Unfinished Business

Why is it, I wonder, that unfinished business holds such a powerful attraction for us? It sings a siren song, calling to us across the years and the distance that separates us from those people and places that haunt our dreams. No matter how much distance we put between ourselves and those things, they are but a moment away, as if all the dusty miles and dragging years are but an illusion of progress. Hard-wired memories, it is as if it all happened yesterday.

Some things are better left buried, but the dead always demand their due and, like a child's nightmare monster, refuse to be ignored. Time wounds all heels, no matter how much scar tissue you lay down, you just can't escape who you are. And, if you were going to be truly honest about it, would you even try? Better to be you than not be you.

There are some events that are so shattering you never truly recover from them. They ripple through the years like a stone dropped in a still pond, the echoes reverberating through time with a terrible clarity, a purity of essence that only magnifies as the days draw ever on. To grow from a boy to a man in the space of an hour is a burden almost too great to bear. Oh, that's hard, it is indeed.

So many memories, each as fresh and as powerful as the day they happened. My entire 8th Grade class came to my father's funeral, to bear witness, to draw what lesson each could from that event. It is bad enough to be the one chosen to find a dead parent, but only God could have a sense of humour sick enough to command a repeat performance ten years later. But in the end, what does it matter? Death is always with you, a constant companion silently waiting, one day the Sun will rise but you will not.

In the meantime, you live, for what else can you do? People come and people go, for that is what they do, bit actors who strut and fret their time upon the stage of your life and, their performance concluded, exit and fade into the mists of comforting memory. Or not so comforting for, while everything ends, they only rarely end the way we would prefer.

First loves are the best loves, for everything is new, waiting to be discovered, experienced as you will never experience it again. There is no doubt she saved me, kept me from falling into the abyss that beckoned so seductively, held at bay, for a time, the storms in the comforting haven of her arms. But first loves are idealized loves and memories, as strong and as immediate as they may feel, are often idealized, too. There were other loves to come, too, each as powerful and profound in their own right, so why should that one continue to echo through the years, to cruelly tease with what was and is no more? Having run its course, there still remains the nagging feeling of things left undone and unsaid.

Friends, too, grow old and fade away, replaced, if you're lucky, by new friends. And yet, there is always that one who somehow refuses to be shuffled off to the remote fondness of the past. He reminds you of his presence - or, rather, his lack of presence - in those quiet moments when the mind wanders from the immediacy of the now, a teasing will'o'wisp of memory dancing just beyond your grasp. He, too, calls to you from the mists and shadows of what was and what is done, a shade of someone you once couldn't imagine life without.

You don't talk about it much because, well, that's just the way it is, and you learn to live with it. But he, too, was there, one of the first on the terrible morning that set the course for the rest of your life. He stayed throughout the following weekend, splitting cheesecakes and whiling away the empty hours, never saying much because just what can a fourteen year old say when his friend's parent dies? But he was there, and he was there for all the horrible things that followed, and that was enough. I'd give my right arm to see him again, just one more time, to make all those yesterdays feel like today.

What price would you be willing to pay if redemption were offered to you? What would you do if offered time enough to correct just one mistake? Years later and you find yorself playing out the same sad, old story, standing there with a fireman as the paramedics work frantically in another room. You can see it in his eyes, the same thing you already know, the knowledge of loss and the need to say something, anything. And you suddenly feel the need to comfort him, the stranger, to tell him that everything will be all right, even though it won't. There is, in truth, no redemption to be had from the demons of our own guilt, and we all end as sympathy in a stranger's eyes.

Unfinished business, things left undone and unsaid. But we go on, free to make those same mistakes again or not as the vagaries of indifferent Fate move us. We're all prisoners of the choices we've made and the memories we've created and could you, would you, change them? Home is where the heart is, they say, and in truth, you've always been home, adrift on the raging seas of chaos and longing. But tomorrow will come, and with it, the promise to finish the unfinished.

Say What, Now? Part II

I do seem to be on a tear lately about conspiracy theories, don't I? Oh, well. As a friend of mine once put it, in an alleged job reference, "He has trouble with stupid people." Uh huh. I never did thank him properly for that but, not only did it torpedo that particular job, I suppose it was also a fair characterization. I really don't suffer fools gladly.

Which makes the fact that the world is so full of them something of a delicious irony, I suppose.

Anyway, the latest conspiracy theory to get under my skin - or, at least, reassert itself there - is the one concerning TWA 800. You remember that one, right? The 747 that blew up and crashed off Long Island in August of 1996.

Some people, it seems, just can't accept the fact that complicated machines sometimes break, that designs are never perfect and sometimes minor assumptions have fatal consequences that can take years to manifest themselves, and that Mr. Newton's laws, in our frame of reference, tend to be absolutes and quite unforgiving.

TWA 800, you see, didn't explode and crash because of a design flaw in the fuel tankage and electrical systems. Oh, no, that would be a far too prosaic reason to explain such a tragedy. I mean, no aircraft designer would ever run electrical wires through a fuel tank if it were dangerous, right? Just like no aircraft designer would ever dream of placing an air conditioning unit right next to a fuel tank, either. Such things just don't happen . . . except, that is, when they do.

So, why did TWA 800 crash? Simple. It was shot down by the U.S. Navy. Not intentionally, of course, unlike the cover-up that followed.

The theory is that the 747 was hit by a SAM fired by a U.S. Navy warship. Theorists point to a couple of things to support that claim. The first is the existence of explosives residue found on three seats recovered from the wreckage that were located close to the point where the aircraft broke up. Remember, the nose section of the 747 separated from the rest of the aircraft in the explosion that brought it down. Obviously, then, the fact that there was explosives residue on three of the seats is proof that there were explosives on the aircraft.

The second thing the theorists point to are the eyewitness accounts claiming that there was a "streak of fire" that rose from the ocean and climbed to impact the aircraft. There can be only one explanation for this: what those witnesses saw was a missile. Coupled with that, the theorist like to point to an ATC radar tape that shows a small, anamolous return, which again could only have been a missile.

Third, the conspiracy theorists claim that not only was it impossible for the centre fuel tank of the 747 to explode, as the NTSB determined, but that even if it did, the resulting damage would not have been enough to separate the nose of the aircraft from the rest of the plane. Again, only a missile could pack enough power in its warhead to do that.

Finally, the conspiracy theorists point to how quickly the Navy became involved in the search and recovery efforts. Not only did the Navy send in its "best" salvage vessel to take part, it immediately took control of the recovery effort away from the NYPD, who should have had jurisdiction over the "crime scene." That, of course, only would have happened if the Navy knew something, and was trying to cover it up.

Okay, it was no secret that the Navy was conducting exercises off the East Coast during the summer of 1996. The Navy, in fact, frequently conducts exercises off the East Coast. Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorists, however, the closest Navy surface ship to the flight path of TWA 800 was over two hundred miles away.

I say unfortunately because, according to the theory, a Navy SAM was responsible for shooting down the 747. The only problem being, the best Navy SAM at the time, the Standard SM-2, had a range of approximately ninety miles. Do the math.

Not only that, but there are SAMs, and then there are SAMs. Long-range weapons like the SM-2 are radar-guided, while short-range weapons are heat-seekers. Subtle difference, I know, but what that means is that they hit their targets in a different manner.

A heat-seeking weapon will look for a heat source to home in on. In other words, it won't attack the body of an aircraft, it will go after the engines, because those are the hottest parts of the plane. Which means that if a heat-seeking weapon had attacked TWA 800, the impact area would not have been on the fuselage but on a wing, where the engines were mounted. Since that was not the case with TWA 800, we can thus dispense with a heat-seeking SAM.

A radar-guided weapon, like the SM-2, will generally aim for the centre-mass of a target. The SM-2 was what is known as a SARH weapon, or a semi-active radar-homing missile. Translated into English, what that means is that the weapon is guided to its target by the weapons-director of its launching platform. The radar of the weapons director, you see, guides the weapon into the general vicinity of the target, which is called the "basket." Once the weapon is in the basket, its own radar takes over for final guidance to the target. The weapon will then attempt to hit the target where it gets the strongest radar return from; in other words, the fuselage.

Now, to be just a bit more technical, SAMs don't actually hit their targets. In either variety, heat-seeking or radar-guided, the weapons are proximity-fused. Again going back to simple English, what this means is that when the weapon senses that it is at the optimum distance from the target, it will explode. SAMs are designed to bring their targets down by shredding them with shrapnel, not by direct impact.

Furthermore, SAMs are unpowered weapons. By that I mean that, after the first thirty seconds of flight or so, the weapon's fuel supply is exhausted and it becomes a purely ballistic weapon traveling on momentum. It can still, of course, make flight corrections so long as it is in the air, but it is never going to travel any faster than it was at the moment the motor burned out. In fact, from that moment on, Mr. Newton's law of gravity takes over.

So, unless the launching platform was in extrememly close proximity to TWA 800, there is no way that the "eyewitnesses" saw a missile. Combined with the fact that the closest Navy surface ship was two hundred miles away - or, looked at the other way, TWA 800 was one hundred and ten miles beyond the maximum range of the Navy's best SAM - the missile part of this conspiracy theory is a physical impossibility.

Ah, but the conspiracy theorist have an answer for that one. The U.S. Navy submarine base at Groton, CT isn't that far away, and they claim that there were three submarines in the immediate vicinity that night: two attack submarines and a ballistic missile submarine.

But once again, those pesky facts come up to confound them. Going in reverse order, ballistic missile submarines aren't based at Groton. The nearest base for those submarines was at King's Bay, GA, so that's strike one. Strikes two and three consist of the fact that no U.S. Navy submarine, attack or otherwise, carry SAMs. Those are useless weapons for a submarine since, if the boat were able to launch them at an attacking aircraft, the aircraft would have already killed the submarine. Now, to be fair, the Navy had once talked about developing a SAM for submarines, but the programme was dropped when it was realized just how useless such a weapon was.

