It looks like the US Army has found themselves four more volunteers for the drawdown:

Four soldiers from Fort Carson are in custody after a home invasion.

Police said there was a disturbance involving four suspects, one of whom was armed with a gun, at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in the 1100-block of Verde Drive in Colorado Springs.

“The suspect with the gun threatened to shot [sic] the family and was demanding property from the victims,” Colorado Springs police said. “After the victims refused to provide the property the suspects left, and threatened to return.”

Instead, police said, the suspects turned themselves in at around 11:30 p.m. Sunday. Dustin Mincy, Mykal Hall, Aaron Hall, Roman Alred were arrested on suspicion of burglary, felony menacing and child abuse, police said.

The family of four, including two small children, were not injured, police said.  [Channel 7 News]

I would not be surprised if there is more to this story considering they turned themselves in right after committing the home invasion.

USS Ronald Reagan back at Yokosuka, Japan after a 7-week trip, mostly in the South China Sea. #USNavy @Gipper_76 pic.twitter.com/POu4cQMVGp

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) July 26, 2016

Braving the drizzly rain and holding up the flags of the 67 nations that supported South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, members of a local pro-peace civic group march in a street in central Seoul on July 27, 2016, to express their gratitude to the countries. The march was timed with the 63rd anniversary of the signing of a truce that ended the conflict. (Yonhap)

I am glad to hear General Brooks say this because this is something that the left wing activists are implying that the US Army is intentionally letting its soldiers be exposed to dangerous electromagnetic waves which is not true:

U.S. Forces Korea Commander Vincent Brooks on Wednesday dismissed South Koreans’ concerns over health risks linked to the advanced missile interception system that will be deployed in the country by the end of 2017.

Despite efforts by the government to allay health risk concerns associated with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and its powerful radar, some residents of Seongju have called on the government to reconsider its decision. The county, located 296 kilometers southeast of Seoul, has been tapped to host the country’s first THAAD battery.

“None will be closer to the (THAAD) system than my soldiers. I would not recklessly endanger them under the circumstances where they are protecting someone else (in South Korea),” the commander told reporters after attending the 63rd anniversary of the Korean War Armistice Agreement held at the truce village of Panmunjom.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the health risks have already been proven to be false when reporters had an opportunity to travel to Guam and see electromagnetic waves readings from the THAAD battery stationed there.  The readings showed the electromagnetic waves were well below what is required by Korean law.

It looks commanders will have another vehicle to choose from to meet mission requirements:

Now after 25 years in service it is apparent the Humvee can’t do it all. It won’t exactly be the end of the road for the Humvee, but the military may be putting drivers behind the wheel of other, more versatile alternative vehicles.

“Many of these units will start to be phased out by the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) made by Oshkosh,” added Frost & Sullivan’s Curran. “In addition, special operations command operates various small engine and electrical vehicles made by recreational off road makers like Polaris and others.”

The JLTV isn’t the first vehicle to offer an alternative option to the Humvee – as the military already has the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected or MRAP, the special armored vehicles that were designed to counter land mines. From 2007 until 2012 some 12,000 MRAPs were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just as the MRAP didn’t replace the Humvee the JLTV won’t replace it either.

“This isn’t a complete replacement for the Humvee,” Dan Wasserbly, editor at Jane’s, told FoxNews.com. “The Army is simply looking for a vehicle that has greater tactical mobility. Something that is lighter and faster than a modern Humvee.”

It is instead about finding the right vehicle for the job. What the MRAP provided in armor and protection was offset by a lack of mobility.  [Fox News]

You can read much more at the link to include some interesting history about the HMMWV.   What I find interesting is that I went to Oshkosh’s website and the JLTV looks like a re-booted MATV which means it would be bigger than a HMMWV not lighter.

I just hope the Army doesn’t buy more JLTVs than what is needed.  I would hate to see a bunch of these vehicles collecting dust sitting around on a FOB in Afghanistan like what happened with the MRAP program.  There were so many MRAPs sitting around collecting dust that the Army had them recycled into scrap metal.

https://twitter.com/Draylien/status/757454194374692865

The photo, released on July 25, 2016, by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, shows one of the stamps that the North’s State Stamp Bureau has issued to feature a congress of the North’s ruling party held May 5-9. (Yonhap)

Via a reader tip comes this horrible story out of Japan where once again the mass killer had a history of mental trouble:

Nineteen residents have been killed in a knife attack at a care centre for people with mental disabilities in the Japanese city of Sagamihara.

Such attacks are extremely rare in Japan – the incident is the worst mass killing in decades.

Police have arrested a man who worked at the centre until February, and who turned himself into police after the attack.

He reportedly said he wanted people with disabilities to “disappear”.

The brutal killings have shocked Japan, one of the safest countries in the world.

The suspect has been named as 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu.

He sent letters to politicians in February in which he threatened to kill hundreds of disabled people during a night shift, Kyodo news agency reports.

“My goal is a world in which the severely disabled can be euthanised, with their guardians’ consent, if they are unable to live at home and be active in society,” Uematsu wrote in a letter to the speaker of the lower house of parliament, obtained by Kyodo.

He was kept in hospital for almost two weeks before being released.  [BBC]

You can read more at the link, but along with mental health the other thing that causes these mass killings that few talk about to include the BBC is the glorification in the media that allows these killers to act out their fantasies.  I do like how the BBC did find space to throw this line into the article though:

Mass killings are extremely rare in Japan, in part because strict gun control laws means almost no-one has access to a firearm.

This is actually a pretty good idea which also makes me wonder if it can also help deter North Korean submarine activity as well in the area?:

North Korea on Monday condemned the artificial reef structures being placed in the West Sea by South Korea to control Chinese illegal fishing activities, calling it part of Seoul’s military provocations against Pyongyang’s maritime demarcation line.

In March, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) said it will set up a total of eight artificial reef structures in the eastern waters off Baengnyeongdo, Daecheongdo and Socheongdo, all located south of the northern limit line (NLL), to prevent Chinese fishing vessels from intruding into the South Korean waters.

Drawn by the U.S.-led United Nations Command at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, the NLL is the de facto sea border between the two Koreas, although the North has not recognized it as such.

According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the West Sea Fleet of the Navy of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) said South Korea’s new artificial structures can only be seen a encroachments on its waters.

“The fish-breeding reef, structure weighing dozens of tons, is being set up in the sensitive waters which witnessed three skirmishes in the past, a fact clearly showing the provocative nature,” KCNA said.

Such provocative acts have revealed Seoul’s “sinister intention” to spark a military conflict in the world’s most dangerous waters, the North’s state-run media outlet claimed.  [Yonhap]

It is a bit ironic that the technology that the Chinese government worked so hard to steal from the US and other countries is now being stolen from them by the North Koreans:

North Korean authorities are increasingly sending information and communication technology workers abroad to steal advanced technology from China that the isolated country cannot develop on its own, sources inside North Korea said.

“The cutting-edge technology data collected overseas by North Korea’s State Security Department and Military Reconnaissance General Bureau has helped the country to rapidly develop scientific technology,” a source in the capital Pyongyang told RFA’s Korea Service.

“[Leader] Kim Jong Un has emphasized that this is the example that information and communication technology (ICT) workers should follow,” he said.

Kim Jong Un has encouraged ICT workers to steal advanced technology because he believes that North Koreans cannot develop it on its own even in 10 years, the source said.

“He told top executives that this was an expansion of a secret operation to introduce new cutting-edge technologies that were brought in from advanced nations,” he said.

The scheme includes roughly 1,000 North Korean ICT specialists who currently reside in China, he said. Kim Jong Un praises them as “patriots.”  [Radio Free Asia]

You can read more at the link.