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U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. We hope to provide an ongoing source of information about issues and problems that are specific to Veterans and resources that are available to Veterans and their families. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood...

The United States sent warships and fighter jets to support Israel on Sunday night in a show of strength against Hamas. Joe Biden deployed the US Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier, six other ships and a number of advanced jets to the Eastern Mediterranean, as Israel’s allies, including the UK, rallied to its defence.The move raises tensions in the region, with Iranian intelligence officials accused of planning Hamas’s surprise terror attack on Israel that saw 700 killed and more than 100 taken hostage. Around 250 are feared to have been massacred at a rave in the desert in the south...

More than a third of U.S. submarines are out of commission due to ship-building delays, according to data released by the Congressional Research Service.. Thirty-seven percent of the U.S. Navy’s attack submarines—18 out of 49—are out of commission for repairs, up from 12 boats a decade ago. The Congressional Research Service said the backlog was due to "insufficient numbers of workers and facility constraints" at naval shipyards as well as "supply chain issues," saying that the delays have cut the "force’s capacity for meeting day-to-day mission demands and potentially putting increased operational pressure" on active boats. The statistic demonstrates the...

The U.S. Navy deterred Iranian forces from seizing two commercial tankers on Wednesday in separate incidents. First, at about 1 a.m. local time, an Iranian navy vessel approached the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker TRF Moss in international waters in the Gulf of Oman. It departed when the U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer USS McFaul arrived at the scene, the U.S. 5th Fleet announced on Wednesday. Approximately three hours later, another Iranian vessel began harassing the Bahamian-flagged oil tanker Richmond Voyager in international waters roughly 20 miles off the coast of Muscat, Oman. It opened fire with both small arms and crew-served...

SOMEONE'S GETTING FIRED at the US Navy for posting photo of US Pacific Fleet saluting Russian fighter jets and a Soviet destroyer on 4th of July (American Independence Day Holiday). Whoever runs the account underestimated Internet's Eagle Eye, so good they figured out they're Russian from the equipments' silhouette alone! IntelRepublic https://twitter.com/dana916/status/1676252717323354116

The training accident killed eight Marines and one sailor. The former Navy commanding officer of the amphibious transport dock USS Somerset, who was officially censured for a training accident in which eight Marines and one sailor died, will not command an aircraft carrier after all. Navy Capt. John William Kurtz was the Somerset’s captain when an amphibious assault vehicle, or AAV, sank while returning to the ship during a July 30, 2020 training exercise. It was the deadliest training accident involving an AAV in Marine Corps history..... But not long after news broke that Kurtz had been selected to command...

Drag performances took place on board the USS Ronald Reagan under the command of a Navy captain whose promotion to rear admiral is currently being blocked by Republican Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville. Capt. Michael Donnelly served as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan from April 2016 to September 2018. During that time period, Yeoman 2rd Class Joshua Kelley was performing as a drag queen at Morale, Welfare, and Recreation department-sanctioned events on the carrier under the drag name “Harpy Daniels.” As commander of the USS Ronald Reagan, Donnelly would have been aware of, and responsible for,...

SAN DIEGO – The man whose livestream caught two Navy ships nearly colliding in the San Diego Bay has been ordered to take the cameras down. The Navy Criminal Investigative Service says the camera’s livestream shows military activity in the area, but the camera owner says he has the right to film. “It might be the San Diego Web Cam today, but if you don’t stand up and call foul, we don’t know what’s it going to be tomorrow,” said Barry Bahrami who runs a group called San Diego Web Cam which provides livestreams across the city. It was Bahrami’s...

The Navy SEAL who was a part of the team that killed Osama bin Laden expressed his fury over the U.S. Navy using a drag queen to advocate for Navy recruits. Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, who performs as a drag queen named “Harpy Daniels,” revealed in a November TikTok video that he would serve as the Navy’s first “digital ambassador.” The program Kelley represented — for which he served as one of five digital ambassadors — ran from October 2022 to March 2023 and was designed to “explore the digital environment to reach a wide range of potential candidates.”...

The U.S. Navy has revealed that it approached a "drag queen influencer" to help persuade new recruits to join the military. Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, who goes by the stage name "Harpy Daniels," announced back in November 2022 that he was the Navy’s "Digital Ambassador." Kelley has over 1,300,000 likes on TikTok. While Kelley’s Instagram bio shows that the performer’s opinions "are not endorsed by DoD or DoN," the drag queen claims to have danced in drag for service officers on a number of different occasions, sharing one video from 2018.

The 18 Ohio-class submarines are arguably the most destructive weapons on the planet. Here’s everything you need to know about these exceptional military machines. The 18 Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines are some of the most exceptional military machines in human history, packing more nuclear or conventional firepower than any other platform on air, land, or sea. One leg of America’s nuclear triad, the subs are designed to be ultra-quiet, bristle with nuclear weapons, and survive to carry out their mission at all costs. The 14 nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarines ensure that hundreds of nukes are resting quietly in the world’s oceans, ready...

After three days of military drills aimed at Taiwan, China has finally called it quits.On Monday, China said its drills had ended successfully. Taiwan’s defence ministry said it detected 12 Chinese warships and 91 aircraft around the island on Monday…A senior US official told Reuters that the administration was closely watching China’s actions in the Taiwan Strait and said Beijing’s military exercises undermined peace and stability in the region.China has been sending military planes toward Taiwan for years. The difference this week was the involvement of China’s aircraft carrier sending jets in from the east.A map of flight paths released...

Biden is speaking loudly but carrying an ever smaller stick. Over the past couple of years, Xi has been ratcheting up the pressure on Taiwan, and Biden has matched and raised his bet. I have long been skeptical of the U.S.’ strategic ambiguity regarding Taiwan. Like it or not, Taiwan is now at the heart of global commerce, punching far above its weight class. About 70% of microprocessors are made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), and while not all of them are manufactured on the island, the world economy would be crippled by its loss. Taiwan is at the...

Douglas “Mike” Day, a highly decorated U.S. Navy SEAL who survived being shot 27 times while deployed to Iraq, passed away earlier this week on March 27. Day served 21 years in the Navy and later worked as an author and an advocate for wounded military veterans. On April 6, 2007, Day was nearing the end of a deployment to the Anbar province of Iraq, and leading his SEAL platoon on a raid against an al Qaeda cell in the city of Fallujah. With two Iraqi scouts behind him, Day breached the door of a room and was immediately struck...

Most people never have the opportunity to gain insight into what their parents were like during their younger days, but two sisters in New Jersey did after discovering letters written to their Navy veteran father from his best friend during World War II. Susan Sturm and Cindy Sommer were tasked with the responsibility of cleaning out their parents’ home following the death of their 96-year-old mother in January 2021. The women had lost their father, Al Sitarski, years prior in July 2012 at the age of 91. While in the attic, the sisters came across a brown envelope with the...

In what may be the biggest news regarding the conflict in Ukraine since it began, The New York Times is now reporting that U.S. officials believe a pro-Ukrainian group blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline. That comes via “new” intelligence that has apparently been kicking around for a while. WASHINGTON — New intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year, a step toward determining responsibility for an act of sabotage that has confounded investigators on both sides of the Atlantic for months. U.S. officials said that they...

The Life of A Plane Captain in the United States Navy-1977Back in the mid-to-late Seventies, I was an Aviation Machinist's Mate in Attack Squadron VA-46, the Clansmen. In 1976 and 1977, I was a Plane Captain in the US Navy, aboard the USS John F. Kennedy on a Mediterranean deployment. At sea, you worked 12 hours on, 12 hours off 7 days a week at sea (I believe this is still the standard for all deployed vessels) Plane Captains were the entry level job for most Airmen in the Navy. You went to a training squadron (mine was the VA-174...

On a clear, sunny day in April 2014, two F/A-18s took off for an air combat training mission off the coast of Virginia. The jets, part of my Navy fighter squadron, climbed to an altitude of 12,000 and steered towards Warning Area W-72, an exclusive block of airspace ten miles east of Virginia Beach. All traffic into the training area goes through a single GPS point at a set altitude — almost like a doorway into a massive room where military jets can operate without running into other aircraft. Just at the moment the two jets crossed the threshold, one...

*US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro voiced concern in remarks on Wednesday *Said China has 340 active warships, compared to about 280 for the US Navy *Claimed US naval shipyards can't match the output of Chinese ones The US Secretary of the Navy has raised the alarm that China's naval fleet surpasses America's in number of ships, and is growing faster than the US has current capacity to match. 'It is no secret that the People's Republic of China seeks to upend our dominance on the oceans across the globe,' said Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro in remarks at the...

he US Navy reconnaissance jet flies at 21,500 feet over the South China Sea, 30 miles from the contested Paracel Islands, a group of about 130 small atolls, the biggest of which are home to Chinese military bases. A voice, saying it’s coming from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) airport, crackles over the radio of the US Navy P-8 Poseidon as a CNN crew, given rare access aboard the US flight, listens in. "American aircraft. Chinese airspace is 12 nautical miles. Not approaching any more or you bear all responsibility,” it says. In a few minutes, a Chinese fighter jet...