What about the radar tape, though? According to the theorists, it clearly shows a missile, right? Well, no. ATC radar doesn't work that way. It's not set up to get a "skin paint" off a target, which is what it would have to do if it were going to "see" a missile. Under normal circumstances, what ATC radar does is send out a signal that interrogates an aircraft's transponder. That transponder then sends a signal back telling the ATC radar the aircraft's ID, altitude and heading. If something doesn't have a transponder, or has its transponder turned off, there's no signal and the ATC radar can't "see" it. The only time ATC radar operates by obtaining a skin paint - by actively bouncing a signal off of a target and looking for the return - is when the primary computer-controlled system that interrogates the transponders crashes. While that does, unfortunately, happen often enough, that wasn't the case when TWA 800 went down.

Well, what about the explosives residue? How could that be anything other than proof that a weapon hit the aircraft? The problem with that one is that the FBI and the NTSB, during the investigation, came up with the documentation from the FAA that that particular 747 had been used in a training exercise for bomb-sniffing dogs. The point being that if you are going to train dogs to sniff out explosives, you'd better have some explosives for them to sniff. Otherwise, you're just wasting your time and the dogs', and giving them an opportunity to pee somewhere it really won't be appreciated.

Furthermore, there were only three seats that had explosives residue on them, and they weren't located at the point where the aircraft broke up. Now, if we go back to the contention that it was a U.S. Navy missile that brought the aircraft down, that's some pretty choosy residue. If, indeed, a missile had hit TWA 800, or there had been a bomb planted on the aircraft, there would have been explosives residue deposited over everything in the vicinity of where the weapon hit or the bomb went off. Residue would have been found on the fuselage, on all the other seats in the immediate area, on the floor, on the baggage in the forward baggage hold, on wiring runs, even on the bodies of the deceased. Yet we are left with the fact that out of all of those potential repositories of explosives residue, we are left with a mere three seats . . .

Ah, well. In the end, I suppose it really doesn't matter. The feeble-minded will never be able to come to grips with the fact that they aren't as smart as they think they are, and will continue to invent elaborate conspiracies to explain away the blindingly obvious. Well, at least what's obvious to everyone except themselves, that is. After all, Occam's Razor is for shaving, right?

Say What, Now?

Okay, seriously, you're all just messing with me, right?

I mean, I just have to ask that, because the alternative is that IQs in this nation have been dropping precipitously, and I really just can't wrap my mind around that possibility. I can't believe that people are truly that gullible . . . or, perhaps, I just don't crawl out from under my rock often enough to truly appreciate that we have become a nation of morons.

You all do realize, right, that just because you read something on the internet doesn't necessarily mean it is true, yes? Because if you think it is, I've got some news for you: your village called, and they want their idiot back.

Let's back up for a minute. Why am I ranting now? Well, I guess because it's illegal to beat some sense into people, and even if it weren't, there are just too many of you for me to get to. Ah, all of those so-called "intellectuals" out there really do make me nostalgic for the Khmere Rouge . . .

In my web wanderings the other day, I stumbled across yet another conspiracy theory about the "ebil gubmint" and its nefarious plots to, well, do away with us all. And, like all such theories, the people pushing it are once again showing their wit . . . or, at least, half of it.

I've got one word for you: "Chemtrails." Haven't heard of that one? Well, that only proves that the Government's propaganda machine has gotten to you. But you will learn, presumably just as you are being led off like a lamb to the slaughter.

Chemtrails are those wispy, thin white cloud-like things that you sometimes see trailing behind aircraft as they fly past. The Government, you see, in an effort to control the size of the population, is using commercial aircraft as a means of delivering chemical weapons in order to poison said population. Those clouds you see trailing behind aircraft are, in reality, an exotic mix of nerve and biological agents. And if you don't believe in that, well, that's only because you can't handle the truth.

Right, this is where I start banging my head on my desk.

According to the theorists, the Government started spraying us all with these poisons in 1997. So, for twelve years now, we've all been subject to a massive chemical attack, the sole purpose of which has been to kill people. Except, no one has actually died from any chemical or biological weapons. Oops.

What these conspiracy theorists call "chemtrails" are actually called "contrails." They aren't exactly a new phenomenon, and certainly didn't just appear within the past decade or so. Aircraft, in fact, have been producing contrails since we first built machines capable of flying high enough to do so.

Once again, folks, this is basic education and physics. One of the things you produce when you burn fuel, in addition to all the stuff that turns your lungs black when you breathe the exhaust, is water vapour. Your oil-burning furnace does it, your car does it, and aircraft engines do it. At the right temperature and above a certain altitude, that water vapour freezes and turns into ice crystals, which is what those white contrails you see behind aircraft are. People have been seeing contrails behind aircraft since the 1930s, but I suppose that it has only been with the advent of the internet that the dumb have been able to find the stupid and find an audience for their inane ramblings.

