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

Category: Military issues

  • Advocates; Pentagon not killing women fast enough

    Well, that’s how I read this article from Stars & Stripes which reports on a hearing where advocates of women in combat complain that the military isn’t integrating women fast enough to suit them.

    The Marines’ plan calls for testing women to see if they can deadlift 135 pounds, bench 115 pounds, carry 95 pounds for 50 meters while wearing full combat gear, load a 120mm tank round and scale a 7-foot wall. But these skills might not be needed, Jacob said.

    “It’s not looking at the jobs,” [Greg Jacob, a former Marine and policy director of the Service Women’s Action Network] said at a Wednesday briefing on Capitol Hill. “If you want a job in the artillery, you have to pick up the artillery shell and shove it into the breach of the gun. Is this proxy test going to evaluate that? We don’t know … It’s a plan but you’re not really sure what it’s explaining or what it’s doing.”

    Jacob is a idiot. It’s pretty clear to me that’s the standard based on an artilleryman’s ability to function as a member of the gun crew – that includes loading really big and really heavy artillery rounds into the thingie that launches them. Someone who can can’t meet those standards is not a part of the team. Seems simple.

    However, Ranger School still remains closed to women even though the program is not solely for infantry soldiers, Haring said.

    “Soldiers from all branches attend Ranger School,” according to Army Reserve Col. Ellen Haring of the Combat Integration Initiative with Women in International Security, who spoke on the panel Wednesday. “Continuing to exclude women from accessing this elite leadership school makes it appear that the Army is not confident in women’s leadership or combat service potential.”

    Yeah, Ranger School is an intensive leadership institution with countless class room hours spent deep in discussion. Oh, wait, no it’s not. It’s a intensely physical program that has a physical test with standards that many women can’t meet. Many men can’t meet the standards, either, that’s why it has a high washout rate. It has nothing to do with “leadership potential”. It has to do with women in the program meeting the same standards as the men who graduate.

    SO, it’s just like I said it was going to be from the beginning of this whole discussion; if the military can’t meet the expectations of the “women’s advocates” by just shoving women through the pipeline, the advocates are going to demand that the Pentagon lower the standards which have kept soldiers alive for decades. I don’t see these advocates lining up to get into the schools so they can show us how it’s done.

    It’s like they’re in a hurry because the wars are winding down, and they need a woman with a CIB before we leave Afghanistan. They want to start filling body bags with their ill-considered political agenda.

  • Military Medal Review

    I don’t know what this means, but apparently, according to Stars & Stripes, the Pentagon is proud to announce that they’re going to “review” all military medals. I don’t why, and I don’t get the point of it. Seems to me that there are more important things that Pentagon can be doing besides looking at bling. I guess the flag officers have all of the medals they can give each other, so they want to cut off everyone else, or something;

    Officials said the review, ordered by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, would likely kick off within a month or so and be complete by late 2014 or early 2015.

    Beyond determining how new warfare technologies would fit into the medal picture, the parameters of the review are still being worked out, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said.

    “As the wars are ending … rather than looking piecemeal at any specific one, he wants to do a comprehensive review of them all,” Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

    The focus of the article is on awarding drone warriors a suitable medal, but it seems to me there are lots of medals not connected with actually being in combat to handle that. The last time the Army did this, in the early 80s, we got the Army Service Ribbon – a completely useless award that was adopted because there were too many people without any awards running around after the National Defense Medal awards ended in August 1974. When my son graduated from his 6 weeks of Air Force basic training, he already had three ribbons. I was on my second enlistment before I had three awards on my uniform. So the Army adopted the ASR, the Overseas Service Ribbon and the NCO Professional Development Ribbon to keep up with the Air Force, I suppose.

    I guess this “review” is to keep some flag officers employed and a backdoor route to adopt the Distinguish Warfare Medal again – you know, that drone warrior thing, where you get a medal for combat without leaving the States.

  • Time’s Swampland; Are Veterans Selfish?

    Mark Thompson asks that question today in Time’s Swampland, which, in effect, is an answer in the affirmative. In regards to the Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA) cuts to veterans pensions, Thompson writes;

    Then last week, a new storm arose when the Pentagon said it was considering cutting the subsidies it pays to military commissaries—on-base grocery stores boasting lower prices that are reserved for military personnel, including many veterans—that could force many such facilities to close their doors.

    “This is yet another undeserved blow to our men and women in service—and their families—in the name of ‘necessary cutbacks’ to reduce an ungainly national deficit,” American Legion National Commander Daniel Dellinger said, after learning of the commissary proposal. “Like the trimming of expenses to be made by reducing military retirees’ pensions, this is an inexcusable way of attempting to fix a fault by penalizing the blameless.”

    The notion that vets are seeking more than their fair share upsets some of their leaders. “Vets are anything but selfish!” says Norb Ryan, president of the Military Officers Association of America. “If anything, vets are too selfless. They are also idealistic…Vets are fair and therefore, they expect others to be fair.”

    Yeah, that’s kind of the point. We planned for our later years based on what Congress and the White House promised us for our loyal service, and sometimes asking of us more than would be considered reasonable by most of the people in this country. But we remained loyal and did what we were told. And this is the thanks we get;

    It suggests that the nation is developing a military caste, separate and apart from the nation. It seems the military is in danger of becoming just another special interest group.

    Yeah, well, we took it in the ass after Vietnam, we took it in the as in the 90s and now we’re expected to take in the ass again. Like it’s our job to take it in the ass. We didn’t become “another special interest group” all on our own – we were pushed. We were pushed by congressmen who won’t cut spending for illegals and criminals, but won’t blink an eye to slash a cost of living allowance for a widow or disabled veteran who gave as much as they could give. Those are people who can’t just go out and find a job to supplement their pensions, they depend on their pensions and and the cost of living increases. But the votes are what count, and military spending, especially personnel cuts are popular ecause it doesn’t cost them much politically.

    You’re darn tootin’ we’re another special interest group, but we were forced into it. We’ve always sat quietly we bore the burden of politicians’ vote buying frenzies. We’ve also watched the cost which always pays for the electioneering in blood and lives. We were treated like a special uninterest for centuries. Now because we won’t take it sitting down, somehow we’re filthy special interest beasts.

    Just because the 99% don’t accept us unless we’re fighting their wars, or digging them out from avalanches, or pulling them from the roofs of their flooded homes, or bringing them chow during power outages, or marching in their pretty parades so they can feel good about themselves, well, that doesn’t mean we will remain silent when they threaten our livelihoods. Unlike the illegal aliens who want a tax break, we only want what we earned for doing what the country wanted us to do, and we only want what we deserve, not a penny more. Is that really too much to ask?

    Thanks to ChockBlock and ANCCLT for pissing me off with the link.

  • Generals Gone Wild

    Hondo sends us a link to a Washington Post article which catalogs some of the recent bad behavior by flag officers in the military services. It really is quite a shameful list, incidences from intoxicated while on duty to adulterous affairs and sexual harassment.

    Since November 2012, when an adulterous affair felled David H. Petraeus, the CIA director and most renowned Army general of his generation, the armed forces have struggled to cope with tawdry disclosures about high-ranking commanders.

    The Navy has been humbled by a spiraling sex-and-bribery scandal, as well as a gambling incident involving a three-star admiral who authorities say they caught using counterfeit chips at a riverfront casino. The Air Force relieved a nuclear commander after investigators said he went on a drinking binge in Moscow. The Army fired one general for allegedly groping a woman, forced another to retire after he accepted expensive gifts from a foreigner, and demoted its top commander in Africa after an investigation found he treated himself and his wife to a $750-a-night Caribbean hotel suite at taxpayer expense.

    I have no idea what the problems is, other than the fact that the good officers are leaving in droves, and these knuckleheads are unsupervised. That, coupled with how military justice is hamstrung by it’s own rules and there is no real punishment handed out to flag officers. “Letters of concern” somehow don’t have the same impact as loss of benefits and reduction to private. Enlisted Marines face a court martial for urinating on corpses of dead enemies, but their officers are allowed to pee on anyone they please.

    Of course, the Secretary of Defense issues a solution – classes for flag officers about how they should behave themselves. I’m sorry, but if you are 40 or 50 years old and you don’t know how to behave, a class isn’t going to help you. But, Hagel is a liberal and he’s doing what liberals do best; look like he’s doing “something” whether “something” works or not.

  • Sound familiar?

    The News-Tribune follows a platoon of Strykers through their paces at Fort Irwin as they discover that their enemy doesn’t always wear uniforms – their equipment is showing signs of age and the tail of their logistics teams seems broken;

    At one point in Yakima, fewer than half of the Strykers in the cavalry squadron were considered ready for combat, said squadron chief mechanic Chief Warrant Officer 2 Ric Minton, 31, of Olympia.

    He and his team “didn’t sleep for three days” to get the squadron’s readiness rate back up to 90 percent, he said.

    Spending constraints further crimped the brigade as it prepared for its Yakima exercise during the October government shutdown. The unit could not buy essential replacement parts until the spending restrictions were lifted.

    “When we got the parts, our operational readiness levels came up to standard,” said Maj. Dennis Fajardo, the brigade’s logistics officer.

    Minton said the Strykers were in good shape when they hit the ground at Fort Irwin in early January. The Army sent the machines by train from Lewis-McChord to the desert base. About 10 of the cavalry squadron’s 69 Strykers were down for repairs early this week.

