History major, Veteran of US Army, Realtor, curious of pholosophy
Phoenix Arizona
Joined February 2014
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Lynn Ashton retweeted
November 3, 1943. A huge force of American bombers, around five hundred of them, attacks the German naval port of Wilhelmshaven, and they do it in a new way: bombing through solid cloud, aiming by radar, unable to see the ground at all. It marks a significant step in the air war, the beginning of all-weather bombing, and it comes at a moment when the Americans badly needed a way to keep flying after the disaster at Schweinfurt.
I told you about Black Thursday, the second Schweinfurt raid in October, when the unescorted bombers were slaughtered and the deep daylight campaign was brought to a halt. One of the problems crippling the American effort was the weather. Northern Europe is cloudy for much of the year, and the American doctrine of precise daylight bombing depended on the bombardier being able to see the target through his optical bombsight. When cloud covered the ground, which was most of the time, the bombers often could not attack at all, and the campaign stalled for weeks on end waiting for clear skies.
The answer was radar. The Americans had begun equipping some of their bombers with a ground-mapping radar set, which the crews nicknamed "Mickey." It painted a crude radar picture of the ground below, showing the outline of coastlines, rivers, and cities, even through total cloud cover. With it, a specially trained crew could find a target and aim the bombs by radar when the eye could see nothing but white. These radar-equipped planes would lead the formation, and when they dropped, the whole force dropped with them.
The raid on Wilhelmshaven on the 3rd was one of the first major uses of this technique by the Americans. The great force of bombers flew to the German port, found it completely socked in by cloud, and bombed it anyway, through the overcast, aiming by radar. And they did it with relatively light losses, in part because the same cloud that hid the ground from them also hampered the German fighters and gunners.
It was a turning point in method. Radar bombing was far less accurate than the clear-day optical bombing the Americans had dreamed of; "precision" bombing through cloud was really area bombing by another name, the bombs scattered across a city rather than placed on a factory. In that sense it blurred the line between the American daylight doctrine and the British area-bombing approach, and it meant more bombs falling on cities and the people in them. But it allowed the campaign to continue through the long months of bad weather, to keep the pressure on Germany around the calendar instead of waiting helplessly for clear skies.
Combined with the arrival, soon after, of the long-range Mustang escort I told you about, radar bombing helped transform the American campaign from the stalled, bleeding effort of late 1943 into the relentless, year-round assault of 1944 that, together with the British by night, pounded Germany around the clock. The raid on Wilhelmshaven on the 3rd, five hundred bombers attacking a target none of them could see, was an early step toward that all-weather air war.
Lynn Ashton retweeted
Las tropas de @nayibbukele están bien artilladas. Si logran que bandas haitianas se rindan y entreguen sus armas será un logro histórico. Que Dios los guíe y proteja .
Lynn Ashton retweeted
It's 1942. You're 19 years old on an American destroyer off Guadalcanal, and it's the middle of the night.
The ship is completely blacked out. No lights topside, not even a cigarette. Below decks there's only dim red bulbs so your eyes stay adjusted to the dark. You can't see the ship ahead of you in the column. You can barely see the guy next to you.
Then the alarm goes off. General quarters.
You run to your station in the dark, past guys pulling on helmets, life jackets, and flash gear. Flash gear is a hood and gloves to keep the skin from burning off your face and hands if a powder fire sweeps through. Somebody dogs the watertight hatch shut behind you. If the compartment floods now, that hatch stays shut. Everybody knows it.
If you're below decks, you're not going to see anything tonight. You're in a hot steel room passing powder and shells into a hoist. All you get is what comes through a sound-powered phone. "Contact bearing..." "Range closing..." Then nothing for a while. That's worse.
Topside it's quiet except for the engines and the water. Everyone is staring into black. The enemy is out there somewhere and you can't see them.
Then a searchlight snaps on.
It's so bright it hurts. Everything after that happens at once.
Your own 5-inch guns open up and the concussion hits you in the chest every time they fire. Your ears ring and then stop working right. The air fills with burnt powder smoke that coats your mouth and throat. Star shells pop overhead and hang there under little parachutes, turning everything a sick white. Tracers go out in long red lines. Other lines come back toward you.
There are ships everywhere. Some are burning. You don't know whose they are. Neither does anyone else. A huge dark shape slides past so close you could throw a rock at it, and it takes you a second to realize it's a Japanese battleship.
When a big shell hits, the whole ship shudders like it's been kicked. Steel screams. Lights below go out. Steam lines burst and the steam can cook a man alive in a closed space. Damage control parties go into flooded, smoking compartments with flashlights, looking for fires and holes and guys who are still breathing.
Japanese torpedoes are the thing everyone fears. They barely leave a wake. You don't see them coming. One second the ship is fighting, the next there's a massive blast under you, the deck jumps up, and men are thrown into the air. Some ships break in half and are gone in less than a minute.
Wounded men are being dragged to the wardroom, which is now an operating room. The corpsmen are working by battle lanterns. The deck is wet and you don't want to know with what.
If the order comes to abandon ship, you go over the side into black water covered in fuel oil. It's in your eyes, your nose, your mouth. Some of it is on fire. Ships are still shooting all around you. Some of them come close enough to run you down without ever knowing you were there.
And all of this, the whole fight, can be over in less than an hour.
Then it's dark again. Quiet. You're in the water or on a wrecked ship, counting who's still around, waiting for the sun to come up so you can see what's left.
The men who fought there called it Ironbottom Sound because of how many ships ended up on the floor of it.
Lynn Ashton retweeted
Sale temps pour les gangs Haïtiens !
Haïti : les soldats salvadoriens entrent en action, le sérieux commence pour les gangs.
Le Salvador a envoyé au moins 2 000 militaires en Haïti, officiellement pour retrouver quatre soldats disparus après une attaque, et un soutien logistique américain confirmé.
Les quatre disparus sont des techniciens de l'aviation qui servaient dans la Force de répression des gangs, autorisée en 2025 par l'ONU.
Les moyens sont à la hauteur de l'enjeu.
Des hélicoptères MD500E et des Black Hawk ont été acheminés, sept appareils ayant fait escale à la forteresse dominicaine d'El Rodeo, à Jimaní, avant de gagner Haïti.
Les soldats ne sont pas seuls : dans le quartier de Santo, la force opère aux côtés de la police haïtienne et de sa propre Task Force.
Ce territoire est contrôlé par les gangs Chen Mechan, 400 Mawozo, et les opérations au sol se doublent de frappes de drones.
On n'a pour l'instant aucun bilan. Après cinq jours, rien n'a été communiqué sur le sort des otages.
Les experts soulignent que le déploiement dépasse largement une simple opération de sauvetage.
La République dominicaine, voisine directe, n'envoie pas de troupes au combat mais soutient la manœuvre.
Sa coopération couvre le transit du personnel militaire, le transport de matériel, les évacuations médicales et l'approvisionnement.
Le président Abinader a aussi renforcé sa frontière avec deux bataillons, de l'artillerie et des équipements lourds, en plus d'environ 11 000 militaires déjà sur place.
Reste un point de fragilité.
Cinq forces armées distinctes opèrent désormais en Haïti, sans commandement unifié, ce qui inquiète les analystes du Crisis Group.
Pour les chefs de gangs, le temps de l'impunité semble pourtant compté.
Illustration @grok IA
Lynn Ashton retweeted
Taylor Sheridan reveals Sam Elliott rejected Yellowstone as a “cowboy soap opera”:
“So with Sam, which I I used him in 1883, it's funny cuz I called him and and and we talked, and he's like, ‘I don't like that Yellowstone. That's a that's a cowboy soap opera.’”
“I said, ‘You're right. I'm not asking you to be on that. We're not that's the punk rock me throwing middle fingers at the industry and a lot of other shit. This is going to be the grown up me. I have a story I want to tell. Here's the story, and here's the arc of your character.’”
“And I pitched it to him and he said, ‘That's beautiful. I'd love to do that.’ I said, ‘Great, I'm going to go write it for you.’”
Lynn Ashton retweeted
I invented a new drink.
Prune juice and tequila
I call it, “Shits and Giggles”!
