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

Category: Military issues

  • 4,000 US imperialists to invade another helpless crap hole

    Well, actually, the USS Kearsarge group is setting sail for Pakistan later this week to lend aid and comfort to Pakistanis ravaged by floods. But how long before we start seeing “Out of Pakistan” signs like we did earlier for Haiti?

    The group originally was scheduled to deploy in September. The Navy said earlier this month that the departure would be moved up because of the massive flooding, which so far has claimed 1,600 lives and affected nearly 20 million.

    The group is expected to be gone for seven months. After their work in Pakistan, they’ll continue with their previously planned tour around the Middle East.

    I wonder if the Under the Hood crowd will be protesting this deployment. Like Pablo Paredes, a future IVAW member who refused to board his ship, the USS Bonhomme Richard, in San Diego as it set sail to relieve the destruction of the tsunami which struck Indonesia in 2004. He said he did that to avoid service in iraq. he was only off by a few thousand miles.

    Regardless of the money we’ll spend helping flood victims, somehow it’ll be tied to an increase in terrorist ranks.

  • More Base Gate Crashers

    I know that this is older news since it happened in June and already reported, but I found it on POW.network with the most info so far.

    PERSON 1 & 2 attempted to gain access to MacDill AFB, FL by presenting fraudulent military ID cards and fraudulent military orders (assigning them to US SOCOM and sending them to Kandahar, Afghanistan; orders were dated 14 Jun 10) to U.S. Air Force Security Forces at the entrance gate. When Person 1 was instructed to exit the vehicle he was observed wearing an empty gun holster. A Magistrate authorized search the vehicle resulted in the discovery of 3 rifles, 3 handguns, and ammunition. An K9 alerted on the vehicle prompting the use of an EOD robot to conduct a further search of the vehicle meeting with negative results.

    These two appear to have acted alone and their detention mitigates additional risk to DoD interests. Law Enforcement checks on Person 1 revealed potential criminal acts pertaining to unlawful procurement of documents from a DMV office. His DoD affiliation can be characterized as brief with “other than honorable” discharges from 2 branches of the Armed Forces.

    It seems that one of them was AWOL at the time.

    But overall I am glad that these posers did not get past the gate and put people lives in danger.

    UPDATED:

    One of them has been IDed as Christopher Kilburn.

    In 2005, Kilburn was arrested in Culpepper County, Va., and charged with forging a public record, unlawfully obtaining state motor vehicle documents and uttering a public record, according to court records. Kilburn had gotten a phony driver’s license in his older brother’s name in 2003, according to court records.

    Court records show Kilburn pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of obstruction of justice without violence and served a one-year suspended sentence and two years of unsupervised probation.


    Updated x2:
    Even though this is late , I had to put this in.

    The AWOL soldier accused of trying to enter MacDill Air Force Base with weapons and ammunition in his car is not a terrorist and was merely “trying to impress” his girlfriend during the incident, his father said in an exclusive interview with FoxNews.com.

    “This is all just about a girl,” said Ray Kilburn, whose son, Spc. Christopher Paul Kilburn, has been charged with desertion. “There’s really nothing nefarious here about him trying to get on the base.”

  • AlterNet Kills Two Birds With One Stone: Bashes Christians AND Marines In The Same Article

    Found this article on Alternet last week. Basically, they argue that a couple of dozen reserve Marines (with 3/25) getting baptized in the Pacific Ocean will somehow inhibit the war effort in Afghanistan. I don’t smoke crack so it didn’t make any sense to me.

  • National Airborne Day celebrated at Bragg

    Even though the actual anniversary of the first parachute jump by the Army’s test platoon seventy years ago is tomorrow, the celebration for National Airborne Day was held Saturday in Fayetteville, NC. Video from WRAL;

    More video from Channel 14.

    I don’t see any Presidential Proclamations which are usually issued before the event, and there’s nothing in tomorrow’s Federal Register.

  • The National Infantry Museum: A Place You Should Visit

    I was in Atlanta this week to visit some family and I decided to take a day trip to Columbus, Georgia to visit the National Infantry Museum.

    I spent about three hours at the museum and it was definitely worth the drive. There are exhibits covering every period of American military history (however, the Revolutionary and Civil War eras are under construction) and there is also an extensive exhibit on the training that goes on at Fort Benning. There is also a Ranger Hall of Fame exhibit and an indoor virtual rifle range (which I wasn’t really interested in). Finally, there is a pretty good bar and restaurant upstairs if you want to get some food.

    I recommend avoiding Mondays, since that is usually when OCS and ITB will send their classes over to the museum for a visit. With two companies of recruits and candidates in the museum, often times in formation, it gets pretty crowded.

  • Send those smokes

    Tuesday I wrote about the unintended consequences of a new law aimed at cigarette smuggling which prevented families from shipping tobacco products to their service members.

    Tman writes to tell us that an exception has been made according to Associated Press;

    The new instructions would allow tobacco shipments to military addresses through Priority Mail, which does ship to deployed troops, with delivery confirmation instead.

    U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement that he was notified Thursday of the new instructions.

    “I’m pleased that the Postal Service responded so quickly to the concerns of our military families and found a way to honor the original intent of the bill: to keep cigarettes out of the hands of children and prevent tobacco smugglers from profiting on the black market,” he said.

    If you dorks had read the bill you were signing in the first place, you wouldn’t have to rewrite the damn thing.

  • So which is it?

    Associated Press released this story a few minutes ago announcing that the White House is certifying the timetable withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq;

    But The Guardian says al Qaeda might be making a come back;

    Al-Qaida is attempting to make a comeback in Iraq by enticing scores of former Sunni allies to rejoin the terrorist group by paying them more than the monthly salary they currently receive from the government, two key US-backed militia leaders have told the Guardian.

    They said al-Qaida leaders were exploiting the imminent departure of US fighting troops to ramp up a membership drive, in an attempt to show that they are still a powerful force in the country after seven years of war.

    Al-Qaida is also thought to be moving to take advantage of a power vacuum created by continuing political instability in Iraq, which remains without a functional government more than five months after a general election.

    So I wonder which is the right answer. Are the Democrats going to abandon the Iraqis like they did the South Vietnamese (yes, the Republicans abandoned the South Vietnamese, too for political expediency). I have a sense that we’ve been here before.

    Video from Fox News, apparently the only network covering the Sons of Iraq aspect;

  • Unlearning lessons

    Mew sent us a link to a story about SecDef Gates’ attempt to dismantle the Joint Forces Command in order to save money. The article highlights Congress’ attempt to block him to save jobs in the Tidewater Area of Virginia. That should be the least of their worries.

    Joint Forces Command was founded in the fog of the Grenada liberation. The combined branches of the military discovered that they had huge blank spaces between them which unnecessarily complicated mission-related tasks. The Joint Forces Command grew out of these shortcomings. The test of the command came in the form of the Panama liberation and nearly every military operation since.

    Now, the Secretary of Defense, who should have a sense of the history of the command if anyone does, thinks it fine and good to shut down one of the most effective tools that we have which teaches young officers how to work with the other services towards a common objective. The Joint Operations COmmand puts square pegs in round holes.

    I’m sure that there are ways to cut spending other than cutting out whole commands. I guess they could probably start by cutting military aircraft for members of Congress. I mean, right off the top my head.