For those who have not seen. Most of us have significant experience with the Huey. In my case, my takeoffs exceed by a considerable number my landings in the airframe. Some of us know Ranger Nightengale personally. Some of us have been involved in emergency landings or other aircraft mishaps. Some of us owe something, perhaps a lot, to a pilot or aircrew.

The Sound that Binds

by Keith Nightingale

SWJ Blog Post | October 5, 2012 – 8:12pm

Unique to all that served in Vietnam is the UH1H helicopter. It was both devil and angel and it served as both extremely well. Whether a LRRP, US or RVN soldier or civilian, whether, NVA, VC, Allied or civilian, it provided a sound and sense that lives with us all today. It is the one sound that immediately clears the clouds of time and freshens the forgotten images within our mind. It will be the sound track of our last moments on earth. It was a simple machine-a single engine, a single blade and four man crew-yet like the Model T, it transformed us all and performed tasks the engineers and designers never imagined. For soldiers, it was the worst and best of friends but it was the one binding material in a tapestry of a war of many pieces.

The smell was always hot, filled with diesel fumes, sharp drafts accentuated by gritty sand, laterite and anxious vibrations. It always held the spell of the unknown and the anxiety of learning what was next and what might be. It was an unavoidable magnet for the heavily laden soldier who donkey-trotted to its squat shaking shape through the haze and blast of dirt, stepped on the OD skid, turned and dropped his ruck on the cool aluminum deck. Reaching inside with his rifle or machine gun, a soldier would grasp a floor ring with a finger as an extra precaution of physics for those moments when the now airborne bird would break into a sharp turn revealing all ground or all sky to the helpless riders all very mindful of the impeding weight on their backs. The relentless weight of the ruck combined with the stress of varying motion caused fingers and floor rings to bind almost as one. Constant was the vibration, smell of hydraulic fluid, flashes of visionary images and the occasional burst of a ground-fed odor-rotting fish, dank swampy heat, cordite or simply the continuous sinuous currents of Vietnam’s weather-cold and driven mist in the Northern monsoon or the wall of heated humidity in the southern dry season. Blotting it out and shading the effect was the constant sound of the single rotating blade as it ate a piece of the air, struggling to overcome the momentary physics of the weather.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Ode to the Chopper Pilots”

2013/08/09

Berto Jongman: How We Lost Yemen….

Government, Ineptitude, Military

How We Lost Yemen

The United States used the Pakistan playbook on Yemen's terrorists. It didn't work.

For much of the past four years the United States has been firing missiles into Yemen. Drones, ships, and planes have all taken part in the bombardment, carrying out at least 75 strikes — including an alleged drone attack that killed five on the night of Monday, Aug. 5, bringing the death toll to a minimum of 600 souls, according to the best estimates.

But for all that, for all the strikes and all the dead, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) continues to attract more members, growing from 300 in 2009 to well over a thousand today. U.S. officials almost invariably refer to it as the most dangerous branch of al Qaeda's network, a designation that has remained constant since the United States started bombing Yemen in 2009. And the group, as the ongoing terrorism alert that has closed U.S. embassies has shown in dramatic fashion, remains capable of paralyzing U.S. diplomatic efforts across an entire region.

All this raises a rather simple question: Why? Why, if the U.S. counterterrorism approach is working in Yemen, as Barack Obama's administration claims, is AQAP still growing? Why, after nearly four years of bombing raids, is the group capable of putting together the type of plot that leads to the United States shuttering embassies and missions from North Africa to the Persian Gulf?

The answer is simple, if rather disheartening: Faulty assumptions and a mistaken focus paired with a resilient, adaptive enemy have created a serious problem for the United States.

Read full article.

2013/08/082013/08/08

Winslow Wheeler: Purge the Generals to Fix the Army + Flag Corruption and Ineptitude RECAP

Corruption, Military

There is a devastating review of the quality of Army leadership at the new issue of Armed Forces Journal. At Armed Forces Journal, it is an article by Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis (“Purge the Generals”), and it merits the attention of anyone following military affairs, I believe. If you think Army leadership is an island of competence and ethics in the miasma of Washington politics, I urge you to read LtC Davis' up close and personal assessment. Note his important and dramatic recommendations.

Moreover, if you think these problems are unique to the Army and do not pertain, for example, the the Marine Corps, see here.

LtC Davis' article is at the Armed Forces Journal website at http://armedforcesjournal.com/, and it is below.

Purge the generals:What it will take to fix the Army

Armed Forces Journal, 7 August 2013

BY DANIEL L. DAVIS

The U.S. Army's generals, as a group, have lost the ability to effectively function at the high level required of those upon whom we place the responsibility for safeguarding our nation. Over the past 20 years, our senior leaders have amassed a record of failure in major organizational, acquisition and strategic efforts. These failures have been accompanied by the hallmarks of an organization unable and unwilling to fix itself: aggressive resistance to the reporting of problems, suppression of failed test results, public declarations of success where none was justified, and the absence of accountability.

Continue reading “Winslow Wheeler: Purge the Generals to Fix the Army + Flag Corruption and Ineptitude RECAP”

2013/08/052013/08/05

Marcus Aurelius: BREAKING – Defense to Protect Hardware Contracts, Savage the People

Military, Officers Call

There is lot of stuff flying around Pentagon these days. There is memo that underlies article next below but I haven't seen it yet, trying to get from Sister service. Irrespective of your opinion of publication, this might be very good week to buy current Army Times (12 Aug 2013) because it has some data and graphics I haven't previously seen about what may be coming. Trends I'm sensing so far:

Hardware is more important than humans.
Sequestration decrements will be largely borne by MILPERS and CIVPERS
Even if sequestration disappeared today, MILPERS and CIVPERS would be principal targets.
DoD is seeking to ((FUNDAMENTALLY)) change, in negative ways, compensation scheme for MILPERS.
DoD will seek to screw retirees under age 55 out of TRICARE coverage
Cart is clearly before horse — DEPSECDEF has relayed SECDEF's guidance to cut HQs by 20 percent without determining what functions will no longer be performed. Long experience is being ignored: downsizing, rightsizing, doing more with less don't work. Less is less and, generally, all you can do with less is less.
SECDEF appears to be disproportionately influenced by one particular retired Marine Reserve GO who also happens to be an executive of one of the big defense contractors.

DOD Memo Provides Specifics for Headquarters Spending Cuts

By Cheryl Pellerin

American Forces Press Service

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: BREAKING – Defense to Protect Hardware Contracts, Savage the People”

2013/08/05

Berto Jongman: Creating a Military-Industrial-Immigration Complex

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, DHS, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement, Military

Creating a Military-Industrial-Immigration Complex

How to turn the US-Mexican border into a war zone [profitable for the few]

Todd Miller

al Jazeera, 3 August 2013

The first thing I did at the Border Security Expo in Phoenix this March was climb the brown “explosion-resistant” tower, 10 metres high and 3 metres wide, directly in the centre of the spacious room that holds this annual trade show. From a platform where, assumedly, a border guard would stand, you could take in the constellation of small booths offering the surveillance industry's finest products, including a staggering multitude of ways to monitor, chase, capture, or even kill people, thanks to modernistic arrays of cameras and sensors, up-armored jeeps, the latest in guns, and even surveillance balloons.

Although at the time, headlines in the Southwest emphasised potential cuts to future border-security budgets thanks to Congress's “sequester”, the vast Phoenix Convention Center hall – where the defence and security industries strut their stuff for law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – told quite a different story. Clearly, the expanding global industry of border security wasn't about to go anywhere. It was as if the milling crowds of business people, government officials, and Border Patrol agents sensed that they were about to be truly in the money thanks to “immigration reform”, no matter what version of it did or didn't pass Congress. And it looks like they were absolutely right.

All around me in that tower were poster-sized fiery photos demonstrating ways it could help thwart massive attacks and fireball-style explosions. A border like the one just over 161 kilometres away between the United States and Mexico, it seemed to say, was not so much a place that divided people in situations of unprecedented global inequality, but a site of constant war-like danger.

Below me were booths as far as the eye could see surrounded by Disneyesque fake desert shrubbery, barbed wire, sand bags, and desert camouflage. Throw in the products on display and you could almost believe that you were wandering through a militarised border zone with a Hollywood flair.

To an awed potential customer, a salesman in a suit and tie demonstrated a mini-drone that fits in your hand like a Frisbee. It seemed to catch the technological fetishism that makes Expo the extravaganza it is. Later I asked him what such a drone would be used for. “To see what's over the next hill,” he replied.

Read full article with additional links.

2013/08/052013/08/05

Berto Jongman: Yemen Criminalizes Drone Strikes

04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Military

Yemen: The first steps towards criminalising drone strikes, Obama take note

Yemen's National Dialogue Conference decision to criminalise drone strikes is an essential step toward a stable Yemen.

Ghada Eldemellawy

al Ja'zeera, 2 August 2013

“America’s actions are legal” claimed President Obama in a speech on drones earlier this year. It was the latest in a string of attempts made by his administration to justify covert strikes carried out by the US overseas – in countries including the Arab peninsula’s poorest nation, Yemen.

But back in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, it appears the country’s civil society disagrees. Members of Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC) – a US-supported initiative which will map out Yemen’s post-Arab Spring future – overwhelmingly voted to criminalise drone strikes in Yemen. The Yemeni people have spoken. Now Presidents Hadi and Obama must listen – for their own sake, as much as that of Yemen.

While it is clear that no leader may lawfully authorise another sovereign to slaughter his own people, the decision to criminalise drones strikes sends a clear warning message to Hadi – if the current practice is to continue, it may well lead to a criminal prosecution.

But it is not only the threat of a jail cell that should focus the Yemeni President’s mind. Through his unconditional consent to the use of drones in his country, President Hadi has already alienated many of his supporters, especially those, like him, from the south, which bear the brunt of the strikes.

Read full article with links and photos.

2013/08/042013/08/04

Marcus Aurelius: Snowden NSA Revelations Piss Off Rest of Government As They Realize What They Have NOT Been Getting From NSA or CIA

Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, Military

Who would have thought — tragic farce aka absurdist theater?

Other Agencies Clamor For Data N.S.A. Compiles

By Eric Lichtblau and Michael S. Schmidt

New York Times, August 4, 2013 , Pg. 1

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency’s dominant role as the nation’s spy warehouse has spurred frequent tensions and turf fights with other federal intelligence agencies that want to use its surveillance tools for their own investigations, officials say.

Agencies working to curb drug trafficking, cyberattacks, money laundering, counterfeiting and even copyright infringement complain that their attempts to exploit the security agency’s vast resources have often been turned down because their own investigations are not considered a high enough priority, current and former government officials say.

Intelligence officials say they have been careful to limit the use of the security agency’s troves of data and eavesdropping spyware for fear they could be misused in ways that violate Americans’ privacy rights.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Snowden NSA Revelations Piss Off Rest of Government As They Realize What They Have NOT Been Getting From NSA or CIA”