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

Category: Navy

  • Navy to Convert NS Great Lakes to NAS Great Lakes

    In an unexpected reversal from the late-1990s divestiture of government property, the Dept. of the Navy has announced its intention to purchase Waukegan National Airport for the purpose of creating an inland Navy/Marine Corps pilot training facility. Civilian housing in the area will be purchased and demolished for safety reasons, and two schools close to the airport, H. R. McCall Elementary and Prairie Trail School will become NATTU (Naval Air Technical Training Unit) schools. The Domino’s Pizza at the end of the northeast runway will be preserved and expanded to provide a full 24-hour kitchen for Navy, Marine Corps, and  Coast Guard personnel.

    The purpose of this move is to provide training facilities lost with the closing of NASGlenview, a pre-World War II Naval Air Station used for training Navy pilots prior to their deployment.  Due to an unfortunate lack of foresight, NASGlenview was sold and converted to civilian housing developments during the BRAC. The current residents have angrily refused to even consider giving up their expensive, comfortable homes, regardless of prime offers by the Navy.

    In a search for an aviation facility currently in operation, the choice was between Waukegan National Airport at Waukegan, IL, and Kenosha Regional Airport at Kenosha, WI, 30 miles to the north of NSGreat Lakes. Both airports have a 30-foot high elevated embankment at the end of their main runways, meant to avoid impacts with civilian vehicle traffic. According to one enthusiastic light sport pilot who uses the Waukegan airport regularly, it’s “almost  like taking off from an aircraft carrier deck.”  The Navy settled on Waukegan National because of its 6 mile distance from NSGreat Lakes.

    The basic aviation training program for NAVAIRCADs and MARAIRCADs will be held at McCall Elementary and Prairie Trail schools, which will also offer daycare as well as standard K-12 classes for the children of Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard families. The aviation program will include pilot qualifications in rotor and fixed wing aircraft, as well as aviation equipment handling, maintenance, fuels, and aviation engineering classes in “A”, “B” and “C” schools.  The US Coast Guard unit currently operating from its Waukegan National Airport and Waukegan Harbor facilities will be expanded, with NASGreat Lakes as its base of operations on the western shores of Lake Michigan.

    Expansion of runways and facilities includes future plans to accommodate heavy gunships such as RATO C-130 Hercs, as well as lighter warplanes like the A-10 (Warthog). In addition, plans are on the table for a Lexington-class carrier strike force consisting of an aircraft carrier, two diesel-powered destroyer escorts, one guided missile frigate and a destroyer, to ply the waters of Lake Michigan, as well as installing a SEAL training facility at the former nuclear power generating station at Beach Park, IL. There is also a discussion underway regarding reviving a diesel-powered submarine now in mothballs as a training ship for future submariners.

  • James “Jimmy” Brennan (The Mick); Fake Navy SEAL

    James “Jimmy” Brennan (The Mick); Fake Navy SEAL

    Guess what?  The people over at militaryphony.com have exposed another fake Navy SEAL.  James Brennan has been posting his exploits as a Navy SEAL all over social media for a while now.

    Evidently he is a big supporter of the First Amendment.  We thought it would be only fitting to exercise a bit of that right ourselves.

    In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.  That ought to about cover our First Amendment Rights.

    Of course a retired Navy SEAL has to be friends with Chris Kyle .

    You can view a bunch of other nonsense this guy has posted online HERE

    Ya, so it turns out that Jimmy Brennan never served as a Navy SEAL.  He was a BM3 on the opposite coast from Chris Kyle.   He did manage to get a Navy Achievement Medal while he served, but I guess that was not good enough for little Jimmy.  It seems he had a perfectly honorable career that anyone should have been proud of as it was.  No combat of any kind and therefore no “wounds” from combat either.  I hear the members of the SEAL community frown upon those who claim to be best buds with one of their fallen.  I will go out on a limb and guess that most around here don’t care much for that kind of blatant disrespect either.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Juan Carlos Cruzvaladez, Fake Navy SEAL

    Juan Carlos Cruzvaladez, Fake Navy SEAL

    The staff over at militaryphony.com continue diving for fake Navy SEALS.  They send us this Juan Carlos Cruzvaladez individual.  It seems he has been making claims all over social media for a while that he is a Navy SEAL .

    Ahhh, and the always ever present tattoo.

    It appears that he also makes claims of being some kind of secret undercover agent, except on FaceBook where everyone on the interwebnet thingy knows about it. You can see the rest of what is posted about this guy HERE.   Of course militaryphony.com checked the SEAL database and mysteriously could not find our little buddy listed, so they ordered his records.

    We checked the UDT/SEAL database and were not all that shocked to learn he never graduated from BUD/S. A FOIA request was sent to get his official records. We learned that he originally served 4 years and 3 months as an ABH. It also seems that he came back in as a reservist or returning Navy Veteran to add 3 more months to his active duty time. He served on the USS Tarawa and the USS Harry S Truman. Under ‘SCHOOLS’ it lists “none”. He was awarded a National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Good Conduct Medal, and a Sea Service Deployment Ribbon for his first block of service. He received no awards for the second block.

