Category: Military issues

Yeah, they just wanted to overturn Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell so they could serve, because service was the most importnt thing to them (Stars & Stripes link);

A group of eight gay servicemembers sued the federal government Thursday for military and veterans benefits for their same-sex spouses, arguing that ignoring their marriages amounts to discrimination.

The move comes a little more than a month after the end of the military’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which for 18 years prohibited gay troops from publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation.

I guess there no potential for abuse of the system if they get their way, right?

“This case is about one thing … justice for gay and lesbian servicemembers and their families,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense

Oh, so it’s not about service…it’s about justice now, huh? And by justice they mean fairness. Or ramming a deviant lifestyle down the collective throat of the military.

beretverde sent us a link from Associated Press which tosses the “special operations” phrase like it’s fricken ice cream. They begin well by telling the tale of a first ElTee who was killed while she was supporting a unit in Afghanistan, without mentioning which unit it was she was supporting. But her only function according to the article was frisking Afghan women wearing burkas – that’s not special operations, Lolita Baldor, author of the article. it’s the same thing that female cops in the US do.

Baldor goes on to embroil herself in the “special” adjective by describe the “grueling” training these women endured;

Last November, the first group of women went through a grueling five-day assessment that tested their physical and military skills, their problem-solving and writing abilities and their psychological and mental fitness. Those that passed moved on to a six-week training program.

Yeah, nothing in the military that lasts for five days can be considered “grueling”. As long as we knew it was only five days, we knew we’d make it. I know that for civilians, five days can be a long time, but not for military people. That’s like civilians think that five mile runs every morning are grueling, or thirty minutes of calisthenics are grueling. Anyone who couldn’t pass a five-day selection phase, no matter what it involved, was too weak to be in the military under any circumstances. I noticed Lolita didn’t mention how many wash-outs there were…my guess is NONE.

And in January, the first group of 28 women deployed to Afghanistan with Army Rangers and Special Forces teams.

Yeah, last I heard, selection phase for the Ranger battalions was two weeks long (that’s fourteen days, not two five day weeks) and Ranger School is nine weeks (again, there are no weekends off during Ranger training), Selection phase for SFQC is a month and the school is 16 weeks, so you know, a five day selection phase and six weeks of training is just as good as the men’s training. I’m sure they learned just as much.

And anyone who has served in these units will tell you that training is only the beginning point. It takes years in these units to reach the proficiency of the real “operators”. Just like any other fresh graduate from any school. These women were rushed to war so someone politician can tell the media that there are women in “special operations”.

I’m not trying to take away from the tragedy of the death of Army 1st Lt. Ashley White who was the subhect of the article to begin with….she was killed by a Taliban bomb and she’s just as dead as a man would be, but that’s kind of my point. Someone made a politically expedient decision to rush women through training so they can be “Special Operations” soldiers for the media, and this one died.

It’s a tragedy in that someone thought that half-assed training was worth the life of a fine, young 1st Lieutenant.

Now if you made all the way through my rantings and read every word to see what my point was, you can start tearing me up in the comments. If you did like Obama Girl and read the first sentence only, please save my bandwidth.

Our buddy, jeff Schogol, Stars & Stripes’ Rumor Doctor, investigates from afar “Is West Point’s Room 4714 haunted?”

“As he turned to leave, he noticed someone sitting on the toilet seat: this figure was about 5’6” tall and ‘dressed in a worn full dress gray coat,’” the newspaper reported in 1972. “It sat as one would sit on a bench, holding in its right hand an old musket with a Civil War vintage bayonet on it. O’Connor ‘was caught up with the eyes. They were white.’ They glowed and they had no discernable color.”

I guess everyone does poop. Even 19th century ghosts. But you need to go read the whole pre-Halloween story.

I’ve been getting emails about this ditz since yesterday, so I guess all y’all want to talk about it. But a JUNIOR ROTC student thinks she should be able to wear her hijab with her uniform in a parade, and the Army put it’s foot down and said “No”. The poor little ditz consequently quit JROTC, so the CAIR perpetually outraged are….well, outraged;

But Demin’s family feels she is being discriminated against, and has reached out to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is calling on the school district and the Department of Defense to change a policy that it says “effectively bars a Muslim student from participating in the class.”

“It’s an unwise policy,” CAIR staff attorney Gadeir Abbas said. “It’s acceptable for a Jewish student to wear his yarmulke under his uniform hat. The regulations already reflect that there are religious obligations among members.”

See, a lot of you supported the Shks growint their beards and wearing their turbans in uniform and look what it’s done….now everyone who doesn’t understand what “uniform” means wants exceptions for their own multi-forms. If she quit because she couldn’t wear her hijab, she didn’t want to be in uniform anyway. But that makes no difference, because you can just feel that the Army is going to cave to this shit.

The folks at NextMedia sent us this short anime video of the new “Switchblade drone”.