Pilot dies after two F-15s collide

[unhappycamper]

Pilot dies after two F-15s collide
By Melissa Nelson - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 23:36:39 EST

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Florida — An Air Force fighter pilot died Wednesday after his jet and another likely collided during a training exercise and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. The other pilot was rescued and is expected to survive.

The single-seat F-15C Eagles crashed Wednesday off the Florida Panhandle, said Col. Todd Harmer, commander of the 33rd Fighter Wing, 58th Fighter Squadron. The pilots had ejected and were later rescued.

The base has suffered a “great loss,” Harmer said in an e-mailed statement. He said, “We will continue to do everything we can to assist our families and airmen at this tragic time.”

The cause of the collision about 35 miles south of Tyndall Air Force Base on the Gulf Coast of Florida, was not immediately known, but the Air Force will investigate, Harmer said. Weather in the area was clear.

The exercise emphasized “basic maneuvers and tactics,” Harmer said.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_f15collision_080220/

[FalconsRule]

1. Here's a Toast... N/T

[TooBigaTent]

2. And how many tens of millions of dollars are now sitting on the Gulf floor?

This country has to stop playing war - it will be the death of us all.

[FalconsRule]

3. What?

Should we get rid of all our military aircraft?

[TooBigaTent]

4. Our killers in uniform and their expensive toys need to be reined in. I said nothing

about eliminating all of them. How about 90%? We could still destroy the planet with what's left.

But that would cut into the MIC profit and that cannot be allowed to happen.

[FalconsRule]

5. "Our killers in uniform"

No need to dicuss anything with you. Have a good day.

[NYVet]

6. TYVM for your support Blue Falcon.

Please remember that some of us "killers in uniform" are members of the National guard and if your neighborhood gets blasted by a fire, flood, tornado, snowstorm, etc, that we are probably going to be coming to clean up the mess.

Do my brothers and sisters a favor when they show up. Please post a BIG sign in your front lawn that states you do not want any help from us bloodthirsty monsters and that we should just move on to help someone else, because you do not want your high horse and soapbox to be yanked from from underneath your feet by your hypocrisy.

[TooBigaTent]

7. If the NG is doing the kind of beneficial work you cite, they have my support.

When they are participating in war crimes in Iraq, they do not. Get the difference?

[FalconsRule]

8. No

either you support us or you don't.

[NYVet]

9. IF??

Don't you mean when we do the good work I cited?

The men and women who join the military do so for many reasons and many of the people in my unit (including me) have deployed overseas at least twice in our careers. We have the full spectrum of experience from Vietnam veterans (2 that are about to retire) to 18 year old kids who know that evil exists in the world and that good people need to stand up to stop it.

If you want to talk about war crimes, look at the foreign fighters who on a daily and weekly basis strap explosives to retarded women and use them bomb markets. Look at the people who kidnap individuals and make videos of their decapitations. I DARE you to compare that to the minuscule number of men and women in the military who have violated their oats and dishonored everything that the military stands for.

[TahitiNut]

10. I really lose patience with this kind of myopic asshattery.

What is it about SERVICE that is so difficult to comprehend?

Our fellow citizens in military service to this nation DO NOT CHOOSE the mission. WE THE PEOPLE do ... or are supposed to.
Simply stated, if you're lactose intolerant and ask a waiter or waitress to bring you a glass of milk, it's NOT THEIR FAULT if you get ill.

When a person serves in the military, they place their civil liberties in trust to the nation. The final and ultimate responsibility for the deployment of our military is OURS! Unless and until we place ourselves in harm's way, risking our own individual freedom and well-being, to assert our sovereign authority over our own governance, we have absolutely no moral or ethical justification for condemning those in honorable service to this nation. I regard such a stance as both intellectually dishonest and cowardly.

It's one of the worst kinds of hypocritical elitism to pay taxes and enjoy the liberties and comforts of life while sneering and demeaning those whose very lives are entrusted to the prevailing will of We The People.


It is the "social contract" of a representative democracy (or republic) to fully participate in our self-governance and, even when our individual viewpoints do not prevail, bear the responsibility for our own actions - and inactions.

I read a LOT of rhetoric regarding the theft of our authority by a powerful minority, pursing their narrow self-interests at the cost of the common welfare, but I have yet to see even a hint of the kind of massive civil disobedience and nonviolent protest needed to reassert the will of the majority. Until we're bleeding in the streets and cooling our heels in jails all over this nation, we haven't' even gotten close to attaining the moral authority to smear and demean those with the LEAST say in the policies of this nation.

Is the view nice from the CHEAP SEATS???

(Sheesh!) :grr: