I’ve been inundated with sad news today, most of which surrounds our military. I needed something on the ‘lighter side” of all of this so I’m sharing a video of our Marines having fun during some well deserved downtime. (2006)This is one of my favorites out of my “downtime” collection. It’s good to see smiles on their faces. Enjoy! 🙂
Judge sides with US servicemen used as guinea pigs in terrifying Cold War experiment – RT USA
I’ve heard about this throughout my life–starting with first hand testimonies of my schoolmates fathers and what happened to them in Vietnam–The rest I learned on my own as an adult. These stories were left out of any History lessons I had, and to be honest the deeper I dig the more I find out that it’s worse than I thought Without saying anything that will put them at risk, a handful of our veterans from the “war on terror” have told me they were given an ultimatum: “Either take what we are giving you or go to jail.” All I can say is, the government needs to stop treating our defenders like government property and doing whatever they want to them under the guise of “national security” and the threat of being court martialed if they don’t comply. Sad thing is…they pretty much are “govt property”, but above that they are human beings and they’re NOT expendable! This ruling has been a long time coming. ~Anna
A federal judge has ruled the United States Army must quickly inform veterans of any potentially harmful health effects stemming from the secret medical and drug experiments conducted on them during the Cold War.
According to a report by Courthouse News wire service, the ruling comes in favor of 7,800 soldiers claiming to have been involved in the experiments. After recruiting Nazi scientists to help through a program called “Project Paperclip,” the Army and CIA administered between 250 and 400 kinds of drugs to the soldiers in an attempt to advance US ability to wage war.
Among the many drugs used were Sarin, amphetamines, LSD, mustard gas, THC, incapacitating agents, and phosgene, a chemical weapon used in trenches during World War I. By administering these drugs and others, the military hoped to uncover new ways to control human behavior, pinpoint weaknesses, hypnotize, and increase an individual’s resistance to torture.
These experiments began in the 1950s and continued until President Richard Nixon halted research into offensive chemical weapons in 1969. Although soldiers signed consent forms agreeing to undertake the experiments, the soldiers argued in court they essentially had no other choice under training that directed them to follow orders. Veterans also argued these forms violated international law and the Wilson Directive, which mandates voluntary consent as “essential.”
After US District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled the Army must notify veterans of possible health concerns related to the experiments in November, the Army requested a delay in the process, claiming the notification process would cost nearly $ 9 million. This request was denied after Wilken ruled the cost borne by the Army paled in comparison to the health of veterans.
“On the one hand, there are the expenses that will be incurred by defendants and, on the other, there is the very real possibility that the aging and adversely affected test subjects will not learn about health effects that could be mitigated if known,” Wilken wrote, according to Courthouse News.
“Any expense incurred by defendants doing research and providing information to adversely affected test subjects, even if defendants should not have been required to incur those expenses, would not be wasted.
“However, lost time for the adversely affected test subjects could lead to irreversible health consequences.”
The lingering effects of the experiments have become grounds for contention between former soldiers and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Many veterans believe the long-term health issues they’ve developed can be traced directly back to the drugs they took decades ago at the behest of the government. The VA, however, has declined to cover the medical costs for the vast majority of those applying for coverage.
Speaking to CNN back in 2012, former Army Private Tim Josephs said that unless he agreed to the terms outlined in the experimental consent form, he would be thrown in jail.
“Sometimes it WAS an Injection. Other times it WAS A pill,” Josephs Said, Though he did not know exactly What he WAS Taking. “A lot of Chemicals Were Referred to as one agent or agent two.”
Nonetheless, once the Military Began administering the Drugs, Josephs WAS Told, “There is nothing here That Could Ever harm you.” Nowadays, he has Been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and WAS forced to Retire early. The VA granted him 40 percent disability, but others haven’t been so lucky: roughly 84 of 86 health claims related to chemical or biological contact are turned down.
Attorney Gordon Erspamer told CNN:
“The whole thing stinks, and if the American people Knew About it, They Would not tolerate it, This kind of Behavior Toward our Veterans Would not be allowed to happen.”
via Judge sides with US servicemen used as guinea pigs in terrifying Cold War experiment – RT USA.
