SOF

Some Basic Survival Skills Everyone Should Know

We live in a techno-centric age. Everything is at our fingertips. We have cell phones that can navigate our roads from point A-to-point B. Our phones also have GPS grid coordinates at the quick typing of an app, that can pinpoint your exact location. But what happens in the event of an emergency and you don’t have your cell phone, or it breaks or it just doesn’t get a signal out wherever you’re at.

And don’t say it can’t happen. It can, it does and all too frequently. So, unless you want to be a statistic, you should know at a minimum some basic survival skills if you are ever stuck out in the wilderness somewhere.

You don’t have to be a Green Beret or Navy SEAL and be a SERE School graduate but it certainly helps if you are comfortable out in the wilderness, far from home and have good outdoor survival skills.

So, if the unthinkable happens and you are just your average Joe, not all is lost here. You can survive, thrive even as long as you perfect a few basic outdoor skills and we’ll get to them in just a second, but first, if you ever find yourself in a survival situation, just remember the word Survival and that will help you plan your way to safety

S – Size up the situation

U – Undue Haste makes waste

R – Remember where you are

V – Vanquish fear and panic

I – Improvise

V – Value living

A – Act like the natives

L – Learn basic skills … simple no? Let’s move on.

We’re going to use the KISS Principle here, Keep it simple, stupid. And we’ll start with the first of the basic skills you should know how to do.

Remember “The Rule of Threes.” A person can survive for:
– 3 minutes without air
– 3 hours without a regulated body temperature – hypothermia (shelter)
– 3 days without water
– 3 weeks without food

With that in mind, it brings us to our very first and most important skill.

#1 Build a Survival Shelter: Are you alone or with another person or group? What kind of materials are at your disposal? Hypothermia can and will kill people quickly, long before they feel the effects of lack of food or water. So the first thing a person or group must do is to build a shelter, that will allow your body heat to keep you warm and dry during the night. Some basic consideration for building a shelter are:

Location – (just like real estate, location, location, location is very important) Don’t build a shelter in a low-lying area next to a river or stream. A flash flood can happen quickly, pick higher ground and preferably a spot that is protected from the wind.

Insulation – the ground can sap the warmth right from your body, ensure that bed that you lie on has four to six inches minimum of pine straw, leaves etc, that will insulate from the ground. Double or triple that for the sides of the shelter
Heating – is the shelter just body heated or is there a fire?
Personal or Group Shelter – if you’re in a small group, a group shelter although harder to construct, will keep everyone warmer, and don’t be shy, the closer you are to each other, the warmer you’ll stay.

The simplest design is a simple lean-to, building one isn’t particularly difficult. Just find a downed tree resting at an angle, or set a large branch securely against a standing tree. If you have cordage, you can secure it that way or use any vines in the area to lash it all together. Then stack smaller branches close together, weaving them together if possible. Then layer debris, like leaves, pine straw etc. until the walls are thick as well as wind and waterproof as you can make them.

#2 Starting a Fire: Having a fire is not only a tremendous tool for warming your body as well as your shelter but it can cook food, and boil water. Having a fire is also a big psychological boost for all involved. It provides a sense of security and safety.

A fire can also be used as a signaling device if an individual or group is being actively searched for in a rescue type of situation. A large smoky fire is easily visible from the air and can be seen from far away.

One should always carry field expedient fire starting devices but it is always a plus knowing the skills of starting a fire without matches, a lighter or flint. Use small tinder to start with and then add tiny sticks and twigs until you get a bed of coals going well enough to add some larger logs.

#3 Finding a Fresh Water Supply: If at possible, water should always be boiled before drinking. Depending upon your situation, that may not be possible. But finding a clean potable water supply is a must. If you’re in a winter survival situation, rain, snow or dew can be captured using a bandana or t-shirt and drank as it is more often than not in a purified state. Many vines will have water that can be wrung out as well as certain cacti.

#4 Finding Food: When it comes to a survival type of situation and food, the best rule of thumb is to think small. Unless you have a weapon of some kind, trying to trap or snare a large animal will waste more energy than it is worth. Become familiar with what edible plants are in your area. There are plenty of edible plant guides out there that will help you become more familiar with what it edible and what isn’t.

