There I was… in the Ready Room
When I was a youngling wanna-be pilot in the post-Top Gun Era of the early ‘90s, there was a military aviation magazine called “Approach” that populated all of the Ready Rooms where we wannabes sat and waited – (and waited…)1 for our 1 hour brief with our instructor before we were allowed to go pre-flight and fly. “Approach” is the Naval Aviation Safety Center’s official mag and it has one of the best publication “pitch” descriptions in history, in my opinion. Check this out:
Since 1955 Approach magazine has guided Navy2 and Marine Corps aviation professionals with information, statistics and a bit of humor. Most of all, Approach has given aviators a place to share stories, misdeeds and adventures, to make us better, safer and more effective.
“Approach MagazinE”
These first-person “There I was” stories have been the basis for Approach since its inception. This sharing of stories also has bonded naval aviators – past and present – to one another and to the profession itself. Picture yourself with a damaged aircraft, operating in blue water with a pitching deck and enough gas for one, maybe two, approaches, and you have everything needed for a “There I was” story.
To view an Approach issue, click the PDF link. If you prefer the online version, click the Flipbook link.
Approach was so pervasive in Naval Aviation that some of the articles would begin with an intro that read something like this: “I’m writing this because my CO told me to in order to inform the broader Community…” which was the most Catholic thing ever: simultaneously equal parts confession and penitence for the sinner, the CO assigned the article as a lesson for EVERYONE – writer and reader alike. Some of the pieces would even be “anonymized” to protect the stupid, the innocent… the CO from possible adverse consequences. I would encourage any readers to go to the website and click on a few articles and read through – they’re not that long – just to get a flavor and feel for the reality of military aviation generally, and Naval Aviation, specifically.
There is a lot of jargon, but like Shakespeare with Elizabethan English, if you just give yourself time – be patient – you’ll eventually get the gist through osmosis. It only takes a few articles to pick up some of the terms in context. In short order, you’ll be amazed at what you’re reading.
Some critical points to understand:
- Naval Aviation has always been a profession with a rich oral tradition – a storyteller’s dream, largely because…
- …Aviation is risky; military aviation is downright dangerous. Naval aviation is so f**ing deadly3 that I almost can’t believe I did it in retrospect. I saw and know far more people killed in training than I do from combat, for whatever that’s worth. It’s been more than 27 years since I last piloted a tactical aircraft in “the Fleet” and yet a large part of the 900+ hours I spent flying are seared into me;
- Because of all of the control, communication, and coordination necessary for military aviation to operate: radar, black boxes (for fixed wing), recording devices, safety programs, etc., there is usually opportunity for pretty good reconstruction/deconstruction when it goes bad – and it does go bad;
- There was (is?) a tradition that safety investigations are protected – and distinct – from any possible criminal repercussions, so that we can have open dialogue about what happened or went wrong to ensure people don’t get killed down the road as a result of some of the unique circumstances of operating tactical aircraft at sea.4
A Diversion Where I Investigate the Psychopathy of Military Aviation
Before we get into any of my own “Approach”-style There I Was fables, I think it’s important to briefly ruminate – not specifically on the 4 points above – but to discuss the psychology of military aviation because there is a dark side here, too. You don’t want a magazine to glorify military aviators doing stupid shit (“misdeeds”) and then chortling about it afterwards – because some of the most epic disasters in aviation have involved military aviators doing insanely stupid shit, chortling about it, and then later doing “But wait, there’s more!” insanely stupid shit, and then killing themselves and others.
Arguably, the most famous one of these is Bud Holland and the Fairchild Air Force Base crash of 1994, about 2 years after I first started flying.
Like any number of avoidable mishaps, the post-mortem never paints a pretty picture. Perhaps worse, it paints a picture that shows people letting an obviously out-of-control aviator get away with increasingly dangerous acts to the point that it looks almost as if dude had a death wish and no one was willing to intervene.
