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Don’t go a ninjain’ nuthin’ that don’t need ninjain’

Actually read the article. After years of being lied to by the MSM and their "sources" I don't see a reason to give this article any credibility. I can make up how anyone would've accomplished this and cite an anonymous source to attempt to bolster the point. No one in the media knows who did this. Until someone has some real evidence or credible sources willing to go public, it will remain that way. I find the US unlikely due to Biden's past timidity. Don't forget Biden is the one who didn't want to risk going into Pakistan to get Bin Laden. It doesn't seem likely that he would risk fracturing NATO via-a-vis Germany by cutting off a potential gas supply that might be needed during winner. Russia would risk little if this was found to be them, as it is their property. It does play well into the Russian domestic narrative that they are under attack by NATO. It could also drive a wedge between NATO countries. Does that mean they did it? Nope, it just means it may have been them.

Meh... it could be worse. Check 1:25 on the one below.

Regardless of your political feelings, I wish we could stop this stupid heckling from the crowd. JFC it’s so embarrassing.

Coulson 737 Fireliner crashed in Western Australia yesterday during ops on a fire. Miraculously, both pilots survived with minor injuries. I know one of the pilots from being around the industry the past several years, so I’m especially glad it turned out this way, all things considered. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-07/wa-boeing-737-plane-crash/101939554

But choose your target wisely.

They didn’t consider military compensation in the context of folks’ overall compensation. If they had, RAND would realize that (in the case of AvIP) most folks are making an economically irrational decision to show up at all. Again, every A1 at every level should have a permanent labor economist on staff… but we’d probably pay just enough to find the worst ones.

Ain't that the truth. Some of the best life advice I've ever received.

Why not? We're on a burner of a hot streak sorting out nation states. Lets keep the train rolling.

@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.

@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.

No. I do have a life sometimes despite my posting history 😅 Yea sure, intentionally destroying things is bad. Hell, war is a policy failure at its core because you’re destroying rather than building and killing rather than flourishing. Not sure what you’re looking to have me say here or why my opinion matters that much to you. 🤷‍♂️

Seriously? You are hanging your hat on Seymour Hersh? Really? I am kind of without words. He may be famous for uncovering the 1968 My Lai massacre and the mid-2000s Abu Ghraib but he has more conspiracy theories than the flat earth society. Among his claims: 1. "Bin Laden was a “prisoner” of the Pakistani intelligence service in his Abbottabad compound since 2006; the United States learned of Bin Laden’s whereabouts through a former Pakistani intelligence officer; Saudi Arabia was “financing Bin Laden’s upkeep”; and Pakistan’s military helped Washington plan the raid." 2. "Top leaders of the Pentagon deliberately subverted American policy toward Syria, sabotaging US efforts to aid Syrian rebels and even sending US intelligence to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad." And my personal favorite: 3. In January 2011 he spoke at Georgetown University’s branch campus in Qatar, where he gave a bizarre and rambling address alleging that top military and special forces leaders are "all members of, or at least supporters of, Knights of Malta.… many of them are members of Opus Dei."

Agreed. Don’t heckle like a little baby bitch, cowboy up and throw a chair at somebody’s face.

Would pay to see. Recommend Orange County because its close to San Diego and a quick trip for me.

Oh absolutely, but I honestly didn’t know what it was.

From the linked story, “…according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.” The source:

Replying in kind, of course, whatever drivel a reporter conjures to prop up your worldview is gospel truth? We should ask Brian Williams what really happened, he was probably there setting the charges himself.

What Haiti really needs is a politically connected benevolent charitable foundation to step up and help out.

I think it’s specifically the idea that if you work even one day of orders, or just come to drill, that you would be entitled to the entire month’s worth of flight pay, per the normal brackets for what that pays. So come to drill, earn $1K in flight pay, not 4/30ths of $1K.

Is that Mr. Belding she's smooching?

This is what I'm getting at. Just landed my first post-AD role. It is NOT airlines and I'm still making just about double what I was as a Major. The crazy high pay accessible to officers in the private sector is incredible and the DoD is shooting itself by not doing studies to understand just how much more opportunity people have when they get out. Yes, serving your country is a moral reason to stay but ensuring generational financial security for your family and off spring is also a moral reason to leave.

I don’t see how there is a single correlation between flight pay amount and effort at work. Higher flight pay is one tool to make the overall compensation higher in an attempt to keep guys from jumping to the airlines, that’s all it does. Rand took a massive swing and a miss on this one.

