Retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. "Hal" Moore, the American hero known for saving most of his men in the first major battle between the U.S. and North Vietnamese armies, has died. He was 94.

Joseph Galloway, who with Moore co-authored the book "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," confirmed Saturday to The Associated Press that Moore died late Friday in his sleep at his home in Auburn, Alabama.

"Those of us who survived Landing Zone X-Ray survived because of his brilliance of command. I think every one of us thought we were going to die at that place except Hal Moore. He was certain we were going to win that fight and he was right," Galloway recalled.

Galloway and Moore wrote a second book, "We Are Soldiers Still," which he said grew out of a journey back to the battlefields of Vietnam 25 years later. "We went back and walked those old battlefields. At the end of the day, Hal Moore and Col. Nguyen Huu An, the North Vietnamese commander, stood in a circle in the clearing and prayed for the souls of every man who died on both sides."


He said the two shared an "instant brotherhood that grew out of combat."

"When we were discussing the book contract with a lawyer/agent, he asked to see the contract between me and Hal Moore, and Hal Moore said 'I don't think you understand. This isn't just a matter of money. We have trusted each other with our lives in battle and we have no contract before that.' I absolutely agreed."

On a Facebook page managed by Moore's family, relatives said he died on the birthday of his wife, Julia, who died in 2004 after 55 years of marriage.

"Mom called Dad home on her day," the statement said. "After having a stroke last week, Dad was more lethargic and had difficulty speaking, but he had always fought his way back."

Before serving in Vietnam, Moore graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and then commanded a battalion in the newly formed air mobile 11th Air Assault Division at Fort Benning.

Born in Bardstown, Kentucky, he served in the U.S. military for 32 years.

Galloway said the family has tentatively scheduled a religious service Friday in Auburn and a memorial service at the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning Army Base in Columbus, Georgia.

 

South China Sea: US reports 'unsafe encounter' with Chinese military aircraft
Navy surveillance aircraft and Chinese military aircraft come within 1,000ft of each other near contested reef in apparently unintentional encounter, US says



A Chinese military aircraft had an “unsafe” encounter with a US navy surveillance aircraft near a contested reef in the South China Sea, according to the US Pacific command.

The two planes came within 1,000ft (300 meters) of each other during Wednesday’s incident near the Scarborough shoal, which is claimed by both the Philippines and China, according to Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis.

The close encounter comes amid heightened tensions between the USand China over Beijing’s moves to establish a presence in disputed areas of the South China Sea by building out reefs and atolls into artificial islands.

“On February 8 (local), an interaction characterized by US Pacific command as ‘unsafe’ occurred in international airspace above the South China Sea between a Chinese KJ-200 aircraft and a US Navy P-3C aircraft,” said US Pacific command spokesman Rob Shuford.

“The US Navy P-3C was on a routine mission operating in accordance with international law.”

Davis said the Chinese aircraft essentially “crossed the nose” of the American plane, causing it to “make an immediate turn”.

“We don’t see any evidence that it was intentional,” the spokesman said.

“Clearly we have our disagreements with China over militarization of South China Sea,” he said, but interactions between ships and planes “are largely professional and safe”.

“This seems to be a one-off.”

The KJ-200 is an airborne early warning and command plane while the P-3 is a maritime surveillance aircraft.

The Pacific command said it would address the issue “in appropriate diplomatic and military channels”.

China asserts sovereignty over almost all of the resource-rich region despite rival claims from sout-east Asian neighbors and has rapidly built reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes.

Donald Trump’s administration so far has taken a tough stance on China’s claims in the South China Sea, insisting it will defend international interests there.

During his confirmation hearings, the new US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, raised the threat of blocking China’s access to the contested islands.

Under Barack Obama’s administration, Washington insisted it was neutral on the question of sovereignty over the South China Sea islets, reefs and shoals, calling for the disputes to be resolved under international law.

But the US has dispatched aircraft and naval patrols to assert its rights of passage through international spaces.

