• Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      My grandmother died at 99 years old and until about 5 months prior to her death she was still pottering around the garden and doing housework. Some people just seem to save getting old up until the final few weeks of their life.

      • verity_kindle@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I met a 90+ year old woman at the post office the other day. She could still drive and was wearing a pink t-shirt that stated “Don’t Grow Old, It’s a Trap!”

  • Mossy Feathers (She/They)@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    How effective is a suit like that (specifically like the one in the image)? The fact that it appears to be all brown seems like it’d be poor cover in a field or forest. Wouldn’t you want something that has a mix of different colors in it? I mean, it looks like a rotting hay bale, which works if you’re surrounded by lots of rotting foliage, but what if you’re not?

    • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Depends entirely where the sniper intends to use it.

      If you’re interested, look up Carlos Hathcock, a USMC sniper during the Vietnam war, and considered one of the best snipers for a very long time. I don’t recall the details offhand but one of his confirmed kills was a high ranking military officer. He spent something like 3 days in a gillie suit crawling something like 1000 yards across a field, took out his target, and successfully evaded troops searching for him that walked within feet of his location.

    • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Ghillie suits can be made to look like various types of vegetation, and work best when their design matches the vegetation in the field. They can be very effective. This person will likely be wearing their suit while operating somewhere that matches the color better than it does the background in the photo. They would likely wear a different suit if they were planning on operating somewhere with greener vegetation, and accordingly many ghillie suits are greener and/or have more variation in coloring.

    • FrostyTheDoo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Keep in mind he’s thousands of feet in the distance. Up close yeah it’s fairly obvious he’s not a real plant, but as a speck on the horizon you’re fukt

    • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      From my understanding it’s easier to use brown as a base color and add natural foliage to green it up than it is to have a green base color and add dirt to tan it up.

      Brown is a lot more common close to the ground than you might think even in summer but it’s especially useful when you consider using the suit in fall and early spring.

      Ghillie suits are meant to make you vaguely look like a grassy blob. Humans are really good at picking out the shape of a human head/shoulder area so the suit makes that disappear.

    • Baylahoo@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Should’ve retired like 40 years ago. I hope she was able to pass on that skill set already. I hope this was a case of “that’s what I wanted to do today” and not a case of “that’s what has to happen today”. When at war, I can understand that priorities change. She probably has a strong bond to going above and beyond for her country, but no one should have to feel that way. I have great respect for her, and I feel great sadness that her skills are even needed currently.