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Charleston Man Scammed VA for 200K in Benefits, Never Served in the Military

In a bizarre case, a Charleston man who never served in the military has been arrested after he scammed the VA for nearly $200,000 in medical benefits by claiming he fought in Vietnam and was awarded two Purple Hearts.

And this isn’t the first time that he’s been caught doing so according to federal prosecutors and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Keith Hudson, 70, pleaded guilty to health care fraud in U.S. District Court this week. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for the scam, which marked the second time authorities said he has posed as a U.S. Navy veteran for benefits.
Hudson was suspected of carrying out a similar scheme in Connecticut where he received medical care at VA facilities from 2003 until authorities caught on about two years later, according to federal court records. He was placed in a pretrial diversion program.
In the latest case, Hudson received more than $197,000 in benefits after applying to the VA in Charleston in 2015.
Prosecutors said he went as far as to make up the name of a medal he claimed he received.
An investigation by the Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General revealed Hudson submitted a forged Department of Defense separation from active duty document — the same falsified form that he used in the Connecticut case.
He said he saw combat as a medic and suffered wounds and other trauma when he served from August 1967 through October 1971. Hudson said he received two Purple Heart medals but the citation on the document was inaccurate.
The form also claimed Hudson received the Fleet Marine Force Medal with Marine Device, but no such medal exists. He said he received a Combat Medical Badge, but that award is only given for service in the U.S. Army.
The document had a stamp from the Alaska State Defense Force, which investigators said was suspicious because the force is a volunteer group and not an official military organization.
Additionally, the typeset of the Social Security number on Hudson’s form was different than the rest of the document.
Employment and fingerprint records from the time frame Hudson said he was in the Navy showed he worked a variety of jobs in New York and Maine.

With the massive influx of veterans having fought in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and other places, the number of fraudulent VA claims is skyrocketing. In just a six-month period of 2017, federal authorities have made over 80 arrests and recovered $2.9 million dollars in fines, restitution, and penalties for fraudulent VA claims.

Those numbers are more than double what was recovered 10 years ago

To read the entire article from The Post and Courier, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

On This Day in 1963, JFK Gives His Best Anti-Communism Speech in Berlin

President Kennedy gave one of his best speeches and easily the best Cold War anti-communist speech of the time. West Berlin’s civilian population feared a Soviet/East German occupation and Kennedy’s speech in front of 450,000 was aimed at not just the German people but sent a message to the Soviets about United States policy as well. The German people would not face this threat alone.

In June of 1963, the Cold War was running very hot. The United States and the Soviet Union were at loggerheads at every turn and nowhere was the tensions higher than in Berlin. The Soviets attempted to blockade the city in 1948 but the US relieved the city by use of the Berlin Airlift as with other NATO air forces, they kept the city supplied for 15 months. In 1961, the communist puppet state of East Germany erected a wall around the city of West Berlin, supposedly to keep spies and agents of West Germany from crossing over, but in reality, it was to stop the mass migration of the German people from escaping to the West.

Much like North Korea today, (at least a few months ago), many people thought that if a nuclear war was to start, it would be because of events in Berlin.

In 1963, Germany was still rebuilding itself after being nearly completely destroyed in World War II. The West was much farther along than their Eastern brethren who living under the communist system were still living in what resembled a shelled out apocalyptic ruin. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev tried to test the young President in 1961 when he threatened to sign a treaty with East Germany which would limit the West’s access to Berlin. Kennedy responded with a television address to the nation stating that an attack on the people of West Berlin, would be viewed as an attack on the United States, and announced a military buildup.

And after the communists showed their true colors by walling and machine-gunning their own people in, lest they all escape the “worker’s paradise”, Kennedy had struck a chord with the people in West Germany. But after he arrived in Germany in 1963, the people struck a chord with him. A generation ago, these people were the faceless enemy that our troops faced in the killing fields of Europe, North Africa and over the skies of both. Now they were friends and allies and they yearned to be free.

Kennedy arrived in West Berlin and his speech that he was to give was described as “awful.” It was supposed to show the U.S. solidarity with West Berlin without overly tweaking the Communists on the other side of the wall. He usually relied upon some talented speech writers but they swung and missed on this one.

So Kennedy re-wrote it himself, and he decided to use a page from a speech he gave in New Orleans in 1962. In it, he used the phrase civis Romanus sum by saying “Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was to say, “I am a citizen of Rome.” Today, I believe, in 1962 the proudest boast is to say, “I am a citizen of the United States.” Kennedy changed the second part to say, “Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’ ”

Although the Berliner phrase had been in the works for a few weeks, Kennedy, who had a real struggle with foreign languages, jotted down the phonetic spelling of the phrase so he would get it right. Ish bin ein Bear-leen-er.

