Posted on 06/15/2014 8:40:26 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
”So we could’ve gone down there and gotten them easily,” retired USAF Major Eric Stahl told FoxNews.com this week. (1) A one and one half hour prep time and a 3 hour and 15 minute flight into the Benghazi hot zone were their real time statistics. Already on stand-by alert for high priority missions at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, THEY WERE NEVER CALLED by the White House! That fact stands out in the Bret Baier interview which the outstanding US airman gave on live air. Just imagine that stunning revelation given by Maj. Stahl who also said he was NEVER INTERVIEWED by the Obama administrations’ Accountability Review Board.
Other details of the ineptness and incompetence of the Obama White House are emerging and include not allowing the FBI to interview CIA security officers when the Stahl C-17 touched down at Ramstein. Philip D. Murphy, senior State Department diplomat to Germany, whisked the Benghazi survivors away to do the de-brief. So was this mess more than mere incompetence? Did Murphy just have to be the first one to handle the survivors in order to reconstruct this horrible tragedy into the pitiful and insulting story line of an anti-Islamic video protest?
Major Stahl’s crew was under such urgent danger as they loaded the corpses of US Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods onto the military aircraft that they weren’t allowed...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Thank you, sir.
“You should make sure you know what you are talking about when you attack. In this case, you are very foolish.
...
you are wrong to imply it is made up ... (Or at the very least, be noble and let him know someone is using his name).
...
Are you a fighter pilot? No, you are not. You have no idea what you are talking about, neither do your ‘friends.’
If they haven’t heard of him it is because they are truly not in that world. ...”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
How precious. The fighter pilotry wails in dismay if someone dares to point out the Emperor ain’t wearing much.
The fighter mafia has always believed it’s the center of the known universe. May other members of the forum pardon my yawns; it’s precisely what I came to expect. What remains unexplained is why so many who are not fighter pilots continue to worship at their feet. When one attempts to divine what virtue lies in such self-abasement, the imagination balks.
I know more about every fighter system and subsystem that has been in inventory since 1960, than I really care to. Lots of stuff I cannot forget, much as I might wish.
Don’t know what Hulka’s background is, but I’d give odds that he doesn’t hold multiple advanced degrees in aero engineering, propulsion engineering, electrical engineering, explosives engineering, interior and exterior ballistics, survivability/vulnerability analysis, computer science, digital signal processing, control theory, radar engineering, communications engineering, data collection, stochastic analysis, and other fields of study I cannot succinctly summarize just now. Perhaps he can bone up on a few of the basics in a couple of those areas, and then tell us why he deserves the credibility he’s already laid claim to.
Hulka has made a common error: conflating battlefield prowess with good character. And with the ability to lead. He breezily assumes items Two and Three follow item One as night follows day.
I concede the truth of Hulka’s guess: I am not a fighter pilot. His response is hardly unprecedented; I confess I’ve always been mildly amused that the fighter pilotry - believing themselves so greatly superior to all others at all times, in all circumstances and all venues - react with an outrage so predictable it’s become tiresome, when one of us lesser mortals fails to bend the knee.
If we are so unimportant, how could they deign to care what we think?
From the early 1980s until the late 1990s, duty demanded my presence at a great many events and activities that involved fighter pilots (plus a pretty fair cross section of all USAF technical specialties, our opposite numbers from every other US DoD service component, every intelligence organization in the national security establishment, and fellow functionaries from a number of allied nations).
Working with fighter pilots was unavoidable much of the time. I did so on a daily basis, for weeks on end. They demanded the most deference, the most attention, for the least justifiable reasons, even as they brought less value to the table than anyone else.
Bad enough at first blush. More disturbingly, the conclusion I reached - at great length and with more than a little reluctance - was that the rest of us could never be sure when a fighter pilot was lying, and when he wasn’t. I witnessed fighter pilots perpetrating a sufficient number of dishonorable acts, that I now judge them guilty until proven innocent.
So it does not really matter if Col Handley exists or not. Still less does it matter what I think, minor cog that I was. Hulka is free to bluster as much as it pleases him.
Abjurations to “be noble” merely sound silly. Wouldn’t do any good if I tried; I’d simply get run over, backstabbed, cheated, stonewalled, and lied to. Again.
I see a lots of degrees posted here. Are they all the degrees that you possess?
Who says Hulka is a HE??
