The Army was involved in some weird experiments during the 1950s and ’60s. Some of the weirdest took place at Edgewood Arsenal, Md., where the military tested chemicals like LSD on active-duty volunteers.
In the archived footage below, a squad of soldiers is ordered to conduct drill and ceremony while sober, and then again after being given LSD. To skip straight to the soldiers drilling while high, go to 1:42 in the video below.
Congress has created a new subcommittee on military intelligence and special operations.
Part of the House Committee on Armed Services, the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations will have jurisdiction over the policy, programs, and accounts that are related to military intelligence, national intelligence, weapons of mass destruction, and conventional weapons counter-proliferation, counterterrorism, sensitive operations, and special operations.
Representative Ruben Gallego (Democrat, Arizona) was chosen to head the subcommittee. Gallego served six years in the Marine Corps (2000-2006), reaching the rank of corporal and deploying once to Iraq for a 12-month deployment. Gallego holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Harvard University.
Representative Ruben Gallego (in the middle) during his combat deployment in Iraq between January 2005 and January 2006. Gallego is the head of the newly established Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations (Ruben Gallego via Twitter).
Representative Gallego said in a statement on Twitter that “When I walk to the committee room for the House Armed Services Committee, I walk by a wall with names of all service members that have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. 24 of those names are men I served with. As the new Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, I serve in their name and honor. I remember being a young man in war hoping someone was looking out for me. If you are out there, know that I am.”
Representative Stephanie Murphy (Democrat, Florida) will serve as the vice-chair of the subcommittee. Murphy has experience in the field from her stint at the Pentagon office that oversees the Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC) office.
It will be interesting to see if the new subcommittee will have any real jurisdiction—and thus power—given the plethora of lawmaking bodies with similar duties already in existence. There are, for example, the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Select Committee on Intelligence, the Senate Committee on Armed Services, the House Committee on Armed Services
Army Special Forces operators plot their next point during a land navigation exercise (DVIDS).
Representative Adam Smith (Democrat, Washington), the chair of the Armed Services Committee stated that the new subcommittee will allow Congress to exert more scrutiny and oversight were needed.
“As the country faces unprecedented threats from our adversaries and competitors, especially the disruptive impact of disinformation attacks, we will ensure that special operations forces and the Defense Intelligence Enterprise are postured to address those threats,” Walsh said.
“It is critical that these highly sensitive areas of the Committee’s jurisdiction receive the time and attention they deserve, and this new subcommittee structure will facilitate exactly that.”
Gallego has indicated that the subcommittee will be reviewing the deployment of special operations forces across the world to ensure that they are utilized for the US’ best national interest.
This article originally appeared on Sandboxx. Follow Sandboxx on Facebook.
As if death runs, clueless commanders, and having no place to sleep weren’t enough, “prickly heat” intensifies all the discomforts of the field and takes it up a few notches.
Prickly heat is that very annoying rash that develops when you’re out in the field for days or weeks without taking a shower. The sweat glands become blocked when you sweat profusely and don’t allow the sweat to evaporate. The blockage occurs:
In areas between skin creases like the neck, armpits, and groin where skin touches adjacent skin preventing sweat to evaporate.
By wearing tight clothing.
By bundling up with heavy clothing or sheets that make it difficult for air to circulate. Yes, you can also get prickly heat in the Winter.
By using heavy creams that block skin pores.
It feels like pins and needles on the surface of the skin that only get worse when you relieve yourself by scratching. Prickly heat is actually the second level of heat rash. Heat rash levels are:
Clear (miliaria crystalline): this type of heat rash looks like small, clear beads of sweat on the skin. This is the mildest version of heat rash and doesn’t produce many uncomfortable symptoms.
Red (miliaria rubra): this is the most common type of heat rash and it’s the one known as prickly heat because of it’s intense itching and burning.
White/Yellow (miliaria pustulosa): when prickly heat turns white or yellow it’s the first sign of skin infection and you should see the doc.
Deep (miliaria profunda) this level of heat rash produces large, firm bumps on the skin. The sweat glands become chronically inflamed and cause damage to deep layers of the skin.
Luckily, preventing prickly heat is easy by maintaining good hygiene and keeping the skin cool and dry. This is easier said than done without the amenities of first-world living. In the field, this means trying not to sleep in your sweaty, dirty uniform and using baby wipes to keep yourself somewhat clean.
