Posts filed under ‘Homeland Security’
THE FRIDAY FOTO (March 10, 2023)
THE ONE WITH THE RED STRIPE
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Diolanda Caballero) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Terrapin makes its way surrounded by U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Team (MSRT) response boats and Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP) response boats near Vancouver, British Columbia on February 28, 2023.
The MSRT is an elite Coast Guard unit that specializes in maritime counter-terrorism operations and high risk law enforcement. MSRTs are trained to board from small boats or helicopters and secure vessels including those controll by terrorists holding hostages.
We thought the colors, or lack thereof, in this photo were quite arresting. No pun intended. Everything in this photo, the sky, trees, water — even the snow appears gray — except for the white boat with the red slash on its hull. The iconic blue, white and red slash racing stripe emblem was created in the 1960s by the design firm of Raymond Loewy/William Snaith, Inc., which had just redesigned the interior and exterior of President John F. Kennedy’s aircraft, Air Force One.
Loewy was a legendary industrial designer credited with the white logo on Coca-Cola bottles, the Greyhound Scenicruiser bus, the supersonic Concorde jetliner’s interiors, NASA’s Skylab, as well as logos for Lucky Strike cigarettes, Shell and Exxon oil companies and the Art Deco-styled Pennsylvania Railroad’s S1 steam locomotive.
Loewy also redesigned Nabisco’s red corner logo that’s still in use today. (Photo Raymond Loewy/Facebook via allthatsinteresting.com)
The president was so pleased with the design outcome that he suggested the firm look into improving the visual image of the federal government. Kennedy suggested starting with the Coast Guard. “The firm recommended the Coast Guard adopt an identification device similar to a commercial trademark. The firm believed the symbol should be easily identifiable from a distance, easily differentiated from other government or commercial emblems or logos, and easily adapted to a wide variety of air and sea assets,” according to a 2012 article in Sea History.
The company presented its findings to Coast Guard leadership in January 1964. After four years of study, testing and tweaking some of the design firm’s ideas, Coast Guard Commandant Edwin Roland issued Instructions on April 6, 1967 ordering servicewide implementation of the Integrated Visual Identification System.
HOMELAND SECURITY: About That Big Ballooon …
… AND THE JETS THAT SHOT IT DOWN.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the enormous Chinese high-altitude “weather” balloon that an Air Force F-22 Raptor fighter jet shot down off the South Carolina coast February 4, after U.S. authorities determined: 1. It was a surveillance craft, 2. scoping out U.S. defense facilities in Montana and elsewhere across the heartland, 3. in violation of international law, 4. and shooting it down over land would endanger American lives and property.
F-22 Raptor over Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia on December 9, 2022. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergean. Marcus M. Bullock)
However, we noted in a February 6 briefing about the event — which roiled already difficult U.S-Chinese relations — Air Force General Glen VanHerck, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, disclosed that the flight of two F-22s sent to bring down the balloon, had the call sign Frank 01. And the second, backup flight of Raptors, used call sign Luke 01.
The call sign name choice wasn’t random. Lieutenant Frank Luke was a World War pilot awarded the Medal of Honor for his relentless attacks against observation balloons ringed by anti-aircraft guns and guarded by German aircraft.
2nd Lieutenant Frank Luke, Jr. with his SPAD S.XIII on September 19, 1918 near Rattentout Farm, France.
A native of Phoenix, Arizona, Luke was the Number 2 U.S. air ace in World War I (after the better known Captain Eddie Rickenbacker). In just a few short weeks in 1918, Luke shot down eight German planes and 14 enemy observation balloons. His head-on attacks on the hydrogen-filled, heavily guarded balloons earned him the nickname the “Arizona Balloon Buster,” as we noted in an October 4, 2018 posting on 4GWAR blog.
Luke was killed in his final attack on a line of balloons on September 29, 1918 — destroying three — before being mortally wounded by ground fire. He landed his plane but refused to surrender to surrounding German troops, firing his handgun at them until he succumbed to his wound.