Lynn Ashton retweeted
The #AZCardinals are naming QB Gardner Minshew as their starting QB, one day after his heroics led to a dramatic win over the #Cowboys.
Jacoby Brissett heads to the bench.
Lynn Ashton retweeted
Uruguay is the best Plan B residency Americans can get today:
- It’s permanent from the start. You never renew it.
- No investment required. No property to buy, no fund to put money into.
- You can get the entire process done in one trip. Just 4-5 days in Montevideo, then you can fly home.
- You keep it by entering Uruguay once every 3 years.
Compare it to Europe. Spain shut down its golden visa, and Portugal’s golden visa now takes a six figure investment + 10 years to reach citizenship.
Uruguay was ranked the most peaceful country in Latin America this year, it’s been an unbroken democracy since 1985, it has over 400 miles of coastline, and you can bank in US dollars.
There is no better option right now.
The firm I partner with in Uruguay handles hundreds of residencies a year, and we’re now offering free consult calls for passport holders from the US, EU, Australia, and Canada.
Book at my link in bio.
Lynn Ashton retweeted
🇯🇵 - A Japanese bomber landed on its belly at an American airfield. Then armed men climbed out. Their mission had only just begun.
On the night of May 24–25, 1945, Japanese aircraft approached Okinawa, where American forces had captured airfields and put them to work against their former owners.
Among the attackers were Mitsubishi Ki-21 "Sally" bombers carrying an unusual cargo: commandos equipped with demolition charges, grenades, and small arms.
These were men of the Giretsu airborne raiding force.
Their targets were the American aircraft parked at Yontan and Kadena. Destroying them on the ground could weaken the fighter cover that was intercepting Japan’s kamikaze attacks.
There was no extraction plan. They were expected to land, destroy as much as possible, and fight on.
The operation began to unravel before most of the raiders reached their objectives. Aircraft turned back, failed to find their targets, or were shot down.
But one bomber got through.
It made a wheels-up landing at Yontan. Commandos emerged onto the American airfield.
Although drawn from airborne troops, they had not parachuted in. Their aircraft had delivered them directly into the target.
They attacked parked planes and fuel installations with grenades and incendiary charges. Aircraft burned. Fuel dumps containing roughly 70,000 gallons of gasoline went up in flames.
For hours, defenders hunted the raiders through the darkness. Confusion compounded the damage: the Marine Corps’ official account records Americans accidentally firing on their own men.
By the time the last attacker was killed, several American aircraft had been destroyed and many others damaged.
The raid had inflicted real damage, but it could not reverse the battle for Okinawa.
These men are sometimes called “kamikaze paratroopers.”
Share this overlooked chapter of the Pacific War, and follow @Vanguard_WW2 for more stories behind the familiar history.
Artwork : (c) Angel Pinto
Lynn Ashton retweeted
In Bulgarije is de verkiezingsuitslag binnen en daar zal ongetwijfeld weer een collectieve bloeddrukmeting nodig zijn bij de Europese Commissie.
Iliyana Yotova wint met maar liefst 58 procent van de stemmen. Haar tegenstander Andrey Gurov blijft steken op 38,6 procent.
En kijk eens aan.. de Bulgaarse kiezer heeft gesproken. Niet met een persbericht uit Brussel, niet met een ingestudeerd verhaal van een Europese woordvoerder, maar gewoon met een rood potlood in een stemhokje.
Ik zie de Brusselse vergadertafels alweer voor me. Iemand laat zijn koffie vallen, een ander zoekt haastig in de Europese woordenlijst naar het hoofdstukje.. democratie wanneer de uitslag ons niet bevalt.
Want democratie is in Brussel een prachtig begrip.. zolang de burger precies het antwoord geeft dat vooraf al op het whiteboard stond.
Maar ja, in mijn mahala zeggen we., je kunt een ezel wel een Europees paspoort geven, maar daarmee wordt hij nog geen paard.
58 procent heeft gesproken. En dat is voor sommige Brusselse oren waarschijnlijk een bijzonder onaangenaam geluid.
Ciganska Kraljica Mariba 👑
Roma journalism.
