You are correct, Joel, there is nothing to "lie" about and no purpose in
lying or covering up. Let's supposed for a minute that he was able to hide
his medical condition from everyone and ended up in the water at Wakulla. It
would not have been as a gas diver, and I will list the reasons why if the
Texas crowd wants to hear what my concerns and the concerns of other team
members were about Gol. But if he had been in the water, and he had died, it
sure as hell would not have been from diving an unmarked bottle or a bottle
of pure helium. That would never had been allowed in the water. We sort and
check all the bottles before they leave the shore. They are then placed, and
the protocol is for teams to do a fly by of their bottles on their way in to
make sure they are in the right spot. If not, they move them. We start our
dives on a deep deco gas so this does not effect bottom gas consumption.

If he had died with no apparent reason, I guarantee you one of my guys, like
Bill Mee for example, would have figured it out and directed the coroner
what to look for, and I would have gotten involved, as this would lose us a
permit. At least I would have shown it was not some logistical error, but
that I got screwed and cheated, like Dave did. I still would have been
booted for not enforcing my own rules.

The only reason the State of Florida tolerates me with the shower of
continuous complaints they get about me is because the complaints continue
to assure them that I am a total asshole when it comes to how I run my show.
They actually insist that I run the WKPP, but they will not even talk to me.
They only talk to Casey McKinlay, the Project Coordinator. That permit is in
Casey's name.

Had Gol died there, then I would indeed be a "lair" for letting him dive. I
just got lucky with this one and only because I have had it with my own team
and have cracked down severely at the request of the entire BOD. If he had
gotten in and done support and been killed, I would still have been booted
out.

Gol is the liar, the cheat and the thief here. He proved what so many people
have been saying about the WKPP - that we are full of shit and that my guys
ignore me and do it their way ( Chuck calls it "thinking for themselves")
when I am not on the scene. My hard core does not, but then that is a small
, elite group whom I trust.

I have taken everyone off the "roster" now until I interview them and dive
with them other than my top pros that I am comfortable with, and these are
guys who are either solid as a rock , like JJ, or guys who have a life ,
family and responsibilities and are seasoned pros at the same time who have
long ago dismissed their resentment of my style, and have adapted the same
level of intolerance for strokes is a game where you die if you lose.

Chuck was not qualified to play that game, and neither is anyone in Texas
other than Landon in my opinion, and my opinion is all that counts when my
ass is on the line. As you well know , Joel, from your diving with the WKPP,
I do not cut anyone any slack about anything. You did a great job for us,
and I wish you were still active.

I lead from the front, and I take a personal interest in my guys. I worked
JJ over about starting his agency and businesses until he did it ( ask JJ
what the card said that I gave him when he graduated from college) , I
hammered Casey about being a dive bum and Pizza Hut manager until he quit ,
went to Business School, got a great job making lots of money, and came back
to run the Project for me. These guys sure hated me at the time, but they
will tell you that asshole or not, I am a serious guy, and generally always
right, have pushed them to the limit in every aspect of diving and their
lives , but then I am 50 years old, and have had the benefit of a lot of
"been there done that" on all sides of the table, good, bad and ugly.

The "Houston Cavers" cyberdivers and resort divers need to take a seat and
STFU.

-----Original Message-----
From: Joel Markwell [mailto:joeldm@mi*.co*]
Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2001 7:40 PM
To: Chuck Noe; Trey
Cc: quest@gu*.co*; Techdiver; Houston Cavers
Subject: Re: DIR Fatalities


What a tiresome load of crap. More People-Who-Hate-George . . . .

Chuck, if you actually had the "evidence" of Trey's lies then why didn't you
present it up front? What you wrote and have written to date is not
evidence, it's hearsay and your opinion.

My impression is that you appear to believe that Jonathan was still an
active WKPP, cleared to dive by George. Yet, according to George, he was not
an active, cleared diver and no one on his team told anyone that Gol was
cleared and that they must have heard that from Jonathan, not anyone on the
team. Do you have any evidence that Jonathan had categorically been cleared
to dive with the WKPP other than Jonathan's word? You keep referring to a
"roster", where did they see this roster?

If your evidence on this is that someone told you from inside the WKPP. I've
been involved in a lot of volunteer groups over the years and it's very
common for the "word" to be the opposite of what the reality is. Unless
Jonathan was cleared by Trey and you heard it from him, then it's reasonable
to assume that he was not cleared to dive with the team. I can't see any way
you can prove it unless you can show where Trey sent Jonathan a note saying
when and where he was diving. Anything else is hearsay.

I also note that you are claiming that George raises the non-DIR, BS flag on
other diving deaths when the report comes back that they died of a "heart
attack," the catch-all cause of death in techdiving these days, yet because
Jonathan was at one time at least a WKPP member and died on a cave dive that
George is a hypocrite for claiming that Jonathan's death was health-related.

It's now well known, largely thanks to this discussion, that Jonathan was
gravely ill. And the assumption among all those I had spoken with, including
a close friend of Jonathan's, was that he probably died of an overpressure
injury that was probably related to his illness and that he had probably
returned to diving too soon (any time the fallout from an illness kills you,
you returned too soon). Isn't that exactly what Trey was saying right up to
the day you started into your attack? Where exactly is the hypocrisy you're
talking about?

It seems to me from reading all of this thread on Techdiver that you are
trying to score points against George, not to intelligently discuss this
incident. And NO ONE has satisfactorily explained why the hell he had (if he
had) a bottle of 100% helium, can you? And aren't YOU jumping the gun with a
report that is apparently not complete?

And if that is true, how does that make George a liar about the health
concerns when that was what was being reported by anyone "in the know" like
yourself up until a few days ago -- unless the person I was speaking with
was lying or hiding things from me, which I doubt.

I don't get it. I think if JJ's the head of the WKPP and there's no George,
Chuck and Rich don't blame the WKPP or refer to this as a WKPP accident. It
just looks like a vendetta against a guy whom they hate. George is often an
asshole about these things, yes. He's insensitive, yes. But how is this
suddenly a WKPP problem? This wasn't a WKPP-sponsored dive was it?

Finally, it's just more of the BS that I hate about cave diving. We have one
group that is objectively the most successful cave diving exploration group
in the world with a brash, abrasive and irritating leader with absolutely no
online manners (a common condition, BTW) and yet who promotes safety and
effective diving techniques that almost everyone agrees, work.

On the other hand we have a guy or group of guys who have an axe to grind.
That doesn't mean you're exaggerating or lying or jumping to conclusions,
but it sounds bad. Maybe everything you say IS honest and correct and
presented with the best of intentions, but by getting into a petty,
profanity-laced argument online without any real proof other than your word,
you make it impossible for anyone who might be neutral in this discussion to
believe you. If you're right, you screwed-up.

For myself, I prefer an effective asshole over a friendly incompetent where
things like cave diving are concerned. My skydiving instructor was an
asshole and so was my karate instructor. That's probably why I liked the
Patton figure so much. He was an overbearing ass, but he's the ass you'd
call when you have Germans in your backyard.

If you guys really have anything solid to add other than bitching at George
then let's hear it, but this carping at George when there appears to be
nothing to gain except maybe proving that he's an jerk (or that you are) is
a complete and utter waste of time.

You want to flush out a liar, ask the folks over at the CDS or the IUCRR why
it is that over a year ago they publicly made a promise to me on these lists
(Cavers, I think) to release the diving accident data that Jeff Bozanic has
been sitting on for years to the public. That never happened, despite nearly
daily efforts and reminders of that promise: NADA. That's something that
could actually do some good, a searchable database of cave diving accidents
that cave divers could refer to for safety info. What a great learning tool
that could be. Wouldn't that be a good use of your energies instead of this
Holy Grail search for proof that GIII is a liar?

And if he is, so what? Are the lies relevant? The only thing that is
relevant is whether or not you'd trust GIII in a water-filled cave with you
and I can answer that one easily.

There is a real lack of focus on this list. We have a dead diver and you
guys are arguing personalities. George engages in hyperbole, gee, you guys
really blew the lid off that one, congratulations!

JoeL


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