Look Sharp

 When we first started going together Mrs. Drang asked me what my favorite musical was.

She seemed dubious when I said 1776.

I don't know why...

Anyway, I guess I should have posted his back in April...

11/11/2023

 

So far as I know it has never been established for certain that "My Buddy" was about a fellow Dougboy who didn't make it home -- so far as I can tell neither Gus Kahn (lyricist) nor Walter Donaldson (music) served overseas, if at all, but that is the general assumption.

Lyricist Yip Harburg and composer Jay Gorney did serve in WW the First. Harburg was a commie, but what are ya gonna do?

And for Pete's sake, if you see Mike Royko don't tell him I worked in VeteransDay. 

Then and Now

 Just found this, which I saved in 1999 shortly before my retirement, and has been taking up room on my hard drive ever since.

The Military: 1945 vs 1999

•  1945 - NCOs had a typewriter on their desks for doing daily reports.
• 1999 - everyone has an Internet access computer, and they wonder why no work is getting done.

 

• 1945 - we painted pictures of girls on airplanes to remind us of home.
• 1999 - they put the real thing in the cockpit.

 

•  1945 - your girlfriend was at home praying you would return alive.
• 1999 - she is in the same trench praying your condom worked.

• 1945 - if you got drunk off duty your buddies would take you back to the barracks to sleep it off.
• 1999 - if you get drunk they slap you in rehab and ruin your career.

 

• 1945 - you were taught to aim at your enemy and shoot him.
• 1999 - you spray 500 bullets into the brush, don't hit anything, and retreat because you're out of ammo.

 

• 1945 - canteens were made of steel, and you could heat coffee or hot chocolate in them.
• 1999 - canteens are made of plastic, you can't heat anything in them, and they always taste like plastic.

 

• 1945 - officers were professional soldiers first and they commanded respect.
• 1999 - officers are politicians first and beg not to be given a wedgie.

 

• 1945 - they collected enemy intelligence and analyzed it.
• 1999 - they collect your pee and analyze it.

 

• 1945 - if you didn't act right, the Sergeant Major put you in the brig until you straightened up.
• 1999 - if you don't act right, they start a paper trail that follows you forever.

 

• 1945 - medals were awarded to heroes who saved lives at the risk of their own.
• 1999 - medals are awarded to people who work at headquarters.

 

• 1945 - you slept in barracks like a soldier.
• 1999 - you sleep in a dormitory like a college kid.

 

• 1945 - you ate in a mess hall, which was free, and you could have all the food you wanted.
• 1999 - you eat in a dining facility, every slice of bread or pad of butter costs, and you better not take too much.

 

• 1945 - we defeated powerful countries like Germany and Japan.
• 1999 - we come up short against Iraq and Yugoslavia.

 

• 1945 - if you wanted to relax, you went to the rec center, played pool, smoked and drank beer.
• 1999 - you go to the community center, and you can play pool.

 

• 1945 - if you wanted beer and conversation you went to the NCO or Officers' Club.
• 1999 - the beer will cost you $2.75, membership is forced, and someone is watching how much you drink.

 

• 1945 - the Exchange had bargains for soldiers who didn't make much money.
• 1999 - you can get better and cheaper merchandise at Walmart.

 

• 1945 - we could recognize the enemy by their Nazi helmets.
• 1999 - we are wearing the Nazi helmets.

 

• 1945 - we called the enemy names like "Krauts" and "Japs" because we didn't like them.
• 1999 - we call the enemy the "opposing force" or "aggressor" because we don't want to offend them.

 

• 1945 - victory was declared when the enemy was defeated and all his things were broken.
• 1999 - victory is declared when the enemy says he is sorry.

 

• 1945 - a commander would put his butt on the line to protect his people.
• 1999 - a commander will put his people on the line to protect his butt.

 

• 1945 - wars were planned and run by generals with lots of important victories.
• 1999 - wars are planned by politicians with lots of equivocating.

 

• 1945 - we were fighting for freedom, and the country was committed to winning.
• 1999 - we don't know what we're fighting for, and the government is committed to social programs (used to be called 'socialism').

 

• 1945 - all you could think about was getting out and becoming a civilian again.
• 1999 - all you can think about is getting out and becoming a civilian again.

Remember their names

Remember their names:

David L. Espinoza, 20, Texas, Lance Corporal, USMC

Nicole L. Gee, 23, California, Sergeant, USMC

Darin T. Hoover, 31, Utah, Staff Sergeant, USMC

Ryan C. Knauss, 23, Tennessee, Staff Sergeant, US Army

Hunter Lopez, 22, California, Corporal, USMC

Dylan R. Merola, 20, California, Lance Corporal, USMC

Rylee J. McCollum, 20, Wyoming, Lance Corporal, USMC

Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, California, Lance corporal, USMC

Daegan W. Page, 23, Nebraska, Corporal, USMC

Johanny Rosariopichardo, 25, Massachusetts, Sergeant, USMC

Humberto A. Sanchez, Indiana, Corporal, USMC

Jared M. Schmitz, 20, Missouri, Lance Corporal, USMC

Maxton W. Soviak, 22, Ohio, Hospital Corpsman, US Navy

On this date...

 ...forty years ago -- Holy Crap! -- I got on a plane that took me from Detroit to Saint Louis, and then on a bus that took me from Saint Louis to that pleasure spot known to the US Army as Fort Lost-In-The-Woods, Misery, where I was introduced to the tender mercies of Staff Sergeants Daily and Graves.

By the way, a note to "Gunny" fans everywhere: Anyone who wears the "Brown Round" and "Pumpkin badge" is probably fully skilled and capable of the same shtick. 

Well, this was a surprise...

Followed a link from Rantingly, and found this: 

The Drive: This Is The First Photo Ever Of A Stealthy Black Hawk Helicopter

(Edit to add, plus edits inline...) This prototype/test stealthy Blackhawk was clearly not built on a UH60, but on an EH60A "Quickfix IIB" Electronic Warfare bird.

See those antennae on the tail boom? Those are the port side direction finding dipoles. There are two more on the starboard side. And you can barely see the "stinger" antenna for the ALQ17 jammer. (Which is little different from the far more common TLQ17 ground vehicle version.)

(Follow the link above for more photos, and discussion.)

The original concept was that the jammer -- just the jammer -- was mounted in a UH1 "Huey", which then became an EH1. This would be "launched" when the jeep- or truck- mounted jammers were shifting position, which, doctrinally, they were supposed to do after each jamming mission.

(The TLQ17 was originally mounted in a jeep. The GLQ3 was on a truck. Later, the MSQ138 was on a tracked vehicle, but neither the system itself nor it's power supply, nor the track were reliable enough that you could expect one to be operational...)

Then some genius came up with the idea of adding a direction finding system. Which left the Huey so overloaded it was pretty much worthless. So they put it in a Blackhawk instead. 

It was somewhat revolutionary at the time, the DF system was supposed to be able to link with the ground based systems, so that theoretically you'd have 8 DF systems on the ground (5 Trailblazers, 3 Teampacks) plus one to three Quickfix aircraft in the air. 

The problem was that it was a lot cheaper, and therefore easier to slip in the budget, to upgrade the ground-based systems than to do us. So by the time I got to my first Quickfix unit, Ft. Carson in '92, our data rate was slow enough that establishing the net was... chancy.

(Assuming the ground based systems even rolled, the tracks were epic pieces of shit. Eventually they put them on 5 ton trucks, which were absolutely reliable, but had other issues. But that's another post.)

In my last assignment, Korea in '99-2000, I think we actually established a link once. Allegedly, one of the team leaders had a heart attack from the shock. And allegedly, our data rate was so slow compared to what they were running that we effectively shut the net down. 

Allegedly. 

Also, the aircraft were all "A" models, nearly 20 years old, and pretty worn out. The Electronic Warfare systems in the aircraft put the weight, with crew, right at the max capacity. 

To be quite honest, I have mixed feelings about that last tour. In many ways, it was my dream assignment, I was getting dozens of flight hours a month, was responsible for planning and executing collection missions that were in the daily White House brief (not that I believe that BJ Clinton gave a shit) and, frankly, making full non-rated crew pay, the only SFC on the entire peninsula actually authorized to do so. 

But I had, um, issues with some members of the chain of command, and by that time I was fed up with spending every other year away from Mrs. Drang. 

Then the bastards extended me with seven months to go to retirement...

...Anyway.

I cannot imagine why they chose an EH to try this stealth mod on. To the best  of my knowledge, the platform was retired, I'm not even sure why they would have mothballed them with all the antennae on. I'm sure they pulled all the mission gear when they mothballed them. So, aside from bringing back fond (and not so) memories, this really has me scratching my head. 

On this date...

...in 2000 I put away my Soldier Suit for the last time, got on the Freedom Bird, and left the Korean Peninsula behind for a new life, where I wouldn't be leaving Mrs. Drang every year or so*...


*...for a year or so.
Two weeks later I realized I left that off.

Flash Back!

A little way into the Korean Basic, once we had gotten to the point that we could manage more advanced grammar, we had a lesson in which "Dad" came home from work to find his sons brawling, and yelled "POK DONG AH! SSA-OOH JI MA!"; colloquially translated, "What is this riot?! Stop fighting!" 

Only we thought he was calling one of his sons "Pok Dong" -- riot or civil disturbance -- and did not quite grasp yet the nuances of Korean grammar; in this case, the imperative forms indicated by the "AH/MA" verbs endings.

(Confession digression: I are grammaring goodly in English, written or spoken, but if you require me to diagram a sentence, I'm heading for the door. I still have a hard time telling the difference between an adverb and an adjective, and I'm not clear on what a gerund is.)

So several years later I'm in Korea on my second tour, my first at the Second Infantry Division, and one weekend I scored a day pass to head down to Seoul. Maybe I was Christmas shopping, I don't recall, but I don't remember it as being particularly cold, so may not. 

Anyway, the bus route went by several universities, including Yeon Sei Dae Hak ("tae hak" = university; commonly referred to as "Yeon Dae", which, confusingly, is also the word for "regiment".)

The student body was participating in their favorite intramural activity, loudly proclaiming their opinions on various and sundry matters of great concern, featuring a variety of special effects and training aids by both said student body and their critics, to wit: bricks, rocks, fire bombs, and tear gas.

In other words, rioting.*

I caught a whiff of said tear gas, leaving me a bit hoarse for a day or two. When a Korean acquaintance asked if I was well, I explained that I had gotten too close to the "pok dong" near Yeon Dai.

And was promptly corrected: "Not a pok dong, it was a demo!"

And that, boys and girls was my first exposure to the concept that, if the cause is exalted enough, any amount of riotous, destructive, behavior can be excused by the simple process of designating it a "demonstration" or "peaceful protest."

*See P.J. O'Rourke's hilarious essay "Seoul Man" from Rolling Stone, reproduced in his collection Holidays in Hell.

 

69 years ago today

(Originally posted 06/25/2014)

..north Korea invaded the Republic of Korea.

The commie still claim that the ROKs invaded them, but when the USSR collapsed the Kremlin revealed that, in fact, Kim Il Sung asked Stalin for permission to move, and Stalin said "Go ahead."  US Secretary of State Dean Acheson had just laid out the US Sphere of Interest, and neglected to include the Korean Peninsula...

Acheson did persuade President Harry Truman to intervene, sending in elements of the US Occupation Forces from Japan.  Unfortunately, the US forces in Japan were pretty hollow, despite the prevailing feeling that, in the aftermath of defeating both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, that America was unbeatable.\

Said feeling, coupled with the idea that the Atomic Bomb had made war "impossible", may have had something to do with the stripping of all combat units in Japan to the bare bones: Regiments having three battalions on paper had two, battalion had two companies instead of three, companies had two platoons.  Worse, weapons and equipment were either not present, or not maintained, and the troops were similarly poorly trained and in poor shape, mostly garrison troops.

Furthermore, the US Army military advisors in Korea had pronounced it "not tank country", and had therefore not only deprived the nascent ROK Army of armored fighting vehicles, but also of anti-tank weapons.

Which left the ROK Army with little but bundles of dynamite to fight Kim Il Sung's T-34s.  They worked, sort of, but the ROKs petty much ran out of soldiers willing to do that sort of thing about the same time they ran out of dynamite.  Unfortunately, the commies still had some tanks left, which came as a shock to the troops of the U S Army's Task Force Smith. That they were heavily outnumbered didn't help, but the fact that the commies were better equipped and better trained would undermine the confidence of the US forces for months to come.

Driving the commies to the Am Nok River  and then being pushed back by every Chinaman in the world didn't help.


Previous posts from 6/25:

• 65 years ago...
• The Clue Meter: Three-score and four years ago...
• 6/25+61 Years
• 60 Years Ago Today
• Another year older...
• 58 Years Ago Today...

Also of possible interest:

• Tomahawk!
• They just don't make commie thugs like they used to
• More north Korean stuff
• Korea (AKA "Drang's Greatest Hit")
• More on Korea (Sequel to above) 

Plus, of course, all the other posts tagged "Korea" at left.

75 Years Ago...

The Great Crusade began.

D-Day By the Numbers, By the Men | VodkaPundit

I want you to imagine picking up every resident of a medium-sized city, everything they'll need to eat and drink and rest for a few days, any vehicles they might need, gasoline, of course, plus lots of guns and ammo -- did I mention this was a hunting trip? -- and then moving them all in a few short hours a distance of anywhere from 30 to 125 miles or so.

Now imagine you have to move all those people and all that stuff partly by air, but mostly across heavy seas in foul weather.

Under enemy fire.

I should also mention that if you messed up any of the big details, a lot of your people are going to die, and then you're going to have to figure out how to move them all back without getting too many more of them killed.

“I Am An Adverb!”

So, there I was. 1980. Defense Language Institute, Presidio of Monterey, California. Basic Korean Course. (For “listeners”, AKA "geeks"; they had a separate course at the time for interrogators, AKA “rubber hosers.”)

Now, the recruiters had taken one look at my test scores and decided I should take the Defense Language Aptitude Battery, or DLAB. I had not done so well in Spanish classes in school, but they insisted, so I went ahead.

When I walked out of the room I felt like my brains were running out of my ears.

There were multiple portions to the test. One checked for general knowledge of foreign languages; I recall one where the sentence said “le poisson est sur la table”, and you had to select the correct drawing, which variously featured a fish and a bottle of poison on, under, and beside a table.

Another section used English vocabulary, but made-up grammar. As I recall, it actually was similar to what I would be learning in Korean: “The boy went to the store” might be rendered “’Boy-ga’ ‘store-ay’ ‘go-ed’”; The “ga” suffix attached to “boy” indicates the subject of the sentence, and the “ay” suffix on “store” indicates his destination. The verb comes at the end of the sentence, and instead of using “went” you use “go” with a past tense indicator. Both the test and the Korean language were/are a lot more complicated than that. As I recall, by the end of that section of the test we were reading paragraphs and answering (trying to answer) questions about who did what to whom.

June 14th...

...is the US Army's Birthday.

Also Flag Day.

Photo ©2010 & 2018 Mrs. Drang & The Cluemeter.

I hear it's also President Trump's birthday, although TBH I don't generally celebrate the birthday of folks I don't know personally. (Note it, sure, but celebrate, no.)

Here are a few pics I just dug out of the archive:

Team Spirit, 1986:

Photo ©1986 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

My Motley Crew for Team Spirit 1986. 3 KATUSAs and two round eyes, on a mountain for two weeks. Part of why I laugh when I hear people speak nostalgically about MREs, or act like ramyun* is a gourmet delight...

Photo ©1986 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

I wish I could remember this guy's name, he was a Ground Surveillance Radar operator augmenting my team. Good guy, despite the (mostly) good-natured rivalry between the "Electronic Grunts" and us SIGINT Geeks.

Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

Here I am, a year or so later at Ft. Ord, the 7th Infantry Division (Light) "Fight Light, Freeze at Night!"(I can pinpoint this as to date because I am wearing OD green "jungle fatigue" trousers, still authorized for field wear at the time. They got destroyed at the National Training Center soon after this.)

Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

My buddy, Steve W. If you recognize him, have him drop me a line.

Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

IIRC, Steve M. (on the left) and Dave J. (on the right.) No, that's not a duffel bag full of poagie bait, it's the 50+ pound direction finding antenna.

If The Steves and Dave look like drowned rats in these, it's because it was raining non-stop. We were supposed to be dropped in an airmobile insertion, move cross-country, and then get picked up. Somewhere in there, the skies opened up and the pick up got cancelled, and we spend a miserable night under poncho hooches. (Actually, IIRC, it was one big hooch and we pulled the Heinlein Starship Troopers thing where we huddled together...)

Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

This is my ruck. There are many like it, but this one was mine. PRC77 radio with KY57 crypto device, a week's worth of batteries, MREs and water, poncho and poncho liner, and one change of socks.

≈125 pounds.

Tactical Hipsters can speak of their "woobie" like it's some sort of security blanket, but I spent too many nights freezing under one to get all misty-eyed.

Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

Airmobile insertion, waiting for the bird to pull pitch...
 

Photo ©1987 & 2018 DW Drang & The Cluemeter.

All the pics (except the one at the top, taken by Mrs. Drang), were taken on film, before consumer-priced digital cameras were even science fiction. The ones from Ft Ord were taken with a Vivitar pocket 35mm, that just fits in a 20 round M16 magazine pouch. I'm pretty sure the ones from Korea were taken with a Nikon SLR, otherwise I couldn't have gotten that time-delay group pic. No idea what lens either camera had/has.





*Ramyen -- or "namyun" -- is Korean, Ramen is Japanese...

A Reminder

Not that I think anyone who reads my blog needs it, but here is a reminder of what "male privilege" looked like 74 years ago:

Saving the sum of things for pay, for 242 years, and counting.

Memorial Day, 2018

Or, Remembrance Day, or Decoration Day, depending on where and when you're from.




I don't now if this story is true -- I certainly never heard it before -- but I usually post a recording of "My Buddy"...

Flashbacks

So, this one has been sitting in "Drafts" for three years now. No idea where I was going with it. But someone was extolling the virtues of the M60 Machine Gun the other day, and I just happened to remember this, so...

 Flashbacks. Thanks to Tamara, I'm having them. Weaponsman's fault, mostly.

I once had an M60 machine gun that wouldn't fire. I lost track of all the way some genius had found to reassemble it with all the parts -- no "spares" left over -- most of them inserted incorrectly. The hammer was installed backwards and upside down, the gas cylinder was backwards, the trigger group pins were inserted backwards, and the leaf spring was on the wrong side and upside down...

If it had been Basic Training I'd've suspected a test of some sort.

My loathing for the M60 machine gun knows no bounds, since, in addition to the above incident, it has to be held together with baling wire. Well, they'll tell you you're the armorer is using baling wire to make sure that the person who is qualified on and issued it is not performing unauthorized maintenance... including cleaning the gas cylinder. Because it was allegedly simple to clean the gas cylinder, you can just (allegedly) roll it around in the dirt and it'll scour all the caked on carbon right off, but the odds (and risks) of re-inserting it backwards was considered to be too high so not only was it not operator maintenance, but the thing was supposed to be, you guessed it, wired shut.

Also, R.I.P. Weaponsman.

(Edited to add the point about the hammer.)

20 years, down the drain

And just like that, my Army career was rendered irrelevant.

Pacific Stars and Stripes: Moon and Kim Discuss Denuclearization at Historic Summit

BBC: North Korea's Kim Jong-un Pledges 'New History' With South Korea

The Times: Koreas Poised For ‘Great Transition in World History’

Voice of America: North, South Korean Leaders Hold Historic Meeting

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Moon and Kim
Photo from The Small Wars Journal

Not really, of course.

Note, by the way, that Kim and Moon did not sign a peace treaty, which some of the reporting implied happened. It sounds like they agreed to look into it later this year.

