The road is set to be completed in September, just prior to Costco opening in October. Dan Wheeler with one of the developers Henjur LLC, said construction on the Costco building is scheduled to start in May and open in five months. Agreements for another retail user are pending.
“Costco is the anchor, I’ve actually got three retail users but I can only put two of them in because we don’t have enough room,” Wheeler said. “We’re trying to decide which two are going to get the nod. All three are good credit, all three are users that people will be interested in.”
ExploreFreedom Pointe: $139 million ‘gateway’ project featuring new Costco breaks ground
He said they are talking to two potential hotel users, they have a 25,000-square-foot medical use building and an 18,000-square foot retail strip “that we’ve got several tenants lined up for, but we haven’t mapped out the final design of the building yet.”
Governments routinely use TIF dollars to support economic development. Money is built up in the TIF as developments within the district come online and property values increase. County Administrator Judi Boyko said the commissioners agreed to use funds from the University Point TIF for a variety of reasons.
“The board of commissioners uses the proceeds from the University Pointe TIF sparingly to incentivize economic development projects,” Boyko said. “Freedom Pointe is proposing $140 million in value in commercial development and coupled with Costco, and prospectively a couple other first-to-market retailors, and the connection of Veterans Boulevard from Cox to Liberty Way does contribute a transportation value. The commissioners determined that incentivizing this project would be in the best interest of economic development and transportation improvements.”
Boyko said the TIF agreement provides if the project values aren’t enough to cover the debt payments, the developer is responsible for the shortfall. Of the $6.6 million about $3 million is to cover the debt payments until TIF dollars start rolling in.
Veterans Boulevard will have two roundabouts, one at one of the entrances to Costco and another farther north toward the Ohio 129 roundabout at Cox Road. The Liberty Way interchange improvement is underway and Wilkens secured $11.6 million in federal money to help pay for the $24 million project. The total project, that includes the Veterans Boulevard work and widening Liberty Way is $32.5 million.
The county also helped pay for infrastructure for the $350 million Liberty Center project up the road. Taxpayer dollars funded $49 million in bonds including a $12 million Ohio Water Development Authority loan. Liberty Twp. contributed about $6 million of that amount.
Liberty Twp. Trustee Tom Farrell said the Freedom Pointe developers didn’t ask the township to contribute anything to their project, but the use of TIF dollars for new developments is a good “compromise.”
“Obviously we would love for the developer to pay for every bit of the infrastructure and our taxpayers pay for none of it, and they want us to pay for all of it,” Farrell said. “This is a compromise that we work on in developments that allows us to use the money that’s going to be coming in from their developments to pay for the infrastructure.”
The U.S. Space Force—the sixth military service branch, which turns two years old next month—provides resources to protect and defend America’s satellites from the likes of the Chinese and the Russians. Space Force members also operate the Global Positioning System satellite constellation, providing G.P.S. services, for free, to everyone on the planet. All extremely important stuff. Yet the Space Force is considered something of a joke—the subject of late-night gibes and Internet memes. Critics have derided it as a vanity project of President Trump, a campaign-rally applause line somehow made real. Last year, when Trump unveiled the Space Force logo, which bears a striking resemblance to “Star Trek” ’s Starfleet insignia, Twitter lit up. (“Ahem,” tweeted the original “Star Trek” cast member George Takei. “We are expecting some royalties from this . . .”) Also undercutting the serious nature of the service: the Netflix comedy series “Space Force,” which stars Steve Carell as the branch’s bullheaded leader.
If any of this bothers General John W. (Jay) Raymond, the inaugural head of the Space Force, he doesn’t let on. The memeification of the force? “To me, it means that there’s a lot of excitement about space,” he said recently, sitting in a meeting room in Columbia University’s International Affairs Building. The four-star general, who is based at the Pentagon, was visiting between rounds of the Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge, a largely virtual competition in which thirty-two student teams from across the globe made policy recommendations in reaction to a hypothetical cyber-warfare scenario. (This one began with a breach made in “U.S. space sector ground stations’ systems,” an attack apparently undertaken by “Chinese state-sponsored actors.”) The event at Columbia, a partnership with a think tank called the Atlantic Council, was organized by the Digital and Cyber Group, which is run by graduate students at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
Raymond, who is fifty-nine, with a head shaved bald, pointed to a space-operations badge pinned to his jacket. He noted that the delta symbol at its center had been used by the Air Force—from which the Space Force sprung—years before “Star Trek” ’s 1966 début. Raymond explained that the branch “was not a President Trump thing” but had been under discussion for decades, and came about owing to bipartisan support in Congress. The service now has close to thirteen thousand members, known as “guardians.” “Everybody said we stole it from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ” Raymond said. “Well, no.” The term derives from the Air Force Space Command motto from 1983, “Guardians of the High Frontier.”
Raymond comes from a military family going back to 1865. His great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all went to West Point and had careers in the Army. Raymond broke with tradition by attending Clemson University on the R.O.T.C. program and joining the Air Force. Still, he’s a little bit rock and roll: at the Patriot Fest 2017 concert at Peterson Air Force Base, in Colorado, he sat in on drums with the country duo Thompson Square, for a performance of its hit “Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not.”
Raymond made his way to speak to about thirty people gathered in an auditorium, including a half-dozen members of the Digital and Cyber Group, who were wearing matching space-graphic masks that made it look as though they had turquoise nebulae for noses. “The average person in the United States probably doesn’t understand just how reliant their day-to-day life is on space capabilities,” Raymond told those assembled. “If you use your smartphone, you’re using space. Your smartphone would be called a ‘stupid phone’ without space.”
He sat for a Q. & A. with SIPA’s dean, Merit E. Janow, who asked about China’s recent test of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile, a development said to have taken U.S. intelligence by surprise. “What keeps me awake at night is the speed at which China is moving,” Raymond said. The Chinese, he’d noted earlier, have a satellite (the Shijian-17), equipped with a robotic arm, that has the potential to grab other satellites and disable them. Even scarier is a bit of Russian technology that Raymond described as a “nesting doll”: a satellite that releases a smaller satellite armed with a projectile capable of taking out our own orbital tech.
Afterward, a student approached Raymond with a question about whether we were entering a space arms race. “That’s why the Space Force was so important to create—to move fast and stay ahead of that,” Raymond said. Then the student pivoted to a less dire topic: “Have you watched Steve Carell’s ‘Space Force’?”
He had. “The only thing is, they picked the wrong actor,” he said. “They should have picked Bruce Willis.” He expressed curiosity about an unexplained plot point. “In Season 1, ‘my wife’ is in jail for, like, forty years,” he said. “Nobody knows why. So I keep teasing my wife: ‘What did you do?’ ” ♦
A C-130J Super Hercules assigned to the 36th Airlift Squadron flies over Yokota Air Base, Japan, March 29, 2021. (Yasuo Osakabe/U.S. Air Force)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The U.S. Air Force has sent a pair of Tokyo-based C-130J Super Hercules to Bangladesh to practice low-level navigation and tactical airdrop with local forces.
The aircraft and 77 airmen assigned to Yokota’s 36th Airlift Squadron are participating in Cope South 22, Pacific Air Forces announced Feb. 15. The tactical airlift exercise began Sunday and runs through Friday.
The U.S. airmen are training alongside 300 troops and two C-130Js from the Bangladesh Armed Forces. Aircraft are flying out of Bangladesh Air Force Kurmitola Cantonment in Dhaka and Operating Location-Alpha in Sylhet, according to PACAF’s statement.
The exercise aims to improve the forces’ ability to work together and support modernization of the Bangladesh Air Force, the statement said.
“The Bangladesh Air Force is one of our most important regional partners, and Cope South allows us to strengthen this partnership through tactical airlift sorties and subject-matter expert exchanges,” Lt. Col. Kira Coffey, the squadron operations director, said in the statement. “This is critical to bolstering regional stability for our shared goal of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific.”
A pilot from the 36th Airlift Squadron in Bangladesh, Capt. Madeline Atkinson, said she knew only a bit about India’s predominantly Muslim neighbor before arriving for the exercise on Friday.
The Yokota airmen are focused on helping their Bangladeshi counterparts become proficient operating a few new C-130J Super Hercules they recently acquired, Atkinson 29, of San Anselmo, Calif., told Stars and Stripes by phone Sunday from Dhaka.
“I haven’t done anything like this before, but so far it has been amazing,” she said.
Bangladesh Air Force pilots are flying on the U.S. aircraft and local troops will parachute from them during the training, Atkinson said.
The U.S. has good reason to make friends beyond the frame of competition with China and that’s the case with Bangladesh, according to Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore.
“Bangladesh is a country that would like to have good relations with both China and the United States, like many others,” he said Friday in an email to Stars and Stripes.
The Bangladesh military has previously exercised with the U.S. military but the nation’s ties to China are substantial, too.
Bangladesh has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which involves Chinese funding for infrastructure projects in countries all over the world. But the country has had to tread cautiously because of pressure from neighboring India, Asia Times reported Feb. 12.
China Harbor Engineering Co. has been upgrading the port in Chittagong near the main naval base in Bangladesh, BNS Issa Khan, the newspaper reported.
In January 2016, three Chinese vessels — the guided-missile frigates Liuzhou and Sanya and the supply ship Qinghaihu — made a five-day port call at Chittagong, according to Asia Times. The visit came months after China launched a frigate specially built for the Bangladesh navy.
Bangladesh purchased another two Chinese guided-missile frigates in 2015. In 2017, two Type-035 Ming Class Chinese submarines were delivered to Bangladesh, the report said.
Engagement with the U.S., including through military exercises, can underscore how and why the U.S. is a valuable partner and why America’s vision is worth buying into even if China isn’t the focus of training, Chong said.
“If the US is interested in strengthening the rules-based order it is essentially claiming is a good in itself, then it needs to show why such engagement is worth it for other states,” he said.
In 2020, the former Navy SEAL posted a video on TikTok about the mysterious deaths of nine Russian hikers, known as the Dyatlov Pass incident, in the late 1950s. He then left his phone at home and went to a water park with his family.
When he came back, the post had 5 million views.
“I literally thought there was a glitch with my phone,” Allen told The Post.
That viral video launched Allen’s social media career. Posting under the moniker MrBallen, his YouTube channel has 5.4 million subscribers, and his new podcast, Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories, has skyrocketed to the number one spot on Spotify’s true crime podcast chart. In doing so, it surpassed established hits like Crime Junkie and Murder, Mystery & Makeup.
Allen’s new podcast, Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories, has skyrocketed to the number one spot on Spotify’s true crime podcast chart.Courtesy of John Allen
Allen, 33, was raised outside of Boston in Quincy, Massachusetts. His dad was a journalist, but Allen wasn’t initially drawn to storytelling himself.
After graduating from high school, he “didn’t really have a direction,” and decided to join the military.
He went to bootcamp in December 2010 and trained to become a Navy SEAL. In 2014, he was deployed to Afghanistan, where he was nearly killed by a grenade that detonated near him. The shrapnel hit his arms and legs, according to The Patriot Ledger.
“I remember having the thought, ‘This is the end of my life,’” Allen told The Post.
Allen with his wife Amanda and their two daughters and son.Allen told The Post he looks for tales that have a twist. “It is so fun to build tension in the story,” he said.Courtesy of John Allen
He continued serving in the military until 2017, then went on to work in fundraising for veterans. Allen would regularly post to social media about his military service, but when he made the TikTok video about the incident at Dyatlov Pass, he experienced an entirely new level of popularity.
“People were so into it,” he said.
In subsequent posts, Allen pivoted his focus from the military to mysteries and strange occurrences. As @mrballen on TikTok, he has nearly 8 million followers, while MrBallen on Youtube has garnered millions of subscribers through short 15 to 20 minute videos on topics ranging from the “female Hannibal Lecter” to the “WORST medical screw up ever.”
Allen joined the military in late 2010 and said it took about two years of training to become a Navy SEAL. He left the military in 2017.Courtesy of John Allen
“I love telling stories. I love getting people’s reactions to interesting stories,” Allen said.
His true crime podcast, which premiered last Monday, lets him spend even more time with a story, with episodes ranging from 30 to 40 minutes. The first episode focused on a witness coming forward in the 2002 case of murdered Washington state teen Rachel Burkheimer. A new original episode will run each Monday.
Not only is the “MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories” currently the top true crime offering on Spotify — it’s the second most popular podcast on the whole platform.
“Even to be mentioned [with] some of these other creators is so surreal,” said Allen, a married father-of-three. “I don’t really understand how any of this happened.”
CINCINNATI — With a couple of fleeting days of warmer temperatures amid a winter backdrop, one can’t help but think about spring gardens. For kids who attend Latonia’s Ninth District Elementary School, spring will bring a fresh bounty and a much-needed place to learn and relax thanks in part to a group of veterans.
“It’s really about spreading a little bit of joy, and they get a break from the classroom and get some fresh air,” Ben Basar said. “Enjoy the nice garden we’ve created and participate in it.”
