Category: US Military

This seems a pretty bold and sweeping statement from someone who has never served in the military.  Until one of these critics advocates for equal physical fitness standards between male and female soldiers their criticism of bias against females has little creditability.  I don’t think there is a more fair organization for women and minorities than the US military:

Corporate America and the military are sexist and show racial bias, a leading businesswoman told cadets Friday at the Air Force Academy.

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and author of the book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” told a crowd of nearly 3,000 cadets that society tells women they are less competent and capable. She described the military as one of “the worst” organizations for bias during a 30-minute speech.

“Women and minorities face barriers white men don’t face,” she said.

Sandberg has become a leading figure of modern feminism with arguments that women should fill half of corporate boardroom seats and men should do half the stay-at-home child rearing. Detractors have said that Sandberg’s Lean In pitch shatters traditional gender roles driven by biology and that her perspective is one borne of privilege, as a wealthy technology entrepreneur.  [The Gazette]

You can read the rest at the link.

This report from the American Psychological Association I take with a bit of skepticism just like I do all the other so called surveys done on military sexual assault.  Just like prior surveys this one also uses the vague term “Unwanted Sexual Contact”.  I have had women grab my butt in the bar before so does that make me a victim of sexual assault that was unreported?  There is a big different between rape and someone grabbing your butt in the bar, but these surveys tend to equate the two which inflates the number.  This survey is no different:

A study has found that up to 15 times more men in the military are being raped by other man than is being reported by the Pentagon.

The report, released by the American Psychological Association on Tuesday, is based on the responses of 180 anonymous combat veterans.

It says the under-reporting is largely due to the stigma associated with sexual assaults and is the reason that the true extent of male-on-male sexual crimes is so vastly underestimated.

The Washington Times reported that most recent Pentagon sexual assault report, conducted by The Rand Corp last year, found that around 12,000 men said they had been sexually assaulted.

The definition of sexual assault means they had been raped, experienced unwanted sexual contact or someone had attempted to commit those crimes.

Of that number, around a third – 3,850 reported rape or ‘penetrative’ assaults.

But the APA said: ‘Rates of military sexual trauma among men who served in the military may be as much as 15 times higher than has been previously reported, largely because of barriers associated with stigma, beliefs in myths about male rape and feelings of helplessness.’   [The Daily Mail via reader tip]

You can read the rest at the link.

Here is a pretty cool story about a US Marine who was seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan and before having her leg amputated decided to walk across the UK with Prince Harry cheering her on:

But among the small group of warriors drawing breath at the special reception laid on for them, none should feel more proud than Kirstie Ennis, an Afghan veteran like Harry, and the sole woman to take part in the 72-day expedition.

She is lucky to be alive. Surgeons have practically rebuilt her in the course of 38 separate operations. She has somehow covered the extraordinary distance on a leg so damaged and painful that her medical team insists it should be amputated – and it will be removed once today’s final agonising mission is complete.
It is just three years since the slender blonde was told she would never walk again. In fact, so exemplary is Kirstie’s determination that she and the Prince have forged a remarkable bond in the past few weeks, when Harry joined 24-year-old Kirstie and the other walkers on their journey.  [Daily Mail]

You can read the rest at the link, but I wish Kirstie all the best as she continues her recovery from her injuries

The Atlantic has a long article published about how the United States has become a Chickenhawk Nation.  The author believes the American public doesn’t mind going to war as long as it doesn’t involve them.  He believes this mentality is what is allowing the endless warfare we find ourselves currently in to continue:

Too much complacency regarding our military, and too weak a tragic imagination about the consequences if the next engagement goes wrong, have been part of Americans’ willingness to wade into conflict after conflict, blithely assuming we would win. “Did we have the sense that America cared how we were doing? We did not,” Seth Moulton told me about his experience as a marine during the Iraq War. Moulton became a Marine Corps officer after graduating from Harvard in 2001, believing (as he told me) that when many classmates were heading to Wall Street it was useful to set an example of public service. He opposed the decision to invade Iraq but ended up serving four tours there out of a sense of duty to his comrades. “America was very disconnected. We were proud to serve, but we knew it was a little group of people doing the country’s work.”

Moulton told me, as did many others with Iraq-era military experience, that if more members of Congress or the business and media elite had had children in uniform, the United States would probably not have gone to war in Iraq at all. Because he felt strongly enough about that failure of elite accountability, Moulton decided while in Iraq to get involved in politics after he left the military. “I actually remember the moment,” Moulton told me. “It was after a difficult day in Najaf in 2004. A young marine in my platoon said, ‘Sir, you should run for Congress someday. So this shit doesn’t happen again.’ ” In January, Moulton takes office as a freshman Democratic representative from Massachusetts’s Sixth District, north of Boston.

