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A Marine Corps helicopter that had been missing with five troops aboard as an historic storm continued drenching California was found Wednesday morning in a mountainous area outside San Diego. The aircraft was located just after 9 a.m. by civil authorities near the mountain community of Pine Valley, about a 45-mile (72-kilometer) drive from San Diego but rescue crews said snowy conditions were making access challenging on the ground They were "using ground and aviation assets to locate the aircrew in coordination with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and multiple federal state and local agencies," the Marine Corps said...

A missing military helicopter was found in Southern California Wednesday morning, but a search and rescue operation continues for five missing Marines on board, the U.S. Marine Corps said. The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter was "reported overdue" to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Tuesday night. The helicopter departed from Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas and was en route to Miramar, in the San Diego area. The sheriff's department said it received a call at 1:50 a.m. and sent its own helicopter to search, but the helicopter wasn't able to reach the area due to the atmospheric river storm...

Conor MacNessa (Tom Mitchell) will be laid to his final rest at Arlington National Cemetery April 10. Unfortunately it takes that long to be scheduled with full appropriate honors. I will be there, and invite any Freepers in the DC/VA/MD area who may have known and respected Tom to participate. PM me for more details. God love Tom, God Bless and comfort his family, and God Bless you all. 'Til Valhallah, Brother

A Democrat-sponsored bill in Hawaii that could ban former President Trump from the ballot for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol advanced in the state legislature Monday. Hawaii state Sen. Karl Rhoads, a Democrat representing Honolulu who frequently criticizes Trump and Republicans over the Jan. 6 riot online, first introduced SB 2392 last week, which aims to "specify that election ballots issued by the chief election officer or county clerk shall exclude any candidate who is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; article XVI, section 3 of...

The Navy's amphibious ships are not ready to deploy Marines around the world on time, a problem that has no short-term fix and degrades America's ability to deter adversaries and reassure allies at a time when it is needed most, according to one of the Marine Corps' top generals. "There's a saying that wars are a come-as-you-are game," Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl, the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command and deputy commandant for combat development and integration -- the Marine who heads the service's modernization efforts, told Military.com on Thursday. "Well, this is where we are. And there...

The 104th Air Assault Division was supposed to save the Russian campaign on the left bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine. Instead, the newly-formed division “suffered exceptionally heavy losses and failed to achieve its objectives during its combat debut,” the U.K. Defense Ministry reported. Two months ago, Ukrainian marines from the 35th Brigade motored across the Dnipro and, under the cover of artillery, drones and intensive radio-jamming, secured a bridgehead in the settlement of Krynky on the otherwise Russian-held left bank. It’s a new front in the war—one the Ukrainians hope eventually to exploit in order to push...

Scout Snipers have a mantra. I learned that mantra years ago when I was assigned to lead a platoon of these Marines. My chief scout in the platoon, a title held by the most experienced Scout Sniper, was Damon. When we met in 2012 on Camp Lejeune, Damon was in his late twenties. His guys were at-home in the woods and with a load on their backs; they rarely complained about being dirty, tired or uncomfortable. I learned quickly that Scout Snipers were the best in the battalion, regular infantrymen who had started out carrying an assault rifle or lobbing...

The Navy announced they ‘safely’ recovered the Military plane that overshot the runway and has been stuck in Kaneohe Bay for almost two weeks. Kaneohe Bay (HawaiiNewsNow) -- The Navy announced they ‘safely’ recovered the Military plane that overshot the runway and has been stuck in Kaneohe Bay for almost two weeks. Navy officials say it took meticulous planning and assembling specialized equipment from off island, a multidisciplinary team of military and civilian experts to carefully raise the P-8A Poseidon from the bay. Officials say the operation lasted 13 hours, beginning at 6:30 a.m., Dec. 2. The aircraft was floated...

Russia lost a dozen elite marines when they cooked food on an open fire and triggered an explosion from nearby live ammunition. Eight more were wounded in the incident that Vladimir Putin's regime has sought to cover-up. Reports say a RPG-7 grenade launcher shell caught fire and exploded at Kuzminsky military training ground in Rostov region, bordering Ukraine. Eight of the marines from 155th Separate Guards Marine Brigade, based in Vladivostok, were killed on the spot. Four more died in hospital, said the News 166 outlet in Rostov, which said the humiliating tragedy had been confirmed by three independent sources....

Come Back, All is Forgiven: Servicemembers who were discharged from the military for refusing to comply with the now-changed COVID mandate are being wooed to return to service by various branches of the military. Critics say the real motivation is failing recruitment stats. The letters are "not an apology” or an “attempt to make things right,” said one military defense lawyer. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Both the U.S. Army and Air Force have sent letters to former servicemembers who were separated from the military branches for refusing to comply with the 2021 Defense Department’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, providing guidance on how to seek...

