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President Biden just received his approval rating and it is 52% That sounds pretty good, except that means 48% do not approve of him. Half the country.
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Military news
“The military justice system simply is in the wrong hands” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), specifically about military commanders’ ability to block the progress of sexual misconduct cases. But that could come to an end,. There is a Pentagon panel’s recommendation to remove prosecution authority for sexual misconduct cases from the chain of command. Instead, an independent civilian-led office would prosecute those cases.
The recommendation could be a huge step forward for holding military sex offenders accountable, advocacy groups say, but there is a long way to go before any lasting change might be made.
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“It bothers me a little bit that it’s just going to end like this,” one Marine veteran said about the possible withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan this Sept. 11. It’s one of many mixed emotions veterans shared with Jeff about the end of a 20-year long war that killed several of their friends, shaped their own lives, and which never seemed to produce any tangible results. In the end it seems like everyone’s left to their own interpretation of what it all meant.
“I want to believe that everything that we did over there made a difference,” said the Marine vet added. “That’s what I’d like to believe.”
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Dear media, ‘military-trained marksman’ doesn’t mean much
I am talking about the ‘expert marksman’ award, which is not nearly as impressive as it sounds. Unfortunately, it happened again when Nicholas Reardon, a police officer and a staff sergeant in the Ohio Air National Guard, fatally shot 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio last week. That’s bad because it implies Reardon was more likely to do this because of his military background, and not because of other issues which could be at work here, such as police violence or systemic racism.
+ I was an expert marksman. I am very proud of that, but I certainly understand how people might think like they do.
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I have an excerpt from my upcoming book, Signs of Hope for the Military: In and Out of the Trenches of Life.
While in Basic Training we were marched back and forth from the firing range. One day our drill sergeant couldn’t be there and asked a Warrant Officer to do it.
We saw that he was going to take us back, and we made a sudden decision. We would only take correct orders when he was marching us.
We were all standing around at the firing range when he said, “Let’s get together men.” No one moved. He said it again. No movement. He finally asked one of the sergeants there tell him what to say. He finally said. “Get into formation men.”
We did, and the he tried to start marching us. We were all in formation and facing him.
He look flustered. He couldn’t figure out how to get us into marching form. He again asked one of the sergeants what to say. He then said, “Right face,” We did it.
He again was frustrated because he didn’t know how to get us started. He went back to the sergeant, who by this time was not happy.
The officer then said “Forward march,” We started marching, and the officer was happy. He didn’t do any form a cadence, but we march for him anyway. We were moving along pretty good when we saw we were heading for a boat ramp on the bay. The officer saw that and yelled, “Stop!” We kept going. He yelled it again, “Stop!”
The front of the formation was in the water.
I was in the water soon. The officer screamed for help and there was a sergeant near that ran over to stop us, but that time, the front was swimming around and we were all laughing.
The officer finally got us to our barracks, and we were dismissed by a sergeant there.
All hell broke loose, because the commander didn’t like what we did. At least we thought he didn’t like what we did.
He got us in formation, and chewed us out, but then as he was walking away, He had a big grin on his face.
*This and many other military stories will be in the book. Keep checking in to see the progress.
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How are your doing? Have the nights turned into nightmares. Has the pain of your wounds not gone away?
FEAR NOT!
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Remember:
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You are never forsaken.
You are never unloved.
And above all…never, ever, give up!
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