Let me be clear, Mike Yon was in the Army. He was in Special Forces for a short-time period. Actually his time in the Army was short. He also killed a man in bar-fight right after earning his Green Beret. Good for him for his short service, at least it was service. Shame on him for bringing embarrassment to the Army for killing a civilian in a bar-fight. He never served in combat, but that is ok. There are many that have never served in combat.

So lets look at these credentials. He knows good military training, from back in the day. He also knows how to take another person’s life, granted not for good or justifiable reasons.

He has also been dis-embedded from multiple units in Afghanistan and is pretty much not being allowed back into country now to embed with anyone. It could be because he crosses over to what could be considered as unethical stories. He has been accused of violating operational security. He has also lashed out at any military command that does not allow him to embed (he did this with the Navy after the Japan disaster and the Army multiple times).

But like I said at least he has served. He belongs to a long list of great people that have served this country. However serving does not make you above the law, or perfect, or right in every situation. Just ask Lynddie England, Timothy McViegh, or Bradley Manning. They all have served in the Army. Does that make them great people that deserve respect regardless of what they have done? I think not.

Anyway, for some reason Mike Yon who has never served in combat, but has embedded with many military units in combat is now a subject matter expert on the use of MEDEVACS and how they are marked and what their mission is in combat. I have never played professional football but I have been to many games and have hours playing EA’s Madden football game on my computer and Xbox. That does not make me subject matter expert on how to play or what it is like or what plays to call. Just an analogy there on how stupid it is for anyone to listen to Mike Yon and his full-of-shit opinion about strategy and doctrine. He is nothing more than an arm-chair general who thinks he is in the “know” and is so full of himself that if he could get through life with making love to himself, I think he would. 

Mike has capitalized on an incident that happened while he was embedded in Afghanistan before he was kicked out. He is on a kick to try and get the Army to remove the red crosses from the MEDEVAC helicopter and to arm them like CASEVAC helicopters are some times. You may be asking, what is the difference? Let me point you to Aerovac World, which is a social networking site for professionals in the Aerovac Evacuation industry. You can find more at www.aerovacworld.com/showthread.php?221-Difference-between-CASEVAC-MEDEVAC-and-AEROVAC

CASEVAC
CASEVAC uses non standardized and non dedicated vehicles that do not provide en route care. The service exists to transport casualties that are in dire need for evacuation from the battlefield and do not have time to wait on a MEDEVAC, or where a MEDEVAC is unable to get to the casualty. Essentially it is any helicopter or vehicle that can get into an area and evacuate an injured member with or without a medical crew and/or equipment.

According to AFTTP3-42.5
Casualty evacuation (CASEVAC), a term used by all Services, refers to the movement of unregulated casualties aboard vehicles or aircraft.

MEDEVAC or DUSTOFF
The Army has a long history of medevac via helicopter starting with the 57th Medical Detachment back in 1962. The history of the DUSTOFF mission can be found on their website www.dustoff.org/history/history.htm

DUSTOFF is a standardized and dedicated vehicle providing en route care. They are traditionally on UH-1 Huey’s and UH-60’s Blackhawks. They can be easily identified with the Red Cross symbol on the nose and sides of the helicopter. One other identifiable mark with medevac’s is they do not have gunners aboard like the Air Force medics had. DUSTOFF medics are extremely skilled at what they do and are highly regarded as some of the best medics around. For more information about DUSTOFF, please visit www.dustoff.org.

According to AFTTP3-42.5
Medical evacuation
(MEDEVAC), on the other hand, traditionally refers to US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard patient movement using predesignated tactical or logistic aircraft temporarily equipped and staffed for en route care. MEDEVAC has generally implied the use of rotarywing aircraft with medical attendants (MA).

Air Force Medevac
The Air Force doesn’t traditionally fill a medevac role but in 2006 the Army asked the Air Force to help with its medevac mission, it was considered an in-lieu-of deployment. The first medics that took on this responsibility were then TSgt Mark D. and TSgt Shawn B.. In order to fill the role, they needed to qualify on the helicopter and attend survival school.

