Louisiana’s famous Cajun Navy, the volunteer civilian group that with its small boats helped rescue victims of Hurricane Harvey, wants to assist Florida after Hurricane Irma.
Rob Gaudet, one of the volunteer network’s organizers, spoke Sept 7. to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to find out how the grassroots group might be of most help.
“They’re ready to go,” Rubio told the Miami Herald.
Irma is not expected to dump as much rain as Harvey, but forecasters worry about storm surge up to 10 feet in the state’s southern peninsula.
The Cajun Navy drove boats into Houston to pick up people stuck in the massive floods — turning into the so-called Texas Navy — but is now back in Louisiana, tracking Irma as it makes its way to Florida.
“There’s already boaters on their way and there already,” Gaudet told the Herald.
Gaudet, a software engineer, founded the Cajun Relief Foundation after boaters came together last year to rescue victims of a no-name flood in his hometown of Baton Rouge. During Harvey, the organization used social media to handle requests for assistance, alleviating crushed emergency responders.
Image from Cajun Relief Facebook.
“There’s a team of dispatchers that dispatch the Cajun Navy, that work from their homes or they work from coffee shops, literally taking request off of social media,” Gaudet said, noting dispatchers can be — and are — anywhere in the country. “We use mobile technology that the boaters carry along with them, and so we dispatch them to perform rescues.”
Rubio’s suggestion: that Gaudet’s volunteers, with their shallow-water boats, consider navigating narrow canals in South and Central Florida to reach victims if Irma’s storm surge leaves wide areas unreachable by car or deeper-water vessels.
“Biscayne Bay is like a basin,” said Rubio, a recreational boater himself. “It’s like a bowl of water that’s going to get potentially pushed inward.”
Marjorie Morrison isn’t a veteran, and she’s not from a military family. She is, however, a psychologist who cares deeply about veterans and members of the military community.
Just over a decade ago, Morrison was a Tricare provider working in the San Diego area. In her time practicing mental health, although she treated many veterans and active duty personnel she had no real familiarity with the military or specific training for dealing with military patients.
“I didn’t know anything,” Morrison says. “In 2006, I started doing some short term assignments with active duty, and then in 2007 I went over to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. I was able to see recruits go from boys to men and to see the differences in the culture.”
One patient after the next, she noticed the significant circumstances and experiences that define life in the military as distinct from the civilian world.
Sgt. Stephen Wills, a drill instructor from Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, instructs Marine enlistees to clean up their gear during a Recruiting Station Seattle pool function at the Yakima Training Center in Yakima, Wash., July 17, 2015. (U.S Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Reece Lodder)
Morrison realized the military was facing a mental health crisis and that the system designed to provided services was broken. She was determined to change that. That’s what inspired her acclaimed 2012 book, The Inside Battle: Our Military Mental Health Crisis.
“I was invited over to Camp Pendleton to work with the 1st Marines,” she recalls. “They gave me 1,600 Marines to interview and get to know. I was working with a lot of transitioning Marines that were leaving the service, transitioning into civilian life. I saw how difficult that process was for them.”
Morrison began to train providers to work with the military — to give them the training she lacked when she first started. She wanted to ensure mental health providers didn’t have to go through the same struggles she did, and she was committed to seeing them get it right for their patients.
“I felt like I knew what they needed to know or could at least give them some foundation,” Morrison says. “When I did that, companies started calling me and asking to help train and educate them on veteran employees and PTSD issues.”
A psychologist evaluates a survival school student. Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape psychologists have more than a year of training and work independently in the field, supporting SERE training. (U.S. Air Force photo)
That’s how PsychArmor, a fast-growing and highly-respected nonprofit that Morrison established and now leads got its start. PsychArmor’s mission is to bridge the civilian-military divide by providing free education and resources to help civilian individuals and businesses engage with veterans.
“I was given a million dollar gift to build it,” she says with a humble smile.
Not surprisingly, a lot of thoughtful contemplation went into the design and structure of PsychArmor.
“I knew that it wasn’t going to work live and in-person,” Morrison explains, acknowledging that in the 21st-century workplace, programs and services need to be delivered efficiently, using 21st-century technology. “It started out with training healthcare providers and employers. We now train caregivers and families, educators, and volunteers as well.”
