Tag Archives: Op-For

Leadership doesn’t stop

Posted on September 14, 2009 | Comments Off on Leadership doesn’t stop

Latest news from Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio on First Cav’s LTC Tim Karcher:

"I have no legs, and I accept that. I do not accept that my lack of legs will limit me. The adventure is re-learning, so that I am not limited.  Some people talk about how brave or heroic this attitude is, but for me it is simply practical. I refuse to let this keep me from living my life to the fullest, and you would too. It’s not heroic, it’s realistic. I admit, I look forward to moving through this adventure with others who are travelling the same path that I am. Thus far, many have helped me and guided me, and I look forward to inspiring future wounded Soldiers. Leadership doesn’t stop at the hospital door."

Some would. So it’s nice to hear from one whose leadership doesn’t. Good luck, colonel.

Via Op-For.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Iraq, Texana, The War, Troops

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Bring your daughter to war day

Posted on March 27, 2008 | Comments Off on Bring your daughter to war day

Sick humor. It seems to be that kind of day. But this is via Op-For, a certified, active-duty Mil blog. Does that make the gallows humor okay? Works for me.

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Posted in The War

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Red Flag

Posted on June 18, 2007 | Comments Off on Red Flag

Back in the mid-80s, when I was writing technology stories, I got to blend the subject into a piece on a visit to the Air Force’s Red Flag exercises at Nellis AFB, near Las Vegas. Later in the early 90s, I went again when the local recon squadron at then-Bergstrom AFB (now Austin’s international airport) went up for the exercises. These videos at OP-FOR, from the IMAX doc on Red Flag, are so good you may get airsick watching them, but they’re from an angle only seen by the participants. My second trip, I got a conference-table full of pilots and backseaters to interview all at once. Not the ideal way to do it, but it worked out. One guy started talking airspeed in knots, stopped and started to translate the knots to mph. I said I was a sailor, so I was used to knots, just a lot smaller numbers. Smiles all around.

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Posted in Scribbles, The War

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Shooting the wounded

Posted on February 18, 2007 | Comments Off on Shooting the wounded

Despicable Europeans still angry that cowboy Bush toppled Saddam find nasty ways of getting even:

"American transports flying badly wounded U.S. troops back to the United States, often ask European air controllers for a more direct flight path through European air space. This is in order to get the wounded soldier or marine to the American hospital more quickly. This is particularly useful when the aircraft have been turned into a flying ECU (Emergency Care Unit), and doctors are actually treating the seriously wounded in flight. The European air controllers rarely allow the direct flight."

Many of these flights are direct from Iraq to the Army hospitals in San Antonio.

Via Op-For 

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Posted in Iraq, The War, Troops

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Canada, oh Canada

Posted on October 19, 2006 | Comments Off on Canada, oh Canada

Op-For has put up some Canadian combat videos recently, demonstrating the Canuck’s prowess in the Afghanistan campaign. Now comes Israellycool quoting from a speech by Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper on the Maple Leaf’s new Middle East policy.

“Those who attacked Israel and those who sponsor such attacks … seek what they and those like them have always sought — the destruction of Israel and the destruction of the Jewish people,” he said. “Those who seek to destroy the Jews … will for the same reason ultimately seek to destroy us all and that my friends is why Canada’s new government has reacted with speed and spoken with clarity on recent events in the Middle East.”

That about sums it up.

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Posted in Israel, The War

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The new Persian fighter

Posted on September 7, 2006 | Comments Off on The new Persian fighter

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The boys at Op-For are having fun ridiculing Iran’s new (old) fighter, said to be better than an F-18. But the consensus is those tail feathers are merely attached to a Vietnam-era F-5. An F-22 Raptor wouldn’t need to come closer than five miles to shoot it down. But I suppose when you expect the return of a major religious figure from the dead, jet fighter performance isn’t the point of your war.

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Posted in The War

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