Category: Military issues

I guess you guys want to talk about this because I’ve had three links emailed in the last five minutes. I don’t know what to say, actually. There’s a club for military fans of “My Little Pony”. “Jon Not to Be Confused with Jonn” and “SIGO” emailed this link to us from Fox News which tells us that they call their little club “War Horses”;

So-called “Bronies,” adult men who are fans of the TV show “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic,” have apparently been around at least since 2010, when the Hasbro-owned cartoon first aired. Within their ranks are “Military Bronies,” service members from all branches of the military who share their love of the show and wear the “cutie mark” – a Rainbow Dash patch on their uniforms, Army Times first reported.

Here’s the “cutie mark” as it should be properly displayed, I suppose, from Military Times’ Outside the Wire (the link was emailed by our buddy Jeff Schogol) as modeled by (whatelse) a Navy air crew member;

They have their own website; FOB Equestria. I guess it’s harmless, but…jeez.

ADDED: Our buddy Jeff Schogol writes at the Air Force Times about the bronies.

For those of you wondering what you’re going to get ROS for Christmas, she says she wants this, one of each I’m guessing. Birthin’ all of those sons of hers has made her girlie;

What else would you buy for a horse doctor woman?

Married Capt. John Hintz, a captain of a recruiting unit in Des Moines got fired for sending and receiving racy emails with a local school superintendent, Dr. Nancy Sebring, there. Sebring resigned her position earlier this year as a result of her indiscretion and began a law suit to keep the emails and Hintz’ name from being made public. According to the Des Moines Register;

The personal correspondence came to light following public records requests by The Des Moines Register and Omaha World-Herald seeking information about Sebring’s sudden exit from the Des Moines district in May. She had accepted an offer to become leader of Omaha’s public schools, but then resigned from the Des Moines job earlier than scheduled.

Quoting from the Army Times, WHOTV writes;

Hintz has served in the Army for 14-years and is the recipient of the General MacArthur Leadership Award, the Army Commendation Medal with “V” and the Purple Heart.

There’s a longer story at the Army Times, but I don’t link to Gannett any more because they employ Tobias Naegele, the senior editor at Military Times who is a crybaby, cowardly, backstabbing POS.

I’m guessing that Hintz had service as an enlisted man before he became an officer, because there’s no way the Army would keep a captain around for 14 years otherwise. But thinking with your little head while in uniform is a really bad idea. Especially if you’re going to use government servers and email accounts to conduct your tryst. Hintz switched to a private email account about halfway through the affair, but it was too late, I suppose.

David sends us a link to a story about Sgt. 1st Class Josh Olson who thought his career in the Army had ended at the site of a roadside blast in Iraq where he lost his right leg, but that wasn’t how he wanted it to end;

Nine years since the day that changed his life, Olson isn’t just still writing his Army story, he is creating new chapters as a pioneer and inspiration to a generation of wounded veterans and Soldiers.

When Olson, a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, participates in the 2012 Paralympic Games opening ceremonies Aug. 29 in London, he will officially become the first combat-injured active-duty service member to ever take part in the event.

Through competitions and World Cups, Olson did well enough to secure a spot for the U.S. in rifle competition. In turn, the U.S. Selection Committee picked Olson to compete in two rifle event at the Games.

“When I got the call it was such a relief,” said Olson, who will compete in Mixed 50m Prone Rifle and Mixed 10m Air Rifle. “I felt like 500 pounds was taken off my back. I sat down and knew I would never have to carry that weight again. Now I could focus on the games as well as getting the new guys here to the unit.”

Not satisfied with his own rehabilitation, Olson also concentrates on the other wounded warriors as they return home to an uncertain future;

The poster child for humility, Olson recognizes he is setting examples all over the place for Soldiers who have been severely injured in combat. He said he looks forward to the day years from now when he can look back on this chapter in his life and see its results.

You should read the rest of the story.

Green thumb sent us a link to an MSNBC article which refers to another in the Marine Corps Gazette by Capt Katie Petronio, a Marine Combat Engineer who seeks to put to rest the fallacy that there is equality among men and women when it comes to being in the infantry. First she asks;

Who is driving this agenda? I am not personally hearing female Marines, enlisted or officer, pounding on the doors of Congress claiming that their inability to serve in the infantry violates their right to equality. Shockingly, this isn’t even a congressional agenda. This issue is being pushed by several groups, one of which is a small committee of civilians appointed by the Secretary of Defense called the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (DACOWITS).

…as it pertains to the issue of women in the infantry, it’s very surprising to see that none of the committee members are on active duty or have any recent combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they are attempting to change. I say this because, at the end of the day, it’s the active duty servicemember who will ultimately deal with the results of their initiatives, not those on the outside looking in.

Yeah, well, welcome to the world of a military governed by civilians, Captain. The good-intention fairies are numerous out here. It’s just like the idiots who are saying there should be a draft – they’re the same people who won’t be drafted and wont have to deal with the draftees once they’re in uniform. But she recounts her personal experiences when she was deployed to Afghanistan;

By the fifth month into the deployment, I had muscle atrophy in my thighs that was causing me to constantly trip and my legs to buckle with the slightest grade change. My agility during firefights and mobility on and off vehicles and perimeter walls was seriously hindering my response time and overall capability. It was evident that stress and muscular deterioration was affecting everyone regardless of gender; however, the rate of my deterioration was noticeably faster than that of male Marines and further compounded by gender-specific medical conditions. At the end of the 7-month deployment, and the construction of 18 PBs later, I had lost 17 pounds and was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (which personally resulted in infertility, but is not a genetic trend in my family), which was brought on by the chemical and physical changes endured during deployment.

Oops, you mean women are different than men? Those social engineers aren’t going to like that conclusion.

Then the good captain does her best imitation of me;

Not once was the word “lower” used [in regard to training standards], but let’s be honest, “modifying” a standard so that less physically or mentally capable individuals (male or female) can complete a task is called “lowering the standard”! The bottom line is that the enemy doesn’t discriminate, rounds will not slow down, and combat loads don’t get any lighter, regardless of gender or capability.

So she says, “What’s the point of it all?”

Which leads one to really wonder, what is the benefit of this potential change? The Marine Corps is not in a shortage of willing and capable young male second lieutenants who would gladly take on the role of infantry officers. In fact we have men fighting to be assigned to the coveted position of 0302.

When I was teaching ROTC, male cadets all held their collective breath hoping for an infantry billet and most were disappointed when they didn’t get it.

She recommends an alternate MOS specifically for female engagement teams officers and for the Marines to dump their plans to integrate women into the infantry;

For those who dictate policy, changing the current restrictions associated with women in the infantry may not seem significant to the way the Marine Corps operates. I vehemently disagree; this potential change will rock the foundation of our Corps for the worse and will weaken what has been since 1775 the world’s most lethal fighting force.

And a little bit of common sense which if it was written by a man would be censored from politically correct periodicals;

Let’s embrace our differences to further hone in on the Corps’ success instead of dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda.

A brilliant and brave Marine. What could I possibly add. But you should read the whole thing.

I thought you guys would appreciate this but my Troop did gunnery in January and my squad leader (M1A1TrkTrror) put together a flicker account of our time out at NTC. During the whole train up I was skeptical of the brad but I’m not going to lie shooting the 25 and the coax gave me a hard on.

We had instructors from Ft. Benning come down every month for about 6 months and get us prepared for gunnery. We did disassembly and assembly of the 25mm, vehicle ID, crew drills, and the COFT (which is a giant video game essentially.) When we went to Irwin we essentially did a typical dry, blank live scenario. Our iterations consisted shooting targets on the move, in an NBC environment, using the hand wheels (in the event the gunners hand station fails), night shoots and shooting moving targets etc. All in all it was a pretty enjoyable experience even though we had to deal with the typical maintenance issues that are involved with the Bradley.

