THE STORY SO FAR: PART 187

IF IT’S NOT A BIRD, OR A BEE—COULD IT BE A DUTCH APACHE?

Yes, is the short answer—though from the angle of the aircraft in the photo, it is rather hard to be sure. Also, that spectacular paint job is decidedly different, and not something we are used to here. More is the pity! It is extraordinarily effective.

Just in case you haven’t discovered the fact already, I am an Apache AH-64 fan and follow the aircraft with the enthusiasm of a sports fan.

“AH” stands for  “Attack Helicopter;” and though other attack helicopters certainly do exist, the AH-64, which has been significantly upgraded over the years, is widely considered to be superior to the competition.

For a great deal of the time, weapons procurement is little more than money flow for the MICC—the Military Industrial Congressional Complex—but every now and then the Pentagon gets it right, and produces a completely superb weapons system; and the Boeing manufactured Apache AH-64 is such an example. Arguably, it is over-priced—that is not my fight—but I do believe that excellence deserves a premium.

This all stems from my researching the XVIII Airborne Corps of the U.S. Army back in the mid Nineties and the Corps Commander, General Jack Keane—as he now is—insisting that I fly in an Apache in order to gain a greater understanding of the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division. When generals insist—and Jack Keane was, and remains, much more than your average general—action tends to follow.

I was a civilian, but a very willing victim—I love helicopters—and I don’t think I have ever had a more enjoyable time, though I confess to feeling decidedly queasy when my rather awesome pilot, CW Ron Thompson, said: “Let’s try a few Gs”—and did just that. In fact, he didn’t do anything too outrageous—losing guests is frowned upon—but he certainly got my attention.

Later on in that flight—when I was beginning to feel cocky as opposed to plain terrified—I asked Ron would he loop the loop? He, sensibly, drew the line at that.

Incidentally, the correct way to address a warrant officer is as “Mr.” so I really should refer to Ron as “Mr. Thompson.” Warrant officers are the specialists and problem solvers of the Army. It’s an intriguing rank and extraordinary talent lies within it. I suspect much of it is untapped.

Aerobatics in a real, live helicopter are both thrilling—and absolutely terrifying. Appreciate that a fixed wing aircraft can glide even if it loses power, whereas an unpowered  helicopter has a tendency to drop like—an unpowered helicopter. Such a descent is not conducive to human survival. Hold that thought, but suspend it while you are flying.

True, you can auto-rotate if you react fast enough, but since helicopters normally fly low, you may well not have enough time to trim your speed back; or you may not be positioned correctly for your blades to have any lift. Sometimes a writer’s imagination can be a disadvantage.

But, the good news is that nothing disastrous happened—and I fell in love with the aircraft; and I have remained in love ever since. I say “in love” with both respect and irony. Can one really be in love with a machine? I’m not sure of the answer to that. Brilliant design and execution have a tendency to evoke strong feelings.

I also developed an understanding of the integration of ground and air warfare which has remained with me. Soldiers tend to be trained to stay in their lane—to do only what they are trained to do—but commonsense suggests a more holistic approach. As with being under fire, sometimes you have to experience it to understand it. Were my Apache experiences a “life event”—as a friend suggested recently? Yes, they were.

But enough of my adventures—which included flying at night, a completely surreal experience. Night is when the Apache is at its absolute deadliest. Here is the blurb on the Dutch Apache, the HAWK.

For 2013 the Apache demo helicopter received a new design. The prints can be removed quickly, so that the helicopter can be deployed to operational missions when required.

The Q-17 is a standard Dutch Apache dedicated to the demonstrations calendars for the coming 2 years. This relieves the squadron from the difficult task of finding a spare aircraft for each show.
The Hellfire racks and rocket pods are removed from the helicopter. This saves weight, enabling the Apache to speed up faster in between the individual maneuvers.

The aircraft also flies the show with a minimum amount of fuel on board. This also saves weight and allows the helicopter to accelerate faster between individual maneuvers.

