Wuhan Coronavirus: Megathread - Got too big

[Non-Expert!]

We already are in an ideological world war, and the early stages of a hybrid war.

Just because China doesn’t openly declare war on the US doesn’t mean it doesn’t consider the US an enemy.

The only difference is that while they were able to keep up appearances before, the mask has slipped in the last year or so due to the CCP‘s petty arrogance and that their behaviour is far more hostile now.

Definitely an on-going issue as governments are weighing comorbidities differently (i.e. using them to supress the real death toll), and this ends up throwing the lethality rate out of wack. I’m surprised that the WHO hasn’t gotten in front of this.

This means that it’s hard to choose the appropriate quarantine measures/length (is it just a more deadly flu or is it Black Death 2.0?).

I think it's largely because the US is testing more, meaning that it's catching more cases out of the general population- the US's far lower in the per capita counts.

I might counter that immune systems in China and the Po Valley are likely as equally comprised, if not more due to the environmental conditions.

There is no war looming. What do we have to fight over? Face masks? Who has a bigger pee-pee?

At this point it would be like a swordfight between a micropenis and an infirm one, artificially propped by Viagra. In essence: neither side has the equipment to effectively get the job done.

There could be on-going regional conflicts looming, we could keep getting sucked to that stuff.

China, Russia, EU, USA are sort of dysfunctional and equally disabled at the moment.

 

[JosephStalin]

Not to go full Team America here, but in the case of a conventional war, China is fucked. They will avoid that at all costs.

Spoiler: Logistics are fun

The pacific ocean is Big. REALLY BIG. China's navy is nowhere near as capable as the US navy, hell their only two aircraft carriers are A.) a russian carrier that is the brother of the one that caught fire after hitting an iceberg, and B.) a Chinese hackjob of such atrocious proportions that it has a fucking RAMP. The type of thing that the west stopped using after the very first generation of carriers.

Then there's the military training. Even if you can copy the technology (they havent) and can build it (they cant) and supply it (they REALLY cant) you cant copy decades of experience and training. The Chinese navy has 0 experience actually using their ramshackle carriers, which leaves them with practically 0 mobile airbase power.

In the event of an all out war, the chinese navy would be at the mercy of US carrier fleets. A single US carrier fleet would likely have 0 issue wiping out the majority of chinese ships. Sure, the chinese could hypothetically win a war of attrition, but only if they can get their soldiers to the field, which you cant do without a navy. Other posters months back broke down all the other ways the chinese military would fall apart, from insufficient supply lines to inadequate nutrition and training. The US is one of the few nations that can be completely self-supporting, China imports a massive amount of food, especially from the US, so int he event of any prolonged conflict the chinese would run out of food quickly.

I wouldnt worry about a full out war anyway. Much more likely the governments of the world will isolate china from all economic activites and utterly crush their economy. That's the problem with being the world's factory, if the world decides they dont want you anymore, you have 0 recourse, and without all that western investment, the Chinese system will utterly collapse. Even without full collapse the most likely war would be a chinese civil war, if any shooting war would start.

Said it before, will say it again. The world got lucky. Maybe five more years of "globalization", and China would have had the world over a barrel re manufacturing and being a sole-source supplier of critical materials/goods.

If the scales haven't fallen from the eyes of governments and corporations all around the world by now, well, such governments/corporations are run by imbeciles. President Trump gets it. He got it a long time ago.

As it is, will take some doing to get manufacturing out of China, find additional sources for materials/goods, and/or rework products/processes to use little or no China-supplied materials/goods.

For our part, and we have a very important role to play, we need to boycott Chinese-made products to the maximum extent possible. Take a look at where that frozen fish was caught. Check where those trousers were made. Check where the vehicle was made, and where the parts came from. US new vehicle stickers have to carry that information.

This doesn't mean don't eat at Chinese restaurants or fuck with Chinese people. The CCP is the enemy, not the average Chinese person. We can kick all the Chinese students out while not fucking with Mr. Yeh at the restaurant. Matter of fact, not all Chinese restaurants are owned/run by Chinese. I know of Koreans who own Chinese restaurants, and many of the cooks are Hispanic. Don't need to be Chinese to follow a recipe.

