WARNING!
This post will be offensive to Garret Troopers. If you are not sure what that is, or if you think you might be a Garret Trooper, there is an easy way to find out. Read this post. If it gets you mad at me, guess what? You’re most likely a Garret Trooper. But be warned: if you get your feelings hurt,
NO APOLOGIES WILL BE ISSUED!
I recently wrote an UPDATE in which I explained that I am going to try to re-kindle the passion that originally drove me to start TMD: to go back to my roots, if you will. In that post, I mentioned some personal struggles I’ve been wrestling with for some time, and touched on how I have been trying to become a more humble person. Well, one of the things I have to do if I am going to succeed at this goal is to stay off the modeling DG’s. Ironic, isn’t it? In order to become a member of the modeling community again, I have to stay away from the modeling community. Why do I say this? Because I no longer have the patience to deal with Garret Troopers.
FULL-BLOWN GRIPE SESSION FOLLOWS
(you have been warned).
What is a Garret Trooper? Well, when it comes to modeling, he’s that guy who knows everything. He knows every detail about every tank ever made. He can tell you that you have a left-handed thread on your tank when you should have had a counter-handed right-hand twist thread instead. If you have a 9/16 nut on your kit, he will be the first to point out that it should have been 12 mm, and that, in scale, he can see the difference with the naked eye. The Garret Trooper also knows exactly how a plastic model should be made, yet, strangely enough, he has never actually made a single product for the consumer — not even a 1/35 scale, counter-handed, right-hand threaded 12mm hex nut. And don’t even get him going on what is wrong with any given kit you hand him. In less than five second after opening the box for the first time, he will have spotted every single mistake the manufacturer made — unless it was made by his favorite company, that is. In that case, the Garret Trooper suddenly develops the amazing ability to miss the most blatant mistakes, like a company calling their kit a Panzer Mk.IV when it is clearly an M10 tank destroyer. No, the Garret Trooper never does anything positive for the modeling community. His sole, irreplaceable contribution to our hobby is in lifting himself up by tearing everything else down. Yes, sir. The Garret Trooper is most definitely in the top 3 of my all-time favorite pet peeves:
If you’re interested, I’ll give you a personal example. One of the last models I ever built and entered in a contest was a Tamiya M60A1. I built it to represent the personal tank of a close friend. It was in a desert MERDC scheme. I had taken the time to correct everything I could on that kit (this was before my TMD days, but I still did a good job on it). After the judging was over, I was standing by my kit (I didn’t get anything for it. Apparently, I had made too many mistakes on it). One of the judges was standing by my model, explaining to a small gathering how big a piece of trash my kit was. Apparently, I had done such a poor job that the model was barely recognizable as an M60A1. Well, I didn’t say anything to him, I just left my model and walked away. I mean, heck, I guess he was right. After all, I was just the maintenance guy on the real tank my model represented, and had done just about everything you could do to that tank at the 2nd and 3rd echelon level of maintenance. I knew how that tank smelled (yes, tanks have a peculiar smell about them). How it tasted (yes, tanks have a taste to them). I even knew what it felt like when she bit me (yes, tanks bite — HARD!). But what did I know? This guy had read a book, so he knew more than I ever would about old A-12.
I have had to deal with this sort of thing so many times over the past twenty years, it’s a wonder I even try anymore. Well, it happened again today. I had to be stupid enough to read a comment someone had posted on the internet about a detail that was wrong with some new kit. As usual, the guy pointing out the mistake was the one who was wrong. My mistake was in trying to point out his mistake to him. The moment I committed this herecy, he quoted a book to prove he was right. Then he cited a manual to back himself up even more. I did not have the heart to tell the guy that he did not bother to read where the ‘mistake’ in question was interchangeable, so his manual did not help him. I just took my ‘defeated’ ass and went home — leaving the Garret Trooper feeling quite happy about how he had ‘schooled’ me. Once again, I had been beaten by a Garret Trooper. I mean, at some point, you would think I would learn to have more sense than to try and share real-world, first-hand knowledge with people who know everything — right?
You know what? I think I have finally learned my lesson. You will never again find me commenting on the modeling DG’s. Even if I am asked a sincere question by someone who is honestly looking for the answer, you will not see me reply. If I cannot answer privately, I simply will not answer. Not anymore. I can’t do it and still remain civil. So, if and when I have something constructive to share, I will either write about it here, on TMD’s blog page, or — better yet — I’ll make an actual modeling product that will add to the improvement of our hobby and let my resin talk for me. Aside form this, I’m just going to let the Garret Troopers out there continue to win all their battles. This way, they get to keep proving their superiority to the world, and I get to stay out of jail for not having lost my temper and killed their stupid asses.
