Can we earmark "George One?"

Of the millions Congress earmarks in the DOD budget that does nothing and the fleets of 40-year old aircraft we spend money to just make shadows on the ramp - can't we fund with the change under the couch to make good on a promise made to all of us? What is that promise? If we die in the service to our nation, if possible our mortal remains will be returned to our family. From a forgotten part of the immediate Post-WWII era, I want to introduce you to three crewmen from "George One," a PBM-5 Mariner: Ensign Maxwell A. Lopez, Newport, RI; Frederick Warren Williams, Aviation Machinist’s Mate First Class, Huntington, TN and Wendell K. Hendersin, Aviation Radioman First Class, Sparta, WI. Here is part of their story.

By the time crew members were readying George One for the second flight, the waves were thrashing, yanking the airplane against the lines that tethered it to the assisting boats and roughly jostling the guys inside. Robbins and Caldwell managed to attach four jet-assisted takeoff bottles to the seaplane, but the mooring lines were literally shredding the craft’s aluminum skin. LeBlanc, another World War II veteran with thousands of hours in PBMs, was unperturbed by the conditions. The Pine Island laid a fuel slick to calm the waters and George One cast off and started its run. After what seemed like five miles, the longest run Robbins had ever experienced, LeBlanc fired the JATO bottles and George

One took wing—into a blinding snowstorm.

Robbins says he wasn’t worried, though. He had once received a commendation for a nine-hour flight through fog and clouds in Greenland, and he felt confident in his skills as a radar operator. As Captain Caldwell strapped into the seat in the forward gun turret—now just an observer’s seat—Robbins checked his radarscope. Icebergs below registered strong returns.

As they approached the coast, Robbins reported to the flight deck: “Mountain range 20 miles ahead and scattered icebergs.” The radar return was clear and strong; the terrain matched the charts. But the weather ahead wasn’t clearing. LeBlanc and copilot William Kearns decided to abort the flight and began a long, slow 180-degree turn.

Robbins, standing between the pilots on the airplane’s flight deck, felt a slight bump. He heard LeBlanc and Kearns pour on full power.
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And then, nothing. He felt like he was floating. He felt a shaking. His shoulder. He looked up; he was kneeling in snow 20 yards from the cockpit, and the flight engineer, Bill Warr, was standing over him. “We’re all screwed up, Robbie,” Warr said. “I think we’re the only ones alive.”

We know where those Shipmates are buried too.

While the 6 survivors of the crash were able to make it to the coast for pick up by a sea plane, those three men killed in the crash were left behind, their bodies buried in what was meant to be a temporary grave were buried beneath a specific and well-marked area under the starboard leading-edge of the large PBM-5 wing by their fellow crewmen. Weather precluded the Navy from recovering their bodies at the tail end of Operation Highjump. Its always been the wish of these fellow crewmen, the Navy rescuers and the families to have their loved ones returned to US soil.
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In current times, the Navy, wanting to recover the remains of these heroic men, teamed National Science Foundation/Polar Operations (NSF), the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Central Identification Lab, Hawaii (CILHI), the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), the National Air and Space Administration (NASA,) the U.S. Navy Casualty Office and other agencies to convene several high-level meetings to determine the logistics and feasibility of the George One crew recovery. The USGS, in conjunction with NASA, commissioned a Chilean P-3 Orion Sub Hunter at a cost of $68,000 to ‘ping’ the site with a highly specialized aerial-borne Ground Penetration Radar (GPR) to pinpoint the George One location and approximate depth of the debris field. The Chilean P-3 located the debris fields approximately 30 to 50 meters below the surface and pinpointed its position to within a .5 by .5 kilometer box.

In 2005 the US Navy halted any further recovery actions lacking known sufficient technology to safely melt down to and recover the remains of the three crewmen.

Well, remember the P-38 we recovered from Greenland a few years back? The same team is ready to go.

Before I even finished the Air & Space articles I had one of those "Aha!" moments. "We've done that! We've done that 5 times! What are they talking about?" I thought.

In 1989, 1990 and 1992 I was lucky enough to be chosen as the photographer of record for the Greenland Expedition Society (GES). After years of research and development, the principals of GES created multiple 268-foot deep shafts and a large cavern at twice the depth of the George One debris field. Our team then maintained that cavern for over 2 months while we disassembled and brought from that cavern to the surface, a WWII P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft. Now known as ‘Glacier Girl’ that airplane flies with 80% original parts.

It's amazing that all that glacier penetration equipment was developed and never had another use - until now!

As a member of the Greenland Expedition Society I immediately stepped forward to offer the experience and equipment used to recover Glacier Girl to US Navy so that they could bring closure for the wonderful families and great people like Robbie Robbins, George Fabik, Gary Pierson, Garey Jones, the Lopez, Hendersin and Williams families and so many others that have kept this mission alive through sheer love and determination. I've reunited members of the ol' Greenland Expedition Society gang and have the glacier penetrating equipment ready to be built in an effort to get the Navy to reconsider a mission to recover these men for their family and for their nation. The Greenland crew is on board, the equipment ready to be built, the Ground Penetrating Radar crew including 3 geophysicists are all on board. JPAC, NSF Polar Operations, USGS, the US Navy Casualty Office are all very cooperative and even seem to be rooting for us. We're all but ready to go.

What is stopping things?

The last remaining part of the equation is to get the Navy back on board to approve and fund the recovery. A full proposal with options and budgets has already been forwarded to the powers that be @ the Pentagon.

Read all at Lou Sapienza's blog (don't be fooled by the lack of update - he is still standing by from what I have been told). There is also a George One recover team page here, and some media coverage here and here.

Our Shipmates have been waiting for us for a long time in a lonely place. Let's take them home. It is the right thing to do.

