Category: Big Army

So, TSO, Blckfive and me are in DC for the Medal of Honor ceremony for Army Sgt. Kyle J. White tomorrow afternoon. There was a reception tonight hosted by Sergeant Major of the Army Ray Chandler. Somehow I was egged into taking a selfie with the CSA, you know because I’m such a fan. So I cornered him at the bar. So you see, I’m working hard here. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Stars & Stripes reports that the Joint Chiefs of Staff faced off with Congress yesterday, standing firm for cost of living reductions, slashing commissaries and housing help while hiking health care costs to troops and retirees.

Also Tuesday, all members of the Joint Chiefs testified in a rare gathering before the Senate Armed Services Committee to warn of the dangers of a shrinking defense budget and press for support of a 1 percent pay-raise and reductions to commissary, housing and health care benefits.

In addition to the 1 percent pay raise, the DOD proposes cutting subsidies to base supermarkets from $1.4 billion to $400 million annually, reducing housing allowances until servicemembers pay about 5 percent for residences and utilities, and consolidating what Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Adm. James Winnefeld called a “bewildering” Tricare health care system.

From the JCS website;

The military needs Congress to step forward and help, Dempsey said. “Our recommendations have lacked congressional support — notably, our request to reduce base infrastructure and retire weapons systems that we no longer need and cannot afford,” the chairman told the senators. “In the meantime, we are continuing to hemorrhage readiness and cutting further into modernization. [This means] risk to the performance of our mission and risk to those who serve continues to grow.”

Dempsey told the senators that all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all of the services’ senior enlisted leaders support the three departmentwide principles to rebalance military compensation.

“First, we’re not advocating direct cuts to troops’ pay,” Dempsey said. “Rather, this package slows the growth of basic pay and housing allowances while reducing commissary subsidies and modernizing our health care system.”

Second, military leaders will ensure that the compensation package allows the services to continue to attract and retain the quality people needed, Dempsey said. “We’ll watch the way the force reacts, and if it reacts, we’ll be back to you with recommendations on how to adjust,” he added. “But we have to take that step.”

Finally, Dempsey told the Senate panel, savings from this will be invested in force readiness and modernization.

Yeah, and invested in new golf carts at the Fort Meyers golf course. This group of the joint Chiefs will go down in history as the worst. The troops depend on their leaders to stand up for them, but this crowd can’t get off their knees. And, there’s enough blame to go around for Congress, too, which won’t grow some cojones and demand across the board cuts to all agencies in the Executive Branch instead of just one.

PintoNag sends a link from MSN which reports that SSG Adam C. Thorogood, a Kentucky National Guardsman, plans to sue the Army over it’s new tattoo regs;

[Thorogood] said the tattoos covering his left arm from the elbow to the wrist aren’t harmful, but the Army is using the body art against him and stopping him from fulfilling a dream of joining “The Nightstalkers,” the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Thorogood’s attorneys said the new rules are preventing their client from seeking appointment as a warrant officer.

Thorogood, 28, sued Thursday in U.S. District Court in Paducah, Kentucky, seeking to have the new rules declared unconstitutional. He is seeking $100 million in damages.

I think this is as stupid as the folks using the CBC to get the Pentagon to change hair regs. Of course, I also think that the new reg is cumbersome and stupid. We can all hope that the Army comes to the realization that they need talented warriors more than they need pretty soldiers. I have no tattoos, but that was my choice, I always figured that I’m pretty enough the way I am, so….

If the Army wants to make a previously allowed practice not allowed, then just make a cutoff date and stop it. There should be no repercussions for the people who had the tats before the date. But no one has ever accused Ray Chandler of having any smarts. And then the annual tattoo inventory is more unnecessary BS – obviously contrived by a POG who has nothing to do but inspect police call areas all day. If they’re going to be hard and fast with the inventories, they should make sergeant majors certify every inventory personally, and it should be monthly. On pay day. Then the practice would go away before it even started.

Ray wants a pretty Army and he wants to drive the ugly ones out;

“The Army is a profession, and one of the ways our leaders and the American public measure our professionalism is by our appearance,” Chandler said. “Every soldier has the responsibility to understand and follow these standards. Leaders at all levels also have a responsibility to interpret and enforce these standards, which begins by setting the example.”

Yeah, well, time travel hasn’t been invented yet, so the soldiers can’t know that some bozo sergeant major is going to change the regs on them. Of course, this is the same sergeant major of the Army who lectured the troops in Afghanistan that their cultural insensitivity was getting them killed in green-on-blue attacks – and still supported their commander’s decision to force the troops to be unarmed in a combat zone. So, we really can’t expect him to have a measure of common sense on something so simple as tattoos, can we?