{"id":14992,"date":"2016-06-03T04:07:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T04:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14992"},"modified":"2016-06-03T04:07:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T04:07:49","slug":"tragedy-strikes-the-armed-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14992","title":{"rendered":"Tragedy strikes the armed forces"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Air-Force-Academy-Graduation-Thunderbirds-Flyover.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-14994\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Air-Force-Academy-Graduation-Thunderbirds-Flyover-300x207.jpg\" alt=\"Air-Force-Academy-Graduation-Thunderbirds-Flyover\" width=\"300\" height=\"207\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Air-Force-Academy-Graduation-Thunderbirds-Flyover-300x207.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Air-Force-Academy-Graduation-Thunderbirds-Flyover-768x531.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Air-Force-Academy-Graduation-Thunderbirds-Flyover.jpg 911w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today was a terrible day for members of three of our nation&#8217;s armed forces.<\/p>\n<p>First, a member of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds crashed moments after taking part in a graduation ceremony flyover at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n<p>The pilot managed to eject from the F-16 before it crash landed; happily, the pilot is OK. He managed a brief meeting later with President Obama, who was among those attending the ceremony; the president had given the commencement address.<\/p>\n<p>Then it got much worse.<\/p>\n<p>A U.S. Navy Blue Angels FA-18 jet crashed on a training mission in Tennessee. That pilot died in the crash.<\/p>\n<p>And then &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Three U.S. Army soldiers died when their truck got caught up in floodwaters near Fort Hood, Texas. Six more soldiers are missing in that tragic event.<\/p>\n<p>I mention this to call attention to the sacrifice that can occur even when our young men and women aren&#8217;t thrust into combat.<\/p>\n<p>Our hearts break for the families of those who were lost today. I hope they know their nation grieves for them.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today was a terrible day for members of three of our nation&#8217;s armed forces. First, a member of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds crashed moments after taking part in a graduation ceremony flyover at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The pilot managed to eject from the F-16 before it crash landed; happily, the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14992\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tragedy strikes the armed forces<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[12],"tags":[6278,6276,540,1771,6277],"class_list":["post-14992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-news","tag-air-force-academy","tag-air-force-thunderbirds","tag-barack-obama","tag-fort-hood","tag-navy-blue-angels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992","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=14992"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14995,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992\/revisions\/14995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}