Tag: U.S. Army

South Korean Army Chief of Staff Gen. Jang Jun-kyu (L) shakes hands with his visiting U.S. counterpart Mark Milley at the army’s Seoul office on Aug. 19, 2016. The two discussed the planned deployment of an advanced missile defense system, called “the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)” on South Korean soil. (Yonhap)

The Secretary of the Army recently got a hands on experience with the great soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea:

The Army’s new civilian leader has taken a real hands-on approach during his first tour of the Pacific, even firing a rocket from a Kiowa helicopter during a demonstration flight near the border with North Korea.

But it’s the real military drills held regularly by the U.S. and its allies that impressed him the most.

Army Secretary Eric Fanning kicked off his visit to the region in Hawaii where multinational naval exercises were being held and wrapped it up in South Korea where the U.S. and its ally are preparing for annual war games later this month.

“Those integrated exercises are one of the ways we’re enhancing our capabilities as we draw down the Army,” Fanning told Stars and Stripes in an interview Wednesday.

Fanning said his trip, which also included stops in Guam, Malaysia, Japan and Alaska, highlighted the challenges facing the Army as it deals with budget constraints, aging equipment and a massive troop drawdown.

“We’re asking a lot of our soldiers, and the requirements are going up, and you see more of that here certainly on this peninsula,” he said after meeting with soldiers from the 2nd Infantry Division that mans the front lines near the heavily militarized border with North Korea.

“Part of that is the rotational concept that we’re using, which allows us to have a bigger footprint even as we draw down the Army,” he said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like an area of the UCMJ that will need to be updated is to include same-sex prostitution as a crime.  This reminds of the Air Force colonel trying to get his adultery charges dropped because the UCMJ does not include same-sex adultery as a crime:

An Army medic charged with murder in connection with the stabbing death of his wife was sentenced Saturday in military court to 27 months in federal prison and a dishonorable discharge for possession of child pornography and soliciting others to engage in sex for money.

Sgt. Michael Walker, who was assigned to Tripler Army Medical Center, pleaded guilty Saturday to three counts of solicitation and not guilty to one count of possession of child pornography before a military judge at Wheeler Army Airfield’s courtroom.  (…………)

Walker, who has been in the military for 12 years, was charged with solicitation instead of prostitution because the Uniform Code of Military Justice, under which Walker was found guilty, defines prostitution as between a man and a woman.

In his court-martial, Walker admitted to placing two ads in September 2014, seeking people to have sex with in exchange for money. He said in the ads that he was looking for “generous men to spend time with” or “looking to have some fun.”

In court, he said, “My purpose was to find people to have sex with and at the same time to give me money.”

Walker said he met with three men that fall and had sex with them for money on multiple occasions. He said one man paid him $400 for an encounter.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read much more at the link, but this guy still faces even more time in jail when his murder trial comes up.

I have never heard of an military arms rooms getting broken into.  Considering the security that goes with an arms room I think this has to be an inside job by someone who had access to the arms room.  Has any ROK Heads ever heard of an arms room getting broken into?:

Special agents from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command are investigating the theft of guns and other military equipment from a base arms room in Stuttgart, military officials said.

“Several semi-automatic pistols, one small-caliber automatic rifle and a shotgun were among the items taken,” said Chris Grey, a CID spokesman.

The Army did not identify all the items stolen or the unit targeted, citing the active investigation. A possible breach of the base fence is also part of the ongoing probe.

“We are looking at all possibilities as the investigation continues, but at this point in the investigation it does not appear that an outside entity stole the firearms and equipment or breached the fence line, but we have not completely ruled it out,” Grey said.  [Stars & Stripes]

I would think the first person to ask what happened would be the unit armorer who has the code to enter into the arms room.  For example did he give the code out to someone else that wasn’t authorized to open the arms room?

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.

How would you like to be the commander for the unit this guy belongs to?:

A U.S. Army sergeant stationed at Fort Bliss wore a military uniform bearing his name while allegedly selling methamphetamine to an undercover federal agent in El Paso earlier this year, court documents state.

Sgt. Derek Calderon, 25, who posted a video of himself with a stack of hundred dollar bills on social media, was arrested in connection with the meth trafficking scheme, according to the documents.

Calderon was indicted in a South Florida federal court on June 30 on one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 500 grams or more and two counts of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more, according to the indictment. He is facing life in prison on all three charges.  [El Paso Times]

You can read more at the link, but my favorite part of the article is that not only did this guy conduct a drug deal in uniform, but then he posted the money he received after the deal on Instagram for everyone to see.

The incident that got the Dallas police shooter discharged from the Army has been disclosed; he stole panties from his officer girl friend in his reserve unit:

But two soldiers who knew Johnson in Afghanistan, who were reached and interviewed separately, said it was an open secret that the pair had a romantic relationship and were publicly affectionate.

In an interview with TheBlaze website, Johnson’s mother, Delphene, implied they were more than friends.