Now in front of 450,000 people, Kennedy decided to not pussy-foot around the Soviets and communism. Instead, he went right after them and how difficult it was to live under their system.

There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the communist world. Let them come to Berlin … There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin … And there are even a few who say that it’s true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lasst sie nach Berlin kommen— let them come to Berlin!

In a lighthearted touch, he publicly thanked his interpreter for clarifying his German, which the interpreter translated as well, getting a chuckle from the people as well as the President. But then he took a clear shot at the East Germans and Soviets, as he blasted the communist system of walling their people in.

“Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect,” he stated, “but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.”
Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe.

Kennedy finished with a flourish, as he linked the cause of the people of West Berlin with freedom-loving people around the world. “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words Ich bin ein Berliner.” He received raucous applause.

The Soviets were furious at the “Let them come to Berlin” line. Only a few weeks prior Kennedy had struck more of a conciliatory tone with Moscow and after this speech, Khrushchev would say “one would think that the speeches were made by two different Presidents.”

President Reagan would later evoke the same sentiment as JFK when making a speech about Berlin in the 1980s and said, General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

Jelly Doughnut reference: There has always been the urban legend Kennedy made an embarrassing mistake by saying Ich bin ein Berliner. By not leaving out the indefinite article “ein,” he supposedly changed the meaning of the sentence from the intended “I am a citizen of Berlin” to “I am a Berliner” which is a jelly doughnut.

But by saying Ich bin Berliner, Kennedy would have been saying he was a native-born Berliner. The people understood what he meant. See the video below.

Photo: Wikipedia, video US Air Force

On This Day, in 1876, Custer and the 7th Cavalry Are Wiped Out at the Little Bighorn

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought on June 25, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, was a tremendous catastrophe for the U.S. Army. There, the troops of the 7th Cavalry led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer attacked a much larger band of Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors.

Ever since the discovery of gold on Native American lands, the U.S.was increasingly infringing on Indian territory. President Grant tried to buy the land from the Indians, but they considered that land sacred and refused. Thus Grant dispatched the troops and ordered the tribes to reservations. When the Indian tribes balked, Custer and other units were dispatched to confront them. Custer and the 7th Cav. unaware of the number of Indians fighting under Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Gall at the Little Bighorn, was annihilated in what became known as Custer’s Last Stand.

Background: In 1875 gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Although that was Native American land, as the valley of the Little Bighorn rests in the middle of the Crow Indian Reservation that was given to the Indians on May 7, 1868, the U.S. government repeatedly made attempts to take it.

The Plains Indians called the area “Greasy Grass” and would forever call the upcoming fight, the Battle of Greasy Grass.

While the Plains Indians were gathering for the traditional annual Sun Dance ceremony where they pray and make personal vows, the Army was deploying troops in what they described as a three-pronged approach to force the Indians back to a reservation. Unbeknownst to the troopers, there were 6000-7000 Indians encamped.

The Army troops consisted of six companies of the 7th Infantry and four companies of the 2nd Cavalry under the command of Colonel John Gibbon. They were traveling east from western Montana with orders to patrol the Yellowstone River.

Brigadier General George Crook commanded 10 companies of the 3rd Cavalry, five companies of the 2nd Cavalry, two companies of the 4th Infantry, as well as three companies of the 9th Infantry. His troops moved north from Fort Fetterman in the Wyoming Territory and marched toward the Powder River area.

Brigadier General Alfred Terry commanded a column, including 12 companies of the 7th Cavalry under LTC George Custer, two companies of the 17th U.S. Infantry, and the Gatling gun detachment of the 20th Infantry. They moved westward from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory.

Terry’s column was accompanied by teamsters and packers with 150 wagons and a large contingent of pack mules that reinforced Custer. Three companies of the 6th U.S. Infantry moved along the Yellowstone River from Fort Buford on the Missouri River to set up a supply depot and joined Terry at the mouth of the Powder River. A further 200 tons of supplies were sent up the river by steamboat from Fort Lincoln.

Of Custer’s 718 men, about 139 were raw recruits with little training, mainly immigrants from Europe. Few had any combat or plains experience. Archaeologists later uncovered evidence that many of these new troopers were malnourished and in poor physical condition, despite being the best-equipped and supplied regiment in the Army at that time.

When Crook’s column reached the Rosebud, they were surprised at the sheer number of the Indians present. And although Crook held the field at the end of the day, he felt it necessary to pull his men back, regroup and wait for reinforcements.

The troops of Gibbon and Terry were unaware of what transpired with Crook and they affected a linkup and were proceeding with the plan to converge on the Little Bighorn between 26-27 June with the aim of surrounding the camped Native Americans.

Terry ordered Custer and his 600 men to conduct a reconnaissance in force along the Rosebud and was given leeway to depart from orders if the situation warranted it. He was offered the use of the Gatling guns but declined, believing it would slow down his command.

Movement to the Little Bighorn: Custer met with his Indian scouts on the early morning of the 25th and they reported a massive pony herd that signified a major Indian encampment, although they couldn’t find it. Custer joined them in a reconnaissance but once again that proved fruitless.

It was then the scouts found evidence that Indians had come across the cavalry’s trail. Assuming his presence had been discovered and unaware that the Indians who found his trail were leaving the encampment and did not alert the remainder, Custer decided to forego the planned attack on the 26th and attack immediately.

Custer divided his command into three small battalions, with three companies (A, G, M) put under the command of Major Marcus Reno, three others (H, D, and K) under Captain Frederick Benteen while company B under Captain Thomas McDougall was ordered to accompany the pack train. The remaining five companies, (C, E, F, I, and L) remained under Custer’s command.

Custer’s scouts, especially Mitch Bouyer, whom Custer requested for by name prior to the battle tried to warn him of the size of the Indian encampment. Bouyer told him, “General, I have been with these Indians for 30 years, and this is the largest village I have ever heard of.” But his complaints fell on deaf ears. Bouyer then reportedly gave away his possessions, convinced he would die that day. Sitting Bull reportedly offered 100 ponies for the head of Bouyer.

Custer was operating under the assumption that the Indians would have no more than 800 braves in the fight, but their numbers were close to three times that, around 2000. And contrary to the myth, he was more concerned with the Indians scattering into small groups than he was in fighting them.

His plan was to engage the non-combatants in the Indian village and take them, prisoner, therefore compelling the braves to surrender rather than fire on their own people. It was a strategy that Custer himself wrote in his book, “My Life on the Plains”, published just two years before his death at the Little Bighorn.

Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger…For this reason I decided to locate our camp as close as convenient to [Chief Black Kettle’s Cheyenne] village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children, and their necessary exposure in case of conflict, would operate as a powerful argument in favor of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.

Custer attempted to do just that and cross the river to a point where he could move among the women and children to capture them but a strong force of braves cut off his advance and pushed him back to what has been called, “Custer’s Ridge.”

Battle and Massacre: The entire battle was over in less than two hours. By 3:15 in the afternoon, Major Reno was given the order to attack. His troops crossed the Little Bighorn at the mouth of a creek (Reno Creek) and found to his surprise that the Sioux and Cheyenne braves weren’t running away.

His troops dashed across an open field and skirted a woodline that hid the Indian encampment. When they arrived in the open, the scope of what lay before them startled him and he ordered the men to halt and form a skirmish line which was standard cavalry doctrine. Every 4th trooper would hold the horses for the first three which cut Renos firepower by 25 percent. They began to fire into the village killing several villagers including the family of the Chief Gall.

But about 500 braves massed and attacked his exposed flank which quickly forced him back to a position in the woods along a bend of the river. The Indians set fire to the brush to force the troopers out. Reno then led a disorganized rout across the river and onto the bluffs there. He left behind about 50 men either dead or missing.

Reno’s men were quickly joined by CPT Benteen’s three companies who were summoned by Custer who scribbled a quick note, “Benteen. Come on, Big Village, Be quick, Bring packs. P.S. Bring Packs.” They were also joined by CPT McDougal and the pack train. Their timely arrival saved Reno and the remnants of his troopers from certain annihilation. The 354 officers and men began digging in and preparing a defense at the top of the bluffs.

At around 4:20 p.m. they heard large volumes of fire emanating from where Custer was located. Benteen opted to remain with Reno’s men than make his way to Custer which he was later highly criticized for. Around 5:00 p.m. a single company, (Co. D) under CPT Thomas Weir was sent to make contact with Custer.

They had only gone a short distance when they observed Indians shooting at objects on the ground. This was around 5:25 p.m. and this was a standard Indian practice of shooting the dead and wounded, finishing them off.

Custer’s troops had engaged the Indians about 3.5 miles from Reno’s position. That was about 4:15 p.m. The pattern that emerged was that Custer and his men attacked and were then were stopped cold by the Indian braves. Once the warriors amassed enough men, the Army troopers would beat a hasty retreat and attempt to hold a defensive position.

