Delta's Honor Guard

 I had a link forwarded to me shot on the ramp at Atlanta. These fine Delta Airlines employee's honor fallen GI's as they are en route to their families. Words cannot express the emotion I felt while watching this video. As a retired SNCO  I'm overwelmed by the respect shown by these volunteers as these fallen GI's come home.
You like I my not agree with the way this and the previous useless administration have prosecuted wars that should have been won hands down. But in the end GI's are dying for us and should be respected.

My hats off to  Delta and these fine volunteers.

Thought for America

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” 

 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Who among us will draw the line?

Middle Class Going Away?

A little pitch video off of Zero Hedge. The takeaway is startling when they talk about the debt. These guys are ar least optimists in the future and have a few good ideas. My gut tells me that I hope they are right but I think we will all suffer as the markets contract. Hopefully it won't be doomsday prepper, Mad Max kind of world. One more thing it;s not just America, we are the cleanist dirty shirt. Europe and Japan will tank before us.

PIC Of The Day

I only worked on Eagles during my career but there is something special about a BUFF, they are simply incredible aircraft. During my fisrt hitch a Mather AFB CA I was a firefighter and enjoyed watching the B-52G's from the 320th BW fly every day. This is back in the early 80's when SAC still stood 24 hour 365 day alert.

First Flight Of A QF-16

The first flight of a QF-16 took place a few days ago at Cecil Field in FL. The QF-16 will eventually replce the QF-4 Phantoms at Tyndall AFB FL starting in the spring of next year.

Do You Need Strength For Combat?

Of course you need physical and mental strength for combat. What I don’t understand is why shills like Army Colonel Ellen Haring of the Army War College can get away with her totally asinine statements like she did recently in the Armed Forces Journal “Perhaps it is time to take a hard look at what really makes a competent combat soldier and not rely on traditional notions of masculine brawn that celebrate strength over other qualities,” Col. [Ellen] Haring says in the current issue of Armed Forces Journal. She cites World War II hero Audie Murphy and North Vietnamese insurgents as examples of small people who came up big on the battlefield. “If the going-in assumption is that physical standards are the only thing that needs to be examined, then we are also assuming that we have everything else just right,” she wrote. “This is belied by our less-than-optimal performances in many instances during the past 12 years. Fixating on physical standards is a tactical-level approach that misses a strategic-level opportunity.” Now my own personal experience in the military and as a firefighter/EMT I can tell you physical strength standards do matter as do many other qualification standards. Good will and political correctness do not get the ruck humped twenty miles or the hose taken up to the roof. Anybody who say different are in an imaginary world and have a political axe to grind A good example of physical strength needed on the battlefield is what Sergeant Clifford M. Wooldridge, USMC accomplished according to his Navy Cross citation; The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Corporal Clifford M. Wooldridge, United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving as Vehicle Commander, Combined Anti-Armor Platoon White, Weapons Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, Regimental Combat Team 2, FIRST Marine Division (Forward), I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) Afghanistan, on 18 June 2010 in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. When their mounted patrol came under intense enemy fire, Corporal Wooldridge and his squad dismounted and maneuvered on the suspected enemy location. Spotting a group of fifteen enemy fighters preparing an ambush, Corporal Wooldridge led one of his fire teams across open ground to flank the enemy, killing or wounding at least eight and forcing the rest to scatter. As he held security alone to cover his fire team's withdrawal, he heard voices from behind an adjacent wall. Boldly rushing around the corner, he came face-to-face with two enemy fighters at close range, killing both of them with his M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon. As he crouched back behind the wall to reload, he saw the barrel of an enemy machine gun appear from around the wall. Without hesitation, he dropped his empty weapon and seized the machine gun barrel. He overwhelmed the enemy fighter in hand-to-hand combat, killing him with several blows to the head with the enemy's own machine gun. His audacious and fearless actions thwarted the enemy attack on his platoon. By his bold and decisive leadership, undaunted courage under fire, and total dedication to duty, Corporal Wooldridge reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.

 I wonder how much good will was used as he beat the enemy to death with his own machine gun?

