Military – Page 10 – The Daily Brief

Commercial Tech Displacing The Old-Guard Contractors

16. April 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, Technology

This from James Dunnigan at StategyPage:

Around the same time, more troops became aware of the presence, and success, of SOCOMs (Special Operations Command) free-wheeling style of procurement. SOCOM personnel were given considerable freedom to find the best equipment and weapons for the job, wherever they could find it. When the Internet became widely available in the 1990s, more military personnel became aware of SOCOMs methods. At the same time, more and more new, relatively inexpensive technologies began to appear. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is found in the development of micro-UAVs. New materials, digital cameras and wireless communications technologies combined to produce inexpensive (by military standards) UAVs weighing under ten pounds. It’s also no accident that many of these look, and perform, like the small, remote control aircraft, built and operated by hobbyists. The gadget geeks were also building “toy robots” that soon turned into battlefield tools for checking out caves, or possible booby traps. After September 11, 2001, some of these hobby projects were sent off to war. While the traditional military manufacturers scoffed at the idea of hobbyist remote control aircraft being used by the military, the troops had a very different idea. For an infantryman, or Special Forces operator, a five or ten pound remotely controlled aircraft, that could send back live images of what it was seeing over the hill or around the bend, could be a lifesaver.

This rush of new, cheaper and more effective technology is beginning to bother the traditional manufacturers. These large outfits make lots of money by building high tech, high dollar, items. The new guys are building inexpensive stuff that works better. Now you can’t come right out and complain about this. At least not while troops in combat zones are singing the praises of inexpensive gadgets like micro-UAVs. But large corporations think in the long term. So the U.S. Air Force proposes to get things organized by taking charge of UAV development for all the services. The air force is not known for the inexpensive, not with the two billion dollar (each) B-2 bomber or $250 million (each) F-22 fighter. Moreover, the air force has long dragged its heels when it came to UAVs. The pilots who run the air force were not eager to build aircraft that don’t need pilots. That kind of thinking has changed as UAVs have become more effective. Besides, UAVs still have pilots, who operate from the ground or a nearby aircraft. That will change eventually as well, with UAVs having “operators” instead of pilots. But in the meantime, the air force wants to be in charge of deciding what UAVs will be, and which ones will be bought.

I think this is a positive development. Through my years in the AF, and various contractors, even the newest stuff was antiquated by civilian standards.

Navy Gets With The Program

26. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military

I have long been critical of our Navy’s Cold War vintage deployment strategy; our warships spend entirely too much time in port. It seems that now the Navy has realized that as well:

In 2005, one-third of the U.S. Navy is forward-deployed. Its leadership’s fundamental mission remains to maintain, train and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of deterring aggression, winning wars and defending the freedom of the seas.

Developing upon the lessons learned during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the global war on terrorism, the Navy has enacted substantial revisions of its force structure. One of those revisions includes Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Vern Clark’s Fleet Response Plan (FRP), a new way of planning and organizing fleet assets for deployment.

The FRP provides the nation six aircraft carrier strike groups deployed or ready to deploy within 30 days and another two aircraft carrier strike groups ready to deploy within 90 days. Commander Fleet Forces Command, based at Norfolk, Va., is leading the implementation of FRP across the Navy.

U.S. Fleet Forces Command leads the implementation of the FRP, which has replaced the Cold War-era 18-month interdeployment training cycle and deployment schedule with a flexible training and deployment schedule lashed to “real world” events and requirements.

[…]

As the Navy evolves to adapt to the demands of the global war on terrorism, Secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England has called upon the service to maintain its relevance by providing more immediate, persistent combat power, “to seize the initiative rapidly in joint operations as we will not have the luxury of time to prepare in advance.”

England is committed to leading the service in alignment with a National Defense Strategy that measures success based on the “10-30-30” metric. That measurement defines the goal for closing forces within 10 days, defeating an adversary within 30 days and resetting the force for additional action within another 30 days.

The Navy department includes two uniformed services: the Navy and the Marine Corps, and England told Seapower his goals, as well as those of the CNO and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee, are built on team efforts. A key objective for the years ahead is to take advantage of the current administration’s and Congress’ support for defense requirements, “to get everything done we can to leave a solid foundation for the Navy and Marine Corps team going into the future.”

Rites, Practices & Legends #15: On Your Own Time

25. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Military

Timmer and some of the commenters on this story have been marveling over the prospect of a four-star general with a blog, and wondering how on earth that came to pass. Many of us know from bitter experience of the inertia (technological and otherwise) that any large established bureaucracy is heir to, and wonder how this miracle came to pass. Thinking it over after reading the comments, and remembering how certain technological advances came to pass in my own career field, I am wondering if there isn’t an enthusiast somewhere on the generals’ staff, or among his family or friends.

Believe it or not, the military is full of enthusiasts, amateur devotees of all sorts of arcane arts and pursuits in their off-duty time. Drinking, carousing and other hell-raising have been from time immemorial associated with off-duty military, and the economies of entire towns have been built around providing the venues for that sort of amusement… but the little-recognized truth is for most adults, they eventually pall, in the military and on the outside. The advantage to the military is that that there is really no rigid set of socially acceptable off-duty pursuits as there are other walks of life. What you do, when you go home and take off the uniform is pretty much your own business for enlisted people; as long as it is not illegal, embarrassing to the service or the US government, and does not impair you in performing your regular duties or showing up for work on time the next day. There is very little social pressure to conform in your choice of hobbies and amusements, which may seem a little outré for a profession which many civilians expect to set a standard for conformity. In reality, the officer-class is a little more constrained, and expected to be a little more conventional and middle-class in their leisure pursuits, and the very top enlisted ranks are supposed to set a good example, but among the lower ranks it doesn’t really matter if you are off on a weekend motorbike road trip to Burning Man, taking classes in economics or obscure martial arts, building houses for Habitat for Humanity, puttering around with your kids at soccer games, or out in the ville drinking to excess with your friends. On Monday morning the reaction among your co-workers is guaranteed to be “Hey Dude, whatever.”

The acceptable range is very, very wide, and I have known or worked with military people who had the most unexpected hobbies. One of my guys in Spain was rumored to head up a Wiccan circle on base; if true, I was glad for him because it meant that he had a social life after all. Another co-worker in Korea spent all his off-duty time tutoring spoken English: he lived on what he made from that and invested his military pay in stocks and securities. His personal ambition was to be able to live in the income from his investments after his enlistment was up, and I hope the dot-com meltdown didn’t affect that plan adversely. I knew two gifted amateur photographers— a security policeman and a combat documentation specialist during their official time— who spent their down time pointing lenses at either wildlife or street life. A young troop I knew in Japan became devoted to a particularly Japanese martial art, a sort of archery, to the point where he was taking advanced lessons from a master… and taking lessons in Japanese as well, so he could better communicate with the sensei. Indeed, the very founder of this blog is a smart-ass mechanic by day, and a Master of the Universe (Blogosphere Division), by night.

A fair number of the broadcasters I worked with were audiophiles, with huge music collections and elaborate stereo systems to match; they were lucky in that their hobby related to their work, but in one very important case, the off-duty hobby of a couple of our station staff had a very great effect on our broadcast mission.

That would be back in the dark ages, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we worked up the radio and television broadcast schedules in pencil and a septuagesimal calculator (or scribbling and adding the run times on a scratch pad if we weren’t even that lucky) and typed up the resulting radio or television log on a special form for use by the duty board op. This was particularly finicky and time consuming work, and great was the rejoicing in the European Broadcasting Squadron in about 1986 or so, when we were informed that a new technological day had dawned, that henceforward we would be automated, as far as programming for television was concerned.

Excitement and anticipation were at a peak, as each detachment was presented with a computer system, (No, I can’t remember any of the technological particulars) and a special suite of software, developed for AFRTS, and briskly informed by our higher management we would have everything up and running in six months. All of our program materials—the spots and programs in our library— would be entered into the computer, all the program information for the TW and TD (Television Weekly and Television Dependent) packages would arrive on floppy disk, and generating a weeks worth of TV logs would be accomplished by simply merging a master schedule template with the relevant weekly package, and hey presto! In six months we would be able to throw away the pencils, septuagesimal calculators and the old log forms, and embrace the automated future.

In retrospect, this was kind of like presenting a non-driver with an erratically functioning automobile, an owner’s manual and a copy of the relevant Department of Motor Vehicles regulations, and telling them that they should be able to A) Get the car to work, B) Teach themselves to drive and C) Qualify for a drivers’ license. The operating system and the software suite had more bugs than a high rise tenement. The manuals and instructions which accompanied the computer were incomplete and contradictory, and nothing worked as it was supposed to. Plug in, boot up, load the software and take off running was simply out of the question, however much our higher-ups wished it to be so. At least one of the detachments threw up their hands in despair of ever making it work as advertised and went back to the old way.

My detachment was not one of them, blessed as we were with two people— the station manager and one of the engineers— who were seriously into computers. Between them, it took weeks to debug the system, and the software, and figure out how it was all supposed to work, and even then it was trial and error, hit and miss, especially heavy on the error and miss side of the ledger. Just when we did get the hang of it, we crashed the system because we had filled up the memory with old programming info. It wasn’t apparent until then that we needed to delete the old package info and run a defrag… After that we were able to throw away the pencils and calculators, and embrace our new computer overlords, and the program director had to find another way to fill up the fifteen or twenty hours of time that had been previously taken up by doing it the old way.

But the only way we were able to make it work at all, was a pure coincidence; that two of our staff just happened to pursue an enthusiasm that turned out to be essential to our mission. I think this must happen quite a lot, and invite any reminiscences by readers, about military members with unusual, or with ultimately useful hobbies.

It’s Good to Know Leadership Gets It

23. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military

Commander’s Call was yesterday. The boss was getting us all together in groups, civilians, Senior NCOs, Junior NCOs, Officers, etc.. Two things that stuck out in my mind:

He noted that there were not enough chairs for the civilians and they were packed out into the hallways surrounding the ballroom and that we SNCOs had a LOT of empty chairs. He shook his head and said, “I’ve GOT to get that mix changed.”

As he was talking up his Command and Control Blog (you couldn’t get to it even if I did link to it), he made one of the most astounding, outside the box statements I’ve ever heard come out of a flag officer’s mouth. Other than giving me some leeway for perhaps not having the order he said them right, this is what I heard yesterday. Anyone else who was there and can make it clearer, please do:

“The metric is what the person has to contribute, not the person’s rank, age, or level of experience. If they have the answer, I want the answer. When I post a question on my blog, I expect the person with the answer to post back. I do not expect the person with the answer to run it through you, your OIC, the branch chief, the exec, the Division Chief and then get the garbled answer back before he or she posts it for me. The Napoleonic Code and Netcentric Collaboration cannot exist in the same space and time. It’s YOUR job to make sure I get my answers and then if they get it wrong or they could have got it righter, then you guide them toward a better way…but do not get in their way.”

JAMES E. CARTWRIGHT
General, USMC
Commander, USSTRATCOM

Just how cool is that?

Book Review: Delta Force/Operation Michael’s Sword

22. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, GWOT, Military

I had gone nearly halfway through this book, thinking that one of the “friendly fire” encounters as described and upon which the plot turns, was grotesquely contrived, terribly unlikely…. And then there was the incident at a checkpoint near the Baghdad Airport, where a car with a freed hostage and an Italian special agent was fired on by American troops, under circumstances so murky and uncertain that we may never know why it all happened the way it did. Only that there are deep-laid plans, an impenetrable veil of secrecy, and taking the fight to an elusive and vicious enemy were all mixed up in it, and after the real-world tragedy, the fictional one seemed, sadly, much more believable.

The story opens on the morning of September 11, 2001, with Army officer Connor Tyler on a flight departing New York, looking out the window by his seat— and watching the first hijacked aircraft smash into the World Trade Center. Tyler knows at once that something horrible has happened, that in an instant everything has changed, and events will soon cascade, faster and faster. At the Pentagon that morning after a third aircraft smashes into the outside ring, Tylers’ boss, Major Spangler, is the man on his feet and on the spot with a long-prepared, deep-laid plan to take the war to the terrorists… and thereby hangs the rest of the book. It is the first of a projected series, so the story arc is a little more taken up with establishing the characters, the situation and the ground rules than with the title mission itself… which is to go after Bin Laden and Al Quada with a specially selected and trained counter-terrorist force. Spangler has the go-ahead from the highest level to tap whatever resources he needs, and build a unit which will take America’s war with terrorists where it needs to go. Spangler recruits, among others, Gunnery Sgt. Robert Night Runner from the Marine Recon Force, and Capt. Ramsey Baker out of Delta Force and Connor Tyler himself.

In a way, this is the kind of story which was told in the war movies of the 2nd World War, telling is what the war was about, what was happening (sort of) at the front, and what we would have to do, who our heroes were, and what we valued. This story, written by an Army veteran goes a little farther than those movies, or other military genre adventures do. It touches not on just the physical risks and dangers of a life lived at full-throttle at the tip of America’s military sword, but on those other, subtler hazards; wrecked marriages, loss of a lover, of one’s self-respect, of self-confidence, of comrades, the fall-out from bad decisions, and finally, the very real risk of slipping over the line and becoming the terrorist, the monster you are fighting against.

Baker, a fluent Arabic linguist— and of whom it can be said if it weren’t for bad luck he would have no luck at all— is sent by an elaborate scheme to the camp of an Afghan warlord who may—or may not be a Bin Laden ally. It is Baker’s advantage in this war, and his misfortune, as well, that he does not look in the least like what he really is. Meanwhile, Tyler screens and trains the teams that will go into Afghanistan and hunt down Bin Laden, training that so rigorous and realistic that it is only a hair less hazardous than the actual mission will eventually be.

