News Roundup: USAF security forces drug scandal, Iran building statue of U.S. Navy surrender, Marines to spend 50 million on turtles

It’s a hell of a drug:

(CNN)-The U.S. Air Force is investigating alleged drug activity by 14 members of the nuclear weapons security force at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, the Air Force said Friday.

The 14 junior enlisted airmen are part of the security detachment assigned to the 90th Missile Wing and have been suspended from their duties while the investigation is underway, Gen. Robin Rand said during a conference call with reporters.

Some of their duties include guarding the missile fields and launch facilities while others perform law enforcement duties on the base, Rand said. He added that the 90th Missile Wing has 1,300 airmen assigned to these security roles.

Rand, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, said that the alleged drug activity occurred while the airmen were off-duty but would not say whether it happened on or off base.

I can sympathize. The nuclear weapons program is one of those thankless jobs that doesn’t lend itself to motivation very well. Imagine spending year upon year guarding a silo or bunker, out of which you never even get the satisfaction of launching one of these Freedom Delivery Devices. It’s like training your whole life to play pro football, and never once taking a snap. At least with other MOSs, the guys can see the fruits of their labor. No wonder people involved in ICBM bases are so screwed up. 

If you’re an AC-130 gunner, you get to train by dealing death from an airborne platform. If you’re a JTAC, you call in gun runs and send Terry Talib all splattery like into the land of the 72 virgins. Infantry/SOF get to go and shoot, jump, and generally do a bunch of badass stuff. You get to see the product of your training. In the missile world, you don’t get to see anything.

But guarding a missile silo in the middle of BumFuck, Egypt? Holy crap, you couldn’t pay me enough to do that shit. And the geographic locations for these places sure as hell don’t help. Middle of Nowhere, North Dakota. Way Da Hell Out, Montana. Probably No Asian Fusion Joint, Wyoming. So imagine: You’re stationed all day at a place where nothing ever happens. Then, you get out of work and there isn’t anything to do except busting out the devil’s dandruff. I’d be shooting smack into my eyeballs after about a day in any one of those places.

We’ll keep an eye on it. Knowing how pathetically slow the wheels of military justice now turn, they may not be going anywhere for a while. We actually had a couple guys pop positive for the old booger sugar when I was going through the pipeline at Kirtland Air Force Base. But they couldn’t do anything with them for a while, so they just sat in the barracks and partied every night in the ABQ while we got our ass handed to us in training. Pretty sure they kept doing a bunch of cocaine…I mean, at that point, fuck it.

Marines rolling out mandatory reality-denying training:

Marines across the Corps will be challenged on their unconscious prejudices and presuppositions as women get the opportunity to become grunts for the first time.

The Marine Corps is rolling out mandatory training for all Marines before the first future female rifleman hits boot camp, aiming to set conditions for a smooth transition and head off cultural resistance.

Mobile training teams will be dispatched to installations across the Corps throughout May and June to offer a two-day seminar to majors and lieutenant colonels, Col. Anne Weinberg, deputy director of the

Marine Corps Force Innovation Office, told reporters Thursday. Those officers will then train the Marines under them.

Topics include unconscious bias, which focuses on how people prejudge others based on factors such as race and gender, and principles of institutional change. The seminar will also walk officers through the elements of the Corps’ plan for opening ground combat jobs to women and include vignettes featuring challenges units might encounter…

In other words, if you start thinking that the 90-pound female in infantry school isn’t quite as capable as the 215-pound male in infantry school, you will be sent off to re-education camp. We can’t have triple-plus badthink like that in the modern U.S. military. There will be many, many sessions in room 101 for those who make trouble.

As always is the case in these stories, the author manages to find a neutered general who’s been deemed sufficiently gelded that he can be trotted out to the media to recite the scripture of equal opportunity outcome:

…”There’s no doubt we’re leading cultural change. It’s not the first time for the Marine Corps, but we like a challenge,” said Brig. Gen. James Glynn, director of the Marine Corps’ office of communication. “The purpose of the mobile training team is to begin to facilitate the cultural change … you’ve got to have the conversation.”

