The entire Third Infantry Division is being deployed from Hunter Army Airfield and Fort Stewart. This kind of massive deployment hasn't happened since the Gulf War in 1990. . . .Last night the Army announced that the 101st ABN DIV at Fort Campbell was also beginning deployment, though how much of it would deploy was not specified.
Military officials are not releasing where these troops are being deployed to at this time.
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
3d US Infantry Division begins deployment. Military writer Thomas Holsinger of StrategyPage.com emailed me this story:
Weird things of 2002 are summarized by today's Washington Post. My favorites, with my italicized introductions:
He's a real nowhere man:
TEHRAN -- Iranian police were on the lookout for an alleged sorcerer who conned a man into believing he was invisible and could rob banks.
Proper gun control is hitting only what you aim at:
AMMAN, Jordan -- The groom spent his wedding night in jail after accidentally shooting dead two guests while firing his automatic rifle to celebrate his marriage.
Maybe it was part of Total Information Awareness:
OXNARD, Calif. -- An Oxnard man was charged with animal cruelty and being under the influence of amphetamines after allegedly torturing and dissecting his daughter's pet guinea pig because he thought it was a camera-equipped robot placed in his home by government agents.
It takes one to know one:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Rhode Island State Senate unanimously passed a bill to issue automobile license tags honoring the 50th anniversary of Mr. Potato Head.
I refrain from relating jokes that start out, "A Wake Forest frat brother walked into a bar with a pig under arm . . . "
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Members of a Wake Forest University fraternity were charged with animal cruelty and abandonment after their pet pig was found drunk, dehydrated and sunburned in a local park. Frat boys haven't changed since I graduated there.
That's why it's called the longest mile:
LIVINGSTON, Tex. -- Convicted killer Rodolfo Hernandez, who has only one leg, demanded that the Texas prison system supply him with an artificial limb to aid his 50-foot walk to the death chamber.
No, she was the Gatekeeper, Bill Murray was a god:
ATLANTA -- The Georgia parole board issued a stay of execution for a killer so delusional that when he is off his medication he believes that actress Sigourney Weaver is God.
No, dummies, you roast the cocoa beans, not the chocolate:
ZURICH -- A fire at a Swiss warehouse destroyed 4 million chocolate Easter bunnies.
Another reason to hate voice mail:
TICONDEROGA, N.Y. -- A man who called police to brag that he couldn't be caught was arrested while still on the phone.
The continuing trauma of World War II leads reader Richard Heddleson to make some thoughtful observations. He cites Glenn Reynolds:
Back when I was practicing law, one of my clients -- the president of the American subsidiary of a European company, a Pole who had lived through World War Two under circumstances that would make a good thriller/tearjerker movie -- said that he thought Europe was suffering massive psychological trauma from the world wars, and that it would take a century for it to recover, if it ever did.Then Richard says:
It made me think about the fact that the only European country from which we get support is the UK, the only European combatant notI have little to add except that in October 2001 I wrote,
conquered and occupied in devastating fashion in either war. They had the blitz, which was not a picnic, but also not the same as being overrun. Spain too was not occupied in either war, but they were somewhat and very careful collaborators as were the Swedes.
It also made me think about the American South. It seems to me, as a Yankee, that the South was not fully reintegrated back into the country until after the civil rights struggle eliminated the Jim Crowism that survived into the 60's. Also a century, as the Polish gentleman said. I think that was one reason Lott's comments, however oblique and unintentional, were immediately unsupportable to almost everyone. I heard a deafening silence from his Southern colleagues. No one wants that wound, finally but barely healed, to be re-opened.
The U. S. has gone pretty far down the learning curve on occupation and seems to now do it well, at least in western countries. And that is the one thing that bothers me about the talk of the Iraq occupation. It seems we will have to be there for at least 25 years to do it right. But everyone is talking 2-5 years. Maybe that's just because they think they can't sell anything longer up front. Realistically, our commitment needs to be much greater than that. Our value add should be sufficient that even after 25 years Iraq is not clamoring for our withdrawal, as Germany and Japan do not after 50 years.
What I worry about most is that in the immediate conflict we will not defeat those in and out of Iraq sufficiently to allow us to occupy and rebuild it without effective guerilla resistance, something we never had in Germany or Japan because of our total victory. We will then leave under pressure, prematurely, with the job undone as we did in 1991. Only after another, yet greater, conflagration, grows from the fire we failed to fully bank will we then send a Sherman to the Middle East and be able to pacify an utterly devastated region. I sure hope we have the patience to do it right the second time, because it will be a lot more expensive the third.
Peace may be the hardest part of war.
Almost everywhere in the world where international terrorism grows we find poverty and human oppression, especially toward women. Tribalism and ethnic hatred also remain strong. We Americans are more free of these oppressions than almost any other people. We and our western allies must lead the way out for those people. It will take a new kind of national commitment. It will cost a fortune. It will require new kinds of armies, armies not of soldiers but of engineers, agriculturalists, financiers, administrators and educators.
It will take decades and there are no guarantees. But the alternative is to fight culture and religious wars generation after generation.
Monday, December 30, 2002
What we have got and they have not. What has the Battle on Omdurman in Sudan, 1898, got to do with a potential new war in Korea? Bear with me.
In Sept. 1898, British troops under Sir Herbert Kitchener destroyed the Islamic Dervish army in Sudan in the Battle of Omdurman. The battle was exceedingly one-sided. The weapons and tactics of the Dervishes could not compete with British supply, weapons and tactics. (The Dervishes were the successor to the army under the Islamic Mahdi, which had driven the British out of Sudan 14 years earlier.)
Winston Churchill, who fought in the battle, wrote that after the fighting, Sir Kitchener concluded the Dervishes had been given "a good dusting," so he ordered the British troops to break off the engagement.
It is worth noting that the Dervishes had destroyed a British army under General Charles Gordon 14 years before at Khartoum. In fact, they had even beheaded Gordon and placed his head on display. (Gordon had been ordered by the Prime Minister to withdraw, but he refused, saying that he was honor-bound to the Sudanese people, whom he had promised to preserve from slavery under the Islamic Mahdi.) England finally sent a relief column, but it arrived two days too late. It then reversed march and left, leaving Sudan bereft of British presence.
In the 14 years between Khartoum and Omdurman, the Royal Army made a technological quantum leap, not least of which was the adoption of the Maxim gun, the invention of American Hiram Maxim. Maxim's first model, 1885, had a cyclic rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute. An improved version was adopted by the Royal Army in 1889. The Brits also made improvements in artillery that would both outrange Dervish guns and make rubble of Dervish forts, unbeknownst to them.
In short, the British Army spent 14 years improving its technology, weapons, tactics, training, communications and supply. The Dervish army (successors to the army led by the Mahdi, who had died a few years after Khartoum) had not.
To which I say, "No." In fact, I have already said that North Korea is a paper tiger - in conventional arms, let me be specific. When it attains a nuke or two, the paper teeth will have some bite, unfortunately. But in conventional arms, the South and the US are quantitatively superior to the North.
I served in the 2d US Infantry Division (2ID) in Korea from 1977-1978, in 1st Battalion, 38th Field Artillery. The battalion was then equipped with 18 105mm towed howitzers, M102A1. Today it is equipped with 27 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) vehicles, an exceptionally powerful rocket artillery system.
2ID then resembled a World War II division more than it did its present configuration. We did not then consider ourselves a "speed bump." The technological advances since 1978 have increased the division's combat power exponentially. I do not claim that 2ID can defeat an invading North all by itself. I certainly do claim that those who write the division off, saying that it would be destroyed, are just wrong.
In the 50-odd years since the Korean War, the US Army has been well funded most years, has fought in several wars large and small, and has been the direct beneficiary, and sometimes the engine, of the revolution in computerization. The Army's history since 1953 has been dynamic. Capabilities in conventional munitions have been so improved that tactical atomic weapons are not necessary to achieve effects against enemy soldiers or installations. In fact, a single MLRS launcher is more destructive than a 155mm atomic projectile, and at longer range.
