Map of the Falkland Islands (approximately 300 miles east of Argentina)

Well, that time for that actor to STFU came and went about nine years ago...but, now, the guy-who-memorizes-lines-for-a-job known as Sean Penn, is in South America blaming the Brits for protecting their citizens on the Falkland Islands (which Mr. Penn refers to as "the Malvinas of Argentina").

In the face of Argentine aggression, the Brits have deployed ships including the HMS Dauntless (a destroyer) into the area of operations.  Also included in these efforts is one rescue helicopter pilot of note named Flight Lieutenant William Wales, aka Prince William.

Senn Penn made this statement:

What?  Deploying a prince as a rescue pilot does that?

First of all, Sean Penn is ambassador at large for Haiti.  [Editor sidebar:  "Hey, Haiti, how's that working out for you?"]  He should fix that situation in Haiti ASAP.

Second, we applaud the military service of William and Harry.  Good on them.

Last, what is this really about? 

1.  Natural Resources:  Well, it seems that there's oil offshore and the Brits are exploring it.  The Argentines want it.  Fishing rights and the extent of protected areas are of concern as well.

2.  Citizenry:  The Falklanders want to remain British.  The Brits maintain that, as long as the islanders want to remain British, they will protect the islands.  The islands have been British since 1833 (before that France, Spain, Argentina, and Britain possessed them at various times - Brit Captain John Strong landed there first in the 1690s and found the islands uninhabited -  the French actually settled the islands in the 1750s).

3.  Geo-politics:  Other Latin American countries support Argentina in it's bid to rid the Falklands of the Brits.  Countries like Peru, Chile, Brazil and Mexico support Argentina, and want any northern or western europe influence out of the region - mostly to exploit the resources and trade themselves.  Also, China supports the Argentines claim on the Falklands (who do you think is going to get the drilling contracts should Argentina succeed?).

Point number 2 resonates well.  While the fight might be about resources and power-projection (navy base), it is also about the islanders and their right to stay British.

Sean Penn should stick to acting and directing and leave the world policing to Team America!

Update:  The LA Times interviewed a Falkland Islander about his views on the sovereignty conflict. 

We've been talking about the efforts of the Obama administration to unilaterally disarm our nuclear arsenal on back channel for awhile now. 

First, military blogger Neptunus Lex writes that this can't be possibily be true:

Read the whole post here.

In other words, rather than taking any kind of cue from the Pentagon, the Obama Administration is telling the DoD how to set their level of nuclear capability - strike, counter-strike, and deterrent.  

The AP's Robert Burns wrote this piece about the reduction issue:

Read the whole article at BusinessWeek.

President Obama said this in 2009.

By giving up our own defenses, we are securing the world against nuclear proliferation?!  How exactly does that work?  The Iranians will suddenly stop trying to produce a bomb?  And what about South Korea and Japan?  Are they expected to not seek nuclear weapons for defense now that the US cannot defend them?!  Saudi Arabia wants nukes.  As well as a host of other players.

Unilateral disarmament does not seem wise in the face of build ups by ALL of our adversaries.  All. Of. Our. Adversaries.

And as for China, very recently, we thought they had only a few dozen nuclear weapons...until a recent earthquake exposed many many more.  They have far more than 240.

I agree reduction of the arsenal is fine as long as other measures are put into place...but right now the writing on the wall shows that is NOT THE CASE with a reduction of the Army, reduction and refocus of the Marine Corps, a gutting of the Navy, and reduction of the USAF.  So exactly how exactly are you going to provide the same or better capabilities to deter or defend the United States of America?

The short answer:  You can't.

Longer Answer:  The problem is that the only country that can be disarmed by President Obama is ours. Period.

Continue reading "Obama Administration Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament Disaster"

I wrote yesterday about some problems with how PTSD is being diagnosed and sometimes minimized or downgraded in the military medical system. There are some bright spots in the over all awareness and treatments available, but there are also some gaping holes in how it is being handled. If it sounded like the fight was getting personal, it is. For now let me just say that my girlfriend has a severe case of PTSD, which I mention in this segment. The battle hasn't ended for her yet, and for me either until these problems have been properly addressed.

