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Construction crews found a World War II-era bomb in an Aurora neighborhood built on the grounds of a former weapons training site on Monday.
The post World War II-era bomb found in Aurora neighborhood appeared first on The Cannabist.
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Two former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and two former foreign military officials have been charged with threatening a Chinese national and his family with violence and deportation during a sham raid at his Orange County home five years ago, federal prosecutors said Monday.
The four men also demanded $37 million and the rights to the man’s business, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Authorities have not released the businessman’s name.
The men were arraigned Monday on charges of conspiracy to commit extortion, attempted extortion, conspiracy against rights, and deprivation of rights under color of law. All pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors said the group drove to the victim’s house in Irvine on June 17, 2019, and forced him, his wife and their two children into a room for hours, took their phones, and threatened to deport him unless he complied with their demands. Authorities said the man is a legal permanent resident.
The men slammed the businessman against a wall and choked him, prosecutors said. Fearing for his and his family’s safety, he signed documents relinquishing his multimillion-dollar interest in Jiangsu Sinorgchem Technology Co. Ltd., a China-based company that makes rubber chemicals.
Federal prosecutors said the man’s business partner, a Chinese woman who was not indicted, financed the bogus raid. The two had been embroiled in legal disputes over the company in the United States and China for more than a decade, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said one of the men charged, Steven Arthur Lankford — who retired from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2020 — searched for information on the victim in a national database using a terminal at the sheriff’s department. They said Lankford, 68, drove the other three men to the victim’s house in an unmarked sheriff’s department vehicle, flashed his badge and identified himself as a police officer.
It was not immediately clear if Lankford has an attorney who can speak on his behalf. The Associated Press left a message Monday at a telephone number listed for Lankford, but he did not respond.
Federal prosecutors also charged Glen Louis Cozart, 63, of Upland, who also used to be a sheriff’s deputy. The AP left a phone message for Cozart, but he didn’t immediately respond.
Lankford was hired by Cozart, who in turn was hired by Max Samuel Bennett Turbett, a 39-year-old U.K. citizen and former member of the British military who also faces charges. Prosecutors said Turbett was hired by the Chinese businesswoman who financed the bogus raid.
Matthew Phillip Hart, 41, an Australian citizen and former member of the Australian military, is also charged in the case.
“It is critical that we hold public officials, including law enforcement officers, to the same standards as the rest of us,” said United States Attorney Martin Estrada. “It is unacceptable and a serious civil rights violation for a sworn police officer to take the law into his own hands and abuse the authority of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”
If convicted, the four men could each face up to 20 years in federal prison.
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John Antczak, The Associated Press
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DANVERS — Residents, local officials, and Purple Heart recipients gathered at the Village Training Grounds on Wednesday evening to celebrate Danvers becoming a “Purple Heart Town”.
Danvers joined the over 900 communities across the nation that have proclaimed themselves Purple Heart Communities to express gratitude and preserve the memory of military personnel who have been wounded or killed in combat. The proclamation on Aug. 7 coincided with National Purple Heart Day, the same day that Gen. George Washington originally created the merit back in 1782.
“Tonight, we officially declare Danvers a Purple Heart community, and honor the sacrifices made by our nation’s Purple Heart recipients,” said Dennis Palazzo, a U.S. Army National Guard veteran and local health inspector. “Because of their sacrifices, these brave men and women face challenges that you and I can only imagine. and some never made it home.”
The evening began with an invocation from Rev. Michael J. Doyle, of the Danvers Catholic Collaborative, followed by a performance of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” by Anne and Joan Farmer.
Select Board Chair Daniel Bennett delivered the Purple Heart Community Proclamation, which thanked purple heart recipients within Danvers and beyond, who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the nation.
“The people of the town of Danvers have great admiration and utmost gratitude for all the men and women who have selflessly served their country, this community, and the armed forces for the good of all,” Bennett said. “The contributions and sacrifices made by the men and women from Danvers who served in harm’s way in the armed forces, have been vital in maintaining the freedom and the way of life enjoyed by our citizens.”
State Sen. Joan Lovely presented the citation, which extended congratulations from the House of Representatives and Senate to the town for its decision to honor Purple Heart veterans.
Boy Scout Troop 58 performed a flag-raising ceremony, adding a new Purple Heart Flag below the American flag that reads “Honoring America’s Combat Wounded Veterans”.
Thanks to Clint Allen from the town’s electrical division, a light was installed below the flagpole so that the flags would remain illuminated. Additionally, the Danvers DPW installed Purple Heart signs to ensure that the message is as visible as possible.
“Ladies and gentlemen, freedom is not free — it comes at a cost,” Palazzo said. “Those costs are the sacrifices and challenges Purple Heart recipients endure every day. Some gave all, but all gave some.”
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202
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By Michael McHugh | Staff Writer
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The Pentagon chief was caught off guard by last week’s decision by prosecutors to offer deals to the men.
United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has defended his decision to revoke controversial plea deals agreed between prosecutors and three men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Speaking publicly for the first time about his decision on Tuesday, Austin said it “wasn’t a decision that I took lightly” and he did so to honour the scale of the loss that occurred that day.
“I have long believed that the families of the victims, our service members, and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commissions, commission trials carried out,” he said at an event with visiting Australian officials in Annapolis, Maryland.
The Pentagon announced on July 31 that plea agreements had been reached with three of five alleged plotters held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, where they stand accused of orchestrating the deadliest attack on US soil in the country’s history.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day as hijacked passenger planes struck targets in New York City and Washington, DC. A fourth crashed into a field as passengers tackled the hijackers.
The deals involved alleged mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad as well as accomplices Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. A fourth defendant did not agree to the terms, while a fifth man was ruled mentally unfit to continue facing trial last year.
In a statement, it described the deals as “pretrial agreements”, without offering further details. US media reports said the men would plead guilty in exchange for receiving a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
The defendants are due to face trial in a military court at the maximum-security facility in Cuba, but their cases have been held up for years amid legal wrangling.
The plea bargains had been welcomed by some as the only feasible way to resolve the long-stalled 9/11 cases, including J Wells Dixon, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Dixon, who has represented defendants at Guantanamo and other detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing, accused Austin of “bowing to political pressure and pushing some victim family members over an emotional cliff” with the reversal.
The plea deals sparked outrage among some victims’ family members and Republican lawmakers, who accused the administration of President Joe Biden of treating the defendants too lightly.
Austin himself was also caught off guard by the decision, Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday.
“This is not something that the secretary [Lloyd Austin] was consulted on,” she said. “We were not aware that the prosecution or defence would enter the terms of the plea agreement.”
On Friday, a tersely-worded letter from the defence secretary said the plea deals had been withdrawn. Austin added that Susan Escallier, the official in charge of the military commission which had signed off on them, had also been relieved of her authority to enter into pre-trial agreements and he would now assume responsibility in the case.
“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” the letter said.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed that the Biden administration did not play a role in the plea bargains, saying the White House knew the “same day” they were announced.
“We had no role in that process. The president had no role. The vice president had no role. I had no role. The White House had no role,” Sullivan told journalists on Thursday, without explaining why the deals were agreed and announced without consultation.
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TAMPA, Fla. — A new Florida law appointed the nonprofit Veterans Florida to help veterans start businesses and train for jobs once they leave the military.
Veterans Florida Executive Director Joe Marino said with the passing of the law, they’ll be able to help around 5,000 veterans and their spouses a year.
“The signing of HB 1329 allows us to better align veteran training and educational resources towards the state’s workforce strategy of making sure Floridians have industry certifications and licenses that are marketable and transferable that they can take anywhere within their career,” he said.
One business Veterans Florida has helped is accel-EQ. The Tampa-based company’s co-founder, Omar Fuentes, said the transition out of military life was not an easy one.
Without Veterans Florida, he said his company wouldn’t be where it is today.
“They started putting me in touch with quite a few resources to do that and even giving me access to mentors,” he said. “In a community to other veterans that said, ‘Hey, we want to do something as well.’”
Now, three years into the business, Fuentes said his company has evolved from the idea of helping doctors write notes to machine learning.
With House Bill 1329 now signed into law and allowing Veterans Florida to assist more veterans and their spouses, Fuentes is hopeful more people like him will get the direction they need.
“I struggled for 12 years regaining my purpose again because when you’re in the military, you’re serving something that’s much greater than yourself,” he said. “Then when you get out, you want to continue to fulfill that purpose. I think Veterans Florida and their programs that they have and seeing this law into place now is going to be a humongous benefit to us.”
Veterans Florida estimates around 200,000 people leave the military every year.
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Matt Lackritz
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For U.S. Army Capt. Molly Murphy, the hardest part of the Army’s grueling Ranger Course was the very first day.”I did not sleep at all the night before, I was so scared, way in over my head,” she told CNN.Murphy, who currently works as a pediatric intensive care unit nurse at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, graduated from Ranger School on July 19, becoming the first female Army nurse to ever complete the course.Over roughly 60 days of the school the Army hails as its “toughest course,” students “train to exhaustion,” completing arduous physical and mental exercises across three intense phases, taking them from the mountainous terrain of Georgia to the swampy conditions in Florida.As of Wednesday, 143 women have graduated from the US Army Ranger Course, also called Ranger School, since the first women graduated in 2015, the Army told CNN. Murphy’s accomplishment is all the more notable given her nursing background, which stood in stark contrast to the majority of her Ranger School counterparts who served in combat.”I was like, ‘I did these tactics eight years ago at ROTC, and I thought I would never hear the word “ambush” ever again, I am so lost,’” Murphy recalled, laughing. “But I’m a very good note taker, super type-A, you know, like any critical care nurse is. And so I was just writing everything anyone said down, and I had this, like, crazy notebook that the boys would flip through whenever they were freaking out.”The first women to graduate Ranger School were Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, just two years after many combat roles in the military were opened up to women. Just months after their graduation, in December 2015, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced he was clearing the way for women to serve in the roughly 220,000 remaining military jobs that were limited to men, including some in special operations.Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of US Army Special Operations Command, said last year that having women in special operations is “not a nice to have, it’s a must.””If you just take the protection of United States and the most critical threats we have out there, we need everybody when you talk about defense of our nation, not just in the Army but at a macro scale. … It’s critical to our mission,” he said.Murphy told CNN it was clear what kind of advantages women can bring to the table. For example, she excelled at the combat techniques training involving operational orders — what unit commanders send down to subordinate units outlining the mission they’re undertaking — so she would take on the brunt of that task while her teammates got a little more sleep.Men and women working together “complement each other,” she said, “and that’s what makes us such a good team.”‘Keeping up with the boys’Murphy’s journey to Ranger School began when she was a child, she said. Her mother died in an accident when she was young, leaving her and her two brothers to be raised by their father, who served in the National Guard. Her whole life, she said, she was “keeping up with the boys,” constantly competing and carving out a place for herself.That also led her to go into the ROTC program at the University of Nebraska, after her father encouraged her to serve as an officer to help pay for school.From there, she continued to excel. While working as a nurse at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, she attended the Army’s Air Assault and Jungle Schools, and at the end of the latter she was encouraged to go to Ranger School for the first time by a teammate.”I was like ‘No, that’s crazy!’ A girl like me, I’m a nurse, Jungle School is the furthest I’ll ever go,” Murphy recalled saying.She was again told to consider it while competing in the Army’s Best Medic Competition last year, which tests competitors not just on their medical prowess but physical fitness and endurance, land navigation and more. As one of two women there, she said, more senior officers were regularly talking to her about her career. While she didn’t win the competition, she recalled that multiple colonels told her after watching her compete that she “needed to go to Ranger School,” she said, even going so far as to tell her leadership back in Hawaii to send her.Her biggest hesitation, she joked to CNN, was knowing she’d have to shave her head. But just months later, her former Jungle School teammate began helping her train.The first phase of Ranger School, called the Darby Phase, focuses on physical and mental stamina. It takes soldiers on ground patrols, foot marches, physical assessments and requires them to receive positive peer evaluations. It’s the phase where roughly half of students will drop out, according to the Army.It’s not uncommon for students to recycle, or repeat, phases in Ranger School. And at first, Murphy was one of them — she had to repeat Darby Phase. Not having experience in combat arms like her teammates originally had her at a disadvantage, but she poured herself into studying and training for the 10 days in between retrying the Darby Phase, which she successfully completed.Just hours after completing the first phase, soldiers move to the second — Mountain Phase — where they train on leading platoons on combat patrol operations across rugged terrain where the “stamina and commitment of the Ranger student is stressed to the maximum,” according to the Army.Finally, in the Florida Phase, students continue training on leading small units during things like airborne and dismounted patrol operations, conducting 10 days of patrols during “a fast paced, highly stressful, challenging field exercise.”While Murphy said she was surprised by how little medical training played a role in the course, being a nurse prepared her in different ways. Being on her feet for 12 hours a day, often skipping meals and having to be “100% sharp at all times, because someone’s life is in your hands … definitely gave me a one-up,” she said.Because of a worsening infection in her foot, Murphy was forced to leave the competition on the last two days for surgery at a hospital in Florida. She traveled back to Georgia for graduation afterward but was hospitalized again for pain the day before. She begged her doctors to let her attend graduation and they eventually agreed — sending her on crutches, with nerve blocks to try to limit the pain.”I was just so excited about how many of us from my platoon made it. … It’s just so exciting to be able to celebrate with them, that we were all able to pull each other there,” she said, emphasizing repeatedly that being able to lean on one another throughout the course made all the difference.Now, going back to nursing, her biggest takeaway has been the leadership skills she learned, particularly how to keep pushing in the midst of chaos.”It is so hard to lead in an environment where everyone is starving, and everyone is tired,” she said, “and my goal was to see if I could stay positive in those moments where you are at your lowest. … And I want to help people understand that your most difficult times are where you grow the most.”
