The Green Mile Kurd

[Carin Mita]

Threewide horizontal beams of different colored light are projected in fan shaped array into the incoming flight pattern. The top beam (yellow) indicates a too high altitude of approach. The center beam (green) is the correct altitude and the lower beam (red) is a too low altitude. By staying within the green (correct altitude) light beam, the correct slope is maintained to touchdown. An ideal control for training students.

At a distance of one half mile: the green beam (correct altitude) is 300 feet high; the yellow beam (too high altitude) is 565 feet high; the red (too low) beam is 265 feet high. All of the three beams are 900 feet wide, on each side of vertical. The dimensions of this pyramid shaped cone of colored beams may be varied and ordered to accommodate special landing problems. Special color arrangements such as red on top, clear in the center and red of the bottom, are also available.

The VASI is easily adjusted. Normal height settings for the bottom of the green (correct altitude) beam range from 0 to as high as 15. A 1/2 vernier scale provides accurate positioning. Heavy pressure screws are provided to secure the settings in place.

The VASI is normally placed on the border of the landing area on the near side, facing into the landing pattern. It has a low profile, being 12 inches high, 8 inches wide and 16 inches long and is constructed of heavy cast aluminum that is weathertight and finished in orange polyester powder coating.

I woke up at 0630 to see our site for the first time. We are in a beautiful green valley with rugged mountains to the north. Isikveren, a snow-capped ridge in Turkey and site of one of the largest refugee concentrations, is visible to the far north. To the southwest near Zakho are more rugged mountains. A mile or so to our south are rounded green hills that look exactly like the California Coast Ranges. The scenery is remarkably beautiful; I remarked that if I owned real estate that looked like this in the U.S. I could make a fortune and retire.

Most of the day was devoted to setting up camp, pitching tents, and getting oriented. The refugee camp itself consists of hundreds of blue and white tents on a ridge about a quarter of a mile from us. The tents were donated by Sears and came to be called "Smurf tents". Our camp consists so far of 20 or so GP-small tents separated by the main camp by a shallow valley. I still have a touch of the bug and had a desperate trek to the nearest latrine before the Engineers built a latrine in our camp. The area is constantly abuzz with helicopters. The weather is perfect: about 75 during the day, 45 or so at night.

I got up at 0630 and went to 0730 Mass conducted by a Navy chaplain attached to the Marines. The Marines sat out the Gulf War on carriers in the Mediterranean and for the most part are delighted to have a real mission. It was a zero day, with very little happening. In the morning we had briefings on camp organization and water supplies.

The Royal Marines (U.K.) have a strange compulsion to build latrines. They built one for us yesterday, then tore it down and rebuilt it today. In the afternoon we got some GP-medium tents and erected one. By the time this was over we would be experts at erecting tents. The mess crew and friends had a noisy party in the evening.

We had a meeting at 0700, then some of use erected the mess tent. Our vehicles began arriving from Incirlik on flatbed trailers. Later in the morning I helped erect the medical screening tents. While in the inprocessing area I heard one Kurd giving a friend an impromptu English lesson, repeating over and over "Dip-lo-mat-ic Im-mun-i-ty"! In the afternoon I went up to the main camp and helped supervise Kurdish crews who were putting up GP-small tents (no more Smurf tents!) The first refugees arrived about 1700, some by chopper. Over 100 were processed in.

The camp plan is the work of an Engineer NCO and is based on Kurdish cultural preferences about living. Eight GP-small or 12 Smurf tents in a circle make up a zozan (Kurdish for neighborhood). These held an average of 60 people, sometimes close to 100, when the camps finally filled, and were about right for a single extended family group. Four zozans in a square made up a block, bounded by fire lanes. Four blocks make up a Gund, a term that was never used much in practice, and four Gunds made up a subcommunity. The camp was to have five subcommunities surrounding a central administrative and supply area. I was told the NCO's name but never wrote it down. I hope he got a very major award.

Today was spent supervising the Kurds in tent erection. (Every Army tent has a panel saying to do something or other before erection. I keep thinking that only the Army would think people need instructions to have an erection!) I spend the morning getting a mis-laid (sorry - no pun intended)section corrected. The area allotted to each zozan is about 25 meters square. It is possible to get a circle of 8 tents in that tight a space, but only with very careful supervision. In the afternoon my crew got some new zozans erected. The Kurds quit about 1530, so I ran errands and escorted incoming refugees until 1730, then did laundry and got a cold shower. It was a tiring day. Several hundred more Kurds arrived, bringing us up to over 1000 by the end of the day.

TRAIL BROCHURE AND MAPS!

Learn more about planned trails! Check out the current Fort Wayne Regional Trails Map, along with the General Parks Map.

Now available is a Listing of Parks Facilities along the Rivergreenway (both restrooms and drinking fountains) that are located along or near the Rivergreenway. In addition to the list, there is a Rivergreenway Facilities Map that depicts the general locations of each facility along the Rivergreenway. Please note that the Fort Wayne Parks restrooms and drinking fountains are open for use from May through the end of October.

Available for your use is a listing of mile marker locations. Click on Mile Marker Locations to see where they are located and how you can utilize this information for your next walk or run.

Beginning Tuesday, May 10, 2022 the Cumberland River Greenway at Rolling Mill Hill between Peabody Street and Korean Veterans Blvd. will be temporarily rerouted due to construction in the area. There will be no through-traffic under the Korean Veterans Blvd. Bridge at this location. Please follow the posted detour signs.

Greenways are linear parks and trails that connect neighborhoods to schools, parks, transportation, shopping and work. Often located along natural landscape features like streams, rivers and ridges, or along built features, such as railroad corridors and scenic highways, greenways provide valuable greenspace for conservation, recreation and alternative off-street transportation.

The goal: a greenway trail near every community for recreation and transportation as well as to conserve green space, particularly floodplains and scenic viewsheds, along county waterways. With the expansion of the greenway network over the past 25 years, our goal has evolved from a trail within two miles to a trail within one mile of every community. Plan to Play: the Parks and Greenways Master Plan recommended in 2017 a more ambitious goal in the urban core: an inviting ten-minute (half-mile) walk to a greenway.

Nashville places a high priority on protecting and linking open space and building greenway trails. In the county-wide trail network of local- and state-maintained trails, including multi-use greenway trails plus dedicated trails for hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, and blueway trails for paddling, there are over 300 miles of trails as of April, 2019.

This form should ONLY be used to provide feedback about the website. If you need customer service such as a noise complaint, property violation or assistance from any Metro department, please submit a hubNashville request.

The Putin-Erdogan deal gives Russia a crucial foothold in the Middle East amid a power vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal. Under the agreement, Russia and Turkey agreed to work together to remove Kurdish fighters from a 20-mile zone in northern Syria.

"Both Russia and Turkey got exactly what they want," Sen. Bob Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during a hearing on the Trump administration's policy Tuesday.

During that hearing, President Donald Trump's top envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, faced a barrage of pointed questions from senators in both parties on the president's decision to withdraw from Syria, which many have said was a betrayal of the Kurdish fighters who helped America defeat the Islamic State's caliphate in the country.

Jeffrey acknowledged he was "not personally consulted" before Trump announced his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria. Lawmakers said that demonstrated the "chaotic and ad hoc" nature of Trump's policy in the region.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, pressed Jeffrey on Trump's Oct. 6 phone call with Erdogan, in which the Turkish president told Trump he planned to invade Syria. Trump said then that he would remove American troops stationed on the Turkish-Syria border, which many said gave Erdogan the green light to attack the Kurds.

Jeffrey pushed back, saying Trump warned Erdogan not to invade Syria and did not give him a green light to attack the Kurds. He said American forces in Syria were never given a mission to defend the Kurds against an attack from Turkey, which is a NATO ally.

Kurdish forces controlled much of northeastern Syria until two weeks ago, when Turkey invaded and began pushing them south. Under the U.S.-brokered cease-fire, the Kurdish fighters agreed to pull back deeper into Syria, and Turkey agreed to stop its assault.

About three hours before the cease-fire deadline, Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the top commander of the Syrian Kurdish forces, sent a letter to Vice President Mike Pence saying he had withdrawn all his forces from a Turkish-controlled "safe zone" inside Syria.

3a8082e126