Category: Who knows

I guess the big story for veterans in regards to the Zimmerman trial isn’t the incredible witnesses or the 911 calls, but rather why a cop who was testifying was wearing an occupation ribbon, among other military decorations on the stand. I’ve got an avalanche of emails, Facebook messages and stuff about it. Even Navy Cross recipient Jeremiah Workman got involved, I guess. From the Military Times;

The Sanford Police Department could not immediately be reached for comment. But Workman got a hold of them and said they told him they didn’t have their own awards system, so they went to the Army-Navy store around the corner and picked out Defense Department military ribbons to fit their own format. The WWII was selected, the police department official told Workman, because they knew there weren’t many veterans from that period alive so they didn’t think people would notice.

“At the end of his explanation I thought to myself, ‘So that makes it all better now because these guys are dead?’ ” Workman said. ”The fact that that was their response is still pretty shameful, I think.”

Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. As a commenter at Military Times said, there are only so many patterns that will fit on an inch-and-a-half piece of ribbon. As long as the police aren’t pinning Navy Crosses and Medals of Honor to their uniforms and claiming that they earned those ribbons, I don’t see the problem. I appreciate them being gentle with tax payer dollars. While I certainly wish they’d use other ribbons, I’m sure that between the five services, they’ve probably got every color scheme covered already.

Now if the officer was wearing a military uniform and those ribbons, I’d probably have a problem if she hadn’t earned any of them. But, it’s not stolen valor, in my opinion, unless she is trying to convince the media that she really did occupy Berlin at the end of World War II.

Pat sends us a link to an article about a Virginia neighborhood that was evacuated when a woman discovered two projectiles in her garden shed. The news and the police are calling them “anti-tank missiles”, but they don’t look like missiles to me, but I’m not sure what they are, you, know, me being a dumbass infantryman who only stuck to his job for twenty years.

Police went door-to-door to evacuate the area, the mayor said.

“The revised and current evaluation of the ordinance is that they are anti-tank missiles, possibly from Desert Storm,” Umstattd said. “They are armed….The ordinance will have to be transported by the military to a safe location.”

So, SFC Dillard Johnson emailed us this morning for a phone call, and of course, I complied. Because we’re about the truth, no matter how it shakes out. Johnson acknowledged the fact that we were probably the most fair of the people who were writing about him. I had to remind him that we never doubted his Silver Star after he offered to send us his citation, but, I told we didn’t need it. I told him our that concerns were mostly about the 2700 kills. He told me that number came from his little pocket notebook that all of us NCOs carried. That he’d put in tick marks for the number of weapons and bodies that he counted between sandstorms on the way to Baghdad. He admitted that it probably wasn’t the best way to report “kills” after I told him that if I’d counted weapons from Kuwait to the Euphrates, I’d have beaten his numbers.

He also admitted that the 2700 kills were a total of his troop not just him and his crew. Johnson also said that the actual book doesn’t refer to that number – it appears on the cover and in the liner notes, but not in the actual text of the book. I just bought the book today, so I’ll let you know if I find the contrary to be true.

I told Johnson that in the future he should stay away from numbers, math sinks everyone. He said that he wanted to explain the number thing during his Fox & Friends interview, but that Kilmeade never asked the question about the numbers that they had agreed upon before the show.

Then came the 7,000 rounds of armor piercing ammo that he’d claimed to have fired so that he got cancer from the DU. Johnson admitted that it was a pretty difficult number to swallow, especially since Bradleys only have 900 rounds on board (three hundred in the ready box to feed the gun and another 600 stowed). So 7,000 is at least 8 trips to the resupply point. But he said the number comes from the discussion he had with techs from Redstone Arsenal while he was at Walter Reed being treated for his cancer.

So next up was the question about Johnson getting booted from the Advanced NCO Course at Benning for wearing an unauthorized CIB. He admitted that it did indeed happen. It also involved an NCO who had it out for him (a common thread through many of his stories). He sent me a copy of his DD 214 (I promised Johnson that I wouldn’t publish it, so, no you can’t see it…take my word for it) and, yes, there’s a CIB on it, along with his Silver Star and four Purple Hearts, six Arcoms seven Army Achievement Medals, 2 awards of a CAB, an MSM and a bunch of other stuff. I only see one Bronze Star Medal for merit, though.