Custer’s men held a line from Calhoun Hill along the backbone to Custer Hill, a distance of a little over half a mile. They didn’t make one stand but several, Indian survivors would say the number was five. It was a running fight where the cavalry troopers collapsed along the ridgeline back to the hill where Custer was located.

As the Indians swarmed up the hill, they were bolstered by the arrival of Crazy Horse and his mounted warriors who it seemed was impervious to bullets. Custer’s men attempted a final stand and used dead horses as breastworks.

A few troopers made a break for the river and a few others threw up their hands attempting to surrender. None made it. The Indians didn’t take prisoners other than women and children. “We circled all round them,” one Indian survivor named Two Moons said, “swirling like water round a stone.”

The warriors were joined by women and children from the village. There they stripped the dead of all their clothes and mutilated the bodies, cutting off arms, legs, and heads. In the Sioux beliefs, the dead would be forced to walk the afterlife as they died.

Custer had suffered two fatal wounds, one rifle shot to his left chest and another to his left temple. One Indian legend has it that he was not mutilated and the Sioux were stopped from doing so by Cheyenne women. From the Smithsonian magazine:

They recognized Custer from the Battle of the Washita in 1868, and had seen him up close the following spring when he had come to make peace with Stone Forehead and smoked with the chiefs in the lodge of the Arrow Keeper. There Custer had promised never again to fight the Cheyennes, and Stone Forehead, to hold him to his promise, had emptied the ashes from the pipe onto Custer’s boots while the general, all unknowing, sat directly beneath the Sacred Arrows that pledged him to tell the truth.

It was said that these two women were relatives of Mo-nah-se-tah, a Cheyenne girl whose father Custer’s men had killed at the Washita. Many believed that Mo-nah-se-tah had been Custer’s lover for a time. No matter how brief, this would have been considered a marriage according to Indian custom. On the hill at the Little Bighorn, it was told, the two southern Cheyenne women stopped some Sioux men who were going to cut up Custer’s body. “He is a relative of ours,” they said. The Sioux men went away.

Every Cheyenne woman routinely carried a sewing awl in a leather sheath decorated with beads or porcupine quills. The awl was used daily, for sewing clothing or lodge covers, and perhaps most frequently for keeping moccasins in repair. Now the southern Cheyenne women took their awls and pushed them deep into the ears of the man they believed to be Custer. He had not listened to Stone Forehead, they said. He had broken his promise not to fight the Cheyenne anymore. Now, they said, his hearing would be improved.

The remaining Indians attacked the combined forces of Reno and Benteen until around 9:00 p.m. that night and most of the next day. The troopers held but lost another 50 men dead and about 60 wounded. The arrival on the 27th of General Terry forced the Indians to withdraw.

Aftermath: There have been numerous accounts of the battle since 1876. None of Custer’s men survived but surviving Indian accounts of the battle state that the troopers fared well and maintained their unit integrity until the arrival of Crazy Horses mounted warriors and then panic broke out among the troopers.

Custer has been both lionized and criticized for his actions that day as has been Major Reno and Captain Benteen. Custer’s widow Elizabeth Bacon Custer, “Libby” remained a widow and never remarried. She lived until 1933 and was fiercely protective of her husband’s legacy.

Photos/Illustrations: Wikipedia

SpaceX Wins $130 Million Air Force Contract For Falcon Heavy Rocket

The U.S. Air Force Space Command has awarded SpaceX a $130 million-dollar contract for the Falcon Heavy Rocket which the service will use to launch Air Force Space Command (AFSPC)-52 satellite. This was the first large classified military contract for the company.

The Falcon Heavy beat United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 in a competition under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. The launch will take place at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

The Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles announced the contract award on Thursday. SMC Commander Lt. Gen. John Thompson said this was “another opportunity to foster competition on the EELV program in an effort to reduce launch costs while maintaining assured access to space.”

This is the fifth competitive procurement under the current Phase 1A of the EELV program since SpaceX entered the market to challenge ULA. The $130 million award for the Falcon Heavy launch is considerably lower than the average $350 million price tag for Delta 4 launches.

AFSPC-52 is a classified mission projected to launch in late Fiscal Year 2020.

SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement that the company is “honored by the Air Force’s selection of Falcon Heavy to launch the competitively-awarded AFSPC-52 mission.” She said the contract award indicates the military’s “trust and confidence” in the company.

Falcon Heavy also in on track to launch the U.S. Air Force’s STP-2 technology demonstration mission, currently scheduled for October.

The Air Force released the solicitation of the AFSPC-52 mission September 28 and proposals were due October 30.

The Air Force’s Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch Jr., the military deputy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, stated that he’s confident the cost of military launches will continue to go down, citing competition and the commercial demand.

