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Jade Helm 15, the multi-state, two-month U.S. Army Special Operations Command training exercise, began today, but the conspiracy theories surrounding it have collectively become a story unto themselves — with wild theories to include FEMA death domes and ice-cream-truck morgues.

The Army calls Jade Helm a standard training operation for unconventional warfare. But some have “connected the dots,” and the military’s true motives remain unstated: to either engage in an occupation or at least prepare for war within the U.S

via Six head-scratching Jade Helm conspiracy theories.

They’ve gotten to WalMart *and* Blue Bell!

Along the lines of the silliness we’re seeing surrounding Jade Helm in Texas and  other places, we’re also see an almost reflexive antagonism to any military training anywhere.

A couple cases from my own roots in the Pacific Northwest. First, just outside NAS Whidbey Island is a small airstrip known as OLF Coupeville. This “Out Lying Field” is used to practice carrier approaches without unduly tying up the traffic pattern around the main air station. Most Naval Air Stations have one or two.

People that buy property in the area have to sign an acknowledgement that they are, in fact, aware that jets will be flying overhead.  And the Navy publishes a schedule of operations well in advance, so people can plan accordingly.  The Navy takes other steps to minimize the disruption loud low flying jets cause.

Of course, that’s not enough for some people. A small group of agitators have made it their goal to ban the Navy from flying from OLF through the federal courts. This, field the Navy has been using since 1943, and been using with much louder jets since 1962.

Similarly, when the Navy announced plans to operate mobile Electronic Warfare simulators on the Olympic Peninsula, people were instantly up in arms about the “radiation” involved. Of course, the Navy isn’t going to be producing deadly ionizing nuclear radiation. They’ll be using radio frequency energy. And still people objected to that, in spite of being blithely unaware of the recently installed weather radar in the same area that has a peak output orders of magnitude greater than the planned mobile emitters.

And currently, the US Army at Joint Base Lewis McChord is seeking input from the public on establishing training areas on public land for its helicopter crews.

Have you ever seen a field after a helicopter has landed on it? You cannot tell that a helicopter has landed on it. Even in a worst case scenario, should a helicopter crash, the Army goes to great effort to ensure that no damage is done to the environment. Seriously, you’ve never seen a more environmentally conscious organization than the Army.

But of course, as MushDogs points out, the urge of NIMBYism is reflexive.

Mind you, these same people don’t turn away a military Search and Rescue helicopter when it comes to hoist them out of the mountains. They just don’t want them to train to operate in the mountains. Note, this isn’t private property we’re discussing here. This is land already owned by the federal government, and airspace that isn’t restricted.

There was a time not very long ago when people might not be very happy about operations like this, but understood it was simply a part of life. Today, however, even the most modest imposition upon them is cause for uproar.

DILLEY, Texas (Tribune News Service) — Jade Helm 15 — a two-month, seven-state Army Special Operations training exercise — is scheduled to start Wednesday, prompting concerns among some residents, especially in Texas, where the governor ordered the state guard to monitor it.

A town hall meeting this spring drew hundreds of residents to one of the training sites in central Texas, where an Army spokesman was inundated with questions from conspiracy theorists who had traveled from across the state. Late Tuesday, the Army released a statement again attempting to allay residents’ fears by clarifying what soldiers will be doing, and where.

via Why some Texans are suspicious of a massive military operation called Jade Helm 15 – U.S. – Stripes.

When we occasionally discuss the civil-military divide in our society today, it’s stuff like this that is our concern. It wasn’t terribly long ago that large scale maneuvers by the Army on both public and private lands were fairly routine. The obvious examples are the Louisiana Maneuvers and the Carolina Maneuvers, massive exercises conducted in those respective states just before our entry into World War II.

Even since then, there have been some fairly large exercises off post. When the Howze Board was designing the future of Army Aviation in the early 1960s, many of its tests took place over vast swaths of the American souteast, and off post.

Even today, residents of Western Washington are quite used to seeing convoys of Army vehicles traveling the public highways enroute from Joint Base Lewis-McChord to Yakima Firing Center, a major maneuver space for the Army.

That some folks are up in arms over the presence of a couple hundred troops in a state that has pretty much the largest number of Army troops based there already is embarrassing.

China commissioned its first semi-submersible logistics ship for the People’s Liberation Army – Navy (PLAN) in a July 10 ceremony at the PLAN’s Zhanjiang Naval Base in Guangdong Province.

Chinese state television reported that the ship, named the Donghaidao (868), has been assigned to the PLAN’s South Sea Fleet. The ship is similar in layout to the U.S. Military Sealift Command Mobile Landing Platform (MLP), although the Donghaidao is significantly smaller. The Chinese media listed the ship as measuring 576 feet long with a beam of 106 feet, compared to a 785-foot length and 164-foot beam for the MLP. PLAN’s version of the ship has a fully loaded displacement of 20,000 tons, compared to 78,000 tons for the American ship.

via China Commissions First MLP-Like Logistics Ship, Headed For South Sea Fleet – USNI News.

One wonders if they’ll also build a variant similar to the Afloat Forward Staging Base variant of the MLP.

Japan is now officially set to become the first foreign operator of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey after signing a $332 million contract for five of the tiltrotor aircraft.

The foreign military sale – announced on 14 July by the US Department of Defense – is likely to lead to follow-on orders.

The US State Department notified Congress in May that Japan had requested a purchase of up to 17 V-22B Block C aircraft worth $3 billion, which agrees with Tokyo’s latest five-year budget plan.

For Bell Boeing, the deal consummates a decade-long quest to confirm an export customer for the tiltrotor. Israel had appeared poised to become the first foreign operator only a year ago, but the country’s defence minister shelved the acquisition of six V-22s last October.

via Japan becomes first V-22 export customer – 7/14/2015 – Flight Global.

Spill tipped me to this yesterday. It’s a good thing for Bell. They have contracts through 2017 to build V-22s for the Marines and the Air Force. When those are complete, the Air Force will have accepted 50 and the Marines all but 24 of their planned 360 aircraft. It’s a near certainty that a new contract will be let for the remaining 24, plus a planned buy of 24 for the US Navy, which plans to use it in the carrier on board delivery role.

It’s unclear how many V-22s Japan might ultimately buy and if they will pursue a license production agreement as they have with so many other aircraft buys.

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SAN DIEGO – Firefighters knocked down a 3-alarm fire aboard the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum Wednesday morning, according to San Diego Fire.

The fire broke out sometime around 5:30 a.m. and crews arrived shortly thereafter. Media reports indicated that the fire may have been sparked by a welder below the flight deck.

via Firefighters douse blaze aboard USS Midway | FOX5 San Diego – San Diego news, weather, traffic, sports from KSWB.

Oh no! The Midway Museum is utterly fantastic, one of the best in the world. They have been steadily opening more and more of the ship to tourists. Let’s hope the damage was minimal.

EXCLUSIVE: Universal Pictures just completed an option on House to House, the memoir of U.S. Army staff sergeant David Bellavia’s harrowing experience in the Second Battle Of Fallulah. The studio, which bought it for Imagine Entertainment, knew just the writer who’d bring an inherent understanding of the subject matter. Universal has set Max Adams, who just turned in a draft to the studio of The Risk Agent, a thriller vehicle for Vince Vaughn. Adams also spent 11 years serving his country in the U.S. Army, an enlisted M-3 Gustav gunner and team leader in the 1st Ranger Battalion who as a young lieutenant led soldiers in combat during the initial ground invasion of the Iraq War. He was discharged in 2006 and just produced the Robert De Niro-starrer Bus 657, and produced and directed the Bruce Willis starrer Precious Cargo.

via Ex-Army Gunner Max Adams To Adapt Fallujah Memoir ‘House To House’ For Universal | Deadline.

Bellavia’s book was a gut wrenching read, one of the first to be published by a grunt about the war in Iraq. If the movie stays true to the book, it will be a moving experience. Our Army loves to use high technology to solve problems. But some problems don’t lend themselves to technology. That’s where training and fortitude come in. And Bellavia’s fight in Fallujah was as up close and personal as any through the ages.

H/T