“So how fitting is it that Frank 01 took down this balloon in sovereign air space of the United States of America within our territorial waters,” General VanHerck noted.
THE FRIDAY FOTO (December 23, 2022)
A SPLASH OF COLOR.
(Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Aidan Cooney) Click on the photo to enlarge image.
Coast Guardsmen on U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star enjoy a swim call near the equator in the Pacific Ocean on December 8, 2022.
The swim call (recreational swim) came shortly after the Coast Guard’s largest ice breaker crossed the equator enroute to Antarctica for Operation Deep Freeze 2023. Each year, POLAR STAR travels from its homeport (base) in Seattle, Washington to McMurdo Station in Antarctica to lead Operation Deep Freeze and break miles of ice up to 21 feet thick.
Operation Deep Freeze is an annual joint military service mission to resupply the United States Antarctic stations in support of the National Science Foundation, lead agency for the United States Antarctic Program. See a brief video here from a Seattle TV station on the Polar Star’s departure in November.
More than 1,000 scientists, support staff and military personnel live and work at McMurdo Station during the southern hemisphere summer, when the frozen continent sees perpetual daylight, according to the Stars and Stripes website.
SHAKO: Happy Birthday U.S. National Guard!
From a Colonial Militia Unit …
The First Muster by Don Troiani (Courtesy U.S. National Guard). Click on photo to enlarge image.
On Tuesday, December 13, 2022, the U.S. National Guard celebrates its 386th birthday. Yes, that’s right. The National Guard is older the Army or the Navy — older even than the United States of America.
How is that even possible? Well, according to the Guard, the selection of December 13, 1636 is based upon the Defense Department practice of adopting the dates of initial authorizing legislation for organized units as their birthdates. For a more detailed explanation from a previous National Guard press release, click here.
So, on December 13, 1636, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered the organization of the colony’s militia companies into three regiments: the North, South and East Regiments. The colonists had adopted the English militia system which obligated all males, between the ages of 16 and 60, to possess arms and participate in the defense of the community.
The early colonial militia drilled once a week and provided guard details each evening to sound the alarm in case of attack. Growing friction with Native Americans boiled over into brutal warfare in the 1630s, requiring the Massachusetts militia to be in a high state of readiness. The organization of the North, South and East Regiments increased efficiency and responsiveness. Although the exact date is not known, the first muster of the East Regiment took place in Salem, Massachusetts.
Later in the 17th and 18th centuries militias from Massachusetts and most of the other 13 colonies battled the French and their Indian allies in a series of conflicts known as the French and Indian wars. By 1775 they were fighting British redcoats in the war for independence.
In Katrina’s Wake By Gil Cohen. (Courtesy National Guard). Click on photo to enlarge image.
HOMELAND SECURITY: Arizona’s Shipping Container Border Wall; Officials Concerned By Attacks of Power Stations in Four States
BORDER BARRIER BATTLE.
Shipping containers are put in place along the U.S.-Mexico border in Cochise County.
Arizona’s Republican governor, whose term ends in a few weeks, has continued to order cargo shipping containers, stacked along a remote part of the state’s border with Mexico as a deterrent to undocumented migrants.
Governor Doug Ducey ordered the double-stacked shipping containers topped by razor wire unloaded in late summer near Yuma in western Arizona — a popular crossing point for migrants and asylum seekers entering the country illegally. He has continued the project over the objections of the U.S. government, environmentalists and the incoming incoming governor who has called it a poor use of resources, the Associated Press reported December 11. The latest container pile up is in Arizona’s remote San Rafael Valley, in Cochise County, which is not typically used by migrants, according to the AP.
Democratic Governor-elect Katie Hobbs said she was “looking at all the options” and hasn’t decided what to do about the containers after her inauguration on January 5, 2023. “I don’t know how much it will cost to remove the containers and what the cost will be,” Hobbs told Phoenix PBS TV station KAET in an interview December 7.
Ducey’s action comes as record number of migrants have been crossing the border. U.S. border officials have stopped migrants 2.38 million times in the fiscal year that ended September 30,. That’s up 37 percent from the year before. The annual total surpassed two million for the first time in August and is more than twice the highest level during the Trump administration.
