TheList 5302

The List 5302 TGB




Good Friday Morning May 1. I hope that you have all had a good week. I hope all the Bubbas are doing well and I will miss you this morning.

Regards,

skip



This day in Naval History May 1



1811 The American brig Spitfire is stopped by the British frigate Guerriere off Sandy Hook, N.Y., and the American seamen are taken aboard. On May 6, the frigate President, commanded by John Rodgers, was ordered to protect American shipping off Sandy Hook.



1822 60 men from USS Alligator, USS Grampus, and the chartered ship Jane, capture four pirate schooners near Sugar Key, West Indies.



1898 The American squadron, commanded by Commodore George Dewey, defeats the Spanish squadron under the command of Rear Adm. Montojo at Manila Bay, Philippines.



1934 Lt. Frank Akers makes a hooded landing in an OJ-2 at College Park, Maryland, in the first blind landing system intended for an aircraft carrier.



1943 USS Pogy (SS 266), in attack on a Japanese convoy, torpedoes and sinks the Japanese gunboat Keishin Maru off Iwaki, Japan.



1945 Bomber aircraft from VPB 11 and FAW-1 sink Japanese cargo vessel Kyugkoku Maru off Mokpo, Korea.



1951 During the Korean War, AD-4 Skyraiders from Squadron VA-195, USS Princeton (CV-37), attack Hwachon Dam using aerial torpedoes, the only use of these weapons during the Korean War.



1980 - 11 Navy ships begin operations assisting Coast Guard in rescuing Cuban refugees fleeing Cuba in overcrowded boats





Thanks to CHINFO



Executive Summary:

• Multiple outlets reported on the Navy's announcement that Fincantieri has been awarded a $795 million contract to begin building the Navy's new class of guided-missile frigates.

• Breaking Defense reports that Acting Navy Secretary James McPherson intends to keep several of his predecessor's initiatives to transform the composition of the fleet.

• Commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa Adm James Foggo highlighted the need for military exercises to learn lessons from COVID-19 and prepare for future pandemics, reports USNI News.





Today in History May 1



408

Theodosius II succeeds to the throne of Constantinople.


1308

King Albert is murdered by his nephew John, because he refused his share of the Habsburg lands.


1486

Christopher Columbus convinces Queen Isabella to fund expedition to the West Indies.


1805

The state of Virginia passes a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk either imprisonment or deportation.


1863

The Battle of Chancellorsville begins as Union Gen. Joe Hooker starts his three-pronged attack against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.


1867

Reconstruction in the South begins with black voter registration.


1877

President Rutherford B. Hayes withdraws all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.


1898

The U.S. Navy under Commodore George Dewey defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines.


1915

The luxury liner Lusitania leaves New York Harbor for a voyage to Europe.


1927

Adolf Hitler holds his first Nazi meeting in Berlin.


1931

The Empire State Building opens in New York.


1934

The Philippine legislature accepts a U.S. proposal for independence.


1937

President Franklin Roosevelt signs an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.


1941

The film Citizen Kane--directed and starring Orson Welles--opens in New York.


1944

The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first combat jet, makes its first flight.


1945

Martin Bormann, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, escapes the Fuehrerbunker as the Red Army advances on Berlin.


1948

North Korea is established.


1950

Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry called Annie Allen.


1960

Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane is shot down over Russia.


1961

Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba.


1968

In the second day of battle, U.S. Marines, with the support of naval fire, continue their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.


1970

Students from Kent State University riot in downtown Kent, Ohio, in protest of the American invasion of Cambodia.


1986

The Tass News Agency reports the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.


2011

Osama Bin Laden is killed in Abbottabad Pakistan by US Navy SEALS in Operation Neptune Spear.




1898 The Battle of Manila Bay »


1931


Empire State Building dedicated




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30 April 1975 Many call this the Day of Sorrow – many call it, also, the Day of Betrayal –

From the net, with a small addition -

Thanks to Dutch

The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973. How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an agreed stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification. The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military, NOT American military running for their lives. There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 than there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. Thanks for the perceived loss and the countless assassinations and torture visited upon Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians goes mainly to the American media and their undying support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War movement in the United States. As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media – especially Walter Cronkite - misreported and misinterpreted the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was reported as an overwhelming success for the Communist forces and a decided defeat for the U.S. forces. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite initial victories by the Communists forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those forces. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the designer of the Tet Offensive, is considered by some as ranking with Wellington, Grant, Lee and MacArthur as a great commander. Still, militarily, the Tet Offensive was a total defeat of the Communist forces on all fronts. It resulted in the death of some 45,000 NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of the Viet Cong elements in South Vietnam. The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in the South never recovered. The Tet Offensive succeeded on only one front and that was the News front and the political arena. This was another example in the Vietnam War of an inaccuracy becoming the perceived truth. However, inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous.



