Features the electronic book "Disaster on Green Ramp: The Army's Response" by Mary Ellen Condon-Rall of the Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. Discusses a plane crash and massive fire at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, that killed or injured more than 100 paratroopers in 1994.

Disaster on Green Ramp: The Army's Response is a powerful story of pain, terror, pride, courage, and compassion. It celebrates the magnificent spirit of the men and women who make up America's military community. This work describes the Army's exceptionally effective response to the tragic events on 23 March 1994 at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina. On that day a large number of Army paratroopers from nearby Fort Bragg had assembled in an area adjacent to the airstrip known as Green Ramp, preparing to board a transport that would carry them aloft for a training parachute jump. They never made that j ump. Shortly after 1400 hours two aircraft attempted to land simultaneously at Pope. The resulting crash produced a massive fire that brought death or injury to more than a hundred paratroopers- the worst peacetime loss of life suffered by the 82d Airborne Division since World War II. You will recognize the troopers, doctors, medics, chaplains, volunteers, and family members who triumphed over tragedy; some by name, but most by type. They are, in truth, much like you and me- essentially ordinary people cast in extraordinary roles by fate. What they shared was a fierce loyalty to one another.

Features the electronic book "Disaster on Green Ramp: The Army's Response" by Mary Ellen Condon-Rall of the Center of Military History in Washington, D.C. Discusses a plane crash and massive fire at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, that killed or injured more than 100 paratroopers in 1994.

In 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War occasioned many reflections on the place of science and technology in the conflict. That the war ended with Allied victory in the Pacific theatre, inevitably focussed attention upon the Pacific region, and particularly upon the Manhattan project and its outcome. It was in the Pacific that Western physics and engineering gave birth to the Atomic Age. However, the Pacific war had also proved a testing time, and a testing space, for other disciplines and institutions. Extreme environments and opemtional distances, and the fundamental demands of logistics, required the Allies and the Japanese to innovate many scientific and technological practices. Just as medicine and botany were called upon to fight tropical diseases and insect pests, so engineers, anthropol ogists and geographers were called upon to understand local conditions and cli mates, and to work with local peoples whose traditional lives were changed forever by the experience. At the same time, the war played midwife to a host of new de velopments, not least in scientific intelligence and in chemical and biological weapons, which were to acquire far greater importance after 1945.