If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#51
|
|||
|
|||
SR-71 -
John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ... "HEMI-Powered" wrote in Finally, even our drill sergeant, airborne infantry and Viet Nam tested himself said "son, there is something unnatural about jumping out of an airplane in level flight!" Yep ! I agree, but boy is it a rush ! But then I was a firefighter for 17 years too, & There is something unnatural about running into a burning building too ! :-) My same drill instructor was asked once by this kid we called "Airborne" if there was any trouble getting men to make their first jump. He said "nope, it's the 2nd jump that's hard to make 'em take" at which time the kid said "what'd you do?" He said "I stood in the door but hestitated and the last thing I remember was the jump master's size 12 on my ass - everybody makes 3 jumps, son!". Our next door neighbor's daughter is a 1989 graduate of West Point. She got enamored with Airborne and did that, then went to Ranger School and did that. In her class's graduation from Ranger School, the whole bunch jumped out of whatever aircraft it was. Our neighbors were there to see it. One jumper got tangled in the shroud upside down and couldn't right themselves until very close to the ground but thankfully landed safely. After the jump, when our neighbor's daughter came to see per parents she asked exitedly "did you see me?! did you see me?!" to which they said "all we saw was a couple hundred green things floating down and the young woman said "I was the one hanging upside down!". Talk about hearts dropping! She later went on to chute packing tool as a officer - well, I did say she was gung ho - but somehow got shoved into a logistics battalion when her division deployed to Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War. She and her husband, a 1998 West Point grad she met there, were both just inside the Iraq border with orders to spearhead 100 klicks in if the go code came, which it never did, so she might've seen some action. So, no, John, BCT and 8 weeks as a Pershing Communications Specialist at Ft. Sill was enough excitement for me. I am very tall and VERY thin and highly UN-atheletic so the physical stuff was pretty damn hard on me, damn near didn't pass the PT test. So, I was neither interested in the airborne gig nor did I think I had a prayrer of humping that course for 3 weeks. Ditto for NCO school when I was in Germany; rather, I just went before the normal E-5 board probably similarly to what you did. I have to hand it to you, John, you're either very brave or very dumb if you were a fire fighter as well as airborne! grin Serioously, I have great respect for the military as well as state, county, and local law enforcement and fire fighter men and women. Their job is difficult and dangerous, hours are long, and pay is low. Again, my hat is off to you. And, no, I had no desire to be a Marine like my father. Have a good one, John! -- HP, aka Jerry "Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'" |
#52
|
|||
|
|||
SR-71 - 1 attachment
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 11:24:28 -0500, John Szalay
wrote: Maple1 wrote in http://gizmodo.com/5052279/f+117-ste...terpillar-crus her--pile-of-sadness That aircraft was ‘Article 784’, the fifth full-scale development F-117A, and it was destroyed at the US Air Force’s Plant 42 site in Palmdale, Calif after being stripped of all useable and secret items.. All the remaining operational Blackjets were retired to Tonopah. (other than the 4 now in museums) My conspiracy theory de jour is that at least a couple of them now speak with an accent and wear six-pointed blue stars... Bob ^,,^ |
#53
|
|||
|
|||
SR-71 - 1 attachment
Bob added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...
That aircraft was ‘Article 784’, the fifth full-scale development F-117A, and it was destroyed at the US Air Force’s Plant 42 site in Palmdale, Calif after being stripped of all useableand secret items.. All the remaining operational Blackjets were retired to Tonopah. (other than the 4 now in museums) My conspiracy theory de jour is that at least a couple of them now speak with an accent and wear six-pointed blue stars... Seems like it'd be awfully hard to fly one of them from Israel to, say, Iran, and not have everybody know about it. If the United States were still flying them, at least we cotrol one of the biggest groups 0f spy satellites but the Israeli's don't and also would engender hoards of media crawling all over them that don't especially like the Jewish homeland. Not saying this is entirely far-fetched but if there is any truth to it, I would also think that the U.S. would have to send a team over there to help maintain the very expensive planes as well as either train the Israeli pilots or covertly fly the planes for them. -- HP, aka Jerry "Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'" |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|