Centurion

Host: Edge of History Podcast.

CURRENT SERIES: THE VIETNAM WAR.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

These always get me: the ones in which the plane really does disappear without a trace. There were no explosions seen or heard and no radio contact.
It's too much to hope that the crew is truly missing, of course. It's the middle of nowhere in jungle mountain country. You know the plane must have come through fog and hit a mountain at high speed, or something like that. Although you do hope that somehow, some way, the story wasn't over in that fashion. That there's some one in a zillion chance.
Or that maybe the plane turned and hit the treetops in just such a way, (there was no fireball that anyone saw, after all) that out there in those forested mountains is the wreckage of an F-4 Phantom, lying quietly ever since the storm lifted and never once seen by anyone in fifty four years.
And that some day some hunter going further afield than normal will see something (a glint of old glass in sunlight on the further mountaintop, maybe) and report it.
Time fast forwards and you are part of a search party until you reach the place, step into a clearing and suddenly back into 1971, when the dreams and plans of the man flying this aircraft were stopped short, so far from home. Would you feel a hush about the place, even though it's in the wilderness? What would you feel looking at the remains of that plane, so out of place here: the tragedy of the war? The lost opportunity? The questions of what could have been different if the clock were turned back, which you can so palpably feel here more than anywhere else?
I hope that someday they find this brave man.

[Remember The Fallen @44MagnumBlue1]

U.S. Air Force Captain Robert Donald Beutel was declared Missing in Action on November 26, 1971 after a mission over Laos. Robert was a 25 year old weapon systems operator from Tremont, Illinois. 497th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Tragically, Robert has not made it home. American Hero.🇺🇸

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@TripppleSeven7 I remember when the Chechens shot one of these down in 2002 and I was shocked to hear there was something like 170 guys on board. I had no conception of how huge they are.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@ManifestHistory Those uniforms were absurdly difficult to keep in trim over the course of campaigns. That and a lot of the other more colorful aspects (and I mean that both literally and metaphorically) fell by the wayside as the war became more and more of a grind.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@postcrabcore I mean, we'd better hope, right? Not a whole lot else there other than DJ Reader's aging knees.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@OldHollowTree "Imported" is my favorite euphemism those companies use to class up sweatshop labor.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@TimOnPoint It's crazy that "Incremental War" is still a thing. It has never worked.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@VoicesfromNam Glad to see "Chickenhawk" on this list.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

Godfrey was awesome, but Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187, brother. Frederick II negotiated it back into Frankish possession in the 1200s, but the horrific sack of the city in 1244 put an end to Crusader Jerusalem forever.
Acre held out til 1291, and a mighty fortress it was, but the dream Godfrey built was over by 1187 and definitively gone within 150 years.
Not trolling: I studied this material for many years and would like you to be as armed as possible with the facts.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

Syrski was trained the Big Soviet Way-- but that way often relies on bulldozing your enemy with a huge numerical and resource advantage and paying off your patrons/rewarding loyalty over merit.
Ukraine has been heavily outnumbered and conventionally outgunned from the start and relies on support from allies that already disapprove of Ukraine's corruption.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@rhodocha Where is this?

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@jacqueboatman The Men of Brethil? One of the saddest stories in the Silmarillion, and that's saying a lot.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@jtread74 @44MagnumBlue1 She found the family!

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@sasky19591 @44MagnumBlue1 They did! 👊

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@Morpat12345678 @44MagnumBlue1 She found his family and they got them!

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@jtread74 @44MagnumBlue1 They got them! 🙂

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@WVmotoguy @44MagnumBlue1 Yes!

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@44MagnumBlue1 I got in touch with the lady who posted about having his awards: DUDES, she got them to his family!!
💥

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@44MagnumBlue1 This is terrible. I hope someone who cared about this man got those awards and papers.

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@ClassicsEducate @johnkonrad @SECNAV @HungCao_VA Your uncle was in some pretty illustrious company in that respect!

[Centurion @Centurion6246]

@WarMonitor3