It wasn't just the fact I was in an F-14 outfit, it was the outfit I was in.

When I first got in the outfit it was rough. And I thought that was normal. Then we had a change of command and key senior personnel were replaced.

Our new command Master Chief was the personal aide to the Base Admiral who was also the guy in charge NAVAIR Pacific. Master Chief Gaylor's sea duty time had roled around again and he was due to assume Master Chief of the Command of the Constellation a much more worthy assignment for a man of his qualifications which included going up for Master Chief Of The Navy three times and coming in second place twice.

Think about that.

Anyway he turned down the Constellation post to assume the post in our squadron because he wanted to test a personal theory about command that turned out to be sort of right on the mark.

He picked us because even though there were "issues of disipline" big time, our birds flew and our missiles hit their targets. You can't fake it at the level of care needed to keep Tomcats both flying and dangerous.

He thought he could save us. He thought right. He was short and looked like a morph of Boss Hawg and Teddy Rooseveldt. He had a photograghic memory and could yell over 100 dB. Both came in handy.

Now the real show here are the aircrews, of course. These guys rocked. The line up was 25% noobs and transfers from other aircraft types, 25% TopGun grads, and 50% former TopGun instructors! Giving these guys Tomcats that worked as advertised just wasn't fair. A lot of them had dodged AAA and SAMS over North Vietnam. (I was in late 70's early 80's.)

So when we fought the Airforce we hurt them. Every time. The BEST they ever did was die 4 to 1 when some elite outfits flying out of bases in Japan challenged us. 7 to 1 was average and sometimes we would just eat reservists.

So this colored my opinion until the first Gulf War. Then it came to me, "Whoa, it was only because they were fighting *us*!" And two pilots, Cdr Ernst and Lt. Zambito, I would pit against Mr. Yeager in anything he'ed care to fly, up to and including another Tomcat. Those two really gave the impression of "They don't get into a fighter, they strap it on."

I have to go now. I'll add more later.

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

I'm confused, were you a Naval Flight officer?

My understanding was that Master Chiefs were in charge of enlisted men... Military ranks always confused me too much.

Military and ex military have all the respect int he world from me. It takes a truly brave soul to put their life on the line for people they've never met.

Oh hell no Tro! I worked for a living! I was a flight deck trouble shooter for the avionics and fire controls systems on Tomcats! VF-211, now VFA-211. Very sad really. After the Russians stepped back, nobody could field a worthy air threat to justify its expense.

I fixed data links, crypto gear, fire control systems, radio, chaff and flare dispensers, radar, inertial measurement units, cockpit instrumentation. I also made sure there was no extranious light showing up on the intrument panels. Stuff the Airforce would have seperate shops for so they only had to fix one thing.

No, what really did it was when I went to Nellis airforce base after my first cruise and was an "old timer". The big fringe benefit was nearby Las Vegas. I saw an Airforce pilot get in trouble and get all apologetic for blowing down an enlistedman with his exhaust!! This is 180 degrees from normal for flightdeck people.

A day on the flight deck during ops is like this:

You know that feeling you get when a great big dog you don't know comes up on you fast and you aren't sure of its intentions? We'll call that a base line "scare". A good day is three or less scares. Four to five scares and you've had a day. Eight or nine and its like when you are in your third or fourth day of continious air-ops and you start to get tired. I've had some really bad days and seen people have really worse days.

Ever see what happens when an aircraft half way up the flightdeck sucks down a misplaced set of pliers? I always imagined its like being on the wrong side of a claymore mine, only with more fire. One time this big piece flew passed me so fast it shreiked and the shockwave made me all woozie and wobbly kneed and the air felt like I got lashed by leather thongs or something. A good man I knew named Bill Winnett said that's exactly what a very near miss from the main gun of a German Tiger Tank feels like. He had to distract it and kill the German grenadiers with a .30 cal machinegun so the bazooka team could shoot it in the butt. They gave him one of his three bronze stars for that one. The Tiger Tank was mad at him personally. Kind of makes it different.

