airborne
Even before the first airplane too flight, there were people who wanted to be airborne. Human flight first became a reality in the early 1780s with the successful development of the hot-air balloon by French papermaking brothers Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier. Soon balloons were being filled with lighter-than-air gas, such as helium or hydrogen, to provide buoyancy. It was a whole new era. Finally, on November 21, 1783, the first manned hot air balloon took flight. Man could be airborne and come back to earth safely. With that, came the natural desire to try to go higher and further. Man was not done with flight, and in fact this was just the beginning.
An early achievement of ballooning came in 1785 when Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries became the first to cross the English Channel by air. While early manned flight did occur, it wasn’t the normal mode of transportation. In the 18th and 19th centuries, balloons were used more for military surveillance and scientific study than for transport or sport. As a mode of air travel, the balloon was replaced by the self-propelled dirigible, which was a motorized balloon, in the late 19th century.
While balloons were used for military purposes early on, by the early 20th century, interest in sport ballooning began to grow. Then, the inevitable was offered…an international trophy, to be offered annually for long-
distance flights. Belgian balloonists were the dominate winners of these early competitions, but after World War II, new technology began to emerge, making ballooning safer and more affordable, By the 1960s hot air ballooning enjoyed widespread popularity. There were 17 unsuccessful transatlantic balloon flights from 1859 until the flight of the Double Eagle II in 1978. These resulted in the deaths of at least seven balloonists. One of the unsuccessful flights was in September 1977, when Ben Abruzzo and Maxie Anderson made their first attempt in the Double Eagle I. They were blown off course and forced to ditch off Iceland after traveling 2,950 miles in 66 hours. It was a brutal wait for rescue, and Abruzzo took several months to recover from frostbite that he suffered during the ordeal. Then, by 1978 he and Anderson were ready to try again. With the addition of Larry Newman as a third pilot. The men took off on September 11, 1978, in the Double Eagle II. The flight lifted off from Presque Isle, Maine.
The 11-story, helium-filled balloon made good progress during the first four days, and the three pilots survived on hot dogs and canned sardines. Things seemed to be going perfectly this time. The only real trouble of the trip occurred on August 16, when atmospheric conditions forced the Double Eagle II to drop from 20,000 feet to a dangerous 4,000 feet. To ward off trouble, they jettisoned ballast material and rose to a safe height again. With the added altitude, they reached the coast of Ireland and on August 17 flew across England en route to their destination of Le Bourget field in Paris, which was the site of Charles Lindbergh’s landing after flying solo in a plane across the Atlantic in 1927. In a touching moment, their wives flew close enough to the balloon in a private plane as it traveled over England, to blow kisses at their husbands.
Double Eagle II was blown slightly off course toward the end of the journey, and they actually touched down just before dusk on August 17th, near the hamlet of Miserey, about 50 miles west of Paris. Their 137-hour flight set new endurance and distance records. The Americans were greeted by family members and jubilant French spectators who followed their balloon by car. That night, Larry Newman, who at 31 was the youngest of the three pilots, was allowed to sleep with his wife in the same bed where Charles Lindbergh slept after his historic transatlantic flight five decades before. Transatlantic balloon flight had finally been realized.
These days, everyone has heard of the special forces units and special ops, which is special operations. The main reasons we know about them are terrorism, and war in the current world. Special forces and special operations forces are military units trained to conduct the kinds of operations that are often much more dangerous than even the boots on the ground part of battle. NATO defines special operations as “military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, trained, and equipped forces, manned with selected personnel, using unconventional tactics, techniques, and modes of employment”. In other words, these are the guys who go into ugly situations in an effort to keep us safe. Of course, this, in no way, detracts from our first responders, who we all know are just as vital. There is just a difference in the scope of their jobs. The Special Forces emerged in the early 20th century, with a significant growth in the field during the World War II, when “every major army involved in the fighting” created formations devoted to special operations behind enemy lines. It was going to be the only way to win such a war.
Special Forces teams perform some dangerous functions, including airborne operations, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, covert ops, direct action, hostage rescue, high-value targets/manhunting, intelligence operations, mobility operations, and unconventional warfare. In the United States, Special Forces refers to the US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine forces. The jobs of the Special Forces units are vital in today’s kind of warfare. Special Forces do reconnaissance and surveillance in hostile environments trying to make it safer to send in the troops. They are in charge of foreign internal defense…training and development of other states’ military and security forces, offensive action, support to counter-insurgency through population engagement and support counter-terrorism operations, sabotage, and demolition, as well as, hostage rescue. They are also used as body guards, in waterborne operations involving combat diving, combat swimming, maritime boarding and amphibious missions, as well as support of air force operations. Special forces have played an important role throughout the history of warfare, whenever the aim was to achieve disruption by “hit and run” and sabotage, rather than more traditional conventional combat. Other significant roles lay in reconnaissance, providing essential intelligence from near or among the enemy and increasingly in combating irregular forces, their infrastructure, and their activities. Originally there were separate units for the different branches of the military, but the need for interoperability between these units from the different services led to the formation US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in 1987. Our cousin Paul Noyes career in Special Operations was with Ranger, Special Forces and Aviation Special Ops forces, and he has become my military “go to” guy…letting me know if I hit the nail on the head or missed it.
For some reason, I thought Special Forces was, for the most part, a modern day unit, but that isn’t really true. Chinese strategist Jiang Ziya, in his Six Secret Teachings, described recruiting talented and motivated men into specialized elite units with functions such as commanding heights and making rapid long-distance advances. King David had a special forces platoon known as Gibborim. In Japan, ninjas were used for reconnaissance, espionage and as assassins, bodyguards or fortress guards, or otherwise fought alongside conventional soldiers. During the Napoleonic wars, rifle and sapper units were formed that held specialized roles in reconnaissance and skirmishing and were not committed to the formal battle lines. The British Indian Army 
deployed two special forces during their border wars…the Corps of Guides formed in 1846 and the Gurkha Scouts…a force that was formed in the 1890s and was first used as a detached unit during the 1897–1898 Tirah Campaign. I guess that the Special Forces units are long standing, expertly trained groups of very special people, who have achieved a level of expertise that is second to none, and I for one, and thankful that such soldiers exist.
