Free Republic

Are recruiters, particularly in the Army and Marines, lying to (or at least misleading) young women who they try to recruit into military service? That’s a question which is asked and answered in the LA Times this week by two people who should know. Julie Pulley is a former West Point graduate Army captain and Afghanistan veteran. Rear Adm. Hugh P. Scott was a Navy medical officer and is an expert in medical physical standards. They discuss the current push to drive up the number of women going into combat roles and the unique stresses which the demands of those...

What with all the new missile tests that Kim Jong-un has been conducting, should we be worried that he’s close to having nuclear ICBM capabilities? Some military intelligence experts think that North Korea is still a ways off from having both a reliable missile that could carry a significant payload across the Pacific and the ability to miniaturize their nukes to the point of fitting on such a missile. But one thing that most observers seem to agree on is that if Kim isn’t there yet he’s getting close enough to cause alarm. (Combined with the general perception that...

The US military is on an endless kamikaze run into oblivion, intent on destroying itself and seemingly unconcerned about putting the national security of this nation in peril. Yes, you heard it here. The leaders of the US military are so concerned with political correctness that they don’t give a damn about the defense of this nation. The latest bit of lunatic social engineering was reported by CNN yesterday. A woman will train with other potential officers this summer in hopes of becoming the first female Navy SEAL. The candidate, a midshipman, and another woman have enlisted as the first...

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday initiating a government-wide review of the U.S. defense industry and suggest changes to strengthen it. The review is intended to identify and address potential weak points in the defense manufacturing base including companies that could go out of business and leave gaps in the supply chain for U.S. weapons systems, said Peter Navarro, the White House National Trade Council director. The executive order asked for recommendations on possible legislative, regulatory and policy changes that would improve and support the defense industry, calling it a "significant national priority." "America's defense industrial base...

The second-highest-ranking general in the U.S. military on Tuesday warned lawmakers against equipping the armed forces with autonomous weapons systems that humans could lose control of and advocated for keeping the "ethical rules of war" in place. In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Gen. Paul Selva responded to a question from Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) about a Defense Department directive that requires a human operator to be involved in the decision-making process when it comes to taking lives with autonomous weapons systems. Selva warned lawmakers that the military should keep "the ethical rules of war in place...

A new diplomatic and military policy for Libya that could significantly expand US involvement in the country could be finalized by the Trump administration in the next few weeks, according to two US officials. The policy, if approved, would aim to further the existing US goal of supporting reconciliation between rival factions in eastern and western areas of Libya. The policy could also lead to the eventual re-opening of the US embassy and the establishing of a new intelligence sharing effort led by US special forces, according to the officials.

Female soldiers must give “dignity and respect” to transsexual men who join them in their shared shower rooms, according to training manuals leaked by soldiers in a mandatory class. But this “dignity and respect” is a one-way street, according to the training slides, which were developed by officials working for former President Barack Obama. “Transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not ‘match’ other Soldiers,” according to the slides, which were first leaked by TheFederalist.com:The insistence that women remain mute when a man enters their shower room...

American financial, humanitarian and military help began in the second half of the 20th century. Throughout America’s generosity in helping other countries, there has been an underlying, unspoken assumption that there would be gratitude on the part of the recipients. And we do, indeed, see gratitude being expressed -- only to vanish in a very short period of time afterwards, sometimes to the point of hostility replacing the gratitude (this phenomenon is not limited to the United States; we see this occurring time and again between countries).

A House Republican has withdrawn, for now, an amendment to repeal President Barack Obama’s lifting of a ban on transgender troops, but warned Defense Secretary James Mattis that he must act to restore the longtime exclusion or face a legislative revolt. The amendment did provide conservatives on the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday night a forum to condemn the former president’s decision on grounds it will drive up medical costs, reduce combat readiness and subject troops to embarrassing encounters. Mr. Mattis faces a Saturday deadline, inherited from former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, to approve the recruitment of transgender people....

Pres. Donald Trump used the Navy’s next-generation aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, as a backdrop to unveil his vision for the next defense budget in March 2017. The moment was meant to symbolize his commitment to rebuilding the military, but it also positioned the president in front of a monument to the Navy’s and defense industry’s ability to justify spending billions in taxypayer dollars on unproven technologies that often deliver worse performance at a higher cost. The Ford program also provides yet another example of the dangers of the Navy’s and industry’s end-running the rigorous combat testing that is...

