JOURNAL ARCHIVE: From: Kerry Burgess
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 12:57 PM
To: Kerry Burgess
Subject: Charleston
I was disappointed to see on the news today the destruction of the old Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, SC. I sailed under that bridge more often than I drove across it. I actually found it kind of intimidating to drive across in my Ford Explorer pickup when I was 19.
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 15 February 2006 excerpt ends]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo
Vertigo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vertigo is when a person feels as if they or the objects around them are moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement.
2016_Nk20_DSCN0198.JPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Haley
Nikki Haley
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nimrata Randhawa "Nikki" Haley (born January 20, 1972) is an American Republican politician who has served as the Governor of South Carolina since 2011. Prior to her election in 2010 as the 116th governor of the state, Haley represented Lexington County in the South Carolina House of Representatives from 2005 to 2011.
Career
Haley worked for FCR Corporation, a waste management and recycling company, before joining her mother's business, Exotica International, an upscale clothing firm, in 1994.
From 1/20/1972 To 1/17/1991 ( the date of record of my United States Navy Medal of Honor as Kerry Wayne Burgess chief warrant officer United States Marine Corps circa 1991 also known as Matthew Kline for official duty and also known as Wayne Newman for official duty ) is 6937 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 10/30/1984 ( Ronald Reagan - Memorandum Returning Without Approval a Bill Relating to Navajo Tribe Land Claims ) is 6937 days
From 1/20/1972 To 1/17/1991 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - the Persian Gulf War begins as scheduled severe criminal activity against the United States of America ) is 6937 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 10/30/1984 ( Ronald Reagan - Memorandum Returning Without Approval a Bill Relating to Navajo Tribe Land Claims ) is 6937 days
From 1/20/1972 To 1/17/1991 ( the date of record of my United States Navy Medal of Honor as Kerry Wayne Burgess chief warrant officer United States Marine Corps circa 1991 also known as Matthew Kline for official duty and also known as Wayne Newman for official duty ) is 6937 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 10/30/1984 ( Ronald Reagan - Statement on Signing the Commercial Space Launch Act ) is 6937 days
From 1/20/1972 To 1/17/1991 ( RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS US Title 18 - the Persian Gulf War begins as scheduled severe criminal activity against the United States of America ) is 6937 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 10/30/1984 ( Ronald Reagan - Statement on Signing the Commercial Space Launch Act ) is 6937 days
From 12/9/1979 ( Jimmy Carter - Dinner Honoring Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Remarks at the Fundraising Dinner for the O'Neill Chair at Boston College ) To 5/14/1992 ( as Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps chief warrant officer circa 1992 and United States chief test pilot I performed the first flight of the US Army and Boeing AH-64D Apache Longbow ) is 4540 days
4540 = 2270 + 2270
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/20/1972 is 2270 days
From 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate Columbia South Carolina ) To 6/2/1997 ( Bill Clinton - Statement on the Oklahoma City Bombing Trial ) is 2270 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/20/1972 is 2270 days
From 10/10/1978 ( Jimmy Carter - Bill Authorizing the Susan B. Anthony Dollar Coin Statement on Signing S. 3036 Into Law ) To 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate Columbia South Carolina ) is 4540 days
4540 = 2270 + 2270
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/20/1972 is 2270 days
From 1/20/1972 To 11/18/1996 ( premiere US film "Star Trek: First Contact" ) is 9069 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/1/1990 ( George Bush - Remarks Announcing the Upcoming Meeting With President Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union ) is 9069 days
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-04-02/nikki-haley-south-carolina/53957632/1
USA TODAY
By Susan Page, USA TODAY Updated 4/2/2012 9:57 PM
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
Full name: Nimrata Randhawa Haley
Born: Jan. 20, 1972
http://www.biography.com/people/nikki-haley-20939217
bio.
Nikki Haley Biography
U.S. Governor (1972–)
Nikki Haley was born on January 20, 1972
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=39342
The American Presidency Project
Ronald Reagan
XL President of the United States: 1981 - 1989
Memorandum Returning Without Approval a Bill Relating to Navajo Tribe Land Claims
October 30, 1984
I am withholding my approval of H.R. 5760, a bill "To declare that the United States holds certain lands in trust for the Cocopah Indian Tribe of Arizona, and for other purposes."
