Category: Who knows

DrewM sent us a link this morning about the guy who supposedly fed the NSA’s data mining story to Glenn Greenwald last week. And while I do believe that the NSA has been collecting information on completely innocent American citizens inside our borders, I’m not sure this Snowden dude is who he says he is. We’ve applied for a FOIA on his records, but here are my impressions of what he says about his military career. First from the Guardian and Greenwald;

By his own admission, he was not a stellar student. In order to get the credits necessary to obtain a high school diploma, he attended a community college in Maryland, studying computing, but never completed the coursework. (He later obtained his GED.)

In 2003, he enlisted in the US army and began a training program to join the Special Forces. Invoking the same principles that he now cites to justify his leaks, he said: “I wanted to fight in the Iraq war because I felt like I had an obligation as a human being to help free people from oppression”.

He recounted how his beliefs about the war’s purpose were quickly dispelled. “Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone,” he said. After he broke both his legs in a training accident, he was discharged.

After that, he got his first job in an NSA facility, working as a security guard for one of the agency’s covert facilities at the University of Maryland. From there, he went to the CIA, where he worked on IT security. His understanding of the internet and his talent for computer programming enabled him to rise fairly quickly for someone who lacked even a high school diploma.

From the Army’s Special Forces recruiting page, the first three entries;

Qualifications

To become part of the Army’s Green Berets, you need to be mentally and physically tough, endure difficult training and face all challenges head-on. In addition to that, you must:

Be a male, age 20-30 (Special Forces positions are not open to women)
Be a U.S. citizen
Be a high school diploma graduate

He claims to be 29 now, so, in 2003 when he says he went through SF training, he was 19. He also didn’t have a high school diploma – so those two things disqualified him right there. He says that he “began a training program to join the Special Forces” which could mean anything really – since his training would have begun at BCT (Basic Combat Training), just the wording of that statement makes me think that he didn’t get anywhere near Camp Mackall. Looking at his picture, I don’t think I can imagine him on the 5 mile airport run at Mackall with a ruck packed with bricks.

Then he goes to tell how he thought he would be helping people, but the Army seemed more interested in killing Arabs. That makes me think that he was headed to a civil affairs job and he’s calling it “Special Forces” as we’ve seen phonies do in our pages. And yeah, in basic training they kinda teach new soldiers how to kill people who are intent on killing the new soldiers – hence the name “basic combat training”.

Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden’s leaks began to make news.

“I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,” he said. “There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”

He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed.

Serious lack of judgement, in that he “admires” Breanna Manning, the rotting corpse of Daniel Ellsberg and Sockpuppet Greenwald. Manning did what he did because he was mad at his boyfriend and Ellsberg clings to Manning hoping to become famous again. Greenwald is doing what Greenwald does best; sockpuppeting to defend himself.

We won’t know the true story about Snowden’s military career until we get his FOIA back, depending on whether or not the National Personnel Records Center wants to give it to us or not (they’re a little slow when the person we’re requesting is in the headlines), but since folks are asking me what I think – there it is – pure speculation.

ADDED:

Ranger Up has a new episode of “The Damn Few” up.  Since we normally post those here at TAH, well, here ya go.

Yeah, it’s Ranger Up and The Damn Few, so standard warnings apply:  language is NSFW, and it’s probably not safe to watch without headphones if children or overly-sensitive people are around or within earshot.

OK, you guys wore me down. I’ve been avoiding this subject since last night when someone sent us a link, but I’ve been getting a couple of “tips” every hour about Chris/Kristin Beck who wrote about his journey from Navy SEAL to woman. Yes, according to Don Shipley, Beck is indeed a former SEAL. Shipley’s exact words were “Only in the Navy….” So I figured that since I have nothing constructive to add to the discussion, but you guys seem eager to discuss it, here’s your opportunity. From the Washington Times;

Chris Beck served for 20 years on SEAL Team 6 — the same unit that ultimately raided bin Laden’s compound. He retired six months before the bin Laden raid, but nonetheless still went on 13 different deployments during his military career — seven of which sent him to combat areas — ultimately earning a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, the Daily Mail reported.

But something was amiss.

“Chris really wanted to be a girl and felt that she was a girl and consolidated that identity very early on in childhood,” said Anne Speckhard, who helped the soldier write a book, called “Warrior Princess,” the Daily Mail reported.

Just so long as he doesn’t do like Autumn Sandeen and starts wearing a female Navy uniform in public. By the way, that particular link comes with warning about how things you’ve seen can’t be unseen.

A number of you have been sending me stuff about this thirty-year Captain Terry Hestilow who has been raging around the country about the Department of Homeland Security buying up enough rounds to shoot us each five or so times. Now, personally, I don’t believe that DHS is planning on shooting us all, who would pay taxes if that happened, but I do think that its some brain storm scheme to control guns. But Hestilow is of the opinion that they’re planning on killing us all. A number of you thought he was faking something, well, not as far as I can tell. Initially I checked to see if there was a record of him and there was, so I’ve been fending off your inquiries with that little bit of information. Well Mary got his records;

It looks like he was an MP in Vietnam and then reclassified to Infantry at Fort Polk about the same time I was going to AIT there. Then he got commissioned in 1981 but he didn’t go to Infantry Officer Basic Course until 1983 then he spent two years or so at Fort Carson and then went to the Reserves. Then it looks like he went to Afghanistan with a Reserve unit.

His 2-1 looks odd because I’ve never seen an officer’s 2-1 which had assignments in their cadet battalions, but there his are. That makes me think that he typed his own 2-1 for some reason. But it is what it is. This is for your own edification. He’s not a phony as near as I can tell, but he’s also not someone who I would listen to based on his military career. It’s glaringly unremarkable, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but that photo at the top of this post is used across the internet as some sort of mark of authority.

If you’re still wondering who he is, there’s an excellent interview at Politichicks.

No, its not “Happy Memorial Day”, it’s just Memorial Day. Ex PH-2 sends us a screen shot of SSG Tim Chambers and the way he remembers the fallen and supports the living who remember at Rolling Thunder yesterday;

And there’s the Lee Brice song, “I Drive Your Truck”, that celebrates how Paul Monti remembers his son Jared Monti;