Free Republic

No U.S. Marines were in Libya when protesters stormed a diplomatic mission in the eastern city of Benghazi and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans late Tuesday, a senior Obama administration official said Saturday. The official’s comments contradict earlier reports of a small Marine presence at State Department facilities in the North African nation. The U.S. diplomatic compound breached Tuesday by Libyan protesters in Benghazi had a relatively light security posture compared to diplomatic facilities in other conflict zones. Marines are guarding diplomatic facilities in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, Defense Press Secretary George Little told reporters Thursday. “The...

How could this have been allowed to happen?  Infuriating:   The consulate where the American ambassador to Libya was killed on Tuesday is an “interim facility” not protected by the contingent of Marines that safeguards embassies, POLITICO has learned. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed with three other Americans in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the city of Benghazi, where Libyan rebels ousted strongman Moammar Qadhafi last year. Marine Corps spokeswoman Capt. Kendra Motz said that Marines were not posted to the consulate, unlike the embassy in the capital, Tripoli. A defense official told POLITICO on Wednesday that the...

The Marine Corps has created its first law enforcement battalions — a lean, specialized force of military police officers that it hopes can quickly deploy worldwide to help investigate crimes from terrorism to drug trafficking and train fledgling security forces in allied nations. The Corps activated three such battalions last month. Each is made up of roughly 500 military police officers and dozens of dogs. The Marine Corps has had police battalions off and on since World War II but they were primarily focused on providing security, such as accompanying fuel convoys or guarding generals on visits to dangerous areas,...

This is the USMC Silent Drill Platoon when they visited the US Marine Air Station in Beaufort, SC. The exhibition was scheduled to be held on the parade field. However, it was moved inside a jet fighter hanger due to rain.

Fiery Reaction to Marine’s Stolen Saddam Rifle Is it among the spoils of war? Or worthy of a felony conviction that carries a 10-year prison sentence? The recent conviction of a Twentynine Palms Marine from Hemet has sparked a debate from readers and a fierce defense from the Marine himself. To rewind, Staff Sgt. Joel Cleve Miller was convicted last week of illegal possession of a machine gun. Federal prosecutors said he smuggled a chrome-plated AK-47 that once belonged to Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein’s Royal Guard back to his home in Hemet after a 2005 tour in Iraq. Miller now...

I’ve heard of high schools and colleges cancelling graduation speakers because they were too controversial, too liberal or too religious, but this is the first time I’ve heard of one being cancelled for being too conservative. Ronan High School in Ronan, Montana, had arranged for famed and award winning film producer Gerald Molen, a Montana native to speak at their graduation ceremony. Molen is best known for his Oscar winning film, Schindler’s List. He also produced Twister, Rain Man, Days of Thunder, Hook, Minority Report, Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Before becoming a film producer, Molen served...

Happy Anniversary: 100 Years of Marine Corps Aviation…

Proposed US Military buildup under a conservative U.S. Administration circa 2012-2024 CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE The following plan is based on a major US economic turnaround based on sound Free Market principles geared to US interests, energy independendece, a balanced budget, stabilization of Social Security & Medicare & eliminating unessary and wasteful entitlements & entire federal agencies. It is also based,under a conservative leadership in Washington, on adopting lower corporate and individual income taxes so the revenue to the treasury expands and increases significantly which will fuel the buildup necessary to remain technologically superior by two generations...

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — A Marine facing dismissal for running a Facebook page criticizing the Obama administration is now backed by a team of lawyers and federal congressmen as he fights to stay in the military and test its age-old policy of limiting the free speech of service members. Sgt. Gary Stein will appear before a military board at Camp Pendleton on Thursday to argue his case. The 26-year-old Marine has been rallying for support since he was notified last month that the military was moving to discharge him after determining he was in violation of the Pentagon policy...

A Marine Corps officer has filed a whistle-blower complaint with the Department of Defense alleging that he was retaliated against for voicing concerns about a commander who put U.S. troops in danger in Afghanistan. Maj. Fred C. Galvin of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, currently stationed in Okinawa, Japan, filed the complaint earlier this week through a former Fayetteville lawyer. Galvin, a 24-year Marine Corps veteran, had been facing the potential end of his military career until Thursday. That's when he went before a Marine Corps Board of Inquiry at Camp Butler, Japan. The board was charged with determining if...

Flags will be lowered in New Jersey Saturday, the day of Whitney Houston’s funeral. But a Marine mom in Arlington says it’s an honor Houston doesn’t deserve. When Phyllis McGeath heard Gov. Chris Christie had ordered flags lowered to half-staff for Houston, she said she felt a pain deep inside her. “I was hurt and offended. Disappointed. Saddened,” she said. “I felt like the honor that was given to my son was tarnished.” McGeath had three sons who were active duty Marines. Her oldest, Philip, was killed by a suicide bomber just four weeks ago in Afghanistan. He was 25....

WASHINGTON, Dec 13 (Reuters) - U.S. defense cuts that begin in the 2012 budget will ultimately cost up to 800,000 jobs, and additional spending reductions could push that figure to 1.5 million over the next decade, a top Republican lawmaker testified on Tuesday. Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said his panel estimated the initial $489 billion in defense cuts approved by Congress would cost 100,000 military jobs, mostly Army and Marines, as well as 200,000 civilian defense jobs and 500,000 defense industry positions.

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Marine Gen. James F. Amos, the face of opposition in the military to lifting the ban on gays serving openly, now acknowledges his concern has proven unfounded that repeal would undermine the war effort. In fact, he says, Marines have embraced the change. In an Associated Press interview, Amos called the repeal in September "a non-event."

Many in the West have upheld democracy in Libya as the supreme goal, but it is a means to an end, and the end is Sharia. "The Libyan Revolution: Democracy or ‘Purity of Islam’?" by John Rosenthal for the National Review Online, November 15: Mustafa Abdul Jalil’s announcement last month that Islamic sharia would form the basic source of legislation in the new Libya, and that all laws contradicting the sharia were immediately null and void, came as a surprise for Western observers. Given that the chair of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) wears the sign of his piety on...

Popstar Justin Timberlake was largely the reason actress Mila Kunis accepted an invitation to attend an upcoming Marine Corps Ball — but Cpl. Kelsey DeSantis was the reason Timberlake found himself moved almost to tears at a similar event Saturday night, a night the celebrity writes “changed [his] life.”After Timberlake publicly urged his Friends with Benefits costar Kunis to say “yes” to the request she received from a serviceman, DeSantis invited Timberlake — via YouTube — to the Nov. 12 Instructor Battalion Marine Corps Ball in Richmond, Va.“You want to call out my girl Mila?” De Santis asked in a...

Happy 236th Birthday to all my Brothers and Sisters.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A 19-year-old found dead in his Camp Pendleton barracks had been beaten to death by a fellow Marine, investigators say. Lance Cpl. Mario Arias Jr., from Canoga Park, Calif., was attacked at the San Diego County base over the weekend, authorities said. The air crew trainee, from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Training Squadron 303, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, enlisted in August 2010. The Naval Criminal Investigation Service said the suspect is being treated in a hospital for "significant injuries" sustained when he jumped from a third-floor balcony. Ed Buice, spokesman for NCIS...

The Marines set up a booth at San Gabriel Valley Pride's Community Unity Day at Pasadena City College. They were the only military branch to attend. Marine Corps recruiters at the San Gabriel Valley Pride event at Pasadena City College on Saturday didn't care whether the young men who lined up to test their strength were gay or straight. The Marines just wanted to see some pull-ups done properly: Place hands about shoulder width apart, palms facing away; pull upward until chin is over the bar and then slowly return to the hanging position. Repeat until the feet feel like...

Marine Lance Corporal Benjamin Whetstone Schmidt, 24, son of San Antonio Spurs doctor David Schmidt, and local counselor/therapist Becky Whetstone was killed in action Thursday in Afghanistan. Schmidt, a graduate of Alamo Heights High School, spent some brief time at home in August before he embarked on his second tour of Afghanistan in September. Scheduled to end his deployment in May 2012, Corporal Schmidt was killed from a gunshot wound to the head.

We thought he was “the first Big Island boy” to die in the Global War on Terror. The Honolulu mainstream media news reporters told us so and they told us “dozens of people” showed up to witness the passing of his hearse last week Thursday. Both turned out to be not the case. United States Marine Christopher Camero, a Waimea resident, was the first Big Island native to die from wounds received on the battlefield. He is the first to be buried at the West Hawaii Veterans Cemetery. And he is the youngest of the three men from our community...