2019 All Rights Reserved
Why the US Navy is training sailors on a weapon it's getting rid of
The US Navy is having its sailors train on an aircraft carrier weapon system that the service is planning to rip out of its Nimitz-class carriers due to its ineffectiveness.
Sailors continue to train on the Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Defense System (ATTDS), a weapon system that was designed to counter one of the single greatest threats to an aircraft carrier — torpedoes, The War Zone reports, noting that the Navy recently released images of sailors aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower training on the ATTDS for a Board of Inspection and Survey.
The most recent training, which involved firing the weapon system, took place in late July 2019. The material survey for which the crew was preparing requires proficiency with all onboard systems, and that they are functional and properly maintained.
This film shows every nuclear blast in history as deadly martial arts moves
Nuclear weapons take less than a millionth of a second to detonate. Meanwhile, the resulting fireball from a thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb can swallow and incinerate a 1-mile area in about a second.
Such rapid and raw power can seem as abstract as it is terrifying. But humanity has triggered and observed more than 2,420 nuclear blasts since the first one in July 1945, according to a recent tally by Alex Wellerstein, an historian of physics and nuclear weapons at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
To make the legacy of nuclear blasts more accessible to the average person, Brooklyn-based artist Eric LoPresti tried something unusual and symbolic: He filmed his Aikido dojo members reenacting every known nuclear blast as hand-to-hand combat moves.
A sixth grade history project exonerated the captain of the USS Indianapolis
In 1945, the USS Indianapolis completed its top secret mission of delivering atomic bomb components to Tinian Island in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The heavy cruiser was sunk on its way to join a task force near Okinawa. Of the ship's 1195 crewmembers, only 316 survived the sinking and the subsequent time adrift at sea in the middle of nowhere. Among the survivors was the captain of the Indianapolis, Charles B. McVay III.
The 13 funniest military memes for the week of August 16th
The Air Force was recently considering a new strategy to its PT tests. In a nutshell, it's going to give any airmen who might fail a PT test a "mulligan" and list the test as a diagnostic instead of a record test. It may possibly be allowed for an airman to list a failed test as off-the-books, but that part isn't set in stone.
The Air Force was surprisingly serious (to the other troops who use phrases like "Chair Force") about failed PT tests and other branches also have a practice test system in place. But I can't help but point out the bad optics on this one.
I mean, I get it. Any notion that the Air Force might someday consider being a fraction more lenient in comparison to the other branches or older vets will cause outrage. On the other hand, I know I would have killed for something like that back in my lower enlisted days...
How Navajo code talkers helped win the Battle of Iwo Jima
Thomas H. Begay didn't want to be a radio operator. In fact, up until he graduated from bootcamp, he thought he was going to become an aerial gunner for the Marine Corps during World War II.
"They sent me to a confidential area," he said. "I walked in and there's a whole bunch of Navajo."
His previous MOS didn't matter. Begay would attend code talking school.
The Navajo language had become the basis of a new code, and they were going to train to become code talkers. It was hard to see it then, but Begay and his fellow Navajo would help turn the tides of war and save countless lives.
Unique new veterans memorial installed 40 feet under the sea
As soon as Shawn Campbell saw his name on a plaque next to a statue sunken 40 feet on the seafloor, the memories of soldiers he had once served with flooded his mind.
The life-size statue, one of a dozen concrete figures that make up the nation's only underwater veterans memorial, depicted a soldier wearing combat gear from the Iraq War — a war he had fought in three separate times.
"It really took my breath away," said the former staff sergeant, now a master diver at a Florida dive shop. "It was a huge honor."
His company made a donation to place his name at the base of the statue before the figures were recently installed about 10 miles off the coast of Clearwater, Florida.
This 87-year-old grad still enjoys marching with new cadets
Through 20 years of March Backs, Wallace Ward has seen it all.
In the beginning, the march was 15 miles, now 20 years later it is only 12. Over the years it has moved from taking place in the middle of the night to starting in the morning. There has been rain and thunderstorms that soaked and threatened the marchers. There was a hamstring injury that slowed him down, but couldn't stop him.
No matter the obstacle, the distance or the weather, since members of the Long Gray Line were invited to the March Back 20 years ago, Wallace Ward has completed every single one.
This year, as he stepped off from Camp Buckner before dawn with India Company, Ward, who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in the Class of 1958, earned the distinction of being the oldest graduate to participate in the annual tradition.
‘Endgame’ writers say only one of the X-Men would’ve lived to fight Thanos
"Avengers: Endgame" is officially the biggest movie of all time but if the Russo brothers had their way, it would have been even more epic. In a recent interview, the "Endgame" director duo spoke about what the movie would have looked like if the X-Men existed in the MCU and which of the mutant crew would have survived Thanos' snap at the end of "Infinity War."
The Russo Brothers said that all of the X-Men would have been wiped away when Thanos snapped the Infinity Gauntlet except for one: Wolverine.
"I'd love to see a fiercely motivated Wolverine going up against Thanos," Joe Russo told IGN.
Plane full of US troops evacuated after landing gear catches fire
All flights from Ireland's Shannon Airport were suspended on Aug. 15, 2019, after a plane carrying US troops was evacuated because of a fire, Irish news outlets reported.
Shannon Airport said an Omni Air International Boeing 763 was halted as it taxied on the runway at 6:20 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET).
There had been reports of fire and smoke coming from the landing gear.
Air-traffic controllers instructed the crew to evacuate the aircraft as a fire on the left landing gear became visible, the Irish newspaper The Journal reported.
The Irish Independent reported that the fire was thought to have been caused by punctured tires.
