Still no US response to the Super Cyclone Pam disaster.

Thanks to Lee for the graphic.

I find this interesting...and stunning.

The island chain was devastated by Super Cyclone Pam and while our allies...even the French and UK...are responding, all we've heard is that a Marine General (forgot which one), notified Marines on Okinawa to be ready for deployment.

If you want an example of the US retreating from the world stage, then this is your huckleberry.

Perhaps we'll hear of an announcement this week that Marines are headed to help.  Leading from behind has consequences...both in warfare and in HA/DR ops.

70th Anniversary for the Battle of Iwo Jima...

  Closing in-Marines in the Seizure of Iwo Jima PCN 19000313100

Surviving Veterans of the Battle of Iwo Jima gathered this past weekend to remember the sacrifice that so many made to win that piece of real estate in the Pacific.

The Japanese put on a fabulous showing for the event and from what I've seen in news coverage of the Veteran's reactions it was appreciated by all.

Fast forward to today's Marine Corps.  This is a touchstone battle that best exemplifies all that the Marine Corps stands for, what we expect of Marines in battle and is part of the foundation that has guaranteed the Corps' survival.

The Marine Corps will never forget the Battle of Iwo Jima.  Let's hope the nation doesn't either.

F-35 Supporters! Step up and defend your plane...

Thanks to Sven for the doc...

  F-35_DOT&E_20150312

This is your chance F-35 supporters!  I will not comment, just monitor this thread.  Defend your plane if you can.  Refute the research found in the document above and tell us how/why they're wrong.  F-16.Net people, I'm talking to you!

Australian animals. Either trying to kill you or disgusting...meet the Blobfish.

Thanks to Mr_Speck for the info.

Australia.  Its a good thing the women are attractive or else I would be lobbying for the entire continent to be nuked from orbit.

Either the animals are trying to kill you or they're so freaking disgusting looking that you would shoot them on site to put them out of their mystery...which brings me to the Blobfish.  I mean seriously!  How did that thing even come to be?  I guess God really does have a sense of humor.

Open Thread. Is social media worth the danger?

This is a serious question, so bear with me.

Is social media worth the danger that it brings?  If you voice any opinion (and trust me ... I disagree with much of what I read but simply move on) that is NOT politically correct then you're in danger of losing your job and becoming a social pariah.

To make matters worse (as if they could be worse) is that social standards are changing on a weekly if not daily basis now.

I'm of the opinion that a young man should stay as far away from social media as possible.  I also believe that Marines should be ordered to NOT use it in order to safeguard budding careers.

But that's my opinion.  

What do you think.  Is social media worth the career/personal danger?  Should we avoid it like the plague?

Sidenote:  Sven recommends that we simply educate our people...a tidbit from his comment (you can read the whole thing below)...

We recently had an issue in Australia where a person was sacked from their position as they had defamed their employer on social media. His defence tried to argue that this defamation had occurred in a private forum, i.e. Facebook and that his negative comments about said company were meant to be viewed by friends and family only. Sadly his lack of understanding of how Facebook works and his minimal efforts at security led to his comments being available to anyone who conducted a simple Google search.
Like I stated earlier, banning access or use to social media wil l only see more and more complex workarounds being developed to circumvent this ban and as such an education program for those involved in sensitive occupations i.e. armed forced, government, etc is the only solution I can think of.

This will be a good start but I wonder if this is a lasting solution with rapidly changing social standards.  What was ok yesterday will be a punishable offense tomorrow....and we have to remember that every Marine represents the institution...  

Humvee upgrade canceled. Why is the JLTV so vital?

via DoD Buzz

The U.S. Marine Corps has decided to shelve a planned upgrade of its Humvee fleet due to budget cuts, an official said.
The service had planned to modernize several thousand of the iconic military vehicles as part of an acquisition effort called the sustainment modification initiative (SMI). The effort was put on hold because of automatic, across-the-board spending reductions known as sequestration.
“The program was, in fact, terminated,” Bill Taylor, who oversees land systems for the service, told lawmakers Thursday during a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2016 budget for ground force and helicopter modernization programs.
Both the Army and the Marine Corps are developing a Humvee replacement called the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. But the new light-duty utility vehicle will only replace about a third of the Humvee fleet, meaning the Cold War-era design will remain in the inventory for decades to come.
The Corps’ modification initiative was aimed at upgrading some 6,700 Humvees known as the expanded capacity variant. The fourth-generation vehicles were modified to carry thousands of pounds of armor to protect troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, though they’re no longer driven outside the wire. The extra weight strained the suspension, engine and transmission systems.
Taylor said that while service leaders made a decision to sustain rather than upgrade the existing Humvee fleet, they may opt to pursue the enhancements if funding becomes available in the future. He was responding to a question from Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois and a former Army helicopter pilot who lost both her legs while serving in Iraq.
“We were allowed to continue the nonrecurring effort associated with that program such that we have actually completed the development work and put three capability packages on the shelf,” he told lawmakers. “So, if in times of prosperity, the Marine Corps can return to those engineering proposals and reconsider instituting them in terms of procurement.”

I don't understand.

The Recap program was MUCH cheaper than the JLTV, promised much increased protection, would eliminate the need to provide parts for TWO DIFFERENT vehicles and would save cube space aboard ship.

What makes the JLTV so attractive that the USMC is ignoring a good enough solution and going forward with a more expensive program?

If you know then hit me up but I fear we're seeing the dark side of joint programs.  Once they're started you can't stop them if one of the partners deems it a "must have"...which begs the question.  If the Marine Corps can't afford to upgrade its legacy humvees then how is it going to afford to buy 5k plus JLTVs?

American Mercenary wades into the F-35 debacle...I make a minor correction to his research.

via AM..