    Now, wait, weren’t we assured that the DoD was completely funded during the goverment’s shutdown? I guess not. But, as I read the entire article, I had flashbacks to the 1978-1981 period when maintenance on vehicles and equipment was accomplished by cannibalizing other vehicles because there was no money to fix them right, so soldiers made do with what they could, like they always do.

    Of course, the big difference between now and the Carter years is that the troops are still involved in a shooting war and their equipment is already decrepit and the parts/maintenance chain is already drying up.

  • Backup plan for Olympics in Sochi

    While the Russians are busy looking for Ruzana Ibragimova, the “White Widow” who is suspected to be at the Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the US Navy is cruising the area as a prudent measure if they need to un-ass the AO says the Stars & Stripes;

    “Air and naval assets, to include two Navy ships in the Black Sea, will be available if requested for all manner of contingencies in support of — and in consultation with — the Russian government,” Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement.

    U.S. commanders in the region are conducting “prudent planning and preparations” if that support is required, Kirby said.

    Concerns about security threats during the Olympics have grow in the wake of the deadly Dec. 29 explosion by a suspected suicide bomber in the southern Russian city of Volgograd. The bombing was followed a day later by an alleged suicide attack in the same city on a trolleybus.

    In addition to ships forward-positioned in the Black Sea, the U.S. military maintains numerous military assets in the region that could assist in any evacuation of U.S. athletes, such as C-17s at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, special operations units based out of Stuttgart, Germany, and crisis-response U.S. Marines out of Spain.

    While I’m glad that there are military assets in place, because the US military’s main function is protection of US citizens, that’s an awful lot of money to spend on a sporting event.

  • Oh, for crying out loud

    Yes, the Pentagon is still wringing their hands over the pictures that appeared on the gossip website, TMZ that showed Marines burning the bodies of their dead enemies. I think that we can all agree that the incident probably happened because of hygiene and for the welfare of US troops in the area. But, apparently, the perfumed princes are concerned that marines may have actually smiled while in the vicinity of the smoldering enemies’ bodies, according to Fox News;

    Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby, however, said that even if burning the corpses was permissible, one of the photos, which depicts a grinning Marine kneeling over a skull, could raise separate problems.

    “Aside from the burning, there were other images in that collection which are troubling for other reasons,” Kirby told Fox News, adding that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is “deeply troubled” by the images.

    This is a low-point for the politically correct Pentagon. Why are they even spending a moment’s thought on this incident? Now, I wasn’t in Fallujah, I was living in downtown DC at the time. But maybe one of you could tell me of the general order which addressed smiling while near dead insurgents. Or any other policy the Marine Corps had at the time about being amused in the presence of dead bodies.

    Troubling? I’ll tell what’s troubling – a rear admiral who won’t tell the media to find a real story instead of worrying about the public discovering the fact that war is grisly and messy and sometimes our Marines try to lighten up the mood in amongst all of that nasty shit.

  • Draft dodgers in South Korea

    For those of you out there who think that draft is the answer to the problems facing national security as service in our all-volunteer military becomes less attractive, this look at South Korea’s conscription woes in the Stars & Stripes might alter your perception;

    South Korea is better known for its catchy K-pop songs, tech-savviness and economic growth than it is for the more than 17,500 conscientious objectors who have been imprisoned since 1950. Most are Jehovah’s Witnesses, who number about 100,000 in this country of 50 million and often face stigma in its largely conformist society.

    More than 50 men have refused to serve in the past decade because of nonreligious personal beliefs or political reasons, including 25-year-old Kim Dong Hyun.

    “Right now, I only have two choices: military or prison. Of the two, I think prison is the more peaceful choice,” Kim said. “At least in prison I don’t have to train to kill.”

    Kim, like Jeon, was sentenced to 18 months, which today is a typical sentence for conscientious objectors in South Korea. Under South Korea’s military-backed dictatorship in the 1970s and 80s, imprisonment lasted up to seven years.

    The United Nations Human Rights Committee criticizes South Korea for not recognizing conscientious objectors and failing to give them alternatives to military service- a violation of freedom of thought, conscience and religion recognized in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

    This is in a country whose main threat is just across a thin strip of fenced and mine-laden earth and has a history of incursions into South Korea. Imagine trying to maintain a trained standing Army in the US among the lazy and irresponsible pool of draft-aged men and women. Our jails would be packed with draft dodgers, no room for the thugs.

    Our draft system has already been corrupted by the Jimmy Carter Administration when he gave blanket amnesty to all of the draft dodgers of the Vietnam Era, then a few years later, reinstated draft registration. Carter insured that a draft will never work again here.