markhealey.org » war

Inside the F-35 JSF

stream.markhealey.org — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:02:01 +0000

I didn’t know this jet could hover like a Harrier. But for $112 million, it probably should? The coolest feature is the heads-up display inside the helmet instead of on top of the dashboard. The pilot simply looks down (as if the plane wasn’t there), and the pilot sees what’s beneath him. Incredible.

The BBC has a video:

Inside the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Hiroshima, 64 years ago

Mark Healey — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:37:33 +0000

I’m a little slow catching up on my feeds this week — we’re in full “baby prep mode” — but these photos should not be missed. The Big Picture has this extraordinary collection.

Tomorrow Last Thursday, August 6th, marks 64 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan by the United States at the end of World War II. Targeted for military reasons and for its terrain (flat for easier assessment of the aftermath), Hiroshima was home to approximately 250,000 people at the time of the bombing. The U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber “Enola Gay” took off from Tinian Island very early on the morning of August 6th, carrying a single 4,000 kg (8,900 lb) uranium bomb codenamed “Little Boy”. At 8:15 am, Little Boy was dropped from 9,400 m (31,000 ft) above the city, freefalling for 57 seconds while a complicated series of fuse triggers looked for a target height of 600 m (2,000 ft) above the ground. At the moment of detonation, a small explosive initiated a super-critical mass in 64 kg (141 lbs) of uranium. Of that 64 kg, only .7 kg (1.5 lbs) underwent fission, and of that mass, only 600 milligrams was converted into energy – an explosive energy that seared everything within a few miles, flattened the city below with a massive shockwave, set off a raging firestorm and bathed every living thing in deadly radiation. Nearly 70,000 people are believed to have been killed immediately, with possibly another 70,000 survivors dying of injuries and radiation exposure by 1950. Today, Hiroshima houses a Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum near ground zero, promoting a hope to end the existence of all nuclear weapons. (34 photos total)

On Iraq, General Recommends Nothing

Mark Healey — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:13:50 +0000

I’ve just finished listening to General Petraeus’ briefing to Congress on NPR. Amidst screaming protesters actually inside the briefing room (how’d that happen?), the highly-decorated and highly-respected top military commander didn’t really say anything at all.

He recommends delaying any official decision on reducing the main body of American troops in Iraq for at least 6 months.

NPR.org says:

Not since Gen. William C. Westmoreland addressed a joint session of Congress in 1967, during the height of the Vietnam War, has so much attention been focused on a briefing by a military commander.

I, for one, am glad my attention was focused on 45 minutes of nothing.

Just End It

Mark Healey — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 19:08:59 +0000

Around midday on September 11, 2001, I wanted revenge, too. I wasn’t anywhere near New York City, Arlington, or Shanksville that Tuesday morning, nor did I lose any loved ones, but I felt much the same as the rest of America: let’s get them back.

Of course, it wasn’t until March 20, 2003 when I finally realized something wasn’t quite right. From that day until now, I’ve never been able to connect the dots between Osama bin Laden’s agenda¹ and Haliburton’s bottom line. I don’t intend to turn this into a political argument about why Allied countries invaded Iraq, and I’m never going to. But when I woke up this morning, poured myself a cup of coffee and caught some of the national headlines, one story in particular caught my attention.

I’ve been to Arlington National Cemetery. I’ve run my hands across some of the 58,000 names on the black granite wall in Washington. I’ve walked on Omaha Beach and stood amongst the 9,387 white marble crosses atop that cliff in Normandy. I’ve met a handful of war veterans. I’ve heard a Virginia man, who was on Omaha Beach in June 1944, tell the most horrific stories of events that transpired on that cloudy day no one could ever truly recreate, not even Spielberg. One of my best friends was a soldier in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I have a tremendous respect for those men and women who have served or continue to serve in our Armed Forces.

Which is why the story of The Hubbard family, of Clovis, California, turns my stomach. Jeff and Peggy Hubbard have three sons, two of which have died in Iraq. The third son, who was ordered in to secure the scene of a helicopter crash in which his brother, Nathan, was a victim, was sent home last week as part of the Army’s Sole Survivor policy. Nathan was just 30 days from returning home for good.

It’s a tragic story, one similar to that of the Niland Brothers which Spielberg loosely used for Saving Private Ryan. I can only hope George W. Bush, and other policy makers, try — no matter how impossible it actually must be — to imagine what it must be like for Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard this week. Maybe then they’ll realize lives can’t be bought (not at any price), and we should end this war before it’s too late.

I watched a show on the National Geographic Channel a few night’s ago entitled, “Inside 9/11.” At the end of the 2-hour episode, Osama bin Laden was shown hiding in the mountains of Pakistan. With sounds of American bombs exploding in the distance, a western reporter interviewed him. Bin Laden’s last sentence, translated on-screen as a subtitle, read something like this: “Americans love life. We love death. That’s the major difference between us, and the reason we will win.”↩