Now Solomon has a very valid point that Congress holds responsibility for budgeting. But that doesn't excuse the Department of Defense as a whole from not taking the big stick to defense contractors who bust their budgets with no real consequences

That's just a tidbit...read it all here...now understand that I'm using American Mercenary as a foil to push my bigger agenda...I want to stick a fork in the thinking that the USMC is at fault for the F-35 catastrophe.

Required reading for the F-35 is found via The Internet Wayback Machine. 

Exhibit Number 1.  What are the roots of the F-35B?

Advanced Short Take-Off/Vertical Landing (ASTOVL) 1983-1994The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began a program in 1983 to begin looking at the technologies available to design and manufacture a follow-on supersonic replace for the AV-8 Harrier. The program, known as ASTOVL, would eventually lead become a joint U.S.-U.K. collaboration. In 1987 the results of the ASTOVL program made clear that the technologies available were not yet advanced enough to generate a replacement that the U.S. and U.K. would have been satisfied with. At this time, DARPA secretly approached the Lockheed Skunk Works in the hopes that they would be able to develop an aircraft like they had hoped would have appeared from the first phase of ASTOVL. Lockheed told DARPA that they had some ideas that could be matured and that, if they were successful would meet the goals that DARPA was trying to achieve. At the same time, DARPA continued with ASTOVL Phase II as a cover for the covert work being done at the Skunk Works.
TOP OF PAGEi. STOVL Strike Fighter (SSF) 1987-1994In the late 1980s the Lockheed Skunk Works was involved in a classified, non-acknowledged program with NASA Ames that looked into the feasibility of designing a stealthy supersonic STOVL fighter. This was a cooperative program that utilized the assets of NASA (wind tunnels, personnel, super-computers, etc.) along with the expertise of the Lockheed Skunk Works in designing stealthy air vehicles. The results from this highly classified program proved that a SSF could be successfully flown. Management at the Lockheed Skunk Works was convinced that the SSF design could be sold to both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy. (The U.S. Navy (NAVAIR) is the procuring office for Marine Corps aircraft.) The Skunk Works proposed a teaming between the USAF and the USN. The services agreed, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the services and the SSF program began to come out of the black.

Exhibit Number 2.  If the USMC had a separate program how did they become merged with Navy and Air Force efforts? 

What is known today as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program was originally known as the Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) Program. The goal of the JAST program was not to have developed a new aircraft, but instead it was to mature the technologies that a new series of tactical aircraft could use.
JAST was chartered to mature technologies, develop requirements, and demonstrate concepts for affordable next-generation joint strike warfare. As JAST plans took shape, it became apparent that JAST would be funding one or more concept demonstrator aircraft starting in 1996–about the time the ASTOVL program planned to enter its Phase III (full-scale flight demonstrators). The ASTOVL project, as an advanced concept for a future joint-service strike/fighter, appeared consistent with the JAST charter. It was therefore agreed by the management of both programs, that JAST would become the U.S. service “sponsor” for the flight demonstration phase of ASTOVL, if Phase II were successful and if the concept appeared to be able to satisfy the requirements of at least two of the three U.S. services participating in JAST. However, FY95 budget legislation passed in October 1994 by the U.S. Congress directed that ASTOVL be merged into JAST immediately.

I rest my case.  This meme that Sweetman started MUST stop (and yeah I put this on Sweetman's desk because he's the first person to make this accusation.  I remember it well, because we went round and round about this when I was a rabid supporter of the F-35 program).

You can blame the Marine Corps for a number of things.  We're big boys.  We can take it.  But if you're going to try and saddle MY Marine Corps with the F-35 debacle then think again.

Blame your Congress Critter for this mess!  NOT the United States Marine Corps! 

Sidenote.  Make sure you head over to Internet Way Back Machine to read the now dead official JSF Program website.  I've made screen copies because I have a feeling that it will disappear even from that site soon.

The Leviathan -- Teaser

The Leviathan -- Teaser from Ruairi Robinson on Vimeo.

The Prepper Movement. Now its starting to scare even me...

I've always looked at the Prepper Movement as being harmless,  a movement where people across America decided to be prepared in case emergency. Even the federal and many state governments are recommending that people have enough emergency supplies to last 14 days.

Additionally while many focus on the firearms aspect of things, I've viewed that as the least important  Food, water, medical supplies, the ability to provide for warmth or cooling if the grid goes down...and how to use the gear you acquired were much higher on the list of things to do.

But now I'm seeing stuff like this and it scares the shit out of me.  Check out the pics below....

A long time ago (by today's standards) the Marine Corps actually taught how to construct such traps.  Oh and the first is called a bear trap.

Someone dug thru old SERE and Improvised Device Manuals (I don't know the FM number ...and yeah the Marine Corps taught from Army Manuals) and is now making this stuff public.

This isn't a big deal for city dwellers but for those of us that run around in the woods this is troubling. Imagine a couple of kids running around in the woods and they accidentally cross someone's property line and they have stuff like this planted?  If they've watched enough Vietnam war movies then they can add certain "substances" to make the wound even nastier.

Yeah.  Now the Prepper Movement is starting to scare me.

Sidenote:  The article is here.

Why does it seem like the US in retreat?

I don't usually buy into conservative memes when it comes to the current President.  They're overly simplistic, fail to take into account real world realities and many seemed tinged with more than a bit of racism (yeah, I've seen some downright obscene photoshops...stuff that would make a Klansman blush).

Having said all that, it does seem like we're in retreat worldwide.  Now we're evacuating Yemen?  At the hour of their greatest need we withdraw?

The optics on this are terrible.

We're fickle partners at best and at worst we'll leave you high and dry after you put it all on the line for us (and Yemen did that).