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

Category: Military issues

  • Millions of gays poised to solve our military manpower shortages

    Oh, wait, we don’t have a military manpower shortage, do we? But the New York Times, in a link sent by TSO seems to think that there are “hundreds” of gays just waiting for Don’t Ask, Don’t tell to end;

    Yet despite their bitter partings with the armed forces, many gay men and lesbians who were discharged under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy say they want to rejoin the service, drawn by a life they miss or stable pay and benefits they could not find in civilian life.

    By some estimates, hundreds of gay men and lesbians among the more than 13,000 who were discharged under the policy have contacted recruiters or advocacy groups saying they want to re-enlist after the policy is repealed on Sept. 20.

    And then they go on to give us five examples. One was outed with an anonymous email to his commander. Whoever did that was a chickenshit and the commander probably shouldn’t have discharged him based on a clearly vindictive email, another admitted he was outwardly gay among his unit. WIth the exception of the guy who was outed, the others who outed themselves shouldn’t be allowed back in the military because if they violated that policy, which was clearly in their favor if they were so excited to be in the military, who knows what policy they’ll violate next time because they disagree with it.

    I have nothing against gays being the military, I was opposed to people who can’t abide by the policy, any policy, serving. Dan Choi brought his troubles on himself, and he was obviously against all policies that restricted him from serving the way he saw fit…and he saw fit to punch a subordinate in the chest years before he decided that DADT was wrong. So allowing activists like Choi wear the uniform again goes against everything that holds the military together, in my view.

  • From basic training to football practice

    Dave Thul sends us a link to his hometown paper, the Owatonna Free Press, which welcomes back some seniors from their summer vacation at basic training;

    “You come to football and practice for two hours, and maybe condition for 20 minutes,” Shaw said. “But in basic we’d be up at 4:30 a.m. to go do (physical training) for and hour-and-a-half, and it was constant.”

    Rygalski was a bit more blunt in his assessment of conditioning.

    “I don’t really feel challenged,” Rygalski said.

    Some coaches might take those words as a challenge, but Tigers coach Jerome Johannes knew he wouldn’t have to do a thing.

    “They did that themselves,” Johannes said of giving the soldiers a more intense training regimen. “One of the things they learned was giving everything 100 percent because if they did anything less, they probably had someone screaming in their face.”

    I’d like to personally welcome Matt Gengler, Chris Rygalski and Derek Shaw to our ranks. Gengler said he enlisted to spend time with his father who is currently deployed to Kuwait. I also commend the coach for allowing these fine gentlemen to start the football season two weeks late as opposed to the boneheads in Illinois we read about last month.

  • Finally, common sense defense cuts

    The Global Post reports that, with the coming defense cuts come plans to reduce our forces in Europe. Seven decades after World War II and more than two decades after the Cold War, it makes sense;

    Still based in Europe at the moment are four Army “Brigade Combat Teams,” three in Germany and a fourth in Vicenza, Italy. The lighter, more deployable BCTs emerged from a major reform of the army’s force structure in the past decade and number about 3,500-strong, compared to the 10,000-12,000 soldier divisions they replaced. One of those four — likely one of the Germany-based BCTs, will be withdrawn in 2012.

    The result will be an enormous change from the days when encountering American soldiers on leave or liberty in Europe was routine. Cold War U.S. troop strength in Europe, which peaked in 1962 at nearly 277,000 soldiers, remained well over 200,000 until the early 1990s. Under current plans, resisted by a military leadership increasingly resigned to the deep cuts coming in the years ahead, will cut European based troops from 42,000 today to 37,000 by 2015.

    I loved the nine years I spent in Germany, but the mission has pretty much ended and it’s about time that the Defense Department and the government in general, started looking other places than personnel costs for their cuts.

    The majority of Germans didn’t appreciate the job we were doing there even when there was a visible scar across Europe during the Cold War, so it’s time to leave them to their own devices.

  • ODA 574 Part III “The Sacrifice”

    The NRA and Brownell’s has sent us the third part of their series of videos adapted from the book “The Only Thing Worth Dying For“. We ran the other two parts of the series here and here.

  • Veterans not fooled by pretty words

    If the President’s intention was to win veterans’ votes today in his speech to the American Legion Convention, he failed miserably if the opinions I asked for from attendees are at all representative of veterans who heard the speech. The most common response when I asked folks gathered around the ashtrays and in the hallways after the speech what they thought of it was “He said everything we wanted to hear” but they aren’t convinced that the rhetoric matches the President’s intent.

    The New York Times called it a “somber speech”, but i think it was more tentative than somber. The applause was polite and the President’s words were carefully chosen and delivered in a very uncomfortable tone. The audience was waiting for the other shoe to drop as the President praised them for their service and commitment. The only enthusiastic applause I heard was when the President praised currently serving troops and renewed his commitment to the wars.

    But Mr Wolf noticed that the President was only committed to “ending” the wars while he carefully avoided a mention of “winning” the war. He’s obviously not as concerned about the legacy he leaves this nation than he is about winning the next election and i guess the people in the room this morning sensed that concern, or rather the lack thereof.

    The Times reports this quote from the President;

    “As a nation, we’re facing some tough choices as we put our fiscal house in order, but I want to be clear,” Mr. Obama said. “As a nation, we cannot, we must not and we will not balance the budget on the backs of veterans.”

    Funny, but those are the exact words I’ve used countless times and the sense I got from the various people I talked to, no one believes that. The Defense Department is already planning to jack up our health care costs to reduce government spending. Has anyone recommended that they increase other Federal employees share of their health care premiums? Has Congress decided that they’ll pay more for their health care? Yet no one bats an eye when DoD goes after their former employees. Because we’re getting fat on those health care benefits.

    No, I didn’t talk to anyone was convinced that the President meant much of what he said. But that’s his own fault – if his rhetoric had matched his actions over the last two years, he may have done better.

  • Raise your hand if you know what’s going to happen next

    TSO sent us this video (from the next hotel room) of some serious rocket scientists trapped in the National Guard. If you can’t tell what’s going yo happen after they drive under the bridge, maybe the New Jersey National Guard is the place for you.

    I wonder why they have the window open in the second truck? To let the water out maybe? And why would they keep going while the water pours into the cab until the water is over their roof? Did they forget where the submarine switch is? Its right next to the button that operates the bat wings for flying. Didn’t the guy who couldn’t swim make that fact clear to the other occupants while the water was pouring through the window? Loudly and repeatedly?

  • A Good Deed, Rewarded

    Mail it, he said.

    No, the Army said. We’re coming out.

    Midst all the fakes and wannabes comes THIS story.

    He’s learned a lot in his two deployments to Afghanistan. He witnessed abject poverty, with people living in mud huts. And he witnessed the fragility of life, with buddies dying from Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs.

    “The stress level is there,” he says about patrols. “You have to turn off your emotions when you’re out there.”

    That’s what he did when word crackled over the radio that a vehicle had flipped into the river. Blain sprinted to the scene, shedding gear as he ran. In the distance he saw the wheels of a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored fighting vehicle — or MRAP — sticking out of the water.

    Read the whole story… It’s worth the few minutes it takes.  And he jumped out of perfectly good aircraft!

  • A New Home for a Broken Heart

    A happy ending to TSO’s Post

    Loyal Canine Companion of Slain Navy SEAL Has a New Home

    It is hard to know whether a beloved pet ever forgets his master, but Petty Officer Tumilson did not forget his loyal companion.

    In his will, the fallen hero had the foresight to specify that if he predeceased Hawkeye, he wanted the dog to live with Scott Nichols, a trusted friend and the man who looked after Hawkeye when his master was on a tour of duty.