Archive for the 'Department of Defense' Category

Glenn Reynolds posted this on the U.S. Marine Corps.

 Marines Cancel Military Strategy Training Because the Instructor is a Christian.

The USMC scheduled an annual training for military lawyers earlier this month, at which the Battle of Gettysburg would be discussed. The instructor for one portion of that training was supposed to be Jay Lorenzen, an Air Force veteran who taught for 10 years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Lorenzen’s biography, provided to the military lawyers in advance of the training, included references to Christianity, including his affiliation with Campus Crusade for Christ, now known as Cru, and a couple of religious-themed courses he teaches in his spare time. Several of those lawyers complained to Mikey Weinstein, who heads up a secular, anti-Christian group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, that Lorenzen was going to teach about religion.

That allegation was false. It didn’t matter.

Says Glenn, “I remember when Marines were brave.”

How shameful and humiliating.  There is also this bit of nervous Nelly hand-wringing and self-righteous unction over the social acceptability of their practices.

Nearly 300 female Marines have moved into combat-arms jobs that were, up until less than five years ago, previously open only to men. But only one female officer has led a Marine infantry platoon so far.

Now, the Marine Corps is calling on female lieutenants and captains to consider making a lateral move into the infantry officer military occupational specialty. The decision would require women to attempt the arduous Infantry Officer Course, which prepares Marines to lead grunts in combat.

Two female Marines have passed the course so far. Women have been allowed to attempt it since 2012.

The Marine Corps put out a service-wide message this week soliciting female company-grade officers to volunteer to go infantry. The Infantry Officer Course is typically open to second lieutenants just out of The Basic School.

The push aligns with a priority Commandant Gen. David Berger set in February to get more women leading grunt units. Berger told Military.com earlier this year that he’s not only open to extending the opportunity to first lieutenants and captains, but also women who left active duty before the restrictions blocking them from serving in combat jobs were lifted.

Yes, let’s push this as hard as we can so we can see more women with broken pelvises, torn cartilage and dysfunctional lower extremities.

The Marine Corps Commandant, General David H. Berger, is a loser and an awful man.  He is unfit for duty.

With this kind of leadership, they deserve to become redundant to the army.

Reader and friend Joefour sends this think-piece from a Navy author about the MAGTF being the downfall of the USMC.

The MAGTF took the Marines from a specialized force (amphibious operations) and attempted to turn them into an all-purpose, do everything, force.  It’s not hard to imagine that the genesis of the concept was budget driven with the idea being that the more versatile the Corps, the more it would be called on and, therefore, the more it would be funded.

Unfortunately, the lack of focus led to the Marines being employed in all manner of situations for which they were not specialized.  They became just another army unit.

There was also an enormous opportunity cost associated with generalization.  The generalization and loss of focus on the core amphibious mission cost the Marines their institutional knowledge about amphibious assaults as they embarked on a decades long turn towards purely land warfare.  In recent years, Marine generals have proudly announced that the Marines are taking the first steps towards relearning amphibious assault.

Relearning?!!!?  It was your core mission.  How could you have lost it?  This is a sad commentary on Marine Corps leadership over the last couple of decades.

The loss of focus also meant that the technology, doctrine, and tactics of amphibious assault languished or was lost.  We wound up with doctrine calling for 25-50+ mile stand off assaults coupled with AAV/ACV landing craft that only had an effective range of a few miles – a mismatch of colossal proportions, to say the least.  By not maintaining focus on the core mission, the mission atrophied and was lost.

MAGTF also began the myopic focus on the aviation side of the Corps to the great detriment of the ground side.  Huge, questionable investments were made in the MV-22 and the F-35 with little or no supporting doctrinal or operational underpinning.  Again, it was a budget grab, pure and simple – an attempt to be all things in all situations instead being proudly specialized.

The Marines were once something special and respected.  Now, they’re just a poor, small copy of the Air Force and Army.  MAGTF destroyed the Marine Corps.

Or I should have said, “purported” think piece.  There is a lot of confusion in this analysis.

First of all, saying that the USMC is a poor copy of the Air Force and Army is beyond stupid, and could only be said by someone who has never been in ground combat with the Marines, Army or Air Force.

Second, I don’t think the author understands the concept of the MAGTF.  It isn’t, and was never intended to be, a tool to turn them into another massive ground force, if you will, the “big army.”

The MAGTF was always intended to keep control of all assets – Force Recon, infantry, armor, artillery, air support, other spec ops – under the complete control of a single chain of command, all reporting to a Colonel or Lt. General.  What the Marine Corps doesn’t like to do is rely on assets NOT under their immediate control to achieve the mission.  The MAGTF remedies that weakness.

That can even be true of assets not assigned to but not formally part of the USMC.  When the Marine Corps launched their operations into Helmand in earnest, army spec ops also participated, but it was made clear to them that they didn’t report to JSOC or SOCOM.  They reported to a Marine Corps general.  As long as they were fine with that, they could participate.  They were, and they did, and they reported only to the Marine Corps chain of command while assigned to that operation.

When the author says that the MAGTF caused this or caused that, he’s just making things up.  With all of that said, the author does hit on the major tingling nerve in the Marine Corps today, i.e., mission statement.

The Marine Corps Commandant has just recently stood down the Marine Corps tank battalions – completely.  They are no more.  I have no particular commitment to Marine Corps tank battalions, so I won’t comment in the positive or negative about this.

But he does indicate that he intends to go back to the amphibious roots.  But this, he means heavy-laden, large scale, and foolish beach assaults.  The author we cited also apparently wants the Marines to return to such a paradigm.

I’ve argued for years that the Marine Corps has never been able to get past their silly romance with Pacific beach landings in WWII, a romance that would prove deadly and ineffective in modern warfare.  It would be deadly for the Marines, and would be effective for nothing more than sending LCACs to the bottom of the ocean.

But they are “solders of the sea,” don’t you see, so for years they tried to push their ridiculous notions of the EFV (Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle) on Congress, after they had blown a wad of cash finally getting the Osprey off the ground and somewhat reliable.  Congress (correctly) refused to fund such a concept.

The idea was that they would use  Amphibious Transport Ships carrying F35s, LCACs, Ospreys, and a battalion of infantry, and be able to land anywhere within reach at the president’s order.  But why this concept?  That’s never explained.  Near peer states would easily be able to manage such a threat, and with drones, surface to ship missiles and air assets, the ships would be sunk before ever getting within reach.  The LCACs could be taken out with nearly commercial grade equipment, and if the EFVs ever did make it ashore, they would be alone.

If not a near peer actor, then who?  A troubled or failed state?  A place like Somolia?  Why would they outfit the Marines with such a heavy footprint (like they’re going to battle against Japanese in the South Pacific) for a failed state?

Specialized operators, UAVs, MilStar uplinks, and a whole host of other developments have made the sort of battle fought in the South Pacific irrelevant today.  Such a strategy would involve deaths on a scale not seen since then, and it’s improbable that the public would support such an adventure, likely seeing it as a misadventure instead.

To date, MEUs have been used primarily (or perhaps exclusively) for training and medical relief on humanitarian missions.  The claim is that they stand in ready should the president ever call.  The reality is that they have turned into a gigantic waste of money, resources and talent.

How did we get here?  As the demands of modern warfare caused development in training, equipment, TTPs, electronics, weapons systems and small arms, the Marine Corps got stuck in the South Pacific battling imaginary enemies.  And no, they aren’t going to engage in massive landings on or near China in disputed territory.  The public will not support something like that.

A half century ago, the Marine Corps could have seen this coming and jettisoned their romantic notions of massive beach landings.  They could have shrunk the size of the Corps and focused on more specialized missions.  Posted at TFB, “The Marine Corps Scout Sniper Schools are the best combined precision marksmanship and observation packages in the United States Military, Period.”

Every branch of the military has a combat diver course and qualification, and the Marine Corps Recon school is storied.  My own son took Scout Sniper training, as well as months of shoothouse and CQB training before deployment to Iraq.  Airborne school is still an option, and at least MARSOC is getting assigned to specialized schools like high altitude shooting in Nevada.

Four year enlistments could have been jettisoned in favor of six years or more, and specialized schools could have been pursued and developed in lieu of the idiotic EFV, Osprey and F35.  Insertion of troops could have been designed around improved air assets and HALO or LALO jumps.

Finally, the Marine Corps Commandant could have gotten his panties out of a wad over Marines being deployed in groups of under company size units (You see, they don’t trust their people without the proper chain of command, and don’t like mission failure, and so Marine Corps doctrine has always been opposed to distributed operations of fire team or squad size).

Instead of this, the country has turned to the Navy, and more specifically, the SEALs and then DEVGRU to perform air insertions, specialized operations and other highly secretive distributed operations across the globe.  There is no logical reason that it had to be the Navy – it could have been the Marine Corps who chose to pursue this path.  Frogmen will always be needed in the Navy.  But there is no logical reason that Frogmen had to become land operators.  This only happened because they saw the opportunity.

The Marine Corps didn’t because of their love affair with massive beach assaults and, apparently, death on a large scale.  No return to their core amphibious roots will save the Marine Corps from becoming irrelevant.

It doesn’t really matter at this point anyway.  The DoD’s focus on women in combat billets, race relations, LGBT parades, and sensitivity training will ruin what’s left anyway.  My son believes with the current state of affairs, there is no way America could fight and win against a near peer state if the majority of the fighting is on the ground.

The Marine Corps made him and other Iraq veterans feel unwelcome and let them go.  Big army is too slow and infected with political correctness to respond quickly or effectively (Have you seen basic training at Fort Jackson?  And did they ever call the shooting at Fort Hood anything other than “workplace violence?”).

The Navy is crashing ships into other ships and letting fires ruin their assets.  The Air Force is too taken with their love affair with 5GW to think about support for ground combat troops (oh, wait, is the proper term now Mosaic Warfare?).  I want to make sure I get the terms correct.  Otherwise, it won’t sound smart and informed to the brass.

In my opinion, it’s really a sad state of affairs.  It’s not the fault of the DoD.  It’s the fault of America, a country coming apart at the seams.  The DoD is just a reflection of the country.

Via reddit/firearms.

I actually cannot find this particular tweet, but there are others very similar to it.

Actually, if you look at his political musings along with his constant criticism of his CiC, I wonder that the USMC let’s him stay active and doesn’t prosecute him under the UCMJ.

It should also be noted that he doesn’t believe in the oath of enlistment.  He’s a liar.

If he really is an active Marine, then the Corps has changed so drastically since my son got out that I don’t recognize it any more.

This is shameful.  Shameful to the USMC, that is.

UPDATE: David Codrea sends the link in question.

Here’s my AR-15. I repeat, this is NOT a everyday gun for everyday citizens.

PS: I look forward to the day when this gun becomes illegal. And I also look forward to the day when I’ll turn it in — honoring all those innocent lives, including children that could‘ve still been here pic.twitter.com/4Z6lvbITDM

— MuslimMarine (@mansoortshams) July 12, 2020

From John Guandolo at Understanding The Threat.

This morning, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Milley, U.S. Army, publicly came against the President of the United States and apologized for being with President Trump when he walked to St. John’s Church in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. and held up a bible.

This behavior should be understood as an act of treason and sedition as General Milley’s comments are not only regurgitations of communist narratives, but directly contradict his duty under his oath to crush insurrections against the United States as the senior U.S. military leader under the direction of the President.  However, General Milley is clueless about the communist and Islamic Counter-State operations in America which makes him ignorant of the very things he is required to know under professional standards of conduct.

Milley’s comments come on the heals of similar traitorous remarks by General Mattis, Admiral Mullen, and Secretary of Defense Esper.

UTT’s recommendation prior to President Trump’s inauguration was that every military officer with stars on their shoulders be fired.  A Lieutenant Colonel leading the miltary services could not possibly make things worse than general officers who were and are at the helm as America lost wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere because they were too unprofessional to actually know or even try to know the enemy.

Firing all of the generals would have been a good start, as well as never hiring Kelly or Mattis to do their jobs.

News from the land of controllers.

Nearly 10% of asymptomatic Bostonians have coronavirus antibodies, and more than 2% of that same apparently healthy group actually currently has the virus, according to the results of a sampling study done in several Boston neighborhoods.

“In conclusion, approximately 1 in 10 residents in this study have developed antibodies and approximately 1 in 40 currently asymptomatic individuals are positive for COVID-19 and potentially infectious,” the city said in a news release Friday morning.

The study, by Boston, Massachusetts General Hospital and the Boston Public Health Commission, involved what the city says is a representative sample of asymptomatic Bostonians, testing 750 residents and city employees over the past couple of weeks in East Boston, Roslindale and Dorchester for COVID-19 and the antibodies that suggest that a person already had it — and is now potentially immune to reinfection.

Oh, I suspect way more than that have already been exposed, infected with it, shed it, and had no symptoms at all and didn’t even know they had it.

While I’m at it, I’ve seen reports that the U.S. military is planning to reject applicants who were at one time diagnosed as having had SARS-CoV-2.  So if someone has gotten it, shed it, never even knew they had it, and has the antibodies for it, the U.S. military plans on rejecting them.

That sounds profoundly stupid to me, but right in line with the stupidity I usually associate with the Department of Defense.

From a reader, Army.mil.

Chaplain Shabazz: The issues involving religious accommodation during the month of Ramadan typically occur in three areas: training exercises in the field; physical training; and proper hydration. Commanders can help Muslims Soldiers fulfill their religious requirements during Ramadan by accommodating them in a couple of ways.

First, when possible, commanders can allow Muslim Soldiers to participate in light duty when on an exercise or in the field, as opposed to strenuous duty.

Second, they can grant liberal leave during part or all of the 30-day fasting period, and grant practicing Muslim Soldiers three days of leave for Eid-Al-Fitr, the celebration that ends the 30-day fast of Ramadan.

