"WTF Is Going On In Downtown LA?": Army War Drills Continue Across Los Angeles

zerohedge
Tyler Durden Feb 8, 2019

by Tyler Durden

Fri, 02/08/2019 - 22:05

Having started on Monday, the US Army continues its war drills across the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area through Saturday with the goal of enhancing Army Special Forces skills by "operating in urban environments", Army Special Operations Command said in a statement.

Residents around Los Angeles may hear sounds associated with the field training exercise, including helicopters and weapon simulations, according to the statement.

"The local terrain and training facilities in Los Angeles provide the Army with unique locations and simulates urban environments the service members may encounter when deployed overseas," the Army told CBS.

Downtown Los Angeles residents were shocked Monday night when a fleet of Boeing A/MH-6M Little Bird and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters swooped in around them.

👀WTF is going on in downtown Los Angeles??? 👀 Multiple military helicopters landing on the street!!!#QAnon pic.twitter.com/jlUmBkfPRb

— Uche (@ThatsUche) February 7, 2019

A commercial parking lot across the street from the Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE 14, at 1000 W Olympic Blvd, was the epicenter of some intense war simulations Tuesday night.

MILITARY EXERCISE: The U.S. Army is conducting military training in the greater Los Angeles and Long Beach areas tonight until Feb. 9. Downtown LA residents are reporting seeing helicopters and hearing explosions. @MizSkellington pic.twitter.com/8Mmgn2FdTK

— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) February 5, 2019

Newchopper4 Bravo was overhead as Special Forces performed training exercises in the parking lot, then were extracted by helicopters before taking off over the 110 Freeway while police blocked nearby intersections.

Not every day that you see the @USArmy training in downtown LA and landing helicopters close to @STAPLESCenter and LA Live. https://t.co/mXi8qNpgKn pic.twitter.com/b7HvhwjO3V

— NBC Los Angeles (@NBCLA) February 6, 2019

There were other field training exercises that were on the perimeter of the city, away from populated areas and toward the San Pedro Bay port Tuesday night and into early Wednesday morning.
The Army leased space in an industrially zoned area around the Port of Los Angeles near Terminal Island for field training exercises Wednesday night, according to Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the L.A. port. Port operations at Long Beach, the second largest port in the US, were not affected, port spokesman Lee Peterson told the Los Angeles Times.

Sanfield said residents living on houseboats in marinas around Wilmington were notified they might hear helicopters, explosions, and simulated assault rifle fire.

“There is no replacement for realistic training. Each location selected enables special operations teams and flight crews to maintain maximum readiness and proficiency, validate equipment and exercise standard safety procedures. The training is essential to ensure service members are fully trained and prepared to defend our nation overseas.”

The Army Special Operations Command conducts multiple urban field training exercises around the country, said Lt. Col. Loren Bymer, a spokesman for the command group.

“It wouldn’t be unheard of to train in Boston or Miami,” he said.
“It takes a lot of planning and coordination to do this safely.”

This is not the first time residents of a major metropolitan area across the US have experienced a military exercise. For instance, in 2015, Texas residents prepared for Jade Helm 15, an army training exercise which took place in multiple states.

As to what exactly the Army was preparing for by simulating war drills on the streets of Los Angeles was beyond our comprehension. One thing that is obvious: the Army is preparing for more conflict, whether with a foreign adversary or, more troubling, social unrest on the streets of America?

Thank You Mr Durden and Zerohedge.

The Incredible Ceremony Honoring ALL Who Have Served, Even Those Veterans With No Family To Mourn For Them

Fox News
Kevin Ferris | Fox News
 


It’s the last Thursday of the month. By 1:30 p.m. on this blue sky April afternoon, the faithful are lining up behind the administration building of the Washington Crossing National Cemetery in Bucks County, Pa.

“Here for the ‘Unattended’?” one man asks another.

“Unattended” is shorthand for an act of grace on the part of the cemetery’s staff, its volunteers, and hundreds of other supporters. At 2 o’clock on the last Thursday of every month this group stands in as family for vets whose memorial services would otherwise go unattended, ensuring that all due honors are received. “It’s something that’s got to be done,” one man says.



Continue Reading

Thank You one and ALL.

What Does Memorial Day Look Like When The War Never Ends?

frontpagemag

May 28, 2018

Daniel Greenfield

 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism.

What does Memorial Day mean in an age of endless war?

The era of wars that began and concluded neatly, with declarations, speeches, rules, objectives, deciding battles and signed peace accords, ended before the oldest active duty soldier serving today was born.

The men and women who fight and die, leaving their families never knowing if they will return, and in what form, serve not in wars, but endless police actions, peacekeeping missions, terrorist pursuits and nation building exercises with names that sound like obscure action movies, New Dawn, Inherent Resolve, Freedom’s Sentinel, that will never have a final ending, only another generic name.

Obama ended the Iraq War twice. It’s still ongoing. And likely will for all of human history.

We didn’t begin the Iraq War. Arguably Mohammed and the Sassanids did. Over 1,300 years later, the Persians and the rulers of Mecca and Medina are still fighting over Bahrain. When we left, it went on without us. And the Sunnis and Shiites, Mecca, Medina and Tehran, will go on fighting no matter what.

Civilized nations fight wars. And the places where we fight are not civilized, though they may have flags, anthems and constitutions. They’re murderous tribal wastelands torn by perpetual hatreds and feuds.

The Islamic resurgence has placed us in a state of permanent war. We may debate over which fronts that war should be fought on, but only the left can deny that the conflict itself is inescapable. We may fight it in Iraq or in New York, in Syria or in Sweden, the front lines may shift, but the war won’t go away.

And yet, paradoxically, this form of fighting takes us back to the origins of our military.

The heritage of the US Army goes back to the provincial regiments that fought in colonial territorial disputes with the French and defended the colonies against Indian raids. The Marine Corps shone at Tripoli in the Barbary Wars. Like the battles that their spiritual successors are called upon to fight today, these were conflicts with tribal raiders, bandits and territorial conflicts with no clear conclusion.

If you think the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are endless, the Indian wars arguably went on for 300 years.

We define our history by the definitive wars against European nations with definitive victories. The great cataclysmic world wars convinced us that our conflicts would get bigger and more explosive.

Instead we have returned to civilizational warfare. We no longer fight nations, but tribes. The wars are low intensity, but never go away. The weapons are primitive, but the goal of the attackers is to destroy our morale by inflicting psychological trauma, terrorizing us with barbaric atrocities, to defeat us.

Our military is still adapting its techniques and technology to this old/new way of war. But as a society we must also adapt the way we honor our troops and respect their sacrifices. Memorial Day was born out of the reconciliations between North and South after the Civil War. But we cannot look either to wars won or reconciliations achieved. We must honor the soldiers of a war that may never end.

The volunteer army has isolated entire cultural swathes of the country not only from military service, but from its realities, its virtues and its sacrifices. Paradoxically this too takes us back in time to an era when the wealthy could pay others to take their place in a regiment. But military service was always part of American life. The sacrifices of service and the nature of duty were widely understood.

The polarizing anthem protests reveal once again a divide between the parts of the country that understand military service and those that don’t. It is impossible to sustain patriotic communities without service. Those communities that do not serve in the military will instead take service in various causes, from political activism to gangs, as a substitute for what military service offers young men.

The war we are in is no longer a temporary emergency. And the military has been badly damaged by both the strains of recruitment in the previous decade and the social experiments of this decade.

To truly honor the sacrifices of those who fell in battle, we must set service at the heart of our society.

We are once again fighting wars in which everyone is on the front line. Whether as a soldier flying over Syria or the commuter on a bus targeted by a terrorist, we are all under fire. As we debate the Second Amendment, the role of militias and an armed populace are becoming more relevant than ever. And we must adapt both the military and the civilian populations to a definition of war that is both new and old.

Every terrorist attack erodes the distinction between the front line and the home front. And yet our language and understanding have been slow to adapt. The soldiers wounded in the Fort Hood attack had to struggle for their recognition against a tide of bureaucracy and political correctness. Arming soldiers in recruitment centers, like those shot and killed in the Chattanooga attacks, was another uphill battle. The National Guard has been sent to the border, but their hands have been mostly tied.

When we segregate the home front from the front line, we not only fail to grasp the nature and scope of the war we are fighting, but we also segregate the men and women who serve from everyone else.

The central principle of the militia was that everyone was at risk and so everyone was obligated to serve.

Not everyone ought to serve in the military, but everyone ought to understand the responsibility of that service and have a role in defending their community in even the smallest possible way. Every passenger who boards a plane is informed of his or her responsibility in the event of trouble. But when he lands, he walks off the plane with little idea of what he can do in the event that his country is under attack.

After 9/11, Americans were told to go shopping. They’re still shopping, and being targeted in malls.

In an age of endless war, the best way to honor those who take on the responsibility of that great service is to share their burden. There are important charities that help veterans. And it is always a good thing to thank those who serve for their service. But as a society, we must do more than thank, we must rebuild a society in which protecting the country is not only the duty of the fourth son of a poor family, but the duty of every single American. And in which it is what qualifies you to be an American.

That society will not be born overnight. But it is a society whose existence is intimately tied to our national survival. And it is a society worth fighting for.

The colonies and colonists prevailed against impossible odds to build the greatest nation in the world through a shared sense of solidarity, duty and sacrifice. America cannot expect to prevail through a civilizational war that may last centuries by expecting only a few percent of its population to take on that solidarity, that duty and those sacrifices. If we go on that way, we will not survive. And the sacrifices of those who fell in defense of the nation throughout the centuries will have been made in vain.

This Memorial Day, let us not only remember the sacrifices of the dead, but their sense of duty.




Thank You, to those to whom we owe everything.

NAVY Seal Who Shot bin Laden; "Don't Wish Me A Happy Memorial Day"

Weaselzippers
Via FOX News:

Don’t wish me a happy Memorial Day. There is nothing happy about the loss of the brave men and women of our armed forces who died in combat defending America. Memorial Day is not a celebration.

Memorial Day is a time for reflection, pause, remembrance and thanksgiving for patriots who gave up their own lives to protect the lives and freedom of us all – including the freedom of generations long gone and generations yet unborn. We owe the fallen a debt so enormous that it can never be repaid.

Memorial Day is a time to honor the lives of those who would rather die than take a knee when our national anthem is played. But they will fight and die for the rights of those who kneel.

This holiday is a time to think of young lives cut short, of wives and husbands turned into widows and widowers, of children growing up without a father or mother, of parents burying their children.

Memorial Day is a time to think of might have beens that never were. Of brave Americans who put their country before themselves. Without these heroes, America would not be America.

