Sorry for the lack of posts, but…

The Boss is gone, the swamp is full and alligators are plentiful.

Her daughter completed Vet School a few weeks back and is now at her intro to wearing a uniform as a veternarian. It has been rewarding to be able to pass on the gouge about detailers (or as you Army people call them: Career Management Advisors or some PC thing like that…Flesh Peddlers does it for me..), how to see where the “extra” money is hidden in enroute schooling PCS orders, advice on stuff like “you better hit the road and break in those boots, because some sergeant is gonna have a ball yelling at Officers like you soon,” who to talk to to get storage authorized for a longer period than routine for free, etc, etc. You get the point…

I did hose the new Captain over a little: I showed mom the DoD site with pay scales, complete with BAS/BAQ/VHA lists for her PCS area. I also read the PCS orders and showed mom where another $100/month propay will show up on the LES. Thanks to the Race for the Moon, a small calculator quickly did the math and suddenly, the request for a new laptop wasn’t looked upon so kindly, not for someone instantly making O-3 pay with 4 Yrs/0 Months… 🙂

You know, it has been a few conversations like that that have helped smooth out some mis-understandings and complete (not in a bad way) ignorance of the system. I grew up around the military, as the son of a civil servant who liked to travel. Naturally, most places we lived had significant military presense. I was “schooled” from way back, along with becoming a pin cushion at the Sand Point Naval Air Staion clinic at the ripe old age of 7 years old.

Rasing my hand and putting on the uniform didn’t hold a lot of basic mysteries for me. I now live were there are a very small percentage of military people. The kids don’t have too many places to go to get the day to day simple stuff, which has become second nature to vets, even if it was only a 4 year hitch.

Take a moment to help out that new kid heading off to boot camp, or OCS, or ROTC, or the Academies. Give them a few groups on the real stuff that makes a difference in getting in the groove quickly. Gouge is good…be generous with it.

Thanks to Mudville Gazette Open Posts!

Or: What do the terrorists, the Japanese in WWII, cell phones, CAP actions in Vietnam and recent Army recruiting woes have in common…

Point of Pondering #1.

As I sat in traffic today, a few things came to mind that may be the reason we are seeing some shifts in the attack patterns of al-Qaeda this past few months.

I guess the thinking on the topic began with this post over on Chapomatic’s blog. It was a one-liner, which ends with:

“That much effort indicates to me that these guys don’t currently have usable WMD.”

That struck me as not necessarily correct under the circumstances, so I left this comment:

“or…alternatively, they still think they may not be ready to be completely exterminated, after being hunted down like rabid dogs. They may see this “level of violence” can still get them a pass from those who keep saying it’s all illegal. I’d bet even the nay sayers, well, maybe half of them, would come around to GWB’s view and measures as acceptable if a dirty bomb, or bio/chem agents are released…which would put the polls at about 75% saying “kill the bums!” Kind of hard to say there isn’t a “mandate” when your polls are that high…the gloves would come off at that point, and I suspect they know they cannot stand a full court press.

A real, no kidding WMD, complete with destruction of “Biblical proportions,” would most likely shift the World’s opinions completely against them.

(I’m no intel guy, but) The exact opposite of this briefing may not be discounted…. “

These terrible, yet small scale attacks, we have been seeing are noteworthy in that they hits the media like the tsunami last Dec 26th, and get the attention up, yet the outward sentiment of the world still stays latched on the “Bush Lied, People Died” and “Where are the WMDEEEEEEEEESSSSSS???????” themes.

As I noted above, I think the use of a WMD, of any degree, would suddenly cause a reaction they know they can’t afford.

Point of pondering #2:

Until the comment today about how the London bombs appeared to have all been triggered by cell phones, I hadn’t really stopped to think about the fact that this is a common tactic of the terrorists in Iraq right now. The news reports of the military finding a bomb or IED making lab, usually in a house somewhere, contains cell phones in the listing of materials found. One picture I saw a few months back was a soldier’s hand holding a cell phone with the annotation “1 Missed Call” on the phone’s LCD. The phone had wires hanging out of it that weren’t for better reception. They use this triggering tactic regularly.

Why the interest in the cell phones? Well, simple. If you see the masses, or the attendees at the videoed beheadings, there is usually plenty of indication they are willing to die for Allah. We have repeatedly heard, and can find it supported in the Koran, that to die in a declared holy war for Allah will get you admitted to paradise. If that’s the case, we know jihad has been declared in about 4 hundred and eleven different ways against “The Crusaders” (which would literally include England, and never did include the United States of America, as were just hadn’t found the place yet), so why are they not lining up and saying: “Mohammed, put me in! Come on, put me in, just this time, you know I can do it for the team!”

Simple: The use of the cell phones allows them to keep the trained fighters for another day.

It’s all about resource management, which is mostly what a commander in the field does. It’s nice to have a plan, and then gather the logistical support for the execution, but if the bad guys don’t follow your plan, you may come up a little short. In this case, I think there are two dynamics at play here.

Point of pondering #2A.

The first condition is I think the terrorists have seen the opinion tide shifting in their favor. I won’t belabor the world media’s love affair here, but they, as does anyone, gather strength to endure by seeing they and their cause being praised. The problem is, there aren’t enough “resources” (read people willing to blow themselves up to head for paradise), coupled with the fact that the media hasn’t caused the US and it’s collation countries to capitulate. They have to hang on. It’s sort of like the point in many war movies, when the platoon/company is surrounded and the enemy is chomping at the bit to overrun them, and some cigar chomping master sergeant or company commander yells for everyone to conserve ammo and only shoot what you know you can hit. In this case the ammo is a humanized version of the smart bomb (smartness may be debatable, but let’s leave that to another post). I think they are running low. Using cell phones improves the possibility of having more seasoned fighters around for the final push.

Point of pondering 2B.