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Thanks to Mike

I Like the Thoughts...



Food for thought from a friend…and potential for compassionate adaptation.





Go USA!



Thankfully as a nation this crisis is causing us to reevaluate our priorities: faith, family, community and freedom; and seeing the easy dispatch of liberty also reignites that oft forgotten flickering flame…



Journalists are less important than janitors. Our nation's best athletes are healthcare workers rushing to assist those in need The true heroes are not celebrities, but rather farmers, truck drivers, stock clerks, and supermarket cashiers.



The most valuable businesses do not glitter or present themselves with self-congratulatory award shows; they do today what they have always done to keep our food supply flowing. Perhaps now, at least for a few short weeks, we stop taking them for granted.

Effective right now comfortably invisible workers are recognized as critical priorities; or as the government has officially designated them "essential services." These folks form the network of our lives; they always have, but we didn't notice. Everything else is less than.

The average hard-working American is worth more today than all those who chase the golden statues of Hollywood; and ultimately if they want to go down the superiority path… well, what they provide is essentially useless.



Florida Power and Light won the prestigious International Edward Demming award for excellence in multi-platform engineering and efficiency superiority. They didn't blow every PhD intellectual out of the water with slide rules, CAD programs and engineering acumen. They did it with hard hats and dirty fingernails.



Because they lost the award, the Japanese spent 6 months studying FPL and later published a 1,000 page dissertation essentially saying FPL "wasn't really good, they were just lucky"….. FPL field leadership laughed, took out markers and wrote on the back of their hard hats: "WE'RE NOT GOOD, WE'RE RUCKY"….



When every single Kuwaiti oil field was blown up by Saddam Hussein, they said it would take over five years to cap them all off and restart their oil pumping industry. The Kuwaitis and Saudis called Texans, who had them all capped and back in working order in ten months.



We are a nation that knows how to get shit done.



When the Northern Chile mine workers were trapped two miles underground, they said no-one could save them. Who did they call for help? A bunch of hick miners from USA coal country who went down there, worked on the fly, engineered the rescue equipment on site, and saved every one of them….



That's our America.

Don't lose sight of it.



When a half-breed Islamic whack job, armed with an AK-47 and a goal to meet his virgins, begins opening fire on a train in France, the Americans on board didn't run to the nearest safe room and hide themselves amid baguettes and brie. They said "let's go", and beat the stuffing out of that little nut with a death wish.

Legion d'Honneur or not, that's us. That's you.

That's just how we roll.



Lady Liberty can stroll along the Champs-Elysées with a swagger befitting Mae West because without her arrival they'd be speaking German in the Louvre. Yet for the better part of the past decades groups of intellectual something-or-others have been selling an insufferable narrative that it's better to be sitting around a campfire eating sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off each other. Enough!



Ordinary people, just like you and me, gave their lives and crashed flight #93, a commercial airliner, into a field in Shanksville Pennsylvania so they could save our nation's capital. Yeah, I think we can wash our hands, quit touching our faces and stay inside for a few days.



In case you missed it, it wasn't FEMA driving jacked-up monster trucks into the flooded neighborhoods around Houston Texas to rescue people from their homes; it was a bunch of glorious rednecks assembled like the second division of the Cajun Navy… which also just happens to be a fabulous bunch of shallow water boat operators who convoy their gear voluntarily into the aftermath of hurricanes and floods.

That's America folks; in all her magnificent colorblind glory.

Git-r'-done ain't government.



Quoting from Bart Hall:

Truckers are saying "f--k the log rules, I'm hauling" and they're getting supplies to the stores. People are stocking the shelves all night and letting old people shop first. Folks are buying meals for truckers, who (obviously) can't go through the drive-ups. Asking 'em what they want, then buying it for them.



Carnival Cruise Line has told Trump "We can match those big Navy Hospital ships with some fully staffed cruise ships"

GM and Ford have said "hold our cars and watch this — we can make ventilators where we were just making car parts, starting next week" — by re-engineering seat ventilators which their engineers hacked together for a new purpose. In under a week.

In a project with which I'm loosely associated, a very-effective agricultural disease-control agent was re-purposed and re-labeled specifically for Corona-virus control by the FDA and EPA in under ten days, from initial request to distribution.

Restaurants and schools have said, "we've got kitchens and staff; we can feed the poor kids who used have school lunch."

NBA basketball players have said, "Hold our basketballs while we write checks to pay the arena staff."

Construction companies are saying, "Here are some high-end masks for medical staff and doctors".



Distilleries are making sanitizer out of distilling "heads and tails" which are normally discarded. Nasty shit to drink, but effective sanitizer.

People are tipping grocery check-out clerks and thanking them for taking the risk.



Local, state, and county governments are taking control of everything the feds cannot do. Some are doing it wrong, but for the first time in decades … they're doing it. Federalism is re-emerging, and the smallest unit of government is the individual and the family. This, too, is re-emerging after decades of dormancy.



As Japanese Admiral Isokuru Yamamoto said, after Pearl Harbor … "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."



I sense this has just happened. We have a wonderful country, the greatest single force for good in all human history. We have closed our borders, with good reason, yet we have top medical people now assisting North Korea in their response to the virus.



Many things have been re-set, and will never be the same.

By microbiological accident, we are living in profoundly transformative historical times.



So I ask you a question, what part are you to play?

If you feel comfortable sitting in your socially distant box and bitching about all things that are not right, or might be not be right…. Or, if you prefer to allow yourself to be overcome with dark imaginings simply because what cannot be done is more comfortable than the effort to oversee what needs to be done…. well, that's okay.

You can do that.



And when you're done doing that you'll still be in the same place.



Or, you can check on older neighbors to make sure they are OK and make sure they have necessities. If older neighbors need something at the store, get it for them. Friends and neighbors who are anxious, send them a card or note with positive comments on it. Give people hope. If you don't want to send a card, send an e-mail checking up on people.

Order an extra lunch or dinner from a local restaurant just so you can give a tip to the delivery person who shows up at your door. Then stick the extra in the fridge and eat it tomorrow. We can do this.

No-one is saying this doesn't suck; but some people know that standing around bitching about the comparative values of current life in suckdom doesn't actually accomplish anything.

President Trump is doing what needs to be done; with far more information than me; and in the best manner he can assemble to keep America great. He does this while simultaneously swatting away thousands of piranhas biting at him on an hourly basis.



So again, ask yourself a question: what part are you to play?

Live your best life.

You only have this moment once.





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In the month to come we will be looking at 1942 and the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, The previous MOH note shows how one man might have been pivotal in those battles. Just as the One Marine with a Machine gun survived and stopped the last Japanese suicide charge on the Island of Guadalcanal a few months later.



This helps to feed into the Battle of Midway information which will start soon.

Thanks to Barrett Tillman for putting this together for The List on the Coral Sea Battle and its important relation to the Battle of Midway.



The battle of the Coral Sea.

Most histories treat the first two aircraft carrier battles separately, but in fact they were closely related. Coral Sea directly influenced Midway four weeks later, not only tactically but strategically.

On May 7-8, 1942 two fleets engaged in combat without sighting each other. It had never happened before, and it only occurred four times thereafter. The naval millennium had finally arrived.

The Battle of the Coral Sea began with Japan's thrust toward the Allied base at Port Moresby on New Guinea's southeast coast, opposite Australia. PacFleet intelligence picked up Tokyo's plans, allowing Admiral Chester Nimitz to dispatch the carriers Lexington (CV-2) and Yorktown (CV-5) to intervene. They were opposed by three Japanese flattops: a small one screening the troop transports and a striking arm of two large fleet carriers.

The Americans got in the first blow. On the morning of May 7, a 93-plane strike from both U.S. flattops overwhelmed Japan's small Shoho, which went down in about 20 minutes. Subsequently dive bombers from Vice Adm. Chuichi Naguno's strike force sank a U.S. oiler and destroyer, and that evening another Japanese formation found Vice Adm. Frank Jack Fletcher's force. A dusk dogfight erupted with heavy losses to the Japanese—one or two of whom entered Yorktown's traffic pattern.

