Originally printed in 1933 VFW Magazine…Interesting how things haven’t changed much when it comes to Veterans.  We need to wake up!  This was before the VA was established with all its problems…read this and you’ll get the reason the VA is the way it is…It is no different on local level either the way Veterans get treated…her in Jax you can add the police to that mix as well, but at least they unite and fight back.  Veterans need to start doing the same.  READ THIS ARTICLE (SPEECH) GIVEN BACK IN 1933 TO VETERANS…he can give the same speech today for all the same reasons.

America’s most colorful military figure, Major General Smedley Butler, is “off to war” again! He is responding to the V. F. W. “call to arms” by going on a speaking tour under the auspices of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U. S. Starting in Cincinnati on December 1st, he will visit ten different cities in as many states prepared to tell the truth about the vicious anti-veteran effects of the Economy Act. He will tell the public—in his own inimitable way—just what he thinks of those who would make the veteran bear the brunt of the depression. And he will preach the gospel of the V. F. W. to those overseas veterans who have not yet become members.

I HAVE been asked to give the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States some good advice. Boys, there is no use giving you any advice. You always do the right thing anyhow. This outfit always does. The V. F. W. isn’t a knitting society; it is a real outfit and it always pleases me very much to be invited to meet with you because I just love to go every place soldiers ask me to go. I have noticed that you are getting a little old, but you are the same lovable class of Americans as ever—dumb though you are. Anybody can put anything over on you but you are lovable just the same.

Usually soldiers don’t know what it is all about. Somebody beats a drum, somebody yells “Patriotism” and the soldiers go out, carry the guns, get shot, and, when there is no war, do all the suffering at home. Peace times they suffer and in war times they bleed.

When you got ready to go to war to lick the Hun, what did you do? You first learned how to fight, and a whole lot of brass-hats wrote a lot of instructions on how to shoot, how to march, how to do everything; so that you all marched together, keeping step. You all spoke the same language. You all had the same objective and when anybody asked you your general orders, you all said the same thing.

Now what happens? There aren’t any ten veterans in a hundred who will say the same thing to a man who asks them about a veterans’ question. No positive information. My advice to every Post is to go to school.

We are divided, in America, into two classes: The Tories on one side, a class of citizens who were raised to believe that the whole of this country was created for their sole benefit, and on the other side, the other 99 per cent of us, the soldier class, the class from which all of you soldiers came. That class hasn’t any privileges except to die when the Tories tell them. Every war that we have ever had was gotten, up by that class. They do all the beating of the drums. Away the rest of us go. When we leave, you know what happens. We march down the street with all the Sears-Roebuck soldiers standing on the sidewalk, all the dollar-a-year men with spurs, all the patriots who call themselves patriots, square-legged women in uniforms making Liberty Loan speeches. They promise you. You go down the street and they ring all the church bells. Promise you the sun,  the moon,  the stars and the earth,—anything to save them. Off you go. Then the looting commences while you are doing the fighting. This last war made over 6,000 millionaires. Today those fellows won’t help pay the bill.

All of these things you must be told so that you can present your case. Remember, we can’t win this alone. We have got to have the sympathy of all of our class of people. Go out and make friends with the farmers; they are a scrapping outfit. Be able to argue intelligently; know what you are talking about. Get all these people to join and then go after the enemy in the way that is provided for in your constitution. That is, go to the polls. Before you go to the polls, make every public office seeker state where he stands. Don’t take any alibi. A man who is not for the soldiers is against them. There isn’t any middle course. If he hasn’t got the courage to say yes for you, then lick hell out of him.

You can only lick him by every Post and every man going to school on your meeting nights, learning what it is all about with your instructions from your headquarters just as when you went to war. There is no difference between this battle and a sanguinary battle with guns. Learn what you want, learn to be able to express yourselves. If I were the Commander of a Post, I would have a speaking class so that everybody would learn to get up and shoot off his mouth. Bring into line all his family, all his friends, because the American people are absolutely fair. It is only this damned Tory class that doesn’t want this thing, doesn’t want the veteran class cared for. Don’t you realize that when this country started out, it wasn’t worth more than 2.5 cents, and that every damned bit of land we have we took at the point of a gun? The soldiers took it. All except a bare 60 millions that we paid France and Spain after we took their land from them. And now this nation is worth 320 billions by the work of the soldiers. So don’t let anyone bluff you. Stand by your own kind. That is what your conventions are for, to get together and learn to love each other all over again. Some of you have got falling chests and don’t look exactly right but you rub shoulders and it all comes back. There is a bond among soldiers who have slept in the mud together that nothing can supplant. Just get over your petty jealousies. Because one fellow may get ahead a little faster, the rest turn on him. You have been used to discipline and now you haven’t got it.

When you came home from the World War, you marched along Fifth Avenue, great heavy masses of men, all your feet moving together, one objective, one cause, all swaying back and forth as you went along. You were a unit. All the people of America applauded. But on the second day they disbanded you and they said, “To hell with you,” because you were then individuals and politically the soldiers never amounted to anything.

A whole lot of things face the veterans continually. Right now we are all called upon to support the administration. I know the soldiers; no matter what you tell them they are always going to support any president up to a certain point, but you must remember that you have two duties. One is to your own flesh and blood, yourself and your family; and the next is your public duty. Combined is another duty, equally important, and that is the duty to the people, the buddies who served with you, who have been hurt. Go along, do the right thing. We can’t afford to bust up this country. Nobody knows where these schemes are going to lead us nowadays. But they won’t work if the soldiers don’t make them work. You know that. Because we are the class that wins all the wars. Hell, this is a war, but at the same time you give some advice. In other words, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours to this capitalistic bunch. You have a difficult role to play because you can’t afford to have public opinion against you. At the same time, we must not desert the fellows among us who deserve help.

After all is said and done, the soldiers are one class of people and we deserve some-thing as a class. Never mind what we have done. Every other class is getting something but the soldiers. This organization, every other soldier organization, will disappear from the earth if you don’t do something for your less fortunate comrades, the fellows who have done all the bleeding. So just think it over. You have a whole lot to decide. You have got to decide whether to put up NRA signs. I am going to put an NRA sign in my window but I am going to say, “Here, come across for the soldiers, too.”

It will come, don’t worry. You have been spanked two or three times. This is going to be a tough battle all the way through and you will have to be spanked and spanked and. spanked until you get mad enough to do something. There is no class of people in the world which has been as abominably treated as the soldiers in the United States, and it is all your own fault because you haven’t stood together. Two big veteran organizations fighting each other and the Spanish American War fellows get in between. Nobody joins hands, nobody joins together to fight a common battle for the class of people who do the dying.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is a gorgeous scrapping outfit. There are no fakers in it. For that reason, it is a joy to be with you and it is our business as soldiers to stick together.

Let me tell you again. Just get together, learn your lessons, be able to say them in your sleep. Get together, follow your leaders. You have never had a leader in this outfit that sold you out and I don’t believe you ever will. I never knew a commander of another veterans’ organization who didn’t sell out every year. When you go down to Washington, you’ve got to growl and bite. When you soldiers agree to lay aside your petty jealousies and personal ambitions and fight as you fought in wars, you’ll get somewhere. Not until then will you get what you want.

You’ve got to get mad. You’ve got to hate. You’ve got to turn on these fellows who call you names such as “treasury raiders.”  The only trouble with you veterans is that you still believe in Santa Claus. It’s time you woke up—it’s time you realized there’s another war on. It’s your war this time. Now get in there and fight.

Local Veterans push to get Sgt. Randall Hansen’s name on memorial wall
Kenneth Amaro, WTLV

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.—It stands silent day after day, yet it speaks volumes about the men and women who served their country. Two decades ago, the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial was built to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. (ultimate sacrifice refers to dying in combat, not all the wall were even in combat or died of combat wounds) There are a lot of names for veterans from quite a few wars, but some feel more could be added.

A group of veterans are now spearheading an effort to add Sergeant Randall Hansen’s name to the wall. “He did two combat tours in Fallujah,” says Fred Blaz. “When he came back from his second tour he succumbed to the invisible wounds of war.”

Blaz said Hansen lost his battle to PTSD: he committed suicide. Blaz, also a marine, is now part of that  group trying to get Hansen’s name added to the wall. “It really upsets me that we are failing to recognize his sacrifice,” he says. There’s even an online petition drive for the former Fletcher High student, but getting on the wall is not that easy.

