ARRAS, France (AP) — One serves in the Air Force, another recently served in Afghanistan in the National Guard, another is studying physical therapy in California — and all three Americans are being hailed as heroes for tackling and disarming a gunman they happened to encounter on a high-speed train between Amsterdam and Paris.
Air Force serviceman Spencer Stone remained hospitalized Saturday after being stabbed in the attack Friday night as the train traveled through Belgium, though the Pentagon said the injury was not life-threatening. A dual French-American citizen was also wounded as he was hit by chance by a gunshot on the train, which eventually stopped in Arras in northern France, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
Cazeneuve, speaking to reporters in Paris on Saturday, said that the suspect may be a 26-year-old Moroccan flagged by Spanish authorities last year for links to Islamic radical movements, but the identity has not been 100 percent confirmed.
An official linked to Spain’s anti-terrorism unit said the suspect lived in Spain until 2014, then moved to France, travelled to Syria, and then returned to France. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be identified by name.
Originally this story said the heroes were U.S. Marines, which would explain why, approximately seven seconds after this story hit the wires, my USMC infantry officer brother Big Duke 6, AKA the Thighmaster, sent it to me with the one word subject line, “YUUUUUUTTTTT!”
Now we know it was a USAF airman and his Army National Guard buddy who took this bumbler’s AK away from him and damn near beat him to death with it, making all of us here in the USA enormously proud in the process.
While the French crew of the train surprised pretty much nobody, reportedly running away and barricading themselves, young Americans, as usual, cracked their knuckles and then some terrorist heads.
Chalk this up to a hard lesson for the aspiring jihadis. They haven’t figured it out yet. Wherever they go, we go. Just when you think it’s safe to start shooting up women and children, an American will pop up and beat you about the head with your own gun and his enormous, fully engorged genitalia.
We are smarter than you. We are tougher than you. We are stronger than you. We have country-ass white guys who can spit Nas lyrics, and big-city black guys who can drawl Toby Keith lyrics. YOU CAN’T COMPETE WITH THAT.
I like to think this guy was in the bathroom giving himself a little pep talk. “Praise Allah, I’m really going to do it! These infidel Frenchmen will never even know what hit them. I’m a doer! I’M A DOER!” Then, he charges out to begin jihad, only to have his AK snatched away from him and to receive his beat down. Talk about sad trombone noise.
And how about that last paragraph? He lived in France, TRAVELED TO SYRIA, and then returned to France? Why would the French authorities let him do that? In President-For-Life BK’s world, you don’t get to travel to Syria and then return home. Nothing good is happening there. One-way tickets only. Or we can arrange a static-line parachute jump.
I know the theory behind letting the guy roam free. But I don’t think this, “We’ll watch him and see where he goes so we can get the rest of them,” observation method is exactly working out. This is like the Fast and Furious debacle, only with human terrorists. These guys are too easy to lose in a crowd; they disappear into the jihad world. Can’t we just start smudging them with the drones?
Side note: Check out this bizarre sub-headline from the Daily Beast on this story:
Whatever his politics, there’s no question the man with the AK-47 wrestled to the ground onboard a high-speed train was out to commit a terrorist act.
What the hell? “Whatever his politics?” Let me help you out, weirdo Daily Beast journalist: His politics were getting dat azz whooped and radical Islam. In that order.
We here at the SOFREP News Roundup salute our two servicemen, as well as their civilian friend who jumped in to get his own shots in. Outstanding job, gentlemen.
First Females Graduate Ranger School:
1st Lt. Shaye Haver, 25, and Capt. Kristen Griest, 26, received their Ranger tabs Friday, becoming the first women ever to successfully complete the U.S. Army’s Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga. — a grueling course that puts a premium on physical strength and endurance.
Haver, an Apache helicopter pilot, and Griest, a military police platoon leader, completed the course to the same standards as their 94 male classmates — a point emphasized by Maj. Gen. Scott Miller, the guest speaker at the graduation ceremony.
Miller, who graduated from Ranger School three decades ago, said he wanted to “address the nonsense on the Internet.”
