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

Category: Army News

  • WO1 Shawn Thomas; RIP

    WO1 Shawn Thomas; RIP

    A Special Forces warrant officer has died from injuries he suffered in a vehicle accident while serving in Africa, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command spokesman confirmed to Army Times on Thursday.

    Warrant Officer 1 Shawn Thomas, of 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, died Feb. 2, Lt. Col. Robert Bockholt confirmed. His death was first reported by U.S. Army W.T.F.! Moments.

    “Our deepest condolences go out to Warrant Officer Thomas’ family, friends and colleagues,” 3rd Special Forces Group officials said in a statement.

    Officials couldn’t specify the type of vehicle or any other details of the accident because of the ongoing investigation, said Sgt. 1st Class Victor Aguirre, a USASOC spokesman.

    Thomas and members of his unit are part of a contingent of soldiers, both civil affairs and Special Forces, deployed to central Africa to train local troops and support the local population in countering the spread of terrorist groups.

    “SF teams are advising members of the Nigerien Armed Forces who are conducting counter-Boko Haram operations to bring stability to the Lake Chad Basin region,” Aguirre said.

    Thomas, 35, enlisted in July 2000 as a networking switching systems operator, according to his bio. He joined the Fort Bragg, North Carolina-based 3rd Special Forces Group in 2008 following the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course. He went warrant officer in 2016.

    The Oklahoma native deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan a combined seven times, according to his bio. His awards and decorations include two Bronze Stars, four Good Conduct Medals and various decorations for service abroad.

    He was posthumously awarded a Meritorious Service Medal and Army Commendation Medal for his work in Niger, according to his bio.

    He is survived by his wife and four children.

     

    Shawn Thomas is a hero. Posers and embellishers alike should be forced to watch videos like this repeatedly. Everyone wants to be a hero, except die like one.

    Rest easy Brother, you have earned it.

     

    Army: Green Beret dies in non-combat accident in Niger

    Video courtesy of:

    Heartbreaking video captures fallen soldier’s homecoming

     

  • Women Report for Infantry Training

    There are 145 women reporting to 11X Infantry class at Ft. Benning now.

    https://www.armytimes.com/articles/first-enlisted-women-report-to-army-infantry-school

    That Takiyah Carroll? There’s a photo of her.

    She can deadlift 225. The requirement is 165.

    So shut up.

     

  • Why Stolen Valor Goes Ignored

    Why Stolen Valor Goes Ignored

    Someone sent in this article about Stolen Valor.  A guy named Jonn Lilyea was interviewed:

    “It’s pretty disgusting, because I have friends who are in Arlington who only got to wear their medals as they were being buried, and these guys just pin them on like they’re buttons or decorations,” John Lilyea, a former platoon sergeant in the U.S. Army who tracks stolen valor cases, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “That’s what sets off most veterans, because we know people who didn’t come home.”

    It appears this Lilyea character has been dealing with cases of fake and embellished military service claims for a while now.

    Lilyea has tracked down and investigated stolen valor cases on his website — This Ain’t Hell, But You Can See It From Here — since 2008, compiling hundreds upon hundreds of alleged fraudsters through tips and extensive research.

    Another guy named Doug Sterner was interviewed as well.  It seems he has been around for a really, really, long time.

    Doug Sterner, a former Army sergeant and military historian, who runs the Military Times’ Hall of Valor database of medal recipients, said stolen valor cases take “time away from typing up the citation of legitimate heroes.”

    “It’s a far bigger problem than anybody realizes,” Sterner told TheDCNF.

    It is a well done article that sheds some light on many of the Stolen Valor issues we are facing today.  A huge thank you to KATHRYN WATSON for doing all the work on the article.  If you like the article please drop her a note.  It sounds like a few hoses and tubes can’t keep an old Platoon Sergeant down, or at least quiet anyway.

     

     

  • Old enough to know better.

    Old enough to know better.

    The Army is moving forward with the deactivation of its Small-Team Reconnaissance Units.  The drawn down of military capabilities that has been going on for the last 8 years is still in motion.

    Computer models were used to conclude long-range surveillance companies were not in demand by ground commanders.

    Defense analysts have said Army commanders have an aversion to risk and a growing preference to use technology such as satellites and drones for reconnaissance rather than insert small teams of soldiers.

    Most of us have been around long enough to know that we have not always had the ability to play reconnaissance with a keyboard and a joystick.  Victory on the battlefield often requires that we have  redundant capabilities.   Using computer models as the primary justification to restructure military assets seems juvenile.

    Long-range surveillance soldiers in the model would attack large units and were killed immediately based on their coding, Scales said, delivering war planners the conclusion the units were a risky, low-reward asset.

    I am sure their computers do show that kind of result.  I can not help but wonder what their computers show happens if the damn things get unplugged.   Drawing down a capability to the point where it no longer exists will cause a loss of expertise that can not be duplicated by killers in cubicles.

    All LRS soldiers are airborne qualified, and many have graduated from Ranger and Pathfinder schools. Most LRS soldiers end up attending at the Reconnaissance and Surveillance Leaders Course at Fort Benning in Georgia — a schoolhouse that also trains units such as Navy SEALs and Marine Force Recon.

    Maybe their coding for battlefield simulations did not include having Secretary Mattis in control of the on/off button.  I certainly hope his presence makes a difference in the outcome.

  • A telling tale for these transformative times

    By Poetrooper

    Eric Fanning, Obama’s gay Secretary of the Army, a man with no active-duty uniformed service, is being replaced with Donald Trump’s nominee, Vincent Viola, a West Point and Ranger School graduate who served several years with my beloved 101st Airborne Division before leaving the Army to become a self-made billionaire.

    Apparently, the good life hasn’t done much to change Vinnie’s Airborne Ranger Attitude.  From the Daily Caller:

    Vincent Viola, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Army, allegedly punched a concessions worker at a racehorse auction in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. last year, according to a police report obtained by the New York Times.

    Viola — the owner of the NHL Florida Panthers and retired Army Ranger —reportedly punched the concessions worker in the face after confronting the man for pushing his wife when she tried to enter the event’s kitchen area. His wife, Theresa, was attempting to get water for a woman who had fainted. The incident happened in August.

    “Vincent states about 45 minutes after the incident occurred, Theresa located the subject who had pushed her and then pointed him out to Vincent,” the police report reads. “Vincent then reportedly confronted the subject, [redacted] two subjects then engaged in a verbal dispute. [Redacted] states the argument escalated with Viola punching him just prior to my arrival on scene.”

    The altercation left the worker, whose name was redacted from the police report, with a “bloody lip.”

    Forgive me for a possibly stereotypical misperception, but somehow I just can’t see Eric doing much more than stamping a warmly burnished Berluti loafer and throwing a bit of a hissy fit had someone pushed his baby-faced boyfriend out of the kitchen.  Would it be unduly rash of me to suppose there’s some significant attitudinal adjustment on the way for our United States Army?  Could this be a parable for these transformative times?

     

     

  • Combat Arms Physical Assessment Test for the Army

    The Army Times reports that the Army has finally developed it’s physical assessment test for folks wanting to go into combat arms specialties;

    Soldiers will have to complete the four-part [Occupational Physical Assessment Test] to enter certain military occupational specialties. The test also eventually will expand to help recruits determine which jobs they’re qualified for.

    This new requirement comes as the Army works to integrate women into its previously closed combat specialties.

    The OPAT consists of four events: a medicine-ball throw, standing long jump, deadlift and interval run.

    Unlike other Army fitness tests, the OPAT only has one scoring scale, with no separate charts for age or gender.

    Obviously, no one talked to the folks at Building OneFour at Fort Benning. None of those four events address any concerns about allowing people into the infantry – maybe armor or artillery, but certainly not infantry.

    A swing and a miss, Army, try again.

    Thanks to Bobo for the link.

  • Vincent Viola; the new Army Secretary

    Vincent Viola; the new Army Secretary

    Vincent Viola

    The news today is that President-elect Trump has named Vincent Viola, the current owner of the Florida Panthers hockey team, as the next Army Secretary. According to CBC, Viola is a West Point Graduate and a former member of the 101st Airborne Division;

    Trump, in announcing Viola as his pick, said he was “living proof of the American dream.”

    Viola’s father served in the Army during World War II. Viola became the first member of his family — Italian immigrants living in Brooklyn — to attend college, served in the 101st Airborne Division, then was part of the U.S. Army Reserve after his active duty.

    He’s a graduate of New York Law School, has long been involved with philanthropic projects and is a past winner of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. In 2003, he founded and helped fund the creation of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

  • “Swinger” General David Haight busted

    “Swinger” General David Haight busted

    David Haight

    We wrote about General David Haight when he was relieved from his post this last summer for conduct that we don’t expect from flag officers.

    Armstrong, who told USA TODAY in interviews that the relationship began with a flirty email and ended after assignations with multiple partners at swingers’ clubs, hotels and her home, says Haight had promised a future together. “I gave him the best years of my life,” she said.

    In a statement issued after news of his reprimand broke, Haight vowed to work with Army investigators untangling his dark, off-duty life.

    .
    The general had built an enviable career in special operations and light infantry assignments, but one “aw, shit” is all it takes.

    Apparently, the general had “Haighters” (see what I did there) who left anonymous tips with the Army Office of Inspector General

    Well, according to USATODAY, he’s been recommended to be busted down to lieutenant colonel for his retirement;

    A board of his peers called for Haight to be busted to lieutenant colonel, a demotion that will cost him nearly $43,000 per year in pension pay. Fanning, in an interview, said he had accepted the recommendation after a panel of three officers reviewed Haight’s conduct — and his secret second life — and determined that lieutenant colonel was the last rank in which he had served satisfactorily.