Title I of H.R. 5760 would declare that almost 4,000 acres of Federal land in Yuma County, Arizona, be held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the Cocopah Indian Tribe. I do not object to this provision.
Title II of H.R. 5760 would allow the Navajo Tribe to reassert against the United States, vague and uncertain claims originally brought in July 1950, but voluntarily and legally withdrawn by their counsel in October 1969. The propriety and finality of counsel's action were subsequently given exhaustive consideration. Navajo Tribe v. United States, 220 Ct. C1. 350, 601 F.2d 536 (1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1072 (1980). In the meantime, some claims which might be affected by H.R. 5760 have been settled or litigated, and others have been placed on a detailed trial schedule. Enactment of H.R. 5760 could compel protracted renegotiation, retrial or delay in the trial of these claims, based upon vague and speculative allegations.
Absent a compelling showing that a substantial injustice would result from adherence to procedural norms, the limitations of the Indian Claims Act and the procedures adopted for the adjudication of claims under the Act should not be frustrated by special legislation, such as that contained. in title II of H.R. 5760. No such showing has been made here.
Title II would interfere with the fair and orderly adjudication of the claims of the Navajo Tribe and would constitute an affront to established rules, procedures, and principles for the resolution of Indian claims. It could serve to encourage other and future efforts to obtain by legislation that which has been unattainable through adjudication.
For these reasons, I find the bill unacceptable. If Title I were presented as a separate bill, I would have no objection to its enactment.
RONALD REAGAN
The White House,
October 30, 1984.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=39335
The American Presidency Project
Ronald Reagan
XL President of the United States: 1981 - 1989
Statement on Signing the Commercial Space Launch Act
October 30, 1984
I am pleased to sign into law H.R. 3942, the Commercial Space Launch Act. One of the important objectives of my administration has been, and will continue to be, the encouragement of the private sector in commercial space endeavors. Fragmentation and shared authority had unnecessarily complicated the process of approving activities in space. Enactment of this legislation is a milestone in our efforts to address the need of private companies interested in launching payloads to have ready access to space.
This administration views facilitation of the commercial development of expendable launch vehicles as an important component of America's space transportation program. We expect that a healthy ELV industry, as a complement to the Government's space transportation system, will produce a stronger, more efficient launch capability for the United States that will contribute to continued American leadership in space.
In developing the administration's approach toward encouraging this emerging industry, I have been guided by the belief that the procedures a company must comply with before being permitted to launch a launch vehicle or a payload were duplicative and should be streamlined and otherwise made efficient. H.R. 3942 has translated this objective into a comprehensive licensing mechanism enabling launch operators to comply quickly and efficiently with existing Federal regulations. This in turn will act as a signal to private launch operators that this administration stands behind their efforts to open up this new area of space exploration.
I want to express my appreciation to the leadership of the Senate Commerce Committee, the House Science and Technology Committee, and their staffs for their dedication and hard work in this accomplishment. Additionally, I want to thank Secretary of Transportation Dole and Jennifer Dorn, Director of the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, for the enormous amount of work they have already done to prepare for the responsibilities they will have under this historic legislation.
Note: As enacted, H.R. 3942 is Public Law 98-575, approved October 30.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-14/news/mn-3026_1_cargo-bay
Los Angeles Times
3 Astronauts Grab Marooned Satellite in a Dramatic Rescue : Space: The manual capture is biggest step in an hours-long procedure to retrieve the craft. The crew is to bring it into the shuttle's cargo bay to attach a booster rocket.
May 14, 1992 ROBERT W. STEWART TIMES STAFF WRITER
Flight controllers at the Washington headquarters of the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, the 122-nation consortium that owns and operates the $150-million satellite, later were able to stabilize it.
"The training was fine. My sense is that the tool did not work as designed, which would not be the first time," said former astronaut Joseph P. Allen, who was involved in a 1984 spacewalk and satellite rescue in which a tool intended to stabilize the errant PALAPA B-2 satellite did not work.
