Tag Archives: military

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“The Day of Delusion”

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Once again, Mr Starmann sees what every “been there, done that” experienced combat veteran knows to be true. My only question is where’s General Mattis in all this utter nonsense?

By Ray Starmann

As the feminist Kamikaze bears down on the U.S.S. Pentagon, spineless brass sip Mint Juleps on the bridge, adding up their pensions and hoping to abandon ship before the US military is catastrophically killed in the next war.

Which it will be, if nothing changes, mark my words.

Across the military, standards are dropping faster than a Greg Maddux sinker; as lackeys, perfumed princes, feather merchants and cultural Marxist, Obama holdouts do their best to make the US Military the Laughing Stock of the World.

Standards are hitting new lows across the board in the military, in order to fuel feminists’ fantasies. There are currently no physical standards at the Special Forces Qualification Course. What does this mean? It means that your 90-year-old grandma can become a Green Beret now. The Marines recently chucked a grueling physical endurance test they had been using at the Marine Corps’ Officer Basic Course for 50 years. (not completely true Ray, it’s in the Infantry Officer’s Course, not the Basic Course. And it wasn’t chucked, it’s still there but no longer an immediate dis-qualifier.) There is no longer a requirement to throw a live grenade successfully at Army Basic Training.  And, Fort Benning, is pumping out female Rangers faster than you can say ‘shotgun wedding.’

If women are passing Ranger School honestly, let’s see the records for all the women who graduated, starting in 2015, and including 37-year-old Mommy Ranger.

I love the idea of a Mommy Ranger. She can seize an airfield one day, and pick up her son at soccer practice the next. Isn’t diversity cool? Oh rejoice, equal opportunity!

And, then there’s General Maude…!

 ‘These are the Mommies of Pointe du Hoc. These are the mothers who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.’

God Help us all. ‘Colonel Darby, who was a mighty brave, is rolling around in his shallow grave.’

It is all a gigantic lie, a Potemkin Village waiting to be burnt down, a US Government, machine fabricated Quonset hut of cards that will collapse the moment the first green tracer rounds go down range in anger at our vanguard of crack, female troops. It is all a mammoth Pinocchio. Feminists know it. The generals know it. The Secretary of Defense knows it. Yet, it continues to metastasize like an unstoppable cancer.

Liberals applaud all of it as some kind of 21st Century civil rights crusade tantamount to a Dr. King march. What it is really tantamount to is national suicide.

Want to know the current state of PC, liberal delusion wafting through the US military now? Just listen to the comments recently made by several female general officers during the Women Leadership Roundtable Discussion at the Pentagon on February 7, 2018, aka ‘The Day of Delusion.’

Major General Marion Garcia, commanding general for the 200th Military Police Command, shared her experiences with congressional staff delegates and fellow general officers at the Roundtable.

“I just know that the future leader of the Army is going to be a woman because that person is going to be infantry and come up through the ranks and do it. I know they can,” said Garcia.

Of course they can! Within a year there will be no physical standards remaining in the US Army, much less the entire military to accommodate women into the combat arms. Ten old ladies steering walkers into a Marie Callender’s is the new infantry squad of 2018.

The Day of Delusion continued with comments by Major General Tammy Smith:

“Women don’t go to Pathfinder School,’” she recalled as she conveyed the response she received when she asked to attend the course in her earlier years, even though the rules had changed, allowing her to do so. Today, that culture has changed drastically, and that situation would play out much differently, she said. There is recourse for a supervisor who prevents female Soldiers and officers to attend courses that they are eligible for, she said.

I wonder how Smith would have done on D-Day, jumping into Normandy in the middle of the night to light the drop zones for the main airborne effort? Why do I get the feeling she would have gotten pregnant to avoid being deployed to the ETO in the first place? But, back then, the military didn’t have to deal with this nonsense. In 1944, the military was focused on winning a world war, not on placating the feminist and LGBT lobby. To Smith, like most feminists, the combat arms and its schools are just useful tools for them to use on the road up the career ladder, national security be damned.

The general officers conveyed how the military has changed since they first joined, discussed the stigma of pregnancy in some command environments and talked about balancing civilian life and their military careers while serving in the Army Reserve.

