To All,
Good Wednesday Morning October 30, 2024. .This is a Bubba Breakfast Friday here in San Diego. I hope to see many of you there. Today is supposed to be overcast most of the day but right now it is not bad. Tomorrow is looking good. Spent all day yesterday driving to the other side of Los Angeles. We bought a car for our granddaughter which I drove back to San Diego. I am so glad I do not live there. The traffic was horrible. Like a large parking lot that moves slowly. I filled up my inbox so if you sent me something I may not get to it for a while since I was still digging out from the weekend with no computer.
Regards,
skip
Make it a good Day
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This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/. Go here to see the director's corner for all 84 H-Grams .
Today in Naval and Marine Corps History .
October 30
1799—William Balch becomes the U.S. Navy's first commissioned chaplain.
1863—The wooden side-wheel steam ship Vanderbilt captures the bark Saxon, which was suspected of having rendezvoused with and taken cargo from CSS Tuscaloosa at Angra Pequena, Africa.
1941—The oiler USS Salinas (AO 19) is torpedoed near Newfoundland by German submarine U-106. Without loss of life to Salinas' crew, the vessel returns to New York for repairs.
1944—USS Argus (PY 14) rescues all survivors of the U.S. freighter John A. Johnson, which was sunk by Japanese submarine I-12 the previous day, north of Oahu.
1944—USS Franklin (CV 13) and USS Belleau Wood (CVL 24) are hit by a Japanese kamikaze near the Philippines. The attack on Franklin kills 56 of her crew and the attack on Belleau Wood sees 92 of her crew killed or missing. Both ships return to the U.S. for repairs.
1979—An F/A-18 makes the first landing of a Hornet at sea aboard USS America (CV 66). The plane completed 32 catapult and arrested landings during five days of sea trials.
1989—An F/A 18A Hornet operating from USS Midway (CV 41) accidentally drops a 500-pound bomb on cruiser USS Reeves (CG 24), which wounds five sailors during night bombing exercises 32 miles south of Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory.
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Today in World History October 30
1270 The Seventh Crusade ends by the Treaty of Barbary.
1485 Henry VII of England crowned.
1697 The Treaty of Ryswick ends the war between France and the Grand Alliance.
1838 Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Lorian County, Ohio becomes the first college in the U.S. to admit female students.
1899 Two battalions of British troops are cut off, surrounded and forced to surrender to General Petrus Joubert's Boers at Nicholson's Nek.
1905 The czar of Russia issues the October Manisfesto, granting civil liberties and elections in an attempt to avert the burgeonng supprot for revolution.
1918 The Italians capture Vittorio Veneto and rout the Austro-Hungarian army.
1918 Turkey signs an armistice with the Allies, agreeing to end hostilities at noon, October 31.
1922 Mussolini sends his black shirts into Rome. The Fascist takeover is almost without bloodshed. The next day, Mussolini is made prime minister. Mussolini centralized all power in himself as leader of the Fascist party and attempted to create an Italian empire, ultimately in alliance with Hitler's Germany.
1925 Scotsman John L. Baird performs first TV broadcast of moving objects.
1938 H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds is broadcast over the radio by Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. Many panic believing it is an actual newscast about a Martian invasion.
1941 The U.S. destroyer Reuben James, on convoy duty off Iceland, is sunk by a German U-boat with the loss of 96 Americans.
1950 The First Marine Division is ordered to replace the entire South Korean I Corps at the Chosin Reservoir area.
1953 US Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves a top secret document to maintain and expand the country's nuclear arsenal.
1961 The USSR detonates "Tsar Bomba," a 50-megaton hydrogen bomb; it is still (2013) the largest explosive device of any kind over detonated.
1965 US Marines repeal multiple-wave attacks by Viet Cong within a few miles of Da Nang where the Marines were based; a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old boy who had been selling the Americans drinks the previous day.
1973 The Bosphorus Bridge is completed at Istanbul, Turkey, connecting Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus Strait.
1974 The "Rumble in the Jungle," a boxing match in Zaire that many regard as the greatest sporting event of the 20th century, saw challenger Muhammad Ali knock out previously undefeated World Heavyweight Champion George Foreman.
1975 Prince Juan Carlos becomes acting head of state in Spain, replacing the ailing dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.
1985 Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for its final successful mission.
1991 BET Holdings Inc., becomes the first African-American company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
2005 The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) that was destroyed during the firebombing of Dresden in WWII is rededicated.
