Distant, Detached, Deceptive
This article in Esquire is interesting and informative. It is also very much an icon for the disconnect in American thinking regarding war, warfare, and the very real fight on the ground in Afghanistan. There is the appeal of a sterile, almost absurdly clean fight from a console in the United States; no sweat in your eyes or down your back from body armor. No stench of raw sewage, blood, or decayed flesh, the greatest irritant perhaps a pesky fly on the display (you don't need to worry about where or what it might have just crawled on). It is at once obviously deceptive but nonetheless appealing, especially to those who seek seduction...
Tom
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We've Seen the Future, and It's Unmanned
October 14, 2009, 8:30 AM
By Brian Mockenhaupt
Every so often in history, something profound happens that changes warfare forever. Next year, for the first time ever, the Pentagon will buy more unmanned aircraft than manned, line-item proof that we are in a new age of fighting machines, in which war will be ever more abstract, ever more distant, and ruthlessly efficient.
The war begins each day on the long drive into the desert, just past the Super Buffet and the Home Depot and the Petco, and the swath of look-alike houses that cling to the city's edge, along the forty miles of the strangest daily commute in America. Air Force Staff Sergeant Charles Anderson plucks his wristwatch from the cupholder and crosses into the war zone. He wears the watch only at work, and the ritual shifts his thoughts away from the everyday, which lately has been occupied by wedding plans and house hunting.
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Larry Brown - aka "Super Scout"
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Originally Posted by
carl
I forgot one thing. It is detail that is forgotten when speaking of the wonders of drones. I remember reading that in Rhodesia and Vietnam, scout pilots in light fixed wing airplanes could see and detect quite small detail, footprints even. Quite amazing things once they got the hang of it. I wonder if the drones will ever get that good, for that tiny field of view that they have seems like a big limitation.
When I left active duty back in '92 and joined the Oregon National Guard, I had the pleasure to get to know and work with Colonel Larry Brown. When you see a guy with 3 Silver Stars and 4 Distinguished Flying Crosses on his chest, he stands out in a crowd. When you find out he earned them in three tours of flying scout helicopters with the Air Cav in 'Nam, and was shot down at least 6 times, you know he earned them.
As a 19 year-old warrant officer on his first tour, he earned the nickname "Super Scout" from his commander one day, when in the pursuit of a fleeing band of the enemy, he hovered low over a patch of muddy trail covered in a jumble of fresh footprints. Applying skills he had devloped as a kid (ok, he was still a kid) growing up in Oregon, he created a mental 6' box on the trail, counted the number of footprints and divided by two. He reported back the location, direction and number of enemy, and the Blues were put in place to interdict the enemy. When asked how he knew the number and if he had seen the enemy he explained what he had seen, and why he was pretty sure of their number. Lets just say his commander was skeptical.
A while later the enemy ran into a well laid ambush based upon Larry's intel; and the body count matched his projection exactly. From that point forward he was, deservedly, Super Scout.
I doubt we will grow any future Super Scouts flying UAVs, but then again, no one understands better than Larry just what a refugee from the laws of averages he is. We lost a hell of a lot of fine young men flying those missions, and if flying them from Nellis isn't quite as romantic or effective, well so be it.
Here's to Larry, I doubt he'd begrudge these kids a bit, and would probably love to get his hands on their controls. Come to think of it, we probably need to be reaching out to guys like Larry to do just that.