Hope Hodge Seck

Former Marine Oliver North lights up Twitter with shredder joke

By Hope Hodge Seck on June 10, 2014 Battle Rattle

Conservative commentator and author Oliver North is making waves this morning with a provocative tweet. The decorated former Marine lieutenant colonel, perhaps best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal in the latter half of the 1980s, sent out to his 20,000 followers a picture of himself sending documents into a giant shredder. [HTML1] The image is an allusion to Iran-Contra. North publicly admitted to shredding documents related to his work in Iran, including the covert sale of weapons to that country. The incident would eventually lead to the end of his military career in 1988. But North has…

Hillary Clinton book says Marines were in Tripoli during Benghazi attack

By Hope Hodge Seck on June 9, 2014 Battle Rattle

In her new book “Hard Choices,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reportedly claims there were Marines guarding the U.S. embassy in Tripoli at the time of the infamous Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya–a statement that appears to contradict the sworn testimony of senior officers. The book, due out tomorrow, dedicates a full chapter to Benghazi, which has become a symbolic event for many characterizing the perceived failures of the current administration. Four Americans were killed in those attacks as the Defense Department scrambled to deploy a Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team from Rota,…

Osprey squadron celebrates anniversary with new insignia

By Hope Hodge Seck on June 5, 2014 Aviation, History and heritage

A Marine Corps V-22 Osprey squadron is getting a makeover, just in time for its 62nd birthday. VMM-363, out of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif., created a new insignia to mark the anniversary, according to a Marine Corps news release. The squadron, known as the Lucky Red Lions, had an old insignia featuring a brick-red lion on a kelly-green shamrock background. The new insignia, which was awesomely commemorated in a birthday cake for the celebration, keeps the main elements of the design, but depicts the lion with a more modern stencil theme, with red ribbon banners at the top…

Commandant nominee Gen. Joseph Dunford frequent victim of “phishing” scams

By Hope Hodge Seck on June 5, 2014 Battle Rattle

The word is out: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has nominated Gen. Joseph Dunford to be the 36th Commandant of the Marine Corps. But before you try to follow him on Twitter, watch out: there are lots of accounts out there using his image to trap unsuspected users in “phishing” scams and “romance hoaxes.” On Twitter alone, I counted ten different accounts using images of the real Gen. Joseph Dunford. Some include snippets of his biography, and some tweet bizarre messages at other users asking them to email an account so they can begin a friendship. All of them have fewer…

Pimp My Ride: Afghanistan Edition

By Hope Hodge Seck on May 28, 2014 Afghanistan, Blue-Green operations, Embedded journalism, Training, Vehicles

During my last few days in Afghanistan, I got a behind-the-scenes look at a “dress rehearsal” for a large-scale training exercise the Afghan National Army’s 215th Corps was planning at Camp Shorabak in Helmand province to showcase the Corps’ military training and enhance interoperability. The scale of the exercise was pretty impressive: it involved hundreds of Afghan soldiers, two of the 215th Corps’ Mi-17 helicopters, and over a dozen M1117 armored vehicles, plus Humvees and trucks. The M1117, used by the U.S. Army’s military police corps and the Army National Guard, has less armored protection than the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle,…

The crosses are back: after wildfire, 100 Marines restore Pendleton memorials

By Hope Hodge Seck on May 27, 2014 Battle Rattle, Camp Pendleton, History and heritage

Edit: Updates to correct caption credits Last week, we wrote about one Marine’s valiant mission to save a beloved Camp Pendleton memorial site from the wildfires that were burning through the base. Cpl. Marvin Arnold of Mike company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines organized a team of seven Marines for a trek up First Sergeant’s Hill at Camp San Mateo within the base, rescuing the nearly two dozen wooden memorial crosses just before the fires burned over the hill. The crosses are each specially marked and decorated to remember a fallen Pendleton Marine, frequently carried to the site and installed by…

“Going out to pick a fight:” Marines from 1/9 remember one of their own

By Hope Hodge Seck on May 27, 2014 Battle Rattle, Camp Leatherneck, Embedded journalism, Marines

During my short visit to Helmand Province, Afghanistan earlier this month, I was struck by the way honoring and remembering fallen brothers becomes an integral part of everyday life for Marines. One of the first stories I heard from a Marine on the C-17 ride over from Kabul to Camp Leatherneck was about a white board hanging in a company office with a simple inscription: “Going out to pick a fight.” It was a favorite catch-phrase of Sgt. Daniel Vasselian, a Marine with Bravo company, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, a unit that is now returning home after a deployment providing…

Poll: Marine Corps still most prestigious military branch

By Hope Hodge Seck on May 23, 2014 Battle Rattle, History and heritage, Pop culture

The results are in. According to a new Gallup Poll, Americans overwhelmingly believe that the Marine Corps is the most prestigious branch of the armed services. No word on whether it’s the dress blues, the tough image, or the elite missions undertaken by the likes of Force Recon and MARSOC, but with 47 percent of the vote, the Marines polled nearly three times higher for prestige than the next runner-up, the U.S. Air Force. As you can see from the Gallup chart below, the Marine Corps has been slowly increasing its edge over the other services in terms of prestige,…

On the ground in Afghanistan: the last days of a FOB

By Hope Hodge Seck on May 12, 2014 Afghanistan, Embedded journalism, Food

As I prepared for my first embed with in Afghanistan, I figured I might spend some time sleeping under the stars and taking “health and comfort breaks” in the woods as the Marines shut down several of their remaining forward operating bases. I’ve done a bit of tent camping, and I figured I couldn’t be disappointed if I managed my expectations. But, as it turned out, even the final days of FOB life came with quite a few creature comforts. Soon after I arrived in Afghanistan, we moved to FOB Sabit Qadam (formerly FOB Jackson) in the Sangin district of…

Meet Steel, the Marines’ morale dog in Afghanistan

By Hope Hodge Seck on May 10, 2014 Afghanistan, Animals, Battle Rattle, Embedded journalism

Not all working dogs in Afghanistan sniff explosives or walk patrols. Meet Steel. Steel, a three-year-old black Lab, was trained was an Improvised Detection Dog (IDD), skilled at sniffing out explosive devices. But when he arrived at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, his trainers realized that his paws were too soft and sensitive for patrols over rugged, rocky terrain. He would never patrol with his infantry unit, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines. Instead of being sent back to the States, however, Steel was sent over to Camp Leatherneck’s Concussion Restoration Care Center–its consolidated medical facility for sick, injured and wounded troops. Steel…

Author Hope Hodge Seck