Category Archives: military news

military news

How would I react to this news?

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A social media friend posed a fascinating question to me regarding the latest scandal involving Donald Trump, the one involving reports that he failed to respond to intelligence that Russia was paying bounties to Taliban terrorists who killed U.S. servicemen and women.

He noted that I had served in the military and wondered how I would react to such reports that the commander in chief was looking the other way at news that an enemy state had put a bounty on my head.

You know what? I cannot answer that question definitively. It’s hypothetical and when I am faced with such a question, I tend to fall back on how “I would hope to respond.” I hope I would be filled with rage at the individual who sent me into harm’s way.

I was a 19-year-old kid when I arrived in a war zone more than 50 years ago. I don’t have the foggiest recollection of where my head was in that moment. I cannot recall if I ever gave any thought to anything other than wishing my tour of duty would be over quickly so that I could return to “The World.”

What’s more, I was that we used to refer to as a REMF. The first three letters of that acronym were “rear echelon mother …” I let you figure out what the fourth letter meant. I served in the rear, at first on a flight line, then I went to work at a tactical operations center in  Da Nang, South Vietnam.

My concern at this moment deals with what the men and women who put their lives on the line while fighting for our country are thinking about the commander in chief and the latest astonishing scandal that is boiling up around him. I acknowledge a lack of “consensus” from intelligence officials on whether the Russians are paying bounties to Taliban fighters. But to my ears the reports seem credible.

Donald Trump might have known and did nothing. Maybe he never bothered to read the briefing papers that contained the intelligence. Perhaps the intelligence officers who provide Trump with this information never bothered to tell him what they knew. Are any of these possibilities acceptable? Absolutely not!

I cannot get past the notion that the men and women in harm’s way are mad as hell at the commander in chief.

military news

How do our service personnel react to this?

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I should ask him directly, but instead I will do so on this forum.

I have a member of my family who’s on active duty in the Army. He has served in combat in Afghanistan. He also is an avid supporter of Donald Trump. He is fond of saying “Trump 2020” when we chat via social media.

How in the world can my family member possibly continue to support a president who reportedly (a) didn’t know about reports that Russians were paying Taliban fighters to kill American military personnel or (b) knew about it but did nothing to stop it?

To me the reports of intelligence that Russians were paying a bounty  on our troops seem credible. We need answers. Now!

International news, military news

Trump commits grievous act

(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

There is no limit, no depth to the measures that Donald Trump would use to betray the sacred oath he took when he became president of the United States.

I think we are witnessing the worst case imaginable. My outrage is challenging my ability to control myself.

Media reports indicated that Russian spies paid bounties to Taliban fighters for Americans they kill in Afghanistan. Donald Trump denied the reporting. Now it appears that intelligence officials have confirmed to the media that they placed reports of those bounties on Trump’s desk. They were contained in his briefing papers … at least three months ago.

And yet the president did nothing! He didn’t intercede on behalf of the troops he swore to protect.

I don’t know how others would define that, but my sense is that we have a commander in chief who is aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. He has the legal and political authority — if not the moral standing — to raise holy hell with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. He didn’t do it. Donald Trump sat by silently while Putin was authorizing payments to Taliban terrorists who killed our men and women in battle.

Let that sink in. Have you ever in your life heard of anything so outrageous, so disgraceful, so reprehensible? We appear to have a president of the United States, when given reportedly actionable intelligence that the leader of a hostile power is paying bounties on the deaths of our service personnel, has done not a damn thing to halt it!

I’ll pose this question: Is this the act of a traitor?

We need to get straight to the root of what has been reported.

military news

Trump didn’t know about bounty on U.S. troops? Huh?

Donald John “Liar in Chief” Trump likely is lying yet again, which is not even a little bit of a surprise to those of us who don’t believe a single word that flies out of his mouth.

He says he didn’t know anything about reports of Russian government officials putting up bounty money to pay Taliban fighters who kill U.S. troops fighting them in Afghanistan.

He got no briefings from the Joint Chief of Staff; nothing from the CIA; nothing from the office of National Intelligence; not a word from field commanders. Trump instead is calling the New York Times report another bit of “fake news” and says that “no one has been tougher on Russia” than he has. “We stand by our story, the details of which have not been denied by the President’s own National Security agencies,” a New York Times spokesperson told The Hill.

I believe Donald Trump is lying to us, ladies and gentlemen. I believe further that the CIA knew about the bounty, as did the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the FBI, the office of National Intelligence.

Are we to accept the notion that none of these agency heads reported a single thing to the commander in chief? That no one told him that Russians are paying Taliban terrorists a bounty for the U.S. warriors they kill on the battlefield?

I have to ask: If Trump was not briefed, why wasn’t he told? If the military and intelligence officials were keeping this information from the man in charge, then they are guilty of the most grotesque mismanagement of our war effort imaginable.

Except that I believe Donald Trump knew about it … and that he is lying to us. 

military news

Capt. Crozier gets slapped again … dang!

Man, I was hoping for a different outcome to this story.

U.S. Navy Capt. Brett Crozier got relieved of his command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier because he sent out warnings to the Navy brass that his crew was being threatened by the COVID-19 virus.

The Navy Department said he acted beyond the normal chain of command so it sent Capt. Crozier packing … much to the chagrin of the men and women he commanded.

Now the Navy says he won’t get reinstated, which had been considered. I was among those who thought the Navy shafted the stellar sailor whose only “sin” was to care for the health of his crew.

I had hoped the Navy would return him to his command.

Alas, it won’t.

It’s not all bad news. Crozier will keep his rank. He will be reassigned to another duty post, provided he chooses to stay in the Navy.

Given that the Navy stiffed him, then teased him with the prospect of being reinstated as commanding officer of the Theodore Roosevelt, and then said “no, you won’t,” I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Capt. Crozier will call it a career.

Thank you for your service to the nation and to the men and women you commanded, skipper.

medical news, military news

‘Cause for celebration’? Really?

(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)

Vice President Mike Pence is proud to wear the dunce cap that designates him as Donald Trump’s No. 1 sycophant.

Take, for instance, what he wrote in the Wall Street Journal, where he declared that “under … Trump’s leadership” the rate of infection by COVID-19 in the United States should be a “cause for celebration.”

Huh? Is the VPOTUS out of his mind? Well, yes. He is!

If he’s going to cite national causes for celebration, he needs to hold up France, Italy and Spain. Those countries have actually “flattened the curve” and are seeing serious declines in the infection and death rates from the pandemic.

How about Greece and Taiwan, which took seriously proactive measures at the onset of the pandemic and have experienced hardly any of the heartache that has occurred in the United States?

Oh, no! The VP has swilled Trump’s pandemic Kool-Aid and declared we should be “celebrating.” Earth to Mikey: We’re getting sicker here; many states are seeing serious increases in infection and hospitalization.

Pence wrote: “Thanks to the leadership of President Trump and the courage and compassion of the American people, our public health system is far stronger than it was four months ago, and we are winning the fight against the invisible enemy.”

No. We are not “winning the fight.”

military news

The love lives on for Audie Murphy

How proud are they of Audie Leon Murphy in Farmersville, Texas?

They are so proud of their favorite son that they wouldn’t dare let an international medical pandemic — which has shut down ceremonies and outdoor events around the world — stop them from honoring the most decorated soldier to serve during World War II.

They cut the ceremony short, but it took place today as scheduled on the 75th anniversary of the day he returned home to Farmersville after receiving the Medal of Honor and 32 other medals on battlefields in Africa and Europe. When he arrived in Farmersville for a major homecoming, he was asked to speak to the crowd of about 5,000 that had gathered to cheer their hero. He told a reporter that he’d rather face an “enemy machine gun nest” than speak before a crowd. Indeed, he did wipe out an enemy machine emplacement, an action that brought him the Medal of Honor in 1945.

Audie Murphy Day occurs every June 15 in Farmersville, where Murphy had listed as his hometown when he entered the Army during the height of World War II. It’s usually a big blowout of an affair, but the pandemic forced the city to scale it back.

Still, a crowd of about 200 residents gathered in the downtown square next to the gazebo that sits just west of the Freedom Plaza Memorial.

I caught up with Murphy’s sister, Nadine Murphy Lokey, who now lives in Princeton, but who is a fixture at the annual Audie Murphy Day event.

“We were living in an orphanage when Audie went into the Army,” Lokey told me, “but he wanted to be a soldier his whole life. But, oh boy, he was scared to death over there.”

Lokey said her brother “had a lot of people praying for him. I was one of them who prayed every day and every night for him. It was a miracle that he survived the war.”

Speakers at the gazebo told of how Murphy wore dog tags with his uniform inscribed with “Farmersville, Texas.” They noted that a section of U.S. Highway 380 that runs through Farmersville is named the Audie Murphy Parkway and that the Northeast Texas Trail that begins in Farmersville is designated as the Audie Murphy Trailhead.

Yes, he was a key member of this community. Murphy died in a plane crash in 1971 at the age of 45. He wasn’t able to grow old, unlike his baby sister, Nadine.

The memory of his battlefield exploits live on forever … as does the love expressed today for this American hero.

military news

Noble power and righteous glory?

“No force on earth can match the noble power and righteous glory of the American warrior.” 

I just cannot let stand the remarks by Donald J. “Draft Evader in Chief” Trump without a brief comment on their sheer and blatant hypocrisy.

Trump spoke today to graduating cadets from the U.S. Military Academy. They had scattered far and wide, but Trump summoned them back to listen to his remarks at a socially distant commencement ceremony in Upstate New York.

Yes, we have had draft dodgers serve as president. Bill Clinton bobbed and weaved his way out of serving during the Vietnam War just as Donald Trump did. Trump got a doctor to tell the future president’s draft board that the rich kid couldn’t serve because of “bone spurs.” Trump said he “never was a fan” of that war. No sh**, dude? Neither were others of us … but we served!

Now, after dismissing and denigrating the generals and admirals who run our military, after co-opting their mission by threatening to use them to put down domestic protests and to serve as border cops to stop a phony “caravan” of refugees, he salutes these newly commissioned officers as possessing “noble power” and “righteous glory.” 

This commander in chief sickens me.

military news

Glad to re-engage this Confederate debate

I am so very happy that Americans are re-engaging each other in this debate over the Confederacy, the Confederate States of America and whether we should be naming public institutions — namely military establishments — in honor of enemies of the state.

The debate has been joined yet again because many Americans are awakening to the realization that the CSA was formed in 1861 for one purpose: to destroy the United States of America. Why? To enable states to continue to enslave human beings, to allow them to be kept as property of other human beings.

So the Confederacy fired on a Union garrison in Charleston Harbor, S.C., and ignited the Civil War.

The men who fought for the CSA were traitors to the nation. There is no other way to consider them. So now we have resumed the debate over whether their names belong on places such as Army posts, which trains, houses and equips men and women to defend this country against its enemies. The irony is astounding.

You may spare me the tired notion that the Confederate statues and the names of these individuals on buildings and other public establishments is a recognition of the nation’s “heritage.” The heritage that some of us want to protect does not deserve the honor it has been given. That it took so long to understand that perhaps is the most astonishing aspect of this debate.

The argument that the CSA was steeped in protecting “states’ rights” also has been revealed as a tired euphemism for what it really intended to protect. Slavery is this nation’s original sin and we must deal with it forthrightly.

Now is as good a time as any, given that so much time has passed since those Americans were set free and granted the rights of citizenship they deserved to possess all along.

This debate, of course, is lacking one key voice … that of the commander in chief, who says he won’t accept the idea of changing the names of military posts. Donald Trump cannot offer a single reason to keeping these names, other than to placate those among his political base who demand that they remain.

Someone said today that the names of these enemies of the Union — and the flag under which they fought — deserve to be displayed in museums … alongside other enemies of the United States: the Nazis, fascists, ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Soviet Union, the North Vietnamese communists, the People’s Republic of China.

Should they remain attached to places of high honor and respect? Absolutely not!

military news

Joint Chiefs chairman ‘regrets’ taking part in photo op

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U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has been bitten by the military honor bug and his reaction to it might incur the wrath of the commander in chief.

To which I say … good for you, Gen. Milley.

The general says now he regrets taking part in that ridiculous photo op staged by Donald Trump in which he walked to St. John Episcopal Church to hold up a Bible. He was accompanied on that stroll by Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Milley, who was dressed in combat fatigues.

Milley said today his presence at the photo op interjected the military into a political scene, which is anathema to the military’s mission. The episode was centered on protests over racial injustice by local police departments. Trump thought he’d respond to it by prancing over to the church and holding up a Bible in a ridiculous display of phony religiosity.

As The Associated Press reported: He said his presence in uniform amid protests over racial injustice “created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”

There you have it. The battle-tested veteran realizes that he erred in taking part in a stupid political stunt. What’s more, and this could get tricky, is that he well might draw incoming fire from Nimrod in Chief who dislikes any form of criticism from any quarter. When, then, will Donald Trump do? Is he going to “fire” the Joint Chiefs chairman for standing on principle?

Well, he’s done something like that before. Such as when he fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia “thing”; or when he fired Defense Secretary James Mattis for disagreeing with Trump on Middle East policy; or when he fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for challenging Trump’s policy decisions on the basis of whether they were lawful; or when he fired FBI Director James Comey for refusing to declare total loyalty to Trump.

Gen. Milley shouldn’t lose his job over his expression of regret. Then again, Donald Trump shouldn’t even be in a position to decide how to respond to the statements of an honorable soldier and patriot.