ISIS sucks. That’s a fact. Here are 7 great videos of them turning to ash.
1. ISIS releases footage of its own artillery being blown away
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ppd09ATLaA
It seems odd that these videos end up on the internet. If a videographer is filming propaganda for their cause and accidentally captures their own equipment turning into shrapnel, why would they upload it?
2. ISIS suicide bomber becomes a space cadet, fails re-entry exam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9YtppJcH7w
3. Apache drops hellfire and fires multiple bursts of 30mm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXvsp8bdDeg
Apache pilots are renowned for a lot of things. Restraint isn’t one of them.
4. AC-130 finds the proverbial barrel of fish, acts accordingly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSOG9GHVV0c
AC-130s are great in any environment, but they really distinguish themselves when the area is target rich.
5. U.S. hits explosive-laden vehicle so hard, the computer can’t decide where it ended up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSa0UcwI5ZA
It’s always great to see the larger explosion indicating that a target was filled with explosives, but it’s really fun to see the computer try to relay where the vehicle probably is. “Well, it was here when it blew up–but something just flew by over there. Also, there’s a smoldering chunk of metal over here, so maybe it’s the vehicle?”
6. Only the dog escapes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3gECsHEe0Q
Apache pilot: “Engage.”
All targets on the ground, clearly never getting up again.
AP: “Engage again.”
That’s what’s so great about Apache pilots. They always engage again.
7. Jordan’s spectacular retaliation for the execution of its pilot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZHgFHMKNM
ISIS executed the Jordanian pilot, Moaz al-Kasasbeh. Jordan responded with 56 air strikes and two executions in three days. Jordan was then kind enough to make a video for ISIS to remember them by.
Spending the better part of a year on a deployment 3,000 miles away from home is hard for anyone and can feel like an eternity.
On the ride home, many vets think about the first thing they’re going to do when they return, like biting into a perfectly-grilled cheeseburger, getting a good night’s sleep in their own bed or taking a long hot shower.
Aside from those iconic ones, here are a few things you could do to welcome back your spouse and make his or her homecoming a glorious affair.
1. Bring unexpected family members
Consider bringing man’s best friend along — the one who walks on four legs and thinks his returning buddy is king. There’s nothing better than the welcoming face of a faithful pup after a long time apart. Returning home is an emotional time for everybody, so why not bring everyone?
2. Bring tobacco
Puffing a fresh cigarette or packing your lip with a fresh pinch of dip can make a world of difference for someone who spent that last 13 hours on a plane and is itching for a hit of nicotine.
Sure, this isn’t the healthiest gift. But it could make your loved one do a celebration dance when they’re packing a freshie.
3. Bring a cold beer (or beers)
General Order #1A prohibits service members from drinking alcohol while deployed — and it’s rarely lifted.
It’s a known fact when you want something bad and can’t have it, you want it even more. Heineken, Corona, or PBR are just some of the popular choices sold at the local base PX.
Letting your spouse toast a few with his or her buddies for a job well done is a great and inexpensive way to close out a stressful deployment.
4. Have an escape plan checklist
Unfortunately, it’s not always a situation where your loved one can just walk off the plane and go straight home — there’s always a list of “to-dos” before he can pull chocks. So make sure your spouse has a get-home-quick plan so those logistics hurdles don’t get in the way of a quick trip to the casa.
Find the family, hug it out and take a quick photo.
Mark your seabag and other baggage so the kids can spot and retrieve it while you drop off your weapon at the armory.
Meet at the car and load up.
Find the nearest exit gate with the least outgoing traffic.
AND GO!!!
5. Have a clean house
Being cramped into a small bunk on a ship or sleeping on a narrow cot in a dusty tent takes its toll. Entering a cleaned up and tidy house — even a modest one — can feel like you just walked into a newly designed multi-million dollar mansion.
6. Make a home-cooked meal
Some military installations have better chow halls than others. And a lot of deployed personnel had to make due with eating MREs or C-rations three times a day, which are tough to stomach over a long deployment.
So there’s nothing like sitting down at the table with your family over a perfectly cooked steak with all the fixings.
7. Bring a change of clothes
After months of doing laundry in a bucket, having some fresh clean clothes that don’t have a last name stitched above the pocket is a step in the right direction when trying to return to normal.
We’re hoping the top leaders in your unit don’t have your cellphone number, but if they do, the text messages you may someday receive probably won’t be fun to read.
