We still name our helicopter gunships after victims of genocide
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thought of yet. The cutthroat mentality necessary for europeans to live in such large numbers so close to each other hadn't been necessary for the native tribes who populated North America. The europeans needed weapons to kill each other that took fairness and honor out of the equation. The natives of North America didn't need such dishonorable things. They had so much space that sooner or later every tribe knew Peace.
From my favorite Queen song:
Oh the red man knows wars
With his hands and his knives (I think this was actually "his mind"
On the Bible you swore
Fought your battle with lies
A simple, primitive culture were caught off guard by a culture who was already well versed in ways to kill other humans... and thought little of doing so if it meant gaining an inch of land. A culture who bred like roaches, and needed to find new places to live not ONLY because of their proximity to one another, but also for their propensity for turning weaker peoples into feudal slaves.
I don't care that white europeans use the tribal names of my ancestors to name their killing machines. Words are just words. I don't care because I know that if the europeans had shown up on these shores armed with the same weapons the First Nations had, they wouldn't have stood a snowball's chance in hell of surviving their first contact. The europeans would have continued sending boats, only to have the passengers on those boats subject to worse and worse punishments. The only reason they sent the boats in the first place is because they lacked the good sense to live in close proximity to each other without claiming the land each other lived on.
CALL your killing machine the Apache. Call your killing machine whatever you want... WE know your reason: You don't want to call your killing machine a "White European". It cheapens you somehow.
The AH-1 White European? Indian tribes have way cooler names. I hope you don't want us to rename our rivers to stuff like "New Thames" 
USS Wasp (CV7)1941
USS Hornet (CV8) 1941
The only combat helo's I rode on were the UH-1B Huey and the CH-47 Chinook in Vietnam.
The Sea Cobra.
Not to mention dropping water on drought driven wildfires.
...it could be that it was requested by the tribes. But trying to verify that. 
Eat me, please.
During WWII the 101st Airborne Division's 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment sought the permission and began using a profile of Geronimo with lightning bolts on its patch. For its regimental crest, the 501st adopted the image of a stylized thunderbird above the 'Geronimo' motto:
The regiment's troops were known as "the Geronimos," something that continued through the VN War and probably to this day (even though the two 501st battalions that remained with the 101st in VN were deactivated after that war, then reactivated for GWOT as part of a different unit.
I've seen reports of tribal leaders participating in the dedicaion ceremonies for helicopters that use tribal names. The names also have to get a lot of approvals, including from the U.S. Patent Office, before adoption:
The Commanding General (CG) of the U.S. Army Aviation Missile Command (AMCOM), located at Redstone Arsenal, near Huntsville, Alabama, had the responsibility of initiating action to select a popular name for an Army aircraft. For this purpose, the CG maintained a list of possible names obtained from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. For brevity the names usually consisted of only one word. When a new aircraft reached the production stage, or immediately before it went into production, the CG selected five possible names. The selection decision was based on the sound, the history, and the relationship of the name to the mission of the aircraft.
The names chosen had to appeal to the imagination, without sacrificing dignity, and suggest an aggressive spirit and confidence in the capabilities of the aircraft. They also had to suggest mobility, firepower and endurance. The chosen names were sent to the Trade Mark (™) Division of the U.S. Patent Office to determine if there was any legal objection to their use.
...
After approval by the Patent Office, the five names were sent to the Chief of Research and Development, Department of the Army, with a short justification for each. From these five, the Chief of Research and Development would select one.
The approved name then went to the Aeronautical Systems Division, Directorate of Engineering Standards, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. This Department of Defense unit had the responsibility of officially registering the names of all aircraft used by the U.S. military. It also maintained and printed a list of the names in a publication entitled "Model Designation of Military Aircraft, Rockets and Guided Missiles."
http://www.chinook-helicopter.com/origins/origins.html
Last edited Thu Sep 13, 2012, 10:47 AM - Edit history (1)
I served with 2/501 Infantry in VN and I've posted the regimental crest both in discussions with other vets here and in last year's threads about the codenames used in the Bin Laden mission.
In the latter discussions I posted some of the history of the insignia and how they all came about because a few paratroopers went to see a movie and were inspired to cry, "Geronimo!" on their next jump.
It was only last year that I linked up with one of the guys from the unit who sent me a photo of us in VN, with a crude rendering of the 'Geronimo' crest on the wall behind us:
The officers of Bravo Co, 2/501 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, Vietnam - Thanksgiving, 1969
Rear, l to r: Russ Shields, platoon leader (KIA), and our Captain (Company Commander)
Front, l to r: Mark Rivest, platoon leader (KIA), pinboy3niner, platoon leader, and Dan, Executive Officer, holding cup.
I thought the history of the insignia for the unit was interesting, especially because in this case it came from the bottom up, and not from the top down.
... was an interesting movie about the adaption of the Vietnam era Cobra attack helicopter adapted to police use. The movie turned out to be a statement against the militarization of the police that was way ahead of it's time. I won't give the spoiler in case anyone wants to watch it.
... agree the t.v. series was awful. If you like helicopters, you will probably enjoy the movie. 
... I can think of is our very own Tammy Duckworth!!!
The only woman in American History to win the Medal of honor was in the Civil War...
'There's no need to see flowers any other way,
than the way they've always been seen"
