Carter and Desert One.

[Rye Catcher]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

Yes. 82nd Airborne Division. Combat Engineer.

you cooked hot dogs and then got a dishonorable discharge

Not close. But what I would expect from someone who hates women, the Constitution, and of course America.

Oh. And if you were a Marine then Chesty is spinning in his Grave.

ok, so then you cooked potatoes.....I KNOW you---you think you are PERFECT--always bad mouthing the police--as if you would do it all better = a sure sign you are LYING about being in the military

As a Combat Engineer locating Booby Traps that would kill my fellow Paratroopers. I had one chance to get it right. As a Paratrooper. When you leave the plane you have one chance to get it right and deal with any problems.

With both of those I was taught to think. Think and remain calm. Think because if you do the wrong thing you will die.

An example. If your parachute fails you have a reserve. But what about a partial failure? If your chute never opens then pulling your reserve is exactly what you should do. But if you have a partial inversion or Mae West, pulling your reserve will get you very dead.

For that you have to throw your reserve in the direction of spin or into the wind.

Now broken suspension lines. Or Torn sections of Gore. The first thing you have to do is determine if you are falling faster than the other troops around you. If you are then deploy your reserve for a partial malfunction. If you are falling at the same rate do not pull your reserve.

Ok. Situation. You are jumping into a small DZ as part of your training at PLDC. It is a UH-1 blast. In other words you are jumping from a UH-1 Helicopter.

You are number three of six jumpers. You go on the tap. You count to six. Four is for airplanes. Helicopters are not moving as fast you need more time. So six is the count. You are jumping a MC1-1B parachute.

This is a steerable chute. It maintains about six knots of forward speed and can be steered by pulling the control toggles. Pull the left one and you turn left. Pull the right and you turn right.

The chute deploys and you see five suspension lines dangling. You have five lines of 550 cord that have broken. You pull on the toggles and find the left is broken too. You are now under a partial malfunction. You better think fast. You have two thousand feet to the ground to do it right.

After determining that you are not falling faster you pull on the right toggle. Congratulations. You just collapsed your chute. You are dead.

Or you think and realize that the right toggle will cause you problems and let it go. You start to shout to your fellow paratroopers. No control. Broken toggle. No control.

This allows your Mates to avoid you and try and steer clear of you.

Having never been in any sort of emergency before I did it right according to the Jump Officer who investigated. Of course I had three years experience as a Paratrooper by this time.

Later I had another emergency I did not handle as well. And I got hurt. I compressed my spine on the jump.

I got reclassified to another job in the Army. No longer a Combat Engineer. Now I was an Air Traffic Controller. Again. If you aren’t perfect and you don’t think you have Sheet Metal Showers with intermittent bodies. When there is an emergency you can’t make mistakes. People will die.

I was a Radar Controller. When a pilot had an emergency it was my job to talk him down to the ground. Perfectly. First time. He can’t afford a go around with a bad aircraft.

Nobody died when I was a controller. And nobody died when I was clearing Booby Traps in Iraq.

I was not a great Soldier. I wasn’t a great Controller. When I got out of the Army the FAA who was short of people thanked me but said no thanks. I wasn’t good enough for them. I can live with that.

But these standards are the minimum that is expected of Paratroopers and Controllers. I met the standard. I didn’t excellent or exceed them. I was just another troop. I was good. But I was surrounded by people who were just as good. Some were better. Some were a lot better.

Now. Let me ask you this. If we have standards for 18 and 19 year old troops. Kids really. And expect only the best from them. Why can’t we expect that cops will do it right? They’re older.

Remember the crap the Rangers got when it came out that Pat Tilman was killed by friendly fire? Everyone said these are Rangers. They’re supposed to be better than that.

You claim to be a Marine. Would you just shrug and say accidents happen if a Marine shot a fellow Marine? Would his career continue on with no hiccups? Or would his chance at promotions be zero even if he was found to have made an understandable mistake?

I was in California when a lone Marine was left in the field at 29 Palms. They died over the weekend. A simple mistake. Someone forgot to count. The Marines seemed to expect more however. The Squad Leader, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, were all Courts Martialed. The Battalion Commander was Relieved. Why?

Since you say you were a Marine, why were they Relieved? Accident happen don’t they? People are only Human aren’t they?

Were the leaders railroaded? Were they fucked by a political system? Or did they fail to meet the minimum standard for a Marine?

Here is a question. Why do we have such high standards for our Soldiers? I mean. What is the big deal? So what if they kill a few unarmed combatants? Who cares if Friendly Fire claims a few lives? So what if some property gets diverted to enrich someone? Hey. Nobody is perfect right?

This is why I have my doubts that you were a Marine. A Marine in my experience has been men and women of exemplary integrity and honor. Two things you are clearly bereft of.

Wow, I am still glad I enlisted in the Navy. Only twice did I have a moment of intense stress. Once when the alarm for "Man your battle Stations" was followed with, "this is not a drill"; and the other time when I was holding the projectile when the gun Cap't yelled "Silence". The brass had been placed in the breach with the primer exposed, and it slipped out and started rolling around the deck.

 

[SavannahMann]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

Yes. 82nd Airborne Division. Combat Engineer.

you cooked hot dogs and then got a dishonorable discharge

Not close. But what I would expect from someone who hates women, the Constitution, and of course America.

Oh. And if you were a Marine then Chesty is spinning in his Grave.

ok, so then you cooked potatoes.....I KNOW you---you think you are PERFECT--always bad mouthing the police--as if you would do it all better = a sure sign you are LYING about being in the military

As a Combat Engineer locating Booby Traps that would kill my fellow Paratroopers. I had one chance to get it right. As a Paratrooper. When you leave the plane you have one chance to get it right and deal with any problems.

With both of those I was taught to think. Think and remain calm. Think because if you do the wrong thing you will die.

An example. If your parachute fails you have a reserve. But what about a partial failure? If your chute never opens then pulling your reserve is exactly what you should do. But if you have a partial inversion or Mae West, pulling your reserve will get you very dead.

For that you have to throw your reserve in the direction of spin or into the wind.

Now broken suspension lines. Or Torn sections of Gore. The first thing you have to do is determine if you are falling faster than the other troops around you. If you are then deploy your reserve for a partial malfunction. If you are falling at the same rate do not pull your reserve.

Ok. Situation. You are jumping into a small DZ as part of your training at PLDC. It is a UH-1 blast. In other words you are jumping from a UH-1 Helicopter.

You are number three of six jumpers. You go on the tap. You count to six. Four is for airplanes. Helicopters are not moving as fast you need more time. So six is the count. You are jumping a MC1-1B parachute.

This is a steerable chute. It maintains about six knots of forward speed and can be steered by pulling the control toggles. Pull the left one and you turn left. Pull the right and you turn right.

The chute deploys and you see five suspension lines dangling. You have five lines of 550 cord that have broken. You pull on the toggles and find the left is broken too. You are now under a partial malfunction. You better think fast. You have two thousand feet to the ground to do it right.

After determining that you are not falling faster you pull on the right toggle. Congratulations. You just collapsed your chute. You are dead.

Or you think and realize that the right toggle will cause you problems and let it go. You start to shout to your fellow paratroopers. No control. Broken toggle. No control.