Now the Airforce guy, I remember watching it happen and laughing. The knucklehead deserved it. The bird was moving off of a flightline and onto the main taxi way, of course it was going to turn, the first two did! Dipstick was looking in completely the other direction and endured the totally not fun "autumn leaves" hit. We called it that because thats what you look like from a distance. But he got up on his own power! He wasn't hurt!

When the pilot came back he not only got it trouble he came up and was all sorry! This was going to go on his record! If the Navy did that you would need a separate boat to carry the records!

We had this term called "moon walking" that was before Micheal Jackson did his move and it was when you found yourself in an untenable situation usually because the plane farther up the flightdeck stoped its turn unexpectly short when you had reached down and had grabbed a chain or a nose wheel door to endure a nasty but short blast. It happens.

When you can't hold on anymore and you have to run for it because parts of you are literally smoking from the heat you have to run away in the direction of the exhaust flow at first of you risk having your legs swept out from under you and that can lead to swimming or worse, going down an intake of another aircraft.

The force of the exhaust causes you to take giant 15 and 20 foot steps until you can cut out of it. Hopefully you don't run out of flightdeck first. I've seen a bunch of guys who were caught by others from going overboard. And you never want to go overboard aft during air ops and the boat's moving quick. Not so much the screws as much as the fact that the foamy water isn't dense enough to float in but still way too thick to breath.

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

I love hearing Navy types thump that skinny area above their bellies!

__________________
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

I saw a Tomcat pilot blow a passing jogger into the fence at NAS Oceana...

Does that count for "oops?"

__________________
If I set the budget, we'd have Ares and more. Unfortunately, I don't set the budget, and Ares is just too expensive and too far out for us to accomplish our goals within the budget we were given.

If we halt the ISS, all versions of Ares, and transport Orion and Altair aboard DIRECTv3's Jupiter family of Shuttle-Derived Launch Vehicles, we just might make it back to the Moon by 2020.

One of the people on BAUT I wish I could spend a Saturday afternoon with a case of beer/ciders with is BigDon, most entertaining (8 scares you say).

__________________
This whole internet thing is probably not a passing fad.-Ronald Brak
While speech might be free, consequences cost.-Doodler

They're zoomies. They are supposed to get poked at. That is what they are for.

One of the things that got me about the Air Force was that in the six months I was at Goodfellow AFB, I saw a PT formation of zoomies break into a run exactly once. Heck, when I was there, the Army barracks were buildings that the air force condemned as not fit to live in.

Having served in both the Army and Air Force, I've seen both sides. Yes, the Air Force gets poked at and yes, many times they deserve it. In the case of PJs (pararescue) and other special ops troops, not so much.

I remember one classic cartoon from years ago that told it well:

Army Infantryman getting soaked in the rain: "This sucks."
Army Ranger moving through the rainy muck: "I LIKE the way this sucks"*
Green Beret (eating a snake): "I wish it would suck even more."
Pilot looking down: "Sure sucks down there."
Air Force enlisted man in his room: "What, the cable's out! This sucks!"

*Rain helps cover movement and mask sound, making it easier to sneak up on someone. Special Ops types often like sucky weather.

Heck, when I was there, the Army barracks were buildings that the air force condemned as not fit to live in.

When my youngest son was a surgical tech instructor in San Diego, he frequently taught Air Force personnel. The Air Force considered the Navy barracks (I refuse to call them dorms) substandard and wouldn't let their personnel live there.

One day, Jim was hosting an Air Force general who was touring the classrooms and facilities. When she asked why the Navy housing was so bad, he asked her, "Ma'am, have you ever been on a Navy ship?" When she said no, Jim made a few quick calls and got permission for her to tour the enlisting spaces on a destroyer. Compared to that, those Navy barracks looked pretty good.

Jim didn't point out that years earlier when he was a single enlisted guy living in those barracks, they were pretty bad. The thing that convinced him to move out was when he opened his locker one day and found a mouse had given birth inside.

