Thank you for sharing this story! You see, my son is the flight commander of the C130 crew that received the award so your nephew was communicating with him about the flaps! All he told his dad and I was “we lost our hydraulics” so it great to read the real story! As a mom and an American, I am SO PROUD of our sons, nephews, husbands, fathers that are serving over in the desert. Thank you also for the great picture, wow, what a statement to see six young men proudly flying the American flag over foreign soil! (ok, so it’s at an Air Force base, but it’s still in a foreign country) Thanks again for sharing!

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Amazing recap of, ahem, “just another day in the life” of our finest in action. I am so thankful that people of this caliber are protecting this country, they should be running it. We wouldn’t be in the mess we are in if we had these quick thinking young men at the helm.

Mata, be proud of your nephew’s accomplishment, this isn’t going to be the first time something as significant as this is going to happen, just wait, more to come from him.

Loved his writing, he’s adorable, inside and out!

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There is a very interesting event in the study of unionism in wartime and it occurred in Austrailia. The Marines were on Guadal Canal in the early stages of the war with Japan and were being tested by Japans finest naval units. The US was making ready a big reinforcement shipment to the Marines from Austrailia of food, ammo, weapons and building supplies. When the navy started to load their ships in Australia they were informed that the union workers there had to be the ones to load the ships or the union would walk. There is a thing called “Combat loading” which means that when a ship first arrives at the scene of their destination, the first things to come off are food and ammo/guns. This is for obvious reasons. But the Aussie union loaded the ship the way they always loaded ships and never considered hostile action upon arrival. Needless to say when the ships arrived off the beaches of Guadal Canal the first things to come off were the ever important building supplies, stoves etc. And then the Japanese attacked the transports and ran them off without allowing them to discharge the badly needed items. That event produced one of the most heroic moments in Marine Corps history where a ragtag band of brother Marines used every thing they had to defeat the finest naval fighting force Japan had. I was a member of a pilot union all of my professional life and they did some good safety related things. Mostly they were in it for power.

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There is no substitute for good training and a can-do “Warrior Spirit!” Congratulations to the winning crew and to all our guys in harm’s way. You make us proud.

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That’s funny, Inspectorrudy… I consider it sacrilege to associate Labor Day as a celebration of only the 12.5% of the US workforce that are members of a union. LOL

But if you were to compare the “work rules organized labor would have in combat”, you may want to read my later post on Afghanistan, the Kunduz bombing and the latest journalist abduction. I’d say if “union” military strategy could be defined, it is done so simply by saying “ISAF/NATO”.

BTW, per the Dept of Labor, the foundations of Labor Day are still under dispute to this day. Just a weird bit of history for the moment.

For however it started, it is… now… a celebration of the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. I’d say we can include the military in there, and certainly *not* include elected officials….

But yep… thanks for reading this one… both you and FedUp. I know it’s not a scandal/comment getter. But was very proud to post it. And we are so short of good news these days.

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You know it is almost a sacralige to mention military men and women with the noun LABOR meaning organized labor. Can you just imagine the work rules organized labor would have in combat? We are about to be overrun by the enemy and its my break time! That is the thing a lot of people don’t understand about the military and that is that every man and woman is required to do ANYTHING that benifits their unit. No job is too small and no job is too grand. Man oh man, if only labor could just adopt a small fraction of the can-do spirit that lives within the military.
Semper Fi

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Mata – Thanks for this post and a special thank you to ALL members of our armed forces – escpecially to those in harms way!

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