The FReeper Foxhole Revisits The Cactus Air Force - Guadalcanal - October 27th, 2005

see educational sources | originally posted by SAMWolf 2/4/2003 | Don Hollway

[snippy_about_it]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.


...................................................................................... ...........................................

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.

Our Mission:

The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.

In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.

The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer.

If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions.

We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.

To read previous Foxhole threads or
to add the Foxhole to your sidebar,
click on the books below.

The FReeper Foxhole Revisits

The Cactus Air Force

A small group of die-hard aviators fended off Japanese invaders at Guadalcanal, code-named "Cactus."

The Japanese Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero fighter swept in low over the sweltering jungle of Guadalcanal, as if to land on the nearly completed, crushed-coral runway at Lunga Point. Once the air base was completed, the Japanese planned to fly long-range bombers from it to cut off Australia from the east.

But as the Zero buzzed the field, the pilot was startled to see enemy troops on the runway -- 10,000 U.S. Marines had landed the day before, August 7, 1942, and now held the field. He hastily climbed away, leaving this little clearing in the jungle to become the objective of the pivotal campaign of the war in the Pacific.

Birth Of The Cactus

Believing the amphibious assault to be a temporary, diversionary raid (and seeing that they were outnumbered 3-to-1), Japanese ground forces on Guadalcanal initially withdrew into the jungle, expecting air attacks to drive the Americans off. Over the next two days, land-based Japanese navy planes, including Mitsubishi G4M bombers (Allied code name "Betty") and Zero ("Zeke") fighters, downed 20 percent of the U.S. Navy fighters sent against them but lost nearly half their own. The loss of four cruisers and a destroyer in the sea battle of Savo on the night of August 9, combined with the continuing threat of daylight air attack, caused the U.S. Navy to withdraw. The Marines were left on "the Canal" with what they referred to as the only unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Solomon Islands -- the Guadalcanal airfield. They used captured construction equipment to finish the 2,600-foot runway, adding an extra 1,200 feet for good measure.


Major John L. Smith scored 19 aerial victories and earned the Medal of Honor over Guadalcanal. (National Archives)

Although bereft of taxiways, revetments, drainage and radar, the airfield -- christened Henderson Field after Marine Major Lofton Henderson, who died leading a dive-bomber attack in the June 4 Battle of Midway -- boasted Japanese hangars, machine shops and radio installations, a pagodalike control tower complete with a warning siren for air raids, and even an ice plant. But not until August 20 did Guadalcanal -- code-named "Cactus" -- take delivery of 12 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers and their escort of 19 Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat fighters, the advance squadrons of Marine Air Group (MAG) 23. "I was close to tears and I was not alone," said Maj. Gen. Archer Vandergrift, the Marine ground commander, "when the first SBD taxied up and this handsome and dashing aviator jumped to the ground. 'Thank God you have come,' I told him."

Within 12 hours the fledgling "Cactus Air Force" helped finish off a Japanese infantry assault. The next day, the American fliers gave an enemy bomber raid from Rabaul, New Britain, a rude welcome. In his first combat engagement, Captain John Lucien Smith, commanding Marine Fighter Squadron (VMF) 223, and four F4Fs met the fighter escort, 13 Zeros of the crack Tainan Kokutai (naval air group) led by Lieutenant Shiro Kawai, head-on. All four Wildcats survived, though two were badly damaged and one cracked up attempting a dead-stick landing. No Zeros were destroyed, but Smith thought the skirmish "did a great deal of good" by giving the Marines a better idea of the Zero's capabilities while giving them confidence in the performance and durability of their own Wildcats. Later that week, Captain Marion Carl, who had downed a Zero at Midway, got two Bettys and another Zero. Carl and Smith were to become friendly rivals.

Building Up The Fighter Force

The balance of power on Guadalcanal seesawed with the waxing and waning of fighter strength at Henderson. By the end of August the Cactus Air Force included 14 Bell P-400 Airacobra fighter-bombers (export versions of the company's P-39) of the 67th Fighter Squadron, U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF), and 19 F4Fs of VMF-224, under Major Robert E. Galer.

(In less than two weeks Galer would knock down four enemy planes, go down in the water and swim ashore. His gallantry would eventually garner him 13 kills and the Medal of Honor.)



By the afternoon of September 10, however, only three P-400s remained, with 22 SBDs and 11 F4Fs. (Among the missing was Marion Carl.) Two dozen Navy Wildcats hurriedly flew in to reinforce them; the Airacobras proved barely enough to help repulse an attack on Bloody Ridge, just south of the airfield.

During the course of the Bloody Ridge battle, Henderson received 60 planes, including 18 more F4Fs,12 SBDs and six Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers, but the Japanese reinforced Rabaul with 60 fighters and 72 medium bombers.

Stopping Them Cold

By mid-October, 224 Japanese planes had fallen to the Cactus Air Force, including 111 1/2 to VMF-223 and 19 to Smith, who, as the highest-scoring American airman to date, was awarded the Navy Cross and the Medal of Honor. His erstwhile opponent as top gun, Carl, had actually made it back to Henderson after spending five days with the natives, only to find that Smith had pulled ahead of him in victories. ("Dammit, General," he urged Brig. Gen. Roy S. Geiger, the Marine air commander, "ground him for five days!") Carl finished with 18 1/2 kills and a Navy Cross.


Joe Foss (standing second from left) and pilots of VMF-121 at Henderson Field in February 1943. By that time, Captain Foss was in command of the squadron and had earned the Medal of Honor. (National Archives)

Seven of the pilots who had arrived with Smith and Carl in August went out as aces; six were killed and six wounded. Of the Dauntless squadron, only the commander, Lt. Col. Richard C. Mangrum, was able to walk away when he was evacuated on October 12; all his men had been killed, wounded, or hospitalized.

"These guys had stopped [the Japanese] cold," said Captain Joseph J. Foss, who would become Cactus' premier ace, "and now it was our turn." Foss -- "Smokey Joe" for his cigar habit -- was executive officer of Major Leonard K. "Duke" Davis' VMF-121, which moved up to relieve VMF-223 on October 9.

Terrible Conditions

"We were fired upon by Japanese troops as we landed," recalled Lieutenant Jefferson J. DeBlanc of VMF- 112, some of whose pilots arrived a month later in transport planes. "We were always under fire on takeoffs and landings."

Pilots were quartered in mud-floored tents in the frequently flooded coconut grove called "Mosquito Grove," between the airstrip and the beach. The latrine was a trench, with a log for a seat; the bathtub was the Lunga River. There were only two meals a day -- dehydrated potatoes, Spam, cold hash and captured Japanese rice -- and cigarettes. Malaria, dysentery, dengue fever, beriberi and myriad lesser known tropical diseases stalked the garrison. No man could get out of duty with less than a 102-degree fever, but by October more than 2,000 had been hospitalized.



Working conditions were also daunting. Fuel had to be hand-pumped out of 55-gallon drums (and strained through chamois, since native porters sometimes cooled their feet in it) into 12-quart buckets before being poured into airplanes. There were plenty of bombs but no bomb hoists; the SBDs' 500-pounders had to be hand- loaded. The Wildcats' turbochargers, not to be engaged below 10,000 feet but wired open anyway, wore out the engines in 25 to 50 flying hours.

Enemy Strikes

"Almost daily," wrote the 67th Squadron historian, "and almost always at the same time -- noon, 'Tojo Time' -- the bombers came." Advance notice arrived from coastwatchers up the archipelago or, once incoming Japanese bombers learned to detour out of their sight, via Henderson's new long-range SCR (signal corps radio) 270 radar. The Wildcats, the Dauntlesses and the P-400s scrambled to take off two at a time -- through a blinding pall of dust or, if it had rained, through wheel-sucking mud -- on a treacherous runway pocked with half-filled bomb and shell craters and rutted by the solid rubber tail wheels of carrier aircraft. Almost invariably one or two planes failed to take off.

The "ground pounders," the SBDs and P-400s, scuttled off over the treetops to work over enemy ground positions -- or at least to keep out of the way of the impending airstrike. The Wildcat pilots had their work cut out for them just raising their landing gear (which took 29 turns of a hand crank), struggling to form up, trimming their aircraft and testing their guns. (Early Wildcat guns had a tendency to jam during hard maneuvers; furthermore, if the oil necessary to prevent rust on the guns in the humid sea-level air was not removed before takeoff, it froze at altitude, jamming the actions.) Most important, the pilots had to reach the Japanese bombers' altitude before the Zekes fell on them.



In his first combat mission, attempting to intercept bombers at 24,000 feet, Lieutenant James Percy of VMF-112 suffered a partial turbocharger failure 10,000 feet short of the enemy formation. "I continued to climb very slowly on low blower, but it was obvious I wasn't going to reach [the enemy's] altitude in time to intercept," Percy recalled. "As the bombers passed about 3,000 feet over me, I noticed their bomb bay doors were open. As I grasped what that meant, their bombs started falling toward me. All I could do was duck my head and pray. Bombs passed all around me, but I was not hit." (Percy's luck held; in June 1943 he survived a 2,000-foot fall with a shot-up parachute into the waters off the Russell Islands.)

Down below, a black flag would go up at the "Pagoda" -- air raid imminent -- and the triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery) would open up. Around the runway, slit trenches and bomb shelters rapidly filled (a sign over one shelter entrance read, "Beneath these portals pass the fastest men in the world") as the first bombs began to fall at one end of the field, and the explosions "walked" across to the other side.

Taking A Dive

Diving, whether to attack or to escape, was the one maneuver at which the Wildcat bested the Zero. "The Zeros had superior maneuverability," said 2nd Lt. Roger A. "Jughead" Haberman, a division leader in Foss' flight who ultimately scored seven victories. "In two-and-a-half turns against a Wildcat they could have you boresighted. But our planes were heavier than theirs, so if you got into trouble, you could dive earthward away from them."

Usually.



In Foss' first combat on October 13, he was jumped by a Zeke flown by Petty Officer 1st Class Kozaburo Yasui of the Tainan Kokutai. Foss later recalled: "That bird came by like a freight train and gave me a good sprinkling, but I knew I had him. I pulled up and gave him a short burst, and down he went." But while Foss was credited with the kill, Yasui in fact survived (he would bring his own score up to 11 before he was killed over Guam on June 19, 1944) -- and his two wingmen, Petty Officer 2nd Class Nobutaka Yanami and Seaman 1st Class Tadashi Yoneda, bounced Foss. Their bullets hit his oil cooler, and his engine seized. "The only thing I could do to get out -- I was right over the field -- was to just wheel over and dive straight down," Foss recalled. He plunged from 22,000 feet right down to the deck. "I'd read that a Zero couldn't follow such a dive; its wings would come off trying to pull out. Well, whoever wrote that was a fiction writer because those boys just kept on my tail, pumping lead!" Anti-aircraft gunners cleared the Zekes from his tail, and Foss coasted in to a dead-stick crash landing.

The Americans knew the Japanese had the edge in experience. Most Yanks were straight out of flying school, with less than 300 hours in training aircraft. "Some of the pilots," wrote Percy, "barely had enough time in the F4Fs to get safely airborne." Many Zero aces, veterans of the Sino-Japanese War, counted 800 hours of flying time even before the United States entered the war.

---

---

FReeper Foxhole Armed Services Links

[Valin]

YIKES!!!!!
Give a guy a little warning.

