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Tomb Guard Earns Badge After His Final Watch

Arlington National Cemetery
20 Mar 2024

Conducting a final walk at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a high honor for a Tomb Guard of the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), as is earning the Tomb Guard Identification Badge. However, to do both on the same day is a rare event. That’s just what happened to Staff Sgt. Thomas Tavenner on March 11, 2024.

At noon, when Tavenner completed guarding the Tomb, he walked to the southern end of Memorial Plaza, where the ceremony's host, Spc. Wyatt Stearns, told him “Staff Sgt. Thomas Tavenner, for the last time fall out.” Instead of leaving the plaza, Tavenner handed his rifle to a waiting Tomb Guard and returned to the center of the plaza, where a sergeant first class, along with Tavenner’s parents and grandfather, awaited him.

Tavenner took off his sunglasses and gloves and gave them to the sergeant, who, in return, handed Tavenner five red roses. Tavenner shook his father’s hand and hugged his mother, giving her a rose. Then, in the disciplined cadence the Tomb Guards are known for, he walked to the Tomb of the World War I Unknown, dropped to one knee, and laid a rose at its base. He did the same for the Vietnam War, World War II, and Korean War Unknowns.

Once he finished, Tavenner saluted the Tomb as a bugler sounded Taps. He then escorted his parents and grandfather away from the Tomb for the last time.
But the day was not over. Soon after, Tavenner stood in the center of the chapel under the Memorial Amphitheater, in front of his family, his fellow Guards, and guests as he awaited the presentation of his Tomb Badge. Tomb Guards earn the badge after completing five phases of testing. It is considered one of the most challenging badges to earn in the U.S. Army.
Commander of the Guard, 1st Lt. Henry Newstrom, overseeing the ceremony, explained why Tavenner had his last walk on the same day as earning his Tomb Badge. “Despite our best efforts to retain Sgt. Tavenner,” said Newstrom, “our Army Human Resources Command needs recruiters, so he will be recruiting in Norfolk, Nebraska.”

Then Newstrom read out a list of Tavenner’s accomplishments. “Over the past eleven months, Staff Sgt. Tavenner has completed 210 walks and 102 public wreath-laying ceremonies,” he said. “He has walked ceremonially for over 111 miles while guarding the Unknowns —a distance that will get you to Richmond, Virginia, Ocean City, New Jersey, or Philadelphia.”

Then Newstrom explained something even more impressive: A twelve-hour post guarding the Tomb from dusk to dawn is known as a vigil. Similarly, an ironman consists of performing a back-to-back guard change, followed immediately by a vigil. Newstrom said that Tavenner conducted 14 vigils, with two of those being ironmans, an average of one vigil per month. “That is honestly incredible,” said Newstrom. “What you did to support your relief and our team as a whole is awesome.”

Kevin M. Hymel
Daryl Vaca

Travis Akers @travisakers wrote: One of the greatest moments in Pentagon history occurred during today’s press conference.

@billyjoel

US sailor convicted of attempted espionage by military court
The U.S. Navy chief petty officer was convicted for failure to obey a lawful order among other charges along with an attempted espionage charge.

Douglas Jones
Posted at 6:47 PM, Apr 20, 2024 and last updated 12:47 AM, Apr 21, 2024

A military court found U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Bryce Pedicini guilty of attempted espionage after he is accused of sharing classified defense information with a foreign government.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service said Pedicini was also convicted for attempted violation of a lawful general order and for failure to obey a lawful order. NCIS said in their release that a seven-day trial found Pedicini — who previously served on a guided-missile destroyer in Japan — guilty at a general court martial on Friday.

NCIS Director Omar Lopez said, "This guilty verdict holds Mr. Pedicini to account for his betrayal of his country and fellow service members."

Lopez said, "Adversaries of the United States are unrelenting in their attempts to degrade our military superiority."

The military court said Pedicini's sentencing would be determined by a military judge, scheduled for a hearing on May 7.