Basar served in the Marine Corps and in his free time has joined the volunteer corps of The Mission Continues’ Cincinnati Service Platoon.
“That desire to continue serving doesn’t leave us when we take off the uniform,” said Nate Swope, founder of Cincinnati Service Platoon. “It’s something that we are as people.”
Swope said he felt a need to continue to give back to the community. The project at Ninth District Elementary School is the second project under the newly-formed platoon with a specific mission.
“This organization brings veterans and other volunteers together to continue serving and helping their communities in ways they can do,” Swope said.
Monica Gomez served in the military and said she has found the comradery she remembers from being in the service helping others as part of the platoon.
“I’d been wanting to do things with veterans and for the community, so it was a great opportunity for me to come out here,” Gomez said. “The reason I liked this is you can bring your families, and we know how important they are to us and how important they are to support what we do. It’s great they can come out here and do it with us.”
There are a number of community partners who’ve helped out on the project, and Swope said they’re always looking for community partners and volunteers for future projects.
“Our main focus is for our veterans to find new missions,” Swope said. “We’d like to find partners and people we can serve and organizations that can benefit from funding and volunteers and we can bring our volunteers and veterans in and help out.”
That said their next mission project is Saturday, Feb. 26 at Our Daily Bread Soup Kitchen and Social Center. Additional information and registration can be found on their website.
If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.
JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va – The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command will be hosting a Leader Professional Development webinar on the power of inclusion on Feb. 23, 2022.
Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais, TRADOC deputy commanding general, will be hosting the LPD with guest Dr. J. Bruce Stewart, retired Air Force Lt. Col., former deputy director for Diversity and Inclusion under the Obama Administration, and CEO of Small World Solutions. (Photo Credit: Nina Borgeson)
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JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va – The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command will host a Leader Professional Development webinar on the power of inclusion on Feb. 23, 2022.
Lt. Gen. Maria Gervais, TRADOC deputy commanding general, will host guest Dr. J. Bruce Stewart, retired Air Force Lt. Col., former deputy director for Diversity and Inclusion under the Obama Administration, and CEO of Small World Solutions.
Stewart will share what he has learned over the course of his involvement in various leadership and diversity initiatives, including his position as Air National Guard Director of Cultural Diversity Transformation.
One key lesson Stewart took with him from his experience was that racism and sexism were not always to blame for the racial, ethnic, and gender disparities that exist in society. He claims the innate cognitive biases of human beings influence behavior.
“From my experience, disparities can exist in large part due to our fundamental nature as social animals,” Stewart said. “It’s been well documented that, as human beings, we are creatures of habit and make most decisions highly influenced by our unconscious mind.”
A focus topic to be discussed during the LPD is how to consciously work on breaking down innate biases and form habits that foster a more inclusive environment.
How do we determine which behaviors need improvement? Stewart has created a new way of assessing where a company stands in regards to diversity and inclusion called the New Inclusion Quotient, or New IQ, that has now been adopted government-wide.
“When I assumed the role as the deputy director for Diversity and Inclusion during the Obama Administration, I quickly realized that the only measure of diversity and inclusion that existed within the federal government at that time was measuring demographics,” Stewart said. “To fully measure the impact of diversity, a meaningful measure of inclusion was required.”
The New IQ is an inclusive intelligence assessment that consists of 20 questions, or behaviors, grouped into five Habits of Inclusion: Fair, Open, Cooperative, Supportive, and Empowering.
“These behaviors can be learned, practiced, and developed into habits of inclusiveness and subsequently improve the inclusive intelligence of organizational members,” Stewart explained.
Based on the results of the assessment, the New IQ can provide useful information to organization leaders on how to improve their workplace inclusivity and diversity. In the upcoming LPD, Stewart will further explain the process behind utilizing the results of the New IQ.
When it comes to creating a more inclusive workplace environment in TRADOC and other Army organizations, Stewart advises to first apply the inclusion rule.
“The inclusion rule is to create a culture where all Soldiers feel a sense of belonging and are valued for the unique skills and perspectives they bring to the team. To do this, leaders need to model the five inclusive habits” he said.
This concept is similar to the Army People Strategy and changing the Army culture. The APS states that in the 21st century, the question for leaders is not whether culture should change, but how it should change, and that we must “amplify the positive behaviors that align with our vision of cohesive teams: civility and positive relationships; diversity, equity and inclusion; honor and respect; empathy; and care for Soldier and Civilian well-being.”
