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

Category: Military issues

  • An iPhone app for troops

    Capt. Jonathan J. Springer from Fort Wayne, IN said it came to him a dream, then he spent $26,000 of his own money to develop an application for the iPhone to help soldiers navigate and call for indirect fire. From Fox News;

    Tactical Nav, which is expected to be available through Apple’s App Store next month, assists soldiers in mapping, plotting and photographing waypoints on a battleground and conveying coordinates to supporting units.

    Springer used a variety of armored vehicles, remote observation posts and harsh combat conditions to test the accuracy of his invention, which can also be used to direct artillery fire on enemy positions or call in helicopter support.

    Who knows what soldiers need more than soldiers.

    Thanks to Old Trooper for the link.

  • It’s so easy to cut Defense

    Apparently, the tea party movement doesn’t know there’s a war going on either, according to the Associated Press;

    “The widely held sentiment among Tea Party Patriot members is that every item in the budget, including military spending and foreign aid, must be on the table,” said Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. “It is time to get serious about preserving the country for our posterity. The mentality that certain programs are ‘off the table’ must be taken off the table.”

    Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe, leaders of the group FreedomWorks, recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that “defense spending should not be exempt from scrutiny.”

    Of course, we can’t consider cutting money for parks, and bogus spending on saving species of doomed plants, cutting the number of redundant functions of the government, doing away with useless government agencies. Let’s cut out things that government is supposed to do like defend the nation.

    I guess cutting the defense budget and the veterans’ budget is politically expedient for the Republicans as well the Democrats.

    Thanks to Tman for the link

  • Chase vs. Hanson debate on women in combat

    Since many of you had this discussion with Eve Chase last week, here’s the video of her discussion with Uncle Jimbo on Russia Television last night in case you missed it.

    I think Eve needs to back off from the “Boys Club” line. Seriously. I think she’s taking the whole issue too personally. The discussion isn’t about sex, it’s about who is entirely capable of completing the mission, EVERY TIME, regardless of the circumstances. Like I’ve said before, bullets don’t discriminate.

    This discussion shouldn’t even involve a mention of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – it has nothing to do with “Women in Combat”. That calls for a whole new subject; “Dan Choi and Other Girls in Combat”.

  • WaPo joins Schumer in exonerating Dupnik

    We all know that Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik is hiding the fact that his department is concealing the fact that they are the reason that Jared Loughner was able to purchase a firearm because they never arrested him for things that would have resulted in his appearance in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). But Chuckie Schumer, and now the Washington Post, is using their brand of sleight of hand to distract us from that fact by blaming the military recruiting system for not reporting Louchner’s admission that he used drugs.

    The Post reports this morning that it’s a Clinton-era policy, from the Reno Justice Department to shield drug users from NICS so they don’t avoid treatment;

    “We do get reports from the military,” said John A. Strong, the FBI section chief who oversees the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). “Although if you are trying to get into the military and flunk the drug test, that’s a voluntary test and you are exempted. The [Justice Department] has decided to exempt voluntary drug tests. They did not want to have a chilling effect on those seeking treatment.”

    Robyn Thiemann, deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy, said, “It was a policy determination that was made in the Reno administration.” She said she could not release the memo because it is an internal document.

    So, I guess we really don’t need NICS, since our own Justice Department has undermined the effectiveness of it.

    This still doesn’t let Dupnik off the hook for a minute. His department had more contact with the shooter over the last two years than the military and they knew he should have been on the NICS.

  • Chase apologizes for screwing over thousands of troops

    Sporkmaster wrote earlier about JP Morgan-Chase over-charging thousands of troops for the mortgages and repossessing 14 homes. Well, it seems that they’re making amends;

    JPMorgan Chase said those 14 properties have been or will be returned to the owners.

    Marine Capt. Jonathan Rowles filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, claiming it charged him 9 percent interest on his mortgage and then continued to insist he owed the higher interest rate even after the bank re-set his rate at 6 percent, according to NBC. So far, Rowles has been refunded part of his money, a bank official told Stars and Stripes on Tuesday.

