Semper Fi, Aaron

1st LT Aaron Cox, USNA '05, was killed in his AH-1 super Cobra while conducting a training mission.  Please pray for him.

How in the world can we solve this Pirate problem?

The navy has no clue how to combat Pirates. Which is weird, if you think about it. Why do we have a standing Navy to begin with?

First, a little history of how we used to deal with Pirates, from the good ol' National Archives. 

That's right, boys and girls, Pirates have been demanding ransom for stolen goods for several hundred years, the only difference now is instead of this...

They roll around in this...

That's a pretty scary pirate ship you got there, Captain Skinny.  We have two problems now that we didn't have in the past.  Number one, the merchant ship lines are so scared of being sued for wrongful death that they aren't willing to arm their crews, a solution the Captain of the Maersk Alabama (rescued by some kick-ass Navy SEALs) supports.  The other problem is that the Navy doesn't have a system to protect merchant ships before they get hijacked.  If only we had seven special teams who were trained in boarding cargo ships, only we could use them to protect instead of search the ships.  Fast-roping in from helicopters could be a quick way to get navy personnel onto ships before they were taken by pirates.  What we could use... we shut down.

Andrew Kinard makes Prime-Time

First off, this is my first post on my first blog.  So if embedded youtube videos don't work, and links suck, forgive me.  If spelling or diction are horrible, please inform me as these are very important!

On to Andrew.  Andrew Kinard is the most upbeat, happiest, most positive military officer I know.  Who happens to have no legs.  Not a big deal, right?  A little IED action, a little loss of blood.  This guy is an inspiration to me, as well as to all.  He is happy about his life, and thankful every day to be alive.  And he's doing amazing things for wounded veterans.  Roll those clips.