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I'm a retired Lieutenant Fire Fighter / EMT. Prior to working as a Firefighter, I also served in Law Enforcement for several years.

In following with our long line of family military service, dating all the way back to 1776, I'm a US Army veteran (tanker). I served mostly in the M-60A1 and eventually the M1-A1 series tanks. I was a crew member in the Abrams only for a short while.

My Dad was kind of like "Lt. Dan" from the movie Forrest Gump. Fortunately dear old Dad broke our "family curse" of having members killed in every major conflict that the United States has ever had. My Dad was wounded in the Korean War, and thankfully he was not killed. Otherwise I wouldn't be here if he was. I accidentally happened some years later...

My other hobbies include restoring old "Mopar" muscle cars from the late 1960's and early '70s. I also enjoy building aircraft in 1/48 & 1/32 scale, along with 1/35 Armor. I especially like the WW2 stuff. Lately I have been gravitating towards the First World War 1/32 scale aviation kits though...

I built my first model (Revell 1/32 P-40 "Flying Tigers" version) when I was 8 years old. I currently have about 700 kits ( of which about 1/4 are built).

A new group build has been started..... it's called "The Great War"

Hello again everyone. The time has certainly flown by. The last time I mentioned this was about two weeks ago. Now here we are... and today is the first official day of the start of the First World War. I have started a new group [...]

Reminder for the upcoming Great War group build

Hello again my friends. This is just a quick reminder that we will have a new group build starting in a little over two weeks from now. It will be for anything that is somehow related to the First World War. Aircraft, Armor, [...]

Invasion Stripes / Flight 19 P-51B Mustang Viscous Virgie, The Flying Scott

This is the old 1/48 scale Tamiya P-51B Mustang... or is it ? It also happens to the the VERY FIRST razorback Mustang I have built in about 20 years. With those being the Accurate Miniatures kits which were pretty nice. Say it isn't [...]

Invasion Stripes / Flight 19, 1/48 Tamiya Republic P-47D-28RA Thunderbolt "Eileen"

Building this model was a first for me. Believe it or not, this is my VERY first Tamiya P-47. EVER ! I know, sad but very true. I know, I need to get seated at the bench more often... but life has a bad habit of interfering with the [...]

Invasion Stripes / Flight 19 Bristol Beaufighter TF Mk X 236 Squadron RAF, Tamiya 1/48

This is a kit I have had in the stash for about 15 years or more. I jumped at the opportunity to build it as a part of our D Day / Invasion stripe group build as a part of Flight 19 group. (link) Previously I had wanted to build this [...]

Invasion Stripes / Flight 19 "FJB" 164 Squadron RAF Hawker Typhoon Mk-1b, Revell 1/32 car door converted to a bubble top.

"The Argentine Squadron" This is a kit that I have had in "Ye Olde Stash" for years now. I picked it up shortly after I got back into the hobby again, sometime around the mid 1990's. These markings are something that [...]

Idea for a new group build. The Great War 1914 - 1918

The First World War started on 28 July, 1914 and ended four years later on 11 November, 1918. I was thinking about starting a new group build that was dedicated to the men and women who were there. It would follow the exact same dates as [...]

1/48 ICM 48195 Ki-21 Ib "Sally" Japanese Heavy Bomber with 60th Sentai markings.

This is a model I recently built. I knew when I heard it was coming out I immediately placed one on Pre Order with Squadron. I am a huge fan of WW2 era Japanese aircraft. When it finally arrived, I posted a kit review on the kit. Next I [...]

Review: 1/48 scale MiniArt P-47D-30RE Thunderbolt "basic" # 48023 Kit Review

This is a model that I knew I had to get my hands on once it was available. Lo and behold, it was offered for "Presale" at Squadron a month or so ago... Just when I spent too much on other kits for Christmas and I thought my [...]

Review: Kit Review for 1/48 scale ICM Ki-21 "Sally" #48195

This is a model that I have been wanting for many years. I have not included any of the history behind this aircraft. Several years ago I read that ICM was going to someday be releasing a kit of this plane in 1/48 scale. Once I knew [...]