Friday, August 26, 2016

That I told




http://www.dictionary.com/browse/contiguous

Dictionary.com


contiguous

touching; in contact.










http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/79701/Clancy_-_Red_Storm_Rising.txt


Red Storm Rising (1986)

Tom Clancy


Red Storm Rising

USS CHICAGO


"Close-approach procedures," McCafferty ordered.

McCafferty had been tracking a surface ship for two hours, ever since his sonarmen had detected her at a range of forty-four miles. The approach was being made on sonar only, and under the captain's orders, sonar had not told the fire-control party what they were tracking. For the time being, every surface contact was being treated as a hostile warship.

"Range three-five hundred yards," the executive officer reported. "Bearing one-four-two, speed eighteen knots, course two-six-one."

"Up scope!" McCafferty ordered. The attack periscope slid up from its well on the starboard side of the pedestal. A quartermaster's mate got behind the instrument, dropped the handles in place, and trained it to the proper bearing. The captain sighted the crosshairs on the target's bow.

"Bearing-mark!"

The quartermaster squeezed the button on the "pickle," transmitting the bearing to the MK-117 fire-control computer.

"Angle on the bow, starboard twenty."

The fire-control technician punched the data into the computer. The microchips rapidly computed distances and angles.

"Solution set. Ready for tubes three and four!"

"Okay." McCafferty stepped back from the periscope and looked over at the exec. "You want to see what we killed?"

"Damn!" The executive officer laughed and lowered the periscope. "Move over, Otto Kretchmer!"

McCafferty picked up the microphone, which went to speakers throughout the submarine. "This is the captain speaking. We just completed the tracking exercise. For anyone who's interested, the ship we just 'killed' is the Universe Ireland, three hundred forty thousand tons' worth of ultra-large crude-carrier. That is all." He put the mike back in its cradle.

"XO, critique?"

"It was too easy, skipper," the executive officer said. "His speed and course were constant. We might have shaved four or five minutes on the target-motion analysis right after we acquired him, but we were looking for a zigzag instead of a constant course. For my money, it's better to proceed like that on a slow target. I'd say we have things going pretty well."












2016_Nk20_DSCN3512.jpg










http://the-walking-dead.hypnoweb.net/episodes/saison-1/episode-101/script-vo---101.186.42/

hypnoweb.net


The Walking Dead

Days Gone Bye

Episode 101 [ Sunday 31 October 2010 ]

[ First scenes ]

Intersection

A police car pulls up and Rick Grimes, a deputy, gets out of the car. He walks around amid overturned vehicles and trash laying everywhere. He holds a small fuel tank in his hand trying to look for some fuel. He walks past several vehicles where decomposing dead people sit in their cars with flies buzzing around them. He walks towards the gas station and sees that the sign says ‘No Gas’. He starts to walk back towards his car but he hears some footsteps. He kneels down and looks under a car. He sees a small girl walking toward a teddy bear. She is in a night gown and some slippers. She picks it up and starts walking away from Rick.

Rick: Little girl? I'm a policeman. Little girl.

She stops.

Rick: Don't be afraid. Okay? Little girl.










http://articles.latimes.com/1993-10-04/news/mn-42187_1_american-soldiers

Los Angeles Times


5 U.S. Soldiers Killed, 24 Hurt in Somali Sweep

October 04, 1993 ART PINE TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — At least five more American soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded during U.N. military operations in Somalia on Sunday--a toll that seemed certain to intensify pressures for the withdrawal of U.S. troops there.

The casualties came during another major U.N. military sweep in the area of south Mogadishu, the Somali capital, that traditionally has been controlled by fugitive warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid.

The Pentagon said two Army Black Hawk UH-60 helicopters also were "lost in action" during the operation, but officials said they had been unable to determine whether the aircraft had been shot down or crashed.

Sunday's grim statistics brought the total number of American soldiers killed in Somalia to 16. One week ago, three American airmen were killed when their Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired by a Somali gunman.

