National Defense Briefs

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Seventeenth in the series, National Defense Briefs. Each week we bring to readers of MidlandsBiz.com updates aimed at informing with timely military and homeland-security news briefs, trends, definitions, and short commentaries. Defense issues are inextricably connected to business. In that, we present the “National Defense Briefs” that matter.

• Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs Sloan D. Gibson issued the following statement this week: “Not all Veterans are getting the timely access to the healthcare that they have earned. Systemic problems in scheduling processes have been exacerbated by leadership failures and ethical lapses. I will use all available authority to swiftly and decisively address issues of willful misconduct or mismanagement. …” [Read full statement here]

• U.S. Navy SEALs rank among the world’s most-elite commandos, trained and equipped to operate on sea, air, and land, thus the acronymic title, “SEa Air Land.” Consequently, to be a SEAL – and simply survive the intense Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training program on the front end of the SEAL pipeline – requires tremendous reserves of mental fortitude and endurance. It also requires extreme athleticism. So what are the top athletic pursuits or sports “that breed athletes who have the highest rate of becoming SEALs?” (Keep in mind when talking about “rates,” the attrition rate for SEAL candidates is 70 to 80 percent, and those who washout are themselves athletic young men else they would not have made the initial cut to enter BUD/S training.) The seven top sports identified by the Navy with the help of the Gallup research group are water polo (the top sport by the way), swimming, triathlons, lacrosse, boxing, rugby, and wrestling. If the candidate also played these sports in college, he is twice as likely to get through BUD/S, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
• But it’s not simply the Big Seven (top sports) that increases the SEAL candidate’s chances of successfully finishing BUD/S. “Regular participation in several alternative sports, like skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking, climbing, rappelling and martial arts were also shown to increase the odds,” reports The San Diego Union-Tribune. “As was earning a bachelor’s degree in college and/or having regular hobbies such as hunting, woodworking or chess.”
• The four top fifth-generation fighters that are in production and projected for service well into the 21^st century are America’s F-35 Lightning II and the older and already-in-service F-22 Raptor, China’s Chengdu J-20, and Russia’a Sukhoi T-50 PAK–FA. “The T-50 will be offered to countries — and Russian allies — looking for an alternative to the F-35, Lockheed Martin’s long-delayed fifth generation fighter,” says Business Insider. “The Russians expect to sell about 1,000 fighters worldwide.” That said, unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs (wrongly but widely referred to as “drones” which are designed to be shot down in testing) may well be the airborne dynamic that changes these projections over the next several decades.

• The Special Forces Association’s annual national convention will begin next week (starting June 9 and running through June 15) in S.C. The convention, which will begin and conclude in Columbia with events in both Charleston and Camden, will include static displays and demonstrations, museum and battlefield tours, shooting matches, cooking classes, and an awards banquet. U.S. Army Special Forces are best known as “Green Berets.” [see NATIONAL DEFENSE BRIEFS, May 14, 2014]

• “I can’t count the number of times that I saw them [U.S. Marines] in firefights, in Fallujah and Ramadi and other places, and I would just stand there in wonderment, thinking to myself: ‘There’s absolutely no reason on this earth why any human being would do what they’re doing,’ ” said Marine Gen. John Kelly according to USA Today . “Every human being naturally would want to protect themselves, crawl in a hole, get down. And they don’t.”

– W. Thomas Smith Jr. is a military analyst and partner with NATIONAL DEFENSE CONSULTANTS, LLC. Visit him at http://uswriter.com.