This allows your Mates to avoid you and try and steer clear of you.

Having never been in any sort of emergency before I did it right according to the Jump Officer who investigated. Of course I had three years experience as a Paratrooper by this time.

Later I had another emergency I did not handle as well. And I got hurt. I compressed my spine on the jump.

I got reclassified to another job in the Army. No longer a Combat Engineer. Now I was an Air Traffic Controller. Again. If you aren’t perfect and you don’t think you have Sheet Metal Showers with intermittent bodies. When there is an emergency you can’t make mistakes. People will die.

I was a Radar Controller. When a pilot had an emergency it was my job to talk him down to the ground. Perfectly. First time. He can’t afford a go around with a bad aircraft.

Nobody died when I was a controller. And nobody died when I was clearing Booby Traps in Iraq.

I was not a great Soldier. I wasn’t a great Controller. When I got out of the Army the FAA who was short of people thanked me but said no thanks. I wasn’t good enough for them. I can live with that.

But these standards are the minimum that is expected of Paratroopers and Controllers. I met the standard. I didn’t excellent or exceed them. I was just another troop. I was good. But I was surrounded by people who were just as good. Some were better. Some were a lot better.

Now. Let me ask you this. If we have standards for 18 and 19 year old troops. Kids really. And expect only the best from them. Why can’t we expect that cops will do it right? They’re older.

Remember the crap the Rangers got when it came out that Pat Tilman was killed by friendly fire? Everyone said these are Rangers. They’re supposed to be better than that.

You claim to be a Marine. Would you just shrug and say accidents happen if a Marine shot a fellow Marine? Would his career continue on with no hiccups? Or would his chance at promotions be zero even if he was found to have made an understandable mistake?

I was in California when a lone Marine was left in the field at 29 Palms. They died over the weekend. A simple mistake. Someone forgot to count. The Marines seemed to expect more however. The Squad Leader, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, were all Courts Martialed. The Battalion Commander was Relieved. Why?

Since you say you were a Marine, why were they Relieved? Accident happen don’t they? People are only Human aren’t they?

Were the leaders railroaded? Were they fucked by a political system? Or did they fail to meet the minimum standard for a Marine?

Here is a question. Why do we have such high standards for our Soldiers? I mean. What is the big deal? So what if they kill a few unarmed combatants? Who cares if Friendly Fire claims a few lives? So what if some property gets diverted to enrich someone? Hey. Nobody is perfect right?

This is why I have my doubts that you were a Marine. A Marine in my experience has been men and women of exemplary integrity and honor. Two things you are clearly bereft of.

Wow, I am still glad I enlisted in the Navy. Only twice did I have a moment of intense stress. Once when the alarm for "Man your battle Stations" was followed with, "this is not a drill"; and the other time when I was holding the projectile when the gun Cap't yelled "Silence". The brass had been placed in the breach with the primer exposed, and it slipped out and started rolling around the deck.

And in both cases you had to think. Best way to your station from where you were. Don’t stomp or jump. Just gently pick up the primer. Don’t panic.

Military people are trained to follow orders. And trained to think.

 

[AZrailwhale]

It could be argued the the Military had nothing to do with the aborted Carter rescue mission and it was just another in a long series of failed CIA plans by college kids and clerks and wannabe heroes that timid democrat administrations tend to trust more than their Generals.

Indeed. So we are rewriting the history now? It is fact that the Pentagon began planning immediately after the Embassy fell. It is fact that Colonel Charlie Beckworth was the commander of Delta at the time. And it is fact that pilots began training for low level flight to avoid detection.

But now all of that is wiped so we can blame the President.

The truth is the plan was risky. Even if everything went right it was dangerous. But even your objection. And rewriting of history. Even you can’t point to another plan with any chance of success.

Part of the problem was the CIA was in the Embassy. So our guys were reduced to watching news broadcasts for intelligence information. Thank You Peter Jennings.

The Generals were the ones who said this was the best plan.

I don’t know about the Air Force, but the army during the Carter years was a toothless mess. We had no budget for anything. If we needed two dump trucks for a mission, we dispatched eight and HOPED to have two running by the end of the mission. We couldn’t get truck batteries, we were reduced to putting new acid in batteries with worn out plates, I didn’t have a windshield for almost a year because there was no budget. We had no budget for ammo for yearly small arms qualifications, we had no money for training, so we did projects for other governmental agencies at their expense to remain qualified in tool usage.

 

[AZrailwhale]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over
age situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

You ever been to Iran, son?

Vietnam. Also went to see relatives right after Yom Kippur War. Was NOT pretty. Iran is the enemy. Need to be exterminated.

I have been to Iran many times.. The US has screwed them over and made ever sort of stupid blunder since 1953..

1. so because of 1953, that gives them the right to commit war crimes in 1979???!!!
2. they are shitheads, one step above the Africans --the revolutionaries complained about SAVAK..so what do the reveloutionaries do?? = they murdered/executed people !!!!!

You don't understand and are ignorant of what went on in '53 and for decades after that.

final--Eagle Claw was a massive embarrassment to the US AND so was how Iran toyed with the US for a YEAR --with Carter handling it all wrong

A friend of mine in foreign service worked for the Shah and reported to the US.. About the revolution he said: We were absolutely blindsided.. Everyone in intelligence was too close to the Shah. We thought the student protests were unimportant. Carter had bad intelligence.

Carter was stupid, naive and believed in the basic goodness of man. He was convinced Khomeini was a “good and holy man” rather than the religious fanatic and despot that he actually was. He was reactive rather than proactive, remember he told us to just accept OPEC’s blackmail rather than take steps to counter it. He told us to accept the malaise and stagflation his policies created.

 

[Turtlesoup]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

Right. So tell me. How did 241 Military people die in Beirut again? And what was Reagan’s response? Memory seems to say we fled as fast as we could. In six months you couldn’t find an American car in Lebanon. Look up Beirut Bombing.

Unbeknownst to Reagan, CARTER actually ordered that our troops not offend the muslims by carrying loaded weapons..............not till all those people died as the muslims were upset that Reagan unlike Carter wasn't buying the bullshit about OIL becoming extinct.

 

[surada]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over
age situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

You ever been to Iran, son?

Vietnam. Also went to see relatives right after Yom Kippur War. Was NOT pretty. Iran is the enemy. Need to be exterminated.

I have been to Iran many times.. The US has screwed them over and made ever sort of stupid blunder since 1953..

1. so because of 1953, that gives them the right to commit war crimes in 1979???!!!
2. they are shitheads, one step above the Africans --the revolutionaries complained about SAVAK..so what do the reveloutionaries do?? = they murdered/executed people !!!!!

You don't understand and are ignorant of what went on in '53 and for decades after that.

final--Eagle Claw was a massive embarrassment to the US AND so was how Iran toyed with the US for a YEAR --with Carter handling it all wrong

A friend of mine in foreign service worked for the Shah and reported to the US.. About the revolution he said: We were absolutely blindsided.. Everyone in intelligence was too close to the Shah. We thought the student protests were unimportant. Carter had bad intelligence.

Carter was stupid, naive and believed in the basic goodness of man. He was convinced Khomeini was a “good and holy man” rather than the religious fanatic and despot that he actually was. He was reactive rather than proactive, remember he told us to just accept OPEC’s blackmail rather than take steps to counter it. He told us to accept the malaise and stagflation his policies created.

LOLOL.. Carter was probably the most intelligent president we've ever had.. and he didn't praise the Ayatolla.

The oil embrgo was a direct result of the Yom Kippur War. Faisel was grieved to have to keep his word. At least they continued to supply the Vietnam War.

Here's what happened.

Interviews - Frank Jungers | House Of Saud | FRONTLINE | PBS

Interviews - Frank Jungers | House Of Saud | FRONTLINE | PBS

Frank Jungers first came to Saudi Arabia in the late 1940s to help in the restarting of oil facilities following the end of World War II.

Frank was my neighbor in Arabia.

 

[SavannahMann]

It could be argued the the Military had nothing to do with the aborted Carter rescue mission and it was just another in a long series of failed CIA plans by college kids and clerks and wannabe heroes that timid democrat administrations tend to trust more than their Generals.

Indeed. So we are rewriting the history now? It is fact that the Pentagon began planning immediately after the Embassy fell. It is fact that Colonel Charlie Beckworth was the commander of Delta at the time. And it is fact that pilots began training for low level flight to avoid detection.

But now all of that is wiped so we can blame the President.

The truth is the plan was risky. Even if everything went right it was dangerous. But even your objection. And rewriting of history. Even you can’t point to another plan with any chance of success.

Part of the problem was the CIA was in the Embassy. So our guys were reduced to watching news broadcasts for intelligence information. Thank You Peter Jennings.

The Generals were the ones who said this was the best plan.

I don’t know about the Air Force, but the army during the Carter years was a toothless mess. We had no budget for anything. If we needed two dump trucks for a mission, we dispatched eight and HOPED to have two running by the end of the mission. We couldn’t get truck batteries, we were reduced to putting new acid in batteries with worn out plates, I didn’t have a windshield for almost a year because there was no budget. We had no budget for ammo for yearly small arms qualifications, we had no money for training, so we did projects for other governmental agencies at their expense to remain qualified in tool usage.

There wasn’t money for anything. The economy was shit. The Federal Budget was cut everywhere.

There were hiring freezes for most departments. Needed positions went I filled because there wasn’t money to pay the people. The FAA put off modernizations of equipment. Some Airports were still using Radar sets from the 1940’s. Remember when Clinton and the others held up Vacuum Tubes and said they were from FAA Radars? About 20 years after the era you are talking about. They were still using Radars from the 40’s and 50’s.

In the last 80’s and early 90’s I was at Fort Bragg. And at least once a Quarter we went to MOUT City for training. This was a bunch of Cinderblock buildings that had been built for Delta to practice the Iranian Rescue.

We used it to learn the art of urban warfare.

The military found the money for the operation. Including training. A documentary showed the pilots talking about their practicing flying low level over the desert at night. They said they were doing this for months. Training.

 

[surada]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

Right. So tell me. How did 241 Military people die in Beirut again? And what was Reagan’s response? Memory seems to say we fled as fast as we could. In six months you couldn’t find an American car in Lebanon. Look up Beirut Bombing.

Unbeknownst to Reagan, CARTER actually ordered that our troops not offend the muslims by carrying loaded weapons..............not till all those people died as the muslims were upset that Reagan unlike Carter wasn't buying the bullshit about OIL becoming extinct.

Oil wasn't becoming extinct and Carter knew that.. The problem was Israel and stunts that created geopolitical issues that interferred with supply.

 

[harmonica]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over
age situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

You ever been to Iran, son?

Vietnam. Also went to see relatives right after Yom Kippur War. Was NOT pretty. Iran is the enemy. Need to be exterminated.

I have been to Iran many times.. The US has screwed them over and made ever sort of stupid blunder since 1953..

1. so because of 1953, that gives them the right to commit war crimes in 1979???!!!
2. they are shitheads, one step above the Africans --the revolutionaries complained about SAVAK..so what do the reveloutionaries do?? = they murdered/executed people !!!!!

You don't understand and are ignorant of what went on in '53 and for decades after that.

final--Eagle Claw was a massive embarrassment to the US AND so was how Iran toyed with the US for a YEAR --with Carter handling it all wrong

A friend of mine in foreign service worked for the Shah and reported to the US.. About the revolution he said: We were absolutely blindsided.. Everyone in intelligence was too close to the Shah. We thought the student protests were unimportant. Carter had bad intelligence.

Carter was stupid, naive and believed in the basic goodness of man. He was convinced Khomeini was a “good and holy man” rather than the religious fanatic and despot that he actually was. He was reactive rather than proactive, remember he told us to just accept OPEC’s blackmail rather than take steps to counter it. He told us to accept the malaise and stagflation his policies created.

LOLOL.. Carter was probably the most intelligent president we've ever had.. and he didn't praise the Ayatolla.

The oil embrgo was a direct result of the Yom Kippur War. Faisel was grieved to have to keep his word. At least they continued to supply the Vietnam War.

Here's what happened.

Interviews - Frank Jungers | House Of Saud | FRONTLINE | PBS

Interviews - Frank Jungers | House Of Saud | FRONTLINE | PBS

Frank Jungers first came to Saudi Arabia in the late 1940s to help in the restarting of oil facilities following the end of World War II.

Frank was my neighbor in Arabia.

...Carter embarrassed America ...Eagle Claw was a HUGE Fup = Carter is an idiot

 

[harmonica]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

Yes. 82nd Airborne Division. Combat Engineer.

you cooked hot dogs and then got a dishonorable discharge

Not close. But what I would expect from someone who hates women, the Constitution, and of course America.

Oh. And if you were a Marine then Chesty is spinning in his Grave.

ok, so then you cooked potatoes.....I KNOW you---you think you are PERFECT--always bad mouthing the police--as if you would do it all better = a sure sign you are LYING about being in the military

As a Combat Engineer locating Booby Traps that would kill my fellow Paratroopers. I had one chance to get it right. As a Paratrooper. When you leave the plane you have one chance to get it right and deal with any problems.

With both of those I was taught to think. Think and remain calm. Think because if you do the wrong thing you will die.

An example. If your parachute fails you have a reserve. But what about a partial failure? If your chute never opens then pulling your reserve is exactly what you should do. But if you have a partial inversion or Mae West, pulling your reserve will get you very dead.

For that you have to throw your reserve in the direction of spin or into the wind.

Now broken suspension lines. Or Torn sections of Gore. The first thing you have to do is determine if you are falling faster than the other troops around you. If you are then deploy your reserve for a partial malfunction. If you are falling at the same rate do not pull your reserve.

Ok. Situation. You are jumping into a small DZ as part of your training at PLDC. It is a UH-1 blast. In other words you are jumping from a UH-1 Helicopter.

You are number three of six jumpers. You go on the tap. You count to six. Four is for airplanes. Helicopters are not moving as fast you need more time. So six is the count. You are jumping a MC1-1B parachute.

This is a steerable chute. It maintains about six knots of forward speed and can be steered by pulling the control toggles. Pull the left one and you turn left. Pull the right and you turn right.

The chute deploys and you see five suspension lines dangling. You have five lines of 550 cord that have broken. You pull on the toggles and find the left is broken too. You are now under a partial malfunction. You better think fast. You have two thousand feet to the ground to do it right.

After determining that you are not falling faster you pull on the right toggle. Congratulations. You just collapsed your chute. You are dead.

Or you think and realize that the right toggle will cause you problems and let it go. You start to shout to your fellow paratroopers. No control. Broken toggle. No control.

This allows your Mates to avoid you and try and steer clear of you.

Having never been in any sort of emergency before I did it right according to the Jump Officer who investigated. Of course I had three years experience as a Paratrooper by this time.

Later I had another emergency I did not handle as well. And I got hurt. I compressed my spine on the jump.

I got reclassified to another job in the Army. No longer a Combat Engineer. Now I was an Air Traffic Controller. Again. If you aren’t perfect and you don’t think you have Sheet Metal Showers with intermittent bodies. When there is an emergency you can’t make mistakes. People will die.

I was a Radar Controller. When a pilot had an emergency it was my job to talk him down to the ground. Perfectly. First time. He can’t afford a go around with a bad aircraft.

Nobody died when I was a controller. And nobody died when I was clearing Booby Traps in Iraq.

I was not a great Soldier. I wasn’t a great Controller. When I got out of the Army the FAA who was short of people thanked me but said no thanks. I wasn’t good enough for them. I can live with that.

But these standards are the minimum that is expected of Paratroopers and Controllers. I met the standard. I didn’t excellent or exceed them. I was just another troop. I was good. But I was surrounded by people who were just as good. Some were better. Some were a lot better.

Now. Let me ask you this. If we have standards for 18 and 19 year old troops. Kids really. And expect only the best from them. Why can’t we expect that cops will do it right? They’re older.

Remember the crap the Rangers got when it came out that Pat Tilman was killed by friendly fire? Everyone said these are Rangers. They’re supposed to be better than that.

You claim to be a Marine. Would you just shrug and say accidents happen if a Marine shot a fellow Marine? Would his career continue on with no hiccups? Or would his chance at promotions be zero even if he was found to have made an understandable mistake?

I was in California when a lone Marine was left in the field at 29 Palms. They died over the weekend. A simple mistake. Someone forgot to count. The Marines seemed to expect more however. The Squad Leader, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, were all Courts Martialed. The Battalion Commander was Relieved. Why?

Since you say you were a Marine, why were they Relieved? Accident happen don’t they? People are only Human aren’t they?

Were the leaders railroaded? Were they fucked by a political system? Or did they fail to meet the minimum standard for a Marine?

Here is a question. Why do we have such high standards for our Soldiers? I mean. What is the big deal? So what if they kill a few unarmed combatants? Who cares if Friendly Fire claims a few lives? So what if some property gets diverted to enrich someone? Hey. Nobody is perfect right?

This is why I have my doubts that you were a Marine. A Marine in my experience has been men and women of exemplary integrity and honor. Two things you are clearly bereft of.

..we have all of your posts on USMB to prove you are a Waannabe = and a LIAR ......you think you are John Rambo!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAh-----this is from all of your posts on USMB

 

[surada]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over
age situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

You ever been to Iran, son?

Vietnam. Also went to see relatives right after Yom Kippur War. Was NOT pretty. Iran is the enemy. Need to be exterminated.

I have been to Iran many times.. The US has screwed them over and made ever sort of stupid blunder since 1953..

1. so because of 1953, that gives them the right to commit war crimes in 1979???!!!
2. they are shitheads, one step above the Africans --the revolutionaries complained about SAVAK..so what do the reveloutionaries do?? = they murdered/executed people !!!!!

You don't understand and are ignorant of what went on in '53 and for decades after that.

final--Eagle Claw was a massive embarrassment to the US AND so was how Iran toyed with the US for a YEAR --with Carter handling it all wrong

A friend of mine in foreign service worked for the Shah and reported to the US.. About the revolution he said: We were absolutely blindsided.. Everyone in intelligence was too close to the Shah. We thought the student protests were unimportant. Carter had bad intelligence.

Carter was stupid, naive and believed in the basic goodness of man. He was convinced Khomeini was a “good and holy man” rather than the religious fanatic and despot that he actually was. He was reactive rather than proactive, remember he told us to just accept OPEC’s blackmail rather than take steps to counter it. He told us to accept the malaise and stagflation his policies created.

LOLOL.. Carter was probably the most intelligent president we've ever had.. and he didn't praise the Ayatolla.

The oil embrgo was a direct result of the Yom Kippur War. Faisel was grieved to have to keep his word. At least they continued to supply the Vietnam War.

Here's what happened.

Interviews - Frank Jungers | House Of Saud | FRONTLINE | PBS

Interviews - Frank Jungers | House Of Saud | FRONTLINE | PBS

Frank Jungers first came to Saudi Arabia in the late 1940s to help in the restarting of oil facilities following the end of World War II.

Frank was my neighbor in Arabia.

...Carter embarrassed America ...Eagle Claw was a HUGE Fup = Carter is an idiot

You are completely ignorant about the circumstances.. There is NO effing magic.

 

[harmonica]

The 444 days ended when Reagan swore the oath.

yep anybody who believes it ended cause reagan was a great president and accomplished what carter could not is a fucking idiot.anybody who knows about the october surprisse knows Reagn and Bush committed treason making a deal with Iran to not release the hostages until After Reagan got elected. Reagan and Bush were fucking criminals who should have been hung by their balls.

YOU prove to be an idiot
..I can forgive 1 or 2 or even 3 grammar/etc errors...but your post is crap

 

[harmonica]

You are completely ignorant about the circumstances.. There is NO effing magic.

You are completely ignorant about the circumstances.. There is NO effing magic.

 

[SavannahMann]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

Yes. 82nd Airborne Division. Combat Engineer.

you cooked hot dogs and then got a dishonorable discharge

Not close. But what I would expect from someone who hates women, the Constitution, and of course America.

Oh. And if you were a Marine then Chesty is spinning in his Grave.

ok, so then you cooked potatoes.....I KNOW you---you think you are PERFECT--always bad mouthing the police--as if you would do it all better = a sure sign you are LYING about being in the military

As a Combat Engineer locating Booby Traps that would kill my fellow Paratroopers. I had one chance to get it right. As a Paratrooper. When you leave the plane you have one chance to get it right and deal with any problems.

With both of those I was taught to think. Think and remain calm. Think because if you do the wrong thing you will die.

An example. If your parachute fails you have a reserve. But what about a partial failure? If your chute never opens then pulling your reserve is exactly what you should do. But if you have a partial inversion or Mae West, pulling your reserve will get you very dead.

For that you have to throw your reserve in the direction of spin or into the wind.

Now broken suspension lines. Or Torn sections of Gore. The first thing you have to do is determine if you are falling faster than the other troops around you. If you are then deploy your reserve for a partial malfunction. If you are falling at the same rate do not pull your reserve.

Ok. Situation. You are jumping into a small DZ as part of your training at PLDC. It is a UH-1 blast. In other words you are jumping from a UH-1 Helicopter.

You are number three of six jumpers. You go on the tap. You count to six. Four is for airplanes. Helicopters are not moving as fast you need more time. So six is the count. You are jumping a MC1-1B parachute.

