SAM BROWN

 

                                         Sam Browne Belt

The story of the Sam Browne Belt---remember the line up of the old days with starched cotton trousers and Brown shoes and Sam Browne belt--- trying to get the strap correct and many offrs trying to hide the paunch behind the diagonal strap and shirt getting crumpled and CO's never happy with the turnout.

 

General Sir Samuel James Browne VC GCB KCSI (3 October 1824 – 14 March 1901) was a Indian Army cavalry officer in India and Afghanistan, known best as the namesake of the Sam Browne belt. He was a British recipient of the Victoria Cross.

 

He was born in Barrackpore, India, the son of Dr. John Browne, a surgeon of the Bengal Medical Service and his wife Charlotte.

 

At Seerporah, in an engagement with the Rebel Forces under Khan Allie Khan, on the 31st of August, 1858 Captain Samuel James Browne, Commandant of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry, received a severe sword-cut wound on the left knee, and shortly afterwards another sword-cut wound, which severed the left arm at the shoulder.

 

Sometime after this incident he began to wear the accoutrement which bears his name, as compensation for the difficulty his disability caused with wearing his officer's sword. A Sam Browne belt is a wide belt, usually leather, supported by a narrower strap passing diagonally over the right shoulder; the diagonal strap stabilizes the scabbard of a sword if worn. Later such a belt would be adopted by other officers who knew Browne in India and thereafter became a part of the ceremonial attire of British, Indian and many Commonwealth Armies, now discontinued in the Indian Army.

 

 

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Fw: How about winning the Hearts & Minds of Soldiers? / Shiv Kunal Verma

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http://www.indiaspin.com/2017/02/unrest-in-junior-officers-as-army-brass.html?m=1

 

1.      

FEB

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How about winning the Hearts & Minds of Soldiers?

Every time one of our boys is gunned down in the Valley or in the Northeast, there is an uproar on social media. Increasingly the anger is building up towards the political leadership and the senior leadership in the Army whose policy of 'appeasement' is costing lives, not just once or twice, but on a regular basis.

 

The latest among the fallen who we softly cry for are five soldiers and an officer, Major Dahiya, who have lost their lives in the last 48 hours. A video posted of army vehicles being stoned brings home the absolute ridiculousness of the situation... how on earth can the pelters get away with this? Terrorists need to be ripped apart, but those who harbour these bastards cannot be shown any mercy either.

 

Today we have a situation where the perpectuators of violence are being shielded by the leadership, while the defenders are canon fodder. This policy of 'appeasement', in place under the garb of 'winning hearts & minds of the people', is not acceptable.

 

The anger just under the surface is fast reaching boiling point. Junior officers and men, who see the Government day in and day out take steps to humilate soldiers while mouthing meaningless platitudes, is going to explode sooner or later. We the people, cannot accept this situation, and if individuals have to die, well, ruthlessly shoot down those who dare to abuse the state... instead of sacrificing those who are doing their bit to protect it.

 

What ever happened to the majesty of governance Mr Modi? You were voted in to govern this country and sort out these problems which the Congress had failed to tackle. Everytime one of our boys return home in plywood coffins, you and your chosen leadership failed to protect them. After all you were the one who made an Army and Corps Commander sit on a table and apologise for their men having fired at a vehicle that ran through a barrier.

 

For months, if not years, we have been paying the price. We do not want to see little girls saluting at the funeral pyres of their fathers, or see the light snuffed out of Satish Dahiya's son's life. If the political process needs the Army, then you have to let the Army do their job. Today, with our senseless handling of police and para military forces, we are forever calling on the Army, so much so that our senior military leadership now believes this is their primary role in the country.

 

Threatrical cross border raids and chest thumping is not governance... a pro active clear cut no compromise stand, be it vis a vis Pakistan, China or various political parties both at the state and national level, has to be implemented. It is imperative to insure that all other arms of the state are functioning, so that the Army is your last resort, and not your first.

 

Be it Kashmir, Nagaland or Manipur, the present day leadership is increasingly being seen as a reactive government who thinks political rhetoric is the answer.

 

These are serious problems which obviously cannot be dealt with on social media. However, it is obvious that there have been major slip ups. The Assam Rifles lost 12 men in Mon (Nagaland) in May 2015 and then 22 soldiers from the Dogras were killed in Chandel a month later. The highly publicised retaliatory strike against the NSCN (K) with questionable results was the chest thumping answer... and in the ensuing smoke and dust, we forgot to ask the critical question... what went wrong?

