Earlier today, an acquaintance who has a ‘source’ at NOAA had related this: I have a source who shared that NOAA picked up the possible implosion right around the time it disappeared. I was embargoed from sharing that information, but I feel it’s OK to share with you guys at this point and wonder if that will come out in the news conference.
WASHINGTON—A top secret U.S. Navy acoustic detection system designed to spot enemy submarines first heard the Titan sub implosion hours after the submersible began its mission, officials involved in the search said.
The Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as the sub lost communications, according to a U.S. defense official.
Shortly after its disappearance, the U.S. system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site discovered Thursday and reported its findings to the commander on site, U.S. defense officials said.
“The U.S. Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,” a senior U.S. Navy official told The Wall Street Journal in a statement.
“While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission.”
The Navy asked that the specific system used not be named, citing national security concerns.
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment made a desperate retreat as North Korean troops closed in around them. A wounded, 18-year-old Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story feared his injuries would slow down his company, so he stayed behind to cover their withdrawal.
Story’s actions in the Korean War on Sept. 1, 1950, would ensure he was remembered. He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, which is now displayed alongside his portrait at the National Infantry Museum, an hour’s drive from his hometown of Americus, Georgia.
But Story was never seen alive again, and his resting place long remained a mystery.
This undated photo shows the late Army Cpl. Luther H. Story. The Army said Friday, May 19, 2023, that the remains of Cpl. Luther H. Story will be buried May 29 at Andersonville National Cemetery near the soldier’s hometown of Americus, Georgia. President Joe Biden announced last month that scientists had positively identified Story’s remains. (U.S. Army via AP)
“In my family, we always believed that he would never be found,” said Judy Wade, Story’s niece and closest surviving relative.
That changed in April when the U.S. military revealed lab tests had matched DNA from Wade and her late mother to bones of an unidentified American soldier recovered from Korea in October 1950. The remains belonged to Story, a case agent told Wade over the phone. After nearly 73 years, he was coming home.
A Memorial Day burial with military honors was scheduled Monday at the Andersonville National Cemetery. A police escort with flashing lights escorted Story’s casket through the streets of nearby Americus on Wednesday after it arrived in Georgia.
Picture shows headstone of Luther Story at Andersonville National Cemetery, Wednesday, May 17, 2023, in Andersonville, Georgia. Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story was awarded the Medal of Honor after he went missing in battle during the Korean War is being buried on Memorial Day near his hometown in Georgia. Wounded Story was last seen on Sept. 1, 1950, when he stayed behind to cover his infantry unit’s retreat. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
“I don’t have to worry about him anymore,” said Wade, who was born four years after her uncle went missing overseas. “I’m just glad he’s home.”
Among those celebrating Story’s return was former President Jimmy Carter. When Story was a young boy, according to Wade, his family lived and worked in Plains on land owned by Carter’s father, James Earl Carter Sr.
Jimmy Carter, 98, has been under hospice care at his home in Plains since February. Jill Stuckey, superintendent of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park, said she shared the news about Story with Carter as soon as she heard it.
“Oh, there was a big smile on his face,” Stuckey said. “He was very excited to know that a hero was coming home.”
Story grew up about 150 miles (241 kilometers) south of Atlanta in Sumter County, where his father was a sharecropper. As a young boy, Story, who had a keen sense of humor and liked baseball, joined his parents and older siblings in the fields to help harvest cotton. The work was hard, and it didn’t pay much.
“Momma talked about eating sweet potatoes three times a day,” said Wade, whose mother, Gwendolyn Story Chambliss, was Luther Story’s older sister. “She used to talk about how at night her fingers would be bleeding from picking cotton out of the bolls. Everybody in the family had to do it for them to exist.”
Judy Wade, niece of Luther Story, shows memory scrapbook of Luther Story, that her mother put together, Thursday, May 18, 2023, in Americus, Georgia. Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story was awarded the Medal of Honor after he went missing in battle during the Korean War is being buried on Memorial Day near his hometown in Georgia. Wounded Story was last seen on Sept. 1, 1950, when he stayed behind to cover his infantry unit’s retreat. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)The family eventually moved to Americus, the county’s largest city, where Story’s parents found better work. He enrolled in high school, but soon set his sights on joining the military in the years following World War II.
In 1948, his mother agreed to sign papers allowing Story to enlist in the Army. She listed his birthdate as July 20, 1931. But Wade said she later obtained a copy of her uncle’s birth certificate that showed he was born in 1932 — which would have made him just 16 when he joined.
Story left school during his sophomore year. In the summer of 1950 he deployed with Company A of the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment to Korea around the time the war began.
