Veterans Day: It's time to let our military focus on character not political agendas

I flew the A-10 Thunderbolt II (known as “the Warthog”) in the first Gulf War, and on each mission I had to trust my wingman with my life. That is not something that most people experience on a day-to-day basis, but the chance of something bad happening to either of us depended upon whether we worked as a team and looked out for each other.
The essence of that relationship is called esprit de corps – a commitment to each other and our goals based upon character.
These are the things our military should embrace. But as we approach Veterans Day, I see a disturbing trend emerging that limits our military’s ability to accomplish its mission. I am not referring to the cutbacks in military spending that have resulted in reductions in our personnel and equipment to levels we have not seen since World War I.  Our military leadership has done wonders doing more with less.
I’m referring to the recent political movement to divide our society into more and more categories and sub-groups by sex or religion, the impact of which is destroying our military’s effectiveness and morale.  Social engineering should never be a part of military planning.  It is always a recipe for disaster.

Social engineering should never be a part of military planning. It is always a recipe for disaster.

The success of any mission depends on putting the best possible people in position to accomplish the mission. If the goal is to achieve a political outcome, hit a desired quota or erase millennia of tradition and beliefs that have unified our military, the mission will not be achieved and worse, honorable soldiers may die.
Our politicians need to have the character to push back against activists whose mission isn’t to secure freedom but to promote political agendas.
Aside from professional sports, the military provides the best example of what a meritocracy should be. Its effectiveness is based upon setting a strategic goal or directive, developing the tactics to accomplish the mission and carrying it out successfully. Nothing more, nothing less. That requires maintaining not only a high standard of mental and physical excellence but also demanding a high level of character from every individual serving in our military, especially our leaders.
Character is one of the building blocks of our military.  As a former member of the Air Force, I took to heart its core values: integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do.  That was our identity as fighter pilots.
I served with men and women of all faiths, all demographics and all races and I know that the values instilled in us by our training were the “why” that we needed to willingly put ourselves into harm’s way, knowing that it might one day cost us our lives. As philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
The character that we strove to exemplify was functional as well as moral.  Functional character means actions that display a positive attitude, grit/determination, perseverance and resilience.  Moral character includes the personal qualities of courage, humility, honesty, integrity, selflessness and self-discipline.
American military veterans and ordinary citizens should demand that our elected officials stop these needless social policies with our military. Nobel laureate Milton Friedman said it best:  “One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
To continue to be the best fighting force in the world, our military needs to focus on the one thing that can unify it.  And that is its character.

Vietnam veterans' bond forged again with kidney donation

Serving together in Vietnam, John Middaugh and Henry "Bill" Warner forged an Army-brothers bond they knew was profound and lasting.
A world and nearly a half a century away from the war zone where they'd counted on each other, Middaugh put himself on the line for Warner this month in a new way: by giving one of his kidneys.
"He had my back many times," Middaugh said as they awaited surgery last week at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, across the country from his home in Port Orchard, Washington. "So this is payback time."
Both are now 73. Warner, of Brightwaters, New York, had been through a health wringer since his kidneys failed after heart bypass surgery in June 2014, abruptly thrusting him into dialysis.
But "we got through Vietnam. We'll get through this," Warner said.
"Hey, Bill," Middaugh joked, "we got a PT formation tomorrow."
Their connection goes back to March 1968 in Fort Carson, Colorado, where C Company, 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry, 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division, was training to go to war.
Middaugh was a high school dropout from Detroit who had enlisted; he'd already completed a tour in Vietnam. Warner was a draftee who had grown up on New York's Long Island and gone to Southern Illinois University. Both had completed officer candidate school, and Middaugh was the company commander. Warner would be a platoon leader and, later, the company's executive officer.
By summer 1968, they were near the northern border of what was then South Vietnam. During ensuing months of fighting, when they got a respite, they passed the time talking: about what they'd do after the Army, about the countryside around them, about the world.
"When you live through those experiences, you have that bond," Warner said, and it lasted after their service together ended in January 1969.
Warner was discharged that year as a first lieutenant and went on to a career in the computer industry. Middaugh did a third tour in Vietnam, retired as a major in 1979, got his college degree at Pacific Lutheran University and had a second career in civil service before retiring for good in 2007. Each married, and each raised two sons and a daughter.

  Over the years and miles, they stayed in touch and got together for reunions. They carried with them their memories and wounds — both are Purple Heart recipients — from Vietnam. And Middaugh kept in mind a leadership principle the Army had taught him: "Know your men and look out for their welfare."

