FRIDAY FOTO (December 25, 2020)

Happy Holidays

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Grant G. Grady). Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

The USS Constitution displays holiday lights and decorations during a snow storm while moored to the pier at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Massachusetts.

Constitution is the world’s oldest commissioned warship afloat, and played a crucial role in the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. Dubbed “Old Ironsides” in 1812 when British cannon balls seemed to bounce off the ship’s sturdy oak hull, Constitution actively defended sea lanes from 1797 to 1855.

Here at 4GWAR blog we wish everyone a safe and joyous holiday time to help put this very trying year behind us.

Please stay safe: keep your distance at least six feet apart and wear a mask or face-covering when you can’t. It they can do it under these circumstances, you can too.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist George M. Bell/Released)

 

FRIDAY FOTO (December 18, 2020)

Changing Times.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Grace J. Kindred)

One of three female sergeants graduating from the Marine Drill Instructor School dons her felt DI campaign hat during a ceremony at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, on December 16, 2020.

At that ceremony, Sergeant Stephanie Fahl, Sergeant Ikea Kaufman and Sergeant. Stephanie Jordi, made Marine Corps history by becoming the first females to graduate from a gender-integrated drill instructor course at the 100-year-old recruit depot at San Diego.

Marching to the center of the stage, they received the signature felt drill instructor hat and recited the drill instructor’s creed penned in 1956, according to the Orange County Register.

“These recruits are entrusted to my care. I will train them to the best of my ability. I will develop them into smartly disciplined, physically fit, basically trained Marines, thoroughly indoctrinated in love of the Corps and country. I will demand of them and demonstrate by my own example, the highest standards of personal conduct, morality, and professional skill.”

In February, the three will again make history, the paper noted, by joining their male counterparts to train the first gender-integrated company of Marine recruits in the West Coast depot’s history. Traditionally, the San Diego recruit depot has trained only enlisted men from west of the Mississippi River. Male recruits from east of the Mississippi trained at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. But all women enlisting in the Corps have been shipped to Parris Island, no matter where they were from.

Beginning in 2019 the Corps started experimenting with gender-integrating boot camp companies at Parris Island, according to Marine Corps Times, In February the Corps will recreate those integrated companies in San Diego with roughly 60 women forming a platoon of Lima Company, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, that will train alongside the male recruits, Military.com first reported.

Congress has pressed the Marines to train men and women together after all combat arms jobs opened to women and a high-profile scandal highlighted the troubling way some male Marines treated their female colleagues, Military.com noted. The requirement to end the practice of separate training by gender was included in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law last December.

During drill instructor school, selected Marine non-commissioned officers develop leadership skills, master drill, meet physical fitness requirements and learn how to make Marines.

FRIDAY FOTO (December 11, 2020)

Brown Water Sailors.

(Photo by Michael Williams)

International students at the Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School (NAVSCIATTS) participate in an exercise on Mississippi’s Pearl River, near the John C. Stennis Space Center on December 2, 2020.

These students are participating in the seven-week Patrol Craft Officer Riverine course, which is designed to provide Foreign Security Force personnel with the specialized training to plan and execute security actions in riverine and littoral environments. Missions in the rivers and shallows include supporting interdiction, counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics operations . The current semester course includes representatives from the African nations of Chad, Ghana, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Sierra Leone and Togo.

NAVSCIATTS is a security cooperation training command operating under U.S. Special Operations Command in support of Security Force Assistance and Geographic Combatant Commanders’ security cooperation priorities. To date, NAVSCIATTS has trained with more than 12,000 students from 121 partner nations.

FRIDAY FOTO (December 4, 2020)

A Different Mask for Work.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Drace Wilson)

Sailors fight a simulated fire during a general quarters drill aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Sterett. The Sterett is part of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group and is conducting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts.

In the Navy, they take fires very seriously. At Naval Service Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois — the Navy’s only enlisted boot camp –recruits are trained in firefighting as one of five basic competencies, which also include damage control, watch standing, seamanship and small-arms handling and marksmanship.

Just how serious was driven home in July when the amphibious assault ship, USS Bonhomme Richard, caught fire beside the pier at Naval Base San Diego, California and burned for four days. No lives were lost but the 22-year-old Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) was. It had been in San Diego since 2018 undergoing more than $250 million in modernization improvements.

On November 30, the Navy announced it had decided to decommission and scrap the Bonhomme Richard, according to SEAPOWER.

Navy Secretary Kenneth  Braithwaite and the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday made the decision after the Navy completed a comprehensive material assessment and considered three possible outcomes.

Rear Admiral Eric H. Ver Hage, director of Surface Ship Maintenance and Modernization at Naval Sea Systems Command, said rebuilding and repairing the Wasp-class amphibious assault vessel would have taken five to seven years and cost an estimated $2.5 billion to $3.2 billion.

