One one level, it’s a cheap way for the Navy to horn in on the USAF contract for the purchase of the F-22 Raptor airframe.

At another level, it shows a disconnect between society and the understanding of our military.

But…its’ sorta like being able to “zap” an AF jet with the bad manners and planning to land on a Naval location, only we’re imprinting the youth of America with the right model of the real aviators!

Snooping around the web drummed up this: What a combat medic figured out:

Why We Serve: Combat Medic Saves Lives Using New Evacuation System
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2007 – A veteran Air Force combat medic helped to transform the way wounded troops are treated and evacuated during a recent deployment to Afghanistan.

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Mark A. DeCorte is participating in the Defense Department’s “Why We Serve” public-outreach program.  Tech Sgt. Mark A. DeCorte recalled the previous practice when unarmed battlefield medics were flown in to treat and evacuate injured servicemembers usually after an area had been cleared of the enemy.

However, DeCorte emphasized, “When you have a wounded soldier on the ground, they need help now.”
[…]

He took a little lead from previous wars and todays technology, to bring more detailed lifesaving techniques closer to the wounded…in fact, right on the field of combat, and on the way to the first hospital.

[…]
The concept of treating and evacuating injured servicemembers during the din of battle was tested during DeCorte’s tour of duty in Afghanistan from February to June 2006, the 13-year military veteran said.

The Army had requested Air Force assistance to improve its air-ambulance capabilities in Afghanistan’s austere, mountainous terrain, DeCorte explained.

Previous doctrine was to send in medical-evacuation helicopters after the fighting had stopped, he noted, but this practice meant that some troops wouldn’t survive the trip to the hospital. That procedure would change.

In Afghanistan, DeCorte was one of several military medics embedded with aerial combat-support units. Instead of using traditional rotary- or fixed-wing aircraft marked with red crosses, the new wave combat medics carried arms as they flew directly into the maelstrom aboard armored helicopter gunships.

The idea, DeCorte explained, was to treat the wounded as quickly as possible. And, when the concept was tested on the battlefield, it contributed to achieving a previously unimagined wounded-survivability rate of 90 percent, he said.

“We can now go in embedded (with combat units) and part of the operation,” DeCorte said.
[…]

Riding to the rescue in HH-60G armed Pave Hawks:

[…]
A servicemember’s odds of surviving battlefield-inflicted wounds go way up if he or she can be evacuated to a treatment center within an hour of being injured, DeCorte pointed out. In medical parlance that period of time is known as “the golden hour,” he said.

“If I can get you to surgery within an hour you most likely have a chance to survive,” DeCorte said.

The Minot, N.D.-born noncommissioned officer saved 36 lives during his 63 combat sorties in southern Afghanistan. “It’s very bad in that area,” DeCorte observed, adding that two of his fellow combat medics on other air-evacuation flights saved another 102 lives between them.
[…]

BZ, Tech Sgt Decorte!

John, the MilBlogs man of many arms has details of this year’s most anticipated competition to put laptops into the lives of those who have served us by their sacrifices.Read this post.There is prep work to be done and all hands (that’s a naval term meaning everyone) can join in. The USMC and Air Force seems “headless” this year to date, but I’m sure they have dark horses in the wings to come out and work towards the $240K (Yes, Twenty Four Thousand dollars – because we all had too much success last year) we’re looking to raise for my favorite project (as well as for many others): ValOUR-IT.Roll up your sleeves and come along for the ride from 10/28 thru 11/13/2007. It will be two weeks of thrills, spills, chills and possible carpel tunnel syndrome. All sorts of snarks flying while teams race to get their hands on The Most Exhaulted GoldEn Notebook (MEGEN) at the 2008 MilBlogs Conference, while filling the account to purchase laptops for those who need them.

I have cobbled together a phpBB set up as a bulletin board for general and team specific use. Register there and send me an email (see “contact us”) to let me know your team affiliation and I’ll set your permissions to the area you’ll need to chatter in.