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Thanks to the Bear. We will always have the url for you to search items in Rolling Thunder
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER …
. rollingthunderremembered.com .
ROLLING THUNDER REMEMBERED Thanks to the Bear … Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION ROLLING THUNDER (1965-1968)…
Thanks to the Bear
I have provided access to archive entries covering Commando Hunt operations for the period November 1968 through mid-September 1969. These posts are permanently available at the following link.
https://www.rollingthunderremembered.com/commando-hunt-post-list/
Thanks to Micro
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and get what happened each day to the crew of the aircraft.
From Vietnam Air Losses site for October 30
30-Oct: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=1435
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.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
MOAA - Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Servicemembers Killed in the Vietnam War
The site works, find anyone you knew in "search" feature.
https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/ )
Wall of Faces Now Includes Photos of All Service members Killed in the Vietnam War
By: Kipp Hanley
AUGUST 15, 2022
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Thanks to Brett…..A bit of what is going on in the world
Geopolitical Futures:
Keeping the future in focus
https://geopoliticalfutures.com
Daily Memo: US-Israel Talks, Iran's Defense Budget
Washington is hoping to prevent any further escalation in Lebanon.
By GPF Staff
.
New order. Israel and the United States are in talks on a deal that would prevent an expanded Israeli ground operation in Lebanon in exchange for Washington's support of a sea, land and air embargo that will prevent Hezbollah from rearming itself, according to a report by Israel's Channel 12. The negotiations are being conducted by Israel's strategic affairs minister and U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The two countries are also reportedly negotiating a 60-day cease-fire, during which the details of a full settlement could be worked out and a new order in the region established.
Netanyahu's pledge. Meanwhile, at the opening of the winter session of the Knesset, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he intended to sign more peace deals with Arab countries. He promised to continue the process that began in 2020 with the signing the Abraham Accords, which saw Israel normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Iranian defense spending. Iran plans to increase its military budget by 200 percent, a government spokesperson said on Tuesday. The statement came after Israel hit a number of Iranian military sites over the weekend in retaliation to Iran's missile attack earlier this month. Tehran has pledged to respond to the Israeli strikes.
Building bridges. France and Morocco signed nearly two dozen contracts worth over 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) during French President Emmanuel Macron's trip to Morocco on Monday. The deals involved renewable energy, hydrogen, shipping and high-speed rail investments. The visit comes after Paris backed in July Morocco's position on its breakaway Western Sahara region.
Israeli defenses. Israel's Defense Ministry announced that it signed a contract to purchase a batch of Light Shield laser missile defense systems from Israel-based contractors Elbit and Rafael. The systems will act as an extra layer of protection to Israel's Iron Dome air defenses, capable of targeting drones, missiles and mortar shells without creating anti-missile debris.
Declining stocks. U.S. stocks of certain types of air defense missiles are running low, the Wall Street Journal reported, raising concerns about Washington's readiness to respond to threats in the Middle East, Europe and potentially East Asia. The biggest concerns are over Standard Missiles, which are used to protect Israel from Iranian strikes and to stop Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. The increased demand requires expanding production capacity and hiring more workers, but defense firms are apparently reluctant to do so, fearing that the spike in orders could be temporary.
Praise from Orban. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban congratulated his Georgian counterpart, Irakli Kobakhidze, on not allowing his country to become a "second Ukraine." He made the comment at a joint press conference in Tbilisi following the Russian-friendly Georgian Dream party's victory in parliamentary elections over the weekend. Georgia's president and the opposition have called the vote illegitimate and claimed that it was manipulated by Moscow.
Russia and North Korea. North Korea's foreign minister departed on Oct. 28 for an official visit to Moscow, the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang said. Relatedly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended a recently signed defense pact between the two countries, saying it did not violate any international laws.
East Asian cooperation. The deputy foreign ministers from China, Japan and South Korea held talks in Tokyo on Monday. They pledged to maintain dialogue and promote cooperation on human exchange, sustainable development, economy and trade, health and aging, science and technology, and disaster and safety.
Key resource. Uzbekistan and Afghanistan still need to work out quotas for withdrawing water from the Amu Darya River following the Afghan government's construction of the Qosh Tepa canal, an Uzbek envoy to Afghanistan said. He insisted that the two countries had no disputes over the matter and that they both had rights to withdraw water from the river, noting that they already established a joint commission to discuss the project.
Tunisian visit. Russia's Admiral Gorshkov frigate made a port call in the Tunisian city of Bizerte. The purpose of the visit, according to Russia's Northern Fleet press service, is to participate in "a number of protocol events." The ship previously made stops in Cuba and Venezuela on its current months long mission.
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Still catching up onEmail…..skip
Thanks to Carl
the I-Bar at NASNI
I'm Carl, a retired Navy Seabee on Skip's email list. Since he is having computer problems, I'm sending this to you since you handled The List for him.
This article was posted this morning in the Coronado newspaper, and the Aviation community will find this history interesting.
https://coronadotimes.com/news/2019/11/20/world-famous-i-bars-reputation-about-to-takeoff/
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Thanks to History Facts
"The War of the Worlds"—Orson Welles's realistic radio dramatization of a Martian invasion of Earth—is broadcast on the radio on October 30, 1938.
Welles was only 23 years old when his Mercury Theater company decided to update H.G. Wells's 19th-century science fiction novel The War of the Worlds for national radio. Despite his age, Welles had been in radio for several years, most notably as the voice of "The Shadow" in the hit mystery program of the same name. "War of the Worlds" was not planned as a radio hoax, and Welles had little idea of how legendary it would eventually become.
The show began on Sunday, October 30, at 8 p.m. A voice announced: "The Columbia Broadcasting System and its affiliated stations present Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in 'War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells."
Sunday evening in 1938 was prime-time in the golden age of radio, and millions of Americans had their radios turned on. But most of these Americans were listening to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy "Charlie McCarthy" on NBC and only turned to CBS at 8:12 p.m. after the comedy sketch ended and a little-known singer went on. By then, the story of the Martian invasion was well underway.
Welles introduced his radio play with a spoken introduction, followed by an announcer reading a weather report. Then, seemingly abandoning the storyline, the announcer took listeners to "the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York, where you will be entertained by the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra." Music played for some time, and then the scare began. An announcer broke in to report that "Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory" had detected explosions on the planet Mars. Then the dance music came back on, followed by another interruption in which listeners were informed that a large meteor had crashed into a farmer's field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey.
Soon, an announcer was at the crash site describing a Martian emerging from a large metallic cylinder. "Good heavens," he declared, "something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now here's another and another one and another one. They look like tentacles to me … I can see the thing's body now. It's large, large as a bear. It glistens like wet leather. But that face, it… it … ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it's so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate."
The Martians mounted walking war machines and fired "heat-ray" weapons at the puny humans gathered around the crash site. They annihilated a force of 7,000 National Guardsman, and after being attacked by artillery and bombers the Martians released a poisonous gas into the air. Soon "Martian cylinders" landed in Chicago and St. Louis. The radio play was extremely realistic, with Welles employing sophisticated sound effects and his actors doing an excellent job portraying terrified announcers and other characters. An announcer reported that widespread panic had broken out in the vicinity of the landing sites, with thousands desperately trying to flee.
The Federal Communications Commission investigated the unorthodox program but found no law was broken. Networks did agree to be more cautious in their programming in the future. The broadcast helped Orson Welles land a contract with a Hollywood studio, and in 1941 he directed, wrote, produced, and starred in Citizen Kane—a movie that many have called the greatest American film ever made.
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Marine barracks 1983; Tuttle never launched 'chip shot'
Thanks to Micro
Dutch:
There are a few more tidbits on this one, regarding going after the guys that planned the strike against the Marines in Lebanon. RADM Tuttle was raring to go, and it wasn't his decision not to launch. Here's the story from our standpoint:
I was CO of VF-143, World Famous Pukin' Dogs on USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69). Three of my 12 F-14 aircraft were TARPS capable (Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System). We had been pulled out of an exercise in Egypt when the Ambassador's residence and compound had been shelled, starting in August. Over time, the tensions subsided, and we slowly backed away until we could go into port in Naples. After we were there for about 24 hours, they hit the Marines with the car bomb, and we emergency sortied at midnight. Our next port was Norfolk, 101 days later. A lot happened in that 101 days.
One day, a Navy CDR in Service Dress Blue, needing a shave, stepped off a COD. About half an hour later, I was called to the Captain's Inport Cabin. Gathering were the Captain (Ed Clexton), CAG (Joe Prueher), the CO's of the A-6 squadron and the E-2 squadron, the mysterious CDR, and me. He was the courier that ADM Lyons mentioned in the article below. I don't remember if RADM Tuttle was there at the initial meeting or not.