When Shadows Danced Under a Fading Red Star: Marine’s account of the war in Iraq
A Marine veteran relives a moment when war and surrealism converged in Iraq.
By Mikko Carranza
When I open my eyes, I wonder if I’m dreaming. This entire operation has seemed unreal from the start.It is pitch black and silent. I loosen the top of my sleeping bag, and my fingers reach out to feel the icy metallic floor. I move my body and bump into full ammo boxes. I remember now, I fell asleep in a Humvee.
Everyone else wanted to bed down on a floor, not in a vehicle seat. But enemy mortar fire has been constant, and I refused to sleep in the abandoned three-story building we parked next to. I feel safer with four inches of steel over my head.
We have lost four Marines since this assault started on Halloween. Twelve more have been seriously injured. Back home, a civilian might live from paycheck to paycheck; I try to stay alive from holiday to holiday. I’m just trying to make it to Thanksgiving, only one week away.
I have all the gear that makes a warrior. My Humvee is my warhorse. My Kevlar is my helmet, and my flak is the armor that protects my heart. I have boots to march me into battle. My M16 is my “thunder maker,” so called for the thunderous cracks it makes when fired. My sole luxury item is an oversized sweater that bears the Marine Corps crescent of an eagle guarding the world. At night, my sweater doubles as my pillow.
Why am I up? The sun hasn’t risen. Ohhhhhhh… Nature calls, even when you’re in war. I slip on my sweater; the sleeves are baggy and the elastic seams hug my wrists and hips. I crawl out of my sleeping bag. The cold chills my legs while I fumble around for my boots.
The Humvee’s steel doors are heavy, especially for a feather weight. But I know how to use my 120-pound frame. I give a grunt and slowly push.
With my final shove, the door opens and I fall over. I quickly recover and raise my arms before it swings back and crushes me.
I am still not completely awake. I start to walk toward the latrine area, but get only eight or nine steps when the night lights up. My shadow appears before me, three stories high against the building wall. I look behind me and see four Humvees illuminated by bright white flashes. Multiple blasts stun me. It’s mortar fire. I know that sound anywhere.
I spin in a circle, looking for cover. I’m smack between the building and my Humvee, and I’m too groggy to decide which direction to run. My ears start ringing, and I realize that the mortar rounds must have been closer than I thought. I’m amazed that I’m not dead yet.
Explosions and more white flashes are coming faster. I don’t know if I’m frozen in my boots, or if my brain is processing faster than my body can move.
Marines in full armor rush about. Another series of blasts and flashes, then I come to my senses.
We’re not under attack. A Marine mortar team is firing into the city, and I’m underneath the fire arc. They must have set up a fire pit behind the Humvee while I slept.
A mortar flare pops in the distant sky. It’s like a red star that floats above the city, lighting up the buildings around us. All turns quiet and movement slows to a crawl.
A soft red glow basks the building next to me. My double shadow dances along the dirt road, stretching farther as the red star sinks behind this ancient city.
As I look at my shadow, I take stock of myself. No thunder maker, no armor, and no helmet. All of it still in the Humvee that I stumbled out of moments before. Instead, I stand frozen in place, wearing nothing but my unlaced boots, baggy sweater, and tighty whities turned pink by the fading flare.
The red star burns out, the city falls back into pitch black and all is silent. There is nothing, as if in a dream.
The author deployed to Iraq from September to December 2005, and June 2007 to May 2008. He is now a communications major at California State University – Sacramento.
(Published November 26, 2009, on New America Media)
via Iraq war | A Marine’s personal story of surviving the war in Iraq.
