U.S. Sends Marines to Help Philippines After Typhoon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A team of about 90 U.S. Marines and sailors headed to the Philippines on Sunday, part of a first wave of promised U.S. military assistance for relief efforts after a devastating typhoon killed at least 10,000 people, U.S. officials said.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this weekend ordered the U.S. military’s Pacific Command to assist with search and rescue operations and provide air support in the wake of super typhoon Haiyan, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded.

The team of U.S. forces from the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Brigade left for the Philippines from a U.S. base in Okinawa, Japan, aboard two KC-130J Hercules transport aircraft, the Marines said in a statement.

Two Florida-based Navy P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, which had been on a six month rotation to Misawa, Japan, have been prepositioned in the Philippines to assist with search and rescue operations, the Marines said.

The typhoon is estimated to have killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines. Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many said resembled a tsunami, leveling houses and drowning its victims.

Via: WFB

Continue Reading.....

“The safest place in Korea was right behind a platoon of Marines. Lord, how they could fight!”

Today is the 238th Marine Corps Birthday. Below, the Commandant and the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps wish a Happy Birthday to Marines everywhere:

A message from the Secretary of the Navy:

And here is the official Birthday Message from the Commandant:

For 238 years, The United States Marine Corps has proudly served our great Nation with unfailing valor – bolstered by the enduring fortitude of our fellow Marines, our families, and our friends. This is why each year on November 10th, Marines from all generations gather together, in groups large and small, to celebrate the birthday of our Corps and to reflect on the proud legacy and warrior ethos we share. This is what unites us as Marines. From our first battle at New Providence to today in Afghanistan, Marines have always shown that they were made of tougher stuff – that when the enemy’s fire poured in from all angles, and the situation was grim, Marines unequivocally knew that their fellow Marines would stay behind their guns, fight courageously, and drive the enemy from the battlefield. We have always known hardship, fatigue, and pain…but we have never known what it is to lose a battle!

Marine of generations past built our reputation as the most disciplined and honorable warriors to ever set foot on a battlefield, and we have triumphed in every battle because our Corps has always focused on iron discipline and combat excellence. This is who we are…this is what we do! It matters not whether you carried an M-1, and M-14, or an M-16. It matters not whether you fought on a lonely island in the Pacific, assaulted a citadel in the jungle, or marched up to Baghdad. It matters not whether you are a grunt, a pilot or a loggie. What matters most is that, when the chips were down and things got tough, your fellow Marines could count on you to stand and fight…and fight we did!

This year, we celebrate the anniversary of several epic battles in our celebrated history: the 70th anniversary fo the 2nd Marine Division landing on Tarawa, the 45th anniversary of the Battle of Hue City, and the 10th anniversary of the “March Up” to Baghdad. Marines who fought in these legendary battles each made their mark upon the history of our Corps. They have passed a rich and illustrious legacy on to us – a much heralded reputation. It is ours to jealously guard, and it is up to us to make our own marks and thus proudly pass it on to the generations of Marines who will follow.

Sergeant Major Michael Barrett joins me in congratulating each of you. Because of you, your selfless service, and your many sacrifices, our Corps remains strong and ready to respond to any crisis. Throughout history, Marines have faced tough times and there will be tough times ahead, but there is no challenge we cannot overcome if we remain honorable and always faithful to our Nation, our Constitution and each other. Happy Birthday, Marines!

To my fellow Marines around the world and here at home, Happy Birthday and may God bless the United States Marine Corps. Ooh-Rah, Devil Dogs!

Via: Red State

Continue Reading.....

7 first-class passengers give up seats to Marines returning from Afghanistan

Fourteen Marines on their way home from serving in Afghanistan were upgraded to first class on their flight from Chicago to San Diego.

The Marines learned that American Airlines - which has a policy to upgrade servicemen and women in uniform whenever possible - had six empty seats in first class for the group. That gesture was followed by seven first-class passengers who jumped out of their seats for the other Marines so they could sit together.

