U.S. Responds To Missile Attacks, Targets 3 Radar Sites On Yemen’s Coast

Karen Parrish at the DoD News offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13, 2016 — The United States yesterday conducted sea-launched cruise missile strikes against three radar sites on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters in a news briefing today.

“These strikes were in response to attempted missile attacks in recent days against USS Mason and other vessels in the Red Sea and Bab el Mandeb,” Cook said.

Cook said the U.S. strikes were launched from the USS Nitze, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer operating in the Gulf of Aden.

Defending Freedom of Navigation

“These targets were chosen based on our assessment that they were involved in missile launches in recent days, and they were struck in order to defend our ships and their crews and to protect freedom of navigation through a waterway that is vitally important to international commerce,” Cook said.

The press secretary emphasized two points: the strikes were in response to a threat to U.S. vessels and to freedom of navigation, a core U.S. security interest. Secondly, “that those who might threaten U.S. forces should recognize that we will not tolerate threats to our people.”

The strikes were not connected to the broader conflict in Yemen, Cook said, adding, “The United States continues to encourage all parties in the Yemen conflict to commit to a cessation of hostilities and to seek a political solution to that conflict.”

More than four million barrels of oil pass through the Bab el Mandeb each day, he noted.

“This narrow passage is a vital link connecting Asia and Europe,” Cook said. “Safe navigation through the strait is vitally important to economies in the region and to global commerce.”

Those who threaten American forces should realize the United States doesn’t “tolerate threats to our people,” Cook said.

“We will respond if our forces come under fire,” the press secretary said. “We have taken swift action in this case, and should we see a repeat, we are prepared to take appropriate action at the appropriate time.” 

Note: In the above U.S. Navy photo Petty Officer 3rd Class Marcus Seaverns, from Norristown, Pa., scans for surface contacts on the port bridge wing of the guided missile destroyer USS Mason during an anti-submarine formation exercise with the guided missile destroyer USS Nitze, and Australian ships RFA Fort Victoria -- an auxiliary oiler replenishment ship -- and the frigate HMAS Perth on Aug. 28, 2016. Mason, deployed as part of the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, is supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations. The Navy photo was taken by Petty Officer 3rd Class Janweb B. Lagazo. 

Navy Photographer Looks Back on 9/11 Memories

Karen Parrish at the DoD News offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2016 — In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, one 30-year-old combat camera sailor took a photograph that leapt out of news coverage to deliver a needed jolt of hope: A huge American flag draped down the side of the damaged Pentagon. 

That sailor, Michael Pendergrass, is now 45 and retired from the Navy, but he recently revisited the Pentagon to discuss his experiences there with DoD News.

From Pancakes to Disaster

The day of the terrorist attacks that struck the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Pendergrass was at a command-sponsored pancake breakfast with his combat camera unit in Norfolk, Virginia.

“I was eating some pancakes with a couple buddies of mine when somebody mentioned that, ‘Hey, turn on the news, something happened in New York,’” Pendergrass said. “And we turned on the news and they were talking about a plane had struck the twin towers.”

Those present gathered around the television to watch, and when the second plane hit, Pendergrass said, “I remember looking at my friend and saying, ‘That’s terrorism.’ I said, ‘That’s not an accident.’” 

A little over a half hour after the second strike on the World Trade Center, a third plane struck the Pentagon.

Following the strikes, Pendergrass was part of a seven-person team of photographers and videographers who headed to the Pentagon.

“It was a little bit of chaos when we got there,” he said.

Pendergrass said a key lesson in both the military and combat camera is to adapt to situations.

“It’s ever-changing, so you know that the core thing you’re down there to do is to assist, in any way possible -- to document what’s going on, because your images might help in either the investigation [or] it might help answer questions to the public of what just happened,” he said. “So I shot reactions of people, I shot people that were assisting on the ground, I shot damage.”

When he got to the Pentagon, he said, “They were still trying to figure out what was going on, [the building] was still on fire. We just documented what we saw that first day, came back with the imagery and made a game plan for the next day.”