But in case you do get prickly heat, you can also treat it with calamine lotion and hydrocortisone creams and sprays, according to MedecineNet.com. Just make sure you pack it in your ruck.
The maximum punishment for desertion during a time of war is death. But it’s highly unlikely Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who allegedly left his Afghanistan post in 2009, or any troop today would receive that sentence. The last service member executed for desertion was Pvt. Eddie Slovik in 1945 (by a twelve-man firing squad).
There were over 20,000 American military deserters between 2006 and 2015. Of those, about 2,000 have been prosecuted.
This short TestTube News video explains the severity of desertion and its place in military history.
Once a war kicks off, it’s generally easy to recognize. But war planners want to know about these things ahead of time so they predict what might be coming. While moves like large military exercises on a border are a dead giveaway that an invasion might be imminent, smaller things can give intel analysts a clue as well.
Here are 6 surprisingly minor things that can predict a major conflict:
1. Industrial diamonds and mineral prices
Industrial diamonds are used in tools and manufacturing equipment because of their how hard they are. Photo: R. Tanaka CC BY 3.0
Who knew diamonds could predict wars? Back when World War II was just a fight between Germany and Poland about whether Poland got to keep being a country, Hitler was promising everyone that it was a limited, one-time thing. But the other countries knew he was full of it because, among other things, diamond prices were climbing.
Industrial diamonds are ugly things used in heavy duty drills, grinders, and other machinery. They’re essential to properly machining large weapons of war and the price was high because Germany was buying a lot of them plus tons of metals, like enough to create a blitzkrieg-capable army. A short time later, that army was rolling across Dutch fields.
David E. Walker wrote “Adventure in Diamonds” about the rush by British and Japanese teams to secure Amsterdam’s diamond stocks during the German invasion.
2. Missing uniforms and other supplies
If all of your uniform tops suddenly go missing, then watch out. Photo: US Marine Corps Sgt. Jamean Berry
Another thing the Dutch found suspicious ahead of the Nazi invasion was a higher than normal disappearance rate of uniforms and other supplies. Some items always go missing and sometimes things really do fall off of trucks, but a sudden jump should get analysts worried.
When German paratroopers started landing in the Netherlands, some of them were wearing Dutch uniforms that had gone missing. Wearing an enemy’s uniform is a war crime, but that only matters if the side guilty parties are on loses. If your uniform is missing, it may be forgetfulness, or it may predict something scarier.
3. Suspicious demonstrations
Photo: HOBOPOCC CC BY-SA 3.0
One of the things Ukraine noticed before of the shadow invasion of the Donbas region was a sudden increase in Pro-Moscow agitation in the east of the country and apparent ties between the agitators and Russian propaganda outlets.
Russian special operators and soldiers now cross into the area from time-to-time to make sure separatists forces are able to resist Kiev’s military, keeping the nation off-balance and allowing Russia a generally free hand.
4. Increased tourism
Photo: Pixabay/meineresterampe
A spike in tourism is usually just a good sign for the economy, but combined with any other indicators that a war is looming, it’s a decent bet that some of those tourists are spies.
When it comes to local conflicts, warlords and smaller armies are sometimes equipping their forces right before the fight. This drives up the costs of weapons, especially AK-47s. Intel analysts and concerned citizens can watch those prices and see if a brush fire war or uprising is likely.
For larger nations, observers watch the overall size of the arsenal. If Russia starts producing more cruise missiles than normal, they’re probably going to be firing some soon.
6. Computer activity
Photo: Capt. Kyle Key
In the modern day, hacking is a tool of war that is sometimes used on its own or in conjunction with a kinetic attack. Either way, the cyber assault is usually preceded by the tests of cyber defenses and the collecting of information on targets.
Bryan Sperry left college football at Kansas State to serve in World War II. At 19, he was an infantryman in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, Sperry returned to the game. He played football in England for a short period before making it back to the states and playing for Kansas University. He and the KU team went on to play in the 1948 Orange Bowl and only lost one game, the Orange Bowl, that whole season.
On April 25, KU held an alumni scrimmage with players from the 1948 team and Sperry, 70 years after his last KU appearance, scored an over 30-yard touchdown. The video of the touchdown is below. For the full story, check out the article in the Kansas City Star.
While most drones require an operator to control them, the ones in DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program fly themselves. Although not perfect in its current phase, the program’s first flight test exceeded expectations.
“We’re excited that we were able to validate the airspeed goal during this first-flight data collection,” said Mark Micire, DARPA program manager. “The fact that some teams also demonstrated basic autonomous flight ahead of schedule was an added bonus. The challenge for the teams now is to advance the algorithms and onboard computational efficiency to extend the UAV’s perception range and compensate for the vehicle’s’ mass to make extremely tight turns and abrupt maneuvers at high speeds.”
Advancing algorithms and extending perception range. That’s what we thought.
Now watch this video of DARPA’s first test flight:
The A-10 Thunderbolt II (AKA Warthog) was designed around its massive GAU-8/A Avenger nose cannon.
The gun and plane were developed in parallel, which resulted in the perfect marriage. In fact, without the nose cannon, the plane is completely off balance and can’t fly.
Developed by General Electric, the 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-type cannon was designed to combat tanks and provide close air support. Both the A-10 and its GAU-8/A gun entered service in 1977. This video explains the cannon’s role in today’s battlefield.
The technology behind these rifles takes a shooter’s experience, skill, and environment factors out of the equation. Simply tag your target and squeeze the trigger. It’s that simple. The same tracking and fire-control capabilities found in advanced fighter jets are incorporated into these rifles, according to TrackingPoint.
“Being proficient at Call of Duty or Battlefield takes more practice and skill than firing a weapon in the real world does now,” reported Timothy for Engadget. “This is the future we live in.”
The rifle also has a password-protected firing mechanism, which doesn’t fire until you’ve aligned the rifle with your target. It also features the ability to video stream, which allows you to share the view from the scope to any device connected to the Internet.
This three-minute video demonstrates how the rifle works:
In Iraq, IEDs quickly became the deadliest weapon U.S. troops faced. But not all IEDs were created equal. In 2006, Iranian collaborators from the Quds force were accused of providing devices and knowledge to Iraqi insurgents to make the bombs even more deadly.
Sean Naylor, a contributing editor at Foreign Policy, writes in a new book that Army Delta Force operators countered by creating a bomb of their own, dubbed “XBox,” to take out the top Iraqi bomb makers and possibly their Iranian collaborators.
The IEDs were carefully crafted to look and perform exactly like the bombs used by insurgents — except they were triggered by Delta Force operators instead of the bad guys.
According to Naylor, the operators would stake out a target for days to learn the bomb maker’s patterns and then plant an IED in the target’s vehicle, detonating it when the target was in an isolated area away from civilians and U.S. personnel.
Sgt. Maj. of the Army Dan Dailey is known for responding to soldier concerns. He’s overhauled the Army tattoo policy and encouraged the Army to allow headphones with the physical training uniform.
Now, he’s floated the idea of getting a tattoo selected by soldiers.
“I’m a big morale guy. I’m a positive person,” Dailey told the Army Times. “We’re always trying to raise morale, so I said one day, ‘let’s set up a website and the soldiers get to pick my tattoo; they vote on it.’ Could you imagine?”
See the Army Times article and learn how to submit your own ideas for SMOTA’s ink here.
Once a leader of soldiers under fire in Afghanistan, Daniel Rodriguez is now a leader on the football field.
He earned a Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his heroics in Afghanistan, and his story aired on many national shows and programs. Now Rodriguez is in his second season with the Clemson Tigers, attending on the G.I. Bill since 2012.
His 2011 recruiting video attracted the attention of Clemson head coach, Dabo Swinney, who allowed him to join the Tigers as a walk-on wide receiver. “Like a lot of people, I was mesmerized by the video, his work ethic, and his drive to chase a dream,” Coach Swinney said in the video.
His dream to play college football started with a pact he made with his squad buddy, Pfc. Kevin Thompson, who also aspired to play. But Thompson was killed in the same fight against the Taliban for which Rodriguez earned his awards. Out of the 38 American troops who fought that day, eight were killed and 22 were injured, including Rodriguez. Rodriguez is fueled by this experience and the promise he made to his buddy.
The US Army and Lockheed Martin developed and tested a self-driving convoy system.
“The Army envisions a future operational concept where autonomy-enabled formations augment the warfighter as team members, not just as tools,” Army Lt. Col. Matt Dooley told an audience, according to Defense One.
According to the Army’s Operating Concept for 2020-2040, soldiers will be more lethal while making their job less hazardous by combining troops and semi-autonomous machines during operations.
This video shows the autonomous convoy system developed between the Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) and Lockheed Martin:
