I just spent 48 minutes of my day watching this:
The post title is not an exaggeration by any means; watch it in full-screen 720p. This vid has it ALL: excellent cinematography, brilliant air-to-air shots, a compelling story line, and the most-balanced, all encompassing depiction of what the military is all about: team work. Everyone's here: pilots, battle staff, fighters, heavies, trash haulers, refuelers, BB-stackers, wrench turners, fire fighters, SAR guys... the whole crew.
Simply brilliant. This video almost makes me wish I'd have been in the airplane bid'niz. Almost.
h/t to Lex's commenter
The part I can relate to is the escape and evasion and POW training. It was the best training program the military has. Very realistic.
ReplyDeleteMyself and a another guy evaded for eight hours. I was ranking, so I made the decision to stay out of the mountains and follow the river. He kept whining the whole trip about me getting us lost. I said we are not lost, and as soon as we cross the railroad tracks we will be home free.
We came to a point where the railroad tracks were supposed to be (by my calculations) and there was nothing! I started to doubt myself, and then I realized the tracks weren't there anymore, but if you really looked, you could see where the tracks might have been 20 years prior. Yep, the map they gave us was printed in 1951 ha!
I was so proud of us, because a bunch of guys got captured taking the short-cut through the mountains.
My Motto: Fat boys don't do mountains!
As a former scopedope who only got to listen in most of the time during an AWEX, I can really appreciate this... even if it is a little different over land than it is over the ocean
ReplyDeleteex-Trash: The escape and evasion training is one thang I'm glad I missed. I don't ever wanna be waterboarded, even by "friends."
ReplyDeleteSkip: I'm in sorta the same boat. I got to watch a lot of large-scale air defense exercises back in the day, but nothing like Red Flag.
They didn't have waterboarding when I went through. This guy (and I use that term loosly, as he was 6 foot tall, weighed 300 pounds, and was more Ape) would pick you up naked, turn you upside down and stick you in a 50 gallon drum full of 40 degree water.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I gave them more than my name, rank, and serial number. I would give them my moms phone number not to take another dive.
I think 40 years later I am still spitting out water from my lungs...
Anyway, the best thing they taught you was survival. Anyone can be a dead hero if you want, but if you die, you lose. You have to decide how much work they spend for each token of information.
That doesn't sound like fun either, ex-Trash. But I understand the point of the exercise... and I'm still glad I didn't have to go through it.
ReplyDeleteI dragged the kids and Alisa to this movie when we were stationed at Offut AFB... the coolest thing was the narrator (Call sign: Blender) was a classmate of mine at the War College in Newport.
ReplyDeleteI find it a little more than ironic that the AF sent one of its best and brightest to the Navy for education.
I find it a little more than ironic that the AF sent one of its best and brightest to the Navy for education.
ReplyDeleteSending Blue Suiters to the other branch's post graduate programs is a DoD mandated program to raise the average IQ level of each and every graduating class. We support the Army in a likewise manner... just ask yer brother.
The pilots actually did a FOD walk? That's Hollywood right there. The rest was pretty damn good!
ReplyDelete