Capturing a Moment

One day didn’t go according to plan. When President George W. Bush toured the Pentagon and delivered remarks, Pendergrass found himself at the wrong place.

“I had heard what area his motorcade was supposed to come in on, and set myself up to be in position for when he came in,” Pendergrass said. “At the last minute I received word that his motorcade had changed and come in the opposite side of the compound, so I was in completely the wrong position.”

Security locked down the compound once Bush arrived, Pendergrass said, so he couldn’t make his way to where the president was speaking.

“He came in, he started speaking, and I’m standing there with my camera thinking, ‘They’re going to kill me.’”

It was then he noticed some commotion at the top of the building, Pendergrass said.

“So I picked up my camera and I shot a picture, and then I changed lenses and got in closer on it, and it was a flag. It was a huge flag,” he said. “It was going across the top and I kind of shot the progression, and then they came out to the front and then music played across the whole compound and they dropped down the flag and I shot as it was unfurling.”

Pendergrass returned to work and brought his imagery in later that day. He said his boss, Christopher Madden, took one look at the final flag photo and told him, “Get a caption on that, right now.”

The photo shows the flag just reaching its full length down the scorched side of the Pentagon. Lined up on the building’s roof, a group of firefighters and a sprinkling of people in uniforms stand above the flag, saluting.

A Historic Photo

Days went by after the photo’s release, and it kept appearing in 9/11 coverage. Pendergrass said a naval historian told him he had “captured a moment of how a nation was feeling. That we were hurting, and we were looking for something to rally us, let us know there was hope. And that photo did it.” 

As he continued work at the Pentagon in the days and weeks after 9/11, Pendergrass said he felt that “the whole nation rallied together and was determined to bounce back from this, that this wasn’t going to beat us, and it unified us.”

Meanwhile his flag photo kept showing up -- and still shows up in some surprising places, he said.

“I’ve seen it in a lot of different places,” Pendergrass said. “Every once in a while it will pop up in a new place. … I saw it in the Pentagon, I saw it on websites. … Just a few months ago I saw it at the Marine Corps museum at Quantico. I was going through with my wife and it was right there at the end.”

Leaving a Mark

“I’m just proud to know that I left a little mark that will live longer than my time here,” he said. “I would hope that every photographer gets the chance to shoot a shot like that -- not that situation, but to have taken and captured a moment that will go longer than their time.”

Pendergrass said as a proud American, he is happy to have “done something that helped us heal from such a horrible situation. In all the pain and suffering that was going on in the nation, there was this shot that kind of helped us bounce back.”

When he took the 9/11 photo he was a petty officer first class, Pendergrass (seen in the below photo) said, and he retired from the Navy as a chief petty officer in 2010. He now works for the Justice Department.

“[The memorial is] an amazing tribute to the tragedy that happened here,” he said. “A lot of thought and respect went into designing it. It’s very, very different from what it looked like when I got here [on 9/11.]”

Pendergrass said his experience at the Pentagon led him to do more forensic photography.

“Not everybody can function in that [crisis environment] and it’s something that I’ve found that I could do,” he said. “And it’s necessary to have people like that, I think, to document and try to capture the scenes, to try to make sense of the madness.” 

Information From Captured ISIL Leader Enables Counter-Chemical Strikes

Karen Parrish at the DoD News offers the below report:

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2016 — The U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has launched multiple airstrikes against the terrorist group’s chemical weapons capabilities, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook (seen in the above DoD photo) told reporters today.

Cook said the strikes were based, in part, on information provided by an ISIL captive.

During an operation in Iraq in February, Cook said, coalition forces captured Sulayman Dawud al-Bakkar, also known as Abu Dawud, ISIL's “emir” of chemical and traditional weapons manufacturing.

His capture removed a key ISIL leader from the battlefield and provided the coalition with important information about ISIL's chemical weapons facilities, production, and the people involved, the press secretary noted. Dawud was transferred earlier today into the custody of Iraq’s government, Cook added.

