military

Dinner at the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico Virginia

Hey Joe,
The Marines always do things right.  This is a beautiful building and some powerful photos and emotions at this dinner in the museum. 
As always, the Marines do things like this with flair, élan, and a touch of class.  Well done.

This slide show consists of photos taken at a formal dinner at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, VA.
It is a beautiful presentation of the honor, commitment and pride today’s heroes share with yesterday’s.

Twitter guy from Pakistan during Bin Laden raid in Abbottabad Lahore Pakistan

Hey Joe,

Here are some excerpts from the conversation that twitter guy from Pakistan had while the Bin Laden raid was happening, crazy!  I think his name is Sohaib Athar, what a way to become famous.

 

Love Dad

https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64780730286358528
Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event). about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck
https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64783440226168832
A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck
https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64792407144796160
@m0hcin all silent after the blast, but a friend heard it 6 km away too… the helicopter is gone too. about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to m0hcin
https://twitter.com/m0hcin/status/64791032579108864
Just talked to family in Abbottabad, say they heard three blasts one after another, don’t know what really happened. about 10 hours ago via web

https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64793269908930560
@m0hcin the few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani… about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to m0hcin
https://twitter.com/m0hcin/status/64794837077065728
Seems something nasty happening in #Abbottabad, God save us. about 9 hours ago via web
https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64796769418088448
Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicpoters, and since they’re saying it was not “ours”, so must be a complicated situation #abbottabad about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck
https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64798882332278785
The abbottabad helicopter/UFO was shot down near the Bilal Town area, and there’s report of a flash. People saying it could be a drone. about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck
https://twitter.com/tahirakram/status/64797447821602816
@ReallyVirtual Damn. Unusual. Was it of Pakistan Army? about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to ReallyVirtual
https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64800262354763776
@tahirakram very likely – but it was too noisy to be a spy craft, or, a very poor spy craft it was. about 9 hours ago via TweetDeck
https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64892915167657984
@kursed Well, there were at least two copters last night, I heard one but a friend heard two, for 15-20 minutes. about 3 hours ago via TweetDeck in reply to kursed
https://twitter.com/naqvi/status/64883228590350336
i think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected. about 3 hours ago via web Retweeted by ReallyVirtual
https://twitter.com/ReallyVirtual/status/64892915167657984
Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it. about 2 hours ago via TweetDeck

Memorial Rock Dedicated to Our Military

Hey Dad,

We saw this rock being pulled behind a pick-up truck last week on I-35 South near the Oklahoma Kansas border.  On the back it said “Dedicated 14 April, May or June 2011, couldn’t read the whole thing since straps and cardboard were covering it.  We had to take a picture with my iPhone as we pulled-up next to it going about 75mph.  The guy driving the truck looked to be Vietnam vintage and had a Marine Corps sticker on his rear window.  Pics came out pretty good for that speed, of course it is all about relative motion.  Not sure where this rock was going but it was pretty cool to see the American spirit in the heart of the midwest.
Love Joe

General Eisenhower Warned Us

Dear Joe,

Every year a number of my friends send me emails like this one to remember the holocaust. And each year one stands out more than any other. Here’s this year’s …..
Love,
Dad


General Eisenhower Warned Us

It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened’

This week, the UK debated whether to remove the Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offends’ the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

Now, more than ever, with Iran, among others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth’, it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World TradeCenter ‘NEVER HAPPENED’ because it offends some Muslim in the U.S.?

Little-Known 9/11 Story

Dear Joe,
It would be great to read “real” stories like this, rather than what the news media seems to dwell on these days. I get so tired of the sensationalist stories that run endlessly!

Love,
Dad


This is little-known story from the Pentagon on 09/11/2001:

During a visit with a fellow chaplain, who happened to be assigned to the Pentagon, I had a chance to hear a first-hand account of an incident that happened right after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.

The chaplain told me what happened at a daycare center near where the impact occurred. This daycare had many children, including infants who were in heavy cribs. The daycare supervisor, looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic over what they could do. There were many children, mostly toddlers, as well as the infants that would need to be taken out with the cribs. There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and strollers.

Just then a young Marine came running into the center and asked what they needed.

After hearing what the center director was trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared.

The director thought, “Well, here we are, on our own.”

About 2 minutes later, that Marine returned with 40 other Marines in tow. Each of them grabbed a crib with a child, and the rest started gathering up toddlers. The director and her staff then helped them take all the children out of the center and down toward the park near the Potomac and the Pentagon. Once they got about 3/4 of a mile outside the building, the Marines stopped in the park, and then did a fabulous thing – they formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the covered wagons in the Old West.

Inside this circle of cribs, they put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off.

Outside this circle were the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children and waiting for instructions. There they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their children.

