Tag: US military

Hopefully the House shoots down this BAH plan because all it is going to do is increase paperwork for troops, cause personnel to rent larger houses than they need and then inflate the housing market around military bases while taking money out of soldiers’ pockets:

A leading defense analyst is calling the Senate’s plan to reform military housing allowances a potential disaster for troops’ finances.

The proposal, included in the Senate draft of the fiscal 2017 defense authorization act, would require the Defense Department to reimburse only troops’ exact rent and utilities costs, instead of issuing stipends that estimate cost of living in different areas.

The move could pull hundreds of dollars a month out of some families’ military payouts, although Senate planners argue those troops are receiving more than their share of housing costs.

But Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an editorial in Politico this week called the housing plan “perhaps the most misguided proposal with the greatest potential for unintended consequences” in the annual budget bill.

“What the Senate proposal fails to recognize is that the housing allowance, despite its name, is not really about housing at all,” he wrote. “Congress has used the housing allowance to increase cash compensation for the military, and it’s a smart way to do that because it doesn’t incur additional liability for retirement pensions.”  [Army Times]

The only part of this plan that I think the Senate has a fair point is having one BAH for dual military married couples.  That is a harder entitlement to defend considering just one housing allowance is needed to provide housing just like soldiers who are not married to another servicemember do.

Times are a changing and I am looking forward to the new recruiting commercials:

Transgender men and women can serve openly in the United States military following the repeal Thursday of Pentagon policies that forced them to keep their gender identities secret or risk a discharge.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said those policies discriminated against “talented and trained Americans,” and did not represent the values of the United States military as he announced his decision at the Pentagon nearly a year after he vowed to repeal the ban. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers blasted Carter’s decisions as “politics over policy” during a time of war.

“Our mission is to defend this country, and we don’t want barriers unrelated to a person’s qualification to serve preventing us from recruiting or retaining the soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who can best accomplish the mission,” Carter said. “We have to have access to 100 percent of America’s population for our all-volunteer force to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified and to retain them.”

The new policy will be rolled out over a one-year period. Effectively immediately, Carter said, troops cannot be discharged, denied reenlistment or involuntarily separated solely because of their gender identity. But it will be about a year before the military begins to openly recruit transgender individuals to join the service. Even then it will only allow transgender individuals who have completed any gender-related medical treatment to join the military, and it will require certification from a doctor that they’ve been “stable in their preferred gender for 18 months,” according to Pentagon documents.  [Stars & Stripes]

Here is part of the policy I have concerns with.  Considering all the pay and benefits currently being taken away from troops the DoD some how found the money to pay for expensive sex change surgeries and hormone treatments?:

Also beginning Oct. 1, the Military Health System will begin providing transgender troops “all medically-necessary care” related to gender transition, Carter said. A military doctor will determine what medically-necessary care is needed for such individuals on a case-by-case basis. That care could include gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy, a senior defense official said. It will not include any cosmetic surgery, added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the policy publicly.

The costs to the military associated with allowing open transgender service will be relatively low, the defense official said. The military was only likely to incur about $4 million to $14 million per year in additional medical costs to provide the medically-necessary transition care.

You can read more at the link, but I also think this is all the more reason why there has to be one physical fitness standard now.  How is it fair that someone biologically male, but identifies as a female gets to take the female physical fitness test?  This puts them at an advantage against both male and female troops by taking an easier fitness test and thus scoring more points for promotion.

Even in the worst of times of US-ROK relations during the Roh Moo-hyun administration years there was never government officials driving around with blue lights on their cars looking to harass US servicemembers like what is currently happening in Okinawa:

 Japanese officials are patrolling areas in southwestern Okinawa in an effort to prevent crimes near U.S. military bases and entertainment districts.

The team, composed of about 40 staff members from Okinawa government agencies, was created after a former Marine working at Kadena Air Base was arrested May 19 in connection with the death of a 20-year-old Okinawan woman, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday.

The patrol vehicles, which use blue rotating lights, are on the streets between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., the report said. The number of police officers patrolling the island prefecture is also expected to increase.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but this looks like pure political theater.  Some government official driving around with a blue light would have done nothing to prevent the tragic murder of Ms. Shimabukuro.

So does this mean that we have to have a third bathroom built around the country?  Maybe we should just all go to one bathroom that would be much easier:

An Oregon judge ruled Friday that a transgender person can legally change their sex to “non-binary” rather than male or female in what legal experts believe is a first in the United States.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Amy Holmes Hehn legally changed 52-year-old Jamie Shupe’s sex from “female” to non-binary.

Nancy Haque, a co-executive director for Basic Rights Oregon, called the ruling a “momentous day for genderqueer Oregonians.”

“It’s really exciting for the courts to actually recognize what we know to be true: gender is a spectrum,” Haque said. “Some people don’t identify as male or female.”

Shupe, an Army veteran who retired in 2000 a sergeant first class, began transitioning in 2013 while living in Pittsburg. Shupe knew then that neither male nor female fit. Shupe chose “Jamie” as a new first name primarily because it is a gender-neutral name. Shupe prefers to be called “Jamie,” rather than by a pronoun.

“I was assigned male at birth due to biology,” Shupe said. “I’m stuck with that for life. My gender identity is definitely feminine. My gender identity has never been male, but I feel like I have to own up to my male biology. Being non-binary allows me to do that. I’m a mixture of both. I consider myself as a third sex.”  [The Oregonian]

You can read the rest at the link.

For servicemembers who rely on their BAH for some extra cash by living in a smaller home than what you could afford with your stipend, get ready because Congress is coming to take that money from you:

Senate lawmakers want to radically overhaul how military housing stipends are awarded and end the practice of troops pocketing extra cash from the payouts.

The plan is tucked into the Senate’s pending draft of the annual defense authorization measure, and hasn’t received the same attention as major military health care and acquisition reforms also included in the legislation.

But it has the potential to change housing stipend totals for nearly every service member in coming years, with some potentially losing hundreds of dollars a month. And it comes after a series of pay and benefits trims in recent years that have left advocates frustrated about increased financial strain on military families.

Instead of the current Basic Allowance for Housing system, which assigns flat-rate stipends for zip codes across the country based on troops’ rank and family status, the new proposal would move closer to the military’s Overseas Housing Allowance. That system sets maximum payable stipends but awards troops only for their actual expenses, making recipients provide proof of what they pay in rent and utilities costs.

Dual military couples and service members who room with friends would not be able to game the system either. They’d see their individual stipend cut in half, adjusted to cover just their actual costs and nothing more.  [Military Times]

You can read more at the link, but this will do little to save any money and instead take money from troops to give to realtors.  I would not be surprised if the real estate lobby is behind this change.  That is because what will happen is that the realtors will make sure the rent for a home matches what the servicemembers maximum BAH rate is.  This will in turn drive up rental rates across the city as well which will bring in more money for realtors from civilians trying to find a place to rent.

This already happens in Korea with the Overseas Housing Allowance (OHA) which has led to realtors being put off limits for colluding with property owners.  I also wonder how this affects servicemembers who own homes?  Will they be allowed to use the BAH to pay their mortgage?  What if they have the house paid off?  Will they have their BAH cancelled?

It seems to me that if Congress wants to save money than tax whatever the remaining BAH is as income.  For example if someone’s BAH is $2,000 and rents a house for $1,500 than tax the extra $500 as earned income.  This would keep money in troops pockets and not artificially increase rental rates across an entire community plus put money back in the treasury.  This makes too much sense so it probably will not happen.

I am all for North Korea regime collapse planning, but does that mean that US forces need to be the ones entering North Korea?:

 Instability within North Korea will lead to its collapse “sooner than many of us think,” a former U.S. Forces Korea commander says.

Retired four-star Gen. Walter Sharp was among five panelists Tuesday who opened a three-day symposium, sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare, on strengthening land forces across the Pacific.

North Korea garnered most of the panel’s attention, driven by the volatile nation’s uptick in missiles launches and its fourth nuclear test earlier this year.