We have them in my other hobby of model railway we call them rivit counters same thing know it all down to every single rivit etc chin up fella n don’t let the buggers grind you down 👍👍👍
“…and I get to stay out of jail for not having lost my temper and killed their stupid asses.”
Hahahahaa!! Love it!
Quite agree I spent 25 years as an armourer/artificer in REME and still have to suffer being corrected or “put straight “ on correct colours what mark etc and when asked what corp regiment or trade they served in,Silence, but they appear to be on every forum known to man but for the sake of us mere mortals please keep up the good work mate
They bug the crap out of me, too. I competed once, had some self appointed “expert” try to tell me my stowage on my LAV-25 was all wrong because I had MRE cases stowed above the props, 7.62 ammo cans below the interior vision blocks in the scout compartment, and the personal gear stowed all over the outside. He informed me that they would “never do that”; I kind of enjoyed showing him up in front of his friends, I told him that I’d spent 7 months in a vehicle stowed exactly like that one and pulled out pictures to show him not just one but the better part of and LAR company stowed pretty much the same. When last seen he was sputtering and trying to come up with a response. Now I just try to avoid the idiots, and if they show up in any groups I admin, they get shown the hatch right quick.
I’m with you Joe 100%.!!
You’ve done more for this hobby than any of those pea brained nitwits could ever dream of .
Well, the biggest mistake I’ve ever seen was clearly a Sherman hull with the mark “Baldwin Locomotive” stamped on it. Heck, it was a Sherman tank, not a locomotive… just kidding, Joe!
I remember a certain author/moderator on a message board who started out nice and showed his own work, too. He even shared photos of the Normandy countryside with me off site. But later, his responses to discussions started getting kind of snappy, so I wrote an email off site and asked him if he was having difficulty with something at home perhaps, and his response was that he was getting tired of the attitudes of some of the people posting messages, attacking other people, and telling him what was wrong with his answers… in other words, he was loosing it with “Garret Troopers” and he eventually stopped commenting and answering questions. Instead, he moderated here and there. Obviously he was fed up.
By the way, Garritroopers was a term in World War 2 among GIs who were tired of troops who did garrison duty behind the lines and never were sent to the front. They would dress like tough guys and especially peeved front line troops on leave when they saw the Garritroopers wearing paratrooper boots and other items which were meant for the fighting troops but failed to make it to the front, like shoepacs. And these Garritroopers loved to try to start fights with the front line troops who were worn out and on leave, wanting some peace and quiet so they could leave the war behind for a day or more.
Missing Lynx in the late 90s and early 2000s was often like a bar room brawl, things would get so nasty that it forced people to defend their “friends” and attack back. I know that I got so mad reading about Michael Whitmann over and over that I produced a fake photo of him wearing a kilt and boy, did that work in getting Whitmann junkies into a big tizzy. I got a lot of positive feedback because there were some really absurd thoughts about what if Whitmann survived the war and in 1946 or 47, would have wiped the allies off of Europe with new versions of the Tiger and being helped by the wealth of Germany’s advanced, all jet, Luftwaffe which would be regularly bombing New York.
The one that really got me tickled though was when an Allied discussion group participant referred to a weapon that really kicked the Krauts in the pants, and a reply came from someone I had never heard of, saying that the Germans should not be referred to as Krauts because that was offensive… poor little guy had no idea that this was a nickname used by Americans to refer to Germans during WW2, ostensively because the Germans were though to have an obsession with Sour Kraut and warm beer.
Well, now I know tanks have a smell and taste, just like navy ships of WW2 have a smell like no other I’ve ever smelled before. Probably asbestos. Have a goodun, Joe!
Bro Cliff
Thanks, Cliff,
I especially enjoyed the history lesson on the origin of the term, ‘Garritroopers.’ Anyway, I see you understand my frustrations, so I won’t bother adding anything to your post – it stands for itself 🙂
Joe, I forgot to leave a source for Garritroopers. It was Ernie Pyle, I think it was from his book about the Northwest Europe campaign. I can’t remember the title but it is not “This is Your War” about Africa or “Brave Men” about Italy. Im going to find out again, probably start rereading those books. I first read This is your war back in 1971. Ive read it several times. It was written from his interviews with everyday soldiers, nurses, etc., not the higher ups, for his newspaper syndication. Gave names and where they were from, so we get a great look at individuals.