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

Category: Big Pentagon

  • This guarding recruiting offices won’t end well

    This guarding recruiting offices won’t end well

    While I applaud the spirit behind these folks lining up to protect recruiting offices from terrorist attacks, it’s poor substitute for trained personnel, you know, like the recruiters themselves. But this negligent discharge happened in Lancaster, Ohio, according to TV10.

    Lancaster Police tell 10TV 28-year-old Christopher Reed fired an AR-15 rifle while attempting to clear the ammunition from the weapon at the Military Recruiting Center on River Valley Boulevard Thursday afternoon.

    The bullet struck the ground and no one was injured.

    Reed was cited for accidental discharge in city limits. His gun was confiscated until a court hearing next week.

    In response, U.S. Properties Group – which owns the strip mall where the recruiting center is located – requested Lancaster Police “escort all armed civilians from our property.”

    According to Fox News, General Odierno claimed to them that the Army is considering arming their recruiters. Stars & Stripes says that the incoming Commandant of the Marine Corps considers that solution “most extreme” and that it could have unintended consequences.

    Well, apparently, those civilian folks standing out there with their guns could have unintended consequences, too.

  • Pentagon is lifting the tranny ban

    Pentagon is lifting the tranny ban

    Taliban repeal DADT

    No one should be surprised that the Pentagon has decided to lift the ban against transgendered service members according to the Associated Press;

    Carter is creating a working group to do a six-month study on the impact of lifting the ban. Carter says the group will begin with the presumption that transgender people should be able to serve openly.

    The plan, which was first reported by The Associated Press, gives the services time to work through questions about health care, housing, physical standards, uniforms and costs associated with the change.

    Yeah, well, go ahead. The thing is, I don’t want to hear the Pentagon cry about how they don’t have money to fund our healthcare, how they don’t have money for adequate pay raises for the folks on active duty, how they can’t afford to keep the A-10 Thunderbolt in the skies above the ground forces. If they have the money to study how to integrate deviants into the services for no good reason, they have enough money to pay us cis-gendered folks what they promised us.

  • DoD weighs in on new retirement system

    Chock Block sends us a link to the Marine Corps Times which reports that the Department of Defense has written a six-page report on what they want the new retirement system for members of the military to look like.

    The Pentagon is officially backing a “blended” system that would shrink the size of the current pension by about 20 percent yet supplement that benefit by offering government contributions to individual retirement investment accounts.

    The proposed system would provide for the first time a modest retirement benefit for the vast majority of service members who leave the military before reaching 20 years of service to qualify for the traditional pension.

    The Defense Department’s recommendations are mostly similar to the legislation that is gaining steam on Capitol Hill and comes at a time when lawmakers are hammering out the details of their annual defense policy bill.

    The Defense Department and members of Congress are being disingenuous about this thing. The “modest retirement benefit” for folks leaving before twenty years, isn’t helpful at all. It’s only the Thrift Savings Program, you know, that 401k thing that would trigger a penalty from the IRS if the money was used before the age of 59 1/2, along with any tax due on the amount withdrawn. In total, it would cost about half of the amount in the account. It’s only a real benefit if the service member leaves the money alone until they reach retirement age. Odds are that wouldn’t happen among enlisted members, especially if there’s no education process involved.

    The DoD should look at the current participation rate among service members in the TSP. I suspect that it’s pretty low. I know my own son didn’t understand it until I sat him down and explained it to him.

    On top of that, the government wants to wait to start matching contribution (5%) until after four years of service. That’s cheating service members out of four years of growth of that money which could be significant over time.

    The Pentagon recommends a new retirement system taking effect in January 2018 and giving current troops at that time two years to decide whether to opt into the new system and begin accruing money in a TSP or to exercise the grandfather clause and remain under the current system.

    Yeah, that will be the real test – if they explain the system to the troops, instead of sell it to them.

    Either way, I hope the DoD is as prepared to deal with the hit they’re going to take to retention and enlistment and I hope they’re as excited about that as they are about saving money on the backs of the troops.

  • Arms deals with Vietnam

    Arms deals with Vietnam

    China is claiming much more of the South China Sea by building artificial islands and placing weapons systems on them. That has spurred other nations in the area to do the same, including Vietnam. It looks like Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is visiting our former adversary to finalize some arms deals for defensive weapons in light of the Chinese expansion, according to the Associated Press.

    Last October the U.S. partially lifted its ban on weapons sales to Vietnam to boost the country’s ability to defend itself in the South China Sea. Only the sale of lethal maritime security and surveillance capabilities are allowed on a case-by-case basis, including boats and air assets based on an evaluation of Vietnam’s needs. But to date no weapons have flowed to Vietnam.

    U.S. Sen. John McCain said Saturday that the U.S. should gradually lift the weapons ban on Vietnam, amid heightened tensions with China over the reclamation projects.

    It’s almost funny that it was Nixon’s relations with China that brought North Vietnam to the negotiation table to end US involvement in the war in Vietnam, and now we’re arming Vietnam to get some control over Chinese expansion, and it was Chinese troops that bled to stop Vietnamese incursions into Laos in the late 70s and put an end to the “Domino Effect” that US troops went to Vietnam to stop in the 60s.

    So, are you confused? You’re not the only one. From Bloomberg;

    Some older members of the Vietnamese Politburo, who recall the U.S. as the enemy, are skeptical of a complete turnabout. And while Vietnam is wary of Chinese domination, China remains its top trading partner and an important source of capital.

    “This is a piece of complex systems engineering,” said Dean Cheng, an Asian affairs specialist at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. “There are many, many moving parts, not just China and the U.S.,” he said. “The whole area is very much in flux.”

    Neither the White House, nor John McCain, are keen on tying humans rights issues to the arms deals with Vietnam, unlike Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan who would have made it a key point instead.

  • General Mark A. Milley named the new ACS, Richardson, the CNO

    General Mark A. Milley named the new ACS, Richardson, the CNO

    Milley and Richardson

    Chief Tango sends us a link to the Washington Post which reports the announcement that General Mark A. Milley has been nominated to be the Army Chief of Staff. Also, John M. Richardson will be the new Chief of Naval Operations.

    They will replace Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno and Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, whose traditional four-year stints leading their services expire later this year.

    Carter called Milley a “warrior and a statesmen” and Richardson a “go-to officer” for many challenges the Navy has faced in recent years. He appeared alongside them at the Pentagon.

    I like Milley, just from reading his bio. Those of you who served under him may have a different opinion. Apparentl,y Milley was commissioned as an armor officer but spent most of his career as an infantry and special forces officer. He has a second award of the CIB (Panama and GWOT) and an Expert Infantryman Badge. Anyone can make a mistake (become an armor officer) and recover from it (become an infantry officer). He’s an ROTC grad, commissioned from the Princeton program.

    Richardson, on the other hand, is a Naval Academy grad and a career bubblehead. Again, those of you who have served with him know more than I do about him or his career.

    On the upside, they can’t do much worse than their predecessors have done.

  • Dunford to replace Dempsey

    Dunford to replace Dempsey

    Dunford_JF

    Last year, we announced that General Joseph Dunford would replace General James Amos as the Commandant of the Marine Corps. This year, he’s replacing Marty Dempsey as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Just like last year, General Dunford has an easy act to follow. From the Associated Press;

    “I know Joe, I trust him,” Obama said. “He has already proven his ability to give me his unvarnished military advice based on his experience on the ground.”

    Obama made the announcement at the White House Tuesday. Dunford is expected to be easily confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

    His selection signals that even as the U.S. puts more focus on Asia and looks ahead to high-tech cyber and space threats, the administration still believes a strong ground force commander is needed to work through the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and across the Middle East and Africa.

    As we noted last year, Dunford cut his military teeth as an infantryman. From his official bio;

    General Dunford’s assignments in the operating forces include Platoon and Company Commander, Co K, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines; Company Commander, Co A, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines; and Company Commander, Co L, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. He served as the Operations, Plans, and Training Officer in 2d ANGLICO and the Regimental Executive Officer, 6th Marines. He commanded the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines and the 5th Marine Regiment. He served as the Chief of Staff, 1st Marine Division.

    […]

    General Dunford is a graduate of the U. S. Army Ranger School, Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School, and the U. S. Army War College. He holds an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University and an M.A. in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

    As opposed to Dempsey who has a Master’s degree in literature.

  • Carter and the “pivot” to Asia

    Carter and the “pivot” to Asia

    Ashton Carter, the US Secretary of Defense, gave a speech at Arizona State University’s McCain Institute yesterday in which he renewed his support for the Administration’s “pivot” of our defense policy from the ongoing wars in the Middle East, North Africa and the Crimea to the Pacific Rim, according to the Associated Press;

    The Obama administration is opening a new phase of its strategic “rebalance” toward Asia and the Pacific by investing in high-end weapons such as a new long-range stealth bomber, refreshing its defense alliance with Japan and expanding trade partnerships, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday.

    “I am personally committed to overseeing the next phase of the rebalance, which will deepen and diversify our engagement in the region,” Carter said in a speech outlining the administration’s rationale for trying to devote more attention to Asia.

    The article points out that President Bush had the same goal, shifting defense policy focus on Asia, but that he was distracted by the war against terror. Apparently, this administration isn’t going to allow the war against ISIS, the Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, or the Russian insurgency in the Ukraine distract them from throwing money at the Pacific. They want to invest in a long-range stealth bomber, but trash the close-air-support A-10, I guess because they don’t figure a war in the Pacific would involve ground troops.

    Carter urged Congress to give President Barack Obama authority to complete a free trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation accord that Carter said holds “enormous promise” for jobs and economic growth in the United States. He said it is expected to increase U.S. exports by $123.5 billion in the next decade.

    So what are we going to export? Food stamps and Toyotas?

  • VA & DoD still can’t transfer your health records

    VA & DoD still can’t transfer your health records

    The Washington Times reports that after all of these years, the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs still can’t seamlessly transfer your health records when you leave the service. Congress has mandated that they work out a system to do that quickly – their solution was to have the military hand you a compact disc to hand carry to the VA with your records in portable data format (.pdf). They’ve spent billions and billions of dollars on electronic processes, but they can’t get it right;

    Last year, the Pentagon issued a final request for bids for an $11 billion contract to replace its obsolete electronic health record system and improve data-sharing between it and the VA. However, both branches of the government seem to be moving down different modernization paths.

    […]

    “The two departments have engaged in a series of initiatives intended to achieve electronic health record interoperability, but accomplishment of this goal has been continuously delayed and has yet to be realized,” the GAO said in its report. “The ongoing lack of electronic health record interoperability limits VA clinicians’ ability to readily access information from DOD records, potentially impeding their ability to make the most informed decisions on treatment options, and possibly putting veterans’ health at risk.”

    […]

    Mr. McDonald told Congress earlier this year that the administration’s $4.1 billion budget request for fiscal 2016 would make progress in efforts to more easily share health records with the Defense Department by “enhancing and modernizing VA’s electronic health record, enhancing data security and achieving health data interoperability with the Department of Defense.”

    Walinda West, a VA spokeswoman, highlighted several initiatives the department is working on to better work with the Defense Department, including a joint committee to institutionalize sharing and collaboration, an agreement to share health care resources and a congressionally authorized fund to enhance collaboration from 2003.

    Well, you know, that’s because this email thing is a brand new process and we’re not sure that we’ve worked the bugs out of it yet. For the amount of money they’ve spent, they could have run a dedicated line the mile or so from the Pentagon to the VA’s Vermont Avenue office building and faxed the things – but you know, that fax machine thing is brand new technology, too.

    For the billions of dollars that they’ve spent on an electronic system, they could send your records by taxi or bike messenger…or by burro…between the two buildings.

    When I retired in 1994, the Army told me that they’d send my records to the VA. A few weeks after I retired, I got a call from the VA at my home to tell me that they got my records and would I please come in and begin the evaluation process with a doctor. How did they ever do that? More importantly, why can’t they do it that way again?