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

Category: Military issues

  • Marines to train females in infantry school

    The Military Times is reporting that the Marine Corps has made decision to train female officers at their Infantry Officers Course in Quantico, VA;

    “We are in the process right now of soliciting volunteers,” [Gen. Joseph Dunford, the Corps’ assistant commandant] said on Wednesday.

    It’s a monumental — if controversial — move for the Marine Corps, which until now barred female Marines from the program and required instead that they attend other courses aimed at preparing them for assignments in support roles such as logistics, personnel administration and aircraft maintenance, among others.

    All will be volunteers — and it remains to be seen how many will answer the call, he said.

    It’s not immediately clear either what the next steps will be for those women who successfully complete the Corps’ infantry training programs.

    Apparently, they haven’t put any thought into it, if they’re admitting the extent of their plans to make some infantry officers out of some women. I only hope that they understand that combat for infantrymen have just one standard and I’m pretty certain that our enemies don’t have a specific standard for engaging women in combat that is different from their standard for engaging men or bullets that adjust for gender.

    As I’ve said before, I’m all for allowing women in combat, if those women meet the exact same current standard for men. But, I’m not very hopeful that a totally political decision will have a successful outcome.

    The Marine Corps defines gender-neutral physical standards as being identical for men and women, rather than weighted — or “gender-normed” — like those applied in the service’s annual Physical Fitness Test. During the PFT, women can earn a minimum or maximum score with fewer repetitions and a slower run times than their male counterparts.

    This suggests that women wanting to serve in ground combat units will be given the shot to do so only if they can keep pace with their male counterparts. Standards would likely evaluate Marines not as women and men, but simply as infantrymen, tank crewmen or artillerymen, for example.

    Yeah, we’ll see how well that survives when the feminists decide they don’t like the failure rates among female candidates.

  • TAH in MSNBC

    Jeff Black, from MSNBC emailed us for a comment on the latest non-scandal that we discussed yesterday, the “photos with dead suicide bombers thingie”. I responded;

    Jonn Lilyea, a retired Army sergeant who writes the blog “This Ain’t Hell,” said Wednesday that the media overly emphasizes negative stories about the troops and underplays positive stories.

    The high-profile news coverage of the photographs “is a perfect example of the media blowing (expletive) out of proportion as long as the only ones who get hurt are the troops and their reputations,” Lilyea told msnbc.com.

    He pointed to the case of Sgt. Dennis Weichel, of the Rhode Island National Guard, who gave his life to save an Afghan girl last month.

    “Sure everyone covered (Weichel) but not to the extent they covered the urination videos or the burn pit Korans, or (alleged massacre of civilians by) Sgt. Bales.”

    Now, think about this for a minute; we have TSO bringing us hot news from Afghanistan. Suppose he witnessed something that would bring discredit on the troops and their reputations. We all know that photographic evidence of such malfeasance would bump up our traffic considerably, and might generate another click or two on our ads, but do you think TSO would document that incident if he understood that it doesn’t represent more than the actions of a few? Or do you think that I would publish it, again understanding that it was the result of the actions of a few, but had the potential to smear all of the services who are mostly just guys and gals doing their jobs the way they know how to do it properly?

    That’s the difference between blogs and the media – the media would run the story regardless of the effect that it would have on the troops and the conflict in general. Blogs are generally more responsible, the rational grown ups, if you will. There are times that we discuss things for months before we publish a word, just among ourselves in the milblog community.

    It’s like I told Jake Diliberto on Facebook one time, before I answer a question from the media, I think about what the troops would want me to say if they were asked the question. Because when the media calls me a “retired platoon sergeant”, I understand that there’s an inherent responsibility in giving the right answer. I want the troops all to come home in the same number of pieces that they left us in. And we exist to give them a voice in the discussion.

    We also light the torches and sharpen the pitch forks when there are fortress walls to be stormed, too.

    By the way, the part that Jeff didn’t publish was the part I wrote about how this media frenzy is largely the fault of Leon Panetta and his staff who are ready to apologize for every perceived transgression and the media delights in those apologies and generates more of this false outrage. If they need me to be the guy who tells the media to GFY once-in-a-while, I’d gladly do it for a six-figure-salary.

    By the way, TSO’s post from yesterday ended up in Business Insider yesterday and it seems like it was fairly popular.

  • Panetta wants to change, but he needs ideas

    Last week, we talked about Leon Panetta and the dilemma in which he finds himself – the fact that the poor fellow lives in California and works in DC and costs the government $32,000 every weekend so he can commute. Chief Tango sends a link to Panetta in the Washington Post who tells Congress that he “regrets” that his trips are so expensive;

    Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Monday that he regrets that his frequent flights home to California on a military jet have cost taxpayers more than $800,000 since July. He gave no indication, however, that he would end the weekend commutes.

    Of course not. Each one of his trips would fund the healthcare of a veteran for life, but he’s made 27 trips this year alone.

    “For 40 years that I’ve been in this town, I’ve gone home because my wife and family are there and because, frankly, I think it’s healthy to get out of Washington periodically just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight,” said Panetta, who maintains a residence with his wife, Sylvia, on their walnut farm in Monterey, Calif.

    Yeah, walnut farms need constant attention, you know, in case gravity doesn’t make the walnuts fall on the ground, or something.

    I sure would have liked to travel home more than once a year when my family was in Panama and I was in Germany, or when my family was in New York and I was in Germany, or when my family was in Vermont and I was in the Middle East, but I couldn’t afford it, and maybe that’s Panetta’s solution.

    If he’d only fly home to his f*cking walnut farm when he could afford to pay the $32,000 for his use of military aircraft, he’d make fewer trips home…ya know like the rest of the people on the planet.

  • Leslie H. Sabo Jr. to be awarded posthumous MOH

    Leslie H. Sabo Jr. lost his life in Cambodia in 1970 and 42 years later, his family will be receiving his Medal of Honor, the application for which has been languishing in a pile of bureaucratic malaise, according to his hometown Ellwood, PA City Ledger;

    President Barack Obama announced Monday that Sabo will receive the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military’s highest award for combat valor. Sabo, who grew up in Ellwood City and graduated in 1966 from Lincoln High School, will be the third Lawrence County native, and first since the Civil War, to receive the medal.

    Obama will personally give Sabo’s family the Medal of Honor in the fallen soldier’s name on May 16 during a White House ceremony. The president informed Sabo’s wife, Rose Brown of Hickory Township, by a phone call earlier this month.

    Fox News tells a little bit more about Sabo’s exploits that day;

    That day, his platoon was ambushed by enemy forces and Sabo charged the enemy position, killing several enemy soldiers.

    His actions drew fire away from his fellow soldiers and forced a retreat of enemy forces. A grenade later landed near where he was resupplying and he threw it away and shielded a wounded comrade with his body, saving his life.

    He crawled toward the enemy encampment, threw a grenade into the bunker, which ended the enemy fire but also killed Sabo. He was 22.

    Thanks to Former3c0 for the link.

  • Best Ranger Competition ends for 2012

    Photo from the Fort Bragg Patch by Kelly Twedell

    Usually COB6 writes these posts, but since he’s at his undisclosed location these days, it’s up to me. Luckily, Beretverde reminded me of the competition this last weekend at Fort Benning as reported in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer;

    The team of Master Sgt. Kevin Foutz and Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Payne of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command headquartered at Fort Bragg won the David E. Grange Jr. Best Ranger Competition Sunday at Fort Benning, but the loudest cheers from the crowd watching were for 1st Lt. Austin Riker.

    Riker, who was paired with Staff Sgt. Justin VanZant, were not among the top teams, but nobody’s efforts were more appreciated.

    Riker was competing in the grueling three-day event just seven months after being wounded in Afghanistan. He was hit by shrapnel and received a second Purple Heart. His first came when he was wounded and suffered a serious back injury also in Afghanistan.

    Finishing second in the competition was the Ranger Training Brigade (Fort Benning) team of Staff Sgt. Raymond Santiago and Staff Sgt. Chad Acton. In third was the team of Staff Sgt. Matt Madiar and Sgt. 1st Class Zach Phillips of the National Guard.

    All NCOs in the top teams this year. Where have all of the studly officers gone?

  • Another spouse notified of husband’s death on Facebook

    The first time it was reported, I thought maybe it was just an anomaly. I mean, how many people could think it’d be a good idea to notify a spouse of their loved one’s death on Facebook? But, apparently, the answer is “more than one person“;

    Ariell Taylor-Brown learned her husband, the father of her two daughters, was killed in Afghanistan last week when another soldier from his unit posted on her Facebook page that there was an emergency.

    “I was told via Facebook,” said Taylor-Brown. “It was a girl in his platoon. She wrote to me and told me to call her immediately,” Taylor-Brown said.

    I know it’s tempting to be the purveyor of breaking news, to be the first one to report something, that’s kind of the excitement of blogging, but the military has a system in place that they’ve been using for decades, and it’s in place for a reason, and sure, it’s not perfect, but at least they provide immediate assistance, not a stupid text message on Facebook, for Pete’s sake.

    To quote my long-time friend, Claire, at YouServed;

    I am a boundary loving person. One boundary I draw in my own life is an understanding of the difference between blame and responsibility. We can point the finger of blame at social media and living in a world where anything can be said at nearly the speed of light, but the responsibility of what is actually put out there lays on the shoulders of the human being behind the keyboard. Regardless of intent. Intent does not erase responsibility.

    Just put yourself in the recipient’s shoes for a minute before you send a text message to someone, especially if you have life-changing news. I don’t believe that it needed to be said.

    Thanks to Tman for the link.

  • 5 service members confined in Secret Service scandal

    As an addendum to the previous post, the Associated Press is reporting that while the Secret Service members were returned to the States, 5 members of the military are confined to their quarters in Colombia, supposedly in relation to the same incident.

    White House spokesman Jay Carney said the incident with the military personnel stems from the same episode involving about a dozen members of the Secret Service who were called back to the U.S. for an investigation into possible misconduct.

    Carney referred questions about the episode, which includes allegations that U.S. personnel procured prostitutes, to the Secret Service and to the military.

    Carney said the president retains confidence in the Secret Service and said the incidents under investigation, which preceded Obama’s arrival, had no impact on presidential security.

    So I guess we know who will eventually take the fall for this shit; some troops who apparently caught the PTSD during multiple deployments during the Bush Administration solicited the poor innocent Secret Service agents who had never stuck their penises in anything that didn’t have fingers.

    Where’s the President’s continued confidence in the military, by the way?

  • “I felt closer to Joey”

    The Fayetteville Observer tells the story about how families of local fallen law enforcement officers had an opportunity to jump with the Army’s Golden Knights parachute team.

    [Golden Knights SGM Stephen Young] said similar events held for widows of soldiers show the similarities between the military and law enforcement.

    “They’re on the front lines,” he said of police officers. “That thin blue line and the thin green line – it’s intertwined like DNA.”

    Go read the rest of the article so you know where I got this headline from.