To read the entire article from Space News.com, click here:

Photo courtesy SpaceX

Opioid Abuse Way Down Among Service Members and Veterans

The Pentagon’s reforms that it installed to lower opioid use and abuse in its ranks is working two top service health officials told Congress. While the country is in the midst of a drug abuse epidemic across the nation, the use of opioids in the military has gone way down.

Less than 1 percent of active-duty servicemembers are abusing or addicted to opioids and its rate of deadly overdoses is a quarter of the national average, Vice Adm. Raquel C. Bono, director of the Defense Health Agency, told a House panel Wednesday.
This, as military prescriptions for opioids, has fallen 15 percent as alternative forms of treatment are increasingly explored, said Capt. Mike Colston, director of mental health policy and oversight for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. Opioids use by active-duty servicemembers has declined from 3.2 percent to 2.7 percent during the last year, he said.
“This crisis is touching the lives of so many of our fellow citizens and the department is committed to playing its part to help combat the epidemic and ensure our patients receive the finest care we can provide,” Bono told the House Armed Services Committee on military personnel issues. The Defense Department “is making headway, but there is more to be done.”
The majority of long-term opioid patients – 83 percent – are older than 45 years old, most likely to be a retiree or a relative of one and they seek care outside military hospitals and clinics, Bono said.
Reforms yet to be implemented will help address the continuing crisis, she added.
For example, in December, the Defense Department will enter into a new phase of transparency regarding opioid use among its ranks through a joint reporting effort with state Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, or PDMPs. That will create new, additional safeguards for catching people who might be abusing or are addicted to the drug.

The use of alternative medications and other programs is worth pursuing and the military continues to lead the way in that regard. There is a long, long way to go but it is a step in the right direction.

To read the entire article from Stars and Stripes, click here:

Photo courtesy US Army

On This Date, in1941, Operation Barbarossa, Germany Invades USSR

“When the attack on Russia starts, the world will hold its breath” Hitler

In June of 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. The Germans had the largest invasion force in history with about 4 million men in the attacking force. They attacked along a 2900 mile front, with about 600,000 vehicles and another 600,000 horses.

The initially obliterated the unprepared Soviet Red Army and took nearly 5,000,000 prisoners, most of whom never lived thru captivity. Nearly 3.3 million Russian prisoners died in captivity under the German rule, who regarded them as lesser human beings.

And when the Germans did attack, Josef Stalin was in a quandary of his own making. He had purged the Red Army in the late 1930s of nearly every effective leader in the military. Between 1937-39, Stalin obliterated his own High Command to preserve his own hold on power. The Soviet High Command did not owe their positions of power to Stalin, therefore they must be removed. And that he did. Three out of five Marshals, 11 deputy commissars of defense, 13 of 15 Army commanders and every military district commander including all of the naval and air force commanders were shot or disappeared without a trace.

Combined with a modernization program that wasn’t yet completed, the Soviet Union couldn’t have been more unprepared for war with Germany as she was in June 1941. The old cavalry officers ran the army, they had aligned themselves with Stalin during the Revolution and now enjoyed favored status. Discipline was rigid, harsh and based on fear. So, the key of any military force, initiative, suffered mightily. Absolute adherence to orders was the rule of the day.

Yet the Red Army was massive. In June of 1941, they had 151 rifle divisions, 32 cavalry divisions, 38 mechanized brigades and a fleet of 12,000 aircraft. The navy consisted of four fleets and three flotillas.

One area that Red Army was quickly modernizing in was their armament industries. They had the year before begun fielding, albeit in very few numbers the very good KV-1 and the outstanding T-34. Both fielded 76mm guns and were easily a match for anything the Germans would throw at them in the summer of 1941. In the air, the Soviets began building the excellent ground-attack aircraft, the IL-2, the “Sturmovik”.

For the Germans, the pact with the Soviets was always seen as temporary and one of convenience. Hitler had never wavered from his belief that the “Russians would have to be dealt with” when discussing it with his generals. The summer of 1940, the time was ripe but for the holdout of Great Britain,

The German blitzkrieg has smashed the armies of the French, Belgians, and Dutch as well as the British Expeditionary Force. But instead of suing for peace, Britain was fiercely holding out and that would throw his plans into a holding pattern. But the plans, which took many months were finalized and the troops slowly eased into position for the attack which was to begin at 0300 on Sunday, June 22, 1941.

Barbarossa: June 22, the longest day of the year, where the Germans attacked from the Baltic to the Carpathians and absolutely stunned the Russians who were taken completely by surprise. The German troops consisted of three major army groups. Army Group North under Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb, Army Group Center under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, and Army Group South Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.