Judy Wade, niece of Luther Story, points out a Luther Story from a school year book, Thursday, May 18, 2023, in Americus, Georgia. Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story was awarded the Medal of Honor after he went missing in battle during the Korean War is being buried on Memorial Day near his hometown in Georgia. Wounded Story was last seen on Sept. 1, 1950, when he stayed behind to cover his infantry unit’s retreat. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
On Sept. 1, 1950, near the village of Agok on the Naktong River, Story’s unit came under attack by three divisions of North Korean troops that moved to surround the Americans and cut off their escape.
Story seized a machine gun and fired on enemy soldiers crossing the river, killing or wounding about 100, according to his Medal of Honor citation. As his company commander ordered a retreat, Story rushed into a road and threw grenades into an approaching truck carrying North Korean troops and ammunition. Despite being wounded, he continued fighting.
“Realizing that his wounds would hamper his comrades, he refused to retire to the next position but remained to cover the company’s withdrawal,” Story’s award citation said. “When last seen he was firing every weapon available and fighting off another hostile assault.”
Portrait of Judy Wade, niece of Luther Story, with memory scrapbook of Luther Story, that her mother put together, Thursday, May 18, 2023, in Americus, Georgia. Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story was awarded the Medal of Honor after he went missing in battle during the Korean War is being buried on Memorial Day near his hometown in Georgia. Wounded Story was last seen on Sept. 1, 1950, when he stayed behind to cover his infantry unit’s retreat. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
Story was presumed dead. He would have been 18 years old, according to the birth certificate Wade obtained.
In 1951, his father received Story’s Medal of Honor at a Pentagon ceremony. Story was also posthumously promoted to corporal.
About a month after Story went missing in Korea, the U.S. military recovered a body in the area where he was last seen fighting. The unidentified remains were buried with other unknown service members at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii.
Judy Wade, niece of Luther Story, shows memory scrapbook of Luther Story, that her mother put together, Thursday, May 18, 2023, in Americus, Georgia. Army Pfc. Luther Herschel Story was awarded the Medal of Honor after he went missing in battle during the Korean War is being buried on Memorial Day near his hometown in Georgia. Wounded Story was last seen on Sept. 1, 1950, when he stayed behind to cover his infantry unit’s retreat. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, more than 7,500 Americans who served in the Korean War remain missing or their remains have not been identified. That’s roughly 20% of the nearly 37,000 U.S. service members who died in the war.
Remains of the unknown soldier recovered near Agok were disinterred in 2021 as part of a broader military effort to determine the identities of several hundred Americans who died in the war. Eventually scientists compared DNA from the bones with samples submitted by Wade and her mother before she died in 2017. They made a successful match.
President Joe Biden announced the breakthrough April 26 in Washington, joined by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
“Today, we can return him to his family,” Biden said of Story, “and to his rest.”
You soldiers, who are the soldiers that graduate today, will be soldiers who carry on the soldiering tradition of soldiers in the past, as we soldier on for the future so that new soldiers can also soldier, and therefore soldiering will always provide soldiers with soldiering.
— Periodic Audio: Mobile First Hi-Fi (@periodicaudio) May 23, 2023
Well, everyone knows SloJoe has never really been in charge. This just confirms it.
The United States will no longer stand in the way of NATO allies transferring F-16 fighters to the Ukraine Air Force, and it will participate in training Ukrainian pilots in flight proficiency and tactical training but not in the US. On Friday, Joe Biden informed other G-7 leaders of the sudden volte-face in US policy at the G-7 summit in Japan. Other “senior administration officials,” by this I mean Antony, with no “h,” Blinken, confirmed the policy change just to let everyone know that the decision was real and it wasn’t a case of Joe slipping off into another of his bouts of delirium dementium. So the F-16s could be in action by late autumn.
On April 11, the Department of Defense announced that it was allocating just over $8 million for 21 new delivery drones. These flying machines, officially called the TRV-150C Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft Systems, are made by Survice Engineering in partnership with Malloy Aeronautics.
The TRV-150C is a four-limbed drone that looks like a quadcopter on stilts. Its tall landing legs allow it to take off with a load of up to 150 pounds of cargo slung underneath. The drone’s four limbs each mount two rotors, making the vehicle more of an octocopter than a quadcopter.
The Pentagon is repositioning troops near the country of Sudan to prepare for a possible embassy evacuation as the nation devolves into civil war.
The Defense Department moved additional troops and equipment to a naval base in Djibouti, a small African country on the Gulf of Aden, to prepare for the potential evacuation, The Associated Press reported. The Pentagon said publicly it was deploying “additional capabilities” to the region but did not provide specifics.