“The Jacksonville memorial wall has a strict criteria (they have disregard by adding individuals not from Jax to the Wall) and it has been in place for twenty plus years,” says Bill Spann. Spann is the director of the city’s Military Affairs Department and he says it is unfortunate, but Hansen does not meet the guidelines.

“We’re extremely sympathetic and give our deepest prayers and sympathies to family of Sgt. Hansen,” he says.

Spann said to be eligible for the memorial wall:
• The veteran must have lived (changed now from Home of Record) in Jacksonville or attended a Duval high school
• Must have served during a war
• Must have died while on active duty

(Email from Bill Spann Explanation #2)
o The original Wall Committee privately funded and constructed the wall in 1995, and then gifted it to the City of Jacksonville with the stipulation that the following criteria be maintained in perpetuity:
Individuals engraved on the Wall must have EITHER
Attended High School in Duval County OR
Have Duval County as their official Home of Record AND
Died while on Active Duty AND
The death occurred during time of war.

(Home of Record is different form State of Legal Residence which they are now claiming was the meaning of Home of Record)

He said these are guidelines developed from the National Veterans Wall.
(Vietnam Veterans Wall Criteria…Names are added when it has been determined that a service member has died directly from combat-related wounds. Cancer victims of Agent Orange, and post traumatic stress suicides do not fit the criteria for inclusion upon the Memorial. (Different from Jacksonville Wall where not all on the wall are combat related and include cancer, heart attacks, motor vehicle accidents, domestic shooting, etc.) NO COMPARISON

“We would like to come to some kind of fair resolution,” says Spann. “Trust me the easiest thing to do is put his name on the wall, but it is not the right thing to do.” (Come to some kind of resolution, but ignores all those seeking a resolution.)

He says that would open a Pandora’s box and the would have to add every other veteran who died from the effects of war after they had separated from their branch of service. (The arbitrary changing of the criteria from Home of Record to lived in Jax opens Pandora’s box since anyone from anywhere on active duty in Jacksonville dying from anything is now eligible. Home of Record is more limiting) If lived in Jax was always the intent as claimed, how did Medal of Honor Recipient and Marine Robert Jenkins from Interlachen get on the Jax Wall? His bio states he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in Jacksonville, Florida, but lived in Interlachen….Doesn’t that mean HOME OF RECORD and not lived in Jax?

Even so, Blaz says he and his group are not giving up. He believes veterans who suffer with PTSD are still on the battlefield. “I’d like to keep it going until we get Sergeant Hansen’s name on the wall,” says Blaz.

In 2015, the city added an inscription to the wall. “In memory and honor of those men and women who served in the armed forces of the United States and later died as a result of their service.” (Yes they did after a battle, but subsequent to this they have added folks to the wall who didn’t meet the stipulated criteria from 1995, ergo the request to reconsider Hansen if they are adding individuals who are not from Jax to a Jax Wall)

Spann said his office is very sensitive to the concerns. (if he was REALLY SENSITIVE to the concerns why no meeting with those spearheading the effort, Why no interest in bringing attention to PTSD and the suicides among Veterans?)

All requests thus far have been met with the typical bureaucratic push back, but the Warriors stay focused and committed in their response. They are careful not to be disrespectful to the families of those on the wall by publicly expressing some concerns over the city process involving selection of those allowed to be honored; the decision as to who gets on the wall and who doesn’t seems to a confusing one.

First, they would like to address the name of the Wall, Veterans Memorial Wall…The fact is Veterans are actually excluded by the very criteria of having to die or be killed on active duty. If you are still on active duty at the time of your death you are not a Veteran. Point one in the confusion.

Second, who makes the decision as to who is eligible and who isn’t? There doesn’t seem to be any Veteran involvement. They are led to believe non Veterans are making that decision which might be the reason for the confusion of the naming of the wall and misunderstanding of who is a Veteran and who isn’t.

Third, the criteria states that you have to have a link to Jax by having it as your home of record or having gone to HS here, served in time of war and died or were killed on active duty. It seems the home of record criteria is given to some exceptions as has the served in time of war for some. Case in point, Johnny Oliver from 2013, he is from Kentucky and is buried there…Only connection to Jax was living here while stationed at Kings Bay. Why was he permitted to be put on the Wall? Dustin Curtiss is from New Hampshire went to HS there and enlisted the Marines there was killed there by a shooting and his only connection with Jax was he was stationed there. Why was he permitted to be on the Wall?