An unidentified person who posed as a Japanese defense researcher is said to have contacted Pedicini through Facebook on Oct. 24, 2022 offering money for details on U.S. military capabilities and strategies.

Court records said Pedicini worked with "everything from radars, fire control systems and computer systems, to the Navy's most advanced missile system, Aegis," Stars and Stripes reported.

The individual, who was identified as a woman, reportedly convinced Pedicini to send classified materials on a ballistic missile system, according to Prosecutor Leah O'Brien.





https://www.wptv.com/us-sailor-convicte ... tary-court

Watch US Marine’s GoPro footage that challenges Pentagon’s account of attack at Kabul airport

CNN
24 Apr 2024

Video obtained by CNN significantly undermines two Pentagon investigations, the latest of which was released last week, into an ISIS-K suicide attack outside Kabul airport in August 2021.

Russian troops enter base housing US military in Niger, US official says

Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
Updated Fri, May 3, 2024 at 9:11 AM GMT+2·

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting U.S. troops, a senior U.S. defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger's junta to expel U.S. forces.

The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the U.S. to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington's fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russian forces were not mingling with U.S. troops but were using a separate hangar at Airbase 101, which is next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger's capital.

The move by Russia's military, which Reuters was the first to report, puts U.S. and Russian troops in close proximity at a time when the nations' military and diplomatic rivalry is increasingly acrimonious over the conflict in Ukraine.

It also raises questions about the fate of U.S. installations in the country following a withdrawal.

"(The situation) is not great but in the short-term manageable," the official said.




https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-ru ... 00800.html

Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 @AdamKinzinger wrote: Challenge coins. Goes to show these anti American clowns know nothing about the military

Matt Wallace @MattWallace888 wrote: Pay close attention to what Joe Biden hands off to the men in black!

US military to dismantle ill-fated Gaza aid pier, declaring ‘mission complete’
Although Central Command praises operation, scheme announced by Biden cost $230m and only operated 25 days

Associated Press in Washington
Thu 18 Jul 2024 01.51 CEST

The US military-built pier for carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza will be dismantled and brought home, ending a mission that has been fraught with repeated weather and security problems that limited how much food and other supplies could get to starving Palestinians.

Vice Adm Brad Cooper, deputy commander at US Central Command, told reporters in a Pentagon briefing on Wednesday that the pier had achieved its intended effect in what he called an “unprecedented operation”.

As the US military steps away from the sea route for humanitarian aid, questions swirl about Israel’s new plan to use the port at Ashdod as a substitute. There are few details on how it will work and lingering concerns about whether aid groups will have enough viable land crossings to get assistance into the territory besieged by war between Israel and Hamas.

Cooper said the Ashdod corridor would be more sustainable and it has already been used to get more than a million pounds of aid into Gaza.

“Having now delivered the largest volume of humanitarian assistance ever into the Middle East, we’re now mission complete and transitioning to a new phase,” said Cooper. “In the coming weeks, we expect that millions of pounds of aid will enter into Gaza via this new pathway.”

Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, told reporters that aid groups had confidence that “Ashdod is going to be a very viable and important route into Gaza”.

But, she said, “the key challenge we have right now in Gaza is around the insecurity and lawlessness that is hampering the distribution once aid gets into Gaza and to the crossing points”.

Israel controls all of Gaza’s border crossings and most are open, although Israel has been criticised by aid organisations for limiting the amount and type of aid allowed through and accused of using starvation as a “weapon of war”.

Critics call the pier a $230m boondoggle that failed to bring in the level of aid needed to stem a looming famine. The US military, however, has maintained that it served as the best hope as aid only trickled in during a critical time of near-famine in Gaza and that it got close to 20m lb (9m kg) of desperately needed supplies to Palestinians.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... a-aid-pier

Army's Pier System Now Faces Second Watchdog Review After Troubled Gaza Mission

By Steve Beynon and Konstantin Toropin
Published August 21, 2024 at 12:21pm ET

Following the seemingly bungled Army mission establishing a pier off the Gaza Strip to deliver aid to the region, the Pentagon's internal watchdog has launched an investigation into the service's capabilities to conduct such a mission.

