To All,
Good Friday Morning April 13
4 2022
I hope that your week has been going well.
Regards,
Skip
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History
April 14
1898
The first post-Civil War hospital ship, USS Solace (AH 2) is commissioned and soon participates in the Spanish-American War attending to wounded servicemen from battles in Cuba
1942
USS Roper (DD 147) sinks German submarine U 85 off the Virginia Capes. Before being sunk by Roper, U 85 sank three Allied merchant vessels.
1945
USS Tirante (SS 420), commanded by Lt. Cmdr. George L. Street III, attacks a Japanese convoy in the approaches to the Yellow Sea and sinks a transport ship and two vessels. Street earns Medal of Honor for his actions.
1969
A North Korean aircraft shoots down an unarmed EC-121 propeller-driven Constellation, killing all 31 crewmembers on board.
1988
During Operation Ernest Will, USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) strikes an Iranian mine off Qatar, injuring 10 sailors. Four days later, the US Navy retaliates with Operation Praying Mantis, which strikes Iranian oil platforms, sinks an Iranian frigate, patrol ship, and damages another frigate.
On This Day In The Navy:
1960 - The Navy's navigation satellite, Transit 1B, which demonstrates the first engine restart in space, is placed into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, by Thor-Able-Star.
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This Day in World History April14
1471 The Earl of Warwick, who fought on both sides in the War of the Roses, is killed at the Battle of Barnet with the defeat of the Lancastrians.
1543 Bartolome Ferrelo returns to Spain after discovering a large bay in the New World (San Francisco).
1775 The first abolitionist society in United States is organized in Philadelphia.
1793 A royalist rebellion in Santo Domingo is crushed by French republican troops.
1828 The first edition of Noah Webster's dictionary is published.
1860 The first Pony Express rider arrives in San Francisco with mail originating in St. Joseph, Missouri.
1865 President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth.
1894 Thomas Edison's kinetoscope is shown to the public for the first time.
1900 The World Exposition opens in Paris.
1912 The passenger liner Titanic--deemed unsinkable--strikes an iceberg on her maiden voyage and begins to sink. The ship will go under the next day with a loss of 1,500 lives.
1931 King Alfonso XIII of Spain is overthrown.
1945 American B-29 bombers damage the Imperial Palace during firebombing raid over Tokyo.
1953 The Viet Minh invade Laos with 40,00 troops in their war against French colonial forces.
1959 The Taft Memorial Bell Tower is dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1961 The first live broadcast is televised from the Soviet Union.
1969 The first major league baseball game in Montreal, Canada is played.
1981 America's first space shuttle, Columbia, returns to Earth.
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ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear … Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post
Skip… For The List for Friday, 14 April 2023… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965–1968)…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post for 14 April 1968… Today is the 5th anniversary of the day we went to war in Syria and we are still there, boots on the ground…
This following work accounts for every fixed wing loss of the Vietnam War and you can use it to read more about the losses in The Bear's Daily account. Even better it allows you to add your updated information to the work to update for history…skip
Vietnam Air Losses
Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
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From the list archives just about 7 years ago
Thanks to The Bear
Naval Aviation…Intruder Reunion …San Diego, April 16, 2016
reaching back a few years - thanks to THE Bear, who we hope is comfortable and safe on his mountain
Steven Coonts on Naval Aviation…Intruder Reunion Speech…San Diego, April 16, 2016
April 30, 2016Mighty Thunder0 Comments STEVEN COONTS ON NAVAL AVIATION…INTRUDER REUNION SPEECH…SAN DIEGO, APRIL 16, 2016
Ladies and gentlemen, friends, shipmates:
Naval Aviation, which for me was A-6 Intruders, was the great adventure of my life. It was one of those rare instances in life when the reality lives up to its advanced billing. Actually, the reality was better than anything I dreamed it could be. I have certainly had other great adventures, including marriage, the practice of law, fatherhood, civilian flying and writing. Still, naval aviation was…….
Well, let me tell you about it. I was awe-struck by my instructors in flight school. They were mostly fleet pilots doing an instructor tour, except for a few plow-backs who desperately wanted to get to the fleet, and many were combat veterans. They were really old, positively geriatric, in their mid-to late twenties mostly, with a few old crocks in their early thirties.
They were warm and fuzzy, touchy-feely guys. I remember one flight I had in basic training in a T-2 Buckeye, with an instructor who was trying to teach me the nuances of basic instruments. I was trying to make all those little needles behave and grossly over-controlling with a death grip on the stick when my instructor in the back seat grabbed the stick and started bucking the airplane. "You don't have to be smart to do this," he said, and whack, whack, whack, with the stick. "If I had any goddamn brains I wouldn't be here." Whack, whack, whack. "Now stop trying to squeeze the black juice out of the fuckin' stick. Use your fingers." Whack, whack, whack. "Your airplane."
I thought those guys owned the ground they walked on, and I wanted to be one of them.
After the west coast RAG, VA-128, I reported to VA-196, the Main Battery. On our first cruise to WESTPAC aboard USS Enterprise, I realized that I had finally made it into this Band of Brothers, this fraternity of those who were willing and could and did. It was a self-selected group. All those who didn't want it or couldn't do it had dropped out, or been washed out or killed somewhere along the way.
A-6s were something special because they carried a crew of two. That meant the A-6 squadrons were large, with many diverse personalities. Later, when I tried to write a novel about the experience, that wonderful human zoo gave me plenty of inspiration.
