The flotsam and jetsam from things that have come into my scan. Updated throughout the day, maybe.
Welcome Ace of Spade readers! Consider signing this petition to name the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier after a fighting ship rather than a politician!
–
The North Vietnamese were cruel tormentors of the American POWs that came into their grasp. Some of the latter delivered petty torments of their own:
One morning in late December 1968, we heard the customary hiss as the loudspeaker system began warming up for what we anticipated would be the usual propaganda session from radio Hanoi. To our surprise, however, at 8 a.m., instead of radio Hanoi, we heard a man with a British accent say, “This is the BBC Hong Kong. The American astronauts become the first human beings to come under the gravitational influence of another celestial body.” And then the radio went dead… An hour later, we were taken out to wash. The first man out of our cell was Air Force Capt. Kenneth Fisher. We had not rehearsed what happened next. Ken looked up and could see the moon in the clear winter sky. He came to a stop, snapped to attention and saluted the moon. Instantly, the rest of us caught on. As each of us left the cell, we came to a stop, snapped to attention and saluted the moon. The guard who was on duty in the guard tower leaned out to see what we were saluting. He had to lean so far that his pith helmet fell off. He almost dropped his rifle and, for a second, we thought he would fall out of the tower himself. Navy Lt. j.g. Ted Stier went up to one of the guards and pointed at the moon and spoke the Vietnamese word for the United States, “Hoa Ky.” He then pointed at the ground and said “Vietnam.” He then made a pantomime as though he were operating a very large piece of artillery. Pointing at the moon again, and again speaking the Vietnamese word for America, “Hoa Ky,” he began rocking back and forth with his imaginary artillery piece while crying out “boom, boom, boom” to show that American artillery, if placed on our moon, would have the range to hit North Vietnam. Ted walked away while the guard continued to stare doubtfully at the moon.
You hold on to what you must, and get back what you can.
–
Our military defends democracy at home and abroad. Perhaps it’s time we give them the opportunity to participate?
The brave men and women of our military are the most disenfranchised group of voters today. Literally. The Heritage Foundation has published the results and analysis of research performed by Hans A. von Spakovsky, a legal scholar and a former Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, and by Eric Eversole, a former active duty officer in the Navy JAG Corps and former lawyer in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The authors assert that members of the military have traditionally been disenfranchised at both the state and federal levels due to the unique circumstances and situations in which soldiers find themselves (i.e. war). Spakovsky and Eversole also conclude that unless Congress does something about this injustice, “military personnel will continue to be the largest group of disenfranchised voters in the United States.”
Maybe it’s just me, but if it were a more favored being denied a chance to vote – the UAW, NEA or trial bar lobby for example – I think we’d see quicker action.
–
The UK Telegraph has a pitcher post up showing a series of troop formations back in the day. The statue of liberty photo took 18,000 men – 12,000 in the torch alone, since it was furthest from the camera lens. 
Weeks to set the outlines up, but a mere 30 minutes to muster for the photographs themselves.
Which is probably how they sold it to them sojers, and you can tell that to the Marines.
–
Speaking of soldiers, Teflon Don has the tale of a wounded vet that needed a bit more help that we gave him.
You’d think we’d have this sort of thing covered by now.
–
Two v. Three the hard way. The eagles win again.
It’s unwise to bother the eagles.
–
In the heath care fight, Nancy Pelosi has found the enemy and it is private industry, specifically the heath care industry. One of the most heavily regulated industries in the country, by the way.
“It’s almost immoral what they are doing,” Pelosi said to reporters, referring to insurance companies. “Of course they’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people that they insure,” she said, adding, “They are the villains. They have been part of the problem in a major way. They are doing everything in their power to stop a public option from happening.”
If only government ran everything. Give it time.
Speaking of time, that whole “get it done before the August recess” folderol? That was the media’s fault, as it turns out.
–
Today’s French lesson for the Norks: S’il vol, il est mort.
–
Most unfortunate headline. Evar: Boeing P8-A Poseidon promises intelligence for the Navy
Promises, promises.
–
Ciao, for now.
IIRC that photo is but one of an entire series of it’s kind done with different patriotic subjects depicted during that period–I ran across them all on the net back in ’05 but can’t remember where now (such is the nature of the net and surfing for fun and pleasure.)
PS: Do we get the edit function back, or is it just my machine?
Nope. It Apache’d into my database, and might have been a source of all our travails over the last several. Well, that and the way cool archives feature that I had to disable.
Fingers crossed. Unless you’re spelling something carefully, in which case not so much.