“Ladies and gentlemen … standards are still the same … a 5-mile run is still a 5-mile run. Standards do not change. A 12-mile march is still a 12-mile march,” he said.
“When I shake your hand, I know there’s something behind that handshake. Rangers lead the way,” Miller said.
Congratulations to Lt. Haver, Captain Griest, and the rest of the Ranger School graduates. Whatever your thoughts on the matter, it remains a tremendous accomplishment. I think I speak for everyone here at SOFREP in recognizing the great job from these two officers.
Let’s face it, this won’t matter nearly as much in the future, when all of us will be wearing powered exoskeleton suits anyway, just as Robert Heinlein predicted more than a half-century ago. But obviously, the whole concept of females attending Ranger School was highly controversial from the start.
SOFREP has published an insider account from an infantry officer with some direct knowledge of how the training went down. Let’s look at the numbers he put forth:
After the Army sent out the ALARACT message looking for female Ranger School volunteers, they had nearly 400 female soldiers express a desire to attend the course. One hundred and nine of those female soldiers eventually attended the RTAC, the ARNG Warrior Training Center’s two week Pre-Ranger Course,
Twenty female Ranger Students eventually passed RTAC, and 19 of those 20 started Ranger School with Class 06-15 on April 19th.
Eight of those 19 female students passed RAP (Ranger Assessment Phase) Week at Camp Rogers, where about 60 percent of Ranger School failures historically occur. All eight went to Camp Darby with Class 06-15 and were either recycled into Class 07-15 or dropped from training.
And we know the rest. So, after an enormous amount of time and resources were spent, the result is two graduates out of 400 female soldiers motivated enough to even express interest. Keep in mind that there are approximately 75,000 females in the Army. Not exactly overwhelming numbers. Meaning, this really isn’t the issue that people opposed to integration are making it out to be.
As I’ve stated before, on principle and on paper, I’m fine with this. Females are training to a male standard, giving us a bunch of hot little Private Vasquezes running around in our operations units. No problem.
That being said, my personal admiration of the accomplishments of our two female Rangers is tempered somewhat by wondering what the future holds. This is because I despise a certain school of thought popular today that pushes not equality of opportunity, but equality of outcome.
This great achievement by these two females will now be used as the broadest brush possible to push the preferred narrative. The narrative will NOT be, “We found two extraordinary, motivated, singular women who managed to graduate. Hopefully we can find more.” It will be, “ALL WOMEN CAN DO ANYTHING MEN CAN DO GRRRL POWER,” which, of course, is absurd.
We’ve already seen this played out in fire departments. We’ve already seen this played out in police departments. Look at this lawsuit in Lubbock:
In June, the U.S. Department of Justice notified the city that its practice of hiring probationary police officers discriminates against women and Hispanics.
“We have concluded that the city’s use of the written examination since 2009 has caused an adverse impact on Hispanic applicants for probationary police positions,” Vanita Gupta, an assistant attorney general, said in a letter to the city.
Gupta also said the police department’s physical fitness test resulted in disparities in passing rates between male and female applicants.
Yeah, I bet it did. See, there’s that demand for equality of outcome I was talking about. Nobody is barring anyone from applying. That’s equality of opportunity. But since the written test scores resulted in not “enough” Hispanics, the results themselves must be changed.
Or how about this one in Colorado Springs:
The testing program was adopted in December 2013, when it was announced all police officers would be required to take an annual physical fitness test starting at the end of 2014.
The lawsuit seeks to bar CSPD from enforcing the physical testing protocols of the new program, and monetary damages for earning opportunities from which the women were banned while on a performance improvement plan after failing the test, such as overtime.
Twenty-five of 636 officers failed the test on their first attempt, according to records released by Vincent Niski, deputy chief of the Colorado Springs Police Department. Niski wrote in an email that he would not release the gender breakdown of who passed and failed because of privacy and safety concerns for officers. It “is not within the public interest for CSPD to release the requested information,” he wrote.
Got that? Not only should our police officers not have to take a PT test, they should be compensated BECAUSE THEY FAILED. Also, you have to love the deputy chief hack who sent that email out. It’s “not within the public interest?” How he can even say that with a straight face shows you how insane these spokespeople are. I could come up with a hundred more examples.
I’m sure each all of these departments started off saying the same thing. We’re not changing standards, women have to do the same as men, etc. And then when they find out only one out of thousands can make it, they start changing things. THAT is what concerns me.
Thankfully, you can’t really sue the military. But it never ends, this creeping incrementalism. What always sounds reasonable at the beginning inevitably leads to chaos at the end. Two females graduate Ranger School? That’s nothing; they need to be in the regiment itself. Two women in the Ranger Regiment? That’s nothing; we need 50 percent to be women. Wait, all the females are white heterosexuals? FIND ME SOME GAYS. Which is how, 20 years from now, an obese, Alzheimer’s-ridden Caitlyn Jenner is sworn in as commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment.
In all seriousness, this is a great, not to mention historical, feat. Congratulations to both ladies. They earned it.
Aspiring Strongman Desperately Attempting to Cover Up Federal Crimes:
Hillary Clinton violated government policy in her use of a personal email server, a federal judge said on Thursday.
“We wouldn’t be here today if the employee had followed government policy,” judge Emmet Sullivan said.
Hearing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department, seeking access to the records of Clinton’s staff, Sullivan said that the former secretary of state had hindered State’s ability to provide records.
Sullivan ordered the department to ask the FBI for any emails relating to the lawsuit that have been recovered from Clinton’s server but are not in the department’s possession.
When a Justice Department lawyer raised concerns about the government’s right to search the private email of an official, Sullivan said: “There was a violation of government policy.”
I’ll try to simplify it for those whose eyes glaze over at the thought of listening to a Hillary Clinton email scandal story. Here’s the thing: If I or anyone else had done what she’s ALREADY admitted to while working for the United States government, we would, at the very minimum, lose our clearances and our jobs. Following that, we’d have to work very, very hard to just stay out of a federal prison.
Look, the highly, HIGHLY coveted SOFREP News Roundup presidential endorsement is still up for grabs. A vast majority of the staff here are watching the candidates closely to see who would be the best person for the job. But if you are still thinking about voting for Hillary Clinton, you should not only lose your right to vote, you should be stuffed into the boxcars and taken away for re-education.
Go ahead, vote for Bernie Sanders. Vote for Martin O’Malley. Vote for Jeb! But honestly, you should vote for Karl Marx’s dead corpse before you vote for Hillary Clinton.
Your PT Challenge This Week: The 108 lb. Turkish Getup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNbUWtNBKw8&feature=youtu.be
Can you do it? He says he thinks the 124 pounder is within reach.
That is USMC officer and my “little” brother making it look easy with the 108-pound kettlebell. And if you’re questioning why he chose David Hasselhoff’s “Looking For Freedom” as the soundtrack, then I have to question your patriotism.
You want to get your whole body strong and lean in a hurry? Do what Pavel says, and start doing Turkish getups. He says you should do five per side every day you’re in the gym. I had crappy shoulders, and doing the getups every day (starting with baby kettlebells) really helped them feel a lot better. And you get beastly strong while doing it. So get going, tubby.
SF Soldier Under Fire For Confronting Pedophile Afghan Policeman:
EXCLUSIVE: The U.S. Army is kicking out a decorated Green Beret after an 11-year Special Forces career, after he got in trouble for shoving an Afghan police commander accused of raping a boy and beating up his mother when she reported the incident.
The case of Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland now has the attention of Congress, with Rep. Duncan Hunter writing to Defense Secretary Ash Carter challenging the decision.
“I am once again dismayed by the Army’s actions in this case,” Hunter, R-Calif., wrote in a letter to Carter.
“Once again” is right. When it comes to doing the right thing, we can always count on the Army to do the opposite. Now you have the spectacle of a decorated SF soldier being disciplined because he confronted one of Afghanistan’s many, many child rapists, a subject that hasn’t gotten near the attention it deserves back in the states.