No doubt your naval aviation adventures were very similar to mine. The young nugget pilots and BNs, the old fart lieutenant commanders, and the fossil commanders were almost universally from blue-collar or middle-class families. Naval Aviation was a step up in life for all of us. To my delight, I fit right in. I had grown up in a coal town in central West Virginia; I knew that no matter what happened, I didn't want to spend the rest of my days grubbing out a meager living in the coalfields. That ambition kept me motivated all the way. Not that we were making big bucks in the Navy, because we weren't. Still, we were all a part of something larger than we were individually; we served in the United States Navy and Marine Corps, and we served our nation.
Truthfully, I feel blessed that life gave me that opportunity. And I feel sorry for all of those young men who found a reason to take the easy course, who didn't see or appreciate the challenges of naval aviation that demanded the best that was in them every single day, from flying, counseling sailors, pretending to give guidance to chiefs, wrestling with the supply system and the paperwork, to horsing around with friends in the ready room and ashore. Later, for me, came a flight instructor's tour at VA-128 and a tour as an assistant catapult and arresting gear officer aboard USS Nimitz. Every day I was called upon to give the best I had.
I loved the Navy and would have probably stayed in until they kicked me out if I had only had a wife who was willing to share the adventure. Mine wasn't. So after nine years of active duty I pulled the plug, went to law school, became a lawyer and ultimately got into writing.
It was in 1984, after a divorce, when I had plenty of spare time and absolutely no money, that I finally decided to put butt in chair and write that story of what naval aviation was like during my two Vietnam cruises. The flying, the dying, the fear, the exhilaration I felt in a cockpit with the stick and throttles in my hands and the rudder pedals beneath my feet, the insanity of the Vietnam War, the truly marvelous young men I shared it with… all of it. I only wish that I had been a better, more experienced writer, but I wasn't. Still, I had lived it and tried to capture it. I was willing to fail. You can't be a writer unless you are willing to fail.
Like every first novelist, I wrote nights and weekends. Unlike most, I then got lucky; The US Naval Institute was looking for a novel to follow Tom Clancy's The Hunt For Red October. I had thirty-two rejections in hand when the Naval Institute accepted my little flying story, picked my manuscript from the 150 that had been submitted. The original working title was For Each Other. I thought that title worked rather well, because if we didn't know what we were fighting for, at least we knew we were fighting for each other. The publisher thought that title smacked too much of a romance novel. They retitled it Flight of the Intruder, and to my absolute amazement, the novel stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 28 weeks.
Fools occasionally ask me if I was Jake Grafton, the hero of the tale. Of course not. The book was the lore of the time and place, and the characters were amalgams of all the people I met in naval aviation. I didn't want to tell my story—I wanted to tell everyone's story. One perceptive reviewer noted that all the characters in the book were flawed in some ways and heroes in others. Of course; they were human.
That is not to say I liked everyone I met along the way, because I am no saint and only a saint could do that. I met some jerks and I met some fantastic officers who rose to very high positions in the Navy. But most of the people I met were like me, serving their country, doing the best they could, and eventually, sooner or later, they left the service and got on with the rest of their lives. They were the same type of men who served with George Washington, with U.S. Grant, who fought in the trenches of France, who manned the destroyers and destroyer escorts in the Battle of the Atlantic, who went ashore on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima, who manned SBDs and torpedo planes to hit the Japanese task force at Midway. I am so proud that I was one of them.
All of us carry Naval Aviation with us everywhere we go, every day.
Sometimes young men and women ask me if they should join the service. Yes, I always say. It isn't a lifetime commitment. The experience will enrich your life if you treat every day as an adventure, not a career. If you spend your days sucking up to the boss while worrying about your fittie, you won't enjoy the challenge and the people. Do something else. Go to truck driving school, or become a plumber, or a politician.
The success of Flight of the Intruder allowed me to become a professional novelist. I have been doing it for thirty years. So far, I have published 36 books: twenty-one solo novels, nine co-authored tales, one work of nonfiction, and five anthologies. One of my novels was published under a pen name, Eve Adams, The Garden of Eden. Three of my novels were actually semi-sci-fi, the Saucer trilogy. If you are a hard-core sci-fi fan, you will be disappointed. The three Saucer tales are flying stories, chase books mixed with political satire.
I am always a bit skeptical when someone tells me they have read everything I ever wrote, because very, very, few people ever found The Garden of Eden, no doubt because the publisher slapped a pen name on it and refused to tell anyone who wrote it. Like most of my old paperbacks, you can buy it on amazon for a penny plus shipping. If you can't afford a penny for a really terrific book, you should probably get a job as a greeter at Walmart.
My latest literary crime is The Art of War, which was published in February in hardcover, audio and ebook formats. The Chinese plant a nuclear weapon in Norfolk to destroy the Atlantic Fleet, sort of Pearl Harbor II. Fortunately Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini manage to once again save the world as we know it from the forces of evil, which is the definition of a thriller.
People ask me, "Of all the books you have written, which is your favorite?" It's always the next one. My next novel will be published just two months from now, on June 13th; Liberty's Last Stand. It is perhaps the most politically incorrect book yet to be published in this century. Knowing naval aviators as I do, I think most of you are going to love it. It's a big book, 178,000 words, a doorstop. President Barry Soetoro declares martial law, and Texas declares its independence. Texas is joined by a handful of other states, and what happens is another American Civil War. You will be delighted to hear that Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini manage to save America from its president. Liberty's Last Stand, available in all formats on June 13. It's available for preorder now online from amazon and Barnes & Noble, and from your favorite bookstore.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that if you are a fan or disciple of Barack Obama, you should probably avoid this book, which will raise your blood pressure to unacceptable levels.