The ValOUR-IT Bulletin Board is here.

Team leaders will have an area to cross talk. If leaders want a few moderators set to help manage traffic flow, pass that along so I can set those users in play. I have that set for anyone designated as a monitor to have full access there.

Each team will have Coordination, Marketing, Auctions, and Ideas forums to bat things around in.

A general forum is in place to list items actually put up for auction, which will be viewable by your family and friends and associates (hint: when things show up there, pass it along!).

A top level “H&I Fires” forum will be open game for issuing and responding to challenges or questions of family lineage of other teams.

I made a command decision to join the United States Coast Guard effort with that of the Navy’s. Watch for emails.

Suggestions welcome.

Oh, and for you non-USN/USCG types, this one’s for you (Click for a 8.5″ x 11″ sized printout image!):

Post yer trackbacks here!

Not so much of a “sea story” today as a “war story” to put my context on some recent news….

The dispatch from the 5 NCOs in the 82nd Airborne Division was illuminating, but not necessarily in a complimentary light. The President and many other Government reports say the Surge is bringing results. The NCOs say they see daily problems. So, who’s telling the truth?

Both, I submit and here’s a little personal experience that leads me to this conclusion: I first became a pin cushion for the medics in 1962, in order to move overseas to Okinawa. Off my father packed us up for a two year adventure to see the world. We first lived just west of MCAS Futema, with a few families of Army sargents living next on the same street of a few concrete block houses. Thus began my “indoc” into military life. I played in the sugar cane fields and around the large above ground tombs, occasionally finding artifacts and ordnance left over from a massive conflict not quite 20 years past. We moved about a year later to live on Fort Buckner, housed amongst the Green Berets, the pride of John F, Kennedy.

From our association in these neighborhoods, and the concentrated presence of the military, I began to absorb the first person history of the war in Vietnam. Being in 3rd and 4th grades, I wasn’t much of a newspaper reader or news watcher, so the information came in listening to the adult discussions.

Back home we went for a few years, then off to Guam for 8th through 11th grades (67-71). More massive exposure to the military, this time the Navy and Air Force, with some Marines and Coast Guardsmen sprinkled in. BY now I had pretty much set my life study path on warfare and modern history, and, with the war in Vietnam being larger, I heard more, plus I watched the news and read the papers and news periodicals now. In Boy Scouts, and on sports teams, I had military men as leaders and coaches. I listened to their “war stories.” Being overseas in a large concentration of military bases also brought me “Stars and Stripes” newspapers.

The net result of this is I grew up in the middle of first person accounts of the conditions in Vietnam, from the Special Forces A_Teams, to the Marine who had a three crossbow bolts go past the tree trunk he was sitting against, all the while thinking more mosquitoes were swarming, until he turned to look. Add to that the DoD press of the “Stars and Stripes” generally putting a detailed, yet rosy face on the war, and ladled on top, the stateside media that seemed to tell a story much different than what I was getting from my “other sources.”

Were any of these sources not telling the truth? For the most part, they all told it as they saw it, albeit through the filters they each put on it.  No one author or story teller had access to the “big picture,” even if they claimed to.  Those filters, by default, cause even the most detailed oriented writer to miss the mark.  I believe most people actually comprehend this concept, they just don’t acknowledge it often when they voice their opinions.

My long term reaction? For several decades, I voraciously read all things on Vietnam I could come across. There are many stories and it’s not that they don’t match up, but they tell stories as varied as the direct, uniformed troop combat in I Corps, to the SEALs skulking about in the night among the Viet Cong controlled villages in the Mekong Delta.  To this day, it’s almost like three separate conflicts to me, due to this multi-facted exposure.

The NCOs provide a valuable first person view of the villages they walk, but they do not see all of the story, nor does any one else, yet all of the reports, in this war from bloggers, from bloggers become published authors, to guys with digital video cameras becoming movie producers, and then, those “standard” reporting sources. One day, when we have the time, and the dust has settled and tempers cooled by decades of reflection, we will have a better chance to see what really is happening now, as word of mouth and first person stories at the top, middle and lower levels come forth.

