This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Author: NSOM

  • A paper only an LT could write

    1st Lt Daniel Durbin, or Butter Bar Duh-Duh-Durbey who had the decency to wait six more months to get promoted, explains in this editorial why newly minted Marines are simply too stupid to be released into the wild. But don’t let me tell you. Let him do the leg work:

    The School of Infantry East (SOI-E) administratively separated more than 150 new Marines in fiscal year 2011 for a myriad of disciplinary and medical reasons. Many of these medical and legal issues occurred over recruit leave. There is a travesty happening right now in the Marine Corps, but nothing is being done about it. Every year, the Marine Corps loses several hundreds of Marines to drugs, legal issues, and injuries during a single 10-day period—recruit leave.

    Yes sir, according to Duh-Duh-Durbey the Marine Corps administratively separates “about” 150 boots each year between Bootcamp and graduating Infantry School or Marine Combat Training East (both administered by the School of Infantry). In other words, using rather flush numbers from the Iraq surge years and accounting for the SOI-West as well, the Marines separate less than .013% of their annual recruits in this period. That’s right, .013%. A crisis if you will. Duh-Duh-Durbey describes the terrible plight of the plebian enlisted man as such:

    …every year the Marine Corps sends thousands of young men and women home from recruit training back into the situations they were coming from. Many of these Marines have joined the Marine Corps to escape these dark situations and make a new life for themselves as Marines. But after a mere 12 weeks, we send them back into the home life they were trying to get away from.

    Considering the demographic horror myself and most of my fellow enlisted Marines barely manged to escape in order to reach the life raft that is a Marine Corps recruiting office it’s a miracle more of us didn’t succumb to our imploding situation in the Delayed Entry Program. It’s a flat out anomaly any of us escaped our alcoholic foster parents long enough to get out of the trailer park to meet up with the other hood rat Poolies our recruiters manged to save from the wreckage of lower class America.

    Not to say that the LT doesn’t empathize:

    Do not think that I am trying to denigrate the incredible change a Marine experiences from the yellow footprints to graduation from recruit training; this is one of the most formative experiences in any person’s life.

    Thanks, sir.

    Of course that empathy allows Duh-Duh-Durbey to so succinetly diagnose the base enlisted man’s real problem:

    However, the recruit training experience is only 3 months long. When these young, impressionable Marines return home on leave, the old bad habits are there waiting for them. Additionally, Marines who go on recruit leave are often swayed by the boyfriend or girlfriend back home who missed them so much, and they just can’t bear the thought of losing that once-in-a-lifetime relationship. These Marines return from recruit leave and simply refuse to train. Marines in this category are often processed for administrative separation.

    Damn Josie, every time.

    No fears though, Lt. Duh-Duh-Durbey has the answer:

    The solution is incredibly simple. Put an end to recruit leave! This change would have the added benefit of enforcing the training mindset that is desperately needed. When the Marines return home, they are certainly proud of the accomplishment of becoming Marines, but they lose that vital training mindset. They get comfortable.

    I propose that new Marines who graduate from Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego or Parris Island hop on a bus and continue training at SOI. After SOI graduation, they then drop to their MOS schools or for infantry Marines to the Operating Forces. This will maintain continuity for a single drop of Marines to their MOS schools or Operating Forces units.

    I won’t go on to quote the whole pile of crap this idiot foisted on the Marine Corps Gazette, you can follow the link yourself if you’re into such self-flagellation. I will though say that the next time the good Lt finds himself being instructed how to run a convoy, keep two aircraft apart, fill out a clearance request, construct a fixed firing position, replace a rotor screw or do any of the million things he’s grossly unqualified to do, it would behoove him to stop and thank his lucky stars.

    After all, that simple minded idiot with the Sgt’s chevrons who manged to survive the period in their lives inbetween mom & pop’s and the blessed period of mentorship from some retard with a degree from Party School State University and The Basic School Corps, hasn’t yet tripped over his own dick and screwed up the whole Marine Corps. Thanks for keeping your eye on the ball, sir!

