Month: November 2022

Pray for the Walmart shooting victims

Imagine my surprise to wake up and see a news headline talking about a shooting in Virginia, and then to realize it was at a Walmart I often shop at!

The Chesapeake Walmart off Battlefield Boulevard is not the closest Walmart to me, but I do shop there often enough in my travels that I know the store layout. It’s a very busy Walmart, and its in a nicer part of town. As of now, it seems the shooter was a night shift manager that did not like the people he was working with, was angry at his treatment and wanted to get revenge. More data is coming out as the FBI and local police continue their investigation.

Considering that the shooter is black and doesn’t wear a MAGA hat, I don’t expect the national media to care too much in another week or two. The shooting does bring up a bigger point about bullying though. We associate bullying with children, forgetting that it happens all too often in adults. A few years back, my wife was a volunteer for one of our kid’s PTAs when she returned from a board meeting in a pissed off mood. I found out that the President of the board was a raging jerk that regularly put her down for some of her fundraising suggestions. After a tense exchange and an open meeting, where I watched the school principal not say anything, she eventually quit, prompting a bunch of other volunteers to quit and the PTA to eventually dissolve due to lack of volunteers.

The lack of a spinal cord on the part of the principal is something we’re going to continue seeing. I have to wonder how many people watched this Walmart manager get picked on time after time. Didn’t anyone have the guts to say “Hey, maybe we ought to remind him we still care?” Did nobody notice this? Did anybody care?

It doesn’t excuse his actions, not by a long shot. He still chose to murder people, and ultimately he’ll face judgement of some kind over his actions. But we just celebrated Thanksgiving, where we give thanks for the people around us. This includes the people we work with, not just our families.

I ask that you pray for the victims of this horrible crime and their families. But I also ask that on Monday, when most of you go back to work, that you tell the people around you that you care about them. Even if that co-worker is an annoying Karen, it doesn’t give anyone license to push someone to the breaking point. Especially after years of government-induced COVID lockdowns and isolation, we should be trying to heal those around us and make our little part of the world better.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Please pray for the victims of the Chesapeake Walmart shooting.

Did you hear about Jen Kiggans?

A much younger Jen Kiggans, from Bearing Drift

Now, I get it. I’m not the center of the universe. That stopped happening when I was 4 years old. Or maybe 3, I don’t remember if I was a terrible child growing up or not. Despite that fact, I happen to live in the state of Virginia and in a competitive Congressional district, and in a time when elections are swinging back and forth, I get to see everything from the ground level.

So lets talk about the portion of the midterms the media is ignoring, and that’s the ousting of Elaine Luria by Jen Kiggans. Now, you’re probably asking, who the heck is Jen Kiggans? I’m not surprised by that question, because even if you lived in the area, you likely heard NOTHING about Jen Kiggans.

Did you know she’s a former Navy helicopter pilot? That’s she’s a Catholic mom with 4 kids? That she’s an adult geriatric nurse? I doubt it. Because over the past few months, the ONLY thing I heard about Jen Kiggans on the radio, on my Pandora feed, on TV commercials, and on YouTube commercials, was that Jen Kiggans is an election denier and hates women because she won’t kill innocent babies.

It was overwhelming. I work in an open office space, and one of my co-workers has a TV on constantly, spewing some damn MSNBC nonsense all day. Elaine Luria ads were on there constantly. I mean, every time I looked up, there was Elaine Luria, talking about how she voted against Biden, or made our Navy stronger, or stood up for the right to kill innocent babies, or…something. It was nauseating. I wanted the election to end just so I could stop hearing about Elaine Luria.

So when Jen Kiggans won, it felt like a miracle. But nobody gave her any credit. The local news said it was largely due to redistricting. Considering that Virginia’s districts were totally out of whack until this year, I’m not buying it. Jen won because she was tough, ran a good campaign and got the word out, despite a Democrat war machine that outraised and outspent her two to one.

But so far, the news is talking about DeSantis, Florida, and Trump (who is also in Florida). Virginia, which was being written off as a permanently blue state, is now slowly turning red again. Not quite as crazy as Florida, but getting there.

