Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Fox News
STOCKTON, Utah – The U.S. Army has destroyed about 90 percent of its aging chemical weapons after it wraps up work this week in Utah, where it has kept its largest stockpile -- a witches' brew of toxins, blister and blood agents that accumulated through the Cold War.
The Army's Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah's west desert burned its last hard weapons in a 1,500-degree furnace on Wednesday -- projectiles that contained mustard agent, which can produce painful skin blisters. The last tray of 23 projectiles came out of a furnace at 2:11 p.m. after baking for two hours, a process that rendered the mustard agent harmless.
The depot -- which at its peak held some 13,600 tons of chemical agents, making it the world's largest -- expects to complete the job by the weekend when it incinerates bulk supplies of Lewisite, a powerful skin, eye and lung irritant.
"It gives me great joy and satisfaction to be done," said Ted Ryba, the Army's project manager at the depot, after the last of the mustard agent projectiles were seen emerging from the furnace on a conveyor belt.
The U.S. is part of an international treaty to rid the world of chemical weapons, a campaign taking place with spotty success around the globe. The goal was supposed to be accomplished by April 29 but will take years longer.
"Clearly, it's still a tremendous example of what the world can do," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky., an advocate for safe disposal. "You've got 188 of 194 countries on the planet signing the treaty. It's an impressive effort, a great step forward for the safety of the world."
The U.S. has acknowledged it will take as long as 2021 to finish destroying the final 10 percent of its chemical weapons at depots in Pueblo, Colo., and Richmond, Ky. Russia is farther behind in its effort, having destroyed only about 48 percent of a large cache of chemical weapons, according to the Organisation of for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, Netherlands...[Full Article]
Labels: chemical weapons, U.S. Army, US Army
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Business Insider
Every soldier that enlists in the Army chooses a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). Designated by a number and a letter, the 31E MOS now includes advanced responsibilities including command and control of prisoner of war and civilian internee camps.
While the civilian designation likely applies to foreign nationals in their home countries, it reads more ominously now that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is getting nods from legislators as it makes its way through the Senate.
Part of the NDAA includes amendments allowing for the arrest and indefinite detention of U.S. citizens both at home and abroad.
Below is a portion of the MOS listing at GoArmy.com.
[Full Article]Labels: detainee, U.S. Army, US Army
Thursday, November 10, 2011
New York Times
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — The soldier accused of being the ringleader of a rogue Army unit that killed three Afghan civilians last year for sport, crimes that angered Afghan leaders and villagers and rattled high levels of the American military, was found guilty of all charges on Thursday.
The soldier, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, 26, of Billings, Mont., was found guilty of three counts of murder, of conspiring to commit murder and several other charges, including assaulting a fellow soldier and taking fingers and a tooth from the dead. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole...[Full Article]
Labels: Afghanistan, Calvin Gibbs, murder, U.S. Army, US Army
Friday, October 21, 2011
Business Insider
A soldier in a combat zone throwing gang signs
Image: FBI
The FBI has released a new gang assessment announcing that there are 1.4 million gang members in the US, a 40 percent increase since 2009, and that many of these members are getting inside the military (via Stars and Stripes).The report says the military has seen members from 53 gangs and 100 regions in the U.S. enlist in every branch of the armed forces. Members of every major street gang, some prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) have been reported on both U.S. and international military installations...[Full Article]
2011 National Gang Threat Assessment – Emerging Trends
view printable version (pdf)
Labels: Army, FBI, gangs, military, U.S. Army, US Army
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Breitbart
A miniature "kamikaze" drone designed to quietly hover in the sky before dive-bombing and slamming into a human target will soon be part of the US Army's arsenal, officials say.
Dubbed the "Switchblade," the robotic aircraft represents the latest attempt by the United States to refine how it takes out suspected militants.
Weighing less than two kilos, the drone is small enough to fit into a soldier's backpack and is launched from a tube, with wings quickly folding out as it soars into the air, according to manufacturer AeroVironment.
Powered by a small electric motor, the Switchblade transmits video in real time from overhead, allowing a soldier to identify an enemy, the company said in a press release last month.
"Upon confirming the target using the live video feed, the operator then sends a command to the air vehicle to arm it and lock its trajectory onto the target," it said.
The drone then flies into the "target," detonating a small explosive...[Full Article]
Labels: Army, drones, U.S. Army, US Army
Friday, September 9, 2011
Small size, quiet motors let aircraft find target, sneak in and deliver knockout blow
Soldiers who fly hand-launched drone scouts to spot enemies on the battlefield may soon get a deadly robotic device capable of also delivering a knockout blow. The U.S. Army has ordered its first batch of small suicide drones that are capable of launching from a small tube, loitering in the sky and then diving at a target upon command...[Full Article]
Monday, March 21, 2011
Commanders brace for backlash of anti-US sentiment that could be more damaging than after the Abu Ghraib scandal
UK Guardian
Commanders in Afghanistan are bracing themselves for possible riots and public fury triggered by the publication of "trophy" photographs of US soldiers posing with the dead bodies of defenceless Afghan civilians they killed.