"It was incredibly touching," Capt. Pravin Rajan said in a telephone interview from Camp Pendleton in California. "Afghanistan is a very complex and ambiguous war ... and a difficult thing to keep track of so it is amazing when we are 10 years (into) a war and there is still that kind of community, that level of support, the level of willingness to go out of one's way."

The welcome home started with a phone call. Stephanie Hare, a native of Illinois who now works in England, called the USO at O'Hare and explained that her fiance, Rajan, who had served seven months in Afghanistan, was with a dozen other Marines on a plane bound for Chicago from Baltimore.

"I just thought if they could get them some Chicago pizza, champagne or something, that would mean a lot," she said.

On the other end of the line was John Colas, a 74-year-old former Marine USO volunteer. He told Hare he'd try to do something in the hour or so before the flight landed. But he cautioned that while volunteers make an effort to welcome military personnel whenever they come through the airport, he wasn't sure he could pull anything off in such a short time.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading.....

Pentagon training manual: white males have unfair advantages

A controversial 600-plus page manual used by the military to train its Equal Opportunity officers teaches that "healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian" men hold an unfair advantage over other races, and warns in great detail about a so-called "White Male Club."

“Simply put, a healthy, white, heterosexual, Christian male receives many unearned advantages of social privilege, whereas a black, homosexual, atheist female in poor health receives many unearned disadvantages of social privilege,” reads a statement in the manual created by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI).

The manual, which was obtained by Fox News, also instructs troops to “support the leadership of people of color. Do this consistently, but not uncritically,” the manual states.

The military manual goes into great detail about a so-called “White Male Club.”

The Equal Opportunity Advisor Student Guide is the textbook used during a three month DEOMI course taught at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida. Individuals who attend the training lead Equal Opportunity briefings on military installations around the nation.

The 637-page manual covers a wide range of issues from racism and religious diversity to cultural awareness, extremism and white privilege.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

Obama Reduces 2014 Pay Hike for U.S. Troops, Still Fighting in Afghanistan

(CNSNews.com) - As promised in his Fiscal Year 2014 budget, President Obama has just informed Congress that he will cap next year's pay raise for U.S. military personnel at 1 percent, instead of the 1.8 percent raise set by the formula Congress established.

The announcement came on Friday afternoon, at the start of the long Labor Day weekend, in a letter to Congress.

"I am strongly committed to supporting our uniformed service members, who have made such great contributions to our Nation over the past decade of war," President Obama wrote to congressional leaders. "As our country continues to recover from serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare, however, we must maintain efforts to keep our Nation on a sustainable fiscal course. This effort requires tough choices, especially in light of budget constraints faced by Federal agencies."

Obama said he has decided to "exercise my authority under section 1009(e) of title 37, United States Code, to set the 2014 monthly basic pay increase at 1.0 percent" for members of the military.

"This decision is consistent with my fiscal year 2014 Budget and will not materially affect the Federal Government's ability to attract and retain well-qualified members for the uniformed services," Obama wrote. 

Via: CNS News

Continue Reading....

Obama Executive Order Triples Number Of Agencies Required To Track Guns…

President Obama is tripling the number of Cabinet agencies with gun control law enforcement responsibilities in his new bid to track guns, adding six agencies to the three typically included--Justice, Homeland Security and Defense.

Section 1.e of his executive order released Wednesday adds State, Treasury, Interior, Agriculture, Energy, and Veterans Affairs. It reads: "For purposes of this memorandum, 'Federal law enforcement agencies' means the Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense, Justice, the Interior, Agriculture, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security, and such other agencies and offices that regularly recover firearms in the course of their criminal investigations as the President may designate."

Most federal agencies have a police or security arm, but typically law enforcement doesn't included those other six agencies. Justice, in fact, defines law enforcement this way on its web page:

"A federal law enforcement agency is an organizational unit, or subunit, of the federal government with the principle functions of prevention, detection, and investigation of crime and the apprehension of alleged offenders. Examples of federal law enforcement agencies include the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). BJS has surveyed federal law enforcement agencies seven times since 1993. The 2008 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers (FLEO) included agencies that employed full-time officers with federal arrest authority who were also authorized (but not necessarily required) to carry firearms while on duty. The officer counts exclude officers in the U.S. Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Transportation Security Administration's Federal Air Marshals. Findings are based on the 2008 Census of Federal Law Enforcement Officers."

