Category Archives: The Troops

If You Like Your Base Closings…

9 Replies

Chuck Hagel AfghanistanYou can keep your base closings.

The “president” has broken yet another campaign promise. This time, he is reneging on his vow to not close any more military bases. It’s strange, because this guy has always been very pro-military.

President Obama is backtracking from his campaign promise that “I don’t think now is the time” for another round of military base closures across the country.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday presented the $526 billion defense budget request for fiscal 2014, which explicitly calls for shutting down facilities in a process called Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC).

“BRAC is the only effective means of achieving infrastructure consolidation,” the Pentagon said. “This BRAC round adds $2.4 billion to costs in the next five years but would eventually save substantial sums. The actual closing of bases would involve a multiyear process that would not start until 2016, after the economy is projected to have more fully recovered.”

I’m actually all for base closings. It’s not like we’re facing any external threats right now.

The Best Story You’ll See All Month

Brenadan MarroccoMeet Brendan Marrocco.

In 2009, Brendan was serving in Iraq when he was injured by a roadside bomb. He lost all four limbs after the blast.

Doctors at Johns Hopkins performed a double-arm transplant, and so far, it looks like Marrocco is (slowly) progressing.

In my opinion, the surgery couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.

The first soldier to survive after losing all four limbs in the Iraq war has undergone an experimental double-arm transplant.

New York resident, Brendan Marrocco, 26, underwent the operation on December 18th at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, according to his father who confirmed the operation. He also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms – a new approach aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

Completely and utterly awesome. Let’s hope he makes a quick recovery.

Thunderstruck

F35 Joint Strike FighterEggheads at Lockheed Martin have found a tiny “issue” with the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

It’s not cleared to fly in bad weather.

It’s considered to be the world’s most sophisticated super-fighter jet, but Britain’s new £150 million combat aircraft has been banned from flying in bad weather for fears it could explode. Engineers working on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter have found the jet’s fuel tank could explode if hit by lightning.

According to reports, the aircraft, which is hoped to enter service for both the RAF and the Royal Navy in five years’ time, has also been made more vulnerable to enemy attack than the aircraft it is set to replace, after its weight was reduced in an attempt to increase fuel efficiency.

So, what’s the problem? We’ll just start all our wars on bright, sunshiny days! Besides, the government has top men working on it now. Top. Men.

The Naked Gun

Because I don’t throw out teh hotness to my female readers nearly enough . . .

A group of Royal Marines have quite literally ‘gone commando’ – by launching a raunchy charity calendar. Serving members of 40 Commando RM in Taunton, Somerset, stripped off to raise money for an armed forces’ charity before being posted to Afghanistan.

The calendar is for the ‘Go Commando’ charity, which was founded in 2010 to provide support to serving Royal Marines and their families. Authorities gave them the green light and it is hoped the 2013 calendar will help the charity with its target of raising £50,000.

Pfft, I could look like that. I just don’t want to.

Military Absentee Ballots Burned In Crash

Forget showing an ID; this is the dictionary definition of voter disenfranchisement!

Federal officials say that absentee ballots being sent to U.S. military serving in Afghanistan may have been burned in a plane crash.

A top official in the Federal Voting Assistance Program this week notified election officials across the nation that a transport plane crashed at Shindad Air Base on Oct. 19.

But they recommended that election officials resend a new ballot to anyone who requested one since the first ballot may have been destroyed in the crash and fire.

It’s ironic that the men and women who risk their lives fighting to protect our rights are having theirs interrupted.

Help For The Fallen

Lost somewhat in the outrage of the Benghazi attacks were the two SEALs murdered alongside Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Here is a chance to help their families.

Our president may be a self-interested narcissist who goes to campaign and fund raise in Vegas when Americans under his watch are dying in Libya, but you and I can behave differently. My wife Sheryl Longin and I just sent a small check to the Ty Woods Memorial Account (c/o The Irving Group, 4320 La Jolla Village Drive, San Diego, CA 92122) to help the family of the former SEAL who died in the Benghazi terror attack. Woods has a widow and a baby son.

The address at the link is via my friend Hugh Hewitt. Others have risen to the challenge, among them Dick Morris. Our readers can do no less.

There’s information to help Glen Doherty, the other SEAL killed, below the fold.

Continue reading →

Marine Helps Boy Get A Leg Up

Considering all of the lousy news in the world this week, I wanted to post something uplifting to start the weekend.

11-year-old [Ben Baltz] had completed the 150-yard swim and three-mile bike ride in Sunday’s Sea Turtle Tri on Pensacola Beach, but about a half-mile into the run, he knew something was wrong.

“It (the leg) wobbles,” Ben said Wednesday at his home in Valparaiso.

Moments later, the screws on his prosthetic leg came loose and he went down. In the moments Ben was debating whether he could hop or maybe crawl the rest of the mile, a man named Matthew Morgan, a Marine who had volunteered to help at the youth event, stepped in.

You’ve simply must read the rest below the fold.

Continue reading →

Air (Raid) Jordan

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the U.S. is sending troops to Jordan, in order to help protect that country’s border.

Will someone please explain this move to me? Why there? Why now? Does Jordan not have a military?

The United States has sent military troops to the Jordan-Syria border to bolster that country’s military capabilities in the event that violence escalates along its border with Syria.

Speaking at a NATO conference of defense ministers in Brussels, Panetta said the U.S. has been working with Jordan to monitor chemical and biological weapons sites in Syria and also to help Jordan deal with refugees pouring over the border from Syria. The troops are also building a headquarters for themselves.

But the revelation of U.S. military personnel so close to the 19-month-old Syrian conflict suggests an escalation in the U.S. military involvement in the conflict, even as Washington pushes back on any suggestion of a direct intervention in Syria. It also follows several days of shelling between Turkey and Syria, an indication that the civil war could spill across Syria’s borders and become a regional conflict.

Oh, I get it; we’re sending troops there now because when (not if) World War III breaks out, we will already be ensconced in the fighting. We’re all frakkin’ doomed.

HEL On Wheels

Meet the HEL MD; the first viable land-based laser weapon. This is the first step toward getting sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their frickin’ heads.

Boeing has announced that it has successfully mounted a 10kw solid-state laser on an eight-wheeled, 500-horsepower truck that could be used alongside conventional Army forces.

The High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HEL MD) is now ready for field testing and over the next year will have a chance to show off its ability to acquire, track and destroy targets.

It is hoped that the new weapon can be used to defend ground forces against rockets, artillery shells, missiles and unmanned drones by destroying threats with a beam of super-powered light energy.

Wow, I think I just had my first real orgasm. I wonder if we could silence Justin Bieber with this thing?