Pictures Of Marine Drill Instructors Screaming

This is a great collection of what recruits willingly sign up for to become Marines.

29 Pictures Of Marine Drill Instructors Screaming In People's Faces
Business Insider
Geoffrey Ingersoll
Feb. 8, 2013

Graham probe White House on bathroom breaks

Senator Graham is turning the attack in Benghazi into a political game instead of a matter of National Security. He didn't want answers on how the White House was wrong about sending troops into Iraq. Didn't want answers on how Osama was allowed to leave Afghanistan and live for years in Pakistan. Didn't want to know much at all including the other attack on September 11th that killed thousands and caused two wars.

Graham said

“In a constitutional democracy, we need to know what our commander in chief was doing at a time of great crisis, and this White House has been stonewalling the Congress, and I’m going to do everything I can to get to the bottom of this so we’ll learn from our mistakes and hold this president accountable for what I think is tremendous disengagement at a time of national security crisis,” he said.

In case you forgot, Graham didn't think it was important to ask questions after 9-11 when the planes were in the air and allowed to fly at will after two planes hit the Twin Towers.

Congress did not hold hearings right away after that but after holding hearing after hearing on September 11, 2012, they want a minute by minute account of what President Obama was doing. Where was he? When did he get the news? What was he wearing? Was he watching TV and what was he watching? How many times did he go to the bathroom? Was it Scott or Charmin?

The worst part of all of this is the media allows him to just say whatever he wants to without ever asking him what he is trying to prove. Four people were killed and yes, there should have been hearings, which were done. Graham is one of the biggest reasons the American Public no longer has faith in the Congress. They never seem to focus on what matters to all of us. This is what happened after the mega 9-11 and it came a year later.

JOINT INQUIRY INTO INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES
BEFORE AND AFTER THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
REPORT OF THE U.S. SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND U.S. HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE TOGETHER WITH ADDITIONAL VIEWS DECEMBER 2002

CONCLUSION – FACTUAL FINDINGS
In short, for a variety of reasons, the Intelligence Community failed to capitalize on both the individual and collective significance of available information that appears relevant to the events of September 11. As a result, the Community missed opportunities to disrupt the September 11th plot by denying entry to or detaining would-be hijackers; to at least try to unravel the plot through surveillance and other investigative work within the United States; and, finally, to generate a heightened state of alert and thus harden the homeland against attack.

No one will ever know what might have happened had more connections been drawn between these disparate pieces of information. We will never definitively know to what extent the Community would have been able and willing to exploit fully all the opportunities that may have emerged. The important point is that the Intelligence Community, for a variety of reasons, did not bring together and fully appreciate a range of information that could have greatly enhanced its chances of uncovering and preventing Usama Bin Ladin’s plan to attack these United States on September 11, 2001.

SYSTEMIC FINDINGS
Our review of the events surrounding September 11 has revealed a number of systemic weaknesses that hindered the Intelligence Community’s counterterrorism efforts before September 11. If not addressed, these weaknesses will continue to undercut U.S. counterterrorist efforts. In order to minimize the possibility of attacks like September 11 in the future, effective solutions to those problems need to be developed and fully implemented as soon as possible [page xvi]

1. Finding: Prior to September 11, the Intelligence Community was neither well organized nor equipped, and did not adequately adapt, to meet the challenge posed by global terrorists focused on targets within the domestic United States. Serious gaps existed between the collection coverage provided by U.S. foreign and U.S. domestic intelligence capabilities.

The U.S. foreign intelligence agencies paid inadequate attention to the potential for a domestic attack. The CIA’s failure to watchlist suspected terrorists aggressively reflected a lack of emphasis on a process designed to protect the homeland from the terrorist threat. As a result, CIA employees failed to watchlist al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi. At home, the counterterrorism effort suffered from the lack of an effective domestic intelligence capability. The FBI was unable to identify and monitor effectively the extent of activity by al-Qa’ida and other international terrorist groups operating in the United States. Taken together, these problems greatly exacerbated the nation’s vulnerability to an increasingly dangerous and immediate international terrorist threat inside the United States.

Navy SEAL who killed Osama unemployed and waiting for VA

UPDATE From Esquire February 12, 2013 4:28 pm updated here


February 12, 2013, 8:30 AM

The Shooter Needs Health Insurance: A Response to Stars and Stripes
By The Editors

Editor's Note: The online version of The Shooter story did not reflect the final version of the story in the print magazine, which went to press 10 days ago. The print version included more details about the availability of benefits for veterans. Unfortunately, this omission on the online version, which has been corrected, has led to a misunderstanding, through no fault of her own, by reporter Megan McCloskey and others about some of the facts in our story regarding healthcare and our veterans. The online version of the piece omitted the following paragraph that appears in the print magazine: "There is also a program at MacDill Air Force Base designed to help Special Ops vets navigate various bureaucracies. And the VA does offer five years of benefits for specific service-related claims—but it’s not comprehensive and it offers nothing for the Shooter’s family." The story's argument, however, remains the same: That the man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden, as the following post explains, remains responsible for his own healthcare and that of his family.

