FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida — A U.S. Coast Guard vessel on Thursday offloaded more than 30 metric tons of cocaine and marijuana reportedly worth over $1 billion that was seized at sea during a months-long deployment off the coast of South America.
The haul of illegal narcotics brought home by the U.S. Coast Guard cutter James was one of the biggest in recent memory, a reflection of increasingly sophisticated U.S. arsenal that includes powerful drones and special infrared cameras that can detect heat from small cocaine-laden vessels.
But it also highlights a recent surge in narcotics coming from Colombia, a close U.S. ally and the world’s top producer of cocaine.
The Biden administration’s top anti-narcotics officials traveled to South Florida to welcome back the vessel’s crew and tout the Coast Guard’s role interdicting drugs before they reach American streets.
“We are hitting the drug traffickers where it hits them most: their pocketbooks,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, head of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Gupta said the Biden administration is seeking to increase the U.S. government’s budget to build up the nation’s addiction treatment infrastructure and reduce the supply of synthetic opioids like fentanyl and other drugs.
But the record busts of late by the Coast Guard, federal law enforcement and partner nations also underscores how little the flow of cocaine coming from Latin America has eased since President Richard Nixon declared war on drugs a half century ago.
Coca cultivation in Colombia in 2020 soared to 245000 hectares (945 square miles), enough to produce 1,010 metric tons of cocaine, according to the White House’s latest report on harvesting trends in the Andean region. As recently as 2014, potential production was less than half that amount. Production in Peru and Bolivia has also steadily risen.
Admiral Karl Schultz, the U.S. Coast Guard commander, said those numbers would be even higher, and the destabilizing impact on the region from transnational criminal organizations even worse, if not for the U.S. interdiction efforts.
“Does it matter? It absolutely matters because it kind of keeps a lid on things,” he said.
He was echoed by Ambassador Todd Robinson, who leads the State Department’s bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
“It’s not just always about seizures,” said Robinson, who previously served as the U.S.’ top diplomat in Guatemala and Venezuela, two major transit zones for Colombian cocaine. “It’s also about building our partners’ capacity.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a catastrophic impact on the health care system in the United States and globally. In the US alone, over 20 percent of all health care workers have left the profession since the start of the pandemic.
As across the US, the pandemic has hit Baltimore, Maryland with repeated devastating surges. Nearly 1 million people in Maryland have officially been infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, and 13,720 have died.
A nurse looking out a hospital window (Credit: pexels.com/EVG Photos)
In January, COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations reached all-time highs throughout Maryland due to the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant, with a peak of 3,462 people hospitalized on January 11. As with many other Democratic Party-led states, Maryland is prematurely lifting its mask mandate just as cases are once again starting to rise.
The World Socialist Web Site conducted the following interview with a public health professional who works at a hospital in Baltimore and requested anonymity. They describe the horrific conditions in their hospital during the recent surge of the Omicron variant.
Evan Blake (EB): Can you describe your role at the hospital where you work and speak about the situation there, specifically the issue of redeployment?
Health Professional (HP): I am a public health professional and administer externally funded programs, including FEMA funding for COVID relief, our mobile vaccination unit, and our hospital based vaccine clinics, as well as being involved in data analysis and surge response.
I’m at a hospital system in the Baltimore region, and “redeployment” of staff within hospitals is happening at my system as well as multiple others in this region and the DC/Capital region. I don’t think that a lot of people outside the health care system know that this is even happening, let alone what it means.
No one without relevant certifications is caring for patients; however, hundreds of staff have been pulled from other job functions (finance, IT, philanthropy, etc.) to work directly in support roles. That would include covering for EVS (cleaning patient rooms and facilities), bringing meals and trays back and forth, transporting patients, assisting the registrar, working at the vaccine clinics, etc.
This is not without risk—being in the facility itself and being in patient rooms is obviously a risk, but we also run the risks of very aggrieved patients, families and community members.
We have had MULTIPLE bomb threats, armed individuals trying to break in, armed individuals ACTUALLY breaking in, stalking, tires slashed in our parking lots, people attempting to drive into or through the outdoor vaccine sites, people coughing or spitting on us. The nurses and social workers have taken the brunt of this. For example, I know at least one palliative care social worker that quit after she was attacked by a family member as they weren’t allowed to see their family member who was dying from COVID.
Nurses so far have not been allowed to unionize within this state that I know of (some of our support staff are unionized under SEIU), and many are out sick or outright quitting due to the conditions and the emotional and physical stress.
With regard to direct patient care, all direct patient care is still done by doctors, nurses, NPs, techs, respiratory therapists, etc., but it is harder and harder to find qualified people to fill these jobs. Many hospitals are paying out the nose for travel nurses to fill positions but refuse to pay their own staff nurses more.
We have been pulling nursing students out of school early and pulling doctors and nurses out of retirement. Many nurses have had to redeploy to ICU units or the ED [Emergency Department], for example many labor and delivery nurses were redeployed to an area ED because so many pregnant individuals with COVID were coming in.
Concurrently, I could not tell you a single member of any executive staff in this entire state (or outside of it, to be honest) that has publicly taken any kind of pay cut. Throughout the entire pandemic, myself and other hospital staff, including nurses, have not gotten any hazard pay. At one point we got a small (~$250) bonus for the holidays. Many of us were furloughed and some positions have been eliminated; I do think this has been worse for other systems but could not tell you for sure.
It is unconscionable to me that people making well into the six figures would not redistribute at least some of that salary to individuals doing dangerous direct patient care during a deadly pandemic, but I can’t even find anyone suggesting this step. Directors were also given a larger (but still small) raise than other levels of staff; to me this seemed like it should be the other way around.
The terrible conditions at my hospital are compounded by the feeling that I am living in two different worlds, or a sort of separate reality within and without the hospital.
When I enter our main hospital entrance, I immediately see a large portrait of a colleague who passed away from COVID, along with handwritten remembrances of him and other colleagues. We are wearing masks and face shields for hours at a time still, and many of our colleagues (a higher number than ever before) are out sick, but we are being asked to return faster than ever before as well, sometimes when we still have symptoms.
The emotional toll of caring for patients or populations who are suffering greatly and not necessarily being able to help them, and now it’s kids as well, is causing so many of us, me included, to suffer from anxiety, depression, insomnia, panic attacks, etc.
But then when I go outside the hospital, it seems like no one even cares. I go to the grocery store and many individuals are not even wearing masks at all. People are blithely traveling internationally or to and from areas of high incidence, people are at gyms without masks, people are going to concerts and parties inside with huge groups, people are eating and drinking inside. It is incredibly disheartening.
So many of us are burning out or suffering, and executive leadership has seemed to do very little to directly confront this. Sometimes staff will get a nice email thanking us or a small gift or a free meal, but I could not tell you a substantive gesture that has been made by executive leadership that would create real change and demonstrate an understanding of what staff, particularly patient care staff, is going through.
EB: The conditions you’ve described are absolutely horrific, the opposite of what it should be like in a health care facility. Was “redeployment” happening during previous surges, or is the Omicron surge the first time it’s happened for your hospital? Can you also tell me a bit more about what your experience has been like during the pandemic more broadly? Has the Omicron surge been significantly worse than previous surges or comparable?
HP: Redeployment was happening during previous surges but not nearly to the degree or scale of what happened during Omicron.
My experience during the pandemic has honestly been awful. I am actually looking to move out of health care at this point, and I have been working in the health care field in Baltimore for almost 15 years, specifically for six years with my current organization. I have never felt this burnt out or disconnected from why I originally wanted to work in the field.
Working at a hospital, particularly in public health, in Baltimore has never been “easy,” per se, but I have never once experienced the level of public vitriol and targeted harassment that I have experienced almost daily during the pandemic.
In addition to the bomb threats, armed robberies and vandalism, we have experienced people threatening us at vaccine clinics, people screaming at me or coughing in my face if I wear anything with the logo of the hospital or anything like that in the grocery store.
I know it’s been awful for the nurses, but also for other individuals. In particular, I have a coworker who is a palliative care social worker. We were unable to let many families physically be in the room with their dying loved ones, and outside of the many threats and abuse from family members, the emotional burden of that is awful.
I will say that many local small businesses, particularly restaurants, have been supportive and amazing. Many restaurants are STILL donating food to frontline workers. And many coworkers stepped up to help and support one another (ironically, we have a peer support group for emotional distress that we can’t start yet … because of COVID).
I do think the Omicron surge has been harder emotionally because many people in the “outside world,” including sometimes our own family members or friends, and politicians, seem to be operating as if the pandemic is over. So there’s the emotional burden of that on top of everything else.
EB: The points you raised on hospital executives not taking pay cuts, while nurses struggle to get by, are important. The annual Oxfam report was released in January and found that while the incomes of the bottom 99 percent of global society have fallen since the start of the pandemic, the top 10 wealthiest men in the world saw their wealth double, while a new billionaire has been created every 26 hours since the pandemic began. Can you comment on this broader growth of social inequality during the pandemic? How could this money have been put to use to end the pandemic, such as through fully-paid lockdowns?
HP: I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by it, but it was incredible to me that a paid lockdown was seen as a draconian, horrifying measure that had no chance of ever being implemented. No one wants to shut everything down forever. But we could have saved so many lives if we had paid people to stay home for just two or three weeks.
It seems like more people are becoming aware of the social inequality since it has been SO blatant and in some ways inescapable, but I also worry that it is hardening peoples’ hearts. I feel in particular that service industry workers outside of the hospital and support staff in the hospital are being dehumanized and ignored more than ever before. We even had a hospital (not one of mine) in the Baltimore area get in trouble because they vaccinated their board members before any front-line workers.
Although it is difficult to see, I am hopeful that we are also seeing more solidarity among workers of all types, more people vocally questioning things, and more people unionizing or opting out of the system entirely if possible.
But we are seeing the same old tired union-busting tactics that companies have been utilizing forever writ large and applied to other things. For example, many hospital staff of all types would like to speak up more about things like work conditions, burnout, hazard pay, differential standards of pay (i.e., why does a doctor make so much but a janitor so little, when the janitor is probably exposed to more danger on a daily basis), but the threat of losing one’s job for doing so is always there, especially potent when we see people losing their jobs and their houses at such high rates.
EB: Regarding the disconnect between the war-zone-like environment in the hospital and the “return to normalcy” by many people, I think it’s important to understand this politically, as the outcome of relentless propaganda by the corporate media and politicians to push the vaccine-only approach and present the pandemic as being over. What are your thoughts on these deliberate efforts to say we have to “live with the virus,” with some even going so far as to say that everyone getting infected with Omicron would be a positive good?
HP: The efforts of some politicians (and “experts” paid by politicians) to essentially gaslight the public have been infuriating and frustrating. I think in particular it’s been very difficult for parents and immunocompromised individuals (obviously those categories can overlap), who CAN’T “return to normal,” and I think many people don’t realize that not every immunocompromised person is like Bubble Boy, and they don’t view their own lives as expendable or not important.
As far as “living with the virus,” I certainly do not think that everyone should simply get infected or leave themselves completely open to infection, particularly with Long COVID (which politicians rarely refer to as well). There is a way to “learn to live with the virus,” but that means moving forward and finding a new way, keeping some public health measures in place, leaving a lot of the new remote work or education measures in place, etc. It doesn’t mean “scrap every single public health measure and everyone never wear a mask again.”
EB: As a final question, can you comment on how the concept of “endemicity” is now being misused, and your thoughts on the interview we did with Boston University epidemiologist Eleanor Murray on this?
HP: The interview with Dr. Murray says it well—the POLITICAL framing of endemicity has been that “endemic” is essentially a “step down” from pandemic. In public health or immunology, we don’t use endemic that way, and the political connotation that endemic is less “serious” also doesn’t really mean anything in a scientific sense.
A good example of this is malaria, which is endemic to certain regions of the world, but which also causes untold suffering and is a leading cause of death in many of those same areas, especially pediatric death.
So, the framing of endemic as a sort of “junior” pandemic is extremely disingenuous and dangerous. Specificity of language means things. We’ve already been battling a huge disinformation campaign about how vaccines work (i.e., there are MANY MANY existing vaccines that don’t prevent infection but they DO prevent disease, which are DIFFERENT things), and we don’t need to add new layers to that.
I truly think we are doing a huge public disservice when we sort of throw terms around like endemicity and use them to mean whatever we want. I think the level of scientific literacy in this country is shockingly low, but I also don’t think that is because the majority of people are stupid or “don’t believe in science,” it’s just that science and in particular public health are not taught in schools and in general not presented in ways that invite curiosity and learning.
If I had not specifically learned these things in college-level courses, I would also not know them, and it’s not fair that we keep that knowledge behind numerous accessibility barriers and then complain that people don’t know it. But that is a whole other conversation of course!
EB: Thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts and experiences. You’ve given a real depiction of what conditions are like at present after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Marine Corps is moving fast, but not fast enough to modernize for a potential future war against China, the new deputy commandant for combat development and integration said Wednesday.
The Corps has taken the lead in the Department of Defense in its preparation for a war in the Pacific, with its Force Design 2030 plan released shortly after Gen. David Berger took over as commandant of the Marine Corps in summer 2019.
“If anybody thinks we are moving fast enough, you’re crazy,” Lt. Gen. Karsten Heckl said Wednesday at the Marine Corps’ western seaboard West Conference.
“I would say we need to double down our efforts and figure out a way to move quicker,” Heckl said.
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The commandant’s plan sees the Marine Corps getting smaller, lighter and more mobile in order to conduct a distributed fight in the Pacific, with the focus shifting toward how the Marine Corps can support a naval campaign in the region.
Small teams of Marines potentially armed with ship sinking missiles will take up small outposts throughout the Pacific.
The small size will ideally keep them hidden from enemy forces. If the Marines are detected, the increased maneuverability will ideally allow them to leave a position before it is targeted by the potential enemy.
The Marine Corps already has created units that are experimenting with the new formations Marine leaders believe are needed to fight in this way.
“My commandant has stepped off at speed,” Heckl said Wednesday. “We are moving very, very quickly and I assure you there will be no let up on the accelerator.”
In August 2021 the Marine Corps launched a Naval strike missile at U.S. Navy hull, and plans on spending the next two years allowing the 11th Marine Regiment to experiment with the missile and the best way to incorporate it into the fleet.
Heckl said he wants industry to give the Corps more products to the fleet in order to start testing them.
“What I’m looking for is getting certain different capabilities in the hands of the operators and letting them begin to experiment,” Heckl said.
Heckl added that continuing resolutions risk slowing down the progress the Marine Corps is making.
The government has been operating on a series of continuing resolutions, which freeze government speeding at the fiscal year 2021 levels since the new fiscal year started in October.
The current continuing resolution would fund the government through March 11.
“We need stable, predictable funding,” Heckl said.
The general went on to voice his concerns that military development tends to lead to over engineering at the cost of developmental speed.
“If we continue to overengineer, over cost everything and over schedule everything the Chinese are just going to get farther and farther and farther ahead,” Heckl said.
Marines do some pretty spectacular and/or ridiculous things while deployed. Anyone who follows Terminal Lance on Instagram can tell you that much. What Marine Warrant Officer Faustin Wirkus did was pretty spectacular, but really it was just a day in the life of a U.S. Marine. Except this time, the Marine in question ended up being proclaimed king of the island in a voodoo ceremony — and he ended up with a wife, whether he wanted to or not.