    People like Durbin, the grasping morons desperate to make a name for themselves, are the reason while enlisted personnel hate officers. Most Marines don’t trust officers because of the the ignorant fools like Durbin, and they assign that mentality to the rest of the shiny collared folk. As long as good officers tolerate peers like Durbin their job will only be harder. So I’ll pass on to the Marine Corps Officer Corps what I’ve heard many a Company Grade Officer pass onto me: police your own, gents.

  • Vroom, vroom

    Don’t look now Chuck Norris but “duh Mareens” are training on dirt bikes for an up coming Afghan deployment. I’m sure all you Batt Boys are just tickeld to find out this is news but it also peaked my interest. I have to ask two questions.

    One: who gives a shit? Is the fact that MARSOC bubbas are getting training on a dirt bike really news worthy?

    and

    Two: Why would you advertise the training curriculum of special operations units about to head down range? To include, I might add, their general topographical location. Has the war really gotten that boring Gannett?

    Our vets are getting their solemnly promised medical coverage jacked up to save the welfare state some money, our brothers and sisters are getting killed by their trainees and the entire war effort has been regulated to the category of “political liability” by the C-in-C but dirt bikes. Dirt bikes, dude. Front page material that we all really care about. It’s no wonder I get the eye roll when I mention the “Military Times” these days. How about doing your job fellas?

  • Colonel relieved over PTSD “under reporting”

    Dallas Homas M.D., an Army Colonel who’s the head of JBLM’s Madigan Army Medical Center, has been relived after concerns arose of “under reporting” of PTSD among soldiers. Initial coverage by local ABC affiliate KOMO News claims that the Army’s Medical Command has determined soldiers were essentially having their PTSD swept under the carpet in order to reduce PTSD diagnosis and save money. Much of the focus was the result of my old Congressmen, Norm Dicks-(D), voicing concern that Madigan chose to close a PTSD clinic. Two things immediately occurred to me.

    First off it would seem that KOMO, who seems to go out of their way to find the lowest of the low in order to generate sensational quotes they can place next to sympathetic descriptions, has enlisted the help of yet another communist activist, Chanan Suárez. Suárez, at least, is merely a member of the Seattle Chapter of the Trotskyite International Socialist Organization and generic IVAW goon. The last time JBLM was generating controversy in the news the producers at KOMO slithered all the way to the bottom of the heap and enlisted the help of the Stalinists of International ANSWER and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Way to get out the true feelings of the veteran’s community on the PTSD issue, KOMO.

    Tangentially, the other Navy guy they found to stump for the evils of military medicine is Adam Horton. Horton, who is either a former aviation electrician on the EA-6B Prowler according to a profile piece, just recently “won” his own PTSD claim. On the other hand his LinkedIn profile says he got out as an Aircrew Survival Equipmentman 2nd Class. I don’t always speak Navy that well so maybe my confusion is simply a matter of failing to translate.

    The disgusting tendency of local Seattle media to distort the views of the veteran community aside, the second thing to occur to me is that this is probably an old and largely resolved issue that’s catching up to the command staff only now. I never worked in the medical field in the military and I never filed for PTSD but it seemed to be fairly common knowledge among Marines during my time that the flood of disability requests hitting the Navy’s desk during the height of the Iraq War was causing medical to “tighten their belt” when it came to claims. Whether there was an active conspiracy to short PTSD claims, a consensus that standards needed to be reevaluated to ensure funds were available for the highest priority claims or it was all the habitual scuttlebutt of perpetually paranoid Marines, is out of my lane. I’m sure some readers have their own, more qualified, perspectives.

