{"id":13369,"date":"2016-03-09T16:16:15","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T16:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13369"},"modified":"2016-03-09T16:16:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T16:16:15","slug":"who-are-you-callin-antique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13369","title":{"rendered":"Who are you callin’ ‘antique’?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"AAgyrHD\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Man, I’m feeling old today.<\/p>\n

My body isn’t aching. I’ve got most of my marbles. My memory’s still pretty keen.<\/p>\n

I just read a headline about “antique” weapons of war being used against the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

The picture attached to the story is of an OV-10 Bronco, a twin-engine airplane used during the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n

I remember the Bronco. I saw them take off almost hourly from an airfield in a place called Marble Mountain, just a few miles south of Da Nang.<\/p>\n

I was assigned to an Army aviation battalion on the western side of the airfield. The OV-10s were piloted by Marines assigned on the other side of the strip. The Marines were stationed with a group called MAG 16, which is shorthand for the 16th Marine Air Group. They flew Broncos, Cobras, Hueys and the Marines’ version of Chinook twin-rotor helicopters.<\/p>\n

OK, so I didn’t work on the Broncos, which look vaguely like the old P-38s of World War II; both planes had the twin-fuselage design.<\/p>\n

They were effective weapons back then. I guess they’re doing the job now against the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

According to the Daily Beast, <\/a>the Broncos’ mission is somewhat hush-hush. They’ve been used to test updated equipment installed on the birds.<\/p>\n

I recall the Broncos being fairly fast and agile aircraft. They would provide firepower to aid ground troops working in the I Corps region of South Vietnam. Today, they’re being used in a similar capacity against Islamic State terrorist fighters.<\/p>\n

As the Daily Beast reports: “There are plenty of clues as to what exactly the Broncos were doing. For one, the Pentagon\u2019s reluctance to provide many details about the OV-10s\u2019 overseas missions implies that the planes were working in close conjunction with Special Operations Forces. In all likelihood, the tiny attackers acted as a kind of quick-reacting 9-1-1 force for special operators, taking off quickly at the commandos\u2019 request and flying low to hit elusive militants with guns and rockets, all before the fleet-flooted jihadis could slip away.”<\/p>\n

It’s interesting — and somewhat gratifying — to me that tried-and-tested equipment still has its place in this new world of high-tech warfare.<\/p>\n

However, to call them “antique” makes those of us who watched these birds fly in their prime feel, well, a bit older than our years.<\/p>\n

I can do without the reminder.<\/p>\n\n

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Man, I’m feeling old today. My body isn’t aching. I’ve got most of my marbles. My memory’s still pretty keen. I just read a headline about “antique” weapons of war being used against the Islamic State. The picture attached to the story is of an OV-10 Bronco, a twin-engine airplane used during the Vietnam War. … Continue reading Who are you callin’ ‘antique’?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12,13],"tags":[6033,1231,2887,6032,5041,5048,5116],"class_list":["post-13369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-military-news","category-national-news","tag-army-aviation","tag-da-nang","tag-marble-mountain","tag-ov-10-bronco","tag-us-army","tag-us-marine-corps","tag-vietnam-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13371,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13369\/revisions\/13371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}