rollin' on dubs
I don’t know what “many of them” means, but I’m sure it’s meant to make us think that millions of gang members are in the military. At the Business Insider link there’s a picture of a 105mm artillery round found in a gang member’s home. What is a gang going to do with an artillery round?
And gang member enlistment doesn’t require a sinister intention. “Many street gang members join the military to escape the gang lifestyle,” says the FBI, while others join at the behest of a court “as an alternative to incarceration."
So how many are we talking about here? How many are good gang members and how many are bad gang members? In fact how many gang members are in the military? The article doesn’t say…they just leave it up to the readers to paint the entire military with a broad brush.
The FBI, like any alphabet agency, is good at writing reports justifying it's budget. This alarm has been sounded since The '90s, we have yet to see any connect to military vets and a large increase in weapons or change in tactics in gangs. Gang violence is up in many large cities, but National Guard Armories are not being broken into, soldiers are not stealing from the military in some huge crime wave.
And while the FBI watches the stupid fanbase of a lame rap group, we've had two terrorist attacks with plenty of warning signs that the FBI missed.
edited 21st Sep '16 7:11:59 AM by TairaMai
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48
No citation here, but putting forth a likely set of scenarios for you:-
Common starting point: Jay or Jacquie Arquebait grows up in a hard neighbourhood with little functioning federal or local government — both of which repeatedly let them down in ways both petty and stunningly horrendous. Yes, they join a gang (because it sucks at home) and enjoy feeling being part of something bigger (because that's one thing gangs do provide — often with other forms of social and financial support both positive and negative). They avoid getting caught in most of the crap they pull, and wisely don't fully disclose that which is not public record to all and sundary (because it's stupid to deliberately torpedo yourself, and Jay-or-Jacquie isn't an idiot, just financially and educationally deprived). This all presents as a recruitment officer's wet dream of a centuries-long established pattern when they do rock up to the bumf, since they've practically got "I can work in groups, will keep my head, won't startle at litter and am not a delicate little hothouse orchid afraid of a little grime and hard work" tattooed on their forehead.
Scenario #1 (most common): They decided to get out of the pit they call home via the military, since they can qualify for it a lot more easily than anything else. They still have a few remaining ties to some of their old gangmates... Because they are the crew they grew up with and were among the better things they had going for them back in the day. But, this means little until their fairly average service ends without too much incident or major injury and they suddenly find they're back to square one in civvie street: suddenly, they're practically alone with only their old, surviving mates to fall back on because who gives a monkey's about vets? Their friends help out when they can and the gang looks out for them when the federal government royally screws them over (again and again), so...
Scenario #2 (very effing common): They decided to try getting out of the pit they call home, but screwed their service up in some way unrelated to old friends. Or got very unlucky. Undiagnosed psychological and behavioural issues and/or medical problems = either a dishonouable or medical discharge for Jay-or-Jacquie. Which screws their employment options right up. But, gangs aren't nearly as picky as grey office blocks of dullness, and they still know a few people... And, ya gots ta eat.
Scenario #3 (probably more common than most like to think): They decided to leave the pit they call home, but somebody they know and love back there gets into deep, deep shit. Helping out an old mate either does or doesn't screw their military career over, but... It's unlikely to be done out of malice to the service, even if it's a stupid, emotionally-driven judgement call following old lines of behaviour. Which could be predicted by any system worth its salt, and therefore planned to divert ahead of time (if it bothered to).
Scenario #4 (probably more common than most like to think): They tried getting out of the pit they call home, but the pit didn't get the hint. Somebody unfriendly out in gangland decided blackmail was the name of the game, and they've got dirt that can wreck Jay-or-Jaquie if it comes to light (see #3). If lucky, they don't get asked to do anything insanely stupid to their service careers if caught. If unlucky... Either way — ganglife isn't through with them in or out of service, even with friends still involved in it (probably because you don't dump crewmates in private problems that could wind up killing them — be they gang or military).
Scenario #5: Insert twirly moustache here, because they decided to be the cardboard Evil Gangster from day one for some Very Insanely Organised Gang With Ten-Year Plans. Most unlikely scenario.
edited 21st Sep '16 7:52:17 AM by Euodiachloris
Well, with a howitzer round, you could make an IED. Or accidentally blow yourself and your whole apartment building up.