Unfortunately, for many Americans this solemn holiday might as well be called Summer Day – marking the unofficial start of the season of barbecues, days at the beach, time spent on baseball fields and golf courses, hiking and enjoying the great the outdoors. All those things are great – we all appreciate them and they are some of the best things in life.

But Memorial Day is not Summer Day. Nor was the holiday created as a way to promote sales of cars, furniture or clothes.

Another Memorial Day brings with it a whole lot more than the start of summer. Since last Memorial Day, grass is now growing above the final resting places of many young men and women whose lives were taken too soon while defending our country in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other far-off places many Americans have rarely heard of.

When Army Sgt. La David Johnson, Staff Sgt. Bryan Black, Sgt. 1st Class Jeremiah Johnson and Staff Sgt. Dustin Wright were killed last October in an ISIS ambush in Niger, many Americans asked: We have troops in Niger? These unknown soldiers lost their lives protecting you – every one of you reading these words.

Think about this: Millions of high-school seniors are walking across auditorium stages this season, receiving their diplomas. Most will go on to college or jobs, but some will choose a career of military service, joining the second generation of American warriors fighting in the Global War on Terror – a war that began with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that took the lives of almost 3,000 people in our homeland.

Keep reading…



Thank you Robert O'Neill, Fox, and WZ.

Video: 3 New Airstrikes Against Taliban: DoD Footage

A Short Salute To Our US Military

ISIS and their Ilk grew completely out of control under Obama.

Since the last Presidential election that has changed.

NAVY Vet Told To Leave Hospital Over 'Cocaine' Actually Needed Emergency Surgery

dailycaller
Jonah BennettNational Security/Politics Reporter
12:28 PM 01/14/2018

U.S. Navy veteran Eric Walker was told to go home and take care of his cocaine addiction when he went to the emergency room at the Dorn Veterans Hospital in South Carolina over serious stomach pains.

It turns out 47-year-old Walker, who served in the Navy during the first Iraq War, had gall stones and gall bladder and pancreas disease. He’s now suing the Veterans Administration, The State reports.

When Walker first entered the emergency room in May 2015, medical staff at the Dorn VA apparently asked for a urine sample in response to complaints about stomach pain.

After an hour, staff told him he tested positive for cocaine and stated that “his stomach pains were a direct result of ingesting multiple illegal drugs, in particular, excessive cocaine,” notes a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Columbia.

Moreover, Walker says staff told him to head home and get rid of his cocaine addiction.

Walker’s condition got worse and after a few days, his neighbor had to drive him to Lexington Medical Center, where his attorney Todd Lyle said Walker was “promptly diagnosed and rushed to emergency surgery for gall stones and disease of the gall bladder and pancreas.”

Walker recovered from the surgery, and now he’s seeking damages from the VA to recover costs from his treatment at Lexington and for pain and suffering. His lawsuit claims his urine was switched with someone else’s at the hospital, and was the reason for the cocaine abuse misdiagnosis.



Thank You Mr Bennet and the DC

Horror Show: VA Hired Health Care Workers With Revoked Medical Licenses For Years

townhall
Matt Vespa
Posted: Dec 23, 2017 1:00 PM

Well, there was more bad news for Veterans Affairs yesterday. Apparently, the VA had hired workers with expired medical licenses for the past 15 years. USA Today reported there was a crossing of the legislative wires in which a 2002 law gave local entities the ability to hire workers as long as they had a valid license in one state. Yet, a 1999 federal law prohibits any health care worker from working at a VA facility if his or her medical license had been revoked in any state. Of course, members of Congress are concerned, with one member saying that the VA appears to be a “dumping ground” for these sorts of individuals in the health care industry. The publication added 31 House members and 14 U.S. Senators have sent letters to VA Secretary David Shulkin expressing their concern. Shulkin has ordered a compete re-writing of the hiring practices for the VA, along with a nationwide review to find if there are any other health care professionals with revoked licenses working in the VA system (via USA Today):


The Department of Veterans Affairs has allowed its hospitals across the country to hire health care providers with revoked medical licenses for at least 15 years in violation of federal law, a USA TODAY investigation found.

The VA issued national guidelines in 2002 giving local hospitals discretion to hire clinicians after “prior consideration of all relevant facts surrounding” any revocations and as long as they still had a license in one state.

But a federal law passed in 1999 bars the VA from employing any health care worker whose license has been yanked by any state.

Hospital officials at the VA in Iowa City relied on the illegal guidance earlier this year to hire neurosurgeon John Henry Schneider, who had revealed in his application that he had numerous malpractice claims and settlements and Wyoming had revoked his license after a patient death. He still had a license in Montana.

[…]

The USA TODAY investigation published earlier this month found that in addition to hiring Schneider, VA hospitals have knowingly hired other health care providers with past license discipline. In some cases, they have gone on to harm veterans.

[…]

USA TODAY reported that the malpractice claims against Schneider included cases alleging he made surgical mistakes that left patients maimed, paralyzed or dead, and that his veteran patients in Iowa already have suffered complications. One of those patients, 65-year-old Richard Joseph Hopkins, died from an infection in August after four brain surgeries by Schneider in a span of four weeks.

[…]

Schneider denied in an interview that he had provided substandard care and blamed poor patient outcomes on other providers or unfortunate complications that can occur in neurosurgery.

Hopkins’ daughter Amy McIntire told USA TODAY this week that she is furious Schneider was hired in the first place and floored by the national policy that allowed it.

