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

Category: Military issues

  • Home at Last

    Under the wide and starry sky
    Dig the grave and let me lie:
    Glad did I live, and gladly die,
    And I lay me down with a will.

    Could he answer, I rather doubt that that Pfc John A. Donovan, USMC, of Plymouth, MI, would agree that he “glady” died. Young men just don’t think like that. They have too much life left to live.

    Nevertheless, on a stormy April night Donovan died. He was 20.

    Donovan was lost, along with the rest of his crewmates, on a training mission in what is today the nation of Vanatu Vanuatu. During World War II. On the night of 23 April 1944.

    The precise circumstances of loss were not known at the time. And for a long, long time the wide and starry sky above Donovon and his crewmates was indeed their only grave. But it wasn’t their wide and starry sky. It was the southern sky above the island called Espritu Espiritu Santo.

    For decades, they lay under that foreign sky. It might have been pretty, but it wasn’t the sky of home.

    Fifty years later, a private search firm looking for another aircraft crash site located theirs. That information was relayed to the Department of Defense.

    It took many years and substantial effort, but eventually sufficient remains were located to allow the crew’s positive identification – and in Donovan’s case, to allow for a proper burial.

    At home.

    Donovan’s remains were returned to the United States on 6 June 2012. He was to be buried today. He’ll be buried besides his brothers in Ann Arbor, MI – with his sole surviving sibling, his sister Josephine Demianenko, in attendance.

    This be the verse you ‘grave for me:
    Here he lies where he long’d to be;
    Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
    And the hunter home from the hill.

    Welcome home, Marine We’re sorry it took so long to return you to your own wide and starry sky. But you’re now home.

    Now, rest in peace. You’ve more than earned that.

  • Sh!tbaggery: It’s Not Just for Junior Guys Any More

    TSO’s got his hands full right now dealing with Timmy “The Craven” Poe, so he sent me a link concerning one each William John Roy. As in CSM William John Roy, US Army. It looks to be worth mentioning.

    CSM Roy – what a guy! According to Roy, he saw Combat in Vietnam with MACV SOG as a combat medic. Was wounded twice, got 2 Purple Hearts, plus a Bronze Star while in ‘Nam. And he also served in Germany, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.

    Per CSM Roy, he got seriously hurt in a rocket/mortar attack near Jalalabad. But don’t worry too much. He applied to the VA for assistance. The VA looked at the paperwork he sent them, and came through for him – bigtime. They awarded him nearly $60k in disability and educational benefits.

    Then someone apparently took a closer look at his paperwork. And his claims began to fall apart.

    Seems that Roy had claimed to have served in combat in Vietnam. With MACV-SOG. In 1974. That’s odd – MACV-SOG was disbanded in 1972. And the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973. Hmm.

    And one of the documents he submitted to the VA was a Purple Heart certificate signed by President Nixon. But it was dated 4 months after Nixon left office. Hmmmmm.

    A little more digging, and it turned out that Roy wasn’t involved in the incident in Jalalabad that he claimed injured him. More investigation showed Roy also appears to have been in Germany the whole time he claimed to have been in Vietnam. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. “Uh, Houston, we have a problem.”

    In a way, it’s too bad this guy wasn’t COL James “Bigamist” Johnson’s CSM. Those two would have made quite a pair, and it seems they deserve one another. Both appear to have been stupid enough to attempt to pull truly outrageous crap while simultaneously being arrogant enough to think they could get away with it. Maybe they were e-mail buddies. (smile)

    Roy was indicted on 6 June 2012 in US District Court in Los Angeles. He was charged with seven Federal offenses – one count of presenting false writings, three counts of making false statements, and three counts of theft. He now faces up to 57 years behind bars if convicted on all counts.

    No, Roy wasn’t indicted on Stolen Valor Act charges. He lives in California – which falls under the jurisdiction of the 9th Circus Clowns of Appeasement. Figures.

    But I guess I can live with that in Roy’s case. The Federal government tends to get a wee bit upset when it’s the victim of fraud, or when you steal from them. And when they’re a victim of fraud or theft, they usually hit back – hard.

    “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” You’d think a CSM would know that rather than having to find it out the hard way.

    Then again, you’d also think a CSM should be able to read an encyclopedia and a calender, too.

  • Here We Go Again – Part III?

    Well, now we have a couple of US Senators urging that we “do something” regarding Syria. Specifically, they’re Senators McCain and Lieberman.

    Lieberman has indicated he thinks we’re getting closer to “stopping the bloodshed” in Syria, but that we’re “moving too slowly.” And McCain is “embarrassed” by the lack of “US leadership” regarding the situation in Syria.

    Lieberman’s stance doesn’t surprise me. IMO, Lieberman’s relatively liberal regarding social matters. I’d expect him to cry out, “We gotta do something now!” – which is essentially what he’s done.

    But McCain? To some extent, his stance here does. He’s seen “up close and personal” what can happen when the US intervenes somewhere without first figuring out precisely what we want to accomplish and how we intend to accomplish it. That type of error by US national leadership during Vietnam cost McCain several years of his life spent as a “guest” in the Hanoi Hilton.

    Will all due respect to each: gentlemen, IMO you’re not exactly helping here. No case has yet been made that US intervention in Syria is in the US national interest. I don’t think the Obama administration has yet figured out who the players are, much less we want to accomplish by such an intervention. And I haven’t seen anything presented to the American public that lays out the benefits and potential costs of such an intervention.

    All I’ve seen is cries of, “This is bad! We gotta do something!” But I haven’t seen that “something” defined – or an explanation of why it matters enough to the US to risk getting involved.

    Bad stuff happens in the world all the time. People are mistreated by their own governments routinely all over the world – just look at Darfur, Rwanda, Zaire, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, and any number of other countries. But that should never be the criteria for US intervention, particularly intervention that risks military involvement.

    We should get involved in Syria if – and only if – doing so furthers US national interests and prospects for success are reasonable. If neither of those is true, we should leave well enough alone. Period. And I haven’t yet seen a good case made by the current POTUS or officials in his administration to support either.

    Santayana warned us what happens when we ignore history. And history shows us that foreign interventions started without due consideration – even those that start out with the best of intentions – often have a way of blowing up in our face.

    Make the case first, gentlemen. It’s always best to look before you leap.

    When you sow the wind, sometimes you indeed end up reaping the whirlwind.

  • National Cemeteries and Caskets

    I ran across a story today that leaves me with decidedly mixed feelings.

    Here’s a summary: some years ago a World War II veteran – Lawrence Davis, Jr. – died in Florida. He apparently had no family willing to make funeral arrangements for him.

    As a World War II veteran, Davis was authorized to be buried in a National Cemetery. VA regulations and Federal law in effect then and today allowed the VA to bury him. But those same laws and regulations did not allow (or require) the VA to provide him a casket.

    So Davis was buried without a casket. In Florida, that’s apparently still allowed; I don’t know how common that is in other states. He was later honored, per the cemetery’s policy, at a periodic ceremony held to honor veterans who die and are buried with no family present.

    The story has sparked predictable outrage. As the cited article notes, a bill has been introduced in Congress (the Dignified Burial of Veterans Act of 2012) mandating the VA “review its burial standards” and authorizing the VA to purchase caskets (or urns) for all veterans buried in National Cemeteries.

    As I said, I have mixed feelings.

    Obviously, everyone – veterans and non-veterans alike – deserve a dignified burial. But is it really the Federal government’s responsibility to provide a casket for each and every veteran who chooses to be buried in a National Cemetery? And what is inherently disrespectful about burial sans casket?

    I’ve also got serious concerns about how the bill “fixing” this will be implemented and funded if passed. What will the standards be for such government-provided caskets – and what will they cost? (I kinda doubt they’ll end up being the proverbial old-time “pine box.”) And just what else in the VA budget will get cut to free up the funds to buy them? ‘Cause if you think the VA budget will be increased to fund this – well, in that case I happen to have a bridge I’d like to talk to you about selling . . . .

    As a Veteran, my heart tells me the bill proposed to “fix” this is a good thing. But as a believer in limited government – and a fiscal conservative – my head tells me this could be a really bad idea. And it also tells me that maybe we’re trying to “fix” a problem that isn’t really a problem at all.

    What say you all?

  • WTH is up with uniforms

    Snafudude sent us a link to an article in Military.com which talks about the new camouflaged uniform the Army is testing for wear in the near future. Apparently they’ve narrowed it down to four patterns, one of them is reptile-like;

    Now, according to Wiki, Multicam has just entered the system in 2010 and now they’re already looking for a new camouflage pattern? And according to the article, the design that the POGs at Nattick entered in the competition has been eliminated. Then what are we paying them for?

    And why do we need to keep changing the pattern? Is global warming changing the climate and vegetation so that we have to keep adjusting crap? It seems to me that if the Army was looking for a way to save money, they fire those pseudo-camouflage experts at Nattick that can’t even come up with a design that they can approve.

    Ya know what…it’s not even that important. Despite what they’d have you believe, a uniform isn’t going to conceal anyone. And after about two days in the field, no matter how much the Army spends on a pattern, they’re all the same color – dirt.

    At least the Navy has it’s priorities straight – they’re making changes to their dress uniforms that you squids will have to buy for your seabags. And why?

    “These uniform changes are the direct result of sailor and leadership feedback,” Rear Adm. Tony Kurta, director of Military Personnel Plans and Policy, said in a released statement. “Updating Navy uniforms is part of outfitting the 21st Century sailor, ensuring our sailors have practical uniforms they want and that represent our proud naval heritage while reflecting advances in clothing technology and design.”

    What? You mean “new male E1-E6 Service Dress Blue Uniform, incorporating a side zipper on the jumper and a hidden center zipper on the trousers” doesn’t have anything to do with national defense? But “advances in clothing technology and design” are certainly important – well, important in the sense that it keeps a Rear Admiral billet open.

  • Boobie twits silenced

    You remember Terran Echegoyen-McCabe and her friend Christina Luna who we discussed yesterday and their poster campaign to promote breast feeding in uniform. Well, it seems that they are members of the Washington Air National Guard which compounds the idiocy of their cause. How often will a guardsman need to breast feed in uniform? It appears that their commanders have come to that same conclusion and told the two to shut up about it, according to the Spokesman-Review;

    [Capt. Keith Kosik, state public affairs officer for the Washington National Guard] emphasized that the issue is not about breast-feeding in uniform.
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    Rather, he said, military regulations prohibit the use of the “uniform, title, rank or military affiliation to further a cause, promote a product or imply an endorsement.”

    “If you look at the press coverage that’s out there right now, it has been misconstrued as a battle against breast-feeding,” he said Thursday. “It leads one to believe they are being persecuted for breast-feeding. The fact is they’re not being persecuted. The fact is breast-feeding was never an issue for us.”

    The military has no rules specifically regarding public breast-feeding while in uniform. The real issue is that servicemen and -women are not allowed to use the uniform to further a civilian cause, Kosik said.

    Our frenemy, Adam Weinstein of Mother Jones couldn’t wait to make the military look like a pack of Neanderthals beating our chests over the outrageous photos of boobies. After quoting a female Marine who said that she wanted her Marines to see as nothing more than Marine, Weinstein puffs out his feminist chest-bone;

    The commenter assumes, of course, that the appropriate archetypal image of a Marine is sexless. (Or, at least, boobless.) Which leads to another assumption: that there’s something inherently sexual about a woman nourishing a child with breast milk. Neither of those assumptions holds. No one is asexual (least of all Marines, at least in my experience), and no nursing mother should have to accept a cultural taboo that marks her as a sex object for doing what comes naturally.

