by me, Kerry Burgess, 04/19/2025
"too many launches already"
"It turned out that day was already busy with launches"
Continues, 05/20/2025
From 6/5/1987 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, my official enlisted US Navy documents includes: Earned NEC 1189 - Based on graduation from the Terrier Mk 152 Guided-missiles Fire Control Computers Complex course - Naval Guided Missiles School, Dam Neck, Virginia Beach, Virginia, US Navy - leading to permanent assignment until 1990 to CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computers Complex (UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance), USS Wainwright CG-28, US Navy, while enlisted paygrade E-5, designated Fire Controlman Petty Officer Second Class (FC2) ) To 5/20/2025 ( ) is 13864 days
13864 = 6932 + 6932
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 10/25/1984 ( as Kerry Burgess my official US Navy documents includes: "You received CO's NJP for this offense"- Unauthorized Absence from class from 6 AM to 8 AM - Service School Command, Orlando Florida - Basic Electricity & Electronics School, US Navy Electronics Technician (ET) formal course of instruction ) is 6932 days
From 7/5/1988 ( from Los Angeles Times newspaper, by Tom Clancy : "Now, Something Worse in the Gulf Than War: What if You Do Everything Right and End Up Killing 300 Civilians?" ) To 5/20/2025 ( ) is 13468 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 9/17/2002 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Big Deals: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly"::"Microsoft" ) is 13468 days
Los Angeles Times
(Page 2 of 2)
Now, Something Worse in the Gulf Than War : What if You Do Everything Right and End Up Killing 300 Civilians?
July 05, 1988 TOM CLANCY Tom Clancy is the author of "Red Storm Rising" and the coming "Cardinal of the Kremlin."
Put yourself in the captain's place. U.S. ships have been attacked by aircraft in the gulf, at the cost of American lives. You have one battle under way, and now there is a new potential threat. It's heading toward you at 450 knots. Not so long ago, another U.S. Navy cruiser shot it out with air and surface units at the same time.
From 11/20/1985 ( as Kerry Burgess my official enlisted US Navy documents includes: advancement from US Navy enlisted paygrade E-3 (undesignated) to E-4 - Fire Controlman Petty Officer Third Class (FC3) - US Navy fleet ship weapons-control - USS Taylor FFG-50, US Navy ) To 5/20/2025 ( ) is 14426 days
14426 = 7213 + 7213
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 8/2/1985 ( premiere USA film "Weird Science" ) is 7213 days
From 11/20/1985 ( debut Microsoft Windows 1.0 ) To 5/20/2025 ( ) is 14426 days
14426 = 7213 + 7213
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 8/2/1985 ( premiere USA film "Weird Science" ) is 7213 days
From 11/9/2007 ( ) To 5/20/2025 ( ) is 6402 days
6402 = 3201 + 3201
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 8/8/1974 ( Richard Nixon, 37th President of USA: Address to the Nation Announcing Decision To Resign the Office of President of the United States ) is 3201 days
https://www.yahoo.com/news/america-ignores-wars-soldiers-except-090212587.html
America ignores its wars and soldiers, except for useless hero-worship. Our deaths cost nothing.
Steven Kerns
Sun, August 22, 2021, 2:02 AM
It was a brisk morning on Nov. 9, 2007. I was stationed at Bella, a U.S. Army outpost in eastern Afghanistan. Two of our squads were returning from patrol, less than a mile away. The Taliban ambushed them. As other soldiers and I fended off the Taliban’s assault on our base, we heard our ambushed brothers shouting over our radios. We were ordered to stay, to protect the base. Strategy, we were told. I listened to the Taliban murder my friends.
We held a memorial service a few days later. Immediately after: Move on, we were told, we’ve got patrol. We buried our fallen that day; we put our humanity into the ground too.
Even as teenagers and 20-somethings, we understood. This war was unwinnable. I questioned then as I question now: Did my friends die for nothing? Is our blood that cheap?
Our foes in Afghanistan clarified why it was unwinnable. Intercepted radio chatter confirmed we fought Afghanis, Pakistanis, and Chechens. We got the impression the Chechens fought us to train against the Russians. And, aside from Afghanistan’s immense rare earth metal deposits, China is likely going to officially recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government because Chinese leaders will want to avoid a proxy war on their border. Smart.
Afghanistan remains a proxy war battleground. The graveyard of empires.
Invisible in Afghanistan
I returned to Los Angeles on midtour leave in 2008. Surprised acquaintances would ask: We’re still in Afghanistan? I should tell them about my unit, I thought. No running water. Choking down expired food. Killing and eating mountainside animals. Burning our waste. All while defense firms charged us for meals in inaccessible kitchens. Yes. We were still there, but we had become invisible.
America’s civil-military divide enables us to comfortably ignore our wars. This is easily proven: Ask an American how many countries we are bombing. Few know. Or look to the lack of national response when the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had long manipulated information to justify continuing our war in Afghanistan. The blood of our wars is cheap. This devaluation of life is a creature of privilege – and it is lethal.
Veteran: Enough with America's 'thank you for your service' culture. It's betrayal, not patriotism.
Our civil-military divide is simple. The military is a family affair. Less than 1% of Americans serve in the military, many of them have family who served. Of that 1%, about 10% have seen combat, perhaps only once. We ask the few to execute the foreign policy of the many, call them heroes, and then ignore them – like during COVID-19's outbreak. This strategy made a 20-year war politically affordable and financially profitable.
Winners and losers
Since Sept. 11, 2001, America’s top five defense firms’ stock values have soared, an analysis by The Intercept found. Boeing’s stock value has increased 974.97%. Lockheed Martin’s? 1,235.6%. The defense stocks outperformed the stock market by 58% since 2001. America’s defense industry won our tax dollars, some taxpayers felt we avenged 9/11, others settled for detachment, but the Taliban won Afghanistan. Is this the outcome America asked my friends to die for?
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 3:03 PM Pacific-timezone USA Tuesday 05/20/2025