The footage appears to show the groups outside the Voodoo Room on the historic Sixth Street of Austin's entertainment district. The altercation seems to start when one woman grabs a phone out of the hands of another and a Marine tries to intervene. Then, a man in a white long-sleeve shirt attempts to throw a punch at a different Marine and misses, as a group of his fellow military men rush to his defense. While some Marines try to separate the men as they curse at each other, tensions seem to escalate and an all-out brawl begins. The civilians and...

More recently, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have demonstrated the effectiveness of UASs. In those conflicts, unmanned systems have been used at a scale and sophistication far beyond those of any previous conventional war. UASs and loitering munitions (LMs) proved crucial to Azerbaijan’s victory. Ukraine’s Turkish-built Bayraktar drones grabbed headlines early in the 2022 invasion when they destroyed Russian vehicles with precision munitions.2 Russian Lancet-3 LMs have likewise been documented destroying high-value Ukrainian targets such as surface-to-air missile systems and howitzers.3In addition to purpose-built systems, Ukrainian volunteer groups have used commercially purchased and custom-built unmanned aerial...

More whistleblowers have stepped forward to tell Congress that high-ranking FBI officials are targeting agents, specifically former military members, for their political beliefs and trying to force them out of the bureau. A Marine and other military veterans at the FBI have been accused of disloyalty to the U.S. because they fit the profile of a supporter of former President Donald Trump, according to two disclosures sent to lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee. The Washington Times obtained copies of the disclosures. The whistleblowers said Jeffrey Veltri, deputy assistant director of the bureau’s security division, and Dena Perkins, assistant section...

UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS BIRTHDAY On November 10th, The United States Marine Corps Birthday commemorates the establishment of the Continental Marines. #MarineCorpsBirthday The United States Marine Corps, a branch of the United States Armed Forces, is responsible for providing power protection from the sea. They use the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. The Continental Congress first established the Continental Marines on November 10, 1775, leading up to the American Revolution. Two battalions of Marines fought for independence both on land and at sea. The birth of the U.S. Marine Corps began as a...

https://www.instagram.com/p/CzG7WAFLicE/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=bb4cdd23-b02f-4dd2-9bcc-4bec4756604f Alright, before we get into why this shit is surprising to me, I wanna lay the groundwork for the responsibilities of the US Central Command. From the government website: Mission: USCENTCOM directs and enables military operations and activities with allies and partners to increase regional security and stability in support of enduring U.S. interests. Command Priorities: 1. Deter Iran 2. Counter Violent Extremist Organizations 3. Compete Strategically - Regional Constructs - Integrated Air and Missile Defense/ Counter Unmanned Aerial systems All those things sound relevant given the disasters that are dominating the news and the globe. The area that...

The defendant in a Jan. 6. 2021 Capitol Hill protests-related case denied a claim by federal prosecutors that a boyfriend was jailed for plotting to shoot up a synagogue. Riley Williams’ filing Thursday came in response to one last week by federal prosecutors objecting to her request to loosen restrictions pending her trial. She is wearing an ankle monitor and is under house arrest at her mother’s home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Prosecutors in that filing noted that Williams had lied last August about meeting a boyfriend; Williams was required to report all her meetings, and she had told people, including...

A suicide bomber drives a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. That same morning, 58 French soldiers were killed in their barracks two miles away in a separate suicide terrorist attack. The U.S. Marines were part of a multinational force sent to Lebanon in August 1982 to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. From its inception, the mission was plagued with problems–and a mounting body count. In 1975, a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon, with Palestinian and leftist Muslim guerrillas battling militias of the Christian Phalange Party, the Maronite...

A Marine Corps expeditionary unit, which abruptly ended pre-scheduled training in Kuwait last week, is en route "to the waters off of Israel," a defense official familiar with planning told Military.com on Monday. Its movement comes as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered additional military capabilities to the region. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU, is capable of conducting amphibious operations and crisis response, among other missions, the official said.

A camouflage shortage in the Marine Corps will lead to service members wearing less regulated uniforms in the near future. In an Instagram video, Commandant Gen. Eric Smith addressed service members’ concerns over an inability to find and purchase woodland-patterned "cammies" in an ongoing manufacturing shortage. He announced that as the problem continues, local members will be allowed to wear alternate uniforms contrary to Marine standards. "That problem is going to stay with us until the fall of 2024 when the manufacturer can fill the backlog that has been created after COVID. Until that time, local commanders, battalions and squadrons...

Calling the case of a still-missing F-35 jet a "mishap" may be one of the greater understatements made by a U.S. government entity in recent memory, but the Marine Corps announced Monday afternoon that it was taking rather drastic action as the search continues for their runaway aircraft.