For U.S. Army Capt. Molly Murphy, the hardest part of the Army’s grueling Ranger Course was the very first day.
“I did not sleep at all the night before, I was so scared, way in over my head,” she told CNN.
Murphy, who currently works as a pediatric intensive care unit nurse at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, graduated from Ranger School on July 19, becoming the first female Army nurse to ever complete the course.
Over roughly 60 days of the school the Army hails as its “toughest course,” students “train to exhaustion,” completing arduous physical and mental exercises across three intense phases, taking them from the mountainous terrain of Georgia to the swampy conditions in Florida.
As of Wednesday, 143 women have graduated from the US Army Ranger Course, also called Ranger School, since the first women graduated in 2015, the Army told CNN. Murphy’s accomplishment is all the more notable given her nursing background, which stood in stark contrast to the majority of her Ranger School counterparts who served in combat.
“I was like, ‘I did these tactics eight years ago at ROTC, and I thought I would never hear the word “ambush” ever again, I am so lost,’” Murphy recalled, laughing. “But I’m a very good note taker, super type-A, you know, like any critical care nurse is. And so I was just writing everything anyone said down, and I had this, like, crazy notebook that the boys would flip through whenever they were freaking out.”
The first women to graduate Ranger School were Capt. Kristen Griest and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, just two years after many combat roles in the military were opened up to women. Just months after their graduation, in December 2015, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced he was clearing the way for women to serve in the roughly 220,000 remaining military jobs that were limited to men, including some in special operations.
Lt. Gen. Jonathan Braga, commander of US Army Special Operations Command, said last year that having women in special operations is “not a nice to have, it’s a must.”
“If you just take the protection of United States and the most critical threats we have out there, we need everybody when you talk about defense of our nation, not just in the Army but at a macro scale. … It’s critical to our mission,” he said.
Murphy told CNN it was clear what kind of advantages women can bring to the table. For example, she excelled at the combat techniques training involving operational orders — what unit commanders send down to subordinate units outlining the mission they’re undertaking — so she would take on the brunt of that task while her teammates got a little more sleep.
Men and women working together “complement each other,” she said, “and that’s what makes us such a good team.”
Murphy’s journey to Ranger School began when she was a child, she said. Her mother died in an accident when she was young, leaving her and her two brothers to be raised by their father, who served in the National Guard. Her whole life, she said, she was “keeping up with the boys,” constantly competing and carving out a place for herself.
That also led her to go into the ROTC program at the University of Nebraska, after her father encouraged her to serve as an officer to help pay for school.
From there, she continued to excel. While working as a nurse at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, she attended the Army’s Air Assault and Jungle Schools, and at the end of the latter she was encouraged to go to Ranger School for the first time by a teammate.
“I was like ‘No, that’s crazy!’ A girl like me, I’m a nurse, Jungle School is the furthest I’ll ever go,” Murphy recalled saying.
She was again told to consider it while competing in the Army’s Best Medic Competition last year, which tests competitors not just on their medical prowess but physical fitness and endurance, land navigation and more. As one of two women there, she said, more senior officers were regularly talking to her about her career. While she didn’t win the competition, she recalled that multiple colonels told her after watching her compete that she “needed to go to Ranger School,” she said, even going so far as to tell her leadership back in Hawaii to send her.
Her biggest hesitation, she joked to CNN, was knowing she’d have to shave her head. But just months later, her former Jungle School teammate began helping her train.
The first phase of Ranger School, called the Darby Phase, focuses on physical and mental stamina. It takes soldiers on ground patrols, foot marches, physical assessments and requires them to receive positive peer evaluations. It’s the phase where roughly half of students will drop out, according to the Army.
It’s not uncommon for students to recycle, or repeat, phases in Ranger School. And at first, Murphy was one of them — she had to repeat Darby Phase. Not having experience in combat arms like her teammates originally had her at a disadvantage, but she poured herself into studying and training for the 10 days in between retrying the Darby Phase, which she successfully completed.
Just hours after completing the first phase, soldiers move to the second — Mountain Phase — where they train on leading platoons on combat patrol operations across rugged terrain where the “stamina and commitment of the Ranger student is stressed to the maximum,” according to the Army.
Finally, in the Florida Phase, students continue training on leading small units during things like airborne and dismounted patrol operations, conducting 10 days of patrols during “a fast paced, highly stressful, challenging field exercise.”
While Murphy said she was surprised by how little medical training played a role in the course, being a nurse prepared her in different ways. Being on her feet for 12 hours a day, often skipping meals and having to be “100% sharp at all times, because someone’s life is in your hands … definitely gave me a one-up,” she said.