The next day was an all-out battle between heavyweights: "Lex" and "Yorky" versus the sisters Shokaku and Zuikaku. Again the Americans struck first, badly damaging Shokaku and mauling her sister's air group. But the Japanese retaliated, inflicting mortal damage on CV-2 and hitting Yorktown with bombs. She limped away, making knots for Pearl where yard crews urgently waited.

Japan's drive at Moresby was thwarted—a strategic win for the U.S. while "Lady Lex" was a far greater loss than little Shoho. Yorktown was sufficiently repaired to make Midway, mainly with beached Saratoga (CV-3) squadrons.

Thus, Coral Sea and Midway remain hand in glove. Had either Shokaku or Zuikaku made the Midway lineup, the battle probably would have been irretrievable for PacFleet.



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Compiled by Brent Hunt, Naval History and Heritage Command's Communication and Outreach Division

Welcome to Navy History Matters—our weekly compilation of articles, commentaries, and blogs related to history and heritage. Every week we'll gather the top-interest items from a variety of media and social media sources and then link you to related content at NHHC's website (history.navy.mil), your authoritative source for Navy history.

H-Gram 029: "April is the Cruelest Month".



T.S. Eliot once wrote, "April is the cruelest month." Although upcoming H-Grams will be chockfull of U.S. Navy victories—Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, Battle of the Philippine Sea, Operation Neptune (Invasion of Normandy), and the capture of U-505—this H-Gram covers a litany of disaster. In his latest H-Gram, Director Sam Cox discusses Exercise Tiger (the deadly rehearsal for the Utah Beach D-Day landings in April 1944); U.S. Navy aircraft losses during the Cold War; the turret explosion on USS Iowa in 1989; and a history of previous U.S. Navy gun, ammunition, and powder accidents. If there is a moral to these incidents, it's that peace or war, training or operation, the Navy is always an inherently dangerous business. To learn more, read H-Gram 029 at the Director's Corner. Also, as promised in last week's edition of Navy History Matters, we've published Exercise Tiger: Disaster at Slapton Sands, an essay by COD's Adam Bisno, at NHHC's World War II: 1944 pages.





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Thanks to Glen



B-47 did you know?

sometimes, you just gotta do it.........

Glenn

Sixty Years Ago, a Pilot Flew a B-47 Nuclear Bomber Under Michigan's Mackinac Bridge



We had a whole wing of those B-47s at MacDill in Florida in the late 50s. I can remember the alarms going off in the housing areas (one was right outside my bedroom window) and then I would wait and sure enough two of the pilots who lived next to us and above us would be slamming doors and running down stairs and starting cars and pealing out. Only minutes later you could hear the B-47s engines starting up and taxiing again close to our house and watch them nose to tail. One right after another and they would pour on the power and take off. They were really loud and smoked like an F-4. We would not see the pilots for over a week as they headed toward Europe to land and complete the exercise. skip



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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS

FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS FOR APRIL 30

THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY



1 May



1913: Army airplanes flew in their second maneuvers, when Lt Thomas DeWitt Milling in a Burgess

tractor and Lt Roy C. Kirtland in a Wright airplane flew reconnaissance from Texas City for the

2d Division. Lt William C. Sherman and Lt Eric L. Ellington rode as observers with Milling

and Kirtland, respectively. (24)



1925: Ward T. Orman and C.K. Wollam won the National Balloon Race at St. Joseph, Mo., landing at

Reform, Ala., after covering a distance of 941.468 kilometers, or 584 miles. (24)



1934: Using a Berliner-Joyce OJ-2, Navy Lt Frank Akers made a blind (instrument only) landing at

College Park to demonstrate a system designed for carrier use. (20)



1941: Barrage balloon operations transferred from the Air Corps to the Coast Artillery Corps.



1943: MEDAL OF HONOR: A bomber, with Sgt Maynard H. Smith as gunner, came under intense

enemy fire while returning from a mission to enemy-occupied Europe. Smith, on his first mission,

elected to fight a fire, administer first aid, man the waist guns, and fight intense flames alternately.

