Posted on 03/08/2010 10:01:36 AM PST by MindBender26
FR Exclusive American Heroes; Neil Armstrong, Gene Cernan, Jim Lovell, Steve Ritchie Forbidden To See Troops In SWA
I am just off phone with a member of the American Heroes tour group stuck in Qatar. The four, Armstrong, Cernan. Lovell and Ritchie have been planning this tour to see the real front-line troops for months, so they could give some visual support and morale boost to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now they are stuck in a rear area in Qatar, because some Washington Weenie claims it would be too dangerous for them to move any farther forward, as was the locked in plan.
Remember who these men are. Neil Armstrong was the commander of Apollo 11 and the first man to walk on the moon. Gene Cernan went to the moon twice and was the last man to walk on the moon’s surface. Jim Lovell also went twice, first on Apollo 8 which orbited the moon on Christmas day and then again when he saved Apollo 13 from almost certain disaster when a fuel talk exploded enroute to the moon. Air Force Brigadier General Steve Ritchie is a legend in the aviation community. He was the only Air Force ace in Vietnam, meaning he had five air combat victories over MiG-21s. At age 67, he still flies the double-supersonic F-104 Starfighter in thrilling air shows. These are true American heroes, the kind of heroes our soldiers and Marines want to see, not some drugged up rock and rap band. This is not an easy trip for these men.
In many ways, it may be their swan song. Armstrong is 78, Lovell 81, and Cernan 75. They saw this as their one last chance to give back to the this generation of the military men and women protecting America from terrorists. Stop and think about it. These four men could be anywhere, living well, but they chose to be in the desert, with the young men and women currently defending America. But someone weenie is Washington is now prohibiting it.
This trip was not some last minute program. It has been planned to the minutest detail for 4 months. But now, is someone in the Obama administration afraid some good news out of the combat theater would make Obama look bad? Are they afraid of what the troops might say when the cameras are on?
Make no mistake about it. These four men know the dangers involved. They have seen 100 times this much danger in their lives and have now made the intelligent and informed decision that if it helps the troops in any way, they are willing to answer the bugle call one more time. In fact, they are now furious that they are being held in the rear areas, not allowed to be with the troops in actual daily danger, as they were promised.
I am now conveying a personal request from one of them, (and he speaks for all four) Get on the phone, call the White House at 202-456-1414 and tell them to let these last American heroes make the sacrifice they want to make. They have flown half way around the world on MATS flights to do this. Some of these men are intensely private individuals, and at their age, deserve to sit home if they want to. But no, at age 80+, they are there in Southwest Asia, trying to win one more for America, to do something for the troops, this one last time.
Call the WH now, tell Obama to take his political shackles of these true American heroes, and today’s troops they want to honor.
(ATTN: Members of accredited media. FReepmail me with your contact phone and paper or other outlet name and I will give you direct e-mail/international cellphone to one of the four. Sorry, I cannot do this for everyone.)
Call the WH now. Tell Obama to be as “brave” as these real American heroes are!
Steve is single !
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My mother will go out with him. :)
Especially Cmdr Lovell ...
It was so inspiring to study in the same halls that these guys once studied. We need more examples of the “Right Stuff” these days.
I'm sorry, I was referring to the original men who actually walked on the moon and to those who're tryin to walk in the Iraqi sand. Care to tell me which of THEM was a civilian? I don't think ANY of the original Apollo astronauts was a civilian.As far as the shuttle goes, Yes there were civilians before Challenger but NOT for a long time thereafter. How many went into space after Columbia came apart with foreign astronauts aboard? I dunno, actually.
Bump to the top for these heroes !
From Wiki:
There was no defining moment in Armstrong's decision to become an astronaut. In 1957, he was selected for the U.S. Air Force's Man In Space Soonest program. In November 1960 Armstrong was chosen as part of the pilot consultant group for the X-20 Dyna-Soar, a military space plane. On March 15, 1962 he was named as one of six pilot-engineers who would fly the space plane when it got off the design board.[23]
In the months after the announcement that applications were being sought for the second group of NASA astronauts, he became more and more excited about the prospect of the Apollo program and the prospect of investigating a new aeronautical environment. Armstrong's astronaut application had arrived about a week past the June 1, 1962 deadline. Dick Day, with whom Armstrong had worked closely at Edwards, worked at the Manned Spacecraft Center, saw the late arrival of the application, and slipped it into the pile before anyone noticed.[24] At Brooks City-Base at the end of June he underwent a medical exam that many of the applicants described as painful and at times seemingly pointless.[25]
Deke Slayton called Armstrong on September 13, 1962 and asked if he was interested in joining the NASA Astronaut Corps as part of what the press dubbed "the New Nine". Without hesitation, Armstrong said yes. The selections were kept secret until three days later, although newspaper reports had been circulating since the middle of summer that year that he would be selected as the "first civilian astronaut".[26] Armstrong did not actually become the first world-wide civillian to fly in space, since the Russians launched Valentina Tereshkova, a textile worker and amateur parachutist, aboard Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.
Amen! I’m sure that since these heros already lived through so much, they’d like to survive this trip & not treat it like a death wish...
