Army Special Forces Veterans Among Those Targeted in Cyberattack

U.S. Army Special Forces veterans and possibly their family members were among the millions of Americans whose personal data was stolen this year in cyberattacks on the Office of Personnel Management.

Letters have been going out for at least three weeks to veterans of the elite force, letting them know that their Social Security numbers and other information provided for prior background investigations were stolen, according to a retired Special Forces master sergeant who provided Military.com with a copy of the letter on condition of anonymity.

"It's disgusting that we risk our lives to defend this nation and that the government cannot defend our most sensitive records or our families records," the retired senior noncommissioned officer said. U.S. intelligence officials say the hacks were carried out by China.

In response to Military.com's request for comment, OPM provided a link to its original announcement and guidance on the breach. The office in June announced it had discovered two hacks affecting some 21.5 million Americans, including military personnel and veterans.

OPM Acting Director Beth Cobert, who on Nov. 10 was nominated by President Obama for a four-year term as the agency's permanent director, revealed in the recent letter to the retired Special Forces master sergeant that her own information had been hacked.

"As someone whose information was also taken, I share your concern and frustration and want you to know we are working hard to help those impacted by this incident," she said.

Because of the breach, the federal government is going to provide everyone whose data was stolen, as well as their minor children, with identify theft protection, including credit monitoring, identity theft insurance and identity restoration services for three years.

She said the identify protection services have already been put in place.

Government officials at the time said the second of two hacks targeted military records, including sensitive information provided by intelligence and military personnel for security clearances. The forms believed taken at the time included Standard Form 86, which require applicants to detail sensitive personal information about mental illnesses, drug and alcohol use, past arrests and bankruptcies, The Associated Press reported.

In the letter given to Military.com, OPM stated, "If you applied for a position or submitted a background investigation form, the information in our records may include your name, Social Security number, address, date and place of birth, residency, educational and employment history, personal foreign travel history, information about immediate family as well as business and personal acquaintances and other information used to conduct and adjudicate your background."

For family members listed on a spouse or co-habitant's form, the information available to hackers would include name, Social Security number, address, date, place of birth and, in some cases, citizenship information, according to the letter.

The names of contacts and relatives potentially expose any foreign relatives of U.S. intelligence employees to coercion, the AP reported.

Article from Military.com

Special Forces need a Special Vehicle.

Special forces need a special vehicle.

From an artivcle on Fox News
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/06/18/us-special-forces-search-for-new-off-road-vehicle/

While the Pentagon is looking for a suitable replacement for the Humvee, the United States Special Operations Command is evaluating proposals for its Ground Mobility Vehicle 1.1 (GMV 1.1) program. The goal is to create a highly mobile all-terrain vehicle that can support a variety of “peculiar modifications” required for Special Ops.

Unlike the converted Humvees currently in use in some theaters, the new vehicle needs to be lighter, faster and easily transportable by land, sea or air, with next generation communications and computing equipment integrated into the design.

Nevertheless, contractors are tackling those goals with very different approaches.  Navistar has teamed up with Indigen Armor on a four-door pickup powered by a 325 hp 6.0-liter turbodiesel engine called the Special Operations Tactical Truck. Unique features include a folding gun turret that allows the vehicle to fit into a Chinook helicopter and be ready for action within a minute of driving off it. Although the GMV 1.1 requirements call for an un-armored vehicle, the proposal is based on an existing design that has a fully armored passenger cell and it can be easily upfitted to several levels of ballistic protection.

While the Navistar-Indigen Armor truck could pass for a conventional pickup at a distance, there’s no mistaking General Dynamics Land System's proposal for anything other than a specialized fighting machine. Part off-road racer, part erector set, the modular vehicle can support a wide variety of weapons platforms and configurations while its mid-mounted six-cylinder turbodiesel aims to provide improved weight distribution for maneuverability.

The selection process is under wraps, but a decision is expected by the end of the year with production set to begin in 2013. The contract calls for approximately 1,300 GMVs to be delivered by 2020.

Navy SEAL Commander Advised to 'Get the Hell Out of the Media'

From the ABC News report titled: Navy SEAL Commander Advised to 'Get the Hell Out of the Media', a retired general today assailed the commander of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden for drawing too much media attention to operations that he argued should be kept under wraps.

Special Operations Commander Adm. Bill McRaven was confronted by retired Lt. Gen. James Vaught, who said he didn't understand why the recent raids by the Navy SEALs, such as the one to kill Osama bin Laden or to rescue U.S. hostage Jessica Buchanan, were all over the media.

"Since the time when your wonderful team went and drug bin Laden out and got rid of him, and more recently when you went down and rescued the group in Somalia, or wherever the hell they were, they've been splashing all of this all over the media," Vaught, 85, said. "I flat don't understand that.

"Now back when my special operators extracted Saddam [Hussein] from the hole, we didn't say one damn word about it," he continued. "We turned him over to the local commander and told him to claim that his forces drug him out of the hole, and he did so. And we just faded away and kept our mouth shut.

"Now I'm going to tell you, one of these days, if you keep publishing how you do this, the other guy's going to be there ready for you, and you're going to fly in and he's going to shoot down every damn helicopter and kill every one of your SEALs. Now, watch it happen. Mark my words.

Get the hell out of the media," he concluded, as laughter broke out at a meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association in Washington, D.C.

Vaught commanded the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Iran in 1979. Eight service members died and four were injured in "Operation Eagle Claw" when the helicopters on the mission collided in the remote Iranian desert. Vaught, whose role made him the first commander of Delta Force, was not active duty during the Hussein raid, which was also conducted by the Delta Force, the secretive counterterrorism unit.

McRaven jokingly responded that he became a Navy SEAL because his sister was dating a special forces member and because he was infatuated with John Wayne's movie, "The Green Beret."

"The fact of the matter is, there have always been portrayals of SOF [Special Operations Forces] out in the mainstream media," he said. "We are in an environment today where we can't get away from it. It is not something that we actively pursue, as I think a number of the journalists here in the audience will confirm. But the fact of the matter is, with the social media being what it is today, with the press and the 24-hour news cycle, it's very difficult to get away from it."

He added that it was difficult to avoid media coverage in today's 24-hour news cycle and that it could actually help Navy SEALs do their job better.

"We have had a few failures. And I think having those failures exposed in the media also kind of helps focus our attention, helps us do a better job. So sometimes the criticism … the spotlight on us actually makes us better," McRaven said.

The Navy SEALs have received heavy media attention in the past year thanks to the bin Laden raid and the rescue in Somalia. A movie titled "Act for Valor" focusing on the elite special operations force is due for release next month and Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is making a movie about the raid that killed the world's most wanted man.

McRaven was in Washington, D.C., today talking about an expansion in the role of special operations forces in Afghanistan. Special operations troops, McRaven said, would likely be the last to leave the country and the Pentagon is even considering a new special operations command, but that has not been decided yet.

"I have no doubt that special operations will be the last to leave Afghanistan," McRaven said. "As far as anything beyond that, we're exploring a lot of options."