Veteran's Day

It's the soldier, not the reporter who has given us
Freedom of the Press.
It's the soldier, not the poet, who has given us
Freedom of Speech.
It's the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the
Freedom to Demonstrate.
It's the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the
Right to a Fair Trial.
It's the soldier who salutes the flag, serves under the flag and
whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who gives the protestor the right he abuses to burn the flag.

- Father Dennis O'Brien, USMC

 

Dear God: it would be OK to let this hurricane season be over ...

 

That dot that says "M" on Wednesday at 7PM?  Yeah, that's right over my house.  They're calling for Cat 4 and a 12 foot tidal surge.  We're on moderately high ground - if we flood then 80% of Florida is basically gone, but the folks on the barrier islands are looking at a fresh hell coming at them.

As is Joint Base McDill.  Maybe if it hits there the military can get some quicker rescue going when it hits there than they did in North Carolina.  Yes, that's pretty nasty to write.  The fact that you can write that is even nastier, IMHO.

This seems to be a useful site, if you're on the water:

I give NOAA a lot of flak for their climate change nonsense, but this is exactly what you would want from a world class national weather bureau.  The model may be wrong - all models are - but the fact that the tidal surge arrives at high tide is no bueno for McDill.  I hope they are taking action, and I hope that people along the water are evacuating.

Lord Almighty, what a hurricane season.

Well, that's one way to improve the Internet coverage on a Navy ship

Navy finds hidden Starlink dish on ship:

Still, the ambassador had nothing on senior enlisted crew members of the littoral combat ship USS Manchester, who didn't like the Navy's restriction of onboard Internet access. In 2023, they decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to secretly bolt a Starlink terminal to the "O-5 level weatherdeck" of a US warship.

They called the resulting Wi-Fi network "STINKY"—and when officers on the ship heard rumors and began asking questions, the leader of the scheme brazenly lied about it. Then, when exposed, she went so far as to make up fake Starlink usage reports suggesting that the system had only been accessed while in port, where cybersecurity and espionage concerns were lower.

Well, it is a pain in the rear end to get hooked up to SIPRnet ... 

Of course, there's been a general helping of Courts Martials to everyone involved.

And the funniest bit?  Elon Musk had Starlink change the default WiFi SSID to "Stinky" to encourage customers to change the damn defaults.

A day for remembering

80 years ago the Allies stormed the Atlantic Wall.

Via Chris Lynch, we see that the French High School kids in Normandy remember.

82 years ago was the battle of Midway.  The torpedo bombers sacrificed themselves almost to a man but that opened the way for the dive bombers to rip the heart out of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

106 years ago the Marines went on the assault at Belleau Woods in the Great War.  It was one of the costliest days in Marine Corps history, and took heroes like First Sergent Dan Daly to rally the men: Come on you sons of bitches!  Do you want to live forever?

 

Truly a day for remembering.  Remember them.

Google has a remembrance today, too.

Some lesbian writer.  So brave, no doubt.  So very brave.  

Hey Google - french kids spent minutes chanting U-S-A!  You might ponder what that means.

There are only 61 living Medal Of Honor recipients

There used to be 62.   God speed, sir.

Rest in peace, and rise in Glory.

Mozart - Requiem in D

The older I get, the grumpier I get.  Sometimes I look on our society and feel like I am getting my Jeremiah on, which is never a good look.

Memorial Day is one of the times that this reliably happens.  Look, people, this holiday is not about barbecues and beach.

Remember them, that their memory not fade.

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.  Et lux perpetua luceat eis.  Amen.

The last American WWII triple ace takes off on his last flight

I love that he named his P-51 "Old Crow", after his favorite whiskey. 

Rest in peace and rise in Glory, General.

Slow Salute

Big Country chases down how his Great Uncle died in World War II.  Rest in peace, Lieutenant.

WWI U-boat sauerkraut soup

This was actually very interesting.  I'd eat that.

The last Korean War Medal of Honor recipient reports to the final muster

Rangers lead.  Wow.

Last survivor from USS Arizona weighs anchor for the final voyage

As you'd expect, Dwight has the skinny.  Moving from battleships to naval aviation, he flew 200 combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.  Then he came back for Korea.

Go read his story.  Giants strode the face of the earth back then.

Fair winds and following seas, Lieutenant Commander.

Army Corps of Engineers on way to Baltimore

1100 of them, to remove the bridge wreckage and clear the Baltimore harbor channel.

Air Warfare has fundamentally changed

This is really interesting:

The biggest problem facing the Air Force is that masses of uncrewed drones have now wrested command of the air away from manned aircraft in the skies above the modern battlefield. The drone revolution means that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the service to achieve air superiority in future conflicts — which has been the centerpiece of its mission for decades. Drones, not manned airplanes, now dominate the skies above ground forces fighting in Ukraine. The contested air littoral has emerged as a critical new subdomain of warfare. It stretches from the earth’s surface to several thousand feet, below the altitudes where most manned aircraft typically fly, and is now dominated by masses of drones. This is a paradigm shift of epic proportions, which will require the Air Force to fundamentally transform itself in a very short period of time. 

It boils down to dollars and cents:

The F-35A certainly remains an important platform for high-intensity conventional warfare. But the Air Force is planning to buy 1,763 of the aircraft, which will remain in service through the year 2070. These jets, which are wholly unsuited for countering proliferated low-cost enemy drones in the air littoral, present enormous opportunity costs for the service as a whole. In a set of comments posted on LinkedIn last month, defense analyst T.X. Hammes estimated the following. The delivered cost of a single F-35A is around $130 million, but buying and operating that plane throughout its lifecycle will cost at least $460 million. He estimated that a single Chinese Sunflower suicide drone costs about $30,000 — so you could purchase 16,000 Sunflowers for the cost of one F-35A. And since the full mission capable rate of the F-35A has hovered around 50 percent in recent years, you need two to ensure that all missions can be completed — for an opportunity cost of 32,000 Sunflowers. As Hammes concluded, “Which do you think creates more problems for air defense?”

I have heard that we are building out a fleet of around 1000 F-35s.  For the same cost we could have 32 million drones.  Sure, there's a question of mission flexibility but when you have millions of units to mess around with, that's a whole level of flexibility that you didn't have before.  Quantity has a quality of its own, so to say.  

This is a paradigm shift.

I'd be really interested in analysis from former military Fly Boys like OldAF Sarge or OldNFO.

(via)

S.S. United States to be evicted from its pier?

The Queen Of The World sent me this sad story:

The ship's remarkable speed earned it the coveted Blue Riband award from Great Britain upon its maiden voyage in 1952. Partially sponsored by the U.S. government during the Cold War era, it was designed as a potential rapid troop carrier if geopolitical tensions escalated, according to the website for the SS United States Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that has overseen the vessel since 2011.

Despite its high level of regard and rich history, the ship faces an uncertain future as it languishes at Pier 82 in south Philadelphia. Its retirement has been fraught with challenges, including the recent threat of eviction due to a lawsuit from Pier 82's landlord, Penn Warehousing, according to an NPR report on Monday, March 11.

The lawsuit alleges the SS United States Conservancy owes between $700,000 and $800,000 in back rent, Warren Jones, one of the conservancy's board members, told the radio station. He said the organization entered into the agreement more than a decade ago, and during the pandemic, the rent was unjustly doubled.

This story is of interest to TQOTW, since she actually was a passenger on that ship.  Her dad was in the Air Force and posted to the UK in the early 1960s; they returned from PCS on this.  It's sad to see what the ship has become from what it used to be.  TQOTW watched this with me and remembered all sorts of things, like the signal flags at the swimming pool.

That was a different world, and people would rather spend 8 hours on a plane than 5 days on a ship, even one as grand as the United States.

 

What a man!

Dwight posts the obituary of Gen. John C. Bahnsen Jr. (USA - ret).  So who was Gen. Bahnsen?  Just a guy who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, five Silver Stars, four Legions of Merit, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, four Bronze Stars (three with the V device), two Purple Hearts, and the Army Commendation Medal (with V device).

Holy cow.  Rest in peace, General.

Battleship U.S.S. Texas afloat today

And back at dock after an extensive repair and refit.  Don't mess with Texas' battleships.

This is a very long video of this morning's short voyage.

Cisco Webex call recording released by Russia

Wow:

The German Ministry of Defense (Bundeswehr) has confirmed that a recording of a call between high-ranking officials discussing war efforts in Ukraine, leaked by Russian media, is legitimate.

Senior government officials have also confirmed Russian reports that the call was hosted on and tapped via Cisco's WebEx video conferencing platform rather than any kind of secure, military-grade comms.

Roderich Kiesewetter, deputy chairman of the German parliament's oversight committee, said the Bundeswehr leak was possibly caused by a Russian agent inside the WebEx call or the Bundeswehr's implementation of it, but the country is still working on discovering how the intrusion took place.

As someone who worked at Cisco (in both their security and Webex business units) I can say that Cisco takes security very, very seriously.  Not knowing more than this article, it very well may be a mole.

Rest In Peace, sniper

SGT Chuck Mawhinney - the greatest Marine Corps sniper ever - has reported to the final muster.  As always, Dwight has the writeup (highly recommended).

What struck me was what he did when he came back from Vietnam.  Seeing how other veterans were treated, he pretty much dropped the whole military thing - he got a job with the Forest Service, hunted and shot trap, married and had kids, and seems to have been one of the solid, quiet, dependable community guys.

Then his story came out in the 1990s when the country was ready to treat the 'Nam vets right.  He got some much deserved recognition then, but the years before strike me as nothing so much as a sniper knowing how not to be seen.

103 confirmed kills with another 216 probables.  Wow.

Rest in peace, Sargent.

Now get on over to Dwight's place and read the amazing story.

How David Niven won the Iron Cross in Normandy

Cool story.

Another veteran reports for the final muster

The last survivor of the British Army surrender at Singapore. 

Ave atque vale.