Get a grip, people. Your car does exactly the same thing on a really cold day . . . or did you all think that white vapour you see coming out of the tailpipe is the Government using your car to deliver chemical weapons, too? Back to basic physics for a moment, unless you are burning some other impurity in the fuel - like carbn deposits - or not all of the fuel is actually combusting, you can't actually see engine exhaust.

Then again, I suppose it is easier to believe that something like forty thousand commercial airline pilots and air traffic controllers are a part of some massive conspiracy to poison themselves and their families than it is to admit that you are a moron suffering from paranoid delusions of grandeur.

Ask these particular theorists if they know of anyone who has actually died as a result of this, and they tend to come up empty. The problem, you see, is that aircraft contrails only form above twenty thousand feet or so, which would make them completely useless as a means of delivering chemical weapons. That high up, the particulates would be dispersed so much that even if they reached the ground, they wouldn't do so in concentrations high enough to be effetive. Look at it this way: cropdusters tend to release their chemical payloads from a few hundred feet or less. They don't do it from a couple of miles up in the sky. Hmm. I wonder why.

Of course, I suppose I could just be one of those faceless Government minions hell-bent on wiping you all out and instituting the New World Order. But if I am, I have to say that the pay sucks and the fringe benefits are pretty much non-existent. Perhaps I should take that up with the Illuminati. I mean, is health insurance and a two-week paid vacation really too much to ask for? But ask yourself this: the last time you were at the airport, how many chemical canisters did you see being loaded on the airliners? None? That's what I thought.

Random Musings from a Past Life

Friendly fire isn't.

Recoilless rifles aren't.

All-weather Close Air Support doesn't work in bad weather.

You are not Superman; Marines and fighter pilots please take note.

All five-second grenade fuses are three seconds long.

Suppressive fires won't.

A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to slow down.

If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.

Try to look unimportant; the enemy may be low on ammo.

If at first you don't succeed, call in an air strike.

If you are forward of your position, your artillery will fall short.

Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.

Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder.

If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.

The enemy diversion you're ignoring is their main attack.

The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: when they're ready and when you're not.

No OPLAN ever survives initial contact.

There is no such thing as a perfect plan.

A retreating enemy is just falling back and regrouping.

The important things are always simple; the simple are always hard.

The easy way is always mined.

Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.

Don't look conspicuous; it draws fire. For this reason, it is not at all uncommon for aircraft carriers to be known as bomb magnets.

Never draw fire; it irritates everyone around you.

If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in the combat zone.

When you have secured the area, make sure the enemy knows it too.

Incoming fire has the right of way.

No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection.

No inspection ready unit has ever passed combat.

If the enemy is within range, so are you.

The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.

Things which must be shipped together as a set, aren't.

Things that must work together, can't be carried to the field that way.

Radios will fail as soon as you need fire support.

Radar tends to fail at night and in bad weather, and especially during both.

Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing.

Make it too tough for the enemy to get in, and you won't be able to get out.

Tracers work both ways.

If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will get more than your fair share of objectives to take.

When both sides are convinced they're about to lose, they're both right.

Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs.

Military Intelligence is a contradiction.

Fortify your front and you'll get your rear shot up.

Weather ain't neutral.

If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed toward you.

Air defense motto: shoot 'em down; sort 'em out on the ground.

The Cavalry doesn't always come to the rescue.

Napalm is an area support weapon.

Mines are equal opportunity weapons.

B-52s are the ultimate close support weapon.

Sniper's motto: reach out and touch someone.

The one item you need is always in short supply.

Interchangeable parts aren't.

It's not the one with your name on it; it's the one addressed "to whom it may concern" you've got to worry about.

When in doubt, empty your magazine.

The side with the simplest uniforms wins.

Combat will always occur on the ground between two adjoining map sheets.

If the Platoon Sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.

Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep.

The most dangerous thing in the world is a Second Lieutenant with a map and a compass.

Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.

The enemy and superior officers never watch until you make a mistake.

One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.

A clean (and dry) set of BDU's is a magnet for mud and rain.

The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.

Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can't hit the broad side of a barn.

The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.

The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator.

Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.

If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove anything.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

Air strikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.

When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones are always illegible.

The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want.

To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.

The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.

Military Intelligence is very good at telling you what just hit you. Other than that, not so much.

The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else.

When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to attack. When you are low on supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.

The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Medal of Honor.

A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.

Beer Math: 2 beers times 37 men equals 49 cases.

Body count Math: 3 guerrillas plus 1 probable plus 2 pigs equals 37 enemies killed in action.

The bursting radius of a hand grenade is always one foot greater than you can jump.

The combat worth of a unit is inversely proportional to the smartness of its outfit and appearance.

The crucial round is a dud.

Every command which can be misunderstood, will be.