U.S. officials said Sunday's operation, which was continuing into the morning, had resulted in the capture of 20 members of Aidid's Somali National Alliance, including a high-ranking official whom they did not name.

They said U.N. authorities in Mogadishu had imposed a news blackout, and the Pentagon would not have additional reports available until this morning. It is possible that both the death toll and the number of wounded may rise.

Sunday's capture of the high-ranking official marked the second time in two weeks that a top Aidid lieutenant had been captured in such an operation. Two weeks ago, a similar sweep netted Osman Atto, Aidid's No. 2 man.

President Clinton, in California to promote his health care plan, expressed sympathy over the deaths of the five U.S. soldiers, saying they had been engaged in "a vital humanitarian mission."

At the same time, in a clear reference to Aidid's continuing attacks, he warned that U.S. achievements in Somalia "must not be lost" because of reaction to Aidid's challenges to U.N. authority.

Despite Clinton's admonition, the latest round of setbacks seemed almost certain to intensify pressure in Congress for the United States to pull its forces out of Somalia in the face of increasing American casualties in Mogadishu.

The Senate demanded last month that the White House submit a detailed exit strategy for the American military effort in Somalia by Oct. 15 or face a possible cutoff of funds for the operation.

On Sunday, Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) told an audience on CBS' "Face the Nation" program that the United States should "leave now" or face possible action by Congress.

And Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), speaking later on Cable News Network, said he thought that Sunday's incidents "clearly will increase the voices (in Congress) demanding withdrawal."

But Mitchell said he personally did not believe that the United States should pull its troops out of Somalia.

Meanwhile, the Administration continued its efforts to seek a firm date for a possible American withdrawal, while at the same time staving off any actual troop pullout until Mogadishu is reasonably secure.

Speaking on "Face the Nation," Defense Secretary Les Aspin rejected suggestions that the United States withdraw its troops immediately, arguing that it would lead to a general breakdown and a return of famine there. "We're all looking for a date certain" to withdraw American forces, Aspin declared. "The trick is to withdraw . . . in a way in which at least enough security remains behind so that the famine does not return."

Sunday's action in Mogadishu was just the sort of guerrilla warfare--and continuing American casualties--that the Administration has feared since early this summer, when Aidid began attacking U.S. troops.

Aidid, a former Somali general, initially had cooperated with U.N. forces but later began challenging them after the United States withdrew the bulk of its forces early last May.

His guerrilla tactics have been intensified since early July, when the United Nations issued an arrest warrant for Aidid after his militiamen ambushed and killed 24 Pakistani peacekeepers.

The American troops killed or wounded in Sunday's operation were members of the elite U.S. Ranger unit dispatched to Mogadishu in mid-August along with a contingent of Delta Force special operations forces.

Earlier Sunday, three U.S. Marines were wounded when the Humvee utility vehicle in which they were riding was blown up by a remote-controlled land mine, again presumably by Aidid forces.

The Marines were hospitalized; their injuries were not considered life-threatening, but their Somali driver was killed. U.N. officials said the Somali militiamen also suffered casualties.

U.S. Army Maj. David Stockwell, the U.N. spokesman in Mogadishu, termed the mine explosion "another in a series of unprovoked attacks" on American forces that have occurred since Aidid was declared a fugitive this summer.

As of late Sunday Washington time, Pentagon officials said it was impossible to determine whether the two Black Hawk helicopters had been shot down or had crashed for other reasons.

Aidid's ability to elude U.S. forces has been a major source of frustration--and embarrassment--for the Administration, which had hoped to apprehend the general quickly once the United Nations declared him a fugitive.










JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Posted by H.V.O.M at 9:25 PM Monday, March 07, 2011


In an artificial memory that I just now thought of, prompted by observations I make here, I have a "memory" of traveling from Greenville South Carolina to a seminar in Sacremento California. The seminar was about computerized medical billing. I was there for two or three days. I very clearly remember one of those days while I was there at the seminar that I looked down and was annoyed to see that my ink pen in my left shirt pocket under my suit jacket had started to leak ink and had ruined my shirt. I seem to recall thinking about this sometime in what seems to be the near-past and I think I was trying to remember or I did remember that the ink pen was leaking red ink onto my white shirt. I also remember, as seems important to this observation, that I was flying back to Greenville after the seminar was over and I bought a Mickey Mouse doll for my girlfriend's daughter, as I think that was before her mother and I married, and I left that Mickey Mouse doll on the seat next to me in the waiting area before boarding the airplane. I was sitting on the airplane and one of the flight attendants called out over the intercom and announced that someone had left a Mickey Mouse doll on the seat outside and I reached up to press the button above me to call her over and I told her that was mine. She might have not mentioned it was a Mickey Mouse doll or something, now that I think about it but I really do not remember specifically what was our dialog. She gave me to the Mickey Mouse doll and I later gave it to my girlfriend's daughter.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 07 March 2011 excerpt ends]










http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=courage-under-fire

Springfield! Springfield!


Courage Under Fire (1996)


You could've had one hell of a career.
And you give Meredith my best.
Tell her I didn't have any choice.
I'm going to finish this report.
On my own, if I have to.










http://articles.latimes.com/1993-10-05/news/mn-42406_1_casualty-figures

Los Angeles Times


U.S. Boosts Somalia Troops After 12 Die : Africa: Casualty figures more than double; six are held hostage. Deadly incident threatens Clinton policy.

October 05, 1993 ART PINE TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON — President Clinton ordered new U.S. troops and weapons to Somalia on Monday in the wake of a bloody military operation Sunday that left 12 Americans dead, 78 wounded and at least six held hostage.

The casualty figures, more than double what officials had estimated only a day earlier--and the fact that some U.S. service personnel have been taken hostage--marked a major escalation in the military confrontation in Somalia and seriously threaten Clinton's policy there.

The Pentagon had earlier reported that five Americans had been killed and 24 wounded Sunday, with the loss of two Blackhawk UH-60 attack helicopters, in a U.N. military operation in southern Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

In Mogadishu on Monday, dozens of cheering, dancing Somalis dragged the body of a U.S. soldier through the city's streets.

The U.S. reinforcements sent Monday included 220 more Army Rangers, 4 M1A1 tanks, 14 Bradley fighting vehicles, two replacement Blackhawks and 200 other troops to relieve units now stationed in the East African nation.

Defense officials also said that the Air Force would send two AC-130H gunships, which contain precision-guided 105-millimeter howitzers and a variety of other high-tech weapons, to help rout the forces of warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid in south Mogadishu. The aircraft were used briefly there in August.

The potential political impact of having U.S. servicemen held hostage by Aidid was demonstrated graphically Monday, when CNN broadcast a videotape of an American being held by Aidid's organization. The man on the tape identified himself as a Blackhawk helicopter pilot, Army Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Durant. The Pentagon said his unit is based at Ft. Campbell, Ky.

In a scene reminiscent of those played out when U.S. POWs were captured by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War, a clearly battered Durant mumbled that "as a soldier, I have to do what I'm told." Asked on the tape about his own role, he replied nervously, "Innocent people being killed is not good."

Within minutes after the videotape had been played, the President and his top officials cautioned Aidid's forces against any mistreatment of U.S. hostages, warning that the United States would act on its own--without U.N. authority, if necessary--to retaliate.

"If anything happens to them (the U.S. hostages)," the President said, ". . . the United States--not the United Nations, the United States--will view this matter very gravely and take appropriate action."

Defense Secretary Les Aspin issued a similar admonition, warning that "we will respond forcefully if any harm comes to those who are detained." And Secretary of State Warren Christopher warned, "We're not going to go through any international body to debate."

