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

Category: Military issues

  • It’s Official: Inherent Resolve is Part of the War on Terror

    Remember that implicit “the GWOT is over – we ended it” claim of the       clueless DC clown krewe       current Administration?  You know, when they quit using the GWOT title for military operations against Islamic terrorist enemies worldwide?

    Well, maybe not.  Yesterday the Department of Defense – in a typical exercise of the “bury something you don’t want the public to notice in a Friday afternoon news release” principle – declared personnel deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve eligible for the GWOTEM.

    In case anyone’s forgotten:  Operation Inherent Resolve is the recently-assigned name to operations in Iraq, Syria, and surrounding areas against ISIS/ISIL/whatever the hell those Islamic terrorist bastards are calling themselves these days. We currently have 1,400 troops in Iraq today that just became eligible for the GWOTEM – plus a bunch more in surrounding areas.

    Last time I checked, the acronym GWOTEM stands for “Global War on Terror Expeditionary Medal”. So much for that “end” of the Global War on Terrorism.

    But remember: the current Administration “got us out of Iraq on schedule”. They just did that by fornicating Fido* so badly negotiating our 2011 exit that we were virtually guaranteed to return in a few years. And now – less than 3 years later – it looks like our return is official.

    As Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  That’s true no matter what       outdated, erroneous Marxist dogma       Progressive political theory says to the contrary.

    I guess they’ll try to blame Bush for this, too.   Oh, wait – the      Communists     Socialists      useful idiots      Progressive fools have already started to try to do exactly that.   Even after it’s been proven that this developed during the current Administration’s watch, and they were warned over a year ago this could happen.

    “Clueless idiocy.”  Look it up in the dictionary, and I’ll give you three guesses as to the photo and illustration.


    * – Politically-correct version of “screwed the pooch”.

  • The real first woman with an EIB

    The real first woman with an EIB

    Capt. Michelle Roberts

    A diligent reader on Facebook dropped off a link to the story of the real first woman to earn an Expert Infantry Badge, and it was an American soldier, Capt. Michelle Roberts, back in 2011 according to army.mil;

    Roberts, an activated National Guard Soldier, said she believes it is her duty to be trained as well as possible in Soldiering skills, which is why she did not want to pass up the opportunity to go through the test and the two-week training in preparation for the EIB.

    “Male or female, we’re all Soldiers first. It doesn’t matter what your (military occupational specialty) is. It doesn’t matter what job you do for the United States Army. You’re a Soldier first,” Roberts said. “It’s good to have all the training under my belt. I know that if I go into combat now, I have confidence in myself, I can rely on myself, (and) my battle buddies can also rely on me.”

    Roberts, who is a military intelligence officer, received a certificate for meeting the EIB requirements, but will not be able to wear the badge because she comes from a non-combat arms branch. Lt. Col. Larry Murray, commander of the 2-60th, said he is proud of Roberts and all the Soldiers who tested for the EIB.

    Well, we didn’t write about it, so it never happened, until now.

  • Why Not Send Mercy and Comfort?

    Why Not Send Mercy and Comfort?

    300px-USNS_Mercy_off_Dili

    With the Ebola crisis apparently far from being controlled in Africa, the Obama administration has committed a large contingent of American troops to the fight and now is reportedly weighing the possibility of bringing African victims to the U.S. for treatment.

    I have a suggestion to make: why not send Mercy and Comfort into the battle zone to inject the tremendous life-saving resources they possess?

    For those of you who don’t know, the USNS Mercy (pictured above) and her sister ship, the USNS Comfort, are two huge hospital ships maintained by the United States Navy to provide stand-off, life-saving medical care for U.S. forces in combat. These two vessels share the distinction of being the second-largest ships in the fleet, bested in length only by the Nimitz-class supercarriers. The Mercy, home-ported in San Diego, has a maximum patient capacity of 1,000 beds, as does the Comfort, which is home-ported at Norfolk. True, with all the special precautions required in treating Ebola patients, that capacity would no doubt be substantially reduced. Still, the augmentation they could provide the beleaguered medical community in West Africa at this critical time would be tremendous.