So when Warner needed a kidney, and a relative and some other would-be donors proved incompatible, Middaugh didn't hesitate to jump in.
"He would do the same for me," he says.
Once rare, kidney transplants among senior citizens are becoming more frequent. Eighteen percent of U.S. recipients last year were over 64, compared with 2 percent in 1988, according to federal statistics. Only 3 percent of all living donors last year were 65 or older, but their ranks and percentage have grown in recent decades.
In a nation where the kidney transplant waiting list tops 101,000 and 4,200 people died while awaiting a kidney last year, there has been some debate over the ethics of allocating scarce organs to older people — and, on the flip side, the ethics of determining access to the treatment by age. To NewYork-Presbyterian transplant surgery chief Dr. Sandip Kapur, the two veterans' agreement was "a compelling, appropriate situation" that stood outside such questions.
Middaugh was released Saturday, while Warner remains hospitalized in good condition. Recipients generally have longer recoveries than donors.
They've gotten encouragement from men they served with, proud to see them "still helping each other after all these years," Warner said.
"Needless to say," Middaugh said, "they weren't surprised."

Navy veteran nears completion of Mississippi River swim to honor Gold Star families

If all goes according to plan, Chris Ring, a 28-year-old Navy combat veteran, will become the first American to swim the length of the Mississippi River when he reaches the Gulf of Mexico early next month. 
But for Ring, the achievement would be secondary to his larger goal: To raise awareness of so-called Gold Star Families, the designation given to loved ones of soldiers killed in combat.
"We all have what we have today because of these families and their loved ones," Ring told the Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss. during a break from his exertions near Vicksburg. Ring said he had heard of people unknowingly congratulating families of fallen service members when hearing of their Gold Star status.
"And the [families are] like, 'Do you even know what that means?'" Ring told the paper. "And then they tell them and everyone's like, 'Oh, it's awkward,' and they want to walk away."
Such stories prompted Ring to partner with Legacies Alive, a nonprofit to support Gold Star Families. He began his swim on June 6 of this year at the source of the Mississippi River, Lake Itasca in Minnesota. By the time he reaches the Gulf, Ring will have swum 2,552 miles by the time he reaches the Gulf. Accompanied by a support team in a kayak, Ring averages 6.5 miles and 14 hours in the water each day, though he can make it up to 30 miles depending on the current and weather conditions.
At stops along the way, Ring is greeted by members of Gold Star Families, whom he encourages to sign the support team's kayaks.
"Every time I've had the opportunity to meet a family, it hits home more and more, and it makes me more steadfast and more dedicated to this cause every single day," he told the Clarion-Ledger. "They make me a part of their family, they invite me into their home, I stay with them, I hear their stories, and they have other children that really bond to us. It's so moving and powerful that they accept us and are so thankful for what we're doing."
A spokeswoman for Legacies Alive told Reuters that Ring has been delayed on occasion by bad weather, but has otherwise persevered through illness, exhaustion and a shoulder injury. After he reaches the mouth of the river, Legacies Alive says Ring will be recognized at the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia on Dec. 12.

Missouri assistant professor resigns from courtesy appointment after confrontation with journalist

Media under siege on Mizzou campus

 

 

Out of Control Idiots.

An assistant communications professor at the Missouri School of Journalism resigned from her courtesy appointment Tuesday after she was caught on video confronting a student journalist and attempting to block him from shooting photos on a public quad.
The video, showing University of Missouri protesters and Assistant Professor Melissa Click, was posted on Youtube shortly after University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe resigned following a week of protests after his perceived lack of response to a series of racially-charged incidents.
Click’s courtesy appointment allowed her to serve on graduate panels for students from other academic units, according to the Columbia Missourian. Her position as mass media professor in the Communication Department remains unclear.
Dean of the Missouri School of Journalism David Kurpius announced Click's resignation on his Twitter account late Tuesday.
Click issued an apology after reviewing the video, saying she “reached out to the journalists involved to offer my sincere apologies and to express regret over my actions.”
“I regret the language and strategies I used, and sincerely apologize to the MU campus community, and journalists at large, for my behavior, and also for the way my actions have shifted attention away from the students’ campaign for justice,” she wrote in her statement.
“From this experience I have learned about humanity and humility. When I apologized to one of the reporters in a phone call this afternoon, he accepted my apology,” Click said. “I believe he is doing a difficult job, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with him.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Kurpius lambasted Click while lauding the photojournalist.
"The Missouri School of Journalism is proud of photojournalism senior Tim Tai for how he handled himself during a protest on Carnahan Quad on the University of Missouri campus," Kurpius said in Tuesday's statement.
"The news media have First Amendment rights to cover public events," Kurpius said. "Tai handled himself professionally and with poise."
Tom Warhover, the executive editor of the Columbia Missourian, a university newspaper, told the Times he was "pretty incensed" about Tai's treatment.
"I find it ironic that particularly faculty members would resort to those kinds of things for no good reason. I understand students who are protesting and want privacy. But they are not allowed to push and assault our photographers -- our student photographers."
Tai told the Los Angeles Times the situation resembled last year's protests in Ferguson, Mo., which he also covered. The only difference, he said, was "it was the police doing it then."

