HUNTING DOWN A SNIPER

ANOTHER ONE - DIFFERENT THIS TIME

Another phony caught out in a lie . . . what’s unusual is this time it’s a woman:

TOWN DUPED BY HER STORY OF SERVICE

She said she was hurt in Afghanistan; but she wasn't even in the military. Photo: Cass Lake Times


MARK BRUNSWICK , Star Tribune - April 17, 2011
The town of Cass Lake embraced Elizabeth McKenzie last month when she arrived at the high school in her Army uniform for a welcome home ceremony.

Though she isn't a tribal member, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Honor Guard gave her a blanket and an eagle feather to honor her as a woman warrior for her service in Afghanistan. There was a tribal drum ceremony and a reception line. Accepting the town's gratitude, McKenzie talked about the close calls she'd had and a war injury that brought her home. She led the march in the high school gym, carrying the American flag, and the local newspaper documented the hero's return.

But none of it was true. The 20-year-old McKenzie was never injured in combat, had never been to Afghanistan, never been deployed anywhere. In fact, she's never been in the military.

Now the 2009 grad of Cass Lake High School has been cited for impersonating an officer, which in Minnesota includes the military. And the people of Cass Lake are trying to recover from feeling duped by their own good intentions.

More HERE



Forget about this skank, check out today's Bird HERE


.

I WAS MADE FOR LOVIN' YOU BABY

GENE SIMMONS MILITARY TRIBUTE . . .




Gene Simmons as you've never seen him before . . .

. . . and YES your Uncle Stormy was a Charter Member of the Raider Nation AND the KISS Army . . .

WORLD's STRANGEST MILITARY BASES

The World's 18 Strangest Military Bases

The world's hodgepodge of military bases run the gamut from hazardous mountaintop forts to seemingly impenetrable underground bunkers. Then there are bases on remote islands tracking objects in deep space and high-tech laboratories probing the most lethal microbes in existence. The design of a base needs to address the immediate needs of a military while still being versatile enough to remain useful as threats and technology evolve.



THULE AIR BASE
Qaasuitsup, Greenland

Thule Air Base sits within 800 miles of the Arctic Circle, making it the northernmost U.S. military installation. Among the many challenges posed by the region's climate is that the base's port is only accessible for three months each year, so major supplies need to be shipped during the summer. The base may be frozen and remote, but the 12th Space Warning Squadron operates an early warning system for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles from Thule, while the 21st Space Wing is in charge of space surveillance operations.





Dugway Proving Ground
Great Salt Lake Desert, Utah

Within two months of the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set aside the first 127,000 acres of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah's Great Salt Lake Desert. Over the past 60 years, the site has expanded to nearly 800,000 acres, roughly the size of Rhode Island.





Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia BIOT, Chagos Archipelago

This joint U.S. and U.K. operation is situated on a tiny atoll about 1000 miles from India and tasked with providing logistical support to forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.

How It's Unique: "There's a certain amount of logistical difficulty" with ultra-remote facilities like Diego Garcia, Schulz says, and shipping materials can be costly. Diego Garcia's remoteness, though, allows it to be a key hub for tracking satellites, and it is one of five monitoring stations for GPS. Additionally, the island is one of only a handful of locations equipped with a Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance system for tracking objects in deep space. As an atoll, the land itself is rather oddly shaped, too. From end to end, Diego Garcia is 34 miles long, but its total area is only 11 square miles.

I've actually been to this place - S.L.





HAARP Research Station
Gakona, Alaska

HAARP, or the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a collaborative project involving the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army and the University of Alaska. Researchers at the facility use a powerful high-frequency transmitter and an array of 180 antennas to temporarily disrupt the ionosphere in hopes of yielding potential communications and surveillance benefits.






Forward Logistics Base

Siachen Glacier, Kashmir

For more than 25 years, India and Pakistan have been battling for control of the nearly 50-mile-long Siachen Glacier. Both sides have set up military installations in the imposing Karakoram range, where 3-mile-high mountain peaks are the norm.





Cheyenne Mountain Complex

Cheyenne Mountain Complex Air Force Station, Colorado

This iconic underground base has been inspiring science fiction writers and awing engineers since 1966. Located nearly a half mile under a granite mountain, the labyrinthine facility is run by Air Force Space Command. The base earned its place in pop culture when the television version of Stargate made Cheyenne Mountain the HQ of cosmic time travel.





Devil's Tower Camp

Gibraltar

Certain geographic locations will never lose their strategic importance. Case in point: Gibraltar. British control of the territory dates back to 1713, when Spain ceded the land in the Treaty of Utrecht. Nowadays, the Royal Gibraltar Regiment watches over the territory from its Devil's Tower Camp headquarters.





Joint Defence Space Research Facility Pine Gap

Lingiari, Australia

Near the hot, desolate center of Australia, just outside of Alice Springs, is the Joint Defence Space Research Facility Pine Gap. Australia and the U.S. agreed to build the compound in 1966, but desert flooding, blistering heat and a lack of paved roads slowed initial construction efforts. The site officially opened in June 1970 and has been a joint U.S./Australian operation since.






