text:
An Examination of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beyond Vietnam
March 15, 2012 June 9, 2016 ~ thinkingoutsidetheboxe
Submitted to Thinking Outside the Boxe from a Pennsylvania Correspondent: Beyond Vietnam was written by Martin Luther King Jr. and presented on April 4, 1967 at Riverside church in New York City. The intention of the speech was to examine our effort in the war, "our" being the United States of America. The title itself expresses a need to analyze the reasons we were there and the repercussions of our actions. Many American's believed King was losing direction, they felt that civil rights and peace are separate entities, this belief strengthen King's conviction. He raised the need for America's accountability. He opened a lens in which we could see our likeness to the people of Vietnam. His message was to end our conflict with Vietnam, and for American's to realize the heavy burden afflicted on the parties involved in the war.
"A time to break the silence," King and other activist felt that silence was a great betrayal in this conflict. While MLK acknowledges this voice could be considered unconstitutional in a time of war it was necessary and needed in a time of uncertainty, He emphasizes that it is an extraordinary act to question government and its authority. However the purpose of our government's quest was misguided and deflected acts of a greater good. America the richest most powerful nation in the world must step into the light to exemplify the importance of people as resources. He urged American's to stop submerging themselves in material means.
King found the number of people showing support to prove hopeful. "I also want to say that I consider it a great honor to share this program with Dr. Bennett, Dr. Commager, and Rabbi Heschel, and some of the distinguished leaders and personalities of our nation"(King, 1967). It was profound to have a diverse group of clergy men fight to break the silence and reflected a need of community beyond cultural boundaries. These men were mirror images of our need for humanity throughout nations.
One of Kings major concerns was the exploitation of the poor, America's poor. Our young men sent to fight were not that of aristocrats or tycoons. He described a manipulation of our sons born to families of lower income. These young men did not have the opportunities of our elite and these same young men were not offered a slot to stand beside our privileged in our institutions back home. Instead they died in great numbers for the sons born heir to our great empire. King expressed further that monetary efforts provided to the war was a depletion of funds provided for poverty programs.
King's major course of action throughout all of his work was nonviolence, and he was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize for his work. The war itself was a betrayal of America's moral obligation, heightened by media portrayals of what is just for our nation. King expressed that our spirit continues to diminish as we diminish humanity across the world. His motive was for our populace to stop thinking in terms of our nations as a singular body, but to think of our nation as a model "that embraces the brotherhood of man" (King, 1967).
He required Americans to see the Vietnamese as our brothers and sisters and gave insight on the experience of the Vietnamese as people not enemies. King spoke of our complete funding handed to the French so they may advance in control of these people. "He proclaimed that America is a victim of Western arrogance for rejecting the revolutionary government seeking self determination in Vietnam" (Spence, 2009). King told us their story of devastation. He described our destruction of their resources. War efforts contributed to the loss of crops, tainted water supplies, and the demoralized the Vietnamese people in their efforts for survival during a time of great suffering (Spence, 2009).
King made it clear that the destruction of the Vietnamese culture was intertwined with the destruction of our own culture. He proclaimed that our troops were sent on a false precedence that only furthered agendas of our nations wealthy. Their agenda led our oppressed solders to death as they killed those oppressed in Vietnam. The propaganda in acquiring a watch dog status in the eyes of other nations mocked our pursuit. Our leaders could not articulate our purpose for being in Vietnam. A Great Buddhist leader commented that America was no longer revolutionary and democratic but the image of violence and militarism (Spence, 2009).
For over 5,000 years we have built empires and maintained a rich get richer mentality. We have seen those with wealth as models to obtain our own successes. We have left those who have needed aid the most behind to further our own successes. We have only risen to occasion of hope when we reap the highest benefits. The United States is trapped in an Imperial Consciousness: those not for our agenda are against our agenda. This way of thinking is dangerous and leads to Moral Autism.
"Imperial Consciousness may have the social intelligence to recognize it is easiest to steal from those who trust you, but lack the moral capacity to recognize that to do so constitutes a wrong in itself and destroys the fabric of trust essential to healthy social relationships" (Korten, 2006).
Beyond Vietnam lays the ground work for this school of thought not in a way that we should adopt it, but the urgency to abandon it. King's speech captures the momentum needed for our nation to mature. King sought for our nation's people to be true examples of revolutionaries. He demanded we abolish thoughts that privilege is earned and realize it is inherent. He asked we believe in people most disadvantaged and stop tucking them under our nation's blanket of shame. The inherent shame is our own complacency in these matters and our brain washed minds that comply with the thinking that we do not matter or have the capacity to understand the complexity of decisions made by our own power structures.
It can be said that King's message was to end the war, and it was. He projected ending the war was essential and gave a list on how.
"End to all bombing in Vietnam; unilateral cease fire; prevention of battle grounds in Southeast Asia; recognition of the National Liberation Front; a set date from removal of all foreign forces from Vietnam in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Convention; granting of asylum to Vietnamese suffering persecution; and the payment of reparations for harm done" (Spence, 2006).
He also described what could be done at home, stating we should continue to protest and stay active within our churches. While his message was to end the war, it was a stepping stone in the right direction for our nation's obligation, honor and integrity.
Layer by layer embedded in his speech King ask Americans to make a worthy change. As our nation evolves and advances in wealth, industry, technology, the market and free trade with other nations we remain stagnant in social and cultural advances. We have lost sight in the power of our people and all people. We have without question remained faithful children of our empirical society only to watch our brothers and sisters fall, and when they fall we march to the guise that it is somehow their fault and their fault alone. We continually fault each in our race to the top.
King's message is not a memo to the individual but a mass informant. We must change our institutions and how they support us. We must stop looking at our nonprofit organizations as less worthy because they are stated as not making a profit in our capitalist society. We must stop losing sight of our causes to obtain grant monies that slightly sway our causes. We must advance people in areas of expertise that are directly connected to the people in which they service. We must put check marks on markets and free trade. We must care about the woman in the third world nation that makes our clothes or computer parts. We must demand that people are our highest commodity and put above a precedent of all things material. We must look at all people as our people.
Beyond Vietnam is a speech that should be resurfaced again and again. Martin Luther King's words take you to the past and reflect the present in a way that sends chills through your soul, and if you're a person of any feeling and some intellect, it will heighten your very being. Be prepared for a journey before you engage, for such insight can cause anger, regret, and shame. Do not cling to these emotions. MLK has given each and everyone exposed to his message, a gift. He presents us with precision hidden by our meticulously wrapped ideology. One would think as a nation we would share his plea for humanity, instead we rewrap adding layer upon layer. We bury his endowment only to become systematic. Together we are robotic, uniformed servants of the power elite.
Forty four years later, we find ourselves weighted to the same consequences and predictions. We cannot expect new outcomes with old methods. While his speech could be given today with changes of names, people, and places; one cannot help but think this revolutionary would bring new ideas. He would urge us all to leap out of our boxes, question our nation's fidelity, and unite as people for the people. He would enlighten society's droids and ask them to become leaders in their families, communities, and nations. MLK would give praise to our brothers and sisters in Egypt with the pride that is bestowed upon a parent. He would exemplify that one man without shoes may go unnoticed but a heard of men on your doorstep cannot be forgotten. Today we can enter your home by internet and send messages to the masses. Martin Luther King would challenge us to catch up with technology and to use this communication as society's tool for humanity. He would demand that people stop acting like machines, but use machines to aid us in a revolution of our best resources, each other.
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joseph_Spence,_Sr.
http://EzineArticles.com/2884858
http://www.mlkmemorial.org
Korten, David C. The Great Turning: from Empire to Earth Community. San Francisco, CA Berrett-Koehler, 2006. Print
Posted in Public Articles, Society
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text:
Full Story CIA India Lost Nuclear Device in Himalayas Nanda Devi in year 1965 Operation Hat
Forty-five years ago, a joint Indo-US espionage mission lost five kilograms of plutonium in the Himalayas.
It is still missing but the government of India has decided to ignore the ongoing threat.
This incident was first reported in the Rolling Stone publication Outside in April. 1978.
The secret of the lost SNAP was kept until May 1978 when the US
journalist Howard Kohn revealed the existence of Operation Hat
in Outside magazine.
Year 1964 –
On October 16, a great mushroom cloud had been spotted towering over the remote Chinese missile-testing range at Lop Nur.
Details regarding the twenty-two kiloton device were scarce.
This was the first nuclear test made by China
In 1964, China had conducted its first nuclear tests in the western province of Xinjiang, stunning American intelligence agencies, who thought the Chinese were still years away from nuclear capability.
In 1962, China defeated Indian Army because of Indian Politicians who never understood China and foolishly ignored rising power of China and Development of Indian Arm Forces.
China was preparing and testing a nuclear device, which created fear in the minds of Indian intelligence agencies and American intelligence agencies.
After this India and USA decided to jointly keep watch on the china and signed a secret pact to work together and keep close watch on the activities of the China.
The result was Operation Hat - But Operation Hat Failed.
During 1965 to 1967, a second detecting device was successfully placed on a lower adjacent mountain, Nanda Kot mountain.
Nanda Devi is one of the tallest mountains of the imposing Himalayan mountain range.
It offers an unobstructed view of China's distant test site.
Two villages, Lata and Reini, are the highest inhabited points on Lata Kharak; above them no human beings or tamed animals are to be found.
Further still lays the mighty Nanda Devi, India's second highest peak, towering overhead at 7,816 metres above sea level.
Operation Hat began shortly after China's first nuclear bomb
test in 1964.
The US CIA, with the cooperation of the Indian government, planned an expedition to the Himalayas to plant a nuclear-powered monitoring station on the summit of 26,600-ft-high Nanda Devi, from where it would eavesdrop on the Chinese nuclear test programme in over-the-border Xinjiang Province.
The aim of putting the plutonium-run device on Nanda Devi in 1965 was to track nuclear and missile tests in China.
Plutonium device included
a 17-kilogram nuclear assembly
five kilograms of plutonium 238 and 239 that powered the nuclear device
Six Kilogram of Plutonium was used by the atomic bomb, which destroyed, which was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
What was the mission –
the climbers would carry five loads to the summit of Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest peak at an elevation of 8,579 metres.
The cargo included the assemblies for a communication interpreter and an accompanying generator. Both would be installed at the peak.