 

Defense Leaders Agree: US Military Readiness Is at a Dangerous Low
This week on Capitol Hill, several top U.S. military leaders from across the armed services presented a sobering case to Congress: U.S. military readiness is the lowest it has been in decades, leaving it unprepared to defend America’s interests at home and abroad.

In testimony before the Senate and House Armed Services committees, the vice chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force articulated pressing concerns about the state of their branchs’ readiness to respond to conflicts overseas or attacks on the homeland.

The hearing highlighted substantial readiness and capacity issues within each of the services:

• Army: Of 58 total brigade combat teams (the Army’s main combat building block), only three are considered ready for combat.
• Navy: The Navy’s fleet is the smallest it has been in nearly 100 years. This makes ship repairs harder to complete, as those vessels are needed on the waterways.
• Marine Corps: Eighty percent of Marine aviation units do not have even the minimum number of aircraft they need for training and basic operations.
• Air Force: The Air Force is the smallest and, in terms of many of its aircraft, oldest it has ever been. The service had 8,600 aircraft in 1991 while today it only has 5,500, and those aircraft are an average of 27 years old. Worse, fewer than half of those aircraft are prepared to take on and defeat our adversaries.

These troubling findings by the services echo those laid out by The Heritage Foundation in its 2017 Index of U.S. Military Strength, which rated the Army as “Weak” and the other three branches as “Marginal” in terms of their ability to fight and win major conflicts.

What was noteworthy about the vice chiefs’ testimony beyond these startling numbers, however, was their brutal honesty.

For eight years under the Obama administration, top defense officials were largely silenced and prevented from articulating their concerns about budget cuts and decreased readiness to policymakers with the ability to reverse undeniable decline.

What this hearing and other recent public statements are showing, however, is that defense leaders believe they can now begin to speak openly about the challenges they face, and that Congress and the administration can address these negative trends—especially those caused by diminishing resources.

Make no mistake—budget cuts, especially sequestration cuts implemented indiscriminately across the board beginning more than five years ago, have been devastating to the U.S. military.

>>>New Numbers Show Continued Decline of US Military

Look at flying hours, for example.

Navy, Marine, and Air Force pilots have all seen their flying hours substantially reduced because there simply is not enough money to fly sorties. This has led to pilots being unable to maintain cockpit skills, which like everything else, will atrophy without constant tuning and training.

Worse, this inability to maintain proficiency has led to lethal accidents and loss of aircraft, which may have been preventable—to say nothing of the danger of thrusting our service men and women into combat without giving them the opportunity to train and maximize their readiness.

John Venable, a Heritage senior research fellow for defense policy and retired F-16 pilot with more than 4,400 hours in the cockpit, has written that the 2015 Air Force average of 150 flight hours per year per pilot (just under three a week) means “the most current and qualified Air Force fighter pilots are flying at a rate so low that we would have considered them unfit for combat in the 80s and 90s.”

And this is 20 to 30 years later, in a world where our enemies have become stronger, more advanced, and more aggressive.


An F/A-18 Hornet prepares for takeoff on a U.S. carrier. (Photo: Petty Officer 3rd Class Sean Castellano)

Even if the budget for flight hours existed, however, in many cases it simply would not matter, because the majority of the services’ aircraft are not even considered flyable.

According to multiple reports just this week, about two-thirds of the Navy’s fighter/attack aircraft and more than half of the Marine Corps’ total aircraft fleet are unable to even get off the ground.

These problems are merely the tip of the iceberg. The American people can expect to hear more accounts like these in the coming months as we learn more about the declining state of U.S. military readiness.

However, hope is not lost. Congress and the Trump administration can act to begin reversing this trend. Eliminating sequestration cuts implemented by the Budget Control Act is a necessary first step.

Congress should also allocate more resources to the military in the fiscal year 2018 budget. Commanders must be given the ability to both field a potent fighting force today, and invest in modernizing aircraft, weapons, and equipment for tomorrow.

