Marines

Plus, don't let the kids run social if you're a serious organization.

Last week in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton resurrected one of her favorite tales—the story of her unsuccessful effort to join the Marine Corps in the mid-1970s. The account has drawn skepticism over the years, and for good reason. She has offered little to back it up. But it’s the perfect anecdote…

CNN's Jeff Zeleny reported this morning that there are questions whether Hillary Clinton actually tried to join the Marines. Clinton has made the claim since at least 1994, and recently repeated it this week in New Hampshire. 

Anderson Cooper’s final question in the Democratic presidential debate on October 13 led to an interesting and revealing moment. He asked:

The recent outrage over reports of systematic child rape by Afghan security forces may be justified, but sadly there is little novelty to the reports themselves. Even the Sunday New York Times article that brought the matter into public view cited a list of earlier dispatches addressing it:…

Disputes between the political appointees who run the Pentagon and the military officers who serve there are not unheard of, but the nastiness and public nature of the fight over women in combat being waged between Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus and the Marines who answer to him is unprecedented…

A new nine-month-long study by the Marine Corps found that including women in combat units had a negative impact on unit cohesion and performance, the Washington Post reports:

President Obama is finally ordering the American flag to be flown at half staff after the Chattanooga terror attack last week. Four Marines and one Sailor were murdered in that attack. 

In a recent edition of Kristol Clear, a weekly newsletter (you can sign up for free here), the boss mentioned an instance of some homeland heroics by a group of Marine volunteers. When a California wildfire reached Camp Pendleton last month, a group of Marines volunteered to save a dozen large,…

It's not just veterans at VA hospitals who are having trouble finding care. One young Marine veteran in California can't find a doctor who will accept his Anthem Blue Cross insurance plan he purchased through Covered California, the state's Obamacare exchange. KPIX-TV reports:

A book event on May 22 for the book Brothers Forver at the American Enterprise Institute, featuring retired Gen. John Allen:

Another open-air memorial in the Washington area is closed and barricaded off: the Iwo Jima Memorial, just across the bridge from D.C. in Rosslyn, Virginia. A source sends along this picture of the barricade set-up at the memorial, which is also called the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial:

ESPN reports that the NCAA has backed off and granted an indulgence to a recently discharged Marine and given him permission to play college football.  

In the midst of a fair amount of depressing news from Afghanistan (e.g., al-Qaeda backers get U.S. military contracts, U.S. cites “due process rights” as reason not to cancel), here's a report from the front that offers some grounds for hope.

It becomes more and more difficult to find the bad news about the sequester.  Unless, that is, you are in the Pentagon and trying to figure out how to keep the Marine Corps fully equipped and trained and up to strength.

Via CBS's Mark Knoller:

At an outdoor White House press conference, President Obama called over Marines to shield himself and the Turkish prime minister from the rain:

Iran will chair the U.N.'s disarmament conference.

Forget the sequester. If you're Chuck Schumer, there are ways around it. Consider the recent example of a U.S. Marine Corps band cancelling its scheduled performance at a St. Patrick's Day parade due to the "sequester"--and Chuck Schumer's successful "push" for the band to come anyway.

CNN reports that the commandant of the Marine Corps is ordering the personnel under his command to:

Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reports:

A young Marine infantry officer, a combat veteran of Afghanistan writes:

President Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, visited the Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe Bay to wish everyone there a merry Christmas.

Marine Lance Corporal Christian Brown is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, who lost both of his legs and a part of a Marine Lance Corporal Christian Brown is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, who lost both of his legs and a part of a finger after stepping on an explosive device in the…

ABC's Martha Raddatz asked, if there are American Marines in Paris, why are there not Marines in Tripoli?

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post reports that Rick Perry on Sunday channeled the boss and defended the four Marines:

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines' video, and has given us permission to publish it.

Obama administration bigwigs are falling all over themselves to denounce, condemn, lament, and apologize for the unfortunate behavior of a few Marines in Afghanistan last year. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta condemned the action as not just deplorable but “utterly deplorable.” Secretary of State…

William McGurn, writing in the Wall Street Journal: 

The Military Times reports that President Obama will award a medal of honor to former Marine Dakota Meyer:

Staff Sgt. Jason Rogers, of the United States Marine Corps, was killed in combat earlier this month in Afghanistan. A heartbreaking YouTube video of the funeral procession in Brandon, Mississippi (located in Rankin County) has been posted:

That was the explanation of Steven Hoag to ABC11-TV in Wilson, N.C. for how he remained preternaturally calm while narrating the approach of a tornado straight towards him.

An absolutely must watch video today -- Corporal William Lottering, USMC by way of South Africa, gives a tour of the schoolhouse in Garmsir, Afghanistan. The headmaster of the school fled the school and didn't come back to teach until the Marines arrived and started providing security. When the…

How our Marines are "destroying the Taliban"

In the past four years, administrations of both parties have had to surge ground troops to war theaters in order to make success possible in missions central to the national security of the United States. Just last week, the Obama administration announced an additional 1,400 Marines would be…

There’s been some hyperventilating among conservatives about the effects on the military of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It’s going to be amazingly difficult to implement, some say. It could well be the end of the U.S. military as a feared fighting force. It’s just another step in the decline…

There’s been some hyperventilating among conservatives about the effects on the military of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. It’s going to be amazingly difficult to implement, some say. It could well be the end of the U.S. military as a feared fighting force. It’s just another step in the decline…

Excerpts of remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis, November 13, 2010. His son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, 29, was killed in action November 9, 2010, in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan, while leading his platoon on a combat patrol.

TWS pays tribute not only to all our veterans but to those now in the midst of the fight--here, for example, is an article about the Marine battalion (mentioned yesterday here) facing a fierce fight in northern Helmand:

TWS pays tribute not only to all our veterans but to those now in the midst of the fight--here, for example, is an article about the Marine battalion (mentioned yesterday here) facing a fierce fight in northern Helmand:

TWS pays tribute not only to all our veterans but to those now in the midst of the fight--here, for example, is an article about the Marine battalion (mentioned yesterday here) facing a fierce fight in northern Helmand: