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I played around with this one a fair amount in Lightroom, hence the almost painting-like quality.  I like how it turned out.  If I ever get my ducks in a row, I may get this one on a canvas for the wall at home.

Most everyone who knows the history of D-Day are aware of the words of support that General Dwight Eisenhower sent out to his troops on the eve of the invasion:

“These are the boys of Point du Hoc…” When President Reagan says those words, you can’t help but tear up. “These are the men who took the cliffs…these are the champions who helped free a continent…” Beautiful.

I’m a member of a Facebook group that is made of members of attack squadron 56 (VA-56), which my dad had two Vietnam cruises with in the mid 60s.   The squadron was disestablished on August 31, 1986.

These images were posted recently and I wanted to repost them here.  The caption to the images follows:

“This mishap occurred to LCDR Render Crayton on 31 January 1966. His aircraft “Crashed into barricade and burst into flames” according to the log, but why the barricade was raised is not known. The flames were mostly caused by the refuelling probe going down the intake. Crayton may be in the foreground left of the second photo, but we believe that the man in the flight suit near the wing is LCDR John Paisley, VA-56 maintenance officer.”

I confirmed that the handsome good-looking studmeister in the middle of the first image is indeed then-LCDR John Paisley.  I’m waiting on his comments – his job as Maintenance Officer, I know, meant this was probably a huge headache for him.  I am told, however, that the aircraft was indeed repaired and flew again later.

One additional note, Render Crayton was my dad’s room mate on the ship (TICO) and was shot down over NV on 7 Feb, 1966, barely a week after this mishap. He was repatriated in 1973 with the release of the US POWs.

Love these little surprises you can find on the webs!

ZOUNDS!  I posted a backward pic!  Thanks to the shawp!!! eyes of the Instapinch readers.  That is the problem with an aircraft with a side number of 111…you can’t tell – unless you DO see the gun port on the starboard side – that the image is flipped.  This came from a slide scan, hence the confoodleness!  Thanks, gentlemen!

A Facebook buddy of mine who was an enlisted Tomcat Tweaker (maintenance) in VF-14 back shortly after I left the squadron, opined that his favorite jet that he worked on was aircraft side number 111, affectionately known in naval aviation parlance as “Triple Sticks”.  I dug back through my collection of aerospace war machine images and found this one for him.

Not having time/date stamps or EXIF data on these film images and not having any notable element about the photo makes it difficult to date,but the hook being down means we were headed back to the carrier, so it was an at-sea period.  We were also carrying fuel tanks, which is another indication we were sea-borne, since having that extra 4,000 of gas is almost a necessity when working from the ship (as soon as we got back to Oceana we’d usually drop the tanks since they weren’t needed for local operations).  In the image we are also carrying live missiles – there is a live sparrow (AIM-7) on the  right  left outboard station (Station 8  1B for those purists).  The only time we ever carried live missiles from the ship while not on cruise was during a scheduled Missile-Ex and those, from the ship, were pretty rare.

So, this was most likely during the 88-89 Med cruise, and I’d hazard a guess it was in Oct or Nov – nothing really to go with that other than as cruise went on I became more comfortable taking pics at various times of the hop.

It was a good picture-takin’ weekend at the Marina.

Dawn fisherman, Neabsco Creek, Woodbridge, VA

 6:01 am, 2 June 2013.

A 5 am wake-up,  5:30 out of the house,  5:45 at the marina, 5:50 snappin’ pics.   The early morning light can give you some nice images.

As usual, if you click on the image, then click on it again, you get all the wonderful bloggity goodness and  full-size-ness of the shot!

Some images from Arlington National Cemetery last weekend.  Tomb of the Unknowns.

Something about these birds just captivate me.  The perfect symbol for this nation, Ben Franklin’s option noted.

Taken this morning, Neabsco Creek Woodbridge, VA.