Every single veteran who has served abroad is aware of the grim joke about “Man-love Thursdays.” You see, among certain segments of the Afghan populace, Thursday is the preferred day to get down with some good old-fashioned buggery, with bonus points if it’s a little kid. Friday is their holy day, where they beg Allah’s forgiveness, so Thursday is the day that these scum gather in their mud huts to explore each other’s old dirt roads.
Martland is described by many of his teammates as the finest soldier they have ever served alongside.
But his Army career changed course during his second deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. After learning an Afghan boy was raped and his mother beaten, Martland and his team leader confronted a local police commander they had trained, armed and paid with U.S. taxpayer dollars. When the man laughed off the incident, they physically confronted him.
One day in early September 2011 at their remote outpost, a young Afghan boy and his Afghan-Uzbek mother showed up at camp. The 12-year-old showed the Green Berets where his hands had been tied. A medic took him to a back room for an examination with an interpreter, who told them the boy had been raped by another commander by the name of Abdul Rahman.
After learning of the meeting, Rahman allegedly beat the boy’s mother for reporting the crime. It was at this point, the Green Berets had had enough. Quinn and Martland went to confront Rahman.
“He confessed to the crime and laughed about it, and said it wasn’t a big deal. Even when we patiently explained how serious the charge was, he kept laughing,” Quinn said.
Absolutely infuriating. This man should be given a medal. Go read the whole thing. One of the guys involved quit the Army, rather than stay and fight the charges, and Martland is fighting an involuntary discharge. And you wonder why highly trained commandos leave the service in disgust. If you can’t kick the shit out of child rapists, then what CAN you do? Honest to God.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Pull all the troops from Afghanistan and nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. Then, once the radioactive cloud has dissipated, we can fill that godawful wasteland with golf courses, water parks, and Chipotles.
Huh. That’s two “Aliens” references is one roundup. Good freaking movie.
Golden Knight Parachute Accident Memorial:
Visitation services will be held Friday evening in southwest Ohio for Master Sgt. Corey Hood, who was killed during the air show in Chicago last weekend.
Hood, from West Chester just north of Cincinnati, had served in Afghanistan and Iraq and performed with the Army’s Golden Knights skydiving team.
He died Sunday of injuries suffered in an accident during a parachute stunt Saturday at the Chicago Air & Water Show.
The 32-year-old Army veteran served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and earned numerous awards, including two Bronze Stars.
The Golden Knights and the Navy’s Leap Frogs were doing a combined exhibition jump when things went bad. R.I.P. to Master Sgt. Hood.
Former Army Ranger Going For NFL:
You can take the man out of the military — and improbably put him inside the locker room of one of the NFL’s most storied franchises — but not the military out of the man. To Alejandro Villanueva, a West Point graduate and former Army Ranger who served three tours in Afghanistan, 7:30 p.m. will always be 1930, military time.
“That’s him,” said Mike Munchak, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive line coach and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “You’d love to have 50 guys like him.”
This is the Pittsburgh offensive line, so they’ll need all the help they can get.
By next month, Villanueva hopes to be one of Pittsburgh’s final 53. To hear those inside the Steelers’ organization tell it, the 26-year-old has a legitimate shot at making the opening-day roster despite not having played in a football game since 2009, his senior year at Army.
Back then, he was a 6-foot-9 wide receiver, having played both tight end and offensive line earlier in his Army career. Now, after leaving active military duty — during which he weighed between 245 and 250 pounds, down from what he called his natural weight of 290 pounds — and spending the 2014 season on the Steelers’ practice squad, Villanueva is a mountainous, 335-pound offensive tackle. He gained weight by working out and eating whatever his wife, Maddy, would fix him before he went to bed.
That’s a large man. Good luck to Alejandro Villanueva. We’re pulling for him.
Retired Four-star General Roughed Up By Cops:
A retired four-star Army general and his neighbors accused police in Fayetteville, Georgia of using excessive force to arrest him following an alleged dispute with a food delivery driver.
“It’s the first time in my life I’m ashamed to be an American,” 84-year-old William J. Livsey told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “They took me away without my shoes, glasses or medicine. I fought for this country so hard, and I’ve tried to do good all my life.”
