excerpt
Washington Post
Crusade
The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War
By Rick Atkinson
Houghton Mifflin Company, 520pp. $16
Chapter One: First Night
U.S.S. Wisconsin, Persian Gulf
Now it was the Navy's turn to be surprised. Again communications broke down: planners on the Navy flagship U.S.S. Blue Ridge learned of the White House prohibition less than four hours before the first launch was to take place. With frantic haste the Blue Ridge planners cut new orders, redistributing the Mediterranean shooters' targets to ships in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, thus increasing the workload of each task force by a third.
On Wisconsin, where the scheduled launch time was now just moments away, the men in Strike were running out of solutions. "All right," Lieutenant Zanti announced, "we'll start from the beginning." The data for the eight Wisconsin shots -- three pages of detailed coding for each missile -- would be retyped into the computer. The task was tedious and time-consuming. He turned to Captain Bill and the ship's weapons officer.
"Sir, we need to ask for more time," Zanti told Bill. "If we don't get an extension, we can't shoot."
The captain agreed. As the request flashed up the chain of command to Blue Ridge, an excited voice from one of Gulf Papa's nearby shooters crackled through Strike over the radio intercom: "Alpha, alpha. This is the Paul F. Foster. Happy trails."
From 3/18/2013 ( ) To 9/4/2026 ( ) is 4918 days
4918 = 2459 + 2459
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 7/27/1972 ( first flight McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle jet-fighter ) is 2459 days
Red Storm Rising (1986) - by Tom Clancy, author
excerpt, Chapter 17
The Mainstay would not have a chance. The Frisbee would not begin to climb until she was directly underneath the target. Fourteen miles. Twelve. Ten. Eight. Six miles to the converted air transport.
"The Mainstay just reversed her turn-yeah, she's jinking. A Foxfire just swept over us," Eisly said evenly. A MiG-25 interceptor, presumably acting on instructions from the IL-76, was now searching for them. With its high power and small arc, the Foxfire stood a good chance of acquiring them, Stealth technology or not. "The Mainstay might have us."
"Anything locked on us?"
"Not yet." Eisly's eyes were glued to the threat-receiver instruments. No missile-control radars had centered on the Frisbee yet. "Coming under the target."
"Right. Climbing now." Ellington eased back on his stick and punched up full afterburners. The Frisbee's engines could only give him Mach 1.3, but this was the place to use all the power he had. According to the weather people, these clouds topped out at twenty thousand feet, and the IL-76 would be about five thousand above that. Now the Frisbee was vulnerable. No longer lost in the ground clutter, her engines radiating their maximum signature, the Stealth aircraft was broadcasting her presence. Climb faster, baby . . .
"Tallyho!" Ellington said too loudly over the intercom as he burst through the clouds, and the night-vision systems instantly showed him the Mainstay, five miles away and diving for cover in front of him. Too late. The head-on closing speed was nearly a thousand miles per hour. The colonel centered his gunsight pipper on the target. A warbling tone came into his headset: the Sidewinders' seekers had locked onto the target. His right thumb toggled the launch-enable switch, and his forefinger squeezed the trigger twice. The Sidewinders left the aircraft half a second apart. Their brilliant exhaust flames dazzled him, but he did not take his eyes off the missiles as they raced for the target. It took eight seconds. He looked them all the way in. Both missiles angled for the Mainstay's starboard wing. Thirty feet away, laser proximity fuses detonated, filling the air with lethal fragments. It happened too fast. Both of the Mainstay's right-side engines exploded, the wing came off, and the Soviet aircraft began cartwheeling violently downward, lost seconds later in the clouds.
Jesus! Ellington thought as he rolled and dived back to the ground and safety. Nothing like the movies. The target was hit and gone between blinks. Well, okay, that was easy enough. Primary target gone. Now for the hard part . . .
Aboard an E-3A Sentry circling over Strasbourg, the radar technicians noted with satisfaction that all five Soviet radar craft had been killed within two minutes: it all worked, the F-19 really did surprise them.
The brigadier general in command of Operation Dreamland leaned forward in his command chair and toggled his microphone.
"Trumpeter, Trumpeter, Trumpeter," he said, then switched off. "Okay, boys," he breathed. "Make it count."
Amid the clouds of NATO tactical fighters hovering near the border, a hundred low-level attack fighters broke clear and dove for the ground. Half were F-111F Aardvarks, the other half "GR. I " Tornados, their wings heavy with fuel tanks and smart bombs. They followed the second wave of Frisbees, already sixty miles into East Germany, fanning out to their ground targets. Behind the strike aircraft, all-weather Eagle and Phantom interceptors, directed by the Sentries circling over the Rhein, began to launch their radar-guided missiles at Soviet fighters that had just lost their airborne controllers. Finally, a third team of NATO aircraft swooped in low, seeking out the ground radar sites that were coming on to replace the radar coverage of the dead Mainstays.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691027241/the-significance-of-consciousness
IMDb
The Six Million Dollar Man
The Bionic Woman Part II (1975)
Quotes
Jamie Sommers: Tell me something?
Col. Steve Austin: Anything.
Jamie Sommers: We're gonna live happily ever after, aren't we?
Col. Steve Austin: You bet. Here's to us.
[they clink]
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.
Google Books
A Sailor's History of the U.S. Navy
By Thomas Cutler
As they continued to work, Molck heard approaching footsteps on the deck above; the sound reminded him of that April day in 1988 when he had heard the pounding of feet along the steel passageways as the Sailors in Wainwright's crew rushed to their battle stations.
In the dimly lit missile plot room, Petty Officer Richard Molck listened intently as reports of the approaching Iranian fast attack craft Joshan continued to flow in. Four times, the Americans had warned the Iranians to turn back. But Joshan continued to close on Wainwright and the other ships of SAG Charlie.