This is a steerable chute. It maintains about six knots of forward speed and can be steered by pulling the control toggles. Pull the left one and you turn left. Pull the right and you turn right.

The chute deploys and you see five suspension lines dangling. You have five lines of 550 cord that have broken. You pull on the toggles and find the left is broken too. You are now under a partial malfunction. You better think fast. You have two thousand feet to the ground to do it right.

After determining that you are not falling faster you pull on the right toggle. Congratulations. You just collapsed your chute. You are dead.

Or you think and realize that the right toggle will cause you problems and let it go. You start to shout to your fellow paratroopers. No control. Broken toggle. No control.

This allows your Mates to avoid you and try and steer clear of you.

Having never been in any sort of emergency before I did it right according to the Jump Officer who investigated. Of course I had three years experience as a Paratrooper by this time.

Later I had another emergency I did not handle as well. And I got hurt. I compressed my spine on the jump.

I got reclassified to another job in the Army. No longer a Combat Engineer. Now I was an Air Traffic Controller. Again. If you aren’t perfect and you don’t think you have Sheet Metal Showers with intermittent bodies. When there is an emergency you can’t make mistakes. People will die.

I was a Radar Controller. When a pilot had an emergency it was my job to talk him down to the ground. Perfectly. First time. He can’t afford a go around with a bad aircraft.

Nobody died when I was a controller. And nobody died when I was clearing Booby Traps in Iraq.

I was not a great Soldier. I wasn’t a great Controller. When I got out of the Army the FAA who was short of people thanked me but said no thanks. I wasn’t good enough for them. I can live with that.

But these standards are the minimum that is expected of Paratroopers and Controllers. I met the standard. I didn’t excellent or exceed them. I was just another troop. I was good. But I was surrounded by people who were just as good. Some were better. Some were a lot better.

Now. Let me ask you this. If we have standards for 18 and 19 year old troops. Kids really. And expect only the best from them. Why can’t we expect that cops will do it right? They’re older.

Remember the crap the Rangers got when it came out that Pat Tilman was killed by friendly fire? Everyone said these are Rangers. They’re supposed to be better than that.

You claim to be a Marine. Would you just shrug and say accidents happen if a Marine shot a fellow Marine? Would his career continue on with no hiccups? Or would his chance at promotions be zero even if he was found to have made an understandable mistake?

I was in California when a lone Marine was left in the field at 29 Palms. They died over the weekend. A simple mistake. Someone forgot to count. The Marines seemed to expect more however. The Squad Leader, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, were all Courts Martialed. The Battalion Commander was Relieved. Why?

Since you say you were a Marine, why were they Relieved? Accident happen don’t they? People are only Human aren’t they?

Were the leaders railroaded? Were they fucked by a political system? Or did they fail to meet the minimum standard for a Marine?

Here is a question. Why do we have such high standards for our Soldiers? I mean. What is the big deal? So what if they kill a few unarmed combatants? Who cares if Friendly Fire claims a few lives? So what if some property gets diverted to enrich someone? Hey. Nobody is perfect right?

This is why I have my doubts that you were a Marine. A Marine in my experience has been men and women of exemplary integrity and honor. Two things you are clearly bereft of.

..we have all of your posts on USMB to prove you are a Waannabe = and a LIAR ......you think you are John Rambo!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAh-----this is from all of your posts on USMB

Really? I don’t remember writing that. I remember writing I was in the 82nd. I remember writing I was in the 307th Engineers. I remember writing that I left Fort Bragg a Sergeant.

I never said I was a hero. I never said I killed hundreds. I said I was in a firefight. I said I never shot someone who was unarmed.

So how did I post that I was Rambo?

Also. Why did you ignore my specific questions about 29 Palms and the death of the Marine? Surely as a Marine you heard about this event. Surely if you were at 29 Palms it was mentioned.

I am sure that when your Leaders counted everyone twice they explained that this was because a Marine had died.

 

[harmonica]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

Yes. 82nd Airborne Division. Combat Engineer.

you cooked hot dogs and then got a dishonorable discharge

Not close. But what I would expect from someone who hates women, the Constitution, and of course America.

Oh. And if you were a Marine then Chesty is spinning in his Grave.

ok, so then you cooked potatoes.....I KNOW you---you think you are PERFECT--always bad mouthing the police--as if you would do it all better = a sure sign you are LYING about being in the military

As a Combat Engineer locating Booby Traps that would kill my fellow Paratroopers. I had one chance to get it right. As a Paratrooper. When you leave the plane you have one chance to get it right and deal with any problems.

With both of those I was taught to think. Think and remain calm. Think because if you do the wrong thing you will die.

An example. If your parachute fails you have a reserve. But what about a partial failure? If your chute never opens then pulling your reserve is exactly what you should do. But if you have a partial inversion or Mae West, pulling your reserve will get you very dead.

For that you have to throw your reserve in the direction of spin or into the wind.

Now broken suspension lines. Or Torn sections of Gore. The first thing you have to do is determine if you are falling faster than the other troops around you. If you are then deploy your reserve for a partial malfunction. If you are falling at the same rate do not pull your reserve.

Ok. Situation. You are jumping into a small DZ as part of your training at PLDC. It is a UH-1 blast. In other words you are jumping from a UH-1 Helicopter.

You are number three of six jumpers. You go on the tap. You count to six. Four is for airplanes. Helicopters are not moving as fast you need more time. So six is the count. You are jumping a MC1-1B parachute.

This is a steerable chute. It maintains about six knots of forward speed and can be steered by pulling the control toggles. Pull the left one and you turn left. Pull the right and you turn right.

The chute deploys and you see five suspension lines dangling. You have five lines of 550 cord that have broken. You pull on the toggles and find the left is broken too. You are now under a partial malfunction. You better think fast. You have two thousand feet to the ground to do it right.

After determining that you are not falling faster you pull on the right toggle. Congratulations. You just collapsed your chute. You are dead.

Or you think and realize that the right toggle will cause you problems and let it go. You start to shout to your fellow paratroopers. No control. Broken toggle. No control.

This allows your Mates to avoid you and try and steer clear of you.

Having never been in any sort of emergency before I did it right according to the Jump Officer who investigated. Of course I had three years experience as a Paratrooper by this time.

Later I had another emergency I did not handle as well. And I got hurt. I compressed my spine on the jump.

I got reclassified to another job in the Army. No longer a Combat Engineer. Now I was an Air Traffic Controller. Again. If you aren’t perfect and you don’t think you have Sheet Metal Showers with intermittent bodies. When there is an emergency you can’t make mistakes. People will die.

I was a Radar Controller. When a pilot had an emergency it was my job to talk him down to the ground. Perfectly. First time. He can’t afford a go around with a bad aircraft.

Nobody died when I was a controller. And nobody died when I was clearing Booby Traps in Iraq.

I was not a great Soldier. I wasn’t a great Controller. When I got out of the Army the FAA who was short of people thanked me but said no thanks. I wasn’t good enough for them. I can live with that.

But these standards are the minimum that is expected of Paratroopers and Controllers. I met the standard. I didn’t excellent or exceed them. I was just another troop. I was good. But I was surrounded by people who were just as good. Some were better. Some were a lot better.