Because of a worsening infection in her foot, Murphy was forced to leave the competition on the last two days for surgery at a hospital in Florida. She traveled back to Georgia for graduation afterward but was hospitalized again for pain the day before. She begged her doctors to let her attend graduation and they eventually agreed — sending her on crutches, with nerve blocks to try to limit the pain.
“I was just so excited about how many of us from my platoon made it. … It’s just so exciting to be able to celebrate with them, that we were all able to pull each other there,” she said, emphasizing repeatedly that being able to lean on one another throughout the course made all the difference.
Now, going back to nursing, her biggest takeaway has been the leadership skills she learned, particularly how to keep pushing in the midst of chaos.
“It is so hard to lead in an environment where everyone is starving, and everyone is tired,” she said, “and my goal was to see if I could stay positive in those moments where you are at your lowest. … And I want to help people understand that your most difficult times are where you grow the most.”
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Staff Sgt. Matthew Teutsch
U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Samuel Bacchi, a motor transport operator with Combat Logistics Battalion 23, receives instructions during Northern Strike 23 at Camp Grayling in August 2023.
One of the Department of Defense’s largest reserve component readiness exercises is coming to Michigan for two weeks beginning Saturday.
Northern Strike (NS) 24-2 will run from Aug. 3-17 and include more than 6,300 participants from 32 states and territories and five international partners.
The participants will gather for extensive training at Michigan’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC), which encompasses the Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center, the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, and their associated airspace.
This year’s focus will be on expeditionary skills, command and control, sustainment, and joint integrated fires.
The summer iteration of this annual exercise will incorporate scenarios involving homeland security and defense against unmanned aerial systems. Maritime training will concentrate on protecting high-value assets, fixing, tracking, and engaging targets in littoral and open water environments. Additionally, the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency will test new combat search, rescue, and recovery systems during the exercise.
Northern Strike is recognized as the premier reserve component training event designed to enhance readiness across joint and partner forces in all domains of warfare. The NADWC includes the Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center, the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, and their associated airspace. Training will also occur in locations such as Lake Huron, Rogers City Quarry, Battle Creek, MBS International Airport, Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airfield, and K.I. Sawyer Airfield in Marquette.
“This year’s schedule of NS training events reflects Michigan’s and the NADWC’s capabilities to support Department of Defense objectives,” U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Rogers, adjutant general and director of the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said in a statement Monday. “We take pride in our ability to improve the exercise design each year, integrating innovative technologies and solutions into dynamic training to meet the needs of commanders across all domains of warfare.”
Since its inception in 2012, Northern Strike has grown into a joint, multinational exercise program. It provides participating units with robust, scenario-based, full-spectrum readiness training, allowing them to complete mission-essential tasks. Sponsored by the Army National Guard and accredited as a Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) exercise, Northern Strike offers cost-effective readiness opportunities for all services.
“Northern Strike is unique not only because of the integration of defense innovators and academia but also because the exercise reflects the changes service members are seeing on the modern battlefield,” said Col. Todd Fitzpatrick, land exercise director for NS. “For instance, our Air Defense scenario was created from lessons learned from recent drone attacks in the Middle East.”
In addition to enhancing national defense capabilities, Northern Strike provides a significant economic boost to the local economy, contributing an average of $38 million annually in military pay, travel, and local spending in northern lower Michigan.
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Steve Neavling
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POLK COUNTY, Fla. — A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Friday morning for the Lakeland VA Clinic.
The 121,000-square-foot building expands on the resources and services available for veterans in Polk County.
George Bristol and many other veterans are thrilled the clinic has arrived.
“They did a fine job, and I watched this thing go up from day one,” he said. “So, I know what it took to make it and I like it.”
Bristol served in the U.S. Navy and lives less than a mile from the clinic.
Construction began in April 2022, and Bristol said seeing the building rise from nothing has been amazing.
From mental health care, audiology, and an eye clinic are just a few of the services the clinic provides.
Bristol said he no longer needs to drive far for most of the services he needs.
“I used to have to go to Tampa for everything I needed to get done,” he said. “Now I can come here and see my primary doctor.”
As Bristol checked out the clinic with other attending veterans, he thought of the nearly 50,000 veterans in Polk County and how this facility would help.
“It benefits me and a lot of other people because there’s so many veterans right around this area,” he said.
The VA said they’re hoping in the next two or three months, there will be approval to begin working on a similar clinic in Citrus County.
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Matt Lackritz
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Do you see yourself as more of a “trader” or a “hero?” Learn about these two distinct mindsets, and understand how balancing moral duty and economic ambition can lead to a more harmonious and sustainable future for humanity.
The hero mindset vs. the trader mindset are two distinct ways people see their roles and responsibilities in a healthy society.
Each one focuses on different values and priorities, but a balance of both is often needed for a society to function and flourish.
Here’s an outline of what defines each mindset.
The trader mindset dominates our current culture. It places emphasis on individualism, material gain, and personal freedom. This mentality often asks, “What can life give me?” and is driven by the pursuit of happiness, pleasure, and profit.
It’s especially characteristic of American life and contemporary Western thinking, where people tend to see their value only in terms of economic or material output: “What do you do for a living? How much money do you make? How big is your house?”
Key attributes of the trader mindset include:
The trader mindset is a product of liberal and Enlightenment philosophy, reflecting the values of individual rights and free market capitalism. It promotes a “mind your own business” attitude which emphasizes personal freedom and the pursuit of happiness, but can also lack a sense of social duty.
In excess, the trader mindset can lead to negative behaviors such as excessive swindling, grifting, corruption, and fraudulent schemes. People become willing to seek material gain at any moral cost, believing that everyone is inherently greedy and selfish, thus creating a “dog eat dog” world.
The hero mindset is less common and in many ways it’s more needed in our current society.
The heroic mindset is characterized by a focus on duty, sacrifice, and the greater good. Those with this mentality often ask, “What can I give to life?” rather than “What can life give me?” This approach emphasizes responsibilities over rights and prioritizes the well-being of others over personal gain.
Key attributes of the hero mindset include:
In essence, the heroic mindset is about fighting for something greater than oneself.
Heroes can take many different forms. It’s not only about sacrificing yourself on a battlefield or saving a child from a burning house. Being a hero can also mean dedicating your life to a social cause, being a leader in your local community, taking care of your family, or creating more beauty in the world through art or music.
While the heroic mindset can lead to noble actions, in excess it can also result in zealotry, self-destructive martyrdom, or an inflexible approach to moral issues. Extreme idealism might push individuals to pursue their goals without considering practical consequences, potentially leading to conflict and alienation.
Ultimately, both the hero and trader mindsets offer valuable insights into different motivations behind our behaviors and life choices. While the heroic mindset emphasizes sacrifice, duty, and the greater good, the trader mindset focuses on personal gain, freedom, and material success.
A healthy and sustainable society needs both traders and heroes. A society run solely by traders may prioritize profit over moral values, leading to widespread corruption and a lack of social responsibility. On the other hand, a society with only a heroic mindset might struggle with practicality and flexibility, leading to social conflicts and unrest.
Striking a balance between these mindsets can help us achieve a harmonious approach to personal fulfillment and social responsibility, creating a society that values both individual rights and communal well-being.
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Steven Handel
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MIMS, Fla. — Cape Canaveral National Cemetery in Brevard County is undergoing a large expansion to make room for more veteran gravesites.
Tens of thousands of additional gravesites will serve families who have served for the next 10 years.
The new expansion project will add 30 more acres, along with 32,200 gravesites.
Cape Canaveral National Cemetery has developed 117 acres, and 17,000 veterans are interred on the property.
Up to a dozen committal services for one of the nation’s veterans are held seven days a week at the cemetery.
“We are always going to make sure we honor them with dignity and respect,” cemetery director Cindy Van Bibber says. “The families that come out here are going to receive that same respect. It’s something to be able to say when you’ve served your country, you have a special place and connection to those you are laid to rest with.”
One group — the Cape Canaveral Ladies — is committed to making sure no veteran is alone during one of these services.
Forty-six of them have volunteered nearly 16,000 hours overall so far — there for every service since the cemetery opened in 2016.
“We do not, in fact we refuse, to let a veteran be buried alone,” says Cape Canaveral Ladies Chairperson Larue Fleming.
Fleming’s father served in World War II. She also has a husband who served in Vietnam and four brothers who are veterans.
She says it’s an honor to thank those who served our country.
“It’s difficult sometimes to see their pain,” Fleming says. “It’s the least we can do.””
Fleming and the other Canaveral Ladies will continue with all the families who come to the cemetery.
“It’s very important to us to give honor where honor is due,” Fleming says.
Cape Canaveral National Cemetery also needs volunteers to put wreaths of remembrance on gravesites during the holidays and put flags out for Memorial Day.
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Greg Pallone
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The German Navy is in need of a serious upgrade for its fleet of submarine frigates and we’re not talking about a digital upload or some kind of software patch. The country’s fleets of submarine frigates have operated on old-fashioned, 8-inch floppy disks since they were commissioned back in the 1990s.
Now the German Navy is trying to find a way to replace the outdated disk system that are “vital to the running of its Brandenburg class F123 frigates,” according to Tom’s Hardware.
Replacing the floppy disk system won’t be an easy task. These disks pretty much control everything on the ships from airflow systems to power generation. Does the German Navy still use Palm Pilots to organize its codewords and Tamagotchi to train its recruits in marine wildlife preservation?
Saab has been in charge of maintenance for Germany’s F123 frigate fleet since 2021, according to a press release. The frigates are designed to hunt for submarines so they’re also getting upgrades for its weapons and weapon control systems. Hopefully, they’ll also throw in one of those cool, luxurious night panel dashboards for free.
A lot of government institutions and programs have been on the floppy disk system for decades and long after the outdated computer storage system has fallen out of general use. Japan’s Digital Agency announced at the beginning of the month that it eliminated the use of floppy disks in its government systems. Does that mean that somewhere in the world, a core government agency is still using those Commodore cassette tapes to store its most vital data? Let’s hope those disks aren’t tied to nuclear weapons access… like they were in the US.
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Danny Gallagher
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The day is slowly turning into night, and the American special operators are growing concerned. They are deployed to a densely populated urban center in a politically volatile region, and local activity has grown increasingly frenetic in recent days, the roads and markets overflowing with more than the normal bustle of city life. Intelligence suggests the threat level in the city is high, but the specifics are vague, and the team needs to maintain a low profile—a firefight could bring known hostile elements down upon them. To assess potential threats, the Americans decide to take a more cautious approach. Eschewing conspicuous tactical gear in favor of blending in with potential crowds, an operator steps out into the neighborhood’s main thoroughfare to see what he can see.
With a click of a button, the operator sees … everything. A complex suite of sensors affixed to his head-up display start vacuuming up information from the world around him. Body language, heart rates, facial expressions, and even ambient snatches of conversation in local dialects are rapidly collected and routed through his backpack supercomputers for processing with the help of an onboard artificial intelligence engine. The information is instantly analyzed, streamlined, and regurgitated back into the head-up display. The assessment from the operators’ tactical AI sidekick comes back clear: There are a series of seasonal events coming into town, and most passersby are excited and exuberant, presenting a minimal threat to the team. Crisis averted—for now.
This is one of many potential scenarios repeatedly presented by Defense Department officials in recent years when discussing the future of US special operations forces, those elite troops tasked with facing the world’s most complex threats head-on as the “tip of the spear” of the US military. Both defense officials and science-fiction scribes may have envisioned a future of warfare shaped by brain implants and performing enhancing drugs, or a suit of powered armor straight out of Starship Troopers, but according to US Special Operations Command, the next generation of armed conflict will be fought (and, hopefully, won) with a relatively simple concept: the “hyper enabled operator.”
First introduced to the public in 2019 in an essay by officials from SOCOM’s Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF) for Small Wars Journal, the hyper-enabled operator (HEO) concept is the successor program to the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) effort that, initiated in 2013, sought to outfit US special operations forces with a so-called “Iron Man” suit. Inspired by the 2012 death of a Navy SEAL during a hostage rescue operation in Afghanistan, TALOS was intended to improve operators’ survivability in combat by making them virtually resistant to small-arms fire through additional layers of sophisticated armor, the latest installment of the Pentagon’s decades-long effort to build a powered exoskeleton for infantry troops. While the TALOS effort was declared dead in 2019 due to challenges integrating its disparate systems into one cohesive unit, the lessons learned from the program gave rise to the HEO as a natural successor.