Five Loads = 125 Pounds
the interpreter and the generator:
the sensor had four transceivers to relay information to a base station elsewhere in India, and a six-foot-tall antenna to collect data from the Chinese test site.
The generator, known as SNAP 19C—System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power—converted radioactive heat into electricity.
SNAP 19C was not a bomb , to explode a bomb needs trigger which was not present in the SNAP 19c.
But it was powered by radioactivity, radiation is toxic for humans as well as animals.
SNAP 19C had five elements:
a hot fuel block
radioactive fuel capsules placed in its core
thermoelectric generators mounted around it
the block's outer casing
The only extant account of the device is found in the 94-page scientific study commissioned by Prime Minister Morarji Desai.
In the report, nine pages are spent describing the device:
The fuel, an alloy of Plutonium and Strontium—Pu-238, Pu-239, and Sr-90—was divided in seven capsules.
Each capsule had an inner cladding of tantalum (0.5mm thick) with sufficient void space for accumulation of helium gas, the gas emitted on radioactive decay.
The heavy-walled outer cladding of the capsule was of a 2.5 mm thick alloy—Haynes-25, which is composed of cobalt, nickel, chromium and tungsten, and possesses high temperature and corrosion resistant properties as well as high structural strength.
The fuel capsules were installed in a hexagonal graphite block along with other accessories like thermocouples, thermal insulation material etc.
Manmohan Singh Kohli, a Navy commander assigned to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), was the expedition's leader.
With him were four officers from the IB:
Harish Rawat
Sonam Wangyal
Gurcharan Singh Bhangu
Sonam Gyats
all were well-trained mountaineers, and winners of the Arjuna award, India's highest recognition in sports.
Bill McKniff a CIA officer was stationed at a base camp on Nanda Devi. Three American mountaineers were hired by the CIA to accompany the Indian team.
The two teams were formed consisting of
an army of porters and Sherpa's
twin teams of mountaineers
nuclear experts
intelligence officers
signal experts
Thirty-three Bhotia men from Lata and Reini were hired for the expedition; nine Sherpa's, members of a tribe of elite mountaineers, were brought from Sikkim for their expertise in climbing glaciers.
At that time, Rameshwar Nath Kao was the director of the Aviation Research Centre (ARC), a branch of the IB, and reported to Bhola Nath Mullik, the first director of the IB after Independence.
Mullik and his CIA counterparts supervised the expedition from Washington and New Delhi.
Later Rameshwar Nath Kao, become the founding director of India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
Manmohan Singh Kohli was in daily radio contact with Rameshwar Nath Kao.
Kao told Kohli about the secret mission.
After that Indian team went to America in a special plane, escorted by CIA agents conversant in Hindi and Punjabi.
Indian Team spent 40 days in America getting training in 40 days in the US the CIA men did not leave Indian team.
the Indian climbers were taken to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, where they were briefed on the mission and conducted mountaineering drills on Mount McKinley, the highest peak on US soil.
The leader of the American team in Alaska was none other than Barry Bishop
First, it was decided to put nuclear device on Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest peak at an elevation of 8,579 metres.
But later it was decided to put device on Nanda Devi.
The western peak, the higher of the two, is known as Nanda Devi, while its shorter sibling is usually called Nanda Devi East.
The climb from Lata village to the summit of Nanda Devi stretches over about 125 kilometres, and the teams had divided the distance into seven intervals:
from the sanctuary to the base camp, on from there to four more intermediate camps, and finally to the summit.
The porters from Lata and Reini carried the rations—purchased locally—to the base camp, and brought the five loads into which the sensor had been divided up to camp two.
From there to the summit, the critical equipment would be in the hands of the Sherpas.
It was decided that From the Nanda Devi base camp, Kohli would stay in radio contact with Mullik and Kao in Delhi.
On the ground, he would direct the climbers, porters and Sherpas, and decide what each one of them was to do at particular points of time.
Since Kohli was the expedition leader, the American climbers were also placed under him.
Names of American climbers to the Nanda Devi expedition:
Lute Jerstard
Tom Frost
Sandy Bill
Gordon Sleeper, the technician who had demonstrated the nuclear generator in Alaska, set up a relay station nearby to transmit the information gathered by the sensor to New Delhi and Washington.
The climbers made slow but steady progress between 24 September and the second week of October.
The climbing season was nearing its end
As winter began to fall, they battled against time.
By 16 October, snow was falling at a steady pace: visibility was dwindling, and the danger of an avalanche was serious
Kohli informed the situation to New Delhi and got permission to stop the mission and to secure the generator and the sensor at camp four, so they didn't have to carry them all over again next year.
six Sherpas found a suitable rock cavity.
Half the loads were sheltered there and the rest secured to the rock with nylon ropes.
After a full winter's rest and lots of planning, Kohli's team returned to Nanda Devi in early May 1966.
The plan was to climb back to camp four, unburdened by the loads; the team would pick up the equipment where it had been secured the previous year, and simply take it on the final ascent to the summit.
When the team reached the camp four where the loads were hidden, the team got shocked The loads were missing, and the rock to which they had been secured was gone as well. It was clear that an avalanche had swept away the rock—and the equipment—during the winter, leaving behind no trace of the generator.
After that next 2 years American and Indian government tried to search the nuclear device but in vain. They never found that.
The last search operation was in 1966-68, when the Americans and Indians conducted a panic-driven survey of the area around Nanda Devi.
From Indian side still it is not clear who sanctioned the Operation Hat.
In Month of May 1964 Nehru died.
In 1978 the outside magazine published, wrote about Operation Hat and its failure and it came into public domain.
After that Jyotirmoy Bosu, a communist Indian Parliamentarian asked the questions about this and Parliament devoted an hour on 17 April 1978 to debating the Nanda Devi expedition.
After one hour debate in Indian Parliament Morarji Desai signed the order to form a six-member scientific committee to investigate the events of 1965.
It was led by
Dr Atma Ram, Principal Scientific Adviser to the prime minister,
Homi Sethna, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission who spearheaded India's first atomic tests in 1974;
Prof MGK Menon, the Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister Director General of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO);
Dr Raja Ramanna, the director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), who also designed and installed several of India's nuclear reactors;
Dr V Ramalingaswami, the Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research;
Dr AK Saha of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics.
They were the six best Indian scientists in the nuclear and public health fields in that era.
Their 94-page report deconstructed SNAP 19C, its individual components and their half-lives, hazardous effects and accident conditions.
The committee report suggested that the possibility of an accident involving the missing generator was minimal, based on the partial details about SNAP 19C that were made available to the committee by US agencies,
The committee recommended to Indian government following
1) to periodically monitor the environment near Nanda Devi to detect any radioactive radiation in the air, water and soil
2) to develop new techniques for locating the device
The GANGES one of the largest rivers in the subcontinent, has many headstreams. And one of them, the Rishi Ganga, originates from the Nanda Devi glacier, not far from the village of Reini, where it is fed by melting ice and rain from the Nanda Devi sanctuary.
In 1967, Operation Hat finally scored a success. But still one nuclear device is missing which is dangerous for everyone.
Operation Hat Himalaya CIA Nuclear Device Lost
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virendra sharma, August 29, 2012
Sir ,you have taken pains to update us on this lesser known issue of VOTISTAN ALIAS INDIA.Thanks for the same .pl visit -
आओ पहले बहस करो 2
Hip ,Sacroiliac Leg Problems 1
दूरियों को पाट देता है
Hip ,Sacroiliac Leg Problems
आजमाए हुए रसोई घर के नुसखे 1
अतिशय रीढ़ वक्रता का भी समाधान है काइरोप्रेक्टिक चिकित्सा प्रणाली में 1
एक दिशा ओर को रीढ़ का अतिरिक्त झुकाव बोले तो Scoliosis 1
काइरोप्रेक्टिक में भी है समाधान साइटिका का ,दर्दे -ए -टांग का 4
आखिरकार सियाटिका से भी राहत मिल जाती है .घबराइये नहीं . 3
गृधसी नाड़ी और टांगों का दर्द (Sciatica & Leg Pain)
Neck Pain And The Chiropractic Lifestyle 3
"आतंकवादी धर्मनिरपेक्षता "-डॉ .वागीश मेहता ,डी .लिट ., 7
रीढ़ वाला आदमी कहलाइए बिना रीढ़ का नेशनल रोबोट नहीं . 2
सशक्त (तगड़ा )और तंदरुस्त परिवार रहिये 6
सर्दी -जुकाम ,फ्ल्यू से बचाव के लिए भी है काइरोप्रेक्टिक 3
मीग्रैन और क्लस्टर हेडेक का भी इलाज़ है काइरोप्रेक्टिक में 4
गर्भावस्था में काइरोप्रेक्टिक चेक अप क्यों ? 5
उम्र भर का रोग नहीं हैं एलर्जीज़ . 1
फाइबरोमायाल्जिया का भी इलाज़ है काइरोप्रेक्टिक में
क्या है काइरोप्रेक्टिक चिकित्सा की बुनियाद ? 2
कंधों , बाजू और हाथों की तकलीफों के लिए भी है का -इरो -प्रेक्टिक 5
Shoulder ,Arm Hand Problems -The Chiropractic Approach 2
औरतों के लिए भी है काइरोप्रेक्टिक चिकित्सा प्रणाली 3
काइरोप्रेक्टिक चिकित्सा में है ब्लड प्रेशर का समाधान
What Is A Subluxation ?
भौतिक और भावजगत(मनो -शरीर ) की सेहत भी जुडी है आपकी रीढ़ से 3
आपके श्वसन सम्बन्धी स्वास्थ्य का भी समाधान है काइरोप्रेक्टिक (चिकित्सा व्यवस्था )में 1
आपके श्वसन सम्बन्धी स्वास्थ्य का भी समाधान है काइरोप्रेक्टिक (चिकित्सा व्यवस्था )में
अपनी पाचन सम्बन्धी सेहत का जायजा लीजिए ,मिलिए अपने काइरोप्रेक्टर से रीढ़ की आवधिक जांच के लिए 3
कविता :बल्ले बल्ले है सरकार कविता :बल्ले बल्ले है सरकार 4
बचके भैया डब्लू मैं मिनरल वाटर हूँ (स्वास्थ्य दिवस पर विशेष) 9
NYC'S fat ban paying off 4
कम खतरनाक नहीं है बच्चों की मनो -वैज्ञानिक हेटी करते रहना 3
काईराप्रेक्टिक संक्षिप्त इतिहास और वर्तमान स्वरूप 2
उम्र के साथ बदल जाता है रोग और चिकित्सा का स्वरूप 2
कविता :पूडल ही पूडल 3
कभी -कभार 2
"Vitamin See", 6 important nutrients for healthy eyes 1
बढती उम्र का असर न पड़े बीनाई (विजन )पर 2
सेहत से जुडी है हमारे सौंदर्य की नव्ज़ 4
कैसे बचा जाए मधुमेह में नर्व डेमेज से 3
गोरों का पूडल प्रेम 3
क्या फर्क है खाद्य को इस्ट्यु ,पोच और ग्रिल करने में ? कौन सा तरीका सेहत के हिसाब से उत्तम है ? 2
क्या फर्क है खाद्य को इस्ट्यु ,पोच और ग्रिल करने में ?
जिसने लास वेगास नहीं देखा 7
कहाँ छिपा है घनी केश राशि का राज और कैसे थामें इनका दुबलाना 3
राजनीति सिर्फ अ -नीति है 9
कब जांच करवाएं बीनाई (विज़न ,रिफ्रेक्शन) बच्चों की 3
घर का वैद्य न बनें बच्चों के मामले में 8
आजमाए हुए रसोई घर के नुसखे
बूँद समाना समुंद में...शेखर जेमिनी
(1)शहद और देशी घी का बराबर बराबर मात्रा में सेवन न करें ,इनका परस्पर रिश्ता 36 का है .
(2)दूध और दही एक ही समय पर न खाएं .
(3)चिकनाई कमसे कम खाएं ,मेवे को जगह दें .
(4)एक चुटकी लाहोरी (सैंदा )नमक ,एक चुटकी हल्दी लेकर ऊपर से कुछ बूंदे सरसों के तेल की छिडकें .मालिश करें आहिस्ता आहिस्ता दांतों और मसूढ़ों की .नमक में किरकिरी न हो बारीक पाउडर हो .खाली सरसों तेल की मालिश से भी मसूढ़े मजबूत होतें हैं .
http://kabirakhadabazarmein.blogspot.com/2012/08/blog-post_28.html
Good job SM.pl visit - .कृपया यहाँ भी पधारें -
ram ram bhai
मंगलवार, 28 अगस्त 2012
आओ पहले बहस करो
http://veerubhai1947.blogspot.com//
Hip ,Sacroiliac Leg Problems/http://kabirakhadabazarmein.blogspot.com/2012/08/hip-sacroiliac-leg-problems_28.html/
MEcoy, August 29, 2012
अब तो इस सरकार की नानी बदल दो ,
गोटिया सब मात अब खाने लगें हैं .
बुधवार, 29 अगस्त 2012
मिलिए डॉ .क्रैनबरी से
SM, August 30, 2012
@Virendra Kumar Sharma
Anonymous, June 27, 2013
Unknown, May 02, 2014
U all people fooling each other.... Cant v live on our own. U all people giving each other nd us very irritational thoughts.... V all are very good humans...what u doing to us...
This is very worse ... that m saying all this to you (politicians). This is abuse.
Anonymous, August 26, 2015
5 kilograms of plutonium may be be explode one day on future thats for sure, our bad RAW intelligence traitor working under guild lines of CIA will never have feeling and regards for Indians to save life.
Partha's blog, January 31, 2017
Is it possible that the secret mission leaked and somehow china managed to theft that device.
@parth gupta,
@sajal,
@Partha's blog,
Unknown, April 16, 2017
Actually there is a big possibility of this .

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Turkish President Erdogan holds on to power as military coup fails
Harold C. Hutchison
Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan (Photo: sputniknews.com)
Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan has apparently survived a bloody coup attempt that has left over 160 people dead, over a thousand injured, and over 2800 military personnel detained. Massive protests by Erdogan supporters, who were rallied by an address by the Turkish President on FaceTime, helped thwart the coup. The coup was condemned by many elements in Turkey, as well as President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry.
Among events Friday night and Saturday were the shutdown of power for Incirlik Air Base, where the 39th Air Base Wing is deployed. British, Saudi, and German forces are operating from the air base, which is less than 70 miles from the Syrian border. That is a convenient locale for operations against the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack in Nice Saturday that left 84 people dead.
Air operations from Incirlik ordered to stop, although aircraft currently flying missions were allowed to land. American troops have not been threatened, although the apparent blockade of Incirlik, which has gone to THREATCON DELTA in the wake of the coup, is not a good sign. Nor is the FAA shutting down flights to and from Turkey. The Federation of American Scientists estimated in 2015 that the United States reportedly has many as 50 "special stores" located at Incirlik, adding to the stakes at Incirlik.
Erdogan in the past has not exactly been a friend to the United States. One of the more notorious incidents came early in his rule as prime minister, in 2003, when he suddenly denied permission for the 4th Infantry Division to land in Turkey and attack into northern Iraq during the early stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lately, during his rule, he has shown a decided pattern of suppressing dissent, including seizing control of newspapers, throwing people in prison for "insulting" him, and drawing charges of both acting like a dictator and turning a blind eye to foreign fighters transiting Turkey to join ISIS.
Erdogan has accused Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who is residing in the United States after falling out with the Turkish President in 2013 over a corruption scandal and the closure of schools run by his group, Hizmet. According to reports, Gulen is a true moderate Moslem and a supporter of democracy, interfaith dialogue, and education.
With the failure of this coup, Erdogan will move to ensure that there will not be a chance to launch a more successful one. The Turkish president has declared the attempted coup a "gift from god" and has vowed to use it as a pretext to "cleanse our army" and said the elements who took part in the coup are guilty of "treason" and vowed they will "pay a heavy price" for trying to topple his regime.
The effects of this coup will reverberate through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Middle East. Turkey will likely slide further into an Islamist regime, one that becomes increasingly repressive as Erdogan asserts his rule in Turkey.
The US military cleaned up victims of modern history's largest mass suicide
Blake Stilwell
Posted On January 28, 2019 18:39:34
In November 1978, 909 members of a fanatical cult died — killing themselves and their children using a cyanide and Valium-laced grape drink — to make a political statement: they would die on their own terms in a "revolutionary suicide." It would be the largest single loss of civilian life until the September 11th terror attacks.
The People's Temple, as the cult was called, was founded by Jim Jones, a former monkey salesman and self-ordained minister in 1950s Indianapolis. He later moved the church to California. There, the size of the cult grew to around 20,000.
Yep, this guy was their savior.
With that growth, Jones became a public figure and fled to the South American country of Guyana to escape the negative press surrounding the People's Temple. Jones faced accusations of financial fraud and child abuse and sought to escape what he thought was the persecution from U.S. intelligence agencies.
More than 1,000 members went with him.
Jones and his cult founded Jonestown, an agricultural cooperative on 4,000 acres of poor soil and limited access to fresh water. Temple members worked long days and were punished for disobeying Jones' orders. They were allowed limited contact with friends and family. Jones even confiscated their passports.
Houses in Jonestown.
Toward the end of the Jonestown experiment, Jones became inceasingly paranoid as his mental state broke down. Congressman Leo Ryan came to Jonestown to investigate allegations that his contituents' loved ones were actually hostages there. People's Temple members asked to return home with the Congressman, who took them back to his plane.
That's when tragedy struck.
After arriving at the airstrip that took Congressman Ryan to the People's Temple collective, Jones' armed thugs gunned down the contingent, along with members of the press and some of the defectors. At the same time, Jones was distributing the poisoned punch (which was actually Flavor-Aid, not Kool-Aid, as the saying goes) to the cult members.
An aerial view of the bodies of the victims of the Jonestown tragedy. U.S. Army personnel from Fort Bragg, North Carolina (NC), are placing the remains into body bags. (Photo by: Staff Sgt. Jose L. Sanchez, Nov. 20, 1978.)
There is evidence that those who didn't want to imbibe were forced to drink the punch. Jones himself was found dead with a bullet in his head, among the other 900+ bodies.
Within hours of learning about Congressman Ryan's death, the U.S. State Department received assistance from the 437th Military Airlift Wing at Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina. Charleston C-141 Starlifters led what would be "the most unusual airlift operation since the Berlin Airlift."
Col. Bruce M. Durvine, vice commander of the 39th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Wing, and members of the 55th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron carry boxes of plastic body bags to an HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopter for use in the evacuation of bodies from Jonestown. (Photo by: Staff Sgt. Jose L. Sanchez, Jonestown, Nov. 20, 1978.)
Air Force Combat Controllers were the first American forces on the ground, securing the airstrip area, providing security, and operating the airspace. The Starlifters had to be staged more than 150 miles away from the dirt airstrip where Ryan's body was found because they were too large for the field.
The military Aeromedical Evacuation Team repatriated eight wounded survivors from the area. It wasn't until November 20th that Guyanan Defense Forces could reach the Jonestown Compound. The small contingent was overwhelmed by what they found there and asked the Americans to take over.
A U.S. Air Force HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopter from the 55th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron stands by to assist in the removal of the remains of the victims of the Jonestown tragedy. (Photo by: Staff Sgt. Jose L. Sanchez, Georgetown, Nov. 20, 1978.)
According to San Diego State University's exhaustive study of the Jonestown cult and its aftermath, Army Medic Jeff Brailey was one of the first Americans to enter the compound. He described carrying the poison's antidote among a sea of bodies, "something he'd never forget." Army Graves Registration Units tried to identify all the bodies, as they would bodies of soldiers killed in combat.
Jonestown victims' bodies were to be airlifted to Dover Air Force Base, but first they had to be moved by three HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopters to the Starlifter staging area. There were so many bodies, the Air Force ran out of remains transfer cases.
U.S. Army UH-1 Iroquois helicopters are loaded aboard a C-141 Starlifter aircraft for transport back to their home base in the Canal Zone. The helicopters were used during humanitarian relief efforts following the Jonestown tragedy. (Photo by: Staff Sgt. Jose L. Sanchez, Georgetown, Nov. 20, 1978.)
