In case you missed it, the U.S. Navy published a moto video about its submarine force called “The Silent Service.” It gives remarkable details — which are likely inaccurate — about the number of troops, types of submarines, and weapons on board.
The promotional video opens with an inspiring quote by Admiral Nimitz:
It is to the everlasting honor and glory of our submarine personnel that they never failed us in our days of peril.
It dives into the capabilities. (See what we did there?)
YouTube: US Navy
The types of missions . . .
YouTube: US Navy
The types of missiles . . .
YouTube: US Navy
And, of course, no submarine video is complete without the money surfacing shot . . .
Shortly after the Sep. 11 terrorist attacks, New York Gov. George E. Pataki wrote a letter to the Navy requesting to bestow the name “New York” on a warship in honor of the victims.
During the naming ceremony aboard the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in Manhattan, Pataki said, “USS New York will ensure that all New Yorkers and the world will never forget the evil attacks of September 11, and the courage and compassion New Yorkers showed in response to terror,” according to the Navy.
On March 1, 2008, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England and his wife Dotty England christened the USS New York (LPD-21) at Northrop Grumman shipyard in Avondale, Louisiana.
The ship’s hull was forged with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center.
“The significance of where the WTC steel is located on the 684-foot-long ship symbolizes the strength and resiliency of the citizens of New York as it sails forward around the world,” Navy program manager Cmdr. Quentin King said. “It sends a message of America becoming stronger as a result, coming together as a country and ready to move forward as we make our way through the world.”
Photo: Wikimedia
Today, the USS New York (LPD-21) is one of the most state-of-the-art amphibious warships in the Navy’s fleet, designed to deliver Marine landing forces stealthily and swiftly anywhere in the world. It is manned by a crew of 360 sailors and three permanently assigned Marines. Her motto is “Strength Forged Through Sacrifice – Never Forget.”
“Most of the world thinks about September 11 just once a year, we carry that responsibility forward,” said Master Chief Perez in this U.S. Navy video:
How does a runner on second know when he should steal third? Does a batter automatically know when to bunt? When does a quarterback call an audible – and how can he communicate that play without the other team knowing just what he saw in their defense? Hand signals and codes are simple ciphers designed to communicate a simple message. It’s no different from what intelligence agents have been doing since days of Julius Caesar.
Sports teams have been using encrypted signals since before World War I. Most famously, the 1951 Giants put a man with a telescope in center field to read the opposing teams calls and signals. The Giants overcame an almost 14-game deficit that year to force a playoff with the Brooklyn Dodgers. From the Giants’ center field manager’s office, coach Herman Franks relayed the opposite teams’ signs to the bullpen using an electric buzzer system. The catcher’s call would then be relayed to the batter.
The scheme was simple intelligence tradecraft.
Simple, right?
“These are simple messages being sent,” says Dr. Vince Houghton, the curator and historian of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. “They take a basic step of encryption, the way an army encrypts tactical plans to attack or defend. You can let the enemy know what you’re going to do next, so you can’t send these messages in the clear.”
The reason the ’51 Giants encrypted their signals was the same reason they climbed back into the playoffs: unencrypted messages were easy to intercept, which made it so their hitters knew what the pitcher would do, giving them a huge advantage.
The incident would later be made into the film ‘Bat 2-1’u00a0starring Gene Hackman and Danny Glover. (TriStar Pictures)
The relationship between sports cryptography and the military can go the other way, too. In Vietnam, Lt. Col. Iceal Hambleton was shot down in an EB-66 near the North-South Vietnam Demilitarized Zone. This was literally the worst situation for military intelligence. Hambleton not only had the intelligence vital to the Vietnam War, but the U.S. military’s entire Cold War-World War III contingency plans. If he was captured by the North Vietnamese, they would be able to give the Soviets the entire Strategic Air Command war plans.
Hambleton survived and the NVA knew exactly how valuable he was. While looking for extraction, he had to evade the NVA patrols looking for him while making his way to the rescue area. The problem was he had to be told how to get there over the radio – and an unencrypted radio was all he had.
Knowing Hambleton was crazy about golf – perhaps the best in the U.S. Air Force – the military fed him the info he needed to move using a simple substitution cypher. It took Hambleton a half-hour to figure out what they were doing.
The real-world Iceal Hambleton (U.S. Air Force)
“Instead of telling him to move south 100 meters, they would tell him to walk the first hole on Pebble Beach,” says Dr. Houghton. “He was tracked by using descriptions of golf course holes he knew well.”
Other codes included playing 18 holes, starting on No. 1 at Tucson National.
“They were giving me distance and direction,” Hambleton later explained. “No. 1 at Tucson National is 408 yards running southeast. They wanted me to move southeast 400 yards. The ‘course’ would lead me to water.”
Unlike using a radio, sports code has to be done in plain sight — that’s where the hand signals come in to play.
For tickets to visit the exhibits and see the largest collection of espionage-related artifacts ever placed on public display, visit https://www.spymuseum.org/tickets/. Also, there’s a $6.00 military discount!
The first trailer is out for “13 Hours — The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” which highlights the Americans who fought to defend the U.S. Consulate in Libya after it was attacked on Sep. 11, 2012.
Based on a similarly-named book by Mitchell Zuckoff, the film will focus on the CIA officers, contractors, and Navy SEALs who fought on the ground against a group of Islamic militants. It stars James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Max Martini, and Toby Stephens, and is directed by Michael Bay.
On September 11th, 2012, Islamic militants attacked two American compounds in Benghazi, Libya, killing two CIA contractors, a US foreign service information management officer, and a US ambassador — Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens became the first US ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since the late 1970s. Following the attack, State Department officials received continued criticism for failing to provide additional security support before the attack, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still embroiled in controversy among some right-wing critics over unreleased internal emails.
Though there has been intense debate over what went wrong and who was to blame for the attack, Deadline Hollywood notes that the film will likely not get into that part or the aftermath. “Like the book upon which its based, it probably won’t get into the conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks,” Ross A. Lincoln writes. “Going instead for an on-the-ground view of the attacks through the eyes of serious badasses.”
Shot by First Lt. Mike Scotti on his home camera,and told through the journal entries of Kristian Fraga, “Severe Clear” is a first-person account of the Marines who were on the front lines of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.
“Here is the truth about being a Marine that you won’t find on the local news,” Scotti says behind a jiggling, hand-held camera. “We’re loud. We drink too much, fight too much and swear too much. Truth be told, our rifles are the only things we think about more than sex.”
Watch this brief clip that captures some of the ups and downs of this roller coaster documentary:
Milkor’s Multi-Shot Grenade Launcher (MSLG) is a revolver on steroids.
Originally introduced in 1983, this six-shooter is designed to be simple, rugged, and devastating. It uses the time-tested revolver principle to fire six rounds in less than three seconds from up to five football fields away. Each chamber can be loaded with a variety of rounds, including shrapnel, flares, smoke, non-lethal rounds, and more.
Using it easy. Simply crank and load and you’re ready to fire.
After touring Iraq, Army vet Casey Tylek created a Tumblr blog that helps veterans during the transition to civilian life.
Tylek told Buzzfeed he was inspired to begin the page, called justWarthings, after feeling disconnected from his peers at University of Masssachusettes, Amherst because of his military experience.
justWarthings is modeled after the viral internet page justgirlythings, another Tumblr blog that uses stock photos and overlay text to communicate themes that are supposedly universal to teenage girls.
Tylek juxtaposes these images with photos of servicemen and women serving overseas, and the results are sometimes hilarious, but more often sobering.
Former Georgetown grad Matthew VanDyke is fighting ISIS the only way he knows how — through a grassroots military training initiative he calls Sons of Liberty International (SOLI).
The self-made nonprofit aims to equip the Christian north of Iraq against the threat of the so-called Islamic State, mobilizing local volunteers against insurgents that have devastated Assyrian communities since ISIS invaded last year.
Despite VanDyke’s zeal for the cause, reactions to SOLI and the involvement of fellow Westerners in the Arab conflict are greatly divided. The American Evangelical community hails VanDyke’s work as revolutionary, while others are suspicious of SOLI, which has zero backing from Iraqi or American governments.
SOLI’s main objective is to empower the Ninevah Plain Protection Units (NPU), a volunteer Christian militia that is comprised of Iraqi civilians, American ex-soldiers and everything in between. Originally operating as a ragtag defense unit, VanDyke and senior NPU members are shifting the group to the offensive, hoping to reclaim ISIS-occupied Assyrian villages and eventually join the fight for the ISIS-stronghold of Mosul.
VanDyke himself has no formal military training, but he’s no stranger to Middle Eastern conflict. The 36-year-old ‘s rap sheet includes living as a POW after fighting with Libyan rebels in 2010, as well as working alongside war journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff while filming a documentary short to promote the Free Syrian Army.
In an interview with Adam Linehan of Maxim, VanDyke expressed his fierce belief in SOLI and its work:
“Sometimes I question if it was a wise decision,” he said. “But once you become aware of the brutality of the modern world, there’s no plugging back into the matrix. There’s no un-ringing that bell.” Then, after a long pause, he added: “I’m fully committed to the cause. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Confusion Through Sand” tells the story of a young infantryman confronted by overwhelming conflict when he’s sent to a small, sandy village. Scared and alone, he has to fight his way out of an ambush.
