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

Category: Big Army

Carter fires aide

Joining a long list of flag officers who have been fired in the last few years is Lieutenant General Ron Lewis, an aide to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, an air cavalry officer who came up through the ranks from Chicago streets has been accused of “allegations of misconduct”;

“I expect the highest possible standards of conduct from the men and women in this department, particularly from those serving in the most senior positions,” Carter said in his statement. “There is no exception.”

The senior defense official said Lewis would report to the Army Vice Chief of Staff while the allegations are investigated.

“The secretary was very surprised to learn of these allegations,” the official said.

The inspector general’s office confirmed it had received a referral from Carter’s office regarding Lewis and said it would conduct an investigation. It gave no further details.

November 13, 2015
McHugh warns of “thinly stretched” Army

John McHugh, the outgoing Secretary of the Army, warned the assemblage at the annual conference of the Association of the United States Army that the Army is “thinly stretched” and “on a ragged edge”. From TribLive;

“BCT readiness levels right now are at 32 percent,” he said. “Our standard? Sixty to 70 percent. We are simply consuming that readiness as it’s produced — with more funding cuts looming before us. If we continue to strip resources from this Army, I have said repeatedly, at some point, someone is going to have to tell us to stop doing something. As I look at the world right now, I don’t know where that would be.”

This is not the first time concerns have been raised about a decreasing budget, but the language suggests an increasing uneasiness.

“And the problem we have been most troubled by is not the challenges we saw. … It’s the ones we didn’t see, we didn’t budget for, we didn’t plan for,” McHugh said.

Yeah, well, who’s fault is that, McHugh? The White House recommended “sequestration” as a way to break a logjam on budget cuts, and they’ve been unwilling to do anything to correct the destructive power of using defense cuts to balance the budget. In fact, when Congress tried to fully fund the Defense Department this year, the White House threatened to veto. In previous years, the White House has even gone so far as to hold up DoD funding because Congress won’t hike healthcare costs for retirees.

The White House says that they want to balance the budget, but they refuse to cut spending across the board. The only cuts that they’ll approve are cuts to Defense spending, you know, while we’re conducting all of these war thingies. Let’s see the White House and the Congress lead the way in this whole thing by cutting their own internal spending.

October 13, 2015
Politicians and warriors

Back in June, we talked about Sergeant First Class Earl D. Plumlee’s Medal of Honor nomination which made it easily through the military side of the Pentagon, but was shot down once the civilian politicians on the other side of the Puzzle Palace got their grubby paws on the paperwork. The civvies decided that a CID investigation of a sale of a gift from a contractor to SFC Plumlee came to naught.

The Washington Post reports that California Congressman Duncan Hunter is looking at this case along with the case of LTC Jason Amerine and Major Mathew L. Golsteyn;

A spokesman for Hunter, Joe Kasper, said Tuesday that the inspector general’s office found in June that the Army was within its rights to launch an investigation into Plumlee’s alleged actions and notified Hunter’s office afterward. Work referenced that in a new letter to Hunter also sent Sept. 2.

“On June 26, 2015, the Office of the Inspector General responded to you regarding their investigation into the actions of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command following complaints lodged against Sergeant First Class Plumlee,” Work’s letter said. “Now that the previous investigation is complete, I have asked the Inspector General to open a separate review of the circumstances surrounding Sergeant First Class Plumlee’s award in response to the allegations in your letter of May 19, 2015. ”

The Pentagon needs to drag these civilians out of the awards process. I look at SFC Allwyne Cashe and Rafael Peralta, both of whom deserve the Medal of Honor by any measure and now SFC Plumlee – the awards system has failed these heroes, the “civilian leadership” has failed these men.

September 9, 2015
Because those fat retirement checks just aren’t enough sometimes

The Army Times reports that the Army has created new award “to recognize “the demonstrated superior accomplishments and leadership that contributed to the efficiency, efficacy and overall improvement in the operations of the Army or its elements””. It’s just for the wienies at the Pentagon – you know those guys for whom the fat paycheck just ain’t enough.

The [Army Leadership Award] will be presented upon an official’s retirement or conclusion of service at Army headquarters.

The ALA will be awarded at the discretion and approval of the secretary of the Army, but eligibility is limited to a small cadre of senior leaders, as follows:

Military: Army chief of staff, Army vice chief of staff and sergeant major of the Army.

