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

Category: National Guard

  • Six governors arm National Guard troops

    Yesterday, we reported that governors of Arkansas and Oklahoma issued executive orders to arm their active duty National Guard troops in the wake of the attack in Tennessee on a recruiting office and Reserve training center. NBC News reports that four other governors have joined them;

    The governors of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, Florida and Indiana have authorized the arming of full-time National Guard members to deter attacks and allow them the ability to protect themselves and civilians in case they are targeted.

    Missouri State Senators have asked their governor to follow suit.

    The article also points out that Utah’s governor Gary R. Herbert had authorized the arming of his National Guard troops last year. I’m not holding my breath waiting for New York’s legacy governor to allow the troops under his command to protect themselves.

    Congressional help may be on the way for Federal troops;

    Sen. Ron Johnson a Republican who represents Wisconsin and is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Friday he will introduce legislation “calling for the termination of regulations that prohibit members of the Armed Forces from carrying certain firearms on military installations.”

    “By disarming the Armed Forces, gun-free policies at military facilities have made our men and women in uniform easy targets for terrorist attacks,” Johnson said.

    The Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, has asked the Federal services for recommendations by the end of this week.

  • Guardsmen charged in contract bribery case

    Guardsmen charged in contract bribery case

    Stephen sends us links to the Justice Department announcement that four high ranking military officers of the National Guard have been indicted for their participation in a bribery scheme designed to steer government contracts to their company, MPSC;

    Edwin Stuart Livingston III, 67, of The Villages, Florida; Ronald Joseph Tipa, 68, of Sunny Isles Beach, Florida; Thomas Edward Taylor, 66, of Alexandria, Virginia; and Ross Bernard DeBlois Sr., 55, of Fairfax Station, Virginia, are each charged by indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, one count of bribery of a public official, one count of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and five counts of honest services fraud.

    According to the indictment, Livingston, Tipa, Taylor and John Jones, 77, a retired brigadier general from the New York Army National Guard, each owned 25 percent of MPSC and constituted MPSC’s Board of Directors. DeBlois was the company’s CEO.

    […]

    According to the allegations in the indictment, in 2010 or 2011, Livingston and Tipa offered Robert Porter, 50, who then was an active-duty colonel in the Army National Guard who held a high-level position at the NGB, a deal in which MPSC would pay Porter 1 percent of the value of all contracts he steered to MPSC. The indictment alleges that Porter was to receive the bribe payment after he retired from the NGB and began working for MPSC, and that the payment was to be concealed as an “incentive fee” or “bonus” payment in MPSC payroll records.

    According to the indictment, during 2011 and 2012, Porter allegedly steered at least three NGB marketing contracts to MPSC, which were worth a total of approximately $5.5 million. The indictment alleges that, during a July 2014 meeting of MPSC’s board of directors, DeBlois confirmed that three contracts were awarded to MPSC while Porter was “in uniform.” Thereafter, Livingston, Tipa, Taylor and Jones allegedly unanimously voted to make the promised bribe payment to Porter. The indictment further alleges that, between July and September 2014, MPSC made three payments to Porter, each for over $10,000.

    Additionally, a National Guard active duty Sergeant First Class, Jason Rappoccio, was sentenced the other day to forty-two months in prison for taking bribes for steering government money to his friends;

    In connection with his guilty plea, Rappoccio admitted to accepting a $30,000 bribe from Timothy Bebus, a retired sergeant major of the Minnesota Army National Guard and owner of Mil-Team Consulting and Solutions LLC (Mil-Team). In exchange, Rappoccio agreed to steer a $3.6 million contract to Mil-Team by awarding the contract to a Small Business Administration (SBA) 8(a) certified company, chosen by Bebus, that Rappoccio understood would sub-contract a portion of the work to Mil-Team.

    Rappoccio admitted that the $30,000 bribe was structured to conceal the payment. Specifically, Bebus gave $6,000 in cash directly to Rappoccio, and the remaining $24,000 was paid in a cashier’s check in the name of Rappoccio’s wife.

    Rappoccio also admitted to accepting additional benefits in exchange for steering an additional $4 million contract to Mil-Team. In particular, Rappoccio solicited and received from Bebus airline tickets for two of Rappoccio’s family members. He also received NFL tickets worth over $1,300 from another co-conspirator.

    I wonder how the four officers will fare in court as compared to the former sergeant.

  • National Guard data breach

    National Guard.mil announces that Guard officials have lost control of your PII, in case the Chinese missed you at the OPM;

    “All current and former Army National Guard members since 2004 could be affected by this breach because files containing personal information was inadvertently transferred to a non-DoD-accredited data center by a contract employee,” said Maj. Earl Brown, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau. The data includes the Soldiers’ names, full Social Security numbers, dates of birth and home addresses.

    So, you see it’s not really the Guard that lost your information, it was a contractor. Feel better?

    Don’t worry, though, the National Guard in concerned;

    “The National Guard Bureau takes the control of personal information very seriously,” Brown said. “After investigating the circumstances of these actions, and the information that was transferred, the Guard has determined, out of an abundance of caution, to inform current and past Guard personnel that their Personally Identifiable Information (PII) was among the files that were transferred.”

    Every year, I had to waste my time taking these online classes about how to protect information. Basically, all you had to do to pass the tests was to use a little common sense. Was I the only one?

  • Caught in the madness

    A couple of stories came out of the madness in Baltimore this week; Bubblehead Ray sends us a link to the story of Midshipmen from the Naval Academy who were in Baltimore for a ball game. Protests broke near the Subway sandwich shop where they were eating on Saturday. When a chair smashed through the window, the ten middies took quick action and moved all of the patrons to the back of the business and stood between the protesters and the patrons;

    These midshipmen directed families to the back of the Subway. Then they lined up, in front of families, as protesters passed outside, some throwing rocks. Women and children gathered farthest from the windows, except for [Midshipman Madisen Grinnell, 18, of Sacramento, Calif.], the only female there from the Naval Academy.

    “You’re in the military and a midshipmen — you should be in the front,” she insisted.

    Kadlubowski, of Colorado Springs, Colo., was uninjured when glass fell around him. He escorted the store manager to the door.

    “I made sure he could lock the door without problem,” Kadlubowski said.

    About 20 civilians sheltered, in the back of the Subway, while protesters passed. Some protesters waved their middle fingers, said Midshipman Erik Sabelstrom, 19, of Colorado Springs, Colo.

    Luckily the protest them by and the Middies were able to successfully extricate themselves unscathed. But, given their actions that day, I’d guess they know what is their place in society.

    Now it is time for a cautionary tale.

    I saw this photo on Facebook the other day and people were pounding their keyboards in anger about how he was participating in the protests in uniform and should be court martialed.

    Guardsman

    I didn’t see anything that indicated that he was protesting along with the crowd, so I asked a few questions that no one could answer and passed this non-story up.

    According to USAToday, I made the right choice in this case;

    Col. Charles Kohler, a spokesman for the Maryland Guard, confirmed to Army Times that the soldier works at Cade Armory, which is very close to where the protests were taking place this week.

    “Every indication is that he is a solid soldier. He knows, and so does his chain of command, it was a case of bad timing,” he said. “He was walking home from work and saw the demonstration and stopped as they walked by, and then someone took his picture.”

    I know we’re all looking for reasons to be outraged, but we need to be careful that we don’t make assumptions and ruin the lives of innocent folks.

  • Maryland National Guard in Baltimore

    Maryland National Guard in Baltimore

    MDARNG in Baltimore

    Chief Tango sends us a link from the Washington Post which reports that about 2000 Maryland Army National Guard troops will be in Baltimore Thursday to “protect the lives and property of law-abiding citizens of our state” much to the chagrin of folks like Brooke Baldwin;

    “We are working in direct support of the Maryland State Police and Baltimore City Police and being tasked by them,” Breitenfeldt said.

    He added that they are trained and equipped to protect the lives and property of “law-abiding citizens of our state.”

    “We are as proud of the role we play serving our communities as we are of our role protecting our state and nation,” Breitenfeldt said. “Marylanders should be reassured that the National Guard is carrying out a well-established plan to ensure the safety and well-being of all law-abiding citizens.”