The mission was so secret that they didn't want to trust the Top Secret communications system with the news. ADM Lyons states that he knew the Soviets were reading our messages, but we didn't know that at the time (at least at my pay grade).
We planned the strike on the dining room table in the inport cabin over the next week or so. Even CVIC didn't know what we were doing. RADM Tuttle had told us he "wanted to send a message." The A-6's bomb load totaled 144 MK-83, 1000-lb bombs. To hit a little square (I recall less than a square block perhaps) with barracks surrounded by a low stone wall in a little town. I've attached a Google Earth picture with the whole barracks complex outlined as best I remember it (it may just be the line of buildings along the southwestern side of the square). You can see the scale in the lower left (200 ft), so the compound I've outlined was about 500 x 800 feet, by my eye.
ADM Crowe was CINCSOUTH, and he was sent aboard to take our briefing and to report to President Reagan whether or not we were ready to go (and if he had confidence in us). At one point, he asked me what the AOB (Air Order of Battle) was for Syria. I don't remember the exact number now, but it was several hundred MiG's, and I was using six fighters at that end of the ingress. He asked me if that would be enough, and I said I thought it was about even. We all chuckled, but he didn't, and I thought he might think we had a little too much "cowboy" in us, but he didn't say anything further. After all, it was a short ingress down the Bekaa, with a 15 mile egress, and we figured we'd catch everyone by surprise more with a small force than a huge one. Besides, if you believe anyone can get several hundred aircraft airborne from a non-alert posture, you're smoking something.
My TARPS birds were to get immediate BDA with IR and film to prove that collateral damage was minimal, because there would be all kinds of claims.
Came the day of the strike: We manned up and were shut down. President Reagan was in Japan, and his departure was delayed. So we heard, he didn't want to carry out such a strike when he was on foreign soil.
We sat around the Ready Rooms and waited for Air Force One to take off, while the airplanes were all topped off. Then, we manned up again. And we were shut down again. This time, it was cancelled.
It seems that Time magazine had just published an article that speculated where the bad guys were, with pictures of them. Their speculation was accurate, and intel reported that the bad guys were no longer there.
We were really pissed, of course. So close, and yet so far.
To my knowledge, we never have gotten these guys.
Micro
Subject: FW: marine barracks 1983; Tuttle never launched 'chip shot'
Thanks to ted -
LYONS: The Iranian origins of treachery
By James A. Lyons Jr.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
With all the media focus on the recently concluded talks in Geneva with Iran over its nuclear program, it's easy to overlook the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Beirut 30 years ago on Oct. 23, 1983.
On that day, 241 of our finest military personnel were killed, with scores more seriously injured. Almost simultaneously, a similar attack was carried out at the French military headquarters, killing 58 French paratroopers. We have positive proof that these attacks were planned and ordered by Iran using their Islamic Amal terrorist proxies — forerunners to Hezbollah — in Lebanon. It is astounding that we had the information to prevent these attacks, and even more astounding is the "reason" for not retaliating.
The National Security Agency issued a highly classified message dated Sept. 27, 1983, which contained the instructions that Iranian Ambassador Ali Akbar Montashemi in Damascus had previously received from Tehran and then gave to Husayn al-Musawi, the leader of the Islamic Amal. Those instructions directed the terrorist group to concentrate its attacks on the Multi-National Force but take a "spectacular" action against the U.S. Marines.
I was deputy chief of naval operations at that time, and I did not receive that message until Oct. 25, two days after the bombing. That same day, I was called out to the CIA's Langley headquarters because CIA Director William Casey wanted to see me. At the meeting, Casey asked me whether I would develop plans to take out the perpetrators if he discovered who they were and where they were located. I readily agreed.
The terrorist group, Islamic Amal, was located in the Lebanese Army Sheik Abdallah barracks near Baalbek, Lebanon. The organization had taken over the barracks on Sept. 16 with the help of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. I had the strike plans couriered to the 6th Fleet Carrier Strike Force for the commander, Rear Adm. Jerry Tuttle, because I knew then the Soviets were reading our communications.
Everyone had been briefed, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger. According to National Security Adviser Robert McFarland, at the key meeting with President Reagan, Weinberger stated that he thought there were Lebanese Army groups in the barracks. This was false.