We should learn a few things from this. First, running solid candidates helps a lot. People don’t want the milk-toast Bush candidates anymore. Winsome Sears, Glenn Youngkin and Jen Kiggans actually stand up and hold our values. They won’t be portrayed as such by the dishonest media, but that was going to happen anyway. Having watched all three of them speak, its exciting. You actually feel good when you see them in person. You need that passion to stem the tide of constant negative media.

Second, we need to get real about raising money for candidates. I wrote about this before, but it bears repeating: if you aren’t out knocking on doors, or donating money, or doing something small for your candidate, then you just don’t care, and you deserve all the scorn in the world. You certainly get no sympathy from me. I remember all the damn annoying Obama kids that kept knocking on my door. Every day I wanted to just punch them so they would go away. But you have to hand it to them, that strategy worked. It got people pumped up and out to vote. That strategy works both ways, but we need energized people that care.

Please pray for Jen Kiggans as she attempts to deal with a broken country and a broken state. She needs all the help she can get.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. If you enjoyed this post, consider purchasing a book or audiobook from the author as a Christmas gift.

Can the Navy get any older??

o, I’m NOT writing about the election results…plenty of other people are doing that.

Besides, the Navy gives me plenty to write about, and this week was no different. In its most recent sign that it can’t recruit enough Sailors, the Navy lifted the age limit on enlistment from 39 to 41. From Military.com:

The Navy, facing an increasingly tough recruiting environment, raised the maximum enlistment age by two years — from 39 to 41 — on Friday in an effort to allow more civilians to join its ranks. “Effective immediately,” recruiters will be able to enlist people who are as old as 41, provided that they don’t hit their 42nd birthday by the time they report to boot camp, a copy of the new policy, provided to Military.com by the Navy, explained. The policy also noted that some service communities like nuclear power, Navy SEALs and divers will continue to be able to set tougher restrictions for their members.

Military.com

Now, if joining the military at age 39 sounds a bit old to you…it is. I knew a few people that enlisted in their early twenties, but once you got past the age of 27…enlistment dropped dramatically. There were some officers that joined later, most of them doctors or other medical specialists, but there were not too many 30-somethings beating down the door to join the military, let alone join as a new Sailor and go to boot camp.

How much do I think this change will make a difference? Somewhere between “not at all” and “nothing.”

I did find a USNI article boasting about how the Navy was reaching out with new advertising to Generation Z. So, I watched their new ad.

Now, the videography is good. It’s a pretty tight commercial, well shot and with a good message, although it should have been titled “Never say never” instead of “Never.” So, how well is it doing?

Now, the Navy channel isn’t exactly something lots of people are going to follow for fun, but at least we can see the video is getting views. What is interesting is looking at the most popular videos on the channel as a whole.

Everything that is really popular is older. Like, significantly older. With the exception of a video made a few months back about a SWCC Sailor (well made video and a very cool story!), most of the videos just aren’t popular. I also tried finding Navy eSports videos on Twitch and other platforms, and their viewer level was…pretty low.

Which tells me one thing: all the money the Navy is pouring into advertising isn’t reaching the desired audience…or much of an audience at all. I’ll venture its because the Navy’s narrative is being told through its news stories, which consist of rampant suicide issues, a forced COVID vaccine, and the increasingly truthful notion that veterans are broken people. All of this turns off Generation Z, and really most young people in general, to the idea that they could have any sort of fruitful career in the Navy. Combine that with a strong job market, and you have the recipe for a recruiting disaster.

So, what is next? Well, forcing people to stay longer is already being discussed at USNI:

A ten-year service requirement would change the motivation of most ensigns who join the submarine force, allowing the community to recruit officers who intend to make the Navy a career. This undoubtedly would cause recruiting challenges, but naval aviation is able every year to recruit hundreds of ensigns who are committing ten years of their lives. Some of the recruitment challenges can be ameliorated by the additional benefits that would come from extending the minimum service requirement.
- From USNI

There is so much wrong with this idea that it would take another article to explain, but I’ll go with the obvious: when a generation of kids are watching their parents hop between jobs to make increasingly more money, why would they be incentivized to lock into a long contract with the Navy? And, when this approach and others like it don’t work, the military will increasingly force people to the paths it needs, which it has done in the past.

