Target: Libya

The news lately from Libya and hearing the names of important places in the conflict like Ras Lanuf, Sirte, Brega, Benghazi stirred my memory to a past military career - not my current one, my old one. I thought back to 1987 and my memories of anxious hours spent in missions over some of these exact same locations that occupy the news coverage right now.

I dug out one of my old target maps of the AO (Area of Operations) and memories came flooding back.

Missions start with a target briefing. In this case, you can see the target is the oil terminal at Ras Lanuf – so much discussed of late. Get ready for some $5 gas, people. We all have to sacrifice!

 

 

The next step is to select the proper armament for the mission. In this case, I will be taking one stick of Sidewinders – for self-defense against Libya’s still capable air force. I’ve got a couple Mavericks for stand off attacks on patrol boats or surface to air missile sites. For the actual target run, I’ve selected a mix of laser guided GBU-12 bombs and incendiary cluster bombs. How about a little fire there, Scarecrow?  Perfect for attacking an oil facility.

Sitting in the dark, my palms began to sweat. I review the map and mission brief. Then I kick the tires, light the fires and take off into the dark. 
My eyes wander between my various displays and controls and out the cockpit to see the inky blackness of the Gulf of Sirte. An alarm sounds – stealth or no, a patrol boat has a radar lock on me.

It’s already dawn as I approach Ras Lanuf. One of the things I remember about Libya in the 1980s was the startling lack of dimensionality in the structures.

I hit the target, drop down to Angels 2 and book it out of the air defense envelope.

Yes, I remember those many hours sitting in the dark office room of our Japanese apartment flying mission after mission over Libya, Iran and eastern Europe. Good old Microprose Project Stealth Fighter on the Commodore 64. So intense and yet so educational. I feel well prepared to watch the news now.
And I’m very glad that I still have my original C-64 (and several others). I also have my original copy of Project Stealth Fighter that I waited excitedly to be released back in 1987 (along with two other pristine copies I bought in case anything happens to the original).

 

On the other hand, maybe I should have spent more of those nighttime hours with my lonely newly married wife instead.

The coming zombie apocalypse

When we were visiting family in Utah after dropping of child number 2 at college, one of my brothers-in-law introduced us to the game Zombies!!! by Twilight Creations.

It’s the kind of game that you see played in obscure game shops where people who live in their mom’s basement sell pewter figures of elves and knights. Except – wait for it – it is both playable and fun for normal people who don’t even own a 20 sided die.

It is easy to learn, doesn’t take forever to play, you don’t have to look up anything in obscure tables of hit damage and it has this clever mechanic of building the game board through random draws that makes it different each time you play. To top it off, as you can see by the examples below, the art style is kind of Atomic Ranch retro-chic. 

If you get the chance, and don’t mind spending/blowing/investing $30 on a board game, pick up Zombies!!! I think you’ll enjoy it. There are also many add-ons available, as well as packs of additional plastic zombies.

Gather 'round the (game) board

Board games are kind of a strange thing. Supposedly, they bring people together for laughter and good times. At least that's what Hasbro would have us believe. However, I remember when my big brother was teaching me how to play Risk when I was 10 or 11 and I flipped the board in anger - at least once. I notice that Risk is NOT on the Hasbro Family Game Night web page.

When our kids were younger we used to play Chinese checkers quite a bit. For some reason, we bought - and continue to use a Chinese checkers board that is fairly thin metal with kind of a rim around it. Unfortunately, this has a side-effect that if someone pushes down on the board just so the board is now cocked and ready to fire. There is no way to get the round out of the chamber, once you heard the tell-tale "click-clunk" of that board when someone made a careless move. It was just a matter of time until, Perfection-like, the marbles all popped up - and then the fun ended and the kids had to go to bed.

In our family, games seem to go in waves. We've had phases for checkers, chess, Chinese checkers, Battleship, Pictionary, Encore, and Domination.

I'm not really a fan of Sorry. In fact, I once passed out while playing it during a family game night. Of course, I had pneumonia at the time, but I still blame Sorry.

Encore is a tedious game for Mormons to play - things will be going along fine with normal pop and other well known songs, but eventually, in desperation, someone starts belting out a Primary song. As with other arms races, this is countered with a Primary song from the opponent. And then long, tedious madness ensues.

Domination (also known as "Focus") was an old Hasbro game. Unlike most board games, which seem to live on forever in various repackagings, Domination seems genuinely gone. My wife liked the game as a child and has spoken of it often over the years. I finally found a very nice copy on eBay and it is really fun. I'm surprised it is gone and yet "Cootie" goes merrily along.

Jeremy Clarkson, of BBC's Top Gear and also a columnist for The Times of London, recently had a very apropos article about board games. Jeremy asserts that despite all the hand-wringing about video games, people actually seem much more driven to violence by board games. As Jeremy points out, if only Hitler had a Playstation, maybe real war would have been unnecessary.

Anyone who has ever suffered through a game of Axis and Allies can probably sympathize with the anger and frustration Hitler felt - moving all those little pieces around on the big command center map boards.