“I’m appalled by the ineptitude at the VA,” said McIntire, a registered nurse who noted that an agency so large has numerous staff to write policies and ensure they comply with federal law. “For it just to be ignored, it’s crazy.”

Nearly 50 members of Congress have called on the VA for answers since USA TODAY’s story ran.

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) said, “The dumping ground for all these folks is the VA.” The issues plaguing this agency have been lingering for years. It led to the resignation of former VA Secretary Eric Shinseki under Obama. The waiting times issue was appalling, with the VA Inspector General claiming that hundreds of thousands of veterans may have died as a result of the appointment fiasco. In Los Angeles, nearly 100 veterans died waiting for health care between October 2014 and August 2015, though the report does not explicitly say that the wait times were the reason these patients died. There’s also another report that links veteran suicides to neglect. Some reforms have been enacted, but we still have a ways to go.


Thank You Mr vespa and Townhall.

Marine Veteran Denied VA Care After Waiting Over A Year For Treatment

freebeacon
Natalie Johnson
December 22, 2017 10:00 am

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Rick Disney had served in the military about a year when he fell from a repel tower and broke his heel in Norfolk, Va., during a 1999 training exercise.

In the years that followed, Disney was deployed overseas to carryout anti-terrorism operations, where he endured the wear-and-tear of an active duty service member, suffering neck, back, and leg pain that has persisted for more than a decade after he transitioned to the inactive reserves in 2002.

He first visited the Veterans Affairs hospital in Tampa, Fla., to receive care in 2013. He recalls a chaotic process, running around the facility's campus for six hours in an attempt to file a claim for treatment.

Disney then waited nine months to receive his first appointment. He spent another six months undergoing medical tests, but never received treatment. A year later, Disney received a letter rejecting his claim for benefits, asserting his injuries weren't sustained on active duty.

"When I got the denial claim in the mail I was disappointed, but I didn't expect much," Disney told the Washington Free Beacon. "The staff's treatment throughout the whole ordeal set it up where I wasn't surprised when I was turned away. It was just a long, drawn-out process, and for the veterans who are in immediate need for care, that's a life or death issue."

Lawmakers over the past year have floated several bills to give veterans the option to seek private-sector medical care if the VA is unable to provide a patient with an adequate healthcare team in a timely manner.

Though varying in detail, all three pieces of legislation would overhaul the private-sector Veterans Choice Program created by Congress in response to a 2014 scandal regarding over manipulated wait times at federal facilities that led to the deaths of dozens of veterans. The program was intended to temporarily provide veterans with greater flexibility to visit care providers outside of the VA's network of healthcare facilities.

With government funding set to run out Friday and a lack of consensus on those bills, VA secretary David Shulkin has urged lawmakers to pass a temporary stopgap measure "to ensure our veterans receive uninterrupted care."

Disney, who now works as a senior field director at the conservative Concerned Veterans for America, has advocated for a Senate measure that would increase access to private care "rather than relying on the VA bureaucracy to determine eligibility criteria." CVA has endorsed the bill, cosponsored by Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and John Moran (Kans.).

"I know veterans who are no longer here who needed immediate action, they needed immediate response, they needed help sooner, and then they self medicated and now they're dead," he said. "If they had the opportunity to go to any doctor and use their VA benefits elsewhere, there's a possibility that something different would have happened if they didn't have to wait for care." 

This entry was posted in Issues and tagged Veterans, Veterans Affairs. Bookmark the permalink.

Thank You Ms Johnson and Free Beacon.

America's Longest Serving Bomber - B 52 - Sets New Record For Most Smart Bombs Dropped On An Enemy

dailycaller

Ryan Pickrell China/Asia Pacific Reporter
2:34 PM 12/15/2017
A U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress, America’s longest-serving bomber, set a new record when it unleashed hell against terrorists on a combat mission in Afghanistan last month, according to the Department of Defense.

During an expanded strike mission, B-52 bombers dropped 19 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) on the Taliban in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, Air Forces Central Command spokeswoman Capt. AnnMarie Annicelli told Military.com. The strategic bombers were targeting opium and heroin facilities to cripple the revenue stream.

The Air Force “used B-52s with their new conventional rotary launcher,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Lance Bunch, the director of NATO’s Resolute Support mission explained Tuesday. “Of note, it was the single most — largest number of precision munitions ever dropped from a B-52.”

Bunch revealed that the U.S. military now has the authority to take the fight to the enemy in a new way. Under the Trump administration, the military now has greater freedom and independence with regard to how it chooses to engage the enemy.

“The new strategy highlights that this is a new war,” he told reporters Tuesday. “The gloves are off. We’ve got now these authorities we need to be able to go and target the Taliban network … That is our new strategy going forward and it’s definitely been a game-changer and the Taliban is definitely feeling it.”

“All the areas where they thought they were safe and they are no longer so,” he said.

Since the start of this year, B-52 bombers have dropped around 1,500 unguided and guided munitions on enemy combatants, AFCENT told Military.com.

The fight in Afghanistan has raged for 16 years, and despite American efforts, the Taliban still has a tight hold on Afghanistan. A little less than half of Afghanistan’s districts are either controlled by the Taliban or contested, Reuters reported in October, citing a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.


Accuracy? Use the link. Watch the video.

