On May 23, 1984 Vought A-7D Corsair II #72-0249 piloted by 1LT Eddie J. Torrez, USAFR, call sign TACO 81 was part of the detachment of the 150th TFG from Kirtland AFB, New Mexico Air National Guard. They deployed to Nellis AFB, Nevada to provide dissimilar aircraft to support the air-to-air training curriculum of the Fight Weapons School.
The other aircraft in this flight was a F-4E, call sign OLDS 1. During the second engagement with OLDS 1 in the defensive position, the pilots failed to terminate the engagement upon reaching minimum engagement altitude (hard-deck for the purpose of flight training) and entered into a series of slow speed maneuvers. TACO 81 entered a position from which it could not recover and LT Torrez ejected outside the envelope for safe ejection, sustaining fatal injuries.
On that very strange Wednesday, members of Naval Reserve SEAL Team 1/3/5 and SEAL Team Five Training Cell were conducting orienteering and other training on the ground on the Nellis AFB range in the Delamar Mountain Range, in Lincoln County, Nevada. The range extends for approximately 50 miles in a NNE–SSW orientation with a width of about 11 miles. The sailors witnessed the crash. The body of LT Torres was recovered at the crash site.
Nobody goes there anymore but there is still wreckage of the aircraft scattered in a debris field that can be examined if you have an interest.
Every year, there are a lot of young men (and increasingly women) who die in service-related accidents. Their equipment is designed to operate right there on the edge, and sometimes conditions or errors in judgment occur. In combat, friendly fire often accounts for deaths as it did to General Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson outside Chancellorsville during the war of Northern Aggression/Civil War. It’s not new. If you are in the service long enough you will have friends or people in or under your command die. Sometimes they’re injured seriously.
There are not medals or heroic tales of daring and high drama. People die every day to keep all of us doing what it is that they do. And they have been doing it for a very long time.
Today in America, the Supreme Court has declared the Constitution unconstitutional, and declared itself to be an unelected super-legislature able to legislate wherever and whatever it will for any reason it will. Barack declared himself able, with a a pen and a phone, to make laws as a second super-legislative body, and to have the discretion not to enforce any laws for whatever reason it sees fit, or for no reason. By usurping power not granted to them under law, they are operating as outlaws, but are buoyed up by their own corrupt minions and by a news media that lauds every filthy bit of behavior. The president himself has worked hard to shield members of a hateful cult from the consequences they would face in any normal world, and works daily to undermine our relationships in the world.
It is possible that the FBI will announce that the laws which bind all other officers of the Federal Government regarding security and secrecy of documents do not apply to Hillary Clinton. We know that former President Bill Clinton met secretly with the Attorney General to facilitate that action. Maybe the FBI will have a backbone and maybe they won’t. It won’t be long until we see what they’re worth.
Our Congress has ceded its law-making authority to anyone who wishes to take it up. There is no passion, there is no outrage, there is only process and procedure designed to insulate bureaucrats from accountability and responsibility.
Yet brave, intelligent young men and woman still serve on that front line, and they die either as a result of combat, equipment failure, or errors in judgment to keep the remnant of the republic safe from forces which would destroy it.
Hillary skated. I'm bummed. Now we'll see if she is defeated in the general.
As you know by now, they said you or I would be prosecuted. But not Killary. I am quite disgusted by the whole process.
Clinton meeting with what's-her-name was just a fake. He knew the outcome before they met, I'll bet. It was all done to give it the look of 'honesty', a term I use very loosely now.
As Linda G writes (below) anyone else would be in prison. Some pigs are more equal than others.
The FBI turned out to be just another bunch of shills.
So much more the motivation for me to leave the metropolis where I live and find a better corner of the nation.
The fatal flaw – this particular case can NOT be compared to any other. Failure to think outside the box. No FBI agent, no AUSA on this case ever investigated a case like this (i.e. – sure an employee of the federal government might have been sanctioned for PURPOSEFULLY mishandling classified information, but purposeful skirting the law to this magnitude, with the false public statements to this degree – never seen).
Comey is not to blame, he is just reading what the others said. But a leader is a leader. We are either a nation of law, at the highest level, or we are not. More evidence that we are not.
I can still hear the words of John Roberts – 'this is why we have elections' (because people are afraid to do their job).
Well it seems the FBI doesn't have a backbone. In the 15 minute speech outlining all the faults of Hillary and her crew, the lies, the shoddy performances, etc, he then contradicted himself by saying the FBI would not recommend indictment. The Clinton's sake Scott-free again. I guess Bill told Loretta that they knew where the FBI family's lives and how easy it would be to lose a child, etc. We are fucked!
Comey would be a great Attorney General in a Clinton administration because he's such a "straight shooter". He has been the best FBI director that money could buy.
We all have to vote our consciences and if that means a vote for Hillary or the Libertarian dope smoker, there's not much I can say. The never-Trump Republicans are pining for a banana republic with Hillary that will finish what Obama started.
Well, your words enflamed plenty of passion in me just now. These are the kind of outlaws it will be a pleasure to hang from sturdy American oak trees if that passion ever spreads.
BTW, we made it to NY Lake and Gold Dust Peak recently to look for the fiery wreckage of a certain A-10 and its missing 500lb bombs, but no dice. That one got cleaned up pretty thoroughly.
Some are cleaned up better than others. There are still engine parts scattered about where the A-7D hit.
I don't know whether or not the Republic is finished, but these things don't seem to last. Look at Rome when the mob begged for bread and circus – and got what it wanted.
America started with a revolution. There was a second one that started in 1860 and it was the bloodier than the first. If there is to be a third, it may be worse still. I pray for sanity and peace, a quiet mountain top and gentle breezes.
Yep, we're all FOOKED…..
It seems to me that the rule of law is fast becoming the rule of tyrants. Soft tyrants, perhaps, but tyrants nonetheless. I don't see that ending well.
No KY either.
Not ending well at all.
Someday this mess will come knocking on our doors, and I don't think many are ready.
It certainly will. There are two kinds of people: Trained/Untrained – Prepared/Unprepared, and while I don't consider myself a whack 'prepper', I do like to be prepared for likely scenarios.
As of today, definitely headed in the wrong direction… Buying more 'investment' stuff, and hunkering down.
Winter is coming.
Not at all. Well done, libs.
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