snowmman

While I've slammed H. a lot, I'm wondering if his interpretation of Cooper as "hardened criminal" etc...out for one last score...a hard man..etc was correct. The problem may have been that SF folks, just coming off the field, basically were coming from situations very similar in actions to criminal gangs. Not a judgment on actions, but just forced into acting like that as a result of what they were doing. This may have been specific to Waugh. That's what I felt in his writing, when I said he felt a little too thuggy. So maybe Himmelsbach was right. Also note the observation part of the RTs was all about controlled passive action.

georger said "I have no "proof" of anything, but given normal rotation times and the dates in question, given Waugh's rank and affiliations, I think its safe to assume Mr. Waugh was very busy doing other things on the date in question and could prove " I'm confused, georger. It seems like you didn't read my posts. Why are you guessing about rotation times when there is better data available? You're saying you don't believe Waugh was at Fort Bragg in November or December of 1971? You're aware of when his orders ended, right? and how he was required to go to Fort Bragg when they ended? (the whole thing that played out, I posted about). If you have detail that says he was in Vietnam in Nov. or Dec 1971, post it.

georger said: "Remember Ckret took this mission on as an after thought. Chasing Cooper 37 years late is NOT Ckret's fulltime regular job, not even remotely." My reaction is always "so what". I know others have other reactions. yeah, we've been thru this a couple of times. Everyone has their own opinion. Here, my actions are simplified. I only care about people to the extent they bring information, or stimulate the creation of information. Everyone has baggage, history, or reasons to be broken. I do. Everyone does. So what. Delving deeply into that isn't going to help anything other than make someone feel good. If Ckret needs a pat on the back or something, then show up. I'll give it to him. Heck I throw a little towards Jerry, who would spit on me if we ever met. In terms of bringing information or stimulating information: For instance, SafecrackingPLF brought minimal stuff to the table. But he stimulated the early investigation into the unlikeliness of the money float theory, which was great, and he deserves a seat at the table forever as a result, and he can ramble on about any random thing he wants, in my opinion. (edit) I guess my "so what" thinking is also supported by a belief that there is always someone else. If there was no Ckret, there'd be someone else.

Plaster is real good at describing each man's uniqueness and strengths. Some of the RT guys had an amazing amount of pre-vietnam experience. (but Waugh had the age thing. Another guy name Pops, but he went into Supply early). But Meadows here is just 34 in '66. Read why. Here's Plaster comparing two One-Zeros. "SOG" page 61 "There were a study in contrasts. Where Wareing was instinctive, Meadows was methodical. "Meadows did everything meticulously, everything was rehearsed. You could have taken a film of [his] mission preparation and used it as a training film." Major Crerar recalled. When he came to Shining Brass in 1966, Meadows had been a professional soldier nineteen years, though he was only thirty-four. Born in a dirt-floor moonshiner's cabin in West Virginia, Meadows had lied about his age to become a fifteen-year-old paratrooper in 1947, then so distinguished himself in Korea he was that war's youngest master sergeant. Before an operation, Meadows would build a terrain map in the dirt, then have his whole team--Americans and Nungs--memorize the prominent features, all the LZs, streams and rally points. Then they'd take turns reciting the plan and pointing to sites in the model. "He would work them hard." Crerar said. (previous passages talked about the difficulties in training Yards and Nungs, but highlighted their amazing strengths and loyalty. Maybe lacking education, but highly respected compatriots) Much of Meadows' reputation came from his ability to capture prisoners; he held SOG's record--thirteen POWs snatched from behind enemy lines" Goes on to highlight a lot of stuff Meadows did, and how he could be very bold. In reading Plaster, it's a much more sane treatment..not like Waugh's love of the shoot-em-up kind of story. I'm really curious to find out more about Waugh's missions. I read a lot where they call him amazing etc, but I keep wondering about details.

Covey OV-10 pic attached for 377. From Plaster. Was reading about why they called the FAC planes "Covey" and how they supported the SOG on the ground. Waugh spent his share of back seat time I believe as a Covey Rider. They flew OV-10's and others. I thought this was a heartfelt reminsce from a guy on the ground, talking about Coveys. The Finger! A little dense to read, until you understand what the guy is saying. willie pete is White Phosporus, for example. http://www.ranger25.com/covey.htm The phrase "Covey" has some history, I forget the detail about how it started, but it became almost like saying Xerox for copy machine..i.e. it was an operational kind of thing, not a specific plane...kind of spotter action. (my interpretation) oh the nat geo preview is up on youtube now. Interesting they have the NWA routes from 1971 in the opening. I wonder if they got it from the schedule I posted (I had posted that kind of map of routes NWA had in 1971) also, someone noted that the plane had inside logo for Alaska Air.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8IoWc77KTg

Sometimes I have to say things very simply, it seems for everyone to grok it. But does everyone agree, that the existence of a Billy Waugh and a Sheridan Peterson, proves two "facts" of Carr's to be false: 1) That an expert wouldn't jump in those conditions 2) That Vietnam didn't have people of the right age Also, we all agree that "McCoy shows how an expert would do it" is false. There really isn't enough info to bin Cooper as expert or whuffo, so you have to accept both as possibles while searching. Here's something to muse about: If dumb old snowmman can find two that fit good profiles, how many more might be out there, in similar profile? Did the FBI look at all of them? Or clear incorrectly? Remember the HALO stuff apparently wasn't declassified till 1995 (I've not searched deeply on that fact but believe it to be true) If you guys are as good as you think you are, you'd gather similar info on all the other HALO jumpers in vietnam, or the older RT members, say. I've looked at that a little, and didn't find anything interesting to make it feel like it's worth more effort. But I've found enough stuff over time, to justify my position that Carr didn't know what the hell he was talking about. I didn't have to be perfect myself, to be confident Carr could be safely ignored when he proposed things. (Because he presented obviously false things as 100% fact).

"After the information is revealed SkyJack71 needs to get on with living life - going forward and not looking back..." Hey Jo, if that actually happened, that would be great, and could be taken as a positive accomplishment for the thread. I sincerely hope that might be true. Who knows what might happen in the rest of your life?

I've been trying to grapple with why I perceived Carr as unskilled. Here's an attempt to describe. The problem with the Cooper case, is that you can't separate it into truth and untruths. Or liars and truth tellers. All the information is flawed. So even if people think they are telling the truth, they may be wrong. So flawed truthtellers are the same as liars. The end result is bad info. So it's a question of looking for something based on a thesis, using information that is flawed. What Ckret couldn't accept is that all the information he had could be flawed. Ckret wanted to believe that he added value to the information he had, because of his background and judgement. That was his flaw. He's as equally flawed as anyone. Ckret should have focused on these roles: -maximal dispersion of FBI info -maximal team building (more people means more info) -ignore the quality of information. It's not until you have more information that you can judge quality. Now you might question the ability to build anything where all of it is composed of flawed information. But we do that all the time. You don't need everything to be perfect. You can build something perfect from a set of imperfect parts. (example: I can insert random spelling errors, with no pattern, and you would able to deduce the correct sent message. Not always. But a lot) Carr should have focused on information. He focused on personalities instead, which worked against gathering information. There's my review. Which obviously is flawed! However it doesn't matter, since all that's interesting is how it adds or subtracts to an end goal of finding Cooper. My belief is that the best path, at a certain point, was to get a new agent. I still believe that. We need a new agent.

"Snowmman hasnt presented any proof!" Georger: think about it for a second. There will be no proof. The only hope at proof is fingerprints (probably not) and dna (probably not) or self-confession with evidence like money (unlikely). It is not possible to prove anyone was Cooper. It will be totally dumb luck for something to turn up on a suspect, to tie him to the case. Identifying suspects is not about proof. It's just about narrowing down to a set that you can dig at for proof. What exactly do you think I'm going to do, get dna and prints from Waugh? Talk to his friends? Sleep with his wife?