    I wonder how many Marines would agree that their mission in the greater scheme of things like national security is sexual. It was always my impression that women (and gays, because somehow Weinstein equates breast feeding to the recent repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy) wanted to be equals with men. We integrated women in the services, we quit booting them when they got pregnant in my early years of service because they claimed that they only wanted to be in the military and serve alongside men (and then, straights).

    Service in the military isn’t about sex, Adam, well, at least it wasn’t while I was in the infantry. We were more concerned with battle drills, weapons maintenance and physical conditioning. All of this other crap is ancillary cultural bullshit. It looks to me like the social engineers are just trying to turn the military into one long high school lunch period or college dorms instead of the life-taking, destructive force that is supposed to defend us from foreign and domestic enemies.

  • Here We Go Again – Part II?

    I wrote about the possibility of US intervention in Syria recently. Well, it looks like it’s not only the CJCS who’s hinting at potential US intervention in Syria. Now we hear much the same from the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice.

    Earlier, Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the UN, said that Russia’s veto-wielding membership of the Security Council would not necessarily prevent international action. If the violence worsened and the peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general, made no progress, some countries would consider whether to bypass Russian and Chinese opposition in the UN.

    “Some countries would consider whether to bypass Russian and Chinese opposition in the UN.” Hmmm. A public statement like that by the US Ambassador to the UN seems to me to be a reasonably clear signal. But then again, I’ve never been accused of being a diplomat.

    The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, also appears to have obliquely alluded to potential US intervention, albeit differently and of perhaps a different type. In the linked article, Clinton is quoted as saying that the US State Department has told the Russians “their policy (regarding Russian support for Syria) is going help to contribute to a civil war.” Yes, this could refer to Russia’s steadfast diplomatic support for the current Syrian government. But it could also refer to a change in policy on the part of the US – specifically, that the US will now provide diplomatic and/or material support to Syria’s rebel factions. That’s a different type of US involvement in Syria – but it still constitutes a US intervention. And US material support for one side of a war often has a way of ending up involving those wearing a uniform sooner or later.

    As I said previously: there may well be a good case to be made for US intervention in Syria. But to date, I’ve not seen that case made by the POTUS or his administration. And until that case is made, I’m reluctant as hell to support a US intervention there. Unless it’s shown to be in the US national interest to intervene in Syria – and that the expected cost of intervention is commensurate with the expected gain to US security – IMO we should leave well enough alone. Sometimes “the devil ye know” really is better than the devil ye don’t.

    As Vietnam showed, the time to have such a discussion is before we’re decisively involved in a foreign war. Not after.

  • Breast feeding in uniform nontroversy

    We were all treated to the photo of the Mom breastfeeding her four-year-old on the cover of Time a few weeks back and now, every time I open my inbox someone has sent us this article about breast feeding in uniform.

    The photo is part of a local breastfeeding awareness campaign by Mom2Mom of Fairchild Air Force Base, a support group launched in January by Crystal Scott, a military spouse and mother of three. Among the intimate close-ups of smiling young mothers cuddling their adorable babies, the images of the two airmen stand out.

    “People are comparing breastfeeding in uniform to urinating and defecating in uniform. They’re comparing it to the woman who posed in “Playboy” in uniform [in 2007]” Scott told Yahoo! Shine in an interview. “We never expected it to be like this.”

    Well, I think it’s all just so much BS. How often is a mother going to breast feed her children in uniform outside of her home? It’s not like they take their kids to work or take them to the field. Not that the two airmen in the picture know what the field looks like anyway.

    Both sides are overplaying this issue – the mothers are not going to whip out a breast in formation and start feeding her kids right there in front of the unit. And the two in the photo, I’m sure think they’re doing something brave and being controversial, because breastfeeding in public is supposed to be some liberating act. I’m just posting it so everyone will stop sending me the link.