Flying the Friendly Skies

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
--Ernest Hemingway

Seldom is the face of death thrown out there for America to see, but the current Newsweek issue, "Black Hawk Down" does just that. While the issue focuses on the human dimension, Ranger will focus on some military thoughts.

Obviously, troops are being ferried by air because the roads are so deadly. Now it appears the sky is not so friendly, either. The article states, "About 90 helicopters have been lost since the war began." Surely precise figures can be released; "about" is not a military term.

In a previous post, I suggested that ground-to-air missiles are being used in Iraq against U.S. aircraft. My speculation is that this administration will not acknowledge this fact because it indicates a level of sophistication that our leaders are unwilling to acknowledge in the resistance forces.

If there are survivors in a copter crash, generally this indicates an RPG or ground fire strike, as the aircraft can be auto-rotated to ground. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's a good ballpark. When all aboard are killed, it's probably a missile casualty, as the aircraft is blown out of the sky. All she wrote.

Newsweek goes beyond my previous talk about older Strela missiles to include the SA-7 and SA-14, both of which are easily found in world arms bazaars. They are not rare.

The story includes are the following statistics: Tikrit (11/07/03), all soldiers aboard killed; Fallujah (1/08/04), ditto; Baghdad (4/11/04), both Apache crew members killed; Afghanistan (6/28/05), 16 members killed when Chinook shot down. A quick survey indicates 3 or 4 probable missile shoot downs out of about 90 crashes.

If more information were available, then we would probably find more are indicated as missile kills. Newsweek says the Black Hawk can withstand 23 mm fire, but I just don't think so.

There are four things that keep a soldier alive in combat. They are comrades, training, leadership and equipment. None of these matter in Iraq, when most personnel are killed in administrative backgrounds, i.e., driving roads and normal non-combat flights, and are caused by IED's and missile shoot downs.

The roadside IED and ground-to-air missiles make targeting our soldiers in their transports like shooting fish in a barrel. Iraq is a death chamber that does not even give our military a fighting chance. This is military suicidal madness.

Even with the craziness of RVN, soldiers had a fighting chance. In U.S. wars historically, 85% of the casualties are in the Infantry ranks, but this doesn't seem to be the case in Iraq.

My heartfelt sorrow goes out to the survivors and families of these terrible events. The heroism of our soldiers is always a given. My salute.

Yes, soldiers are born to die, but their leadership should insure that they have a chance at survival. They are not soldiers in today's Iraqi environment; they are targets.