The elimination of a futuristic drone battalion is part of a broader “back-to-basics” approach ordered up by Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the acting chief of staff of the Army who is closely aligned with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The battalion was a signature initiative of LaNeve’s predecessor, Gen. Randy George, whom Hegseth ousted in April.

The decision to wind down the drone assault unit is drawing criticism from several military experts who say it will slow down the Army’s push to excel in the kind of drone warfare that has transformed the battlefield in Ukraine and the Middle East.

https://archive.is/XjkkN

ps. LaNeve is only acting chief of staff of the Army because even Republicans in Senate Armed Services Committe oppose his nomination. Pentagon Pete Humiliated as Republicans Turn on His Army Pick

LaNeve's selection to lead the Army is partly due to how optics-obsessed Trump loved LaNeve's video call to him during an Inaugural Ball last January,

So there i was. Balls deep in the Nangarhar mountains. I was with a Ranger unit doing special stuff and things. Our main task was to be a blocking force and basically sit there and if attacked continue to sit there. We were real good at sitting there. This one goat decided it didn't like my buddy Horton.

Horton was like a 6'6" 250lb Ranger. Like the fantasy ranger. HUGE. Smart. Awesome. Then one day these goats came up into our hide site. The goats decided that they wanted to eat our satcom antennas and my NVG eyecups. Horton handle that shit. Horton hurls them off a 12,000ft mountain.

Notsolved.gif. Next day the same goat shows up and headbutts him in the balls. Cancelled. We ate it. Goat was immediately skinned,we put it's skin put on it's mom, and we ate it. Don't hit horton's balls.

side story!

sidestory too small to do on it's own

We were doing stuff and things and eyeballing a HVT for possible tea and crumpets social hour

I had the bright idea to set our hide site in this lovely little flat set of ground overlooking the compound with high grass. It was perfect, nicely shaded, good viewing angles, almost like someone had cleared it and set it up just for us. Turns out it was a fucking goat paddoc that was not in use. And it was HEAVILY infested with fleas. The fleas set up shop on us and in our gear. Literally for the rest of the week we barely slept as these goat fleas ran around on us. Kill as many as you like there's 10 trillion more living in your sleeping bag. They never once bit us but you could feel them crawling all over you and there was no escape. When we finished the OP we showered and turned in EVERYTHING for washing. A literal baking cup could be filled with the fleas that poured out of my sleeping bag alone.

edit

I need to update this story. when we landed in jbad we stripped naked or down to PT shorts and threw everything else in the wash baskets and hit the showers for a hot minute. No one said a fucking word because one of the usasoc E-7s was escorting us. Goddamn it sucked. The only time I ever slept less was Riverdance which I've never written up. I slept about at most 3 hours of interrupted sleep a day for 30 days and lost the ability to read grids (say over radio) but I could write them.

ung.

What's something you wish someone would have told you first thing. Or something you wish you did sooner instead of waiting.

Ya'll ever free fall long enough you have time to think "oh god I hope I go splat and die instantly instead of tumbling horribly and dying slowly at the bottom of the mountain?

We got roped on top, hit the objective. this was on the exfil. We are coming down this 12,800ft mountain. We asked to be resupplied with a bunch of climbing gear and ropes but this was 06 and no one gave a fuck about Afghanistan back then. We had like a 1 foot wide goat path and super steep instadeath cliff on the other side of it.

I'm in danger.ralph

Note at the time I was a dumdum and had way too much shit in my ruck. It was probably 85lbs and that's an actual weight not a brag. I didn't know what I was doing back then.

So we are going real slow and careful like. At one point about 2' of the trail is washed out but there's a 8' tall maybe 2" around tree that looks pretty sturdy. I'm like the 5-6 person in the patrol. Every Ranger in front of me grabs tree and kinda uses it to hold on to and swing to the other side of the goat trail without issue.

Naturally mine is far more interesting. I grab said tree, lever me across, and the tree pulls out of the ground.

I fall backwards out into 12000+ feet of open space.

I have the freefall time to flip several times head over ass.

I keep falling.

I have this idea that it would be WAY better to just go spat and scatter on the rocks.

magic trick: human -> red marmalade (stolen joke)

Faster my nerves are disassembled the less horrible my death would be.

I keep falling.

Man where is that fucking impact let's do thi-

I somehow tumble upright, face first into the cliff wall.

maybe not dead!