Civilian: Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed officials who serve as secretary of the Army, undersecretary of the Army, the five assistant secretaries of the Army and general counsel of the Army.

I guess there has to be just a little bit more when you already have three Legion of Merit and four Meritorious Service Medals and retirement is just around the corner. And, you know, just BEING the Army Chief of Staff isn’t quite enough.

Nominations for the award will consist of a one-page narrative to be submitted on a DA Form 1256 (Incentive Award Nomination and Approval).

Yeah, I can see a lot of the nominations won’t be approved.

September 3, 2015
Doesn’t Pass the “Smell Test”

Well, the Army’s drawdown is underway. And even decorated heroes aren’t immune.

It seems that at least one 11-year Special Forces Sergeant First Class and bona fide decorated hero is being forced out. His name is SFC Charles Martland.

He’s been described by former teammates as “the finest soldier they have ever served alongside”. He was awarded a Bronze Star with V-Device for combat heroism in Afghanistan. He was runner-up for 2014 Special Warfare Training Group Instructor of the Year.

But it seems Martland’s records went before a recent Quality Management Program review board. His file apparently contained a bad evaluation – a “Relief for Cause” evaluation, to be precise. He was selected for elimination by the board, and he’s being forced out.

What did Martland do to get relieved for cause? Well, I’ll tell you.

Martland’s team was engaged in training Afghan police. However, while doing that they discovered that one of the “fine individuals” they were training was also a child rapist and a woman-beater.

Specifically, the SF team supporting the training discovered that that individual had raped a 12-year-old Afghan boy. The boy’s mother brought her son to the SF detachment for medical care. When he was examined, the rape was discovered.

The individual found out that his crime had been discovered. He then located the boy’s mother beat her for exposing his crime.

Martland and his team leader afterwards confronted the rapist about what he’d done. When they confronted the rapist, that “fine individual” told them essentially that it was no big deal – and then laughed in their faces.

At that point, Martland and his team leader physically shoved the rapist and woman-beater; he fell to the ground. The rapist was bruised, but otherwise unhurt – unfortunately. I’d personally be OK with the bastard having ceased consuming oxygen at that point.

However, the low life bastard afterwards apparently reported the confrontation to other US authorities. This ultimately led to Martland and his team leader being relieved.

Yes, you read that correctly. They were relieved of duty because they confronted a child rapist and woman-beating low-life bastard without seriously injuring or killing him.

Sorry, but that doesn’t make any freaking sense. Wrong? Perhaps technically. But also IMO completely understandable. Hell – in my book, if anything those two should have been commended for keeping their anger in check and not summarily killing the bastard on the spot.

Martland’s team leader opted to leave the Army some time ago. However, Martland stayed in the Army instead.

But now he’s getting pitched.

Fox News has further details here. You should read the linked article.

But maybe you should wait until later to read it if you’re having high blood pressure issues right now.

August 21, 2015
Army may miss recruiting goals for 2015

USAToday reports that the Army is looking at missing it’s recruiting goal for the first time in six years, for the third time in the last 20 years.

“It is a challenging mission, and we’re not going to get around that,” [Major General Jeffrey Snow, USAREC commander] said. “And there are indications that the economy is going to continue to improve. ”

[…]

The shortfall in recruiting comes as the Army is planning to pare 40,000 soldiers from its ranks over the next few years. Despite that reduction to 450,000 men and women, the Army still needs about 60,000 young recruits a year to fill out its combat and support units.

Yeah, the economy is the problem. The economy was singing along during the Iraq War and folks were getting shot up, and the Army didn’t have any problem recruiting volunteers. But then, the Army wasn’t bending over backwards to appease every social engineer with a brain fart of an idea back then either.

For the first 10 months of fiscal year 2015, recruiters made more than 415,000 appointments with young men and women interested in the Army. Those resulted in just over 50,000 signing up to serve. For the same period in 2014, they made 371,000 appointments and had signed up 52,000 soldiers.

“We made more appointments,” Snow said. “We conducted more appointments. Yet there were fewer contracts achieved.”

Yeah, well, what happened to all of those gays who were going bolster the ranks? Surely, females just itching to be Rangers are knocking down those recruiters’ doors. Maybe the floodgates will open when they let transsexuals serve openly – so they’ve got that demographic working for them.

