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

Category: Shitbags

  • Fort Bragg shooter dies

    The Department of Defense has announced that Spc. Ricky G. Elder, the guy who shot LTC Tisdale at Fort Bragg last Thursday has died from hi self-inflicted wound;

    Elder, who was 27 years old at the time of his death, allegedly shot Army Lt. Col. Roy L. Tisdale, commander of the 525th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, during a June 28 safety briefing near the unit’s headquarters in the historic district of Fort Bragg around 3:30 p.m., according to installation officials.

    Tisdale, 42, of Alvin, Texas, was killed immediately, officials said. Elder reportedly turned the weapon upon himself, causing life-threatening injuries.

    Army Spc. Michael E. Latham, 22, a signal support system specialist assigned to the Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, had received a minor, non-life threatening wound during the June 28 shooting. Latham, a native of Vacaville, Calif., who joined the Army in October 2009, was released from Fort Bragg’s Womack Army Medical Center and is expected to make a full recovery.

    Elder had been charged with larceny of a toolkit valued at $1,700 and was pending court martial for that charge. Charges had been referred but his trial had not been scheduled.

    Well, at least we won’t have to spend money on a trial.

  • Ken Aden interview; muddying the waters

    Beretverde and Tim sent us links to the latest Ken Aden interview. I can’t tell who really conducted the interview so I’ll just provide links to both of them at The Progressive Cop and Addicting Info because I give credit where it’s due.

    Aden continues to double down on teh stupid by trying to convince us that Special Forces training is like Ranger training in that after a soldier successfully completes the training they can go back to a regular unit and continue to carry the Military Occupational Specialty they earned at the school. However, a Ranger School graduate earns an identifier on their MOS; an 11B infantryman in the rank of Staff Sergeant who successfully completes Ranger School would have the MOS 11B3V. A graduate from Special Forces “Q” course would be a 11B3S, they wouldn’t carry the Duty MOS as 18B3P, because there are no slots for 18Bs in an infantry unit. But, that’s not how Aden tells it;

    Some people in Arkansas media have suggested that even if you finished Special Forces training, that you weren’t Special Forces unless you were assigned to a Special Forces unit. Is it common for Special Forces soldiers or Rangers to be assigned elsewhere in the Army besides SF or Ranger units?

    That is another valid question, and I will take the time to address it. It is not uncommon for someone Ranger qualified to be assigned to a non-Ranger unit. In fact, my former Platoon Sergeant who wrote a letter supporting me held the Ranger tab while serving in the 82nd. The fact is that you can continue to hold an SF designation, such as 18B, and serve in other units.

    People seem to be more familiar with Rangers; do Rangers assigned to non-ranger units still wear the “Ranger” tab on their sleeve? Would these soldiers typically be referred to as “Rangers” even though they aren’t assigned to Ranger units?

    Yes, if you earned the identifier, you earned the identifier. So technically if you earned the Ranger tab and were assigned to any other place besides a “Ranger Battalion” you’re still a Ranger.

    Yeah, it’s completely different, Kenny. A Ranger in an infantry unit is still occupying an authorized 11B slot, while someone in the MOS of 18B wouldn’t.

    And of course, Aden can’t be wrong…it’s the personnel people at the Special Warfare Center who are wrong;

    The Democrat-Gazette has quoted Major Rebecca Lykins, public affairs chief at the U.S Army Special Warfare Center, as saying the “18B” entry, which signifies that you are Special Forces on your DD-214, was entered as a mistake. She says it shouldn’t have been recorded on the document because, she claims, you never finished the “Q” course which would qualify you as Special Forces and that you did not have a certificate of completion. Is Major Lykins telling us the truth?

    It seems that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. I completed my training to obtain the MOS of 18B. That is why it is recorded on my DD-214. If it was entered by mistake, then I would not have been allowed to carry it forward and the installation management command would have not put it on the official discharge paperwork. They had the orders and the orders number and each of these numbers are tracked.

    Of course, the interviewer blows off all of the criticism of Aden’s lies and his refusal to admit the truth telling us that it really doesn’t matter. Um, yeah, it does matter. It’s pretty clear that Aden lied and instead of admitting that he’s lying, he compounds his lies by blaming everyone else but himself and his staff. What’s to say that he won’t do the same thing if he ever gets into office? The voters can see for themselves how he handles himself when he’s caught lying – do Arkansans want that sort of representation in Congress?

    Apparently, the women’s rights group, We Are Women-Arkansas have denounced Aden, and the rumor is that Aden’s campaign manager, Jake Burris, has resigned from the campaign – but I can’t find anything to verify that last bit.

  • Schroeder Indicted

    “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.”  Looks like Paul A. Schroeder- the bogus former Houston-area PTSD counselor for the PTSD Foundation of America Jonn wrote about here and here – is about to find out the truth of that old saying up close and personal.

    A Federal grand jury indicted Schroeder onThursday, June 29, 2012.  The charge:  falsifying his DD214.  Schroeder faces up to $100,000 in fines and a year in jail.

    No, it’s not a felony.  But it’s still a good start.  And if he’s convicted, it’s a Federal criminal conviction.

    You may no longer get prosecuted for lying in a bar, or to your buddies, about your military record due to the recent SCOTUS decision regarding the Stolen Valor Act of 2005.   But I’d still recommend thinking twice before wearing decorations you don’t rate, or forging a DD214 to support a bogus claim.  Those are still Federal crimes; the laws defining them weren’t affected by the recent SCOTUS decision on the Stolen Valor Act of 2005.

    Ain’t that right, Paulie-boy?