"Stacked like cordwood," the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition. It took 30 helicopter sorties carrying 30 bodies each to get the remains to the Starlifters for transport. Each C-141 could handle 81 remains cases — as long as they were stacked on pallets.
The stench of death in the helicopters was so bad, they were deemed medically unsafe. Task Force personnel who handled the bodies burned their clothing on the runway at the end of the mission.
U.S. military personnel place a body bag containing the remains of the victims of the Jonestown tragedy in a coffin for transport to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. (Photo by: Staff Sgt. Pedro J. Gonzalez, Georgetown, Nov. 20, 1978.)
Jeff Brailey, the Army medic who entered Jonestown, wrote a book about his experience, "The Ghosts of November."
This paratrooper just took his first jump in 31 years
It is uncertain what the record is for the time between Army parachute jumps, but Lt. Col. John Hall may hold it at 30 years and six months.
When Hall parachuted from a military aircraft January 2018, it was the first time he had done so in over thirty years. Hall, a 53-year-old school teacher at Kearsley High School in Flint, Michigan, is serving a one-year tour of duty in Vicenza, Italy, as the public affairs officer for the storied 173rd Airborne Brigade, the contingency response force for U.S. Army Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
I first worked with the 173rd Airborne when I was put on active duty with the Michigan National Guard in 2014 and sent to the Baltic Countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve and in support of Latvia, our State Partnership Nation," Hall said. "The 173rd Airborne Public Affairs leaders and I developed a close working relationship, so last summer, when they needed an experienced public affairs officer to lead their team, I was selected and put on orders.
The 173rd Brigade commander sent word to Hall that he would be expected to jump from aircraft as a part of his duties.
"I was really excited and completely terrified at the same time. I graduated from 'Jump School' when I was 19 years old and last jumped when I was 22, so I knew what to do," Hall said with a laugh.
Army Lt. Col. John Hall, a paratrooper and public affairs officer assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 173rd Airborne Brigade, poses for a photo in Vicenza, Italy, Jan. 31, 2018. Hall is a Michigan National Guard soldier currently on active-duty orders with the 173rd. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Alexander C. Henninger )
The 173rd put Hall through a one-day airborne refresher course, he said. This training included parachute landing, actions in the aircraft, and emergency procedures, followed by multiple jumps from a 34-foot tower in which his technique was assessed.
The next day, Hall reported to Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, donned his parachute with a couple of hundred other Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, climbed aboard an Air Force C-17 aircraft and, when 1,200 feet over the Juliet Drop Zone, exited the door and tested his training.
Perfect landing
"The jet blast spun me in the air so when my 'chute deployed it was pretty twisted and did not have a full canopy," Hall said. "I was surprised that I automatically reached up, pulled the 'risers' apart and worked the parachute fully open. Good training takes over and we automatically do the right thing. I then checked my position in the sky and prepared to land. It was all over in less than a minute. I took up a good parachute landing fall position and the landing was perfect."
Hall has served in the Army since graduating from LakeVille High School in the Flint area where he was an All-State wrestler, president of the school's student council, and where he began dating his eventual wife, Laura.
"I enlisted as a combat medic when I was 19 years old and served in the 82nd Airborne Division in the mid-1980s, where we conducted frequent parachute operations as a part of our combat training," Hall said. "After leaving the 82nd, I didn't think I would ever jump from a military aircraft ever again."
Also Read: That time a dangling paratrooper was rescued by open-top biplane
Since leaving active duty with the 82nd, Hall has served in the Army Reserve, the Florida and Michigan National Guard, and has been called back to active duty — to include combat duty in Iraq — on multiple occasions, but he has not been assigned to a unit with an airborne mission until now.
He was initially commissioned as a cavalry officer following officer candidate school and served as a Scout Platoon Leader in E Troop, 153rd Cavalry Regiment in Ocala, Florida. His later assignments include company commander in the 1-125th Infantry in Flint, Michigan, as well as executive officer and commander of the 126th Press Camp Headquarters at Fort Custer, Michigan. It was in the 126th PCH that Hall served a combat tour in Baghdad.
Service in Iraq
Coincidentally enough, while serving as a press officer for Multinational Forces Iraq, Hall was serving in a combat zone at the same time as his daughter, Savannah, who had recently been commissioned as an officer through the University of Michigan ROTC program.
"My daughter, Savannah, grew up around the Army and has seen me in uniform since I was in the 82nd Airborne," Hall said. "She decided when she went to college that she wanted to enroll in ROTC, serve in the Army, and be a paratrooper. It was indeed a proud moment when I pinned her 'Jump Wings' on her at Fort Benning, Georgia. And now my youngest daughter, Samantha, is shipping off to Army basic training later this spring. It remains to be seen if she, too, will become a paratrooper."
Hall has been working in Vicenza, Italy, on the senior staff of the 173rd Airborne Brigade since August 2017. In this short time, he has supported airborne combat training in Latvia, Germany, Slovenia, a historic mission to Serbia, mountaineering training with the Italian Alpini Brigade, and next week will travel to Toulouse, France, to support 173rd Airborne combined engineering operations with French paratroopers.
Hundreds of 173rd Airborne Brigade paratroopers conduct a tactical airborne insertion exercise onto Juliet Drop Zone in northern Italy, Jan. 24, 2018. (Photo Credit: Army photo by Lt. Col. John Hall )
High operational tempo
"The operational tempo here at the 173rd Airborne is intense. We continually have combat training going on with our NATO allies throughout Europe," Hall said. "Our command philosophy is that we are always 'preparing our soldiers for the unforgiving crucible of ground combat.'"
A significant part of this, in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, is conducting airborne operations, so Hall will complete several more jumps from military aircraft in the coming months.
As far as teaching is concerned, Hall intends to return to the classroom teaching English, history, and theater for the fall 2018 semester. It is certain that the dynamic training and real-world experiences contribute to his classes and his students' enthusiasm.
Until then, Hall is an Army paratrooper and he said he's proud of the Soldiers he works with.
Hall added, "It is truly an honor to be able to serve with the 'Sky Soldiers' of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. To be able to begin my military career with the 82nd Airborne Division and end it with the 173rd Airborne Brigade is remarkable. I am humbled every day by the discipline, determination, and dedication of these young Americans forward stationed and always prepared to defend their country."
These 7 photos reveal how secret warriors invaded West Virginia
Christian Lowe
Posted On November 01, 2018 21:00:21
After Russia's incursion into Georgia several years ago and the covert operation to take over the Crimea in Ukraine in 2014, the former Soviet Republics along the Baltic coast view the Russian bear as an increasing threat.
More fearful than ever that a replay of Sevastopol could happen in Vilnius or Tallinn, troops from the Baltic states have been working ever closer with the American military to hone their skills, forge stronger bonds and develop tactics and protocols to defend themselves if the Spetsnaz drops in on their doorstep.
While American troops have been deploying recently for joint exercises with NATO's northern allies in Europe, some of the Baltic countries' most specialized troops have been coming to the U.S. for real-world training.
In February a joint team of U.S. special operators from the 10th Special Forces Group, National Guard soldiers and commandos from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia infiltrated a 500,000 acre range in the mountains of West Virginia to practice covert ops, kick in some doors and do some snake-eater sh*t.
Dubbed Range Runner 2017, the exercise includes all the facets of special operations warfare, including counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, stability operations, foreign internal defense and unconventional warfare and allows for dynamic infiltration routes, including water, air and land with support from fixed wing, rotary wing and water rescue groups, the military says.
So how awesome was this joint commando exercise? Take a look.
1. Special operators get some assaulter practice
Estonian Special Operations Force soldiers, along with U.S. Army Special Operations Forces Soldiers with 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and soldiers of the West Virginia National Guard, quickly move to assault a building containing high-value adversary targets during an air-assault training exercise as part of Exercise Ridge Runner Feb. 23, 2017 in West Virginia. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Smith)
2. The joint commando teams work on infiltration via horseback
A U.S. Army Special Operations Forces Soldier assigned to 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), conducts an infiltration movement on horseback during Exercise Ridge Runner Feb. 12, 2017 in West Virginia. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Connor Mendez)
3. The special operators work together on sensitive sight exploitation methods
U.S. Army Special Operations Forces Soldiers assigned to 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), search through a cabin room as they conduct sensitive sight exploitation training during Exercise Ridge Runner Feb. 18, 2017 in West Virginia. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Connor Mendez)
4. They even go through the bad guy's trash…
U.S. Special Operations Forces search for evidence during a sensitive sight exploitation training event as part of Exercise Ridge Runner Feb. 18, 2017 in West Virginia. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Christopher Stevenson)
5. The special operations troops are hounded by local forces who track their movement
A canine unit with the West Virginia State Police assists U.S. Special Operations Forces and interagency joint partners with the West Virginia and Pennsylvania National Guard in partnering with special operations forces soldiers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in an escape and evasion training exercise event as part of Exercise Ridge Runner Feb. 23, 2017 in West Virginia.
6. The Special Forces soldiers use old-school methods to pass messages without radios
U.S. Special Operations Forces with 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) conduct a message pickup with the aid of a DHC-6 Twin Otter airplane as part of Exercise Ridge Runner Feb. 6, 2017 in West Virginia. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Christopher Stevenson)
7. Once they've gotten what they wanted, the commandos exfil via helicopter
Estonian Special Operations Force soldiers, along with U.S. Army Special Operations Forces Soldiers with 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) and soldiers of the West Virginia National Guard, quickly move toward an aircraft for exfiltration during an air-assault training exercise as part of Exercise Ridge Runner Feb. 23, 2017 in West Virginia. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jeff Smith)
This is why dropping "Sunni Arab allies" into Syria is a terrible idea
Five years into the Syrian Civil War, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced its readiness to send ground troops into Syria to fight Islamic State forces.
"The kingdom is ready to participate in any ground operations that the coalition (against Islamic State) may agree to carry out in Syria," Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, the spokesman for the Saudi-led Arab coalition in Yemen, told the Saudi government-owned al-Arabiya TV.
Related: The 10 worst armies in the world
Just days after that announcement, the United Arab Emirates announced its readiness to join the fight.
"Our position throughout has been that a real campaign has to include a ground force," the UAE's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said at a news conference in Abu Dhabi, adding "U.S. leadership on this" would be a prerequisite for the UAE.