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/66V3v8JUB6c ]

U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jayme Pastoric supervises U.S. Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Scott Raegen during underwater videography training off the coast of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Feb. 9, 2012. The underwater photo team, assigned to Expeditionary Combat Camera, conducts semi-annual training to ensure support of U.S. Defense Department activities worldwide. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Shane Tuck

The Missus and I were very pleased to join "Senior Chief" and his family at the AOV Hollywood premier Monday night at the Arclight Theater in Hollywood.  This is not the kind of event that we had ever been to, and so it was quite an interesting and exciting experience.  Apparently my concerns about the Navy and NSW standing firmly behind this project were unfounded as the event was kicked off by the Leapfrogs Parachute Demonstration Team doing a 4500 ft AGL hop and pop jump using Sunset Blvd as their Drop Zone.  

In the film, these members of the jump team performed all of the MFF jumps, and so this was essentially their red carpet ride. Pretty cool entrance I'd say. My wife and I aren't People Magazine subscribers and don't follow celebrity news, but I have to say that it was pretty cool watching our friends and their families walking alongside movie stars on the red carpet. We went inside the theater after the big entrance and sat with all the family and friends of the cast members in what turned out to be great seats in the back. I'd seen the movie about a year ago, but they had made some edits here and there and the finished product was really just outstanding. Of course I'm biased, but once you see this film, you will be ruined for war movies going forward. The standard has been set.

Afterwards, we all headed down the street to Boulevard 3 for the big Hollywood "After Party". Again, this is just not usually our thing, but the venue was incredible and with so many friends of ours in attendance it was like somebody won the lotto and threw a big party or something. Apparently, Governor Schwarzenegger was there, but we didn't see him. There were a few recognizable celebrities, but I don't know their names just that I'd seen them before. The one celebrity that was there and who was getting the most attention was none other than Tim Tebow. My wife and I really admire his Christian witness and were eager to meet and speak with him about it. The only problem was that somebody had given him a SEAL Trident to wear on his vest! After introducing myself, I asked him to remove it as it was not his place to be wearing that not having earned it. At first he thought I was messing with him, but once he understood I wasn't, he humbly obliged and put it in his pocket. I gained a lot of respect for him handling that in such a way (his intent was not to offend), and in all seriousness I did him a huge favor. If he showed up in any pictures with that on, the SEAL and military communities at large would not have been impressed.

After closing that place down, we headed back to the W Hotel and continued our reverie for another hour and a half or so. It was just the SEALs and their families at that point, and everyone's spirits were very high in every way possible. Relativity is doing a very comprehensive and multi-platformed marketing campaign and I have a feeling that is going to really pay off. Aside from going directly after the sporting community at the Super Bowl and on ESPN, they are hitting the video game enthusiasts and blasting out stuff on Facebook and Twitter on a near constant basis.

The one area that I find the most interesting though is that they are directly targeting the evangelical Christian community. Two friends of mine, SEALs and Christian brothers, Clint Bruce and Jeff Bramstedt have created and produced a men's bible study modeled on the SEAL Code and using the film as a demonstration tool. It can be found online at Life of Valor. I watched the intro video last night and it is a well thought out quality production. If that is your deal, check it out.

Personally, for the state of New Jersey and Governor Christie, this is a bad judgement call that they get to make.  Governor Christie is ordering the flags flown at half-mast at state buildings in New Jersey for Whitney Houston as a cultural icon.  Can't wait for "the Situation" to pass on (well, also to see if he gets the same treatment).

From MSNBC:

I don't know much about Whitney Houston except that she sang one helluva a national anthem once, was a chart sensation, and was mixed up with drug addiction and all kinds of trouble.  We all know that she could sing.  Did she give millions to charity in Jersey?  Help the poor?  Change someone's life?

It just seems like a bad decision to me, but, again, that is Governor Christie's call. 

I guess it depends on what you believe - that flying the flags at half-mast is a symbol of recognition (for some accomplishment) or done in honor of your service to our country or state (did Whitney Houston help New Jersey?). 

From United States Title Code 4 Chapter 1:

Hmmm....

That said, it looks like the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, got the signal and stopped naming ships after politicians:

I'm glad that he's back on track, although I don't think I'll ever forgive him for the USS Murtha.  That's just @#$%ed up like polio.

Shamelessly stolen from the Infantry FB fan page:

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jonathan Price conducts a security patrol near the village of Narizah in Afghanistan's Tani district, Feb. 10, 2012. Price is a squad leader assigned to the 1-501st Infantry's Company B, 101st Airborne Division. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Jason Epperson

We all have written them - letters to your loved ones in the case you don't come home.   It's where you try to make sure that they will be at peace with your decisions and sacrifice, let them know how much you love them, and, sometimes, try to make them smile.  It's a way to continue to defend them, even after death...

