Yellow Ribbon America

YELLOW RIBBON AMERICA NEWS DESK:

By Terri Moon Cronk

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, May 30, 2018 — The South Asia strategy in Afghanistan has spawned intensified dialogue and a drop in Taliban violence, U.S. Army Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of NATO’s Resolute Support mission and U.S. Forces – Afghanistan, told reporters today.

Speaking to Pentagon media via teleconference from Kabul, Afghanistan, the commander said the goal of the South Asia strategy is reconciliation, and Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani has called it a game changer.

Six months into the strategy, Nicholson said, “we had the elements of a peace proposal outlined by the Taliban in an open letter to America and a formal peace offer by President Ghani,” followed by other communication channels.

Between February, when the peace offers were made, and the end of April, the levels of enemy-initiated violence dropped to 30 percent below the five-year average, Nicholson said.

But on April 25, the Taliban announced their offensive and since then, the violence has increased, but still stands at a level that’s 10 percent to 20 percent below the five-year average, he said.

“I call this talking and fighting,” Nicholson said. “And, as [Defense Secretary James N. Mattis] has said, ‘violence and progress can coexist,’ and that’s what we’re seeing.”

The South Asia policy brought additional firepower and authorities, he said, noting that the Taliban have sought to avoid attacks by air, and have targeted more remote district centers.

During the period of violence, the Afghan National Defense and security forces defeated more than 80 percent of the enemy attacks on district centers, meaning the Taliban failed to achieve their target goals, the general noted.

The 20 percent of the attacks in which the Taliban were successful in taking five district centers have been retaken by Afghan forces, the commander said, adding some were retaken in anywhere from hours to 10 days.

Driving the Enemy From Farah

“The one exception to a remote district center being attacked [by the Taliban] was the city of Farah. Within 24 hours of the attack, these Afghan forces, supported by the Afghan air force, and enabled by the United States, drove the enemy out of the city and into surrounding districts, where they pursued them for a week,” Nicholson said.

He added, “During this pursuit, a number of these Taliban leaders and fighters returned to Helmand, and through some great intelligence work by our Marines, … they tracked 50 of them to a meeting in Musa Qala and struck them with rockets, killing dozens of the enemy leaders.”

Another example of a failed enemy attack took place today, the general said.

Eight terrorists in a captured Humvee attempted to penetrate the ministry of interior headquarters in downtown Kabul, he said.

“They were stopped, and in a sharp firefight with special police, all of the were killed, with the exception of one, who was captured. We did lose one friendly casualty and had a few wounded, but the enemy attack failed and never was able to penetrate MOI headquarters,” Nicholson said.

“[These] are just a few examples of the improvements we’ve seen in the [Afghan forces] fighting abilities, which … is the focus of our investment and one of the key parts of the South Asia strategy — defeating 80 percent of enemy attacks, retaking any fallen district centers, successfully defending Farah, pursuing and killing the attackers, defeating terrorist attacks,” the general said.

Counterterrorism is the other key mission in Afghanistan, and the top two targets remain the Islamic State-Khorasan Province and al-Qaida, the commander said, noting that while the Islamic State aspires to spread around the country, it is geographically limited to Jowzjan, Nangarhar Kunar.

“Our [counterterrorism] team recently killed the leader of the Jowzjan enclave, Qari Hekmatullah, and many of his fighters, which caused many of them to fade away or to flip sides to the Taliban, severely disrupted,” Nicholson said.

“We are maintaining the pressure on that particular enclave to defeat this group, and we’re also maintaining pressure on the group in Nangarhar, with what is called Operation Hamza,” he said, “which has been going on for the past year and steadily reducing their space and inflicting casualties.”

YELLOW RIBBON AMERICA NEWS DESK:

By Jim Garamone

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, May 24, 2018 — Sitting in the White House reading the citation for the Medal of Honor doesn’t give the real flavor of why retired Navy Master Chief Petty Officer and special warfare operator Britt K. Slabinski is receiving the award.

The nicely air conditioned room with comfortable chairs, impeccable floors, historic artwork and gilt on many surfaces isn’t right, somehow.

The dispassionate words on the award talk of Slabinski’s heroism in assaulting bunkers, rallying his men, and going back into the center of the firefight.

The White House is literally half a world away from a mountain in Afghanistan in 2002, where Slabinski — and America — lost seven good men.

When the master chief talks of the action, you realize he is reliving his time atop Takur Ghar — a 10,000-foot mountain near Ghazni, on March 4, 2002. He is remembering his decisions. He is remembering what he felt. And he is remembering his brothers who were killed.

He speaks in present tense, because in his mind’s eye. It is still happening.

‘I Was Just Doing My Job’

He believes he did nothing special. “I was just doing my job that day,” Slabinski said during an interview.

Slabinski — then a senior chief petty officer — and his men were just supposed to set up an overwatch position on the mountain to support the conventional forces in the valley below. “Now the enemy gets a vote,” he said. “We plan, we train, we rehearse and we rehearse some more for every possible contingency, but sometimes the fog and friction of war is just out of your control and a leader has to adapt.”

The team was aboard an Army MH-47 helicopter and as it was landing, well dug-in al-Qaida fighters opened up. “When we land, the ramp goes down,” he said. “I’m standing on the very back of the helicopter … and almost immediately take an RPG rocket to the side of the aircraft. It goes off, fills the aircraft full of smoke and we are getting shot up right away. There’s bullets flying through the aircraft the size of your finger [from] 12.7 machine guns that were up there.”

The pilot was able to take off, but the bird was wounded and experienced what Slabinski called “the worst turbulence you could imagine.”

Those gyrations caused Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts to fall off the ramp. The crew chief grabbed Roberts’ pack, and the weight of the SEAL pulled him off the ramp, too. But the crew chief was tethered into the aircraft and was able to get back in. Roberts fell 10 feet into the meter-deep snow.

“It happens that fast,” Slabinski said as he snapped his fingers.

He told the pilot that he had lost a man, but with the chopper’s hydraulics shot out, there was no way the bird could circle and retrieve him. “[The pilot] was flying a brick,” Slabinski said. “It was basically a controlled crash into the enemy-held valley.”

The master chief assessed the situation. “Now my mission originally was to support the overwatch, then my teammate Neil fell out, and now I have a downed helicopter I have to deal with,” he said.

Calling For Support

The first problem he dealt with was the helicopter, and he called in a second aircraft to take the crew and team to a safe place. Once there, Slabinski was able to focus his attention on Neil.

The information he received was Roberts was alive. “I knew there was a superior enemy force up there and they had heavier weapons than I had,” he said.

The enemy, the cold, the altitude — “Everything that could be stacked against us, was stacked against us going back, and I had the feeling that this was a one-way trip,” he said. “I knew though, that if I go now, there’s a chance I could rescue Neil. I knew if I tried to develop a battle plan more on my terms, it would certainly be better, but I knew Neil didn’t have that time.”

The weight was on Slabinski’s shoulders. “I remember sitting in the helicopter,” he said. “The [rotors are] turning, it’s cold, trying to sort through the tactical piece of it … and this thought keeps coming back to me: If I go now what’s the cost going to be versus the cost if I wait. If you are the leader and you have peoples’ lives that you are responsible for, the decisions don’t come easy.”

This was Slabinski’s loneliest moment. He was sitting in the chopper with a headset on and people are talking to him. He was thinking of all the tactical problems and the lives. “And this thought kept coming back to me, and it’s the first line of the Boy Scout Oath … ‘On my honor, I will do my best,’” said Slabinski, who attained the rank of Eagle Scout at his hometown troop in Northampton, Massachusetts “The only thing that is in the back of my mind is, ‘On my honor I will do my best, On my honor I will do my best, On my honor I will do my best.’

“That’s when I said, ‘I’m gonna go do this.’”

The master chief assigned his men jobs, and the pilot of the first aircraft, Army Chief Warrant Officer Al Mack, went up to Slabinski and told him he would be flying them back in the new MH-47, even though he had just survived a harrowing experience with the first helicopter.

There was no other place to land, so the team had to go right back to the place the first bird took the fire. As the chopper took off, it got quiet for Slabinski and he thought of his son, who was 6 years old at the time. “I remember saying, ‘I love you. Sorry for what’s to come. Be great,’” he said. “Then I put it in another room in my brain and went on with my duties.”

Enemy Fire

This Chinook also took fire coming in to the landing area, and as soon as the ramp went down, the team went off the back of the ramp. Two men went to the right, two to the left and the master chief and Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, an Air Force combat controller, went out together.

Slabinski and Chapman were hit by a burst of automatic weapons fire. “The burst hit John and he went down,” Slabinski said. “The bullets from the same burst went through my clothes on each side, and I jumped behind a rock.”

The belt-fed weapon kept firing at them. “I looked for John and he is lying in a very odd position, and I look to my other guys and they are engaged with another dug-in position and the two to my left are engaged there. There are enemy muzzle flashes on three sides.”

There is no cover, and Slabinski tosses two grenades at the bunker, but the position is too well dug in. He looks to his men and sees Chapman still in the same odd position and the others engaging the enemy. His M60 gunner is next to me. “I have a 40mm grenade launcher … and I have six grenades,” he said. “I’m too close to the big bunker because they won’t go off. They have to spin to arm.”

Firefight Continues

He fired at the farther bunkers and silenced those, but the big bunker remains a deadly problem. He has the M60-gunner fire on the bunker and he wants to charge to the bunker to clear it under the cover of that automatic fire. Before he could do that, a grenade flies out of the bunker and explodes right in front of the barrel of the M60, wounding the gunner.

Slabinski again assesses the situation. “The gunner is down. John hasn’t moved and my other two guys are still engaged in contact,” he said. “The plan in my head isn’t working so I have to do something different.”

He decided to get his small band out of direct fire. As he is doing that another SEAL was hit in the leg from the same machine gun Slabinski was trying to take out. “I sent the wounded over first and I crawled over to John, looking for some sign of life from John and didn’t get anything,” he said.

The place he chose to seek shelter from the fire was just about 30 feet away over the side of the mountain.

Mortar Fire

Slabinski called for support from an AC-130 gunship to hit the bunkers. At the same time as the aircraft was hitting the mountain he noticed shell fragments were landing around the team. Slabinski thinks at first it is the AC-130, but it is from an enemy mortar that is ranging his position.

He moves again to a more protected area and now the U.S. Army Ranger quick reaction force is coming in. The first chopper is hit and crashes on the top of the mountain. Slabinski contacted the second bird and it lands on another spit of land and the Rangers work their way to the SEAL position and attack up the mountain to secure the top.

The master chief can’t move his wounded to the top of the mountain, so he moved to a place he could secure and await medevac, which came that night.

Estimates of the number of al-Qaida fighters on the top of that mountain range between 40 and 100. They had heavy weapons galore with automatic machine guns, mortars, RPGs and recoilless rifles. It was the headquarters for al-Qaida operating against U.S. forces engaged in Operation Anaconda. The SEAL team went in to try to rescue Roberts with six men.

Footage taken by a remotely piloted vehicle and examined later showed that Chapman was not dead. The technical sergeant regained consciousness and engaged the enemy killing two of them — one in hand-to-hand combat. “I was 100 percent convinced that John was dead,” Slabinski said. “I never lost track of John.”

He never would have left the airman on that mountain, he said, if he thought for an instant that Chapman was alive.

For his actions that day, Slabinski received the Navy Cross, the nation’s second-highest award for valor. As part of then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s directive to the services to re-examine all of the valor awards beginning in 2001, the Navy recommended upgrading that award to the Medal of Honor. The master chief — who retired from the Navy in 2014 — received a call from President Donald J. Trump in March telling him of the decision.

The master chief is conflicted about the award. He believes he was just doing his job and still feels the loss of the seven men — Navy, Army and Air Force — he served with that day. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about them,” he said. “If I could give up this medal to have them back, I would.”

YELLOW RIBBON AMERICA NEWS DESK:

U.S. Navy Seaman Gabriel Lupo, assigned to the USS Constitution, climbs the mizzenmast as the ship hosts Vietnam veterans to thank them for their service during an event in Boston, May 18, 2018.

U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Casey Scoular

YELLOW RIBBON AMERICA NEWS DESK:

U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division participate in a division run as part of All American Week 2018 at Fort Bragg, N.C., May 21, 2018. Paratroopers past and present converged on the base to participate in the weeklong celebration of the division.

U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Alleea Oliver

YELLOW RIBBON AMERICA NEWS DESK:

By Jim Garamone

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

ARLINGTON, Va., — The senior enlisted leaders of the Defense Department and the Coast Guard placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery today to mark Armed Forces Day.

U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. John W. Troxell, the senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps Ronald L. Green, Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Steven S. Giordano, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Steven W. Cantrell and Sgt. Maj. Don Rose, representing the Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel A. Dailey, participated in the ceremony.

The service senior enlisted leaders placed the seal of their service on the wreath, and Troxell, as the senior enlisted leader in the joint force, placed the wreath at the tomb.

All-Enlisted Ceremony

It was an all enlisted ceremony, too. An Army command sergeant major was the commander of troops, a sergeant major conducted The U.S. Army Band in the national anthem, and each of the services’ honor guards were commanded by noncommissioned officers or petty officers.

“It’s our way of marking Armed Forces Day and beginning the commemoration of Memorial Day,” Troxell said after the ceremony. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Bryan Battaglia, Troxell’s predecessor, began the tradition.

The fact that it was an all-enlisted review is nothing new to Troxell. “This is what we do as an empowered enlisted force: we operate under commanders’ intent to do the mission,” Troxell said.

“NCOs do this every day around the world. Having my battle buddies out there with me is huge in showing the importance of the enlisted force,” he added.

Tour of Tomb Guard Quarters

After the ceremony, the enlisted leaders visited the tomb guard quarters underneath the Memorial Amphitheater. Tomb guards and tomb guards in training gave them a tour of the facility and told the enlisted leaders about their training and their motivation. 

“Meeting the guards was impressive,” Cantrell said. “Meeting them and hearing their stories is a treat. While we’re not part of DoD, we are very proud to be members of the joint force.”

The senior enlisted leaders then went back to the tomb to watch the changing of the guard, presided over by Army Staff Sgt. Ruth Hanks of the 3rd Infantry Regiment , The Old Guard.

Chance Meeting With Veterans

As the senior enlisted leaders arrived for the ceremony, they serendipitously met veterans from an Honor Flight from Midland, Texas. The veterans were from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm, and Iraq and Afghanistan vets were helping their older compatriots. Two of the veterans charged ashore at Normandy, France, on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

After meeting the senior enlisted leaders, one of the Texas vets turned to a friend and said, “It was nice meeting them, but even after 70 years, I still get nervous meeting a sergeant major.”

Picture: Senior enlisted leaders place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, Va., May 20, 2017, in honor of Armed Forces Day. DoD photo by Jim Garamone

YELLOW RIBBON AMERICA NEWS DESK:

Issued on: May 10, 2018

Since the founding of our Republic, military spouses have served alongside their loved ones and played vital roles in the defense of our country.  Their selfless support, volunteer spirit, and significant contributions have left indelible marks on our military and communities.  On Military Spouse Day, we pay tribute to these remarkable patriots, past and present, including the incredible women and men who currently serve, in steadfast support of America’s Armed Forces, as our Nation’s military spouses.

Military Spouse Day is an opportunity to thank the inspirational men and women who are the foundation of our Nation’s military families.  Their countless sacrifices and tireless devotion to this country, and to those who defend her, are invaluable and irreplaceable.  Military spouses shoulder the burdens of a challenging and demanding lifestyle with pride, strength, and determination.  They demonstrate uncommon grace and grit, and although most military spouses do not wear a uniform, they honorably serve our Nation ‑‑ often times without their loved one standing beside them.

We ask so much of our military spouses:  frequent moves; heartbreaking separations; parenting alone; incomplete celebrations; and weeks, months, and sometimes years of waiting for a loved one’s safe return from harm’s way.  Time and time again, however, military spouses respond with resilience that defies explanation.  Our service members are often praised as national heroes, but their spouses are equally worthy of that distinction.

My Administration is committed to taking care of our Armed Forces and ensuring that our military is equipped to defend our country and protect our way of life.  This mission also includes caring for the unique needs of military spouses, whose service to our Nation cannot be overstated.

Too often, military life can interfere with the aspirations and dreams of our military spouses.  For example, frequent and often unexpected moves can impair career and academic goals.  Even as our economy prospers, military spouses continue to face an unemployment rate far higher than the national average, up to 16 percent in 2017.  Further, data from the 2016 American Community Survey indicates that military spouses suffer from underemployment at a greater rate than Americans more broadly, at an estimated 31.4 percent compared to 19.6 percent overall.  All of these are added and unnecessary burdens on military families.

We can and will do better, which is why my Administration will continue to focus on enhancing employment opportunities for military spouses.  On May 9, I signed an Executive Order to enhance opportunities for military spouses looking for employment in the Federal Government.  This action promotes the use of an existing hiring authority for military spouses and seeks to provide significantly greater opportunity for military spouses to be considered for Federal Government positions.

Beyond the Federal Government, I encourage every American business, large and small, to find ways to employ military spouses, and keep them employed as they relocate ‑‑ sometimes every 2 or 3 years ‑‑ to new duty stations.  More than 360 employers with regional and national footprints have made this commitment through the Department of Defense’s Military Spouse Employment Partnership.  In less than 7 years, these patriotic partners have hired more than 112,000 military spouses.  We are grateful for these employment opportunities and hope to see many more businesses participate in this important initiative.

In addition, many military spouses encounter unnecessary delays remaining in the workforce following a change in duty station.  These spouses are more likely than other workers to face barriers to employment due to the impact of occupational licensing laws, since they frequently move across State lines and are disproportionately employed in occupations that require a license.  Existing State laws regarding license portability are insufficient.  States and occupational licensing boards can and must do more to improve the license portability to facilitate career continuity and ease financial burdens on our military families.

As we observe Military Spouse Day, we salute generations of military spouses for their leadership, courage, love, patriotism, and unwavering support for the courageous men and women of our Armed Forces.  On this day, Melania and I offer our deepest respect and gratitude to every person who has embraced this noble calling in proud service to our Nation as a military spouse.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 11, 2018, as Military Spouse Day.  I call upon the people of the United States to honor military spouses with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this tenth day of May, in the year of our Lord two thousand eighteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-second.

DONALD J. TRUMP