The military has not changed. It has self-destructed like one of Mr. Phelps’ reel to reel decks.

“It’s not easy raising kids while you’re doing this,” said Maj. Gen. Mary Link, commanding general, Army Reserve Medical Command.

Well, General Link. If the Army wanted you to have a kid, they would have issued you one.

“The Army Reserve has been very good as far as being able to balance those other priorities in my life,” said Brig. Gen. Lisa Doumont, commanding general, Medical Readiness and Training Command.

“I had twins, and then I was pregnant with my third son, so I said, ‘You know, I want to be around,’ so I left active duty and came into the Army Reserve. It’s been wonderful,” she said.

Absolutely! The Army exists to serve the needs of pregnant soldiers. And, with the Army’s new breastfeeding and lactation policies, pumping and storing breast milk in the field was never easier! Remember, to balance lactation support with readiness!

Lt. Col. Angela Wallace, public affairs officer, Army Reserve Medical Command and moderator for the event, opened the roundtable discussion and set the scene for the panel, stressing how America’s security thrives when relying on every service member’s talents, regardless of gender.

Obviously, Wallace has never been in a war, much less a fire fight, much less within 5000 miles of any shot and shell. She should ask any surviving veterans of Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Pelelieu, Omaha Beach and the Bulge, how having women in the combat arms would have added anything except total disaster to those military operations and battles.

When Garcia was asked about her experience as a military police officer, she said, “This was one of those branches that had been open to women for quite some time.”

“(Military police) run gun trucks ahead of the infantry to clear the roadways and make sure they can get to where they need to go. We’ve been doing that for years,” she said. Really? Maybe for street parades, welcoming home ceremonies, and convoys to move farm animals out of the way. But, I dare say in combat, it would be Combat Engineers clearing the roads of IED’s, not people. That was a cheap shot that I would have hoped someone asked the general to elaborate on that one. But I’m sure no one did.

I’m not sure what Garcia is talking about, but it’s actually the infantry that seize and hold ground, not the military police. But, keep on dreaming, general.

Lieutenant General Gwen Bingham, Army assistant chief of staff for Installation Management, recalls an earlier time when her male leaders reacted to her pregnant appearance.

“Whoa, what happened here? What’d you go and do that for?” and “Soldier! What kind of uniform are you wearing? Is that the right uniform?” Bingham repeated. “Today, the military services are more pregnancy friendly. Maternity uniforms are available for pregnant service members and pregnancies are no longer seen as a hindrance or inconvenience.”

No, pregnancies are no hindrance at all. In fact, throughout history there are thousands of examples of pregnant soldiers fighting in battles, in fact whole units that were in fact, pregnant. Who can forget the 10th Welch ‘Bun in the Oven’ Regiment at the Somme? Where has the military been all this time?  Of course, the pregnant soldier is completely non-deployable, but don’t worry about that. The important thing is that the military is a big social welfare program and is there to provide its soldiers with cradle to grave benefits.

Maternity Army Combat Uniform… Let that bit of total lunacy roll around in your cabeza for a moment.

Goodbye Patton, MacArthur, Collins, Ridgway and Schwarzkopf. Hello, Garcia, Bingham, Wallace and Link.

God help us all.

Of course when questioned about the feminist destruction derby taking place in the military, the first thing out of the liberal mouth is that real bastions of militarism and prowess like Sweden have women in the infantry.

Bravo for the Swedes – they faded out as a group of bad ass killers in about 1100 A.D. with the advent of Christianity in Scandinavia. The only Vikings left are the guys from Minnesota who now play in a domed stadium because the snow is tough on their fragile Millennial bodies.

And, Bud Grant ain’t smiling…

Message to the Obama loyalists and feminists in the US Military. We ain’t Sweden. We ain’t Belgium. We ain’t Canada, nor are we Germany, a country that gave the world Rommel and the Afrika Korps, but now couldn’t find ten men with testosterone running through their veins.

On the contrary, the USA has some very tough and very determined enemies, enemies who will bringing planes, tanks, ships and MEN to the next war with us. And, we are in the process of committing national suicide.

I have a few questions for Generals Garcia, Bingham, Wallace and Link:

How does the integration of women into the combat arms increase or maintain a unit’s operational tempo?