To wit:
The accident board stated that Lt. Col. Holland’s macho, daredevil personality significantly influenced the crash sequence. USAF personnel testified that Holland had developed a reputation as an aggressive pilot who often broke flight-safety and other rules. The rule-breaking included flying below minimum-clearance altitudes and exceeding bank-angle limitations and climb rates.[9]
An earlier incident occurred in 1991 when a B-52 piloted by Holland performed a circle above a softball game in which Holland’s daughter was participating. Beginning at 2,500 feet (760 m) AGL, Holland’s aircraft executed the circle at 65° of bank. In a maneuver described by one witness as a “death spiral”, the nose of the aircraft continued to drop and the bank angle increased to 80°. After losing 1,000 feet (300 m) of altitude, Holland regained control of the aircraft. Holland also regularly and illegally parked his car in a “no parking” zone near the base headquarters building.[2][10]
During a 19 May 1991 air show at Fairchild, Holland was the command pilot of the B-52 aerial-demonstration flight. During the demonstration, Holland’s aircraft violated several safety regulations, including exceeding bank and pitch limits, flying directly over the air-show spectators, and possibly violating altitude restrictions. The wing staff observed the demonstration, but apparently took no action.[11]
On 12 July 1991, Holland commanded a B-52 for a flyover during a change-of-command ceremony for the 325th Bomb Squadron at Fairchild. During both the practice and the actual flyover, Holland’s aircraft flew at altitudes below 100 feet (30 m) – well below the established minimum altitude – flew steeply banked turns in excess of 45°, exceeded pitch-angle limits, and executed a wingover. The wingover was not specifically prohibited but was not recommended, because it could damage the aircraft. After witnessing the flyover, the wing commander Colonel Arne Weinman and his deputy commander for operations (DO), Colonel Arnold Julich, verbally reprimanded Holland, but took no formal action.[12]
It only gets worse as one reads further, but it’s worth the time if one has an interest in aviation mishaps.
So… What Does It Mean?
It is far too easy to dismiss these kinds of incidents as the actions of one rogue aviator and then we all go back to what we’re doing and act like there’s not something else – something deeper – going on here. It reminds me so much of what happens in the case of a “rogue” cop that kills or gets caught abusing a citizen on video. When narrative control, lying, and excuses don’t work, the “rogue” cop inevitably gets portrayed as the exception (and definitely not the rule!) and then swept under the rug. And we all go on pretending there isn’t something more going on with the profession.
For a moment, though, I’m going to provide a slightly different, competing perspective of Bud Holland. Here is an article written on the 20 year anniversary of the crash by Bud Holland’s neighbor’s son who lived right next door to the Hollands in base housing.
He [Holland] was always nice to us boys – nicer than I would be raising teenage girls – and I remember thinking how much he reminded me of Chuck Yeager. Well, the Chuck Yeager character played by Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff.
He was also the caretaker of the community pool nearly in our backyard. We, along with the Hollands, were closer in proximity to the pool than any other of the neighbors on the three streets that utilized it, and we often felt like it was ours. There were many evenings we’d be eating dinner in the sunroom and could see Bud closing up the pool for the evening. When I was old enough, I took a part-time job closing up the pool as well and it was Bud who showed me how to do everything…check the PH levels and add chemicals when necessary, scoop the dead bugs and leaves out, pull the cover over the pool and reel it back up again in the morning. He really seemed like a nice guy and a good dad.
(My emphasis added). This hardly sounds like a guy who is “out of control” or has a death wish through the eyes of a young man who lived right next door for years and grew up with Bud Holland’s daughters. So which of these two portraits of Bud Holland is the correct one? Was Bud Holland a flying madman or a kind father and neighbor? The answer is, of course, that there is no dichotomy here: one is not ‘correct’ and the other ‘incorrect.’ Both of these portrayals capture some essence of Bud Holland’s character.
But when it comes to flying tactical aircraft, you can bet that if you crash one, they’re even going to hold the fact that you parked in the General’s parking spot against you later on. If you missed it the second paragraph above, here it is in all of its glory:
Holland also regularly and illegally parked his car in a “no parking” zone near the base headquarters building.
Quelle horreur!! I mean, talk about piling on a dead guy. With all of the other, flagrant aviation rule-breaking that one could point to as being indicative of unsuitability for flying B-52s, the fact that they had to mention his parking in the “no parking” zone near Base HQ seems, well… it seems more than just petty. That part, along with this “The accident board stated that Lt. Col. Holland’s macho, daredevil personality significantly influenced…” again reminds me of when a bad cop needs to be demonized so that the rest of the Boys in Blue can go on with a clear conscience. It’s whistling while walking past the graveyard in hopes that the evil spirits can be kept away with the happy noise.
