Thank you to those who have gone before us and given their all for us…
Hand Salute!
Ready, Two.
Nuff said…
Two books I’d like to call your attention to…
Well, one ‘real’ book and one E-Arc.
The E-Arc is Larry Correia’s new book Monster Hunter Alpha. In it we FINALLY get the backstory on Earl Harbinger, and it’s presented in a rather interesting fashion. We also get the introduction of, what I believe, will be another major character in the Monster Hunter Universe…
And the whole thing about pies just kicked over my giggle box… 🙂
I do have a complaint though… It wasn’t nearly long enough, it only lasted three hours into a 12 hour flight! Larry, write faster 🙂
Seriously, I didn’t see any sign of a sophomore drop off in quality, characters, story arc or any formulaic writing. It was new, fresh, and the continuity was excellent!
And the guns are right, as usual! 🙂
———————–
The second book report is Effective Handgun Defense, by Frank James.
It’s a short book, only 250 pages, but it is 250 pages of EXCELLENT reference information on handguns, calibers, uses, manufacturers, holsters, and basically everything one needs to get and stay informed on defensive handguns. Frank walks us through history, with excellent pictures, anecdotes that make good points, and gives his recommendations along with the rationales for them.
Pros and cons are all on paper, giving the reader quite a few thought provoking options on concealment vs. stopping power vs. reliability. This is one I’d strongly recommend for anyone interested in handguns for use in self defense.
And for some reason the thought that kept running through my head was- Beware the old man with the one gun (in this case a .41 Magnum revolver) with all the bluing worn off… 🙂
And yes, Frank was nice enough to actually GIVE me a copy, although I was more than willing to pay for it, and I was not under ANY obligation to put up a report on it, but I think it is well worth the $$, probably better than about 75-80% of the so called expert’s books I have in the library right now…
The last Hueys have been retired by the Army and the Marines, so an iconic airframe passes into history with little fanfair, other than military ceremonies…
First developed by Bell for medivac and utility use in 1952, first flight was Oct 1956 and first produced in Mar 1960. More than 16,000 total have been built. It first saw combat in Vietnam as the HU-1, hence the “Huey” nickname. It’s official name was the Iroquois.
This is the speech given last week at Ft Rucker when they retired the last Huey:
CW4 Lawrence Castagneto, 17 May 2011
“Thank you Sir”
As a Vietnam Veteran Army Aviator, I would like to thank everyone for coming to this special occasion, on this to be honest…very sad day, the end of a era. An era that has spanned over 50 years. The retirement of this grand old lady “OUR MOTHER” … the Huey.
I would like to thank, MG Crutchfield for allowing me to speak at this event and try to convey in my own inadequate, meager way.. what this aircraft means to me and so many other Vietnam veterans.
First a few facts:
It was 48 yrs ago this month that the first Huey arrived in Vietnam with
units that were to become part of the 145th and the 13th Combat Aviation
Battalions; both units assigned here at Ft Rucker today. While in Vietnam, the Huey flew approximately 7,457,000 combat assault sorties; 3,952,000 attack or gunship sorties and 3,548,000 cargo supply sorties. That comes to over 15 million sorties flown over the paddies and jungles of Nam, not to include the millions of sorties flown all over the world and other combat zones since then ….what a amazing journey…. I am honored and humbled to have been a small part of that journey.
To those in the crowd that have had the honor to fly, crew, or ride this
magnificent machine in combat, we are the chosen few, the lucky ones. They understand what this aircraft means, and how hard it is for me to describe my feelings about her as a Vietnam combat pilot…. for she is alive… has
a life of her own, and has been a life long friend.
How do I break down in a few minutes a 42 year love affair, she is as much a part of me, and to so many others,,,as the blood that flows through our
veins. Try to imagine all those touched over the years …by the shadow of
her blades.
Other aircraft can fly overhead and some will look up and some may not; or even recognize what they see but, when a Huey flies over everyone looks up and everyone knows who she is… young or old all over the world she connects with all.
To those that rode her into combat… the sound of those blades causes our heart beat to rise… and breaths to quicken… in anticipation of seeing that beautiful machine fly overhead and the feeling of comfort she brings. No other aircraft in the history of aviation evokes the emotional response the Huey does… combat veteran’s or not… she is recognized all around the world by young and old, she is the ICON of the Vietnam war, U.S. Army Aviation, and the U.S. Army. Over 5 decades of service she carried Army Aviation on her back, from bird dogs and piston powered helicopters with a secondary support mission, to the force multiplier combat arm that Army Aviation is today.