And since writers write, perhaps I should tell you a little about my next two projects, both non-fiction. We are negotiating a contract for License to Kill, which I wrote with William B. Scott and Mike McDaniel. The manuscript is complete, almost, and will probably be published later this year or early next year. Unfortunately I can't tell you any more about it at this time. We still have a few more people to talk to and don't want the buzz to turn them off.
Aviation historian Barrett Tillman and I are in the early stages of writing a book about The Dragon's Jaw: The Thanh Hoa Bridge. I was very reluctant to emotionally go back to Vietnam, so this project dragged for a couple of years. Finally I decided to suck it up and do it while I was still able and many of the men who flew the missions were still above ground to talk to. This evening I am soliciting your help. If you flew one or more missions against the Dragon's Jaw, which wasn't dropped into the Ma River until May 10, 1972, or against the associated rail-yard, barracks, SAM or flak sites, we would like to hear from you.
The best way to help would be for you to send me an email detailing your experiences, the squadron, your pilot or BN, the date, other planes involved, basically everything you can remember. I am especially interested in how the mission affected you. Where in the cruise did it come, were you especially worried, how was the flak and SAMs? What was memorable about the mission or missions? In other words, tell me more than date and target. Don't think this is an English essay; I'll write the story, that's what they pay me for, but I need your thoughts and input to do that.
On every table tonight I have placed a stack of my cards. Grab one. It gives my email address and the coonts.com website, which also has an email address. If you lose the card, don't sweat it. I am ridiculously easy to find; Coonts.com, or if you can't remember that, and some of us pilots have trouble with the memory thing, which was why we flew with kneeboards and pencils and BNs, you can google me: Stephen Coonts. That will take you to the website, where you can hit the Contact Steve icon. All you have to do is remember how to spell my name. C-o-o-n-t-s.
Home | Stephen Coonts
NEW Release by Stephen Coonts. THE ART OF WAR. Stephen Coonts' latest thriller, The Art of War, was published February 2, 2016, by St Martin's Press. Steve has published more books since that time and THE DRAGON'S JAW with Barrett Tillman Tillman was exceptional
I'd like to close by telling you about a telephone conversation I had with a former A-6 pilot, Captain Sam Sayers, who flew eleven missions against the bridge, in Alpha strikes and single-plane night missions as a member of VA-85. Many of you will remember Captain Sam, who went on to command the Blue Blasters of VA-34, then the east coast RAG, VA-42. He and his BN Charlie Hawkins were once shot up near Vinh. He made it to the ocean, and when the plane, which was on fire, became uncontrollable, he and Charlie ejected. They were rescued from the ocean by an HU-16 Albatross from Da Nang. I met Sam when he was the technical adviser on the movie Flight of the Intruder and we became good friends and hunting buddies. As he once told me about the movie, "Don't blame me. I would tell them that they had something wrong and the director would listen respectfully, then say, 'Duly noted, but we're making a movie. Now go find a chair in a corner and watch.
I suppose you have all seen the movie at one time or another. At the publicity blast for the opening, the director, John Milius, asked me if I would have done anything differently than he did. I would have opened the movie differently, I said. I would have had Jake and Morg fly the mission, take the bullet, and after landing back aboard ship, I would have had the camera linger on the scene of the corpsmen lifting the BN's body from the cockpit as the opening credits ran, and I would have showed the blood. A cockpit full of blood, rich red blood, all over everything. The novel and the movie are about blood. As is naval aviation. As is war. The Intruder crews were American warriors riding the hard, sharp, deadly tip of the arrow. Some of them gave their lives, and some of them spent an early stint in hell as prisoners of the North Vietnamese.
I remember standing at my locker aboard Enterprise donning my flight gear for missions up north. Taking off my wedding ring, putting my wallet in the locker, knowing that I might be shot down, killed or captured. You had to be willing to die to do this. I was young, and perhaps foolish, but I was one of those idiots who would rather die than look bad, one of those who would rather die than let my shipmates down, those whose luck was not as good as mine, those who had gone before and paid the ultimate price.
I didn't get shot down, and obviously I didn't die. My luck was better than those who did, and believe me, it was only luck. So I tried to tell their story, your story, our story, for all of us. For Each Other.
But I digress……..
I ended my telephone call with Sam Sayers a few weeks ago with a question. "Knowing all you know now about naval aviation and the political mess that was the Vietnam War, if you had it to do over again, would you do it?"
Sam spoke for me, and perhaps all of us, when he said, "Hell, yes!"
Thank you… and God Bless America.
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Thanks to Tom
View the Latest Edition of "This Week @NASA" (published April 7, 2023)
Folks –
Artemis II is a circumnavigation of the moon – exactly what Apollo 8 did in 1968 on Christmas. Just different hardware, and newer technology.
There is only so much innovation one can show here….we have replicated a vertical launch vehicle, crew stuffed into a capsule, and still do not have (largely) autonomous control by the space vehicle – something that will be required by any vehicle going "to the mon, Mars, and beyond" as the Administrator stated. Personal opinion? With debt at 130% of GDP, looming all-out nuclear war with Russia and Chicoms, there is no funding profile that will possible support this federally. It will have to come from industry, and as we have seen Apple, H-P, Motorola and even the once mighty GM (the broke joke of the woke!), have all off-shored and become international companies MORE worried about bottom lines for the next quarter than our national security and sovereignty. SO, is Starship 1 (Space-X) the way we ultimately explore Mars? Stay tuned….
