LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Twenty-two U.S. Marines were injured on Thursday in a training exercise at Twentynine Palms military base in Southern California, when a fire extinguisher system accidentally discharged inside an amphibious vehicle, officials said.

The Marines who needed medical treatment were taken to local medical facilities and are listed in stable condition, the U.S. Marine Corps said in a statement.

Local television station KNBC, citing hospital officials at the base, reported the service members came in with inhalation exposure.

The accident happened during a training exercise by the Second Battalion, Third Marine Regiment at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center located in the California desert near the San Bernardino County town of Twentynine Palms, according to the Marine Corps statement.

The statement did not release other details on the accident.

Representatives from the San Bernardino County fire and sheriff's departments did not return calls.

(Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon decision to seek a 2016 budget that far exceeds federal spending caps poses the risk of a big across-the-board funding cut like the one that forced the department to put civilian workers on unpaid leave two years ago.

But defense officials say the department will not repeat some of the decisions it made in 2013 that exacerbated the problem once the automatic cuts, known as "sequestration," went into effect nearly halfway through the fiscal year.

"We just kept spending as though sequestration wasn't going to happen," Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work told reporters this week. This year, he said, "if it's not clear that sequestration is done, we will start being defensive and we will start making sure we are better prepared for it."

Work and Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord both said the department currently is focused on convincing lawmakers the $534 billion budget, which is nearly $36 billion above federal caps, is necessary to modernize the force after 13 years of war and several years of declining defense spending.

"Our plan is to succeed with convincing Congress why the budget we submitted is the budget we need," McCord told reporters on Thursday. "If we get a strong signal from Congress that that's not going to be what they're going to do, then we will ... take action at the appropriate time."

McCord said the department would "look at what we did (in 2013) and what we maybe could have done better and draw some lessons from that."

A 2011 law aimed at controlling U.S. deficits called for the Pentagon to reduce planned spending by about $1 trillion over a decade. The measure set annual spending caps and approved automatic cuts to enforce them.

Officials said the measure was designed to be draconian to force Congress to reach a compromise to reduce spending. Officials initially did not believe the deep cuts would go into effect, but in 2013 they did.

Work said the reductions were "very, very destructive" for the Pentagon. They went into effect nearly halfway through the fiscal year, forcing the department to take some $37 billion in cuts from funds still unspent.

The Pentagon slashed things like flight training, military exercises and routine maintenance on everything from ships and vehicles to buildings at bases. And they put most civilian workers on unpaid leave.

"It really hurt us," Work said.

(Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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When a soldier is wounded on the battlefield, medics get the call.

Medics are sort of like paramedics or emergency medical technicians in the civilian world, except paramedics and EMTs are less likely to carry assault rifles or be fired at by enemy forces. When everything goes wrong, soldiers count on the medics to keep them alive until they can be evacuated to a field hospital.

Ninety percent of soldier deaths in combat occur before the victims ever make it to a field hospital; U.S. Army medics are dedicated to bringing that number down.

To save wounded soldiers, the medic has to make life or death decisions quickly and accurately. They use Tactical Combat Casualty Care, or TCCC, to guide their decisions. TCCC is a process of treatment endorsed by the American College of Surgeons and the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians.

First, medics must decide whether to return fire or immediately begin care.

Since the Geneva Convention was signed, the Army has typically not armed medics since they are protected by the international law. But, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have mostly been fought against insurgencies who don’t follow the Geneva Convention and medics have had many of their markings removed, so they’ve been armed with rifles and pistols.

When patients come under fire, they have to decide whether to begin care or return fire. The book answer is to engage the enemies, stopping them from hurting more soldiers or further injuring the current casualties. Despite this, Army medics will sometimes decide to do “care under fire,” where they treat patients while bullets are still coming at them.

Then, they treat life-threatening hemorrhaging.

Major bleeding is one of the main killers on the battlefield. Before the medic even begins assessing the patient, they’ll use a tourniquet, bandage, or heavy pressure to slow or stop any extreme bleeds that are visible.

If the medic is conducting care under fire, treatment is typically a tourniquet placed above the clothing so the medic can get them behind cover without having to remove the uniform first.

Now, they can finally assess the patient.

Once the medic and the patient are in relative safety, the medic will assess the patient.

Any major bleeds that are discovered will be treated immediately, but other injuries will be left until the medic has completed the full assessment.

This is to ensure the medic does not spend time setting a broken arm while the patient is bleeding out from a wound in their thigh.

During this stage, the medic will call out information to a radio operator so the unit can call for a medical evacuation using a “nine-line.” 

Air evacuation is preferred when it’s available, but wounded soldiers may have to ride out in ambulances or even standard ground vehicles if no medical evacuations are available.

Medics have to decide which injuries are the most life-threatening, sometimes across multiple patients, and treat them in order.

The major bleeds are still the first thing treated since they cause over half of preventable combat deaths.

The medics will then move on to breathing problems like airway blockages or tension pneumothorax, a buildup of pressure around the lungs that stops a soldier from breathing. Medics will also treat less life-threatening injuries like sprains or broken bones if they have time.

 Most importantly, Army medics facilitate the evacuation.

Army medics have amazing skills, but patients still need to get to a hospital. Medics will relay all information about the patient on a card, the DA 7656 and the patient will get on the ambulance for evacuation. 

The medic will usually get a new aid bag, their pack of medical materials, from the ambulance and return to their mission on the ground, ready to help the next soldier who might get wounded. 

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The US Army has said it wants to expand its reach into the Pacific and soldiers hope that includes a new boot designed for tropical environments versus the arid and mountainous climates soldiers faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Service leaders are testing equipment designed for these jungle conditions to possibly update the gear issued to soldiers. Chief among these programs is the Army boot.

Soldiers like Sergeant 1st Class Desmond Politini, who completed jungle training in Malaysia this past year, said Friday at a Pentagon meeting with reporters that the service-issued boots failed to perform well in the jungle climate.

The Army started a program last April to test commercially available jungle boot designs under PEO Soldier's Soldier Enhancement Program where soldiers suggest equipment that would help them in the field.

PEO Soldier officials have tested commercially available jungle boot designs along with military models to include the Army's Vietnam-era Jungle Boot. Service officials said the testing will be completed Feb. 25 and the results will be reviewed March 11-13.

Army will then provide the data analysis to the Maneuver Center of Excellence and decide whether the service wants to develop requirements for a hot weather tropical boot. Army officials will have a number of options it could pursue to include a service-wide issued jungle boot, a boot issued to units deploying to tropical climates, or even no new jungle boot at all.

"The ongoing Soldier Enhancement Program (SEP) Jungle boot initiative will reveal through data collection and soldier feedback the best salient characteristics for a future hot weather tropical boot," PEO Soldier said in a statement.

Soldiers wore Vietnam War-style jungle boots up until a decade ago when the service transitioned to the current, desert-style combat boots that include hot and temperate climate designs.

PEO Soldier said it has tested the jungle boot designs to stand up to a range of tropical scenarios. For example, Col. Robert F. Mortlock, project manager for Soldier Protection and Individual Equipment, said last March that the Army would like its jungle boot needs to dry quickly after being submerged in water.

The boot also needs to be lightweight and breathable to keep feet comfortable in hot and humid conditions. Traction is another key characteristic to offer soldiers solid footing in muddy terrain.

The Army has yet to reveal what commercially available jungle boots it has tested as part of the program. It also has not said how many boots have been tested.

SEE ALSO: Incredible photos of US Marines learning how to survive in the jungle during one of Asia's biggest military exercises

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The US military tries to maintain high standards of behavior among its personnel. But like any large enough organization, the US Army has its share of suspected criminals in its ranks.

In order to raise public awareness, the Army keeps a constantly updated database of its most wanted fugitives. Their crimes range from assault to rape to homicide.

All of them have some kind of military background, which might explain why so many people on this list have succeeded in getting (and staying) out of the country: their suspected locations range from small towns in the US to overseas in Vietnam. 

The Army requests that any information known on the suspects be immediately given to either the Army's Criminal Investigation Department or local law enforcement. 

Andres Marquez Carillo

A native of Guajucar, Mexico, Carillo is wanted by the US Army for homicide. He has been at large since 1981 and is believed to be hiding out in Juarez, Mexico. 

Carillo served as a supply sergeant in the US Army. He is 5'8" and 68 years old. 

Jesse Bussey

Jesse Bussey has been at large since 1996. He is wanted by the US Army for rape, attempted rape, indecent assault, and obstruction of justice. Bussey has been convicted of the charges against him and has been sentenced to 16 years of jail. But he apparently never served out his sentence: Although he has ties to Ohio, Delaware, and Germany, the US Army is not sure of his current location. 

Bussey served in mortuary affairs while in the army. He is 6'2" and 59 years old. 

John Timothy Shinnick

John Timothy Shinnick has been at large since 1995. He is wanted for homicide after shooting a parked motorist in the face during a failed robbery. The Army is also accusing him of desertion. 

The US Army warns that Shinnick is believe to be armed and dangerous. He has made statements in the past that he would shoot anyone who tried to apprehend him. 

Shinnick served as a motor transportation operator in the Army. He is 6'2" and 43 years old. 

Nobody knows how big ISIS is—especially not Jeb Bush.

Bush said on Wednesday that ISIS has around 200,000 fighters, a drastic jump from the CIA’s latest figures.

After people began to call out Jeb on his math, an aide told the Daily Beast that Bush had misspoken and meant to say 20,000.

But what’s the real number? As the intelligence community and foreign officials have tried to put a finger on how many soldiers fight for the Islamic State, the amount of fighters has been shifting drastically. Therefore, results vary. Wildly.

The CIA’s first estimate was around 10,000 to 20,000 fighters, but recent reports suggest that the number has quadrupled. Russia put the number closer to 70,000, but estimates from sources in the region have put the figure much higher.

Hisham al-Hashimi, a security expert in Baghdad, told Mashable last August that there were around 100,000 ISIS fighters, while Fuad Hussein, Kurdish President Massoud Barzani’s chief of staff, was quoted in November saying that ISIS could mobilize at least 200,000 fighters.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes that figures of between 100,000 and 200,000 make sense, given the size of the population in Syria and Iraq that ISIS hopes to control. But as ISIS’ sphere of influence continues to spread, and as allied strikes continue to attack them where they operate, the actual number of fighters is in flux.

Note: When ranges were given, the higher estimate was used.

SEE ALSO: Here's what Islamic State actually believes and what it means for fighting them

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The US Army generals charged with strengthening Iraqi and Syrian forces to dislodge Islamic militants from vast stretches of both countries are poised to ramp up the effort in coming months.

As the top US commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. James Terry oversees the American troops who will train an increasing number of Iraqi security forces as they prepare to retake the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Army Major Gen. Michael Nagata heads a task force attempting a similar and arguably even more complicated effort to vet, train and equip moderate Syrian fighters battling the al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist group.