The Pentagon identified four of the dead soldiers as: Pfc. James H. Martin Jr., 23, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y.; Pfc. Richard W. Kowalewski Jr., 20, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Ga.; Sgt. James C. Joyce, 24, 75th Ranger Regiment, Ft. Benning, Ga., and Chief Warrant Officer Clifton P. Wolcott, 36, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), Fort Campbell, Ky.

Clinton told reporters that he would return to Washington today after a stop in Los Angeles on Monday night and expects to have "more to say about (the Somalia situation) in the next 48 hours," presumably after meeting with his national security advisers.

Meanwhile, he indicated that the United States has no plans to change its Somalia policy, despite the weekend setback, and that U.S. troops will remain in the country until security is restored sufficiently to allow the political structure to be rebuilt.

Still, U.S. officials conceded that the Administration faces major uncertainties over the future course of the U.N. effort in Somalia, both in terms of how Aidid's forces would respond to the situation and how Congress would react at home.

Lawmakers, who demanded three weeks ago that the Administration provide a detailed exit strategy by Oct. 15, called Monday for the White House to take a "hard look" at its current policy and for the United States to withdraw its troops.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who initially had supported the U.S. intervention in Somalia, said the Administration should seek the approval of Congress to alter the original mission of U.S. forces in the country.

But Capitol Hill strategists said that there still is relatively little support for any immediate congressional move to blunt the Administration's policy and predicted that the lawmakers would defer any action until the Oct. 15 deadline that they have set.

For all the dismay over the military losses that U.S. forces suffered, officials said the Ranger operation resulted in the capture of two more of Aidid's top lieutenants--Interior Minister Osman Salad and Foreign Minister Wali Hassan--who were the major targets of the raid.



http://articles.latimes.com/1993-10-05/news/mn-42406_1_casualty-figures/2

Los Angeles Times


(Page 2 of 2)

U.S. Boosts Somalia Troops After 12 Die : Africa: Casualty figures more than double; six are held hostage. Deadly incident threatens Clinton policy.

October 05, 1993 ART PINE TIMES STAFF WRITER

The arrests of the two men is important because U.N. officials have been banking on such tactics as a way to weaken Aidid's Somali National Alliance in lieu of actually arresting the general. Last month, they caught Osman Ato, Aidid's chief financier.

The weekend's operation consisted of a series of clashes between U.S. forces and Somali militiamen that eventually involved some 400 American troops. It proved to be one of the biggest--and most costly--U.S. strikes since American troops were sent last December to help establish security so that food could be distributed to a starving nation.

Military officials said the most critical battles began in midafternoon Sunday, when about 90 U.S. Rangers, acting on intelligence reports, raided the Olympic Hotel in downtown Mogadishu in hopes of capturing Salad and Hassan.

Although the initial mission was successful--the Rangers captured 19 of Aidid's men--the mission went awry when a Blackhawk helicopter sent to help secure the area was hit by ground fire, forcing ground troops to mount a rescue operation.

About 70 of the Rangers surrounded the downed helicopter, forming a perimeter to protect wounded crewmen, but the fire they encountered from militiamen proved far heavier than expected, effectively pinning down the U.S. troops.

A few minutes later, a second U.S. helicopter crashed 2,000 yards away and a third chopper--also a Blackhawk--was hit and had to leave the area. Six chopper crewmen are still missing.

Facing a serious threat, the Americans called in the Army's Quick Reaction Force, bolstered by U.N. troops with armored vehicles from Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia. Shortly after dusk, the task force arrived to help.

But again, the U.N. forces were kept at bay by the heavier-than-anticipated fire from the Somalis, and it was not until 2 a.m. Somali time that the task force was able to drive the militiamen away and evacuate the wounded.

Besides the Americans who were killed, one Malaysian soldier was killed and six others were wounded and two Pakistani troops were wounded. Somali spokesmen said that several hundred Somalis also may have been killed or wounded.