Even the young aviators of today, that are mainly Apache pilot’s, Blackhawk pilot’s, etc., that have had a chance to fly her will tell you there is no greater feeling, honor, or thrill then to be blessed with the opportunity to ride her thru the sky… they may love there Apaches and Blackhawks, but they will say there is no aircraft like flying the Huey ” it is special”.
There are two kinds of helicopter pilots: those that have flown the Huey and those that wish they could have.
The intense feelings generated for this aircraft are not just from the flight crews but, also from those who rode in back …into and out of the “devils caldron”. As paraphrased here from “Gods own lunatics”, Joe Galloway’s tribute to the Huey and her flight crews and other Infantry veterans comments:
Is there anyone here today who does not thrill to the sound of those Huey blades?? That familiar whop-whop-whop is the soundtrack of our war… the lullaby of our younger days it is burned in to our brains and our hearts. To
those who spent their time in Nam as a grunt, know that noise was always a
great comfort… Even today when I hear it, I stop…catch my breath…and search the sky for a glimpse of the mighty eagle.
To the pilots and crews of that wonderful machine …we loved you, we loved that machine.
No matter how bad things were…if we called … you came… down through the hail of green tracers and other visible signs of a real bad day off to a bad start. I can still hear the sound of those blades churning the fiery sky ….To us you seemed beyond brave and fearless… Down you would come to us in the middle of battle in those flimsy thin skin -chariots …into the storm of fire and hell,..
…we feared for you, we were awed by you. We thought of you and that beautiful bird as ” God’s own lunatics”… and wondered …who are theses men and this machine and where do they come from …… Have to be “Gods Angels”.
So with that I say to her, that beautiful lady sitting out there, from me and all my lucky brothers, that were given the honor to serve their country, and the privilege of flying this great lady in skies of Vietnam – Thank you for the memories…Thank you for always being there…Thank you for always bringing us home regardless of how beat up and shot up you were…, Thank You!!!!.
You will never be forgotten, we loved you then….. we love you now… and will love you till our last breath …
And as the sun sets today, if you listen quietly and closely you will hear that faint wop wop wop of our mother speaking to all her children past and present who rode her into history in a blaze of glory …she will be saying to them: I am here… I will always be here with you.
I am at peace and so should you be … and so should you be.
I’m confident the Huey will be much like the DC-3, they will continue to fly forever… They are still out there world-wide, doing the job and bringing the crews back home at the end of the day.
Done 🙂
Heading back to the ‘world’ today…
Went over to the Seamen’s Club and got a beer and a burger in celebration. This is a little known outfit, but they provide one hellva service to sailors that crew the ships spread all over the world supporting the US military and other organizations. They provide phone, email, decent food and all kinds of BEER 🙂 And it’s all reasonably priced!!!
You can see their locations from the placemat below.
And since we were talking about Singapore, we decided to celebrate with Tiger, which is brewed in Singapore 🙂
We may not be coming back with ‘all’ of the pieces and parts, but we are coming back with ALL of the folks in one piece and that is the most important part.
Went out to Sam’s Anchor Inn for dinner, got Kobe beef teppanyaki style, along with shrimp and all the fixings, along with painted label San Miguel beer-
Our token one good meal of the trip. Now looking ‘forward’ (NOT) to 2 hour flight, 3 hour layover, 9 hour flight, 2 hour layover, 5 hour flight to get home… sigh…
President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country.
On 31 Aug 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace individual services appreciation days. The single day celebration also stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under one department- the Department of Defense.
And has anyone seen this advertised anywhere? Any media coverage (Stars and Stripes DID cover it)???
/Crickets…
BUT they sure have covered the so called end of the world! WTFO???
Since I’m OCONUS I have been thanking all the folks I came in contact with yesterday to thank them, and a few (mostly senior folks) actually knew what I was talking about… sigh…
Here are a couple of pics of a “Challenge Coin” I was given by Jim Land. This one is pretty special to me. Here is the obverse-
And this is the reverse of the coin
Take a minute and thank a service member, active retired or otherwise… I’ve set this as an auto post, so I ‘hope’ it posts on the right day…
Find some place else to stay next time…
Air Farce bases have some ‘stupid’ internet policies- Block any thing about weapons (e.g. blogs, firearms companies, NRA, etc), and this is the pop up
Your page is blocked due to a security policy that prohibits access to Category Weapons
but you’re allowed to go to Brady bunch, VPC and all the other anti-gun sites…
Don’t walk close to the compound fence at night. DAYUM those floodlights are bright… AND I got busted for smoking in a secure area! WTF???
Why is it, if you’re inside the fence, everybody walking by on the outside ‘ignores’ you??? Are they pretending we don’t exist???
Japanese econo-boxes (e.g tiny cars) have more features than most full size american cars! My tin can with roller skate wheels has automatic wipers, automatic headlights, auto dimming rearview mirror, and a rear windshield wiper…
Now if it just had THREE squirrels for power, instead of the two…
With four full sized Americans in three bags in it, it had to downshift to low gear to get up a hill. Pretty bad when the big diesel truck was pulling away from us going to up the 9% grade…
After five “days” of less than four hours of sleep, dingy (is that a word?) does not BEGIN to describe how tired we are. One guy literally went to sleep in the middle of the conversation!
Once again, truly impressed by the kids out here on the pointy end… They are good, and proud of what they are doing! And in casual conversations, many more (both male and female) are gun owners/shooters! Yea for them!
There was something elzzzZZZZZZZ
Here we go again… Take two, plus some pics. Reconfiguration is complete more or less…
Different CONEX boxes, different cable reels and other toys.
And creating welding 101 🙂 In the right center you see some folks squatting on the deck. They are welding padeyes to the deck, and as Danny observed before, painting them with White Lead, since they are temporary. Now it’s raining at this time, so they did some creative welding/painting, by using the torch to heat up the padeye/weld, paint it quickly, and use an umbrella to deep the rain off for a couple of minutes until the paint dried… Pretty creative!!!
And Danny wanted some more pics of the ROV, it’s a HYSUB 150/3000 (info HERE). This is a pic of the swing out derrick used to launch the ROV over the side of the ship, which does have DPS (1 meter accuracy).
Here’s another view of the derrick and cable sleeve. As you can tell, it’s a pretty ‘healthy’ assembly…
And here are some pics of their control station- Since we’re not planning on using it, we don’t have any of the ROV crew aboard.
Alternate title- Well, THAT was just special…
Sigh…
Pushed it a ‘bit’ late leaving the work site, so we decided to take the Expressway back up to where we were staying. Now the tropical storm eye wasn’t quite here, but the wind/rain was getting interesting…
For those who’ve been over here, you remember the Expressway is made with volcanic rock in place of ‘gravel’ seen in most roads in the USA. It sheds water really well, but it’s also SLICK when wet!
Anyhoo, we jump on the Expressway, and the “mid-sized” car (read tin can with roller skate wheels) is a bit of a handful. The guy riding with me is already nervous, since he’s in the left front seat with no steering wheel, no brakes, nothing…
It’s blowing 30ish knots, gusting 50ish knots, raining ‘medium’ (about what we’d call a frog strangler back home) and sideways. So visibility is not the best.
I’m more concerned about staying on the road than I am about speed, so I’m not really looking as I’m also trying to see the road and kinda crabbing into the wind. About that time we come out from behind one of the hills onto the first bridge going North…
Next thing I know, the other guy goes, “did you do that on purpose?”
What?
“Did you change lanes on purpose?”
I didn’t change lanes!
“Yes you did!”
Huh???
“I can see the guardrail now, before I couldn’t!”
Meh… So we get across the bridge, and there we go again…
See above… Same comments from him and from me. He has had all the fun he can stand, so he flops the seat back down and tells me- “Lemme know when we die!” and closes his eyes like he’s sleeping.
So I fight the car up the Expressway for 25 klicks, get off, and- The wind drops off, the rain stops and the sun comes out…
And he looks up and asks, “Did we die? Is THAT why the sun’s shining and there’s no wind?”
My timing sucks!!! And I’m STILL trying to get the seat cushion outta my ass…
Well, here we go again… Trying to get 10lbs in a 5lb bag, er… ship…
This is a working ROV on the ship we are working with; it’s not the cutesy little things you see on TV, this one is a workhorse ROV!!! 4600 lbs, 100 inches high, depths to 16000 feet, two manipulators…
And a pic of the ship from the pier…
The big blue thing sticking up through the picture is the port A-Frame support, capable of >30,000 lbs. The other bits and pieces are semi positioned on deck, based on offload and ability to flake equipment out prior to deployment.
This one is from the 01 Deck, looking aft past the ROV sheave. Even though the deck ‘appears’ open, you can see the cable spool that has to be spooled out down the center of the aft deck.
And finally, what I think is probably the ‘best’ headline I’ve seen about OBL. And it pretty much captures the folks out here on the pointy end’s perspective…
And in what is becoming a habit, got another @#&*% Tropical Storm (03W) that has us boresighted… I want to find the sumbitch with the target painted on his back and send him somewhere/anywhere else… sigh…