Now. Let me ask you this. If we have standards for 18 and 19 year old troops. Kids really. And expect only the best from them. Why can’t we expect that cops will do it right? They’re older.

Remember the crap the Rangers got when it came out that Pat Tilman was killed by friendly fire? Everyone said these are Rangers. They’re supposed to be better than that.

You claim to be a Marine. Would you just shrug and say accidents happen if a Marine shot a fellow Marine? Would his career continue on with no hiccups? Or would his chance at promotions be zero even if he was found to have made an understandable mistake?

I was in California when a lone Marine was left in the field at 29 Palms. They died over the weekend. A simple mistake. Someone forgot to count. The Marines seemed to expect more however. The Squad Leader, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, were all Courts Martialed. The Battalion Commander was Relieved. Why?

Since you say you were a Marine, why were they Relieved? Accident happen don’t they? People are only Human aren’t they?

Were the leaders railroaded? Were they fucked by a political system? Or did they fail to meet the minimum standard for a Marine?

Here is a question. Why do we have such high standards for our Soldiers? I mean. What is the big deal? So what if they kill a few unarmed combatants? Who cares if Friendly Fire claims a few lives? So what if some property gets diverted to enrich someone? Hey. Nobody is perfect right?

This is why I have my doubts that you were a Marine. A Marine in my experience has been men and women of exemplary integrity and honor. Two things you are clearly bereft of.

..we have all of your posts on USMB to prove you are a Waannabe = and a LIAR ......you think you are John Rambo!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAh-----this is from all of your posts on USMB

Really? I don’t remember writing that. I remember writing I was in the 82nd. I remember writing I was in the 307th Engineers. I remember writing that I left Fort Bragg a Sergeant.

I never said I was a hero. I never said I killed hundreds. I said I was in a firefight. I said I never shot someone who was unarmed.

So how did I post that I was Rambo?

Also. Why did you ignore my specific questions about 29 Palms and the death of the Marine? Surely as a Marine you heard about this event. Surely if you were at 29 Palms it was mentioned.

I am sure that when your Leaders counted everyone twice they explained that this was because a Marine had died.

stop it----you always post YOU would do everything PERFECTLY, like John Rambo

 

[harmonica]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

Yes. 82nd Airborne Division. Combat Engineer.

you cooked hot dogs and then got a dishonorable discharge

Not close. But what I would expect from someone who hates women, the Constitution, and of course America.

Oh. And if you were a Marine then Chesty is spinning in his Grave.

ok, so then you cooked potatoes.....I KNOW you---you think you are PERFECT--always bad mouthing the police--as if you would do it all better = a sure sign you are LYING about being in the military

As a Combat Engineer locating Booby Traps that would kill my fellow Paratroopers. I had one chance to get it right. As a Paratrooper. When you leave the plane you have one chance to get it right and deal with any problems.

With both of those I was taught to think. Think and remain calm. Think because if you do the wrong thing you will die.

An example. If your parachute fails you have a reserve. But what about a partial failure? If your chute never opens then pulling your reserve is exactly what you should do. But if you have a partial inversion or Mae West, pulling your reserve will get you very dead.

For that you have to throw your reserve in the direction of spin or into the wind.

Now broken suspension lines. Or Torn sections of Gore. The first thing you have to do is determine if you are falling faster than the other troops around you. If you are then deploy your reserve for a partial malfunction. If you are falling at the same rate do not pull your reserve.

Ok. Situation. You are jumping into a small DZ as part of your training at PLDC. It is a UH-1 blast. In other words you are jumping from a UH-1 Helicopter.

You are number three of six jumpers. You go on the tap. You count to six. Four is for airplanes. Helicopters are not moving as fast you need more time. So six is the count. You are jumping a MC1-1B parachute.

This is a steerable chute. It maintains about six knots of forward speed and can be steered by pulling the control toggles. Pull the left one and you turn left. Pull the right and you turn right.

The chute deploys and you see five suspension lines dangling. You have five lines of 550 cord that have broken. You pull on the toggles and find the left is broken too. You are now under a partial malfunction. You better think fast. You have two thousand feet to the ground to do it right.

After determining that you are not falling faster you pull on the right toggle. Congratulations. You just collapsed your chute. You are dead.

Or you think and realize that the right toggle will cause you problems and let it go. You start to shout to your fellow paratroopers. No control. Broken toggle. No control.

This allows your Mates to avoid you and try and steer clear of you.

Having never been in any sort of emergency before I did it right according to the Jump Officer who investigated. Of course I had three years experience as a Paratrooper by this time.

Later I had another emergency I did not handle as well. And I got hurt. I compressed my spine on the jump.

I got reclassified to another job in the Army. No longer a Combat Engineer. Now I was an Air Traffic Controller. Again. If you aren’t perfect and you don’t think you have Sheet Metal Showers with intermittent bodies. When there is an emergency you can’t make mistakes. People will die.

I was a Radar Controller. When a pilot had an emergency it was my job to talk him down to the ground. Perfectly. First time. He can’t afford a go around with a bad aircraft.

Nobody died when I was a controller. And nobody died when I was clearing Booby Traps in Iraq.

I was not a great Soldier. I wasn’t a great Controller. When I got out of the Army the FAA who was short of people thanked me but said no thanks. I wasn’t good enough for them. I can live with that.

But these standards are the minimum that is expected of Paratroopers and Controllers. I met the standard. I didn’t excellent or exceed them. I was just another troop. I was good. But I was surrounded by people who were just as good. Some were better. Some were a lot better.

Now. Let me ask you this. If we have standards for 18 and 19 year old troops. Kids really. And expect only the best from them. Why can’t we expect that cops will do it right? They’re older.

Remember the crap the Rangers got when it came out that Pat Tilman was killed by friendly fire? Everyone said these are Rangers. They’re supposed to be better than that.

You claim to be a Marine. Would you just shrug and say accidents happen if a Marine shot a fellow Marine? Would his career continue on with no hiccups? Or would his chance at promotions be zero even if he was found to have made an understandable mistake?

I was in California when a lone Marine was left in the field at 29 Palms. They died over the weekend. A simple mistake. Someone forgot to count. The Marines seemed to expect more however. The Squad Leader, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, were all Courts Martialed. The Battalion Commander was Relieved. Why?

Since you say you were a Marine, why were they Relieved? Accident happen don’t they? People are only Human aren’t they?

Were the leaders railroaded? Were they fucked by a political system? Or did they fail to meet the minimum standard for a Marine?

Here is a question. Why do we have such high standards for our Soldiers? I mean. What is the big deal? So what if they kill a few unarmed combatants? Who cares if Friendly Fire claims a few lives? So what if some property gets diverted to enrich someone? Hey. Nobody is perfect right?

This is why I have my doubts that you were a Marine. A Marine in my experience has been men and women of exemplary integrity and honor. Two things you are clearly bereft of.

..we have all of your posts on USMB to prove you are a Waannabe = and a LIAR ......you think you are John Rambo!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAh-----this is from all of your posts on USMB

Really? I don’t remember writing that. I remember writing I was in the 82nd. I remember writing I was in the 307th Engineers. I remember writing that I left Fort Bragg a Sergeant.

