Category: Army News

Bobo sends us a link to Fox News which reports that an explosion at Letterkenny Army Depot, Pennsylvania has sent three to the hospital;

The Franklin County Office of Emergency Management told Fox News three people were airlifted from the Letterkenny Army Depot after the blast, and there was no threat to the public.

It wasn’t immediately clear how severe the injuries were; however, employees reported seeing two coworkers run out of a building “screaming and on fire, one with chemical burns,” ABC27 reported.

[…]

The 18,000-acre depot has more than 3,600 employees who help provide “responsive and sustainable readiness for the US and Allied Air and Missile Defense forces.”

Established in 1942, the facilities assist in maintaining and storing missiles and ammunition.

Clay sends a link to the news that 15 Fort Jackson, South Carolina soldiers were treated for being near a lightning strike. None were actually injured, but they were sent for treatment as a precaution;

The Fort Jackson PAO’s office says the lightning strike happened in a field where 200 soldiers in the 2nd Battalion of the 13th Regiment were conducting training around 3:45 p.m. near the Percival Road side of the post.

Officials say 15 of those soldiers were taken to the hospital as a precaution, but there are no injuries. The soldiers are back in training.

The soldiers were underneath a lightning-proof structure 50 to 60 meters from the location of the strike and felt it, but there were no injuries.

Lightning hates the Army.

The Army is changing it’s fitness requirements – even the name is changing from the Army Physical Fitness Test to the Army Combat Fitness Test, according to United Press International;

The new standards call for deadlift tests, throwing ten-pound balls for distance backwards, and hand-release pushups that require hands to be taken off the ground for greater muscle tension. It also includes sled drags to simulate casualties, sprints with 40-pound kettle bells, hanging from a pull-up bar with legs up and the standard 2-mile run.

“Throughout that research and testing, the goal was to provide our leaders with a tough, realistic, field-expedient assessment of the physical component of their soldiers’ individual readiness,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel A. Dailey said in a press release. “The ACFT is scientifically validated and will help better prepare our soldiers to deploy, fight and win on any future battlefield.”

More than 2,000 soldiers have already taken the new test.

“This is a generational, cultural change in fitness for the United States Army, and will be a cornerstone of individual soldier combat readiness,” Army Maj. Gen. Malcolm Frost, commander of the Army’s Center of Initial Military Training, told the Military Times. “That’s how big this is for the Army.”

Thanks to David for the link.

The Associated Press has an article going around today about how the US Army [is] quietly discharging immigrant recruits. It can be misleading, if you choose to misread the whole thing. Basically, the Army is issuing uncharacterized discharges to people who haven’t gone to basic training yet because of problems with their applications. Some folks are reading it as the Army is discharging active duty soldiers – but that’s not it at all;

Some of the service members say they were not told why they were being discharged. Others who pressed for answers said the Army informed them they’d been labeled as security risks because they have relatives abroad or because the Defense Department had not completed background checks on them.

Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the Army said that, due to the pending litigation, they were unable to explain the discharges or respond to questions about whether there have been policy changes in any of the military branches.

Eligible recruits are required to have legal status in the U.S., such as a student visa, before enlisting. More than 5,000 immigrants were recruited into the program in 2016, and an estimated 10,000 are currently serving. Most go the Army, but some also go to the other military branches.

Many of the quotes from recruits in the article give the reader the impression that they spent time on active duty – that’s not the case. The immigration attorney keeps saying thing like “Immigrants have been serving in the Army since 1775” whatever that means because it doesn’t apply to this situation at all.

President George W. Bush ordered “expedited naturalization” for immigrant soldiers in 2002 in an effort to swell military ranks. Seven years later the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, known as MAVNI, became an official recruiting program.

It came under fire from conservatives when President Barack Obama added DACA recipients — young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally — to the list of eligible enlistees. In response, the military layered on additional security clearances for recruits to pass before heading to boot camp.

The Trump Administration added even more hurdles, creating a backlog within the Defense Department. Last fall, hundreds of recruits still in the enlistment process had their contracts canceled. A few months later, the military suspended MAVNI.

See, you have to read deeply into the article until you understand that the Associated Press is talking about recruits waiting on start dates, not soldiers on active duty.

I’m just waiting for the anti-military Left to take up the mantle for these recruits.