PsychArmor recruits nationally recognized subject matter experts to create and deliver online courses about issues relevant to the military and veteran communities. The courses are self-paced and designed for anyone who works with, lives with, or cares about veterans. Even veterans in special circumstances take PsychArmor classes.
“People need to know what they need to know,” she says. “But if you have to travel to take a two-day course that covers everything, you might never do it. With PsychArmor, if you have an employee with PTSD-related sleep issues, you can come and learn about that on your own time.”
Morrison adds that other subjects can likewise be explored at any time, simply by logging on to PsychArmor’s platform “so we serve people where they live while allowing people to learn what they need.”
Morrison (courtesy photo)
In its first year alone, the PsychArmor training center has seen such success and acquired such substantial expertise that it’s attracted enough funding to offer these courses for free.
“The response to PsychArmor’s work tells me the need is there,” Morrison says. “I think the general American really wants to help and do something. You can’t just throw money at it. What we offer are real solutions.”
What Morrison loves most about her work and her organization is its collaborative nature. She acknowledges she doesn’t know everything about the military mental health space and relies on partners to help develop PsychArmor curriculum. In addition to meaningfulcooperation from the military service branches and the VA, a visit to PsychArmor’s website reveals an extensive array of partners from the nonprofit, philanthropic, corporate, and academic sectors.
SAN DIEGO – Raul Romero salutes the national colors during a Vietnam War 50th anniversary commemoration in San Diego March 29, 2016. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Caitlin Bevel)
In the end, it will take a lot more than PsychArmor to bridge the civilian-military divide, but Morrison’s leadership — along with the contributions of so many partners who believe in her vision — is having a notable and impressive impact.
“I know enough to know that I’m not going to be able to do it alone. It’s going to take all of us to rewrite that narrative,” she says. “For now, I feel like we are giving people an action item. PsychArmor is proof there is a need for that and there is so much more work that we have to do.”
Thanks to Marjorie Morrison, bridging the gap together just got a bit easier.
Get started with PsychArmor’s 1-5-15 Course – three steps to help eliminate the civilian-military divide:
Footage recently emerged from a prime-time segment on Chinese state-run television showing Chinese special forces practicing a raid that bears an eerie resemblance to the US Navy SEALs’ 2011 raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The segment, first noticed by the New York Times, takes place in Xinjiang, a province in Western China home to the Uighurs, a Muslim minority often at odds with China’s state-endorsed atheism and their dominant ethnicity, the Hans.
While China has increased its presence in the Middle East as of late, it has also increased raids on Uighur leaders, issuing one strange announcement in November 14, 2015 that compared a 56-day battle against the Uighurs to the ISIS attack in Paris that killed 130.
In the slides below, see details from the Chinese reenactment of the Bin Laden raid.
Here’s the compound US Navy SEALs found Osama Bin Laden in.
Sajjad Ali Qureshi via Wikimedia Commons
Here’s China’s reproduction.
Henri KENHMANN via Youtube
Here we see the Chinese special forces taking doors and clearing rooms.
Now, inexplicably, they’re crawling under flaming ropes.
Putting on a bit of a show here.
Finally we see helicopters descend on another, similar compound.
While the delivery may be a bit garbled, it’s clear that China sought to imitate the world’s finest in its version of the successful SEAL Team 6 raid. Whether the special forces units will participate in raids against Al-Qaeda-linked targets abroad or simply continue to hit the Uighur minority, they’ve broadcasted loud and clear that they’re proud and ready.
This may seem like blasphemy to some, but Popeye started his professional career as a civilian mariner and then Coast Guardsman. The famous sailor did join the Navy, but as of 1937, Popeye was firmly in the Coast Guard. A two-reel feature titled Popeye the Sailor meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves introduces Popeye serving at a Coast Guard station. The sailor man’s creator did not live to see the United States enter World War II, but it was in 1941 that his creation joined the Navy and the legend of Popeye the rough and tumble U.S. Navy sailor was born.
