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NBC News reports U.S. Army Major General Harold Greene was buried today at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, including a caisson, two escort platoons, casket team, firing party, colors team, and a caparisoned horse. The U.S. Army band, “Pershing’s Own,” played softly as the funeral procession made its way down the long hill past the rows of simple white gravestones to bring General Greene to his final resting place. The graveside service began with a few words, followed by a 13-gun salute. The major general’s widow, Dr. Susan Myers, was seated in the front row. To her right...

A former member of SEAL Team 6 has become the poster girl for a Pentagon effort to include transgenders — people who have undergone sex-change operations — in the ranks. Kristin Beck, formerly Senior Chief Petty Officer Christopher Beck, spoke recently at several high-profile events at intelligence agencies and the Pentagon to promote the integration of transgenders. “Transgender service in the armed forces, yes it will happen soon,” she said on Twitter. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, among the most politically correct Pentagon chiefs of the past several decades, fueled the effort within the Pentagon to integrate transgenders in May when...

President Barack Obama has tapped the vice chief of the Army to take over the U.S. command in Afghanistan later this year as America pulls out its combat troops and leaves a force of about 10,000 to train and advise the Afghan military. …

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that she “could not have predicted” the effectiveness of the al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group that seized control this week of two major Iraqi cities. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida since 2004, captured the western Iraqi cities of Tikrit and Mosul, expanding its influence across the entire Sunni-dominated western region of Iraq in addition to Syria — where it remains one of the strongest rebel factions fighting dictator Bashar al-Assad. The group, led by enigmatic terrorist Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, evolved out of al-Qaida’s Bush-era...

WASHINGTON –Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel apparently isn’t going to let the Obama administration throw him under the bus in the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl scandal. In fact, you could say just the opposite. In his opening statement this morning at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Hagel made a point of saying it was President Obama “who made the final decision” to swap Bergdahl for five top Taliban leaders, with the full support of his national security team.

New book shows women in combat suffer much more serious non-combat injuries, alleges IDF cover-up. A new book sums up 13 years of research on female participation in IDF combat units and declares the feminist experiment in the Israeli military a failure. “Lochamot Betzahal” by Col. (res.) Raza Sagi, a former infantry regiment commander, points to high rates of serious injury among women serving in combat units, and to involvement of radical political groups behind the scenes of the campaign for combat service by women. ..... "The study found that a particularly high percentage of women who served in combat...

Top members of Congress were briefed more than two years ago about the possibility of exchanging an American soldier held captive by the Taliban for five terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, senior Democrats and Republicans said Tuesday. In a statement, House Speaker John Boehner said lawmakers raised serious concerns that were never satisfactorily answered about the potential swap involving Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and received assurances from the Obama administration that if a deal were more likely, Congress would be contacted. Lawmakers weren’t informed until word came this past Saturday of the exchange. …

Obama’s “philosophical” speech to the 2014 graduates of West Point about a new direction for America’s foreign policy was “not a great” speech for that audience, said CNN anchor Jim Clancy on Wednesday. He said that the president did not sound like a “commander-in-chief speaking to his troops” and got an “icy reception” as a result...

CNN’s international correspondent Jim Clancy called the West Point response to President Obama’s meandering foreign policy address “pretty icy” Wednesday.Clancy said it was “not really a great speech to give at the U.S. Military Academy,” and the address has drawn bipartisan criticism.“It was a philosophical speech,” he said. “It was not a Commander-in-Chief speaking to his troops. And you heard the reception. I mean, it was pretty icy.”Obama said he believed strongly in American exceptionalism, but he continually used straw men in his address by implying that critics of his vision of foreign policy always advocated first and foremost for...

President Obama has made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan this Memorial Day weekend, Fox News has learned.

Hate to say “I told you so” but President Obama’s disinterest in enhancing our combat capability in favor of social egalitarianism and a warped sense of social justice is indeed having an impact on war readiness. According to the Washington Times, “A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs. Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues — an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment.”

Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine. That was the word from Poland’s defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who visited The Post Friday after meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday. Siemoniak said the decision has been made on a political level and that military planners are working out details. There will also be intensified cooperation in air defense, special forces, cyberdefense and other areas. Poland will play...

During last week's memorial service for victims of April 2 Fort Hood shooting, President Barack Obama spoke about the lingering hurt from the previous attack on the base in 2009. "Part of what makes this so painful is that we've been here before," Obama said. "This tragedy tears at wounds still raw from five years ago. Once more soldiers who survived foreign war zones were struck down here at home, where they're supposed to be safe." Yet, when victims of the first Fort Hood shooting invited the president to see those wounds up close, he refused, without explaining why. The...

The U.S. Army is sending roughly 19,000 active-duty captains and majors to a screening board for early separation this spring, the Army Times reported. Up to 20 percent of those screened — approximately 3,800 officers — could be scheduled to leave the service by the Officer Separation Board and Enhanced Selective Early Retirement Board. Officers with fewer than 18 years of federal active service will have their screening process done by OSB, and those with more than 18 years of service will see the E-SERB, according to the Army Times. “The Army’s drawdown plan is a balanced approach while maintaining

During the years 1934-1939, Soviet dictator and Communist Party General Chairman Josef Stalin ordered what later became known to history as the "Great Purge" - a period of brutal political repression, torture, imprisonment and mass murder in the Soviet Union. Launched under the auspices of purifying the Communist Party of ideologically-unreliable elements and rooting out fifth columnists within its ranks, the purges focused initially on party leadership. However - fueled by Stalin's paranoia - they soon expanded into the military, government bureaucracy and wider Soviet society. Members of the intelligentsia, senior government bureaucrats (nomenklatura), professionals, land-owning farmers (kulaks), members of...

So far this year President Obama has removed nine “flag officers” from their posts. Three of these firings are linked to last year’s attack on the US Consular facility in Benghazi. US Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel defended the moves as “the prerogative of the nation’s Commander-in-Chief. The President must have men he can trust to carry out his orders.” U.S. Army General Carter Ham, who commanded U.S. African Command when the consulate was attacked, lost President Obama’s trust when he contradicted his assertion that no forces were available to rescue Ambassador Stevens. Ham contends that reinforcements could have been...

Are these senior officers being ‘shown the door’ deliberately? These occurrences are very unsettling. We’ll just have to wait for the scuttlebutt I guess. Let’s just pray no dishonor is coming to them from the Communist-in-Chief. This strange chain of firings from the Military is so bizarre and so unheard of that even Dianne Sawyer of ABC news reached out to cover it when the 9th, yes 9th, Military Commanding Officer was relieved of duty in less than a year. This doesn’t include the long list last year, this is just the nine individuals this year alone.

In the wake of the government shutdown, despite provisions in the Pay Our Military Act, Catholics at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Georgia are being denied religious services. The Catholic priest who serves this community has been prohibited from even volunteering to celebrate Holy Mass without pay, and was told that if he violated that order, he could be subject to arrest. Protestant services continue to take place. Only Catholic services have been shutdown.

Since the U.S. has started serious discussions about taking military action against Syria, many have publicly spoken out against a possible military strike. And now it appears that some of our uniformed service personnel have come forward to express their disagreement with an attack, any attack on Syria. More than 2,000 people have “liked” this image that was posted on Sunday. There were also photos posted from people wearing the uniforms of the Marines, Navy and Air Force. These have also received Facebook “likes” in the thousands. [snip] Is this kind of behavior allowed? Well, there are rules concerning what...