I’m a big fan of people saying the phrase, “You’ve got to have the conversation.” Usually, this follows a policy that is being unilaterally enforced, with no exceptions. But “conversation,” implies that there is an argument going on, or that dissent is tolerated. Far, far from it. It’s like when the hippy homeless dude at the seawall in O.B. sticks a knife in my ribs and wants to “have a conversation” about me keeping my wallet. Not much of a conversation.

Follow me on Twitter for sweeping societal judgements:

https://twitter.com/BKactual/status/710274624009822208

Some people were questioning me on Twitter about this, but I stand by it. Maybe it’s because I live by the beach, but I just can’t STAND the sheer amount of flabby flesh that I encounter on a daily basis, adorned with awful tattoos. Seeing fat rolls with ink on them does nothing for me. Perhaps, instead of spending all of that money for that sweet Olde English writing across an enormous gut, some of these guys should invest in a gym membership. It just looks bad, in my opinion.

Iran is just trolling us now:

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is planning to build a statue of the US sailors who were captured in Iranian waters earlier this year, a senior officer said.

The provocative proposal is likely to cause outrage in the US and be seized on by Republicans opposed to President Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.

Here is a classic example of how the media ignores the main story, and instead focuses on how those gosh darn Republicans might be critical. It’s not that the Obama administration was embarrassed, or that the U.S. military was made to look a fool. It’s not that this is a threat to Middle Eastern stability, or world peace. No, this is something that CAN BE SEIZED UPON BY REPUBLICANS. But, back to the story. I was positive this was a hoax story at first. No way our Iranian partners would embarrass the U.S. like this, right?

Commander Ali Fadavi, the head of the Guard’s naval forces, said the monument of the surrendering Americans would be a “tourist attraction”.

“There are very many photographs of the major incident of arresting US Marines in the Persian Gulf in the media and we intend to build a symbol out of them inside one of our naval monuments,” he told Iran’s Defense Press news agency…

…Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said the arrest of the sailors was “God’s deed” and presented medals to the Iranians involved.

Our good friends, the Iranians.

Totally not related to Islam, says FBI:

More than four months after a black-clad loner with an Islamist-themed manifesto and a printed ISIS flag in his backpack stabbed four people on a California college campus, the FBI wrapped up its investigation Thursday by saying “it may never be possible to definitively determine” what motivated the bloody rampage.

The inconclusive findings from the probe of the Nov. 4, 2015 attack at the University of California Merced campus followed months of hesitation by local and federal law enforcement to link Faisal Mohammad’s stabbing spree to terrorism.

“Every indication is that Mohammad acted on his own; however, it may never be possible to definitively determine why he chose to attack people on the UC Merced campus,” the FBI’s Sacramento office said in a statement that avoided calling the attack an act of terrorism.

Yep, it may never be exactly clear why the Muslim with the ISIS flag, with the ranting Islamic manifesto, stabbed a bunch of people while screaming, “Allahu Akbar!” It’s just not clear, everyone. Who knows? Maybe he had low blood sugar. Or woman problems. Maybe he was just a little behind on his bills and was feeling financial pressure. WE MAY NEVER KNOW, GUYS. Damn. Ah well. Fuck it, dude…let’s go bowling.

Is my tone sarcastic enough? Because that’s what I’m going for.

RIP officer Jason Goodding:

A Seaside man who police say fatally shot an officer and then was killed by another officer Friday had a criminal history dating back to at least the early 1980s, court records show.

Phillip M. Ferry, 55, had convictions for assaulting a public safety officer, resisting arrest, fourth-degree assault, driving under the influence of intoxicants, escape, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, possession of a controlled substance, criminal mischief and other crimes in Clatsop, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Washington and Yamhill counties since October 1983, the records show.

He had been booked 41 times into the Clatsop County Jail since May 1991, according to jail records. The last two times, Dec. 21 and New Year’s Day, were for post-prison supervision violations related to an earlier assault of a police officer conviction. His latest warrant was related to that conviction.