Popeye the Sailor meets Ali Baba’s Forty Thieves wasn’t Popeye’s first feature. He started life as a character in the comic strip Thimble Theater in 1929, a comic actually centered around his off-and-on girlfriend, Olive Oyl. When it became obvious that Popeye was the real star, he made a jump to feature films. In the aforementioned 1937 film is when we see Popeye in the Coast Guard, on guard duty and deploying to intercept “Abu Hassan” (aka Bluto), who is terrorizing the Middle East.
It was during WWII that Popeye reached his incredible popularity. After enlisting in the Navy in 1941’s The Mighty Navy, Popeye’s clothing changed and reflected his status as a U.S. Navy sailor, wearing the distinctive white crackerjack uniform. Popeye would remain in uniform until 1978, when new cartoons put him back in his original outfit, with one exception: the white yachting cap he used to wear was replaced with a standard issue Navy “Dixie Cup” cap.
It should be noted that Popeye and Bluto once attempted to join the Army in a 1936 film short called I’m In the Army Now, but they really just ended up fighting in the recruiter’s office. Popeye left the office after beating Bluto to a surrender, but without actually joining. Popeye also regularly beats Bluto to the tune of “The Army Goes Rolling Along.”
Despite his dedication to service, Popeye never once tried to join the Air Force.
The military has very talented photographers in the ranks, and they constantly attempt to capture what life as a service member is like during training and at war. Here are the best military photos of the week:
AIR FORCE:
A C-17 Globemaster III, assigned to the 535th Airlift Squadron, 15th Wing, glides past Waianae Range as it prepares to land at Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii, Oct. 24, 2016. The C-17 made a rare landing at Wheeler Army Airfield to pick up Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division and transport them to the island of Hawaii in preparation for exercise Lightning Forge 17.
U.S. Army photo/Staff Sgt. Armando R. Limon
Zombies emerge from the forest as the sun begins to set at the annual Zombie Stomp run Oct. 29, 2016, at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. More than 100 runners participated in ducking, dodging and evading hungry zombies over the 5K course.
U.S. Air Force photo/Samuel King Jr.
Army:
A U.S. Army Soldier, assigned to 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, defends an objective during training at the National Training Center, located at Fort Irwin, Calif., Oct. 29, 2016.
U.S. Army photo by Pvt. Guy Mingo
A 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) Soldier talks on a radio during an air-mobile exercise, part of a defense support of civil authorities training mission at Joint Base Myer – Henderson Hall, Va., Nov. 1st, 2016.
U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Cody W. Torkelson
Navy:
BREMERTON, Washington (Nov. 2, 2016) Seaman Aaron Thompson, from Columbia, S.C., and Seaman Jake Ridley, from Oklahoma City, raise the ensign during morning colors aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74). John C. Stennis is conducting a scheduled maintenance availability at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Dakota Rayburn
PACIFIC OCEAN (Oct. 30, 2016) Two F-35B Lightning II aircraft land on the flight deck of amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6). The F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant is the worldâs first supersonic STOVL stealth aircraft. America, with Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron 1 (VMX-1), Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 (VMFA-211) and Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23) embarked, are underway conducting operational testing and the third phase of developmental testing for the F-35B Lightning II aircraft, respectively. The tests will evaluate the full spectrum of joint strike fighter measures of suitability and effectiveness in an at-sea environment.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Kyle Goldberg
Marine Corps:
Marines with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, conduct a company attack range in Twentynine Palms, Calif., Oct. 21, 2016. Bravo Company is participating in Integrated Training Exercise (ITX) 1-17 and preparing to support Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Sarah N. Petrock
Marines with Jump Platoon, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, inspect gear prior to a mission during a field exercise aboard Camp Pendleton, Calif., Oct. 19, 2016. 1st Marine Division is employed as the ground combat element of I Marine Expeditionary Force and provides the ground combat forces necessary for ship to shore forcible entry operations.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Joseph Prado
USCG Station Point Judith, R.I., crews conduct tactical boat training on a 29-foot response boat. Station Judith has 35 members and operates two 45-foot Motor Life Boats and a 29-foot Response Boat – Small.
USCG photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Nicole Groll
The crew of USCG Cutter Waesche marked the end of a record year in counterdrug operations offloading more than 39,000 pounds of seized cocaine, worth over $531 million, in San Diego.