Neither of these two fall under the Home of Record or HS requirement for consideration…Home of Record isn’t where you live while on active duty…Home of Record is the location you enter the military.

And there is Kimberly Weller USMC killed in a plane crash in PR in 1962…Time of War? Vietnam wasn’t really recognized until 1965…Why was he allowed on the Wall?

The point to all this is why can’t Sgt Randall Hansen get the same consideration. He actually is from Jax and actually fought in combat, but after two combat tours, PTSD and a VA that failed him, he succumbed to suicide. What makes his PTSD situation different from Army Sgt Derek Smith from Jax and Stationed in Ft Belvoir who killed himself and is on the Wall….Just because he was on active duty he can be honored, but Sgt Hansen although menaced by the same demons can’t because he was an actual VETERAN.

Veterans are excluded from being on the City of Jax Veterans Memorial Wall under the current criteria.

Many in the Veterans community believe Sgt Hansen should be allowed to be honored along with others on the Wall, some who never served in combat like he did on two occasions. Veterans need to have more involvement in the decision making process; they have been excluded thus far.

The city response that the Hansen family needs to make a request can be answered with his family is making a request…His Marine family is making that request.

He deserves to be on this Wall/honored in his hometown and if not allowed why have the aforementioned been allowed? Why can’t the city make an exception for a hometown Marine combat Veteran,why is his hometown excluding him while it seems to be allowing exceptions for some from other hometowns to be honored on a Jacksonville Memorial Wall?

WHY?

Include him, change the criteria to allow Veterans to be included or change the name of the Wall to something other than VETERANS Memorial Wall.

Council that would…
Provide direct interaction with Veterans community/Veterans organizations on behalf of the Mayor.
Assist an advise the Mayor on matters of concern to the Veterans community.
Establish a open and honest rapport with Veteran organizations leadership and community Veterans at large.
Work collaboratively with Veteran organizations to provide a coordinated effort to support Veterans and Veteran organizations.
Advise local Veterans organization leadership on matters of concern to community leaders.

Duties and responsibilities
1. Monitor and coordinate Veterans community activities to help avoid conflict and maximize attendance at Veterans events.
2. Provide outreach efforts, working with Veterans organizations, focusing on Veterans employment, reducing Veterans homelessness and increasing knowledge of Veterans benefits, especially among young Veterans.
3. Bring attention to the plight of PTSD victims and the increase in suicides among             4. Veterans in many cases as a result of VA failures.
5. Work with local media sources on issues of concern to Veterans.
6. Help facilitate communication among organization that support Veterans and between Veterans organizations.
7. Establish a rapport with Veterans organizations and their leadership; become the go to for Veterans and the voice of Veterans within the administration.
8. Provide guidance to the Mayor on what Veterans functions should be supported by community leadership.
9. Develop a Veterans community Newsletter.
10. Advise and assist Veterans community leadership on matters of concern to the Mayor.
11. Be prepared to assist the Military and Veterans Affairs Director on any and all matters involving Veterans.

Qualifications
Made up of Individuals who can develop rapport with the Veterans community, Veterans with creditability in the Veterans community; Active in and known within the Veterans community, Knowledgeable in Veterans benefits and process, Ability to speak to large groups, have demonstrated leadership abilities.

Wouldn’t it be nice…Find those who understand the difference between “we and us” and “I and me” and finally give the 150,000 Veterans in this community a voice and a means to have their concerns addressed vice always being ignored or just subjected to political rhetoric every election cycle or political marionettes.

Maybe if we had such a council, we could get the attention needed to deal with issues like the local VA situation that is contributing to the deaths of local Veterans.

What is of concern to Veterans…Why are Veterans excluded? Why are some added to the wall; who were only stationed in Jacksonville? Why aren’t we primarily recognizing those Veterans who actually have Jacksonville, FL, as their “Home of Record”.

Current criteria for being considered to have a name placed on the City Veterans Memorial Wall states: one has to have his or her home of record in Jacksonville or have attended one of the local high schools. To have served in time of war and this is key…”died or killed on active duty”. Died or killed on active duty automatically precludes any Veteran from ever being considered to have his or her name placed on the “VETERANS MEMORIAL WALL”.