The Intelsat rescue marked the first time that astronauts used nothing but their hands to capture an orbiting satellite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrushka_(ballet)
Petrushka (ballet)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Petrushka is a ballet burlesque in four scenes. It was composed in 1910–11 and revised in 1947. Igor Stravinsky composed the music
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-15/news/mn-2239_1_space-station
Los Angeles Times
Rocket Blasts Satellite Toward a Proper Orbit : Space: The reboost is flawlessly accomplished. Two astronauts perform mission's last planned spacewalk.
May 15, 1992 ROBERT W. STEWART TIMES STAFF WRITER
HOUSTON — The stranded communications satellite rescued by three shuttle astronauts blasted toward its proper orbit Thursday, ending a dramatic effort that in the words of NASA's top official "brought the magic back to our space program."
The 23,000-pound rocket motor clamped to the marooned Intelsat 6 by the crew of space shuttle Endeavour fired flawlessly at 10:25 a.m. PDT while both were orbiting about 230 miles over Africa, said a spokesman for the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization. The 122-nation consortium, based in Washington, owns and operates the $150-million satellite.
The reboost capped a dramatic, four-day rescue effort in which astronauts were forced to discard a specially designed, $7-million tool that failed to snag the errant satellite, and instead literally reached up and grabbed the Intelsat with their gloved hands.
Wednesday's 8-hour, 29-minute spacewalk, which includes the time astronauts spent in the shuttle airlock, was the longest in the history of the American space program.
http://www.boeing.com/history/products/ah-64-apache.page
Boeing
AH-64 APACHE ATTACK HELICOPTER
Historical Snapshot
The AH-64 Apache was designed to be an extremely tough survivor under combat. The prototype Apache made its first flight in 1975 as the YAH-64, and in 1976, Hughes received a full-scale development contract. In 1982, the Army approved the program, now known as AH-64A Apache, for production. Deliveries began from the McDonnell Douglas plant at Mesa, Ariz., in 1984 — the year Hughes Helicopters became part of McDonnell Douglas.
A target acquisition and designation sight/pilot night-vision sensor and other advanced technologies added to its effectiveness in the ground support role. To reduce costs and simplify logistics, the Apache used the same T700 engines as the Army’s Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter and its naval cousin, the SH-60 Seahawk.
Highly maneuverable and heavily armed, the combat-proven Apache helicopter is the backbone of the U.S. Army’s all-weather, ground-support capability. The AH-64D Apache Longbow, which first flew as a prototype on May 14, 1992, provided a quantum leap in capability over the AH-64A. The Apache Longbow’s fire-control radar and advanced avionics suite gave combat pilots the ability to rapidly detect, classify, prioritize, and engage stationary or moving enemy targets at standoff ranges in nearly all weather conditions.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=31798
The American Presidency Project
Jimmy Carter
XXXIX President of the United States: 1977 - 1981
Dinner Honoring Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Remarks at the Fundraising Dinner for the O'Neill Chair at Boston College
December 9, 1979
Mr. Speaker, Millie O'Neill, sons and daughters, who're brought grandchildren and who have blessed this marriage of 38 years, and friends of Tip O'Neill from all over this Nation:
Thank you, Father Monan, president of Boston College, for your kind introduction.
Many people have asked why I'm here tonight in the midst of some very important business in Iran. When I was presented with my schedule for this month, my immediate and firm Presidential response was, "I am not going to any fundraising events for the time being." And Frank Moore, my congressional liaison chief, said, "Mr. President, the Speaker thinks you ought to be there." [Laughter] So, it is a real pleasure for me to be- [laughter] —it's a real pleasure for me to be here with a thousand other close friends— [laughter] —of Tip O'Neill's to honor Boston College and its most distinguished graduate.
