Category: National Guard

A climber was stranded on Mount Hood and the team sent to rescue him also got stranded. So, the Oregon National Guard got involved. When a Blackhawk helicopter coudn’t make the rescue, they called for a Chinook according to KOMO;

By Friday morning, snow had firmed up overnight and a six-person rescue team climbed to the 11,250-foot summit. Unfortunately, by the time the team reached the climber, conditions were too dangerous to climb back down.

Chris Ingersoll, a civilian spokesperson for the Guard, says a Black Hawk helicopter that initially arrived at the scene was not able to get up to the summit, which is why the Chinook from Pendleton was called in.

“Most helicopters really struggle to even get up to that altitude, as the air gets really thin. So we have to use the Chinook, which is one of our aircraft that’s powerful enough to get up to that altitude. It also gets difficult because at summit rescues the winds change direction and intensity fairly rapidly,” said Ingersoll.

Instead of lowering down a rope to hoist the climber and rescuers up, the Chinook did a two-wheel land and lowered a ramp to get all seven people on board.

There’s a video of the rescue at the link above.

Thanks to CK for the link.

Fox News reports the sad news that Maryland Guardsman Eddison Hermond’s body has been found in Maryland after he was swept away by raging flood waters;

Hermond is a sergeant assigned to Camp Fretterd in Reisterstown, Md. He joined the Maryland Army National Guard in 2009 after serving in the Air Force for more than a decade.

Kate Bowman told the Baltimore Sun that Hermond was trying to pull her to safety when he “washed away.”

“I could barely see anything and I could barely hear anything,” Bowman, 41, told the newspaper. “He stepped over the ledge to try to get to me, and he was washed away.”

Bowman said she fled her shop, Clipper’s Canine Café, with her cat through a window because the rainwater flooded the area. The water was waist-high when Hermond spotted her.

Bowman said the rescue “had nothing to do” with her cat.

“He was trying to save me,” Bowman said. “He’s a hero.”

We’re deeply saddened to learn that the body of @MDNG Sgt. Eddison Hermond has been found. There are no words to adequately describe our sense of loss. https://t.co/KZ10njXJZz

— Governor Larry Hogan (@GovLarryHogan) May 29, 2018

According to the Savannah Morning News 5 people have been killed in the crash of a C-130 military transport aircraft;

A C-130 Hercules cargo plane from Puerto Rico Air National Guard has crashed near the intersection of Ga. 21 and Crossgate Road in Savannah.

Effingham County Sheriff spokeswomen Gena Bilbo says the intersection of Ga. 21 and Crossgate Road could be closed for weeks as agencies document the wreck site.

The accident occurred about 11:21 a.m., she said.

“We know that it was a non-local C-130 jet that crashed, she said. “It’s a huge impact to Hwy. 21 and Dean Forest Road. Power has been cut to the area. ”

The crash left jet fuel across the highway as caused small fires on the sides of the road.

From NWF Daily News;

Capt. Jeff Bezore, a spokesman for the Georgia Air National Guard’s 165th Air Wing, said the crash killed at least five people. He said he couldn’t say how many people in total were on the plane when it crashed around 11:30 a.m.

The Air Force said the plane belonged to the 156th Air Wing out of Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico National Guard Spokesman Maj. Paul Dahlen told The Associated Press that all those aboard were Puerto Ricans who had recently left the U.S. territory for a mission on the U.S. mainland. He said initial information indicated there were five to nine people aboard the plane, which was heading to Arizona.

The other day, we talked about the Tennessee Air National Guard reenlistment video in which a senior NCO took her oath with a puppet. According to the Air Force Times, punishment has been meted out already;

The Tennessee Air National Guard colonel who led a re-enlistment ceremony in which a senior noncommissioned officer recited her oath using a dinosaur puppet has been demoted and retired.

Army Maj. Gen. Terry Haston, the adjutant general for the Tennessee National Guard, also announced in a Facebook post Wednesday that Master Sgt. Robin Brown, the SNCO whose videotaped re-enlistment ceremony created a firestorm online, has been removed from her full-time job with the Tennessee Joint Public Affairs Office and is facing other administrative actions.

Haston also said that another Tennessee Air National Guardsman — an unidentified SNCO who videotaped the event ? has been removed from his job as unit first sergeant and has been reprimanded. That SNCO will stay in the Guard.

It was completely avoidable. The video was shot on Friday and it went viral after it was posted on Saturday on the unofficial Air Force amn/nco/snco Facebook page.

The lesson is; if you do stupid shit, don’t have a video of it floating around the internet.

Someone sent us their work on this fellow, Don Marostica who was a legislator in Colorado’s House of Representatives. He resigned that position and became the director of the state’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade. You’ll notice in the caption of the picture above, someone thought that Marostica is a Vietnam veteran. His name is also memorialized in Veteran’s Park in the City of Loveland as a Vietnam veteran.

According to his Wiki, Marostica graduated from Colorado State University in 1970, then he began his pursuit of a Masters program at University of Northern Colorado, graduating in 1975. His military records say that he spent three months on active duty in 1971, the remainder of his service was spent in the National Guard and the Reserves.

There was no service in Vietnam.

I’m not calling this stolen valor because I can find nothing where Marostica directly claims that he is a Vietnam veteran, I’m just correcting the record – he is not a Vietnam veteran.

From Loveland Politics;

According to the blog, “thisAintHell” which obtained Marostica’s military service records
through a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, Marostica only served on active
duty for three months in Fort Knox, Kentucky in the early 70’s. Following his 90 days of
active duty, Marostica remained either in the Army Reserve or National Guard
eventually achieving the rank of 1st Lt but not Captain as he claims according to the
records published online. According to the same records reviewed by LovelandPolitics,
they show he was never in Vietnam during his three months of active duty but instead
served his country for 90 days in Kentucky.

Loveland Mayor Demands Brick Be Removed

Loveland Mayor Jacki Marsh, a critic of Marostica’s influential LBP group in city affairs,
is demanding the brick commemorating Don Marostica’s service in “Vietnam” be
removed from the city owned park before Memorial Day celebrations. However,
Lovelandpolitics has learned the parks department and several members of the city
council are claiming the brick is not a violation of any city policy so fighting the mayor’s
request. Sponsors who contribute donations are allowed to place a brick in the city’s
veteran’s memorial park with an inscription of their choice.

Last Wednesday, several instructors and students of the Mountain Warfare School at Camp Ethan Allen, Vermont tried to scale Smuggler’s Notch in order to gauge conditions for training. They were consumed by an avalanche, six members of the team were injured.

In this video, Vermont National Guard Lt. Col. Matthew Brown, commander of Army Mountain Warfare School briefs a report of the incident.

Only two members of the team are still in hospital. The leaders that day, kept the casualties at a minimum, despite the deadly conditions. You can hear a measure of pride in LTC Brown’s voice while he talks about the actions of his soldiers.

Bobo sends a link to the story of William Robert Dunbar who we wrote about in September when the Pennsylvania Guardsman threatened to assassinate Vice President Pence. According to the Tribune-Democrat, he pleaded guilty yesterday;

Dunbar allegedly made the threat against Pence while on duty on Sept. 8 as a National Guardsman at the Army National Guard Training Center in Richland Township, according to a complaint filed in September in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Johnstown Division.

At the time Dunbar made the threat, Pence was scheduled to arrive in Johnstown on Sept. 11 in order to speak at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, on the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

He’s looking at a sentence of five years (max) and a $250,000 fine. I’m guessing that he’ll get supervised release for a couple of years.