Dear Family & Friends, I hope you got a feel for what combat is like in a Navy F-14 from a previous email of mine. Here's one from a US Navy F-18 Pilot. It brings the missions up close and personal. Here is his story....

Thought y'all might get a kick out of a recent experience of mine. I'll chop this for an Approach Magazine article. I'm thinking the parts about the hot Air Force chicks is probably gonna have to be excluded for "political correctness". I'll leave in all the trash talkin' though.

In case anyone asks, flying around in an F 18 without a canopy is bad for the skin. Twenty-thousand feet over Afghanistan in an open air McDonnell Douglas Cabriolet is just a bad, bad place. Air's real dry up there. That and the wind chill of course. 0130 launch. Fifth and final planned tanker rendezvous. (25K MSL guessing 280-285 knots.) Had 13.0 fuel onboard but wanted to run my wingman back through because he only had 10.0 or so with an hour and a half to recovery. Sun was not up (0600) but it was bright enough. My goggles and goggle bracket were both stowed. Tanker had finished consolidating a half hour before and had four receivers (including myself) immediately afterwards. I was the fifth guy to tank. The boom operator recycled the hose between me and number four (dash two of the oncoming marine section). The boom operator called "clear" before I tanked. Tanking appeared normal to me. Air was smooth.

The Hose cut loose and I pulled the power back and picked up the nose in order to try and "ride the wave." The Refueling probe did not feel too much stress based on vibrations I felt in the cockpit. The Hose separated about seven feet forward of the basket. KC10 take-up reel on the refueling hose didn't do it's job. It didn't take up the slack. After some wailing and flailing The KC10 and I disconnected but I still had part of the it with me, the basket and seven feet of hose. The hose had a ten pound fitting on it that was quickly revealed when the wind stripped off the rubber sheath from the hose. Once revealed it proceeded to beating the living s**t out of my airplane.

"This is gonna be bad, this is gonna be real bad," I thought. I was right. After twenty sufficiently violent whacks the canopy gave up the ghost. I never thought about what a shattering canopy would sound like. Up until then of course. I figured since it's made of plastic it shouldn't sound like glass. Wrong. Sounded just like when you go flying through a plate glass window. Of course all the glass went out vice in. Cockpit went from eight grand to ambient in about a heartbeat. Which was a pretty small unit of time right then.

Don't know exactly where the KC10 went. Last I saw him he was turning for the South west, spewing gas in the air and spewing words over the radio. "Bossman" had no time for little 'ole me. One of his Air Force brethren was experiencing discomfort. Had to yell at him to get his attention. At first (before I put the top down) I thought I could make it home. "Okay, it's 650 NM away, I got 13.5....probably have to go pretty slow and kinda low. And that hunk o' s**t on my nose can't be doing much for my gas mileage. This should warrant a ready deck at the Carrier. Yeah one or two passes before they have to barricade me. And I ain't boltered yet so..."

Descended about three thousand feet and decelerated to about 260 by the time the canopy blew. Then the glass shattered. "Okay, Jacobabad it is. My boarding rate at a 10,000 foot airstrip is even better." Went down to about nineteen K and put out the speedbrake. Fitting was still beating up the jet while passing through 240 knots. At about 230 the beatings stopped and I started down, maintaining airspeed. Flight controls and engines appeared fine. Ball was a little out of center but that was it. Didn't have to turn to put JBAD on the nose. It was straight ahead. Nav system told me it was 260 NM away. My body told me it was pretty damn cold up there.

The KC10 remains were still trying to get at my head so I started descending and decelerating (opposing states so I'm not sure I did either one that efficiently). Leveled off at twelve thousand. I stopped getting beat up, the fitting just hung in the slipstream by my canopy bow, at 230 knots. So there I was...Eight thousand feet above Afghanistan at 230 knots. "You know, If a guy really wanted to get shot by a MANPAD missile he'd fly a profile a lot like what I'm doing right now." Oh well. It's at times like this when you just make a decision and go with it. If you pull it off then it was, "...outstanding airmanship and in keeping with the highest tradition of the United States Naval Service..." If you don't pull it off, if you get bagged, well...maybe they'll name a safety award or the new Base Gym after you. Managed to grab the piss bag that was flying around the cockpit and stuff it in my helmet bag. While stuffing other things away the In-flight Pack was ripped out of my hands. It went over the side in a flash. "Scotty's gonna hate that." Inlet temp read 3.

Buffeting while hunkered down behind the glare shield wasn't that bad. My wingman was still with me through all this. Because of some late tankers and shuffling to get guys that were using our tanker to go further north he only had 10K in gas so he definitely wasn't gonna make it back. Well, not definitely, he could still tank after all. But because of how I had to sit in the cockpit to minimize the wind blast I needed him to watch over me. I was pretty much hunkered down for the ride at this point. Seat lowered, visor down, cockpit heat up full and hunched over staring at one of the TV screens in the cockpit. It's weird the thoughts that come to you during times like this. "You know sitting this close to the screen is bad for my eyes." Had to snicker over that one.

I could look right and left and see the Afghanistan and then the Pakistan scenery slowly drifting by. Too slowly. On the descent the airplane's computer was displaying how long it would take me to get to the divert given my decelerating airspeed. "Okay, 20 minutes not bad I can do that no problem...oh thirty minutes now. Okay piece of cake... Forty!? S**t." Settled out at forty eight. In the end I didn't really look outside much. Just peeked over the dashboard every couple of minutes to make sure the velocity vector was on top of the upcoming ridgelines. This part of the world is not pretty by the way.

