Matthew L. Schehl, Author at Marine Corps Times

New rules block benefits for some Reserve deployments

Matthew L. Schehl — Sat, 07 Jan 2017 14:29:31 +0000

Thousands of reservists who deployed over the past two years, thinking they were entitled to the benefits that mobilized and deployed reservists have typically received for years, have been bitterly disappointed upon their return.

A little-known provision slipped into the 2012 Defense Authorization Act, which took effect in 2014, denies some members of the National Guard and Reserve the benefits to which they had become accustomed and on which they had relied.

The authority contained in Title 10 of the U.S. Code, Section 12304b, Mobilization for Preplanned Mission Support, allows the Defense Department to deny them Post 9/11 GI Bill credit, reduced age for retirement, Federal Civilian Differential Pay, Voluntary Separation Pay recoup protection, pre- and post-mobilization health care, and more.

In many cases, no one told the reservists before their deployments of the changed situation. Moreover, use of the authority — one of several the services can use to call reservists to active duty — has been inconsistent, some would say inscrutable. And although the authority applies only to involuntary mobilizations, in many cases the majority of reservists on the deployments have, in fact, volunteered to go.

Word of the changes has been slow to filter through the ranks. And higher-ups apparently haven’t been eager to tell them. Hundreds of Marine reservists sent to Honduras in 2016 only discovered the change after their six-month deployment.

“All of them were baffled. For some of them, it was their first deployment, so they were incentivized by education benefits,” said Gunnery Sgt. Doug Webb, who deployed with the command element of Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Southern Command. Then they’re told — no s–t, last minute, right before Thanksgiving — ‘By the way, you don’t rate.’ ”

Leaders like Webb are left holding the bag. With 12 years of active-duty service prior to the Reserve, the change doesn’t affect him directly, but it affects his junior Marines, and that matters deeply.

“We live by all those leadership principles, and the top principle is to keep your Marines informed. When you’re not informing your senior staff NCOs on how to mentor and guide their Marines, you’ve failed, bottom line. That’s exactly what happened,” he said.

New deployment authority

Section 12304b allows for the involuntary activation of up to 60,000 troops for up to a year to support preplanned operations of a combatant command. It was supposed to streamline the Pentagon’s ability to augment active-duty forces and meet global commitments.

To its credit, the Air Force Personnel Center warned airmen of the changes in a March 2016 news release.

‘The Air Force has not uniformly utilized this mobilization authority,” said Lt. Col. Greg Bules, Reserve Policy and Integration Legislative Initiatives program manager, in the release. “It’s important that all citizen airmen realize what benefits they are, and are not, entitled to with the changes.

“As we move forward in a resource-constrained environment … military planners expect to see growth in the use of 12304b,” Bules warned.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense declined to say how often the code has been invoked, but Stars and Stripes reported that 4,705 reservists have been mobilized under the authority since 2014. That includes 2,925 Army National Guard soldiers, said Patricia Kirby, a National Guard Bureau spokeswoman.

‘Absolutely furious’

The Marines and sailors’ mission in Central America was planned years in advance. Over the six-month deployment, they mentored and trained military partners in the region, built new classrooms, improved a hospital and renovated a water tower.

Approximately 200 of the 294 members of the task force were reservists, according to Maj. Armando Daviu, spokesman for Marine Forces South.

All expected to earn benefits for their stint on active duty.

“For us, it was a pretty big surprise. A lot of people didn’t realize it was an issue,” said Marine Sgt. Will Hubbard, one of the reservists who deployed with Webb and was directly affected.

Before 12304b came into effect, a reserve deployment was an opportunity for reservists to ramp up the percentage the Department of Veterans Affairs would provide for tuition assistance, housing and other costs of higher education. The longer deployment time, the higher the percentage.

“A few of my guys had education plans for when they got back,” Webb said. “They were informed initially when we were first mobilized that this would aid in getting their percentages raised. They were absolutely furious about this.”

This anger was exacerbated by the fact that so many of the Marines had volunteered for the deployment, only to realize later that their orders clearly stated “involuntary.”

The involuntary aspect ensures that enough bodies are present and accounted for when and where they’re needed.

Moving forward

As a civilian, Hubbard is vice president of government affairs for the Student Veterans of America, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that helps veterans navigate academia and lobbies on their behalf. He believes momentum is building on Capitol Hill to at least get benefits restored for service members on future deployments, perhaps retroactively. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., introduced legislation last year to do just that, but it stalled in committee.

“I’m confident we’re going to come up with some kind of language that will correct this moving forward,” Hubbard said. “The fact that [so many service members] are being left behind is extremely concerning.”

Parris Island hazing scandal trials to begin in March

Matthew L. Schehl — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 19:22:19 +0000

QUANTICO, Va. — Courts-martial for three Marine drill instructors from Parris Island convened Friday and trials for allegations of misconduct linked to the ongoing hazing and abuse scandal will begin in March.

The three Marines were arraigned Friday morning in quick succession during a hearing at Marine Corps Base Quantico. All three declined to enter pleas of ‘guilty’ or ‘not-guilty.’

Staff Sgt. Matthew T. Bacchus is charged with maltreatment, violation of a lawful order and making a false official statement.

Staff Sgt. Jose Lucena-Martinez is charged with failure to obey a lawful general order and making a false official statement;

Sgt. Riley R. Gress is charged with maltreatment, failure to obey a lawful order and making a false official statement.

If convicted, the three Marines each could face a maximum punishment of confinement up to one year in the brig, forfeiture of up to two-thirds pay for 12 months, a bad conduct discharge and reduction in rank to E-1.

Three separate dates were set for back-to-back trials, which will run from March 31 to April 25, 2017.

The three Marines are still on administrative duty at Parris Island, but are not working in any supervisory capacity, said Capt. Joshua Pena, a spokesman for Training and Education Command.

The arraignments come a day after an Article 32 hearing in which their senior drill instructor, Staff Sgt. Antonio Burke, was accused of cruelty and maltreatment, failure to obey a lawful general order and making a false official statement.

The Article 32 hearing will help his commander determine whether Burke should face a general court-martial, which allows for punishments in excess of one-year confinement.

At the day-long hearing — the military’s equivalent of a civilian court’s grand jury proceeding — four recruits testified that Burke had ordered them to conduct “illegal” physical training in a derelict building as punishment; commandeered one recruit’s Facebook account and mobile phone to harass the recruit’s sister; had the recruits do his homework; and asked the recruits to cover for him when he failed to provide medical care to a recruit who repeatedly passed out and later was diagnosed with a heart condition and medically discharged.

The charges are the result of a command investigation into abuse and mistreatment of recruits at the East Coast training depot, prompted by national outrage after three major incidents rocked the Marine Corps in 2016 alone.

On March 18, Raheel Siddiqui, a Muslim Marine recruit, jumped 40 feet down a stairwell to his death after he was hazed and struck by his drill instructor.

Following Siddiqui’s death, the Corps launched two investigations into drill instructor misconduct at Parris Island. A third investigation into hazing allegations in 2015 was ongoing at the time of Siddiqui’s death, but ultimately folded into the other two.

Burke’s Article 32 hearing and the arraignments of his three subordinates are not connected with Siddiqui’s death.

New in 2017: 3-D printing to keep the force rolling ahead

Matthew L. Schehl — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 17:00:00 +0000

Little bits of plastic are hardly the first thing to come to mind when thinking about the future of warfare, but 3-D printing may soon revolutionize the way deployed Marines do business.

The printers are relatively cheap, easy to transport and can quickly produce predesigned plastic parts. They will soon help deployed units to avoid the traditionally cumbersome logistics chain.

Waiting hours rather than months to get a new part can be a gigantic boon for an expeditionary force, augmenting a unit’s ability to keep rolling without having to pause for necessary replacement parts.

