Category: Military

Be The First On Your Block To Witness Death

The White House has cleared a firing squad death for the attacker on Ft. Hood….and now it will be live streamed….

The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S., especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

https://apnews.com/article/fort-hood-shooter-execution-pentagon-818853afc1be5c70fe41c5b781a8d559

I have mixed thoughts about this.

This is just a macho move by Pistol Pete to emphasize the miltary-ness that he embraces.

A new low for ‘reality TV’.

Sadly I think it maybe a big hit….for the public has gotten more ghoulish thanx to Donny and the Butts…..

This will not be a deterrent to further terrorists acts…if anything it may create a martyr for what ever cause it is….

This is a game played by morons.

But now ask yourself….what could possibly be next?

How about public hangings?

Under President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has broken a number of precedents, from targeting Black and female officers in the military to purging top officers for not being sufficiently loyal to the Republican administration. Now he is ordering the first public execution in modern American history.

“Pentagon officials said on Thursday that the Army officer convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting would be executed in public, a practice that ended in the United States nearly a century ago and is most commonly carried out in a handful of countries including Iran, North Korea and the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan,” reported Chris Cameron of The New York Times on Thursday. “The Pentagon said in a statement that the military execution, scheduled for Dec. 3, would also be broadcast via livestream. Such a broadcast has little precedent, and releasing video of executions is most often associated with extremist militant groups like the Islamic State.”

On the social media platform X, commentators from all sides reacted with horror.

https://www.alternet.org/public-lynchings/

The whole idea of public executions is just plain sick.

Your thoughts will be appreciated.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Ever See ‘Seven Days In May’?

This was a movie from a novel released in 1964 about a military coup by generals of the US….

Seven Days in May is a 1964 American political thriller film, directed by John Frankenheimer and written by Rod Serling, who adapted Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II‘s 1962 novel. It is about a military–political cabal‘s planned takeover of the U.S. government after the president negotiates a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union.

I bring this up because of something I read in a very conserv newspaper, the Washington Examiner….I will only post the the article link for information only….

 

59% of Democrats support a military coup against Trump. As long as it wears a uniform

 

Let me be honest….considering the source and nothing similar reported…..I think this is just another conserv fearmongering tactic…..but one can hope.

BTW an excellent movie…..watch it if you can….along with the original ‘Manchurian Candidate’…..both are too good too miss.

Please read and let me know what you think.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Sword Of Damocles

It hangs over our heads with impending doom.

I know you have heard this statement before…..but what does it mean?

The Sword of Damocles is a metaphor for the constant sense of threat and anxiety that comes with great power or wealth. It describes how those who appear to have everything are often the least free, held hostage by the very things that seem to make them fortunate.

I bring this up because of the revelation that there are orbiting weapons in space….

During a recent “State of the Space Force” address in Maryland, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Douglas Schiess stated frankly that the US has at least non-kinetic weapons positioned in space, and that these capabilities were used in the war on Iran.

“Let me be crystal clear: today, Guardians operate on-orbit weapons that can defend the joint force against space-enabled attacks,” Schiess said. He was lying, however, as he later testified to the aggressive combat actions of a certain “Specialist Gray,” who, “courageously held the line, protecting forces, denying adversary capability, and delivering space effects,” even while “sirens were blaring and incoming missiles targeted her site,” doubtlessly referring to a US base in the Middle East.

Schiess said that Gray was supporting Operation Epic Fury, an aggressive and unprovoked surprise attack on Iran. In finally being able to demonstrate to the wider military establishment that the Space Force can actually help blow stuff up, he not only proved himself to be making false statements about defending the joint force from space, (Iran has little if any space capabilities) and equally in regards to another statement he made later in his speech that the Space Force’s aim “is deterrence,” but also that the US has violated the spirit, if not the precise wording of the UN Treaty on the Use of Outer Space.

The Outer Space Treaty, while prohibiting the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in outer space, doesn’t outrightly ban conventional weapons in space. Other language on banning military exercises and installations on celestial bodies, as well as the treaty’s repeated emphasis that space is to be used for peaceful purposes, has lead some legal scholars to interpret the positioning of any weapons, in space or on celestial bodies, as a violation of the treaty.

Nevertheless, Article 1 states that “…use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries”. It is certainly not in the interest of Iran for the US to be attacking her from space with signal jammers and other forms of cyberwarfare.

https://original.antiwar.com/andy_corbley/2026/09/16/as-space-force-admits-to-deploying-weapons-in-orbit-us-contempt-for-arms-control-continues/

I am not surprised that the US is violating a treaty it signed in the past….just look at those signed with Native Americans….the US is NOT a reliable player in international affairs.

If there is more you would like to know….maybe this will help….

https://people.com/u-s-military-confirms-for-first-time-weapons-in-space-12122342

I mean this is Reagan’s “Star Wars” program all over….it was never side lined….it just took some time to moved stuff around to make it reality.

This is where you money goes while children go hungry….I am so proud (sarcasm)….

Does this need to be stopped?

Now in breaking news….the Space Force has a new mandate….

American troops need to prepare for combat not only in Earth’s orbit but around the moon, President Trump’s top military adviser said on Wednesday, looking ahead to a new frontier in warfare after the US revealed that, for the first time, it has deployed weapons in space. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told service members and industry figures at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference outside Washington that the US military should adapt now so it “is prepared to fight, endure, and win … from the seabed to cislunar space,” per the AP.

Space Force, the newest military service, created by Trump in 2019, is preparing to fight in space and around the moon because “humanity is advancing deeper into space—the Space Force’s job is to help be prepared to defend US interests,” Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, head of the force’s Combat Forces Command, told reporters separately. The announcement that the US military is ready to fight in the area between high Earth orbit and the moon itself comes days after Air Force Secretary Troy Meink revealed at the same conference that the US has fielded “on-orbit space control weapons.”

The spate of announcements about space weaponry from military officials over recent days flies in the face of long-standing conventions and international understandings that have held outer space as only to be used for peaceful purposes and remain nonmilitarized. While multiple nations, including the US, have demonstrated the ability to shoot down satellites in Earth’s orbit, those demonstrations have taken place from the ground against their own satellites. However, according to Gagnon, “the intelligence community has been clear that potential adversaries have been seeking to extend warfare into space,” and that the US military needs to react.

“Our potential adversaries, such as [China], are actively pursuing activities in the system, in parts of space,” Gagnon said. China established its own military space troops in 2024, charging them with boosting capability to manage space crises. Gagnon also says the US aims to double the size of the Space Force over the next five years, to roughly 25,000 service members, and that about two-thirds of that growth would be focused on Combat Forces Command. “We have capabilities in the military because we are preparing to defend the nation,” Gagnon said. “The reason we have the capabilities is to help create deterrence.” More here.

The Moon is not a US territory…..we do not own it and as such we should not use it for a battlefield.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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”