  • …and he needs to get that stuff off his ears, too

    Fort Hood murderer Nidal Hasan’s trial will continue despite the fact that he has resisted shaving off his beard, I guess because those chicks in prison, and by “chicks” I mean Tiny and Bubba, dig hairy bears. Associated Press reports;

    Gross said Friday that top Army officials had rejected Hasan’s request for a religious exemption – due to his Islamic faith – to the rule banning beards. An appeals court also denied a defense request to overturn the judge’s decision last week to bar Hasan from the courtroom unless he shaves.

    Hasan watched Friday’s hearing from a closed-circuit television in a nearby room, as he did during last week’s hearing.

    “I could have him held down and have someone shave him, but I’m not prepared to do that at this time,” Gross said.

    I’ll volunteer to shave his monkey ass without even a court order – just give me the key. And by the looks of the photo, he needs a haircut, too.

    Gross also denied a defense request to step down as the trial judge, disputing allegations that he was biased against Hasan.

    Lead defense attorney Lt. Col. Kris Poppe said the judge had asked defense attorneys to clean up a court restroom after Gross found a medical waste bag, adult diaper and what appeared to be feces on the floor after a hearing earlier this month.

    It’s only appropriate that the defense team clean up Hasan’s shit, since that’s what they’re doing during the trial anyway. It turns out that it was mud from a guard’s boots, but they might as well get used to it…you know, find where they keep the mops and buckets and the buffer.

  • Sings the Craven? “Nevermore!”

    Well, at least not on “America’s Got Talent.”  It looks like Timothy “The Craven” Poe has been cut from the show.

    “I don’t know that he holds up to other singers on this show at all,” said judge Howie Mandel while evaluating Poe.

    I can understand that.  I’d guess it’s hard to sing your best when you’re looking over your shoulder all the time.  Or when you can’t look anyone in the audience in the eye.

    Karma can be a bitch sometimes, Timmy-poo – can’t it?

    Now, let’s wait and see see what your FOIAs from the NPRC and MN ARNG say when we they come back.  They’re currently in the works.

  • CO Mother & Daughter busted in dating scam

    ABC News reports that a mother and daughter team in Colorado were indicted in a Nigerian dating scam which used profiles of military members to entice women into sending them money;

    Tracy Vasseur, 40, and her mother, Karen Vasseur, 73, of Brighton, Colo., about 21 miles north of Denver, face a hearing on Tuesday in the Adams County District Court. The Colorado Attorney General, John Suthers, said the two were part of a scam since 2009 that “lured unsuspecting women to internet dating sites by posing as members of the U.S. military serving in Afghanistan. The Vasseurs’ 374 victims over a three year period were based throughout the United States and from 40 other countries.”

    Yeah, and if you look at their pictures, they’re pretty hot…or something. The scams were expensive to the victims – $10,000 to $59,000 a shot. These scams aren’t limited to the internet. Someone called my mother pretending to be my son. The scammer told her that he was in Ecuador and needed $5000 for car repairs. In a country where $5000 would buy a new car? My mother didn’t fall for it, and the local police wouldn’t do anything because she didn’t give them any money.

    The call came from California, you’d think that they’d at least trace the call and let the criminals know that they were being monitored, but I guess police won’t do anything until there’s a crime committed, which almost makes sense. So I guess the only thing I can do is let folks know that these scams are out there.

  • Phony MP pulls over real cop

    Someone dropped off a link to us on Facebook about Anthony Kenneth Mastrogiovanni who pulled over a motorist for speeding in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, there were two problems; Mastrogiovanni isn’t a cop and the guy he pulled over was a cop;

    Prince George’s County Police say 29-year-old Anthony Kenneth Mastrogiovanni, of the 900 block of Eastham Court, was driving a white pickup truck on southbound Route 301 when he attempted to stop the Capitol Height Police Officer in his personal vehicle around 4:09 p.m.

    The off-duty officer identified himself as being a Capitol Heights Police Officer to Mastrogiovanni who, in turn, said he was a military police officer from Louisiana and advised the officer that he was speeding.

    The officer then told the suspect that he had no jurisdiction. He also informed him that having blue and red emergency equipment installed on his truck was illegal in the state.

    Mastrogiovanni reportedly then fled the scene at Route 301 and Trade Zone Avenue.

    Here’s his official-looking Nissan police truck;

    Yeah, I would have pulled over just so I could steady my aim.

    The Atlantic Wire reports that there other police impersonators out there;

    WRAL, a local North Carolina station, reported four similar impersonators running traffic stops back in April, and robbing their victims. It pops up elsewhere, too, as in a February Houston Chronicle story about a suspected police impostor running traffic stops but not robbing the victims, just criticizing some woman’s driving. Talk about a power trip!

  • Equadorian Holiday for Julian?

    Looks like our good “friend” Julian Assange has tired of British food and weather, and has decided to seek out a different climate.  He’s applied for political asylum  in Ecuador.  Seems his native Australia wouldn’t lift a finger to help him out of his little European legal jam.

    Personally, I kinda hope he gets what he’s asking for – then pisses off the Ecuadorian government.  Ecuadorian laws are rather . . . different.  In Ecuador you can be sent to jail for 2 years for insulting the President, and for 3 months for insulting other government officials.  I’m thinking that it would be only a matter of time before Assange did exactly that.

    I also think a couple of years in an Ecuadorian jail would do him a world of good.  If he survived, of course.

    Well, OK – not really.  Assange is IMO such an ass he’s probably beyond help as this point.   But seeing him spend a couple of years in a South American jail would do me a world of good.  (smile)