Tag: US military

Considering the poor meal choices offered on US military bases, fitness programs focused on PT tests and not health and the change of lifestyle many younger troops live in front of video game screens it is easy to understand why soldiers’ weight have increased:

It’s not exactly clear why America’s military personnel are getting fatter. Could be that 15 years of war have weakened the focus on fitness. Could be that millennials, with their penchant for sedentary activities like playing video games and killing time on social media, aren’t always up to the rigors of military life. Could be all the burgers, fries, cakes and pies served in chow halls around the world.

And maybe, too, the military is simply reflecting the nation’s broader population, whose poor eating habits are fueling an alarming rise obesity rates.

This much is clear, though: Today’s military is fatter than ever.

For the first time in years, the Pentagon has disclosed data indicating the number of troops its deems overweight, raising big questions about the health, fitness and readiness of today’s force.  [Army Times]

You can read more at the link, but like I have always said I have had a lot of so called overweight soldiers that were actually very good troops who could pass the PT test just had problems with the tape test.

Here is what retired Marine Corps General James Mattis has been up to, writing a book about the military-civilian divide:

Most Americans greatly admire the military — but they actually know almost nothing about it.

“Most people know nobody in the military,” said retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis, who spent 44 years in uniform.

“There are many people who do not know if the U.S. Army has 60,000 men or 6 million. They do not have a clue about that,” he said.

Mattis, the revered four-star general who headed U.S. Central Command before retiring in 2013, is the co-author of a new book, “Warriors & Citizens,” that reveals ground-breaking research about the cultural gap between the military and the civilian population it serves. [Army Times]

You can read more at the link, but from what was quoted in the article none of it was surprising to me.

One of the most important images ever taken in or of Korea. So much can be read from this single… https://t.co/lDaYxuacGY

— Dr. Michael Hurt (@metropolitician) August 13, 2016

It is about time the US Army reassessed its body composition standards because I have seen too many fit troops be considered “fat” over the years due to the tape test.  There has to be a better way of determining who is really fat:

For the first time in 14 years, the military is rewriting its body composition standards and the methods used to determine whether troops are too fat to serve.

Pentagon officials intend to publish a new policy later this year, a document expected to have sweeping effects on how the military defines and measures health and fitness. The review comes amid rising concern about obesity. Among civilians, it is shrinking the pool of qualified prospective recruits. And in the active-duty force, a rising number of overweight troops poses risks to readiness and health care costs.

“You can look around and see all the soldiers that are pushing that belly,” said Dr. David Levitsky, a professor of nutritional science and human ecology at Cornell University who has studied military nutrition and obesity. “They have to do something about it.”  (…………….)

Medical experts say the BMI is flawed at each end of the spectrum. It unfairly penalizes weight lifters and other athletic people who are healthy but have a lot of muscle mass that increases their weight. And the BMI test can fail to catch unfit troops who are naturally tall and thin.

“When you have groups of individuals who are fit and highly trained, then BMI is absolutely useless,” said Dr. Dympna Gallagher, the director of the body composition unit at the New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center.  [Military Times]

You can read the whole thing at the link, but I have always felt that the physical fitness test should be the determining factor if someone is unfit for service.  From what I have seen generally people who are truly fat have a hard time passing the PT test.

Hopefully the House shoots down this BAH plan because all it is going to do is increase paperwork for troops, cause personnel to rent larger houses than they need and then inflate the housing market around military bases while taking money out of soldiers’ pockets:

A leading defense analyst is calling the Senate’s plan to reform military housing allowances a potential disaster for troops’ finances.

The proposal, included in the Senate draft of the fiscal 2017 defense authorization act, would require the Defense Department to reimburse only troops’ exact rent and utilities costs, instead of issuing stipends that estimate cost of living in different areas.

The move could pull hundreds of dollars a month out of some families’ military payouts, although Senate planners argue those troops are receiving more than their share of housing costs.

But Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in an editorial in Politico this week called the housing plan “perhaps the most misguided proposal with the greatest potential for unintended consequences” in the annual budget bill.

“What the Senate proposal fails to recognize is that the housing allowance, despite its name, is not really about housing at all,” he wrote. “Congress has used the housing allowance to increase cash compensation for the military, and it’s a smart way to do that because it doesn’t incur additional liability for retirement pensions.”  [Army Times]

The only part of this plan that I think the Senate has a fair point is having one BAH for dual military married couples.  That is a harder entitlement to defend considering just one housing allowance is needed to provide housing just like soldiers who are not married to another servicemember do.

Times are a changing and I am looking forward to the new recruiting commercials:

Transgender men and women can serve openly in the United States military following the repeal Thursday of Pentagon policies that forced them to keep their gender identities secret or risk a discharge.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said those policies discriminated against “talented and trained Americans,” and did not represent the values of the United States military as he announced his decision at the Pentagon nearly a year after he vowed to repeal the ban. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers blasted Carter’s decisions as “politics over policy” during a time of war.

“Our mission is to defend this country, and we don’t want barriers unrelated to a person’s qualification to serve preventing us from recruiting or retaining the soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine who can best accomplish the mission,” Carter said. “We have to have access to 100 percent of America’s population for our all-volunteer force to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified and to retain them.”

The new policy will be rolled out over a one-year period. Effectively immediately, Carter said, troops cannot be discharged, denied reenlistment or involuntarily separated solely because of their gender identity. But it will be about a year before the military begins to openly recruit transgender individuals to join the service. Even then it will only allow transgender individuals who have completed any gender-related medical treatment to join the military, and it will require certification from a doctor that they’ve been “stable in their preferred gender for 18 months,” according to Pentagon documents.  [Stars & Stripes]

Here is part of the policy I have concerns with.  Considering all the pay and benefits currently being taken away from troops the DoD some how found the money to pay for expensive sex change surgeries and hormone treatments?:

Also beginning Oct. 1, the Military Health System will begin providing transgender troops “all medically-necessary care” related to gender transition, Carter said. A military doctor will determine what medically-necessary care is needed for such individuals on a case-by-case basis. That care could include gender reassignment surgery or hormone therapy, a senior defense official said. It will not include any cosmetic surgery, added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the policy publicly.

The costs to the military associated with allowing open transgender service will be relatively low, the defense official said. The military was only likely to incur about $4 million to $14 million per year in additional medical costs to provide the medically-necessary transition care.

You can read more at the link, but I also think this is all the more reason why there has to be one physical fitness standard now.  How is it fair that someone biologically male, but identifies as a female gets to take the female physical fitness test?  This puts them at an advantage against both male and female troops by taking an easier fitness test and thus scoring more points for promotion.

Even in the worst of times of US-ROK relations during the Roh Moo-hyun administration years there was never government officials driving around with blue lights on their cars looking to harass US servicemembers like what is currently happening in Okinawa:

 Japanese officials are patrolling areas in southwestern Okinawa in an effort to prevent crimes near U.S. military bases and entertainment districts.

The team, composed of about 40 staff members from Okinawa government agencies, was created after a former Marine working at Kadena Air Base was arrested May 19 in connection with the death of a 20-year-old Okinawan woman, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday.

The patrol vehicles, which use blue rotating lights, are on the streets between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., the report said. The number of police officers patrolling the island prefecture is also expected to increase.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but this looks like pure political theater.  Some government official driving around with a blue light would have done nothing to prevent the tragic murder of Ms. Shimabukuro.

So does this mean that we have to have a third bathroom built around the country?  Maybe we should just all go to one bathroom that would be much easier:

An Oregon judge ruled Friday that a transgender person can legally change their sex to “non-binary” rather than male or female in what legal experts believe is a first in the United States.

Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Amy Holmes Hehn legally changed 52-year-old Jamie Shupe’s sex from “female” to non-binary.

Nancy Haque, a co-executive director for Basic Rights Oregon, called the ruling a “momentous day for genderqueer Oregonians.”

“It’s really exciting for the courts to actually recognize what we know to be true: gender is a spectrum,” Haque said. “Some people don’t identify as male or female.”

Shupe, an Army veteran who retired in 2000 a sergeant first class, began transitioning in 2013 while living in Pittsburg. Shupe knew then that neither male nor female fit. Shupe chose “Jamie” as a new first name primarily because it is a gender-neutral name. Shupe prefers to be called “Jamie,” rather than by a pronoun.