Yep, rain is the attacker's friend. Bad weather encourages defenders to go into "Gore 4." (Hood up and closed almost completely.) A defender in Gore 4 has his ears covered. The more the defender isolates himself from his environment, the less likely he is to detect an attack. The world sounds muted in the rain, and moreso with the hood up. The wet and cold seep into the stationary defender's boots and his brain and he feels sorry for himself. The fight is almost over before the first round is fired.

Meanwhile the attacker's exertion has warmed his bones. He's doing something dangerous and exciting. The wetter the leaves, the less they crackle and the whitenoise masks other sounds made by an attacking force. Soon he'll get to eat someone else's lunch and see if he had anything worth keeping in his pack.


_ _ _


I remember taking a MAC flight from Travis to Hickam in the 80's as a Lance Corporal. I had to stay on at Travis for one night to await my flight. Marines still used squad bays, and I expected to find a spare cot for the night but the Airforce put me up in a two man room. After we returned from getting a beer at the E-Club, the airman I stayed with told me to put my boots outside the door with a dollar in each boot. The next morning, they were spitshined. We went to chow (he called it "breakfast") and came back to find our racks already made. (I don't know if I can exactly explain how alien those things seemed at the time). To be fair, Marines now have BEQ's too. Since adopting suede-out boots, no one polishes them anymore. Times change.

Having jumped with PJs and seen the professionalism of airforce SPs (at least wrt a stateside flightline) I know they've got some great troops. In general, however, the Wild Blue Yonder Wonders tend to have different expectations of normalcy than the average Jarhead.

Hey BigDon - remind me to tell you about the toughest guy I've ever met in the military. He was a Navy cook on the Lincoln.*

*Guy enlisted to be a SEAL, but learned he was colorblind. Got to spend the next three years flipping pancakes. Bad, bad guy to **** off in a port call. I'm 6'7, he was 5,11 and had bigger hands than I do. Great guy to go drinking with, however!

__________________
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

This thread is going to be such fun! BigDon, have you ever submitted anything to "Tailhook"? Your posts are great. My son is an ex-Tomcat RIO (VF-103), now a civilian subject matter expert on the new simulators for RIOs-Bombardiers-Navigators. At the end of his first deployment, I got to fly to Bermuda and ride the Saratoga on her last voyage. The Squadron Master Chief knew I was a retired army NCO, and he said "I want to thank you for teaching your son the proper role of NCOs." I then said "No BS, How's the kid doing?" He gave me his evaluation, good and bad. The kid worked on the good and bad, pins on Commanders leaves next month and has been selected for command. Pretty good for coming from a long line of grunts!

__________________
"Everybody's playing the Game
But nobody's rules are the same
Nobody's on nobody's side." (Tim Rice)
No matter how strong, or brave, or pure of heart you may be; sometimes the dragon wins!

...but the Navy had a headstart:

__________________
*

Active duty Air Force checking in!

In my 10 years (on March 18th) in blue I've spent at least one month of every year since 1999 in the desert. 3 trips to Ali Al Salem AB kuwait, 6 months at Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia during Operation Iraqi Freedom and one trip to Kurkuk Iraq for a total of 597 days in the AOR. I've worked with Army, Navy and Marines including supervising army and Navy soldiers and sailors in joint units while deployed.

What have I learned from these last ten years? There is no more professional killing machine then a US Marine. Every single Marine I have met has been a Marine to the core. They know thier jobs both on the battlefield and off and they have my utmost respect. However I have also learned that there are only two types of Marines. Really, really really smart Marines and Really, really, really... really dumb Marines. Everything they do is done to perfection. Even if they have to perfect screwing up But when the bullets start whizzing past thier heads they always get it right.

I had two Navy E-5's working for me in Saudi. Both were intelligent and new thier stuff just as well as anyone else did but neither was really anything to brag about. They were average at best. No better and no worse trained then anyone else in the CAOC. The Navy does (or did at least) have better electronics schools then the Air Force but its a rare occasion where I get to go down to component level on a circuit board anymore. Everything is commercial off the shelf equipment now-a-days so we just pull it out and send it back to the factory for warrenty coverage. I do miss the ol' soldering iron from time to time Either of those two ET2's could have given me some lessons on a fried circuit I'm sure but that is a skill thats gone the way of the dinosaur in the Air Force

I also had an Army Specialist (E-4) working for me over there. There is a reason the Army doesn't let you start to think for yourself until you hit E-5. This kid was really nice and tried hard but man he was a brick. I gave him what I thought was going to be a simple task. Create a cheat sheet with all of the settings for one of our Theater Ballistic Missile Warning Systems and put it in the systems continuity book so that we would have everything recorded and not have to set it up from scratch if the router died or something. It's the difference between 1 hour to set up an new system or 2 days if I have to figure it all out for myself. This is the type of task i would normally have given to my least reliable E-2 or E-3 Airman and be reasonably sure that with in 2 or 3 hours I'd have a finished product in hand to look over. It started with that deer in the headlights look which was shortly followed by the question "how do I do that?" (Keep in mind he was fully trained on this particular system) Two days later when I asked how it was going he finally told me he didn't know exactly how to put it all together and was still figuring out how to start. I had to hold his hand through the whole project... /sigh This is of course, the same specialist who managed to connect a male cannon plug to a male cannon plug when he was being trained on that same system. I'm still not sure how he did it because cannon plugs are keyed so they only go together one way and you cannot plug them into the wrong slot. I don't know what they teach these soldiers in Army schools but in the Air Force, male parts connect to female parts...

As for the Air Force, we really are more like a corporation then a military branch. There is a fundamental difference between the Air Force and the other branches of service though. In the Army, Navy and Marines thier rank doesn't matter. They are all in harms way every time the go into battle. It doesn't matter if you are the lowest Private or a General. You may just find yourself climbing into a tank or trudging through the mud to dish out death to the enemy or meet your own. In the Navy if the ship goes down both enlisted and officers get wet. They share that risk equally. In the Air Force though, enlisted fix the planes, fuel the planes, and even tell the planes where to fly but its the officers who pilot those planes into battle. There is a reason you seldom hear about an Air Force enlisted man or woman being shot down, captured or killed by the enemy. Air Force enlisted men are back at base hoping our officers drop the bomb on target and bring the plane back in one piece. With the exception of a few select career fields we are seldom actually on the front lines ourselves.

Because of the job I did in Saudi I am partly responsible for the targetting of every bomb that dropped during OIF. That is 57,000+ bombs I helped drop on Iraq and an estimated 600,000 people I helped kill by keeping the targetting systems up and running in the Combined Air Operations Center at Prince Sultan AB so that the planes, and the boys in the field knew what was comming at them and where to aim. And yes, I did it all while sleeping comfortably in a 4 man room in an air conditioned dorm, eating at Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, a really nice dining facility and driving my government issued suburban to and from the office to go to work every day.

An Army commander in the field can't afford to have his soldiers question his orders. If he says take that hill then they had better take that hill or people get killed. However if my lowest ranking Airman thinks he knows a better way of setting up our communications network so we can squeeze a little more bandwidth out of a satellite shot then I want him to tell me. If my commander tells me to do something one way but I know a better way of doing it he wants me to tell him just the same. He may not agree with me but one way or the other we always get the job done.

I was sitting out on the ops floor chatting with an E-4 forward air controller friend one day when an Army squad radioed in that they were pinned down by enemy fire and couldn't get a shot to return fire. They asked for close air support. This lowly Air Force Senior Airman quickly checked his airspace, found the only available aircraft and sent a B1-b heavy bomber loaded with 1000lb bombs in to help them out. He told the soldiers to make themselves small because this was going to be big then vectored the plane into the area, told them exactly where to drop thier payload and a few moments later laughed when the radio crackled again as the squad leader said "Holy $#!), thanks control, that got em." We may be the pretty boys of the military but when your pinned down behind enemy lines with no hope of fighting your way out we'll be there to pull your bacon out of the fire.

