http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/20/world/after-war-army-blaming-patriot-s-computer-for-failure-stop-dhahran-scud.html
The New York Times
AFTER THE WAR
"The radar system never saw the incoming missile,"
2016September23_Chloe55_DSC00747.jpg
From 2/10/1962 ( the United States of America Central Intelligence Agency pilot Gary Powers is released from Soviet Union prison and returned to United States control ) To 6/5/1987 ( from my official United States Navy documents: "Earned NEC 1189" ) is 9246 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 2/25/1991 is 9246 days
From 8/18/1973 ( The Killian Document ) To 2/25/1991 is 6400 days
6400 = 3200 + 3200
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 8/7/1974 ( the Twin Towers high-wire stunt ) is 3200 days
From 2/25/1991 To 2/26/1993 ( the scheduled terrorist attack by force of violence by Bill Gates-Microsoft-Corbis-George Bush the cowardly violent criminal to destroy the World Trade Center New York and to murder all occupants resulting in extensive damage and several fatalities ) is 732 days
732 = 366 + 366
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 11/3/1966 ( premiere US TV series episode "Star Trek"::"Dagger of the Mind" ) is 366 days
From 11/12/1978 ( premiere US TV series episode "Battlestar Galactica"::"The Magnificent Warriors" ) To 2/25/1991 is 4488 days
4488 = 2244 + 2244
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 12/25/1971 ( George Walker Bush the purveyor of illegal drugs strictly for his personal profit including the trafficking of massive amounts of cocaine into the United States confined to federal prison in Mexico for illegally smuggling narcotics in Mexico ) is 2244 days
From 12/25/1962 ( premiere US film "To Kill a Mockingbird" ) To 4/18/1988 ( the United States Navy Operation Praying Mantis - my biological brother US Navy Fleet Admiral Thomas Reagan and I US Navy FC2 Kerry Wayne Burgess are both at the same time onboard the United States Navy warship USS Wainwright CG 28 when it evaded a Harpoon anti-ship missile from hostile Iran-Bill Gates-Microsoft-George Bush-Axis of Evil-Soviet Union-Communist forces but 2 United States Marine Corps aviators launched from USS Wainwright CG 28 killed this day ) is 9246 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 2/25/1991 is 9246 days
From 3/24/1990 ( from my official United States Navy documents: "I hereby request to be granted 51.0 days separation leave" ) To 2/25/1991 is 338 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 10/6/1966 ( premiere US TV series episode "Star Trek"::"The Enemy Within" ) is 338 days
From 6/1/1940 ( premiere US film "Murder in the Air" ) 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 18492 days
18492 = 9246 + 9246
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 2/25/1991 is 9246 days
From 6/1/1940 ( premiere US film "Murder in the Air" ) 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 18492 days
18492 = 9246 + 9246
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 2/25/1991 is 9246 days
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/26/world/war-in-the-gulf-scud-attack-scud-missile-hits-a-us-barracks-killing-27.html
The New York Times
WAR IN THE GULF: Scud Attack; Scud Missile Hits a U.S. Barracks, Killing 27
By R. W. APPLE Jr., Special to The New York Times
Published: February 26, 1991
DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Feb. 26— In the most devastating Iraqi stroke of the Persian Gulf war, an Iraqi missile demolished a barracks housing more than 100 American troops on Monday night, killing 27 and wounding 98, the American military command in Riyadh said early today.
Some of those who lived there were women, but a military spokesman said he did not know whether any women were killed or wounded. A pool report said the barracks housed the 475th Quartermaster Group, an Army Reserve unit based in Farrell, Pa., a small town near the Ohio state line.
A television correspondent said he had seen a Patriot defensive missile intercept the Soviet-built Scud, a missile that has been fired again and again into Saudi Arabia or Israel during the war, often on erratic courses. Monday night's attack was the first of the Iraqi surface-to-surface missiles to take a sizable number of lives.
Greg Siegle, a freelance writer, said he saw "a gigantic explosion" 100 feet off the ground, then another as bits of glowing metal fell to the ground and set fire to the barracks, which is situated in Al Khobar, a city a few miles from Dhahran and its big air base. He said the building caught fire at once. Within an hour, it was a charred skeleton.
The American command disputed the accounts of the witnesses. It did not say whether a Patriot missile had been fired, but said the Scud had broken up in flight, as have several others launched in the last few weeks.
Baghdad radio, hailing the attack, said the missile struck "the coward traitors who mortgage the sacred places of the nation and turn Arab youth into shields of flesh."
Many of the occupants of the barracks, a corrugated-metal warehouse that had been converted into temporary housing for British and American troops, were eating dinner or relaxing when the missile hit. Others were apparently working out or sleeping, and many survivors wandered around, in sweatsuits or gym shorts, stunned, during the rescue efforts.
A military policeman said that most of those in the building were Americans from Army transportation and quartermaster units. Not all of the names of the units were immediately available.
In Pennsylvania, an operator taking calls at the Farrell Police Department last night said that members of the 475th Quartermaster Group came from Farrell and many other towns along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. The operator said she had seen several families gathered outside the group's headquarters at the United States Army Reserve Center on her way to work.
Chaos engulfed the scene moments after the burning debris fell into the converted warehouse. Saudis in the neighborhood followed it down from the sky and quickly ran to the scene, complicating rescue efforts. Mr. Siegle said it took at least 20 minutes for the first fire engines to arrive.
But soon there were several, plus at least two dozen ambulances, military and civilian. Blackhawk medevac helicopters landed nearby and took some of those who were hurt to the 85th Evacuation Hospital in Dhahran.
This morning, under the pitiless glare of portable floodlights, excavating equipment began plowing through the blackened remains of the building. Servicemen joined in the search for the missing, using picks and shovels, as some of the survivors milled about. Many wept.
In a dormitory-turned-morgue, four pairs of boots protruded from under blankets. Sleeping bags and military uniform belts were scattered about on the charred floor.
There was little left of the building but its steel girder frame.
Another missile was fired at the island nation of Bahrain, which is almost visible from Al Khobar. It was knocked from the sky by a Patriot, according to the American command, which presumably had official reports from the Patriot batteries. Scuds are notoriously inaccurate, particularly at long range, so the two may have been pointed at the same target. Attacks on Saudis Have Failed
Repeated Scud firings at Dhahran, Riyadh, King Khalid Military City and other places in Saudi Arabia have been largely ineffective, killing 1 person and wounding 85.
A total of 39 Scud missiles fired at Israel, in 18 separate air raids since Jan. 18, have killed 2 and seriously wounded hundreds. Three elderly Israelis died of heart attacks after their homes were hit. Twelve Israelis have suffocated or died of other causes resulting from the misuse of gas masks or other equipment.
Photos: An Iraqi Scud missile that demolished a barracks yesterday near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killed 27 American soldiers and wounded 98, according to officials. A soldier told photographers to leave the scene. (pg. A1); An Iraqi missile that demolished a barracks near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killed 27 American troops and wounded 98, officials said. Rescue workers used cranes to move through the ruins of the building, which a pool report said housed the 475th Quartermaster Group based in Farrell, Pa. (pg. A14) (Associated Press)
http://www.tv.com/shows/battlestar-galactica-1978/the-magnificent-warriors-15056/recap/
tv.com
Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Episode 10
The Magnificent Warriors
Aired Sunday 7:00 PM Nov 12, 1978 on ABC
EPISODE RECAP
Blue Squadron attempts to intercept a Cylon attack force before it can reach the fleet but six ships manage to get through. The Cylons target the fleet's agro ships and manage to destroy two agro ships and severely damage the third one.
Tigh surveys the damage on the third agro ship. The botanist tells him that they need new seed. Adama proposes they find an unmarked energizer to trade for seed at one of the agro planets they recently passed.
http://archive.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45686
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Families, Friends Honor Desert Storm Fallen
By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service
GREENSBURG, Pa., Feb. 27, 2001 – As they have each year for the past decade, townsfolk here came to pay their respects, share their grief and remember their loved ones' glory.
Families and friends gathered Feb. 25 in this traditionally blue-collar town of 60,000 bordering the Allegheny Mountains 50 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, to honor those they lost during Operation Desert Storm 10 years ago.
At 12:28 p.m. local time -- the exact time an errant Iraqi Scud missile struck a temporary barracks housing Army Reserve soldiers -- bugler and World War II veteran Julius Falcon played "Taps" for those who died in the Feb. 25, 1991, attack.
The strike killed 28 and wounded 99. Thirteen of the dead and 43 of the wounded were Army Reservists of the Greensburg-based 14th Quartermaster Detachment. The little water purification unit suffered the greatest number of casualties of any coalition unit during the war.
Several hundred family and friends attended a memorial service at Greensburg Central Catholic High School, located next door to the Reserve center. Following the service, children of the dead and visiting officials laid wreaths at a monument at the nearby Reserve center. The roll was called, a 21-gun salute rendered.
President George W. Bush, whose father was commander in chief during Desert Storm, and Secretary of State retired Army Gen. Colin Powell, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both sent personal messages.
"I have the highest regard for those who serve, and I am sorry to miss the opportunity to pay my respects to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom," Bush wrote. "Please convey my personal regrets and best wishes to the families and friends of the brave soldiers to whom tribute is being paid."
Powell's message stated: "It is fitting and proper to pause and remember those men, those women and families who paid so dearly to ensure that freedom's flag would never be taken down."
