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

Category: Military issues

  • Females Marines vs. Pull Ups

    Ohio sends us a link from NPR which reports that fifty-six percent of female Marines couldn’t meet the three pull-up requirement which was the goal of Big Corps that was supposed to go into effect on the first of January, and since those female bots couldn’t meet the requirement, Big Corps quietly dropped the whole thing;

    The three pullups is already the minimum required for all male Marines. Now the Marine Corps has postponed the plan, and that’s raising questions about whether women have the physical strength to handle ground combat, which they’ll be allowed to do beginning in 2016.

    Marine officers would not talk to NPR on tape. They said they delayed the pullup requirement to avoid losing not only recruits but also current female Marines who can’t pass the test.

    The Marine Corps has been using it to test upper body strength for men for more than 40 years.

    The announcement was made to social media outlets, including in this video from The Corps Report at about the 20 seconds mark;

    In my opinion, there isn’t a woman alive who can’t do three pull-ups if she really wants to do three pull ups. When I was a TAC NCO at 1st ROTC Region Advance Camp, I had the first cycle of ROTC Cadets. Most of them were in my platoon because they were going to jump school after our seven weeks of training where there was a requirement to do six pull ups. So I made it a mandatory for my platoon that everyone had to do ten pullups before they could get in the chow hall. At first they needed assistance, men & women both. But by the end of the seven weeks, they were all doing ten pull ups unassisted.

    So, either no one is training these women properly, or the women are purposely not trying.

  • NJ cops suspended for military service?

    Several of you have sent us links to this Fox News article about two Iraq War veterans & cops who were suspended from their police jobs for allegedly misusing military leave time.

    They’re being suspended without pay and could lose their jobs for allegedly misusing military leave time. An attorney for both men says they’re upstanding cops and did everything by the book. The police union claims the cops are being targeted by their department to discourage other cops from joining the reserves.

    From North Jersey.com, they were both members of the Air Force Reserve;

    The days in question – 15 for McCracken and 29 for Cartagena – go back to 2007 and 2008. McCracken used the days for traveling to a military base, while Cartagena used his days for medical treatments of combat injuries, Elston said.

    Elston said the police department makes it sound like the two were lounging on the beach.

    “These men are highly decorated Iraq War veterans, who have served our country overseas, have been overseas at least twice each, and have served our country with honor and distinction, as well as the Bloomfield Township Police Department,” she said. “The township is saying that now, four or five years after these occurrences, that they should not have been paid for the traveling to comply for the military order or for being treated on base.”

    Their chief isn’t talking to the media at this point, so all we have is the officers’ side of the story. The Bloomfield Patch reports;

    The time period in question occurred in 2008 and 2009 and involves both their overseas deployment and weekend training, Elston said. She said at that time, Bloomfield did not have a policy concerning military absences. Elston said a policy was later put in place and is now being retroactively applied.

    During the press presentation, Elston said she had audio recordings of Bloomfield police investigators saying they didn’t have a set policy in place.

    McCracken said the Essex County Prosecutor’s office had investigated their military leave claims earlier this year and did not find credible evidence that they had falsified their claims of military time.

  • NG/AF Rivalry in Ohio

    Since we’re hating on Big Air Force this week for rationalizing dumping the A-10, let’s hate on them a little longer for more stupid shit from the Washington Post;

    After spending almost $600 million to buy a tiny fleet of the planes over the past six years, stationing them in Mansfield and at two other National Guard bases, the Air Force flew all of them to a junkyard earlier this year. Five more planes, which the Pentagon already has paid for, will be mothballed as soon as they are built.

    To Air Force leaders, it was all about economics. They deemed the small planes less efficient than larger, more commonly used transport aircraft.

    To National Guard leaders in Ohio, how­ever, it was all about politics. The decision to get rid of perfectly good planes, they argue, was driven by a desire among active-duty Air Force leaders to shift the burden of budget cuts onto the National Guard.

    With no planes at the Mansfield base, the Pentagon would no longer pay for it — or the jobs there. Local leaders howled, and the state’s congressional delegation confronted the Air Force. The ensuing battle, which escalated into an intense political dogfight in Washington, was an opening skirmish in what many federal and state officials predict will be the next big clash over defense spending.

    Haven’t we been hearing about how the National Guard and the Reserves are going to play a bigger role in the near future as the Pentagon draws down the active force? And, in the meantime, they’re spending money on aircraft that will be mothballed as it rolls off the assembly line. Yeah, I understand that contracts must be filled, but still, someone should have seen this coming six years ago and maybe not ordered the planes that they don’t really want.