The last thing anyone in the Air Force, or military aviation more broadly, wants to dig into is how the military selects, trains for – and even lionizes – those exact same risk-taking (i.e. “macho, daredevil”) personality traits in order to produce aviators who will fly in what would otherwise amount to insane conditions as a matter of course. For anyone who hasn’t seen the recent movie “Devotion” – and apparently almost no one did – it’s based upon the true story of (Adm.) Tom Hudner, who won the Medal of Honor for intentionally crashing his own plane to try to save his friend and squadronmate, Jesse Brown, one of the first black naval aviators, shot down during a mission in the Korean War. I met Admiral Hudner on multiple occasions as a young midshipman (he passed in 2017) and at every event, he was lauded by veterans for his daring and defiance of orders to try to save his friend. So… defying orders and busting up aircraft is evidently acceptable behavior under some circumstances.
I have previously mentioned here (and elsewhere)5 about the process by which we teach ordinary high school students to become killers through something known as boot camp, but then the government disclaims any responsibility when the occasional rando embraces their new-found comfort with sociopathy or psychopathy and acts it out on the local populace.
“WE ONLY WANTED YOU TO KILL THE ENEMY!” they scream (quietly to themselves) after the fact.
“WE ONLY WANTED MACHO, DAREDEVILS WHO… OPERATE WITHIN SOME RULES… UNLESS THEY CAN BE MADE INTO ICONS FOR RECRUITING!!” they never say out loud after an aviation mishap.
I want to be unequivocal that I’m not trying to justify what Bud Holland did. The vast majority of military aviators do NOT do this kind of stuff… HOWEVER, what I do want to point out is that all of the sturm und drang afterwards by higher-ups – who knew exactly what Bud Holland was like – and all of the “New Procedures” implemented to prevent exactly this type of thing from happening in the future are largely the same whistling past the graveyard. Bud Holland is, and was, by no means the only one of these kinds of incidents. There have been MANY of them, in both civil and military aviation. There’s a long-standing joke at flight school that the last thing some unfortunate student gets to hear is an instructor taking the controls and then saying, “Lemme show you this. I used to do this in the Fleet all the time…”6
Having lived through my military aviation tour and seen some insane shit – even when everyone is operating by the rules – I’m here to tell you all that you can’t ask people to do what we ask them to do in military aviation and then simultaneously think you’re not going to get the occasional Bud Holland. It’s like there always being some number of car drivers who wind up wrapped around a telephone pole in their Porsche Cayenne at 3:30 in the morning with a BAC somewhere north of pickled; or some number of rock stars, actors, or comedians OD’ing or drowning in their own vomit; or some percentage of cops beating on suspects, prostitutes, or their spouses; or some number of Marines getting in bar fights when they shouldn’t. Let’s not pretend that we’re surprised or that this is just something that can be fixed with better “procedures.”
…Or maybe this is just me setting the reader up to help justify some of the things I’ve been involved in before confessional starts… but I don’t think so.
This is a good enough stopping point before I begin telling tales in earnest, but next time, I’ll explain the origins of the picture of Yours Truly at the top from 11 Aug 1994, less than 60 days after Bud Holland’s crash.
- …And waited ↩︎
- In this the Era of Inclusivity, I would like to note that the Coast Guard is considered a part of “Navy” aviation referenced in the quote. Our Coastie brethren and sestren train alongside us in P’Cola, F-L-A, and then at NAS Whiting Field for helicopter training. They also do incredibly difficult flying in “the Fleet” in storms and at sea in their SAR (Search and Rescue) missions, and they do it without any of the chest-thumping we do/did in the military. ↩︎
- That linked wiki-list contains all “aviation mishaps involving military aircraft” and is therefore a big set than I’m looking for, but (a) I can’t find the list I’m looking for in any of my bookmarks, and (b) my DDG and Google-fu are weak right now. This list will do, however, because it has some others that I want to talk about. ↩︎
- I don’t know if #4 is still the case because I’ve left the profession, but it felt to me that the 90s and Aughts may have seen much more legalism creep in and pilots started getting wings pulled over things that would previously have been viewed as merely a one-time lapse in judgment. ↩︎
- I’ve written about the process of acculturation, how ordinary HS students get turned into killers, and how maybe we’ve all got some of that darkness within us. ↩︎
- I’ve got a few of those stories in detail coming down the road. ↩︎
I never believed the letters in Approach were real until it happened to me….
Dear Approach,
I never thought this could happen to me. I was flying…
LOL. Ted must have been an Approach reader from back in the day.
Or maybe that *other* magazine with letters to the editor…
Parameters?
“So then I illegally parked my car in a “no parking” zone, IYKWIM”
Dragon?
Off Our Backs?
The latency on chatrooms back in the day was measured in weeks.
Sorry, that value exceeds the maximum packet TTL.
I would normally be very interested in this, but having a son in law in the Navy on a carrier is making me very, very interested in the next installment. Someone please tell my wife that it’s perfectly normal for men to be obsessed with all things military.
“Dear Mrs. TOK, it is perfectly normal for TOK to be obsessed with all things military. Signed, former military people.”
I never served, so I don’t know shit. But it seems to me that a large number of MoH recipients would relate to both Hudner and Holland.
I was fortunate enough to have lunch with this stud. He was such a laid back guy and so good to 18 yo Tundra.
Thanks, Ozy. It’s good to have you back.
Thanks, Tundra. I’ve got a good number of these lined up, so it should force me to be around more. I’ve been lurking here and there, but work’s been a monster. In a good way, though.
Mr. Pittman sounds like a good man; it’s a shame we waste such men by the bushel at the behest of shitty foreign policy.
And when does the NHL season open?!? Beer league’s in a weekend or two.
10/8.
Avs on 10/9 and Wild on 10/10. It’s fun to have two teams lol.
Not sure if I’ve told you, but my son and I have been playing beer league together. Unbelievably fun, especially being defensive partners. We didn’t sign up for fall league since he’s been hunting a ton, but we will get going again after Christmas.
That is awesome! Very cool. On my old man team I play with a guy who has two boys who also play in the area, though not in the same league as me.
One of his boys was a D-1 goalie, but he doesn’t play goalie around here, he only skates out. His other son is a d-man I used to play with. Occasionally I’ll see them all playing together in tourneys and the like in the area. It’s great. We have a few guys who play on teams with their sons.
Love to see it.
Yeah, it’s pretty cool. There have been many times getting warmed up when I ended up chatting with another old dude. Almost always the same story – skating with the boy!
It’s a blessing to be able to. Part of why I work out is to keep skating.
The local base newspaper in NAS Memphis was the Bluejacket and the back page was always the citation for some MoH winner. It was the first thing I read because it was amazing what some of those guys did.
I agree with Tundra too! Good to see you again Ozy.
How’s Wednesday so far?
So cool to have you scouting for us.
I’m betting, “hot”…
Great! It is finally cooling off here. So I’m not dripping sweat anytime I venture outside.
If your Wednesday isn’t as great as mine, you can blame Straff. He might not be pulling his weight up north of me.
Thank you, Your Holiness.
I believe I have this “space” staked out for the foreseeable future.
I’ve got like, uhhh…. 15 or so of these written already.
So, I’ll be hanging around here on Tuesday nights if schedule stays the same.
At Basic School (for new Marine Lieutenants), there’s always one instructor who read an MoH citation to start every class.
We had another instructor who read Navy Cross citations every class, too. I’ve been present for a number of the MoH Society gatherings on the USMC B-day in Boston.
Pretty humbling to talk with some of those guys (like Adm Hudner). Boston had no lack of local hometown heroes.
I just tried to stay quiet, make sure everyone’s drink was refreshed, and not say something stupid.
At the Ft Benning “School for Boys” the ranges were named for MoH recipients (okay Patton Range was named for some dude who only got a two DSCs and commanded three field armies).
At the John F Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Ft Bragg there is a wall in the classroom building with the citations of all the SF and OSS MoH and DSC recipients. The actions recounted of these men, and Virginia Hall are inspiring. Some of them ask more questions than they answer. What did this guy do in occupied France ” Rank Stud Muffin for actions in armed conflict with the enemy in the Rhine Valley from July X-Y 1944.” that was recognized with a DSC.
Interesting read Oxy. Glad to read another article from you.
Similar thing at Relaxing Jackson (dunno what they renamed it now).
Of course for us in 2004 – we’re looking at signs for SP5 and SP6 so and so and wondering…what are those ranks? This doesn’t make sense, etc.
One of my favorite bits. I’m looking forward to this. Thanks!
dou itashimashite, Sensei!
I come from finance and Wall St where the regulators are always fighting the last battle and folks are finding new ways to break the rules and get rich.
But it’s always just a few bad apples. This is the latest shakedown.
https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2024-98
“Procedures were followed. New procedures have been implemented.”
Come up with a fool-proof system and they will build a better fool.
Holland also regularly and illegally parked his car in a “no parking” zone near the base headquarters building.
I guess he wasn’t trained to not park in a “no parking” zone.
No worries we will sit him in front 30 minutes of web based training with vignettes with actors of every race and sexual orientation to explain how to park.
Or he knew the base CG’s comings and goings and DGAF about parking there – and evidently nobody else did either.
The report makes it sound like it was widely known that he was engaged in such perfidious behavior!
No worries. Just throw on your four ways, then it’s totally legal.
I guess I was lucky not to be involved in a training accident. I parked in the I Corps Command Sergeant Major’s spot regularly at Lewis because finding parking at Madigan was a pain, Corps Sergeants Major are ornamental/make-work positions (there is no need for anything above maybe Brigade Command Sergeants Major), and the only parking spots that would get your vehicle towed were handicapped.
One time one of the hard-charging NCOs in the hospital parked behind me, I noted the situation, got a coffee, waited until he was tired of being a parking spot vigilante and moved, and got along with my day.
Yeah, but you get to be Command Sgt Major and next thing you know you are a decorated war hero about to be Vice President.
Then you can use you position to leave your outfit in the lurch and skate out of a deployment. Master Sergeant Walz didn’t even comple the educational requirements (Sergeant Major Academy) to retain his rank. The fun bit is when you don’t complete the requirements to retain a provisional promotion the Army takes the difference in pay back and the Army will get its money back. The idea of Walz getting a no pay due amuses me.
Ah, Ozy. I thought it was him purposefully being an asshole ‘just cuz he can,’ type of thing. Added to his overall personality, as it were.
Well, that’s the suggestion in the report. That he was this madman, but the idea that parking in a no parking zone was somehow this indictment of his character, rather than just acknowledging that there had been a command culture that protected egregious in flight behavior despite complaints from others who flew with him or saw his antics. IOW, the “no parking” at the O’Club seems a bit gratuitous to me, particularly in light of the fact that many people also knew him to be a kind father, nice guy in his community, etc. I dislike that they stooped to those kinds of things in an aviation mishap investigation as “proof” for any proposition. i.e. It suggests some deflection of blame from seniors who damn well knew what Holland was like in the air.
Heading to Burlington, VT tomorrow to meet up with the wife after her conference. Do any Glibs have recommendations for good brew pubs?
Probably too late but I very much enjoyed The Fiddlehead Brewery just south of Burlington in Shelburne:
https://fiddleheadbrewing.com/
It shares a building with an excellent pizza joint:
https://www.folinopizza.com/
Buy a six pack on one side and bring it to the other side.
Thanks, OZY. My back seat days ended over 50 years ago. Mostly routine rides, rarely any real excitement but I always trusted the pilot to save his own ass and mine as the luggage.
If you look closely at the picture in the article above, I believe that dot off the “side”/top of the aircraft is one of the crew ejecting. He did not get a full canopy – or any canopy at all as I recall. Most times having egomaniacs flying helps ensure everyone’s safety because they’re very conscious of their own asses, but that has a downside, too.
This is a theme throughout this series. I like to think of it as the dark side of the “adventurer” spirit that flying, or parachuting, (or being a cop, or race car driver, etc.) all demand in some degree. There were also some cultural factors at play, too, and I explore those a bit more in subsequent write-ups.
McGeehan ejected. Some have claimed he was flying using the logic that the first person to realize it was unrecoverable was the person flying.
That’s not necessarily true, but I get the seeming “logic” of it.
I can think of some other counter-examples, but Holland was definitely flying.
What did you fly in the back of, Mr. 4×20?
The Wright Flyer
Solid.
I was a rider, not sure of the nomenclature but 3-4 back facing seats. Last time, 1971, we had an M60 in the door with a gunner, a US officer (me) and a VN officer. A light ship flew an arc 180 degrees out and looked for suspects and listened (on the radio) for any activity that needed support.
A long story that I told partly on here as an article of ethics that I’m not particularly proud of.