If there is one lesson Stewart would like the audience to take from the upcoming LPD discussion it is “effective leaders in the 21st century lead from the inside out, not the top down.”
“Effective leaders focus on connecting, not commanding,” he said. “They don’t view their Soldiers in just terms of human capital but more importantly in terms of building social capital. They realize leaders are only as effective as their teams and teams succeed through effective teamwork, and inclusion is the engine of effective teamwork.”
To view and participate in the LPD discussion, visit TRADOC’s Facebook page, DVIDs, or the TRADOC watch page at www.tradoc.army.mil/watch/ where you can submit questions to be answered throughout the session by LPD panelists.
Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations for the US Space Force, said Saturday China is developing its space capabilities at “twice the rate” of the US.
On a panel of US space experts and leaders speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in a panel moderated by CNN’s Kristin Fisher, Gen. Thompson warned China could overtake the US in space capabilities by the end of the decade.
“The fact, that in essence, on average, they are building and fielding and updating their space capabilities at twice the rate we are means that very soon, if we don’t start accelerating our development and delivery capabilities, they will exceed us,” Gen. Thompson said, adding, “2030 is not an unreasonable estimate.”
Gen. Thompson was joined by Rep. Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee, which helps oversee the Space Force’s budget, and Chris Kubasik, president and CEO of L3Harris Technologies, a defense contractor that develops Space and Airborne systems.
Cooper said, “Hell yes,” when asked if the US is competing in a so-called space race with China.
Both Gen. Thompson and Kubasik agreed with Cooper’s assessment.
Cooper has been a steadfast advocate for the Space Force, but said Saturday it is not moving fast enough to “keep up” with private industry.
“It’s great that the private sector is so much more innovative than our Air Force was, and we need to get the Space Force to be much more innovative and try to keep up with the private sector,” Cooper said.
He added: “To really be superior, we’ve got to go beyond Elon Musk’s imagination, Jeff Bezos’ imagination, beyond their pocketbooks. (The) budget right now is $17 billion — that’s a lot of money, but considering how crucial space is, are we doing enough?”
Cooper suggested the Space Force should be more like the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees government space satellites and provides satellite intelligence to several US agencies.
“The NRO has actually done a pretty amazing job,” Cooper said. “They’re not as well-known as some other agencies. … But I had a recent side-by-side briefing with the NRO and Space Force. My conclusion after that briefing was: thank God for the NRO. I anxiously await the day that I can say the same about the Space Force.”
When asked to respond, Gen. Thompson said, “As Congressman Cooper noted, every time we meet, Congressman Cooper asks what he can continue to do to help, and my request of him is always the same: continue to be our strongest supporter and our toughest critic, and I can say this morning he continues to perform effectively in both of those roles,” to which the room erupted in laughter.
SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — The faces of 24 U.S. military veterans are part of a mural now on display near Chicano Park just east of Downtown San Diego. All have been deported and remain exiled in countries around the world including Mexico, Kenya and Costa Rica.
Libier Jimenez of the Leave No One behind Mural Project. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
It’s common for non-U.S. citizen veterans who were convicted of a crime to be deported back to their countries of birth.
“(The mural) represents bringing our brothers and sisters back home,” said Libier Jimenez, who is part of the Leave No One Behind Mural Project.
Jimenez also runs the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post in San Diego’s Barrio Logan.
“The mural represents fixing an injustice,” she said.
On Monday, the mural was “re-dedicated” since the original was damaged by the weather last year.
“We have framed it and it will have a plexiglass to protected it from the elements,” said Robert Vivar, an advocate for deported veterans.
Vivar himself was finally allowed back in the U.S. last November after spending nearly 20 years in Tijuana, Mexico following his deportation.
Robert Vivar is an advocate for deported veterans. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
“What I see is heroes,” said Vivar about the mural. “They were not born here, they were ready to give their lives for their new adopted country.”
Vivar is hopeful new legislation now being discussed in Washington will expedite the return of all deported veterans.
“Many people were discarded, exiled to a country that most of them had no knowledge because they left at a very young age,” Vivar said.
One deported veteran Vivar pointed out is Jose Luis Cardenas, who is on the verge of returning home to California.
“He was born in Mexico but he was raised in San Diego. Jose was with the 82nd Airborne, Vietnam-era vet who continued to serve for quite some time,” Vivar said.
