Doogie320

The irony of him reaching out to Russia is hilarious. Karzai is grasping at straws, doing whatever he can to retain his slippery hold on power here. I saw where we are negotiating with Uzbekistan for a base (probably K2 again)....the same country that booted us in 2005. It isn't like we have a lot of options though.

If they close the base it will greatly increase our logistical issues over here, especially at a time when our aerial presence is ramping up. This puts al Udeid as our closest base to Afghanistan and it is not even prepared to handle the number of troops that Manas does. That doesn't even cover the tanker missions....

Now that you mention it, I've heard there was a DZ out that way, but I have no information on it. St. Augustine? Yikes! If I recall correctly there is a lot of water (Intracoastal) to one side of the airport. Oh, two others I forgot about, don't know if they are relevant or not. Jerry Bird's Birdland in the mid 90's and is Frank Arena's place nearby still operating? I jumped at both but I didn't hear much if anything out of them by 2000 and I know Jerry has left the sport. Am I the only one that's jumped at a lot of now "deceased" DZs? I feel like a widowmaker, almost every place I've jumped at is now gone and I don't have a great deal of history in the sport.

I'm vague with the years because I'm not quite sure when these places stopped jumping. There were two at one time. Keystone Air Sports stopped jumping in....98-99 (somewhere in there) and there was another DZ located near the FBO that was open from 96 (thereabouts) to around 98-99 also. Mike Mullins used to fly in there during the winter and do his $99 BTYP. Fernandina had one that was briefly open from 98-2000(?)..Amelia Island Resort Skydiving (I think I'm close). Palatka's Kay Larkin had two at one time, the old Palatka Paracenter and Skydive Palatka (still going strong). Live Oak, FL had a DZ, but I don't know much about it. St. Mary's GA had one that shut down in the early 90's, a new DZ has since opened on the same airport. Waycross, GA had a DZ that closed about 99-00. I liked Jerry and miss him a great deal. Flagler Beach, FL had Rocky's old place and then Fred (Brown?) opened a DZ there with Keith Larrett as the manager. It closed in 2000 or early 2001. My apologies if I'm a bit vague, I remember the forest but not the trees. Hopefully this helps jog a few memories.

On one of the South Park DVDs Trey and Matt talk about how they create an episode using MAYA. They said they can have something in a day or two with a finished product in 3 days. One episode was finished the day it aired (I don't recall which one). To contrast that, their first episode (the one that used paper cutouts) took over 2 months to make.

An aquaintance: 3 months (the first of several). I watched him go in. A friend: 7 years (also the first of several). I'm running 50/50 on those lost in the sport and out of the sport. Suicides, drunk driver.....

We're not going to seal the border with Pakistan and we can only push the Pakistani government so far. They have us by the short and curlies and they know it. The overwhelming majority of our supplies into Afghanistan like food, fuel, ammo, building supplies....they all come through Pakistan. It makes for some great press but in reality we won't do much about the border.

My apologies, I meant "general officers" and omitted that from my original statement. The Fighter Pilot mafia and ACC run the AF. Ummm, no. Not even close. Mission Support officers greatly outnumber all pilots and air-crew. In response to the original thread, I have no problem with General Officers taking measures to ensure efficient in-transit mission planning and/or crew rest. I do, however, have a big problem with the funding coming from the wrong place and the units being ordered with unnecessary frills that drive the cost up. Doing so doesn't display good management of resources. But hey, that's me. I'm ethical like that.

I disagree. The majority of AF officers are pilots or aircrew. They've never really known hard conditions except for their SERE school time. The majority that I've worked with in Afghanistan are put off by sleeping in a tent or plywood b-hut. The few general officers over here rarely leave the comfort of Bagram or Kabul. Most GO's anyway when they fly will take up a whole aircraft to themselves. Imagine a C-17 carrying a few passengers and no cargo, it is a waste. So the comfort pallet doesn't shock me one bit. "Cross into the Blue".

I met Sandy once at Jerry Bird's Birdland down near Tampa. Jerry was organizing a 10-way or something like that and myself and 2 other sub 100 jump wonders looked on. Sandy saw us and came over to talk. We explained that we'd love to jump with Jerry but didn't have the experience. She then told Jerry she was pulling herself from his group to organize for us. Our little 4-way didn't do much, but Sandy debriefed us with a smile and actually taught us a little about RW. Late that afternoon I was talking to someone and Sandy came over. After a few minutes she pulled out a photo she'd taken of Hannah. Hannah was holding a jar of fireflies and when Sandy snapped the photo the fireflies all lit up. So you have Hannah's face lit up by the flash while the 3 or 4 fireflies were glowing green. It was a wonderful photo. Sandy had the same smile talking about the photo that she did when she debriefed our crappy little 4-way. I only met her once and she is missed.

There's only one flying and it flew into Kandahar the other day. The thing is massive. The AN-124's aren't too shabby either.

A batwing. Landings were "fun".

I'd be willing to bet that CENTAF and AMC out of Scott have some type of airframe quota. I remember seeing the picture of 12 or so C-17's in formation over Charleston when we were having issues. Maybe CENTAF isn't asking for them or AMC isn't giving them up? I dunno, I do know that moving men and material is....painful in the CENTCOM AOR.

I spent 2 years in Afghanistan working for the AF and I'm pretty sure that you've made trips over there given your MOS. I've watched inter- and intra-theater sirflow issues get worse and worse in those 2 years; cargo and personnel are simply taking too long to get anywhere. Perhaps there are enough airframes. If that is the case then the AF is guilty of not using them effectively. Conversations with folks from the CAOC indicate that logistics problems are the norm. They shouldn't be.

This is a stupid decision. Our logistics train is so screwed up in the ME and they aren't adding to the -17 fleet? Damn.....

There have been DZ's in South Georgia: Waycross, St. Mary's (twice), and one up near Savannah I think.

That has nothing to do with conventional commanders not understanding how to manage insurgency. That has to do with the the occupant of the White House impersonating a CinC. Yes and no to both. Additionally there are other areas that we don't always consider yet are vital to the waging of war. Logistics, communications, money, staff time and effort...other things too. Iraq HAS directly impacted those areas in regard to Afghanistan. One thing you can blame the current CINC on, as well as all of his predecessors, is that the US military is NOT capable of waging a two-front war without mobilising the populace. I'm not talking drafts either. I AM talking about putting Guard and Reserves on almost indefinite active duty orders akin to WWII. Conventional commanders have failed, notably the 25th ID when they ran the show. Their soldiers are top notch, their leadership? Not so much. The 173rd spent their time cleaning up after the 25th's year, neglecting certain areas of the country to work in others. 10th Mountain, the UK, and Canada are currently reaping it. You can't pin this down to one single failure by one person or even a single failure by a group of people. A lot of things are wrong and they would be better, if not ideal (as ideal as one can get in war) were we not engaged in Iraq. I'm not smart enough to argue that "we should have invaded" or "we should not have invaded" Iraq. I do know because I've lived it for two years that Iraq is hurting us in Afghanistan. - Not enough specialists like Civil Affairs - Not enough inter-theater or intra-theater logistics - Warfighting staffs are focused on Iraq, they deal with OEF when they have time. -Political repercussions have caused units to minimze OEF casualties becuase they had or a sister unit is having a bad tour in Iraq. -Equipment replacements and new equipment goes to Iraq first. That's off the top of my head. I hate to sound like Jan Brady (Iraq, Iraq, Iraaaaqqqqqq!), but that's the way it is right now. Don't forget that we have troops in the Horn of Africa who are LOWER on the food chain than those in the Stan. Our military and civilian leaders robbed Peter to pay Paul and that neck of the woods isn't going to get better anytime soon. I have a flight to London in a few hours. Joy.

I'm in the same boat and it varies from DZ to DZ.