Big surprise there.
For those keeping track, the UAE is also part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the religious-political faction of Houthis in Yemen, a Shia insurgent group who captured the Yemeni capital of Sana'a in 2014 and forced the fall of the Saudi-backed government five months later. Saudi Arabia's nine-member coalition has since failed to dislodge the Iran-backed Houthis or restore the government. Meanwhile, just under one-third of the country has fallen to the resurgent al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Maybe Saudi Arabia and the Arab allies aren't everything American politicians have said they are during the 2016 election debates. Forget for a moment how bad they are at fighting a decisive war (they can't even capture the capital city with air superiority and and more than a year to get it done), the idea of airlifting a coalition of Sunni Arab troops into Syria is not only overly simplistic, it's a terrible one. Saudi Arabia and Iran are expending resources to wage an all-out proxy battle in the region, and Iraq and Syria are the primary battlefields.
By now, it should come as no surprise to Westerners that there is an huge, problematic divide between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. The main actors in this ideological conflict today are Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. Yemen isn't the first example of Saudi intervention. At the height of the Arab Spring, Saudi troops crossed the King Fahd Causeway into Bahrain to put down Shia protests there.
The most ironic peace sign ever.
The Saudi sphere of influence extends throughout the Arabian Peninsula while the Iranian sphere extends from Iran's border with Afghanistan to the East and pushes West through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. The conflicts in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are extensions of this greater conflict. When told the Saudis and Emiratis were ready to deploy to Syria, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem gave a very expected response: "I regret to say that they will return home in wooden coffins."
Sectarianism is only increasing and is becoming the primary reason for conflict. Until recently, major non-state paramilitary organizations on either side of the divide publicly defined their mandates in terms of either anti-imperialist, anti-Israel, and/or anti-American terms. They did not openly define themselves in terms of Shia vs. Sunni. That is changing.
In 2013, Islamic extremist violence intensified, fueled by sectarianism in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Pakistan. The rise of anti-Shia resistance, combined with the remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime, led to the ideology behind the rise of the Islamic State, now the most aggressive and extreme group, with transnational roots in Nigeria, Libya, and Afghanistan. The sectarianism is only spreading.
When the Asad regime looked like it would fall, the Gulf states smelled the blood in the water and acted quickly to take advantage of the situation. Kuwait is now the leading source of funds for al-Qaeda-linked terror organizations in Syria. Qatar is a major funder of the al-Qaeda-allied Sunni al-Nusra Front there, and Qatari officials tell The Atlantic that ISIS is "a Saudi project."
A Saudi project like a crane at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. That kind of project.
Iran funds, trains, and equips paramilitary forces throughout the Middle East, including the Lebanese political-militant group Hezbollah, and has for decades. Iraq's government has been dominated by Iran-backed Shia parliamentarians since the ouster of Saddam Hussein by the 2003 U.S. invasion. Syrian President Bashar al-Asad's regime is propped up by the Iranian government, who are reinforcing the Asad government against rebels, ISIS, the Kurdish YPG, and the other thousand groups vying for power there. The government's legitimacy relies on the support of the Alawite minority in Syria, a Shia group whose followers control the top tiers of Syrian society.
Sunni militant groups, financed by Gulf states like Kuwait, are seeing a rise in recruiting numbers and directing their ideology and violence toward other Muslim communities instead of Western targets. In response, Shia groups gain in strength and numbers to confront the perceived threats posed by the Sunni groups. The war in Syria is no longer a fight for control of the country but a battle in a greater ideological proxy war.
The U.S. has so far managed not to take a side. The Obama Administration's original plan for fighting ISIS, for example, involved both Sunnis and Shia, but accomplished little in the way of real, lasting stability or security in the region. It called for air support and advisors for Iraqi troops (sometimes led by Iranian advisors and in conjunction with Iraq's Shia militias) while training and equipping "moderate" rebels in Sunni Saudi Arabia. We know how that turned out.
Related: General briefs Congress fight against ISIS is a total mess
At the onset of the Syrian War, thousands of fighters left their homes in Syria for various Sunni or Shia militias. Foreign fighters soon began to flood in with professional jihadis from Chechnya and Afghanistan coming to reinforce Sunni groups while Shia militias from Iraq and Lebanese Hezbollah shored up the Asad regime. At the end of 2013, there were an estimated 1000+ armed groups in Syria. Since then, the rebel groups have only fractured.
Map of Syrian Civil War as of February 2016
Knowing all of this, imagine how would it look to the average Shia militia if the United States began flooding a traditional Shia state with Sunni troops. The war in Syria will last at least another five to ten full years and the U.S. should be prepared for that. The U.S. only has to look at recent history when deciding how best to serve our national interest while helping bring the conflict to its conclusion.
The Lebanese Civil War ended only after the infighting exhausted itself. By the signing of the 1989 Taif Agreement that ended the war in Lebanon, the streets of Beirut looked remarkably similar to how the streets of the Syrian city of Homs look today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZRLvbgaIHs
That war had was much more akin to today's Syrian conflict than other Arab Spring-related uprisings. Massacres, assassinations, and a large number of belligerents fueled the conflict for 15 years. In the end, the Taif Agreement ceded Lebanon to Syrian influence. Even so, the Taif Agreement only came about because of an anti-Saddam mindset between the Iranians and Saudis. U.S. military power was not a significant factor.
In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed by Shia militias. The attacks killed 241 U.S. military members. Three months later, then-President Ronald Reagan withdrew all U.S. troops from the country. That turned out to be the right call. In trying to score political points, American politicians could call it a "cut and run." Yet, in a 1991 biography of Reagan, one of the 20th century's most brilliant military minds, Gen. Colin Powell, labeled the American intervention in Lebanon a misadventure from the start.
"Beirut wasn't sensible and it never did serve a purpose," Powell said. "It was goofy from the beginning." The reversal of a bad military course, once decided, seems impossible 33 years later, considering the level of political rhetoric on the use of force against ISIS. It might even be political suicide.
Would you to tell this man he was wrong?
Yet, the same U.S. involvement that was a mistake in Lebanon in the early 80's is a leadership necessity in Syria today. Why? It's not because of ISIS. In Lebanon, President Bachir Gemayel was assassinated and Palestinian refugees were slaughtered in camps by Christian Maronite militias. Those events didn't influence Reagan to keep Marines in the country for an indeterminate period of time. Once it became clear that U.S. actions would have repercussions, the President decided the nature of the mission weighed against the potential cost wasn't in U.S. interests and left the multi-national force … and it was the right call.
American intervention and use of military force should involve a clear strategy to reach a set goal, with rules of engagement to match. A policy of dropping Sunni troops into a Shia country is misguided. It will only fuel the Syrian war and the sectarian divide. The U.S. will win the hearts and minds of neither Shia nor Sunni and will pay the cost in security across the globe.
North Korea may have actually increased nuclear production
Posted On July 02, 2018 20:10:29
As President Donald Trump touted a new era of diplomacy with the North Korean regime, a classified intelligence assessment appeared to tell a different story, according to several US intelligence officials.
The assessment revealed that, in recent months, North Korea had upped its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at several secret sites, according to over a dozen intelligence officials cited in an NBC News report published June 29, 2018. The officials said they believe North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may be trying to conceal the secret facilities from the US.
"Work is ongoing to deceive us on the number of facilities, the number of weapons, the number of missiles," one senior US intelligence official said to NBC News. "We are watching closely."
According to five US officials cited by NBC News, the North Korean regime was increasing production of enriched uranium, even as relations with the US improved following the 2018 Winter Olympics. And since the leaders of both countries held a summit in Singapore in mid-June, 2018, the Trump administration has already delivered some concessions to the North.
United Statesu00a0President Donald Trump
Trump halted Ulchi Freedom Guardian, a major joint military drill with South Korea that was scheduled for August 2018. The military exercises have been a point of contention for North Korea, which sees them as a direct threat. The US and South Korea treat the drills as defensive measures.
During the US-North Korea summit, the first such meeting between a sitting US president and a North Korean leader, the two men pledged to "work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." It was a vast departure from 2017 when both Trump and Kim were openly threatening nuclear war. But the broad and nondescript document fell short of a specific plan or goal, and was criticized by foreign-policy experts.
And though North Korea took several steps to indicate it was in the process of dismantling its weapons program, such as blowing up tunnels leading to a nuclear-test site, critics who monitored the development say it may have all been for show.
"There's no evidence that they are decreasing stockpiles, or that they have stopped their production," a US official familiar with the intelligence report told NBC. "There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the US."
"There are lots of things that we know that North Korea has tried to hide from us for a long time," another intelligence official added.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reacts to North Korea's latest ballistic rocket test-fire through a precision control guidance system.
(KCNA photo)
The intelligence report may also confirm the theory held by many arms experts: that North Korea possesses a second, undisclosed nuclear enrichment facility. In 2008, North Korea signaled it would curb its nuclear program by televising the destruction of a water-cooling tower at a plutonium extraction facility, only to announce that it would "readjust and restart" in 2013.
The report also calls into question Trump's claim that North Korea no longer poses as a nuclear threat to the US: "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea," Trump tweeted in June, 2018, after returning from his meeting with Kim. "Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!"
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo downplayed and directly contradicted Trump's claim.
"I'm confident what [Trump] intended there was, 'we did reduce the threat,'" Pompeo said during a Senate hearing on June 27, 2018. "I don't think there's any doubt about that."
This article originally appeared on Business Insider. Follow @BusinessInsider on Twitter.
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13 funniest military memes for the week of Aug. 18th
The other guy, Logan Nye, is deploying to go do some Hooah sh*t for Uncle Sam. Hope nothing big happened this week…
Ah. Sh*t. Well then.
Here are some memes to help you forget that you didn't make the promotion list and as the possibility of WWIII — or Civil War II — increases daily.
13. Give her a break. Her bumper sticker says she has the hardest job in the military.
(Via Decelerate Your Life)
12. Nothing sweeter than that first burger stateside.
11. Um…they're both laying around when there's work to do? Yeah. Let's go with that.
10. The only way CQ or Staff Duty is less sh*tty is if one of your boys says there's a "problem" you have to go check on.
(Via Marine Corps Memes)
9. I hope that burden of responsibility weighs the f*ck out of you.
(via Pop Smoke)
8. I still never figured out the proper response to civilians thanking me.
(Via The Salty Soldier)
7. We hear you talking all tough behind a computer screen.
(Via Air Force AMN/NCO/SNCO)
6. Best part of the stupid velcro patches the Army had? We weren't stuck with crap patches sold off-post.
(Via Sh*t My LPO Says)
5. Say "Roger." Move on. And wait until your ETS.
4. Brig and other NJPs have got to suck but hey, at least there's a consolation prize for that dude that hid in the engine room!
3. There ain't nothing in the world 100-MPH tape, 550 cord, and a "F*ck it" attitude can't fix!
Did you know that apparently E-3s and below in the Naval Aviation field are called Airmen? (Via Sh*t My LPO Says)
2. 10/10 Would promote ahead of peers!
(Via USAWTFM)
1. It's impossible for Neo-Nazis to be proud Americans when 405,399 Americans died and 1,076,245 were wounded in battle fighting Nazi scum and their allies.
(Via Why I'm Not Re-enlisting)
The first woman to receive the Soldier's Medal saved 15 patients from a fire
Logan Nye
Lt. Edith Greenwood after receiving her Soldier's Medal. She was the first woman to receive the medal. (Photo: Public Domain)
The Army's highest award for noncombat valor, the Soldier's Medal had been bestowed exclusively to men since its creation in 1927.
But in 1943, a female nurse who braved a raging fire to save her fellow Joes was given the award at the explicit order of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Edith Greenwood was a lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps in World War II, and in 1943 she was serving patients at a hospital on the massive California Arizona Maneuver Area.
The CAMA served as a practice stage for troops headed to the battle front in North Africa and stretched from Southeast California into Arizona and Nevada. Across this expanse of desert and mountains, troops practiced all aspects of deployed life.
The hospital where Greenwood worked had an attached kitchen where cooks prepared the meals for all the patients and staff. Greenwood oversaw a 15-bed ward near the kitchen.
On the morning of Apr. 17, 1943, a cooking stove exploded and started a fire in the ward. Greenwood tried to fight the flames but quickly realized the building was lost. So Greenwood and her assistant, Pvt. James F. Ford, grabbed the 15 patients and ferried them outside to safety.
With the flames racing through the wooden structure, the entire ward burned down in about 5 minutes. But thanks to the quick actions of Greenwood and Ford, all of the patients made it out alive.
The US Army Soldier's Medal is awarded for noncombat valor. (Photo: Public Domain)
When the story of the fire reached Roosevelt, he ordered that both Ford and Greenwood receive the Soldier's Medal, the highest award that he or the military could recommend under the circumstances.
On Jun. 10, 1943, Greenwood became the first woman to receive the medal. She survived the war and died of old age in 1999. The synopsis of her medal citation is below:
By direction of the President of the United States, The Soldier's Medal is awarded to Lieutenant Edith Ellen Greenwood, Army Nurse Corps, United States Army. At 0630 on April 17, 1943, a stove exploded in the 37th Station Hospital's diet kitchen, setting fire to the nearby ward where Lieutenant Greenwood was responsible for overseeing the care of 15 patients. Greenwood sounded the alarm and attempted to extinguish the blaze, but the fire quickly spread, with reports indicating that the ward burned down within five minutes. Greenwood safely evacuated all of her patients with the assistance of a young ward attendant, Private James F. Ford. By direction of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, both Greenwood and Ford were awarded the Soldier's Medal on June 10, 1943.
Awesome nonprofit helps wounded service members surf
Service members often encounter physical, psychological, and emotional adversity when protecting the freedoms this country was founded on. The injuries sustained both on and off duty require recovery in many forms – including physical competitions, religious programs, community outreach opportunities, behavioral health, and more. Some may only need a surfboard and a wave to ride.
Veterans, recovering service members and their loved ones attended the 12th Annual Operation Amped Surf Camp at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Aug. 17-19, 2018. Operation Amped is a non-profit organization that promotes surf therapy to aid in the recovery of wounded, ill and injured veterans, and active-duty service members.
According to Joseph Gabunilas, Operation Amped co-founder, this program exists to provide a positive change in a participant's future. Operation Amped accomplishes this by providing surf training once a year to wounded warriors, family members and veterans.
"It's a good way to keep that negative stuff out of your mind while catching a wave," said retired U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. David Simons, participant at Operation Amped. "Surfing has given me a goal, something to work towards and keep my focus straight."
Recovering service members, veterans, volunteers, and their loved ones surf during the 12th Annual Operation Amped Surf Camp at San Onofre Beach at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Aug. 18, 2018.
(Photo by Lance Cpl. Noah Rudash)
The organization, which began in September 2006, had helped nearly 300 recovering service members, veterans, and their loved ones. Along with the support and attendance of family members and friends, that number has now reached the thousands, said Gabunilas, who served in the U.S. Army. Having both the recovering service members and their loved ones in attendance, can provide the therapy needed to overcome the trials and tribulations they may be experiencing.
"Ocean therapy is good for the mindset," said Simons. "It's good for those that have difficult issues they're dealing with."
Recovering service members, veterans, volunteers, and their loved ones prepare to surf during the 12th Annual Operation Amped Surf Camp at San Onofre Beach at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Aug. 18, 2018.
Some of the adversity these warriors face include the loss of fellow service members in and out of combat, overcoming pain and physical injury. For three days each year, with the support of organizations such as this one, participants move closer to recovery one wave at a time.
Provisions come from volunteers and supporters who donate surfboards, wetsuits, food, tents, and tables. Most importantly, they donate their time.
"This is my way of giving back," said Gabunilas. "I served 21 years and this is another way I can give back to the brave men and women fighting for our country."
This annual event drives a passion for surfing for some and provides a recreational outlet for warriors and their family members to enjoy while physically and mentally challenging themselves in the water. The next clinic is scheduled for summer 2019.
This article originally appeared on the United States Marines. Follow @USMC on Twitter.
How Rangers 'left their mark' on the Italians at Sened Station
James Elphick
In early 1943, the 1st Ranger Battalion, known as Darby's Rangers, was still relatively unknown and rather untested. All of that was about to change.
The Rangers had been formed less than a year before at the insistence of Gen. George Marshall. Marshall believed that the Americans needed a commando unit and ordered Major Orlando Darby to make it happen. On June 19, 1942, the 1st Ranger Battalion was activated from "volunteers not adverse to dangerous action."
Though over 2,000 men had volunteered, only 575 officers and enlisted men were accepted into the battalion. The British Commandos then trained these men at their training facility at Achnacarry, Scotland.
William Darby. (U.S. Army photo)
Less than six months after their formation, the Rangers spearheaded the Allied invasion of North Africa by taking out Vichy French artillery batteries at Arzew, Algeria. In a quick but decisive move, the Rangers captured the guns and some 60 prisoners.
After helping secure the port facilities and a nearby town, the Rangers were withdrawn from action. They began an intense training period, focusing on forced marches and night fighting. Both would prove useful in the near future.
With the rapid advance of Allied forces across North Africa, and commanders unsure of what to do with a specialized raiding force like the Rangers, they were not involved in the ongoing combat.
That changed in February when the Rangers were called upon to conduct raids against Axis forces to gather intelligence and weaken enemy morale.
Darby devised a plan to attack the Italians at Sened Station.
Trucked to within 20 miles of their objective the Rangers set off in total darkness. The Rangers set a blistering pace and stealthily covered some fourteen miles before taking shelter among the rocks for the day.
Word was passed around for that night's mission — the Rangers would leave their mark.
"They've got to know that they've been worked over by Rangers," Capt. Roy Murray said. "Every man is to use his bayonet as much as he can. Those are our orders."
While his men concealed themselves among rocks and brush, Darby and his executive officer, Major Herman Dammer, conducted a leaders' reconnaissance of the Italian outpost.
With the final plan set, the Rangers prepared to move out as the sun set. Faces were blackened and anything that jingled or rattled was secured to ensure silence. Helmets had been traded for wool caps the night before.
Once the moon set, the Rangers began their movement toward the objective.
The raiding force consisted of three line companies and a detachment of 81mm mortars. They moved out three companies abreast, toward positions within 500 yards of the outpost.
Darby was able to track the movement of his men by an ingenious method. Using red-lensed flashlights covered with a shroud mounted on the pack of a few men, he was able to see when his units were in position. This also ensured that no man wondered off course.
Rangers train on the terrain of the 8 November assault at Arzew (U.S. Army Photograph)
When all was ready, Darby sent forward the order to fix bayonets and move out.
Slowly, silently, the Rangers crept toward the unsuspecting Italian garrison.
Some amount of noise must have made it to the Italians at their posts because they became suspicious. With the Rangers still some 200 yards out, Italian machine guns opened fire. In the pitch black, their fire was wild and inaccurate. The Rangers held their fire and continued to creep forward.
As the Rangers made it to within 50 yards of the wire, the Italian's fire became too close for comfort. Italian sentries called out into the night, "Qui va la? Qui va la?" ("Who goes there?")
All at once the Americans responded. The Rangers leapt up and charged across the short distance to the Italian perimeter. American Tommy Guns riddled the outpost as riflemen tossed hand grenades and stormed across the Italian defenses with their bayonets.
One Ranger, Cpl. James Altieri, stumbled into a trench and right on top of an Italian soldier. In the brief struggle, Altieri dispatched the man by stabbing him in the stomach. It was his first hand-to-hand kill. He immediately vomited before continuing the fight.
Altieri later described the fighting by saying, "We worked them over furiously, giving no quarter."
As the Rangers cleared the outpost, the 81mm mortars pounded the Italian positions and cut off their retreat.
American troops march in the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia. (Dept. of Defense photo)
In just 20 minutes, the Rangers were victorious. The Rangers had killed some 75 Italians and captured eleven more from the elite 10th Bersaglieri Regiment. The Italian artillery and machine guns were destroyed in place.
The victory had cost the Rangers one man and another 20 wounded.
As Darby conferred with the assault commanders and consolidated his position, he could hear the distant rumble of tracked vehicles — German armor. This was expected; the raid had been intended to draw out the Germans to help commanders determine their strength. But it also meant it was time for the Rangers to get out of Dodge.