Thank You Mr Pickrell and the DC

The Trump Administartion Is Making Progress On Veterans Affairs

American Thinker
By Larry Alton
Dec 10, 2017

Whether you’re on the right, left, or squarely in the middle, we can all agree that veterans aren’t treated nearly as well as they should be in this country. In fact, they’re blatantly disrespected in many ways. But how is President Trump, who made lots of campaign promises to veterans, doing on this issue after roughly a year in office?

Where Trump Found Things

When Barack Obama entered office in 2009, he found the veterans of this country in the middle of a decades-long plight, which he promised to fix many times during his campaign for the presidency.

“Caring for those who serve -- and for their families -- is a fundamental responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief,” Obama said in a 2007 campaign speech. “It is not a separate cost. It is a cost of war. It is something I've fought for as a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. And it is something I will fight for as President of the United States.”

Perhaps Obama did fight, but he certainly didn’t get any results. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is in worse shape than it’s ever been. Scandals, abuse of funds, and a toxic workplace culture are just a few of the issues plaguing the VA, and they all seemed to be exacerbated under the Obama administration.

Even something as seemingly simple as trying to locate and receive military documents that are needed in order to apply for things like VA mortgages, retirement benefits, and employment is nearly impossible to do on your own. Most veterans end up using a service like DD214 Direct to streamline the process.

This isn’t an article about Obama’s failures -- of which there are plenty -- but it’s important to understand where things stood when Trump entered office. Not to give the Trump administration excuses, but rather to show why the VA was such a big priority during the campaigning season and continues to be today.

Is Trump Making Headway?

With so much in disarray, President Trump had his work cut out for him entering office. However, he promised to make the VA a focal point, so it’s fair game to hold him accountable and see how he’s doing. And if you cut through all of the media noise and BS, you’ll see that he’s actually making some headway. Here are just a few examples of small wins and steady steps in the right direction:
With so much corruption in the VA, Trump signed into law legislation that paves the way for the firing of employees who engage in misconduct. It also helps protect the whistleblowers. In what Trump once called “the most corrupt agency in the United States,” these new standards have already led to the firing of a whopping 1,163 employees and suspension of an additional 387 (as of early November).
In May, the White House proposed a 6 percent increase to the VA budget, which included an increase of $13 billion for the “choice” program that allows veterans to opt for private healthcare coverage.
One of Trump’s campaign promises was a private hotline to the White House to field complaints 24/7. While it’s been a bumpy road, the administration has followed through on this promise with a soft launch.
In August, Trump signed legislation to give veterans an additional $3 billion for educational assistance over the next decade. Forever GI, which is actually a combination of more than a dozen different bills, allows spouses and children of service members killed on duty to qualify for scholarships (or have tuition reimbursed.

This isn’t to say Trump has fixed the VA. He hasn’t even solved some of its biggest problems yet. What his slow, steady progress does show is that he’s making the VA a priority.

There’s a long way to go. Privatization of the VA is probably the only permanent solution to the longstanding plight of veterans in the U.S., but that’s an enormous battle that would likely require a two-term presidency. If the VA is ultimately fixed, it’ll be thanks to big changes like this. But if you want to know where a president should start, just look at what Trump is doing right now. You start with small wins, build trust, and then execute more sweeping reforms.

It’s Too Early to Judge

Why is it that the Left is so quick to judge the Trump presidency as a failure when he’s completed, at a very minimum, just 25 percent of his term? Who says he has to live up to every promise within the first year? What would we have said about Obama, Clinton, and Carter if they had only been given a year to enact their policies?

History will ultimately determine whether the Trump presidency was a success or failure. It’s impossible to do so in the moment (especially when it’s only a fraction of the way complete). However, as we begin to see what sort of leadership style Trump has adopted as president, it’s clear that he’s not nearly as impulsive as most thought he would be. Sure, the tweets are still questionable (at best), but his actual decision-making is rather poised.

On the topic of veterans affairs, Trump hasn’t lived up to every promise he made during the campaign, but he has at least three years left. He has, however, made progress in some key areas and laid promising foundations in others. While the media will continue to bash him for breathing, the reality is that he’s already done more to benefit veterans than Obama accomplished in eight years.



Thank You Mr Alton and American Thinker.

Dude, Where's My Troops? Pentagon Loses Track of 44,000 Soldiers

zerohedge
by Tyler Durden
Dec 9, 2017 7:00 PM

"The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force," said Thomas Jefferson in an 1807 letter to Chandler Price. And what would the nation's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence say of today's American "global force" deployed across the earth?

America's "global military presence" is not hyperbole, but a literal fact, as a new Department of Defense study has found that US military personnel are stationed in literally every nation on the earth. The report bluntly confirms that, "The United States has military personnel in nearly every country in the world, ranging from two liaison officers in Fiji to tens of thousands from all of the service branches in Japan and Germany, according to the report."

But perhaps more important and equally absurd (when one considers the original beginnings of the humble "republic" envisioned by founders like Madison and Jefferson) is the fact that America's world-wide military presence is such that the Pentagon itself can't track how many US service members are deployed where. A new bombshell article in Stars and Stripes military newspaper is non-ironically headlined, "Report: 44,000 ‘unknown’ military personnel stationed around the world".


 
The Stripes article opens with a line that would seem straight out of the Onion, yet matter-of-factly states, "The U.S. military has more than 44,000 troops across the globe that the Pentagon claims it cannot track, according to a recent report."

The Pentagon's system for accounting troop deployment numbers, maintained by the Defense Manpower Data Center under the Office of the Secretary of Defense, lists up to 44,000 troops in a country location category labeled "Unknown".

