November 7th, 2011
The forthcoming Chuck Pfarrer book on Neptune’s Spear (the mission to get Osama bin Laden) sounds like it differs quite a lot from the account in the New Yorker. For instance, Pfarrer claims that the SEAL helicopter crash inside the compound after the mission had concluded while it was attempting to take off. The details are so divergent, actually, that one of these reporters is very wrong. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out in the reconciliation.
But leaving aside the discrepancies, the most intriguing bit leaked from the Pfarrer account is that the SEALs were using “Stealth Hawks”–a modified quiet Black Hawk–but that those helos are not state-of-the art. Pfarrer says that there are Ghost Hawks, which are even better. And have a “whisper mode.” In a quickie search, I can’t find very much (anything, actually) written about Ghost Hawks. (Other than the VTOL version.) If you’re into military porn and know more, please share.
Even if Pfarrer is all wet about everything else, I’d love to believe we have something like a Ghost Hawk.
3 commentsKilling “Crankshaft”
August 1st, 2011
Run, don’t walk, to the astounding story by Nicholas Schmidle in the New Yorker on the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. Highlights include: a CIA operative running an “immunization drive” in Abbottabad, “settling with power,” sandwich platters from Costco.
And “For God and country–Geronimo. Geronimo. Geronimo.”
Tick-tock reporting at its absolute best. Bowden-esque.
3 comments
