‘Fat Leonard’ Is on the Lam
Leonard Glenn Francis, facing sentencing in the notorious ‘Fat Leonard’ Navy bribery scandal and under house arrest in San Diego, cut off his GPS monitoring ankle bracelet on Sunday and is on the run.
Post 9/11 Vets Unemployment Falls to 3-Year Low
The Bureau of Labor reports August 2022 is the lowest unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans in more than three years — dropping to 1.9% — another sign that the jobs market remains strong despite inflation.
Army Grounds Chinook Helicopter Fleet
The Army has grounded the entire CH-47 Chinook helicopter fleet following an undisclosed number of recent engine fires in the Boeing-made fleet. No deaths or injuries occurred due to the fires.
SEAL’s Death Revives Drug & Brutality Concerns
SEALs have defended for decades their Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training to outsiders and Navy leadership who say it is too difficult. Since 1953, at least 11 men have died. New questions are arising about how use of performance-enhancing drugs have changed the standards, and what it means if the obvious cheating entailed with illegal drug use threatens the ethical core of the SEALs.
Traffic Overwhelms Student Loan Sites
Traffic to the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid websitewas up more than 500% on Aug. 24 compared to the same day last year and the webpage set up to provide further information about the debt relief plan was viewed more than 3.9 million times on its first day.
Another Historic Moon Launch for NASA
NASA’s biggest test flight of the year is set to launch this morning. At 8:30 am EDT today, Monday, the Artemis 1 mission, an ambitious flight to the moon by NASA’s most powerful rocket ever — the Space Launch System — will head into space.
Navy Christens 3rd Robot Ship
The latest robot ship to join the fleet is already outfitted with a government-furnished command-and-control system, a virtualized Aegis Combat System, an autonomous navigation system, and more. After a few more upgrades and testing, the USV Mariner heads to California to begin operations in FY23.
Marines Use Games to Recruit
Few events capture raw aggression of the Marines’ boot camp rite of passage as when two recruits try to clobber each other with padded poles as weapons, pugil sticks, to the cheers of onlookers. Now, with graphics out of Star Trek, the Marines are simulating the pugil stick experience as a recruiting tool,
Pax Alum 1st Native Woman to Fly Into Space
NAS Patuxent River alum Nicole Mann will be the first Native woman to fly into space this fall. She is scheduled to be aboard the SpaceX Crew-5 mission to go to the International Space Station.
Clutch Problems Ground CV-22 Ospreys
US Air Force Special Ops grounded its fleet of tiltrotor CV-22 Ospreys last week after discovering “hard clutch engagement” problems. The Marine Corps said it will not ground its MV-22 Osprey fleet over the problem.
