Daniel Edwards retweetledi
"Some of these Americans are in their early or mid 20s, and we give them the gift of this incredible responsibility, hundreds of thousands of pounds of aircraft," Chairman of Joint Chiefs Dan Caine says of B-1 and B-52 bomber crews. "Their mission actually begins the day prior, when they're given a target, or a bunch of targets, and they begin to study those targets--looking at what are the effects required, what are the weapons required to get there, how will we program these weapons, what is the weather, what is the tanker flow?
"It's an incredibly complex problem that we give each and every one of these crews, and they work it over the period of 24 hours prior, get some rest, and then step out the door to go fly.
"The last thing they do is they check all of their equipment -- their oxygen mask, survival gear.
"They crank the jets about an hour prior to take off and then launch into the daylight, doing their pre-flight checks. And as the kids say, lock in and prepare to go to war, sometimes on a long and stressful journey."
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