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

Category: Military issues

  • Guest Article: Stolen Valor, Part 2: “Wayne and Earl – and Their Families”

    Here’s the second increment of Wesley’s work.  Once again:  high quality stuff.  (If you missed the first part, it follow this link to read it.)

    You might want to grab a tissue before you start reading.  However, if your family has suffered a recent loss, or you’re having a particularly bad day – maybe you might want to read it later.  Ditto if you have blood pressure issues and are having a bad day on that front.

    And Wesley – consider talking to Jonn about becoming a contributor to TAH.  Your work really is damned good.
    . . .
    (more…)

  • Guest Article: Stolen Valor, Part 1: “What it is”

    Wesley Wilson – who comments here as “Enigma4you” – has asked me to post this article on his behalf if I “felt it has merit”.

    Yeah, Wesley, it has merit – it’s damned good.  I’ve told Wesley I think that he should ask Jonn for an account, and post occasional articles as his time and circumstances permit.

    Without further ado, here’s Wesley’s article. I think you’ll like it.

    . . .

    (more…)

  • Troops on food stamps stories…again

    Chief Tango sends us a link to the Daily Caller which is all breathless about the rise in food stamp usage among the troops. I always doubt these stories because I was in the Army when pay was a lot worse than it is now and I never used food stamps to feed my family.

    When my youngest daughter was born and we became a family of five, I earned $8300 as an E-6. That was in 1981, using an inflation calculator, that’s $21,271 in today’s dollars. There wasn’t much money left over at the end of the month, but we didn’t get food stamps. What the Army Times used for their revelation was the dollar amount spent at the Commissaries in food stamps;

    In fiscal 2013, commissary patrons redeemed $103.6 million worth of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, formerly known as food stamps. That’s up 5 percent over fiscal 2012. The number of transactions rose by 2 percent, to 968,358.

    SNAP redemptions in commissaries began climbing in 2009 when eligibility rules were expanded due to the national economic stimulus programs. But the growth appears to be leveling off.

    Commissary officials track the number of transactions and the dollar amount, but they don’t track the status of those using the benefit, so there is no way to compare usage among retirees with active-duty members, for example.

    From the Daily Caller;

    Food stamp redemption at military grocery stores, or commissaries, has nearly doubled since the beginning of the “Great Recession,” topping out at $103.6 million in fiscal 2013, from $31.1 million in 2008.

    […]

    Commissaries only track the benefits used, not the status of the individual using them, like whether they are retired or active-duty.

    Pentagon officials told CNN that while the military does not track who is receiving assistance, the military members likely to be on food stamps are those at the bottom of the ranks with children, where base pay — not including housing or food — for a new soldier with a spouse and child is about $20,000. With housing and food allowances, an Army private with two years experience would make about $40,000.

    I don’t see a private having to get food stamps with a $3300 monthly pay check. Maybe what they need is financial advice instead of assistance. Or, maybe it’s not even privates using food stamps, since the commissaries don’t know who is spending that particular form of remuneration – it could be retirees and widows using the food stamps and not the troops at all.

  • Unmanned trucks at Fort Hood

    Stars & Stripes reports that an unmanned convoy of trucks circled Fort Hood. As you can see in the video, the trucks even avoided hitting a simulated zombie who stumbled out in front of the vehicles;

    The maneuvering and obstacle test in both a rural and urban environment marked a completed step for the Army and Marine Corps’ Autonomous Mobility Appliqué System, but it was not the first time the military has let a drone truck drive.

    The military has been testing unmanned cargo trucks for several years in an effort to potentially save personnel from unnecessary or dangerous tasks.

    The January test involved sensor and GPS technology from the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, as well as defense manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

  • AP: More troops forced out for misbehaving

    Chief Tango sends us a link from the Associated Press that reports more troops are being forced out of military service for misbehaving than they were at the height of the War Against Terror;

    Data obtained by The Associated Press shows that the number of officers who left the Army due to misconduct more than tripled in the past three years. The number of enlisted soldiers forced out for drugs, alcohol, crimes and other misconduct shot up from about 5,600 in 2007, as the Iraq war peaked, to more than 11,000 last year.

    The data reveals stark differences between the military services and underscores the strains that long, repeated deployments to the front lines have had on the Army’s soldiers and their leaders.

    I’m not so sure about that. The media said for the longest time that military suicides were on the rise because of long and repeated deployments until they found out that most of the suicides hadn’t even deployed. So, I’m not so quick to believe this analysis. I’m thinking that the military, while it’s trying to obey it’s political masters by drawing down the numbers are less tolerant of bad behavior than they were during the height of the wars. I wonder how many of those 11,000 deployed even once.