How do we really finding out the truth on this matter???
“...I see a lots of degrees posted here. Are they all the degrees that you possess?
Who says Hulka is a HE??
How do we really finding out the truth on this matter???”
Not me; I’m a long way from the stuff of legend, even in my own mind (something that cannot be said, alas, in favor of the fighter weenies). Earning the single advanced degree I do hold (operations research - applied math, broadly speaking) was challenging enough.
I was, though, privileged to work with folks who had performed advanced study in every area I mentioned, plus at least as many more I only remembered after posting the partial list. Getting them all to take up the same compass heading and move forward as a group was a duty somewhat less edifying. Though it became rewarding. After a fashion.
Nobody in the forum knows what Hulka is, gender-wise. And there are no good gender-neutral pronouns; I have at times attempted to introduce “heesh” (coined by the late Poul Anderson) as a catch-all but it never takes root.
Alert readers will note the Hulka mentioned the A-10. So I went with the odds and made a guess about “he.” Females have been working their way into the fighter pilotry, but they are not yet present in large numbers.
As far as “really finding out the truth,” I fear that most of the rest of the forum is going to be left to their own devices. I’ve no way to convey the experiences I endured, through a generation and more (assuming the various authorities would even grant me permission to talk). It’s arguable, one surmises, that all of it added up to an attitude, and a series of hunches engendered by a set of professional prejudices, that that long string of experiences induced me to take on.
“The truth” is probably an oversimplification anyway. There are more than a few out there. The only thing they’ve in common is, they’re not terribly pleasant.
“You had the opportunity to be quiet.
Unfortunately, you just don’t have the ability.
But, it does make it easier to render an opinion on everything you’ve posted so far;and everything you will ever post.”
Which brings to mind two fundamental truths about the fighter pilotry:
1. Q: How do you know if a fighter pilot has dropped by at your party? A: Don’t worry. He’ll tell you.
2. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the average fighter pilot is perfectly capable of harboring feelings of kindness, compassion, and respect. The only thing is, those feelings never involve anyone but himself.
It is a source of amusement that fighter pilots - beings superior to all, in all endeavors, at all times and in all places - possess such fragile egos that they cannot tolerate so much as the first throat-clearings, before someone dares to voice any dissent.
If us lesser mortals were in truth so lacking in significance, so wrong-headed, how could our overlords bother to care what we think?
“You had the opportunity to be quiet.
Unfortunately, you just don’t have the ability...”
Freepers pride themselves for preferring truth - however uncongenial - over falsehoods.
So if any forum members are of a mind to discover some truth they’ve not yet noticed (instead of congratulating themselves on their insight and rectitude, never noticing the wider horizons all about), I will add this:
USAF continues to devolve thanks to a coterie that most love to worship, to name just a few: Merrill Anthony McPeak, Jack Chain, George Lee Butler, Ron Fogleman, John Jumper, TM Moseley, Mark Welch, Robin Olds and Ron Keys.
Most worship in vain. Things have declined, from excellence to swaggering and cronyism.
The jury is still out on Norton Schwartz and JM Loh.
And yes, I have known most personally. Norty Schwartz and Rowe Stayton lived in the room next door, my first academic semester as a cadet.
Unless the self-appointed moral arbiters on this forum can say something remotely similar, I respectfully submit they might profit from studying up.
“...I was Army, 75th Ranger, Airborne.
I could give diddily about jet jockeys other than the fact that they did O.K. by me as a grunt on the ground.
... second attempt at resurrecting a theory ...”
My admiration for US Army Airborne training stands second to none: slogged my way through the program in July 1972, coming away with the highest respect for Army NCOs and their methods.
But Tainan treads a familiar path: “I was a footsoldier and you were not. Because of that, I was braver than you. Therefore my notions deserve more attention, more respect, greater precedence.”
The relative prowess - and relative courage - of sundry components can be argued endlessly, but not a single word from that debate can tell us what each can do.
This isn’t about heroism. It’s about effectiveness.
Military forces sent aircraft aloft to protect footsoldiers. If Tainan chooses to view that truth as an insult, it’s time to study up. Again.
Without airplanes to protect them, footsoldiers are not much more than targets. Not a theory; simple fact. If I failed to explicate as much, I beg forgiveness from the forum.
