Free Republic

Obama decided to commemorate Memorial Day (after denouncing the US military from Vietnam to Japan) by calling for "good healthcare" for veterans. President Obama called for veterans to receive better healthcare and good-paying jobs during a Memorial Day speech at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. “We have to be there not only when we need them, but when they need us,” Obama told the crowd of survivors who have lost loved ones in battle.

Most Americans have never spent a day in uniform in America of 2016 and that is a problem. The White House social engineers have been able to manipulate the Congress and the American people and have led them to believe that women can serve successfully in the combat arms and special operations because most Americans don’t understand anything about the military. Combine the ignorance of a nation, with the political correctness of Congress and the moral cowardice of the Joint Chiefs and it’s open season to destroy the military if your Valerie Jarrett, Ray Mabus, Ash Carter or Barack Hussein...

Last week an openly gay man, Eric Fanning, became secretary of the Army. Read that sentence again and contemplate what it reveals about how much and how quickly American society has changed. Only five years ago, openly gay people were barred from serving in its armed forces. During Mr. Fanning’s lengthy confirmation process, his sexual orientation was simply not an issue. That is a tribute to those who fought so hard to repeal the ban, and a measure of the nation’s at times uncertain, but as yet unfailing, march toward equality.

A recent competition hosted in part by the U.S. Army and designed to test core tank crew skills saw European crews take the top honors, while crews from the U.S. Army failed to place. The results raise the question of whether the Army—after more than a decade of focusing on guerrilla warfare—has devoted adequate training to address "big war" skills. Held from May 10 to 12 and jointly hosted by the U.S. Army and the German Bundeswehr at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany, the the Strong Europe Tank Challenge included challengers from six NATO countries: Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland,...

<p>Navy Secretary Ray Mabus says in a letter that he has the power to name warships as he chooses, in response to a former Marine and congressman who charges he has politicized the process.</p> <p>Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and House Armed Services Committee member, wrote Mr. Mabus to question the naming of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer after former Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.</p>

The U.S. Army announced Tuesday that accused deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's court-martial is delayed until Feb. 6, 2017. This seven-month delay comes as the respective legal counsels filed their motions Tuesday morning at Fort Bragg, N.C. His court-martial had been scheduled for Aug. 8. Army Judge Col. Jeffery Nance presided over the 35-minute hearing, discussing dates and specific legal motions with attorneys. Charges against Bergdahl include desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. Stars and Stripes reported the delay gives attorneys time to pore through classified documents that may contain evidence.

Buckling under conservative pressure, the Republican-led House Rules Committee pulled a legislative sleight of hand and stripped a provision from the annual defense policy bill that would have required women between the ages of 18 and 25 to sign up for a military draft. The committee's chairman, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said in a statement Tuesday the action was taken to prevent what he called a "reckless policy" from moving forward without closer study of its impact. "I have the utmost respect and deepest appreciation for the young women who bravely volunteer to serve our country, but I am adamantly...

TRICARE should admit wrongdoing and pay past due amounts to the UVP states It is no secret that America’s veterans are getting the shaft. We have seen these troubling headlines: A fatal wait: Veterans languish and die on a VA hospital’s secret list Veteran dies after setting himself on fire outside New Jersey VA clinic The stories behind these and similar headlines reveal that America has not lived up to its promise to “care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan.” In fact, military families, specifically the children of military families, face similar...

The emerging policy shaping the Obama Administration's slow war against ISIS stirs very bad memories for the U.S. military -- Vietnam memories. That policy is "gradual escalation." The Obama Administration does not use the term, but that is what we witness. Gradual escalation proved to be the strategic curse of the Johnson Administration, an error in judgment that, at the time in late 1964, looked so reasonable -- and convenient -- to President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He envisioned leaving America with a transformative legacy, a victory in The War on Poverty. I don't expect the White House press corps to...

Sunday, May 08, 2016 The Betrayal of the USS Cole Posted by Daniel Greenfield On Thursday morning, sailors on board the USS Cole were lining up for an early lunch. Seventeen of them died as an Al Qaeda bomb on board a fishing boat tore through the hull outside the galley. The dead included 15 men and 2 women, one of whom had a young child. For three weeks the crew of the USS Cole struggled to keep their ship from sinking while working waist deep in water with bucket brigades, sleeping on the deck and living surrounded by the...