Planning for an evacuation reportedly intensified after an American diplomatic convoy came under fire in Sudan on Monday. Fighting broke out in the country earlier this week between two rival factions, loyal to two warring military leaders who had been co-governing until negotiations toward a democratic process recently collapsed.
The State Department said Thursday that all embassy staff in Khartoum are currently safe and accounted for, but that the conditions on the ground are not currently stable enough for an evacuation of the staff or of other American citizens in the country. The department estimates that about 16,000 American citizens are in the country, but cautioned the figure is likely somewhat inaccurate. Americans in Sudan are being advised to shelter in place and avoid traveling on the streets.
Khartoum’s airport has been shut down and control over the area is disputed. The last time the United States conducted a ground evacuation of embassy personnel was in Libya in 2014, although it is unclear what methods could be used to do so in Sudan. At least 330 people have been killed in the several days of fighting so far, according to the most recent estimates, and an agreed ceasefire earlier this week failed almost immediately.
Your weekly reminder that the Russo-Ukrainian War is trying to inform us that electron leaky, soft skin and static forward command posts are death traps.
Want command early? The CONOP below will result in a lot of opportunities for early promotion. https://t.co/JsIfBTjFNN
The biggest leak of classified documents in a decade created a sprawling crisis in Washington this week as records detail alleged U.S. spying on allies, insights into American thinking on the war in Ukraine and at least two neutral countries mulling plans to support Russia.
The documents have circulated online since March and possibly as early as January before picking up attention last week after a New York Times report.
There may be more documents to come, but the leak has already done a lot of damage, forcing crucial U.S. allies to respond in what has become an arguably embarrassing incident for Washington.
Here are the seven biggest revelations in the documents so far.
Finland to officially join NATO on Tuesday
The country, which shares a border with Russia, applied to join the military alliance in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last year.
It is the first enlargement of NATO since North Macedonia joined the alliance in 2020.
The announcement was confirmed by NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who said the move will make Finland and other members safer.
“We will raise the Finnish flag for the first time here at NATO headquarters. It will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for NATO as a whole,” he told reporters in Brussels.
He also expressed his hope that Finland’s neighbour Sweden will be permitted to join in the coming months.
Russia immediately responded to the announcement, with an official telling state-owned news agency RIA that the country would bolster forces along its 1,300km (810 mile) border with Finland.
‘We will strengthen our military potential in the western and northwestern direction,” Russia’s deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko told RIA.
“In the event that the forces and resources of other NATO members are deployed in Finland, we will take additional steps to reliably ensure Russia’s military security.”
Finnish president Sauli Niinistö, defence minister Antti Kaikkonen and foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, are now due to attend a ceremony to mark Finland’s membership of NATO.
“It is a historic moment for us. For Finland, the most important objective at the meeting will be to emphasize NATO’s support to Ukraine as Russia continues its illegal aggression,” Mr Haavisto said in a statement.
“We seek to promote stability and security throughout the Euro-Atlantic region.”
Turkey was the last of NATO’s 30 members to accept Finland’s application – which ends the country’s decades of military non-alignment.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said earlier in March that Finland had secured his country’s blessing after taking concrete steps to keep promises to crack down on groups seen by Ankara as terrorists, and to free up defence exports.
However, Turkey is still blocking the approval of Sweden joining NATO, with the government saying Stockholm has so far failed to sufficiently crackdown on similar groups.
Say what you want to say about Rep. Gaetz…but he got both Milley & Austin to admit that they are poorly briefed, narrowly read, and generally disconnected from what is going on around them.
I fully believe they don’t know this is going on … & that they live in an echo chamber https://t.co/PlLwcu2x6x
Top military officials in the Biden Administration recently attempted to defend far-left “diversity” training in the military, claiming that such sessions make all soldiers feel more “included.”
As the Washington Free Beacon reports, Air Force Chief of Staff General C.Q. Brown gave an interview for Defense One defending the practice of diversity training, claiming that “when people join our military, they want to look around and see somebody who looks like them.”
“They want to be part of a team, and feel like they’re included,” Brown added.
Brown praised the practice for its alleged efforts to build “cohesive” teams for all service members, “no matter their background.”
Similarly, General David Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps, claimed that he has seen “zero evidence” of any negative impact from such left-wing policies when it comes to the end result of making stronger Marines.
House Republicans are currently attempting to cut funding for such far-left practices in the military; other examples include a program in the Army for training soldiers on how to use “gender pronouns,” and a similar training video for the Navy discussing pronouns and “safe spaces.”
Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) declared that the Biden Administration’s efforts to force politics into the military are “shaping the Department of Defense into an institution that is spearheading toxic social policies instead of restoring military strength.”
“On the House Armed Services Committee, we are laser-focused on the threats we face and the capabilities we need to defeat them,” said Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
The fight over the politicization of the military comes as most branches struggle with reaching the appropriate levels of recruitment numbers in recent years. Last year, the U.S. Army missed its minimum recruitment goal by 15,000.
This is what happens when pronouns are a higher priority than logistics
In late January we reported that U.S. military weapons stockpiles were so low that various commentators were describing the shortages as “uncomfortably low,” “insufficient,” “precarious,” and “dangerous” due to the large quantities of these weapons we had given free of charge to Ukraine: U.S. Weapons Stockpiles “Uncomfortably Low” Due To Arms Shipments to Ukraine:
To date, the U.S. military has provided a “staggering” amount of military hardware and munitions to Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion, amounting to more than $27 billion. This U.S. support has included over 1 million rounds of 155 mm howitzer ammunition. It has also included 8,500 Javelin anti-tank missiles, 32,000 anti-tank missiles of other types, 5,200 Excalibur precision 155 mm howitzer rounds, and 1,600 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, among many other weapons systems and munitions.
[T]he Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense concludes that “[t]he fact that only a few months of fighting in Ukraine consumed such a large percentage of U.S. Stingers and Javelins suggests that the DOD’s plans, and the stockpiles that result from them, are insufficient.” Even the Washington Post has conceded the seriousness of the situation, noting that “[s]tocks of many key weapons and munitions are near exhaustion,” and citing a…CSIS report that concludes that “the U.S. defense industrial base is in pretty poor shape right now [and] we don’t make it past four or five days in a war game before we run out of precision missiles.” The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) describes the state of U.S. weapons stockpiles as “precarious.”
The U.S. Naval Institute describes them as “dangerous” due to their low inventory levels. Even a U.S. Department of Defense official quoted by the Wall Street Journal admitted that munitions stockpiles are “uncomfortably low” in that they are “not at the level we would like to go into combat.” This official explained that the only reason the issue isn’t “critical” is because “the U.S. isn’t engaged in any major military conflict” at the moment.
The key problem, of course, as we reported, is that the administration’s official position is that, in the words of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army General Mark Milley, “we will continue to support [Ukraine] all the way” and “[w]e will be there for as long as it takes to keep Ukraine free,” despite the obvious impact of such support on U.S. weapons’ stockpile levels.
And one of the side issues, although of critical seriousness, is that this arms largesse to Ukraine severely impacts our ability to come to Taiwan’s aid in case of an invasion by China, as we reported:
The U.S. military carried out several airstrikes in Syria on Thursday in response to a drone strike Iranian forces conducted earlier in the day on a coalition base that killed one American.
The Defense Department said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps crashed a UAV into a building near Hasakah in northeast Syria at approximately 1:38 p.m. local time, leaving one U.S. contractor dead. The attack also wounded five U.S. service members and another U.S. contractor.
U.S. intelligence assessed the UAV and determined it to be of Iranian origin — so President Biden authorized the military to retaliate, the Pentagon said.
“At the direction of President Biden, I authorized U.S. Central Command forces to conduct precision airstrikes tonight in eastern Syria against facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC),” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. “The airstrikes were conducted in response to today’s attack as well as a series of recent attacks against Coalition forces in Syria by groups affiliated with the IRGC.”
Three service members and the U.S. contractor were medically evacuated to Coalition medical facilities in Iraq while the other two wounded service members were treated on-site.
“As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing,” Secretary Austin continued. “No group will strike our troops with impunity.”
He added: “Our thoughts are with the family and colleagues of the contractor who was killed and with those who were wounded in the attack earlier today.”
The Pentagon said the U.S. took “proportionate and deliberate action” that limited the risk of escalation in its targeted response.
The U.S. has roughly 900 troops stationed in Syria.
30 years after we started a massive drawdown from Germany…..
The US has opened its first military garrison in Poland. It follows last year’s pledge by President Joe Biden to establish a permanent base – America’s first on NATO’s eastern flank – in Poland following Russia’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
“We have been striving for this for years – for this word ‘permanent’ – and it has now become fact,” said Polish defence minister Mariusz Błaszczak at today’s opening ceremony. While Poland has long hosted US troops on a rotational basis, it had lobbied Washington for that to be turned into a permanent presence.