“Before, when they went to drill, during the drill weekends, she stayed here,” she said. “Yeah, they slept in the same bed.”

Gilbert Fischbach, a former Army sergeant who was Johnson’s squad leader, says that the woman has denied being intimate with Johnson and that he believes the two were just close friends.

But, he said, the nature of their relationship doesn’t matter — he was found with her underwear without her permission.  [Dallas Morning News]

After the incident Johnson was supposedly ostracized from his unit and eventually moved to a different base.  When it comes to a sex crime accusation in the Army of course few people are going to want to be associated with someone accused of that crime; especially one caught in the act.  Here is where the reporter states that the ostracizing of Johnson led to him hanging out with “black people”:

“Everybody thought that he was just a person that stole panties,” a soldier said. “He broke down after that a little bit because they ostracized him. All of his friends started unfollowing him on Facebook. They wouldn’t deal with him, they wouldn’t talk to him.”

“He started hanging out with people he usually didn’t hang out with — the black people, honestly,” said the soldier, who is black.

So what is this passage supposed to mean?  That him hanging out with other black people led to him becoming a racist killer? That if he didn’t hang out with other so called “black people” that the killings would not have happened?  I also find it hard to believe he was not hanging out with so called “black people” before this incident happened.  Notice how the reporter had to specify that the quoted person was black; this was intentional because the reporter does not want to be accused of passing on a racist statement if a white guy was quoted as making that statement.

Johnson was discharged for the panty incident in Afghanistan and the article concludes with the reporter insinuating that the Army should have checked up on this guy despite him no longer being in the Army:

One of the soldiers interviewed by The News reported talking to Johnson about a year after they returned from Afghanistan.

“I was like, ‘How are you doing? Has anybody called to check up on you?'” the soldier recalls. “He said, ‘You’re the first person I’ve heard from in the unit.'”

This reporter doesn’t seem to understand that the Army has no obligation to check on Soldiers when they are no longer in the service.  Considering the amount of Soldiers that leave the Army every year this would be an impossibility anyway unless a large unit was stood up to do this.  This article seems like a lame attempt by the reporter to pass blame on to the Army for what happened in Dallas instead putting the responsibility solely on the person that committed the crime.

I guess this guy felt like he had nothing to lose by committing another criminal act while serving time in prison already:

A former state correction officer and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve was arrested Friday on charges that he collected wages from the state while serving a prison sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Dennis Dockery, 52, of Bloomfield, was charged Friday with first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community and two counts of second-degree forgery. Dockery, who worked as a correction officer at the Enfield Correctional Institution, was incarcerated for 17 months at Leavenworth after he was found guilty of assaulting a woman in Hamden while on active duty with the Army, according to the warrant for his arrest.

As a military reservist, Dockery was still on the state payroll and entitled to a portion of his state salary while activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He was not entitled to any salary while serving time in a military prison, but forged his orders so that it appeared he was serving at Fort Leavenworth rather than incarcerated, according to the warrant. The state requires employees activated for military service to submit his or her orders to the agency they work for to confirm they are entitled to any wages.

According to the arrest warrant, Dockery fraudulently received $5,182 in salary from the state.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

The Washington Post has an interesting article that looks into an Inspector General investigation on why a US Army Special Forces sergeant was denied the Medal of Honor.  In the article it explains the bureaucracy a Medal of Honor packet goes through, but the reason the sergeant was denied the award was quite interesting:

Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter, said that the comments of members on the decorations board show “enormous amounts of personal prejudice” in how valor awards are approved.

“In essence what he’s saying is, ‘If this was a private, it would rate the Medal of Honor, but because we expect our NCOs to do valorous things, it doesn’t,’” Kasper said. “That person should be looking at the actions alone.”  [Washington Post]

You can read the rest at the link.

Is it accurate to say that someone was “forced” into prostitution when the soldier in the below article willing decided to work for the pimp for financial gain?  For sake of argument if a woman decided to break the law by robbing houses while a man sat in the get away car outside would we say the woman was forced into burglary?  To me it seems they are both equally guilty.

A man who forced a 19-year-old Fort Bragg soldier into prostitution last year threatened to tell the soldier’s commander about her exchanging sex for money, new court documents say.

The court documents also revealed that the soldier was the victim of sex trafficking as a juvenile.

Jibri Quandel Thomas, 23, of the 3200 block of Brookemere Place, was charged by the Fayetteville Police Department in connection with exploiting the soldier. He turned himself in to Fayetteville police detectives Jan. 11 and was indicted in federal court Jan. 28.

A superseding indictment in federal court filed April 25 charged Thomas with two counts of transporting for prostitution and racketeering for prostitution.  [Fayetteville Observer]

You can read the rest at the link, but it sounds like this soldier probably should have never been in the Army in the first place considering she was a practicing prostitute at the age of 17 before she even enlisted.  Joining the military was an opportunity for this soldier to turn her life around; it is unfortunate she did seize that opportunity.