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Bat Bombs of WWII
Yes, you read that correctly–Bat Bombs. This is disturbing on so many levels, (it would be met with ridicule today). I do although, have to give props for a unique concept to aid in ending the 2nd World War. Unlike Patton whose life was dedicated to warfare and the creation of his tank introduced during WWII, the unlikely creator of the bat bomb was a Pennsylvania dentist with no warfare experience. This project almost made it and the bats were close to being released over Japan. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about this weird piece of American warfare history:
Bat bombs were an experimental World War II weapon developed by the United States. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with numerous compartments, each containing a Mexican Free-tailed Bat with a small timed incendiary bomb attached. Dropped from a bomber at dawn, the casings would deploy a parachute in mid-flight and open to release the bats which would then roost in eaves and attics. The incendiaries would start fires in inaccessible places in the largely wood and paper construction of the Japanese cities that were the weapon’s intended target.
OVERVIEW
The Bat Bomb was originally conceived by a Pennsylvania dentist named Lytle S. Adams, a friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Dr. Adams submitted it to the White House in January 1942, where it was subsequently approved by President Roosevelt on the advice of Donald Griffin.
Adams observed that the infrastructure of Japan was especially susceptible to incendiary devices as many of the buildings were made of paper, bamboo, and other highly flammable material. The plan was to release bat bombs over Japanese cities having widely-dispersed industrial targets. The bats would spread far from the point of release due to the relatively high altitude of their release, then at dawn they would hide in buildings across the city. Shortly thereafter built-in timers would ignite the bombs, causing widespread fires and chaos.
The United States decided to develop the Bat Bomb during World War II as four biological factors gave promise to this plan. First, bats occur in large numbers (four caves in New Mexico are each occupied by several million bats). Second, bats can carry more than their own weight in flight (females carry their young—sometimes twins). Third, bats hibernate, and while dormant they do not require food or maintenance. Fourth, bats fly in darkness, then find secluded places (often in buildings) to hide during daylight.
PROJECT DETAIL
By March 1943 a suitable species had been selected. The project was considered serious enough that Louis Fieser, the inventor of military napalm, designed 0.6 ounce (17 g) and one ounce (28 g) incendiary devices to be carried by the bats. A bat carrier similar to a bomb casing was designed that included 26 stacked trays, each containing compartments for 40 bats. The carriers would be dropped from 5,000 feet (1,525 m). Then the trays would separate but remain connected to aparachute that would deploy at 1,000 feet (305 m). It was envisioned that ten B-24 bombers flying from Alaska, each carrying a hundred shells packed with bomb-carrying bats could release 1,040,000 bat bombs over the target—the industrial cities of Osaka Bay. A series of tests to answer various operational questions were conducted. In one incident the Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air
Base 32°15′39″N 104°13′45″W near Carlsbad, New Mexico, was set on fire on May 15, 1943, when armed bats were accidentally released. The bats incinerated the test range and roosted under a fuel tank. Following this setback, the project was relegated to the Navy in August 1943, who renamed it Project X-Ray, and then passed it to the Marine Corps that December. The Marine Corps moved operations to the Marine Corps Air Station at El Centro, California. After several experiments and operational adjustments, the definitive test was carried out on the “Japanese Village” a mockup of a Japanese city built by the Chemical Warfare Service at their Dugway Proving Grounds test site in Utah.
Observers at this test produced optimistic accounts. The chief of incendiary testing at Dugway wrote: “A reasonable number of destructive fires can be started in spite of the extremely small size of the units. The main advantage of the units would seem to be their placement within the enemy structures without the knowledge of the householder or fire watchers, thus allowing the fire to establish itself before being discovered.” The National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) observer stated: “It was concluded that X-Ray is an effective weapon.” The Chief Chemist’s report stated that on a weight basis X-Ray was more effective than the standard incendiary bombs in use at the time. “Expressed in another way, the regular bombs would give probably 167 to 400 fires per bomb load where X-Ray would give 3,625 to 4,748 fires”.
More tests were scheduled for the summer of 1944 but the program was cancelled by Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King when he heard that it would likely not be combat ready until mid-1945. By that time it was estimated that $2 million had been spent on the project. It is thought that development of the bat bomb was moving too slowly, and was overtaken in the race for a quick end to the war by the atomic bomb project.
Dr. Adams maintained that the bat bombs would have been effective without the devastating effects of the atomic bomb. He is quoted as having said:
Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped.
Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life.