There is no such place as a convenient foxhole.

Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything.

If your positions are firmly set and you are prepared to take the enemy assault on, he will bypass you.

If your ambush is properly set, the enemy won't walk into it.

If your flank march is going well, the enemy expects you to outflank him.

Density of fire increases proportionally to the curiousness of the target.

Odd objects attract fire - never lurk behind one.

The stupider the leader is, the more important missions he is ordered to carry out.

The self-importance of a superior is inversely proportional to his position in the hierarchy (as is his deviousness and mischievousness).

There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work.

Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when the General is watching.

The enemy never monitors your radio frequency until you broadcast on an unsecured channel.

Whenever you drop your equipment in a fire-fight, your ammo and grenades always fall the farthest away, and your canteen always lands at your feet.

As soon as you are served hot chow in the field, it rains.

Never tell an NCO you have nothing to do.

The seriousness of a wound is inversely proportional to the distance to any form of cover.

Walking point = sniper bait.

Your bivouac for the night is the spot where you got tired of marching that day.

If only one solution can be found for a field problem, then it is usually a stupid solution.

The most dangerous thing in the combat zone is an officer with a map.

The problem with taking the easy way out is that the enemy has already mined it.

The buddy system is essential to your survival; it gives the enemy somebody else to shoot at.

If your advance is going well, you are walking into an ambush.

The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small.

If you really need an officer in a hurry, take a nap.

The only time suppressive fire works is when it is used on abandoned positions.

There is nothing more satisfying than having someone take a shot at you and miss.

Don't be conspicuous. In the combat zone, it draws fire. Out of the combat zone, it draws NCOs.

Avoid loud noises, there are few silent killers in a combat zone.

Never screw over a buddy; you'll never know when he could save your life.

Never expect any rations; the only rations that will be on time and won't be short is the ration of shit.

Respect all religions in a combat zone, take no chances on where you may go if killed.

A half filled canteens a beacon for a fully loaded enemy weapon.

When in a fire fight, kill as many as you can, the one you miss today may not miss tomorrow.

It is a physical impossibility to carry too much ammo.

If you survive an ambush, something's wrong.

If you can see the enemy's muzzle flashes, he can see yours, too.

Flashlights, lighters and matches don't just illuminate the surrounding area; they illuminate you too.

Just because you have nearly impenetrable body armor and a Kevlar helmet, doesn't mean you don't have exposed areas.

There are few times when the enemy can't hear you: When he's dead, you're dead, or both.

Never cover a dead body with your own in hopes of looking like you're one of the casualties. Even using his cadaver is a stretch to avoid being shot "just in case."

You're only better than your enemy if you kill him first.

Complain about the rations all you wantt, but just remember they could very well be your last meal.

Never underestimate the ability of the brass to foul things up.

You have two mortal enemies in combat; the opposing side and your own rear services.

You think the enemy has better artillery support and the enemy thinks yours is better; you're both right.

"Live" and "Hero" are mutually exclusive terms.

Once you are in the fight it is way too late to wonder if this is a good idea.

NEVER get into a fight without more ammunition that the other guy.

Decisions made by someone over your head will seldom be in your best interest.

Sometimes, being good and lucky still is not enough.

If the rear echelon troops are really happy, the front line troops probably do not have what they need.

If you are wearing body armor the enemy will probably miss that part.

Happiness is a belt fed weapon.

Having all your body parts intact and functioning at the end of the day beats the alternative...

If you are allergic to lead it is best to avoid a war zone.

A free fire zone has nothing to do with economics.

Medals are OK, but having your body and all your friends in one piece at the end of the day is better.

Being shot hurts.

C-4 can make a dull day fun.

There is no such thing as a fair fight, only ones where you win or lose.

If you win the battle you are entitled to the spoils. If you lose you don't care.

Always make sure someone has a can opener.

Prayer may not help . . . but it can't hurt.

Flying is better than walking. Walking is better than running. Running is better than crawling. All of these, however, are better than extraction by a Med-Evac even if it is, technically, a form of flying.

If everyone does not come home none of the rest of us can ever fully come home either.

When the going gets tough, the tough go cyclic.

Proximity factor: The need for relief is directly related to the distance of the relief station.

Always keep one bullet in the chamber when changing your magazine.

If you can think clearly, know exactly what's happening, and have total control of a situation in combat, then you're not in combat.

When you get the coveted 1,000 yard stare, don't forget about the enemy who is 30 yards away and about to pop your ass.

Stay away from officers in combat, they're clever decoys for noncoms.

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Failure of plan A will directly affect your ability to carry out plan B.

If you drop a soldier in the middle of a desert with a rock, a hammer, and an anvil, tell him not to touch any of it, and come back two hours later, the anvil will be broken.

War does not determine who is right, war determines who is left.

An escaping soldier can be used again.

If you think you'll die, don't worry you won't.

Near death, but still a live? There is nothing wrong with physics. God doesn't like you.

