Snafus

Iraq: The Steaks Were High

Major Bryan Cecrie spent much of 2005 in Iraq’s “triangle of death” south of Baghdad. The horrors of war were real, and meals were supposed to be an opportunity to take the edge off, he told the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in this April interview:

The cooks always think they are doing you a favor when

Real Lessons From an Unreal Helicopter

The Army’s RAH-66 Comanche helicopter was going to be totally awesome, dude. This super-stealthy light attack helicopter, bristling with advanced sensors and communication gear, was going to perform loads of armed …

The English Pilot

Here’s the well-preserved carcass of a World War II-era Curtiss P-40 warplane, discovered Thursday by a Polish oil worker deep in western Egypt’s Sahara Desert. Indications are that the lone Royal Air Force pilot tried to summon help with his radio once on the ground, and, when that failed, trekked to his death. But the airplane …

Private Bradley Manning: Hero or Traitor?

Army Private Bradley Manning represents a Rorschach tests for many Americans. The Army arrested the 24-year-old two years ago after classified material he allegedly downloaded from a military intelligence network while serving in Iraq ended up being made public by WikiLeaks. His supporters laud him for exposing war-crime atrocities, …

21st Century War Trophies

A new batch of grisly and disgusting battlefield-trophy photographs surfaced in the Los Angeles Times Wednesday morning, showing. They show, among other things, U.S. troops and their Afghan allies posing with the remains of a suicide bomber. The Pentagon has tried to get out in front of this by issuing a – surprise! – statement …

W-2, F-35: Trouble With Numbers

You have to wonder if the Air Force can’t get its W-2 forms straight for 30,000 airmen – about 10% of the force – how can it help manage the financially-troubled $400 billion F-35 program? It seems changes in state tax laws – don’t these happen every year? – weren’t properly folded into the W-2 calculations the Pentagon’s …

For Want of a Nail…

It’s an ancient proverb about military snafus wrought by small oversights or neglect that has been recited in various forms for centuries. But the same thing, believe it or not, can still happen with the Pentagon’s 21st

“Other Than That, How Was Your Flight?”

Training for war – flying a jet fighter at low altitudes, for example – can be an unforgiving business. That’s the bottom line from an F-15 crash last October 24 in Nevada. The pilot wasn’t badly hurt, but the $32 million plane was totaled.

Accident investigators said they were unable to determine the cause of the crash, …

Flying Blind: Defog of War

Surely you’ve been driving down the street when, though no fault of your own, your windshield fogs up and you suddenly find yourself driving blind. Now imagine you’re flying an F-16 on the verge of landing amid an air show crowd – not to mention lots of vintage airplanes – when your canopy cockpit fogs up.

That’s precisely …

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