It couldn’t be that Congress and the White House are working hand-in-hand to reduce pay and benefits, while making retirement from the military less appealing.

The services struggled during the Carter years, too, you know when bonuses and pay were meager. Then Carter tried to bribe us with a 36% pay raise the month before the 1980 election and the following year, Reagan gave us another 35% the following year and newbies were beating down the doors. So much so that we could boot the VolAr troops who joined for the colorful bedspreads with their 65 GT scores.

But, hey, maybe those new uniforms will draw them in, or they could change the color of the berets.

July 31, 2015
Odierno: “frustrating” to watch ISIS in Iraq

The Army Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno, did a final interview with Fox News as he heads out the door into retirement. During that interview, he candidly told Jennifer Griffin that he is frustrated that conditions in Iraq are what they’ve become and that it was completely preventable;

“It’s frustrating to watch it,” Odierno said. “I go back to the work we did in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 and we got it to a place that was really good. Violence was low, the economy was growing, politics looked like it was heading in the right direction.”

Odierno said the fall of large parts of Iraq was not inevitable, reiterating concerns about the pace of the U.S. troop withdrawal there.

“If we had stayed a little more engaged, I think maybe it might have been prevented,” he said. “I’ve always believed the United States played the role of honest broker between all the groups and when we pulled ourselves out, we lost that role.”

I applaud the General for speaking up now, but he does a great disservice to troops currently engaged in combat operations in Iraq by waiting six years to bring up his concerns. He continues that he had no access to policymakers in the White House, but that he relayed his concerns to the secretary of defense. Yeah, well, we’re talking about him communicating through Robert Gates and Leon Panetta who also waited to criticize the Obama Administration on their handling of the Iraq situation until after they retired. To me, that’s just cowardly. They should have all publicly and vociferously resigned to expose the failures of the policy makers before their policies led us to this point.

But, then Odierno sent his sergeant major to Afghanistan to lecture the troops that they were causing the “green-on-blue” attacks by their allies because they didn’t respect the culture of Islam. He also presided over the policy that left our troops defenseless while their supposed allies shot them up in those attacks. I understand that his job was to salute and execute, but you know, there comes a point when you have to realize that the orders you’re being given disregard the advice you’re giving and it’s time to go.

I noticed that Odierno doesn’t mention the massive cuts that are being made to compensation and manpower by this administration, so while he seems to be acting brave in his criticism, he still sticks up for the policies that are destroying the Army.

July 22, 2015
Army Recruiting Command addresses armed civilians at recruiting facilities

Someone sent us this policy letter last night from the Command Operations Center – Security Division of the US Army Recruiting Command in regards to the folks who are standing outside recruiting offices to ostensibly protect recruiters from terrorists;

Subject: USAREC Policy – Armed citizens at recruiting centers ATO’s,

Situation: The USAREC COC has received reports from two Brigade ATOs, social media and TV coverage that law abiding armed citizens are standing outside of our recruiting centers in an attempt to safeguard our recruiters.

Execution:

1) Recruiters will not acknowledge the presence or interact with these civilians. If questioned by these alleged concerned citizens; be polite, professional, and terminate the conversation immediately and report the incident to local law enforcement and complete USAREC Form 958 IAW USAREC 190-4 (SIR)

2) Do not automatically assume these concerned citizens are there to help.
Immediately report IAW USAREC 190-4 (Suspicious Behavior)

3) Immediately report any civilians loitering near the Station/Center to local police if the recruiter feels threatened. Ensure your recruiters’ clearly articulate to local police the civilian may be armed and in possession of a conceal/carry permit. Ensure recruiters include any information provided by local police in their SIR reporting the incident.

4) Ensure all station commanders implement FPCON Charlie 6 (Lock and secure entry points) addressed in previous email.

5) I’m sure the citizens mean well, but we cannot assume this in every case and we do not want to advocate this behavior.

*** The timely and accurate submission of 958s (SIR) is imperative to track these incidents and elicit support from TRADOC, ARNORTH and NORTHCOM.

I agree with the policy, actually, but, Big Army can rectify the situation by allowing recruiters to protect their own offices. The civilians wouldn’t be there if the Army took some basic force protection measures. You know, beyond closing the blinds and wearing civilian clothes in route to work.

Folks who are planning to make a show at recruiters’ facilities, probably shouldn’t do so in a manner that can be construed as “loitering”.

July 21, 2015