As for those F-14's... You haven't been keeping up with the last few red flag events I'd put the Navy's best F-14 or F-18 squadron (or both) up against two of my worst Raptor pilots any day of the week and get 10 to 1 odds against the Navy The 14's would all be dead before they even knew the Raptor's were off the ground. Of course I know it wouldn't be fair pitting 20-30 year old planes against the fastest, meanest bird on (or above)the planet but an entire squadron against two planes with newbie pilots has to even the odds a little right??

You know that Spy Satellite the Navy shot down the other day? The Delta II it rode into orbit on was one of the last launches I worked on while I was stationed at Vandenberg AFB. I was also part of the launches of Calypso and the Cloudsat that rode up with it. I worked directly on probably 15-20 Minuteman III and Peacekeeper launches in my 5 years at Vandenberg without a single launch failure and I worked on the first National missile defence interceptor Launch from vandenberg. We were supposed to try to get within a few miles of the target vehicle. We hit it. I missed Gravity Probe B due to being in the desert at the time. I really wanted to work that launch but it just wasn't in the cards

Don't ask, don't tell.

All neat stories, folks. More! More!

__________________
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

What Moose said!
Why wouldn't "spy" satellites be equipped with self-destruct mechanisms?

__________________
*

Self destruct systems have mass, and mass costs money. But it may have had a self destruct mechanism, but if the satellite isn't accepting your communications, you might not be able to set it off. But it is possible to install a passive self destruct system that is activated by the heat of reentry. It was suggested in another thread that the spy satellite was shot down merely to show that the U.S. could do it. If you believe this and have a suitably devious mind, you could imagine a situation where the satellite did have a working self destruct system which was used to make sure that it did blow up when it was supposed to when the missile was launched at it. Considering that in the past the U.S. put a homing beacon in a target missile in an interceptor test, this scenario doesn't sound completely far out. Of course the fact that we found out about the homeing beacon on the test missile weighs against it.

No need for one Sarong. If you plan it right. Plus you have to make one that only works when you want it too.

Nice meeting you Mr. Byte. Good write up. Bravo!

But the raptor better be every bit as radar invisible as the 117. Yeah, we couldn't see those, but we could lock up on a target as small as an F-5 at over a hundred nautical miles. And as soon as they go wheels up. Up close they could lay down a fairly intense swathe of radar. And we both know they don't work alone in analysing signals.

I would use the reverse of what we often did against select aircraft types, where we would use "illuminating" aircraft waaaay back while the "killer" aircraft go in fast (mach 2+) and passive. After the killers expend thier munitions they swap roles.

Our air to air missiles were getting darn good when "I" was in. And I didn't get to work with the AMRAAM. They were calling it the "baby phoenix". The phoenix missile, AIM-54, was the "main battery" of the F-14. Quite a capable weapon in its day. Still, the Soviet electronic warfare birds and bigger bombers were starting to pack enough gear to spoof them back then. All electronics get dated. You could still knock down cruise missiles at range though.

We got to use a remorely operated F-4 Phantom as a target drone once. It was jinking, jamming and dropping chaff and flares and had ground control guidence. (As if it really was at war) Three missiles with telemetry warheads passed within 10 yards and they only needed to get within 100 yards for a 90% kill probability due to the proximity fuse. The fourth physically hit the phantom and knocked off its "turkey feather" exhaust nozzles.

Missiles 5 and 6 were live warshot. Now the powers that be were uncomfortable about hucking these any great distance autonomously so the engagement range was closed to withing ten miles. Normally against "mundane" aircraft a live hostile phoenix getting within six miles of you was considered a kill 'cause it will find you. They were devilishly clever and could think faster than you.*

Missile 6 wasn't used as missile 5 cut the target in half just equal to the intakes. And both halves fell burning into the ocean. I saw good pictures of the falling pieces.





*Not quite like "Dark Star," but then again, you don't have to be. It didn't have to outthink a Duel-core Pentium but guys with nicknames like "Boomer" and "Square". (Lt. Root was an uber nerd when he first showed up. He was tall, lanky, walked flat footed, and even made a flight suit look dorky. That's hard.)

__________________
In your rush to call everyone "entrenched" or closed-minded or "limited" you fail to note that the "limit" here has a very natural boundary: that point at which the evidence stops. - JayUtah

Science fiction was never meant to be an educational tool. - Editor Amazing Tales

My impression is that the F-22 is more stealthy than the F-117.

This is the only source I could find right now:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/hta.../20051125.aspx

Which implies:

F-22 > F-35 > B-2 >> F-117

Does someone have a better source?

__________________
"It's over you head now. Time to get some professional help." - My fortune cookie from lunch

Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial

Usenet Physics FAQ

Well said, Sharkbyte. I was a Marine from '97-'01, before being non-rec'd for reenlistment due to the discovery of a sleep disorder. We were taught from boot camp, that if you were in an inspection, and answered a question wrong, but immediately realized it, you would adamantly stick to your previous answer. (Adamantly wrong was somehow better than waffling). One of my Drill Instructors, who has a great sense of humor, managed to get one recruit to agree to a bet: When the inspector asked how many years the Marine Corps had been around, he was to respond "Thirty-Five". The exchange went something like this:

(Inspector, examining rifle for dirt): Marine Corps ball was a few days ago, wasn't it, recruit?
(Recruit, eyes forward): Yes, sir!
(Inspector): How many years old does that make the Corps?
(Recruit): Thirty-five, sir.
(Inspector, rifle suddenly forgotten): Thirty-five? Are you sure?
(Recruit, not batting an eye): Yes sir, thirty-five, sir.
(Inspector): Thirty-five long years, eh? Where was the Marine Corps founded, recruit?
(Recruit): Tunn Tavern, Philadelphia, Ten November 1775, sir!
(Inspector): Hell of a long time ago, wasn't it, recruit?
(Recruit): Yes sir, thirty five years, sir.

I don't think the Drill Instructor was testing that recruit. I think he was testing the whole damn platoon to see if everyone could keep their bearing. It took everything I had to keep from laughing that day. The inspector spent nearly twenty minutes asking history questions, trying to get him to trip over the thirty-five years remark. He didn't manage it. Our Drill Instructor later showed us how we scored. Next to the recruit who the bet was on was hand-written: "Stoic, but stupid". No points deducted. Bet won.

__________________
Tour of duty in Iraq completed. At home, fattening up, growing a beard.

35 years. 1775.

Nice.

Sounds like one of my answers.

Mister Earl: I remember those games well! Officer baiting has been one of the favorite games of Staff NCOs forever.

I also remember how at the end of Third Phase the funniest stuff could happen and not one Marine in the Platoon would crack a smile (especially since the smiley short kid in Third Squad mysteriously came down with gut cramps right before the inspection). Lewis Black, Eddie Murphy, John Belushi and Will Ferrell could have given their best performances and all they would have gotten for their efforts was a firm, "Ooh-rah. Good to go."

I had Air Force, Navy and Marine air support in Iraq, and was happy to get all of it.

__________________
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

Officer baiting has been one of the favorite games of Staff NCOs forever.

This is true regardless of service. When I arrived at Shemya as a new Captain to be a Space Surveillance Crew Commander, I was told, "Listen to your crew. If you start to make a mistake, they'll let you know. If you don't listen, they'll cheerfully let you go down in flames. They'll even break out the marshmallows to enjoy the fire."

