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

Category: Military issues

  • Huey replacement? Nothing will ever replace the Huey.

    Huey replacement? Nothing will ever replace the Huey.

    In an upset, a Boeing-Leonardo team has won a $2.38 billion contract to manufacture a new batch of helicopters to replace the Air Force’s UH-1N Huey used to guard the service’s nuclear missile silos.

    Boeing and Leonardo’s MH-139, a militarized version of the commercial AW139 manufactured by Leonardo subsidiary AgustaWestland in Philadelphia, beat out Lockheed Martin Sikorsky and Sierra Nevada Corp., which both offered versions of the UH-60 Black Hawk — which some analysts saw as the service’s aircraft of choice going into the competition.

    As such, the Sept. 24 contract announcement is a major victory for the Boeing-Leonardo team, which received an initial $375 million for the first four helicopters and the integration of military-specific items needed to bring the AW139 to the Air Force’s requirements.

    The Air Force touted the program of an example of cost savings, noting that the service was able to bring down the price of the program from its original $4.1 billion cost estimate.

    “Strong competition drove down costs for the program, resulting in $1.7 billion in savings to the taxpayer,” Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson said in a statement.

    I realize things need to be updated … I just get this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach when they do it sometimes.   I remember when my driver managed to “come up with” the armor for our M151.  We felt so much better sporting about with that canvas and plastic enclosure protecting us.   Some things needed to be upgraded, I just have warm memories of days when everything was not bulletproof.

    They may upgrade to some newfangled gyrobird of some sort, but they can never replace Huey.

    The Huey and the Cobra have more combat flight time than any other aircraft in the history of warfare.

    Bell Helicopter built 10,005 Hueys from 1957 to 1975. Of the 10,005 production Hueys, 9,216 went to the U.S. Army, 127 to the U.S. Marine Corps, 79 to the U.S. Air Force and 42 to the U.S. Navy.  The rest went to other countries.

    Today, There are only 113 B models registered. 9 E models, 12 F models, 10 Training F Models, 1 HH-1K, 8 TH-1L’s, 14 UH-1L, 3 M models, 1 P model, 5 civilian 205’s and 547 UH-1H’s.   There are zero registered for all other makes and models of the military variant hueys, leaving only 723 Military varient Huey models in all registered today.

    The Huey remains a legend as the most successful rotorcraft in Aviation History.    Link HERE.

     

  • When killing the enemy is a crime.

    When killing the enemy is a crime.

    There are too many cases of warriors being sent to prison for killing people in a war zone.  In the most recent report, a Navy SEAL is being detained.

    A Navy SEAL is being held in a military brig while authorities investigate the stabbing death of an Islamic State combatant while he was subdued in Iraq last year.

    The Navy Times reported Friday the unidentified SEAL based in California was being held in the brig at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, though he has not been charged with a crime. Such confinement is allowed in the military justice system.

    One of the cases I have followed for years is Sgt. Derrick Miller’s.   I find his story so disturbing because I can envision myself doing exactly what he and multiple witnesses testified that he did.

    During a combat mission in a hostile area of Afghanistan in September 2010, Sgt. Derrick Miller’s attention was drawn to an Afghan national who had penetrated the defense perimeter set up by the US Army. The Afghan man was positively identified by another soldier under Sgt. Miller’s command who recognized him from a detainment the previous day. The man in question was the driver of a truck reported by military intelligence as transporting members of the opposition to a nearby combat firefight. US military intelligence let the trucks pass. Sgt. Miller was sent to question the Afghan national after observing the suspicious behavior of the man as he reconnoitered their defense perimeter. It appeared that the man was gathering information, and since he was already identified as an enemy combatant, Sgt. Miller was acting instinctively to protect his unit by detaining this man. During the questioning, which took place in an open area with another US soldier and an Afghan interpreter present, Sgt. Miller asked the man why he was within the perimeter. The man initially claimed to be an electrician who was responding to a downed power line, but later claimed to be there to fix a water pump. He had no tools with him, and no apparent means of carrying out the repairs he was supposedly there to address. The man was originally observed accompanied by two men whom he claimed were his sons and helpers. Both of those men had returned to the village without having performed any electrical work, and both in separate directions. They were not present during Sgt. Miller’s questioning. During the harsh questioning, the Afghan insurgent attempted to grab Sgt. Miller’s weapon, and was shot and killed in the struggle. Within 45 minutes, SGT Miller’s unit was attacked on three sides by Afghan insurgents. During Sgt. Miller’s trial, all the soldiers who appeared from his unit testified that the enemy had to have reconnoitered their position closely in order to attack in the manner they did. There was also testimony that the incident with Sgt. Miller forced the entire unit into full alert / 100% security, which prepared the soldiers for the attack. Because of Sgt. Miller’s actions, no American lives were lost due to the level of their preparation. As the details of the events of that day came to light, the US soldiers were suspicious of the Afghan man and the two other young men with him that he claimed were his sons and helpers. Yet at different times during the few hours that the Afghan was inside the perimeter, each of these men were sent back to the village by different routes. The Afghan interpreter testified that this happened. It is believed by the soldiers present at the time that these two men were carrying information to the insurgents detailing the most effective targets for the ensuing attack. Sgt. Miller believes, despite his conviction and sentence of life in prison for the murder of this Afghan insurgent, that he was acting solely in self-defense and with sound judgment.

    Another link on Miller is HERE.   We are not alone in dealing with these cases, Canadian Robert Semrau and British Sergeant Alexander Blackman are just two more examples.   I am not suggesting that crimes are not committed during a time of war, I am suggesting that we no longer engage in war.  What we do is deploy Americans into places where we expect them to only kill people that don’t offend our social pallet.

    Conducting operations that require warriors to seek permission from people who are at times not even in the same hemisphere should not be classified as a “War”.  The  Oise-Aisne American Cemetery Plot E holds the remains of many thousands of service members.  We now know that too many of them should have never been buried among the dishonored.  This is not a new problem, we have just not learned to deal with it very well.

    Too often the enemy of a warrior is a peaceful citizen with offended sensibilities.

     

     

  • Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer gets the Medal of Honor

    Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer gets the Medal of Honor

     

    An Army Special Forces soldier will receive the Medal of Honor for fighting through an enemy ambush and saving his teammates’ lives 10 years ago in Afghanistan, the White House announced Friday.

    Former Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer II, who had already received a Silver Star for his actions, will be honored with the nation’s highest award for valor by President Donald Trump during an Oct. 1 ceremony at the White House.

    Shurer served as a Special Forces medic with 3rd Special Forces Group.

    On April 6, 2008, Shurer and his team were assigned to take out high-value targets of the Hezeb Islami al Gulbadin in Shok Valley, according to the Army.

    As the soldiers moved through the valley, they were attacked by enemy machine gun, sniper and rocket-propelled grenade fire, according to the White House.

     

  • Pentagon Wants Army, Marine Corps to Select Higher-Caliber Grunts

    Pentagon Wants Army, Marine Corps to Select Higher-Caliber Grunts

    We don’t make this stuff up,  there are people who do it for us.   From military.com

     The Close Combat Lethality Task Force is trying to identify “best-of-breed science and programs” to find young Marines and soldiers who have the right mix of physical and mental endurance to excel in close combat, according to Sgt. Maj. Jason Wilson, the senior Army enlisted representative for the task force.

    WTF is a Close Combat Lethality Task Force?   Do they get a Patch, Tab, Pin or some kind of Tiera?  The thought of this CCLTF makes me tingle in naughty places.

    “We want to be able to get those soldiers identified early, to find out, ‘Do you have the leadership potential to be in the infantry, do you have the mental stability to be able to be in the infantry’ and do they have the resilience and the mental capacity to be able to handle some of the things that they may see in the infantry — to be able to overcome that adversity and bounce back,” Wilson told a group of defense reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon.

    Defense Secretary Jim Mattis launched the task force in March to find ways of helping the services as well as Army Special Operations Command become more lethal at their craft.

    “Close combat is an environment characterized by extreme violence within line of sight of the enemy, where historically the vast majority of military combat casualties occur,” Wilson said. “It is a tough job for anybody, to be able to … close with and destroy the enemy. … That is our purpose.”

    There we have it, we need to fix this combat environment so it’s not so scary.  Who wants to be so up close and personal with the enemy anyway?  And, all those casualties…that is just uncalled for.

    But the infantry has often been characterized as a career field that does not require high intelligence.

    “We are looking to get the infantry to where it is not a place where we send soldiers that don’t have the mental capacity to do other jobs,” said Wilson, who has been an infantryman for 23 years. “I’m not saying that everybody in the infantry is bad, but we want to get away from close combat forces, you know, being a place for soldiers that don’t meet the requisite criteria to be an intel analyst.”

    I have been a Platoon Sergeant in Combat Arms, you can not imagine the wasted intellectual might that hides in reserve.   I had some real Einsteins in the crowd.  I figured there were a couple of Ph.D.’s hidden in those Platoons.  When they were not licking the urinal cakes I had them practicing the manner in which they were going to charge an enemy machine gun nest.  We used to sit in the field at night, nestled in the swamp with the fog of mosquitoes swarming about and regurgitated  Nietzsche quotes.  I used to thank an imaginary God every night that those Grunts had not figured out how to lick their own balls or nothing on the Lt’s fictional training schedule who have been accomplished.  The horror, the horror…

    Yep, bursting with covert Intel Analysts…that’s the plan.  Who is going to burn the shitters in this new age of intellectual giants?   Every Grunt is really just a bag of brains.  FMTT

     

     

     

  • Army missed recruiting goals, shrinks.

    Army missed recruiting goals, shrinks.

    New recruit cadets stand in line to be processed. The Army missed its 2018 recruiting goal by 6,500. (Bryan Ilyankoff/Army)

    According to this Army Times article, recruiting is not going so well.

    A year ago, Army officials were touting a plan to increase the force by 7,500 soldiers in fiscal year 2019. That didn’t happen.

    Today’s active duty end strength stands at 476,000, the head of personnel management at Army headquarters told reporters on Friday. If that number sounds familiar, it’s because it’s last year’send strength goal.

    This year’s end strength target was supposed to be 483.500 in the active Army.

    “We did miss our accessions target, and we’re going to miss end strength,” Maj. Gen. Joseph Calloway said.

    The Army started out fiscal year 2018 with an ambitious task: To bring in 80,000 new active duty soldiers, about 11,000 more than they netted the previous year, when the service made a 180-degree turn from a drawdown to a sharp build-up.

    They left some recruits on the table?

    “We honestly left some potential recruits on the table who completely met standards,” Calloway said ? 1,500 to 1,800, he added.

    Still, the service issued about 7,600 waivers for recruits who had never served before but who, on paper, had a disqualifying medical condition or conduct issue. As of the end of August, that was 1,660 for behavioral or legal issues and 5,062 for physical issues like eyesight, hearing and so on.

    The recruiting shortages came mostly in military occupational specialties that are already under-strength, like field artillery, air defense artillery, intelligence and satellite communications, he said.

    Deaf, Dumb, and Blind with an attitude problem … but do they respect gender pronouns?

    The Army is still offering up to $40,000 in bonuses, two-year enlistments and student loan repayment to get people in the door, but, Calloway said, the service is counting on some other metrics to help it get to that number this year.

    See, this is where they are going wrong.  There are too many zeros in the numbers they are using.  It just confuses young recruits.  They need to go back to a simple less confusing time like this:

    I got a nice room with 60 other new friends, a meal card to eat and during my second enlistment, they put AC in the barracks.   We didn’t need any stinking $40,000 in bonuses.   I checked into Camp Lejeune the first time and was going through the chow line and thought I had it made.  The kinda screened in windows and large slow moving fan blades gave the place that feel of comfort I was longing for.  When I got to the desserts in the chow line they had bread pudding just like Ma made when she was home on work release.  It looked so good, but when I picked up a plate the damn raisins all flew away.   No worries, I had to figure out what to do with all that $350.  Old timers used to tell me the entire Corps fought the Korean war with less money than I was being paid.  I felt guilty.

    “We’re tossing away some of the old methods,” said Marshall Williams, the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs. “That person we’re going after today is so completely different.”

    You got that right skippy.

     

  • Moderate Dog looking to stay in a nice place on the Potomic.

    Moderate Dog looking to stay in a nice place on the Potomic.

    Secretary Mattis seems like he is all too familiar with the rumor mill in DC.

    Where else is he going to find a place where he can develop a plan to kill more people than where he is?  Mattis being where he is makes me sleep well at night.

  • Ft. Trump, home of the Kielbasi Corps.

    Ft. Trump, home of the Kielbasi Corps.

    It seems our Polish friends are keen on the idea of having US Troops stationed there.  To be fair, the Polish have been unwavering in their support of the Global War on Terrorism.   I have several friends who live there, for some strange reason they do not care much for Russians or Germans.

    President Trump joins Polish President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday at a joint news conference at the White House. (Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

    After months of pushing for a permanent U.S. military presence in Poland as a bulwark against Russia, the Polish president offered President Trump a new incentive tailored to his real estate sensibilities: naming rights.