The chaplain then said, “I don’t think any of us saw nor heard of this on any of the news stories of the day. It was an incredible story of our men there. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. The thought of those Marines and what they did and how fast they reacted; could we expect any less from them? It was one of the most touching stories from the Pentagon.”

Remember Ronald Reagan’s great compliment: “Most of us wonder if our lives made any difference. Marines don’t have that problem.”

C-130 into Bagdad

Dear Joe,

This is a fun read. This guy must have taken a creative writing class in college.
Love,
Dad


3rd MAW C-130 Pilot’s Description of Approach into Baghdad.

This is a funny story particularly if you lust over mixed metaphors.
This is from a colorful writer from the 3rd Marine Air Wing based at MCAS Miramar:

“There I was at six thousand feet over central Iraq, two hundred eighty knots and we’re dropping faster than Paris Hilton’s panties. It’s a typical September evening in the Persian Gulf; hotter than a rectal thermometer and I’m sweating like a priest at a Cub Scout meeting. But that’s neither here nor there. The night is moonless over Baghdad tonight and blacker than a Steven King novel.

“But it’s 2006, folks, and I’m sporting the latest in night-combat technology – namely, hand-me-down night vision goggles (NVG’s) thrown out by the fighter boys.

“Additionally, my 1962 Lockheed C-130E Hercules is equipped with an obsolete, yet, semi-effective missile warning system (MWS). The MWS
conveniently makes a nice soothing tone in your headset just before the missile explodes into your airplane. Who says you can’t polish a turd? At any rate, the NVG’s are illuminating Baghdad International Airport like the Las Vegas Strip during a Mike Tyson fight. These NVG’s are the cat’s ass. But I’ve digressed. The preferred method of approach tonight is the random shallow. This tactical maneuver allows the pilot to ingress the landing zone in an unpredictable manner, thus exploiting the supposedly secured perimeter of the airfield in an attempt to avoid enemy surface-to-air-missiles and small arms fire.

“Personally, I wouldn’t bet my pink ass on that theory but the approach is fun as hell and that’s the real reason we fly it. We get a visual on the runway at three miles out, drop down to one thousand feet above the ground, still maintaining two hundred eighty knots. Now the fun starts. It’s pilot appreciation time as I descend the mighty Herc to six hundred feet and smoothly, yet very deliberately, yank into a sixty degree left bank, turning the aircraft ninety degrees offset from runway heading. As soon as we roll out of the turn, I reverse turn to the right a full two hundred seventy degrees in order to roll out
aligned with the runway. Some aeronautical genius coined this maneuver the “Ninety/Two-Seventy.” Chopping the power during the turn, I pull back on the yoke just to the point my nether regions start to sag, bleeding off energy in order to configure the pig for landing.

“Flaps Fifty!, landing Gear Down! Before Landing Checklist!” I look over at the copilot and he’s shaking like a cat shitting on a sheet of ice. Looking further back at the navigator, and even through the Nags, I can clearly see the wet spot spreading around his crotch. Finally, I glance at my steely-eyed flight engineer. His eyebrows rise in unison as a grin forms on his face. I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am …. “Where do we find such fine young men?”

“Flaps One Hundred!” I bark at the shaking cat. Now it’s all aim-point and airspeed. Aviation 101, with the exception there are no lights…I’m on NVG’s, it’s Baghdad, and now tracers are starting to crisscross the black sky. Naturally, and not at all surprisingly, I grease the Goodyear’s on brick-one of Runway 33 Left, bring the throttles to ground idle and then force the props to full reverse pitch. Tonight, the sound of freedom is my four Hamilton Standard propellers chewing through the thick, putrid Baghdad air. The huge, one hundred thirty-thousand pound, lumbering whisper pig comes to a lurching stop in less than two thousand feet. Let’s see a Viper do that!

“We exit the runway to a welcoming committee of government-issued Army grunts. It’s time to download their beans and bullets and letters from their sweethearts, look for war booty, and of course, urinate on Saddam’s home. Walking down the crew entry steps with my lowest-bidder, Beretta 92F, 9 millimeter strapped smartly to my side, look around and thank God, not Allah, I’m an American and I’m on the winning team. Then I thank God I’m not in the Army.

“Knowing once again I’ve cheated death, I ask myself, “What in the hell am I doing in this mess?” Is it Duty, Honor and Country? You bet your ass. Or could it possibly be for the glory, the swag, and not to mention, chicks dig the Air Medal. There’s probably some truth there too. But now is not the time to derive the complexities of the superior, cerebral properties of the human portion of the aviator-man-machine model. It is however, time to get out of this hole.


Hey copilot, how’s ’bout the ‘Before Starting Engines Checklist.”