A Veteran is one who has completed his or her active duty status and as a result is now considered to be a Veteran. Active duty and Veterans status are two entirely different things. Those who served know and understand this.

What we now have is a Memorial Wall to honor Veterans, but it is set up using criteria that actually precludes Veterans from ever being considered. WHY?

Veterans understand there need to be guidelines, but also understand there are, at times, exceptions to the guidelines or times when those guidelines need to be changed. There seems to be several examples of exceptions having been applied for whatever reasons.

The exceptions in criteria: some were added to the Wall after merely being stationed in Jacksonville, but added under the criteria, of “Home of Record”. Living in Jacksonville when stationed at one of the area military bases is not the same as having “Home of Record”, as Jacksonville.

Home of Record is defined as the state (FL) recorded by the military as your home when you were enlisted, appointed, commissioned, inducted or ordered in a tour of active duty.
Other exceptions, also seem to have been “fudged” to meet the criteria. The criteria of served in time of war has examples.

What is NOT Understandable?

Why an exception can’t be applied for a real hometown Jacksonville Marine Veteran?
Why a Jacksonville, Florida, Fletcher HS Grad is not placed on the wall?
Why a “Veteran” with two combat tours in Fallujah, Iraq, who succumbed to the invisible wounds of combat, is not honored on a “VETERANS WALL”, in his own city?

Randall Hansen, Sgt., USMC VETERAN, when added to the VETERANS Memorial Wall in Jacksonville, Florida, may very well be the First Veteran placed on it.

When I hear people say Clinton emails don’t matter, I remember a young Marine captain who owned up to his career-ruining mistake.

Apologists for Hillary Clinton’s alleged criminal mishandling of classified documents say that it doesn’t matter, that she really did nothing wrong, or nothing significant. But the real question is not so much what she did as how she has responded to being found out.

Once during the mid-1960s when I was on active duty in the Marine Corps, I was the air liaison officer for a battalion of Marines aboard 11 ships in the Mediterranean. As the air officer and a senior captain, I had a rotating responsibility for the nuclear code book, kept in the safe in the operations room of the lead amphibious squadron command ship. I shared that duty with another captain, a squared away young man, liked by all he commanded and the son of a very high-ranking Marine.

On the day our ships were leaving the Mediterranean, we met the new amphibious squadron near Gibraltar and made preparations to transfer security codes and other sensitive material to the incoming Marine battalion. The young captain was on duty and went to the operations office to pick up the code book. He was alone in the office. He removed the code book and placed it on the desk while closing the safe. In a rushed moment, he stepped across the passageway to retrieve something he needed from his quarters. Seconds later, he stepped back into the operations office and found the operations sergeant having just entered, looking down at the code book.

Against all regulations, the code book had been out of the safe and unattended. It mattered not that it was unattended for only seconds, that the ship was 5 miles at sea, or that it was certain no one unauthorized had seen the code. The captain could have explained this to the operations sergeant. He could have told the sergeant that he “would take care of it.” He could have hinted that his high-ranking dad could smooth it over.

But the Marine Corps’ values are honor, courage and commitment. Honor is the bedrock of our character. The young captain could not ask the sergeant to betray his duty to report the infraction, no matter how small. Instead, the captain simply said, “Let’s go see the colonel.” That captain had wanted to be a Marine officer all of his life. It was the only career he ever wanted. When he reported the incident to the colonel, he knew he was jeopardizing his life’s dream. But he did it.

The results went by the book. The amphibious squadron stood down. Military couriers flew in from NATO. The codes were changed all over Europe. The battalion was a day late in leaving the Mediterranean. The captain, Leonard F. Chapman III, received a letter of reprimand, damaging his career. He stayed in the corps and died in a tragic accident aboard another ship.

I saw some heroic acts in combat in Vietnam, things that made me proud to be an American and a Marine. But that young captain stood for what makes our corps and our country great.

Clinton is the antithesis of that young captain, someone with no honor, little courage and commitment only to her endless ambition. This has nothing to do with gender, party affiliation, ideology or policy. It is a question of character — not just hers, but ours. Electing Clinton would mean abandoning holding people accountable for grievous errors of integrity and responsibility. What we already know about her security infractions should disqualify her for any government position that deals in information critical to mission success, domestic or foreign. But beyond that, her responses to being found out — dismissing its importance, claiming ignorance, blaming others — indict her beyond anything the investigation can reveal. Those elements reveal her character. And the saddest thing is that so many in America seem not to care.