Also read: 8 more awesome nicknames that enemies gave the U.S. military
Retracing their steps, the Rangers set out on a forced march back to the French outpost with their prisoners in tow.
The sudden ferocity with which the Rangers struck earned them the nickname "the Black Death" among the Italians.
The daring raid also garnered Darby and eleven other Rangers a Silver Star for gallantry.
Darby and the Rangers would see more intense combat in North Africa before spearheading assaults into Sicily and Italy.
Their success convinced the Army to stand up four more Ranger battalions in the European theatre.
Marines swap WWII-era test for one that could change officer assignments
MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. — Marine lieutenants at The Basic School were the first to complete a new test that could eventually change the way officers are assigned to military occupational specialties.
The Marine Corps is no longer using a World War II-era General Classification Test new officers have been taking for decades. In its place is an aptitude test millions of civilians take every year during the hiring process for major corporations.
About 300 students at TBS were the first to take the Criteria Cognitive Aptitude Test, or CCAT, here this week. Data collected over the next several years could change how lieutenants are screened for special billets and placed into their career fields.
Before the test, the officers were told they were the first in line to help improve the Marine Corps' MOS assignment process.
"The purpose of this test is to determine indicators of success within a MOS as it pertains to mental indicators," a slide describing the test stated. "This test will likely aid in shaping the future of MOS assignments, assignment to career level education, and screening for special billets."
The test includes 50 questions — a mix of verbal, math, logic and spatial-reasoning problems. Officers are asked to answer as many as possible in the allotted 15-minute test window.
The older test typically took officers more than two hours to complete. Since the schoolhouse has a packed curriculum, 2nd Lt. Issachar Beechner was relieved this one took a fraction of the time.
"You don't get a lot of new things in the Marine Corps, so it's good to be part of something new," he told Military.com after completing it.
Beechner and 2nd Lt. Kelly Owen didn't complete all 50 questions in the 15 minutes. Beecher got through 28 and Owen through 39.
That's common when it comes to the CCAT, said Capt. Oludare Adeniji, an operations research analyst here at Quantico who helped lead the search for a replacement to the decades-old General Classification Test.
"That's a part of how we get reliable scores," Adeniji said.
A big flaw with the old test, he added, was that it was no longer providing the Marine Corps with useful data. Officers across the board were receiving high marks, but men and white officers tended to perform better than women and those in minority groups. That raised questions about possible biases on the outdated test.
"When we did a study this past summer, we saw that officers that are assessing over the last 10 years or so were all skewed to one side of that test," Adeniji said. "What we're trying to do with the CCAT is re-center it and have a proper distribution of scores."
With the new test, the Marine Corps will not only collect about 10,000 officers' scores, but will gather information on how those Marines perform in their career fields. Once they have about five years' worth of data, they'll examine possible connections between the test scores and MOS performance.
Analyzing that data is part of a Marine Corps-wide emphasis on talent management, Adeniji said.
"When you place an officer in a job that [they are] successful at and they feel that they're good at it, it's a retention tool," he added. "They perform better, and the Marines are better off for it because they've been aligned in accordance with their capabilities.
"We're trying to better understand the officer that comes through the door here and what they're already good at so we can … say, 'Hey, you show indicators that you'd be good within these MOSs.'"
Last year, the CCAT was given about 3 million times by civilian employers, Adeniji said. The Marine Corps looked at about a dozen different tests before selecting this one. The review to replace the General Classification Test took about four years.
Maj. Craig Thomas, a spokesman for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said that TBS won't change how it assigns officers to their MOSs for at least five years. Students at TBS can request a copy of their test results, but their scores won't bar them from serving in specific fields.
Adeniji agreed. "The test is not directive," he said. "… We're not screening people out [of any MOSs]. We're informing decision making."
Owen joined the Marine Corps on a law contract, but she hopes to switch into the infantry. Beechner hopes to become a fixed-wing pilot and fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter or a KC-130 tanker.
Both compared the CCAT to other cognitive placement tests they took in college. Beechner said the test was like the multiple-choice Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery new recruits and officer candidates take before joining the Marine Corps.
The officers completed the web-based test on their own computers. It doesn't require any studying or prep work since it's meant to assess their general knowledge.
Owen said she's glad to see the Marine Corps looking at ways to improve officers' career placement.
"If you can place somebody in an MOS that will allow them to enjoy their career more, they're more likely to stay," she said.
— Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.
This article originally appeared on Military.com. Follow @militarydotcom on Twitter.
Joining the Marine Corps: Overview | Military.com
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US Navy destroyer's crew caught in bizarre gambling and fireworks scandal
The guided-missile destroyer USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) is assisted by a tug boat as it pulls away from the pier at Naval Station Norfolk. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Amber O'Donovan)
An investigation into events that led to the reliefs of the commanding officer, former executive officer and command master chief of the guided missile destroyer USS Bainbridge earlier this month implicated 15 other officers and senior leaders on the ship in the scandal.
Cmdr. Sean Rongers, Cmdr. Brandon Murray, and Command Master Chief Richard Holmes, were relieved April 7 by Destroyer Squadron 28 commander Capt. Richard Brawley after an investigation found fireworks were being stored aboard the Bainbridge in violation of Navy instructions and unlawful gambling was taking place among officers, officials said.
A 149-page preliminary inquiry report released to Military.com through a Freedom of Information Act request found the ship's leaders also failed to get a pregnant officer transferred off the ship in keeping with Navy policy, conducted certain ship maneuvers that endangered gear, and encouraged relaxed uniform guidelines under long underway periods with the sale of "no-shave chits."
A command climate survey also obtained by Military.com dating from February also found that the ship's top officers presided over a command marked by exeptionally poor trust in leadership and leadership and organizational cohesion.
According to the February investigation, Rongers, the commanding officer, directed the purchase of just under $1,500 worth of fireworks for a July 4 display aboard the Bainbridge, using funds from the ship's morale, welfare and recreation account. In April 2015, Rongers directed a subordinate to purchase the fireworks, knowing that the ship had conducted a similar fireworks display in 2013.
The subordinate, whose name is redacted in the report, negotiated a deal with the company Phantom Fireworks to buy the pyrotechnics. An overnight trip was made to purchase the goods, which included fireworks with names like "The Beast Unleashed" and "Swashbuckler 72-shot."
Some of the fireworks purchased were not available for sale in Virginia, the investigation shows. Then, while the ship was operating in the Virginia Capes area, near Virginia Beach, Rongers dispatched rigid-hulled inflatable boats to pick the fireworks up at Rudee Inlet in a late-night operation.
Rongers told investigators that the fireworks were brought aboard via late-night boat operations in order to avoid force protection measures or other regulations that might have prohibited them coming through the main gate when the ship was pierside in Norfolk, Virginia. He also said he checked with another officer about the legality of using MWR funds for fireworks and got the all-clear. The officer, whose name is redacted in the investigation, denied that Rongers had checked with her.
The fireworks were stored in black trash bags in the ship's pyro locker, near its barbershop. Ultimately, however, officials from Destroyer Squadron 28 got wind of the fireworks plan when a prospective weapons officer from the Bainbridge raised concerns, saying he had already confronted Rongers and Murray, the executive officer about having them stored aboard ship.
Rongers had the fireworks removed from the ship and loaded into his own car. The MWR funds used to purchase them were never reimbursed, however.
Investigators found that Rongers and Murray failed to do the research needed to ensure the fireworks purchase and display were legal. They violated MWR policy prohibiting funds from being used to pay for "hazardous activities," according to the report, and Rongers "rationalized" his actions because a fireworks display had taken place before, even though Navy policy prohibits fireworks being stored aboard ship and transported the way that they were.
Rongers did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Military.com.
The gambling accusations stem from a weekly Friday night officers' poker game that took place in the Bainbridge officers' wardroom with Rongers and Murray's consent and participation during the ship's 2015 deployment. There was a $10 buy-in, and participants played with chips in lieu of money and kept scores and money owed written on a piece of paper.
Concerns arose after an officer was asked to pay a buy-in fee she claimed she was never informed about. A legal officer approached Rongers and Murray with doubts about the legality of the command-sanctioned game, according to the report, but they dismissed these concerns, saying no one was forced to play.
Ultimately, the game was temporarily closed down and replaced by a non-gambling game night with activities like Uno and Risk. However, the game started up again later in the deployment, investigators found.
The investigation also revealed a booming business: the purchase of "no-shave chits" which allowed Navy personnel to grow facial hair or, if female, to wear their hair in a ponytail during long periods underway. At $30 a pop, the MWR raised nearly $12,700 on a single deployment from sale of the chits, the investigation found. The ship's leaders sanctioned this practice, and Rongers even purchased a chit at one point, documents show. While the practice of selling the chits is fairly common, investigators found, it is not permitted by policy.
Bainbridge leadership also fell afoul of policy when an officer became pregnant. Though regulations stipulate that pregnant sailors need to be transferred off-ship by the 20th week of pregnancy, she was not transferred until some five weeks after that deadline, even though the report shows she repeatedly brought the matter to the attention of her chain of command. Moreover, Murray waited until January 2016 — past the pregnancy's 20-week point — to inform the ship's placement officer of the need to transfer the officer, even though he was aware of the situation in November, the investigation found.
Finally, Rongers' handling of the Bainbridge on breakaways following underway replenishment caused alarm among sailors and led to the loss of some gear, the investigation found. On multiple occasions, witnesses testified, Rongers would conduct the breakaways at high speed, before personnel and gear were secured. In one case, sailors ordered to clear the deck could hear items tumbling around as the ship broke away. Two aluminum drip pans were lost over the course of the deployment, and one "killer tomato" or inflatable naval gunnery target, was struck loose by the wind, but was ultimately recovered.
Investigators faulted many other officers for failing to take appropriate action in light of the improper behavior taking place aboard the Bainbridge. While Rongers and Murray were advised they were suspected of violating articles 92 and 133 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, violation of a general order and conduct unbecoming of an officer and gentleman, respectively, 16 others were cited on suspicion of dereliction of duty or violation of a general order.
These include the ship's chief engineer, the supply corps officer, the weapons officer, the force protection officer, the recreational services officer, the Tomahawk leading chief petty officer and others, though the names of these individuals were redacted.
Investigators recommended that Rongers face non-judicial punishment for directing a subordinate to illegally transport and store fireworks. They also recommended that the ship's chief petty officers ensure sailors are taught lessons on "misplaced loyalty" with regards to the fireworks incident, since many aboard ship were found to have covered for leadership, rather than adhered to policy.
While the investigation does not cover how problems with the ship's command affected the rank-and-file, a command climate survey from the time reveals troubling trends. Fifty-three percent of sailors on the Bainbridge rated their trust in leadership unfavorably, according to the survey. On leadership cohesion, 63 percent of sailors gave unfavorable ratings, and 47 percent of sailors rated organizational cohesion unfavorably. Organizational processes received a 52 percent unfavorable rating, and 42 percent of sailors rated their job satisfaction unfavorably.
A spokesman for Naval Surface Force Atlantic, Lt. Cmdr. Myers Vasquez, said Rongers, Murray and Holmes remain assigned to SURFLANT in Norfolk. Vasquez said the administrative process was still ongoing for the sailors named in the investigation and declined further comment.
Watch an F-35 land on an aircraft carrier in slow motion
On October 9, an F-35C carried out a successful landing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
US Naval Institute News editor Sam LaGrone who managed to film the landing in HD and slow motion. The footage highlights one of the more notable successes of the often-troubled F-35 — namely the advanced fighter jet's ability to operate from a carrier.
The object dangling in the back of the F-35C is the tailhook, which snags hold of a cable on the carrier deck. The cable slows the aircraft down, allowing it to land efficiently and safely on the otherwise-dangerously short runways that aircraft carriers offer.
The technical requirements of taking off and landing from a carrier means that the F-35C is significantly heavier than the F-35A and F-35B variants. The C has an extra 208 square feet of wing to help create drag. Overall, the plane weighs over 6,000 pounds more than the other variants.
In November 2014, the F-35C conducted its first ever successful carrier landing. The landing came after nearly three years of delays due to tailhook design issues.
You can watch the slow motion landing below:


When creating a school website, there are several tools and low cost options to consider. I personally recommend WordPress because I use and love it, and because it is easy to set up several pages, add contact forms, and upload files and images pretty seamlessly. If you are adventurous, and have advanced tech skills, you can also look into your own hosting using WordPress as well as the many plugins available. Additionally, there are several others including: Wix, SquareSpace, and Weebly that also offer paid and free versions, as well as website "builders" that step you through the process. With WordPress, after choosing a site name, you can sign up for a .com or .org address and pay around $20/year to have your own url that doesn't include .wordpress.com –which looks much more professional.
First, you'll go back to the main menu on the left, and scroll all the way to the bottom to "WP Admin". Clicking there will allow you to see some more customization options. Look down the menu to the left, and hover over "Appearance" and then choose "Menus". From here you should see options as to how to add items to your menu–including custom link. Click there to add your custom URL and add it to your menu. Voila!
Teachers are lucky to get your helpful posts all year. Feet up now!
Merry Christmas to you and yours! Yesterday I was actually enjoying time with my family as well, since this post was scheduled ahead of time. 🙂 Oh the wonders of technology!


Glasheen, Valles & Inderman, is proud to announce that Jon Clark, the managing attorney of our Austin office, has been elected to serve as the 2019 Chair of the Advocates Committee Board of Directors for the Texas Trial Lawyers Association (TTLA). TTLA is an organization founded in 1949 to protect Texas families through empowering trial lawyers to hold those responsible for injuring Texans accountable, thus making Texas safer. The Advocates Committee is composed of TTLA members who have been in the organization 10 years or less and is the largest standing committee within the organization. The Advocates Board helps to facilitate opportunities for younger members to participate in and shape the Association's objectives and serves as a means to identify potential future leaders of TTLA.
Jon works with TTLA to ensure our clients retain their opportunity to seek justice through exercise of the right to trial by jury. He has been a member of TTLA since law school, currently serves on the organization's Board of Directors and on the membership committee, and is looking forward to serving the organization as chair-elect of the Advocates Board in 2018 and chair in 2019. As a result of Jon's service to our clients and the profession, Jon has been recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer Rising Star and named to the Top 40 Under 40 for Civil Plaintiff's Law by the National Trial Lawyers, as well as numerous other recognitions. You can read more about him here. Jon focuses his practice on catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death cases. He is licensed to practice law in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Colorado.


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Kentucky judge rules Louisville can remove 70-foot-high Confederate monument
A Confederate battle flag flies in front of a home in Liberty, Pickens County, South Carolina February 9, 2016. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
The city of Louisville can remove a 121-year-old monument to Confederate soldiers that critics have objected to as an emblem of slavery, a state judge ruled on Wednesday.
In a ruling from the bench, Jefferson Circuit Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman dissolved her temporary order from three weeks ago that had blocked the city and a local university from taking down the monument.
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said he would work on relocating the 70-foot-high monument after getting the judge's written order, according to a statement from his office.
A diversity committee at the University of Louisville had pushed for the monument to come down, joining a national push to remove public symbols of the Confederacy seen by critics as fostering racism.
Some local residents and descendants of Confederate soldiers sued to keep the monument at its location near the University of Louisville, calling it a symbol of the South's history and culture.
Ed Springston, one of the individuals who sued the city, said he would appeal the ruling.
"At the end of the day, yes, we'll go forward with appeals or whatever we need to do to make sure that this monument is protected," Springston said in a telephone interview.
Fischer and University of Louisville President James Ramsey said in April they would move the monument commemorating Kentuckians who died serving the Confederacy, the slaveholding states that seceded from the United States, leading to the 1861-1865 American Civil War.
Kentucky, the birthplace of both U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who led the Union, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, did not secede from the Union, but Kentuckians fought on both sides.
(Reporting by Steve Bittenbender in Louisville, Ky. and Fiona Ortiz in Chicago; Editing by David Gregorio and Peter Cooney)


The Shimmy Shimmy Bangs are master jewel thieves who are planning the heist of the century. And Shimmyleader, Stella, isn't about to let anyone—even if he is a hunky, tatted-up studmuffin—get in her way. But when two of her girls are put out of commission, Stella realizes that Nick isn't just a red-hot distraction. He might be the answer to her pilfering prayers.


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Mingo, Vining win SDGA Amateur titles
By: Staff reports - Updated: 2 years ago
Posted Aug 15, 2017
BRANDON – Former South Dakota State standout Megan Mingo and South Dakota junior Tom Vining won SDGA Amateur Championship titles over the weekend at Brandon Golf Course.
Mingo, a Yankton native, built a big lead through two rounds and won by five strokes for her eighth career SDGA title – including third straight Amateur title.
Mingo, who won the Summit League Women's Golf Championship crown for the Jackrabbits as a senior in May, made four birdies during an opening-round 1-under-par 70 on Friday.
She closed with back-to-back 74s for a 5-over 218 total.
Kali Trautman, an Augustana golfer from Deuel High School, birdied four of her final nine holes for a final-round 69 Sunday. She was runner-up with a 223 tally.
Trautman was also second at the Two-Woman Championship last week at Brookings Country Club.
Pierre native Katie Bartlett finished third at 224 (71-74-79). USD golfers Karli Kerrigan (72-79-74) and Jennifer Vincent (81-75-73) were fourth and tied for fifth with scores of 225 and 229, respectively. Sioux Falls' Karla Cotton (82-71-76) also tied for fifth at 229.
Parkston natives Sydney Weber (77-75-80) and Sydney Bormann (77-75-81), a sophomore at SDSU, were seventh and eighth with scores of 232 and 233, respectively. They recently won the Two-Woman Championship.
In addition to her three Amateur titles, Mingo teamed with Pierre native and Jackrabbit teammate Hallie Getz to win the Two-Woman in 2016, 2015 and 2014. They did not compete in the event this season.
Mingo won the Junior as a youngster in 2010 and added a victory in 2013.
Vining sandwiched a pair of 66s around a 72 to win the title by two strokes with a 9-under 204 total.
Vining made five birdies in a six-hole stretch to close the front nine on Sunday. He added two more red numbers on the back en route to the 5-under-par round.
His opening round Friday included eight birdies, with four of them coming consecutively on holes 14 through 17. Vining made four birdies in Round 2 on Saturday.
Defending champion Arron Lickteig, of Marion, was runner-up at 206 (69-68-69).
Aberdeen's Andrew Welk (68-68-71—207), SDSU golfer Naqiuddin Fuad (71-69-68—208) and Sioux Falls high schooler Will Grevlos (66-77-66—209) rounded out the top five.
Six Brookings Country Club members were in the field.
Jake Steen, the 2015 city champ, led the way with a 39th-place finish at 222 (73-71-78—222).
Reigning club champion Brodie Hullinger tied for 44th with a 224 (76-72-76) total.
Jared Baszler finished in a tie for 49th at 226 (72-76-78).
Brian Berkenhoff (77-75-77) and two-time defending city champ Scott Holm (75-81-72) tied for 56th at 228. Holm placed second in the Third Flight. Tyler VanHecke, a member of the victorious BCC Member-Guest team, tied for 70th at 233 (79-74-80).
Notes: Vining played the 479-yard, par-5 16th hole in 3-under for the week. He was 2-under each on Nos. 5, 6, 9, 11, 15 and 16. … Vining has three career SDGA titles. He became the fifth individual to win the Match Play and Amateur in the same season in 2015. He joined Sioux Falls' Ryan Jansa (1993 and 1995), Huron's Dave Hanten (1974), Onida's Curt Byrum (1979) and Sioux Falls' Paul Schock (2002) on the exclusive list.
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This type of checkered pattern offers a lot of dynamic within a monochrome space. The diagonal shapes give the illusion of spaciousness and even the smallest bathrooms seem like they extend further than they actually do. If you are in love with monochrome bathrooms but worry about them becoming too monotone, a diagonal checkered pattern will not let you down!
Live-edge vanity tops can be combined with floating vanity units made in a different material or can also be used as standalone pieces that offer exactly what you need in smaller bathrooms and powder rooms. They range from the spectacular to the simple, and yet every one of these vanities ushers in a cool, organic vibe that gives the bathroom a major facelift. Whether you are looking to give your existing bathroom a quick makeover or still searching for that ideal vanity to complete your new powder room, here is an option that you just cannot overlook.
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