"I'm worried about richochets and everything." "We'll give you a flack jacket and a helmet. You'll be fine." Make no mistake. There will be no sequel to this film. You are never going to see this onscreen ever again.

The guys at Ranger Up are putting together a series on how to help vets get hired. Check this out and share it! Nick totally nails it. This is advice anyone, but vets in particular, should listen to.

Here’s a little fact to keep in mind when considering the current cuts to spending at DoD (and let’s be clear, there is nothing wrong with appropriate cuts to defense spending), besides all the other ramifications it promises: Defense accounts for less than 20 percent of the federal budget but already exceeds 50 percent of deficit-reduction efforts. And for every dollar the President hopes to save in domestic programs, he plans on saving $128 in defense. And that’s without the looming sequestration cuts (keep in mind, most war fighting costs are not included in the budget) of another half trillion dollars. Or said another way, the administration has decided that it will attempt to cut spending primarily with cuts to national defense. There is no serious program afoot to cut back the myriad of other government agencies and branches. In fact, many are expanding (see EPA, IRS, etc.). As for sequestration, Democrats are bound and determined to see it through, because, you know, national defense is less important than winning an ideological struggle. Charles Hoskinson of POLITICO’s Morning Defense reports (btw, if you don’t subscribe to it, you should): BUT REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS are still far apart on one key issue: taxes. We caught up with SASC Chairman Levin at a breakfast Thursday and he said he's counting on public pressure to push the GOP to accept new tax revenues as part of any solution - something they've so far refused to consider. Meanwhile, Levin and other Democrats won't budge on reversing sequestration except as part of a complete package. "The dam has got to be broken on revenues, and what I believe will break it is the threat of sequestration," he said. Shorter Levin, “we’re more than willing to hold national security hostage and see it gutted to get our way on taxes”. It is rather interesting approach for an administration which is hung up on everyone paying their ‘fair share’. It seems that the lion’s share of what it will surely tout during the upcoming campaign as serious budget cutting, will come from the one Constitutionally mandated duty it has – national defense. As for all the programs that have a future funding liability of 200 trillion dollar? Meh. ~McQ Twitter: @McQandO

The number of Afghan soldiers and police attacking their American trainers is becoming a major problem. Even worse, the attacks are now so frequent - 6% of total combat fatalities - that ISAF is no longer reporting details of the fratricide incidents. Instead they leave it up to the country that the fallen service member belongs to. This would not be a big deal if the home countries publicly disclosed the details, but they don't. And our government will unlikely be doing so as the ugly truth on the battlefield doesn't sit well with the political narrative in Washington. From my piece at The US Report: Multiple service members have already been murdered by rogue Afghans in 2012, including one US Army soldier, Pfc. Dustin P. Napier, who was reportedly killed while playing volleyball in Zabul Province on January 8. ISAF's press release reads: “An International Security Assistance Force service member was killed today in southern Afghanistan apparently by a member of the Afghan National Army.” At least two other US soldiers were injured in the attack. It takes some investigative journalism to learn whether US service members are killed by their Afghan counterparts. The New York Times determined the name of the fallen soldier from “Afghan officials” – the Pentagon disclosed Napier's cause of death simply as “injuries from small-arms fire.” Finding out all the grisly details on how our sons and daughters died isn't my point of contention. My problem is that we are sending people into a foreign country to train Afghans to handle their own security - and the Afghans are killing them. I understand that not every Afghan soldier or policeman is the problem, but when one out of every 15 caskets coming home is filled with an American who was killed by the countryman who he or she was helping, that's a major problem. And when we have to trust the New York Times to find out how our soldiers are dying, that's just as bad. Pfc. Napier, he is just as much a hero as he would have been if it were a Taliban bullet that killed him, no different than Pat Tillman. But to allow our government to hide the drastic increase in fratricide attacks in Afghanistan would be doing a major disservice to these brave mens' - and womens' - sacrifice.