I was a junior enlisted man in the Army (airborne infantry). I got a graphic example of leadership while hooked up and waiting to make my 8th jump. I'd had a close call on my 7th jump (nearly got severely messed up) and my imagination was working overtime. Fear has a way of building on itself if you let it. I looked at the front of our stick and saw our battalion commander first in the door. He was a man who looked as old as my father. He was so eager to jump that the jumpmaster almost had to restrain him to keep him for leaving before the green light came on. In that moment, I knew that regardless of my fear, I was going out the door. By his example and leadership, he got me to do more than I thought possible. That man set the standard for leadership for me.

A year or so later, I switched to the Air Force as an enlisted man. Several more close calls and injured knees convinced me that, at age 20, I was "getting too old for this [explicative deleted]. After giving it a lot of thought, I came to the realization that there wasn't a lot of demand on the civilian job market for someone whose primary skills were jumping out of airplanes and killing people. I also noticed that while in the Army, the lower your rank, the closer you were to the fighting. In the Air Force, with few exceptions the enlisted men (and women) do support jobs, salute the officers, and say, "Have a nice flight, sir" as they go out to get shot at. From my enlisted perspective, that seemed like a better way to go. Better them than me.

I spent 4 1/2 years as an enlisted man in the Air Force (communications), got out to complete a degree, and came back in via OTS as an officer (satellite operations and space systems operations) for another 7 years. In all that time, I never had or saw a leader in the Air Force. Perhaps if I'd been in a combat unit, I might've seen leaders but I encountered none in any of my jobs. I had a couple terrific bosses but none of them measured up to my standard of a leader. I've been out of the military for over 15 years and can only hope that has changed since my time.

also remember how at the end of Third Phase the funniest stuff could happen and not one Marine in the Platoon would crack a smile (especially since the smiley short kid in Third Squad mysteriously came down with gut cramps right before the inspection). Lewis Black, Eddie Murphy, John Belushi and Will Ferrell could have given their best performances and all they would have gotten for their efforts was a firm, "Ooh-rah. Good to go."

When I saw that, it reminded me of this video of Robin Williams' visit to Kuwait last December. Say what you will about his politics, the man has done a lot for the troops. His behavior during this incident shows that he's a class act.

Ever send a brand new butter-bars out to the CPO for a hundred yards of flight line, blinker fluid, or box of grid squares?

Hehe.

__________________
Tour of duty in Iraq completed. At home, fattening up, growing a beard.

I played a lot of those games as an NCO. As a young Corporal I had great fun (on ship) sending a snotty Lance Corporal from another platoon (he was messing with one of my PFC's during details) over to the Navy Chief to get an "E-8 with a crooked hook" to swamp out the head!

The fun really started when, as a Mustang officer one of my Sergeants took it upon himself to "teach" the new officer TC (Tank Commander) about the M1-A1. (He was one of my TC's. I had asked him to show me what he looks for during routine maintenance). He said one of the most important things to check were for soft spots in the armor.

You check for soft spots by tapping all over the hull and turret with a hammer and circling anything that sounds hollow with a piece of chalk. If you find any soft spots you need to bring the tank to Maintenance and show all the chalk circles to the Maintenance Chief.

Anyone not see where this is going?*

I told my sergeant that since I was just checking in, I needed to be sure I had all the proper paper-work necessary to perform maintenance (officers are sticklers for paper, don't you know.) I asked him to run over to the Master Sergeant (whom I knew well from my previous command) and see if they intended to issue me an "Eye Dee Ten Tee" ** form at this command.

The Master Sergeant got a good laugh out of it, and my sergeant... well, lets just say we got along famously.




* Modern main battle tanks have intentional spaces in the armor. The hollow sounding parts are not 'soft spots.' However just about every cycle someone brings the Maintenance Chief a tank covered in chalk circles - and everyone has a good laugh.

** (Type it out all as one word: ID10T )

ETA: if you've not seen a Navy Chief's (E-8) rank insignia, it is a fouled anchor (aka a crooked hook).

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Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

Larry Jacks - great video! Thanks.

