“Do I regret doing it? Hell no…Do you want the Marine Corps to be a group of Boy Scout pretty boys, or do you want guys that will go out and kill the people trying to take advantage of your country and kill Americans? Which do you want? Because you can't have both.”
Cutting One-Fifth. Twice.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday that he has ordered a 20% cut in the ranks of the Pentagon’s top military officers and senior civilians.
Beginning in 2015, and completed by 2019.
Well, as we used to say: speed …
Warship…Or Disco?
The USS Preble, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, readies for a night fueling in the Pacific July 7.
How the Global Hawg Keeps Flying
Battleland has long been interested in how it was that an unmanned drone – the RQ-4 Global Hawk – ended up costing more money than the U-2 spy plane the Pentagon wanted it to replace for some missions.
After all, Gary …
“I've got civilians that are out taking a 20 percent pay cut for the remainder of the year…That is horrific. I stood in front of my civilians the other day and I apologized to them, and I said, `Your government has let you down.’ And that's how I feel about it. We have let them down. We have broken faith with our civilian workforce.”
Privatizing War (cont.)
From Tuesday’s list of Pentagon contract announcements:
Jorge Scientific Corp., Arlington, Va., was awarded an $11,810,908 modification (P00006) to a previously awarded cost-plus-fixed-fee, option-filled, multi-year contract …
Growing Up, Base to Base
Where are you from?
For a military brat, that can be a complicated question.
The website Blog Critics highlighted an episode at the U.S. Army post at Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany. A visiting magician brought a …
Looking Into Iraq’s Rear-View Mirror
Funny how different things can look as a war winds down.
In this February interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Major Amanda Warren, an Army logistician, talks of her 2011 deployment to …
Correcting the Pentagon’s Distorted Budget History
The Defense Budget Is Even Larger Than You Think: part two of two
Given the warped measures that high-spending advocates and the Defense Department use to calibrate past, present and future defense spending (described here …
10%
A.K.A. “Target”
The USNS Montford Point, the Navy’s first “mobile landing platform,” leaves San Diego last week.
Your Mileage (Reimbursement) May Vary
Over the past five years, the cost of reimbursing eligible veterans for travel expenses associated with getting medical care at Department of Veterans Affairs facilities has more than doubled, to nearly $1 billion annually, the …
“We've enhanced our screening, and required screening -- that if someone is being discharged for what is considered bad-conduct discharge -- that they have to go through certain screening for PTSD and TBI to ensure that that is not a contributing factor.”