The president turned to Casey for clarification. Casey, who had just returned from an overseas trip, was not up to speed on such details. The president then said, "Get that sorted out." As it turned out, there were no Lebanese Army troops in the barracks. But Weinberger threw more dust into the air by stating that we will lose all of our Arab friends if we go ahead with this strike.
Consequently, we never received the execute order, even though the planes were loaded and ready to launch. In the words of the Carrier Strike Force commander, "This was a chip shot." The failure to retaliate was tragic, and we are still living with that mistake.
Compounding the problem, Reagan approved a combined strike with the French against the same target several days later. This time, the secretary of defense simply ignored the president's order and would not issue the strike order. Mr. McFarland and Secretary of State George Shultz both told me that they tried to get Weinberger to change his position but failed. The French were furious. They carried out the strike alone, but did no damage, contrary to Reagan's diary entry that stated the French wiped out the terrorists.
At the time of these "acts of war," President Obama was still a student at Columbia University and later at Harvard. He was probably more involved in absorbing the wisdom of the leftist agenda than on the tragic events carried out by Iran against our military. However, he is certainly aware today of the thousands of our military personnel who have died as the result of Iran's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also must realize that Iran has provided material and training support to the September 11 hijackers. Iran was found guilty of providing such support by Judge George B. Daniels of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in December 2011. Previously, Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found Iran guilty in the Marine barracks bombing.
Iran remains the world leader in state-sponsored terrorism. It is a rogue regime that will do anything to ensure the survivability of the corrupt theocracy. The mullahs have not spent billions to build underground nuclear facilities, as well as absorbing crippling economic sanctions, to simply negotiate away their nuclear weapons objectives. In August 1995, Russia offered to provide Iran with a 10-year supply of fuel for their nuclear plant at Bushehr for only $30 million. Iran adamantly rejected the proposal because Russia insisted that Iran return the spent fuel rods to Russia for reprocessing. Case closed. Iran, with enough oil and gas to last at least a few hundred years, doesn't need nuclear capability for electricity.
With Mr. Obama's eagerness to negotiate with Iran, it has been reported that he is weighing the possibility of unfreezing billions in Iranian assets in response to "potential" concessions by Iran. Such a move would be nonsensical. If Mr. Obama were to unfreeze billions of Iranian assets, then the money should not go to Iran, but to the surviving families of the Marine barracks bombing, as well as to the surviving families of the September 11, 2001, atrocity, as our courts have mandated.
Retired Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
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From the archives
Subj: FW: More on the Marine barracks 1983;RADM Tuttle never launched 'chip shot'
Thanks to Hal -
We all know that Iran has been at war with us even before the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon. Unfortunately most of the American public does not. I even wonder if our president and C in C knows. He being a wee lad at that time in our history, and living in some other country. His naivete shows in his belief that Iran will cease their work on nuclear weapons if we loosen the embargoes.
Let me back up to the facts that were well-known BEFORE the attack on the Marines....on September 26th, four weeks prior to the bombing, our National Security Agency intercepted a message sent from the Iranian Intelligence headquarters in Tehran to Ambassador Mohtashemi telling him to contact Hussein Musawi, head of the terrorist group Islamic Amal and order him to take spectacular action against the US Marines, who were there only as peacekeepers and didn't carry loaded weapons. So the volunteers were recruited to blow up the barracks.
The man who made the bomb was Ibrahim Safa and he was a member of HezbAllah, the Party of God, and totally financed by Iran. He was working with the Pasdaran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The driver was an Iranian, Walid Asmail al-Askari, and working under the orders of the Iranian Ambassador to Syria, Ali Akbar Mohtashemi. I met Admiral 'Ace' Lyons some months after the attack at dinner at the Pacific Club in Honolulu while in the company of a Navy Medical Corps Captain who was a member of this exclusive club. The admiral was the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations and responsible for naval security worldwide. He said that the information about the NSA intercept did not reach him until two days after the attack, so he was unable to warn Colonel Tim Geraghty. As Micro points out, the fleet and special operators were all set to seek revenge for this, but then our Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, ordered everyone to stand down. The reason was that Secretary Weinberger said the intelligence he possessed was insufficient to order such an attack. He likely had not been shown the NSA intercepts that were now in the Military Chain of Command. His military aide would have had them and would have the option of showing him, or not showing him. His military aide was General Colin Powell. Some time after that, there was some action taken and I don't know much about that, but one of our A-6s was shot down over Beiruit and the BN was captured by the Syrians and taken to Damascus. He was a black Navy Lieutenant named Goodman and if you remember Jesse Jackson was running for president that year. So, he announced to the world that he was going to go "and get that boy out." At that time I was the hospital administraton consultant for the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces Hospital, Al Hada, at Taif. I received a call that day asking if I could be in Damascus when Jackson arrived. So I caught a Syrian Arab Airlines flight out of Jeddah that night and arrived in Damascus early morning and checked into the Cham Palace Hotel downtown. As we were at war with Syria, they were somewhat surprised when I showed up, but they treated me well. To Jackson's credit, however, he did get LT Goodman out of captivity and brought him home. One more thing I would add is that I used to fly British Air from London to Beiruit to catch Middle East Airlines onward to Dhahran as they had the very best food of any airline. But the last time I flew out, the crazies shelled the terminal two hours after I departed. They cratered the runway and every plane on the ground stayed there for months and nothing could fly in. Anyone who tried to repair the runway was shot by snipers. Beiruit used to be called the Paris of the Middle East. When last I saw it, it looked more like Dresden or Cologne or Berlin in WWII.
