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In an unprecedented move, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland have signed a defense pact that is likely to anger Moscow. The 4 Scandinavian countries have issued a Joint Declaration of Intent (DJI), which states their intent to combine their respective air forces into one unified air defense unit.
The JDI was signed at Ramstein Air Force Base earlier this month but was only announced in recent days.
Danish Air Force Commander, Gen. Jan Dam, said regarding the pact, "Our combined fleet can be compared to a large European country."
Given that the unification of the 4 countries' air forces means that all will have to come to the defense of any one country that is under attack by a common enemy led DefenceNews.com to call the pact the establishment of a "mini NATO."
While Russia was never directly named in the JDI agreement, the move is clearly in response to growing concerns about Moscow's increasing aggression since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
According to the chief of the Norwegian Air Force (NAF), Maj. Gen. Rolf Folland, the 4 countries combined will have roughly 250 advanced combat aircraft at their disposal. Folland also suggested that a joint air operations center in the future could also possibly have commanders from the U.S. and Canada to offer the group further coordination and guidance.
"There is obvious interest in a regional initiative for a joint air command on NATO's northern flank. We know the conditions in the High North well, and we have a lot to learn from each other. With a total of almost 250 modern combat aircraft, this will be a large combat force that must be coordinated," Folland said.
Host L Todd Wood speaks with Col John Mills (USA, Ret) who is a former Pentagon planner on the military situation in the Pacific and the coming kinetic conflict with China.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein
Growing up in Montana during the Cold War, I often found myself under a school desk as we went through frequent nuclear fallout drills. Montana is a state known as being a part of the “nuclear sponge,” where it is universally known that Russia targets our nuclear missile facilities, and we would absorb any large-scale nuclear exchange. They have not moved since they were built and that was eighty years ago. Even today Montanans who still know this threat exists are less inclined to hide under a desk and more likely to sit on the front porch with their favorite drink and watch the end of the world. We recognize that even if we were to live through a nuclear strike the world that followed such a holocaust is probably not worth trying to live in. We have the same attitude towards Yellowstone Park blowing up.
Montana in the 1960s was not densely populated, and this was part of the appeal to building the silos here. The same is true for the other locations on the map you see above. In the 1960s Montana’s population was estimated at 680,000 people. Today it is nearly 1.13 million. Given the exodus of people fleeing states like California, Oregon, and Washington, our population is expected to increase. Yet we remain a part of the “nuclear triad” where America maintains land, sea, and air capabilities. The land-based options were viewed as necessary when it was thought the Russians (Soviet Union) were winning the balance of power, even though they were not.
It is time to think differently concerning the positioning and deployment of America’s’ nuclear arsenal. I do not think it is wise or necessary to keep missiles in fixed locations that are so easy to target and increasingly surrounded by people moving into the affected states. We need to stop thinking of these areas as nuclear sponges, perpetually 30 minutes away from decimation, and as acceptable losses. We should develop new strategies that allow for rapid response and deterrence equally as effective as land-based systems. In fact, there should be no land-based systems anymore.
Nuclear silos are typically 3.5-17.5 miles away from a launch facility and 3.5-8.5 miles apart from each other. In Montana, there are one-hundred missiles. They were installed in the 1960s and last updated in the 1970s. The technology inside the facilities has improved, but the missiles themselves need some work. The Air Force has a $400 billion plan to upgrade both the missiles and the facilities. I think we can make better use of that kind of money and acreage.
America needs to rely solely on airborne and sea-launched missile systems. There are advantages to making this move.
Americans are not at risk of a direct nuclear strike in the core of our homeland as adversaries would seek first to destroy our ability to respond.
We could sell the silos and the land around them to citizens and reduce the cost to the taxpayer.
Mobile nuclear launch systems in the air and under the sea are much harder to target than fixed facilities.
Military risk is distributed by spreading missiles across multiple launch platforms rather than condensing missiles in three geographic areas.
There is a reduced risk to the population by eliminating the need to move nuclear systems over land.
As always, there are disadvantages at the outset of any plan like this. Some are fiscal and some are time constraints since this plan would require building more submarines and potentially airplanes. I do not see how maintaining the status quo out of fear of change is a good reason not to make those changes. We live in a highly connected world, with better technology and communications systems. Additionally, existing systems with a destructive potential far beyond what is necessary means we should adjust how we do business.1
Much has changed since the 1960s; it is time to change how we posture our nuclear forces, too. The triad would be better as a duet.
Lt Col (ret), US Army, Darin Gaub is a Co-founder of Restore Liberty, an international military strategist, foreign policy analyst, executive leadership coach, ordained teacher, and serves on the boards of multiple volunteer national and state level organizations. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or its components.
A GOP Congressman has accused former Secretary of Defense 'Mad Dog' Mattis of withholding Chinese threats from then POTUS and Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL): My office has been briefed by the office of the Secretary of Defense of the current Pentagon that it happened over Florida, it happened over Texas, and that it’s happened before. We have more detailed questions but what is unclear, Stuart, at this point is, did the Pentagon under the Trump Administration brief the Trump White House and give them the option to take action or did they decide not to brief them for whatever reason? And there is some speculation, I talked to Trump administration officials over the weekend, that the Pentagon deliberately did it because they thought Trump would be too provocative and too aggressive. So that’s what we need to get to the bottom of and one person that I’m waiting to hear from that we haven’t heard from that list is former Secretary of Defense, General Mattis who was the secretary during this time period. What did he know and what did he decide to pass on and brief to the president.
Waltz made the comments on Fox Business this morning.
Secretary Mattis has denied the accusation.
Reversal comes as Congress considers bill seeking redress for military's discharged vaccine refuseniks.
The United States Military Academy is reimposing restrictions on unvaccinated cadets despite the lifting of the military's COVID-19 vaccine mandate, reports military attorney R. Davis Younts, a reversal that comes even as Congress mulls legislation seeking redress for service members dismissed for vaccine refusal.
The Department of Defense rescinded the military vaccine mandate pursuant to the Dec. 23 enactment of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which included a measure repealing the mandate.
During the height of the pandemic, West Point implemented a policy prohibiting cadets from traveling for sports or other events, according to Younts. After the vaccine was made available, only unvaccinated cadets were restricted from traveling. Then, last semester, while the military vaccine mandate was still in place, West Point dropped the policy, allowing unvaccinated cadets to travel for sports, the Army-Navy game, and other events...
To read more visit Just The News.
At the age of thirty-five Dr. Martin Luther King won the Nobel Peace Prize, making him the youngest recipient in its history. Over a thousand streets around the world are named for him, and he is acknowledged by one poll as the sixth most famous person in history. But King's message of forgiveness, non-violence, reconciliation, and self-worth based on character rather than phenotype are under assault by the proponents of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and identity politics.
Recently on Martin Luther King Day, politicians and the media grandstanded and payed homage to Dr. King, all the while, during the other 364 days of the year, undermining his legacy and promoting the divisive tripe of Ibram Kendi and Kimberly Crenshaw, who preach division, victimhood, and irreconcilable racial oppression. Kendi has made a career out of one word, "anti-racism," for which he alone controls the definition. In academic circles this guaranteed his unassailable academic credentials and prompted a host of influential leaders, including the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday, to add Kendi's book, How to Be an Antiracist, to the Navy's Professional Reading Program.
Kendi, who proclaimed, "Assimilation ideas are racist ideas," understands the power of language and the need to control every nuance of every word's meaning. His philosophic mentor and one of the founders of Critical Race Theory, Richard Delgado, devotes the last third of the book, Critical Race Theory,to the approved definitions of words and phrases. Words are weapons deployed against philosophical adversaries to deny them the ability to effectively communicate.
The Department of Defense abandoned Dr. King’s dream, when it imposed a culture imbued with mistrust and unyielding individualism based on racial and sexual identity. The vilification of the term “colorblind” serves as a metaphor for this radical departure from cohesiveness and mutual trust that is essential for mission readiness. The source of this illogical realignment of priorities emanates from CRT. Delgado speaks of the perversity of colorblindness and Kendi avers that colorblindness equates with racism.
All of the United States military academies have come under scrutiny for eschewing their traditional role to painstakingly avoid political involvement by implementing intensive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and teaching CRT as legitimate political alternative rather than extension of Critical Theory and post modernism.
Recently, Lt. General Richard Clark, the Superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) participated in a three part interview, where he addressed the controversial emphasis of DEI at USAFA and the publicity surrounding a preferred language tutorial that instructed cadets how to speak in accordance with DEI recommendations.
General Clark framed DEI as merely a tool to facilitate communication in an ever changing world. His portrayal of the program rests in sharp contrast with the Academy's DEI Plan that was established under Executive Order 13583 that impacts virtually every aspect of the USAFA training environment and has led some to conclude that DEI is a Trojan Horse for quotas and the inculcation of CRT into the heart of USAFA's academic program.
General Clark categorically supports DEI. Without citing specific evidence he alluded to numerous studies, most of which were conducted in the financial services industry that reported improved profitability due to inputs based on demographic diversity. It has yet to be proven whether this conclusion applies to a military environment, but this contention remained unchallenged. As with all all three parts of the interview, the interviewer’s role appeared to be the delivery of softball questions and readily agreeing with the general’s perspective.
In no portion of the interviews did General Clark acknowledge Dr. King's contributions to the military's longstanding policy of nondiscrimination, nor did he distance himself from the detrimental influence of Kendi and his allies whose misplaced activism have destroyed decades of progress in racial relations. Rather, he reminded listeners that times are changing and implied that DEI, an offshoot of theories promulgated by frustrated Marxists from the Frankfurt School, serves as the key to teaching a new generation of officers.
DEI, CRT, and the slew of accompanying critical theories are the products of fervent anti-capitalists academics who have gained a foothold into the fabric of American life. The utility of these doctrines are unproven and incongruent with a free, prosperous society. Rather than build on Dr. King's legacy, they distort it and use his reputation as a vehicle to delude and divide the public. If color blindness does not represent fairness and the anecdote to discrimination, then what's the reason for celebrating Martin Luther King Day?
The Ukrainian military is getting arrogant with the constant supply of the most expensive, lethal weapons western militaries can offer -- a hundred billion dollars worth.
See the video below from 'Captain Himars'. Himars is the U.S. rocket launch system which the Kremlin says killed a large number of conscripts at a barracks recently in the Russian-controlled, Eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass.
Judge for yourself.
With a new GOP House being currently sworn in, it remains to be seen if the weapons gravy train will continue from U.S. DoD. Many new House members are not fond of unlimited funding for another 'forever war' where the U.S. has no vital interest.
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While Russian President Vladimir Putin made a questionable visit to neighboring Belarus, the Kremlin began calling on the U.S. to avoid further escalation of the war in Ukraine over Washington’s support for the war-torn country. The warning from the Kremlin comes as concerns mount that Belarusian forces could join the fighting in Ukraine and only days after the Pentagon announced that it would be providing long-range Patriot defense systems, with long-range missiles, to Ukraine.
According to Russian state media reports, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced Monday that the “dangerous and short-sighted policy” of the U.S. has put it “on the brink of a direct clash” with Russia.
Zakharova continued, “It is the US’ desire to maintain American hegemony at all costs… as well as its arrogant unwillingness to engage in a serious dialogue on security guarantees” that led to the current war in Ukraine.
The statements come as a reaction to State Department Spokesperson Ned Price recently blaming Russia for the deterioration of US-Russia relations calling them “unstable nd unpredictable.”
Zakharova’s Monday remarks continued with her saying, “After teh high-profile fiasco in Afghanistan, America is increasingly drawn into a new conflict, not only supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev financially and with weapons, but also increasing its military presence on the ground.” It was unclear what “presence on the ground” Zakharova was referring to, but there have been multiple reports that US intelligence has been assisting Ukrainians more with different aspects of the war including targeting.
The Foreign Ministry Spokesperson concluded Monday’s statement saying, “This is a dangerous and short-sighted policy that puts the US and Russia on the brink of a direct clash. For its part, Moscow urges the Joe Biden administration to soberly assess the situation and not to unleash a spiral of dangerous escalation. We hope that they will hear us in Washington, though there is no reason for optimism so far.”
The warning comes after the US agreed to give in to persistent Ukrainian requests for Patriot missile systems and also after it was revealed last week that US intelligence had helped Ukrainian forces identify, locate, and target multiple Russian generals during the beginning of the war.
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After almost 80 years of essentially not having a military, on Friday, Japan announced a $320 billion plan to build up its deterrence in the face of rising tensions with China.
Japan's military buildup would take 5 years to complete under the current plan. Its planned military expenditures would make it the third largest country behind the United States and China in terms of its budget. The plan calls for expanding the country's transport capacity, developing cyber warfare capabilities, and stockpiling munitions and spare parts.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will spearhead the development of Japan's longer-range missiles and will also build the country's next fighter jet in conjunction with BAE Systems and Leonardo SPA. The fighter jet project has already received an allocation of $5.6 billion.
Also included in Japan's buildup are ship-launched U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles, attack and reconnaissance drones, interceptor missiles, helicopters, F-35 stealth fighters, satellite communications equipment, warships, heavy-lift transport jets, and submarines.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that Japan is at a "turning point in history" and the military buildup is "my answer to the various security challenges that we face."
Japan has expressed growing concern in recent months that Russia's invasion of Ukraine will set a precedent that will support China's attacking Taiwan. Japan recently flagged China as a "strategic challenge" in its most recent national defense document and updated its national defense policy with major revisions for the first time since 2013.
Buried in a recently published New York Times deep dive into the last 10 months of the war in Ukraine is a little-known fact – Ukraine’s military and intelligence division attempted to assassinate the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov against the concerns of U.S. officials that it would lead to extreme Russian military escalation.
The article, published Saturday, has not garnered much attention from the U.S. mainstream media. However, Russian state media has taken notice.
According to the piece in the Times, in the spring, Russia’s top military leadership decided that generals needed to make trips to the front line due to poor morale among Russian forces. However, during their visits, Russian generals positioned themselves near communications arrays and antennas making it easy for U.S. intel to identify and locate top Russian commanders in Ukraine.
Despite Ukrainian forces locating and killing several Russian generals, frontline visits from commanders continued until Gen. Valery Gerasimov made secret arrangements to visit the frontlines as well. While U.S. intel had picked up on Gerasimov’s plans, Washington decided not to share the information with Ukraine for fear that Ukrainian forces would strike, leading to an uncontrollable Russian escalation.
Despite the U.S. not passing along Gerasimov’s plans, the Ukrainians learned of the general’s trip. According to a senior American official, “We told them not to do it. We were like, ‘Hey, that’s too much.” Upon receiving the American’s request not to launch the attack, Ukrainian officials announced that the attack had already been undertaken. Dozens of Russians were killed in the attack that targeted the general. However, Gerasimov was unharmed.
After the failed attempt to kill Gerasimov, Russian generals stopped visiting the frontlines.
In May it came to light that the U.S. was engaged in more in-depth intelligence sharing with Ukraine. The increase in information sharing led to specific strikes that killed roughly 12 Russian generals. Given that it was the early part of the war, 12 generals is an exceptionally high number of top commanders to be killed.
While the war in Ukraine might not have gotten as far as it has had General Gerasimov been killed in the strike, it is very likely that the world would be engaged in a nuclear conflict between two, if not more, nuclear-armed countries by this point.
he strength of the UK Armed Forces dropped by 3.3% between 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022, according to the latest recruitment and retention figures released by the UK Government, with just 5,090 people joining the regular forces, a 29.8% decrease registered during the reporting period.
Releasing the quarterly service personnel statistics on 15 December, the UK Government revealed that the total strength of UK forces personnel stood at 192,300 as of 1 October 2022. This marked a 6,640 decrease in service personnel compared to the same point last year.
Further decreases were registered in the full-time trained strength of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and Royal Air Force (RAF), and the full-time trade trained strength of the British Army on 1 October 2022, with the figure standing at 134,940, a decrease of 2,190 (1.6%) from 1 October 2021...
To read more visit Army Technology.
Latest Heritage Foundation report on US Military Strength gives only passing grade to US Marine Corps, marginal scores to the US Army and failing grades to Navy/Air Force in "capability, capacity, and readiness" to defend the homeland, successfully wage a major war and preserve freedom of movement on the sea, air, outer space and cyberspace domains.
Our current National Defense Strategy (NDS) acknowledges long term competition with major powers, (explicitly Russia and China) and recognizes the United States national security relies upon three interwoven components: 1) Sufficient military capacity to deter or win against large conventional powers in geographically distant regions, 2) Ability to conduct sustained operations against lesser threats, and 3) Maintain a U.S. presence in regions sufficient to deter behavior that threatens U.S. interests.
“As currently postured, the U.S. military is at growing risk of not being able to meet the demands of defending America’s vital national interests. It is rated as weak relative to the force needed to defend national interests on a global stage against actual challenges in the world as it is rather than as we wish it were. This is the logical consequence of years of sustained use, underfunding, poorly defined priorities, wildly shifting security policies, exceedingly poor discipline in program execution, and a profound lack of seriousness across the national security establishment even as threats to U.S. interests have surged.”