Lynn Ashton retweeted
On behalf of the British people, I would like to apologise for the slave trade. I am sorry we were the first great power in history to turn its guns on it. I am sorry it cost us around 2,000 sailors to free 150,000 people they would never meet. I am sorry the rest of the world took so long to follow.
Slavery did not begin with Britain. It is as old as civilisation. Babylon wrote it into law. Rome built an empire on it. The Vikings sold Englishmen through the slave market at Dublin. In 1625 Barbary corsairs took 60 men, women and children out of a Cornish church; by 1640 Parliament was told 3,000 to 5,000 English people were held in Algiers alone.
Every great power of the age took part in the Atlantic trade. Portugal and Spain for a century before an English ship did. Then the Dutch, the French — and the British, who in the eighteenth century carried more than anyone. That is the record. It is not disputed here.
Then a nation turned on the trade that had made it rich.
Wilberforce's bill was beaten year after year. On 25 March 1807 it passed. Then Britain did the part the critics never mention — it sent the Royal Navy to enforce it. The West Africa Squadron sailed in 1808, two ships for 3,000 miles of coast, and hunted slavers for nearly sixty years. Britain paid Spain and Portugal to open their ships to search. HMS Black Joke ran down the slaver El Almirante in 1829 and found 466 people in her hold.
Around 2,000 British sailors died doing it — most of fever, to free people they would never meet. 1,600 slave ships seized. 150,000 Africans set free.
In 1833 Parliament borrowed £20 million to end slavery across the Empire. The debt was not finally redeemed until 2015. The United States needed a civil war. Cuba held slaves until 1886. Brazil until 1888 — eighty-one years after Westminster voted.
Yes, we took part in the trade. Every power of the age did. None of them fought it like we did.
So yes. I will apologise. I am sorry it cost us so much. I am sorry the rest of the world took so long to follow.
That is not something you apologise for. That is something you teach.
#history #britishhistory #royalnavy #westafricasquadron
Lynn Ashton retweeted
From another friend:
JFK'S Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France in the early 60's when DeGaulle decided to pull out of NATO. DeGaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible. Rusk responded, "Does that include those who are buried here?"
DeGaulle did not respond. You could have heard a pin drop.
When in England, at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example of 'empire building' by George Bush. He answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those who did not return."
You could have heard a pin drop.
There was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break, one of the French engineers came back into the room saying, "Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intend to do, bomb them?" A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: "Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck. We have eleven such ships. How many does France have?"
You could have heard a pin drop.
A U.S. Navy admiral was attending a naval conference that included admirals from the U.S., English, Canadian, Australian, and French navies at a cocktail reception. He found himself standing with a large group of officers that included personnel from most of those countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks when a French admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages, Americans learn only English. He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences rather than speaking French?" Without hesitating, the American admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German."
You could have heard a pin drop.
AND THIS STORY FITS RIGHT IN WITH THE ABOVE...
Robert Whiting, an elderly gentleman of 83, arrived in Paris by plane. At French customs, he took a few minutes to locate his passport in his carry on. "You have been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked sarcastically. Mr. Whiting admitted that he had been to France previously. "Then you should know enough to have your passport ready." The American said, "The last time I was here, I didn't have to show it." "Impossible. Americans always have to show their passports on arrival in France!" The American senior gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then he quietly explained, ''Well, when I came ashore at Omaha Beach on D-Day in 1944 to help liberate this country, I couldn't find a single Frenchmen to show a passport to."
You could have heard a pin drop.
I am proud to be an American, and proud of this God given heritage!
Lynn Ashton retweeted
4.25" of rain near the Camelback Golf Club in Scottsdale since Friday, the top total in the Valley as of 8 AM today.
Wittmann has 3.43", Cave Creek 2.83", and Sky Harbor 0.92".
It's still raining. #azwx
Lynn Ashton retweeted
For almost a year, I left a hot coffee and a blueberry muffin on the same man's desk every single morning.
He was married, and everybody in the office knew it.
His wife's photo sat right beside his monitor.
Still, I kept doing it.
At first, my coworkers teased me.