Hal
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From the archives
The American Minute
OCTOBER 29, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashed.
Panic ensued as Wall Street sold 16,410,030 shares in a single day.
Billions of dollars were lost and America plunged into the Great Depression.
In a drive to aid private relief agencies, October 18, 1931, President
Herbert Hoover stated:
"Time and again the American people have demonstrated a spiritual quality
of generosity...
This is the occasion when we must arouse that idealism, that spirit, from
which there can be no failure in this primary obligation of every man to
his neighbor."
Herbert Hoover continued: "Our country and the world are today involved in
more than a financial crisis. We are faced with the primary question of
human relations, which reaches to the very depths of organized society and
to the very depths of human conscience...
This great complex, which we call American life, is builded and can alone
survive upon the translation into individual action of that fundamental
philosophy announced by the Savior nineteen centuries ago." Hoover
concluded: "Part of our national suffering today is from failure to observe
these primary yet inexorable laws of human relationship...Modern society
can not survive with the defense of Cain, 'Am I my brother's keeper?'
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Before 1940, more than 85% of the U.S. population used drugless healers
Just 100 years ago in the United States, medicine was not a lucrative business. Scarce was a case of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis or Alzheimer's, and there were no pharmaceutically induced deaths.
The FDA, NCI, ACS and AMA is an organized, medical monopoly which ensures a continuous flow of money to Big Pharma.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z042697_drugless_medicine_natural_remedies_holistic_healing.html
Originally published October 29 2013
Before 1940, more than 85% of the U.S. population used drugless healers
by S. D. Wells
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From the archives For all our lost brothers
Mark Berent wrote a fantastic series Called Rolling Thunder about the Vietnam War. If you flew there at all it is well worth your time to read them in order. Skip
1 - Rolling Thunder (Jun-1989) · 2 - Steel Tiger (May-1990) · 3 - Phantom Leader (May-1991) · 4 - Eagle Station (Jun-1992) · 5 - Storm Flight (Oct-1993)
Thanks to Bagjaws
Mark E. Berent
I wrote the following free verse based on St. X's work Wind, Sand and Stars when Larry Dietzen, F-4 WSO, Eglin, died of cancer in 1974. It applies to all of us. It was printed in the INTERCEPTOR magazine that year.
Dedicated to Dietz, cancer brought about what no opponent ever could.
When a flyer dies in harness
His death seems something inherent to flying itself, And in the beginning the hurt it brings Is perhaps less than the pain sprung of a different death.
Assuredly he has vanished, has undergone the ultimate mutation.
Yet his presence is still not missed immediately.
In flying we take it for granted that we shall meet only rarely, For flyers are widely stationed over the face of the world.
They land at scattered and remote bases, isolated from each other, Rather in the manner of sentinels between whom no words can be spoken.
It needs the coincidence of journeying to bring together, here or there, The dispersed members of this great professional family.
Round the table in the evening at Ubon, at Clark, Bitburg, or Nellis, We take up conversations interrupted by years of silence.
We resume friendships instantly to the accompaniment of buried memories.
And then we are off again.
Thus is the earth at once a desert and a paradise rich in secret hidden groves.
Groves so often inaccessible yet to which the craft leads us ever back, One day or another.
Life may scatter us and keep us apart,
It may prevent us from thinking very often of one another.