If it's worth fighting for...it's worth fighting dirty for.

If God wanted boots to be comfortable he would have designed them like running shoes.

If you survive the extraordinary things, it will often be the little things that will kill you.

Never forget to booby-trap your allies' positions.

The only thing more dangerous to you than the enemy, is your allies

Night vision isn't.

When you need CAS, they'll be on last weeks radio fill and you won't be able to reach them.

When you need Apache's, they'll be busy escorting the generals bird around.

Final Protective Fires don't.

Supply & Demand law: whatever you have, you won't need; whatever you need, you won't have.

The best sniper position is always the hardest to reach.

Snakes aren't neutral.

When you need to use the bathroom - the enemy is watching your position.

Helicopter rotors are naturally drawn towards trees, stumps, rocks and other obstructions. While it may be possible to ward this off some of the time it can not, despite the best efforts of the crew, always be prevented. It's just what helos do.

The engine RPM and the rotor RPM must BOTH be kept in the GREEN.

Failure to heed this commandment can adversely affect the morale of the crew.

The terms Protective Armor and Helicopter are mutually exclusive.

"Chicken Plates" are not something you order in a restaurant.

The BSR (Bang Stare Red) Law: The louder the sudden bang in the helicopter, the quicker your eyes will be drawn to the gauges. Corollary: The longer you stare at the gauges the less time it takes them to move from green to red.

Loud, sudden noises in a helicopter WILL get your undivided attention.

The further you fly into the mountains, the louder the strange engine noises become.

It is a bad thing to run out of airspeed, altitude and ideas all at the same time.

"Pucker Factor" is the formal name of the equation that states the more hairy the situation is, the more of the seat cushion will be sucked up your butt.
It can be expressed in its mathematical formula of:
S (suction) + H (height above ground) + I (interest in staying alive) + T (# of tracers coming your way).
Thus the term 'SHIT!' can also be used.

Running out of pedal, fore or aft cyclic, or collective are all bad ideas.

Helicopters have been described as nothing more than 50,000 parts flying in close formation. It is the mechanics responsibility to keep that formation as tight as possible.

It is mathematically impossible for either hummingbirds, or helicopters to fly. Fortunately, neither are aware of this.

LZ's are always hot.

There are 'old' pilots and 'bold' pilots, but there are no 'old, bold' pilots.

Any helicopter pilot story that starts "There I was,...." will be either true or false.
Any of these stories that end with "No shit." was neither true nor false.

The mark of a truly superior pilot is the use of his superior judgment to avoid situations requiring the use of his superior skill

The same gun tube that would probably stay in alignment after lifting a car, will get you beaten after calibration if used to assist in climbing on the tank.

Tanks draw fire. A lot of it. It does not behoove the infantryman to hide behind one.

If you're close enough to actually hear an M1 series tank running, while in combat, and not part of the crew, you're too close.

Enemy aircraft always have the advantage.

Heat-seeking missiles don't know the difference between friend and foe.

'Armor' is a fantasy invented by your C.O. to make you feel better.

Afterburners aren't.

Air Brakes don't.

Your cannon will jam in combat, and then when you get back to base there will be nothing wrong with it.

You may have the better plane, but the enemy is the better pilot. (or vise versa)

When getting spare parts for your aircraft, you can get them CHEAP - FAST - IN GOOD CONDITION. Pick two.

Your radar will not pick up the enemy behind you or the one in the sun.

If you have got into the sun and are about to ambush the enemy, it will either be a trap or you'll run out of fuel.

A good landing is one you can walk away from. A great landing is one where they can use the airplane again.

Any attempt to find cover will result in failure.

Supply Shipments at night stick out like a sore thumb.

Tanks should never leave the established roads

Established roads are always mined

Operations in daytime will cause the lesser equipped army to win

The effectiveness of a soldier in combat is inversely porportional to how heavy his equipment is.

The enemy always know the area better than you, no matter how many dismounts or convoys you have been on.

Always remember: Shoot first and then swear up and down that you saw them pull out a grenade.

IED's will be placed frequently in the same spots over and over again.

Always shoot the guy walking down the MSR in the middle of the night carrying a gas can and a shovel. If they can't place the IED's, they can't blow you up.

If at first you don't succeed, blame it on the new man.

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

Hoof'n'mouth Disease

Love him or hate him, you've just got to admit that Joe Biden is endlessly entertaining. Quite aside from the whole "I never met a Kennedy quote I didn't claim as my own" fiasco that sank his campaign when he ran for President, I mean. If he isn't, indeed, actually not thinking before he speaks, one could almost be tempted to believe that he is deliberately trying to sabotage his Party. Frankly, the image of the President banging his head on his desk after every one of Joe's speaking engagements and asking himself "Why, why, why?" is somehow appealing, though that could just be me being too cynical again.

The thing is, Biden isn't an idiot. Far from it and, by all accounts, he is indeed rather intelligent. But, oh, those things he says . . . Look, folks, that line he ripped out during the last Presidential campaign about expecting a major international crisis during an Obama Administration wasn't a case of him "misspeaking," it was a warning. One that we may yet find out that we wish we had paid attention to, whatever you think of the current President. If we remember our History, Khrushchev tried to steamroll over Kennedy precisely because of JFK's relative lack of experience, too.

In a lot of ways, Biden reminds me of President Carter's brother, Billy and, no, that's not a good comparison. Among other things, for those of you too young to remember, Billy was the guy who traded in on his brother being President by creating and marketing "Billy Beer." Oh, yeah, and who was also acting as a paid lobbyist for Libya, something he didn't feel the need to tell anyone about until the press got wind of the story. If we remember, at that time Libya was right at the top of the State Department's list of terrorist-sponsoring nations, and was quite active in the Middle East and Europe blowing things up. But at least when Billy was running around embarrassing the President, we could all take comfort from the fact that he wasn't an elected official of the Government.

Now, it seems, the current Vice President has ticked off the Russians by calling them a "second-class" power. Now, if I were a Russian, with my Russian dreams of the nation being a Great Power and memories of a not-so-distant Soviet Union that influenced events in half the world, I'd probably be pretty ticked about such a statement, too.

The problem is, in this case, Biden is right.

Even when the Soviet Union existed, it was common among political science wonks to say that, really, it was nothing more than the world's most heavily-armed Third World power. Which was true, in that the only thing that gave the Soviet Union a claim to being a Great Power was the fact that it possessed nuclear weapons. Other than that . . .

One of the root causes for the demise of the Soviet Union was the fact that it was trying to match the United States dollar-for-ruble with an economy that was only three-quarters the size. Furthermore, under the direction of the centralized planning apparat, that economy was horribly inefficient. As an example, there was an old joke to the effect that there were four kinds of steel production in the Soviet Union: the production of steel, the psuedo-production of steel, the production of psuedo-steel, and the psuedo-production of psuedo-steel. Chronically short of raw materials and burdened with unrealistic production targets, managers in all sectors of the Soviet economy routinely falsified their numbers and the central planning bureau, aware that there was nothing it could do to fix the problem, was happy to accept.

Outside of its then absolute sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, there was very little that the Soviet Union exported to the rest of the world, except for weapons. Really, one could make the argument that the Soviet Union's most successful export was the AK-47.

It was no accident that the Russian economy essentially collapsed when the Soviet Union collapsed. Heavy and light industries, for example, suddenly found themselves having to compete in a market-driven economy they were neither trained for nor completely understood.

Politics are messy, and Russia suddenly found itself being abandoned by people who hadn't wanted to be Russian in the first place. The Baltic States, the Central Asian Republics, Ukraine, and the republics around the Black and Caspian Seas all jumped ship. The once-mighty Soviet armed forces found themselves unfunded, with their non-Russian personnel deserting to go back home. The situation became so bad that the Russian army was reduced to selling off its weapons on the black market and hiring its soldiers out as farmhands in order to survive. The Red Navy, which had once had the world's largest submarine fleet, found that fleet reduced to a relative handful of platforms. A navy that was used to accepting up to a dozen new ships a year found itself lucky to get one new ship every few years, and was forced to lay up all but the newest ships it had in order to survive. Even then, those ships rarely left port due to a lack of fuel and spare parts, a situation shared by the air forces, which had to suspend training because of a lack of fuel. To this day, the Russian armed forces have yet to recover from those shocks.

Russia is still fighting a war in Chechnya. Their first foray into that region was a disaster, with the army eventually declaring "victory" because it could no longer tolerate the casualties. And then they had to go back in, with the same depressing results. Oh, well, c'est la guerre.

Much has been made of Russia's foray into Georgia last summer, and Russia would certainly like the rest of the world to believe that operation was a model of the military art. But, to anyone who has any experience in such things, it wasn't an example of watching a well-oiled military machine in action, it was like watching the Keystone Kops.

No one would ever accuse Georgia of being the next Napoleonic power to stalk Europe. Compared to the million-and-a-half man Russian army and excluding all the other personnel in the rest of the Russian armed forces, the 30,000 or so men in the entire Georgian military never stood a chance. And yet, it took the Russian army more than a week to subdue the Georgians . . .

We watched the mighty Russian Black Sea Fleet sally forth and take more than two days to neutralize the handful of patrol boats that constituted the Georgian navy, all five or six of them. We watched the Russian army skitter back and forth for over a week before the Georgians stopped shooting at them, unable to sustain offensive action beyond the immediate border areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We watched the Russian air force, using precision-guided weapons, miss most of its targets . . . and not just miss, but miss badly.

The Russians would have the world believe that their move into Georgia was a "come as you are" operation, in response to a rapidly-changing situation on the ground there. But the sheer size of the force they sent in is the most convincng argument against that being the case. Just from a logistical standpoint, the Russians wouldn't have been able to sustain any operations in Georgia unless they had been planned out well before. And even with that planning, the operation was, in the end, largely a failure.

