LtCol "Otis" Raible, USMC
09-18-2012, 01:00 AM
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LtCol "Otis" Raible, USMC
Such a tragedy. The article title should say "squadron Commanding Officer" vice "squad leader".
Marine jet squad leader killed in Afghan attack
Marine jet squad leader killed in Afghan attack
09-18-2012, 09:55 AM
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The only place I've seen this mentioned is Drudge. This was a massive victory for the insurgents and some how has been completely overlooked by the mainstream media.
They were able to destroy half the squadron.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/mi...8a3845c21.html
They were able to destroy half the squadron.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/mi...8a3845c21.html
09-21-2012, 03:05 PM
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unbelievable
I cannot believe the dearth of news coverage or the lack of national appreaciation for the significance of what happened. Perhaps someone can tell me how far back in USMC history we have to go to match such a tragedy, considering the number of destroyed aircraft and the fact they cliped the C.O......Wake Island ?
09-21-2012, 07:31 PM
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Originally Posted by smugglersblues
I cannot believe the dearth of news coverage or the lack of national appreaciation for the significance of what happened. Perhaps someone can tell me how far back in USMC history we have to go to match such a tragedy, considering the number of destroyed aircraft and the fact they cliped the C.O......Wake Island ?
09-22-2012, 08:43 AM
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Originally Posted by smugglersblues
I cannot believe the dearth of news coverage or the lack of national appreaciation for the significance of what happened. Perhaps someone can tell me how far back in USMC history we have to go to match such a tragedy, considering the number of destroyed aircraft and the fact they cliped the C.O......Wake Island ?
Taliban Attack Results In Worst American Airpower Loss Since Vietnam
09-24-2012, 04:35 AM
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From: Commanding Officer, Marine Attack Squadron 211
To: Squadron Attack Pilots
Subj: COMMANDER'S GUIDANCE FOR SQUADRON ATTACK PILOTS
1. Professional hunger. My goal is to identify those Officers who want to be professional attack pilots and dedicate the resources required to build them into the flight leaders and instructors that are required for the long-term health of our community. This is not a socialist organization. We will not all be equal in terms of quals and flight hours. Some will advance faster than others, and because this is not a union, your rate of advancement will have nothing to do with seniority. Your rate of advancement will instead be determined by your hunger, professionalism, work ethic, and performance. If flying jets and supporting Marines is your passion and your profession, you are in the right squadron. If these things are viewed simply as your job, please understand that I must invest for the future in others. Your time in a gun squadron might be limited, so it is up to you to make the most of the opportunities that are presented.
2. Professional focus. Our approach to aviation is based upon the absolute requirement to be 'brilliant in the basics.' Over the last few years Marine TACAIR has not punted the tactical nearly so often as the admin. Sound understanding of NATOPS, aircraft systems, and SOPs is therefore every bit as important as your understanding of the ANTTP and TOPGUN. With this in mind, ensure the admin portions of your plan are solid before you move onto objective area planning. Once you begin tactical planning, remember that keeping things 'simple and easy to execute' will usually be your surest path to success. If the plan is not safe, it is not tactically sound.
3. Attitude. I firmly believe in the phrase 'hire for attitude, train for skill.' Work ethic, willingness to accept constructive criticism, and a professional approach to planning, briefing, and debriefing will get you 90% of the way towards any qualification or certification you are pursuing. The other 10% is comprised of in-flight judgment and performance, and that will often come as a result of the first 90%. Seek to learn from your own mistakes and the mistakes of others. Just as a championship football team debriefs their game film, we are going to analyze our tapes and conduct thorough flight debriefs. It has often been said that the success of a sortie is directly proportional to the caliber of the plan and brief. The other side of this coin is that the amount of learning that takes place as a result of a sortie is directly proportional to the caliber of the debrief.
4. Moral courage. Speak up if something seems wrong or unsafe. We all know what the standards are supposed to be in Naval Aviation and in the Corps. Enforce them! When we fail to enforce the existing standards, we are actually setting and enforcing a new standard that is lower.
5. Dedication. If you average one hour per workday studying, 6 months from now you will be brilliant. That is all it takes; one hour per day. As you start to notice the difference between yourself and those who are unable to find 60 minutes, I want you to know that I will have already taken note. Then, I want you to ask yourself this question: 'How good could I be if I really gave this my all?'
