Tag: military

Guest Contributor – Milo Mindbender – 10AUG2024 – Sergeant Tim Walz

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I have served in the Army, and understand what a conditional promotion is. You get the rank without the full set of qualifications, and promise to complete them within a specified time frame or lose the promotion.
My problem is Walz refers to himself as a retired command sergeant major E-9, but his actual retirement rank is master sergeant E-8. He did not hold the rank long enough or complete the requirements to keep it. He reenlisted for 4 years in 2003, promoted conditionally in 2004, rumour has it learned through the grapevine about an upcoming deployment, and jumped into retirement. This means he could state ” I was a command sergeant major, and I am a retired guardsman” both of those statements are factually correct. He is not a retired command sergeant major, but a retired master sergeant. In 24 years of service according to his Wikipedia page he has 1 army commendation medal, that seems kinda low, I served 4 years active duty, and got 2 ARCOMS, as a Spec-4, I now have 40 years of service total, and my highest personal award is a meritorious service medal, gotten for 26 years in the Air Force reserve, when I transferred to the Air Guard. I saw no overseas service or combat campaign awards, this looks suspicious, because that means he never carried anything in any war zone, because he was never there. This seems like a minor distinction, but it gripes me to hear someone self promote and then try to weasel their way out of an exaggeration by claiming to be a higher rank than their ID card shows.

Update:

TomD commented:

Walz’s military record, or lack of it, is entirely peripheral to me. The core issue, and this is indisputable, is that he has governed as a hard left radical, adopting and enforcing every leftist position right down the line.

He could have been the Commandant of the Marine Corp with 9 combat deployments and it wouldn’t make a whit. The fact of his deception is just carrying coal to Newcastle for me.

 

War Pig commented:

I agree. Sort of fishy. I do not mind him not having served in actual combat as relatively few service members realy do fire a weapon in anger or are in an area where they can be bombarded. But, look at the man and two women killed in the drone strike. Death can find you. I know of a couple of sergeants major who never fired a weapon other than on a range but were in the artillery and air cav, respectively. Both served I think it was 32 years active, but had several medals and badges. Then there are those who manage to serve 20 and not actually perform their MOS except in training. They go off into “temporary” duty as a special services NCO or one of a hundred other make work jobs. They found out how to work the system. I’m pretty sure you knew of various NCOs assigned to your unit you never saw except at quarterly recall formations. Could be he was one of those soldiers. Nothing dishonorable, just nothing special. He may have heard about a deployment and took the easy way out. Not illegal, just not someone I’d want to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office and the Football.

War Pig commented:

This is true. He’s in Soros’ pocket and all his thinking is done by Obama. He joined in with the Defund the Police movement, which hurt minority citizens the most. Martha’s Vinyard is not effected by Defund the Police, but inner city families in blue cities sure are.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 02AUG2024 – Those Who Serve

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war pig

(With respect to the attitude of the populace toward the military.)

Quite true. I’ve seen the gamut from being spat upon and called a baby killer when I returned from Vietnam to being thanked profusely by strangers after 9/11.

You are correct. The populace in general thinks little about the military except screaming about the budget. Until, that is, they get a visceral gut punch and become afraid.

The alphabet people, who despise the military, fail to realize that only 1 person out of 250 is all that is preventing them from being defenestrated by the same Palestinians they are rioting to support. They.also keep feminists and other women from being put back into servitude and wrapped in full coverage burka. Ladies, want your voting rights, driving rights and any other rights ripped away? Do away with our military.

Only 4 people out of a thousand serve on active duty. One in 250. There are only some 6 out of a thousand who are veterans. Being a Spartan is a tough and lonely life. You live fast and die younger than civilians, on average. Those who actually serve in combat are an even smaller percentage. We have seen and done unspeakable things to protect The People in general. Some of us have fought and killed hand-to-hand. We are loaded with PTSD and commit suicide or self-medicate at several times the rate of civilians.

So get off our backs. We have enough baggage to carry as it is.

2024 Summer Movie Talk – Part 10

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Military Movies

I’m sure everyone will say I left out one of their favorites.  War movies and movies about the military seem to be very personal in their impact.  And that’s easily remedied when you list your forgotten favorite in the comments!

I left out ancient wars so Spartacus and Henry V were too far back I thought.  “Master and Commander” is close to the line but is such a good movie I couldn’t leave it out.  Although it would still show up in an action category and a list of movies about the sea.  Of course, I was restricted to movies I’ve seen and I can’t claim to have seen most war movies.

