SOF

Former SF Soldier Indicted for Kickbacks Related to Stolen Material

A former Special Forces soldier has been indicted by a federal grand jury in a scheme to illegally allow U.S. military equipment in Afghanistan to be stolen and sold on the black market and to use the proceeds to get a pool at his new home in North Carolina along with several vehicles.

Joseph Russell Graff was stationed at Fort Bragg in 2012 when he was deployed to Afghanistan and assigned to Forward Operating Base Salerno for a few months. As soldiers were preparing to move to a base in Kabul, Graff accepted $300,000 to $350,000 in cash to let an Afghani into a secure section of FOB Salerno so he could steal military equipment and sell it on the black market, according to an indictment handed up last week.
Graff smuggled the cash back to Pope Field inside a metal sign, shuffled it among various banks to avoid reporting requirements and then used much of it to have an in-ground pool and deck built at his home in the Pitt County town of Grimesland and to help purchase a Polaris RZR 800S jet ski, a 2006 Jeep Liberty, a 2014 Mazda 6 and a 2013 GMC Yukon, according to the indictment.1
Graff, who now works for the Morehead City Fire Department, is charged with embezzlement, bribery, illegally structuring bank transactions, money laundering and possession of a machine gun.
Federal authorities want to seize the vehicles, the jet ski, cash and several weapons from Graff, as well as force the sale of his home, with the proceeds going to the government, according to the indictment.

It wasn’t made clear if the case against Graff is the sole indictment that will be forthcoming on this case or if the government believes that Graff did not act alone in the alleged theft.

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

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Remembering Fred Zabitosky, Green Beret, Medal of Honor 19 Feb 1968

SSG Fred Zabitosky was a member of the MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command, Studies and Observations Group) in Vietnam and was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism in combat for his actions on February 19,1968.

Zabitosky’s mission on that day would take him into Laos where the nine-man joint American Special Forces and Nung indigenous soldier patrol would encounter a vastly numerically superior North Vietnamese Army (NVA) force while trying to gather intelligence on troop movements along the Ho Chi Minh trail.

Zabitosky was born in Ewing Township, New Jersey where his father was a barber. He had an unsettled childhood and by his own admission was an undisciplined, rebellious teen who lacked direction. When he joined the army in 1959, everything fell into place for him. There he found what he’d been lacking and looking for and in the fledgling US Army Special Forces, he found a home.

He was on his third combat tour in late 1967 when he was assigned to the Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG), their mission was to conduct over-the-border reconnaissance operations into Laos and Cambodia. This particular operation, it was Zabitosky’s mission was to infiltrate across the Laotian and Cambodian borders to monitor the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Zabitosky was the leader of Spike Team Maine, which consisted of three Americans and nine indigenous troops, usually Chinese Nungs. Their rifles were mostly either Russian AK-47s or Swedish K-submachine guns. They carried North Vietnamese combat gear and ate only Vietnamese food. On this operation, Zabitosky offered to be the assistant team leader for SSG Doug Glover, a good friend of his.

Zabitosky, (left) and two other Green Berets at MACV-SOG.

The team inserted east of Atopeu, Laos using two helicopters. As the Green Berets moved through 10-foot-tall elephant grass and bamboo thickets near the landing zone (LZ), Zabitosky and the team members started into the jungle and suddenly realized they were in the middle of a large NVA (2000+ man) complex. There were bunkers and K-wire everywhere.

Zabitosky, although the senior man was the assistant on this patrol asked Glover what he wanted to do. Glover urged him to take over. Zabitosky directed the men back to the LZ while he covered their retreat with Claymore mines wired to white phosphorous grenades.

Glover called airstrikes, conducted by A-1E Skyraiders onto the white smoke from the white phosphorous grenades as soon as they exploded.

With 750-pound bombs and napalm falling all around him and the NVA trying to close the distance, he knew the small patrol had to hold out before the choppers arrived to get them out. Zabitosky organized the men into a small perimeter just outside the LZ.

The embattled team beat back wave after wave of NVA assaults on their perimeter with the Skyraiders dropping a furious load of bombs, napalm and cluster bombs. The NVA knew the only way to get the team was to close the distance and get too close for air support. Soon the team was running short of ammo.

When the UH-1 Hueys arrived, the two choppers signaled the LZ was too hot and directed Zabitosky to move 500 meters to a secondary pickup zone. A third chopper circling overhead head SF medic Luke Nance.

Finally, some Bell UH-1’slicks’ arrived. These unarmed, stripped bare utility helicopters were designed to carry as many troops as possible. Two of the choppers came over the team, while a third circled above them. Medic Luke Nance was in the third helicopter.

The team arrived at the secondary PZ just as the Hueys did. Two Nungs and one American boarded the first chopper. The six remaining members of the team boarded the second chopper. Zabitosky on the left side was firing at the NVA rushing the PZ trying to pin them down with the chopper’s door gunner. Then an NVA soldier launched a rocket-propelled grenade which impacted solidly on the tail boom.

The impact caused the helicopter to go into a death spin, Zabitosky was thrown out 20 feet from the impact and his clothes were on fire. He didn’t know it yet but his back was broken as well as several ribs. He was out of ammunition and the barrel of his weapon was bent from the fall making his weapon useless anyway.

Zabitosky dragged the pilot out and went back for the co-pilot who was screaming as he was on fire as well. Overhead, Nance convinced the third chopper pilot that there was movement below and there were survivors left on the ground.

The third chopper land about 50 meters from the crashed Huey and Nance could see the survivors and didn’t hesitate, he leaped from the chopper before it hit the ground and killed NVA troops who were closing on the survivors.

Zabitosky, armed with a .45 pistol and a grenade was carrying the co-pilot to the third helicopter and dragged the pilot along as well. About 10 feet from the helicopter, Nance pulled all three to safety. Zabitosky credited Nance with saving his and the pilot’s lives. Sadly the co-pilot died in the hospital. Glover, the three Nungs, and the two-door gunners died in the crash. Zabitosky spent six weeks in the hospital in Pleiku recovering.

The team and the aircrews flying cover killed several hundred NVA soldiers in the action, including over 100 at the first landing zone. President Richard M. Nixon presented the Medal of Honor to then promoted SFC Zabitosky in March 1969 at a White House ceremony attended by his wife and son.

Several years later, I had the pleasure to meet with Zabitosky along with several other SF soldiers. He was tall, lean and spoke with the quiet confidence as someone who has been there but wasn’t arrogant at all. He made it clear, he didn’t consider himself a hero, but wore the MOH for everyone he served with. “I wear the medal, but I wear it for all the guys who served in the project,” said Zabitosky. ‘All the guys who wore that beret in combat have done just as much as I have and deserve it as well.”

“I always say the most important thing is you’ve got to be able to live with yourself. And I can live with myself.”

He remained bitter at the Army for what he deemed sweeping under the rug the issues of PTSD, which went untreated and he blamed for alienating his wife. But he assured everyone, he was ready to do it all over again if need be.

Sadly Zabitosky passed away from cancer at just 53-years old in 1996.

Medal of Honor Citation:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sfc. Zabitosky, U.S. Army, distinguished himself while serving as an assistant team leader of a 9-man Special Forces long-range reconnaissance patrol.

Sfc. Zabitosky’s patrol was operating deep within enemy-controlled territory when they were attacked by a numerically superior North Vietnamese Army unit. Sfc. Zabitosky rallied his team members, deployed them into defensive positions, and, exposing himself to concentrated enemy automatic weapons fire, directed their return fire. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Sfc. Zabitosky ordered his patrol to move to a landing zone for helicopter extraction while he covered their withdrawal with rifle fire and grenades. Rejoining the patrol under increasing enemy pressure, he positioned each man in a tight perimeter defense and continually moved from man to man, encouraging them and controlling their defensive fire.

Mainly due to his example, the outnumbered patrol maintained its precarious position until the arrival of tactical air support and a helicopter extraction team. As the rescue helicopters arrived, the determined North Vietnamese pressed their attack. Sfc. Zabitosky repeatedly exposed himself to their fire to adjust suppressive helicopter gunship fire around the landing zone. After boarding 1 of the rescue helicopters, he positioned himself in the door delivering fire on the enemy as the ship took off. The helicopter was engulfed in a hail of bullets and Sfc. Zabitosky was thrown from the craft as it spun out of control and crashed.

Recovering consciousness, he ignored his extremely painful injuries and moved to the flaming wreckage. Heedless of the danger of exploding ordnance and fuel, he pulled the severely wounded pilot from the searing blaze and made repeated attempts to rescue his patrol members but was driven back by the intense heat. Despite his serious burns and crushed ribs, he carried and dragged the unconscious pilot through a curtain of enemy fire to within 10 feet of a hovering rescue helicopter before collapsing.

Sfc. Zabitosky’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

Photos: US Archives

3rd SFG Opens Doors to Attract New Special Forces Candidates

The 3rd Special Forces Group used the entire family approach in trying to attract new recruits to the Special Forces Regiment. They opened their doors to soldiers and their families from Ft. Bragg looking for soldiers to be the next generation of Green Berets.

Dozens of Fort Bragg soldiers and their families converged at the headquarters of 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group on Thursday for an open house meant to introduce those troops to the unit, showcasing the capabilities and opportunities in the Green Beret community.
Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, 20th Engineer Brigade, 18th Field Artillery Brigade, 108th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, 16th Military Police Brigade and other Fort Bragg units attended the event, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between 3rd Special Forces Group and the Special Operations Recruiting Battalion.
Command Sgt. Maj. Bruce W. Holmes, the senior enlisted leader of 3rd Group, said the Special Forces community wants to attract the best soldiers, regardless of shape, size, color, gender, experience or job specialty.
“We don’t discriminate,” he said. “We’re taking men and women. Any rank. Any (military occupational specialty).”
Sgt. 1st Class Alex Martinez, commander of the Fort Bragg Special Operations Recruiting Center, said the open house was a “sneak peek of what life is like as a Green Beret.”
Vehicles and equipment, including weapons, were on display. And Special Forces soldiers and their spouses were on hand to answer questions and address concerns.
“It’s a perfect collaboration,” Martinez said. “It’s units partnering with SORB to recruit their own force.”

One of the selling points was geared towards the families. Special Forces soldiers, while deployed a lot, do enjoy a much more stable existence for the families because they generally remain in the unit for a long period of time. That cuts down on the constant moving that many families in the military have to endure. And because of that, the units, and the families tend to be closer.

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

Photo courtesy: US Army

Israel Hits Several Hamas Targets After Bombing Wounds 4 Soldiers

The Israeli military hit multiple Hamas targets located in the Gaza Strip in the second decisive action on Sunday after an earlier counterattack on Saturday. The Israelis were hitting Hamas in response to a bomb detonation that wounded 4 IDF soldiers and rockets, fired from Gaza which landed in Israeli territory.

The Israeli Army in a statement said the rockets hit a residential building but no one was seriously hurt.

The military said that eight of the targets it attacked were located in a Hamas military compound, where the group stores weapon, manufacturing infrastructures and carries out training.
Earlier, the army said it struck six Hamas targets in Gaza in what it described as a “large-scale attack.” The military said the targets included a Hamas attack tunnel reaching from Gaza into Israeli territory and two military compounds.
Earlier on Saturday, four Israeli soldiers were wounded – two seriously and two others moderately – when a device exploded near the troops at the fence bordering the southern Gaza Strip. The wounded soldiers were evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva with burns and shrapnel injuries.
According to the IDF, the incident unfolded when soldiers from the Golani Brigade and the Engineering Corps approached the border fence after noticing a Palestinian flag hung in its vicinity. After the soldiers approached the flag, the device exploded. Two tunnels originating in the Strip and extending into Israeli territory were found in the past near the site.
The military believes that the Popular Resistance Committee in Gaza, an umbrella group made up of militants from different armed factions, hung the flag there during Friday’s demonstration in order to attract the soldiers. The committee described the explosion as “a heroic act in response to the enemy’s infiltration into the Gaza Strip.”

With the increased Iranian presence along the border and the Israeli air strikes on their command and control facilities, the ante is going to be upped along the strip as well as with the border to Lebanon.

To read the entire article from Haaretz, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 13, Day 2

A quick workout to start the day and week off right. Start off with the basics of pushups, sit-ups, and crunches, then to the bar for V-ups, pull-ups, and dips before a 5-mile run (40 minutes or less) in a UBRR prep workout.

Remember to stay hydrated and mark your progress in your workout log book.

Training:

More preparation for the UBRR

2 x 20 Pushups

3 x 20 Sit-ups

3 x 20, Crunches

1 x 1-minute, V-ups

3 x 10 Dips (or to muscle failure)

3 x 10 Pull-ups as many as possible or to muscle failure (No time limit)

5-mile run (40 minutes maximum)

Stretch well after completion, mark your progress in your workout log book.

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 13, Day 1

Sunday morning Rucksack march. Do a quick warmup of pushups and sit-ups before heading out. Head out over varied terrain and try to go as fast as you can without running. Going to try to make it a little different by heading out in one direction for an hour by going as fast as you can. And then turning around and heading back the same way. How long did it take to get back?

Stretch well both before and after the event. Remember to drink plenty of water and stay hydrated out there.

Training:

Warm up

2 x 20 Pushups

2 x 20 Sit-ups

2-hour Rucksack march over varied terrain with a 45-pound minimum. Go as hard and fast as you can in one direction for an hour. Then turn around and go back to the start point. And mark your distance in your workout log book. Should have been a minimum of 8 miles if you are sticking to the standard.

Stretch well after completion

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 12, Day 7

Special Operations Forces Selection PT Preparation Week 12, Day 7

Saturday morning and heading back to the gym for a shoulder and back workout. Use climbing ropes if they are available. Followed by a four-mile run in less than 32 minutes. Log your numbers down in the workout notebook

Training:

More Preparation for the UBRR:

3 x 10 Lat Pulldowns, rear

3 x 10 Barbell Dead Lift

3 x 10 Wide Grip Pull-ups

3 x 10 Towel Pull-ups

3 x 10 Dumbbell Side Raises

3 x 10 Seated Bent-Over Delt Raise

3 x 10 Dumbbell Shoulder Press

3 x 10 Arnold Dumbbell Press

4-mile run (32 minutes maximum)

Stretch well after completion

CSS Hunley First Submarine to Sink A Warship in Combat, Feb. 17, 1864

The submarine is today recognized as a deadly weapon of war and the subs of today are able to travel the expanses of the oceans under the sea and deliver a multitude of weapons, to include nuclear ICBMs. But 154 years ago during the Civil War the aims of the Confederate defenders of Charleston, SC, were much simpler.

The Union had succeeded in blockading the major ports of the Confederacy and were slowly but inexorably squeezing the Confederacy’s lifeline to Europe. The Rebs were desperate to break the blockade.

The first submarine to sink a ship in combat was the CSS Hunley in Charleston Harbor when its torpedo blew up and sank the USS Housatonic on February 17, 1864. The Hunley didn’t survive the explosion and the crew was lost. The ship was discovered in 1970 and finally raised in 2000 where the crew was found still at their battle stations, 136 years later. The Hunley is on display in Charleston Harbor at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center on the Cooper River.

Beginnings: The Southern leaders were experimenting with undersea craft and commissioned what was a “fish torpedo boat” constructed by Horace Hunley in Mobile, Alabama. Hunley financed three submarines for the Confederacy.

The first, Pioneer was built in New Orleans but the Union Army had advanced in Louisiana and once New Orleans was taken, the Confederates were forced to scuttle it. The other two “American Diver” and “Hunley” were produced in Mobile.

American Diver was beset by propulsion problems and later sank in a storm. It was not recovered. The “Hunley” was launched in July 1863 and then shipped by rail to Charleston, SC.

Test runs in Charleston Harbor were disastrous. The Hunley sank on August 29, 1863, killing five members of the crew. The ship was recovered and another test was run with Hunley himself at the helm on October 15, 1863. It sank again, killing all five members of the crew including Hunley.

Hunley was designed for a crew of eight. Seven of the men manned the hand-cranked propeller which was the only means of propulsion. The commander of the boat steered from the tiny conning tower, of which there were two, one at each end.

Ballast tanks were fixed to each end of the boat, that could be flooded by valves or pumped dry by hand pumps. Extra ballast was crudely added through the use of iron weights bolted to the underside of the hull. In the event of an emergency situation, the submarine could rise by unscrewing the heads of the bolts holding the iron weights from inside the vessel.

Originally captained by Confederate Navy Lieutenant John Payne, the Hunley was running on the surface with the two hatches open when the Lt. inadvertently stepped on the diving planes causing the sub to dive with the hatches open. Payne and two crewmen were able to escape but five men died.

Workers working on the Hunley remove the crew’s bench

In October, the Hunley never surfaced after a practice attack. Payne relinquished command of the sub for the exercise to Hunley himself. The sub was again raised and was put back in service.

The next commander, Lieutenant George Dixon, and seven volunteers would be the Hunley’s final crew. Dixon wasn’t a naval officer but an Army veteran of Shiloh. The Hunley’s only armament was a spar torpedo, a copper cylinder containing 135 pounds of black powder — was attached to a 22-foot long wooden spar. Mounted on the sub’s bow, spar torpedoes were designed with a barbed point: the spar torpedo would be jammed in the target’s side by ramming it with all possible speed, and then detonated by a mechanical trigger attached to the submarine by a line, so that the sub backed away from her target, the torpedo would explode.

However, the torpedo of the Hunley had no barb, it was designed to explode on impact, a fact that would doom not only the men on the Housatonic but the Hunley as well.

Hunley’s Attack on the Housatonic: Dixon and his men left Charleston Harbor on the night of February 17, 1864. Their target was the USS Housatonic, a 1,260-ton wooden-hulled steam-powered sloop with 12 large cannons, which was stationed at the entrance to Charleston, about 5 miles offshore.

Dixon and his men approached in the darkness, skimming barely above the surface. The Housatonic was unaware of her presence until it was too late. Dixon angled the Hunley into the Housatonic and the torpedo exploded with a huge explosion.

The Housatonic sank in less than five minutes, five of her crewmen went down with her. The Hunley never returned to port. The Confederate defenders of the port of Charleston knew she went down but no one was aware of the circumstances.

It later was learned, after the sub’s remains were found and recovered that the shock wave from the torpedo killed all of the crew instantly. They were all found still at their battle stations, there had been no attempted escape.

After the sub was raised in Charleston Harbor, a painstaking search was done to find out who the other men in her crew were. With the help of the Smithsonian Institute, the eight-man volunteer crew was finally identified. Lieutenant George E. Dixon (Commander) (Alabama), Frank Collins (Virginia), Joseph F. Ridgaway (Maryland), James A. Wicks (North Carolina), Arnold Becker (Germany), Corporal Johan Frederik Carlsen (Denmark), C. Lumpkin (British Isles), and Augustus Miller (Germany).

Not until April 17, 2004, were the crew laid to rest in Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston.

The myth of George Dixon Proved True: After the Civil War, tales of George Dixon told the story of a $20 gold piece given to him by his sweetheart Queenie Bennett for good luck. Legend had it that the gold piece saved Dixon’s life during the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. Dixon’s relatives claimed that in a letter that Dixon claimed that he was shot in the thigh and the gold piece, deflected the bullet, saving his leg and probably his life. In 2002, this was proved true.

From Wikipedia, lead researcher Maria Jacobsen, examining the area close to Lieutenant Dixon found a misshapen $20 gold piece, minted in 1860, with the inscription “Shiloh April 6, 1862, My life Preserver G. E. D.” on a sanded-smooth area of the coin’s reverse side, and a forensic anthropologist found a healed injury to Lt. Dixon’s hip bone.

Tours are available to see the original Hunley that is preserved in a freshwater tank in Charleston Harbor as well as a replica that tourists can climb in. The museum has artifacts that were recovered from the Hunley.

Submarine warfare has advanced far beyond what anyone in Charleston during 1864 ever dreamed possible. But the men led by Lt. George Dixon proved that a warship could be sunk by a submarine. Naval warfare would be changed forever.

Illustrations and Photos: National Archives

DOD is Getting Tough With “Deploy or Get Out” Policy

The Department of Defense is getting tough with their “deploy or get out” policy and will begin separating troops who have been undeployable for over a year. Under the new policy, they’ll begin separating troops as early as October 1^st.

The Defense Department is cracking down on the roughly 286,000 troops who are not healthy enough to go overseas.

New policy put out by Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Robert Wilkie on Feb. 14, could affect 13 to 14 percent of the military force.
“The situation we face today is really unlike anything we have faced, certainly in the post-World War II era,” Wilkie said during a Feb. 14, Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee hearing. “If Mr. [Jeff] Bezos at Amazon walked into Christmas week and 14 percent of his workforce could not perform their duties then [it] would no longer be the largest company in the world,”
The new policy exempts pregnant and postpartum service members, but they are the only group getting a pass in the policy.
Troops who have been non-deployable for more than a year may obtain a waiver from the secretary of their military department to stay in the service.
The military may also begin separating a person from the service once a determination has been made that he or she will remain non-deployable for more than a year. The military does not have to wait the full year.
Medical boards will review the conditions of those who have been wounded.
Service members will be given disability or administrative separation.
DoD began exploring its options for non-deployable troops in July after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis made clear “every action [by DoD] will be designed to ensure our military is ready to fight today and in the future.”
Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel Dailey said in 2015 that non-deployable soldiers were the number one problem in the Army.
“If you will not or cannot fight and win, then there’s no place for you in the Army,” Dailey said. “We have to become unemotional about this. We have a job to do.”
About 100,000 soldiers are currently non-deployable and only 10 percent of the Army’s non-deployable soldiers will ever be fit to serve again.

The Army is fighting an obesity problem as well, with 10 percent of the force too overweight to deploy. For that, there is no excuse and those soldiers who fall into that category should be forced out. But combat wounded personnel should be given every opportunity to recover and return to the force if that is their wish.

To read the entire article from Federal News Radio, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Egypt Kills 53 Terrorist in Week-Long Sinai Offensive

Egypt’s military and police forces have continued their offensive in the Sinai Peninsula in an attempt to rout the Islamic State and other Islamist militants out of the area, officials said on Thursday. And in the continuing operations, they’ve killed 53 terrorists and detained another 680 suspects in the week-long operation.

Following the directives of President Sisi, the army is keeping the heat on the Islamist insurgents and pushing deeper in trying to crush any insurgent activity.

The security operation, which involves the army, navy, air force and police, began last Friday and targeted “terrorist and criminal elements and organizations” in north and central Sinai, parts of the Nile delta and the western desert, Colonel Tamer al-Rifai told a news conference broadcast on state television on Thursday.
Rifai said forces have destroyed over 1,000 kg (2,205 lbs) of explosives, 378 militant hideouts and weapon storage facilities including a media center used by the militants.
He added that 680 people, some of them suspected militants or wanted criminals, were also detained in the operation.
The air force, which has carried out more than 100 airstrikes in northern and central Sinai since the operation began, has focused on militant hideouts outside residential areas to avoid hitting civilians, air force Brigadier General Alaa Dawara said.
Major General Yasser Abdel Aziz of the Military Operations Authority said the operation would end when Sinai was free of “terrorists”.
“It could be extended or shortened according to the situation and that is what will be determined in the coming days,” Abdel Aziz told journalists.
He said after the military operation, Egyptian authorities would push ahead with a comprehensive development plan for Sinai.
Outside the peninsula, the Egyptian military said the operation also covers parts of the Nile Delta and the Western Desert, where other militants have waged attacks, some believed to be staged out of neighboring Libya.

The Islamic State in its official newspaper al-Naba encouraged Egyptians to attack government forces to show that the campaign is a failure. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been fighting the IS in the Sinai since 2013 when he was the Army chief. He’s now seeking re-election in March.

To read the entire article from Reuters, click here:

Photo courtesy: Egyptian military