U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

Fort Detrick, Maryland

Anthrax, Ebola virus, plague and monkeypox are just a few of the deadly microbes handled by researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, commonly known as USAMRIID. Over the years, the institute has made significant contributions to the development of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments that have both military and civilian applications.






Naval Air Station Jacksonville

Jacksonville, Florida

The new Hangar 511 at Naval Air Station Jacksonville is the largest hangar in the Navy's inventory, capable of storing 33 P3-C Orions, four C-130 Hercules and a helicopter unit. In the coming years, the hangar will be instrumental in housing the P-8 Poseidon and its 120-foot wingspan.






Raven Rock Mountain Complex

Adams Country, Pennsylvania

This notoriously cryptic facility is built under Raven Rock mountain near the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland. The site was birthed during the Cold War and goes by many names, including Site R and the underground Pentagon.






Temporary Deployable Accommodations

Iraq and Afghanistan

Temporary Deployable Accommodations, or TDAs, are the brainchild of global engineering firm KBR. These on-the-fly facilities can be large enough to host 600 troops and take less than a month to set up.






Edwards Air Force Base

Edwards, California

America's first jet, the Bell P-59, made its debut flight on Oct. 1, 1942 at Muroc Dry Lake, now known as Edwards Air Force Base. A mere six years later, at the same site, Chuck Yeager busted through the sound barrier in a Bell X-1, marking the first time an aircraft had traveled faster than the speed of sound. Today, Edwards is home to the Air Force Flight Test Center and NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, both of which are molding the future of aviation.





Lajes Field

Azores, Portugal
Lajes Field, on the small, Portuguese-owned Terceira Island, is an important refueling station for aircraft that can't clear the Atlantic Ocean in a single shot. In 1953, the U.S. established its first presence on the island when it positioned the 1605th Air Base Wing at Lajes. Today, the 65th Air Base Wing is stationed at the facility, providing support to U.S. Air Forces in Europe and to a variety of allies.

I've been here, too - S.L.






Nellis Air Force Base

Nellis AFB, Nevada

Nellis Air Force Base is a revered training facility and the location of the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center. The base has been operational since the 1940s.






Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility

Anniston Army Depot, Alabama

The U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency's Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility is one of six locations that stores chemical weapons. During the 1960s, 7 percent of U.S. chemical weapons were stashed at Anniston, including stockpiles of VX nerve-agent munitions.






Defence Training Estate Salisbury Plain

Wiltshire, England

The now defunct British War Office started snatching up land in this region of southern England back in 1897. Salisbury, location of the contentious Imber Live Firing Range, is still used regularly to put Royal Marines through the wringer.







Naval Submarine Base

Kings Bay, Georgia

Around 1980, the Navy began overhauling Kings Bay to be the East Coast location for Ohio-class nuclear submarines, a project that took nearly a decade and cost $1.3 billion, making it the largest peacetime construction project for the Navy at the time. Spread over 16,000 acres, about a quarter of which is protected wetlands, this submarine base is the habitat of 20 threatened or endangered species.


.

SITUATION UPDATE

GOVERNMENT TROOPS STORM PROTESTORS

BANGKOK (various sources): The stand-off between anti-government protesters and Thai troops is escalating in Bangkok, as the government launched an aggressive push to clear 3,000 demonstrators from their fortified camp in the center of the city. “This is D-Day,” one soldier said. Troops are using armored vehicles to break through the protesters’ barricades, made of tires and bamboo, and firing tear gas ahead. The Red Shirts, as the protestors are known, have been enclosed in the encampment since Thursday, and have no plans to back down. "We're asking everybody to be ready for a crackdown," one protest leader said. They have been rallying against Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who they say came to power illegitimately in 2008, since mid-March. The riots have so far claimed 68 lives and injured more than 1,700.






Rioting and fires swept Bangkok on Wednesday after troops stormed a protest encampment, forcing protest leaders to surrender, but sparking clashes that killed at least four people and triggered unrest in northern Thailand.

At least five people, including an Italian journalist, were killed Wednesday during an army crackdown on an anti-government protest site in Bangkok, police and a hospital said. "An Italian man was shot and died before arriving at the hospital," said Police Hospital director Jongjet Aoajenpong. "He's a journalist. He was shot in the stomach," he added. Meanwhile elite troops deployed in the protest-hit capital have been authorized to shoot on sight people looting, committing arson or inciting unrest, a police spokesman has said.

ARMY SNIPERS GO TO .300 WIN MAG

U.S. Army 2009 solicitation for a M24 reconfiguration




The U.S. Army put out a solicitation in May 2009 for reconfiguring M24 Sniper Weapon Systems currently available in Army inventory consisting of a:

* Rebarreling/rechambering the SWS's barrel optimized to accommodate Mk 248 (DODIC A191) .300 Winchester Magnum ammunition.

* Replacement of existing weaver rails with a MIL-STD-1913 rail capable of accommodating both a day optic and in-line forward mounted, AN/PVS-26 (NSN 5855-01-538-8121) image intensified (I2) night vision device.