Via: The Examiner

Continue Reading...

Obama will fire 20,000 Marines so he can give $6 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars to Muslims for ‘green’ energy

There are many things Obama hates, but only two things he really loves: Green energy and Muslims. And finally he’s found a way to put both together at the same time. And it will only cost U.S. taxpayers $6 billion dollars.

FrontPage Magazine  20,000 Marines are to be fired and the money is being used for Obama’s Green Energy companies and his Muslim empowerment program. 

Sure for that $6 billion, we might not have to fire those 20,000 Marines that Barry Hussein has decided to get of, and we wouldn’t have to cut their healthcare, the way his Center for American Progress has pushed him to do… but Muslims with Green Energy count more.

Now this U.S.-Asia Pacific Comprehensive Partnership for a Sustainable Energy Future is not supposed to be limited to just Muslims, but considering that it’s been announced with the leaders of two Muslim governments, one of them that of his favorite country, Indonesia, this looks like another expensive bout of Muslim pandering.

Via:  Bare Naked Islam

Continue Reading...

SPECIAL FORCES AND NAVY SEALS HEAD TO POLLS, COUNTER BLACK PANTHER PRESENCE

In 2008, union thugs and members of the New Black Panthers showed up at certain polling places in Ohio and Philadelphia to intimidate Republican voters. To be clear, they didn't say they were there for that reason. Rather, they said they were there to be sure everyone got to vote (wink, wink, nod, nod.)

Members of the New Black Panthers plan to be in Philly again today for the same reasons, ubiquitously, and union thugs will be joining them where possible.

Enter Retired Navy Captain Benjamin Brink, who is sending out "former and retired Special Forces and SEALS" to balance out the presence of the union thugs and New Black Panthers in Philly and elsewhere. Brink's goal is to be sure Romney supporters aren't intimidated into leaving the polls without voting, and to accomplish it, his slogan is "Get Out the Vet."

IMPORTANT: Brink makes it clear that the Special Forces and SEALS are not being sent to engage "intimidators" but to observe and report voter intimidation by Obama's thugs. In this way, those taking part in Brink's "Get Out the Vet" will be able to aide police and other officials on the ground whose personnel are simply spread too thin.

Here's the bottom line: Voters who may have otherwise been intimidated by union thugs or the presence of the New Black Panthers will certainly be encouraged when they see their polls flanked by heroes of the U.S. military: heroes driven not by the revenge Obama can't quit talking about, but by "Love of Country."

God bless Benjamin Brink and the Special Forces and SEALS that stand with him today. 

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading...

State Dept. Confirms: Marines Were Guarding U.S. Embassy On 9/11--In Barbados

(CNSNews.com) -- When terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 of this year and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, there were no U.S. Marines deployed in Libya to defend U.S. diplomats, diplomatic facilities and classified information and equipment.

However, says the State Department, a Marine Security Detachment was deployed on that day to carry out those duties at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados.

“U.S. Marine Security Guards serve at the U.S. Embassy in Bridgetown, and at other diplomatic missions around the world, to protect and safeguard American diplomacy,” Rebecca Ross, the U.S. Embassy to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean Counselor for Public Affairs, said in a statement to CNSNews.com.

“On September 11, 2012, our U.S. Marine Security Detachment carried out its regular duties which include providing internal security, preventing the compromise of classified information and equipment, and providing protection for U.S. citizens and property located within official U.S. facilities,” Ross said.

On August 16, less than a month before the terrorists struck the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, the U.S. Marine Security Guard Force in Barbados led a physical fitness test for young athletes.

Via: CNS News

Continue Reading...

Last of US Surge Troops Leave Afghanistan

AP

Last of US Surge Troops Leave Afghanistan, Officials Say

U.S. officials say that nearly two years after President Barack Obama ordered 33,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to tamp down escalating Taliban violence, the last of those surge troops have left the country.

