Category: Big Pentagon

Stars & Stripes reports that the Pentagon has announced that it has paid for gender reassignment surgery for an active duty servicemember.

Defense Department spokeswoman Dana White said the surgery was done Tuesday in a private hospital and was paid for by the military’s health coverage because the doctor deemed it was medically necessary.

”Military hospitals do not have the surgical expertise to perform this type of surgery, therefore it was conducted in a private hospital,” White said, adding that because this servicemember “had already begun a sex-reassignment course of treatment, and the treating doctor deemed this surgery medically necessary, a waiver was approved by the director of the Defense Health Agency.”

Army Maj. Dave Eastburn said that waivers are required and routinely approved for medical procedures that military facilities don’t have the expertise to perform.

So we’ve begun that trip down the slippery slope.

The President had told the Pentagon to cease paying for the treatments unless the servicemember’s health was in danger. Apparently, that was the case here. I’m not a doctor, but I can’t imagine how the presence of a male appendage can put someone’s health in danger. Especially if they were born with one.

So there’s one troop who can’t be deployed for an extended period of time. Sure hope that our enemies take that into account before staging their next attack – the fact that we’re going to fill the ranks with folks who we know will be non-deployable for most of their time in uniform.

Chief Tango sends us a link to the Washington Post which reports that the president’s visit to France’s Bastille Day parade which showcased France’s military might has influenced Trump to inquire to his military chiefs to organize a military-style parade on Pennsylvania Avenue.

On Monday, seated next to Macron, he boasted about the levels of U.S. military spending so far in his term. And he said his goal would be to “try to top” what France did.

“I think we’re looking forward to doing that,” Trump said. “I’m speaking with General Kelly and with all of the people involved, and we’ll see if we can do it this year,” he added, referring to Chief of Staff John F. Kelly.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment about plans to hold such a parade.

There have been July 4th parades a block over from Pennsylvania Avenue every year. While they included some military aspects, there have been no tanks, artillery, fly-overs and things that Trump envisions in his parade.

In my opinion, we don’t need a parade to showcase our military force – it’s on display around the world on any given day, in action and on nearly every continent. Military might on parade isn’t in the American character – we are not a tin-pot dictatorship like the Russians, the Chinese, North Korea and the others around the world which puts it’s force in the streets as tacit threat to control their own people under the guise of patriotism.

I also sympathize with the common soldiers who will take time out of their training to scrub and paint vehicles in preparation for a martial pageant, the hours of practice they will have to engage in will only detract from their readiness for real world engagements.

If anyone were bother to ask me about this, I’d have to vote an emphatic “No!”

Chief Tango sends us a link to Federal News Radio which reports that the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) promised congress that they’re working on plugging holes in their Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO) which supplies law enforcement with surplus from Defense Department stocks. Apparently there is big hole in the system;

GAO showed that it was able to pose as a federal agency that does not exist to get hold of $1.2 million in military gear that’s not available to the general public.

In an audit released last week, the office said its investigators, posing as employees of the fake federal agency, sought and gained approval to participate in the program by corresponding with DLA solely via email. Later, the undercover GAO employees were able to pick up more than 100 pieces of controlled property from DLA warehouses — and in two of the three cases, did so without being asked to show any form of identification.

I know you probably think there might be an easy fix to the whole problem, but you’re not in the government;

But Zina Merritt, GAO’s director of defense capabilities and management, said the equipment the office procured from DoD could have been turned into lethal weaponry with commercial items that are easily obtainable off-the-shelf.

“While DLA has taken some steps to address identified deficiencies in the program, it lacks a comprehensive framework for instituting fraud prevention and mitigation measures at all stages of the process,” she said. “DLA officials acknowledge that they have not conducted a fraud risk assessment.”

The National Archives publishes a manual every year that lists every single government agency, it’s called the US Government Manual. You’d think the folks at DLA would have a copy of the manual, or they could bookmark the link I helpfully posted, so they could check if an agency exists, but I guess not.

According to Fox News, the President Tweeted that he won’t allow the military to be distracted by the costs associated with allowing transgendered people to serve in the military;

“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow…Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming..victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.”

The president’s tweets came only a few weeks after Defense Secretary James Mattis said he would give military chiefs another six months to conduct a review to determine if allowing transgender individuals to enlist in the armed services will affect the “readiness or lethality” of the force. The deadline for that review was Dec. 1, 2017.

I’m expecting my inbox to fill up with emails from the Palm Center and human rights groups who will point out that transgendered troops have been serving for the past year without disruptions, however, they won’t take into account the folks who will join just to get free alterations and the cost to readiness that would be caused by those folks riding medical profiles, unable to deploy, not to mention the costs of life-long medical attention they’d require for elective treatment. Ignoring the social costs to order and discipline in the ranks.

In the spirit of the Secretary of Defense’s focus on warfighting, this is probably the correct decision at this time.