Mr. Harriman writes a gripping and credible yarn, drawing on many years of military service, with an acute ear for the way that soldiers and military commanders talk, to each other and to the troops.

Later note: Part 3 of Mr. Harriman’s “Warrior to Warrior” is here.

Repeat of a Classic “In the Army, Now” Letter

14. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, General Nonsense, Military

This was forwarded by regular “Daily Brief” reader Capt. J.M. Heinrichs; it is an amusing Australian variant on one that has been going the rounds since WWII, or possibly earlier:

Text of a letter from a kid from Eromanga to Mum and Dad. (Eromanga is a small town west of Quilpie in the far south west of Queensland)

Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope youse are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the Army is better than workin’ on the farm – tell them to get in bloody quick smart before the jobs are all gone!

I wuz a bit slow in settling down at first, because ya don’t hafta get outta bed until 6am. But I like sleeping in now, cuz all ya gotta do before brekky is make ya bed and shine ya boots and clean ya uniform. No bloody cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack – nothin’!!

Blokes haz gotta shave though, but its not so bad, coz there’s lotsa hot
water and even a light to see what ya doing!

At brekky ya get cereal, fruit and eggs but there’s no kangaroo steaks or
possum stew like wot Mum makes. You don’t get fed again until noon, and by
that time all the city boys are buggered because we’ve been on a ‘route
march’ – geez its only just like walking to the windmill in the back
paddock!!

This one will kill me brothers Doug and Phil with laughter. I keep getting
medals for shootin’ – dunno why. The bullseye is as big as a bloody possum’s
bum and it don’t move and its not firing back at ya like the Johnsons did
when our big scrubber bull got into their prize cows before the Ekka last
year! All ya gotta do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target – its
a piece of piss!!

You don’t even load your own cartridges – they comes in little boxes and ya
don’t have to steady yourself against the rollbar of the roo shooting truck
when you reload!

Sometimes ya gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real careful
coz they break easy – it’s not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack and
Boori and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home after the muster.
Turns out I’m not a bad boxer either and it looks like I’m the best the
platoon’s got, and I’ve only been beaten by this one bloke from the
Engineers – he’s 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pickhandles across the
shoulders and as ya know I’m only 5 foot 7 and eight stone wringin’ wet, but
I fought him till the other blokes carried me off to the boozer.

I can’t complain about the Army – tell the boys to get in quick before word
gets around how bloody good it is.

Your loving daughter,

Jill

(For maximim giggles, imagine Cate Blanchett as Jill– Sgt. Mom)

History Fades

11. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, History, Military

A bit of our history— a woman who was part of a legendary group in the annals of women in the military has gone, this week. Gone, but not forgotten, thanks to this book.

Home of the Daily Brief

02. March 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Military

It may just be an odd fancy, but I have lately begun to visualize what the “Daily Brief” would be like if it existed in the real world, if it were a real place, not a vast collection of bits of data on a server in… wherever our server is. (Duluth, I think. At least that’s where the snail-mail address is, if I ever chose to actually mail them a check, and not just transfer Paypal funds.) We exist in the electronic overworld, linked by posts, comments and e-mails, a mundane version of the linked psychics on Marion Zimmer Bradley’s mysterious planet of Darkover. I have never actually met any of the other “Daily Brief” members face to face, and all we know of each other is what everyone knows from what we write, and post in this space. (Which may be quite a lot…)

Some of us have been coming here for a long time, some wander in and out, irregularly…occasionally a troll washes in, on link from somewhere else, or on a tide of gambling and porn spam… and sometimes a reader just comes to check out a post, and likes the look of the place and sticks around, unaware of three years of archives and history, and all the regulars that were there for a while. Very like the military, actually; people come and go, all the time.

I see “The Daily Brief” as one of those places that pulls in a mostly military clientele— kind of a cross between the unit break-room, one of those private clubs maintained in the barracks, the local VFW, and one of those divey little places immediately off-base with a name like the “Drop Zone”, or “The Rally Point”. Everyone else is perfectly welcome, of course— but should realize that some of the regulars maybe a little more…. umm, testier than others.

It’s dim and a little shabby on the inside, with a bar and a pool table, and a juke-box, and a lot of overstuffed chairs from DRMO, most of which have sprung seats, and splits in the vinyl mended with duct tape. The walls are so well-covered with old framed photos of historical events and heroes, unit patches and banners, souvenirs of wartime and peace time, that it’s hard to make out what color they are; maybe that peculiar institutional green, gone to a dark beige no-color with age and wear.

For such a shabby little place, though it has a killer sound system, and a big-screen TV, and a huge collection of movies, CDs, DVDs and tapes… BX/PX privileges y’know. Fifty years worth of popular music, movies and other cultural stuff. And books, lots of books… history, mostly, but plenty of the light stuff, too. Anything that ever touched on military matters is neatly lined up on shelves knocked together out of plywood, dark stained and then lacquered with a couple of coats of shiny varnish. There’s a dart-board in one corner, I think the Group-Captain left that. And because this is the blogosphere, there’s a cat hanging about the place, usually sleeping in the most comfy chair.

At the back of the “Daily Brief”, there’ll be a couple of windows and a door that opens onto a terrace, a terrace with some picnic tables and a barbeque pit, a couple of steps above a lawn. The butt can is out here, because you can’t smoke inside any more. ” Digital Warfighter” is right next door— we share the terrace and the lawn, of course— and there is a lot of back and forth. There are trees at the edge of the lawn, and beyond that… a shoreline of some kind, I believe, but I can’t really be sure about what ocean. The kids are welcome, since this is a family-oriented sort of place. Sparkey’s daughters and son, and the five-year old version of Blondie are romping on the lawn with some other kids.

The grown-up version of Blondie , though, is over at the bar with ThePie and Capt. Loggie comparing tales of eventful TDYs and interesting things to see in Europe. Sparkey, Timmer and Kevin Connors are swapping brags about the latest toys for the boys, and Stryker pops in from next door, freaking a little because he is trying to quit smoking for real, this time! And Joe and I and a couple of the other retirees are hanging out in the comfy chairs, telling what I always called “Old Sarge” tales, of the way it used to be, back in the day…

Oh, yes, the Daily Brief, for your quick snorkeling trip through what’s on the military mind. Just close your eyes and imagine.

Don’t Get Too Excited About Missile Defense Success

25. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, Technology

Yesterday’s successful missile intercept is making the headlines today. But deeper investigation reveals that this is really no big deal.

The Aegis SMD system is basically just a ship-borne version of the well-developed Patriot PAC-3 system, and has been effective is about a half-dozen tests before this one. It’s nice to know that our fleet defense capabilities will soon be ratcheted-up a notch. But the success of the Ground-Based Interceptor (GBI), the system which will defend the homeland, has been hit-or-miss (pun most certainly intended). Much of the technology is the same between SMD, PAC-3 and GBI. But the GBI program appears to me to have some engineering management issues.