The withdrawal leaves 68,000 American forces in the warzone. It comes as the security transition to Afghan forces is in trouble, threatened by a spike in so-called insider attacks in which Afghan Army and police troops, or insurgents dressed in their uniforms, have been attacking and killing U.S. and NATO forces.

And it's called into question the core strategy that relies on NATO troops working closely with Afghans, training them to take over the security of their own country so the U.S. and its allies can leave at the end of 2014 as planned.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading...

Setbacks Piling Up in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AP) — The end game in Afghanistan is off to a shaky start.

Just as the last U.S. "surge" troops leave the country, trouble is breaking out in ways that go to the core of the strategy for winding down the U.S. and allied combat role and making Afghans responsible for their own security. At stake is the goal of ensuring that Afghanistan not revert to being a terrorist haven.

Nearly two years after President Barack Obama announced that he was sending another 33,000 troops to take on the Taliban, those reinforcements are completing their return to the United States this week. That leaves about 68,000 American troops, along with their NATO allies and Afghan partners, to carry out an ambitious plan to put the Afghans fully in the combat lead as early as next year.

But the setbacks are piling up: a spasm of deadly attacks on U.S. and NATO forces by Afghan soldiers and police, including three attacks in the last three days; an audacious Taliban assault on a coalition air base that killed two Marines and destroyed six fighter jets; and a NATO airstrike that inadvertently killed eight Afghan women and girls.

The Pentagon on Monday identified the two Marines killed at Camp Bastion on Friday as Lt. Col. Christopher K. Raible, 40, of Huntingdon, Pa., and Sgt. Bradley W. Atwell, 27, of Kokomo, Ind. Raible was commander of the Harrier squadron that had six of its planes destroyed in the assault.

Tensions over the anti-Islam movie produced in the U.S. that ridicules the Prophet Mohammad also spread to Kabul, where demonstrations turned violent Monday when protesters burned cars and threw rocks at a U.S. military base.

Those events help the Taliban's aim of driving a wedge between the Americans and their Afghan partners. They also show that the Taliban, while weakened, remains a force to be reckoned with, 11 years after the first U.S. troops arrived to drive the Taliban out.

The extra troops began moving into Afghanistan in early 2010, pushing the total U.S. force to a peak of 101,000 by mid-2011.

The U.S. troop surge was supposed to put so much military pressure on the Taliban that its leaders — most of whom are in Pakistan — would feel compelled to come to the peace table. That hasn't happened. Preliminary contacts began, but have been stymied.

Via: Town Hall

Continue Reading...

Obama's Twitter Feed Hawks Campaign Sweatshirts During Ambassador's Casket Transfer Ceremony

AP/FNC

9/14/2012 | FOXNATION.COM

At 2:20 PM, as flag draped coffins that carried the bodies of U.S. Embassy attack victims were being carried by Marines, President Obama's twitter feed was hawking campaign sweatshirts. 

As of the publishing of this article, the original tweet (http://twitter.com/BarackObama) is still present on the President's twitter feed.

Via: Fox News

Paper: America 'Was Warned Of Embassy Attack But Did Nothing'

The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal.

American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the "safe house" in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed "safe".

Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and "lockdown", under which movement is severely restricted.

Mr Stevens had been on a visit to Germany, Austria and Sweden and had just returned to Libya when the Benghazi trip took place with the US embassy's security staff deciding that the trip could be undertaken safely.

Eight Americans, some from the military, were wounded in the attack which claimed the lives of Mr Stevens, Sean Smith, an information officer, and two US Marines. All staff from Benghazi have now been moved to the capital, Tripoli, and those whose work is deemed to be non-essential may be flown out of Libya.

In the meantime a Marine Corps FAST Anti-Terrorism Reaction Team has already arrived in the country from a base in Spain and other personnel are believed to be on the way. Additional units have been put on standby to move to other states where their presence may be needed in the outbreak of anti-American fury triggered by publicity about a film which demeaned the Prophet Mohamed.

Via: The Independent

Continue Reading...