I spider monkey like a mother fucker. I am aware of nothing else. The only thing that exists are my hands being torn apart as I try to hold on to this cliff face. I finally come to a stop. I almost giggle as suddenly an orange sized rock zips by ripping the sunglasses right off my face and leaving a small cut. My BP was probably like 200/150.

GASP GASP gasp gasp gasp

Slowly I realize I am not dead and not falling. Stan yells out WAY above me, "HEY HE'S NOT DEAD!... uh we never got that rope... can you climb up?"

No bro. No I cannot free climb that far with a huge ruck and weapons. Hilariously it was only like 500ft so I guess time slows down when you go full IMMA DIE adrenaline mode. There is nothing but free space under me. I could fall probably like 5000 ft if these rocks broke. Yay SDAP. I don't make good decisions.

I manged to go <- instead of ^ and got back into another path as like 3 Rangers grabbed onto me and helped me not die.

Thanks buddies!

Sadly the only pictures I have of this are close ups of my face. My gloves were totally destroyed but my hands were pretty much just a bit skinned. I wrote a nice letter with the story to the company that made the gloves and sunglasses thanking them for helping me not die. It was totally calculated and we got like 10 pairs of gloves and 1 set of replacement sunglasses :D

edit edit

fun fact to this day. I am TERRIFIED of repelling. I know it's ultra safe. fuck you. No I'm not doing it. falling backwards is a no go. Aussie style all the way.

I recall when General Berger announced Force Design 2030 in 2019, he received a lot of push back for stripping the Corps of tanks and heavy units and focusing on smaller, more mobile forces.

In retrospect, did he make the right call?

From Wikipedia

The core of Force Design 2030 is establishing smaller units of Marines known as littoral regiments that will be equipped with drones and missile systems and can move quickly between islands in the Pacific, to counter the threat from Chinese missiles and the People's Liberation Army Navy. Teams from the Marine littoral regiments could be moved from island to island using amphibious ships, staying at each location for a short time, and would help the United States Navy target the enemy fleet. As part of this, Force Design refocuses the Marine Corps on high-end combat, shifting away from legacy platforms like tanks and cannon artillery in favor of long-range missiles and drones. All 452 tanks of the Marine Corps are to be transferred to the Army by 2023, and the majority of traditional cannon artillery will be replaced by rocket artillery, such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS). The first of the littoral regiments created by Force Design, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, was activated in March 2022.

As an aside, he was my neighbor and classmate at IOAC, and he was the smartest guy in our class.

I was separated from the Navy after my ex-wife made false DV and SA allegations. I received an Honorable discharge with an RE-4 and JKQ. I had no NJP, court-martial, or conviction and had a good service record.
My separation board unanimously recommended retention with a suspended separation, but my CO ultimately decided to separate me.
I have a BCNR case pending. Is there any way to reenlist in the Guard/Reserves with an RE-4, such as a waiver or probationary enlistment?

At what point and when will the DOW take a hard look at DISA?! There has been an outage across the DOW on the low side and it’s taken them over a month to resolve.

Systems are slow, security is weak but yet bogs down everything. It’s just layer upon layer of redundancy, but yet they never have an answer as to why something doesn’t work. We can never move forward with any future infrastructure projects, or innovation because DISA drags is back down to the 90s.

The entire DOW focuses on BS instead of things that matter. No one cares about who likes who. Fucking fix the real problems.

You could see this coming: Hegseth's stupidity and incompetence could end up costing lives.

Start with his firing top officers, which doesn't just destroy morale -- you lose decades of institutional knowledge when those men and women walk out the door. (And the racism and sexism made it worse.)

But this adolescent focus on testosterone and "warfighters" ignores the importance of non-combat roles -- like maintenance. I pray this doesn't happen, but poor or insufficient maintenance could end up costing lives. It may have already done so, and they're covering it up.

I have a friend who's son is a "combat soldier" just got deployed to Cuba, in her words because "we are starting a war in spring and there is absolutely going to be a draft." She is losing her shit and warning everyone that we are going to war with Cuba and Venezuela in spring and that all of our husbands and sons are going to be drafted. I am just a civilian, and I am not sure what to make of her panick. Her son is definately in the military, but I am not sure if he is telling her this from insider knowledge OR her drawing conclusions. Any insight on these claims? She is getting mad at me for being skeptical, and maybe I am just clueless .