There have been enormous improvements in training and the systems and equipment used for training. Intensive combat simulations ("war games" being a hopelessly inadequate term) are now used that integrate vehicles, simulators, communications, computers, aerospace assets and ground/naval units in ways never before possible, linked worldwide.
In contrast, the North Korean army has done none of this. In particular, they have not been required to stretch their doctrine because they have not fought a war since 1953. They have read and studied, of course, but they have had no chance to test whether their theoretical doctrine is any good. Their millions of soldiers are far from uniformly effective. (Of the five million men under arms the North is said to have, about three-fourths are reserves with little regular training.)
None of their services have the combined arms operations skills that US and Southern forces have. They rarely conduct large-scale maneuvers, and when they do, the maneuvers are scripted. Free-play exercises are not done. Their air force does not fly near the hours that US and ROK air forces do, and with nothing like the training intensity. They do not have stealth aircraft. Their most numerous fighter plane, the MIG-19, dates from not long after the Korean War.
That NK troops could cross the Military Demarcation Line can't be denied; doing so has been the main focus of their military for, lo, five decades. (When I served on the DMZ, US and ROK engineers were blowing up tunnels that the North had dug under the DMZ; at least one could handle trucks. There are certainly tunnels we have not discovered.) But it is highly likely that they have no real imagination for doing anything much more than making the initial assault, except for taking Seoul. (Seoul is only 30 miles from the DMZ.) In short, their whole operational model has been their previous invasion of 1950, when they drove all the way to Pusan. But in 1950 they did not face a well-prepared defense in depth, manned with well-trained troops. Nor had Northern troops and their families suffered from decades of communist oppression and literal starvation. Neither had the inherent corruption of the communist system yet destroyed the integrity of their officer high command.
If the North invades again, from the beginning Allied forces will enjoy --
By no means would such an invasion be easily resisted. As I said in my previous post, casualties would be high on both sides, but much higher for the North. Probably more South Korean civilians would die than ROK troops. NK special ops forces would be of serious concern and would spearhead an invasion, operating well south of the DMZ. They would commit sabotage, assassination and special attacks. The North almost certainly has fairly modern UAVs that would be used as a "poor man's cruise missile." Some analysts think that the North would launch nonpersistent chemical agents at Seoul, intending to kill as many Southern government workers as possible; that many ordinary Seoulians would die also is of no consequence. Steven Den Beste has said that civilian refugees fleeing the battle would constitute major mobility problems for Allied forces, and he's probably right.
While the North's army slugged its way south, American air power would be devastating North Korea's lines of communication, ports, installations and infrastructure. The North's air force would pretty quickly be dispatched. Military and government buildings in Pyongyang would be leveled. I think US commanders would show much less restraint against North Korea than they did against Iraq in 1991.
In short, the North can invade the South, but it cannot win. The ensuing war would be disastrous for the South in terms of human loss, also for the North unless the war ended with the South's suzerainty over the North. But even so, the North Korean people would suffer very greatly until then.
The problem, though, is not that the North could win such a war. It is that its isolated, self-justifying oligarchy might think it can win. And with its impending development of atomic weapons, it may think that all the more.
In Sept. 1898, British troops under Sir Herbert Kitchener destroyed the Islamic Dervish army in Sudan in the Battle of Omdurman. The battle was exceedingly one-sided. The weapons and tactics of the Dervishes could not compete with British supply, weapons and tactics. (The Dervishes were the successor to the army under the Islamic Mahdi, which had driven the British out of Sudan 14 years earlier.)
Winston Churchill, who fought in the battle, wrote that after the fighting, Sir Kitchener concluded the Dervishes had been given "a good dusting," so he ordered the British troops to break off the engagement.
Meanwhile the great Dervish army, which had advanced at sunrise in hope and courage, fled in utter rout, pursued by the Egyptian cavalry, harried by the 21st Lancers, and leaving more than 9,000 warriors dead and even greater numbers wounded behind them.British poet Hilaire Belloc famously summed it up,
Thus ended the Battle of Omdurman - the most signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science over barbarians. Within the space of five hours the strongest and best-armed savage army yet arrayed against a modern European Power had been destroyed and dispersed, with hardly any difficulty, comparatively small risk, and insignificant loss to the victors.
[Editor's Note: The Dervish Army, approximately 52,000 strong, suffered losses of 20,000 dead, 22,000 wounded, and some 5,000 taken prisoner--an unbelievable 90% casualty rate! By contrast, the Anglo-Egyptian Army, some 23,000 strong, suffered losses of 48 dead, and 382 wounded - an equally unbelievable 2% casualty rate, thus showing the superiority of modern firepower!]
"Whatever happens we have gotSir Edward Arnold observed that heretofore, it had been the dash, skill and bravery of the officers and troops that had carried the day, but the Battle of Omdurman was won by quiet, scientific gentlemen living in Kent.
the Maxim gun and they have not."
It is worth noting that the Dervishes had destroyed a British army under General Charles Gordon 14 years before at Khartoum. In fact, they had even beheaded Gordon and placed his head on display. (Gordon had been ordered by the Prime Minister to withdraw, but he refused, saying that he was honor-bound to the Sudanese people, whom he had promised to preserve from slavery under the Islamic Mahdi.) England finally sent a relief column, but it arrived two days too late. It then reversed march and left, leaving Sudan bereft of British presence.
In the 14 years between Khartoum and Omdurman, the Royal Army made a technological quantum leap, not least of which was the adoption of the Maxim gun, the invention of American Hiram Maxim. Maxim's first model, 1885, had a cyclic rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute. An improved version was adopted by the Royal Army in 1889. The Brits also made improvements in artillery that would both outrange Dervish guns and make rubble of Dervish forts, unbeknownst to them.
In short, the British Army spent 14 years improving its technology, weapons, tactics, training, communications and supply. The Dervish army (successors to the army led by the Mahdi, who had died a few years after Khartoum) had not.
Whatever happens we have gotIn all the hue and cry over North Korea's increasing bluster and threats, I have detected in my web readings near-panicky assertions that the North has overwhelming superiority over the South and the American forces stationed in the South. Some commentators have claimed that the 2d US Infantry Division there is nothing more than a speed bump and that if the US has significant forces engaged against Iraq, the South is as good as lost.
MLRS and they have not.
To which I say, "No." In fact, I have already said that North Korea is a paper tiger - in conventional arms, let me be specific. When it attains a nuke or two, the paper teeth will have some bite, unfortunately. But in conventional arms, the South and the US are quantitatively superior to the North.
I served in the 2d US Infantry Division (2ID) in Korea from 1977-1978, in 1st Battalion, 38th Field Artillery. The battalion was then equipped with 18 105mm towed howitzers, M102A1. Today it is equipped with 27 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) vehicles, an exceptionally powerful rocket artillery system.
2ID then resembled a World War II division more than it did its present configuration. We did not then consider ourselves a "speed bump." The technological advances since 1978 have increased the division's combat power exponentially. I do not claim that 2ID can defeat an invading North all by itself. I certainly do claim that those who write the division off, saying that it would be destroyed, are just wrong.
In the 50-odd years since the Korean War, the US Army has been well funded most years, has fought in several wars large and small, and has been the direct beneficiary, and sometimes the engine, of the revolution in computerization. The Army's history since 1953 has been dynamic. Capabilities in conventional munitions have been so improved that tactical atomic weapons are not necessary to achieve effects against enemy soldiers or installations. In fact, a single MLRS launcher is more destructive than a 155mm atomic projectile, and at longer range.
There have been enormous improvements in training and the systems and equipment used for training. Intensive combat simulations ("war games" being a hopelessly inadequate term) are now used that integrate vehicles, simulators, communications, computers, aerospace assets and ground/naval units in ways never before possible, linked worldwide.
In contrast, the North Korean army has done none of this. In particular, they have not been required to stretch their doctrine because they have not fought a war since 1953. They have read and studied, of course, but they have had no chance to test whether their theoretical doctrine is any good. Their millions of soldiers are far from uniformly effective. (Of the five million men under arms the North is said to have, about three-fourths are reserves with little regular training.)
None of their services have the combined arms operations skills that US and Southern forces have. They rarely conduct large-scale maneuvers, and when they do, the maneuvers are scripted. Free-play exercises are not done. Their air force does not fly near the hours that US and ROK air forces do, and with nothing like the training intensity. They do not have stealth aircraft. Their most numerous fighter plane, the MIG-19, dates from not long after the Korean War.
That NK troops could cross the Military Demarcation Line can't be denied; doing so has been the main focus of their military for, lo, five decades. (When I served on the DMZ, US and ROK engineers were blowing up tunnels that the North had dug under the DMZ; at least one could handle trucks. There are certainly tunnels we have not discovered.) But it is highly likely that they have no real imagination for doing anything much more than making the initial assault, except for taking Seoul. (Seoul is only 30 miles from the DMZ.) In short, their whole operational model has been their previous invasion of 1950, when they drove all the way to Pusan. But in 1950 they did not face a well-prepared defense in depth, manned with well-trained troops. Nor had Northern troops and their families suffered from decades of communist oppression and literal starvation. Neither had the inherent corruption of the communist system yet destroyed the integrity of their officer high command.
If the North invades again, from the beginning Allied forces will enjoy --
What the North does have is troops - lots and lots of troops. But "hording" as a combat tactic will result in the Allies enjoying something close to Omdurman-type victory. 2ID is armored and mechanized. The US M1A1 Abrams tank outshoots and outruns anything the North has. The North has perhaps 3,500 main battle tanks, but how many of them run is another matter. And how many crews are trained is yet another. The vast preponderance of Norther troops are foot soldiers who would perish in untold numbers to American artillery and Air Force weapons.communications dominance, position advantage, clear firepower superiority, better weapons and equipment, better trained units, staffs and procedures, better combined arms integration, air superiority, then air supremacy, better tactical and strategic intelligence, better round-the-clock combat capability.
By no means would such an invasion be easily resisted. As I said in my previous post, casualties would be high on both sides, but much higher for the North. Probably more South Korean civilians would die than ROK troops. NK special ops forces would be of serious concern and would spearhead an invasion, operating well south of the DMZ. They would commit sabotage, assassination and special attacks. The North almost certainly has fairly modern UAVs that would be used as a "poor man's cruise missile." Some analysts think that the North would launch nonpersistent chemical agents at Seoul, intending to kill as many Southern government workers as possible; that many ordinary Seoulians would die also is of no consequence. Steven Den Beste has said that civilian refugees fleeing the battle would constitute major mobility problems for Allied forces, and he's probably right.
While the North's army slugged its way south, American air power would be devastating North Korea's lines of communication, ports, installations and infrastructure. The North's air force would pretty quickly be dispatched. Military and government buildings in Pyongyang would be leveled. I think US commanders would show much less restraint against North Korea than they did against Iraq in 1991.
In short, the North can invade the South, but it cannot win. The ensuing war would be disastrous for the South in terms of human loss, also for the North unless the war ended with the South's suzerainty over the North. But even so, the North Korean people would suffer very greatly until then.
The problem, though, is not that the North could win such a war. It is that its isolated, self-justifying oligarchy might think it can win. And with its impending development of atomic weapons, it may think that all the more.
The Army won't let me back on active duty. I perused the Chaplain subsite of the GoArmy web site, and sent this email to the email link on the site:
I retired in 1995 as an Army artillery officer. I have since completed my M.Div. and have been ordained an elder in full connection in the UMC.In only two days I received an answer from Mr. James Griffiths, Cyber Recruiter, United States Army Recruiting Command:
Is it possible for me to return to active duty as a chaplain?
I am sorry but since you have retired from the Army I was told that you cannot return to the army as a chaplain. Sorry we could not do anything for you. If you have any questions you can email me.I think this just stinks.
We're short on staff this week. I took the Command Sgt. Maj. to the airport at oh-dark-thirty this morning. She is doing some TDY to visit family in NC. I'll post some stuff during MNF tonight, and maybe before. In the meantime, please read Little Green Footballs today, and be afraid, be very afraid.