 

Even at the height of the Phizo and Laldenga insurgencies, the Assam Rifles and the Army never got this nadly hit. A year and a half later, I honestly wonder how many of the killers were brought to justice!

 

Pathankot, Uri... these are all becoming markers on a bloody timeline, markers which no one outside of the Army cares to remember after the mandatory tsch tsch and the shaking of the head. Successive commanders in the Valley today have to first think of the political implications first, and only then address the tactical aspect of each situation. Unless we have a clear cut You-kill-One We-kill-Twelve policy, the bastards will keep coming.

 

Unless you do as the Israelis do - anyone with a stone in his hand is a terrorist - we will keep losing men. Our politicians and bureaucrats may be what they are, but I think the time has come for us to demand from our senior leadership within the Army that they take a stance. If the political mess has to be sorted out, then it must be done by putting a huge price on the lives of our men... you cannot win wars by fighting with your hands tied behind your back. This simply has to stop... 

 

 

 

On the Author:

 

 

 

Shiv Kunal Verma was born into an army family (his father was a captain with 2 Rajput in 1962), filmmaker and military historian Shiv Kunal Verma has worked with all three arms of the Indian armed forces over the last two-and-a-half decades. From flying extensively with the IAF while making Salt of the Earth and Aakash Yodha to the filming of the Naval Dimension and the Kargil War, Verma has had a ringside view of matters military. His film on the National Defence Academy—The Standard Bearers—is considered a classic. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Northeast Trilogy (that documented the entire region and its peoples) and The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Kunal-Verma/e/B001ICIHMW

Posted 11 hours ago by Shael Sharma

Labels: AFSPA Anger Appeasement Army Asymmetric Warfare Babudom BJP COAS counterinsurgency

 

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Fw: Women in the Combat Arms: The Greatest Disaster in US Military History

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POSTED ON JUNE 4, 2016 BY RAY STARMANN

Women in the Combat Arms: The Greatest Disaster in US Military History

BY RAY STARMANN

Operation You Go Girl is destined to fail; failure defined not as a NO GO, or an F, but as the nation's young women flown home in flag draped Glad Bags when the nation loses the next war(s). When this happens, the Hollywood producers, the feminists and the cultural Marxists who were responsible for forcing the nation's women to experience the horrors of ground combat will scratch their heads and wonder why reality is so much different from their imaginary ideas of women in combat.

Think about this: US defense policy is now being run on a fantasy propagated by Hollywood, feminists and cultural Marxists.

Hollywood created the fantasy of the rough and tough, hard charging female cop. On any given night, on any given network, you can watch an anorexic 95 pound model, turned NYPD detective brandish a pistol larger than her waist and proceed to karate chop and cuff and stuff a myriad of male heavyweight thugs with the imaginary aplomb of Chuck Norris on all night POW camp raid.

Goodbye Popeye Doyle…

Unfortunately, real war is much different than a Demi Moore movie. A battlefield is not gender neutral. On a battlefield the roughest, toughest sons of bitches win the fight. What remains of the losers are picked at by ravens or fade away like dust in the wind.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon, the White House and Congress are no longer living in reality.

Simply put, the authorization in December 2015 to allow women to serve in the combat arms (infantry, armor, cavalry, artillery) and special operations forces (SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers, Delta Force, Marine Raiders) of the US armed forces is the greatest disaster in US military history.

The defenders of this insanity will say that women have been in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan so what's the big deal? Returning fire when your convoy is attacked or defending yourself during a military police security operation is different than being in a unit with the sole mission of killing the enemy and seizing and holding ground. It's like comparing peddling a beach cruiser to racing in the Tour de France.

The social engineers will cry that the standards will remain the same. Horse dung and hay: the standards were already warped so that the three females could graduate from Ranger School. They had months of special training, nutritionists, endless chances to repeat the course, etc. Ninety-nine percent of the women in the world simply cannot meet the male physical standards of the combat arms and special operations units. No amount of estrogen charged You Go Girl battle cries, or Universal Studios light and magic shows can stop reality. Reality says a million times over that women simply don't have the physical strength, aerobic lung capacity or aggressiveness to withstand life in the combat arms and special operations. They are also more prone to stress fractures and other injuries.

Has anyone in the Pentagon wondered why they're authorizing women for ground combat duty, yet the PGA won't allow women to play with Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson in any tournament. Why, because women don't have the physical strength to hit a golf ball as far as men, that's why.

So, the Masters is out for women, but the Green Berets are in. Are you kidding me?

Either there will be double standards or the standards will be made gender neutral and so weak that the fat ladies driving around Walmart in two horsepower electric carts will become Navy SEALs.

Another factor dooming Operation You Go Girl are the emotional issues surrounding young men and women living together in garrison and more importantly, in the field.

The military says that good leadership will put a damper on human sex drive. Newsflash social engineers, no amount of ROTC Leadership 101 is going to stop an 18 year old with an erection in a movement to contact with a 36-24-36 cheerleader, Private Babs Horny. Get a grip; the Army and the Marines are about to become nothing more than a high school summer camp with guns and high explosives.

You have to wonder if the social engineers who are throwing a wrecking ball into the US military have any knowledge at all about combat, the military and war itself. People like Obama, Joe Biden, Ash Carter, Ray Mabus, Eric Fanning and the rest of the military's executioners should study battles like The Wilderness, Verdun, Tarawa, Peleliu, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, Normandy, the Bulge, Khe Sanh and Tet. Think modern war can be won by diversity and technology; just ask the Marines who fought at Fallujah, or the soldiers from the Big Red One in Desert Storm who got into hand to hand fighting with the Republican Guard during the Battle of Norfolk, on the night of 26 February 1991.

War is about one thing; killing the enemy before he can kill you. It has nothing to do with equal opportunity, diversity, LGBT rights, transgender expression and ludicrous fantasies emanating from Professor Birkenstock's women's studies class.

Call me a cynic, but I think the subject is such a third rail in American politics that even a PC bashing behemoth like Trump won't touch the issue. If elected, Trump would rebuild the military, but I don't believe he has the knowledge nor will he have any generals with the stones to tell him to amend this debacle. If Trump utilizes the same school of Pentagon jellyfish trolling the hallways of the E-Ring, it's game, set and match bad guys.

And, of course if Madame Secretary is elected it really is End Times, not only for the military, but for the nation itself.

Nope, it will take a colossal military disaster for this fiasco to end once and for all. Colossal military disaster defined as Putin's Boys leaving the wreckage of the New US Army on the Ukrainian steppes; M1 tanks, red high heels and breast milk coolers. Or, the Chinese leaving a trail of tampons, mascara, lipstick and dead coed Marines throughout the tiny atolls of the South China Sea.

The true victims of this impending disaster are America's young women in uniform. Well over ninety percent of women in the US military want nothing to do with ground combat, the combat arms and special operations. They are happy serving their country in the hundreds and hundreds of different jobs open to them. They know more than anyone what they are physically capable of doing in the military. It is a small minority of self-serving women in the military and leftist civilians who are pushing this nightmare agenda down the throat of the military.

The US military is on a collision course to defeat, disaster and perhaps complete destruction in war. The forced integration of women in the combat arms is not a civil rights victory, but rather the single greatest disaster in US military history.

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MASTER OF CLOAK AND DAGGER - WORLD WAR II

The Man with the Golden Tongue:

India's Master of Second World War Espionage

Kim Sengupta

The Independent Culture

Under the codename of Silver, Bhagat Ram Talwar spied for Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan and

Italy in the space of five years during the Second World War, but Author Mihir Bose uncovers how

his true loyalties lay with Indian Independence.

With a basic education and speaking only broken English, Talwar managed to fool

the cream of British Military Intelligence as well as the Nazis images courtesy of

Mihir Bose unless stated

 

 

 

The part played in Britain's Wars by Forces from the Empire, the sacrifices made, the

countless honours won for gallantry, were airbrushed out for a long time from most

accounts of history written in this Country. It is only recently that there has been a

degree of restitution with some recognition of the contributions made by these

men and women. There has, however, been very little chronicled about the espionage

missions which were undertaken by colonial subjects, often at great risk to themselves.

And it is only now that the tale has emerged internationally of a spy who led the

most extraordinary life of intrigue and danger in the Second World War.

The Agent, codenamed Silver, was recruited by Peter Fleming, then working for British

military intelligence.

Fleming's brother, Ian, was to draw on some of the experience of his glamorous and

dashing sibling in creating James Bond.

Peter had a further role in the success of 007: it was he, an established Author, who

persuaded Jonathan Cape to publish the first of the series, Casino Royale.

The espionage in which Peter Fleming was engaged in the 1940s was very real:

based in Delhi, he played a key role in a deception programme against the Axis

Powers through the running of double agents.

It was in this post that he became the handler of a man calling himself Rahmat

Khan, who was working in Afghanistan purportedly to counter the activities of

the Germans and Italians on India's Western Borders.

 

Col Peter Fleming knew the world of espionage well but even he

was duped by his Indian Recruit (Rex)

Unbeknown to him, Fleming had hired someone who was himself a master

of deception.

 

In a new book, Silver: The Spy Who Fooled the Nazis, the prolific Author and

Journalist Mihir Bose reveals how Khan, whose real name was Bhagat Ram

Talwar, played off one side against the other in a dizzying mosaic of subterfuge.

 

There were a few double or even triple agents during the War, but Talwar

was the only one who could claim to have spied for five, or one can say, even six sides.

 

The man behind the masks peeled back by Bose in this fascinating tale came

from the landed gentry of what was then the North West Frontier.

In a space of five years he spied for Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.

His real loyalty, however, lay with the struggle for Indian independence, something

his paymasters in London would have suspected if they had carried out a

thorough enough background check.

Talwar's brother, in fact, had been hanged by the British for his part in the death

of a policeman during an assassination attempt on the Governor of Punjab.

 

Talwar claimed to have killed a man by feeding him curry

laced with tiger's whiskers

Talwar made the journey into Afghanistan on foot through the Khyber Pass

in an often hostile landscape then, as now, bristling with guns.

Fleming was, at times, worried about his safety, once imploring him not to

make a trip because of the presence of a suspect who may have blown his cover.

But Silver insisted on going ahead, befriended the man and invited him for

dinner in Kabul. He later described to Fleming that he has served a curry

mixed with tiger's whiskers, the sharp bristles of which cause internal

bleeding. "It was the last meal he ever ate," Silver commented later,

words one could easily imagine Bond using in a report back to M about

one of his adversaries.

 

Indian Nationalist leader Chandra Bose meets Adolf Hitler in

Berlin in 1942 (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

The relationship between the Agent and his Handler was an intriguing one.

Fleming – Eton and Oxford – was not only a Journalist who had written highly

acclaimed books of his adventures in remote places, he was also something

of a society figure, married to acclaimed actress Celia Johnson, a prized guest

on the country house circuit.

Silver/Talwar, on the other hand, had left school with the most rudimentary of

educations and, unlike most middle-class Indians, spoke only broken English.

It was a shared love of deception, says Bose, which made the two men get on

so well with each other.

And, in this deception, Silver won hands down, managing to hide his loyalty to

the Communist Movement in India to whom he sent much of the money which

had been paid to him by his various foreign employers.

​Talwar also carried out an outstanding coup against the Raj, smuggling the wanted

Nationalist Leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, out of India.

The original plan was for him to get to Moscow, but, when that failed, Silver

organized that he got to Berlin where he met Hitler and other senior German

officials.

Bose was to eventually get to Japan, raise an army from captured Indian prisoners

of war to fight the British, and then die in an airplane crash.

 

Talwar, centre, is reacquainted with German agent Dietrich

Witzel, right, in Calcutta in 1966

The end of the War was followed by Independence and the Partition of

the Sub-continent by the British before they left.

In the dreadful communal violence that followed, Talwar and his Hindu

Family had to flee newly created Muslim Pakistan to India.

Then in 1948, Silver/Khan/Talwar, the Man of Mystery, disappeared.

Some British officials thought that he had been killed while trying to

escape from Pakistan.

But then, just as suddenly, he reappeared a quarter of a century later,

at an International Seminar on Subhas Chandra Bose in Calcutta.

There is a photograph in the book of him from that time, dapper in a

suit, with Dietrich Wizel, a senior German Abwehr Agent he had

sparred with and hoodwinked in Kabul. Fleming had died two years

earlier of a heart attack while shooting in Scotland.

One imagines he would have rather enjoyed being at that meeting;

smiling old spies reminiscing about secrets and lies of a deadly

game all those years ago.

 

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