BONUS EPISODE: The Battle of Checkpoint Pasta
The Italian military suffers its first combat casualties since WWII while engaged in a stupid, quixotic, and self-sabotaging "peacekeeping mission" in Somalia c. 1993. And the battle took place in an abandoned Barilla pasta factory. Yes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Biddle, Stephen "The Somali National Alliance in Somalia, 1992–94". Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militia
Tripodi, Paolo (2 August 1999). The Colonial Legacy in Somalia: Rome and Mogadishu: from Colonial Administration to Operation Restore Hope.
https://brigatafolgore.net/en/2-july-1993-the-battle-of-the-check-point-pasta/
https://www.ilfaroonline.it/2018/07/02/2-luglio-1993-attacco-mogadiscio-ceckpoint-pasta/228435/
Comments (59)
Nnngh Tom I'm a good boy 😩
Houses know what they did.
Tom's Arthur and Dutch are fantastic. (It IS him as Dutch too, right?)
Re probbo relationship with certain vehicles...Ford Rangers. Never seen one near or on a site except for a site of road rage.
You're not wrong about motorcycles being dangerous... but also I love it and it's really good for my mental health. I am very careful and defensive though.
LAW AND ORDER: EQUINE VICTIMS UNIT
I can't find Bloodwork podcast, link my brethren
https://www.patreon.com/cw/BloodWorkShow
The red dead redemption remix is fucking awesome
I think you meant impasta syndrome
YASSSS Gregkkk Also I have a horse. She’s as old as me and just… chills. 😂 I don’t care much for them tbh
Joe
Barillacades
I feel like the Italians already demonstrated the need for such tight RoE with the whole attack helicopter blue on blue and the firing guns into the air and killing people things. If they had been authorized to use their tanks, they would have no doubt leveled a good chunk of that urban center and probably vaporized the entire Pakistani contingent with rockets. This really seems like a case of the UN attempting to bend it's RoE to silence extremely light Somali criticism and then reaping the consequences of "a bunch of people who already don't like you just watched you swing your dick around and no longer have the option of disagreeing politely cause you shut down their radio station."
Mortarcycle: a new innovation in Technical technology
I've had similar thoughts about the relationship between smartphones/social media and road rage
Nate sounds weird in this episode
As a Pakistani, hearing about Pakistani troops hitting grenades like they were playing cricket makes my heart swell with pride
I'll agree with Joe on his problematic vehicle of choice. I'm a nurse and a rider and I constantly hear it from my coworkers about how dangerous it is. I understand that it is, I just enjoy it too much.
Brazilians at the gym are an interesting demographic. I once saw a Brazilian squat 405 in a pair of flip-flops.
I see a April's joke of Blackhawk down, but it's just them riffing on the movie
One thing I'd personally really like is links to episodes you mention during the show. Sometimes you mention one I haven't seen then if I forgot to write it down I have to listen thru the whole episode again to find it. I don't know how feasible that is, tho.
Loot boxes of pasta might be my new love language
A year's supply of bucatini in a crate is now on my wish list.
Did Tom actually reference Skyline Chili from Cincinnati in the Arthur Morgan bit, or did I mishear?
YES! I read this thread & restarted cause I zoned out & that hit me. 0:52
I feel like this is foreshadowing the whole movie black hawk down…
They used the fella guns on the fella trucks to shoot down a fella copter
FOB - Fella Operating Base
Please for the love of god just make a relaxed gym podcast already!! We all want it!!
More guests on bonus episodes!
Aaaayyyy wassamaddawidyou bachagaloop I eat-a da pasta and i get caught-a in-a da ambush aaaayyyy
The circle of theft
I'd love it if Joe could do a Brian Fellows safari plant skit, but it's just horses in the skit. I think it'd be fun to see horses in thought bubbles talking shit.
Somali Marxism: when the Soviet Union pays for things. Oops, no more Soviet Union! Good thing history just ended, though…
Perhaps Somalia would have done better with rural-peasant-based Maoism than with urban-proletariat-based Leninism? I mean yes Mao did have a famine, too, but at least the peasants collectively did the famine to themselves instead of having it done to them by urbanites! Though yes also 1992 does seem like a really stupid time to have a Great Leap Forward…
It's okay, just rotate the horse in your mind, but sensually
horse h o r s e h o r s e h o r s e esroh e s r o h e s r o h e s r o h horse Like that? (btw the secret to keeping whitespace from getting stripped out of comment fields is to sprinkle “zero width space” characters between regular space characters and between line breaks. See https://zerowidthspace.me)
Italian horses? Or Italian _Horses_ (2025)? Big difference!
Hey Joe your description says world War I and not world War II
Signor President, my pasta factory, it yearns for freedom…
The guy who owns that plumbing company has gotten a shitton of death threats because of that, which is a perfect demonstration of dumbass American shit.
A plumber gets a shitton you say?
I actually cheered at Tom getting to do his Arthur Morgan voice
Italians and uncomfortably sensual discussions about horses? What is this, AJ Ditty's Horse Corner? *cue theme*
Sig. Mani
Every episode of this show is like: "Let's talk about the goofy story! But first, we must talk about the depressing context."
Then: We pause this goofy story to relate the heroic sacrifice of one of the individual soldiers we were previously mocking as a group.
Cheetahs in captivity, like zoos have terrible anxiety. They legit have service animals. They find dogs with good temperament and puppies from shelters to raise with them or just be their anxiety buddies. Casual Geographic has a great video about it!
I mean domestic cats get lonely, too, so most shelters recommend adopting more than one cat so that you don’t have a lonely single cat on your hands. Kittens can be fine with adult dog companions, though, and adult cats can be fine with puppies. Kittens and puppies are indefatigable!
Italy taking heat in East Africa like its 1895🔥
The title of this is just the bee's knees
"But sir, that's pasta the point of no return!"
“GODDAMMIT ARTHUR CAN YOU BOIL YOU THE LINGUINE ANY QUIETER?!”
DONK TIME!!!!!
*blasting pizza time*
Since WW2* cant let the pasta's off the hook now can we lol.
Antebellum antipasti
First comment 😂