Tip is a man of great achievement. Tip is a man of great caution. He roomed with [Representative] Eddie Boland here for more than 23 years before he decided that his seat was safe enough to bring Millie down from Boston— [laughter] —and I guarantee you it was a great boon to our Nation when he finally decided to do so. Tip, you don't need to worry. The voters of the Eighth District of Massachusetts know the value, which I cherish along with you, of reelecting the incumbent. [Laughter]
Tip O'Neill is a wonderful political' analyst, philosopher, and adviser. He told me that the key to his own success in politics-and I've made the same point recently-is to wait your turn. [Laughter]
We have a very serious purpose tonight. It's to honor a man who, for 27 years, has served his entire country with distinction and greatness, which is good training for an even greater career, Tip, in the future. We are also here to support and to honor Boston College, whose contributions to our entire Nation have become more evident with each passing year. I understand that this dinner has raised a record figure of $1.2 million, and I hope that this is only the beginning of generous, ever more generous support for Boston College of those who love it and who honor it and who recognize its great contribution.
By naming an endowed chair for him, the college is indeed honoring a rare man. I could take up the entire evening listing for you his qualities and his accomplishments. But just let me say that in this last 3 years he's become for me a great personal friend—and a President needs all the friends he can get. [Laughter] I turn to him constantly for advice, as he knows; for his knowledge, most of which comes from Millie, which I appreciate- [laughter] —for his instincts in politics, in times of trial and tribulation, of hopes and dreams and frustrations and desires; and for his support, which has been unwavering.
When I took office and this country faced more than 8-percent unemployment, Tip made sure that the Congress of the United States passed the most ambitious jobs programs since the New Deal, the Great Depression. He's often said that work and wages are what the Democratic Party is all about.
I remember those depression years, Tip, when you were in college and I was a farmboy. The day's wages for a grown, able man was a dollar; for a woman working alongside of him, 50 cents; for a child less than 16 years old, 25 cents a day. And the Democratic Party was struggling with a minimum wage law, opposed by some who called it the verge of socialism, to guarantee factory workers 25 cents an hour.
Today, after 3 years, there are 8 million more Americans on the job with work and wages, earning their own way, living in dignity because of that belief. This past month we added hundreds of thousands of new jobs and brought the unemployment rate down again. Now, that's Tip O'Neill, Democratic Party government, and I am proud to be part of it.
He's long believed in giving our young people the best education that this country can offer. This affair tonight is a vivid demonstration of that commitment. In the last 3 years since Tip O'Neill has been Speaker, Federal aid to education has increased by 60 percent, and now we have a new Department of Education to focus ever more attention on this integral part of America's present and its future. And Tip O'Neill deserves much of the credit. That's Tip O'Neill, Democratic Party government, and I'm proud to be part of it.
When it became imperative to act with our national security at stake, he led the House to enact without delay the most farreaching energy program our country has ever seen. Victory is now in sight for both Houses of the Congress if we work together. That's Tip O'Neill, Democratic Party government, and I'm proud to be a part of it.
Tip has never been afraid to stand up and to speak up for what he believes and to work for what he knows is right. At a time when people have hungered for leaders who tell the truth, the unvarnished truth, he has spoken the truth, unafraid of the consequences.
Most of all, however, I admire Tip O'Neill's undiluted patriotism. It's a patriotism that seeks to build on the greatness of America. It's a patriotism that never changes. It's a patriotism deep within his heart. It's a patriotism he's not embarrassed to express. It's a patriotism that preserves the enduring values that founded our country: a commitment to peace, the freedom, and the opportunity of our land, the compassion and the generosity of our people that seeks to harness change, never afraid of it, and to build an even greater future for our children and our grandchildren. That's the patriotism of Tip O'Neill, and that is the root of the strength of America.
The events in Iran remind us that our basic values mean as much today as at any time in our Nation's history. Now those qualities are being severely tested, not just by a mob in Iran, who hold hostage innocent Americans, but by the changing nature of the entire world. I have no doubt that we in America will prevail, because we are right, because we are strong, because we are united.
Our form of government has endured every test. Americans have never found a question that we could not answer if we were united. Americans have never found an obstacle that we could not overcome if we were united. Americans have never found a challenge we could not meet if we were united. Our form of government has endured, and it has grown. It has improved itself in quality for two centuries. And long after the mobs have gone home in Iran, long after there have been many changes of government and constitutions and ideologies elsewhere in the world, American democracy and the ideal of America will stand as they do today-the brightest and the best hope of mankind, a clear, undimmed beacon of fundamental human rights and human values.
Tonight America stands as the greatest nation on Earth. Boston College stands as a great and a fortunate institution. Tip O'Neill has enhanced the greatness of both, and we are all grateful to him.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the Speaker of the House of the United States of America, Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/fogofwar/index/crusade.htm
Washington Post
Crusade
The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War
By Rick Atkinson
Houghton Mifflin Company, 520pp. $16
Chapter One: First Night
Barely seventy-five feet above the dark Nafud, one of Saudi Arabia's three great deserts, the helicopters pushed toward the border in a line as straight as monks filing to vespers. A gap precisely five rotor discs' wide separated each aircraft from the next. Two Air Force Pave Lows stuffed with sophisticated navigation gear led as pathfinders, followed by four Army Apaches, laden with rockets and missiles and extra fuel tanks.
Frigid night air gushed into the lead Apache. The pilot, Warrant Officer Thomas R. (Tip) O'Neal, fumbled with the heating controls. The flapper valves on the helicopter's filtration system seemed to be wedged open, apparently jammed with sand. As O'Neal pressed a gloved hand against the vent, his co-pilot, Warrant Officer David A. Jones, came on the intercom from the back seat. "Tip, you see that glow off to the north? That might be it."
O'Neal scanned the horizon through his night-vision goggles. The headset had two protruding lenses that amplified the ambient starlight to give even the darkest landscape a crepuscular definition. He saw it now, a hazy splotch far ahead. But they were still twelve miles south of the border -- they'd just skirted the Saudi town of Ar Ar -- and the target lay another thirty miles into Iraq.
Abruptly O'Neal's goggles flushed with light, like small starbursts blooming around the helicopter. "What the fuck is that?" he called.
Jones, now concentrating on the Apache's infrared scope, which registered heat emanations rather than visible light, saw nothing. "What? What?"
"That!" O'Neal insisted. "Down there! God!" He pushed the goggles up, his naked eyes straining through the darkness. Machine gun fire poured from the Pave Low just in front of them. Two streams of bullets slanted down and beneath the Apache. "Don't worry about it, Dave," he said with relief. "It's just the Pave Low clearing its guns."
Three helicopters back, in the trail Apache dubbed Rigor Mortis, Lieutenant Colonel Dick Cody knew better. He had clearly seen the first burst of fire from below, followed by a missile streaking just abeam of the line of aircraft. "Jeez, Brian," Cody called to his co-pilot, "did you see that?" The gunfire had come either from nervous Saudis or, more likely, an Iraqi commando patrol aiming at the rotor noise. After the brief retaliatory burst from the Pave Low, the shooting stopped. The helicopters pressed on at 120 knots.
Cody was not by nature a reflective man. Commander of the 101st Airborne Division's attack helicopter battalion, he was a creature of action and instinct, an aggressive pilot with fifteen years' flying experience. But he had occasionally wondered in the past four months whether he had oversold himself for this operation.
http://www.e-reading.co.uk/bookreader.php/1016787/Clancy_-_Shadow_Warriors.html
Shadow Warriors (2002)
Clancy, Tom - Nf - Commanders
XII
SHADOWS IN THE STORM
At 1:00 A.M. on August 2, 1990, three divisions of the Iraqi Republican Guard, equipped with nearly a thousand tanks, streamed across Iraq's border with Kuwait.
THE FIRST GULF WAR--EARNEST WILL
Stincr's proposals for a special operations war against Iraq drew on several past Special Operations missions, not least of which were a series of operations conducted in the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War, called Operation EARNEST WILL As that war dragged on, a threat so complex and politically significant developed that it ultimately required capabilities that only SOF forces possessed.
By the fall of 1986, the ground war between those two nations had devolved into a stalemate. Iraq had devastated its adversary's economy with strikes on Iranian oil facilities, while Iran had struck back by initiating a tanker war and targeting neutral ships in the Persian Gulf. These attacks especially threatened Kuwait, who, while officially neutral, had been helping the Iraqis during the war.
Mining and attacks by small, swift patrol boats became so successful that by the winter of 1986--87, Japanese, Swedish, and Norwegian ships stopped traveling to Kuwait. This put pressure not merely on the Gulf states, but on the entire world, and oil prices began to rise to dangerous levels.