Federal agencies have told Arizona officials the construction on U.S. land is unlawful and ordered it to halt. In response, Ducey sued federal officials October 21, sending the dispute to court. While the Justice Department of Justice has filed a motion to dismiss Ducey’s lawsuit, the Biden administration has taken no steps on the ground to stop the governor’s project, according to The Intercept website.
Meanwhile, the sheriff in another Arizona county, bordering Cochise County on the West, says Federal agents should begin seizing vehicles associated with the project. With federal authorities doing nothing yet, Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway has vowed to arrest the governor’s contractors if they cross the county line into his turf.
But the contract for the latest container wall has it stopping just shy of Hathaway’s jurisdiction. However, convoys of contractors have been racing through communities in Santa Cruz County for weeks now, hauling 40-foot shipping containers behind multi-ton pickup trucks at dangerous speeds, according to The Intercept. Hathaway said residents in the town of Elgin have complained about Ducey’s drivers “barreling through town,” ignoring stop signs, and “flying past children.”
The U.S. Forest Service says the shipping containers are a safety hazard and the federal government issued a statement warning people to stay away from the Copper Canyon area in the Sierra Vista District of the Coronado National Forest for safety reasons, according to Arizona Public Media.
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VANDALISM OR TERRORISM? UPDATED with new information, photo
All electric power has been restored in central North Carolina, where gunfire December 3 led to massive power outages lasting for four days.
Authorities are now concerned about the vulnerability of the nation’s electric grid with news of other attacks on six substations in Oregon and Washington earlier in the Fall. Another sub station in South Carolina was attacked just days after the North Carolina incident.
Grid security experts said it’s too early to tell whether the incidents were related or unusual in number, but said they showcase a need for the energy industry to be vigilant and prepared.
“It remains troubling and highlights how vulnerable is our critical infrastructure,” Richard Mroz, a senior adviser at the grid security advocacy group Protect Our Power, told the E&E News Energy Wire said in an email about the string of incidents.
Duke Energy Corporation electric substation at Carthage, North Carolina was one of two in the state damaged by gunfire. (Photo via FBI website)
No arrests have been announced and no suspect or suspects have been identified in the shooting at two Duke Energy substations around five miles apart on December 3. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper called the shootings about 50 miles southwest of Raleigh, a “criminal attack.” Cooper announced the state, Moore County and Duke Energy were offering a combined $75,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the attack, The Associated Press reported.
When power started going out in Moore County shortly after 7 p.m. Saturday, December 3, investigators found the equipment had been struck by gunfire. The person or people responsible drove to the substations, breached a gate in one case, and opened fire, NBC News reported. The FBI is among the law enforcement agencies assisting in the investigation.
Not the First Attack, nor the Last
In late November, two electric substations near the Portland, Oregon suburb of Clackamas were targeted in what utility officials described as deliberate attacks. The substations are operated separately by the Bonneville Power Administration and Portland General Electric, and it’s unclear if they were attacked on the same day or if the events were connected. At least four substations in Washington state have also been vandalized or targeted, EnergyWire reported.
Several days after the North Carolina shootings, Duke Energy Corporation reported gunfire near its Wateree Hydro station in Ridgeway, South Carolina. The December 7 incident at the South Carolina hydroelectric plant did not cause any reported outages or known property damage, the company said.
Investigators are zeroing in on two threads of possible motives centered on extremist behavior for the North Carolina attacks, CNN reported, citing law-enforcement sources briefed on the investigation. One thread involves the writings by extremists on online forums encouraging attacks on critical infrastructure. The second thread looks at a series of recent disruptions of LGBTQ+ events across the nation by domestic extremists, CNN said.
Investigators have no evidence connecting the North Carolina attacks to a drag event at a theater in the same county, but the timing of two events are being considered in context with the growing tensions and armed confrontations around similar LBGTQ+ events across the country, the sources told CNN.