More On Gunner Palace

21. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, That's Entertainment!

Michael Tucker’s Iraq documentary, Gunner Palace, which I blogged on here, was just covered on FNC’s Hannity & Colmes, along with a few clips. It seems to portray our servicepeople quite favorably.

M1911s In Iraq

14. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military

Notice that the weapon this Marine is entertaining his new Iraqi friends with is not the much-berated M9, but an updated version of the venerable M1911!

Description of Modifications: “The MEU(SOC) pistol starts out as a stripped government contract M1911A1 frame, as manufactured up until 1945 or so. The frame is inspected, and the feed ramp polished and throated. The entire weapon is dehorned. All internal parts are replaced with current commercial items. King’s Gun Works supplies the beaver-tail grip safety and an ambidextrous thumb safety. This last piece is often thought of as a superfluous device, added on as a derigueur item on hordes of IPSC pistols. Here it has some usefulness. The pistol must fit any operator in the platoon, whether he is right or “wrong” hand dominant. Future rebuild pistols will have a “memory bump” on the grip safety. Currently, many operators are unable to depress the grip safety when having their thumb (properly) on top of the thumb safety. Some, understanding that your priority safety rests between your ears, have taped this useless grip “safety” closed. This is now forbidden, and will continue to present problems until the rebuild pistols are brought on line. Videcki aluminum Match triggers are installed, and tuned to a pull of between 4-5 pounds. Colt Commander hammers replace the standard spur hammer.

Only about 500 of these MEU(SOC) .45s exist, handbuilt by the Rifle Team Equipment (RTE) Shop, MCB Quantico, Virginia. But plenty of shops, like Para-Ordnance and Kimber, are out there, making very fine M1911 derivatives. A weapon like this could enter the general inventory with little more trouble than issuing a purchase order.

By the way, the problems with the M9 are not limited to the military. One of my best friends, a retired cop, tells me PDs across the country have reported similar problems with their 92s (he carried his own Sig-Sauer).

Mooney To Face Charges

12. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military

This from Stars and Stripes:

The skipper of the nuclear-powered submarine that crashed into the side of an undersea mountain is quietly being sent before an “admiral’s mast” in Japan this weekend to face charges of endangering his ship, according to several active-duty and retired Navy sources familiar with the case.

Cmdr. Kevin Mooney was slated to appear before 7th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert in Yokosuka on Saturday morning, the sources said.

[…]

Mooney’s mast, however, comes before the detailed investigation into the accident is complete. And unlike most nonjudicial punishment throughout the rest of the military, sailors from sea-going commands cannot refuse mast and demand a court- martial.

At issue, say officials, is whether charts supplied to Mooney provided any clue of dangerous waters. Officials at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Bethesda, told reporters after the accident that the main maps used by the U.S. Navy did not reveal any obstacle anywhere near the sight of the crash.

Officials familiar with case, however, say another, much older chart was believed to be aboard the San Francisco indicating discolored water several miles away.

Early findings of the Navy’s investigation appear to indicate some level of “questionable” practices by Mooney, according to a Feb. 7 letter obtained by Stars and Stripes to Greenert from the commander of Pacific submarine forces Rear Adm. P.F. Sullivan.

I can understand relieving him of command, and making him fly (or is it “sail” in the Navy?) a desk, until the matter is fully settled. But this seems really premature to me.

Update: Mooney has received a Letter of Reprimand:

The commanding officer whose submarine ran into an uncharted underwater mountain south of Guam Jan. 8 has been formally relieved of his command and issued a career-damaging letter of reprimand at an administrative hearing in Yokosuka, Japan.

[…]

Skelton said Greenert concluded that “several critical navigational and voyage planning procedures were not being implemented aboard San Francisco. By not ensuring these standard procedures were followed, Mooney hazarded his vessel.”

[…]

The crew, meanwhile, will remain in limbo on Guam until officials decide the submarine’s fate, Davis said.

Army To Investigate Camp Bucca Mud-Wrestling Incident

11. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Iraq, Military

This from the Kansas City Star:

Lt. Gen. James Helmly, commander of the Army Reserve, ordered the probe after the New York Daily News reported that sergeants at Camp Bucca allegedly lent their rooms to GIs for sex parties and arranged a mud-wrestling bout with scantily clad female military prison guards last year.

The investigation will be conducted under Army Regulation 15-6, the same rules that governed Gen. Antonio Taguba in his probe into the torture of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, said Maj. Michael Stella, an Army Reserve spokesman.

Helmly’s order removes control of the investigation from Col. Isadore Rommes, commander of the 160th Military Police Battalion, whose soldiers allegedly organized and participated in the scandal.

Although the incident occurred Oct. 30, Rommes did not begin a commander’s inquiry until Jan. 9 – about three months after the 160th MP Battalion had returned to its base in Tallahassee, Fla., and its members were back in civilian life.

This does seem to me like another example of a breakdown in command. Personally, I’ve got no problem with soldiers getting a bitwild when off-duty, but not on base, or anywhere in a country like Iraq where such behaivor is likely to cause general offense.

General Mattis, I’m With You

07. February 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military

I’m watching FNC’s Hannity and Colmes just now. And I’m about to watch a segment about Marine Lt. Gen. Mattis comments last week about “taking pleasure” in killing Islamofascists. I was quite taken aback by Alan Colmes’ comment at the start of the show, to the effect “can you believe some people are actually supporting Gen. Mattis?”

Well, I can believe it, because I do. We need our Dogs of War. We need to maintain their leash; that is the whole idea behind civilian control of the military. But we need to know that, once unleashed, they will not equivocate when it comes to destroying our enemy. I believe we can have absolute faith in Gen. Mattis.

Reserve Pay

25. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military

I’m currently listening to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D – Michigan), on C-Span. And she has just claimed “95% of our Reservists don’t even get paid on time.” This is news to me. Apparently, it is also news to Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D – Ohio):

“The Cleveland Defense Industry Alliance has been working behind the scenes for a year to make the case to our decision makers that the DFAS-Cleveland office should remain open here in Cleveland and take on additional workloads. Today, I am pleased to join with them in this effort.

“We feel this office’s value to the military is considerable. DFAS-Cleveland is an integral part of the ‘nerve center’ that supports our troops on the ground in Iraq and worldwide. This site is the home of the Reserve Pay Center of Excellence, which processes payroll for the Army, Air Force and Naval Reserves and National Guard. It has a track record of innovation and success that has been recognized on more than one occasion by the Pentagon.

“Currently, Reserve and National Guard soldiers make up 40 percent of the troops on the ground in Iraq. We feel it would be a disservice to our men and women in uniform if we disrupted the system that ensures they’re paid on time.

Emphasis mine.
Update, after the response I’ve gotten, I am going to email Sen. Stabenow’s office for a clarification. As an aside, I find it quite interesting to note, after my most tumultoulous post concerning Reggie White, that I have gotten not a single post saying “how dare you pass such vile gossip about our beloved senator.” 🙂

Nanotech Weapons

25. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, Technology

Nanotechnology is on the verge of changing the face of warfare:

Carpenter says the U.S. military has developed “cave-buster” bombs using nanoaluminum, and it is also working on missiles and torpedoes that move so quickly that they strike their targets before evasive actions can be taken.

“Nanoaluminum provides ultra high burn rates for propellants that are ten times higher than existing propellants,” says Carpenter.

The military is also trying to make sure that its bullets kill quickly.

The U.S. Army Environmental Center began a program in 1997 to develop alternatives to the toxic lead that is used in the hundreds of millions of rounds that are annually fired during conflicts and at its training ranges. Carpenter says that although bullets using nanoaluminum are ready to be field tested, the government has been slow implement the technology.

[…]

Nanotechnology “could completely change the face of weaponry,” according to Andy Oppenheimer, a weapons expert with analyst firm and publisher Jane’s Information Group. Oppenheimer says nations including the United States, Germany, and Russia are developing “mini-nuke” devices that use nanotechnology to create much smaller nuclear detonators.

Oppenheimer says the devices could fit inside a briefcase and would be powerful enough to destroy a building. Although the devices require nuclear materials, because of their small size “they blur the line with conventional weapons,” Oppenheimer says.

It would seem this same technology could be used to create synthetic superfuels for civilian transportation and other energy uses.

Hat Tip: Instapundit

Update: There seems seems to be some confusion about what I meant by “this same technology.” What I was talking about was plasma vapor phase reactions, which seems to be the basis for all contemporary nanochemistry. I only have a cursory practical knowledge of this, from working on chrome deposition chambers back in the late ’70s – early ’80s. But I understand the potential.

Original G.I.

22. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Military

As best as can be determined, the term “G. I.” is an abbreviation for “government issue”, and according to historian Lee Kennet, it was first a term of mild contempt, originating in the insular, peacetime American military. While small, it was a proud, professional and penny-pinched force, and those who were serving in the Depression era military contemptuously regarded their issued uniform clothing and accessories as shoddy, poor quality, not worthy. It was a point of honor for careerists to do better, and so they laid out their own funds for quality tailoring, better-quality boots, and fine bespoke accessories. (This is still done, especially when new uniforms are approved, but not available at the BX/PX Uniform sales— those who want to look very, very strac will order items out of various catalogues which specialize in this.) Looking militarily sharp was everything, down to the sergeants and privates, and in those hardscrabble days, when the Army could pick and choose, it was about all there was. That and the pride that comes of being among the elect, or as they would come to think of themselves after 1942 as “the Old Army”… which was defined by the military magazine “Yank” as “ a large group of first-three-graders who spent the pre-war years thinking up sentences beginning with ‘By God, it wasn’t like this in the ______”.

And it wasn’t… because of the draft, which ballooned the Army and the other military services to proportions not seen since the days of the Civil war, eighty years previous. Draftees or patriotically motivated volunteers or every variety in between, the “new Army” arrived with a different set of expectations, one of them being that they would not put up with much of that military chickenshit. Attitudes about deference to officer rank, to saluting, and to going overboard with the military sartorial splendor of the “Old Army”… no, issue kit would do, none of this fancy-nancy parade ground soldiering.

The cultural clash between the old corps and the new wartime influx was marked and noted almost immediately, with the old peacetime army NCOs scorning the new elements as “GIs” or “government issue”, meaning “second-rate, unprofessional soldiers”. But the new Army took it as a badge of pride, chanting cadence counts like “It won’t get by if it ain’t GI”. Just get the damn job done, with that they were issued, was the attitude; once that done, you won’t see me for dust in this-here military machine. So, they eventually stormed the Omaha beaches and crossed the Rhine with their government issue, and took back the Pacific Islands, one by one over the following three years. All during the war, though, officers of the Old Army school like Patton, fretted over how slovenly and unmilitary the G.I.s would tend to look if left to themselves… the Army that they won WWII with, was so very unlike they had been schooled with, in the hard two decades after the first world war.

“Oh,” said my daughter recently about one of her friends, “He’s a 9/11 baby.” That is, someone who had enlisted into the forces after 9/11, into a military where it should have been impossible to get around the understanding that a military was an organization dedicated to killing those designated as the enemies of this country, and blowing up their stuff. Someone who had— like those who swarmed to enlist after Pearl Harbor— enlisted into a wartime military… but a military whose initial core was formed over a scaffold of officers and NCOs who remembered how it had been…before.
“Only Sgt. ____ and I remember how it used to be, “my daughter lamented, during the same conversation. “Deployments used to be cool, and fun. We like to go on them… now, it’s either Afghanistan or Iraq.”

A peacetime military does have those discrete charms; and make no mistake, for about ten years, it was a peacetime military. The Soviet Union imploded with a pathetic whimper, not the terrific bang expected when I enlisted. There was a certain fatalistic expectation of mushroom-shaped clouds, all during my first few years, and a low-level degree of terrorist activity aimed at those in uniform, then Desert Storm, and then… everyone shaking their heads in the brilliant sunshine, wondering where all those threats had gone. The only thing we were left sure of, was that there was always a use for a military…and that it was a good thing to stay in top form, to practice the skills, and clamor to go on those deployments, and polish those boots, and carry on with what we had always done, against the day when we would be called on again… just as they had in those days of the “Old Army”.

Additional Pictorial Proof of Service

19. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Military

Our Daily Brief contributer, Capt. Loggie sent me this and asked me to post it
CPT Loggie in Africa

He is the shortest of the five gentleman, and to also asked me to let everyone know that he is (a) single and fancy free, and (b) on his way to Afghanistan next month, from where he will send more pictures.

“Carte Blanche” On Syria For US Military

17. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Iraq, Military

This DEBKAfile.com article agrees with information I’ve gotten from other sources:

This mission took Armitage to Damascus with nine American demands. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources published those demands for the first time in its last week’s issue:

1. Start repealing Syria’s 40-years old emergency laws.

2. Free all political prisoners from jail.

3. Abolish media censorship.

4. Initiate democratic reform.

5. Speed up economic development

6. Cut down relations with Iran.

7. Announce publicly that the disputed Shebaa Farms at the base of Mt. Hermon are former Syrian territory. This would cut the ground from under the Lebanese terrorist Hizballah’s claim that the land is Lebanese and must be “liberated” from Israeli “occupation.”

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report that the Iran-sponsored Hizballah’s attack on an Israeli convoy patrolling the disputed Shebaa Farms sector, killing an Israeli officer, on Palestinian election-day, Sunday, January 9, was addressed as much to President George W. Bush as to the new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas as a foretaste of what it has in store.

8. Hand over to US or Iraqi authorities 55 top officials and military officers of the former Saddam regime, who are confirmed by intelligence to be established in Syria and running the guerrilla war in Iraq out of their homes and offices.
(An address, telephone number and cell phone number were listed beside each name).

