Cafasso and the radsafe group at Vanderbilt University

Radsafe is, to my understanding of it, an international e-mail list devoted to the topic of radiation protection (health physics). This is a list to whom Cafasso has represented himself as a PHD of nuclear physics or some type of science. Cafasso, for the record, never got even a BS or a Masters degree, let alone a PHD in anything. The thing is; and this is the clincher; when he engratiates himself among very well-bred, well-read intellectuals, they are missing key ingredients that would vet him; which is how he's able to perpetrate the fraud so convincingly: a) they are book-smart, not street-smart and b) most of them have had little if any brushes with anything military. For those two reasons, in my opinion, this charade is allowed to continue unchecked; and when they begin to suspect something, he realizes the 'jig is up', and quickly withdraws and moves on.

Here is a fascinating exchange within the Radsafe group exemplifying his bravado. He forwarded a familiar email about the conditions in Iraq, how you could mimic them at home to prepare for deployment. It's apparent Cafasso isn't very well-versed in European politics enough to realize they're anti-American on the whole; particularly the scientists and teachers at the universities. However, he has a surprising number of people warmly responding, having been former military themselves.

Cafasso has never had a passport or been out of the country, perhaps another reason why his out-of-countrol jealousy of Jack Idema is so ingrained.

This is how it begins; with Gerry Blackwood aka Cafasso talking about 'how to prepare for a deployment to Iraq'.

How to Prepare for a Deployment to Iraq

* To: radsafe@list.Vanderbilt.Edu
* Subject: How to Prepare for a Deployment to Iraq
* From: "Gerry Blackwood"
* Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 01:01:10 -0800 (PST)
* Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 03:07:53 -0600
* Cc: P.Caram@verizon.net
* Reply-To: "Gerry Blackwood"
* Sender: owner-radsafe@list.Vanderbilt.Edu

How to Prepare for a Deployment to Iraq

1. Sleep on a cot in the garage.

2. Replace the garage door with a curtain.

3. Six hours after you go to sleep, have your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend whip open the curtain, shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble, "Sorry, wrong cot."

4. Renovate your bathroom. Hang a green plastic sheet down from the middle of your bathtub and move the showerhead down to chest level. Keep four inches of
soapy cold water on the floor. Stop cleaning the toilet and pee everywhere but in the toilet itself. Leave two to three sheets of toilet paper. Or for best effect, remove it altogether. For a more realistic deployed bathroom experience, stop using your bathroom and use a neighbor's. Choose a neighbor who lives at least a quarter mile away.

5. When you take showers, wear flip-flops and keep the lights off.

6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, go sit in a wobbly rocking chair and dump dirt on your head.

7. Put lube oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it on "HIGH" for that tactical generator smell.

8. Don't watch TV except for movies in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.

9. Leave a lawnmower running in your living room 24 hours a day for proper noise level.

10. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

11. Once a week, blow compressed air up through your chimney making sure the wind carries the soot across and on to your neighbor's house. Laugh at him when he
curses you.

12. Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

13. Wake up every night at midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a saltine cracker.

14. Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without looking in your food cabinets or refrigerator. Then serve some kind of meat in an unidentifiable sauce
poured over noodles. Do this for every meal.

15. Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. When it goes off, jump out of bed and get to the shower as fast as you can. Simulate there is
no hot water by running out into your yard and breaking out the garden hose.

16. Once a month, take every major appliance completely apart and put it back together again.

17. Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for five or six hours before drinking.

18. Invite at least 185 people you don't really like because of their strange hygiene habits to come and visit for a couple of months. Exchange clothes with them.

19. Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.

20. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either trip over the threshold or hit your head on the sill every time you pass through one of them.

21. Keep a roll of toilet paper on your night stand and bring it to the bathroom with you. And bring your gun and a flashlight.

22. Go to the bathroom when you just have to pass gas, "just in case." Every time.

23. Announce to your family that they have mail, have them report to you as you stand outside your open garage door after supper and then say, "Sorry, it's for the other Smith."

24. Wash only 15 items of laundry per week. Roll up the semi-wet clean clothes in a ball. Place them in a cloth sack in the corner of the garage where the cat pees. After a week, unroll them and without ironing or removing the mildew, proudly wear them to professional meetings and family gatherings. Pretend you don't know what you look or smell like. Enthusiastically repeat the process for another week.

25. Go to the worst crime-infested place you can find, go heavily armed, wearing a flak jacket and a Kevlar helmet. Set up shop in a tent in a vacant lot. Announce to the residents that you are there to help them.

26. Eat a single M&M every Sunday and convince yourself it's for Malaria.

27. Demand each family member be limited to 10 minutes per week for a morale phone call. Enforce this with your teenage son/daughter.

28. Shoot a few bullet holes in the walls of your home for proper ambiance.

29. Sandbag the floor of your car to protect from mine blasts and fragmentation.

30. While traveling down roads in your car, stop at each overpass and culvert and inspect them for remotely detonated explosives before proceeding.

31. Fire off 50 cherry bombs simultaneously in your driveway at 3:00 a.m. When startled neighbors appear, tell them all is well, you are just registering mortars. Tell them plastic will make an acceptable substitute for their shattered windows.