Military officials have estimated the campaign to defeat the militants will take years. Yet the training programs for Iraqi and Syrian forces will pick up pace in coming months.

An Iraqi-led offensive to retake Mosul is planned for April or May, while the Syrian opposition "is rapidly coming online and will become a reality here very soon," a US Central Command official said last week during a briefing with reporters.

The men at the helm of this task are career military officers with extensive combat experience. Both fall under the command of Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, the four-star head of Centcom.

And though their training missions are similar, the generals will face unique challenges as they carry them out in vastly different conditions.

The 'Screaming Eagle' in Iraq: James Terry

Terry currently oversees some 2,600 American troops and additional coalition forces in Iraq as head of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. The service members hail from such units as the Army's 1st Infantry Division and a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force.

A native of Chatsworth, Georgia, and commissioned in 1978, Terry rose through the ranks to hold a number of leadership positions in the service.

Early in his career, he commanded a company in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), the "Screaming Eagles," at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. More recently, he headed NATO's International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Afghanistan.

In a briefing with reporters in December at the Pentagon, Terry said US-led airstrikes against ISIS, also known as ISIL and Daesh, have degraded the group's ability to communicate with and resupply its fighters.

At the same time, he acknowledged that certain areas such as the Baiji oil refinery remain contested and that the training of Iraqi security forces would take a few years.

"I think we've made significant progress in halting that offensive that I talked about, the ability for them to continue to expand, you know, in terms of terrain and geography out there," he said, referring to the militants.

"I think what we must do, especially inside of Iraq, is continue to build those capabilities. I think you're at least talking a minimum of three years."

The spring offensive for Mosul may require as many as 25,000 Iraqi security personnel, including an attack force of up to five Iraqi army brigades with about 2,000 troops apiece. Thousands of Iraqi troops are cycling through one of five US-run training sites in the country.

Conventional forces are training at Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province and areas in and around Taji, Irbil and Besmaya, while Iraqi counterterrorism units are receiving specialized instruction at another undisclosed location.

There are between 1,000 and 2,000 ISIS fighters estimated to be in Mosul, which is Iraq's second-largest city and home to more than 1 million people.

The Special Operator for Syria: Michael Nagata

Nagata commands the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force, which is responsible for the mission to train and equip as many as 5,000 moderate Syrian opposition forces at coalition sites in nearby countries.

He also oversees Special Operations Command Central, part of U.S. Special Operations Command, which is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida.

A native of Hawaii, the birthplace of his parents, Nagata is a longtime Special Forces officer with a family history of service to country.

His father was an Army colonel and two of his uncles served in the Army's 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a unit created during World War II with a contingent of Asian-American soldiers, many of whom served with distinction.

Nagata was commissioned in 1982 and started his Special Forces career a couple of years later with the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne). He later commanded a battalion in the 1st Special Warfare Training Group at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, worked for the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and deployed to Pakistan, among other locations.

He reportedly pushed back against press accounts describing covert US military actions in Pakistan in the years leading up to the 2011 raid against Osama bin Laden.

He has openly acknowledged his difficulty in understanding the attraction among young Muslims to the Islamic State's ideology and assembled a brain trust of experts to better understand the issue.

"We do not understand the movement, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it," the general said during a conference call last year with specialists from the Pentagon and State Department, according to an article by The New York Times.

"I want to engage in a long-term conversation to understand a commonly held view of the psychological, emotional and cultural power of IS in terms of a diversity of audiences," he added. "They are drawing people to them in droves. There are IS T-shirts and mugs."

While US-led airstrikes are hitting targets in Iraq and Syria in roughly equal proportion, there are no American troops on the ground in civil-war-torn Syria and aren't likely to be.

The Pentagon has identified some 1,200 Syrian opposition fighters for potential training at one of four sites located in nearby countries. Washington last week reached an agreement with Ankara to have US and Turkish troops train the fighters at a new facility in Turkey.

The US is expected to announce a similar deal with Jordan in coming days, and additional agreements with Saudi Arabia in one to three months and with Qatar in six to nine months.

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In late December, DARPA awarded a $1.5 million contract to Raytheon to develop small satellites capable of quickly providing US ground troops with imagery of their surroundings.

The SeeMe satellite — named after DARPA's quest for Space Enabled Effects for Military Engagements— is about the size of a water cooler and is cheaper to make and launch than the typical hardware sent into orbit.

Satellite imagery at the moment is more of a strategic than a tactical asset. It can help commanders decide on their next move. But it can't give individual soldiers an idea of what lies beyond the next thick line of trees.

The SeeMe program aims to change that.

"It's really about two things," Randy Gricius, director of Raytheon's space innovations group, told Business Insider. "It's about persistence — having the data pretty much anytime [a soldier] needs it — and about him being able to control it."

The kind of persistence Gricius refers to relies on having enough satellites to cover an big area of operations at a moment's notice.

The greater the number of satellites in orbit, the more likely it is that one will be flying overhead where and when it's needed. Gricius estimated that it would take only 24 of these small satellites to provide images of the ground anywhere within an area half the size of the United States within 90 minutes.

DARPA hopes that its satellites will be able to relay that information to soldiers on the ground in exactly that span of time, according to its description of SeeMe, which adds that soldiers will be able "to hit 'see me' on existing handheld devices to receive a satellite image of their precise location".

The satellites will come equipped with a color camera and a ten-inch telescope, Gricius said.