Exactly. I’ve been to these areas, and I ASSURE you that some sniper out there cares not who these people are to history. The average citizens in a lot of these areas will see that a person is “not from those parts” and fire away. Sometimes people need to be smart first, and prove their point later. I’ve had to cover my head, etc., in certain places. Did I agree with that? No. Did it go against everything I DO believe? Yes. But with blond hair and blue eyes and white skin, you’ll want to cover your head and be SMART so that maybe you can live to tell about it.
Yes, and the same people crying outrage would be the ones crying outrage when these guys get killed & blame the government or whomever for not protecting them better.
OK, fling em out there then. Let them fend for themselves in their 70’s & 80’s. I’m sure their reflexes are the same as they were when they were in their 20’s, and they’ll be able to duck just fine.
You just came up with the best plan yet!!! Put the people you listed on that tour & send them out into the desert! ;o) Why try to stop a thing like that??
“Care to tell me which of THEM was a civilian? “
Harrison Schmitt didn’t go to the moon? He was a geologist. To be accurate, Neil Armstrong himself was no longer military - he was a civilian employee of NASA by the time he went to the moon.
“Yes there were civilians before Challenger but NOT for a long time thereafter.”
You might want to tell George Nelson that. He flew on STS-26, the mission immediately after Challenger and was not only a civilian at the time, but had never been in the military.
I don’t know what your hang-up is with civilians. The reason most pilot astronauts are at least ex-military, is that pretty much no one but the US taxpayer can pay for the requisite flight experience. Quite a few other jobs are done by those civilians you despise and apparently think are incompetent and the source of all problems.
Sucks but Qatar ain’t that bad since it’s a transit point for both theaters. There’ll be plenty of front line troops transiting there. Probably even more than what they’d see if they went to Victory and the IZ (Iraq) or Bagram and Khandahar (AFGN).
“I don’t have all the facts, so don’t nobody flame, but.....The only problem I now have about this is that now the WHOLE WORLD knows they are going and where they currently area, and you can bet Islamofascists in and around both of those countries would consider this CODEL-type group a prime hit soft-target, and they would now probably have to armour up ten-fold and come in at night with lights off. I have no idea, but there may well have been actionable intelligence gleaned that they were in danger. In principle I am all for this, but I also know how the jehadi works and it might not be particularly advisable at this time—is what I am thinking instinctively. Best to just come in, quiet, make the rounds, and get the hell out of such places. I would say, if Iraq and Afghanistan are scrapped, just have them return via Korea and go up to the DMZ. They will be safer there and the guys and gals in service up there face just as brutal an enemy, but the environment is much more easily controlled.
Bush’s one day covert trip to Baghdad on Thanksgiving a number of years ago was a textbook case of prudent travel by high level American VIPs to war zones in the Middle East infested with Islamobastards. In my view, this delegation has been compromised. Too much press. If al-Jazeera or somebody like that carries this, it’s over. Washington has “weenies” alright, but sometimes they have solid people as well who know when and when not to go forward on something. It is just conjecture on my part, but this also has to now be figured into the equation.”
Exactly.
Wasn’t John Glenn a Democrat?
How did that happen?
Thanks, and I fully agree.
I recall the trip that President Bush made, and there were several Freepers who had advance knowledge as he was in the air enroute. OpsSec mandated keeping that info under wraps until he had cleared the area on the return. The bleating of the Presstitutes was a glorious chorus of their stupidity!
A trip through Korea and Japan would be a fitting salute to both the troops, and the Astronaut Corps supporters in both countries.
Here’s the link to the Turkey AFB panel meeting. My Co-Worker’s Son is based at Incirlik. Lucky SOB’S! 2 out of 5 people I’d like to shake hands were there, Neil Armstrong and John Lovell.
You completely miss my point and the total object of this thread.
My entire argument here is that THESE ASTRONAUTS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SEE THE FREAKIN' TROOPS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL EX-MILITARY AND THEY ARE NO STRANGER TO DANGER!! Many (like Lovell) are combat vets.
Sayin' that this is no tourist destination belittles their experiences in the military and their abilities to handle themselves in life threatening situations where folks might be trying to KILL them! Cripes, I have no beef with civilians flying the shuttle. That's not the point. The point is that some A$$HAT in the administration is trying to keep these heroes out who wish to put it all out on the line AGAIN, to go make our troops feel better -- so let them! If the civilians from the shuttle program want to go, LET THEM GO TOO, but it might get a little MORE hairy for them if they've not been SHOT AT BEFORE as Lovell has or perhaps some of the others.
That's it! Read a little more carefully will you PUH-LEASE, next time?
“Sayin’ that this is no tourist destination belittles their experiences in the military and their abilities to handle themselves in life threatening situations where folks might be trying to KILL them!”
They are also retirees and targets (national treasures, actually), not James Bond. THAT argument isn’t really valid.
“That’s it! Read a little more carefully will you PUH-LEASE, next time?”
Try decaf.
It is very disrespectful to those particular men, and also to all veterans and men of such established experience. It is pure kill-the-old-and-wise Marxism, in the softer disrespect the old wise warriors form of that modality.
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