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War Stories Thread


Danger41

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After the Iraq invasion. The crew and I were shuttling equipment from Ali Al Salem to Balad, Baghdad, Mosul, etc. Long day and we're uploading equipment in 100+ degree heat. Command Post calls and tells us to stop uploading, download, and reconfig for pax. Loads were f'n pissed. Refragged for DV transport.

About an hour later, the black Suburbans and some Hiluxes show up. Out jump a bunch of dudes in suits. Why are these lace curtain MFs riding in a Herc to Mosul? We get them on board and one weasely lookin dude asks to sit on the bunk. Bit of a bold request, but whatever. We're waiting on the NAV to get back from CP with the new paperwork.

Guy on the bunk introduces himself. DoV Zakheim, Undersecretary of Defense Comptroller. #3 guy in the SecDef office. Gives me his card. So I ask him why he's along.

"We are trying to make it to as many bases as we can to determine what's needed. I'm meeting with Gen Whomever and we're going to find out what we can provide. We have reps in the back from Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed, etc."

Oh. cool. I sit down and strap in. It's quiet and we're all tired, hot, and unimpressed. I can tell he feels sort of awkward and he fidgets with this leather day planner. Unzips it, and pull out a huge stack of cash.

"You want to see something funny?" Okay. "Look at this." He hands it to me and laughs. It's a fake currency type bill with his face in the middle. Looked legit at first, but it was denominated in One Billion Out Year Dollars. I didn't get it and I could tell he was disappointed that I only asked "what are 'out year dollars' "? He explained it was money that was authorized by Congress for the DoD to spend, but it wasn't yet allocated by any budget. It would be figured out later, he added. He said that he was going to pass these out to the Generals he met with so that they would know "the full weight and power of the US economy was behind this effort, and that whatever it took to free Iraq, we were going to get." Fine by me, I was a dumbass 1Lt and didn't care at the time.

Some years later I found his card in my deployment stuff and googled his name wondering what happened to him. Turns out around the time I had met him, he had been accused of "losing" between $1 and $2.3 TRILLION dollars at the DoD. It was gone, unaccounted for. It was spent, but no one knows where it went. He immediately became a board member at Booze Allen after he left his SecDef position, of course.

I just searched his name. Turns out his son, Roger Zakheim, worked on the US House Armed Services Committee and managed the writing and passage of the NDAA.

Corruption runs in the family, apparently, and we get to pay for it.

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2 minutes ago, gearhog said:

Some years later I found his card in my deployment stuff and googled his name wondering what happened to him. Turns out around the time I had met him, he had been accused of "losing" between $1 and $2.3 TRILLION dollars at the DoD. It was gone, unaccounted for. It was spent, but no one knows where it went. He immediately became a board member at Booze Allen after he left his SecDef position, of course.

 

 

fucker.  Hope he ends up in jail

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11 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

danger didn't you guys find the 23mm and kill it before the helos flew over it? my memories are hazy...but i remember watching the absolute chaos unfold in the TOC.

there's also a story about 3 x u-28s working a crazy stack one night that deserves to be told...one day...

I think we had the Gunship get a P-kill on the dudes running it because we tried to get the Vipers to drop a 500 pounder on it but we couldn’t make it happen due to airspace constraints with the border being 200 meters away and too many engagements going on simultaneously to get a clear bomb fall deconfliction. But honestly, my memory is kind of crappy at this point. My brain prioritized COD Zombies with the Ray Gun and gun game dominance.

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41 minutes ago, Danger41 said:

I think we had the Gunship get a P-kill on the dudes running it because we tried to get the Vipers to drop a 500 pounder on it but we couldn’t make it happen due to airspace constraints with the border being 200 meters away and too many engagements going on simultaneously to get a clear bomb fall deconfliction. But honestly, my memory is kind of crappy at this point. My brain prioritized COD Zombies with the Ray Gun and gun game dominance.