But, yeah, he did get booted from ANCOC for that incident, he returned in the next class and ended up on the commandant’s list, he says.

So, that’s about the extent of our talk, I still have his number in case the rest of you have questions you want me to ask him. Trust me the first version I wrote before was better than this one, but the blog ate it during the transition to a new server.

Several folk sent us the records of Dillard Jay Johnson, the deadliest man in the history of the world, or something. The records seem to be missing a couple of years, and his Silver Star;

His FOIA shows that he served until 2006, but his 2-1, or whatever they call it these days, seems to stop in 2004;

But he is listed on the DoD website as a recipient of the Silver Star;

Oddly enough, his kills aren’t listed in his records. I know this won’t clear up any of that discussion, but there it is for what’s it’s worth.

This is from a Christian Science Monitor interview with Johnson;

I spoke to Mr. Johnson after this story was first published. He says his new book doesn’t claim that he killed 2,746 enemy combatants or that he has 121 sniper kills. He says while those numbers are on the book jacket, and in HarperCollins’ publicity for the book, that the claim is never made in the text of the book and that it is inaccurate. He says he is not responsible for the publisher’s writing. The 2,746 number he says is his battlefield estimate of those killed by both him and the men he was fighting with. Johnson says the he did kill 121 enemy combatants on his second deployment to Iraq, with M4 and M14 rifles, and that the choice of the term “sniper” was because average readers don’t understand the difference between a marksman and a sniper. He says that Mr. Spaid could not have read the book, that Spaid’s claim that dismounts were extremely rare during the invasion are inaccurate, and that Spaid wasn’t in a position to speak to what Johnson witnessed and experienced. Johnson says that while he once gave an estimate that he’d perhaps fired 7,000 depleted uranium rounds from his Bradley during the invasion of Iraq that he gave that estimate to an interviewer while wounded and at Walter Reed hospital in 2003 and that it was only an estimate. He is uncertain about how many rounds were fired.

Yeah, OK. He goes on to say that the story about cutting the wire is true, and he regrets that he didn’t correct the Fox & Friends interview about the number of “kills” he had. Whatever, dude.

A couple of you have sent links to the New York Post article Sgt. 1st Class Dillard Johnson is the deadliest US soldier on record – with 2,746 kills, so I guess that if I don’t write something, my inbox is going to fill up about him. There was an SFC Dillard J. Johnson in C 3/7 Cav by a similar name. According to the DoD website, he did indeed (or someone with that name) earn a Silver Star. The name at the DoD’s website is “SSG Dillard (No Middle Name) Johnson”, though. I’ve already written the author of the article, Mr. Buiso, how he confirmed the number of “kills” SFC Johnson has;

With 2,746 confirmed kills, Sgt. 1st Class Dillard Johnson is the deadliest American soldier on record — and maybe the most humble.

As a commander of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle nicknamed “Carnivore,” Johnson, 48, helped lead the ground assault during Operation Iraqi Freedom, overwhelming the enemy with a relentless show of military might that left a trail of dead in his wake.

Johnson was obliged to report confirmed kills to his superiors, cataloging the dead in a green journal that revealed the astonishing tally — which only began to come light as he and co-writer James Tarr were researching his exploits for his memoir, also titled “Carnivore.”

I’m not trashing anyone, or calling anyone a liar in the absence of evidence to the contrary, but I’d sure like to see this “green journal”. I’ve never heard of a tally of “kills” cataloged in the name of individual soldiers and I can’t imagine that anyone would participate in such a grisly practice.

He counted the dead by tallying rifles — and human heads — among the mangled or charred wreckage left behind by the Carnivore.

In his second tour, in 2005, he took up sniping, logging 121 kills, his longest from 821 yards, a skill that was honed hunting in Kentucky. His total is second only to the late Chris Kyle, the Navy SEAL who had 160 kills.

It might be true, who am I to question it – I wasn’t there, but members of a sister unit are questioning it in my emails, so…I have to think there’s something weak in the story. But, let’s sit and wait this one out and see what we can shake loose in the public forum.

Earlier this week, I took Microsoft to task for screwing over military gamers through policies planned for their new Xbox One.  Well, it appears that Microsoft has had a change of heart.

