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

Category: Military issues

  • Laptop theft affects vets – again

    Stars and Stripes reports another government laptop has been stolen with the personal data of some veterans again;

    About 131,000 former and current Army National Guard members may have had their personal information compromised when a contractor’s laptop was stolen, Guard officials announced Tuesday.

    The laptop, taken July 27 during a conference in Atlanta, included data on soldiers enrolled in the Army National Guard Bonus and Incentives Program. Files containing soldiers’ names, social security numbers, payment dates and bonus amounts were included on the laptop.

    Randy Noller, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau, said officials don’t have any indication yet that the information has been used to open new credit cards or go after soldiers’ bank accounts.

    Yeah, well, as long as our social security numbers are so important and as long as the government lets people walk around with our personal data in laptops, this stuff is going to happen. It just seems to me that the government would stop letting their employees keep our personal files on the local drives in their laptops.

    Regardless, I have a subscription to LifeLock because it’s apparently inevitable that someone is going to get a hold of my ID some day. When my wife tried to make me a cosigner on the loan for her new car, LifeLock called me before the bank did.

    Who ever succeeds at stealing my identity, I hope they have better luck with it than I have.

  • The Mojave Cross Memorial

    A few months back, we expressed our support for the Mojave Cross Memorial that is being threatened by one clown who never sees it and the ACLU, who probably hasn’t seen it either.

    Today, the Liberty Legal Institute released this video in which several veterans express their support for saving the memorial along with a bit of the history of the memorial and the court case to have it removed;

  • Marines’ ban on social networking

    My email inbox has been filling up with messages from those of you who are outraged that the Marine Corps has apparently banned their troops from using Facebook and Twitter and other social networking. Well, the only reason I haven’t mentioned it is because McQ did such a great job of explaining it all yesterday at Blackfive.

    To summarize, they’re just enforcing restrictions that were already in place and it seems the ban is only to affect the USMC’s network – like many employers do to conduct business.

    But “good lookin’ out” to all of you who emailed.

  • Latest New GI Bill news

    This just crossed our desk;

    Obama Administration and the State of California Fix Post 9/11 GI Bill Tuition Glitch

    Veterans Will Now Have Standardized Access to Private, Graduate and Out-of State Schools in California Under Yellow Ribbon Program

    WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced today a joint solution has been reached between the State of California and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) concerning how tuition and fees are determined. The new definition will allow for standardized application under the new Post 9/11 GI Bill and the accompanying Yellow Ribbon program.
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  • The Bullet Magnet

    There’s great story at Stars and Stripes of SSG Brandon Camacho, “The Bullet Magnet”. A teaser;

    Struck by shrapnel during heavy mortar bombardment in Iraq in 2003, Camacho has since been grazed by one bullet, hit in the shoulder with a tracer round and finally, in June, shot in the arm. His men call him “The Bullet Magnet” and joke that since all his injuries have been on his left side, if they just stand to his right, they’ll be fine.

    I’ve got a meeting and I’ll be back soon (I hope).

  • Scott Speicher ID’d

    Fox News is reporting that the body of Desert Shield/Desert Storm’s only MIA has been positively ID’d. No links on their website yet, but here’s one from the Star Tribune;

    Officials say the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has positively identified the remains of Captain Michael “Scott” Speicher, whose disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his jet was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the war.

    The Pentagon initially declared him killed, but uncertainty led officials over the years to change his official status a number of times to “missing in action” and “missing-captured.”

    Officials say they got new information from Iraqi citizens last month that led them to a place in the desert believed to be the crash site — and there they found the remains.

    Added: More at Blackfive and Michelle Malkin.

  • Panel 19 West, Line 43-64

    This post will remain on top of this blog from August 15th until  August 18th to commemorate these young men to counteract the intellectually vacant Leftwing media which has been stroking the old hippies.

    Scroll for newer posts.

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  • Bread and Circuses [Claymore]

    For the bulk of the past month, our attentions have been captured by a host of things…important things, like; jackass wannabe dictators attempting to thwart their nation’s own constitution, Kim Kardashian and Reggie Bush calling it quits (I really had high hopes for those kids), iPhone prices drop to a “mere” $250, we got a new Harry Potter movie which apparently a few people went to go see, birthers got a few moments in the sun when they got a shout out from their homey Press Secretary Whatshisface, Sarah Palin resigns from her gig as governor of that state where Deadliest Catch is filmed, then we got a few steps closer to Sonia Sotomayor (apparently a wise Latina or something) replacing some old white dude on the Supreme Court, then there’s the situation in Cambridge Mass where Steve Urkel’s dad broke into his own house and the cops lured him into their squad car using copies of Computer Shopper and MAD magazine (at least that’s my understanding of the situation), and last but not least, there’s this whole healthcare thing which is so amazingly complicated, even John Conyers and Bill Mayer can’t be bothered to read all 1000+ pages of it, much less look up the definition of the words ‘douchebag’ or ‘ironic’.

    With all of these clearly important things going on, halfway across the globe, a few other things failed to get much of a mention. I’d like to at least attempt to rectify that a little. Below is a list of honored dead. They probably never made it on to television, or wrote a bestseller, or had a shot at being wisely appointed to replace a left wing retard for a lifetime political appointment, but I’m nearly certain that in each and every case, they had a mom and dad who will cry a little harder during Christmas, many will have a loved one wake up in the morning to an empty bed, a child or two will lament that only one of their parents will be there to see them off to their first day of school next month, a sister or brother will feel a little more lonely while watching a beloved family video. Forty-nine US soldiers have perished in Iraq and Afghanistan this month so far, and God willing, that number won’t creep higher, but I wouldn’t spend an inordinate amount of time looking for that fact on the front pages of any newspaper, or look for it crawling across the bottom of MSNBC. Gone are the days of the media criticizing the Global War On Islamist Terror, assuming you can even find anyone willing to call it that. They deserve better.

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