What Moulton described was desire for a kind of accountability. It is striking how rare accountability has been for our modern wars. Hillary Clinton paid a price for her vote to authorize the Iraq War, since that is what gave the barely known Barack Obama an opening to run against her in 2008. George W. Bush, who, like most ex-presidents, has grown more popular the longer he’s been out of office, would perhaps be playing a more visible role in public and political life if not for the overhang of Iraq. But those two are the exceptions. Most other public figures, from Dick Cheney and Colin Powell on down, have put Iraq behind them. In part this is because of the Obama administration’s decision from the start to “look forward, not back” about why things had gone so badly wrong with America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But such willed amnesia would have been harder if more Americans had felt affected by the wars’ outcome. For our generals, our politicians, and most of our citizenry, there is almost no accountability or personal consequence for military failure. This is a dangerous development—and one whose dangers multiply the longer it persists.

Ours is the best-equipped fighting force in history, and it is incomparably the most expensive. By all measures, today’s professionalized military is also better trained, motivated, and disciplined than during the draft-army years. No decent person who is exposed to today’s troops can be anything but respectful of them and grateful for what they do.

Yet repeatedly this force has been defeated by less modern, worse-equipped, barely funded foes. Or it has won skirmishes and battles only to lose or get bogged down in a larger war.  [The Atlantic]

You can read the whole article at the link, but I think the author is correct that if the kids of the elite in this country had to face being drafted we probably would not be in as many conflicts as we are now.  With that said I do not agree with his viewpoint that the US military has been defeated by less foes.  The US military did not make the strategy to invade Iraq, politicians did.  When invading Iraq the military was not sourced for a long term occupation once again because of political considerations.  When General Shinseki spoke up about this he was strongly rebuked by the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.  Also the US military did not make the decision to withdraw from Iraq which led to the current ISIS occupation, politicians did and now the US military is back trying to put a band-aid on a poor strategic decision.

The bottomline is that the US military is only as good as the strategy they are given by the political leadership to execute.

The Economist has an article published that discusses why the US military has had a hard time recruiting and how military generals have too much power:

Seasonal factors, including a strengthening labour market and negative media coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have widened the gulf. So have the dismal standards of education and physical fitness that prevail in modern American society. At a time of post-war introspection, these factors raise two big questions. The first concerns America’s ability to hold to account a military sector its leaders feel bound to applaud, but no longer competent to criticise. Andrew Bacevich, a former army officer, academic and longstanding critic of what he terms the militarism of American society, derides that support as “superficial and fraudulent”. Sanctified by politicians and the public, he argues, the army’s top brass have been given too much power and too little scrutiny, with the recent disastrous campaigns, and similarly profligate appropriations, the almost inevitable result. The second question raised by the civil-military disconnect is similarly fundamental: it concerns America’s future ability to mobilise for war.  [The Economist]

You can read the rest at the link, but according to one military official the amount of obese potential recruits is the biggest recruiting challenge currently.  As far as the military brass having too much power, I would also disagree with this, they are executing the strategy given to them from the White House.  If strategy is flawed the military campaign will be flawed as well.  As far appropriations Congress is just as much to blame as the military brass who help keep flawed acquisitions programs going because of the jobs they provide in their district.

Here is the latest reason that US servicemembers and their DoD civilian counterparts are at threat of not receiving a paycheck next month:

Congress was poised Tuesday to send an annual defense policy bill to President Barack Obama, setting up a showdown that could leave the Department of Defense without a budget and hundreds of thousands of federal employees facing furloughs.

Obama will have until Halloween to decide whether to make good on his repeated threats to veto the National Defense Authorization Act, which lays out military pay and benefits. This year, the bill also includes an historic reform of the 20-year pension system, hikes in Tricare fees, protections for the A-10 Thunderbolt II and a review of troops carrying personal guns on bases.

A veto could throw the whole defense budget into uncertainty, with Congress scrambling to come up with a new plan by Dec. 11 when the current temporary budget expires. The DOD said troops would not receive paychecks and about 400,000 civilians would be furloughed if defense spending is not resolved by then.

Republicans rallied Tuesday in an effort to paint Obama and his veto threat as an obstacle to defense priorities despite increasingly threats around the world.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but I would be surprised if some last minute deal isn’t worked out because it would seem to be political suicide for anyone that allows this happen.

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