Both must be priorities for this administration, and under the leadership of Secretary of Defense James Mattis—who declared in his confirmation hearing, we can “afford survival”—there is hope for such a balance.

Much of my service on active duty was spent under the burden of sequestration, and while I can attest to the “can do” mentality, in spite of the challenges, of those with whom I served, we should never have placed such a burden on them to begin with.

The Trump administration and Congress have a chance to reverse the decline in America’s military. The only thing that remains to be seen is whether or not they will capitalize on it.

 

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two American soldiers were wounded Thursday in Helmand province's fiercely contested Sangin district. U.S. airstrikes there on the same day may have killed as many as 25 civilians.

The U.S. troops were injured while supporting Afghan forces, who have been battling the Taliban in the district for weeks. The militants see Sangin as a stepping stone to encircling and eventually capturing Helmand's capital, Laskhar Gah.

One of the American soldiers suffered a gunshot wound and was flown out of the country for treatment. The other suffered minor shrapnel wounds and returned to duty, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland, spokesman for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, said Saturday.

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Cleveland said the U.S. had been conducting airstrikes in the area before the soldiers were wounded.

Hayatullah Mayar, a provincial council member in Helmand, said Thursday's strikes hit local homes, resulting in the deaths of between 20 and 25 civilians.

"To avoid being bombed, the Taliban are hiding in people's homes, and that's why the civilians' houses were hit," Mayar said. "According to our initial information, all members of two families were killed, including women and children, and a number of Taliban were also killed."

The Helmand governor's office said 60 Talibs, including eight commanders, were killed in the operation but denied any civilian deaths.

"All the targets were clearly Taliban gatherings; there were no civilians killed in those attacks," a statement by the office said.

Sangin has seen heavy fighting over the past two years as the Taliban attempt to take control of Helmand. Two weeks ago, militants detonated bombs under an army post, using tunnels they had dug under the city center.

The district was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting from 2009 and 2011, when U.S. Marines attempted to wrest control of the province from the Taliban.

Cleveland said U.S. Forces-Afghanistan had begun an investigation into alleged civilian casualties caused by Thursday's airstrikes.

"As with all claims of civilian casualties, we will investigate them to determine what the facts are and whether civilians were hurt or killed as a result of our operations," he said.

"We take every precaution to prevent and mitigate civilian casualties, and we take every allegation seriously."

Airstrikes by Afghan and international forces caused 590 civilian casualties, including 250 deaths, last year -- nearly double the number recorded in 2015 and the highest since 2009, the United Nations said in a report released this week.

U.S. officials confirmed American troops were operating in Helmand but, citing security ‎concerns, would not discuss their specific roles.

The Marines said last month that some 300 troops would deploy to Helmand in the spring, when fighting with insurgents traditionally intensifies.

The White House in June expanded the U.S. military's role in Afghanistan beyond assistance and advising, allowing troops to occasionally accompany Afghan forces in their operations.

 

This is what a traffic jam looks like here . How is your day going ? This was a roadside bombing late December . Sorry for the time lag but images need to be vetted before release so there will always be some that are not current .

 

Mattis Headed to Europe Next Week for Talks on ISIS Campaign
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is headed to NATO headquarters in Brussels next week for talks with allies on speeding up the campaign against ISIS and boosting troop strength in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Friday.

Earlier Friday, Mattis met with German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, whose support will be crucial at the NATO talks. Von der Leyen's closed talks with Mattis followed on the meeting last week of German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel with new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Germany has sought assurances of continued U.S. support for NATO following remarks by President Dgermnonald Trump that the alliance is "obsolete," and his ongoing complaints about NATO members not paying their fair share for defense.

Despite Trump's remarks, Mattis has been upfront in stating that the U.S. commitment to NATO is solid and enduring to counter Russia and ease the concerns of the Baltic states and Poland on threats emanating from Moscow.

Mattis is scheduled to leave Tuesday for Brussels on what will be his second foreign trip since succeeding Ashton Carter as defense secretary.

Later in the week, Mattis will attend the Munich Security Conference, an annual event that bills itself as "a major global forum for the discussion of security policy." Vice President Mike Pence and a congressional delegation are expected to join Mattis in Munich.

At the Pentagon on Friday, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Mattis' trip "will underscore the commitment of the United States to our NATO alliance and to defeating ISIS."

On his first visit as commander in chief to the Pentagon on Jan. 27, Trump directed Mattis to draw up a plan within 30 days for an accelerated campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

Afghanistan will also be on the agenda for the NATO meetings, according to Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and NATO's Resolute Support mission. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Nicholson said he is seeking a "few thousand" more troops for Afghanistan, either from the U.S. or allies.

The Europeans have made clear that how to deal with Trump will be on the agenda for the Munich Security Conference.

The conference's website states, "The conference agenda focuses on the future of trans-Atlantic relations and NATO after the election of Donald Trump, the state of European Union cooperation in security and defense matters, the Ukraine crisis and relations with Russia, the war in Syria, and the security situation in the Asia-Pacific."

Wolfgang Ischinger, the former German ambassador to the U.S. and chairman of the conference, said in a statement, "The liberal order many of us have taken for granted is increasingly threatened from within and without. That is why it is so important to find ways to defend and strengthen the fundamental values of the West, and the institutions of a rules-based international system."

 

Spare Parts Shortage Grounds Many Marine Corps Aircraft

At the end of 2016, the Marine Corps had 1,065 aircraft on flight lines around the world, ranging from small attack helicopters to C-130 transport planes.

Of those, only 439 are considered ready to fly as is. The remaining aircraft, nearly 60 percent of the total, are considered temporarily non-mission capable, either awaiting maintenance, in-service repair or supply, meaning they are lacking the parts they need to be operational.

And as the Corps works to claw back readiness and increase pilot flight hours from postwar lows in 2014, it's the spare parts issue that has the service's top aviator most concerned.

Speaking to reporters this week, Lt. Gen. Jon "Dog" Davis, deputy commandant for aviation, said aircraft maintainers are still sometimes resorting to cannibalization, or borrowing parts from working aircraft to make other planes operational.

He made his concern clear in a wish list to Congress that each service recently submitted in anticipation of a forthcoming supplemental defense budget for this year.

"On my unfunded priority list, one of the biggest things we've been banging the drum about is the need to refill our coffers on our supply parts," he said. "It's a big problem both for the new airplanes and the old ones."

Among the Marine Corps' most used fighters, rotorcraft and transports, the problem is universal. Of aircraft that are in-reporting but can't fly, the percentage of those down for parts is as follows, Davis said:

• 61 percent of AV-8B Harriers
• 50 percent of MV-22 Ospreys
• 56 percent of CH-53E Super Stallions
• 64 percent of C-130 Hercules
• ~55 percent of F/A-18 Hornets

For the Hornet, which has been particularly troubled by readiness issues, 29 percent of all 171 aircraft in reporting are down for supply, Davis said.

"The one thing that is holding the man down on every platform is not-mission-capable supply," Davis said. "By every type/model/series, it's a contributor to why that airplane might not be available for flying."

The Corps is still about 150 aircraft shy of the number of ready basic aircraft it needs to allow all aviators to meet their flight hour goals, a key requirement for both proficiency and safety.

The Marine Corps Hornet community, which sustained seven crashes in the last fifteen months with three pilot fatalities, is about 20 aircraft shy of what it needs to make flight hour goals, with 72 ready basic aircraft out of the 171 in reporting, Davis said.

While the aircraft readiness crisis has had minimal impact on deployments and forward operations up until now, the Corps did recently pull half its MV-22 Ospreys back from its forward-deployed crisis response task force for Africa, reducing the presence in theater from 12 aircraft to six.

"We couldn't sustain them," Assistant Commandant Gen. Glenn Walters told lawmakers in a hearing this week. "The requirement was still there, but we couldn't sustain it."

Davis said the Marine Corps is on track to make pilot flight hour goals by 2019. It will be the first time the service has hit that marker since 2012.

"If I'm a businessman, I'm underwater right now, because I don't have enough power tools to make my flight hour goal," he said.

 

Here is something that goes back a long way in history but is relevent today for some .

WWII Bomb Is Defused after 75,000 People Evacuated in Greece

THESSALONIKI, Greece -- Authorities in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki evacuated an estimated 75,000 people Sunday so army experts could defuse a 500-pound unexploded World War II bomb found under a gas station.

The evacuation started at 7 a.m. local time. Police went house-to-house ringing bells and knocking on doors to remind people living within a 1.2-mile radius, mostly in the western suburb of Kordelio, to leave their homes.

Bomb disposal experts started work at 11.30 a.m., 90 minutes later than planned, but defused the bomb in only 30 minutes, Central Macedonia governor Apostolos Tzizikostas announced.

The bomb was going to be taken to an army firing range.

"The first phase of the bomb disposal has been a total success," Tzizikostas announced. "There remains its removal from the site. Residents will still not be allowed in their homes, because the removal and transport contains dangers."

Many people left the area in their cars, but some were bused to schools and sports halls elsewhere in the city.

"We heard on TV that, if the bomb explodes, it will be like a strong earthquake," a worried Michalis Papanos, 71, told The Associated Press as he and his wife, Yiannoula, headed out of their home.

Alexander Bogdani and his wife, Anna Bokonozi, left on foot, pushing a stroller with their toddler daughter.

"They have warned us ... we are afraid for the child," Bogdani said.

The city's main bus station was shut down, trains in the area were halted and churches canceled their Sunday services. The city also booked a 175-room hotel where people with limited mobility and their escorts were taken on Saturday.

Among the evacuees were 450 refugees staying at a former factory, who bused to visit the city's archaeological museum.

One resident says he recalls the day the bomb fell.

"The bombing was done by English and American planes on Sept. 17, 1944. It was Sunday lunchtime," said Giorgos Gerasimou, 86, whose home is half a mile away from the bomb site.

He said the Allies were targeting local German rail facilities and he remembers the day clearly because one of his 10-year-old friends was killed in the bombing.

Nazi Germany occupied Greece from 1941 until October 1944.

 

DeCA is set to test out a new commisary pilot program starting March 1 , 2017 and currently products are available at cost plus 5% but this will see pricing change as required due to supply and demand . It is not always easy for military personnel to put healthy food on our tables and being a thrifty shopper is almost a fulltime job in itself .

 

Yale to rename Calhoun College in Honor of Navy Admiral


Admiral Grace Hopper is honored by Navy Secretary John Lehman during her Aug. 14, 1986 retirement ceremony on board the USS Constitution in Boston.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- After years of debate, Yale University announced Saturday it will change the name of a residential college that honors a 19th-century alumnus and former U.S. vice president who was an ardent supporter of slavery.

Yale trustees said the Ivy League university is renaming Calhoun College after trailblazing computer scientist Grace Murray Hopper, a mathematician who earned Yale degrees in the 1930s, invented a pioneering computer programming language and became a Navy rear admiral.

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Inspired by Admiral Grace Hopper

University officials said Saturday the school will not remove symbols of Calhoun on campus, such as engravings and a statue atop the landmark Harkness Tower. It also won't discourage alumni if they want to continue associating with the Calhoun name instead of Grace Hopper College.

But Salovey said he hopes the university community will "embrace Grace Hopper and get to know her better." She graduated from Yale in 1930 and earned a doctorate in mathematics and mathematical physics from there in 1934, just a year after Calhoun College was established.

