Thursday, September 15, 2011

Pic of the day. 09/15/2011

Out the door

Paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team exit a C-17 Globemaster III during an airborne training exercise Sept. 10, 2011, at Fort Bragg, N.C. The yellow cord, called a static line, deploys the paratroopers parachute automatically, which is important since the paratroopers are jumping at only 800 feet above ground level. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod



Question.  At 800 feet is a reserve chute even deploy-able if your main malfunctions?  I know they're jumping Hollywood but still...why wear it if it can't help?

Sea Gripen presentation to the Indian Navy

Many thanks to JJ (not Jack Jack from Ares Blog) for pointing me to Livefist Blog.  Go there for the complete slides.



Wednesday, September 14, 2011

An explanation. SNAFU!'s coverage of Dakota Meyer Medal of Honor winner.

I want to take a second to explain why I haven't been blasting news of Dakota Meyer's soon to be awarded Medal of Honor here on SNAFU!

Understand that I'm extremely proud of the man and am in awe of his actions on that fateful day.

But also understand that while searching for information on him and his award I ran into something that I've rarely run into on Marine Corps websites.

They practically embargoed the news and I got the impression that they wanted tight control over how the news was presented...you either went to an official Marine Corps website or you weren't going to get the news. By the formatting of the stories to the design of the articles that was my sincere impression. I could be wrong but again that was my impression.

With that in mind I decided to let the Marine Corps run with the story and everyone that was truly interested could find it there.

That was about a month ago. Recently the reigns have been loosened and they appear to have reversed themselves and are going all out to publicize the upcoming event.

Right or wrong I was miffed by HQMC's actions on this

Compare it to the 11th MEU's Public Affairs Office handling of their training for an upcoming deployment.  They're practically taking the public along for the ride.  But they appear to be more of the exception rather than the rule.  Information about units down range is hard to come by.  You get the fluff pieces of Marines building roads, schools or bridges but info about combat operations is more than hard to come by....its literally hit or miss.

Enough bitching.  I'm proud of Meyer.  I'm pleased that he's being recognized for his actions  I just wish that HQMC was handling this with a bit more awareness of the need to educate the public of what her Marines are doing.

Space Porn...NASA's new heavy lift rocket.




Tigre beauty shots...





Pic of the day. 9/14/2011

Photo by LCpl Ryan Carpenter

11th MEU begins second sea period since becoming a MAGTF