The ceremony was one of several marking the 10th anniversary of the end of Operation Desert Storm. The war in the Persian Gulf sparked by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, officially ceased Feb. 28, 1991.
Nearly 470,000 active duty U.S. troops served in Operation Desert Storm, along with nearly 217,000 reserve component forces called to active duty. Nearly 300 Americans died in service, 148 of them in combat. Another 470 were wounded in action.
Just as their grief has waned over the last decade, rainy skies cleared for the several hundred family members who'd gathered in the high school gym here to attend the memorial.
Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Plewes, chief, Army Reserve, highlighted the importance of the reserve components in the total force. Over 130,000 Army Reservists served in the Persian Gulf campaign, "doing what they have done in all the nation's wars -- standing up and being counted for America," he said.
The soldiers who died 10 years ago were men and women, young and "not so young," married and single, black and white, Plewes said. "They were -- they are -- America. When the nation needed them they answered the call.
"When you see an Army Reservist, you see America," Plewes said. "When you send an Army Reservist off to war, you send America off to war. And when an Army Reservist is killed or wounded, America hurts.
The soldiers of the 14th Quartermaster Detachment showed the Army, the nation and the world what citizen soldiers can do, he said. "When they went in harm's way, they were fully backed by Greensburg and the American people.
"As we gather here today, we honor the men and women from hundreds of towns and cities all across America -- towns just like Greensburg -- who have answered the call and put themselves in harm's way," the general stressed. "We are forever in their debt."
Sgt. Maj. of the Army Jack Tilley traveled from the Pentagon to attend the ceremony. "I know there's nothing I can say to replace the lives of your lost loved ones," he told the families, "but what I want you to know is your loved ones died for something important.
"Millions of people around the world today are better off today because of these soldiers' sacrifices," he said. "And because our country, as it has for more than 200 years, drew a line in the sand and stood up for the ideals that made our country the greatest in the world.
"A soldier's calling has never been an easy one," the veteran NCO declared. "Your soldiers, your loved ones … paid the ultimate price for their country. They paid the price to place a down payment on the future security of our country and our world."
Maj. Gen. Rodney D. Ruddock, commander, 99th Regional Support Command, has attended all of the quartermaster unit's annual memorial services. He saluted the families' courage, recalling that when these soldiers left Greensburg, many in the audience exchanged final embraces and said prayers that they might complete their mission and return safely.
"Our strength to face the tragedy that occurred 10 years ago has grown from our personal inner faith and our collective empathy," Ruddock said. "Our strength lies, too, in the full knowledge that every soldier is also loved and respected by a supportive family and now an extended family and truly, a circle of friends.
"We in uniform know well that those we leave behind as we depart for our uncertain futures," he said, " are the essence of our service and become symbolic of our dedication to it."
Maria M. Wolverton can attest to Ruddock's statement.
After her husband, Spc. Richard V. Wolverton, 24, died in Dhahran, the Army Reserve detachment became her lifeline in her new land. Widowed eight months after her wedding, the German-born woman has never remarried.
"Because we were only married a few months, we'd never had a fight. We'd never had an argument. Everything was still rosy. When I meet somebody, I always compare him to Rick and I haven't found anybody yet who can match him."
She said the Reserve unit and the people of Greensburg helped her decide to stay in America and withstand her loss.
"My husband died for this country so I want to live in this country," she said.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056592/releaseinfo
IMDb
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Release Info
USA 25 December 1962 (Los Angeles, California)
http://www.history.com/news/the-twin-towers-high-wire-walk-40-years-ago
HISTORY
The Twin Towers High-Wire Walk, 40 Years Ago
AUGUST 7, 2014 By Christopher Klein
New York may be one of the world’s most walkable cities, but no pedestrian has ever taken a stroll quite like the one Philippe Petit dared to attempt on August 7, 1974. On the 40th anniversary of the French aerialist’s high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, look back at what has been called the “artistic crime of the century.”
http://www.history.com/news/the-twin-towers-high-wire-walk-40-years-ago/print
HISTORY
THE TWIN TOWERS HIGH-WIRE WALK, 40 YEARS AGO
Forty years ago, New York awoke to find Philippe Petit walking on a wire between the 110-story Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
A little more than an hour after dawn broke over Manhattan, an elfin man stood precariously on the edge of the south tower of the World Trade Center. Dressed in a black V-neck sweater, black pants and thin black slippers, 24-year-old Philippe Petit stepped off the 110-story building and tiptoed onto the sky. With his hands clutching a large balancing pole and toes gripping a taut steel cable, the daring French aerialist began a death-defying 140-foot walk to the building’s northern twin with no harness, no safety net. The only thing underneath Petit was certain death as he walked between the two tallest skyscrapers in the world.