“I was assigned male at birth due to biology,” Shupe said. “I’m stuck with that for life. My gender identity is definitely feminine. My gender identity has never been male, but I feel like I have to own up to my male biology. Being non-binary allows me to do that. I’m a mixture of both. I consider myself as a third sex.”  [The Oregonian]

You can read the rest at the link.

For servicemembers who rely on their BAH for some extra cash by living in a smaller home than what you could afford with your stipend, get ready because Congress is coming to take that money from you:

Senate lawmakers want to radically overhaul how military housing stipends are awarded and end the practice of troops pocketing extra cash from the payouts.

The plan is tucked into the Senate’s pending draft of the annual defense authorization measure, and hasn’t received the same attention as major military health care and acquisition reforms also included in the legislation.

But it has the potential to change housing stipend totals for nearly every service member in coming years, with some potentially losing hundreds of dollars a month. And it comes after a series of pay and benefits trims in recent years that have left advocates frustrated about increased financial strain on military families.

Instead of the current Basic Allowance for Housing system, which assigns flat-rate stipends for zip codes across the country based on troops’ rank and family status, the new proposal would move closer to the military’s Overseas Housing Allowance. That system sets maximum payable stipends but awards troops only for their actual expenses, making recipients provide proof of what they pay in rent and utilities costs.

Dual military couples and service members who room with friends would not be able to game the system either. They’d see their individual stipend cut in half, adjusted to cover just their actual costs and nothing more.  [Military Times]

You can read more at the link, but this will do little to save any money and instead take money from troops to give to realtors.  I would not be surprised if the real estate lobby is behind this change.  That is because what will happen is that the realtors will make sure the rent for a home matches what the servicemembers maximum BAH rate is.  This will in turn drive up rental rates across the city as well which will bring in more money for realtors from civilians trying to find a place to rent.

This already happens in Korea with the Overseas Housing Allowance (OHA) which has led to realtors being put off limits for colluding with property owners.  I also wonder how this affects servicemembers who own homes?  Will they be allowed to use the BAH to pay their mortgage?  What if they have the house paid off?  Will they have their BAH cancelled?

It seems to me that if Congress wants to save money than tax whatever the remaining BAH is as income.  For example if someone’s BAH is $2,000 and rents a house for $1,500 than tax the extra $500 as earned income.  This would keep money in troops pockets and not artificially increase rental rates across an entire community plus put money back in the treasury.  This makes too much sense so it probably will not happen.

I am all for North Korea regime collapse planning, but does that mean that US forces need to be the ones entering North Korea?:

 Instability within North Korea will lead to its collapse “sooner than many of us think,” a former U.S. Forces Korea commander says.

Retired four-star Gen. Walter Sharp was among five panelists Tuesday who opened a three-day symposium, sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare, on strengthening land forces across the Pacific.

North Korea garnered most of the panel’s attention, driven by the volatile nation’s uptick in missiles launches and its fourth nuclear test earlier this year.

Sharp, who headed USFK in 2008-11, said he recently guaranteed Gen. Vincent Brooks, the newly minted USFK commander, there would be major changes on the peninsula before his tenure ends.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I have longed believed that US soldiers should not step foot into North Korea despite recommendations previously made that 150,000 US troops would be needed to secure North Korea.  Considering the advantages in culture and language the ROK military has why can’t they be the ones to occupy North Korea?  North Koreans are programmed to believe that South Koreans are puppets of the Americans and if US forces are seen with ROK forces in North Korea this will just validate this belief.  Does the US military really want to occupy a country with a bitter population awash in weapons and explosives?  Plus the threat of 150,000 US troops entering North Korea is the reason why China keeps the Kim regime in power in the first place.  What would the US government think if 150,000 Chinese soldiers showed up on our border with Mexico?

I just do not see how 150,000 US soldiers showing up in a collapsed North Korean state benefits the ROK, North Korea and most importantly the United States?  Maybe I am missing something, but can anyone else make an argument why there needs to be a US military occupation of North Korea?