President Obama To Receive Honorary Green Beret, Induction Into Special Forces Association

FORT BRAGG, NC – The White House Press Office announced today that President Obama will soon be inducted into the Special Forces Association and receive an honorary Green Beret.
Officials have said the honor will be bestowed in an upcoming September 11th ceremony at Fort Bragg.
The honorary beret comes in recognition of the President’s decisive role in covert operations throughout the world during his term — including the killing of Osama bin Laden last year in Pakistan, and his combat action in Afghanistan months ago.
Army Public Affairs has confirmed that Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland will personally present Obama with his beret and a specially engraved Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife.

Read more here. Shaking my fucking head!

Sidenote:  Just a joke.  Relax!

Even Australian food is trying to kill you!

Thanks to the Unwanted Blog for the link!



Remind me to ask ELP and Peter if they eat this stuff!  If the kids are any indication this shit is NASTY!

Mistral BPC to Russia. Why?

Tyler Rogoway has a nice overview of the Mistral BPC sale to Russia over at his blog Foxtrot Alpha.  Check it out here.  For the life of me I'll never understand why the US didn't step in and have these approx 16000 ton ships act as potential "cheap" LHAs/LPDs and test the concept for the USMC before giving them to the US Navy, Coast Guard or even SOCOM to use as they saw fit.

A couple of things are obvious.  We don't want Russia to have this type of power projection and more should have been done to stop the sale.

Polish MSBS going full auto!

Thanks Leetwin for the link!

Pigeons being preyed on by other animals.

You have got to check out this story from IO9.

Quite honestly I never considered why big cities have millions (or so it seems) of pigeons but you never see a dead one lying around.  Now we know.  Predation.  Reading the comments, people were surprised that pelicans would eat pigeons.  They shouldn't have been.  Pelicans will eat almost anything that will fit down its gullet.  Snakes, frogs, stray cats, small dogs...the list goes one.  Some people need to get to the great outdoors and learn the ways of the natural world.

Ukraine 'close to point of no return'

Thanks for the link Joe!

via BBC

Ukraine's president has said his country is "close to a point of no return - full scale-war".
Petro Poroshenko was speaking in Brussels, where he said a meeting of EU leaders had agreed to prepare more sanctions against Russia.
Outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton earlier accused Russia of "direct aggression" in east Ukraine.
Russia denies that its forces are backing rebels, who have been gaining ground on Ukrainian forces.
Mr Poroshenko said Ukraine was a victim of "military aggression and terror".
He said: "I think that we are very close to the point of no return. Point of no return is full-scale war.
"Any offensive action which would be undertaken [by Russia]... would be a point of no return. And that's why we undertake enormous efforts to stop that."
Mr Poroshenko said that new EU sanctions against Russia would be prepared and would be implemented depending on the success of a proposed peace plan.

Again.

I don't know what to think.  Is this guy trying to push the rest of the  EU and the US to act on behalf of his country or is this a real deal assessment of the facts on the ground.

I have no idea.  I do think the partitioning of Ukraine is all but a done deal though.

US Infantry gotta stick together! via Gruntworks.

From a Gruntworks contributor. Us Infantry gotta stick together! Thanks JB.

So, there I was, in NYC in 2004. Freshly off the plane from my first Combat Tour n the Ghan enjoying a long weekend at home. Full of Piss and Vinegar from surviving ten months in the desert long before FOB's in that shit hole.
So, I decide to head into a random bar after my friends from back home decided to call it a night. Mind you, full of Piss and Vinegar as well as several shots and mugs at this point. Wearing my Combat Infantry hat, as well as a 10th Mountain Division shirt.
I'm pretty sure it was Fleet Week, or maybe there was just a ship docked in the harbor. But, I didn't know that at the time, and when I walked in, was confronted by a whole bar full of seamen in their pretty little white suits getting hammered.
Well, I squeezed into the bar and ordered myself a mug of Sam Adams and continued my drinking from earlier. Would have been a fine drunken night of stumbling around the City, but then some of the squids started talking shit.
Piss and Vinegar kicked in, so I started talking shit back. After a few exchanges things started to get heated. I figured this was going to be a fair fight, and I can take a squid one on one no problem, right?
Well, as he stands in front of me, three of his buddies decide their going to help teach this Army grunt a lesson. At this point, I know I'm about to get my ass beat, but I'm determined to take at least two of these squids to the hospital with me.
We're getting ready to duke it out, this loud voice cuts in over the bar noise:
"Back off Squids! He's with us!"
This big old Gunny (Pretty sure it was a Gunny, had E-7 stripes on his greens) pushes between the squids and drags me to the little table with him and a couple other dudes. Grabs a beer from the Bar and slams it on the table in front of me.
"Us Infantry got to stick together."
The rest of the night is a blur. I don't even know how I got back home that night.
If I ever meet those Marine Grunts again, the next round is on me.