 

[NyQuilninja]

Not to go full Team America here, but in the case of a conventional war, China is fucked. They will avoid that at all costs.

Spoiler: Logistics are fun

The pacific ocean is Big. REALLY BIG. China's navy is nowhere near as capable as the US navy, hell their only two aircraft carriers are A.) a russian carrier that is the brother of the one that caught fire after hitting an iceberg, and B.) a Chinese hackjob of such atrocious proportions that it has a fucking RAMP. The type of thing that the west stopped using after the very first generation of carriers.

Then there's the military training. Even if you can copy the technology (they havent) and can build it (they cant) and supply it (they REALLY cant) you cant copy decades of experience and training. The Chinese navy has 0 experience actually using their ramshackle carriers, which leaves them with practically 0 mobile airbase power.

In the event of an all out war, the chinese navy would be at the mercy of US carrier fleets. A single US carrier fleet would likely have 0 issue wiping out the majority of chinese ships. Sure, the chinese could hypothetically win a war of attrition, but only if they can get their soldiers to the field, which you cant do without a navy. Other posters months back broke down all the other ways the chinese military would fall apart, from insufficient supply lines to inadequate nutrition and training. The US is one of the few nations that can be completely self-supporting, China imports a massive amount of food, especially from the US, so int he event of any prolonged conflict the chinese would run out of food quickly.

I wouldnt worry about a full out war anyway. Much more likely the governments of the world will isolate china from all economic activites and utterly crush their economy. That's the problem with being the world's factory, if the world decides they dont want you anymore, you have 0 recourse, and without all that western investment, the Chinese system will utterly collapse. Even without full collapse the most likely war would be a chinese civil war, if any shooting war would start.

 

[jje100010001]

There is no war looming. What do we have to fight over? Face masks? Who has a bigger pee-pee?

At this point it would be like a swordfight between a micropenis and an infirm one, artificially propped by Viagra. In essence: neither side has the equipment to effectively get the job done.

There could be on-going regional conflicts looming, we could keep getting sucked to that stuff.

China, Russia, EU, USA are sort of dysfunctional and equally disabled at the moment.

War doesn't necessarily mean physical warfare- digital and PR warfare is just as important (why fight the world if you can buy it, bribe it, or subvert it?). It's essentially a conflict between ideologies and control.

Stuff like its Wuhan disinformation campaign, the usual hacking gambits, and its undue influence over the WHO are recent proofs of that. And stuff like regional conflicts are the hallmark of hybrid warfare as well- no one wants to attack the homeland directly, or drag everyone into a big free-for-all world war anymore.

Among the myriad, earth-shattering geopolitical effects of coronavirus, one is already graphically evident. China has re-positioned itself. For the first time since the start of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1978, Beijing openly regards the US as a threat, as stated a month ago by Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference during the peak of the fight against coronavirus.

Beijing is carefully, incrementally shaping the narrative that, from the beginning of the coronovirus attack, the leadership knew it was under a hybrid war attack. Xi’s terminology is a major clue. He said, on the record, that this was war. And, as a counter-attack, a “people’s war” had to be launched.

Moreover, he described the virus as a demon or devil. Xi is a Confucianist. Unlike some other ancient Chinese thinkers, Confucius was loath to discuss supernatural forces and judgment in the afterlife. However, in a Chinese cultural context, devil means “white devils” or “foreign devils”: guailo in Mandarin, gweilo in Cantonese. This was Xi delivering a powerful statement in code.

When Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, voiced in an incandescent tweet the possibility that “it might be US Army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan” – the first blast to this effect to come from a top official – Beijing was sending up a trial balloon signaliing that the gloves were finally off. Zhao Lijian made a direct connection with the Military Games in Wuhan in October 2019, which included a delegation of 300 US military.

https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us/ (Archive)

 

[JosephStalin]

I haven't seen such a ratio in a long time. You have to have a special talent to get that much backlash.



If I were to guess, the government is trying to keep it hush hush over there. They've been reporting ~2,500 cases and ~150 deaths every day for about a week. Flat increases. No curve up or down whatsoever.

Even the twitter account I follow is at a loss for the silence (although he's mentioning prison riots in the country. Escalating over the past few days).