For his actions, Sergeant Smith received his medal. (4)



1945: Operation CHOW HOUND. Eighth Air Force sent nearly 400 B-17s from England on a mercy

mission to drop nearly 700 tons of food over German-occupied Holland. The Germans approved

this flight and promised not to shoot down the bombers if they flew along specified

routes. Eighth and RAF bombers flew five more "Chow Hound" missions during the next week

and delivered nearly 7,900 tons of food. (7)



1958: The Air Force redesignated the Florida Missile Test Range as the Atlantic Missile Range. (6)



1959: Construction of the first Titan I launch and support facilities began at Lowry AFB. (6)



1960: Soviet air defenses shot down a U-2 from Incirlik AB while flying from Pakistan to Norway.

They captured Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pilot Francis Gary Powers near Sverdlovsk.

(4)



1962: SECDEF Robert S. McNamara told the British that the US would not support the Thor squadrons

in England after 31 October 1964. (6)

Construction ended on the first squadron of Model A Minuteman I facilities at Malmstrom AFB.

SAC also activated its third and last Model A squadron, the 490 SMS, there. (6)



1963: The Bell Helicopter Company successfully test flew its Wing Ding, a winged helicopter designed

to lift heavy loads.

The Air Force Weapons Laboratory established from R&D elements of the Air Force Special

Weapons Center and became the tenant unit at Kirtland AFB, N. Mex.

The USAF dedicated the General H. H. Arnold, the first Advanced Range Instrumentation Ship,

at Port Canaveral.

The 6511th Test Group (Parachute) dropped a full size test module of the Apollo manned spacecraft

from a modified C-133 during the first test of the earth landing system. (3)



1964: PROJECT ADDED EFFORT to phaseout first-generation ICBMs began by taking the first

Atlas-D off alert with the 576 SMS at Vandenberg AFB. (6) (12)



1965: The YF-12A (SR-71 prototype) set nine FAI records at Edwards AFB: 2,070.101 MPH for

straightaway speed; 1,642 MPH for a 500-kilometer closed course; 1,688 MPH for a 1,000-kilometer

closed course; and 80,257 feet for sustained altitude in horizontal flight. Col Robert L.

Stevens and Lt Col Daniel Andre set two records, while Maj Walter F. Daniel and Capt James

Cooney set the other two. (3) (9)



1967: A UH-1F helicopter in Ohio completed the first two-way communication to a NASA ground

station in Australia via satellite relay. (16)



1968: ANG tactical refueling units completed a year of overseas duty on a continuous basis without

mobilization. This was the first operation of its type in Guard and Reserve history. (26)



1974: For the first time, a KC-135 refueled a C-5 in an operational setting. (18)



1983: Operations BAHAMAS AND TURKS. MAC's Twenty-Third Air Force supported South

Florida's Task Force on Organized Crime. Two 20 SOS H-1s and aircrews deployed from

Hurlburt Field to the Bahamas, where they flew surveillance missions to help local police capture

drug traffickers. In its first year, the task force seized or destroyed $114 million in cocaine,

$179 million in Marijuana, ten vessels, and 17 aircraft, while apprehending 72 people. (2)



1992: Through 11 May, after race riots in Los Angeles, MAC aircraft airlifted troops, police, and their

equipment to southern California. (26)



1999: Operation ALLIED FORCE. The AFRC mobilized its first units to support this operation.

Eventually the command called six tanker wings and one rescue wing to active duty. (21)

Operation ALLIED FORCE. The 171 AREFW(Pennsylvania ANG) received an order to deploy

about 400 personnel and 14 KC-135Es for this operation. Additionally, the ANG mobilized the

117 AREFW(Alabama), 128 AREFW (Wisconsin), 141 AREFW (Washington), 151 AREFW

(Utah), and the 161 AREFW (Arizona). (32)

Operation CORONET NIGHTHAWK. The Air National Guard shifted its drug interdiction

program with fighter aircraft in the Caribbean region from Panama to Curacao with the pending

closure of U.S. military bases in Panama. (32)



2001: The Space Shuttle Endeavour landed at Edwards AFB after a mission to the International Space

Station to deliver a robotic arm, a multipurpose logistics module, and an UHF antenna. (3)



2003: END OF MAJOR IRAQI FREEDOM COMBAT OPERATIONS. President George W.