The core objective of the HEO concept is straightforward: to give warfighters “cognitive overmatch” on the battlefield, or “the ability to dominate the situation by making informed decisions faster than the opponent,” as SOCOM officials put it. Rather than bestowing US special operations forces with physical advantages through next-generation body armor and exotic weaponry, the future operator will head into battle with technologies designed to boost their situational awareness and relevant decisionmaking to superior levels compared to the adversary. Former fighter pilot and Air Force colonel John Boyd proposed the “OODA loop” (observe, orient, decide, act) as the core military decisionmaking model of the 21st century; the HEO concept seeks to use technology to “tighten” that loop so far that operators are quite literally making smarter and faster decisions than the enemy.
“The goal of HEO,” as SOCOM officials put it in 2019, “is to get the right information to the right person at the right time.”
To achieve this goal, the HEO concept calls for swapping the powered armor at the heart of the TALOS effort for sophisticated communications equipment and a robust sensor suite built on advanced computing architecture, allowing the operator to vacuum up relevant data and distill it into actionable information through a simple interface like a head-up display—and do so “at the edge,” in places where traditional communications networks may not be available. If TALOS was envisioned as an “Iron Man” suit, as I previously observed, then HEO is essentially Jarvis, Tony Stark’s built-in AI assistant that’s constantly feeding him information through his helmet’s head-up display.
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Jared Keller
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World War II Air Force veteran Major Richard Olson never discussed his military service with his son, Dick Olson.
“I didn’t have all that much time to be asking these questions while he was at home,” Dick, a Westminster resident, told the Denver Post in an interview. “He was a distant father, and I imagine a lot of that came from what happened to him during the war and in service.”
After Richard died, Dick turned to military archives, old photos and interviews with the surviving members of his father’s B-24 Liberator airplane crew to learn about the veteran’s journey. Through his research, Dick discovered that his father, despite being seriously injured in a plane crash before enduring months as a prisoner of war, had never received a Purple Heart.
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World War II Air Force veteran Major Richard Olson never discussed his military service with his son, Dick Olson.
“I didn’t have all that much time to be asking these questions while he was at home,” Dick, a Westminster resident, told the Denver Post in an interview. “He was a distant father, and I imagine a lot of that came from what happened to him during the war and in service.”
After Richard died, Dick turned to military archives, old photos and interviews with the surviving members of his father’s B-24 Liberator airplane crew to learn about the veteran’s journey. Through his research, Dick discovered that his father, despite being seriously injured in a plane crash before enduring months as a prisoner of war, had never received a Purple Heart.
For seven years, Dick worked to correct the oversight. In April, the Air Force agreed to posthumously award Richard a Purple Heart.
The veteran was 22 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in February 1941, according to his son. The service was renamed the U.S. Army Air Forces in June of that year and became the U.S. Air Force in 1947.
“He grew up through the Depression and everything else,” Dick told The Post. “I think he joined because he was looking for three square meals a day.”
Courtesy of Dick Olson
Richard Olson (bottom center) poses with a B-24 crew after completing a six hour training flight. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson later became the co-pilot of a B-24 bomber plane in the 484th Bombardment Group combat unit. A week after D-Day, while stationed in southern Italy, his crew was shot down over the Adriatic Sea by eight German fighter planes while flying to Munich.
“They lost an engine, and they couldn’t keep up with the rest of the bombers, so they had to turn around to go back,” Dick said. “Two of the gunners were killed on the plane. And then the plane was set on fire and I think they had two more engines shot out.
“But there was a big fire in the bomb bay so they had to get out of the plane. So they did, and everybody bailed out, the ones that were still alive.”
Shell fragments struck Olson’s leg and he sustained a back injury that left him with chronic pain.
Most of the men landed on the Italian coastline northeast of Venice, according to conversations Dick had with B-24 crew member John Hassan. He was transferred to two other POW camps and after 10 months of incarceration, Olson was liberated on April 29, 1945, from Moosburg, Germany.
“He just said it was a very dull existence and of course they were hungry all the time,” Dick told The Post. “There was not a whole lot to do there. They played sports and the American Red Cross supplied them with books and boardgames and sporting equipment and different things to keep their morale up.”
Courtesy of Dick Olson
Richard Olson’s identification card from his time as a POW in Stalag Luft III. (Photo credit: Courtesy of Dick Olson)
Olson stayed in the Air Force for 16 years after his liberation from the POW camp and became a major, father and husband before leaving the military in 1961, according to his obituary.
“My parents split when I was about 13,” Dick said. “He moved away from the household and they got divorced.”
After the divorce in 1969, Dick saw Richard three more times before the veteran passed away in 1996 from multiple myeloma.
“I was always interested in his Air Force career. And since he never talked about these other guys, I wanted to find them and talk to them myself,” Dick said.
He connected with John Hassan, the navigator in Richard’s B-24 crew, in 1997. “Going through some of his papers, I found a phone number for John and called him up and started looking for all the other crew members also,” Dick said, “I eventually did make contact with the ones that were living or family members for the ones who had passed away.
“John was my dad’s best friend on the crew and we became really good friends,” Dick added. “He pretty much had a photographic memory, so that’s how I know an awful lot about that crew.”
While researching the crew, Dick helped the plane’s bombardier, Walter Chapman, get a Distinguished Flying Cross he should have been awarded decades prior.
Like Chapman, Olson was also missing an award: a Purple Heart for sustaining an injury while in the line of duty.
“There was mention of everything else, like the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals,” Dick said. “All the ribbons and medals that he was entitled to, except for the Purple Heart.”
Olson’s capture as a POW right after the B-24 crash meant his wounds went undocumented. In 2017, Dick decided to file a claim with the Air Force Board for Correction of Military Records and prove that his father had been injured. “I thought to myself, this is unfinished business, I’ve got to see if I can get this thing,” Dick said.
After an extensive filing process, the Board for Correction rejected Dick’s request in 2020.
Brian Schenk, founder of Midwest Military and Veterans Law, agreed to work with Dick pro bono and together, they took the Board for Correction to federal court, determined to prove that Olson had been injured during active duty.
“Dick Olson’s father was a war hero and he had such extreme humility that he himself never sought a Purple Heart,” Schenk told the Denver Post.
