Bring The HEAT

Life, and Death, on the Fringe | TIME.com

Prone to quoting Yeats and waxing eloquent on the merits of Guinness, LeFon always struck me as a sort of renaissance man that young men aspire to be but can never really achieve – full, vibrant and accomplished. It seems rather banal to say I looked up to him, but it’s true.

via nation.time.com

On this Memorial Day, I fondly remember our friend.

Retired, but still serving, as it were.

Fair winds, old friend.

NBA Player Shot Dead After Breaking Into Dallas Apartment

Oh, but the headlines ever so carefully conceal the circumstances.  (URR here.)

"Pelicans’ rookie guard Bryce Dejean-Jones has died at age 23" (NBC.com)

"NBA player Bryce Dejean-Jones fatally shot" (CNN)

 "Pelicans guard Bryce Dejean-Jones dies after gunshot wound" (ESPN)

Why, the headlines might make you think that GUNS are the problem, or that the guard's death was some sort of sudden and tragic illness.  But the actual circumstances are quite unflattering.  

(From ESPN:)

According to Dallas police, officers responded to a call about a shooting at an apartment at about 3:20 a.m. Saturday morning. The resident of the apartment said an individual had kicked open his front door and entered his apartment. The resident, who had been asleep, retrieved a handgun and called out to the individual, but did not receive an answer. The individual kicked the bedroom door and the resident fired his gun at the individual, who left the apartment and collapsed in the breezeway. The individual was transported to the hospital, where he died.

Some have claimed that Dejean-Jones went to the wrong floor of the apartment building where his girlfriend (one assumes), who is the mother of his child, lives.  They had previously had an argument, the story goes.  As if that makes his actions any less abhorrent.  Even if the story is true, one can only wonder what would have transpired between that woman and a six-foot five-inch, 210 pound professional athlete who was enraged enough to kick down two doors to get to her.   At three in the morning.  Wonder what the tox screen will turn up.

But none of this one would even begin to glean from the headlines.  No, this was a situation of Bryce Dejean-Jones' own making.  Entirely.  While thoughts and prayers are appropriate for the young man's family, they are also appropriate for the poor man who knows he took another man's life, because he felt, rightly, that his own was threatened.  Not something anyone ever wants to do, but Dejean-Jones gave the man no choice.   It is something that man will live with for the rest of his days.

At 23, this young athlete did not deserve to die.  But he certainly exponentially increased his chances of doing so by kicking in two doors in another man's domicile.  Gleaning nothing from a drug-possession arrest in college, instead Dejean-Jones learned the hard way that the adulation and fame that comes with the talent to earn an NBA paycheck doesn't make you immortal.   

 

Most Transparent Administration Ever

Via Insty:

 

Has the Internal Revenue Service been systematically evading federal record-keeping laws? On Monday the Cause of Action Institute sued the IRS and commissioner John Koskinen for refusing to preserve electronic employee communications that concern official business.

Cause of Action says that in 2010 the IRS struck a little-noticed agreement with the National Treasury Employees Union not to record employees’ instant messages. The watchdog group also says that in response to its Freedom of Information Act requests for text messages sent by senior IRS officials, the agency replied that due to “routine system housekeeping” and “spacing constraints,” IRS text messages are retained for only 14 days before they are deleted.

Of course, the staff at IRS sees this illegal deal with the union as a feature, not an unfortunate bug that they simply cannot overcome.

Mind you, when I worked in the financial industry, our IT department disabled all instant message services (even the proprietary in-house version) and blocked all access to third party email systems.  It was primarily a means of avoiding getting hammered in litigation. Should a client sue us, pretty much everything would be liable to discovery, and the ban on IM and third party email made it easy to show we weren’t trying to hide any records from discovery.

The IRS, however, much like so many other federal agencies, feels that the inconvenience of federal laws specifically mandating that they preserve information in such a manner is too likely to align the citizenry against them, and thus, rules and laws should not apply to them.

The American Dead in Foreign Fields - WSJ

If you have not ever done so, I urge you to program into your next trip abroad a visit to an American military cemetery. There are quite a few in Europe, and some in Asia. You can find a list online.

