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

Category: Big Pentagon

  • Trump’s military parade

    Trump’s military parade

    The internet is all a-buzz this morning about a military parade that President Trump ordered last year after he watched one in Paris on the Champs d’Elysee to commemorate Bastille Day. The Washington Post says that the event may be Trump’s “biggest troll yet”. The date for the parade isn’t locked down yet, the Pentagon prefers a Veterans’ Day event this year so that they can bill it as a 100-year commemoration of the end of World War I.

    But Trump’s hand in making this a reality, in a way, can’t help but make it about him. In fact, this might be the most thoroughly Trump idea of his presidency. Not only are we talking about a huge show of pageantry and strength that could test the bounds of practicality (not to mention the federal budget), but we’ve also got Trump upending decades of American political tradition to do so — and undoubtedly drawing the ire of opponents who will allege he’s acting like an authoritarian.

    Of course, my feels go out to the troops. Having been enlisted, it wasn’t often that I avoided much military pageantry during my decades of service. The media is concerned about the cost to bring this all together, but I’m more concerned about the personnel who will be involved in the starch and polish.

    The Post and Yahoo News can’t help but draw parallels between Trump’s and North Korea’s military pageantry. They forget that the US isn’t showing it’s military might to cow it’s own citizens.

    Thanks to Chief Tango for the links.

  • Pentagon common sense; stop being non-deployable

    The Military Times reports that the service chiefs are looking at a policy that would force non-deployable service members to the curb if they are in that status for 12 consecutive months.

    “The department intends to emphasize the expectation that all service members are worldwide deployable and to establish standardized criteria for retaining non-deployable service members,” said Air Force Maj. Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman. “The goal of the policy is to further reduce the number of non-deployable service members and improve personnel readiness across the force.”
    For certain non-deployable personnel, such as wounded warriors, the services would retain the ability to grant exceptions to the retention policy.

    Approximately 11 percent, or 235,000, of the 2.1 million personnel serving on active duty, in the reserves or National Guard are currently non-deployable, according to Command Sgt. Maj. John Troxell, the senior enlisted adviser to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford.

    It’s difficult to imagine why this hasn’t been a policy until now. What good is a force that is too sick to do their jobs? Of course, waivers will grant retention for members injured in combat;

    Of that total non-deployable force, Troxell said, about 99,000 are on that list for administrative reasons, such as not having all their immunizations or their required dental exams. About 20,000 are not deployable due to pregnancy, and 116,000 are not deployable due to either short- or long-term injuries.

    “The 99,000 is the easy stuff — that’s squad leader Troxell … walking you over to the dental clinic, and you’re going to sit in a dentist’s chair, and you’re going to get your annual exam so we can get you off this list,” he said.

    “The other numbers I’m talking about [the 116,000 injuries] … very few of those are related to combat injuries. Or battle injuries. It’s related to everyday, doing their job, or during physical training that they were injured.”

    I wonder how that will affect the new transgender troops who will be non-deployable when they begin their reassignment treatments.

  • Marketing and myths hurt recruiting efforts

    Stars & Stripes reports that the Department of Defense is worried about the “myths” and misconceptions that younger Americans have about military service which are hurting recruiting efforts.

    For example, 63 percent of youth ages 16 to 24 believe it is “likely” or “very likely” that a person leaving the military today has psychological or emotional problems. “They hear about post-traumatic stress disorder and all the challenges faced by service men and women post-conflict, and believe that’s indicative of the vast majority of individuals who serve,” Hebert said.

    The same survey found 61 percent of youth believe it likely or very likely someone getting out of service today will have difficulty readjusting to everyday life. Forty-eight percent believe it is likely or very likely that a person departing the military has a physical injury.

    Absent any other information, Hebert said, the public has no way to put in context the many ads they see soliciting donations to support injured veterans.

    DoD complains that money which went towards their marketing efforts is now spent on training and real world operations because of sequestration, the use by the previous administration to cut government spending on the back of national security.

