Warbird Information Exchange

On the thread topic, there is probably no word that is more overused and abused in the last 6-9 years than 'hero'. (a close runner-up in my book is the word 'warrior', but that's for another post)

I strongly disagree that 'anyone' who is in the military is a 'hero'. In fact, I know lots of people who have many medals on their uniforms who don't qualify for hero status in my book. I also a lot of people who wear the uniform, have been to combat for their country, and are complete dirtbags. Yes, raising your hand to serve your country is admirable and commendable -- it does not, however, mean you have a lifetime ticket as some kind of 'super-citizen' because of it. It certainly doesn't auto-qualify someone for hero status.

There are certainly a lot of heroic people in my eyes who had nothing whatsoever to do with the military, or combat, or anything like it.

An earlier post mentioned Rosa Parks....IMHO, that is spot on. Someone who stands up for what's 'right', even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and without regard to their own safety/reputation/bank account balance.

Some of those ordinary people who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances were in the military. Some of them were in combat. Many of them were neither.

Me too.

Scott O'Grady most definitely did try to cash in on his 15 seconds of fame. I was in The Air Guard at the time and remember attending Oshkosh not one but about three years in a row where he was the honoree. He was introduced as a hero, and was peddling a book deal. he also went on Good Morning AMerica and all the other news shows. As soon as possible he abandoned his A.F. career for the airlines , then dropped that and last I heard was flying hot air balloons in the Northwest somewhere.
As I understand it , the Air Force was flying the same route, speed, and altitude day after day, and eventually one day someone in that third world country figured out how to bag an F-16. What definition of bravery does that fulfill?
It used to make me queasy thinking about the combat veterans and others that were in attendance and how insulted they must have felt. People like Yeager, Anderson, Robin Olds, and so many others.

JFK had an interesting take on being a hero.

He was asked "How did you get to be a hero?".
His reply...
"It was simple, they sank my boat."

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.

Well, that's not exactly it. The fact of the matter is that the USAF used O'Grady as a PR pawn and it was the media that elevated him to 'hero' status. It was the military's idea for him to make the talk show and airshow rounds. I'm guessing the book was his idea, but I don't know that. He frequently told the media in his press conferences that he wasn't a hero, and that the real heroes of the operation were the MEU folks that came and picked him up.

He actually didn't go to the airlines -- he left active duty to fly F-16s for the Reserves a couple years, and then separated all together to go get a Masters at a Bible School in Texas. Today he's running for office somewhere in Texas.

By the way...it's not called "abandoning your career" when you serve your time in the military and decide to separate.

Here is an article that discusses some of the buffoonery that Zulu had while on the ground after his shootdown. There are many other issues both before his shootdown and after his rescue that aren't discussed outside USAF flying circles:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 90222.html



Well, no, that's not it either. There were certainly many issues with the Air Tasking Order and the routes of flight into and out of the Bosnian airspace in 1995 when O'Grady was shot down...but you are thinking of the Vega 31 F-117 shootdown in 1999 during ALLIED FORCE and adding in some of the issues from Vietnam.

The issue with O'Grady was that his radar warning receiver was not *on*, so he was essentially not aware that he was being shot at, and was thus unable to maneuver out of the way of the missile.

The issue with Vega 31 is that the ATO was being leaked via a "NATO Ally" to the Serbians. So, even though the F-117 is 'stealth', the bad guys knew the airplane's exact route of flight and the times that it would be there. Not tough to find an airplane when you have that information.

It was in Vietnam that the US used the same callsigns, routes, and times every day. Hence Operation Bolo.

I used to think that every one that put on a uniform was a hero. But then an event in my life happened that changed it. Someone I know went over to Iraq in the US Army. While over there he cheated on his wife who was having his child, with another woman, and made a sex tape which was shown around the unit. He was in a rear area the whole time but when he came home, the great city had a welcome home hero parade for him. Just because you put on a uniform doesn't make you a hero, or mean that you are not a piece of garbage. I put on a uniform everyday. I am not a hero.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

This all seemed oddly familiar:

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... ro&start=0

Given enough time, it seems like topics keep reappearing.....