    And yes, there is plenty of precedence for such a non-military humanitarian mission. The Comfort was docked in midtown Manhattan immediately following the 9/11 attacks. She stood offshore in the Gulf of Mexico below New Orleans following Katrina, treating victims of that terrible storm, and did the same off Haiti following the 2010 earthquake there. Mercy has conducted similar humanitarian missions in the Pacific Rim, most notably following the 2005 tsunami in Southeast Asia.

    So I will ask this administration this: why bring Ebola patients within our borders and risk the possibility of a wildfire epidemic that could have a devastating impact on our nation when we could very capably treat hundreds of those same patients aboard those two floating hospitals sitting a few miles offshore from West Africa?

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • First women to earn EIB are Korean

    First women to earn EIB are Korean

    EIB Ladies

    Well the glass ceiling for women earning the Expert Infantry Badge has been busted – by Korean soldiers – according to the Army Times;

    Staff Sgt. Kim Min Kyoung and Staff Sgt. Kwon Min Zy, both infantry squad leaders in the Republic of Korea Army’s 21st Infantry Division, said they are honored to have had the chance to compete.

    The women successfully tested for the EIB “not because of their expert skills, but because there were 21 soldiers from the 21st Infantry Division that competed with them, pushing and pulling each other, helping each other out,” Kwon, 21, said through Sgt. Jung Hoi Won, a Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army (KATUSA) soldier who translated the interview for Army Times.

    Good for them! I know this is going to be held up as some sort of excuse for women to be in the US infantry, but it’s not really. yes it’s grueling and it requires a lot of training and attention to detail, but it’s not being infantry – it’s being infantry for a few days. Yes, I read the article, too, and I know that these ladies are assigned to infantry units. But, they’re not assigned to US infantry units and there’s a difference.

    But, congratulations, ladies. Seriously.

    eib11

    Thanks to HS Junior for the link.

  • DoD Corrects an Error

    Everyone who serves in the military – well, everyone except those literally dumb enough to qualify as “rocks with lips” – knows that it’s a dangerous job. The Pale Horse and his Rider are constant companions; sometimes they’re near at hand, and sometimes they’re far in the distance. But they’re always there.

    Those serving accept this. All they ask is that, should the worst happen, they be taken care of properly and given their due.

    Most of the time, DoD does that. But sometimes DoD stumbles. (Don’t get me started on Fort Hood.)

    That’s why it’s incredibly heartening to see this:

    Marine corporal is reclassified as 1st to die in Operation Inherent Resolve

    Rest in peace, Cpl Spears. It took a while, but DoD got their act together regarding your demise.

  • Army folks quarantined while nurse whines

    The Stars & Stripes talked by videoconference with Major General Darryl Williams, commander of U.S. Army Africa, during the second day of his mandated quarantine period after returning to the western world from Africa, where he led soldiers who were trying to help the Africans fight Ebola. General Williams says that he was completely surprised when he and his troops were met in Italy by folks in hazmat suits and sent into isolation;

    “They wanted to take a more conservative approach,” said Williams, whose chief of staff less than a week ago emphasized that the returning troops would not be under quarantine.

    The policy puts the Army at odds with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which on Monday issued new guidelines calling for voluntary, home quarantine for people returning from West Africa who are at the highest risk of contracting Ebola.

    The troops are taking it all in stride;

    “Everybody’s in great health,” Williams said.

    Williams said he and 10 others, housed within three buildings at Del Din, were eating food from the mess hall delivered in disposable containers, which were being burned after use. He said everyone was happy to be back in Italy, even if the garrison was enclosing their area with a temporary fence.

    “We’re not frustrated at all,” he said. “We’re used to executing orders. We can exercise, watch movies … I Skype with my wife…

    Meanwhile in New Jersey, CNN interviewed Kaci Hickox, a nurse who just returned from Africa and couldn’t stop whining about her treatment;

    “This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated,” Hickox told CNN’s Candy Crowley on “State of the Union.”

    She described herself as “physically strong” but “emotionally exhausted.”