The program still has a ways to go. But if ever seen to completion, it would completely change how US troops request and process satellite imagery.

Currently, soldiers don't carry the hardware or software needed to receive imagery from the satellites. There are few existing satellites that are actually capable of ground-imaging, which is another reason the quick imaging DARPA envisions isn't yet possible.

And then there's the crowded virtual pipeline that today's satellite imagery travels through before getting to whomever needs it.

"A soldier on a battlefield is talking to some kind of command post with a satellite terminal that then relays the signal to the satellites," Gricius said, explaining the current process for obtaining satellite imagery. "The image comes back through that command post and back out to the soldier."

SeeMe satellites would cut the middleman (the command post) out of the equation.

The satellites also have shorter operational lives than the larger models built to survive years or even decades in space. After two or three months in low orbit, SeeMe satellites are designed to reenter the atmosphere and burn up without a trace.

The satellites could use off-the-shelf materials to keep costs below $500,000 per unit: nitrous oxide propulsion systems borrowed from the auto racing world, valve technology from medical supplies, and processors similar to what are found on inexpensive personal computers.

"They're literally off the shelf," Gricius said about the processors. "You can go on a catalog and order them today"— though he added that these have yet to be proven space-worthy.

Typical satellites are equipped with "space-qualified parts," Gricius said. "They're hardened, and they've had a lot of testing done to make sure they're reliable." That also makes them much more expensive. 

But the smaller satellites might not need to be as durable. Radiation tolerance is an important feature for high-budget satellites, but it's not as critical in low orbit where the SeeMes will be flying.

Raytheon will look to lower assembly costs for its micro-satellites by repurposing a missile manufacturing and test line in Tucson, Arizona, which they've dubbed "the small space factory."

Raytheon aims to launch a SeeMe satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in September. Up to ten other Raytheon satellites for other government programs will be along for the ride as well. If all goes well, after 90 days of testing the SeeMe may be put to actual use — Raytheon has pledged to hand any remaining life the satellite has after that time over to the US government.

That could pave the way for an American military that's much more aware of its combat surroundings, from the top brass to its men and women on the ground.

SEE ALSO: The 7 coolest high-tech projects the military is currently working on

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Military photographers in all the branches of the armed forces are constantly taking awesome shots of training, combat, and stateside events.

We looked among the military’s official channels, Flickr, Facebook, and elsewhere and picked our favorites over the past week. Here’s what we found.

Air Force

A B-52H Stratofortress flies during Cope North 15, Feb. 17, 2015, off the coast of Guam. During the exercise, the US, Japan and Australia air forces worked on developing combat capabilities enhancing air superiority, electronic warfare, air interdiction, tactical airlift and aerial refueling. This B-52H is assigned to the 96th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron.

Exercise Cope North 15 participants and aircraft from the US Air Force, US Navy, Japan Air Self-Defense Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Republic of Korea Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force and Philippine Air Force take a group photo Feb. 13, 2015, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

Navy

Lt. j.g. Weston Floyd, ballistic missile defense officer, Cmdr. Chad Graham, executive officer, and Chief Operations Specialist Chris Ford prepare to participate in a fleet synthetic training joint exercise aboard the Arleigh-burke class guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) in Sasebo, Japan on Feb. 26.

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Carl E. Mundy III, commander of Task Force (CTF) 51, addresses Sailors and Marines during an all-hands call on the flight deck of Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD 2) in the Pacific Ocean on Feb. 26.

Army

Soldiers train with multinational soldiers at the International Special Training Center Advanced Medical First Responder Course (ISTC), conducted by the ISTC Medical Branch, in Pfullendorf, Germany, Feb. 17-19.

Soldiers participate in the chin-up portion of the Ranger Physical Fitness Assessment (RPFA) on Fort Benning, Ga., Feb. 7, 2015, as part of the Ranger Training Assessment Course. In order to pass the RPFA, Soldiers must successfully do 49 push ups, 59 sit ups, a 2.5-mile run within 20 minutes, and six chin ups.

Marine Corps

An AV-8B Harrier with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 (Reinforced), 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, prepares to take off aboard the USS Essex (LHD 2) during Amphibious Squadron/Marine Expeditionary Unit Integration Training (PMINT) off the coast of San Diego, Feb. 24, 2015.

Marines extinguish a fuel fire at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma during live-burn training Feb. 21, 2015. The Marines worked together to contain and extinguish the fire.

Coast Guard

Petty Officer 2nd Class Bill Glenn and Petty Officer 1st Class Brian Korte, members of the military dive team aboard Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, are hoisted out of icy water after completing an underwater inspection of the ship while moored at the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Jan. 23, 2015.

The Polar Star crew sees lots of amazing wildlife in Antarctica. Here, a seal lies on the ice while the ship is hove-to in the Ross Sea near Antarctica, Jan. 30, 2015.

SEE ALSO: Incredible photos of US Marines learning how to survive in the jungle during one of Asia's biggest military exercises

READ MORE: http://www.businessinsider.com/17-incredible-photos-of-life-on-a-us-navy-submarine-2015-1

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Afghan security forces fell sharply during 2014, thanks partly to desertions and casualties, according to newly declassified U.S. military data released on Tuesday that could add to the debate over planned U.S. troop withdrawals.

The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan hinges on the ability of Afghan forces to secure the country despite a still-resilient Taliban insurgency and increasingly limited support from the shrinking foreign forces supporting them.

President Barack Obama's administration, which is under pressure from Kabul and Congress to slow the withdrawal, again signaled on Tuesday it was open to adjusting plans to cut U.S. forces by nearly half this year.

"A plan is something you adjust over time. And so I think we can adjust our plan over the next year or two," U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate hearing.

The Afghan national army's (ANA) total numbers fell to 169,203, down 15,636 or 8.5 percent, between February and November last year, a U.S. government watchdog reported in data confirmed by the U.S. military.

"This is the lowest assigned ANA force strength since August 2011," the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said in a report, noting the ANA levels include Afghan air force personnel.

The U.S.-led coalition told Reuters the total crept back up to 173,000 uniformed personnel in January, but acknowledged that Afghan commanders last year "did not set recruiting goals at levels sufficient to outpace attrition rates."

Afghanistan's national army and police suffered heavy losses in 2014, the bloodiest since the war against Taliban militants began in 2001. The forces also suffered desertions.

Republicans in Congress say hard-won gains could be lost in much the same way sectarian violence returned to Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal.

Carter, who just returned from a trip to Afghanistan, said he firmly believed the U.S. withdrawal strategy should be informed by events on the ground. He did not venture a guess about what Obama might decide.

Obama is due to host Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in the United States later in March.

"I don't know what decisions the president will make in that regard or the timetable on which he'll make them," Carter added.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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People have a range of different reasons for joining the military, and each US veteran has their own unique experiences and memories while in the service.

Redditer user airmonk asked the veterans at the military community on Reddit about their single best experiences while serving. The answers runn from the mundane to the comical to the serious, and present a glimpse into life in the military that many outside of the service rarely encounter or even know about. 

Below are some of our favorite answers to airmonk's question: "veterans of reddit, what is the best experience you've had while serving?" 

Bat_Manatee, a member of the US Army, said that his best experience was taking part in the commemorations of the D-Day invasion's 70th anniversary over the summer in 2014: "Jumped into Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The entire Normandy experience was awesome, capped off by the jump."

User docskreba, a member of the Air Force, was also at the commemorations and echoed Bat_Manatee's sentiment:

Other veterans said that their favorite experiences while serving were the moments of silence and contemplation.

Stinkfingers, a member of the US Coast Guard, shared this experience: "Being at sea looking at the stars. All you can hear is the gentle rumble of the diesel engines and the water sloshing. Very relaxing after a long day." 

Likewise, Spritzertog, a member of the Marines, held a similar affinity for staring skyward: "Sitting on the hood of my car with a female Marine friend of mine, in the middle of the desert just outside of 29 Palms [a Marine base in California] ... staring up at the star-filled night sky with absolutely no lights anywhere nearby." 

Potato_Muncher, an Army veteran, enjoyed the hard living and action that came with serving in Iraq: 

SEE ALSO: A Soviet conscript who was captured by the Nazis shares his WWII experience in an eye-opening Reddit AMA

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Seven Marines and four soldiers were missing early Wednesday after an Army helicopter crashed during a night training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle.

The area where the crash happened Tuesday night was under a fog advisory.

The missing service members are all presumed dead.

The area was still extremely foggy Wednesday morning, which was affecting the search, Eglin public affairs specialist Sara Vidoni said.

Base officials said the Marines were part of a Camp Lejeune-based special operations group and the soldiers were from a Hammond, Louisiana-based National Guard unit.

The helicopter was reported missing at about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, and search and rescue crews found debris from the crash at about 2 a.m. Wednesday, Eglin spokesman Andy Bourland said.

"At this time all are missing," Bourland said.

Names of those involved were not immediately released, pending notification of next of kin, he said.

Bourland said the Army helicopter took off from a nearby airport in Destin and joined other aircraft in the training exercise.

The UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter went down during a routine training mission on a remote swath of beach between Pensacola and Destin. The beach is owned by the military and is used for test missions.

The training area includes 20 miles of pristine beachfront that has been under the control of the military since before World War II. Military police keep a close watch on the area and have been known to run off private vendors who rent jet skis or paddle boards without permission.

Test range manager Glenn Barndollar told The Associated Press in August that the beach provided an ideal training area for special operations units from all branches of the military to practice over the water, on the beach, and in the bay.

The military sometimes drops trainees over the water using boats or helicopters, and the trainees must make their way onshore.

The Air Force base issued this statement about the crash:

Two UH-60 aircraft assigned to the Hammond, La Army National Guard were participating in a training exercise over night. One aircraft with four aircrew and seven Marines assigned to Camp LaJeune, N.C, was involved in an accident near Eglin range site A-17, east of the Navarre Bridge.

The helicopter was reported missing at about 8:30 p.m. March 10. Debris from the aircraft was located by search and rescue team at about 2 a.m. this morning. Search and rescue efforts are underway at the accident site currently.

The second helicopter and its personnel on board have returned and are accounted for at this time. The aircraft are assigned to the 1-244th Assault Helicopter Battalion in Hammond, Louisiana. They were participating in a routine training mission involving the Marine Special Operations Regiment from Camp LeJeune.

Names of the aircrew and Marines on board are being withheld pending [next of kin] notification. The accident is under investigation. Additional details will be provided as they become available.

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(Reuters) - Search teams found the wreckage of an Army Black Hawk helicopter that crashed off Florida's Gulf Coast and have recovered the bodies of most of the seven Marines and four soldiers on board, authorities and local media said on Thursday.

A UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter plunged into the Santa Rosa Sound along the Florida Panhandle during a training exercise in foggy conditions Tuesday night. Officials said they had not determined the cause of the crash.

The Louisiana National Guard said on Thursday that two of the soldiers' bodies had been recovered and the other two were likely still in the submersed aircraft.

The remains of the seven Marines also were recovered, the Pensacola News Journal reported, citing the Guard. A Marine spokesman told Reuters he could not immediately confirm the recovery of the bodies.

Officials at the nearby Eglin Air Force Base were notified of the crash at around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, said Mark Giuliano, fire chief at the base. A second helicopter in the exercise had turned back due to the weather and was able to land safely.

Sonar equipment helped locate the missing helicopter on Wednesday in the middle of the bay, Giuliano said.

“It was certainly a high-impact crash,” he said, adding the helicopter had broken into multiple pieces.

The Marines on board were part of a special operations unit from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. They were conducting training involving "helicopter and boat insertion and extraction" with an experienced Army air crew providing the helicopter support, a Marine Corps spokesman said.

The soldiers and the helicopter were part of the Louisiana National Guard assigned to an Army unit based in Hammond, Louisiana.

Grieving families have started sharing the names of the dead, whose identities have not yet been released by the military. Among the dead Marines were Marcus Bawol, of Warren, Michigan, and Kerry Kemp, formerly of Port Washington, Wisconsin, local media reported.

Bawol was engaged to be married in October, the Detroit Free Press reported. Kemp was the married father of a baby girl, according to WISN-TV in Milwaukee.

(Editing by Bill Trott, Eric Beech and Eric Walsh)

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A sergeant in the US Army who had been charged with helping to prevent sexual assaults in his battalion recently pleaded guilty to hatching a plot to run a prostitution ring from the Fort Hood military post in Killeen, Texas.

The Daily Beast has a rundown of how it happened.

Sgt. 1st Class Gregory McQueen was part of the US Army’s Sexual Harassment and Assault Response/Prevention (SHARP) unit at Fort Hood. At the same time, he was trying to get a prostitution ring off the ground.

He didn't get far. Investigators caught on to what he was doing before he could get the pimping operation up and running. But many at Fort Hood and in the Army were shocked by the allegations, the San Antonio Express-News reports.

McQueen reportedly planned "sex parties" for high-ranking officers at Fort Hood and recruited subordinate female soldiers to the fledgling prostitution ring.

He pleaded guilty to 15 of 21 charges against him and has been sentenced to two years in prison.

Here are some of the accusations against McQueen, as reported in The Daily Beast:

• McQueen reportedly tried to recruit one Army private by telling her he could make "easy money" by letting him pimp her out to higher-ups at Fort Hood. He reportedly took naked photographs of her to show to potential clients.
• This woman, referred to as "Jane," was reportedly paid to have sex with a military higher-up at a hotel after McQueen recruited her. She then reportedly helped McQueen recruit other women from Fort Hood to his sex party operation.
• McQueen reportedly organized Fort Hood sex parties with married women in the military before he decided he wanted to graduate to more blatant pimping. Investigators found text messages McQueen sent to one married woman at Fort Hood to organize a "gang bang." He insisted that no photos be taken because the men were seniors in the military.
• McQueen reportedly invited another female private, who he knew had been sexually assaulted by a sergeant a year before, to one of his wild sex parties. McQueen reportedly told her that there was an interview process to be let in to the parties, and said she'd have to "meet somebody who attends these parties and she’ll be able to tell if you’re cool to come."
• The potential recruit then met "Jane" to talk about attending the parties. When she seemed hesitant, McQueen reportedly tried to ply her with alcohol to "loosen her up." He then allegedly tried to come onto her, but she resisted his advances.
• McQueen reportedly told a recruiter who worked at Fort Hood that he had "a female that will do anything you want for $75."

In his position within Fort Hood's sexual-assault-prevention program, McQueen was reportedly described as "inadequate" and "did not seem to care about the mission of training Soldiers on SHARP issues."

Read the full story at The Daily Beast >>

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(Reuters) - A salvage crew including divers worked on Friday to extract the wreckage of a U.S. Army helicopter from the waters off the Florida Panhandle at a depth of about 25 feet (7.6 meters) three days after a crash during a training exercise killed 11 troops.

The Marine Corps on Friday identified the seven Marines who were killed when the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter plunged into the Santa Rosa Sound in foggy conditions on Tuesday night. Four Louisiana National Guard soldiers also died.

Officials said they have not determined the cause of the crash, which occurred near Eglin Air Force Base.

The recovery of the helicopter, which broke into multiple pieces, includes the use of a salvage barge, with help from military divers. The operation got underway at noon and was set to take several hours, a U.S. Coast Guard spokeswoman said.

Sonar equipment helped locate the wreckage on Wednesday.

The Marines on board were part of a special operations unit from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

They were conducting training involving "helicopter and boat insertion and extraction" with an experienced Army air crew providing the helicopter support, according to the Marine Corps.

The exercise involved using a rope to climb down into the water from the helicopter and then swimming or using a small boat to get ashore, according to the Marine Corps. The Marines carried out the exercise in daylight in preparation for repeating it in a more difficult nighttime operation, the Marine Corps said.

The seven Marines were identified as: Captain Stanford Shaw III, 31, of Basking Ridge, New Jersey; Master Sergeant Thomas Saunders, 33, of Williamsburg, Virginia; Staff Sergeant Marcus Bawol, 26, of Warren, Michigan; Staff Sergeant Trevor Blaylock, 29, of Lake Orion, Michigan; Staff Sergeant Liam Flynn, 33, of New York City; Staff Sergeant Kerry Kemp, 27, of Port Washington, Wisconsin; and Staff Sergeant Andrew Seif, 26, of Holland, Michigan.

The four soldiers and the helicopter were part of the Louisiana National Guard assigned to an Army unit based in Hammond, Louisiana. A second helicopter in the exercise had turned back due to the weather and landed safely.

Bodies of two of the soldiers have been recovered, a Louisiana National Guard spokesman said, with the other two believed to be in the helicopter wreckage.

(Editing by Will Dunham)

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CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) — Just four days before he was killed in a helicopter crash, Staff Sgt. Andrew Seif was awarded one of the military's highest honors for heroism, a commendation he earned for his efforts to save a mortally wounded friend in heavy gunfire in Afghanistan.

Seif, 26, was given the Silver Star in a room full of his fellow Marines, walking arm in arm with his wife after the ceremony.

The boy who grew up playing soldier in his Michigan backyard was hailed by one of his superiors, Maj. Gen. Joseph L. Osterman, as a selfless person who put himself in the line of fire so that Sgt. Justin Hansen wouldn't be left behind.

He and Hansen came under heavy fire as they closed in on a bomb expert in Afghanistan. His comrade was wounded; Seif moved him to safety, treated his wounds and fired back. At the ceremony, he deflected praise.

"There are definitely some individuals out there who deserve (the medal) just as well," Seif said. "But it's an honor to accept it on the behalf of the unit and on behalf of the rest of the men."

The young Marine's story emerged Friday when the Marines killed in the crash were publicly identified, some three days after the crash. The deceased had been students and husbands, officers and sons.

Four were National Guard soldiers from Louisiana also were killed, though they have not been identified.

The Air Force said in a news release that a salvage barge was expected to arrive at the crash site by early Friday afternoon. The work to haul the shattered helicopter core from about 25 feet of water could take up to eight hours.

During a Friday news conference at Camp LeJeune, Osterman — who is commander of Marine Corps special operations forces — said the Marines were flying offshore to practice rappelling down ropes into the water and then making for land. He didn't know whether the Marines were planning to reach shore by swimming or in small rubber boats, but the same drill had been practiced hours earlier during daylight, Osterman said.

"They literally had done it hours before in daylight as part of the rehearsal for being able to do the nighttime operations, which inherently are more difficult," Osterman said.

The teams of Marines and Army-piloted choppers made a judgment call on whether conditions were sufficient for the training mission to go ahead. Then when they were heading out to start the mission, they tried to abort after deciding it was too risky, Osterman said.

Training is part of being ready for high risk operations. The seven Marines were members of the same team who constantly trained and faced danger together, he said.

Marine Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, has seen its members honored for valor and suffering with 19 Silver Star medals, 7 Navy Crosses, 189 Purple Hearts and 207 Bronze Stars, Osterman said.

"They really epitomized the silent warrior and the quiet professional that is really a hallmark of all the Marines here at MARSOC," Osterman said of the 2,500 MARSOC troops. He declined to cite specific instances of heroism or the missions accomplished by other Marines who were on the doomed chopper.

Like other clandestine services, a private ceremony remembering the special operations Marines will be held in the coming weeks to help surviving family members close the page on their deaths.

Jenna Kemp's husband, Kerry Kemp, was among the Marines killed. He was a "proud Marine, a loving husband and most wonderful father," with a child about to turn 1, said her sister, Lora Waraksa of Port Washington, Wisconsin.

Another victim was Marcus Bawol, 27, from Warren, Michigan, north of Detroit. His sister, Brandy Peek, said military officials told them his remains had been identified. Bawol "loved everything about the military," Peek said.

The other Marine victims were: Capt. Stanford H. Shaw, III, 31, from Basking Ridge, New Jersey; Master Sgt. Thomas A. Saunders, 33, from Williamsburg, Virginia; Staff Sgt. Trevor P. Blaylock, 29, from Lake Orion, Michigan and Staff Sgt. Liam A. Flynn, 33, from Queens, New York.

The National Guard soldiers, from Hammond, Louisiana, each did two tours in Iraq and joined in humanitarian missions after Gulf Coast hurricanes and the BP oil spill.

SEE ALSO: 11 US military members missing in helicopter crash in Florida presumed dead

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The Al-Udeid Air Base acts as the headquarters for US Central Command in its efforts for "Operation Inherent Resolve" in Iraq and Syria. The base, located around 30 miles from Qatari capital Doha, is a large desert facility where plans are carried out for the airstrike campaign. 

Produced by Jason Gaines. Narrated by Graham Flanagan. Video courtesy of Associated Press.

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Recently, a paper from the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College entered the military zeitgeist. Its title was provocative: “Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession.” Those who simply read the headlines and skimmed the condensed summaries in the civilian media likely just came away with the impression that the study was just another hit piece on military problems, bemoaning the poor character of service members.

To the contrary, the authors, Leonard Wong and Stephen J. Gerras, discussed dishonesty in the military with dozens of officers and describe situations that every military leader has seen in some form. From the motor pool reporting vehicles as ready because they aren’t technically broken until someone tries to drive them, to the individual soldier fudging the driving distance on his leave request, any veteran reading it will nod knowingly at many of the anecdotes in the report. 

Let’s face it. Almost every leader in the military is a habitual liar.

Don’t feel too bad. You wouldn’t have gotten as far as you have if you weren’t. It only hurts so much to think about it because the military is so hypocritical on the subject.

Everyone expects a used car salesman to lie, but the services go on and on about honor and integrity even as they encourage their members to compromise that integrity on a daily basis. Unless you are the Jesus of training time, getting 297 days of annual training (the required time to execute all US Army mandatory unit training, but typical throughout the services) completed in 256 available training days, you’re a liar.

You may think you’re just “working the system” or “being efficient,” but the real word for those things is “lying.”

The War College report correctly identifies the proliferation of administrative and training requirements and a zero-defect mentality as significant drivers of pervasive dishonesty. Because there are too many requirements, addressing everything from sexual assault to voting to fire prevention, pencil whipping has become a way of life. Because of careerism, fudging such things as supply inventories and readiness is a way of life. No one wants to be the one leader with 85% in yellow on the Excel spreadsheet projected on a screen to the general when everyone else’s block is in green, regardless of the reason.

The recommendations in the report — primarily to “exercise restraint” on the invention of new requirements and to “lead truthfully” — also ring true. Unfortunately, the second won’t happen until the first is completed.

That’s because there’s no incentive for leaders to lead truthfully as long as they have mountains of administrivia to climb. No unit leader is going to be the first of his peers to admit that he actually has a defect or two instead of the target number, zero. That’s especially true in the cutthroat retention and promotion environment of the military drawdown. As long as leaders compete with each other to maintain perfection in metrics that have little to do with warfighting, the culture of dishonesty will always exist.

All the ethics training, rules, and motivational speeches won’t do a thing until the military decreases unit administrative and training requirements. In other words, fewer bullshit requirements from higher up means less bullshit answers going back up in return.

Anyone in the military without stars on his shoulders knows that losing 50% of programs and items on a typical readiness inspection would actually increase combat readiness, not decrease it.

But how would we evaluate our subordinate leaders unless they have dozens of collateral duties to look after, you ask? One of the simplest keys is to get away from 100% of anything being the standard and have pass/fail metrics on administrative tasks. It’s the last few percent of anything that causes the majority of work in any administrative responsibility. Ninety or 95% is still an A in any school.

Here’s the important part. The military also needs to stop having leaders and their units compete on green-yellow-red “stoplight charts” of reportable items. It needs to concentrate on evaluating leaders on the missions of their units. You can pencil whip annual classroom training. You can pencil whip the annual Combined Federal Campaign charity drive. You can’t pencil whip a 20-mile unit road march, trucks in a convoy, or aircraft landing in a landing zone.

Too often, meetings of senior leaders devolve into discussions of whose unit is failing to have its motorcycle riders attend mandatory safety training and not whose unit is training for its mission. This attitude carries down to the ground floor.

For instance, I know plenty of pilots who thought they’d be spending most of their their non-flying time studying how to fly better. Instead, they’re shocked to find themselves spending hours on things like revising unit orders that no one will ever read to put in binders that no one will ever open until the unit is inspected.

Leadership from the top down needs to push that mission results are what is most valued, not administrative results. That requires leaders to actually go and look at what their subordinates are doing. “Inspect what you expect,” as the saying goes. If you only inspect weekly PowerPoint slides at staff meetings, you’ll only get really nice PowerPoint slides. If you inspect subordinates executing their actual missions, you’ll get subordinates executing their missions.

Which does the military really want? Beautiful lies up and down the chain, holding up a Potemkin village of false combat readiness, or the sometimes ugly truth, showing what actually needs to be fixed? It seems the military wants the first, but needs the second.

Carl Forsling is a senior columnist for Task & Purpose. He is also a Marine MV-22B instructor pilot and former CH-46E pilot who has deployed in support of multiple combat and contingency operations. Follow Carl Forsling on Twitter @CarlForsling.

SEE ALSO: The myth of Iran's military mastermind is getting out of control

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Bowe Bergdahl spent nearly 5 years in Taliban captivity. But his ordeal isn't ove ryet.

An anonymous US official told the AP that the Army sergeant, who abandoned his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban until a prisoner swap on May 31st, 2014, will be court martialed on charges of desertion and avoiding military service, as well as with misbehavior before the enemy.

An official announcement is expected later on March 25th.

Bergdahl walked away from his post in Afghanistan and was captured, then released from Taliban captivity this past May. In exchange, the US returned 5 Taliban detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, who were considered to be some of the last high-value Taliban prisoners still in US custody.

Gen. Mark Milley, head of U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, has been reviewing the massive case files and had a broad range of legal options, including various degrees of desertion charges.

A major consideration was whether military officials would be able to prove that Bergdahl had no intention of returning to his unit — a key element in the more serious desertion charges. 

The case presents a number of challenges to military prosecutors. They will have to determine Bergdahl's intentions and state of mind in the middle of a war zone, something that legal experts believed would be difficult to establish up to the military's legal standards. But members of Bergdahl's unit have consistently stated that they believe Bergdahl deserted, so it's possible that investigators were faced with evidence that was too overwhelming for them to ignore.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl says he was tortured in the five years he was held captive by the Taliban, beaten with a copper cable as he spent months blindfolded and chained spread-eagle to a bed.

The 28-year-old soldier described his harsh treatment in Afghanistan in a letter released Thursday by his defense lawyer.

The Army charged Bergdahl with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy for leaving his post in June 2009. He was freed last year in exchange for five Taliban commanders held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now he faces up to life in prison if convicted of the criminal charges.

In the letter, Bergdahl says he suffered from hunger, thirst and serious infections from sores that developed where his hands and feet were bound to the bed.

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