Saturday, December 28, 2002
Saddam's most dangerous failure was my topic back on Sept. 23. I explained why one kind of comparison of Saddam to Hitler was apt: he, like Hitler, has no vision for his country that outlives him.
I've been catching up on David Warren's work this evening, and found his essay, "Scorched Earth," of Dec. 21. David echoes pretty much the same theme. Read them both and see whether you agree.
David ends on a note I have not seen before. Because Saddam knows we are coming, and approximately when, the possibility for massive civilian casualties (caused by Saddam but blamed on the US) is high. Thus, the lesson of the Second Gulf War for the US may be that,
I've been catching up on David Warren's work this evening, and found his essay, "Scorched Earth," of Dec. 21. David echoes pretty much the same theme. Read them both and see whether you agree.
David ends on a note I have not seen before. Because Saddam knows we are coming, and approximately when, the possibility for massive civilian casualties (caused by Saddam but blamed on the US) is high. Thus, the lesson of the Second Gulf War for the US may be that,
. . . the U.S. must in future act unilaterally, destroying such other enemies as Iran and North Korea entirely without consultation, and totally by surprise.
As the shape of the future battlefield emerges, it becomes easier to imagine a situation, in which humanity demands the end of all diplomacy, except what can be done to patch things over "after the fact".
Speaking of North Korea, David Warren writes,
The argument that President Bush's "axis of evil" speech provoked their present behaviour I would have thought too silly for anyone to believe, but as I write I'm listening to the BBC. I am reminded of George Orwell's old truism, that there is nothing you can say so demented, that you will not get a choir of intellectuals singing along.David writes a lot more on the NK problem, sadly but accurately ending with, "If there is a peaceful way out of this impasse, I do not know what it is."
Here's a good reason so much mainline journalism is junk - reporters can't do math:
"Math in newspapers isn’t so much doing arithmetic calculations, it is having a sense of numbers and proportions," said the Toronto Star science reporter, Peter Calamai. "It is having a detector that tells you, this just doesn’t add up. It is not that you have to be able to solve quadratic equations or do long division in your head or be able to work out square roots. It is that you need enough familiarity with things like relative size and proportion that you think, as you would if you were an expert in political science ‘Well that doesn’t make any sense.’ "Instead, they enter other career fields, then some become bloggers. I wonder whether numeracy, or mathematical literacy, is one thing that draws more and more people to read and write blogs, and whether it's a reason so many mainline media feel threatened by blogs.
It boils down to this: "Numerate people, as a rule, do not choose to be journalists. If they like numbers, if they like analyzing data, they can make better money in a whole range of other careers than journalism," said Bruce Little, reporter for the Globe and Mail.
Best of the Web Today on Friday asked what I had been wondering, too. Namely, why the Powerball lottery, or any other lottery, is worth a jot ot a tittle opf news coverage:
A Lotto NonsenseYep!
At least the clone story is more interesting than yesterday's big news. We refer, of course, to the lottery jackpot a West Virginia man won. This story was unavoidable if you were watching TV news yesterday; CNN even aired a press conference by the winner. Why is this news? It's not unusual for someone to win a lottery; indeed, the way lotteries are set up, it's a mathematical certainty that someone will eventually win. The jackpot the fellow won is a lot of money--a shade over $100 million--but it's not exactly of Bill Gates proportions. When someone becomes worth $100 million through a lifetime of honest work, that's not big national news. Why all the fuss over someone who got rich by indulging in a vice?
All this media attention to lottery winners serves only to glorify gambling. And the lottery is a bigger rip-off than any other form of legalized gambling. Innumeracy.com ran an experiment to see what would happened if it made 10,000 random selections and entered them in each of 479 drawings in the British lottery. Result: An "investment" of £4,790,000 returned just £1,375,082, which means that each £10,000 "invested" would have cost the player £7,129.
A lottery, Innumeracy.com notes, is "a tax on the poor and the stupid." The next time some liberal journalist complains about "tax cuts for the rich," consider how his colleagues in the media help enable the government to soak the poor.
I will move off Blogspot's servers come January 1. I have rented server space at Cornerhost.com and bought the web address of DonaldSensing.com. I will still call the site One Hand Clapping, but its address will be www.donaldsensing.com. I will also still use Blogger for blog writing, so everything will look the same.
