This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: Jonn Lilyea

  • Letterkenny Army Depot; explosion injures at least three

    Bobo sends us a link to Fox News which reports that an explosion at Letterkenny Army Depot, Pennsylvania has sent three to the hospital;

    The Franklin County Office of Emergency Management told Fox News three people were airlifted from the Letterkenny Army Depot after the blast, and there was no threat to the public.

    It wasn’t immediately clear how severe the injuries were; however, employees reported seeing two coworkers run out of a building “screaming and on fire, one with chemical burns,” ABC27 reported.

    […]

    The 18,000-acre depot has more than 3,600 employees who help provide “responsive and sustainable readiness for the US and Allied Air and Missile Defense forces.”

    Established in 1942, the facilities assist in maintaining and storing missiles and ammunition.

  • Adrian Cronauer passes

    Adrian Cronauer passes

    AnotherPat sends us the sad news that Adrian Joseph Cronauer has passed at the age of 79. Cronauer is best known for the Robin Williams movie “Good Morning, Vietnam” which was supposed to be based on Cronauer’s experiences in Vietnam, even though, Cronauer admitted that little of the portrayal was true.

    From Wiki;

    In the late 1970s, Cronauer had an idea for a television sitcom that would be a blend of M*A*S*H* and WKRP in Cincinnati, two popular TV series of that era. It was not until some years later that he was able to elicit interest in the proposal which became the film Good Morning, Vietnam. The movie was based on his experiences as a Saigon-based DJ during the Vietnam War, where he served from 1965 to 1966. His program was known as the “Dawn Buster.” According to Cronauer, other than the film’s portrayal of him being a radio host, very little of the film reflects his experiences, except the bombing of a restaurant which Cronauer witnessed from nearby. A subsequent special program on National Public Radio about the role of the American Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN-military radio and television) earned Cronauer a 1992 Ohio State Award and two 1991 Gold Medals from the New York Radio Festival. Prior to getting stationed in Vietnam he was stationed at Iraklion Air Station Crete, Greece.

    Cronauer’s service to his country didn’t end when he was discharged according to WDBJ;

    According to his obituary, Cronauer served as a confidential advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense from 2001 through 2009.

    Cronauer represented the POW/MIA office at meetings with the office of the Secretary of Defense. He led responsibility for DPMO’s dealings with international organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Tripartite Commission.

    For his efforts in those regards, Cronauer holds the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service.

    A former U.S. Air Force sergeant, Cronauer sat on the Board of Directors for the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford

  • Leonard Steven Sohn; phony Navy Corpsman

    Leonard Steven Sohn; phony Navy Corpsman

    Our partners at Military Phonies share their work on this fellow, Leonard Sohn, also known as Lenny “Doc” Kamp who claims that he was a Marine Corps Medical Corpsman (despite the fact that there is no such creature). He claims that he participated in combat in nearly every conflict of the last few decades – including a deployment to Afghanistan in the 1980s;

    I guess he was a one-man force in Afghanistan in the 80s.

    The Navy disagrees;

    It looks like he spent almost 5 years on active duty, with the Navy, not the Marine Corps. He trained as a dental technician, he spent about 7 months on a ship, and it looks like he was floating around the Persian Gulf during Desert Storm. However there is no foreign service in block 12f of the DD214. No Combat Action Ribbon, no Purple Hearts.

    I have no idea what is a Stinger Anti-Terrorism Weapon is. I know that a Stinger is a ground-to-air weapon used against aircraft, but it’s not an anti-terrorist weapon.

    But, anyway, he wasn’t a Navy or Marine Medical Corpsman – he was a dental technician, for Pete’s sake.

  • Thursday morning feel good stories

    Thursday morning feel good stories

    From Houston, Texas;

    Investigators tell Eyewitness News that around 10:30 p.m. Tuesday the woman was standing in the driveway next to the couple’s Suburban when the incident happened.

    The man says he was inside the home when he heard his wife screaming.

    When he went to the window, he saw two men with guns trying to push and drag his wife into the home. Police say he grabbed his pistol, went outside and confronted them.

    He and the suspects exchanged gunfire. One of the suspects was shot. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

    Authorities say the suspect is 22-years-old. They have not yet released his name.

    The second gunman got away.

    The homeowner and his wife are okay.

    The homeowner watched too many cop shows and shot the criminal in the head while the criminal was using the homeowner’s wife as a shield

    From Hummelstown, Pennsylvania;

    Two people entered the home through an unlocked back door around 2:30 a.m. The family dog alerted the residents to the intruders, police said.

    A resident confronted the intruders and exchanged gunfire with one of them. Two shots were fired before the intruders fled.

    No one was injured.

