Archive for the ‘war’ Category

Remember when we cared about classified information?

Posted: April 22, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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Not that long ago, I punished a Sailor for disclosing classified information. He was a pretty nice guy with a nice family. Unfortunately for him, he liked to brag, and so he bragged to more than a few people about some of the cool things he did while he was deployed. Had it been one or two innocuous items, it might have resulted in a severe a$% chewing, some signed papers and “never do this again” speech, but his material was high enough that these actions weren’t sufficient for NCIS. After busting him down a rank, he was separated from the military, and although he avoided jail time, he did have to pay back significant bonus money.

Flash forward only a year and Hillary Clinton gets away with gross violations of compartmentalized information. Not just something that is Top Secret, but items that are secured in such a fashion that maybe only hundreds or even tens of people are read-in to see it. No punishment. None. Not even a red-shirted staffer offered to appease the FBI-gods (and they like to think of themselves as gods, hence cracking down on good Catholics that don’t worship them). That case made me pause and wonder if I had booted a good Sailor by mistake.

And here we are today, with the rapid arrest of a National Guardsman for spilling what I’m guessing is the Chairman’s Daily Brief, which for anyone familiar with it, is posted daily on a website on a classified system. At other commands I’ve sent intelligence items for inclusion on that brief. It’s a pretty good daily laydown of big issues, and like most intelligence products produced by real intelligence people (i.e. not the FBI in Richmond) it should be accurate, even if that accuracy isn’t popular.

After all the leaks by political hacks and all the bad storage practices by people from both parties, I don’t know whether to care anymore. In bureaucratic fashion the Navy put out ALNAV 032/23, reminding. everyone of their responsibilities to protect classified data. I personally wouldn’t disclose anything because I care about my country. But if a young Sailor asked me today about the disparity between the “important” people in power, who get away leaking whatever information they want, and the little people, who get swiftly arrested and punished, I wouldn’t know what to say in response. How do you answer that question?

Nothing is going to change until we start protecting classified materials like they actually matter. Until that happens, its just an opinion subject to the whims of the people in power.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. To the FBI and NCIS people reading this, NO, the author doesn’t condone disclosing classified information, and has never disclosed classified information, because unlike the FBI and NCIS, the author actually cares about this country. If you’d like to get an understanding of the author’s character, why don’t you go to Amazon and purchase his book?

Air Force recruiting…crashing and burning

Posted: April 15, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Afghanistan war, war
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Military recruiting is just the gift that keeps on giving. No matter how many incentives you throw at it, when young people watch our generals, admirals and politicians throw away American lives, fail to win wars, cut benefits and create a system that is hostile to a large chunk of the population, they tend to vote with their feet and not join. This comes as a surprise to absolutely nobody with an IQ over 60, and apparently that doesn’t include any of the aforementioned people.

Since I should be more joint in my criticism of recruiting, let’s talk about joints…

How did I miss this one??? It was likely buried under all the other bad news on recruiting. You can read the whole article, but essentially the Air Force will let you retest in 90 days if you pop positive for THC. The smart people on the internet tell me THC leaves your system after about 30 days, so if you don’t smoke for 3 months, its pretty likely you’ll pass the test.

I’m not surprised, and I predict that by the end of the year, we’ll have either an outright waiver on THC, OR the military services will be begging Congress to move marijuana off the controlled substance list. Plenty of fellow military members told me “fat chance of that happening,” which, speaking of fat…

The Air Force relaxed its body fat to 26% for men and 36% for women. If you are like me and wondered what that actually looks like, I found pictures, courtesy of UltimatePerformance and DavidKingsBury.

So the Air Force won’t win any more body image awards, but maybe they’ll take the cake, so to speak, in body positivity…

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this post, why not donate to DaTechGuy or purchase one of the author’s books?

A classified duh

Posted: April 8, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in in Ukraine, war
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It now looks like our very secret plans concerning Ukrainian movements and some of our weapons capabilities have been leaked online. Here’s a link from the Japan Times (it does NOT contain any photos of the documents, which I won’t share):

The scale of the leak — analysts say more than 100 documents may have been obtained — along with the sensitivity of the documents themselves, could be hugely damaging, U.S. officials said. A senior intelligence official called the leak “a nightmare for the Five Eyes,” in a reference to the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the so-called Five Eyes nations that broadly share intelligence.

First, ANY leak of classified data causes a nightmare for our allies. Many of them share very sensitive data with us, which requires them to trust the U.S. to treat their data seriously. When you break that trust, those allies hesitate to share data in the future. This makes it really hard to build comprehensive war plans with them, or to cooperate in general.

Now, leaks happen, both in the U.S. and by our allies, so the response to these leaks is the important part. Given that the leaks involved information stamped “Top Secret,” its not going to take the government too long to figure out who leaked it. Here’s the kicker though…what is going to happen because of it?

When I wrote a while back about the Hillary Clinton leaks and everyone treating it as “no big deal,” I was most concerned that not punishing her would essentially excuse other people to leak classified data in the future. If you’re some mediocre bureaucrat that gets to handle classified material, and you see your boss get away with leaking it, then why not leak your material to further your own agenda?

My bet is that the DoD will either find the person, who will be some mid-range bureaucrat in the intelligence community that will, at best, be removed from his or her position, or they won’t find anyone at all, which will likely mean the person that leaked it is too connected to punish. Our allies will hesitate for a while on sharing, and China and Russia will use this as an excuse to say its proof we’re really “at war” and to excuse further transgressions on their part.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Don’t forget to donate to DaTechGuy or purchase one of the author’s books!

Falling short…again

Posted: April 1, 2023 by navygrade36bureaucrat in Uncomfortable Truths, war
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The Air Force finally, finally admitted that they’ll likely fall short on recruiting numbers, according to Kristyn Jones during her testimony to Congress this week:

Jones said the Air Force likely would fall short of its enlisted active duty recruiting goals by more than 10% in 2023, and the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard are projected to miss their goals as well, but that the Space Force is expected to meet its quotas for the year.

But don’t worry, she later said that with the extra 150 million dollars allocated for recruiting, the Air Force had a 90% increase in web traffic!

Web traffic? Seriously? She has to understand this is nonsense. Web traffic means nothing. I can have an army of bots searching for my book on Amazon, which would make it seem to be popular, but unless someone actually purchases a book, it’s meaningless. Same goes for recruiting. Sure, lots of people say they’ll join the military, and even look at the website, but that doesn’t translate to recruitment numbers. Plus, let’s be honest, how many people that wanted to join the Air Force said “You know, I just can’t find what I want on the Air Force website. Guess I’ll leave and fly drones for Walmart instead!”

The Army and Navy testified as well about the issues each service has recruiting. The sad part is not one service addressed any issue of substance. Did anyone apologize for the terrible treatment of vaccine refusers? How about telling people that they aren’t inherently racist due to their skin color? How about making our housing allowance cover 100% of, you know, housing?

Nahhh….I bet that’s not an issue. In other news, China is looking ahead on how it will man three aircraft carriers, and is already recruiting 14-16 year olds. Sounds weird at first, but this makes sense, since it’ll be a few years before those carriers are commissioned. Why not build your pilots early so that they have better skills to join by the time they hit 18 years old? Smart move. Meanwhile, the US Navy keeps wishing for more ships, even though it can’t fully man the ships it has now.

Another week, more excuses, and no change in the trend of recruiting numbers.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you liked this post, why not donate to DaTechGuy or buy the authors book?

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