It would be foolish, as I’m sure many with military experience, and those with historical perspectives, to base the overall progress of the war on the reports of 5 well spoken non-commissioned officers, but we would also be foolish to not make significant note of the problems they face daily, indicating there is more good work to be done.

Too many have already been there and tried it before anyone today could try it: Going lower than the ground in an aircraft.

The USAF has a plan to keep it from happening: Auto-GCAS.

From Defense Tech:

Helping Pilots Avoid the Ground

Aviators have a saying: “You can only tie the record for low flight.”

Well, the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command is installing a system in its jets that is designed to keep future pilots from tying the record. Press Zoom reports that the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System is a software-based technology that has demonstrated a 98 percent effectiveness rate at eliminating aircraft crashes into the ground. The system is ready for operational integration on F-16 Fighting Falcons, F-22 Raptors and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.

Auto-GCAS differs from other crash-avoidance systems in that it doesn’t create nuisance warnings and activates only at the last instant to take control and recover the aircraft when it determines collision is imminent. The determination is made when the aircraft is within 1.5 seconds of the “point of no return” and no action has been taken by the pilot.
[…]

In the skydiving world, we have the “AAD” or “Automatic Activating Device” that monitors your rate of descent, and if you reach a certain altitude and are still moving at a fairly high percentage of freefall speed, the system activates a cutter that cuts the loop holding your ripcord pin on your reserve. There are versions designed to pull main parachute ripcords, and are commonly used with military related High Altitude Low Opening (HALO) equipment, but the sport world only uses them for activating a reserve canopy.

I, once, will acting as a jumpmaster for a SEAL just returned from operational deployment, had to get a requal sport jump (AFF Level 4) to get active sport jumping again. The exit was fine, his stability was great, but the plan to knock off turns once 6000′ AGL was reached went out the window. He kept doing turns. At this point, I was falling about 4 feet in front of him, where I had been since turning him loose a few seconds after exiting at 13,000′.

I gave him the hand signal to pull several times, then I began to fly in to position myself next to his main ripcord to back up his thought process. Instead of realizing I was moving, he thought he was turning (using me as a reference point, and not some landmark out in front of him on the ground), so he kept maneuvering to point at me. Net result: I couldn’t get into position to pull either his main or reserve ripcords), about hip position on the right side (main) and heart position on the left for the reserve.

I lost altitude awareness, as had he, so we proceeded, at the speed of the pull of gravity (it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law!) towards the pine trees on the south side of the airport. I finally got smart and backed off and reached for my pull out for my main, and as I let go of the pilot chute, my AAD opened my reserve. A quick check of my altimeter put me just a little above 1000′. The setting for the Cyres AAD I was wearing is fixed at 800′, but apparently it comes on about 1200′ to monitor and when it saw the drastic change in the rate of pressure change (indicating rate of fall change) when my main began to open, it activated a little early. I had two clean canopies, so I cut away my main, checked my reserve for controllability, then hung a left turn into the wind and landed.

The student’s AAD also performed as designed. He got a talking to, and so did I from the DZ Owner. He made only one remark, but that’s all he had to say: “They have an AAD, too. It’s not worth losing your life if you’ve done all you are supposed to.”

Then George reminded me that training for students included “If you see your jumpmaster pull, it’s probably a good idea to do the same.” I had said it for years in class, too, but it’s one of those cases you just don’t happen into with regularity.

So, moral of the story:

• Jumpmasters: Don’t forget to pull on time
• Students: Yeah, what they did!

Oh…and I never tried to break the low pull record either.

I grew up not far from the Boeing Plant in Renton, WA. My parents worked and met there. My uncle worked there. He once took me on a tour of a 707 being built for the King of Saudi Arabia….(a “dual seat” side by side gold plated set of “thrones” were present in the head)…He also showed me the very simple “DB Cooper” lock installed on B-727s to keep jumpers from leaving before arriving at the jet way at the planned destination.

