The Marine Corps lowered standards for Marine Infantry Officers....the Ground Combat Element is DEAD!

Thanks to William for the link!

via Military.com

With no notice and little formal explanation, the Marine Corps altered one of its notoriously grueling rites of passage late last year, changing the combat endurance test on the first day of its Infantry Officer Course from a pass/fail requirement to an unscored exercise.

Officials with Marine Corps Training and Education Command confirmed to Military.com Friday that Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller had made a decision in November to transform the test from a high-stakes hurdle to an assessment from which students can drop without risking their place in the course.

While officials said the test has had a historically low attrition rate since it was made a passing requirement in 2012, the change stands to have significant implications for women attempting the course. Of the more than 30 female officers who have attempted IOC, most have dropped during the combat endurance test on the first day.

Story  here.

Full disclosure.  I'm bitter as fuck over this.  They TOLD US that they wouldn't lower standards.  The proponents over at USNI Blog and other advocacy spots informed us that they just needed a chance, not lower standards.  The BUBBAS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND FIRE DEPTS warned us that this was on the way.

But I held out a small amount of trust that Neller and Dunford (the Commandant and Chairman of the JCS...both Marines) that they weren't lying.

Now?

Now we see why they're pushing the Squad Support Vehicles so hard.  They know for a fucking fact that they've RUINED the combat power of the Infantry..the conventional infantry (oh you son of a bitches in Special Ops just wait...this shit is coming your way and you might win 99.9% of your fights against terrorists but the feminists AND the faggots that claim to be men will send frontal after frontal attack against you and bust your lines!) and the Ground Combat Element of the United States Marine Corps is NOW DEAD!

I guarantee that not only is there confusion in the ranks about the mixed messages being sent (on one hand women can assault enemy position and be effective teammates and on the other they need protection from sexual assault???) but there is no effort being made to explain this...or to actually prepare the force for the change.

A nation has been weakened and these fucking generals know it.  Have fun at the cocktail parties now you son of bitches cause I don't want to see any emotion when you're burying someone's little girl cause you put her in the meat grinder.

Have you been paying attention to Myanmar? It's about to become an international issue with UN troops, even US troops involved....

via Reuters.

Bound together, the 10 Rohingya captives watched their Buddhist neighbors dig a grave. Soon afterwards, on the morning of Sept. 2, all 10 lay dead. At least two were hacked to death by Buddhist villagers. The rest were shot by soldiers, two of the gravediggers said.

The killings marked another episode in the violence sweeping Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State. The Rohingya accuse the army of arson, rapes and killings. The United Nations has said the army may have committed genocide. Myanmar says its “clearance operation” is a legitimate response to attacks by insurgents.

Rohingya trace their presence in Rakhine back centuries. But most people in majority-Buddhist Myanmar consider them to be unwanted Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. The army refers to the Rohingya as “Bengalis,” and most lack citizenship. In recent years, the government has confined more than 100,000 Rohingya in camps where they have limited access to food, medicine and education. Nearly 690,000 Rohingya have fled their villages and crossed the border into Bangladesh since August.

Reuters has pieced together what happened in the days leading up to the killings in Inn Din, drawing for the first time on interviews with Buddhist villagers who confessed to torching Rohingya homes, burying bodies and killing Muslims.

Story here. 

I bet most of you guys haven't been paying attention to this drama playing out have you?  If not then let me give you a real quick and nasty.  You have muslim immigrants trying to make their way into Myanmar from Bangladesh. Why they're leaving is beyond me but I get the impression that they're not wanted there either.

So you have immigrants, some would say refugees, fleeing into Myanmar.  The problem, they're not wanted.  The military steps in and tries to stop the flood.

When I first caught wind of this, it was a pure immigration/refugee/humanitarian story.  The UN was pushing for them to be allowed in, and even Nikki Haley spoke about the issue.

Nothing was done and supposedly the Myanmar military got brutal.

Then we started hearing the stories.  Rapes, starving children and now this atrocity.

Why does it matter?

In my mind two reasons.  I can see China leading a UN effort to bring "peace" and security to the immigrants while a settlement is reached AND/OR US troops participating in some fashion in helping these displaced people.

Either way expect your heart strings to get pulled on for either donations or a plea for US military intervention.

You can't kill enough to win? Think again! YOU MUST READ THIS ARTICLE!

via USNI Blog.