Because the Air Force normally doesn’t carry out the medevac mission, it doesn’t have a helicopter designed for that purpose. This meant the flight medics had to make do with what they had, the HH-60 Pave Hawk, a helicopter the Air Force uses for combat search and rescue missions. It, too, is a distant relative of the Army’s Black Hawk.

I hope that explains it a little better and offers more clarity. Medevacs are not armed with weapons as they are armed with life-saving equipment. A CASEVAC is any type of transport available. It could be another helicopter, a HUMVEE, or hell even a civilian vehicle if that is all that is available. It is a means to transport a wounded warrior. In war zones just about every vehicle has a weapon on it. Some don’t, especially those that have a unique or specified purpose. For example, the Buffalo MRAP, The Husky or MEDEVAC birds. They are specialized, they have a unique application and it is more important that they carry what they need to do their job versus trying to fill a mission they are not destined for.

So when SPC Chazray Clark’s widow, Christine asks the question I would hope that someone could get to her and explain the answer. Someone besides Yon who is doing nothing but taking advantage of her and her grief.

“I just don’t understand why — can’t they take the red crosses off,” she said, “and put machine guns on them? Why do they have to wait for somebody to escort them?”

If a MEDEVAC is carrying weapons and ammunition, then how are they supposed to carry all the life-saving medical equipment they are required to carry? Remember they are designated to provide en-route care and not just evacuate the wounded from the battlefield.

Former Afghanistan Commander and RESPECTED military leader LTG John Campbell makes it pretty clear.

 …Lt. Gen. John Campbell says it would not save more lives.

“I don’t think arming a medevac bird or taking a cross off a medevac bird will change whether or not we can get in and save our soldiers,” he said.

Machine guns would add weight and reduce the number of patients a medevac could carry and would not bring nearly as much firepower as an Apache escort. Today in Afghanistan, a wounded soldier stands a 92 percent chance of surviving — the highest rate of any war. Campbell, a former commander in Afghanistan and now chief of army operations, says that is the best argument for unarmed medevacs.

Because they don’t have weapons on board, the Army requires that armed helicopters go with the unarmed MEDEVACS anywhere they go. Regardless of what the non-combat veteran Mike Yon says those red crosses don’t invite more gunfire onto the helicopter due in large part because there is always an armed Apache, Blackhawk or even a Chinook helicopter with them.

What amazes me is that a guy who flip-flops on whether or not he is a journalist or blogger or whatever the flavor of the day is, a guy who killed a innocent person in a bar-fight, a guy who has been thrown out of embed after embed with the military can somehow have the ear of Fox News and of many elected Congressman and Senators. Why do they even give him the time of day much less help spread the lies and fallacies that he has made up in his little fat head.

I have been on the business end of more MEDEVACS then I care to remember. I have called in many and then had to wait and provide care and comfort to the wounded, keep security up  and also re-assure his buddies that the bird was coming. In fact one one day I had two MEDEVACS just about 90 minutes apart. Lucky for Mr. Yon he has never had to experience that, he has only had to watch from the sidelines through his lens and then sharpshoot and ridicule the entire process.

Please do me a favor, if you agree with what I say and have the common sense to see the difference between the different means of getting wounded off the battlefield, leave a comment here or better yet send your Representative or Senator a comment about it.

You can also read more and see a CBS video about this at www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57362374/did-military-rules-cost-a-soldier-his-life/

DISCLAIMER- In case it was not clear, I can’t stand Mike Yon, the ground he walks on or the oxygen he steals from the rest of us. I don’t give a crap what he thinks about me, and never will. To put it into perspective, if his body was on fire and his head was ripped off…I would piss down his neck-hole but not on his body because it would put the fire out.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

The bottom line is our combat zones have way to many lawyers on them and not enough trigger-pullers.

A paratrooper is facing trial for punching an escaping Taliban member.

The case, which is estimated to cost the taxpayer 250,000 pounds, is continuing even though there are no formal witnesses.

