Tracking Training in South Africa
07 January 2013
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Note from a Wise Man
07 January 2013
A note appeared on a private message board. This private group includes many current and former generals, and just about anyone you see on television or in books as a national security specialist, ranging from CIA to all the top war correspondents, special operations types galore, and high-level policy makers. There is significant education value in just reading their traffic.
A few days back, retired Marine and 3-star General Mick Trainor left this note. I asked LTG (ret.) Trainor for permission to publish on my website, and he agreed.
Now for the show:
Amber of War
06 January 2013
A defense expert commenting on my dispatch “Stuck in the Mud” recommended the book Mud: A Military History.
I completed reading the book. The recommendation was solid.
The subject became more interesting in Iraq. Goo would sometimes rain from the skies. Later in Afghanistan, where mud also rains, my interest was sealed.
I saw mud effects on the war in Nepal, in terrain where Americans could hardly fight under our current paradigms, other than by airstrikes and distant fires. US ground forces with our heavy gear would be hopeless in Nepalese-type terrain.
Filipino commanders on Mindanao told me in detail about the great adversity that mud causes the troops we support. In Thailand, I visit jungles that our gear could not navigate after light rain, or even in the dry season.
A stark reality of my observations in more than 65 countries is that there is more terrain where our current gear will not work than terrain where it will, and this is true even in flat Florida (other than that we have great roads in the Sunshine State).
Roads provide the illusion of greater mobility than we possess.
Medevac Crews Increase En-Route Patient Care
05 January 2013
Army.mil/News
by Capt. Richard Barker
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- During the course of the last several months, two Medevac companies in Task Force Hammerhead, Company C, 3rd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, and Company C, 1st Battalion, 169th Aviation Regiment, Army National Guard, have participated in a trial program developed by the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, or CAB, that enables flight medics to administer blood products to wounded Soldiers during the Soldiers' en-route flight care and movement to a medical facility.
The 3-25th General Support Aviation Battalion, 25th CAB, is the first conventional Medevac unit anywhere in the Army to conduct this mission.
"Specifically we implemented a new blood transfusion process for critically-injured patients on Medevac aircraft," said Capt. Nathaniel Bastian, a Forward Support Medevac platoon leader of C, 3-25.
As of December 2012, 80 medical patients have received blood products through the program, which is currently operating at five locations in southern Afghanistan.
Americans Never Give Up Your Guns
03 January 2013
This interesting piece was published 27 December 2012 on a Russian blog. Reprinted here with permission: By Stanislav Mishin
Americans Never Give Up Your Guns
By Stanislav Mishin
These days, there are few few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bare arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions.
This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them holstered. Fighting knives were a prominent part of many traditional attires and those little tubes criss crossing on the costumes of Cossacks and various Caucasian peoples? Well those are bullet holders for rifles.
Advancing Sniper Rifles
02 January 2013
The day draws closer when a General will be in the Pentagon, 8,000 miles away from battle, and he will signal a sniper to kill or not to kill. Taking it a step more, nothing will prevent the trigger-puller from being separated from the rifleman. The General in the Pentagon could control whether or not the rifle is active to fire.
Press Release:
Some Thoughts About The Kingdom of Thailand
29 December 2012
On Christmas Eve, ThaiPBS television interviewed me in Bangkok. The interview is scheduled to air on 31 December at 9:40PM Thailand time. Our interview will be online here.
Ms. Nattha Komolvadhin of ThaiPBS requested this interview after I made a statement on Facebook saying that murder charges against former Prime Minister Abhisit are factually baseless and morally wrong.
ThaiPBS is a publicly funded media organization, widely respected for addressing social issues that sometimes discomfit the government, regardless of which political party may be in power at the time.
The Thai government uses tax money to support ThaiPBS, which in turn sometimes slams the government. Thailand has a moral compass.
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