Around 03:13 UTC on 21 June (22:13 local time) a flight of US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft departed Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma. Operating in two flights of four aircraft, the Stratotankers headed northeast toward Missouri. Those aircraft quickly climbed to the top of Flightradar24’s most tracked flights list—not because thousands of people find aerial refueling aircraft over the central US fascinating, but for the inference of their purpose.

Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Phelan cited the case of the USS Gerald R. Ford, America's largest and most expensive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which carried a price tag of $13 billion. The ship was struggling to feed its crew of over 4,500 because six of its eight ovens were out of action, and sailors were barred by contract from fixing them themselves.

"I am a huge supporter of right to repair," Phelan told the politicians. "I went on the carrier; they had eight ovens — this is a ship that serves 15,300 meals a day. Only two were working. Six were out."

He pointed out the Navy personnel are capable of fixing their own gear but are blocked by contracts that reserve repairs for vendors, often due to IP restrictions. //

In a rare display of bipartisanship, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that the Army shouldn't be waiting on contractors to fix its kit and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo directing the service to add right-to-repair provisions to its contracts.

"On a go-forward basis, we have been directed to not sign any contracts that don't give us a right to repair," Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll told the House Armed Services Committee on June 4. "On a go-back basis, we have been directed to go and do what we can to go get that right to repair."

In the post on Monday on X, Scott shared a graveside picture of the family of fallen Marine Sgt. Christopher James Jacobs was taken at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia on May 25, 2015.

The photo showed Jacobs' widow, Brittany Jacobs, sitting by her late husband's grave while wiping tears from her cheeks. Standing next to his father's headstone was their son, Christian Jacobs, who wore Marine dress blues as he placed his little hand and cheek on the final resting place of his father.

"If the heaviness of the sacrifice was ever captured in a photo, it's this one," Jennings captured his post. Remembering the fallen on this #MemorialDay."

https://www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Photos/igphoto/2001141435/

Speaking to "Fox News Sunday" host Shannon Bream, the 70-year-old actor revealed ahead of the event that one of the pieces of music at the Memorial Day concert on PBS is called “Rise” and it’s one of the pieces of music his late son, a composer, composed before he died in 2024 following a five year battle with a rare bone cancer. He was 33.

“It’s an incredible thing,” Sinise said when asked about getting to hear his late son’s music being played by the National Symphony Orchestra. “I had sent them a piece of music that Mac had written. It’s a piece called the ‘Rise.’” //

He later posted his speech from the evening with actor Esai Morales, which will have you standing up and shouting “USA, USA.”

“America began as an idea, a dream; the blood of those who placed duty before itself made that dream a reality,” Sinise said. “Our Armed Forces answered the call to service even before the United States became a nation.”

“This year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of our armed forces,” he added. “On April 19th, 1775, the shot heard round the world was fired on Lexington Green when militiamen from Massachusetts faced off against British forces. Two months later, the Congress authorized the establishment of a united fighting force drawn from across the colonies. George Washington was nominated to be its leader over eight arduous years of struggle with Great Britain. What emerged as the United States Army became the symbol around which 13 fractious colonies rallied and ultimately won their freedom.”

“The principles established at its founding remain unwavering. Always place the mission first, never accept defeat, and never quit … Our Armed Forces gave birth to our nation,” he continued later. “Today, they sustain that nation’s freedoms on land, sea, air, and in space. This Memorial Day, we salute their selfless devotion to an America made possible by their sacrifice."

“Our Army, Navy, and Marines have always been proud to serve, and we, as a grateful nation, owe them our thanks,” Morales concluded. “More than that, we owe them our country.”

Expect to see a lot more of his conversion of anecdotes into data in opposition ot Hegseth's enforcement of President Trump's directives. I think that we'll also see a lot of folks who developed gender dysphoria under Obama as a tool to advance their careers and make themselves bulletproof to charges of incompetence suddenly "cure" themselves as they look at the trans gravy train coming to an end. //

anon-kcqz
36 minutes ago
While I applaud SecDef Hegseth doing this for cultural reasons, let's not lose sight of the fact that divesting ourselves of these lunatics is part of a broader overall strategy to evaluate every member of the service for whether or not they could contribute meaningfully in a war. Hegseth is giving us back our teeth, and the whole world will become more peaceful as a result. //

stm-33
18 minutes ago
The Pentagon has spent 51 million of your tax dollars in the past four years to treat over 4200 transgender troops. Biden and former Secretary of Defense Austin turned our once proud military into a "woke" joke and disastrous social experiment. Since when is it a good idea to have mentally ill troops in the military; especially ones that need continual harmful hormonal injections that can possibly cause psychotic episodes. They had troops flying rainbow flags and were painting "rainbow bullets" on Marine helmets in recruiting ads. The Chinese and the Russians were rolling on the ground laughing and the armed services couldn't meet 75% of their recruiting goals.

Thank God, that Trump has stopped this nonsense as is constitutionally his right as Commander in Chief. Amazingly, the fact that recruiting has reached a 20 year high in just a few short months after Trump was elected should tell you everything you need to know how harmful and ridiculous this whole idea was.

A Chinese company has developed an AI-piloted submersible that can reach speeds “similar to a destroyer or a US Navy torpedo,” dive “up to 60 metres underwater,” and “remain static for more than a month, like the stealth capabilities of a nuclear submarine.” In case you’re worried about the military applications of this, you can relax because the company says that the submersible is “designated for civilian use” and can “launch research rockets.”

“Research rockets.” Sure.

You can't serve two masters, and while I'd like to say the transgender activists in the military are trying to serve two... they ultimately aren't. Their central focus is themselves, and you could say it's also their cause if you want to be generous, but really, this is just a me-centric kind of activism.

The military suffered from their inclusion. They were a clear sign that the U.S. armed forces weren't taking themselves seriously and were giving themselves over to vanity and mental illness. With Pete Hegseth now in the driver's seat, recruitment has skyrocketed. That's not an accident. The military has returned to a mentality of service, and strength is now back as a priority.

Weakness in a business that deals in death can get you killed, and selfishness is weakness at its core.

There is no shortage of generals in our military:

There are about 800 general officers in the military, but only 44 of those are four-star general or flag officers. Hegseth has already directed the firings of more than a half-dozen three- and four-star generals since taking office, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr., saying those eliminations were “a reflection of the president wanting the right people around him to execute the national security approach we want to take.” //

SLOTown Hoosier
17 minutes ago
We have more 4-Stars today in the Army than the Army and Air Force combined in WW II.

Why didn't the instructor pilot directly order Lobach to turn left? And why didn't he take over? Here's one reason the flight instructor, Warrant Officer Eaves, might have worded it the way he did, and why he might have hesitated to take over:

Captain Lobach was the highest-ranking soldier on the helicopter, but Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, who was acting as her instructor, had flown more than twice as many hours over time.

Yep. Even though Eaves had flown twice as many hours over time and was qualified to be her instructor, she outranked him - and the third crew member had more flight hours than both Eaves and Lobach. One retired Black Hawk pilot who spoke to members of Lobach's unit claims she "was on her fifth check ride after failing four previous ones" and that "the unit has been threatened not to talk to the press about her...the unit still has very woke and DEI loving leaders there." (Note: We have not yet independently verified the claim that she was on her fifth check ride.)

Veteran Sam Shoemate asked the same question on X, and had the same takeaway (emphasis mine).

"Why didn't the co-pilot take over?"

That's the question so many are asking. I don't know, and you don't know. What I do know is there is a climate in our military that is fearful of questioning decisions, or seemingly untouchable individuals, for fear of halting one's career in its tracks.

Not too long ago there was a Lieutenant running the show within her unit, because she'd befriended the commanding general of her installation on social media, and everyone in her chain of command knew she was untouchable. I spoke to her company commander, and he told me she was given a free pass to do as she pleased because of it. The chain of command was compromised because of her friendly proximity to the most senior person on her installation, and no one was willing to question that because of the overall command climate that had been created.

