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

Category: Military issues

  • Obama’s Politics Put our Navy in Harm’s Way

    The Obama administration has held up the deployment of the nuclear carrier, U.S.S. Harry Truman to the Persian Gulf as a result of the sequester. Rather than cut fat from elsewhere in the federal budget, Obama chooses to play brinksmanship on the backs of our service men and women as this article from a month ago explains. Further, by keeping the Truman berthed at its homeport of Norfolk when it should be deployed, Obama is playing another very dangerous game. There’s a disturbing email circulating in the veteran community discussing this dangerous breach of strategic security that has occurred under this clueless commander-in-chief. The problem is a concentration of five aircraft carriers at Norfolk Navy base for a period that now extends to several months. These super-carriers are the heart of America’s ability to project immense naval air power forward to virtually anywhere on the globe.

    The presence of a carrier strike group throws a wide, cautioning shadow over such disruptive regimes as Iran and North Korea. Their offshore presence has long been America’s big stick in geopolitics. The problem is such strike groups are not in endless supply. We have but eleven and of that number some are always in the naval shipyards for refitting and nuclear refueling. So when five of the eleven are docked side-by-side in Norfolk that gets the antennae quivering among those who know what a hugely foolish strategic blunder this is. To have forty percent of your nuclear carrier displacement concentrated in one docking area where escape to the sea in the event of an impending threat is extremely limited, seems incredibly stupid to those vets aware of the situation. The emails are replete with references to the possibility of a second Pearl Harbor.

    Truly, those emails are not far off the mark. A single pleasure vessel, paid for by some Islamist millionaire, a sail boat or motor yacht, with a bootlegged Pakistani nuclear weapon aboard, or even a large enough, non-nuclear, high explosive dirty bomb, could easily maneuver within range to take these powerful but defenseless sea-fortresses off the board. A nuke could do that permanently-a dirty bomb for the many years decontamination would require. Losing five of eleven of these behemoths would cut our Navy to its knees and leave America scrambling to decide where, upon the globe, to project our now very limited power, a position the Chinese, the Russians and even the Islamists would relish.

    It would seem that while we possess colossal power, we also harbor colossal stupidity in our command structure. There are unprovable, as yet, rumors flying that this situation only came to be over the outraged protests of the upper Navy brass overruled by an always politics-first White House. We’re left to wonder if this is another one of those signals to the Islamist tyrants of the Middle East, and oppressors worldwide, that the U.S. will not be a looming threat to their ambitions. Looked at realistically, this is nothing more than a sheathing of our weapons, pulling them home to port, holstering our most potent projection of force, a signal to the world that at the first hint of budget constraint, Obama’s Navy is standing down, and you despots are free to pursue your despotism. Measured against everything else coming from this administration, it is difficult to believe that this is anything more than a calculated move to portray Republicans as culprits and America as a weakened force in the world, both typical Obama targets.

    Benedict Arnold was but a treacherous general who betrayed this country in a much more limited world and war; that the current commander-in-chief might engage in the undermining of the nation’s strategic strength to petulantly belittle his domestic political enemies, or worse, to level this great nation to parity with the lesser nations of this world, is a travesty that makes Benedict look like a patriot compared to Barack Obama. If the commander-in-chief overrode the wisdom of the admirals in this situation and has put this country’s strategic naval forces in peril, he has proved beyond doubt that he is a political posturer for whom the fortunes of the Democrat party come before those of the nation. He is, in truth doing precisely to our Navy what he has done to our economy: Sinking it.

    Crossposted at American Thinker

  • A Food/War Story

    Zero’s piece on weird food items made me think of a story from the past. We were living in a subdivision out the back gate of NAS Pensacola in the late 70’s where many of our neighbors were naval and marine aviators. I was the southeast regional military sales manager for a pharmaceutical company and had invited one our military broker reps to an “Atta girl” dinner. Since we were going to a seafood restaurant nearby, she and her date, a retired Air Force O-6, came to the house for pre-dinner drinks.
    As she came in the door she mentioned that she couldn’t have much to drink on her empty stomach as she hadn’t stopped work for lunch, the very work ethic that had earned her the Atta girl dinner. I told them we’d just have a quick one in the kitchen and be on our way. A few minutes later, as we were standing in the kitchen with our quick drinks and learning something about the colonel, I saw the lady reach out and grab a handful of snacks from a black-lacquered oriental saucer sitting far back on the countertop. Except it wasn’t snacks but those little, multi-colored pellets of moist cat food that come in foil packets. My wife had hastily picked it off the kitchen floor just before our guests entered the room and shoved it back where she thought it was out of sight.