A B-29 from the 468th Bombardment group attacking Hatto, Formosa on 18 October 1944 with high-explosive bombs. Overshot runway due to prop failure Jun 17, 1945 at West Field, Tinian. (Photo by US Army Air Forces Birdsall, Stephen via Wikimedia Commons)
On September 21, 1942, 73 years ago, the maiden flight of the Boeing B-29 “Superfortress” took place.
The plane was the successor of Boeing’s ultra-tough B-17 “Flying Fortress,” and the predecessor to the B-52 “Stratofortress,” which is still in use today.
The plane would become the long range, heavy bombing workhorse of the Pacific theater of World War II, where it achieved fame and infamy for dropping Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Relive the legacy of this iconic bomber in the pictures below.
The B-29 was very advanced for its time, featuring a pressurized cabin, tricycle dual-wheeled landing gear, and remote controlled gun turrets.
Photo: USAF via Wikimedia Commons
Only the front and back compartments were pressurized, meaning that the crew had to crawl over the bomb bay via a narrow 35-foot tunnel.
Photo via US National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons
At the time, it was the heaviest production plane in the world, weighing in at 105,000 pounds with an optional 20,000 pounds of bombs.
Photo by US Army Air Forces Birdsall, Stephen via Wikimedia Commons
A B-29 from the 468th Bombardment group attacking Hatto, Formosa on 18 October 1944 with high-explosive bombs. Overshot runway due to prop failure Jun 17, 1945 at West Field, Tinian.
In addition to bombs, the B-29 was armed with 12 remotely controlled .50 caliber Browning machine guns and a 20 millimeter cannon at the tail gun.
Photo by US National Archives and Records Administration via Wikimedia Commons
Kenneth W. Roberts, of Weitchpee, Calif., assigned to the Japan-based 98th Bomb Wing, checks his trio of .50 caliber tail-stingers before another mission over North Korea in his U.S. Air Force B-29 “Superfortress.”
Here is rare color footage of a formation of B-29s dropping bombs.
Famously, the Enola Gay bombed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Three days later, another B-29, the Bockscar, bombed Nagasaki.
Photo by US Department of Energy
The crew of the Enola Gay stands outside the plane.
After World War II, the B-29 went on to face jet-powered fighters in the Korean war.
Photo by US Air Forces via Wikimedia Commons
A US F-84E refueling from a B-29 Superfortress over Korea.
Of about 4,000 B-29s produced, only one, the Fifi, remains airworthy. It is owned and maintained by the Commemorative Air Force, based at Addison, Texas.
Photo by Ilikerio via Wikimedia Commons
The last flying B-29 at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport.
According to reports from the Army Aviation Heritage Foundation, the Michigan Heroes Museum, and others, Lt. Col. Charles Kettles — the Vietnam war hero and Army pilot who received the Medal of Honor in 2016 for his resupply and rescue efforts in 1967 — died Jan. 21, 2019, at his home in Michigan.
Charles Kettles, at the time an Army major and flight commander in the 176th Aviation Company (Airmobile) (Light), 14th Combat Aviation Battalion, Americal Division, led a platoon of UH-1D Huey transport helicopters to resupply soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, during an ambush by a battalion-sized enemy force near Duc Pho. After leading several trips to the hot landing zone and evacuating the wounded, he returned, without additional aerial support, to rescue a squad-sized element of stranded soldiers pinned down by enemy fire, the White House says.
“Small arms and automatic weapons fire continued to rake the landing zone, inflicting heavy damage to the helicopters. However, Kettles refused to depart until all reinforcements and supplies were off-loaded and wounded personnel were loaded on the helicopters to capacity,” the Army said in an official account of his actions. “Kettles then returned to the battlefield, with full knowledge of the intense enemy fire awaiting his arrival. Bringing reinforcements, he landed in the midst of enemy mortar and automatic weapons fire that seriously wounded his gunner and severely damaged his aircraft. Upon departing, Kettles was advised by another helicopter crew that he had fuel streaming out of his aircraft. Despite the risk posed by the leaking fuel, he nursed the damaged aircraft back to base.”
