A very happy Independence Day to all of our readers and fellow citizens of the greatest country in the world. -BK 

Hog driver awarded Silver Star:

He comes back on the radio and he says, ‘We’re taking direct enemy fire. We need you in here now.’ And it went from kind of catching up with one of our buddies to now going in and protecting him because he’s under fire,” Thornton said.

It was April 6, 2003, just days after U.S. troops went into Baghdad during the Iraq war.

Follow me on Twitter and get your weekly news in genital tomfoolery:

https://twitter.com/BKactual/status/880993324181540864

Antifa vs. Trump guys brawl in Philly: 

https://twitter.com/AlexCla59967291/status/881575527412375553

Yes, I know it’s his kid but it’s still funny:

Brit Army chief bemoans shrinking force:

The army is in danger of being reduced to a mere “gendarmerie,” a former army chief has warned, as he says that the emphasis spending on “big ticket machinery” has led to a squeeze on manpower.

General Lord Richard Dannatt, a former Chief of the General Staff, said that “any thought of Britain being taken seriously in the world after Brexit would disappear” if forces are cut any further…

…He said: “The problem comes – and we saw this in 2010 when the defence budget was reduced by seven per cent – that the Government, perhaps not unreasonably, decided to prioritize the big equipment programmes over manpower.

“Where is most of the man power in the armed forces? It’s in the army. And that was what led to the army being reduced from 102,000 to 82,000. And now it’s been reduced to 79,000 at the present time.

General Lord Dannatt, who was speaking about his new book “Boots on the Ground: Britain and Her Army Since 1945,” said: “The professional view and the widespread view is that an army by design, below the strength of what we currently have, would frankly reduce the army to nothing more than a gendarmerie.

“The Americans would give up on us as a useful ally. And frankly, any thought of Britain being taken seriously in the world after Brexit would disappear”.

Closing in on ISIS: 

The line between motivating and annoying is a fine one indeed:

A Navy officer in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, may face a $300 fine for a daily audio memorial that honors the men and women who served in the U.S. military, according to CNS News.”

Lt. Cmdr. Joshua Corney has played the classic bugle song “Taps” every day at 7:55 p.m. for nearly two years. Earlier this week, though, the Glen Rock Borough Council sent Corney a letter saying that his musical tribute constitutes a noise violation. Corney is still allowed to play the 57-second long tune on Sundays and select holidays, said CNS News.

Corney served in the military for 20 years and made eight deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an April story from  Penn Live. While on tour, Corney made a promise to himself that he would pay homage to his fellow service members who were not lucky enough to make it home.”

Teenagers rape mom in front of kids: 

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. – Police have arrested three teens accused of raping a Gwinnett County mother in front of her two children last month.

According to the police report, the victim arrived home from work with her two children just before 3 a.m. on May 12 and found two armed men inside her house.

The woman told police the two intruders, identified by police as 17-year-old Francisco Palencia and 19-year-old Josue Ramirez,shocked her numerous times with stun guns and pushed her toward the bedroom. She tried to resist them, and walked toward her kids, according to the police report. That’s when one of the attackers threw two pots of boiling water on her.

The police report said the other man then pushed the mother into the bedroom, forced her to remove her clothing and raped her. Meanwhile, the suspect who threw the boiling water ransacked the home, according to police…

…Police arrested Palencia and Ramirez, as well as an unidentified 15-year-old female. They are all facing a number of charges, including rape, aggravated sodomy, kidnapping, home invasion, aggravated battery and cruelty to children.”

Mattis surveys the hellish, PC-scorched landscape left to him by Ash Carter:

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is giving the military chiefs another six months to conduct a review to determine if allowing transgender individuals to enlist in the armed services will affect the “readiness or lethality” of the force.

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said Mattis made the decision Friday. The delay in allowing the enlistment of new recruits does not affect transgender troops who are already serving openly in the military.

“After consulting with the service chiefs and secretaries, I have determined that it is necessary to defer the start of accessions for six months,” Mattis said in a memo that was sent Friday to the service chiefs and secretaries and was obtained by The Associated Press. “We will use this additional time to evaluate more carefully the impact of such accessions on readiness and lethality.”

An incredible group of Americans:

Seventeen Rangers were inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame Wednesday during a ceremony at Fort Benning, Georgia.

The ceremony was part of the 75th Ranger Regiment’s bi-annual change of command activities known as Ranger Rendezvous. This year’s class of inductees includes soldiers from World War II all the way through today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of this year’s Hall of Famers are veterans of the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia, which was depicted in the iconic film “Black Hawk Down.”

Among the 17 soldiers inducted this year are two Medal of Honor recipients: retired Master Sgt. Leroy Petry and retired Navy Lt. Tommy Norris.

Here is the complete list of the Ranger Hall of Fame Class of 2017:

• Retired Sgt. Maj. Tyrone Adderly.
• Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Frank Ashe.
• Retired 1st Sgt. Herbert Baugh.
• Retired 1st Sgt. Ronald Grenier.
• Retired Master Sgt. Gilbert Howland.
• Staff Sgt. Ronnie Imel.
• Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Richard Lamb.
• Retired Maj. Larry Moores,
• Retired Brig. Gen. Craig Nixon
• Retired Navy Lt. Tommy Norris.
• Retired Master Sgt. Leroy Petry.
• Retired 1st Sgt. Mike Ramsey.
• Retired Sgt. Maj. John Roy.
• Retired Chaplain (Maj.) Jeff Struecker.
• Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Charles Thompson.
• Retired Lt. Gen. John Vines.
• Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Walker.

I’m sorry this happened but you’re not getting $10 million: 

A heated affair that ended in tragedy is now part of a $10 million lawsuit.

The family of Vanesa Itzel Rodriguez Chavarria, who died in 2014, is seeking justice from the United States in a federal wrongful-death lawsuit filed Friday in New York.

Three years ago, Rodriguez Chavarria, a young woman from Panama, began a relationship with Master Sgt. Omar Velez-Pagan, a married US soldier assigned to that Central American nation to help train its police officers.

But their affair was cut short when Velez-Pagan, drunk and jacked up on steroids, half-buried his lover’s body in a ditch near a Panamanian farm after a violent encounter with her.

The two had been arguing when Velez-Pagan, who carried on multiple extramarital relationships during his deployment to Panama, pummeled Rodriguez Chavarria, then 25, during an argument inside a US Embassy-owned Toyota Hi-Lux he was driving.”

You had me at “prosthetic penis”:

A woman convicted of impersonating a man over two years in an “astonishing deception” to trick her female friend into sex after a retrial cried in the dock as she said “I can’t go back to jail”.

Gayle Newland, 27, created a “disturbingly complex” online persona to achieve her own “bizarre sexual satisfaction”.

A retrial jury at Manchester Crown Court found her guilty of committing sexual assault by using a prosthetic penis without her victim’s consent.”

The complainant said she was persuaded by the defendant to wear a blindfold at all times when they met and only found out she was having sex with Newland when she finally took off her mask…

 …Newland claimed her accuser always knew she was pretending to be Kye Fortune – a Facebook profile she created at the age of 15 using an American man’s photographs and videos – as they engaged in role play while struggling with their sexuality.

She said no blindfold was used as they had sex on about 10 occasions at the complainant’s flat in Chester in 2013.”

If a naked guy sprayed some unknown fluid on me and I was armed…: