SHAKO: Okinawa Dragon Boat Race Winners

ARMY ALL-WOMAN TEAM WINS DRAGON BOAT RACE.

The Army Ladies’ Dragon Boat Team competes in the 49th Naha Hari Festival Dragon Boat Races in Okinawa, Japan, May 5, 2023. The team won the championship trophy for the event. (Photo by Brian Lamar, 10th Support Group)

With a come-from-behind finish, the U.S. Army Ladies’ Dragon Boat Team became the first all-women crew to win the 49th Naha Hari Festival Dragon Boat Races on May 5th, 2023 in Naha City, Okinawa. It was the first time the races were run in three years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Army all-women team dominated the event, placing first out of 21 teams in the trial heats with a time five minutes and five seconds for the 630-meter (688.9-yard) course. Only three teams qualified for the finals — the Army Ladies, the Army Black Knights and the Japanese Airlines team.

The Army women began to fall behind in the first half of the final race, while the Black Knights began to pull ahead. But at the turnaround, the Army Ladies’ team made up all the lost ground. After the turn, all three teams were within a half boat’s length of each other.

The Ladies’ boat crossed the finish line at 5 minutes and 8 seconds. The Black Knights finished second and the Japanese Airlines Team was a distant third.

Finals of the 49th Naha Hari Festival Dragon Boat Races on May 5, 2023 in Naha City, Okinawa. (Photo by Brian Lamar)

The Black Knights needed help achieving a full crew for the dragon boats, which require 32 rowers, two more people to steer the boat and two drummers. The gaps were filled by affiliated Army personnel and members of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

Haarii (dragon boat races) date back hundreds of years in Okinawa. The festivals are held to pray for a safe voyage and a good catch and to thank the sea for its blessings. Fishermen compete against each other during haarii in sabani (small dragon-shaped fishing boats). Haarii, which have been held by fishermen in Itoman City and Naha City for 600 hundred years, are traditional events celebrated by people who live with the sea, according to the Okinawa Island Guide.

THE FRIDAY FOTO (April 28, 2023)

“High shall our purpose be.”

(U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Brandon Hillard) Click on the photo to enlarge image.

Coast Guard personnel conduct maintenance aloft on the Coast Guard cutter Eagle, a three-masted barque, in the Atlantic Ocean on April 9, 2023.

The Eagle is the only active (operational) commissioned sailing vessel in the U.S. maritime services. A permanent crew of eight officers and 50 enlisted personnel maintain the ship year-round. They also provide the knowledge and seamanship for training  up to 150 cadets at a time.

In early April, Eagle began a four-month summer deployment to teach practical seamanship skills to officer candidates from the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps, as well as foreign military personnel.  During this voyage, cadets and crew will meet with U.S. allies in Northern Europe (the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark), the Portuguese archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira — and later, Bermuda.

Eagle will return to its homeport in New London, Connecticut by mid-August.

The German-built Eagle is an actual war prize, taken from the Nazis at the end of World War II.  Launched in 1936 by the Blohm + Voss Shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, the sailing ship was commissioned as Horst Wessel, after the Nazi icon and “martyr.” Originally operated by Nazi Germany to train cadets for the German Navy, the ship was taken over by the United States 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 London.

By the way, the words of the headline are taken from the Coast Guard marching song, “Semper Paratus,“ Always Prepared.

THE FRIDAY FOTO (February, 10, 2023)

MIND IF I BRING MY DOG, TOO?

(U.S. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sergeant Clayton Wear) Click on the photo to enlarge the image.

Master Sergeant Rudy Parsons, a pararescueman assigned to the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Special Tactics Squadron, rappels from the Big Four Bridge in Louisville, Kentucky, with Callie, a search and rescue dog last December.

When we first spotted this Air Force photo, we thought it was an amusing out-of-the-ordinary thing to do with a military service dog. But we learned that Callie was the first and — may still be — the only search and rescue dog in the entire U.S. military.

The need for such a military canine capability arose while Master Sergeant Parsons and his unit were assisting disaster relief operations in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Segments of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) played a big part in the relief effort. AFSOC’s Combat Controllers specialize in securing safe air fields in war- or disaster-wracked zones as well as providing air traffic control to get needed supplies and emergency assistance in and out safely. AFSOC’s Pararescuemen (PJs), like Parsons, are members of the sole U.S. military unit specially trained and equipped for search-and-rescue (SAR).

In 2010, however, Parsons and his teammates were frustrated with how difficult and slow it was to sift through the rubble of a collapsed school, where 40 children were believed trapped.

A few days into the search, the civilian Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was finally able to land at Port-au-Prince’s crippled airport. They brought a dog to the schoolhouse debris and were able to clear it in about 20 minutes. There were no children or anyone else in rubble pile.

“It had been a couple days of wasted labor that could’ve been used to help save other lives,” Parsons said in a 2019 Air Force news story. “It was at that time that we kind of realized the importance and the capability that dogs can bring to search and rescue. Every environment presents different difficulties, but it’s all restricted by our human limitations.”

Parsons spearheaded developing the squadron’s Search and Rescue K-9 program. The effort, launched in 2018, was designed to increase the capabilities of disaster response teams through the use of canines specially trained in mountain rescue (rappelling plus ice, snow and alpine maneuvers), descending in a static line or freefall parachute drop.

The first was Callie, a Dutch Shepherd, who is still on the job. In August, the now 5-year-old 123rd Airlift Wing veteran was searching for missing people in eastern Kentucky floodwaters.

No word yet on whether Callie and her human colleagues are being sent to Turkey assist in search and rescue efforts following massive earthquakes that have killed thousands.

The Pentagon said February 8 it had transported two civilian urban search and rescue teams as part of the rapid U.S. relief effort.

FRIDAY FOTO (May 13, 2022)

DEEP BLUE.

(Canadian Armed Forces Photo by Corporal Hugo Montpetit, Canadian Forces Combat Camera)

Members from the Royal Canadian Navy’s Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic and Pacific, assisted by U.S. Army Divers train Caribbean divers in search techniques training during Exercise TRADEWINDS 22 in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Belize on May 10, 2022.

To watch a video of this training exercise, click here, but you may want to skip it if you’re prone to seasickness.

LAT AM: SOUTHCOM Command Change; Regional Deal on Amazon Forests

First Female Commander for SOUTHCOM.

U.S. Southern Command has changed leaders and the new chief, U.S. Army General Laura Richardson, is the first woman to head the sprawling geographic combatant command.

U.S. Army General Laura J. Richardson, assumes command from Defense Secretary Lloyd  Austin at SOUTHCOM Headquarters in Doral, Florida, Oct. 29, 2021.  (SOUTHCOM photo by Master Sergeant Stephen J. Caruso)

In a command change ceremony October 29 at SOUTHCOM headquarters in Doral, Florida, Navy Admiral Craig Faller, turned over U.S. military responsibility for the Latin American and Caribbean regions to Richardson. The 57-year-old general is only the second woman, after Air Force General Lori Robinson, to lead a geographic combatant command.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Army General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, attended the ceremony as did several dignitaries from the region, including Colombia’s Minister of National Defense Diego Molano.

Austin congratulated Molano on the recent capture of Colombia’s most-wanted cartel leader, Dario Antonio Úsaga (alias Otoniel). The two defense leaders discussed deepening cooperation on strategic issues including Colombia’s contributions to global and regional security, migration, cyber defense, and intelligence. They also stressed the importance of respect for democracy and human rights in all aspects of the bilateral defense relationship, according to the Pentagon.

SOUTHCOM is responsible for providing contingency planning, operations, and security cooperation in its assigned area of responsibility which includes Central America (but not Mexico), South America and the Caribbean.

During the war in Iraq, Richardson commanded an assault helicopter battalion and flew missions to support troops on the ground, Austin noted. She later commanded U.S. Army North, before taking command of SOUTHCOM. “There isn’t a crisis that she can’t handle,” Austin said.

Reflecting on his nearly three years at SOUTHCOM, Faller noted that democracies in the Western Hemisphere have been under assault from a vicious circle of threats, the Tampa Bay Times reported. They include corruption, climate change, COVID-19, major hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes, and transnational criminal organizations as well as “the corrosive, malign influence of the People’s Republic of China.”

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Curbing Amazon Deforestation.

The week before the SOUTHCOM ceremony, after high-level talks in Colombia, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a regional partnership to address deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

“We’ll give much-needed financial assistance to help manage protected areas and Indigenous territories, and we’ll help scale up low-carbon agricultural practices to farmers throughout the Amazon,” Blinken said October 21, in the capital, Bogota, the VoA website reported.

“This new regional partnership will help prevent up to 19 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere while capturing another 52,000 metric tons of carbon, and we estimate it will save — save — more than 45,000 hectares of forest,” he added.

Deforestation in the Maranhão state of Brazil, in 2016. (Photo by Ibama from Brasil – Operação Hymenaea, Julho/2016, via wikipedia)

The Amazon spans eight countries in South America, including Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. The Amazon and other rainforests are crucial because they take in carbon dioxide and produce about one-fifth of the world’s oxygen. About a third of Colombia is in the Amazon.

PLANET A: Glasgow Climate Change Conference; Climate Risk Analysis by DoD, ONI

Climate Meeting in Glasgow.

World leaders, including President Joe Biden, will gather in Scotland Sunday (October 31, 2021) to discuss the threat posed by climate change, its ramifications and — hopefully — what more to do about it.

Known as the Conference of Parties or COP26, the 26th United Nations annual climate change summit, it will run for two weeks. This year’s summit will focus on negotiations to limit emissions, and could be “the world’s best last chance to get runaway climate change under control,” according to the summit’s website.

The meeting comes just a week after several U.S. government agencies, including the Defense Department, have issued reports expressing their concerns about the fallout from climate change — severe weather has caused billions of dollars in damage to U.S. military installations, like Tyndall Air Force Base on Florida’s panhandle and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, on coastal North Carolina. Other military bases on Guam in the Pacific are vulnerable to rising seas.

Damaged aircraft hangar at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, following Hurricane Florence in 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Allie Erenbaum )

And that’s not all, Pentagon planers are concerned that droughts, sea rise, ever fiercer cyclones and hurricanes will spawn massive migrations as people seek food, water, shelter and employment that could overwhelm other nations and spark political unrest and violence.

The Pentagon’s Climate Risk Analysis notes:

Climate change is reshaping the geostrategic, operational, and tactical environments with significant implications for U.S. national security and defense. Increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change are exacerbating existing risks and creating new security challenges for U.S. interests.

“Climate migration is absolutely affecting the United States directly, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks told  NPR in an interview October 26. In Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, “where farmers can’t grow crops, their traditional approaches to sustaining livelihood are very challenged. We’ve also seen that happen, of course, from Africa going up into Europe, other regions of the world,” she said.

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DOD Won’t be There.

Defense Department officials will not be attending the global climate conference in Scotland, the Defense One website reports.

Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told Defense One that no one from the Defense Department will accompany the president, but said officials “remain hard at work building climate resilience throughout the department and the force.”

Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, and Joseph Bryan, the Defense Department’s senior advisor for climate, are participating in an event Friday (October 28) at the New America think tank to talk about the Pentagon’s new climate report.

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National Intelligence Estimate.

Another government report, by the National Intelligence Council finds that “climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to US national security interests as the physical impacts increase and geopolitical tensions mount about how to respond to the challenge.”

An overloaded Haitian vessel with interdicted stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard on September 14, 2021, during extensive migrant interdiction operations in support of Operation Southeast Watch. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Christian Homer)

The report, which examines climate change risks to U.S. nation security through 2040 arrived at three key judgments:

—Geopolitical tensions are likely to grow as countries increasingly argue about how to accelerate the reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions that will be needed to meet the Paris Agreement goals. Debate will center on who bears more responsibility to act and to pay—and how quickly—and countries will compete to control resources and dominate new technologies needed for the clean energy transition.

–The increasing physical effects of climate change are likely to exacerbate cross-border geopolitical flashpoints as states take steps to secure their interests.

—Scientific forecasts indicate that intensifying physical effects of climate change out to 2040 and beyond will be most acutely felt in developing countries, which we assess are also the least able to adapt to such changes. These physical effects will increase the potential for instability and possibly internal conflict in these countries, in some cases creating additional demands on US diplomatic, economic, humanitarian, and military resources.

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PLANET A is a new, occasional posting on climate change and the global impact it is having national security and the U.S. military. The name is derived from activists who warn that climate change is an urgent threat to the world because there is no Plan B to fix it — nor a Planet B to escape to.

AROUND AFRICA: Illegal Fishing Threat; Expeditionary Sea Base off Africa; Super Tucanos to Nigeria

Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated Fishing.

The vice commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard says Vice Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan said illegal fishing is replacing piracy as the top global maritime security threat’.

“It’s a sovereignty issue, it’s a maritime security issue and it jeopardizes nations’ economic food security,” Admiral Linda Fagan told a panel discussion on the economic and security threats posed by Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2021 expo August 4.  “It weakens the global rules-based order that we all rely on for our standard of living,” she added.

Gulf of Guinea via Wikipedia

Tackling IUU, Fagan said, will require both experienced leadership and close work in both building new partnerships and fostering existing ones around the globe.

“We recently had the Mohawk, a 270-foot cutter, with another nation’s coast guard on board enforcing fisheries rules,” Fagan said. “It’s those types of partnerships where we provide an asset and the other nation provides their expertise and authority to get after the threat.”

U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Heidi Berg, the former director of intelligence at U.S. Africa Command, said IUU fishing created challenges it created in other areas. She specifically cited the effects caused by China’s growing presence and activity.

“In the Gulf of Guinea, [China] is now devasting those economies,” Berg said. “They engender corruption. They continue to act to support authoritarian regimes that can ensure their continued access.”

Other crimes, such as weapons and drug trafficking, are on the increase as a direct result, Berg said. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Taliban are gaining influence as well, she added. To read the complete story, click here.

(©FAO photo by Matthew Camilleri/FAO)

In addition to IUU fishing, the activities of fishers and vessels that engage in IUU fishing can constitute, lead to, or go hand-in-hand with, other crimes, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

Fisheries-related crimes are closely linked with the fishing operation –even if not considered illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing — because they may not constitute fishing as such. Examples of fisheries-related crimes include document fraud, for example forged fishing licenses, tax crimes, money laundering or inappropriate working conditions.

Crimes associated with the fisheries sector are crimes that have no direct connection with fishing operations but take place on fishing vessels, or during a fishing operation and using the fishing operation as a cover or means to commit such crimes as drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking even piracy, the FAO says..

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Woodie to African Waters.

The Expeditionary Sea Base USS Hershel “Woody” Williams (ESB 4) is the first warship permanently assigned to the U.S. Africa Command area of responsibility.

Officers assigned to ESB 4 participated in a maritime interoperability planning event with leaders from the Nigerian Navy, on August 7 and later joined a three-day at sea training exercise with Nigerian offshore patrol vessels and members of Ghana’s Special Boat Squadron (SBS). Over the last decade, Gulf of Guinea nations have steadily increased their capability of working together and sharing information.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kelly M. Agee)

“Woody” Williams made a scheduled port visit to Dakar, Senegal from June 21 to June 25. , 2021.

In May, ESB 4 conducted interoperability exercises with Algerian, Egyptian, Moroccan, Spanish, and Tunisian Naval forces during the at-sea portion of exercise Phoenix Express in the Mediterranean Sea.

USS Hershel “Woody” Williams Expeditionary Sea Base vessels are optimized to support a variety of maritime-based missions and designed around four core capabilities: aviation facilities, berthing, equipment staging support, and command and control assets. ESBs can be enhanced to meet special operations force missions through increased communications, aviation and unmanned aircraft system support.

Attached to the U.S. Sixth Fleet and based at Souda Bay, Greece plies the U.S. Naval Forces Africa area of responsibility, which includes the Mediterranean Sea and waters off East, West and South Africa.

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Super Tucanos to Nigeria.

The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) officially welcomed six A-29 Super Tucanos, light turboprop aircraft manufactured by Brazil’s Embraer and the U.S.-based Sierra Nevada Corporation at a ceremony in Abuja, the capital, hosted by Nigerian Minister of Defense Bashir Salihi Magashi on August 31, according to U.S. Africa Command.

(Photo by U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa.)

Six more Super Tucanos will be delivered later this year in a deal set to cost the Nigerian government about $500 million, according to the Council on Foreign Relations website.

The aircraft will assist the Nigerian Air Force in their fight against violent extremist organizations including the Islamic State West Africa Province. The joint structure of air-to-ground integration also supports Nigerian Army and Navy operations.

A total of 64 pilots and maintainers from the Nigerian Air Force trained to U.S. standards with the U.S. Air Force’s 81st Fighter Squadron at Moody Air Base in Georgia, USA. Training also emphasized the Law of Armed Conflict and civilian casualty mitigation, which are fundamental principles of the Nigerian military’s professional education and training.

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 (August 6, 2016)

Tree People.

U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Candace Mundt

U.S. soldiers with the 3rd Infantry Division cross some unusual terrain in Senegal West Africa. And, no, we don’t know for sure what kind of trees those are. Maybe baobab?

The troops were participating in a platoon-sized live-fire exercise during Africa Readiness Training 16 exercise in Thies, Senegal last month.

These soldiers are with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

To see more photos of Africa Readiness training 16, click here.

 

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SEASON’S GREETINGS: Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines Show Holiday Spirit

Simon Says Do This.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nathan Burke

Electrician’s Mate 2nd Class Godson Bagnabana supervises inflation of an inflatable snowman on the flight deck of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) at Yokosuka, Japan, December 17, 2015.

Young Santa.

U.S. Navy photo by Grady T. Fontana

Joe Gutierrez hands out gifts to students during a community outreach event at an elementary school in Chanthaburi, Thailand, December 21, 2015. Gutierrez, a midshipman cadet from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, is assigned to the USNS Walter S. Diehl.

Military Sealift Command Far East along with partners in Singapore donated more than 1,200 English books to the Pong Nam Ron, Pliu and Ban Trok Nong elementary schools. To see more photos from this event, click here.

Fun and Games.

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Melanye E. Martinez

U.S. Marines, sailors, and soldiers play games at an early Christmas celebration with Romanian children at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base in Romania, December 19, 2015. To see more photos from this event, click here.

Santa Wears Combat Boots.

U.S. Air Force photo by Alejandro Pena

Alaska National Guardsmen and other volunteers deliver boxes of donated food and presents to the residents of St. Mary’s, Alaska, during Operation Santa Claus, December 5, 2015.

Nobody Gets Coal Here.

U.S. Air Force photo by Andrew Pena.

Service members and volunteers from approximately 30 groups and organizations came together to bring holiday cheer during Operation Santa Claus to the village of St. Mary’s, Alaska, Dec. 5, 2015. This year marks the 59th year of the program, which serves to bring Christmas to underserved, remote villages across Alaska each year. To see more photos from this event, click here.

Toys for Tots.

U.S. Air Force photo by Alejandro Pena

Marine Corps Sergeant Mauricio Sandoval, front, and Master Gunnery Sergeant Jason Milbery, drive snowmobiles between McGrath and Takotna, Alaska, during Toys for Tots, December 10, 2015. Sandoval and Milbery are assigned to Delta Company, 4th Law Enforcement Battalion and 2nd Maintenance Battalion. To see more photos of this event, click here.

Seranading Seniors.

New Jersey Air National Guard photo by Master Sergeant Mark C. Olsen

U.S. airmen sing along with fourth graders from the Seaview School in Linwood, New Jersey, during the 15th Annual Holiday “Songfest” at the New Jersey Veterans Memorial Home at Vineland, N.J., Dec. 16, 2015. To see more photos from this event, click here.