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.
Los Angeles Times
Bomb Blows Up Van Driven by Wife of Vincennes' Capt. : She Escapes Injury; Iran Link Sought
March 10, 1989 From Times Wire Services
SAN DIEGO — A bomb today destroyed a van driven by the wife of Capt. Will Rogers, commander of the cruiser Vincennes which mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner, killing all 290 people aboard.
Police immediately took security measures to guard the wife, Sharon Rogers, who was unhurt, and her husband, fearing they might be the targets of a terrorist attack in retaliation for the shooting down of the airliner.
The van had stopped at a red light in suburban La Jolla when the initial explosion occurred. Mrs. Rogers jumped out before the van burst into flames and ran up an embankment to ask construction workers for help.
A second explosion then destroyed the van, police said.
Mrs. Rogers was "just shook up. She had had a bunch of kids in the van yesterday and she was upset because anyone in the back of the van wouldn't have made it," said Police Officer George Sykes.
Police said initially that the woman had been taken to a hospital, but reported later she and her husband, who had not been riding in the van, were being kept for their own safety at a nearby police station.
Security Arrangements Made
"Some other security arrangements are being made," a police spokesman, Bill Robinson, added, without giving details. But neighbors of the Rogerses said police immediately searched the family's house and evacuated homes nearby, presumably precautions in case a bomb had been planted in the house.
Police said the remains of a pipe bomb that had been attached to the van's undercarriage were found in the ruins. They said they had no suspects, but the FBI and naval investigators were helping in the investigation.
"There was a vehicle that was observed in the area at the time of the detonation, and we're looking into that right now," said FBI spokesman Ronald Orrantia.
Rogers is still captain of the Vincennes, which mistakenly shot down an Iran Airbus in the Persian Gulf last July 3.
The crew of the Vincennes was said by naval authorities to have mistaken the airliner for what it believed was an attacking Iranian F-14 fighter.
A Navy investigative panel cleared Rogers of any culpability but recommended censuring Lt. Cmdr. Scott E. Lustig, who was coordinating the Vincennes' anti-aircraft systems.
Overruled by Carlucci
Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci later overruled that recommendation and Adm. William J. Crowe decided to take no action against any member of the ship's crew.
The Ronald Reagan Administration defended the decision but offered to compensate the victims' families. Tehran radio said at the time the attack would be "avenged in the same blood-spattered sky over the Gulf."
In Washington today, Navy officials at the Pentagon said they were unaware of any threats against Rogers or his family, but were awaiting additional reports from San Diego.
On Dec. 21 a Pan Am jetliner was blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 on the ground.
Iran denied any involvement in that blast, but a telephone caller said a group called the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution blew up the plane to avenge the shooting down of the Iran Airbus.
https://cp.spokanecounty.org/courtdocumentviewer/imageviewers/SCDocumentViewer.aspx?docid=12708182&caseNumber=2611023532&subNum=2.0&pageNum=7
From 3/10/1989 ( ) To 8/1/2026 ( ) is 13658 days
13658 = 6829 + 6829
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 7/14/1984 ( ) is 6829 days
From 3/26/2003 ( ) To 8/1/2026 ( ) is 8529 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/10/1989 ( ) is 8529 days
From: Kerry Burgess
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2018, 2:54:31 AM PDT
Subject: Orlando
You sent me that photo of you and me from that day I graduated US Navy basic training in Orlando Florida in July 1984.
Do you have anyway of knowing the precise date that photo of us was taken?
I also want to know if you know the precise date we all were at the Disney park in Orlando.
My official military records tell me I left basic training on July 16th but I don't think that was the date we graduated.
My guess is we were at Disney on the 14th or the 15th. Graduation was a Friday if I remember correctly and that might have been the 13th.
From 3/3/1959 ( the birthdate in Hawaii of my biological brother Thomas Reagan ) To 7/14/1984 ( ) is 9265 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate and possibly - or something - the date of the top-secret, doctorate-degree credential from Princeton University, I can theorize only ) is 9265 days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPiTvmPGsY8
Space Mountain - 2025 POV - Disneyland Rides
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087597/quotes
IMDb
The Last Starfighter (1984)
Quotes
Centauri: Alex! Alex! You're walking away from history! *History*! Did Chris Columbus say he wanted to stay home? Nooooo. What if the Wright Brothers thought that only birds should fly? And did Galoka think the Ulus were too ugly to save?
Alex Rogan: Who's Galoka?
Centauri: [beat] Never mind.
Alex Rogan: Listen, Centauri, I'm not any of those guys. I'm a kid from a trailer park.
Centauri: If that's what you think, then that's all you'll ever be!