Alternatively, rebuilding the ship as another type of ship — such as a hospital ship — would have taken five to seven years and cost more than $1 billion, more than a new alternative ship is estimated to cost, Ver Hage said.

Replacing the Bonhomme Richard with a new America-class (LHA 6) amphibious assault ship would take five to six years and cost an estimated $4.1 billion, he said.

FRIDAY FOTO (November 27, 2020)

Your Ride’s Here.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Alejandro Peña)

Well here’s a switch. The pilot in the picture are Army and the folks on the ground are Air Force.

This photo, taken November 18, 2020, shows an Alaska Army National Guard UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter landing to pick up Air Force special warfare Airmen, assigned to the 3rd Air Support Operations Squadron, during small unit training at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

Conducted under physical and mental stress conditions (what other kind do special operators operate in?) the small unit training reinforces fundamental combat skills and fosters team cohesion, according to the Air Force.

FRIDAY FOTO (November 20, 2020)

Stringing Along.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Dalton J. Payne)

U.S. Marines with the Third Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF), conduct special patrol insertion/extraction and helicopter repel training at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, Japan on October 23, 2020. T

hese Marines belong to the Expeditionary Operation Training Group (EOTG), which trains Marines before they are  attached to Marine Expeditionary Units, where they will be using these techniques. The UH-1Y helicopter is from Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 469 (HMLA-469).

FRIDAY FOTO (November 13, 2020)

Somewhere Over Asia.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sergeant Joey Swafford)

Refueling a fighter jet in the air is tough enough in daylight, but imagine how hard it must be to do at night.

We picked this photo because of the unusual scenery below these two aircraft. And since the official caption merely says the photo was taken over the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, we doubt if they’ll share much more information about those brilliantly-lit geometric shapes on the ground.

U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. (Image. Central Command)

This photo shows a U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon receiving fuel from a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker on November 4, 2020.

FRIDAY FOTO (November 6, 2020)

Golden Rainbow.

(U.S. Army photo by Major Robert Fellingham)

A CH-47 Chinook from B Company, 1st Battalion, 214th General Support Aviation Regiment spins up for an evening training flight just after an October 6 storm clears — leaving a rainbow in its wake —  Katterbach Army Airfield in Germany.

FRIDAY FOTO (October 30, 2020)

No Trick, Just Treats.

(U.S. Army photo by: Staff Sergeant Michael West)

A U.S. soldier serving in Operation Inherent Resolve offers a treat to a child while meeting with villagers in northeastern Syria on October 15, 2020.

While the aim of such visits is to strengthen ties with local folks, the troops that are part of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve mission work in a dangerous neighborhood. If you click on the photo to enlarge the image, you’ll notice this soldier has in his vest, six spare clips of ammunition for his M-4 automatic weapon, and an additional clip or two for the pistol strapped to his hip.

The mission, according to the Army, is working by, with and through coalition members and partners in the area to ensure the defeat violent extremists of the Islamic State — also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh — and that they stay defeated.

Soldiers involved in the village meeting on the day this photo was taken were from the 1st Armored Division (1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team) and the 82nd Airborne Division (1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team).

FRIDAY FOTO (October 22, 2020)

Lightning Over Red Rock Country.

(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Alexander Cook. Click on image to enlarge)

Two U.S. Air Force and two Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF)  F-35A Lightning II strike fighters fly in formation over the red rock country of Sedona, Arizona. The October 8, 2020 commemoration flight celebrated the partnership between the two air forces in training fighter pilots at Luke Air Force Base. The flight marked the final sortie between the two nations before the Australian airmen return to RAAF Base Williamtown, Australia by December 2020.

“Most of the Australian pilots that have come through here at Luke have worked with the U.S. Air Force before in the Middle East,” said RAAF Major Christopher Baker, an instructor pilot and graduate of the F-35A pilot training program at Luke. “I don’t think you’d meet many RAAF or U.S. Air Force pilots that haven’t interacted with each other before in some capacity, either operationally or in an exercise somewhere,” he added.

The RAAF and U.S. Air Force student pilots complete the same nine-month undergraduate training course where pilots learn how to operate and employ the F-35. Australian and U.S. instructor pilots lead the training during courses, said U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tom Hayes, commander of the 61st Fighter Squadron.

Luke AFB is named for Medal of Honor winner Frank Luke, a World War I U.S. Army Air Service fighter pilot known as the “Arizona Balloon Buster.“

Below is a closeup photo of two F-35s, the near one American and the far one Australian (note the low visibility kangaroo roundel of the RAAF).

 

(U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Alexander Cook) Click on image to enlarge.