Cotton: Send Nat’l Guard Home
Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River 
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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) called for National Guard troops in Washington, DC, to be sent home, in response to an internal memo indicating troops could be on the ground near the US Capitol until fall 2021, reports Fox News.
President Joe Biden’s administration won’t rule out retaliation for this week’s rocket attack in Iraq, reports CNBC. “The president of the United States and the administration reserves the right to respond in a timely manner of our choosing,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. It was the most serious attack on the US-led coalition since the Biden administration took power, says Aljazeera. A shadowy group calling itself Awliya al-Dam – or the Guardians of the Blood – claimed responsibility and said it would continue to attack “occupation” American forces in Iraq.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “The path to diplomacy is open right now” with Iran, reports Reuters. “The president’s been very clear,” he said about the resumption of direct diplomacy if Iran resumes compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal. “And we’ll see what, if any, reaction Iran has to that.”
New power-sharing rules for Senate Democrats are shaking up the Senate Armed Services Committee, with some junior authorizers taking prized subcommittee chairmanships, reports Defense News. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) ceded the Airland gavel to Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) but gained the gavel for Strategic Forces from Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM). Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) ceded the Emerging Threats and Capabilities gavel to new Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
Pentagon acting CIO John Sherman pushes on with cybersecurity, software development, reports C4ISRNET, despite the absence of a Senate-confirmed chief information officer. Sherman, the principal deputy under the former CIO, grapples with cybersecurity after a government hack and a cloud infrastructure with an uncertain future.
The balance of power between drones and air defense systems is shaping up to be a key to global wars in the near future, reports Defense News. Unmanned platforms have made short work of the ground-based systems designed to neutralize them, paving the way for easy attacks on vulnerable troops.
Retired ADM Cecil Haney, one of the Navy’s first Black four-star admirals, says the military has work to do on diversity, reports The Washington Post in a profile of Haney who grew up in Washington, DC. He served as commander of the Pacific Fleet and the Strategic Command, where he oversaw nuclear weapons before retiring in 2017.
Check that you are still covered under Tricare Select, warns an Army retiree’s wife, even if you set up payments for the new enrollment fees last year, reports Military Times.
Defense News reports there is reason to believe the Biden administration will work to break the cycle of marathon naval deployments to the Mideast. Until the last decade, the Navy tried to limit deployments to six months to give crew members ample time for training and maintenance.
Pilot error was blamed for the hard landing causing $21 million in damage to a cargo plane, reports Stars and Stripes, at Ramstein Air Base in April. The C-130J Super Hercules’ pilots reduced power to the engines 70 feet above the ground and fully idled at 45 feet. The landing caused significant damage to the center wing, both outer wings, the left and right main landing gear assemblies and engines, including the mounting structures.
Guided-missile destroyer Winston Churchill seizes thousands of illicit weapons from dhows off Somalia coast, including AK-47 assault rifles and heavy sniper rifles, reports Navy Times.
Turkey’s procurement agency has commissioned a local company to develop critical technologies for an engine that the government hopes will power its first indigenous fighter jet, reports Defense News.
Kim Jong-un’s wife reappears in public after vanishing for more than a year, throughout the coronavirus pandemic, reports the Independent. Ri Sol-ju was pictured with her husband at a concert to mark the birthday of Kim’s late father and the country’s former leader Kim Jong-il, known as the Day of the Shining Star in North Korea.
CDC blames storms for widespread delays of vaccine shipments, Politico reports. It is unclear how many vaccine doses are affected by shipment delays, but officials from numerous states said they were expecting delays, including Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and Texas.
Active-duty troops to administer vaccines in Texas, New York, and Virgin Islands, reports Military Times. The plan is to bring millions of additional doses to some of the hardest-hit regions by early March.
Sailors enjoy fewer COVID restrictions if they get the vaccine, reports Navy Times, eliminating quarantine before deployment if their final dose is within the past three months, according to updated COVID guidance sent out by VADM Phil Sawyer, deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans, and strategy.
Gay and bisexual British veterans who were stripped of their medals because of their sexuality will now be able to reclaim them, the UK government has said, as it admitted the pre-2000 policy was an “historical wrong,” reports CNN.
Returning The Baltimore Sun to Maryland hands, the state’s largest newspaper and its affiliates are poised to be acquired by a nonprofit formed by businessman and philanthropist Stewart Bainum Jr. that would operate the media organization for the benefit of the community, reports The Baltimore Sun.
Contracts:
PSI Pax Inc., California, Maryland, is awarded an $8,746,948 cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost reimbursable order (N00421-21-F-3001) against previously issued basic ordering agreement N00178-19-D-8356. This order provides Air Traffic Control (ATC) systems technical, engineering and management support including landing, approach, area control and expeditionary systems and modeling, simulation, fleet sustainment and integration of ATC systems with future manned and unmanned air combat vehicles in support of the Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Webster Outlying Field, ATC and Landing Systems Division. Work will be performed in St. Inigoes, Maryland (75%); and Patuxent River, Maryland (25%), and is expected to be completed in April 2022. Fiscal 2021 working capital (Navy) funds in the amount of $640,000 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center, Aviation Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
BCG Federal Corp., Bethesda, Maryland, was awarded a $12,444,857 firm-fixed-price contract modification exercising the first option period (of six option periods) under task order N00024-20-F-24B2 awarded against multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract N00024-20-D-2431 for the Naval Sustainment System – Shipyard Initiative to improve overall shipyard performance by increasing throughput, reducing ship maintenance costs and shortened durations for ship maintenance availabilities to ultimately increase operational availability and deliver readiness to the fleet commanders. This modification brings the cumulative value of this contract to $17,436,978. This requires BCG Federal Corp. to uncover and design solutions for issues in five major functional areas that drive delays in maintenance availabilities in all four public naval shipyards. It is projected that work will be performed at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Virginia (25%); Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (25%); Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, Bremerton, Washington (25%); and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii (25%), and is expected to be completed by August 2021. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $12,444,857 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This task order was competitively procured against an existing multiple award contract. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, DC, is the contracting activity. (Awarded Feb. 12, 2021)
Sodexo Management Inc., Gaithersburg, Maryland, is awarded a $9,521,236 firm-fixed-price, requirements-type contract for in-store delicatessen and bakery resale operations to include sushi, where applicable, for 22 commissaries located in the Defense Commissary Agency’s East Area locations. The award is for a 24-month base performance period beginning April 1, 2021. The award includes three one-year option periods. If all option periods are exercised, the contract will be completed March 31, 2026. Offerors were solicited on the beta.SAM.gov website available to 72,2310 contract holders and two proposals were received. The Defense Commissary Agency, Resale Contracting Division, Fort Lee, Virginia, is the contracting activity (HDEC02-21-D-0001).
