President’s Memorial Day Weekend Remarks… Saturday, May 26 2012 

Coast Guard and Comarade Obama and Hero and Memorial Day and Military and Obama and US Air Force and US Army and US Marines and US Navy , , , , , , 1IDVET 08:01

I’m not going to hammer him. But I think this day was/is meant to honor our dead, not the living. The living have two days devoted to them, this one is for those that gave their last measure of devotion to this country and for those that served and eventually passed on. It is our duty to remember them for their sacrifices.

“Duty then is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more, you should never wish to do less.”
10 points if you guess who said that.

At any rate, here’s President Obama’s remarks:

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Weekly Address
The White House
May 26, 2012

This weekend, folks across the country are opening up the pool, firing up the grill, and taking a well-earned moment to relax. But Memorial Day is more than a three-day weekend. In town squares and national cemeteries, in public services and moments of quiet reflection, we will honor those who loved their country enough to sacrifice their own lives for it.

This Memorial Day, Michelle and I will join Gold Star families, veterans, and their families at Arlington National Cemetery. We’ll pay tribute to patriots of every generation who gave the last full measure of devotion, from Lexington and Concord to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Later that day, we’ll join Vietnam veterans and their families at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—the Wall. We’ll begin to mark the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War. It’s another chance to honor those we lost at places like Hue, Khe Sanh, Danang and Hamburger Hill. And we’ll be calling on you—the American people—to join us in thanking our Vietnam veterans in your communities.

Even as we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice, we reaffirm our commitment to care for those who served alongside them—the veterans who came home.  This includes our newest generation of veterans, from Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have to serve them and their families as well as they have served us: By making sure that they get the healthcare and benefits they need; by caring for our wounded warriors and supporting our military families; and by giving veterans the chance to go to college, find a good job, and enjoy the freedom that they risked everything to protect.

Our men and women in uniform took an oath to defend our country at all costs, and today, as members of the finest military the world has ever known, they uphold that oath with dignity and courage. As President, I have no higher honor than serving as their Commander-in-Chief.  But with that honor comes a solemn responsibility – one that gets driven home every time I sign a condolence letter, or meet a family member whose life has been turned upside down.

No words can ever bring back a loved one who has been lost. No ceremony can do justice to their memory. No honor will ever fill their absence.

But on Memorial Day, we come together as Americans to let these families and veterans know that they are not alone. We give thanks for those who sacrificed everything so that we could be free. And we commit ourselves to upholding the ideals for which so many patriots have fought and died.

Thank you, God bless you, and have a wonderful weekend.

 

Gravesites of Veterans in Shocking Disrepair… Friday, May 25 2012 

Coast Guard and Hero and Memorial Day and Military and US Air Force and US Army and US Marines and US Navy and Veterans , , , 1IDVET 09:19

This is NOT how a nation should treat its defenders of freedom.  This is how we treat their final resting place? This is how we say thank you for your sacrifices?

This is not what America is about. A nation that disrespects her veterans doesn’t deserve the benefits of their sacrifices.

It’s despicable.

Around nation, gravesites of veterans in shocking disrepair

By Mike Jaccarino

The final resting places for many of the men and women who fought America’s wars have fallen into shocking disrepair, with neglect, theft and vandalism prompting veterans groups to question the nation’s commitment to honoring its dead soldiers.

Advocates say smaller federal, state, county and private cemeteries that contain the graves of service members are often poorly kept, marked by crumbling headstones, overgrown with weeds and littered with debris. Perhaps even worse, many veterans’ gravesites have been targets of vandalism and theft.

via Around nation, gravesites of veterans in shocking disrepair | Fox News.

 

Where Will You Be? Friday, May 25 2012 

Military and Truth and History and US Army and US Air Force and US Marines and US Navy and Coast Guard and Military History and Memorial Day , , , , , , 1IDVET 06:28

This is a preamble to Memorial Day. I’ll post more about it when I can. It sometimes hard for me to do this. I lost a friend in Iraq in 2006, so this is always personal.

This comes from Allen West.

Where will you be at 3:00 P.M. on Memorial Day?

Our steadfast and loyal heroes deserve remembrance
by Allen West

The solemn act of honoring those who have fallen in battle is a custom that seems to have faded in importance to our nation over time.

Nowadays, many Americans have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At cemeteries across the country, the graves of the fallen are sadly ignored, and worse, neglected.

While there are towns and cities still planning Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some think the day is for honoring anyone who has died, not just those fallen in service to our country.

Perhaps they do not know how deeply our nation once appreciated those who sacrificed their lives in defense of the principles we hold most dear. Perhaps those very principles of individual sovereignty, freedom and liberty are no longer so important.

It was not always so.

More

 

Armed Forces Day, 19 May, 2012… Saturday, May 19 2012 

Coast Guard and History and Military and Military History and US Air Force and US Army and US Marines and US Navy and Veterans , , , , , , 1IDVET 00:30

Today is Armed Forces Day.

This is a day where we can thank all our military for their service and sacrifice for this nation on our behalf. 

Armed Forces Day
History

On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy and Air Force Days. The single-day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under one department — the Department of Defense. Each of the military leagues and orders was asked to drop sponsorship of its specific service day in order to celebrate the newly announced Armed Forces Day. The Army, Navy and Air Force leagues adopted the newly formed day. The Marine Corps League declined to drop support for Marine Corps Day but supports Armed Forces Day, too.

In a speech announcing the formation of the day, President Truman “praised the work of the military services at home and across the seas” and said, “it is vital to the security of the nation and to the establishment of a desirable peace.” In an excerpt from the Presidential Proclamation of Feb. 27, 1950, Mr. Truman stated:

Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 20, 1950, marks the first combined demonstration by America’s defense team of its progress, under the National Security Act, towards the goal of readiness for any eventuality. It is the first parade of preparedness by the unified forces of our land, sea, and air defense.

The theme of the first Armed Forces Day was “Teamed for Defense.” It was chosen as a means of expressing the unification of all the military forces under a single department of the government. Although this was the theme for the day, there were several other purposes for holding Armed Forces Day. It was a type of “educational program for civilians,” one in which there would be an increased awareness of the Armed Forces. It was designed to expand public understanding of what type of job is performed and the role of the military in civilian life. It was a day for the military to show “state-of-the-art” equipment to the civilian population they were protecting. And it was a day to honor and acknowledge the people of the Armed Forces of the United States.

According to a New York Times article published on May 17, 1952: “This is the day on which we have the welcome opportunity to pay special tribute to the men and women of the Armed Forces … to all the individuals who are in the service of their country all over the world. Armed Forces Day won’t be a matter of parades and receptions for a good many of them. They will all be in line of duty and some of them may give their lives in that duty.”

The first Armed Forces Day was celebrated by parades, open houses, receptions, and air shows. In Washington D.C., 10,000 troops of all branches of the military, cadets, and veterans marched pass the President and his party. In Berlin, 1,000 U.S. troops paraded for the German citizens at Templehof Airfield. In New York City, an estimated 33,000 participants initiated Armed Forces Day “under an air cover of 250 military planes of all types.” In the harbors across the country were the famed mothballed “battlewagons” of World War II, the Missouri, the New Jersey, the North Carolina, and the Iowa, all open for public inspection. Precision flying teams dominated the skies as tracking radar were exhibited on the ground. All across the country, the American people joined together to honor the Armed Forces.

As the people gathered to honor the Armed Forces on this occasion, so too did the country’s leaders. Some of the more notable of these leaders’ quotes are stated below:

“Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 20, 1950, marks the first combined demonstration by America’s defense team of its progress, under the National Security Act, towards the goal of readiness for any eventuality. It is the first parade of preparedness by the unified forces of our land, sea, and air defense.”

Former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson

“The heritage of freedom must be guarded as carefully in peace as it was in war. Faith, not suspicion, must be the key to our relationships. Sacrifice, not selfishness, must be the eternal price of liberty. Vigilance, not appeasement, is the byword of living freedoms. Our Armed Forces in 1950–protecting the peace, building for security with freedom–are “Teamed for Defense …”

General Omar N. Bradley
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

More

 

VJ Day! Tuesday, May 15 2012 

Coast Guard and History and Military and Military History and US Army and US Marines and US Navy and Veterans , , , , , , 1IDVET 11:31

Let’s not forget. This was huge! And as the Armorer states, it never happened again…

VJ Day, 1945

By The Armorer o

I would say it’s too bad that we’ve not been able to celebrate the end of a war like this film clip shows people doing so in Honolulu on VJ Day, 1945… But since then, the end of the wars have not been clear victories and at least one was a clear loss, not even Desert Storm, in the end. Nor have the aims been as black-and-white. Of course, balanced against that is that in order to achieve that sense of clear victory, we had to pound two nations flat in ways we don’t do any more, either, which isn’t a bad thing, in terms of piling up the bodies and destroying our communal heritages.

via Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah’s Military Guys.. – VJ Day, 1945.

 

US Downs Missile with New Interceptor… Friday, May 11 2012 

Defense Technology and Developments and Military and US Navy , , , , 1IDVET 06:17

More progress in our anti-missile defense. This one is fired from the USS Lake Erie.

The shit we have is impressive as hell.

Of course, a lot of our R & D will take a huge hit with our budget issues, but we aren’t alone in that.

Now if we can just figure out how to keep the damn Chinese the hell out of our computer systems, then we might be getting somewhere.

At any rate, there’s video at the site of the intercept.

Reminds me of when I was in Desert Storm. I saw a Patriot missile shoot down a Scud missile. But that’s another story, isn’t it?

US downs missile with new interceptor

Video released by the Department of Defence shows what it claims to be the first successful test of the Navy’s newest anti-missile interceptor.

U.S. forces said they had destroyed a target in the first successful test of the Navy’s newest anti-missile interceptor, designed to protect allies from attacks by countries like North Korea and Iran.

A target ballistic missile was downed near Hawaii late on Wednesday by the latest Raytheon Co-built Standard Missile-3 interceptor, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) said.

The advanced interceptor is key to the next phase of an anti-missile shield being built by the United States in and around Europe.

via Video: US downs missile with new interceptor – Telegraph.

 

SEALs slam Obama… Tuesday, May 1 2012 

Military and Axis of Idiots and Comarade Obama and Buyers' Remorse and US Navy and Obama and SCOAMF , , , , , , , 1IDVET 05:09

As they should. This asshole turned the one thing that united the country and made it a political sham. Pathetic.

SEALs slam Obama for using them as ‘ammunition’ in bid to take credit for bin Laden killing during election campaign

By Toby Harnden

Serving and former US Navy SEALs have slammed President Barack Obama for taking the credit for killing Osama bin Laden and accused him of using Special Forces operators as ‘ammunition’ for his re-election campaign.

The SEALs spoke out to MailOnline after the Obama campaign released an ad entitled ‘One Chance’.In it President Bill Clinton is featured saying that Mr Obama took ‘the harder and the more honourable path’ in ordering that bin Laden be killed. The words ‘Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?’ are then displayed.

Besides the ad, the White House is marking the first anniversary of the SEAL Team Six raid that killed bin Laden inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan with a series of briefings and an NBC interview in the Situation Room designed to highlight the ‘gutsy call’ made by the President.

via SEALs slam Obama for using them as ‘ammunition’ in bid to take credit for bin Laden killing during election campaign | Mail Online.

 

Today in History (04-18) Doolittle’s Raid Over Tokyo… Wednesday, Apr 18 2012 

History and Military and Military History and Truth and US Army and US Navy and Veterans , , , , 1IDVET 08:07

Today brings us the 70th anniversary of the Doolittle raid over Tokyo in 1942. Our first strike against the Japanese homeland in World War II.

Doolittle Raid on Japan, 18 April 1942

The April 1942 air attack on Japan, launched from the aircraft carrier Hornet and led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, was the most daring operation yet undertaken by the United States in the young Pacific War. Though conceived as a diversion that would also boost American and allied morale, the raid generated strategic benefits that far outweighed its limited goals.

The raid had its roots in a chance observation that it was possible to launch Army twin-engined bombers from an aircraft carrier, making feasible an early air attack on Japan. Appraised of the idea in January 1942, U.S. Fleet commander Admiral Ernest J. King and Air Forces leader General Henry H. Arnold greeted it with enthusiasm. Arnold assigned the technically-astute Doolittle to organize and lead a suitable air group. The modern, but relatively well-tested B-25B “Mitchell” medium bomber was selected as the delivery vehicle and tests showed that it could fly off a carrier with a useful bomb load and enough fuel to hit Japan and continue on to airfields in China.

Gathering volunteer air crews for an unspecified, but admittedly dangerous mission, Doolittle embarked on a vigourous program of special training for his men and modifications to their planes. The new carrier Hornet was sent to the Pacific to undertake the Navy’s part of the mission. So secret was the operation that her Commanding Officer, Captain Marc A. Mitscher, had no idea of his ship’s upcoming employment until shortly before sixteen B-25s were loaded on her flight deck. On 2 April 1942 Hornet put to sea and headed west across the vast Pacific.

Joined in mid-ocean on 13 April by Vice Admiral William F. Halsey‘s flagship Enterprise, which would provide air cover during the approach, Hornet steamed toward a planned 18 April afternoon launching point some 400 miles from Japan. However, before dawn on 18 April, enemy picket boats were encountered much further east than expected. These were evaded or sunk, but got off radio warnings, forcing the planes to take off around 8 AM, while still more than 600 miles out.

Most of the sixteen B-25s, each with a five-man crew, attacked the Tokyo area, with a few hitting Nagoya. Damage to the intended military targets was modest, and none of the planes reached the Chinese airfields (though all but a few of their crewmen survived). However, the Japanese high command was deeply embarrassed. Three of the eight American airmen they had captured were executed. Spurred by Combined Fleet commander Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, they also resolved to eliminate the risk of any more such raids by the early destruction of America’s aircraft carriers, a decision that led them to disaster at the Battle of Midway a month and a half later.

Here are a few videos:

 

The Pledge Wednesday, Apr 11 2012 

Hero and Military and US Air Force and US Army and US Marines and US Navy , , , , , , 1IDVET 06:42

Remember. Always remember.

The Pledge

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

So far in April, nine American service members have made the ultimate sacrifice in Afghanistan while upholding the patriotic pledge that millions of schoolchildren recite each morning.

Staff Sgt. Tyler Smith, 24, Licking, Missouri

Staff Sgt. Christopher Brown, 26, Columbus, Ohio

Capt. Nicholas Rozanski, 36, Dublin, Ohio

Sgt. 1st Class Jeffrey Rieck, 45, Columbus, Ohio

Sgt. 1st Class Shawn Hannon, 44, Grove City, Ohio

Spc. Jeffrey White Jr., 21, Catawissa, Missouri

Cpl. Alex Martinez, 21, Elgin, Illinois

Spc. Antonio Burnside, 31, Great Falls, Montana

via The Unknown Soldiers: The Pledge.

 

Winners and Losers in the Fiscal 2013 Defense Budget… Monday, Apr 2 2012 

Buyers' Remorse and Coast Guard and Comarade Obama and Congress and Democrats and Developments and Economics and Failure and Government and Military and Neo-Marxists and Obama and Politics and SCOAMF and Socialism and US Air Force and US Army and US Marines and US Navy and Veterans , , , , , , , , , , 1IDVET 05:59

In case you were wondering, here’s the 2013 defense budget in a nut shell.

Winners and losers in the fiscal 2013 budget

By Barry Rosenberg

Mar 29, 2012

It’s been several weeks since the release of the fiscal 2013 defense budget, and heads are certainly still spinning in the Pentagon: Ground Mobile Radio (GMR) gone, Global Hawk Block 30 gone and the Army’s medium-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance program, the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System (EMARSS), also gone. There’s blood on the floor in the chief-of-staff/commandant offices at the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines. Yet there’s still plenty of good news for all, with the funding flow to improve network operations still very much in evidence.

Here are some of the winners and losers at each of the services:

Army: The Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) continues to be the “cornerstone tactical communications system” for the service. Funding in fiscal 2013 is $900 million, and totals $6.1 billion from fiscal 2013 through fiscal 2017. Fiscal 2013 funding is earmarked for the purchase of net-centric warfare IP modems and low-rate initial production quantities to support test activities.

There also is funding for something we’ve been writing a lot about in Defense Systems: the modification of Stryker vehicles to incorporate command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems to facilitate mission command-on-the-move.

via Winners and losers in the fiscal 2013 budget — Defense Systems.

 

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