There’s a way of gauging the level of trouble you’re in by the person who contacts you about your offense. The first and less severe level is your shop LPO (Leading Petty Officer). The second level is your chief and the third and most severe level is your Command Master Chief, also known as the CMC.
It’s never a good thing if your CMC skipped this chain to contact you directly. Here are nine text messages you’ll dread receiving from master chief:
1. Why is your liberty buddy in my office and you’re not?
You and your buddy submitted liberty plans agreeing to watch over each other during the weekend. Now you’re at your girlfriend’s place wondering what kind of trouble your buddy has gotten both of you in.
2. It’s called Cinderella liberty for a reason shipmate. WHERE THE F–K ARE YOU?!
Cinderella liberty means that you have to be on the ship by midnight. You haven’t earned overnight liberty at your new command. Do you play the new guy card and say you got lost or do you stay out all night and live it up while you can?
3. You better be dead, hurt or kidnapped. There’s no excuse for missing ship’s movement.
The CMC is right, there’s no excuse for missing ship’s movement. It had better been worth it, don’t expect to go on liberty for a long time.
4. Last minute change, your duty section is doing load-in tomorrow. Muster time is 0600.
The CMC doesn’t actually believe you’re sober on the last night before pulling out to sea. But he’s the CMC, so whatever he says, goes. Stop drinking now and prepare for a full day of intensive labor.
5. I’m not approving this marriage chit until I talk to you.
But CMC, I love this woman. I know she’s a little older, and her English isn’t great, but I think it’s time. We’ve been dating for six months.
6. I need to talk to you about chief’s Captain’s Mast tomorrow. Come to my office.
Do you comply with the CMC and lie at Captain’s Mast or do you throw him and the chief under the bus?
7. I just got a call from the MAs. Your entire shop is being accused of hazing the new guy.
Hazing is an egregious offense in today’s Navy. You and your shop will be the example for what not to do for years to come.
8. I just got a call from security. Your duty driver was in a wreck and he was drunk.
You’ve just lost your duty section leadership position. In the CMC’s mind, that idiot is a direct reflection of your leadership.
Former National Security Agency contractor Harold Martin allegedly stole documents that seem far more sensitive than what has come from the Snowden leaks.
For more than two decades, Martin allegedly made off with highly-classified documents that were found in his home and car that included discussions of the US military’s capabilities and gaps in cyberspace, specific targets, and “extremely sensitive” operations against terror groups, according to an indictment released Wednesday.
Martin was arrested by the FBI at his home on August 27, 2016. Agents found thousands of pages and “many terabytes of information” there, according to court documents reviewed by The New York Times.
With the release of the indictment, it has become more clear of what was apparently in those files.
The indictment charges Martin with 20 counts of having unauthorized possession of documents from not only the NSA, but also from US Cyber Command, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Central Intelligence Agency. While many of the documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were top-secret, they mostly consisted of PowerPoint presentations and training materials.
The National Security Operations Center (NSOC). | NSA photo
Top-secret documents allegedly stolen by Martin, however, offer much more specific and damaging details to potential adversaries. Here’s a sampling (via the indictment):
A 2014 NSA report outlining intelligence information regarding foreign cyber issues, containing foreign cyber intrusion techniques
A 2009 draft of a United States Signals Intelligence Directive, which outlined specific methods, capabilities, techniques, processes, and procedures associated with [computer network operations] used to defend the United States.
An NSA anti-terrorism operational document concerning extremely sensitive US planning and operations regarding global terrorists.
With just those three documents, an adversary would have details on how the NSA stops hackers from penetrating its networks and what kind of gaps still exist, along with how the agency plans operations against terror groups. Though it’s not apparent from the indictment that Martin passed the documents along to anyone, if he did so it would be a huge setback to the intelligence community.
Soon after Martin’s arrest, his lawyers told The New York Times that he “loves his family and his country. There is no evidence that he intended to betray his country.” A US official described him as a “hoarder.”
The indictment continues (emphasis added):
An outline of a classified exercise involving real-world NSA and US military resources to demonstrate existing cyber intelligence and operational capabilities.
A description of the technical architecture of an NSA communications system.
A USCYBERCOM document, dated August 17, 2016, discussing capabilities and gapsin capabilities of the US military and details of specific operations.
A USCYBERCOM document, dated May 23, 2016, containing information about the capabilities and targets of the US military.
A 2008 CIA document containing information relating to foreign intelligence collection sources and methods, and relating to a foreign intelligence collection target.
For at least a portion of Martin’s career, he served in the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit, an elite group of government hackers tasked with breaking into foreign networks. Some US officials told The Washington Post that Martin allegedly took more than 75% of TAO’s library of hacking tools, a potentially massive breach of an outfit that has been shrouded in secrecy.
According to The New York Times, some investigators suspect Martin may possibly be the source of the trove of TAO hacking tools that were posted online last year by a group calling itself “The Shadow Brokers.” Those disclosures likely spurred “a lot of panic” inside the agency, according to a former TAO operator who spoke with Business Insider last year.
“The FBI investigation and this indictment reveal a broken trust from a security clearance holder,” Special Agent in Charge Gordon B. Johnson of the FBI’s Baltimore Division said in a statement.
“Willfully retaining highly classified national defense information in a vulnerable setting is a violation of the security policy and the law, which weakens our national security and cannot be tolerated. The FBI is vigilant against such abuses of trust, and will vigorously investigate cases whenever classified information is not maintained in accordance with the law.”
Martin faces a maximum sentence of 200 years in prison. His initial court appearance is scheduled for February 14.
Under the rule of Kim Jong Un, North Korea has been a real jerk on the international scene — like, even more than usual. In fact, not too many countries are willing to be friends with North Korea. But there are some countries who are willing to stand by them. Surprisingly, that total reaches six.
Here’s who they are:
1. Russia
This really comes as no surprise. After all, in 1948, the Soviet Union helped put Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim Il-Sung, into power. During the Korean War, Soviet pilots flew missions in support of North Korea and helped with the country’s flight training. Russia also exported a lot of gear to Pyongyang, including MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters.
Russian fighter. (Photo via Public Domain)
2. China
Again, no surprise, given that during the Korean War, Chinese troops intervened on the side of North Korea. China remains North Korea’s biggest trading partner, and the two countries share a 900-mile long border.
Photo: Xinhuanet
3. Iran
This relationship could be surprising, except for the fact that Iran wants to buy a lot of weapons. In fact, Iran has purchased mini-submarines and ballistic missiles from the Hermit Kingdom, and a “scientific” alliance (read: nuclear weapons development) is also going on.
Iranian soldiers on parade. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
4. Syria
If there is a dictator who would challenge Kim Jong Un for most hated, it is Syria’s Bashir Assad. Like Iran, Syria sees North Korea as a source of weapons.
Hmeymim airfield in Syria. (Photo via Russian Ministry of Defense)
5. Cuba
Cuba remains one of the few communist regimes in the world. North Korea, also a holdout communist regime, is reaching out to its fellow client of the Soviet Union.
Fidel Castro became a close friend of the Soviet Union, something JFK tried to stop with the Bay of Pigs invasion. (Photo: Keizers)
6. Equatorial Guinea
According to many measures, Equatorial Guinea has one of the worst human rights record. North Korea has reportedly been reaching out to its fellow pariah.
Check out this video rundown on the the countries that are North Korea’s only friends:
At the Starbucks at the Langley headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency it might be best to just remember your drink order because the baristas won’t remember your name.
They’re not known for getting names right anyway.
“They could use the alias ‘Polly-O string cheese’ for all I care,” a food services supervisor at the CIA, told the Washington Post. “But giving any name at all was making people — you know, the undercover agents — feel very uncomfortable. It just didn’t work for this location.”
The agents don’t have to leave the building to get their daily fix, but they won’t get stars to add to their gold card requirements either. Tracking the agents preferences is strictly prohibited, as the Agency fears its data could be used to out secret agents. The receipts just say “Store Number 1.”
The baristas for what is now known as the “Stealthy Starbucks” go through a rigorous background investigation, but still can’t leave the Starbucks without a handler. They are frequently briefed about security risks. During the day, the vanilla latte is the winner. For agents working long hours and night shifts, double espressos and Frappuccinos are what the agents of the world’s most secret intelligence agency need to keep going.
There might be more secretive agents. Somewhere.
“There’s caramel-macchiato guy” and “the iced white mocha woman,” one barista said. “But I have no idea what they do, I just know they need coffee. A lot of it.”
As the new year begins, we all make resolutions in an effort to be better than we were last year. Working to improve, year over year, is a fundamental value of the military, so we think they deserve some resolutions of their own. Let’s start with the Army, which spent 2017 fighting two wars.
So, what should the Army resolve to do better in 2018?