[Professional Engineer]

Mwuuhahahahaha

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Edwards air show
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- With the American flag emblazoned on its underbelly, the F-117 Nighthawk with tail number 782 flies past spectators at the 2005 Edwards Open House and Air Show. About 120,000 people attended the event Oct. 22. This stealth fighter, the oldest of five prototypes, was hand made before full production of the aircraft started. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jet Fabara)

051027-N-1063M-003 Atlantic Ocean (Oct. 27, 2005) - An E-2C Hawkeye, assigned to the "Bluetails" of Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron One Two One (VAW-121), prepares to land aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) during Flight Deck Certification. The certification is a critical inspection that will allow Eisenhower to demonstrate her flight deck is ready to launch, recover, refuel and handle aircraft. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Dale Miller (RELEASED)

051027-N-0879R-004 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii (Oct. 27, 2005) – The Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine USS Charlotte (SSN 766) prepares to depart her homeport of Pearl Harbor for Norfolk, Va. The nuclear-powered attack submarine will undergo a Depot Modernization Period at Norfolk Naval Shipyard before returning to the Pacific Fleet in late 2006. U.S. Navy photo by Chief Journalist David Rush (RELEASED)

051025-M-6538A-013 Iraq (Oct. 25, 2005) - A U.S. Marine Corps CH-53 Super Stallion helicopter, assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron Four Six Six (HMH-466), externally lifts a UH-1N Huey over Iraq. The CH-53 picked-up the UH-1N Huey from Al Qaim, Iraq and will fly it to Al Asad, Iraq for repairs. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. James P. Aguilar (RELEASED)

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on October 29:
1740 James Boswell Scotland, Samuel Johnson's biographer
1824 Joseph Horace Lewis Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1904
1859 Charles Ebbets (namesake of Ebbets Field, Brooklyn)
1891 Fanny Brice singing comedienne (Ziegeld Follies, Baby Snooks)
1897 Paul Joseph Goebbels Nazi propagandist
1906 Fredric Brown American writer (US Army in Transition)
1910 Alfred J Ayer England, Neopositivist philosopher/logician
1921 Ed Kemmer Reading Pa, actor (Buzz Corey-Space Patrol)
1921 William Henry Mauldin US, political cartoonist (Pulitzer-1945, 59)
1945 Melba Moore NYC, singer/actress (Ellis Island)
1947 Richard Dreyfuss Brooklyn NY, actor (Jaws, The Tin Men)
1948 Kate Jackson Birmingham Ala, actress (Rookies, Charlie's Angels)
1949 Paul Orndorff wrestler (WCW/SMW/NWA/WWF, Mr Wonderful)
1953 Denis Potvin Ottawa Ontario, NY Islander defenseman (Norris trophy)
1959 Jesse Barfield Ill, outfielder (Blue Jays, Yankees, 1986 HR leader)
1960 Finola Hughes actress (Anna-General Hospital, Staying Alive)
1961 Randy Jackson rocker (Jacksons-ABC)
1965 Steven Sweet Wadsworth Ohio, heavy metal artist (Warrant-Cherry Pie)
1971 Winona Ryder [Horowitz], Mn, actress (Heathers, Edward Scissorhand)

---

Deaths which occurred on October 29:
0490 Petrus Mongus, patriarch of Alexandria, dies
1618 Sir Walter Raleigh is executed in London
1885 George B McClellan Union army general, dies at 58
1901 Leon Czolcosz assassin of President McKinley, is executed
1911 Joseph Pulitzer American newspaperman, dies in Charleston, SC
1947 Frances Cleveland Preston former 1st lady, dies in Balt at 83
1957 Louis B Mayer MGM producer, dies at 71
1963 Adolphe Menjou actor (Front Page, Star is Born), dies at 73
1971 Duane Allman dies at 24 in a motorcycle accident
1975 John Scott Trotter orch leader (George Gobel Show), dies at 67
1987 Kamal El Mallakh Editor Al-ahram, Egyptologist (discovered Cheops' Solar Boat) dies 57
1987 Woody Herman bandleader/composer (Thundering Herds), dies at 74
1990 William French Smith attorney general (1980), dies at 73 from cancer

---

Take A Moment To Remember
GWOT Casualties

Iraq
29-Oct-2004 2 | US: 1 | UK: 1 | Other: 0
UK Private Kevin Thomas McHale Babil Province (northern part) Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US Sergeant Maurice Keith Fortune Ramadi (near) - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - suicide car bomb

Afghanistan
A GOOD DAY


http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://soldiersangels.org/heroes/index.php