British military prosecutors admit that the captive, Ahmed Wali, has provided ‘unreliable’ evidence, The Daily Mail reports.

But the Service Prosecuting Authority has refused to drop the case and charged CplC with the assault. He is due to appear at a court martial later this month.

His legal team had moved the high court for seeking a judicial review of the decision to prosecute him.

His name is being kept secret because he served alongside special forces.

Cpl C was a qualified tactical questioner when the incident occurred in March 2010.

He admitted that he punched Wali when insurgents were firing at the compound and laying down IEDs.

Cpl C’s friends criticised the decision to prosecute him as ‘absurd’.

“He is a young British paratrooper who has risked his life and was doing his duty. There is no other point of this prosecution than political correctness. He should be seen as a hero, not facing the prospect of his good name being left in tatters,” his friend said.(ANI)

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Iraq will take legal action to ensure justice for the families of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians killed in a U.S. raid in Haditha seven years ago, a government spokesman said Thursday, after the lone U.S. Marine convicted in the killings reached a deal to escape jail time.

Really, REALLY? What exactly are they going to do? Not a damn thing. This is all some eye-wash and hot-air by Iraqi politicians to make it look like they can do something. Sorry it didn’t turn out the way they wanted, but the facts of the case are the facts of the case. It was war, things happen in war, bad things, that is why war is hell and why it is something we don’t like to do. 

Read the whole story at:

www.military.com/news/article/iraq-may-take-legal-action-over-haditha-raid.html

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

The Afghan soldier who gunned down nine Americans in a shooting rampage at a military compound in Kabul last April targeted and killed his U.S. mentors after they took away his wings and cut his salary nearly in half because he was unable to learn English, a longtime colleague of the killer has told FoxNews.com.
A second Afghan airman, who was wounded in the April 27 attack, says the gunman, Col. Ahmed Gul, also intended to kill Afghans who were working with the Americans at the base at Kabul Airport. And he said he fears there will be more incidents like it as the war winds down.

Read more: www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/26/exclusive-flunked-english-class-pay-cut-behind-afghans-shooting-rampage-at-us/#ixzz1kbHdWHGG

I can’t say this is much different from Americans. We hear all the time about fired disgruntled workers who go back into the workplace and gun down their managers, co-workers, etc.

What is surprising in this whole thing is that the Air Force just released their Special Investigation report into this incident and there was no mention of the cut in pay or flying status. Why would that be? It could be that none of it is true, or that it is but the Air Force for some reason is hiding that fact or did not want to make that known for some politically correct reason.

I would say that if this were true, it would be a prime motive of why COL Gul decided to murder. I would hope that the Air Force is not trying to hide this in order to hide the fact that as we mentor and train Afghans to do their jobs and secure their own country that we would and should be holding them accountable and thereby punishing them when needed.

I don’t mean to sound all conspiracy theorist here but lets just say I have seen more than my fair share of covering up of Afghan inadequacies and shortfalls by US military and civilian leadership.

Photo Courtesy of www.bigstockphoto.com

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

France suspended its training operations in Afghanistan and threatened to withdraw its entire force from the country early, after an Afghan wearing an army uniform shot and killed four French troops Friday and wounded others.

So after two of their soldiers are killed by Afghan security forces the French are ready to pack it in and go home. Are they that shallow and weak that it only takes that to get them to quit? No wonder they got rolled over by the Nazis so quickly.

Now I bet if Afghanistan had their oil like Libya did they would be willing to stick around a little bit longer.

These are the same allies that when they are in trouble that they come begging to us to help them out. We need to learn when to say NO!

Read more: www.foxnews.com/world/2012/01/20/nato-4-coalition-troops-killed-by-afghan-soldier/#ixzz1k1ouVbcZ

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Besides they are led by the best Division Commander the Army has today (in my humble opinion), my very close and longtime friend MG Robert ‘Abe’ Abrams. I know Abe has a solid staff, has led by example with ethics and integrity and that he and the rest of the Dog Face Soldiers of the Rock of the Marne Division will make America Proud.

DOD Identifies Units for Upcoming Afghanistan Rotation

The Department of Defense today identified three major units to deploy as part of the upcoming rotation of forces operating in Afghanistan. The scheduled rotation will begin in Spring 2012.

This announcement involves one division headquarters totaling approximately 1,000 personnel and two brigade combat teams totaling approximately 5,800 personnel.

Headquarters units:

•• 3rd Infantry Division HQ, Fort Stewart, Ga.

Brigade Combat Teams:

•• 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C. (to deploy as a partial BCT).

•• 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.

DoD will continue to announce major deployments as they are approved. For information on the respective deployments contact 3rd Infantry Division HQ, public affairs office, 912-435-9876, and the 82d Airborne Division Rear Detachment, public affairs office, 910-432-0661.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

I agree the video looks pretty bad, but so did the bloody glove that didn’t fit. However I would hope that American and the World does not convict these guys in public opinion before they are given a fair chance in a court of military law. If they did do this act and if there are no extenuating circumstances and are found guilty, then they should be punished based on the Uniformed Code of Military Justice and not on the Media hype or Congressional babbling that may come from this. 

I would hate to think that if they are found guilty that the Commander responsible for the punishment would let political pressure or media pressure to sway his/her judgement.

The bottom line is that if they did it, it is far better than what they do to our guys and our partners. I don’t see our soldiers cutting off heads while they are still alive, or killing them and stuffing their bodies with booby-traps, or capturing Taliban and making them call their families while we torture them to death while the family is listening. Yes that is just a small taste of what our enemies have done.

Is it morally wrong to desecrate and disrespect a body? In the sane world of what we in the western nations consider “right or wrong”, yes it is. Do people of other nations or beliefs feel that way? Not not at all. Does that make it right for us to do it? No.

However if these guys did it, they are humans. They are flawed, they have emotions and they get caught up int the moment. They have probably seen more of their buddies killed, ripped apart and maimed on the six tours this unit has had then most people could stomach. They are worn out, worn down and just plain tired of fighting an enemy that has no rules, morals or cares about any human life of any nationality while they (all US Forces) have to comply with layer after layer of rules, laws and regulations about what is fair and not fair. In hindsight (if they are guilty) they would probably never put themselves in this situation or wished they weren’t. However until a person walks even a few steps in the shoes these guys wear, they cannot honestly and fairly judge the actions by them.

It is sad that our military (as flawed as many try to make them out to be) are always held to the highest possible standard imaginable in the world. When Hezbollah or AQI or Taliban or whomever put a person on their knees, turn on the camera and cut their head off with the screaming and gurgling and slicing for all to hear and see, it is essentially ignored by the world. However when our forces do anything that is considered in the slightest to be disrespectful to our enemies, they are marched into the “proverbial” streets and hung by the media and the pontificators for all to see and glorify in.

What I do find amazing are the comments on the Yahoo News story about this (news.yahoo.com/karzai-condemns-video-urination-corpses-120758800.html). In reading some of those, it appears many could care less about this and don’t think it is that big a deal. I find that amazing because maybe a larger population of America is getting sick and tired of seeing our sons and daughters killed and maimed by these cowardice bastards and have themselves turned a little cold to dead tangos. I mean the reality is, they are dead. They will never know and hey if they are right, they are probably hanging out with 72 virgins when that was happening anyway, so what do they care.

The shame in all of this is that the far left, and the radical muslims (who themselves have and continue to do far worse than this) will probably use this in the I/O campaign and to inflame the people who listen to them against the US and the US Military as a whole. Just as in any situation, a few people do not represent the whole of a group, culture or society. Muslim men flew planes into buildings and killed 3000 of my fellow Americans, they have also hung burned bodies from bridges and cut off the heads of innocent non-combatants. However I don’t consider all young Muslim men to be that way. I have many friends, especially Afghan Army and Interpreters who I trusted with my life that are young Afghan men. I don’t let the actions of a few stain my view of the whole. I just wish the entire world would have that view also.

