Eject! Eject! Eject! Forty Second Boyd And The Big Picture
I happen to think Bill Whittle is a good writer…the way I always judge a written piece is:
Do I want to read the next sentence? The next word?
If the answer is yes, then you are reading something from start to finish, unless it is too long to do in one sitting.
If I want to find out what the next sentence says. If I want to know what happens next. If I want to keep reading…
Then the writer is good.
Bill Whittle is a good writer. His latest piece is…ah hell, just click and start reading.
Nods to LGF.
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Great article, long but great,
Notice that the ever so beautiful silver F-86 has a different tail than the grey Mig-15
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:05 amThat tail was top secret back then, in that the whole elevator would rotate (instead of just the trailing edge move like a flipper). It was painted to look like a regular tail but it did not function like one and gave our pilots one hell of an advantage over the Mig and was called a flying tail.
I love planes
Just read part 1, amazing article. Your lead-in to it was on point, hell of a post bashman
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:09 amAwesome read. Looking forward to reading part 2
January 3rd, 2008 at 10:28 amPart two is better than part one
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 am[You can not put a value on the power an idea such as the one that drives Gen. Petraeus’ “Awakening” strategy. A man’s ultimate motivation is to provide for his family. A man, when all is said and done, is powered by nothing more or less then the desire to make his family safe and proud of him.
If Americans pay such a man to walk the streets of his own neighborhood, keeping the peace by cooperating with a foreign army, will he take a coin so offered? I suppose it depends on whether or not he can do so with honor. No one wants foreign troops in their towns or streets. But we have been there long enough for the essential American decency and sincerity to be revealed, and spare me please any mention of Abu Graib or Haditha which were atrocities that were investigated and punished by an army that had no force to compel it to do so short of its own decency. These people are not blind. They know what is in a few diseased hearts and what is policy. The United States Army did something they have not ever seen in that country. Power policed itself. ]
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For me, these lines are some of the most profound of the whole 2 pt. article.
Gen. Petraeus is more than deserving of a Gen. Patton or Gen. MacArthur status in future (and current) history chapters. What he has accomplished through sheer “grab-your-balls-and-get-it-done” tactics should be taught in military academies in the future … especially if the future holds this type of enemy (and stupid-assed media) to deal with.
While it has been mentioned by those who have stood by this President and seen him stick to his resolve in this war, that history will show (IF history is written by honest scholars) GWBush will prove to be one of the strongest and wisest presidents in the 21st Century (yes, I know it’s early in the century …) But as the article stated: [General Petraeus is not fighting the last war; he is fighting the next one. He did not arrive there and just hope for the best. He observed. He oriented. He decided. And he acted. And then he observed again to see what effect he had. And again. And again.] … It holds the same for Pres. Bush as well, as of 9-11-01.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the era(s) of the “conventional enemy” is/are over … as this newborn century sees it. Oh, there will be posturing by certain countries … China, Russia, Iran, and even such pee-ons as Venezuela and Cuba … But their populations are NOT so downtrodden and ignorant anymore as to fall for their leadership to sling verbal and threatening “rocks and arrows” at the West and what the West promises people in this world for very long.
Which brings me to today’s fighting men and women. Not only have they been called upon to fight with what amounts to an arm and a leg cuffed behind their back(s), but to do so under the biased and unfair scrutiny of a media that has self-appointed itself judge and jury … and executioner … to how the military (OUR military) should fight a war … and with less than zero knowledge or balls to understand the “art” of war … Yes, as the article mentions, there have been isolated incidents of the random idiot ass-clown monster/criminal types that not only slithers into our military ranks, but leaves a slime behind to unjustly taint (in the eyes of the world via the eager and anxious out-of-context media) the rest of the brave, ass-busting military that just wants to do their job, and see it is done successfully. In this “new war” our troops are forced to now put themselves in the place of the civilians caught within the peripheral vision of our precision cross-hairs, often times stepping into our own cross-hairs to go out of our (their) way to avoid “killing” those who should be given the chance to live another day. No medal or accommodation could EVER reward such “outside-the-wisdom-intellect-and-common sense-of-self-survival” expected and demanded of our military today … OUR military.
And IF the scholars writing history about this time are honest, and hopefully humble, they WILL also dully note that fact about THESE men and women … THESE band of brothers and sisters … and MOST importantly.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:50 pm