  • If Marines didn’t know then send them back to school

    Jonn has already covered the Marine Corps Scout Sniper’s use of a stylized flag using with the emblem “SS” in a font indistinguishable from that of both horrendous 80’s glam rock band KISS and the Schutzstaffel. He also made note of the Corps’ initial decision not to seek documentable punitive action against those involved. Very well. Here’s my take.

    To quote from Jonn’s previously cited article:

    An initial Marine investigation into the matter concluded that the troops would not be disciplined because there was no malicious intent. The Marines mistakenly believed the “SS” in the shape of white lightning bolts on the blue flag were a nod to sniper scouts – not members of Adolf Hitler’s special unit that murdered millions of Jews, Catholics, gypsies and others, said Maj. Gabrielle Chapin, a spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton, Calif.

    or

    The SS logo has been worn by scout snipers going back to at least the 1980s, said Earl Catagnus Jr., who served as a scout sniper in Iraq and now teaches military history at Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Pennsylvania and other institutions. Catagnus never got an “SS” tattoo, he said, but he knows Marines of many races who did.

    “This symbol has taken on a myth of its own with scout snipers,” he said, adding that he does not condone its use. “They’re sporting it like it’s nothing because they have no idea what it means.”

    Fine, but, you know what? I don’t believe that. I can’t imagine the circumstances where a dozen literate, k-12 adults raised in a military culture don’t immediate recognize where that comes from. When you look at that flag, you know, immediately. When I look at that flag, I know, immediately.

    I’m a history nerd. I can tell you about the politics of the Das Reich Division and the demographic makeup of the “Death’s Head” after the invasion of Russia and how it doesn’t jive with the feel good post WWII feel good historical narrative. I can go on about the fact that Himmler’s racially pure vanguard was largely composed of ideological non-German volunteers by the end of the nightmare that was the Second World War. Because of this self conscious sensitivity I have to demand the simple acknowledgement that these fellow Marines can’t possibly have been ignorant of the basest of facts that these symbols carry. The SS has become a pop culture symbol in a society that can’t deliver a singular biographical fact about Alexis de Tocqueville or Andrew Jackson.

    These Marines knew. They knew because kicking ass is cool.

    General Amos has ordered a full investigation into the “incident”. The most recent article in the Marine Corps Times acknowledges that the use of this symbol is an old tradition in the Marine Corps Scout Sniper Community. To quote:

    The incident has brought scrutiny to a longtime practice in the scout sniper community. Its members have used the “lightning bolt” SS logo for years on patches, posters and tattoos, a nod toward their title. The position is exclusive to the Corps; the Army has scouts and snipers, but separates their duties into two occupations.

    To be clear, that this is a sub-cultural trait in the Corps that has flown under the radar is obvious, so let me slide in some SgtMaj love session anecdotes:

    Sgt. Maj. Mike Barrett, the Corps’ top enlisted Marine, will meet personally with every senior staff noncommissioned officer in the sniper community in coming days to “reinforce my message and expectations,” Amos said. Barrett served as a scout sniper during the Gulf War, and later designed sniper training for Marine units in Iraq.

    Yeah. A whole shit ton of GySgt and MSgts are getting yelled at to tear that shit down, even when the LtCol isn’t looking.

    You’re living under a microscope, gents. You have organizations within the military like the “Military Religious Freedom Foundation” looking to undermine you. Your Commander-in-Chief’s idea of camaraderie is getting all the ghetto rats to show up to the right place at the right time for the victim of the week rally. You have no friends in the Executive Branch. Mind your shit, don’t be stupid and don’t give them free passes. I know that the fellow warrior, whom you would die for, is named Hernandez, is a Jordanian or is dark as coal, with a Mississippi accent to match. If you’re standing under a flag used by the men who carted 6 million Jews and 5 million other “undesirables” you’re going down. And you deserve it.

    Be smarter than the fools looking to string you up.