The nine-minute short reveals the confusion of war from the warfighter’s perspective. It explores the spectrum of haze experienced by today’s soldiers in the desert, interpreting what happens when training encounters circumstances beyond the realm of human control.
The story is on the ground and under the helmet of a 19-year-old infantryman, according to the video’s Kickstarter campaign.
Basic Training can be incredibly challenging for new recruits, and nothing tests a future soldier’s resolve like the gas chamber.
The U.S. Army recently released a video of one cadet’s valiant endurance during gas chamber training as a #TBT to last year’s Cadet Basic Training.
The video shows Class of 2018 Cadet Bradley Gibson not only powering through the tear gas like a champ, but reciting the Soldier’s Creed as he does it. Talk about dedication.
Photos: US Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jacob N. Bailey and Michael Vadon CC BY-SA 4.0
Medal of Honor recipient and Afghan War Veteran Dakota Meyer recently penned an essay on Trump’s plan to ban all Muslims from entering the country.
Meyer, who fought beside Muslims while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, points out that Trump’s tactics will likely aid ISIS recruiting and threaten American security. It would also keep out the translators whose services saved American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the interpreter who Meyer worked to get into America safely.
We all remember sitting around the dinner table as kids, staring down a bunch of vegetables that we didn’t want to eat. Sure, that assortment of broccoli and cauliflower might not be so appetizing, but it’s all worth it for the dessert.
Fast forward to today — you’re lost in the middle of nowhere and your cell phone is dead. You’re searching for a way out of your sticky situation when something crappy happens: your stomach growls with hunger.
What do you do? Luckily, you’ve got options — five of them. These are a few plants that you can eat to fight off starvation. These might not be the chocolate cake you were hoping for, but when you get hungry enough, mama won’t have to tell you twice to eat these.
The yummy broadleaf plantain
Broadleaf Plantain
This small plant can be identified by its rubbery texture and the parallel veins that run along the leaves. The broadleaf plantain is packed with such vitamin as A, C, and K. Although the entire plant is edible, it’s recommended that you only eat the leaves, as they’re nice and tender.
It’s chow time.
Wild Bee Balm
Mainly identified by its lavender flowers, it grows mostly in dry thickets and woodland edges. Known for its edible leaves, wild bee balm can also be boiled to make for a tasty, pre-bedtime tea.
Dig in.
Prickly Pear Cactus
Found in the deserts of North America, this fruit looks like reddish, purplish pear. Before consuming this potential life-saving plant, be sure to remove all the spines from the outer skin. If you don’t, you’re in for a world of hurt.
Mayapple
This plant grows in woodland areas and is considered dangerous to eat before it’s ripe. Once the fruit has from green and firm to yellow and soft, it’s safe to consume.
Almost too pretty to eat.
Mallow
This pretty flower is totally edible and is commonly used as an alternative to lettuce. Mallow is loaded with vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron. You’ll find this plant most often in tropical or subtropical environments and it can be easily identified by its five pink or white petals
As always, be extremely careful if decided to consume one of these plants. It’s possible to have allergies to any new food source.
The so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is notorious for its cruel treatment of women, subjecting female citizens to stringent dress codes, curfews, and corporal punishment.
Women who live under ISIS-enforced Sharia law cannot wear makeup, color or travel without a male chaperone. Burqas are also required, and refusal to conform to dress code can result in torture for both the woman in question and her husband.
When ISIS seized large swathes of territory in Iraq last year, the United Nations reported that the group “attacked and killed female doctors, lawyers, among other professionals.” Women doctors who weren’t killed were told to abide by the strict dress code while working, and were threatened with the destruction of their homes when they went on strike. The U.N. also received reports of female politicians and community leaders subjected to abduction, torture and murder.
Despite the terrorist organization’s heinous violence towards females, however, many women are flocking to serve alongside their husbands under ISIL by monitoring and punishing other women under Sharia law.
In Frontline’s recently released documentary, “Escaping ISIS,” women who formerly upheld the jihad recount their duties as agents of ISIL.
“The first thing we’d do is take her and whip her,” Umm Abaid, a former female ISIL fighter, told Frontline. “Then we’d take her clothes and replace them with clothes required by Sharia law. Then we would take her husband’s money to pay for the clothes. Then we’d whip him as well.”
The documentary focuses on both the women who rally behind ISIL’s cause and those who were forced into the organization as wives or slaves of terrorist leaders — using undercover footage and victim testimony to paint a haunting picture of what life “behind the veil” is truly like.
“Escaping ISIS” premieres Tuesday, July 14, at 10 p.m. EST both on-air and on FRONTLINE’s website.
