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H&I* Fires, 26 MAR 2007

Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.

You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...

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Murdoc has a book review.

Zenpundit directs to yet another interesting blog.
--ry
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Why the gun is civilization. A little discussion on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms over at the Munchkin Wrangler. The comments are worth the perusal.

TGIF (yeah, I know, it's not). As CAPT H noted in an email comment - it's worth it for Kim du Toit's comment alone. H/t both of these, CAPT H.

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Angel Alerts: Request for immediate emergency monetary assistance from Soldiers' Angels Forum for returned Iraq Veteran and his family of six (soon to be seven). Donations to be made to Soldiers' Angels with note "Sgt. O".

Read about it here

A very interesting read regarding the Algerian Insurgency v. Iraq Insurgency

Pajamas Media has running coverage from around the globe on the Brits the Iranians "arrested" for "espionage".

A very long and moving read from Newsweek: If You Are Reading This...

When you're done being completely sappy, head over for a little caption this, especially for all you navy type folks.

Angel humor

What I don't get about angels is why, when someone is in love, they shoot arrows at them. Sarah, Age 7 I hear angels all the time in my dreams. And I'm sticking with that no matter how many people tell me I'm crazy. Molly, Age 8
-Kat

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DoD uses several acronyms that Normals are -- sadly -- learning the meaning of. KIA. WIA. MIA.

Here's one you may not have seen before: BNR. Body Not Recovered. Generally entered in the database for flight crew types who go missing in bad weather in the mountains or whose last known position was over water.

Every so often, the BNR is expunged. This one hit home, because one of my flight school classmates went BNR in the same area, for the same reason. Thirty-seven years ago.

Home is one more Hunter...

H/t to NevadaDailySteve

Another Hunter has taken the path to Fiddler's Green. LtCol Chase Nielsen passed on Friday at age 90.

Nielsen was a navigator in one of the most daring air raids in American history, when 16 B-25 bombers took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo on April 18, 1942.

Nielsen and his crew -- named "Crew 6," because of the order in which they left the aircraft carrier -- ditched the plane off the coast of China after it ran out of fuel. He then spent more than three years as a Japanese prisoner of war. Nielsen was the only member of "Crew 6" to survive the war.

Now, there remain but fourteen of the eighty Raiders who first struck back at the Home Islands. --Bill

H/t to V29

A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.

Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute.

*Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*

The UAVs (oops, can't call 'em UAVs anymore - they're now Unmanned Aerial Systems... some Colonel got his Legion of Merit for that change...), er, um UAS's we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.

I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to. It's also an open trackback, so if (Don Surber uses it this way a lot) someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".

8 Comments

Bill - while I toss one back for your absent companion, I will slap you upsidahaid for breaking the terminology rule on "Normals."
 
What rule on normals and terminology? I must have missed something recently...
 
I just want to brag a little. I noticed that I was getting a number of hits for USS Jason Dunham so I followed the link. I'm number three (the castle is number 5, I feel a little schadenfreud) LOL
 
Must've misplaced my copy of the Castle Style Book. Yup, that's it. Hang on while I get a couple of ice-packs for those busted fingers...
   
Kat - worse... the top 5 entries are all blogs. #6 is the first professional news outlet, and they're local to where Corporal Dunham was from. Which means that the MSM just didn't find the story interesting. Which is why blogs have utility, despite the annoyance of some elements of society - in a wired world, we do actually spread the little stories. And there's nothing wrong with that.
 
You know, that's a really good point, John. Major outlets do not exist. What the heck? Don't know why I am still surprised.
 
*right-click-open-in-new-window* *F5* *F5* *F5* *F5* *F5!* *F5!!* [%$#@! dialup] Aaaahhh! Okay, that's one of the H&Is I missed in between calls on the porcelain phone that week. Hmmmmmm. "Civilian"... I've heard cops, doctors, teachers, truck drivers and politicians refer to those who weren't of their particular profession as "civilians" -- and the one that tickled me most was overhearing two grad-student techies on a break from teaching an IT class referring to their students as "civilians." The class was composed of enlisted folks, all of 'em wearing BDUs. Ever since I got in touch with my feminine side (a nice chick, if a trifle butch), I have become more attuned to Denizen/zenne sensibilities, so I'll cheerfully dump the Normal-cum-Uniform Conjunction. And, in the immortal words of Pogo Possum, "Don't take this too serious, 'cause it ain't nohow permanent."
 
© 2008 John Donovan
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