Seaside police Sgt. Jason Goodding and another officer patrolling downtown Seaside were likely familiar with Ferry when they spotted him walking near a Pig ‘N Pancake restaurant and discovered he had a warrant for his arrest, said Clatsop County District Attorney Joshua Marquis. Goodding and Ferry both died after the confrontation.

I can’t say it enough times: There  is no such thing as a “normal” police encounter. The activists wonder why the cops take so many precautions or can get heavy-handed. This is why. Any interaction can go bad in the blink of an eye. Rest in peace, Sgt. Goodding. As always, here is the link to the donation page for the family. If you are moved to donate, please do so.

As for the scum who did this…look at that record. We need to start executing more people. Thanks to Mrs. Paul for hitting me up on Twitter and telling me about this case. I would link to her Twitter page, but it doesn’t appear to be active anymore.

President to nominate first female combatant commander:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will name the first woman to head a U.S. combatant command, selecting Air Force General Lori Robinson as the next head of the military’s Northern Command, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Friday.

The position, which is subject to Senate confirmation, is one of the most senior in the U.S. military and would make Robinson — who now leads U.S. air forces in the Pacific — the top general overseeing activities in North America.

“General Robinson, it just so happens, would also be the first ever female combatant commander,” Carter said, disclosing Obama’s plans to nominate her.

“That shows yet another thing — which is that we have, coming along now, a lot of female officers who are exceptionally strong. And Lori certainly fits into that category,” Carter said at an event hosted by Politico.

We’ve covered General Robinson before. I still can’t get over the fact that a non-pilot is going to be in charge of fighter pilots. Ah well, I’m sure that’s no big deal to the fighter jocks under her command. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Carter appoints a female supply sergeant to head up SEAL Team 6. You think I’m kidding?

He’s a genius:

Finally, someone figured it out:

What if you never had to clean and lubricate your rifle again?

Army engineers at Picatinny Arsenal believe they’ve cracked the code to make it happen with a new surface applicant, which they said could go into production in 2018.

When rifles and machine guns are fired, byproducts accumulate, leading to what’s known as “fouling.” Buildup of powder residue and moisture can eventually cause the weapon to jam, or lose accuracy, reliability and cyclic rate (rounds per minute). That’s why soldiers have to clean their rifles, generally with a wet lubricant known as CLP (cleaner, lubricant and preservative).

The new material, known as durable solid lubricant, would be applied during manufacturing and coats the weapon’s moving parts. DSL simply prevents material from sticking to the weapon’s surface. Since the fouling buildup only loosely adheres to a DSL surface, any force from the other moving parts or vibrations from firing is enough to knock it loose and keep the rifle clean.

I’ll believe it when I see it. But this would be a huge breakthrough. Imagine totaling up the time that guys spend cleaning their weapons. With all the time they’d be saving, there’s no limit to the amount of computer-based training they could accomplish.

Still need dat rod, though:

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — Old-school rifle cleaning kits are about to make a comeback as the Marine Corps phases out its newer, soft cable kits that troops used on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The throwback change is one of the decisions to come out of the October combat marksmanship symposium here, where leadership met to streamline the service’s marksmanship program.

The newer kit’s thin, flexible cable simply lacks the friction needed to properly clean a rifle barrel, said Col. Tim Parker, commander of Weapons Training Battalion.

“Quite frankly, they don’t work as well as the old rods we had that you just screw together,” he said. “This is what the fleet was telling us, so we said ‘All right, we tried a good idea — now let’s go back to the original one.’”..

…“The big benefit of going back to the three-piece cleaning rods is it gives us the additional capability we used to have to clear when I have stuck brass in my chamber,” Pope said. “I can’t do that with the flexible cleaning rod.”

I have a rod at home (heh). But for your average gun owner, I think the soft bore snake is perfectly fine. Most people are not out in the elements with their weapons for days on end. But if you are, you’ll want a rigid rod ready rapidly (heh). I’ll stop now.

Army issues gender-neutral standards for SF women:

The Army has issued its rules for opening Special Forces to women as part of several policy revisions affecting the service’s special operations career fields.

