[Snow Bunny]

. . . Tribute To HEROES . While the dogtag is used to provide information on an individual serviceman, I also believe that the chain which holds them represents a connection to all servicemen, no matter where you served, how you served or when you served. . The Minuteman in 1776 has a connection to the soldier fighting in Afghanistan today. That connection is every individual who has ever served in the United States Military. Each of us represents a link in the chain that connects that Minuteman of over 200 years ago to the soldier in Afghanistan today. SAMWolf . . Tribute to Vietnam Veterans Please click on picture. . The great intangible of America's wars beyond logistics, beyond strategy, beyond wonder weapons and Generals, is the spiritual force of its fighting men and women - and that is the force that the USO so serves. . Free Republic....Click for Donations . Partners . .To Jim Robinson, Founder of FRee Republic and Navy Veteran Thank you, from all those who frequent the FReeper Canteen .

[Snow Bunny]

[leadpenny]

Just a little equal time from, and for, the "Rotorheads" in the crowd.

Low Flight

Oh, I have lifted vertically from the ground
And humbly joined the sky while wings
swept round.

Forward I've flown, while closely hugging earth
Beneath the clouds, and done a hundred things
you would not dare do:

Autoed, hoisted and beeped while challenging
death.
Hovering there I've fought the shifting winds
around

And forced my balking craft through fearful
turbulent air

Down amongst the low awaiting fog -
I've stayed above the sea
Through skill - where never goat
nor even C-130 flew

And while with silent humble stance,
I've listened to the men who fly
on high.

I've lowered my head and taken their abuse
And somewhere God looked at me
and smiled.

~Author Unknown

[tomkow6]

Good morning, Snow!

Good morning, EVERYBODY!

[tomkow6]

Today's FEEBLE attempt at humor:



Teacher: George Washington not only chopped down
his father's cherry tree, but also admitted doing
it. Now do you know why his father didn't punish
him?

Johnny: Because George still had the axe in his
hand!!!!"



Teacher: Hello, boys. Remember! Nothing is
impossible.

Johnny: OK sir. Will you please squeeze out all
the toothpaste and put back it into the tube again?



Teacher: What do you call a person who keeps on
talking when people are no longer interested?

Johnny: A teacher.


Teacher: Can anybody give an example of COINCIDENCE?

Johnny: My mother and father got married on the
same day at the same time.


Teacher: Who is the fastest human being in the world?

Johnny: My mother... she can catch me doing anything.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

[Valin]

Yeager breaks the barrier one last time




EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California (AP) -- Legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier Saturday for what he said was the last time, more than a half-century after he became the first person to accomplish the feat.
Yeager, 79, split the air with a sonic boom as he opened an air show that drew thousands of fans to the desert base. Yeager took an F-15 Eagle to just over 30,000 feet on his last supersonic flight, capping a 60-year career.
Edwards test pilot Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine was in the back seat as the plane reached Mach 1.45, or nearly 1 1/2 times the speed of sound.
"I was standing in the hangar when Gen. Yeager flew by," said Jennifer Thompson, 16, of Martinez. "He shook the whole hangar. It was really cool."

After completing the hour-long flight, the retired Air Force brigadier general taxied the plane under an archway of water gushing from two Edwards fire trucks in an Air Force tradition, base spokeswoman Leigh Anne Bierstine said.
The plane's nose was painted with the words "Glamorous Glennis," named after Yeager's wife. It was the name he gave the orange, bullet-shaped Bell X-1 rocket plane that Yeager used to break the sound barrier for the first time on October 14, 1947 on a flight over the Mojave Desert. The flight was depicted in the movie "The Right Stuff."
Yeager's aircraft was joined by a second F-15 piloted by friend and colleague Joe Engle, a 70-year-old former NASA astronaut and retired major general.
"This is a fun day for us because we get to fly good airplanes and do something we've loved to do for some time," Yeager said shortly before the flight.

Yeager announced earlier this year that the supersonic flight would be his last, although he intends to continue flying slower aircraft.
"Now is a good time," Yeager told Bierstine before the flight. "I've had a heck of good time and very few people get exposed to the things I've been exposed to. I'll keep on flying P-51s and light stuff, but I just feel its time to quit."

Yeager's first cracking of the sound barrier was the crowning achievement in a career that spanned six decades, including service in World War II and Vietnam.
Yeager said he considered it "a waste of time" to be scared during any of his flights.
"If you can't do anything about the outcome of something, forget it," he said. "Instead you better concentrate on staying alive where you are."

[SAMWolf]

The Grave of Pilot Officer Magee, writer of "High Flight" in the Military section of the graveyard at Scopwick, Lincolnshire.

After the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster of January 1986, The then US President Ronald Reagan read from this poem, leading the American Tribute to the seven astronauts.