From 2/6/1911 ( Ronald Reagan ) To 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 warship weapons-control - USS Taylor FFG-50, US Navy ) is 27316 days
27316 = 13658 + 13658
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/26/2003 ( ) is 13658 days
From 2/6/1911 ( Ronald Reagan ) To 11/20/1985 ( with no meaningful contribution to that product or any other product, past or future, by Bill Gates, debut Microsoft Windows 1.0 ) is 27316 days
27316 = 13658 + 13658
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/26/2003 ( ) is 13658 days
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/02/04/brian_williams_helicopter_rpg_story_anchor_recants_claim_to_have_been_aboard.html
Slate
FEB. 4 2015 6:47 PM
Brian Williams Still Has a Lot of Questions to Answer About His Iraq Helicopter Story
By Ben Mathis-Lilley
Update, 11:00 p.m.: Brian Williams apologized on-air tonight for claiming that he was in a helicopter hit by an RPG in Iraq, but the version of events he gives in his apology is vague in a way that avoids addressing the main accusation of the soldiers quoted in Stars and Stripes questioning his accounts of events. Those soldiers, in Stars and Stripes' telling, say that not only was Williams not in a helicopter that was hit by an RPG, but that he was nowhere near the helicopters that were actually fired upon.
Said Williams tonight: "I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago. … I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. We all landed after the ground fire incident." Williams' apology is reminiscent of his original reporting on the incident in 2003, which the Washington Post's Erik Wemple has located and posted. Stars and Stripes wrote today that Williams—post-apology—still believes that this initial account is accurate.
In the initial account (given on both the Nightly News and a Dateline episode on March 26, 2003), Williams clearly states that he was part of a group of helicopters that was fired upon while performing a mission:
We are one of four Chinook helicopters flying north this morning, third in line. As we head toward the drop point the Iraqi landscape looks quiet. We can see a convoy of American troop carriers and supply vehicles heading north. This 2003 account, like Williams' apology, implies the helicopters landed together after ground fire:
All four choppers dropped their load and landed immediately.
However, Stars and Stripes' piece says unequivocally that Williams' helicopter was not part of the group that was fired upon—not third in line, and not part of the line at all.
... Crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.
The soldiers quoted by Stars and Stripes say that they recall being upset at the time by the inaccuracies in this 2003 version of events.
It's also worth noting that, in his 2003 account, Williams says he knew about the ground fire because of "radio traffic" and from information he learned "on the ground." However, in 2007 and 2008 blog posts on the incident, Williams speaks as if he saw the fire himself:
Wayne and I were riding along as part of an Army mission to deliver bridge components to the Euphrates River, so that the invading forces of the 3rd Infantry could cross the river on their way to Bagdhad. We came under fire by what appeared to be Iraqi farmers with RPG's and AK-47's. The Chinook helicopter flying in front of ours (from the 101st Airborne) took an RPG to the rear rotor, as all four of our low-flying Chinooks took fire.
In his apology statement today, Williams said that re-reading his 2008 post helped him remember what had actually happened. But his 2007-2008 versions of events don't seem to be in line with Stars and Stripes' account or his own disputed 2003 account.
I've reached out to an NBC Nightly News representative about the continuing inconsistensies and will post any response they make.
Original post, 6:45 p.m.: NBC News anchor Brian Williams has recanted a claim, made on air on Jan. 30, that he was aboard a helicopter in Iraq that was hit by rocket-propelled grenade fire—but his recantation itself is still at odds with the version of events given by soldiers.
In the course of introducing a Jan. 30 segment about a veteran he'd met in Iraq, Williams said that the helicopter he was traveling in during a 2003 trip to Iraq "was forced down after being hit by an RPG." In a new statement, Williams admitted that he was not on the helicopter that was hit, writing that he did not mean to dissemble and believes he confused his memory of the situation because he'd watched footage (taken by the NBC crew he was with) of the damaged helicopter multiple times.
However, Williams says he was reminded of the true version of events by reading a 2008 blog post he'd written which helped him remember that he was a passenger in "the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG." In that post, Williams says that his helicopter and the one that was hit were flying together and implies that they were all forced down at once, writing that he himself saw "what appeared to be Iraqi farmers with RPG's and AK-47's."
According to the soldiers interviewed by Stars and Stripes, though, Williams' Chinook was nowhere near the fire and actually landed next to the fired-upon helicopters because of a sandstorm.
Williams and his camera crew were actually aboard a Chinook in a formation that was about an hour behind the three helicopters that came under fire, according to crew member interviews.
That Chinook took no fire and landed later beside the damaged helicopter due to an impending sandstorm from the Iraqi desert, according to Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Miller, who was the flight engineer on the aircraft that carried the journalists.
Williams made similar claims in a 2007 post, writing that the four helicopters took fire and landed together.
NBC also broadcast a segment on March 26, 2003 titled “Target Iraq: Helicopter NBC’s Brian Williams Was Riding In Comes Under Fire."
No footage of that segment has yet surfaced, but three soldiers interviewed by Stars and Stripes say they watched it and recall that it involved the false claim that Williams' helicopter had come under fire.
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 8/1/1971 ( premiere USA film "The Omega Man" ) is 2098 days
4196 = 2098 + 2098
From 9/13/1977 ( ) To 3/10/1989 ( ) is 4196 days
From 9/18/1947 ( Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America begins active-duty ) To 6/1/1994 ( from internet: Sydnee Scofield - previously referenced ) is 17058 days
17058 = 8529 + 8529
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/10/1989 ( ) is 8529 days
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 04:31 AM Pacific-timezone USA Wednesday 08/05/2026
