How the Pentagon Got Its Shape

Pcol writes "The Washington Post is running a story on the design process for the Pentagon building and why it ended up with its unusual shape. In July 1941 with World War II looming, a small group of army officers met to consider a secret plan to provide a permanent home for War Department headquarters containing 4 million square feet of office space and housing 40,000 people. The building that Brig. Gen. Brehon Burke Somervell, head of the Army's Construction Division, wanted to build was too large to fit within the confines of Washington DC and would have to be located across the Potomac River in Arlington. "We want 500,000 square feet ready in six months, and the whole thing ready in a year," the general said adding that he wanted a design on his desk by Monday morning. The easiest solution, a tall building, was out because of pre-war restrictions on steel usage and the desire not to ruin Washington's skyline. The tract selected had a asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions so the building was designed to conform to the tract of land. Then with objections that the new building would block views from Arlington National Cemetery, the location was moved almost one-half mile south. The building would no longer be constructed on the five-sided Arlington Farm site yet the team continued with plans for a pentagon at the new location. In the rush to complete the project, there was simply no time to change the design."

One page version rather than five pages ...

Here is the printable version [washingtonpost.com] ... as noted at the bottom, this this is an excerpt from an upcoming book The Pentagon: a History by Stephan Vogel. Newspapers tend to do these reprints over 3-day weekends since not a lotta news happening - here's something ... uhhhhh ... exciting [watching-paint-dry.com] happening today ... ;-)

Re:One page version rather than five pages ...

Well, there is a reason for those five pages. The site was restricted originaly by speed of the internet, but then it was moved to another server. The team continued with plans for five at the new location. In the rush to complete the project, there was simply no time to change the design.

Principia Discordia reference

Ever heard of the law of fives ?

Re:Principia Discordia reference

almost 20 years before the founding of discordianism?

impressive.

Re:Principia Discordia reference

The Illuminatus Trilogy is a humorous work of fiction. It doesn't try to explain anything. It is a comedy novel, like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, except about conspiracies instead of space-travel. It finds an audience in the post-LSD era, because it is still funny.

Re:Principia Discordia reference

> The Illuminatus Trilogy is a humorous work of fiction. It doesn't try to explain anything. It is a comedy novel, like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, except about conspiracies instead of space-travel. It finds an audience in the post-LSD era, because it is still funny.

The Illuminatus Trilogy is a humorous work of non-fiction. It successfully tries to explain everything. It is a comedy novel, like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, except about conspiracies instead of space-travel. It finds an audience in the post-LSD era, because it is still relevant.

("Both of the preceding statements are true. Both of the preceding statements are false. Both of the preceding statements are irrelevant.")

The passages on Celine's Laws [slashdot.org] are particularly relevant today. You don't need a conspiracy to explain Gulf War II. You just need Saddam's lieutenants swearing up and down that the WMD projects are going well -- because they know they'll be shot if they tell the truth. Nor do you need a conspiracy on the American side -- you just need a bunch of paranoids listening in on the conversations between Saddam and his lieutenants.

Saddam: "How are my nukes?"
Lieutenant: "What nukes?"
Saddam: *BANG*
Lieutenant #2: "Gulp... umm, actually, they're going very well, sir!"
Lieutenant #3: "Yes, it's going very well!"

America: "What's Saddam up to?"
Spies: "Well, every one of his lieutenants say his nukes are almost ready, sir!"
America: "Launch the missiles!"

Some folks might even find the following little snippet of dialogue to be relevant.

"Their grip on Washington is still pretty precarious. They've been able to socialize the economy. But if they showed their hand now and went totalitarian all the way, there would be a revolution. Middle-readers would rise up with right-wingers, and left-libertarians, and the Illuminati aren't powerful enough to withstand that kind of massive revolution. But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution."

"What sort of tools?"

"More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason--or are manipulated into reasoning--that the entire populace must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted."

Not bad for the 1970s.

It's not true unless it makes you laugh.

But then, to bring us back on topic, my first thought on 9/11 was to wonder if he got out of the Pentagon. Unfortunately, it looks like he did.

Cheney's House

That's a pretty good cover story. Really they had to radiation-shield the pentagram that locks down the devil at its center, with lots of authoritarian human bodies to absorb the extremely high frequencies that scorch souls.

Really in the Middle of the Basement Was...

In more innocent days, the center ring, lower level of the Pentagon contained a mini-shopping mall (called the Concourse) with department stores, a bookseller and other shops, restaurants, a Post Office, and businesses such as dry cleaners. It was also a m

Re:Cheney's House

That's a pretty good cover story. Really they had to radiation-shield the pentagram that locks down the devil at its center, with lots of authoritarian human bodies to absorb the extremely high frequencies that scorch souls.

What a bunch of superstitious bullshit.

Devils don't exist.

Everyone knows it is a captured shoggoth from the 1930s Miskatonic University Antarctic expedition...

Re:Cheney's House

Bah, everyone knows shoggoths don't even see euclidean geometric structures [100777.com], let alone get bound by them.

The shoggoth's Antarctic iceblock is in the Disney Concert Hall [about.com] in LA, keeping Walt's head frozen.

How the Pentagon Got Its Shape

How the Pentagon Got Its Shape... (It's pentagonal.)
This vividly reminds me of "the time when the milkman was 47 minutes late" [wikipedia.org]

Re:How the Pentagon Got Its Shape

Next up - "what part of George's anatomy inspired the Washington Monument".

The "War Department"

At least they were honest back then. Now it is called the "Defense Department"?! HA!

the names of the chief alternative designs

..."Rectangle", "Quadrilateral", and "Square", tested poorly in focus groups.

Re:the names of the chief alternative designs

And the public thought that "Moebius Strip", though it sounded fun at first, hinted too much at something German.

Re:the names of the chief alternative designs

And the public thought that "Moebius Strip", though it sounded fun at first, hinted too much at something German.

Nah, it was just they thought the discussion would go on for ever ;)

Re:the names of the chief alternative designs

Discussion? More like a monologue ;)

What!?

You mean all those conspiracy web sites that claim that the shape of the pentagon and capitol hill are giant satanic drawings are bullshit!?

When the bureaucracy worked

WW2 was a special time in the history of the public service. Projects were approved and built at a pace that embarrasses us today. Sure, the military had a bureaucracy but there was a war to be won. Everyone focused on being effective. Petty bureaucrats with petty bureaucratic concerns were swept aside.

The lessons were learned in WW1. When that war started, the British officer corps was incompetent. They were in charge of the empire's troops and there were massacres of Canadian, Australian, Newfoundland etc. troops. The colonies weren't about to put up with that. In fact there is a story that the Canadian prime minister hauled the British prime minister out of his chair by his lapels and made it very clear that, if there was another such massacre, the Canadians were going home. The incompetent British officers were replaced by competent colonials. By the time the Americans arrived, they had some very good models of military efficiency to copy. (You could also make the argument that they weren't that stupid in the first place.) In any event, when WW2 came along, the lessons learned in WW1 were still living memory.

Sadly, given enough peace time, the fat bloated bureaucracy rears its ugly head again. The meritocracy is suppressed. If we had to build another Pentagon today, it would cost too much and take too long, and some company close to certain politicians would get rich. In fact, looking at the corruption and waste of money in Iraq, I'm feeling very depressed.

Lessons Learned, and Forgotten

One area where the Brits and Americans had to relearn the lessons of World War I was anti-submarine warfare. Only after many ships were sunk, and lives lost, did they reinstitute the convoy system that had proved so successful in the previous war. It was if the allied navies had suffered a collective attack of memory loss and were determined to repeat all of their previous mistakes. In contrast, the Germans had developed and practiced new tactics to make more effective use of their modernized submarine fleet. The damage to the allies was only limited by the relatively small size of the German submarine fleet and design deficiencies in their torpedoes.

Prison of Yog-Sothoth

They're using this fictional history as a way to cover up that Yog-Sothoth is imprisoned in the center. Certainly the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon was an attempt to free Yog-Sothoth [necronomi.com] (see the "Elder Sign" section).

Pentagon is traditional for military buildings

I thought everyone knew this, but I guess not...

A pentagon is a very traditional shape for fortifications. Reason is very simple. If you have a pentagon shaped fort then each side of the fort can provide supporting fire to its two adjacent sides.

A sides on a square fort cannot provide supporting fire at all. Sides on a hexagonal fort can but with a hexagonal fort you can only get 50% of the defenders firing against an attack on a side. With a pentagonal fort you can get 60%. This basic fact makes a pentagon the most effective shape for a fortification, assuming no terrain features to change the situation.

It would be an amazing coincidence if The Pentagon was pentagonal for any reason but this.

Re:Pentagon is traditional for military buildings

It would be an amazing coincidence if The Pentagon was pentagonal for any reason but this.