Senior officials at Nato's International Security Assistance Force in Kabul have compared the pictures published by the German news weekly Der Spiegel to the images of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib in Iraq which sparked waves of anti-US protests around the world.
They fear that the pictures could be even more damaging as they show the aftermath of the deliberate murders of Afghan civilians by a rogue US Stryker tank unit that operated in the southern province of Kandahar last year.
Some of the activities of the self-styled "kill team" are already public, with 12 men currently on trial in Seattle for their role in the killing of three civilians.
Five of the soldiers are on trial for pre-meditated murder, after they staged killings to make it look like they were defending themselves from Taliban attacks.
Other charges include the mutilation of corpses, the possession of images of human casualties and drug abuse.
All of the soldiers have denied the charges. They face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted.
The case has already created shock around the world, particularly with the revelations that the men cut "trophies" from the bodies of the people they killed...[Full Article]
Labels: Afghanistan, pictures, Stryker, US Army
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Increase in U.S. Army National Guard and Reserves Suicides
An increase in suicides among National Guard soldiers largely in states across the Midwest — such as Missouri and Wisconsin — is responsible for a 24% increase in Army suicides last year, the service reported Wednesday.
Missouri and Texas each reported seven suicides among their National Guard troops in 2010, Wisconsin had six, and there were five each in the National Guard units of Minnesota, Ohio, Arizona, California and North Carolina...
[Full Article]Hood, Army suicides hit record mark
...The Fort Hood mark is a new record for the post and contributed to the Army’s worst year for suicides. There was, however, a sign of hope in the grim tally. Slightly fewer active-duty soldiers died by their own hand compared with 2009. But there was bad news, too: The number of suicides in the National Guard and Army Reserve rose sharply.
The Army’s vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, told the San Antonio Express-News that suicides at or near Fort Hood have increased as more soldiers have returned from combat.
Fort Hood’s 22 confirmed suicides, meanwhile, doubled its 2009 mark and was eight more than Fort Bragg, N.C., which had the second-largest tally...
[Full Article]Labels: suicide, U.S. Army, US Army
Thursday, December 9, 2010
USAToday.com
The Army is shipping powerful new rifles to its snipers in Afghanistan to kill insurgents who are firing from greater distances and shooting at troops more frequently than in the early years of the war.
The XM2010 sniper rifle can hit a target 3,937 feet away, which is a quarter-mile farther than the current Army sniper rifle shoots.
The added distance is important because insurgents have been shooting down from ridges and mountaintops where gravity helps their bullets travel farther and beyond the range of Army snipers...
[Full Article ]
Labels: Army, rifle, sniper, US Army
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
More potential recruits failing their physicals because they're overweight
...“What we were finding was that the soldiers we’re getting in today’s Army are not in as good shape as they used to be,” said Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who oversees basic training for the Army. “This is not just an Army issue. This is a national issue.”
Excess weight is the leading reason the Army rejects potential recruits. And while that has been true for years, the problem has worsened as the waistlines of America’s youth have expanded. Earlier this year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled “Too Fat to Fight.”
“Between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent,” the report concluded...
[Full Article]Labels: overweight, recruits, U.S. Army, US Army
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
FORT JACKSON, S.C. (AP) - New soldiers are grunting through the kind of stretches and twists found in "ab blaster" classes at suburban gyms as the Army revamps its basic training regimen for the first time in three decades.
Heeding the advice of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans, commanders are dropping five-mile runs and bayonet drills in favor of zigzag sprints and exercises that hone core muscles. Battlefield sergeants say that's the kind of fitness needed to dodge across alleys, walk patrol with heavy packs and body armor or haul a buddy out of a burning vehicle.
Trainers also want to toughen recruits who are often more familiar with Facebook than fistfights.
"Soldiers need to be able to move quickly under load, to be mobile under load, with your body armor, your weapons and your helmet, in a stressful situation," said Frank Palkoska, head of the Army's Fitness School at Fort Jackson, which has worked several years on overhauling the regime.
"We geared all of our calisthenics, all of our running movements, all of our warrior skills, so soldiers can become stronger, more powerful and more speed driven," Palkoska said. The exercises are part of the first major overhaul in Army basic fitness training since men and women began training together in 1980, he said...
Friday, January 15, 2010
The US military plans to double the amount of military equipment it has stockpiled in Israel under a recent agreement with Tel Aviv.
"The deal will double the value of military equipment kept on Israeli soil from 400 million to 800 million dollars," a Pentagon spokesman, Major Shawn Turner told AFP...
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