That doesn't argue well for Russia being a "Great Power."

Make no mistake about this, Russia is a nation of drunks that occasionally vomits up a genius. To our own peril, we forgot that every period of liberalization in Russian history has been followed by a "strong man" who quashes it. Putin is just the latest in that line of strong men and, while he may have delusions and visions of great power, he lacks the means to put those into effect.

The only real claims that Russia has to being a Great Power are her nuclear weapons - well, at least those weapons that they still know where they are - and the petro-dollars they're pumping out of Siberia in the form of oil and natural gas. And of the two, the energy reserves are by far the most important and useful. We've already seen the Russians try to use them as weapons to influence others, most notably with their on-again, off-again embargos on natural gas to Ukraine, and the one they tried with Europe. The thing is, those energy resources aren't going to last; aside from depleting them through drilling, other nations are going to look for alternative sources for oil and natural gas precisely because they don't want to be held hostage to Russian whims. And when that happens, aside from the arms factories, the Russians are going to be left with an industrial sector that is still the same shambles it was when the old Soviet Union disappeared.

Joe Biden is absolutely correct when he states that Russia is no longer a Great Power, and that that fact gives the United States some leverage over them in foreign affairs. As much as that may pain Russian pride, it's a fact of life. But while the Vice President sees opportunity in that, there is also danger. Not that Russia will lash outwards, as so many people who are still stuck in a kind of Cold War mindset think, but inwards.

Like everyone else, Russians are prisoners of their own history. In many ways, the problems looming on the horizon for Russia may be insurmountable. For example, just to modernize the infrastructure to make the nation competitive would take the combined GDPs of the G-7, and that's not likely to happen. Nor is it likely that the Russian government will be able to break the incestuous relationship between what capital-generating economic activities there are and the so-called mafiosi any time soon. Especially when many of the key government economic posts are held by those same Russian "mafia."

For much of its history, the word "Russia" was a geographic expression and did not refer to a state. The danger is that Russia is on the verge of that slipping back into being just a geographic expression. There isn't a whole lot that the rest of us can do about that, except, perhaps, to not have the bad grace to remind them of it.

Hello, Goodbye

A shaft of sunlight peeking through a pane of dirty glass, pooling on the floor as motes of dust dance lazily in the smoky light. Sharp edges become fuzzy, indistinct in that weak light, but retain their sharpness, ready to bite the unwary and the unwise. Pandora's Box waits quietly in those shadows, patient in the knowledge that her siren's call can not be resisted. Things get packed away in attics for a reason, to moulder in the dust of the past, a nagging presence not so much forgotten as ignored. Yet they have a hold that can't be broken, pulling back the willing and the unwilling both, and curiosity kills more than cats.

Nostalgia can be a funny thing, softening what was with a seductive yearning for what those things, in truth, never were. Memories fade and blur, lose their sharpness with the dulling of age, and yet retain moments of startling clarity so sharp the then becomes a terrible now. Some lines scribbled in haste on a page, some words spoken or, worse, not spoken, a fading photograph or a scrap of an old uniform. Time, in its relative way, melts away as the mind makes connections between what was and what is, whether those connections exist or not.

Dancing with the Bears on a moonless night, waltzing among the clouds, there isn't anything quite so beautiful as tracers glittering like jewels amid the darkness. Heart beating faster as the music of the indifferent and the damned leads the partners on, dipping, spinning, children playing at the business of gods. An impossible fluidity of motion, two bodies become one, a lover's tango with no beginning and no end, only the passion of the dance. The partners change but the dance goes on, don't worry, they're just bullets, all they can do is kill you.

Staring into the darkness until the darkness stares back at you, an old friend, perhaps, but never a comfortable one. Eyes straining, waiting with a quiet urgency to pick out the faint speck of light, home, as it pitches and rolls out there in the black. Laugh about it later, remember it fondly, but it's amazing just how focused things get when your life hangs by a thread, by an unfortunate twitch of the hand. A good landing is one you can walk away from, a great landing is one where they can use the airplane again. Just another dance, timeless, hook meet wire. Please.

Friends go out, and sometimes they never come back, broken angels falling from the sky on broken wings. No words, no time for regrets or goodbyes, no time for anything at all except the rythm of the music, note upon note without pause. Don't mean nothing, as they say, even those memories fade until only the cold, hard kernel of loss remains, unresolved in its terrible finality. Your enemy can only kill you, but your friends will disappoint you, and who is to say which is worse?

Pity the warrior with no war to fight. The memories can be packed away into the attic, but the music remains, a call the uncaring years have made it impossible to answer. Just to dance among the clouds one more time, to sit upon the throne of God with all the world spread out beneath as a stage, to spin and soar as the music fills you, becomes you, leads you from the mundane to the sublime. But the price of opening Pandora's Box is the toll of the years, to feel the music but watch the dance move on.