4. Start work on new armored vehicles
The M1A2 Abrams and the M2/M3 Bradley Fighting vehicles have served well, but they’re designs from the late 1970s, and upgrades can only do so much. Russia is developing the Armata family of armored vehicles, which have a number of new technologies, like active-protection systems, installed.
The Army needs to start work on new armored vehicles that can show the same superiority over the Armata family that the Abrams and Bradley demonstrated over the T-72 and BMP once upon a time.
The M2 Bradley has seen a lot of desert miles. (National War College Military Image Collection)
3. Develop a new scout helicopter
The OH-58 retired in 2016. It outlasted two planned replacements, the RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopter and the ARH-70 Arapaho. The Army is now trying to make do by using the AH-64 Apache as a scout helicopter.
This just isn’t gonna work. The Apache has a good sensor suite, but why would you send it out carrying less than full firepower? Furthermore, putting firepower on a scout helicopter might just tempt a pilot to go beyond the call of a recon mission. So, getting a new scout helicopter, like the H145M from Airbus, has to be on the Army’s “to do” list for 2018.
Airbus H145M helicopter showing a gun pod on the left pylon. (Photo from Airbus Helicopters)
2. Stock enough munitions
The Heritage Foundation reported that the Army’s chief of logistics warned of shortages of some crucial weapons. Among them are MIM-104 Patriot missiles, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, Excalibur GPS-guided 155mm shells, and Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense missiles.
This shortage affects those on the front — and not just because they may run out of ammo, having to resort to spitballs. Proper training on weapon systems helps to keep troops proficient, and proper training requires munitions.
A Patriot Air and Missile Defense launcher fires an interceptor during a previous test at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The latest configuration of the system, called PDB-8, has passed four flight tests and is now with the U.S. Army for a final evaluation. (Image from Raytheon)
1. Improve readiness
The Heritage Foundation report noted that only 10 of the Army’s 31 active brigade combat teams are combat-ready. That number is actually a misnomer, since of those 10, only three are able to fight right away. There’s a word for this: Unacceptable.
The Army needs to get more of its “combat ready” brigades ready to fight right away. That means making sure the troops have enough training, that their gear is in top shape, and that they have enough munitions to fight.
A U.S. Army Paratrooper, assigned to 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, engages targets during a recon and sniper break contact live fire exercise at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Feb. 6, 2017. (U.S. Army photo by Visual Information Specialist Gerhard Seuffert)
What resolutions do you want to see the United States Army make for 2018? Comment below!
North Carolina Representative Walter Jones wants to elevate the Marines to be included in the name of the Navy Department. For the past 15 years, he has introduced legislation into the annual National Defense Authorization Act to create “the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps.” Each year the action gets increased support in both houses of Congress but ultimately is shot down in the Senate. Jones believes not including the Marines in the official name of the department is an offense to Marines who’ve fought and died for the United States.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Paul A. Ochoa
“When we die, when mama and dada get that letter of condolence, it would be kind of nice if the Marine Corps was mentioned,” famous Marine Corps alum R. Lee Ermey told the Marine Corps Times in 2010. “Just change the letterhead. What’s the harm in that?”
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the harm would come in the form of a cost of about $500,000 per year over a few years’ time. Since the National Security Act of 1947 delineated the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps as separate services, the only change to the Marines’ structure was the addition of the Commandant of the Marine Corps to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1979.
Jones was elected in 1995 to North Carolina’s 3rd District, which includes Camp Lejune and Marine Corps Air Station New River. He has been introducing this legislation since 2001.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Tyler W. Stewart)
In 2010, Jones’ amendment was introduced to the House as a standalone bill, but even then, with 415 cosponsors (there are only 435 Representatives in the House), the Senate still killed it. Jones’ 2010 bill received the most cosponsors of any bill in Congress since the Congressional Record started keeping track. The effort to kill that bill was led by Senator John McCain.
“This isn’t about Walter Jones,” Jones told The Hill. “This isn’t about John McCain. This is about the Marines who serve this country. Haven’t they earned the right to be recognized?”
Despite President Donald Trump’s bold proclamation that a North Korean nuclear missile capable of hitting the US “won’t happen,” Kim Jong Un appears to be on his way — faster than many had thought — to an intercontinental ballistic missile that could flatten Washington.
But a nuclear-armed North Korea wouldn’t be the end of the world, according to some senior military officials.