6. When all else fades away, attack pilots have one mission: provide offensive air support for Marines. The Harrier community needs professional attack pilots who can meet this calling. It does not require you to abandon your family. It does not require you to work 16 hours per day, six days per week. It requires only a few simple commitments to meet this calling: be efficient with your time at work so that you can study one hour per day; be fully prepared for your sorties and get the maximum learning possible out of every debrief; have thick skin and be willing to take constructive criticism; find one weekend per month to go on cross country. When you are given the opportunity to advance, for those few days go to the mat and give it your all, 100%, at the expense of every other thing in your life. To quote Roger Staubach, 'there are no traffic jams on the extra mile.' If you can be efficient during the workweek, give an Olympian effort for check rides and certifications, and are a team player, the sky will literally be the limit for you in this squadron.
C. K. RAIBLE ----------------
To: Squadron Attack Pilots
Subj: COMMANDER'S GUIDANCE FOR SQUADRON ATTACK PILOTS
1. Professional hunger. My goal is to identify those Officers who want to be professional attack pilots and dedicate the resources required to build them into the flight leaders and instructors that are required for the long-term health of our community. This is not a socialist organization. We will not all be equal in terms of quals and flight hours. Some will advance faster than others, and because this is not a union, your rate of advancement will have nothing to do with seniority. Your rate of advancement will instead be determined by your hunger, professionalism, work ethic, and performance. If flying jets and supporting Marines is your passion and your profession, you are in the right squadron. If these things are viewed simply as your job, please understand that I must invest for the future in others. Your time in a gun squadron might be limited, so it is up to you to make the most of the opportunities that are presented.
2. Professional focus. Our approach to aviation is based upon the absolute requirement to be 'brilliant in the basics.' Over the last few years Marine TACAIR has not punted the tactical nearly so often as the admin. Sound understanding of NATOPS, aircraft systems, and SOPs is therefore every bit as important as your understanding of the ANTTP and TOPGUN. With this in mind, ensure the admin portions of your plan are solid before you move onto objective area planning. Once you begin tactical planning, remember that keeping things 'simple and easy to execute' will usually be your surest path to success. If the plan is not safe, it is not tactically sound.
3. Attitude. I firmly believe in the phrase 'hire for attitude, train for skill.' Work ethic, willingness to accept constructive criticism, and a professional approach to planning, briefing, and debriefing will get you 90% of the way towards any qualification or certification you are pursuing. The other 10% is comprised of in-flight judgment and performance, and that will often come as a result of the first 90%. Seek to learn from your own mistakes and the mistakes of others. Just as a championship football team debriefs their game film, we are going to analyze our tapes and conduct thorough flight debriefs. It has often been said that the success of a sortie is directly proportional to the caliber of the plan and brief. The other side of this coin is that the amount of learning that takes place as a result of a sortie is directly proportional to the caliber of the debrief.
4. Moral courage. Speak up if something seems wrong or unsafe. We all know what the standards are supposed to be in Naval Aviation and in the Corps. Enforce them! When we fail to enforce the existing standards, we are actually setting and enforcing a new standard that is lower.
5. Dedication. If you average one hour per workday studying, 6 months from now you will be brilliant. That is all it takes; one hour per day. As you start to notice the difference between yourself and those who are unable to find 60 minutes, I want you to know that I will have already taken note. Then, I want you to ask yourself this question: 'How good could I be if I really gave this my all?'
6. When all else fades away, attack pilots have one mission: provide offensive air support for Marines. The Harrier community needs professional attack pilots who can meet this calling. It does not require you to abandon your family. It does not require you to work 16 hours per day, six days per week. It requires only a few simple commitments to meet this calling: be efficient with your time at work so that you can study one hour per day; be fully prepared for your sorties and get the maximum learning possible out of every debrief; have thick skin and be willing to take constructive criticism; find one weekend per month to go on cross country. When you are given the opportunity to advance, for those few days go to the mat and give it your all, 100%, at the expense of every other thing in your life. To quote Roger Staubach, 'there are no traffic jams on the extra mile.' If you can be efficient during the workweek, give an Olympian effort for check rides and certifications, and are a team player, the sky will literally be the limit for you in this squadron.
C. K. RAIBLE ----------------
09-25-2012, 04:29 AM
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Washington Post
September 24, 2012
Pg. 7
Marine's Actions Described As Heroic
His actions during Taliban attack saved lives, comrades say
By Ernesto Londono
Lt. Col. Christopher K. Raible was heading home to video-chat with his wife after dinner when the first blasts rang out. The pops in the distance on Sept. 14 at Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan were harbingers of the most audacious Taliban attack on a major NATO base in the decade-long war.
Like most folks in the sprawling remote desert camp, Raible, 40, a Marine fighter pilot, faced two choices: seek cover or run toward the sound of gunfire.
