Free Republic

The plans of the next president are personal to the officers of the Pentagon, who are threatening to quit if The Donald becomes commander-in-chief. Republican presidential candidate and business mogul Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to build up the U.S. military if elected president. But it is not clear he will have the experienced commanders within the ranks to do it. In the halls of the Pentagon, there is a different plan afoot for the Trump presidency. Here, officers are privately contemplating what they would do should Trump become their commander-in-chief. And more often than not, they proclaim they will...

HOUSTON, Texas — Presidential candidate Ted Cruz issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s remarks from the Oval Office tonight:“On December 7, 1941, in response to Pearl Harbor, FDR did not give a partisan speech, rather he called on Americans to unite and ‘win through to absolute victory’.“If I am elected President, I will direct the Department of Defense to destroy ISIS. And I will shut down the broken immigration system that is letting jihadists into our country.“Nothing President Obama said tonight will assist in either case.”###

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS The Associated Press has learned that Defense Secretary Ash Carter will order the military to open all combat jobs to women, and is giving the armed services until Jan. 1 to submit plans to make the historic change. Carter's announcement is expected later Thursday. It rebuffs arguments from the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman that the Marine Corps should be allowed to exclude women from certain front-line combat jobs, citing studies showing that mixed-gender units aren't as capable as all-male units.

U.S. taxpayers spent $150 million building fancy, hotel-like "villas" staffed with private security for government employees working in Afghanistan rather than having them live on U.S. military bases at a fraction of the cost, according to the top government watchdog charged with monitoring wartime waste. The lead oversight team auditing U.S. spending in Afghanistan said Thursday the Pentagon's Task Force for Stability and Business Operations spent 20 percent of its budget on private housing and security guards for a "handful" of employees who could have lived on U.S. military bases for little or no extra charge. ****** A former TFBSO...

United State European Command has implemented travel restrictions to France that apply to all Department of Defense personnel. Specifically, unofficial travel (leave, liberty and special pass) to France is prohibited. This EUCOM policy applies to United States military personnel, DoD civilian employees, contractors and command-sponsored dependents and family members. PARIS TRAVEL This prohibition is for unofficial travel to Paris, France, and includes a 50-kilometer radius around the city. For those requesting official travel or emergency leave travel to Paris (or within a 50-kilometer radius of the city), approval from the first general/flag officer (or SES) in the chain of command...

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Ash Carter suddenly fired his top military aide Thursday citing allegations of misconduct, and referred the matter to the department's inspector general. Defense officials would not provide any details about why Army Lt. Gen. Ron Lewis was removed from his job. A senior defense official said Carter learned of the allegations Tuesday night and later informed the inspector general. Carter was surprised by the allegations and met with Lewis Thursday morning, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly so spoke on condition of anonymity. "''I expect the highest possible standards of...

Defense Secretary Ash Carter is removing a senior military assistant, Army Lt. Gen. Ron Lewis, from his position after learning about allegations of misconduct, Carter announced Thursday. "I directed that this matter be referred to the inspector general of the Department of Defense for investigation," he said in a statement. A senior defense official would not discuss the nature of the alleged misconduct but said Carter was "very surprised" to learn of the allegations.

American taxpayers are on the hook for a $43 million gas station constructed in Afghanistan -- a price tag that’s about $42.5 million higher than it should’ve been, and the Department of Defense can’t explain why, according to a new government report.

Ridiculously overbudget? Check. Unnecessary? Check. Impossible to support in the long run? Check. Zero accountability? Check and double-check. If a novelist wrote this as a satire of government operations, there wouldn’t be an editor who’d buy it — not for 43 cents, and certainly not for $43 million: Nearly $43 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money was spent on building a gas station in Afghanistan — 140 times more than it should have cost, according to a government watchdog.The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) also said that one of the most “troubling” issues is how the Department of Defense...

They already have engaged them, of course, per the otherwise successful raid to liberate an ISIS prison in Iraq last week that ended with one American soldier being killed. That sounds suspiciously like combat, and if there’s one thing Barack Obama stands for, it’s that the era of combat in Iraq is over.How can combat not be combat? Easy. Just call it something else. It wouldn’t be the first Orwellian euphemism this White House has used to reassure progressives that they may be at war but they’re not at war-war. Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook had been blunter on...