It is also a shame that this video was even taken and worse yet made it public. This could have been turned over to military authorities and dealt with in the military law system without having to be made public and create the uproar it has already started. It makes me wonder what the motivations are of the person that released this.

I will be talking about this subject in a lot more detail today at 1PM on BBC’s World Have Your Say radio program. You can listen live at starting at 1PM or catch the podcast later at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/audioconsole/?stream=worldhaveyoursay

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

A Massachusetts school board has denied a teacher’s request for three paid days off to welcome home her soldier stepson who was seriously injured while serving in Afghanistan.

Sonya Lomax, a high school math teacher in Carver, Mass., had asked for the three additional days to visit with her stepson, 23-year-old Army Spc. Todd Lomax, who was seriously wounded after being hit by shrapnel in a grenade explosion in Kandahar Province in October.
Lomax had already taken the nine paid days of leave allotted to her under her contract, but requested an additional three days of leave, citing “extenuating circumstances,”…

Read more: www.foxnews.com/us/2012/01/10/massachusetts-teacher-denied-extra-paid-leave-to-welcome-home-son-wounded-in/#ixzz1j4b5gyxO

At first glance you would think the School Board is to blame and maybe they are to some extent. However after reading the whole story at the link above part of me thinks maybe it is the union’s fault too. Not because they didn’t somehow predict the future and account for this but probably because they are such a pain the a$$ to deal with that the School board is trying to teach them a lesson and show them that if they want to play by the rules, then the rules it is.

I will be the first to admit I HATE unions, I mean DEPLORE them. I have friends, very close ones, in unions. Some are by the choice, others are forced into it in order to hold the job that they do. Unions are an outdated concept in my opinion and I think our society (who aren’t in love with unions) would agree. We are a much more educated and informed society than back when unions were formed. They don’t do anything except take money from their members while never really looking after all their interests.

Unions are typically such sticklers about contracts and “rights” and what is owed to them that they hold the company hostage. 

In reading between the lines on the story above it seems that the School Board is just telling them, “hey we gave her the nine days as per YOUR contract”. It really stinks that Ms. Lomax is being used as an “example” if that is the case, and again I am only assuming here, but in seeing how unions act I can partially see why.

The bottom line is she is only asking for 3 days so maybe the School board could grant it out of the kindness of their heart and then use that as a talking and negotiating point in the future. I think they could turn this around as a good thing for them in dealing with the union going forward. Who knows if they will, but I am sure since this story is national that they will get a few phone calls, emails and maybe visits.

If nothing else, maybe she can take 3 days unpaid and go visit her son and if the community feels strong enough about this they can take up a collection for her to offset the loss of pay.

What do you think?

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Image courtesy of www.bigstockphoto.com

That was the saying I grew up with when one person or group accused another of something that the original party was known to be guilty of.

Afghan investigators accused the American military Saturday of abusing detainees at its main prison in the country, bolstering calls by President Hamid Karzai for the U.S. to turn over control of the facility and complicating talks about America’s future role in Afghanistan.

The investigators also called for any detainee held without evidence to be freed, putting the U.S. and Afghan governments on a collision course in an issue that will decide the fate of hundreds of suspected Taliban and al-Qaida operatives captured by American forces and held indefinitely.

I read this over the weekend and was floored. I could not believe that anyone in the Afghan Government could honestly make this kind of accusation with a straight face. This is a country that essentially has no military justice system so they lock up their soldiers for infractions in the same place that they lock up detainees, in a Conex container. A standard shipping container with no power, toilet, heat, etc. Yes when a commander wants to punish a soldier or group of soldiers they lock them up in there for hours to days at a time.

If they capture enemy on the battlefield and they can’t easily get them back for interrogation the Afghan Army (and I assume some of the police) lock them up in the same type of location.