    I gotta tell you I would have given anything for a video of what followed. Before I could say “No!” the lady had tossed the stuff in her mouth and chewed perhaps three times before her eyes went wide, her cheeks ballooned and she ran for the sink where she finally managed to gag and rinse it all out. Once she got over it she joined in the laughter and we laughed about it all through dinner that evening. After seeing her response I have never ever been tempted to taste-test anything we feed our cats.
    The story has an interesting sequel: over dinner the colonel revealed that as a very young pilot he had been flying one of the B-17 bombers being ferried from the mainland to Hickam Field on the morning of December 7th, 1941. Short of fuel, they’d had to land while the field was under attack. Realizing I was hearing living history, I asked him if he would be so gracious as to retell his story to some of my aviator neighbors and he agreed.

    As soon as we got back to the house I called some of them and soon had a full living room of strangely quiet and respectful young officers listening intently and occasionally asking polite questions. The colonel had flown bombers on a series of hairy missions throughout WWII in both the European and Pacific theaters and had one great war story after another. Even a marine major, who’d flown Phantoms in Vietnam, and who had a reputation as a real hotdog, was respectful and attentive. The colonel kept that usually loud and boisterous bunch mesmerized until well into the wee hours by which time they had, in typical aviator fashion, consumed all my booze. But this time they did it much more quietly than usual. In fact, even though we lived there several more years, I never saw them so well-behaved ever again.

  • Breanna Manning tells his side

    So, unapologetic traitor, Breanna Manning, told the judge why he released hundreds of thousands of pages of classified material to the world yesterday. Of course, none of his explanation had anything to do with the fact that he was a spoiled little brat acting out. He merely mouthed the words that his adoring fans wanted to hear, according to the New York Times;

    Private Manning described himself as thinking carefully about the kind of information he was releasing, and taking care to make sure that none of it could cause harm if disclosed.

    The only material that initially gave him pause, he said, were the diplomatic cables, which he portrayed as documenting “back-room deals and seemingly criminal activity.”

    But he decided to go forward after discovering that the most sensitive cables were not in the database. He was also motivated, he said, by a book about “open diplomacy” after World War I and “how the world would be a better place if states would not make secret deals with each other.”

    “I believed the public release of these cables would not damage the United States,” he said. “However, I did believe the release of the cables might be embarrassing.”

    Yeah, he “thought carefully” about what he’d release. He was a spoiled little punk who was mad at his recently ex-boyfriend. With hundreds of thousands of pages involved, I’m sure he carefully read each page before he decided to release it. Basically, we can figure that he really didn’t give a rat’s tiny, furry ass whether it would cost anyone their lives.

    The Times goes on to tell how Manning initially tried to release the stuff to the Washington Post and the New York Times, but they didn’t return his calls. I guess they’ll pay more attention to their mail from now on.

    Private Manning said, he became interested in detainees, which led him to the Guantánamo files. He said the United States was holding detainees who were “innocent, low-level foot soldiers, or didn’t have useful intelligence and who would be released” if they were still in the war zone.

    So, he knew that they were innocent – typical sociopathic behavior. He knows the facts better than anyone else. He didn’t care how many more lives would be lost in the war against terror, so the Army needs to punish him accordingly. Life in prison doesn’t seem too stiff, since we know the Army doesn’t have the testicular fortitude required to put him to death.

  • The 1999 Kosovo BSM Fiasco

    In a couple of earlier comments and a previous article, I’ve referenced something I’ve called the “1999 Kosovo BSM Fiasco”.   However, it occurs to me that many regular readers of TAH – especially those who are younger – might not know the history of that little escapade, and might have also missed the references.  So I decided to write and post a brief summary of what happened and what resulted afterwards.

    Background

    In 1999, the US found itself engaged in hostilities with Serbia as part of NATO.  The primary hostile actions were US and NATO airstrikes against targets in Serbia and Kosovo.  The NATO operation was called Allied Force; the US operation was called Noble Anvil.

    USAF and USN forces participated in this air campaign.  Since the campaign involved hostilities, the Bronze Star Medal (BSM) was an authorized award for those participating in the operation.

    Unfortunately, the USAF and, to a lesser degree, the USN decided to interpret the phrase “in connection with military operations against an armed enemy” inanely loosely.  The resulting fiasco severely cheapened the BSM.

