The decision by Secretary Driscoll to travel to Fort Stewart will not go unnoticed by the soldiers. His decision to honor both the guys who took down the shooter and the soldiers rendering aid is a great touch. Personally, I think Thomas and Turner deserved a higher award, the Soldier's Medal, but that is neither here nor there. Most noncommissioned officers will only get a Meritorious Service Medal at retirement.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is trying to revitalize the civilian chain of command in the military, and having the Secretary of the Army present these awards, rather than delegating it to the division commander, sends a clear message about who is in charge and watching day-to-day Army operations. During my service, I couldn't have picked the Secretary of the Army out of a two-man lineup. There is definitely different civilian leadership in today's Pentagon. //

Jerry's Middle Finger Min Headroom
9 hours ago
And it happened within 48 hours of the event, not months or even longer as the administrative process churns along at a glacial pace.

The rank and file notices that too, and it tells them that their leaders care about them.

streiff Jerry's Middle Finger
8 hours ago
Happened less than 24 hours after the event.

If it seems like there's a satellite launch almost every day, the numbers will back you up.

The US Space Force's Mission Delta 2 is a unit that reports to Space Operations Command, with the job of sorting out the nearly 50,000 trackable objects humans have launched into orbit.

Dozens of satellites are being launched each week, primarily by SpaceX to continue deploying the Starlink broadband network. The US military has advance notice of these launches—most of them originate from Space Force property—and knows exactly where they're going and what they're doing.

That's usually not the case when China or Russia (and occasionally Iran or North Korea) launches something into orbit. With rare exceptions, like human spaceflight missions, Chinese and Russian officials don't publish any specifics about what their rockets are carrying or what altitude they're going to.

That creates a problem for military operators tasked with monitoring traffic in orbit and breeds anxiety among US forces responsible for making sure potential adversaries don't gain an edge in space. Will this launch deploy something that can destroy or disable a US satellite? Will this new satellite have a new capability to surveil allied forces on the ground or at sea?

The Heritage Foundation's Defense Budget Tool provides a user-friendly method to aid in both the analysis and transparency of the U.S. defense budget and facilitate more informed debate about how the Department of Defense ought to be directing spending.

Until now, individual line items of the defense budgets have only been published on the website of Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) each year. This data is published in disparate PDFs and spreadsheets, with no mechanism for viewing all the data at once.
This tool:

• Provides an itemized accounting of the U.S. defense budget for analysis by national security experts.
• Allows a user to create customizable defense budgets that can be saved and shared for future reference.
• Makes defense budget data more accessible to Americans interested in the composition of the U.S. national security budget.

Every member of the military has sworn an oath to the nation since the Continental Army’s creation in 1775. Wording to specify allegiance to the U.S. Constitution was added in 1789, and has remained in all versions of military oaths of enlistment and commissioning since. This tradition sets our military apart from many others around the world, where loyalty is often tied to a ruler or regime. The American oath binds service members to a set of ideals and structures greater than any one administration.

Unfortunately, this noble intent is being misinterpreted. Ill-informed pundits, academics, military officers, lawmakers, and even ordinary American citizens frequently describe the military as “apolitical.” But that isn’t quite right. The military exists to enforce the political will of the United States—by force if necessary. It’s not above politics; it’s an instrument of it. A correct reading of the military oath clarifies this: troops swear to uphold the enduring framework of the nation, not the transient preferences of elected officials.

So, what does loyalty to the Constitution actually mean? How is a service member to judge whether their actions align with that oath? Most don’t know. Those who do have learned through personal initiative—not institutional instruction. //

This problem can be solved. I propose three key reforms:

1. Mandatory Annual Constitutional Training

The White House recently mandated an 80-hour Constitution and rule-of-law course for executive branch employees, capped by a two-day in-person session. The military can follow suit by requiring holistic annual constitution training for every military member. Numerous free, reputable programs already exist to support this effort:

National Constitution Center’s Constitution 101 Course
American Bar Association’s Civics Education Series for Military Members
Hillsdale College’s Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution. //

2. Required Pocket Constitutions

Every service member should be issued a laminated pocket Constitution, worn as part of the uniform. If troops are still required to wear dog tags in this day of DNA identification, there’s no reason that carrying the document to which they swear is a bridge too far.

3. Memorization of Founding Principles

In the Army, we are required to know the Soldier’s Creed and Army Song by heart, ready to recite from memory on command. Promotion boards evaluate enlisted soldiers on their ability to recite these and other military codes. Why not include selections from the Constitution—or Declaration of Independence? //

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provides the fastest route for implementation. With Republican majorities in Congress, there is an opportunity to require annual, rigorous, non-partisan instruction in the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law for all military personnel. This training must reject “living document” ideology in favor of fidelity to textualism.

Military officers have become accustomed to obeying and implementing unlawful directives because they know that the oath is presently meaningless and that all power—in practice—is held by individuals in the chain of command, rather than the nation’s founding documents, U.S. law, and military regulations. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth must purge ideologues who corrupted the institution—but that alone won’t fix the culture.

The development of the small nuclear device began in June 1960 with the M54 SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition). The M54 was put into production in August 1964. The weapon was 12 inches in diameter, 18 inches long, and weighed approximately 59 pounds. The transport configuration added many more pounds to the weight of the device, and demanded specialized skills to operate.

SADM had a variable yield estimated to range from the equivalent of 10 to 1,000 tons of TNT! //

This device, though, was aimed not at making enemy soldiers glow in the dark, but for blowing up bridges and other infrastructure, while also making it glow in the dark. For most bridges, even the Golden Gate or the Brooklyn Bridge, though, a 1-kiloton nuke seems like a bit of overkill.

But then, no war was ever lost by making the enemy too dead. The weapons programs of the Cold War sure seem to support that assertion, too. //

RedRaider85
4 hours ago
Nuke ‘em til you they glow, then shoot ‘em in the dark!

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.