Basically the communication went between gun ship and light ship. If anything was spotted the pilot talked to me, I talked to my VN counterpart who then talked to his TOC and requested permission to fire, then reversed the relay if permission was granted. I finally convinced the US advisory side that if there were free fire areas in advance we could save a lot of time.
In retrospect It seemed mostly for show.
At the time of the crash, sitting right next to Bud Holland was his squadron commander so there is that too.
I was an aircraft maintenance officer in the 325th Bomb Squadron but separated about 6 months before the crash. Since I was maintenance, I didn’t really mix with the aircrew but I had met Holland at various functions and McGeehan was my commander so I had more dealings with him. I knew Huston the best as he was my deployed squadron commander for Green Flag at Nellis when I was in charge of maintenance. Of the crew, I felt the worst for Huston since he wasn’t flying the plane or responsible to act as the safety officer.
The feeling is that after the mass shooting at the base hospital and the closing of the bomb wing, they were going to put on a show, which they did but not the one that was wanted. Of course at a previous air show, prior to my arrival at Fairchild. A tanker crashed next to the base exchange.
The Fairchild crash was crew coordination training for many of us for the rest of our time in mil aviation.
Holland had a SLEW of prior flight violations that were absolutely insane. Not just risky – but foolhardy to the point of appearing suicidal or stupid beyond compare.
As in: it’s a fucking B-52, Bud, not an A-4 Skyhawk. You’re a B-52 pilot, not an F-16 jock.
That kind of mindset simply doesn’t belong in that kind of aircraft – or probably any aircraft, really.
More to say on this a few articles in, as well.
I should have Firsted on this article. Life is full of regrets.
There will be others… but there’s only one First First.
No ragrets
I was a navigational aids technician in the Marines. We mostly sat in the midfield and ran the gear.
When I got out into the real fleet, I was amazed at just how many crashes there were. And how many people died in simple training exercises. Definitely not something I would have learned from any of the billboards telling me how awesome enlisting in the Marines was.
One gunney who was in charge of a crew that maintained helicopters told me to never get on any chopper that wasn’t leaking hydraulic fluid. According to him, that meant that the chopper was out of hydraulic fluid because they all leaked some.
Even us midfield guys could get in trouble though. One guy who was just leaving training as I started died, working on a radar. He was trying to get a voltage reading off of some radar gear and accidentally touched some high voltage in the power supply. The current went through his arm and out the back of his head that was touching a metal bench.
Our instructors all told us that in Vietnam, when they were short door gunners, they would grab the ATC techs and use us as replacements. So there were all sorts of fun things that the recruiter had never told us about.
^^^^ This GUY GETS IT ^^^^
Someone asked me today about why I left flying for the law and what feelings coalesced to make it happen. It was my childhood dream, after all. This series explains that journey from “what I had in my head” to “the reality.”
Also known as: “It’s all fun and games until the government sedans start showing up in base housing.”
Look for that in a future episode.
Like Churchill said, being shot at, and missed, is exhilarating…..The first time.
After that, it is just a pain in the ass.
how many people died in simple training exercises.
Sleeping in a field without marking it out for vehicle traffic….
I used to work with an electrical engineer who recalled trying to resolder some avionics wires on a helicopter that had recently been shot through by Vietnamese troops WHILE THOSE SAME VN TROOPS WERE STILL FIRING ON THEM.
I assume he has never been more motivated.
I’ll be reading with delight. Insight into a world I hadn’t thought *too* much about. Your “rogue cop” comparison makes perfect sense, especially with the dangers being magnified by bigger tech. The Bud Holland rabbit hole was well-worth delving into.
Bro took enough lessons to get a pilots license, tho he (oddly) abandoned that interest. I took lessons myself, but was too young to do much. I, often and truthfully, joke about being Indiana Jones in my aviation ability: “Fly? Yes! Land? NO!”
I certainly took off the Cessna and I did assisted landings, but no way was I doing that on my own.
I eagerly await Part II and on.
“Approach” sounds a bit like the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS), but for military pilots.
There are some more “staid” publications put out by various military safety entities. I remember seeing some pretty funny ground safety newsletter the Marine Corps had when I was on active duty – some other services had their own versions, too. Every once in a while someone who could really write and/or had a good sense of humor would take over and the pubs would get some run, at least as I recall such things back in the 90s and 00s.
But “Approach” was most certainly like Ted S. joked about – the “Penthouse Forum” letters of its day. Some them seemed mythical, some were pseudonymous, but then you get to the Fleet and you’re like, “Oh, yeah. This really is very dangerous and people die on the reg. Okay.”
Any story that started out “On the last ship, base, post I was on” was always BS. Everyone of us had many of those ready for anyone willing to listen.
That’s why you preface with “No shit, there I was” so the listeners know it’s real.
There are old pilots
And bold pilots
Yup. It’s an old saw for a reason.
I am currently working on a team with a mere 8 people. 4 of them are pilots.
Kinnath: I saw your response to me last week about being in MO in October (I think?). I don’t actually live in KC, just drove there on Saturday for the meet up. Mojeaux is around there and Ozy’s a little further west.
Ok.
For Ozzy and MoJo: I will be staying in Kearney MO the evening of Thursday, Oct 10. If you are interested in meeting up, let me know.
Damn. I will be passing through a couple days before that.
@Zwak: passing through from where to where?
At that point I will be going from Knoxville to Vegas (from seeing my brother to seeing my fathers widow.)
The only difference between bravery and idiocy is success.
I need to look up “Devotion”. I think it came and went – and I saw a couple references to it, but the title – such as it was – gets lost in the sauce of all the stuff that comes and goes.
We did just commission USS Thomas Hudner (DDG 116).
And USS Jesse L. Brown (1973-1994).
Really looking forward to future installments, Ozy.
This is good stuff, Ozy. I never had any interest in flying, and never served, but like all men I wonder how I would have handled all of these situations. Would I have the backbone. I think all men think this at some level, and most will always wonder.
He’s just about convinced me he wants to lose.
A Deere in Trump’s Political Headlights
“As you know, they’ve announced a few days ago that they are going to move a lot of their manufacturing business to Mexico,” Mr. Trump said in Pennsylvania. “I am just notifying John Deere right now that if you do that, we are putting a 200% tariff on everything that you want to sell into the United States.”
I bought a 1962 John Deere 2010 recently.
I would hesitate to buy a modern John Deere. And that is not just because they refused to hire me. They (John Deere) are pulling some some shit.
Fuckers seemed to hire solely based on college GPA.
I graduated (it took me 7 years, I worked 3-4 jobs) with a dude who didn’t know how to change his own brake pads, but had a 4.0 GPA and got hired for Ferrari’s F1 racing team.
/I might be a little bit bitter
Jokes on Trump, Deere has already increased prices by 200%.
I’m with you. He’s just throwing out whatever strikes him in the moment. There’s no fixed principles. No philosophy. No coherence and no discipline.
At times what little self-control he did possess seems to have been totally discarded.
I wonder if this run is just a big joke he is playing on his followers since he seems to be “fucking up by the numbers.”
Who knows who has his ear? Vance’s idiotic populism? Deep state sat him down and wants another 1/6?
What sucks is the number of swing voters who want this shit.
Look at the hatred ginned up against Nippon Steel.
Sure, because most voters want what we want. This is good politics bud.
I didn’t remember this from back in the day, so I looked up the video of the crash on Youtube. Wow.
Great article, Ozzy. I’m looking forward to more.
I just watched it for the first time, as well. Just…a ‘long,’ obvious disaster getting worse and worse. Yikes.
I vaguely remember seeing that on the news. Tragic. I could never understand how the pilot thought he could fly a bomber so steeply banked.
Your article reminded me of this near-miss compilation (complete with silent commentary) I watched years ago. Mostly civilian incidents, but some of them are close enough to raise hairs on the back of my neck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGmVWEJ8a5I&t=223s
Mornin folks and .gov lurkers!
🤭🌤️🥓
Mood:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0xyxtzD54rM
🎶🎶
😒
Good morning, Sean and U! 🙂
Morning. How goes?
I made it to the office. Normally I don’t have two consecutive office days, but I’d swapped monday and tuesday so I could be home when the power company screwed things up. My ‘vacation’ failed to help me relax, so I’m still in need of a vacation.
So far, so good. My boss will be working from home most of the day, so with any luck it will be quiet. I may even be forced to continue plodding my way through last week’s Board meeting recording.
Sorry you need a post-vacation vacation. 😟
At least the sound of rain pattering on the office window is relaxing.