32. Drink your milk and sodas warm.

33. Spread gravel throughout your house and yard.

34. Make your children clear their Super Soakers in a clearing barrel you placed outside the front door before they come in.

35. Make your family dig a survivability position with overhead cover in the backyard. Complain that the 4x4s are not 8 inches on center and make them rebuild it.

36. When your 5-year-old asks for a stick of gum, have him find the exact stick and flavor he wants on the Internet and print out the web page. Type up a Material
Request Form and staple the web page to the back. Submit the paperwork to your spouse for processing. After two weeks, give your son a different kind of gum.

38. Announce to your family that the dog is a vector for disease and shoot it. Throw the dog in a burn pit you dug in your neighbor's back yard.

39. Wait for the coldest/ hottest day of the year and announce to your family that there will be no heat/air conditioning that day so you can perform much needed maintenance on the heater/ air conditioner. Tell them you are doing this so they won't get cold/ hot.

40. Just when you think you're ready to resume a normal life, order yourself to repeat this process for another six months to simulate the next deployment
you've been ordered to support.

The response is quite extraordinary from some, but it would seem they're beginning to tire of his prolific chest-beating.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I posted this to the site not as spam or to get insulting e-mail in retuen. Many of us served in the military and in Iraq either now or back in the 90s. This email while funny to those who understand it was also very close to reality. BTW, I recived this from a Company Commander currently serving in Baghdad. he thought it was a hoot.

While we are all scientist in one form or another many of us served and understand what this really means. While we are all safe at home right now many of our sons and daughter are in harms way. Remember that.

Gerry Blackwood Ph.D
Lt.Col USA ret

Crikey! Just giving lip service to that by saying "many of our sons and daughters are in harm's way". Indeed. We haven't forgotten the treatment of Jack Idema, Brent Bennett and Ed Caraballo at the Stuporpatriots website. The hatred of Idema was so intense, it extended to rabid cheers for the other two Americans, including the journalist Peter Bergen called "blameless". How can one give lip service to those in harm's way and cheer for others being tortured and illegally imprisoned? Are we to presume it depends upon the psuedonym you invoke? The wanker never gives it a rest. This one sure gives him the what-for;

Mr Blackwood,

You seem to forget that the RADSAFE list is a list for radiation professionals. PLEASE EXPLAIN, WHY YOU SENT THIS S++T TO THIS LIST!!!!! Your message has nothing to do with radiation protection. Sending this to the list could only be excused by that you were intoxicated by either ethanol or some other drugs. I really do hope that Mike will tell you about how to behave on this list!!!!!

I really do hope that you got a lot of what you call "insulting e-mails", because this would indicate that a large number of RADSAFErs are insulted by your unexcusable message. That your message is not spam - you seem not to know, what "spam" is - can be easily recognized.

Furthermore you seem to forget that this list is open to all international participants. If you intend to do pro"American" propaganda, please do it on another list or create a new one. "We" Europeans are not interested in it. And during my last visit to the USA a few months ago I found, that without exceptions nobody of my friends supported the US-propaganda on Iraq.

Commenting on the content of the "message": If US-soldiers do not like the conditions in Iraq, they can always take to mutiny. They are well payed for being there. NOBODY HAS ASKED THEM TO GO THERE, EXCEPT THEIR PRESIDENT. They have waged "war" there without the consent of the United Nations, pretending that Iraq had a stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction - though everybody knew, that they had none and never any such weapons have been found. Direct your complaints to your president and his supporters. Nobody has asked US troops and their very few allies to kill tens of thousands of Iraqis - except their president.

If your contact person regards this as a "hoot" it is really ridiculous. Tell him that he is a shame to the United States.

This e-mail is not funny (how can you dare to say that!), but it is a slap into the face of any educated person. I hope that nobody at RADSAFE regards this as funny and even if it is close to reality I do not see any reason why it should be funny. This is the reality and if US troops do not like it they simply should stay out.

----------------------------------
Many of us served in the military and in Iraq either now or back in the 90s.

I have not served and I guess that most of the RADSAFE community has not served - take it to the appropriate Iraqi war list. I can hardly imagine that anybody will regard your message as funny. Enjoy your "Company Commanders" hoot, but do not bother us with his s++t.
---------------------------------------------
While we are all scientist in one form or another many of us served and understand what this really means. While we are all safe at home right now many of our
sons and daughter are in harms way. Remember that.
-------------------------
I refuse to accept you as a scientist "in one form or another" on the grounds of your inhuman opinion. If you served it is your problem and you should try to overcome it with psychological help. If others served it was as with you a part of their contract and there is nothing to complain about. Your complaint about "your" sons and daugthers I simply regard ridiculous - they subscribed to the army and if they are killed it is a part of their contract, the same way it is for fire fighters. Nevertheless international sources talk about 24 000 Iraqis killed during the US agression.

Be ashamed!!!!!

Franz (no titles, Mr. Lt.Col USA ret.!)



Gerry Blackwood Ph.D
Lt.Col USA ret

This is where we end, although there is more. You can google it up. Radsafe moved from the University of Illinois at Champaign to Vanderbilt, and then in 2005, onto Delft University in the Netherlands. Searchable archives at Vanderbilt will only be maintained for a short time, so get it while it's hot.

Joe Cafasso