Um... other than the fact that the Pentagon is NOT a fortified facility, and that fortifications of pretty much anything bigger than a bunker were already old news by the time the building was designed. It could be a bit of an homage to the old fort designs, but in the middle of WWII, they weren't feeling particularly arty at the time. Occam's Razor goes to the story in the article: the very rushed designs were drafted around a roughly pentagonal plot of land in Arlington, and construction was quickly moved a bit at the last minute, without time or inclination to redesign it. It's hard for people today to even begin to know what it felt like to be truly wrapped up in a period like WWII... we know nothing (as civilians) of that degree of nationwide effort and expense aimed at combatting forces intent on our subjugation/destruction and how much that tends to dimish things like architectural squabbles and design life cycles.

This is not true.

The real reason was that certain other countries had a building with FOUR sides and the people who built the pentagon were thinking, fuck it all, we're going to FIVE BLADES..errr SIDES!!!

TLF

Screw the pentagon

Screw the pentagon, i want to know how this [google.com] military building got its shape.

Re:Screw the pentagon

usually swastikas are called "right-facing" or "left-facing", what a person means by clockwise or counterclockwise can vary. But if one is talking about the bend, then Buddhist is bent counter-clockwise, or to the left.

the Nazi swastika is "right-facing", with the arms of cross bent clockwise or to the right. The Hindu swastika is also usually right-facing, although you can sometimes see right and left facing mirror image swastikas in Hindu art. The Jain in India also use that right-facing bend usually.

WWII looming?

In July 1941 with World War II looming....

WWII was already in full blown force by July 1941: the Battle of Britain had already finished 8 months earlier (2 months if you talk to German historians), Germany had just invaded the Soviet Union, with occupied territories spanning France to Greece, North Africa to Norway, and the Holocaust was already moving along frighteningly quickly, with ten of thousands already killed and hundreds of thousands already rounded up into camps. Japan had already invaded much of eastern China, some of French Indo-China and had Korea for years.

Can we please get rid of the attitude that WWII started on 7 December 1941. I always find it interesting that the British (and even the occupied Dutch) declared war on Japan the same day the Americans did, but not only did the Americans take two years to declare war on Germany, they didn't even declare war on Germany first--Germany declared war on the US [wikipedia.org]! Looming indeed!

Re:WWII looming?

In the United States, World War II was looming in July 1941. Many countries were involved, Germany was on the move, the Pacific was looking to heat up, and here in the U.S. there was much debate between isolationists and non-isolationists about our potential involvement.

We weren't directly involved yet, so for us it did still LOOM in 1941. I expect someone in Russia would describe it much differently, with different dates. Similarly, Russians call it something like the "Great Patriotic War" rather than "World War II".

It's the old "three blind men describe an elephant" problem.

Re:WWII looming?

You know, America's lateness in WW-II used to always bother me.

Then I realized -- the new "pro-active" America bothers me a LOT MORE.

July 1941?!

Er.. WWII started in 1939 (with pre-war practice in China starting in 1931-37). By 1941 it was well under way.

Re:July 1941?!

"Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives: yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounded determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire."

Re:Pentagon or Pentagram?

Historical trivia on how one of the most known military buildings in the world came to be, I'd say. If they thought the Pentagon was built that way to fit the enormous pentagram in the basement and that the US military is run by devil worshippers, they'd simply do so. Right up there with the flat earth society and those that believe the moon landing was a hoax. Both of which should be put on a one-way rocket to crash into the moon's surface, HHGTTG style so they'd hopefully realize their error along the way, but that's a different story.

Re:Pentagon or Pentagram?

wow an anti-conspiracy theory guy on Slashdot? I didn't think you guys existed.

Re:Pentagon or Pentagram?

wow an anti-conspiracy theory guy on Slashdot? I didn't think you guys existed. - it is, of-course, a conspiracy.

Re:Pentagon or Pentagram?

Trivia: the Pentagon was constructed without regard for the curvature of the Earth. That's right, they just flattened the site out without even considering the effects of the curvature of the Earth.

This is proof that the Flat Earth Society was working in league with the Satanists and the Teamsters to create the cold war. Stalin was in on it, and so was Eisenhower and Truman. Pudge knows, but he's not saying. He's avoiding military service, because if he were caught by the terrorists in Iraq and the secret got out, it would be the end of our way of life. I salute you, Pudge, for keeping our secrets safe within the borders of the nation, and away from the terrorists in Iraq. Such a brave man.

Re:Pentagon or Pentagram?

I blame the freemasons.

I totally agree. Like all open source ventures, the quality just isn't there. The proprietary masons would have done it properly.

Re:

"In the rush to complete the project, there was simply no time to change the design."

If you are in IT, construction, or just about any other business where one has to deal with stringent project deadlines, you know exactly how true this situation is.

Bu

Re:

As they say, the Devil is in the details...

Re:Permanent home?

Sorry but this isn't the 2nd century BC where all you needed to go to war was to pick up a spear and put a helmet on. Amateur 'pickup' armies don't work, and will be easily destroyed by a full-time professional army.

Re:Permanent home?

If the full-time professional army was allowed to fight like their enemies in Iraq do, then the situation there would be different.

If we were actually fighting a War of Conquest, as people seem to insist that we are, then the situation would be different. We aren't fighting a War of Conquest though. We are fighting some sort of wet-dream nation-building exercise created by the Neo-Cons that assumed we'd be welcomed as liberators and only planned on being there for six months or so after the war. We are fighting Dubya's war because he had to one-up his Dad and go to Baghdad.

Irregular/guerrilla warfare only works if you assume that the occupying power has to follow certain conventions and rules of war that you (as the guerrilla) don't. If the occupying power is free from any political constraints then the guerrillas are screwed. Guerrilla warfare never worked against Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.

It also never really worked against the early Romans. They were only too happy to slaughter entire villages. Kill every male of military age and sell the women and children into slavery. Yeah, it's not pretty, but by the rules of the day it worked quite well. Lay down your arms and you can join the empire, resist us and we will crush you utterly and enslave any survivors.

People who accuse the United States of trying to "conquer" Iraq or Afghanistan don't know what true conquest is.

Re:Permanent home?

The Romans needed 200 years of constant warfare to pacify Hispania, in spite of using the genocidal means the parent describes. The Roman republic was characterized by an incredible degree of persistence in military matters. This was how they won their wars, not by superior military leadership/organization/technology.

Treat the cause, not the symptoms

This worked so effectively for us in Vietnam.

Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember the Vietnam war, but I do. The US was never officially at war against North Vietnam, they spent ten years helping South Vietnam fight the Viet Cong insurgents. They dropped a few million tons of bombs in North Vietnam, for sure, just like they did on the Viet Cong supply routes in Laos and Cambodia, but they never attempted to invade North Vietnam.

If the US had wanted to win the Vietnam war they should have invaded North Vietnam. Land there in an amphibious attack and war would have been won in a matter of weeks. Likewise, if they want to win the Iraq war now, they should invade Syria and Iran. If the US Army had stopped at the German border after liberating France from Nazism they would have lost WWII.

Ever since Truman refused the MacArthur request to attack China during the Korea war, the US has had this doctrine of limited wars, fighting proxy armies as if the power behind them did not exist. A very expensive way to obtain limited results.

Re:Permanent home?

The French resistance may have made life hot for the Nazi troops once in a while, but they had very little to do with why Germany lost the war, and they certainly didn't drive the Germans out of France. The real reason was that Germany was fighting on two fronts (western and Russian) and got over-extended, so was vulnerable to a concerted invasion force, and it wouldn't have mattered where that happened.

Re:Permanent home?

The Zimbardo Prison Experiment [prisonexp.org] at Stanford in 1971 illustrated that normal people can become exceptionally cruel under circumstances where one group dominates another. These were just random students. By the end of it, even Professor Zimbardo had joined in. It took an outside colleague to end the experiment.

The guards were given no specific training on how to be guards. Instead they were free, within limits, to do whatever they thought was necessary to maintain law and order in the prison and to command the respect of the prisoners.

The guards broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took the beds out, forced the ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion into solitary confinement, and generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners.

The guards again escalated very noticeably their level of harassment, increasing the humiliation they made the prisoners suffer, forcing them to do menial, repetitive work such as cleaning out toilet bowls with their bare hands. The guards had prisoners do push-ups, jumping jacks, whatever the guards could think up, and they increased the length of the counts to several hours each.

There were three types of guards. First, there were tough but fair guards who followed prison rules. Second, there were "good guys" who did little favors for the prisoners and never punished them. And finally, about a third of the guards were hostile, arbitrary, and inventive in their forms of prisoner humiliation. These guards appeared to thoroughly enjoy the power they wielded, yet none of our preliminary personality tests were able to predict this behavior. The only link between personality and prison behavior was a finding that prisoners with a high degree of authoritarianism endured our authoritarian prison environment longer than did other prisoners.

