Tag Archives: US Army

‘Rolling Thunder 2.0’ … perhaps?

B52

Bring on the B-52s.

The Pentagon has deployed an unspecified number of the Cold War-era strategic bombers to Qatar to take part in the fight against the Islamic State.

The brass says the aircraft bring “multi-platform” forms of firepower to rein down on the terrorists. The Air Force describes the weaponry as precise and finely tuned to hit military targets.

Good to hear!

The B-52 remains one of the U.S. Air Force’s most potent weapons. It went into operation in the 1950s and has gone through several upgrades over the decades.

It poured thousands of tons of ordnance on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong targets during the Vietnam War. The planes played a key role in softening up Iraqi troop positions during the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91.

Now the Islamic State is about to feel the wrath of a weapon that our nation’s enemies always have feared on the battlefield.

My very first visual sight of the Vietnam War occurred as I peered out the window of a jetliner en route to Bien Hoa, South Vietnam in the spring of 1969. I looked down and saw a flight of the big birds flying out over the ocean after, I presume, completing a bombing run over South Vietnam.

Once I settled in at our Army aviation base near Da Nang, I could hear the thunder to our west as the planes fulfilled their mission. It was music to our ears, but it meant something quite different to those on the receiving end.

I welcome the news of the B-52 coming back into active wartime duty. I’m quite certain the terrorists who are about to find themselves on the receiving end of some serious pain will not.

 

Hey, the Taliban really are terrorists!

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Consider this an open letter to CIA director John Brennan.

Dear Mr. Brennan:

You need to rethink your cockamamie notion that the Taliban is not a terrorist organization. Now!

Have you heard the news? The Taliban exploded a bomb in a park in Lahore. It killed 65 Christians who were gathered there. Most of the victims were women and children.

Attack aimed at Christians

Let’s see. The attack occurred on Christianity’s holiest holiday. The Taliban actually stated it that it was targeting Christians. The victims were defenseless against the attack.

I do believe, Mr. Director, that the act committed today constitutes a bona fide act of terror. It was aimed precisely at non-combatants and its aim now is to put other such individuals or groups of individuals on notice that they may be next.

This is worth bringing up because of the exchange negotiated with the Taliban that brought about the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who’d been held by the Taliban for five years after he walked off his post in Afghanistan.

I’m sure you recall that White House press flack Josh Earnest said the United States “negotiated” the release because it doesn’t consider the Taliban to be a terrorist organization. We don’t “negotiate with terrorists,” Earnest told us.

Fair enough.

Except that the Taliban for decades has terrorized women and children. Yes, it has resorted to violence against those who oppose its repression.

Now we have this incident of terror in the park in Lahore, Pakistan.

It was committed by the Taliban. The group sought to terrorize innocent people.

If this is not the action of a terrorist organization, then no such organization exists anywhere on the planet. We all know that’s not the case.

The Taliban needs to be treated as the terrorists they are — and always have been.

 

Who are you callin’ ‘antique’?

AAgyrHD

Man, I’m feeling old today.

My body isn’t aching. I’ve got most of my marbles. My memory’s still pretty keen.

I just read a headline about “antique” weapons of war being used against the Islamic State.

The picture attached to the story is of an OV-10 Bronco, a twin-engine airplane used during the Vietnam War.

I remember the Bronco. I saw them take off almost hourly from an airfield in a place called Marble Mountain, just a few miles south of Da Nang.

I was assigned to an Army aviation battalion on the western side of the airfield. The OV-10s were piloted by Marines assigned on the other side of the strip. The Marines were stationed with a group called MAG 16, which is shorthand for the 16th Marine Air Group. They flew Broncos, Cobras, Hueys and the Marines’ version of Chinook twin-rotor helicopters.

OK, so I didn’t work on the Broncos, which look vaguely like the old P-38s of World War II; both planes had the twin-fuselage design.

They were effective weapons back then. I guess they’re doing the job now against the Islamic State.

According to the Daily Beast, the Broncos’ mission is somewhat hush-hush. They’ve been used to test updated equipment installed on the birds.

I recall the Broncos being fairly fast and agile aircraft. They would provide firepower to aid ground troops working in the I Corps region of South Vietnam. Today, they’re being used in a similar capacity against Islamic State terrorist fighters.

As the Daily Beast reports: “There are plenty of clues as to what exactly the Broncos were doing. For one, the Pentagon’s reluctance to provide many details about the OV-10s’ overseas missions implies that the planes were working in close conjunction with Special Operations Forces. In all likelihood, the tiny attackers acted as a kind of quick-reacting 9-1-1 force for special operators, taking off quickly at the commandos’ request and flying low to hit elusive militants with guns and rockets, all before the fleet-flooted jihadis could slip away.”

It’s interesting — and somewhat gratifying — to me that tried-and-tested equipment still has its place in this new world of high-tech warfare.

However, to call them “antique” makes those of us who watched these birds fly in their prime feel, well, a bit older than our years.

I can do without the reminder.

Indeed, women should register for the draft

f4d20f6d76a0b8f8832cc7dc2253-is-a-military-draft-a-good-thing-for-governments-to-have-in-place-permanently

This almost seems like an oversight on the part of the Pentagon brass.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter declared a year ago that women should be able to serve in the combat arms of all military services.

But wait! They don’t yet have to register for the draft the way their male colleagues have to do.

The Marine Corps commandant and the Army chief of staff have testified before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that, yes, women should be required to register with Selective Service.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a member of the panel, agreed.

Generals testify

So, didn’t they think of this earlier, when they were deliberating in the Pentagon about allowing women to serve in direct combat? Women now are able to serve in the infantry, armor and artillery branches — the three combat arms — of the armed forces.

However, if we’re going to extend full equality to both genders, then we need to go all the way.

We don’t have a draft any longer. It ended in the early 1970s during the last years of the Vietnam War. Despite having an all-volunteer military force, young men have had to register for Selective Service in case there would be a need to call them into military duty.

With women now joining men on the battlefield as soldiers and Marines, it’s time to sign them up, too.

 

Where have you gone, Sgt. Bergdahl?

Bowe Bergdahl has disappeared, more or less, from the public’s sights.

You might remember the name. He is the U.S. Army sergeant who had been held captive for a couple of years by the Taliban. Then he got released in exchange for five prisoners who were being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — or more specifically, at the U.S. Navy detention center set up there.

Some of the former prisoners reportedly returned to the war against the United States and one of them is believed to be a leader in the Islamic State terrorist group that has been beheading captives.

Bergdahl’s release became the subject of much discussion by Americans. Why were we negotiating with terrorists? Was the price too great to pay for a single U.S. soldier? Did Bergdahl give away too many secrets to his captors? Did he abandon his post and, in effect, desert the Army?

It’s the final question that seemed to cause the most angst among Americans who thought the government paid too much to gain the release of a soldier who they believe wasn’t worth bringing home.

Well, he was returned to U.S. hands, went into seclusion, then went home to Idaho to be with his friends and family and has returned to active duty.

The Army brass said it would investigate the entire sequence of events and determine whether Bergdahl did what the critics said he did.

I’m still waiting.

Meanwhile, the nation’s attention has been pulled in so many directions, I cannot keep track.

Crises erupt here, there — and everywhere.

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s story still hasn’t been told. If it meant so much at the time of his release to learn all the details of his captivity and his return to freedom, then it still ought to matter.

ISIL defines itself

The Islamic State may have defined itself much more sharply with its dastardly execution of an American aid worker in Syria.

ISIL isn’t fighting a war against Christians. It is fighting a war against westerners, namely Americans.

So, for this murderous cult to call itself an “Islamic” anything is to commit serious heresy.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/amy-davidson/mystery-abdul-rahman-peter-kassig

Peter Kassig once served as a U.S. Army Ranger, doing his duty as a soldier and a loyal American. Then he left the Army and became an aid worker dedicated to helping civilians caught in the middle of a bloody civil war in Syria.

Along the way, he converted to Islam. He changed his name to Abdul-Rahman Kassig. ISIL captured him, held him captive and then beheaded him in the same brutal fashion it executed two other Americans.

A dear friend of mine, an educated and well-traveled man, noted on social media the other day that ISIL is anything but a religion-based organization. “The leaders of radical Islam are simply a collection of pychopaths, sociopaths, and murderous thugs who probably get aroused by watching be-headings, rapes, and other disgusting acts,” my dear pal noted.

You know, I accept that description — perhaps except for the arousal part.

Still, we are engaging in a fight with an enemy that simply knows no boundaries of decency at any level.

Kassig was seeking to do some good against the forces of evil. He was giving aid and comfort to fellow Muslims. This is the kind of act that requires a summary execution by monstrous killers proclaiming to be carrying out Allah’s holy command?

The Islamic State has just provided a stark reminder — as if the world needed one — of the nature of this beastly cult.

 

 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em … for now?

Military veterans of a certain age — or older — should understand what I’m about to say next.

There might be no greater barometer of society’s cultural shift than an idea to ban the selling of tobacco products at military installations.

That idea is on the table. So help me, I cannot decide how I feel about this.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/military-smoking-congress-111671.html

I quit smoking cold turkey 34 years ago. It was in February 1980. I took a drag on a cigarette, nearly choked on it, snuffed it out, tossed the rest of the pack into the trash and I was done. So I’m now a dedicated non-smoker who detests the smell of cigarette smoke wafting into my face.

I also once was a young man in my late teens who served in the U.S. Army. I did a couple of years from August 1968 until August 1970. Smoking was part of my life then.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus floated the idea of banning the sale of tobacco in the spring. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered a review of the idea. It might come up during the lame-duck session of Congress.

Is this right? Well, from a health standpoint, of course it is.

From another angle, which I have difficulty describing, it seems somehow wrong.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine reservist who served tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, perhaps spoke for a lot of vets when he said: “It’s not curbed for anybody else. Why pick out the folks who have chosen of their own accord to fight for their country and serve their country and punish them? Leave us the hell alone — we’re out here fighting for your freedom and you’re taking away ours.”

Ouch!

During basic training, there was many a time when we’d get PX privileges we’d spend our then-meager $103 monthly stipend on “necessities.” Cigarettes, which then sold for 15 cents a pack, were among them. We’d have them handy while out running from place to place lugging an M-14 and a pack full of gear. Our drill sergeant would stop us for a break. “Light ’em up!” he’d bark. We would scramble for the cigarette and Zippo lighter, fire one up, then he’d yell, “Put ’em out!”

There’s something, oh, rather unique about that experience that sticks with me to this very moment — 46 years later.

Has society changed so much since that time? I reckon so.

Women are ready for combat, more or less

This blog post is going to get me in trouble with some of my female friends.

Here goes anyway: I have trouble accepting that women are capable of performing as infantry personnel in combat.

There I said it. Now I’ll explain why.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/07/10/marine-corps-dilemma-with-women-prompts-change-at-infantry-school/

The Washington Post reports on an experiment under way in the Marine Corps, where women will be taking the same Physical Fitness Test as men. As the Post reports: “The PFT requirement is the likely sticking point for many female Marines: To score a first-class PFT, men must do at least five pull-ups, assuming they rack up maximum points by running three miles in 18 minutes or less and complete 100 sit-ups. Under current rules for female Marines, women are not required to complete pull-ups.”

I’ll stipulate that I am well aware that women are performing well in some dangerous and deadly assignments in all branches of the military. They’re flying high-performance combat aircraft, as well as helicopters in close-air support roles on the battlefield.

Indeed, a young cousin of mine is now an Army master sergeant who has served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her earliest assignments in Iraq were with a civil affairs unit, which meant she would venture into villages to set up infrastructure for Iraqis — not knowing if the village was occupied by enemy combatants. In Vietnam we called the effort “pacification.”

I do not doubt that women can perform in two of the three combat arms: artillery and armor; the third one being infantry. They can drive tanks or armored personnel carriers and they can fire big artillery pieces.

I long ago disabused myself of the concern about women being emotionally capable of performing combat duty. I hold up my cousin as the prime example of a female soldier’s emotional stamina.

But does a typical 120-pound woman have the same upper-body strength as a typical 200-pound man, enabling her to lug around an 80- or 100-pound rucksack while slogging across some rough terrain?

I tend to think not.

Therein lies what I consider to be the problem with allowing women to serve as infantry personnel.

I fear this experiment is not going to work for either the Army or the Marine Corps.