I don’t fly as well as I used to. I beat sunrise by several hours this morning in Florida to catch my plane to Las Vegas for the 2022 SHOT Show, with a two hour layover in Louisville that became three with a delay. I finally arrived at McCarran Airport just as the sun was beginning to set over the mountains. The airport is named for Democratic Senator Pat McCarran, who drained large amounts of money from DC to help develop Las Vegas in the 1950s. Now the airport is being renamed Harry Reid International after it was suddenly revealed that McCarran was a self-confessed racist, anti-Semite and xenophobia. We can probably count on fifty to sixty years from now they’ll suddenly discover that Harry was a really bad guy too and they’ll rename the airport yet again.
Luckily, the airport itself is pretty much free of discernible traces of racism, anti-Semitism, or xenophobia, and I’m surprised McCarran’s prosecutors haven’t asked for the entire place to be rebuilt because it bears the taint of such things in its previous naming.
The Hitman On The Run Room with a view
Anyway, I arrived at the Tropicana Hotel, which is a throwback to the heyday of 1960’s Las Vegas. Elvis Presley filmed part of Viva Law Vegas at the hotel. James Bond stayed at the Tropicana in Diamonds Are Forever and the casino scenes in the first two God Father films were also filmed at the hotel. It still retains some of that charm despite numerous renovations and as a Hilton property. With a certain irony, I realized that the view from my room looks like you’re getting a mafia hitman hiding until things cool down.
I was never promised a luxury trip when I applied for this job and now I know why.
After dropping my gear and having a drink I went to the Venetian where the convention center rooms didn’t seem nearly ready for the showroom just a day before SHOT and all I know is people will be working on it all night to do it like this. There are millions of dollars worth of firearms at this event and security must be a nightmare to keep all those firearms safe.
I’d gotten my show passes at the airport, but not the lanyard and case that came with the Venetian, God knows why. Except they only had lanyards and no covers (insert COVID and supply chain apology here).
Las Vegas is open for business or trying to be in the midst of ridiculous mask rules that enforcers at the hotels seem almost embarrassed about, so go with a mask and then sit down at the slots, take the mask off and have a drink and light up four feet away from passers-by wearing masks at Arturo Fuente Special. It’s all like believing in the tooth fairy at this point, it’s stupid and we all know it doesn’t make sense, but we just go with it anyway.
A benefit to a worthy charity
At 7pm I was at a charity event for SOC-F or the Special Operations Care Fund, a great charity that does great work for wounded Special Operations Veterans. So if you have a few bucks to spare, help them out. Rather than being a fancy gala with black ties and limousines, this fundraiser was held at The Leatherneck Club in the city’s Korea Town area, a few miles from the Strip. Right across from the Leatherneck Club was an Asian massage parlor and we all wondered which came first?
The garage bar with the most Marine Corps around the world
Try to imagine the garage bar with the most dedication to the Marine Corps in the entire world and you’re just getting the idea of this place. It’s a bar, restaurant, museum and shrine to fallen Marines. On the wall were several photos of naval commanders with handwritten inscriptions, giving this place more than just a local following. Given that the Marine Corps itself was founded in a tavern, it seems very fitting that this place exists, just not in Las Vegas, but then it’s Las Vegas and everything you can think of is here.
Would you like to see a tribute to the Beatles performed by trained beagles? You are booked for March.
I arrived just after 7pm, fashionably late, and the place was just beginning to fill up. There were more beards in this place in an hour than at an Amish wedding. I went around and shook hands with enough people that my hand started to hurt a little, military people all tend to shake hands pretty hard.
The party was presented by Sons of Liberty Gun Works (SOLGW), BE Meyers, Big Tex Ordnance and Presscheck Consulting. Ticket sales were through Soldier Systems Daily.
Bringing home the thirteen soldiers killed in the Kabul airport bombing.
I had several very interesting conversations with different participants, but one really stood out. Joe Nassetta was a big guy with a mustache like a Wild West gunslinger. He is a firearms instructor at Gunsite Academy in Paulden, Arizona, one of the oldest private handgun schools in the county. It was founded in 1976 by legendary weapons expert Jeff Cooper. His courses were so good they earned college credit at the University of Phoenix. Gunsite had students like the King of Jordan and the head of the NRA among their alumni, so these guys are the pros when it comes to the art of pistol and rifle handling. Joe himself joined the Army at 17, went to college, and then became an officer and F-16 pilot in the National Guard. He spent 18 years flying for them, was stationed in Iraq several times, and now pulls the stick on a Boeing 747 that hauls cargo. Joe and his crew flew in from Kabul during the recent evacuation and eventually returned to Dover Air Force Base the remains of the thirteen soldiers, sailors and Marines killed in the suicide airport bombing that also killed about 160 civilians.
He said it was the proudest moment of his flying career. Outside of his day job, he works as an instructor for Gunsite in Arizona. As if flying cargo around the world wasn’t challenging enough.
Anyway, you meet some pretty interesting people at the SHOT Show and we’ll have more to come. If you haven’t already checked out our social media pages like Instagram, we have some things there for you to check out.
And stay tuned, we also have a very special interview scheduled while we’re here.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting our veteran editorial by becoming a SOFREP subscriber. Click here Join SOFREP now for only $0.50/week.