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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Thank you for sharing this. I found it very touching - especially his response when he was tracked down years later and reflected on the moment he asked the question:

    "… I think it’s an affront to play the game of “you don’t have the ‘need to know’” for someone who’s doing one of the most serious, grave jobs that there is in the armed forces. I have to say, I feel I do have a need to know, because I am a human being.

    It is inherent in an officer’s commission that he has to do what is right in terms of the needs of the nation despite any orders to the contrary. You really don’t know at the time of key turning, whether you are complying with your oath of office.

    I am left with a deep and growing hunger for peace among people at every level. It seems urgent to me that we find ways to become a more tolerant and forgiving people.

    Perhaps, I was not a good match for duty as a missile launch officer.”

    Such a very good man.





  • An F-15E Strike Eagle has a cost of $31m (though a new replacement could be $100m) but it is the rescue, far more high-risk than whatever mission the US warplane was on, where the difficulties clearly began.

    A decision to use an abandoned Iranian airstrip south of Isfahan as a forward operating location went wrong when two C-130 Hercules transporters, probably modified search and rescue variants, got stuck in the ground.

    They were destroyed by the US to prevent them falling into the Iranians’ hands, US sources indicated, and more transporters had to be brought forward to complete the extraction of the wounded second crew member. Each of the modified Hercules have a list price of nearly $115m.

    An HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter involved in the rescue was also damaged by gunfire on Friday – so it is easy to conclude that the cost in lost and damaged airframes exceeds $250m, largely for the rescue of the second crew member.

    Forgetting the war crimes committed by the aggressors against the people of Iran, for a moment, it’s amazing how expensive this operation to rescue someone is.