    Ya know why? Because most law-abiding, peaceful Americans are comforted by the presence of uniformed and armed National Guard troops on their streets. The only people who aren’t comforted are the criminals…and CNN reporters. But that’s redundant.

  • South Dakota redefines “veteran”

    South Dakota redefines “veteran”

    SD-Gov

    According to our friends at Weaselzippers, in a link sent by MustangCryppie, the State of South Dakota has redefined the term “veteran” to include reservists and National Guardsmen.

    Overwhelmingly supported in the Legislature during the recently concluded 2015 session, House Bill 1179, signed into law by the Republican governor on March 13, changed the status of the title “veteran” to include military reserve or National Guard members, which means those individuals can qualify for additional benefits.

    Of course, there’s opposition among veterans;

    A number of combat veterans in the state have spoken out against the bill, arguing that the measure means war veterans will get less of the benefit pie and that it waters down the meaning of the title.

    “It makes things more difficult for legit combat veterans,” said Ted Fowler, a Vietnam War veteran from Aberdeen who served in the U.S. Army. “If this were high school, what they’d be doing is passing out letterman jackets to junior varsity players who have never seen any varsity action. Those folks haven’t earned the title.”

    As the author of the article at WZ, Dapandico, notes, in the picture at the link, there are at least two guardsmen with combat patches and there are career active duty soldiers walking around today who haven’t deployed, some who actively avoided deployments to the war on terror. While I understand Mr Fowler’s concerns, things have changed since Vietnam. The reserve side of the house has been pulling their weight over the last twenty years or so.

    TSO was a guardsman, yet he has deployments to the Balkans and to Afghanistan. The Guard and Reserve isn’t the weekend keg party that it was in the past. In fact, the Pentagon plans to use the reserves to cover deployments as they draw down the active force.

    I’d remind Mister Fowler, the Vietnam veteran quoted above that there are ninety-nine Guardsman who are named on the Vietnam Memorial.

  • Discipline for Utah Guardsmen in bikini video

    Discipline for Utah Guardsmen in bikini video

    Hot Shots Calender

    A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the “risque” video shot on a Utah military military base. Today from the Stars & Stripes we hear that four Guardsmen are being disciplined for their participation;

    Guard Lt. Col. Steven Fairbourn said Saturday that a 19th Special Forces non-commissioned officer who inappropriately allowed the video to be partially shot at Camp Williams in May has been relieved of his leadership position and faces a reprimand and mandatory early retirement.

    The three other soldiers will receive lesser measures ranging from counseling to a reprimand, he said. The $200 cost for military fuel used during the shoot also will be recouped from the soldiers involved.

    Fairbourn earlier said the three members took part in the video after getting permission from a senior official who shouldn’t have given them the green light.

    That makes perfect sense – they get disciplined for getting permission from the wrong officer. It looks like two members of the State’s SWAT team are in trouble for their participation, too.

  • Utah Guard probes risque video

    Utah Guard probes risque video

    Hot Shots Calender

    Apparently, some scantily-clad women filmed a video to promote a calender or something and they were riding in military vehicles and firing weapons and the Utah National Guard think that might be their equipment in the video. Similarly, the Utah Department of Public Safety is probing themselves silly, too, because two officers appeared in uniform in the video, according to the Army Times;

    Both agencies criticize the video — a promotional “behind the scenes” look at how they shot this year’s “Hot Shots Calendar” — for its edgy content. It features British women wearing camouflage bikinis and other tight clothing while shooting guns, riding in military-type vehicles and striking seductive poses.

    “Productions of this kind are not in keeping with the values of the Utah National Guard nor its members,” the National Guard said in a statement.

    […]

    The National Guard learned about the video on Tuesday, and it’s hoping to wrap up its probe of the incident in the coming days, Fairbourn said.

    Yeah, how long does it take to look at a video and determine whether your vehicles were used? How many times do you have to watch that video, Carl?

    They should all stop being prudes. Just because GI Joes are all smooth down there, that doesn’t mean the rest of us are, too. I’m sure there are other things the Utah Guard can be probing that don’t include scantily-clad British models.

    Oh, the website is Hot Shots Calender and all proceeds are for the troops – British Troops – they say.

    Nothing happens unless there is video, they tell me so…