    During the OIF and OEF missions, the Pentagon reached out to military bloggers to overcome the negative information, a cost effective solution. When the wars wound down, so did their outreach.

    Many milbloggers folded their tents and went to social media to reach a more friendly audience. In my opinion, they missed an opportunity. The veteran-free outlets like “Task and Purpose” and “Popular Military” filled the gap, mostly just perpetuating the misconceptions with “click bait” National Enquirer-type stories.

    The New York Times is bringing back their “At War” column, the Washington Post has begun hiring real veterans to their regular staff, but the DoD is still cash-starved and doesn’t have an operations to feed milbloggers with the words to get the Pentagon’s message out to them.

    At the last Milblog Conference, some representatives of the New York Times and the Washington Post told the assemblage that the media didn’t need milbloggers to explain to them the realities of war like they did in the early years of the war, and it seems that many milbloggers took that as gospel and left the business, but obviously we need them back as much as we needed them during the early war years.

  • Fitbit and OpSec

    Fitbit and OpSec

    Chief Tango sends us links to the story from the Washington Post about a map which highlights the routes that users of fitness trackers are treading upon. Apparently, because the Pentagon issued a few hundred of the devices to troops, the map also highlights where the troops are using them in their secret bases around the world.

    The Global Heat Map was posted online in November 2017, but the information it contains was only publicized on Saturday after a 20-year-old Australian student stumbled across it. Nathan Ruser, who is studying international security and the Middle East, found out about the map’s existence from a mapping blog and was inspired to look more closely, he said, after a throwaway comment by his father, who observed that the map offered a snapshot of “where rich, white people are” in the world.

    “I wondered, does it show U.S. soldiers?” he said, and immediately zoomed in on Syria. “It sort of lit up like a Christmas tree.”

    He started tweeting about his discovery, and the internet also lit up, as data analysts, military experts and former soldiers began scouring the map for evidence of activity in their areas of interest.

    Andrew Rawnsley, a Daily Beast journalist, noticed a lot of jogging activity on the beach near a suspected CIA base in Mogadishu.

    Another Twitter user said he’d located a Patriot site in Yemen.

    Ben Taub, a journalist with the New Yorker, homed in on the location of U.S. special operations bases in the Sahel.

    Of course knowing where the troops are is only one small part of the problem their enemies face. It’s not like US forces are facing an enemy with a large air force which can call in air strikes in minutes. I’m pretty sure that they already know where our troops are anyway.

    I hear that there is a way to off the GPS function on the devices, do that so that the Washington Post reporters can get some sleep tonight and stop worrying about the troops suddenly.

  • CSM John Wayne Troxell to ISIS: surrender or die

    CSM John Wayne Troxell to ISIS: surrender or die

    Command Sergeant Major John Wayne Troxell, the senior enlisted advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a message for members of ISIS according to Fox News; “if they choose not to surrender, then we will kill them with extreme prejudice, whether that be through security force assistance, by dropping bombs on them, shooting them in the face, or beating them to death with our entrenching tools.”

    Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for Dunford and the Joint Staff, told the Post that Troxell’s comments emphasized the U.S.-led coalition’s resolve to defeat ISIS.

    “His intent was to communicate the tenacity of the warrior ethos that, even when faced with the brutal and unforgiving nature of combat, will use every resource available to fight and win,” Ryder said of Troxell.

    The last part of Troxell’s warning, referring to “our entrenching tools”, the folding shovel, probably refers to the news this week in the UK press about a Special Air Services trooper;

    An elite SAS soldier cut off an ISIS fighter’s head with a spade after he ran out of ammunition during a bloody six-hour battle, it was claimed.

    After killing the jihadist, the British sergeant used the enemy’s gun to kill more militants.

    The brutal battle is said to have occurred six weeks ago in war-torn Afghanistan.

    The British special forces unit was ambushed by ISIS gunmen and took refuge in a farm where the soldiers fended off the insurgents with their rifles and anything at hand, it was reported.