The report has come to light after a series of recent Pentagon press briefings on military actions in the Middle East and Africa which left journalists scratching their heads. For example the latest DoD admission that there are "about 2,000 troops in Syria" - four times the previously acknowledged figure - came after a late October Pentagon presser wherein an Army spokesman told reporters that 4,000 troops were deployed to Syria, after which he awkwardly walked back the statement less than 30 seconds later, saying "I'm sorry I mispoke there - there are approximately 500 troops in Syria".

And when news broke of the October 4 ambush and deaths of four elite Green Beret soldiers in Niger, the immediate reaction voiced among congressional leaders and echoed generally in the media was: "we have troops in Niger?" - after which it came to light that the US has at least 6,000 military personnel spread across the African continent, though few knew of AFRICOM's (US Africa Command) dangerously burgeoning number of undisclosed daily missions.


Where are they? Image source: US Marine Corps

“We are not at a point where we can give numbers other than those officially stated,” said Army Col. Rob Manning, quoted in Stripes. Though as Stripes acknowledges it appears that this is due more to the Pentagon simply not knowing where it has stationed thousands of troops rather than the officially stated reasons of "secrecy" and force protection from enemies. The Army spokesman further asserted, “Our commitment is to be as transparent as we can, within the constraints of operation security,” but it's also that case that, "The Pentagon acknowledged in a statement that it has no good way to track how many service members are stationed overseas, where they are and when they were there," according to Stripes.

A Pentagon statement also ambiguously acknowledged that its troop tracking methods will inevitably miscalculate the locations of its roughly 1.3 million total personnel across all branches, based on the worrisome reasoning that "there is no easy way to track all deployments":

“There is no one personnel system in the [Defense Department] that tracks the daily location of all DoD personnel. There is no easy way to track all deployments, training exercises, TDY (being attached to another unit for training or specific missions, typically for less than six months) or temporary assignments,” according to the statement. “If you take the total numbers assigned in the United States and assigned overseas, and add the ‘Unknown,’ you get the total force numbers for each service.”

The report also comes after President Trump unveiled a new Afghan strategy last summer, saying the US would not pull out of the now 16-year long war but would instead inject more troops into the country for increased anti-terror operations. According to recent statements from the Pentagon, the total number of US soldiers in Afghanistan has risen to about 14,000, though accounting procures have been especially unclear concerning the nation's longest running war.

When Secretary of Defense James Mattis was asked during a news conference last summer about troops levels in Afghanistan he said, “There’s a very strange accounting procedure I inherited... What I’m probably going to end up doing is out putting everyone into one thing and saying, ‘Here’s how many are really there now."

And none of this addresses the even greater numbers of civilian contractors in global hot spots where America is present. According to Stripes, "The United States maintains 23,659 contractors in Afghanistan and 4,609 in Iraq, according to a fourth-quarter 2017 report from the Defense Department."

Given that we learned this week of 44,000 troops stationed in locations the Pentagon itself deems "unknown", perhaps we are long overdue for a massive drawback of overseas forces and bloated military budgets? Of course if the Pentagon can't find them in the first place, it might be hard to bring them home.

Thank You Mr Durden and Zerohedge.

US NAVY Squandered $4 Billion Due To Congressional Failure To Pass Budget

Congress: Wasting Billions of Tax Payer Dollars

freebeacon
Natalie Johnson
December 5, 2017 5:00 am

The U.S. Navy has wasted roughly $4 billion in taxpayer money over the past six years due to the repeated failure by Congress to pass a budget that fully funds the military, the secretary of the service said Monday.

"Since 2011, we have put $4 billion in a trashcan, poured lighter fluid on top of it, and burned it," Sec. Richard Spencer said in remarks at the U.S. Naval Institute's Defense Forum in Washington.

"It's enough money that it can buy us the additional capacity and capability that we need. Instead, that $4 billion of taxpayer money has been lost because of inefficiencies [caused by] continuing resolutions," he added.

Spencer said the Navy could have otherwise used the wasted funds to purchase a squadron of F-35 fighter jets, two Arleigh-Burke-class destroyers, 3,000 harpoon missiles, or 2,000 tactical Tomahawk missiles.

Congress has forced the military to operate under stopgap spending bills for the past eight years to avert government shutdowns amid partisan divisions. The temporary budgets freeze defense funding, forcing the Defense Department to shuffle funds from modernization and hiring to support current missions.

The Senate in November passed a $700 billion defense policy bill in line with the Trump administration's calls for a larger military, but it exceeds federal spending caps by roughly $85 billion, meaning the funding may never come to fruition.

With government funding set to expire on Friday, Republicans are moving to pass another short-term resolution to avoid a shutdown and buy more time to negotiate a long-term spending package.

Lawmakers will have to reconcile the cost of the National Defense Authorization Act with current spending limits, but members have yet to strike a deal. A showdown is expected because Senate Democrats have pledged to block major increases to defense spending unless Republicans approve equal increases to nondefense programs.

Echoing sentiments from senior defense officials, Spencer said stopgap resolutions and budget constraints have been the "most harmful impediment" to rebuilding service readiness and achieving modernization.

"Funding issues born of the Budget Control Act and continuing resolutions have taken a toll on readiness, maintenance sites, and have also cost us time and resources that we cannot buy back," he said. "Urgency is the battle cry."