“We can deter them,” retired Adm. Dennis Blair, the former head of US Pacific Command, said of North Korea at a National Committee for US-China Relations event. “They may be developing 10 to 15 nuclear weapons. We have 2,000. They can do a lot of damage to the U.S., but there won’t be any North Korea left in the event of a nuclear exchange. That’s not a good regime survival strategy, and even Kim Jong Un would understand that.”
The U.S. has to live with the fact that Russia, the world’s second-greatest nuclear power, openly opposes Washington’s foreign policy in nearly every dimension, and that Pakistan, a country rife with corruption and Islamist groups gaining traction within and around its borders, has nuclear weapons.
A senior Defense Department official with expertise in nuclear strategy told Business Insider that while the US has said it cannot and will not accept a North Korea armed with a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile, that amounted more to an opening position in an ongoing negotiation than an intention to use military force to stop it.
F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornets from the USS Carl Vinson’s Carrier Air Wing fly over the carrier strike group flanked by two South Korean destroyers on May 3. US Navy video by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Matt Brown.
“You never undermine your official position going in,” the official told Business Insider. “You’re never going to voluntarily back away from that. You’re going to actively work to make sure they don’t get” an ICBM.
“The North Koreans having nukes is a bad thing, and we don’t want it,” the official said. “But if we lose that one, we survive it.”
Despite bluster on both sides — whether posturing that the US may attack to cripple North Korea’s nuclear program or that North Korea would use its nuclear weapons on the US or allies — the defense official and other experts Business Insider contacted said they found both cases extremely unlikely and undesirable.
“It’s always in the US’s favor to be somewhat ambiguous about what they will or won’t do,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate in the East Asia Nonproliferation Program. “That’s because there’s no good thing to do. They have to convince South Korean allies and North Korean adversaries that they’ll do anything to protect Seoul, even all-out nuclear war.
There’s a real risk that, even without nuclear weapons, Seoul would fall in a conflict with North Korea. Photo from Stratfor
“But those experienced military leaders know. They’ve run the models. They’ve run the numbers,” Hanham said. There’s just no way to fight North Korea “without chaos and enormous death and damage to the world.”
Because US nuclear weapons would have to fly over China or Russia and most likely would spread deadly fallout in South Korea or as far as Japan, nuclear conflict with North Korea would be likely to bring about World War III — a great power war between nuclear states that the world has developed nuclear weapons to avoid.
To an extent, the US already lives with and deters a nuclear North Korea daily. Hanham said that although it hadn’t been verified, North Korea most likely had a deliverable nuclear weapon that could hit the 10 million civilians in Seoul or the 25,000 permanent US troops stationed in South Korea.
So North Korea will continue on its path toward a nuclear weapon that could hit anywhere in the US — but like Russia, China, and Pakistan, it probably wouldn’t use it.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised the test of a new ballistic missile controlled by a precision guidance system and ordered the development of more powerful strategic weapons, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported on May 30.
The missile launched on May 29 was equipped with an advanced automated pre-launch sequence compared with previous versions of the “Hwasong” rockets, North Korea’s name for its Scud-class missiles, KCNA said. That indicated the North had launched a modified Scud-class missile, as South Korea’s military has said.
The North’s test launch of a short-range ballistic missile landed in the sea off its east coast and was the latest in a fast-paced series of missile tests defying international pressure and threats of more sanctions.
The test-fire of Pukguksong-2. This photo was released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency on February 13. (KCNA/Handout)
Kim said the reclusive state would develop more powerful weapons in multiple phases in accordance with its timetable to defend North Korea against the United States.
“He expressed the conviction that it would make a greater leap forward in this spirit to send a bigger ‘gift package’ to the Yankees” in retaliation for American military provocation, KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
South Korea said it had conducted a joint drill with a US supersonic B-1B Lancer bomber on May 29. North Korea’s state media earlier accused the United States of staging a drill to practice dropping nuclear bombs on the Korean peninsula.
The US Navy said its aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, also planned a drill with another US nuclear carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, in waters near the Korean peninsula.
North Korean Missile. (Associated Press image via NewsEdge)
A US Navy spokesman in South Korea did not give specific timing for the strike group’s planned drill.
North Korea calls such drills a preparation for war.
The launch on May 29 followed two successful tests of medium-to-long-range missiles in as many weeks by the North, which has been conducting such tests at an unprecedented pace in an effort to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the mainland United States.
Such launches, and two nuclear tests since January 2016, have been conducted in defiance of US pressure, UN resolutions and the threat of more sanctions.