At this point, half of everyone is wondering what happened and the other half is wondering if voodoo is why you so rarely see the warrant officers in your unit. Well, It was why then-Sergeant Wirkus had to stop showing up for duty. It wasn’t that Wirkus was opposed to hard work — he was a United States Marine after all, and he grew up breaking coal from slate in the Pennsylvania Coal Country.
But, Wirkus, he had an island to rule.
Wirkus arrived in Haiti in 1915 with his fellow Marines. He spent much of his first year around the capital of Port-Au-Prince. Germany had been intervening in a number of Caribbean insurrections. The Haitians suddenly overthrew the American-backed dictator on the island, and Caco Rebels installed an anti-American president.
“The first deputy queen under Ti Memenne dressed in clothes Wirkus brought from the States. Screengrab from Wirkus memoir, courtesy of onesourceauctions.com. Composite made by Coffee or Die Magazine.
The Marines were sent in to occupy and stabilize the island while enforcing the American “Monroe Doctrine” — an intolerance toward European meddling in the Western Hemisphere. They were also protecting U.S. economic interests. Wirkus was one of many Marines sent to Haiti aboard the USS Tennessee. It was aboard that ship he first saw the island of La Gonâve.
He asked a Marine NCO about the island. The reply was cryptic and short.
“If you’re lucky, you’ll never get any closer to that place than you are now. No white man has set foot on it since the days of the buccaneers. There’s a post on it now, but the men stationed there don’t usually come back — and if they do, they’re fit for nothing but the bug house… Place is full of voodoos and God knows what else.”
Luckily, he was kept in the capital during his first deployment in Haiti. He soon fell from a truck and broke his arm. After his recovery in the U.S., he was sent to Cuba, and eventually back to Haiti. It was four years later and the young Marine was now a Sergeant, but was a commissioned officer in the local Garde d’Haiti, keeping the Caco Rebels at bay in the outer edges of the island nation.
US Marine Faustin Wirkus published his memoir in 1931 titled The White King of La Gonave: The True Story of the Sergeant of Marines Who Was Crowned King on a Voodoo Island. Screengrab of the book via onesourceauctions.com.
He was good at it, and so, of course, he would eventually be sent to the one place everyone told him he would be lucky to never see. No, it was not Twentynine Palms, it was the mysterious island the NCO warned him about: La Gonâve.
Wirkus was extremely interested in the island. It captivated him but none of the other Marines could tell him anything about the island’s interior; none of them had ever dared to venture inland. His first assignment on the island was to assess prisoners of the Garde who were charged with “offenses against the Republic of Haiti” and “trivial voodoo offenses.”
Among them was a woman named Ti Memenne, who warned the Marine that she would see him again. Still, Wirkus sent her on to Port-Au-Prince with a recommendation for lenient treatment.
Faustin II’s good luck was good luck for the locals. The 19-year U.S. occupation of Haiti did not go as smoothly or nonviolently for the rest of the country. But that good luck ran afoul of the President of Haiti, who was able to visit the island for the first time in 1928. Incidentally, he was able to visit without being murdered by the island’s inhabitants, thanks to the command decisions of Faustin Wirkus. The President was not thrilled with the King and requested he be transferred to the mainland United States.
He went willingly in 1929 and left the Corps shortly after. He returned to active duty in the days before World War II and was made a Warrant Officer who served in the Navy’s pre-flight school in North Carolina. He died just months before the end of World War II and was interred in Arlington National Cemetery.
This article was originally published by We Are The Mighty. Read more by We Are The Mighty here.
Read Next: The Medal of Honor Recipient Who Refused to Die: He Enlisted at 14, Dove on 2 Grenades at 17
Pfc. Ana DominguezValazquez, a Marine from Recruiting Sub-Station Fullerton, Recruiting Station Orange County, shipped to recruit training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on Mar. 15, 2021. She entered recruit training prepared and resilient at the beginning of June 2021, but after obtaining a serious injury, had to quickly adapt her plan.
One month into recruit training, DominguezValazquez started having pain in her hips. The Navy doctors informed her she had broken her hip during training.
“I honestly don’t even remember how or when I broke it,” says DominguezValazquez. “All I could think about was the fact that I knew I couldn’t continue with my platoon in training.”
Shortly after finding out the news, DominguezValazquez transferred to the female rehabilitation platoon (FRP) on the depot. FRP is for recruits who become injured during training and need time to rehabilitate until they are ready to continue.
“There were times in FRP that I was really down about being hurt, but there was this one recruit who I really looked up to that kept me going,” claims DominguezValazquez. “She was originally in my sister platoon when I started out in November Company, and she was extremely resilient. I looked up to her because she never gave up, regardless of her injury or how long she took to get better.”
DominguezValazquez went in and out of training as she tried to push through her injury to become a Marine. She went into three different companies before being placed in her final platoon.
“It felt like forever being out of training,” says DominguezValazquez. “On the bright side, I was able to build a whole new family in FRP. Even now, I’m still a little sad knowing some of the females I was with are still there.”