A couple of common plants that can help sustain you in most areas include:

Cattails – The “super Wal-Mart” of the swamp, almost every piece of the cattail can be eaten, the roots, shoots and the pollen heads are all edible.
Conifers – Most evergreen, cone-bearing trees, with the exception of the Yew have a soft, pulpy inner bark that is called the cambium. It is full of calories and starches and will sustain you
Oak trees – Acorns from oak trees can be eaten once the bitter tannic acids are removed. Native Americans used to put a basket full of acorns in a fast moving stream where the water would leach the tannic acid out in a day or two. The other method is to boil them. Place the acorns in a pot and cover them with water, once the water boils and turns the color of tea, dump the water out and repeat the process until the water no longer turns brown.

Now as a word to the wise, these are survival foods and the taste isn’t going to make one want to give up prime rib for a diet of cattail, cambium, and acorns. But it will get you thru a tough situation if the need arises.

These are just a few of the skills that one should master if you ever find yourself in a survival type of situation. But the weapon you have at your disposal is your brain. To quote Tom Hanks, “that’s the lump three feet above your ass.” Keeping a positive mental outlook on things, keeping your wits about you at all times is imperative.

And by all means, take a course on outdoor survival. There are a plethora of them in all parts of the country. And there is no shortage of very good ones in every area. Do your homework and check them out.

One (unsolicited by the way) course you should check out is run by former Special Forces officer Mykel Hawke. Many of you may remember Hawke from his television show that he and his wife had called “Man, Woman, Wild” on the Travel Channel. He runs a couple of different survival courses including a Couples Survival Course. So bring your significant other and take an outdoor survival course and learn some new skills while bonding with your spouse. Then they’ll have a greater appreciation of what you do… Stay safe, be prepared and don’t quit.

Photo: Wikipedia

Convicted War Criminal Dies After Drinking Poison in Court

In a shocking turn of events that played out on live television, Slobodan Praljak, drank poison in a courtroom and died later on Wednesday, after the convicted war criminal interrupted a courtroom hearing to declare his innocence according to Croatian state media.

Praliak, loudly proclaimed his innocence in front of the International Criminal Tribunal and stated, “Judges, Slobodan Praljak is not a war criminal!” “I reject this verdict.”

The presiding judge asked him numerous times to stop and sit down, it was then that Praljak. 72, tilted his head back and downed a vial of liquid. He said, “I just drank poison.”

The hearing was suspended shortly afterward, as the other people in the room sought to make sense of the situation. “Please,” the presiding judge asked, “the curtains.”
Praljak soon fell ill and was quickly ushered from the courtroom by paramedics, though their efforts could not save his life.
“The emergency services took Praljak to a nearby hospital, where he died,” tribunal spokesperson Nenad Golcevski told media, also noting that Dutch police have opened an independent investigation into the incident.
Praljak was one of six men sentenced to prison in 2013 for “crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions,” the tribunal notes.
“The Trial Chamber concluded that, from January 1993, all six accused were participants in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at creating a Croatian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina that would facilitate the reunification of the Croatian people, through ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population,” The Hague-based organization explains.

The tribunal has held various trials for war crimes from the brutal civil war that took place in the former Yugoslavia. It has indicted 161 former soldiers for war crimes and has convicted 91.

To read the entire article from National Public Radio click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

US Denies Special Operations Soldiers Killed Somali Citizens in August

AFRICOM, the United States’ command in Africa, has disputed claims that Special Operations soldiers killed any civilian during a raid conducted in August. The PAO office for the command released a statement on Wednesday, which was the first public statement concerning the allegations that first surfaced in the Daily Beast.

AFRICOM’s two-paragraph statement referred to a joint raid by U.S. and Somali troops on the village of Bariire and claimed that those killed were enemy combatants from the al Shabab terror network which is affiliated with al-Qaeda. However, eyewitnesses told the press that there were 10 civilians were killed.

The survivors and relatives of the dead said they wanted blood money and an apology.
“After a thorough assessment of the Somali National Army-led operation near Bariire, Somalia, on Aug. 25, 2017, and the associated allegations of civilian casualties, U.S. Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAF) has concluded that the only casualties were those of armed enemy combatants,” the two paragraph statement read.
“Before conducting operations with partner forces, SOCAF conducts detailed planning and coordination to reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties and to ensure compliance with the Law of Armed Conflict. U.S. Africa Command and the Department of Defense take allegations of civilian casualties very seriously.”
Despite promising a public investigation, the embattled Somali government has made no public statement on the raid, and some Somali security officials said privately that it would not, for fear of alienating the powerful clan whose members were killed.