    As shrinking budgets force the military to thin its ranks, many active-duty leaders, seeking to protect their ilk, want the pain to fall disproportionately on National Guard and reserve forces.

    I’m starting to get the feeling that someone in Washington doesn’t know what they’re doing. It looks like by the time the active force gets drawn down, there will be no National Guard or Reserve units left to fill their gaps.

  • Eusebio Lopez caught the TBI

    We haven’t talked much about this, but you may have read elsewhere that Marine Sergeant Eusebio Lopez killed 19-year-old Lance Corporal Sara Castromata and Corporal Jacob Woolsey last year and now it turns out that he was suffering from a traumatic brain injury from an explosion near the vehicle in which he was riding in Afghanistan. Of course, if you don’t read the whole article from Associated Press, you’d think he was just abandoned by the Marine Corps, but buried in the story is;

    Sgt. Eusebio Lopez was receiving treatment in North Carolina after his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Iraq, but his medical care stopped abruptly when he was transferred to Quantico in 2012, according to a report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The reason appeared to be two-fold: His new doctors didn’t know about his previous treatment and he didn’t speak up.

    First of all, the individual is responsible for his own treatment; if you don’t speak up, no one is going to know you’re suffering. Secondly, thousands of troops who are suffering from TBI didn’t murder anyone that day, all of you forensic scientists at Associated Press need to keep looking for a reason.

    Lopez shot Lance Cpl. Sara Castromata, 19, and Cpl. Jacob Wooley, 23, inside a barracks at the Officer Candidates School after a night of drinking. Lopez was upset Castromata had ended a relationship with him and had begun dating Wooley, according to the report obtained Thursday.

    Yeah, well, that’s plausible. People kill out of jealousy regularly without having set foot in a combat zone. But, then, that doesn’t advance the “crazy combat veteran” meme. And, oh, yeah, the Associated Press also reports that Lopez didn’t turn his gun into his unit like he was supposed to do;

    The report also found that Lopez should not even have been eligible to live in the barracks where the shootings took place and he and other Marines regularly disregarded regulations that required Marines to register personal firearms and store them in the armory when on base. Lopez used his personal handgun in the shootings.

    The Officer Candidates School “was functioning in a climate lacking accountability, cognizance of and adherence to orders and personal responsibility,” according to the report.

    So, let’s recap; Lopez had a TBI that he didn’t report to the gaining unit command and he had a gun that he didn’t turn in to the commander. Yet somehow, it’s the Marine Corps’ fault. Maybe they should administer truth serum and interrogate every service member when they change units. Or they can continue to treat the Marines like adults and accept the fact that sometimes bad behavior happens.

    Thanks to JC for the link.

  • Standoff in the South China Sea

    “Jon Not To Be Confused With Jonn” sends us a link to Fox News which reports that the guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens was confronted by Chinese warships while it was in international waters of the South China Sea.

    On December 5th, while lawfully operating in international waters in the South China Sea, USS Cowpens and a PLA Navy vessel had an encounter that required maneuvering to avoid a collision,” a Navy official said.

    “This incident underscores the need to ensure the highest standards of professional seamanship, including communications between vessels, to mitigate the risk of an unintended incident or mishap.”

    A State Department official said the U.S. government issued protests to China in both Washington and Beijing in both diplomatic and military channels.

    The Cowpens was conducting surveillance of the Liaoning at the time. The carrier had recently sailed from the port of Qingdao on the northern Chinese coast into the South China Sea.

    Well, this administration wanted to shift their military focus from the Middle East to the Pacific Rim. Now they’ve got it.

  • To Be . . . Or To Do?

    “Tiger, one day you will come to a fork in the road and you’re going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go.” (He raised his hand and pointed.) “If you go that way you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and you will get good assignments.” (Then [he] raised his other hand and pointed in another direction.) “Or you can go that way and you can do something – something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide you want to do something, you may not get promoted and you may not get the good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won’t have to compromise yourself. You will be true to your friends and to yourself. And your work might make a difference. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That’s when you will have to make a decision. To be or to do? Which way will you go?”

    Many military theorists are well-known, at least within the military community.  Jomini and Clausewitz, Mitchell and Douhet, Mahan – these names are remembered, in some cases centuries after their deaths.

    Yet others have been incredibly influential – and remain virtually unknown.  This article concerns one of those influential unknowns.  The lead quote above is his.

    The individual’s accomplishments are varied – and are insanely impressive.  He is credited with:

    • Being perhaps the single best air-to-air dogfighter in USAF history;
    • Literally personally writing the “book” for jet air-to-air combat for the USAF;
    • With one other person, developing a major theory of aircraft performance in air-to-air combat;
    • Being partially responsible for the superior performance of one of the USAF’s primary air platforms;
    • Being largely responsible for the very existence of a second, highly successful USAF primary air platform; a successful US Navy air platform; and indirectly responsible for a third successful USAF air platform;
    • The development of an acclaimed major theory describing both individual and organizational behavior;
    • Being the root cause for major changes in a sister-service’s current warfighting doctrine; and
    • Being a major contributor to (some have gone so far as to call him one of the architects of) the winning strategy of one US war – and some would say, of two.

    Yet his combat service was very brief.  He was not well-liked by many during his lifetime.  He was far more interested in doing something worthwhile than recognition.  He published precious little in open literature for posterity.  And because of these (and other) factors, as I noted above there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of him.  Indeed, even today he’s yet to receive full recognition in own parent service.

    That, ladies and gentlemen, is a damned shame.  Because this individual – though not particularly well-known – may well be the most influential military theorist of the last half of the 20th Century.

    His name was Col. John Richard Boyd, USAF.  Within his own service, he was somewhat of a pariah.
    (more…)

  • First three Army “combat arms” females join their unit

    The Stars & Stripes report that Pfc. Melissa Czarnogursky, Pvt. Degraff and Pvt. Larissa Schwerin, the first female fire directions specialists have all reported to their unit, the 41st Fires Brigade at Fort Hood, TX. As with most Fort Hood units, they immediately went to the field;

    The women arrived at Fort Hood about a month ago, and almost immediately went into the field for a training exercise that lasted about a week and a half. They said they were happy to get a quick immersion into the unit, and learn new aspects of their job. But Degraff said she was also surprised at how friendly everyone was.

    “They showed us the ropes,” she said of her fellow soldiers. “They just wanted to show us how to do our jobs the best way.”

    Czarnogursky said the unit made an effort to make sure the women fit in and didn’t feel separated from the rest of the soldiers.

    Still, Degraff said it was kind of strange to arrive and have everyone already know who they were.

    “I don’t see us as different than anybody else,” she said. “The only thing different is where we go to the bathroom.”

    The three women said the job can be challenging, but nothing a woman couldn’t do.

    Well, that was painless, I guess, well, except for the social engineers who were hoping for some difficulties so they can throw fingers and call someone some names. But, then being a fire directions specialist is just barely combat arms. But, nonetheless, I’m proud of these ladies because they did what no one before them has done, and they’re not complaining about it.

  • Confronting China

    The Washington Times reports that the Wall Street Journal reported that two b52 bombers flew into China’s newly designated Air Defense Identification Zone;

    China didn’t try to contact the planes as they flew over the islands, The Journal said. And the crafts returned to base soon after takeoff. But the fact they flew at all was a clear message to China that the United States didn’t approve of the nation’s weekend designation of the ADIZ.

    “The planes flew a pattern that included passing through the ADIZ,” the unnamed U.S. officials said. “The flight was without incident.”

    Moreover, the B-52 flights were planned a while back as part of operation Coral Lightning. The planes weren’t armed and didn’t have escorts.

    A link sent to us by Andy to Reuters gives some background on the ADIZ:

    China published coordinates for an “East China Sea Air Defence Identification Zone” over the weekend and warned it would take “defensive emergency measures” against aircraft that failed to identify themselves properly in the airspace.

    The zone covers most of that sea and includes the skies over islands at the heart of a territorial dispute with Japan.

    The United States and close ally Japan have sharply criticized the move, with U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel calling it a “destabilizing attempt to alter the status quo in the region.” He said on Saturday the United States would not change how it operates in the region.

    More of that toothless diplomacy thing. Remember that weeks after Bush 43 took office the Chinese forced down a reconnaissance flight and held some crew members hostage. That flight was over international waters, too. Well, this administration has said that they were preparing for a war in the Pacific Rim, despite all of the shit going on every where else on the planet. I like the fact that this administration is playing “I’m not touching you” with China, but this isn’t the time. And the only reason that China is being froggy is because this administration has no credibility.