The valorous dead of the USS Cole have been betrayed too many times to count by each administration On Thursday morning, sailors on board the USS Cole were lining up for an early lunch. Seventeen of them died as an Al Qaeda bomb on board a fishing boat tore through the hull outside the galley. The dead included 15 men and 2 women, one of whom had a young child. For three weeks the crew of the USS Cole struggled to keep their ship from sinking while working waist deep in water with bucket brigades, sleeping on the deck and...

Ash Carter’s announcement December of 2015 demonstrated the Obama’s Administration attachment to a political ideology fueled by arrogance and premeditated ignorance. His direction of any long period of study and vigorous debate has been among those mutually supportive creatures that have metastasized throughout the military to serve a social agenda bringing future needless devastation. Most of the points I highlight about women in combat arose first when the decision was made to do away with DADT. A lot of good men are going to have to die in years to come to cover up this disaster. This tragedy of women...

The number of U.S. Army soldiers on active duty has been reduced to its lowest since 1940, according to a published report. The Army Times reported this weekend that the Army's endstrength for March was 479,172. That's 154 fewer soldiers than the service's previous post-World War II low, which was reached during the Army's post-Cold War drawdown in 1999. The current number is still well above the 269,023 soldiers on duty in 1940, the year before America entered World War II. However, the report says the active force has been reduced by more than 16,500 troops over the past year...

First Lt. Megan Joyner's recent swearing-in ceremony makes her the first openly-gay chaplain of the North Carolina Army National Guard. She'll be able to perform ceremonies such as weddings and military funerals while also doing her most important job: counseling soldiers. But gay advocates say her home state of North Carolina is taking away protections for the LGBT community with House Bill 2. She says it is likely she may be performing same-sex marriage ceremonies for soldiers in the future.

Obama Frees USS Cole Bombing Terrorist American lives don’t matter. May 2, 2016 Daniel Greenfield    Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. On Thursday morning, sailors on board the USS Cole were lining up for an early lunch. Seventeen of them died as an Al Qaeda bomb on board a fishing boat tore through the hull outside the galley. The dead included 15 men and 2 women, one of whom had a young child. For three weeks the crew of the USS Cole struggled to keep...

In the hit 1970’s comedy, MASH, Corporal Max Klinger was a street savvy enlisted man from Toledo, Ohio, who had one goal; to return home in one piece with a Section 8 Psycho Discharge, courtesy of Army psychiatrists. Klinger’s modus operandi was to pose as a woman, outfitted in the latest 1950’s fashions he had purchased from the Spiegel Catalog. Klinger was not really transgender or transsexual, he was just a guy who wanted OUT, out of the Army. The hilarity ensued as he came up with scheme after scheme to escape the lean green machine with a Section 8,...

The Pentagon is looking to raise the price of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco sold on U.S. military installations worldwide, in an attempt to ween U.S. service members from tobacco use. Defense Secretary Ash Carter codified the policy in an April 8th department-wide memorandum, which also expanded smoke-free areas on American military bases, according to Reuters. The new tobacco policy would increase prices on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco sold at U.S. military commissaries and post exchanges to match the price of tobacco products sold off base, which are subject to state and local taxes. Currently, tobacco products sold on U.S. bases

An arm of the House Armed Service Committee wants Reagan-era spending for the Navy, even as the service seeks to shed ships and aircraft amid potential defense budget cuts down the road. The Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee wants to hike shipbuilding to $20.6 billion — $2.3 billion more than the Obama administration’s budget request, according to a subcommittee markup of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act released Tuesday in Washington. The markup calls for more of everything — from ships to missiles — and faster production of carriers and submarines. The subcommittee’s recommendations remain far from enactment. The full...

The old adage used to go, “First the mission and then the men.” In today’s Army, with its gallant senior leaders at the helm; the old adage has been amended to: first the pension, retirement benefits, defense contractor job after out-processing, TV analyst gig part time, permanent PX parking space for the wife and somewhere after a couple hundred more priorities there is the mission and then the men, the women and of course, the gender neutrals. The US Army seems to be doing a Thelma and Louise every day now. Pentagon feather merchants who resemble Fortune 500 executives feed...

As the Obama administration this week named another warship after a politician, a new report is circulating in Congress that shows that nearly 200 Navy and Marine Corps Medal of Honor recipients have never been awarded such an honor, contrary to naval guidelines and tradition. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who has named several ships after Democrats and liberal activists not connected to the military, was in Detroit on Monday to announce that an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer will be named the USS Carl M. Levin. The Michigan Democrat served 31 years in the Senate and chaired the Senate Armed Services...