So, what’s up with that? Well, let’s take a short trip to the near past, like two months ago. What was the almost daily screeching from the papers and HBM about? Yep, you got it: “Army Not meeting Recruiting Goals.” War is a tough business and it’s not just some of the youth of America that sometimes balk at the call. Where are the demanding headlines in the world press, demanding to know what the actual numbers targeted (sorry, but we use that word about our recruiting plans) to get signed up and how many actually did. I want to know if their recruiters are treated to an un-video taped beheading if they fail on a monthly goal. I bet there’s a massive cover-up on this issue amongst the jihadis…

The “recruiting numbers” may be lower (assuming my analysis that they are missing their numbers is correct) based on another reason. In “Our Own Worst Enemy” by William Lederer, the author tells the story of a Marine unit that gets assigned to work security for a Vietnamese village. They model their interaction with the villagers from the guidance of the “Small Wars Manual” the Marines figured out after having served in Central America in the early 1900s. Anyhow, the Marines not only provided protection, they showed the villagers how to farm and grow livestock more effectively, then there is surplus over the families needs, so they form a little co-op and take the surplus to market and then they had extra hard cash to use to then do more and make more. Great story.

This links in with this discussion because, as we have also seen in Iraq, over time, the villagers start “ratting out” the VC, telling the Marines when the attacks are coming. The village bonded with their Marine protectors and mentors. The best part of the story is what I think applies here. The Viet Cong locals would slip back into the village at night. Their friends would tell them all the things the Marines had helped them to learn, and how they actually were improving their farms and making some money. The VC had been promising this type of thing for a long time, but it was the young men of the USMC that delivered on the promise.

As we see Iraq rebuilding itself, with commerce developing, and people being able to speak and interact freely, I’m sure some of the “recruits” are having second thoughts. When we hear stories of al-Qaeda recruiters killing off family members in order to get people to come and join the jihad, I’d say they are pretty well beat. The VC ended up doing that, and that sort of recruiting has an exceptionally low “1st Term Retention” number associated with it…like about 0% in any one’s armed force.

Point of pondering #3.

Maybe the jihadis took some time to look into the whole suicide bomber deal by reading up on another recent example in world history. I am assuming they did some course work in the “Divine Wind” work of the Japanese in WWII. If they studied this well, they would see a few interesting things, not the least of which was JAPAN LOST! (that’s a no cost clue). Another real issue in Japan was that some senior and middle grade officers strongly (well, as strongly as they could) lobbied against the concept, the dissenting side largely being the pilots. Their argument was, if you took enough time to train them to fly (and it was kind of like the 2001 bombers, very little, just enough to get you to the target), then you should use them as a “reusable resource.” Using them once was only going to help so long, then the Chop (supply officer) is saying “sorry, no got!” That’s what happened to the Japanese Navy. By the Battle Off Samar, the Japanese aircraft carriers had pretty much been relegated to being just large targets for the Navy bombers, as they had no pilots to fly from them. They were the decoy to get Bull Halsey to leave the area, while Admiral Kurita went with his surface battleships, cruisers and destroyers to try and spoil MacArthur’s landing at Leyte Gulf.

I think the jihadis have come to understand this lesson: Manage your resources conservatively from the Japanese example.

Summary: I think the boys are on the ropes, but still have the fight in them. I think they are good students of the technical aspects of killing, with some mastery of phsychology and public relations. I think they are very weak historians, as they someone how seem to be repeating many of the mistakes of the past.

Got all that? Clear as mud? Comments?

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Posts!

Update 11:50PM EDT:

If you’d like a detailed analysis of the London Bombing itself, get your coffee and then click on this link…good stuff from Kung fu Kat…

p>The correlation between the interaction of man with a disease and the US and it’s coalition with the Iraqi “insurgency” have something in common.

Laurie Garrett published her lengthy work, “The Coming Plague” in 1994. While the book is not about malaria, that is one case study she presents to show how we made some poor decisions, which allowed the disease to carry on, even today. In the reading of her well researched book, there are many other parallels between man’s interaction with man that tracks remarkably close to how we have interacted with creatures of far fewer cells and complexity over history. When I read the book years ago, her comments on malaria stuck with me, despite it being a relatively minor portion of the discussion.

In Chapter 2, she discusses how the 1951 World Health Organization “was so optimistic that it declared that Asian malaria could soon reach a stage through careful local management wherein ‘malaria is no longer a problem of major importance.’ The discovery of DDT and other organochlorines, all of which possessed remarkable capacity to kill mosquitoes and other pests on contact…” The insurgency can be looked at in a similar way, that by the application of effective methods and means, the terrorists could be reduced to being “no longer a problem of major importance.” DDT certainly had it’s downside from a public health standpoint, but it did get us out of the starting blocks in the eradication of malaria and killed many mosquitoes.

In 1967, the Surgeon General reported to the President and a gathering of health officials that it was time to close the books on infectious diseases in the US and take on chronic diseases. This then, obviously, would shift the focus away from the eradication of malaria, but it didn’t end the efforts towards that planned move to make it no longer a major problem.

Malaria has plagued the US Military, and of other countries before ours, since the Revolutionary times. In 1947, Congress budgeted $47M to take on the problem of malaria in the 48 continental states. Five years later, funding was stopped, as there hadn’t been any cases of malaria found within the US borders. Other countries around the world still had the problem…Come 1956, a malariologist named Paul Russell of Harvard’s School of Public Health began lobbying for a program to eradicate malaria on a worldwide basis. In a report to Congress, Russell had these words to indicate the degree of commitment required:

”This is a unique moment in the history of man’s attack on one of his oldest and most powerful disease enemies. Failure to proceed energetically might postpone malaria eradication completely.”

With minor changes, this sounds much like the speeches of President Bush, but when he speaks of the terrorist threat. The comparisons in this story are quite striking. Enemies that are not alike. Someone with a vision to know what is not good for society. Lobbying to get the support, and there are many more I’m sure you’re picked up on by now. “Having won World War II, Americans were of a mind to ‘fix things up’: it just seemed fitting and proper in those days that American should use their seemingly unique skills and common sense to mend all the ailments of the planet.”