“I thought to myself, the old man went through the wringer, and he deserves to have this,” Dick said. “I told the Air Force in the letter that I wrote with my first application that I’m doing it for his legacy and for posterity. People should know that he was injured fighting for his country.”
On April 23, Dick won his case and the Board for Correction agreed to posthumously grant Olson a Purple Heart Award.
“He would have been real happy to wear this purple heart,” Dick said. “I think he would have been pretty proud of the fight we put up to make this happen.”
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Julianna O'Clair
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PELHAM — Dan Newman is ready to jump out of his comfort zone as the town’s new fire chief.
Newman started Monday after the department was led by an interim chief for six months following former Chief James Midgley’s retirement in 2023.
Town Administrator Joe Roark said 20 candidates applied for the position. Municipal Resources Inc. looked at seven candidates before the field was narrowed to three who were interviewed by the town.
“The interim chief (Anthony Stowers) did a great job over the last six months so we could conduct a thorough hiring process,” Roark said.
“But there are big shoes to fill,” Roark added. Midgley had been with the department since 2001 and its chief since 2009.
Newman will earn $122,500 annually, Roark said.
“‘We are very excited to get him going and he has an excellent department to work with,” Roark said.
Newman, 53, comes to Pelham from the Merrimack Fire Department where he worked his way up the ranks over the last 19 years. He started as a volunteer, on-call firefighter before becoming a paramedic and assistant chief of operations.
“Chief Newman’s leadership and dedication to public service make him a perfect fit for our community,” the town said in its official announcement.
Becoming chief has been a humbling experience, Newman said.
“I’m excited about being uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s the challenge of stepping out of a comfort zone and being a part of another team. It sends you back to when you first started in the fire service.”
Newman is originally from Massachusetts but grew up overseas. He lives in New Hampshire and enjoys spending time with his wife and five sons.
In the U.S. Army, he was stationed in Louisiana before settling in New Hampshire. He served 21 years in the military as an active duty member, in the Reserve and the National Guard.
His military experience and leadership in that capacity helped drive the town’s decision to appoint Newman, Roark said.
In the Army, Newman was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a platoon leader in Iraq and a company commander in Afghanistan, both during times of combat. Not many people receive that type of leadership during their time in the service, Newman added.
“It shaped me,” he said.
“Being that soldier and having done your leadership time in an austere condition, and not in good neighborhoods, you learn a lot and take those lessons with you.”
The fire service was something that crossed Newman’s mind but started taking shape once he moved to New Hampshire with his family.
“I wanted to do something for my community,” he said. “I was looking for a career that gave me the same purpose that I had in the military.”
Newman’s knowledge of New Hampshire fire departments was appealing to the Board of Selectmen, Roark said.
There’s a unique culture in New Hampshire with a community feeling from surrounding mutual aid partners, the new chief explained.
He said this area is also about that “Yankee ingenuity” tied to history but looking forward at the same time with departments and other chiefs working together to best serve each other.
“It’s no secret we rely on each other,” Newman said. “New Hampshire is different than a lot of the country.”
Since he has only worked with one other department, Newman said he had to get out of his comfort zone and trust his gut to not pass on the opportunity to apply for the position.
Newman knew some members of Pelham Fire through training classes. He said he was attracted to how the department served the community and how its values aligned with his own.
Above all else, the firefighters with the department sold him on the possible job.
While he’s only been on the job for a few days, Newman said his goals in the short term are to support the department’s high standards of serving the community in what has been laid out by his predecessors.
“It’s about figuring out where I fit in that piece of the pie,” Newman said.
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By Angelina Berube | aberube@eagletribune.com
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Nearly 20 years ago, a sheriff’s deputy was killed in the line of duty in Marion County, Ohio. This week, that deputy’s son joined the same force his father served in as its newest member. At the swearing-in ceremony Monday, no one was as speechless as Sarah Winfield.“You look so much like your father right now, spitting image,” she told her son, Landon. Landon’s father, Brandy Winfield, was shot and killed in the line of duty 20 years ago. WBNS reports he stopped to help a man whose car was broken down before being gunned down by that man in his police cruiser. At the time, Landon was just three years old. He remembers the response from law enforcement from across the state, many coming to his dad’s funeral. Ever since, he says he’s dreamed of wearing the same uniform as his father. “I kind of took that as my calling,” Landon told WBNS. “I want to carry my family’s name which I’m doing right now and it’s one of the proudest moments of my life. I think he would be pretty damn proud me of choosing Marion County to start out.”After becoming a widow and single mom to two boys at just 27, Sarah said she tried to convince her son to be a firefighter, but Landon could not be swayed. “He doesn’t want to do anything else,” she told the outlet. “And what do I say to a kid that’s his dream?”Landon maintains that it’s not how his father died, but how he lived his life that he will always remember. “I don’t think there is any better place for Landon to be than with the people who loved his dad, and will look out for him,” Sarah said. Brandy Winfield’s killer is serving a sentence of 40 years to life behind bars.
Nearly 20 years ago, a sheriff’s deputy was killed in the line of duty in Marion County, Ohio. This week, that deputy’s son joined the same force his father served in as its newest member.
At the swearing-in ceremony Monday, no one was as speechless as Sarah Winfield.
“You look so much like your father right now, spitting image,” she told her son, Landon.
Landon’s father, Brandy Winfield, was shot and killed in the line of duty 20 years ago. WBNS reports he stopped to help a man whose car was broken down before being gunned down by that man in his police cruiser.
At the time, Landon was just three years old. He remembers the response from law enforcement from across the state, many coming to his dad’s funeral. Ever since, he says he’s dreamed of wearing the same uniform as his father.
“I kind of took that as my calling,” Landon told WBNS. “I want to carry my family’s name which I’m doing right now and it’s one of the proudest moments of my life. I think he would be pretty damn proud me of choosing Marion County to start out.”
After becoming a widow and single mom to two boys at just 27, Sarah said she tried to convince her son to be a firefighter, but Landon could not be swayed.
“He doesn’t want to do anything else,” she told the outlet. “And what do I say to a kid that’s his dream?”
Landon maintains that it’s not how his father died, but how he lived his life that he will always remember.
“I don’t think there is any better place for Landon to be than with the people who loved his dad, and will look out for him,” Sarah said.
