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An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

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Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#61

Post by jacquesm »

jki275 wrote: post #54
aerosmile wrote: post #17

There is so much gold in here. The human race would do well to explore how it's possible to turn hatred into love. It clearly happened here, and I've witnessed it on a smaller scale as a 16 year old in Vienna. As an immigrant, it was easy to find yourself in the wrong place at a wrong time. That finally happened one night, and the only thing that saved me was seeing a sign on one of the guys' jackets that belonged to…

War is almost never about hate or love. War is a tool of diplomacy. Both of these men were simply professionals doing their jobs. The one attacking, the one defending. It's unlikely they ever hated each other or even really thought a great deal beyond how to accomplish their respective missions at the time.

> War is a tool of diplomacy.

More often than not war is a means of pursuing business interests.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#62

Post by lostdog »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #10
pastrami_panda wrote: post #7

For those curious (the article doesn't address it) it was the bomb hatch that momentarily gave away the planes position. I'm curious as to how such a huge oversight in the design of the craft made it to production, since it's widely known that 90 degree angles is a surefire way to get instantly detected on radar.

How else do you release bombs? I believe that even modern stealth aircraft are more vulnerable when releasing missiles or bombs. The thing is if the aircraft gets to the point of releasing bombs or missiles it has pretty much done its job. You won't get that far without being stealthy.

The bombs could be ejected at high speed along with the outer hatch door, kind of like a magazine, and then a secondary inner hatch closes to cover the hole.

...but I'm also not an aircraft designer.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#64

Post by jki275 »

lostlogin wrote: post #50
pluto9 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not weird at all. Soldiers on opposite sides have a lot in common, just as you might have a lot in common with someone of your profession from a different country. Their conflict is that of their respective countries, or they may think they're serving a good cause. But in either case, it's not personal. It's also a mistake to think that every time a soldier shows an ounce of humanity, they're only doing it to "h…

I think you are attributing a lot of what goes on to choice - war has a poor track record in this regard and soldiers are often recruited very young and/or conscripted. Even the US recruits soldiers defined by the Convention on the protection of children (below 18). Schools are used for recruiting in many places. This aspect of war is really sad - giving kids and young adults guns and sending them off to shoot people…

Oh stop the hand wringing.

The US doesn't recruit child soldiers.

The very few who actually sign up when they are 17 are almost all 18 before they go to bootcamp, and of the extremely rare ones who aren't they are 18 before they go to their first command or do anything at all. They are not allowed to deploy outside the US or participate in any hostilities until they are 18.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#65

Post by jki275 »

jacquesm wrote: post #61
jki275 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is almost never about hate or love. War is a tool of diplomacy. Both of these men were simply professionals doing their jobs. The one attacking, the one defending. It's unlikely they ever hated each other or even really thought a great deal beyond how to accomplish their respective missions at the time.

> War is a tool of diplomacy. More often than not war is a means of pursuing business interests.

Certainly not in this case.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#66

Post by oconnor663 »

x32n23nr wrote: post #36

Another famous example of how in the darkest hours there's longing for peace and friendship is the Christmas Truce during the first world war [1]. British soldiers heard German troops in the trenches singing carols and patriotic songs. They started shouting messages to each other. The next day, soldiers from both sides met, exchanged gifts, took photographs and played football. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris…

The article also reminded me of a story from the aftermath of the My Lai massacre:

> In 1998, Thompson and Colburn returned to the village of Sơn Mỹ, where they met some of the people they saved during the killings, including Thi Nhung and Pham Thi Nhanh, two women who had been part of the group about to be killed by Brooks's 2nd Platoon. Thompson said to the survivors, "I just wish our crew that day could have helped more people than we did." He reported that one of the women they had helped out came up to him and asked, "Why didn't the people who committed these acts come back with you?" He said that he was "just devastated" but that she finished her sentence: "So we could forgive them."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson_Jr.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#67

Post by u678u »

x32n23nr wrote: post #36

Another famous example of how in the darkest hours there's longing for peace and friendship is the Christmas Truce during the first world war [1]. British soldiers heard German troops in the trenches singing carols and patriotic songs. They started shouting messages to each other. The next day, soldiers from both sides met, exchanged gifts, took photographs and played football. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris…

And the next day started shooting at each other again. Humans are truly weird.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#68

Post by tharkun__ »

GiorgioG wrote: post #45
MarkusWandel wrote: post #23

Worldwide, the sort of divisions where one's own side is all good and the other side is unspeakably evil, are on the upswing again. Having lived through a full cycle of this (old style cold war/thaw/current situation) I try to remind people that we're all humans, and about 99% everywhere have the same instincts to survive and get along. Not everyone listens.

> about 99% everywhere have the same instincts to survive and get along I just finished listening to The Doomsday Machine audiobook ( https://www.amazon.com/The-Doomsday-Machine-audiobook/dp/B07... ) and it's had a profound effect on how I see our military leadership's nuclear strategy. While the book delves primarily into the 1950s-80s, as far as the author is concerned (he worked as a consultant on nuclear strategy…

We've been very very close (probably more than once).

https://www.vox.com/2018/9/26/17905796/nuclear-war-1983-stan...

In short: Russian early warning system operator sees 5 minuteman ICBMs coming towards them. He does not have time to go check with someone. If they are to retaliate, he has to just launch now. No such thing as "waiting for the president to decide to launch". He didn't. Turned out reflections of the sunlight off clouds set off their sensors.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#69

Post by pluto9 »

rascul wrote: post #60
pluto9 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an element of the "just working here" mentality, but it's more than that. I was in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, and in my mind, we were fighting against the abuses and brutality of the Taliban. The guy shooting at me from a mountainside with a PKM was "one of them", a legitimate bad guy. In retrospect, I realize that guy was probably much like me. A young guy, full of testosterone and looking for adven…

> Awhile back I saw a conversation on Reddit between an American soldier who fought in Ramadi (or maybe Fallujah, I can't remember) and an Iraqi soldier who was there at the same time fighting against the Americans. Any chance you might be able to dig up that link? I think it might be interesting to read it.

Unfortunately I can't find it now. I was looking for it earlier because I wanted to reread it myself. Wish I'd bookmarked it at the time. Sorry about that.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#70

Post by 7952 »

aerosmile wrote: post #31
cheschire wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe war requires hatred, no more than sport. Some people wind up in war through machinations that have nothing to do with even the acknowledgment of the enemy’s existence. Go here, wait there, if your life is in danger, return the danger back at them.

As someone who witnessed war preparations in two very different countries and with more than a decade in between, I can tell you what they had in common: people at the top had to convince the majority of the population that the war was necessary. In each case, the arguments were sloppy and could have been pushed back on. I would argue that giving people more data points would increase the decisioning threshold for su…

A few lies and myths can snowball into a narrative that makes war logical and even noble. Conspiracy theories turn every data point into something that confirms the myth. People really believe that they are in the right. And the most appalling acts can seem logically consistent.
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