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B-52Ds in Action over Vietnam But…the big news is the B-52A made it’s first flight 53 years ago today. 3 were made, and Boeing used them for flight testing.The story of the genesis of this aircraft, from the initial design with propellers, to a radical new idea, hatched out of the requirements placed by the USAF, overnight, in a hotel room by the Boeing design team, to install 8 jet engines instead, brought this country a flexible, solid aircraft that will serve almost a full century in the military.Over the years, my path in life crossed that of the B-52. Living on Guam from ’67 to ’71, I watched the D models, bellies painted shiny black, take off and land at Anderson AFB, wing tips flapping up and down. One time, while on that base for a swim meet, a B-52 lost a wing just after lifting off the very long runway. It barrel rolled to it’s death on the reef at the north end of the island, taking it’s crew to a watery grave.

My uncle was a navigator in the C-5A Galaxy. One of his friend was a B-52 Bombardier. Jim bombed out of Thailand, and later Guam. One night, we had dinner with him at the Anderson O Club and he told me the last B-52 rolled off the line in 1962 and all of them had been reskinned twice and had flown over the originally planned lifespan for the large strategic bomber. The white paint on the bottoms of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers cost $75/gallon (we’re talking late 60’s dollars here) and was designed to reflect the heat of a nuclear explosion the aircraft would be speeding to escape, with no hope of outrunning all of the blast effects. Later, Jim took us on a flight line tour of his planes, which included a trip to the bomb farm. The ordnance guys handed us yellow grease pencils and let us write on the built up dumb bombs on the trailers getting ready to head out to the revetments to be loaded. I used to see the vertical contrails on the western horizon in the early afternoon, then hear them in the landing pattern an hour or so later. It was a puzzle piece in the daily life of that small Pacific island.

The parent of one of the swimmers from the Anderson team was an Air Force photographer. He got me a 1/2″ high stack of 8″x11″ pictures of B-52s, covering a full mission from bombing up, through the attack, refueling on the return leg and landing. Not sure where they went, but he took most all of them. Official stuff we’re talking here.

The evolution of this fine airframe is remarkable and in the last few years I read we will keep the B-52 in service until about 2050. As a Surface Warrior Officer, the B-52s found a maritime mission by being outfitted to carry the AGM-84 Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles. Yes, we had the P-3s, the S-3Bs and the A-6Es to do that, but nothing says Doom like many more than 4 sea skimmers (I think they could bring 12 to the party) headed to you on a multi-axis, coordinated time-on-top attack, all from one platform with some serious “on station” time.

As a student at the Naval War College, I read and read and read, then read some more. One of the books I came across, which is excellent reading from the “other side” was “A Vietcong Memoir” by Truong Nhu Tang, the VC Minister of Justice. He described being on the receiving end of the carpet bombing of B-52 raid. It made strong men go insane.

My uncle spent a tour on Vietnam on logistics missions. He said when a B-52 raid was going on, the vibration, even from many, many miles away, would cause your chair to basically in the stay about an inch off the floor because of the severe vibrations….

There is so much to the history of this plane that served in Vietnam, Desert Storm, the GWOT and will be flying long after us old reader may be gone. It is a testament to the genius of those men and women of Boeing, who gave the American taxpayer a lot of return on our investment and the enemy, lots of bang for our bucks:

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D-Day Order – June 6, 1944
by Dwight D. Eisenhower

You will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41.

The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeat in open battle man to man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground.

Our home fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.

The tide has turned.

The free men of the world are marching together to victory. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle.

We will accept nothing less than full victory.