Funding from Congress came in 1958, but with stipulations of and end to funding by 1963. Why the time frame? Paul Russell’s report indicated that four years of spraying, followed by four years of sure that three consecutive years of no infections were noted. Like all plans, whether for war fighting, or building, or fighting diseases, the “program manager” makes projections based on generally ideal conditions. In the case of the worldwide eradication of malaria, as with dispensing with the threat of terrorism, the campaign must pretty much proceed in parallel everywhere simultaneously, or you’re likely to have the enemy merely slip away to somewhere safe. This does, however, require a high degree of commitment to the plan, as well as a high expense to keep the attack going everywhere. This, of course is much of the discussion today.

As far as ideal planning, the general desire if to get moving as soon as funding flows, but sometimes you have to begin in a piecemeal fashion, which, as with combating malaria and terrorists, can not be very effective. Top that off with a bunch of, for the most part, lawyers who don’t always grasp the technical detail of the plan, and therefore take the Reader’s Digest version and also apply simplistic measures to the plan. In this case, handing out money, then demanding it be done in a few years.

As life and much of history dictates, things change. Along comes a bright graduate student, Andy Speilman, who figured out DDT wasn’t the final answer. What he observed was the Anopheles mosquitoes were dying, but some were resistant to DDT, and still reproducing. A wrench in the gearbox of the plan had just been discovered. Speilman met Rachel Carson, a marine biologist at Woods Hole, and she explained that evolution would get in the middle of the eradication plan.

By 1963, malaria was certainly beat back tremendously, an example being India going from 1 million cases a year in 1955 to 18 by 1963. Congress, checking their notes, realized it was the terminal date of the plan and therefore, committed no more funding to the project. “As far as Congress was concerned, failure to reach eradication by 1963 simply meant it couldn’t be done, in any time frame. And virtually all spare cash was American; without steady infusions of U.S. dollars, the effort died abruptly” says Garrett.

The story continues from there and is fascinating reading, but look at the connections to the current debate about how to handle the GWoT. Once more today, I heard a caller on a talk show bring up the President’s “major hostilities are over” speech on the aircraft carrier. Anyone with any military experience would agree that when artilleymen and tankers are doing foot patrols in the crowded streets of another country, major hostilities are over, otherwise, they’d be rocking the bad guys with the really cool hardware they were trained to use with deadly efficiency. Also, when B-52s no longer fill the skies over the battlefield, it’s a big hint that major operations are concluded. The President was correct. He didn’t say “the war is over and we are victorious.” Had that been the case, it would have been proper to remove a major portion of the deployed military. And, despite that proclamation by the President, as was the case in 1963, the enemy is still around; diminished, but still there.

What lessons are to be extracted from a historical account of how the American leadership took on malaria and the GWoT?

– It’s difficult to judge the exact end of a major plan, regardless of the discipline involved.
– Arbitrary constraints linked to Congressional budget cycles can actually delude you into thinking it’s easy to see the day things will change/end. Oh, if it could just be so simple. On the other hand, the person championing the cause needs to be forthright in indicating the expected “variation” in the timeline. I feel President Bush has been honest about saying this war will be a long and complex one, and he said that early on.
– If you really want to make something “no longer a major problem,” don’t make artificial end dates, instead make milestones with evaluation criteria. At those junctures, see what the state of the plan is and modify your responses accordingly. Make sure the checkbook holders understand this clearly, and get the will of the people to line up with that understanding.
– A form of tactical evolution has happened on the battlefield. We have most likely gotten to the point where we have killed off the weakest of the terrorists, and not are locked in a war with the ones that are resistant to the military tactics applied to date.
– Most times, the weapons you begin the fight with aren’t the ones that will win the conflict Congress is a big group of “bean counters.” I have had life experiences with such people, on a smaller scale, and it was always interesting to see “them” grasping the pennies and not seeing the bigger picture. Sometimes spending a few dollars more today will guarantee you spend far less a few months of years from now. If they can’t let go of the funding to get that done, then you’re pretty much locked in to dealing with it longer.

Regardless of how rosy an initial plan looks, it’s best to evaluate it realistically along the way. Adapt and survive. Don’t declare victory when that’s not the case. Stay the course when your life depends on it.

We have a chance to end the story of the GWoT differently than the one about our war against malaria, which is still with us.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

We invaded Iraq, and it was difficult, yet we managed to militarily subdue a nation is a very short time. The troops fought well gainst some dedicated opposition.

We had seen the amount of conflict reduce as time went on. In reading blogs from those on the front lines, I noticed fewer entries about VBIEDs going off, and more posts that were substantive reports on getting to know the local population, helping out injured Iraqis, doing community projects…

The in recent weeks, the number of attacks by the terrorists ramped up, and we began losing increased numbers of service members.

As a result, members of our Congress began calling for a a timeline to pull out of Iraq, and began pronouncing the entire effort as the now well worn out word “quagmire.”

What’s happening? The opposition is taking some shots at us.

Where have we seen this before?

In the center of Europe in late 1944, the was a little shoot-em-up recorded in history as “The Battle of the Bulge.”

“The Battle of the Bulge which lasted from December 16, 1944 to January 28, 1945 was the largest land battle of World War II in which the United States participated. More than a million men fought in this battle including some 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British. The German military force consisted of two Armies with ten corps(equal to 29 divisions). While the American military force consisted of a total of three armies with six corps(equal to 31 divisions). At the conclusion of the battle the casualties were as follows: 81,000 U.S. with 19,000 killed, 1400 British with 200 killed, and 100,000 Germans killed, wounded or captured.

In late 1944 Germany was clearly losing the war….”

We had breached Fortress Europe on the beaches of Normandy, fought across France and entered Belgium, enroute the invasion of Germany.

I’m sure if you had been with the troops surrounded at Bastonge, you certainly wouldn’t conceive that the Germans were, as the last line of the except above properly presents being characterized as “clearly losing the war.” It was a last gasp for Hitler, hoping he’d make a big enough dent in the pending invasion to regain the offensive. Since we are so lucky to know the end of the story, we know his gambit failed. The Third Reich was crushed within the next 7 months.

I think we are in this circumstance once again. The terrorists, like Hitler sense the end is near and need to score some big points and hope we’ll go defensive and possibly have the will of the people broken.

At the Battle of the Bulge, the situation for our troops was far more desperate, and there was a reasonable probability of them being overrun. How did the on scene commander respond? When asked by the German Commander to surrender, Gen McAulffie responded with a one word, famous answer: “Nuts!”

A commander surrounded, using cooks and clerks and anyone else with a uniform, to hold off the Wermacht troops, stood his ground. Patton’s Army did a “left face” and sped north to relieve the troops at Bastonge, no small feat for an entire Army.

The outcome? Stunning defeat for the enemy.

I once heard courage defined as hanging on for 10 seconds more than anyone else. I think that definition tends to fit will into this discussion of a battle 61 years ago. I think it’s a thought we need to hold onto for today.

My take is, like sharks, who can sense 2 parts per million of blood in the water, the terrorists have heard the cries from our own Congress, and are making an all out effort to make a splash. They want us to perceive they have been resurrected, and this spate of attacks is a foreshadowing of what is to come. It defies logic to believe an enemy, who has no “home court” at all, is composed of various competing groups, loosely held together by a hatred for the allied forces, with no effective means of secure communications, facing a well equipped and well trained military, armed with technological marvels to augment boots on the ground cannot have gathered the resources to mount a sustained offensive capable of dislodging our forces.

On the other hand, having learned the lesson of both Vietnam and Mogadishu, know if they can spill some US soldier’s blood and get Congress to begin howling for a pull out, there is a chance we will leave, only to later find out they were on a tactical “sprint,” designed to appear as a strategic offensive. We also need to hold to these lessons.

They are on the ropes, the country of Iraq is coming along well, we need to steel ourselves hang on for “10 more seconds.”

We have been here before, facing much worse at the Alamo, Gettysburg, at the Chosin Reservoir, in the Pusan Perimeter, and during the Tet Offensive. In each case, the US military stood up to the task with incredible dedication to a cause greater than themselves, and, while men were lost, the long term battles were won.

To pull back now is to admit defeat and go home, not only dishonoring the sacrifice of the 1700+ service members lost in this war, but the loses of all before them on the battlefields here and abroad where we have fought to defend freedom.
at’s happening? The opposition is taking some shots at us.

Where have we seen this before?

In the center of Europe in late 1944, the was a little shoot-em-up recorded in history as “The Battle of the Bulge.”

“The Battle of the Bulge which lasted from December 16, 1944 to January 28, 1945 was the largest land battle of World War II in which the United States participated. More than a million men fought in this battle including some 600,000 Germans, 500,000 Americans, and 55,000 British. The German military force consisted of two Armies with ten corps(equal to 29 divisions). While the American military force consisted of a total of three armies with six corps(equal to 31 divisions). At the conclusion of the battle the casualties were as follows: 81,000 U.S. with 19,000 killed, 1400 British with 200 killed, and 100,000 Germans killed, wounded or captured.

In late 1944 Germany was clearly losing the war….”

We had breached Fortress Europe on the beaches of Normandy, fought across France and entered Belgium, enroute the invasion of Germany.

I’m sure if you had been with the troops surrounded at Bastonge, you certainly wouldn’t conceive that the Germans were, as the last line of the except above properly presents being characterized as “clearly losing the war.” It was a last gasp for Hitler, hoping he’d make a big enough dent in the pending invasion to regain the offensive. Since we are so lucky to know the end of the story, we know his gambit failed. The Third Reich was crushed within the next 7 months.

I think we are in this circumstance once again. The terrorists, like HItler sense the end is near and need to score some big points and hope we’ll go defensive and possibly have the will of the people broken.

At the Battle of the Bulge, the situation for our troops was far more desperate, and there was a reasonable probablity of them being overrun. How did the on scence commander respond? When asked by the German Commander to surrender, Gen McAulffie responded with a one word, famous answer: “Nuts!”

A commander surrounded, using cooks and clerks and anyone else with a uniform, to hold off the Wermacht troops, stood his ground. Patton’s Army did a “left face” and sped north to relieve the troops at Bastonge, no small feat for an entire Army.

The outcome? Stunning defeat for the enemy.

I once heard courage defined as hanging on for 10 seconds more than anyone else. I think that definition tends to fit will into this discussion of a battle 61 years ago. I think it’s a thought we need to hold onto for today.

My take is, like sharks, who can sense 2 parts per million of blood in the water, the terrorists have heard the cries from our own Congress, and are making an all out effort to make a splash. They want us to perceive they have been resurrected, and this spate of attacks is a foreshadowing of what is to come. It defies logic to believe an enemy, who has no “home court” at all, is composed of various competing groups, loosely held together by a hatred for the allied forces, with no effective means of secure communications, facing a well equipped and well trained military, armed with technological marvels to augment boots on the ground cannot have gathered the resources to mount a sustained offensive capable of dislodging our forces.

On the other hand, having learned the lesson of both Vietnam and Mogadishu, know if they can spill some US soldier’s blood and get Congress to begin howling for a pull out, there is a chance we will leave, only to later find out they were on a tactical “sprint,” designed to appear as a strategic offensive. we also need to hold to these lessons.

They are on the ropes, the country of Iraq is coming along well, we need to steel ourselves hang on for “10 more seconds.”

We have been here before, facing much worse at the Alamo, Gettysburg, Wake Island, Chosin Resevoir, in the Pusan Perimeter, Ia Trang Valley, Khe Sanh and during the Tet Offensive. In each case, the US military stood up to the task with incredible dedication to a cause greater than themselves, and, while men were lost, the long term battles were won.

The enemy of today isn’t anywhere near the caliber of the other amred forces we encountered in those battles. Our forces are today every bit as good as thier predecessors wearing the uniforms of the United States.

This entire push by the left is what we used to call a “banana.” Put something stupid in your staff work, near the front, to catch the boss’ eye, let him harange you for it, correct that and come back to get it signed out “because it reads much better now.” Don’t buy into it, “read” their entire message…

To pull back now is to admit defeat and go home, not only dishonoring the sacrifice of the 1700+ service members lost in this war, but the loses of all before them on the battlefields here and abroad where we have fought to defend freedom, particularly in desparate circumstances.

Update 6/30/2005: Reference my speculation above, see what Major K has to say about the terrorists’ huffing an puffing (before being smoked like a cheap cigar….)

I found the below article via a Daily Read Board entry by Yankee Sailor.

Here it is.

Peachy!

“Durbin Offers Vets Apology for Remarks
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Jun 25, 11:12 PM (ET)

By JAN DENNIS

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) – U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin apologized to war veterans Saturday for his remarks earlier this month comparing interrogators at an American-run prison camp in Cuba to Nazis and other historically infamous regimes.”

I guess Dick Durbin thinks we fell off the cabbage truck yesterday, but does anyone else notice something completely disingenuous here?

“”I think when you’ve done something hurtful to people you have to stand up and say I’m sorry,” Durbin said at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Peoria, five days after he apologized for the comments on the Senate floor.”

Clue for Senator Durbin: You got that right, but what you got wrong is:

(Oh how I wish Sam Kinison was here right now and I could record him saying this)

“WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME, SENATOR DURBIN!”

Maybe Sneator Durbin should have listened more closely to the words spoken in the 2004 Presidential Campaign….

Why did you go to the VFW in Illinois to apoligize? Did you say anything on the floor of the Senate about how Americans service members in WWII, Korea, Vietnam or GWI acted like Nazis, or did I really miss the “revised and extended comments” you guys always make and pretend like you said something on the floor of the Senate Chamber, when you really never said it to any audience?

(Back to Sam Kinison initaion)

“IT WAS THE MEN AND WOMEN AT GTMO YOU INSULTED AND THEY ARE IN GTMO, HAVING FECES THROWN AT THEM, WITH TERRORISTS THREATENING TO KILL THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES, WHILE YOU HAVE A BEER WITH PEOPLE YOU DIDN’T INSULT!”

I’d really like to know, after all the “trips” you have taken on my tax dollars, Senator Durbin, why you couldn’t pick up the phone and ask for the United States Air Force to pick you up and fly you to Camp X-Ray, so you could humble yourself before the men and women who have shown remarkable restraint, unlike you, in the performance of their duties? You know they would have done that for you, despite their personal feelings. Our Air Force, like their Army MP counterparts at GTMO are professionals.

“Initially, Durbin refused to apologize, but he relented as the firestorm over his remarks continued.”

Yep, and so for my Kinisonion “WRONG TIME!” comment. Five days later? Did your staff sheild you from the reality of what the outcome of your actions on the Senate Floor, or did you plan to have it simmer in the public view for this long, to make sure it’s toxicity saturated deep enough?

“Durbin received a standing ovation from most of the crowd after his speech Saturday. Charlie Brimm, 55, said Durbin’s comments upset veterans, but most think his apologies are sincere.

“It took a pretty big man to come up in front of a veterans group after the comments he made just a week or so before,” said Brimm, a former state VFW commander and Army veteran of the Vietnam War.”

Open comment to Mr. Charlie Brimm:

Thank you for your service to our nation, but please do not accept what is not yours to take credit for. I think it took a lesser man to come before you, than to stand in the very presence of those he defamed before the world. By your acknowledgement of his “apology,” you give Senator Durbin a false seal of approval he will use to excuse his egregious behavior. You, sir, have been used for his political gain. I think you would have done more service to this country, to compliment your past service, by holding your applause and directing a comment to the speaker such as this:

“We veterans here in Peoria cannot accept this apology. It is not our place to do so. We were not there, we did not have a hand in the situation of which you spoke of on the floor of the Senate. We do know where the people are who are owed your words in person. They are our brothers and sisters in arms, across the ages, connected by the common experience of service to this country while wearing the uniform of the Armed Forces. Those who you have spoken ill of are stationed at Camp X-Ray, Gauntanamo Bay, Cuba. Go there and stand in their presence and apologize.”

Clue for the clueless: If you wrong someone, go to them and make amends. Surrogates are not acceptable if you are sincere. If you are using surrogates, then it’s clear what your motivation has been…

It’s the 5th of June here, just before midnight on the 6th. 61 years ago, Lt Jim Helinger, Sr, was making his preparations to fly a glider full of troops and be one of the 200,000 men to invade Europe. I can’t begin to imagine what his thoughts and feelings were.

Here is Part II of the story Jim, Sr told me (Part I is here).

Part I is here.

For two months, Jim was assigned to Primary Flight Training at Coleman, TX. His training aircraft was a Fairchild PT-19, a monoplane with two open cockpits. Following primary training, he was sent to Sherman-Dennison, TX to train to fly the Vultee BT-13 Valiant, which provided the student pilots with more instruments, so they could become proficient flying in bad weather, or at night. Under the normal pipeline for pilot training, the pilots would have then be split out for advanced training in Advanced Single Engine (fighters), Or Multi-Engine (bombers, transports).

An urgent call came in to the beginning pilots: An offer to become glider pilots. Attached to this request was incentive: 50% extra flight pay. That would be added to their current pay, 20% overseas pay and combat pay they would be receiving when they were sent overseas. Jim volunteered to be a glider pilot.

The training for gliders first took Jim home to Louisville, KY, where it looked like that would be the main location for glider training. The Army changed its mind and changed the training from Bowman Field, KY. When Jim got wind of this, he tried to pull his application for gliders, but, it was too late, so it was back to Lubbock Field, TX.

Most of the pilots in the glider training with Jim had backgrounds as “service pilots.” That was the term used for pilots who ferried aircraft to and from the factories. Most of these service pilots were older men, in their mid to late 20s.

Once again, Jim found himself in a PT-19 as the surrogate for a glider in the training pipeline. They flew four hours a day, and had ground school for the other four hours a day. Both parts of the day were “intense” according to Jim. One of the requirements was to learn to Morse Code. Jim had a problem with this and had to spend his evenings in the training lab, trying to get proficient enough to pass the test. On the tenth evening, he broke through the barrier and was able to pass. He never used Morse Code ever again after the test.

With graduation came the big band at the ceremony, the presentation of the pilot wings with the distinctive “G” in the center, to delineate “glider.” It was off to two weeks of hard earned furlough, which he spent back home in Louisville, KY.

At the end of the two weeks, Jim reported to Laurinburg-Maxton, NC for overseas combat training, which was combined with the 82nd Airborne Division troops. Six weeks of landing gliders in fields and also in lakes followed, with another week of furlough at the end of this training phase before shipping overseas. For the duration of his time in the service, Jim was assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 442nd Troop Carrier Group.

Jim flew a glider into the Utah Beach invasion area behind Normandy on D-Day. On landing, the glider pilots fought with the Airborne troops, until the area was secured. Once the landing area was secured, the glider pilots would walk backwards, still ready to fight, back to the gliders. Once there, Jim was one of the officers trained to survey the airframees and find the airworthy ones. When found, they would rig a set of goal poats, a tow line and then fire a flare, to alert the orbiting C-47 (equipped with a tailhook) to make a low pass and snatch the glider from 0 to 135 MPH and off the ground. He said he had to wrap his arms around the steering wheel, and lean forward, holding on tight, that it was quite a shock to take back off like that. He did say some of the glider pilots somehow “forgot” to return to get a ride back, and fought with the ground troops all the way to Germany.

He flew supplies into Patton’s Army, when they were being cut off from the normal supply train, so General Montgomery could push ahead. No one was really paying attention to what the glider pilots were doing, so General Patton had supplies brought to him, including gasoline for his tanks, via glider. Jim flew some of those missions. One of the missions he flew, he carried donkeys, that would be used as pack animals to carry gas cans. The donkeys were not happy with their accommodations and managed to kick holes in the fabric covering of the rear of the gliders.

Jim prefers to only briefly describe some of the technical details of the operations, such as a response to a question most people wouldn’t think to ask: “Did you stay and fight with the airborne troops, or did you get out of the combat zone and how?” His focus is on the slices of life that defined the fun and good things. He did say he had also helped liberate the death camp at Dachau in Germany, and that was all he said about that.

More to follow in Part III

He walked into the office one day to ask about some repair work, and for some reason, I thought to ask him is he was veteran. The answer was yes.

The following text is the story of Jim Helinger, Sr, a US Army Air Corps Glider pilot in World War II, about his wartime exploits. I’ll segment it up some and post most of it in the next few days. It’s not a story of blood and gore and the ugliness we all know goes on in war, but he rather would just tell of the things we know young men do in times such as these, when they are far way from home and facing the reality of conflict. Most of it will make you smirk, and some of it will have you laugh, as his stories are slices of life as it was, and, had then been blogs around, I’m sure much of this would have been typed by Jim himself.

Before I post, my advertisement for capturing history for our future and those who follow us. I posted this “warning order” a few days ago.

“The Library of Congress Veteran’s History Project has some useful tools to help you in capturing these valuable first person stories. Don’t let them go undocumented!”

If you know someone, take the time to listen to their story and record it however you can for the Library of Congress.

On with the show!

Like so many others on Dec 7th, 1941, he heard the announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the family radio, a Philco. He knew he had to do something, and at he decided to enlist. Sometime between the decision to enlist and heading for the Army Recruiter in Louisville, KY the next morning, he figured if he was going to go in, he wanted to fly.

Visiting the recruiting office the next day brought a harsh reality home. At 17 years old, he would not be accepted into the Army Air Corps. He might have joined the one of the other services, but he wanted to fly. He waited until his 18th birthday, February 22, 1942.

Arriving at the Post Office on his birthday, he found a line of about 50 men. He got in it and asked the others what it was for. The “Aviation Cadets” was the answer. He was in the right place. He was shepherded through the input process, taking the written test and “squeezing by.” The medical exam was done as well as the physical fitness exam, which he did very well on. He was called on the loudspeaker back into see the doctor. He was told by the Doctor that he wasn’t qualified medically, because he had a heart murmur. He said “It doesn’t hurt.” The Doctor told him he was sure he was a patriotic young man and assured him he could probably serve in the Navy, or somewhere and sent him home.

On leaving the part of the office where he had tried to make it into the Army Air Corps, he saw another line outside the other end of the building. He asked someone in it what it was for. “Aviation Cadets.” He got in line. This time, he “breezed through” the process and so began the flying career of Jim Helinger, Sr, US Army Air Corps..

The first stop on the route to becoming a pilot was Basic Aviation Cadet Training in Biloxi, MS. Jim’s first comment about this training was “they tried to break your spirit, knowing you would be pilots and officers.” It was Corporals and PFCs who ran the place. The purpose of this initial training was to teach these men how to be soldiers first, before receiving any specialty training. While he was in Biloxi, he said he never got off the base, and that everyone got sick with the “Mississippi Miseries,” which was a generally miserable feeling, and a hacking cough.

Upon finishing basic training, it was off to the College Training Detachment at Southwest University in Memphis, TN. For eight weeks, Jim studied college course, and picked up eight college credits. Following “college,” the next stop was the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center (SACC) for a month of school that trained, then tested the cadets for dexterity, reflexes and knowledge retention, under varying conditions. It was here that Jim had to indicate his preference for assignment in the aviation ranks. The card he had to fill out, along with the others, had three choices: Pilot, navigator and bombardier. You didn’t just check the block, you indicated your desire for each by a numerical grade, with 9 being the highest. He put a 9 for pilot, 1 for bombardier, and left the blank for navigator empty, against directions. As he told this part of the story, there was a twinkle in his eyes and a big smile on his face as he said “I wasn’t going to be a navigator, doing all that math in the plane.” He was assigned to train as a pilot, getting his wish.

