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@argstarted the other thread about Gunships in Desert Storm and I recommended a war stories thread because I’m sure this group has some good ones. I’ll kick it off. Decmeber 2, 2014 Nangahar, Afghanistan Flying Draco out of Bagram and a raid comes down that we’re going to support and run the stack for. We weren’t doing hits every night but by dumb luck, I’d been on a few as we rolled through the schedule. As some of you know, they’re usually a bit hectic at first when the helo lands and then it’s pretty chill as they make callouts and not much would happen so that was what I expected. We brief up, get out there, get everyone checked in and ready to go. We had 2 Vipers, a Gunship, a few RPA’s, Compass Call a ways off, and the helos that had a couple DAPs and 4 60’s. TOT hits, all the sensors are assigned and I’m looking out the window and I see multiple 12.7 and 23mm open up from all along this river bank/village that were covered up until we landed (1). We haven’t even made comms with the ground force yet and it’s a madhouse immediately. I vividly remember seeing tracers crisscrossing the village and then under NVG I can see airburst going off above the Gunship and behind where he was (shooting at the sound). The assault force gets out and are immediately under fire. I had some young guys running sensors and a pretty weak swimmer (that got much better but he was a 1st Lt at the time and somewhat weak) as our CSO who, in theory, should be running the show in this instance but kind of locked up a bit and was overwhelmed. I started directing sensors and getting directive to get people sorting and finding targets. We finally get the JTAC on the radio and I unload the situation to him (overly wordy and crappy comms) and he basically tells me to run it because they’re under fire (gunshots and yelling in the background). I had some very good Viper pilots (2 Patch wearers I come to find out) and had them tracking targets, RPA’s on ADA positions, and the Gunship in close on the good guys. I started working with the DAPs and we would find stuff and they’d kill it. Time goes on, we start thinning out targets, the assault force is clearing the northern village and it turns out to be a dry hole so they start moving about a KM south toward the secondary objective. As they move, it’s more of the same with the sensors except we split to help the Gunship escort the assault force and to find targets for the DAPs with the other. As this is going on, I’m starting to realize that the timeline has gone to absolute hell and we won’t be able to support this whole thing so I call back to our TOC and tell them to wake up the crew that would be flying the first line of the day to backfill us (2). Every jet there worked extensions and Tac C2 worked tanker reflows and all that. The whole team came together to support the guys on the ground and we didn’t get any push back. Incredibly awesome teamwork and proud moment for me as a member of the USAF. While I’m neck deep in trying to secure all that, the ground force is moving to the southern area and enemy fighters pop out of VC style spider holes and engage them from about ten feet. By the grace of God, no friendlies get hit and they kill the enemy and continue to move (3). They eventually make it to the southern compound and start to make call outs IAW the ROE. I’ve got two bingos (one for JBAD and one for BAF) and know I’m getting close to having to leave. I didn’t want to go to JBAD because I knew our MX flow at the time we didn’t have enough airplanes to backfill our backfill (jet happened to be in phase) if I went to JBAD but I couldn’t leave until we had another Draco because everyone else was gainfully employed and I assumed we’d lose the Gunship at Dawn (Spirit 03) and didn’t want the ground force to lose their comm lifeline. Personal thought at the time was that this would take until about noon the next day. About this time, my good friend and his crew that got shaken awake and scrambled check in on comms and I start filling them in. I’m doing a handover and they show up and match sensors and see DAPs killing targets under our sparkle and we hand that off (an easy confirmation haha). As they’re making it, I commit to BAF and know I’ll be landing at min fuel but that’s fine. We are about done and their radios all take a shit and lose crypto at the exact same time that an assault force member gets shot and the ground force calls for an urgent CASEVAC (4). Our backfill has no comms and the ground force is relaying the CASEVAC 9-line in rapid fire to my aforementioned weak swimmers who dropped their nuts and did a picture perfect job and made that happen to get the helos back for the exfil (5). My backfill gets one (of their 10) radios working and takes the stack and the situation over and we get out of dodge. I run the numbers and realize we will be at emergency gas when we land so I coordinate to zoom as much as the mighty Draco can and get into a glide profile to enter a 69 mile right base. I call the SOF (A-10 guy) and tell him to get everyone out of our way and he worked with everyone to clear it out for us. He does it and I get cleared to the numbers and land with 78 pounds of gas. I’ll never forget that number haha (it also went up about 70 pounds when I reset the counter on the ground so I didn’t shut down and get towed back). We shut down, get back to the TOC and things are still happening but long story short, we got everyone back a few hours later (6). I’ve never felt anything like that and I was absolutely jacked and when I landed and came down off of that, I couldn’t sleep for a long time and was antsy hearing about the fate of the wounded assaulter because I assumed he died based on how it sounded over the radio. When I found out he lived, I can’t explain the feeling of relief and flush of emotions that happened. He was sent to Germany and ended up being paralyzed, unfortunately but he’s alive today and sounds like he’s thriving. Anyways, I felt like I earned that 1/20th of an Air Medal. 1. Turns out one of our Afghan allies let his Taliban buddies know we were coming and they decided to try to make this a Blackhawk Down scenario. 2. We didn’t have a backfill and a 4 hour gap from when we would land to when those guys would takeoff for the first line of the day to coincide with sunrise. The LPA and junior enlisted that were awake and running our graveyard ops absolutely killed it getting those dudes prepped, getting them food, etc. I was incredibly proud of those folks that didn’t whine or complain at all and just made shit happen. Draco standard. 3. https://www.army.mil/article/147892/1st_battalion_75th_ranger_regiment_honors_its_heroes The dudes that got the Bronze Star with V were for this part. 4. https://www.socom.mil/fighting-on-to-the-ranger-objective The Rangers that got Silver Stars above in 3 were for this part. True heroism. 5. Army helos were sitting at level 1 at JBAD and were there in minutes. They earned DFC’s for this deservedly so. 6. Later on I heard from that intercepted comms said something like “how are they finding us? They’re killing us and we can’t see them.” Over 25 EKIA and a great mission for SSE overall.