A group of Gen Z interns would giggle when I walked in holding two cups.
"Girl, just admit you like him."
Even my husband joked about it at dinner.
"How's your boyfriend at work?"
I laughed it off every time.
I understood why they thought that.
Why would a married woman spend her own money on a coffee for another woman's husband every day?
I never explained myself.
Then one Thursday, his wife walked into our office without warning.
She looked at me, then at the coffee on her husband's desk.
She did not say a word.
She walked straight over and said quietly,
"Can I talk to you outside?"
My stomach dropped.
In the parking lot, she pulled out her phone and showed me a photo.
It was her husband asleep in a hospital chair, still wearing his work shirt, holding her hand.
She told me she had been sick for almost two years.
He drove ninety minutes each way to see her after work, and most nights he slept in that chair.
For months, he had stopped eating.
He said he wasn't hungry.
But there was one thing he never skipped.
"The coffee," she said. "He told me a woman at his office brings it every morning, and it's the only thing that makes him feel like a person."
My eyes stung.
I had never planned any of it.
On his first week at the company, I found him asleep in his car at 6 AM, gray in the face.
I handed him a coffee through the window and said nothing.
The next day, I did it again.
Then it became a habit.
His wife wiped her eyes.
"I used to wonder why you were so kind to him," she said. "Now I know you were giving him something I couldn't give him at the time."
Then she said something that shocked me even more.
"Every Friday for a year, there was an envelope in your desk drawer with $25 inside. Did you ever wonder who left it?"
I stared at her.
I had always assumed it was my husband.
"I started it after he told me about you," she whispered. "I didn't want you to lose money being good to us."
I started crying so hard I had to lean against the car.
She hugged me tightly.
Back inside, the interns went quiet as we walked past.
I looked at the man everyone had been teasing me about.
They thought I was trying to take someone's husband.
I was simply making sure a man who had stopped caring for himself didn't go hungry.
That night, I told my husband everything.
He put down his fork, stood up, and pulled me into a long hug.
"I'm sorry I joked," he said.
"You didn't know."
"No," he said. "But now I do."
Three months later, his wife was strong enough to come to the office for a visit.
She brought a box of muffins and set one on my desk.
On the napkin, she had written,
"Your turn to be fed."
Sometimes kindness looks suspicious when people do not know the story behind it.
And sometimes the smallest thing you do is the only thing someone else can hold onto.
Lynn Ashton retweeted
If HBO ever brings Jon Snow back, it shouldn't be a sequel. It should be a CONFESSION.
Everyone thinks Jon's story ended beyond the Wall. It didn't. That's where it actually BEGINS.
Think about what he is now:
- He is Aegon Targaryen, the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms, who chose to stab his queen and walk away from a throne.
- He is the man who killed Daenerys, and no one in Westeros knows why except Tyrion and Bran.
- He is the Lord Commander who died, the King in the North who bent the knee, the Bastard who was never a bastard.
Beyond the Wall is not punishment. It's freedom.
He's finally where he always belonged with the Free Folk. No oaths, no crowns, no "you are my queen" politics. Just snow, ghosts, and people who actually love him for Jon, not Aegon.
If they bring him back, I don't want Jon fighting another White Walker variant.
I want 6 episodes of Jon finally processing what he did. Haunted by Dany, visiting Drogon, learning that Tormund was right that he has the North in him, but he also has fire. Finding peace with the fact that his happy ending looks like exile to everyone else, but looks like home to him.
The Jon Snow sequel was shelved because Kit said there was no story with enough weight. He's right.
Jon's ending WAS perfect. Let him stay beyond the Wall. Some heroes don't need another chapter. They need to rest.
WILL JON SNOW EVER RETURN?
JON SNOW DESERVES ANOTHER CHAPTER.
He discovered his true heritage.
He fought the Night King.
He lost people he loved.
And after everything, he ended up beyond the Wall.
But was that really the best ending for one of GAME OF THRONES’ most important characters?
Fans have wanted to see what happens next.
The problem? The proposed Jon Snow sequel was shelved, and there is no confirmed production date.
Still, let’s imagine HBO changes its mind…
#GameOfThrones