* U.S.-U.N.TENSION: U.S. policy on Somalia dismays, perplexes U.N. officials. A10










http://inquirer.philly.com/packages/somalia/nov16/rang16.asp

The Inquirer


Black Hawk Down

Introduction

A defining battle

By Mark Bowden

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

November 16, 1997

LATE IN THE AFTERNOON of Sunday, Oct. 3, 1993, attack helicopters dropped about 120 elite American soldiers into a busy neighborhood in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct several top lieutenants of Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and return to base. It was supposed to take about an hour.
Pentagon video of the raid

Instead, two of their high-tech UH-60 Blackhawk attack helicopters were shot down. The men were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives. When they emerged the following morning, 18 Americans were dead and 73 were wounded. One, helicopter pilot Michael Durant, had been carried off by an angry mob. He was still alive, held captive somewhere in the city.
Radio transmission about helicopter crash (5 seconds; 8 K)

The Somalian toll was far worse. Reliable witnesses in the U.S. military and in Mogadishu now place the count at nearly 500 dead - scores more than was estimated at the time - among more than a thousand casualties. Many were women and children. This was hardly what U.S. and United Nations officials envisioned when they intervened in Somalia in December 1992 to help avert widespread starvation.

In the five years since that humanitarian mission dissolved into combat, Somalia has had a profound cautionary influence on American foreign policy. When Washington policymakers consider sending soldiers into foreign crisis zones, there is invariably a caveat: Remember Somalia. America's refusal to intervene in Rwanda in 1995 and in the former Zaire this year; its long delay in acting to stop Serbian aggression in Bosnia; its hesitation before sending troops into Haiti; and its present reluctance to arrest indicted war criminals in Bosnia stem, in some measure, from the futile attempts to arrest Aidid.

With the exception of the Persian Gulf war, modern American warfare no longer pits great national armies in sweeping conflicts. Instead, it is marked by isolated, usually brief, encounters between specially trained U.S. forces and Third World irregulars as America seeks to alter the political equation in some tumultuous location - Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia.

The American public is rarely exposed to the realities of warfare. The Pentagon does not allow reporters to accompany soldiers directly into battle, a journalistic tradition that ended after Vietnam. What results is a sanitized picture of combat. The public knows only what the military chooses to portray, or what cameras are able to see from afar. Americans have little understanding of what awaits frightened young soldiers, or of their heroic and sometimes savage attempts to save themselves and their fellow soldiers.

Americans recoiled at the images of soldiers' corpses being dragged through the streets, but they had no inkling of the searing 15-hour battle that produced their deaths. There has never been a detailed public accounting. Most of the Pentagon records documenting the firefight remain classified, and most of the soldiers who fought are in special forces, generally off-limits to reporters.

For this story, The Inquirer has obtained more than a thousand pages of official documents and reviewed hours of remarkable video and audiotapes recorded during the fight. It has interviewed in detail more than 50 of the American soldiers who fought. Also interviewed in depth, in Mogadishu, were dozens of Somalis who fought the Americans or were caught in the crossfire.

The Battle of Mogadishu is known today in Somalia as Ma-alinti Rangers, or the Day of the Rangers. It pitted the world's most sophisticated military power against a mob of civilians and Somalian irregulars. It was the biggest single firefight involving American soldiers since the Vietnam War.

The battle was photographed and videotaped by sophisticated cameras aboard satellites, a P-3 Orion spy plane, and UH-58 surveillance helicopters hovering directly over the action. Many of the soldiers were debriefed by U.S. Army historians in the days after the battle. Top commanders were later subjected to a Senate inquiry.

The secret official documentation of the battle obtained by The Inquirer has been fleshed out with the powerful eyewitness accounts. The result is an unprecedented minute-by-minute record of what happened that Sunday in Mogadishu.

Most of those interviewed have never before told the complete story of their experience, including pilot Durant, whose 11-day captivity was briefly at the center of world attention. Many soldiers are still unaware of certain battle episodes that did not involve them. Several are members of the Army's Delta Force, a unit so secret the Army does not officially acknowledge it exists.












https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Silver_Star_medal.png



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 07:26 AM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Friday 26 August 2016