"The 2023 Index concludes that the current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict..."
Read the full executive summary of Heritage Foundation: 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength
The United States Air Force Academy on Thursday held a seminar promoting "transgender visibility and awareness in our Air Force."
The "discussion" session focused "on awareness for transgender communities in the military," according to a copy of an invitation for the event obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Events of this nature are part of a wholesale push by the U.S. military to foster a more culturally inclusive environment. Critics say this type of training is part of a woke cultural agenda that is being mainstreamed by the Democratic Party’s far-left flank. The Army, for instance, mandates gender identity training and instructs its officers on the best time to offer subordinates gender-transition surgery. The seminar was held on the same day the Free Beacon reported on an Air Force Academy course teaching cadets to "use inclusive language" that avoids gender pronouns.
The "transgender visibility" workshop featured two Air Force Academy faculty members, Dr. Joseph Currin and Dr. Karin De Angelis. The speakers were slated to "speak on their personal expertise and answer questions from the audience."
The first 40 cadets to attend the seminar received a free lunch.
To Read More Visit The Washington Free Beacon
The woke secretary of the Army, Christine Wormuth, who has not served a day in the military, has done more damage in the last two years than any other Secretary of the Army. She has eroded moral, recruitment as well as standards and discipline.
Back in April, she changed the gender neutral physical fitness test to heavily favor women. Below is an article explaining the situation:
Furthermore, the U.S. Army has been dealing with record low recruitment numbers. This is in part due to the army's uninspiring woke message. In May of 2021, the army released this television ad:
Recently, she approved that soldiers are allowed to have tattoos on their hands, behind their ears, and back of their neck, a move to increase the size of the recruiting pool. The policy issued on 22 June 2022 is below.
Former US Navy SEAL Dan O'Shea speaks with Bannon on War Room Battleground to discuss the new military media -- ArmedForces.Press
Navy SEAL training – Basic Underwater Demolition / SEAL training more commonly known as “BUD/S” is brutal. It is supposed to be. The graduates have trained for, served in, fought, and died in every conflict since WWII. Our original Navy Frogmen forefathers, the Naval Combat Demolition Units (NCDUs) who cleared Omaha and Utah beaches during the Normandy invasion suffered 52% casualties on D-Day. More than 100 Frogmen were wounded or killed clearing obstacles to the beaches. Three NCDU teams were completely wiped out.
America’s “First Frogman”, Lieutenant Commander Draper Kauffman, the original Commander of the Naval Combat Demolition Unit training school at Fort Pierce, Florida established the baseline that all NCDUs, Amphibious Scouts and Raiders, Underwater Demolition Teams (UDT) and Sea Air and Land (SEAL) commandos have gone through during the initial basic training.
Kauffman instituted a brutal training regimen culminating in a “Hell Week” of non-stop, intense physical exertion with less than an hour of daily rest over 6 days and 5 nights —a tradition that continues in modern Navy SEAL training today. Hell Week is the defining experience of BUD/S. 120+ hours spent cold, wet, and sandy, pushing limits of one’s physical endurance, mental toughness and pain tolerance. Surviving obstacle courses, surf torture, beach runs, ocean swims and paddling a rubber raft in boat crews in the Pacific Ocean.
It tests the limits of teamwork and the ability to perform under extreme physical and mental stress while being severely sleep deprived. Above all, it measures individual determination and “fire in the gut” motivation. On average, only a quarter of SEAL trainees make it through the week that pushes a man’s body to the extreme. Those who survive the world’s most grueling week of training come to the self-awareness that they will never, ever quit, or let a teammate down.
Between 1965 and 1972 there were 46 SEALs killed in Vietnam. 4 SEALs were lost at sea after parachuting into rough seas off the coast of Grenada during Operation Urgent Fury. 4 more were killed at Paitilla Airfield on the eve of Operation Just Cause to oust deposed Panamanian leader, Manual Noriega.
Since 9/11, 117 SEALs have died in training and combat operations around the world including Iraq and Afghanistan where the largest single day loss of US military personnel, 31 American servicemen (including 15 Navy SEALs) died when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter call sign “Extortion 17” was shot down on August 6th2010.
The Original Frogman (OF) Draper Kauffman instituted Hell Week in what is recognized as the toughest military training in the world for a reason. He knew his frogmen would be going into harm’s way where being wounded in action (WIA) or killed in action (KIA) would be the harsh reality while clearing beaches prior to amphibious landings in Africa, Italy, France, and the Pacific’s Island-hopping campaigns. Like every SEAL commander who followed in his footsteps, SEALs accept the training with the highest risks and most dangerous missions that the nation will call upon us to execute. It is why SEAL Team Six was tasked with Operation Neptune Spear, the mission to kill/capture Usama Bin Laden.
Recent deaths in SEAL training during Hell Week have brought outside calls to examine the training curriculum and make changes. A Navy Admiral from outside Naval Special Warfare is leading the review board and will likely call for reforms. While safety is always paramount, and steps to ensure lesson learned from the recent death of SEAL trainee Kyle Mullin should be implemented, any recommendation to alter or eliminate portions of Hell Week would be a mistake.
“The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday” is the student motto at BUD/S. The more you sweat in training the less you bleed in war… is the BUD/S Instructor mantra. It’s called Hell Week for a reason… war is hell. If you can’t survive Hell Week, you won’t survive life in the Teams much less future combat deployments. BUD/S is only an entry level glimpse into what actual SEAL platoon training will be like but doesn’t measure up to potential real-world missions in foreign lands under much more austere conditions than southern California environs can produce. You will be more exhausted, hypothermic, and sleep-deprived yet still be expected to execute a ‘no fail’ mission like a hostage rescue or kill/capture a high value target. The stakes will be life or death.
There are two more relevant maxims about war - Only the dead have seen the end of war and warriors will die training for war before ever seeing combat.
Commander Dan O’Shea (SEAL) USN (ret) graduated from BUD/S class 179 in 1992. A former Platoon and Task Unit Commander at SEAL Team THREE recalled to active duty after 9/11. A multi-tour Operation Enduring Freedom – Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom – Iraq veteran, O’Shea established and ran the Hostage Working Group at the US Embassy in Baghdad 2004 – 2006. Served his final combat tour as a counter- insurgency advisor for the Commander of International Security Forces – Afghanistan 2011 – 2012. During the chaos of the failed Afghanistan exit, O’Shea was a member of Task Force Pineapple that helped rescue thousands of Americans and Afghan partners left behind.
One of the darkest days in Special Forces history occurred on a summer morning in 1968 in Vietnam. In the early hours of Aug. 23, the Da Nang MACVSOG camp known as FOB4 was attacked by approximately 167 soldiers from the combined units of the 22nd VC Sapper Battalion and members from the 23rd NVA Regiment operating in the local area. They managed to infiltrate from the seaside (East) and from the Village side (South) at the base of Marble Mountain. They met at the Vietnamese mess hall to receive their final instructions from the cook, who was a VC colonel.
By design or luck, RT-Rattler was on top of Marble Mountain. At the same time, SFCs Cecil Ames and Larry Trimble were monitoring the observation post. At approximately 0215, an enemy recoilless rifle destroyed the adjoining Marine outpost known as Little Marble. That was the signal for the attack.
In groups of twos, the enemy roamed at will throughout the camp, throwing satchel charges and grenades into the various barracks, killing many Americans as they slept. They succeeded in blowing up the senior NCO barracks, various recon hooches, and the old TOC causing the first of many American casualties. An attempt to blow up the new concrete TOC was prevented by a lone communications sergeant. The main supply depot was blown up when the fire reached the LP canisters. Now, it was raining 82mm mortar fire from an unknown position. Confusion, chaos, and the unseen enemy ruled the first part of the night. A group of VC/NVA attempted to blow up the motor pool but were stopped in their tracks by a Filipino civilian and motor pool sergeant...
To read more visit SOFMAG.
The Biden administration is preparing to sell $1.1 billion in missiles and radar support to Taiwan, according to an official familiar with the matter.
The package would include as much as $650 million in continued support for a surveillance radar sold earlier, about $90 million for roughly 100 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles as well as about 60 additional anti-ship Harpoon missiles, the official said. Both weapons have been sold to Taiwan previously.
The State Department informally notified Congress of the sale late Monday. Even though it offers Taiwan no new military capability, the move will anger China, which has become more aggressive in its military posture against the island...
To read more visit Bloomberg.
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