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

Category: Big Army

  • Army thinks about classifying Fort Hood shooting as “terror”

    Jerry920 sends us a link to NBC News which reports that the Army may reconsider whether or not the attack on soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas was actually a terrorist attack;

    In a letter dated Nov. 1 to South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson, U.S. Army Secretary John McHugh said, “the intelligence community considers Major Hasan to be a ‘homegrown violent extremist’ – a person who may engage in ideologically – motivated terrorist activities …”

    Shawn Manning was shot six times by Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who’s been sentenced to death for gunning down 32 people and killing 13 at Fort Hood in 2009.

    NBC 5 Investigates shared the letter with Manning who said, “it’s the closest that the Secretary of the Army, Department of Defense, has gotten to saying this is an act of terrorism.”

    Still, the secretary said Hasan’s victims are not entitled to Purple Hearts because the Department of Defense has not been able to establish Hasan was acting at the direction of a foreign terrorist organization.

    Here’s the main body of the letter from McHugh to Representative Joe Wilson;

    McHugh letter

    Yeah, well, the Army should ask the FBI if Hasan was working under the direction of terrorists, and this time they should listen to the FBI.

  • Maybe Some Good Will Come From It

    It seems the claims that CPT William Swenson’s Medal of Honor packet was simply “lost” might actually be true.  According to the Army Times, a recent DoD IG investigation found that loss of award recommendations was a “frequent” occurrence at Headquarters, US Forces – Afghanistan.  Award procedures there were apparently a mess.

    I’d like to think that was actually the case, and that Swenson’s MoH packet was simply lost through accident or incompetence vice being deliberately sabotaged.  It’s sad, though, that I still have to wonder if that’s really the case.  Politics (either inter- or intra-Service) should play absolutely zero role in military awards for heroism.  In Swenson’s case, I’m still not absolutely convinced that politics didn’t play a role in the “loss” of his original award recommendation.

    We all know that the military’s award system has major problems; we all know it will never be perfect.  But maybe Swenson’s case – and the resulting high-profile interest in the delay – will be a catalyst to help fix some of those issues.

    I hate to presume speak for others; most don’t need or want me to speak on their behalf.  But I’ll go out on a limb here and say that if the delay here helps fix the system, even partially, I’m guessing CPT Swenson would say the delay in his case was worth it.

    No, it never should have happened.  But maybe some good will come from it anyway.

  • Two colonels leave jobs over the “pretty women” email

    I picked this up at Bring the heat, bring the stupid, the Military Times is reporting that two full birds have left their jobs over the email that we discussed earlier in the week about using more “plain-looking” women in public affairs pictures;

    “In order to protect the integrity of the ongoing work on gender integration in the Army, Col. Lynette Arnhart agreed to step down as the gender integration study director,” Army spokesman George Wright said in a statement to Army Times on Nov. 22. “Gen. [Robert] Cone, Commander of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, accepted this change in study leadership. Concurrently, TRADOC suspended [Col. Christian] Kubik from his position as the Public Affairs Officer pending the outcome of an investigation.”

    It was poor lack of judgement that Arnhart sent the email in the first place, and her stepping down is totally useless, because she’s just going to be replaced by someone who thinks the same way, they’ll just be smart enough to not put it in writing. And, it’s going to be hard to convince any female soldiers that they’re being photographed not because they look plain.

    The Army doesn’t need to have an investigation of anyone. It was a stupid email it’s not urinating on Taliban corpses or anything.

  • Army to cleanse ranks of convicted sex offenders

    Andy sends us a link to an Army Times article in regards to the Secretary of the Army John McHugh’s decision to toss out convicted sex offenders. You know, that’s fine with me. I’m surprised that they’re still serving. But, it’s not a complete cleansing. It seems some will get to stay. Guess who.

    For enlisted soldiers, separation proceedings will start even if after their conviction they were evaluated for retention and allowed to stay. Commissioned and warrant officers will not face separation proceedings if they were already evaluated for retention after their conviction and retained, according to the memo.

    Um, I guess four years of college insulates the officer corps from persecution, because basically that’s all that separates them from most of the enlisted people who will be tossed. I would think that the Secretary of the Army, since he’s doing this to show how tough he’s going to be on sex offenders would want to completely remove sex offenders from his Army, the one that we lent to him for a period.

    The directive comes ahead of Senate debate this week on the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act, to which a group of senators, spearheaded by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., plan to propose an amendment that removes the military chain of command from the decision to prosecute certain crimes, including sex assault.

    Well, if McHugh is trying to head off the Act, he’s not doing a very good job, in fact by protecting the officers, he’s only proving Gillibrand’s whole point. If a sex offender is in the ranks of the military, they don’t belong there, whether they’re enlisted or officers. Shit or get off the pot, McHugh.

  • Army PAO; only ugly women need apply

    arnhart.jpg

    Several dozen of you sent us this link about Army Public Affairs Officer Colonel Lynette Arnhar’s leaked missive to guide PAOs on their selection of women for photographic publicity;

    “In general, ugly women are perceived as competent while pretty women are perceived as having used their looks to get ahead,” wrote Col. Lynette Arnhart, who is leading a team of analysts studying how best to integrate women into combat roles that have previously been closed off to them. She sent her message to give guidance to Army spokesmen and spokeswomen about how they should tell the press and public about the Army’s integration of women.

    “There is a general tendency to select nice looking women when we select a photo to go with an article (where the article does not reference a specific person). It might behoove us to select more average looking women for our comms strategy. For example, the attached article shows a pretty woman, wearing make-up while on deployed duty. Such photos undermine the rest of the message (and may even make people ask if breaking a nail is considered hazardous duty),” Arnhart said.

    I can imagine the outrage if a man had said this, we’d be looking at another article about yet another O-6 being fired. The New York Post says the woman in the picture above is Lynette Arnhart. But, most of the women I know who have served in the last few years have been too attractive for Colonel Arnhart’s taste, I’m guessing. Mostly, I’m disappointed that a female soldier is perpetuating the myth that attractive women aren’t competent. I also think that none of TAH’s women need apply for modeling jobs with the Army.

  • Hundreds of illegals captured on Fort Huachuca this year

    Old Trooper sends a link from News 4 Tucson in regards to the illegal immigrant problem that is being experienced at Fort Huachuca which is only 15 miles from the Mexican border. reporters have discovered that 331 have been arrested this year alone which is up significantly from last year’s 112 and less than a hundred the year before;

    Stoddard tells the News 4 Tucson Investigators, Fort Huachuca’s location in the Huachuca mountains makes it an attractive illegal entry point for border-crossers.

    “Once they get into the Huachucas, there is a very worn and established trail though there,” Stoddard says.

    Stoddard says the problems of illegal immigrants slipping onto the post isn’t a new one.

    “The military chooses to close its eyes and ignore it,” Stoddard says.

    In fact, officials at Fort Huachuca refused the News 4 Tucson Investigator’s request for an on-camera interview on the issue, saying “apprehending undocumented immigrants is a Department of Homeland Security mission and not a D.o.D. one.”

    Stoddard says he worries about the possibility that weapons could also be coming across the border, and through Fort Huachuca.

    Yeah, well, it seems to me that security of the base is a DoD issue regardless of the nationality of the intruders

    The video autostarts after the jump;
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  • Yet Another Broken Promise. Gee Thanks, HQDA.

    I wrote this article mainly because I’m p!ssed, and I’m venting.  It’s geared toward Army personnel and retirees who read TAH.

    But personnel with a background from other services might want to read it anyway.  I’m guessing similar things will be happening in other services, albeit likely involving other subjects.

    AKO – Army Knowledge Online – will close its doors to retirees and dependents at the end of March 2014.  That’s now official Army policy.  See page 6 of this document.

    Inactive retiree/dependent accounts (no password change in the last 90 days) get the axe at the end of the year.  Current accounts (those who’ve had a password change within the past 90 days) will get the axe on 31 March 2014.  Further details are in the linked article.

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  • MOH Politics

    So what’s this from Fox News? Pentagon probe finds Petraeus sought downgrade of hero Army captain’s Medal of Honor

    Something is rotten in Denmark…….the Pentagon, but then we could have guessed that.

    A Pentagon probe into the mishandling of hero Army Capt. William Swenson’s Medal of Honor nomination found retired Army Gen. David Petraeus had sought to downgrade it, but shed no light on why the soldier’s file was scrubbed from military computers and never passed up the chain of command

    At least Swenson finally got what he earned, and I’m glad Duncan Hunter isn’t letting this go just yet….

    It is extraordinarily disconcerting that the facts surrounding Swenson’s Medal of Honor nomination, specific to how it was handled and subsequently lost, still cannot be resolved,” Hunter wrote.