I don't think even Detroit is quite to the level of IE Ds capable of knocking out armored vehicles yet though.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
AFP: Posted two but Taira wants to pretend the military is this wonderful thing that totally has no serious problems running amok and that the usual military answer to said problem is to say there isn't one. You know just like saying that rules of engagement and laws of war were deliberately violated when attacking the Kunduz Hospital but is totally not a war crime guys. Never mind I have been posting about this off and on for the past several years. The response from taira is the same now as it was then.
Taira; You can't stand the fact that the facts are actual facts from things that have happened and have been encountered, dealt with, and reported. The reports are based on actual info not someones figments of their imagination something you seem to fervently wish the opposite is true. You even sloppily torpedoed your own argument with those reports. Let me give you a big hint there the FBI is one of the agencies who help deal with the military miscreants especially when they start trying to pedal weapons and munitions. The Gangs are not simply joining "to escape the life" they are doing it for a lot of reasons and increasingly it is to gain access to the military deliberately. No matter how deeply you shove your head in the sand the problem won't go away or the facts are not going to change.
edited 21st Sep '16 9:30:44 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
Cockpit video from an airshow in Finland, starring Finnish Air Force Midnight Hawks.
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
What are those lines on the cockpit glass?
The US Army is designing a new offensive grenade after 40 years
That is right ladies and gents the good old M-67 Grenade has been around that long.
The new grenade will have some sort of method for changing it from blast effect to blast and frag. This will either be an interesting technological technique or it will just be a blast grenade that you can add a fragmentation sleeve to. Oh and it will be properly ambidextrous.
edited 21st Sep '16 5:08:44 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
Detcord. Smashes the canopy when the eject handle is pulled.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
I thought that might be case but I wasn't sure. Good know that is in fact what they are.
Who watches the watchmen?
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
I thought the whole canopy just flew off.
But I guess that's how what's his face died in Top Gun.
Oh really when?
Quick question for the vets here: When the military says a person is being punished by "Forfeiture of Pay" what does that mean, exactly?
Is the person being punished working for free? Or is there something more nuanced depending on context and crime in question?
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
It usually means your pay is being docked to one extent or another and typically additional punishments are part of it. Article 15 of the UCMJ dictates how much pay and for how long you can lose it for Non-Judicial Punishment
More serious amounts of monies may be forfeit and for longer time frames but those require a courts-martial of some sort.See here
edited 21st Sep '16 5:44:32 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Exhibit A of Military Commanders having waaaaaaay too much power.
Jesus Christ.
New Survey coming this weekend!
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Tactical: Not really. You have to do something to have that levied against you and there are clearly defined limits and requirements for each punishment. If anything it more strictly limits what said commanders can do at most. They spell out the max limits and leave lesser punishment at the commanders discretion.
Who watches the watchmen?
rollin' on dubs
Actually, the most that can be taken is two months pay for negligence. In Korea a Warrant Officer steered a radar and it's prime mover into a guard house: $2,000+ in damages. Yeah, the Army got it's money back and he ate at the DFAC for two months. Another time I directly saw a launcher crush the cab of another launch because a SGT said he "thought he could make it and didn't see that someone was in the cab". Yeah, you could her hear scream as the landing leg crumpled the cab of her launcher. Without missing a beat, top shouted to that SGT "You're PAYING FOR THAT!" and he did.
It's not really a "loophole", it's a way to keep idiots from doing stupid shit.
Usually when pay is being taken, someone fucked up bad. It's to keep discipline and tell the soldier "Next time you're going h-o-m-e".
All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48
I thought the US military had insurance/liability for fuck ups like that?
New Survey coming this weekend!
Night Clerk of the Apacalypse.
Nope comes out of the unit maintenance budget.
Ever wonder why an armorer or parts ordering maintainer always looks so pissed when someone fucks up?
Who watches the watchmen?
V
The US Military is self-insured.
Put it in the proper context: A military commander can literally order a troop under their command to die. Not usually, but there are situations where that can and will happen, and it will be the correct order to give.
Result:
And as Star Trek has taught us the sign of a good commander is accepting that one day you will have to give that order and send someone you care about to their death.
"Yup. That tasted purple."
"Marine commanders, like all great warriors, are able to kill that which they love most - their men." —Nathanial Fick, USMC
The law in the night
The fog of politics
After the Brexit vote, the European Union is pushing for more military integration. Its proposals mostly miss the point
TERRORISM, Russian bullying, chaos in the Middle East and the possibility of a President Donald Trump: it is no surprise that the European Union wants to put defence and security at the top of its agenda. As the European Commission’s president, Jean-Claude Juncker, put it in his “State of the Union” speech on September 14th: “Europe needs to toughen up. Nowhere is this truer than in our defence policy.”
Although personally devoted to the federalist vision of a European army, Mr Juncker was careful not to raise its spectre on this occasion. Instead, he rattled off a number of ostensibly more achievable goals, some of which had been floated a few days before in a paper prepared by the French and German defence ministers. It was discussed at last week’s informal summit of European leaders in Bratislava; next week, EU defence ministers will be back there to take the talks further. The goal is to have a set of proposals agreed in time for the next summit in December.
Most of the ideas are fairly old ones to enhance co-operation between the armed forces of willing EU members; they are being dusted off to meet the new mood of anxiety. The proposals include the establishment of a permanent military headquarters to plan and run EU military and civilian missions, such as Operation Sophia, launched last year against migrant-traffickers in the Mediterranean, and Operation Atalanta, an anti-piracy campaign off the coast of Somalia that began in 2008. Up till now, such missions have been run from H Qs in nominated member states.
Britain has long vetoed the idea, worried that it would be expensive, duplicate stuff that NATO is much better equipped to do and unsettle the alliance. Brexit makes the new HQ more probable. NATO seems relaxed, as long as it stays relatively small: say, a few hundred people compared with the 8,500 NATO employs to do this sort of work. Finding the money for even such a modest outfit, though, will not be easy.
Another goal of the Franco-German plan is something called “permanent structured co-operation”, or PESCO. This would allow a core group of countries voluntarily to take steps towards greater integration of their military capabilities. There has been nothing to prevent it being used in the past; Britain could not have stopped it. But the desire to do so has been lacking. Nick Witney, a former head of the European Defence Agency (EDA), which promotes co-operation in acquiring military equipment, remains sceptical of PESCO because it is hard to decide who should join and who should not.
Relations between NATO and the EU, often tense, have recently improved. At the NATO summit in Warsaw this summer, the two organisations issued a joint declaration on how they would work together against new threats such as cyber-attacks, uncontrolled migrant flows and “hybrid warfare” (the mix of conventional force, political subversion and disinformation that helped Russia conquer Crimea). NATO insiders say “the atmospherics are different now” and there is little risk of the EU supplanting NATO.
An idea that deserves a cautious welcome is the creation of an EU fund to finance defence-related research and development. It will start small but the aim is for it to grow to around €3.5 billion ($3.9 billion) within a few years. Again, the problem is not the concept, but getting member states to cough up the money.
Similarly, a new emphasis on “pooling and sharing” military kit, a longstanding aim of the EDA and of NATO, is nice in theory but has proved hard in practice because governments fret about losing control of their forces. Some countries have come together to share aerial-tanker capacity, but pooling and sharing can work only if there is a firm understanding about how such assets will be used in a crisis.
Europe’s biggest shortcoming in defence is not its command structure but its capabilities. Successive American administrations have implored their European allies to stop cutting their military budgets and to spend what money they have on the things that matter. That means modern equipment rather than static divisions, bloated bureaucracies and pork, says Kori Schake, a former Pentagon official now at the Hoover Institution, a think-tank.
In the past year, most European defence budgets have stopped declining. Some are now gently rising. But only a handful of NATO’s European members—Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland—meet the alliance’s 2% of GDP spending target (see chart). If the new push for EU defence acts as a spur to more spending on modern kit, the Americans will be happy; but if it is just posturing, their exasperation will only be reinforced.
Jonathan Eyal of RUSI, a British think-tank, has a different concern. Much of this activity, he believes, is a sign of desperation on the EU’s part that the member state with the most effective armed forces will soon quit the club. But Europe, he says, is having the wrong debate. “The most urgent need,” he says, “is to find a way to keep Britain as integrated in Europe’s defence as possible.”
And Now For Something Completely Different.
Remember when it was possible to commit epic battles to film without any CGI at all?
Something the JSDF as a whole needs to think about now that Abe loosened up their role in the international arena.
One of you says there is no military-related gang problem. The other says there's a rise in military-related gang violence. I say we've got a damned Yeti Epidemic in America. Does anyone have any kind of cite for their claims?