No, what is so momentous is the fact that the heads of state met: Neither country has heretofore even acknowledged that the other existed legitimately. North Korea has always insisted on meeting with the USA alone, while the USA refuses to meet separately, and officially designates it "north Korea", with a small "n".

As I was explaining to a colleague in The Salt Mines,  I served for 20 years, 3 months, and 3 days, and almost 9 of those years were in the Republic of Korea. I spent a fair amount of time on, or within rifle-shot of, the Demilitarized Zone.

One year I was Watch NCO at Field Station Korea; this was under Bush 41, when Mrs. Drang and I were still newlyweds, and de-nuclearization talks on The Peninsula were proceeding well enough that every installation in the republic of Korea was required to make plans for how to deal with commie inspectors.

At a facility that was a wholly-owned subsidiary, so to speak, of the National Security Agency (which was still commonly referred to as "No Such Agency" at the start of my career) you might assume this resulted in some angst.

You would be correct, but it might surprise you that the Secret Squirrel contingent just read the instructions, and made plans accordingly. (Collection operations would be suspended, equipment turned of, and contents of filing cabinets and the like would be covered with kraft paper. IIRC, things would filed so that the kraft paper could be pulled back to reveal files, but they would be set up in such a manner that nothing could be learned of the contents of files by so doing. They would not have the right to inspect read the files, just do a quick scan with the Mark I Eyeball, and wave a Geiger Counter over it, if they wanted.)

(This was the first use I saw of an Access Card scanner; some genius covered those boxes with kraft paper...)

No, the person who really got all spun up was the NCOIC of the Information Technology Section. (Whatever we called it back on 1990.)

Mind you, that doesn't mean we were all impressed, those of us who had already invested a significant amount of time and effort into the "Korean Mission" fully expected the whole thing to come to naught, which it did.

So.

My standard answer regarding peace on the Korean Peninsula remains "I'll believe it when I see it", but I must admit, for the first time since 1980 I do feel some hope.

ANZAC Day, 2018

An Improvement

Back in 2011, in The Clue Meter: QOTD, Army Birthday Edition, I noted that the Army was doing away with the Green Service Dress uniform altogether and simply using the Dress Blues as the Service as well as Dress uniform.

Other than that, at gthe time my only comment was "No Comment."

Over the ensuing years, however, I have come to think that was a real mistake, almost as bad as letting everyone wear a black beret. Since I somehow made it through a 20 year career without feeling compelled to purchase a set of Dress Blues -- I had two occasions in all that time where it would have been the preferred uniform, and one of those was a formal dinner with Mrs. Drang's employer! -- it took me a few years if seeing soldiers wearing them out and about to realize just how goofy they looked as a service, rather than dress, uniform.

So Sergeant Major of the Army Daniel Dailey  has announced that the Army is going back...

...to Pinks and Greens!

Well, sort of. For one thing, "pinks and greens" were worn by officers only, these will be the same for all ranks.

Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey stands with Soldier models wearing the proposed Pink & Green daily service uniform at the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania December 9, 2017. (US Army photo by Ron Lee)
DVIDS

Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley stands with Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey prior to walking out onto the field for the beginning of the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania December 9, 2017. Standing with them in front of the games color guard were Soldier models who along with the SMA are wearing the proposed Pink & Green daily service uniform. (U.S. Army photo by Ron Lee)
DVIDS

"Here, SFC Johnson shows us the Class B Shirt. I’m very impressed by the work the uniform’s designers have done to research historical uniform items and adapt the styles to reflect modern tastes and materials."
Original caption to photo at AUSA - Prototype Pinks and Greens - Soldier Systems Daily

That last photo was taken at the AUSA convention in October; the first two at the Army-Navy Game in December. (GO ARMY! BEAT NAVY! Which they did... for once.)

You will note that by December they had added a belt to the tunic. Much sharper.

I also note that the SMA is rockin' a 50 Mission Crush on his cap, something else that was strictly an officer "thing", and an aviator-only thing, at that.

12/07

06/06/2017