The Department of Defense's Office of Inspector General earlier this month announced that it's investigating how the military runs so-called Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, operations -- in which troops construct piers either to deliver goods or personnel in places with limited infrastructure.

The Gaza Strip mission was mostly run by the Army's 7th Transportation Brigade, which encompasses much of the service's watercraft -- dubbed "the Army's Navy." But that unit, its tactics and equipment have long been an afterthought of the land service, especially coming off the heels of the landlocked post-9/11 wars.

The watchdog said that it wants to evaluate the Pentagon's "capabilities to effectively carry out Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) operations and exercises" in a letter dated Aug. 5.

The Defense Department inspector general also noted that the investigation "is separate from and in addition to" its ongoing review "examining the DoD's involvement in facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza through the maritime corridor."

A Military.com investigation found that the Army's watercraft elements may not have been ready for prime time. The capability, which had lingered in obscurity for half a century, was suddenly tasked with one of the Pentagon's highest-profile missions in years.

The Gaza mission not only stress-tested a unit that had little real world experience, but also served as a pseudo test bed for how the Army may operate in the Pacific if a war with China ever breaks out. In a potential conflict, Army planners are anticipating a war could involve a complex island-hopping campaign akin to the fight against the Japanese during World War II. That campaign would push Army logistics to their limit, and could see watercraft units serve at the tip of the spear, moving troops into combat and carrying critical supplies to the front lines under fire.



https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... ssion.html

Navy Could Sideline 17 Support Ships Due to Manpower Issues

Sam LaGrone
August 22, 2024 7:52 PM - Updated: August 26, 2024 12:23 PM

Military Sealift Command has drafted a plan to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels across the Navy, USNI News learned.

The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday.

Based on the crew requirements on the platforms, sideling all the ships could reduce the civilian mariner demand for MSC by as many as 700 billets.

A defense official confirmed the basic outline of the plan to USNI News on Thursday. Two sources identified the forward-deployed sea bases as USS Lewis Puller (ESB-3), based in Bahrain in U.S. Central Command, and USS Hershel “Woody” Williams (ESB-4), based in Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, Greece, and operated in U.S. European and Africa Command.

A Navy official, when contacted by USNI News, acknowledged the service was working on a plan to retask civilian mariners but did not provide details.

The new effort, known informally as “the great reset” has yet to be adopted by the Navy and is awaiting approval from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, USNI News understands.

‘Burning Through People’

The Military Sealift Command operates a fleet of logistics ships that refuel and resupply the Navy’s ships around the world and are crewed by 5,500 civilians who are employed by the Navy.

Across the MSC there are about 4,500 billets for mariners on a wide variety of U.S. support ships ranging from resupply vessels, fleet oilers that refuel ships and aircraft, salvage ships, the Navy’s two command ships, submarine tenders and hospital ships.

For every billet on an MSC ship there are about 1.27 mariners to fill the positions, a ratio that two former MSC master mariners told USNI News on Thursday was unsusstainable.

“If you’re required to have 100 people on a vessel. There are only 27 more people on shore at any given time to rotate those crew members,” a former MSC mariner told USNI News.

At that ratio, a mariner would be at sea for four months and off for about a month ­and then return.

“That math just doesn’t work,” the former mariner told USNI News.

“No one is able to have a healthy work-life balance and be able to get off the ship and get adequate time to go home, have time at home with their family, take leave, take care of medical requirements [in that timeframe]. There is so much training required of every billet at MSC to stay proficient with Navy requirements and training and merchant marine credentialing.”



https://news.usni.org/2024/08/22/navy-c ... wer-issues