Free Republic

WASHINGTON – The Army said Friday it has determined that suicide was the cause of death of a two-star general who was found dead in his home on a military base in Alabama. Maj. Gen. John Rossi was found dead July 31 at Redstone Arsenal, two days before he was to assume command of Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

The U.S. Army’s first gender-integrated infantry office course has been completed by 10 of 12 women who took the challenge. A graduation ceremony was held Wednesday in Fort Benning, Georgia, to celebrate 166 officers who attained the infantry’s iconic blue cord. Many of the female officers will now move on to challenges that include Ranger school and Airborne school.

“Norfolk is at risk over the next few decades if we don’t do something to slow down sea level rise,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told a gathering in Washington, D.C., on Monday. Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval complex in the world, is located in southeastern Virginia. “All our bases are in some way or other at risk,” Mabus said. …

BALTIMORE (NNS) -- The Navy's newest and most technologically advanced warship, USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) was commissioned into active service Saturday, Oct. 15, at North Locust Point in Baltimore. Zumwalt, the lead ship of a class of next-generation multi-mission destroyers, features a state-of-the-art electric propulsion system, wave-piercing tumblehome hull, stealth design, and the latest warfighting technology and weaponry available. Secretary of the Navy, the Hon. Ray Mabus, delivered the ceremony's principal address. The ship's co-sponsors, Ann Zumwalt and Mouzetta Zumwalt-Weathers, are daughters of former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., after whom the ship is named. The...

'WE WILL DESTROY YOU' US Army chief Mark Milley fires terrifying threat to Russia over Syria and warns: ‘We’ll beat you anywhere, anytime’The firebrand speech is likely to ratchet up tensions between the two superpowers as war of words reaches boiling point.THE US Army’s chief commander has fired a thinly-veiled threat at Russia and warned: “We will beat you harder than you have ever been beaten before.”Chief of Staff General Mark Milley pulled no punches following a fiery war of words between Moscow and Washington DC over the Syria crisis.Only yesterday four Nato nations were forced to scramble fighter jets...

President Obama warns in a new interview of a future in which a U.S. president could engage in perpetual covert wars “all over the world.” But he claims that the accountability and transparency measures he is instituting will make that less likely. In the interview, with New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, Obama expressed agreement with one of the most salient critiques of his drone war, that it risks creating “institutional comfort and inertia with what looks like a pretty antiseptic way of disposing of enemies.” Obama explained that he had looked at “the way in which the number of drone...

The Pentagon spent over $500 million on hiring a public relations firm to create anti-extremist and fake extremist propaganda during the American military’s campaign in Iraq, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism as reported by The Daily Beast. British firm Bell Pottinger created their materials at the U.S. military base of Camp Victory. At one point, they were employing some 300 British and Iraqi staff at the cost of over $100 million per year. Bell Pottinger was hired in 2004 to produce material for the “promotion of democratic elections” in Iraq. These materials aimed to convince the Iraqi population...

replacing them with occupational specialty codes, as opposed to direct titles, effectively removing the word “man” from job titles in a roundabout way. According to Navy Times, what this decision means in practice is that “Fire Controlman 1st Class Joe Sailor…would be Petty Officer 1st Class Joe Sailor.” “We’re going to immediately do away with rating titles and address each other by just our rank as the other services do,” Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke told Navy Times. “We recognize that’s going to be a large cultural change, it’s not going to happen overnight, but the direction...

The Air Force announced a new set of 13 inclusion initiatives Friday with the goal of ensuring the force isn’t as white, male and heterosexual as it is now. Air Force officials are intent on building upon a foundation of nine initiatives from 2015, in order to boost diversity. Those nine initiatives weren’t enough to make the Air Force as diverse as desired, which is why it is taking more intensive steps in 2016. The first new initiative mandates that at least one diverse candidate will have to be in the running for important developmental positions like aide-de camp, senior...

As U.S. and Iraqi forces prepare to launch an offensive to retake Mosul, we found out this week that 615 more troops will be deployed to assist in intelligence gathering for the Iraqi government forces that will be spearheading the attack. The number of U.S personnel already in Iraq is estimated between 4,900-6,400 men (via NBC News): The Department of Defense is preparing to dispatch 615 more U.S. troops to Iraq to help government forces oust ISIS from the city of Mosul, the White House announced Wednesday. The soldiers will provide logistics support for the Iraqi forces and not spearhead...

