Soldier's blog: "Military Rants"

Betrayal in Benghazi

Phil "Hands" Handley Colonel, USAF (Ret.) 

Colonel Phil "Hands" Handley

Colonel Phil "Hands" Handley is credited with the highest speed air-to-air gun kill in the history of aerial combat. He flew operationally for all but 11 months of a 26-year career, in aircraft such as the F-86 Sabre, F-15 Eagle, and the C-130A Hercules. Additionally, he flew 275 combat missions during two tours in Southeast Asia in the F-4D and F-4E. His awards include 21 Air Medals, 3 Distinguished Flying Crosses, and the Silver Star

The combat code of the US Military is that we don't abandon our dead or wounded on the battlefield. In US Air Force lingo, fighter pilots don't run off and leave their wingmen. If one of our own is shot down, still alive and not yet in enemy captivity, we will either come to get him or die trying.

Among America's fighting forces, the calm, sure knowledge that such an irrevocable bond exists is priceless. Along with individual faith and personal grit, it is a sacred trust that has often sustained hope in the face of terribly long odds. 

The disgraceful abandonment of our Ambassador and those brave ex-Seals who fought to their deaths to save others in that compound is nothing short of dereliction-of-duty. 

Additionally, the patently absurd cover-up scenario that was fabricated in the aftermath was an outright lie in an attempt to shield the President and the Secretary of State from responsibility. 

It has been over eight months since the attack on our compound in Benghazi . The White House strategy, with the aid of a "lap dog" press has been to run out the clock before the truth is forthcoming. 
The recent testimonies of the three "whistle blowers" have reopened the subject and hopefully will lead to exposure and disgrace of those responsible for this embarrassing debacle. It would appear that the most recent firewall which the Administration is counting on is the contention "that there were simply no military assets that could be brought to bear in time to make a difference" mainly due to the unavailability of tanker support for fighter aircraft.

This is simply BS, regardless how many supposed "experts" the Administration trot out to make such an assertion. 

The bottom line is that even if the closest asset capable of response was half-way around the world, you don't just sit on your penguin ass and do nothing. 

The fact is that the closest asset was not half-way around the world, but as near as Aviano Air Base, Italy where two squadrons of F-16Cs are based.

Consider the following scenario (all times Benghazi local): When Hicks in Tripoli receives a call at9:40 PM from Ambassador Stevens informing him "Greg, we are under attack!" (his last words), he immediately notifies all agencies and prepares for the immediate initiation of an existing "Emergency Response Plan." 

At AFRICON, General Carter Ham attempts to mount a rescue effort, but is told to "stand down". By10:30 PM an unarmed drone is overhead the compound and streaming live feed to various "Command and Control Agencies" and everyone watching that feed knew damn well what was going on. 

At 11:30 PM Woods, Doherty and five others leave Tripoli, arriving in Benghazi at 1:30 AM on Wednesday morning, where they hold off the attacking mob from the roof of the compound until they are killed by a mortar direct hit at 4:00 AM. 

So nothing could have been done, eh? Nonsense. If one assumes that tanker support really "was not available" what about this:

When at 10:00 PM AFRICON alerts the 31st TFW Command Post in Aviano Air Base, Italy of the attack, the Wing Commander orders preparation for the launch of two F-16s and advises the Command Post at NAS Sigonella to prepare for hot pit refueling and quick turn of the jets. 

By 11:30 PM, two F-16Cs with drop tanks and each armed with five hundred 20 MM rounds are airborne. Flying at 0.92 mach they will cover the 522 nautical miles directly to NAS Sigonella in 1.08 hours. While in-route, the flight lead is informed of the tactical situation, rules of engagement, and radio frequencies to use. 

The jets depart Sigonella at 1:10 AM with full fuel load and cover the 377 nautical miles directly to Benghazi in 0.8 hours, arriving at 1:50 AM which would be 20 minutes after the arrival of Woods, Doherty and their team.

Providing that the two F-16s initial pass over the mob, in full afterburner at 200 feet and 550 knots did not stop the attack in its tracks, only a few well placed strafing runs on targets of opportunity would assuredly do the trick. 

Were the F-16s fuel state insufficient to recover at Signally after jettisoning their external drop tanks, they could easily do so at Tripoli International Airport , only one-half hour away. 

As for those hand-wringing naysayers who would worry about IFR clearances, border crossing authority, collateral damage, landing rights, political correctness and dozens of other reasons not to act" screw them. It is high time that our "leadership" get their priorities straight and put America's interests first. 

The end result would be that Woods and Doherty would be alive. Dozens in the attacking rabble would be rendezvousing with "72 virgins" and a clear message would have been sent to the next worthless POS terrorist contemplating an attack on Americans that it is not really a good idea to "tug" on Superman's cape. 

Of course all this would depend upon a Commander In Chief that was more concerned with saving the lives of those he put in harm's way than getting his crew rested for a campaign fund raising event in Las Vegas the next day. As well as a Secretary of State that actually understood "What difference did it make?", or a Secretary of Defense whose immediate response was not to the effect that "One of the military tenants is that you don't commit assets until you fully understand the tactical situation." Was he not watching a live feed from the unarmed drone, and he didn't understand the tactical situation?

YGBSM! - (I had to look this up - Stands for: "You Gotta Be Sh*tting Me" - HJ) 

Ultimately it comes down to the question of who gave that order to stand down? Whoever that coward turns out to be should be exposed, removed from office, and face criminal charges for dereliction of duty. The combat forces of the Untied States of America deserve leadership that really does "have their back" when the chips are down.

Marines that urinated on Taliban dead? Here is what Rep. Allen West said ...

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army Lieutenant Colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines' video, and has given us permission to publish it.

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

The Sheepdogs

Most humans truly are like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.
Their lives serene upon Life’s farm,
They sense no threat nor fear no harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat; there is no need.

To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries,
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fetid reek of the carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told,
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.

But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves attack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the rout,
Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!”

Thus is our nature but too our plight
To keep our dogs on leashes tight
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Until he has us by the throat,
We pay no heed; we take no note.
Not until he strikes us at our core
Will we unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.

And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before;
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

No one has been able to explain to me why young men... and women serve in the U.S. Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get 50% of their pay. While Politicians hold their political positions in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and receive full pay retirement after serving one term. It just does not make any sense.

On Fox news they learned that the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if other news networks will broadcast it. When you add this to the below, just where will all of it stop?

35 States file lawsuit against the Federal Government

Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.

This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.

This is an idea that we should address.

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.

If each person that receives this will post it on their wall, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States .."

Now, what are you going to do about it? Read and delete, or work for reform? Share on the wall of EVERY congressman, representative, governor, the white house!!!!! Pass it around!!! Make calls, send fax's and email's...............

— with Veterans Freedom, Desertstorm Veterans, Steven Sonich, Bob Veteran and Veterans.See More
By: Tim Shuler

I was in Ecuador and there was a warning posted in the airport that people should boil or treat their water before drinking it. The warning was in Spanish and I don't speak Spanish, but my travel companion noticed and told me. Later in the trip we stopped at a farm that grows sugarcane and coffee. The farmer had a small still that he would used to make sugarcane moonshine. For some reason we were talking about the water boil notice, and the guy at the still told me that if I got a stomach bug all I had to do to cure it was to drink a cup of his moonshine and then eat a spoonful of sand. I questioned how this could possibly work, and he told me that the microbes in your stomach all get drunk off the moonshine and then throw rocks at each other.

So it’s not a perfect solution, but people pay social security taxes all their lives and some people never made enough to have another retirement plan.  They live check to check, usually with the heat turned down and an extra sweater on, or with the AC off.  The rely on Medicare and Medicaid for their health issues, its not much but it is what they have. 

Most federal jobs do not pay much, certainly not a fair wage for what people are asked to do.  Why is it than that these people who work hard day in and day out get slapped every time there is a budget deal?  Most our ‘representatives’ do not need the pay check. The Congress and Senate are still the play ground of the rich and disconnected both Republican and Democrat. They will still have food on the table for their families, medical care (and it burns me up that people that have never served in the military are treated in military hospitals) and sit down in comfortable rooms at the end of the day.

