Battleland discussed the infuriating problem of sexual assaults in the ranks of the U.S. military on the PBS NewsHour Tuesday night – just as we did more than 16 years ago. Battleland may be a lot older, but the plague of …
$252,228.44
— The price, more or less, of an F-18 ejection seat, according to this recent contract announcement.
“Sexual assault is an outrage. It is a crime. That's true for society at large, and if it's happening inside our military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they're wearing. And they may consider themselves patriots, but when you engage in this kind of behavior, that's not patriotic; it's a crime. And we have to do everything we can to root this out...so I don't want just more speeches or, you know, awareness programs or training, but ultimately folks look the other way. If we find out somebody's engaging in this stuff, they got to be held accountable, prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court-martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged -- period. It's not acceptable.”
— President Obama, speaking Tuesday about a new Pentagon report showing an increase in sexual assaults in the ranks, and the arrest of an Air Force officer responsible for preventing sexual assault on charges of sexually assaulting a woman early Sunday.
Benghazi Revisited
Fireworks are in place and set to explode Wednesday on Capitol Hill over whether the U.S. military could have done more to save the four trapped U.S. diplomats who died in Benghazi last September 11.
It’s all going to boil …
Knowing Thy Enemy
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor …
MacArthur’s Flawed Genius
There are some military commanders who, like Cher, Elvis and Oprah, are known by a single name: Napoleon, Patton and MacArthur come quickly to mind.
Army General Douglas MacArthur is historically significant not only because …
Afghan Amazon Warrior
A female Afghan army officer brandishes her weapon, May 4.
Hurt, But Helping…
Last November, we featured the love story of Army Captain Greg Galeazzi and Summer Buckley here on Battleland. Galeazzi, 27, was wounded in an IED blast nearly two years ago in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, losing both of his …
“The important places in this world are Rota, Naples, Sigonella, Souda Bay, Djibouti down by the Red Sea, by the Gulf of Aden, Bahrain incredibly important, Singapore which is emerging for us, Darwin where our partners in the Marine Corps will operate today and we will continue growing toward the end of this decade. The Republic of Korea -- Pusan, Chinhai, Pyeongtaek; Japan -- Yokosuka, Sasebo, Atsugi, Iwakuni, Misawa; and of course, Diego Garcia and yes, Guantanamo Bay.”
— Admiral Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, recently rattling off the U.S. Navy’s “maritime crossroads.” Bonus points if you know where they all are…
Planely Not Taking Sexual Assaults Seriously…Enough
The arrest of Air Force Lieut. Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski – chief of the service’s sexual assault and prevention shop — early Sunday morning on charges of sexual assault, practically within the Pentagon’s penumbra, is a tragedy …
“China's leaders in 2012 sustained investment in its nuclear forces, short- and medium-range conventional ballistic missiles, advanced aircraft, unmanned air systems, air and missile defenses, land attack and anti-ship cruise missiles, submarines, and surface combatants, some of which appear designed to enable what we call anti-access and aerial-denial missions, or what PLA [People's Liberation Army] strategists refer to as counter-intervention operations.”
— Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia David Helvey, explaining, here, on Monday how China and the U.S. define the same military mission – is it "anti-access" or "counter-intervention"? -- in strikingly different ways. Bottom line: it depends on whether you're attacking, or defending.
“I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than someone in the military.”
— What a U.S. lieutenant colonel allegedly told the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Tripoli, after the diplomat says his pleas for military help to rescue his colleagues in Benghazi, Libya, last September 11 went unheeded. The account of Gregory Hicks, whose boss, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans died in the attacks, will be the focus of a House hearing Wednesday. The session will highlight the cravenness of the Obama Administration for playing down a terror attack six weeks before the election, and the loss of bipartisanship in the nation’s overseas actions. Whatever temporary political gain is achieved in the political sideshow will be more than offset by the partisan circus that has surrounded the Benghazi attack since it took place. And, for the record, the Obama Administration started it.
+75%
— The increased chance, detailed here, that a U.S. military veteran of Afghanistan or Iraq will die in a motor-vehicle accident compared to a civilian.