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

Category: Military issues

  • More Troops to Jordan

    The SECDEF has apparently ordered the deployment of 200 additional US troops to Jordan.  The troops will come from the HQ of the 1st Armored Division, and will apparently be heavy on communications and intelligence support personnel.

    The reason given by a Pentagon spokesman for the deployment of additional forces is to (1) assist the Jordanian military, and (2) “be ready for military action” should that be ordered by the POTUS.

    I hope this is just the Pentagon erring on the side of caution.  But as I’ve said before about the US and Syria:  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this . . . . ”

     

     

  • Distinguished Warfare Medal goes out with the Good Idea Fairy

    If you’re still interested what with today’s events being what they are, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel decided that he’s going to swap the Distinguished Warfare Medal (that drone pilot thingie) for a device. According to a link to the Washington Post sent to us by Chief Tango;

    After ordering a review of a policy that was one of his predecessor’s last official moves, Hagel said Monday that he concluded no such medal was needed. Instead, he said, a “device” will be affixed to existing medals to recognize those who fly and operate drones, whom he described as “critical to our military’s mission of safeguarding the nation.”

    Devices are used by the Pentagon to add a specific form of additional recognition when troops are lauded for exceptional performance.

    I don’t like Hagel much, but he did make the right decision in this case. Of course, I think we were set up in the first place. If Panetta had only made the medal lower in precedence than a Bronze Star Medal, you know a medal that you actually be in the same area as the enemy, there probably wouldn’t have been much of a stink made by veterans and VSOs across the country.

    I think the medal was just a distraction. And it worked – our Tricare out-of-pocket costs have increased, thousands of retirees have been booted out of Tricare Prime, benefits to active duty troops have been slashed, ships are sitting idle in CONUS ports, pilots have had their training hours cut, veterans are waiting for medical treatment all with hardly a peep while we were all wringing our hands over bits of metal and ribbon.

    But, hey, we won one, right? you can read more about the Medal at our buddy War on Terror News‘ place.

  • About That “Accidental Declassification” . . . .

    Here’s an update concerning that Congressional testimony about North Korean missiles and nuclear warheads.

    Jonn’s article Friday indicated that GEN Martin Dempsey, CJCS, was “taken by surprise” by the revelation by Congressman Doug Lamborn that North Korea may possess low-reliability nuclear warheads for long-range missiles.  That revelation was apparently the unclassified conclusion of a DIA assessment report.

    Congressional staffers had confirmed via classified e-mail exchange with DIA personnel that the statement was indeed unclassified.  Pentagon sources later claimed the line had been “mistakenly declassified”.

    Well, that may or may not be true.  But it turns out that classification questions might not have been the only reason that GEN Dempsey was shocked to hear it made in a public forum.  According to the Army Times,

    In a new twist, a House source tells [Military Times sister publication] Defense News that a DIA congressional liaison told a senior House Armed Services Committee aide that while the finding was unclassified, the Obama administration wanted to keep it under wraps. (emphasis added)

    . . .

    During the email exchange with the senior House Armed Services subcommittee professional staffer, the DIA legislative liaison told him, in the House aide’s words: “The administration didn’t want this getting out.” (emphasis added)

    The Administration has, quite predictably, backed away from the DIA assessment of North Korean nuclear capabilities.  The DNI has stated that “the DIA finding is not shared by the other U.S. intelligence agencies”, while a Pentagon spokesman has said that it would be “inaccurate to suggest that the North Korean regime has fully tested, developed, or demonstrated the kinds of nuclear capabilities referenced in the passage.”

    That may be true.  But about the latter, I’ll observe the following:  neither had the US prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Trinity was a ground-based test of a non-weaponized nuclear device – not an operational test of a deliverable bomb.

    Stay tuned.  This one could get quite interesting.

  • DoD: We’re Cutting our Civilian Workforce Too

    DoD has announced their intent to cut a substantial number of civilian jobs over the next 5 years – between 40,000 and 50,000.  The planned cuts will amount to between 5 and 6 percent of the DoD civilian workforce.  Approximately 12,000 are planned for next fiscal year alone.

    (For those interested, DoD currently has around 1.4 million personnel in uniform full-time.  DoD civilian employment at the end of September is projected to be roughly 777,000 – or just over 1/3 of DoD’s total full-time direct employees.  For comparison, an equivalent cut in uniformed strength over 5 years would be between roughly 70,000 and 84,000.)

    Many of the cuts are supposedly tied to a proposed future Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action.  However, the actual closing of bases won’t begin until 2016 in order to “allow the economy more time to recover”.

    Funny – I seem to remember the POTUS telling us for a couple of years now that the economy was “improving”, but maybe my memory is wrong.  And I seem to recall that something else that will happen in 2016, too.

    In any case:  further consolidation of military health care facilities was identified as a way to reduce civilian employment.  The end of the war in Afghanistan was also identified as a potential source of civilian employment reductions.

    I have to say I’m a bit skeptical on the feasibility of that “health care facility consolidation” claim.  IMO, that might work in some locales where multiple major military installations currently and such consolidation hasn’t already happened.  But in many places, military healthcare downsizing/consolidation has already happened.  Many Army installations I’ve been to during the past few years no longer have a full Army hospital; instead they have “Army Health Clinics” or “Army Health Centers”.  That’s true today at some good-sized installations like Fort Rucker, Redstone Arsenal, Fort Meade, or Fort Huachuca.  So I’m kinda wondering about the mechanics and feasibility of that part of DoD’s plan.

    DoD has indicated that they hope to achieve this reduction through “attrition”.  They’re considering offering early retirement incentives and hiring freezes to try to cut end strength without having to let people go involuntarily.

    Something tells me that might just not work as well as expected.  Unlike uniformed military, DoD civilian employees haven’t gotten a yearly pay raise since January 2010.  Their pension (such as it is under the current system – it ain’t particularly generous any more) is based on their salary during their highest 36 continuous months of employment.  This usually ends up being the last 3 years of civilian service – and sequestration furloughs later this year will screw with that average.  I’m guessing quite a number of folks who are retirement eligible will hold out to see if they (1) start getting pay raises again as the economy improves as well as (2) letting their “high 3 average” recover from sequestration before they start punching out.  Many will also want (or need) to work post-retirement, so a poor economy will also be a disincentive to retire immediately.

    Bottom line:  it ain’t just the uniformed side of the house that’s feeling the downsizing pinch in DoD.  And for those of you in uniform who were planning to retire or separate and move to a civilian job with DoD, it looks like the potential for hiring freezes just raised the bar for getting hired as a government civillian substantially, too.

  • Women in combat parody videos

    Some of our friends got together and made some “S##t People Say…” videos. They sent these to me the other day about women in combat. The first stars our little buddy Kate Hoit and it’s called “S##t People Say About Women in Combat” – you probably know that either of these videos are Not Safe For Work;

    The second one is called “Women in Combat; What is NOT Going to Happen”;

  • Congress mistrusts Obama’s defense budget

    The Washington Times reports that members of Congress are raising many of the same points we discussed yesterday. Connecticut Democrat, Rep. Joe Courtney questioned the reasoning for another round of base realignment when the last one in 2005 hasn’t produced any savings;

    “As someone who has spent seven years on the readiness subcommittee dealing with the 2005 budget BRAC which is not going to generate a penny of net savings for 13 years no prior BRAC has been able to do that in less than six years,” Mr. Courtney said. “For a lot of us who’ve spent a lot of time on this issue, that just doesn’t work.”

    South Carolina’s Joe Wilson asks Defense Department officials about the justification for raising Tricare costs for veterans;

    “And my concern is that we know this is a great program, Tricare. People are very satisfied. Military families appreciate this benefit. Commitments have been made to our veterans and to military families. Why would we be increasing the fees when, in fact, the program is working well?” Mr. Wilson said.

    [Defense Undersecretary Robert] Hale replied that increasing enrollment fees would save about $1 billion. “If we don’t do that, we will have to take that money out of readiness or modernization,” he said.