If we train for and fight a war against an opponent such as Russia or China in the same way as we are now fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq, we will get our butts handed to us. Warriors get called in to fix things quickly at the lowest echelon possible when the diplomats fail, not to dabble in diplomacy. Our sole concern should be finding the enemy and killing him as quickly and efficiently as possible. That’s it. Wonderfully simple in concept, it worked for hundreds of years for the Romans, yet some in our ranks today thrive on making things more complicated and difficult than they need be.

There is nothing new about insurgencies. Moreover, we are the insurgents in Afghanistan, not the counterinsurgents. To suggest otherwise is painfully arrogant and ignorant of the British and Russian misadventures in that country. We ought to have done as suggested by noted author, military historian, and Korean War veteran Beven Alexander, who in his 1995 book The Future of Warfare called for the use of overwhelming force to end resistance by eliminating the enemy’s intelligence, communication critical nodes, and supply structure; by killing or capturing their leaders and then leaving. And if the conduct that led us to attack them arises again, we must do it again and again, until they stop. Nation-building will fail in cultures that are fundamentally different from ours, such as the honor-killing tribal cultures of Afghanistan. Permanent war has never been a laudable goal for anyone other than defense contractors. We ought to stop worrying about ISIS recruiting or whether the populace will like us. As Patrick McCrory points out in The Fierce Pawns concerning the First British Afghan Campaign, “They will never like us.”

Let battalion-level commanders focus on the close fight. If we overwhelmingly and consistently win the close fight, recruiting will no longer be an issue. Most people don’t want to join a team that is consistently on the losing end.

Story here. 

Jesus!  I can't believe I'm recommending another USNI Blog article but this one had me CHEERING from beginning to end.  I wanted to highlight the entire thing but that would be silly...THIS SHOULDN'T JUST BE READ BUT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED AT EVERY PME HELD CORPS WIDE!

This diplomatic nonsense is craziness on a plate.  I think its the "infection" of the Special Ops cabal on not only the military but on policy makers.

THEY WILL NEVER LIKE US!  Why are we trying to figure out motivations for acts of barbarity when a civilized person never could?

FIND THEM, FIX THEM, KILL THEM!  That's how we should fight.  That's how we'll win!

Amphibious Assault Vehicle, 4th Amphibious Assault Ship....Video by Petty Officer 1st Class John Banfield

These are reservists and it reminded me of something.  I never heard if the AAV company in Texas ever received recognition for getting to their assembly point in the middle of a hurricane and going out and doing the hard but good work during those days.

I know they should be up for at least a humanitarian medal but I might expect a bit of recognition from the citizens/cities too.

Did I simply miss it?  Anyone heard of any unit involved in that operation being recognized?

Politics Talk. How do you explain the main stream media parroting the same talking point?

This isn't the first time that the Daily Caller has zeroed in on this type of activity from the main stream media but it's reached a personal critical mass.

I get on readers of this blog that all parrot the same talking points on certain issues and try to challenge them to defend their viewpoints.

The reason?

Because if everyone is thinking the same then no one is thinking.

What explains the behavior we're seeing in the above vid?  How could talking heads that are supposedly competing for views all have the same thoughts?

Story here if you want to read the background.

Ajax Apollo Equipment Recovery Vehicle Photo Spread via Defence Photography Twitter Page!

US Army Central (CENTCOM) puts on huge capabilities display in Kuwait...pics by Sgt. 1st Class Ty McNeeley

Box breathing

Box breathing is a technique used to calm yourself down with a simple 4 second rotation of breathing in, holding your breath, breathing out, holding your breath, and repeating.
Also know as Navy SEAL breathing technique, or tactical breathing, it's a surprisingly simple and effective way to help regain calm and control of your thoughts when under stress.
A perfect visual meditation for when you can't listen to audio, or just need a quick second to refocus.
Use this image to help you keep time! :)
Here are the directions:
Inhale for 4 seconds (as the circle expands)
Hold your lungs full for 4 seconds (as the circle stays fully expanded)
Exhale for 4 seconds (as the circle shrinks)
Hold your lungs empty for 4 seconds (as the circle is contracted)
That's it!

Hmm.  I wonder if SEALs actually use this or if its more nonsense being passed along.  I would think they'd be more interested in controlling breathing so they could dive deeper (they do "free dive" don't they?), not just to "calm down".

Open Comment Post. Feb 11, 2018

I wonder if you could domesticate a bobcat?

Saab develops mobile maintenance shelter...

Don't care what you say.  SAAB is killing it and they're innovative.  They're coming up with solutions BEFORE the military asks for it.

Anyway, enough of my fanboying, check out the system here and here.