I thought the bar would be the place to talk about bacon and wine. It would take me an hour to type it all out so I'm going to provide links. I tried to find the first video I used to make bacon but I guess since it was 15 years ago it's gone or buried deep in the interwebs. You need pork belly if you don't raise your own and we run out. Any grocery store that still has a real butcher will have it. Shop around for price. Even if it's a little more expensive than ready made it's worth it due to shrinkage. Ready made bacon has a lot of water added and you pay for that, it says water added on the label, that's why it shrinks so much, the water steams out. Homemade bacon doesn't have that water. The fat will render out but you save that for other cooking uses. It's stupid easy. All you need is salt, that's it. Salt a pork belly for four or five days and you have bacon, the basic bacon. But who eats that? You got to smoke it right? We, I say we because my charming bride has pretty much took over the bacon making duties(God, I love her), use a Weber Kettle to smoke it. My wifes recipe is basically salt, prague #1(you need to be careful with that stuff but like I said you don't need it) and brown sugar. Token video for motivation. Trying to find that dress for my wife on amazon. Wine. The Desert Storm wine recipe is so far gone I could never remember it. We made it with pure grape or apple juice we got on the local economy. I remember we used the clear five gallon camping jugs to make it. The med techs donated some medical tubing to help with the off gassing. Our room looked like an episode of MASH. Here, we have grapevines and after making jelly we still had a lot of grapes left over so we searched homemade wine recipes and made some. Wow, that stuff made MD 2020 jealous. We may try it again. Here is a link to a cool website. I've used their recipes for curing a ham and to make pastrami. Both were absolutely kick ass. https://amazingribs.com/ We can talk brisket on a Weber too if ya'll want.

No one understands you bro. I'm not explaining shit because I literally cant understand the last 4 incoherent thoughts you tried..... i dont even know wtf point you're trying to make.

So, is there going to be a big party at the club tonight to celebrate the first Raptor kill? "So, there I was..... Got a visual on the bandit and used the awesome power and thrust vectoring to manuever to his 6.... well, there really wasn't a 6 position. So, there he was just floating......"

Exactly……like deploying hard boiled eggs out of the sextant port.

Fake news and fake video. He says its not possible to hit it with a "missile". https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1621560405448343557?s=20&t=gvv3v9_H9UzAaoSHzS5HCA

Who do I contact to have my picture removed from the internet? Asking for a friend.

Humanitarian volunteer, Marine vet killed in Ukraine while helping civilians | Fox News Regardless of anyone's political views on the conflict, sad news out of Ukraine. If any of you watched the show Hunting ISIS you'll recognize Reed. After his service in the Marines he'd dedicated his life to medically helping people in conflict zones.

He's been showing other countries that they are for two years

Ok, I'll give you a serious response. You're looking for a unicorn. Every community is going to have people that are working to excel, professionally and otherwise. Every community is going to have people just coasting to 20. If you think the C-146 mission - airland for smaller units - is cool, go do it. If you want to be a professional, good on ya. Be a professional wherever you end up, but don't pretend that AFSOC is full of high speed low drag professional snake eaters that are going to push you to be the best you can be. They still have navs, so you know that ain't the case. Just kidding, nav!

Do Denmark, Norway, Austria, Estonia, Latvia also agree? Does Florida agree? it’s tough to say what views “most in her profession” share given the well documented government endorsed censorship. It looks to me like the C19 risk/reward decision matrix is far more nuanced than CDC has acknowledged. Which means we shouldn’t have mandated it.

Did they take 'and effective' away from safe? If you listen you can hear the drums off in the distance. Stay tuned. Also where do those places you listed get their funding?

just like EVERYONE said if you get the vax you CANNOT GET COVID

Well, Johns Hopkins says it’s safe, as does CDC, as does Mayo Clinic, as does the UK NIH, as do the Aussies, the Japanese, and so on. So yes, while I respect the fact that this may be one particular doctor’s informed medical opinion, it seems most in her profession don’t share her views.