We've posted some of them before here.

So fast forward to a friend of mine, Dan Gade, who we've featured here before.  I think this idea has a lot of merit.

Well, that letter came awfully close to being opened as Dan almost didn't come back and was the first full leg amputee of the wars.  He now teaches at West Point when he's not competing in Iron Man races (for the full story of the ReneGade click here).  Dan is reaching out to all of you military men and women who wrote these letters or might know someone who wrote them.  As Dan says, it's about honoring them:

So take a look and contact Dan if you would like to be included in this honorable project.

~BlackFive

Because, you see, it might be seen as insensitive to those who have died in the line of duty:

There are very few jobs in the world where success or failure are so stark. 

Such stark reality shouldn’t be downplayed.  It shouldn’t be shuffled off to the side in the name of “sensitivityâ€.  Every EOD person who has paid the ultimate price would most likely agree vociferously with the motto and defend its use.

This isn’t some game.  In the world of EOD, the team either succeeds or fails to disarm the device.  It is either safe or not safe.  Whether or not it actually explodes during the attempt isn’t the point.  It is the job of EOD to succeed in disarming explosive devices.  There is only one alternative to that – failure.  It’s as black and white as anything can get.

And what the motto stresses is that’s an unacceptable outcome in the starkest of terms.  That’s the sort of hard reality EOD trainees need to understand from the moment they report to their school.

This misguided attempt to throw reality out of the door in the name of sensitivity is absurd.   Every man and woman in that school or serving on an EOD team knows the undeniable truth of the motto and accept it as fact.

Some admiral who gets his sensitivity panties in a wad not withstanding, they will continue to recognize its truth regardless of whether the words are on the wall or not.

~McQ

Twitter: @McQandO

This book review is a special post for Blackfive.net readers from Elise Cooper:

Budget cuts for the military are a fact of life. We can argue all we want about the relative benefits of building more ships, or planes or the number of troops we need. But the one thing there should be no argument about is taking care of those who have been wounded, this includes both invisible and visible injuries, by their time at war. Taking care of an injured troop means immediate care and continued care when they leave the military.  There seems to be plenty of focus on the visible injuries and it is easy to understand that you replace a missing leg with a prosthetic and add copious doses of physical therapy to teach the troop how to walk on it. Injuries like PTSD are tougher to deal with because invisible wounds are just that, invisible.  Those suffering from this type of trauma may look just fine, but all to often they are far from it.

Some of our community have publicly discussed their own battles with this debilitating injury including CJ Grisham and Jeremiah Workman. It has been a major challenge to get combat vets to overcome the stigma attached to admitting they have PTSD. Now we find out that the concerns over the cost of treating these wounded troops may have been used to deny them care.  One of CJ's co-writers discusses this:

Here is the scary part

This psychiatrist went beyond just noting the cost of treating those who were hurt and rightly had a knot jerked in his tail.

That is a good first step, but does anyone really think this was an isolated incident? I know it wasn't.  The same problem exists right back here in the Army's flagship PTSD program at Walter Reed. I know of multiple instances where diagnoses of PTSD have been downgraded or determined to be not "Line of Duty". One method of limiting the number of diagnoses is to find that the condition "Existed Prior to Service". For some patients this means taking isolated incidents that occurred long before joining the military and naming them as the proximate cause, even if the service member never had any symptoms or received any treament for them. This is analogous to telling an amputee his injury existed prior to service because the now-missing ankle was sprained on a Boy Scout hike when he was a kid.

 We let our Vietnam vets languish with no help as they dealt with these same problems. Thankfully we understand this damage better now and can offer help. But we cannot allow the bean counters to deny care. The cost of treating our combat wounded is a price we must pay. We owe it to them.

If you are aware of any cases where this has happened please let me know. I will be taking this information as high up the flag pole as needed to make sure ALL wounded warriors get the respect and care they deserve.

Seven years ago, the wonderful Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO asked me to write about the women that we love.  I wrote about a different kind of love story about Patti Patton Bader and Soldier's Angels, and that older post still holds true today.  Soldiers' Angels continues to support deployed military, their families, and the families of the ones who don't come home.  Please support SA today.

So Patti is the first lady that we love, and there's a few ladies out there that we simply could not do without...

First, there is the Parachute Cutie over at From Cow Pastures to Kosovo who has "adopted" paratroopers and cavalry troopers alike (and having been both in my career, I appreciate that)!  She has provided care and comfort - not to mention the best brisket ever - to "her guys."  You can probably count me and Jimbo in that category as well.

(Photo Credit)
Then, there is this lovely lady in Texas that runs the Defenders of Freedom - Donna Cranston - who provides a ton of support for our troops including financial assistance for our wounded troops.  We absolutely adore and admire Donna!

SpouseBuzz - the better halves of our military men and women who blog and speak about topics like reintegrations, marriage and family, PCSing, moving, and of course, military life.  Worth your time to read or to see live, some of it's humorous and some of it tugs at your heart.

Soldiers' Angels Germany's MaryAnn is one of our favorite people on the planet. For the last 7 or 8 years, MaryAnn has been our biggest crush around here - but were not the only ones who recognize her deterimination and heart. 

Karen Guenther, the President, CEO and Founder of the Semper Fi Injured Marine Fund leads one of the best veteran care organizations out there.  A military spouse, Karen began her quest to help injured Marines much in the same way that we began Soldiers' Angels.  She saw a gap in care for her wounded Marines and their families and filled it.  I can't say enough about this lady's strength, integrity, tenacity and love. 

And, saving the best for last, there's the USO Girls who always support our troops.  They are so awesome that TSO at This Ain't Hell actually married one of them!  Beautiful, wonderful, amazing, and they love America!

It was only a question of time before the Iranians and their proxies upped the terror stakes against the Israelis. The recent spate of exploding nuclear scientists must be causing them consternation and embarrassment. But their sorry attempts to retaliate ought to be more embarrassing to any decent state sponsor of terrorism. In recent attacks in India and Georgia, the Iranians at least attempted to target people marginally connected to Israel, although they failed and ended up basically just killing themselves. Now they have moved on to Thailand and the results are pretty much the same, blowed-up terrorists (very gruesome video at the link). My sympathy goes out to any of those injured in these attacks and I am mainly glad that they were not killed. But that doesn't stop me from a bit of happiness at the well-sdeserved damage these scum have done to themselves.

The Israelis are not about to let these lunatics continue their path to nuclear nuttahdom without making a serious effort to take them out. Taking out their scientists is the equivalent of warning shots across the bow. The stakes are escalating every day as thje centrifuges spin. The only real question left is exactly when the main strike on the Iranian facilities will be. Looks like this Spring could be ugly.

Iraq provided a challenge to the US military that had a special place for female soldiers.  I had the honor and pleasure of knowing some excellent women in my time there.  While I think that they would be embarrassed by being singled out by name, I want to tell you about some of them.

We had an excellent female PSYOP sergeant first class.  She had a boss who, though not a bad guy, needed a strong NCO to keep him on track.  She always did that, and forced the rest of us to acknowledge the Phase VII results even when we'd prefer to trust our gut about what ought to work.  We benefitted from her discipline a great deal.

I knew an Army surgeon, a female LTC, who did tremendous things for womens' health in rural Iraq.  In places where a male doctor could simply not have gone, she ensured sometimes the first access to medical care that women or their children had ever known.  

She also came by and redecorated my boss' desk right before he came back from EML:

I won't reproduce the "To Do List" she left for him.

The best Army PAO I ever met was a female officer, a Major, who was there during the height of the Surge fighting.  She understood the importance of communicating to the home front that we were turning the war around.  At a time when political opponents of the war were telling the American people that the war was lost, she was helping get the soldiers' true stories out to the homefront.  

One of my good friends was a Civil Affairs soldier, a female reservist who was an emergency medical technician back home.  I had the pleasure of seeing her promoted laterally from specialist to corporal, in recognition of her constant leadership and strong work.  Later, in the same deployment, I got to see her promoted to Sergeant.  She was an outstanding NCO, and a good Civil Affairs soldier as well, outside the wire helping people rebuild their lives.

Finally I want to recognize a woman who was not soldier, but a civilian military advisor there present as the social scientist for one of our Human Terrain Teams.  She produced some tremendous insight into what had been a hidden world -- how the wives of some of the tribal figures we worked with saw the conflict, and their husbands' relationships with other tribal figures.  This often provided a depth that I could use to check bearings on what we were hearing about those relationships from intelligence, the TPTs, or the CATs.  

Iraq was that kind of war.  We were lucky to have these women out there with us.