Georger said "Ckret asked people tdo that and got nothing back but ridicule from Snowmman!" There are always two perceptions of the same thing. My perception was that Ckret proposed a flawed methodology and tried to hammer it down our throats. His behavior revealed his lack of skill. For instance, he never believed he needed a team. Or, he had already decided what he needed, and was blind to how that just reinforced his own preconceptions. Whatever the cause of his actions, they weren't skilled. (edit) I say that. in evaluating his behavior against achieving some end goal. Now he may have had some other end goal. But its hard for me to see that his behaviors were optimal for what he stated was the end goal. (edit) ps. what's wrong with ridicule anyhow? Some people like spanking during sex, for instance. (edit) georger: I don't know you, but you come off as someone who's only succeeded with western-style, linear, thinking. Sure that works. But other stuff works too.

You might be right Georger. But which measurements? The 5'9" height is from Waugh's own description of himself. Are you talking about head measurements? Why do you say that georger? Do you have more info than I've posted? If so, be nice to post.

I have some of my people investigating the following 1) The citizen's investigative group farce, was actually a training scenario, used for training undercover agents for participating in sting chat rooms. 2) That a database is being collected of all email addresses and phone numbers used to submit tips on the db cooper case. This info is run thru the master database, because a recent pHd study showed a slightly higher incident of running red lights, for people who follow the DBC thing. haven't connected the dots yet, but we're just rolling up the budget for the next year, and we've got some homeland money to expand, so things are looking positive.

ask about what unit he was in..whether there were Montagnards and Nungs in the unit. ask if they got extra pay for being jump certified. ask if they wore any smokejumper suits on any jumps. ask if they static-lined out of helicopters using the stabo rig mount. oh and the helis: were they Hueys? ask if any jumps were out of planes, and which ones. C-47? C-123? C-130? ask if night jumps. ask how they extracted after the jump

name the year that the first meeting of Boeing employees happened for the purpose of organizing skydiving..i.e. like an informal club. (it was pre-1971) doesn't mean anything for this Cooper thing, but hey, this is a trivia forum. (answer available on the web)

"So what is it about Snow that lets him scoop a bunch of smart inquisitive colleagues?" not a jumper. not FBI. not georger. :) Obviously scoop means nothing. It's easy to print names no one has seen in a DBC thread before. Does that mean anything? I dunno. But it does make me laugh at the supposed level of "theorization" about McCoy, Weber, et. al. Or actually anything I read in Himmelsbach's book, or the McCoy book by the FBI guys. And don't get me going about Barb Dayton! (edit) 377: on Sheridan, obviously you know I could lengthen that list, but the important ones you left out were age and height. age was good, and height was good. That's the hardest thing to get aligned first for any good suspect. Number #1: how do you get that info!

When I forwarded, indirectly, the info about Sheridan to the FBI, is when I realized there was an active coverup. coverup, deadlock, whatever. you say tom-a-toe, I say to-matoh.. that's what it's all about! (edit) to reiterate though, based on the information the FBI has not been able to hide successfully, I think Waugh is the best current suspect. More information could change that, obviously. And there's nothing to say Waugh is "it". Just my best suspect.

377 mentioned entertainment value. Here was the previous guy I was wondering about. Sheridan Peterson. He's a down-the-rabbit-hole Alice-in-Wonderland story. But he ain't Cooper. Interesting life. Obviously another guy the FBI must have checked out and cleared at some point, because they investigated 1400 suspects. Literature buffs can start by buying his ebook. But it's hard to hold on to your sanity for that ride. He's a good one to contrast to Waugh though. Most other suspects we've talked about are like talking about kindergarteners being Cooper. (edit) I know, I know. Skydiving being the small, tightknit community that everyone has described, everyone knows what I'm talking about. But I'm just a whuffo, so you can't blame me for being confused. Funny!

377 suggested: "3. BEACON VALUE. Sure, we are an obscure forum, but we contain a LOT of possibly relevant info that will be found by search engines." This is incorrect. The full contents of the DBC thread here does not get indexed by Google. Some pages leak, but I think it's an intermittent thing that has something to do with how certain pages get cached somewhere at DZ.com. I'm not sure. It's not consistent. But I believe saying that anything we post here, is visible to Google, is incorrect. People can test that with some searches. We have a beacon, but it's just us shining flashlights in each others faces. We flashed Waugh, but he gave us the finger.

Yeah you're right georger. Good assessment. I mentioned before that I don't see how the normal use of money, sex, drugs can help here. Don't know what other assets/firepower can be brought to bear. Guns seem out because of legal/ethical issues. Wit might work, but I think the votes are that it's in short supply here.

okay, I'm looking thru the stuff the insert team pulled out of the Seattle building, and I found something interesting. It's a FBI internal bulletin referencing a possible McCoy/Cooper connection, but the interesting thing is a comment that while they were checking it out, they discovered that Vegas to Portland passenger manifests were no longer available. And this was just 4/18/72 It got me wondering if, when Carr said that all flights were checked etc, if that was bullshit, since this bulletin says they weren't able to check out out this aspect on 4/18/72 because the data was no longer available. So they may have checked "something" right away...but it sounds like they didn't preserve the data..i.e. they didn't save information for checking later. see attached. p.s. the insert team is bitching about not getting paid yet. Didn't the checks get cleared?

What puzzles me is why Jerry would even mention Duane. I mean why bother? I didn't even notice he did, until Jo snipped his post. I'm assuming it was an accurate Snip. Why doesn't Jerry obsess about Gossett? He confessed. He says he's Cooper. Maybe I need to promote Gossett. Gossett was Cooper. I know it. He was right handed.

yeehaw! let's talk about Duane. Jerry: Your turn.

It's easy to get depressed reading this Vietnam stuff. And in mulling over georger's rants, it's interesting how easy it is for the older generation to be confident that they know what's wrong with current events, and it usually involves some kind of rosy view of the past, and how the current generation is a bunch of losers. What I see is the opposite: that we learn from history. That humans are always flawed. That information is never perfect, and in any moment, there is no obviously right perspective. That you can create ideology to motivate humans to do most anything, at the drop of a hat. Humans like to rally around a cause. What else is there to do in life? Eat, sleep, die? So we rally. Us vs Them. You people, as georger might say. But what I see in daily life, is that the next generation is better. I think that's hard for an older generation to accept. Yes, they point to the battles fought. The people who died. The injustices overcome. That all happened. But what we need in the future is more knowledge. Not rants. As usual, I may be clueless, and am interested in others thoughts.

I'm just 31 pages in, and Plaster's organization of facts, details and writing style is quite amazing. Just straightforward. No axe to ground. Just presenting the facts he's gathered (which seems pretty well rounded/complete, so far). It appears he did a lot of research. He names all the people he interviewed in the forward (special forces folks). It's a lot. Cousin Brucie: You have to get these two books. The photo book is too pricey, even used, I think..but these two are just single dollars. (used paperback) (edit) I'll be honest, in contrast, Waugh's book comes off as written by a thug. (I don't know the guy, so I'm just reacting to the book)

Here's a recent paper that's quite stunning. http://www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf Using USAF database, it plots the bombing of Cambodia by the US on a map (page 2). 1965-1973. There were 113,716 target sites (10% unspecified) 230,516 sorties 2,756,941 tons of ordinance. Cambodia may have been the most heavily bombed country in history. There's some quotes from Nixon to Kissinger, and Kissinger to Haig, from tapes, that are stunning in their casualness. I was reading this in regards to a quick scan of the Khmer Rouge massacres in '75, (which was triggered off of reading about the Indonesia massacres)