BNO Newsroom on Twitter

“China's National Health Commission says it will start reporting asymptomatic cases of coronavirus. At least 1,541 new cases have been disclosed so far https://t.co/47MXF0XUJ0”

twitter.com

Also China is finally reporting asymptomatic carriers. So far, they're counting a little over 1,500 people, but who the hell knows how many are still out there.

Archive.

And here's some rather horrifying news from a naval ship off the coast of Guam. Hundreds of sailors are infected with the Wuhan bug and the captain is begging the navy to get them off the ship to spare the others from infection.

Exclusive: Captain of aircraft carrier with growing coronavirus outbreak pleads for help from Navy

The captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier docked in Guam with more than 100 coronavirus-infected sailors aboard pleaded Monday with U.S. Navy officials for more resources. Capt. Brett Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, says the entire crew of more than 4,000 should be isolated to avoid possible...

www.sfchronicle.com

Archive.

Got news for you. The captain's Navy career is over. A carrier isn't just a warship, it's a national strategic asset. These carriers are few in number and in high demand. Everyone from this guy's immediate one- or two-star boss clear up to the Chief of Naval Operations needed to respond to his earlier non-public requests for assistance. They fucked up. Needed to do something as soon as the initial request for assistance came out. But for whatever reason, the carrier didn't get the assistance needed. So the captain did what a captain is supposed to do, and do whatever it takes to get his ship taken care of.

By releasing this public appeal, the captain has committed THE crime in the military - making the Navy look bad. Doesn't matter if the captain was 100% correct in assessing the problem and his people's needs, when you go outside of channels to the news media to state your plight you have made the Navy look bad. And the Navy neither forgives nor forgets such actions.

My prediction - the carrier's captain will eventually get what he needs. If he is smart he may as well just put in his retirement papers. Otherwise, he will be quietly relieved of command in a few months, when this stuff blows over. His relief will rate a couple sentences in the Stars and Stripes, or Navy Times.

Not saying what will happen to the captain is right, but that's the way the game is played. The captain knows that, too. Chances are he'll end up working for the Navy as a civilian after retiring, or working for one of the many contractors the Navy uses.

 

[General Tug Boat]

My take:

China must fundamentally grow out of its middle-income economy in the next decade or so, or else it'll get trapped there forever due to its demographics and debt bubbles. The pact between the CCP and the Chinese citizenry has always been that in exchange for economic growth and improvements in standards of living, the citizenry would turn a blind eye to the CCP's abuses- but if the CCP can't deliver on what it promised, the country's stability is at stake. (whether the citizenry will realize this before the government gains too much power is another question).

Hence projects like Made in China 2025, which aim to create a high-tech platform for China (incidentally, the targeted Made in China 2025 factories were exempt from closing during China's quarantines). This means that it has to fundamentally get technologically ahead of the West.

Some more information by another user here:
https://imgur.com/gallery/pdCsSOQ (Archive)

How? Technological theft on a mass scale (in universities and corporations), huge government subsidies to suffocate global competition (i.e. to Huawei), corporate takeovers (to lock down patents), and finally Huawei as a communications backdoor (which itself was created out of stolen Nortel/Bell patents).

A second element involves breaking out of the US's Pacific encirclement and gaining resource independence (through economic colonization), which is why they're so intent on the Belt-Road-Initiative (debt traps resulting in Chinese control of ports and infrastructure), bribing poor Pacific Island nations, and grabbing the whole South China Seas. These will allow China to construct a series of military bases to break through the US's shield.

Trump has really put a wrench in their plans, and their biggest threat is that they can't continue their extractive relationship with the US and its allies.

I am a bit more pessimistic about a potential war- the CCP will do everything to avoid the war and instead weaken the US from the inside, and they already have their collaborators in government, academia and the think-tanks. Beware the China doves who call for more trade with China and the resumption of normal relationships!

The US is already in the early stages of a hybrid war with China, and they're probably aiming to get Trump out in 2020, while accelerating their plans.