A-10 To The Rescue

Here is an article on a recent action by a pair of A-10s from the 74th FS. If there is anyone out there that still thinks an F-35 can replicate this type of action all I can say is they have no clue about close air support. BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Two A-10 Thunderbolt II pilots assigned to the 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, provided close-air support to 60 U.S. Soldiers July 24. The Soldiers were part of a routine clearance patrol that was ambushed after their lead vehicle in a convoy of 12 turned over during a patrol of an Afghanistan highway. The situation forced the Soldiers to establish an overnight base while they pulled the vehicle out of a ravine. As the sun rose, the unit began to receive heavy fire from a nearby tree line. The members were pinned behind their vehicles and three of the Soldiers suffered injuries. The unit was under fire and the wounded members needed a casualty evacuation so they called for close-air support. However, there was one problem; the ground unit didn't have a way to confirm the enemy's position. The unit did have a joint fire observer who was able to communicate an estimated location to the A-10 pilots who arrived on scene shortly after receiving the call from a local base's joint terminal air controller responsible for coordinating aerial engagements. "I flew over to provide a show of force while my wingman was looking for gunfire below," said the flight lead of the two-ship A-10 mission. "Our goal with the show of force was to break the contact and let the enemy know we were there, but they didn't stop. I think that day the enemy knew they were going to die, so they pushed even harder and began moving closer to our ground forces." When the enemy combatants didn't flee after the show of force, the A-10 pilots decided to deliver air-to-surface munitions to protect the friendly ground forces. "Even with all our (top-of-the-line) tools today, we still rely on visual references," said the lead pilot, who is on his first deployment from Moody Air Force Base, Ga. "Once we received general location of the enemy's position, I rolled in as lead aircraft and fired two rockets to mark the area with smoke. Then my wingman rolled in to shoot the enemy with his 30 millimeter rounds." According to the pilots, that really stirred up the attacking force. The enemy moved even closer to the friendlies in an attempt to prevent the A-10 from attacking again. The ground forces were now taking on a large amount of fire from the trees and surrounding high terrain. "We just kept putting down more 30 mm rounds," said the second A-10 pilot, also deployed from Moody AFB. "The bad guys were closing in and according to the muzzle flashes there were a lot of them, but because people were shooting all over the place, the JTAC didn't feel safe bringing in helicopters in to evacuate the wounded personnel." The pilots said usually after the first or second pass, the enemy runs away, but this enemy force was large and willing to fight. The pilots continued to fire 30 mm rounds, but the enemy force refused to fall back. Now, the enemy force was close enough to engage the unit with grenades, so the convoy's commander approved the pilots to engage "danger-close." The term is meant to clearly communicate to the ground and air forces that the need for support is so grave the ground commander is willing to accept the potential risk to the friendly unit for the life-saving employment from the air. "We train for this, but shooting danger-close is uncomfortable, because now the friendlies are at risk," the second A-10 pilot said. "We came in for a low-angle strafe, 75 feet above the enemy's position and used the 30-mm gun -- 50 meters parallel to ground forces -- ensuring our fire was accurate so we didn't hurt the friendlies. The engagement lasted two hours that day, and in that time, the A-10s completed 15 gun passes, fired nearly all their 2,300, 30-mm rounds, and dropped three 500-pound bombs on the enemy force. "That last gun runs must have made them give up," the two pilots agreed "because the firing stopped." Shortly after the engagement was complete, an MC-12 aircraft specializing in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance arrived and began scanning the area for enemy forces that might be regrouping. Sometimes when close-air support leaves, enemy forces will attack again, so the A-10s remained on-station until all the Soldiers were safe. "We wanted to make sure the area was safe because we had the pararescuemen from the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron coming to transport the injured to Bagram's hospital," said the second pilot. "The flight doctor assigned to our squadron treated the wounded in the emergency room. It was an example of a successful mission with contributions from all assets of our base." After the pilots landed and debriefed, they went to the hospital to see the wounded Soldier. "He was laying there and next to him was a picture of his high-school girlfriend," the lead pilot said. "We were glad knowing we helped get him home alive. He said, 'Thank you for shooting those bad guys'. Luckily we were only a few minutes away and all the friendlies made it out that day." Providing close-air support is the squadron's main mission here, and is the specialty of the aircraft they fly, the A-10 Thunderbolt II nicknamed the "Warthog." "This was one of the most intense sorties our squadron has come into contact with in the last four months in theater," the lead pilot said. "Afterward the Afghan National Army said they found 18 enemy dead, so I can only imagine how many were out there. This was close-air support and this is what we train for."

Wisconsin DNR, Another Example Of Big Brother Gone Wrong

After being out of the loop for a few weeks and taking a vacation I decided to get back to it and what do I find right off the bat, more insane tactics by government agents The Wisconsin DNR sowed again how bad big brother government is getting. They raided a no kill shelter with many armed agents after preforming both aerial and covert surveillance. The alleged crime was keeping a fawn that ran afoul of Wisconsin DNR regulations. I can't believe how bad big brother is getting, I realize that this is a minor incident but how much taxpayer money went into this effort and all they ended up doing was killing the fawn and holding the shelter volunteers under detention for from what I gather 3 hours. Here is a link to the WISN ABC 12 article, it includes pictures of the terrorist fawn that the DNR agents saved us from. http://www.wisn.com/news/armed-agents-raid-animal-shelter-for-baby-deer/-/9373668/21272108/-/wvh1n7z/-/index.html

Charlie Rangel, Jerk Of The Week

Charlie Rangel (D) NY proves once again that he is a buffoon. In comment with the Daily Beast he compared Tea Party members to old Sothern racists. Here are the money quotes from the article “It is the same group we faced in the South with those white crackers and the dogs and the police. They didn’t care about how they looked," "It was just fierce indifference to human life that caused America to say enough is enough. ‘I don’t want to see it and I am not a part of it.’ What the hell! If you have to bomb little kids and send dogs out against human beings, give me a break,” said Rangel. I guess Charlie forgot that all these folks that did these acts were from his on Democrat party in the 50’s and the 60’s. But what do expect from a party who had a KKK Grand Kleagle as one of their respected leaders for years, Senator Robert KKK Byrd (D) WV