Good luck, and let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Jim, Sr. and I sat down at dinner last night and I asked him what he was doing on 6/5/1944. He pondered the question a moment, then said “We had been on alert for almost 30 hours.” I didn’t go into chasing that rabbit trail, but he then talked about how, on the eve of his (their) first combat, they were “relieved.” Why, you ask? Well, he explained, they had had all this training and now they were finally getting the order to “GO!” He said the apprehension of the timing of the invasion had been “horrible.”

They spent their time, packing up stuff, labeling their foot lockers and writing home, with “hints of goodbye” for they certainly couldn’t divulge any more than they were heading into combat. He talked about living in quonset huts, heated by a pot bellied stove at each end of the building. How breakfast was a big bowl of corn flakes, that you scooped into your bowl, then you scooped your powdered milk on it and you also got a boiled potato. The bacon was thick and not well cooked, when you did get it. He remarked the rations got much better when they based in France, usually having a local French woman cook up their K rations.

The gliders didn’t fly at night, but the C-47s had been flying to deliver the 82nd All American and 101st Screaming Eagles Airborne Divisions. The CG-4A gliders flew after the landings had begun.

He discussed the visions of the shores of Normandy he will never forget, and then they went further inland.

They had only practiced with maybe 24-36 gliders approaching one landing zone before, and they had practiced with a set, planned landing pattern. Not this day. More gliders, no set pattern, toss in ground fire, land mines and hedge rows.

“I watched men sacrifice themselves so others could have a clear place to land.”

They would land and jam the control column forward to bury the nose of the gliders as a landing skid, and a way to plow up dust and dirt clods as camouflage from enemy gunners in the area. They would try to bounce down hard on the tires and hopefully leap back into the air to an altitude about 10 ft or so, to maybe clear the hedge rows while getting stopped.

Jim was one who was designated a flight leader, and also had been trained to determine the airworthiness of the gliders in the landing zone. He was responsible to select one, then get it set up for a snatch recovery by a C-47 with a tailhook. The passengers on his first return leg were not wounded, but other glider pilots, so they may get airborne again for more flights into the combat area. He said he prayed as he held tight to the steering column, awaiting the catapulting force when the snatch line went taught, that the glider he had picked was sound and that they would not have the wings fall off as they began to get airborne.

After all these years, he still wonders why he survived without injury, in combat or otherwise, from 4.5 years of service, and admits he still feels some guilt for having come home, when so many other great men did not.

He will have his American flags flying this day.

He said what? Here’s why:

After effects of the Toby Keith concert: Wrote this country music song while driving around in my humvee. Maybe later I’ll work out the guitar part and record.

The result?

The Free and the Brave
[Greyhawk]

Over in America, home of the free
Land of unlimited opportunity
People in the streets protest whatever they can
While over in Iraq and Afghanistan

The brave, far from home, are standing tall
toeing the line, so they can have it all
Some like to complicate it but it’s simple to me
<b><i>They’re making noise, we’re making history.</i></b>
[…]

(Click here for the rest of the song)

He already “wrote” the words for one song, which a group, 3db Down, used the words from one of his posts of his for his prior trip to the sandbox (2005).

I think he may have a career planned for retirement!

ValOUR-IT. We just love those acronyms, and this one is a standout for me.

V(oice) A(ctivated) L(aptops) for OUR – I(njured) T(roops). Born of a disaster, raised up as a success. As of 5/5/2007, in 20 months, 1000 laptops have been handed to our wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

The “quality” of the product has gone from a used, purchased on eBay unit, with money from Soldier’s Angels, with a blog reader chipping in the funds for a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking, to brand new Dell laptops, complete with wireless capability and a copy of Naturally Speaking funded by DoD funds from a program to aid disbaled service members. Along the way, it’s been the leanest and meanest charity I have know. 100% of the donations are “put to work.” Alongside that path of progress are some incredible people, with big hearts and small and large checking accounts.

While the main fund drives for this program happen in the two weeks leading up to November 11th, there is a need to keep the fund flowing year round. If you have a few spare $$$, there is someone who could use it to change the outlook and real opportunities of their future. Donations easily accepted here.