Free Republic

A female Army commander is under investigation for sexual harassment after allegedly “forcefully kissing” her male subordinates and grabbing them below the belt. Col. Meghann Sullivan, commander of the 5th Brigade Engineer Battalion at the 5th SFAB, has been under investigation over an alleged pattern of assault and harassment against the men under her watch, according to Military.com. Sullivan allegedly assaulted two male subordinates by forcefully kissing them and grabbing a man “below the belt” without consent, sources told the outlet. In addition to the two sexual assaults, the commander faces accusations of sexually harassing several additional subordinates, according to...

A wide-ranging advertising campaign appears to have been launched in Russia urging citizens to join the military. It comes as the Russian armed forces have reportedly been suffering heavy losses and struggling to make progress in Ukraine more than a year after invading it. The Defence Ministry in Moscow released a video appealing to Russians to give up their civilian jobs in favour of a contract with the military. The video features a supermarket guard, a fitness instructor and a taxi driver - all apparently disillusioned with civilian life and finding fulfilment after joining the army. The video promises a...

Obesity is the single greatest barrier to recruitment in the American military today, and the problem is only getting worse.The Associated Press reported last week nearly 10,000 active-duty Army servicemembers emerged from the coronavirus lockdowns obese, “pushing the rate to nearly a quarter of the troops studied.” Major weight gains were also seen in the Navy and Marines. A pamphlet from the American Security Project (ASP) published last month raised the alarm over the nation’s runaway obesity epidemic jeopardizing national security. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 42 percent of the U.S. adult population was obese...

Participants in a Department of Defense training exercise at a Boston hotel entered the wrong room Tuesday and mistakenly detained a guest instead of the person assigned the role of the person to be detained, according to the FBI. The mistake happened about 10 p.m. ET with the Boston Division of the FBI helping the U.S. Department of Defense in conducting the Defense Department exercise. The exercise was meant to simulate a situation that personnel might encounter during an actual incident.

The Department of Defense is getting ready to overhaul its air and missile defenses on Guam, perhaps the most critical U.S. military hub in striking distance of China. DOD plans to invest $1.5 billion in a new missile and air shield for Guam in fiscal 2024, part of a long-awaited effort to better defend the territory. “Current forces are capable of defending Guam against today’s North Korean ballistic missile threats,” Michelle C. Atkinson, the director of operations for the Missile Defense Agency, told reporters March 13. “However, the regional threat to Guam, including those from [the People’s Republic of China]...

The U.S. Army halted its multi-million dollar advertising campaign over the weekend after Jonathan Majors, the campaign’s featured actor, was arrested for allegedly attacking a woman. The Army paused the “Be All You Can Be” campaign on Sunday after Majors was arrested on charges of strangulation, assault, and harassment, according to Army Times. “The U.S. Army is aware of the arrest of Jonathan Majors and we are deeply concerned by the allegations surrounding his arrest,” said a spokesperson for the Army Enterprise Marketing Office. “While Mr. Majors is innocent until proven guilty, prudence dictates that we pull our ads until...

The U.S. Army’s new brand and ad campaign largely omits reference to woke identity politics and could be just what the service needs to overcome historic recruiting obstacles, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Prior advertising efforts alienated conservative families that once served as the Army’s primary recruiting base, according to experts. They “forgot that the primary market for Army recruiting is young men from traditional families, looking for a challenge,” Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, told the DCNF. The Army’s new branding campaign, unveiled Wednesday, shied away from social justice and diversity themes as...

The U.S. Army on Wednesday unveiled a rebranded campaign to bolster recruiting efforts as the military struggles to meet personnel goals, particularly among younger generations of Americans. The Army’s latest recruitment campaign brand has a focused interest on attracting the next generation of Americans to the branch based on the argument that an Army career leads to self-discovery and limitless possibilities. The new campaign includes a tweaked logo design — the same gold five-star symbol, but without the box that the logo previously included, to suggest the sky is the limit — along with a return of the Army catchphrase...

VIDEOThe Army brought back the "Be All You Can Be" theme to their ads. That theme started in the early 80s but after a certain performance at a Washington D.C. march in 1993, those ads appeared much less frequently until they were completely dropped a few years later. Now they have resurrected that "Be All You Can Be" theme but will that 1993 performance come back again to haunt them?

West Point affirmed that prospective candidates should be vaccinated against COVID-19, weeks after the mandate was officially revoked, according to multiple statements obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. After the DCNF reached out, West Point reversed course, saying it no longer required the vaccine for new cadets. “There is no telling how many potential cadets this arbitrary mandate has dissuaded from serving our nation,” Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana told the DCNF. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point affirmed a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for incoming cadets weeks after the Secretary of Defense did away with the military...

