Okay, So...I’ll start with a Mea Culpa!  Last week I got distracted and hit the publish button on my post without setting the date and time first.  The result was Instant publication on Sunday which  squeezed Sarge out of the way.  Being somewhat smart (Easy Beans, no comments), today the first thing I did before I started writing was to set the correct publishing date and time. Who says retired fighter pilots can't learn from their mistakes.

Anyhow, as you probably remember from my last post as well as the news, this area of Texas had a very catestrophic flood, with at last count, 129 folks dead and at least 170 missing.  

(Update according to Fox News.  Nearly 100 persons that had been on the missing list have been found alive.  Thank you Lord!) 

Search and rescue forces have been cycling in and out and still are.  In fact, at the time of writing, (Thursday), we're waiting on the arrival of a search team who'll be staying in our larger guest house.  Each of them will be bringing their trained dog with them.  Unfortunately, they are cadaver dogs.  

Not unexpected, almost 2 weeks after the flood, but still...

It's been a tough time since the fourth,  loss of life obviously.  However, in addition to the original flood, it's been raining virtually every day until this past Thursday.  According to our rain gauge, our property has received ~20" of rain since and including the 4th of July (9").  To say our grass is green is a mild understatement.  Lush green is a more accurate description.  Both our stock ponds have water in them.  That hasn't happened in a few years.

However, Thursday we woke up and the weather was clear and a million.  Our river is still a muddy mess as are the other rivers in the general vicinity, but they are basically back in their banks.  Although there is a lot of not nice stuff floating in them.  

Yesterday, they found a F-150 Pickup in the river, buried in silt.  I haven't heard anything about passengers.

To change the subject...

Being somewhat restricted to the premises, I've been doing a lot of internet searching.  

Found an interesting video which I will attach below, but first a little background.

As most of you know, in my first career, I was a USAF Fighter Pilot.  I flew F-4's, AT-38's and finally, my dream machine, the F-15 Eagle.  It was exciting virtually all the time, terrifying occasionally, saddening at times when we lost one, but very rewarding.

Would I do it again?

In a F'in nanosecond!

Anyhow, I found this video.  Pretty well done for a computer generated film. I felt myself, by force of habit, tensing up my legs and abdomen in the G straining maneuver. (Keeps the blood in the head where it keeps you concious, not in the legs where you get to take a nap.  Unfortunately, that's been the last nap for an awful lot of fighter pilots.  So...important!)

I hope you enjoy it.  Quite well done and realistic. 

 Just in case anybody is interested (I was), I looked up the "kills" the US had in Desert Storm (105 to 0!).  Here is the list of who shot down what, with what and when.  I found it very interesting  and I knew a large number of those folks.

Oh, by the way and back to the present situation here in Texas, the first pair of searchers staying with us arrived. We went down to meet and greet them at our guest house.  They're from Minnesota, both retired Air Force.  She's a Nurse, he was a Pilot in the Air Force and then Airlines .  Flew F-15's back in the day and his last flying assignment was to the 12TFS at Kadena.  He left there about 6 weeks before I signed into Kadena and the 12th.

Small World!

Yes, Beans, we exchanged a lot of war stories when they arrived and we found this out.  Good Folks, doing horrible, but necessary things.  God Bless them and keep them well. The report is that the Guadalupe River is severely contaminated.  If y'all think about it, a prayer for all of them (and there's a lot of folks doing recovery work)  to keep them safe and healthy would be appropriate.  There but for the grace of God....

 Peace out y'all!