The US has been stepping up its presence in Somalia and Africa as a whole. A Navy SEAL was killed in Somalia earlier this year, the first US combat death in the country since the “Black Hawk Down” battle in Mogadishu in October 1993.

To read the entire article from The Voice of America click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 1 Day 3

We’re going to do a smoker this morning of pushups, sit-ups, and crunches that you can either do at the gym or on the ground and then head back out on the rucking trails. Let’s pump these out as quickly as possible, understanding that there isn’t a time limit but to build up your endurance.

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

100 pushups (no time limit)

100 sit-ups (no time limit)

100 crunches

Rucksack march: Go as hard and as fast as you can for 1 hour. Do this without running. See what your distance is and make a notation. This will give you a goal to achieve in later training sessions.

Stretch well after completion

November 29, 1947, the U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine is Adopted

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which would end the British mandate in the area and proposed a partition of Palestine. The UN General Assembly adopted the plan as Resolution 181.

This convoluted plan recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem. With bizarre boundaries and the withdrawal of the British Mandate no later than August 1, 1948, the progressive removal of British armed forces, the plan never had a chance of succeeding.

The two new states, one Jewish and one Arab would come into existence two months after the withdrawal but no later than October 1, 1948. The UN had hoped to address the conflicting claims of Palestinian and Jewish nationalism and called for an Economic Union between the two states, as well as the protection of religious and minority rights.

The Jewish Agency for Palestine immediately accepted the UN’s plan despite many misgivings. However Arab leaders rejected it. Their argument was that the UN was violating its own principles of the right of self-determination in the UN Charter.

The UN plan, which never had any hope of succeeding was never implemented because as soon as the resolution was adopted, civil war broke out between the Jews and Arabs with the British squarely in the middle.

The Palestinian Mandate: The British had broken up the Ottoman Turk Empire at the end of World War I, and in 1923 drafted the Balfour Declaration which called for a small Jewish homeland

In 1937, after a six-month-long Arab general strike and armed insurrection, the British established the Peel Commission. The Commission recommended breaking up the land into an Arab state linked to Transjordan; a small Jewish state; and a mandatory zone. The Jewish faction under David Ben Gurion accepted the plan, the Arabs once again roundly rejected it stating that the divided land share was unfair to the Jews getting the best agricultural land.

The British followed with the Woodhead Commission which rejected and provided two possible alternatives for the Arabs and Jews to consider. Nothing was working and the two sides were drifting farther apart. In 1938 the British government issued a policy statement declaring that “the political, administrative and financial difficulties involved in the proposal to create independent Arab and Jewish States inside Palestine are so great that this solution of the problem is impracticable”.

World War II: With the war with Germany and the Axis looming, the British looked to appease the Arabs as they would need their support in the war’s southern reaches in the oil-rich Middle East and for control of the Mediterranean. The MacDonald White Paper of 1939 stated that it is “not part of [the British government’s] policy that Palestine should become a Jewish State”, sought to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine and restricted Arab land sales to Jews. This ran against the Mandate according to the League of Nations. With the pogroms against the Jews in Europe rising, many were seeking to move to Palestine but the British were trying to stem immigration and much of it ended up being illegal.

The Jews didn’t trust the Arab leaders who were against any kind of Jewish homeland at all. And then there was the Grand Mufti.

The Grand Mufti of Palestine visited Hitler in 1941 and was seeking German support for a general Arab uprising. However, he didn’t stop there, he asked Hitler and Mussolini to declare the illegality of the Jewish home in Palestine. He also asked, “they accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.”

That sounded ominously to the Jews as the Mufti wanting to eradicate the Jews from the land forever. After the war and the awful details of the Holocaust surfaced, President Truman asked the British to allow 100,000 Jewish emigres to travel to Palestine.

In May 1947, the UN formed a special body, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). The committee proposed breaking Palestine into three parts: an Arab State, a Jewish State and the City of Jerusalem, linked by extraterritorial crossroads. From Wikipedia UNSCOP:

The proposed Arab State would include the central and part of western Galilee, with the town of Acre, the hill country of Samaria and Judea, an enclave at Jaffa, and the southern coast stretching from north of Isdud (now Ashdod) and encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border. The proposed Jewish State would include the fertile Eastern Galilee, the Coastal Plain, stretching from Haifa to Rehovot and most of the Negev desert,[49] including the southern outpost of Umm Rashrash (now Eilat). The Jerusalem Corpus Separatum included Bethlehem and the surrounding areas.

Post War Partition and War: The Partition Plan after being voted on by the UN caused massive outbreaks of violence between Palestinian Jews and Arabs known as the 1947-1948 Civil War. The British, tired of the issues there, washed their hands of the area and left in May of 1948. With the British army gone, it created a massive power vacuum and chaos ensued.

On that night, May 14, 1948, the Jewish People’s Council met and declared “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel”

The next day on May 15, the tiny nation, less than 24 hours old, was attacked by a coalition of the combined forces of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, together with expeditionary forces from Iraq.

The Israelis persevered against great odds and now controlled a much larger swath of territory than was previously allowed by the partition. The remainder of Palestine was annexed by Transjordan and the Palestinians were never given their homeland by the other Arab neighbors.

And peace remains a tricky issue in the area ever since.

Photos courtesy: Wikipedia

Argentina’s Military of Defense Releases Timeline of Missing Submarine

The Ministry of Defense of Argentina released a more detailed timeline for their missing submarine on Tuesday. The military said that the captain of the vessel reported that water had entered thru the ship’s snorkel causing a battery to short-circuit before an explosion-like anomaly was detected underwater 10 hours later near the ship’s last known location.

Ships and aircraft from several countries including the US are still are searching the South Atlantic for the ARA San Juan and its 44 crew members, which disappeared November 15 a few hundred kilometers off Argentina’s coast. It was US seismic sensors that reported an explosion-like anomaly in the area near the sub’s location.

November 15, 12:30 a.m.: The sub’s captain calls his land-based commander by satellite phone, saying that seawater has entered the vessel’s “snorkel,” a tube that reaches the surface to refresh the vessel’s air and recharge the batteries. He says the water caused a short-circuit in the battery system in the vessel’s bow and the beginnings of a fire, or smoke. The smoke was put out and the short-circuited system was isolated.

The captain indicates that the battery- and diesel-powered sub would continue traveling with its stern batteries.
6 a.m.: The captain types the same message and relays it to base electronically, as is protocol following a phone conversation.
7:30 a.m.: The captain calls base again, this time to say that the vessel is traveling, submerged, as planned, without any personnel problems.
10:31 a.m.: A sound consistent with an explosion is detected in the ocean, near the sub’s last known location.

The submarine would have enough air to stay submerged for 7-10 days if it had remained intact after an initial problem. Had the sub surfaced to recharge batteries, it would have bought the crew more time.

To read the entire article from CNN click here:

Photo courtesy Argentina Ministry of Defense

Carolina Panthers Visit Ft. Bragg’s Special Warfare Center

Members of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers got a first-hand look at some of the training that Army Special Operations Forces go thru and got to experience some of it on a Tuesday visit to Ft. Bragg.

The Panthers players got to try a virtual reality parachute jump trainer, fire M-4 weapons during at a battlefield simulator and of course meet with many of the soldiers and their families. For Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, the trip arranged by the USO was a homecoming of sorts.

Richardson grew up and played high school football in Fayetteville before going to college and playing in the NFL. He’s currently the only owner who has played in the league.

“I am humbled by their dedication to our country and deeply appreciate them allowing us to spend time with them,” he said.
But after visiting with troops and their families as part of their visit to the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, the players found themselves in familiar territory, with good reason.
The THOR3 facility at the Special Warfare Center and School — like many others across the Army special operations community – is based on lessons learned from professional sports teams like the Panthers.
The facility – part of the special operations Tactical Human Optimization Rapid Rehabilitation and Reconditioning program – is part of Army special operations’ efforts to treat soldiers more like professional athletes in the hopes of reducing injuries and the physical wear and tear of years of Army service.
Much like any professional sports team, the soldiers of the Special Warfare Center and School – where the Army trains its Special Forces, civil affairs and psychological operations troops – now have dieticians, physical therapists, sports psychologists and strength and conditioning coaches as part of their supporting team, according to Master Sgt. Mike Taylor, the director of human dynamics and performance.

The trip was a learning experience for both sides, the players got to experience a little of what it was like to be a Special Operations soldier and raved about the training and equipment. One player, linebacker David Mayo has two brothers in the Army and his grandfather was an Army pilot in World War II, so the visit was particularly meaningful.

But the soldiers are learning from the players as well. The Special Warfare Center’s Thor3 is taking the lessons learned from the nation’s sports teams to train bigger, better-conditioned soldiers who are less likely to suffer injuries.

To read the entire article from The Fayetteville Observer, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 1, Day 2

Back to the gym today, with our Wednesday work out and then practice our shuttle run to build up some explosion and lateral quickness. Try to limit the time between sets to 30 seconds or less

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, behind the neck (go as heavy as possible)

3 x 12 Lat Pulldowns, front

3 x 10 Barbell Deadlift

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Front Raises

3 x 10 Dumbbell Arnold Shoulder Press

3 x 8 Shoulder Shrugs

4 x 25-meter Shuttle Run (x3)

Stretch well after completion

Finding the “Lost” Land Navigation Point At Camp Mackall

Many of the training pieces that deal with either the Selection course or the SFQC (Special Forces Qualification Course) we write from a perspective of one of the cadre members, which I was for a time during the early days of Selection.

Passing Selection and the SFQC was/is no easy task and many of the candidates that tried…and failed were good men who just didn’t meet the standards. Passing the Land Navigation course was perhaps the biggest failure producing event in the course. Possibly even more so than the physical events like the runs (with LBE and Weapons) and the Rucksack marches, which were increasingly longer and faster as the course wore on.

Land Navigation, now called the “Star” Nav course is still operated in the same area as the SFQC has always operated in. But back in the day, the central location, the start/finish point was an old rifle range. I understand that is now long gone and there is construction going on out there.

So back in the day, there we were, all bright eyed and bushy tailed candidates who were looking to get a first time go on the Land Nav course. And we all had the same gear, map (Camp Mackall Special), map case, compass, protractor, pencil, grease pencil, notebook, M-16, 55-pound rucksack, and 4 quarts of water.

The points, arrayed in a series of draws, (so they are harder to find of course!) are green metal fence stakes that were placed in the ground with a metal tag and a card punch so that no student would be able to recreate it and cheat their way thru.

We had a series of classes at Camp Mackall in the old classroom that was hot as hell in the summer and drafty and cold in the winter. The information came fast and quick and the Land Nav instructors knew their stuff, having done this for several classes. During this time, we were deemed fortunate as North Carolina was getting deluged with constant heavy rain that only seems to occur in the south or the tropics. The compound at Camp Mackall was seemingly all standing water and the runs and rucks in the evening during the classes were done in mud that seemed to cling to everything in vast clumps.

We finally headed out to the “rifle range” and the cadre gave us an area to set up our poncho hooches. We were basically free to set them up wherever we wanted, it wasn’t like the “Big Army” and every squad in a row. The cadre took us out for a “terrain walk” and quickly reconfirmed our pace counts and then it was off to do the first of our practice land nav courses before the final test.

The first day was more difficult than I had envisioned. The terrain and the thickets were tough, much tougher than I, in my cockiness had given credence to. I found only two points in the day but after talking it over with some of the other students after the day navigation and comparing notes, I approached the night with a renewed sense of purpose and found two points at night and returned within the time limit.

The second day went better, I blasted out fast and found three points in the day. I plotted my fourth but seeing where it would take me, it didn’t make sense to go there and not be able to make it back within the time limit. I again found two points in the night practice course having a good fairly clear lane to the first point and got there quickly, the next one wasn’t bad either. Making it back to the start/finish point in plenty of time before the time limit, I thought that this was going great…. Oh how quickly things change.

Getting back into the poncho hooch, I was glad that I piled the pine straw thick on the ground beneath me. About five minutes are getting in, the sky opened up and we had one of the biggest downpours I’d seen prior to getting stationed in Panama. It poured all night long and the rifle range was looking the Red Sea.

By morning the rain had moved on and we were off to our third and final practice Navigation Course before the final exam the next day. My first point was at the edge of Big Muddy Lake where it opened up into the large part of the water. It would be easily recognizable once I got close. The thickets around the pond were thick. I see now, some of the cadre members have nicknamed this area the “Dagobah System” in a tip of the beret to the Star Wars film franchise which is brilliant.

I knew I was getting close, I could just make out the water through the trees. As I got about 50 meters away, I could see the worn down trail from other Land Nav students. I bolted down the clearing and right to where the point should be and ….nothing. Pulling out my map, I did a check of the area and it matched up perfectly with the map. Scurrying around, I figured it was hidden behind a tree or a shrub. Still nothing.

A few minutes turned into 30 and making wider and wider circles around the edge of the lake was netting nothing. A few moments later, I heard crashing thru the woods and another Land Nav student came out right where I had. We made eye contact but said nothing since the students were forbidden to speak on the course. He obviously had come to search for the same point.

That’s when I made the mistake of doubting myself I shot back into the thicket and started to go west, a few hundred meters later, I came out back on the lake but it didn’t match the map at all, there was a swampy area farther back to the east, I headed to find it and would shoot my way back. At the edge of the swampy area, I came across another point, not mine. But plotting it and shooting a back azimuth to my point, it was exactly where it was supposed to be. I crashed back east around the lake until I got back to where I had originally begun the search. The second student was still there and doing another map check and was now joined by a third student. The #3 guy gave us a shrug as if to say, WTF! Screw it I thought, “It has got to be here…” I whispered. #2 guy looked left and right, and didn’t say anything but nodded.

Time was running out, I headed back, pissed off and frustrated. The SFC at the start/finish point was a big, tall lanky guy who was short and generally sarcastic when talking to students. I told him I got there, searched the area, found the other point back at the swamp and made my way back and the point wasn’t there. A few minutes later the other two students came in with the same story. The SFC cadre member wasn’t having any of this.

“You guys are a f***ing soup sandwich, that point is there, I put the tags on the stake myself four friggin’ days ago.” The other instructors chimed in, calling the three of us some choice names. The NCOIC of Land Nav came over and asked the three of the same things about the point, the location and what the terrain looked like at the edge of the lake. It was then that he and the SFC gave each other a look. “Get your shit and get in the truck.” We looked at each other and thought we were being booted out. We climbed into the back of an Army pickup and they drove us close to the lake. We stopped got out and they said, show us where you’re at. We walked down to the edge of the lake. The two SF guys looked at one another and smiled.

The SFC waded out into the lake about 15-20 feet where the water was up to his neck…reaching down, he said, “the water flooded the lake with the rain…here it is.” The NCOIC laughed…”At least you know it’s here. Let’s get back.”

The next day for the exam, everything fell into place, getting the requisite number of points in the day and night, with a big sigh of relief, I’d passed. As I was turning in my card, the SFC was at the turn-in point. I gave him my card. He glanced at it and said, “These points are all wrong.” Seeing the shocked look on my face, he smiled, “You’re a first time go, get out of here.” I started to walk off when he asked, “you have to swim for any points today?” I said no, everything was fairly dry. He said, “I wasn’t dry. I moved that point back into the edge of the shore in case anyone else had to go there.”

So I guess the moral of the story is, is that you’ll never know what curves will get thrown at you during the course…just hang in there.The solution to the problem may be “just under the surface.”

Photo: US Army

Court Rules Military Must Accept Transgender Recruits by Jan. 1

A federal court has ruled that the U.S. military must begin accepting transgender service members by January 1. On Monday, the court issued a clarification to the preliminary injunction that the court imposed on President Donald Trump’s transgender policy.

Last month, a judge on the U.S. District Court ruled that the president’s order to ban new transgender recruits from joining the military — as well as potentially expelling current members — cannot be enforced while the case is being reviewed in court.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote that her injunction means that the military must continue to follow the policies established by former President Barack Obama‘s “June 30, 2016 Directive-type Memorandum,” which allowed transgender individuals to enlist beginning on January 1.
“Any action by any of the Defendants that changes this status quo is preliminarily enjoined,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in the Monday memo.
In August, the judge released a lengthy memo accompanying her ruling in which she said the plaintiffs in the case, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, are likely to succeed by arguing that the president’s transgender ban violates their Fifth Amendment right to due process. The two groups sued in August on behalf of six unnamed service members and two recruits.
“The court finds that a number of factors—including the sheer breadth of the exclusion ordered by the directives, the unusual circumstances surrounding the President’s announcement of them, the fact that the reasons given for them do not appear to be supported by any facts, and the recent rejection of those reasons by the military itself — strongly suggest that Plaintiffs’ Fifth Amendment claim is meritorious,” she wrote last month.

The government asked the judge if it could push back the January 1 date but was denied. The six original plaintiffs in the case claimed that their rights to due process were violated. The judge also stated that the government offered no solid evidence on why the ban was necessary.

To read the entire article from The Hill, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia