Category: US Military

One retired Army general is claiming everything is bigger in Texas to include the waistlines of its kids:

The average of Texas young adults ineligible to serve their county is higher than the national average, a report states.

Retired Army Brigadier General Joe E. Ramirez Jr., also Commandant of Texas A&M University’s Corps of Cadets, said the leading reason behind ineligibility is applicants are overweight and generally unhealthy.

In Texas, 73 percent of young adults can’t serve. The national average is about 30 percent.

“It’s been a problem for a while,” he said. “Our country is getting bigger and that concerns a lot of us.”

As part of a statewide speaking tour, Ramirez visited Flour Bluff and West Oso high schools this week to discuss obesity’s impact on the military and ways to improve children’s health in the state. He used talking points from a report by the nonprofit Mission: Readiness titled “Too Fat, Frail and Out-of-Breath to Fight.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but that is pretty amazing statistic if true.

The University of Phoenix has long had low education outcomes for its graduates and is currently under investigation by the FCC, but what appears to have finally gotten the university on the bad side of the US military is its use of “challenge coins”:

The Pentagon temporarily has barred the University of Phoenix from recruiting students at U.S. military bases and will not let new active-duty troops receive tuition assistance for the for-profit giant’s courses.

The move is another blow to the University of Phoenix, which said it is under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and California Attorney General Kamala Harris related to recruitment of members of the U.S. military and the California National Guard.

Apollo Education Group, the university’s parent, said the Defense Department notified it of the move this week.

The university’s participation in the department’s tuition-assistance program has been placed on probation in part because of the FTC and California investigations, the filing said.

Military members who are enrolled in university courses can continue to receive tuition assistance, but new enrollees or transfers will not be allowed, the filing said.  [Stars & Stripes]

Here is the part about the challenge coins:

But the Apollo Group filing said another reason cited by the Defense Department in its letter was the university’s sponsorship of “various events at military installations” without the proper approval and the distribution of so-called “challenge coins” without approval to use trademarks.

Challenge coins are small coins popular in the military as signs of membership in service branches and are given to promote morale. They have emblems of military service branches.

Apollo said the university “immediately discontinued the use of challenge coins” in July after the Defense Department raised objections. And Apollo said it has discussed the issue of approval for events at military bases with the Defense Department and noted all previous events had been approved by base officials.

You can read the rest at the link, but the University of Phoenix is far from the only for profit school that makes a lot of money off of federal and US military dollars with little education outcomes for its students.

This just goes to show how important B-52’s based out of Guam are to supporting deterrence on the Korean peninsula:

The U.S. Pacific forces commander requested that an additional six B-52 bombers remain on Guam in August when military tensions were running high on the Korean Peninsula, according to a U.S. military commander.

Gen. Robin Rand, commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, revealed the request during a House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday, explaining the roles the U.S. strategic bombers play in defending the country and its allies.

“Most recently, in North Korea, when there was a flareup back in August, we had our six B-52s that have been on a continuous bomber presence at Guam for the last decade nonstop, and we are in the middle of a swapout. Six were going in to replace the six that were there,” Rand said.

“And the PACOM commander immediately contacted the Joint Staff and Air Force Global Strike and said, ‘Could we leave those six additional B-52s longer? We really like the presence,'” he said, referring to Pacific Command commander Adm. Harry Harris.

Rand did not say whether the request was accepted and the additional six bombers had remained there.

In another example, the general also said that in 2013, B-52s and B-2s flew nonstop to South Korea and dropped training ordnance on a bombing range as a show of force against North Korea when the communist nation ratcheted up tensions with near-daily threats of war against the South and the U.S.  [Yonhap]

https://twitter.com/thejointstaff/status/647129992745340929

That is what the commandant of the US Coast Guard had to say recently:

The United States Coast Guard maintains “a significant force package” as part of a war plan for North Korea under which all vessels and servicemembers would be deployed, the commandant of the U.S. body said Wednesday.

“We have a campaign plan that addresses North Korea and what forces do we need to bring to bear in the advance,” Adm. Paul Zukunft of the U.S. Coast Guard said in an interview with a small group of reporters in Seoul.

“I cannot elaborate, but I will state that the Coast Guard has a significant force package, ships and coastguardsmen on our part of the campaign plan, which will augment the overall force for a campaign with North Korea,” the four-star commander said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I guess it is okay to wear the uniform to support social causes now:

What was supposed to be a photo to decorate the 1st Armored Division’s room for nursing mothers has gone viral online.