Seeing the potential, Commandant Gen. Robert Neller put out a call to action in September for Marines to explore new ways to use the technology, also known as “additive manufacturing,” to design and fabricate parts on the spot.

“The uses and limits of [additive manufacturing] have only just begun to be discovered – the AM technology domain continues to grow at an accelerated pace and in unpredictable ways,” according to Marine administrative message 489/16.

In October, Marine Wing Support Squadron 372 became the first unit to successfully create a replacement part – a Humvee door handle – under austere field conditions during a training event aboard Marine Corps Air Station Yuma.

The future of 3-D printing is not limited to replacement parts, however. It can also ‘print’ prosthetics, electronic components, large-scale decoys, unmanned aerial vehicles, and expeditionary shelters.

New in 2017: Marines look to robots

Matthew L. Schehl — Wed, 28 Dec 2016 17:00:00 +0000

Marines can expect the Corps to move toward robots doing more of the heavy lifting – and thinking – over 2017.

Weapons-toting robots, driverless vehicles, self-unloading resupply aircraft and automated moving targets will soon sharpen the way Marines take on future battlefields by air, land and sea.

Marines have been using automated systems for some time. Remote-control robots, such as the Foster-Miller TALON, revolutionized the fight against improvised explosive ordnance at the height of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Autonomous machines, in contrast, don’t require a constant human operator, Col. James Jenkins, director of science and technology at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, told a panel discussing the issue in May at the Sea-Air-Space expo outside Washington, D.C.

“When bullets start flying, the Marine either becomes so absorbed in operating the robot that he loses sight of what’s happening around him, or he drops the controller and becomes a rifleman,” he said.

“[Autonomous systems] will interface with a human just like a subordinate fire team leader who goes back to their squad leader when they have something to report or need new orders.”

3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, designated by Commandant Gen. Robert Neller as the Corps’ experimental force in August, has been working on wargaming some of these new technologies in the field ahead of their 2017 deployment as the ground combat element for the Okinawa-based 31st MEU.

Among these is General Dynamics’ Multipurpose Unmanned Tactical Transport – or MUTT – a four-wheel or tracked all-terrain vehicle that can move up to a 600-pound payload across the battlespace in every clime and place at a breakneck dash speed of eight miles per hour.

The kicker, though: The MUTT can also be mounted with a M240 machine gun and 500 rounds, with a 360 degree firing arc.

For lighter, swifter movement, Malloy Aeronautics is teaming with the Defense Department to develop a robotic version of its Hoverbike, a turbo-fan powered quadcopter not unlike the speeder bikes of the Star Wars universe.

Inexpensive to produce and field, the Hoverbike – termed the Joint Tactical Aerial Resupply Vehicle by the military – can automatically zip over 250 pounds at speeds of over 60 miles per hour to swiftly deliver humanitarian aid, resupply or medevac a casualty.

The Marine Corps joined the Army program in June to develop a version with a payload capacity of 800 pounds and a range of 125 miles.

2,500 Marines, sailors home for the holidays after fighting ISIS in Libya

Matthew L. Schehl — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 22:37:49 +0000

The 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit took on the Islamic State and made it home for the holidays.

More than 2,500 Marines and sailors returned last week to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, concluding an eventful six-month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea and Gulf of Aden aboard the Amphibious Ready Group Wasp.

Since August, the MEU’s V-8B Harriers and AH-1W Super Cobras from the Wasp and San Antonio pounded ISIS in Libya to support ground troops with the United Nations-backed Libyan Government of National Accord.

Known as Operation Odyssey Lightning, the campaign culminated in ISIS’ defeat in the country earlier this month when Sirte, the extremist group’s last remaining stronghold, fell to the GNA.

In all, 495 U.S. airstrikes hit ISIS in Sirte.

The Marines also conducted amphibious operations in the Black Sea in July as part of Exercise Sea Breeze.

Co-hosted by the U.S. and Ukraine, it was the 15th iteration of the multinational training event designed to beef up the militaries’ ability to work together by air, land and sea.

Also in July, approximately 350 Marines went ashore in Israel to conduct live-fire, urban operations and counter-terrorism training with the Israeli Defense Forces as part of Exercise Noble Shirley.

The 22nd MEU also worked side-by-side with the Omani Royal Police to hone evacuation of non-combatants.

New in 2017: Marines likely to expand cyber warfare units

Matthew L. Schehl — Tue, 27 Dec 2016 17:00:00 +0000

The size of the Marine Corps may grow in the coming years by as much as 12,000 Marines, as President-elect Donald Trump has called for, but that won’t necessarily translate to more grunts.

Instead, the Corps’ cyber warrior force and other high-tech fields may expand rapidly as the force prepares for future battlefields where information dominance will be as critical – if not more so – than spent rounds.

“We believe – not just me – but I think all the leadership believes that the capabilities that we’re trying to build into the force are the things that we’re really going to need for the future,” Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said in early December.

“If you don’t have those things, whatever formation you put on the battlefield is not going to be as survivable or combat effective without them,” Neller said while speaking at a U.S. Naval Institute event in Washington, D.C.

Neller emphasized the need to build such capabilities into an expanded future force, specifically cyber, information operations, electronic warfare, intelligence analysis, air defense and communications.

“Before we start growing more infantry or armor and things like that, the battlefield has changed,” he said.

Last March, the Corps’ new Cyberspace Warfare Group was stood up at Fort Meade, Maryland, to train and equip Marines to take the fight to cyberspace.

Yet there’s a shortage of qualified cyber warriors. Only a few mission teams are up and running, officials said. The unit is expected to be fully operational by the end of fiscal year 2017.

They’re not just protecting communications networks from hackers and disruptive attacks.

“It’s also trying to get inside the enemy’s cognitive space in a way to have him make choices that you want him to make, when you want him to make it,” Maj. Gen. Lori Reynolds, commander of Marine Forces Cyber Command, told a panel discussion last May at the Sea-Air-Space expo outside Washington, D.C.

“What we’re talking about is bringing it all together in a way that provides the commander options to dominate the information environment and to get after the enemy’s thought processes.”

New in 2017: Nano-drones for grunts

Matthew L. Schehl — Mon, 26 Dec 2016 17:00:00 +0000

Some Marine Corps squad leaders will be getting hand-held nano-drones in 2017, small devices that will offer once-unfathomable level of visibility over the battlefield.

The Marine Corps is on track to field sets of miniaturized quadcopters, small unmanned aircraft systems designed for infantry units across the force, according to Marine Corps Combat Development Command officials.

“The intent is for these systems to be in the hands of squad and platoon leaders for the ‘over the hill, around the corner’ type observation,” said Lt. Col. Noah Spataro, the unmanned aerial systems capabilities integration and requirements officer with MCCDC.

Each kit will include of a mix of two medium-sized drones, eight nano-sized devices, four micro-sized aircraft and eight commercial, off-the-shelf drones, he said.

Four Marine Expeditionary Units, four infantry battalions and one training unit will receive the packages by the end of 2017, with another three MEUs and a second training unit on tap for 2018.

In total, the Marine Corps will field 286 systems.

The tiny drones will be distributed down to the squad level, giving each its own intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability rather than having to coordinate with a headquarters unit to access larger ISR systems.

On the battlefield, this can be an enormous boon: the ability to immediately peer over hilltops or concrete walls, around corners, through open doors or get an up-close-and-personal view of a parked vehicle that may be rigged with improvised explosives.

For example, a set of Prox Dynamics’ PD-100 Black Hornet – one of the drones the Corps is considering buying – has two small drones, weighs 2.8 pounds and can be worn on troops’ chests.

Each of the GPS-guided little birds can spend 20 to 25 minutes on station, providing day and night visual imagery up to a one-mile distance; while it flies, its counterpart can recharge to 90 percent over the same time frame.

“It provides live-stream video and still pictures in high-definition quality back to the operator,” Prox Dynamics’ general manager Arne Skjaerpe told Marine Corps Times.

“It was designed and developed to give the dismounted squad and the single operator their own ISR capability so that if something happens, if they have a need, they don’t have to ask higher authorities; they have their own indigenous capability,” he said.

Other types of drones the Corps is considering buying – including Datron/Aeryon’s SkyRanger, PSI’s InstantEye, and DJI Phantoms – are similar to the Black Hornet, Spataro said.

The push to get the tiny eyes in the sky down to the ground level of the Corps comes from Commandant Gen. Robert Neller himself, who made it a key part of the Corps’ modernization strategy after becoming Commandant.

“At the end of next year, my goal is every deployed Marine infantry squad has got their own quadcopter,” Neller said at the Marine Corps League’s annual Modern Day Marine expo in September.

The Corps’ Combat Development and Integration office issued an urgent universal need statement to fast-track the acquisition process.

Over the summer, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines tested out several small drones at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s Marine Air Ground Task Force Integrated Experiment 2016, a rigorous training event at the Air-Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms.

New in 2017: Marines seek to push hi-tech capabilities to squad level

Matthew L. Schehl — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 17:00:00 +0000

The Marine Corps is heading into 2017 with some anxiety about its readiness and capability.

In September, the Corps rolled out a major update to its warfighting strategy, the Expeditionary Force 21 operating concept, and Marines can expect to see a renewed focus this year on technology and small units operating independently over large areas.

“The Marine Corps is not organized, trained and equipped to meet the demands of a future operating environment characterized by complex terrain, technology proliferation, information warfare, the need to shield and exploit signatures, and an increasingly non-permissive maritime domain,” the report concluded.

To address those concerns, Marines need to get back to the basics: At its heart, the Corps remains an expeditionary maritime force.

Marines will be forward-deployed at new expeditionary bases in places like Africa, Australia and Norway, where they’ll be prepared to strike from the sea or provide immediate humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Small squads and landing teams will be reinforced with their own cyber warfare capabilities as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tools. Those assets historically were available only at the battalion and regimental levels.

They’ll be distributed over wide geographic areas, such as Africa, where already small teams with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force–Crisis Response–Africa are deploying to train local military forces in places like Senegal, Uganda, Liberia, Djibouti and South Sudan.

Greater emphasis will be placed on training, education and leadership development of high-quality personnel.

“Our people have always been the Marine Corps center of gravity and the key to our success as warfighters,” Commandant Gen. Robert Neller stated in the report’s preface.

“Their ability to think critically, innovate smartly and adapt to complex environments and adaptive enemies has always been the key factor we rely on to win in any clime and place.”

Parris Island DI jailed in online child porn sting

Matthew L. Schehl — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 21:11:54 +0000

A drill instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island has been arrested for internet crimes against children in Texas as part of a months-long sting operation.

Sgt. Keith Knight, assigned to the Recruit Training Regiment, was arrested by federal agents and charged on two second-degree felony counts of the promotion of child pornography, the Houston Chronicle reported.

“The Marine is currently in the hands of civilian authorities,” Parris Island spokesman Staff Sgt. Greg Thomas told Marine Corps Times.

“He was taken into custody after local city officials searched his room on Nov. 17, and then extradited from Beaufort County [South Carolina] to Texas,” he said.

Knight was incarcerated in the Montgomery County, Texas jail Dec. 9, according to the Beaufort Gazette.

Knight allegedly sent multiple photos and a video of young children performing sexual acts to what he thought was a 28-year-old woman via instant messaging over several days in November, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Court records also show that, while chatting with her, he allegedly expressed interest in travelling to Texas to watch her “perform sexual acts with a 5-year-old girl,” according to the Houston Chronicle.

The woman, however, was a Montgomery County Precinct 1 Constable’s Office undercover investigator.

The county had teamed up with the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and Homeland Security Investigations to conduct an online sting – named “Operation Safe Holiday – from October through December.

The cyber-detective work also nabbed 35 other individuals, with charges ranging from online solicitation of a minor to attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child.

If convicted, Knight faces up to 40 years in prison.

IG report: U.S. support to Kurds could be better

Matthew L. Schehl — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 21:11:02 +0000

Pentagon efforts to train and arm Kurdish fighters in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State in Iraq have been helpful, but more needs to be done, according to a new assessment from the Defense Department’s inspector general.

The IG report released last week found serious problems in the distribution and sustainment of American gear and the lack of formal training in the region, based on extensive field research conducted between October 2015 and December 2016.

The Kurdish fighters — known as peshmerga — proved stalwart defenders of Iraqi territory as ISIS blitzed through the country in the summer of 2014, when other Iraqi security forces buckled and disintegrated.

Since the U.S. engaged in the fight with the stand-up of Operation Inherent Resolve in October 2014, the peshmerga have been a critical ally in slowly rolling back the terrorist group with the support of U.S. airstrikes.

While the report validated U.S. efforts to build peshmerga capacity thus far, they have fallen short in several key missions.

One issue the IG noted was the failure to deliver U.S. equipment purchased for the Kurdish Security Forces.

The $1.6 billion Iraq Train and Equip Fund established in late 2014 allowed the purchase of enough equipment to arm 4,000 peshmerga, or two light infantry brigades, including personal protective equipment, weaponry, vehicles and communications gear.

“At the time of our fieldwork, the U.S. had not delivered the majority of the brigade set equipment to the KSF,” the study found.

Equipment donated from coalition forces, however, fared much better.

Central Command is responsible for both publishing Kurdish gear requests and, once equipment is donated from other nations, running the distribution pipeline from Baghdad to Kurdistan to peshmerga commanders in the field.

“Our observations while conducting fieldwork confirmed the availability of Coalition-donated equipment that enhanced peshmerga capabilities during their operations against [ISIS],” the researchers found.

But CENTCOM lacks visibility on this distribution and a plan to sustain the equipment.

Not having a streamlined process means an increased risk both of duplicate deliveries and a loss of accountability, according to the study.

“Additionally, not knowing delivery dates of equipment hampered the ability of logistics advisors to provide guidance to enable the Ministry of Peshmerga to adequately plan for deliveries and subsequent distribution,” the report states.

Direct U.S. military training and advising of Iraqi security forces has been a key pillar of the U.S. strategy to fight ISIS.

The emphasis was put on bolstering the rest of the Iraqi military, though, and training the Kurds was primarily left to other coalition forces.

In January 2015, the Kurdish Training Coordination Center was established in Erbil and staffed by eight European militaries.

Four training sites were set up throughout Kurdistan, and peshmerga began running through 23-day training courses covering weapons training, small-unit maneuvers and staff training.

The KTCC doesn’t fall under U.S. command, but American liaison and special forces took the initiative to provide critical training on an informal basis.

Drawing on long-established relationships with Kurdish leadership, they’ve also taken on advising and assisting the peshmerga through offensive operations, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications and explosive ordnance disposal.

But it is unclear how sustainable the informal mission is, and the IG urged Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve to “formalize and continue the current advise and assist missions being conducted in training development, logistics and resource management.”

What is clear is that the peshmerga has become a professional force to be reckoned with.

Since absorbing the initial shock of the ISIS invasion, they’ve steadily rolled back the terrorist group, most notably the liberation of Mount Sinjar in November 2015 to sever ISIS supply lines to and from Mosul.

Now Iraqi forces are engaged to liberate that city after two years of draconian ISIS occupation, and the peshmerga have an active role.

“With U.S. and Coalition-tailored train, advise, and assist efforts, and equipping support, the KSF has demonstrated the capacity to defend Iraqi Kurdistan against [ISIS] incursions, and to liberate key territory and towns important to counter-[ISIS] operations,” the IG report concludes.