It took seven months in total for DominguezValazquez to completely heal before returning to training with Kilo Company. Finally, she returned where she was initially pulled from training, grass week. Grass week is where recruits start learning the fundamentals of rifle marksmanship.
“It truly feels absolutely amazing to have finally graduated and earned the title, United States Marine,” says DominguezValazquez. “When I was in FRP, I’d see people come back from the crucible, and it would make me so sad. Coming back from the crucible, I was so happy I can’t even put it into words. I was yelling cadence so loudly, thinking to myself that I finally made it.”
After eleven months spent on Parris Island and enduring challenges she never thought she would face, DominguezValazquez graduated from recruit training on Feb. 11, 2022. Even though DominguezValazquez had some doubts during her time, she knew quitting was never an option.
“I think if someone ever goes through something similar to me, they should remind themselves that if you start something, you should finish it,” says DominguezValazquez. “We have so much time in our lives, and this is such a small moment compared to that. It felt so quick going from the yellow footprints to a Marine.”
DominguezValazquez embodied the definition of resilience by facing and overcoming adversity. After graduating, DominguezValazquez will attend Marine Combat Training. There, she will find out what her occupation for the Marine Corps will be.
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By Tony Capaccio (Bloomberg) The U.S. Navy’s new version of the tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft designed for missions at sea isn’t yet “operationally suitable” because it has only “partially met reliability requirements,” according to the Pentagon’s testing office.
Among the problems: Its ice protection system “accounted for 25% of the operational mission failures, which will result in mission aborts,” the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation said in a non-public assessment marked “Controlled Unclassified Information” and obtained by Bloomberg News.
Otherwise, though, the test office found the CMV-22B Osprey is “operationally effective for carrier onboard delivery, medical evacuation, Naval Special Warfare support and search and rescue.”
The CMV-22B is a modified version of the widely used Marine Corps aircraft that lands and takes off like a helicopter and then flies like an airplane. It’s replacing the C-2A Greyhound, a nausea-inducing, claustrophobic aircraft first produced in 1965, to land cargo and people on aircraft carriers.
Spokespersons for Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing Co., which jointly produce the Osprey, referred questions to the Naval Air Systems Command.
The new aircraft “will provide the Navy with significant increases in capability and operational flexibility,” according to a fact sheet from the command.
(Feb. 22, 2021) Medical personnel carry a simulated patient during a medical transport drill on the flight deck of Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70). The drill was the first-ever medevac by a Navy CMV-22B Osprey aboard an aircraft carrier. Vinson is currently underway conducting routine maritime operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Aaron T. Smith)
A command spokesperson, Megan Wasel, asked about actions the Navy was taking to address the test assessment, said the aircraft had just completed its first operational deployment this month “and successfully proved” its value “as part of the U.S. Navy’s Air Wing of the Future. In the coming months, we will be reviewing this first deployment in its entirety and will implement key lessons learned, with the goal of improving readiness, reliability, and combat capability.”
The Navy has purchased all of the planned 44 aircraft, Wasel said.
Navy operational tests evaluated the aircraft from January 2021 until mid-July 2021, and it has flown in limited fleet operations. It didn’t meet a requirement for 75% operational availability or a metric to fly longer than 12.5 hours before an “operational mission failure,” according to the test office assessment.
The aircraft’s HF radio “which is required for over-the-horizon communications to support” Navy operations far from shore “was inconsistent, demonstrating a 12% success rate for long-range, two-way communications,” according to the report.
NORFOLK, Va. – Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryan Kerns, a native of Bellwood-Antis, serves the U.S. Navy aboard one of the world’s largest warships, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77).
Bush was commissioned in 2009 and is completing a pre-deployment work up cycle.
“Our Sailors’ hard work to return George Herbert Walker Bush to the operational fleet in 2021 was exemplary,” said Capt. Robert Aguilar, GHWB commanding officer. “They represent the best principles of service to the mission and the nation that our namesake, President George H.W. Bush, embodied.”
Kerns joined the Navy four years ago. Today, Kerns serves as a machinist’s mate (nuclear).
“Both my parents were in the military,” said Kerns. “A lot of my family was in the military. They inspired me to join. I was also interested in earning money for college.”
Growing up in Bellwood-Antis, Kerns attended Bellwood-Antis High School and graduated in 2017. Today, Kerns relies upon skills and values similar to those found in Bellwood-Antis to succeed in the military.
“I come from a small town with a great sense of community,” said Kerns. “Everyone knows how to work together like a small family. It’s similar aboard this ship. We work together, eat together and when we’re not working, we hang out together.”
These lessons have helped Kerns while serving in the Navy.
Kerns’s service aboard Bush follows the example of the ship’s namesake, the nation’s 41st President, George H.W. Bush. Bush is the only U.S. president to serve as a U.S. Navy aviator. During World War II he flew the TBF Avenger in Torpedo Squadron (VT) 51 and was stationed aboard USS San Jacinto (CVL 30). He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for a daring bombing run over the island of Chichi Jima.
The ship bearing Bush’s name is preparing for deployment amid ongoing strategic competition between the U.S. and its adversaries. In doing so, the ship and its Sailors continue the legacy of service to the nation that U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have provided for 100 years.