Phillip Jennings is an investment banker and entrepreneur, former Marine Corps pilot in Vietnam and Air America pilot in Laos. He is the author of two novels and one non-fiction book.

A number of our organization’s membership joined Bob Adelhelm at the April 2 Vets4Vets gathering at the Veterans Memorial Arena. The main speaker was Sheriff Mike Williams, who appears to be a strong supporter of the North Florida Veterans Community. He also has a son who just completed boot camp at Parris Island and was pleased to mention that fact. The turnout of veterans was close to 200 and the speakers all offered interesting information. I urge all of you to attend the next meeting which will be held on August 6th 1100 to 1300 in the Veterans Memorial Arena.

April was awards month for the Jacksonville Semper Fidelis Society. The highlight of the year for me is the Gung Ho Awards evening at Hidden Hills Country Club. Our attendance this year was 73 and our guest of honor was Marine LtGen Richard Tryon, who had a distinguished military career.

This year we honored a Marine from the recruiting command and an outstanding Corpsman from the NAS Naval Hospital. For the last 3 years we have also honored an outstanding Jacksonville police officer and an equally worthy fireman from the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department. On that beautiful evening, a new award was instituted as well. A Marine NCO Sword was presented to a squared away NCO from the King’s Bay Security Detachment in honor and remembrance of Sgt Matthew Horn USMC and Sgt Randall Hansen USMC. Marines who fought in Iraq and ended up scrumming to the wounds of war. If you were unable to attend make it a point to mark it on your calendar for next year.

On April 21, a young Terry Parker JNROTC student was presented an award (certificate of Commendation, USMC Ribbon and Bio of Dr Pearce) accompanied by a check for $500.00. On April 27, a fine young lady from the Bishop Kenny JNROTC was presented an award and also a check for $500.00 from JSFS. Both recipient awards where presented in honor of Dr Herb Pearce, Former FMF Corpsman USN,Korean War Veteran,local medical doctor and long standing member of Semepr Fidelis Society. I cannot express how proud it makes me to present these awards in honor of Doc Pearce to the young people who are preparing to be the future leaders of our country. What an impressive group of young men and women!

On Saturday, April 30, the officer commissioning ceremony took place at Jacksonville University. JU is blessed with a very successful NROTC program in a large part due to the Marine Instructors. Virtually all of the JU MOIs have been JSFS supporters,so we have a strong rapport with the program. The recipient of the Mameluke Sword this year was Staff Sgt DeGrove, now a proud 2nd Lieutenant.

HONOR, COURAGE,COMMITMENT! These words sum up what April was all about. As the president, it was was my privilege to be present at the all the April awards ceremonies and enjoy the company of our country and community’s future leaders.

Thank you to the membership for all your support in helping making these awards happen…Important that we continue to share our CORE VALUES and recognize the future leaders of our Corps and country.

Join me on May 30th Memorial Day when I place a Wreath in honor of the Marines and FMF Corpsmen at the City of Jacksonville’s Ceremony at the Veteran’s Memorial Wall and let’s not forget the Nov 10th Annual Memorial Ceremony at the Marine and Corpsmen Monument in Evergreen Cemetery. We have been doing this since 2004 every Nov 10th.

SEMPER FI,
Paul McLaughlin
USMC

The very best outcome we can hope for is that the Armed Forces’ abilities will remain static. The most likely outcome, however, is that there will be some degradation in the units that are charged with some of the most critical roles: closing with and destroying enemy forces. Lifting the restrictions was, no doubt, designed to elevate the stature of women and give them an opportunity in the military equal with men. The result of the move, unfortunately, is likely to be that we’ll place women at a disadvantage and put them in a danger greater than that faced by men in combat.

President Obama commended the December 3 decision by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to open all combat jobs to women. He said that, as commander in chief, he knows “this change, like others before it, will again make our military even stronger.” Echoing that sentiment, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus argued that lifting the ban is “not going to make [the U.S. military] any less fighting effective. In fact I think they will be a stronger force, because a more diverse force is a stronger force.” Evidence, logic and experience says these hopes will not be realized.