It was true 100 years ago (see Battle of the Marne, Aug-Sep 1914). Commanders realized - not cheerfully - they couldn’t hide from enemy eyes, if those eyes were peering down from the air.
Aviators (not yet senior enough to carry clout with a leadership laboring under its own ego problems) were there to help, and some realized an edge might be gained, if airplanes could carry a machine gun aloft and clear the skies of enemy scouts.
And thus fighter aviation came to be.
Its concepts and execution did not spring full-grown from anyone’s forehead, but dawned on combatants only dimly, the most primitive recognition of reality. It advanced, tit for tat, centimeter by centimeter, at times painfully. But it was a secondary capability and remains so in 2014.
Never in doubt were the egos of the fighter pilots.
In the American military, their fortunes rose and fell until they contrived to topple USAF leadership in 1992. And air power has been on the decline ever since.
As a group, fighter pilots are without honor. Before respondents bridle, please read this comment by CDR “Willie” Driscoll (USN, ret): “If you’re a fighter pilot and you’re not cheating, you’re not doing your job.”
CDR Driscoll was an F-4 backseater for Randy “Duke” Cunningham, noted USN fighter pilot in SEA, though he is chiefly remembered these days for unseemly behavior as a US Rep in the House (for the San Diego area, I think).
So what Tainan and many other posters have misidentified as a “theory”, is this:
1. Fighter pilots are capable of great deeds, but their skills are of a low order.
2. They pride themselves on dominating all others, not on leading, and are competition junkies. They obsess on beating all comers, to the neglect of all else. A propensity of occasional use in action; dangerous when they can only find competitors among members of their own service, joint services, combined allies, or countrymen.
3. Therefore, the farther we keep them from the levers of power, the better.
“...I was Army, 75th Ranger, Airborne.
I could give diddily about jet jockeys other than the fact that they did O.K. by me as a grunt on the ground.
... second attempt at resurrecting a theory ...”
My admiration for US Army Airborne training stands second to none: slogged my way through the program in July 1972, coming away with the highest respect for Army NCOs and their methods.
But Tainan treads a familiar path: “I was a footsoldier and you were not. Because of that, I was braver than you. Therefore my notions deserve more attention, more respect, greater precedence.”
The relative prowess - and relative courage - of sundry components can be argued endlessly, but not a single word from that debate can tell us what each can do.
This isn’t about heroism. It’s about effectiveness.
Military forces sent aircraft aloft to protect footsoldiers. If Tainan chooses to view that truth as an insult, it’s time to study up. Again.
Without airplanes to protect them, footsoldiers are not much more than targets. Not a theory; simple fact. If I failed to explicate as much, I beg forgiveness from the forum.
It was true 100 years ago (see Battle of the Marne, Aug-Sep 1914). Commanders realized - not cheerfully - they couldn’t hide from enemy eyes, if those eyes were peering down from the air.
Aviators (not yet senior enough to carry clout with a leadership laboring under its own ego problems) were there to help, and some realized an edge might be gained, if airplanes could carry a machine gun aloft and clear the skies of enemy scouts.
And thus fighter aviation came to be.
Its concepts and execution did not spring full-grown from anyone’s forehead, but dawned on combatants only dimly, the most primitive recognition of reality. It advanced, tit for tat, centimeter by centimeter, at times painfully. But it was a secondary capability and remains so in 2014.
Never in doubt were the egos of the fighter pilots.
In the American military, their fortunes rose and fell until they contrived to topple USAF leadership in 1992. And air power has been on the decline ever since.
As a group, fighter pilots are without honor. Before respondents bridle, please read this comment by CDR “Willie” Driscoll (USN, ret): “If you’re a fighter pilot and you’re not cheating, you’re not doing your job.”
CDR Driscoll was an F-4 backseater for Randy “Duke” Cunningham, noted USN fighter pilot in SEA, though he is chiefly remembered these days for unseemly behavior as a US Rep in the House (for the San Diego area, I think).
So what Tainan and many other posters have misidentified as a “theory”, is this:
1. Fighter pilots are capable of great deeds, but their skills are of a low order.
2. They pride themselves on dominating all others, not on leading, and are competition junkies. They obsess on beating all comers, to the neglect of all else. A propensity of occasional use in action; dangerous when they can only find competitors among members of their own service, joint services, combined allies, or countrymen.
3. Therefore, the farther we keep them from the levers of power, the better.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.