---

On this day...
0539 BC Babylon falls to Cyrus the Great of Persia
1618 Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded in London. He had been charged with plotting against King James I.
1682 William Penn lands in what will become Pennsylvania
1727 Severe earthquake in New England (And where was George Bush?)
1787 The opera "Don Giovanni" is produced (Prague)
1811 1st Ohio River steamboat leaves Pittsburgh for New Orleans
1813 The Demologos, the first steam-powered warship, launched in New York City.
1833 1st US college fraternity to have a fraternity house founded
1863 Intl Comm of the Red Cross founded (Nobel 1917, 1944, 1963)
1904 1st intercity trucking service (Colorado City & Snyder, Texas)
1914 Russia declares war on Turkey
1920 Edward Barrow named Yankee general manager
1923 "Runnin' Wild" (introducing the Charleston) opens on Broadway
1923 Turkey proclaimed a republic (National Day)
1927 Russian archaeologist Peter Kozloff apparently uncovers the tomb of Genghis Khan in the Gobi Desert, a claim still in dispute

1929 "Black Tuesday," Stock Market crashes triggers "Great Depression"

1932 French liner Normandie is launched
1940 Sec of War Henry L Stimson drew 1st number-158-in 1st peacetime military draft in US history
1942 Alaska highway completed
1942 Branch Rickey named president/GM of Brooklyn Dodgers
1942 Nazis murder 16,000 Jewish in Pinsk, Soviet Union
1943 3 allied officers escape camp Stalag Luft 3
http://www.b24.net/pow/index.htm
1944 1st Polish Armour division frees Breda
1945 1st ball point pen goes on sale, 57 years after it was patented
1950 Wally Triplett avgs 735 yards on 3 kickoff returns
1954 Colonel Nasser disbands Moslem Brothership
1956 Chet Huntley & David Brinkley, NBC News, team up
1956 IDF crosses Egyptian territory in the Sinai
1956 International zone of Tangier returned to Morocco
1956 Israeli paratroopers drop into the Sinai to open Straits of Tiran
1957 A hand grenade explodes in Israel's Knesset (Parliament)
1958 Boris Pasternak refuses Nobel prize for literature
1959 10 nation soccer league to play all games on NY Randalls Is, announced
1960 Muhammad Ali's (Cassius Clay's) 1st professional fight, beats Tunney Hunsaker in 6
1963 "Meet the Beatles" booklet is published
1964 Star of India & other jewels are stolen in NY
1964 Karmiel Israel founded in the Galilee
1966 National Organization of Women founded
1967 Musical "Hair," premieres in NYC
1972 Don Cockroft of Cleveland Browns kicks 57-yard field goal
1979 Billy Martin fired as Yankee manager (2nd time)
1982 Car maker John DeLorean indicted for drug trafficking, later acquitted
1987 Thomas Hearns wins unprecidented 4th different weight boxing title
1988 2,000 US anti-abortion protesters arrested for blocking clinics
1988 China announces a herbal male contraceptive
1988 Jim Elliott (US) begins 24-hr paced outdoor race for 548.9 mi
1988 Soviets 1st scheduled shuttle launch (postponed)
1992 Alger Hiss said Russia had cleared him of the charge of being a Communist spy that sent him to prison for four years and helped launch Richard Nixon's political career.
The Alger Hiss Spy Case
http://historynet.com/ah/blalgerhiss/index.html
1998 Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who in 1962 became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth,, roared back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery, retracing the trail he'd blazed for America's astronauts 36 years earlier. At 77, he was the oldest person to travel in space.(payback for saving willards ass)
2000 USS Cole departs Aden aboard a Norwegian heavy-lift ship
2002 Federal government files charges against Washington sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad under a 1946 extortion law
2003 A powerful geomagnetic storm strikes Earth, knocking out some airline communications
2004 Osama bin Laden appears in a new video, dropped off at the Pakistan offices of Al-Jazeera television. He claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks.
(WHAT! You mean it wasn't the CIA, Mossad, Buildaburgers, Karl Rove, The night shift pastry chef at the White House?)

