U-2 pilots: allowed to rejoin- into BOP story

On Jun 30, 11:29 am, "Michael Shirley" wrote:
On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:30:52 -0700, a425couple
wrote:

Yup. I'd give a lot to know who came up with it. Where I come from,
sheep dipped means that you've walked up a ramp, fell over the edge
into a
tank that's over your head so that the solution kills ticks and things.
And
it usually only happens to sheep, so I'm kinda curious myself.

Meaning seems to fit fine IMHO with the term,
'fell over the edge - solution removes bad things' - like
official record of allegiances and chain of command
& responsibilities.

You may have a point there.



They weren't really out of the Air Force anyway.
Ahhh? Correctness of above depends on reader's interpretation, (and
kinda on how things turn out).
Yup. If you got sheep dipped, you technically resigned from the
service, but you were still there. It's one of those things that came
under the heading of "plausable denial". The idea was that if you were
technically a civilian, the people you were out to screw with, couldn't
come back and claim an act of war. John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's
Secretary of State came up with it, and his spooky brother, Allen
Dulles,
applied it at the CIA.

I totally agree with the "Plausable denial"
that's why - split hairs later.

Yup.



Yup. They didn't stop there. There was a sort of half assed maritime
war between some odd boats that the CIA bought for the Alpha 66 and
Omega-7 guys, to include the ex-Navy minesweeper, Rex, which had
already seen service
with the CIA during the action in the Dominican Republic. She had
machineguns and 75mm recoiless rifles as armament. Part of the deal
over the Cuban missile crisis was that the naval
actions stopped and that included the covert operation surrounding the
Rex and a half dozen other boats.

Interesting additional info.
Those RRs certainly seem like kinda ideal
weapon for a smaller craft. Light enough weight,
low recoil, heavy hitting power.

True, but heaven forefend you get on the wrong end of one. The backblast
is nasty and it can and will hurt you.



I try not to split hairs, but think the part about
promotions with peers could use some claification.
I think it not done 'with peers' - but caught up/ made 'right'
later.

You may be right there, never having been through the
process myself.



Consider a promotional board. They are conviened once
or twice a year to select say 1000 of the people in the
zone in that occupational speciality for future promotion.
They make thier decision, goes probably to congress for
approval, then the "promotional list" gets published in
many unclassified ways.

Army Times does it.

Now consider senario, barely changed from our real world.
A pilot we will call Garyfrancis Unlucky Underpowered,
quits the AF as a Capt. in 1956, and starts working for
a ngo flying high altitude research planes.
Then one unlucky day in 1960 one of these planes
gets wounded by one SAM high over Russia, then
plane and pilot get totally destroyed by another SAM.
Russia complains.

Can't complain-- it's expensive and annoying.
EVIL GRIN

But the cover story can basicly hold, it was a ngo
research plane flown by civilian pilot (sure ex-military,
but plenty of them quit and go fly airlines also) and
some really regretful navigation error occured.
Sorry about that, but it not our military!

Until they found that sterile High Standard HD
and the silver dollar that unscrewed to show a curare
needle. Chuckle I'm sure that got somebody's attention.
Most civilian pilots don't carry a silenced pistol and a
suicide kit.



The "cover story" however, would totally fold, if the USSR
showed that couple months earlier this Garyfrancis
Underpowered had been promoted to Major USAF!

I think you're right there.



Thus, I think when/if they want to return to regular
military duty, they brought back,
then are 'fast tracked' through promotions as normal
sequencing allows.

Makes sense.



I recall a Staff Sgt (E6), got out for temp. good reasons.
Problem solved/ended/over. Too much time had passed
for him to come back as an E6. Enlisted as E1 (or E2?).
If I recall correctly he spent 6 months as E4, and also
6 months as E5. He was almost right in line with his
former 'peers' when the E7 board met.

That does sound intriguing.

--
"Implications leading to ramifications leading to shenanigans"-- Admiral
Elmo Zumwalt, USN.

Powers end up as a news helicopter pilot and crashed when it ran out
of fuel. Did a test pilot routine before that for Lockheed. Buried in
Arlington.