Tag: US military

For those that have been through SHARP training the actions of the soldiers involved is a textbook example of what the US Army encourages soldiers to now do:

 Key details of a Fort Drum account of soldiers rescuing a drugged woman at a Watertown bar have been called into question by city police.

The 10th Mountain Division public affairs office, in a news release issued earlier this week, said three soldiers rescued a woman they believed was drugged at the Paddock Club, Public Square, on Oct. 28, and that it led to an arrest.

The trio, Staff Sgt. Anthony Ciccariello Jr., Sgt. James Smith and Spc. Evan Lipp, were presented a commander’s coin by division commander Maj. Gen. Jeffrey L. Bannister on Nov. 16 for their efforts that night.

Detective Lt. Joseph R. Donoghue Sr. said the unnamed woman, whom the post claimed was taken to the hospital, was actually seen and cleared by Guilfoyle Ambulance staff, who let her leave with a friend. No one has been charged in connection with the incident.

The incident, which took place about 10:30 p.m. that night, remains under investigation by city police.  [Watertown Daily Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but I am not sure what caused the soldiers to think she was “drugged” other than to say she was a little “off”.  This is what the 10th Mountain Division news release said:

These Soldiers discovered a female at a local bar had taken an unknown drug from a man in the bar and was acting overly impaired. Their training kicked in and the result was a suspect being questioned by police and a potential victim being checked out by paramedics. [DVIDS]

If they saw someone putting something into her drink you would think they would say that in the video.  It appears the real reason this incident reached the point it did was because the woman was being groped by the two men:

“I noticed that the two males had the female on one of the couches and they were molesting her,” Lipp said. “I noticed that she was barely conscious. It didn’t look right.”

Lipp said he didn’t want to overact so he asked Ciccariello and Smith to assess the situation.

“We agreed with Lipp and my immediate reaction was to go and get the bouncers,” Ciccariello said.

Unfortunately, the bouncers said that the woman and her friend came into the bar with the two men and there was nothing that the bar staff could do, Ciccariello said. But that didn’t stop the three soldiers.  [New York Upstate]

If the soldiers in the video did see a drug secretly put into her drink they definitely did the right thing based off of the training they have received.  However, if this woman was just being obnoxious should it be the responsibility of soldiers to determine which women are too drunk to be with other men at a bar?

A left wing rally in the Philippines outside the US embassy has turned violent:

A Philippine police van rammed into protesters, leaving several bloodied, as an anti-U.S. rally turned violent Wednesday at the American embassy in Manila.

At least three student activists had to be taken to a hospital after they were run over by the van driven by a police officer, protest leader Renato Reyes said.

AP Television footage showed the van repeatedly ramming the protesters as it drove wildly back and forth after protesters had surrounded and started hitting the van with wooden batons they had seized from the police.

Police later arrested 23 protesters, who broke into a line of riot police and hurled red paint at the policemen and a U.S. government seal at the seaside embassy.

“There was absolutely no justification for it,” Reyes said of the violent police dispersal of about 1,000 protesters. “Even as the president vowed an independent foreign policy, Philippine police forces still act as running dogs of the U.S.”

The violence happened as the protesters gathered to demand an end to the presence of U.S. troops in the country and to support a call by President Rodrigo Duterte for a foreign policy not dependent on the U.S., the country’s longtime treaty ally.

Duterte was on a state visit to China, where he is seeking to repair relations strained under his predecessor over territorial conflicts in the South China Sea. Duterte is also seeking to expand two-way trade and investments and seek financing for badly needed infrastructure projects.  [Associated Press]

According to ABC News this who the protesters were:

The protesters, consisting of students, workers and tribespeople, were demanding an end to the presence of visiting U.S. troops in the Philippines and to support a call by President Rodrigo Duterte for a foreign policy not dependent on the U.S., the country’s longtime treaty ally.

The activists came from the largest left-wing umbrella group called Bayan (Nation), which has organized regular anti-U.S. protests in front of the embassy for decades, most of which are peaceful.  [ABC News]

The left wing protesters also claim that they don’t want to be dictated to by China:

Amid an uneasy relationship with the U.S., Duterte has tried to reach out to China and Russia, bringing uncertainty to his country’s long alliance with America.

But the protesters also opposed the president’s effort to lean toward China. “The Philippines will not be dictated on, whether by the U.S. or China,” they said in a statement.

These people obviously live in a fantasy world.  What has the US supposedly “dictated” to them?  The nearly $200 million in aid dollars or the immediate disaster response relief the US has given the Philippines in the past?

Who is currently dictating to them is the Chinese who are forcibly seizing actual territory from the Philippines.  I find it interesting that this group of left wing protesters could not find the time to go and violently protest the seizing of Filipino territory in front of the Chinese embassy.

U.S., South Korea naval forces conduct exercise near North Korea border https://t.co/AiXHz1WcHY

— Elizabeth Shim (@GlobalAsianista) September 26, 2016

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.