Latest news with #EighthArmy
Times
04-05-2025
- General
- Times
Roger Muirhead obituary: El Alamein veteran
Roger Muirhead was not the last veteran of the Battle of El Alamein in October 1942, but he was probably the last of the few who went on to serve in Italy, France and the Low Countries, and then the Far East. For the British, the victorious counteroffensive in the Egyptian desert was the turning-point of the war — 'the end of the beginning', as Churchill called it. Church bells had not rung since June 1940, being saved in case needed to signal a German invasion. But with Rommel's Afrika Korps in full retreat, and Montgomery's Eighth Army in pursuit, the prime minister authorised their mass ringing across the land. For Muirhead, a 21-year-old subaltern in the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC), Alamein was a
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
U.S. soldier has sentence reduced for threats of murder and stealing
An American soldier who was found guilty of making threats of murder and stealing in Russia had his more than three-year prison sentence reduced by seven months on Monday, state media reported. Last June, Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, was sentenced to three years and nine months in the district of Primorsky Krai. But a court Monday reduced his sentence to three years and two months, both Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti reported. Black flew to the Pacific port city of Vladivostok in May 2024 to see his Russian girlfriend, where he was arrested after she accused him of stealing from her, according to American officials and Russian authorities. As well as the prison sentence, Black was also ordered to pay 10,000 roubles (about $90 at the time) in damages. The soldier lost one appeal in a regional court that upheld his sentence, but the judge in the 9th Court of Cassation on Monday agreed to reduce his sentence. Black had been on leave and was due to return from Camp Humphreys, where he was stationed in South Korea with the Eighth Army, to his home base in Fort Cavazos, Texas. But 'instead of returning to the continental United States, Black flew from Incheon, Republic of Korea, through China to Vladivostok, Russia, for personal reasons,' then-deputy press secretary at the Pentagon, Sabrina Singh, told reporters shortly after his arrest. He had not sought travel clearance as mandated under Pentagon policy, she added. Alexandra Vashchuk, the woman he was romantically involved with, said they had 'a simple domestic dispute' when Black 'became aggressive and attacked' her, stealing money from her wallet. Vashchuk was living in South Korea when she first met Black, according to U.S. officials, but left the country shortly afterward. Tensions between Moscow and Washington in recent years have seen a number of Americans, including corporate security executive Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and teacher Marc Fogel, be wrongfully detained and jailed in Russia. All three have been freed. Shortly after Black's detention, a Pentagon spokesperson said the U.S. was investigating whether he had been lured to Russia by the country's intelligence services. Russian Foreign Ministry's office in Vladivostok said at the time that it had nothing to do with politics, Tass reported at the time. 'This case has no relation to politics or espionage. As far as we understand, a household crime [is suspected] in this case. That is why the Russian Foreign Ministry's mission in Vladivostok is not following the case of the U.S. citizen closely,' the mission was quoted by the agency as saying. Black, whose Facebook page and public records indicate he's from southern Illinois, enlisted in the U.S. Army as an infantryman in 2008. From October 2009 through September 2010, he served in Iraq. He also served in Afghanistan from June 2013 until March 2014, according to Smith. Most recently, he had been assigned to the Eighth Army and based at Camp Humphreys in South Korea, the largest overseas U.S. military installation in the world. This article was originally published on
Boston Globe
07-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Russia reduces prison sentence for US soldier convicted of theft
Russia has jailed a number of Americans in recent years as tensions between Moscow and the West grew. Some, like corporate security executive Paul Whelan, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and teacher Marc Fogel, were designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained and released in prisoner swaps. Advertisement A few others remain jailed in Russia on drug or assault convictions. They include Robert Gilman, 72, who was handed a 3 1/2-year sentence after being found guilty of assaulting a police officer following a drunken disturbance on a train, and Travis Leake, a musician who was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to 13 years in prison in July 2024. Advertisement Black was on leave and in the process of returning to his home base at Fort Cavazos, Texas, from South Korea, where he had been stationed at Camp Humphreys with the Eighth Army. The U.S. Army said Black signed out for his move back home and, 'instead of returning to the continental United States, Black flew from Incheon, Republic of Korea, through China to Vladivostok, Russia, for personal reasons.' Under Pentagon policy, service members must get clearance for any international travel from a security manager or commander. The U.S. Army said last month that Black hadn't sought such travel clearance and it wasn't authorized by the Defense Department. Given the hostilities in Ukraine and threats to the U.S. and its military, it is extremely unlikely he would have been granted approval. Black's girlfriend, Alexandra Vashchuk, told reporters last year that 'it was a simple domestic dispute,' during which Black 'became aggressive and attacked' her, stealing money from her wallet. She described Black as 'violent and unable to control himself.' U.S. officials have said that Black, who is married, met Vashchuk in South Korea. According to U.S. officials, she had lived in South Korea, and last fall she and Black got into some type of domestic dispute or altercation. After that, she left South Korea. It isn't clear if she was forced to leave or what, if any, role South Korean authorities had in the matter.