    Thanks to Mick for the Fox News link.

  • #MeToo at the Pentagon

    #MeToo at the Pentagon

    The Stars & Stripes reports that the hairy-legged vagina-hat crowd is planning a protest outside the Pentagon, 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on January 8 at the Pentagon Metro Station in Arlington, Va, in support of the military females.

    “We are demonstrating outside the Pentagon to ensure the voices of servicewomen and men are not left behind in the #MeToo movement and that the reckoning that has swept other industries in the nation also takes place in the military,” said Lydia Watts, chief of the Service Women’s Action Network, one of three nonprofit groups involved in the effort.

    “Despite major efforts undertaken by the military in the last decade, sexual assault and harassment continues to be widespread in the military, victims still face retaliation if they report and, and justice for victims remains elusive,” Watts said in a statement.

    According to her Linked In profile, Ms Watts’ background is more than 20 years of nonprofit management and development experience, so you can guess what this lawyer’s interest is in military women.

    I also noticed that one of the co-chairs of the Service Women’s Action Network, is Jenn Hogg, another lawyer, also an actual veteran, who came to the organization from the Iraq Veterans Against the War, a fact noticeably absent from her bio.

    I would think that their efforts would be better spent at protesting in support of Hollywood actresses, Congressional aides or media newsreaders, given recent news items, but the way to stir up their contributors is to stage useless and pointless rallies in front of the Pentagon, I suppose. The military has been sending their sexual criminals to prison in droves lately, meanwhile Al Franken is still in the Senate.

  • Guidance issued for recruiting transgender troops

    The U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command has issued guidance from the Pentagon to recruiters in regards to transgender recruits, according to the Washington Post;

    Individuals who have undergone gender reassignment surgery will be allowed to join the military as long as doctors consider them to have been stable in their new gender for 18 months, with no complications or additional surgery needed.

    During their entry screenings, transgender women who have not undergone gender reassignment surgery or hormone replacement “will wear undergarments consistent with their physical anatomy,” the memo adds. Transgender women, unlike other female applicants, will not be administered a pregnancy test. Everyone will receive a medical exam specific to their “anatomical characteristics.”

    The guidance stresses the need for privacy, noting that some physical screening procedures for the military are not carried out in total seclusion.

    “All applicants, including those who are transgender, may express concern about privacy in bathrooms, ortho-neuro rooms, applicant hotel rooms, or similar venues,” the memo says. “In these cases Commanders may employ reasonable alternate measures to provide greater privacy.”

    Officials with both the Justice Department and Defense Department have argued in court filings that meeting a Jan. 1 deadline places an extraordinary burden on the services and the Pentagon, and requires training for thousands of recruiters and personnel responsible for providing medical screenings.

    I guess that “stable in their new gender” means different things to different people.

    I hope the recruiting command has purchased and issued butt-hurt cream to recruiting stations, because I suspect that both recruiters and recruits are going to have a lot of complaints about the process.

  • Thank goodness there’s direct deposit

    According to Stars & Stripes, the Defense Department reports that there are 44,000 uniformed DoD personnel that are “unknown” as far as their location in the world is concerned.

    The murkiness of the posted numbers of personnel in locations across the world follows a congressional outcry over lack of knowledge of how many soldiers are stationed in Niger, where four Special Forces soldiers were killed Oct. 4 in an attack by militants thought to be associated with radical Islamists.

    Prominent members of Congress, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.-S.C., claimed they had no idea that so many soldiers — about 800, according to Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — were deployed to Niger. The United States has maintained troops there since 2013 and has been involved on and off in the country for decades, Dunford said.

    Pentagon officials say “accounting procedures” make knowing actual end strength difficult to determine.

    I find that hard to believe in the age of computers, all they have to do is add a block for a country code, and you would have instant access to an accurate number in a specific place. If the Department of Defense dosn’t want to give Congress and the media an accurate number, they should just say that instead of looking like incompetent boobs.

    Or, they could ask banks where the troops are spending their paychecks.