Free Republic

In Ireland six protesters arrested by police as they demonstrated against a housing site for migrants... At least 155 dead with 200,000 people forced from their homes in Tanzania due to flooding... In the midst of all the protests in support of Palestinians on university campuses the University of Southern California opting to cancel its main graduation ceremony... At the White House today Vice-President Kamala Harris hosting reality TV star Kim Kardashian to discuss criminal justice reform... Two US Marines died in on-duty accidents in the last week... The US military beginning construction of a temporary humanitarian relief pier off...

Six US Marine security guards stationed at US embassies overseas have died in the last two years... The latest political poll in Israel leading it the National Unity Party...War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz at 40 seats...Netanyahu's Likud Party which only gets 18... ..the Munich Security Conference underway China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi telling US Secretary of State... French journalist Vanessa Dougnac kicked out of India...linked to her reporting critical of the policies... Joe Biden making what many see as an election year trip to East Palestine, Ohio a year after a train derailment... Missile attack alerts early Saturday morning in...

Five U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) members aboard a helicopter that went missing on a flight from Nevada to California were confirmed dead Thursday morning. A search-and-rescue operation was launched for the CH-53E Super Stallion after it was “reported overdue” on Wednesday, as Breitbart News reported. The heavy-lift cargo helicopter was on a training flight from a Nevada Air Force base to an air station near San Diego. The crew was flying in an historic storm that dumped snow and rain across California, conditions that also hampered search and rescue efforts. It was later found in the snow-covered California mountains –...

The service is returning to its roots as an island-hopping tornado to face off against Russia and China. The U.S. Marine Corps is in the process of reinventing itself to deal with future threats . . . and future budgets. The service is concentrating on island and littoral missions, and going lighter and more mobile as a result. The plan, Force Design 2030, aims to make the Corps an indispensable tool in America’s toolbox. The U.S. Marine Corps is undergoing its biggest reorganization in decades, slimming down and chopping weapon systems, such as tanks and howitzers, in an effort to...

General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has yet to comment on the use — or abuse — of Marines in President Joe Biden’s speech Thursday attacking “MAGA Republicans,” after Milley complained about Trump’s march across Lafayette Square. Biden delivered a diatribe against Donald Trump and the political opposition in general, standing in front of Independence Hall as it was bathed in red light, and flanked by Marines who had been deliberately positioned, the White House said, in staging the address. In 2020, Milley joined Trump in a march across Lafayette Square in front of the White...

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A Chinese state-owned company is negotiating to buy a forestry planation with a deep-water port and World War II airstrip in Solomon Islands amid persistent concerns that China wants to establish a naval foothold in the South Pacific country. A delegation from China Forestry Group Corp. visited the plantation that covers most of Kolombangar Island in 2019, asking questions about the length of the wharf and depth of the water while showing little interest in the trees, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported on Monday. The board of Kolombangara Forest Products Ltd., the takeover target known as KFPL...

President Biden phoned the parents of Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine detained in Russia, on Tuesday to “reiterate his commitment to doing everything he can to bring their son home,” according to a White House official. The phone call came after the family had unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Biden during his trip to Fort Worth, Texas, on Tuesday for an event focused on veterans health care. “After his event in Fort Worth, the President called Joey and Paula Reed to reiterate his commitment to doing everything he can to bring their son home, to staying in close touch...

The US Marines are getting ready for the unthinkable: war with China – As the world is watching the situation in Ukraine with bated breath, thousands of U.S. Marines teamed up with a US Navy carrier strike group in one of the largest shows of force in the Indo-Pacific. For the past week, 7,500 Marines from II Marine Expeditionary Force simulated the defense of an island from a Chinese military invasion. The USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group supported the Marines with integrated naval and air power.

Lt COL. Stuart Scheller, the Marine officer whose meteoric rise to internet fandom began with a video criticizing military leadership over Afghanistan, is currently in the brig, his father told Task & Purpose.

A Marine Corps veteran who vigorously fought charges against him in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has died of undisclosed reasons in a Florida hospital. John Steven Anderson, 61, died Tuesday in Jacksonville while awaiting trial on seven counts, including civil disobedience and “assaulting, resisting or impeding” police. Anderson was not among the group of protesters who have been detained for more than six months and allege beatings and brutality in jail.... ...Sixteen media organizations sided with Medvin in federal court, demanding the judge to order the release of a 30-second video that shows Anderson’s interaction with police. Prosecutors had...

Accountability. VR/ UShttps://youtu.be/TOrjiUnsaiw

Kathy McCollum joined Andrew Wilkow to express her sadness & outrage, after the death of her son, US Marine Rylee McCollum. Her son was one of the 13 US Service Members killed in the suicide bombing around Kabul airport.

A Marine Corps general has been permanently relieved of duty after the service determined he failed to properly train Marines and sailors, leading to the deaths of nine troops when an amphibious vehicle sank off the coast of Southern California last year.On Wednesday, the Marine Corps confirmed Maj. Gen. Robert F. Castellvi, the former Commanding General of the 1st Marine Division had been relieved of his command. “He will not return to that position,” Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Andrew Wood said in a statement Wednesday, reported by Business Insider.Wood added Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger “took adverse administration action...

===== I'm now a major in the Marine Corps Reserve and a member of a formerly all-male infantry battalion.* This past weekend we had our monthly drill period. A few days before drill, the command told us that all scheduled training on Sunday morning was canceled and replaced with a "stand-down to address extremism in the ranks." It was left-wing political programming, as direct as it sounds. We were instructed that there is a Taliban-like threat in the United States called "domestic terrorism." These terrorists are characterized in part by "anti-government," "anti-authority" or "abortion-related" extremism and various "supremacist" ideas. None...

U.S. Marines drink the blood of a king cobra during jungle survival training as part of Cobra Gold 19. (Lance Cpl. Kenny Nunez/U.S. Marine Corps)The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called on supporters to protest outside the Pentagon on Thursday and hold large photos of U.S. Marines drinking snakes’ blood during survival training in an effort to pressure U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discontinue the practice.“Slurping snake blood and eating live animals during Cobra Gold is cruel and poses the risk of the transmission of a dangerous zoonotic disease potentially akin to COVID-19,” PETA Vice...

76 years ago today, Feb. 23, 1945, U.S. Marines raise the American Flag on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima.

The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) is preparing for a war in the Pacific against a near-peer adversary–that means China. One of their go-to weapons in the future could be a new type of long-range loitering munition or what could be described as a sort of kamikaze bomb. Changing Times In an effort to become more expeditionary and better prepared for combat in a littoral environment, big changes are coming to the United States Marine Corps. At the heart of the USMC’s pivot from land-based counterinsurgency warfare to their traditional maritime expeditionary role is a need to counter an increasingly aggressive...

In June of 1775, citizens acting as merchant mariners captured the British schooner HMS Margaretta around Machias, Massachusetts (present-day Maine). That same month, General George Washington, with the help of merchant ship owner Colonel John Glover of Marblehead, Massachusetts, chartered and outfitted several ships to interrupt the British supplies. The marker at the base of John Glover's statue in Boston states: "John Glover of Marblehead - A Soldier of the Revolution. He commanded a regiment of one thousand men raised in that town known as the marine regiment, and enlisted to serve throughout the war. He joined the camp at...

Marine grunts in close combat formations will start receiving suppressors for their small arms at the end of this year, Task & Purpose has learned. Marine Corps Systems Command on Thursday announced its intent to award a single-source contract to Knight's Armament Company for 5.56 small arms suppressors for use on the Corps' arsenal of M27 Infantry Automatic Rifles, M4 carbines, and M4A1 Close Quarter Battle Weapons.

The Marine Corps has officially begun procurement of the Army's Modular Handgun System to replace its existing pistol arsenal, the service announced on Tuesday. The M18 service pistol — a compact variant of the striker-fired M17 that, based on Sig Sauer's P320, the Army adopted under the MHS program in 2017 — will finally see fielding this fiscal year, according to Marine Corps Systems Command. MARCORSYSCOM spokesman Maj. Ken Kunze had previously pegged the start of fielding at some time during the third quarter of fiscal year 2020, with a target completion date in "late 2023." The M18 will replace...