    Yeah, well, Mr. Hale, you people already took $770 million dollars out of our surplus for Tricare, and now you’re back with your hand out for another billion bucks. If a private company had done that – take money meant for a healthcare program and used for operations with absolutely no intention whatsoever to replace those raided funds – the government would be coming down on them like a ton of bricks. Don’t veterans deserve the same considerations that the average worker on the street get?

    I don’t hear anyone talking about raising out-of-pocket costs for Medicaid to offset spending costs.

  • Balancing the budget on the backs of veterans

    I was in the room, back in August, 2010 when the president told the American Legion Convention in Minneapolis that he wasn’t going to balance the national budget on the backs of the military and veterans. Well, at that very moment, his Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta was planning exactly that. By that time, retirees had already seen two years with no Cost of Living Allowance increases despite the rocketing costs of gasoline and food. Last year, DoD tried to ram through increases in premiums for the military healthcare system, which were blocked in Congress. I’ll remind you that those increases were being shepherded by the Administration despite the fact taht there was a $770 million surplus in Tricare – which DoD promptly raided. Now it seems that the Administration is once again trying to fore go their committment to veterans as well as the active duty force according to the Army Times;

    The Pentagon again is seeking increases in Tricare fees with a revamped and more expansive proposal that would touch all beneficiaries but would fall hardest on working-age retirees under 65.

    For Medicare-eligible retirees in the Tricare for Life program, the budget proposes an annual enrollment fee based on a percentage of retired pay. For 2014, the fee would be capped at $150 for family coverage for most retirees and $200 for retired flag and general officers.

    And, oh, by the way, they capped pay increases for the active force at 1% – about half of what Congress had proposed. And they’re looking for more base realignment – while I agree that there are probably things they could do to save money, at some point, to keep hacking away at the Defense Department has to begin affecting national security – and hacking away at bases will have that exact effect.

    And if you think that the Chiefs of Staff are going to pull our fat from the fire, think again;

    Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the budget proposal “lowers manpower costs, reduces excess infrastructure, and makes healthcare more sustainable.”

    “Most importantly, it protects investment in our most decisive advantage — our people,” he said. “It treats being the best led, trained, and equipped military as a non-negotiable imperative.”

    I wonder how the reporters heard Dempsey when he, obviously, was under the President’s desk in the Oval Office.

    While I understand that the budget needs to be trimmed, manpower costs and legacy costs are not the place to do the cutting – since that will affect future abilities of the government to attract a volunteer force. But, then that’s probably what they’re shooting for – a seriously weakened defense structure – regardless of the fact that national defense is one of the things that the Constitution says that government does, not all of that other meaningless bullshit that isn’t on the chopping block.

    Thanks to Chief tango for the link.

  • That recruiter murder/suicide

    Arndt

    SSG Adam Arndt, a married recruiter shot a woman he was involved with recruiting out of the Gaithersburg, MD station the other day. And then he shot himself. The Washington Post writes about him;

    A decorated soldier from Manitowoc, Wis., who won the Army Commendation Medal three times, Adam Arndt began working as an Army recruiter in January 2011 after returning from posts in South Korea, Germany, Turkey and Fort Benning, Ga., according to Army spokeswoman Kathleen Welker.

    EdUSMCleg sent us a link to Fox News who calls Arndt a “war veteran” but none of the articles about him don’t mention any duty he performed in war. In fact, his duty MOS was a series 42 – an admin clerk who became a recruiter;

    War veteran

    Fox says that “his decorations include a medal for service in the global war on terrorism”, but I’m guessing that he had the GWOT medal that everyone gets for being in the military after 9/11 – that doesn’t make a war veteran, per se. Not that there’s anything wrong with it.

    But the implication is that his murder/suicide thing is somehow related to his wartime service. But, no, he was a borderline pedophile who preyed on high school girls and his leadership at his recruting station missed it somehow, even though he was married to one of the ladies he recruited a few years back.