Since USS Langley’s (CV 1) commissioning 100 years ago this March 20, aircraft carriers and their ability to project American power around the globe have been a consistent tool in maintaining and improving U.S. national security interest and the prosperity of the American people.
Sailors aboard USS George H.W. Bush, like Kerns, continue to burnish the legacy of the aircraft carrier fleet and naval aviation by providing the national command authority a flexible, tailorable warfighting capability as the flagship of a carrier strike group that maintains maritime stability and security in order to ensure access, deter aggression and defend U.S., allied, and partner interests.
Serving in the Navy means Kerns is part of a team that is taking on new importance in America’s focus on rebuilding military readiness, strengthening alliances and reforming business practices in support of the National Defense Strategy.
“The Navy can be anywhere we want,” said Kerns. “Having this presence around the world with the capabilities we have serves as a strong deterrence.”
With more than 90 percent of all trade traveling by sea, and 95 percent of the world’s international phone and internet traffic carried through fiber optic cables lying on the ocean floor, Navy officials continue to emphasize that the prosperity and security of the United States is directly linked to a strong and ready Navy.
Kerns and the sailors they serve with have many opportunities to achieve accomplishments during their military service.
“I’m proud of the supervisor qualifications I earned a few months ago,” said Kerns. “I coordinate orders between the watch officer and the watch standers. This covers two of the four propulsion units aboard the ship in addition to other parts in the reactor spaces.”
As Kerns and other sailors continue to train and perform missions, they take pride in serving their country in the United States Navy.
“Being able to serve our country helps ensure that we don’t lose what we have,” added Kerns. “If something were to happen, the Navy is the first service to respond because we’re already deployed around the world.”
Military experts in the U.S. are urging Western nations to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses, fearing that Russia will swiftly take over its former territory’s airspace in the opening moves of a possible invasion.
An air assault on Ukraine would test the limits of the U.S. and NATO’s willingness to remain active over a country they have scrambled to militarily assist in the past few months, they say. The outcome of a decision to fly into a worsening or expanding Russian offensive could reshape the military relationship between the Cold War adversaries and their allies for the first time in over three decades.
An initial onslaught of cyberattacks would likely be followed by air and missile strikes as an opening physical assault to control the skies, Seth Jones, who directs the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote Jan. 13.
Senior Airman Josiah Goodman, 934th Maintenance Squadron aerospace propulsion technician, texts his girlfriend “goodbye” as he waits for his C-130 to take off at Minneapolis-St. Paul Air Reserve Station on Feb. 16, 2022. (Chris Farley/Air Force)
That would challenge Ukraine’s air defenses, a particularly weak point in a military aviation enterprise already outmatched by Russian capabilities.
“The Russian forces staging or available to be used against Ukraine … are wholly modernized and capable of dominating Ukraine’s defenses,” including through airstrikes and their own anti-aircraft weapons, wrote Wesley Clark, a retired four-star Army general who served as NATO’s supreme allied commander from 1997 to 2000, in a Jan. 14 Washington Post op-ed.
Ukraine’s sizable stockpile of anti-aircraft missiles are largely outdated and are Russian-built weapons, which that military knows how to evade, said Philip Breedlove, a retired four-star Air Force general who served as head of U.S. European Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander from 2013 to 2016.
Breedlove was also the Air Force’s vice chief of staff in 2011-2012 before commanding U.S. Air Forces in Europe until May 2013. He now works as a Europe expert with the Middle East Institute.
Foreign nations have provided Ukraine with shoulder-fired Stinger missiles that can shoot down aircraft but are typically only useful against helicopters or certain drones. That solves only a small part of the air power problem, Breedlove said.
Airmen assigned to the 86th Airlift Wing load supplies onto a C-130J Super Hercules aircraft at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Feb. 4, 2022. U.S. Air Forces in Europe are prepared and strategically positioned to rapidly surge forces across the region to support the alliance and defend against any aggression. (Senior Airman Thomas Karol/Air Force)
Clark and Jones both urged the U.S. and NATO countries to send more air defense equipment to Ukraine without delay.
“Nations have a legitimate right to self-defense, and the United States and our allies have every right to provide such means now,” Clark wrote. “We should expedite the delivery of defensive means and insist that our NATO allies do likewise. No other act now can show more resolve to Putin.”
Another issue: a vulnerable air command-and-control enterprise that is geared to look west at the former Soviet Union’s foes, rather than east to modern-day Russia.
Ukraine owns Russian-made command-and-control systems, which makes them particularly susceptible to electronic jamming and attack by their creator, Breedlove said in an interview Thursday.
“I take you back to 2014, when the Russians invaded and occupied Crimea. When they flipped that switch to take over Crimea, they completely, absolutely, 100% disconnected the military garrisons in Crimea from Kyiv,” he said. “Some of that was electronic warfare.”
Ukraine still lacks the ability to move through each step of air operations, from sensing a threat and identifying what it is, to targeting and shooting at it, Breedlove added.
“In the face of a dedicated Russian attack, with Russian air forces bringing their full force down to bear on Ukraine, they would not be able to defend their sovereign airspace,” he said.