We had the TB/ al Qaeda/ Anti-Coalition Militants ('ACM' is our buzzword for the badguys, the TB aren't the only faction left that hate us.) on the ropes and let them off. That happened for a variety of reasons. In RC South there wasn't a major presence like there is now, US efforts were on RC East and the Pakistani border (our track record with securing borders kind of sucks, but I'm hijacking this thread enough). Our ISAF bretheren came in and were shocked at the condition of RC South. With a few exceptions the Deh Chopan, Deh Rawod, Tarin Kowt area was free of US forces, save for some SOF guys here and there. I can't speak for Iraq, but our policy in Afghanistan fluctuates too much. Our insurgency experts (SF guys) aren't running the war and in some areas their efforts are marginalized by conventional commanders that don't know how to wage a counter- insurgency. There are some things right over here, some things that are wrong. We had a real chance at ending this thing and we let it slip away. Oddly, that was due in part to Iraq, but that is for another time if anyone is interested. My two years over here draws to a close literally within a few hours, I should be stateside by Friday. Iraq has caused ripples in the Stan and I don't believe that we will recover from them.

It went down the toilet in the 80's once the France family became more focused on advertising dollars and less on the actual product. It has also become more of an engineering challenge than one of driving. You still need a driver, but the engineering is as esential. 20 years ago drivers won races with most of the sheet metal torn off in wrecks. Try that today. The bumping, shoving, and pushing isn't a big deal. Well, it used to not be. Now if your car suffers the slightest damage or alteration to its setup you are out of the race. So, drivers tend to get the ass about it. I grew up around the sport as a fan, went to numerous races, follwed the history....it is just plain boring now. Wrestling on 4 wheels...and probably about as real. YM(in 500-mile increments)MV.

Go read up on Custer Battles/ Danubia Global/ whatever they are called this week. Seriously read up on it. I know some of their former employees. It is quite eye-opening about contracting in Iraq and corruption and will probably send you into low earth orbit. As a minor aside, I don't believe that a Dem. as POTUS would do better in this area. Our government lacks oversight (well, just about any modern gov't does) and has a certain level of corruption to it. Numerous agencies and companies have exploited this in the GWOT. See also, Gary Lakis and Surgical Shooting.

Troop numbers did the same in Afghanistan, rising about 3-4K to something around 23k at one point. Most of those were support types though. Another cause for the spike was the closure of K2 which necessitated placing more AF personnel (aircrews and support types) at Bagram. The sad thing is that Iraq in some respects is doing better than Afghanistan. 1 year ago that was not the case.

I think there was more to the departure from Fernandina than just that event. IIRC the DZ ran for 4 or 5 months after that happened, maybe longer. One MAJOR issue with a DZ on Amelia Island is the Amelia Island Plantation crowd. Rich and powerful in that neck of the woods, they've never liked jumpers; you almost need a fulltime PR department just to deal with them. I'd be willing to bet you could keep your nose clean and AIP would still try to find a way to ask that you leave "their" airport. LOL That's the same story the flying club told me...... thus why Nassau county gave them the extended lunch hour

Whit, maybe we are talking about 2 different incidents, I don't know. My info is third hand at best from a long time ago. I was just a commo guy so the particulars of the AH-1 series are lost on me. I have a friend, retired Cobra type, instructor, 3 tour gunship guy from Vietnam I could ask about that. I don't doubt your story one bit. I would guess though if there was more than one jump we'd have heard about them by now, so what I heard is likely an embellishment of your story. The best fables do spring forth from fact. But the truth? Hell, I wish I knew. Take care!

Tom, What we were told doesn't mesh with your version and I have no reason to doubt your side. The version we'd heard from 2 different folks, 1 in my old unit and one that was in 7th at the time was 2 guys from a SMU took the ammo bay doors off an AH-1 and jumped into St. Mere, landing near some 7th Group guys that were doing a S/L jump that day. The NCO landed in the woods and got away, the O didn't and was "caught" by guys that knew him before he went "over the fence". The result was everyone except the NCO being booted from the Army over it. While I never saw or heard anyone contradict the story, I'm also not terribly surprised it differs from your tale. Unless there is another jump no one's talking about. Thank you for sharing. Take care!