Army Capt. Rebecca Murga had the same goals as anyone else at gear turn-in after deployment: get rid of this sh*t and get back home. But she made a rookie mistake when she left Afghanistan without double-checking her gear against her clothing list.
Capt. Rebecca Murga tries to find a missing Gore-Tex item while turning in items at the Central Issue Facility. (Go90 No Sh*t There I Was screenshot)
That’s how she ended up at the Central Issue Facility with a desperate need to go home and no Gore-Tex. And since Army property values never match civilian price points, she’s left with the option of paying hundreds of dollars or weaving a Gore-Tex from cobwebs and unicorn dreams.
Anyone who has dealt with DoD civilians knows that it’s a recipe for frustration, but Murga manages to smooth talk her way through the facility only to find herself faced with something worse.
Something much, much worse. (Go90 No Sh*t There I Was screenshot)
See how Murga’s conscience clouds her homecoming in the No Sh*t There I Was episode embedded at the top.
Kaj Larsen with VICE News went on an airborne operation with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team and filmed a 360-degree video of what it’s like to climb onto the plane and conduct a jump from 1,000 feet.
Check it out below. Computer users can click and drag in the video to look around. Phone users should play the video full screen and then turn their phone to look in different directions.
The Swiss Guard, the Pope’s elite security force, had humble beginnings 500 years ago as infantrymen defending their lands against cavalry. In medieval times, the Swiss perfected the use of the pike in battlefield formations, and quickly became known as one of the greatest fighting forces of their time.
Shinobi, or the Japanese covert agency of ninjas has spawned lots of pop culture references and offshoots, but what’s the real story? Watch this episode of WATM’s “Elite Forces” and find out.
You’ve probably followed the reports of how Iranian speedboats have harassedU.S. Navyvessels. Frustrating, aren’t they? Well, think about it this way… we’ve been “showing restraint.”
The thing is, those speedboats are not really Iranian Navy. Instead, they belong to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy. These speedboats, which are often equipped with heavy machine guns, rockets, and other weapons, got a reputation for attacking merchant traffic in the Iran-Iraq War. Back then, they were called “Boghammars” after the Swedish company that built the first boats used by the Iranians.
Today, their primary threat to an American warship could be as a suicide craft. That said, American ships have options to address these craft. Two of the most prominent are the Mk 38 Mod 2 Bushmaster and the M2 heavy machine gun. The M2 is a legend. It’s been used on everything from tanks to aircraft to ships, and against just about every target you can imagine.
Now, the Mk 38 Mod 2 Bushmaster is not as well-known. That said, it’s been in quite common use. It got its start on the M2/M3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle, where the Army calls it the M242.
It needs a lot of luck to kill a tank, but it can bust up other infantry fighting vehicles, trucks, groups of infantry, even helicopters and aircraft. The Bushmaster made its way to the Marine Corps LAV-25.
A Task Force Liberty Soldier from 3rd Infantry Division stands guard in an M3A3 Bradley Fighting Vehicle near an Iraqi police checkpoint in Tikrit, Iraq. The Bradley main armament is the M242 25mm (Bushmaster) Chain Gun. The standard rate of fire is 200 rounds per minute, and has a range of 2,000 meters making it capable of defeating the majority of armored including some main battle tanks. (DOD photo)
The Navy put the Bushmaster on ships, and it comprises the main armament of the Cyclone-class patrol craft. Each Cyclone has two of these guns, one of which is paired with a Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher. The guns are also used on other surface combatants as well. The guns can do a lot of damage.
You can see the Mk 38 and the M2 go to work on a speedboat in the video below. One almost an imagine that the Iranian speedboat crews may be asking themselves the question that Harry Callahan told a bank robber to ask himself: “Do I feel lucky?”
Nerd-god Joss Whedon brings us an action movie jam-packed with our favorite superheroes – The Avengers! It’s complete with Norse gods, Robin from “How I Met Your Mother,” alien space worms, and just a dash of Hulk smash. Check out ‘The Avengers’ in under three minutes!
And this is just an early part of the series. Want to watch the new stuff?
WATM now has exclusive content featured on Verizon’s Go90 streaming app! Just download the app, log in, and search for “Hurry Up and Watch” to find more episodes. Each Wednesday, for the next twelve weeks, a new episode will release on Go90 exclusively. You won’t find it anywhere else, so get it there before the rest of your posse does.
What do gun enthusiasm, maritime rescues, and high-velocity dirt biking have in common?
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Time’s up.
Those divergent interests all come together in Navy Vet and motocross racer, Jacqueline Carrizosa.
The former Navy gunner’s mate and rescue swimmer is, in post-military life, a rider on the rise in the Western U.S. amateur motocross circuit. And the time it took her to try to teach Oscar Mike host Ryan Curtis to stick one basic jump is, believe us, no reflection on her abilities.
Check out a side-by-side comparison, Ryan v. Jacqueline, leaping the same stretch of track.
Ryan (top), floating like a tank. Jacqueline (bottom), flying Navy Air. (Go90 Oscar Mike screenshot)
As a teenager, Carrizosa had trouble staying on the straight and narrow after her family moved from California to Las Vegas, but she thrived in the Navy, excelling at physically demanding and traditionally male-dominated disciplines.
When things got rocky again after she left active duty, the same approach helped her. She found structure and purpose in highly skilled action sports, specifically motocross. Her advice?
“Establish something that makes you money, you know what I mean? But also keep your soul alive. You gotta follow your heart. I would say 85% heart, 15% brain.”
Jacqueline Carrizosa. WISE.
But it all proved a little too much for Curtis. The motocross badassery, the beauty, the sheer volume of withering sass. A day at the track with Carrizosa hit him right in the feels (understandable).
And so, completely biffing the ratio, he went 100% heart, 0% brains.
You don’t have to imagine how that went over. All you gotta do is watch as Curtis gets his motocross mojo crossed, in the video embedded at the top.
The U.S. Army’s Ranger School is beyond tough. Sixty percent of those who start the course fail within the first four days. One third of all soldiers “recycle” one of the three phases.
In Part 3 of this amazing series by Army veteran Rebecca Murga, Maj. Lisa Jaster continues her quest to make history by being among the first females to complete Ranger School and earn the right to wear the tab. Nineteen females started the course; 3 remain. Lisa has already recycled the Darby phase (phase one). Will she make it to the end?
Watch ‘Earning the Tab – Pt. 1’ here. Watch Pt. 2 here.
Chris Markowski is a Marine who served in Iraq less than ten months after graduating from high school. Markowski’s unit deployed with 48 men, but only 18 returned alive or uninjured.
Sprawling across Markowski’s arms, legs, and back is a tattoo of a quote he found on a piece of scrap paper while walking across a base in Iraq. It is from the famous Czech historian Konstantin Jirecek and reads: We are the unwanted, using the outdated, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary, for the ungrateful.
“It spoke deeply to me. Many of the people that actually join the military are unwanted by society,” Markowski explains. “But the military gives you the ability to make a future.”
Markowski’s story is part of War Ink: 11 for 11, a video series presented by We Are The Mighty. The series features 11 combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan using tattoos to tell their stories on and off the battlefield. Each week for the next 11 weeks, a different tattooed veteran will share his or her story.
Do you have a tattoo that tells the story of your war experiences? Post a photo of it at We Are The Mighty’s Facebook page with the hashtag #WeAreTheMightyInk. WATM will be teeing up the coolest and most intense ones through Veteran’s Day.
The Medal of Honor is the highest award authorized by Congress and issued by the president himself. Earned for bravery during combat, the first medal was struck on Dec. 21, 1861, specifically for the Navy, but was adapted for U.S. Army less than two months later.
Since then, approximately 3,500 brave troops have earned our nation’s highest honor — and that number continues to grow. As those figures increase, so, too, does the need for additional medals.
According to the Defense Logistics Agency, or DLA, each medal is stamped out from a strip of gold weighing an accurate 2.5 ounces at one of two different locations: IRA Green (Providence, R.I.) or Graco/Northwestern (Tomball, Tx).
The medal begins taking shape after being stamped at one of the two DLA’s locations. (Image from TheMedalOfHonor.com)
At the manufacturing facilities, each minute detail is accounted for, down to how many fibers make up the iconic blue cloth that is wrapped around the recipient’s neck during the ceremony.
This manufacturing clerk inspects the medal before sending it off to the next station. (Image from TheMedalOfHonor.com)
Every aspect must be perfect before it’s shipped off to its next destination for an essential, customized detail — the engraving of the recipient’s name.
Just 13 miles away from where the U.S. claimed their independence lays the DLA Troop Support building, within which craftsmen use diamond-tipped, precision tools to engrave the names of brave service members onto their respective medals.
DLA Troops Support’s diamond-tipped engraver hard at work. (Image from TheMedalOfHonor.com)
After the engraving, the proud company ships the medals to their next destination, which is where they’re awarded.
Check out CBS This Morning’s video to see these highly-respectable awards go from production to patriotic issue.
“When was the last time you actually met the animal you ate for dinner?”
Jon Darling, a former Army Ranger and scion of a long line of farmers and restaurateurs, now runs one of the most humane livestock farms in South Carolina, where he strives to be a shepherd to the sheep he raises and to the people who eat them.
When Meals Ready To Eat host August Dannehl visited Darling’s farm, he found himself in a world where things are done with purpose and uncommon care.
Though his family had always been in the food business, Darling turned to a new brotherhood after the attacks on September 11th: the Army. When he got out, he looked for peace in other places, and found it the moment he stepped on a farm.
Working with other people in that way gave him the same feeling of fraternity that being in the military did, and his interactions with the animals he raises brings him a calm sense of satisfaction as he delivers meat to restaurants with a humane guarantee.
(Meals Ready to Eat screenshot)
Darling raises his sheep to live free and happy lives, and professes to feeling no fundamental conflict when it comes time for him to bring one of those lives to an end.
(Meals Ready to Eat screenshot)
Unlike factory farming operations, which treat animals as commodities and people as thoughtless consumers, farms like Darling’s are working to reconnect people to an awareness of the sacrifice that keeps us humans at the top of the food chain. Through quiet leadership and outreach in the form of regular community dinners that center around the slaughter, preparation, and enjoyment of one of his lambs, Darling is reawakening the people he serves to the circle of life on Planet Earth.
A gathering of conscientious diners at Darling Farm. (Meals Ready To Eat screenshot)
Darling’s community appreciates the work he does, and agrees that the animal that dies for a meal should be celebrated. That’s why they join him for meals at his farm; to celebrate the animal that nourishes them. They attribute his ability to listen, rather than just to act, to his military service.
Small farming is both Darling’s family legacy and his way of healing—but his neighbors add that his style of farming is also therapeutic for the community, and society. Knowing the animal rather than only viewing it as meat makes a difference in the level of respect given to the earth. Darling points out that his method is healthier for the animals as well as the land he uses to farm them.
Here’s hoping that sharing his story and life’s work with Dannehl and Meals Ready to Eat will help spread the good word far and wide.
Have some respect, you baaahhhd boy. (Meals Ready To Eat screenshot)
Philadelphia is one of the oldest cities in the country — its foundation predates that of the United States by nearly 100 years. The historic city is the birthplace of the Marine Corps and was home to the first brigades of professional firemen.
After time in the military, many service members find a career in firefighting, as it reflects some similar characteristics to being on active duty, like brotherhood and a sense of adventure. Like the military, firefighting puts individuals into uncontrollable situations that can wear them down, both emotionally and physically.
But Marine veteran and South Philly firefighter Bill Joerger uses his culinary talents to help his men combat the stress of their everyday environment.
Bill prepares yet another tasty meal for his firefighting brothers. (Source: Meals Ready to Eat, KCET)
Joerger enjoys cooking for his firefighting brothers, and it gives him the means to express himself and find catharsis.
Although Bill is an officer, he doesn’t allow his rank to stop him from serving up one incredible meal after another for his troops.
The only thing that stops Bill from cooking in the firehouse is when a fire breaks out.
Firemen never truly get time off. (Image via Giphy)
Check out the fifth full episode of We Are The Mighty’s original show, Meals Ready to Eat, below and watch how this Marine veteran uses his cooking skills to provide a special boost in morale.