How does the integration of women into the combat arms increase a unit’s strength?

How does the integration of women into the combat arms increase or maintain esprit de corps and the camaraderie of men in battle?

How does the integration of women into the combat arms not create a high school atmosphere in what was once a hard-nosed, all male, efficient group of steely eyed killers?

How does the integration of women into the combat arms increase or maintain our national security?

Do you understand that our enemies, who will be bringing only men to war, view us as politically correct imbeciles?

Besides given feminists a big warm and fuzzy, how does the integration of women into the combat arms do anything, but turn the US military into a feminized weakling?

Will you take responsibility for the thousands of dead women who will be arriving home in flag draped coffins in our next conflict, casualties of your stupidity, selfishness and dishonesty?

Of course you won’t. People like you never do.

The Day of Delusion speaks volumes about the current politically correct atmosphere that is burning down the military.

Infantry Women, National Security Equals Gender Neutrality, the Army is a Welfare Program and Pregnancies are No Hindrance to Combat Readiness.

The Hour of the Clusterfu*k is rapidly approaching and there is no one who has the guts to stop it. Hopefully, there is someone, and I believe he is waiting for the right time to stop some of this lunacy.

 

Originally posted 2018-04-08 08:12:40.

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Vietnam War – Unbiased

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As I watched this power point presentation it conjured up all sorts of memories, none were good memories, but memories I am proud of. I’ve not finished watching Burns and Novick’s biased series, which I sure many Americans now firmly believe was an honest depiction of that war. Meanwhile those who had boots on the ground have a  completely different view. I probably won’t finish watching the series now that I have read so many reviews by people I trust because their boots were alongside mine – on the ground. But as I clicked on each slide, I was vividly reminded how we lived, how we fought, and how we bled. The I think of  the current state of affairs that Obama and his cronies like Mabus and “Ash and Trash” Carter have left our military. As you watch this, think about women in the infantry, transgenders serving in these hell holes, think diversity supposedly making our military more efficient.  And tell me, show me, introduce me to an 18-year-old woman who could live through that and if she did would not be scarred for life. What fools we are!

Vietnam_War SLIDE SHOW

Originally posted 2017-10-18 10:20:22.

Current Events

“Thank You for Your Service”

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Really? Do you truly mean those words, or are they something that makes you feel good about your lack of it? I have often wondered about that because it seems so common today like Good Morning or Good Afternoon. Here is an article that my favorite contributor Marine Greg Maresca, had published in the American Spectator. I think it is a fitting article for today as it’s Veterans Day, or for those who remember when it was Armistice Day. Enjoy, and if you are a Vet, think about Greg’s recommendation. I love it!

When I first stepped onto the college quad, I was just another young man, making his way, surveying the lay of the land. For me, however, there were a few personal firsts playing out in real time to which none of those aspiring collegians were privy.

For one, I was no longer getting a weekly haircut, nor was any razor getting acquainted with my face on a daily basis. I no longer used shower shoes, waited in line to eat out of a can, or pitched a tent to sleep in a bag. “The slide into civilian slime,” as Marine Corps GySgt. Cooley, a decorated Vietnam veteran, would lament, was well underway. Perhaps that is why Gunny assigned me to the Civilian Readjustment class — twice.

In one of my first collegiate classes, everyone took a turn at the professor’s lectern, and we were all instructed to introduce ourselves with a brief biography, explaining what brought us to university. As the class was dismissed, the professor asked to speak with me. In no uncertain terms he wanted me to know that, during the Vietnam years, protests on campus occurred, and veterans were not well received by some.

Growing up, I witnessed the domestic upheaval that was endured by these veterans, many of whom were the senior NCOs and field grade officers I served with. There was even a smattering of Korean War veterans among them. Sensing the opportunity to support and defend these men who mentored me, I did it without trepidation and with satisfaction.

This was before the days when the ubiquitous expression “Thank you for your service” became the new catchphrase echoing throughout our lexicon, especially around Veterans Day. For some, specifically those Korean and Vietnam veterans, the “thanks” and “welcome home” were much too long in coming. Whether or not these words bestowed upon them are sincere, the fact is that plenty never got a chance to hear such benign salutations.

Or is it just something we say, like “Happy Thanksgiving” and “Merry Christmas,” to fill an uncomfortable void that often comes across as disingenuous?

This seemingly quasi-support perhaps stems from the fact that most have never served, even though America had, until recently, been at war for nearly two decades. More than 2 million served in Iraq and Afghanistan following 9/11. That seems like a lot, but, categorically, they represent less than 1 percent of the U.S. population.

Americans’ experience of war today happens as they are surrounded by the comforts of home. That battle against evil and freedom-hating rogues is fought compliments of a computer video screen and mouse, where the terror, blood, and stench of death is nonexistent.

“Thank you for your service.”

Really?

If you truly mean what you say, how about making your gratitude count the next time you vote? For once, stop casting your ballot for Marxists who take their liberties for granted, while despising this country that I served, and you chose not to, a nation that seemingly does not exist today.

How about that — or are you offended?

Freedom’s steep and never-ending price tag is disproportionally paid, time and again, by veterans, and it always has been that way, even after 1973 when Congress put the draft to rest. If attempting to assuage your draft-deferment guilt with your yearly perfunctory “thank you for your service” makes you feel better — then have at it.

After all, it’s a free country, right?

There is one hero of the Iraq War, who had the humility and grace to respond in kind, who was nothing short of perfection. You won’t find this gentleman on Facebook or any other narcissistic social media outlet extolling his every move as some validation of purpose. He does not wear a hat, shirt, or jacket to distinguish who he is because his mere presence and the way he carries himself more than suffices.

While on patrol in Iraq, his face and hands were mutilated by an improvised explosive device. Maimed for life, he looked the person dead in the eye, saying, “The best way you can thank any of us for our service is to make America a nation worth dying for, again.”

Amen.

Greg Maresca is a longtime Sample News Group columnist and a Marine Corps veteran living in Flyover, Pennsylvania. 

Wow, was that powerful or what?That is a great response to those common words of “Thank you for your service” (because I didn’t). Thank you so much for this Greg!! And Semper Fi, Brother.
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Worth the Read!

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This is a correction as to the author of this fine article. It is Craig Pirrong, Professor of Finance & Energy Markets and Director of the Global Energy Management Institute, Bauer College of Business, University of Houston.

August 2, 2017

Tell It to the Marines: SJWs are Inimical to Real Warfighting

— The Professor @ 11:43 am

Everything in the military should be directed to its purpose: winning wars while being sparing of American lives. As Patton said, making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. The focus should be on lethality, and strategic, operational, and tactical prowess. All other considerations are beyond secondary, because it is a matter of life and death, not to mention national security.

This is why I read with satisfaction that SecDef Mattis wants to focus training on warfighting, not Mickey Mouse:

Notably, Mattis has ordered a review of the “requirements for mandatory force training that does not directly support core tasks” – the many hours soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines spend prior to deployment meeting the Pentagon-required tasks that sometimes have little to do with the role they will actually fulfill when deployed.

“I want to verify that our military policies also support and enhance warfighting readiness and force lethality,” Mattis said.

Damn right. And about time.  To do otherwise puts lives at risk, and jeopardizes the national interest by compromising the ability of the military to fight and win wars.

But real warriors have long been the target of Social Justice Warriors who want to use the military to advance their agendas, even when doing so is inimical to combat effectiveness, either because it diverts resources from primary missions, or because it actually undermines order, discipline, and effectiveness.

The recent kerfuffle over transgenders in the military is a case in point. The whole purpose of making transgenders in the military a cause celebre had nothing at all to do with fighting shooting wars: it was all about fighting the culture war. Some of the attacks on Trump for his bolt-from-the-blue statement that he was overturning the late-in-the-day Obama policy regarding transgenders in the military were rather astounding. One was the commonly repeated statement that there were as many as 15,000 transgendered individuals in the US military. That would be 1 percent of the force: bull. (How many transgenders do you know?) Even the Rand study that was commissioned to advise Obama administration policy put the number at less than half of that–at most–and admits that there is no empirical or epidemiological basis for the number. It is a wild ass guess. Nothing more.