While some Republicans blame the COVID-19 vaccine or “wokeness” for the Army’s recruiting woes, the military service says the bigger hurdles are more traditional ones: Young people don’t want to die or get injured, deal with the stress of Army life and put their lives on hold. They “just don’t see the Army as something that’s relevant,” said Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, head of Army marketing. “They see us as revered, but not relevant, in their lives.” […] Guiding the Army’s efforts are surveys intended to help pinpoint why young people dismiss the Army as a career. […] Officials said...

Reversal comes as Congress considers bill seeking redress for military's discharged vaccine refuseniks. The United States Military Academy is reimposing restrictions on unvaccinated cadets despite the lifting of the military's COVID-19 vaccine mandate, reports military attorney R. Davis Younts, a reversal that comes even as Congress mulls legislation seeking redress for service members dismissed for vaccine refusal. The Department of Defense rescinded the military vaccine mandate pursuant to the Dec. 23 enactment of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included a measure repealing the mandate. During the height of the pandemic, West Point implemented a policy prohibiting cadets...

A senior US general has privately told Defence Secretary Ben Wallace the British Army is no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force, defence sources have revealed. They said this decline in war-fighting capability - following decades of cuts to save money - needed to be reversed faster than planned in the wake of Russia's war in Ukraine.

Washington -- Nine military officers who had worked decades ago at a nuclear missile base in Montana have been diagnosed with blood cancer and there are “indications” the disease may be linked to their service, according to military briefing slides obtained by The Associated Press. One of the officers has died. All of the officers, known as missileers, were assigned as many as 25 years ago to Malmstrom Air Force Base, home to a vast field of 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silos. The nine officers were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a January briefing by U.S. Space...

Amid the Army’s historic ongoing recruiting crisis, the Army Enterprise Marketing Office has decided to reboot its former “Be all you can be” slogan in a look reminiscent of the 80s. The famous slogan first appeared during the 1981 New Year’s College Football bowl games. The slogan is set to launch in March of this year and is being praised as a step in the right direction to better meet recruitment numbers.Maj. Gen. Alex Fink, the Army Reserve Officer in charge of the Army Enterprise Marketing Office, told Stars & Stripes, “[The Army is] not returning to ‘Be all you...

A female U.S. Army service member from West Penn, Pennsylvania, died suddenly on Christmas Day. U.S. Army Fire Control Specialist Pfc. Briana Kromer, 21, died suddenly at the residence of her fiance in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, while on leave from her post at Fort Still, Oklahoma. According to a fundraising campaign created by Deanne Snyder, Kromer was found unresponsive while in the shower at her fiance’s home. In spite of their best efforts, they were unable to save her. ... Her mother, Michelle and Bri were out shopping Christmas Eve. She went to church then we went to domaggios to eat...

An Army captain was separated from the service for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine as the GOP attempts to roll back Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s military vaccine mandate. Capt. Stephen Rogerson (a pseudonym) has served in the Army for 17 years, and on Dec. 6, a three-person administrative board voted to separate him from service. On the same day, the House passed an $858 billion defense funding bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2023, that included a provision to rescind the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. But soldiers like Rogerson are “falling through the...

ALEXANDRIA, VA—In an effort to root out racism, the Salvation Army announced they will no longer be accepting any donations in the form of bills or coins that have white people on them.“Ever since we learned that racism is everywhere, all the time, ingrained in every aspect of life, we realized most U.S. currency depict the faces of white men who only did evil, racist things in their lives,” said the Commander-in-Chief of the Salvation Army, Clurvis Bellman. “We then decided the best way to feed, clothe, and comfort the poor and needy is to stop accepting money tarnished with...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia soldier killed during World War II has been accounted for, the military said. Army Cpl. Joseph H. Gunnoe, 21, of Charleston, was reported missing in action in November 1944 in Germany. He was declared killed in action after the war, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency said Tuesday. Gunnoe was assigned to Company G, 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. His unit captured the town of Vossenack, Germany, in the Hürtgen Forest, on Nov. 2 but was forced to withdraw four days later. Scientists used DNA, anthropological evidence and circumstantial evidence to identify the...

Richard M. Fierro, who served for 15 years in the military, was at the nightclub in Colorado Springs with his family when the gunman opened fire. “I just knew I had to take him down,” he said.