Category: Army News

A special forces paratrooper was reported missing yesterday after his mates said the last time they had seen him, he was deploying his reserve parachute when his main ‘chute failed. Stars & Stripes reports that his body was found last night;

The Mason County Sheriff’s Office reported that the soldier went missing near the community of Kamilche, south of Shelton. The base’s release said the operation occurred at about noon, and after a search of the area, the body was found at about 10 p.m.

JBLM identified the soldier as a member of the 1st Special Forces Group.

According to the release, an investigation into the incident is uderway. The name of the soldier will not be released until after next-of-kin is notified.

Because training for war can be as deadly as the war itself.

On March 23, 2003, during the attack on Baghdad, Hasan K. Akbar, a sergeant with the 101st AIrborne DIvision’s 326th Engineer Battalion, threw several fragmentation and incendiary grenades into the tents of his officers, followed by gunfire of his M4 rifle. Killing Army Captain Christopher S. Seifert and Idaho Air National Guard Major Gregory L. Stone were killed in the attack. In his diary, Akbar had promised to “kill as many of them as possible” in February.

At his trial in April, 2005, Akbar’s defense lawyers failed to prove to the panel of military jurors that he was innocent by reason of insanity and they convicted him in about 2 1/2 hours of “fragging” the two officers and sentenced him to death. In 2012, the Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the sentence and last week, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces rejected Akbar’s claims that his defense in the original trial had been incompetent, according to the Sacramento Bee;

“We conclude that if there ever was a case where a military court-martial panel would impose the death penalty, this was it,” Judge Kevin A. Ohlson wrote.

The court’s 3-2 decision leaves Akbar one of six military men to be facing execution at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kan. Though he had launched a wide-ranging challenge to his conviction and sentence, a big part of the case decided Wednesday dealt with his claim of ineffective counsel.

[…]

Ohlson, a former Army paratrooper and federal prosecutor appointed to the court by President Barack Obama, observed that Akbar was “represented by two experienced military attorneys who devoted more than two years to preparing and presenting the defense in this case.”

The two dissenting judges countered that Akbar’s trial defense attorneys fell short, with specific mistakes that included providing Akbar’s 313-page diary to the court-martial panel.

The decision clears the way for Akbar’s execution. The Army hasn’t executed a prisoner since 1961 when John A. Bennet was executed by hanging for the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old Austrian girl while he was stationed there in 1954.

Akbar has five neighbors on the Defense Department’s death row; Ronald A. Gray, a spree-killer from Fort Bragg, NC, who was sentenced in 1988, Dwight J. Loving who killed two taxi cab drivers at Fort Hood, Texas, who was sentenced in 1989, Andrew P. Witt, a former airman who committed a double murder at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia and sentenced in 2005, Timothy B. Hennis, sentenced for a triple murder while he was stationed at Fort Bragg, and Nidal Malik Hasan awaiting the needle for thirteen murders at Fort Hood.

The news is out that the first women will graduate from the arduous Army Ranger School alongside their 94 male classmates;

The women have not been identified by the Army, but both are officers in their 20s and graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Army officials said. The female graduates started Ranger School on April 20 alongside 380 men and 17 other female soldiers in the first class to ever include women. The female soldiers were allowed into Ranger School as part of the Army’s ongoing assessment of how to better integrate women.

I offer my congratulations. Having worked with women in the Army as a TAC NCO at ROTC Advanced Camp, I knew that there are women out there tough enough and driven to successfully complete anything that the Army can throw at them. So, this illustrates well that the standards are attainable for women, the standards aren’t skewed against women, so the Army doesn’t need to change the standard.

However, the Army needs to ask itself if this experiment was worth the time and money, if it’s worth putting up 19 candidates to get two graduates. The Washington Post seems upset that those two graduates can’t serve in the Ranger Battalions, but I’m not sure that they would want to live that life everyday for the next several years. The Army spent a year gathering up twenty candidates and preparing them for this nine weeks of training, I can only imagine how difficult it would be to attract women to the Ranger lifestyle.

I’m sure there are a few, but is it really worth the time and money to just check a box on a slide at the Pentagon?

Reuters reports that convicted spy, Bradley Manning has been acting like a little bitch in prison so he’s looking at indefinite solitary confinement;

The alleged disciplinary infractions on July 2 and July 9 included attempted disrespect, the possession of prohibited books and magazines while under administrative segregation, medicine misuse pertaining to expired toothpaste and disorderly conduct for pushing food onto the floor, [attorney Nancy] Hollander said.

[…]

Items confiscated from Manning included a Vanity Fair magazine with former Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner, who is transitioning to life as a woman, posing in a white strapless leotard on the cover.

I’m shocked that a sociopath won’t follow the rules. It’s so out of character. His lawyer says that enforcing rules is harassment. You know like, it’s harassment to punish him for broadcasting military classified information to the entire world. I suppose that laws shouldn’t apply to anyone with gender dysphoria, because rules are too confining for them.

The Washington Times reports that Lieutenant Colonel Jason Amerine has been cleared of charges that he leaked classified information on hostage rescues to Congressman Duncan Hunter’s staff.

The [Defense Department] IG reported to Mr. Hunter’s office via email that the staff for the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded his complaint “contained no classified information.”

The DoD IG has not completed its probe into whether Col. Amerine was the victim of Army retaliation that violated the Military Whistleblower Protection Act.

There is still an on-going investigation of LTC Amerine conducted by the Criminal Investigation Division (CID) whether or not Amerine is guilty of leaking classified information to Hunter’s office when Amerine told the Congressman about the Obama Administration’s dysfunctional policy to negotiate the release of American hostages.

Remember in high school when you jokingly voted for ugly chick to be the homecoming queen? Apparently, 8,000 people did that when the Sergeant Major of the Army invited them to vote for future uniform changes. That’s about how many voted for the Ike Jacket, according to the Army Times. Only about 10% of the folks who were polled responded.

I don’t think that the fatties are going to like the way they look in that jacket. They also want to make the service cap (bus driver hat) for SFCs and above part of the Army Service Uniform. And a uni-sex drill sergeant campaign hat, ditching the female drill sergeant hat.

There’s going to be another whack at the voting, so don’t screw this up again, folks.