Free Republic

Two lawsuits have been filed seeking information about the U.S. military’s plan to use women to “close with and kill” the enemy, based on reports that suggest having women in “tip of the spear” fighting units such as the Rangers and the Navy SEALs may be counterproductive. The Obama administration announced two years ago it would make female military personnel eligible for assignment to direct ground combat units, including the infantry, beginning in January 2016. Under the military’s structure, women would be ordered into such positions. Various military agencies and units since then have been analyzing the safety and effectiveness...

Yesterday at the DFW airport. It was strikingly difficult to talk to the Pakistani women selling food, with their head coverings, OBVIOUSLY pious Muslims. And turning around were Muslim Women with head coverings removing trash. I just WISH someone had the testicular power to tell these women if they want to work at an AIRPORT where travelers are sensitive about Muslim people that blow up things, they need to REMOVE their coverings, or go work at the local dry cleaning shop, or sell used tires. But to put them in the AIRPORTS knowing that all of the things that get...

An independent panel appointed by the Pentagon and Congress said Thursday that President Obama’s strategy for sizing the armed services is too weak for today’s global threats. The National Defense Panel called on the president to dump a major section of his 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and write a broader strategy that requires the military to fight on multiple fronts at once. It also said the shrinking U.S. armed forces, which are being downsized to fit that strategy and budget cuts, is a “serious strategic misstep on the part of the United States.” The forces’ numbers spelled out in...

MOBILE, Alabama -- It's judgment day for the littoral combat ship. The July 31 deadline has passed for a task force of U.S. Navy officials to collect information for a new or improved small surface combatant. In a released statement the Navy said it will begin reviewing the preliminary findings that will decide the future of the littoral combat ship, or whether to replace it. "Because the task force alternatives will be considered as part of (the fiscal year 2016 budget) deliberations, the Navy will not comment publicly on the report's findings until budget decisions within the defense department are...

More than half of female Marines in boot camp can't do three pullups, the minimum standard that was supposed to take effect with the new year, prompting the Marine Corps to delay the requirement, part of the process of equalizing physical standards to integrate women into combat jobs. The delay rekindled sharp debate in the military on the question of whether women have the physical strength for some military jobs, as service branches move toward opening thousands of combat roles to them in 2016. Although no new timetable has been set on the delayed physical requirement, Marine Corps Commandant Gen....

The Marine Corps has delayed the requirement for female Marines to do three pullups because most women have so far been unable to pass the test. For 40 years, male recruits were required to perform three pullups to prove their upper body strength for combat, where they would need to carry heavy equipment and potentially lift themselves out of mud walls. Starting Jan. 1, female recruits would have been required to do the same. But 55 percent of female recruits could not complete all three pullups, compared to just 1 percent of male recruits who could not, so the requirement...

A recent military report on sexual assault in the military shocked many in Washington and around the nation, but a leading expert on military personnel revealed the prevalence of men assaulting other men is one of the major headlines in this study. The extended analysis of the report first appeared in Monday’s edition of the the Washington Times. The Defense Department survey of sexual assault in the military during fiscal 2012 estimated 26,000 assaults took place in the armed forces. Nearly 3,000 of them were formally reported. Just more than 6 percent of women reported being victims of assault and...

Military-readiness advocate Elaine Donnelly warns that the Obama administration’s decision to put women in ground-combat roles amounts to “social engineering to achieve a political end in the name of diversity.” She adds that the policy shift means “lives could be lost unnecessarily, not just women, but men.” Donnelly’s organization, the Center for Military Readiness, released a 42-page report earlier this week exploring the unintended consequences of putting women on the front lines. “It will do great harm to women in the military, especially those who will find themselves in the infantry—something there’s no indication they wanted,” Donnelly said Wednesday in...

America has been creeping closer and closer to allowing women in combat, so Wednesday's news that the decision has now been made is not a surprise. It appears that female soldiers will be allowed on the battlefield but not in the infantry. Yet it is a distinction without much difference: Infantry units serve side-by-side in combat with artillery, engineers, drivers, medics and others who will likely now include women. The Pentagon would do well to consider realities of life in combat as it pushes to mix men and women on the battlefield. Many articles have been written regarding the relative...

Rights fight pits Holder vs. PanettaThe Obama administration is withholding medical and other benefits from same-sex spouses of military members, but Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. says he can no longer defend the law that authorizes the practice. Conservatives are charging that Mr. Holder is going back on Pentagon promises to adhere to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the September repeal of the ban on open gays in the military. Military promises to enforce DOMA, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman, induced some fence-sitting members of Congress to support the...

U.S. Virgin Islands — We arrived at a tiny outpost on St. Thomas on Oct. 26. As we stepped ashore, the gentleman beside me said, "28 years ago at this very minute, I was lining up my 'thirsty' A-7 to land on the deck of the USS Independence (CV-62) not far from here. It was day two of Operation Urgent Fury. We were flying nonstop close air support missions for troops in contact on the island of Grenada." The retired naval aviator went on to describe his admiration for the then commander in chief, who boldly ordered more than...

Ten Things I Know By Ari Bussel There are some things I am confident I know. Some may be hidden beneath the surface, others true for some. In totality, they are a source of my comfort in the future. Despite all the challenges, Israel and the Jewish people will survive and overcome modern-day hardships. These are the ingredients to my optimism. First, there are entities that evaluate various scenarios and whose job is to protect Israel. These are “think tanks” of sorts embedded within the central nervous system of Israel. Their work is translated into operational “drawer”-plans to be executed...

This is the grim state of our military’s readiness: An Air Force F-15C that broke in half during flight, two F-18s that have caught fire aboard ships, every single cruiser with cracks in its hull, A-10C Warthogs with fuselage cracks, the UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter fleet that is regularly grounded, and over half the navy’s deployed aircraft not ready for combat. That is the picture of the U.S. military in disrepair—what The Heritage Foundation’s Mackenzie Eaglen calls a “readiness crisis” among all U.S. military services, including the National Guard and reserves. Readiness is “dangerously lower,” she writes, leading to “delayed,...

Heather Pfleuger -- an exuberant, all-American, girl-next-door -- was transformed when she arrived in Afghanistan. She'd shrug into her body armor, strap on her helmet, yank on gloves, goggles and scarf, and slide down behind her turret-mounted Mark-19, a 40mm grenade launcher. From there, she could kill an armored vehicle and everybody in it a mile away. When she whooped with glee and led a convoy outside the wire, local Afghan fighters, hard men who'd faced down the Russians and the Taliban, fell respectfully silent. "Specialist Pfleuger can hit anything," her squad leader. Sgt. Kevin Collins, told me proudly. "I...

The Army is studying whether to open combat arms units to female Soldiers, the Army's top officer said Jan. 6. "We're looking at revising the policy," Gen. George W. Casey Jr. told a breakfast gathering of the Association of the U.S. Army in Arlington, Va. "We've had some work going on for a while, and that'll double back up to the secretary, I would think, in the next couple of months." Women are currently barred from infantry, armor and Special Forces branches, Casey said. He did not say whether the Army is considering opening up all three areas to women,...

Vets protest plan opening military to homosexualsOfficer requests command relief over scheduled 'behavior modifications' Veterans and active duty personnel alike are reacting harshly to the news that Barack Obama has signed the repeal of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, and one much-needed leader already could be lost to the military. A lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army has confirmed to WND that he is asking to be relieved of the command of his squadron because of the new policy. And former combat personnel are telling WND that they are continuing to keep the pressure on Congress to reverse itself....

Click here to find out more! America is one of many countries that forbid openly gay people to serve in the military. Others are: Cuba, China, Egypt, Greece, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Turkey and Venezuela. See a pattern? With a few exceptions, those are not countries where free people want to live. By contrast, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia and Spain all allow gay people to serve. No country has America's in-between policy: Gays can serve -- as long...

The Congressional Budget Office today released a new report on the risk of a fiscal crisis occuring in the United States due to our long-term debt... The bottom line is that the longer we prolong dealing with our debt problem, the greater the risk of a fiscal crisis, and the more unattractive the options become for digging ourself out of the mess. It outlines several consequences for growing debt, including crowding out of private investment and the need for higher taxes and/or spending cuts. Of higher taxes, however, it warns that, "To the extent that additional tax revenues were generated...

WASHINGTON — The fight to allow gay and bisexual people to serve openly in the military is already drawing political blood in Washington, but tucked into the same 852-page Pentagon policy bill as the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is a little-noticed amendment that takes on another emotionally charged issue: making abortion easier for military women in war zones. In a vote that advocates of abortion rights sought beforehand to keep quiet, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed a provision on May 27 to allow privately financed abortions at military hospitals and bases. Current law bans abortions in most...

Rising rates of obesity among young Americans could undermine the future of the US military, two retired generals have warned. More than a quarter of young Americans are now too fat to fight, they said. Writing in the Washington Post, the ex-commanders said the fat crisis ruled out more potential military service recruits than any other medical factor. They want Congress to introduce laws to give US children better nutrition in schools, with less sugar, salt and fat. John Shalikashvili and Hugh Shelton, both former chairmen of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote: "Obesity rates threaten the overall health...