Armed Forces Day 2011

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Almost ready to leave… (UPDATED)

Your raconteur is in the deep south of Holland visiting the nice folks at JFC Brunssum so that he can pick up a shiny new ID card so that he may travel back to CONUS.

I’ll be back in Amsterdam tonight, anticipating a departure for Ramstein AB sometime tomorrow.

More follows…

UPDATE: Today’s run was pleasant, but still resulted in total failure. My departure clock is on hold until I can procure an additional piece of ID… I have a cunning plan, we’ll soon see what it’ll take to pull it off!

Sweet “Heritage Flight” Shot From JSOH 08

Heritage Flight
Originally uploaded by jeffq
FULL size here

The Heritage Flight is a standard component of air shows where they round up aircraft from the oldest to the newest and fly them in formation for the adoring crowds.

This terrific shot is from Andrews AFB‘s AMAZING Joint Services Open House held last Saturday and features (from top down) the P-51 Mustang, F-4 Phantom, F-15 Eagle, and the F-22 Raptor.

I didn’t even have to look any of those up…

When I lived in Baltimore, I was able to go to this show a few times and it’s obviously gotten MUCH bigger and better in my absence.

The coolest thing about JSOH is that all of the U.S. armed services are thoroughly represented and there’s also a big Special Ops presence as well.

Fascinating stuff for an old soldier like me…

It’s their yearly opportunity to show off for the “hometown” (DC) crowd and they always do it up right!

NOT your “average” air show by any means! (and NOT to be missed if you love this stuff as much as I did!)

THANKS to Jeff Quinton for the spectacular (and HUGE) Flickr set!