Brandy Winfield’s killer is serving a sentence of 40 years to life behind bars.
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A 98-year-old Pennsylvania man had a dream come true.World War II veteran and former commercial pilot John Wolfe of York County, Pennsylvania, was back in the cockpit Friday morning.The flight was made possible by an AARP program called Wish of a Lifetime. Wolfe’s wish was to fly over his hometown.”I knew my time was running out, and it had to be done,” he said.The AARP program recognizes seniors who have volunteered in their communities. Country Meadows Retirement Village, where Wolfe lives, reached out to the organization. Wolfe sat in the copilot’s seat during the hour-long flight from York Airport.The pilot even handed him the controls.”He let me fly it. That was my thrill. I had the controls,” he said.Following the flight, there was a celebration with cake. But Wolfe said it will be tough to top his return to the sky.
A 98-year-old Pennsylvania man had a dream come true.
World War II veteran and former commercial pilot John Wolfe of York County, Pennsylvania, was back in the cockpit Friday morning.
The flight was made possible by an AARP program called Wish of a Lifetime. Wolfe’s wish was to fly over his hometown.
“I knew my time was running out, and it had to be done,” he said.
The AARP program recognizes seniors who have volunteered in their communities. Country Meadows Retirement Village, where Wolfe lives, reached out to the organization.
Wolfe sat in the copilot’s seat during the hour-long flight from York Airport.
The pilot even handed him the controls.
“He let me fly it. That was my thrill. I had the controls,” he said.
Following the flight, there was a celebration with cake. But Wolfe said it will be tough to top his return to the sky.
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Photo: Hutton Supancic/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty Images
SXSW is ending its partnerships with the U.S. Army and defense contractors after pro-Palestine protests this year. “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model,” the festival said after opening applications for 2025. “As a result, the U.S. Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.” More than 60 artists and participants boycotted this year’s festival over SXSW’s ties to defense groups that supply Israeli weapons in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The U.S. Army was a “super-sponsor” of the 2024 festival, and Collins Aerospace, a company under defense conglomerate RTX Corporation (f.k.a. Raytheon), also participated. “A music festival should not include war profiteers,” said Squirrel Flower, one of the first artists to boycott. “I refuse to be complicit in this and withdraw my art and labor in protest.”
SXSW previously defended its military ties amid this year’s controversy. The festival called the defense industry “a proving ground” for new technology and said working with the Army “is part of our commitment to bring forward ideas that shape our world.” The Army said it was “proud” to sponsor SXSW, which it called “a unique opportunity.”
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Justin Curto
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President Joe Biden pardoned potentially thousands of former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex, saying Wednesday that he is “righting an historic wrong” to clear the way for them to regain lost benefits.Biden’s action grants a pardon to service members who were convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s former Article 125, which criminalized sodomy. The law, which has been on the books since 1951, was rewritten in 2013 to prohibit only forcible acts.Those covered by the pardon will be able to apply to receive proof that their conviction has been erased, petition to have their discharges from the military upgraded and move to recover lost pay and benefits.“Today, I am righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves,” Biden said in a statement. “We have a sacred obligation to all of our service members –- including our brave LGBTQI+ service members: to properly prepare and equip them when they are sent into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families when they return home. Today we are making progress in that pursuit.”The president’s use of his pardon powers is occurring during Pride Month and his action comes just days before he is set to hold a high-profile fundraiser with LGBTQ donors in New York on Friday. Biden is trying to rally support within the Democratic-leaning community ahead of the presidential election.Administration officials declined to say why Biden did not act on the pardons sooner.This is the third categorial pardon by Biden — using his clemency powers to cover a broad group of people convicted of particular crimes — after moves in 2022 and 2023 to pardon those convicted federally for possessing marijuana.The White House estimates that several thousand service members will be covered — the majority convicted before the military instituted the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 1993 that eased the way for LGBTQ troops to serve if they didn’t disclose their sexual orientation. That policy was repealed in 2011, when Congress allowed for their open service in the military.Service members convicted of nonconsensual acts are not covered by Biden’s pardon action. And those convicted under other articles of the military justice code, which may have been used as pretext to punish or force-out LGBTQ troops, would need to request clemency through the normal Department of Justice pardon process.Biden had previously ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to move to provide benefits to service members who were other than honorably discharged because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status.
President Joe Biden pardoned potentially thousands of former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex, saying Wednesday that he is “righting an historic wrong” to clear the way for them to regain lost benefits.
Biden’s action grants a pardon to service members who were convicted under the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s former Article 125, which criminalized sodomy. The law, which has been on the books since 1951, was rewritten in 2013 to prohibit only forcible acts.
Those covered by the pardon will be able to apply to receive proof that their conviction has been erased, petition to have their discharges from the military upgraded and move to recover lost pay and benefits.
“Today, I am righting an historic wrong by using my clemency authority to pardon many former service members who were convicted simply for being themselves,” Biden said in a statement. “We have a sacred obligation to all of our service members –- including our brave LGBTQI+ service members: to properly prepare and equip them when they are sent into harm’s way, and to care for them and their families when they return home. Today we are making progress in that pursuit.”
The president’s use of his pardon powers is occurring during Pride Month and his action comes just days before he is set to hold a high-profile fundraiser with LGBTQ donors in New York on Friday. Biden is trying to rally support within the Democratic-leaning community ahead of the presidential election.
Administration officials declined to say why Biden did not act on the pardons sooner.
This is the third categorial pardon by Biden — using his clemency powers to cover a broad group of people convicted of particular crimes — after moves in 2022 and 2023 to pardon those convicted federally for possessing marijuana.
The White House estimates that several thousand service members will be covered — the majority convicted before the military instituted the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 1993 that eased the way for LGBTQ troops to serve if they didn’t disclose their sexual orientation. That policy was repealed in 2011, when Congress allowed for their open service in the military.
Service members convicted of nonconsensual acts are not covered by Biden’s pardon action. And those convicted under other articles of the military justice code, which may have been used as pretext to punish or force-out LGBTQ troops, would need to request clemency through the normal Department of Justice pardon process.
Biden had previously ordered the Department of Veterans Affairs to move to provide benefits to service members who were other than honorably discharged because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status.
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