“The difference between me and some people is that when they hear gunfire, they run. When I hear gunfire, I run to it,” the squadron commander had often told his Marines, half in jest, recalled Maj. Greer Chambless, who was with Raible on the night of the attack.
That evening, Raible did just that. Armed only with a handgun, he embarked on a course that cost him his life and probably averted even more devastating losses, witnesses and comrades said.
At least 15 heavily armed insurgents dressed in U.S. Army uniforms snuck inside the British-run airfield and incinerated six U.S. fighter jets, each worth about $25 million. The attack offered a sobering glimpse of the capabilities of the Taliban in Helmand province, one of the key targets of the American troop surge that ended this past week. It resulted in a staggering loss of military materiel and served as a reminder of the challenges of winding down the war by the end of 2014.
By daybreak the next morning, as smoke stopped billowing from the airfield and weary commanders gave the all-clear to U.S. Marines and British Special Forces troops who spent the night defending the camp, it wasn’t the threats raised by the infiltration on the minds of many on the base. Rather, they were primarily struck by the actions of a tough and widely admired commander who returned home in a coffin.
This account of the attack on Camp Bastion and the response is drawn from interviews with four witnesses and a summary of the preliminary investigation by the Marine Corps.
The assailants, assembled into three teams of five fighters, cut a hole in the fence on the eastern end of the airfield at approximately 10:15 p.m. Wearing suicide vests and armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, they moved toward hangars where AV-8B Harrier jets were parked and began to open fire.
“We saw a rocket shoot into the sky,” said Lance Cpl. Danielle Ritter, 21, a combat logistics Marine who was unloading cargo from a truck when the assault began. “At first I thought it was a flare. Then we heard small-arms fire.”
In the distance, she saw the silhouettes of the gunmen. “I didn’t realize who they were until another rocket lit up the sky,” she said, speaking on the phone from Afghanistan. “We just saw the sky light up and rockets go across the sky.”
The insurgents destroyed six Harriers, the type of aircraft Raible flew to provide backup for Marines on the ground, and significantly damaged two others. Three fueling stations were also lit up.
About a mile away, Raible had just finished dinner with Chambless, one of his deputies. It had been a long but unremarkable day for the squadron commander. Hours earlier, Raible had flown with one of his officers, Capt. Kevin Smalley, 29. After landing, he went into the office to discuss the mission and take care of paperwork. Shortly after 10 p.m., as he did most nights, Raible headed to his living quarters to call his wife and three children in Yuma, Ariz.
“He spent a lot of time on the phone, as much as he could spare calling his wife and kids,” Smalley said. “One of his favorite parts of the day was being able to talk to them and see their faces.”
When it became clear Bastion was under attack, Raible threw on body armor and jumped in a vehicle with Chambless. Because his rifle was not nearby, the commander charged into the combat zone armed only with a handgun. The two men exchanged nary a word during the short drive as they scanned the landscape for insurgents. When they got to the flight line, Raible dashed into a maintenance room and began barking out orders to the Marines who would soon push the assailants back.
Backed by a handful of men, he ran toward another building to check whether the troops there were safe. Along the way, Raible and his men were attacked. He and Sgt. Bradley W. Atwell, 27, of Kokomo, Ind., died of wounds from an explosion, said Lt. Col. Stewart Upton, a military spokesman. Chambless was devastated but not particularly surprised.
“It was very fitting that he was killed leading his men from the front,” the major said.
The men Raible led out of the maintenance building fought back, pushing one team of five assailants into a remote area of the airfield, where they were killed in an airstrike.
A Taliban statement said the intended purpose of the raid was to catch the foreign troops by surprise and attack them in bed.
Upton said Raible and his men helped prevent what could have been catastrophic losses. Nine of the remaining assailants were killed in the following hours, and one was wounded.
“The feeling is that because of the aggressive counter we were able to contain them,” Upton said.
The week since the attack has been rough for the squadron’s Marines at Bastion as they have come to terms with the loss of their leader and most of the aircraft in the fleet. “It’s been a busy week picking up the pieces,” said Smalley, the captain. “We’re focusing back on the mission at hand, getting Marines refocused on the fight. We have already resumed combat operations. We’re going to show the Taliban their little attack is not going to stop us.”
September 24, 2012
Pg. 7
Marine's Actions Described As Heroic
His actions during Taliban attack saved lives, comrades say
By Ernesto Londono
Lt. Col. Christopher K. Raible was heading home to video-chat with his wife after dinner when the first blasts rang out. The pops in the distance on Sept. 14 at Camp Bastion in southern Afghanistan were harbingers of the most audacious Taliban attack on a major NATO base in the decade-long war.
Like most folks in the sprawling remote desert camp, Raible, 40, a Marine fighter pilot, faced two choices: seek cover or run toward the sound of gunfire.
“The difference between me and some people is that when they hear gunfire, they run. When I hear gunfire, I run to it,” the squadron commander had often told his Marines, half in jest, recalled Maj. Greer Chambless, who was with Raible on the night of the attack.
That evening, Raible did just that. Armed only with a handgun, he embarked on a course that cost him his life and probably averted even more devastating losses, witnesses and comrades said.
At least 15 heavily armed insurgents dressed in U.S. Army uniforms snuck inside the British-run airfield and incinerated six U.S. fighter jets, each worth about $25 million. The attack offered a sobering glimpse of the capabilities of the Taliban in Helmand province, one of the key targets of the American troop surge that ended this past week. It resulted in a staggering loss of military materiel and served as a reminder of the challenges of winding down the war by the end of 2014.
By daybreak the next morning, as smoke stopped billowing from the airfield and weary commanders gave the all-clear to U.S. Marines and British Special Forces troops who spent the night defending the camp, it wasn’t the threats raised by the infiltration on the minds of many on the base. Rather, they were primarily struck by the actions of a tough and widely admired commander who returned home in a coffin.
This account of the attack on Camp Bastion and the response is drawn from interviews with four witnesses and a summary of the preliminary investigation by the Marine Corps.
The assailants, assembled into three teams of five fighters, cut a hole in the fence on the eastern end of the airfield at approximately 10:15 p.m. Wearing suicide vests and armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, they moved toward hangars where AV-8B Harrier jets were parked and began to open fire.
“We saw a rocket shoot into the sky,” said Lance Cpl. Danielle Ritter, 21, a combat logistics Marine who was unloading cargo from a truck when the assault began. “At first I thought it was a flare. Then we heard small-arms fire.”
In the distance, she saw the silhouettes of the gunmen. “I didn’t realize who they were until another rocket lit up the sky,” she said, speaking on the phone from Afghanistan. “We just saw the sky light up and rockets go across the sky.”
The insurgents destroyed six Harriers, the type of aircraft Raible flew to provide backup for Marines on the ground, and significantly damaged two others. Three fueling stations were also lit up.
About a mile away, Raible had just finished dinner with Chambless, one of his deputies. It had been a long but unremarkable day for the squadron commander. Hours earlier, Raible had flown with one of his officers, Capt. Kevin Smalley, 29. After landing, he went into the office to discuss the mission and take care of paperwork. Shortly after 10 p.m., as he did most nights, Raible headed to his living quarters to call his wife and three children in Yuma, Ariz.
“He spent a lot of time on the phone, as much as he could spare calling his wife and kids,” Smalley said. “One of his favorite parts of the day was being able to talk to them and see their faces.”
When it became clear Bastion was under attack, Raible threw on body armor and jumped in a vehicle with Chambless. Because his rifle was not nearby, the commander charged into the combat zone armed only with a handgun. The two men exchanged nary a word during the short drive as they scanned the landscape for insurgents. When they got to the flight line, Raible dashed into a maintenance room and began barking out orders to the Marines who would soon push the assailants back.
Backed by a handful of men, he ran toward another building to check whether the troops there were safe. Along the way, Raible and his men were attacked. He and Sgt. Bradley W. Atwell, 27, of Kokomo, Ind., died of wounds from an explosion, said Lt. Col. Stewart Upton, a military spokesman. Chambless was devastated but not particularly surprised.
“It was very fitting that he was killed leading his men from the front,” the major said.
The men Raible led out of the maintenance building fought back, pushing one team of five assailants into a remote area of the airfield, where they were killed in an airstrike.
A Taliban statement said the intended purpose of the raid was to catch the foreign troops by surprise and attack them in bed.
Upton said Raible and his men helped prevent what could have been catastrophic losses. Nine of the remaining assailants were killed in the following hours, and one was wounded.
“The feeling is that because of the aggressive counter we were able to contain them,” Upton said.
The week since the attack has been rough for the squadron’s Marines at Bastion as they have come to terms with the loss of their leader and most of the aircraft in the fleet. “It’s been a busy week picking up the pieces,” said Smalley, the captain. “We’re focusing back on the mission at hand, getting Marines refocused on the fight. We have already resumed combat operations. We’re going to show the Taliban their little attack is not going to stop us.”
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