Hmm that's an interesting read, I haven't quite actually seen that comprehensively covered before. I can see that China is trying to make that transition into the less industrialized, but more service and technologically driven society. I suppose that is how come the influx of their foreign nationals breaching into our industries and universities. This whole thing with the virus seems to echo that sentiment more and more, which I can see how come they are playing stupid with how this whole situation has snowballed out of control. It is obvious they have been breaching into our laboratories and intelligence agencies. In a post I made a lot earlier on in this forum, I've pointed out China breaching Canada's national security by hacking into our intelligence mainframes back in 2010 and in 2014. This has been a common occurrence of the CPP over the last decade now. This is how come the virus theory being hijacked and weaponized makes the most logical sense to me. Also China economically needs to expand 100%, if they do not they are going to inevitably are going to remain stagnate. This is how come Trump has been such a problem since his ingratiation, it does make sense. Very intriguing, thank you for sharing that.

 

[jje100010001]

Said it before, will say it again. The world got lucky. Maybe five more years of "globalization", and China would have had the world over a barrel re manufacturing and being a sole-source supplier of critical materials/goods.

If the scales haven't fallen from the eyes of governments and corporations all around the world by now, well, such governments/corporations are run by imbeciles. President Trump gets it. He got it a long time ago.

As it is, will take some doing to get manufacturing out of China, find additional sources for materials/goods, and/or rework products/processes to use little or no China-supplied materials/goods.

For our part, and we have a very important role to play, we need to boycott Chinese-made products to the maximum extent possible. Take a look at where that frozen fish was caught. Check where those trousers were made. Check where the vehicle was made, and where the parts came from. US new vehicle stickers have to carry that information.

Not out of the woods yet- I feel that the 2020 election will determine whether the US continues on its attempt at disengagement with China, or if we go back to the Obama-era human rights platitudes + backroom handshakes.

IMO, too many corporations and Acela Coridor think-tanks still have the scales on (thinking that things will go back to normal once the coronavirus/Trump goes away), but the scales are falling off of the public's eyes, which is just as important.

 

[JosephStalin]

Would also add that the ChiCom Flu has undoubtedly affected the PLA's readiness, just like the readiness of every military worth mentioning, world-wide, to varying extents.

One quick guess - ALL crews of nuclear strike systems (bombers, subs, missiles) worldwide are locked down. You have to be sure those nukes will fly when you need them. The greatest precautions are taken in supplying and providing for these crews. Families may be allowed to visit bomber crews and missile launch crews prison-style, where no contact is allowed and the visit is done over the phone with a plexiglass barrier in between. US subs normally have two crews, the Blue crew and the Gold crew. One crew goes out for X amount of time on a deployment and returns. The sub is repaired, refitted, and resupplied, and the other crew takes the sub out while the first crew does shore duty/training/takes leave/etc. These days my guess would be the entire non-deployed submarine crew has been locked down at the base, officers, petty officers, and sailors to prevent ChiCom Flu. Takes a long time to produce a qualified nuclear technician and a sub can ill afford to be without any. They'd visit with families prison-style.

 

[Slap47]

My take:

China must fundamentally grow out of its middle-income economy in the next decade or so, or else it'll get trapped there forever due to its demographics and debt bubbles. The pact between the CCP and the Chinese citizenry has always been that in exchange for economic growth and improvements in standards of living, the citizenry would turn a blind eye to the CCP's abuses- but if the CCP can't deliver on what it promised, the country's stability is at stake. (whether the citizenry will realize this before the government gains too much power is another question).

Hence projects like Made in China 2025, which aim to create a high-tech platform for China (incidentally, the targeted Made in China 2025 factories were exempt from closing during China's quarantines). This means that it has to fundamentally get technologically ahead of the West.

Some more information by another user here:
https://imgur.com/gallery/pdCsSOQ (Archive)

How? Technological theft on a mass scale (in universities and corporations), huge government subsidies to suffocate global competition (i.e. to Huawei), corporate takeovers (to lock down patents), and finally Huawei as a communications backdoor (which itself was created out of stolen Nortel/Bell patents).

A second element involves breaking out of the US's Pacific encirclement and gaining resource independence (through economic colonization), which is why they're so intent on the Belt-Road-Initiative (debt traps resulting in Chinese control of ports and infrastructure), bribing poor Pacific Island nations, and grabbing the whole South China Seas. These will allow China to construct a series of military bases to break through the US's shield.

Trump has really put a wrench in their plans, and their biggest threat is that they can't continue their extractive relationship with the US and its allies.

I am a bit more pessimistic about a potential war- the CCP will do everything to avoid the war and instead weaken the US from the inside, and they already have their collaborators in government, academia and the think-tanks. Beware the China doves who call for more trade with China and the resumption of normal relationships!

The US is already in the early stages of a hybrid war with China, and they're probably aiming to get Trump out in 2020, while accelerating their plans.

I doubt this. China would need an apocalyptic event to break its system and this ain't it.

They're following the Prussian model of killing dissenters and allowing migration.

 

[jje100010001]

I doubt this. China would need an apocalyptic event to break its system and this ain't it.

They're following the Prussian model of killing dissenters and allowing migration.

I don't think the threat to the CCP is directly from the citizenry, a palace coup (with its assorted messiness) is far more likely to happen before the citizenry wakes up.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

Would also add that the ChiCom Flu has undoubtedly affected the PLA's readiness, just like the readiness of every military worth mentioning, world-wide, to varying extents.

One quick guess - ALL crews of nuclear strike systems (bombers, subs, missiles) worldwide are locked down. You have to be sure those nukes will fly when you need them. The greatest precautions are taken in supplying and providing for these crews. Families may be allowed to visit bomber crews and missile launch crews prison-style, where no contact is allowed and the visit is done over the phone with a plexiglass barrier in between. US subs normally have two crews, the Blue crew and the Gold crew. One crew goes out for X amount of time on a deployment and returns. The sub is repaired, refitted, and resupplied, and the other crew takes the sub out while the first crew does shore duty/training/takes leave/etc. These days my guess would be the entire non-deployed submarine crew has been locked down at the base, officers, petty officers, and sailors to prevent ChiCom Flu. Takes a long time to produce a qualified nuclear technician and a sub can ill afford to be without any. They'd visit with families prison-style.

Yep, the Chink virus has impacted far more than the public realizes at the moment. When the worst has passed and things slowly get back to normal I believe we'll see a backlash against the CCP and its leadership all over the West. It will make any anti-haji rants after 9/11 look like schoolyard taunts.

Our people are unemployed, kids lost out on school, people died, others will never be healthy again and our economy was trashed. But its the military, which makes the USA the only superpower on this planet, being affected that's going to make many powerful people very angry. And Winnie knows this. No amount of plastic toys will mollify the masses and no loan will be enough for our corrupt politicians (if they want to stay alive). Our position and existence has been threatened. There will be a reckoning.

 

[millais]

+200k will die in US, meanwhile China gets WHO to fudge their numbers so they will come out of this smelling like roses and no one will question their narrative because Orange Man Bad.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

China

I hope the commie regime falls.

Is there any sign of the regime falling soon? Or ever?

(I guess people said that about the USSR in the '80s too.)

 

[heathercho]

I don't know if anyone has been following Elon Musk, but he's been having some very, very interesting back and forths with Alex Berenson on Twitter.
Alex is a former NYT reporter and rather a skeptic of all this Corona pandemonium.

https://archive.vn/vR525

As we know, the UK's thinktank (the Chinese sponsored Imperial College) has revised numbers down and down.

J-IDEA’s Neil Ferguson tells MPs lockdown can help NHS manage coronav…

archived 28 Mar 2020 02:24:53 UTC

archive.vn

Judging by Elon's glibness and charts, I think it's safe to say that even Elon knows we're being lied to.
Today, he released that he will give ventilators to hospitals. But only if they actually put them into use and no warehouse them. https://archive.vn/8j5E7


Which I think is fantastic, because if they're in need, then everyone should be jumping at it.

The interesting thing is that the Imperial College - who everyone in the western world for some strange reason is listening to and not looking at East Asia - have changed their tactic now.
Now it's stuff about how many lives you've all saved, well done Europe! You cut your nose off to spite your face and it is very well received!

This though is interesting. It's Imperial College's "Financial outlook" on the Corona situation.

Professor George Yip, Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Strategy added: "China is now recovering faster from the coronavirus than the rest of the world, which means its economy will pull ahead and strengthen its position in trade negotiations with the USA. Meanwhile, the fall in market value of UK companies will make it easier for Chinese companies, which are less dependent on the stock market, to make acquisitions of Western firms.

You don't say, "YIP"! What a funny situation we find ourselves in! It's almost like mmm... like this was a biological weapon somehow. https://archive.vn/yw6J5

It's almost like all these colleges and think tanks have an agenda. Almost, right?

