USS Savannah. This should have been a fatal hit.

http://ww2today.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/USS_Savannah_CL-42_is_hit_by_a_German_guided_bomb_off_Salerno_11_September_1943.jpg

My Uncle Tony served in the Med during WWII. My dad in the Pacific.

What should have been a fatal hit wasn’t. Because we in the USN pride ourselves at damage control. We can bring ships back that would be lost to any other navy.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8282/how-to-fight-to-win-in-the-f-14-a-4-and-f-5-at-the-navys-topgun-school

It lives on as a Navy aggressor squadron out of Key West.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=vfc+111+sundowners+squadron&form=EDNTHT&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&plvar=0&refig=0a46a4b65175411cb04ce02f5e48791c&sp=1&qs=HS&pq=vfc+&sk=PRES1&sc=8-4&cvid=0a46a4b65175411cb04ce02f5e48791c&cc=US&setlang=en-US

Or it did when I retired back in 2008.

https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/supporting-the-f-5-aggressor-fleet-05050/

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b3/09/22/b309223e5cbb1bfbab5cdaac69235653.jpg

You can’t plan for everything.

Please note. We painted the shark mouth on the drop tanks.

Which may be why you might think it is strange I’m bringing this up.

http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-squadron-vf143.htm

“…One popular version is that when the Griffin design was unveiled, a female observer commented that the creature’s droopy head and gaping mouth made it looked like a dog throwing up. A few claimed the nickname originated in Vietnam when a USAF F-105 pilot remarked on how the beast resembled a vomitting canine! Either way, the legend of the World Famous Pukin’ Dogs had begun…”

Not even my squadron, my lady. I belonged to the Sundowners. VF-111. Although we got the reputation as the Splashdowners as we kept crashing our aircraft.

Always worth learning about the origins of such things.

But I think I’ll keep it simple: Happy (belated) Rosh Hashanah to all!

BTW, the word “all” includes those who don’t celebrate it, myself included. After all, why not have a happy day?

(Although, I admit, there are other points-of-view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjeN1WIAXFc )

I highly recommend “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” by American author and science writer Charles C. Mann, which I am reading currently, when not spending time correcting people on the internet*.

The book presents recent research findings in different fields that suggest human populations in the Western Hemisphere—that is, the indigenous peoples of the Americas—were more numerous, had arrived earlier, were more sophisticated culturally, and controlled and shaped the natural landscape to a greater extent than scholars had previously thought.

BTW, FWIW, IMO, AFAICT, and maybe a couple more, I believe in the Old Earth (and thus the Old Peoples) because the evidence for both is far too copious and incontestable (and not incompatible with Intelligent Design), but “Adam and Eve” could have been the first humans to knowingly accept G-d’s commission to “found” a spiritual “human race” that was willing to acknowledge, and abide by, His sovereignty.
The Older Guys were groping in the dark for deity, as it were.

*
https://www.xkcd.com/386/