    Making waves about being a Navy SEAL these days is just not what it used to be.  Juan Carlos Cruzvaladez was never a Navy SEAL, he should have been proud of the service he did have.

  • Another Warrior Passes

    Richard Lyon, the first SEAL to become a Navy Admiral has passed away.

    https://www.navytimes.com/articles/first-navy-seal-to-become-admiral-dies-at-93

    He started his service during World War II and was among the first troops to enter Japan after the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been destroyed by those two atomic bombs.

    The AP story relayed by Military Times barely does him justice.

  • New SecNAV is Inheriting a Mess

    Yes, well, I could have told him that. I think anyone could have seen this coming.  Secretary Bilden is facing at least a decade’s worth of plain neglect and rerouting funding to things other than what the money was originally meant to address, such as training and maintenance. The Fleet has dropped from 500 ships at the end of the Cold war to 247 under the administration prior to Trump.

    SecNav Bilden faces a complex problem: maintenance, or training, or increased fleet size.  And guess who left the mess behind for him to fix?

    https://www.navytimes.com/articles/the-new-navy-secretary-is-inheriting-a-mess-heres-how-the-navy-wants-to-fix-it

    The general consensus is that the Fleet puts maintenance and training ahead of increasing the size of the Fleet as a whole.  While we do need more ships and planes, we also need people who can take care of them, something which seems to have escaped the notice of previous occupants of those positions.

    I guess it was more important to make sure that ships had inappropriate names than it was to make sure they were properly maintained and the crews know how to navigate and use the ships’ equipment correctly.

  • Rollie Matthew Abshire; Fake Navy SEAL

    Rollie Matthew Abshire; Fake Navy SEAL

    It seems the people over at militaryphony.com are backlogged with fake SEALS these days.  Just a tip for SEAL posers, don’t ever try to claim you know a real one.  Me thinks there be real ones hanging around these parts.  Rollie Abshire likes to post claims of being a real Navy SEAL on social media and has pictures of him with all of his SEAL friends.

    We cropped the picture for obvious reasons, but Mr. Luttrell and the rest of the people in that picture have no idea who this Rollie kid is. There are other claims of course and you can see them HERE   I bet you are as shocked as I am that his records from a FOIA request don’t seem to jive with his claims.

    I guess the investigators became curious about the duty assignment that was blacked out, so they looked it up.

    I don’t think the NAVAL BRIG in Norfolk, VA is part of the training echelon for Navy SEALS.  But hey, anything is possible with a guy the skyrocketed to E-1.  Of course there is the tattoo, I can not leave out the tattoo. Removing that is going to leave a mark.

    Maybe people don’t really understand that  “An incredibly large Trident tattoo does not make you a SEAL.”  Go figure.

  • SEAL Team Member ID’d

    DoD identified a SEAL Team 6 member who was killed in a raid in Yemen as 36-year-old Chief Special Warfare Operator William “Ryan” Owens, originally from Peoria, Illinois.

    The full story is here:  http://www.13newsnow.com/news/military/locally-based-navy-seal-team-6-member-killed-in-raid/394267484

    There may be more to come later.  The other part of this story, not being quite so widely reported, is that the SEAL Team fought and killed women fighters during that raid on an Al Qaida affiliate in Yemen.

    http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/01/30/navy-seal-team-6-members-fought-female-fighters-yemen-raid.html

    So don’t start with me about women in combat.  Those people, the Very Bad Guys, are going to use every damned trick in the book including sending women out to confront you. They know what your weaknesses are and are willing to exploit them.  If you don’t think so, you’re very naive.

  • Girard David Pugsley III aka JJ Pugsley, Not a Navy SEAL

    Girard David Pugsley III aka JJ Pugsley, Not a Navy SEAL

    The staff at militaryphony.com send us their case on Girard Pugsley.  It seems that many people were under the impression that he was a Navy SEAL.

    He is active in the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts community).  For some reason people got the impression that he completed training to become a Navy SEAL, our guess is its things like this that probably had something to do with it:

    There are many other reasons for all this misunderstanding.

    Of course his records and their investigation show something entirely different.

    Apparently, Mr. Pugsley did attempt to become a Navy SEAL.  That is more than most can ever say.  However he was dropped from the program before he completed the basic school required to serve as a Navy SEAL.  Probably the claim of him being a Combat Diver is some kind of misunderstanding as well.  In any event, QM2 Pugsley has come forward to admit that he was not a Navy SEAL and should have been more pro active about correcting the claims that he was.

    You can see the rest of their case on this guy HERE.

    We are just glad that we have this opportunity to help him  clear all that up.  As of yesterday, he seems to be very concerned about people having the false impression that he served as a Navy SEAL.