Rugby or football?

You decide.



Hat tip Rich.

Sarkozy is a mench

Because he has managed to do something most of us just fantasize about: dismiss Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes like the hack she is. BTW, if 60-minutes ever spent time with the French they would know that Sarkozy was just being, well, French with is aide. Note the roll of the eyes. And they claim Bush is clueless about the rest of the world. Notice the cheap shot 60 minutes makes by playing the pre-interview shots. Would they ever do something like that to Hillary?

Also, notice the difference between this video and the one CBS is putting out - they edited out the offer of a handshake and the attempt by Sarkozy to give Stahl a chance to ask a real question. But now, she feels that the most important thing the American people need to hear about the President of France is his soon-to-be ex-wife. BZ President Sarkozy, we think 60 Minutes is garbage too. Don't feel bad, they lie all the time to those they interview. I am just sorry they treated the President of France like he was a Alabama County Commissioner. BZ.

Rotorhead, preflight the Black Helicopter

We have a mission.

The right wing is sowing the seeds for Dolchstoßlegende even while claiming victory or progress or positive trends or however we are euphemizing it today, and there appears to be a significant portion of the Officer Corps who are willing to go along with it. The arrogance of Boylan is not only a symptom of this problem, it is one of the intended outcomes.

We will pick up Cole after we bag that Resistance leader Greenwald - and his little dog too.

...the U.S. military, like everything else, is becoming rapidly politicized, fully incorporated into and following the model of the Republican right-wing noise machine. ... the Army's behavior in the Beauchamp case is exactly what one would expect from an increasingly politicized, Republican-controlled division of the right-wing noise machine.
...examine the fact that the behavior of our "apolitical military" in Iraq is becoming indistinguishable from every other arm of the Bush/Cheney right-wing noise machine. The overt politicization of our military in Iraq -- working closely and in secret only with Drudge, The Weekly Standard and right-wing blogs
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Many people, including myself, have documented in detail the palpably increased politicization of the military's war claims this year, ever since the "surge" began under Gen. Petraeus and former White House aide Gen. Bergner took over its communications arm. In this space, I have written about the incomparably propagandistic one-hour exclusive "interview" which Petraeus gave to Fox News' Brit Hume when he was in Washington to tes
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The linchpin of a republic under civilian rule -- as well as faith in the armed services by a cross-section of Americans -- is an apolitical military. Like all other branches of the government intended to be apolitical, this linchpin is eroding under this administration,...the U.S. military, which has an obligation to conduct itself apolitically and professionally, appears in many cases to be doing exactly the opposite.

Yes, they are a threat to our Coup d'État through their clever email IP tracking skulldudgery! Greenwald and Cole must be stopped before they get hold of our secret meetings!

Rotorhead, throw in some extra fuel - we will need to get help from our "friends" in New Mexico - and their "tools."

Hat tip The Commissar and Bluto.

You don't need CFC this year to give

It's Valour IT time Shipmate. Dig around for some spare change if you could. If you aren't familiar with Valour IT, Soldier's Angles will brief you in, but here is the Executive Summary,

Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, helps provide voice-controlled and adaptive laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand wounds and other severe injuries at major military medical centers. Operating laptops by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, our wounded heroes are able to send and receive messages from friends and loved ones, surf the 'Net, and communicate with buddies still in the field. The experience of MAJ Charles “Chuck” Ziegenfuss, a partner in the project who suffered serious hand wounds while serving in Iraq, illustrates how important these laptops can be to a wounded service member's recovery.

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Ashdown: Afghanistan is lost

Well, this doesn't help Force Generation within NATO too much.

The former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered his dire prediction after being proposed as a new "super envoy" role in Afghanistan.

Lord Ashdown said: "We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely."

The assessment will be considered extreme by some diplomats but timely by those pressing for more resources for Nato operations.

Lord Ashdown added: "I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale.

"Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this [failure] to match this magnitude."

Lord Ashdown (AKA Paddy Pantsdown for you old Bosnia hands) is not to be dismissed. One sharp cookie. Thing is - NATO may kill itself over AFG - but the US and UK aren't going anywhere.

A circle in Skippy's he11

I see him tied to a chair, unable to move or speak but with perfect hearing.

During their first plebe summer in 1976, 55 of the 81 female students on campus met for 45 minutes in a room in Mitscher Hall and complained about being harassed, catcalls they termed "emotional rape" and men who routinely walked around naked in front of them in the dorm. The women considered the meeting a resounding success, and many remembered walking away with improved resolve.

The next day, Commandant James Winnefeld called the organizer of the event into his office, as recounted in the 2006 book Sea Change at Annapolis, and said the event could be deemed a "mutiny" and that she could be thrown out for "conspiracy."

The women never met together again after what they now call the "Plebe Summer Mutiny." But they look back on the event with a little irony more than 31 years later, as they and other female graduates of the nation's service academies gather today in Arlington, Va., for an annual symposium that has become a cathartic event since it was first held in 2003.
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There is this feeling of sisterhood, and when you have this opportunity to meet women who went to the other academies, it's surprisingly wonderful to get to know them, and find out about them."

Tomorrow, 28 current female Mids will attend the three-day event, where they will listen to a panel about women in combat and at war, as well as memorialize those female graduates who have died in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

They will also get career coaching and advice from those in AcademyWomen which now has 1,300 members, including graduates from the Navy, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine academies. In recent years, it has expanded to include the entire female officer corps.
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"In school, we have female officers, but they have so many jobs and they're so busy in their daily life, it's hard to have time to get issues out or voice concerns about things that are unique to females,"

Another reason we should all pray for the souls of our friends. Oh, and when do the men get their 'lil group? Diversity and fairness and life/work balance and all.