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For the first time in 10 years, Sgt. Brandon Robinson is spending Christmas at home, with all of his family, in Fayetteville.Robinson, his father and his older brothers are all in the military, and it’s rare for their time off to overlap so everyone can be home for Christmas.“My mom is ecstatic,” he said, surrounded by a crowd of soldiers and volunteers at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Friday.The 32-year-old sergeant was overseeing thousands of new soldiers as they made their first trips home from training at Fort Jackson, which is 90 miles south of Charlotte, near Columbia. The trek through the Charlotte airport is part of an annual event facilitated by the USO of North Carolina, a nonprofit military support organization.

Source: Troops head home for the holidays in ‘Operation Exodus’ at Charlotte Douglas | The Charlotte Observer

US Army Basic Combat Training centers and One Station Unit Training centers shut down over the holidays. That’s not so much for the benefit of the trainees. Rather, it’s pretty much the only time the training cadre can take a two week block of leave.

But if all the drill sergeants are on leave, who will supervise the thousands of raw recruits?

Well, if you ship them home for two weeks, you don’t have to. Of course, the trainees haven’t been in the Army long enough to accumulate 14 days of leave. Troops accumulate 2.5 days of leave per month, or thirty per year. So the Army “loans” them some leave.

That means their first six months or so of service after Basic are spent paying back that “in the hole” leave.

Your humble scribe didn’t go through this. Our OSUT schedule had a couple days and a couple non-critical events trimmed from the schedule so we could graduate on 12 December, 1985. But what that meant was, our gaining unit didn’t want to see us until 2 January, 1986 (hey, regular units also like to take the holidays off).

That meant your host ended up taking 21 days of leave. Having accumulated somewhere between 5 and 7.5 days, we spent, like others, a good bit of time getting out of the hole.

Of course, given that we were on just a two year assignment to Hawaii, and it was atrociously expensive to fly home, we simply didn’t take leave at all during that tour.

The Star Wars prequel trilogy is nearly brilliant. It took me 10 years to realise it, but it’s true. You see, the other night, my girlfriend and I drank a bottle of wine and started – as is entirely understandable – ripping into Episodes I to III. We hit the usual, obvious punching bags – Jar Jar, Anakin’s creepy sex-pest characterisation, the pointless set-pieces – but along the way, we noticed something big. All of the plot points required to make the prequels tell a sensible, meaningful, satisfying and affecting story are actually already in there, either explicitly on-screen or strongly alluded to. But for some reason, George Lucas doesn’t seem to notice that he’s written them, and ignores the lot.Stick with me on this one. I haven’t gone mad, I promise. It all starts with the fundamentals of Star Wars lore.

Source: George Lucas nearly wrote a perfect prequel trilogy. He just didn’t notice | GamesRadar

What could have been.

The Other McCain’s coauthor, Kevin Trainor, has penned a book, part autobiography, part essay, and part biography of military notables.

Kevin served in the Cold War Army in Europe, a time of high tensions, but no action. And not every soldier has tales of derring do. For most of us, being in the Army, however proud and honorable our service, was really, just a job.

Kevin’s story is often funny, sometimes, quite dark, but always quite real.

It’s a quick read, only 128 pages, but it’s only $0.99, so go download it.

The Obama’s simply cannot help themselves. They trivialize ever aspect of the office and treat members of the armed forces as either pets or furniture.

If you’ve never been to Thule Air Base in Greenland, don’t go. It’s cold, desolate, and reminiscent of a Siberian prison colony.But if you do go, make sure you have reliable transportation. You’ll want to leave as soon as you get there.Which brings us to an entertaining chapter in the story of Gen. John Hyten, commander of US Air Force Space Command, who found himself stranded at the icy outpost for four extra days earlier this year after paying an official visit, his airlift plagued by a series of perfectly sequenced maintenance problems. Accompanied by his spouse and entourage, Hyten did what people stuck at Thule generally do … he turned up at the local watering hole to soak up whatever entertainment could be found. This is where the story gets interesting.

Source: Commander’s Policy Letter Implements Rule for Playing Eagles Song – John Q. Public

Go read the whole thing. It’s hilarious.

“Whether it was the right decision or not, history will determine that,” Hagel told Foreign Policy in a two-hour interview, his first extensive public comments since he was forced out of his position in February.

“There’s no question in my mind that it hurt the credibility of the president’s word when this occurred.”In the days and months afterward, Hagel’s counterparts around the world told him their confidence in Washington had been shaken over Obama’s sudden about-face. And the former defense secretary said he still hears complaints to this day from foreign leaders.

Source: Hagel: The White House Tried to ‘Destroy’ Me | Foreign Policy

Hagel was dumb to accept the nomination in the first place.  Of course Obama and his cabal in the NSC, particularly Susan Rice, would attempt to keep all decision making authority in the White House. And of course, the decisions would be based on what produced good optics for Obama, not what was in the best interests of the nation.

Seriously, everything this administration does is based on how it looks, not on anticipated outcomes.

Investigators are looking into how a civilian was able to move into barracks reserved for Fort Bragg’s 3rd Special Forces Group.A spokesman for the group confirmed the unit discovered a civilian living in the barracks on Wednesday and reported the matter to Fort Bragg’s Provost Marshal’s Office.The spokesman could not provide additional details, but said the situation was under investigation.

Source: Civilian found living in barracks on Fort Bragg | Military & Fort Bragg News | fayobserver.com

Apparently, this guy had a stolen access card, and claimed to be on TDY to attend an EOD course.