Airman 1st Class Stephen Knotts, 436th Aerial Port Squadron ramp services apprentice, positions a cargo loader to an aircraft during a foreign military sales mission with Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Feb. 10, 2022. (Roland Balik/Air Force)
U.S. Air Force and allied tanker and transport planes continue to help move people and equipment into Ukraine and the wider region.
The service on Friday referred questions on the specifics of their activities to Pentagon headquarters, and Air Mobility Command spokesperson Lindsey Wilkinson declined to comment on any considerations for a last-minute evacuation effort.
“Air Mobility Command — like any military unit — plans and prepares for a wide array of contingencies and humanitarian events,” she said in an email.
Lessons learned from Operation Allies Refuge, the frantic effort to fly more than 124,000 evacuees out of Afghanistan as the country fell to Taliban extremists last summer, will inform the Air Force’s planning going forward, Wilkinson added.
The White House has warned Americans in Ukraine it would not rescue them if war breaks out before they leave. The State Department estimated that about 6,600 U.S. citizens wete in the country as of October, plus additional American travelers.
If an invasion does unfold, Breedlove doubts U.S. planes will offer much direct support, like airborne transport for the Ukrainian military. Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support is more likely to last throughout a conflict, he said.
A screenshot capture at around 9 p.m. EST Feb. 18, 2022, shows a U.S. Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone flying over Ukraine. (Courtesy of Flightradar24.com)
American spy planes, including RQ-4 Global Hawk drones and RC-135V/W Rivet Joints, have routinely patrolled Ukrainian airspace and nearby areas like the Black Sea for several weeks. Still, it’s unclear how much intelligence data the U.S. and NATO countries send to Ukraine.
The issue has raised concerns on Capitol Hill. A bipartisan group of Senate Intelligence Committee members wrote to President Joe Biden on Feb. 9 and pushed him to share as much information as possible with Kyiv.
The intent to gather useful data would remain, and possibly intensify, in an invasion, Breedlove said.
“The things I would be thinking about are, how do I adequately surveil such that I can help the Ukrainians?” Breedlove said. “That would begin to not only talk about Ukraine, but Belarus and the north part of the Black Sea.”
Intelligence-collection satellites may prove particularly important in an invasion, though Russia could try to jam their signals and blind their cameras. Breedlove believes drones and manned aircraft could still collect helpful information from a distance as well.
“We have often thought about how and where we could fly in a way that gives us coverage of international airspace and would make it an act of war for Russia to come out there and get them,” he added.
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The U.S. and NATO have begun reinforcing their attack aircraft in Eastern Europe, from American F-35A Lightning II fighter jets at Germany’s Spangdahlem Air Base to F-15E Strike Eagles at Poland’s Łask Air Base. But their role in what may come next is murky.
Clark recommended dispatching NATO air assets to Romania, Bulgaria and Poland as a precaution. Though some Eurofighters and foreign F-15 and F-16 fighter jet models are nearby to police NATO airspace — ideally to deter Russian military planes — he believes further air power would “reassure these allies and contain any spillover of Russian military action” into NATO territory.
“The time for this is now, before any action begins, rather than rushing forward in the face of Russian action, when the risks of accidental hostile encounters would be much higher,” he said.
Breedlove also suggested activating NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, its most responsive military force that can mobilize within days in case conditions go south.
Experts differ on whether Russia would gamble with taking on U.S. or NATO aircraft in various scenarios.
Senior military fellows at the Atlantic Council argued Feb. 16 that Russia’s air-dominance training has signaled its willingness to engage outside aircraft if they try to intervene in Ukraine.
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Russian Tu-22 nuclear-capable bombers have recently patrolled the skies over Belarus, they noted. Training exercises can also shed light on possible moves in the future, including ground-attack practice with Su-25 planes on Feb. 10 and scrambling Su-35S fighters to capture and destroy an unresponsive air target seen as a stand-in for American or NATO jets.
“Advanced fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missiles Russia has deployed to Belarus provide the anti-access … “bubble” that covers much of the Ukrainian airspace — a further warning against any NATO nation entering Ukrainian airspace in the event of further hostilities,” the Atlantic Council fellows wrote.
Breedlove questions whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would give the U.S. a reason to return fire, inside Ukrainian borders or in broader Europe. The decision to shoot back would be left up to Biden, the commander in chief, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, he said.
“[Putin] knows where he can go and stay below the line of NATO’s response. I think that tripping the NATO wire is not something he wants to do,” Breedlove said, declining to speculate further.
An F-15C Eagle assigned to the 493rd Fighter Squadron sits ready to perform a NATO Enhanced Air Policing mission at Łask Air Base, Poland, Feb. 11, 2022. During enhanced air policing, jets and aircrew are ready to respond to any airborne threat at a moment’s notice. (Tech. Sgt. Jacob Albers/Air Force)
To keep Russia on its toes, the retired Air Force general favors turning the regional air policing mission into one of air defense. He believes the rules of engagement governing what pilots can do during air policing are “wholly inadequate” outside of peacetime.
Fighter jets are tasked with identifying and addressing renegade aircraft, such as when American and European fighters intercepted Russian military jets that veered near their airspace over the Baltic Sea and in the High North on Feb. 3. Yet they can’t fire unless fired upon when flying over a foreign country, he said.
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For now, experts want to see more firepower — like F-35s, F-22 Raptor jets and naval cruisers or destroyers — spread across Europe.
“[Putin is] most afraid of NATO forces, capabilities and weapons in the forward area, so that’s what I’d give him,” Breedlove said. “I would send him a message: ‘Your bad behavior is going to cost you what you most did not want.’”
Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.
COLORADO SPRINGS – Legendary Air Force head wrestling coach Wayne Baughman passed away the evening of February 16, at home surrounded by his family. He was 81 years old.
A distinguished member of the national wrestling hall of fame, Coach Baughman was born and raised in Oklahoma and wrestled collegiately at the University of Oklahoma where he won a national championship.
After college, Coach Baughman put together one of the finest international wrestling careers in United States history. He won five national championships in Freestyle, nine in Greco, and one in Sambo. He captured gold at the 1967 Pan American Games and was a member of three Olympic teams. He is the only American wrestler to have won a national championship in all four recognized styles.
Baughman’s athletic accolades may only be shadowed by his remarkable coaching career. Coach Baughman led the USA as head coach on five world championship teams and was the head coach of the 1976 US Olympic Freestyle team.
As a former Air Force officer himself, Coach Baughman was instrumental in keeping Air Force active in wrestling. Baughman served two stints as head coach of the Falcons, from 1974-84 and 1988-2006. He produced a record of 183-134-4 in 27 seasons and led the Falcons to the 1991 WAC championship. Baughman coached 16 individual WAC champions and seven Western Regional champions while earning Colorado collegiate coach of the year honors five times. Baughman coached four NCAA All-Americans and a National Finalist while at the Academy.
“Coach Baughman is such an important figure in our program and in the sport of wrestling. We are so grateful for the time we got to spend with him,” head wrestling coach Sam Barber said. “He lived an incredibly full life, and he touched so many people’s life in such an extraordinary way. The impact he had on the program has elevated us to where we are today, not only did he lay the foundation, but he led a path of excellence that every Cadet Athlete can aspire to follow. He will be missed but never forgotten, his legacy will live on in perpetuity every time an Air Force Wrestler steps on the mat.”
Vice athletic director Colonel Thad Allen adds, “Coach Baughman has been a lifelong mentor to so many wrestlers. I can honestly say, of all the people at the Academy, he had the largest impact on me during my time there and since. He’s a stalwart friend, mentor and coach.”
“As a 19-year-old student athlete it was difficult to understand the championship, no holds barred toughness of a man like Wayne Baughman,” said Matt Ciccarello, a former athlete and assistant coach. “As a 52-year-old man, I constantly reflect and am thankful for the impact that Coach and Betty have had on me throughout my life. We were and are better officers, husbands, fathers and men because of the influence of Coach and Betty!”
Coach Baughman’s funeral service will be held on Saturday, March 12 at Crossroads Chapel, 840 North Gate Blvd, Colorado Springs, CO 80921. The service will commence at 1:30 p.m. MT. At the request of the Baughman family, in lieu of cards or flowers, please consider a gift to the Wayne Baughman Wrestling Program Endowment. For more information, please visit https://www.afacademyfoundation.org/.
BOZEMAN, Mont.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TechLink, the U.S. Department of Defense’s technology transfer intermediary, announced on Friday the availability of license agreements for the U.S. Army’s suite of IP covering Colorimetric Sensor Arrays and the VK3, a portable chemical and biological agent testing device.
Invented by scientists at the U.S. Army’s DEVCOM Chemical Biological Center, the handheld tester uses a digital camera and microprocessor to identify chemicals or biological agents by analyzing colorimetric assays.
Associated with this invention, the U.S. Government has been granted three 20-year U.S. utility patents:
U.S. Patent 11,231,404 “Sampling and Detection Kit for Chemical and Biological Materials,” issued on Jan. 25, 2022.
U.S. Patent 11,221,319 “Sampling and Detection Kit for Chemical and Biological Materials,” issued on Jan. 11, 2022.
U.S. Patent 10,408,809 “Sampling and Detection Kit for Chemical and Biological Materials,” issued on Sept. 10, 2019.
This intellectual property covers both a device and a method for collecting, analyzing, and identifying chemical and biological samples in solid or liquid form. The analysis compares the color change of Colorimetric Sensor Arrays over time with signatures for known materials and compounds from a library.
This patented configuration enables the compound library to identify the unique indicator-response signatures that provide accurate classification of a wide-variety of chemical and biological agents.
Through technology transfer, the U.S. Army’s world-class research and IP portfolio represent a business opportunity (view all available technologies here).
Interested companies are invited to learn more and submit a patent license application. Terms of a license agreement are negotiable.
TechLink’s staff of certified licensing professionals provide free consultation and licensing assistance to interested parties.
“The Army’s Chemical Biological Center has a unique role in tech development that cannot be duplicated by private industry or research universities,” said Christie Bell, senior technology manager at TechLink. “Technologies designed to help our Armed Forces often have commercial potential and this is one of them.”
About TechLink
TechLink is a Department of Defense Partnership Intermediary for Technology Transfer per Authority 15 USC 3715. For 20 years, TechLink has facilitated public-private partnerships with DOD research centers and laboratories.
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