Global Hawk Returns To U.S. - - Requiem For A Drone

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Global Hawk Drone Returns To U.S.

by UPI Wire
Feb 22, 2006

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - Feb. 21, 2006 (UPI) -- An RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that flew 167 missions over Iraq and Afghanistan was back in the United States Tuesday.

The aircraft, dubbed UAV-3, was a test aircraft and had never been intended for combat, but it was pressed into service overseas following the 9-11 terror attacks and responded with more than 48,000 hours in the air flying reconnaissance missions in support of U.S. troops.

UAV-3 was brought back to its home base at Edwards Air Force Base in California where it was greeted by its "family" of airmen and engineers from Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and other companies in the Global Hawk team.

http://www.postchronicle.com/news/security/article_2127811.shtml


The Effect

‘The effect of our bombardment was terrific.
One man told me he had never seen so many dead before.’
—War Correspondent.

‘HE’D never seen so many dead before.’
They sprawled in yellow daylight while he swore
And gasped and lugged his everlasting load
Of bombs along what once had been a road.
‘How peaceful are the dead.’
Who put that silly gag in some one’s head?

‘He’d never seen so many dead before.’
The lilting words danced up and down his brain,
While corpses jumped and capered in the rain.
No, no; he wouldn’t count them any more...
The dead have done with pain:
They’ve choked; they can’t come back to life again.

When Dick was killed last week he looked like that,
Flapping along the fire-step like a fish,
After the blazing crump had knocked him flat...
‘How many dead? As many as ever you wish.
Don’t count ’em; they’re too many.
Who’ll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a penny?’

-Siegfried Sassoon

[TomInTib]

1. Damn, that is one powerful poem...

I have seen the carnage following a B52 run.