Crew selection was a huge PR event. These are required because of you don't, most of the world is asleep at the switch! Example: Who at this point doesn't know what color the can is on Bud lite? (tee hee!!)
One last tidbit: the "Mars Sample" rover is getting samples enclosed hermetically in containers to that in the near future, a "return" mission will be planned to return these to earth for analysis. THAT will be exiting to find out what the dirt looks like and what is in it. Remember, Mars once had an atmosphere and was largely covered by water, but after losing its magnetic field, its atmosphere was stripped off and voila, a dead planet. (What? It wasn't "global warming??? No…..)
Enjoy!
Tom
OUTSIDE READING:
AGENCYWIDE MESSAGE TO ALL NASA EMPLOYEES
Points of Contact: Rebecca Sirmons, rebecca.h.sirmons@nasa.gov, and Andre Valentine, andre.valentine-1@nasa.gov, Office of Communications, NASA Headquarters
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
View the Latest Edition of "This Week @NASA" (published April 7, 2023)
View the latest "This Week @NASA," produced by NASA Television, for features on agency news and activities. Stories in this program include:
• Introducing the Crew of the Artemis II Moon Mission
• Hot Fire Certification Test of RS-25 Engine
• Webb Scores New Image of Distant Uranus
• Perseverance Collects First Mars Sample of New Science Campaign
To watch this episode, click on the image below:
Watch the Video
To access this edition of "This Week @NASA," you may also visit:
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This notice is being sent agencywide to all employees by NASA INC in the Office of Communications at NASA Headquarters
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
20 Interesting Facts About America's First 20 Presidents
Presidents are much more than the policies they back or the speeches they give. Here are 20 strange and fascinating facts about America's first 20 Presidents.
George Washington
George Washington, an American politician, soldier and the first President of the United States. While every acting President serves as the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, nobody will ever outrank George Washington. He was posthumously given the rank of General of the Armies of the United States, sometimes compared to being a six-star general. Although General John J. Pershing also held the title for his service during WWI, when President Ford appointed Washington in 1976 — 200 years after Washington's heyday — he specified that our first President would always rank first among all Army officers past and present.
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John Adams
The Boston Massacre, in which British soldiers shot and killed five citizens, was a major flashpoint on the road to the Revolutionary War. When murder charges were brought against the soldiers, John Adams acted as their defense lawyer. He called the trial one of his most "gallant" and "disinterested actions of my whole life."
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Thomas Jefferson
When Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark out west to explore the Louisiana Territory in 1804, the President told the explorers to watch out for mammoths. Jefferson was apparently obsessed with mammoths and was convinced they were still alive, gallivanting in America's wild west.
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James Madison
James Madison and his wife, Dolley, helped popularize ice cream in America. Tastes in the treat, however, would be considered questionable today: chestnut, asparagus, and parmesan were all on the menu. Dolley's favorite flavor was … oyster.
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James Monroe
While George Washington gets all the credit for bravely crossing the icy Delaware River in 1776, Monroe deserves attention too. Then-Lieutenant Monroe was part of an advance unit and crossed the river before Washington's crew. On the other side, Monroe was wounded at the Battle of Trenton, as Hessian soldiers shot him in the shoulder.
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John Quincy Adams
The election of 1824 saw four viable candidates, none of whom won an outright majority of electoral votes. Andrew Jackson nabbed 99, John Quincy Adams won 84, William H. Crawford earned 41, and Henry Clay claimed 37. Despite having neither the highest number of electoral or total popular votes, Adams was chosen as President by the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Andrew Jackson
In 1835, Jackson received a present at the White House: a 1,400 pound wheel of cheese. It sat around idle for two years until Jackson, sick of the cheese, invited 10,000 visitors into the White House to get rid of it. As one resident recalled: "The air was redolent with cheese, the carpet was slippery with cheese, and nothing else was talked about at Washington that day." Another called the event, "an evil-smelling horror."
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Martin Van Buren
Having grown up in a Dutch-speaking community in New York, Van Buren was the only President whose first language was not English. Although Van Buren worked hard to mask his original tongue, observers claim his accent would surface whenever he became visibly excited.
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William Henry Harrison
When a pesky newspaper claimed that Harrison sat in a log cabin and swilled hard cider all day, Harrison didn't fight the libelous claim. He embraced it. Supporters started calling him the "Log Cabin and Hard Cider candidate" and handed out cider and specialty bottles of booze shaped like log cabins. (Supporters even composed a song for him called "Good Hard Cider.")
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John Tyler
According to Smithsonian, Tyler was "the only president to commit a public act of treason against the U.S. government." Sixteen years after leaving office, Tyler embraced Virginia's decision to secede from the Union and was elected to the Confederate Congress. He died before taking a seat with the Confederate government, but the damage was done: When Tyler died, President Lincoln reportedly refused to lower the flag at half-staff.
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James K. Polk
James K Polk, the 11th President of the United States.Credit: MPI via Getty Images
For two days a week, any Joe Schmoe could walk off the street and visit President Polk in the White House for an evening reception. These "office hours" weren't very productive, though. Many people walking off the street, to Polk's annoyance, merely came in asking for a job.
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Zachary Taylor
The second President to die in office did not smoke or drink, but he did chew tobacco — lots of it. In fact, he was an impressive spittle-shooter. According to the book Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary, Taylor had "the reputation of never missing the sand-filled box that served as a spittoon in his office."
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Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore was an avid reader who would do nearly anything for a book. On Christmas Eve in 1851, when the Library of Congress caught on fire, Fillmore ran to the scene with a group of Congressmen and "rendered all the service in their power" to stop the fire. Fillmore led the bucket brigade early into Christmas morning.
