Word: deserting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...ceremony honored five of the eight servicemen who died two weeks ago in Iran's Dasht-e-Kavir desert during the aborted raid to rescue the Americans held hostage in Tehran. Some 5,000 people gathered at Hurlburt in memory of the five air commandos who had been stationed there. One by one, the lost men were eulogized. Said Lieut. Colonel Calvin Chasteen about his comrade, Captain Richard L. Bakke, a 33-year-old navigator: "He looked forward with enthusiasm and anticipation to this last opportunity to serve, not for the glory it offered but for the deep satisfaction...
...Phase 1 of the raid, three C-130s carrying some 90 air commandos and three others transporting fuel for helicopters took off from an airfield in Egypt. Eight Sikorsky RH-53 helicopters, flying in pairs, left the nuclear carrier Nimitz in the Arabian Sea. All were to meet at "Desert One," an unimproved landing strip in the Great Salt Desert southeast of Tehran...
...soccer field. In the last stage of the assault, the hostages (by now joined by the three from the Foreign Ministry) and the 90 commandos would all leave in the four choppers. They would join the C-130s, which would have flown from Oman, at yet another airstrip, "Desert Two." There the choppers would be abandoned, and everyone would fly to safety in the transport planes...
...practical than it might sound, noting that there are several well-concealed plateaus in the remote mountains. But few experts can understand the contention of both Carter and Brown that the Tehran phase of the plan would have been easier than getting the assault team into position in the desert in the first place; both of them have refused to explain why they think so. Even some of the military planners concede that the complex mission violated an old Army rule called KISS, meaning "Keep it simple, stupid...
...mission was canceled when three of the eight helicopters heading toward Desert One broke down while flying through a blinding sandstorm. An electrical power supply on one craft overheated and failed, knocking out the gyrocompass, the horizon indicator and the cockpit lights. The crew flew back to the Nimitz, making a dangerous landing, with fuel tanks nearly empty...