It was time to put away the homemade wine as I was about to enter crew rest for what would be the most memorable flight of my career. This was the third mission of the war for us. A snippet from this book https://www.amazon.com/Ghostriders-1976-1995-William-Walter-ebook/dp/B09VQWY5RP/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid&sr&fbclid=IwAR1vELr1aoqfQjbqO5BywaXVt7DDWvGiBeBh9ZuJL-V4stML3whaaGOFpAY On the evening of January 21, mission planners began tasking AC-130s identically as they did for fighters as two AC-130s were assigned to 30x30 nautical mile “kill boxes.” On this night, weather was good and both crews were advised there would be a fighter CAP available in their working areas. Ghost 02, commanded by Capt P.L. took off first in Grave Digger and proceeded to their target area in south central Iraq.23 Within their assigned kill box was an Iraqi command and control center, which was expected to be protected with AAA. About an hour later, Ghost 03 commanded by Capt Preaskorn took off in Bad Company, en route to their target area. I was on Ghost 03

Congrats to BigRed on his initial Solo in the U-2 on Wednesday. 🥃 He will be known as "Solo 1095". Not bad for an old Navy guy.

105-0

Is that a Sky-Penis? Sent from my SM-F721U using Tapatalk

What airframe for WIC? I’d suggest you do the WIC thing because that’s an easy discriminator. I got selected as the demonstration pilot and then initial cadre for SOCOM’s Armed Overwatch program and the only thing that discriminated me was being a grey Patch.

That is all great, but what comes with that are O-6's (leaders) with brass balls big enough to tell him that he is off his f$cking rocker and that they are not sending their people to the range to waste ammo dualing it out at 10 paces with a cardboard Chinaman. No negotiating? Please! There are better things to worry about when it comes to our tanker force than deploying DJI's out of the sextant port. I admire his drive, and I am all for innovation, but he really needs a spokesperson to write for him. The memo started out great. I was tracking his intent, and then he maybe got too far down into his bottle of scotch. Sent from my SM-F721U using Tapatalk

Given that the White House didn't reveal they found classified documents at the Penn center for months...I'd say there is trend. Also kind of odd we just found out there is another Chinese "Weather" balloon floating across South America.

Gun porn. My babies have been in my buddies (F-111 WSO) safe for over 10+ years since I moved to Cap Hill. Finally got a chance to get down there and inspect/clean what was needed. Other than running a patch through a shotgun and my S&W M19 2.5” .357…..the rest of the family was as pretty as the day they went in there. Lesson: clean/oil before storage is you friend. Need to get out to the Quantico range if they will let us. Nothing like the feel of an M1 Garand or a Browning High Grade Ultra O/U, along with bro talk over morning coffee. Cheers ATIS

Calm down Janice. He's going to get destroyed at somepoint in real life. He might as well get a taste for free.

In case that wasn't clear - 1000 percent agree.

Second balloon was identified now in South America. Biden needs to do something. You cannot show other countries that are boundaries are amendable.

Man if I had more time I would love to dissect this for you. But its very clear your bias here and the tint of your lenses. If you think people in the private sector give a damn about "the mission" or "the objective"..... You are coming from a place of loyalty/duty/purpose. In the private sector the only "thing" you work for is supporting a bunch of privledged people line their pockets with satin gold you'll never touch. People don't work for "the mission." They work for "themselves." And that often means coming to work running out the mouth ass and nose because they need to make that rent payment in 2 weeks and they aren't getting paid if they aren't there.

doubt it...it was over Missouri earlier today

You've seen the responses. You would have better luck asking the checkout girl or guy at the commissary on their opinion of the C-146. This board has turned into a bunch of assholes looking for their next giddy moment of shitting on someone. It used to be better. That's a shame.

To be fair. Since some of the "women" he hired aren't really women, he's technically telling the truth.

To get around that and a host of other issues I think the DNC has to oust Biden. But I agree with whoever typed that DeSantis is the fighter that conservatives are looking for. Seems like an easy choice for the RNC. And they'll probably fuck it up.

Hold out for spec ops fighter pilot. It’s the best of all worlds for the best of the best of the best to live your best life.

Biden really can't send the FBI on classified documents raids anymore since the American public knows he's just as guilty as the next guy. Had he been able to keep his own misdeeds under the radar, the FBI would be raiding Pence (and any other political threat).

Do they get Berets? That alone would allow me to live my best life!

We stand nothing to gain? From taking most of Russia’s pieces off the chessboard? From showing the Chinese how high invasion costs can be? From gaining valuable intelligence on how Russian supplied war machines work? From coalescing Western allies in ways we haven’t seen in decades? From taking the Russians out of the European energy game? Etcetera. Etcetera. Curious as to what you think are more worthwhile foreign policy goals?

At about 0625 Saudi(2125CST) time is when 03 went down. We didn't know it yet we just knew they overdue. Didn't find the wreckage untill March. I'll be toasting

This is awesome! I think we need to start a “war stories” thread or something. Gotta be a lot of cool stories like this one.

Found one. Hard to see because of the flash but the positive needle is over at the 3oclock deadspace. I know, fighter guys are chuckling at 5g