Naval intelligence? Well…. I did try to talk the friend of my youngest son into it… but he chose civil engineering instead. I asked him why he wanted to build targets on Guantanamo? For him it was a choice between that and logistics so I guess that is a better choice. Still I think intelligence would have been more interesting even if he couldn’t talk about it. (A friend was an intel lieutenant in Japan during the Pueblo incident… and he says he STILL can’t talk about it. Too bad, that would be interesting to hear first hand accounting.) The closest I even (knowingly) came even close to ‘naval’ intelligence isn’t even part of it, though you’d think they have some, you know, intelligence. That would be the NIS…. who were always chasing bug-a-boos on the America, sniffing for drugs with dogs and shakedowns and inspections. Made me disrespect the whole genre of NIS. Nazi Intrusive S.O.B.’s. (And does THAT statement fall afoul of Godwin’s law???)
The EAGLE war-bird story was OUTSTANDING! Thank you, Lex… it is a GREAT read!
Thanks for the link back!
Real shame about Sgt. Nickels, who lives here in my town. Hope the judicial system treats him gently, and gets him help if he needs it. Hopefully he won’t run into problems, since he’s a correctional officer himself. At least he didn’t fire back.
They figured out a way to link this ” http://tinyurl.com/yf4nub ” into the A/C’s PFD?
or it would that be the TACCO?
The whole joint numbering thing gets pretty ominous when you get close to 13 or even 8 in some applications.
Well, the P-8 ought to be able to serve well into the next century, seein’s how it likely won’t be available until the end of THIS one..
I hope Sgt. Nickels gets the help he needs, he did the job we asked of him, and now we need to pay him for his service.
Go read the story again. Its a bit too late for him, but we need to do all we can for others in the same situation. Its the least we owe them.
It’s not too late for SSG Nickel. I was unclear when I wrote the story, but he survived his ordeal and now faces 4 charges of aggravated assault of a law enforcement officer, along with additional felony charges of firing into occupied buildings. He’s got a long road ahead, but we owe it to him to help out along the way.
Thanks, Lex, for posting the link.
IN RE the Eagle stoy, here in WI, we have the largest population of Bald Eagles in the lower 48, only AK has more of them. I live 8 miles from the Wisconsin River, where the largest number of them hang out. I can easily see this happening, eagles are birds with thier act together. I was once on my way to Madison, on US 12, and was passing through Sauk Prarie, and saw the largest eagle I have ever seen, patrolling the Wisconsin, my first thought when I saw it was, ” Aren’t Piper Cubs supposed to be yellow?”. I derive a great deal of pleaseure from these birds.
They even can make you feel a little bit better about the world. On very cold Feb morning, I was driving along the Wisconsin, in Adams County, when I saw a Bald Eagle about to land on an ice shelf stuck on a sand bar. The Eagle misjudged his approach, and landed in the water. I watched it flop onto the ice shelf, shake itself off, and look around with an, ” I meant to do that “, look on it’s face. Man, I felt better about the whole world after that, because if a Bald Eagle can make a mistake, maybe I am allowed one once in a while.
As an aside, Barron is over 200 miles from Oshkosh, they are at opposite ends of the State.
Yeah, that Youtube video of was impressive.Hunting wolves with golden eagles I saw this several weeks back and still am amazed. Amazing birds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re644qgnCtw
For some reason I cannot get the “href” tag to work, Youtube complains about a ‘malformed’ link or something… you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way with a copy and paste into the address bar. Sorry.
Plus without the ‘edit’ function, fat fingers are on display for all to ridicule. Sigh…..
Simple minded moi has always thought it a reasonable solution for 7th Fleet to conduct readiness tests of the ABM functionality of its shipborne systems about the same time as any NORK bloom and plume takes, uh, place…or happens…or whatever. Mostly cause we can…and who really gives a damn?
Real time testing being the favored approach to selling a system’s noteworthiness. Ya know what I mean?
re Eagles-
Every couple days from my porch I watch a raptor melodrama in the Bald Eagle v. Osprey feud. The Ospreys always win. Our beautiful bald eagle always comes in second place. The Bald is a better leftover (carrion) eater and thief! One time I came upon a golden feeding on a freshly killed bighorn lamb in MT. Fearless, it didn’t move from the kill until I got within 20 ft. Impressive.
re Poisiden-
No. No. No. Despite the obvious oxymoron, the P-8 is first and foremost an ASW platform, ain’t it?
The P-3 community has become one big, weapon irrelevant, polyglot of varying ISR capability and literally hundreds of configurations. Methinks P-8 is more of the same. That’s what happens when N88 and the Enterprise have their H.U.T.A.’s and N2 holds the purse strings!
b2
Lex,
They found the remains of CAPT Scott Speicher in Anbhar province. The Marines were led there and the Navy pathologists have confirmed through dental records. Welcome home shipmate.
Got a tweet from JCS this morning re. same. ID confirmed. Witness reports led Marines to crash and burial sites. Glad for the family and shipmates that they can have some closure now.
Yep Lex that is a cool troop formation, out of Camp Dodge. http://carrollforlakewood.blogspot.com/2008/05/statue-of-liberty.html#links
Focusing on the …ahhh upcoming P-8, wouldn’t a turboprop be a better solution?
It was my understanding that the greater range and loiter time of a turboprop would result in a more effective aircraft for patrols and such.