A new task force within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) convened Tuesday to rectify the “anti-Christian bias” perpetrated by the federal government under President Joe Biden. Attorney General Pam Bondi created the task force with President Donald Trump’s Feb. 6 executive order, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.”

“My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians,” Trump’s order stated. “The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my Administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms. My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.”

Regarding the possibilities and problems with defense advisory committees, I'd recommend these posts (here | here). Here's how I'd summarize them: For these boards to be useful, they need outside-the-box thinkers seeking high-impact solutions to critical problems. It needs Billy Mitchells and John Boyds. The problem is that no one in DOD wants to deal with controversial ox-goring solutions; they want more of the same, only a little better than before. By salting the committees with political adversaries of the party in power, you ensure nothing gets done.

These committees also serve as a source of leaks that damage the current administration and sabotage potential changes. Democrat members of the Defense Policy Board may have been active in trying to sandbag Hegseth.

The exception to that is the Defense Advisory Committee on Women In The Service (DACOWITS), which has single-handedly done more to destroy the US military than anything the USSR accomplished. This is a politically charged committee filled with feminist activists and deep links to powerful members of Congress. No matter how harebrained, its recommendations frequently become DOD policy because the SecDef usually finds it less painful to go along. To his credit, George W. Bush disbanded this committee only to relent and reestablish it toward the end of his presidency. //

Buddy
an hour ago
Why would you have a committee on women, when the Dems/leftist don't even know what a woman is? //

Captain Sweatpants
2 hours ago
“Well, if you’re a white male Christian cisgender macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as secretary of Defense. That’s apparently what we’ve learned from this episode,” Rice said

Susan Rice is a little bitter.

Hegseth is potentially a transformational SecDef. Recruiting is on the upswing because the nation can sense the change of purpose in DOD. Pride of the military, not the gay variety, is returning to the Armed Forces. Hegseth is not beholden to any corporate interest and is making changes for the benefit of the nation. That makes him a very dangerous man to the failing status quo.

Last week I gave our loyal readers a heads up that STARRS (STAND TOGETHER Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services) was going to hold a Town Hall concerning service members who think that it is appropriate to denigrate President Trump and Secretary of Defense Hegseth, engage in “malicious compliance,” and downright defiance of lawful orders issued by the Trump Administration, especially as regards the removal of DEI: U.S. Military Opposition to the Trump Administration A Matter of Concern:

There is an enormous problem in our nation’s military, one that I have not seen discussed in depth elsewhere. I have heard from multiple sources that many active duty officers openly and deeply despise the Trump Administration, and they are not at all shy about expressing their opinion both in and out of uniform. One active duty major I know estimates that it’s 1 in 4 who have this problem…

This is an astonishingly bad problem. Putting aside for the moment that this is a clear violation of Article 88 of the UCMJ, this is how military coups take place. I guess I should not be surprised given Mark Milley’s traitorous actions towards his Commander-in-Chief, but the fact that this has permeated to lower levels of the officer corps surprises me and causes me great worry. //

Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius
.
I got out of the Army in 2007.

What I am seeing now with senior officers being publicly insubordinate to the National Command Authority is so far outside of the bounds of decency, professional responsibility and my experience that I have a very difficult time understanding how it is even possible. What has happened in our military that this is even a thing? It is inconceivable that any of this could have happened on such a scale when I was serving on active duty. What went wrong?
9:47 PM · Apr 10, 2025. //

TargaGTS | April 11, 2025 at 11:20 am
Being cashiered cannot be the end of this process for this general and her fellow travelers. Instead, it must only be the beginning. If a non-rate enlisted man made these comments about the base commander, there would be an immediate Article 32 investigation which would produce charges under Articles 88, 92 & 134. They would – properly – throw the proverbial book at him even without those contemptuous comments posing any credible threat to civilian control of the military.