  • Publicly funded seditionists attack the Thin Blue Line

    This week Jean Quan, Oakland’s perpetually embarrassing excuse for a Mayor, has started shooting off distress flares. It would seem that the angry rabble of Bolsheviks and vanguard anarchists she cynically welcomed into her city with open arms have turned against the good interests of law and order and started to become an actual nuisance.

    In November of 2011:

    “The pro-99 percent activists — whose cause I support — will have the freedom to get their message across without the conflict that marred last week’s events,” Quan said. “Although getting the balance right is never an easy task, in Oakland we are committed to honoring free speech and protecting public safety.”

    Police are upset that they were asked to clear the protesters’ encampment a week ago, only to have the mayor let the camp resume a day later. The raid last Tuesday, along with the tear gas-clouded standoff with marchers that night and other law enforcement actions related to the protest, cost Oakland $1 million, said Sgt. Dom Arotzarena, president of the Oakland police union.

    Fast forward to today:

    Officials assessed damage to City Hall caused by Occupy Oakland protesters while leaders of the movement claimed Sunday that police acted illegally in arresting hundreds of demonstrators and could face a lawsuit.

    Mayor Jean Quan was among those inspecting damage caused after dozens of people broke into City Hall on Saturday, smashing glass display cases, spray-painting graffiti, and burning an American flag.

    …

    Quan, who faced heavy criticism for the police action last fall, on Saturday called on the Occupy movement to “stop using Oakland as its playground.”

    “People in the community and people in the Occupy movement have to stop making excuses for this behavior,” Quan said.

    On Sunday, Quan said she is tired of the protesters’ repeated actions.

    “I’m mostly frustrated because it appears that most of them constantly come from outside of Oakland,” Quan said. “I think a lot of the young people who come to these demonstrations think they’re being revolutionary when they’re really hurting the people they claim that they are representing.”

    (more…)

  • The wayback machine

    Today Real Clear Politics’ Morning Edition very slyly ran an Airpower article from 1972 titled The Press and the TET Offensive: a flawed institution under stress.

    The Tet offensive of 1968 must surely be regarded as one of history’s chameleon campaigns. When the North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops assaulted targets throughout the Republic of Vietnam at the end of January 1968, they expected to trigger an uprising of the South Vietnamese people against their government. Despite some spectacular early successes, the attacks failed. The South Vietnamese did not embrace the cause; thousands of sappers, assault troops, and cadres met their deaths before overwhelming allied counterattacks; and the insurgent infrastructure was so decimated at the end of the fighting that no large enemy offensives could be mounted for four years.

    Nonetheless, the Tet offensive was a turning point in the war, and the North Vietnamese were successful in altering the course of the war far beyond the accomplishments of their army. The American people were shocked that the Vietcong/ North Vietnamese Army (VC/NV A) possessed the strength to make the widespread strikes. In the public clamor that followed, President Lyndon Johnson announced a bombing halt and withdrew from the 1968 Presidential race. The policy of Vietnamization was launched, and many Americans concluded that the war was too costly to pursue.

    It has always been clear that the press played a vital role in this dramatic shift of opinion. It has been evident that dissatisfaction with the war among media opinion-makers helped form an American public attitude of discouragement.

    Written at the very tail end of our war in Vietnam the article details the ignorant and sometimes ideologically duplicitous role the media played in spinning the Tet Offensive. Of course a substantial amount of contemporary scholarship has covered this subject in great depth but to see that, even then, those in the know were well aware of the media’s role in shaping the vital public perception of our wars is quite the juxtaposition of the understanding of the war as portrayed by popular culture. There isn’t much new here but, as we fight out own wars at home against corrupted media institutions, perhaps it will serve as reinforcement of the very real, very tangible, stakes 40 years later.