According to Vivar, Cardenas was convicted of a drug crime 11 years ago and was deported.
“Leave No One Behind Mural Project in San Diego, Calif. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
“He made one mistake and has been paying for it,” said Vivar. “His son is in the military and so is his grandson, his family is committed to serving this country.
Vivar told Border Report 30 murals depicting deported U.S. veterans have gone up across the United States.
“What people should see when they walk by and see the faces of the deported veterans, is the need to bring their voice to the government in congress to the senate to make sure we continue to support and raise awareness to change laws to bring deported veterans home.”
The Marine Corps will need nearly $5 billion throughout the next 30 years to upgrade buildings at both Marine Corps recruit depots in the wake of increased gender integration and climate change, according to documents the Marine Corps shared with Congress.
The Corps estimates that it will need $198 million over the next five years for immediate upgrades to make possible boot camp gender integration at both San Diego and Parris Island, South Carolina, according to the documents.
Beyond gender integration, the Marine Corps said it needs more long-term money, “to address resiliency concerns, modernization of facilities, and sustainment of overall recruit training.”
Between five and 30 years from now the Corps believes those costs with come out to about $4.72 billion.
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With the passing of the of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, gender segregated training at Marine Corps boot camp was banned.
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, had five years to comply with the law while Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego had eight years.
Initially members of Congress believed the law would require boot camp to be integrated at the platoon level, where most of boot camp training takes place.
But the Marine Corps seems to be on the path of arguing that the law only requires it to gender integrate companies.
Either form of gender integration would require large overhauls to the barracks at both Marine Corps recruit depots, the document said.
The Corps has trained at least 19 coed companies at Parris Island, South Carolina, and one coed company at San Diego, despite neither location having barracks capable of handling a coed living situation.
“The Marine Corps was able to temporarily overcome this shortfall by using unoccupied aging barracks to expand capacity,” a document shared with members of Congress said. “Long term support is still needed for a permanent solution.”
With a rising sea level and the precarious position of Parris Island, South Carolina, in the middle of swamp on the edge of the Atlanta Ocean, the very existence of the Corps’ historic boot camp site may be at stake.
By 2050, parts of the base would be underwater nearly a third of the year, a study by the Union of Concerned Scientists predicted.
The costs of keeping the two recruit depots safe from a changing climate and upgrading facilities to allow gender integration caused Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger to consider closing the two bases and consolidating Marine Corps boot camp at a third location.
“We have to get to a place where on both coasts or at a third location, or whatever we end up with that every recruit male, female, there’s all there’s male and female around,” Berger said at Defense One’s 2020 state of the Marine Corps event.
But that idea found little support on Capitol Hill.
“It ain’t gonna happen!” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, tweeted out in response to the idea of moving the base.
“Anyone in the Navy or Marine Corps thinking about closing Parris Island has limited growth potential,” he wrote.
Flame, SEAK #1538, taken near Juneau, Alaska in 2007. NOAA Permit 14245)
The Journey of a Tail
To celebrate Whale Week (February 14-20, 2022), NOAA Fisheries is spotlighting a well-loved, school-bus-sized, seasonal resident of Juneau, Alaska—the humpback whale named Flame!
Flame was named by the whale-watching community and is one of the most frequently observed whales in Juneau. She’s also known as #1538 in the Southeast Alaska Humpback Whale Catalog. As a juvenile, she was first documented in 2004 by the University of Alaska Southeast as part of a broad collaborative study known as SPLASH. Flame is currently around 20 years old. She’s easily identified by her distinct markings: a prominent, sharply pointed dorsal fin and the white color and asymmetrical black markings on the underside of her tail. Scientists and the local whale-watching community use such markings to track the annual movements of humpback whales between summer and fall feeding grounds. In Flame’s case, this is the trip between Alaska and her winter breeding and birthing waters around the Hawaiian Islands.
Using photographs to identify whales and other species protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act is beneficial to the scientific community. It allows for population assessments and longitudinal tracking of individuals which provides information that helps us understand and protect these animals. Humpback whales are identified by the underside of their tails, which are called flukes. Each pair of flukes is unique, making it easy to track individual whales. Photos of whale flukes are collected and cataloged as photo identification data.