Approximately 90 percent of all military occupations have already been open to women for quite some time. The 10 percent of the jobs that have been restricted to men-only were the frontline, direct combat roles requiring significant physical strength such as infantry, artillery and armor. In determining if this restriction has unfairly prevented women from filling those roles, it is instructive to examine comparisons to other male-only organizations.

There are currently no women in the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League or other professional sports leagues. The reason for their absence has nothing to do with discrimination but is flatly rooted in the fact women biologically are not able to perform physically to the same level as men.

What must always be the overriding—if not exclusive—criteria for making any change in the U.S. military is that it make the Armed Forces more effective. Having women serve in 90 percent of military jobs they currently do makes sense. Women can and have made significant military contributions in all the positions where they’ve served. But there are some very specific combat related factors that would likely diminish the effectiveness of tactical fighting units if women were included.

I fought in Desert Storm with an armored cavalry squadron. For literally months I lived in the tiny space on the inside of my armored personnel carrier with two other men. There was no privacy, no cloistered sleeping spaces and no restrooms. For three men this is a hardship but

doesn’t present any operational problems. If one of those crewmen had been a woman—or if the crew had been two women and one man—there would have been problems.
No matter what anyone may desire to be true, it would be inviting disaster to put mixed men and women in such intimate settings and expect there to be no friction. The vast majority of armored crewmen, infantrymen, and artillerymen are roughly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.  According to numerous studies, that age range lines up almost exactly with the height of male sexual desire.

Confining men and women of that age in combat or training environments and expect there to be no sexual interaction is naïve. Some will engage in consensual sex, some number of other men will force themselves on women via sexual assaults or outright rape.  Even when no sexual acts take place, there will certainly be considerable sexual tension among that crew.

Following Desert Storm I served in a field artillery unit, where gunners and crewmembers had to carry 103lb 155mm shells for the howitzers. In 2011, while serving in Afghanistan I observed infantrymen on patrol who had to carry up to 100lbs of body armor and equipment. There would likely be few women who would be able to perform those tasks. These are not inconsequential matters.

If the only enemy the United States ever faced was an insurgent group with no tanks, no artillery battalions, no attack helicopters, no jets and no formal logistics systems, then the U.S. military will never face an existential fight and will thus never risk being driven from the field. In such an environment, you can do almost anything to a combat unit and it’ll successfully accomplish its mission. Let the enemy be Russia, China or a few other armed forces and the situation changes dramatically.

There is no issue with a women’s intellectual quality or value as a human being. It can be argued that in some cases women are smarter and more clever than men! In areas of the military not requiring physical strength or stamina, a woman ought to be able to compete on an equal footing with a man. But we ignore biology at our own peril. In the name of advancing women’s rights we cannot risk diminishing the capabilities of ground combat units.

Daniel L. Davis is a widely published analyst on national security and foreign policy. He retired as a Lt. Col. after twenty-one years in the U.S. Army, including four combat deployments. The views in these articles are those of the author alone and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Government. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLDavis1.

Thought some of you may find this worth reading…important that we all stay informed and as we approach the elections we need to become smarter about who the next group of donkeys will be…ENJOY!

Lions Led by Donkeys by David French

In 14 years of continual combat, has there ever been a greater disconnect between our warrior class and the civilians who purport to lead them? American politicians still don’t understand our enemy, still don’t understand the capabilities and limitations of the American military, and worst of all, they still seem unwilling to learn.

They come from an intellectual aristocracy that believes itself educated simply because it’s credentialed and they tend to listen only to those who share similar credentials. They’ve built a bubble of impenetrable ignorance, and they govern accordingly.

During World War I, German general Max Hoffman reportedly declared that English soldiers fight like lions, but we know they are lions led by donkeys. Over time, his criticism stuck, and popular opinion about the war hardened into a consensus that the horrors of the trenches were the product of stupidity and lack of imagination. Callous generals, the criticism held, safely ensconced themselves in the rear while sending young men to die in futile charges, unable to conceive of the tactical and strategic changes necessary to deal with the technological revolutions that defined the war. This criticism was unfair then, as generals on all sides suffered high casualty rates and dramatically changed tactics during the course of World War I, but it’s entirely fair now.

Just look at the collection of senior talent advising President Obama on ISIS. Stanford and Oxford-educated National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, has no military experience, was part of the team that disastrously botched America’s response to the Rwandan genocide, and is notable mainly for a willingness to say anything to advance the electoral prospects of her political bosses. Stanford and Michigan educated and leftist Valerie Jarrett, by many accounts, President Obama’s most-trusted adviser She also has no military experience, spent much of her life toiling in Chicago municipal politics, and has gained influence primarily through her steadfast loyalty to the Obamas.

Yes, Yale educated John Kerry served in Vietnam, but one of his first acts upon returning home was to turn on his fellow veterans and slander them as war criminals. He has minimal credibility in the military. Perhaps worst of all is Smith College­ educated Wendy Sherman, the lead negotiator of the administration’s disastrous Iran deal. She has zero military experience, started her career as a social worker, and then made her name in radical pro-abortion politics as the director of EMILY’s List. Sherman played an instrumental role in the failed North Korean nuclear negotiations during the Clinton administration, so naturally Obama put her in charge of the Iranian debacle. Incredibly, this gang of cocooned leftists has reportedly aced the Pentagon out of the decision-making process and pushed military frustration to the highest level in decades.

But the politicized Pentagon bears its own share of the blame, beginning with a politically correct culture where discrimination complaints are more harmful to careers than battlefield failures. Yale and Oxford educated Ash Carter is no doubt intelligent (he has a Ph.D.in theoretical physics) and may be an upgrade over Chuck Hagel, but he has exactly as much experience in uniform as the commander-in-chief.

On his watch, the Pentagon has maintained rules of engagement that have so dramatically hampered American forces in the field that terrorists routinely and easily find safe haven from the world’s most capable military.

And while military experience, even experience on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan, is no guarantee of either wisdom or policy agreement (after all, even the most hardened post-9/11 veterans can and do disagree on tactics and strategy), there is a reason why Senator Tom Cotton stood alone in voting against the disastrous Corker bill. He has seen jihad up close, and he knows that it cannot be appeased.

Republicans, while possessing a bit more clarity regarding the nature of our enemy, suffer from similar defects in experience. Not one of the leading GOP contenders has served one day in the military, and this experience deficit could be one reason that they sometimes substitute the foolish pacifism and appeasement of the Left for foolish saber-rattling. The Republican candidates, near-lock-step support for a Syrian no-fly zone (with the notable exceptions of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump) reflects the worst sort of strategic thinking.

Chris Christie’s vow to shoot down Russian planes if they violate such a no-fly zone was an embarrassment.

I do not believe that military service is a prerequisite for the presidency, but lack of service, especially lack of service since 9/11 should lead to a degree of humility and openness to counsel that our political aristocracy self-evidently doesn’t possess.

I know their world. I’ve lived in their world. This is a political class that reflexively distrusts the military, believes the right kind of experience can be gained by attending panel discussions from Boston to Geneva to Istanbul, and claims to gain on-the-ground insight from quick, guided tours of the safest sectors of Iraq and Afghanistan.

They know nothing. Worse, they learn nothing. The American people deserve better. This is a nation that has supplied an all-volunteer military with elite warriors for 14 consecutive years of combat. This is a nation whose sons and daughters keep exhibiting the courage of the Greatest Generation and the generations of soldiers who came before.

We still raise lions. But alas, the donkeys rule.

David French is an attorney, a staff writer for National Review,and a veteran of the Iraq War.

I know there is fear of retaliation from some entrenched incumbents and this drives decisions and actions on the part of some.  I believe this is what is driving the use of “question cards” that will be screened at a political forum when Veterans are invited to address certain congress persons at the local Veterans Center.  Sad state of affairs; we are goose stepping closer and closer to an America that is different from the America I spent over 20 years protecting.

Printed news is still a good way to get the word out and I hope and trust the TU will factually and objectively address all the candidates running for office, especially those who are handicapped and being ignored by the party establishment/elitists and their money that buy up endless TV and radio ads.

Americans can make/vote the right choices if given information vice being nudged into thinking there is only one alternative.  Things need to change soon or we ALL will suffer the serious consequences of failed leadership at all levels of government.

Please take the same amount of time and space you use to showcase the football team throughout the paper to inform your readers about all the candidates running for office.  Please help become a solution to one of the problems we have in American politics today…NO LEADERSHIP…vice becoming part of the problem by not helping inform your readers of their choices for future leadership positions.