and we just barely missed Gaddafi (sp? who gives a fk), but did blow his daughter up .... that one would hurt for most world leaders, but Gaddafi probably never shed a tear for his deceased off spring....***after all it was a girl, not a boy ....(***Arab Logic)
And coincidentally we dropped a smart bomb on the French embassy. It was blamed on pilot fatigue as the F111 crews departing from UK had to fly several extra hours as France denied us permission to transit their airspace.
"collateral damages"....??? I've always heard the Embassy was a "near miss", tho' some civilian casualties in other locales occurred, during the raid/strike ... for the fatigue aspect, see Note: - #1 below... 1 year prior: December 1985 Rome and Vienna Airport attacks; which killed 19 and wounded approximately 140. NTM- Just11 days earlier, 4 April, La Belle Nightclub in West Berlin was blown up by Libyan Agents, given the Order to bomb from the East Berlin Libyan Embassy, killing three people, one being a U.S. Serviceman, and injuring 229 people; (recall Libya was aligned with the USSR then) and had taken over the small country of Chad, for its rich uranium mines, or "let's try to make a nuke, or at least act like we know how"... the very next day, the 4/16/86- LA Times, had a full page ad, sponsored by Northrop, showing a Pyramid of all the attack and back up AC***, utilized/required to do the Operation; (drop 60 Tons of bombs on Tripoli), and stated, One B2 could of done all the work, of all these AC, less the Tankers... *** 24 each F111's - Aardvarks, laser guided bombers; (6 were spares - EF111A 'Ravens' ). One F111- with its two Servicemen was lost. *** 15-24 each A6 Intruders, EA6's for Electronic/Radar Jammer & Countermeasures, A7 Corsairs, F18 Hornets, and quit a few KC135 Tankers, a couple of AWACS too. Note: #1- Pilot Fatique on "Operation El Dorado": The grueling 14-hour flight took its toll. “Those guys were so fatigued, the crew chiefs literally had to pull some of the crews out of the cockpits,” recalled CMSgt Richard O’Shaughnessy, then a Master Sergeant and weapons flight supervisor. “Most of them actually lost several pounds from sweating so much. When the guys pulled their helmets off, sweat literally poured down their foreheads and necks".
Let's drink to the hard working people Let's drink to the lowly of birth Raise your glass to the good and the evil Let's drink to the salt of the earth Say a prayer for the common foot soldier Spare a thought for his back breaking work Say a prayer for his wife and his children Who burn the fires and who still till the earth