I hope that they all sleep well tonight, I know I will but then living in an 8 X 8 room built in a CONEX is pretty good living to me.  We only walk about 200 feet or so to use the bathroom or shower, our food is hot and well seasoned, sand and dust is seasoning they just do not know it. 

I have to live in a budget, so should the government. I am fiscally conservative but if you can’t cut programs you have to raise taxes. If you can’t afford what you want to buy, well then don’t buy it.

And for the sake of the nation don’t shove another useless piece of high priced junk down the military’s throat.

If you care about your Military, read this, and then contact your Senators and Congressman

An Artical in the Fayetteville Observer today

http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2010/11/13/1047630?sac=Mil

{Quoted Text}

Published: 05:17 AM, Sat Nov 13, 2010

Military advocates vow to fight debt-busting proposals

Some of the budget-cutting ideas from the president's deficit- and debt-busting commission would hit the families and economy of the Fayetteville-Fort Bragg community if they were enacted.

Advocates for soldiers and their families vow to fight many of the proposals.

The ideas include military and federal employee pay freezes, new health insurance fees for military families and retirees, new health insurance fees for the employers of military retirees, and closure of Department of Defense-operated schools for military children.

Another idea would prevent new soldiers from collecting military retirement pensions until they turn 60 instead of around age 40, when many complete 20-year military careers.

The ideas were advanced by chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson of President Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

The 18-person commission is seeking to ways to balance the national budget and cut the national debt. The full commission has a Dec. 1 deadline to issue a report, but the Bowles and Simpson advanced a number of ideas this week.

Their ideas also target numerous non-military programs and call for an end to popular tax breaks that civilians and soldiers have enjoyed. The country has to make sacrifices if it is going to live within its means, the report says.

"America cannot be great if we go broke," says a summary. "Our economy will not grow and our country will not be able to compete without a plan to get this crushing debt burden off our back."

End Quote

Well first, to be called a Crushing Dept and a Burden to be taken of the backs of the American People is an insult that will not and cannot be borne by any one, let alone a member of the military service.  This 18 person Commission was put together by the biggest spending President in history, and he has only had two years in office.  This Commission that The commission is supposed to be "bipartisan," but its makeup is decidedly tilted toward liberals thoroughly invested in Mr. Obama's big-government agenda. Mr. Obama gave himself the privilege of picking six of the 18 commission positions. Democrats in Congress get to choose another six, so ultimately, the Democrats get 12 seats, the Republicans get six. Viva "bipartisanship!"

These are the sort of people that love to spend YOUR money, yet in the fervor (read fervor as smoke screen) to cut money these people look first to the only institution in the country that truly represents all people, the US Military.  Why do they want to cut money from our budget? Why would they want to take away our health benefits, our retirement and our (military) children’s education?  Because the commission is made up of people that truly are invested in changing the greatest country in the world into a dept ridden communism.  They appose people  serving in the military because the military is an eye opener.  People who serve see things they never would have and return to home, even if it has been just 2 or 3 years of service realizing that they do live in the greatest country in the world.  This commission wants to discourage  military service because we (the Military) want to discourage the destruction of what we serve to defend, what we bleed and die for  

Yes I know this sounds the usual ultra right wing rant but it is not.  Take a hundred poor kids from across the country with high school diplomas or GEDs that cant get a good job.  Put them in uniform, feed, cloth, pay them a fair wage and take care of their families as the Military is suppose to do.  They will join for the money, but they (90%) will stay in the military because they love it, and love those around them.  They will return home having seen the world and knowing that this Nation is great, that while there are other grand places in the world, there is no place like America and they will want to keep it that way.

I really am curious, how many of the ‘commission’ voted for their own pay rise?

How many voted against giving Senior Citizens a cost of living increase?

How many voted to raise your taxes to pay for someone else home, medical care, and dept?

By the way, Check the retirement benefits of a two term senator or congressman.

“Change” we can live with out, the is the sort of Change that leaves the government as a nanny dolling out in small portions what you work so hard for and should pay for on your own but they will tax you to dept and than control your lives.  “Change” that will destroy the fundamental institutions of this country and leave us bowing to foreign nations.

 Smith

SFC USA