Target Centermass

Category: Military

  • Passengers’ Good Will Turned Soldiers’ Trip Home into a Flight of Fancy

    The Dallas Morning News is reporting a surprising display of respect for American soldiers.

    It all began with a chance encounter at an airport, a glance, an offer, a quiet chat.

    What’s your seat number, soldier?

    It’s 23-B, sir, the soldier told the businessman.

    No, son, that’s my seat. Yours is in first class.

    As more soldiers boarded, similar offers quickly came from the other first-class passengers.

    And eight soldiers heading home from Iraq for two weeks of R&R found themselves with their officers in the big seats up front instead of the center seats in coach.

    That spontaneous act of good will transformed American Airlines Flight 866, from Atlanta to Chicago, on June 29.

    “The soldiers were very, very happy, and the whole aircraft had a different feeling,” said Lorrie Gammon, one of the Dallas-based flight attendants working the trip.

    “There were 14 seats in first class, and there were 12 soldiers there. The other two first-class passengers wanted to give up their seats, too, but they couldn’t find any more soldiers.”

    Flight attendant Candi Spradlin of Conway, Ark., said she was impressed with how passengers treated the soldiers.

    “If nothing else, those soldiers got a great homecoming,” she said.

    The soldiers were so surprised they barely knew what to do, said Ms. Gammon, who lives in Frisco.

    “They were so humble and thankful – they spent the whole flight saying thank you,” she said.

    “But we should have been saying thank you to them for what they’re doing for us.”

    Almost sounds like an urban legend but, if true, this is very cool.

  • Marines Want Companion for Osprey

    The Dallas Morning News is reporting that the Marines are interested in an armed tilt-rotor escort for the V-22 Osprey.

    The Marine Corps’ top aviation officer has asked Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. to study arming its executive jet-sized BA609 tilt-rotor aircraft as an escort for the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor troop transport.

    The request by Lt. Gen. Michael Hough, deputy commandant for aviation, is a striking vote of confidence in the V-22 and in the future of tilt-rotor aircraft. The V-22 program was nearly canceled after two crashes in 2000 killed 23 Marines.

    “I would have done this earlier, but I didn’t even know if I had a V-22,” Gen. Hough said, referring to the Osprey’s near-cancellation.

    Per the report, this could potentially result in millions of dollars for Bell Helicopter. However, with the checkered story of the Osprey’s development, I predict this will be a rather interesting approval process.

    The V-22 and the BA609 both use wingtip rotors to take off and land like helicopters. But they tilt their rotors forward to fly like airplanes, giving them far greater speed and range than helicopters. Critics still regard the revolutionary method of flight as highly risky.

    Much work would have to be done, and many hurdles cleared, before Bell could produce an armed BA609 derivative.

    The gunship would have to be designed, approved by the Pentagon, funded by Congress, prototyped and tested.

    There is no guarantee any of that will happen.

    But Gen. Hough said the V-22 will need some type of armed escort to carry Marines into combat zones, and only a tilt-rotor will do. Helicopters are too slow for the job, and jets are too fast.

  • No One Asked Us

    Here is a great article on the Iraq invasion, written by a Marine Corps Reserve major (now Lt. Colonel) who took part in the fighting.

    I killed many Iraqi soldiers, as they tried to kill me and my Marines. I did it with a radio, directing air-strikes and artillery, in concert with my British artillery officer counterpart, in combat along the Hamas Canal in southern Iraq. I saw, up close, everything the rest of you see in the newspapers: dead bodies, parts of dead bodies, helmets with bullet holes through them, handcuffed POWs sitting in the sand, oil well fires with flames reaching 100 feet into the air and a roar you could hear from over a mile away.

    I stood on the bloody sand where Marine Second Lieutenant Therrel Childers was the first American killed on the ground. I pointed a loaded weapon at another man for the first time in my life. I did what I had spent 14 years training to do, and my Marines — your Marines — performed so well it still brings tears to my eyes to think about it. I was proud of what we did then, and I am proud of it now.

    Along with the violence, I saw many things that lifted my heart. I saw thousands of Iraqis in cities like Qurnah and Medinah — men, women, children, grandparents carrying babies — running into the streets at the sight of the first Westerners to enter their streets. I saw them screaming, crying, waving, cheering. They ran from their homes at the sound of our Humvee tires roaring in from the south, bringing bread and tea and cigarettes and photos of their children. They chattered at us in Arabic, and we spoke to them in English, and neither understood the other. The entire time I was in Iraq, I had one impression from the civilians I met: Thank God, finally someone has arrived with bigger men and bigger guns to be, at last, on our side.

    Let there be no mistake, those of you who don’t believe in this war: the Ba’ath regime were the Nazis of the second half of the 20th century. I saw what the murderous, brutal regime of Saddam Hussein wrought on that country through his party and their Fedayeen henchmen. They raped, murdered, tortured, extorted, and terrorized those in that country for 35 years. There are mass graves throughout Iraq only now being discovered. 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, out of Camp Pendleton, liberated a prison in Iraq populated entirely by children. The Ba’athists brutalized the weakest among them, and killed the strongest. I saw in the eyes of the people how a generation of fear reflects in the human soul.

  • U.S. to Pull Forces From 2 U.N. Missions

    Seems to only be a token gesture, but the U.S. military is backing out of two tiny deployments.

    The U.S. military will pull tiny contingents out of two U.N. peacekeeping missions because Americans no longer are exempt from international prosecution for war crimes, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.

    A seven-person team will be removed from the U.N. mission to keep the peace between the African nations of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and two liaison officers will be taken out of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, spokesman Larry Di Rita told reporters at a new conference.

    We should pull, or at the very least threaten to pull, our 2,200 troops from Kosovo, with the explanation of principle and more dire need elsewhere. Specifically, enforcing U.N. resolutions in Iraq.

    I do so tire of the League of Nations, Part Deux.

  • Army Recalling Thousands Who Left Service

    The Army announced today that it will be calling up 5,600 troops from the Inactive Ready Reserve to active duty.

    In a new sign of the strain the insurgency in Iraq has put on the U.S. military, Army officials said Tuesday the involuntary callups will begin in July and run through December. It is the first sizable activation of the Individual Ready Reserve since the 1991 Gulf War (news – web sites), though several hundred people have voluntarily returned to service since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

    I’m certain that many of my devoted, long-time readers (this would be a good place to throw in one of those insipid winking emoticons) are concerned about my status. Upon joining the National Guard, I signed up in the standard 6-year active reserve, 2-year IRR enlistment. After my six years, I re-upped for another three years, thus completing any IRR obligation. Despite being home free since 1999 and getting up in years, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t wrestled with re-enlisting every day since 9/11. I’ve even gone through the trouble of verifying that I am still eligible and, yes, because of my nine years, I’m good until about age 44.

    The Army is pinpointing certain skills in short supply, like medical specialists, military police, engineers, transportation specialists and logistics experts.

    Alas! Apparently they currently have no dire need of my specialty, M1-A1 tank crewman. Oh well, the wrestling match between my civilian life and my sense of duty continues.