Third, commanders can exempt Muslim Soldiers from physical training or grant them limited time outdoors during the fasting period. It’s important to keep in mind that Soldiers will spend approximately 16 hours with no food or water during daylight hours, so ensuring proper hydration is a serious concern.

Finally, commanders can allow observing Muslim Soldiers time to observe the five daily prayers at a Mosque or at a designated prayer location during this time.

HuffPo.

The Pentagon took steps on Wednesday to give individual troops greater latitude to wear turbans, head scarfs, yarmulkes and other religious clothing with their uniforms, but advocacy groups said the new policy fell short of what they were seeking.

Question: If you tried really hard to come up with ideas that would break unit cohesion, tear asunder the readiness and morale of the U.S. military, and create a circus freak show atmosphere, what would you do any differently than what they’re doing (and have been doing with gender bending)?

The Epoch Times.

Under the simple-minded President George W. Bush and the feckless President Barack Obama, as well as the peacetime generals whose conduct of the war will live in infamy, the U.S. military has been subjected to the greatest humiliation in its long and storied history.

It should have been asked to finish—decisively, quickly, and definitively, just as British Gen. Herbert Kitchener crushed the Mahdist forces at Omdurman in 1898—the conflict that began on 9/11; instead it has been turned into an instrument of “social justice,” a meals-on-wheels, three-cups-of-tea aggregation of sitting ducks, one held in open, murderous contempt by an armed rabble of primitive, superstitious, dog-hating goatherds.

Yep.  That sounds about right.  I had suggested that they drop Marines and Rangers at the border with Pakistan and let the Northern Alliance drive them to their deaths as they tried to cross the border, putting them in a pincer.  Then they could have put the Northern Alliance in charge and left.

Instead, they wanted anti-American Pashtuns in charge, and tried to test out their “three cups of tea” social workers with guns counterinsurgency bullshit.  And American boys perished for it.

And don’t even get me started on Iraq, or how they let the lawyers fight Americans as the Americans tried to stay alive.  There will be many men who stand before God and answer for the deaths of Americans on fields of battle in foreign misadventures.

It works.  The Marines and Soldiers love it.  It’s a life saver.  It’s the greatest close air support aircraft ever built. It isn’t a “fifth generation warfare” F-35, so the flybois don’t want it.

Of course.

This is a long but good interview.  If you don’t have time for the entire video, watch 1:27 – 1:34.

We all know that there were other assets to respond to Benghazi, and we’ve covered that in the past.  But here we learn straight from the guy who was there after the event that he had a “full platter” of potential responses for the perps, including kill-capture.

He was told that the political climate was “too sensitive” and we weren’t going to do anything.  Presumably because the cover-up (i.e., blaming it on a ridiculous video) was still in progress by the Obama administration.  You also learn from him that it was often said that there were no dangers in Libya prior to that event, and he clearly says he got the sitreps and knew there were many threats.

Threats that left the U.S. unprepared, all by intent.

Via David Codrea, this kid thinks he knows something.

Perhaps the biggest factor that stands between modern America and another civil war is obvious: the armed forces. Prior to the American Civil War in 1860, the U.S. military consisted of a mere 16,000 men. As the civil war broke out, one in five of the U.S. Army’s officers resigned to join the confederacy, leaving the armed forces too small and powerless to put a stop to what was occurring. Such a thing would be impossible today with how vast and expansive America’s military is now. The groups vowing to rally around Trump if he should be impeached, such as the Oath Keepers and United Constitutional Patriots, are unauthorized and scarce in number, making them a minor threat to America’s military.

Oh.  Is that how it works?  “Unathorized?”  In other news, the democrat house is spending time on making sure the U.S. military is a welcoming place for folks confused about their gender.

Nothing says “Thanks for your service” like ignoring the needs of U.S. troops. But apparently, that’s the most our military can hope for under Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) majority. While the president tries to deal with conflicts around the globe, contain the threats from ISIS and rogue nations like North Korea, you’ll be relieved to know that the House is hard at work on its most important mission: ushering into the military people who are in conflict over their biological sex. And they’re willing to tie up the most important bill of the year to do it.

In yet more recent news, the U.S. military has been buying Chinese-made cameras for their rifles.

Federal agents refrained from naming the Chinese manufacturers involved. But over the years, Aventura received shipments from more than 40 different suppliers in China. The network surveillance equipment also suffered from publicly known vulnerabilities documented by the Department of Homeland Security that could pave the way for remote takeovers.

Well then.  I guess the Chinese can watch while the U.S. military tries to keep the peace across 3.8 million square miles of land in the case of any trouble.  That is, unless they’re not using rifles because they’re in mutilation surgery.