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It’s fitting that 27 plus years of active and reserve service in the United States Army ended with a piece of paper, but those of us who had the chance to serve understand that the military runs on paper. A paper enlisted me on May 20, 1987, and another paper, Order No. 297-1088, transferred me to the retired reserve on January 2, 2015. Not 2 JAN 15, mind you. January 2, 2015. I’m retired, so now I get to write dates like a normal person. Though, when people on the other end of the phone want me to spell out...

Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (U.S. Army-Ret.) says the Army violated its own regulations by punishing Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn for “using Christian scripture and solutions” in a mandatory suicide prevention training session. Boykin, chair of the Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition (RMRFC), also said that the treatment of Lawhorn violated the chaplain’s constitutional rights. “First of all, his case is important because it is an infringement on his First Amendment rights,” Boykin told CNSNews.com. “Secondly, he is a chaplain. By definition, chaplains deal with spiritual issues, and all he was doing was explaining how his faith helped him. The third thing,...

The Army has disciplined a military chaplain for making references to the Bible during a suicide-prevention seminar last month.A serviceman brought the Judeo-Christian religious content to the attention of an atheist group, which complained about it. Now, the chaplain is fighting back, maintaining he did nothing wrong. The dispute has renewed a debate over the appropriate role of faith in the military.The chaplain, Capt. Joe Lawhorn, conducted the training session on suicide prevention Nov. 20 at the University of North Georgia. During the session, he shared his personal struggles with depression while an Army Ranger.What upset the atheist group is that...

The victims of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead and more than 30 wounded moved closer Friday to receiving the Purple Hearts many say they are due. Congress passed a defense policy bill Friday evening that includes a provision making victims of the attacks at the Texas Army post eligible for the Purple Heart. The award given to military personnel wounded in battle also offers increased retirement benefits.

After about 30 years of using the Beretta as the primary sidearm pistol for the U.S. military, the Pentagon is seeking a new gun contract. For gun manufacturers, this kind of a contract is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. While the Beretta lasted three decades, the U.S. military's first semiautomatic standard-issue sidearm, the M1911 from Colt, lasted nearly 90 years. It was issued during the U.S. war in the Philippines through the World Wars to Vietnam and beyond.

In light of the recent death of Irving Peress, I dust off this one I did back in 2007… I must admit that I was unaware just how deep the calumny against Senator Joseph McCarthy was until a friend of mine, supposedly an arch-conservative, invoked the infamous Joseph Welch line “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” to decry the unfair treatment of a current political figure. My friend did not realize that Welch’s statement was no more than bluster, and has been forever (and successfully) quoted...

The U.S. ArmyRanger school has 31 female candidates for its planned Ranger Course Assessment next spring. The Maneuver Center of Excellence in Fort Benning, Georgia, said on its Facebook page Monday that Fort Benning’s Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade has chosen 11 officers and 20 noncommissioned officers as observers and advisers for the course. Candidates went through a week of training to give them an idea of the rigors that Ranger School inflicts upon soldiers. “I was very satisfied with both the quality and quantity of the volunteers we received,” said Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commanding general of the Maneuver...

(CNN) -- A Sikh student at Hofstra University filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the United States Army, claiming the service refused to grant him a religious accommodation that would allow him to enlist in his school's ROTC program without shaving his beard, cutting his hair and removing his turban, according to court documents. When Iknoor Singh requested a religious exemption from the military's grooming policies to enlist as an ROTC cadet in April 2013, his request was first denied on the grounds that his noncompliance would have "an adverse impact on the Army's readiness, unit cohesion, standards, health, safety, or...

Where’s Matty? On July 20, 2013, Spc. Brent Grommet returned from Afghanistan with his military working dog, a Czech German shepherd named Matty. The two had gone through basic training together, deployed together and were injured together when a roadside IED detonated. Grommet slept on top of Matty’s crate as they flew back to the United States. Upon landing at an Air Force base in New Jersey, the two were separated — standard operating procedure. Grommet wasn’t worried, though: According to Army regulations, if he wanted Matty, he had the sole right to adopt his military working dog. This right...

The Obama administration has said the U.S. Army “discriminated” against a transgender male employee by not allowing him to use the female restroom, calling him “he,” and asking him to stop having uncomfortable and “unwanted” discussions with his co-workers about his upcoming surgical castration. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) found that the Department of the Army committed gender identity discrimination against “Tamara” Lusardi, a civilian quality assurance specialist who announced he wanted to become a woman. Lusardi, who has been a civilian employee since November 2004, announced his transition in April 2010 and began presenting himself as...

Ali al-Timimi will be serving life for sedition. Specifically he was recruiting for al-Qaeda from the US. Scary enough, but read the whole article. It appears al-Qaeda had infiltrated US biodefense and has supporters/agents with access to the Ames strain of anthrax and the know how to make dried concentrated forms of the spores.Via Bloggernews.net:A colleague of famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey, a prolific Ames strain researcher, has been convicted of sedition and sentenced to life in prison. He worked in a program co-sponsored by the American Type Culture Collection and had access to...

Health problems, low education levels and criminal histories make seven out of 10 young people ages 17 to 24 unfit to become soldiers, according to the U.S. Army.

Tamara Lusardi, a transgender who transitioned from male to female, has won his case against the Department of the Army for discrimination and humiliation, based on a report from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC). In 2010, Lusardi was working for the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center as a civilian employee, and announced that he was now officially beginning his transition from male to female. Lusardi changed his name and began dressing as a woman, at which point management held a meeting to accommodate Tamara in the workforce. Management supported Lusardi and repeatedly stated...

The commander of a Fort Carson helicopter battalion objected when subordinates talked about a toxic command climate, according to documents obtained by The Gazette. "You want toxic? I'll show you toxic," Lt. Col. Tammy Baugh allegedly told soldiers in the 1st Battalion of the 25th Aviation Regiment, documents said. A 263-page Army investigation report released under the Freedom of Information Act portrays Baugh as a foul-mouthed boss who belittled soldiers, threw things during a meeting and sometimes stormed out of battalion gatherings. Baugh and the battalion's command sergeant major were temporarily relieved in July, but later placed back in command...

I have spent a little time compiling links to threads about the Ebola outbreak in the interest of having all the links in one thread for future reference. Please add links to new threads and articles of interest as the situation develops. Thank You all for you participation.

<p>Muslim burial practices are being blamed for the spread of Ebola.</p> <p>Remains of Secretary General of The Nigeria Supreme General for Islamic Affairs and Seriki of Egbaland, Alhaji Lateeef Adegbite at his burial in 2012.</p> <p>Islam requires family members to personally wash the corpses of loved ones from head to toe. This practise is putting more Africans at risk to catch the disease that is spread by body fluids.</p>

The cleansing of all bodily orifices of dead Ebola victims by relatives of the same gender is a big factor in the uncontrollable spread of this deadly disease in West Africa. Yet our corrupt media refuse to fully vet this principle cause of contagion thereby allowing silence to spread the hemorrhagic disease. Ancient burial traditions, so deeply rooted in the native culture that government authorities are unable to bridge the gap of distrust, really are big factors because healthy relatives are required to put their hands into the Ebola bodies, still warm, just after death. And commonly known is the...

The U.S. Army will make public the results of its investigation into Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s alleged desertion of a base in Afghanistan and subsequent capture by Taliban militants in 2009. A Pentagon spokesperson clarified that, contrary to various media reports, the U.S. Army will release a report by Brig. Gen. Kenneth Dahl, the investigating officer, but only after a review process that will assess the accuracy of the findings is completed. It is uncertain when that will be. Gen. Dahl has completed and submitted what an Army statement referred to as “the initial report” of the branch's review of the...

The U.S. Army is engineering its Apache AH-64 attack helicopters with additional avionics, radar and sensor technology to perform better in maritime environments, service officials said Monday at the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington D.C. “We’re looking at sensor upgrades to the fire control radar and adding a maritime feature to the Apache. We want to extend the radar and broaden its bandwidth to pick up things in a littoral (shallow water) environment and detect small ships in the water,” said Army Col. Jeff Hager, Apache program manager. The Army plans to test...

Three weeks ago President Obama announced he would be sending thousands of U.S. troops and military personnel to West African countries in an effort to combat Ebola. The White House said Obama will travel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta -- where US Ebola victims were treated -- to make the announcement, meant to spur a global effort to tackle the outbreak that has already killed 2,400 people. It comes as alarm grows that the worst-ever Ebola epidemic which spread through Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea before reaching Nigeria, is out of control. A separate strain of...