On August 6, 2011, America suffered the single deadliest day of the Afghanistan War when a CH-47D Chinook helicopter—call sign Extortion 17—was shot down in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province. All 38 souls aboard perished, including 30 American military personnel, one military working dog, and eight Afghans. Among the fallen were 17 members of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs, many from the renowned SEAL Team 6, the same unit credited with the mission that killed Osama bin Laden just months earlier.
Continue reading “Remembering Extortion 17: A Tragic Day for American Warriors”
By Bruce Ames
1969 – I was a freshly minted mat-crank Third Class just graduated from KY-8/28 & KW-7 “C” schools at Portsmouth, Virginia Naval Shipyard with orders to proceed to California and then on to Saigon to await transportation to the USS JAMESTOWN (AGTR-3).
Continue reading “USS JAMESTOWN (AGTR-3) VIETNAM – 1969 “In Harm’s Way””
The new commission was established by CSIS in partnership with the Cyber Solarium Commission 2.0 project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Continue reading “New commission to examine how to create an independent Cyber Force”
In late 1961–early 1962 a series of U.S. Navy patrols off the east coast of Communist China was proposed. The purpose of these patrols was to be three-fold. In the first place they would establish and maintain the presence of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the international waters off the China coast; second, they would serve as a minor Cold War irritant to the “Chicoms”; and third, they would collect as much intelligence as possible concerning Chicom electronic and naval activity.
Continue reading “Remembering the Gulf of Tonkin Incident”
Louis Braille inventor of raised-dot writing for the blind, got his idea from a secret communications system devised for military purposes by a French army officer, Nicholas-Marie-Charles Barbier de La Serre.
Continue reading “The Cryptologic Origin of Braille”
By Chris Barron, Bremerton Sun
On a dark and gloomy rain-filled day, a shroud of secrecy permeated the air on the Bremerton waterfront. It was the perfect setting for the final day in the top-secret career of the Bangorbased USS PARCHE, one of the world’s most prolific spy submarines. By the time its life ended Tuesday in a decommissioning ceremony at the Bremerton naval base, the PARCHE was the most highly decorated ship in Navy history-even though most Americans have never heard of it.
Continue reading “USS PARCHE (SSN-683) – A Silent Warrior’s Final Day”
Station HYPO 