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Military > popular all-time > Flight on WWII B-24 Liberator Bomber photo
Military > popular all-time > A B-52 Stratofortress takes off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to participate in an exercise scenario Aug. 22. The aircraft, aircrew and maintainers are deployed from Barksdale AFB, La., as part of the continuous bomber presence in the Pacific region. During their deployment to Guam, the bomber squadron's participation in exercises will emphasize the U.S. bomber presence, demonstrating U.S. commitment to the Pacific region. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Master Sgt. Mahmoud Rasouliyan) Note: My thanks to SMSgt. Rasouliyan for permission to use this photo. Crewdawg357
Military > popular all-time > Lt. Bob Flounoy our Arty F.O.War Zone C Republic of South Vietnam .....&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;We stayed out 22 days my first mission. After walking off of a tiny landing zone in a remote jungle, splitting up so as not to give away our ultimate direction of travel, the company linked up at a rendezvous point kilometers away. Hooking up in the deep bush was touchy since this was the only time that you didn't shoot first and talk later when running into someone "out there". Friendly forces exchanged fire more times than we would like to admit on these occasions. When we slept, it was on the ground, as flat as possible, never taking off boots or covering up. We never talked, we whispered, and used hand signals to communicate. A whole language of breaking squelch on the radio developed, negating the need for any verbal noise. We wore no underwear or socks in that fecund, hot, wet hell; they quickly stank and rotted as we were always wet. Our skin fell off in soggy green pieces from jungle rot. Groins were especially susceptible to this condition and I remember men lying in the sun when possible with their trousers off, legs spread to its&#8217; warmth and dry heat. Soldiers relieved themselves on the spot, feeling vulnerable to the darkness around them, never letting go of their weapons; a couple of images for those who would gender integrate the military to ponder. Groups of 10 or 40 very young men, boys, moving silently through the jungle, single file, 5 meters apart, with 70 lbs on their backs for 10 hours a day. Young killers from Omaha, Montgomery, St. Louis and New York, on edge with atavistic instincts awakened from some primeval time, adherents to a ritual painfully learned and bequeathed by those that had walked before them. The war was 8 years old at this point. Our families would not have believed it, and Hollywood has never come close, not once, to getting it right. (There is no combat footage and almost no still photography of the Vietnam war that accurately depicts how it was fought on the ground, in the jungles, at night, at point blank range in exchanges so violent, savage and quick that each encounter was often over in minutes, seconds even. Photographers were seldom allowed in these settings, and if they were, the events&#8217; ferocity prevented any kind of adequate recording. How do you film the mind numbing, strobe light flash blast of a claymore that a trip wire sets off when it is least expected and the mad minute of small arms fire that ensues? The scenes that TV has shown of soldiers lined up firing their weapons, or sitting behind a wall exchanging shots with an unseen enemy are either staged or in such low intensity contact that they don&#8216;t come close to showing what soldiers were faced with). Always wary of the dark jungle around us, we were also very much aware of the 18 year olds behind us who had nervous fingers on the triggers of their chambered automatic rifles. Accidents and friendly fire accounted for at least one- third of the American deaths in Vietnam. Some would put that figure higher. Much higher. I was an artillery forward observer with an air cavalry infantry company in the First Cavalry. My RTO, born in 1954, was 17 years old......Bob Flournoy Hot Was Just Fine With Me Michigan was the state where I grew-up, and Muskegon was the town, right on Lake Michigan. The lake resembled the Gulf Of Mexico with its modest surf, sugar-white sand and big, high dunes. That similarity ended with the appearance of icebergs in the winter and water so bone-chillingly cold, even in August, that "Your lips are blue!" was a common comment heard after one had spent barely 10 minutes in the surf. Muskegon in the 1950's was a pretty simple place. We played all day and half the night; kick-the-can, duck-on-a-rock, chase, war, king-of-the-hill, hide-and-seek, and anything that had to do with a ball. Depending on the weather, it was kickball, basketball, baseball, football or variations thereof. And when it wasn't ball, it was swimming, wrestling, ice-skating, tennis or fishing. We would even fish in the winter. Chip a hole through foot-thick ice, bait a hook with frost-bitten fingers, drop your line through the hole, and try to keep moving so's not to freeze to the very surface supporting you while waiting for a bite. My father and mother grew-up in Muskegon and after WWII they moved my three-year-older brother Terry and me to Coral Gables, Florida, ostensibly for Pop to go to dental school at the University of Miami. Dad had attacked Normandy on D-Day, stormed across Europe with Patton and won a battlefield commission along the way. He didn't speak of the war unless he was drunk, and then so sullenly and maudlin that he was scary and made little sense. Coral Gables was a damned fine place to be a kid. The weather was balmy, stormy or blowy, but never cold. My folks weren't hands on parents, so we roved and roamed at will like orphans. For all the attention we got from our parents, we were just that; orphans. We swam with sea cows in the canals and were man-o-war stung together in the Atlantic. We fished and we hunted with our BB guns. We constructed huge forts from palmetto fronds, ate lemons, limes, oranges, and grapefruits right off the trees, and we shinnied up palms and consumed the coconuts as if we were Swiss Family Robinson brothers. During a neighborhood rock fight I hit a girl named Gretchen in the head and she nearly bled to death. Dad asked if I did it and I said no. He said he would punish me badly (and he could) if I lied, and it would go easier if I &#8216;fessed-up. I &#8216;fessed, learning forever after to pick my lies carefully, because I got punished anyway. After a couple years of idyllic life in this paradise, my parents lost their minds and moved us back to the snow and blow of Muskegon. I attended Irish Catholic grade and high schools and distinguished myself as the youngest ever alter boy and an able athlete. Academics were so-so for me, and that was made more palatable as Mom always said she didn't want any eggheads in the family. She didn&#8217;t get one in me. After high school I got an athletic scholarship to a Chicago junior college, and following that a four-year ride to Southern Colorado. I captained each football team as a defensive back. I won an academic post graduate scholarship to the University of Nevada in Reno, dropped out after one semester and joined the army as things were getting interesting, and that's what we were supposed to do. After basic training, advanced infantry, infantry OCS, and jungle school I went on to Vietnam where I served as a rifle platoon leader, initially, then as recon platoon leader in the 2d Bn, 8th Infantry, 1st Cavalry Division, Airmobile. Recon would stay out for days in the deepest part of the bush trying to gather intel on VC and NVA, attempting to pinpoint their bunker complexes and routes of movement. Our mission was to avoid contact and report back to battalion so that they could airlift rifle companies into the area and hopefully provoke a confrontation. Or, artillery would blow hell out of infiltration routes that we identified. We frequently walked right into the little bastards, however, and it would hit the fan. Sometimes we could not resist and we would ambush them when we knew their force was small and we could didi out of the AO after the contact and get extracted. Our group was small so the last thing we ever wanted was to get tangled up with a superior force that could overwhelm us. It happened, though. We never talked and we were real quiet. We were damned good. By 1971 both sides had their blood up and we hated them enough to want to kill as many as we possible could. Something about those young American kids let them take instinctively to the jungle and its' uniquely vicious fighting style. My platoon sergeant had that part of the 23d Psalm that talks about walking through the valley of the shadow of death scripted on his helmet cover. It ended by saying that he didn&#8217;t fear anything because he was the baddest son of a bitch in the valley. He was. We all were. Maybe that&#8217;s why we always won in the bush. Now I know why when Dad got drunk he was sullen and maudlin when he talked about the war. He was just confused. Like me. And like me, he probably never got over the surprise of coming back alive. Or the guilt, although in later years I think the guilt belongs to those who did not show up. Paul Cowan Early Lessons ....hunters move through the field and forest with impunity; they are the only ones with guns. A good hunter will sometimes position himself in a comfortable spot, blending into the environment, and wait for game. He will be aware of the moving air and which direction it carries his scent so that that very wind is his ally. If there is no wind, then he will watch the forest, looking and listening for movement against the stillness. The wind becomes the quarry's friend when it can move with the swaying grass and leaves, and disguise its' sound of travel in the background noise of the moving air. When a hunter is also being hunted by his quarry, a nemesis with a gun instead of fangs, the wind becomes his worst enemy. Millions of years of evolution tell him that those hunting him are using the wind to stalk him silently, swirling their scent, moving with the dance of the trees, careful feet muffled by the noise of the wind. Early humans would take to their caves and trees when the breezes stiffened, nervous and fearful of their silent stalkers. Jungle fighters don't move at all when the wind is up; they hunker down, watch and wait. The highest rates of suicide are in windy places....&#8230;. Bob Flournoy
Military > popular all-time > Nov 13th, 1942, Alconbury, England. Col Edward J. "Ted" Timberlake (in left rear of jeep), first commander of the 93rd Bombardment Group, the first group of B-24 Liberator bombers to cross the Atlantic to join the air war in Europe and North Africa, welcomes England's King George VI (right rear of jeep) to the U.S. airbase at Alconbury. The King inspected the B-24 seen in the background, "Teggie Ann," which was flown later on the famous Ploesti raid by the 376th Bombardment Group commander Col K.K. Compton, a former squadron commander in the 93rd. From the front page of "The Liberator," the group's newsletter, founded and printed by the 93rd's public information officer, (then) Private Carroll "Cal" Stewart, who later co-authored a book about the Ploesti raid, "Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943."
Military > popular all-time > U.S. Navy Sailors from the Bataan Strike Group fire weapons in the indoor simulated marksmanship trainer at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, April 26, 2007. The experience allows the Sailors to respond to combat situations in a simulated environment. DoD photo by Sgt. Freddy G. Cantu, U.S. Marine Corps. (Released)
Military > popular all-time > Eddie Pozelnik (left, from Ohio), Ned Wells (center - my dad - from NC), and Glenn Hensley (right, also from NC) on captured German horses in Kirchdorf, Austria, Sep 8th, 1945. Ned is on a gray gelding they named "Mustang." After the 11th Armored Division pulled out of Kirchdorf in August, 1945, the 26th Infantry Division inherited these and other horses that were left in the local stables. Dad and his buddies got permission from their commanders to run the stables, charging a minimal fee to the locals and occupation GI's for horse rides (for the horses' upkeep). Once the war was over, Dad's three months in Kirchdorf were some of his most enjoyable during his entire time in the ETO.
Military > popular all-time > The only flying example (as of this photo date) of a B-24 Liberator bomber in the world. The Collings Foundation B-24J "Witchcraft" rolls in after a perfect landing at Denton Municipal Airport on Mar 12th, 2007.
Military > popular all-time > A soldier stands before a car fire in Iraq.
Military > popular all-time > An F/A-18D Hornet from VMFA(AW)-533 off the coast of Okinawa in late 2004
The only flying example (as of this photo date) of a B-24 Liberator bomber in the world. The Collings Foundation B-24J "Witchcraft" rolls in after a perfect landing at Denton Municipal Airport on Mar 12th, 2007.
> The only flying example (as of this photo date) of a B-24 Liberator bomber in the world. The Collings Foundation B-24J "Witchcraft" rolls in after a perfect landing at Denton Municipal Airport on Mar 12th, 2007.
The only flying example (as of this photo date) of a B-24 Liberator bomber in the world. The Collings Foundation B-24J "Witchcraft" rolls in after a perfect landing at Denton Municipal Airport on Mar 12th, 2007.
Photo by: jawtex • see photo in gallery
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