President Obama held Gates over from the Bush era probably to tout his bipartisan credentials. Gates was listed as a Republican. He is as much a Republican as is Colin Powell – or as Obama is bipartisan. Obama knew Gates would be a willing ally in fundamentally transforming the military (as part of transforming America) from the ass-kicking outfit he inherited to the girly men can kickers it has become. Obama promised to disarm America to a level acceptable to Islam! He did, and Gates was a willing ally. Gates immediately fell in line with Obama’s anti-military, anti-American, pro-Muslim programs....

The first female soldier to participate in the Army’s initial training program for the Green Berets — side-by-side with men — has failed to complete the course this week, The Washington Times has learned. The enlisted soldier is the first woman to attend the U.S. Army Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS), the first step toward earning the Special Forces tab and the coveted Green Beret. The Times reported in July that two female officer candidates have been accepted to attend an SFAS class that begins in the spring.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently gave a non-interventionist foreign policy speech suggesting that he wants to make new allies of old foes and find common ground with them on shared national security challenges. He noted that 88 U.S. generals and admirals have endorsed him, and that "the current strategy of toppling regimes, with no plan for what to do the day after, only produces power vacuums that are filled by terrorists." Trump should tell that to the 51 State Department officials who called for ramping up U.S. military intervention in Syria in an internal memo that was reviewed by...

On Saturday, a sailor on board the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower visited the aircraft carrier’s medical department, complaining of stomach pains. The ship’s doctors would soon discover why: The sailor was pregnant. Hours later, she gave birth to a 7-pound baby girl.... ...Urban would not say whether there are standard repercussions for a servicewoman failing to self-report a pregnancy.... Infant diapers, baby formula and an incubator were flown out to the carrier on the day of delivery,

It was not hyperbole when GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said that under resident Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. military had been "reduced to rubble" and left floundering without a coherent strategy or meaningful capability to win wars. It is a fait accompli, engineered by our commander-in-chief to reduce America's global footprint, an America he has profusely apologized for, and one he blames for all the world's ills. Almost as soon as he took office, resident Obama began a military purge not dissimilar to those routinely conducted by third-world despots, with the goal of eliminating voices...

During last night’s Commander in Chief Forum on the USS Intrepid, Mr. Trump told moderator Matt Lauer, in reference to the War on ISIS, “Well, the generals under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have not been successful,” Trump replied. “I think under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing for our country.” Mr. Trump is certainly correct. The generals have been reduced to rubble. Actually, they have been ground into space dust, for the value that they give to this Republic. Under...

...One of the small Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps watercraft stopped directly in the USS Firebolt’s path where it turned to face the American coastal patrol ship, said U.S. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. After several attempts at radio communication, the Firebolt was forced to maneuver to avoid a collision. The American ship came within about 100 yards of the boat...

Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, is a left wing, cultural Marxist, whose social experiment policies are turning the US Navy into a feckless fiasco on the high seas. Mabus is responsible for pushing women into the Navy SEALs, Marine infantry, a new Orwellian gender neutral lexicon, Marine Corps Unconscious Bias Training, while also completely ignoring the Corps’ $36 million dollar study that showed why women can’t meet the rough standards of the combat arms and special operations. Mabus’s latest social experiment laboratory creation is the selection of Admiral Michelle Howard as Commander of US Naval Forces Europe. Howard was...

Four vessels from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "harassed" a U.S. destroyer on Tuesday by carrying out a "high speed intercept" in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz ... came within 300 yards of the USS Nitze in an action that was "unsafe and unprofessional."

The U.S. Navy will need to develop an organic carrier-based fixed-wing anti-submarine warfare capability to counter the resurgent threat from enemy submarines. The Navy simply does not have enough attack submarines, cruisers, destroyers or helicopters to adequately protect the its deployed forces from subsurface threats because its ASW capability has atrophied since the end of the Cold War. “It’s a growing threat that will almost certainly influence the relevance of the carrier,” said retired U.S. Navy Capt. Jerry Hendrix, director of the Defense Strategies and Assessments Program at the Center for a New American Security. “The Navy will need a...