  • Falklands redux

    Cowardice and betrayal are again brewing in the Falkland Islands. The Falklands are a group of sparsely inhabited British islands a couple hundred miles off the coast of Argentina, most famous for the brief British-Argentinian conflict over them in 1982. In that conflict an increasingly unpopular military junta, facing growing economic problems, looked to invade the islands and subjugate its British citizens as a way of distracting from their domestic inadequacies. Margret Thatcher responded by deploying the British military and crushing the Argentine invasion. As some of you may have heard, over the past couple of years they’ve discovered a substantial amount of economically viable oil around these same islands. With the depletion of the reserves in the North Sea some figures estimate that these new discoveries could be as much as triple the UK’s existing reserves.

    Lo and behold, this discovery has given the economically floundering, left wing Kirchner government in Argentina all the reason it needs to stir up trouble by again attempting to colonize the Falklands and its British population. In addition to some saber rattling, economic sanctions and not so subtle threats the Kirchner administration has enlisted the aid of left wing thug Hugo Chavez and his counter-U.S. Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.

    Now if you thought to yourself, “Well the British are the United States’ oldest and most steadfast ally; the Obama administration will denounce this cynical aggression and help protect both their ally’s sovereignty and the Falkland people’s right to self determination” then you’d be absolutely, 100% wrong. Back in the summer of 2011, while British troops were fighting, bleeding and dying shoulder to shoulder with American troops in Afghanistan, the Obama administration was signing off on an Organization of American States statement calling for the British to enter into negotiations with Argentina over the status of the Malvinas Islands, the Argentinian name for the Falklands. All this at the behest of the leftist and increasingly anti-American government of Argentina.

    Then, on the 20th of January, the Obama administration twisted the knife it drove into the back of the British by issuing a statement through the State Department saying, “This is a bilateral issue that needs to be worked out directly between the governments of Argentina and the United Kingdom,” the official said. “We encourage both parties to resolve their differences through dialogue in normal diplomatic channels. We recognize de facto United Kingdom administration of the islands but take no position regarding sovereignty.” Needless to say this left many people floored.

    Not only is the Obama administration falling on the wrong side of the geopolitical arena by backing political aggression pursued by organizations dominated by left wing autocrats and anti-American populists but they’re betraying our oldest ally and undercutting the basic principals of liberty and self determination for the 90%+ of the Falkland Islanders who are fully enfranchised British citizens wanting to remain so. All morality, character and faithfulness aside these caustic positions undercut security in the Western Hemisphere by appeasing aggression and placating governments which have no intent to ally themselves with us in the future. This sort of diplomatic timidity serves only to undercut peace and degrade the value of the friendship of the United States. How can we ask our allies, especially those as dear as the British, to send their men and women onto the battlefield to fight and die for our collective security if we won’t even stand up in a council meeting for it?

  • Word salad ninjas strike your covert operation

    Good news, simple freedom loving folks of the US of A. Fox News has confirmed that the Navy is building a “mothership for Special Operations Forces in the Middle East”.

    In case anybody wants to know any indepth information Fox News has this to say:

    A market survey posted by the Military Sealift Command in December asked that ship be able to support mine counter measures.
    Sea mines are a concern in the Strait of Hormuz should Iran make good on its threats to close the vital oil passage way, an official told Fox News.

    The ship could be ready in four to five months time, officials said.
    The U.S. Special Operations Command has sought a transportable floating base for several years, The Washington Post reports.

    The ‘mothership’ would reportedly help expand the range of commando squads operating from small speedboats in remote coastal areas, The Washington Post reports.

    Or, more simply, a group of reporters heard some buzz words and had nothing else to file with their editors this weekend. It would appear that, for those of us without our head up and locked in our ass, that the Navy is going to turn the Ponce over to Special Operations type gigs. I’m unsure where the market surveys fit in.

    By all means, please attempt to deceiver that mess of a report. Sarcastic mockery to the idiots who wrote this turd is clearly encouraged.

    Update:

    More exciting news! According to Haaretz the Navy is going to turn one of its ageing “Battleships” into a “mother ship”. Along with most of the rest of you I foolishly thought that the last battleship had been retired with the Missouri. I guess they’ve been hiding one.