These cemeteries are settings of an awesome serenity and beauty, immaculately kept by the American Battle Monuments Commission. As Americans, we must thank the architects who designed these settings and the workers who over the decades and to this day have kept them in their immaculate condition.

via www.wsj.com

After the end of World War II, next of kin of the fallen were given the option to repatriate the remains of their soldier to the US, for interment in a national cemetery, or a private plot. Or, they could opt for their loved one to be reburied in on of the several overseas cemeteries. A surprising number chose to have their kin rest for eternity in the soil they fought on.

During the war, the dead were buried in temporary, expedient cemeteries. It wasn't until after the war that today's immaculate, beautiful monuments were designed and laid out.

To paraphrase GEN Colin Powell, when America fights overseas, we seek only enough territory to bury our honored dead.

Please Don't.

URR here.  At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, and somewhat ungracious, I ask something from all of you out there.  

Please, do not wish me, or anyone else a "Happy Memorial Day".  Memorial Day is a day for honoring the memories of all those who traded their tomorrows so that we might have ours.  Those who gave their lives in action against America's enemies.  It is not a "happy" day.  It is day for somber reflection.  Our thoughts should be with wives, mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, children, who will spend the the rest of their mortal days bearing the loss of a loved one.  

Also, don't ask how I plan to "celebrate" Memorial Day.  The day is not one of celebration, but one of commemoration.  And giving thanks to God for such men (and women) who gave their last full measure of devotion to the cause of Liberty.  

This is not to say not to enjoy the fruits of our freedoms, spending time together with friends and loved ones.  By all means, do.  But somewhere, between the laughter and the smiles and the enjoyment of all we cherish, take the time to remember.   Just for a moment.  

Thank you.

Into the Greasy Grass—The Importance of the Tank in War Today and in the Future — The Bridge

We must not forget that the tank was not developed to defeat the tank. It was developed in World War I to defeat the machine-gun and to penetrate layered defenses in torn terrain. The ultimate goal was to  to restore mobility to the infantry, punch holes in the defense, and unleash cavalry to exploit those holes. The chore remains virtually unchanged since the British deployed tanks at Cambrai in 1917. The tank enables maneuver. But as the British learned in the mud of the Western Front, the tank restores maneuver to the battlefield only when coupled with all arms—fires and aviation—including that which air forces bring.

via www.thestrategybridge.com

COL Donahoe's article is correct. You have to have heavy forces to win the heavy fight.

Unfortunately, he does gloss over a critical strategic issue here, particularly in light of how the article leans heavily on a Baltic scenario.

The threat of US heavy armor weeks in the future in the Baltic is far less a deterrence than US Infantry in the Baltic right now.

That is, let us look to, say, Crimea. Let's argue for the sake of argument that the US was willing to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea. Russia was able to mobilize and deploy its forces in about 48 hours, executing a coup de main.

Had US light forces been there, those forces might not have been able to do more than fight a delaying action, and that at high cost.

But the strategic calculation of actually engaging US forces is different that the US threatening to deploy forces later. And there simply is no way the US can move an ABCT to points in Eastern Europe anywhere near as fast as Russia can move its forces.

So if we wish our forces in Europe to have any real deterrent effect, they must either be forward deployed into critical strategic areas, or so more deployable (and thus light, and thus vulnerable) as to be more agile than Russian forces.

#OTD in 1941- Sink the Bismark

The Army Is Bringing Back a 70-Year-Old Gun for New Fights

The United States Army will soon begin distributing a weapon system introduced in 1946. The M3 Carl Gustav rocket launcher will bolster the firepower of rifle platoons, giving them a much-needed edge.

Developed by Bofors (now Saab), the Carl Gustav is a lightweight, man-portable recoilless rifle. Recoilless rifles are like a cross between an artillery gun and a bazooka: While they have propellant at the base of the projectile like a rocket, the propellant doesn't burn beyond the barrel, meaning the projectile flies unpowered like a bullet or artillery shell. Unlike artillery, propellant gasses are directed backwards, counteracting the weapon's recoil and making it "recoilless". The weapon is referred to as a "rifle" due to the spiral rifling in the barrel, which stabilizes the projectile. 

via www.popularmechanics.com

Rangers and SOF have been toting the Carl Gustav for years, but now each rifle platoon in IBCTs will have one issued.

More Sullivan Cup

We posted a couple weeks ago about the results of the Sullivan Cup competition, for excellence in Tank Gunnery. Here’s some B-Roll footage of the crew from the North Carolina Army National Guard that won the competition. 

That ought to keep some of the resident C-DATs happy for a while.

World of Warships- Don’t be a Team Killer Jackass.