End of Part I.

Stay tuned for more action and adventure in Part II!

I have mentioned in other posts one of the jobs I had was conducting inspections of surface ship in the Atlantic Fleet for combat systems readiness. The inspection was called the Combat Systems Assessment (CSA), and during my three years of doing this, it was done under two different procedures. That’s not important right now, but fodder for more sea stories.

Near the end of my 3 year “shore duty” (oh, yeah, that’s the one where you’re supposed to be home) tour, the people over at Naval Surface Forces, Atlantic (NAVSURFLANT) decided we also needed to do CSAs on the patrol hydrofoils. They hadn’t been given this level of scrutiny, so we pulled checksheets for their systems and programs, assembled a smaller team (myself and 4 others) and scheduled an airlift to Key West from Norfolk. Darn the bad luck the Naval Air Logistics Office (NALO) “gave” my team and I the “Station Plane” from Chambers Field (NAS Norfolk). The station planes are like the assigned vehicle for the NAS commander. It was a C-12, in military terms, but, in the civilian world (and most especially in the skydiving realm) it’s just that wonderful Beechcraft King Air airframe. Read twin turboprop executive plane…:)

Anyhow, we went to NAS Key West and then aboard the USS HERCULES (PHM-2). She was one of 6 ships of the PEGASUS Class of hydrofoils. 42 kts while “flying,” and armed with a 76mm gun, and 4 Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

We did our thing, checking the checklists, then watching the crew do a practice engagement. Once this all was completed, the CO, a LCDR (O-4) had the Officer of the Deck “land” the ship in the emergency mode, which was a tactic to run fast on the foils, get into a bunch of ships like a fishing fleet, then slam the ship down on the hull and magically look like the fishing boats around you on radar. The passed the word for all hands to brace for an “emergency landing,” and proceeded to do one for us. The ship was running on a steady course and dropped from 42 kts to about 3 kts really fast. I you hadn’t been hanging on, you’d become somewhat of a flesh missile hazard. Impressive. Back up on the foils we went.

There was time to burn and I was on the bridge. The CO asked me: “Sir, would you like to conn the ship?” Conning the ship is discussed in my post on backing out of station here. I replied: “No, I’ve conned plenty of ships, I want to drive this one.” He had the helmsman get up and let me take his seat. On the PHM, the helmsman and lee helmsman (the person who directly operated the throttles) sit in chairs with seat belts. The controls for a helmsman are like a bomber control yoke, the big partial steering wheel. The CO ordered the OOD to execute a “Figure Eight.” They told me when the order “full rudder” is given, it means you turn the wheel until your hand touches your thigh. “Right Full Rudder!” “Right Full Rudder, Aye, Sir!” and I turned us to starboard. The ship heeled impressively at speed. “Shift Your Rudder!” (position the rudder on the opposite side, the same number of degrees) “Shift My Rudder, Aye, Sir!”

The ship sped along, straighted up, then began to heel the opposite way and the bow dipped and headed for the water! WHAM! Another “emergency landing” just happened, but no one passed the word. Sea spray engulfed the ship for a few moments, as we stopped. Everyone looked around sort of dazed, not because of injury, but more the “what just happened” kind of dazed. No one was hurt, but a few a little shocked when momentum took over unannounced.

In a few minutes, the Engineer reported to the Co that the landing had been caused by a gyro casualty. The PHM’s had two foils aft, just forward of the stern. Each had underwater wings that were computer controlled, and the computer took the inputs from the gyros. The ship had two gyrocompasses. The initial software for the ship’s flying stability did not account well for the loss of one gyro. When the software safety people evaluated the program, they found that if one gyro’s signal was lost, the computer would compensate in such a way as to possibly cause the 288 ton vessel to cartwheel across the sea surface. The software was modified with a “fail safe” mode as a result of this discovery. The new software, when if sensed the loss of one gyro signal would command the ship to land, which, would result in an unannounced “emergency landing.”

When things were all squared away, and they gyro back on line, we proceeded into port. The CO told me I was the only non-crewmember to ever “land” the ship.

As we were about to depart, the Captain had “Flying Certificates” made out for each one of us. I’m not sure if it was OSCM Dave Roddy, or GCMC Dave Cress who looked at me and said “They should have crumpled yours up, boss.”

History, and I was a piece of it….

UNITAS, it’s a wonderful deal, which, as one of my commenters noted to my post here, is no longer. The “deployment” is no longer done.

I arrived aboard USS CONOLLY (DD-979) in late September, 1983. Assigned as Engineer Officer, I felt it was my duty to quickly and properly qualify as Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW). My CO, CDR Harry Maxiner, had other plans. Reporting aboard in Puerto Mont, Chile, the ship was to begin a transit down the Chilean Inland Waterway. That breathtaking passage is about 1/2 the length of Chile, with the foothills of the Andes to port and jagged island and smaller mountain chains to the starboard side. It is a route taken because the South Pacific at that time of year is very rough. Chilean Naval Officers are the pilots for the transit. There is a group of them assigned with this as their duty for their Navy and visitors such as us.

Capt Maxiner told me I would be standing watches on the bridge. I was disappointed, but, orders is orders. That’s another interesting story.

We would be arriving home in Mid-December and then, after leave and standdown (30 days), we would be prepping the ship for a complex overhaul. For 10 months, we would be held captive by Supervisor of Ships in Portland, ME, so Bath Iron Works could do the work on us. That over haul would go from Feb through Dec. After that would be some local work ups and qualification of newly installed Tomahawk, MK23 Target Acquisition System (TAS) and MK15 CIWS. Next in the operational schedule would be a trip to that wonderful garden spot we just call “Gitmo” for 6 weeks of “Refresher Training.” By my rotation date, I would be off the ship before she sailed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and headed to the second half of my Department Head tour.

In order to be selectable for Command at Sea, there is a (go figure) checklist. One of the items (again, go figure) is demonstrating the ability to handle a ship. Included in the list of ship handling evolution was taking the ship alongside another. The other evolutions didn’t require the presence of another ship, so they could be done entering any port, or when the ship was independently streaming.

I had three months when we would be operating around other ships, and then the overhaul, then I’d depart (if the plan would hold for my normal rotation). I needed to go alongside a ship while on UNITAS, or I’d not get the option later. Not good for the Fitness Report to leave out “qualified for Command at Sea.”

While I stood bridge watches for the first month, the alongside opportunities didn’t present themselves. I went to the Senior Watch Officer, at the time Lt Mike Moe and asked for him to put me on the list for the next time we’d be refueling at sea. He told me the junior officers needed the handling time and I was a “proven commodity.” “That’s true Mike, but I’m staying in and we have no idea how many of them will go to Department Head School.” It didn’t work, he said maybe later. I countered with my short time window to do this, and he wasn’t terribly concerned.

I went up to the bridge and found the Captain on the port bridge wing. I began to tell him about my desire to wrap up my shiphandling this cruise. He looked at me, listening, and when I was done, said “Ok, go take the conn (the person who is legally able to give engine and rudder orders, usually the Junior Officer of the Deck).” I looked at him, and it must have been in a funny way, then he said “We just got ordered to go alongside the MINEAS GERIAS” (an aircraft carrier of the Brazilian Navy).

I took the conn and we took waiting station starboard, hoisted “Romeo” at the dip, indicating we were ready to approach. The Romeo flag on the MINEAS GERIAS was “closed up” and we smartly increased speed and began to come alongside. This process requires a lot of attention to detail, a throrough understanding of the handling characteristics of your ship, and hydrodynamic interactions between ships close aboard. I’ll cover that in another post.

I settled the ship in at the desired position alongside, at 120 ft separation, and matched the speed of the carrier. We remained there about 10 minutes, then received a signal to return to our screening station. Capt Maxiner looked at me and said “Have you ever backed one of these out of station?”

The conventional wisdom is you depart from your place alongside by increasing speed, and, until your stern is clear of the other vessel’s bow, and then you begin to steer away. Capt Maxiner was suggesting that we go backwards to leave.

The SPRUANCE Class Destroyers were the first combatant class to be fitted with controllable, reversible propellers (CRP). The shaft turns the same way all the time (in this case, the two shafts counter rotate as well, turning inboard from their respective sides), with large hydraulics physically changing pitch on the blades. Because of this, you can reverse your course very quickly, since the engines don’t have to be stopped to turn the shafts in the opposite direction.

UPDATE: 74 of Bow Ramp corrected me. in the comments: “For the record, the Ashville class gunboats were the first US Navy combatants with CRP shafts. We could go from DIW to 40 knots in under 60 seconds and from Ahead Flank to DIW in 300 feet (under two ship lengths.)” I stand corrected. Thanks!

“No” I said. “Do what I say” was the next order. “All back flank.” “ALL BACK FLANK!” I spoke into the handset to the helm. The ship quickly began to shudder as we rapidly decelerated. The eyes on the people on the MINEAS GERIAS got big as pie plates….The carrier, proceeding at 12 knots, with us now approaching 0, pulled ahead quickly. The four turbines whined as the fuel pumps sent the maximum amount of liquid into the combustion chambers on the GE LM-2500 main engines. Our bow rapidly cleared their stern. Our screening station was on the port bow of the MINEAS GERIAS, so coming away from her starboard side, we had to get around her to carry out or orders. “ALL AHEAD FLANK THREE!” was the next command to the lee helmsman. The engines were up to speed, so now it was up to the hydraulics of the Byrd-Johnson system to change our direction. “LEFT FULL RUDDER!” “LEFT FULL RUDDER, AYE, SIR!” came back in the amplified speaker. The crew of the MINEAS GERIAS was moving aft to watch us back out of station. “RUDDER AMIDSHIPS!” as I saw we could steer straight ahead and clear the transom of the carrier. “Combat, course to station!”

As we secured the navigation team on the bridge, Capt Maxiner looked at me and asked “Is that what you needed to do?” then laughed a big belly laugh, as he sat perched in the captain’s chair on the bridge wing. “Yes, sir, that was it.”

While slicing through the ocean at 32 knots may not sound near as exciting as some of the things Neptunus Lex graces us with, it’s still a trip to be able to haul about 8000 tons of Tin Can about with such grace and flair. Like everything else, when you do it right, it looks great. On the other hand, if not, it can be scraped paint and ruined careers. I’ll also say, with certainty, no one ever was heard to yell “Do some of that SWO (Surface Warfare Officer) stuff!” just in case you were wondering, even when we looked as cool as Tom Cruise, sunglasses on, short hair blowing in the stiff breeze across the deck, while the ship surged along with “a bone in her teeth.”

Captain Maxiner was a tactician, ship handler and gunner, with the heart of a warrior. One post I hope to get to is his use of 5″ gun powder casing tubes, and weather ballons to kick the USS SCOTT’s “can.”

Stay tuned, same station, but unknown time, for the next episode.

Digging around the urban legend site Snopes, I came across a speech by a retired Air Force Officer. The speech was given in the fall of 2001, obviously from the text, after 9/11. Great speech. Brian Shul has flown 212 combat missions from Vietnam, and in the Cold War. Here’s what caught my eye:

And many years later, while fighting another terrorist over Libya, my backseater and I outraced Khaddafi’s missiles in our SR-71 as we headed for the Mediterranean…

I recall clearly that night in April, 1986, while aboard USS BIDDLE (CG-34), we had been told a “national asset” would be traversing our airspace. We gathered around the radar scopes in the Combat Information Center, switched on the SPS-48 air search display and proceeded to watch the SR-71 smoke by. We probably could see about 600 miles across (about 300 around the ship). As the radar rotated, we saw about 4 radar returns from one side of the area of coverage to the other. He was a real “fast mover.”

Now I know it was Brian Shul who flew by.