Bush declared the major combat operations in Iraq to be over on the deck of the USS Abraham

Lincoln in a speech before 5,000 crewmembers. (22)

END OF Operation NORTHERN WATCH. The Operation NORTHERN WATCH mission

ended. Between 1 January 1997 and the final NORTHERN WATCH sortie on 17 March 2003,

more than 100,000 American, British, Turkish, and French airmen had rotated through Incirlik

AB to enforce UN Security Council resolutions north of the 36th parallel in Iraq. (22)



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Thanks to Richard and John



Blue Angels and Thunderbirds Fly Together Over New York City - Extended Compilation - YouTube



I watched all 17 minutes of it. Great footage.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JESy0CnYPw&feature=youtu.be



John

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Thanks to Dan



Skip,

I have some personal observations concerning follow-up actions to Operation Frequent Wind and Operation BabyLift (the rescue of 3,000+ orphans by the Air Force, and World Airways), illustrating the success of these events.

Following Operation BabyLift, and the transport of the orphans to several countries throughout the world, several dozen of the orphans were brought to the San Francisco Bay area, where adoptions were being arranged by several charities. However, the U.S. government was not prepared to provide care for this many orphans, until they could be adopted. As a result, the orphans were brought to an Army Reserve facility at the Presidio of San Francisco and dozens of Army Reservists (including me) were utilized to care for the infants. It became a well organized military operation to provide 24-hour care for the infants. Groups of soldiers, working in shifts, were assigned to feed the babies, change their diapers, and walk around carrying them in a futile attempt to get them to stop crying (that last duty was a complete failure, I might add!). Fortunately, it didn't take long for adoptions to be arranged for all the babies, which ended the mobilization of the Army Reservists.

The next story exemplifies the success of Operation Frequent Wind. A couple of years ago, I had emergency surgery, in the middle of the night. Later, the surgeon came to check on my condition, and, it was immediately obvious to me that he was Vietnamese, since I had two combat tours in Vietnam. The story that he related to me was very impressive. His father was a physician in Hue, Vietnam (near where I had worked, with the 101st Airborne Division). When the North Vietnamese began to overrun Vietnam, his family fled to Saigon, where he was born. Shortly thereafter, his family was evacuated by the U.S. Navy in Operation Frequent Wind. They settled in the Southern California area, where his father pushed him to excel in school. Because of his parents emphasis on education, he studied hard, went to medical school, then became a surgeon. Because of the U.S. government's actions which saved his family, he was very supportive of the government, and the military. Because of this appreciation, after becoming a surgeon, he walked into an Army Recruiters office and enlisted. Then, after he signed up, he let it be known that he was also a surgeon. Duh! He instantly went from civilian, to Major (somehow, I never experienced that promotion system!). He then went to one of the Gulf Wars, where he was a surgeon, probably saving many military personnel's lives. All because the U.S. Navy rescued his family from the North Vietnamese!

I thought you might appreciate these stories, and maybe other former military would appreciate hearing why their operations during the Vietnam War were important.





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Thanks to Shadow



On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 3:06 PM roy stafford <rwstafford1@comcast.net> wrote:

For those who have known me for a long period (years, decades)… all of you know that I have been saying that "Global Warming", "Climate Change"... was a fraud and a political movement… not science! In particular, my main argument was based on simple logic… "Consensus is not science"… if it were, the world would still be flat! I was particularly scornful of computer generated predictions of a pending climate disaster… citing that the planet had always experienced shifts in periods of warm and cold. My argument of "Consensus is not science"… was a simple concept based on knowledge, common sense and awareness of political agendas.



Burt Rutan recently shared with me some correspondence he had with one of his friends from the "Left" side of politics. Now Burt is one of my personal heroes. A World Class and World Famous; scientist, engineer and aircraft designer… as well as an independent thinker and problem solver. Those of you who don't recognize his name… will certainly recognize his aerospace accomplishments. The first unrefueled, around the world flight…. Followed by the first non-refueled around the world solo flight… the first successful privately designed and flown space vehicle (Space Ship One) and for those of us in aviation, some of the most advanced and common sense applications to aviation the world has ever known. He has been honored and celebrated the world over…. I am proud to have flown with Burt decades ago and have been a follower and admirer ever since. I'm even more proud to call him "Friend".



Anyway… in Burt's correspondence… I found this little nugget… it was something I believe Gordon Fulks, one of Burt's friends, came up with and it takes my simple short statement about consensus… to a more logical and explanatory conclusion. Please read the following…



"Science by consensus is politics. Science by belief is religion. Science by climate code is computer gaming. Science by story telling is science fiction. On the other hand, science by logic and evidence IS science"!



All the Best, Shadow

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