After teaching math at Vassar College in New York for nearly a decade, she enlisted in the Navy and "used her mathematical knowledge to fight fascism during World War II," the university said.

A programming language her team invented in the 1950s was a predecessor to the widely-used COBOL. She retired as a Navy rear admiral at age 79, and died in 1992 at age 85. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year.

 

Get ready for shit to get real very soon !

 

Amen. The one certain thing we can predict about any President is that they will have to order the military into combat; Be safe out there.

 

Good thing it didn't explode. I hate too much Greese on Turkey..

 

The U.S. Air Force has sent four heavy, four-engine bombers nearly a third of the way around the world from their base in Texas to the island of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. The mission is part of an effort to deter North Korea with regular, visible displays of heavy weapons and firepower. Crank up the volume and listen to the combined roar of four GE 101-102 afterburning turbofan engines on takeoff.

The four B-1B bombers of the 9th Bomb Squadron ("The Bats") departed Dyess Air Force Base in Texas and flew to the island of Guam, a distance of 7,120 miles. The mission is part of the Continuous Bomber Presence program, which rotates heavy bombers from the Air Force's Global Strike Command to the island on a regular basis. The program began in 2004 as a means of reassuring American allies in the region and warning potential enemies.

The service has rotated B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers to Andersen Air Force Base, the sprawling air base on the Pacific island. Bombers stationed on Guam conduct live fire missions on the island of Farallon de Medinilla, a small, uninhabited island 45 miles north of Saipan. Bomb craters are easily visible on Google Maps' view of the island here.

 

The U.S. Air Force is considering an upgrade that would add nearly 6,000 more flight hours to the lives of hundreds of F-16 fighters. According to War is Boring, the Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) would enable existing F-16s to fly another 20 years past their upgrade date, enabling the late 20th Century jet to serve through the middle of the 21st Century.

The Air Force has more than a thousand F-16s in service and is in the process of replacing them with the F-35A Joint Strike Fighter. Even so, it will be more than a decade before enough new fighters are purchased to safely retire the F-16s. That delay has prompting the service to look into what it would take to keep the older fighters flying.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-16 and the F-35, has come up with a kit of replacement parts for to up to 300 single-seat and 43 twin-seat fighters. The upgrade still needs to be funded but the upgrade program would run through 2028, making the last planes capable of serving as late as 2048.

War is Boring makes an important point: Would anyone still want to fly F-16s in 2048? Yes, the F-35's cost overruns and delays are frustrating. But as the price of the F-35A finally dips below $100 million a copy, on its way to the target price of $85 million, upgrading older, lower-tech planes becomes a less attractive proposition. Of course, the Air Force is no stranger to keeping older planes in the skies.

 

This one caught my eye . This may make the average person a so called marksman but it takes a certain type of person to have a human being in your crosshairs and be able to pull the trigger ! Don't be that person !

 

DARPA's New Robot Arm Catches Drones in Midair
How do you launch a drone in the middle of the ocean? Very carefully.

 

We lost 3 of our own in January . Godspeed to all of them .

I would also like to wish Army Lieutenant General Michael Thomas "Mike" Flynn all the best as he moves forward .

 

Was just reading the CBC website and thought this might fit well in here.

Iraq launches operation to 'liberate' western Mosul from ISIS
Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul last month, but west remains with ISIS
Iraqi forces have launched an operation to retake the western half of Mosul from the group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operation early Sunday morning on state television, saying government forces were moving to "liberate the people of Mosul from Daesh oppression forever", using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

• Mosul University fully liberated by Iraqi troops
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Southwest of Mosul, near the city's ISIS-held airport, plumes of smoke were seen rising into the sky as coalition aircraft bombed militant positions. Further south at an Iraqi base, federal police forces were gathering and getting ready to move north.

Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul last month, but the west remains in the hands of entrenched militants.

Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, is roughly split in half by the Tigris River. The battle for Mosul's western half is expected to be prolonged and difficult, due to denser population and older, narrower streets.