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Franklin Pierce
Franklin Pierce was one of many Presidents who came from a law background, but he was also known for being especially personable and having an excellent memory. He reportedly could give half-hour-long speeches without the help of notes and had "a knack for recalling the names of every juror who ever sat on one of his cases."
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James Buchanan
Considered one of America's worst presidents, Buchanan's fence-sitting on the topic of slavery helped set the stage for the Civil War. It was just one of many controversial positions: On the campaign trail, Buchanan argued that a wage of 10 cents was fair for a day's labor. (At the time, most Americans supposedly needed around $6 a week — or 86 cents a day — to live.) The gaffe earned Buchanan the nickname "10 Cent Jimmy."
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Abraham Lincoln
Honest Abe was an accomplished wrestler. It's said that, as a young man in Illinois, Lincoln competed in about 300 wrestling contests and lost just one match. In 1830, after he was crowned his county's wrestling champion, Lincoln wasn't afraid to trash-talk his opponents: "I'm the big buck of this lick," he reportedly said. "If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns."
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Andrew Johnson
Lovers of Alaska's mountains and streams have Andrew Johnson and his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, to thank. During Johnson's presidency, Russia sold Alaska to the United States for the price of $7.2 million … in gold. Although most Americans supported the purchase, critics would call the land "Walrussia," "Icebergia," and Johnson's "polar bear garden."
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Ulysses S. Grant
The "S" in Ulysses S. Grant's name doesn't mean anything. It's a clerical error. Grant received the erroneous middle initial when a friend of his father, Thomas Hamer, nominated Ulysses for enrollment at West Point. The initial stuck. Writing to his future wife, Grant said: "I have an 'S' in my name and don't know what it stands for."
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Rutherford B. Hayes
Several Presidents served during the Civil War, but only Hayes was wounded in combat. He had four horses shot from under him. He suffered a wounded knee, a gunshot wound to the left arm, a hit from a spent musket ball to the head, an ankle injury, and a final gunshot wound at the Battle of Cedar Creek.
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James A. Garfield
In 1880, Garfield attended the Republican National Convention with no intention of running for president. But when the convention stalled, a delegate nominated Garfield as a compromise, and a stream of unexpected votes flooded in. "This honor comes to me unsought," Garfield said. "I have never had the presidential fever, not even for a day … I have no feeling of elation in view of the position I am called upon to fill."
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Thanks to Brett
Geopolitical Futures:
Keeping the future in focus
https:geopoliticalfutures.com
Daily Memo: Questions and Answers to the American Crisis
Thoughts in and around geopolitics.
By: George Friedman
April 14, 2023
The article I published earlier this week about the intensifying crisis in the United States generated a significant number of comments that ought to be addressed and questions that ought to be answered. The most important were, in no particular order: How am I so sure the U.S. will survive? How can I be so flippant about who occupies the White House and the processes that put him or her there? Will war play a significant role in the crisis? And why am I so pessimistic?
My confidence lies in the resilience of the U.S. political system. On several occasions, taking place every 50 years or so since the nation's founding, it was able to withstand crises that were at least as troubling and dire as the one currently underway. In the 1830s, it faced a banking crisis that upended much of the settlement system in the west. There were also allegations that John Quincy Adams stole the election. His eventual replacement, Andrew Jackson, took credit for resolving the political and economic upheaval by revamping eastern banking, but it was really the only option available.
After the civil war, there was a massive financial crisis. The problem was solved by introducing a gold standard that stabilized the system. Rutherford B. Hayes had no other choice, so he oversaw the inevitable.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected, the county was in the throes of a cataclysmic trade and banking crisis. FDR oversaw the refinancing of the banking system and indeed the restructuring of society. As a politician, he wanted to be reelected, so he took the course that best achieved that goal.
When Ronald Reagan was elected president, the country was undergoing a massive financial crisis characterized by high inflation and soaring banking rates. Reagan reversed the FDR strategy of increasing available cash, decreasing the money supply in general but increasing it for business investment. This provided a boost for business and contained inflation. He had no choice but to solve the problem. The public demanded a solution, and the options were severely limited.
The United States has massive economic resources, even in times of crisis. It also has a large number of people who can comprehend the issue. Finally, the problem faced requires a solution, and presidents demand them. In these stories, it was the sitting presidents who acted, but any president sufficiently desperate enough will act to find a solution. The buck stops with them, of course, but hundreds of people at least shape public demand and economic reality into a solution. And even if a president is a hopeless idiot, they have any number of institutions and advisers to keep them in check.
Things can always change, but in the examples I lay out, the president is forced to act but is constrained by reality. Presidents are not as powerful as we think they are because the system limits their options. The system forces solutions, even to very different problems, and the wealth of the United States, however carelessly handled, sees them through.
When you see a common and persistent pattern reappear, you look at the past to try to understand why the solution worked as it did. If you find a pattern, then the most conservative approach is to expect it to repeat itself. Therefore, I expected a severe economic and social crisis in the 2020s, which I wrote about some years ago and expect to see play out based on existing forces. The anomaly I see is that the intense and immediate pain of the current crisis could force the cycle to restart a few years earlier than normal. But that is neither being pessimistic nor a game changer.
The key to my argument is that I regard U.S. leaders as severely constrained. There is a tendency to regard presidents as supreme, particularly by their enemies. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both loathed and admired. Both are constrained by history. Each wants to claim all successes were his and all failures were someone else's. In fact, successes and failures originate in far more complex corners than the Oval Office. It is easy and comforting to see presidents as heroes or monsters. It has little to do with reality.
As for the crisis that has to be solved, there will always be a financial crisis that arises in a system such as ours that generates political stress, but the real agent of transformation will be technology, which is a foundational element of America. Fifty-year cycles in politics are linked to technological cycles. The automobile lost its dynamism 50 years after Henry Ford transformed America, which at least partly triggered the crisis of the 1970s. Now, microchip technology has lost the power to transform America, and it is time not for the disappearance of tech but for its power to drive the system.
What innovation comes next is yet unknown, but I suspect it will be linked to medicine and demography. Either way, it will drive America for 50 years, with all of us in awe until the awe is lost as financial power declines and we go on to the next cycle. The power to go on comes from all of the systems that we have – technical, economic and social – and from the extraordinary energy of rage and anger that has been an engine ever since Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion with military force.
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This Day in U S Military History…….April 14
1918 – Six days after being assigned for the first time to the western front, two American pilots from the U.S. First Aero Squadron engaged in America's first aerial dogfight with enemy aircraft. In a battle fought almost directly over the Allied Squadron Aerodome at Toul, France, U.S. fliers Douglas Campbell and Alan Winslow succeeded in shooting down two German two-seaters. By the end of May, Campbell had shot down five enemy aircraft, making him the first American to qualify as a "flying ace" in World War I. The First Aero Squadron, organized in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, undertook its first combat mission on March 19, 1917, in support of the 7,000 U.S. troops that invaded Mexico to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Despite numerous mechanical and navigational problems, the American fliers flew hundreds of scouting missions for U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing and gained important experience that would later be used over the battlefields of Europe in World War I.
1942 – The American destroyer Roper sinks German U-boat U-85. This is the first sinking of an German submarine by an American ship.
1945 – Robert Dole, later US senator and 1996 presidential candidate, was severely crippled by an artillery shell. During World War II, Robert Dole served in the 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. While stationed in Italy he participated in Operation Craftsman where he was wounded during a firefight with German troops. Dole spent nearly 40 months in army hospitals and lost most of the use of his right arm as a result.
1945 – US 7th Army and allies forces captured Nuremberg and Stuttgart, Germany. The US 3rd Army captures Bayreuth.
1945 – Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler orders that no prisoners at Dachau "shall be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy alive."
1945 – Allied forces conduct Operation Teardrop. Two carrier task groups carry out an extensive search for Seewolf U-boats suspected of transporting V2 rockets to be launched against New York City.
1945 – The US 14th Corps continues its advance onto the Bicol Peninsula in the southwest of Luzon. Calauag is taken. In north Luzon, US 1st Corps continues attacking near Baguio but fails to make significant progress.
1945 – Japanese Kamikaze attacks damage the battleship USS New York. On Okinawa, American forces attack strong Japanese defenses in the hilly Motobu Peninsula in the north.
1945 – B-29's damaged the Imperial Palace during firebombing raid over Tokyo.
1945 – The Fifth Army, now under Lucian K. Truscott (General Mark Clark, former commander of the Fifth, was made commander of the Allied armies in Italy), began pushing its way up the peninsula, capturing Massa and crossing the Frigido River. After meeting considerable German resistance in the mountains, the Fifth sent the Germans running once the battle took to open country. Bologna became the next target, falling to the Fifth one week after engaging the enemy in Italy. Ferrara, Bondeno, and Modena succumbed shortly thereafter, Genoa on the 27th, and Milan on the 29th–an agenda of assaults that mimicked Napoleon's Italian campaigns. Helping the U.S. effort was the work of Italian guerilla partisan groups, who had successfully taken control of the area west of the Como-Milan-Genoa line. By the time of the unconditional surrender of the Germans, signed at Caserta on April 29, almost 660,000 Axis troops lay dead–compared with 321,000 Allied dead.
1975 – The American airlift of Vietnamese orphans to the United States ends after 2,600 children are transported to America. The operation began disastrously on April 4 when an Air Force cargo jet crashed shortly after take-off from Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon. More than 138 of the passengers, mostly children, were killed. Operation Baby Lift was initiated to bring South Vietnamese orphans to the United States for adoption by American parents. Baby Lift lasted 10 days and was carried out during the final, desperate phase of the war, as North Vietnamese forces were closing in on Saigon. Although the first flight ended in tragedy, all other flights took place without incident, and Baby Lift aircraft ferried orphans across the Pacific until the mission concluded on April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war.
1988 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. The Roberts had arrived in the Persian Gulf and was heading for a refueling rendezvous with USS San Jose on 14 April when the ship struck an M-08 naval mine in the central Persian Gulf, an area she had safely transited a few days previously. The mine blew a 15-foot (5 m) hole in the hull, flooded the engine room, and knocked the two gas turbines from their mounts. The blast also broke the keel of the ship; such structural damage is almost always fatal to most vessels. The crew fought fire and flooding for five hours and saved the ship. Among other steps, sailors cinched cables on the cracked superstructure in an effort to stabilize it. She used her auxiliary thrusters to get out of the mine field at 5kts. She never lost combat capability with her radars and Mk13 missile launcher. Ten sailors were medevaced by HC-5 CH-46s embarked in USS San Jose for injuries sustained in the blast, six returned to the Roberts in a day or so. Four burn victims were sent for treatment to a military hospital in Germany, and eventually to medical facilities in the United States. Four days later, U.S. forces retaliated against Iran in Operation Praying Mantis, a one-day campaign that was the largest American surface engagement since World War II. U.S. ships, aircraft, and troops destroyed two Iranian oil platforms allegedly used to control Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf, sank one Iranian frigate, damaged another, and sent at least three armed, high-speed boats to the bottom. The U.S. lost one Marine helicopter and its crew of two airmen in what appeared to be a night maneuver accident rather than a result of hostile operations.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
JORDAN, ROBERT
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1826, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: Attached to the U.S.S. Minnesota and temporarily serving on the U.S.S. Mount Washington, during action against the enemy in the Nansemond River, 14 April 1863. When the Mount Washington drifted against the bank following several successive hits which struck her boilers and stopped her engines, Jordan boarded the stricken vessel and, for 6 hours as fierce artillery and musketry continued to rake her decks, calmly assisted in manning a 12-pound howitzer which had been mounted on the open hurricane deck.
