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CDR Salamander of course has a fine post on the actions of four Americans in thwarting a slaughter on the French train over the weekend.

And of course, our own URR had to share his thoughts.

We are, in many ways, fortunate in this time and place. We have thousands upon thousands of young men, and some young women, who have lived multiple iterations of “that moment”. Perhaps that more than anything separates the combat Veterans from the rest of society. While the rest of the peaceful American public can only speculate what they would do, they see in the eyes of these young men the certainty of what they WOULD do, because they have done it so many times before. They have had their measure taken many times, and each time they have passed muster. Proven, to their comrades and themselves. The pure, raw courage of young men, gripping their rifles tightly, moving in to the beaten zone, or entering a fortified building, still leaves me in awe. They had so much more to lose than I did. I had lived 40 years of a life, most of them only about half of that, if not less. Yet, they risked it all, for their comrades and their country, and not least, for the Iraqi people whose suffering was so stark.

It is, not coincidentally, one of the things the peacenik liberal far-left resents most about our Veterans. While they themselves are the intellectual and moral successors to the draft-dodging cowards who filled the Progressive ranks in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, those they disparage KNOW themselves to be worthy. Worse, they know the peaceniks are not. And the peaceniks know that, too. And, in those dark places that one only peeks in before sleep, the peaceniks know it about themselves.

It is that demonstrated character among our magnificent young Veterans that gives me hope that the corroded, moribund, amoral Socialist-Communist ilk of Hillary and Obama will not hold sway over our futures.

What would I have done? I don’t know. We all wish to be the hero in our own narratives. But I also recognize that I’m a flawed person, and far removed from my days of training for war.

Oshkosh won the Pentagon’s $30 billion sweepstakes to replace the U.S. Army’s Humvee with up to 55,000 new Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, or JLTVs, over the next 25 years, service officials said.

The Army awarded a $6.7 billion contract Tuesday to Oshkosh for an initial batch of 17,000 vehicles for the Army and Marine Corps. Production will begin in the first quarter of fiscal 2016, according to an Army release, with a later decision on the full scale of production to come in 2018, the year the vehicles are expected to be ready for initial use.

via Oshkosh Wins $30 Billion Army Contract Battle to Replace Humvee – Defense One.

I’m a little surprised Lockheed Martin wasn’t picked. They seem to win every other contract.

Of course, it’s possible they’ll protest the contract award. That seems to be the business model of most contractors today.

A decade ago, as the U.S. military scrambled to gear up for unexpectedly lengthy wars, the Air Force declared that it should oversee all Pentagon drones that flew higher than 3,500 feet. Its argument was simple: these new weapons were being developed and purchased in tremendous quantity and significant diversity. Without a single controlling agency, the thinking went, the various services’ drones might waste money, fight poorly together, or even blunder into the path of another service’s manned aircraft.

The Air Force lost that battle when Army and Navy leaders teamed up to block what they saw as an epic power grab, and today’s leaders say they have no desire to refight it. But with the U.S. military once again preparing to drastically expand its drone presence, some say it’s time to think about putting high-flying UAVs under one organizational roof.

“There needs to be someone with oversight that is actually pulling together and assuring the interdependency of the systems that each of the individual services are developing,” said David Deptula, a retired lieutenant general who oversaw the Air Force’s drone and intelligence operations and pushed for a single-service executive agent. “That would go a long way to solving many of the challenges that exist in terms of providing sufficient capability to meet the demand that’s out there for UAVs.”

via Should One U.S. Service Rule the Military’s Drones? – Defense One.

Dave Deptula is an very bright guy. But he’s also highly partisan toward the Air Force. And he’s wrong. The reason the Army has even bothered fielding their own variant of the Predator is that they haven’t been getting what they want from the Air Force. Shoving Army UAV ops under the Air Force isn’t going to solve that problem.

And the Air Force is certainly not equipped technically or doctrinally to take over the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance mission the Navy sees for its MQ-4C Triton UAVs.

You may be aware that general officers often have a young Lieutenant or even a Captain as an Aide de Camp. Did you know some also have an enlisted aid?

The Army Enlisted Aide Program is a comprehensive program that provides guidance and outlines the roles, responsibilities, and key processes associated with enlisted aids which includes: policy, training, recruiting, management, selection, and utilization.

This was established in August 2004 with the purpose of relieving general and flag officers (G/FOs) of those minor tasks and details which, if performed by the G/FOs, would be at the expense of the G/FOs primary military and other official duties and responsibilities.

The program allows for Soldiers to volunteer and serve as an enlisted aide on the personal staff of a general or flag officer.

Here’s a fluff piece on the program.

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 17, 2015) — Enlisted aides are considered an elite group of staff sergeants and sergeants first class, whose organizational, technical and interpersonal skills are valued among the general officers with whom they serve.
Enlisted aides prepare and conduct official social functions and activities such as dinners. This includes the purchase and preparation of food and beverage services in the officer’s quarters at up to a 5-star entertaining level. Aides may also be responsible for maintaining their quarters, uniforms and military personal equipment.
“You want to alleviate those minor things that may distract from daily duties. You make the job a lot easier and smoother,” said Sgt 1st Class Christian D. Price, a former enlisted aide, who now serves as the Army enlisted aide and 92G special programs manager, U.S. Army Human Resources Command.
Aides serve in all Army commands worldwide. In recent years the program has been opened up to all military operational specialties, or MOSs.

One of the recruiters I worked with in the late 1990s was formerly an enlisted aide to a three star general. His MOS was 92G, food service specialist. He was a very nice guy, and best of all, he used the skills acquired through the enlisted aide program to cook very wonderful treats for us in the office.

The popular left wing meme is that southern whites are a bunch of racist rednecks that are committed to waving the Confederate flag and keeping the black man down.

The Indiana towns were recruited in were almost exclusively Democrat controlled. This man, one of the kindest, least offensive men I’ve ever met, would drive to work in uniform, every morning. And damn near every morning, he would get pulled over for DWB. Driving While Black. Good job, progressives, with all the smug superiority and racial healing.

It’s always nice to wake up to good news. Friend of the blog Esli has been selected for promotion to Colonel.

Congratulations to him and his splendid bride Faith (herself a veteran as well). Esli has served as an enlisted infantryman, and in a host of leadership positions at the company and battalion levels as an Armor officer, and as an instructor in tactics. He also has a sterling reputation for genuinely caring for his soldiers and their families.

His selection for promotion is an indication that the Army still knows how to promote quality leadership.

Well done, France. The United States would take 4 years to conduct the review process.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

If the embed doesn’t work, here’s the link.

(ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MARYLAND) As originally reported by our friends on The Shadowblog, the US Army has struggled since its founding in 1775 to give Soldiers the kinds of field rations that they really want. But after more than 200 years of trying, the Army thinks it has finally cracked the code.

On Monday, the Army announced that it is expanding its offerings of the field rations known as “Meals Ready to Eat” or MREs, by creating a line that includes things like beer, cigarettes, pornography, and hard liquor. Known as the “Class VI” line of MREs, their arrival is eagerly anticipated by front-line Army troops in places like Afghanistan.

“In the Army, there are ten categories, or ‘classes,’ of supply,” explained Army researcher Dr. Hank Erin. “For example, Class I is food, Class V is ammunition, et cetera. Class VI is ‘personal demand’ items. This can be any number of things, hygiene items, snack food… but to most Soldiers, Class VI means ‘vice’ items, especially alcohol.

via Army Announces New “ Class VI ” MRE; Soldiers Still Complain.