Attacks on the United States’ power grid have been the subject of extremist chatter for some time, notably ticking up in 2020, the same year a 14-page how-to on low tech attacks, including assaulting power grids with guns, circulated among extremist communication channels, according to CNN and other news outlets.
A Department of Homeland Security bulletin — reported by CNN just days before the North Carolina attack — indicated there was a heightened threat posed by domestic violent extremists in the United States against critical infrastructure and other targets. In the past two years, anti-government groups began using online forums to urge followers to attack critical infrastructure, including the power grid. They have posted documents and even instructions outlining vulnerabilities and suggesting the use of high-powered rifles, CNN reported. Nearly two dozen shell casings from a high-powered rifle were reported found at the scene in North Carolina.
FRIDAY FOTO (December 9, 2022)
WINTER STILL LIFE WITH SOLDIERS.
(Army National Guard photo by Sergeant Seth LaCount, 134th Public Affairs Detachment) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.
Alaska Army National Guardsmen — assigned to the appropriately named Avalanche Company — patrol at sunset on December 3, 2022 during an Air Assault training exercise at Alaska’s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The exercise, part of the drill weekend for these members of the 1st Battalion, 297th Infantry Regiment, sought to enhance the unit’s combat readiness while evaluating their proficiency in an arctic environment.
We note only a couple of the soldiers are wearing winter white garb.
FRIDAY FOTO (September 23, 2022)
ON A (ROTARY) WING AND A PRAYER.
(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Jonathan L. Gonzalez)
A Bell UH-1Y Venom utility helicopter (left) and a Bell AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron (HMLA) 773, conduct flight operations near the Christ the Redeemer statue at Corcovado Mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during exercise UNITAS LXIII, on September 12, 2022.
We haven’t focused much on U.S. Southern Command in a while here at 4GWAR, so this photo presents an opportunity to spotlight the work of this regional combatant command based at Doral, Florida near Miami. SOUTHCOM is responsible for defending U.S. security and interests of Latin America south of Mexico, including the waters adjacent to Central and South America and the Caribbean Sea.
Conducted every year since 1960, UNITAS (Latin for “unity’), is the world’s longest-running annual multinational maritime exercise. 4GWAR has been writing about UNITAS since 2015.
HMLA 773, headquartered at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, is part of the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Forces Reserve in support of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force UNITAS LXIII.
This year Brazil celebrated its bicentennial, a historical milestone commemorating 200 years of the country’s independence.
FRIDAY FOTO (September 2, 2022)
One of the Perks of the Job.
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Matthew Abban)
Crew members look at the aurora borealis as it’s seen from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Bear while transiting northward in the Atlantic Ocean, August 9, 2022.
The Bear was heading for Operation Nanook, the Canadian Armed Forces’ signature northern operation, this year in and around Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Nunavut is a massive, sparsely populated territory of northern Canada, forming most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
The aurora, also known as the Northern Lights, is an electrical phenomenon in Earth’s atmosphere.
SHAKO: U.S. Coast Guard Turns 232; First Black Marine Corps 4-Star General Confirmed
Semper Paratus
Happy Birthday to the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard.
U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle is berthed alongside USS Constitution (Old Iron Sides), the world’s oldest commissioned warship afloat, in Boston Harbor on July 29, 2022. The Eagle is a three-masted sailing barque and the only active (operational) commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. maritime services. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joshua Samoluk)
The history of the Coast Guard goes back to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, which was founded on August 4, 1790, as part of the Department of the Treasury, under then-Secretary Alexander Hamilton. The Revenue Cutter Service and the Life-Saving Service, created in 1848 to save the lives of shipwrecked mariners and passengers, were merged to form the Coast Guard on January 28, 1915. In 1939 the Lighthouse Service, created in 1910, was also merged into the Coast Guard.
Since then, the Coast Guard has been handed many assignments including: Intercepting intruder aircraft over the National Capital Region, preserving marine wildlife, maritime search and rescue, enforcing maritime law in U.S. waters and intercepting smugglers of drugs and people.
Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Caitlyn Mason, assigned to the medium endurance cutter USCGC Mohawk, rescues a sea turtle caught in a fishing net in the Atlantic Ocean, on July 14, 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Jessica Fontenette)
In all the Coast Guard has eleven separate missions a lot of them are included in this brief video, which includes the Coast Guard’s marching tune, Semper Paratus, Always Prepared.
U.S. Coast Guardsmen seize a self-propelled, semi submersible craft (left) carrying narcotics off Central America’s Pacific Coast in 2009. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
At the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, the cadets, staff and family members marked the day with speeches, a proclamation from the governor of Connecticut, music and a birthday cake set up in front of Alexander Hamilton’s statue.
Rear Admiral William G. Kelly cuts the cake celebrating the Coast Guard’s 232nd birthday. (U.S. Coast Guard Photo by Auxiliarist David Lau.)
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First Black Marine Corps 4-Star General.
The U.S. Senate has confirmed Marine Corps Lieutenant General Michael E. Langley be appointed to the rank of general and will be promoted in a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Saturday (August 6).
Langley will be the first Black Marine appointed to the rank of four-star general. While the Marine Corps and several news outlets have said he will be the first black full general in the 246-year history of the Marines, it’s worth noting the rank did not exist in the Marine Corps, which is a part of the Navy Department, until Alexander Vandergrift was appointed a four star general in 1945. There have been more than 70 four-star generals in the Marine Corps since then, but all have been white men.
Langley was promoted to serve as the head of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart, Germany, and will command all U.S. military forces in Africa. The continent is experiencing a rash of economic and security interests by Russia and China. Russia controls the private military company, Wagner Group, whose mercenaries operate in Libya and the Central African Republic.
Lt. General Michael E. Langley. (U.S. Marine Corps photo)
Langley was nominated for the post by President Joe Biden in June. The Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment on Monday (August 1). “It is a great honor to be the president’s nominee to lead U.S. AFRICOM,” Langley said at his July 21 nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I am grateful for the trust and confidence extended by him, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the commandant of the Marine Corps,” SEAPOWER reported.
Langley currently serves as the commander, Marine Forces Command; Marine Forces Northern Command; and commander for Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, according to the Marine Corps. His previous general officer posts included commander for Marine Forces Europe and Africa; deputy commanding general for the Second Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) and commanding general for the 2d Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
A native of Shreveport, Louisiana and graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington. He was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in 1985 as an artillery officer. Langley has commanded Marines at every level from platoon to regiment, serving in Okinawa, Japan and Afghanistan, the Marine Corps said.
Langley will replace the outgoing commander AFRICOM, Army Gen. Stephen J. Townsend. In late July, Townsend said the threat of violent extremism and strategic competition from China and Russia remain the greatest challenges to the combatant command, according to a Defense Department news release, Marine Corps Times reported.
“Some of the most lethal terrorists on the planet are now in Africa,” said Townsend, according to the release.
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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 in the photo.
FRIDAY FOTO (June 10, 2022)
Tall Ship Comes Calling.
(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Ashley J. Johnson.)
The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Eagle — known as “America’s Tall Ship” is shown arriving at Maurice Ferre Park, Miami on May 19, 2022. (Click on the photo to enlarge image).
The Eagle is a three-masted sailing barque and the only active (operational) commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. maritime services.
The ship was built in 1936 by the Blohm + Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, and commissioned as Horst Wessel. Four identical sister ships were also built. Originally operated by Nazi Germany to train cadets for the German Navy, the ship was taken by the United States as a war prize after World War II. In 1946, a U.S. Coast Guard crew – aided by the German crew still on board – sailed the tall ship from Bremerhaven to its new homeport in New London, Connecticut.
Homeported at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut., the Eagle is used as a training platform for future Coast Guard officers.
Today, a permanent crew of eight officers and 50 enlisted personnel maintain the ship year-round. They provide a strong base of knowledge and seamanship for the training of up to 150 cadets, or officer candidates, at a time.
On a summer-long, five phase training cruise, the Eagle was scheduled to arrive at Galveston, Texas today (June 10) and return home to New London on October 1.
For more information about the Eagle, click here.
4GWAR 