But the punchline was in the last demand.

9. Syria had better make sure that none of the Kornet AT-14 anti-tank missiles which it recently purchased in large quantities from East Europe turn up in Iraq. US intelligence has recorded their serial numbers to identify their source. DEBKAfile’s military sources add: Because he cannot afford to buy advanced fighter planes and tanks, Assad purchased massive quantities of the “third generation” Kornet AT-14 anti-tank weapons.

Just in case any are found in Iraq, General Casey, commander of US forces in Iraq has already received orders from the commander-in-chief in the White House to pursue military action inside Syria according to his best military judgment.

[…]

Assad and General Habib are both aware, according to our sources, of the near carte blanche handed down to General Casey to pursue military action against Syria as and when indicated by US military requirements in Iraq.

In this regard, DEBKAfile’s military sources note four important points:

1. It will not take place before President Bush is sworn in for his second term on January 20 or Iraq’s general election ten days later.

2. The Americans will not start out with a large-scale, orderly military offensive, but rather short in-and-out forays; small US and Iraqi special forces units will cross the border and raid bases housing Iraqi guerrillas or buses carrying them to the border. If these brief raids are ineffective, the Americans will upscale the action.

3. The Allawi government will formally request the United States to consign joint Iraqi-US forces for action against Syrian targets, so placing the US operation under the Baghdad government’s aegis. In other words, Iraq will be at war with Syria without issuing a formal declaration.

4. It is fully appreciated in Washington, Baghdad and Jerusalem that intense American military warfare against Syria could provoke a Hizballah backlash against Israel. Damascus may well activate the Lebanese Shiite group to open a second front on Israel’s northern border. The Syrian ruler is expected will tolerate a certain level of American low-intensity, low-profile action. But, because of his reluctance to strike back directly at American or Iraqi targets, he will field the Hizballah – and not just for cross-border attacks but to galvanize the terrorist cells it controls and funds in the West Bank and Gaza Strip into a stepped-up offensive against Israeli targets. These Palestinian cells have proliferated over the years, particularly in the Fatah and its branches, encouraged by Yasser Arafat’s cooperative pact with the Hizballah which remains in force after his death.

Therefore, the key Middle East happening in the coming weeks will be US military strikes against Syria. The election of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian Authority chairman, his invitation to the White House, the formation of the Sharon-Peres government coalition – albeit on very shaky legs, and the talk of imminent Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations, will prove to be no more than sideshows of the main event.

It is suspected that the Kornet, one of the only light and portable weapons effective against the M1A1/A2’s depleted uranium armor, has already been used in Iraq.

Response to Kevin’s “Milblogger” Challenge

14. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Military

For pictorial proof of service… voila!

Incredibly dorky semi-official photo, taken while on staff at AFRTS-Sondrestrom in 1982, by a photog who clearly had a brilliant future at the DMV taking drivers’ license pictures…

Bring ‘Em On

14. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Iraq, Military

President Bush is now expessing misgivings over his “Bring ’em On” speech. He shouldn’t. I don’t know of a single servicemember in Iraq that wouldn’t rather have the terrorists there, shooting at them, than stateside, shooting at us. In fact, I’m sure the more thoughtful of them would rather have the terrorists out trying to engage them, than seeing them terrorize the non-combatant Sunnis, who just want to get on with their lives in peace.

Documentaries, Profanity, And The MPAA

13. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, That's Entertainment!

Michael Tucker has sent me this email about his ne movie Gunner Palace:

It’s possible that you have already heard of my film, “Gunner Palace”,
which follows the Army’s 2/3 FA in Baghdad in 2003-2004. The film is
going to be released nation wide on March 4, 2005.

To prepare for the release, we recently submitted the film to the MPAA
for rating. It came back with a “hard” “R” for language, which is the
height of irony considering where these soldiers are and what they are
doing. These are not actors playing soldiers, these are soldiers. It’s
all about context and I’ve decided to appeal the decision.

I think your readers might want to weigh in on this. I’ve attached a
piece by Jack Valenti, grandfather of the MPAA system and WWII vet, on
the FCC/ABC/”saving Private Ryan” telecast last Veterans’ Day–he
argues the case for context better than I ever could.

• I had hoped that the MPAA would be able to make a distinction between
reality and fiction, more, I thought that an association tasked with
reflecting the opinion of American parents, would be able to see that
the majority of Americans support the individual soldier in Iraq and
know that soldiers are living in, and responding to, a very violent
reality.

• Is there profanity in the film? Yes. Is it worse than anything on
the latest RIAA rated CD or what is heard in the hallways of American
high schools? No. The soldiers in the film are simply reacting to the
violence and intensity they live in. Writing about the American
soldier, Oliver North said that after a few months in combat they can,
“take profanity to the level of a new art form.”

• According to the MPAA guidelines more than two uses of a “F” word is
an automatic “R” rating. Profanity, like it or not, is the language of
combat. General Norman Schwarzkopf is quoted as saying, “War is a
profanity because, let’s face it, you’ve got two opposing sides trying
to settle their differences by killing as many of each other as they
can.”

• General George C. Patton, known to most Americans via George C.
Scott’s PG rated profanity laden portrayal of him, was once asked by
his nephew about his use of profanity, to which he replied, “You can’t
run an army without profanity. An army without profanity couldn’t fight
it’s way out of a piss-soaked paper bag.”

Anyway, I somehow think Hollywood is out of touch with America. When I
tell people that we are at war, they often say “What war?” When I went
to Baghdad to make this film, all the soldiers asked is that I “tell it
like is”–the good and the bad. That’s what I did and I think that
their voices need to be heard without undue restriction.

As a soldier says in the film, “For y’all this is just a show, but we
live in this movie.”

Best,

Mike Tucker

To me, profanity in a documentary, particularly one about the military, is akin to full frontal nudity in National Geographic. Should we also be taking that out of children’s reach?

As for Gunner Palace, I haven’t seen it yet, of course. But if indeed it does “tell it like it is,” I wish Michael all the luck in the world. As we all know, there is far more going on in Iraq than the crap we see in the popular media.

San Francisco Collision

12. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Military

(Recieved from a new applicant for the Daily Brief Collective— my hotmail account is frelled during the day, this is the first I could get to it– Sorry for delay—- Sgt Mom)

At 10 January 1634 local (100134 EST) the USS SAN FRANCISCO returned safely to Apra Harbor, Guam. The ship moored with her own line handlers in a normal submarine configured mooring (AFT draft is 27′-10” (normal AFT draft is 32′) and FWD Draft is above the draft marks with the waterline at the point the towed array faring begins; 0.8 degree STBD list and 1 degree Down bubble indicating by naval architecture calculations that 1 A/B and 2A/B MBTs are most likely flooded). The severely injured Machinist Mate (Engineroom Upper Level Watch at time of grounding) was evacuated immediately and transferred by ambulance to Naval Hospital Guam where a fully staffed medical team was standing by. He is conscious and in stable condition. Approximately fifteen additional injured personnel requiring medical care subsequently departed the ship and were transported to the hospital after taking a moment to meet with family members.

