Military extremism, CV22 crash, Venezuala
Military.com is pearl-clutching that there are allegations (not proof, just allegations) that 183 service folks can be called extremist or supporting extremism.
The statistics indicate the military continues to grapple with extremism following its public denunciations and a stand-down across the services ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2021. Furthermore, the numbers do not make it clear whether the military’s approach is working. In 2021, the year the data was first released to Congress, there were 270 allegations of extremist activities. In 2022, that figure dropped to 146 before rebounding over the past year. Military.com
While one is theoretically too many, when you have almost 2.2 million folks in all the service branches (and that includes the Space Force’s 1600+) , that’s .0086%. Or, in simple form, less than 5 inches in a mile. Sounds like a normal distribution on that big bell curve of life, and a damn sight less than the percentage in Congress. Oh. and one other thing:
However, the report did note that, out of all the suspected extremism and criminal gang activity, 68 of the total cases were investigated and cleared or deemed unsubstantiated.
Sadly, the bodies of the remaining crew of the Osprey lost off Japan have been located.
“During a combined U.S.-Japanese search and rescue dive in the vicinity of Yakushima, Japan on Dec. 4, 2023, remains were discovered along with wreckage from the CV-22 mishap that occurred on Nov. 29, 2023,” a statement from AFSOC said. CNN
As has been noted many times, preparing for war is dangerous, too. Blessings on their departed souls.
Venezuela had an election this week to determine if the voters want to steal annex an extremely oil-rich part of Guyana
The vote centered around a vast territory known as Essequibo, which Venezuelans have long argued was stolen from them when the border with present-day Guyana was drawn more than a century ago.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council on Monday reported participation in the referendum of about 10.5 million voters, which would have been just over half of the 20.6 million eligible people. But those figures defied what people witnessed at voting centers, where long lines typical of Venezuelan elections never formed. ABC News
The UN’s International Court of Justice has ruled that Venezuala can’t take any action until competing claims are settled. Venezuala, no doubt in fear of receiving a Sternly Worded Note, should stand down. Uh-hunh. Right.
Can you say Ukraine? I knew that you could.
Hey, Saddam did that sh*t Venexuela’s starting in ’90… deja vu!
Didn’t Venezuela already have a thriving oil industry…..that they drove into the ditch with nationalization & “socialism”? Chase away the foreign workers that kept it running? Let the infrastructure crumble through neglect? The country went broke in the process due to no oil to sell?
And now they want to take over another country’s oil lands?
Lather, rinse. repeat?
WTF?
Not just oil, Venezuela did that with all of their industries, ain’t socialism just wonderful?
Oh, yes:
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/50328279/477252205.0.jpg)
It sucks that lives were lost, but at least with the bodies being found there is some closure for the families and the bodies can receive a proper burial.
May they rest in peace.
I have to wonder what the loss ratio is on the flying Edsels as compared to the Phrogs. I bet if we had kept the tooling and just built new CH46’s, we would have been better off than with the Osprey.
Does anyone know how the Osprey compares to other helicopters safety wise? I know it is an other animal but they all were a little different from each other. I have flown a lot in 34s, 46s and 53s the 46 being my favorite.
Wish this crash would have had a better outcome. Seems most of them don’t. God bless those troops and their families.
Ahh yes the CH46 and CH53. Flew in many myself as a part of a helicopter assault unit in the early 80’s. Preferred the 46 myself, with the red nylon bench seats and the dripping hydraulic fluid. lol
Hey, if it was dripping hydraulic fluid, at least you knew that it still actually had some hydraulic fluid.
Saved Round:
Speaking of the Marine Corps CH-46, I had more than a few “oh shit!” moments when I was a Forward Air Controller in an infantry battalion in 2D MARDIV in the late ’80s, when I’d get aboard a ’46 for a MEU(SOC) helicopter raid/assault and look up front and see a former flight school classmate at the controls who hadn’t done particularly well in flight training.
In those cases, I always made sure that I sat as far aft as possible near the ramp, especially when we were flying over water, day or night. Just in case.
My last year in the Army my company at Ft. Benning (I ain’t changing) was “supporting” some school or another and we were detailed to be the payload in a helicopter assault (UH-1s). I noticed the pickup was a little ragged, and the formation flying was a bit loosey-goosey, with one or two of the helicopters swinging in and out. Then the guy in the jumpseat (?) leaned back and proudly announced “We graduate next week!”. As if to emphasize the point, I saw the guy in the front seat with the 1st Cav. patch on his right shoulder reach out and take over the flying. Suddenly all the “clear air turbulence” vanished. The landing was also “interesting”, if a bit slower than I was used to.
