FRIDAY FOTO (September 27, 2013)

Rocky Mountain High

U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jon Soucy

Here’s the view of the Rocky Mountains from inside a Colorado National Guard UH-72 Lakota helicopter.

The view inside is pretty breathtaking, too. Look at all the switches above the pilots’ heads and the buttons and dials and gauges elsewhere in the cramped cockpit. Obviously learning to fly this whirlybird takes a lot of study and practice.

Now the few times your 4GWAR editor has flown in government helicopters we’ve been told “Don’t take photos of the cockpit instruments!” Come to think of it, we were also told that the first — and only — time we rode in an MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Guess it’s O.K. now to show all this gadgetry in an Army photo.

This photo shows (left) Chief Warrant Officer 4 Mike Eger, a pilot with the Colorado Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment, and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Troy Parmley, a pilot with the Colorado Guard’s D Company, 3rd Battalion, 148th Aviation Regiment. They are flying over flooded areas as part of relief and recovery operations near Fort Collins, Colorado  last week (Sept. 18, 2013).

More than 750 guard members have been working with local, state and federal authorities in response to flooding in central Colorado caused by heavy rains. The Colorado Guard evacuated about 700 people by ground and helicopter evacuations currently total 2,394.

SHAKO: War of 1812, U.S. Successes on Land and Sea

HMS Boxer Captured

Enterprise Vs. Boxer (via Wikipedia)

After a sharp fight between two brigs, the British vessel, HMS Boxer, was captured  by the 16-gun USS Enterprise on Sept. 5, 1813.

The 14-gun Boxer, which had only been launched in July 1812, had its mast blown away by a broadside from the Enterprise during the 30-minute battle off the coast of Maine near Portland.

Both the Boxer’s commander, Captain Samuel Blyth, and the skipper of the Enterprise, Lieutenant William Burrows, were both killed in the 30-minute battle and were buried side-by-side in Portland’s Eastern Cemetery.

* * * *

Recapture of Detroit

Plan of Fort Detroit in 1812
(Archives of Ontario)

A little over a year after Detroit was surrendered to a smaller force of British, Canadian and Native American (First Nations) forces Fort Detroit and the nearby village were back in U.S. hands.

The naval victory of Oliver Hazard Perry a month earlier on Lake Erie ensured American control of the lake and cut off British and Canadian forces from their supply base in eastern Canada. They evacuated Detroit, which was retaken by U.S. troops under Maj. Gen. William Henry Harrison on Sept. 29, 1813. British-led forces also abandon Fort Amherstburg across the river in Ontario.

Harrison’s forces pursued the retreating British and Canadians and their Indian allies — led by Tecumseh — into Ontario.

SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.

 

AFRICA: Nairobi Mall Attack

At Least 68 Dead

Scores of people were killed and more than a hundred were wounded over the weekend (September 21-22) when armed Islamist militants attacked an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kenya
(CIA World Factbook)

Police and Kenyan soldiers were still trying to secure the entire four-storey building and locate all hostages early today (Monday) after a night-time assault freed an undetermined number of hostages held by the gunmen, according to the New York Times.

Two groups of gunmen armed with assault weapons and hand grenades attacking the building from two sides Saturday shooting down customers and mall workers. At least 68 people have been reported killed.

Video from Nairobi showed complete chaos as the gunmen shot down men, women and children during the two-day rampage.

The al Qaeda-linked Somali group al Shabaab took credit for the bloody attack saying it was revenge for Kenya’s incursion into Somalia to punish the radical militant group which has launched several attacks on Kenya, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Last year Kenyan authorities said they had disrupted a major plot to attack public areas in Nairobi. Authortities also said they broke up another plot in 2007 to attack Western tourists. Tourism is the second biggest industry in Kenya and a big part of the economy of East Africa.

Nairobi Westgate Mall
(2007 photo by Rotsee via Wikipedia)

The scope of the assault on the Westgate Mall — and its “eerie similarities” to the 2008 attack in Mumbai, India by militant gunmen  show that al-Shabaab “has taken its ability to strike outside Somalia to a new level,” according to CNN.

FRIDAY FOTO Extra (Sept. 20, 2013)

Commando School, French Style

Photo by R. Connan, copyright French Defense Ministry

During their initial training, cadets from France’s elite  Saint-Cyr Special Military School undergo a four-week training session at Les Saint-Cyrien au Centre national d’entrainement commando (CNEC) — National Commando Training Centre. There they can earn the designation “monitor commando.”

Training ranges from alpine climbing and rapeling to martial arts and aquatic skills as we see here. After jumping from a motorboat going full speed, these cadets have to swim to zodiac boats and clamber aboard.

To see a slide show of all the tricks of the trade that must be mastered, click here on the French Defense Ministry website. Caution, it’s all in French.

 

FRIDAY FOTO: September 20, 2013

After the Violence

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Arif Patani

Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus speaks to Washington Navy Yard personnel Thursday (Sept. 19), during their first day back to work after the shooting incident that killed 12 workers and the gunman.

LATIN AMERICA: Fallout from NSA Intel Revelations, Brazil-Argentina Cyber Pact, Colombian Drug Ring Busted

Brazil’s Steamed

Brazil (CIA World Fact book)

Relations have been strained between the United States and Brazil since disclosures by a rogue contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA) revealed widespread spying by the U.S. on Brazil.

Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff, was said to be furious over the revelations that the NSA had been conducting widespread spying on her, her top advisers and Brazil’s largest oil company — Petrobras. . Brasilia has demanded a full explanation from Washington and Rousseff has postponed her planned state visit to Washington, scheduled for late October, according to the New York Times, which called the decision a “sharp rebuke to the Obama administration.

Rousseff’s move was seen as a stunning diplomatic setback for the United States which has been trying to improve relations with South America’s largest country and biggest economy after a shaky relationship with her predecessor and mentor, Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, according to AFP. The Brazilian president has called the spying “an illegal act” and a violation of Brazilian sovereignty.

Brazil-Argentina Cyber Defense Pact

How bad are relations between Brazil and the United States over disclosures that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has collected data on billions of phone and email conversations in Brazil — including President Dilma Rousseff’s personal communications? Pretty bad.

Not only has Rousseff postponed a long-planned state visit to Washington, but Brazil has agreed to a cyber defense pact with Argentina, according to Press TV reports.

The agreement was reached following Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim’s recent meeting with his Argentine counterpart, Agustin Rossi in Buenos as Aires. The military agreement commits Brazil to train Argentina’s military in cyber defense starting in 2014.

Colombia Drugs

Police in Colombia have captured 16 drug dealers that were paert of a ring that grows and distributes marijuana through small convenience in the country’s major cities, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.

Colombia and Venezuela: Wikipedia image

Four of the suspects were caught ransporting 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) of marijuana by truck” in  Bogota,” according to the national police.

The police said the drug ring paid a “gram tax” on marijuana to the country’s largest armed rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The Colombian government has accused the FASRC of involvement in drug trafficking  — as has the United States. The rebels deny the charge. The FARC and the government are currently holding peace talks in Havana, Cuba, to put an end to five decades of fighting.

Both sides ended their 14th round of negotiations Thursday (September 19), issuing a joint statement saying they had made progress, according to Reuters.

The statement said the parties “continue advancing in developing and writing up accords … around the second point of the agenda on political participation,” including rights and guarantees for the exercise of political opposition, Reuters said. But the FARC accused the government of trying to impose unilaterally the conditions on any future peace agreement.

The government in Bogota wants a peace accord by November when the national electoral cycle starts. But both sides say that deadline won’t be met and may complicate the presidential vote in May 2014.

SHAKO: Happy Birthday U.S. Air Force

USAF, Est. 1947

(U.S. Air Force photo/Jim Varhegyi)

On this day (September 18) 66 years ago, President Harry Truman signed into law the National Security Act of 1947 which created the U.S. Air Force as a separate branch of the U.S. armed forces. Before that, the Air Force was a part of the U.S. Army. The photo above shows the Air Force Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.

Today is also the final day of the Air Force Association’s 2013 Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition across the Potomac River at National Harbor, Maryland. Click here to see numerous features from the conference website including speeches by USAF leaders on the state of the Air Force, its triumphs and the future challenges it faces in an era of budget constraints and a strategic shift by the Defense Department to the Asia-Pacific region.

Wright 1909 Military Flyer in the Early Years Gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
This was the first U.S. military aircraft before there even was an Air Force.
(U.S. Air Force photo)

SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.

DISASTER RELIEF: Army, National Guard Response to Colorado Floods

Air Evacuation

(Photo by Sgt. Jonathan C. Thibault, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade Public Affairs Office, 4th Infantry Division)

As you’ve probably seen, read or heard, northwest Colorado has been deluged with flooding after days of heavy rains. U.S. Army units as well as members of the Colorado National Guard have been deployed to assist local first responders in evacuations, sandbagging operations as well as search and rescue. At least eight people have died as a result of the flooding and thousands  have been evacuated from their homes — according to the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets.

Sometimes those rescues came at the end of a helicopter hoist cable.

In the photo above, Staff Sgt. Jose Pantoja, a flight medic with the 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, assists an evacuee onto a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter during rescue and recovery operations in Boulder, Colorado on Monday (September 16). Pantoja is assigned to Company C, 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. (Wonder if they call it the “Triple 4”?) The unit is based at Fort Kit Carson in Colorado.

For more photos of aerial evacuations, click here and here.

People and their pets evacuated by high clearance Army truck in Boulder County.
(Army National Guard Photo by Sgt. Joseph K. VonNida)

The photo below captures some of the destruction caused by flash floods through mountainous country in and around Boulder where past drought and forest fire damage have weakened top soil and tree roots, causing landslides, mudslides, washed out roads and trapping residents in isolated communities on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains.

Severe flooding shutdown roads leading out of Jamestown, Colorado.
(U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Nicole Manzanares)

We confess a special interest in this story since your 4GWAR editor and spouse were just in this area last month for a little R&R after dropping off the blog’s in-house IT consulant for his sophomore year at University of Colorado-Boulder. (Said consultant has informed his parents he’s all right, although classes at CU-Boulder were cancelled for two days and some areas around campus were evacuated.) Many smaller communities in the mountains of Boulder and Larimer counties have only two-lane roads winding through narrow canyons for access, and when they are flooded, buried in debris or washed away residents have no way of getting out.

In the last photo, U.S. soldiers and airmen from the Colorado National Guard, along with members of civilian emergency response agencies, fill sandbags in Arvada, Colorado. More than 17 inches of rain fell on Boulder in just over a week. The average annual rainfall for Boulder is a little over 19 inches.

(U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Nicole Manzanares)

To read more about Defense Department efforts in the disaster (U.S. Northern Command and NORAD are both headquartered in Colorado) click on this DoD webpage.

WASHINGTON: Navy Yard Shooting (Latest Update2)

Victims Identified, Review Ordered

Police guard the front entrance of the Washington Navy Yard Tuesday.
(U.S. Navy photo by Chatney Auger)

The 12 victims of Monday’s mass shooting incident at the Washington Navy Yard have been identified. The three women and nine men ranged in age from 46 to 73.

The alleged shooter, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis of Fort Worth, Texas was also slain Monday during a running gun battle with police. He was identified as a former Navy reservist and a civilian employee of an information technology subcontractor who recently started working at the sprawling Navy facility.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus today (September 17) ordered a “rapid review” of Navy and Marine Corps security procedures. Mabus said he ordered the review of “every Navy and Marine Corps base in the United States to ensure that we live up to our responsibility of taking care of our people.”

The review by a Navy admiral and a Marine Corps general is due back on Mabus’s desk by Oct. 1 — two weeks after the Navy Yard shootings.

Late Monday night Washington police ruled out reports of a second gunman, saying Aaron had acted alone. A motive for the shootings, that also wounded three people, has not been determined.

According to the Washington Metropolitan Police, these are the names of the victims:

•  Michael Arnold, 59, Lorton, Virginia
•  Sylvia Frasier, 53, Waldorf, Maryland
•  Kathy Gaarde, 62, Woodbridge, Virginia
•  John Roger Johnson, 73, Derwood, Maryland
•  Frank Kohler, 50, Tall Timbers, Maryland
•  Kenneth Bernard Proctor, 46, Waldorf, Maryland
•  Vishnu Shalchendia Pandit, 61, North Potomac, Maryland
•  Arthur Daniels, 51,  Washington, DC
•   Mary Francis Knight, 51, of Reston, Virginia
•  Gerald L. Read, 58, Alexandria, Virginia
•  Martin Bodrog, 54, Annandale, Virginia
•  Richard Michael Ridgell, 52, Westminster, Maryland

WASHINGTON: Navy Yard Shooting Death Toll Rises, Suspect ID’ed UPDATE

Thirteen Dead

The death toll in the mass shooting incident at the Washington Navy Yard has risen to 13, Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said today (September 16).

Gray said a 12th victim had died, increasing the death toll to 13 — including the shooter, who was identified by the FBI as Aaron Alexis, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas. “We are looking to learn everything we can about his recent movements, contacts and associates, said Valerie Parlave, head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. The FBI has been designated lead agency in the shooting investigation.

FBI photo of Aaron Alexis

DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier said the suspect engaged in several gunfights with police before he was shot and killed. “It was one of the worst things we’ve seen in Washington, D.C.,” she added.

“We don’t know what the motive is,” said Gray adding that while there was nothing to indicate the shooting was an act of terrorism “but we haven’t ruled out anything.”

Meanwhile, authorities have ruled out one of two people suspected of being a second shooter.

According to a tweet by the District of Columbia Police Department, a man said to be wearing a khaki or tan military unifrom and carrying a handgun is not a suspect:

DC Police Department ‏@DCPoliceDept 47m

The white male in the tan outfit has been identified and is not a suspect or person of interest.

But Gray and Lanier said police were still seeking a black male witnesses said they saw wearing olive drab military style and carrying a long gun. That man was said to be about 50 years old with graying sideburns. There’s been no word on the status of that part of the investigation.

To see earlier stories, click here.

Aerial file photo of Washington Navy Yard
(U.S. Navy photo)