Once everyone realized the seriousness of the situation they started to talk to me. The AWACS switched me over to the E2 in charge of the South. They started relaying stuff I needed to tell the Boat. The parts the jet would need in order to make a flight back out again. The fact that my wingman was going to make the 0900 recovery vice the 0730, stuff like that. "The Boat wants to know how badly the canopy is cracked." I couldn't believe that one. I thought he would have heard all the wind in the cockpit and known. "It's not cracked, it's gone. I'm flying a convertible."

Apparently that line made it through all the nets loud and clear. The next day I was talking with the CSAR guys in Jbad and they said they got spun up when the read that on chat. (It's all real time chat nowadays.) What did not get through was the driver of the convertible. I know the E2 guy knew who I was (the conversation by the end had degenerated to callsigns. Gretzky and Duck. Not professional but somewhat comforting) but somehow the Boat was waiting for me to return at 0900 vice my wingman. All this technology...

As far as the cockpit was concerned there were two different and distinct regions. From my knees down I was toasty and warm. "This little piggy" was getting sweaty in fact. Then the chilly zone above that. The wind was swirling around pretty good and I was trying to grab all the paper and shove it into my helmet bag. Only lost one bit of classified stuff. Not too bad all things considered. After twenty minutes I started getting the shakes; after thirty they were fully developed. I tried to stuff my whole body down by the rudder pedals with limited success. Kept my hands warm though. Thank God for auto pilot.

About this time my wingman came up and said, "Hey can you reach out and grab that thing, pull it in?" I looked over at him (not that he could see me) with a look of shock. Stick my arm out into that wind, get my arm blasted back and thrashed on the glass shards sticking up everywhere? "Have you lost your mind?!" "Oh yeah, guess it's kinda windy. Sorry." Like I said, it's strange the thoughts you have sometime. My wingman and I talked about the airfield. Frequencies, layout, the fact that the locals like to shoot at planes landing there. You know, just normal airport talk. We talked about landing on a runway, something neither of us had done for three months. And we dumped fuel to lighten the load. We both were carrying two thousand pounds of unexpended ordnance so the Air Force guys were gonna love us. Lastly we dropped the landing gear in close formation and compared airspeed and AOA to make sure the KC10 hadn't damaged my AOA and airspeed probes as well.

I had him land first because I thought the hose might drag on the ground and get rolled up on by the nose wheel. After that who knew what would happen. Dumped down to 3.0 each. Airspeed and AOA checked accomplished at 170 and 150 knots. Appeared fine. Approach was initiated from 5k AGL when the threshold was ten degrees down. Started to slow the descent at about five hundred feet. Landed on speed at the nine board. Don't remember seeing a VASI or anything. Airfield diagram on approach plate doesn't show any landing aids. The plane flew fine with all that junk on it. Just had to use the rudder pedals, which is kind of an emergency procedure for a Hornet pilot. When I slowed to on speed I got the "sunroof effect" pretty bad. You know when you're zorching down the road and you open the sunroof but leave all the other windows up? That vibration you get until you crack another window? Well, I got kind of an advanced case of that during my Space Shuttle descent to final.

We both rolled out fine. Well, maybe not fine. We had to use all ten thousand feet and both had smoking brakes. (Our brakes hadn't been used like that in a while. On the Boat the wire brings you to a gentle stop without them, of course.) The emergency crews were waiting for us. And they were pointing and gawking as would be appropriate for a situation such as this. Couple of natives looked on in a disinterested matter. Of course I had to do a flight physical after all this. Had to make sure I wasn't on drugs before I launched on my six hour mission into Afghanistan.

The facilities in Jacobabad ain't that bad. I'm here to tell you we are number one in tent technology. Our tents kick ass. They have AC and everything. Since it's an Air Force base they got all the best entertainment. Drew Carry and Joan Jett had been there already. Shania Twain was supposedly coming too (broke my heart, if only I'd had better timing...). And of course the Toga Party on Saturday. Can't forget that. Yeah, it's kinda like the Boat. Except for the booze and the Toga Parties. Other than that it's just like the Boat. Other random observations: Air Force has all the good buildings. Marines are on the outskirts, again. The boys from the 101st are spoiling for a fight. Hate coming in behind the Marines all the time. Dust over everything. Lots of people there that don't look like they are in the normal military. I don't care what any psychology major would say about it, it's just cool carrying a gun everywhere. MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) are not too bad. Could see how people would get sick of them though. Tent city was a little slice of American suburbia right in rural Pakistan. Only Air Force base I've ever been on that didn't have any hot chicks. Of course I was only there for 24 hours.

The place is a FOD (Foreign Object Damage) nightmare. The maintainers showed up about four hours after I did. After the appropriate amount of gawking they got to work and fixed it well enough for the Return To the Boat in under four hours. Nice job all around. By then the basket and hose were removed, the canopy had been replaced and the LEX repaired with 300 mile an hour tape. ("Americans. Can Do Easy.") Three of the guys showed up and then disappeared with two big boxes of geedunk. They were on a booze hunt. They succeeded. The Air Force settled all the maintainers into two spare tents and they had a grand 'ole time. The next morning I took off low and fast at sunrise. Low and fast was due to the locals and the guns, of course. Not because it was fun.