The photo, taken Thursday at Fort Bliss, Texas, shows 10 soldiers in uniform breastfeeding their children.

“We are officially trending on Facebook. It’s crazy,” said Tara Ruby, the photographer behind the image and a former airman who is married to a soldier.

“Today I believe we made history,” Ruby wrote on her Facebook page. “To my knowledge, a group photo to show support of active-duty military mommies nursing their littles has never been done. It is so nice to see support for this here at Fort Bliss.”  [Army Times]

You can read more at the link.

151 years ago, General Sherman gave America its best definition of war http://t.co/a77zK5otZO pic.twitter.com/u0jVxDvIGb

— Task & Purpose (@TaskandPurpose) September 12, 2015

Here is a feel good story about a Korean adoptee and US soldier stationed at Camp Casey who found her biological family in South Korea:

Sgt. Faith Vazquez calls Defiance, Ohio, home, but she also lived in Hawaii and other duty stations with her mother and Navy father. Her then-childless parents adopted her through a Seoul agency when she was 4 months old.

“I never grew up feeling adopted,” said Vazquez, 23, American Forces Network detachment commander at Camp Casey.

She joined the Army after high school graduation. Her first assignment was a one-year tour at South Korea’s Yongsan Garrison.

Vazquez yearned to know more about her heritage but let her tour pass without searching for her origins. “I was 18, and I didn’t feel mentally ready,” she said.

She then set off for three years at Fort Riley, Kan., where her husband now serves in the Army.

She returned to South Korea for a one-year unaccompanied tour in October, conflicted over whether to seek her birth family. She didn’t want to slight her adoptive parents.

But with an adopted co-worker’s encouragement, she contacted the Seoul agency that processed her adoption. Within weeks, the agency phoned: “Faith, we’ve found your family.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

The Stars & Stripes profiled a book released this month by Megan MacKenzie titled “Beyond the Band of Brothers: The U.S. Military and the Myth that Women Can’t Fight”.  Here is the part of the article that shows this author knows little about what she is advocating for:

MacKenzie acknowledges differences between the sexes but objects to them being cited as evidence of women’s inferiority for combat positions.

“It’s starting to get old,” she said. “We keep going back to women and men are different but ignoring that warfare is also different and physical standards also potentially need to be adapted. Most militaries around the world are adapting the physical standards because war has changed so much. Just basing standards around measuring the fitness of an average 23-year-old male doesn’t tell us much about whether someone can be a combat soldier.”

Debate over physical standards also ignores that in recent years many women have been in de facto combat positions, particularly those who were in cultural support teams attached to Special Forces and Ranger teams in Afghanistan, she said. Many received combat-action badges. Some were wounded. Two died during direct-action raids.  [Stars & Stripes]

Unless exo-skeletons are invented fitness will remain a top requirement for an infantry soldier.  Serving in the infantry is physically hard and women are at a biological disadvantage.  I have no doubt that the few exceptions like 1LT Shaye Haver and CPT Kristen Griest who recently graduated from Ranger School would be welcomed in the infantry if that is what they wanted to do.

MacKenzie like other advocates before her also continue to cite female engagement teams as evidence women can serve in the infantry and special forces.  Female engagement teams did not do the grinding daily work of infantrymen and special forces; they had their purpose and they executed it well and their purpose was not to do infantry work.  Also being in a combat position and earning a CAB is also not evidence that someone can serve in the infantry.  She is basically making an argument that sounds good to people who have never served in the military before, but those of us who have served know better.

If at your next SHARP training session you get taught that it is not okay for you to go to spouses in your unit and kiss them on the lips this is why:

As Congress wrangled with the growing clamor over sexual misconduct in the military in 2013, a Fort Bragg commander made it a practice to give the wives of subordinates unwelcome kisses on the lips at public events.

After an anonymous letter was sent to the commander’s superiors, a subsequent investigation led to his removal from his job. But he stayed in the military and was allowed to quietly retire in April 2015 – more than two years after the initial complaint about his conduct.

An Army investigation – triggered by an anonymous letter to Lt. Gen. Daniel Allyn, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps at the time – reveals that Col. Chad McRee, former commander of the 16th Military Police Brigade, violated five of eight core expectations for Army leaders, made inappropriate remarks toward officers and noncommissioned officers and was unfairly authoritative toward Family Readiness Group members, officers and noncommissioned officers. [Fayetteville Observer]

You have to read the whole thing at the link to appreciate how outrageous this Colonel and his wife’s behavior was in regards to spouses in their unit.