Originally posted by Breacher:
...it was the military in the 1970s fuckup era that bungled the operation.
Most immediately, it was one Air Force major who blew a weather forecast. (Gen. Klein publicly accepted responsibility, but it was a major who blew a pretty simple operational forecast.)
But the person I blame most is still Carter. Around that time, fully 1/4 of the Air Force's planes couldn't fly, because the others were being cannibalized for the spare parts. The Army was accepting recruits down to the 30th percentile, our pay was being capped, and even and E-6 with two children qualified for food stamps - unless he was in Germany and didn't qualify for them.
Those helicopters in the desert? Even with that dust storm, a $3 dust cover over the turbines would have kept them flying. Special Operations had turned into a cruel joke.
So, yeah, I still call Carter the worst President of the 20th Century, with Wilson and FDR fighting for second place.
Onward and upward,
airforce
