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

Category: Military issues

  • Manning’s comment results in naked measure

    You’ve probably read all last week how guards at the Quantico brig began taking Brad Manning’s clothes every night, forcing him to sleep naked. I knew there was probably a very good reason if it happened at all. This morning Politico reports that his defense lawyer explains why, after nearly a week of whining about it;

    …Manning “was told that there was nothing he could do to downgrade his detainee status and that the Brig simply considered him a risk of self-harm. PFC Manning then remarked that the [Prevention of Injury] restrictions were ‘absurd’ and sarcastically stated that if he wanted to harm himself, he could conceivably do so with the elastic waistband of his underwear or with his flip-flops.”

    Manning’s allegedly sarcastic comment about using his underwear or slippers to hurt himself was apparently taken seriously by jailers, who then ordered him to spend seven hours each night without his underwear or any other garments.

    Note to Manning’s lawyer in case he doesn’t know; You also don’t make sarcastic comments about bombs at the airport.

    …[T]hey could undoubtedly provide him with clothing that would not, in their view, present a risk of self-harm,” Coombs wrote.

    Yeah, like big boy disposable diapers.

  • The post-DADT Navy

    Nothing illustrates the problems facing the military in the post-DADT era than this article from the Washington Post;

    To hear Navy Petty Officer Stephen C. Jones tell it, what happened in his bedroom one night last month was purely innocuous: Another male sailor came by to watch “The Vampire Diaries,” and they both dozed off in the same bed. “That is the honest, entire story,” Jones said.

    Personally, I think everyone who falls asleep while watching “The Vampire Diaries” should be booted from the military because it is so mega-awesome only morons can fall asleep while it’s on the television. Of course, the pair were at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, near Charleston, S.C. and we all know how “those people” are (wink, wink).

    According to the article, Jones has been charged with “willful failure to exhibit professional conduct” which it certainly is. A sailor found sacked out in his bunk with a female sailor would probably face the same charge whether sex had happened or not.

    …The trouble started shortly after midnight on Feb. 6, when Jones’s roommate, Tyler Berube, returned from an out-of-town trip.

    As he opened the door, Berube saw Jones “asleep in bed with another male sailor,” according to a statement that Berube gave to investigators. Berube stated both were wearing only boxer shorts but got dressed and left after he woke them up.

    Jones disputes the fact that both were wearing only boxer shorts. He said he was wearing pajamas – that doesn’t help. Like I said, it’s unprofessional behavior even if it was a woman in the sack with him.

  • The Rumor Doctor tracks down camel spiders

    The perfect Friday afternoon article from our friend Jeff Schogol, the Stars & Stripes Rumor Doctor;

    Despite what you’ve heard, camel spiders are not dangerous to people, Reddick said. “They have no venom for one thing,” she said.

    […]

    The Rumor Doctor wishes he had known this when he came across a large camel spider back at lovely Forward Operating Base Normandy in Iraq. Fearing for his life, The Doctor used a paperback to club the thing, which, in all fairness, was the size of a Great Dane.

    Go read the rest.

  • Sailor busted for espionage

    Stars & Stripes reports that Petty Officer 2d Class Bryan Minkyu Martin has been charged with four counts of attempted espionage along with eleven charges of mishandling classified information.

    Martin accepted $3,500 from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for dozens of pages of documents that were classified either secret or top secret, according to a 2010 warrant filed in Eastern District Court in North Carolina and obtained by the AP.

    During the initial Nov. 15 meeting with the undercover agent at a Hampton Inn near Fort Bragg, N.C., Martin told the agent his current assignment focused on Afghanistan, and that he would one day work for the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the warrant.

    “Martin stated that over his prospective 15 to 20 year career, he could be very valuable,” the warrant says, according to AP.

    Although the four counts of espionage qualifies Martin for the grand prize of the death penalty, the military rarely seeks capital punishment. Although it seems to me that Martin is just begging for it.

  • Manning faces 22 more charges

    Rurik sends us this MSNBC link which announces that the Army has charged Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old former Private First Class with 22 more crimes.

    The charges filed Wednesday include 16 specifications of wrongfully causing classified material to be published on the Internet and knowing that the information would be accessed by the enemy; theft of public property or records; transmitting defense information and computer fraud.

    He was also charged with “information assurance” and “security program” violations.

    “The new charges more accurately reflect the broad scope of the crimes that Pvt. 1st Class Manning is accused of committing,” said Capt. John Haberland, a legal spokesman for the Military District of Washington.

    While conviction on the charge of “aiding the enemy” could result in the death penalty, military prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on that charge alone.

    I love the smell of frying bacon in the morning.

    Of course, MSNBC can’t report on Manning without stirring up some sympathy for the little traitorous turd;

    Coombs, Manning’s lawyer, has complained that his confinement conditions — in maximum custody under a “prevention of injury” watch — are unduly harsh and undermine his right to a fair trial. Manning has been confined in a 6-by-12-foot cell with a bed, a drinking fountain and a toilet for about 23 hours a day, Coombs has said.

    Anti-war groups, a psychologist group as well as filmmaker Michael Moore and Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg have called for Bradley to be released from detention. Amnesty International and other human rights organizations have condemned the Obama administration’s imprisonment conditions.

    Dude. He has a bed, a drinking fountain and a toilet? When I did my time in prison in Panama, my bed was a newspaper spread out on the concrete floor, my toilet was a one-quart milk carton, and the only time I got to drink water was at meal time. He’s got it sweet.

    And I’m sure that the Army will release him to Amnesty International and Michael Moore. Ten seconds after he is released, they’ll smuggle him to some sympathetic country in the folds of Moore’s belly fat. Since the charge of “aiding the enemy” could bring the death penalty, they ought to keep his little monkey ass in the lock up.

  • “Their struggle is your struggle”

    Cortillaen and ROS sent this link to the Washington Post this morning about Lieutenant General John Kelly. Both Cortillaen and ROS included that this type of article is a rare appearance in the Post.

    “Their struggle is your struggle,” he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. “If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight – our country – these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation.”

    Kelly is the most senior U.S. military officer to lose a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan. He was giving voice to a growing concern among soldiers and Marines: The American public is largely unaware of the price its military pays to fight the United States’ distant conflicts. Less than 1 percent of the population serves in uniform at a time when the country is engaged in one of the longest periods of sustained combat in its history.

    You really need to read the entire piece – it’s also rare that I recommend that in the Post, but there’s no way that I can tell the story as well as it’s told by Greg Jaffe, the Post reporter.

    I’ll just say this; there is a huge disconnect between the troops and the rest of Americans. It’s probably the fault of the length of this war and the millions of detractors of the politics leading up to this war and through out the war. It’s certainly not the fault of veterans of previous wars who’ve stepped into the information gap created by petty politics. Not me, of course, but the thousands of real milbloggers, the Gathering of Eagles, the American Legion Riders, the Patriot Guard Riders and so on.

    I’m just a late-comer who glommed on to the rest of these folks.

  • Jeff Schogol takes a shot at the new PT test

    Our buddy, Stars and Stripes reporter and TAH fan, Jeff Schogol, also known around here as the Rumor Doctor, demonstrated the new Army Physical Fitness test yesterday ;

    I can’t get the S&S player into this post so you’ll have to click here.

    Jeff writes to us; “It’s times like this I admire servicemembers even more, because I know I could never do what they do”

  • The new Army PT Test

    Jerry920 tells us that the Army has developed a new PT test that used to be a two-mile run, 2 minutes of push-ups and two minutes of sit-ups. It was easy to set up to test and easy to understand. Now they’ve dragged back some of the old elements;

    The new “physical readiness” test adds such things as a 60-yard shuttle run and a standing long jump to one minute of push-ups and a 1.5-mile timed run. This might be given every six months, said Frank Palkoska, head of the Army’s Fitness School at Fort Jackson.

    A “combat readiness” test includes running 400 meters with a rifle, moving through an obstacle course in full combat gear, and crawling and vaulting over obstacles while aiming a rifle. Soldiers also have to run on a balance beam while carrying a 30-pound ammo box and do an agility sprint around a course field of cones.

    To test pulling a fallen comrade from the battlefield, soldiers must drag a sled weighted with 180 pounds of sandbags. That combat portion of the test might be given only before deployments, but that has not been decided.

    The tests will be given to all soldiers and officers, including Army Reserves and National Guard, even those recalled soldiers who are now 60-years plus, officials said.

    And, of course, all of the talk about equality among women and male soldiers dissipates when we talk about PT tests, because we all know that bullets are less effective against women in uniform;

    Specific standards for men, women and by age ranges are still being worked out, Palkoska said.

    So, “combat readiness” is a moving target, so to speak.

    I was around when the old PT test was around – run, dodge and jump, the inverted crawl, the horizontal ladder, two mile run in boots. I was sure glad when the three event PT came in. Then I went to the old Master Fitness Course (don’t laugh, it was worth 9 college credits including a lab) and learned the principles behind the three-event test and it made sense.

    It looks like PT tests are going to be an all-day event for some units. I don’t know how productive that will be. But, for the first time I’m glad I’m out.