    “I would very much like for us to set up a permanent base in Poland, which we would call Fort Trump,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said Tuesday in a joint news conference at the White House. “I firmly believe that this is possible. I am convinced that such a decision lies in the Polish interest and in the interest of the United States.”

    Standing nearby, Trump smirked and raised his right eyebrow before pursing his lips as he appeared to consider the possibility of an American military base in Poland emblazoned with his name.

    Though the Polish president’s naming proposal appeared to be in jest, Trump said Poland was willing to make a “very major” contribution if the United States were to establish a permanent military presence in the nation.

    “If they’re willing to do that, it’s something we will certainly talk about,” Trump said.

    In May 2018, the Polish government offered to spend up to $2 billion to establish a permanent U.S. military presence in Poland.

    A senior Polish government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Warsaw would potentially be willing to spend even more over time or offer additional incentives to Washington.

    U.S. forces are already deployed to Poland on a rotational basis, part of an effort by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to step up defenses on its eastern flank after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

    The United States does not currently operate any permanent military bases in Poland. In March, the United States and Poland said technical problems would delay completion of the Polish section of a U.S. missile defense shield by two years to 2020.  Link HERE

    All jokes aside, the Polish have been doing great things.  When the Soviet Union fell apart Poland had about the same economy as Ukraine.  Unlike Ukraine, the Polish embraced Western Free Markets and as a result are now about 8 times the economy of Ukraine.  There has also been steadfast resistance to Islamic thugs in Poland.  Besides, its bigly fun to serve with a Pole.

  • Enough is enough already.

    Enough is enough already.

    How many Veteran Charities are there?  Would you say 1,500?  Maybe 15,000 or more?   According to the IRS there are more than 40,000 Veteran Charities.  At what point will we as a Veteran community tell people to knock it off already?

     

    Link HERE

    This does not include the myriad of Local, State and Federal government organizations who support Veterans.  It seems that there is a constant roll out of new programs to assist Veterans these days, even the Shitbirds.

    The Veterans Health Administration in 2017 offered to treat vets who don’t normally qualify for care because they earned a less-than-honorable discharge. Almost no one used the program.

    Now veterans’ groups are hoping a change in the program will help that group of veterans when they struggle with thoughts of suicide.

    Roadside Bomb

    At his home outside San Diego, former Marine Lance Cpl. Josh Onan keeps some photographs next to his TV. The photos are from his days as a Marine. In 2006, he was in Ramadi, Iraq when his Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb.

    “I remember laying down in the truck. Waking up, there is dust and debris all over me,” Onan said. “And there was an Iraqi colonel, who is sitting in the truck with us and he’s just screaming, screaming and I don’t understand what he’s saying. So, that’s when I realized, ‘Oh here we go, something big is happening.’”

    During the next year, Onan would be in and out of trouble: small infractions, which he chalks up to the amount of medication prescribed for his head injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, while on leave, he was caught with a small amount of cocaine. That was it. He was kicked out of the Marines.

    Onan looks at a picture of himself in his battle gear.

    “I’m 32 years old now, and this guy is 20, and I look up to this guy,” he said. “I know it’s me but I miss everything about him. Sometimes it’s hard to find this guy.”

    Onan is one of the thousands of veterans who have other-than-honorable discharges. They don’t typically qualify for VA benefits, even though vets like Onan have a high suicide rate.

    To address that, the VA last summer started a new program: this group of veterans can come into the VA and be treated for mental health issues at least for 90 days.

    KPBS asked the VA how many people used the program in the first year. The VA figures show nationally 115 veterans used the program. Advocates said the number is a fraction of the veterans who would now qualify for mental health care. Twenty-five of those patients were in San Diego.

    “They came in saying they had an urgent need and they were evaluated and received care for that urgent need whether it was a substance use disorder or suicidal thoughts,” said Dr. Neal Doran, of VA San Diego.   Article HERE

    So now the VA has the mandate to search out and identify the people who could not manage to honorably complete their military service.  Everyone should join the military for at least a few days so they will be taken care of for the rest of their lives.  All any veteran has to do is say they have thoughts of canceling their birthday and the sky will open up.   I would debunk the “22 A Day” myth again but why bother people with facts when they have already made up their minds.

    While a certain Jew-ish Lawyer type keeps stuffing his pockets with money donated by gullible denigrates, the people he tends to attack are stuck in the trenches trying to deal with these problems in real time.

    Chaplains discuss their history and experiences working with suicide cases at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Feb. 11, 2015.

    Article HERE

    Honestly, with all the VSO’s and Charities out there…one would think enough is enough already.