But we know that our comrades are somewhere "in the pattern."
Where, one can hardly say.
Silent, not quite forgotten, but deeply faithful.
And when our path crosses theirs,
They greet us with such manifest joy; shake us so gladly by the shoulders.
Indeed, we are accustomed to waiting.
Bit by bit, nevertheless, it comes over us That we shall never again hear the laughter of our friend.
That this one grove is forever locked against us.
At that moment begins our true mourning
Which though it may not be rending, is yet lonely and bitter.
For nothing, in truth, can replace that companion.
Old friends cannot be created out of hand.
Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, Of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations, Of generous emotions.
For years we nurture the seed of friendship, we feel ourselves rich.
Then come other years when time does its work And our groves are made sparse and thin.
One by one our comrades slip away, deprive us of their shade.
We who fly bear this special loneliness and grief.
At untoward moments a memory surfaces
And outsiders stare and mutter uneasily at the black frost in our eyes.
Not of the sky, they resent our loud actions and harsh laughter.
Then it arrives that after a certain flight we are quite silent and less stricken.
For far above the earth, near the infinite, we had found the perfect cloud.
We pulled to the white and, rolling, passed through the grand arches.
Burners echoing, climbed yet higher to loop --- and the twilight was purple.
In solitude we land and feel not as alone.
Our comrade received his flyer's salute.
With a humble thanks and a flyer's salute to Antoine de Saint-Exupery, MIA in a P-38 over the Med during WWII. This was published in the "Interceptor" magazine, Feb, 74, p30.
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.This Day in U S Military History
1961 – The most powerful nuclear weapon the world has seen was detonated by the Soviet Union. Tsar Bomba was 1,400 times Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and ten times the entire combined fire power expended in WWII.The resulting fireball had a radius of nearly 10,000 vertical feet and its 210,000 foot tall mushroom cloud reached into the stratosphere. The light generated by the reaction could be seen from over a 1,000 km and the force of its explosion registered a 5.0 on the Richter scale. The shock wave generated air pressures topping 300 PSI, circled the Earth thrice, and cracked windows 900 km away in Norway and Finland. Buildings in the abandoned town of Severny 55 km away were leveled—all of them—and upon later inspection, ground zero was reportedly the texture of a skating rink. As one observer recalled, "The clouds beneath the aircraft and in the distance were lit up by the powerful flash. The sea of light spread under the hatch and even clouds began to glow and became transparent. At that moment, our aircraft emerged from between two cloud layers and down below in the gap a huge bright orange ball was emerging. The ball was powerful and arrogant like Jupiter. Slowly and silently it crept upwards…. Having broken through the thick layer of clouds it kept growing. It seemed to suck the whole earth into it. The spectacle was fantastic, unreal, supernatural." This utter destruction is only half of what the Tsar Bomba was capable of. It was designed and built to deliver a staggering 100 megaton payload. The Tsar was supposed to utilize fast-fissioning uranium tampers on the second and third stages of the bomb, which would have allowed for a bigger reaction and subsequent energy release. However, just before the test was to take place, Soviet leadership ordered the tampers swapped out with lead replacements in order to prevent nuclear fallout from reaching populated areas of the USSR. These lead tampers cut the bomb's yield by 50 percent but they also eliminated 97 percent of the resulting fallout. As such the Tsar Bomba, the largest, most destructively powerful device ever built by man also holds the notable distinction of being the relatively "cleanest" nuclear weapon ever tested. Luckily, that record was only important for two years until the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty which brought an end to above-ground nuclear weapons tests.
1965 – Just miles from Da Nang, U.S. Marines repel an intense attack by successive waves of Viet Cong troops and kill 56 guerrillas. A search of the dead uncovered a sketch of Marine positions written on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who had been selling drinks to the Marines the previous day. This incident was indicative of the nature of a war in which even the most seemingly innocent child could be the enemy. There were many other instances where South Vietnamese civilians that worked on or near U.S. bases provided information to and participated in attacks alongside the enemy. Also on this day: Two U.S. planes accidentally bomb a friendly South Vietnamese village, killing 48 civilians and wounding 55 others. An American civic action team was immediately dispatched to the scene, and a later investigation disclosed that a map-reading error by South Vietnamese officers was responsible. Also on this day: In New York City, military veterans lead a parade in support of government policy in Vietnam. Led by five recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, 25,000 people march in support of America's action in Vietnam.
