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

Category: Marine Corps

  • Navy Corpsman Receives Silver Star

    HM1 Benny Flores – a Navy Corpsman – was awarded the Silver Star today at Camp Pendleton, CA.  The award was for heroism HM1 Flores displayed while deployed with USMC elements in Afghanistan last year.

    HM1 Flores’ heroic actions occurred in Zaranj, Nimruz province.  During April 2012, a vehicle in which he and other Allied forces were traveling was hit by a suicide bomber.  HM1 Flores rendered immediate medical assistance to the wounded of that attack and during the resulting 20-minute firefight afterwards.  During these actions, HM1 Flores exposed himself repeatedly to enemy fire in order to render assistance to friendly casualties.  At least 4 times he left a covered position in order to render assistance to and/or recover US and other friendly casualties in exposed locations.

    Well done, HM1 Flores.  Well deserved kudos.

  • Camp Bastion, Revisited

    Last September, the Taliban staged an attack on USMC aviation assets at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan.  Fifteen Taliban insurgents infiltrated the perimeter, then attacked with RPGs and small arms.  Two Marines – Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell  – were killed during that attack; 9 other coalition personnel were wounded.  Six aircraft were destroyed.  Heroic action on the part of the first defenders on the scene prevented both greater loss of life and materiel.

    However, now questions have been raised about just how well prepared Camp Bastion was to counter ground infiltration immediately prior to the attack.  And it also appears that the answers to those questions are, well, troubling.

    Some background:  Camp Bastion is a British-run installation in Helmand province.  It is adjacent to Camp Leatherneck – the main USMC installation in the area.

    Camp Leatherneck does not have an airfield suitable for Harrier operations; Camp Bastion does.  Therefore, USMC Harrier assets – as well as a number of Marines – are stationed on Camp Bastion.

    As a British-run installation, perimeter security at Camp Bastion was the responsibility of British forces.  Taliban forces penetrated the base perimeter to conduct the attack.

    There were apparently some significant . . . known issues regarding perimeter security at Camp Bastion prior the night of the attack.  Specifically,

    • in the month prior to the attack, the number of USMC personnel conducting ground patrols in the local area had been reduced by nearly 70%  (from 325 personnel to 100) due to in-country personnel reductions.
    • the guard tower nearest the point of infiltration was unmanned the night of the attack; other nearby guard posts could not observe all of the perimeter visible from the unmanned guard tower.
    • the guard towers were manned by non-Afghan allied personnel who apparently had a reputation of falling asleep while on guard duty.

    These issues were known (or in the case of the “blind areas” due to the unmanned guard post, certainly should have been known) to both US and British personnel.  The resulting risks were accepted.

    In retrospect, those risks obviously should not have been taken.  The cutback in patrolling allowed the Taliban to conduct substantial pre-attack reconnaissance.  This in-turn allowed them to determine tower manning, blind spots, and prepare detailed maps to support the attack – one of which they posted publicly afterwards.  And tolerating guard personnel sleeping while on duty is a “NO GO” – allied sensibilities notwithstanding.

    The USMC reportedly did not initially conduct a formal investigation of the attack, because it occurred on Camp Bastion vice a USMC installation.  They have since conducted a review, but apparently do not plan to release the results to the public.  The British likewise do not plan to release the results of their investigation the public, either.

    I’m well aware that accepting risk is a part of war, and that the enemy “gets a vote” in how things turn out.  Sometimes the enemy is good, or just gets lucky.  However, in this case it appears maybe we took some risks we really shouldn’t have.

    And it also looks like we’re going to try and bury the truth for a while, to avoid embarrassing an ally.

    I think that’s the wrong answer here.  If we don’t learn from our mistakes, we’ll likely just repeat them.  And mistakes that aren’t made public have a way of getting forgotten or ignored.

    Sorry – but IMO the casualties that day deserve a bit better than that.

    One article giving more details concerning the above may be found here; a second, even more detailed article may be found  here.   Both IMO are worth reading.

  • Towards Trouble

    I wanted to write something about this.  But I couldn’t think of much to add that would be apropos.  Plus, it’s kinda hard to write when you’re having trouble focusing on the screen.

    Well done, Soldiers.  Damn well done indeed.

    Same is true about this story.  Well done, Mr. Arredondo.  Well done.

    I’ll just add one observation:  they ran towards trouble – not away from it.

  • Marine was a good guy with a gun; saves lives, gives his own

    CavRick sends us a link to the story of 39-year-old former Marine, Todd North, who was working as a bouncer at a bar in Havelock, NC, when, Jonathan Richard Pugh, an 18-year-old, who had been bounced from the bar for fighting and for being underaged, returned with a gun and began blasting away at the crowd. From The Sun Journal;

    “[Pugh] apparently calmed down [after the confrontation with bouncers] and left the parking lot in a car, but shortly afterward came back, walked to the door and started firing,” [District Attorney Scott Thomas] said. “North fired back, attempting to keep Pugh from entering the bar, but was shot three or four times. His body will undergo an autopsy on Monday.”

    Pugh got in his car and drove away.

    Havelock Police responded about 1:13 a.m. Sunday to the call of shots fired at Flyers bar and secured the scene as Havelock EMS Paramedics arrived and began to treat the wounded.

    North was hit three or four times, but got off a shot with a .45 caliber round into Pugh’s torso. Police recovered five shell casings at the scene that matched Pugh’s gun. Two other people were wounded directly by bullets, three by bullet fragments, so its pretty obvious to me that North protected the bar crowd with his own body and his gun. A Marine to the end.

    Of course, this doesn’t count as a good guy with a gun making a difference in a mass shooting, because Mother Jones only counts shootings with four or more deaths.

  • Shooting at Quantico

    Three marines are dead, reportedly, at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. Local DC news reports;

    It began with a shooting around 11 p.m. Thursday that left one dead, said Lt. Agustin Solivan. That shooting lead to a standoff between authorities and the suspect, who was barricaded in barracks at the base.

    Authorities entered the barracks early Friday and found the suspect dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound along with a second victim. Solivan could not say what prompted authorities to enter the barracks.

    According to other news reports, all three were staff at the Officer Candidate School.

  • Female PI Commander: Women can handle combat

    Chief Tango sends us a link to the Washington Post in which Brigadier General Loretta Reynolds, the new female commander of Parris Island Marine Corps training center says she’s confident that women will be able to handle combat. As near as I can figure, the thing that will secure their success in that endeavor is pull ups. Pull ups get a mention three times in the article;

    Minimum physical requirements for many hard-core combat jobs had never been established, and the effort to come up with them is still in under way, Reynolds pointed out.

    “There’s a lot more work to do to figure it out,” the general said.

    The Corps has proposed adapting its twice-yearly physical fitness test to require that women complete at least three chin-ups, a standard that men must currently meet. Data is being collected to see whether the standard is appropriate.

    Yeah, three pull ups is the minimum standard – and if it’s appropriate for men, it’s appropriate for women. I had female cadets who came to Advanced Camp and couldn’t do one pull up and seven weeks later, they were doing ten, so the standard is appropriate if anyone has the guts to apply it. Not that doing pull ups are going to make you a natural born killer and help you carry a ruck up and down mountains. I trained the women to do pull ups at Advanced Camp because they were going to jump school where they had to do it to steer their parachutes.

    Overseeing one company of female recruits and drill instructors, 1st Sgt. Rena Bruno says she commanded men during a deployment to Iraq. The petite 110-pound veteran of 13-years in uniform said that as a logistics manager, she dealt with dangerous convoy duty and learned “to hold my pistol a little closer to my body.”

    […]

    And can she do pull-ups?

    “Guaranteed, I can get up on a pull bar and knock out eight, very easy for me,” she said.

    Well, rat spit, there you go.

    And even the 6-foot, fit and trim [Brigadier General Loretta] Reynolds, who played basketball at the Naval Academy and still goes on early morning runs with her recruits, is preparing for the proposed new standards.

    “I’m not ashamed to tell you I can’t do a pull-up yet, but I’m working on it!” the 48-year-old Reynolds said with a laugh.

    And as soon as she can, all women will be ready for combat. Or something.

  • Senators introduce stopgap to reinstate tuition assistance

    Senators Jim Inhofe and Kay Hagan introduced a stopgap budget bill that would reinstate tuition assistance for the troops still on active duty according to Fox News;

    “The president wants Americans to feel the pain of the arbitrary across-the-board budget cuts from sequestration, but to cut off promised education assistance for our service members when there are other lower priority spending programs to draw from is an injustice,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

    He and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina introduced an amendment Wednesday to a stopgap budget bill that would restore the program.

    Inhofe recognizes what the service chiefs have ignored – it will hurt retention to cut off the few things the troops have which keep them motivated to stay.

    Hagan, in a statement, also said she understands the Pentagon has some “tough budget decisions” to make, but called the decision to suspend tuition assistance “shortsighted.”

    It’s especially sad that the politicians are looking out for the troops’ welfare better than their own generals are doing. And I especially think that it sucks that the Navy Department is willing to cut Marines’ tuition assistance, while keeping their own for other-than-Marine Navy personnel.

  • Marines; No bolts in weapons for Inauguration

    bolts missing

    I’ve never been in an Inauguration, so I don’t know if it’s standard practice or not, but someone noticed that the Marines had the bolts removed from their M14s M1s during the Inauguration a few weeks ago – like in the picture above. See how the operating rod handle is forward? If there was a bolt in the rifle with that forward, you’d see the bolt in the ejection port.

    Like TSO said, I think it’s more of an overreaction by the perpetual pants-wetters in the Secret Service than from the Administration. TSO emails that he had to remove his bolt from his weapon when the Clintons came to Tuzla while he was there. The one time I marched for a President was Gerald Ford on the Army’s 200th Birthday at Fort Benning and we had bolts in our M16s, so it’s been a long while for me to chime in with any experience on the subject.

    I’m only mentioning this so you guys will stop emailing me about it. Others think there’s more to it, like our pals Gateway Pundit and Bob Owens, but I think I’ll wait to pass judgement until someone comes up pictures of the Marines with bolts in their M14s M1s at the Bush Inauguration.