In March 1987, President Ronald Reagan took steps to end the problem. He agreed to register eleven Kuwaiti tankers as American ships, and provide them with Navy escorts. The U.S. ships would form protected convoys through the Gulf.
PACIFIC WIND
That was the background when, in September, Stiner journeyed to the Gulf with Downing to get a firsthand view of the situation, brief Schwarzkopf, and finalize details on the embassy operation, which came to be called PACIFIC WIND.
THE AIR WAR
Other plans, however, moved forward. As the buildup of allied troops progressed, the United States shaped a strategy for driving the Iraqis out of Kuwait.
Neutralizing the sites meant hitting not just radars but their control and communications facilities.
One big problem with launching a surprise attack on an early-warning site is that it is itself designed to keep such attacks from being a surprise. But no radar will give one hundred percent coverage. EAGER ANVIL'S tactics had been drawn up to take advantage of known holes in California's and Nevada's capabilities. Different radars have different capabilities, but in general they have trouble picking out objects very close to the ground. Even radars designed to detect low-flying airplanes--such as the P-15M Squat Eyes at each of the target sites--have limited detection envelopes because of ground clutter and physical limitations in the equipment. In this case, the helicopters would be essentially invisible at fifty feet off the ground even at close range. If they got higher than that, however, they could be easily spotted.
They could also be heard, no matter what altitude they flew, and so the routes of both attack groups carefully avoided known Iraqi installations. When the Pave Lows in Red Team detected an unexpected Iraqi formation in their path, they doglegged around them, hoping to prevent the troops from hearing the very loud rotors of the MH-53s and AH-64s.
The Pave Lows in White Team drove up the wadi to a point about ten miles southeast of the radar sites, then swung left, the pilot pushing the throttle for more speed as White Team whipped over a road. He listened intently, hoping that the PJs in the back wouldn't see anything on the highway.
Nothing. They were ghosts, wandering across the desert undetected.
2:36. They reached the IP 7.5 miles southeast of their target--the "no-shit point," they called it. One of the crew members ignited chemical glow sticks in the back of the helicopter, waving his arm through the open doorway and dropping the bundle on the desert floor, a literal "X" marking the navigation spot. All the high-tech equipment aboard the Pave Lows notwithstanding, the success of the mission came down to a PJ's steady hand.
The Apaches sped forward at sixty knots, using the glowing sticks to orient themselves for the attack. They updated their guidance systems, then kicked on their target-acquisition computers and continued in toward the targets. A dozen buildings, clusters of command vans, radar dishes, a troposcatter radar antenna--the site began to reveal itself in their night goggles. One by one, the interphones in the helos buzzed: "I've got the target." Lasers beamed.
Lights popped on in the buildings as they closed to 5,000 meters.
"Party in ten," commanded the Apache fire team leader, Lieutenant Tom Drew.
Figures began running toward the three antiaircraft pits guarding the base.
"Five ... four ... three ...," said Drew calmly.
Before he reached "one," Thomas "Tip" O'Neal pickled a Hellfire. "This one's for you, Saddam," said Dave Jones, O'Neal's copilot, as the Hellfire whisked off the left rail of the Apache. It was the first shot of the war.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-04-02/nikki-haley-south-carolina/53957632/1
USA TODAY
Don't say 'no' to South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
By Susan Page, USA TODAY Updated 4/2/2012 9:57 PM
BAMBERG, S.C. – Walking down the tree-lined streets where she grew up, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley remembers the day she was presented with a beach ball at the Wee Miss Bamberg pageant — not for winning, but as a consolation prize when she and her sister were disqualified.
"They pulled my parents aside and said they had a white queen and they had a black queen and they didn't want to upset either side by putting us in that category," she recalls, not the first time nor the last that their Indian heritage made it hard for her family to fit in this small town. "My mom said, 'Can she at least do her talent?' "
http://www.boeing.com/resources/boeingdotcom/defense/ah-64_apache/images/ah_64_gallery_med_01_960x600.jpg
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 02:51 AM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Thursday 14 January 2016
