Leaderboard

I got back from a 7 month stint on Palau back in August 2011. Part of my duty was maintaining the WW2 sites on Peleliu and Angaur Islands, the battles that had the highest casualty rates in the Pacific campaign. Most of the battle sites and memorials have been left untouched to this day, and even now if you stray off the beaten path you still have a 50/50 shot of stepping on an UXO. I took the time and tried to get a thorough photo documentary of what I saw and thought this would be a good place to post some of the photos. I don't want to overload it on the first post so I'll just throw a couple on for now. These 2 were on Angaur Island:

Ah...l'amour...

For you stickmonkey types, does adding a white flag deploy button near chaff/flares really screw up the ergonomics of the throttles? C'mon, putting a stereotype for the French was practically mandantory here...

Whatever, everyone knows all drone guys are future generals and colonels.

2! Gotta love the herc; landing on a 3000 foot dirt LZ surrounded by mountains and hajis shooting at you, to support the guys on the ground is pretty thrilling and rewarding.

Maybe your view...but flying the C-130 ain't like a "crappy airline gig", and I'd argue that most MWS's aren't anything like the airlines. I've got enough shit to do while leading a formation over a drop zone to worry about flying acro in airplanes that aren't designed for it...

As someone who could hear the buzz of the UAV high above late at night while manning a checkpoint, I do remember the bad guys made themselves scarce and fewer things were left to go boom the next day. I've even talked to "associates" of some less than savory characters who were well aware of the the death that can come from above and they spent as least as much time avoiding being spotted by the UAVs as going out and making trouble. I do fly on the civ side and love the air as much as anyone but I assure you seeing a Dad able to come home and hug his son after a year in the desert because a UAV kept the bad guy's from putting out an IED to kill him makes it all worthwhile. I think the UAV will be to the GWOT what the helicopter was to Vietnam. Thanks for watching over them.