Thank You Ms Johnson and Free Beacon.

VA Hired Doctors With Malpractice Claims, Felony Convictions Against Them

dailycaller
Jonah BennettNational Security/Politics Reporter
4:56 PM 12/03/2017

The Department of Veterans Affairs has carried on with the practice of hiring doctors with malpractice claims and felony convictions in their backgrounds.

A USA Today investigation has found that the VA’s hiring process for physicians may not be as thorough as it seems. The hiring process entails license verification and reference-checking, but it appears as though VA officials have some amount of discretion when they discover medical licensing problems, malpractice or felony convictions.

In other words, VA officials can simply disregard sordid pasts and approve hiring of questionable doctors, anyway.

For example, in one case USA Today uncovered, a VA hospital in Muskogee, Oklahoma, brought on a psychiatrist in 2013, despite knowing he had a history of actions taken against his medical license for sexual misconduct, among other things.

This psychiatrist, Stephen Lester Greer, ended up having a sexual relationship with a patient at the VA. In August, he pleaded guilty to trying to persuade the patient to lie about the relationship.

Another psychiatrist started work at a VA clinic in 2014 in Lafayette, Louisiana, although he had felony convictions on his job application. The VA overlooked those convictions, but then ran a background check more than a year after his firing. Officials discovered eight arrests, some of which involved drug dealing and burglary.

This unnamed psychiatrist was still allowed to practice until a couple of years ago., at which point the VA was inundated with complaints about patient mistreatment. He was finally fired earlier in 2017.

Infamous psychiatrist David Houlihan, who worked at the Tomah VA in Wisconsin and was known by veterans as the “candy man” for doling out copious amounts of drugs, took on the job in 2002 and then became chief of staff in 2004. The VA ignored the fact that the Iowa Board of Medicine had stated he became involved with a patient inappropriately and also that he had taken patient medications home.

He was fired in 2015.

Curt Cashour, VA press secretary, told USA Today that the department will examine whether any doctors were hired who should not have been hired.

“We will take the same prompt removal action with any other improper hires we discover,” Cashour said.

The USA Today investigation comes on the heels of a Government Accountability Office report, which determined that the VA failed in 90 percent of cases to report doctors who may be dangerous to a national database.

Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter

Thank You Mr Bennett and The DC. 



the VA failed in 90 percent of cases to report doctors  

Surprising, . . . Nobody.

Volunteers To Gather and Clean Vietnam Veterans Memorial On War's 50th Anniversary

freebeacon
Stephen Gutowski
November 25, 2017 5:00 am

A charity is organizing volunteers to clean the Vietnam Veterans Memorial during the first week of December in observance of the war's 50th anniversary.

The NewDay USA Foundation, an arm of veterans mortgage lender NewDay USA, is organizing an event on Dec. 2 that will feature speeches from a number of veterans and charity leaders. Retired Rear Admiral Thomas C. Lynch USN, executive chairman of NewDay USA; Jan Scruggs, president emeritus of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Andrew Brennan, executive director of the Global War on Terror Memorial Foundation; and James Pierce, a National Park Service ranger, will all be speaking at the event on the National Mall.

"Our nation’s veterans have served selflessly, and in many cases veterans courageously risked their lives protecting the liberty and freedom we hold dear," Lynch said. "When the Vietnam war ended, many of our veterans returned home to no fanfare, no homecoming parades, no thank you from a grateful nation. We remember and embrace the service and the sacrifice of our Vietnam veterans and the family members who supported them. We sincerely thank them for their service."

After listening to the speeches, the volunteers who gather for the event will then wash and clean the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. NewDay USA said many of its employees will join in on the cleaning effort.

"NewDay employees regularly volunteer their time in support of our veteran community," Regina Lowrie, executive director of the NewDay USA Foundation, said. "Today marks another day of service on our National Mall where our employees volunteer time to wash and care for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a show of respect to the men and women who served. This activity exemplifies what NewDay USA and our foundation are all about."
This entry was posted in Culture. Bookmark the permalink.

 
Thank You Mr Gutkowski and everyone involved in this wonderful tribute to our Veterans. 


Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings

Veterans Are Dying From Painkiller Overdoses At Twice The Rate of The US Population

dailycaller
Steve Birr Vice Reporter
3:30 PM 11/10/2017

The opioid epidemic is claiming a record amount of lives annually in the U.S., but the death rate from painkiller abuse among veterans is nearly double that of the broader population.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is stepping up its effort to treat military veterans who get hooked on the dangerous pills, but are struggling to stay ahead of the crisis. While VA doctors have treated roughly 68,000 veterans for addiction to opioid painkillers since March, service members continue to die from painkiller overdoses at twice the rate of the non-military population, reports Reuters.

Former Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy, who recently served on President Donald Trump’s White House commission on opioid abuse, is critical of the lack of action on this issue from Congress, saying Friday, “our veterans deserve better than polished sound bites and empty promises.”

Republican Sen. John McCain is currently working to pass a bill that will fund research into ways VA doctors can mitigate the use of opioids in treatment. McCain noted that as well as overdose deaths, opioids may be contributing to the high suicide rate among the veteran population, which is 21 percent higher than the rate among average U.S. adults.

“The Veterans Administration needs to understand whether overmedication of drugs, such as opioid pain-killers, is a contributing factor in suicide-related deaths,” McCain told Reuters Thursday.

