Red Dawn 20+ AH.com archive

[lordroel]

From page 105

trekchu

Nikephoros said: ↑
Just found out the the bastards on the hill won't award my cousin the MoH.

For those who don't know, my cousin is Jessie Williams. He was a Navy SEAL who got captured during a failed raid on the Soviet positions in Vancouver. He was held in confinement and tortured for a total of eight months.

After weeks of planning, he staged an escape attempt on the camp. At great risk to self, he snuck back into the camp. Using his knowledge of the camp's defenses he blasted a hole in the fence under a guard tower. In the confusion, he rallied the POWs and attacked the remaining defenses. Out of ten towers, he personally took out seven. He then stayed behind to drag out a few of the less capable POWs.

He's an American hero dammit. They only wanna give him the DSC. That's an injustice.

I'll speak to some people about why he wasn't accepted.
Star Wars - The Skywalker Heresy Episode IV: Destiny of the Force (01/23/2017)

Nikephoros

trekchu said: ↑
I'll speak to some people about why he wasn't accepted.
Could be that he is to the left of me, but other than that, I don't know. The cynic in me says that it is because he isn't an officer.

I know of others that deserve the Medal of Honor, but can't get it due to the sensitive nature of our work.

I don't though.

trekchu

Nikephoros said: ↑
Could be that he is to the left of me, but other than that, I don't know. The cynic in me says that it is because he isn't an officer.

I know of others that deserve the Medal of Honor, but can't get it due to the sensitive nature of our work.

I don't though.
It cant be because he is to the left of you, I have seen some socialists who fought in the war on our side getting high honours, IIRC even an MOH was among them. It's probably the Officer thing....

Nikephoros

trekchu said: ↑
It cant be because he is to the left of you, I have seen some socialists who fought in the war on our side getting high honours, IIRC even an MOH was among them. It's probably the Officer thing....
I knew alot of good officers. I knew more good than bad. But I often saw the type that gave each other Bronze stars after going on their one excursion a year.

Most of the bad ones were O-5 and above.

trekchu

Nikephoros said: ↑
I knew alot of good officers. I knew more good than bad. But I often saw the type that gave each other Bronze stars after going on their one excursion a year.

Most of the bad ones were O-5 and above.
True that.... That galls especially those of us who initially fought in the ranks.

DD951

TheMann said: ↑
As for Red Andy's sister, well, I guess all I can say on that one is that she's gone. I would honestly have preferred to find out that a cop shot her or something along those lines, but as long as she's not gonna be causing any more trouble for anybody I'm not gonna complain much.
Although I'd suppose it'd be more appropriate, if she had gotten what she deserved from the proper authorities, one way or another, there'd probably be some leftists bleating about her being one more 'martyr to the revolution' or some BS like that, so there's an upside of her being one more crime victim, denying her some of the notoriety she craved.

TheMann said: ↑
I'd say it's a little different between us and them. Some of the Hollywood types are drawn to publicity like flies to shit. Most of us Air Force and Navy guys (and our brothers in the Army, Marines and Coast Guard too, I suspect) tend to avoid publicity, because many of these Hollywood types are just a useless pain in the ass most of the time. We all appreciate respect for what we all have been through, don't get me wrong, but these tabloid types are just dicks most of the time. That clown snapping shots of Major Ray with the telephoto lens is the worst - I'd like to toss that loser's camera down the intake of my F-22, but on the other hand I wouldn't want to wreck a good F119 engine that way. An SDB through the windshield of his car would work nicely too, but that would probably get me in trouble with the High Command, so that one will remain just a fantasy too....
Had my own little run-in with them back in 1998. Back then, I was the skipper of the Everett (PGM-117), one of the Yakima-class PGMs that's part of the Puget Sound based portion of the NRF, and that August, during one of our drill periods, we, and a couple other ships of the squadron were on a training cruise up in the San Juans, conducting small boat drills, when we sighted this yacht poking around a few miles off the starboard beam.

A couple minutes later, this big speedboat comes racing in off the port bow, coming right at us, violating all the rules of the road, cutting way too close to another PGM(Laredo) and several civilian small craft, and becoming a collision hazard, to the point that I was wondering if it wasn't some sort of leftover auxiliary type setting up an attack on someone.

Thus, I sounded general quarters, had the FC systems lock on to them, and brought the Sea Sparrow, CWIS, RBOC, and jammers, on-line, and as I was reporting this in to my superiors, all of a sudden, these photographers with telephoto lenses appear on deck and start taking pictures, apparently of the yacht. As I'm busy trying to dodge these maniacs, who start darting around us and the yacht like those Sea Shepherd lunatics who harass the Japanese whalers, are apparently oblivious to the fact that they're being tracked by my 3" forward & several machine guns (as well as the sheer stupidity involved in playing those sort of games with a warship), and ignoring the calls my OOD has been making over the radio & a loudspeaker ordering them to alter course away from us and informing them that not only are they endangering several vessels but are interfering with a military exercise and continuing this course of action would be construed as a hostile act. Finally, after several minutes of this, I hear back from my superiors, who order me to take these lunatics into custody, using whatever force was necessary. As a further demonstration of their insanity, they disregard the commands to heave to and prepare to be boarded until I put a shot across their bow! After they finally stopped, I maneuvered alongside, and sent a boarding party across to take them into custody and take the boat into port, and my boarding party wasn't too gentle with them.

Once the occupants had been brought over, and I altered course to a rendezvous with the Coast Guard to hand these morons over to the proper authorities, I start reading them the riot act, going on about the sheer stupidity involved in their shiphandling, messing with warships of the United States Navy, and how they could have gotten themselves blown out of the water as suspected hostiles (which my orders would have permitted), which didn't seem to faze them, nor did my suggestions that they could potentially be charged with espionage and terrorism for their actions against my ships, so I asked them what they thought they were playing at. They responded that they were 'photographers' and that there were a bunch of Hollywood types on that yacht taking some sort of historical cruise to see the sites that had been prominent in the war, and the tabloids were offering big bucks for photos (and they implied they thought it was worth the risk). I was totally flabbergasted, and had them confined to a storeroom until the Coast Guard took them off my hands a couple hours later.

These lunatics ended up getting charged with all sorts of safety violations, reckless endangerment, reckless operation of a watercraft, drug possession for a small stash of cocaine found aboard (not surprising), and willfully obstructing the operation of the federal government (wartime statute left on the books), for which they ended up in jail for several years and a multi-million dollar fine (not to mention their pictures ended up property of the US government, although I managed to end up with a few prints). (Although a lot of the crew were a bit disappointed that we didn’t have to sink them, or that they weren’t doing anything in regards to us that would lead to espionage charges

However, the story didn't end there- about a week later, I got a phone call at my naval shore office, from someone claiming to be one of the actresses from that 'ER' show (at least it sounded like her) asking what had happened up there (apparently, having to put a shot across the bow of that speedboat got a lot of attention, and some agent noted the hull number painted on the bow and tracked me down from there), and was really happy to hear that some paparazzi dicking around got caught and were in a lot of trouble, for what that's worth....

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑
The PLDP turned over a few on the wanted list as "a goodwill gesture." Anyone see the footage on the news? Some of those handed over were kicking and screaming (literally), saying "Don't give us to the fascists" and "We were right in the 1980s". Oh, please. Try saying that in front of a jury-either in Federal Court or a Military tribunal and see how far that'll take you-in some cases, it'll be the gallows. Did anyone see any familiar faces? Panzerfaust or 951-anybody familiar?
I've spent most of the last couple days in court with a trial, so I've only seen a couple brief clips there, and none of those prisoners looked immediately familiar, so I'll have to wait until I get a look at the list of names before I can say whether anyone's familiar or wanted up here. However, spouting off like that in court will pretty much have that effect- although I haven't personally seen that, a lot of the stories about that happening, generally involve the defense attorney asking if there's any sort of deal available during the next recess, but even if there is, most of the defendants are too stubborn to take it, much to their personal misfortune when the jury renders a verdict.

Matt Wiser

Actually, this SEAL would be getting a Navy Cross, which is the Navy's counterpart to the DSC, and those are not handed out lightly. About 40% of those awarded the Navy Cross (and the Air Force Cross and the DSC) don't live receive their award.

Folks in Colorado are happy: that former Univ.of Colorado professor who got run out of the country for hiding his "auxiliary" service is headed back to Denver-to stand trial for his wartime activities. He's one of those found by the Army in Northern Mexico, and the Denver Post's online edition says that he's still unrepentant, saying "I was on the right side" and "When the fascists won the war, the world lost." Try explaining that to a jury...they won't be very receptive. The U.S. Attorney said that records of the man's service, among tons of ALA records captured during the war, show some specific atrocities his unit was involved with, and the charge sheet will likely include mass murder of civilians, collaborating with the enemy, and Treason. No decision yet on seeking the death penalty, as that's the Attorney General's call.

Well, it was bound to happen: two freelance photographers got nailed by LeMay AFB security trying to get pictures of people going into and off base. When caught, they had the Maxim pics of Lt. Col. Ray and were downloading digital pictures to their laptop to compare photos they'd taken with the Maxim shots. But there were a few shots of the ramp area, taken with a telephoto lens, and that will land them in deep trouble...until the cease-fire is signed, sealed, and delivered, it's still wartime security on the base.

Nikephoros

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Actually, this SEAL would be getting a Navy Cross, which is the Navy's counterpart to the DSC, and those are not handed out lightly. About 40% of those awarded the Navy Cross (and the Air Force Cross and the DSC) don't live receive their award.
OOC: Forgot to change that. I was originally gonna go with Army Special Forces. But changed that to SEAL because that fit better with Vancouver.

Matt Wiser

Location:Auberry, CA
Panzerfaust, was that either Sherry Stringfield, Alex Kingston, or Juliana Margulies? All three could be hotties at times, especially Alex. (Lisa would probably kill me for saying that, but ER was one of her favorite shows) Did they offer to thank the crew for their work that day? (trips down to the set, maybe paying for a crew dinner at some fancy restrauant, something like that) When Wings of the Phantom finished location shooting at Hill and Mountain Home, they treated the aircrews who flew F-4s for the filming to a great dinner at one of SLC's finest eateries. "Anything you want on the menu, guys." Steak and Lobster for me....if I'd been paying, it would've been some $39.99 for the entree.

CNN showed some more of the lefties being turned over at III Corps HQ in Monterrey, and the usual antics went on. We were in the Sheraton's bar, and they had the TV tuned to CNN, and Kara recognized one of 'em. He was some UC Berkley nut who snuck onto Travis AFB and tried to lay tacks on the runway before some F-4s that had made the ferry flight from the Mitsubushi line in Japan left to be delivered to front-line squadrons. She had made a couple ferry hops before going to 335, and this guy is one she remembers well. He was arrested, but managed to jump bail ($200,000) and fled the country. How his lawyer manged to even get bail for him is beyond me, but the lawyer managed to convince a judge that his client deserved bail, and the scum-sucker promptly jumped bail and went south. Fortunately, an FOD walkdown before takeoff discovered the tacks, and the guy was found hiding near the fence (I guess to watch and see if his handiwork paid off). Too bad he wasn't summarily shot.

Kara also had a run-in with a photographer who mistook her for Colonel Ray, and this guy even tried to offer her $5,000 for Colonel Ray's location when he found out he'd gotten the wrong woman. Big mistake. She stalled while her wingie's WSO called the MPs. This guy's now looking at serious jail time for trying to bribe an AF officer. If the MPs didn't show up, she was ready to break certain facial features and wreck his cameras.

TheMann

Nikephoros said: ↑
I knew alot of good officers. I knew more good than bad. But I often saw the type that gave each other Bronze stars after going on their one excursion a year.

Most of the bad ones were O-5 and above.
Yeah, that's a little insulting to those of us on the front lines. I didn't see any of that myself, but I do believe all of it. I'd say the number of bad ones was very minimal. General Hayman on my side is a damned hero to most of us fliers. He's three years into an assisted living place in San Francisco, but I always tell my guys he's welcome on any base of mine any time he likes, and I know that he was at the Victory Day show last year, it was the first time I'd seen him since he promoted me to Colonel in 1998.

Nike, your brother is on the list of those still being considered for the MoH, so is mine. Just because he didn't get it this time around doesn't mean he won't get the honor. There is no limited timeframe for it, remember, and if he did all of that in Vancouver, he'll probably get it eventually. Remember how long it took Tibor Rubin to get his medal, and he damned well deserved it, too.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Panzerfaust, was that either Sherry Stringfield, Alex Kingston, or Juliana Margulies? All three could be hotties at times, especially Alex. (Lisa would probably kill me for saying that, but ER was one of her favorite shows) Did they offer to thank the crew for their work that day? (trips down to the set, maybe paying for a crew dinner at some fancy restrauant, something like that) When Wings of the Phantom finished location shooting at Hill and Mountain Home, they treated the aircrews who flew F-4s for the filming to a great dinner at one of SLC's finest eateries. "Anything you want on the menu, guys." Steak and Lobster for me....if I'd been paying, it would've been some $39.99 for the entree.
Ah, you get that treatment too, huh? When I was out helping them shoot the Wings of the Phantom parts in Florida (I wasn't flying, but I was advising the pilots who were what we were up to and what tactics and formations we used), they bought all of us dinner at one of the best restaurants in Miami. And in Miami, that's pricey - there are a lot of rich people in that city, and I don't mean Mariel Boatlift Cuban drug dealers either. (To be fair, almost half of the Mariel Boatlift people wound up fighting for us, they formed almost an entire division of the Florida NG, officers and all.) The dinner for me in that case was a big T-bone, done to perfection and with all of the fixings, along with entrees, desert and drinks. They took good care of us while we were working with them, too - their catering guys made great sandwiches. I came to be hooked on PCS (Peameal Bacon, Chicken and Swiss) sandwiches because of those guys. Hanging around with the actors and actresses involved - Lucas Black, Zoe Saldana and Michelle Rodriguez among them in my case, I know its different with Matt - was also pretty cool. Watching the pilots fly the F-4s they were using, Lucas commented to me "You actually did all that?" To which I replied "Yep. And I did that three-four times a week for almost a year, while also being shot at by Soviet vessels and Soviet and Cuban fighters." I think he needed to let that sink in a bit, before he commented "Wow."

Matt Wiser said: ↑
CNN showed some more of the lefties being turned over at III Corps HQ in Monterrey, and the usual antics went on. We were in the Sheraton's bar, and they had the TV tuned to CNN, and Kara recognized one of 'em.
I didn't recognize any of them, but my F-111 squadron commander did. In this case, the guy was a student radical from Stanford who broke into a air base in New Mexico during the war with a couple of gascans and flare guns, trying to set planes on fire. He got shot in the leg by a South African security guy before the AF Police picked his dumb ass up. Like your leftie, he jumped bail and booked it, apparently.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Kara also had a run-in with a photographer who mistook her for Colonel Ray, and this guy even tried to offer her $5,000 for Colonel Ray's location when he found out he'd gotten the wrong woman. Big mistake. She stalled while her wingie's WSO called the MPs. This guy's now looking at serious jail time for trying to bribe an AF officer. If the MPs didn't show up, she was ready to break certain facial features and wreck his cameras.
Send my regards to Kara for that one, Matt. I'll remember to do that the next time that chickenshit from Esquire shows up. And if the JAG guys don't decide to push on this one, let me know. They usually listen to a flag officer. Though I suspect after the Maxim stunt, they may not be too sympathetic to these morons.

Matt Wiser

That punk from Stanford had to have been there during PRAIRIE FIRE: The ComBloc overran Eastern New Mexico in the space of a week when they outflanked the I-10 line. The 27th TFW at Cannon was lucky to get away with the clothes on their backs, the flyable Varks, most of the spare parts stuffed into C-130s and commanderred airliners, and not much else. And I've mentioned how bad Clovis was during PRAIRE FIRE: I still get shivers whenever I read about 5th Marine Division's fight for that town-especially the stock yards. The 49th at Holloman had the same experience: I remember the F-15s flying into Davis-Monthan: we were coming back from one of those hops trying to help 3rd ACR hold back the Cubans when the 49th had to bug out of Holloman. Not a pretty thing to hear on the radio or see later on. And most of those guys were worried sick: in many cases, the families hadn't been evacuated yet when they got the order to fly to Davis-Monthan. Some were reunited, some weren't.....

General Tanner (who commanded 10th Air Force in the Southwest) was like a father figure. We were his "kids" and anything we needed, he did his best to get. He had no use for martinets, those who were ass-kissers, as well as pipsqueaks who tried to enforce every rule and reg "because that's what the book says." Well, he knew when to throw away the book, and most of his unit COs did too. Those who didn't-well, he'd find cause to relieve them sooner or later. And he didn't flaunt his rank, or show off-I've mentioned before that he used a plain C-130 as his personal transport, when 335 (and the Marines we flew with) had that L-1011 that showed up at Williams AFB a week into the war, minus the owner. That flying hotel was something Tanner could've taken for himself, but he refused. It was our unit "hack" for the rest of the war-mainly used on the R&R shuttle to Vegas, Reno, and SoCal.

The JAG at LeMay is already taking care of this guy, and he'll be referred to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Ensenada for prosecution. It'll be handled by the Feds as the event happened off base. I won't be surprised if he pleads guilty, because who's the more trustworthy witness? A serving USAF squadron commander and decorated veteran, or a "freelance" photographer who has multiple restraining orders on him from celebs? (He's got at least half a dozen-Mel Gibson, Kim Basinger, Eve LaRue from CSI: Miami, Madonna, Miley Cyrus, among others.)

thepenguin

Some guy got caught by Col. Dirk Pienaar (South African base security during the war, and he liked it so much, he stayed here) and his Security Forces guys by the base pool trying to get shots of Col. Franklin when she was doing laps during some downtime. Her husband heard from my son after roll call for Duluth's afternoon platoon and he was livid. God help any motorists he pulled over. From what I heard from Col. Pienaar, the guy is freelance, but he had your ops officer's book and he put two and two together and came up with four after the pictures hit Maxim. She was upset (understatement of the year) and I had her take a four-ship up and do some Tornado-plinking .

Panzerfaust 150

Saw the handovers with my morning coffee...one or two stood out...and considering what I read in their files...they'll be deserving what's coming. One's in the Gold Books we carried during the war. I can't say as to why, but suffice to say, this will be the last anyone sees of him.

Matt, I believe you have me and DD951 mixed up, closest brush with celebrity I had before or after was other than Mr. Keegan at our reunion in Annapolis last year, was after the war. We got called out to deal with a mass grave on some guy's ranch. The guy? Tommy Lee Jones. He had owned a small ranch near San Antonio for the longest time. He wasn't big-big before the war, but he made good money. When the Combloc came, he packed his truck and headed for the proverbial hills, working with the resistance as he could (His face was known), eventually made his way to FA and resumed his career, living in a rented home in Malibu.

After the war, he returned and found his place a wreck...and a mass grave out back, he called us. He was nice, had his hands put on a barbecue for us and signed a few autographs. He felt himself lucky...he didn't lose anyone as far as he knew during the occupation. But, he knew not everybody was so lucky.

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Panzerfaust, was that either Sherry Stringfield, Alex Kingston, or Juliana Margulies? All three could be hotties at times, especially Alex. (Lisa would probably kill me for saying that, but ER was one of her favorite shows) Did they offer to thank the crew for their work that day? (trips down to the set, maybe paying for a crew dinner at some fancy restrauant, something like that) When Wings of the Phantom finished location shooting at Hill and Mountain Home, they treated the aircrews who flew F-4s for the filming to a great dinner at one of SLC's finest eateries. "Anything you want on the menu, guys." Steak and Lobster for me....if I'd been paying, it would've been some $39.99 for the entree.

CNN showed some more of the lefties being turned over at III Corps HQ in Monterrey, and the usual antics went on. We were in the Sheraton's bar, and they had the TV tuned to CNN, and Kara recognized one of 'em. He was some UC Berkley nut who snuck onto Travis AFB and tried to lay tacks on the runway before some F-4s that had made the ferry flight from the Mitsubushi line in Japan left to be delivered to front-line squadrons. She had made a couple ferry hops before going to 335, and this guy is one she remembers well. He was arrested, but managed to jump bail ($200,000) and fled the country. How his lawyer manged to even get bail for him is beyond me, but the lawyer managed to convince a judge that his client deserved bail, and the scum-sucker promptly jumped bail and went south. Fortunately, an FOD walkdown before takeoff discovered the tacks, and the guy was found hiding near the fence (I guess to watch and see if his handiwork paid off). Too bad he wasn't summarily shot.

Kara also had a run-in with a photographer who mistook her for Colonel Ray, and this guy even tried to offer her $5,000 for Colonel Ray's location when he found out he'd gotten the wrong woman. Big mistake. She stalled while her wingie's WSO called the MPs. This guy's now looking at serious jail time for trying to bribe an AF officer. If the MPs didn't show up, she was ready to break certain facial features and wreck his cameras.
If that moron had tried that with my current pilot, he would've had those facial features rearranged before the MPs got to him... and it would've seved him right, too.

Pyro

Hey, I know some of you were probably "too old" (though I say it very loosely, no offence) to see it when it first hit airwaves but did anyone catch Macross/Robotech? I recently pulled it out out of my collection to watch. The show itself predates WWIII as it hit Japanese airwaves in 1982/83 but the war delayed its release here to 1992. I just want to see if any Air Force guys have any comments on it since the VF-1 Valkyrie is evidently based of the F-14 and F-18.

As for my impressions of the cartoon, I thought the idea of transforming jet fighters in space was awesome as an 8-year-old but the near-annihilation of Earth did hit a little too close to home. It's a surprise that got past the radar of the various parent groups.

Panzerfaust 150

My little cousin watches it Pyro...and he has a good time with it too. I figure this..for a kid's show, it tackles some pretty hard issues...the one with that blonde ace dying...that was a punch to the gut.

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Panzerfaust, was that either Sherry Stringfield, Alex Kingston, or Juliana Margulies? All three could be hotties at times, especially Alex. (Lisa would probably kill me for saying that, but ER was one of her favorite shows) Did they offer to thank the crew for their work that day? (trips down to the set, maybe paying for a crew dinner at some fancy restrauant, something like that) When Wings of the Phantom finished location shooting at Hill and Mountain Home, they treated the aircrews who flew F-4s for the filming to a great dinner at one of SLC's finest eateries. "Anything you want on the menu, guys." Steak and Lobster for me....if I'd been paying, it would've been some $39.99 for the entree.
I think you've got us mixed up, but it was Margulies. No crew dinner, as they had already gone back to LA to resume filming before they tracked us down, but everyone got a signed cast photo plus a few extras for friends & family, as well as family tickets for set visits/tours for anyone who dropped by while they were shooting, and a few other items like that.

CNN showed some more of the lefties being turned over at III Corps HQ in Monterrey, and the usual antics went on. We were in the Sheraton's bar, and they had the TV tuned to CNN, and Kara recognized one of 'em. He was some UC Berkley nut who snuck onto Travis AFB and tried to lay tacks on the runway before some F-4s that had made the ferry flight from the Mitsubushi line in Japan left to be delivered to front-line squadrons. She had made a couple ferry hops before going to 335, and this guy is one she remembers well. He was arrested, but managed to jump bail ($200,000) and fled the country. How his lawyer manged to even get bail for him is beyond me, but the lawyer managed to convince a judge that his client deserved bail, and the scum-sucker promptly jumped bail and went south. Fortunately, an FOD walkdown before takeoff discovered the tacks, and the guy was found hiding near the fence (I guess to watch and see if his handiwork paid off). Too bad he wasn't summarily shot.
The question of how he got bail probably depended on what set of laws he was charged under (i.e. a number of states only allow bail to be denied in the case of capital charges) and what the specific charges were. Maybe the judge didn't really think he'd make bail, or the initial charges weren't all that serious...:confused:

Kara also had a run-in with a photographer who mistook her for Colonel Ray, and this guy even tried to offer her $5,000 for Colonel Ray's location when he found out he'd gotten the wrong woman. Big mistake. She stalled while her wingie's WSO called the MPs. This guy's now looking at serious jail time for trying to bribe an AF officer. If the MPs didn't show up, she was ready to break certain facial features and wreck his cameras.
Guess those types never learn or are too single-mindedly focused on getting the money shot to figure out that they're not welcome around the military, and their normal antics done near an installation can lead to severe personal misfortune in the legal and physical senses.

Matt Wiser

Sorry about that; a little chaotic in the Sheraton's bar when I was on my laptop. Seems a bunch of the F-16 guys from the 352nd at LeMay found a guy with a bunch of cameras lurking around the bar entrance and jumped him after he took a picture of one of the female Viper drivers as she went into the bar. They held him for the MPs to haul away, and it turns out this punk has two restraining orders out on him: one by Teri Hatcher, the other from racing hottie Danica Patrick. Seems these idiots think any female officer in uniform is Lt. Col. Kelly Ann Ray, and they're paying the price: at least four are in the La Paz lockup right now, and only this one is looking at a misdemeanor: the other three are probably going to do some serious time in a Federal slammer for various felonies.

I remember hearing about Tommy Lee Jones: didn't he get some kind of Civilian Service award from DOD for his activities during the war? There's a few downed pilots who owe their lives to him and the people who ran with him.

Pyro: My son used to watch the show growing up as we moved from base to base. He enjoyed it, though some of the scenes did hit too close to home for me. As for lefties turned over by the PLDP, anyone you recognize?

So someone in the Gold Book got nailed...that person has an TBD date with either the gallows or the firing squad.

[lordroel]

From page 106

Matt Wiser

At least the actress was able to show her appreciation in some way. Anyone take her up on the offer? A trip to SoCal and a studio tour would be a good family vacation. For amusement parks, Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Magic Mountain all still offer military discounts. For me, Magic Mountain was my favorite, and still is (I try and get Lisa and at least one of the kids down there once a year if possible-and went there on many a weekend during my time teaching AFROTC-especially during summer break, and I needed the break).

I wasn't there, but Kara was, and she said that the Federal Judge (remember, it was on Travis AFB itself) thought a UC Berkeley Undergrad wouldn't be able to make the bail, so he set it at $200K. Big surprise when he did make bail, and then promptly disappeared. Since California after the first week wasn't a declared Military Zone, where military law applied first, the idiot went into Federal District Court. They were holding him on a charge of "Obstructing the National Defense" while more serious charges were in preparation (sabotage and attempted murder) when he made bail and disappeared. The latter two would have had no bail at all.

Well, we did some more flying today, and went down to Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. The PLDP's now in charge there, and as per the cease-fire terms, no radar or anything from the ground. All of the hangars at both airports took hits, and any planes in them are burned out. Saw the outlines of a pair of MiG-21s in one hangar at Mazatlan, several gutted MiG-19s at both, and what was left of an An-12 at Puerto Vallarta. They're saying a few more days before the cease-fire becomes something more permanent, but it won't be any kind of treaty, as there's still the issue of reparations (with interest) that will be dictated. And the security zone that the U.S. will control until the reparations are paid-in full.

sloreck

Congrats to those who are going to get the medal. It will be my pleasure to salute you anytime, and btw anyone coming to Wisconsin let me know and I'll treat you to some primo microbrew - if its summer will take you up north for a sail in my boat on the big lake - teach some of you jet jocks respect for using mother nature's wind.

Glad to see those so-called reporters getting theirs. Saw some of those vultures hang around outside NH Balboa looking to interview casualties or families. I'd be happy to give them some of my dreams, always had to have a doc when we found a mass grave to try and ID cause of death, etc. A day doing that made a day dealing with wounded Marines seem like a pleasure stroll.

Don't come down too hard on senior officers, I was a CDR (O-5 for non-navy types) very shortly after the war started, but can say proudly lived no better than any of my HMs in the field. Still can't discuss how I got my Navy Cross (& 2nd purple heart), but made sure my HM1 got a NC too, not just a silver star.

Glad to see the fighting is over...and hope we get our reparations & interest back quickly so we can get out of there. I hope there will be a permanent DMZ on the Mexican side of the border where they will only be allowed light troops, and we have rights to patrol.

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Sorry about that; a little chaotic in the Sheraton's bar when I was on my laptop. Seems a bunch of the F-16 guys from the 352nd at LeMay found a guy with a bunch of cameras lurking around the bar entrance and jumped him after he took a picture of one of the female Viper drivers as she went into the bar. They held him for the MPs to haul away, and it turns out this punk has two restraining orders out on him: one by Teri Hatcher, the other from racing hottie Danica Patrick. Seems these idiots think any female officer in uniform is Lt. Col. Kelly Ann Ray, and they're paying the price: at least four are in the La Paz lockup right now, and only this one is looking at a misdemeanor: the other three are probably going to do some serious time in a Federal slammer for various felonies.
Boy, those idiots are getting around. I saw that punk from Esquire again, and this time he had a Inside Edition cameraman with him. This ass attempted to get into the woman's washroom at a local restaurant that has been catering to us airmen since the war started, for what reason I can only guess. One of my female F-16 drivers, 1st Lieutenant Kristal Reyes, knocked him halfway into next week, not to mention thoroughly destroying the cameraman's gear. The local police weren't terribly sympathetic to the idiot, either, and one of them deliberately smashed the cameraman's head into the roof of the cop car they were hauling them off with. He's got a bunch of misdemeanor charges to face now. Hopefully that'll be the last I see of that douchebag.

Kelly Ann probably wants to shoot a bunch of these bozos by now. Even during the war when I had to deal with nosy press morons, especially the dimwits from the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune who were trying to keep a running tally on USAF pilots and how many ComBloc kills they racked up, they weren't like these vultures. When you told the pros to get lost, they generally took the advice, or at least did a better job of trying to not make themselves noticed. These vultures just don't get the damned message.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
I remember hearing about Tommy Lee Jones: didn't he get some kind of Civilian Service award from DOD for his activities during the war? There's a few downed pilots who owe their lives to him and the people who ran with him.
Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to him by George H.W. Bush in 1993 for his service. (I looked it up.) Well deserved, if you ask me. Him and his guys saved the lives of pilots and air crews on a bunch of occasions. He was gonna be awarded the Citizens Medal, but a bunch of the guys who him and his guys had saved asked for it to be upgraded to the Medal of Freedom. (Two of them were in my squadron at the time.)

Anyways, we're right now running more air patrols than anything else. The PDLP guys have things firmly in hand around here, and sure enough we haven't seen any radar or anything around here, either. Those RAF guys in their Eurofighters have been coming with us on these, too. A pair of destroyed An-22s are on the ground at Monterrey, and a couple other air bases have busted aircraft lying on the ground. Nothing flying, though. I'm hoping to be headed back to Seymour Johnson by the end of the week, though I suspect that Matt and the other reservists will go home before I do.

Wolfman

Pyro said: ↑
Hey, I know some of you were probably "too old" (though I say it very loosely, no offence) to see it when it first hit airwaves but did anyone catch Macross/Robotech? I recently pulled it out out of my collection to watch. The show itself predates WWIII as it hit Japanese airwaves in 1982/83 but the war delayed its release here to 1992. I just want to see if any Air Force guys have any comments on it since the VF-1 Valkyrie is evidently based of the F-14 and F-18.

As for my impressions of the cartoon, I thought the idea of transforming jet fighters in space was awesome as an 8-year-old but the near-annihilation of Earth did hit a little too close to home. It's a surprise that got past the radar of the various parent groups.
Panzerfaust 150 said: ↑
My little cousin watches it Pyro...and he has a good time with it too. I figure this..for a kid's show, it tackles some pretty hard issues...the one with that blonde ace dying...that was a punch to the gut.
I watch it and it's various sequels and it's prequel when I have the time, and yeah, watching Roy Fokker get it in the series is tough...

Anyways, the Bengals have ordered back home to El Toro, so I guess our involvement in all this has ended.

JN1

TheMann,
Hopefully those Typhoons will get a chance to either shoot down what's left of the Mexican AF, or get to demonstrate their A2G capabilities against someone other than a Chinese warlord. The aircraft's party trick is to do its pretty impressive air display with a full load of practise LGBs and missiles.
The sheer power of the EJ200 engines is pretty impressive to witness.

Over the next couple of years the Typhoons will get upgraded with a new AESA radar (called CEASAR) and thrust vectoring. I've talked to a few friends who were RAF pilots during the last war, including those who flew the Tempest, and they all really wish we had the Typhoon back then.

*

Just to remind everybody, the prototype Tempest.





The Tempest was a pretty good aircraft, as an aircraft developed during the war it used as many existing components and technology as possible. For example it used the Blue Vixen radar from the Sea Harrier FRS.2 and the rear fuselage and vertical tail came from the Tornado F.3, as did the RB.199 Mk.104 engines.
Experience with the Tempest helped a great deal with the Typhoon and it is interesting to compare both aircraft appearance wise.



When I was in Canton I was certainly glad that we had a squadron of Typhoon FGR.4s watching over us.

Matt Wiser

Glad to see Mr. Jones was well rewarded for his service. Rare indeed is the person in that part of Texas who went through the occupation and liberation and not lose a close friend or family member.

Wolfman, we'll be headed home sometime next week. 419th and 366th TFWs should be getting orders soon to redeploy back to home stations. Can't wait to get back home and back into normal routine. I've got reservists who are missing school (but they do take their online courses here-thank heaven for the Sheraton having high-speed wireless internet), and others who are away from their civilian jobs, but that comes with being a reservist. In the meantime, we're keeping busy with flying, and everyone gets at least two hops a day, and a few lucky ones get three. Even if it's just armed recon or DACT with the LeMay AFB guys.

What Mexican AF? It's pretty much wiped out. We haven't seen anything flying for a week at least, and the planes you do see on the ground are almost entirely wrecks. The AWACS folks are bored out of their skulls now, and have to set up practice intercepts to stay busy. Not that we don't mind the help, but if they'd shown up the first couple of days, they might have had some fun...Well, I got three kills out of this little war, giving me 18 total (I still have a couple probables that may or may not get confirmed).

Has anyone heard if III Corps or XVIII Airborne Corps in Northern Mexico found what was that "special" POW camp during the war? You know, where prisoners went in, but never came back. It was raided near the end, and some were rescued, but since it was south of the Rio Grande, we never got to it permanently. Granted, there's likely nothing left of it now, but one more loose end from the war to tie up.

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑
At least the actress was able to show her appreciation in some way. Anyone take her up on the offer? A trip to SoCal and a studio tour would be a good family vacation. For amusement parks, Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Magic Mountain all still offer military discounts. For me, Magic Mountain was my favorite, and still is (I try and get Lisa and at least one of the kids down there once a year if possible-and went there on many a weekend during my time teaching AFROTC-especially during summer break, and I needed the break).
Several people did, although I wasn't able to due to work & family commitments.

I wasn't there, but Kara was, and she said that the Federal Judge (remember, it was on Travis AFB itself) thought a UC Berkeley Undergrad wouldn't be able to make the bail, so he set it at $200K. Big surprise when he did make bail, and then promptly disappeared. Since California after the first week wasn't a declared Military Zone, where military law applied first, the idiot went into Federal District Court. They were holding him on a charge of "Obstructing the National Defense" while more serious charges were in preparation (sabotage and attempted murder) when he made bail and disappeared. The latter two would have had no bail at all.
Okay, that makes sense, a lot of a time, the initial charge is something that'd be easy to prove (and often a lesser included offense), while the prosecutor makes sure that there's enough admissible evidence to go ahead with whatever they actually want to charge the guy with, and if the prosecutor didn't set out the circumstances fully, or the judge a little oblivious, then, well, there you are...