Military, immigration divide GOP candidates at 4th debate

Trump on immigration: 'We either have a country or we don't'

 

 

Deep differences among the candidates over everything from immigration to the use of military force were exposed at Tuesday’s Republican primary debate, where front-runners Donald Trump and Ben Carson often had to cede the spotlight to a full stage of spirited competitors.
Even Jeb Bush, who has struggled for airtime during past face-offs, was able to elbow his way into the fray, taking shots at President Obama’s economic record and Trump’s immigration plan.
“They’re doing high fives in the Clinton campaign right now when they hear this,” Bush said, of Trump’s call to deport millions.Whether Bush, the former Florida governor who has steadily slid in the polls since losing his summer front-runner status, can regain momentum is an open question. And he was hardly alone among the middle-tier candidates asserting their policies on stage at the Fox Business Network/Wall Street Journal debate in Milwaukee.
One of the biggest wedges was over the U.S. military.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul held his ground in vociferously calling for reining in the military budget and avoiding foreign military interventions. For this, he drew sharp rebukes from Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina and others.
“I know that Rand is a committed isolationist. I’m not,” Rubio said.
Paul countered that spending on defense is driving up the debt and making America “less safe.”
“I want a strong national defense, but I don’t want us to be bankrupt,” he said.
This snowballed into a heated debate over Russia’s mounting intervention in the Middle East.
When Trump suggested the U.S. cannot be the world’s policeman, Bush said “he is absolutely wrong on this” and the U.S. needs to be the “world’s leader.”
Fiorina said both Trump and Paul should know that “we should not speak to people from a position of weakness.” In a stand-out moment, Fiorina rattled off her plans for countering Putin’s profile, including rebuilding the missile defense system in Poland, launching military exercises in the Baltic states and perhaps putting thousands of troops in Germany.
The U.S. needs to have the “strongest military on the planet and everyone has to know it,” she said.
“You can be strong without being involved in every civil war in the world,” said Paul, not backing down.
When Fiorina tried to interject, Trump scolded her – saying, “Why does she keep interrupting everybody?” – but was booed by the audience.
Rubio added that Putin is a “gangster” who understands “only geopolitical strength.”
The debate was the fourth for the GOP field and the last debate until mid-December, putting pressure on the candidates to seek a breakout moment before the holiday lull.
Unlike the most recent debate, where candidates sparred frequently with the moderators, the candidates on Tuesday mostly stuck to policy issues.
The immigration debate also drove a wedge into the field as Trump tussled with his GOP rivals over his plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
As he has at past debates, the billionaire businessman repeated his plan to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall. And when asked whether he’d deport the millions in the country illegally, he said, “We have no choice.”
“We either have a country or we don’t have a country,” Trump said, adding that some of those deported could return.
The comment quickly drew in Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who said, “Think about the families.”
He said illegal immigrants should pay a penalty, but called Trump’s plan a “silly argument” and “not an adult argument.”
After Kasich continued to slam the plan, Trump cited his own business record and said: “I don’t have to hear from his man.”
But Bush backed up Kasich and said Trump’s plan would “tear communities apart.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, though, sided with Trump. He said Democrats indeed are laughing, “Because if Republicans join Democrats as the party of amnesty, we will lose.”
He also quipped, “If a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down wages in the press, then we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation.”
The debate otherwise focused in large part on economic and fiscal issues, and the candidates used the opportunity to flag big government as a central problem holding the economy back.
Bush called for repealing “every rule” the administration has in progress.
“Start over,” he said, citing the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and other regulations.
Cruz said “the Obama economy is a disaster” but the economy could improve with tax and regulatory reform.
He called for “pulling back the armies of regulators that have descended like locusts on small businesses.”
At the opening of the debate, the two front-running Republican candidates, Trump and Carson, also said they would not raise the minimum wage, warning that would hurt the economy in the long run.
Trump and Carson were asked at the outset about protesters demanding a $15 minimum wage. Trump said while he hates to say it, “We have to leave it the way it is.”
He acknowledged Americans would have to work hard to “get into that upper strata,” but “I would not raise the minimum.”
Carson, the retired neurosurgeon, said raising the minimum wage would increase the number of jobless. He said the real issue is, “How do we allow people to ascend the ladder of opportunity rather than how do we give them everything and keep them dependent?”
He said, “I would not raise it.”
Rubio also chimed in, saying raising the wage would “make people more expensive than a machine.”
The eight candidates faced off Tuesday at a time of tense sparring within the field’s top tiers.
Trump used an Illinois rally the night before to hammer rival Carson over violent incidents during his youth and question why he’s doing well in the polls. Carson, for his part, has spent the last several days sparring with the media and his rivals over reports questioning his personal story.
At the debate, he was asked about some of that coverage.
“I have no problem with being vetted … What I do have a problem with is being lied about,” Carson said.
He suggested Democrats don’t face the same treatment, and citing Hillary Clinton’s faulty narrative about the Benghazi terror attack said, “Where I come from, they call that a lie.”
Cruz stumbled at one point during Tuesday’s debate. In a moment reminiscent of Rick Perry’s infamous debate gaffe in the 2012 primary campaign, Cruz said he wanted to dismantle five agencies but listed Commerce twice.
The prime-time event followed an earlier debate with lower-polling candidates, where New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie repeatedly hammered Clinton as well.

