Free Republic

Center for Security Policy (CSP) official Tommy Waller, who fought against Islamic jihadists "on their turf" in Afghanistan and elsewhere, said his military training did not include instruction in the ideology of the enemy, a deliberate omission that puts America in "great peril." Waller, a Marine Reserve major, speaking via Skype at the National Press Club on Jan. 16, said he was speaking as an employee of the CSP, a conservative national security group in Washington, D.C., which released that day a new report, The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement. The plan, designed...

(CNN)—One military wife recalls staying up all night and deleting every Facebook picture of her children, every post that mentioned them or where they went to school. She Googled herself, trying to figure out how easy it would be to find where the family lived. In the morning, she went to her car and scraped the military decal off the front window. As the spouse of a Special Forces soldier, she's always tried to be conscious of how much she advertises that she and her three young children are a military family. "It's hard because I am so proud of...

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win. In mid-September, while President Obama was fending off complaints that he should have done more, done less, or done something different about the overlapping crises in Iraq and Syria, he traveled to Central Command headquarters, at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. There he addressed some of the men and women who would implement whatever the U.S. military strategy turned...

First Sgt. Katrina Moerk, now the first sergeant of Charlie Company, 741st Military Intelligence Battalion, was browsing a social media network's community page earlier this year, when she came upon a video that she found offensive and sexist. When she commented as much, several respondents attacked her with insults. Some of these respondents were wearing uniforms in their profile photos, the first sergeant said, so she wrote to them directly. "I looked them up, introduced myself and explained to them why they were stupid. And I [copied] the director of the Army SHARP program to help their units improve their...

It has always made Americans uncomfortable to think of their nation as the world's policeman.John Quincy Adams avowed nearly two centuries ago that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy"; today, Barack Obama declares that America's focus must be on "nation-building here at home." A broad swath of public opinion shares that view — 52 percent of Americans in a Pew survey last winter agreed that the US should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own." Influential Americans regularly argue that US intervention abroad...

The RAND Corporation has released initial results from a study that estimates the number of U.S. service members who experienced sexual assault, sexual harassment or gender discrimination in the past year. The Department of Defense selected RAND to conduct this congressionally mandated study. Approximately 170,000 service members, or 30 percent of the 560,000 invited, answered questions for the study, one of the largest of its kind. RAND researchers estimate that approximately 20,000 of the U.S. military's 1.3 million active-duty members experienced one or more sexual assaults in the past year, including assaults by other service members, civilians, spouses or others....

Retired military personnel are calling on the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines to change their lists of disqualifying conditions to allow transgender people to serve openly. Though the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was repealed, allowing openly gay people to serve in the military, there is still a ban on transgender service members. In May, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said that the ban should be “continually reviewed.” A report released by the Palm Center on Tuesday, however, said the Department of Defense deleted its list of medically disqualifying and administratively disqualifying conditions in August. Now only conditions that...

ISTANBUL - A group of Turkish ultra-nationalists attacked three US sailors on a crowded street in Istanbul on Wednesday, shouting "Yankee go home" and trying to pull hoods over their heads in an assault condemned by the US embassy. Video footage posted on the website of the ultra-nationalist Turkish Youth Union showed the attackers surrounding the sailors, calling them "murderers" and throwing orange paint at the men. ..........

Italian governor calls for US servicemen to leave over Ebola virus Call on US authorities to repatriate all those US military personnel who served in Liberia After an Italian businessman ended up in court because of an unfortunate joke about the Ebola virus, it is worth pointing out that at least one Italian regional authority is most definitely not laughing about the disease. Luca Zaia, governor of the northeastern Veneto region, this week called on US authorities to repatriate all those US military personnel who have served in Liberia rather than have them undergo quarantine on Italian soil. Mr Zaia...

Transgender military personnel from a number of American allied countries met in Washington, D.C. this week to discuss what they say are the benefits of allowing open transgenders in active military service. Organized by the American Civil Liberties Union, the conference met in the nation’s Capitol to continue pressure on the Pentagon to allow open transgenders to serve in the U.S. military. Advocates and many in the medical and scientific field believe that people are not born with a specific gender but are assigned one at birth, but that assignment may not match up to the person’s “gender identity” such...

If any American soldiers in Liberia contract the deadly Ebola virus, they will be quarantined, stabilized, and evacuated to a medical facility for treatment, said the Ebola mission commander, adding that the U.S. military hospitals that will admit potentially infected troops have not yet been identified. “If, God forbid, one of these soldiers, sailors, airmen, or marine contracted this disease, as I mentioned, they would be stabilized, they would be quarantined, we would go through the appropriate protocols,” Maj. Gen. Darryl Williams, commander of U.S. Army Africa, said on October 16 while briefing reporters in the Pentagon by telephone from...

A trio of House Democrats is calling on President Obama to allow U.S. troops in West Africa to provide direct care to Ebola patients. The Obama administration has already committed around 4,000 U.S. troops to help fight Ebola in the affected West African countries, but they are performing tasks such as building treatment centers and training local providers, not directly providing care. Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Karen Bass (Calif.), and Barbara Lee (Calif.) want to change that.

Three House Democrats are calling on President Obama to allow U.S. troops in West Africa to provide direct care to Ebola patients. The Obama administration has already committed around 4,000 U.S. troops to help fight Ebola in the affected West African countries, but they are performing tasks such as building treatment centers and training local providers, not directly providing care. Reps. Keith Ellison (Minn.), Karen Bass (Calif.), and Barbara Lee (Calif.) want to change that. "We write to urge you to consider building on the current response to the Ebola epidemic by allowing military medical and technical personnel to provide...

Monrovia - The U.S. government continues to ramp up its assistance to help Liberia in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus. On Thursday evening the US military brought in additional men and supplies into the country via the Roberts International Airport. Six military aircraft landed at the RIA in two different flights of MV-22 Osprey and KC-130 aircraft on board were 100 US Marines. This brings the number of US military personnel in the country to a little over 300. Maj. Gen Darryl Williams, Commanding officer, Joint Task Force Command, Operation United Assistance, receiving the soldiers said: “What I...

Monrovia - Six U.S. military planes arrived in the Ebola hot zone Thursday with more Marines, as West Africa's leaders pleaded for the world's help in dealing with "a tragedy unforeseen in modern times." "Our people are dying," Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma lamented by videoconference at a World Bank meeting in Washington. He said other countries are not responding fast enough while children are orphaned and infected doctors and nurses are lost to the disease. Alpha Conde of Guinea said the region's countries are in "a very fragile situation." "This disease is today an international threat and deserves...

U.S. Special Forces will soon be riding into battle in a race-bred truck. The Polaris DAGOR is a compact military machine that uses a trophy truck-style suspension for extreme off-road capability and was developed in partnership with Roush Industries of NASCAR fame. The purpose-built military machine is about the size of a four-door Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, but can fit up to nine warfighters onboard: four in the cabin, four in the bed, and a roof gunner positioned in a sling seat suspended from the roll cage. The 4,500-pound vehicle is powered by a diesel engine of unspecified origin, has a...

The general suggested some soldiers would have contact with Ebola patients but later clarified his remarks, saying a small number of highly-trained medical experts would handle blood samples in testing labs but not patients. Asked how long American troops would remain in the region, Rodriguez told reporters: "I'm sure it'll be about a year ... at this point, but that's just a guess."

Since the eighties, our military has been shrinking. This is deliberate. It's not about saving money or new technology making so many military bases unnecessary(I believe these were a couple of the excuses they used when they closed all those bases) Now they're sending our best to the ebola hellhole in Africa. How many of these elite forces have the special training needed to carry out their mission safely? I believe obola has something really bad planned for his last days in office. Something so evil that our military might finally rise up and deal with it. People say obola...

The Navy plans to begin putting senior enlisted female sailors on submarines in December, officials announced on Friday. The women will first be integrated onto ballistic missile submarines, which are larger than fast attack submarines, said Navy Cmdr. Renee Squier, head of the Office of Women's Policy for the Chief of Naval Personnel. The plan is to first integrate female senior enlisted sailors onto submarines and then junior enlisted female sailors, she said. "The goal is to have each unit have 20 percent," Squier said, in order to build a "good ecosystem" for female submariners. The Navy first opened submarines...

The ISIS barbarians are out with a new threat: slaughter the families of American military members and personnel. According to a memo first reported by Fox News, the U.S. Army Threat Center has issued an alert to military families to remain vigilant as ISIS continues to look for ways to intimidate Americans.  "ISIL has called on lone offenders in the U.S. to use the "yellow pages," social media sites like Facbook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to find the addresses of service members, show up at [at their homes] and slaughter them." "Given the continued rhetoric being issued by ISIL's media services and...