TIJUANA, MEXICO — Rep. Juan Vargas, a California Democrat whose district runs the length of the state’s border with Mexico, introduced a set of bills last fall aimed at helping U.S. military veterans who were deported after they were convicted of crimes. The bills stalled, casualties of what he called bad timing during the presidential campaign. Vargas reintroduced the bills last week, because now he sees “a real opportunity.” He and six other Democratic members of Congress spent Saturday in this Mexican border town visiting deported veterans to press the issue, thinking that President Trump might be receptive to the...

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The West Point graduate and Iraq War Army veteran President Donald Trump has nominated to be the new Army Secretary has a very good understanding of the Second Amendment, which is predictably driving anti-liberty liberals insane. Tennessee state Sen. Mark Green (R), President Donald Trump's nominee for Army secretary, strongly believes that citizens should be armed -- and not just with any ol' guns. They should be able to possess whatever weapons the military has, because an armed citizenry is the "ultimate checks and balances" against the federal government.

The White House insisted Tuesday that the $1 trillion spending bill includes money for 40 miles of border fencing, as President Trump sought to shore up Republican voters by saying the deal also lays the groundwork for rebuilding the military. The president said there is “enough money to make a down payment on the border wall,” and said a $15 billion boost in defense spending — without having a dollar-for-dollar match in domestic spending — has set a new standard that will benefit Republicans and the Pentagon. “This is what winning looks like,” Mr. Trump said. Republicans bristled after Democrats...

The Syrian city of Raqqa remains occupied by Daesh terrorists since early 2014. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with the backing of a US-led international coalition is set to storm Raqqa and liberate it next month. It has been reported that US tanks will be used during the battle. A representative of the command of the Syrian Democratic Forces, who wished to remain anonymous, told Sputnik Arabic that the US had recently delivered heavy weapons and tanks to the SDF.“Two days ago, as part of the upcoming battle against Daesh the US sent us tanks and heavy weapons. The armament was delivered to Rojava [Kurdish de facto autonomous...

SIERRA VISTA – At 18 years old, Buena High School senior Adrian Garlant is living his dream. The Buena High School senior recently received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. Garlant says he’s been dreaming of attending West Point Military Academy since the sixth grade. His mother Elizabeth Clark remembers the day he announced his plan. “They must have had career day or something, because he came in the door and said, ‘Mom, I’m going to West Point when I grow up’,” Clark recalls. “I said, ‘Do you know how hard that is?’” Clark...

Two members of the U.S. military were killed in an operation on an ISIS target in Afghanistan, NBC News reported. Another was wounded. More information on the soldiers, including what service they were in, wasn't immediately available, pending notification of their next of kin, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said in a statement Thursday. Trump Tax Plan Slashes Individual and Corporate Rates The operation took place in the Achin area, where the military dropped a massive, non-nuclear bomb called the "mother of all bombs" on an ISIS target in Afghanistan two weeks ago, the weapon's first-ever use in combat. Another...

Dear General Mattis, I know you’ve been busy sir. Across the globe, our enemies are stacking up against us. The Pentagon is the virtual three alarm fire brigade, attempting to put out every conflagration caused by the Obama administration’s disastrous national security policies. Eight years of worthless, feckless US leadership and budget cuts have severely weakened the US armed forces. While in our history, the US military has been gutted by Congress, then rebuilt, to fight another day, the military has never been a vast social experiment as it is now. This is something that apparently you have not focused...

The United States could reduce Pentagon spending by over a trillion dollars in the next decade-spending $5.2 trillion rather than the currently planned $6.3 trillion- by adopting strategy of military restraint. That’s the bottom line of a study I produced along with several colleagues as part of “Developing Alternative Defense Strategies 2016,” an exercise organized by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, where groups from five think tanks used CSBA’s “Strategic Choices” software to reimagine the U.S. military budget.The others all increased military spending. The teams from the Center for New American Security and the Center for Strategic and...

Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian, O.S.S. and Aleksandra Rebic "Forgotten 500" Halyard Mission Reunion / Michigan June 2009. Photo: Rebic collection.This year, 2017, the world will be marking the 72nd anniversary of the end of World War Two, the era of the "Greatest Generation". For me, one of the measures of a man who dies is how deeply the loss is felt in the hearts of those who knew him, and if they didn't know him personally, were affected by his work or by his existence on this earth in a positive way. WWII OSS radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian was short in...