They also pose one of the greatest security challenges for US President Donald Trump, who portrayed the latest missile test as an affront to China.
“North Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor, China, by shooting off yet another ballistic missile … but China is trying hard!” Trump said on Twitter.
Precision Guidance
Japan has also urged China to play a bigger role in restraining North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s top national security adviser, Shotaro Yachi, met China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, for five hours of talks near Tokyo on May 29 after the North’s latest test.
Hwasong missile (North Korean variant). (Photo: KCNA)
Yachi told Yang that North Korea’s actions had reached a new level of provocation.
“Japan and China need to work together to strongly urge North Korea to avoid further provocative actions and obey things like United Nations resolutions,” Yachi was quoted as telling Yang in a statement by Japan’s foreign ministry.
A statement from China’s foreign ministry after the meeting made no mention of North Korea.
North Korea has claimed major advances with its rapid series of launches, claims that outside experts and officials believe may be at least partially true but are difficult to verify independently.
A South Korean military official said the North fired one missile on Monday, clarifying an earlier assessment that there may have been more than one launch.
The test was aimed at verifying a new type of precision guidance system and the reliability of a new mobile launch vehicle under different operational conditions, KCNA said.
However, South Korea’s military and experts questioned the claim because the North had technical constraints, such as a lack of satellites, to operate a terminal-stage missile guidance system properly.
“Whenever news of our valuable victory is broadcast recently, the Yankees would be very much worried about it and the gangsters of the south Korean puppet army would be dispirited more and more,” KCNA cited leader Kim as saying.
Fred K. Mahaffey was a distinguished veteran of the U.S. Army who eventually rose to the rank of four-star general. It was during his time as a battalion commander in Vietnam that he, on at least three separate occasions in five months, risked his life to save his men. He received a Silver Star for each action.
Mahaffey was the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. On Jan. 26, 1969, his units were engaged in the Ding Tuong Province. He ordered his command and control helicopter to begin conducting low passes over the battlefield so he could survey the action and coordinate support between his men.
Then he had the helicopter drop him off, and he began leading the fight from the ground. Throughout the night, he came under intense fire four times but stayed at the front to rally and direct his forces.
A few months later on Apr. 29, the 2nd Battalion was conducting a reconnaissance in force mission in Long An. One of the infantry companies found a larger enemy element and engaged in a firefight. Mahaffey once again ordered his helicopter to the battlefield.
When he arrived, he began flying circles over the battlefield and selected targets for artillery fire despite the fact that he was under severe anti-aircraft fire. After the company had surrounded the enemy, Mahaffey had the helicopter land so that he could help his men eliminate the Vietnamese element.
Between May 12 and 13, Mahaffey completed his hat trick. Again, his forces were conducting a reconnaissance in force when they encountered a large enemy element. Mahaffey called in both artillery and air strikes from the bird and made constant adjustments to the fire missions to maximize their effects.
Soldiers on the ground guide in a helicopter during a resupply mission in Vietnam. (Photo: U.S. Army)
He then joined the forces on the ground and kept calling in missions, some as close as 35 meters from his own position. He stayed on the battlefield and coordinated the support fires until his men were able to destroy the enemy element completely.
For these three engagements, Mahaffey received three Silver Stars, but that’s not the full extent of his heroics in Vietnam.
He also received two Distinguished Flying Crosses. One was for his actions leading from the sky throughout the Vietnam deployment.
The other Distinguished Flying Cross resulted from actions taken on Apr. 6, 1969, when he saw two enemy soldiers maneuvering near his men. He ordered the bird to conduct low passes while he fired on the soldiers with his M-16, killing them both. He then landed, recovered their weapons and documents, and took off again.
Just a few years ago, Americans were stunned at the amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico by the British Petroleum-leased oil rig Deepwater Horizon. On April 20, 2010, a blowout during the drilling of an exploratory well caused an explosion visible from 40 miles away that killed 11 of its crew.
Over nearly three months, the spill from the Deepwater Horizondumped 210 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Now a film about the disaster, “Deepwater Horizon,” is set to hit theaters Sept. 30.
Mark Wahlberg plays Mike Williams, an electrician and Deepwater Horizon survivor, in a film that takes an in-depth look at the people who were working on the rig that night. Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O’Brien, and Kate Hudson round out the ensemble cast.
We Are The Mighty met up with the cast – and the real Mike Williams – at the film’s premiere in New Orleans and talked with them about the film and the motivations behind it.