    (more…)

  • Why Combat Decorations Are So Screwed Up Today – and How to Begin Fixing It

    It’s common knowledge that there are serious issues with military combat decorations.  To most civilians, this seems to be a minor issue.  But as anyone in the military knows, to folks in uniform this is indeed a big deal.  Inequity in awards is at the least a morale killer, and at worst can kill a unit’s faith in its chain-of-command – and thus seriously degrade its effectiveness.

    I’ve done a bit of thinking about the situation over the past few months.  And since you’re reading this, well, you probably already have figured out that I’m about to wax soporific on the subject.  (smile)

    I don’t personally think the situation is FUBAR at this point.  But things are IMO seriously out-of-whack; corrections are needed.  I also think I have a few decent suggestions as to how to improve the situation.   They don’t constitute a perfect solution, but they should IMO improve the current situation substantially.

    Anyway:  that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. (smile)

    Introduction

    I won’t attempt to detail all the known “gripes” about combat decorations today.  A partial list:

    1. Decorations are rank-preferential
    2. Decorations are awarded inconsistently in different units and services
    3. Combat service is not properly recognized
    4. Noncombat service is improperly recognized with combat decorations
    5. Favoritism in award of decorations

    There are, of course, many others.

    IMO, many of these gripes are based on reality; some are at least partly perception.  In some cases there is a reasonable explanation, while in other cases it’s simply due to abuse of the system.  My purpose here is to identify some of the factors that have contributed to this situation – and to suggest how to reduce the magnitude of the problem.

    As my background is Army, I’m going to discuss this from the perspective of Army decorations and practices.  Fair warning:  this article is kinda long.

    (more…)

  • Bill to lower precedence of Distinguished Warfare Medal

    Members of Congress have begun to intercede on the Defense Department’s efforts to introduce a new medal designed to reward combatants who are removed from the battlefield by geography. DoD had originally planned t make the medal higher in precedence than the Bronze Star Medal which rewards performance on the battlefield, but warriors have complained that the Distinguished Warfare medal should be lower than those awarded for participation in combat. From Stars & Stripes;

    A trio of veterans serving in Congress, Reps. Duncan Hunter, D-Calif., Tom Rooney, R- Fl., and Tim Murphy, R-Pa., introduced the bill on Wednesday, in response to what has been a public outcry against the creation of the medal, which was announced on Feb. 13.

    “Combat valor awards have a deep and significant meaning to those who serve in America’s military,” said Hunter, a former Marine, in a statement. “These awards represent not just actions, but also the courage and sacrifice that derive from experiences while in harm’s way. And those engaged in direct combat put their lives on the line, accepting extraordinary personal risk.”

    Personally, I think the announcement of the medal was timed to distract from the rest of the crap the Defense Department is engaged in right now, like raiding the Tricare surplus and kicking thousands of retirees off of Tricare Prime. DoD’s insistence that their plans go forward on the medal is out of character for them. But, I guess we’ll see what Congress can do about the inequity of this award.

  • NRA’s Life of Duty; Frontlines of Israel

    The folks at the NRA’s Life of Duty have sent us their latest video about the frontlines in Israel starring our buddy, Oliver North;

    NRA Life of Duty presented by Brownells and FNH USA have teamed up to bring you a brand new report from the Frontlines of Israel. Since it’s founding, enemies have surrounded Israel. That fact pervades every sector of the culture, with every young man and woman serving two to three years in the Israeli military. The lessons of the past are deeply entrenched in this society – and although the future seems uncertain, the Israelis have no intention of ever being driven from their homeland again.

    View more Frontlines reports sponsored by FNH USA.

  • Senate confirms Hagel

    Yeah, who is surprised that Chuck Hagel was confirmed by the Senate for Secretary of Defense a few minutes ago? The Republicans make a lot of noise and then collapse every time. That’s why we can’t have nice things. From the Associated Press;

    The vote Tuesday was 58-41, with four Republicans joining Democrats in backing President Barack Obama’s nominee.

    The vote ended a contentious fight over the president’s choice for his second-term national security team.

    Republicans opposed the former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, casting him as out of the mainstream and overly critical of Israel. But Democrats stood together for Hagel, a twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran.

    So, I guess a bunch of VoteVets guys will be headed to Defense like when their guy Shinseki went to Veterans’ Affairs. I wonder if Hagel still thinks that the surge in Iraq was the biggest military blunder in American history.