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Congress should eliminate DEI mandates, while codifying principles of meritocracy and non-discrimination in military personnel policies.

Image by U.S. Secretary of Defense

On Feb. 16, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14091, titled “Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”
Biden’s sweeping order multiplies and muscles up government diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) diversity-crats — the diversity-industrial complex — and makes their power bases virtually permanent.

On December 15, 2022, an F-35B Lightning’s vertical landing on a runway in Fort Worth, Texas took a disastrous turn when an aggressive bounce pitched the fighter jet forward onto its nose. The 5th-generation fighter became a protractor, its front landing gear shredding as it carved a circle around the nose point grinding into the […]
The post This is what it takes to join military aviation’s most exclusive club first appeared on Sandboxx.
The post This is what it takes to join military aviation’s most exclusive club appeared first on Sandboxx.

On Wednesday, the French nuclear submarine Le Terrible carried out a successful test launch of the M51 strategic ballistic missile in Audierne Bay, Finistere.
Submarine Le Terrible and the M-51 missile
The Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, congratulated all those involved in the successful launch. France’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SNLEs), including Le Terrible, are equipped with the M51 missile.
The DGA and the test ship Monge monitored the missile during its trajectory. The target area was located in the North Atlantic, far from any coast.

Sergei Bobylev/Russian MoD/TASS

Last November, Russian forces operating a Pantsir-S1 air defense system fired on a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone flying over eastern Syria, but did not succeed in shooting it down, U.S. Central Command has confirmed. That the incident had occurred at all only emerged recently in one of a number of leaked U.S. military documents. This comes as senior U.S. commanders have been publicly discussing what they say is an uptick in worryingly aggressive Russian behavior in Syria and elsewhere in the world in recent months.

U.S. Naval Construction Battalions, better known as Seabees, are famous for their building projects in some of the most austere conditions. Their mottos “We build, We fight” and “Can Do” are perhaps best exemplified in the construction of the first and only nuclear power plant on Antarctica.

Seabees and members of the Civil Engineer Corps in Antarctica, c. 1956 (U.S. Navy Seabee Museum)

Operation Deep Freeze, a series of U.S. missions to Antarctica, started in 1955.

This week was a good week for demotivating-motivating memes from all over the internet. We have many to get through, feel free to throw one or two into your death-by-PowerPoint presentations about O&D. Here are the 25 best memes to look at on your phone while the boots rearrange the Quadcons.

Half the time I did not know if it was tinnitus or just the side effects of the Green Weenie.

Laugh it up because your leave got denied.

Well, that escalated quickly.

Hey Chief, the Captain said SEAL Team 6 has suddenly stopped moving and is floating upwards.

Alright, I know the headline makes it sound like I might have just suffered a blow to the head, but stick with me. Before the A-10 Warthog, the F-111 Aardvark dominated the low-flying missions. And scientists included a recording of it on the Voyager Golden Record. So if ET ever really does phone home, his parents will know better than to come here and risk the Aardvark’s wrath.
The need for a Pig
For decades, U.S. bomber superiority plans were simple. America planned to dominate the Soviet Union in a war by sending high-altitude bombers to destroy everything.

For decades, historians thought the first Black military pilot was probably Eugene Bullard, an American born in Georgia who fled to France after his father survived an attempted lynching. When World War I started, Bullard joined the French Foreign Legion and then the Lafayette Escadrille. But Britain discovered lost records of William Robinson “Robbie” Clarke.
In 1915, Robbie traveled from Jamaica to Britain to volunteer as a mechanic and driver, a very technical, high-demand job. He did so well that he was put forward for pilot’s training.

The US military could be deprived of $5.3 billion for major modernizations if Congress does not pass a budget this year, hurting its ability to compete with China.
Impact of continuing resolutions
The Pentagon typically faces ongoing short-term resolutions at the start of the fiscal year, resulting in fewer programmatic activities during the first quarter. These resolutions allow funding without an approved budget but keep spending at the previous fiscal year’s levels.

Photo by Belgorod Region Governorate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

A Russian Su-34 Fullback strike fighter accidentally dropped a bomb or other type of offensive weapon on the Russian city of Belgorod, not far from the Ukrainian border, in the first incident of its kind that we are aware of in this conflict. The weapon caused an explosion and damaged several buildings, although it remains unclear exactly what went wrong.