Battleland
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.
— Marine Sergeant Joseph Chamblin, when asked, here, if he regretted urinating on dead Taliban fighters. After a video surfaced of several Marines, including him, doing so in 2011, the corps fined him $500 and demoted him for the act and dereliction of duty. He leaves the Marines in September after 15 years.

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.

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.
— General William Shelton, chief of Air Force Space Command, speaking Tuesday in Washington on the civilians he has had to furlough because of sequester-mandated budget cuts.

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

10%

— The percentage of U.S. government civilians in Afghanistan dedicated to ensuring that the other 90% are spending tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars wisely. “About 10% of our total civilian strength in Afghanistan,” James Dobbins, the State Department’s point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan, told Congress July 11, “is dedicated to oversight and accountability of our own programs.”

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 …

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