Karzai took Washington by surprise Thursday when he ordered that the U.S. military turn over full control of the prison outside Bagram Air Base within one month, a seemingly impossible deadline given U.S. security concerns about the prisoners and the Afghan government’s weak administrative capacity. The countries had been working on phasing a transfer of responsibility of the prison, which hold 3,000 detainees, over two years.

Not only do they lock them up in conex container, among other places but they also abuse them worse then I have ever heard about in this country. This is abuse I have seen first-hand. 

Abuse like punching detainees with spiked gloves, kicking in the face, shooting,    or hitting them with an AK-47 like it was a baseball bat. We had one Afghan soldier we called Jose Conseco as a nickname because he would hit a detainee like he was knocking the ball out of the park. This type of behavior was considered standard operating procedure in the Afghan army.

I won’t even get into the details of the raping of detainees by Afghan soldiers, but it happened, and was considered as punishment for being an enemy. Yes that is the kind of stuff that happens. So who the hell does Karzai think he is?

Detainees would beg us to hold them and not turn them over to the Afghans. They feared for the lives, well-being and sanity if we turned them over and they should have. In fact that was the only good part of the abuse that the Afghans did to Afghans, it made the Americans the “good cop” because the Afghan Army and Police made themselves the “bad cop” by the way they acted. I would capitalize on this by going to a detainee and field questioning them after the Afghan security forces had finished abusing them and I would just treat them humane and justly. They knew I could influence the Afghan forces and I could take possession of them, so if they knew anything they would typically spill the beans.

As for them being guilty or not, I would say 80% of the time we PUCed (Person Under Confinement) someone, which is what we called it when we detained them they were innocent. For the few that did get handed over to the Afghan NDS (their version of FBI), many of them were released later as long as they signed a form promising they would never attack Afghan Security Forces or US Forces again. Yes you read that correctly, they just had to “promise” never to do it again.

You want to guess how many kept that promise?

Read the whole story at www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1808431

UPDATE- I just got word from a very trustworthy source that said this is all a result of two things. First is it appears that it is actually the ANP committing the violations, and not the US forces.  Karzai is trying to take control so that they can cover it up.

The other issue seems to be that the HVTs (High-Value Targets) from SOF (Special Operations Forces) go there and Karzai is pissed we won’t share the targeting intel with him or his government.

This goes along with exactly what I suspected. I was there in Sept 2010 and I can tell you the area where the prison is now, it top-rate. State of the art court rooms, plenty of trained prison guards and MPs and even housing was being built at the time for the families of the prisoners. It was for the families to stay in while visiting their loved ones who are our enemies on the battlefield. Yeah, that doesn’t sound too rough to me.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

The U.S. has spent a decade, $500 billion and 1,863 lives trying to square away Afghanistan. Yet China – which has done nothing in the past 10 years to bring stability to that troubled land – has just become the first foreign country to ink a pact with the Afghan government to try to tap into its oil and gas reserves. It could be worth billions.

Not sure the notion of the U.S. making the world safe for U.S. oil drilling makes sense, or is wise politically. But there is something unsettling about the world’s most populous nation sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the IED-triggered dust to settle, then swooping in to stake its claim on soil soaked in American blood.

Read more: battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/12/30/u-s-blood-for-chinese-oil/#ixzz1iQtFLPtC

I mean at least we would have benefited as a country from it. To think that the Chinese of all the people in the world are now going to swoop in and start exploiting the resources of Afghanistan for profit, is a tad upsetting. Yes it could be good for the country to have income from something besides our handouts, but that is assuming Afghanistan as a whole will benefit from it and not a select few corrupt politicians. Corruption is so bad in Afghanistan I am not sure a venture like this can get around it. 

I realize that the goal is for Afghanistan to stand on their own, generate their own revienue, and survive as a functioning government and country. However to ink deals like this with a country that did nothing to help while our sons and daughters continue to bleed out and lose limbs on the same soil which may have a Chinese oil rig on it soon isn’t right. I mean even if the Brits, Aussies, Italians or heck even the Germans had first dibs because they helped liberate the country, that would be better than China. 

Be Sociable, Share!

•