Sharp, who headed USFK in 2008-11, said he recently guaranteed Gen. Vincent Brooks, the newly minted USFK commander, there would be major changes on the peninsula before his tenure ends.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I have longed believed that US soldiers should not step foot into North Korea despite recommendations previously made that 150,000 US troops would be needed to secure North Korea.  Considering the advantages in culture and language the ROK military has why can’t they be the ones to occupy North Korea?  North Koreans are programmed to believe that South Koreans are puppets of the Americans and if US forces are seen with ROK forces in North Korea this will just validate this belief.  Does the US military really want to occupy a country with a bitter population awash in weapons and explosives?  Plus the threat of 150,000 US troops entering North Korea is the reason why China keeps the Kim regime in power in the first place.  What would the US government think if 150,000 Chinese soldiers showed up on our border with Mexico?

I just do not see how 150,000 US soldiers showing up in a collapsed North Korean state benefits the ROK, North Korea and most importantly the United States?  Maybe I am missing something, but can anyone else make an argument why there needs to be a US military occupation of North Korea?

There is a lot to discuss in this article to include the fact that the SHARP training after all these years has been wrong:

How drunk is too drunk to consent to sex?

According to military training aimed at preventing sexual harassment and assault, the answer has been: barely tipsy.

For years, Sexual Harassment and Assault Response and Prevention training informed troops that even one drink made a person incapable of giving consent.

In legal terms, that wasn’t true.

The issue has been at the heart of many cases in military courtrooms over the past decade. How many drinks an alleged victim consumed and how much alcohol rendered him or her “incapable of consenting” is frequently disputed at trial.

Now, for the first time, a military court decision has defined the term “incapable of consenting” while overturning a sailor’s conviction for sexually assaulting two subordinates under the influence of “significant amounts of alcohol.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces agreed in a March decision that a person is incapable of consenting when he or she lacks “the cognitive ability to appreciate the sexual conduct in question or the physical or mental ability to make or to communicate a decision about whether they agree to the conduct.” In rendering its decision, the court upheld a 2015 decision by the Navy-Marine appellate court.  [Stars & Stripes]

I read the bold text to mean that if someone is able to communicate that they want to have sex that this is consent regardless of whether they were drinking.  Because of this definition the sailor convicted of sexual assault in the article for having a drunken twosome was released from prison after serving 21 months of a six year sentence.  He left the Navy with an honorable discharge earlier this month.

Here is how the head of a major sexual assault advocacy group has responded to this change:

“There’s that common sense part of it,” he said. “What if you were trying to do a business transaction (with a drunken person)? You’re taking advantage of that guy. He doesn’t understand the intricacies.”

So what if the accused was drinking?  Isn’t the accused decision making ability altered as well?  How is it just the accuser’s ability to make decisions is hampered by alcohol and not the accused?  Anyway I agree with what this lawyer had to say to wrap up the article:

Jack Zimmermann, a Houston military appellate lawyer, said he doubted the case would have a significant effect.

“In reality, it’s going to be very similar to the way it’s been: You look at the words and actions of the people involved,” he said. “The bottom line in these sexual assault cases is that they are going to be won or lost in the courtroom when the complaining witness testifies and the jury believes her or not.”

Even with this new definition I suspect that cases with weak evidence will still get sent to court martial where juries will be left with the difficult job of figuring out the truth of what happened based off of drunken memories.

Over the past two months two US military colonels have found themselves facing a number of serious charges to include sexual assault.  The first one Colonel Shane Tomko has already found himself in jail for violating a pretrial agreement:

A Marine officer facing a general court-martial over allegations of sexual assault has been sent to a county jail for violating the terms of his pretrial agreement.

Col. T. Shane “Rhino” Tomko, the former commander of the Marine Corps’ Wounded Warrior Regiment, was sent to the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Stafford, Virginia, on May 6, said Rex Runyon, a Marine Corps spokesman. Tomko is in the process of being transferred to the U.S. Navy brig in Chesapeake, Virginia, he added.  (………)

Tomko faces charges of abusive sexual contact, fraternization, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, wrongful possession of anabolic steroids, obstructing justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and violations of lawful orders, according to the charge sheet against him.  [Marine Corps Times]

According to Marine Corps Life he forcibly kissed a female Marine on the mouth and supposedly said that she was “a hot and intriguing dyke that makes me wish I were a woman.”

Then over in Colorado there is an Air Force colonel who seems to be quite the ladies man when he isn’t being accused of sexual assault:

The former vice commander of the 50th Space Wing, charged with rape, assault, adultery and other lewd acts, will head to a general court-martial in August, according to the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

Col. Eugene Marcus Caughey, currently assigned to Air Force Space Command at Peterson, was charged Dec.10 with rape and assault at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, after in late 2014 or early 2015 he allegedly used “unlawful force” to hold the victim “against the wall and floor” while committing a sexual act, charge sheet documents reveal. He was also charged with various acts of alleged misconduct — which includes taking photos of his genitals while in uniform — dating back to 2013, according to his charge sheet.  [Air Force Times]

You can read more at the link, but this guy supposedly had six different girlfriends while being married and his defense is that they are spurned lovers.

These two colonels are of course innocent until proven guilty, but regardless they are quite the embarrassment for the US military.

I wear New Balance running shoes and the claim they are not durable by the Pentagon I am highly skeptical of considering how the various shoes I have wore over the years have held up just fine:

Now the Pentagon has stepped into more procurement quicksand, this time here in Lawrence, where it touched off a war of words with the New Balance footwear company, the Lawrence City Council and U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Lowell, by alleging the company’s athletic shoes are not fit for military duty. The company is not allowed to sell shoes on military bases, which it says will cost it the sale of many as 225,000 pairs to recruits and soldiers annually.

 

It was a snub heard ’round the world, sparking allegations that the Department of Defense prefers shoes made in Vietnam and Malaysia rather than in American hometowns like Lawrence, and amplified by New Balance’s decision to retaliate by taking up arms against President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership. The trade pact would lower tariffs on goods imported from 11 other nations, which New Balance says would flood the market with cheap foreign-made athletic shoes.

 

Rob DeMartini, New Balance’s president and CEO, said he agreed not to oppose the trade pact in exchange for assurances from Michael Froman, the Obama administration’s top trade official, that he would ease the impact by helping the company get a Defense Department contract to produce up to 225,000 pairs of athletic shoes a year for military recruits and soldiers. That never happened, the company said, then unleashed its attacks on the trade pact after years of reluctant silence.

 

“I’m definitely not a defense appropriation or procurement expert, but in the seven years I’ve been working on this, I’ve seen nothing but a bureaucratic nightmare, where middle managers at the Pentagon are making decisions that affect real jobs and real lives in America,” said Matthew LeBretton, a New Balance vice president. “There’s something really wrong with the system.”

 

LeBretton refuted DoD allegations that New Balance shoes are too expensive, noting that the company offered to supply the shoes at cost in an effort to keep its assembly lines humming and its supply lines full. He also disputed Pentagon claims that the test shoes it provided were not durable; published reports say the shoes were given to just six service members who were asked to run 30 miles over two months and then fill out a questionnaire.  [The Eagle Tribune]

Here is probably the most troubling statement in the whole article:

“If the Defense Department wants to make an argument that they want to buy non-American goods, that’s one thing,” Smithberger said. “But what a company’s political position is should have no bearing on whether they would get a contract or get a fair hearing and an ability to compete. It’s definitely improper.”

You can read more at the link.

In a Trump Presidency a big change for the military will be that General Officers will no longer be allowed to talk to the media:

If he becomes commander in chief, Donald Trump won’t let military generals speak to “the dishonest press,” out of fear they’ll spill national security secrets.  “I don’t want them saying things like ‘our nation has never been so ill-prepared.’ Even though it’s true, I don’t want the enemy knowing that.”“A general should not be on television,” the Republican front-runner told a crowd of supporters during a rally at Carmel, Indiana, on Monday. “I don’t want our generals on television. I will prohibit them.  [Military Times]

You can read more at the link.