Sometimes I think that had I spent that year at Benning working with all the OCS, IOBC, NCOCS, Ranger, and other schools before I went to RVN, I would have gone to Canada instead. It was a very educational year.
Are you saying that experience made you question the quality of the leadership skills those schools were generating?
Hopefully the families can get some form of closure…training and everyday operations can be every bit as deadly as war, and the crew can rest well knowing that they answered the call when so many no longer wish to.
As for extremists, if even one is serving, that’s too many, but I’m willing to bet that far more gang members and anti-American terrorists are serving than what we normally consider “extremists”, aka Far-Right White Supremacist/Nationalist types.
IMHO, all Ospreys should be re-assigned to transport duty for Pentagon Officers, who should have no other options.
I weep for the Venezuela of my youth. They screwed it up just like the (D)emon-rats are attempting to do the USA.
Having been involved in the production of statistical reports for a state agency, I am deeply cynical of any such ‘report’ for they are generated to support some politician’s per-conceived bias. The old “lies, damned lies, and statistics” scenario recycled.
“preconceived” – blasted autocorrupt.
Why stop with pentagon officers. Why not include some/all politicians who voted for and approved the funding for this.
If it’s such a great platform, they should have no problem with being asked to fly this on “fact finding” trips they seem to enjoy taking.
So noted, so amended.
When it comes to cries of extremism from the media the public’s willingness to accept this largely stems from the reality that 99% today do not serve and many of them don’t really know anyone that has served personally.
The idea that every service member is a steely eyed killer just waiting to explode on an unsuspecting public is much easier to sell to an ignorant public unaware of the realities behind military service for many veterans who are typically no different than any of your other neighbors, except with more personal accountability and sense of responsibility than most of those other neighbors.
The fact the number is so low is indicative of the reality that every population group has a fraction of a percentage of group members who are simply out of their goddamn minds…that’s not at all shocking.
There are more members of Congress (as a percentage of group members) facing all manner of investigation on everything from bribery to ethics concerns by a large margin than members of the military (as a percentage of group members) who are considered extremists.
Interesting how that latter reality is seldom reported on the nightly corporate media outlets.
You mean we ain’t a bunch of brainwashed baby killing automatons incapable of formulating original thought?
I’ve shared before that the Army brought me from the brink of so-called “extremist” associations, having known some of the oh-so-evil unorganized militia types during the Clinton years, when “Right-Wing Anti-Government Extremist Militias” were all the rage. Not quite a real threat back then, in my experience; just a bunch of grumpy and aging men wishing they were back in Southeast or Southwest Asia (in many cases, probably SV types before the internet made phonies famous).
Nailed it, VOV…not that I expected any different…you always do. And, BTW…Welcome Home, you’ve been missed. You can go anywhere and find a higher % of extremists, of all sorts. Early morning at the Waffle House is the old vets that are disgusted with what has become of their Republic and after mid-night the same place will be filled with BLM types. Most of us just want to be left alone and live our lives in peace.
I was an extremist back yonder. I felt that we should march South, get rid of the penny ante dictators, drug dealers, and commies. Take back our canal, we built with US $ & toil, tell the ChiComs they can have Asia, Tell the Ruskkies they can have what they already got, tell the Euro Trash to phuque off, we’re not saving them again, and tell the ME to keep killing one another, we’ve had enough, the Western Hemisphere belongs to us, piss up a rope if you don’t like it. No more foreign aid, you want US stuff, you buy it. You want to be an American, then make application and become an American.
The outcome with the Flying Coffin was not what we wanted, but it was what we expected. As many of us have said, if the Kongress Kritters and BoDs that pushed this abomination on to the troops had to fly in it, it would get fixed…or trashed. RIP Troops. Hate that you had to cash that Blank Check in this way.
Odd that the Venezuelans can’t feed their people, but they can invade their neighbor? That has oil? And the V’s have become buddy buddy with Ivan and The ChiComs (who, BTW, control the canal we built). Wonder if the V invasion force will be armed with AKs or SKSes? MIGs or Js?
Extremists. Yeah. Let’s do an honest assessment of the prevalence of extremism in the military, and define it more broadly with all the left wing rolled into the numbers. (Gotta pump them up somehow!). I was giving the mandated “extremism” training a few years ago and a great SFC in the organization started asking all the “hard” (that is, reasonable to ask/accurate) questions about BLM and antifa. “Aren’t they extremists too?” “Yeah, SFC xxx, thanks for asking. let’s blow into that.” Contrary to SECDEF’s opinion, it turned out that my entire organization (regardless of race) had far more problems with leftist extremism yet the slide deck only provided right wing examples. Hmm. Wonder why?
Reminds me of our acting J/G3, a newly promoted Aviation COL back during the halcyon days of 2020. We were having a discussion about the super peaceful days of yore and the events leading up to it, especially touching on White Privilege and racial profiling. Our Coast Guard Liaison, a graduate of their Service Academy, whose brother had graduated from West Point, was quick to declare how privileged she was growing up.
After all the usual pandering by the officers, a Hispanic SSG who was on the verge of retiring finally had enough, stating that he didn’t think that anyone gets extra privileges or profiled based on their skin color alone. As he stated, if he walked down the street wearing a tank top, he’d expect to be harassed by police, not based on his ethnicity, but rather the tattoos he got earlier in life.
There’s a large segment of mindless Americans for whom the term “extremism” means one thing: White male-dominated groups that are on the fringe of, or lay claim to right wing ideologies.
The funny thing is I know I’ve been “privileged” but it’s been in the old RHIP way, not the “I’m white” way. So I don’t even deny it exists. And probably could for being white, too. I recognize it and don’t take most of it. “Hey sir, cut in the line I know you’re busy!” No thanks. I had a customs guy come ask for my vehicle registration and gas ration card (if you know, you know) and when he saw my rank he says I don’t need to produce them. But he extended that, I definitely didn’t ask for it. Conversely, what’s it mean when a “POC” sees me and my wife—the only whites in the whole Taco Bell—and comes to ask me for a jump?
Well if the UN’s Court of Clowns says they can’t, then it’s a no-go I guess. Right?
Forget the congress critters how many do we have in the FBI? DEA? ATFE? Dept of Education? I’m going to guess it is a lot more than 0.0086%
Tuberville gave up.
And speaking of losses, law enforcement thinks they know what killed a car load of Marines this past July—carbon monoxide poisoning due to a leaking exhaust system. See Autopsies confirm Camp Lejeune Marines died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
I noticed they had all served at Ft. Leonard Wood; I don’t know if that means they were all MPs or not.
Army & Army Air Forces vet, Norman Lear, has passed on. He was 101. Possibly the greatest television producer of all time. Per wiki: was an American screenwriter and producer who produced, wrote, created or developed over 100 shows.[1] Lear created and produced numerous popular 1970s sitcoms, including All in the Family (1971–1979), Maude (1972–1978), Sanford and Son (1972–1977), One Day at a Time (1975–1984), The Jeffersons (1975–1985), and Good Times (1974–1979). His shows introduced political and social themes to the sitcom.
Norman was at his peak at the right time in the 1970s. Today he would be canceled in 2 seconds. Yeah, like many Hollyweird folk Norman was a far-left guy all the way to the end.
Legendary TV producer, Norman Lear, has passed on. He was 101. He is most remembered for the 70s shows: All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, Good Times, and many others. Norman was an Army/Army Air Forces vet.
I posted something earlier, but it disappeared. Probably moderation. Sorry if this is a dupe.
I wonder how many of those acts of extremism were things like having the “Don’t Tread On Me” flag hanging on a wall or having a Trump bumper sticker on a vehicle.
I had a friend that retired as a major last year when. He decided it was time to leave the Army, right after a JAG attorney came to his office to tell him that Oleg stood a chance of being investigated due to his flag (Gadsden) hanging in his office.
Oleg???? What the hell is autocorrupt doing to me?
“HE”!!!!!!
“HE”!!!
The good news is that if you are a college professor at an Ivy League School (Harvard, Penn State, MIT, etc) you can call publicly for the annihilation of the Jews and that’s okey dokey. So he can shift over to education and the Gadsden Flag won’t even be a blip on the radar.
University of Pennsylvania donors, students call for president to resign after congressional hearing (msn.com)
Hanging out with the wrong guys?