Congressional negotiators have come up with a plan to cut costs at the Department of Defense which represents a compromise between proposals from the House and the Senate. Assuming this comes up to a vote and is approved there’s going to be a 25% reduction in the civilian workforce in addition to the introduction of a new retirement plan for the troops. Government Executive Magazine has the details. The 2016 defense authorization compromise bill would require $10 billion in cuts, half of which must occur by fiscal 2018. The one-quarter staff reduction was a compromise between the 20 percent...

The Pentagon official who oversees military relations with Russia and Ukraine has resigned, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News Tuesday.

The Washington Post headline says it all: “Obama Nominates the First Openly Gay Service Secretary.” According to the Post, “Obama, in a historic first for the Pentagon, has chosen to nominate Eric Fanning to lead the Army, a move that would make him the first openly gay civilian secretary of one of the military services. … Fanning’s rise to one of the Pentagon’s toughest and most prominent jobs also reflects the Obama’s commitment to diversity.” “Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to this new role,” said our nation’s worst-ever commander in chief. “I am confident he...

Retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson told the Dave Ramsey show on Wednesday that the Department of Veterans Affairs should be folded into the Department of Defense and VA facilities should only be used for specialized care like traumatic brain injuries and limb replacement procedures. “The size of government has to be reduced significantly. There’s a lot of stuff that we’re doing that doesn’t make any sense. We have a Department of Veterans Affairs. We don’t need a Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans Affairs should be in under the Department of Defense, and it should be smooth transition,” said Carson. The...

New Defense Department guidelines allow commanders to punish journalists and treat them as “unprivileged belligerents” if they believe journalists are sympathizing or cooperating with the enemy. The Law of War manual, updated to apply for the first time to all branches of the military, contains a vaguely worded provision that military commanders could interpret broadly, experts in military law and journalism say. Commanders could ask journalists to leave military bases or detain journalists for any number of perceived offenses. […] A person deemed “unprivileged belligerent” is not entitled to the rights afforded by the Geneva Convention so a commander could...

...Sadly, the Army that stayed cohesive in Iraq and Afghanistan even after losing 5,000 dead is now being broken again by an ungrateful, ahistorical and strategically tone-deaf leadership in Washington. The Obama administration just announced a 40,000 reduction in the Army’s ranks. But the numbers don’t begin to tell the tale. Soldiers stay in the Army because they love to go into the field and train; Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently said that the Army will not have enough money for most soldiers to train above the squad level this year. Soldiers need to fight with new weapons; in the...

The Department of Defense notified lawmakers Friday that teams will visit two military installations in the United States — Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and the Naval Brig in Charleston, S.C. — to conduct “site surveys” looking into transferring a “limited number” of Guantanamo detainees, Pentagon and Capitol Hill sources told Fox News. The move, coming on the same day Secretary of State John Kerry marked the re-opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, has already triggered a backlash on Capitol Hill. But, despite existing congressional restrictions on moving the detainees to U.S. soil, the notice itself suggests officials are wasting...

Platte River Networks was used by Clinton to maintain 'homebrew' server in her New York State house which held her State Department emails She handed over the server and a thumb drive this week to FBI after emails were found to contain 'above top secret' material Her White House campaign is said to be in 'panic' over the growing scandal which comes out of probe into US diplomats' deaths in Benghazi Daily Mail Online can reveal Denver, Colorado, based firm was sued for illegally accessing master database of US phone numbers It was also accused of causing chaos to White...

Wilmington, Delaware (CNN) -- Police have found homicide victim John Wheeler's cell phone, according to a taxi driver who was interviewed by investigators this week. Athel Scott told CNN National Correspondent Susan Candiotti that police told him they found the cab driver's number in the phone of Wheeler, the former Pentagon official who was found dead in a Delaware landfill. He said investigators wanted to know how his number got there. Scott... says he told the police he didn't have any idea. "I never got a call from the man. I don't know him... He's never been in my cab....

U.S. Army Rangers drill in 2011. A Pentagon spokesman said the military’s elite forces need more diversity, and without, the nation’s security could very well be compromised. “We don’t know where we will find ourselves in the future,” said Army Col. Michael Copenhaver, who’s published a paper on diversity among the special operating forces, USA Today reported. “One thing is for sure: We will find ourselves around the globe. And around the globe you have different cultural backgrounds everywhere. Having that kind of a diverse force can only increase your operational capability.” The comments came as USA Today requested...