I never said I was a hero. I never said I killed hundreds. I said I was in a firefight. I said I never shot someone who was unarmed.

So how did I post that I was Rambo?

Also. Why did you ignore my specific questions about 29 Palms and the death of the Marine? Surely as a Marine you heard about this event. Surely if you were at 29 Palms it was mentioned.

I am sure that when your Leaders counted everyone twice they explained that this was because a Marine had died.

point is, it's NOT a movie!! like Rambo--but you think it is

 

[Gdjjr]

The lies began long before Carter was POTUS- the cover-ups, etc. It is and MIC modus operandi-

The Lies of the National-Security State​

 

[SavannahMann]

you cooked hot dogs and then got a dishonorable discharge

Not close. But what I would expect from someone who hates women, the Constitution, and of course America.

Oh. And if you were a Marine then Chesty is spinning in his Grave.

ok, so then you cooked potatoes.....I KNOW you---you think you are PERFECT--always bad mouthing the police--as if you would do it all better = a sure sign you are LYING about being in the military

As a Combat Engineer locating Booby Traps that would kill my fellow Paratroopers. I had one chance to get it right. As a Paratrooper. When you leave the plane you have one chance to get it right and deal with any problems.

With both of those I was taught to think. Think and remain calm. Think because if you do the wrong thing you will die.

An example. If your parachute fails you have a reserve. But what about a partial failure? If your chute never opens then pulling your reserve is exactly what you should do. But if you have a partial inversion or Mae West, pulling your reserve will get you very dead.

For that you have to throw your reserve in the direction of spin or into the wind.

Now broken suspension lines. Or Torn sections of Gore. The first thing you have to do is determine if you are falling faster than the other troops around you. If you are then deploy your reserve for a partial malfunction. If you are falling at the same rate do not pull your reserve.

Ok. Situation. You are jumping into a small DZ as part of your training at PLDC. It is a UH-1 blast. In other words you are jumping from a UH-1 Helicopter.

You are number three of six jumpers. You go on the tap. You count to six. Four is for airplanes. Helicopters are not moving as fast you need more time. So six is the count. You are jumping a MC1-1B parachute.

This is a steerable chute. It maintains about six knots of forward speed and can be steered by pulling the control toggles. Pull the left one and you turn left. Pull the right and you turn right.

The chute deploys and you see five suspension lines dangling. You have five lines of 550 cord that have broken. You pull on the toggles and find the left is broken too. You are now under a partial malfunction. You better think fast. You have two thousand feet to the ground to do it right.

After determining that you are not falling faster you pull on the right toggle. Congratulations. You just collapsed your chute. You are dead.

Or you think and realize that the right toggle will cause you problems and let it go. You start to shout to your fellow paratroopers. No control. Broken toggle. No control.

This allows your Mates to avoid you and try and steer clear of you.

Having never been in any sort of emergency before I did it right according to the Jump Officer who investigated. Of course I had three years experience as a Paratrooper by this time.

Later I had another emergency I did not handle as well. And I got hurt. I compressed my spine on the jump.

I got reclassified to another job in the Army. No longer a Combat Engineer. Now I was an Air Traffic Controller. Again. If you aren’t perfect and you don’t think you have Sheet Metal Showers with intermittent bodies. When there is an emergency you can’t make mistakes. People will die.

I was a Radar Controller. When a pilot had an emergency it was my job to talk him down to the ground. Perfectly. First time. He can’t afford a go around with a bad aircraft.

Nobody died when I was a controller. And nobody died when I was clearing Booby Traps in Iraq.

I was not a great Soldier. I wasn’t a great Controller. When I got out of the Army the FAA who was short of people thanked me but said no thanks. I wasn’t good enough for them. I can live with that.

But these standards are the minimum that is expected of Paratroopers and Controllers. I met the standard. I didn’t excellent or exceed them. I was just another troop. I was good. But I was surrounded by people who were just as good. Some were better. Some were a lot better.

Now. Let me ask you this. If we have standards for 18 and 19 year old troops. Kids really. And expect only the best from them. Why can’t we expect that cops will do it right? They’re older.

Remember the crap the Rangers got when it came out that Pat Tilman was killed by friendly fire? Everyone said these are Rangers. They’re supposed to be better than that.

You claim to be a Marine. Would you just shrug and say accidents happen if a Marine shot a fellow Marine? Would his career continue on with no hiccups? Or would his chance at promotions be zero even if he was found to have made an understandable mistake?

I was in California when a lone Marine was left in the field at 29 Palms. They died over the weekend. A simple mistake. Someone forgot to count. The Marines seemed to expect more however. The Squad Leader, Platoon Leader and Sergeant, were all Courts Martialed. The Battalion Commander was Relieved. Why?

Since you say you were a Marine, why were they Relieved? Accident happen don’t they? People are only Human aren’t they?

Were the leaders railroaded? Were they fucked by a political system? Or did they fail to meet the minimum standard for a Marine?

Here is a question. Why do we have such high standards for our Soldiers? I mean. What is the big deal? So what if they kill a few unarmed combatants? Who cares if Friendly Fire claims a few lives? So what if some property gets diverted to enrich someone? Hey. Nobody is perfect right?

This is why I have my doubts that you were a Marine. A Marine in my experience has been men and women of exemplary integrity and honor. Two things you are clearly bereft of.

..we have all of your posts on USMB to prove you are a Waannabe = and a LIAR ......you think you are John Rambo!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAh-----this is from all of your posts on USMB

Really? I don’t remember writing that. I remember writing I was in the 82nd. I remember writing I was in the 307th Engineers. I remember writing that I left Fort Bragg a Sergeant.

I never said I was a hero. I never said I killed hundreds. I said I was in a firefight. I said I never shot someone who was unarmed.

So how did I post that I was Rambo?

Also. Why did you ignore my specific questions about 29 Palms and the death of the Marine? Surely as a Marine you heard about this event. Surely if you were at 29 Palms it was mentioned.

I am sure that when your Leaders counted everyone twice they explained that this was because a Marine had died.

point is, it's NOT a movie!! like Rambo--but you think it is

It’s interesting that you mention that, again. You’ve accused me of pretending to be Rambo more than once. I’ve denied it many times, but whatever. Instead of the same old tired am not nonsense. I’ll tell you another true story.

In 1991 I was selected to be one of the training aides for Robin Sage. Let me explain for the non military people like yourself what that is. Robin Sage was, and perhaps still is, the final qualification problem for Green Beret’s. In those days units were levied for soldiers to act as villagers for the Green Beanies to train. They would take us, and turn us into a viable guerrilla fighting force. The Instructors would tell us what to do. How to act, generally. Reluctant, distrustful, enthusiastic, whatever it was.

When they had all of us gathered together, they asked who knew how to run a couple radios. I knew how, I’d been a Squad Driver and knew all the radios they were talking about. Six of us were picked and asked other questions. Three of us, including me, were selected to operate the safety base. This base was to listen to the radio 24 hours a day. Day in, and day out for the entire Robin Sage field problem. If someone was injured, they would call it in, and we just picked up the phone and relayed the information. If a rifle or other item was lost, they would call it in and we would relay. You get the idea. Mostly boring unless there is a problem, and thankfully nobody got hurt so our time was boring the entire two weeks.