I checked in and the E2 said, "It's good to hear your voice again." The RTB was uneventful right up until the end. A PTS shaft died and subsequently one of my Hydraulic systems gave up the ghost when I dropped the gear. I got a couple of spurious flight control cautions but didn't really give it much thought as I was working the landing. As I started the approach turn the nose started to wander and I got another caution tone. I lost one aileron, one rudder and half a horizontal stab. I hit the reset button and I think everything cleared. Then I saw the Hydraulic Cautions come up. Hitting the reset button suddenly went from normal response on short final to a big mistake. When the aileron failed again I realized I sorta needed to get aboard the first time. "Man, first I miss Shania and now this. This is just not my week."

I got it aboard because the Hornet is a fantastic jet. I got a Fair grade for the pass because I'm not very smooth when I'm rattled. I pretty much assumed I was in trouble throughout all this. A canopy has got to cost 70 or 80 grand. Depending on how much repairing the windscreen and the airframe were...it could cost over 200 grand. Which would mean a Class B mishap. Which would mean I was screwed, Again. Thinking all this and then seeing the CO waiting for me when I landed made my heart sink. But that was not the reason he was there. The decision was made somewhere to make a big deal about this in a good way. Just like that...dirtbag to hero. Funny.

Turned over bodily fluids to VFA-147 Safety Officer. This isn't the first thing that's happened to me out here you know. We're flying the s**t out of these jets and it's starting to show. I had to come back from the box with an engine shut down a week or two before. I'm starting to feel like that LT that keeps getting hosed in "The Bridges of Toko Ri." I got my letter in after all. I'm getting too short for this s**t. Oh well, statistically speaking the rest of cruise should be smooth sailing. What are the odds something like this will happen again? (I love planting the seeds of irony.)

It's me again... The Admiral on the Carrier in the movie Bridges at Toko Ri asked at the end of the movie, "Where do we get such men?" The answer is "Any Bar"

Here's a great letter from a young TOMCAT pilot to his family describing life on USS Theodore Roosevelt in support of operations in Afghanistan:

Subject: Beer Day #3 and a NYFD, Ladder 37 request

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everbody- Sorry to take so long to get you this update but I've been really, really busy procrastinating.

Ship's TV had the NFL playoffs on last weekend live! Loved the small taste of home that comes with watching football, I just don't dig the late hour that the games come on over here. Rolling out of the rack at 0400 to catch the Patriots-Raiders was brutal, but screw it. Loved seeing the snow storm - made me long for Sunday River. Oh well, next winter. Speaking of home, got to chat with Sara, Mackenzie and Delaney for 20 minutes via a video teleconference set that the ship made available to our squadron just after the New Year. Awesome to see the girls - Sara looks great, Mackenzie is getting tall, and Delaney is a crawling/cruising machine! Sara spent the entire 20 minutes managing toys, coloring books, snacks, sippie cups and Delaney's repeated escape attempts, all the while trying to conduct a conversation with yours truly. Don't worry Sara, relief is on the way; I'll be home in a few months!

As you can probably gather from all of the news reports, things are still busy on deck in Afghanistan but it's a wee bit slower right now for the air assets. In fact, the last real big push involving air power was just before Christmas up at Tora Bora, a mountainous region bordering Pakistan, just south of Kabul. As the Taliban continued to "fight this war to the death", with many of the cowards bravely throwing their hands up in the air to surrender, a few fellas made the fatal mistake of deciding to hunker down in the caves and tunnels up in that vicinity. As those cave complexes were essentially the only show in town, a majority of the air support was sent up there to get some work and get "worked", it did. I would rather have been a Derek Jeter jersey toting New York Yankees fan in the Bleachers at Fenway Park than a Taliban soldier forced to survive in those caves. After weeks of relentless air strikes, pockets of the Tora Bora started to look like the surface of the moon, a burning moon, that is - you could see the smoke billowing from 30 miles away. Secretary Rumsfeld's comment made from Bagram, comparing the fires burning up at Tora Bora to the still smoldering ruins at the WTC, were right on.

The Afghanistan countryside has come alive of late, although the word "alive" may be a little strong. Basically, the "cities" have more lights on at night, the paved roads have more traffic on them and civilians are now poking their heads out from under the covers and moving around more in the daylight. Snow dominates pretty much every peak over 5,000 feet north of central Afghanistan with the mountains surrounding Kabul reminiscent of the Sierra Nevadas this time of year. I wonder if I could get some heli-skiing in? Never mind. Land mines and deep powder are a tough mix.

The flights over Afghanistan, minus the bomb dropping part, remain the same: long transits to and from country, lengthy on station times, bookended (is that a word?) with the never-ending search for Air Force tankers in the south. Here is a standard OEF flight : launch, transit to the tanker, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, top off at a tanker, hold, hold, hold, hold some more, hit a tanker again, come home for a night trap. Our mission now is equivalent to that of a relief pitcher hanging out in the bullpen, warming up, ready to go on a moment's notice. If he gets the call, his mission is singular; deliver the beanball. It was much more fun being the starter, but such is war. You made find this hard to believe but these OEF flights I would now classify as boring; a far cry from all of the action pre-Christmas. With the recent slow down, I find myself checking my watch every 2-3 minutes to see exactly how many days we have left on deployment (more on that later). Broken glass chewing and self mutilation have surfaced as excellent hobbies to help kill the time! That said, it is extremely rewarding to fly over an area that, only 5 weeks ago, was getting pounded with laser guided bombs, and to see it now covered with USMC helicopters and US personnel brings a smile to my face. Through it all, the search continues and I hope that I get the call for one last bomb drop in Afghanistan, a bomb that drills Bin Laden right in the chest.

