Category: Military issues

Like I said the other day, it’s beginning to look more like the Rolling Stone Magazine was taken for a clown car ride…more accurately, Michael Hastings was taken for a ride by Texas National Guardsman LTC Michael Holmes. Sources in the Army and apparently in a position to know, tell the Wall Street Journal that Holmes wasn’t trained in psychological operations.

The U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command announced Friday that their special warfare center has no record of training Lt. Col. Michael Holmes in “psychological operations.”

In an interview, Lt. Col. Holmes said he received training in information operations and how to use the psychological operation techniques but never claimed to have been trained as a psy-ops officer.

And the politicians involved told Fox News that they didn’t feel brainwashed;

U.S. lawmakers have played down these alleged operations, suggesting they were not influenced to do anything they didn’t already want to do.

Like Blackfive said, Holmes has been sitting at home since September stewing in his own juices, and now, nearly six months later, it’s worthy of a Rolling Stones article and an investigation. It sounded ridiculous to me when I first read Hastings’ article and I still think that the only operation going on here is one to discredit Hastings and apparently Hastings is more than willing to cooperate.

VT Woody sends this video;

Soldier Gets His Cap Peeled At Military Exhibition – Watch more Funny Videos

AndyMFM sends us link to an article in the Washington Times by Rowan Scarborough about how the ranking enlisted man in Afghanistan tells us how sensitivity training for accepting gays in the ranks will take priority over combat operations;

Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill, the top enlisted man in Afghanistan where 100,000 U.S. troops are deployed, said that the sessions on respecting gays’ rights will go right down to the forward operating bases, where troops fight Taliban militants.

“I have heard about the training that will be forthcoming to the battlefield,” Sgt. Hill told Pentagon reporters via a teleconference from Kabul.

“We will take our directions from the Department of Defense, from the secretary of defense, the chairman, as well as the service chiefs of each service. Our plan is to take their direction, and we’re going to execute that training right here on the battlefield.”

No unit is exempted, he said.

“Our goal is to not allow a unit to return to home station and have the unit responsible for that,” he said. “While we own those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, we’re going to execute that training on the ground. We hope that it will have little impact on their combat and security operations here.”

See that last line beginning “We hope…”? Notice there was no “We hope we can find time for idiot sensitivity training while we’re fighting our nation’s enemies.” It’s “we hope we can still fight while we’re sitting around, circle jerking and navel-gazing over some douchbag’s feelings”.

I’ve had some real doinks for sergeant major over the years, but never one that has pistol grips on his boots.

Something weird is going on and it’s going on in numerical order. Last month I read about suspension of the 172d Brigade’s commander Col. Frank Zachar and his sergeant major. Today, Stars & Stripes writes a little about why;

Zachar allegedly told a meeting: “It [is] all about loyalty. Performance does not matter, potential does not matter, only loyalty matters. If you are not loyal … you will not survive this brigade.”

I guess now he’s sitting in a corner fingering two large balll bearings while explaining to no one there “Ahh, but the strawberries that’s… that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with… geometric logic… that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist….”

But today S&S reported they also suspended the commander of the 173rd Brigade;

The Army has formally suspended Col. James H. Johnson III as commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which has about 3,300 soldiers in Italy and Germany. The Army took action Feb. 17, according to Col. Bryan Hilferty, chief of public affairs for U.S. Army Europe.

“He’s been suspended,” Hilferty said, declining to comment further since the case is under investigation.

No idea where that came from. He just finished a successful deployment to Afghanistan. And no one is talking.

They had their chance to cut the annual $24 million out of the budget and they blew it.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who sponsored the amendment to eliminate the $24 million annual draft registration budget, said nobody seriously thinks conscription will return.

“The Pentagon doesn’t want to go back to a draft,” he said. “The Pentagon has said time and time and time again they believe in an all-volunteer military.”

The all-volunteer force “is superior to forced enlistment,” DeFazio said. “We are a higher quality. We are using significant incentives to get people to enlist in the military, and we have the best military in the world as a result.”

The majority of House members, though, think draft registration is worth keeping, at least for now.

Yeah, we might need it someday, but, hell, no one registers anymore because no one enforces registration. Yeah, on his eighteenth birthday, I took my son to register for the draft and then to register to vote…but who does that now?

Stars & Stripes’ Rumor Doctor, Jeffrey Schogol, sent us a link to his latest investigation “Did Gen. Mattis pull duty on Christmas so a Marine could be with his family? ”

But one reader asked The Rumor Doctor about a story that shows Mattis has a compassionate side to him. The story goes that Mattis stood duty on Christmas back when he was a brigadier general so that a younger Marine could spend the holiday with his family.

I won’t ruin the ending, so go read the whole thing.

DaveO sent us a link to HotAir at the same time I was reading it at Ace of Spades. The story comes from The Times (why do we have to hear this stuff from the foreign press these days?)

Allahpundit quotes The Times;

General David Petraeus, the most celebrated American soldier of his generation, is to leave his post as commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. The Times can reveal that the Pentagon aims to replace General Petraeus, who was appointed less than eight months ago, by the end of the year.

And the speculates “If Obama’s now in credit-seeking mode in Afghanistan, things must be going better than we think. ”

Sez Ace; “So if this story is right — and here I’ll believe the MBM — Obama is getting rid of our most accomplished and successful general to prove that it’s Obama’s leadership that is critical, not Petraeus’.”

Allah goes on that he thinks Petraeus will replace that buffoon Mullen as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I think that’s probably right. Obama needs Petraeus to stay on active duty to keep him out of politics next year, not that Petraeus will run, but he could be a kingmaker. Especially if the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf catch fire like it’s shaping up for the summer.

And the good news is that Eikenberry, the dick, is gone this year, too.