Magee was the son of an American father and English mother, both missionaries in China where it is thought he was born. He trained as a pilot in Ottawa with the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1941, and was transferred to a Spitfire operational training unit in Llandow, South Wales later that year. He died in a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire while on active service on 11th December 1941.

Air Vice-Marshall M.H. Le Bas trained with him in 1941 and recalled:

During our acquaintanceship, he had always maintained that his first love was poetry, although he had discovered that flying was not far behind. He was thus able to imbue his flying with a sense of lyricism.
br> I happened to run into him shortly after his first flight in a Spitfire about which he was waxing lyrical. I urged him, though not very seriously, that since he had always wanted to be a poet he should put his feelings down in words.

He thereupon sat down in the mess and composed, in a very short time, the first draft of "High Flight" written, literally, "on the back of an envelope".

I must have been the first person to read it, but cannot claim that I foresaw its eventual fame. It was some years later that I heard of Magee's fate.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

[zip]

Good morning to all of the Canteeners. A big THANK YOU for High Flight. Years ago, the local TV station started signing off with the video and I loved it. My wife gave me the printed copy for birthday, Christmas or something.

THANK YOU MILITARY PERSONNEL, PAST AND PRESENT, AND YOUR FAMILIES FOR KEEPING AMERICA SAFE. YOU ARE AWESOME!!! A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO CANADIAN AND ISRAELI TROOPS FOR SUPPORTING FREEDOM. YOU ARE IN OUR PRAYERS DAILY.

[Chemist_Geek]

Speaking of flying...

Naval Air Station Lemoore, Calif. (Oct. 23, 2002) -- A Navy Honor Guard renders a twenty-one gun salute during a memorial service for four naval aviators from Strike Fighter Squadron Four One (VFA-41) who are missing and presumed dead, following a mid-air collision while conducting a routine training mission off the California coast on October 18th, 2002. Killed were Lt. Stephen R. Nevarez, 31, New Orleans, La., Weapons Systems Officer, Lt. Joel A. Korkowski, 30, Phoenix, Ariz., Pilot, Lt. Matthew S. Shubzda, 27, Dallas, Texas, Pilot, and Lt. Stephen N. Benson, 26, Virginia Beach, Va., Weapons Systems Officer. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Denise Martin.

[Light Speed]

Good Morning Bunny...and welcome to all visiting us here at the canteen.

Riding upon the High places of the Earth

A artists rendering of Aurora....believed to exist,witnessed by British Airways Pilots tankering over the North Sea

[Mr_Magoo]

Air Power

Northrop YF-5A "Freedom Fighter"

The F-5 is a supersonic fighter combining low cost, ease of maintenance, and great versatility. More than 2,000 of these aircraft have been procured by the USAF for use by allied nations. The F-5, which closely resembles the USAF Northrop T-38 trainer, is suitable for various types of ground-support and aerial intercept missions, including those which would have to be conducted from sod fields in combat areas.

The F-5 first flew on July 30, 1959 and deliveries to the Tactical Air Command for instructing foreign pilots began in April 1964. Pilots from Iran and South Korea were the first to be trained in the F-5, followed by pilots from Norway, Greece, Taiwan, Spain, and other Free World nations which have adopted the F-5. A two place combat trainer version, the F-5B, first flew in February 1964. In 1966-67, a USAF sqaudron of F-5s flew combat missions in Southeast Asia for operational evaluation purposes.

SPECIFICATIONS
Span: 25 ft. 10 in.
Length: 47 ft. 2 in.
Height: 13 ft. 6 in.
Weight: 20,576 lbs. loaded
Armament: Two 20mm cannons, rockets, missiles and 5,500 lbs. of bombs externally
Engines: Two General Electric J85s of 4,080 lbs. thrust each with afterburner
Cost: $756,000

PERFORMANCE
Maximum speed: 925 mph.
Cruising Speed: 575 mph.
Range: 1,100 miles
Service Ceiling: 50,700 ft.

Photos/Information courtesy of the US Air Force Museum

[radu]

HAPPY HUMP DAY! I hope you're all having a good one.

Howdy troops, veterans and allies wherever you may be. Thank You! for your service in defending our Nation. God bless you and watch over you.

This will have to be a post-and-run but I'll be back later tonight to respond to everyone. This is a coooool thread, judging from the pings I've seen. I spotted those Blue Angels - sqeeeeeal! I can't wait to get back! Y'all have fun with the troops and I'll join you as soon as I can.

I love this doll, Snow Bunny, and the hat is perfect with the dress, Linda. Thank you both. I'm slowly but surely finding the beautiful gifts everyone has been so kind to create and getting able to post them.

[radu]

I've always loved the poem "High Flight". Back in the "old days" (i.e. "before Cable" haha!) when the TV stations signed off at midnight, one of the Nashville stations always signed off with this poem. It always gave me goosebumps....and the poem still does to this day. I had no idea it was written by someone so young. What a tragedy his life ended at such a young age.