“YELLOW THREE IS ON FIRE,” said the matter of fact voice transmitted over VHF comm radio #1. After checking the fire warning light on the forward instrument panel, which was supposed to illuminate if their was a fire in the engine compartment, Sky pressed the intercom to speak to his Crew chief on the left side of the aircraft.

“Chief, are we on fire,” Sky questioned ?
“Uh, dunno, let me check,” was the Chief's reply.

As Sky waited for the Chief's report and with his head turned to the left one of Yellow Flight's lift birds (called a slick) came auto-rotating into the shallow water and elephant grass very close to Sky's own aircraft. With some satisfaction Sky realized this was the bird on fire and not his 915 or Yellow 3 slick, A very large orange fire ball was burning up and through the engine cowling covering for the engine compartment just behind the particle separator of Yellow 4. As the bird settled into the water and the fuel switch was turned off the orange fireball disappeared into a bunch of grayish black smoke. .


The VHF, UHF, and Fox Mike, radios were full of what seemed like most of all the 8 ships in this flight transmitting, “We are taking fire, One !”


This was the flight's second attempt into this Landing Zone (LZ) to pick up the last remaining troops in Cambodia. The first attempt had not been successful either as they had been shot at from behind what seem like every tree until “Yellow One” finally pulled pitch and the flight departed; still without even seeing the friendly troops they were to extract.


Since Yellow 4 had been the bird on fire and not yellow 3 Sky sat at a hover while Yellow 4's aircraft commander transmitted on UHF (thinking he was on intercom) for his crew to grab their weapons and get out of their disable machine. The words he chose were a little more like, “ Grab the machine guns and let's get to F outta here” !


When he had transmitted those choice words he had not realized he was on UHF and talking to the world therefore his voice was just one more voice in a sea of voices all transmitting on the three different radios about some sort of distressing news about Yellow flight.


Yellow 4's Crew Chief and Door Gunner most likely did not hear their aircraft commander's evacuation order but even so they needed no prodding to grab their Sh*t and get away from their burning, sinking UH-1, that now sat in a Hot LZ.


( A Hot LZ is a landing zone where the bad guys try to punch holes with their weapons into whatever catches their eyes. This tends to discourage you with their many weapons and hostile actions from delaying your departure. It is also implied by their actions that you should not come back. A slick is a big target but we were young, bold, and almost bullet proof until we weren't; so there we were.)


Sky just sat at a hover waiting for Yellow 4's crew to come through the muck, waste high in the water to the perceived safety of 915 and a way out of a beautiful LZ with many bad guys wanting to shoot important pieces of their bodies off.


To help Yellow 4's crew Sky dipped 915's skids below the water while thinking if he went much lower 915 would get a tail rotor strike (thus a failure) so then they would all be stranded.


Yellow 4's crew trudged over to 915's cargo bay and once everyone was on board Sky pulled pitch to depart. He was the last aircraft out of the LZ and as of yet he had not seen or even heard anyone shooting at them.


This was a horrible mission as the slicks could not return fire into the tree line with their M-60 machine guns because no one knew where the friendlies were.


This was Cambodia and all of the first Cav's missions were flown low level at tree top level or lower usually around 90 to 100 knots. The missions were flown this way to avoid long periods of time exposed to a bad guys gun sights and aiming ability with some sort of weapon meant to cause death and destruction on one's body and bird. This tactic worked even though you could hear a slick from very far away and a whole gaggle of slicks just that much further; triple canopy or dense jungle was your friend and helped conceal you until you crashed due to an engine failure or whatever ?


As Sky rejoined the flight that was headed to LZ Bronco he was amazed to see his fellow slicks looking like some kind of WW2 B-17 war movie with the way some of the birds were riddled with gun shot holes.. There was one bird on Sky's right that had a new guy ( FNG right seater/copilot) waving at everyone through his shot out wind screen. They had taken 5 rounds in the cockpit yet no one was hit bodily.


A UH-1 could take an unbelievable amount of punishment depending on where the punishment was dished out. Birds were often times landed back at base with holes punched in their skin from nose to tail; those kind of missions usually made for one hell of a war story that night in the bunker bar. There were other times when fate would let you know just how worthless it valued your feelings with one well placed round (the dreaded Golden BB) that would send you crashing through the jungle or auto-rotating into an open field or rice paddy. The jungle could be very annoying as the trees seem to hate you invading their space so they would come through the wind screen and any other place they could find to rearrange your face and internal organs rather rudely; think of a coat hanger up a hot dogs butt for roasting to give you some idea.