For 2013 the HAWK is also equipped with AMASE pods. These are used to fire the flares during the show. These pods are normally used in Afghanistan to deceive heat-seeking missiles.

NOTE: AMASE stands for Apache Modular Aircraft Survivability Equipment.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 186

WHAT IS IT LIKE—TO BLOG EVERY DAY?

The good friend who encouraged me to write this blog did not expect me to commit to a blog-a-day schedule. He merely requested and insisted on consistency—and was right to do so. He is a very persuasive man.

Not unreasonably, people like their routines. If an author decides to write but once a week, his readers will accept that fact—providing that the end result is worthy, and delivered on time. If Saturday is the chosen day, then each and every blog should be delivered on Saturday.

That sounds reasonable, but it is a tougher discipline than it seems, because creativity isn’t something you can turn on and off like a tap. Or so one might think. The truth is that one’s creativity does vary—we all have bad days—but all of this is underpinned by discipline.

I decided to write a daily blog, because I wasn’t sure I would remember to write a weekly one—ridiculous but true—and because my instincts said it would improve my writing. Above all, it would be a discipline—and writing is hugely about discipline. After all, mostly we write alone without supervision—so who is to know whether we are dozing or working?

The reality is that a professional writer knows, and every instinct screams if he is not delivering—because that is the way he (or she) has conditioned himself. The trick is ferocious self-discipline over more years than I care to think about.

It is easy to describe, but hard to achieve, because we humans, by definition, are flawed, lazy, and easy to distract. And yet, for all our faults—the list is long—the evidence is clear that professional writers are impressively self-disciplined. We face a blank screen and we deliver—normally regardless of our personal circumstances—because that is what we do.

There are all kinds of skills in the world—from plumbing to flying drones from several thousand miles away.

Writing happens to be mine—and, much to my surprise, I have found writing a daily blog to be an invaluable assist. In truth, it is ferociously demanding—but it is consistently rewarding.

In terms of words, assuming one averages 500 words a blog a day—and I tend to average rather more—the end result over a year equates to 182,500 words a year. Impose some editing (editors love to cut) and that equates to about one Big Thriller a year. Think 150,000 words—and keep cutting. Word has it that the optimum size of a book in today’s market is 90,000 words. I find that a pity. I like a really good Big Read.

But readers want books not blogs? Actually, you guys—and I say this with all due respect—want both. The reality is that it doesn’t work that way. Fundamentally, my blog is both a way of communicating to you, my readers—and a way of getting up momentum for the serious writing that has to follow. It is a rigorous discipline—broadly akin to the exercises a musician goes through—but it is not the end result.

You exercise; and then you get really serious—and I say that with humor. Here is the thing: Seriousness in work—contrary to popular opinion—is positively NOT incompatible with humor, however counter-intuitive that sounds.

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 185

HOW IS IT THAT THE GERMANS DO WHAT THEY DO—SO WELL—AND SO CONSISTENTLY?

The Germans hide their expertise in plain sight, yet for some reason we seem incapable of learning from it.

Decades pass, the evidence piles up, and still we seem incapable of learning from what—based on the evidence—is self evident. Their economic system works better than ours. If you don’t accept that argument, let me compromise: Aspects of their economic system deliver measurably superior results.

When I worked in the UK, I couldn’t understand why the British were so reluctant to copy the German economic system, and now it seems that the U.S. has similar reservations.

It is quite baffling because the German business model—which is not that complicated—is quite remarkably successful—and has been so since the end of WW II (and it did rather well before that). In addition, the Germans absorbed East Germany which was, for many years, a huge economic burden in its own right.

Dan Rather has written an excellent piece which appears in the Huffington Post of March 4 2013. The following is an extract from it.

We had just returned from our own tour of Germany's schools and factories and can report that the German model does in fact provide a viable and popular pathway to get young people employed immediately after high school in good paying jobs. Jobs that can turn into careers.

