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The Trump administration is considering the ramifications of paring back the U.S. presence in Afghanistan as part of its ongoing strategy review in America’s longest war, The Wall Street Journal reports. Trump’s national security cabinet is bitterly divided on the future U.S. role in Afghanistan. Senior national security officials like Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster are reportedly pushing Trump to allow a surge of approximately 4,000 troops into Afghanistan, while White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has lobbied against the effort. “It doesn’t work unless we are there for a long time, and if...

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump tweeted that he wouldn’t allow transgender individuals to serve in the military:

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has ordered a full review of any military training not directly relevant to warfighting. Mattis told the services to conduct a review of the “requirements for mandatory force training that does not directly support core tasks,” according to a Friday memo obtained by Military Times. In other words, Mattis wants a full examination of all the hours of burdensome, irrelevant training service members have to undergo before deployment.

An email (image below) sent by the Commander and Public Affairs Office of a U.S. Department of Defense installation. Sent to several thousand employees and contractors. July is "LGBT Pride Month" throughout the DoD, but note that here is a case of a local military installation taking proactive interest, of its own voilition, in celebrating the unhealthy and relatively dysfunctional conditions of lesbianism, homosexuality, gay, transgender, and queer. This command has celebrated "LGBT Pride Month" for the past several years.

The Air Force is updating its awards to recognize drone pilots and hackers Christopher Woody Jun. 23, 2017 US airmen tasked with jobs like surveillance and cyber operations have a growing role on the battlefield, even though they are often physically distant from it. To ensure that kind of work is recognized, the Air Force has introduced new hardware for its service men and women. "As the impact of remote operations on combat continues to increase, the necessity of ensuring those actions are distinctly recognized grows," Defense Department officials said in a memo published on January 7, 2016.

A trio of retired generals is urging Defense Secretary James Mattis not to delay accepting transgender recruits into the military after reports that the Pentagon chief was considering such a move. “Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has stated that he will make personnel decisions based on evidence about what best promotes force readiness,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, retired Army Major Gen. Gale Pollock and retired Army Brig. Gen. Clara Adams-Ender wrote in a statement provided to The Hill.

Now here's a photo from our U.S. armed forces in the field worth a look: It's an M109 self-propelled tank from an undisclosed field location, bearing President Trump's cryptic Twitter typo, COVFEFE, according to the Daily Caller, which ran the picture yesterday. COVFEFE was the subject of much speculation, mostly on the left, as to what it might have meant. In this case, one of the troops has helpfully given the answer: rising military morale. You never saw such repetitions of presidential words during the Obama administration. Did anyone ever stamp 'You didn't build that' or 'If you like your...

Washington (CNN)In his first six months in office, President Donald Trump has overseen a steady transfer of powerfrom the White House to the Pentagon, handing off several warfighting authorities that previously rested in his hands -- and those of past presidents of both parties -- to the Pentagon and the commanders overseeing the US' military campaigns.The moves are intended to empower the military at a tactical level, bolstering the US' intensifying fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups to praise from several current and former military officials. But those efforts have also raised concerns about whether Trump expects to face...

China's construction of military base in the strategic location of Djibouti is just the first of what will likely be an ongoing expansion in friendly foreign ports around the world, says a Pentagon report. IMAGE: The Gwadar port that Pakistan is developing with Chinese help. China is likely to establish additional military bases in Pakistan and other countries with which it has longstanding friendly ties and similar strategic interests, a new Pentagon report said on Wednesday as the world's largest army increasingly flexed its muscles. In its annual report to the Congress on China's military build-up, the United States Department...

Attorneys for The New York Times and the Justice Department are due in federal court Tuesday as part of a lawsuit seeking to force the Pentagon to release full copies of more than a thousand pages of work-related emails Defense Secretary Ash Carter sent and received from his personal account. Carter, who became Pentagon chief in February 2015, acknowledged in December he conducted official business on his personal email account during his first few months in office, in violation of department rules.

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: White Sands Missile Range, New MexicoWhite Sands Missile Range (WSMR) is a United States Army military testing area of almost 3,200 sq miles in parts of five counties in southern New Mexico. The largest military installation in the United States, WSMR and the 600,000-acre McGregor Range Complex at Fort Bliss to the south (southeast Tularosa Basin and on Otero Mesa) are contiguous areas for military testing.The White Sands Test Center headquartered at the WSMR "Post Area" has branches for Manned Tactical Systems & Electromagnetic Radiation and conducts missile testing and range...

Melania and President Trump Speak to U.S. Troops in Italy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zatmmkHnH5g

Six years ago, a deputy commanding general for U.S. Army Special Operations Command gave a conservative estimate of 116 missions being carried out at any one time by Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and other special operations forces across the globe. Today, according to U.S. military documents obtained by VICE News, special operators are carrying out nearly 100 missions at any given time — in Africa alone. It’s the latest sign of the military’s quiet but ever-expanding presence on the continent, one that represents the most dramatic growth in the deployment of America’s elite troops to any region of the...

The United State’s military may be about to undergo a radical change. The Marine Corps Times is reporting that there’s an initiative in the works that might see Marines branch out, away from the traditional model that trained every member of the Corps on the basics of physical combat. Some of the new Marines may even skip basic training. The idea gained momentum almost a year ago, when Former Defense Secretary Ash Carter suggested a military build up required soldiers with computer skills, and that these new recruits might be able to move into units with credit for their civilian...

The Pentagon this week suspended the security clearance of a White House National Security Council analyst that U.S. officials say was the target of political retribution by government bureaucrats opposed to President Trump's appointees. Adam S. Lovinger, a 12-year strategic affairs analyst with the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA), has been on loan to the NSC since January when he was picked for the position by then-National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn. Lovinger was notified in a letter from the Pentagon on Monday that his Top-Secret, Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS-SCI) clearance had been suspended and that he had to...

Nearly four years later, Boyle’s widow, Pauline, has not been told definitively by the Defense Department how he died, which she believes is a result of fratricide resulting in insurance fraud facilitated by the DOD. Several online obituaries do not state the cause of his death. On June 21, 2012, The Chicago Tribune reported that Boyle “apparently died from gunfire.” “I have three death certificates that have three causes of death,” Boyle’s wife Pauline told The Post & Email in a recent interview.

Assigns case to Muslim chaplain who graduated from radical Islamic school raided after 9/11. The Pentagon has agreed to formally review an anti-terror training program taught to special forces by a private contractor for material deemed offensive to Islam and Muslims, even though the Muslim group that lodged a complaint against the allegedly “Islamophobic” program has been accused by the Justice Department of supporting terrorism and is currently banned from outreach activities by the FBI. The instructor hired to teach the program says he fears his class might not get a fair hearing, because military brass have assigned the review...

The US Army has executed its grand rotary-wing aviation restructuring plan that saw the ousting of hundreds of Bell JetRanger derivatives from service—653 airframes in total. These included the Army's entire fleet of 187 TH-67 Creek primary trainers and the roughly 340 OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed reconnaissance/armed scout helicopters that performed so brilliantly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, just months after the final Kiowa Warriors were officially retired, the US Army is whining about how badly they need...an armed scout helicopter. Under the same aviation plan, the OH-58D was partially "replaced" by far more complex and expensive AH-64E Apache Guardian...

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Picatinny Arsenal, New JerseyThe Picatinny Arsenal is an American military research and manufacturing facility located on 6,400 acres of land in Jefferson Township and Rockaway Township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States, encompassing Picatinny Lake and Lake Denmark. The Arsenal is the headquarters of the United States Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center. It is known for developing the ubiquitous Picatinny rail, as well as being the army's center of expertise for small arms cartridge ammunition.Picatinny Arsenal is the Joint Center of Excellence for Guns and Ammunition, providing products...

FULL TITLE.........................'We are running out of bombs': US admiral warns military is hitting ISIS so heavily stocks are running low.................. US Pacific Commander Admiral Harry Harris testified before a Senate committee He admitted intensive operations against ISIS have depleted stocks of bombs He also warned the US needed to improve anti-missile and ship defences Admiral Harris also told the Senate he needed a replacement for cluster bombs