A quarter mile below on the streets of lower Manhattan, New Yorkers craned their necks skyward toward the heavens and strained to see the black speck silhouetted against the gray morning sky. To the anxious crowd, the daredevil appeared to be walking on air. Petit could hear the blare of sirens and the murmur of the ant-like figures below his feet grow as news of his walk spread.
For Petit, each step fulfilled a dream first hatched in the waiting room of a Parisian dentist more than six years before. Barely 18 years old in the winter of 1968, Petit had already decided to move beyond his street-juggling act to become a “high wire artist supreme.” As he scanned a French newspaper while waiting in the dank dentist’s office, the teenager’s eyes lit up at an illustration showing an outline of the Eiffel Tower superimposed on the architectural models of the proposed Twin Towers for what the newspaper erroneously called the “Trade World Center” of New York. Taking a pencil from behind his ear, Petit drew a wire between the roofs of the matching skyscrapers that were to be the tallest in the world. Ignoring his painful cavities, Petit tore the illustration from the newspaper, bolted from the office and filed it inside a large red box stored underneath his bed that was labeled “Projects.”
The budding aerialist began to perform on some of the world’s most iconic stages—completing high-wire walks between the towers of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in June 1971 and the pylons of the Sydney Harbor Bridge two years later—but the Twin Towers continued to have a magnetic hold on him. Petit recalled in his memoir “To Reach the Clouds” that he was overwhelmed the first time he saw the towers, partially occupied but still not complete, in early 1974. “The volume of the towers, their size, screams one word at me, etches it into my skin as I pause atop the stairs, holding on to the railing: Impossible!” For nearly an hour, he scaled the staircase of one of the towers before reaching its deserted summit. After surveying the rooftop, a new thought popped to mind: “Impossible, yes, so let’s get to work.”
Like a bank robber plotting an elaborate heist, the obsessive Petit staked out the World Trade Center. On more than 200 reconnaissance missions to the Twin Towers, he meticulously studied how office workers entered and exited the buildings. He noted the colors of the helmets worn by the construction workers and the tools they carried. He watched how delivery vans entered and exited the subterranean garage and rented a surveyor’s wheel from a hardware store to precisely measure the distance between the skyscrapers. On nearly every trip, he eluded the guards and snuck onto the rooftops to scout locations for securing his cables. He took a helicopter ride to view the towers from above and even posed as a journalist from an architecture magazine to interview construction workers on top of the Twin Towers while his friends snapped photographs of the rooftops. On trips back to France, Petit built wooden models of the World Trade Center and practiced on a wire that corresponded exactly to the distance between the two towers.
Finally, on August 6, 1974, Petit was ready to implement his covert operation to pull off the illicit walk. That afternoon, Petit and a handful of accomplices loaded their supplies into a van and drove to the World Trade Center. Disguised as construction workers and carrying fake identification cards from the faux Fisher Industrial Fence Co., Petit and two cohorts passed through security and transported hundreds of pounds of cable up the freight elevator. Another pair of accomplices dressed as office workers and entered the north tower with a blueprint tube with a crossbow inside. Roving security guards caused both teams to hide for hours upon end, but after dark they reached the roofs of the towers. The team on the north tower shot an arrow carrying a cord across the abyss to the south tower and then passed heavier lines and eventually a steel cable.
By 7 a.m., the work to tighten the cable had been completed and Petit stepped out high above Gotham. A few minutes into the walk, policemen arrived on the rooftop but Petit only laughed and smiled. He knew they were powerless to do anything until the walk ended—one way or another. The policemen could only lean against the girders and watch with everyone else as the lithe acrobat made eight trips across the wire, even kneeling down at times without losing his balance. Finally after 45 minutes, Petit returned to solid ground.
The policemen immediately handcuffed the aerialist and read him his Miranda rights. After undergoing a psychiatric examination at a local hospital, Petit was booked for disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing. Under details of the complaint, an officer wrote only: “Man on Wire.” That afternoon, Manhattan’s district attorney dropped all charges in return for a free aerial performance in Central Park. “My punishment is the most beautiful punishment I could have received,” the daredevil told reporters. When asked why he attempted the walk, he said, “If I see three oranges, I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk.”
Petit instantly became a folk hero. Upon his release, spectators cheered and policemen asked him for autographs. Time magazine called the high-wire act the “artistic crime of the century.” Even the owners of the World Trade Center forgave Petit and gave him a lifetime pass to the observation deck.
http://www.tv.com/shows/star-trek/dagger-of-the-mind-24894/
tv.com
Star Trek Season 1 Episode 9
Dagger of the Mind
Aired Unknown Nov 03, 1966 on NBC
Kirk investigates an experimental facility for holding prisoners and finds a sinister scheme.