Crew members from the USS CORPUS CHRISTI, HOUSTON and FRANK CABLE assisted in line handling and various return to port evolutions such as propulsion plant shutdown, shore power cables, and rig for surface. Standing by on the pier was a full complement of watchstanders from USS CITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI (and SAN FRANCISCO stay-behinds) to satisfy all watchstanding requirements for reactor plant shutdown with follow-on import forward and aft watch sections.

Following the grounding on 8 January, the ship transited on the surface at 8kts with surface escort, USCGC GALVESTON ISLAND to Apra Harbor, Guam. Due to deteriorated weather conditions on the evening of 9 January, the Commanding Officer shifted bridge watch stations to control and shut bridge access hatches to maximize watertight integrity in light of reserve buoyancy concerns. The ship maintained stability throughout the surface transit with continuous operation of the Low Pressure Blower on the Forward Main Ballast Tanks. SAN FRANCISCO has experienced no reactor plant, propulsion train or electrical system degradations as a result of the grounding. The Commanding Officer shifted the Officer of the Deck’s watch to the bridge on 10 January in preparation for piloting into Apra Harbor.

The critically injured Machinist Mate (Auxiliaryman) passed away yesterday afternoon as a result of his injuries. The MM2 was in Aft Main Seawater Bay at the time of the grounding and his body was thrown forward approximately 20 feet into Propulsion Lube Oil Bay. He suffered a severe blow to his forehead and never regained consciousness.

Emergency medical personnel, including a Naval Hospital Guam surgeon, Undersea Medical Officer and Independent Duty Corpsmen, arrived on the ship via helicopter transfer to provide immediate medical care and prepare the crewmember for medical evacuation on the morning of 9 January.

Unfortunately, the sailor’s condition deteriorated and he died onboard while under the care of the embarked physicians. Just moments prior to the sailors death, I spoke with the Sailor’s father in preparation for their pending travel from Ohio to the West Pacific to see their Son. Since then I have passed on to his Dad my condolences on their son’s death and reassured them their son’s remains would be treated with utmost respect and dignity.

His father expressed great gratitude for the extraordinary efforts made by the Navy to save his son’s life. He told me his son loved the Navy, having just reenlisting earlier this year and wanted to make it a career. That when he called home he always talked about the many friendships and the wonderful camaraderie the crew of SFO exhibited. Prior to sailing, he was really excited about the pending ship visit to Australia. The parents are considering traveling to Guam, with Navy support, at some point to meet the crew and partake in a memorial service for his son.

For the remainder of the transit, the embarked medical trauma team administered medical care to the other injured personnel. Their careful attention and evaluation augments the ship’s Independent Duty Corpsman’s heroic efforts since the grounding.

Submarine Squadron Fifteen COMMODORE, Captain Brad Gerhke and Captain Paul Bushong, Commanding Officer of the Submarine Tender USS FRANK CABLE have mobilized their assets, staffs, crews and local Navy Community to provide comprehensive support to the SAN FRANCISCO. Professional counselors, medical personnel and Navy Chaplains are scheduled to meet with the entire crew to provide grief counseling and assistance throughout the next several days and as required over the long term. Brad has been meeting frequently with the SFO families and they are doing remarkable well. The entire Navy community in Guam has come to the SFO’s families’ assistance. I have talked to Kevin Mooney’s (SFO Skipper) wife, Ariel. Her state of mind is positive and resolute, with a courageous and upbeat view of the trying days ahead.

The ship’s Main Ballast Tank damage and deformation has degraded maneuverability and mandated the use of two tugs to moor in Apra Harbor. A Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard/NAVSEA Material Assessment Team comprised of a structural engineer, MBT vent expert, air systems expert and naval architect arrived in Guam with special ship salvage and recovery equipment to stabilize the ship pierside as soon as possible. The team, led by Captain Charles Doty, commenced a seaworthiness and repair assessment upon the ship’s arrival. Once additional buoyancy measures are in place and tested satisfactory, the Low Pressure Blower will be secured to allow divers to enter the water to conduct an inspection.

While this grounding is a tragedy, with a through investigation led by Cecil Haney, we will find out all the facts and then ensure we learn from the mistakes. But, I too believe we have much to be thankful for today, and much to be confident in. An operational warship has returned to port on her own power with all but one of its crew after sustaining major hull damage.

The survival of the ship after such an incredibly hard grounding (nearly instantaneous deceleration from Flank Speed to 4 KTS) is a credit to the ship design engineers and our day-to-day engineering and watch standing practices. The continuous operation of the propulsion plant, electrical systems and navigation demonstrates the reliability of our equipment and the operational readiness of our crews as a whole. The impressive Joint and Navy team effort which resulted in SFO returning to port safely says volumes about the ingenuity and resourcefulness of all our armed services. For all who participated in this effort, thank you and your people. We are all eternally grateful to each of you.

Could you get this posted, please? Those of use who rode these ships understand only too well what happened on the 8th, but this is a very coherent account of the incident. The death of the young 2nd class petty officer will be especially hard for the crew, because we always think in terms of one die, all die; we never are prepared for losing a single shipmate.

Thanks
Boyd G.

PS: This document has been released for distribution by the Navy. I just got back confirmation.

6.8 – It’s Really Great

11. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, Technology

Take a .30 Rem, put a .270 slug on it, and you’ve got the 6.8×43 Remington SPC. My info tells me this cartridge has tested VERY favorably, and will be the choice, over the old 5.56 NATO standard, on the new H&K XM8. It seems the M16 has gotten a very bad rap in Iraq. It’s too big for house-to-house fighting, and too weak for the open desert. Hell, this is the same thing my range instructor told us back in 1975.

Anyone with newer information, please comment.

I wonder how all this will play in Russia, where their AN-94 Abakan, hailed by many as “the wolrd’s most advanced” assult rifle, fires an even smaller, weaker shell then the 5.56 NATO?

Tending To Our Lost And Wounded.

11. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, Veteran's Affairs

U.S. News and World Report’s Mort Zuckerman comments on a serious deficiency in our efforts to retain personnel:

America’s commitment to the survivors of the tsunami is a mark of our generosity. The commitment we make to those who voluntarily put themselves in harm’s way to fight our wars is a mark of our character. It is reflected in two ways. The first is the effort to save the wounded. The success is unparalleled. Some 98 percent of the wounded now survive, a mortality rate half of previous wars and down 22 percent even when compared with the first Gulf War, thanks to rapid evacuation, body armor capable of stopping high-velocity rifle rounds, fast-clot bandages, better tourniquets to preserve blood, and access to fresh whole blood that saves many soldiers from bleeding to death. Beyond that, there is a greater understanding than there was just a few years ago of the mental stress of combat, much aggravated in Iraq, where our soldiers face an enemy who masquerades in civilian clothes and bogus uniforms and blows himself up in order to kill and maim. Post-traumatic stress disorder has a debilitating effect on the brain’s chemistry that sometimes lasts the rest of a person’s life, long after the war is over. It can lead to flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, survivor’s guilt, depression, and emotional numbness.

