This isn’t the way a Navy aviator is supposed to leave his vessel, especially when it’s a behemoth like the 100,000-ton USS Harry S Truman. But on Tuesday morning, about 10 a.m., Captain Tushar Tembe collapsed as he was leaving the ship he had commanded for the past three months as it was undergoing maintenance in Norfolk. He died …
Navy
Is This Fair? Or a Cheap Shot (Across the Bow)?
Despite our best efforts, we keep hearing that we’re a year out from the next presidential election. Not sure if that means it’s time to start paying attention, but we’ll be citing some of what the candidates say about defense in the coming months. Last week, GOP candidate Mitt Romney went after the Navy:
Let me give you an
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Good Economic News at Last
In theses times of layoffs, deficits and budget cuts, anything involving finances that grows at a 37% clip over two years is good news, right? Well, here’s the latest on the pirate front, from Kenya’s The East African:
Ransom payments paid by shipping companies to Somali pirates have reached nearly $110 million this year — a
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Squawking SEAL
CNN chum Barbara Starr has the inside skinny on the new book purporting to detail the inside skinny of how the Osama bin Laden raid went down – as told by a former SEAL. Author Chuck Pfarrer claims to have spoken to some Navy SEALs who conducted the raid. It seems his story has more holes in it than the post-raid bin Laden.
What’s Going On? The Joint Chiefs Should Be Partying Like It’s 2007…
The spectacle now infecting the Pentagon would be humorous, if it weren’t so serious. The notion that the military can cut $450 billion out of its next-decade budget of something like $7 trillion – but not a penny more – suggests an (artillery) shell game’s afoot.
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – the …
Britain Left Defenceless
Here’s a surprising story from Wednesday’s London Independent:
No Warships Left Defending Britain After Defence Cutbacks
Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord Alan West said: “I would hardly say it is a luxury…It’s a big problem…It’s a very unsatisfactory position to be in.”
As the congressional super-committee struggles in …
Twenty-One. Not a Gun Salute.
So far this year, the Navy has relieved 21 commanding officers. The details surrounding Commander Jay Wylie, captain aboard the USS Momsen, are just now coming to light. One has to credit the Navy with airing its dirty laundry from the halyard, for all to see. But one also has to wonder: how did such an apparent creep end up …
Mullen’s Mulligan
It usually takes months for retired chairmen of the Joint Chiefs to have their formal portraits hung in the Pentagon’s E-ring hallway, alongside all those who have come before. But not so in the case of Admiral Mike Mullen, who left his post as the nation’s top military officer September 30.
Strolling along that wood-lined …
The Party
Only a month ago I was unable to disclose my status as a gay man in the military. Fast forward to Tuesday of last week, when I stood as a guest to a party celebrating the launch of the anthology “Our Time“, a collection of stories from other gay, lesbian, and straight servicemembers, negatively affected by the “Don’t Ask” ban on open …
SEAL Crash Scene…
The Pentagon has released photos of the CH-47 crash site in Afghanistan where 30 U.S. troops — including 17 SEALs — perished two months ago when an RPG brought their chopper down. CNN’s Security Clearance blog has posted them here.
This Is How Wars Start
You know it’s never a good sign involving shipping on the contested high seas near China and the Philippines when the phrase “`accidental’ collision” appears in the first sentence of a news story — with the word accidental in quotes.
Reports Wednesday’s Philippine Star newspaper:
MANILA, Philippines – An “accidental”
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Nuclear (Triad) Warfare
As the nation grapples with its need to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from its future defense budgets every year, one category seems MIA: the nuclear triad. But it’s worth noting that those who embrace it tend to be those running it, while the nation’s top military officers — who have to juggle competing demands, and not just …
The Ultimate Half-Full — Or Half-Empty — Glass
Rich Hill is a San Francisco teacher who last week penned a column in the San Francisco Chronicle griping about the annual Blue Angels’ air show over his fair city:
I have strong feelings about the Blue Angels’ annual visit. I do not like it…The Boeing F/A-18 Hornet is a fierce fighter and agile attacker…Are we so distant from
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