Livsey was arrested at his home on Saturday and charged with simple assault, robbery, misdemeanor obstruction, theft and making terroristic threats. Police said he grabbed the driver by the throat and pinned him against a refrigerator when Livsey’s debit card was not accepted and the driver said he could not take a check to pay for an order.
Really, Georgia cops? “Making terroristic threats?” Get the hell out of here. Who was the arresting officer?
Authorities said the former commander of US forces in South Korea then resisted when officers tried to handcuff him, before attempting to “punch one of the officers and kick another one all while making threatening and disparaging remarks.” Ten officers were reportedly called to the scene.
I know police have to secure a scene and maybe don’t know what they’re dealing with sometimes. But 10 cops? For an octogenarian war hero? And he IS a hero:
The Journal-Constitution noted that a portion of Highway 314 in town was renamed the “General Bill Livsey Highway” in Livsey’s honor. He retired from duty in 1987, following a career that saw him win the Distinguished Flying Cross, Silver Star and Distinguished Service Medal, among other honors.
Yeah, no big deal there. Obviously a loose cannon who could make some sudden moves. I’m surprised the police didn’t sprinkle some crack on him and call it a day. It’s a joke, calm down. Luckily, saner heads prevailed:
Livsey’s bond was originally set at $12,000, but he said a local judge released him on his own recognizance. A photograph of Livsey’s wrist after the arrest showed lacerations, but he told WSB on Thursday he was feeling better.
Now, this scenario could have played out a few different ways. I wasn’t there or anything. Maybe the general thought he was back in Korea and lost his mind for a minute and tried to throat-punch a very polite delivery man. Or, he might have been unsure what happened and had a sneering asshole of a delivery guy talking down to him and cursing at him. Hard to say. I’m going to give the general the benefit of the doubt here, though.
Luckily, the general came out of it feeling like his old self:
“I feel like I could wipe a tiger’s a*s with sandpaper,” he said.
Wait, what? That’s a new one for me. Is that anger? Adrenaline? Joy? Fear? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Sailor Breaks Law, Is a Badass:
SAN DIEGO — At least two Navy sailors were cited after four people parachuted off the Coronado Bridge, authorities said Thursday.
A San Diego police officer watched as at least one Navy enlisted man and three other people plunged from the 200-foot-high bridge separating San Diego and Coronado and alerted Harbor police shortly before 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to San Diego police. The sailors had a 33-foot power boat waiting in the San Diego Bay below.
San Diego Police Lt. Scott Wahl said an officer was on the bridge behind the vehicle carrying the four jumpers.
“He was on a radio call looking for somebody who was suicidal, and he decided to drive up on the bridge to see if he could locate the person up there…and while he was doing that, the car in front of him came to a stop. Four guys jumped out and jumped over the side of the bridge…so you can imagine what the police officer was thinking at the time,” Wahl said.
If you’re not familiar with San Diego, the Coronado Bridge is where a lot of local suicide jumpers go to off themselves. So I’m not surprised that the officers suspected a suicide attempt right off the bat. Little did they know they were actually dealing with a sailor straight out of Project Badass.
That bridge is not really that high. I mean, obviously it’s high enough that if you ever jumped from it, you’d undergo a serious cranio-rectal displacement, but it’s not nearly as high as a lot of other BASE jumping spots. Even a static-line jump from that would be scary.
Long Island Man Enjoys Parkways, Nudity:
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. (WABC) — A man was charged after he was found standing naked along the highway on Long Island.
At 10:15 p.m. Friday, New York State Police responded to a report of a naked man running on the eastbound Southern State Parkway, west of Exit 45 (Montauk Highway).
According to police, they found Robert Zimmerman, 57, of East Islip, on the right shoulder wearing only a T-shirt and sneakers. He was found shortly after he ran into a wooded area off the parkway.
Zimmerman’s pants were later found in the woods, police said.
He was charged with public lewdness and released with a ticket.
What went wrong, Robert? You’re 57 years old, and you’re standing on the side of a Long Island freeway with no pants. More like the DONG Island Freeway, eh? Thank you very much.
Twitter Machine is @BKactual.
(Featured image courtesy of businessinsider.com)
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