When flag officers make these comments, it is a clear & present danger to a First Principle of our nation, civilian control of the military. There should be courts-martial. There must be courts-martial because if you allow command to utter these kinds of contemptuous comments about POTUS, how do you enforce any kind of discipline throughout the chain of command? //

Alex deWynter in reply to henrybowman. | April 11, 2025 at 2:58 pm
What she can say — PRIVATELY to whomever is directly above her in the chain of command — is “Sir, I believe Vice President Vance’s remarks yesterday will cause everyone’s mission to fall down around their ears. This is what I propose to prevent that happening. Do I have your permission?”

Imagine the scenario. Britain has been wiped out by a surprise nuclear attack.

The prime minister has been killed. Should Britain's nuclear submarine fleet launch its own missiles in retaliation?

It's a decision that will hopefully never have to be made. //

The UK has four submarines capable of carrying Trident nuclear missiles.

Since 1969, one of those subs has always been on patrol, gliding silently through the world's oceans. //

Every prime minister has to write four letters - one for each submarine. They are addressed to the Royal Navy commander on board. They are usually handwritten.

The letters are locked in a safe aboard the submarine and destroyed, unopened, every time a new prime minister comes into office.

It's not known exactly what they say.

"There are only so many options available," says Prof Seligmann

"Do nothing, launch a retaliatory strike, offer yourself to an ally like the USA or use your own judgement.

"Essentially, are you going to use the missiles or not?" //

"The submarine has to make a judgement that the UK has been hit by a nuclear strike," according to Prof Seligman.

"The commander does that by trying to make contact with the UK via Naval Command or listening out for radio signals."

It's thought one of the key tests is whether the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 is still broadcasting.

If all the checks fail, the commander will go to the safe, remove the letter and find out what the orders are.

Defense was neglected.

After the October 7 attack on Israel, defensive equipment was rushed to US installations in Iraq and Jordan. Tower 22 was "assumed" to be at a lower risk than other bases and got nothing.

No drone defenses available.

CENTCOM had requested anti-drone defense systems based on its risk analysis, but the entire US Army only had one, count them, one, system available, and it was reserved for redeployment training. Why you'd bother to use training time to gain familiarity with a system you will never see again is an unanswered question. Needless to say, nothing is too good for the troops, and that is exactly what they get. The base had one electronic warfare system designed to counter drones, but it was not used. //

Tower 22's radar was not optimized for the most likely threat. Frequently, operators could not distinguish birds from drones. A better radar system had been requested and denied. //

A fish rots from the head down. From what we know of the report, everyone seemed to think that the danger facing the troops at Tower 22 was manageable. Tower 22 did not have defensive anti-aircraft systems, though a suitable anti-aircraft system was available. The laissez-faire attitude toward security obviously perked down to the command and operations staff at Tower 22. They seem to have assumed away the possibility of an attack because none had taken place previously.

Given the leadership in the White House and the Pentagon, none of this should be a shock. It was virtually preordained that the same brainiacs who gave us Abbey Gate would go for an encore.

The MCM states any service member may be prosecuted under Article 88 (Contempt Toward Officials) if they use “contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present.”. //

Service members convicted of an Article 88 violation face a maximum punishment of dismissal, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and one year of forced confinement.

From inauguration day onward, the military services have engaged in a campaign of "malicious compliance," that is, aggressively applying administration directives in a way that makes the directives and the people issuing them look ridiculous. I've listed a few of those instances below: //

I can't imagine Colonel Meyers being in command much longer. She was under no moral, legal, or ethical obligation to defend Vance's remarks, but she was under an obligation not to comment negatively on them. Not only did she do so to all base personnel, an action that more likely than not violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. When he included Danish military personnel on the email distribution list, she definitely crossed a line that should cost her her commission.

Sean Parnell @SeanParnellATSD
·
Secretary Hegseth has removed U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield from her position as U.S. representative to NATO’s military committee due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead. The Defense Department is grateful for her many years of military service.
10:24 AM · Apr 8, 2025

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett @RepJasmine
·
They fired Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield—not because she couldn’t do the job, but because she wouldn’t hang up pictures of Trump and Hegseth. This ain’t about merit—it’s about ego.