    They admit that bad behavior was the reason fewer sailors left the Navy than during the height of the wars;

    When the decision was made to cut the size of the 370,000-strong naval force in 2004, the number of sailors who left due to misconduct and other behavior issues grew. In 2006, more than 8,400 sailors left due to conduct issues.

    As the size of the Navy began to stabilize — it’s now at about 323,000 — the number of problem sailors leaving also began to decline steadily, dropping each successive year to a new low of about 3,700 in 2013.

    So, it’s just bad guesses on the part of AP. There’s a couple of hundred thousand more troops who deployed and didn’t commit crimes, by the way. But, we should focus on the 1%, I guess.

  • So, Snowden Was Just An “Honorable Guy”, Eh?

    Believe that, and I’ve got a great deal for you on a bridge.

    An “honorable guy” doesn’t do a lot of things.  One of them is to trick his colleagues into helping him steal massive amounts of classified information.  Another is lie through his teeth.

    Per this story, apparently NSA has determined that Snowden tricked, cajoled, or conned at least three of his colleagues into providing him their login credentials on NSA systems.  (Some of the links in that article are marked FOUO, so if you’re accessing the article from a government computer system use due caution.)  Snowden then captured those credentials and used them at later times to gain access to material he would not have otherwise been able to access – and steal.

    Previously, Snowden has denied stealing others’ login credentials.  So this documents that Snowden is a damned liar, too (as if we didn’t already know that).

    One of the individuals Snowden duped has since “resigned” from NSA. (I’m guessing it was either that or be fired, as the article states his security clearance had been revoked.)  Reportedly, the other two have had their access to NSA systems revoked.  Other information in the article indicates the two may possibly face additional disciplinary action.

    Yeah, I’m guessing these folks thought they were simply “helping out” a co-worker by doing what they did.  But the guys and/or gals involved were still being fools when they were duped.  Security policies exist for a reason, and bypassing them can really cause problems.  Bypassing them did exactly here.

    IMO, this does rather conclusively prove that Snowden was anything but honorable.  Honorable people don’t hang their colleagues out to dry like this, or lie through their teeth publicly.  This also shows that Snowden meticulously planned his crimes in advance, and actively sought out information he knew he wasn’t authorized to see in order to steal it.

    I hope we one day get our hands on this damned turncoat.  Hopefully, that will be when we have an administration running things that knows how to deal with turncoats.

  • Congress to Pentagon; Stop the uniform madness

    Mark sends us a link to Military Times which reports that the new defense authorization bill for 2014 contains a paragraph which addresses the utility uniform differences between the services, that they should all stop wasting billions of dollars to design and then scrap their forays into martial fashion;

    The compromise defense authorization bill for 2014 includes a provision that directs the Defense Department to “to adopt and field a common combat and camouflage utility uniform, or family of uniforms, for specific combat environments, to be used by all members of the armed forces.”

    And if that becomes law, as appears likely, it would change the future image of the joint force.

    For years, lawmakers have been annoyed by the military services’ increasingly elaborate wardrobe of camouflage variants designed for the same forward-deployed environments. Over the past decade, the four services have developed at least seven new combat utility uniforms, each with its own unique design.

    Yeah, I don’t get it, either. Back in my day, sonny, the Ranger Battalions wore camouflaged jungle fatigues and the 82d had them for a field-only uniform. For that reason, seeing a clerk in camouflage is strange and out of sorts. Maternity BDUs had the same effect on me. So having the Navy and the Air Force in their completely worthless camouflage seems even more odd. And of course, there are the Marines and their MARPATs;

    This year, the Joint Staff’s top enlisted adviser, Marine Sgt. Maj. Bryan Battaglia, said the mix of uniforms makes the U.S. military look like a “Baskin-Robbins” and signaled his support for a common uniform.

    But Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos recently said preserving the Corps’ MARPAT pattern is a top priority and declared that his service will stick to it “like a hobo to a ham sandwich.”

    Yeah, that’s helpful. I’m glad that Amos finally found something he can get adamant about, but it’s unfortunate that the something is fashion.

  • Canadian general gone wild

    Andy sends us a link to an article that is kind of refreshing, in regards to general officers. It seems that there’s a Canadian former general, Daniel Menard, being held in Afghanistan for weapons smuggling. He resigned from his position in the Army because of a affair he had with a corporal;

    The daily Globe and Mail earlier cited Kabul police chief General Zaher Zaher saying Menard was being held for “gun smuggling.”

    Canadian government officials told AFP that “consular services are being provided to a Canadian citizen who has been detained in Afghanistan.”

    However it would not confirm the person’s identity nor the circumstances surrounding his detention.

    Menard was relieved of his command of Canadian troops responsible for Kandahar region in May 2010 due to the affair with the female master corporal.

    The Canadian Forces forbid intimate relationships during deployments.

    It’s kind of ice to know that US generals aren’t the only ones misbehaving.