The fact that they’ve changed their mind isn’t exactly shocking.   But the speed with which that happened – about a week after announcing their original plans – is quite the surprise.  Large corporations like Microsoft usually don’t move anywhere near that fast to change a bad policy, if they ever change it at all.  And the announcement today represents a nearly-complete turn-around in policy.

Microsoft’s executive in charge of Xbox One – Don Mattick – has announced that Microsoft will

• not require full-time Internet access for using a new Xbox One after initial setup (initial setup will presumably require network access)
• will allow owners of Xbox One games to sell/loan/trade them like they can today, or lock them to a single console

Microsoft also implied – but didn’t state outright – that they will not enforce region-locking of games.  This is significant for US troops serving a PCS tour in overseas areas such as Kuwait and Japan where MicroSoft did not previously plan to allow Xbox One gaming.  However, since this is only implied vice being stated outright, this merits watching closely.  Problems could conceivably surface for those stationed in such areas who choose to connect their new Xbox One to the Internet.

The “always on” microphone issue also wasn’t addressed in Microsoft’s announcement.  While this is less of a privacy problem for those not connecting their Xbox One to the Internet, it does mean that the device might be considered a “recording device”.  This could pose security problems in some environments.

Still:  all things considered, this is a “good thing” – even if not necessarily perfect.  Kudos to Microsoft for changing a bad policy quickly vice trying to “ride it out” and save face.

As I remarked elsewhere:  I guess one of Microsoft’s “old hands” managed to get word to their senior executives of how pissing of their user base and refusing to compromise regarding the “new model” of a successful product worked out for IBM with the PS/2 and OS/2.  (smile)

For those of you hoping for a “Sopranos” revival – bad news.  James Gandolfino, the actor who played Tony Soprano, has died.  He was in Italy on vacation and a apparently had a massive heart attack.

Gandolfini was not a veteran (his father was, and earned the Purple Heart in World War II).  However, unlike many in the entertainment business he also doesn’t seem to have been anti-military.  After the Sopranos, Gandolfini produced two acclaimed military documentaries:  Alive Day Memories and Wartorn 1861-2010.  The former focused on 10 veterans returning from Iraq with serious injuries and their recovery (and, obviously, their struggles while recovering).   The latter focused on PTSD among US soldiers – from the Civil War to today.  Both documentaries appear to have been evenhanded, apolitical studies of their subject.  (Disclaimer:  I haven’t seen either, so I’m basing the above on published reviews.)

RIP, James Gandolfini.  Another who ended up  Done Too Soon.

Microsoft has unveiled its follow-on to the Xbox 360 – the Xbox One.  Some of its new “features” are nothing short of a swift kick in the “package” for military gamers.

• Stationed somewhere with spotty Internet connectivity?  Well, you can still use your Xbox One – for all of 24 hours.  After that, you’ll need to wait until you can reconnect to the Internet to use it again.
• Stationed overseas and get a new game mailed to you from someone in CONUS?  Sorry.  Games will be region-locked, and can only be activated in the region in which they’re designated.  You’ll have to wait until you get back to the US to play that one.
• Stationed in Japan, Kuwait, or Afghanistan?  Again – sorry.  You can only use that new Xbox  One in the 21 countries included in Microsoft’s Xbox server network.  If you’re elsewhere, that’s just too bad.
• Oh, and the built-in microphone?  It cannot be turned off.  Security folks shipboard are gonna just love that one!

Microsoft says they “empathize”.  And they do have a work around for those in the military who, you know, deploy.  According to Don Mattrick, President of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Division, “Fortunately we have a product for people who aren’t able to get some form of connectivity, it’s called Xbox 360.”

That’s right, folks:  Microsoft’s “military friendly” solution is to continue to use their older, soon-to-be-obsolete-and-unsupported product.

I wish I was kidding above – but I’m not.

I’m not a gamer.  But many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are.  And this action by Microsoft – and their truly crappy attitude here – is a slap in the fact to all military gamers.

Mattrick’s e-mail address appears to be  “ donm@microsoft.com “.   His boss is Steve Ballmer; his e-mail address appears to be “ SteveB@microsoft.com “.  Perhaps they’d like to hear from military gamers what they think about the new Microsoft Xbox One.

Added by Sporkmaster:

Oh and it seems that it is getting worse for Microsoft when it turns out that the Demos for the Xbox One at the E3 convention were being run on high end PCs.