Just an FYI… Bring the Heat Bring the Stupid also posted the flicker account a few months ago but I thought you guys would enjoy it.
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I really should wait until the report comes out tomorrow because this article in the Military Times is written by Rick Maze with whom I’ve tussled before over his propensity to make shit up out of whole cloth. But anyway, he claims that the report says 4 out of 5 troops would delay their retirement checks until they turn 50 in exchange for a one percent pay increase now.

Service members up to age 29 said they could accept waiting until age 50 for retired pay if they received as little as $250 more a year in pay. Those aged 30 to 39 would want about $520 more a year, while those 40 and older put the figure at $650 or more a year.

The average age to begin drawing retirement pay is 47 for officers and 43 for enlisted members, Harrison said, so waiting until age 50 to draw the pay would put a bigger hit on enlisted members.

But for both officers and enlisted troops, the hit would be huge. An O-6 who retired today at age 47 with 25 years of service would give up almost $190,000 over three lost years of retirement pay. An E-8 who retired today at age 43 with 25 years of service would give up almost $277,000 over seven lost years of retirement pay.

Those figures factor in an average annual cost-of-living adjustment of 2.5 percent.

Yeah, well, what’s a “cost of living adjustment”? We haven’t seen one of those since the Bush Administration. And as Kevin, who sent us the article, says 100% of the troops in the comments of the article are against the proposal. SO I’m not sure who the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments asked, but I’m guessing that they cherry picked the answers or the respondents. Unless they were taking the poll in bars near closing time the day before payday.

So, in the New York Times, Tom Ricks echoes Stan McCrystal’s call to bring back the draft. Ricks is two days younger than me, but our life experiences are quite different, apparently, because his vision of a draft is decidedly not to support our warfighting capability, and contrary to McCrystal’s plan to have every American community have “skin in the game” in the next war, Rick’s sees it as a jobs program and to provide cheap labor – an Army of janitors;

These conscripts would not be deployed but could perform tasks currently outsourced at great cost to the Pentagon: paperwork, painting barracks, mowing lawns, driving generals around, and generally doing lower-skills tasks so professional soldiers don’t have to. If they want to stay, they could move into the professional force and receive weapons training, higher pay and better benefits.

Those who don’t want to serve in the army could perform civilian national service for a slightly longer period and equally low pay — teaching in low-income areas, cleaning parks, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, or aiding the elderly. After two years, they would receive similar benefits like tuition aid.

And libertarians who object to a draft could opt out. Those who declined to help Uncle Sam would in return pledge to ask nothing from him — no Medicare, no subsidized college loans and no mortgage guarantees. Those who want minimal government can have it.

Then, it’s not really a draft is it? We already have a cheap workforce tending to lawns, building maintenance, and paperwork – that’s why the buildings at Walter Reed were criticized by the Washington Post five years ago – a cheap workforce. When their draft service came around, there’d be tons of teen aged libertarians who don’t care about whether they’d get Medicare in 50 years or not – that’s why Obama has to force them to buy health insurance.

And if they’re not going to deploy, where’s McCrystal’s “skin in the game”? If your child has been drafted and you can be reasonably sure that they won’t deploy, why would you be invested in a decision to go to war?

I think Ricks just thinks that sending millions of high schoolers to basic training would teach them to pull their pants up over their underwear instead of Ricks and the rest of the liberals summoning the testicular fortitude to tell them to hike up their drawers. Or something.

Obviously, the liberals, like Ricks, don’t have any idea how much time would be invested in shepherding people who don’t want to be in the Army. It’s hard enough with volunteers.

Having read some of the discussions on Facebook of the Ricks’ piece, I’ve noticed that the only supporters of the proposal are people who wouldn’t be drafted anyway.