Sean Parnell @SeanParnellUSA
·
Congresswoman, I realize this may be a foreign concept to you but here at the DoD if you disrespect the chain of command & don’t do your job, you will be replaced.

Period.

Well, here's a notion:

That, in case anyone isn't familiar with these wonderful machines, is the Iowa-class battleship USS New Jersey, firing a broadside of nine 16-inch guns. These babies are the Mark 7 16-inch, 50-calibers (calibers in naval guns mean the length of the barrel in multiples of bore diameter, meaning the Mark 7 guns have barrels that are 800 inches, or 66 feet 8 inches long) in three turrets of three guns each. These guns can fire a 2,700-pound projectile for 20 miles - farther for lighter subcaliber rounds. Each gun has a rate of fire of two rounds per minute.

Now, think about that for a moment. Nine 2,700-pound projectiles, twice a minute - that's 48,600 pounds, or 24.3 tons - American tons, not commie metric tons - of Attitude Adjustment per minute. That's like getting hit with the entire contents of a used car dealership, every minute, if every car was filled with high explosives.

Missiles are expensive, but shells are cheap, and they fulfill the military maxim that "there is no problem that cannot be solved with a suitable application of high explosives."

Here's the catch: These ships are all museums now. The Iowa-class ships all saw service in World War 2, and it's significant to note that the Iowa-class ships all survived the war unscathed, whereas the enemy battlewagons (Bismarck, Yamato, and so on) are all rusting on the bottom of the ocean.

So, the question is this: How much would it cost, and how much work would it be to bring these monsters back online? How hard would it be to start making that 16-inch ammo again? How many missiles could we buy for that price?

I don't have answers for that. But I know that the USS Missouri, the last of the Iowa class to be in service, provided fire support in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. I've called in 155mm and 8-inch ground artillery fire (only in exercises) and can only imagine how interesting it would be to walk 16-inch naval gunfire in on a target. But it's an interesting notion, and maybe something to consider: A 16-inch gun tossing the equivalent of a mid-size sedan full of HE at the enemy could be a great persuader - especially when that monster can sit off shore and send tons of bad day downrange all day, and the Houthis couldn't do much more in reply than scratch the paint on that ship's nearly 18-inch armor belt.

Some argue that drones reduce costs by the very virtue of being “unmanned.” But the pilot isn’t the main reason an F-35 is expensive.

Manned fifth-generation fighter jets are expensive because they need powerful engines to travel long distances, complicated electronics systems for detection and targeting, state-of-the-art composite materials and design to ensure stealth, and large frames to carry sufficient ordnance to complete the mission. A drone capable of doing what an F-35 can do would cost just as much, as it would have to do all the same things—and it would still need to be operated or commanded remotely by a human pilot.

Nor do drone swarms—in which large numbers of small disposable drones with single, relatively small payloads attack a base or a ship—clearly eliminate the need for warships or jets. These swarms are both a cause for concern and an offensive capability to be studied. However, it’s far from clear that they would be more effective than precision-guided munitions in, say, sinking ships during an attempted amphibious invasion, especially given limited payload and range.

Moreover, every major military is working to develop countermeasures against individual drones and swarms. These militaries are observing drones in action in Ukraine and using those observations to develop systems to defend ships and bases.

Drones cannot yet automate the many functions performed by manned warships—from frigates to destroyers to aircraft carriers—which play a vital role by conducting strikes with large numbers of missiles or aircraft, projecting concentrated firepower, and displaying the flag in foreign ports (which reassures partners and allies).

The Chinese certainly believe such vessels are still needed. Indeed, they’re currently engaged in a massive military buildup of aircraft carriers and fifth-generation fighter aircraft. //

While drones and autonomous systems have shown that they have an important and (almost certainly) increasing role to play in modern warfare, that role remains one of complementing existing systems, rather than replacing them.