While manning this station which was in a guest house of an old retired Green Beanie Vietnam Vet who had a large tract of land near the training area, we had various people cycle through. People from HQ to observe the training, or some of the trainers cycling in and out to take their turns. They all stopped by the Radio to find out exactly where the teams were.

One of those people was Sergeant Major Rambo. He spent about fifteen minutes there talking to us, checking to make sure we were first taking care of his people, and second taken care of ourselves. He got in the Hummer and left once he had the location information he was looking for.

I remembered him because shortly afterwards he did an interview for the news. It was carried in the Local Papers, and in the Army Times of the era.

FOR REAL-LIVE ARMY RAMBO, LIFE DOESN'T IMITATE ART

It's 1991, and Rambo is back at Fort Bragg as command sergeant major of a Special Forces battalion.

greensboro.com

I remembered thinking that he was absolutely right. I’d already learned that teamwork was invaluable. And a team, a good team was far more than the sum of the parts. One would think a Marine would know that. But I guess a wannabe Marine wouldn’t.

Now, onto the 29 Palms incident that you haven’t commented on. Proof positive in my mind that you are a fake. Another RW Stolen Honor type. Probably wearing World War II ribbons on your eBay uniform.

Jason Rother incident - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

When I went to PLDC it was one of things we discussed. PLDC stands for Primary Leadership Development Course, and nobody in the class needed more development than I did. I passed, and was later promoted to Sergeant, but that is another story. Suffice to say my luck with great Sergeants continued, and one took me in hand and showed me what I was doing wrong. I learned.

We learned to always count and confirm where our troops were. We were told in no uncertain terms that we were responsible for the lives entrusted to us as leaders. We were morally and legally responsible.

The entire incident was a shit show. Nobody was doing what they were supposed to be doing, and the Marine Corps felt the same way. The Squad Leader was told not to worry about his missing troop. He should have worried. He was courts martialed and reduced in rank to Lance Corporal for his failure. The Platoon Sergeant was told not to worry. Same outcome same reduction in rank. The Platoon Leader was dishonorably discharged after his time in the brig was done.

The Battalion Commander was relieved. Because he tried to make it look like the Marine was responsible for his own death. That young Marine, died trying to make it home. Died trying to reach the base. He died of dehydration marching home to the base.

The real reason those people were busted is because the Marines don’t leave their own behind. And one was left behind. The Airborne would have been just as severe if the situation had happened to us. We don’t leave our own behind either. Our policy in the Company was simple. If one man misses the chopper, everyone stays off. Nobody gets on until we are all accounted for.

Now, I am not childish enough to think that in RL with bullets flying if I was hit running for the chopper and it was get on or lose the entire squad that they would turn around and come back, better to save the rest and lose that one man. I know that. But it is a great policy in training, and adding the caveat if possible doesn’t help morale.

So now that I’ve provided you with a link to the story on Wikipedia, I’m sure you’ll have some very strong opinions, as a “Marine” about the incident I asked you about twice.

 

[San Souci]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over
age situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Carter should have DEMANDED return of those hostages or Tehran gets bombed. No other option. Also he should have had the Ayatollah assassinated. But he WAS weak. Don't forget the runaway inflation and Gas lines. Besides ,Carter was the ORIGINAL planner of the Sub-Prime LENDING that almost bankrupted the USA in 2008.

How'd the killing of the Iranian General work out?

The more Iranians killed ,the better/ Time you traitors figured out Iran is an ENEMY.

You seem to operate under this mistaken belief that war is bloodless. To the men maimed and wounded. It certainly is not. To the families of the fallen. I can assure you that patriotic zeal does not assuage the grief of their loss. The men and women in Uniform are not thrilled to no end to die in a loud grotesque military manner.

Ever been in a War,Son?

You ever been to Iran, son?

Vietnam. Also went to see relatives right after Yom Kippur War. Was NOT pretty. Iran is the enemy. Need to be exterminated.

I have been to Iran many times.. The US has screwed them over and made ever sort of stupid blunder since 1953..

1. so because of 1953, that gives them the right to commit war crimes in 1979???!!!
2. they are shitheads, one step above the Africans --the revolutionaries complained about SAVAK..so what do the reveloutionaries do?? = they murdered/executed people !!!!!

You don't understand and are ignorant of what went on in '53 and for decades after that.

final--Eagle Claw was a massive embarrassment to the US AND so was how Iran toyed with the US for a YEAR --with Carter handling it all wrong

A friend of mine in foreign service worked for the Shah and reported to the US.. About the revolution he said: We were absolutely blindsided.. Everyone in intelligence was too close to the Shah. We thought the student protests were unimportant. Carter had bad intelligence.

Carter was stupid, naive and believed in the basic goodness of man. He was convinced Khomeini was a “good and holy man” rather than the religious fanatic and despot that he actually was. He was reactive rather than proactive, remember he told us to just accept OPEC’s blackmail rather than take steps to counter it. He told us to accept the malaise and stagflation his policies created.

Yep. And Reagan told it like it was. "When your neighbor loses his job it is recession. When YOU lose your job it is depression. When HE(Carter) loses HIS job it is recovery."

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Many people consider President Carter a weak President. Mainly over his handling of the Iran Hostage situation. But IMO that is unfair.

Almost immediately the Military began planning and training for the rescue operation. Charlie Beckworth who was one of the finest Soldiers in history led the planning and mission. He formed Delta. He made the Green Berets better than it was imagined they could be. The man was and is a legend.

So what happened? Well. Everything that could go wrong. Went wrong. Mr. Murphy stepped in and every sort of bad luck you could have joined the mission.

What did not happen? Carter did not limit the plan to a handful of Helicopters. The plan required six helicopters. The Army added one to the plan to make sure there was a spare. Carter added another one ordering two spares.

So what happened? A helicopter broke down on the way in. An emergency landing. And the crew transferred to another bird. This helicopter flew into a Haboob. A dust storm. The resulting dust created a situation where the instruments began to malfunction. So the pilots could not see and could not fly by instruments. They aborted and returned to the carrier.

Now we are at the minimum number. On the ground everything is going wrong. A nearly abandoned road is quite busy. Then the helicopters arrive. Only six. The bare minimum to pull the mission off.

One of the helicopters had a bad hydronic pump. If it was flown again it would have seized and the bird would crash. It is down. It can’t fly. The result will be certain death for the people.

Now we are below the minimum number. The mission is aborted.

Reasons for the failures? The technology didn’t exist for air crew night vision goggles. The ones they were using were the best available. But they were intended for keep drivers. Not pilots. Not training the entire force together as one unit. No familiarity with desert flying. Brownout is well known now. It wasn’t well known then.

In the end it was the best plan put forth by our Military. Including some of the most respected officers of the era. And Carter told them if it succeeded they would get the credit. If it failed he was out.

There was no other plan. No other realistic option. We could not invade Iran. We didn’t have the troops. And we would have lost tens of thousands in the attempt. Unleashing the bombers would have gotten the hostages killed for sure.

Now to the final point. In the decades since. None of the Monday Morning Quarterbacks have come up with another idea that would have worked.

Hydronic pump?

Keep driver?

WTF, over?