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

Category: Military issues

  • AF tightens dress standards

    And I’m guessing it’s not this;

    Or this;

    Soup

  • Linda Hamilton accepts invite in Betty White’s place

    We reported the other day that Sgt. Ray Lewis asked Betty White to the Marine Corps Ball. Unfortunately, Ms. White declined because of a scheduling conflict – we in the military understand scheduling conflicts. But, anyway, Linda Hamilton, apparently done battling Terminator cyborgs for the time being has picked up the invitation for Ms. White;

    “I know that I am no Betty White, but I would be really, really thrilled if you can’t find anyone else to go to the ball with you, I could go,” Hamilton pleads in the desperate invite.

    “I’m only half as mature as she is, wink wink, but I am twice as funny, so I think that works out!”

    Hamilton, 54, blows a kiss to the camera before begging Lewis to get in touch with her.

  • Marine to be awarded MOH

    Dakota Meyer has been notified by the President that he will be the third living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War according to the Marine Corps Times;

    Meyer, who left active-duty service in June 2010 as a corporal, will be honored for his actions Sept. 8, 2009. He charged into a kill zone on foot and alone to find three missing Marines and a Navy corpsman, who had been pinned down under intense enemy fire in Ganjgal, a remote village near the Pakistan border in violent Kunar province.

    Already wounded by shrapnel, Meyer found them dead and stripped of their gear and weapons, and helped carry them from the kill zone, according to military documents obtained by Marine Corps Times.

    Meyer — who now lives in Austin, Texas — could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday night. In interviews with Marine Corps Times in November, he said he felt “like the furthest thing from a hero” because he did not find his fellow Marines alive.

    “Whatever comes out of it, it’s for those guys,” he said at the time. “I feel like I let my guys down because I didn’t bring them home alive.”

  • CPT asks Hope Solo to officers’ ball

    U.S. Army Capt. Nassar Jabour joins the recent spate of YouTube invitations to celebrities by asking soccer goalie Hope Solo (pictured above) to his unit ball in January;

    Yeah, OK, guys, that’s enough…you’re wearing out the goodwill and the novelty that the first one got you. if you screw up Sergeant Moore’s shot with Mila Kunis, I’ll only get nastier.

    Thanks to Jeff Schogol for the link to Stars & Stripes.

  • When who you do is more important than who you are

    Remember back when the gay community told us that all they wanted to do was serve honorably in the military, that this wasn’t an attempt to get us to approve of their lifestyle, it was a matter of service to the country. Then why, exactly are gay servicemembers from around the country gathering in San Diego to flaunt their sexual proclivities in front of the country’s news services? (Huffington Post link from ROS)

    The troops and veterans will wear T-shirts showing their branch of service. They will walk with two horses – one draped in an American flag and the other with the rainbow-colored Pride flag – to honor service members and those who have died for equality, Sala said.

    Some will accompany a half-ton military vehicle as audio equipment belts out “Taps” and military fight songs to the expected crowd of thousands. They also will hold a 30-foot American flag and a banner with the military crest on it.

    Gay Pride marches nationwide have been focusing on the repeal of the military’s ban but this will be the first with active-duty troops participating as an identifiable group, gay rights activists say.

    So this is more about pride in their lifestyle than their pride in their service, but we all knew that. i was all for allowing gay servicemembers to serve if that’s what they really wanted to do (which was certainly possible with some minor restrictions under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy), but apparently it’s not about service. It’s about garnering acceptance of unnatural acts.

    Well, unfortunately for the gay servicemembers who take more pride in who they do than what they do, the Washington Post reports that courts have granted the Pentagon a stay in the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” so their “pride” may cost them more than they’d like to invest.

  • Defense cuts might mean a draft

    In the Air Force Times, Andrew Tilghman reports that Marine Gen. James “Hoss” Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, outlined to reporters what the next decade might look like for the military if Obama is allowed to cut the defense budget by another $400 billion;

    “The reality is, what you are most worried about a deeper cut? Is there another $400 billion behind the first $400 billion?” Cartwright said. “Now you start to look at things like, ‘Do I want to hollow out the force? Do I want to start to reduce the force size?’ ”

    Cartwright divided the next decade into three segments and outlined the changes troops should expect as the budget cuts take effect, starting with a big drop in funding for things like training, flying hours and steaming days.

    After that comes cutting manpower then retirement and healthcare entitlements. Of course, all of it adds up to lower enlistments and then the expensive proposition of forcing people who don’t want to soldier to be soldiers.

    The Carter Administration had to reimpose draft registration after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and stationed 9,000 combat troops off of our shores in Cuba. The administration belatedly realized that they had stripped the military of manpower, training money and pay incentives.

    “We’re trying to understand that if there is another $400 billion … what kinds of things [we] will want to do and what is the character of the force we want to have when were done.”

    The force we’re going to have is the same kind of force that laid burning in the desert in Iran on April 24, 1980.

  • Rumor Doctor: Do Rangers “Hooah”?

    Our buddy, Jeff Schogol at the Stars & Stripes, known as The Rumor Doctor, for some strange reason, investigates whether Rangers say “hooah” or not;

    But Rangers typically avoid saying “hooah,” said Maj. Brian DeSantis, a spokesman for the 75th Ranger Regiment. “Hooah” is considered conventional Army slang, he said, and the Ranger community just never picked it up.

    Did “Black Hawk Down” have any bearing on that decision – the reason mentioned by one Ranger and his buddies?

    When The Rumor Doctor started looking into “hooah” avoidance theory, the mystery deepened.

    Jeff should have asked some old Rangers instead of just asking the whipper-snappers, because I remember that “hooah” started among the Rangers and spread to the rest of the Army. Probably during the time that COB6 was with them and after my time.

    I think it was around 1989 when “hooah” got so out of control that the commander of the 82d Airborne Division at the time forbid the entire division from using it when he couldn’t figure out if his troops were telling him “yes, sir” or “no, sir” or “go jump off a cliff, sir”.

  • Michelle Obama takes on Hollywood

    Jim sends us a link from the New York Times which reports that the First Lady intends to discuss with the Hollywood director’s guild and writer’s guild the importance of projecting a better image of the military in their products.

    First Lady Michelle Obama will have her work cut out for her when she turns up here today for a talk with members of the Hollywood guilds about getting more positive attention for military service members and their families into popular entertainment.

    The confab is part of the Joining Forces initiative started by the First Lady and Jill Biden, who is married to Vice-President Joseph Biden, earlier this year. On Monday, Ms. Obama is to join a discussion with military family members and representatives of the Directors Guild of America, the Writers Guild of America, and others, all focused on ways to “inform and inspire” Hollywood creators regarding the military.

    That first line is the understatement of all time. Since imagination left Hollywood a long time ago, the military makes the best villian, but maybe she can inspire them to head off the production of this generation’s “Deer Hunter”, “Who’ll Stop the Rain” or “Apocalypse Now”. But I’m pretty sure she’s just pissing in the wind when it comes to Hollywood.