UPDATE FROM STARS AND STRIPES

Esquire article wrongly claims SEAL who killed Bin Laden is denied healthcare
By MEGAN MCCLOSKEY
Published: February 11, 2013
Esquire magazine claims “The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden ... Is Screwed.”

The story details the life of the Navy SEAL after the successful raid to take out the No. 1 terrorist, and it asserts that once the SEAL got out of the military he was left to fend for himself.

“...here is what he gets from his employer and a grateful nation:

Nothing. No pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family.”

Except the claim about health care is wrong. And no servicemember who does less than 20 years gets a pension, unless he has to medically retire.

Like every combat veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the former SEAL, who is identified in the story only as “the Shooter”, is automatically eligible for five years of free healthcare through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But the story doesn’t mention that.

The writer, Phil Bronstein, who heads up the Center for Investigative Reporting, stands by the story. He said the assertion that the government gave the SEAL “nothing” in terms of health care is both fair and accurate, because the SEAL didn’t know the VA benefits existed.

Sorry but even this is wrong. This is from the article below.

The VA offers five years of virtually free health care for every veteran honorably discharged after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, even when he or she leaves the military early. But the Shooter told Bronstein that none of the counselors who came to SEAL Command told him that. That coverage also would not extend to his family.

So yes it did say that.

NOTE:Not sure how much the reporter did to verify this story but sooner or later we'll know for sure.

VA's disability backlog hurts Navy SEAL who killed bin Laden
Center for Investigative Reporting
Feb 11, 2013
Aaron Glantz
Reporter

The Navy SEAL who says he killed Osama bin Laden is unemployed and waiting for disability benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

In an exclusive story for Esquire by Phil Bronstein of the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Shooter adds many details to what already is known about the death of the al-Qaida leader. His name is withheld to protect his identity.

The Shooter told Bronstein, CIR’s executive chairman, that he alone killed the terrorist leader, recounting minute details of those brief seconds. As the second Navy SEAL up a staircase, he saw bin Laden inside a room.

“For me it was a snapshot of a target ID, definitely him,” he said. “Even in our kill houses where we train, there are targets with his face on them. This was repetition and muscle memory. That’s him, boom, done.”

But perhaps the Shooter’s most explosive revelation is that nearly six months after leaving the military, he feels abandoned by the government. Physically aching and psychologically wrecked after hundreds of combat missions, he left the military a few years short of the retirement requirement with no pension.

“It was nearly impossible to believe when he first told me he got such a dearth of support from the U.S. government,” Bronstein said. “Where’s the thank you?”

Like 820,000 other veterans, his disability claim is stuck in a seemingly interminable backlog at the VA, where the average wait time currently exceeds nine months, based on the agency’s own data.

The speedier special track for Special Forces veterans appears to have eluded him, and so his neck, back and eye injuries remain uncompensated, removing a chance for a modicum of financial stability.
read more here

VA Claim Backlog Examples
2000 311,000
2007 755,000
2008 879,291
2009 915,000

The backlog has been exacerbated by the administration’s 2010 decision to accept 260,000 previously denied and new claims associated with Agent Orange exposure.

UPDATE Just got off the phone with a friend asking about this story. The plight of special forces veterans is astonishing. Their claims are very hard to verify because of security secrets the Pentagon keeps. While this is understandable, the veterans still need help with physical and mental health issues.

Here's a thought. Why can't the Pentagon come up with some kind of form to verify the fact these veterans were placed in dangerous situations that would cause PTSD or that the wounds they are claiming as service connected were in fact caused by their service without having to divulge classified information?

Why should they suffer for the secrets they kept when they need to be cared for by the country they served?

Kentucky National Guardsman receives Silver Star

Ky. Guardsman receives Silver Star but doesn't see himself as a hero
Feb 10, 2013
Written by
Mark Boxley

Until Sunday, when she watched her husband receive the Silver Star Medal at the Galt House Hotel, Deborah Ison never knew exactly what he had done during his 2008 service in Afghanistan to receive the military’s third-highest decoration for valor.

When she finally found out, after reading the official account, she was both proud and angry.

Proud, because Capt. Shannon Ison of the Kentucky National Guard saved the lives of numerous men under his command during an attack by insurgents in Afghanistan, according to the award description.

Angry, at least initially, “because I could have lost him.”
read more here

Fort Bliss soldier died in third traffic fatality of the year

Fort Bliss soldier dies in traffic accident on I-10 in Central El Paso
By David Burge
El Paso Times
Posted:02/10/2013

The driver, who was not seriously injured, is also a soldier

A Fort Bliss soldier was killed in a two-vehicle crash along Interstate 10 West at Paisano Saturday night, a Fort Bliss spokesman said.

A 2001 Ford F-150 truck was traveling west along Interstate 10 and attempted to exit at the Paisano off-ramp when it hit the driver's side of a westbound 1997 Ford Ranger, El Paso police report.
read more here