The creepiness of this group of people continues to amaze me. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Back in the days when work email was ONLY used for sending the above videos and games.

Some of these kids can hardly believe the internet existed before them. Totally unawares of absolute classics like Grape Fall Lady: Which even had a Family Guy bit: And one final bit of advice for the young in’s here…..THIS is how you properly derail a thread.

No

I guess I’m not tracking. FWIW, when it stops being in our national interest we should stop sending weapons to Ukraine. Same as anywhere else. But IMHO they’re clearly in the right here having been invaded by our long term adversary, so there’s miles of runway before I think our national interest would run out. They’re using those weapons to defend their country and smash a ton of Russian mil capability and that’s an unambiguous win. Even better would be if the Russians got rid of Putin, ended the war, returned home and peacefully joined the rest of Europe, but until that happens I’m happy for them to suffer militarily for their ill-conceived adventure.

The biggest straw man is your assertion that there is a “blank check” for Ukraine. There’s not! There’s calculated material and intelligence support to help them defend themselves, aligned with our national interests. The reason folks including me are dunking is this seems like one of the biggest, clearest wins in terms of use of US dollars and effort to for what we’re getting in terms of a major opponent crippling themselves.

We can't allow a balloon gap!

At least we recovered the high tech balloon material.

Ancient Hawg Driver proverb: Where are your tanks, I will shoot them.

Russia actually had, IMHO, more impressive power projection in Syria that I thought they could pull off long-term. Totally unrelated to NATO expansion or whatever other excuse you want to make for Putin’s aggressive, expansionist wars. If you think the Ukrainians are the bad guys and Putin is the innocent victim here who is only, “reacting defensively” in the war with Ukraine…phew boy that’s quite the POV to walk around with all day.

Is there a way to attach a breathalyzer to a keyboard like how they do in a car if you get caught drunk driving?

Ever been to Verdun? Mass artillery is horrific and what happened at Verdun is sickening. The sole purpose of the battle was not to take territory, rather it was to "bleed them white", a horrific battle of attrition meant to consume human life. It will take your breath away, I wept. This building is the memorial and it frames the cemetery. The center is meant to represent an artillery shell. You can see the people in the center for scale...now the sickening part. As you go around to the back it becomes obvious the memorial is built into the hill and it has a large basement that runs the length of the building. Every time it rains they find more bones and skulls from WWI. They collect the bones and deposit them in the basement. There are windows you can look in and see the bones and skulls stacked 20' high. The enormity of loss overwhelmed me. Over 100 year ago and the earth is still scarred from millions of artillery shells.

I think I figured it out? Your sexual desires for another man (me) have you conflicted inside. You can’t fight it, so you stay up on late night benders getting mad at God for making you that way. Edit: Let me know if you ever have an overnight in Orange County or LAX and we can meet up and see if you have the nuts to swing at me. I promise. If you let me know when you’re in So Cal, I’ll give you that chance. I like fighting. I like being punched in the face. How about you Mr. Army Ranger, B1 pilot. I wish I would have seen your punk ass in Diego Garcia in 2005 (during your second deployment), shortly after you jumped into Afghanistan in 2001. You wouldn’t be able to type or talk with that cocksucker you call a mouth. I also understand you live in Alabama. Where at in Alabama? I don’t mind going down there to shut your mouth. I have family down there. I’m sure they’ll accommodate me if you want to meet up? PM me and we can make this happen. I’m fucking serious.

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

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, where the fuck were these teachers when I was 17!

I volunteer to down a balloon with an AGM-114R9X. Ninjy stars!

As much as it takes to utterly destroy Russia. This is easily the most effective and efficient military spending we've ever done. We've set Russia back decades, for less than the 10% of the DoD budget.

Bro I have been here since 2005 and it was never that place lol.

Once upon a time, over the Atlantic Ocean, just offshore from the Outer Banks, an air-to-air kill was logged, a balloon. The end…or was/is it?

You missed out. Had you become a pilot you could baselessly speculate with the rest of us, instead you actually know WTF you’re talking about.

I guess y’all have never seen The World is Not Enough? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I work in the pigging industry on the inspection side. I'll add my.02. Never thought of a pig as a delivery vehicle for a bomb but it could happen. However, I believe the line was idle and not making deliveries? The pig would have to travel with the pressure of the gas flow. So Germany would need to be taking deliveries. If the line was idle they couldnt push the pig since the displaced gas had no where to go. I found this site when I was trying to be an AF pilot. Now I am posting on my post military career. Baseops has now become full circle.