Northern Limit Line...

I made several trips to Seoul in 2014.  One afternoon, as we successfully finished the days meetings, our partner said he'd like to take us some place.  We dropped our bags at the hotel, and headed over to The War Memorial of Korea.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Beautiful place...huge plaza in front...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

...large reflecting pool.

One of the most powerful displays I saw was one that I decided not to photograph.  In one of the main rooms, there is a video display on the walls.  The room light is dim, and it looks like you are standing on a black tile floor.  But when the video ends, the lights start to come up, and lights come on under what turns out to be a glass floor.  Just under my feet were the skeletal remains of a young South Korean soldier, discovered during construction of the museum.  He had been listed as "Missing in Action", but has now been found and identified.  His remains were left just where they were found, with shrapnel and shell casings scattered all around, a dramatic way to demonstrate that this wasn't a far-off, foreign war.  It was local, right there in the city, right there among the homes of the thousands and thousands of civilians trying their best to stay out of the way.  A powerful visual indeed.

During the Korean War (1951-1953), the North swept down through the South initially, before terribly costly fighting pushed them back north.  Seoul is near the middle of the Korean Peninsula, and so it changed hands several times as the sides battled back and forth.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Through all this conflagration, the populace, as shown in this photo in the museum, is left to fend for themselves and try their best to get out of the way of the fighting.  Here, civilians scramble to climb across the jagged structure of a bombed-out bridge over the Han River, near Seoul.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

The museum has a large indoor area, full of displays and information.  But they also have a huge outdoor display of the various hardware of war.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A P-38 Mustang...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A Saber Jet...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Even a B-52 Bomber !

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

...and some of the devices developed to defend against them...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Them notice on the left, suspended above a portion of the reflection pool, is a small ship.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

You can go aboard, and as we did, we noticed that it was full of holes !

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

It seems that this is a replica of a patrol Caravel damaged in an attack by North Korean patrol boats in 2002.  The land boundary between North and South is roughly drawn along the 38th Parallel.  But as you go west, the border changes to the center of a large estuary just north and west of Seoul.  As you reach the coast, the boundary becomes a line in the sea (known as the Northern Limit Line), which the North contends was drawn in an unfair way.  The North still contests the line from time to time, sometimes with artillery fire (as in  2010) or with a naval attack, as in 2002.  I wasn't aware of the details of 2002 until I saw a movie on a flight a few weeks back, called Northern Limit Line.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A gattling gun on the fore-deck...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

The bridge...shot full of holes...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

You can see my friend Harri walking past stone panels mounted on each column...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

...each three characters is a soldiers name... 

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

...1500 names per panel...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

...and there were a LOT of columns, a LOT of panels...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

(this is just one wing of the museum...)

Check it out:

The War Memorial of Korea
전쟁기념관
29, Itaewon-ro, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
서울특별시 용산구 이태원로 29 (용산동1가)
Tel: +82-2-709-3139, 3114

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

My favorite Korean restaurant, and favorite dish...Mackerel !!

- Mark

Be The Match

("replay post") 

Friends, I’d like to suggest something:

Sign up for Be The Match as a possible Bone Marrow Donor.

People who need marrow donation (frequently leukemia patients) need a very close genetic match for the transplant to be successful.  If they do not have a sibling or a good match from a parent, they may be out of luck.

Be The Match is a registry where healthy people can give genetic information (from a simple Cheek Swab kit they will send you) and then have that info entered into a searchable database that doctors can look at to find a match for their patients.  Since it’s hard to find close matches, they need LOTS of volunteers to sign up so the database is large.

If you sign up, and if a patient is found that needs you, the organization will contact you and set up the donation.  There are a couple of different ways to extract the marrow, one easy, one a little less easy, but don’t worry, you can handle it.  While it’s a situation that I do not talk about, I did it before myself.  My sister eventually lost her battle, but one bright spot was the success of the marrow transplant that was attempted. 

So, sign up.  You may never be called, but if you are, you will be giving someone a chance that they simply would not have without YOU.

Do it.

-Mark

www.bethematch.org

   

We lost my sister on 23-December-1983.

I don’t write about her here, it's just too difficult.

Thirty-two years may seem like a long time,

but sometimes, it’s like yesterday.

...

Karen Lynn Laughlin

04-August-1960

23-December-1983

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Raptor visit...an urban bird...