Announced March 8, the changes apply to enlisted personnel seeking assignments in three specialties: Special Forces, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations.

• SF is open to male and female soldiers. However, before attending Special Forces Assessment and Selection, known as SFAS, soldiers must complete a physical assessment test that, as a minimum, includes 49 pushups, 59 situps, a 2-mile run of 15:12 minutes or less, and six pullups.

• Female soldiers must have a negative pregnancy test within 30 days before their report date to SFAS.

• Soldiers seeking entry into Special Forces must have a valid SF physical before attending SFAS. Additionally, candidates must be able to complete a physical demonstrating they are able to endure the speeds and stress associated with a high-altitude, low-opening parachute jump. If needed, soldiers must also undergo corrective eye surgery before attending the SF qualification course.

• The minimum General Technical score for Special Forces has been increased from 107 to 110, and the Army will not accept waivers.

• The maximum age for SFAS remains 36, and soldiers must have at least 36 months of obligated service remaining when they complete the SF qualification course.

I wish I could say whether this represents a change from the old PT standard or not. But I didn’t have time to ask @JackMurphy because I waited until late Saturday night to type this. So pester him on Twitter for the answer.

Bowe freaking Bergdahl:

Army lawyers have protested a decision by the legal team of accused deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to release the entire 373-page transcript of his interview with a general officer, saying the document’s disclosure includes sensitive information in the controversial case and raises questions about whether Bergdahl’s lawyers will appropriately handle classified information.

The objections were included Thursday in a court filing with the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Army lawyers argued in it that they should be granted an extension until March 29 to respond to an appeal in the case “due to recent actions by the trial defense team and the immediate need to protect the unauthorized release” of information.

Bergdahl, 29, is expected to face court-martial in August at Fort Bragg, N.C., in connection with his disappearance on charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy in what has become one of the most sensitive situations involving the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

This seems problematic:

The Army is launching a training course to fix a deficit in one of the most fundamental skills of soldiering: shooting straight.

The Marksmanship Master Trainer Course was first stood up by the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit, the service’s elite competitive shooters. This spring, it will launch Army-wide and fall under the 316th Cavalry Brigade. The course is already available on the Army Training Requirements and Resources System, or ATRRS.

Soldiers must be well-versed in the basics of soldiering, said Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning, Georgia.

“If you don’t have the foundational skills, you don’t get better when we put more stress on you,” he said.

Leaders believe so strongly in the course that graduates will receive an Additional Skill Identifier (which is still in the works and does not yet have a number or letter.

Help me understand this. You will receive an “additional skill identifier” by being able to hit a target with a rifle in the United States military? I would think that would be one of those things that someone should just, I don’t know, be able to freaking do? Do I get an additional skill identifier by being able to button my uniform properly? Come on, man.

Mind your goddamn business:

At Joint Base Lewis McChord near Seattle, 35 percent of soldiers use tobacco, just slightly higher the average for the entire Army.

Sergeant Andrew Porch started smoking in his early teens. He doesn’t smoke regularly now, but does it enough to know where the best covered smoking gazebo is at JBLM. He prefers the one that’s not located next to the trash cans.

“A lot of people probably prefer to come here than head to the dumpster in the rain to smoke a cigarette,” Porch said.

There are many cessation programs for soldiers who want to quit tobacco.

But Chief Intelligence Sergeant Raheem Ramsey says cigarettes are a big part of Army culture.

“The smoke break is one of the most valued things among soldiers whenever they have some time to themselves,” Ramsey said.

“When you’re out in the field and in the woods, there’s very little else you can do but work, eat, sleep, workout and smoke.”

Ramsey has been in the military for nearly two decades.

I have no love for smoking, but every once in a while, I’ve been known to have a butt when drinking a few cocktails. And I’ve thrown a dip in on plenty an occasion when sitting up on a mountain with jack shit around but a can of Copenhagen and trees. So leave the fellas alone. One part of this story jumped out at me:

He started smoking when he was in his early twenties, but quit using cigarettes after he ruptured his Achilles tendon in 2012. His surgeon wouldn’t operate until he quit.