Mark H

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Oh no! We've run out of things to talk about! Is this the end of WIX as we know it?!

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Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

You know Scott O'Grady is a hero for the 21st century. He served his time, did his duty, and seems to have finished his time in service honorably.
My mistake is to compare him to the heros and heroic acts of the 20th century. He has a right to change careers or to fall out of love with aviation or the military or whatever reason he chose to leave. Getting shot at or shot down is a real "buzz kill" I'm told.
As far as the Air Force's efficiency and regimentation towards their schedule, we used to have "Dr. Pepper" flights in the C-130s in the Air Guard. Supposedly when Dr Pepper was first sold in glass bottles, it had a clock painted on the label. The hands pointed to three positions, I think it was the 9, 12 and 3 o'clock positions. For decades the flight schedule followed this tradition and we all joked about how anal the Air Force/Air Guard was. This changed sometime after the first Iraq War.
My old unit the 118th, had three aircraft damaged from small arms fire flying into Bosnia. They always got hit in the tail areas.
At some point after the Iraq War and before I got out in 1996, operations went to a more unpredictable flight schedule. Maybe a more important lesson learned from O'Grady and the F-117 getting knocked down by a third world country is to not give the enemy unlimited opportunites to figure out how to throw "dumb" lead into the air and knock something American down.

...the CMH is given out and most times it is awarded for heroic action. I believe that those who receive it are receiving it for all the fallen hero's who's story's never got told.....at least that's how I would view it. its like saying the word love ... i love my car, my plane, my dogs, my cats my wife etc. its what meaning you place in the word.

For those who are wondering what O'Grady is up to now....

http://www.scottfortexas.com/

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Brad

I don't remember much, but I do remember 10, 2, and 4 as being, "Dr. Pepper time", and why. A Dr. in the
1920's discovered that humans have a metabolism slump around 10:30, 2:30 and 4:30 which could be avoided
by having something to eat at 10, 2, and 4. Dr. P glommed onto the findings to build a slogan(s) which they used
till the 70's.

I'll bet you folks were just dying to know this bit o' trivia?

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DBF

Thanks! I knew someone would set me straight on that! I remember the yellow face of the clock but couldn't remember the rest.
Another piece of trivia. When Desert Storm broke out we all had to go to the range and qualify with the M-16. We actually qualified with something with a converter that would accept 22 caliber rounds. It was called a "Paunch 16" which I assumed was for fat good ole boys, of which we had plenty.
During rapid fire I had a jam and when I went for the forward assist my thumb couldn't find it. Our unit still had M-16'straights . I couldn't believe it since 10 years earlier in the Marines we were using worn out, bent, M-16A1's. Now by 1989, the U.S. military was well into the M-16A'2s .
I'm like "Didn't these early M-16's get a lot of G.I.s killed in Vietnam? SO I started talking to the old guys about how to sneak a sidearm onto a C-130. Our unit took a cache of about 500 of these still new in the cosmoline early M-16's to Saudi with a direct order to leave them with the Saudis or equivalent nation. We couldn't give them away.

The thing I find fascinating is how the definition of heroic action changes during war time. Early on medals will be awarded for actions that later in the war would not warrant comment let alone an award. It makes sense that as combat becomes more commonplace that the uniqueness of certain actions will fade and even the usefulness or selflessness of some actions can be downplayed. A case in point is jumping on grenades. I read once that in Vietnam there were so many cases of men dying of jumping on grenades that the practice was actually forbidden. The proper response to a grenade is to call out "GRENADE!" and then jump AWAY from the grenade and lay flat on the ground. The grenade explosion will seek the path of least resistance and at worst some people will get fragments in their butts and legs. It is still possible that the grenade might kill someone but not a certainty. Of course that whole story could be urban legend but I remember it making an impression on me as a boy.

Leaving aside heroism I have long thought that Bravery is doing the right thing in a dangerous situation while not fully cognizant of the danger. Courage is doing the right thing while being fully cognizant of the danger to oneself. Some military commanders made a point of sending green units in to do particularly dangerous jobs because they knew that veteran units would often try to mitigate the danger and sacrifice surprise or speed where a green unit wouldn't.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.