---

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Cyprus : National Day
Turkey : Republic Day (1923)
Biographies are Beautiful Day
National Magic Week (Day 6)
National Frankenstein Day
Cooking, Crafts and Home Books Month
National Dessert Month


USA : Set clock BACK 1 hr tomorrow (Daylight Savings ends 2 AM)
(You have to get up at 2 am and set your clock back 1 hour. No cheating allowed! Of course that means when 2 am arrives again you need to set your clock back 1 hour....and again and again and again......
I suspect a PLOT!)

---

Religious Observances
Christian : St James Hannington, bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa
Christian : Commemoration of St Theuderius, or Chef, abbot
Ang : Com of James Hannington, bishop of E Equatorial Afr & companions
Iroquois : Feast of the Dead

---

Religious History
1869 Birth of E. O. Sellers, American Baptist musician. At various times the song evangelist for R.A. Torrey, Gipsy Smith, A.C. Dixon and J. Wilbur Chapman, Sellers is remembered today for his two original hymns: "Thy Word Have I Hid in My Heart" and "Wonderful, Wonderful Jesus."
1870 Birth of Juji Nakada, Japanese Christian evangelist. In 1901 he influenced Charles and Lettie Cowman (authors of "Streams in the Desert") to come to Japan, where in 1910 they incorporated the Oriental Missions Society.
1889 New York City missions pioneer Albert B. Simpson, 46, incorporated the International Missionary Alliance. Combined in 1897 with a group formerly also organized by Simpson, it became the Christian and Missionary Alliance, one of the most missions-minded denominations in modern American Protestantism.
1919 The Apostolic Christian Association was incorporated in Atlanta, Georgia. It later merged with what is now the International Pentecostal Church of Christ, headquartered in London, Ohio.
1955 American missionary Jim Elliot, 28, wrote in his journal: 'First time I ever saw an Auca--1500' is a long ways if you're looking out of an airplane.' Ten weeks later, on Jan 8, 1956, Jim and four other missionaries would be speared to death by these same Indians they had come to Ecuador in hopes of evangelizing.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

---

---

Thought for the day :
"The man who stops making new friends eventually will have none."
James Boswell

---

"I feel my best when I'm happy."
Winona Ryder
(Reason #528,619 why we should ALWAYS look to movie stars to find meaning if life. WOW talk about a deep profound thought!
If your sarcasm meter is pegged this is a good sign. if it's not may I suggest getting a clue. )

[Professional Engineer]

Good morning ladies and gents. Flag-o-Gram.

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan -- Barry McKelvy prepares to fly a U.S. flag for a contributor of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing's flag-flying program. The program coordinator flies flags here in honor of family and friends. Their donations are used to provide supplies for local orphans. Mr. McKelvy is an airfield manager here. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jennifer Lindsey)

Start your day right size.

[Ciexyz]

WW II, my Daddy's War. May he rest in peace.

[Ciexyz]

Prayers offered up for our service people in combat zones.

[snippy_about_it]

Amen and thank you.

[snippy_about_it]

We are grateful for your father's service and offer our condolences for your loss.

Both my parent's were enlisted during WWII and both are now gone as are so very many of that Great Generation. May they all rest in peace.

[MNJohnnie]

Dear Lord,

In a world filled with wolves, thank you for your act of grace in make making sure my Country always has the biggest meanest bunch of guard dogs available.

[snippy_about_it]

The daily F-O-G. Not just for ladies anymore. :-)

[snippy_about_it]

That F-117 paint job is wonderful! Thanks EMB.

[Professional Engineer]

howdy ma'am.

[snippy_about_it]

Howdy.

[Soaring Feather]

Howdy, PE!! Thanks for the Flag-o-gram.

[Rocky]

Great post. Especially for someone who was supposedly bowing out of the Foxhole business.

[Soaring Feather]

~Cher~Believe~

[snippy_about_it]

Thanks. Hey, we were only bowing out on a "daily" basis. The Foxhole still lives. ;-)

[snippy_about_it]

P.S. Who are you anyway? LOL!

[snippy_about_it]

Good song. I have to wait to play it til I get home.