Had a few scary weeks during the last days of November. Was it the AAA, surface to air threat, night tanking, night traps? Nope - we almost ran out of piddle packs. For those of your who have never experienced the "cheese sandwhich", let me explain. Imagine flying for 8.5 hours - let's say from Boston to LA non-stop - on an airliner with no toilets and "movement about the cabin" is not only frowned upon, it is prohibited (you can see where I'm going here). When nature calls, the answer is the piddle pack - a small 20-ounce tough plastic bag with a ziploc top, ergonomically designed for cockpit usage, if you get my drift. Well, the word goes out late November that the ship's piddle pack inventory is running dangerously low, a timely resupply is unlikely and inflight relief generally needs to slow down, that is unless you were comfortable relieving yourself airborne on yourself.

Panic shot through the squadron and, as usual, we had some folks overreact, acting like peed-out piddle pack junkies going to any means to get their hands on some of the last remaining piddle packs: stealing, looting, begging, chicanery, hanging out in bathrooms and dark passageways looking to trade sex for piddle packs, you name it. One guy was found with TEN piddle packs in his helmet bag during the height of the Piddle Pack Depression and was beaten to within one urine drop of his life by a mob of angry pilots and RIOs, all recently forced to make an arrested carrier landing with a full bladder. Ruthless stuff. My squadron, in keeping with the theme that desperate times require desperate (i.e. moronic) measures, survived these dark days by adopting a completely unsafe personal dehydration plan coupled with the procurement of several emergency inflight relief vessels/urine storage devices - Gatorade bottles - for those times when bladder evacuation at 32,000 feet was just plain unavoidable. As an aside, donning the ever reliable DEPENDS undergarment was momentarily discussed but instantaneously dismissed. We were all in agreement that the image of a downed Navy fighter pilot in Afghanistan, paraded in front of the cameras of CNN, wearing only DIAPERS would only serve to heighten the fighting spirit and resolve of the Taliban and Al Qaida network worldwide.

This six month deployment ("referred to as a "cruise", ironically enough by the Navy) continues to slog along. Beer Day #3 is this Saturday which means that we will have been at sea for 135 consecutive days. NO ONE on the ship has ever seen a third beer day and that includes all of the salty buggers who have been doing this for 20-25 years. After the accounting collapse of Beer Day #1, the Heavies put in place a rock solid program to insure that everyone received ONLY TWO BEERS during Beer Day #2 back in November. Unfortunately, their plan worked, thus crushing my long held belief that it is virtually impossible to keep an ingenuitive American Sailor from getting just two beers on Beer Day. A challenge has been put forth for Beer Day #3 to beat the system and I think we are up for it - there is no way the Man can continue to keep us down. We are also on track to break another record this deployment , one that has been in place for 30 years. If we do not have a port call by February 21, we will break the record of 154 consecutive days at sea without a port call. It appears there are two chances of us having a port call before that date: slim and none - slim was on life support, but I believe his "plug" was pulled this morning. Doing the ENTIRE 6 month deployment without a port call is also a distinct possibility at this point which would place this deployment into the Cruise Hall of Fame: epic amounts of flight time, dropping live bombs, 4 beer days, no port calls. Don't recall seeing those last three items in the brochure at the recruiter's office. Amazingly enough, morale on the ship is still very, very high. People are still smiling, telling jokes and more importantly doing their jobs just as professional as ever. With only 8 no fly days in the last 3 1/2 months, once again, the young enlisted maintainers continue to amaze me at how hard they continue to work up there on the flight deck. Having just reread my "wanking" paragraph, let me set the record straight. Dropping live bombs on a hostile country in the defense of our nation is the culmination of many years of training (11 in my case) and a dream come true for every one of us out here, officer and enlisted alike. Loss of port calls and time away from family is a small price to pay when your country comes calling with the bill!

One last story for you. Just before Christmas, I received a large manila envelope from Ladder Company 37 (Bronx), New York Fire Department. Inside was a collection of wake cards and programs from the funerals of 14 NYC firefighters killed on September 11 as well as a note from LT John Gormley (former F-14 guy) with a special request. He wrote, "I wanted to know if you could do us a favor and spit these wake cards out of your speedbrake on one of your flights. We are real proud of these guys and we want to make sure that those greasy Taliban scumbags know exactly who they are dying for.......We know you guys are kicking ass over there and the support of your whole country is with you. Be safe and keep up the great work. We are all counting on you." The note was signed by 15 other firefighters (I will frame and hang that letter on my wall when I get home). Here it was two weeks before Christmas and I'm looking at the names and faces of 14 firemen, killed in the line of duty on the 11th. Choked up? Oh yeah.

I immediately knew exactly where I would drop these; these men were bound for Kandahar, the cultural (that word is used extremely loosely) center of the Taliban movement. On the day of the flight, I stuffed all of the cards/programs into a big envelope marked "PLEASE GIVE TO ANY TALIBAN MEMBERS" and headed up to the flight deck to coordinate getting it tucked under my speedbrake. The speedbrake is a 4 foot by 4 foot flight control surface on the aft portion of the jet that protrudes from the upper and lower surface of the fuselage. They are deployed anytime you need to slow down in a hurry (I think Maverick used them to make the bandit "fly right by" in the movie TOPGUN - sorry, forgive my cheesiness) or when landing.

The key is that they are controlled by the pilot, so anything placed beneath them will come out with the flick of a thumbswitch. Enough with the F-14 systems lecture.

Just before the Flight Deck Chief climbed up on the back of the jet to stash the envelope, he opened it to look at the contents. Looking down from the cockpit onto the flight deck, I witnessed yet another sight that I will not soon forget: 10 young enlisted men, dirty and tired, methodically looking at each of the wake cards, gazing at the faces of 14 fallen heros, many of whom were the same age of those Sailors. Judging by the looks on their faces, I would surmise that they had the same reaction that I did when I first opened the package.

Off to Kandahar. Night hop, so finding the city was easy. Lights off, just in case any Taliban AAA gunners were up late. Dropped down to an altitude lower than I probably should have but I didn't care. Rolled inverted and, while staring "downtown" Kandahar right in the face, popped open the speed brake. On December 11, 2001 at approximately 8:30 PM, Kevin Owen Reilly, CAPT William F. Burke, Jr., Durrell V. Pearsall, Jr., Michael Scott Carlo, Nicholas P. Rossomando, Peter A. Bielfield, Raymond Murphy, Hector Luis Tirado, CAPT Terry S. Halton, Archie E. Davis, Thomas J. Foley, LT John F. Ginley, Thomas G. Schoales and Michael Helmut Haub had one last flight, destination Kandahar. If things start heating up again, those names will be on bombs next time.

I want to share one more thing with all of you. One of the pieces of literature now in Kandahar was a pamphlet memorializing the life of Michael Scott Carlo. It contained family photos and a variety of essays written by his mom, dad and brother about their son/sibling and on the very last page was a photocopy of a handwritten note that was hanging over this young man's desk the day he died. Written by Mark Twain, it read: "20 years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do then by the ones that you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

You can count on it, Michael.

Until next time, JJ

Report of a Marine Corps Operation in Afghanistan

From Mike Wholley, November 27, 2001:

THE MARINES HAVE LANDED -- AGAIN

By David H. Hackworth

The first non-Special Ops unit deployed to Afghanistan is the U.S. Marines Corps -- no big surprise to this old Army doggie.

In World War II's South Pacific, Marines were "the firstus with the mostus" into the Solomons, and they led the way into Vietnam. In Korea, they landed second, but unlike the Army units initially deployed there, Gen. Edward Craig's Marine brigade hit the beach ready to fight. And without their skill, sacrifice and courage, the beleaguered Eighth Army would've been pushed into the sea during the early months of the conflict. A similar scenario occurred during the early stages of Desert Storm, in which Marine units came in ready to fight while the first Army troops -- the 82nd Airborne Division, with its insufficient anti-tank capability -- were a potential speed bump wa iting to be flattened.

The Corps, which has never lost sight that its primary mission is to fight, remains superbly trained and disciplined -- true to its time-honored slogan "We don't promise a rose garden." When, under Clinton, the Army lowered its standards to Boy Scout summer-camp level in order to increase enlistment, the Corps responded by making boot training longer and tougher. Now under USMC Commandant James Jones, that training has gotten even meaner for the young Marine wannabes waiting in line to join up, as well as for Leathernecks already serving in regular and reserve units.

Unlike U.S. Army conventional units -- their new slogan, "An Army of One," says it all -- the U.S. Marine Corps remains a highly mobile, fierce fighting team that has never forgotten: "The more sweat on the training field, the less blood on the battlefield."

The Marines are flexible, agile, ready and deadly, while the Army remains configured to fight the Soviets -- who disappeared off the Order of B attle charts a decade ago. For example, right after Sept. 11, the two Army heavy divisions in Germany -- with their 68-ton tanks that can crush almost every bridge they cross -- deployed to Poland for war games.

Hello, is there a brain at the top somewhere beneath that snazzy Black Beret being modeled at most U.S. airports by too many overweight Army National Guard troops?

The Army has eight other regular divisions, all designed to fight 20th-century wars. Three are heavy -- Tank and Mech Infantry -- and two are light, the storied 82nd Airborne and the elite 101st Airborne (now helicopter), and then there's the light/heavy 10,000-man 2nd Division that's in Korea backing up a million-man, superbly fit South Korean Army.

Less the light divisions, our Army's not versatile, deployable, swift or sustainable. The heavy units require fleets of ships and planes to move them, and it takes months to get them there -- it took Stormin' Norman six months to ready a force for Desert Storm. The 101st - - while deadly, as Desert Storm proved -- is also a slow mover requiring a huge amount of strategic lift -- ships and giant planes -- to get to the battlefield, not to mention the massive tax-dollar load to outfit and maintain it.

Sadly, today's Army is like a street fighter with brass knuckles too heavy to lift.

After the Rangers' disaster in Somalia -- where there were no tanks to break through to relieve them -- and the embarrassment of not being able to fight in the war in Serbia, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki started forming light brigades strikingly similar to USMC units. When I asked, "Why the copycating?" an Army officer said: "It was either copy or go out of business. We'd become redundant because of long-term lack of boldness and imagination at the top."

The Army costs about $80 billion a year to run. It's time for Congress to do its duty and stop enjoying the benefits of all the pork this obsolescence and redundancy provides. If the Army can't change with the times -- as the powerful horse cavalry generals couldn't just prior to World War II -- then it should fold up its tents and turn the ground-fighting mission over to the Marines.

The law of nature is simple: survival of the fittest. And in the 21st century, heartbreaking as it is for me to admit, the forward-based and highly deployable U.S. Marine Corps is the fittest.

"The following statement from Usama bin Laden and his associates purports to be a religious ruling (fatwa) requiring the killing of Americans, both civilian and military. This document is part of the evidence that links the bin Laden network to the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The original Arabic text of this statement may be found here."

Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders

If you have not seen "Looking for Answers", seek it out!  This web page has links to many informative articles.  The problem is much, much larger than Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

For background on the Saudi Arabia situation, this is a link to the Frontline program which has links to many good reference items.

Here is a link to the website of the Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI), an independent, non-profit organization providing translations of the Arab media and original analysis and research on developments in the Middle East.  It was cited by Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist in a recent (10/29) interesting article:

The e-mail below is from Col Nick Pratt, USMC (Ret). Col. Pratt spent a great deal of time in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. He was great Marine; he retired around 1996. He now heads up a CI school in Germany.

From: Pratt, Nick Col ®
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 4:00 AM

For terrain and weather read Les Grau's set of books: "The Bear Came over the Mountain" & "The Other Side of the Mountain." Impress upon your colleagues that once a US combatant sets foot in Afghanistan, we are the bad guy. This tradition started with a fellow named Alexander who wanted to be remembered as "the Great." We should let fellow Afghans cut up the Talibs. As the British learned and the Soviets didn't, it is easier to pay off an Afghan than to kill him. We can provide CAS, etc. I think I'd be wasting the colonel's time. He has enough to do. That said, it is your call. I'll support.

Here is what I think we should be thinking about. Share whatever you like. I sent this to some friends at HQMC who asked already. Pratt's "3 P's" strategy was part of what I told a reporter who interviewed me here on Saturday is:

Presence: No return to fortress America. We must stay engaged; economically, diplomatically and militarily.

Persistence: We must keep at this conflict through the next Congressional elections, the casualties, and etc, etc; and,

Patience: Taught to me by a great 1/9 sniper. We need to get the right kill.  Wait for the right moment and squeeze. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

I use "three" so my simple mind can remember it all. There are a shit pot of experts around flapping their jaws but I expect our leadership to follow a two-pronged axis:

• First, go after known terrorists for whom we have warrants and whereabouts (Like Abu Abbas in Gaza and our buddy Imad Mugniyah in Iran). We should tell their hosts, "You are with us or against us." They get the next move and then we finish the match.

• Next, we need to find UBL. Harder. It will take time but it will happen.

My "historic" experience has taught me a lot about the Afghan people and their neighbors. They will always resist outside intervention but they are also very pragmatic and cut deals when it is in their interest. They are the most duplicitous race on our planet. I would not be surprised if UBL's body and those of a few of his close friends don't magically appear at the mouth of the Kyber Pass with some weak explanation. The Talibs would be very wise to do this. Absent this sort of Afghan typical resolution, I anticipate that we will strike the Talibs' military capability and then let the forces of the Northern Alliance (Tajiks, ethnic Uzbeks and Shia from the Higarazat) retake the country. That will be a blood bath. Too bad Massoud is dead.

I wrote this about UBL several months ago but it is what makes him tick. As John Huston, said in Chinatown, "Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." Beware, so do terrorists. It is time to put Bin Laden in perspective. Gallons of ink have probably been spilled trying to portray Osama bin Laden to a Western audience. Too much ink perhaps? Many argue thoughtfully that we have created the myth of Bin Laden though all this media attention...and they make a good argument. But while we know a great deal about this shadowy figure, no one has yet explained what makes him tick; why he has intentionally sought to become America's most wanted.

While some writers find that his early life does not fit into the stereotypical biographical or psychological profile of an international terrorist, it does resemble that of many infamous terrorists and notorious criminal figures. We need only remember "Carlos the Jackal," Venezuelan-born Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a little rich kid who also found a thrill in murder. Born in mid-1950's of a Syrian mother and a swarthy Yemeni father, Osama bin Laden was the seventh son among fifty some odd brothers and sisters. Even though he was far down in the line of succession of his father's wealth, he was brought up in a life of heady privilege. His father had endeared him self the Saudi royal family and made a vast fortune in building their palaces. Bin Laden was rich, spoiled, sexually frustrated and bored silly.

Although he grew up in the most fundamentalist and conservative Islamic country in the world, he had a reputation of enjoying the nightlife, and the boys and girls of Beirut. Ras Beirut's coast was the real Mecca for this exasperated 'desert' youth. Hamra Street always afforded lots of alcohol, gratuitous sex, excitement and perhaps a little violence. Early on, Bin Laden appeared to be very non-confrontational, a rather mundane personality. But in 1979, the year he graduated from King Abdul-Azziz University, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and his lift off a sea change. Bin Laden was enraged by the Soviet repression of the Afghans.

Like the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the fall of Jerusalem into Israeli hands, the Soviet invasion appeared to be another in a succession of divine punishments for those straying from the path of Islam. He spent the next five years raising money and recruiting 'volunteers' to fight in the Holy Jihad against the infidel Soviets.

In 1984, he moved to Peshawar nearer the Afghan border to be closer to the action and to aid the fighters. His guesthouse, Baitul'ansar, was the first way station of "Arab" Mujahideen when they came to Afghanistan before going to the front or beginning training. He also crossed into Afghanistan to oversee the delivery of construction machinery and put it at the disposal of the Mujahideen to dig tunnels and prepared ordnance storage areas. Bin Laden started spending more and more time in Afghanistan, occasionally joining actual battles but not in an organized manner. Not content as a spectator, he wanted to organize, train and command his own fighters. He didn't wait long and created his own front to direct his own battles. His first face to face encounter with the Soviet army, using pure Arab personnel was in Paktia Province. It was a disaster.

What most Westerners do not appreciate was that real fighters, the simple, oppressed Afghan, scorned the "Internationalists," "Wahabi's" or"Arabs" as they were described in casual conversation. To gain a sense of their cynical contempt, one needs only read Les Grau's interviews with some of the Mujahideen's most successful commanders in "The Other Side of the Mountain." The Internationalists, for the most part, enjoyed posing for war pictures, video taping the "Great Game," and generally role playing. During one particularly sharp engagement on the border, they were begged to reinforce the beleaguered Afghan Mujahedin, but declined. Ask former Afghan Commander Akhtarjhan. One remarkable photograph sums up the scorn shown toward the Internationalists by the Afghans: a passing vehicle with a sign stating, "We are not Internationalists."

The relationship between the Afghans and the Internationalists was like a varsity team to the scrubs. The Afghans fought their own war and outsiders of any stripe were kept on the sidelines. The Bin Laden's of this Jihad could build and guard roads, dig ditches, and prepare fixed positions; however, this was an Afghan Jihad, fought by real Afghans, and eventually won by real Afghans. Bin Laden sat out the 'big one.'

To reconcile this profound psychological set back, Bin Laden simply started his own jihad. After Iran's former Satan (Saddam Hussain) invaded Kuwait, Bin Laden was expelled from the Kingdom in 1991 for challenging the authority of the Saudi royal family. As journalist Mary Ann Weaver noted, in bin Laden's mind "the United States had become to Saudi Arabia what the Soviet Union had been to Afghanistan: an infidel occupation force popping up a corrupt, repressive and un-Islamic government." Bin Laden was back in the jihad game. The United States was his target and he was finally center stage with no one.

Today, Bin Laden sees the evil hand of America everywhere from Serb ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims to Central Asia. He is now financing and supporting groups from Algeria to the Islamic Movement of Ubekistan in Tajikistan with allegedly wild sums of money. Accurate or not, what counts to Bin Laden is that it is attributed to him and it is his jihad. He basks in an all be it dimmer limelight that was once the exclusive domain of great Afghan warriors-commanders like Ismael Khan, Haqqani, and the late Ahmad Shah Massoud. Bin Ladin reclines against a mud hut wall, his ever-ready assault rifle at his side, dressed in the "jihad chic" of the day overseeing a loose confederation of like-minded castoffs from the Muslim world, an affinity group of sorts. Planning operations and moving "khanka" (opium), he will not miss this one or play second fiddle.

A self-proclaimed terrorist, Bin Ladin told John Miller "....We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian (targets). As far as we are concerned, they are all targets, and this is what the fatwah says ...." Bin Laden missed the noble Jihad and subsequently started his own sordid little war. The Afghan Mujahideen were heroically fighting an invading army of a toleration superpower to liberate their country; Bin Laden is proudly killing innocents of democracies to liberate his ego.

Semper Fidelis,

Good luck; be lucky, be lethal. Semper Fidelis, Nick

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Forwarded by Nick Cominos

Forwarded by John Sullivan, source unknown

Message from the Commandant of the Marine Corps:

RTAUZYUW RUEACMC3162 2552300-UUUU--RUHEMBE RUHEMDQ RUHEMBM. ZNR UUUUU

R 122300Z SEP 01 PSN 746504E26

FM CMC WASHINGTON DC//CMC//

TO ALMAR

BT UNCLAS file://N02300//

ALMAR 041/01

MSGID/GENADMIN/CMC WASHINGTON DC//

SUBJ/A NEW REALITY//RMKS/

1. THE RECENT TERRORIST ATTACKS ON OUR NATION HIGHLIGHT THE NEW REALITY OF WARFARE. THE VERY VISIBLE ATTACKS AGAINST ICONS OF OUR DEMOCRATIC NATION AND OUR CITIZENS NO LONGER REPRESENT A SIMPLE VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. AS WAS EVIDENCED SO GRAPHICALLY BOTH IN NEW YORK CITY AND WASHINGTON, A NEW FORM OF OPEN WARFARE WAS DECLARED AGAINST AMERICA, DIRECTLY TARGETING CIVILIAN AND MILITARY PERSONNEL AND OUR INSTITUTIONS ALIKE. OUR COMMANDER IN CHIEF HAS STATED WE WILL RESPOND TO THIS ACT OF WAR, AND WE WILL PREVAIL. AS WE RESPOND TO THIS TRAGEDY, OUR FOCUS, AS ALWAYS, IS TO MISSION FIRST AND PEOPLE ALWAYS. IN LINE WITH THIS COMMITMENT, I WOULD LIKE TO OFFER MY CONDOLENCES TO THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED THE LOSS OF LOVED ONES. I WOULD LIKE TO VOICE SPECIAL THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS FOR OUR COMRADES-IN-ARMS IN THE ARMY AND NAVY WHO APPEAR TO HAVE BORNE THE BRUNT OF THE ATTACK AT THE PENTAGON. WHILE THE PROCESS OF ACCOUNTING FOR ALL PERSONNEL, ACTIVE DUTY, RESERVE, VETERAN, AND CIVILIAN IS NOT YET COMPLETE, OUR CORPS APPEARS, THUS FAR, TO HAVE BEEN SPARED ANY LOSS OF LIFE IN WASHINGTON. I AM NOT AS OPTIMISTIC WITH RESPECT TO THE ATTACK IN NEW YORK CITY. SCORES OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE PERSONNEL AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC ARE BOUND TO BE MEMBERS OF THE "MARINE FAMILY."