AIRED: 11/3/66
http://www.tv.com/shows/battlestar-galactica-1978/the-magnificent-warriors-15056/
tv.com
Battlestar Galactica Season 1 Episode 10
The Magnificent Warriors
Aired Sunday 7:00 PM Nov 12, 1978 on ABC
When a Cylon attack destroys most of the fleet's food supply, Galactica must trade equipment for grain on a rural planet plagued by the Borays, a group of pig-like marauders.
AIRED: 11/12/78
From 12/25/1971 ( George Walker Bush the purveyor of illegal drugs strictly for his personal profit including the trafficking of massive amounts of cocaine into the United States confined to federal prison in Mexico for illegally smuggling narcotics in Mexico ) To 4/18/1997 is 9246 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 2/25/1991 ( the destruction of the United States Army barracks in Saudia Arabia ) is 9246 days
From 1/13/1964 ( premiere US TV series episode "The Outer Limits"::"Controlled Experiment" ) To 6/29/1995 ( the Mir space station docking of the United States space shuttle Atlantis orbiter vehicle mission STS-71 includes me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-71 pilot astronaut ) is 11490 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 4/18/1997 is 11490 days
From 1/13/1964 ( the crash in Maryland of the US Air Force B-52D Stratofortress carrying two MK 53 nuclear bombs ) To 6/29/1995 ( the Mir space station docking of the United States space shuttle Atlantis orbiter vehicle mission STS-71 includes me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-71 pilot astronaut ) is 11490 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 4/18/1997 is 11490 days
From 7/25/1946 ( the United States Operation Crossroads - Bikini Atoll - 2nd of 2 atomic bomb detonations and underwater detonation code-name Baker ) To 4/18/1997 is 18530 days
18530 = 9265 + 9265
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 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 9265 days
From 9/30/1959 ( premiere US TV series "Men Into Space" ) 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 11490 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 4/18/1997 is 11490 days
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: 10/22/2006 11:31 PM
I was reading through this article on the section about traumatic amnesia and I remembered a car accident I was in when I worked at MP Computers. Now that I think about it, I think the date was April 18, 1997. I remember that date because Richard Molck and I were on the Wainwright during that day in 1988. I remember I had just taken an exam on Novell software and was driving through Charlotte. I was stopped behind a car that was turning. Another car was behind me and a speeding pickup hit it driving it into me and my Jeep Grand Cherokee into the car in front of me. I think I had to get the lift gate replaced, but I didn’t suffer any injuries as far as I can remember, but who knows. That may have been a real memory. I don’t know. My work with MPCSI is confusing in terms of whether it really happened or whether it was an operation while I was with the government. It may be both.
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 22 October 2006 excerpt ends]
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: July 25, 2006
I also noted that it was exactly a month later when I started that contract job at Microsoft in 1995. I think it was the previous year I drove back to Ashdown for her birthday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-71
The primary objectives of this flight were to rendezvous and perform the first docking between the Space Shuttle and the Russian Space Station Mir on June 29.
I just realized that the Jeep Grand Cherokee I used to have could represent the space shuttle. Something about that lift gate on the back makes me think about the cargo hold on the shuttle. And that J.G.C. was white too. Could 1995 be the first time I was the commander of a shuttle mission?
[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 25 July 2006 excerpt ends]
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19970418&slug=2534429
The Seattle Times
Friday, April 18, 1997
Jean Godden
She Asked Wrong Guy For A Buck
By Jean Godden
Times Staff Columnist
Even though he's been kicked upstairs, crime keeps happening to newly appointed King County Sheriff Dave Reichert. The busy sheriff sighs and asks, "Why me?"
Last week's incident: On his way home from work, Reichert stopped in Kent for a haircut. Afterward, he was approached by a woman in her late 30s. She said, "I need help. I've run out of gas. I could use a dollar, and then I could get home."
Reichert pulled out a buck and offered to drive the woman to a nearby gas station. She said, "I don't ride with strangers." Reichert explained he was a law officer and would drive her in a police car.
The woman countered that she'd just flagged down a friend and he had offered her a ride.
Sounded odd, but Reichert shrugged and set off for his car. As he was getting behind the wheel, he glanced back and saw the woman had disappeared. Suddenly a car darted out with a man driving. Reichert followed.
The car pulled a U-turn. So did Reichert. Then Reichert saw a pair of eyeballs peering through the rear window.
It was the woman panhandler.
The sheriff kept following, eventually catching up with the couple at a gas station.
When Reichert accosted them, the woman warily asked, "Do you want your dollar back?"
"No," said Reichert. "I'd like to see your I.D." He called for a records check and made an interesting discovery. The guy was clean, but the woman had five outstanding warrants on theft and drug charges.
Reichert patted the woman down, discovering a roll of $1 bills. Within minutes, three other King County patrol cars arrived on the scene.
They had responded after hearing, via radio, that "Car One," the sheriff's car, was involved.
One of the assisting officers told the stunned suspect, "Lady, you've just been arrested by the sheriff."
Chances are the woman wishes she'd picked someone else - anyone else - to panhandle.
Just checking: Gov. Gary Locke's staff yesterday fielded a call to the governor from the White House. Caller was an aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The First Lady had just learned about the governor's middle-of-the-night encounter with a bat. The April 3 incident occurred while the governor was changing his newborn daughter Emily's diaper.
Staffer Chris Thompson says, "The first lady wanted to express her concern." The Lockes are fine, but are receiving rabies shots.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032820/releaseinfo
IMDb
Murder in the Air (1940)
Release Info
USA 1 June 1940
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032820/fullcredits
IMDb
Murder in the Air (1940)
Full Cast & Crew
Ronald Reagan ... Brass Bancroft
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/20/world/after-war-army-blaming-patriot-s-computer-for-failure-stop-dhahran-scud.html
The New York Times
AFTER THE WAR
AFTER THE WAR; Army Is Blaming Patriot's Computer For Failure to Stop the Dhahran Scud
By ERIC SCHMITT,
Published: May 20, 1991
WASHINGTON, May 19— The Iraqi missile that slammed into an American military barracks in Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war, killing 28 people, penetrated air defenses because a computer failure shut down the American missile system designed to counter it, two Army investigations have concluded.
The Iraqi Scud missile hit the barracks in Al Khobar near Dhahran on Feb. 25, causing the war's single worst casualty toll for Americans. The allied Central Command said the next day that no Patriot missile had been fired to intercept the Scud, adding that the Scud had broken into pieces as it descended and was not identified as a threat by the Patriot radar system.
But further investigations determined that the Scud was intact when it hit the barracks, and was not detected because the Patriot's radar system was rendered inoperable by the computer failure.
"The radar system never saw the incoming missile," said Col. Bruce Garnett, who conducted one of the investigations. He recently retired as the Patriot project manager at the Army's Missile Command in Huntsville, Ala.. Support From Separate Study
The 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade at Fort Bliss, Tex., which operated all 20 Patriot batteries in Saudi Arabia, prepared a separate report that reached the same conclusions, an officer familiar with the inquiry said.
Army experts said in interviews that they knew within days that the Scud was intact when it hit, and that a technical flaw in the radar system was probably to blame.
The problem was identified and corrected in all the Patriot batteries within weeks of the attack, officials said.
The Army investigations raise questions why the Pentagon and Central Command perpetuated the explanation that the Scud broke up.
Central Command officials denied that they were aware of the Army's initial findings of computer malfunction. "It was not something we had at all," said Lieut. Col. Michael Gallagher, who was a command spokesman in Riyadh.
During the war, American military officers were reluctant to discuss any weapon failings. But even after the cease-fire, many officers were averse to say anything that might tarnish the one-sided allied victory over Baghdad's forces.
The senior Army official familiar with the investigations said the service would not comment on the inquiries until top-level service officials had reviewed the conclusions.
Family members of some of the victims of the Dhahran attack have tried to get more information from the Army but say the Pentagon has refused to release any details.
Rita Bongiorni of Hickory, Pa., whose 20-year-old son, Joseph, was killed in the attack, said she had written the Secretary of the Army, Michael P. W. Stone, for an explanation, but had received only a form letter saying a comrade was at her son's side when he died.
When Mrs. Bongiorni requested a detailed autopsy report, she said the cause of death was listed simply as "Scud attack."
"I just want to know the truth, and I'm not sure we'll ever know," Mrs. Bongiorni said in a telephone interview. "I don't feel the Army's been up front with us."
The performance of the Patriot system, hailed as one of the high-technology success stories of the war, has since undergone some re-evaluation.
Some scientists recently asserted that use of the Patriot in Israel and Saudi Arabia might actually have increased the amount of explosive debris scattered over the landscape as Patriot as well as Scud warheads fell to earth.
Nevertheless, the weapon succeeded in intercepting virtually all of the Iraqi Scuds fired toward cities or military installations during the war, and several countries are rushing to buy Patriots at a cost of about $1 million each. The sales could yield billions of dollars in new orders for its manufacturer, Raytheon.
Since the beginning of the air war on Jan. 17, Raytheon's stock has increased in value to $81.88 a share from $68.50. No Comment From Raytheon
A spokesman for Raytheon, Larry McCracken, declined to comment until the Army makes public the inquiry findings.