Up in CIC, Operations Specialist Second Class Tom Ross, who had been serving in Wainwright since 1985, heard the captain tell all to brace themselves and felt his heart thumping in his chest. He remembered that an earlier Iranian propaganda broadcast had warned that the Americans would "never leave the Persian Gulf alive."
Out on deck, Doug Brewer actually saw the Harpoon as it roared toward his ship. He fervently hoped the Harpoon's acquisition radar would prefer the fluttering chaff "tinfoil" to the ship beneath his feet.
From the starboard bridge wing, Jon Fischman watched as the missile grew larger at a very rapid rate. At less than one hundred feet, he could see the lettering on the its side, and he realized that he would not be seeing letters if the missile were coming straight at him.
Inside CIC, Tom Ross felt the bulkheads rattle as the Harpoon roared down the ship's starboard side, close aboard. It was a moment he was not likely ever to forget.
Brewster was most relieved where he saw the missile plunge into the sea astern of the ship, hitting just fifty to seventy-five yards from Wainwright. As Palmer later wrote, "In a literal sense, Wainwright had 'dodged a bullet.'"
With the roar of the missile still echoing in CIC, rapid but disciplined orders and reports filled the air: "Whiskey, this is Alfa Whiskey. Red and free!"
"Fire SWC!"
"Birds affirm."
"Birds away on hostile track 1077."
Again, the bulkheads rattled as several surface-to-surface missiles left Wainwright's rails in retaliation. The other ships in SAG Charlie - frigates Simpson and Bagley - opened fire as well.
Wainwright's trial by fire was not yet over
https://www.usswainwright.org/persian-gulf-10-87-to-7-88-by-jeff-leaverton/#iLightbox[gallery-1]/36
USS Vincennes CG-49
USS Wainwright Veterans Association
From 7/3/1988 ( Iran reports destruction mid-air of Iran Air Flight 655, blamed on guided-missiles from USS Vincennes, US Navy ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 3428 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/23/1975 ( 3/23/1975 ( premiere USA TV series episode "The Six Million Dollar Man"::"The Bionic Woman - Part 2" ) is 3428 days
From 6/29/1995 ( Mir space station docking of the United States space shuttle Atlantis orbiter vehicle mission STS-71 and for me after 05/10/2006: includes me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps commissioned-officer and United States STS-71 pilot astronaut and my 3rd official United States of America National Aeronautics Space Administration orbital flight of 4 overall ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 876 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 3/27/1968 ( Yuri Gagarin killed in aircraft crash ) is 876 days
From 8/8/1974 ( Richard Nixon, 37th president of USA federal government 1969-1974: Address to the Nation Announcing Decision To Resign the Office of President of the United States ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 8506 days
From 11/2/1965 ( me ) To 2/15/1989 ( George Bush, 41st president of USA federal government 1989-1993: Remarks to the South Carolina State Legislature in Columbia AND Nomination of Richard J. Kerr To Be Deputy Director of Central Intelligence ) is 8506 days
From 12/21/1952 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Victory at Sea"::"Mare Nostrum" ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 16406 days
16406 = 8203 + 8203
From 11/2/1965 ( me ) To 4/18/1988 ( as me, Kerry Burgess, while enlisted paygrade E-5, designated Fire Controlman Petty Officer Second Class (FC2), from my official enlisted US Navy records: during USA Armed Forces Expeditionary Operation Earnest Will with my personal participation and commendation - CF-division, Missile Plot - guided-missiles Fire Control Computers Complex (expert technician for all maintenance and operations, down to printed-circuit-board component level diagnosis and repair, UNIVAC digital-computers Mk152 Terrier System for, primarily, SM2-ER {Extended Range} Standard Missiles ordnance) - aboard the USS Wainwright CG-28 US Navy the United States Operation Praying Mantis ) is 8203 days
From 10/12/1989 ( as Kerry Burgess my official US Navy documents includes: Sea Service Deployment Ribbon - for me, 1989 October 12 to 1990 January 09 - Mediterranean Sea, CF-division, Missile Plot ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 2962 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 12/12/1973 ( premiere USA film "The Last Detail" ) is 2962 days
From 9/23/1957 ( premiere US TV series episode "Tales of Wells Fargo"::"Apache Gold" ) To 10/12/1989 ( see above ) is 11707 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 11707 days
From 10/28/1967 ( Julia Roberts ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 10982 days
10982 = 5491 + 5491
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 11/14/1980 ( premiere USA film "Raging Bull" ) is 5491 days
From 2/17/1950 ( Harry Truman, 33rd president of USA federal government 1945-1953: Executive Order 10111 - Establishing a Seal for the Central Intelligence Agency ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 17444 days
17444 = 8722 + 8722
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 9/19/1989 ( premiere USA TV series "Doogie Howser, M.D." ) is 8722 days
To 5/21/1969 ( described publicly only by me: the Princeton University doctor of medicine degree graduation of my biological brother Dr Thomas Reagan MD and the 1973 law-doctorate graduate of University of Oxford, England ) From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) is 1296 days
2592 = 1296 + 1296
From 10/17/1990 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Doogie Howser, M.D."::"Doogie Sings the Blues" ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 2592 days
From 5/21/1969 ( described publicly only by me: the Princeton University doctor of medicine degree graduation of my biological brother Dr Thomas Reagan MD and the 1973 law-doctorate graduate of University of Oxford, England ) To 11/21/1997 ( ) is 10411 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 5/5/1994 ( premiere US TV series episode "The Simpsons"::"The Boy Who Knew Too Much" ) is 10411 days
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
KIRK: Absent friends.
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 09:22 AM Pacific-timezone USA Friday 09/04/2026