TheMann said: ↑
Boy, those idiots are getting around. I saw that punk from Esquire again, and this time he had a Inside Edition cameraman with him. This ass attempted to get into the woman's washroom at a local restaurant that has been catering to us airmen since the war started, for what reason I can only guess. One of my female F-16 drivers, 1st Lieutenant Kristal Reyes, knocked him halfway into next week, not to mention thoroughly destroying the cameraman's gear. The local police weren't terribly sympathetic to the idiot, either, and one of them deliberately smashed the cameraman's head into the roof of the cop car they were hauling them off with. He's got a bunch of misdemeanor charges to face now. Hopefully that'll be the last I see of that douchebag.

Kelly Ann probably wants to shoot a bunch of these bozos by now. Even during the war when I had to deal with nosy press morons, especially the dimwits from the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune who were trying to keep a running tally on USAF pilots and how many ComBloc kills they racked up, they weren't like these vultures. When you told the pros to get lost, they generally took the advice, or at least did a better job of trying to not make themselves noticed. These vultures just don't get the damned message.
Anyone want to make a bet on how long it'll be before one of these clowns ends up getting themselves shot by a MP for trying to break into a secured area in an effort to get a photo, or something like that? Seriously, the way they're acting, it sound like they think a Darwin Award is a good thing to win and they're in a contest to see who can get one of this year's ones.:rolleyes: (If they tried some of that during the war, then that would almost certainly have happened...)

TheMann

I don't remember any Tempests, but I definitely do remember the RAF's Tornados (GR.1s and ADVs both) and Rolls-Royce-engined Phantoms. Many RAF crews who didn't have aircraft for whatever reason usually got USAF gear (F-16s and F-111s, usually) and did just fine with those once they got trained in how to use the American fighters. I have multiple times mentioned those Tornado ADV guys I met over Arkansas.

As for the paparazzi clowns, I'm surprised none of them have been shot already, and if I was taking that bet, DD951, I would be betting the first one getting shot by an MP will be pretty soon. Darwin Award isn't good enough to describe some of this, like that bozo shooting pics of every female pilot in La Paz and the guy here trying to snoop in a female washroom. I'll be much happier when I'm back in North Carolina in that regard, though I think I'm gonna miss the local hospitality. Not that the hospitality near Seymour Johnson is lacking, but the locals here are going way out of their way to make life as easy as possible for us.

Matt Wiser

I'm surprised that it hasn't happened yet: the two nailed outside LeMay had some very detailed shots of the ramp area where both 366th and 419th aircraft are parked. The base JAG showed us some of the pics: there was one on a day where I had the day off but Lisa didn't. A pic of me giving her a good luck kiss before she mounted her plane-and these two thought at first they had Kelly Ann, but realized she's a pilot, not a WSO. LeMay AFB does have a big problem in that the base on the east side is La Paz Airport, so one can get in that way and shoot from the terminal building or the public viewing area next to the building. AF CSPs do patrol all over, though, under the increased wartime security measures. Nobody messes with heavily armed guys and gals packing M-16s, 9-mm pistols, and with Hummers mounting machine guns or automatic grenade launchers. When they tell you to move, either do as they say or you're in cuffs. As for the press, only those who are embeds or local media with credentials issued by the base PAO are allowed on base.

zakueins

Note for space fans-Ishtar 5 made her first maiden run around the Moon and got back to the Freedom today. Almost perfect-we're still fine-tuning the software for the smart radiators (first version to be used-if it works, we're talking serious ability to head for Mars). When they get Ishtar-6 up, we'll be able to push NASA to let us do the fast Mars mission-quick pass for the first run on a free trajectory, then we'll do a landing next mission.

Picked up an Osprey book on the Israeli and South African air base "security contractors" ("No, really, we're contractors...just don't touch the paint over the IDF insignia for a few more minutes..."). Had an interview with one of the Spentnaz guys, they were scared of the IDF "contractors", but the South African ones they truly feared. They were very good at letting guys "escape" long enough to lead them back to the rest of the team.

Also picked up Mad Science-Soviet Research and Development During The Cold War. Some of it was interesting, some of it was hilarious, and a few things made my stomach churn (they apparently still did "live" testing of bioweapons on political prisoners until the mid-70s). They might have recovered some kind of "cold sleep" process, but are still deciphering the notes.

Matt Wiser

One problem in digging about those Soviet programs is that a few of their R&D Centers were SAC targets during EASTERN EXPRESS. It's believed that some of the missions that are still classified involve such strikes, with "unconventional" weapons. Some info about use of Bigeye chemical bombs has come out, but not much else. And the Moscow area mission (retaliation for the Spetsnatz raid on Raven Rock) is still very classified. SAC acknowledges the mission, but that's it.

Well, the Reserves are starting to go home: and we're the first. 419th TFW returns to Hill AFB in 72 hours. We've been released from flying, got some packing to do, and so on. Two more nights to enjoy La Paz, then it's back home to either Utah, Idaho, or even Wyoming and eastern Nevada. I've got an F-15E WSO who's a Nevada State Trooper at Wendover, NV, and a logistics officer who works for FedEx-in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And a few others from those states, too. Kelly Ann called the Sheriff, asking if there's been anyone poking around up in Pocatello, and he says no. Maybe those photographer scum will stay away-the Sheriff has promised to toss any in the clink who get in her way when she gets back. The fact that she's a deputy sheriff means that if any get in her way while she's on the job, well...you can call a lawyer after she takes you to booking. And you can bet the other deputies will zealously enforce the speed limit with these clowns...say, 65 in a 40?

Anyone see CNN today? The PLDP is now in control of Acapulco (or what's left of it). The previous government and the PLDP fought a really pitched battle for it, and they say the Navy guys offshore were interested spectators. One MexGov ship-an old Koltin-class destroyer, tried to make a run for it, (but where would they go?), and they did fire on the destroyer Preble with those 130-mm guns. Big mistake. They got a pair of Harpoons in return. Problem solved.

Incidentally, the South Africans and Israelis weren't here as contractors. Officially, they were on "detached service" from their home militaries.

zakueins

Osprey book dealt with that-they were "detached" from their home militaries, but DOD had to "hire" them as "contractors" to cover some really obscure regs the US government and military has. It also provided them with some sort of protections under the Geneva Convention. Near the end, it was still very much a case of "who the frack cares?", but they were still kept on the roles as contractors.

That's one of the great things about the post-war military, according to friends of mine-the JAG corps been weakened so that you don't have to run everything past a lawyer.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Incidentally, the South Africans and Israelis weren't here as contractors. Officially, they were on "detached service" from their home militaries.

Wolfman

DD951 said: ↑
Anyone want to make a bet on how long it'll be before one of these clowns ends up getting themselves shot by a MP for trying to break into a secured area in an effort to get a photo, or something like that? Seriously, the way they're acting, it sound like they think a Darwin Award is a good thing to win and they're in a contest to see who can get one of this year's ones.:rolleyes: (If they tried some of that during the war, then that would almost certainly have happened...)
No bet, man.:cool:

Wolfman

gtrof said: ↑
Books on the war I've read include, Brave Rifles: The 3rd ACR at War, AFVs of World War III, The Eagle and the Bear: A History of the Third World War, and currently reading Johnine Red: Carrier Operation in the Pacific. Any other suggestions?
Johnnie Red: Carrier Operation in the Pacific is one hell of a good book, trof.

By the way, Matt, when is Kara going to try again to knock off TheMann in a 1v1? I wanna be there when it happens.
Last edited: Feb 1, 2010

Mikewritesfic

I Dunno

BlackWave said: ↑
I was among rescue groups looking for survivors when the Sovs nuked the east and west coast. I remember rescuing deformed and burned people from the rubble of NYC, DC, and Philadelphia. When they arrived, I joined a group in LA, and then moved away when the Reds decimated the place with carpet bombing.

I don't quite get people's fix on nuclear war. Why do most people automatically assume that when the missiles fly, the cities will go first? What good is it to take out NYC and LA and leave the missile silos and bomber bases untouched? First rule of war is to take out the other guy's weapons. The Red Dawn movie scenario had it right.

JimmyRibbitt

TheMann said: ↑
As for the paparazzi clowns, I'm surprised none of them have been shot already, and if I was taking that bet, DD951, I would be betting the first one getting shot by an MP will be pretty soon

I wonder how they are going to deal with any these paparazzi clowns who decide to try and take a photo from a long distance using a Celestron telescope as a telephoto. I took astronomy in college, and I know that a C-8 would be capable of focusing in on a person at quite a long range.

That could be the next step if one of these paparazzi clowns are shot. I could see future attempts coming from paparazzi armed with C-8 telescopes and trying to take pictures from as far away as 3 miles, depending on the magnification used.

I think the folks down in La Paz and going to have to keep an eye on anyone carrying a C-5 or C-8 telescope around.

JimmyRibbitt

There is already some alternate history about WWIII out there already, including a scenario of the United States immediately invading Mexico and Cuba after the invaders are driven out of America.

I wonder how history would have progressed if that had been done. America would have been rid of Fidel and the Mexican commies long before now if they had done that. America should have immediately gone after the Commies in Mexico, Cuba, and Central America after driving out the invaders. Some of those lefties that hid out there for so long would have had a date with the noose long before now.

Speaking of lefties, did they ever catch staticchaos yet? He is a wiley one, using anonymity services, such as Tor, and for-pay VPN services that keep no logs, making him difficult to trace, even for the most seasoned of hackers. He is using a VPN service, that keeps no logs, with servers in Germany, the UK, and the Rump USSR. I would like to see his face if and when he is caught.

Matt Wiser

Well, the security people at La Paz will be relieved when we head home in two days, so the circus will be leaving town. I've already called the base commander at Hill and told him about what's been going on, and he says there's been cameramen there, too. How'd they know where Lt.Col. Ray's home station is? Too many possible sources, and he's got OSI checking to see if anyone leaked up there. Then again, if the leak as to where she's stationed came from Hollywood...I wouldn't be surprised.

Not sure when The Mann comes back for Red Flag, but if we go east to run an exercise there....it'd be nice if Kara beat him on his own turf. Kelly Ann came along for the ride last time, and was one of two F-15Es not "dead" when the final fight got started. (Kara was the other one) At least they got his wingie....

Some of those AHs are pretty decent, but they fail to take into account the fact that after four years of war, not only was about a quarter of the country a smashed wreck, but people were war-weary. What was the book that came out a few years back about the last months of the war-The Last Great Victory I think it was. Anyway, the author does capture not only the euphoria over the victory, but the war weariness that was in the U.S. once BORDER FURY wrapped up. Couple that with the slow-motion collapse of the USSR that began as BORDER FURY launched, and you get an idea as to why the armistice went in only a month after the surrender in Brownsville. Too bad the NKs and Fidel didn't think the armistice applied to them, and a lot of good men and women died getting the NKs off of Guam-where the NK garrison died almost to a man, and there was the naval blockade of Cuba, which didn't squeeze Fidel until March of '90. That, and a few sinkings of ships headed to the island....The most unrealistic AHs are those who give a peaceful end to the Cold War and subsequent meltdown of the Soviet Empire. All of them underestimate how bloody and determined that back-stabbing cabal known as the Soviet Politburo was to have a war. Food crisis at home, unrest in Eastern Europe despite the invasion of Poland, ethnic troubles, etc; it all added up. They felt that if we were knocked off, they'd buy themselves time to hold the whole thing together. If they failed, they lost everything-and now look how big the USSR is now-the FER, the various 'stans in Central Asia, the Caucusus republics, Ukraine and Beylorussia, the Baltic States, and the Russian Republic all surround what a rump Soviet State.

sloreck

Matt:
I can second the "war weariness". When we found out that our MAGTF was one of the units scheduled to retake Guam, very mixed emotion. We certainly wanted to liberate our folks there, and pay the NKs back - but we all really hoped the NKs would see the light and leave peacefully. Even Kim had to know the COMBLOC had lost & there was no way they would keep Guam. The fighting there was as bad as anything between the Marines and the Japanese in WW2 with no quarter asked or given, NKs playing dead or wounded going after medical staff - one of my surgeons was stabbed in the eye by an NK wounded he was treating who grabbed a scalpel - he lost the eye. It was a pointless coda to a pointless war. I can only hope those on the COMBLOC side who planned this and ordered this die/died slowly and painful, and occupy a special place in the lower circle of Dante's Hell.

Ever since the war I've been a believer in the old Roman saying, "oderint dum metuent" - let them hate us but they must fear us". We need to remember that the only way we will never have our grandkids have to go through what we did is to make sure any & all potential bad guys out there know we can and will curbstomp them mercilessly. Too many of us, myself included, have unmarked & unknown graves of loved ones out there to ever forget this.

JN1

He is using a VPN service, that keeps no logs, with servers in Germany, the UK, and the Rump USSR. I would like to see his face if and when he is caught.
If he's used a server in the UK then our police, namely Counter-Terrorist Command (an amalgamation of the old Anti-Terrorist Branch and Special Branch) will want to talk to him. It's very possible he's committed a crime of some sort in the UK.
I don't know about Germany, but I do know they take as dim a view of the far left as they do of Nazism. He'd be safe enough using servers in the Rump USSR though, if they're up to much.

OCC: Anybody ever thought of drawing up a map of the Russian Republic, Rump USSR and Far Eastern Republic?

[lordroel]

From page 107

trekchu

I have a few contacts in Germany and according to them the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) would do the job since it's clearly anti-constitutional.

Wolfman

This guy seems to really piss everybody off... I wonder what the courts are going to do with him when, or if, he's caught?

DD951

I'd have to concur with Matt & Sloreck about the general war-weariness and being stretched to the limits at the end of the war- 4 years of hard fighting, large parts of the country having been wrecked, millions of dead, and massive economic disruption- to take the fight into Cuba & Mexico would have been too much, especially considering all the little (& not so little) brushfires that remained to be stamped out, from the biggies like Guam & convincing the Cubans to call it a day, to the little stuff such as small batches of holdout ComBloc & auxiliary forces who didn't get the message or ignored it. My destroyer was one of the ships in the TF sent to retake Guam (to the displeasure of the crew), and we were very busy on the gunline with constantly providing NGFS to the troops on the ground- it'd be a toss-up whether Guam or Vancouver was more intense from that perspective, and as Sloreck said, it was much worse on the ground. After finishing up with Guam, helping clean up assorted little messes in the western Pacific kept us busy for the better part of a year, and we didn't get home until early in '91.

For a lot of the AH's to really work either for a peaceful end to the Cold War or a shorter war that wasn't as hard and messy, and considering how out-of-touch and fanatically determined the Politburo was, the writers would have to figure out a plausible way for either the moderates & reformers who were historically pushed aside and/or purged by the hard-liners to have won that power struggle, or for some sort of underground cabal of moderates & other rational people who hadn't lost touch with reality within the Soviet power structure to pull off some sort of palace coup when it should have become apparent just how futile & stupid of an idea this war was. Haven't really seen anyone come up with a good way to pull that off, or find a way where the country is in good enough shape to take down the Mexicans and Cubans around 1990 without a lot of hand-waving.

As for our commie 'friend', my contact at the NSA says they've been able to figure out how he's been hiding is tracks, a general idea of where he is, and they think they'll be able to pin him down next time he pops up, but won't say how that is or where he is, as that'd be getting into sources & methods.

Once he's found, what happens would depend on where & what he is. If he's somewhere where he can be brought into US custody, what happens next depends on whether or not he is what he says he is. If he turns out to just be some hacker trolling us, he could still be prosecuted for such things as computer trespass and possibly spreading subversive propaganda if someone thinks they can make that statute stand up in peacetime. However, if he really is what he claimed to be, then depending on what all he did, the possibilities range from spending at least the next 5-10 years on top of the sentence for the hacking as a guest of the Bureau of Prisons, to a hot date with a rope. If he's in another country, it depends on whether they'd have a better claim for jurisdiction over hacking, whether he should be extradited as an auxiliary, or whether matters should be referred to 'other government agencies'.

Matt Wiser

Folks were generally war-weary, but there's no denying the celebrations that took place when the Armistice was signed, and when Fidel admitted the Armistice applied to him. But there were units redeployed to Florida to keep the pressure on: I knew several guys in the 347th TFW from Moody AFB, GA; instead of going home after BORDER FURY wrapped, they went to MacDill in Tampa and flew combat over Cuba for the next six months. Same thing for the SC ANG's 169th TFG-they went to Orlando IAP (a former SAC bomber base) and took their F-16s to Cuba on numerous occasions. Kelly Ann Ray has said that seeing USAF and Navy planes in increasing numbers gave a boost to POW morale and meant that Cuban claims of victory in propaganda news sheets given to the POWs "Weren't worth the paper they were printed on." (they were better used as toilet paper) But since Fidel was acting like the Armistice didn't really apply to him, it wasn't until March of '90 that the POWs came home.

Hey 951, anyone else you recognize in the latest batch of lefties handed over? The PLDP delivered a couple dozen to the Marines near Tampico, and there was the usual kicking and screaming by most of 'em. There were a couple, looked to be husband and wife, who went calmly and quietly, as if they were going into the lions' den....the husband looked kinda familiar, but I don't remember the wife. The husband was supposedly an "auxiliary" captain in Colorado and New Mexico, and there's several reprisal incidents reportedly tied to this guy. Another fella is wanted for trying to use a homemade mortar against the relocated USAF Academy campus at Beale AFB.

Well, 24 more hours in La Paz and it's back home to Hill. The 366th has two more days, and then they'll be back at Mountain Home. The Sheraton's the scene of one huge going-home party. Lisa and I got a suite and we're having some fun....the MPs are watching for those slime photographers, and Kelly Ann and Kara are having a good time at the pool. If the place is left reasonably intact, the manager won't complain too much. If we have to break a chair over some scum cameraman's head, he won't complain at all...

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Hey 951, anyone else you recognize in the latest batch of lefties handed over? The PLDP delivered a couple dozen to the Marines near Tampico, and there was the usual kicking and screaming by most of 'em. There were a couple, looked to be husband and wife, who went calmly and quietly, as if they were going into the lions' den....the husband looked kinda familiar, but I don't remember the wife. The husband was supposedly an "auxiliary" captain in Colorado and New Mexico, and there's several reprisal incidents reportedly tied to this guy. Another fella is wanted for trying to use a homemade mortar against the relocated USAF Academy campus at Beale AFB.

A couple of guys in that latest batch seemed kind of familiar- have a resemblance to a couple auxiliary grunts- leftie student types who dropped out of Evergreen State to fight in a unit that was supposedly wiped out in Vancouver, and had been a real PITA do deal with- think the Canadians want those two for war crimes for several massacres that unit was involved in north of the border, but I'd have to wait for details to be released to be sure either way.

Matt Wiser

Hopefully, they're wanted in both the U.S. and Canada, so if one prosecution botches the job, the other can nail them. One of the others is one Kelly Ann recognized: he was one of those "Cuban Solidarity" types who would go to Cuba before the war to show "revolutionary solidarity" with Fidel's regime. He was a frequent visitor to the POW camps, telling prisoners that they were "on the wrong side of history", and saying that they would be released only when "the red banner flies over every city and town in America", and other nonsense. Apparenly he was a frequent flier between Mexico City and Havana, and was in the former when the Marines and 82nd Airborne went ashore in Cuba to put an end to Fidel's tyrrany. At least he wasn't a torturer, so if they need Kelly Ann's testimony at this guy's trial, she won't have any emotional...issues doing so.

That deployment to Guam and beyond seems to be one of the longest. I hope you had a port visit or two once in a while. Lisa's sister on the Bigelow had tours on the blockade line of about 45-50 days before putting in someplace like San Juan or Nassau to give the crew some time ashore, though Jacksonville was their home port. But they did do some convoys early on-like supertankers from Cape Town to Philly or Norfolk. Those South Atlantic runs were 99% boredom and 1% danger, Joanne says.

Kara and Kelly Ann found a guy hiding in some bushes near the pool: seems he had several cameras and was looking for Kelly Ann. He snapped a pic (with a big flash) and then the next thing he felt was Kara tackling him. Kelly Ann went to pick up a chair and broke it over his head, then summoned the MPs. Going up to her and asking "Colonel, do you mind if I take a picture or two", is one thing (the AP and Reuters guys are at least polite in that), but ambush photography....that's something else entirely. Kara then went to the suite Lisa and I have for the night and knocked; she found me in a towel and Lisa in her birthday suit-Kara (in a very small bikini) said, "Having fun, Colonels?" (we were) She then told us what happened.

Matt Wiser

419th TFW is now back at Hill AFB, people. A few days to handle the demobilization stuff, then my reservists can go back to civilian life. The La Paz Sheraton survived the night very much intact, though a couple of nosy photographers got beaten up some by angry servicepeople. The welcome home was great, as the Governor of Utah was there, along with the mayors of both Salt Lake City and Ogden, Miss Utah, and just plain folks. Naturally, there were family members galore, and my daughter came up from UCLA to be there. 366th should be back to Mountain home tomorrow or the next day. I've got stuff to wrap up here (one of the things they don't tell you about), but my daughter will be there to welcome her mother home. 

Another wreck found, this time in the Wasatch Mountains east of SLC. This one's an Su-24 (Fencer-C model) and this one, according to the hikers who found it,was near a mountain. The AF (according to the Salt Lake Tribune) is on-scene, and they're checking for human remains and any unexploded ordnance. No idea if it was shot down or simply had CFIT (controlled flight into terrain). If the terrain-following radar had a malfunction....tough luck, comrades. Panzerfaust, if this is an MIA Case our Russian Republic or Ukranian friends are interested in, you might want to follow up this one.

TheMann

My guys are headed back to Seymour-Johnson tomorrow. I'll be glad to hear it, but while the fliers and maintenance guys are happy, most of the locals are wanting us to stay longer. Sorry guys, can't help ya on that one. It'll be nice to sleep in my own bed.

Matt Wiser

Hey Mann, if there's one of those JTFX (Joint Task Force Exercises) run on the East Coast in the next few months, don't be surprised if a bunch of Beagles shows up from Mountain Home and Hill. Both Kara and Kelly Ann want revenge. And nothing would be better than doing it on your home turf-you beat them both in sky they considered their own, and they would like to return the favor.

Unfortunately, I'm not in my own bed: the Visiting Officers' Quarters at Hill has to fill in until the demobilization stuff gets taken care of. Besides, Lisa's got the house keys, and she's still down in La Paz! At least breakfast leaving La Paz was good: Spanish Omlette with fried potatoes and tortillas.

Kelly Ann stumbled into her office after the welcome home, and found several bags of mail. Fan mail, including several marriage proposals, a package that had a mahogany F-15E model, and so on. Some of the cards and letters had cutouts of the Maxim photos, while some were more respectful, thanking her for her service, and looking forward to the Showtime movie.

Panzerfaust 150

Hey all,

Just got my departure date...I'm leaving for the Republic on the 18th. Will be back on the 25th. Main conference is the 20th-23rd, but our Russian hosts want some of us (Me and a few others) to take a look at some POW camp records they unearthed. Seems they're worried there might be some isolated camps in the FER that didn't get the word the war was over. If so, they want to make sure the FER and their Japanese and Korean patrons do something about it...fast.

As for the two Fencer wrecks you mentioned Matt, I just got the documents for the first one, including the reports on the crash site..and photos. We'll be doing a handover to the joint former Soviet side during the conference once AFPC gives the OK. So far, any attempt at ID hasn't borne fruit. The former Soviet MIA registry is haphazard, and incomplete...and the UN's had hell trying to get DNA from surviving families over there. It's actually been easier to find OUR MIAs.

Wolfman

That bad, eh, Panzerfaust?

Panzerfaust 150

Wolfman said: ↑

That bad, eh, Panzerfaust?

Yep...the Russian Republic is just now managing to get it's MIA/POW records in some sort of shape...heck, they formed a new ministry "Post-Conflict Affairs" they're calling it. The FER and other republics? Chaos. That's why the conference. These countries are screaming for help. Not to mention some of the munitions SAC dropped are still killing folks. Considering that's a problem here too, we're kinda hoping we can get some movement on that front for both countries as well...or at least that's what State's telling me.

Wolfman

The State Department's actually making sense? It must be a sign of the end of the world...

TheMann

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Hey Mann, if there's one of those JTFX (Joint Task Force Exercises) run on the East Coast in the next few months, don't be surprised if a bunch of Beagles shows up from Mountain Home and Hill. Both Kara and Kelly Ann want revenge. And nothing would be better than doing it on your home turf-you beat them both in sky they considered their own, and they would like to return the favor.

There is one of those exercises in May. So, should I expect Kara and Kelly Ann to make appearances? If so, I'll make sure to clear a spot for them on the tarmac here. And I wish them luck doing so. I know my F-22 just as well as they know their F-15Es, and this is the better plane of the two, or so they say, and I have the home turf advantage. They wanna bring it, by all means. I'll be glad to beat them again. Kelly Ann had one big freakout last time......

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Unfortunately, I'm not in my own bed: the Visiting Officers' Quarters at Hill has to fill in until the demobilization stuff gets taken care of. Besides, Lisa's got the house keys, and she's still down in La Paz! At least breakfast leaving La Paz was good: Spanish Omlette with fried potatoes and tortillas.

Yeah, my breakfast this morning was great, too, and much the same as yours, though a local farmer supplied us with enough bacon to feed an army. I'm gonna be in my own bed tonight, and I'm happy about that. :cool:

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Kelly Ann stumbled into her office after the welcome home, and found several bags of mail. Fan mail, including several marriage proposals, a package that had a mahogany F-15E model, and so on. Some of the cards and letters had cutouts of the Maxim photos, while some were more respectful, thanking her for her service, and looking forward to the Showtime movie.

Boy, Kelly Ann's gotta be sick of hearing about that damned Maxim shoot by now. Marriage proposals, Geez, there are people lame enough to think that anything would come out of that? Neato on the F-15 model though, I hope she mounts that if its any good.

I got one more visit from that Esquire idiot this morning, this time after he paid somebody to let him onto the base. (If I find out who that loser is.....) He gave me some spiel about how the public has a right to know everything about Kelly Ann, to which I told him to go read the reports that already exist. He ranted at me about how he had figured I was one of her wingmen at one point (bad guess, charky, I WISH I'd had Kelly Ann as a wingie), and that I knew of why she had those scars. I told him that I did not know about the scars beyond what I had seen in the Maxim photos (and yes, a few of those mags got around to my maintenance men and air crews), and that as an Air Force general officer, my loyalty was to my brothers and sisters in the Air Force, and if this clown wanted to hurt Kelly Ann in any way whatsoever he should be prepared to have me kick his ass. At which point he left of his own accord, swearing that he'd get me. Needless to say, I'm gonna be putting a call to my higher ups to get this jerkoff blacklisted the moment I hit the tarmac at Seymour Johnson.

Wolfman

Well, Mann, here's hoping the bluesuit brass listens to you... if they don't, give me a call, and I'll see what the Commandant can do to change their minds.

JimmyRibbitt

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Some of those AHs are pretty decent, but they fail to take into account the fact that after four years of war.

Ong AH I saw once combines the events of WWIII with those of the Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Risising, written out right about the time WWIII started in 1985.

This one AH had WWIII starting in 1981 with the events of RSR, and then the Russian/Cuban invasion of the USA starting in 1985, after Mexico falls to the Commies, going on until about 1987. then the final part of the war having the USA invading Mexico and Cuba. The invaders are driven out earlier after the tide of battle turns in Europe, allowing Britain and France to send troops to help the Americans, and this allows America to go on the offensive and take the war to Cuba and Mexico, and the war finally ending in 1989 after both Mexico and Cuba fall, and the USSR signs an armistice, after losing their Latin American allies.

Wolfman

JimmyRibbitt said: ↑

Ong AH I saw once combines the events of WWIII with those of the Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Risising, written out right about the time WWIII started in 1985.

This one AH had WWIII starting in 1981 with the events of RSR, and then the Russian/Cuban invasion of the USA starting in 1985, after Mexico falls to the Commies, going on until about 1987. then the final part of the war having the USA invading Mexico and Cuba. The invaders are driven out earlier after the tide of battle turns in Europe, allowing Britain and France to send troops to help the Americans, and this allows America to go on the offensive and take the war to Cuba and Mexico, and the war finally ending in 1989 after both Mexico and Cuba fall, and the USSR signs an armistice, after losing their Latin American allies.

That particular AH is nothing but crap! Red Storm Rising itself was a good read, though.

JimmyRibbitt

JN1 said: ↑

If he's used a server in the UK then our police, namely Counter-Terrorist Command (an amalgamation of the old Anti-Terrorist Branch and Special Branch) will want to talk to him. It's very possible he's committed a crime of some sort in the UK.

That trouble is these subscription VPNs typically keep no logs, so tracing where staticcahos is actually coming from will be easier said than done. The businesses who run these servers make that fact they keep no logs a selling point.

I just hope that staticcahos is not hijacking someone's WiFi access point somewhere, where some unsuspecting shmuck will find himself the subject of a dawn raid by the FBI.

Wolfman

JimmyRibbitt said: ↑

That trouble is these subscription VPNs typically keep no logs, so tracing where staticcahos is actually coming from will be easier said than done. The businesses who run these servers make that fact they keep no logs a selling point.

I just hope that staticcahos is not hijacking someone's WiFi access point somewhere, where some unsuspecting shmuck will find himself the subject of a dawn raid by the FBI.

You and me both, Jimmy, you and me both...

Matt Wiser

Considering how many bombs a Buff or B-1 can carry, it's no surprise that there's some that didn't go off. Especially when you had three or four bombers on the same target. But the sad thing is that the FER doesn't have the resources to deal with unexploded ordnance that we've got developed. Hell, there's parts of the Midwest where you had some pitched battles where going off established roads or trails is strongly discouraged. Not to mention mountainous areas (like the Arkansas or Missouri Ozarks, the Quachita Mountains in Oklahoma, for example) where Ivan dropped generous quantities of AP mines in a manner similar to what they were doing in Afghanistan about that time. Back country hunting? Not for a while....

POW camps that didn't get the word the war's over? Yikes! If that's more than just rumor, then anyone who survived that long in captivity is a hero, period. And I share some of the sentiment: something's wrong if the State Department's making sense. Maybe it's because of the fact they've been in Phlly all these years?

Well, if we get invited to such an exercise, we'll be there. Remember that if the ACMI instrumentation had ruled Kara's last AIM-9 as a hit instead of a miss....and she was trying to gun you when she was "killed." We've got the cockpit tapes from Kelly Ann's bird and after she "died", she was loitering around and watching the whole thing. She got all the radio talk-and yeah, a lot of it after the end is unprintable. (and 99% of it is from Kara)

No pesky tabloid reporters at Hill: everyone had to show they were from a respected news outlet (local TV/radio/paper, or national news-CNN, AP, etc.) But there was one group that was very welcome: a group of former POWs from WW II, Korea, Vietnam, and WW III were there to welcome Kelly Ann back. Lots of teary eyes seeing that.

[lordroel]

From page 108

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Considering how many bombs a Buff or B-1 can carry, it's no surprise that there's some that didn't go off. Especially when you had three or four bombers on the same target. But the sad thing is that the FER doesn't have the resources to deal with unexploded ordnance that we've got developed. Hell, there's parts of the Midwest where you had some pitched battles where going off established roads or trails is strongly discouraged. Not to mention mountainous areas (like the Arkansas or Missouri Ozarks, the Quachita Mountains in Oklahoma, for example) where Ivan dropped generous quantities of AP mines in a manner similar to what they were doing in Afghanistan about that time. Back country hunting? Not for a while....

POW camps that didn't get the word the war's over? Yikes! If that's more than just rumor, then anyone who survived that long in captivity is a hero, period. And I share some of the sentiment: something's wrong if the State Department's making sense. Maybe it's because of the fact they've been in Phlly all these years?

Well, if we get invited to such an exercise, we'll be there. Remember that if the ACMI instrumentation had ruled Kara's last AIM-9 as a hit instead of a miss....and she was trying to gun you when she was "killed." We've got the cockpit tapes from Kelly Ann's bird and after she "died", she was loitering around and watching the whole thing. She got all the radio talk-and yeah, a lot of it after the end is unprintable. (and 99% of it is from Kara)

No pesky tabloid reporters at Hill: everyone had to show they were from a respected news outlet (local TV/radio/paper, or national news-CNN, AP, etc.) But there was one group that was very welcome: a group of former POWs from WW II, Korea, Vietnam, and WW III were there to welcome Kelly Ann back. Lots of teary eyes seeing that.

I still think the State Department making sense is a sign of the approaching apocalypse... As for the rumors of camps that didn't get the word, Matt, I agree with you wholeheartedly there.

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Hopefully, they're wanted in both the U.S. and Canada, so if one prosecution botches the job, the other can nail them. One of the others is one Kelly Ann recognized: he was one of those "Cuban Solidarity" types who would go to Cuba before the war to show "revolutionary solidarity" with Fidel's regime. He was a frequent visitor to the POW camps, telling prisoners that they were "on the wrong side of history", and saying that they would be released only when "the red banner flies over every city and town in America", and other nonsense. Apparenly he was a frequent flier between Mexico City and Havana, and was in the former when the Marines and 82nd Airborne went ashore in Cuba to put an end to Fidel's tyrrany. At least he wasn't a torturer, so if they need Kelly Ann's testimony at this guy's trial, she won't have any emotional...issues doing so.

If those two are who I think they are, then they'd fit into that category- probably a question of who gets to prosecute them first, and possibly who gets to hang them (or whose jail they're a guest of first). Hope they really nail that guy Kelly recognized, even though he seem like the worst of the individuals in Cuba.

That deployment to Guam and beyond seems to be one of the longest. I hope you had a port visit or two once in a while. Lisa's sister on the Bigelow had tours on the blockade line of about 45-50 days before putting in someplace like San Juan or Nassau to give the crew some time ashore, though Jacksonville was their home port. But they did do some convoys early on-like supertankers from Cape Town to Philly or Norfolk. Those South Atlantic runs were 99% boredom and 1% danger, Joanne says.

Yeah, that was a pretty long deployment, and the crew wasn't too fond of it, but we did have some port calls- Subic, Macao, Yokohama, Taiwan, Pusan, Darwin, Australia, but even all these foreign attractions didn't make up for having to be away for so long after the war was supposed to be over. Most of the war for us after things wrapped up in BC were Australia or Hawaii convoy runs, also long, and mostly 99.5% boredom, although there were a few more than exciting occasions to compensate- a couple Alaska convoys & the Vladivostok raid.

Kara and Kelly Ann found a guy hiding in some bushes near the pool: seems he had several cameras and was looking for Kelly Ann. He snapped a pic (with a big flash) and then the next thing he felt was Kara tackling him. Kelly Ann went to pick up a chair and broke it over his head, then summoned the MPs. Going up to her and asking "Colonel, do you mind if I take a picture or two", is one thing (the AP and Reuters guys are at least polite in that), but ambush photography....that's something else entirely. Kara then went to the suite Lisa and I have for the night and knocked; she found me in a towel and Lisa in her birthday suit-Kara (in a very small bikini) said, "Having fun, Colonels?" (we were) She then told us what happened.

Paparazzi getting more & more desperate- hope they don't try following everyone home.

JimmyRibbitt

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Considering how many bombs a Buff or B-1 can carry, it's no surprise that there's some that didn't go off. Especially when you had three or four bombers on the same target. But the sad thing is that the FER doesn't have the resources to deal with unexploded ordnance that we've got developed. Hell, there's parts of the Midwest where you had some pitched battles where going off established roads or trails is strongly discouraged.

That should not be too surprising. To this day, there is still believed to be unexploded ordinance the Japanese sent over by balloon in WWII still out there in the Pacific Northwest.

Unexploded ordinance dropped by Ivan will still probably be there 70 or 80 years from now.

Pyro

I found this interesting, I heard that the PDLD shipped some collaborators involved with the massacres in Calgary and Lethbridge back to Canada. Several of them are making noise about being coerced into cooperating, but I'll let the courts figure that one out.

Wolfman

DD951 said: ↑

Paparazzi getting more & more desperate- hope they don't try following everyone home.

You'd think some salutory beatings would solve the problem, but noo~oo, I swear, these damn fleas must be masochists...:mad:

Mikewritesfic

First Contact In Texas

When hostilities began, I commanded E (Eagle) Troop, 2nd Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The regiment had recently returned to Fort Hood from Germany following the withdrawl of American forces from Europe and we were just beginning to get our feet back on the ground. With our experience guarding the inner-German border, our primary task was going to be patrolling and monitoring the now hostile US/Mexican border. We never got the chance. Hostilities broke out and before we knew it, Cuban and Nicaraguan divisions were streaming across the border into Texas.

Traditionally, the mission of the cavalry is to provide a covering force and reconaissance screen- a sort of trip wire- for larger units either in theadvance or defense. Our sister units in III Corps were still forming up and elements of the 49th Armored Division (Texas National Guard) were deployed trying to buy time for III Corps to arrive on the battlefield. The 49th AD was engaged in heavy fighting along the MLR south of the Atascosa river. 2nd ACR was deployed to provide a covering force for the withdrawl of the 49th when the time came.

When the MLR was decisively broken, 2nd Squadron was deployed south of the river to cover the withdrawl of elements of the 1st Brigade/49th AD. Eagle Troop was positioned south of Rossville covering the eastern corridor. The Texans withdrawl was orderly, all things considered. Nearly every piece of equipment that passed through our lines had sustained damage of one sort or another, and the scars of battle were evident. Their brigade XO rolled up to my tank in a battle scarred M-113 and relayed the bad news: The MLR was broken and there were two fresh Nicaraguan divisions were fast on the Texans tail.

I have never gone into details about the battle and I will not now. In short, 2nd Squadron successfully covered the withdrawl of the 1st Brigade/49th AD and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy. Our losses were light. This was the baptism of fire for the M-1 Abrams and M-2 Bradley and both vehicles performed as promised. Up against the T-55s, T-62s and BMP-1s that the Nicaraguans threw at us. We had AH-1F Cobras and A-10s providing CAS and the combination of the two platforms was a lethal one. They tore through the enemy tank columns like a knife through butter. When it was our turn to withdraw, the Texans returned the favor and put up stiff fight, buying us the time we needed to get clear.

When the smoke cleared, Eagle Troop was intact, except for superficial damage on a number of tracks (mine included) and a broken TOW launcher on one of the Brads. In comparison to the battles that were to come this was little more than a skirmish, however, it provided a level of confidence for me and my troopers. The new generation of equipment performed as brilliantly as we were led to believe, as did our tactics, organization, and most importantly, our own capabilities as soldiers.

Wolfman

When the War kicked off, I was flying in the Marines East Coast Replacement squadron for the A-6. After the Spetsznaz raid that devastated Havelock, I was assigned to VMA(AW)-533 Hawks, the unit with which I flew for the rest of the war, until my FAC tour during operations around Houston.

DD951

JimmyRibbitt said: ↑

That should not be too surprising. To this day, there is still believed to be unexploded ordinance the Japanese sent over by balloon in WWII still out there in the Pacific Northwest.

JimmyRibbitt said: ↑

Unexploded ordinance dropped by Ivan will still probably be there 70 or 80 years from now.

Probably will. Hell, there’s still large areas of Belgium and eastern France, especially around Verdun & Ypres that are still off-limits due to all the unexplodedand abandoned ordinance left over from World War 1, and until the newspaper industry went into a tail-spin a couple years ago, every few months, there’d be a little story buried in the middle of the front section about how some poor French or Belgium farmer finding an old shell or bomb the hard way with his plow, and ending up scattered across his field. However, I understand that French EOD & mine-clearance teams tend to be very well-trained & have a lot more experience than one might expect.

Pyro said: ↑

I found this interesting, I heard that the PDLD shipped some collaborators involved with the massacres in Calgary and Lethbridge back to Canada. Several of them are making noise about being coerced into cooperating, but I'll let the courts figure that one out.

Hope your prosecutors can make things stick, as those tend to be some sick bastards. Not sure how you do it up in Canada, but here, coercion is only a partial defense to collaboration (i.e. without anything else, it’ll get someone into the lower end of the sentencing range), and won’t do someone involved in war crimes or engaging in combat, espionage, or ‘internal security’ activity much good. However the two I brought up wouldn’t have been involved in those incidents, but rather some in the BC theater as part of ‘rear area security operations’ (i.e. reprisals, purges, & massacres) if they turn out to be who I think they are.

Wolfman said: ↑

You'd think some salutory beatings would solve the problem, but noo~oo, I swear, these damn fleas must be masochists...:mad:

Well, I did say that they seem to be in a competetion to see who can be the first to win a Darwin Award as if that was something that's desirable to win...:rolleyes::confused:. If they keep it up, some MP or AF CSP type is likely to help them in that endeavour as a result of them trying to enter a sensitive area in their quest....

Last edited: Feb 5, 2010

Matt Wiser


It's already happened in some way: some of these slime-balls were prowling around Hill AFB's perimeter with cameras having very long lenses, when base security found 'em. Most got away, but two in a old Buick Skylark (looked like they were living in it, the Ogden PD said later) tried running from the CSPs and their Humvees when they got onto I-84. The UHP (Utah Highway Patrol) took over, but these idiots crashed less than a mile from the onramp. Skylark v. Peterbuilt truck: guess who won? Anyway, the CSIs said later that the pics were pretty good: decent shots of the 419th's ramp area and some of the 388th's as well. One's dead-the driver-while the other is in very serious condition. Hope a few shots of parked F-15Es and F-16s with nobody around was worth the price.....And I'm not saying if Kelly Ann is on base or not.

Coercion as a defense, from what my legal officer says, can be considered in mitigation of punishment-at least in a military tribunal. It just can't be used as a defense per se during the trial. A lot of "auxiliary" types wound up getting jail time that was much less than what they would've gotten otherwise because they were able to prove coercion to either join the unit or to take part in atrocities. And my legal officer used to work in AF JAG full-time on some of these cases. He's now a high-priced attorney in SLC, and worked in the DA's office as a prosecutor for a while, but never lost his love for the Air Force.

Kelly Ann did get a call from the Military Commissions' Office: the collaborator who toured the POW camps is going to trial in a few months. She will testify, and gladly. At least he wasn't a torturer or one of the guards who were psychopaths (on good days), so no...unpleasant memories in this case. The forced attendance at his lectures, though...anyone who fell asleep got a beating with a rubber hose.

JN1

We still have pretty big problems with UXEO here. The old Soviet stuff and older German bombs from WW2 keep the EOD teams from the three services pretty busy, even now.

The worst potential UXEO are Soviet gas filled bombs, fortunately after the amount of time they've spent in the ground the bombs have rusted through and their contents leached into the ground. Indeed poisoned ground is often the first sign of an unexploded chemical bomb.

Unexploded IEDs also turn up occasionally and they can be real killers, two Army ATOs and a Metropolitan Police Explosives Officer have been killed in the last ten years by old IEDs and at least half a dozen others injured.

Normally it is preferred to clear most devices using the Wheelbarrow robot, but on occasion due to conditions, or the placement of the IED it still needs to be done by hand.

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑

It's already happened in some way: some of these slime-balls were prowling around Hill AFB's perimeter with cameras having very long lenses, when base security found 'em. Most got away, but two in a old Buick Skylark (looked like they were living in it, the Ogden PD said later) tried running from the CSPs and their Humvees when they got onto I-84. The UHP (Utah Highway Patrol) took over, but these idiots crashed less than a mile from the onramp. Skylark v. Peterbuilt truck: guess who won? Anyway, the CSIs said later that the pics were pretty good: decent shots of the 419th's ramp area and some of the 388th's as well. One's dead-the driver-while the other is in very serious condition. Hope a few shots of parked F-15Es and F-16s with nobody around was worth the price.....And I'm not saying if Kelly Ann is on base or not.

Coercion as a defense, from what my legal officer says, can be considered in mitigation of punishment-at least in a military tribunal. It just can't be used as a defense per se during the trial. A lot of "auxiliary" types wound up getting jail time that was much less than what they would've gotten otherwise because they were able to prove coercion to either join the unit or to take part in atrocities. And my legal officer used to work in AF JAG full-time on some of these cases. He's now a high-priced attorney in SLC, and worked in the DA's office as a prosecutor for a while, but never lost his love for the Air Force.

Kelly Ann did get a call from the Military Commissions' Office: the collaborator who toured the POW camps is going to trial in a few months. She will testify, and gladly. At least he wasn't a torturer or one of the guards who were psychopaths (on good days), so no...unpleasant memories in this case. The forced attendance at his lectures, though...anyone who fell asleep got a beating with a rubber hose.

Hope that douchebag either gets a very long jail sentence (preferably in a SuperMax facility), or a date with the hangman's noose...

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑

It's already happened in some way: some of these slime-balls were prowling around Hill AFB's perimeter with cameras having very long lenses, when base security found 'em. Most got away, but two in a old Buick Skylark (looked like they were living in it, the Ogden PD said later) tried running from the CSPs and their Humvees when they got onto I-84. The UHP (Utah Highway Patrol) took over, but these idiots crashed less than a mile from the onramp. Skylark v. Peterbuilt truck: guess who won? Anyway, the CSIs said later that the pics were pretty good: decent shots of the 419th's ramp area and some of the 388th's as well. One's dead-the driver-while the other is in very serious condition. Hope a few shots of parked F-15Es and F-16s with nobody around was worth the price.....And I'm not saying if Kelly Ann is on base or not.

Well, as soon as I can come across an article or two about it, I'll send it to the folks who run the Darwin Awards, as we just might have our 'winners'

Matt Wiser


If Kelly Ann had her way, he'd be turned over to a bunch of former POWs, and each one of 'em would have a baseball bat. But that's the ideal world. She'll settle for a life sentence + however many years the tribunal sentences him to. If he'd been involved in torture sessions, then yes, she'd want him executed, but I've read her book, and there were no such claims. Everyone who laid a finger on her at least was Cuban. The Cubans ran the interrogation center, though I imagine Ivan was supplying them with questions. But she never had an interrogation session with a Russian. She has told me some things that are not in the book, as she was...uncomfortable putting them out in the open. And I fully understand why.

Hill's CO tells me a crew from Inside Edition was here after the Maxim issue came out, but left when they found out 419 was deployed. The reporter did show a publicity handout for the upcoming Showtime movie, so that's where they found out what unit Kelly Ann's in....

has this ever come up with you? Defendant X is cleared, either by military court or in Federal Court, but state Y grabs him and puts him on trial in State Court. Seems SCOTUS has to rule on a guy in Texas who was cleared of several reprisal killings as an ALA cadre in Federal Court, but the State grabbed him and tried him for Capital Murder (no politics, just plain murder) and got a 99-year sentence. His appeal is that since he was acquitted in Federal Court, the State shouldn't have tried him. (OOC: this is what the State of Oklahoma was ready to do to Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, if he was acquitted or got a hung jury in Federal Court) What's your take on it? I doubt strongly that SCOTUS is going to rule in favor of this creep, but who knows what the High 9 are going to do whenever they hear a case?

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑

Hey 951, has this ever come up with you? Defendant X is cleared, either by military court or in Federal Court, but state Y grabs him and puts him on trial in State Court. Seems SCOTUS has to rule on a guy in Texas who was cleared of several reprisal killings as an ALA cadre in Federal Court, but the State grabbed him and tried him for Capital Murder (no politics, just plain murder) and got a 99-year sentence. His appeal is that since he was acquitted in Federal Court, the State shouldn't have tried him. (OOC: this is what the State of Oklahoma was ready to do to Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, if he was acquitted or got a hung jury in Federal Court) What's your take on it? I doubt strongly that SCOTUS is going to rule in favor of this creep, but who knows what the High 9 are going to do whenever they hear a case?

That would depend on the state in question's practices. The federal government & the states are considered 'separate sovereigns', so double jeopardy wouldn't be implicated as far as the US Constitution is concerned, if a state brought similar charges on the same set of facts against someone who'd gotten off in federal court. However, a number of states, (WA among them) through statute, state constitutional grounds, or high court rulings, will treat a federal prosecution as having attached jeopardy, and will bar state prosecutors from going after a defendant on more or less the same charges they were tried in on federal court. There's nothing stopping federal prosecutors from going after someone acquitted (or even convicted) on more or less the same charges in state court outside of whatever DOJ policies or federal statutes that might come into play.

(OOC: IIRC, with the OKC bombings, McVeigh's co-conspirator Nichols cut a plea deal with the feds on federal terrorism & murder charges, & afterwards, OK went ahead and charged him with over 100 counts of murder under state law, but I don't remember how that turned out.)

Matt Wiser


(OOC: If memory serves, McVeigh and Nichols were charged with killing only 14 Federal lawmen who died in the bombing, but Nichols was tried in OK state court for the remaining deaths. He's doing life w/o parole. McVeigh got the needle.)

OK, thanks for the info. Since this is Texas we're talking about, sometimes they do things a bit differently than the rest of us. One story that makes the rounds down there (I do have relatives in the Dallas area, along with being there for PRAIRIE FIRE, LONG RIFLE, and BORDER FURY) is that the only prewar state authority that didn't flee the state during the invasion were the Texas Rangers. Seems quite a few Rangers stayed behind and not only provided intelligence, but ran resistance groups and helped get people on Ivan's "Wanted" lists to places of (relative) safety. Some of the best sharpshooters in the Resistance down there were Rangers, they say. And since Rangers also do undercover work, rumor has it they infiltrated some of the collaborationist government and "people's councils"-and set up assassinations of some of these traitors...or so goes the story.

366th is back: they got into Mountain Home this afternoon. Since my wife's the Wing CO, I was able to get away from Hill and be there to welcome her home along with our daughter (she's in AFROTC at UCLA). Too bad I couldn't sleep in my own bed, as the 419th still hasn't been officially demobilized, so it was a trip back down to Hill. At least the ID and UT Highway Patrols were busy elsewhere: Got away with hitting 95 in a 75 in my Mercury Cougar. But watch out for semi-trucks: they don't like it when a hot car comes barreling along.

The PLDP did something today that was expected: they took over the Mexican UN seat in Geneva. Now, all that's left of the old ComBloc is the Rump USSR and North Korea. They call themselves "Independent Social Democrats" (whatever that means).

Matt Wiser said: ↑

It's already happened in some way: some of these slime-balls were prowling around Hill AFB's perimeter with cameras having very long lenses, when base security found 'em. Most got away, but two in a old Buick Skylark (looked like they were living in it, the Ogden PD said later) tried running from the CSPs and their Humvees when they got onto I-84. The UHP (Utah Highway Patrol) took over, but these idiots crashed less than a mile from the onramp. Skylark v. Peterbuilt truck: guess who won?

I wonder if it was one of those older Skylarks that had 425 horses under the hood, and ended up crashing at well over 100MPH, not realising just what kind of power he had. Even the Crown Vic police interceptors have way less than that and they can still go almost 140 miles an hour.

DD951


Matt Wiser said: ↑

OK, thanks for the info. Since this is Texas we're talking about, sometimes they do things a bit differently than the rest of us. One story that makes the rounds down there (I do have relatives in the Dallas area, along with being there for PRAIRIE FIRE, LONG RIFLE, and BORDER FURY) is that the only prewar state authority that didn't flee the state during the invasion were the Texas Rangers. Seems quite a few Rangers stayed behind and not only provided intelligence, but ran resistance groups and helped get people on Ivan's "Wanted" lists to places of (relative) safety. Some of the best sharpshooters in the Resistance down there were Rangers, they say. And since Rangers also do undercover work, rumor has it they infiltrated some of the collaborationist government and "people's councils"-and set up assassinations of some of these traitors...or so goes the story.

Well then, I guess Texas is one of the states that doesn’t consider a federal prosecution to be a bar to state charges, and my guess is that as long as the prosecutors or the Texas courts didn’t screw something up, that conviction would probably be upheld.

(OOC- if we get around into discussing alt-TV shows in this TL, this has given me some interesting ideas for TTL’s version of Walker- Texas Ranger.)

366th is back: they got into Mountain Home this afternoon. Since my wife's the Wing CO, I was able to get away from Hill and be there to welcome her home along with our daughter (she's in AFROTC at UCLA). Too bad I couldn't sleep in my own bed, as the 419th still hasn't been officially demobilized, so it was a trip back down to Hill. At least the ID and UT Highway Patrols were busy elsewhere: Got away with hitting 95 in a 75 in my Mercury Cougar. But watch out for semi-trucks: they don't like it when a hot car comes barreling along.

Any word on when the 419th is going to stand down, and you can finally get back home?

And I hear you about those semis- nothing like one of those to get in your way and ruin what had been a nice, enjoyable drive.

The PLDP did something today that was expected: they took over the Mexican UN seat in Geneva. Now, all that's left of the old ComBloc is the Rump USSR and North Korea. They call themselves "Independent Social Democrats" (whatever that means).

Hopefully, if nothing else, it means that they’re at least a half-way rational bunch of socialists or whatever other leftist ideology they claim to be, who will try to put their house back together instead of rehashing things from 20 years ago.

JimmyRibbitt said: ↑

I wonder if it was one of those older Skylarks that had 425 horses under the hood, and ended up crashing at well over 100MPH, not realising just what kind of power he had. Even the Crown Vic police interceptors have way less than that and they can still go almost 140 miles an hour.

Just hope it wasn’t something with collector value however, as that would compound the stupidity those two demonstrated.

However, I don’t believe that there was ever a Skylark that came from the factory with a 425 hp engine; the most powerful engine ever installed by the factory was the 1970 455 Stage 1, available in the GS & GSX, rated at 360 hp/510 ft/lb (but underrated & closer to 400-410); but it was just as fast as cars with a lot more horsepower, such as the assorted Chrysler street Hemis, & the LS-6 Chevelle. There was also a planned Stage 2 aimed at racers, but only one prototype was built (& later junked) which would have put out 470 hp, but production was cancelled just when the package was ready in the middle of the 1970 model year, as Buick’s engineers saw the writing on the wall with rising insurance premiums, new emissions regulations, and planned cuts in compression to detune engines. However, the parts necessary to make one were sold over the parts counter, with an estimated 75-100 such ‘kits’ being sold.

Most of those old cars, due to their having the aerodynamics of a brick and the inadequacies of the stock suspension, start to get really squirrely over 100, & outright dangerous over 120 due to front-end lift; even with the lightbar, sirens, puch-bar, and all that, that Crown Vic Police Interceptor has somewhat better suspension, better aerodynamics, a higher rear-end gear, and an overdrive transmission, which can make them go that fast, if there's no governor on the car, and the driver knows what he's doing.

Matt Wiser


We should be done with all the paperwork in a day or so: the aircraft, equipment, and personnel records all have to be just right. Even if we don't get turned loose tomorrow, I got myself some flight time with my wingie and a couple others: we're going to make some guys in the 388th across the base sorry they strapped on F-16s.

I hear you on those idiots in the Skylark. Fortunately, it wasn't an example that a collector would want: it was more like one that was on its fifth or sixth owner. (primer showing where paint had worn off, crappy upholstery, and so on). UHP said they drifted into the westbound lanes of I-84 and had a head-on with the truck. And they said the passenger didn't make it out of his second surgery. So give these two a Darwin Award.

Walker: Texas Ranger has had some pretty good stories based on the war and the aftermath. The fact that there's a lot of ComBloc weapons still in the hands of criminals (remember the guys that tried using RPGs on armored cars?), some Cubans and Russians who deserted and wound up in the criminal element, and so on makes for some good episodes. Not to mention the fact that Walker's character did some things for the resistance and "other agencies" that he still can't talk about. (OOC: if you've got ideas for Walker and other TV shows in TTL, such as JAG, go ahead!)

DD951


Matt Wiser said: ↑

We should be done with all the paperwork in a day or so: the aircraft, equipment, and personnel records all have to be just right. Even if we don't get turned loose tomorrow, I got myself some flight time with my wingie and a couple others: we're going to make some guys in the 388th across the base sorry they strapped on F-16s.

I hear you on those idiots in the Skylark. Fortunately, it wasn't an example that a collector would want: it was more like one that was on its fifth or sixth owner. (primer showing where paint had worn off, crappy upholstery, and so on). UHP said they drifted into the westbound lanes of I-84 and had a head-on with the truck. And they said the passenger didn't make it out of his second surgery. So give these two a Darwin Award.

If it was some old beater, probably no great loss (unless it was something rare but unrestored), even if it might have had some restoration or street-rod potential, or even as a source of parts so that a more desirable example might have lived again. Found some articles & sent them to the DA folks- they'll post them and kick them around on their site for a bit before deciding whether or not they get one...

Walker: Texas Ranger has had some pretty good stories based on the war and the aftermath. The fact that there's a lot of ComBloc weapons still in the hands of criminals (remember the guys that tried using RPGs on armored cars?), some Cubans and Russians who deserted and wound up in the criminal element, and so on makes for some good episodes. Not to mention the fact that Walker's character did some things for the resistance and "other agencies" that he still can't talk about. (OOC: if you've got ideas for Walker and other TV shows in TTL, such as JAG, go ahead!)

Yeah, I remember those some of those stories- besides the gang-banger with leftover weapons or ex-Combloc mobster/hitman of the week stuff they used every so often, there was that arc in the third season where they faced down some hiding out ex-auxiliary leader turned domestic terrorist who wanted revenge against Walker & company for taking most of his unit down in a op late in the war & getting him in trouble with his KGB lords & masters. There were a lot of flashbacks to assorted operations in the war (often with Walker using his karate skills to take down some supposedly bad-ass commie), showing how the gang got together with CD & Walker as Rangers who got out of Dallas just before it got overrun & went into the hills (or whatever) to form a resistance cell, and how they collected everyone, Trivette, the rookie football player with the old Cowboys, Cahill, the law student, the assorted Cherokees who helped raise Walker, a few teenagers & rookie cops, and a couple others I forget, how some of their families & Walker's then-girlfriend got butchered by the commies, and the showdown where that guy's auxiliary unit had been massacring civilians in reprisal operations after some really successful air strikes in 1988 (where the resistance had been helping downed pilots and doing BDA & target spotting), and Walker's team tracked them down, and kicked their asses in an ambush. Anyways in the 2-part season finale, this auxiliary leader (who I think was supposed to be in the Gold Book) really stepped up his crime wave, set off some bombs, & took a couple hundred elementary students hostages, threatening to kill them if a bunch of prisoners weren't released- Walker & Trivette led the SWAT team into the school, rescued the hostages, disarmed the bombs, & took out most of the gang. This guy tried to run, but as you can guess, Walker ran him down, and proceeded to kick & punch his ass into the middle of next week (as pretty much happened to every big bad guy in the show), and everyone heads off to the bar.

Wolfman

JimmyRibbitt said: ↑

I wonder if it was one of those older Skylarks that had 425 horses under the hood, and ended up crashing at well over 100MPH, not realising just what kind of power he had. Even the Crown Vic police interceptors have way less than that and they can still go almost 140 miles an hour.

Well, the cops around El Toro have tried from time to time to catch my precious '67 GT-500 Cobra, tried and FAILED! Of course, I try not to bust the speed limit by more than 5 mph...

[lordroel]

From page 109

JN1

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Walker: Texas Ranger has had some pretty good stories based on the war and the aftermath. The fact that there's a lot of ComBloc weapons still in the hands of criminals (remember the guys that tried using RPGs on armored cars?), some Cubans and Russians who deserted and wound up in the criminal element, and so on makes for some good episodes. Not to mention the fact that Walker's character did some things for the resistance and "other agencies" that he still can't talk about. (OOC: if you've got ideas for Walker and other TV shows in TTL, such as JAG, go ahead!)
Those old stalwarts of British TV cop shows The Bill and Taggart started just before the war started and ran right through it to the present day. The episodes made during the war very much reflected the environment they were made in; production of several episodes was disrupted by Soviet bombing; the cast of The Bill had to deal with shot down Soviet aircrew, IEDs, spies and saboteurs. Taggart's storylines were still murder based, but some involved Soviet agents trying to spread terror and one who turned out to be a serial killer deliberately planted in Glasgow by the USSR.

Post-war there have been the usual stories involving settling of old scores, UXEOs etc. Taggart did a story shortly after the war about the murder of a prominent left-winger shortly after his return from internment on the Isle of Man. The twist to the story was that he was murdered by his own followers in an attempt to discredit the authorities.

The old fire brigade show London's Burning was quite well known for its wartime and post-war stories. However in its final two seasons before cancellation when quality had dropped off the writers fell back on having at least two, or three unexploded bomb episodes, including one where there was a bomb under the new Blackwall Fire Station.

thepenguin

Well, we stayed a couple days longer at Holloman to exercise with the Germans and the resident Raptors, and we participated in an exercise with NORAD this past Friday (OOC: the 180th Fighter Wing, OHANG, paticipated in escort and interception of suspicious aircraft exercises over Toledo, Canton, and Youngstown), but we're still stuck at Toledo Express Airport in Toledo, Ohio. We're trapped by the next big winter storm to roll through the Great Lakes. Toledo's expected to get about 8-12 inches tomorrow. We wanted to fly out, but supposedly the weather guys won't let us.:rolleyes: As for the cars, the Mustang only comes out during the summer, and on nice days at that. The Maserati is the "daily driver" most days, but when there's snow on the ground, out comes my pickup. I don't speed much, but there's some backcountry roads where I can exercise the Maser and the 'Stang.

Matt Wiser

Location:Auberry, CA
419's finally back to the Reserves; got the word when I came back from that little DACT hop: a 4-v-4 with some F-16s from Hill, and we made those guys sorry they challenged us. Told the wing that I'll see them the next Reserve weekend (three weeks away) and have a happy time at home. Got back to Mountain Home, and I can finally sleep in my own bed! And no speeding ticket on the way up, though the UHP and IHP were out in force. I am glad to say that everyone I took down to La Paz came back. Didn't lose any planes or crews, and no ground accidents.

The PLDP has finally allowed investigators to sift through the wreckage of that airliner one of Mann's F-22 jockeys splashed. They're looking at IDs that survived (you'll never believe what can survive a major crash intact) and other info. The CNN crew down there went to the crash site and found that the human remains have all been collected and are being stored for the investigators' needs. And the PLDP is about to swallow its pride and sign the cease-fire papers. Then we can say this little clean-up is over and done.

Fox has officially greenlighted Wolverines, so that series will be shooting in Colorado for next season. Sen. Erica Mason will be occasionally helping out, but her run for Colorado Governor comes first. Interesting tidbit: Colonel Bella is also being mentioned as a technical advisor, and at least two episodes will be shot from the Soviet/Cuban POV.

DD951

JN1 said: ↑
Those old stalwarts of British TV cop shows The Bill and Taggart started just before the war started and ran right through it to the present day. The episodes made during the war very much reflected the environment they were made in; production of several episodes was disrupted by Soviet bombing; the cast of The Bill had to deal with shot down Soviet aircrew, IEDs, spies and saboteurs. Taggart's storylines were still murder based, but some involved Soviet agents trying to spread terror and one who turned out to be a serial killer deliberately planted in Glasgow by the USSR.

Post-war there have been the usual stories involving settling of old scores, UXEOs etc. Taggart did a story shortly after the war about the murder of a prominent left-winger shortly after his return from internment on the Isle of Man. The twist to the story was that he was murdered by his own followers in an attempt to discredit the authorities.

The old fire brigade show London's Burning was quite well known for its wartime and post-war stories. However in its final two seasons before cancellation when quality had dropped off the writers fell back on having at least two, or three unexploded bomb episodes, including one where there was a bomb under the new Blackwall Fire Station.
Don't remember what sort of cop shows & the like were on in the 80s- after all, warships didn't normally get reception unless in port (and the satellite dishes that allow it were added in the early 90s). However, those concepts- murders involving assorted combinations of collaborators/ex-auxiliary types, Combloc deserters/holdouts, ex-resistance fighters, veterans, and people who suffered through the occupation for revenge, to eliminate witnesses to stuff that went down in the war, efforts to restart things by leftover leftists, etc., leftover explosives & weapons in the hands of criminals or causing problems on their own, ex-Combloc, colloborator, or resistance-type-turned-rogue as a crime boss or hitman, and so on provided a lot of plots not only for Walker, but CSI:Vegas & CSI:Miami as well.

There was also an ER 2-parter that involved a large unexploded bomb (their version of a 2000-lb.) left over from that one time the Soviets bombed Chicago in '86 uncovered at a construction site between a school and a shopping mall set off by a backhoe resulting in a 'mass casualty trauma event'.

IIRC, there have also been a bunch of police & action-thriller movies revolving around this stuff, although I'm not a big movie fan.

(OOC- if we're going into TTL TV shows, we might need to figure out who took over as a cultural/social/economic hub from NYC, since it isn't there any more TTL, and a lot of major shows OTL were set there for those reasons, and TTL's equivalents would likely be set there. Boston? Philadelphia? Somewhere else?)

Matt Wiser

OOC: I'd go with Boston, Philly (where Cold Case is set), Chicago, Miami, L.A. and San Francsico. The original CSI, of course, can still be set in Vegas. And CSI: Miami would still be viable. Instead of New York, the third franchise in the CSI: series could go to Seattle, New Orleans, or Atlanta. (it's said that it was a toss-up between going to Atlanta or NY for the third show)

JN1

OOC: I'd thought that CSI: NY could still work. It would be even darker than in @ with the deaths of hundreds of thousands hanging over the show. Mac could have lost his wife in the bombing of Manhattan rather than 9/11 while he was off in the marines.
I did suggest a while back an episode in which the team would have to cross to Manhattan Island in full NBC gear.

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑
419's finally back to the Reserves; got the word when I came back from that little DACT hop: a 4-v-4 with some F-16s from Hill, and we made those guys sorry they challenged us. Told the wing that I'll see them the next Reserve weekend (three weeks away) and have a happy time at home. Got back to Mountain Home, and I can finally sleep in my own bed! And no speeding ticket on the way up, though the UHP and IHP were out in force. I am glad to say that everyone I took down to La Paz came back. Didn't lose any planes or crews, and no ground accidents.

The PLDP has finally allowed investigators to sift through the wreckage of that airliner one of Mann's F-22 jockeys splashed. They're looking at IDs that survived (you'll never believe what can survive a major crash intact) and other info. The CNN crew down there went to the crash site and found that the human remains have all been collected and are being stored for the investigators' needs. And the PLDP is about to swallow its pride and sign the cease-fire papers. Then we can say this little clean-up is over and done.

Fox has officially greenlighted Wolverines, so that series will be shooting in Colorado for next season. Sen. Erica Mason will be occasionally helping out, but her run for Colorado Governor comes first. Interesting tidbit: Colonel Bella is also being mentioned as a technical advisor, and at least two episodes will be shot from the Soviet/Cuban POV.
That's going to be one hell of a show, from what I hear. By the way, did you ever watch the last remake of Battlestar Galactica?

Matt Wiser

It should, given the money that Fox is putting into it. And if they film on or near location, the town should get a lot of money coming in: actors and film crews do spend money, after all. Then there's locals playing as extras, local contractors helping with set construction and the like, and so on.

One of my favorite episodes of JAG (I know it was entertainment, but it was darned good) had Harm and Mac checking out a MOH candidate who was reccommended for the medal, but all the wartime paperwork was lost or otherwise couldn't be found. The guy was a paraplegic who lost his family in Kansas City, joined the Marines, and fought with 2nd MarDiv in Louisiana and in GULF HAMMER, before someone ahead of him stepped on a mine, and he took shrapnel in his spine. His acts before that were written up for a MOH, but his company and battalion COs both got killed, and the paperwork was lost. I do believe this was based on a wartime event..

What's left of the old ComBloc is still shreiking about our little clean-up operation south of the Rio Grande; anyone catch the CNN report from Geneva? The Rump USSR and NK both introduced a UNSC resolution to condemn the invasion, demand restoration of "the legitimate government of Mexico" payment of reparations, economic sanctions on the U.S., and so on. The footage had a lot of ambassadors trying to stifle yawns (they've heard all this before), before the vote was taken. 13-2 against....The only yeas were from the Rump USSR and NK. The usual denounciations, the usual retorts, the usual vote against, and so on....

DD951

OOC Post

Matt Wiser said: ↑
OOC: I'd go with Boston, Philly (where Cold Case is set), Chicago, Miami, L.A. and San Francsico. The original CSI, of course, can still be set in Vegas. And CSI: Miami would still be viable. Instead of New York, the third franchise in the CSI: series could go to Seattle, New Orleans, or Atlanta. (it's said that it was a toss-up between going to Atlanta or NY for the third show)
After thinking things over a bit, I'd guess that as far as things stay in the Northeast, Boston would get most of the financial/economic stuff, as Philadelphia seems to be more or less where the government ended up TTL after DC bought it & a good chunk of financial stuff in Boston, & there seems to be a historical dispersion between the centers of government & finance. There'd be more of a split on the cultural stuff.

IMO, Boston, Philadelphia, & Chicago would probably be the best places to put TTL's versions of Law & Order and the 3rd CSI franchise, although LA & SF could work (particularly as a spin-off having Grissom & Sara leave Vegas for there), if a LA cop show wasn't a bit of a cliche & the powers that be weren't concerned about the possibility of franchies being too close geographically, which would be one of the big knocks against Atlanta & New Orleans.

The way the crime lab here in WA is set up would work against a CSI franchise really being workable, as here, the crime scene detectives collect the evidence & send it to the state crime lab near Olympia, run by the State Patrol, for processing (often with a significant backlog).

JN1 said: ↑
OOC: I'd thought that CSI: NY could still work. It would be even darker than in @ with the deaths of hundreds of thousands hanging over the show. Mac could have lost his wife in the bombing of Manhattan rather than 9/11 while he was off in the marines.
I did suggest a while back an episode in which the team would have to cross to Manhattan Island in full NBC gear.
I don't think that would really work, as most shows set in NYC are very Manhattan-focused, and don't pay much attention to other parts of the city such as Brooklyn or Queens. Secondly, CSI:NY is one of the shows I regularly watch, and from what I recall of what they've shown of his backstory, Mac's orginally from Chicago, got married & left the Corps to join the NYPD about 1991-92 at the earliest, and met his wife a couple years before that. Out of the cast, only a handful aren't from Manhattan as far as we've been led to believe- Danny (from one of the other boroughs, & may still have been taken out by the nuke TTL), Lindsey (from a small town in Montana), & that ME from somwhere in Britain Mac dated in one season.

JN1

OOC: Pity as CSI: NY is my favourite of the franchise. Sadly we'll also lose NYPD Blue as well.
When did we decide that Manhattan was nuked? IIRC the only nuke targets specifically mentioned in Red Dawn were DC, Omaha, Kansas City (a nod to The Day After, I think) and the Mid Western ICBM fields. I don't remember NYC, or any other city getting a mention.

Peyton was from London, IIRC; that was certainly where Mac went to see her. Anthony Zuiker did once mention in an interview that he thought that London would be perfect for a CSI franchise, however the UK has already gotten its own forensic based TV series (Silent Witness and Waking the Dead), so I'm not sure how it would fit. Law and Order: UK isn't a patch on its parent show, for example. Ironic really as the original L & O is based on a British TV film of the same title.

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑
It should, given the money that Fox is putting into it. And if they film on or near location, the town should get a lot of money coming in: actors and film crews do spend money, after all. Then there's locals playing as extras, local contractors helping with set construction and the like, and so on.

One of my favorite episodes of JAG (I know it was entertainment, but it was darned good) had Harm and Mac checking out a MOH candidate who was reccommended for the medal, but all the wartime paperwork was lost or otherwise couldn't be found. The guy was a paraplegic who lost his family in Kansas City, joined the Marines, and fought with 2nd MarDiv in Louisiana and in GULF HAMMER, before someone ahead of him stepped on a mine, and he took shrapnel in his spine. His acts before that were written up for a MOH, but his company and battalion COs both got killed, and the paperwork was lost. I do believe this was based on a wartime event..

What's left of the old ComBloc is still shreiking about our little clean-up operation south of the Rio Grande; anyone catch the CNN report from Geneva? The Rump USSR and NK both introduced a UNSC resolution to condemn the invasion, demand restoration of "the legitimate government of Mexico" payment of reparations, economic sanctions on the U.S., and so on. The footage had a lot of ambassadors trying to stifle yawns (they've heard all this before), before the vote was taken. 13-2 against....The only yeas were from the Rump USSR and NK. The usual denounciations, the usual retorts, the usual vote against, and so on....
You think those two countries would learn...

JN1

What, Commies learn something? That would be the day.

DD951

JN1 said: ↑
OOC: Pity as CSI: NY is my favourite of the franchise. Sadly we'll also lose NYPD Blue as well.
When did we decide that Manhattan was nuked? IIRC the only nuke targets specifically mentioned in Red Dawn were DC, Omaha, Kansas City (a nod to The Day After, I think) and the Mid Western ICBM fields. I don't remember NYC, or any other city getting a mention.

Peyton was from London, IIRC; that was certainly where Mac went to see her. Anthony Zuiker did once mention in an interview that he thought that London would be perfect for a CSI franchise, however the UK has already gotten its own forensic based TV series (Silent Witness and Waking the Dead), so I'm not sure how it would fit. Law and Order: UK isn't a patch on its parent show, for example. Ironic really as the original L & O is based on a British TV film of the same title.
OOC: NYC getting hit was first mentioned on page 2, & became official on 14-15; about a 490 KT weapon hitting the middle of Manhattan. What's left of NYC TTL is primarily the Bronx & Queens. Later on in the thread, it's mentioned that due to everything that's gone on in this TL, along with DC having a greater priority, clean-up & reconstruction has only really gotten started within the last few years. TTL's equivalents of shows like NYPD Blue, the L&O franchise, and one of the CSI shows would likely be in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, LA, or SF depending on how the cultural & financial hubs shift with Manhattan gone, with Boston & Philly being the most likely

TheMann

OOC: I figure LA would be a very likely candidate. The various populations, lots of which now have more guns than before, mean that there would probably be more crime ITTL Los Angeles than before. And note to those who have not been there: LA is H-U-G-E. Going from Malibu to Pomona with good traffic takes an hour and a half on the highway. On surface streets, that's worse still. Likewise, San Fernando to Long Beach is an hour plus on the freeway.

IC: The rump USSR and NK are just the last annoying clowns on the planet. Everybody else has learned the lesson, even many of the Russians have. How many nations came out of the USSR, again? 20?

Matt Wiser

OOC: The L.A. Area would do for a Law and Order franchise if NYC is slag, ditto for either Boston or Chicago. A CSI: San Francisco would also be a possiblity.

IC: Don't forget that lunatic down in Caracas. He's hosting those who got out of Cuba before our intervention, and a few (very few) who got out of Mexico before or during the recent clean-up down there. That blowhard movie-maker is at the top of the list. A few cruise missiles on that radio station they use to broadcast the "comedy hour" should be enough to silence them-for good. My Intel Officer says they went into overdrive while we were busy down in Mexico. One good sign that the PLDP means business is that they cut off diplomatic relations with the last of the old ComBloc, and the above-mentioned lunatic, also.

There's about two dozen or so ex-Soviet states, depending on which atlas you see and which ones have been recognized by the UN. Some claim to be countries, but they're cut off by the Rump Soviet state or the FER, one or more of the 'stans, and so on. China is much, much worse. I've mentioned the Google Earth images of the nuclear targets there: they look like the surface of the moon in many cases. Beijing and Shanghai, among other cities, look like the bombs fell only last week. Has anybody seen a count of how many warheads fell on the PRC, or at least seen a reliable estimate? It has to be at least several hundred-all in the medium KT to MT range. The Air War College only mentioned "at least 500".

Speaking of Hong Kong, my cousin Jacqui heard from an OCS classmate: the carrier Carl Vinson and her group are off Hong Kong, providing security for a B-52 salvage operation. This Buff was one on airborne alert after the invasion, since SAC didn't know if Ivan would pop any more nukes, when she had an inflight fire and didn't make Kai Tak. Of the seven crew aboard (one being a relief pilot), five got out, but the pilot and copilot died in the crash. The operation is going to recover the lost weapons, and see if any human remains can be found. Depth at the crash site varies between 600 and 900 feet. There's unclassifed info on the warload: four B-43 gravity bombs and eight SRAMs. Just hope the bombs are intact and there wasn't any spillage of material.

Well, Fox has announced some casting for Wolverines, and guess who's playing Col. Bella: Esai Morales, while John M. Jackson from JAG will play Erica Mason's granddad.

Nikephoros

Some of our mission reports are set to be declassified. I've already put in a FOUCIA (Freedom of UnClassified Information Act) request.

Anyone wanna guess how much black marker will be used:D

DD951

The rump USSR, NK, Venezuela and the other commie leftovers gaining any sense- with the way they've been acting, they must rely heavily on exporting assorted narcotics and other mind-altering substances to keep their economies afloat, and the leadership must be personally involved in doing the quality assurance testing...

As for the B-52 wreck, if the bombs onboard have been compromised, that would be one hell of a mess:eek:

Concerning the mission reports, well hopefully the archives buy their sharpies in bulk, as buying that many retail would be a gross waste of taxpayer money.

That Wolverines show is looking more and more interesting- anyone know when it's supposed to premier?

Matt Wiser

Considering the Rump Soviet state and the NKs talk like they won the war, any dose of common sense from those two will be the first. And the lunatic down in Caracas still idolizes Fidel's late and unlamented regime, though most of his people don't.

Those bombs are supposed to be able to withstand a high-speed impact, and weren't yet armed, so they should be OK. But after that long on the ocean floor, nobody knows. The salvage crew will soon find out. No doubt the Navy has taken the appropriate precautions, including using ROVs to recover any spilled material.

Not sure the exact date of the premiere, but it's for the fall season. My wife watches Entertainment Tonight, and she told me about it. (I prefer CNN's Showbiz Today, as it's less sensationalistic) Being Fox, it'll probably be after the World Series.

(OOC: would the New York, K.C. and Washington pro sports teams have relocated postwar? I could see the D.C. teams going to Baltimore, the K.C. Chiefs and Royals going to maybe Oklahoma City, Memphis, or Nashville, but what about the New York teams: two baseball, two football, one basketball, and two hockey teams. Where would they go?

Spacepony

Matt Wiser said: ↑
(OOC: would the New York, K.C. and Washington pro sports teams have relocated postwar? I could see the D.C. teams going to Baltimore, the K.C. Chiefs and Royals going to maybe Oklahoma City, Memphis, or Nashville, but what about the New York teams: two baseball, two football, one basketball, and two hockey teams. Where would they go?
Oh, that's a question! Probably first to whichever large markets don't have those teams, then to any new and interesting markets the leagues feel like developing. After that, they probably get disbanded--there's nowhere for them to go, no markets to support them.

thepenguin

Matt Wiser said: ↑
(OOC: would the New York, K.C. and Washington pro sports teams have relocated postwar? I could see the D.C. teams going to Baltimore, the K.C. Chiefs and Royals going to maybe Oklahoma City, Memphis, or Nashville, but what about the New York teams: two baseball, two football, one basketball, and two hockey teams. Where would they go?
(OOC: Maybe the Yankees go to Albany and the Mets go to Hartford, CT?)
Yeah, I'm a big fan of the Annapolis Capitals NHL team. They lost tonight against the Habs in overtime. Broke their 14-game win streak, but they'll get back on the horse.
(OOC: IOTL, I'm a Washington Capitals fan, and I thought I would insert their recent success into ATL. The Redskins going to B'More could keep the Cleveland Browns in Cleveland and we wouldn't have the misery as in OTL.)

[lordroel]

From page 110

Wolfman

Some of our mission reports are set to be declassified. I've already put in a FOUCIA (Freedom of UnClassified Information Act) request.

Anyone wanna guess how much black marker will be used:D
You'll probably get one word in ten left uncovered, two out of ten if you're lucky.

Matt Wiser

FIOA requests (from experience with a couple of my reservists doing school work for MA thesis) are usually granted in a reasonable period of time. However, if the information is "sensitive" they do charge very high search and processing fees, and don't forget the "national security" and "intelligence or law enforcement sources and methods" exclusions. Depending on what you're after, use of black ink will either be minimal to extreme.

As for who's got the key roles in Wolverines, the Showbiz Today feature had mostly new actors in the roles. Only one other recognizable actor (as Jed and Matt's dad) was Gerald McRainey (remember Simon and Simon?)

Hey Panzerfaust, any of the lefties the PLDP returned ring any bells? I'll bet there's some fish that thought they'd gotten away....either they were on the airliner that was splashed, or got handed over to the Army, kicking and screaming as they went.

Panzerfaust 150

Location:Washington DC...We HAD a football team, now it's a
Yeah, I did mention that earlier Matt, two of them were folks that we were looking for in relation to open cases, and another was one of the few in the Gold Book that was still running around free and drawing air. I suspect both have been rectified recently.

I got a chuckle out of the one that screamed "The Revolution Lives, I am a political prisoner of conscience!" as the FBI dragged his ass off the plane at DFW. Never seen a guy in cuffs put up that much of a fight!

Matt Wiser

Yeah, I saw that one too. What was that one wanted for, anyway? The CNN piece usually had their names and what they were wanted for, but I missed that fella (walked into Lisa's office to bring lunch and she was watching the news). I do know some of those with the ALA are still outstanding, including their chief propagandist (not in Havana, not in Mexico, and not in Caracas, and you'd think the Rump Soviet state or the NKs would've made hay of the fact if he'd taken refuge in either one), and some of their "People's Education Bureau" and "Directorate of Internal Security" are also on the "Wanted" list. Unless they were on the airliner....Hell, you can go to the FBI web site and have a look at the wanted list yourself and see who's been nailed and who's still at large. As for that "I'm a prisoner of conscience" defense...I doubt a jury will buy much of that horsecrap. One leftie who tried explaining away his wartime Radio Havana "informational broadcasts" was nailed for incitement to desert and mutiny (his stuff was aimed at the military). Exact same line used in his defense, and the jury took only two hours to say "Guilty on all counts." He's in Marion now.....

AF intelligence has sent out an update on captured hardware found in Mexico. Most of what was found is old stuff, but several Su-27s dating from the war were found, along with four MiG-31 Foxhounds that were also wartime vintage. They did find some SA-18 shoulder-launched missiles and the Pantasyr truck mounted gun/missile systems that were of recent manufacture, along with an SA-15 battery still in the shipping crates (found in the port of Tampico by Marines). Not sure what ground-force equipment's been found, but I wouldn't be surprised if some AT-14s or -15s were found, and the old MexGov's Presidential Guard Brigade was T-80 equipped....(lot of good that did 'em)

Fellas, there's a new Osprey book out, and anyone who was in the Army or Marines should be interested. It's U.S. Army and Marine Snipers of World War III, and it should be interesting. While the AF CSP snipers (and they had some good ones, mind you), nor SEALs, aren't covered, the Army and Marines are. Even Carlos Hathcock (who the VC called "White Feather" and had a bounty on his head) came out of retirement to instruct at the Marine Scout-Sniper school during the war (he had 93 confirmed kills in SVN), and his students wound up with some nasty kill totals of their own. It does mention the female snipers the Army began using in mid '86, and the Marines in '87 (the Marines wanted their women to have some combat experience before letting them attend the school)-and they did very well, despite the often unpleasant fate meted out to captured snipers....Haven't read the book yet, but it's been displayed at the Borders in Ogden. One of the first female snipers the Army had was an MP girl (CO NG) trapped in Denver during the siege, and she simply picked up a Denver PD SWAT Team's sniper rifle and began her...practice. 200+ kills during the siege....They need to do one on the Resistance and the SOF teams as well.

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Yeah, I saw that one too. What was that one wanted for, anyway? The CNN piece usually had their names and what they were wanted for, but I missed that fella (walked into Lisa's office to bring lunch and she was watching the news). I do know some of those with the ALA are still outstanding, including their chief propagandist (not in Havana, not in Mexico, and not in Caracas, and you'd think the Rump Soviet state or the NKs would've made hay of the fact if he'd taken refuge in either one), and some of their "People's Education Bureau" and "Directorate of Internal Security" are also on the "Wanted" list. Unless they were on the airliner....Hell, you can go to the FBI web site and have a look at the wanted list yourself and see who's been nailed and who's still at large. As for that "I'm a prisoner of conscience" defense...I doubt a jury will buy much of that horsecrap. One leftie who tried explaining away his wartime Radio Havana "informational broadcasts" was nailed for incitement to desert and mutiny (his stuff was aimed at the military). Exact same line used in his defense, and the jury took only two hours to say "Guilty on all counts." He's in Marion now.....
Well, what can you say about these idiotic traitors, who'd rather use the legal process as a soapbox rather than actually trying to mount a defense, or cut a deal that might actually save their necks.

As for the ALA big-shots who haven't surfaced in Mexico, Cuba, or the remaining commie states, hopefully they got caught and killed in some fighting somewhere and are in an unmarked or 'John Doe' grave, or BBQ'd on that airliner but not identified by the forensics folks. Unfortunately, there might have been a few who were smart enough to go underground as it were, and are using a disguise and and assumed identity, and haven't let anything slip, yet.

AF intelligence has sent out an update on captured hardware found in Mexico. Most of what was found is old stuff, but several Su-27s dating from the war were found, along with four MiG-31 Foxhounds that were also wartime vintage. They did find some SA-18 shoulder-launched missiles and the Pantasyr truck mounted gun/missile systems that were of recent manufacture, along with an SA-15 battery still in the shipping crates (found in the port of Tampico by Marines). Not sure what ground-force equipment's been found, but I wouldn't be surprised if some AT-14s or -15s were found, and the old MexGov's Presidential Guard Brigade was T-80 equipped....(lot of good that did 'em)
Any idea whether the Navy intel types have found anything interesting, or just the secondhand junk that was obsolete in the '70s which the Soviets seemed to fob off on a lot of their satellite states?

(OOC: would the New York, K.C. and Washington pro sports teams have relocated postwar? I could see the D.C. teams going to Baltimore, the K.C. Chiefs and Royals going to maybe Oklahoma City, Memphis, or Nashville, but what about the New York teams: two baseball, two football, one basketball, and two hockey teams. Where would they go?
OOC: The sports teams, assuming that players, staff, and records that comprised the franchises survived the nukings as functional entities, would likely go to wherever OTL expansion teams went ILO of those teams, or to replace franchises in Texas and other parts of the Southwest that didn't survive the invasion and occupation as functioning entities. The DC teams could go to Baltimore, as the Colts moved to Indianapolis in 1984 (although Baltimore/DC has been a historic rivalry, & a NY team or the Chiefs might make for an easier transition), & I don't think Baltimore has an NBA franchise. I'd say that the Chiefs go to Tennessee (I don't think OKC is a big enough media market for the NFL) unless used to replace the Oilers or Cowboys, but the Royals could go to either city. As for the NY teams if what's left of NYC isn't enough to support a team, possible locations for the football teams could include LA (if the NFL wanted to try again there, that city's been somewhat of a black hole for them), or ILO the historical Panthers & Jaguars.) The baseball teams could go to Florida instead of the Marlins & Devil Rays, Colorado, Arizona (ILO the Rockies & Diamondbacks), or perhaps New Orleans. Plenty of places to stick the NBA team, including Charlotte, Memphis, maybe Pittsburgh. Not sure where the hockey teams would go, although a list of NHL expansion teams over the last 20 years would be a good place to look for ideas.

JN1

I do remember hearing a few of those broadcasts from Cuba when the atmospherics were right. However for sh*ts and giggles we listened to the broadcasts from some lefty who had fled to Moscow just before the war.
No idea what happened to him, but he's probably still in the Rump USSR.

Matt Wiser

You'd be surprised how many times 335 was tasked to go after radio transmitters in 1986-87. I personally went on strikes into Eastern New Mexico and North Texas to take out radio transmission towers over a dozen times, trying to shut those scum-suckers up (for a while, anyway). Laser bombs or Mavericks did the trick, usually. And there were times the intel folks actually asked us not to bomb the transmitters-why, they never told us, but they said that some of those broadcasts had intelligence value, so we left 'em alone for a while. What kind of intelligence value, they never said, and we never asked. But we did get our laughs from some of those broadcasts....especially after PRARIRE FIRE and LONG RIFLE got going. It just wasn't those in Moscow who were detached from reality.

Some of the more dangerous snipers in both the U.S. and Canadian militaries (and the Resistance, too) were former hunters. They didn't need much in the way of special training, and already knew how to stalk game. Only the game now was the two-legged kind. One of our CSPs (I've mentioned her before) preferred a .375 magnum hunting rifle (prewar gift from her dad) for the business at hand, and became a deadly shot with that hunting rifle. Because her victims were all Soviet or Cuban SOF, she only had two dozen kills, but the job got done. She didn't have to worry about ammo, as a gun store in Phoenix laid on a supply while we were at Williams AFB, and the AF eventually procured ammo for those CSP snipers who were using more "exotic" caliber rifles. One sniper at Davis-Monthan preferred a .300 Winchester Magnum, and the Resistance snipers used whatever was at hand-even Jed in the Wolverines used a .30-06 as a sniper weapon on occasion. Some of the kill totals go in the 200-300 range....and these are confirmed kills.

Hey Mann: the Showtime movie based on Kelly Ann's book premieres next month. There's going to be the DVD release about three months later. No word on if any deleted scenes will be included, but I can imagine they will. It's pretty strong, by cable standards.

Nikephoros

At least Pittsburgh was far from the front. I would have lost my mind.

JN1

My mate in 15 Para knew a few snipers, I'll need to ask him what the British Army and RAF Regiment ones got up to. I know they started the war with the ageing Lee-Enfield based L42 chambered for 7.62mm NATO and progressed via the L96 in the same calibre to the L115A1 in .338 Lapua Magnum.
Several .50 cal rifles were also used by British forces for anti material and EOD work.

The only sniper rifles I saw myself in the war years were some ancient No.4 (T)s and the standard L42. Priority for modern weapons tended to go to the army in Canada.
I did hear that a Canadian Army sniper is supposed to have the record for a long-range kill, though. I believe he was using a rifle chambered in .50.

Wolfman

I remember seeing a scout/sniper team come into NAS New Orleans while everybody was trying to hold the line, anyways, they looked like crap, as they'd been I have no clue where killing some Commie bigshot.

trekchu

I have a No.4 myself, chambered for .303 even. I know someone who makes the .303s in small quantity.

OOC: I so want one, even demilitarized would be awesome - stupid German laws.
Star Wars - The Skywalker Heresy Episode IV: Destiny of the Force (01/23/2017)
Previous Episodes

Wolfman

I've heard those are nice rifles.

JN1

trekchu said: ↑
I have a No.4 myself, chambered for .303 even. I know someone who makes the .303s in small quantity.

OOC: I so want one, even demilitarized would be awesome - stupid German laws.
I still have my L8 (basically a No.4 chambered in 7.62mm NATO); it saw me through the first part of the war as my service rifle before I was issued with an L1A1 SLR and I still have it in a locked gun cabinet under the stairs. I also have a deactivated SMLE Mk.III from 1915 and a mounted police truncheon from 1910 that I carried for public order duties rather than the issue 'hickory stick'.

OOC: I could buy a No.4, but they are very expensive and I'd have to find somewhere to shoot it. Not easy when we're talking about a .303in full bore service rifle with a range of up to 1,000m.
In the license application I'd have to justify why I wanted it, 'because it's cool' wouldn't cut it. A .22, or a shotgun would be easier because I could say I was buying it to shoot vermin, something a No.4 would be massive overkill for.
Btw I do have the SMLE Mk.III and the truncheon.

DD951

JN1 said: ↑
I still have my L8 (basically a No.4 chambered in 7.62mm NATO); it saw me through the first part of the war as my service rifle before I was issued with an L1A1 SLR and I still have it in a locked gun cabinet under the stairs. I also have a deactivated SMLE Mk.III from 1915 and a mounted police truncheon from 1910 that I carried for public order duties rather than the issue 'hickory stick'.

OOC: I could buy a No.4, but they are very expensive and I'd have to find somewhere to shoot it. Not easy when we're talking about a .303in full bore service rifle with a range of up to 1,000m.
In the license application I'd have to justify why I wanted it, 'because it's cool' wouldn't cut it. A .22, or a shotgun would be easier because I could say I was buying it to shoot vermin, something a No.4 would be massive overkill for.
Btw I do have the SMLE Mk.III and the truncheon.
OOC: Have 3 examples of the Lee-Enfield myself, 2 No. 4, Mk. 1s (1 from 1942, ROF Fazakerley & one from 1943; can't determine the manufacturer on that one,) as well as a Mk.III from 1912, RSAF Enfield that was subjected to a 'FTR' rebuild with those stamps on the stock & had been set up to fire rifle grenades judging from the copper wire wound around parts of the barrel. All are a little rough around the edges, although my 1942 No. 4 Mk. 1 is in the best shape cosmetically. Haven't really had the opportunity to fire any of them though or get them checked out by a gunsmith beforehand, even though all 3 appear to be functional, not that I'd want to shoot them before having them inspected. If you don't mind an example that's a little beat up, you can find them in the $100-200 range here in the US, although .303 ammo, unless you can buy surplus ammo in bulk through a mail-order place or gunstore is a bit expensive; a box of 20 commercial hunting rounds went for about $24-30 in thelocal sporting goods stores last time I looked.

Matt Wiser

There were two other urban battles that had a lot of sniper activity-on both sides-namely, D/FW and Houston. Some Army units, when they came across ComBloc snipers, called in artillery and even attack helos to deal with the offender. All it did was make the rubble bounce and give the sniper more places to hide. Of course, the ComBloc did the same thing. We had two ALOs killed and five wounded during the D/FW mess...all but one by snipers. Those who were in Houston for GULF HAMMER probably have similar stories. One thing to keep in mind is that for every confirmed kill, there's likely two or three unconfirmed-especially in urban battles.

Presidio Press in the SF Bay Area has a book (saw it at Borders in Ogden) about the T-72 and its service during the war. They have a chapter devoted to U.S. and Canadian use of captured tanks-the 83rd ID is one of the units featured, but there were others as well who took intact T-72s, found soldiers small enough to fit inside them, and put the tanks to good use against their former owners. Not surprisingly, many of those tankers crewing captured T-72s were women. A number of modifications were put to captured tanks, such as U.S. or Canadian standard radios, more comfortable seats, and reactive armor (supplied via the Israelis). Not surprisingly, IFF panels became standard issue for all captured ComBloc vehicles in active service. And complaints about the lack of penetrating power in captured ammo led the U.S. and Canadian Armies to design improved sabot rounds, which were produced by IMI in Israel.

AF Intelligence had another unclassified update on what was found south of the border, and this one dealt with ground-force and naval equipment. None of the naval assets were of recent vintage, and all dated from the 1980's at the very least. (some ships were actually from the '50s) No subs, surface ships only. As far as ground force equipment, other than the T-80s the Presidential Guard Brigade were equipped with, most armor was either T-55s or T-72s, with some T-62s and even T-34s being encountered. Part of the cease-fire terms mandate that no heavy armor be deployed by the Mexicans within 100 miles of the Security Zone, and once the withdrawal from the Zone is completed (when the PLDP pays up on war reparations and other outstanding issues) within 100 miles of the actual border. The same goes for any flights of combat aircraft. Failure to comply or any violations will be punished-severely.

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑
AF Intelligence had another unclassified update on what was found south of the border, and this one dealt with ground-force and naval equipment. None of the naval assets were of recent vintage, and all dated from the 1980's at the very least. (some ships were actually from the '50s) No subs, surface ships only. As far as ground force equipment, other than the T-80s the Presidential Guard Brigade were equipped with, most armor was either T-55s or T-72s, with some T-62s and even T-34s being encountered. Part of the cease-fire terms mandate that no heavy armor be deployed by the Mexicans within 100 miles of the Security Zone, and once the withdrawal from the Zone is completed (when the PLDP pays up on war reparations and other outstanding issues) within 100 miles of the actual border. The same goes for any flights of combat aircraft. Failure to comply or any violations will be punished-severely.
Kind of expected as much after seeing how they sent that Riga-class after Salem's SAG and the '60s vintage stuff they used to defend Veracruz; kind of hoping they would have gotten ahold of something more modern in the last 20 years than the sort of stuff we already had plenty of samples of from the war. Although I imagine NAVSEA will want to take apart, run tests on, and analyze whatever they find, I'd imagine that most of the information learned will be along the lines of filling in historical knowledge and incrasing the fund of general data, as really, most of that stuff, unless kept as a trophy or a museum piece, is pretty much only useful as a target in a live-fire excercise or razor blades.

Matt Wiser

There wasn't much found afloat, the report said. A pair of Koltin-class destroyers at Tampico-one a SAM-Koltin-were captured intact, along with a Kildin-class destroyer. A Riga was also found intact, but not much else in terms of warships. A few auxiliaries and that's about it. Everything else was sunk, either in port or in the few actual naval engagements. As for those sunk in port, well, clearing them's the PLDP's problem, not ours. How'd we get the ships in Tampico intact? The Marines hit Tampico too fast for the MexGov Navy to react by either scuttling them or by going on a death-and-glory ride against the Amphibious Force.

I've got two war trophy weapons: one's the AKM that I carried during the E&E: it hangs on my office wall at Hill. And yes, it still works. The other is an AK-74 that I found at Amarillo IAP once we moved in there during PRAIRIE FIRE. It's on the wall in the living room at home. It's also still functional, and it's got East German markings, though who the previous owner was, I have no idea.

The folks up in Vancouver are throwing a pretty decent Winter Olympics-that's one way of showing how far things have come since the end of the war. As long as the cross-country and biathalon courses got the mine-clearing treatment....The Olympics picked up again in '92 (both Winter and Summer '88 were cancelled for obvious reasons), and it was glad to have the 2002 Winter Olympics in SLC and the 2008 Summer in Atlanta. Seoul got 2012, and Rio will be 2016. As for winter, Salzburg will host 2014.
Last edited: Feb 14, 2010

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑
There wasn't much found afloat, the report said. A pair of Koltin-class destroyers at Tampico-one a SAM-Koltin-were captured intact, along with a Kildin-class destroyer. A Riga was also found intact, but not much else in terms of warships. A few auxiliaries and that's about it. Everything else was sunk, either in port or in the few actual naval engagements. As for those sunk in port, well, clearing them's the PLDP's problem, not ours. How'd we get the ships in Tampico intact? The Marines hit Tampico too fast for the MexGov Navy to react by either scuttling them or by going on a death-and-glory ride against the Amphibious Force.
Hmm, hardly worth the effort to take them home, but again, I suppose that if the PDLP government wants to have a navy it doesn't have to salvage & repair, they can go buy some small OPVs & patrol boats somewhere after they get around to paying reparations and fulfilling whatever other obligations they get stuck with. As I said, not much use beyond trophies, targets, or razor blades, although whatever NAVSEA learns of them might be of interest to a historian writing about Soviet warship design some 15-20 years down the road.

I've got two war trophy weapons: one's the AKM that I carried during the E&E: it hangs on my office wall at Hill. And yes, it still works. The other is an AK-74 that I found at Amarillo IAP once we moved in there during PRAIRIE FIRE. It's on the wall in the living room at home. It's also still functional, and it's got East German markings, though who the previous owner was, I have no idea.
Have a few of my own, 3 rifles, a SKS I took off of some auxiliaries we boarded & captured, an AKM I picked up after a brief firefight with some shipwrecked Soviet sailors while on a landing party responding to a report of Soviet troops near Friday Harbor, and a Dragunov I traded a Soviet naval officer's fur cap, a couple badges & medals, and a couple cases of beer for with a lieutenant in the 25th Marines (part of 4 MARDIV). Also got 3 pistols, a TT-33, a Makarov, & a CZ-52, all taken off of surrendering auxiliaries. Besides that, the Navy let me keep the M-14 I had used for boarding & landing party duties, while my pistol was someting I bought myself upon being called to duty- grabbed a Colt 1911 with a custom trigger & hammer at a Bremerton gunstore that was giving big discounts to servicemembers, as there was a severe shortage of service-issue sidearms for the Navy up in the NW at the time- Army & Marines got most of the semi-auto pistols in stock, while the aviation communities got the revolvers. My other trophies are along the lines of uniform caps, badges, insignia, & medals, a few little warship parts, & a couple Soviet naval ensigns.

The folks up in Vancouver are throwing a pretty decent Winter Olympics-that's one way of showing how far things have come since the end of the war. As long as the cross-country and biathalon courses got the mine-clearing treatment....The Olympics picked up again in '92 (both Winter and Summer '88 were cancelled for obvious reasons), and it was glad to have the 2002 Winter Olympics in SLC and the 2008 Summer in Atlanta. Seoul got 2012, and Rio will be 2016. As for winter, Salzburg will host 2014.
Been watching those games on TV-quite the show, so far.
Last edited: Feb 14, 2010

JN1

DD951 said: ↑
OOC: Have 3 examples of the Lee-Enfield myself, 2 No. 4, Mk. 1s (1 from 1942, ROF Fazakerley & one from 1943; can't determine the manufacturer on that one,) as well as a Mk.III from 1912, RSAF Enfield that was subjected to a 'FTR' rebuild with those stamps on the stock & had been set up to fire rifle grenades judging from the copper wire wound around parts of the barrel. All are a little rough around the edges, although my 1942 No. 4 Mk. 1 is in the best shape cosmetically. Haven't really had the opportunity to fire any of them though or get them checked out by a gunsmith beforehand, even though all 3 appear to be functional, not that I'd want to shoot them before having them inspected. If you don't mind an example that's a little beat up, you can find them in the $100-200 range here in the US, although .303 ammo, unless you can buy surplus ammo in bulk through a mail-order place or gunstore is a bit expensive; a box of 20 commercial hunting rounds went for about $24-30 in thelocal sporting goods stores last time I looked.
OOC: I'd be very wary about firing the one modified to fire rifle grenades. Those modified in WW1 had a reputation of bursting due to the high pressures generated and were only used to fire rifle grenades. The wire is basically there to hold the rifle together. I'd have it deactivated and treat it as a 'wall-hanger'.

My Mk.III (or No.1, Mark 3 if you prefer) is an RSAF Enfield model, which I'm quite pleased about and must be one of the last Mark.IIIs built before production switched to the Mark.III* late in 1915.

IC: My old battalion and my current regiment kept quite a variety of small arms captured from Spetsnaz during the war. The regimental museum even has a couple of bits of an Mig-27 shot down over Fife; God knows how we managed to get it away from the RAF.

zakueins

Freind of mine worked doing the re-manufacture of T-72s during the war (he was about 17-18 then, mostly doing gofer work) and he could tell when they had a "good" or a "bad" tank. "Good" ones tended to come from the Czech or Polish factories, "bad" ones were Russian (usually from the "way back" areas). Usually with the bad ones, they had to replace the entire power pack (the manufacture of the engines tended to involve at least three pounds of metal being scraped off during the first 100 hours of operation to wind up in the oil sump...) and do serious renovation work to the gunner's controls.

They were right on the ammo, too. The Sov T-72 used an autoloader and they had to feed the rounds in two separate parts-the round itself and the propellant. That slowed down loading time significantly (and until they re-manufactured it, would jam often), and they couldn't get the same round "length" as a M-1 or M-60. Their APDSFS round was a tungsten carbide round, for example, and has horrible ballistics. The IMI-made round and propellant was depleted uranium and shot much harder and flatter than the Sov one. They have a remanufactured T-72 at the Presidio here, looks like it was one used by 83rd ID, with mock-up EFR on the turret and hull.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
There were two other urban battles that had a lot of sniper activity-on both sides-namely, D/FW and Houston. Some Army units, when they came across ComBloc snipers, called in artillery and even attack helos to deal with the offender. All it did was make the rubble bounce and give the sniper more places to hide. Of course, the ComBloc did the same thing. We had two ALOs killed and five wounded during the D/FW mess...all but one by snipers. Those who were in Houston for GULF HAMMER probably have similar stories. One thing to keep in mind is that for every confirmed kill, there's likely two or three unconfirmed-especially in urban battles.

Presidio Press in the SF Bay Area has a book (saw it at Borders in Ogden) about the T-72 and its service during the war. They have a chapter devoted to U.S. and Canadian use of captured tanks-the 83rd ID is one of the units featured, but there were others as well who took intact T-72s, found soldiers small enough to fit inside them, and put the tanks to good use against their former owners. Not surprisingly, many of those tankers crewing captured T-72s were women. A number of modifications were put to captured tanks, such as U.S. or Canadian standard radios, more comfortable seats, and reactive armor (supplied via the Israelis). Not surprisingly, IFF panels became standard issue for all captured ComBloc vehicles in active service. And complaints about the lack of penetrating power in captured ammo led the U.S. and Canadian Armies to design improved sabot rounds, which were produced by IMI in Israel.

AF Intelligence had another unclassified update on what was found south of the border, and this one dealt with ground-force and naval equipment. None of the naval assets were of recent vintage, and all dated from the 1980's at the very least. (some ships were actually from the '50s) No subs, surface ships only. As far as ground force equipment, other than the T-80s the Presidential Guard Brigade were equipped with, most armor was either T-55s or T-72s, with some T-62s and even T-34s being encountered. Part of the cease-fire terms mandate that no heavy armor be deployed by the Mexicans within 100 miles of the Security Zone, and once the withdrawal from the Zone is completed (when the PLDP pays up on war reparations and other outstanding issues) within 100 miles of the actual border. The same goes for any flights of combat aircraft. Failure to comply or any violations will be punished-severely.

[lordroel]

From page 111

DD951

JN1 said: ↑
OOC: I'd be very wary about firing the one modified to fire rifle grenades. Those modified in WW1 had a reputation of bursting due to the high pressures generated and were only used to fire rifle grenades. The wire is basically there to hold the rifle together. I'd have it deactivated and treat it as a 'wall-hanger'.

My Mk.III (or No.1, Mark 3 if you prefer) is an RSAF Enfield model, which I'm quite pleased about and must be one of the last Mark.IIIs built before production switched to the Mark.III* late in 1915.

IC: My old battalion and my current regiment kept quite a variety of small arms captured from Spetsnaz during the war. The regimental museum even has a couple of bits of an Mig-27 shot down over Fife; God knows how we managed to get it away from the RAF.
OOC- figured as much, as although I hadn't heard with the potential issues with the ex-grenade launcher rifles (there were a few good SMLE websites that have gone down), it is a 100-year old rifle, there are some things with the stock & reciever that would give me a little pause just on their own, and who knows where it's been or how it was treated (other than likely having been in the trenches) in that time.

Not that it's a good idea to fire any old military-surplus rifle that hasn't been rearsenaled by someone reputable (i.e. surplus M1903s, M1917s, M-1 Garands & Carbines through the Civilian Marksmanship Program) which hasn't been inspected by a competent expert to make sure they're safe to fire anyway, and there aren't any issues using modern ammo in the weapon (i.e. early-production M1903s, before early 1918 didn't have their bolts & recievers properly heat-treated due to manufacturing errors, resulting in a number bursting in service, their being placed in emergency war stocks, and being considered generally unsafe to fire with most modern ammo that doesn't exactly dulplicate the original .30-06 ball ammo loading due to the increased chamber pressures.)

The 1942 No.4's the one I'd be most likely to shoot, while the 1943 looks like a good restoration candidate.

Matt Wiser

The book mentioned that-new fire control equipment, mounts for reactive armor, new engines, etc. A friend of mine was a platoon leader and later on, company commander, in 24th ID, and he mentioned that his brigade had about a company's worth of captured T-72s, and they had to scramble to find people who could fit inside the tanks. Not surprisingly, many were female. After the tanks were reconditioned and got their new ammo, captured T-72s did pretty well. And they facilitated a few Trojan Horse type operations-especially in Arkansas and Texas during PRAIRIE FIRE and LONG RIFLE. I've read that the M-60 (once upgraded to the A3 version with thermal sights and laser RF) could take on any Soviet tank, though the M-1 family (the A1s didn't show until late '86) was the best of them all. But in the early days, when National Guard and Army Reserve units faced T-72s and T-80s with early M-60s and late model M-48s....

Yeah, those captured ships aren't worth much, unless they're sunk as targets or just plain hauled off for scrap. Though I've heard the dive community wants ships as artificial reefs, to serve as attractions for divers and for fish habitat. If the Navy doesn't want them for much, scuttle 'em and let the recreational divers have at 'em. Since those ships are considered war prizes, they do count as reparations, so the PLDP has to look elsewhere if they want a Navy. The air defense stuff, unlike the aircraft, was a surprise. Finding those SA-15 vehicles still in their shipping crates, and some Pantasir Gun/Missile systems was unexpected: none of those were on our threat board. Those will find their way to Nellis AFB for testing.

The Olympics are going pretty good. NBC does a good job on the Olympic broadcasts, and the Canadians have done a great job rebuilding Vancouver. You'd hardly know that city was one of the worst urban battlegrounds of the war. The U.S. Women's Hockey opened today: we beat Taiwan 11-1. Next up is the Rump USSR, then Finland. The Russian Republic is in the same bracket as the Canadians, Swedes, and Slovaks.

trekchu

OOC: I've actually seen bits and pieces of the US vs PRC games. Your ladies had the game well in hand it seems. Congrats.
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JN1

The T-72's loader also had a reputation of trying to load the crew's clothing and worse their limbs. There was moreover danger from the fact that a round was always exposed in the turret, which could be pretty dangerous.
My pal in 15 Para says he saw T-72 turrets blown completely off by 120mm rounds from Chieftains and Challengers. I've seen the same thing happen to Chinese tanks when engaged by Chally 2s, it's pretty spectacular.

OOC: I'm a bit sore about London apparently losing 2012 in TTL.

joea64

When the balloon went up in '85, I had just started law school in D.C. (George Washington University, if anyone remembers that place). Fortunately, I wasn't at class that day - it was Labor
Day, the first Monday of the month, so I was off both class and work (I worked part-time for a federal contractor in Crystal City, just south of the Pentagon, at the time.) Anyway, I lived in the suburbs south of Fairfax with my family, about 20-25 miles out, so we didn't get any damage or radiation from the blast. We definitely _saw_ and _heard_ it, though. The local TV stations in Washington were taken out, of course, but we had cable; it went down for several hours after the attack, but was up by that evening, and we were able to follow the news from CNN. My stepdad, a major, was stationed in the Army's information systems command at Fort Belvoir, and as you might guess we didn't see much of him for the next few weeks; the Combloc tried several times to raid Belvoir with Spetsnaz, but fortunately the base security forces (chiefly from the 29th ID at that time) were able to run them off.

The situation in the DC area was pretty peculiar; the city center was a dead loss, crater and all, but the warhead was so small - not a whole lot larger than the Hiroshima/Nagasaki weapons - that it didn't do much damage beyond broken windows beyond maybe 5-10 miles out. That meant the outer suburbs, particularly to the north in MD and the west/southwest in VA, came through intact. CIA HQ in Langley survived the initial attack intact, though Spetsnaz sent in a force against that installation and did a good deal of damage to the buildings. Being a holiday, most of the federal work force was away from their buildings, so we suddenly had tens of thousands of federal employees from various departments who had nowhere to report to. It was chaotic, I can tell you, for the next few months while NCA at Raven Rock got itself sorted out. The food situation, in particular, was pretty thin at times; we were strictly rationed for months and months. Then again, we had it a LOT better than those poor devils in Denver. I never want to see another MRE again in my life, though, I can tell you that!

Eventually, though, most of the Cabinet-level department headquarters relocated first to temporary locations well away from the fighting, and then to the temporary capital at St. Louis after the armistice. However, now that rebuilding in DC is almost complete, the various departments are coming back, though they're still in temp quarters around the periphery. Reston/Herndon, being close to Dulles, has perhaps the heaviest concentration of Feds, but there are a lot of people working in Tyson's Corner too (for those who aren't familiar with the area, it's basically the intersection of the Beltway, Virginia Route 7, and Virginia Route 123.) Traffic there is simply catastrophic at rush hour.

Because I'm severely hearing-impaired, I couldn't enlist, so I spent most of the war working down at Belvoir once things got sorted out again. In 1988, I got transferred to the Center for Naval Analyses, which was working out of Herndon near Dulles, and was assigned to handle naval-message traffic coming to there. (CNA is what they call a "Federally Funded Research and Development Center", or FFRDC; before, during and after the war, they've provided scientific and operational research and evaluation services for the Navy and Marine Corps. Their Operations Evaluation Group - OEG - had many people embedded with various Navy and USMC outfits during the war, and CNA produced a TREMENDOUS amount of documentation on WWIII operations. Wondering if any of this forum's Navy or Marine posters ever ran into any OEG staffers during or after the war?) I was cleared for everything up to Secret/RD (nuclear weapons information), so I had the privilege - if you can call it that, often - of seeing a lot more of what went on during the last year of the war from the Navy/Marine point of view than most other civilians. Still can't talk about most of it, of course, even though I've moved on many years since and no longer have an active clearance.

(OOC: I did work at CNA from 1988-1995; my most memorable experience there was helping collate and manage the huge volume of naval message traffic that came in there during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Also, OEG people do embed with Navy/Marine units IRL.)

I worked at CNA in their information services division, doing the naval-message stuff and also helping manage their classified document repositories and unclassified library, for something like 8 years. Along about the end of 1995, I decided I needed a change of scene and joined up with a private litigation-support outfit, also in Herndon. Wouldn't you know it, about two and a half years later (mid-1998) I was transferred to their federal-contractor division, which had the contract from DOJ to manage and create digital/electronic databases (creating digital image databases by scanning the documents and also working up electronic indexes by analyzing the documents for key information that the lawyers need) for a lot of the documentation from the various Tier I and Tier II trials and all the other legal proceedings concerning auxiliaries, ALA members, and other such bad types. You really, really, REALLY need a strong stomach to read through a lot of this material. This job pays well - and it has to, because turnover is high; a lot of people just can't take more than a year or two (at most) of reading the ghastly details of what Combloc and their quisling stooges got up to in the occupied zones. I've been supervisor of the coding department (the group that does the database creation by extracting information) for several years now and expect to get promoted to run the whole litigation-support document before too long.

(OOC: TTL equivalent of my current job, with a company in Tyson's Corner that does the same sort of work for various Fed agencies, mainly DOJ's civil divisions. The biggest project over the past decade OTL has actually been managing and digitizing the millions and millions and MILLIONS of pages of data from the "Tribal Trusts" cases pitting many Native American tribes against the Department of the Interior.)

None of my immediate family was lost in the war, thank God, though I had a second cousin who was KIA in the Marines - 2nd Division, I think. I don't remember the details, unfortunately. What were the major operations of that unit, if somebody could joggle my memory? I also had several relatives in southwestern Missouri (Dallas County), including my grandmother on my father's side, who were forced to refugee to Indiana ahead of the advancing Combloc columns. My stepdad spent the war at Belvoir (with lots of TDY to other places) helping keep the Army's computers going, and retired a bird colonel along about 1995; he and my mother live south of Wilmington in NC now. Brunswick County was one of those places that was virtually untouched by the war (astonishingly, considering that there's an Army ocean terminal near Wilmington), and it's become a major summer destination over the last 10-15 years or so as the economy has recovered and people have been able to start having fun again.

We never had that much of a problem with quislings in Northern Virginia, if you can believe it. The fact that the place was crawling with military and LE types may have had a lot to do with it, of course. George Mason University in Fairfax was probably one of the most intensely patriotic campuses in the whole country during the war, being that a lot of its student body was either (1) the dependents of military personnel or (2) refugees from downtown D.C. universities - GWU, Georgetown, Howard, etc. - that were outright destroyed or so heavily damaged as to be unusable in the nuclear strike; and of course, after the war, it became one of the most popular colleges for vets - so popular, in fact, that these days it's the second biggest higher-education institute in Virginia, just behind UVA itself. As for myself, I went to night school at GMU's law school in the early 1990's to get my J.D., and I ran into a LOT of veterans there who were doing the same thing on the G.I. Bill. (My undergrad alma mater, East Carolina University, is often called "USMC U" these days, because it's another vet-friendly and vet-popular school, especially with Marines and former Marines from Camp Lejeune.)

(OOC: ECU is popular with Camp Lejeune Marines for another reason - the college girls. When I was there 1981-1984, there'd be a fair number of Marines in the bars on Fifth Street in Greenville every weekend.)

I've especially enjoyed reading the reminiscences about wartime pop culture. Stevie Nicks was - and to this day is - HUGE among war veterans. She was getting ready to release her 3rd album, Rock A Little, when the war broke out. That, of course, delayed things somewhat, and when the album finally did come out in early 1986, it was mostly on cassette tape; petroleum and plastic rationing meant that very few vinyl records got pressed after 1985. (That, BTW, was a big factor in hastening the adoption of CD's, though that format didn't really get widespread until after the war; during the war, it was all cassettes). "Talk To Me" and the second single, "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You", became huge hits in the services, and Stevie went all over the country tirelessly during the war years under USO's aegis, first with Bob Hope, then on her own and with Fleetwood Mac when that group got back together to make its comeback album Tango in the Night in 1987; her fourth album, The Other Side of the Mirror, was released in the early summer of 1989, several months before the end of the war, and several of the songs ("Juliet", "Doing The Best That I Can (Escape from Berlin)"), contain veiled references to her wartime experiences - she's fond of writing songs which are highly autobiographical in a very allusive manner, and a lot of the fun for her fans is trying to figure out what she's referring to . Like Marlene Dietrich, she'd often take her band right up as close to the front as was safe, set up, do a 90-minute set, complete with top hat, swirling scarves, suede platform boots, tambourine and all, then pack up and go on to the next unit. She and her band had several quite hairy experiences - the motor convoys they traveled in came under air attacks from Soviet and Cuban planes on several occasions, and there's at least one incident in which she had to pack up fast and get out of Dodge because the Soviets threw an attack against the sector she was in at the time. I'm sure some of you have her concert video, Live at Red Rocks, which chronicles her show at the Red Rocks amphitheatre in Colorado not long after the siege of Denver was broken and the city liberated. (OOC: this video, which actually exists, chronicles her 1986 show at that venue during the Rock A Little tour.) There's also an Emmy-winning documentary, "On The Road Again", about her USO-sponsored tours. At every stop, she'd take time out to visit the wounded, and after a few months of this, she started collecting cassette players and tapes from her friends in L.A. and Phoenix, which she'd distribute to the troops at every stop.

(OOC: Stevie has done a LOT of work on behalf of wounded soldiers since 9/11; she's made at least half-a-dozen lengthy visits to Walter Reed and has started a very popular program for distributing IPod's to the troops.)

Some of you may recognize this famous picture; the flag was given to her by a fan who'd been part of the force that wrested the Dallas-Fort Worth complex back from the Combloc, and flown Old Glory from his Bradley during the battle:

[​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]http://img20.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=83496_stevienicks-alternatehistorypicture_122_195lo.jpg

Unfortunately, I can't seem to figure out how to put the actual image here, so I'm providing a link instead.

(OOC: This is a detail of the front-cover picture from Stevie's 1991 single "Sometimes It's A Bitch" from her greatest-hits album Timespace. The flag was given to her by a fan, a Desert Storm veteran, who'd flown it on his vehicle.)

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Tommy Lee Jones' partner in the "Men in Black" movie series, Will Smith, yet. Will fibbed about his age to enlist in the Army soon after the outbreak of war, and ended up with the 1st Infantry Division, where he spent the entire war and saw some of the toughest fighting. To this day, he still can't explain how he managed to get through all that alive - not that he talks that much about his experiences in interviews. He became well-known in the Big Red One for his rapping skill during the war - in fact, he got his big break when Stevie Nicks came through on one of her USO tours, heard about this rhyming kid, and got him up on stage in front of everyone in the division who could make the show. There was a TV contract waiting for Will just about the minute he got his discharge - that was "Fresh Prince of Bel Air", of course, the show about a young war veteran who moves to LA to live with well-to-do relatives. Then he got one of the lead roles in 1996's "Independence Day" and things just snowballed from there.

EDIT: I'm surprised at myself. How could I have forgotten the one and only Ann-Margret? Just like she did in Vietnam, she went out again and again with the USO to entertain the troops and endeared herself to them the way she had to their fathers in the 1960's. And like Stevie Nicks, she had some close shaves because she often went up so close to the fighting. On one memorable occasion in 1988, she teamed up with Mamie Van Doren, still a bombshell in her 50's, and wowed the boys (and girls) on the western front from the AZ-NM border all the way up to Wyoming.
(OOC: Ann-Margret is a great favorite of Vietnam vets to this day for her tours.)

If you want to talk about other people who helped keep morale up during those dark days, you have to start with Bill Cosby. A lot of times, "The Cosby Show" gave people the only real laughs they got all week, especially because so many of his episodes took humorous looks at the sacrifices and privations that the civilian population had to endure during the war. NBC never let up on keeping production of the show going through the war, no matter what; Cosby has a famous monologue about taping an episode in the middle of a Combloc air raid. "Moonlighting" was another big hit in the war years; I think that the country got almost as much of a morale boost from watching the bickering between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd as from the program itself! And "St. Elsewhere", too: after 1985, that program did many of its best episodes in detailing the experiences of the denizens of St. Eligius in dealing with the human consequences of the war. The cast and crew of that show did a hell of a lot to remind the country at large of what the men and women at the front were enduring. Denzel Washington got his breakthrough role in 1989 with "Glory", produced just as the war was ending. Lots of interesting parallels between the Civil War and WWIII in that film.

It's an interesting thing about Hollywood, by the way. Prewar, you'd never have figured the place for a nest of patriots; a lot of the people who got quoted the most were the most leftist-sounding, and many of the rest, at least if you believe the media, were hopeless hedonists. Yet, when the guns started going off and the bombs started dropping, so many people there pulled together in a way not seen since World War II. I think the air raid that killed John Hughes and Molly Ringwald had a lot to do with it. Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall and Ally Sheedy all went and enlisted in Ringwald's memory - ISTR that Nelson was badly wounded on the Mississippi front in '87, no? He got not only the Purple Heart but the Silver Star from that fight. Anyone know the details? Interesting times, politics-wise, in Hollyweird during the war; the real hard-core leftie types saw their careers evaporate, at the very least, while the mainstream-liberal types stepped up to the plate and, just like in WWII, kept the morale of the country up.
Last edited: Feb 16, 2010

JN1

JN1 said: ↑
The T-72's loader also had a reputation of trying to load the crew's clothing and worse their limbs.
OOC: An acquaintance who was in the Canadian Militia informs me that the above is an urban myth. The autoloader did have problems, but they were sorted out and they never tried to load the crew.

ICC: We were all bigs fans of the Cosby Show, St Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues, all of which had war related episodes. Anyone remember Hill and Renko trying to rescue a Soviet pilot whose 'chute had caught on a high rise building?
Thinking about St Elsewhere reminds me that Casualty also have a lot of war related episodes, usually involving mass casualties from bombing raids. Memorably one episode dealt with a CW attack and was unstinting in its depiction of the consequences; the BBC was heavily criticised by some parts of the media for the graphic nature of the episode, but I saw the aftermath of a real CW attack and the episode was mild by comparison. Part of the story involved a cock-up in the decontamination procedure, which lead to two paramedics and three members of the casualty staff getting contaminated by patients, resulting in the deaths of two of them.
Last edited: Feb 15, 2010

joea64

Noted the posts about Macross/Robotech. Has anyone seen the mangas and animes created by Kaiji Kawaguchi? He made his big splash with "The Silent Service", a manga which ran from 1988-1996, describing the exploits of a (fictional) JMSDF nuclear submarine (a joint project with the USN) which crossed the Pacific at the outbreak of World War III and volunteered its services to the USN. In the late 1990's, he made another hit with his manga "Eagle" (based on his research during months of crisscrossing the U.S. and talking to war veterans) about the complicated relationship between a young Okinawan working as a war correspondent and his father, a Japanese-American Marine officer. It got a lot of praise for the authentic depiction of military life both at the front and in camp. His latest effort, "A Spirit of the Sun", is an alternate-history offering about what might have happened if the Combloc had invaded Japan instead of the U.S. VERY gritty depictions of guerrilla warfare.

(OOC: "The Silent Service" is about a JMSDF nuke sub that goes rogue and declares itself an independent country. "Eagle" has to do with a fictional version of the 2000 presidential campaign, though the central relationship is real - the Okinawan is covering the presidential campaign of his father. "A Spirit of the Sun" is based on the old Japanese disaster film "Nippon Chimbotsu" (Japan Sinks).)

Hideaki Anno was obviously deeply affected by World War III in creating his classic anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's often been said that the monsters of SEELE (particularly its chairman, Lorenz Kihl) are a direct "expy" (to use the TV Tropes term) of the Soviet Politburo. Even such a "light" mangaka as Kousuke Fujishima couldn't help but refer back a lot to the war and its aftermath in the long-running Ah! My Goddess manga and anime (the manga started publishing in 1988 and is still going strong today). Many, many other animes and mangas - Code Geass, Full Metal Alchemist, etc. - have villain organizations which are clearly directly inspired by the USSR.

joea64

The war may have contributed to the early death of Audrey Hepburn. She devoted most of the last years of her life, from 1985 through 1992, to helping children affected by the war, first under the American Red Cross during the fighting and then as a special high commissioner for the UNICEF after the war. When she died of cancer in early 1993, it was widely theorized that she had contracted it from radiation exposure when she visited the danger zones in Omaha, Kansas City, DC and NYC.

(OOC: As is well known, Audrey became famous in the last decade of her life for her work on behalf of children around the world. She made her last major trip on behalf of UNICEF to Somalia in late 1992, when she was already seriously ill with the stomach cancer that would soon kill her.)

On the other hand, the war may have extended Ava Gardner's life. In 1985, the outbreak of war found her living in London, pretty much retired from acting. The shock of the events of early September 1985 galvanized her and gave her new purpose in life, and she did tremendous yeoman work in pulling together the U.S. expat community in Great Britain. She has some astonishing passages in her memoirs about hearing bomb explosions from Soviet air raids on metropolitan London. She also did quite a bit of work for British TV and film in those years. After she returned to the US in 1990, when American citizens who had been stranded in Britain were able to travel back home again, she had a big comeback supporting role with the movie Steel Magnolias (whose production had been delayed by wartime shortages), about the travails of women in a small Louisiana town right up near the front lines. Julia Roberts was particularly affecting in that one as an Army nurse who suffers a debilitating head injury and has to be taken off life support by her own mother (Sally Field). By the time Ava passed in 2004, she'd re-established herself as one of Hollywood's go-to stars for older-woman roles. The Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, NC (near her birthplace and grave) has some very interesting exhibits about her wartime experiences in the U.K.

(OOC: Ava Gardner, of course, passed away in 1990, having basically given up on acting and drunk herself to death. As a fan of hers, I wanted to see something a little better happen to her in TTL.)

joea64

JN1 said: ↑
ICC: We were all bigs fans of the Cosby Show, St Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues, all of which had war related episodes. Anyone remember Hill and Renko trying to rescue a Soviet pilot whose 'chute had caught on a high rise building?
That episode won the Emmy that year, I remember. It was a real nailbiter, but at the same time hilarious. Especially considering that it was made in the middle of wartime, and with all the brutalities being committed in the occupied zones, to this day I'm quite impressed by how they didn't go the easy way of making the pilot a stereotypical evil Ivan. The scenes where Renko tries to convince the pilot that they're not going to lynch him are quite tense - especially because both sides are armed - and also quite funny, with all the language misunderstandings.

SPOILER: At the end of the episode, just as the rescue workers are cutting the pilot loose from his harness, it fails and the man almost falls to his death before Renko makes a wild grab and catches him by the wrist just in time. Both of them almost plummet, in turn, before Hill grabs them both and drags them to safety by main force. The pilot, who turns out to be a Jew, ends up defecting.

joea64

For those who are wondering if there's ever going to be a Star Trek again after Paramount got bombed out in the war: Good news. Orion bought the rights to the franchise from George Lucas' estate last year, and production is already underway on a movie which is going to, so it's reported, completely reboot the series. A young actor named Chris Pine is playing Kirk, and that guy who plays Sylar on "Heroes" - Zachary Quinto? - is playing Spock. The character of Chekov gave the producers and writers some problems in development, but they worked it out so that he now boasts about the Russian Republic, not the Soviet Union the way he did in the old series. I hear they're doing some pretty astonishing FX and turning the Enterprise into an outright battleship.

(OOC: This is, of course, the TTL version of the 2009 Trek movie!)

joea64

Since I'm going on about pop culture in those years, I should mention the prime-time soaps. Dynasty and Dallas both took radical turns from their original glitz to gritty wartime drama when the fighting broke out in 1985; the former had numerous episodes set in besieged Denver (based on reporting straight from the source, those are some of the most harrowing and yet ultimately uplifting hours of TV I've ever seen, though I still can't quite figure out how Joan Collins' character got transformed from Queen Bitch to Saint Alexis in the wartime seasons), and the latter refocused on the exploits of J.R. and Bobby Ewing as they organized and bankrolled partisan bands in occupied Texas. J.R.'s sharklike grin every time he frustrated a dastardly Combloc plot was lovely to behold.

Italian superstar Gina Lollobrigida had just come over to the U.S. to take up a guest-star role in Falcon Crest when the war began. She got together with series creator Earl Hamner and classic-Hollywood bombshell Lana Turner, who'd also had a guest-star role on the show, and they created a show, Grand Canyon, in which Lollobrigida and Turner play two L.A. socialites who volunteer for the American Red Cross and end up being assigned to a refugee center on the Navajo Reservation not far from the Arizona-New Mexico front lines. That show ran for five seasons, 1986-1991.

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Back to the war itself for a moment: my grandmother (who passed in 2001) was a long-time native of Beaufort, South Carolina, my hometown. As many of you know, that place is a major Marine Corps hub, with MCAS Beaufort and Parris Island. We didn't see much of each other for several years, what with wartime restrictions on civilian travel (which was often too dangerous to undertake in any case), but when I finally managed to get down to Beaufort to visit her for the first time in several years in 1989, she had a LOT of stories to tell, starting with the day after the war started (September 3, 1985) when she was awakened by the roar of fighter after fighter clawing skyward from the Air Station as they headed westward toward the invasion zones in the Southwest. (OOC: She told me a similar story in 1990 about the planes leaving the MCAS for Desert Shield in early August of that year.) Not every plane left, though; ANG squadrons came in to replace the Marine Corps units and protect the South Carolina/Georgia coast, and most particularly defend Parris Island, which trained every Marine who fought on the eastern fronts during the war (Camp Pendleton trained the Marines who served in the West). Convoys of buses, heavily guarded by National Guard MP Humvees and Jeeps, came in every week delivering new recruits, and Parris Island actually overflowed its facilities - they had to set up temporary tent facilities outside the MCAS to handle the overflow.

Naturally, the Combloc tried several times to disrupt the proceedings, and my grandmother had some rather hair-raising stories to tell about cruise missiles from Soviet subs and even a Cuban commando raid on one occasion. On a couple of occasions, those cruise missiles went off course (or did they?) and hit civilian targets in Beaufort; one severely damaged the Technical College on Ribaut Road, and another (which thankfully turned out to be a dud) landed near St. Helena's Episcopal Church (one of the oldest buildings belonging to that denomination in the United States). She says that when the missile hit the college, it sounded like the end of the world; her house was less than two miles away and she could feel the ground quake from the detonation. It just barely missed the Memorial Hospital (where I was born) and windows were blown out all over the place there; on the good side of the equation, classes weren't in session at the time and hospital personnel were able to get to the scene immediately and treat the wounded.

The Naval Hospital (a couple miles further down Ribaut) also treated many, many seriously wounded personnel from all services who were evac'ed there from the fighting in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, as well as the air and naval battles over the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.
Last edited: Feb 16, 2010

joea64

A further note on Washington: a while earlier on in the thread, somebody asked about the status of Metro in Washington, but I don't know if they ever got an answer, so let me speak to that now. Metrorail (the subway/light-rail system) won't go back into full operation until D.C. is formally reopened, since the central lines were badly damaged if not outright wrecked by the nuclear detonation (the crater smashed up key sections of the Orange, Blue and Red lines). Metrobus, however, which serves not only the District but the Virginia and Maryland suburbs, has operated full-blast all along. In fact, due to gasoline rationing for civilian vehicles during the war, it significantly expanded its routes and operations to cover places in the outer suburbs (such as Manassas and most of Prince William County) that hadn't been served pre-war, and many of the main routes ran (and still run) around the clock to accommodate war workers from the military, the government and private industry. Local jurisdictions such as Fairfax and Prince William Counties in Virginia (OOC: this is true in RL too) and Montgomery County in Maryland also set up their own bus routes to augment Metrobus. By the end of the war, in fact, some people said that the metro area probably had the best bus service in the country! A lot of them, BTW, were and are run on natural gas to save gasoline (OOC: again, true in RL).

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
I'm also rather surprised that there's been so little talk here so far about the role the Internet played in the war, and how much its development (at any rate in the U.S. and its allies) was accelerated by the needs of the war. As I remarked earlier, my stepdad served in the Army's Information Systems Command during the war. He was AG (Adjutant General) corps, so was involved on the administration side rather than the actual IT side, but he had a good deal to say once peace came and he could talk about it about how critical the early Internet was to the U.S. war effort, and how much of an advantage it gave us in the "information war".

At the time the war began, the NSFNet, the 56-kbps network, had just been constructed at the behest of the National Science Foundation. The initial nuclear strikes vindicated the longstanding objectives of the Internet's/ARPANet's designers to create a network that could survive nuclear war, particularly the kind of limited nuclear strikes we suffered on 9/2. By the end of that first day, the network was back in full operation again and had been taken under DOD control. While invading Combloc forces captured a number of major university complexes (such as the University of Texas at Austin) and their computer facilities, they often didn't bring along the computer techies necessary to understand the systems and get them running (it didn't help them that a lot of the key equipment had been wrecked by our side before capture). Attempts to crack the ARPANet continued throughout the war (Clifford Stoll wrote about his role in combating KGB cracking efforts in his well-known book The Cuckoo's Egg (1992*)), but were never very successful, from what I heard.

(OOC: The book was published in 1990 OTL, but I've moved the date forward on the assumption that security restrictions would have been tighter in the immediate aftermath of WWIII and it would have taken longer for Stoll to be able to get key information cleared for his book.)

To handle increased demands by both military and research customers, DARPA ordered the immediate construction of a 1.5-mbps network in 1986 (OOC: this was commissioned by NSF) and upgraded to the first true T1 network by the end of the war. Standardization of all computers connected to the net to DARPA's TCP/IP standard was also completed by 1986.

Who here can comment (unclassified, that is) on the Internet in the wartime years?

DD951

JN1 said: ↑
The T-72's loader also had a reputation of trying to load the crew's clothing and worse their limbs. There was moreover danger from the fact that a round was always exposed in the turret, which could be pretty dangerous.
My pal in 15 Para says he saw T-72 turrets blown completely off by 120mm rounds from Chieftains and Challengers. I've seen the same thing happen to Chinese tanks when engaged by Chally 2s, it's pretty spectacular.

I can say that a 5" HC on a plunging trajectory can have equally spectacular results if it hits the top armor, although if you want truly spectacular demises of AFVs, there was this one time where a Soviet tank company thought it'd be a good idea to act as coastal artillery to defend against a shore bombardment by Des Moines- guess that nobody told their CO that a T-72's armor isn't up to stopping 8" AP shells (the CA's normally carried 1-2 dozen AP rounds per gun for bunker-busting, but her captain figured they'd be useful on tanks at close range as well.)

OOC: I'm a bit sore about London apparently losing 2012 in TTL.
OOC- Seoul got the 1988 games, but as they were cancelled TTL, they'd probably have to be given a future slot, which is apparently 2012. However, butterflies could have given London any of the games between 1992 & 2004, and the 1996 games are definately open because Atlanta got 2008. I'd propose having the 1996 games in Athens as a sort of centennial thing, keeping the 2000 games in Sydney, and putting 2004 in London TTL, while 1992 can go wherever if anyone sees a good reason to move them from Barcelona.

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
There have been some inquiries about the Washington Redskins, so if I may, I'll try to clarify a little bit.

The war, of course, started on September 2, a week before the Redskins were scheduled to play their first game (a Monday night outing against their longtime division rivals, the Dallas Cowboys). The Redskins at that time had their headquarters and main practice facility in Ashburn, Virginia, which is located in Loudoun County, Virginia, not far from Dulles International Airport. Most of the players, Coach Joe Gibbs and other personnel lived in the suburbs, so survived the nuclear attack on the city center (OOC: I don't know which, if any, Redskins personnel lived in downtown DC at the time, so I'm going on the assumption that Gibbs and all the best-known players at the time, including Joe Theismann, Dexter Manley, John Riggins and Mark Moseley, survived the nuclear blast).

As soon as the telephone networks got back to some semblance of normality, a team meeting was called at Redskins Park - the notice was actually rather superfluous, since a large number of players and other team personnel had converged on the facility with their families. Since the league's offices were in New York City, nobody at first had any information as to what was going on or what would happen to the season. Long-distance telephone communication was quite difficult owing to the disruptions caused by the nuclear strikes and by Combloc special-forces raids on exchanges and nodes, but eventually the team owners, in the absence of Commissioner Pete Rozelle (who has never been located and is now presumed to have died in the attack on Manhattan) and other senior league officials, decided to suspend the 1985 season. Of course, as we all know, several teams - the Denver Broncos, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New Orleans Saints, the Houston Oilers, and the Dallas Cowboys themselves - were unable to play at all for the next several years, because their home cities were occupied or at or near the front lines.

Because RFK Stadium, the longtime home of the Redskins, had been badly damaged - though not outright destroyed - in the attack on Washington and irradiated, the decision was taken to move the team to Baltimore in the interim. (As we know, the Baltimore Colts, in a highly controversial move, had decamped literally in the middle of the night for Indianapolis several years before, leaving the city without its iconic team). Jack Kent Cooke, the Redskins' owner, consulted with the players, the coaches and other NFL members, and decided to rename the team the Baltimore-Washington Redskins, playing at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, once transportation was restored and NFL play could resume.

Ever since, the Baltimore-Washington Redskins have played at first Memorial Stadium, then the new M&T Bank stadium in downtown Baltimore. With the reconstruction of D.C. nearly complete, Daniel Snyder, who bought the team in 1999, has announced his intention to build a new stadium in Landover, Maryland, on the site of the old Capital Centre arena, to house the Redskins. At this point, it's still undetermined whether the Redskins will continue to represent both cities, or whether a new team will be awarded to Baltimore.

joea64

DD951 said: ↑
OOC- Seoul got the 1988 games, but as they were cancelled TTL, they'd probably have to be given a future slot, which is apparently 2012. However, butterflies could have given London any of the games between 1992 & 2004, and the 1996 games are definately open because Atlanta got 2008. I'd propose having the 1996 games in Athens as a sort of centennial thing, keeping the 2000 games in Sydney, and putting 2004 in London TTL, while 1992 can go wherever if anyone sees a good reason to move them from Barcelona.
OOC - I don't see any pressing reason to move the 1992 Games from Barcelona.

IC - None of the three successor states to the Soviet Union sent a team to the 1992 Games; the Russian Republic, however, has sent teams to both Summer and Winter Games from 1994 onwards. There was a great deal of concern about the reception that the Russian Republic's team would get in Lillehammer, but those fears turned out to be groundless; the non-Communist Russians got a warm welcome from the Norwegians (just as they did from the Americans at Salt Lake City '02 and Atlanta '08).

joea64

At work, one of the key people in my department is an ethnic-Russian emigrant from Latvia. She and her husband came over around 2000; it took some time to get them properly cleared, but she's proven to be invaluable in helping translate the Soviet documents that form so much of the paperwork we have to organize and database. (As has often been commented in this thread, the Combloc, like the Nazis, documented everything.) Extracting key information from those documents would be far more difficult without her.

She doesn't talk a lot about her experiences in Latvia, but I gather that that country was subjected to particularly brutal purges in the late stages of the war as the Communist regime began to implode at the edges. The figure of 60% of total Party membership purged has been cited, but from what my colleague says, several cities in Latvia were stripped almost clean of their Party membership bases by the KGB and MVD. After the Baltic states gained their independence, there was a great deal of ethnic tension between Latvians and Russians, and she and her husband eventually decided to seek a better and more peaceful life instead. As it happened, a second cousin of theirs had been taken prisoner along with the remainder of the southern-prong forces at Brownsville, and he was one of those who declined repatriation and decided to settle here. He was able to provide quite a bit of assistance to his relatives in getting them over here.

Matt Wiser

Here's the Olympics as they went postwar:

1992: Albertville (Winter) Barcelona (Summer)
1994: Lillihammer (Winter)
1996: Athens (Summer)
1998: Nagano (Winter)
2000: Sydney (Summer)
2002: Salt Lake City (Winter)
2004: London (Summer)
2006: Torino (Winter)
2008: Atlanta (Summer)
2010: Vancouver (Winter)
2012: Seoul (Summer)
2014: Salzburg (Winter) (Scheduled)
2016: Rio (Summer) (Scheduled)

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Speaking of wartime TV shows, let's not forget "MacGyver" (1985-1992). The program had a slow start in its first season (1985-1986), but it really took off in season 2, when Mac started fighting Combloc agents - mainly KGB, DGI and Stasi, along with the occasional quisling - and defeating them through sheer American ingenuity and his trusty Swiss army knife! (I think they later retconned the season 1 episodes to explain them as having taken place prewar.) I hear that on at least one occasion, the show's producers were visited by alphabet-soup people to find out just how come their episodes were tracking partisan operations so closely. Henry Winkler and John Rich were able to satisfy the Feds, fortunately, and the show carried happily on.

[lordroel]

From page 112

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
One subject I don't think has been adequately covered here is how the ROK managed to keep the Great Leader and the Dear Leader from overwhelming the South with their Red myrmidons. I gather from several posts that what was left of the Chinese PLA in the north managed to keep the Norks busy on the Yalu River border, and that the ROK's were able to stop NK incursions more or less by themselves. Did the Soviets, perchance, tell Pyongyang to wait until the war in North America had been won, at which point Kim could take the South at his leisure?

Matt Wiser

The Cowboys had a game scheduled against the 49ers at San Francisco(exhibition), and they went to Phoenix for the duration of the war. The 335th TFS was still at Williams AFB (outside Scottsdale) in the fall of '86, and the Cowboys played exhibiton games in Tempe at Sun Devil Stadium. (Univ. of Arizona) I should know: servicemembers and refugees got half off tickets, and many squadron members went to those games, and I went to a few as squadron duties permitted. The Rams, 49ers, Seahawks, Broncos (who barely got out of Denver before the siege-they played their games at the University of Oregon), and Raiders all made the trip to Phoenix and vice versa.

Ann-Margaret certainly came out to do Bob Hope's USO shows. She was with him in '86 and in '87, and I do remember the one at D/FW airport (during that whole mess-whoever called VII Corps' CO as a "reincarnation of McClellan" was right on the money). It was memorable because my WSO (who's now my wife) reminded me not to look too closely at the Dallas Cheerleaders, Brooke Shields, and the other lovely ladies, but there was an SS-21 attack a few minutes after the show wrapped-didn't cause much damage, but it sure made everyone jumpy. I still get goose bumps whenever I see pics of two places on the airport: one was a Soviet Air Force "recreation center" in the hotel that's between two of the terminal buildings (2W and 2E) and the other was the interrogation/execution center that was run out of the airport's security office. I landed there twice with battle damage and the Army said "You guys ought to see this." They showed us (both my F-4 and my wingie-Kara Sackhoff at the time, before she became a flight lead) what went on at both places. The Army was busy cleaning up the former site to use as HQ for VII Corps' Aviation, and had just discovered the latter. Not a pretty sight in either instance.....I'd challenge the remaining lefties to have a look at those files and then ask them "Now do you think those wartime atrocity reports are exaggerated?" And those are just two instances.

There's a few former EPWs living in Idaho and Utah: one's a Volga German who now runs a white-water rafting business on the Snake River, while another is ex-SNAF: he helps run the ski resort at Park City, and helped with organizing the 2002 Winter Olympics. (his stepdaughter-he married a local gal who was a war widow is one of my pilots) But watch for the ex-U.S. Foreign Legion guys: two of 'em run the best real estate firm in Mountain Home (one's German, one's Brazilian). And they still look like they can reach into your throat and pull your heart out.

DD951

joea64 said: ↑
Eventually, though, most of the Cabinet-level department headquarters relocated first to temporary locations well away from the fighting, and then to the temporary capital at St. Louis after the armistice. However, now that rebuilding in DC is almost complete, the various departments are coming back, though they're still in temp quarters around the periphery. Reston/Herndon, being close to Dulles, has perhaps the heaviest concentration of Feds, but there are a lot of people working in Tyson's Corner too (for those who aren't familiar with the area, it's basically the intersection of the Beltway, Virginia Route 7, and Virginia Route 123.) Traffic there is simply catastrophic at rush hour.
Lucky not getting caught in DC when it got hit. (OOC- Philadelphia's been established as the de facto temporary capital TTL, as that's where the president, congress, the supreme court, and those agencies that had to relocate from the DC area went.)

I worked at CNA in their information services division, doing the naval-message stuff and also helping manage their classified document repositories and unclassified library, for something like 8 years. Along about the end of 1995, I decided I needed a change of scene and joined up with a private litigation-support outfit, also in Herndon. Wouldn't you know it, about two and a half years later (mid-1998) I was transferred to their federal-contractor division, which had the contract from DOJ to manage and create digital/electronic databases (creating digital image databases by scanning the documents and also working up electronic indexes by analyzing the documents for key information that the lawyers need) for a lot of the documentation from the various Tier I and Tier II trials and all the other legal proceedings concerning auxiliaries, ALA members, and other such bad types. You really, really, REALLY need a strong stomach to read through a lot of this material. This job pays well - and it has to, because turnover is high; a lot of people just can't take more than a year or two (at most) of reading the ghastly details of what Combloc and their quisling stooges got up to in the occupied zones. I've been supervisor of the coding department (the group that does the database creation by extracting information) for several years now and expect to get promoted to run the whole litigation-support document before too long.
I've probably used some of that material you helped work on in prosecuting a few cases; helped prosecute an ex-auxiliary terrorist cell while a county prosecutor, and once I got on with the US Attorney's office, handled a couple of prosecutions of collaborators and such types that weren't military jurisdiction. We've also got a poster who's done a lot of field investigation into war crimes and identifying the dead, Panzerfaust150- maybe you helped process some of his reports. However, just about all of us who were on the front lines had the distinct displeasure to have had a very-up close and personal view of the immediate aftermath of the stuff the Soviets did, so I can understand how there'd by high turnover with the people who have to deal with that sort of info every day. Hell, I still end up half-wanting to get drunk every time I think about what I saw as part of the landing party that was the immediate response to the joint KGB/Spetznaz/auxiliary raid that resulted in the Point Roberts Massacre, and that was almost a quarter-century ago.

Matt Wiser

You could say that those agencies are all busy there, getting ready for the move back to D.C.; if rebuilding's been a challenge, then there's the pressure of actually going back and getting things set up again.

Some of those episodes of McGuyver did strike too close to home: they reminded me of my E&E all too well. The only difference was that the aftermath of atrocities had to be downplayed for broadcast on network TV. Not so neat when you come across the aftermath of a reprisal "action." Or that sicko Vassily Bratchenko WP'ing a town because some guerillas either came from there or had taken shelter there. I'm not surprised that certain agencies had a chat with the show's producers, because a lot of what was shown on the show did show some of what the guerillas were doing at the time. But since one could read a lot of that stuff in any survival manual, and that some techniques were left out or modified....

The Sovs basically told Kim Il-Sung that he could take the ROK at leisure once the "Main Enemy" (us) had been dealt with, or at least that's what the ROKs have said. Which is one reason (among several) that the ROKs sent an expeditionary force to the U.S. during the war. That, and the fact that the ROK Army and Marine Corps were mobilized within days of the invasion here, thinking that they were next. If the NKs had struck at the same time, though....

Some of your stuff might be used in the future: those lefties we've caught in both Cuba and Mexico, and some Cubans who were wanted but made the bug-out before the Brownsville pocket surrendered: there'll be quite a few prosecutions from those batches of pond scum.

Panzerfaust 150

I'm sure Joea probably has..I had to document just about everything then, both when I was Army and later on as a contractor....ugly times..at least noone was shooting at me.

As for the pop culture comments..I know one of the folks you mentioned, Joea...Aly Sheedy wound up working for Corps CI...We'd see her occasionally when they'd come to pick up high value folks like EW operators and Spetsnaz. I hear she vanished when the war ended, as she got some kinda job with folks airtechie might know. Or, at least that's the rumor.

I remember seeing the Cosby Show when we could, which wasn't often. The episode when Denise was told her husband was missing was powerful stuff..didn't they have his character be a returning POW? (I think one of the show's writers had a kid lost at sea with USS Benjamin Franklin) I kinda lost touch with the show when the war ended. The A-Team was another show we kinda enjoyed, especially after the gritty turn it took when they moved to Arizona and helped out partisans as they could. It was rough, the episode with Murdoch dying. But I thought they handled it well. Most of the time, our "TV" was video tapes of episodes that had already aired and were sent from home by families. So, you never know what you'd get on a given tape....half the fun was finding out.

But you know who surprised me? Tom Brokaw. He was on air in NBC News LA Studios a week after Manhattan got glassed. And he was mad, I mean seething. But he stayed cool. At the end he said "We're going to be on the air until those Soviet bastards who killed my friends and fellow reporters at CBS and ABC kill us, or we beat them. So, if they hear my voice...I have this to say to them...come and try you cowards!" It was something we needed at the time.

I didn't see much of the USO during the war, after, as I mentioned before, I caught a concert with Cindi Lauper. She was amazing. I think, like some other stars, the war saved or revitalized their careers. But she was asked when they were inducting her into the Rock Hall of Fame about that, and she said "Yeah, it did...but what was the cost?" Guess it's why I have all her albums.

It's not long before I leave for the Republic guys, they tell us internet is good over there, but spotty in places...apparently, we'll be in the best place. They're putting us up in the Hermitage apparently. I've been catching the Olympics on and off, and a thing struck me...how many of those kids were born during or not long after the war? What's their world going to be like? I'd like to think our blood and sacrifice made it a better one. I think it did. I try to tell my students that..but when I talk to the ones I have here at the Air War College, I smile, because we all know it too.

Sorry about the philosophy...maybe it is the way I deal with it all.

joea64

(OOC - Thanks for the corrections. I actually remembered late last night that it was Philadelphia, not St. Louis, that was the emergency capital, and that the Cowboys and other western NFL teams did manage to evacuate to alternate locations and carry on their seasons.)

I don't know how I bobbled on St. Louis vs. Philly like that. I can only plead that I got scrambled on that point in the middle of venting my gigantic infodump. :eek: Indeed, the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, and many agencies did set up shop in Philadelphia. However, a lot of other agencies, especially those that were already based in the suburbs, stayed in the DC metro area and carried on their work, and so did many of the contractors. It was judged that it was easier for couriers to carry data back and forth between Philly and the D.C. suburbs than to do a mass relocation of all the government workers and contractors, plus which, moving everyone might have sent a bad signal that we were abandoning the real capital. (Also, moving large numbers of workers was considered too dangerous in the wake of several nasty incidents in the early days where Spetsnaz and other Combloc SF bloodily blocked I-95 north and south of DC; it took days if not weeks to get traffic moving again and provided an additional hassle nobody needed.)

In the event, it was cumbersome, but it ended up working, especially since the Internet backbone between Philly and suburban Maryland and Virginia was quickly built up to become the fastest in the nation; in fact, I think it was the first real T1 backbone of the national network.

I well remember those Cosby Show and A-Team episodes. Another show that was quite popular in the war and immediate postwar years was Head of the Class, though you might not necessarily have seen that one since it was geared toward a younger audience. The basic plot had Howard Hesseman playing an actor (who had been thrown out of work when the theatre district in Manhattan got wrecked along with the rest of the island)
taking over as a replacement history teacher in a program for gifted students in Boston. It was a good early example of the genre now called "dramedy" (the original series specs called for something a lot lighter, but things had changed by the time the program went on the air in 1986); many of the episodes dealt with the reactions of Charlie Moore (Hesseman's character) and his students to events in the outside world. I think the dramatic height of the series was a three-parter in season four (1989-1990) where Charlie found out that his closest friend in the 1960's had turned auxiliary and had been captured by U.S. forces as they advanced into the Brownsville pocket; things got very dark for him and he actually considered resigning his position at one point, but his students pulled him through it. Family Ties, which made Michael J. Fox a star, was very similar; the tone of the show got much more serious after the war began in 1985, and there were, I think, a couple of episodes where the liberal (but patriotic) parents had to deal with the rupture of friendships caused by several of their '60's friends turning quisling. In those shows, I suspect that the writers were actually working through their own issues; as I intimated, there was a lot of turmoil and a lot of careers, friendships and romances destroyed in Hollywood (both in the pop music and film/TV communities) during those years as mainstream liberals - who, as I mentioned, rallied 'round the flag - broke decisively with the hard-left crowd and basically ran them out of town on a rail.

Home video was a huge, huge thing in keeping homefront morale up. I got my first VCR a few months before the war began (as did my parents - we both owned the same model, oddly enough!) and I just don't know what we'd have done without it. VHS tapes were actually fairly easy to get, though the quality was widely (and wildly) variable, and the video-rental stores did booming business all the way through the war (it was too pricey to actually _buy_ prerecorded tapes for most people until after the war when the economy started to get going again and prices went down); they had trouble getting stock in the early days, of course, but after the tide turned and solid cross-country connections could be kept open, we in the East were assured of a steady flow of new movies. I'm glad that, like in the Second World War, the government decided that keeping up the national morale was important war work so that the film, TV and music studios were able to get the basic resources they needed to keep working.

I remember that famous NBC News broadcast with Tom Brokaw, and also the return of Walter Cronkite (the "most trusted man in America") to the CBS Evening News; "Uncle Walt" was fortunate to be wrapping up his Labor Day holiday on Martha's Vineyard when the balloon went up. I think the rise of CNN can be traced directly to the war; its facilities in Atlanta remained intact throughout the war, it made its name by its live reportage from the war fronts, and a lot of TV journalists who became prominent in the 1990's and 2000's cut their teeth at CNN. It also helped that Ted Turner, who before the war had been beginning to trend lefty, got a big ol' dose of reality in the face when the war started and straightened up fast (as he recounted in his postwar memoirs).

Glad to hear that we've been of aid to the people prosecuting those SOB's. We do hear that a lot from the JAG and DOJ people who come in to us regarding various projects, but the reinforcement never hurts.

Matt Wiser

Panzerfaust, how long's this symposium on POW-MIA issues supposed to last? Lots of ground to cover if it's only a week or so, unless this is the first of several. And we'd better hope that rumor you mentioned earlier about POW camps in the FER not getting the word the war's over is just that: rumor. Otherwise, a lot of people will go ballistic, and demand heads start rolling, and not just in the FER, but over here in DOD's POW-MIA office. Set your VCR to Showtime before you go: the movie Down in Cuba (Lt. Col. Kelly Ann Ray's story, with Meg Ryan as Col. Ray) premieres in two weeks. If you haven't yet read her book, do so. It might help you mentally to prepare for those POW-MIA discussions. Just hope the Cubans never shipped anyone from Cuba to the USSR-rumor says the Tomahawk maintenance people from the destroyer tender sunk at Gitmo and the base communications people were, since none were returned from Cuba in 1990, but....anyone know if additional POW camp records were found by our SSE people when we went into Cuba last year? Any kind of transfer to the USSR would have to be on paper somewhere. (Unless those have been destroyed)

So Ally Sheedy wound up in "other government agency" service? I imagine she's found out that real life can imitate Hollywood, given the cloak-and-dagger stuff some of those agencies practice. Assuming, of course, that she's gone out into the field.

Well, Air Force Times had some pics of the flight line at Nellis: seems a C-17 arrived from Tampico and unloaded two SA-15 launch vehicles. I imagine the Threat Training Facility at Nellis is going to go over them carefully. Hopefully, we also got the operating and maintenance manuals.

Panzerfaust 150

This is the first of many meetings...and yeah, it's going to be a lot of historians playing detective. Historians with clearances....As for the other matters, yeah, we're all hoping that the report out of the FER isn't true. It's not the first time such accusations have been made, and both the Republic and FER are sensitive to it. Anyone remember that Hungarian POW they found in a mental institution a few years back? He was from WWII! Poor guy was speaking a language nobody understood, and they thought he was nuts...so they locked him up in the loony bin. 45+ years in a Russian loony bin...god. We're hoping at worst, it's a case of something like that.

As for transfers, we have most of the Cuban documentation, and we confirmed most of them have been handed back as part of the cease-fire terms. The remainder died in captivity as far as anyone can tell, but a dozen names are still missing. And neither the Republic, nor FER authorities know where the hell they are. There is a small possibility the Rump USSR kept them, but that's somewhat remote, as these folks, their paper trail ends in Volkuta, which is now in the FER, and the FER and Japanese and some folks from the POW-MIA office went over that place with a fine tooth comb. And their MOSs weren't anything that would interest the Soviets...some Marines from Gitmo, a nurse from Brooke Army Medical Center, and one or two line officers from that Destroyer Tender. None of them knew anything particularly important. And, Soviet records don't record them as "hooligans or troublemakers" (code for particularly resistant prisoners). We just don't know what the hell happened.

zakueins

Friend of mine just confirmed that The Wolf Brigades is going to be translated to English from Japanese. VIZ manga will have the first collected edition printed in time for AnimeExpo this year. For those that don't know what it is, it's a "serial numbers filed off" manga of the experiences of Mamoru Oshii during the War, when was over with one of the Japanese PMCs. Got a chance to read the non-fiction history-a lot of what they did was on the West Coast (which probably is why they didn't get a lot of notice), did a lot of hard, crazy work against quislings and the Soviet special forces.

A few rumors of some stuff that was nasty, but I suspect it was a case of "time of war things going wrong".

Didn't get a chance to see a lot of the late night TV during the war years (with the exception of The Equalizer and Miami Vice)-they were trying very, very hard in the kid's stuff to keep it pretty light and cheerful. And, first real heavy "bringing over" of anime-I think a lot of the studios realized "it's already filmed, we can have people do the voices...". The Equalizer was one of those "very lucky" shows-most of the main cast and production staff was out of town when NY got hit, and they relocated to Boston for the rest of the series. Miami Vice kept their scripts a good mixture of "drug crime", "wartime drama", and "consequences of war"-great show.

Oh, almost forgot Magnum PI-they had the plot with the shift-over from Thomas being a private PI to being recalled and assigned to the NCIS division at Pearl Harbor. That he also seemed to have a lot of free time by a "friend" (they still never confirmed that Higgins was "Robin Masters", but that was one of those tongue-in-cheek Sir Ian Fleming/James Bond in-jokes) allowed him to do quite a bit of private investigation work.

JN1

Especially considering that it was made in the middle of wartime, and with all the brutalities being committed in the occupied zones, to this day I'm quite impressed by how they didn't go the easy way of making the pilot a stereotypical evil Ivan. The scenes where Renko tries to convince the pilot that they're not going to lynch him are quite tense - especially because both sides are armed - and also quite funny, with all the language misunderstandings.
I agree that was very well done. I met quite a few shot down Soviet aircrew during the war and only a couple fitted the stereotype; they were sons of party hacks to a man and were 'true believers'.
Talking of lynching the closest I saw to a Soviet pilot being lynched was shortly after Rosyth Dockyard got hit by CWs. My platoon had to rescue the pilot of an Su-22 from an angry mob intent on stringing him up. I'm sad to say I had to shoot one of the civilians that day, it's not something I'm particularly proud of, but fortunately he survived.

The A-Team was very popular with my battalion, even though we used to get a good laugh at their marksmanship in the early series. We also wished we had as vehicle that could take as much kit at the A-Team van.
Didn't the team get pardoned and recalled to the army (or was it the CIA?) before being sent out to help the partisans?

JN1

OOC post.

Giving London the 2004 Summer Olympics will have quite a few interesting effects. Infrastructure projects like Phase 2 of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (now High Speed 1) will be finished early, as will the East London Line. A lot of the effort to regenerate East London will also begin earlier, which is no bad thing.

Matt Wiser

"Hooligan and troublemaker" is what Kelly Ann Ray was called, especially for her part in the Open Water escape. Two years plus on the Isle of Pines was the reward for helping those two. She has a upcoming trial with a leftie collaborator who toured the POW camps in Cuba, but the "Grim Reaper" trial is still some time off. At least this leftie never laid a finger on her, so testifying won't be that big a problem emotionally. She's back in Pocatello, and the Sheriff told me that they did have a problem with a local photographer who tried to get some pics of her, but he got run in for disturbing the peace, and that settled that. When she's on duty with the Sheriff's Office, she drives one of those Ford Expeditions-and man, those rigs can move. Not as fast as say, a Crown Vic, but where she patrols, it's pretty decent.

Didn't one of the Magnum P.I. epsisodes deal with the botched VDV drop on Pearl? I do recall that sometime in 1988-89 an episode AFN aired showed the aftermath. One of the Family Ties eps in 1991 got really serious: Meredith Baxter-Birney's character got called for Jury Duty in Federal Court, and it turned out a friend from college (who she hadn't seen in 20+ years) was charged with collaboration and running one of those "People's Councils" Ivan set up in occupied territory. She wound up serving on the jury, and it was hard for her to convict someone she considered a friend, even though the evidence was overwhelming. She did vote for conviction, and the defendant got a 40-year sentence.

I remember hearing about that; from what the media has shown of those Russian loony bins, anyone who lived 45 days, let alone 45 years, has a lot of guts to survive. If the paper trail ends at Vorkuta, we may never know. Not that many POWs got sent to the USSR in the first place, but the more info we can find out about the MIAs, the better for both sides, as the MIA issue affects everyone. I've still got three squadron mates listed as MIA (two should be on the KIA-BNR list, as they went in with no chutes, but were listed MIA so that the families would still get pay and benefits until they were declared dead-after the war, but one I do know got out, and was known alive on the ground, but nothing since) and knowing what happened to my friends would be good to know. The WSO in the second incident did get rescued, and actually swam the Rio Grande in New Mexico to get back to friendly lines. How he got through gaps in the Cuban front line is a story in of itself, but he's kinda reluctant to talk about his time behind the lines. Some of what he saw on his E&E....you get the idea.

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Panzerfaust, how long's this symposium on POW-MIA issues supposed to last? Lots of ground to cover if it's only a week or so, unless this is the first of several. And we'd better hope that rumor you mentioned earlier about POW camps in the FER not getting the word the war's over is just that: rumor. Otherwise, a lot of people will go ballistic, and demand heads start rolling, and not just in the FER, but over here in DOD's POW-MIA office. Set your VCR to Showtime before you go: the movie Down in Cuba (Lt. Col. Kelly Ann Ray's story, with Meg Ryan as Col. Ray) premieres in two weeks. If you haven't yet read her book, do so. It might help you mentally to prepare for those POW-MIA discussions. Just hope the Cubans never shipped anyone from Cuba to the USSR-rumor says the Tomahawk maintenance people from the destroyer tender sunk at Gitmo and the base communications people were, since none were returned from Cuba in 1990, but....anyone know if additional POW camp records were found by our SSE people when we went into Cuba last year? Any kind of transfer to the USSR would have to be on paper somewhere. (Unless those have been destroyed)

So Ally Sheedy wound up in "other government agency" service? I imagine she's found out that real life can imitate Hollywood, given the cloak-and-dagger stuff some of those agencies practice. Assuming, of course, that she's gone out into the field.

Well, Air Force Times had some pics of the flight line at Nellis: seems a C-17 arrived from Tampico and unloaded two SA-15 launch vehicles. I imagine the Threat Training Facility at Nellis is going to go over them carefully. Hopefully, we also got the operating and maintenance manuals.
Trust me, I've already set my VCR to record that. They say it's really good.

JimmyRibbitt

JN1 said: ↑
I do remember hearing a few of those broadcasts from Cuba when the atmospherics were right. However for sh*ts and giggles we listened to the broadcasts from some lefty who had fled to Moscow just before the war.
No idea what happened to him, but he's probably still in the Rump USSR.

According to what I read once in the world radio TV handbook, there was, at one time, a 600KW transmitter for beaming Radio Moscow into the USA on the AM band, plus some other 150KW and 300KW AM transmitters in the country. I wonder how many of the lefties were on any of those.

I wonder how many of the lefties were on XEX, at 730KHz. That had a powerful enough signal to be heard in Southern California, at night. And when the classical station that was once on 1220 in the Bay Area went off the air at night, before being allowed nighttime operation, I could sometimes pick up the 1220 from Mexico City, XEGB, a 100KW station.

zakueins

I know the episode you're talking about. The director's commentary track has the hilarious irony that they were filming another episode when the attack happened. Two of the paratroopers came in while they were about to film a shoot-out, and the prop guys had live ammo...both surrendered very, very quickly.

They also had the A&E episode on the series. Turns out that Tom Sellick and John Hillerman would regularly tour the VA hospitals in Hawaii during the show, in character. Roger E. Mosley tried to show up as often as he could, and Larry Manetti tried as well, but couldn't as much as he'd like to (had panic attacks in the hospital). Tom had a great story about the times he went. Lemme find the quote...

"A few times after I went there, some of the guys would start relating sea stories, and one would come up along the lines of, 'You remember Thomas Magnum? SEAL? Works NCIS now?' The other guy would go, 'Yea, didn't he get chased out of that brothel on Saigon by the mamasan when he one-punched some grabby customer?' Then the both of them would think, and say, 'Yea, but what I heard was that he did both the customer and the bouncer when they tried to throw him out.'

"A couple of days later, I'd come in for another tour, and one of the guys came up to me and said, 'Yea, I know Thomas Magnum isn't a 'real person,' but the guy has so many potential stories that people believe he actually was around.' I asked him what stories he heard, and I got a chance to add a few of them to the scripts-I'd learn later that some of the guys would go 'Yea, that's him!' from memories of other events."
There was also a Raw Nerve episode with Shatter intervewing Sellick coming up next week. I'll have to check it out.

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Didn't one of the Magnum P.I. epsisodes deal with the botched VDV drop on Pearl? I do recall that sometime in 1988-89 an episode AFN aired showed the aftermath. One of the Family Ties eps in 1991 got really serious: Meredith Baxter-Birney's character got called for Jury Duty in Federal Court, and it turned out a friend from college (who she hadn't seen in 20+ years) was charged with collaboration and running one of those "People's Councils" Ivan set up in occupied territory. She wound up serving on the jury, and it was hard for her to convict someone she considered a friend, even though the evidence was overwhelming. She did vote for conviction, and the defendant got a 40-year sentence.

I remember hearing about that; from what the media has shown of those Russian loony bins, anyone who lived 45 days, let alone 45 years, has a lot of guts to survive. If the paper trail ends at Vorkuta, we may never know. Not that many POWs got sent to the USSR in the first place, but the more info we can find out about the MIAs, the better for both sides, as the MIA issue affects everyone. I've still got three squadron mates listed as MIA (two should be on the KIA-BNR list, as they went in with no chutes, but were listed MIA so that the families would still get pay and benefits until they were declared dead-after the war, but one I do know got out, and was known alive on the ground, but nothing since) and knowing what happened to my friends would be good to know. The WSO in the second incident did get rescued, and actually swam the Rio Grande in New Mexico to get back to friendly lines. How he got through gaps in the Cuban front line is a story in of itself, but he's kinda reluctant to talk about his time behind the lines. Some of what he saw on his E&E....you get the idea.

JN1

the war episodes of T.J Hooker? I've only ever seen the pre-war episodes so far.

joea64

zakueins said: ↑
Friend of mine just confirmed that The Wolf Brigades is going to be translated to English from Japanese. VIZ manga will have the first collected edition printed in time for AnimeExpo this year. For those that don't know what it is, it's a "serial numbers filed off" manga of the experiences of Mamoru Oshii during the War, when was over with one of the Japanese PMCs. Got a chance to read the non-fiction history-a lot of what they did was on the West Coast (which probably is why they didn't get a lot of notice), did a lot of hard, crazy work against quislings and the Soviet special forces.

A few rumors of some stuff that was nasty, but I suspect it was a case of "time of war things going wrong".
I'm really looking forward to reading that. I picked up samples from the VIZ table at Katsucon (held at the Sheraton in Tyson's Corner near my office) this past weekend. The con is probably going to move next year, by the way, after D.C. is formally reopened for business; with the economy starting to boom again and anime fandom exploding by leaps and bounds, it's getting too big for the Sheraton. Possible sites under discussion are the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City, which finally finished repairs and renovations a couple years back, or that gigantic new hotel/convention complex near Mount Vernon.

Have you ever read Gringo, one of the last works of the great Osamu Tezuka? He was working on it right up to the time of his death in 1989, and it was completed by the late Shotaro Ishinomori, who was a protege of his. It's about the adventures of a Japanese businessman traveling in the U.S. Southwest who gets caught in the outbreak of the war. He has a _lot_ of hairy exploits.

Didn't get a chance to see a lot of the late night TV during the war years (with the exception of The Equalizer and Miami Vice)-they were trying very, very hard in the kid's stuff to keep it pretty light and cheerful. And, first real heavy "bringing over" of anime-I think a lot of the studios realized "it's already filmed, we can have people do the voices...". The Equalizer was one of those "very lucky" shows-most of the main cast and production staff was out of town when NY got hit, and they relocated to Boston for the rest of the series. Miami Vice kept their scripts a good mixture of "drug crime", "wartime drama", and "consequences of war"-great show.

Oh, almost forgot Magnum PI-they had the plot with the shift-over from Thomas being a private PI to being recalled and assigned to the NCIS division at Pearl Harbor. That he also seemed to have a lot of free time by a "friend" (they still never confirmed that Higgins was "Robin Masters", but that was one of those tongue-in-cheek Sir Ian Fleming/James Bond in-jokes) allowed him to do quite a bit of private investigation work.
Didn't follow those three shows as closely as MacGyver, but I watched a good many episodes of Magnum, P.I. Three lighter shows that had a lot of wartime-espionage episodes were Remington Steele, Simon & Simon and Scarecrow and Mrs. King. (Gerald McRaney, who was one of the stars of Simon & Simon, later went on to star in the long-running Major Dad, which took a light - most of the time, anyway - look at a military family readjusting to life in America in the postwar period.) Not to mention the revival of Mission: Impossible (1987-1990). That last was one of my absolute favorites during the latter part of the war; it was a real treat watching Peter Graves back again as Jim Phelps with the I.M.F., foiling ComBloc plots every week through the judicious application of brains and high technology.

Another wartime show I remember that definitely was on the light side was Sledge Hammer! (1986-1990) David Rasche and Anne-Marie Martin were absolute lunatics in that program, it was as good as watching the classic Marx Brothers. They went by the precept that the best way to marginalize tyrants is to make fun of them, so the show's creative crew was forever thinking up new ways to mercilessly mock the ComBloc and all its works. They really helped people blow off steam by poking fun at the sillier and more irritating aspects of wartime life. Remember, for instance, the episode where Sledge came up with one thousand and one recipes for boiled artichoke (which he grew fresh in his backyard "Victory Garden") and forced Dori Doreau (Martin) and Captain Trunk (Harrison Page) to try each and every one of them?

On a somewhat more serious note, the early-postwar (started 1992) series Silk Stalkings is also worthy of note. It ran on USA cable network, so it was able to push the envelope rather further than broadcast television. The basic premise concerned two veterans/former MP's (played by Rob Estes and Mitzi Kapture) who joined the Palm Beach (Florida) Police Department. Even in the hard times following the war, there were still significant pockets of wealth, and Palm Beach was one of them. Tracking down black marketeers, collaborators and suspected ComBloc war criminals was a huge part of the show, done up with a lot of glamour and a lot of beautiful women. (Of course, given that the show was shot in California, there were some pretty peculiar visuals, as in the scenes shot at the Ventura Pier which was supposed to represent the beach at Palm Beach! Needs must as the devil drive, though; in those days, real location shooting was still prohibitively expensive for the average TV show.)

Reality TV: don't forget America's Most Wanted. That show has done a LOT to help track down dozens of war criminals and collaborators since it went on the air in early 1988, when the war was still going full blast.

For fantasy, there was Highway to Heaven (1984-1989), which had angel Jonathan Smith (Michael Landon) and his human sidekick Mark Gordon (Victor French) roaming the byways of America. Lots of wartime stories in the seasons after 1985-86. There was also Beauty and the Beast (1987-1989), a romantic confection which had Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman (as the titular Beast) falling in love in a mystical underground world deep under Chicago.

All in all, it seems pretty odd to say this, but the darkest time in American history since the Civil War also turned out to be the second golden age of American television. (We will NOT, however, discuss Small Wonder, which was often theorized to be an OGA "black project" with the objective of rotting the brains of any ComBloc personnel who were unfortunate enough to have the TV on when the program came on through its sheer idiocy. )

joea64

JN1 said: ↑
Anybody seen any of the war episodes of T.J Hooker? I've only ever seen the pre-war episodes so far.
I've seen some of them. ABC canceled the series in May 1985, several months before the war began, but CBS almost immediately picked it up and revived it as a series of TV movies which ran throughout the war and the immediate aftermath, 1985 to 1990. The movie I'm thinking of had a small Spetsnaz unit terrorizing the fictional "L.C.", and Hooker and his team had to track them down with the help of the L.C.P.D. SWAT unit and some Green Berets.

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Speaking of Open Water, the web forum Celebrity City has a HUGE collection of stills and behind-the-scenes photos of Catherine Bell from that movie, you might want to go check them out. (OOC: the webmaster of the real Celebrity City site really freaks for Catherine Bell. )

joea64

Matt Wiser said: ↑
One of the Family Ties eps in 1991 got really serious: Meredith Baxter-Birney's character got called for Jury Duty in Federal Court, and it turned out a friend from college (who she hadn't seen in 20+ years) was charged with collaboration and running one of those "People's Councils" Ivan set up in occupied territory. She wound up serving on the jury, and it was hard for her to convict someone she considered a friend, even though the evidence was overwhelming. She did vote for conviction, and the defendant got a 40-year sentence.
Yes, I remember that episode well. It was probably the most difficult one of the whole series for me to watch, even more than the episode where Alex (Fox) has to come to terms with the combat death of his best friend. It's no wonder that the TV Tropes site cites those two eps as classic examples of Tear Jerker.

[lordroel]

From page 113

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Getting back to the subject of Korea: I have an online friend who's a member of my guild in the Internet-based roleplaying game Guild Wars. He's currently stationed in the ROK with the Air Force (OOC: this is true in RL so far) and has a lot to say about the current situation on the Peninsula.

To make a long story short, the ROK government is basically waiting for the NK's to collapse of their own accord. From the reports that come in from the few neutral-nation tourists who venture up there these days, it's an open question as to whether the situation there is more preposterous, horrifying, bizarre or pitiful. The "Dear Leader" (Kim Jong-il) literally seems to have taken leave of his senses, starting with the aborted construction of that absurd pyramid-like hotel, and his repeated (and repeatedly botched) attempts to build a nuclear weapon while the North is racked by repeated famines. From what my friend's sources in the South Korean armed services tell him, the population of the so-called DPRK has dropped by something like one million over the past decade, and that's not from purges. Those aforementioned tourists are all united in reporting that even Pyongyang, the showcase city and capital, seems eerily empty, and a few brave souls have snuck photos of slums in the capital as bad as any Brazilian favela (OOC: true. I've seen one Western visitor's blog about his NK visit a few years back with those pictures!).

What's really bizarre is that, in the NK media, the claim is heard incessantly that half of America is socialist and the other half is on the verge of collapse, and the ComBloc is leading the world to a new era of peace, prosperity and Juche (the crackpot variant on Communist ideology propounded by the Kims). Even the Party of Orwell's 1984 might hesitate to make claims that were so totally out of line with the real world.

Given all that, the ROK strategy is simple; sit tight, slap down the NK's whenever they get a bit too frisky with cross-border incursions and raids, and wait for time and nature to take their course.

JN1

joea64 said: ↑
I've seen some of them. ABC canceled the series in May 1985, several months before the war began, but CBS almost immediately picked it up and revived it as a series of TV movies which ran throughout the war and the immediate aftermath, 1985 to 1990. The movie I'm thinking of had a small Spetsnaz unit terrorizing the fictional "L.C.", and Hooker and his team had to track them down with the help of the L.C.P.D. SWAT unit and some Green Berets.
Both Hooker and Romano were Vietnam vets, though I can't remember whether they were ex-Special Forces, so it's plausible to see them going after Spetsnaz. Btw Lance LeGault, best known perhaps for playing Colonel Decker in The A-Team played a SWAT lieutenant in one episode. Guess what the character was called - Decker.

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Two more WWIII-era TV series: Spenser: For Hire, starring Robert Urich as Robert Parker's titular detective and Avery Brooks as his sidekick Hawk. The series ran on ABC from 1985-1991, and generally stuck pretty close to the books (particularly since Parker himself was a consultant and writer to the show, and a couple of the scripts he wrote later became part of the novel series). As is the usual pattern with shows that got underway in 1985 or before, war-related stories didn't start showing up until the 1986 season, and tended to be mainly espionage or political in nature. (The book Spenser, being a Korea veteran, tended to have a particularly hardnosed view of Communists and their sympathizers, and quislings got very short shrift from him and Hawk.) One especially notable two-parter episode shown in the 1988-1989 season had the duo, aided by Spenser's love Dr. Susan Silverman (Barbara Stock), protecting a Cuban defector from being tracked down and killed by the DGI. This was complicated by the fact that the Cubans had put out a contract on him via the Broz family, which had been tricked into thinking that the defector was a cocaine runner on the lam from the Colombian drug cartel. This episode, so far, is the only one of the series to have been released on DVD.

L.A. Law (1986-1994) focused mainly on wartime issues in its first four seasons; many episodes dealt with the legal ramifications of war crimes trials and prosecutions of collaborators. In its last four seasons, the show's main focus shifted to "peacetime" legal/political issues, though several well-received episodes delved into the initial wave of Tier I and Tier II trials.

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Shifting the focus to movies: let's talk about some of the major war-related films released in the second half of the 1980's and onward to the present day. I think I mentioned Steel Magnolias in an earlier post. Some other notable films with a war theme released during those years include:

Die Hard (1988) - Bruce Willis is a Philly cop who has, at some considerable danger and expense, made the cross-country trip to L.A. to visit his estranged wife on Christmas, but finds himself in the middle of a East German commando raid.

Red Heat (also 1988) - Arnold Schwarzenegger's character goes on a dangerous undercover mission to infiltrate the MVD in the occupied zone and rescue high-value partisan prisoners.

Predator (1987) - Arnie leads a Special Forces mission into ComBloc Central America, only to run into the alien hunter of the title (said Predator spectacularly wastes a Soviet Hind helo in one scene).

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) - Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) vs. the KGB. Guess who wins.

The Lethal Weapon series (1987 onwards) - Mel Gibson and Danny Glover as loose-cannon DIA operatives who battle the GRU (1st installment), track down a fleeing ALA commander (2nd installment), foil a rump-USSR plot to overthrow the Russian Republic (3rd installment), and combat a Chinese warlord running a slave-labor immigration ring into the U.S. (4th installment). (OOC: the last is quite close to the actual plot of Lethal Weapon 4!)

Sign o' the Times - Documentary/concert film chronicling Prince's 1986/87 USO tour; includes his "Stand Back" duet with Stevie Nicks at the show they did for the 24th ID (Mech).

Rattle and Hum - another documentary/concert film, this one of U2's various USO tours of the U.S. and Canada from 1987 through 1989.

Russkies (1987) - Joaquin Phoenix befriends several Russian POW's being held in Minnesota, and convinces them of the superiority of the American way of life. Pretty heavy-handed propaganda, I have to say.

Ishtar (1987) - probably the biggest film fiasco of the war years. Director Elaine May had originally intended to shoot it on location in Morocco, but when the war intervened, she shot it in Nevada instead (and had to change the script completely). Good performances from Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman just can't save this unintelligible mess about two DIA agents trying to set off an anti-Communist revolution in a fictional Middle East satellite nation.

Innerspace (1987) - Dennis Quaid and Martin Short in a wacky sci-fi comedy about a nebbish (Short) who swallows a miniaturized DoD ultra-high-tech medical research craft (piloted by Quaid) that's the target of a bunch of incompetent KGB agents. (OOC: this is pretty much the plot of the OTL movie!)

The Gods Must Be Crazy II (1989) - Xixo, the hero of the original The Gods Must Be Crazy, volunteers to go to America as a tracker for the South African expeditionary force. He meets Mescalero Apaches and doltish Cuban commandos along the way.

Weekend at Bernie's (1989) - Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman have to deal with the dead body of their boss, who is in fact a Soviet spy who has just been purged by his idiot controller (who completely forgot to check the corpse for microfilms containing critical U.S. offensive plans). McCarthy and Silverman spend the weekend on the lam, carting Bernie's cadaver, being pursued by a veritable alphabet soup of ComBloc intelligence agencies and an extremely bemused young female FBI agent (Catherine Mary Stewart).

Anyone want to share other memorable titles?

DD951

Matt Wiser said: ↑
(snip) Broncos (who barely got out of Denver before the siege-they played their games at the University of Oregon)
OOC- Autzen Stadium, the University of Oregon's stadium probably would have been too small (about 41,000 seats in the 1980s), too crude (it's featured in Animal House as the fictional Faber University stadium, & in about the same condition in the mid 1980s) and way too far out of the way. Oregon State's stadium would have the same problems. Unfortunately, there isn't really a suitable venue in the Portland metro area either, so the Broncos would either have to go to LA/Oakland (wherever the Raiders aren't at this time) or double up in a city with another AFC/NFC West team to keep them on the west coast; although Seattle would have the facilities, the Seahawks & Broncos had a very heated rivalry when they were both in the AFC West (Seahawks were transferred to the NFC West in the post-2001 NFL realignment OTL when the NFL went to 4-team divisions & the other teams in the division were all originally in the old AFL Western Division, which became the AFC West after the AFL/NFL merger), and similar issues would be involved in doubling them up with the Raiders or Chargers).

thepenguin

DD951 said: ↑
OOC- Autzen Stadium, the University of Oregon's stadium probably would have been too small (about 41,000 seats in the 1980s), too crude (it's featured in Animal House as the fictional Faber University stadium, & in about the same condition in the mid 1980s) and way too far out of the way. Oregon State's stadium would have the same problems. Unfortunately, there isn't really a suitable venue in the Portland metro area either, so the Broncos would either have to go to LA/Oakland (wherever the Raiders aren't at this time) or double up in a city with another AFC/NFC West team to keep them on the west coast; although Seattle would have the facilities, the Seahawks & Broncos had a very heated rivalry when they were both in the AFC West (Seahawks were transferred to the NFC West in the post-2001 NFL realignment OTL when the NFL went to 4-team divisions & the other teams in the division were all originally in the old AFL Western Division, which became the AFC West after the AFL/NFL merger), and similar issues would be involved in doubling them up with the Raiders or Chargers).
(OOC: They go to Oakland. Al "Senile" Davis moved them to LA in 1982. They didn't go back to Oakland until 1995. Also, joea, what happened to the baseball teams of New York and the hockey teams of New York and Washington and the Giants and Jets in this timeline? I put the Capitals in Annapolis, MD so I could keep the Capitals name (lazy, i know))

TheMann

Blue Steel (1990, starring John Travolta, Jamie Lee Curtis, Forest Whitaker, Reiko Aylesworth, Michael Palin and Denzel Washington) - The first great roles for Forest Whitaker and Reiko Aylesworth, and great work by John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis. Four NYPD cops who were away with families when the war broke, and after NY is hit, they hook up together, becoming feared Spetznaz hunters. The name comes from a M14 rifle owned by Travolta, which is rebuilt by a gunsmith halfway through the movie which gives it a metallic finish on its new parts. One of my favorites, partly because Whitaker is so good and because it effectively revived Travolta's career. I never had Michael Palin figured for anything better than a comedian (which he is VERY good at), but he's good in this one.

La Femme Nikita (1990, starring Anne Parillaud, Tcheky Karyo, Jean Reno and Jeanne Moreau) - A woman who supposedly dies in prison from a drug overdose becomes a famed DSGE assassin, starting with French and German Reds. You find it hard to tell that this movie was made outside of Hollywood, it's really good.

No Return (1993, starring the above as well as Ving Rhames, Chris Rock, Tim Robbins, Benjamin Bratt, Ned Romero and Ulrich Muhe), is the Sequel to La Femme Nikita. The sequel sees the woman go to North America and assisting the Native American, South African and Korean trackers during the late stages of the war after Europe gets out from under the Soviet thumb. Muhe, an escapee of east Berlin himself, here does an absolutely masterful job in his performance.

The Hunt for Red October (1991, starring Alec Baldwin, Sean Connery, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill and James Earl Jones) - a high-tech Soviet ballistic missile submarine defects to the United States, but the plan comes in the middle of the war, forcing the submarine to make its intention known to the Americans - but not the Soviets.

Chuck Mandus

JimmyRibbitt said: ↑
According to what I read once in the world radio TV handbook, there was, at one time, a 600KW transmitter for beaming Radio Moscow into the USA on the AM band, plus some other 150KW and 300KW AM transmitters in the country. I wonder how many of the lefties were on any of those.

I wonder how many of the lefties were on XEX, at 730KHz. That had a powerful enough signal to be heard in Southern California, at night. And when the classical station that was once on 1220 in the Bay Area went off the air at night, before being allowed nighttime operation, I could sometimes pick up the 1220 from Mexico City, XEGB, a 100KW station.
IRL, I remember hearing them, they were on 1100 kc I think, for some reason, they "walked over" WWWE's (now WTAM) signal out of Cleveland. Sometimes when I listen to WKBN, 570 kc, out of Youngstown, Ohio, Cuba's Radio Reloj "walks over" their signal in the winter.

thepenguin

Chuck Mandus said: ↑
IRL, I remember hearing them, they were on 1100 kc I think, for some reason, they "walked over" WWWE's (now WTAM) signal out of Cleveland. Sometimes when I listen to WKBN, 570 kc, out of Youngstown, Ohio, Cuba's Radio Reloj "walks over" their signal in the winter.
Ah...sometimes I wish I still lived in Ohio. I miss Joe Tait calling a Cavs game (even though I can watch them on NBA League Pass, I hate listening to the national announcers) on the old "Three Dubya E." Oh well. Maybe we'll move back when the girls graduate from high school and I max out.
(OOC: Chuck, you live around Y-town IRL?)

sloreck

Being with the Marines in one capacity or another for most of the war, in the field or at sea a lot, did not get to see much TV. On the Tarawa we did see movies, and Cindi Lauper gave a concert on the flight deck when we were in San Diego one time. When I was at Camp Pendleton did watch some cop shows and Cosby, as a surgeon, even now, watching "doctor" shows usually grates, and during the war the last thing I wanted to do off duty was see more blood & gore in an OR.

Now that I'm retired from medicine & getting my history PhD, hope to be involved in some work (both open & classified) on Marine ops during WWIII. We (with 1st FSSG) did see some CNA (Center for Naval Analysis) folks during the war, heard there were some when Tarawa went to Guam, but they were with the ships company.

Matt Wiser

I finally bought a DVD of Open Water, and when you see how Catherine Bell and Laura Dern looked the parts they played....the POW scenes are nasty enough, but when they're out on the water, trying to get those 90+ miles to Key West..they look pretty thin by anyone's standard. They literally kissed the ground at Key West after the Coast Guard found them a few miles offshore, and sent them to the NAS Boca Chica base hospital. Those two escapees fully deserved to be the first women since Dr. Mary Walker in 1864 to get the Medal of Honor. Btw, the original raft the two escapees used is on display at the Naval Academy, but a replica is at Key West. Panzerfaust has probably seen it when he was at Key West handling IDs of captured Cuban war criminals seized after the end of Fidel's regime.

A lot of those movies, especially the ones from 1987-89, are very familiar. DOD had a deal with Hollywood where first-run movies were released to the military at the same time they hit the theaters. Then again, in 1986-early '87, we were at Williams AFB outside Scottsdale, and when we had time off, but had to stay close to the base in the event of a recall, hitting the local cineplex was a good way to escape both the war and the heat. But if we had several days off, or a weekend, going on off-road trips was pretty darned fun-as long as we stayed clear of the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant: that was a high-security area for the duration.

We don't have to worry about those Mexican or Cuban stations any more, but I imagine the lefties who did get to Moscow are still making those broadcasts. Just wait until the rump Soviet state falls apart and we'll get them, too. As for NK...talk about how detached from reality! Do they still think the war's still going on? And how did they explain getting kicked off of Guam-or did they? I've heard from CNN and other sources (Time, for example) that the NKs won't admit that man walked on the moon, as the Apollo program was a U.S. effort and not a "socialist" one.

If the movie-makers have done justice to Lt. Col. Ray's book, then they will have done a good job. I do plan to watch, and she does too. Kelly Ann did say that Meg Ryan really got into the part, and when she was on set in Hollywood (filming some of the prison scenes), the reconstruction of the prison was so real that she had to pinch herself to be reminded "it's just a movie set." One thing during that part of the filming: when a break was called after shooting a scene, they came in to take Meg's leg irons off, and she said no. Pointing to Kelly Ann, she said "that woman wore those irons for two years; so what if I wear them for two more hours." And Meg had no problems with shooting some of the torture scenes: she didn't use a body double.....If an Emmy comes from this role, Ms. Ryan will have earned it.

Matt Wiser

Hey Penguin, you guys return home yet, or are you still at Holloman?

thepenguin

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Hey Penguin, you guys return home yet, or are you still at Holloman?
We finally returned to Duluth after spending a few days in Toledo. We had a series of snow storms roll through. Toledo got a foot from that one on the eighth and it took a little bit to clean up from that one. We returned Valentine's Day. We spent a few days right after the cease-fire at Holloman flying with the Germans and the resident F-22 wing and then we went to Toledo to fly with the 180th on a NORAD exercise. The snow grounded us after that for a few days.

DD951

thepenguin said: ↑
(OOC: They go to Oakland. Al "Senile" Davis moved them to LA in 1982. They didn't go back to Oakland until 1995. Also, joea, what happened to the baseball teams of New York and the hockey teams of New York and Washington and the Giants and Jets in this timeline? I put the Capitals in Annapolis, MD so I could keep the Capitals name (lazy, i know))
OOC: I don't think that's been decided upon, although there was some discussion on that topic about 3-4 pages ago.

IC: Didn't get much TV reception out on the Turner Joy either. We did get some movies as well, although we were a bit down on the distribution list. Not that much of a movie fan myself, although some of I remember seeing included Die Hard, Leathal Weapon, Blue Steel, and Weekend at Bernie's (didn't really care for that one myself).

JimmyRibbitt

I am surprised that the lefties never used Wolfman Jack's old station, XERF, 1570, in Ciudad Acuna, right over the border, with its transmitter capable of 250KW, or the 150KW transmitter in Monterrey, on 1050. I think if it were not for the fact that parts for those old transmitters have long been all but impossible to find, they might very well have been on XERF. The parts to those old transmitter

It's too bad they didn't use either station, really, The Americans could have taken those lefties out, once and for all, with a few artillerary rounds fired from Del Rio, Texas. I think artillery rounds fired from Del Rio could have hit them. And had the lefties had been on the Monterrey station, a couple of F-16s coiuld have been disapatched to put the lefties out of action once and for all.

Whatever became of XEPRS, "The mighty 1090", after the USA took over Baja? I used to like their late program of 50s and early 60s oldies, back in the early '80s. Many a night I would be listening to them when I should have been asleep, even on school nights, my parents just never knew I was doing it. The antenna aligment gave the 50KW signal an ERP of over 100KW, and they often got requests from as far away as Alaska. Its a wonder the lefties never ended up on that station, with its strong signal over all of the west coast. XEPRS was playing their nightly 12AM to 6AM oldies show right up until the war broke out in '85. The advent of headphone radios allowed me do this, without my parents ever getting wise to it.

Aslo, what ever happened to the 77,000 watt station in Tijuana, XETRA? They were a popular English language Top 40 station from Tijuana up until the start of the war.
Last edited: Feb 17, 2010

Matt Wiser

You're not the only one who didn't care for Weekend at Bernies. Incidentally, AFN was pretty good at getting TV set up as PRAIRIE FIRE and LONG RIFLE got going. TPTB decided that news, sports and entertainment were vital for morale, so AFN set up shop as territory was liberated, and behind the front lines in 1986 during the fall and winter, when the lines were static. Granted, we were often too busy to watch, but when guys were off duty, whether air or ground crew, sitting down to watch some TV could get your mind of things, especially sports. CNN, though, was very popular, as one did want to know what was going on outside our little part of the war. I still get a kick out of Panzerfaust's story about Cuban EPWs having a riot because the Cable TV in their camp day room broke down while they were watching C-SPAN! (instead of the Playboy Channel....) One kind of football that never stopped was college ball, btw.

Anyone who was in PRAIRE FIRE remember what they were doing when that kicked off? With us in the 335th, it was strange: normally we were wheels-up at 0600 or 0630 for the first missions of the day, but this time it was 0400. Eight F-4s, each with a dozen 500-lb or 750-lb bombs, going out and doing a mini B-52 strike on some Cuban positions between Soccoro and Las Lunas in New Mexico, not knowing what was up. We got back (I led the second flight of four) and things at Williams were going full throttle: hot turnarounds, some crews not even leaving the cockpit while their birds were refueled and rearmed, etc. We went in for the debrief, and the intel guys told us that PRAIRIE FIRE had launched, and we were one of the kickoff strikes. Security, you know...Four more missions that day in support of III Corps, and we never looked back. A week later, we moved to Kirtland (Alberquerque), and two weeks later, Cannon (Clovis). Some of those towns along I-40 and U.S. 60 fell without a fight, others, like Clovis...nasty.

Kara got a letter from Smolensk today, Panzerfaust, and it's asking about a MiG-23 loss near Seguin, Texas on 14 Aug 1988, during the battle for San Antonio. The writer is a retired RuAF Colonel (was SAF, but never deployed to North America) and is asking about an older brother, who was a Major at the time, and was reported as MIA. Kara's checking her logbook for any kills on that date, and I've also contacted other 335th Alumni to see if any of us have Flogger kills on that date, though I personally do not. The letter stated that the SAF loss report (presumably from the Russian Republic's files) says the MiG was shot down "by USAF F-4 Phantoms." Though we weren't the only AF F-4 unit in that part of Texas (ask the 4th or the 347th TFWs, not to mention the various Guard and Reserve units), the San Antonio area was our main AO in that time period.

That station in Baja is still an oldies station, but they're now KEPS. I didn't listen to 'em, but some of the older NCOs did. The Tijuana station got shelled off the air in the first week, because 1st MarDiv and the Navy didn't leave much standing. Once the major networks moved in postwar after Baja became a protectorate, you can guess what happened-in Tijuana and Ensenada, anyhow. All the border cities along the Rio Grande or the Arizona and New Mexico borders with Mexico got bombed or shelled into rubble before the armistice, and there were enough shooting incidents since the war ended to occasionally "bounce the rubble." Juraez, for example, looked like World War III ended the previous day when 10th ACR and 3rd Armored Division crossed after New Year's. III Corps found Piedras Negras and Neuvo Laredo in the same condition when 1st Cav and 2nd Armored Division crossed, and the same could be said for the cities on the lower Rio Grande. (XVIII Airborne Corps and IX Corps)

joea64

Matt Wiser said: ↑
You're not the only one who didn't care for Weekend at Bernies. Incidentally, AFN was pretty good at getting TV set up as PRAIRIE FIRE and LONG RIFLE got going. TPTB decided that news, sports and entertainment were vital for morale, so AFN set up shop as territory was liberated, and behind the front lines in 1986 during the fall and winter, when the lines were static. Granted, we were often too busy to watch, but when guys were off duty, whether air or ground crew, sitting down to watch some TV could get your mind of things, especially sports. CNN, though, was very popular, as one did want to know what was going on outside our little part of the war. I still get a kick out of Panzerfaust's story about Cuban EPWs having a riot because the Cable TV in their camp day room broke down while they were watching C-SPAN! (instead of the Playboy Channel....) One kind of football that never stopped was college ball, btw.
Just because I cited Weekend at Bernie's in my list of notable wartime movies doesn't mean I loved it, either! I thought it was important to mention that Hollywood was still putting out silly junk even in the middle of World War III - exactly as they did all through World War II along with the great movies. After all, the same studio system that produced Casablanca and Mrs. Miniver also ground out terrible dreck like the Dead End Kids movies (Ava Gardner got her first role in one of those grade-Z waste of films, BTW). And by "silly junk", I particularly mean the endless series of horror movies that were churned out during the 1980's and early 1990's. Hollywood had noticed that Halloween was a gigantic moneymaker, so they started right off on endless "unkillable monster terrorizes horny teenagers" flicks. When the war began, that was expanded to "unkillable monster terrorizes horny teenagers AND Communist soldiers and secret policemen". What drove me nuts, really, was exactly that - the monster NEVER died for good. Never. I was about ready to throw my VCR out the window at several points. The only ones of that genre that were worth a damn were the Nightmare on Elm Street series, IMO, because of the slyly subversive humor that Robert Englund brought to the role of Freddy Krueger.

College ball running full blast is how East Carolina University ended up being added to the Atlantic Coast Conference. East Coast schools were fortunate in that so many of their regular opponents are reasonably close by; this was very important with gasoline rationing, even though TPTB also believed that spectator sports were important for maintaining community cohesion and morale. North Carolina is sometimes called "the sports capital of the South" because it has so many Division I-A and I-AA teams in the major sports, five Division I-A teams in football alone (UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State, Wake Forest, Duke and ECU). College basketball also kept going close to normally throughout the war, though I believe they had to jigger the Big Dance (the NCAA Division I tournament) to account for the schools that couldn't participate, mainly in the Southwest, because they were under enemy occupation.

JN1

I notice no one has mention The Rockford Files yet. I always enjoyed watching that during down time, James Garner was a Korea vet, btw and his limp came from being WIA.

Of course we also had a rather black sense of humor and enjoyed watching a copy of the film Threads someone had on a VHS tape. Cue jokes about prawn cocktail crisps, the penalties of looting and armed traffic wardens.

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑
You're not the only one who didn't care for Weekend at Bernies. Incidentally, AFN was pretty good at getting TV set up as PRAIRIE FIRE and LONG RIFLE got going. TPTB decided that news, sports and entertainment were vital for morale, so AFN set up shop as territory was liberated, and behind the front lines in 1986 during the fall and winter, when the lines were static. Granted, we were often too busy to watch, but when guys were off duty, whether air or ground crew, sitting down to watch some TV could get your mind of things, especially sports. CNN, though, was very popular, as one did want to know what was going on outside our little part of the war. I still get a kick out of Panzerfaust's story about Cuban EPWs having a riot because the Cable TV in their camp day room broke down while they were watching C-SPAN! (instead of the Playboy Channel....) One kind of football that never stopped was college ball, btw.

Anyone who was in PRAIRE FIRE remember what they were doing when that kicked off? With us in the 335th, it was strange: normally we were wheels-up at 0600 or 0630 for the first missions of the day, but this time it was 0400. Eight F-4s, each with a dozen 500-lb or 750-lb bombs, going out and doing a mini B-52 strike on some Cuban positions between Soccoro and Las Lunas in New Mexico, not knowing what was up. We got back (I led the second flight of four) and things at Williams were going full throttle: hot turnarounds, some crews not even leaving the cockpit while their birds were refueled and rearmed, etc. We went in for the debrief, and the intel guys told us that PRAIRIE FIRE had launched, and we were one of the kickoff strikes. Security, you know...Four more missions that day in support of III Corps, and we never looked back. A week later, we moved to Kirtland (Alberquerque), and two weeks later, Cannon (Clovis). Some of those towns along I-40 and U.S. 60 fell without a fight, others, like Clovis...nasty.

Kara got a letter from Smolensk today, Panzerfaust, and it's asking about a MiG-23 loss near Seguin, Texas on 14 Aug 1988, during the battle for San Antonio. The writer is a retired RuAF Colonel (was SAF, but never deployed to North America) and is asking about an older brother, who was a Major at the time, and was reported as MIA. Kara's checking her logbook for any kills on that date, and I've also contacted other 335th Alumni to see if any of us have Flogger kills on that date, though I personally do not. The letter stated that the SAF loss report (presumably from the Russian Republic's files) says the MiG was shot down "by USAF F-4 Phantoms." Though we weren't the only AF F-4 unit in that part of Texas (ask the 4th or the 347th TFWs, not to mention the various Guard and Reserve units), the San Antonio area was our main AO in that time period.

That station in Baja is still an oldies station, but they're now KEPS. I didn't listen to 'em, but some of the older NCOs did. The Tijuana station got shelled off the air in the first week, because 1st MarDiv and the Navy didn't leave much standing. Once the major networks moved in postwar after Baja became a protectorate, you can guess what happened-in Tijuana and Ensenada, anyhow. All the border cities along the Rio Grande or the Arizona and New Mexico borders with Mexico got bombed or shelled into rubble before the armistice, and there were enough shooting incidents since the war ended to occasionally "bounce the rubble." Juraez, for example, looked like World War III ended the previous day when 10th ACR and 3rd Armored Division crossed after New Year's. III Corps found Piedras Negras and Neuvo Laredo in the same condition when 1st Cav and 2nd Armored Division crossed, and the same could be said for the cities on the lower Rio Grande. (XVIII Airborne Corps and IX Corps)
Heh, I remember that story! As for PRARIE FIRE, it kicked off as I went west on leave. Say, Matt, do you know anything about whether or not a small town by the name of Kerrville was taken with a fight or not? My maternal grandparents lived there.

Matt Wiser

Kerrville was taken by 2nd Brigade, 1st Cav during III Corps' drive on San Antonio. They wanted to get around and catch the ComBloc in SA from the flanks and rear, and avoid the slugging match that was D/FW. And since Gen. Fred Franks was now under Schwartzkopf, and seeing what happened to VII Corps' CG and two divisional COs....(summarily relieved) he was more aggressive than he'd been during PRAIRIE FIRE or LONG RIFLE I. That part of Texas was more wide open, and allowed for flanking manuvers on unsuspecting opponents, especially one who neglected such things as flank security and proper patrols (which the Cubans in Kerrville did). The Cuban garrison woke up and found a battalion's worth of M-1s and Bradleys in town and sitting on the I-10 before they knew what was going on. Hardly a shot fired, and the Cubans began walking towards the EPW enclosure. A nearby labor camp was liberated, the inmates got the medical care they sorely needed, and also dealt with some stool pigeons...and the Cav looked the other way in that. A couple of local collaborators were also lynched, and the Cav also turned a blind eye to that. Too bad the rest of the San Antonio campaign wasn't like that...but at least 1st Cav got to Kelly AFB fast enough so we could use it. We would've preferred Randolph north of the city, but the F-111 guys were too good: by the time 23rd ID got there, the runways were in such bad shape it took two weeks to get just one of two up and operational. Kelly, though, was tent city again until the EOD guys could clear all the booby traps from the base buildings.

Remember the first series about the war itself-Tour of Duty? That lasted only three seasons from 1991-94. It was good, well done, and very realistic for network TV. The problem was, memories were still too fresh...and a lot of what the show depicted was still too close to home. At least they showed one of the units raised during the war: 23rd ID in New Mexico and Texas.

(OOC: How's this for the New York basketball and NHL teams? The invasion happened in the NBA training camp and just before the NHL's, so you'd have players either at the training camp or at their off-season homes. I'd have the Knicks regroup at either Albany or Buffalo to play, and as for the Islanders and Rangers, how about Columbus and Indianapolis? That leaves the Yankees and Mets, and if one team was on a road trip, they could find a temporary home somewhere-Charlotte's been trying to get a MLB team for years, and you could put the other team in South Florida when they're reconstituted.)

[lordroel]

From page 114

JN1

Every time I read about what went on behind Soviet lines in America and Canada I'm thankful that we were never occupied. A few small areas of northern England and southern Scotland were briefly occupied by Soviet paratroops, but the time was measured in hours rather than years.
Fortunately they didn't have time to commit any major atrocities like Point Barrow. A few civilians were killed, or injured; some were 'have a go heroes' who thought they could take on Soviet troops with a shotgun, or were just innocent victims who got in the way.

Some of the perpetrators of those atrocities were captured and tried by General Court Martial. Those found guilty (all of them, btw) were shot by firing squad.

BigWillyG

My boys finally home. His boat came in last week and he's got a months leave and came to see the family. His war, as much as he can tell me was very quiet and outside of launching Tomahawks they never used any weapons. He says they never came across anything Mexican big enough to warrant a Mk-48 or Harpoon. Guess he's not beating his old mans tonnage totals anytime soon.

On a different point am I the only person who liked Weekend at Bernies? I saw it ashore in the Gulf during the war and found it hillarious. Was always good to be able to laugh in the middle of all the nastiness.
(OCC - I like the actual Weekend at Bernies movies so I thought I'd defend the ATL version.)

Matt Wiser

One show that I liked in college, and in the Air Force, even during the war, was The Dukes of Hazzard. Hardly any of their stories from 1985-89 dealt with the war, and it was good escapist fare. Even though one episode had Boss Hogg trying to milk a GRU agent for all the money he had before turning him in-bad choice. A Spetsnatz Team was that agent's muscle, and the Dukes and Sheriff Roscoe had to team up (again) to get Boss out of trouble and call in some Rangers from Fort Benning (the show was set in Georgia) to deal with the Spetsnatz. How'd the Dukes get by during gas rationing? Simple: Ol' Uncle Jesse was an old moonshiner, and alcohol fuel was in good supply (a lot of that in the South and in Appalachia....)

Hey Panzerfaust, Kara checked her logbook, and no MiG-23 kill at that time and place. She did kill a MiG-27 that day, but it was in the morning, and near Randolph AFB NE of San Antonio. None of the other 335 alumni have a MiG-23 kill logged on that day. I've referred this guy's letter to AFHC, so they can check kill records from other units, as well as the Marine Corps Historical Center at Quantico: there were two USMC F-4 squadrons with us in MAG-11, so some Jarheads in the F-4S may be the actual triggermen. Now, if 347th was active in the area (they may have been), there's another possiblity.

JN1: did the Osprey book on the Denver siege mention the snipers? It's not released here yet, and one of my CSPs happens to be a SWAT sniper with the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Dept, so sniping is more than a passing interest for him. Several of the "civilian" snipers were from the Denver PD SWAT Team, and others were from other local law enforcement.

Wolfman

Matt Wiser said: ↑
Kerrville was taken by 2nd Brigade, 1st Cav during III Corps' drive on San Antonio. They wanted to get around and catch the ComBloc in SA from the flanks and rear, and avoid the slugging match that was D/FW. And since Gen. Fred Franks was now under Schwartzkopf, and seeing what happened to VII Corps' CG and two divisional COs....(summarily relieved) he was more aggressive than he'd been during PRAIRIE FIRE or LONG RIFLE I. That part of Texas was more wide open, and allowed for flanking manuvers on unsuspecting opponents, especially one who neglected such things as flank security and proper patrols (which the Cubans in Kerrville did). The Cuban garrison woke up and found a battalion's worth of M-1s and Bradleys in town and sitting on the I-10 before they knew what was going on. Hardly a shot fired, and the Cubans began walking towards the EPW enclosure. A nearby labor camp was liberated, the inmates got the medical care they sorely needed, and also dealt with some stool pigeons...and the Cav looked the other way in that. A couple of local collaborators were also lynched, and the Cav also turned a blind eye to that. Too bad the rest of the San Antonio campaign wasn't like that...but at least 1st Cav got to Kelly AFB fast enough so we could use it. We would've preferred Randolph north of the city, but the F-111 guys were too good: by the time 23rd ID got there, the runways were in such bad shape it took two weeks to get just one of two up and operational. Kelly, though, was tent city again until the EOD guys could clear all the booby traps from the base buildings.

Remember the first series about the war itself-Tour of Duty? That lasted only three seasons from 1991-94. It was good, well done, and very realistic for network TV. The problem was, memories were still too fresh...and a lot of what the show depicted was still too close to home. At least they showed one of the units raised during the war: 23rd ID in New Mexico and Texas.

(OOC: How's this for the New York basketball and NHL teams? The invasion happened in the NBA training camp and just before the NHL's, so you'd have players either at the training camp or at their off-season homes. I'd have the Knicks regroup at either Albany or Buffalo to play, and as for the Islanders and Rangers, how about Columbus and Indianapolis? That leaves the Yankees and Mets, and if one team was on a road trip, they could find a temporary home somewhere-Charlotte's been trying to get a MLB team for years, and you could put the other team in South Florida when they're reconstituted.)
Do you know how those Commie scum treated any World War II vets living in the area, such as my grandfather, who was with VJ-13 during WWII in the Pacific.

JN1

Matt,
I haven't had a chance to have a look at the book yet. I presume it will as they were well known even over here.
Ah, who could forget The Dukes of Hazzard, especially since Daisy Duke was in it.

Most of our comedies decided to steer clear of the war and offer simple escapism. If you watched Last of the Summer Wine, for example, you could be forgiven for not knowing there was a war on apart from the odd reference by Foggy Dewhurst (the late Brian Wilde) who claimed to be looking forward to a Soviet invasion. But that was in character for someone who always claimed to have fought behind Japanese lines in Burma.

Pyro

I already mentioned Robotech/Macross earlier, though I must say I am enjoying Robotech: Frontier right now. It's finally nice to know what happened to what happened to Rick, Lisa, and (shudder) Minmei after the SDF-2 Megaroad "disappeared". Took them almost twenty years to get to it, I have to say it was disappointing they only got a mention in Robotech: Sentinel (or Macross 7 in Japan) where Max Sterling said that transmissions with the ship ceased in 2016. I still wonder how they'll get out of Haydonite space, and I wish they would shove Minmei's cousin out an airlock. How did he get on that ship anyway?

On that note, is anyone here a fellow Trekker? I remember when they aired the Next Generation in 1989, and the rocky start it had for the first two seasons. For good reason too, Roddenberry was far too utopian for my tastes. Though not to speak ill of the dead but the quality improved after his passing. The debut of Deep Space 9 and the "Dominion Wars" crossover arc were particular watershed moments for television with the special effects and storytelling. I heard several WWIII veterans wrote many of those episodes, and how many of the battled almost mirrored several key battles of the war. Any comments on that?

joea64

Pyro said: ↑
I already mentioned Robotech/Macross earlier, though I must say I am enjoying Robotech: Frontier right now. It's finally nice to know what happened to what happened to Rick, Lisa, and (shudder) Minmei after the SDF-2 Megaroad "disappeared". Took them almost twenty years to get to it, I have to say it was disappointing they only got a mention in Robotech: Sentinel (or Macross 7 in Japan) where Max Sterling said that transmissions with the ship ceased in 2016. I still wonder how they'll get out of Haydonite space, and I wish they would shove Minmei's cousin out an airlock. How did he get on that ship anyway?

On that note, is anyone here a fellow Trekker? I remember when they aired the Next Generation in 1989, and the rocky start it had for the first two seasons. For good reason too, Roddenberry was far too utopian for my tastes. Though not to speak ill of the dead but the quality improved after his passing. The debut of Deep Space 9 and the "Dominion Wars" crossover arc were particular watershed moments for television with the special effects and storytelling. I heard several WWIII veterans wrote many of those episodes, and how many of the battled almost mirrored several key battles of the war. Any comments on that?
Yes, another old Trekker here. I was particularly eager about TNG because I had wondered if the show was ever going to get going because of the destruction of Paramount Studios' facilities. Like you, I found the first couple of seasons tough going, because Gene Roddenberry, as much as I esteem him for his creation, still hadn't gotten over his utopianism even with the war. Then again, one can't blame him for dreaming. Things got a LOT better once the new creative team took over - the Wham Episode at the end of the 3rd season, "The Best of Both Worlds", is considered not only the best ep of the series but two of TV's finest hours ever (it carried over to open season 4). The parallels between the Borg's sudden invasion and 9/2/85 were so open that they could have been Anvilicious (to use yet another TV Tropes term) had they not been so deftly handled. The new movie, which I mentioned earlier in this thread, also shows a strong postwar influence, judging from trailers and advance word. Apparently there's a scene at the beginning where a Federation starship on a peaceful mission is brutally attacked out of nowhere (yet another 9/2 parallel).

joea64

Moving on to books:

Has anyone read Larry Bond's trilogy of World War III novels, Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron? His wife worked at CNA during the early part of my stint there, and I got Red Phoenix signed via her (OOC: true!!). Bond took an unusual angle in these books, in that instead of centering around U.S. personnel, he decided to write from the POV of a different Allied contingent in each book. Thus, in Red Phoenix, his heroes were a ROK mech infantry platoon with a young U.S. liaison officer; Vortex told the stories of the South African airbase-security guys, centering on the adventures of the fictional Henrik Kruger and his 20th Cape Rifles; and Cauldron had to do with the European folks that came over here to help (especially the sometimes-rocky relationships between a pair of French and German armor battalions that ended up getting joined together in a task force on the Alberta front).

JN1

My favourite books from the period are as follows in no particular order:
1: The Third World War and The Third World War: The Untold Story by General Sir John Hackett. Both books study a number of areas of the war in detail and look at its causes and aftermath.
2: Team Yankee, by Harold Coyle. A personal reminiscence of a captain who commanded a US Army armoured company. He's since gone on to write successful military fiction.
3: Chieftains by Bob Forrest-Webb. A gritty fictionalised account of a British tank regiment in Canada seen from the POV of a sergeant commanding a Chieftain tank.
4: First Clash by Kenneth Macksey. A description of the opening engagements between the Soviet Army and a greatly outnumbered Canadian Brigade Group, focusing on an infantry and tank battle group respectively.
5: Red Army by Ralph Peters. A fictionalised view of the war from the Soviet point of view.
6: Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy. Very much IMVHO a piece of 'instant history' writen shortly after the war. However it is a must on anyone's bookshelf.
7: Warday: And the Journey Onwards, by Whitley Striber and James Kunetka. A book by two journalists which documents a journey across America shortly after the end of the war describing how it effected ordinary people, though it also included interviews with former members of the US Administration and senior military officers. One of the authors narrowly escaped death in the Manhattan bomb, while the other was stuck behind enemy lines for several years and the descriptions of both form the first part of the book. There are also quite harrowing tales where both authors return to New York and visit some of the newly liberated areas of America.

I've read Larry Bond's trilogy and it was excellent.

Wolfman

Red Storm Rising? I have a copy of that on my shelf, both at home, and in my office with the squadron. Towards the beginning in Keflavik right before the Commies drop in, there's a little bit of toilet humor with the tower crew.

JN1

A while since I've read it, so I'll need to look that bit up.

Wolfman

Trust me, it's there. I have the page marked in both of my copies.

Matt Wiser

I'd add Richard Herman's The Warbirds (The F-4 story during the war) and Force of Eagles (The F-15 family's wartime career) to that list.

9/2/85....what a day. We in 335 were at the Nellis Officer's Mess, getting ready for the first day of Red Flag, when the base commander comes in, saying "We're at war, boys. Ivan and Fidel just stormed across the Rio Grande, there's airborne troops dropping near the Rockies, we've lost contact with Alaska, and D.C., New York, Omaha, and Kansas City have been nuked." First mission that day was to help break up the Cuban airborne drop on the Phoenix area (got my first MiG, a Cuban MiG-21, that morning), and four more to the Phoenix-Tuscon area. The 58th TFTW's F-15s from Luke did a lot of work breaking up those An-12s, and it was like the fox getting in the henhouse. Didn't find out until much later was that all of those Eagles were flown by instructor pilots, and they tore those transports apart. That afternoon, we flew shotgun for the A-10s out of Davis-Monthan, who tore up a Mexican armored brigade moving up I-19, and did some similar stuff near Douglas and Naco (also on the border). Just glad the Sky Harbor IAP at Phoenix wasn't hit, because those AZ ANG tankers kept us flying all day. Twice I hit tankers with only 600 pounds of fuel remaining-enough for six minutes' flying. And why Ivan ignored the Titan II ICBMs south of Davis-Monthan (18 silos), I have no idea.

The movie based on Mark Bowden's book Cobra Girls starts shooting soon, according to CNN's Showbiz Today. There will be two versions: one for theatrical release, and the other one will be unrated for a special DVD release. The cast is currently going thru a mini boot camp to get ready for the shoot. I think we all know what'll be in the unrated version.

Wolfman

I think I have an idea based on anecdotes I've heard, and ones I've read here.

JN1

I've got quite a few of Herman's books and they're very good. He flew F-4s and C-130s during the war didn't he?

I've got strong memories of 2/9/85 (as it's rendered over here ), being woken by the mournful wail of air raid sirens; we didn't yet know that the ICBMs were aimed at the USA and not us yet; trying to take some form of shelter knowing that if the nearest military target was hit I'd be reduced to radioactive air pollution. Relief that I wasn't going to be nuked was followed by a mad rush to grab all my kit and fight my way through the traffic chaos to my local TA Centre.
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trekchu

It almost shames me to say this, but I cried like a little girl that day when I thought that my parents were dead (they were going to take a trip to New York that week but my mum broke her leg and it was cancelled) before heading over the street to the recruiting centre.

OOC: Argh. Put in the Battle of Britain DVD and forgot to set it to English....
Star Wars - The Skywalker Heresy Episode IV: Destiny of the Force (04/16/2017)
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joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
The sharpest memories I have of 9/2/85 are trying to get an idea of just what was happening on TV. Revising and extending what I said in my earlier post: cable TV wasn't totally disrupted - the system in Fairfax County stayed up throughout, but EMP from the various blasts (especially D.C.) messed up a lot of the satellite signals, and of course, the D.C. channels went off the air at once. Emergency Broadcast System started operating immediately, but we didn't get a whole lot of useful news from them. Later on in the day, though, we got the CNN signal back from Atlanta, and that's when we started to find out everything that was going on. Baltimore's network affiliates stayed on the air, and they provided the first solid reports from the outskirts of the D.C. blast zone, which is also how I saw Walter Cronkite's return to broadcasting (he had been at his summer home on Martha's Vineyard, and rushed to the CBS station in Boston). For the next few weeks, it was nothing but war news 24 hours around the clock, most of it bad. I think it must have been at least late October before anyone ventured to start normal programming running again on any kind of regular basis, and even then it was always subject to constant "breaking news" interruptions.

Second thing I remember is my mother giving me her checkbook and sending me to the Safeway once we had figured out that we weren't going to get nuked immediately. Bizarrely enough, the place wasn't totally mobbed though it was quite crowded - I suppose it was partly because there were so many other supermarkets, convenience stores and such in that middle-class area of southern Fairfax County - and I was able to get most of the stuff on the list. They had already imposed informal rations on things like milk and bread, though. Gas prices went crazy for the next few weeks before Raven Rock/Philadelphia finally set up a rationing scheme and oil imports started coming in again from the Middle East and places like Venezuela (which was, in those days, still under a friendly government) and Nigeria.

The beginning of the school year was pretty thoroughly disrupted for my younger sisters (12 and 11 at the time), but Fairfax County Public Schools got things sorted out again and schools reopened within a couple of weeks. Chuck Robb (who was Governor of Virginia at the time) declared an unlimited state of emergency that same day and mobilized the entire National Guard (which got federalized that same day by Presidential order, of course). There were statewide elections for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General scheduled that year (Virginia holds its state elections in odd-numbered years), but that year's elections got postponed to early 1986 by special resolution of the General Assembly. Gerald Baliles won, narrowly, and Robb left immediately thereafter to go back into the Marines.

BTW, considering that all three major broadcast networks at the time - CBS, ABC, and NBC - were headquartered in Manhattan, I was always powerfully impressed that they were able to get their organizations back together so quickly. I still don't know all the details, but I suppose (it being a holiday weekend and all) that some sufficiently senior network executives were still out of town.

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
(OOC: I went to Best Buy today and grabbed the complete edition of Worlds in Conflict with the "Soviet Assault" expansion. I got the original game in '07 but never really got into it since I got Guild Wars about the same time and got wrapped up in that instead, but this thread has reawakened my interest.)

Games. There have been a number of wargames, both paper (counter/map) and digital (computer), published covering the North American campaign over the last 20 years or so. Which ones are especially memorable for you?

Not long after the end of the war, Ty Bomba did a "monster" game, TVD Amerika, for 3W (the company that published Strategy & Tactics after purchasing the rights from TSR). It was somewhat of a rough effort, since a lot of the more detailed OOB information had not yet been declassified, but it provided a nice operational-level (divisions and brigades) first look at the battle for the USA and Canada. GMT Games also released a well-received game, America: 1985, done on a smaller scale (covering mainly the continental US, on the army/corps/division level with independent units), which became a great favorite for "grognards" introducing people to the hobby.

When Bomba started his own wargame company, XTR, in 1990, he released two smaller operational-level games, Missouri Urra! and Black Gold (Texas Tea), covering specific campaigns of the war. Matt might not like them that much, since the air war was heavily abstracted in both.

As the (somewhat delayed) PC revolution finally got underway in the mid-1990's, a new wave of computer games came out covering World War III. The first one of note was 360 Pacific's Patriot, which, while highly detailed, was virtually unplayable. On the other hand, when the second in Sid Meier's series, Civilization II, came out, several highly popular 3rd-party scenarios and "mods" covering the North American campaign were released, though the realism of these scenarios was sharply restricted due to the nature of the game system.

I don't personally think it was until this decade, when the passage of time allowed both a little historical perspective and the availabilty of more information, that really good computer games on the war started to be published. World in Conflict is probably the most extensive (and the most aggressive in taking up space on your computer's hard drive!!), with its campaigns and scenarios covering almost literally every part of the battle for North America. Call of Duty and Medal of Honor are the two premier FPS (first-person shooters) dealing with the war.

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Getting off popular culture for a moment here: I've been talking with a number of people lately who've wondered how those quislings and collaborationists, in the main, could be so unrepentant for their crimes during the ComBloc occupation of the southwestern USA. The best answer that anyone has come up with so far is that, for those people, it was literally their Armageddon, and they were on the side of good versus evil. To elaborate a bit, they were absolutely convinced they were doing the right thing in taking arms against the "evil bourgeois system" of "whorehouse America" (to grab one of the ComBloc's favorite smear phrases during the war) and conducting "ideological cleansing" on the enemies - in their warped worldview - of peace and progress. It was literally a religious thing with them, though many of them would violently object to that phrasing. They felt no more guilt about purging "capitalist oppressors" than the Spanish Inquisition did about purging "crypto-Jews" and "witches".

BTW, guess who showed up this week at my company? None other than the famous Colonel (ret.) Ernesto Bella! We're in the middle of organizing and cataloguing a lot of papers from Cuba now, and many of them are in Spanish. Bella came by with his minders at DOJ's request to help us sort out which documents were the most important to highlight for the attention of prosecutorial teams; in fact, I was at the office quite late several evenings this week and went in this morning to get things moving along (the back-to-back snowstorms earlier this month caused one hell of a disruption in the metro D.C. area, right when everyone was looking forward to wrapping up the reconstruction project ) Anyway, Bella is quite a fellow; speaks English very well, has a keen wit and a wry sense of humor, and seems (no doubt thanks to his Catholic faith) to have reached a sense of internal peace over the things he did during the war (he did remark, with a crooked smile, that slogging through bureaucratic documents was "part of his penance"). We got him set up at one of our PC workstations to look over the stuff we'd already scanned, and he got somewhat excited after he'd been clicking through pages for an hour or so. He called to a couple of the people who'd come with him, and there was a very animated discussion in mixed English and Spanish; I was at my desk a few feet away so I didn't catch most of what they were saying, but apparently he'd spotted the signatures of several officers he'd known back in Cuba on what seem to be quite compromising documents concerning the treatment to be meted out to POW's. Matt, your friend might be interested to know that. From what I caught of what Bella was saying, it was a real smoking-gun kind of thing. I don't have very good Spanish, so I'll have to leave it to those of my team who do to figure it all out.

joea64

Matt Wiser said: ↑
And why Ivan ignored the Titan II ICBMs south of Davis-Monthan (18 silos), I have no idea.

The movie based on Mark Bowden's book Cobra Girls starts shooting soon, according to CNN's Showbiz Today. There will be two versions: one for theatrical release, and the other one will be unrated for a special DVD release. The cast is currently going thru a mini boot camp to get ready for the shoot. I think we all know what'll be in the unrated version.
As to Davis-Monthan, I think I have a guess as to what might have been up with that. Remember that the USSR's stated justification for its North American adventure was to seize first-class farmland "to share the bounty wrongfully held back by plutocratic American agribusiness and feed the starving peoples of the globe"? That whole patch of Arizona, between Tucson and Phoenix, is, as odd as it might seem, a major agricultural area due to heavy-duty irrigation (and it was so even before the coming of European settlers, as several important watercourses run through that area; quite a few Indian tribes settled in the area). Seems to me they didn't want to irradiate any more good farmland than they had to.

"Cobra Girls": none of the Sidaris family would be involved with that, would they? :rolleyes: The late Andy Sidaris, who worked as a producer for ABC's Wide World of Sports before the war, produced and directed several wonderfully trashy movies during the late 1980's and early 1990's about the exploits of various teams of Playboy Playmates and Penthouse Pets battling the Communist invaders, usually while stripped down to their lacy dainties - or less!

[lordroel]

From page 115

Matt Wiser

I remember Jane's USAF, which had you able to fly the F-4, F-15C, F-16, and A-10 during the war: and the computer modeling accurately depicted real AF squadrons. The Falcon series of games (for the F-16 crowd) let you use either an A or C model, though one add-on made a mistake in including the Block 50/52 with the HTS Pod and HARM missile during the war. (We didn't get those until 1994) Jane's did come out with an F-4 sim, along with the F-15E, in the 2001-02 period, and my kids love them-and still do: they kept an old Win 98 machine so they could still fly the F-4 and F-15E on the computer. My son wishes the AF still flew F-4s, as he wants to fly the plane dad flew-and my eldest daughter does, too.

Herman did fly both: he came back on active duty and flew F-4s with the 301st TFW (originally AF Reserve from Carswell AFB in Texas-they made it to Mississippi in the bug-out), but a crash put him in the hospital and when he came out, he had to go to C-130s, as a back injury meant he couldn't fly an ejection-seat airplane again. That F-4 experience saved his crew's bacon more than once: low-level C-130 flights into occupied territory to insert SOF or other folks could get hairy, especially if MiGs got involved.

Hey Wolfman, not sure how Ivan treated vets in that area, but you might check the 1st Cav Association's web site and maybe post a question there. Ivan and Fidel weren't uniform on how they would treat vets: they did ban the VFW and American Legion as "subversive and reactionary organizations", and there were many vets who could still go into the field: lots of Vietnam vets rejoined the service, or were with the resistance, for example. WW II and Korea vets could still be useful, but in the occupied zone, like everyone else, had to be cautious. Sen. Erica Mason's granddad was a WW II vet, but fortunately for all involved, managed to keep his involvement with the Wolverines secret.

Matt Wiser

Cobra Girls isn't supposed to be a bimbofest, but a pretty decent movie about the Cobra Chicks: the all-female 4-229 Aviation Battalion (Attack). And since the Army's cooperating with filming, I don't think the Sidaris bunch are involved. But I do remember those movies-being a young fighter pilot and all (until I got romantically involved with my new female WSO)

So Col. Bella is helping with the war-crimes people? No surprise there. Lt. Col. Kelly Ann Ray will be glad to know some "smoking gun" documents have been found-as it gives her more reason to want certain Cubans involved with POWs to die-slowly and painfully. If one of the things found was her interrogation report....she did say in her book and to me personally that things were videotaped from start to finish at that Havana Military Interrogation Center (believed to be at the Ministry of Defense) The same thing was done at that punishment prison on the Isle of Pines...If these were done for Fidel's or Raoul's sick enjoyment, all the more reason to hang certain individuals. Those tapes, if they've been found, ought to be shown only at trial, then put under lock and key for eternity.

I'm not angry how those wargames treated the air war: given the limitations of the counter-based games, no surprise there. At least with PC games and RTS (which my son did a lot of before he left for the USAF Academy), you do get to use air assets in a more realistic fashion. But nothing beats a good flight sim. Nothing.

DD951

September 2, 1985- I remember what I was doing that black Monday very well. As UW doesn't start fall classes until close to the end of September, it was more or less free time for me, so I got up early that day, and with several of my friends, went out to spend the day out on a boat on Lake Washington getting some salmon fishing and swimming in, while drinking some beer, although I noticed that strangely, there weren't a whole lot of boats out for that time of year. However, we didn't have a working radio on our boat for some reason (just a tape player & some batteries), so the first I heard of what happened was when I got into my car at the end of the day, and turned the radio on to listen to one of the local rock stations.

Suffice to say, I was quite shocked as instead of the music I was expecting, I got a rebroadcast from CBS Newsradio (which was operating from its Philadelphia affiliate) giving details bit by bit of the nuclear strikes on DC, Manhattan, Omaha, Kansas City, and the missile fields of North Dakota, as well as the invasions, and that we were at war.

I had to pull over for a few minutes to collect myself, when the shock of the realization that I could easily have been in New York, and over a dozen friends of mine from high school were almost certainly radioactive air pollution caused me to start shaking. As it happened, the best friend of my high school girlfriend went to Columbia, and ended up getting engaged to some wealthy society type she met over there (might have been a cousin of one of the former society girls who ended up as enlisted crewmembers on the Turner Joy, for the 'small world' factor, but I never asked so I'm not sure), Anyway, their wedding was scheduled for that upcoming Saturday (the 7th), and that ex of mine was supposed to be the maid of honor, while a couple dozen of us from that old circle of friends were invited as guests as we had kept close; I narrowly missed out on going, as I drew a short straw as it were, and it might have interfered with my duties as one of the NROTC midshipmen with duties as officers. As I later found out, 13 of my high school friends & acquaintances had already gone to NYC for the wedding, including my ex, and got incinerated by the nuke.

When I made it back to my apartment (noticing that traffic out of Seattle was much heavier than normal while traffic going in was much lighter), I had about a half-dozen messages on my answering machine, from Cmdr. Ed Alessandro, the commander of the NROTC program at UW and his staff wanting me to call immediately. When I did, I was informed that I, along with the rest of the midshipmen (and the AF & Army cadets as well) were to report to Clark Hall at 7 the next morning, so after eating something, I showered & tried to get some sleep without much luck.

The next morning, we were all informed that as part of the mobilization, we were being called to active duty, with the upperclassmen getting commissioned early and the sophomores going in at enlisted grades, and that most of the NROTC midshipmen who were going into the Navy as opposed to the Marines were to report to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard later that day for assignment to ships who needed additional personnel or were being recommissioned. With that, I and the others got commissioned without much ceremony- swore the oath, got handed our bars, shoulder-boards, written orders to report to Bremerton, ferry fare, and a voucher for a uniform allowance, with a handshake and wishes of good luck. After a couple hours packing some uniforms and other items, I caught a ferry, and after few more hours of processing, we got our orders more or less by luck of the draw- I and 3 others ended up assigned to the Turner Joy. Next few weeks were a frantic blur of hasty on-the-job training mixed with getting the ship back into service and the crew worked up, with the Soviet attempt on Seattle interrupting the training/shakedown cycle.

BTW, Cmdr. Alessandro was another good officer who didn't survive the war- in January 1987, after running UW's NROTC more or less along the lines of a WW2 V-7 OCS program, he was given command of the destroyer Preble, which was sunk with the loss of most of the crew on his first mission as her skipper- escort on an Alaska convoy which was attacked by Backfires, and took a Kingfish right under the ASROC launcher. Secondary explosions blew the ship in two, with the front third or so sinking almost instantly, and the rest lingering for a few minutes, although apparently, rupturing steam lines and splinter damage to the boilers killed a lot of the engineering crew.

To change the subject a bit, on war-related computer games, I always thought that Harpoon V did a pretty good job of things at the command level, and luckily, it works under Vista as well as earlier versions of Windows, although there haven't been many single-ship sims that don't involve submarines, and those non-submarine games don't tend to be very good.
Last edited: Feb 21, 2010

joea64

Location:A few miles south of Henry House Hill
Speaking of Windows, didn't Microsoft relocate from Redmond to Sunnyvale, CA for the duration after the Soviets tried to take Seattle?

DD951

joea64 said: ↑
Speaking of Windows, didn't Microsoft relocate from Redmond to Sunnyvale, CA for the duration after the Soviets tried to take Seattle?
No, it didn't. Microsoft did build a backup data/research center there to disperse some things, but most stuff stayed in Redmond- did a lot of work with military installations, as well as the major defense contractors- Boeing (airplanes & light combatants), as well as several other shipyards (Todd-Pacific Tacoma & Seattle, Lockheed Shipbuilding, and Martinac) which built destroyers, transports, & light combatants as fast as they could during the war. Just as well, since Silicon Valley was the target of several Spetznaz raids & terrorist attacks carried out by the KGB & ALA which did quite a bit of damage.

However, the disruptions caused by the attack and the diversion of most computer production to military, governmental, and essential industry applications with the knock-on effects nearly gutting the home computer market for a couple years, the release of Windows was delayed for about a year and a half, with subsequent cascading effects that persist to this day in the home computing market according to a retrospective series PC World has run the last few months. (OOC: due to the disruptions caused by the war, home computer technology, especially in the US, would likely be somewhat behind where it is OTL by a small but significant amount, not sure we've really talked

Pyro

DD951 said: ↑
(OOC: due to the disruptions caused by the war, home computer technology, especially in the US, would likely be somewhat behind where it is OTL by a small but significant amount, not sure we've really talked about how much)
OOC: Speaking of which, I wonder what the state of the video game industry would be as the Crash nearly wiped out the market. Nintendo test marketed the NES in 1985 in the NYC area OTL, it's likely the system won't see a release in North America until after the end of the war if at all. Plus, the development of the SNES might be delayed due to the fact that the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive won't be threatening Nintendo's market share... but you never know.

DD951

Pyro said: ↑
OOC: Speaking of which, I wonder what the state of the video game industry would be as the Crash nearly wiped out the market. Nintendo test marketed the NES in 1985 in the NYC area OTL, it's likely the system won't see a release in North America until after the end of the war if at all. Plus, the development of the SNES might be delayed due to the fact that the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive won't be threatening Nintendo's market share... but you never know.
OOC: I'd figure that most consumer electronics technology would be at least 2-3 years behind OTL unless it was directly derived from something military, and console videogames would still be around, as IIRC, a lot of R&D was done in Japan & most systems were sold there first, but the players in the market could be different, and there could be a post-war market for them if the idea of them being cheaper than a gaming computer takes hold; however the history of the consumer electronics, PC & videogame industries in the '80s isn't something I'm sufficiently familiar with to make any firm statements about where it's at TTL.

wingman

JN1 said: ↑
Matt,
I haven't had a chance to have a look at the book yet. I presume it will as they were well known even over here.
Ah, who could forget The Dukes of Hazzard, especially since Daisy Duke was in it.

Most of our comedies decided to steer clear of the war and offer simple escapism. If you watched Last of the Summer Wine, for example, you could be forgiven for not knowing there was a war on apart from the odd reference by Foggy Dewhurst (the late Brian Wilde) who claimed to be looking forward to a Soviet invasion. But that was in character for someone who always claimed to have fought behind Japanese lines in Burma.


anybody remember "Airwolf"? i think it came on after The Dukes of Hazzard.
That's some Bullcrap!

Nikephoros

JN1 said: ↑
But that was in character for someone who always claimed to have fought behind Japanese lines in Burma.
Sounds like my father, lol.

He's the reason I joined the Navy instead of the Army though. He didn't want me going through what he went through in 'Nam. Of course, when I found out what he did, I ended up joining the Army eventually anyways:D

sloreck

On the first day I was in surgery at UAB in Brimingham as part of my fellowship in hand & microsurgery. Somebody came in to the OR & told us the Russians and friends had attacked & we were at war. When we finished the case I saw a TV broadcast in the doctors lounge, that's when I found out about NYC - my mom and lots of my family & my first wife's family lived there and were killed in the attack, although a few were far enough away to survive.

When I got home my wife told me the reserve center called, and that night I went there to get our unit ready to go (HQ battery, 4/14 Marines). A few days later we got our Sp 155's on flat cars, a couple of boxcars for other gear & a couple with ammo and some coaches for personnel. Our train pulled out to get us as close to the front as they could, and that was the last time I saw my wife and sons who later vanished in to the Gulag.

JN1

wingman said: ↑
anybody remember "Airwolf"? i think it came on after The Dukes of Hazzard.
Wow, that takes me back. This is turning into a real nostalgia fest.

Chuck Mandus

(OOC)I'll change my character a bit(/OOC)

September 2nd, 1985, I was living in the rural part of Butler County, PA. I was married at 18 to Colleen (met her during the Christmas of 1983) the year before since "I had to do the right thing" and be a father to our first child. (OOC, I figure this among being nearsighted would keep me home for the war, I figure some of us had to do our part on the homefront) I worked as a mechanic and electronics repair with my best friend who lived next door. We had a good business and with the new cars becoming a trickle during the war although there were times we had to MacGuyver things. At least Pennsylvania eased their inspection standards then. I also got my start in radio by having a Saturday morning show on a local AM station (we still do that) with my buddy offering car care advice. I also served as a constable pulling police duties during the war, I even had a 1965 Ford Galaxie Police Car I still use for my duties to this day. It has the 1965 equipment, the old sirens and bubble gum machine, even the old Motorola radio. Recently, I arrested Holly Hush, local lefty political activist who was on the lam for 24 years for sympathizing with the Soviets, it was so satisfying seeing her in the back of that Galaxie.

The EMP did not affect us except when the power grid cascaded and they had to get that up in a few days to a few weeks by "islanding" the power stations. I remember having to keep the backup transmitter, made in 1934 (still ready to go now), at the radio station on standby along with the generators.

There is a side of me that wished to join in the fight but I'm an only child, I had to take care of Colleen and our daughter plus my mother but there were temptations. I wanted to take my M1 Garand and go to the front by riding my 1967 Sears motorcycle (made by Gelira in Italy) but I cannot help my family if I was dead.

That day, I just remained close to home, we did manage to stock up on a lot of things as the news got bad. I remember getting on my amateur radio and trying my best to get messages out for local families as well as find out what was going on. We were still getting TV from Pittsburgh and Youngstown, Ohio as well as radio and my scanner was going ballistic. I also picked up numerous military transmissions in the military UHF band. I also picked up the Salyut 7 space station in Russian as it orbited over, just below the amateur 2 meter band and I taped it and sent that off to the Feds to see if they can find anything useful. It was hectic, we hardly did any work for a month until we were sure we were not going to get nuked. That was also when I found out another baby was on the way.

Chuck Mandus

OOC question, when did the war end exactly?

TheMann

Chuck Mandus said: ↑
OOC question, when did the war end exactly?

Chuck Mandus

TheMann said: ↑

Thanks, that give me an idea.

thepenguin

(OOC: I have to modify some of the finer points. I didn't know it was Labor Day before.)
September 2, 1985. Christ, what a day. I was sitting in my dorm watching TV (I think it was baseball. Pirates and the Mets. Labor Day traditional double-header.), when the play-by-play switched to the local newsdesk. The anchors were visibly distraught and I remember Holly Grayson (WFMJ's requisite bottle-blond male demographic attractor) barely able to get out "Washington D.C. has been hit by a nuclear warhead. We are at war." I was shocked to say the least. The cheering by the left-wing pro-Soviet contingent started after the news about New York, Omaha, North Dakota, and K.C. came in. Thank God those screen windows were too narrow, else I would have sent a couple of them on an express trip to the concrete sidewalk. Bridie flew over a couple days after that (she was worried that the UK was going to be invaded). I signed up for the Air Force at Youngstown-Warren Reserve Air Base that Thursday. I left for Chanute on Saturday for basic, then to Scott for flight engineer school, then back to Chanute to join up with the 910th Tactical Airlift Group (now 910th Airlift Wing and flying C-17s). The rest is history.

Matt Wiser

The AF had a similar OCS program, especially since Lackland AFB (home of AF OTS) had been overrun early on, so AFROTC began churning out 90-day wonders at various colleges on the East and West Coasts. The AF Academy was relocated over the Rockies (Lisa was a Senior at the time) and those people have some wild stories about packing up, getting over U.S. 24 with everything, and I mean everything. The campus was stripped clean, and just about every long-haul truck and U-Haul in Colorado Springs was commandeered to haul stuff. They sent Lisa to navigator school at Mather AFB (Sacramento) after the Senior class was commissioned in October, and she reported to 335 in June of '86. I was reporting back after my E&E and 30 days' leave at home in California, and the CO said "Welcome back. Ready to go fly?" I said "Sure, boss, where's Tony?" (1st Lt. Tony Carpenter was my WSO) "He's been reassigned to the RTU at Kingsley Field in Oregon. Lieutenant Eichhorn is your new WSO." "No problem, where is he?" "She. That rule's been tossed." Lisa walks in, introduces herself, and the CO (last time we had a meet before he was killed) asks "Any problems flying with her?" I said "No, Sir. If that's the way things have go, so be it." I had a check ride ten minutes later with the XO, who said I didn't need a requal on the bird, and that afternoon (16 June 86), we flew our first flight (an orientation ride for her). An hour after that was our first combat mission to the Denver area-with refueling thanks to those AZ Guard KC-135s. The CO (and his WSO) got killed the next day. SA-6....Made Captain the next month. After ADVENT CROWN that spring, and the failed ComBloc Spring-Summer offensive, we thought in the squadron that maybe we'll hold on and outlast them. The JCS, though, had other ideas. And as Summer turned to fall, with the battle lines where they had been before ADVENT CROWN, planning began for what went down in the history books as PRAIRIE FIRE. It took the Battle of Wichita to create the conditions for PRAIRE FIRE, but it worked.

The shooting ended with Cuba on 27 Feb 1990, but the POW release didn't take place until 5 March. The Cubans had to gather all the POWs from the island and fly them to Costa Rica (the designated exchange point). For once, the Cubans weren't lying. Kelly Ann Ray says that the POWs didn't know the war had ended, only that the strike birds weren't coming over any more. (last POW shot down over Cuba was a Dec 89 shootdown, so some POWs knew how things were really going, but most didn't) Many of the POWs thought the flights taking them out of Cuba were transfer flights to the USSR, and only when they landed at San Jose IAP in Costa Rica and saw the C-141s with the Stars and Stripes painted on the side did they realize the war was over.

Airwolf?!! That was a laugher on squadron TV nights. One chopper taking out entire squadrons of MiGs earned a lot of laughs, but we took it for what it was-entertainment. As for The Dukes of Hazzard, the guys in the squadron liked Catherine Bach, while the girls liked Tom Wopat and John Schenider. One reason we were able to have TV nights was that we weren't night tasked for air-to-ground. Air-to-air, yes, but not air-to-ground. (Pave Spike was a daytime-only system, as was Pave Knife, but while our birds were wired for the Pave Tack with FLIR, we didn't have any pods. Our sister squadrons in the 4th TFW did, and they wound up using the pods that we had left in North Carolina to go to Red Flag)

Hey Mann, the Showtime movie on Kelly Ann's story is in a week-set your VCR or DVR. They're sending her a DVD in advance, so I'll get a chance as well, after she's seen it.

TheMann

On September 2, 1985, I had just arrived home after my first (and only) tour as a USMC pilot on a carrier, as a junior pilot, part of VMFA-112 on USS Forrestal. I was at the US Navy station in Pensacola, Florida at the time. The news told us all the story, too, and the next day we started flying missions against the Cubans. On September 10, I got my first aircraft kill, a Cuban MiG-21 whose driver needed to pay more attention.

My WSO, 2nd Lt. Ryan "Nightgun" Mitchell, survived the war. A rather small (5'7") black kid from Detroit, he was twenty and I was twenty-one when we first flew together at Pensacola, but the two of us were like brothers by the time we get split up. Part of the reason I hate racists so much is Ryan.

My Marine unit was assigned to AF command in September 87, and in January 88 they formally moved my unit into the Air Force. F-16s were in short supply at that point, of course, so we got USMC Hornets despite being an AF unit. The other squadrons frequently ribbed us in those early days about being "Mudeaters", and the Marines frequently called my squadron and the six others assigned to the "Dropouts". Those lasted about a week, when I saved the nuts of a couple Viper drivers who had four Fulcrums coming up on their five o'clock, right in the sun, and me and my wingman got two of them and badly damaged a third. The AF drivers shut up after that. The Marines still haven't, though after I got my first star they stopped ribbing me and instead started demanding when I was gonna insist on Marine discipline in my AF unit. (To which I responded to said jarhead by saying that day would come when one of the Marine squadrons could best my guys. That hasn't happened yet.)

When we switched to the single-seat airplanes, my WSO was assigned as a pilot to a F-16 squadron in Virginia. He had six kills by the end of the war, and retired from the AF a Major in 1997. He's still AF reserve, though. He's a senior captain for Pan Am now, flying 747-400s and 777s on international flights. I told him next summer I'll take him up in my A-7K, which I KNOW he'll take me up on. He's gonna be at the Wings of the Phantom premiere too, so I'm sure I'll be the one explaining the flying of modern warbirds while he talks about his passenger buses.

I got a rather nice piece of news today, too. My kid is getting his wings - he's going to Colorado Springs in September, and he's already mastered the T-6. He'll probably be in the T-38s while he's at the AF Academy, and my three-star boss, who is a publicity-seeker par excellence, wants to have me commanding my son. My kid knows that, too, and so he's hoping to master the F-16 as soon as he's done with the Talon. My son has been dreaming of following in my footsteps since he could walk, but I told him not to expect favors from me - and he doesn't want them. Now, he's actually gonna do it, too. That makes me feel good.

Nikephoros

Well, my son originally was trying to go to the Naval Academy, but he decided to join as an enlisted man. He wants to go SEAL, but currently the pipeline is locked up pretty tightly. The only favor I'm pulling for him is to find a way to get him in.

Matt Wiser

(OOC: Mann, there's no flying training, other than basic orientation, at the AF Academy. You graduate first, then get sent to flight or nav, or other advanced training, such as Intel or missile)

Good luck getting your kid in as a SEAL. I've heard it's tough to get into, and even tougher to graduate. They say the average washout rate is 80%.

Well, I've got one son (adopted) at the AF Academy (sophomore), one daughter (also adopted) who's going to UCLA (AF ROTC and a Volleyball scholarship), and our other daughter is still deciding on either the AF Academy or the University of Hawaii (also Volleyball) Chris wants to fly the same plane his parents do (F-15E), though if the F/B-22 gets funded, he wouldn't mind trying for that. Melanie is going to have to be a nav, as she's got the same eyesight issues as her mom, and Dana? She does want to be a pilot, but for some reason has this infatuation with the F-16. We're still trying to have another Eagle driver in the family, while Melanie also has one other goal besides the Air Force: she does want to try out eventually for the Olympic Volleyball team. At least the AF has this "Air Force Athletes Program" so that while she's flying, she can train and try out for the team. See her in Rio, guys, and if she doesn't make the regular Volleyball team, she does play a mean beach volleyball game. And how many vets here adopted kids after the war? Chris and Melanie we adopted after tying the knot, because there were a lot of kids who were either orphaned or otherwise separated from their parents and no one knew where the parents were, especially in the occupied areas. They were young enough that thank heavens, they don't have memories of either their real parents, or what happened otherwise. They do know that they were adopted, however.

The Army's pleased with how Cobra Girls is developing, otherwise, they wouldn't have cooperated with the production. No way would the Army have wanted to get involved with a bimbofest like the ones Sidaris used to put together. Dreamworks is involved to a degree, so it'll be good.