“This is a historic moment, a sign that the United States is committed to Poland and NATO, and that we are united in the face of Russian aggression,” declared Błaszczak.
The garrison – housed in Poznań at Camp Kościuszko, which is named after the 18th-century hero who fought for both Polish and US independence – will act as the headquarters for the US Army’s V Corps in Poland.
The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is probing the Air Force over the improper release of military service records to a political opposition research group.
In a letter to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Thursday, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, demanded that the service branch hand over all documents and communication related to the release of Official Military Personnel Files to Due Diligence Group, LLC, a research firm that obtained the records of multiple GOP candidates in the lead up to the midterm elections in 2022.
Rep. Chis Stewart, Utah Republican, co-signed the letter.
An internal Air Force investigation revealed last month that the service improperly released the military duty information for 11 individuals. The investigation was launched after the disclosure of Indiana House Republican candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green’s military records ahead of the midterms.
Several other GOP candidates have since come forward to report that their military records were improperly released.
Two sitting members of congress, Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Zach Nunn of Iowa, were also among those whose records were improperly released.
In a letter to Mr. Bacon last month, the Air Force said a Due Diligence Group employee posing as a background investigator requested his records.
“Department of the Air Force employees did not follow proper procedures requiring the member’s authorizing signature consenting to the release of information,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told CNN last month. “There was no evidence of political motivation or malicious intent on the part of any employee.”
She said the Air Force is “committed to preventing any such unauthorized disclosure of private information from occurring again” and will perform monthly audits.
Ms. Stefanek told Politico that “virtually all” of the 11 unauthorized requests for the records came from Due Diligence Group.
Mr. Jordan said on Thursday that the improper releases “may have violated Department of Defense policies and federal law.”
“While the Air Force has rightfully taken responsibility for these inappropriate OMPF disclosures, questions remain unanswered about the U.S. Air Force’s collection, maintenance, and dissemination of this sensitive information,” Mr. Jordan wrote.
‘On DOD property’ purchases? That means the PX, and just to make a point, PX prices aren’t all that much, if any, lower than what’s outside the front gate, where there also will be no waiting periods either, unless there’s a state law. This is Kabuki Theater.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is calling on the Pentagon to hire more mental health workers and directing military-run health care clinics to screen for alcohol abuse in order to reduce veteran suicides, but he’s holding off on implementing several anti-gun proposals recommended by the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee, at least for a few more months.
That committee is recommending the Defense Department institute a seven-day waiting period for all gun sales on DoD property, along with a four-day waiting period for ammunition purchases. In addition, the committee says the Pentagon should raise the age to purchase a firearm on base to 25-years-old. On Thursday Austin called for the creation of a suicide prevention working group that will look at how feasible it would be to implement the committee’s recommendations, with a deadline of June 2nd for the working group to submit its findings.
His orders reflect increasing concerns about suicides in the military, despite more than a decade of programs and other efforts to prevent them and spur greater intervention by commanders, friends and family members. But his omission of any gun safety and control measures underscores the likelihood that they would face staunch resistance, particularly in Congress, where such legislation has struggled in recent years.
Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters in a briefing Thursday that Austin’s orders involved areas where the department already has the authority to take immediate steps.
“While we recognize that suicide has no single cause, and that no single preventative action, treatment or cure will eliminate suicide altogether, we will exhaust every effort to promote the wellness, health and morale of our total force,” Ryder said.
The initial study committee recommended that the department require anyone living in military housing to register all privately owned firearms. In addition, the panel said the department should restrict the possession and storage of privately owned firearms in military barracks and dorms.
Reducing veteran and active duty suicides is an incredibly important goal, but the draconian gun control policies recommended by the committee are liable to create a backlash; not only on Capitol Hill but among many military members and potential recruits, at least if Austin moves forward with implementing them. The military is already struggling to meet its recruiting goals, and imposing a host of anti-gun restrictions on active-duty and reserve members would likely make those problems a lot worse.
That helps to explain why Austin didn’t immediately move to implement those proposals, but choosing to kick this can down the road for a couple of months rather than reject the gun control components of the suicide prevention recommendations means that these bad ideas could still become a nightmare for members of the military before long. Instead of trying to restrict the Second Amendment rights of our men and women in uniform, I hope that Austin’s working group takes a look at some of the efforts to prevent veteran suicide taking place within the 2A community, starting with the Sentinel app that was recently awarded a $1-million dollar grant from the VA. The app was developed by D.C. Project member Kathleen Gilligan, who lost her own son to suicide a decade ago, and aims to help veterans look out for each other.