The infamous “Invasion by Bats” project was afterwards referred to by Dr. Stanley P. Lovell, director of research and development for Office of Strategic Services(OSS), whom General Donovan ordered to review the idea, as “Die Fledermaus Farce”. Lovell also mentioned that bats during testing were dropping to the ground like stones.
Good Morning: Hamburger Hill
Over forty years ago, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces battle North Vietnamese troops for Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937), one mile east of the Laotian border.
The entire mountain is a rugged, uninviting wilderness blanketed in double- and triple-canopy jungle, dense thickets of bamboo, and waist-high elephant grass that in some cases was taller than an M113 Armored Personnel Carrier. Local Montagnard tribesmen called Ap Bia “the mountain of the crouching beast.”
Official histories of the engagement refer to it as Hill 937, but the American soldiers who fought there dubbed it “Hamburger Hill”, suggesting that those who fought on the hill were “chewed up like a hamburger” and in joking reference to the Battle of Pork Chop Hill during the Korean War.
The battle was part of Operation APACHE SNOW, a 2,800-man Allied sweep of the A Shau Valley. The purpose of the operation was to cut off North Vietnamese infiltration from Laos and enemy threats to Hue and Da Nang.
U.S. paratroopers pushing northeast found the communist forces entrenched on Ap Bia Mountain. In fierce fighting directed by Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults.
The communist stronghold was captured on May 20 in the 11th attack, when 1,000 troops of the 101st Airborne Division and 400 South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way to the summit of the mountain.
During the intense fighting, 597 VC were reported killed and U.S. casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain was dubbed “Hamburger Hill” by the U.S. media.
“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever they can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser; in fees, expenses and waste of time.” — Abraham Lincoln, (1809-1865)
via Good Morning: Hamburger Hill.
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U.S. troops abandon “Hamburger Hill”: 1969
U.S. troops abandon Ap Bia Mountain. A spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division said that the U.S. troops “have completed their search of the mountain and are now continuing their reconnaissance-in-force mission throughout the A Shau Valley.”
This announcement came amid the public outcry about what had become known as the “Battle of Hamburger Hill.” The battle was part of Operation Apache Snow in the A Shau Valley. The operation began on May 10 when paratroopers from the 101st Airborne engaged a North Vietnamese regiment on the slopes of Hill 937, known to the Vietnamese as Ap Bia Mountain. Entrenched in prepared fighting positions, the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment repulsed the initial American assault and beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry on May 14. An intense battle raged for the next 10 days as the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults. On May 20, Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, commanding general of the 101st, sent in two additional U.S. airborne battalions and a South Vietnamese battalion as reinforcements. The communist stronghold was finally captured in the 11th attack, when the American and South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way to the summit of the mountain. In the face of the four-battalion attack, the North Vietnamese retreated to sanctuary areas in Laos.
During the intense fighting, 597 North Vietnamese were reported killed and U.S. casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain received widespread unfavorable publicity in the United States and was dubbed “Hamburger Hill” in the U.S. media, a name evidently derived from the fact that the battle turned into a “meat grinder.” The purpose of the operation was not to hold territory but rather to keep the North Vietnamese off balance so the decision was made to abandon the mountain shortly after it was captured. The North Vietnamese occupied it a month after it was abandoned.
Outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives was exacerbated by pictures published in Life magazine of 241 U.S. soldiers killed during the week of the battle. Gen. Creighton Abrams, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, was ordered to avoid such battles. Because of Hamburger Hill, and other battles like it, U.S. emphasis was placed on “Vietnamization”–turning the war over to the South Vietnamese forces rather than engage in direct combat operations.
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via U.S. troops abandon “Hamburger Hill” — History.com This Day in History — 5/28/1969.
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Navy SEALs – Direct Action
These elite never stop training; failure is not an option for these men. SEALs motto: “The only easy day was yesterday.”
![Making enemies pay from a mile away [Image 6 of 7]](https://i0.wp.com/farm6.static.flickr.com/5137/5448477213_1c9205137e.jpg "Making enemies pay from a mile away [Image 6 of 7]")
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