2nd Cav getting field time....

Love ya Cdr Salamander but you're wrong.

l.CDR Salamander has a blog entry in which he lauds Adm Harvey for finally going Sa..Going Sal means that you dispense with conventional wisdom, ignore politically correct speak, ignore group speak and plainly state the truth.

Unfortunately Admiral Harvey, while finally getting around to putting his cards on the table, is following a long line of military leaders that only get brave when return fire is impossible.

To be quite honest the last Flag Ranked Officer to show MORAL COURAGE was General Shinseki.

And Rummy fired him for it.

Forget the fact that the General Shinseki was right.  Forget the fact that he was later vindicated.  Forget the fact that he's done yeoman's work at the VA, getting that dysfunctional organization pointed in the right direction...remember that he was the last man to show courage when it could cost him.

Think about it.

Revolt of the generals...that Time Magazine story that revealed how much military leadership disagreed with Rummy.  How about the rumors that have been floating for years that suggested that leadership wanted a different direction from what the civilian overlords wanted

I'm just not buying it.  Cursing at the boss, shouting at the moon and saying whats on your mind while you're about to walk out the door isn't going CDR Salamander.

Its being cowardly.

Anyone can do a drive by and leave the scene before others can shoot back.

Today in history. The Battle of Goose Green.

An inexplicable victory by 2 Para.

I'm going to have to Google it but I recall something about them training for just this scenario and some of those lessons having directly affected this battle. 

On a similar but different subject.  If the Falklands happened today...with the Argentinians getting forces onto the islands...could the British retake them independently?

Kydex has officially jumped the shark.

Tactical beer holster via Mad Duo.

I got the above photo from Mad Duo's blog.  Read the article here.

This makes it official.  Kydex has jumped the shark.  The ironic thing is that once the craziness has died down, that's when we'll start seeing more practical applications...but for the time being we're stuck with this insanity.

Amazing.

General Tolley said it! Axe is vindicated.

Score one for the reporter.

Score zero for the brainless General who spoke out of turn.  This from David Axe's blog...

by DAVID AXE
Finally! Lt. Col. Jim Gregory called. This is what he said:

The bottom line is there are no U.S. boots in North Korea.
There is no attack on David Axe. I don’t want you to feel that’s what’s [Pentagon spokesman George Little] is doing.
We are in agreement that the words you heard came out of his [Brig. Gen. Neil Tolley's] mouth. I don’t believe what you wrote is inaccurate. … I heard him say those words.
They [U.S. Forces Korea] are waking up. I believe they are going to re-look [at their statement.] I can’t get into defending what U.S. Forces Korea said.
I get where you’re coming from. I heard the same words you heard. I don’t want you to be without a job. Hopefully you can hang tough. Everyone here is doing the best they can in the absence of a transcript. It is a bit of a mind-stretch. … The general may have said that and, in his mind, he was thinking hypothetically.

Wow.

They keep hiding behind the word hypothetically.

That's not much cover and darn near no concealment.

But to General Tolley.  Like was said in one of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies (one of his lighter films)....Don't go away mad...just go away.

 

ScarFace moves on...

Marines with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 pilot UH-1Y Venoms and AH-1W Super Cobras in formation over Camp Pendleton, Calif., May 22. The formation was during the last flight for the unit in the continental United States before they move to Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii this year. “The maneuver is centered around timing and execution,” said Sgt. Michael Eklund, a crew chief with HMLA-367. “The goal is to create equal spacing between aircraft coming in for landing.”
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Joshua Young)

Sidenote:
I wonder if we didn't miss an opportunity when it came time to decide on whether to upgrade the AH-1Z and UH-1Y's.  By that I mean we could have piggy backed on the Navy's buy of MH-60S', bought an armament kit and used in the attack and utility roles, meaning that we could have necked down to three rotary winged airframes...the MH-60S, the MV-22 and the CH-53K.  If nothing else the war in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven how useful small and medium helicopters are and with the advancements in guided 2.75 rockets we could have done more with less.
Just a thought.

The F-35, F/A-18 and reality being a bitch.

Have you ever listened to a critic of the F-35 program?  They will tell you over and over again that the F-18 can do the job of the F-35.  My response?



Well it looks like the blog "Why the F-35" drives a nail through that lie.  Check it out here, but a tidbit....

Critics have been constantly touting the idea that we don’t need the F-35 or its capabilities, but instead can get along just fine upgrading our legacy fighter fleet.
Reality, however, has a bad habit of intruding on such flights of fancy with the hard, cruel facts of life.

Read it all.  Another lie touted by Sweetman, Aviation Week and the rest of his cronies, Cox, Wheeler, Airpower Australia, that joker in Canada, a couple of IDIOTS in Australia etc...is once again trashed.  The F-18 and other teen fighters aren't good enough.  We need the F-35.

Reality is a bitch.

Damage Control and a flaky statement.

Yesterday I wrote about how David Axe reported that General Tolley of US Special Operations Command Korea stated that covert missions were being run into the North.

Today we have the spectacle of David Axe basically pulling his hair out because he reported what he heard.

DUDE!  STOP IT!

You reported what you heard and that's the end of the story.  Read about his account of things here.

Washington Times has the story on SOCOM trying to walk back the story.  Read it here but check out this tidbit.

TOKYO — The U.S. military on Tuesday denied a report that it has been sending commandos into North Korea to spy on underground military facilities, a mission that would violate the armistice agreement that ended the Korean War.
A U.S. military statement said that The Diplomat, an Asia-Pacific current affairs journal, had “taken great liberal license” with the comments attributed to a top U.S. general. According to The Diplomat, Brig. Gen. Neil H. Tolley, commander of special operations for United States Forces Korea, said at a conference last week that both U.S. and South Korean commandos parachute into the North to conduct reconnaissance on underground tunnels that are hidden from satellites.

What I find interesting is that the other reporters in the room are not denying the story that David put out.  More interesting is the fact that others that attended the briefing, military members, aren't being trotted out to help deny David's story.

My guess is this.

General Tolley has found himself in the back water regions of the war on terror and he's probably pissed.  He wanted to be seen as doing important, dangerous things against a lethal foe so he inflated what his forces are actually doing.

Don't get me wrong.  SOCOM is probably doing things the right way in Korea.  They're probably running ops in the North and probably getting intel on the ground.

The problem is that the general stepped out of his role as a quiet professional and wanted a bit of lime light.

They should punt him like a worn football.

A message from Lex's daughter.

Go over to Neptunus Lex to read a message from his daughter.

As jaded as I am it damn near brought a tear to my eye.

I sincerely wish them all the best.


Click here to go to the site.

The US has been running covert missions into N. Korea!

Thanks for the heads up JOE!

Wow.  If you want a better example of military stupidity then look no further than the Commanding Officer of Special Operations in S. Korea, General Tolley. via AFP.

WASHINGTON — US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, a US officer has said in comments carried in US media.
Army Brigadier General Neil Tolley, commander of US special forces in South Korea, told a conference held in Florida last week that Pyongyang had built thousands of tunnels since the Korean war, The Diplomat reported.
"The entire tunnel infrastructure is hidden from our satellites," Tolley said, according to The Diplomat, a current affairs magazine. "So we send (South Korean) soldiers and US soldiers to the North to do special reconnaissance."
"After 50 years, we still don't know much about the capability and full extent" of the underground facilities," he said, in comments reported by the National Defense Industrial Association's magazine on its website.
Tolley said the commandos were sent in with minimal equipment to facilitate their movements and minimize the risk of detection by North Korean forces.
At least four of the tunnels built by Pyongyang go under the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea, Tolley said.
"We don't know how many we don't know about," he admitted.
Among the facilities identified are 20 air fields that are partially underground, and thousands of artillery positions.
In February, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that had built at least two new tunnels at a nuclear testing site, likely in preparation for a new test.

SOCOM has an operational security problem.

Too many in the head shed are talking.

I can't wait to hear the official explanation on this one.

Pic of the day. Israeli low level...

IDF fighter jets fly low and fast inside Ramon Crater in the Negev Desert.

Awesome pic and the camo works...the Iraeli's have been releasing quite a few pics of low level F-16 flights lately...almost as if they're telegraphing something.

Please tell me this is just poorly written.

This one  has me scratching my head.  Is this just poorly written?

via The Weekly Standard...

The White House announced today that First Lady Michelle Obama will sponsor the USS Illinois, the first all female submarine force. The newest submarine "is expected to join the fleet in late 2015," according to the White House.

If this is as it reads then when is the first all Gay, Straight, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian, Black, Jewish, Catholic etc...submarine force coming?

The worst thing we can do as a nation in general and as a military in particular is to subdivide itself.

Its happening and its not good.

This will end badly.

UPDATE:
The spineless bastard changed it up and didn't even note the correction.  Amazing.  If it was Huffington Post I could see that but I do expect better from the Weekly Standard.