    “To put me through this emotional and physical stress is completely unacceptable,” she said.

    She slammed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for describing her as “obviously ill.”

    “First of all, I don’t think he’s a doctor; secondly, he’s never laid eyes on me; and thirdly, I’ve been asymptomatic since I’ve been here,” Hickox told Crowley Sunday.

    If you can bear listening to her in the video, here it is;

    I like the part where she keeps beating up on folks who have no medical training – yet the folks who do have medical training are carrying the virus to Ohio and back and on cruise ships. The medical experts are the only ones getting the virus and they seem to do their damnedest to share the virus with the rest of us. She says something about being through the most stressful time in her life (in Africa) and now she’s being expected to do things she doesn’t want to do. You know, like many of us when we deployed and tolerated the readjustment periods the military put us through when we returned.

    I guess what she really wants to do is be Typhoid Mary, like that nurse woman who took off to Ohio the minute the Liberian fellow died.

    And then they wonder why veterans only want to hang out with each other and stay away from civilians who can’t relate to us.

    I fully support more caution than I support this voluntary quarantine bull shit – especially if the people that they’re going to quarantine are irresponsible, whining little pricks.

  • The new “Backdoor Draft”

    The new “Backdoor Draft”

    The New York Post writes that, with no fanfare from the media or from Democrats, or Republicans, for that matter, the President signed an Executive Order on October 16th which started a new “Stop/Loss” period.

    This news was not widely reported. But, for any veterans of the global war on terrorism reading this: No, this is not a joke.

    Yes, our military is still shrinking. Despite continued “non-combat” operations in Afghanistan, a renewed “advisory” mission against a “new” enemy in Iraq and even a mission to confront an infectious-disease crisis, the service chiefs are still obligated to continue downsizing the active force.

    Of course, both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno have repeatedly testified on Capitol Hill that these cuts will leave the US military unable to respond should the need for another major operation arise.

    Even before getting handed the Ebola mission, Odierno warned of the high risk the nation faces.

    The text of the Executive Order, according to the White House website;

    Executive Order: Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Individual Ready Reserve Members of the Armed Forces to Active Duty

    EXECUTIVE ORDER

    – – – – – – –

    ORDERING THE SELECTED RESERVE AND CERTAIN INDIVIDUAL READY RESERVE MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES TO ACTIVE DUTY

    By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 121 and 12304 of title 10, United States Code, I hereby determine that it is necessary to augment the active Armed Forces of the United States for the effective conduct of Operation United Assistance, which is providing support to civilian-led humanitarian assistance and consequence management support related to the Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa. In furtherance of this operation, under the stated authority, I hereby authorize the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy, under their respective jurisdictions, to order to active duty any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit of the Selected Reserve, or any member in the Individual Ready Reserve mobilization category and designated as essential under regulations prescribed by the Secretary concerned, and to terminate the service of those units and members ordered to active duty.

    This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

    BARACK OBAMA

    THE WHITE HOUSE,
    October 16, 2014.

    The EO 13680, was published in the Federal Register on October 23, 2014.

    Hollywood made movies about it when President Bush instituted Stop/Loss during the War Against Terror – the media and the leftists (I’m being redundant, I guess) called it a “Backdoor Draft”, but I don’t see that happening this time around.

  • Looks Like the Joint Chiefs Still “Get It”

    Well, I wonder how this will go over with       our wannabe Imperial Regime’s       the current Administration’s officials?

    Joint Chiefs call for quarantine of troops
    returning from Ebola zone

     

    The decision, of course will be up to the SECDEF.  He hasn’t made a decision yet.

    For the record, I think the Joint Chiefs got this one right.  Unfortunately, I’m not holding my breath waiting for the the SECDEF to agree and order their recommendation implemented.

    Oh, and in somewhat related news:  a 5-year old boy in NYC who’d recently been in West Africa ended up in a NYC area hospital with a 103F temperature and “possible Ebola symptoms” yesterday.  Given the way kids that age share toys, food, drinks, whatever – let’s hope the poor kid didn’t play with any other children on Friday or Saturday.