My son brought our "Little One" over to play today.  Just as they were entering the back door, I spotted a very large bird, an obvious bird of prey, on the ground near our back fence. It looked as if he "had something"...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Not sure the gender, so I will just say "he"...he quickly, but without urgency, flew up to a branch just over our patio, only about 12 ft (4m) off the ground.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

When I finally got a glimpse of the back end of him, 

it was clear that he is a Red-tailed Hawk, a rather common hawk in America.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

It also soon became clear, from the trail of Pigeon feathers drifting down from his perch, that he'd just caught lunch, and was proceeding to pluck and consume it.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

We peered quietly from the garage door for a few minutes, but there were branches in the way from that angle, so I thought I'd try to creep left and improve the view.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

He kept an eye on me, but didn't appear particularly nervous.  It took him near a half-hour to pick the carcass clean, and in that time he didn't mind my re-positioning more than once, with my camera at times only 10 or so feet from him.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Not a good day to be a Pigeon.  This fellow must have a taste for them, because several times I have seen feathers or other scraps in the backyard.  If a cat plucks a bird, on the ground, he leaves a rather distinct "pile" of feathers.  But when a raptor is doing the plucking, well up in a tree, the feathers tend to drift over a broader area, easy to distinguish from a "cat kill".

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

With intent, but without nervousness he continued to pluck and eat.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Munching, and munching...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

...watching me, but not much worried about me, 

even though he'd selected a rather low perch, 

which had us almost nose-to-nose.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Finally finishing and attempting to tidy up...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

His perch was a nice broad oak branch, so it made a good "table" and nothing of importance fell to the ground...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

I suppose he wasn't into eating Pigeon feet...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Recently, I noticed a place, about 20 feet (6m) off the ground in a large tree near the street, where some "critter" has been "cutting" small leaf clusters and dropping them to the ground. I speculated that it might be a large bird, who was opening up the foliage a bit, better to fly in and out of his "home".  It certainly seems plausible that this fellow is the culprit.  

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

I'll keep an eye out for my very welcome friend, and hope to see him again in the future, but I would never expect to have another "blind-luck" face-to-face photographic opportunity like this !!

Camera handy, batteries charged !!

Y'all take care,
- Mark

Airshow Houston 2015 !!

Hello folks,

Well, Mid-October in Houston is time for "Wings over Houston 2015", the annual airshow at Ellington Field, just next to NASA, a little south of downtown Houston.  We've been a couple of times and had fantastic luck with the weather each time.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A huge Airlift Command C5A...astounding !

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

My favorite is probably the B-17 Super Fortress, but Brenda's favorite 
is far and away the P-51 Mustang "Cadillac of the Sky !"

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

NASA's "Flying Guppy", for air transport of relatively light equipment, 
aircraft components, large satellites, etc.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

I hope I don't sound arrogant when I say that I am proud of my country.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

"My" B-17.  Brenda's favorite component of the B-17 is the Ball Turret, which you can't see well here, but it's embedded in the belly of the plane, and is just large enough for a small guy to cram himself into, knees up in his face, firing a machine gun between his feet.  It is not a job for a guy with "tiny stones".

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

This year there was a beautiful British Spitfire,  Developed at a time similar to the P-51, and with a bit of developmental cross-pollination, the two had a huge impact in the air battles of WW-II.  Huge.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Here's the Spitfire reflected in the highly polished aluminum skin of the P-51.  
It think this it's my favorite shot of the day.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

 Plenty of sun splashing around...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Looking down the flight line, I noticed something a bit "different"...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Brenda said, "oh my gosh, look at those shoes !"...
...I said "yes dear...it's all about the shoes..."  ;-)

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

I had never seen one of these fly before, a Junkers 262, the world's first jet powered military aircraft, developed by the Germans late in WW-II.  It was late in the war, and German industry was under such assault by US and British bombing that it couldn't be produced in large numbers.  That's quite fortunate for us, it's speed was a serious game-changer.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A slightly more modern jet, 
one of the US Air Force Thunderbird's F-16s.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

A bit of a contrast...a US Air Force B-52 Bomber, which still fly in large numbers today even though they first flew in the early 1950's (yes...the 50's)...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

And a very modern Predator unmanned ground-attack aircraft.  Painted on the side of its two Hellfire Missiles..."Don't Mess with Texas" (this and a few others are based here on the Texas Gulf Coast).

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

 Quite a few folks out on the flight line...

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

This B-17 is a tiny one, only 5 ft (1.5 m) wingspan (...a radio controlled model).

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Here come the "Japanese" (only one is a real "Zero", the rest are US-made aircraft with paint jobs to make them look like Japanese planes for movies like Tora Tora Tora.

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

What's an airshow without a dog fight reenactment and a little smoke !

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin

Flying all together is a very rare site, 
the Spitfire, the Junkers 262, 
and "The Cadillac of the Sky !"


Wings Over Houston 2016 
will be October 22-23, 2016


Y'all come on down !!
-Mark

Photo by Mark W. Laughlin