“We’re confident that the strikes that have been conducted have disrupted and degraded [ISIL’s] chemical weapons capabilities,” he said.

Chemical Strikes ‘Another Component’ of Campaign

While the chemical program may not have been “knocked out in full,” Cook said, “we feel confident that we’ve made a difference … and this information was very helpful in conducting these strikes.”
The information collected “will continue to inform our operations in the future,” the press secretary added.

Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve airstrikes have targeted ISIL units, equipment, oil refining and transport operations, cash collection centers and now chemical sites, he said.

“We feel good about what’s been accomplished here,” Cook said. “And … we’re not done.”
ISIL has shown its willingness to use chemical weapons, the press secretary said.


“We’ve seen their use demonstrated in Syria and Iraq,” he said, “and we’re going to continue to do everything we can, working with our coalition partners, and of course the Iraqi government as well, to try and address the use of these agents.”

Defense Secretary, Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs, Honor Missing, Captured Service Members, Families

 

Karen Parish at the American Forces Press Service offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20, 2013 - The Defense Department will never stop working to bring captured and missing service members home, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pledged at a Pentagon ceremony today.

That commitment extends to Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by enemy forces in Afghanistan more than four years ago, Hagel said.

"Our hearts today are with the Bergdahl family. Using our military, intelligence, and diplomatic tools, the United States is continuing its strong efforts to secure Sergeant Bergdahl's safe release," he said.

DOD's commitment to leave no service member behind also extends to the more than 80,000 Americans who remain missing in action, the secretary said.

Hagel noted this year marked the 40th anniversary of Operation Homecoming, when hundreds of American prisoners of war returned to freedom from captivity in Vietnam. Retired Navy Rear Adm. Robert H. Shumaker, in the audience for today's ceremony, was one of those prisoners, the secretary said.

"He, along with hundreds of other service members and civilians, endured unspeakable cruelty, attempts at political exploitation, and years of confinement," Hagel said. "But through courage, resilience, and determination, they survived to return home to a grateful nation."

The secretary said he admires the inner strength that enabled prisoners of war to survive harsh physical and mental abuse at the hands of their captors.

"Americans in uniform today are inspired by the fierce resolve of generations of American POWs," Hagel said. "We also draw inspiration from the bonds of camaraderie, compassion, and love that prompted our POWs to care for each other, and sustain each other, through terrible, terrible months and years of hardship."

Such bonds are fundamental to the American military and underpin "who we are and everything we do," he said. "We protect each other. And we vow to never leave a fellow service member behind."

Every day, Hagel said, hundreds of DOD staffers, including forensic anthropologists, underwater archeologists and other experts, scour the globe and work in laboratories to identify the missing.

"Since this time last year we have been able to account for 61 service members from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam," the secretary noted. "Each case represents years of effort -- meticulous work piecing together evidence and clues from across many continents."

Hagel said he's deeply aware that many thousands of families are still waiting for a breakthrough.

"Words and promises cannot make the lingering uncertainty and heartache go away," he said. "But I hope it provides comfort to know that as long as members of our armed forces remain unaccounted for, the Department of Defense will do whatever we can to find them and bring them home."

Hagel said that as the black-and-white flag honoring America's prisoners of war and missing in action is raised in communities across America today, "We pledge to live by its creed, 'You are Not Forgotten.' We as a country are committed to our former POWs, our missing, and their families, ... just as we are committed to those who wear the uniform today."

The POW/MIA flag is a symbol and a call to action, Dempsey said.

"For wherever our missing lie, wherever a prisoner waits, we will remain committed to freeing them," he said.

More families deserve closure, the chairman said. "More of those who've worn our nation's cloth deserve to come home," he added.

Dempsey said the department will not rest or "call our mission complete, until our family is whole again."

Note: In the above DoD photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel greets former POWs following the ceremony on September 20, 2013.