    The refunds come after a review that the bank launched several months ago into home loans to troops, according to a statement from JPMorgan Chase. The bank now has a team dedicated to military families’ loans.

    “We made mistakes here and we are fixing them,” the statement said. “There is no finer group of people than the men and women in the armed services who fight to protect our country every day.”

    Well, if read the articles related to this story, you’d know that JP Morgan Chase were harassing the living shit out of families for months which makes me think they only recently came to that “finer group of people” conclusion. Real recently – like yesterday recently. After a big meeting to determine what this was cost them in terms of public relations recently.

    Military families who have questions about their JPMorgan Chase loan can call 1-877-469-0110.

    Questions like “how do I get out from under you blood-sucking vampires”?

    Thanks to Jeff for the link.

  • Those who fail to learn from history…

    Who hasn’t seen this before and can accurately predict the outcome;

    When Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced funding cuts earlier this month, some in the defense industry shuddered. But for others, the announced cuts will generate new opportunities to revitalize older systems.

    It’s not unusual for a program termination to refocus attention on an older program, but analysts said this shift may become more common as the Pentagon’s budget tightens and it is forced to work with the equipment it already owns.

    This time around, Gates announced the Defense Department will end a Marine Corps vehicle program with prime contractor General Dynamics and will instead direct money toward repairing and upgrading its existing amphibious assault vehicle, built by BAE Systems. Additionally, he delayed part of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 strike-fighter aircraft program and said the Pentagon would buy more of Boeing’s F/A-18 aircraft.

  • Schumer: Of course the military is at fault for shooting in Tucson

    Yeah, they couldn’t blame the military for Jared Loughner’s training, or for his mental instability that led to his episode in Tucson last week, but Chuckie Schumer found a way to blame the military for something else;

    Noting that the alleged shooter in the Tucson massacre had admitted to military recruiters that he had used drugs on several occasions, Schumer said he is proposing to the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the military be required to notify federal officials about such admissions. The New York Democrat said such a process does not require new legislation.

    A military official told Fox News last week that Loughner was rejected from enlisting in the Army in 2008 because he admitted he had used drugs.

    I guess Schumer could find a way to make local police agencies report the times they catch people involved in drug abuse or people who appear to be unstable, or people who threaten other people on the phone, but I guess it’s just easier to blame recruiters. And I don’t suppose that folks will not tell recruiters about their own drug abuse or stop visiting recruiters all together.

  • Commission to recommend women in combat

    The Stars & Stripes reports that the Military Leadership Diversity Commission is poised to make recommendations to the Pentagon that women should be allowed to serve in combat arms roles “without restrictions”.

    In the draft, commission members call for a phased approach to open additional career fields with ground combat units to qualified women, saying the current policy limits the ability of commanders to pick the most capable person for their missions.

    “To date, there has been little evidence that the integration of women into previously closed units or occupations has had a negative impact on important mission-related performance factors, like unit cohesion,” the draft states.

    I actually wrote a piece for the Stars & Stripes almost two decades ago on the subject. My opinion hasn’t changed. If the Army intends on putting QUALIFIED females in combat arms MOSs, they must be qualified in every respect. I’ve seen men who weren’t qualified for the infantry, so I’m sure there’s some women out there who want to be infantry but they’re not PHYSICALLY qualified.

    Our buddy, Eve Chase is quoted in the article, and we’ve disagreed before, so the fact that we’ll disagree on this one won’t surprise her;

    Chase, an Army reservist who served in Afghanistan, said standards for female combat troops need to be the same as those for men, but also noted that brute strength is not the only qualification. Language skills, leadership experience, and other combat-related specialties can be just as vital to mission success.

    Yeah, anyone who says that brute strength isn’t the only qualification for the infantry hasn’t spent a day in the infantry. I look back on my daily schedule as an infantry platoon sergeant IN GARRISON and it seems like a Herculean task to me today. All of those other skills are a nice addition, but if your body can’t get your brain to battle, what the hell use are those other nice skills?

    I’m fine with women in combat roles, but if they can’t pull their load, if they can’t carry their weight, they don’t belong. They need to have the same physical requirements as the men because a bullet doesn’t discriminate.