There was a lot of chatter on the radios enroute to LZ Bronco about the status of the aircraft each was flying nest to.


“Ah Two, I count six hits left side of your tail boom, all clear of the tail rotor drive shaft”.


“Roger 3 you look clean on your right”. “Click click” was heard as Sky keyed his mike in response.


Radio transmissions continued with light chatter and bantering. Life was good and this war was just something they all did together. No one had been hurt and they had not left anyone in their lift flight back in the LZ screaming on the radio as they burned to death.


Being burned to death is a very bad way to die.


Sky knew they were going to go back to the same hot LZ and once again try to get the troops stranded there out but that was in the future not now.


Unfortunately President Nixon had announced to the world via a white house statement and news briefing all troops would be out of Cambodia this very day no later than 18:30 hours. Of course the North Vietnamese heard the same thing and passed the message on to their troops in Cambodia.


I could have written that message to the NVA myself. “Stay close, no contact, wait until helicopters land and begin to load their troops. Then destroy everything. If any prisoners are taken tie them to a tree, skin them alive and make them say Uncle Ho many times as they die”.


It was just a passing thought as Sky was more interested in 915s engine and transmission instruments. He scanned them constantly either directly or out of the corner of his eyes watching for the first indication that all was not well with this assortment of moving parts he affectionately called 915. This particular lift bird and Sky had gone through many combat missions together and 915 always pulled her heart out for him and the crew bringing them back to base alive.


The flight continued on in an southeasterly direction in a loose formation more or less behind the Killer Spade yellow one. It was only a 20 minute flight back to LZ Bronco where they would land and be able to shut down their aircraft and inspect for damage.

LZ Bronco


LZ Bronco was a very small fire support base with only 5 105 Howitzers. The LZ was just inside the Vietnamese border with Cambodia and was there solely to support the troops that were now some 5 clicks inside Cambodia. There were already signs that the base was being dismantled and once the flight could get the remaining troops out of Cambodia, Bronco would cease to be anything but a memory.


Bronco's radio operator could hear the now 7 lift birds and the two Snakes (Bell AH-1 Cobra gun ships) long before he got a visual on the flight. Yellow one called on Fox Mike that the flight was inbound and requested any landing information available.


“Bronco this is, Yellow flight, LZ advisory over”.


“Yellow one this is Bronco.... suggest you guys land mostly on the west side or where ever you can find a spot...not much wind but suggest a southerly approach...uh, over”.


“Roger copy that, we are 2 miles out”.

A good summary of "Why" a Democrat switched sides. The teachers union and the hypocrisy of the DNC. If you don't fall in line lockstep with "ALL" of their positions, you are the enemy. I like to understand the reasons myself.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/politics/...index.html

Quote:Shortly after her news conference, she tweeted, “I represent a blue district in the city of Atlanta so this wasn’t a political decision for me. It was a a MORAL one. I will NEVER apologize for being a black woman with a mind of my own.”

Democrats called the flip a betrayal, pointing to the deep-blue district Mainor was elected to represent.

A two-term member, Mainor had come under fire by members of the Democratic Party this session after voting with Republicans on a number of issues, including on police budgets and an oversight commission for prosecutors.

She was the lone Democrat to vote for a failed bill on private school vouchers, which prompted a then-fellow Atlanta Democrat – State Senator Josh McLaurin – to tweet, “All I need is a name,” with a photo of a blank check for $1,000 for a primary challenger in Mainor’s district.

“The harassment and intimidation is much bigger than three votes,” said Mainor, surrounded by a handful of supporters and the state GOP chairman, at her announcement. “It’s about fear, fear of an outsider coming to the capitol working for the people she came up here to serve.”

Quote:The life-long Democrat announced her decision to join the Republican Party on Tuesday, making her the first black Republican woman to serve in the Georgia assembly. Democrats have “mutilated” and “sabotaged” the representative since her appointment in 2020, Mainor said, while Republicans have supported her.


“It was always exceptionally easy to deal with the Republicans. Everything that I wanted to do was for my community and I remember speaker pro tempore Jan Jones saying one day, ‘I want to help you since you actually want to help your community.’ That was not taken the same way from the Democrats.”

Mainor broke with fellow Democrats on several issues during her time in the legislature, including police funding and prosecutorial oversight, but it was her vocal support for school choice that led to “harassment and intimidation” from her colleagues.

Although she’s faced scrutiny from Democrats in the legislature — state senator Josh McLaurin is offering $1,000 to anyone willing to challenge Mainor — the representative said her constituents have been supportive.

“I am running on what my community wants,” she said. “What my community wants are the things that the Republicans are pushing — they just don’t know that the Democrats do not support what they want.”

Mainor’s goal hasn’t changed with her party designation: She still wants to make Georgians in the 56th district as independent as possible. Although Democrats called Mainor’s decision a “stinging betrayal” to her deep-blue district, which voted for Joe Biden by an almost 90 percent margin in the 2020 election, Mainor won her previous two elections on a school-choice platform.

“My district has the most charter schools in any other district in the state of Georgia. My district already is quite upset with the current state of the public school system,” she added.


Students in her district can’t perform simple math, Mainor said, and many teachers are resigning because they are graduating students who don’t know how to read.

Sixteen Republicans — six of whom were endorsed by teachers’ unions — in rural districts voted against Georgia’s school-choice bill in May. Mainor was the only Democrat who broke party lines to vote for the measure, which failed by four votes.

“I think my switch to the party is not only showing [my] colleagues and showing America in Georgia that we have a problem on our hands,” she said. “We are no longer beholden to the teachers union. The teachers are not the problem, it’s the teachers’ unions and the bureaucracy that they are uplifting. We can no longer be beholden to the superintendents — of course superintendents don’t want elected officials to support school choice.”

Now that Republicans have a stronger majority, the representative hopes that education will be a winning factor in the next election.

“Elected leaders are forgetting that parents are their voters,” she said.

Several blue lawmakers in Georgia who “say they are diverse and inclusive” proved to Mainor after her announcement that, “diversity and inclusion have some limits.” State democrats have attacked Mainor as a “narcissist,” and the Democratic Party of Georgia said that Mainor’s decision serves “personal political ambitions” instead of her constituents.

But Mainor says her Christian faith has allowed her to brush off the attacks.

“Politics is such a rapidly moving environment, with lots of different characters,” Mainor said. “I am very rooted in who I am. Even with this decision — the social media posts, the emails that I’m getting — people are vile. It does not bother me, you can call me anything you want. I know who I am. [My faith] has prepared me to handle the backlash because I only answer to one person. And that’s not even a person — I only answer to the Alpha and the Omega, and everything else is taken care of.”

The Democratic Party has become so radical that even their most liberal members are starting to jump ship. I won't quote the whole thing but the article mentions a few other recent political figures jumping ship before it is too late.


https://twitter.com/HikindDov/status/168...8701783040

Quote:IT’S OFFICIAL: My wife and I have switched our party affiliation from Democrat to Republican!

Ppl have long been asking, “Dov, when are you gonna leave the Democratic Party?”

Well, the time has come bc the Dems have turned their back on Jews & Israel, so it’s officially done!

Quote:After spending a lifetime as a Democrat, former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind has officially joined the Republican Party, citing the radicalism and anti-Semitism growing ever worse worse in his former party.

Hikind, the 73-year-old founder of Americans Against Antisemitism, was first elected to the NYS Assembly in 1982 and went on to serve as majority whip. He won his last election in 2014 against Republican Nachman Caller in a landslide.

In a video posted to his Twitter page this week featuring Hikind and his wife, Shani Hikind, the lawmaker of 36 years noted that not only was he a lifelong Democrat, but his parents and family had been as well.

"But that's over. That's finished," Hikind announced Thursday. "I have decided to register as a Republican."

On July 16, he appeared ready to jump ship, tweeting, "The Democratic party is dead. The radical Progressives are in full control. Its time to jump Ship. @POTUS you are responsible."

"Unfortunately, the Democratic Party has become so radicalized, so radical, run by the radicals, that people who are moderates or conservative Democrats are not welcomed in the Democratic Party," said Hikind. "And I've had enough."

Last summer, PBS raised the alarm, noting well over 1 million voters across 43 states had switched to the Republican party in 2022.

Just a heads up as it appears this all started in the last few hours and I have not looked myself (Sam's Club Still Had 50 pound bags of rice for 25 and change yesterday).

Supposedly, after India's announcement of rice export ban, prices are going up and in some places limits and major mark-ups.

Again, just an FYI

Parents Opt Out of something the school administration and activist don't want you to be able to Opt out of. Too many parents said No. So, what is their solution, no more opt out. Interesting that CAIR (leftist group) is leading the charge.

This shall be interesting.

School district bans opt-out from LGBTQ lessons because too many families opted out

https://twitter.com/CAIRNational/status/...8907911168

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/...e-too-many

Quote:An affluent liberal D.C. suburb has a simple explanation for why it won't honor parents' requests to exclude their children, some as young as 3 years old, from "storybooks" with sex workers, kink, drag, gender transitions and same-sex romance for elementary-age children: It's hard.


Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools claims it was flooded with opt-out requests when the books were introduced in the curriculum in January, giving it legal justification, on logistical grounds, to issue a blanket policy of no exceptions and no notifications.

The district didn't provide a specific number or even vague range, however, in its memorandum opposing the motion for preliminary injunction by Catholic, Muslim and Ukrainian-Orthodox parents who filed the First and Fourteenth Amendment lawsuit in May.

The July 6 amended complaint adds plaintiff Kids First, a new unincorporated association of Montgomery County parents with children in MCPS or who would be "but for" the new policy. It includes "Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Latter-day Saints, and Jews, and is open to individuals of all faiths."

MCPS spokesperson Christopher Cram told Just the News he was seeking "any information available" on the number of requests the school invoked to justify the new policy but couldn't provide anything Friday. The districts' lawyers didn't respond when asked. 

The district imposed the no-exception and no-notification policy March 23, a day after it told the media it would honor requests and issue notifications, which united parents across the religious spectrum in opposition.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a reliably liberal advocacy group on most issues, has been especially vocal and visible in challenging the policy.

"Public schools have an obligation to be inclusive and neutral," Maryland Director Zainab Chaudry said at a multifaith rally Thursday. "They can't be favoring one group over another."

MCPS is the only known district nationwide to go this far, setting "a dangerous precedent for more bullying, more harassment, more intimidation for children within schools," according to Chaudry. "We can't teach children allyship and tolerance and inclusion by forcing them to assimilate" and give up "their own diverse identities."


MCPS "cannot plausibly claim that an opt-out policy that is both required by state law and was willingly followed until March 2023 could somehow harm the public interest if followed for the duration of this case," the parents' June 12 memorandum in support of a preliminary injunction states.

Maryland law requires districts to honor "family life and human sexuality" curriculum opt-outs "for any reason," and MCPS policy directs schools to "accommodate requests" from students and parents for classroom content "they believe would impose a substantial burden on their religious beliefs," the memo also states.

In addition, the storybooks go beyond "basic civility and kindness toward all," explicitly encouraging children to "question sexuality and gender identity, focus on romantic feelings, and embrace gender transitioning," the memo reads. 

Pre-kindergarten students, for example, are required to read Pride Puppy, which "promotes pride parades as family-friendly events without cautioning about the frequent nudity and sexually explicit conduct that many parents find objectionable –especially for children."

Well, look at this...

What a strange coincidence right? Rand Paul's office goes up in flames right after some "recent" events and statements with him calling for prosecution of "specific individuals".


https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07...overnight/

Quote:The Bowling Green office of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was engulfed in flames in an overnight fire, officials have confirmed. No injuries were reported.

The Bowling Green Fire Department arrived at the scene around 1:45 a.m. following reports of a significant fire at the downtown location, which serves as Paul’s local office. Firefighters encountered heavy smoke and fire upon their arrival and called for additional units, according to Public Information Officer Katie McKee.


Authorities are currently investigating the cause of the fire, which remains unknown. It is still unclear which building the fire first began.

In a statement to BG Daily News, Sen. Paul said, ““We are thankful for the Bowling Green first responders who arrived quickly to the scene to put out the fire, and are continuing to work with authorities to assess damages and to determine a cause.”

The MSM -in general, deal in negative emotions when it comes to delivering what they consider
'news' these days and rarely offer items that can give a person the feeling that not everything
and everyone can be categorised in the deliberate columns of pessimism.

Here's one.

Quote:'WHAT A NICE MAN' Carer left in tears as King’s Guard breaks protocol to pose with man with
Down’s syndrome

'A Carer was left in tears after a King’s Guard broke proto to pose for a photo with a man with Down’s syndrome.
Mike van Erp, 50, and the man stood a few feet from the guard hoping for a snap outside Buckingham Palace.


"Careful lad, these men are trained to protect"


Someone's day was made by being simply a human.

Despite being famed for keeping still and silent, the soldier moves towards the pair, helping them capture the
perfect pic. After thanking the guard, Mike then told the man he cares for: “What a nice man. What a cool thing
to do.” He said of his colleague: “I’ve worked for his family and him for a decade now and this left me with tears
in my eyes for a few evenings.”...'

Attached Files

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tornado-pfi...shortages/ 
An important Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina was severely damaged on Wednesday after a powerful tornado ripped through the area, threatening production lines that normally provide huge amounts of medicine to U.S. hospitals. Meanwhile, torrential rain flooded parts of Kentucky and communities from California to South Florida endured scorching heat that at times reached record-high temperatures.
Pfizer confirmed the large manufacturing complex was damaged by a twister that touched down shortly after midday near Rocky Mount, but said in an email that it had no reports of serious injuries. A later company statement said all employees were safely evacuated and accounted for.
Parts of roofs were ripped open at the Pfizer plant in Rocky Mount, which is a complex composed of several massive buildings. The plant stores large quantities of medicine that were tossed about, said Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone.
"I've got reports of 50,000 pallets of medicine that are strewn across the facility and damaged through the rain and the wind," Stone said.

 Its just a shame it was not the vax facility.  ( I can not seem to get the text to show up for some reason  sry )

skip to the 3:50 mark to skip the ad. Typical Why Files episode where the high points of the conspiracy is covered and then debunked in a step by step method. After hitting on the Moon landing conspiracy the last few moments talks about some real possible conspiracy about structures on the Moon with eye witness testimony from NASA and pictures of possible Structures.

Quote:The Moon Landing: Stanley Kubrick's Greatest Film | How NASA and Hollywood Fooled the World Stanley Kubrick is considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Of his 13 movies a few are considered classics in their respective genres. Including the black comedy Dr. Strangelove, the highly-quotable anti-war commentary of Full Metal Jacket, and one of the most disturbing and enduring horror films of all time, The Shining. But in 1968, Kubrick released "2001 – A Space Odyssey". This is more than a classic. It's a masterpiece. And widely regarded as one of the best science-fiction films of all time, and probably the most influential. This collaboration with science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke tells the story of an alien intelligence that visited Earth in the distant past, and left behind artifacts in the solar system. The movie features groundbreaking special effects, which still hold up today. In fact, the effects looked so good, that the movie gave the American government an idea. Billions of tax dollars were invested in the space program but the Soviets were still years ahead of the United States. NASA desperately needed to get to the moon before Russia, but they knew it was impossible. So they turned to one of the world's best filmmakers for help. Because when it came to the moon: if they couldn't make it, they'd fake it.

Oh boy.... more UFO stuff. Anyone else find it strange we have a bunch of fake "whistleblowers" who get authorization and instructions from DoD?

Yeah, the timing is quite noticeable. How long before the fake "Aliens" show up?

https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=67306

Quote:The timing of this is interesting, considering all of the action underway in Congress at the moment.

Why is Popular Mechanics trying to pollute search results for JFK and UFOs with the story above?

In this Dark Journalist interview of Watergate lawyer Douglas Caddy from 2015, Caddy states that E. Howard Hunt told him that JFK was assassinated, “Because he was about to give our most vital secret to the Soviets… The alien presence.”

Quote:Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is backing a bipartisan bill that would unveil government records on so-called UFOs and unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs). The bill would amend the National Defense Authorization Act and require the federal government to compile all records on UAPs and share them with the public, unless a review board justifies keeping them secret.

The process mirrors the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992, which ordered all files on Kennedy’s murder to be released by the National Archives by 2017. But some of the files remain hidden, sparking ongoing public curiosity and a lawsuit by JFK scholars.


Schumer is teaming up with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)—the top Republican on the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity for the Armed Services Committee—to support the amendment. It also has the backing of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).

“Our goal is to ensure credibility with regard to any investigation or record keeping of materials related to Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs),” Sen. Rounds said in a news release. “Relevant documents related to this issue should be preserved. Having a central collection location and a reputable review board to maintain the records boosts the credibility of any future investigations.”