Category: Army News

The lawyer for Bowe Bergdahl, the private who walked away from his unit and his duties more than six years ago to live with his Haqqani network friends, says that Lieutenant Colonel Mark Visger, the officer who presided over the Article 32 hearing last month, has recommended a Special Court Martial for the special snowflake. A special court martial could result in 12 months confinement, forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay for 12 months, reduction to private E-1 and a Bad Conduct Discharge (known colloquially as a Big Chicken Dinner). Somehow, the media think that the recommendation means that Bergdahl will get no jail time, because Berdahl’s lawyer says so. From Fox News;

[Bergdahl’s lawyer, Eugene] Fidell also said that Visger recommended that there be no prison time or punitive discharge against Bergdahl. In light of Visger’s recommendations, the defense is asking that the case be disposed of non-judicially, rather than by any court martial.

Notice that it’s Bergdahl’s dumbass, lyin’ lawyer who says all of this, not the Army. Fidell is asking for an Article 15 (a Captain’s Mast in the Navy) non-judicial administrative venue instead of a court martial. If the Army does decide that’s the way to go, they’re bowing to their political masters and not to the soldiers who spent years looking for the deserter.

According to the Military Times, the Army’s Secretary, John McHugh, has postponed for 60 days the discharge of Sergeant First Class Charles Martland, who was selected for the Qualitative Management Program (QMP) because he assaulted a child molesting Afghan police chief in 2011. The postponement is to allow for Martland to file another appeal to the decision;

McHugh added that despite “talk that this case has been brought to me, and I have had a hand in it, I have not. This is a routine administrative process that does not, in any way, involve my office.”

The Army must respect the process in cases like this, McHugh said.

“We respect the rights of the individual soldier in these kinds of cases,” he said. “If we are going to make a mistake here, we are going to make it in favor of the rights of the soldier.”

The QMP is an administrative tool that is designed to remove soldiers from the Army who are poor performers, folks who probably won’t get promoted. SFC Martland is probably in that group, but the reason he’s in the QMP is for completely political reasons. He’s being eliminated for the same reasons that the Army exposed soldiers to green-on-blue attacks. When the Army gets involved in the politics of war, the soldiers are always the losers.

Who says they’re not getting things done in the war against ISIS? Look, they’ve got a patch and everything now. From the Army Times;

The Army’s patch features crossed scimitars, a palm wreath and stars. The scimitars, short swords with curved blades, are meant to symbolize the twin goals of the U.S.-led coalition: to defeat the Islamic State, also referred to as ISIL, and to restore stability in the region, according to Army documents.

The palm wreath is symbol of honor. While the stars and the buff-and-blue colors on the patch indicate the three-star command and the land, air and sea forces involved in the fight.

So what if they’ve spent millions of dollars to field four insurgents arrayed against the Islamic State, so what if the ISIS is making battlefield gains everyday. The troops have a patch. Maybe they should give them a tan beret, too. I’ll bet that whoever designed the patch gets a Bronze Star.

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

Yes, my inbox is chocked full of your emails about the Presidential nomination for John McHugh’s replacement as the Secretary of the Army. That nominee seems to be Eric Fanning whose only real qualifications to hold the job is that he knows how to find his new office. Well, that and he knows his way around the penis. From APF;

Fanning has been active in gay rights and served on the board of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, a group that aims to increase “the number of openly LGBT officials at all levels of government.”

He has held an array of different posts in Congress and at the Pentagon over the past 25 years, including as special assistant and chief of staff to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.

“Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to this new role,” Obama said in a statement.

Every article that I can find mentions his sexual deviancy as a check mark on his resume. In fact, the whole New York Times article is about how gay he is and how the Army needs a gay Secretary, and how happy the gay community is that he’s been nominated;

Gay rights groups hailed Mr. Fanning’s appointment.

“We are thrilled to see Eric Fanning nominated to lead the world’s greatest army,” said Ashley Broadway-Mack, the president of the American Military Partner Association, a support organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender military families. “History continues to be written and equality marches forward with the nomination of an openly gay man to serve in this significantly important role.”

The Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization, called Mr. Fanning “the perfect choice to lead the world’s best-trained, most dedicated and formidable army.”

I guess it doesn’t matter that he’s never served in the Army, like some of the other choices that were passed over. Somehow being gay makes him more qualified than say, Patrick Murphy, an actual Iraq War veteran. I’m not saying that Fanning’s qualifications are diminished by his deviancy, I’m saying there are many more qualified people for the job. Everyone is focused on his sexual preference for the penis, as if that will somehow win the war and save the lives of the troops. I’d like someone to explain that to me.

I’d also like CNN to explain this headline to me;

According to Stars & Stripes, the 4th Infantry Division has sent a hundred or so soldiers to Baumholder, Germany in order to establish a command and control element for the Army’s move into Eastern Europe.

“Baumholder will become 4th ID’s home here in Europe,” said Maj. Jason Meier of the 4th ID’s mission command element in Germany. “It’s a full battalion footprint.”

Since February, a command element from the Colorado-based 4th Infantry has operated out of the Army’s garrison in Grafenwoehr, where it has overseen U.S. Army Europe’s efforts connected to Operation Atlantic Resolve — the campaign to reassure NATO’s eastern members and to send a deterrent signal to Russia.

Didn’t we just pull most of our maneuver units out of Germany recently? It was 2012, actually, you know at about the time of the last Presidential elections. Funny how quickly the “peace dividend” thing can dissipate when reality overtakes campaign promises.