1970 – Fighting in the five northern-most provinces of Vietnam comes to a virtual halt as the worst monsoon rains in six years strikes the region. The resultant floods killed 293 people and left more than 200,000 homeless.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
ROSS, WILBURN K.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, Company G, 350th Infantry, 3d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near St. Jacques, France, 30 October 1944. Entered service at: Strunk, Ky. Birth: Strunk, Ky. G.O. No.: 30, 14 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty near St. Jacques, France. At 11:30 a.m. on 30 October 1944, after his company had lost 55 out of 88 men in an attack on an entrenched. full-strength German company of elite mountain troops, Pvt. Ross placed his light machinegun 10 yards in advance of the foremost supporting riflemen in order to absorb the initial impact of an enemy counterattack. With machinegun and small-arms fire striking the earth near him, he fired with deadly effect on the assaulting force and repelled it. Despite the hail of automatic fire and the explosion of rifle grenades within a stone's throw of his position, he continued to man his machinegun alone, holding off 6 more German attacks. When the eighth assault was launched, most of his supporting riflemen were out of ammunition. They took positions in echelon behind Pvt. Ross and crawled up, during the attack, to extract a few rounds of ammunition from his machinegun ammunition belt. Pvt. Ross fought on virtually without assistance and, despite the fact that enemy grenadiers crawled to within 4 yards of his position in an effort to kill him with hand grenades, he again directed accurate and deadly fire on the hostile force and hurled it back. After expending his last rounds, Pvt. Ross was advised to withdraw to the company command post, together with 8 surviving riflemen, but, as more ammunition was expected, he declined to do so. The Germans launched their last all-out attack, converging their fire on Pvt. Ross in a desperate attempt to destroy the machinegun which stood between them and a decisive breakthrough. As his supporting riflemen fixed bayonets for a last-ditch stand, fresh ammunition arrived and was brought to Pvt. Ross just as the advance assault elements were about to swarm over his position. He opened murderous fire on the oncoming enemy; killed 40 and wounded 10 of the attacking force; broke the assault single-handedly, and forced the Germans to withdraw. Having killed or wounded at least 58 Germans in more than 5 hours of continuous combat and saved the remnants of his company from destruction, Pvt. Ross remained at his post that night and the following day for a total of 36 hours. His actions throughout this engagement were an inspiration to his comrades and maintained the high traditions of the military service.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for October 30, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
30 October
1918: Capt Edward V. Rickenbacker shot down his 26th and final enemy aircraft of World War I. (21)
1919: Reversible pitch propeller tested at McCook Field. It allowed aircraft to slow down and stop quickly on short runways. (18) (21)
1940: The 71st Squadron RAF (1st Eagle Squadron with American volunteers) became operational.
1941: Maj Alva L. Harvey made a record global trip in a B-24, covering 24,700 miles in 48 days. In this flight, he also completed a 3,150-mile nonstop flight from Great Britain to carry members of the Harriman Mission to Moscow. (9) (24) 1949: Lt G. A. Rullo and M. D. Kembro (Civil Air Patrol) flew a Sikorsky helicopter to an unofficial record of 755 miles in 10 hours 50 minutes. (24)
1961: Operation STAIR STEP. The first of 216 ANG fighters from units mobilized on 1 October . deployed across the Atlantic to European bases in response to the Berlin Wall crisis. (21)
1962: The first off-range launch of a GAM-77A Hound Dog missile began near Del Rio, Tex., and ended on the Western Missile Range about 400 miles away.
1964: NASA pilot Joseph A. Walker flew the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle's first flight. Total free-flight time was less than a minute, and the vehicle rose 10 feet. (5) (16)
1968: MAC pararescueman Sgt Duane D. Hackney received the Cheney Award for gallantry in action in Vietnam. (16)
1980: A C-5 received fuel from a KC-10A for the first time. (18)
1994: A C-141 flew 20 tons of medical supplies and other relief items from Kadena AB to Valdivostok, Russia, for victims of a Siberian flood. (16)
2003: An AFFTC B-1B aircrew dropped the first guided Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Separation Test Vehicle (STV) at the China Lake Naval Test Station. The STV collected data to certify the new weapon for further testing. (3)
2006: An LC-130 from the 109 AW, New York ANG, touched down at the South Pole to commemorate the 50th anniversary of first landing there on 31 October 1956. (AFNEWS Article, "109th Airlift Wing Commemorates First South Pole Landing," 3 Nov 2006)
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