Gun game was the shit. SHISHHHHH SHISHHHHH SHAWWWWWW

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9 hours ago, filthy_liar said:

Well you just opened up the well.  Gunships eh?  Do tell.  And you Gunship bros have an awful lot to tell when it comes to war stories.

There I was, I shot a lot of people, I came home...repeat 69 times. 

Happy?

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So there I was, back in Afghanistan over a decade after my first trip in country.  Not an American outside the wire, ROE so strict that pretty much all we could do is watch shit happen...  JAGs/Engagement authority scared of their own shadows.  Complete waste of money/assets, not to mention our time/morale.  6 months later, we dumped that place faster that your crazy ex-gf that keyed your car.  Many who hadn't thought much of going to the airlines decided to make that jump because of that trip.  The end.

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9 hours ago, SocialD said:

So there I was, back in Afghanistan over a decade after my first trip in country.  Not an American outside the wire, ROE so strict that pretty much all we could do is watch shit happen...  JAGs/Engagement authority scared of their own shadows.  Complete waste of money/assets, not to mention our time/morale.  6 months later, we dumped that place faster that your crazy ex-gf that keyed your car.  Many who hadn't thought much of going to the airlines decided to make that jump because of that trip.  The end.

Unfortunately there are way more of these sentiments than badass stories.  And I don't disagree with your overall assessment.  Complete waste of money and assets and a complete drain on morale.  But I do like hearing the stories from the badasses.  Even if it was a shit show to begin with.

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On 2/5/2023 at 1:45 AM, hindsight2020 said:

Fair amount of close calls, To say nothing of all the funerals of direct co-workers(2), and students (2) in the last 6 years than I care to share on this message board. 

You’re not wrong.  UPT is a dangerous business.  Closest I came to death was my T38 initial form solo.   We were nose high, in a turn, and slow in fingertip.  Lead kicked me out to fighting wing.  I had no SA on my airspeed, pulled the throttles slightly and stalled, falling straight toward his vertical stab.  I had no idea how close we had come until we pulled the tapes.  

Edited by HU&W
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@filthy_liar

Just so I've got this straight, you were an ALO in Oct 2001 who went into Afgh with the first wave.  You claim to be a prior A-10 pilot, which means you're a early to mid-1990's commission - UPT - first assignment - then on to be an ALO.  Following that, you had to immediately transitioned into B-1s as you were at Diego launching sorties into theater in 2005.  With those combat feathers in your hat, you'd be a sure thing for O-6 in the early 2010s, and then possibly retire in the mid 2010's...which O-6's rarely do.

So, as an ALO, a position attached at the hip to the DIV CG, command staff, and most definitely the DFSCOORD, who was your CG during the first push into afgh?  I know that's decidedly not classified.  The ALO never goes first unless the Div staff goes first, and they didn't.  Most definitely not on 19/20 Oct 2001...even with that 30 minute time difference.  Where were you during all that?  What unit were you attached to?  When you went into country, what herk unit hauled you in?  I probably know them.  You also claim to have been through Ranger School, when we didn't start sending ALOs through that school until...never...and didn't send hardly any AF (there were a very select few) through until post 9/11, most of whom were TACP and an enlisted troops.  After that, how'd you transition over to the B-1 at a time when competent and experienced A-10 pilots were at a premium?  Sounds like a rather unique path.

You don't sound like the kind of guy that would be hungry to hear other peoples war stories with so many of your own to tell.

The fact is: Your cavalier perspective and voice don't match any of the individuals I've personally known to tread the paths you claim to have tread.  They were all solid, respectful, continuing-to-self-educate professionals.  You come off as none of those.  Those of us who've actually seen the elephant up close rarely come back story-thirsty.  Prone to drinking...definitely.  But never thirsty to relive most of those harrowing experiences in so slovenly and exaggerated fashion as you put on.

Beyond that, you admitted to being banned here at baseops several times.  Care to share the previous handles?

If we're to have a solid thread of war stories, I think we'd all prefer to keep the BS out.  You seem to fit that bill.

Edited by FourFans130
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