Until the actual issues are addressed concerning the Navy’s mission and how it treats its people, it will continue to not inspire young people to join, and will increasingly become more draconian in its retention approach.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

The Navy chose death over life

ack when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed, the military services, including the Navy, gave a homosexual couples 10 days of free leave to travel and get married in a state that supported same-sex marriage. Plenty of people, myself included, complained that nobody else got free leave to get married. I had to take regular leave to get married, as do most other people unless they get lucky and their command simply looks the other way. It was an unpopular move, and it should have been a warning sign that the Navy was actively picking sides on issues of morality instead of sticking with warfighting.

Well, in case that wasn’t enough proof for you, the Navy just decided to smack you over the head with more nonsense. ALNAV 071/22 was released late last week. It’s title is “Reproductive Health Services and Support,” but if you think its about supporting pregnant service members and their babies, well, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Let’s see what it says.

1.  It is critical our Sailors and Marines maintain health, fitness, and wellness to optimize mission readiness.  Therefore, the Department of the Navy (DON) is committed to ensuring the health, safety, and well-being of 
those who serve our country, and their families in an environment of safety, privacy, and respect.  The recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization has generated concern for some Sailors, Marines, 
and family members about how their reproductive health care may be affected.  The decision has necessitated that the Department of Defense (DoD) closely examine and evaluate policies to ensure seamless access to health 
care, consistent with federal law.

Uhm, it hasn’t changed any laws. Military health care has been banned from aborting babies for quite some time. The Hyde Ammendment, passed in 1997, bans the use of federal funds for abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Overturning a previous Supreme Court ruling simply means the states can choose to ban abortion…or not in the case of many states like California. So, nothing much has changed, except some people (never defined) are “concerned.”

2.  Reference (a) is newly released guidance from the Secretary of Defense entitled, "Ensuring Access to Reproductive Health Care."  Reference (a) outlines reproductive health policy and directs the DoD to promulgate implementing actions no later than the end of this calendar year, to the maximum extent possible.  Nothing is more important to me than the health and well-being of our people.  The DON will be fully engaged in this policy work.

The referenced memo is here. Good to know the DON will be fully engaged with this while ignoring the suicide epidemic on our ships, the inability to get any ships through a repair cycle on-time and on-budget, or solving the current recruitment crisis.

3. Future policy will: 
   a.  Establish additional privacy protections for reproductive health care information, including standardizing and extending the time Service Members have to fulfill their obligation to notify commanders of a pregnancy to no 
later than 20 weeks unless specific requirements to report sooner, such as those necessitated by occupational health hazards, are set forth in policy.

This is dumb. Normally you’re required to report pregnancy right away, the idea being that your boss should limit your physical workload and exposure to things like hazmat and ionizing radiation, since early stress and exposure can cause serious issues in those first few weeks. The purpose of delaying is to allow service members to go and receive abortions…which they already could do. If a Sailor told her Commanding Officer that she was pregnant, then later had an abortion, its not like the CO could DO anything about it. So now because of the delay, women…I mean, birthing people, will face additional hazards to their unborn babies and themselves during critical early weeks of pregnancy.

b. Allow for appropriate administrative absence consistent with applicable federal law for non-covered reproductive health care.
c. Establish travel and transportation allowances for Sailors, Marines, and their dependents, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law and operational requirements, and as necessary, amend any applicable
travel regulations, to facilitate official travel to access non-covered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of a Sailor or Marine's permanent duty station.

So…paying for Sailors to get abortions. “Non-covered reproductive health care” my ass. This is directly funding abortion with federal money. It’s a direct violation of the law. It’s one thing when a Sailor uses her own money to travel and have an abortion. It’s another for the government to pay for it.

Now, you might say “But what about ectopic pregnancy, or the baby isn’t viable anymore?” Well, military treatment facilities perform D&Cs, or dilation and curretage. They do this if a fertilized egg stops developing and doesn’t naturally miscarry. I know from experience. Granted, NPR didn’t broadcast this, but its true. If you call any military treatment facility, they will tell you that they provide condoms (male and female), IUDs, Plan B, and D&Cs for anything that threatens the mothers life.