Then there were statements like how terrible it was to exclude transgenders from the military because the suicide attempt rate among them is almost 10 times that of the population at large. Methinks that argument cuts quite the other way: why would you want to put in a high stress environment people who are disproportionately suffering from severe emotional problems? This is not conducive to military effectiveness, and even putting that aside, how is it helping these people? Suicide rates are already above average for military personnel, especially those who have been in combat: tell me how it is compassionate to encourage such emotionally vulnerable individuals to go into a profession that can test every fiber of the far stronger? Indeed, it is sick that transgenders are being used as pawns in the SJW war on convention and majority culture.

My policy recommendation is pretty simple: don’t ask, don’t snip. Apply the same standards of conduct and performance. Those that hack it, fine. Those that can’t–adios. That’s a truly non-discriminatory policy that is consistent with the overriding goal of the military: combat effectiveness.

The recent flap over transgenders sparked by a (go figure) Trump tweet is only the most recent example of the SJW campaign against traditional military norms. One that I’ve been keeping my eye on is efforts to change the Marine Corps, always a bête noire to the left because of its unapologetic, uncompromising stance on traditional standards of the service, and its resistance to PC tripe that the other branches have capitulated to. The anti-USMC vanguard sees an opening due to the recent scandal involving Marines sharing online naked photos of female Marines, often accompanied by unflattering commentary.

Is it gross? Yes. Would I be upset if my daughters were the subject of such indignities? Probably–although I am sure I would tell them that this is a problem easily avoided: don’t pose for (or take yourself) nude photos.

But even granting, for the sake of argument, that the Marine Corps is a socially retrograde institution, out of step with progressive values, and beset with misogyny: I don’t care! I look at the effects of its culture and traditions at achieving the purpose of the organization: on those terms, its record is unparalleled. Do not interfere with any military organization that has achieved a record unblemished by defeat. Do not interfere with any military organization that within the last 100 years has been able to get its men to fight and win horrific battles. There is no other body of troops of similar size that can match its record. Just look at the names: Belleau Wood, some bloody small wars in Central America and Haiti, Wake Island, Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Bougainville, Tarawa, Peleliu, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Inchon, Seoul, the Chosin Reservoir, Hue, Kuwait, Fallujah I and II. Grinding, bloody battles all. Despite often fighting on a shoestring (always being last in line for equipment) and facing grave disadvantages in terrain, protection, and position, and taking grievous casualties, the Marines always prevailed. (Yes, Wake is an exception. But that was a forlorn hope in which the Marines covered themselves in glory.)

When people approached Lincoln with tales of Grant’s drinking, he responded: find out what kind of whiskey he drinks and send a barrel of it to all my generals. I have a similar response to those criticizing the retrograde social attitudes of the Marine Corps.

The truth is that we have little understanding of the unique alchemy that creates an exceptional military force like the Marine Corps. It is possible, and indeed even likely, that the attributes of the Marine Corps that most infuriate SJWs are inseparable from those that make it a nonpareil military force. PC won’t prevail on Peleliu. SJWs won’t take Saipan.

The case for letting Marines be Marines is strengthened by the fact that it is, and always has been (with some modest exceptions in WWII and Vietnam) a volunteer organization. Nobody makes you become Marine, and you should know what you are getting into: in fact, it is precisely that knowledge that induces many to join. Self-selection at work.

I have long admired the Marines, but I knew from my days at Navy that I could never be a Marine in million years–another example of self-selection. But that’s definitely a feature, not a bug. By attracting and retaining people that are suited to the institution’s idiosyncrasies, the Corps has created a culture and esprit that has allowed it to achieve great deeds. It ain’t for everybody. And that’s why it’s great at what it does.

During the recent transgender kerfuffle some criticized using the military to carry out social engineering, to which some objected that the military is nothing but a product of social engineering. But this is not true. Most longstanding military organizations are emergent, not designed or engineered. They are the products of a long evolutionary process. Channeling Hayek, organizations like the Marine Corps are the product of human action, not of the execution of any human design. They have an internal logic that is often tacit and really impossible to understand. One attempts to redesign or manipulate them at one’s peril. Or, more accurately, at ours. For doing things that undermine the effectiveness of the USMC, or of other branches of the US military, gets people killed and undermine the security and interests of the country.

Originally posted 2017-08-10 22:00:20.