 

[that jerk over there]

+200k will die in US, meanwhile China gets WHO to fudge their numbers so they will come out of this smelling like roses and no one will question their narrative because Orange Man Bad.

What a global shitshow.

 

[Non-Expert!]

I hope the commie regime falls.

Is there any sign of the regime falling soon? Or ever?

(I guess people said that about the USSR in the '80s too.)

Nothing is falling off a cliff. It is more like a slow erosion. This has been a gradual process since the 80's.

Like I said like way back when, "The System" is propped up and fluffed up, by styrophome peanuts, and held together with zip-ties, superglue and putty.

China, The USA, EU ... all of us, before Corona, the global economic system was stressed. Now we are crumbling under the stress.

USSR is/was more of a cliff. Internally things had been falling apart for years, but finally the guitar string snapped.

I get that about proxy wars and espionage, propaganda, IT attacks etc.

I suppose I had the kind of warfare in mind that a Korean war veteran described to me a few years ago. He squeezed the trigger and bullets rained down on multiple Chinese that were running toward him.

Sort of like that Normandy scene in "Saving Private Ryan." If either side has the will or the means to engage in that type of combat, they have shown no sign of it.

Trump is not much of a warmonger. In fact, rumor has it, that he and Kim Jong-un are quite fond of each other. No missile forthcoming.

Just coofs. Cheaper than bullets.

 

[Archeopthryx]

If there would be a war it should be swift. Chinese army is unblooded. They have no experience fighting real wars. Anyways it would be a very slim chance. War is less profitable than iPhones.


But in the other hand of this plague that has forced us in our homes. Has anyone used this time to learn something new? Like making bread? Or learning a new skill?

 

[Jaimas]

But in the other hand of this plague that has forced us in our homes. Has anyone used this time to learn something new? Like making bread? Or learning a new skill?

I learned how to rewire electrical outlets.

 

[Non-Expert!]

If there would be a war it should be swift. Chinese army is unblooded. They have no experience fighting real wars. Anyways it would be a very slim chance. War is less profitable than iPhones.

But in the other hand of this plague that has forced us in our homes. Has anyone used this time to learn something new? Like making bread? Or learning a new skill?

Does shitposting count, technically, as a "skill?"

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Got news for you. The captain's Navy career is over. A carrier isn't just a warship, it's a national strategic asset. These carriers are few in number and in high demand. Everyone from this guy's immediate one- or two-star boss clear up to the Chief of Naval Operations needed to respond to his earlier non-public requests for assistance. They fucked up. Needed to do something as soon as the initial request for assistance came out. But for whatever reason, the carrier didn't get the assistance needed. So the captain did what a captain is supposed to do, and do whatever it takes to get his ship taken care of.

By releasing this public appeal, the captain has committed THE crime in the military - making the Navy look bad. Doesn't matter if the captain was 100% correct in assessing the problem and his people's needs, when you go outside of channels to the news media to state your plight you have made the Navy look bad. And the Navy neither forgives nor forgets such actions.

My prediction - the carrier's captain will eventually get what he needs. If he is smart he may as well just put in his retirement papers. Otherwise, he will be quietly relieved of command in a few months, when this stuff blows over. His relief will rate a couple sentences in the Stars and Stripes, or Navy Times.

Not saying what will happen to the captain is right, but that's the way the game is played. The captain knows that, too. Chances are he'll end up working for the Navy as a civilian after retiring, or working for one of the many contractors the Navy uses.

In every soldier's career you may be asked to do the thing that requires the most bravery, the most integrity, the hardest thing you will ever do. No, not charge across open ground at a machinegun. No, not jump on a grenade.

You will have to do what is right and destroy your career, yourself, and your life.

Pray you have that strength. Be damned to you if you do not.

Think, before you pick up your rank. Do you have the courage to sacrifice yourself, not on the battlefield, but to do what is right?

--Captain Ward, 1988, to the new NCO's.

But in the other hand of this plague that has forced us in our homes. Has anyone used this time to learn something new? Like making bread? Or learning a new skill?

I taught my daughters how to replace the seals on a valve cover. Taught the granddaughter to write her name in crayon, so she's now eligible to be a Marine NCO.