That’s not good enough for the “abortion on demand” crowd, and rather than comply with law, the Navy and Department of Defense is going to pay for abortions. The only possible excuse for this is that they know Congress won’t stop them. They aren’t afraid of reprisals.

d. Direct commanders to maintain objectivity and discretion when addressing reproductive health care matters and underscore their duty to enforce existing policies against discrimination and retaliation in the context of reproductive health care choices.

“Maintain objectivity?” As in, comply or be silenced/booted. This is direction by the way, not advising. You WILL be supportive of Sailors killing their babies, or else you will be forced out.

e. Develop a program to reimburse applicable fees, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law, for health care providers who wish to become licensed in a different state than that in which they are currently licensed in order to support the performance of official duties
f. Develop a program to support health care providers who are subject to adverse action, including civil or criminal penalties or loss of license or reprimand, for appropriately performing their official duties, to include the indemnification of any verdict, judgment, or other monetary award consistent with applicable law.

Oh my! Not only will we shove this down service members throats, but we’ll pay for people to get licensed in other states so that they too can kill babies! This is especially insulting when the Navy can’t fully fund the Navy Credentialing Program (called Navy COOL) for members to seek actual credentials. Plenty of us have applied for credentialing funding, only to be told there isn’t enough money.

4.  While this policy work is underway, and pending issuance of the implementing actions, I want to assure you that I am fully committed to ensuring the DON continues to provide contraceptive and reproductive health care services and support to our Sailors, Marines, family members, and retirees.

Yes, we know you are fully committed to killing otherwise healthy babies. Thanks SECNAV!

5.  Securing Easy Access to Contraceptive Care:  active duty Sailors and Marines are entitled to comprehensive counseling by a health care provider and access to the full range of contraceptive methods for pregnancy 
prevention or menstrual suppression.  Further, active duty Sailors and Marines may receive an adequate supply of short-acting reversible contraceptives for the entire length of deployment (up to 12 months).  If menstrual suppression is desired, extra supply of the chosen method will be ordered and dispensed as necessary to ensure the member has enough active medication for the entire duration of deployment.  Additionally, Walk-In Contraceptive Clinics (WICC) (primarily in Fleet Concentration and Fleet Marine Force areas) offer same-day contraceptive services to Sailors and Marines.  Currently, 32 WICCs are open (22 Navy and Marine Corps, 4 Army, 4 Air Force, and 2 National Capital Region locations), offering easy access to same-day contraceptive services resulting in reduced wait time for accessing long acting reversible contraception.  Finally, emergency contraception Plan B (or generic equivalent) is available at all military pharmacies free of charge.

Uhm…as previously pointed out, this has always been the case. But sure, lets post something more about it!

6.  Ensuring Service Members and Beneficiaries Can Access Covered Abortions:   consistent with long-standing federal law, 'covered abortions' - those cases that involve rape, incest, or where the life of the mother would be 
endangered - will continue to be performed within the military health system.  Please know that there is no interruption to this care.  Existing DoD policy authorizes travel for covered abortion care, if necessary. 
 
7.  Ensuring Service Members Can Exercise Their Reproductive Health Rights:   DoD health care providers may recommend non-chargeable convalescent leave to allow time for the Sailor or Marine to recover after receiving an abortion.   
Pre-and post-care is available to Sailors and Marines within the military health system, regardless of whether the abortion service was a covered or non-covered procedure.

Has always been the policy, again, not sure why it bears repeating here.

8.  I encourage you to visit the Navy and Marine Corps Public Health Center's, "Women's Health Toolbox," at https://www.med.navy.mil/Navy-Marine-Corps-Public-Health-Center/Womens-Health/ for additional information and 
resources on a myriad of important women's health issues, to include abortion care. 
 
9.  Rest assured that the DON's work to implement the DoD's new policy is a priority and it will be released expeditiously.  I expect promulgation in short order, with cooperation from leaders across the Navy and Marine Corps 
to ensure appropriate input and efficient implementation of the new policy. 
 
10.  Released by the Honorable Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy.

There is no honor in anything you put out here. This is just a sad violation of the law wrapped in the guise of caring.

Please contact your representative and senators and demand some action, and pray for the unborn, who don’t get any votes when it comes to the despicable actions of people passing themselves off as honorable.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, Satan, or any of his minions. Those people are in agreement on murdering the innocent.