Whatever is happening up there has seemed to occur within only the past two months.
As I noted here before in recent days the images I captured last year of the same area do not exhibit any changes in color during this time of year.
Too much fog today to check again. I have been wondering if there is a rapid die-off going on there and if what I have recently observed will only worsen. Should be especially visible in the upcoming months because the frequent snow of average winters around here and the wind will strip off the dead conifer leaves.
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http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/79701/Clancy_-_Red_Storm_Rising.txt
Red Storm Rising (1986)
Tom Clancy
6 – The Watchers
SHPOLA, THE UKRAINE
The crashing sound of the 125mm tank gun was enough to strip the hair off your head, Alekseyev thought, but after five hours of running this exercise, it came through his ear protectors as a dull ringing sound. This morning the ground had been covered with grass and dotted with new saplings, but now it was a uniform wasteland of mud, marked only with the tread marks of T-80 main battle tanks and BMP armored infantry fighting vehicles. Three times the regiment had run this exercise, simulating a frontal assault of tanks and mounted infantry against an enemy of equal strength. Ninety mobile guns had supplied fire support, along with a battery of rocket launchers. Three times.
Alekseyev turned, removing his helmet and earmuffs to look at the regimental commander. "A Guards regiment, eh, Comrade Colonel? Elite soldiers of the Red Army? These tit-sucking children couldn't guard a Turkish whorehouse, much less do anything worthwhile inside of it! And what have you been doing for the past four years commanding this rolling circus, Comrade Colonel? You have learned to kill your whole command three times! Your artillery observers are not located properly. Your tanks and infantry carriers still can't coordinate their movements, and your tank gunners can't find targets three meters high! If that had been a NATO force holding that ridge, you and your command would be dead!" Alekseyev examined the colonel's face. His demeanor was changing from red-fear to white-anger. Good. "The loss of these people is no great penalty for the State, but that is valuable equipment, burning valuable fuel, shooting valuable ordnance, and taking up my valuable time! Comrade Colonel, I must leave you now. First I will throw up. Then I will fly to my command post. I will be back. When I come back, we will run this exercise again. Your men will perform properly, Comrade Colonel, or you will spend the rest of your miserable life counting trees!"
Alekseyev stomped off, not even acknowledging the colonel's salute. His adjutant, a full colonel of tank troops, held open the door and got in behind his boss.
"Shaping up rather well, eh?" Alekseyev asked.
"Not well enough, but there has been progress," the colonel allowed. "They have only another six weeks before they have to start moving west."
It was the wrong thing to say. Alekseyev had spent two weeks chivvying this division toward combat readiness, only to learn the day before that it had been allocated to Germany instead of toward his own as-yet incomplete plan to descend into Iraq and Iran. Already four divisions-all of his elite Guards tank units-had been taken away, and each change in CINC-Southwest's order of battle forced him to restructure his own plan for the Gulf An endless circle. He was being forced to select less-ready units, forcing Alekseyev to devote more time to unit training and less time to the plan that had to be completed in another two weeks.
"Those men are going to have a very busy six weeks. What about the commander?" the colonel asked.
Alekseyev shrugged. "He's been in this job too long. Forty-five is too old for this kind of command, and he reads his fucking parade manuals too much instead of going out in the field. But a good man. Too good to be sent counting trees." Alekseyev chuckled heavily. It was a Russian saying that dated back to the czars. People exiled to Siberia were said to have nothing to do but count trees. Another of the things Lenin had changed. Now people in the Gulag had plenty to do.
From 12/25/1991 ( as United States Marine Corps chief warrant officer Kerry Wayne Burgess I was prisoner of war in Croatia ) To 8/17/1994 is 966 days
966 = 483 + 483
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 2/28/1967 ( Lyndon Johnson - Statement by the President Upon Recommending Development of a Nuclear-Powered Rocket Engine and New Nuclear Research Facilities ) is 483 days
From 7/4/1976 ( at extreme personal risk to himself my biological brother Thomas Reagan the civilian and privately financed astronaut in his privately financed atom-pulse propulsion spaceship successfully intercepts the Comet Lucifer in the outer solar system and diverts it away from the planet Earth ) To 8/17/1994 is 6618 days
6618 = 3309 + 3309
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 11/24/1974 ( Gerald Ford - Joint United States-Soviet Statement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms ) is 3309 days
[ See also: http://hvom.blogspot.com/2016/09/debt-of-honor-1994.html ]
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1994_1219067
Snippets
Staff, wire reports
MON 08/08/1994
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Another Clancy tale
If the ground rumbles Aug. 17, it may be because an estimated 2 million copies of Tom Clancy's new yarn, "Debt of Honor" (Putnam), are scheduled to be laid down in stores.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199753/quotes
IMDb
Red Planet (2000)
Quotes
Dr. Quinn Burchenal: Short time to live, long time to wait.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 3:41 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Thursday 27 October 2016