SIMONDS, WILLIAM EDGAR
Rank and organization: Sergeant Major, 25th Connecticut Infantry. Place and date: At Irish Bend, La., 14 April 1863. Entered service at: Canton, Conn. Birth: ——. Date of issue: 25 February 1899. Citation. Displayed great gallantry, under a heavy fire from the enemy, in calling in the skirmishers and assisting in forming the line of battle.
THIELBERG, HENRY
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1833, Germany. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: Serving temporarily on board the U.S.S. Mount Washington during the Nansemond River action, 14 April 1863. After assisting in hauling up and raising the flagstaff, Thielberg volunteered to go up on the pilothouse and observe the movements of the enemy and although 3 shells struck within a few inches of his head, remained at his post until ordered to descend.
WOOD, ROBERT B.
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: New Garden Ohio. Accredited to: Ohio. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: Attached to the U.S.S. Minnesota and temporarily serving on the U.S.S. Mount Washington, during action against the enemy in the Nansemond River, 14 April 1863. When the U.S.S. Mount Washington drifted against the bank and all men were driven from the decks by escaping steam following several successive hits which struck her boilers and stopped her engines, Wood boarded the stricken vessel and, despite a strike on the head by a spent ball, continued at his gun for 6 hours as fierce artillery and musketry continued to rake her decks.
WOODS, SAMUEL
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1835, California. Accredited to. California. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: As captain of the gun, serving temporarily on board the U.S.S. Mount Washington, during the Nansemond River action, 14 April 1863. When one of his comrades was struck by a bullet and knocked overboard, Woods fearlessly jumped into the water and swam after him. Before he reached him, the man sank beneath the surface and Woods promptly swam back to the vessel, went to his gun, and fought it to the close of the action. At the close of the battle, he tirelessly cared for the wounded.
*MAGRATH, JOHN D.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company G, 85th Infantry, 10th Mountain Division. Place and date: Near Castel d'Aiano, Italy, 14 April 1945. Entered service at: East Norwalk, Conn. Birth: East Norwalk, Conn. G.O. No.: 71, 17 July 1946. Citation: He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty when his company was pinned down by heavy artillery, mortar, and small arms fire, near Castel d'Aiano, Italy. Volunteering to act as a scout, armed with only a rifle, he charged headlong into withering fire, killing 2 Germans and wounding 3 in order to capture a machinegun. Carrying this enemy weapon across an open field through heavy fire, he neutralized 2 more machinegun nests; he then circled behind 4 other Germans, killing them with a burst as they were firing on his company. Spotting another dangerous enemy position to this right, he knelt with the machinegun in his arms and exchanged fire with the Germans until he had killed 2 and wounded 3. The enemy now poured increased mortar and artillery fire on the company's newly won position. Pfc. Magrath fearlessly volunteered again to brave the shelling in order to collect a report of casualties. Heroically carrying out this task, he made the supreme sacrifice–a climax to the valor and courage that are in keeping with highest traditions of the military service.
STREET, GEORGE LEVICK, III
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy, U.S.S. Tirante. Place and date: Harbor of Quelpart Island, off the coast of Korea, 14 April 1945. Entered service at. Virginia. Born: 27 July 1913, Richmond, Va. Other Navy awards: Navy Cross, Silver Star with 1 Gold Star. Citation. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Tirante during the first war patrol of that vessel against enemy Japanese surface forces in the harbor of Quelpart Island, off the coast of Korea, on 14 April 1945. With the crew at surface battle stations, Comdr. (then Lt. Comdr.) Street approached the hostile anchorage from the south within 1,200 yards of the coast to complete a reconnoitering circuit of the island. Leaving the 10-fathom curve far behind he penetrated the mined and shoal-obstructed waters of the restricted harbor despite numerous patrolling vessels and in defiance of 5 shore-based radar stations and menacing aircraft. Prepared to fight it out on the surface if attacked, Comdr. Street went into action, sending 2 torpedoes with deadly accuracy into a large Japanese ammunition ship and exploding the target in a mountainous and blinding glare of white flames. With the Tirante instantly spotted by the enemy as she stood out plainly in the flare of light, he ordered the torpedo data computer set up while retiring and fired his last 2 torpedoes to disintegrate in quick succession the leading frigate and a similar flanking vessel. Clearing the gutted harbor at emergency full speed ahead, he slipped undetected along the shoreline, diving deep as a pursuing patrol dropped a pattern of depth charges at the point of submergence. His illustrious record of combat achievement during the first war patrol of the Tirante characterizes Comdr. Street as a daring and skilled leader and reflects the highest credit upon himself, his valiant command, and the U.S. Naval Service.
*DUNHAM, JASON L.
Rank and Organization: Corporal, United States Marine CorpsFor conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Rifle Squad Leader, 4th Platoon, Company K, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines (Reinforced), Regimental Combat Team 7, First Marine Division (Reinforced), on 14 April 2004. Corporal Dunham's squad was conducting a reconnaissance mission in the town of Karabilah, Iraq, when they heard rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire erupt approximately two kilometers to the west. Corporal Dunham led his Combined Anti-Armor Team towards the engagement to provide fire support to their Battalion Commander's convoy, which had been ambushed as it was traveling to Camp Husaybah. As Corporal Dunham and his Marines advanced, they quickly began to receive enemy fire. Corporal Dunham ordered his squad to dismount their vehicles and led one of his fire teams on foot several blocks south of the ambushed convoy. Discovering seven Iraqi vehicles in a column attempting to depart, Corporal Dunham and his team stopped the vehicles to search them for weapons. As they approached the vehicles, an insurgent leaped out and attacked Corporal Dunham. Corporal Dunham wrestled the insurgent to the ground and in the ensuing struggle saw the insurgent release a grenade. Corporal Dunham immediately alerted his fellow Marines to the threat. Aware of the imminent danger and without hesitation, Corporal Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast. In an ultimate and selfless act of bravery in which he was mortally wounded, he saved the lives of at least two fellow Marines. By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Corporal Dunham gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for April 14, 2021 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
14 April
1917: The Navy's first guided missile effort began when the Naval Consulting Board recommended a $50,000 payment to test aerial torpedoes--automatically controlled airplanes or aerial machines carrying high explosives--to the Navy Secretary. (24)
1918: Lts Douglas Campbell and Alan F. Winslow, flying Nieuport 28s of the 94th Pursuit Squadron, shot down the first two enemy aircraft in a 10-minute battle over Toul Airdrome on the first day of U.S combat operations in World War I. (4) (20)
1918: Capt. Edward V. Rickenbacker flies his first combat mission in France. He will become America's "Ace of Aces" during WW I.
1929: The patent application is made for the "pilot maker" flight trainer by inventor Edward Albert Link. Link's first military sales came because of the Air Mail scandal, when the Army Air Corps took over carriage of U.S. Air Mail. Twelve pilots were killed in a 78-day period due to their unfamiliarity with Instrument Flying Conditions. The Link Trainer will become an essential part of every pilot's training before the Second World War begins.
1936: Boris Sergievsky set a 24,950.712-foot world altitude record and a world record for amphibians with a payload of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) at Stratford using a Sikorsky S-43. (24)
1940: First Air Corps detachment assigned to an Alaskan station arrived at Fairbanks, Alaska. (24)
1952: KOREAN WAR. The first AFRES wing ordered to active duty service, the 403d Troop Carrier Wing (Medium), arrived at Ashiya AB, Japan. An SA-16 from the 3 ARS, while under enemy small arms fire from the shoreline, rescued a U.S. naval aviator from the water. (28)
1960: The US Navy's first underwater launch of a Polaris missile, from a depth of 200 feet off San Clemente Island, achieved a surface ignition. (24) Through 16 June, TAC's first RB-66C quarterly rotation to Europe, called Swamp Fox, took place. 1962: Lt Col Leland F. Wilhelm (USA) set a world time-to-climb record by flying a YHU-ID Iroquois helicopter to 9,843 feet in 2 minutes 14.6 seconds. (24)
1966: The C-141A's first airdrops from an altitude below 1,200 feet were made at Fort Bragg. The aircraft made "jeep size" drops from 700 feet. (18) 1970: The Minuteman III deployment in North Dakota began when Minot's 91 SMW accepted its first missile. It arrived on board a C-141 in a flight from Hill AFB in the first airlift of an operational Minuteman III. (6) (16)
1972: BATTLE OF AN LOC. Through 30 June, C-130s airdropped 4,853 tons in 359 sorties to the besieged garrison at An Loc to prevent a North Vietnamese take over. The C-130s used highaltitude airdrops for the first time to resupply US forces. By the time the road routes to An Loc reopened on 23 July, the C-130s had flown 763 sorties to deliver 10,081 tons of supplies. B-52 attacks provided essential close air support to embattled troops in An Loc. (18)
1986: Operation EL DORADO CANYON. The US retaliated against Libya for its involvement in terrorism with an airstrike, using 24 F-111s from RAF Lakenheath, five EF-111s from RAF Upper Heyford and Navy aircraft from the USS America and USS Coral Sea (14 A-6Es, six A-7s and six F/A-18s). In the mission, the aircraft successfully hit targets at Benina Airfield, Benghazi Military Barracks, and Aziziyah Barracks in Tripoli. The USAF lost an F-111 in the attack. Air refueling support came from 28 KC-10 Extenders and KC-135 Stratotankers, flying out of RAF Fairford and RAF Mildenhall. The tankers refueled the F-111 strike force four times, maintaining radio silence during the entire mission. On the return flight to the UK, the tankers refueled the F-111s two more times. (16) (26)
1999: Operation NORTHERN WATCH. Through 15 April, New York's 107 AREFW deployed nearly 100 members and 4 KC-135Rs to Turkey for a month with this operation. They teamed up there with New Hampshire's 157 AREFW. (32)
2000: Through 15 April, the Global Hawk UAV set a new unofficial record for its weight class by completing a 31.5-hour endurance mission. The Compass Cope-R remotely piloted vehicle held the previous record of 28.2 hours for 26 years. (3)
2006: An AFFTC crew flew an F-22 Raptor at Edwards AFB for the first time with an AIM-120D Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile. The test determined the effects of noise and vibration on the missile while still under development. (3)
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