I ended the study prematurely for two reasons. First, we had learned through videotapes that the guards were escalating their abuse of prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no researchers were watching and the experiment was "off." Their boredom had driven them to ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners.

Second, Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw our prisoners being marched on a toilet run, bags over their heads, legs chained together, hands on each other's shoulders. Filled with outrage, she said, "It's terrible what you are doing to these boys!" Out of 50 or more outsiders who had seen our prison, she was the only one who ever questioned its morality. Once she countered the power of the situation, however, it became clear that the study should be ended.

Like most people, I'm disgusted by the actions of those guards at Abu Ghraib. However, the suggestion that the guards at Abu Ghraib would have signed up anyway is contrary to experimental data. The prison environment converted normal Stanford undergraduates into abusive prisoners and a well-established professor into a vindictive superintendent.

Re:Permanent home?

Here's a idea to get rid of the Empire quickly: pass a Constitutional amendment that no military troops can be paid or reimbursed, ever.

While I have no clue concerning this "Empire" of yours, one thing that would put actual teeth in the anti-war movement would be a repeal of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Act [wikipedia.org], such that the US would actually have to declare war to wage it. For those keeping track, WWII saw the last proper declarations of war.
One could take the cynical route, and say that the Congress is as anti-war as it is anti-corruption. A more realistic read might be that the niceties of actual states carrying out "diplomacy by other means" using uniformed organizations along civilized lines is simply OBE.

Re:Permanent home?

You are aware of what was happening in 1941 right? I mean, I know ignorant opinionated drivel like yours can be lazy, but I would assume you have at least been through the basic history of the whole WWI/WWII/Cold War progression.

Beyond that, you are yet another one of those fools that blames the military for any of this crap. The military does what it is told to do by civilian authority, just like the constitution says. The civilians say they can't do something, and that means they can't do it. You want to fix this, quit bitching and trying to screw over the men that serve their nation, and go fix the men that serve themselves (politicians). Further, while not paying politicians sounds very attractive, it would just further the whole lobbyist problem. When the military DOESN'T do what the civilians tell them, you have a military coop, and I am reasonably certain you would rather have the military continue to follow bullshit directives from idiot civilians that you can replace democratically than have to deal with a military coop (which by the way would probably rather quick once you opted to quit paying them).

The idea that you could fight and win in modern warfare just by grabbing a bunch of untrained people and not paying them is just unbelievably ignorant of what the military does. Beyond that, I seriously doubt you are aware of or give a damn about what the military does that ISN'T part of our idiot politicians agendas. The US military is usually one of the first responders to natural disasters globally, and other humanitarian things. Here [state.gov], this is why we should definitely quit paying them.

Re:Permanent home?

To be specific, WWII starts in around 1939. The US is eventually involved, and ends the war in 1945, at which time the UN is set up. In 1947 the US forms a plan to rebuild europe, which is completed by 1952. 7 years after the war ended and four year after the plan was implemented.

Um... it's worth mentioning that at the time we were rebuilding France, Germany, Italy, and every other spot in Europe that got economically and physically trashed during that war, we did NOT have religiously-driven suicidal crazies trying to kill pizza-shops full of their brothers and cousins in order to terrorize them out of wanting a democracy in which evil things like Women Reading Books, Music Being Played In Public, and Daughters Choosing Their Own Husbands might come about. There weren't well-financed groups of hidden Nazis willing to kill themselves and everyone in a vegetable market because a cave-dwelling extremist with buckets of cash has pursuaded them that Allah will open the doors to Virgin-Mart on their behalf if they can cause as much horrifying death as possible to scare people out of wanting a simple democratic, constitutional governement, and scare them back into settling for a brutal, theocratic, medieval-style thugocracy. With nukes.

It's not the same thing. Oh, and neither has it been 7 years since the end of hostilities or even close to it, because the people stoking the current conflict (the Iranians) are still busy DOING it.

Re:this reminds me

Actually, that was from a headline from the first post-9/11 issue of the Onion.

More correctly, it was a headline they thought went a little too far, and was not actually used. If memory serves it was something like "America Stronger Than Ever, Say Quadragon Officials."

~Philly

Re:

At the risk of being way off-topic, the truth is the best flame-bait. Different people have different versions of the truth - try talking sense to anyone who believes in "Intelligent Design". Or who thinks Iraq isn't another Viet-Nam. Or who thinks Windows

Re:bad shape for aerial attack

A pilot would easily find it even without a map.

Uh, yeah. I think that actually happened. Heard about it on the news or something.