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - The lessons from Ukraine that no one wants to learn
Within 24 hours of the tense Oval Office exchange between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was ready to put 'boots on the ground' in Ukraine. Such a sharp reversal of policy is shocking enough, but Starmer's words speak to a more profound truth about this conflict — and war in general. Despite NATO supplying Kyiv with sophisticated lethal military equipment for the last 18 months, it took more than a decade of Russian occupation and hundreds of thousands of casualties to reach this point. Moreover, it seems that if the Western world wants to repel imperialists, it may need to send its own soldiers to do so. American strategy has long recognized this inconvenient truth. Every major war in which the U.S. participated between 1945 and 2001 was in defense of another nation's territorial integrity, and none of those nations were NATO members. When North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel to invade their southern neighbor in June 1950, President Harry Truman sent the Eighth Army to push them back. Despite Gen. Douglas MacArthur's desire for total victory in Korea, the Truman administration believed such a war might trigger a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, which had just tested its first atomic bomb. In turn, limiting Washington's goals to repelling the attack seemed logical — and it worked. When North Vietnam threatened South Vietnam in the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson sent divisions there to contain the North Vietnamese Army, degrade the Vietcong and reaffirm national borders. Nearly 60,000 Americans died pursuing these unrealized objectives. When Iraq's Saddam Hussein tried to annex Kuwait in 1990, President George H.W. Bush had the U.S. military decimate the Iraqi Army, thus securing America's leading role in a post-Soviet world. Like in Korea, this was a limited war in which the U.S. did not seek to topple Saddam's regime militarily but rather deny him his territorial objectives. In contrast, when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the U.S. and NATO not only failed to intervene directly, but also spent years debating whether they should even furnish Ukraine with the weapons it needed to defend itself. President Barack Obama's administration feared escalation and the potential reversal of diplomatic inroads it was paving with Moscow. The 'Russian reset,' which began in 2009 by canceling President George W. Bush's plan for a missile shield in Eastern Europe, aimed to improve U.S.-Russia relations. Ukraine received a $53 million aid package from the U.S. in September 2014 that included body armor and night-vision goggles, but no weapons. A June 2015 poll showed that only 41 percent of Europeans supported sending arms to Ukraine, and 30 percent opposed even lending economic aid. President Donald Trump's first administration authorized shipping Javelin antitank missiles in 2017, but by that time the annexation of a strategic landmass the size of Massachusetts had come and gone with little resistance from the Western world. President Vladimir Putin got the message. When Russia invaded Ukraine yet again in 2022, this time aiming for the capital, the Biden administration slow-walked critical aid for years while prohibiting Ukraine from striking inside Russia's borders to avoid escalation. Ukraine fired its first U.S.-provided ballistic missiles into Russia in late November 2024, 33 months after the invasion — a period three times longer than the U.S. military spent conducting major operations in Europe during World War II. Such incrementalism led to operational stagnation and overlooked what some analysts consider the 'real crux' of Ukraine's war effort: a lack of manpower. Even a Korea-type policy of denial that pushes Russian forces back to its 2022 borders appears increasingly unlikely without a significant surge in ground forces, something Kyiv itself has been reluctant to entertain. And herein lies the problem. Whether or not Russia and Ukraine reach a negotiated settlement in the coming months, the refusal to send weapons or troops to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity from the very start reflects a seismic shift in U.S. foreign policy since 1945 — a shift felt across party lines that predates the ongoing shakeup under the Trump administration. The hardest lesson to learn from the war in Ukraine is that there is still no substitute for allies who show up when the fighting begins. Russian nuclear deterrence made that once-clear choice politically untenable for NATO's leaders, who must now choose between three unappealing options against a dug-in Russian army: negotiate a fragile peace; maintain the status quo and wish for the best; or stare down Moscow's nuclear saber-rattling in Ukraine. Hopes of outlasting Russia in a land war through weapons shipments, sanctions and public relations campaigns emerged in part from Ukraine's impressive combat performance. This belief, however, might also be attributed to the alluring myth that the 'butcher's bill' for a major war in Europe could simply be redirected to someone else's table. Perhaps this is the first illusion to die as Europe and America revisit their assumptions about deterrence and defense in the 21st century. Maj. Michael P. Ferguson, U.S. Army, is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and coauthor of 'The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age.' His views as expressed here do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of the Army or the Department of Defense. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
18-03-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
The lessons from Ukraine that no one wants to learn
Within 24 hours of the tense Oval Office exchange between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was ready to put 'boots on the ground' in Ukraine. Such a sharp reversal of policy is shocking enough, but Starmer's words speak to a more profound truth about this conflict — and war in general. Despite NATO supplying Kyiv with sophisticated lethal military equipment for the last 18 months, it took more than a decade of Russian occupation and hundreds of thousands of casualties to reach this point. Moreover, it seems that if the Western world wants to repel imperialists, it may need to send its own soldiers to do so. American strategy has long recognized this inconvenient truth. Every major war in which the U.S. participated between 1945 and 2001 was in defense of another nation's territorial integrity, and none of those nations were NATO members. When North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel to invade their southern neighbor in June 1950, President Harry Truman sent the Eighth Army to push them back. Despite Gen. Douglas MacArthur's desire for total victory in Korea, the Truman administration believed such a war might trigger a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, which had just tested its first atomic bomb. In turn, limiting Washington's goals to repelling the attack seemed logical — and it worked. When North Vietnam threatened South Vietnam in the 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson sent divisions there to contain the North Vietnamese Army, degrade the Vietcong and reaffirm national borders. Nearly 60,000 Americans died pursuing these unrealized objectives. When Iraq's Saddam Hussein tried to annex Kuwait in 1990, President George H.W. Bush had the U.S. military decimate the Iraqi Army, thus securing America's leading role in a post-Soviet world. Like in Korea, this was a limited war in which the U.S. did not seek to topple Saddam's regime militarily but rather deny him his territorial objectives. In contrast, when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the U.S. and NATO not only failed to intervene directly, but also spent years debating whether they should even furnish Ukraine with the weapons it needed to defend itself. President Barack Obama's administration feared escalation and the potential reversal of diplomatic inroads it was paving with Moscow. The ' Russian reset,' which began in 2009 by canceling President George W. Bush's plan for a missile shield in Eastern Europe, aimed to improve U.S.-Russia relations. Ukraine received a $53 million aid package from the U.S. in September 2014 that included body armor and night-vision goggles, but no weapons. A June 2015 poll showed that only 41 percent of Europeans supported sending arms to Ukraine, and 30 percent opposed even lending economic aid. President Donald Trump's first administration authorized shipping Javelin antitank missiles in 2017, but by that time the annexation of a strategic landmass the size of Massachusetts had come and gone with little resistance from the Western world. President Vladimir Putin got the message. When Russia invaded Ukraine yet again in 2022, this time aiming for the capital, the Biden administration slow-walked critical aid for years while prohibiting Ukraine from striking inside Russia's borders to avoid escalation. Ukraine fired its first U.S.-provided ballistic missiles into Russia in late November 2024, 33 months after the invasion — a period three times longer than the U.S. military spent conducting major operations in Europe during World War II. Such incrementalism led to operational stagnation and overlooked what some analysts consider the 'real crux' of Ukraine's war effort: a lack of manpower. Even a Korea-type policy of denial that pushes Russian forces back to its 2022 borders appears increasingly unlikely without a significant surge in ground forces, something Kyiv itself has been reluctant to entertain. And herein lies the problem. Whether or not Russia and Ukraine reach a negotiated settlement in the coming months, the refusal to send weapons or troops to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity from the very start reflects a seismic shift in U.S. foreign policy since 1945 — a shift felt across party lines that predates the ongoing shakeup under the Trump administration. The hardest lesson to learn from the war in Ukraine is that there is still no substitute for allies who show up when the fighting begins. Russian nuclear deterrence made that once-clear choice politically untenable for NATO's leaders, who must now choose between three unappealing options against a dug-in Russian army: negotiate a fragile peace; maintain the status quo and wish for the best; or stare down Moscow's nuclear saber-rattling in Ukraine. Hopes of outlasting Russia in a land war through weapons shipments, sanctions and public relations campaigns emerged in part from Ukraine's impressive combat performance. This belief, however, might also be attributed to the alluring myth that the 'butcher's bill' for a major war in Europe could simply be redirected to someone else's table. Perhaps this is the first illusion to die as Europe and America revisit their assumptions about deterrence and defense in the 21st century. Maj. Michael P. Ferguson, U.S. Army, is a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and coauthor of ' The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age. ' His views as expressed here do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of the Army or the Department of Defense.