“He gave me this long drawn out explanation that my foot was going to fall off,” Ramsey recalled. “I quit that day.”

Um…what the hell? Sir, that is not a thing that happens in science in your twenties. Doc better pick up his goddamn scalpel and start slicing. This had to have been a military doc.

She’s not into you, bro:

TOKYO — A U.S. Navy officer was arrested Friday on allegations of groping and punching a Japanese woman on a commercial air flight from the United States.

It is the second high-profile arrest of a U.S. serviceman for sexually related offenses in Japan in less than a week and could further complicate efforts to relocate a key U.S. airbase there.

In a statement, the U.S. Navy said a Navy lieutenant assigned to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron Five One (HSM-51), based at the Naval Air Facility, Atsugi, Japan, is under investigation for an alleged assault on a Japanese citizen while on a flight from San Diego to Japan.

The statement said the officer remains in Japanese custody. “The Navy is cooperating fully to ensure a thorough and fair investigation during which the servicemember is presumed innocent,” the statement said.

According to Japanese media outlets, a 33-year-old servicemember was arrested at Narita International Airport early Friday after he repeatedly touched a 19-year-old female Japanese college student on the thigh, then punched her in the head several times on a flight from San Diego to Tokyo. The alleged assault took place over a period of about 90 minutes, according to the reports. The woman had been sitting next him, but then moved.

This dog is tougher than you:

A German shepherd missing at sea for five weeks is back home after the U.S. Navy rescued the dog on an island in the Pacific.

Eighteen-month-old Luna apparently fell overboard from a Nick Hayworth’s fishing boat February 10, eighty miles off the California coast.

He was two miles away from San Clemente Island when he noticed Luna was gone and reported her missing to the U.S. Navy.

Sailors launched air, land, and sea searches over several days in February, but couldn’t find any trace of the dog. Then Tuesday, conservationists driving across the island, which is maintained by the Navy, spotted a dog by the side of the road. They opened their car door and Luna jumped in, ready for a ride home.

Luna, it turns out, is a survival expert. Not only did she have to swim two miles through the ocean to land, but there’s no natural fresh water on the island. She had to find rain puddles and live off whatever food she could scavenge for five weeks.

Man’s best friend, indeed. Now compare this if, say, a cat fell overboard. Would that have even been reported? But for a German Shepard? DAYS of sea, air, and land searches. We love our dogs.

Hell of a job, base security:

MONTEREY, Calif. —A man suspected of stabbing a Navy Exchange Autoport employee on a Navy base in Monterey was identified Friday as 28-year-old Jonathan Rivera.

A Navy Exchange Autoport employee was stabbed while he was working on a car, military officials said.

Rivera was booked into the Monterey County Jail on charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and probation violation. He is being held without bail.

The base is home to the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Thursday morning attack happened at a Naval Support Activity Monterey’s autoport.

NSAM spokeswoman Melinda Larson said investigators determined that the attack was random. Rivera and the victim did not know one another, Larson said.

“From our interview with the victim, he did not know the assailant. It was random,” Larson said. “There does not appear to be a motive.”

“Based on the preliminary investigation, the suspect does not appear to have a link to terrorist activities,” Larson said.

The employee had been working on a car when Rivera approached him, investigators said.

“(He) stabbed him several times, as many as five times,” Naval Support Activity Monterey Capt. Kevin Bertelsen said.

“This is incredibly rare, Monterey is a beautiful setting for our base, and this is a once-in-a-blue-moon event,” Bertelsen said.

Rivera has no Department of Defense connections and investigators do not know how he got on Navy base.

Take a look at that picture up there. There is NO WAY they let that guy though the front gate, right? Maybe he tunneled in.

Long-overdue Silver Star finally awarded to Marine:

When Col. Chris Dixon recalls his unit’s 2011 deployment to Afghanistan, he doesn’t dwell on the grainy 40-second video that made international headlines. No, Dixon says, 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines made tangible progress in what was a hotly contested part of Helmand province, a vast area that stretched from Musa Qala to Now Zad. During those seven months, he said, they bravely fought tough battles that had long-term effects…

..On Friday, one of those squad leaders, Sgt. Matthew Parker, was presented with a Silver Star during a ceremony at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. He’s the second 3/2 Marine in recent weeks to be recognized for heroism during that combat tour.

