GRIM.

Anyone who has looked at more than a few MILBLOGS has come across the ads for RANGER UP. RANGER UP is a military run clothing and action wear company run by current and former members of the military. The ads feature a very attractive young lady wearing one of their shirts. They want to support those who have given so much. So they came up with OPERATION GRIM.

This is part of the story:

The Ranger Up Serious Monologue

Our nation owes everything to the brave men and women who have the courage to step into harms way time and time again so that we may live peacefully here at home. As we all know, many of our nation’s heroes have paid for our freedoms with their lives. Many more still have come home with life-changing injuries. These men and women lay injured in our nation’s hospitals or have finally transitioned home – into lives significantly altered. People that were once the finest of athletes with the best employment prospects find themselves worried about how they are going to adapt into their new lives – how will they work, exercise, live? As many folks we’ve spoken to that have undergone major operations such as amputations have said – even getting up in the morning takes planning. Nothing is easy anymore.

Moreover, we know that the government is failing our men and women in this regard – Walter Reed’s recent incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. Other hospitals are worse, and once our soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen are released from active duty, they have even less support. We’re not conspiracy theorists and we don’t think anyone is out to hurt our servicemen, but the government is a huge bureaucracy, and as anyone who has ever tried to fix their pay in the military system knows, bureaucracy does not equate to efficiency. As such, we at Ranger Up strongly support organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project.

What is the Wounded Warrior Project?

The Wounded Warrior Project is a nonprofit organization full of American patriots, many of them former servicemen and women, that is fighting to do something to help our wounded heroes. Their mission is “to raise the awareness and enlist the public's aid for the needs of severely injured service men and women, to help severely injured service members aid and assist each other, and to provide unique, direct programs and services to meet their needs.” In short, they are a motivated and lean organization that truly cares about our armed forces and is doing everything in its power to see that each and every wounded hero has the opportunity and tools to excel in every facet of their lives post-injury.

Ok – So what do you Ranger Up clowns have to do with this?

We’re not a huge corporation, and even though we are growing at an amazing rate thanks to your support, we’re still a handful of current and former soldiers working our butts off, so we aren’t in a position yet to donate in a meaningful way to the cause as a corporation (we do give on an individual basis), but we knew we needed to help. So we tried to figure out what we had available: 1) http://www.rangerup.com/, a great platform to get the message out and 2) Our buddies – the guys we served with – the guys we’ve met in person or online – and the patriotic Americans that support the Armed Services. We realized that the military, its veterans, and it supporters make up the most powerful network in the world because we can come together faster and with stronger execution than any other entity if there is a need.

With that thought in mind, we reached out to Matt Burden at http://www.blackfive.net/ and Mr. and Mrs. Greyhawk at http://www.mudvillegazette.com/, and inquired about whether they would support a little idea we had to raise awareness…They agreed.

OPERATION GRIM

So what’s the freakin’ plan? Simple. As anyone who is a Ranger Up fan knows, we are sophomoric idiots. We like beer, hot chicks, the Armed Forces, mixed martial arts, beer, and hot chicks (did I mention hot chicks and beer?). So we got the crew together, drank some beer, and identified the key ingredients of the plan:

1) Hot chicks – you guys know by now that we can’t do anything without Grace – especially if it involves asking her to take her clothes off…

2) Mixed Martial Arts – When he heard about what we were trying to do, undefeated International Fight League Fighter and Iraqi Veteran Tim Kennedy also came on board.

3) T-shirts – The OPERATION GRIM T-shirt. All the proceeds go to charity. Not $1 per shirt. Not $5 per shirt. Every nickel of profit from these shirts will go the Wounded Warrior Foundation. We’re only recovering the cost of the shirts and printing – no labor costs – no secret squirrel fees!

4) Milblogs, Radio, Newspapers – Led by the aggressive efforts of Blackfive and Greyhawk, we have started an awareness blitz. We’re letting millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, vets, and patriots know about this opportunity to support our wounded troops. In fact, we feel so strongly about this that we will link to all blogs that place a permanent* link to the Operation Grim page on Ranger Up.

*Permanent = until Operation Grim’s mission is accomplished.

And Finally, the Mission:

5) MAXIM MAGAZINE. GRIM stands for GRACE IN MAXIM. I received the first American issue of Maxim Magazine in April of 1997 for free in my barracks and thought it was the coolest mag I had ever read. And you know what? Everyone else did to. Since then I (and everyone else I know) have found ourselves reading MAXIM during training exercises, throughout deployments, and when we are generally just sitting around the barracks. It has simply become an essential part of military life. In my estimation, whether it has been through military articles, free mags to deployed soldiers, or just general good humor, Maxim and its sibling Stuff, have always supported the troops. We’re gonna ask them to do it one more time.

We want them to put GRACE IN MAXIM.