* Reconfiguring the stock with a stock that incorporates a detachable box magazine, adjustable comb and length of pull.

* Addition of a detachable sound suppressor as well as any necessary barrel modifications required for a sound suppressor interface.

* Replacement of the existing day optic sight (DOS) and rings with an Army specified variable power day optic and compatible rings.



. . . about time they got on the program . . .




from





The U.S. Sniper's More Accurate, Quieter Rifle

Army Snipers in Afghanistan will receive an improved rifle this fall.
By Roxana Tiron

The M24 (shown here in 2002) is bound for an upgrade that will help it shoot farther, quieter and more accurately. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

For snipers, every war is different. Recognizing the differences between conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is now selecting a contractor to upgrade the 22-year-old Remington bolt-action rifle to become a more effective killing machine. The Army will pour about $5.6 million into upgrades to the M24, with the new gear expected to be delivered to troops by this fall. The M24's barrel is being modified to shoot heavier .300 Winchester Magnum rounds, instead of the 7.62mm NATO ammunition, which should extend the rifle's maximum effective range by hundreds of yards to a maximum of about 1400 yards. The suppressor will reduce the noise and flash of the gun so snipers can stay in their hiding positions much longer after they fire.

More

YOU WALK THE BOA

There seems to be a bit of Shock and Awe going on here with Operation Bombshell . . . I don't know why - this bird is hardly the first Army wife who started out doing the old Bump and Grind . . . God bless her and all those great Army wives - like my TigerLily waiting for me back home in Southern Pines . . . you looking at this TigerLily?



Operation Bombshell is the world's only burlesque school for military wives. Started by Lily Burana, herself an Army wife, Operation Bombshell aims to provide much needed entertainment and amusement for wives of American service members affected by the Global War on Terror.





.

WARRIOR WOMEN, PART II

Remember that piece I wrote about women in the military? I took a lot of flak over that (mostly from people who, by their own admission, never served a day in uniform).


Here's a woman I'd have on my team, any day:




She can obviously KICK ASS ! ! !


All I want to know is; I do ten times MORE than that, every day. How come I can't make my "dunlap" go away ? ? ?



Many thanks to Theo, for this!

WARRIOR WOMEN

"The female of the species is more deadly than the male."





The women of the IDF talk the talk, and they walk the walk.

Women were allowed to become fighter pilots in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) after a landmark court ruling in 1995. In the year 2000, Israel's military service law was amended to allow women to serve in any capacity that male soldiers serve, including combat units. Israeli women serve in the infantry or mechanized units, or any other combat occupation. They make up a third of the IDF, and are treated as equals with males.





The United States military started allowing women to serve in direct combat support units, such as Military Police, in the late 80's. During Operation Just Cause - the Panama invasion - a female MP platoon leader was decorated for valor in combat.

According to current Department of Defense policy, women are not allowed to serve in ground combat units at the battalion level and below. But because of the highly mobile nature of modern warfare, there are no "front lines" one imagines in classic war scenarios.

Special operations units and irregular forces traditionally operate far behind enemy lines, choosing when & where they engage enemy forces, and their targets are quite often support & logistical units. During the initial stages of the Iraq War, our supply convoys experienced close ambushes and we took the heavy casualties - including women in non-combat MOS's.

Women are now integrated into almost every military role - only combat arms units remain the exclusive domain of men only. The Navy has women serving on all ships, and the Air Force has female pilots flying everything from C-130s to F-16s.



Army Sergeant Catherine Ross pulling security in a Stryker, Mosul, 2004.


The New York Times story 'WOMEN'S WORK' by Catherine Ross vividly demonstrates how the military’s policy on barring women from combat doesn’t match reality.


I know I'm going to take a lot of flak from my SF compadres over the sentiments expressed in this post. Here's what I've got to say to that: there are a lot of women I'd take on my team over some of the miserable excuses for soldiers I had to tolerate during my time in - especially toward the end when the X Box Generation started showing up.


- S.L.


.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

On August 29, 1944, 15,000 American troops marched down the Champs Elysees in Paris as the French capital celebrated its liberation from the Nazis.


An American M8 armored scout car in front of the Arc de Triomphe at the "Liberation Day" parade.


American soldiers watch as the Tricolor flies from the Eiffel Tower again, August 1944.

THE AMERICAN ARMY

"The reason why it is so difficult to fight the American Army is because they never follow their own doctrine."
- A Russian General





"War is Chaos, and the reason why the American Army excels at War is because they practice Chaos on a daily basis."
- a German General

FOR SALE

Seen along Rte 100 in central Pennsylvania - Military 5 Ton Wrecker, either an M543 or an M684 - in working condition. I didn't think to snap a pic of the data plate until a buddy of mine (ex-Canadian Army vehicle recovery sergeant) asked. Any serious inquiries I will release the phone # - S.L.

ARMY KITE

THIS IS AMAZING ! ! !




I have no background on this amazing event, but it is DEFINITELY cool! (Sent from an old friend in the U.K.) Enjoy! - S.L.