Parker’s Silver Star brings to a close a dark, frustrating period for many who served in the 1,000-man battalion. In January 2012, after the Marines had returned home to North Carolina, a video surfaced showing four of the unit’s Marines, elite scout snipers, defiling the remains of insurgents they’d just shot and killed. The fallout that ensued reached the Marine Corps’ most senior general, who was so incensed by the video that he, too, would become entangled in scandal as he sought to ferret out all wrongdoers and ensure they were held accountable…

..The entire battalion was locked down for months. No one was promoted. No one was allowed to move into a new assignment. No one was allowed to receive the awards they had earned on the battlefield…

..Rob Richards, one of the scout snipers involved in the video, was nominated for a Bronze Star with “V” for braving enemy fire to retrieve a dead insurgent’s weapon before it fell back into enemy hands. Dixon endorsed the award before the scandal erupted, but today it remains in limbo.

Richards, a sergeant who was busted down in rank to corporal as a result of the video, died unexpectedly in August 2014 after receiving an honorable discharge. He was 28 years old. His wife, Raechel, said that Parker’s Silver Star gives her hope that other deserving Marines from 3/2 will be recognized, too.

Marines to spend 50 million on desert tortoise:

For roughly half the cost of a single F-35B, the Marine Corps plans to move more than 1,100 desert tortoises from its combat training base at Twentynine Palms, California, and monitor the animals for 30 years.

The Marine Corps will spend $50 million over the next three decades to relocate, monitor and research desert tortoises that currently reside on land where leathernecks will soon be training.

The tortoises, which are listed as threatened under federal law, live on a portion of the 164,000 acres that became part of Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms in December 2013, said Capt. Justin Smith, a spokesman for the base.

“The Marine Corps will monitor its tortoises intensely for the first five years after translocation, with monitoring requirements reducing over time out to the full 30-year obligation,” he said…

For 50 million dollars, I will personally drive up there, collect each tortoise by hand, and open up a tortoise resort in Southern Cali. Hell, I will have car loads of tortoise masseuses come by every morning and PLEASURE the tortoises. Fifty million! But remember, because any money that we could save doesn’t count because of all the money we piss away, let’s just do nothing about it.

…“To put it in perspective, $50 million over 30 years is about two-ten-thousandths of 1 percent of the defense budget over that time — which is to say, it is a very, very, very small amount of money in the grand scheme of things,” Harrison said. “You could cut hundreds of things like this and it still wouldn’t add up to much in the budget. It’s less than a rounding error.”

That reasoning drives me nuts. If we’re trying to cut spending and balance budgets, shouldn’t we at least start with the “rounding errors.”

What is happening to people’s brains?

A homeless man was arrested Thursday at Lake Worth Beach after he allegedly removed his clothes, defecated on the beach, then fondled himself in front of a 5-year-old girl, according to an arrest report.

Yasmiel Gonzalez is facing a charge of lewd and lascivious behavior and is being held in the Palm Beach County Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.

A beach lifeguard told a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy that Gonzalez stripped off his shorts, then “defecated on the bench in front of many beach-goers,” the report said.

Gonzalez, 39, followed by walking into the ocean and “washed,” the report said.

That’s superb. No mention of immigration status, obviously. In today’s media, reporting that is a hate crime. But I’m just GUESSING that when a dude is dropping dukes in public, he may come from a culture with just slightly less hygienic standards? But there I go again using those darn critical thinking skills. I could be wrong. He could just be U.S.-grown insane.

After getting out of the ocean, Gonzalez allegedly began walking up and down the beach naked. A woman told police that Gonzalez masturbated in front of her 5-year-old daughter, who reacted by saying: “Look, mommy, he’s naked.”     

I’m sorry, young lady. But you’re in a depraved and frightening place called “Florida.” Get used to seeing things like this. @BKactual.