Free Republic

This is the most stunning and forceful letter I have read from the Afghanistan war. It was written in 2010 from Afghanistan by Colonel Harry Tunnell, the Brigade Commander of 5/2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team. After this letter, Colonel Tunnell was investigated and the normal smear campaign unfolded. Having been embedded with his Brigade in 2010, it became obvious that they were put into a no-win situation, with troops spread over several provinces in Afghanistan.

Another stimulus-backed green energy company has filed for bankruptcy, further fueling criticism of Energy Department programs that backed highly-risky investments on the taxpayer dime. Like Solyndra and a number of other green energy investments made under this administration, Abound Solar had a very poor credit rating, but enjoyed a wealth of political connections. ... Abound had to remove an entire rooftop of defective solar panels from the headquarters of one of its top investors, Bohemian Companies, a venture capital firm owned by Pat Stryker. Stryker is particularly noteworthy, given her extensive ties to Democratic causes and politicians, including President Obama....

Stryker Corp. is preparing to lay off area workers as it winds down the local operations it acquired from Gaymar Industries. Stryker has filed a notice with the state Department of Labor that it will lay off 11 area employees starting Sept. 21. ... Stryker has put the Orchard Park location up for sale for $3.9 million, through Pyramid Brokerage's Buffalo office. Stryker said it was closing the Gaymar operations in the Buffalo Niagara region and relocating its production lines as part of a broader strategy to cut the size of its workforce and reduce its annual pretax operating costs...

Long before the US soldier suspected of slaying 16 Afghan villagers was identified as an Army sergeant from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, the installation had earned a reputation as the most troubled outpost in the American military. The Army station near Tacoma, Washington, has come under scrutiny as the home of several soldiers involved in wartime atrocities in 2010 and a base scarred by a record number of suicides last year. It has deployed troops repeatedly to Iraq, and late last year, sent soldiers to Afghanistan. The independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes in December 2010 called Lewis-McChord "the most troubled...

Stryker Corp said on Wednesday that federal prosecutors have agreed to dismiss thirteen felony charges against the medical device maker, the company will plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge and pay a $15 million fine under a settlement with the Department of Justice. A federal grand jury in 2009 indicted the company's Stryker Biotech unit and several of its top executives... http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/strykerhip Oct 8, 2009 | Parker Waichman LLP doctors who presented research... weren't always as forthcoming about their financial relationships with the manufacturers of artificial joints. Mar 31, 2009 | Parker Waichman LLP Criminal charges were dismissed yesterday against...

Since Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 there have been several major scandals in which his Administration has been involved, principally, Operation Fast and Furious the government sponsored sale of guns to small time gun sellers along our border with Mexico; the failed ‘Stimulus’ loan of multi-millions to Solyndra and LightSquared, two small businesses that were Obama preferred for loans. All three of these Obama Administration ventures were major failures involving scandalous behavior. ...Is the entire communications arm of our country becoming beholden to Obama and his scandal ridden administration peopled by socialist, communists who break our laws with impunity and...

Next month a Stryker combat vehicle will arrive in the US equipped for testing the Israeli’s Trophy active protection system. The Army has pursued active protection for years, most recently abandoning the Future Combat System’s active protection system developed by Raytheon. We understand at least one M-ATV will also get the radar– directed system. The M-ATV integration is more challenging, given the vehicle’s design. The Israelis have already created a Merkava tank brigade with the Trophy system and plan to install it on all of those tanks. The Israeli system was designed and built by Rafael and is being displayed...

It's such a respectable name for an outfit dedicated to character assassination: Accountability for Colorado. With such respectable men and women behind the respectable front, too. They include two of Colorado's richest citizens, Tim Gill and Pat Stryker, as well as the Colorado Education Association, the AFL-CIO and the corporate leadership of Xcel Energy and Comcast. Gill and Stryker each gave the independent political committee $75,000 in recent months — pocket change for them, perhaps, but serious political money — while the CEA chipped in $105,000, the AFL-CIO $50,000, and Xcel and Comcast 10 grand each. For what purpose? In...

First the medical center at this sprawling joint military base was alleged to have turned away National Guard soldiers seeking help for war wounds on the grounds that they were merely “weekend warriors” who were feigning injuries. Then a dozen soldiers based here were accused of involvement in one of the worst war crimes allegedly committed by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. And then three soldiers associated with the base suffered dangerous public mental breakdowns after returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, leading to confrontations with police and the deaths of two of them. Now multiple criminal and military...

The Army says four more soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state have been charged with premeditated murder in the killing of three Afghan civilians earlier this year. In all, five soldiers have been charged. All are assigned to the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

On a dusty, wind-swept field overlooking the Mediterranean, a small team of researchers is putting the final touches on what Israel says is a major game changer in tank defense: a miniature anti-missile system that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach the armored vehicles. If successful, the "Trophy" system could radically alter the balance of power if the country goes to war again against Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon or Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Its performance could also have much wider implications as American troops and their Western allies battle insurgents in Iraq and...

The Army is working on a new and improved version of its Stryker wheeled vehicle, given the designation Stryker A1, intended to boost its performance with a more powerful engine, beefier transmission and suspension, better brakes as well as adding a new sensor suite, high tech shot detection and location system, an upgraded communications network and an improved remotely operated weapons turret. The Army plans to spend $134 million on the upgraded eight-wheeled vehicle in 2011, according to service budget documents, and nearly $880 million over the next five years. The designation A1 is typically added to Army vehicle names...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FRONTENAC, Afghanistan, Dec. 18, 2009 – The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff praised the soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry, for their service in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province here yesterday, saying the unit has made a difference. U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, re-enlists 10 soldiers stationed on Forward Operating Base Frontenac in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Dec. 17, 2009. The soldiers are assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division's 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team. DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image...

Inability to grasp tactical and technical reality leads to sensationalistic and misleading reporting. I am no great fan of the Army's M1126 Stryker infantry combat vehicle (ICV), the eight-wheeled battle taxi hastily adopted by the Army in 2001 to provide an air-transportable vehicle offering more protection and carrying capacity than a HMMWV. It's too big (at 23 feet long and 9 feet wide, it's the size of a bus) and too heavy (about 20 tons in fighting trim) to fit comfortably on a C-130 Hercules transport plane or to be dropped by parachute. Its cross-country mobility leaves something to be...

The men of Bravo Company have a bitter description for the irrigated swath of land along the Arghandab River where 10 members of their battalion have been killed and 30 have been wounded since the beginning of August. “Like Vietnam without the napalm,” said Spc. Nicholas Gojekian, 21, of Katy, Texas. A prime agricultural area of vineyards and pomegranate orchards, the 18 miles of valley that the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment patrols includes Taliban insurgents, booby traps and buried explosives... ...So far, the Army mission has been an uneasy mix of trying to woo elders with offers of generators,...

Indo-US air, army exercises are message to the Dragon Uttara Choudhury / DNA China’s high-profile war games, launched last week by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with 50,000 troops, have alarmed India and made the US nervous. The US is taking great pains to ensure the joint India-US army and air exercises scheduled to start in October send a message to the Dragon through their sophistication. A military official told DNA the US will move a convoy of eight-wheeled armoured Strykers from its Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii to Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh for the October war games, billed as...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2009 – Military transportation experts used ships and planes to deploy an Army combat unit that arrived in Afghanistan last month, marking a notable milestone for U.S. Transportation Command. The 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Fort Lewis, Wash., began departing from nearby Tacoma by ship in early May; the unit’s equipment arrived in southern Afghanistan’s Kandahar province July 25, about five days earlier than requested by U.S. Central Command, Army Lt. Col. John Kaylor, a transportation expert assigned to Transcom’s headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., said yesterday. More than 3,800 troops and 900 pieces...

Capt. Nathaniel Lantz (right) of Bound Brooke, N.J., commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 2nd Squadron, 104th Cavalry, knights Spc. Andrew Kline of Reading, Pa., Aug. 12. The ceremony marked the squadron's Troopers earning the right to wear gilded gold combat spurs with their uniforms. Photo by Sgt. Doug Roles. CAMP TAJI — Troopers with the 2nd Squadron, 104th Cavalry Regiment, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, are leaving Iraq with new spurs jangling from their combat boots.In keeping with cavalry tradition, troop commanders conducted award ceremonies, at the "Fiddler's Green" rest area of the squadron's footprint. The area is the...

Iraqi insurgent field manual: "You don't shoot at R2D2. He's a bad ass mo-fo and he will get you"

The remote control turret changed the battlefield more than you might think.  It all began three years ago, when the U.S. Army realized that new remote control gun turret designs actually worked, and suddenly they could not get enough of them. The army ordered over 9,000 CROWS (common remotely operated weapon stations), but for a while could only get 15 a month. By the end of 2006, there were about a thousand CROWS in service by the end of the year. The main issue was that the enemy was no longer able to knock out the turret gunner, early in...