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

Category: Military issues

  • McRaven: cuts hurting defense

    Admiral William H. McRaven, Commander, of the U.S. Special Operations Command complained at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis’ (IFPA) annual conference that while the Defense Department is quickly becoming a hollow force, commanders are trying to be “good soldiers” by saluting and moving out smartly. But at the same time they feel like they need to voice their concerns for the good of the country. According to the Washington Beacon;

    “One of the problems you know we have as senior officers in the military, as good soldiers, when given a mission we salute and move out,” McRaven said, noting that some insiders have encouraged him to protest the cuts more vocally.

    “How do you work the part where you have to be a good soldier, salute smartly, but it’s important to tell the tale of the direction we’re heading,” McRaven asked [House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R., Calif.)]. “With these cuts you won’t see it tomorrow or next year, you might not even see it in the next 5 years but one day you’ll wake up” and the U.S. military will be decimated.

    Coincidentally, last night I got an autographed copy of “Chosin” from it’s producers and watched it again for the millionth time. It’s basically, the stories of several veterans of the Korean War who survived the withdrawal from Chosin in their own words from their memories. The part that strikes me every time I watch it is how unprepared they were to face the Chinese hordes. Most of them were reservists, fresh out of high school and rushed to war without even having attended basic training. Their basic training was conducted on the ships they rode from the US to Korea. Most of them didn’t even have rifles, or knew how to shoot one when they drew their weapons when they arrived. The only reason they knew anything about their impending jobs was because of the World War Two veterans who had hung around.

    This administration is not only trying to reduce spending for arms and equipment, they’re doing their level best to drive off the veterans and the experience from our last ten years of war making continued military service less attractive to the lifers. Where will that leave the next generation of warriors who will be inevitably called upon once again?

    It’s incumbent upon the McRavens, the Dempseys, the Odiernos, to remind their civilian leaders of the Task Force Smiths and the Chosin Reservoirs and how their battles against defense will have a real cost in blood and lives of our future defenders.

    By the way, if you haven’t watched “Chosin”, you really should. I think it’s still on Netflix, or better yet buy it.

  • “But we couldn’t live with ourselves.”

    Jonn posted a brief story the other day on the guilty plea entered by Robert Bales – the guy who claims he “snapped” after a night of unauthorized drinking, then went out and murdered 17 Afghan civilians in their homes.  Even now there appear to be those who would excuse Bales’ actions, either partially or completely.

    I’d like to offer a short counterexample.

    What Bales did was nothing but thuggery.  What the following three Soldiers did, on the other hand, was IMO the epitome of correct, professional conduct.

    During the first Gulf War a small US Special Forces team of  3 persons was conducting strategic reconnaissance.  They were well behind enemy lines.  Indeed, they were north of the Euphrates river and were less than 100 miles from Baghdad.  Their mission was to observe one of the major roadways between Baghdad and Iraq for signs of enemy activity in order to screen the western flank of the planned allied “left hook” through southern Iraq.

    They had secreted themselves in a dug-in, “spider-hole” hide site.  (We’d studied the Viet Cong’s use of such during the Vietnam war, and had learned much.)  The site was well camouflaged; observation was by a small periscope-like device raised through a small opening in the camouflaged door to the hide site, described as a “slit”.

    Unfortunately, no camouflage is absolutely perfect; children are both inquisitive and observant.  Early one morning a small Iraqi girl – a child no more than 7, per later estimates – was out and about and saw something she though unusual.  She went over to investigate.

    She found the slit in the hide site’s trap door – then lifted it open.  In short order, she was staring down the muzzle of three silencer-equipped pistols.

    The three US soldiers had a choice.  They could kill the little girl, hide the body, and continue their mission.  Or they could let the child go, attempt an extraction with their cover blown – and maybe not get home.

    They chose the latter option.  The child ran and got her father.  Her father informed nearby Iraqi forces of what his daughter had found.

    The site was soon surrounded by around 100 Iraqi troops.  Amazingly, the team was successfully extracted – although it turned out to be a truly harrowing and narrow escape under fire.

    The most junior member of the team was later asked why they didn’t kill the child to preserve their mission, and perhaps their own lives.  The title of this article gives his response.

    Like Bales, he was a US Army Staff Sergeant.

    The story above is not apocryphal.   Details may be found at pages 4 and 5 of this article.  It’s a short but incredible read.

    Those three soldiers knew the difference between cold-blooded murder and collateral damage.  They chose to be military professionals instead of murderers, even though they knew it might cost them their freedom – or their lives.

    In contrast, Bales chose cold-blooded murder.  For that, there’s no justification.

  • Bragg WO2 admits to theft of $1.1 million in equipment

    FrostyCWO sends us a link to the Fayetteville Observer report of Chief Warrant officer 2 Kurt Allen Bennett who pleaded guilty to theft of government property worth over a million bucks while he was stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan;

    U.S. Attorney Thomas G. Walker’s office announced that Kurt Allen Bennett, 41, of Fort Bragg, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Terrence W. Boyle to conspiring to steal and convert property belonging to the U.S. Government and two counts of theft and conversion of government property.

    He could be sentenced up to 25 years in prison.

    Bennett stole more than $100,000 worth of military equipment from Iraq in 2008 and 2009, when he was an Apache helicopter pilot with the Georgia-based 1st Battalion, 3rd Aviation Regiment, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a news release.

    He had a co-conspirator, SFC Robert Alan Walker, who helped him abscond a boat load of stuff, a partial list of which is at the link above – stuff like an ATV and a trailer that they packed in a shipping container. Walker took a guilty plea last year. Dumbasses. They must’ve watched too many CPO Sharkey episodes.

  • Same sex bennies; DADT was about service

    Someone sent us this letter that he received today. It’s dated February, but this is the first I’ve heard about it. Remember that repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy at the Department of Defense was about allowing gays to serve openly without having to “live a lie”;

    Hagel letter-same sex

    Hagel letter-same sex2

    Throughout history, heterosexual couples weren’t able to sign “a declaration attesting to the existence of their committed relationship” and receive ID cards and the stuff normally attributed to married couples in the military without the benefit of the actual contract associated with marriage. I’m guessing they won’t be able to do that now, either. I’m guessing that’s Panetta’s signature at the bottom. I wonder how Hagel will handle this situation – yet another grenade Panetta tossed to him on the way out the door.

  • Congressional busy bodies

    So, a couple of Congress persons want to change the way that the military deal with sexual assault according to the Associated Press. They want to remove sexual assaults from the jurisdiction of commanders and put it, oh, I don’t know, in the civilian courts, I guess.

    Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is a proponent of ambitious legislation that would remove commanders from the process of deciding whether serious crimes, including sexual misconduct cases, go to trial. That judgment would rest with seasoned trial counsels who have prosecutorial experience and hold the rank of colonel or above.

    The military has serious reservations about Gillibrand’s plan, concerned that stripping commanders of some authority would make it difficult for them to maintain good order and discipline. Not so, say some lawmakers, who argue that the military’s piecemeal approach clearly hasn’t been the answer.

    I don’t understand the reasoning, really I don’t. Sexual assault is a crime and it’s punishable under the UCMJ. Just going the news this morning, there was a sexual assault in a DC fire station. Some crackpot is assaulting women on a local running trail in DC, yet again (it happens every Spring), no one in Congress is suggesting that they can mandate to DC area courts how to prosecute the perpetrators of sexual assault. Why not? If they think that sexual assault is caused by the military justice system, then it must also be caused by the District of Columbia’s justice system. I mean we’re all people, and all equal under the law, so why is Congress so concerned about military sexual assault?

    I don’t know if there’s a problem in the military in regards to sexual assault, I just know that I never saw any, I never even heard rumors of it. Well, we did have one guy who used to pretend to fall and would grab the breasts of German girls nearby, but they put him in Leavenworth for 10 years. That’s the only case I knew about concerning someone in my unit in my two decades in the military. But, every damn day I see sexual assault on the local news out here in the civilized world.

    I guess this is just another way to undermine the order and discipline in the military by casting doubt on commanders ability to be fair as a legal authority.

  • Rajiv Chandrasekaran doesn’t like you

    This won’t surprise anyone, but in an article, in the Washington Post that is supposed to be about shutting the commissary system down, it turns into a thing about how well the troops live and, of course, it’s a class warfare thing.

    In an era when private employers are reducing health care and pensions, the military continues to offer generous retirement benefits, including to service members who have never spent a day in combat. For troops who remain in uniform for 20 years or more, the military provides an annual pension immediately upon retirement — even if the retiree is 38 years old — equivalent to at least half of their final-years salary. Enrollment for an entire family in a military health-care plan that operates much like a private health maintenance organization will cost a retiree just $539 this year, about one-ninth of what the average non-military family will pay out of pocket in HMO premiums.

    Those on active-duty also have bucked national trends. Over the past decade, military salaries have grown at a faster rate than those of civilian workers. The average enlisted soldier now earns more than 90 percent of Americans who have less than two years of college. Most Army captains — the third-most-junior rank of officer — will take home more than $90,000 this year.

    That compensation does not take into account a raft of other services subsidized by taxpayers: commissaries, child care, schools on domestic bases, and morale and recreation programs. The tab for those will reach about $5 billion this year.

    Surprise! Civilians think that we have it too good. The thing is, if it’s such a great deal, where aren’t these f**knuts lined up to join the military to take part in those rich benefits we’re being given. What’s that “service members who have never spent a day in combat” bullshit? How many days has the author, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, spent in combat in the military so that he can be so judgmental? According to his Wiki, he covered the war in Iraq, but not in the military, obviously.

    See when I joined the Army in the paleolithic era, I didn’t have to shove someone out of the way to get through the door first. I also don’t remember the Washington Post publishing any articles about how I was only making $258/month and how the commissary and PX were the only places I could afford to shop. I never took Food Stamps, but that was a pride thing – I certainly qualified. Our abject poverty wasn’t an issue then, I guess because they figured we deserved it, but now that pay is good, suddenly we’re a drain on government spending.

    I abso-f**king-lutely dare Chandrasekara to do a piece in the Post about welfare recipients living too well with their cable TV, their 50 inch screens, $2600/month apartments (that’s the maximum housing allowance they were getting in DC last I checked about 5 years ago), their new cars, etc…. No, it’s much easier to take shots at the military who will just sit and take it, rather than piss off half the population of the District.

    And, oh, the reason I shop at the Commissary when I get a chance is because of the selection of foods that I’ve become accustomed to – like my Tschibo German coffee that I can’t find in civilian supermarkets. There’s no real savings attached to it, anymore except that we can buy brand names at the same price as the generic store brands. And it makes me happy to screw the state governments – even though the prices are the same as they are outside the gate, the part that would normally go to state taxes, goes to the morale and welfare activity in the particular community. It made me happy to screw O’Malley out of a couple of bucks when I lived in Maryland.

    So, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, instead of complaining about how well we have have it, go sign your name on the dotted line, if we have it so damn good, you should willing to join in the whole package that comes with the military lifestyle, you jealous, crybaby.

  • Walter Reed caregivers furloughed

    More “not balancing the budget on the backs of veterans”. ABC, WJLA 7 in DC reports that among the furloughed DoD personnel will be caregivers at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. If you watch the brief video, disregard the fact that the footage is of the old Walter Reed facility in Northwest DC which is why it looks abandoned – it is abandoned;

    Hospital officials have confirmed that some employees have already received notice that they’ll be furloughed without pay for 11 days – one day a week for the next 11 weeks.

    Other employees will be getting their letters soon.

    Walter Reed says it’s not yet able to say exactly how many hospital employees are being furloughed — or how this will impact patient care.

    No one is more aware of the waste and duplication at Walter Reed than me, but you can probably be certain that none of the furloughs will affect the waste and duplication. There are 68,000 Defense Department employees who are exempt from the furlough. Wouldn’t it make sense to exempt caregivers? I’m sorry but I spent today’s ration of outrage on the Hagel story below. I’m all out of outrage.

    Thanks to Cameron for the link.

  • Hagel warns on benefit cuts for retirees

    Yeah, like I was told when I opposed Hagel’s appointment to DoD, “he’s one of us” because he was a Republican and a veteran. No, he’s one of “them”. Talking to troops in Hawaii, he warned them that their continued service in the military will not be rewarded by a grateful nation, according to US News and World Report;

    The military is considering cutting retirement benefits and charging more for healthcare and prescription drugs, said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel while speaking to troops at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Hagel is on the island as a part of his tour of the Pacific region, and solicited questions from the audience of troops based there.

    The department’s most recent budget proposal to Congress included increasing copays for prescription medication and fees for Tricare, the military’s health care system.

    “We are reviewing every component of our budget, and we have to look at personnel costs because they represent the biggest part,” he said on Thursday. “We are looking at everything across the board, [such as] entitlement programs, in every way.”

    I guess they’re not considering that there’s room in the force to reorganize and dump some stars – both officer and enlisted stars. Forcing out those people who have never deployed, have nothing of value to contribute to the future of the military, would save millions. Chasing pipe dreams like “green” weapons systems will remain on the altar of the politically correct, while balancing the budget will remain on the backs of veterans, who know, those of us who served faithfully thinking that our contract with Congress was unalterable. And now that we’ve fulfilled our part of the bargain, the bargain changes.

    New and prospective soldiers see how we’re pawns in the budget cut games and they aren’t stupid. They’ll see no future in their military service and DoD will bleed combat experience while those who have no experience remain because they prayed at the altar. A hollow force would be preferable to what we’re about to see in our military.