  • Major Michael Tolzien, special operations pilot, awarded DFC

    Major Michael Tolzien, special operations pilot, awarded DFC

    In another Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross story, the Air Force Times recounts the actions of Major Michael Tolzien, who at the time, was a special operations pilot of a MC-130J Commando II aircraft two years ago in Afghanistan, when he was tasked to get relief supplies to a Speciql Forces team who was critically short of war-fighting supplies. Tolzien lifted off with 1600 pounds of equipment.

    After loading up and taking off, Tolzien’s aircraft began cruising toward the drop zone, which was changed multiple times due to the shifting nature of the ground combat situation.

    The fluidity of the battle forced Tolzien’s crew to recalculate the perfect release point several times to ensure the supplies landed where U.S. forces, and not the enemy, could retrieve them.

    Conditions were quickly deteriorating as the crew neared their objective and looked for the best spot to drop their haul. Tolzien’s aircraft was struck multiple times by enemy fire as it flew slow and low, at about 800 feet above the ground, looking for the drop point.

    Despite the incoming rounds, Tolzien was able to remain calm and fly the plane steady enough that his crew dropped the supplies within 50 meters of the ground forces, “halting any further loss of life,” according to the Air Force. The drop “directly contributed to a successful counterattack.”

  • B1B crew earn Distinguished Flying Cross

    B1B crew earn Distinguished Flying Cross

    2-BIT sends us a link to the story of a Dyess Air Force Base B1B crew when their aircraft caught fire and their ejection seats failed over the Texas desert.

    When the first crew ejection seat failed to leave the plane successfully, the aircraft commander ordered the crew to immediately stop the escape procedure and managed to fly the damaged and burning aircraft with a crew hatch missing and the cockpit open to the surrounding wind blast to the Midland Air and Space Port near Odessa, Texas where the crew made a successful emergency landing.

    Last week at Dyess Air Force Base, the Air Force Global Strike Command commander formally recognized the heroism and extraordinary aerial achievement of that B-1B Lancer aircrew. The quick-thinking actions of the aircrew resulted in the first-ever successful emergency landing of a B-1B experiencing this series of serious malfunctions.

    USAF General Robin Rand, Commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command at Barksdale AFB awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross medal to B-1B crewmembers Major Christopher N. Duhon, Air Forces Strategic – Operations Division chief of future operations at Barksdale AFB, and an instructor pilot with duties at the 28th Bomb Squadron; Captain Matthew Sutton, 28th BS weapon systems officer instructor; 1st Lieutenant Joseph Welch, 28th BS student pilot; and 1st Lieutenant Thomas C. Ahearn, then 28th BS student weapon systems officer who has since completed training and is currently assigned to the 37th BS, Ellsworth AFB, S.D.

    .

  • Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 rescues a Chinese mariner

    According to Stars & Stripes, a call went out from the Belgian cargo ship Wangaratta that a crewman was desperately ill and needed medical attention.

    [Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 (HSC-25)] crewmembers, including aircraft commander Lt. Samantha Telles-Goins, headed for the ship about 120 miles west of Guam. They then brought the distressed mariner aboard for an airlift evacuation.

    “This was my first lifesaving Medical Evacuation as a member of HSC-25,” Telles-Goins said in the statement. “Seeing all of my training pay off successfully was a very rewarding experience.”

    The sailors took the mariner to Naval Hospital Guam, and he was later transferred to Guam Memorial Hospital for treatment, according to the Navy statement.

    I guess the Navy is a force for good in the world. They should make a commercial.

  • Security concerns led to “weeding out” foreign-born troops

    According to the Military Times, Pentagon officials were concerned that foreign-born recruits had falsified their backgrounds when they tried to enlist. For that reason, they started culling the herd of recruits;

    In a statement filed by Roger Smith, branch chief for personnel security policy at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, DoD argued that regular reviews of the program found security holes, including that some applicants could not be vetted because the U.S. lacked “access and the ability to conduct standard security screening and interviews with associates, friends, and family members, as many [Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI)] soldiers are from nations who remain hostile to the United States or do not have data-sharing agreements with the United States.”

    In addition, in his statement Smith said that through a 2016 review, DoD found that “(1) a number of individuals accessed into the military based on receiving fraudulent visas to attend universities that did not exist; (2) some MAVNI recruits attended, and later falsified transcripts from, universities owned by a Foreign National Security Agency and a State Sponsored Intelligence Organization (notably, most of the university classmates of one MAVNI recruit later worked for the same State Sponsored Intelligence Organization); and (3) one MAVNI recruit who entered the United States on a student visa professed support for 9/11 terrorists and said he would voluntarily help China in a crisis situation.”

    Another MAVNI recruit had family connections to foreign military entities.

    In DoD’s judgment, these examples indicated that sufficient vetting of MAVNI personnel was not occurring at the accessions stage, contrary to the goal of avoiding altogether the accessions of individuals who present potential counter-intelligence, security, or insider threats.

    I guess Associated Press reports aren’t as interested in the story now as they were a few weeks ago.