Ben Carson No Matter What Cartoon

The high price the world could pay for Obama’s Syria, Iraq policy

As I’ve discussed on Fox News.com before, President Obama’s Syria/Iraq policy is not a policy.  It is a non-policy to do as little as possible about the chaos in these countries so he can hand this mess to the next president. 
The Obama administration has announced two major policy shifts in two years to deal with the Iraq/Syria crisis and the threat from ISIS.  Neither exhibited the decisive leadership that the world expects from the United States.  Both were reactive and piecemeal moves to counter multiple humiliations of America.
This has created a growing global perception of American weakness and indecisiveness that will embolden America’s enemies for the remainder of the Obama presidency and possibly beyond.
The first policy shift, announced in a speech by President Obama on September 10, 2014 in response to a series of ISIS beheadings, was supposed to “degrade and ultimately defeat” ISIS.  The president said this effort would include “a systematic campaign of airstrikes” in Iraq and Syria, training and equipping of moderate Syrian rebels, increased support to the Iraqi army and stepped up humanitarian assistance.

This rapid collapse of President Obama’s Syria-Iraq policy over the last few weeks has caused serious damage to American credibility.

The failure of the September 2014 policy shift was obvious soon after it began.  Pinprick airstrikes in Syria did not stop ISIS from making gains on the ground.  In Iraq, ISIS took the city of Ramadi last May despite being outnumbered 10-1 by the Iraqi army.  The Iraqi army and the Iraqi Kurds clamored for more arms while the Obama administration sat on its hands.
Obama’s 2014 policy shift suffered a spectacular collapse this fall when a failed $500 million program to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels was cancelled and Russia intervened in Syria and began conducting airstrikes against anti-Assad rebels, many backed by the United States.  Iran also stepped up its presence in Syria by sending troops who are fighting to prop up the Assad government.
This rapid collapse of President Obama’s Syria/Iraq policy over the last few weeks has caused serious damage to American credibility.  Russian President Putin mocked and ignored President Obama as he sent Russian forces into Syria.  An intelligence sharing agreement was signed between Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.  Iraqi lawmakers even called on Russia to conduct airstrikes against ISIS positions in their country.
The Obama administration responded to these setbacks with a new policy shift that looks even worse than the last one.
The president is sending “fewer than 50” special operations troops to help advise an alliance of Syrian Arab rebels.  Given the lack of a clear policy and confusing rules of engagement, such a small deployment will be scoffed at by America’s adversaries and may be at risk of being captured.  On Monday, President Obama made the preposterous claim that this deployment is consistent with his pledge of “no boots on the ground” in Syria and Iraq because these troops will not be on the front lines fighting ISIS.
The New York Times reported on November 2 the Syrian Arab rebel alliance that U.S. special operations troops are supposed to be advising doesn’t yet exist and is dominated by Syrian Kurds who mostly want to carve out their own state and have little interest in fighting to take back Arab territory from ISIS.  Moreover, American military support of the Syrian Kurds worries Turkey because of their close ties with the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group in Turkey.
The U.S. dropped 50 tons of weapons for the Arab alliance in late September.  Although U.S. officials initially said Syrian Arabs and not Syrian Kurds were the recipients of the airdrop, according to the New York Times, Syrian Kurdish fighters had to retrieve these weapons because the Arab units for which they were intended did not have the logistical capability to move them.

