Category: Military

Where’s The Respect?

To Donny it is not a big deal that we have lost so few soldiers in this war with Iran…..and as usual the admin is dissing those families of fallen soldiers.

Since the Iran war began more than six months ago, 18 US service members have been killed and 780 wounded.

“My husband lost his life because we’re in a war – and then I was told that because it’s not technically a war, we lose out on something,” Ms Klinner told the Associated Press. “It all comes down to principle.”

After she expressed her frustration in an online post that went viral, the US air force clarified that his final pay cheque included hazard pay and combat-related tax breaks.

US officials also acknowledged that they had initially provided inaccurate information, and that her husband’s last pay cheque had included – but incorrectly itemised – “combat pay”, which amounts to $225 a month, and was not conditioned on a formal war declaration.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/09/06/pentagon-refused-payout-soldiers-died-in-iran-war/

May I ask where is the American MSM on this issue?

Is this how we allow our Gold Star families to be treated?

Where the respect for those that died in this stupid war?

They can build a lame ass ballroom and his ego structure known as the Arch but they cannot find the cash to give grieving families their benefits?

To that I say fuck you and the golf cart you rode in on.

If this does not make you mad then you are not the American you pretend to be.

Enough said.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Where Have All The Protesters Gone?

That title would make a great protest song.

We have had many years of constant war and yet there seems to be little pushback on this…..why is that?

As a veteran of the war in Vietnam I have a hard time believing that the American people could care less about the lost of life and the life long injuries that war inflicts upon those that participate.

A recent op-ed tackles this question….

A University of Pennsylvania professor is arguing that if Americans want a louder debate over the war in Iran, they should start by putting their own kids at risk of fighting it. In an essay at the Hill, historian Jonathan Zimmerman contends the near-absence of campus protest—despite more than 750 US casualties and tens of thousands of Iranian ones—has much to do with the end of the draft. Students, he writes, know there’s no chance they’ll be sent, unlike during Vietnam, when the possibility of conscription helped turn colleges into centers of antiwar activism.

By contrast, “I haven’t heard a peep of antiwar sentiment as students return this semester,” writes Zimmerman, who also makes an equity case for a reinstated draft. The Vietnam-era draft was riddled with deferments that favored the affluent and connected, he notes, citing Donald Trump, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton as examples. A genuine, across-the-board draft could fix that. After all, he writes, “In a democracy, the burden of national defense should be shared.”

Read the full essay, which includes a mention of the satirical “Draft Barron Trump” movement.

I agree with this view….any opposition would be good for healthy debate….

I have written a couple of times about this…

War–Invest Your Children

Not long ago the Congress was considering the re-introduction of the draft….it did not go very far…

Conscription Anyone?

On a personal note….I would hate to see the draft again but I also worried about the lack of opposition to our many wars over the years….we cannot blame one party over another for both are guilty of wasting American lives and accomplishing nothing.

There needs to be a real revival of the antiwar opposition protests.

Without them there is no debate and without any debate there will be more American lives ruined by constant wars that no one wants to know about.

If there is another way for these conflicts to come to the forefront then please let us know….I am open to most solutions but solutions must be a priority.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Let’s Blame The “America Hating” Media

When things blow up in Donny’s face he turns to his stand-by excuse….blame the media….and so it is with the problems on the USS Lincoln….

Over the past week, Pentagon officials launched a broadside against reports of dire conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, which has been deployed in the Middle East for more than eight months.

Less than 24 hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth first criticized reporting about the Lincoln as “completely misrepresented,” a seemingly coordinated messaging campaign spread across the Pentagon’s social media apparatus. At least six senior Pentagon and Navy officials and spokespeople, along with official department accounts, published or amplified substantially similar attacks on the reporting across X and Facebook.

Recent reporting by Military Times and Stars and Stripes has drawn significant national attention to alarming conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3 operating under the U.S. 5th Fleet.

Reporting by Natalie Oliverio, a Navy veteran and award-winning journalist, documented concerns from service members and their families about suicide attempts, inadequate food, shortages of basic hygiene products, and deteriorating sanitation conditions aboard the carrier.

The concerns have since drawn coverage from CNN, NPR and other national news organizations.

U.S. Central Command subsequently placed Oliverio’s reporting prominently in an infographic declaring that “multiple media outlets have reported several false claims” about the Lincoln. While five other reports displayed in the graphic were labeled “FALSE,” Oliverio’s reporting was labeled “MISINFORMED.”

On Aug. 14, Hegseth accused the “reckless & shameless ‘American’ media” of “completely & intentionally” misrepresenting the situation on the Lincoln, later referring to “fake, America-hating news.”

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/uss-abraham-lincoln-news/

That is their answer to any facts that puts them in the spotlight…..Donny and the slime ball Pistol Pete care nothing for the men and women that service and protect this nation.

The only shame is what these fools are doing to our troops….they deserve better than the morons that run their lives and the suck ups that command them.

I believe the horror stories….do you?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Women In Danger

This is a post on something I read the other day about women serving in the US Army.

When I was in the Army, 1967-1970, women were clerks, nurses and other non-combatants but in today’s Army they can do anything a man can do.

There is lots of disturbing reports about what goes on in the military between men and women but this report is just plain horrific.

Twenty-three-year-old Sarah Roque had been in the Army for just over four years when a man fatally shot her in the head.

Roque wasn’t in a war zone, and the killer wasn’t an enemy combatant. It was Wooster Rancy, a fellow soldier stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, who had gone to Walmart for trash bags on the last day Roque was seen alive in October 2024. The Army found her body in a dumpster behind the barracks.

“Even now, I still can’t believe it,” her mother, Ana Roque, told The Intercept. “That murderers could exist in one of the supposedly safest places in the country.”

A first-of-its-kind analysis by The Intercept found that in the Army, women are more likely to be killed by their fellow service members than by enemy combatants, in a reversal of the threat soldiers are trained to face. Between 2011 and August 2025, at least 41 women died by homicide in the Army — more than half of them at the hands of other service members or veterans. Using Defense Department manpower data to calculate per capita death rates, The Intercept found that active-duty Army women face a higher risk of homicide than male soldiers, the opposite of national and global trends

In many cases, women in the Army are killed by current or former romantic partners. Over 70 percent of victims had an intimate relationship with the perpetrator at one point, and the rate of homicides among women soldiers from intimate partner violence is at least three times higher than the national average. In others, like Roque’s case, it’s unclear how male soldiers chose their victims.

 

Women in the Army Are More Likely to Be Killed by Fellow Soldiers Than Enemy Combatants

What is it that fuels these acts?

Is it the culture of violence the military brings?

Or is it just a sign of the times?

Please if there are any thoughts  come forth and share.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Restore Oil Flow Without Hormuz

The big deal these days is Donny and his delusional idea for the Strait of Hormuz but none of them will restore the flow of oil….is there answer to some sort of restoration?

This article covers the possibilities and god knows oil companies do not want to go without their money maker….

The largest global oil shock on record has catapulted U.S. gasoline prices above $4 a gallon, rekindled inflation and set the stage for November’s midterm elections.

It all traces to fighting in a narrow strip of water thousands of miles away. Iran’s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz choked off a trade route responsible for about 20% of global oil supply, or nearly 21 million barrels of oil each day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. A U.S. blockade of Iranian ships deepened the crude shortage.

On-again, off-again negotiations have shown little sign of a breakthrough, encouraging oil producers and Gulf nations to seek out other trade routes, some of which are already transporting millions of barrels each day.

Those alternatives, in theory, could eventually restore most of the lost oil flow and provide relief at the pump, some analysts told ABC News, but construction would take several years and require major investment. Still, they said, the approach may offer a durable fix, heading off future flareups in the Strait.

“You’ve already got some projects in the works. I don’t see any turning back,” Tom Seng, a professor of energy finance at Texas Christian University, told ABC News. “Nobody wants to get stung without a solution again.”

Shipping traffic in the Strait has declined sharply since the outbreak of war in Iran, according to oil data company Kpler. An average of about 13 ships crossed the Strait each day last week, the firm said in a post on X, down from more than 100 ships per day before the recent conflict.

https://abcnews.com/Business/gas-prices-fall-companies-build-oil-routes-bypass/story

The pipeline idea is a fanciful one….it will go through some unstable areas to make it to market….and then how will they secure the pipeline from attacks that will stymie oil flow?

Let me guess….the US military will provide security for these operations, right?

I think this is a bad idea….and if instigated would come back to bite us in the ass.

What do you guys think of this ‘plan’?

On a side note….there is talk of after the war with Iran that US would draw down its presence in the region….

The US military is considering reducing its military presence in the Persian Gulf, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday, as many of its bases in the region have been badly damaged by Iranian attacks.

Many of the US bases in the Gulf had been evacuated before the US and Israel launched the bombing campaign against Iran on February 28 due to their vulnerability, and some have been essentially abandoned following heavy Iranian attacks.

The Post report said that the damage to US bases in the Gulf has “prompted a once-in-a-generation chance for the Pentagon to reconsider its presence in the region” and that the Pentagon had already signaled it may not rebuild its Gulf bases to how they were before.

Sources told the paper that Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), has been involved in discussions about the future of the US military presence in the region and supports holding deliberations on potentially moving troops west from the Persian Gulf.

Notably, a pullback of US troops from the Persian Gulf has been one of Iran’s conditions for a deal to end the conflict. Iranian officials have frequently said that they believe this war will lead to a US “retreat” from the region.

(antiwar.com)

Does anyone think oil companies will allow this to take place?

I don’t.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Remembering USS Liberty

Every year I post on the dastardly attack by Israel on the US Naval ship, USS Liberty…..I would like to now post on one of the survivors of that attack that is died.

On Friday, July 31, 2026, Lieutenant Commander James M. Ennes, Jr., US Navy, ret., slipped his cable and unfurled his sails. With the Great Pilot at the helm, he set a course to his final home port.

LCDR Ennes, then Lieutenant Ennes, was serving aboard the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) when, on June 8, 1967, Israeli forces began a combined aerial and naval assault, lasting over an hour, that killed 34 Americans and wounded more than 170 others. LCDR Ennes was seriously wounded in the attack. The official record indicates that Navy medical staff expected him to remain on medical leave for seven months as he recovered from multiple shrapnel wounds and multiple fractures of his left femur. LCDR Ennes did recover sufficiently to serve in the Navy as a cryptologic officer until his retirement in 1978.

On the day of the attack, the Liberty was repeatedly reconnoitered by Israeli military aircraft over the span of several daylight hours and positively identified as an American ship flying the American flag. The Liberty never approached closer than thirty-eight nautical miles to the Israeli coast. Nevertheless while steaming in clear weather and calm seas in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea northwest of the Egyptian city of al-ʿArīsh, the Liberty came under repeated aerial attack by Israeli forces at approximately 2 PM, local time, followed by an assault by Israeli motor torpedo boats.

https://original.antiwar.com/michelle_kinnucan/2026/08/09/remembering-lcdr-james-ennes-of-the-uss-liberty-1933-2026/

As long as I breathe I will post on the murderous actions of Israel against Americans (that many seem to have forgotten)….not me.

May LCDR Ennes rest in peace….

I Read, I Write, You KNow

“lego ergo scribo”

Adak, A Ghost Town

A colossal waste!

When my late wife, Sue, was in the Navy she served on an Alaskan island in Adak…..and recently I read an article about the island she served on for awhile….

On an island in the Bering Sea 1,200 miles from Anchorage sits an abandoned house on an abandoned Navy base. There is no furniture, and the wind blows through broken windows. The last people to live here moved away long ago. Yet a bright orange pipe with a black fiber-optic cable inside runs from the outer wall down into the surrounding soil.

The cable was installed to connect the home to the internet after the base closed. It costs more than $340,000 per year to provide this building and hundreds of others — all but a few of them empty — with internet access no one says they use.

The money being wasted is yours.

It comes from a fee added to nearly every American’s phone bill as part of a Federal Communications Commission subsidy program intended to bring fast, affordable internet to remote towns.

Reporting this year by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica has found that the multibillion-dollar Universal Service Fund pays for what often amounts to slow internet access for customers who actually no longer use it.

The FCC keeps the money flowing to telecom companies regardless of their owners’ track records. It kept paying a Fairbanks company to provide internet service while its owner served federal prison time for tax evasion. The government kept paying Alaska’s largest telecom, GCI, even after it signed a settlement for alleged fraud related to the subsidy. (The settlement said it was neither an admission of guilt by GCI nor a concession by the Justice Department that the claims were not well founded.)

On This Nearly Deserted Alaska Island, You Pay to Keep Hundreds of Empty Buildings Wired for Internet

Just another story of how the US government wastes countless dollars and yet cannot seem to help people with their problems.

Time for a change of government….we need help….and we need it now.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Freedom To Worship?

Not according to Pistol Pete.

I do not normally post on religion for to me it is a personal decision and should stay that way….because I do not care how you choose to worship because it is a personal thing and should stay that way.

We have the freedom to worship as we see fit….well that is not exactly true you must be part of the ‘qualified’ religions…..

The Department of Defense announced on Friday a significant reduction in the number of religious affiliations it officially recognizes. The new list of 31 is down from more than 200 previously recognized traditions that troops could choose from. The list no longer includes atheists, Unitarian Universalists, pagans, or Wiccans, the AP reports. “This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. The move is intended to help chaplains quickly assess the religious composition of their units to allocate resources, he added.

The list creates broad categories of some Christian traditions—Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist—without specifying denominations within those traditions, which can span the theological and ideological spectrum. Service members can choose to identify as “no religion,””other religions” or agnostic. Also included are Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, the Baha’i faith, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Unitarian Universalist Association, which was cut from the list, said in a statement, “This may make it more difficult for our uniformed UUs to access the spiritual care that they need.” The denomination said it is working on a strategic response to support its adherents in the service.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the impending changes in December, saying the number of faith codes had become unmanageable. “Secretary Hegseth is not ‘streamlining’ anything. He is elevating one narrow religious worldview from the top of the chain of command,” said the Rev. Paul Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and head of the progressive Interfaith Alliance. “The First Amendment does not allow the government to create a hierarchy of faiths, and it certainly does not allow the Pentagon to decide which beliefs are worthy of recognition.” Nearly 70% of troops identify as Christian, a 2019 congressional report said. Almost a quarter of troops were listed as other, unclassified, or unknown. “As a member of a minority religion, I think it’s really important that we be counted,” said Irene Glasse, a pagan religious professional and Marine veteran. “It erases us, and so many of us have served so proudly, so well, and so honorably.”

This is such BS….just more of Pistol Pete’s religious crap.

Here is a list of what Pete says are not recognized religions….

Complete List off Faiths That Just Got Dropped From the Pentagon’s Recognized Religions List

This should go to SCOTUS….they may side with Pistol Pete but at least make an effort to right this damn wrong.

Any thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“leho ergo scribo”

Section 224

Section 224?

Buried in the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.

Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.

Is this a good idea?

I know the US is at the mercy of Israeli ash but to give them this much sway over our military is unheard of and unprecedented.

Section 224 would be a different beast entirely. It would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber. It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers. It would give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S. By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on U.S. soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.

The result could well be a U.S. political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the U.S. into military conflicts in the Middle East.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-us-military/

Israel has way too much power over Congress and the WH…it is time to break this stranglehold and put Israel in its place…..as the problem that keeps the Middle East in flames and allows it to get away with genocide and massive destruction in the name of security.

These twats are expanding their little piece of sand into a mini empire which I am sure we can find in one of their books of myths.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Support Our Troops

Memorial Day has come and gone and all day long we heard (if you were out and about) just how massive our support for our troops is….sorry but Memorial Day is not about supporting the troops but rather those that had their lives taken from them in a time of war.

“Support our troops” is a catchphrase, almost a mantra, often used by cynical politicians to suppress dissent about their disastrous wars of choice. Basically, dissenters are accused of being unpatriotic because their criticism allegedly betrays the troops and weakens national resolve. It’s a BS argument but it’s often compelling and even convincing to some.

Americans have a civic religion defined by the Pledge of Allegiance, the flag, the National Anthem, military parades and pageantry, and U.S. history taught as heritage and as a celebration of American goodness and greatness. When you step outside of that, when you criticize it, dissent from it, you must be prepared to be attacked as a heretic.

Back in 2010, I wrote an article for TomDispatch in which I argued that not every American troop is a hero. I argued instead that real heroes are few and far between, and that the ideal of heroism shouldn’t be associated so closely, even almost exclusively, with military service. These are obvious points (to me, at least), but I took some flak for suggesting that merely donning a military uniform doesn’t and shouldn’t make one a “hero.”

I remain convinced that hyping the troops as universal “heroes” isn’t a form of support. The troops know better. If you truly want to support them, listen to them. Be an informed and knowledgeable citizen. Speak your mind and don’t be afraid to criticize those who seek to use the military for dishonorable or indefensible purposes.

Since this is America, theoretically land of the free, feel free as well to speak out against the military. Our founders were suspicious of large standing armies and were wary of wars as being especially pernicious to democracy.

We Americans celebrate our troops for defending freedom, yet we paradoxically attack those who try to exercise their freedom by denouncing war and militarism. You can’t have it both ways. Unless you want hypocrisy instead of democracy, you can’t celebrate freedom while denying it.

This was, of course, the so-called original sin of the American republic: celebrating freedom while also enshrining the institution of slavery. Rank hypocrisy led inexorably to the U.S. Civil War.

https://original.antiwar.com/william_astore/2026/05/24/support-our-troops-what-it-really-means/

This pseudo-religion is practiced everyday….with the singing of the anthem or the reciting of the Pledge, etc….but most participate because everyone around them is doing it….

I have a hard time with people that blindly thank me for my service but know nothing about me or how I was treated when I returned home.

If you want to ‘thank them for their service’ then become more engaged in what they must go through to return to civilian life….in some cases it is not an easy transformation.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”