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One of the Navy's top officers has been relieved of duty because of alleged misconduct while he was commander of the famed Blue Angels aerial demonstration team, the Navy announced Friday. Capt. Gregory McWherter was relieved of his post as executive officer of Naval Base Coronado. The action was taken by Vice Adm. William French, commander of Navy Installations Command. McWherter was commanding officer and flight leader of the Blue Angels from November 2008 to November 2010, and then from May 2011 to November 2012. The Blue Angels are based at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla. French's decision "was based...

'The problem is worse than we've ever seen' -Ret. Lt Gen Jerry Boykin (fmr Under Secretary of Defense) Commanding Generals fired: · General John R. Allen-U.S. Marines Commander International Security Assistance Force [ISAF] (Nov 2012) · Major General Ralph Baker (2 Star)-U.S. Army Commander of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn in Africa (April 2013) · Major General Michael Carey (2 Star)-U.S. Air Force Commander of the 20th US Air Force in charge of 9,600 people and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (Oct 2013) · Colonel James Christmas-U.S. Marines Commander 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit & Commander Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force took the extraordinary step Thursday of firing nine midlevel nuclear commanders and announcing it will discipline dozens of junior officers at a nuclear missile base, responding firmly to an exam-cheating scandal that spanned a far longer period than originally reported. A 10th commander, the senior officer at the base, resigned and will retire from the Air Force. Air Force officials called the discipline unprecedented in the history of America's intercontinental ballistic missile force. The Associated Press last year revealed a series of security and other problems in the ICBM force, including a failed safety...

ORANGE PARK, Fla. -- U.S. Navy Commander Alphonso Doss, 44, was slain at a hotel in Orange Park about two weeks ago. According to the Orange Park Police Department, investigators found Doss, of Pensacola, dead at the Astoria Hotel located at 150 Park Avenue and east of Wells Road. Authorities from both the Clay County Sheriff's Office and the Orange Park Police Department found Doss' body around 8:45 a.m. Doss' body was sent to the medical examiner's office in Jacksonville....

ORANGE PARK, FLA. — The death of a Navy commander found in a room at the Astoria Hotel on Feb. 12 was ruled a homicide, the Orange Park Police Department announced Wednesday. The Jacksonville Medical Examiner's Office made the ruling on Feb. 13 in the death of Cmdr. Alphonso Doss, 44, of Pensacola, according to the release from the OPPD. Doss' manner of death is not being released at this time while the OPPD and the Clay County Sheriff's Office investigate. Doss reported to Naval Education and Training Command in Nov. 2011, according to the Navy. While in Jacksonville, he...

The ever-beleaguered Army has a reputation — not undeserved — for being bland, conformist, and bureaucratic, an organization where brilliant mavericks are forced to retire at colonel and the guys who make general don’t rock the boat. Just ask any of the long-serving and long-suffering officers convening here in Huntsville, home of the massive Army Materiel Command, for the Association of the US Army’s annual winter conference. But it looks like 12 years of war and three years of budget chaos may be able to shake things up. One sign of the times is that the Army plans to promote...

If you have any doubts what-so-ever there has been a purging of the American Military of its finest leaders. Consider the following: Where should we start with Obama’s purge that should be sounding VERY LOUD ALARM BELLS to anyone with half a mind an some sense of history? Should we start with the religious purging first or the height of power purge? If we had ANY “Journalists” in America at LEAST ONE of them should have been noticed and pounced all over of. Grand Total: 197 Officers Year: 2013 (9, so far). 1. Marine Col. Daren Margolin – Quantico –...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wants military leaders to inject more urgency into ensuring “moral character and moral courage” in a force suffering a rash of ethical lapses. Hagel has been worried by a string of scandals that has produced a wave of unwelcome publicity for the military. But in light of new disclosures this week, including the announcement of alleged cheating among senior sailors in the nuclear Navy, Hagel on Wednesday demanded a fuller accounting of the depth of the problem. Last month the Air Force revealed it was investigating widespread cheating on proficiency tests among nuclear missile launch officers...

More than 1,200 people are under investigation for a US military recruitment fraud during the Iraq war, officials say. Two generals and dozens of colonels are implicated in the alleged scheme, in which referral fees were illegally collected for recruiting soldiers.

WASHINGTON — The Army is conducting an investigation into large-scale fraud tied to an Army recruitment program, Sen. Claire McCaskill, the head of the Senate Subcommittee on Financial and Contracting Oversight, disclosed Monday, a day before she held a hearing on the scandal. Investigators have found that $29 million in taxpayer money has been lost to fraud, but that number could increase to nearly $100 million by the time the probe is over, Maj. Gen. David Quantock, the Commanding General of U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, told lawmakers at the hearing Tuesday. The Recruiting Assistance Program began in 2005 at...

The number of Air Force servicemembers implicated in a scandal involving alleged cheating on tests of nuclear missile launch operations has roughly doubled from the 34 initially cited by the Air Force, officials said Tuesday. It wasn't immediately clear whether the additional 30-plus airmen suspected of being involved in cheating on proficiency tests are alleged to have participated in the cheating directly or were involved indirectly. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the information by name while the investigation is ongoing. The Air Force announced on Jan. 15 that while it was...

The senior enlisted airman at Offutt Air Force Base's 55th Wing was removed from his position earlier this week, base officials acknowledged Friday. Chief Master Sgt. William Thomaston Jr. was relieved Monday after the wing commander, Col. Greg Guillot, "determined that (Thomaston) couldn't effectively perform his duties," said Delanie Stafford, a 55th Wing spokesman. Thomaston had been Guillot's principal enlisted adviser, responsible for the military readiness and well-being of more than 5,000 enlisted airmen at Offutt. Stafford described the decision as "sudden" but said he couldn't discuss details because of privacy laws.

Since Barack Obama has been in the White House, high ranking military officers have been removed from their positions at a rate that is absolutely unprecedented. Things have gotten so bad that a number of retired generals are publicly speaking out about the “purge” of the U.S. military that they believe is taking place. As you will see below, dozens of highly decorated military leaders have been dismissed from their positions over the past few years. So why is this happening? When I was growing up, my father was an officer in the U.S. Navy. And what is going on...

The US military has suspended 34 officers in charge of launching nuclear missiles for cheating on a proficiency test, Air Force leaders said Wednesday. The scandal at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana marked the latest in a series of damaging revelations dogging the country's nuclear force,including a separate probe into illegal drugs that came to light last week. "There was cheating that took place with respect to this particular test," Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told a news conference. "Some officers did it. Others apparently knew about it,and it appears that they did nothing,or at least not enough,to...

Thirty-four nuclear missile launch officers have been implicated in a cheating scandal and have been stripped of their certification, and three others have been implicated in a drug probe, in what the Air Force believes is the largest such breach of integrity in the nuclear force, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Wednesday. The officers apparently texted to each other the answers to a monthly test on their knowledge of how to operate the missiles. The number includes who did the cheating as well as those who may have known about it but did not report it. The cheating,...

An intensifying criminal investigation of an alleged contracting scheme involving a top-secret Navy project has resulted in the forced resignation of the service’s second-ranking civilian leader, according to officials and court documents. Robert C. Martinage, the acting undersecretary of the Navy, stepped down after his boss, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, asked for his resignation “following a loss of confidence in [his] abilities to effectively perform his duties,” according to a statement the Navy released Wednesday. Navy officials said Martinage was pressured to quit after investigators looking into his role in the top-secret program discovered that he was having an affair....

37 nuclear missile launch officers are now being investigated under drug suspicions, according to Fox

Hoping to boost sagging morale, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made a rare visit Thursday to an Air Force nuclear missile base and the men and women who operate and safeguard the nation's Minuteman 3 missiles. But his attempt to cheer the troops was tempered by news that launch officers at another base had been implicated in an illegal-narcotics investigation.... Two officers at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana are being investigated for allegations of drug possession, said Lt. Col. Brett Ashworth, a service spokesman in Washington. Both of those being investigated are ICBM launch officers with responsibility for operating intercontinental...

WASHINGTON — In the latest headache for the Air Force’s nuclear mission, two missile combat crew members in the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Montana, have been implicated in a narcotics investigation, a defense official speaking on the condition of anonymity said Thursday. The two officers, who operate Minutemen 3 missiles, have lost access to classified information while the Air Force investigates, the official said. Just two months ago, the unit was awarded an overall “excellent” rating after a weeklong inspection conducted by Air Force Global Strike Command, the Air Force reported. However, In August, officials relieved...

A three-star Air Force general whose handling of sexual-assault cases drew withering criticism from advocacy groups and some lawmakers retired under pressure Wednesday. Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, the commander of the Third Air Force in Europe, acknowledged that he had become a “distraction” for the Air Force for his controversial decision to overturn a sexual-assault conviction of a star fighter pilot and for a separate case in which he decided there was not enough evidence to court-martial an accused rapist. In a statement, Franklin said he was retiring “for the good of this command and the Air Force” because of...