BTW: did you click the "Drunken Scotsman Invents Golf" vid? I laughed so hard I cried: and my coworkers looked at me like I had lost it! (Use headphones there's a few "F-Bombs)

__________________
Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.
- Goethe

Jump in with both feet!
- Me, indulging my inner eight-year-old

*** *** ***

"Are you a mad-hatter that just types what he wishes, or have you actually any physics training?"
Occam's Ghost to Grant Hutchison.

Would it sound terribly sycophantic if I were to admit that I almost clap my hands in joy every time BigDon tells us another "war story"? And this thread has been particularly entertaining, with all the other servicemen that have contributed.

I'm way too much of a wuss to ever volunteer for military service. "I hate pain. It hurts me too much." But I have great respect for those that do put their lives on the line for kin and country. And I just love to hear their stories! Adventure, drama, comedy, and technology. What more could a mouse-potato geek ask for? <contented sigh>

Don't have to be an over-muscled genetic throwback to serve in the mil, Stuart. I was in the Marine Corps, yes, but as an MOS 4066. "Small Computer Systems Specialist". I drove a desk for a living, and my primary work is making sure the officers and civilians didn't confuse the extending CD tray is a coffee cup holder.

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Tour of duty in Iraq completed. At home, fattening up, growing a beard.

"I hate pain. It hurts me too much."

Paratroopers run everywhere. If it's one step, you hop. If it's two steps or more, you run.

Many years and two bad knees later, I'm convinced that running causes brain damage. I can't prove it but I'm not taking any chances.

Q: How is running like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer?
A: They both feel so good when you stop.

Anyone who has served in the military has their "war stories" even if they never were anywhere near combat. Just keep in mind that fairy tails start with "Once upon a time" and war stories begin with "This happened to me and it's no [profanity deleted]." Sometimes the stories are embellished and sometimes they aren't but they're often fun regardless.

Man, I can only hope that someone decided to dump their worst soldier on you. If that is average now....

Then again, when we were out in Saudi (Desert Shield) we had one of our fine spc blow up our classified trash burn.

Basically, since I was MI, we generated alot of classified paper. Every night, we would gather up the waste and take it out behind the TOC and burn it in a metal drum. Now this paper was really designed to burn, just a touch of flame and it would catch and be gone a a couple secs. This fine example of a career SPC felt the need to speed the burn along, so he got himself a couple gallons of mogas and dumped it in along with the paper. Add one match and....

So here I am out on guard duty at the time. We had a bunker about a quarter mile from the TOC that looked out over the valley between us and the aviation brigade. We all hear a FOOM behind us and look to see what looks like a roman candle. All sparks floating back down to the ground. SGT Stewart got on the phone to ask what happened and we got told the classified trash burn got blown up. Oddly enough, we were all pretty sure who did it.

You guys used flash paper for classified documents? Wow, I'm impressed!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

I can't find any of the video's now but when the F-22 first started releasing video's of its flight tests I saw a few good ones First, the F-22 doesn't have an afterburner. It has "supercruise" They posted a video of an F-22 cruising along without afterburners and flat outrunning the F-15 and F-16 chase planes that were trying like hell at full burn to keep up.

Another one, and quite possibly my favorite F-22 video, the pilot was flying along strait and level and put himself in the middle of a very wide formation of 14 target drones spread out over a couple of miles. The F-22 pilot slammed the stick to one side putting the plane into a flat spin and in one rotation of spin he locked onto 14 targets, launched 14 missiles and got 14 kills. After launching the last missle he straitened it out and continued on the way he was originally going.

My current commander is an F-15 Pilot. He hates (loves) to tell the stories about mock battles he's flown against F-22's. He said he's seen two F-22's take out an entire squadron of F-15's in just a few seconds and the 15's never even knew the raptors were there until they flew up next to them and waved hello.

The F-22 has completely dominated every mock battle it has ever flown in. The one raptor pilot I've met said that the plane is so overpowering it isn't even fun to fly. you take off, circle once over base, make your kills from a hundred miles away without ever being seen and your home in time for happy hour... lol