Rumsfeld ramps it up by signing mobilization orders for Reserve Component (Guard and Reserve) forces, "heavy on the logistics side," according to one official.
As of Dec. 24, there were 53,217 RC troops on active duty, according to the Dept. of Defense, actually a couple thousand fewer than the week before. And if you read the detailed tables of this DOD document, you'll see that Special Forces and Mobilization detachments are over-represented in those called to active duty.
Look for callups to begin in earnest in January.
As of Dec. 24, there were 53,217 RC troops on active duty, according to the Dept. of Defense, actually a couple thousand fewer than the week before. And if you read the detailed tables of this DOD document, you'll see that Special Forces and Mobilization detachments are over-represented in those called to active duty.
Look for callups to begin in earnest in January.
Friday, December 27, 2002
I've been in a drug-induced stupor since Christmas afternoon, so that's why posting has been virtually non-existent. I awakened Christmas morning at three o'clock in excruciating pain. My back felt as if someone was stabbing it with steak knives on the right side just below the shoulder blade. Luckily, my sister-in-law is a nurse practitioner, and she kindly called in a prescription for relaxant and pain killer to a pharmacy that was open Christmas Day. By Christmas afternoon I had abandoned the arms of Father Christmas for those of Father Morpheus. I only began to feel normal again this afternoon. But I am way behind on my real work, so posting will be light until next week.
Thursday, December 26, 2002
Military Christmas Days since the end of the Cold War are listed by columnist Austin Bay, who kindly emailed me the link.
Anyone who has ever worn a uniform and spent the Christmas holidays guarding the motor pool, flying a mission or dodging bullets cannot help but recognize our soldiers' sacrifice and applaud their commitment.Yes, indeed.
The personal burden is real. At the moment two friends of mine are deployed in Kuwait. Another recently completed a tour in Afghanistan. A couple of Decembers ago I received a letter from a friend who mentioned that her brother-in-law, an Air Force air rescue pilot, was on his way back to the Balkans. She wrote: "My brother-in-law spends probably 70 percent of the year away from home." . . .
There are a many Americans spending the holidays flying missions, clearing mines, doing the tough tasks in the hard corners. This Christmas and New Year's, let us salute their dedication.
Iraqi army will "distract" the US Army "by using light and medium weapons," according to the Iraqi army's newspaper, Al-Qadissiya, according to the Associated Press. The wire service said the Iraqi army has held exercises in central Iraq to practice fighting in "rural and populated areas."
Now read this Washington Times report and ponder whether "light and medium weapons" will be very effective. When our enemy defensive plan is to "distract" us, rather than defeat us, it means they know they are beaten.
Now read this Washington Times report and ponder whether "light and medium weapons" will be very effective. When our enemy defensive plan is to "distract" us, rather than defeat us, it means they know they are beaten.
Tuesday, December 24, 2002
Monday, December 23, 2002
If you get the cockpit there safely, all is well! Here is video I shot from the back seat Saturday of my 15-year-old son landing a Beech Commander - with assistance from a flight instructor, Glenn. Glenn is an airline pilot and certified flight instructor presently flying an Embraer 145 for American. Last May I conducted his wedding to a member of my church; Angie met him when she started taking flying lessons and he was her instructor. My son is not taking lessons, but is really interested in going to the US Air Force Academy, so Glenn agreed to donate an hour of instructor time to give my son a feel for flying. My wife and nine-year-old daughter occupied the back seat most of the hour, then my wife and I swapped seats so I could tape from inside. My daughter said flying in a small plane (her first time) is "better than Disney world!"
I learned to fly at the Fort Sill flying club back in 1977, but transferred to Korea before I took my FAA exam, and never picked it back up afterward. I did fly an ultralight in Maryland in 1994, once, and that was really a lot of fun.
I learned to fly at the Fort Sill flying club back in 1977, but transferred to Korea before I took my FAA exam, and never picked it back up afterward. I did fly an ultralight in Maryland in 1994, once, and that was really a lot of fun.
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