The Patriot's performance is also an issue in the debate over the Pentagon's proposals for a missile defense system, commonly known as "Star Wars." Backers of the program point to the Patriot's success to bolster their argument for greater spending on research and development of missile defenses.
The Patriot works by locking its ground radar on an incoming missile and relaying the signals to a computer at a control station that tracks the target's speed, trajectory and predicted course.
Using a series of complex, split-second computations, the computer calculates when to launch its missiles and, in the case of Scuds, fires two Patriots -- each with a 200-pound conventional warhead traveling at 2,000 miles an hour -- at each Scud. The Scuds travel at more than 4,000 miles per hour.
In Dhahran the night of the fatal attack, there were two Patriot batteries -- Alpha and Bravo batteries of the Second Battalion, Seventh Air Defense Artillery Regiment -- whose protective reach extended well beyond the American military barracks in nearby Al Khobar, Army investigators said.
Four hours before the Scud firing, Bravo battery was shut down to repair a radar malfunction, a senior officer in the 11th Air Defense Brigade said.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/20/world/after-war-army-blaming-patriot-s-computer-for-failure-stop-dhahran-scud.html?pagewanted=2
The New York Times
AFTER THE WAR
AFTER THE WAR; Army Is Blaming Patriot's Computer For Failure to Stop the Dhahran Scud
Published: May 20, 1991
(Page 2 of 2)
The remaining battery was thought to provide adequate protection, but multiple computer problems, including four days of continuous operation, combined to cause a shutdown just a few minutes before the Scud attack, the officer said. As the Scud streaked toward the Persian Gulf city, Patriot batteries north of Dhahran detected the incoming missile on their radars but assumed that Alpha battery in Dhahran would attack, said Colonel Garnett, the former Patriot program director.
No Patriots were fired, Army investigators said, and the Scud crashed into the barracks, killing 28 people and wounding 97 others. Focus on Computer Software
Army investigators quickly ruled out operator error or problems with the launchers, and focused on the complex computer software program, made by Raytheon, that translated signals from the functioning radar to aim and fire the Patriots.
Colonel Garnett and other senior Army officials familiar with the investigations said an unforeseen combination of "dozens" of variables -- including the Scud's speed, altitude and trajectory -- had caused the radar system's failure.
Colonel Garnett described the case as "an anomaly that never showed up in thousands of hours of testing." His comments were first published in a recent edition of The Army Times, a weekly publication.
Col. Joseph Garrett, commander of the 11th Air Defense Brigade, refused to comment on his inquiry, which has been forwarded to Lieut. Gen. John J. Yeosock, commander of Army forces in Saudi Arabia during the war.
Although investigators determined within 72 hours that a technical problem had caused the failure, Colonel Garnett said it took "several weeks" to pinpoint the precise error "buried deep" in computer tapes made of the engagement on the radar system's high-speed, digital data recorder.
He and other investigators refused to provide more details of the problem, citing the classified nature of the system. Once identified, though, the problem was easy to fix, Army investigators said, and software was replaced in all 20 batteries in the war zone.
Colonel Garnett said the Army upgraded the Patriot's software program three times during the fighting. The fine-tuning improved the system's ability to shoot down Scuds at higher altitudes -- lessening the chances that explosive debris would fall on friendly cities -- and to discriminate between the explosive warhead and other parts that broke off during an attack.
As it turned out, the Scud that fell on the barracks was the last one fired in the war.
http://myweb.lmu.edu/bjohnson/cmsi402web2/week07.html
CMSI 402: Senior Project Laboratory
Week Seven — Development and Testing
Patriot Games: Poor Software Testing Kills 23
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
During the First Gulf War, the United States' Patriot missile defense system was widely hailed as the greatest defense system since sliced bread. However, when the war was over observers began to express doubts regarding the success of the Patriot; eventually the Army determined that the Patriot succeeded in perhaps no more than 24 of 80+ attempts. Ted Postol of MIT believed the success rate was much lower than that -- perhaps as low as one successful interception.
This disagreement occurs because determining the true success rate of the Patriot is difficult, for several reasons. First, "success" is defined in many ways: destruction, damage to, and deflection of a Scud missile are all used as differing success criteria, depending on who makes the assessment. Second, the criteria used for "proof" of a "kill" may vary: in some cases soldiers made little or no investigation and assumed a kill, while in other cases they observed hard evidence of a Scud's destruction. Ted Postol arrived at his number by carefully examining filmed footage of Patriot missile intercept attempts. However, the video technology Postol used is deemed by many as inadequate to accurately capture the motions of missiles traveling at extremely high speeds. Although controversy persists to this day concerning the real effectiveness of Patriot Missiles, one thing is certain: on February 25, 1991 a Patriot failed to intercept a Scud missile which hit an American military barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In fact, no Patriot missile was even launched to intercept the Scud that day. As a result, twenty-eight people were killed and ninety-seven were injured. Why? What happened?
"COMPUTER FAILURE"
Eventually, the Army blamed this Patriot missile failure on "a software failure in the computer" as a result of "long use of the radar system". But, as was the case with the Valujet crash, many factors may have contributed to the failure of the Patriot missile to reliably perform its duty. The most likely cause of the Patriot problems was one basic aspect of its design: the Patriot was originally designed as an anti-aircraft, not as an anti-missile, defense system.
With this limited purpose in mind, the Raytheon Company designed the Patriot system with certain operational constraints built in. One such constraint was that the designers did not expect the Patriot system to operate for more than a few hours at a time -- it was expected to be used in a mobile unit rather than at a fixed location; as such it would be deployed and operated for a few hours (at most 8-10 hours at a time), then would be packed up and moved for re-deployment elsewhere. The Raytheon designers also made other decisions which later caused failures when the Army modified the Patriot for anti-missile defense.
At the time of the Scud attack on the baracks in Dhahran, the Patriot battery had been running continuously for more than 100 hours (more than 4 days). What follows is some more discussion to facilitate understanding of why extended operation would cause the Patriot to fail.
When the Patriot system is in operation, it must have a way of determining whether "targets" it finds in the air are actually incoming missiles rather than false alarms. The Patriot makes this determination by tracking the target to determine whether it is following the expected path of a ballistic missile. Ballistic missiles travel at extremely high speeds, which means that the time interval between radar "sightings" of the target must be very small. The Patriot tracks a target by first noting the location of the original radar sighting, then by using knowledge of the characteristics of a ballistic missile in flight to anticipate where the target should be at the next radar sighting, a fraction of a second later. If, at the second radar sighting, the target does not appear in the "range gate," the calculated zone in which the target will appear if it is a ballistic missile, then it is classified a false alarm and subsequently ignored by the Patriot.
In order to make this path calculation, the Patriot depends on its internal clock. Because the memory available to the program was limited, the clock value was truncated slightly when stored. By itself, this would not have been likely to cause significant errors; however, the Patriot's software was written so that the error compounded over time. The longer the Patriot was running, the larger the error becomes. The Israeli military, in analyzing data from Patriot batteries operating in Israel, were the first to discover the clock drift error. They calculated that after only 8 hours of continuous operation, the Patriot's stored clock value would be off by 0.0275 seconds, causing an error in range gate calculation of approximately 55 meters. At the time of the Dhahran attack, the Patriot battery in that area had been operating continuously for more than 100 hours, so its stored clock value was 0.3433 seconds off, causing the range gate to be shifted 687 meters, a very large distance at missle speeds. The result was the Patriot was looking for the target in the wrong place, and consequently, the target did not appear where the Patriot incorrectly calculated it should. The Patriot classified the incoming Scud as a false alarm and ignored it completely, with disastrous results.
Here's the sad part. On February 11, 1991 (two weeks before the disasterous attack), after determining the effect of the error over time, the Israelis notified the U.S. Patriot project office of the problem. Once they were notified, the programming team set to work solving the problem. "Within a few days, the Patriot project office made a software fix correcting the timing error, and sent it out to the troops on February 16, 1991". Sadly, at the time of the Dhahran attack, the software update had not been implemented at that location. That update, which arrived in Dhahran the day after the attack, might have saved the lives of those in the barracks. In the meantime, Raytheon had sent out a warning that "'very long run times' could affect the targeting accuracy". On the day of the Dhahran attack, two Patriot batteries were deployed to cover the Dhahran area. However, the Bravo battery was having trouble with its radar, a problem unrelated to the clock drift error, so the Alpha battery had been running continuously for four days to provide uninterrupted coverage over Dhahran. In addition, the phrase "very long run times" was not specifically defined so the Patriot operators could not know that they were operating under dangerous conditions when the attack occurred.
A final question to be answered is why did the programmer allow a software error which propagates over time, causing significant errors in range calculation? The probable answer is, again, that the system was designed to be mobile, and to defend against aircraft which move much more slowly than do ballistic missiles. Because the system was intended to be mobile, it was expected that the computer would be periodically rebooted -- certainly in less than 14 hours. As a result, any clock drift error would not be propagated over extended periods and would not cause significant errors in range calculation. In fact, because the Patriot system was not intended to run for extended times, it was probably never even tested under those conditions, explaining why the problem was not discovered until the war was in progress. The other consideration, that the system was designed as an anti-aircraft system, probably also enabled the inclusion of such a design flaw, since slower-moving airplanes would be easier to track and therefore less dependent upon a highly accurate clock value.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 12:45 AM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Saturday 24 September 2016