2. THE VERY PUBLIC DISPLAY OF THIS NEW FORM OF WARFARE COMES AS NO SURPRISE TO MARINES. OUR FOCUS ON DEVELOPING ANTI-TERRORISM AND FORCE PROTECTION (AT/FP) CAPABILITIES ACROSS OUR FORCE CONTINUES OUR TRADITION OF INNOVATION AND TRANSFORMATION. THE THREATS WE SO VISIBLY FACED HAVE FULLY VALIDATED THE REORGANIZATIONS WE HAVE UNDERGONE IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, ESPECIALLY IN THE MARINE CORPS SECURITY FORCE BATTALION AND OUR FLEET ANTI-TERRORIST SECURITY TEAM CAPABILITIES. OUR MORE RECENT EFFORTS TO INCORPORATE AT/FP SKILL SETS IN ALL DEPLOYING MARINE CORPS UNITS HAS PROVEN PRESCIENT IN ADDRESSING THE LATEST THREAT TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY. WHILE OUR EXPEDITIONARY CULTURE REMAINS THE CENTERPIECE OF OUR WARFIGHTING CAPABILITY, THE ADDED ABILITY TO EFFECTIVELY DEAL WITH TERRORISM IS CRITICAL TODAY AND WILL REMAIN ONE OF OUR CORE CAPABILITIES FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.

3. OUR EXPEDITIONARY CULTURE HAS ONCE AGAIN PROVEN VALUABLE TO OUR NATION AND WE ARE POISED TO RESPOND TO THE ONGOING DISASTER RELIEF OPERATIONS IN NEW YORK CITY. IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE NAVY, WE HAVE ONCE AGAIN DEMONSTRATED THE VALUE OF THE NAVY-MARINE CORPS TEAM IN RESPONDING ACROSS THE FULL SPECTRUM OF CAPABILITIES THAT OUR NATION DEMANDS. IN LINE WITH THE SPECIAL BOND BETWEEN SAILORS AND MARINES, I HAVE OFFERED THE FULL COMMITMENT OF MARINE CORPS CAPABILITIES IN SUPPORT OF ANY NAVAL MISSION, ASHORE OR AFLOAT. COMMANDERS ARE DIRECTED TO REINFORCE THIS COMMITMENT BY SEEKING OUT THEIR NAVY COUNTERPARTS AND REINFORCING THIS OFFER OF ASSISTANCE WHEREVER IT MAY BE NEEDED. WHILE THIS SUPPORT INCLUDES THE FULL RANGE OF OUR CAPABILITIES, YOUR FOCUS SHOULD REMAIN ON OUR ABILITY TO SUPPORT THE AT/FP CAPABILITIES WE CAN PROVIDE.

4. WHILE WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED IN DEPTH THE POTENTIAL FOR ASYMMETRIC ATTACK, WE HAVE, THROUGH THE MYRIAD ACTIONS AND REACTIONS THAT TRANSPIRED ON 11 SEP 01, EXPERIENCED THIS PARADIGM SHIFT IN A MOST PERSONAL FASHION. IN ORDER TO CONTINUE OUR TRADITION OF INNOVATION WE MUST CAPTURE THE LESSONS WE HAVE LEARNED REGARDING THIS EMERGENT FORM OF WARFARE. COMMANDERS ARE DIRECTED TO COMPILE APPROPRIATE ISSUES AND THEIR POTENTIAL IMPACT FOR THE FUTURE, AND SUBMIT THEM THROUGH THEIR ADVOCATES FOR INCORPORATION INTO THE MARINE CORPS EXPEDITIONARY FORCE DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM. REALITY IS THAT WHAT WE HAVE FACED IN THE PAST 24 HOURS IS NOT A SINGLE, ISOLATED EVENT. YESTERDAY'S ATTACK IS THE MOST VISIBLE MANIFESTATION OF A WAR FOR WHICH WE HAVE PREPARED THROUGH ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE, AND FOR WHICH OUR EXPEDITIONARY CAPABILITIES WILL BE HIGHLIGHTED AND IN GREAT DEMAND.

5. THE MANNER IN WHICH WE REACT OVER THE DAYS AND MONTHS AHEAD WILL ONCE AGAIN HIGHLIGHT OUR READINESS AND ADAPTABILITY TO MEET THE NATION'S NEEDS ACROSS THE SPECTRUM OF OPERATIONS. IT WILL ALSO VISIBLY REINFORCE THAT WE ARE ALWAYS READY AND ALWAYS FAITHFUL.

SEMPER FIDELIS,

J.L. JONES, GENERAL, US MARINE CORPS, COMMANDANT//

BT #3162 NNNN

Reports from the Pentagon

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We Fight Now Because We Didn't Fight Then