President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a “public health emergency” on Oct. 26, giving states hit hard by opioid addiction flexibility on how they direct federal resources to combat rising drug deaths.

Data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse released Sept. 7 predicts that the addiction epidemic in America will continue to deteriorate, pushing drug deaths to an estimated 71,600 in 2017. If the estimates prove accurate, 2017 will be the second year in a row that drug deaths surpass U.S. casualties from the Vietnam War.

Follow Steve on Twitter


Thank You Mr Birr and the DC.

JNJ Hit With Lawsuit Alleging They Paid Bribes Which Cost American Military Lives In Theater: Terrorism

NBC news
Ken Dilanian and Carol E. Lee
Oct 17, 2017

WASHINGTON — A group of American veterans filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against U.S. and European drug companies and medical device makers, accusing them of supporting an Iran-backed Iraqi militia that killed and wounded hundreds of Americans.

The suit is filed under a law that allows Americans injured by terrorism overseas to seek civil damages. The more than 100 plaintiffs include injured U.S. Iraq war veterans and their families. The defendants are either parent companies or subsidiaries of AstraZeneca plc (AZN); Johnson & Johnson (JNJ); Pfizer Inc. (PFE); Roche Holding AG (RHHBY); and the General Electric Company (GE).

The 203-page lawsuit accuses the companies of paying bribes to officials of Iraq's health ministry that benefited the Mahdi Army, an Iranian-backed militia that the suit says worked closely with Hezbollah, a Lebanese group that has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.


It's a lengthy and detailed report, so read it in full at the link. 


Here's the lawsuit.

Shocker: Only 1 in 1,000 Dreamers Serve In Military

But, but, they're such a credit, such an invaluable resource to the country they're breaking the law by remaining in it!

dailycaller
JONAH BENNETT National Security/Politics Reporter


1:29 PM 09/14/2017

President Donald Trump drew attention Thursday to the illegals currently serving in the military as a reason why they should perhaps not be deported, but just 0.11 percent of DACA recipients are actually in service.

In a series of tweets Thursday, Trump appeared to completely reverse his stance on DACA, tweeting: “Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military? Really!…..”

“…They have been in our country for many years through no fault of their own – brought in by parents at young age,” Trump added. “Plus BIG border security.”

Although Trump expressed astonishment that the American public would want to send DACA recipients back to their respective home countries because some serve in the military, the Pentagon recently told The Daily Caller News Foundation that fewer than 900 DACA recipients out of a total of 800,000 are currently serving in the military, which amounts to 0.11 percent. In other words, about a tenth of a percent of DACA recipients are serving.


“There are less than 900 individuals currently serving in the military, or have signed contracts to serve, who are recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) authorization,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Haverstick told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement last Wednesday. “These individuals are part of the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) Pilot Program. The Department of Defense is coordinating with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security (DHS) regarding any impact a change in policy may have for DACA recipients. The Department defers to our colleagues at DHS on questions related to immigration, naturalization, or citizenship.”

The MAVNI program opened to DACA recipients in 2014. MAVNI was initiated in 2009 during the Obama administration, but was put on hold in September 2016 over security concerns. The program was suspended in part because reviews showed that some of the illegal enlistees represented “a significant counterintelligence threat.”

Follow Jonah Bennett on Twitter

Send tips to jonah@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Tags: Air Force, Army, DACA, Donald Trump, Marine Corps, Navy, Pentagon


Thank You Mr Bennett and Daily Caller.

OIG Report: Over 100 Veterans Died Waiting For Care At Los Angeles VA

weaselzippers



When are the VA horrors going to end?

Ed; When was the last time Government got rid of Any of its jackass 'better ideas'?

President Trump and every pubbie who rode in on his coat tails rode in promising to Repeal ObamaCare.

The voters, who are having their backs broken by O'care's hellish costs, haven't forgotten.

Via Free Beacon:

More than 100 veterans died while waiting for care at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Los Angeles, Calif., over a nine-month span ending in August 2015, according to a new government report.

The VA Office of Inspector General found in a recent healthcare inspection that 225 veterans at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System facility died with open or pending consults between Oct. 1, 2015 and Aug. 9, 2015. Nearly half—117—of those patients died while experiencing delays in receiving care.

The inspector general reported that 43 percent of the 371 consults scheduled for patients who ended up dying were not timely because of a failure by VA employees to follow proper procedure. The report was unable to substantiate claims that patients died as a result of the delayed consults.

Keep reading…

Thank you Nick and Free Beacon. 

VA Fires Embattled Director Amid Scandal, Secret Wait Lists

weaselzippers

New sheriff in town.

Via Fox News:


The director of the beleaguered Shreveport VA hospital in Louisiana has been fired following a three-year tenure filled with scandal — including accusations of covering up a secret wait-list, creating severe staffing shortages and refusing to buy essentials like vital signs machines, linens or mattresses.

Toby Mathew, who became director of Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in June 2014, was fired on April 13 due to “charges related to general misconduct, and failure to follow policy and provide effective oversight of the Center’s credentialing and privileging program,” said an internal VA memo obtained by Fox News.

This is the highest-profile employee removal since Secretary Eric Shinseki left in May 2014 following news of the massive wait-list scandal at the Phoenix VA hospital. Last week, President Trump signed an executive order creating an office within the VA to make it easier to fire bad employees – an issue that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., had championed for several years. Trump also fired two employees in the Caribbean on his second day in office.

Keep reading…

Thank you Fox and Dapandico