In the German Army Group Center, progress was very quick. The Russians had no cohesion or organized defenses. Most of the bridges over the Bug River were captured intact. The Germans were surprised by the lack of the Russian preparedness.

The massive fortress at Brest Litovsk was taken by June 26. The Luftwaffe, conducted early air raids of the Russian airfields inflicted horrible losses on the Red air force and had air superiority over the battlefield.

The Germans had surrounded a huge pocket of Soviet troops around Minsk. It took until July 9 to clear the pocket but by then, Army Group Center had destroyed 22 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry divisions, seven armored divisions and six motorized brigades. The Germans also captured 2500 tanks, 1400 guns, 250 aircraft and 300,000 men.

The Russian bombers far from the frontier had escaped the early German raids and in accordance with their rigid doctrine took off for the front where they were savaged by the German fighters. Over 500 were shot down. In the first two days of fighting, the Russians lost 2000 aircraft.

In Army Group North, the Germans moved around Leningrad and determined to take it to stop the Soviet fleet, they were stopped and were forced to lay siege to it. It would prove to be a very long and bloody one on both sides.

Drive to Kiev, Army Group South’s Offensive in Ukraine: As the German armies smashed across the endless steppes, Hitler switched the focus from the drive on Moscow, despite the insistence of his generals, to the wheatfields and industries of Ukraine. The battle of Kiev was the largest disaster in the history of the Red Army and yet when the battle was over, the Red Army was still intact and remarkably getting stronger.

With half of Army Group Center swinging around Kiev, Army Group Center moved out from their bridgehead across the Dniepr. It took until September 16 to encircle the Red Army forces around Kiev, but once they did, they hammered the Russians with tanks, artillery, and air attacks.

The vicious fighting left the Soviet troop concentrations smashed. The Germans took nearly a quarter of a million prisoners. Total losses for the Red Army were 452,720 men and 3,867 artillery pieces. After Kiev, the Germans moved into the Crimea where the Soviets counter-attacked with the 9th and 18th Armies. The Germans encircled them and annihilated both. The Red Army lost another 106,332 men captured, 212 tanks destroyed or captured in the pocket alone as well as 766 artillery pieces of all types. The death or capture of two-thirds of all Southern Front troops in four days caused the collapse of the Soviet left flank. This allowed the Germans to capture Kharkov on October 24.

Germans Close on Moscow: Despite the horrendous losses, the Russians still had 83 divisions in the defense of Moscow. But only about a quarter of them were effective fighting forces.

The Germans once again encircled four Soviet armies around Vyazma, the 19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd Armies. And the disastrous results continued. Another 500,000 men taken prisoner. This left Stalin with just 90,000 men and 150 tanks to defend Moscow.

But the Russian weather began to smile on them, in October the rains came and turned the roads into seas of mud. The German tanks with their narrow tracks had trouble navigating the morass but the wider tracked T-34s were able to maneuver easily. This coupled with the German supply lines, stretched to the limit across the vast areas of the Soviet Union was slowing down the advance.

This caused the Germans to halt the advance in order to reorganize. This brief respite was a welcome one to the Soviets. Their intelligence confirmed that the Soviets had nothing to fear from the Japanese on their eastern borders, so they shipped 30 fresh divisions from Siberia to the defense of Moscow. They also added 1000 tanks and 1000 aircraft.

When the ground hardened due to the arrival of cold weather in November, the Germans renewed their attack. They crossed the Moscow canal in an attempt to encircle the city. German reconnaissance elements got within 15 miles of Moscow where they claimed they could see the spires of the Kremlin in the distance.

Another German advance recon unit captured Khimki and a bridge over the Moscow-Volga Canal, just 5 miles from the city. That would be as close as the Germans would get. The first blizzards then hit. The Germans were ill-prepared for winter, the bad weather grounded the Luftwaffe and the stretched supply lines limited any offensive action the Wehrmacht attempted.

Fresh troops poured into the Soviet sector from the east. Their troop strength had swelled to 500,000 men. They launched a massive counter-attack during the Soviet Winter Counter-Offensive. The combination of the winter weather,, stretched supply lines and the fresh troops which it seemed the Red Army had an endless supply, turned the tide. The Red Army pushed the Germans back 100-250 km back from Moscow. The Battle for Moscow was a Soviet victory.

The hope for a quick victory over the Soviet Union was dashed. The Germans lost 830,000 men since the invasion. They were now locked in a battle of attrition with a foe with a seemingly limitless supply of men and material.

Hitler then committed a complete blunder by declaring war on the United States shortly after Pearl Harbor. Now America’s industrial might would be facing the Germans on the Western Front while the Soviets would push them from the east. It was a battle they could not win, as time would play it out.

Photos: Wikipedia

For a detailed account of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, I highly recommend the book, “Barbarossa, The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-1945” by Alan Clark

Military Asked to Provide 20,000 Beds for Detained Immigrant Children

The U.S. military has been asked to prepare to house up to 20,000 immigrant children, officials said on Thursday.

The request by the Department of Health and Human Services aims to provide temporary beds for up to 20,000 undocumented children at U.S military bases. That bed space would be needed beginning in July and running through the end of the year.

Officials tell NPR that four bases are expected to provide space, including the Army’s Fort Bliss base in El Paso, Texas. It’s uncertain if there would be enough barracks space, so officials say that tents likely would have to be put up.
It’s unclear whether the space could be used for the family detention ordered this week by the Trump administration; the Department of Health and Human Services only handles detained children — separated from their parents or unaccompanied — while the adults are held by the Department of Homeland Security.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is being asked to provide 21 attorneys — most of them military officers — to help the Department of Justice to prosecute undocumented immigrant cases in California, Texas, Arizona and New Mexico.

President Trump’s administration has been under fire for separating children from their parents who crossed the border illegally.

However, on Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order stating that families should be kept together in detention during any immigration hearings.

On Wednesday, First Lady Melania Trump made an unannounced visit with detained children in McAllen, Texas. Out of earshot, she quietly urged officials to reunite children with their parents.

To read the entire article from NPR, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Neo-Nazi Marine Vasillios Pistolis Found Guilty at Court Martial

An active-duty marine who was a member and marched alongside neo-Nazis last August in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., has been found guilty in a summary court-martial after he reportedly bragged online about participating in the violence that occurred during the march.

On the second day of the protests and rioting, a man drove his car into a crowd of people, killing one and injuring 19 others.

Lance Cpl. Vasillios Pistolis on Monday was convicted on charges of failing to obey an order of regulation and making a false official statement under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the 2nd Marine Logistics Group said in a statement.

Pistolis, a water support technician was sentenced to 28 days of confinement, demoted two ranks to PVT E-1, and will lose two-thirds of a month’s pay. It is believed the Marine Corps will also separate him from the service as well once his confinement is complete.

Pistolis has seven days to submit a request for clemency to the convening officer, the Marines said.

This comes on the heels of the Army giving an other than honorable discharge to Spenser Rapone, the Communist Lieutenant who came to the attention of Army authorities when he posted pictures of his graduation from West Point wearing a Che Guevara shirt under his service blouse and another with a message scrawled in his hat stating “Communism will win.”

All of the armed services have regulations barring members from participating in racial extremist groups. Pistolis is assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics group, which operates from Camp Lejeune, NC.

Pistolis was involved with two of the most violent Neo-Fascist groups in the Atomwaffen Division and the Traditionalist Workers Party. And his own words showed how active he was in the rioting in Charlottesville.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Atomwaffen Division is a neo-Nazi organization “whose members are preparing for a race war to combat what they consider the cultural and racial displacement of the white race.”

In articles initially posted by ProPublica, Pistolis made multiple posts to online chat forums under the screen name VasillistheGreek before the event encouraging other Atomwaffen members to get vicious with any of counter-protesters there even to the point of sodomizing one of them with a knife. He claimed he was prepared to even kill, “if shit goes down.”

After the rioting, he returned bragging to social media about his fighting prowess during the fighting there, despite many of the other Atomwaffen Division members telling him not to. Pistolis wrote the day after the event, “Today cracked open 3 skulls with virtually no damage to myself.”

Photographs taken at the event show Pistolis hitting a counter-protester over the head with a wooden flagpole. He later posted a picture of a bloody Confederate flag and bragged, “not my blood” on the same social media chat forums.

He also claimed to assault a well-known transwoman from Charlottesville Emily Gorcenski who was there to counter-protest the Neo-Fascists that day and continued his bragging that he had “dropkicked that tranny” during the rally and resultant riot.

As soon as investigative reporters tracked him down and asked for quotes or interviews, Pistolis began removing his digital footprint, He took down his Twitter account, and deleted his Gab account, the online chat forum the groups had been using. He told media members that his posts were a joke, nothing more and that he didn’t assault Gorcenski or anyone else. Furthermore, he claimed that he wasn’t even at Charlottesville that weekend.

However, Gorcenski identified Pistolis as the man who kicked her at the rioting.

And unaware of how precedence works in similar cases, Gorcenski tweeted that the Marine Corps was allowing a Nazi to remain in the Corps.

Pistolis admitted to having “alt-right” or white supremacist beliefs but claimed that he was never a member of the Atomwaffen, instead, he claimed, that he only infiltrated the group at the behest of another group.

At the time of the Marine Corps’ investigation into Pistolis’ behavior, the DOD released a statement saying that local commanders have to take action if needed.

“What we’re doing is empowering commanders at every level to counsel service members on their conduct, and take disciplinary action where appropriate,” Major Carla Gleason, an Air Force DOD spokesperson said.

“We do recognize the right to free speech and thought,” said Gleason. But, she added, the Department of Defense insists that service members observe the military’s policies prohibiting discrimination and extremist behavior.

In addition to Pistolis, two other Marines were arrested in May 2017 for flying a white supremacist banner at a pro-Confederate rally in North Carolina..

The Marine Corps stated that one of those Marines, Sgt. Michael Chesny has been administratively separated from the service in April, while the other, Staff Sgt. Joseph Manning was discharged last December.

There were also several either active or former Army members present at Charlottesville. It is unknown at this time how the Army will investigate any active members in the rioting there.

Photos: Wikipedia picture of Pistolis by Samuel Corum, Twitter

Veterans Twice as Likely To Die By Suicide as Civilians

The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday released its latest report on Suicides and the results, while shocking is not quite unexpected. As we have known of the veteran suicide rate for some time, however, veterans are twice as likely to die by suicide as civilians.

Veterans make up more than 14 percent of all suicides, although they account for only 8 percent of the total population, the VA report said.

While the trend hasn’t changed since 2014, deaths by suicide are increasing among veterans just as they are in the general population, the VA found. Data for the study was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Death Index.

“After adjusting for differences in age, the rate of suicide in 2015 was 2.1 times higher among veterans compared with nonveteran adults,” the report reads. Data for 2015 was the latest complete set of numbers available.

The rate was 1.3 times higher for male veterans compared with civilians and twice as high for female vets, the report found.

“In 2015, an average of 20.6 active-duty service members, nonactivated Guard or Reserve members, and other veterans died by suicide each day,” it said.

Suicides are up across the country. It’s not clear why, but psychiatrists and suicide experts say it’s probably a combination of factors — a lack of access to mental health care, a growing sense of disconnection in society, economic woes and relationship problems.

According to the VA statistics, there are 20.6 suicides every day. Of those, 16.8 were veterans and 3.8 were active-duty servicemembers, guardsmen, and reservists. That amounts to 6,132 veterans and 1,387 servicemembers who died by suicide in one year.

The VA’s 2012 report stated 22 veterans succumbed to suicide every day – a number that’s still often cited incorrectly. That number also included active-duty troops, Guard and Reserve, the VA said.

Regardless, the number is far too high and will be a key goal for the incoming VA director to address.

To read the entire article from NBC News, click here:

Photo courtesy AP

NC Grads Diplomas Seized For Wearing Military Cords to Graduation

West Bladen High School in North Carolina is coming under heat for taking two students diplomas away after graduation after they wore a cord symbolizing military enlistment at graduation.

West Bladen High School makes it clear they have strict rules for the official graduation ceremony with an email and mail dictating the rules beforehand. But, the policy about graduation cords is one mother Wendy Paris says is ridiculous.
Paris couldn’t be happier that her son, Trey, joined the Army. He was even selected for a special assignment.

“We have a lot of family in the military,” she said. “He will be in international intelligence.
Trey, 18, is on the way to basic training after graduating from West Bladen High School last Friday
“Trey and his friend, Desmond, who both had military cords, just decided that they worked hard for it and they were going to wear them,” Paris said.
Wearing their JROTC cords, the pair symbolized service to the program and commitment to enlist after graduation
A school administrator took back Trey’s diploma, saying he broke the rules. Only pre-approved academic cords are allowed during the official graduation ceremony.
“Ms. Kelly came up to them and asked them if she could see the diplomas, and they handed them to her and she kept them,” Paris said.
The school system ignored requests for an interview, but released the following statement:
“Nationally recognized academic cords are the only cords allowable or permissible during high school graduation. While not allowing a student to wear a military cord may lead to the perception that we are not patriotic, this could not be further from the truth.”

This was a bad look for West Bladen High School from the beginning. The students were in the JROTC program at their school and are embarking on the phase of their lives by enlisting in the military.

That shouldn’t be banned, however, the back-handed way they seized the diplomas and then backtracked after getting bad press and returning the diplomas a day later makes them appear doubly so.

To read the entire article from WRAL News, click here:

Photo: Screenshot WRAL video