Related Image

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An ISIS militant stands on a tank captured from Syrian government forces, in the town of Qaryatain southwest of Palmyra, central Syria. (Photo released Aug. 5, 2015 by Rased News Network, a Facebook page affiliated with ISIS/via AP)

The Obama administration’s latest Iraq/Syria policy shift includes a renewed call for Assad to leave office and a new round of Syrian peace talks.
New U.S. demands that Assad step down make little sense due to increased Russian and Iranian support.
The first round of U.S.-brokered Syrian peace talks were held last week in Vienna.  17 nations participated, including, for the first time, Iran.  The talks produced a vague communique endorsing a future cease-fire, a transitional government, a new constitution and elections in which Syrians would select a new government.  However, it seems unlikely the Assad regime – which was excluded from the talks – or its Russian and Iranian backers will ever support free and fair elections.
Russia and Iran rejected a timeline proposed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the peace talks under which Assad would step down in four to six months and national elections would be held in 18 months.  This puts a cease-fire out of reach since most Syrian rebels will not agree to a peace process that leaves Assad in power.
The Syria talks were overshadowed by the unwise decision by the Obama administration to include Iran because its presence legitimized its interference in Syria and Iraq.  This also made the talks tumultuous due to open feuding between Iranian and Saudi officials.  More talks are scheduled but Iranian officials have said they may not participate due to their differences with the Saudis.
So far, Mr. Obama has not agreed to Pentagon recommendations to back Iraqi forces with Apache helicopters or to allow U.S. military advisers to serve on the front lines with Iraqi forces.  These proposals are still reportedly under consideration.  Meanwhile, Republican congressmen continue to demand the Obama administration directly arm the Iraqi Kurds who are struggling to battle ISIS with inadequate and obsolete weapons.
America’s friends and allies know President Obama is pursuing a Syria/Iraq non-policy to run out the clock.  They know Mr. Obama’s initiatives are not serious policies but minor gestures that allow the president to be seen as doing something now while also enabling him to claim after he leaves office that he did not put U.S. boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria nor did he get America into another war.
Alliances in the Middle East are already shifting because of President Obama’s Syria/Iraq non-policy.  Russia is filling a power vacuum in the region and is building a new alliance with Iraq, Iran and Syria.  Russia has improved its relations with Egypt and Israel. Although the Saudis are working with the Obama administration to arm moderate Syrian rebel fighters, Riyadh is frustrated that the U.S. is considering compromise solutions which could leave Assad in power.  Saudi Arabia also reportedly is considering providing surface-to-air missiles to the Syrian rebels, a move the U.S. opposes since these missiles could fall into the hands of ISIS.
America’s enemies are certain to try to exploit the run-out-the-clock foreign policy that President Obama apparently plans to pursue for the remainder of his term in office.  This could mean a surge in global provocations, terrorism and violence from North Korea to the South China Sea to Afghanistan and to the Middle East due to the disappearance of American leadership over the next 15 months.
Remember that the weakness and incompetence of President Clinton’s foreign policy emboldened Al Qaeda to step up terrorist attacks against U.S troops and led Osama bin Laden to believe that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks would drive the United States from the Middle East.  With Barack Obama dithering away America’s global credibility, a catastrophic terrorist attack like 9/11 could happen again.

Donald Trump

Businessman Donald Trump became the first major Republican Party candidate to file for the first in the nation primary in New Hampshire.
Trump arrived at the secretary of state’s office Wednesday morning surrounded by supporters and reporters following the candidate’s movements at the state capitol.
"This may be a very, very important signature or maybe not so important, we'll have to see what happens,” Trump told the press as he signed the paperwork. 
Like other candidates, Trump was able to write a campaign slogan on the form to show he signed up for the February contest.  “’Make America Great Again’- that's what we're going to do!"
Afterwards, Trump joined local and national media to discuss his latest take on 2016 politics.
The candidate announced he’s launching a pair of radio ads in early states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina this week.  He hinted that television ads were soon to follow.
He also used a familiar attack on two of his Republican rivals. “Jeb is low energy, Ben Carson is super low energy, he falls asleep every time he gets in a car!”