  1. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) 3
  2. The Story of GI Joe (1945) 3
  3. They Were Expendable (1945) 3
  4. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
  5. Fixed Bayonets! (1951) 3
  6. Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) 3
  7. From Here to Eternity (1953)
  8. Pork Chop Hill (1956) 1
  9. The Gallant Hours (1960) 3
  10. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 3
  11. The Longest Day (1962) 3
  12. The Great Escape (1963)
  13. Zulu (1964)
  14. Battle of the Bulge (1965) 3
  15. In Harm’s Way (1965) 3
  16. The Dirty Dozen (1967)
  17. Battle of Britain (1969) 3
  18. Patton (1970)
  19. A Bridge Too Far (1977) 3
  20. Big Red One (1980) 3
  21. Das Boot (1981)
  22. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
  23. Gettysburg (1993) 3
  24. Saving Private Ryan (1998) 2
  25. Band of Brothers (2001) 2 *
  26. Black Hawk Down (2001)
  27. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
  28. Downfall (2004)
  29. Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) 3
  30. American Sniper (2014)
  31. Dunkirk (2017)

*(TV Series)

1 Master Diver

2 Tom D

3 War Pig

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 09JUN2024 – When the CO’s In a Skirt

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war pig

 

They poisoned the well and they also shot themselves in the foot. The US DEPENDS on mostly White, hetero teenagers to fill our military. That’s the majority demographic in the US. Sponsoring combat video games and financing and supporting Top Gun movies can only go so far. The gender agenda is indeed poison. I can imagine the reaction if any of my commanding male officers had shown up at formation in a female officers skirt.

Those who do still join rapidly become disillusioned and leave after their first enlistment. Fewer and fewer make it a career. Reenlistment bonuses are high but that’s not enough. Most of them cannot stand their current C-in-C. They saw running from Afghanistan with our tails between our legs as betrayal. Making the Taliban the best equipped military in the region with our abandoned weapons was close to treason. All Biden taught Russia, China, North Korea and Iran is that if you string it out long enough, America will quit. Even if America wins all the battles, the enemy can outlast our cowardly and self serving politicians.

Guest Contributor – ArthurinCali – 06JUN2024 – Not My Sons

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Another aspect besides the disinterest of Zoomers serving in the military is the massive number of Veterans such as myself that played GWOT games for nearly 20 years and cannot fathom recommending joining under the current regime. To join and fight for, what, exactly? Gay marriage in Uganda? Foreign borders in Israel? Boots on the ground in Ukraine to mediate a century-old territory dispute? Or die in Chinese waters and shores for an island that technically is a part of China? People don’t want to fight and die for mere ideas, they fight for blood and country and America can no longer be called a united nation, just an economic zone. Call me bitter or grizzled over the farce that has become the US Gov’t, but they aren’t getting any of my sons for whatever NeoCon project they dream up next. Dad served enough for them.

UPDATE

photog

I’m glad you commented Arthur. The veteran’s perspective is exactly the point. They’ve poisoned the well. They’re still able to get recruits for their Gestapo (FBI) because no one is shooting back at them. But I can’t imagine that morale is all that high anymore.

 

ArthurinCali

That’s the biggest issue I see with the 21st century GloboHomo (global Homogenization) project that the folks in charge of the GAE will run up against. As you correctly point out, they not only poisoned the well, they poisoned it then filled it to the top with cement. There isn’t anything left to draw from. Between the GWOT sacrifices that amounted to a waste of a nation’s youth and treasure for nought, to shoving every social fad down the military’s throat, and to top it off, demonizing the majority ethnic population as the source of every problem caused in the world…hell, it’s amazing anyone still signs up. Most that I talk to are only in it for one enlistment-and that’s just to get the GI Bill and associated benefits of having Veteran status. In general, no longer do folks join to serve, its to get served. Most won’t make it a career either as they have revamped the entire retirement system to essentially a half-hearted 401K design. It used to be put in your 20yrs and get 50% of base pay monthly for life. So even that enticement is gone.

 

TomD

I was 4 year enlisted during the Viet Nam era but make no claim to being closer than 1500 mile or so miles (Okinawa) to that hell hole. Most of my family, including my Father, sister, brother in law & wife made or intended to make a career of the military. My father got shot up pretty badly at the Battle of the Bulge and was medically retired minus a leg.

I used the GI Bill, as it was called then, to finance an engineering degree. The Marines also brought me to adulthood, which, frankly, I desperately needed.

I can’t tell you how much I hate the degradation of the nation and the military into this depraved unrecognizable state.

One of the Ways Drones Have Changed the Battlefield

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FPV (first person view) drones have become ubiquitous over the battlefields of Ukraine.  And they’ve changed the way war is fought there.  These cheap and numerous devices can destroy a main battle tank or drop a munition in a trench without any reliable way of preventing these attacks.

So what’s a tank commander to do?  Well, so far the answer is to cover your tank with sheet metal and chicken cages (see photo below).

These ad hoc modifications sort of remind me of what was done to the Striker vehicles with wire additions used to catch RPG’s before they reached the armor.  The other change in tactics I’ve heard about is outrunning the drones.  Now we have infantrymen riding motorcycles and even golf carts in order to avoid the drones while crossing open fields.  So speed trumps armor for protection for now.

At a higher level what we are seeing is the beginning of automated weapon systems fighting each other on the battle field.  As soon as we have drones attacking drones we have to wonder where the humble foot soldier stands in this rapidly escalating clutter of deadly devices.

Update:

War Pig:

Infantry will be necessary for the foreseeable future. Urban fighting is still beyond drones. Furthermore, you do not own or control territory unless you have a soldier standing on it with a rifle and fixed bayonet.

Drones are a fine tool for some fighting and reconnaissance. They make good suicide weapons and you save casualties by using them. Our 6th generation fighters will have in-cockpit pilots as an option, not standard. But because of the reasons you stated about quantum mechanics and the human mind, drones/robots will not replace infantry/special ops/guerrillas. Humans can be darned unpredictable. In fact we can be crazier than a squirrel on methamphetamine. One way Bobby Fisher beat the supercomputer at chess was to make wildly unorthodox and apparently random moves. Confused the computer and he won.

Having worked on the ground where making life miserable for the other side by misdirection, dirty tricks and random acts of sabotage, I can say that the more random you go, the more the other side tries to analyze your acts and tactics until it takes up more and more of his resources and drives him to distraction. If humans have problems with that, given we’ve had a couple million years to improve our internal programming; what chance does an inflexible machine have?

ArthurinCali Has Some Stories from the GWOT

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Arthur has a very nice illustrated tale from his days in the Navy off the coast of Iraq.

Stories from GWOT: Iraqi Oil Platform Defense

Here’s a sample:

“The next step in deterrence was (admittedly) very fun to watch. A helicopter would be launched (or directed if already airborne) to intercept the Dhow. Seeing the hapless fishing boat get engulfed by rotor wash from the helicopter directly above it looked kind of fun.”

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 02APR20204 – All They Respect is Power

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war pig

As a soldier, when I was stationed temporary duty at Ft Indiantown Gap, PA, I was tasked to assist the recruiting command on occasion. I went to Happy Valley and the University of Pennsylvania in uniform and was usually greeted by Nazi salutes. Disrespectful, especially since I had an uncle in WWII who was one of the group who liberated Buchenwald.

The overall opinion of the general populace in Pennsylvania concerning the armed forces was pretty low. Sure there were veterans but many of them were Vietnam vet draftees and they were disallusioned, especially if they had to use the VA.

What a difference after 9/11! All of a sudden everyone was thanking us for our service. High schools which had tried to block our recruiting activities were suddenly friendly.

The civilians had been frightened. The Homeland had been attacked and they were afraid. Liberals who seldom deigned to recognize our existence suddenly were waving American flags.

But we remembered who called us baby killers just weeks before. We knew once the fear factor lowered they’d be right back to their old ways.

Liberals don’t change. Not really. They only get worse. They went from calling the armed forces Nazis to forcing drag queen shows on to elementary school kids to secretly going behind parent’s backs to try to transition children to change their sex.

Probably all we can do is wall them off and let them devour each other.

Battle for Avdiivka Over. Ukrainian Retreat Imperiled.

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The Russians have worn down the Ukrainian troops in Avdiivka to the point that a rescue mission was organized to extract the defenders before it was too late.  Now the rescuers must save themselves along with their besieged brethren.

Avdiivka has become the new Bakhmut where the Russians have ground down their adversaries in a war of attrition.  Both sides have probably lost several thousand men and now the numerical superiority of the Russians has won them the city, or what’s left of it.

The next act will be the retreat by the Ukrainian forces down the few roads that can accommodate war vehicles.  The Russians have encircled the city and the next day or so will witness whether the retreating army can escape decimation.

This war has been one long series of horrific clashes.  With western aid drying up it will be surprising if the Ukrainians manage to continue this war of attrition for much longer.

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 04JAN2024 – Military Preparedness

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war pig

We may not have to wait. We may be pimp slapped by the Chinese, Iranians, Russians and NK working together. At the rate the youth is quite rightly refusing to enlist, our personnel shortages may prevent us from fighting in two places at once, let alone three or four. Say, the Red Sea and the Taiwan Straits, then Europe and the Levant. If Putin strikes for Poland or Romania or any other NATO member, even as a feint, we’d find ourselves stretched too thin with too few troops to do it all. The left is treasonous and purposely degrading our military. The single objective of the US military is to deter through intimidation. “Come get some!” If that fails we MUST prevail on the battlefield, whether air, space, land, water or cyber. The US military is expensive, but the most expensive thing is a second-rate military. To wit: we must get rid of wokeness and timeouts in training. We need tough sonsofbitches that will wade in and force the enemy to surrender or die. Throat stabbers. Our Secretary of Defense should be an R Lee Ermey sort. Our drill instructors/sergeants/chiefs should be profane, rough, demanding and not afraid to put a recruit in their place by a swift kick in the ass if necessary. Worked for me. Better to train them with stress than bury them because they could not handle stress. There are no time outs and no safe spaces in combat.