We found a culture where "vocational training" is not a taboo word, where companies invest billions of dollars annually in training young people who have completed tenth grade for apprenticeships in healthcare, information technology, and above all, manufacturing.

The results are hard to dispute: Germany's high school drop-out rate is around 7 percent (compared to the U.S.' dismal 23 percent.) And while 8 percent of Germany's youth population (ages 16-24) is unemployed, our youth unemployment is at 16 percent (for African-American youth, it's a bleaker 38 percent, according to the Department of Labor.)

Germany's highly-skilled workforce helps it create high-end products that the world is hungry for. As a result, Germany exports more products than anywhere else except China, and the country has been a lone beacon of good news while the rest of Europe has been laid low by the financial crisis.

Well, it is not true the rest of Europe has been “laid low” but the countries which are doing well—or well enough—are all really following variations of the German economic model, and are mainly clustered in Northern Europe. Of course, it can be argued that what works in relatively small countries like Sweden cannot work in the U.S., but if you add up the populations and GDPs of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Scandinavia—all high wage, high added-value economies--the total adds up to a significant percentage of the size of the U.S. economy—and is doing vastly better in terms of the wellbeing of the average citizen.

It would seem no more than good sense to take a closer look.

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 184

IT’S A GORGEOUS DAY—AND SPRING, AND THE SOUND OF LEAF BLOWERS, IS IN THE AIR

You can debate heaven and hell all you like, but I know there is a Devil, because who else could have devised a more hideous machine than the leaf blower. It’s a truly vile invention, guaranteed to remove tranquility for impressive distances—guaranteed to make it near impossible for a writer to write. This is not a culturally friendly device.

I once had the experience of trying to edit a book in Brooklyn—in high summer—with two leaf blowers screaming away nearby. In addition, apart from the fact that it was hot enough already—my hosts turned the central heating on accidentally (or so they said). Now, when I see scenes on TV or in movies about being captured and tortured, I can relate.

But why should someone be using one in early March? I have absolutely no idea. I encountered it as I was on my daily walk today. And yes, it was accompanied by a figure that looked vaguely human—but I could have sworn wore horns and had a tail. Hard to be sure amidst the swirling dust.

Leaf blowers apart, Seattle is rather wonderful in good weather, and pretty tolerable even in the rain. Today, I could see the snow-clad top of Mount Rainier in the distance. This is quite a city.

The above—very striking and rather creepy—illustration is from the New York Journal of Books—not to be confused with the New York Review of Books (though of course it is). I’m delighted to see it. Traditionally, print media reviewed books, but poor old print is taking a hammering, and though blogs have taken up the slack—some very well indeed—I still feel there is something to be said for the magazine format, even if in electronic form.

I wish the New York Journal of Books well. They are making us all more aware of books—which has to be a good thing—and what I have read from them so far has considerable merit. They have also evolved a rather neat way of reviewing books on Facebook. Check them out.

But surely I am biased in favor of anything—preferably without horns and a tail—that promotes books?

I would like to think I have some discrimination—but I plead guilty.

www.nyjournalofbooks.com

www.facebook.com/NYJBooks

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 183

THIS ELUSIVE QUALITY WE CALL LEADERSHIP

I first read J.K. Galbraith when I attended university at the too young age of 16.

No one should go to university that young.

True, I had the necessary academic qualifications, but that was back in the days of military National Service in the UK (conscription), and many of my peers were 20 or more when they arrived, and not a few were older—and certainly looked older.

Being in harm’s way, while presiding over the decline of the British Empire as a young infantry officer, had that effect. Malaya, the Indonesian confrontation, Cyprus, Aden, Kenya—the trouble-spots were endless—and the casualties racked up. And then came Northern Ireland, which was to last for about 30 years. On several occasions, I was on the receiving end. It wasn’t fun.

Given that my university was Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, you might well wonder why so many British students attended. I think it was as simple as the fact that, at that time, Trinity was a little less expensive than Oxford or Cambridge—and a little easier to get into. However, it still had the cachet of having been established in the late sixteenth century when Elizabeth 1 was on the throne. She was the queen who defeated the Spanish Armada—or, at least got much of the credit for it. The weather was actually a major factor in the whole event; and the English were scarcely trivial opponents. If memory serves, they had smaller ships but superior canons.

My peers were a beer drinking, poker playing, lot; and they had seen the world—or enough of it to regard me, quite rightly, as a kid. Some were very bright, but mostly they wanted—not unreasonably—to forget.

It was hard to get a date, at first, against such competition—and there were few women at university back in the early Sixties; but, life being the way it is, I grew older, and luckier. A Trinity degree course is four years.

I became a great fan of Galbraith. I didn’t agree with all his ideas, but, generally speaking, he seemed to make a great deal of sense; and he wrote beautifully. I can forgive almost anyone if they write to Galbraith’s standard. The following is a marvelous quote on leadership.

"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership." -John Kenneth Galbraith

Galbraith bore more than a passing resemblance to my good friend, Bob Fulton. Both were fine looking men and aged particularly well. I never met J.K. Galbraith and—more is the pity—our paths never crossed. I miss Bob Fulton to this day.

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 182

WARRIOR AND SON—STAFF SERGEANT SEAN KEOUGH. A SALUTE TO HIS MOTHER, MRS. KRIS KEOUGH

MY APOLOGIES FOR AN OMISSION

When I wrote about Staff Sergeant Sean Keough’s courage some time back—which resulted in his being awarded a Silver Star—I made a major omission. Sadly, his parents are now divorced, and I forgot to mention his mother. My mistake, and one I regret deeply.

The achievements of a son reflects well on both parents. I was reminded of this truth when his mother, Mrs. Kris Keough, wrote to me to thank me for honoring Sean (whom I have known since he was a difficult teenager). I guess the word “difficult” is redundant in such a contest. Let’s put it this way: He was showing character and promise in his own idiosyncratic way—and he certainly delivered.

I have scant idea how to compensate for my errors in judgment. Arguably, the best thing I can do is repeat his citation. If you think about what was involved, and over such an extended period, his conduct was, indeed, awesome.

Acts of courage are always praiseworthy, and should be admired, but courage over a prolonged period is in a league of its own.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Army Ranger of 2nd Battalion Receives the Silver Star

In a rare public appearance for a tightly-knit special operations unit, awards were presented to members of the 2nd Battalion, 75th Rangers, home based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Washington.

One Ranger, Staff Sergeant Sean Keough, received the Silver Star for action against Taliban insurgents during a raid on an enemy compound last autumn.

Leading his squad, Keough saw one of his fellow Rangers shot and fall wounded, still under fire from the enemy. Keough placed himself between the fallen soldier and the enemy, returning fire in order to provide cover for other members of the unit who administered aid and retrieved their downed teammate.

Keough and another Ranger shot an insurgent who attacked them, but he received a gunshot wound to his arm. Despite his wound he remained in place, still delivering effective fire at the enemy while his squad radioed for a medevac.

The attacking force regrouped but Keough refused medical aid that would interfere with his mission, and directed and participated in attacking and overrunning the enemy compound eight hours later. He also received the Purple Heart for his wounds sustained in action against the enemy.

The award was presented by Lieutenant General John F Mulholland, commander of the US Army Special Operations Command. In addition to Keough, the battalion received two Valorous Unit Awards for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in summer 2005. Seven Rangers received the Bronze Star Medal (‘V’) for actions in combat, and five received the Soldier’s Medal for heroism in a non-combat role for rescuing two stranded climbers on Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska, in addition to 17 who received the Purple Heart, among other awards. During this latest deployment, four Rangers and an attached junior officer were killed in action, and many wounded, including 30 as a result of the explosion of an IED.

Since October 2001, the battalion has deployed 14 times and conducted over 2500 raids. It is preparing for its 15th deployment.

Posted by Nicholas Darkwater at 12:09 PM

The figures quoted in this citation are worthy of both consideration and admiration. They reflect an intensity of combat that is practically inconceivable. “14 deployments—2,500 raids?”

Consider the stress and violence of just one.

I am a professional writer, and I just do not have the words to pay adequate tribute to such ongoing courage. Let me salute the entire Keough family.

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 181

NOT ONLY DO WE SPEND TOO MUCH ON DEFENSE, BUT IN MANY CASES, WE SPEND IT BADLY

FEW HAVE THE GUTS TO SPEAK OUT ABOUT THIS. ONE WHO DID—AND DOES—IS CHUCK SPINNEY

Thirty years ago a story appeared in Time magazine which rocked the Pentagon—and, in particular—the world of the MICC—the Military Industrial Congressional Complex which President Eisenhower warned us about with such vigor and prescience just before leaving office.

His worst fears were more than justified. We have created a permanent cabal of the military, defense contractors and Congress which has been feeding at the public trough since World War II—while mostly either drawing or losing wars we shouldn’t have been involved in the first place.

Meanwhile, the earning power of most Americans has increased but little since the Seventies—and is now in decline. On important reason is that we have spent truly extraordinary amounts of money on the wrong things—the most recent being an entirely unnecessary war in Iraq. But, even more to the point, whether there be war or peace, we have allowed the MICC to frighten us into spending trillions of dollars for no good reason. Certainly, we need a strong military, but there is a difference between strength and extravagance—between prudence and greed. Currently, greed is in the ascendant to the point where our entire National Security budget—of which the defense budget is only a part—exceeds $1 trillion dollars. In effect, we spend more on defense than the rest of the world put together.

Find the 1983 Time Magazine article here:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953733,00.html

It is well worth reading.

Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney (born May 2, 1945) is an American former military analyst for the Pentagon who became famous in the early 1980s for what became known as the "Spinney Report", criticizing what he described as the reckless pursuit of costly complex weapon systems by the Pentagon, with disregard to budgetary consequences. Despite attempts by his superiors to bury the controversial report, it eventually was exposed during a United States Senate Budget Committee on Defense hearing, which though scheduled to go unnoticed, made the cover of Time Magazine March 7, 1983.

This is what Time Magazine said about that famous story:

The cover story was written by Walter Isaacson, who has since gone on to write acclaimed biographies of Henry Kissinger, Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs. Presidential photographer David Hume Kennerly took the photos of Spinney that graced the cover package. The cover itself was an illustration of Spinney by Burt Silverman, who also [Bizarre Connection Alert!] did the cover art for Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album (you can see the resemblance here).

We don’t always agree with Mr. Spinney, and he hasn’t always been right, but we always find his thinking relevant and intriguing. We’re pleased that he continues to grace Battleland with it regularly, a decade after leaving the Pentagon, when he’s not out sailing.

Read more: http://nation.time.com/2013/02/28/it-was-30-years-ago-today/#ixzz2MJsMddwD

Chuck’s courageous action in giving testimony before Congress—at the risk of his career—did not solve the problem—but it almost certainly had some effect; and sometimes all you can do is slow down a bad situation rather than stop it. That is still well worth doing. If nothing else, you have set change in motion.

Was he fired? Surprisingly, he was not, largely because the powers that be in the Pentagon were terrified of Congressional retribution. Instead—incredibly—he was shunned by the system and left to work on whatever he chose for the rest of his career. He put his time to good use—and any Spinney piece is well worth reading.

I met Chuck in the mid Nineties through a mutual friend and have remained in touch ever since. He is a genuine American hero—with the moral courage to do the right thing—and I’m honored to know him.

We need more like him.