Saturday, July 24, 2004

Why Floods Remind Me Of Armored Personnel Carriers

Today it's been raining a lot. Enough so that the intermittent stream has appeared in my folks back yard. And also enough there are flood warnings for Indian Creek, which is a little over a mile from my house. Indian Creek flooded most memorably about fifteen years ago (my memory is not helping on the year). A couple of teenagers were stranded in the flood and were rescued by an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier owned by the Lenexa, Kansas Police Department. As I remember it members of their SWAT team were fond of the M113 from their service in Vietnam, obtained a surplus M113 and restored it.

If you click on the Lenexa link, you will learn that Wild Bill Hickok got his start in law enforcement when he was elected constable of the Monticello township, which is now split between the cities of Lenexa and Shawnee.

Kansas may be flatter than a pancake, but this was the Wild West. If that seems incongruous to you, perhaps it's because the West was never really that Wild. New York City has always been much, much more dangerous.