For all the great advances in battlefield medicine, however, America comes up short when it comes to follow-on assistance to our men and women who bear arms. If an American in military uniform is killed, his or her family receives a one-time tax-exempt death gratuity of $12,000 and rent-free government housing for 180 days, or its equivalent. There is a special group life insurance program that could provide as much as an additional $250,000 if the serviceman or his family subscribes to the program. Compare this with the millions of dollars the families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks received. Then there is the Survivor Benefit Plan, which pays the spouse of a military person killed in action 55 percent of his or her retirement pay–an amount already so low that it qualifies many military families for food stamps. Just recently, the law was revamped to allow spouses to remarry after age 57 and keep receiving this minimal compensation. But those who remarry before 57 still lose their survivor benefits.

Read the whole thing. We will pay a king’s ransom in reenlistment bonuses to those with highly needed specialties. But yet, when a servicemember is lost, or no longer useful, they or their survivors are given short shrift. This is both unconscionable and short-sighted.

Update: A movement is afoot in congress to increase the death benefit to $100,000, and the life insurance to $400,000, at the same premium.

Confined to Quarters

05. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: General, Military

The Air Force powers that be made occasional institutional stabs at calling those quarters designated for the single enlisted types ï¿½dormsï¿½ or ï¿½quartersï¿½, much as they tried referring to the mess hall as a ï¿½dining facilityï¿½. They were usually roundly defeated by hundreds of years of traditional nomenclature; while official documentation made a wistful show of calling it a dormitory, everyone elseï¿½especially those living in it— went right on calling it a ï¿½barracksï¿½, even if it did rather look more like a college dormitory building, and less like the open-bay with fifty bunks and lockers arrayed with precision in two open rows the length of the place, which is what most civilians think of as a barracks.

Such barracks do still exist, of course; in basic training, for one, and on deployments in the field, for another, but in the main junior enlisted military personnel living on-base doss down in a wide variety of buildings in varying degrees of newness and repair, at bases and posts in practically every time zone. Generally, the older the building, the greater the odds that the room will be a small one, and not have to be shared with a roommate (or several), but the latrine/shower/washing area will be a central shared facility. There may even be a common lounge or day-room, sometimes even a kitchen attached. Newer barracks offer larger rooms with a semi-private bathroom, but the additional onus of having to share the place with a roommate. In any case, the walls are painted in some institutionally invisible no-color, and furnished in one of three basic styles prevalent in the military world: GSA Tacky, El Cheapo Danish Moderne or Budget Motel Functionalï¿½ or an unappealing combination of all three.

Whether the barracks is old or new, privacy and quiet are almost nonexistent and aesthetic considerations minimal at best. Growing up in a large family, attending a rackety boarding school, or residence in a commune may be the best preparation for barracks life. (For certain life situations, the barracks life may be a material improvement.) It is my experience that only young troops, blessed with physical stamina and low expectations really enjoy it. With maturity comes a longing for peace, privacy and not to have to put on a robe and slippers and schlep down an icy corridor at 2 AM to take a peeï¿½ let alone having a teen-aged airman, all bright eyed and bushy-tailed at 6 AM pop into the womenï¿½s latrine while you are attempting to apply foundation, blusher and mascara and chirp, ï¿½Gee, Sgt Hayes, youï¿½re the same age as my mother!ï¿½.

No, after a certain age, you only want to share a bathroom with teenagers to whom you are related by blood. Also, after a certain age, you really, really want to keep a degree of separation between the people you work with, and the people who are privy to your off-duty life. Such a degree is just not attainable when living in a barracks. A degree of quiet is not attainable either, because many of the other residents appear to have been raised by wolves, have purchased expensive stereo systems courtesy of the BX Deferred Payment Plan, and are charmingly clueless about the offense given when cranking up their latest CD rattles pictures on the wallsï¿½ of a room three doors away. At 2 AM. That the building was constructed by the lowest bidder anyway, and the dividing walls appear to be made out of sheets of Kleenex and a thin skin of plaster only intensify the amusement when a guy who works for you takes to noisily and energetically schtupping the women who live on either side of your room on alternate evenings. And the two women cannot stand each otherï¿½ oh, yeah, you donï¿½t need to watch a soap opera when resident in a barracks, just being there provides all sports of entertainment.

Eventually it all begins to pall; you get sick and tired of other peoplesï¿½ messy love lives, drinking bouts and jam sessions all conducted at top decibel. You also get sick and tired of the interest that other people are taking in your lifeï¿½ especially the tedious official interest taken by your command, the barracks management and assorted high-ranking nosey-parkers in the state of your devotion to housekeeping in what is after all supposed to be your home. On a regular basis, any assortment of these interested parties can demand entrance to your room, and inspect the state of the refrigerator seals, the windowsills, whether the bed is properly made and what you have left on the top of the dresser. Such interior inspections are not performed in the married housing areas, which house personnel of the same rank and which are also maintained by the military. Of course, even a government landlord has a vested interest in making sure that all quarters are not allowed to degenerate into slum hood. And some few military personnel— single and married alike— do give the impression of having been raised by wolves as far as housekeeping abilities go. But still, the different treatment rankles.

Most military people tend towards the fastidious side of the scale and eventually the single ones living in the barracks tire of repeatedly proving it to every Master Sgt. Tom, Major Dick and Colonel Harry who wants to satisfy themselves about how the troops are doing by tromping heavily through your not-so private bed-sitter. So after a couple of years of barracks life, the older troops decampï¿½ either marrying or renting a place of their own, were one can at least leave an unwashed coffee cup on the end-table without exciting unfavorable comment from someone who doesnï¿½t live there also. They do spend the rest of their lives, though, being rather exacting about lining up shoes, and hanging shirts just so.

He’s Lost

03. January 2005 · Comments Off · Categories: Military, World

I don’t see how a former general can be so consistently out-of-touch. On tonight’s installment of Hardball with Chris Matthews, Barry McCaffrey has actually claimed that aid to tsunami victim has “stretched our military to the breaking point.” This is ridiculous. This relief effort is a mere calisthenic, relative to fighting a war.

I do, however, agree with ret. gen. Wayne Downing, who says that this has put a tax on our airlift capacity. But that is merely employed as a fast response stop-gap measure, until the NGOs can get up-to-speed. In a few days, our military will again have full mobilization capability.

I’d like to note here, that I do hope we are devoting sufficient resources to force protection. While it would be incredibly stupid for the Islamofascists to make a strike against our forces in the region during this crisis, stupidity seems to be their stock-in-trade. I would hate to see another U.S.S. Cole incident.

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