The satellite image of the Song Tra Cau riverbed, near Duc Pho, Republic of Vietnam. The graphic overlay depicts then-Maj. Charles Kettles flight path during the emergency extraction, May 15, 1967, as part of Operation Malheur.
Born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on Jan. 9, 1930, Kettles left the Army in 1956 to start a car dealership with his brother, then returned to the ranks in 1963 as the Vietnam war began to heat up. He served two tours in Vietnam and retired from the Army in 1978 as a Lt. Colonel.
According to the
Detroit News, the Veterans History Project launched a formal campaign to elevate Kettles’ Distinguished Service Cross to a Medal of Honor, with Congress waving the time limit to consider the Army aviator for the MOH.
Kettles earned a host of awards during his career, including the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Bronze Star Medal with one bronze oak leaf cluster, an Air Medal with Numeral “27” and the Army Commendation Medal with one bronze oak leaf cluster, the Army says.
Editor’s Note: This piece was original written by Christian Lowe. The story was updated by Team Mighty upon hearing about the Kettles’ passing. Our very best goes out to this hero and those he leaves behind.
More than 120 wounded warriors from the Air Force and Army gathered March 1, 2019, to officially open the sixth annual Air Force Trials at Nellis Air Force Base.
The Air Force Trials, which run through March 7, 2019, are part of an adaptive and resiliency sports program designed to promote the mental and physical well-being of the wounded, ill and injured service members who participate.
Retired Capt. Rob Hufford, Air Force Wounded Warrior Program ambassador and athlete, celebrates as he is honored for his Invictus Games achievements.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Corey Parrish)
The Paralympic-style competitive event showcases the resiliency of wounded warriors and highlights the effectiveness of adaptive sports as part of their recovery. It also highlights the impact the Wounded Warrior program, or AFW2, has in helping with the restorative care of wounded warriors enrolled in the program.
Members from the Air Force Wounded Warrior team pay respect to the flag during the 6th Annual Air Force Wounded Warrior Trials opening ceremony.
The Trials are also a test of the athletes’ resiliency, strength, and endurance, according to Col. Michael Flatten, Air Force Wounded Warrior Program director.
“It’s vitally important for their recovery we rebuild their sense of purpose, their sense of self and their sense of confidence,” said Flatten, during remarks at the ceremony. “Everybody in the world is going to tell them what they can’t do, we’re here to tell them what they can.”
A member of the U.S. Air Force Academy Wings of Blue Parachute Team glides into the 6th Annual Air Force Wounded Warrior Trials opening ceremony.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Corey Parrish)
The event features 10 different adaptive sports: powerlifting, cycling, wheelchair rugby, swimming, shooting, rowing, track and field, archery, wheelchair basketball, and sitting volleyball.
The Air Force Trials is the primary selection location for the 40 primary and 10 alternate members of Team Air Force at the 2019 Department of Defense Warrior Games June 21-30, 2019, in Tampa, Fla.
Chief Master Sgt. Kenneth Lindsey, Air Force Personnel Center command chief, speaks during the 6th Annual Air Force Wounded Warrior Trials opening ceremony.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Corey Parrish)
“It’s an awesome day here at Nellis,” said Air Force Personnel Center command chief Chief Master Sgt. Kenneth Lindsey. “The intent of this event is to promote the health, wellness and recovery of seriously wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans,” said Lindsey. “During these trials, participants will build comradery and confidence as they continue to recover.”
This year, the participants are made up of 53 active duty, 15 Air National Guard and Reserve and 72 Air Force veterans. Also attending the Trials are 32 caregivers, who play an important role in athlete care and recovery.
Col. Michael J. Flatten, Air Force Wounded Warrior Program director, speaks during the 6th Annual Air Force Wounded Warrior Trials opening ceremony.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Corey Parrish)
During the ceremony, the athletes were recognized by service, the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Wings of Blue performed a parachute demonstration, two HH-60 Pave Hawks from the 66th Rescue Squadron flew a two-ship formation and the Trials torch, carried by Air Force members from the 2018 U.S. Invictus Team, was lit.
Athletes pose for a group photo during the 6th Annual Air Force Wounded Warrior Trials opening ceremony.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Corey Parrish)
The Trials are part of the Air Force’s Wounded Warrior program (AFW2), which is a congressionally mandated and federally funded organization administered by AFPC in San Antonio, Texas. The program includes recovery care coordinators, non-medical care managers, and other professionals who work with wounded warriors, their families and caregivers to guide them through various day-to-day challenges.
The DoD Warrior Games is an annual event recognizing the importance adaptive sports plays in the recovery and rehabilitation of the wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans.
Hiroo Onoda was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who refused to believe that World War II had ended. He spent nearly 30 years holding out in the Philippine jungle waiting to be officially relieved.
According to his memoir, Onoda – just an apprentice officer at the time – received direct orders from the division commander to lead the Lubang Garrison in guerilla warfare. His men were to destroy the airfield and harbor installations to stop the advance of American forces.
Before carrying out his orders, he got a pep talk from Lieutenant General Akira Muto, Chief of Staff of the Fourteenth Area Army who dropped in unexpectedly:
You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we’ll come back for you. Until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that’s the case, live on coconuts! Under no circumstances are you to give up your life voluntarily.
To put it in perspective, that was the equivalent of having an O-8 and an O-9 giving orders to an O-1. On top of that, he believed the emperor was a deity and that the war was a sacred mission. Onoda was deeply honored and impressed; he took these orders more literally and seriously than any trooper could have.
Japanese reps sign the article of surrender aboard the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
A few months later, the Imperial Japanese forces surrendered, leaving thousands of soldiers scattered across the South Pacific and Asia. Many of these stragglers were captured and sent home while others went into hiding, committed suicide, or died of starvation and sickness. The remaining stragglers – including Onoda – took leaflets and radio announcements of Japan’s surrender as enemy propaganda and trickery.
On Lubang, Onoda’s men and several other groups retreated into the jungle when the allied forces overran the island. They continued to fight, but after several attacks the groups dwindled into cells of less than five men each. There was four in Onoda’s cell: Cpl. Shoichi Shimada, Pvt. Kinshichi Kozuka, Pvt. Akatsu, and Onoda.
Thinking that they were still at war, they survived by eating coconuts and wild fruits, stealing from locals, and occasionally killing their livestock for meat. They evaded Filipino search parties and killed 30 people who they believed were enemies. In 1950, one of the enlisted men surrendered and the other two were later shot dead by the local police in 1954 and 1972.
In 1974, Norio Suzuki, a Japanese college dropout, found Onoda shortly after arriving in the Philippines. According to Onoda’s memoir, “when Suzuki left Japan, he told his friends that he was going to look for Lieutenant Onoda, a panda, and the Abominable Snowman, in that order.”
Onoda didn’t budge with Suzuki’s request to return to Japan because he still considered himself to be under orders. Suzuki took photos with Onoda and returned to Japan to show the government that the World War II vet was still alive. The Japanese government sent Onoda’s former commanding officer to formally relieve him of his duty.
Onoda came home to a hero’s welcome filled with parades and speeches by public officials. He was the pride of Japan, the loyal soldier, who some believed could claim victory because he never surrendered.
Ukrainian authorities say a wildfire has broken out in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl, where the world’s worst nuclear accident occurred in 1986, but radiation levels remained within safe limits.
“Radiation levels have not risen either inside the exclusion zone or in adjoining areas,” the zone’s administration said in a statement on June 5, 2018.
Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman wrote on Facebook that “radiation levels are safe. In Kyiv and in Chernobyl itself, including at the Chernobyl power station site, they are significantly below the acceptable limits. So there’s no need to worry.”
“I stress once more: the situation is fully under control,” he added.
The fire broke out in dry grass on the morning of June 5, 2018, in the area of high radiation less than 10 kilometers from the power station, and later spread over some 10 hectares of woodland, the state emergency service said in statements.
It published photographs of smoke billowing from woodland and flames spreading along the ground.
The state nuclear-industry regulator said the former nuclear power station was not at risk from the flames.
More than 130 firefighters were battling the fire as well as two planes and a helicopter that dumped water on the fire, the state emergency service said, adding that the wind was not blowing toward the capital, Kyiv.
Entrance to the zone of alienation around Chernobyl.
Wildfires occur regularly in the woods and grassland around the power station. In 2015, a forest fire burned for four days.
Chernobyl’s No. 4 reactor, which is about 100 kilometers north of Kyiv, exploded in 1986 during testing in the worst such accident ever.
Radioactive fallout from the power station contaminated up to three-quarters of Europe, according to some estimates, with Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, all then part of the U.S.S.R., the worst affected.
A 30 kilometers radius around the power station is still an exclusion zone where people are not allowed to live.
The three other reactors at Chernobyl continued to generate electricity until the power station finally closed in 2000. A giant protective dome was put in place over the fourth reactor in 2016.
U.S. troops are all but guaranteed a 3% pay raise next year under legislation that passed the Senate Thursday.
The Senate passed its version of the fiscal 2021 National Defense Authorization Act Thursday. The $740 billion bill contains numerous personnel initiatives, including the second consecutive 3% pay raise for service members, and hazardous duty pay for troops responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
If signed into the law, the legislation would also make changes designed to standardize the military services’ Exceptional Family Member Programs, improve housing for military families and halt a planned reduction of teachers within Department of Defense Education Activity schools.
The measure also includes incentive pay to retain military health officers, increases funding for child care facilities, adds money for research on industrial chemicals used in firefighting foam and packaging and expands the list of diseases linked to Agent Orange exposure.
“The NDAA gives our military the personnel, equipment, training and organization needed to implement the National Defense Strategy and thwart any adversary who would try to do us harm,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the committee’s ranking Democrat, called the bill an “important step” toward wise investment for the future.
“Mindful of new risks, as well as unfolding and unprecedented unemployment and budget challenges, Congress must wisely invest every defense dollar in a cost-effective and forward-looking manner,” he said.
The bill would create a commission to study removing Confederate names from Defense Department assets within three years — a measure that will need to be sorted out when the House and Senate meet to develop the final version of the bill that will go to President Donald Trump for a signature.
The House bill would force the military to take action to change the names of bases and facilities named after Confederates within a year. The Senate version of the bill incorporates similar provisions to remove Confederate names from bases over three years.
Trump has threatened to veto any measure to remove the name of Confederate leaders from Army installations. On Tuesday, the White House released a statement listing the items Trump finds objectionable in the House’s bill, saying it is “part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct.”
Other items that pertain to personnel policy in the bill include:
Mandating that DoD develop and field body armor that properly fits female soldiers
Providing additional ways for service members to report sexual assault
Requiring DoD to better track and respond to incidents of child abuse on military installations.
Lance Cpl. Jessica Craver carries a .50-caliber machine gun receiving group for mounting onto an MK48 Logistics Vehicle System | US Marine Corps
Two separate memos from Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to the Marine Corps ordered the Marine Corps to fully gender-integrate training for entry-level Marines, as well as making job titles less gender specific.
“No later than January, 15, 2016, submit to my office a detailed implementation plan that addresses the gender integration of officer and enlisted basic training,” Mabus wrote in the memo.
In the past, the Marine Corps expressed that some roles should remain closed to women.
“As we achieve full integration of the force … this is an opportunity to update the position titles and descriptions themselves to demonstrate through this language that women are included in these MOSs (Military Occupation Specialties),” Mabus wrote in a second memo.
“Please review the position titles throughout the Marine Corps and ensure that they are gender-integrated as well, removing ‘man’ from the titles and provide a report to me as soon as is practicable and no later than April 1, 2016.”
This step may seem a huge change, that would alter age-old axioms like “Every marine is a rifleman first,” but only certain titles will be changed.
A Navy official told the Marine Times that only titles where the word “man” appears as a separate word will be changed. Therefore, titles like “infantryman” and “rifleman” will go unchanged.
Whereas, “reconnaissance man” or “field artillery sensor support man” will simply have the word “man” removed.
, Onoda – just an apprentice officer at the time – received direct orders from the division commander to lead the Lubang Garrison in guerilla warfare. His men were to destroy the airfield and harbor installations to stop the advance of American forces.