😊☔ (no window emoji)
Though on deeper reflection, I can’t say my vacation did no good – I no longer feel like crawling under my desk and hiding (despite there being nothing to hide behind down there.)
Progress! 😃
Oh, no, I cna’t have that. I’m anti-progressive.
*hides under desk*
Morning all.
2nd cup here. We never do ‘what we are reading’ anymore.
I am trying to slog through Aristotle’s ‘Politics’.
It is a remarkable glimpse into the mentality of pre-enlightenment pagan thought about how society is and should be ordered. While it all seems sensible on paper I dont think I could tolerate it in practice.
Ideas are important. That cannot be overstated. A single idea, one Aristotle would have rejected out of hand and one still despised today has completely changed our outlook and how we live today; the idea that among the inherent attributes of human beings is the desire to be free.
I have no illusion that most people want to be free or would know what to do with it.
People want to belong more than anything else and (most) people really desire their own freedom but will gladly crush others’. Libertarians and even good old classical liberals are a small minority and always have been.
Don’t kid yourselves, you don’t actually want the nightmare you’re asking for.
Social primates gonna be social.
People desperately want to be ‘free,’ but many/most don’t know what it means. Certainly don’t want the consequences. THEY certainly want to be free, but their neighbors and that dude Over There? Nosireebob. It’s also impossible for anyone to be ‘free,’ depending on the definition. Every human is ‘forced’ to be unfree, ruled by their family until age ~15-18 (or so). After that, many/most just want to be ruled by folk they think they agree with to ‘provide’ the Safety Blanky. They need something to squeeze and lay under, usually for imaginary warmth. (While it lasts.)
Good morning, Suthen!
Ambitious reading! It seems to me that “freedom” gets a lot of lip service from folks who don’t really value it.
I have to ask what is meant when someone talks about freedom.
Freedom from obligation? Freedom from responsibility? Freesdom from authority? Freedom from doubt?
Yes.
UnCivil, are you channelling FDR?
My G4 grandfather had a plantation in Ms prior to the war. When the proclamation was signed he went to his slaves and said “Y’all are all free now. You are like family to me so if you stay here and help me work this place (owners worked as hard as the slaves. The notion of the white suited slave master sipping sassafras tea on the porch is bullshit. Also, they didnt make much money, they were always barely scraping by), if you stay I will keep you safe and pay you.”
Their response: ” Yes Sir Mr. Greatgreatgreatgreat Suthenboy, you are like family to us too. We will stay and help you work this place”
The next morning when he got up and went to get everyone for work they were gone. Every single on of them had left with whatever they could carry without any idea of how they were going to make it. All of them.
The people who hate freedom are the people who dont know what it means to not have it. For those that do they will trade anything for it. Gilded cages, the finest shackles, the most generous rations, anything.
We are in the ‘weak men’ stage right now. Maybe the pendulum is starting to swing back? I suspect it will get a lot worse first, but it will swing.
Your anecdote is missing a few data points about how things went later.
Of course, nobody was going to chase down however many freedmen to do a follow-up survey.
Although I contend no one is free who has not fled all trappings of civilization, for civilization itself is a gilded cage.
I think part of the problem is that people love the idea of freedom (for themselves, if no one else) but they hate the responsibility that goes with it, or should go with it.
This will sound Randish, but responsibility without liberty is slavery and authority with no responsibility is tyranny. The two things are never quite in balance, and that causes a good many of our problems.
Eric Hoffer once proposed that we erect a Statue of Responsibility in San Francisco to match Lady Liberty in New York. If there were such a statue, we’d probably have to stumble through the bum shit and discarded needles to view it. Maybe that says something about the times.
” Yes Sir Mr. Greatgreatgreatgreat Suthenboy, you are like family to us too. We will stay and help you work this place!”
Security (food, water, clothing, shelter) very much trumped liberty in those troubled times.
“Although I contend no one is free who has not fled all trappings of civilization, for civilization itself is a gilded cage.”
Channeling Rousseau?
I contend that as long we require food and water we are slaves. The belly is the sternest and most unforgiving taskmaster of all. Its demands are never ending, and at best it is only temporarily sated.
Woo hoo!
Eight hours of Incident Command training!
Anyone have any incidents they need commanded?
We already have enough duty managers.