Dr. Suzie Teerlink, NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Specialist, and John Moran, Alaska Fisheries Science Center Research Biologist, first started seeing Flame around Juneau in 2007. They were collecting fall and winter photo identification data of humpback whales. Since then, she has been a regular summer resident of Juneau. It wasn’t until Flame was seen off Maui during the 2020 breeding season by researchers from the Whale Trust that we knew she wintered in the Hawaiian Islands. She was seen there again in 2021 by researchers from the Pacific Whale Foundation.
“Flame is one of my favorites because she is so easy to work with,” said Moran. “She’s a great fluker with distinctive markings, so we always get a quick ID on her. That’s probably why she has a good sighting record.”
A Whale of a Mom
Flame was identified as female when she was seen with her first calf Spark in 2013; her second calf Ember followed in 2016.
“In 2019, the community was especially excited about the return of Flame and her new calf,” Teerlink said. “Southeast Alaska had seen a drop in humpback whale abundance and calf production following a marine heatwave in the Gulf of Alaska that impacted humpback whale prey availability. There hadn’t been many calves around Juneau in the years prior, and many felt that it was a good omen to have Juneau’s most popular whale return with a calf in tow. What we didn’t know is that this would be the start of an impressive calving streak.”
But more exciting still, we learned that Flame was most likely pregnant, yet again, in 2021. If all goes well, she might return with a calf in 2022! Most mature female humpback whales have calves only once every 2–4 years, although occasionally humpback whales will calve 2 years in a row. But Flame surpassed that by bringing three consecutive calves back to Alaska: Bunsen in 2019, Smoke in 2020, and Bolt in 2021.
In May 2021, Flame returned to Juneau, Alaska with her calf Bolt Credit: Heidi Pearson, UAS
Her pregnancy status was predicted based on tissue samples taken as part of a collaborative research project studying Juneau-area humpback whales. The samples were recently analyzed in Dr. Shannon Atkinson’s lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (Juneau Campus). The project is led by Dr. Heidi Pearson of the University of Alaska Southeast, with Teerlink, Moran, and Atkinson as collaborators.
“The goal of this research is to collect baseline data on Juneau-area humpback whales during the unprecedented low tourism levels caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pearson said.
The project is collecting photo identification and biopsy tissue samples. This will make it possible to measure and analyze steroid hormone levels to understand stress (cortisol) and pregnancy (progesterone), among other important markers.
“We were pleasantly surprised to see her elevated progesterone, reflecting her pregnancy, while she was still nursing last year’s calf!” said Dr. Shannon Atkinson, professor in UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.
Only one other report of a female with four calves in a row was reported in the late 1970s–early 1980s off Maui. Humpback whale calves have a 75 percent chance of surviving their first year of life. We can’t know for certain if she will arrive in Alaska with a calf in 2022. However, there is great anticipation that Flame will return to Juneau this summer with her sixth calf—an incredible feat!
Community Science Aids Sightings … and Names Babies
Flame has been sighted countless times in Juneau. More than 229 of those sightings plus several sightings of her off Maui have been uploaded to Happywhale.com. Happywhale is a global research collaboration and citizen science web platform containing data on encounters of more than 66,000 individual humpback whales. The whale-watching community contributes invaluable data to the scientific field by sighting and tracking whales throughout their range. Organizations like Happywhale connect scientists, professionals,
Map showing marine mammal sightings and tracking on Happywhale.com.
The small research and education nonprofit Juneau Flukes, run by Dr. Suzie Teerlink, curates a local Juneau catalog of humpback whales dating back to 2006. It also helps with sightings. Anyone can submit names for the cataloged whales and calves. enthusiasts, and the local community to contribute data on marine mammals. Happywhale also works to raise awareness about the ocean environment and the species within it through its creative online tracking platform. By empowering those who love whales to take part in their sightings, the community can enhance species data collection and protection efforts.
During 2019, the local community was buzzing with excitement about Flame’s new calf and eager to name the baby whale. Juneau Flukes held a competition to choose between the names Flicker and Blaze, which were neck and neck in the running. At the last minute, Teerlink threw in a third alternative, Bunsen (as in a Bunsen burner, which is a laboratory instrument), as a joke. Bunsen won the vote by a landslide and officially became the name of Flame’s 2019 calf.
Flame was most recently sighted near Juneau on December 1, 2021. At that time, she had not yet set south for her migration. The whale-watching community has followed this incredible mother over many years. NOAA Fisheries is looking forward to her return to Juneau waters this summer, hopefully with a new calf in tow.
