U.S. Army officer becomes first openly gay general

* 'What is relevant is upholding Army values and the responsibility this carries,' U.S. Army Reserve officer says of her milestone appointment

* President Barack Obama repealed 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' the military's ban on allowing openly gay service members in December 2010

By Daily Mail Reporter

Tammy Smith has become the first openly gay officer to be promoted to the ranks of Brigadier General in the U.S. Army.

Smith's promotion took place on Friday in a private ceremony at the Women’s Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. She received her stars from wife, Tracey Hepner, the first time her longtime partner was officially recognized as her significant other at a military gathering.

Smith is assigned as deputy chief in the Army Reserve Office of the Chief in Washington, D.C.
Her promotion comes less than a year after the implementation of the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT), the policy enacted in 1993 under U.S. President Bill Clinton.

The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service.

After much debate that the policy was discriminatory, the U.S. Congress voted to end it with the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on December 22, 2010 and full implementation of the repeal occurred on September 20, 2011.

But Smith, 49, downplayed the milestone of her appointment in a post DADT military, in an interview with Stars and Stripes newspaper.

'All of those facts are irrelevant,' she said. 'I don’t think I need to be focused on that. What is relevant is upholding Army values and the responsibility this carries... For me, the story is about the promotion and the opportunities it brings.'

She did concede though, in an earlier interview, that the repeal of the policy meant that she and her partner 'will be able to go out and have drinks together without worrying.'

'The support we’ve received has been amazing,' Hepner told the paper.  'I wasn’t surprised that people were so accepting, but in some cases it has been even celebratory. It’s like nothing has really changed for us, and yet everything has changed.'

Hepner is a gay activist and co-founded the Military Partners and Families Coalition, which advocates for benefits and military programs for same-sex partners.

Smith is not the first gay general officer but most have disclosed their sexual orientation after their retirement or discharge under 'don't ask, don't tell.'

In May, the U.S. Air Force Academy graduated its first openly gay cadets.

Brrzzzt! U.S. Army checks out laser-based lightning tech

Future weapon would seek out targets that conduct electricity better than the air or ground that surrounds them.

by Charles Cooper

Earlier this spring, the U.S. Army revealed the existence of a project underway to build a device that could shoot lightning bolts down laser beams to take out a target. Now the military's boffins report success in their first tests.

The technology -- known as laser-induced plasma channel -- is designed to seek out targets that conduct electricity better than the air or ground that surrounds them.

Although scientists and engineers working on the weapon's development expressed confidence in the physics behind their work, George Fischer, who is the lead scientist on the project, nonetheless cautioned about the technical challenges still ahead.

"If the light focuses in air, there is certainly the danger that it will focus in a glass lens, or in other parts of the laser amplifier system, destroying it," according to Fischer. "We needed to lower the intensity in the optical amplifier and keep it low until we wanted the light to self-focus in air.

Laser weaponry is moving apace. In early May, for example, Northrop Grumman demonstrated a prototype system that burned through the skin of a drone playing the part of a cruise missile for the test. However, Fischer pointed to the challenges involved in synchronizing the laser with the high voltage, as well as how to build a device that's sufficiently rugged so as to stand up under extreme environmental conditions. The system would also need to be able to perform in the field over extended periods of time, he said, adding that a number of high-tech components would need to run continuously.

It remains unclear how soon the military can weaponize this sort of technology. A representative from the Picatinny Arsenal, headquarters for the project, was not available for comment.

However, there's clear interest in getting this done as the battlefield bottom line in having a weapon which can harness lightning bolts is huge in terms of the amount of energy generated.

"If a laser puts out a pulse with modest energy, but the time is incredibly tiny, the power can be huge," according to Fischer. "During the duration of the laser pulse, it can be putting out more power than a large city needs, but the pulse only lasts for two-trillionths of a second."

Is that really just a fly? Swarms of cyborg insect drones are the future of military surveillance

By Daily Mail Reporter

The kinds of drones making the headlines daily are the heavily armed CIA and U.S. Army vehicles which routinely strike targets in Pakistan - killing terrorists and innocents alike.

But the real high-tech story of surveillance drones is going on at a much smaller level, as tiny remote controlled vehicles based on insects are already likely being deployed.

Over recent years a range of miniature drones, or micro air vehicles (MAVs), based on the same physics used by flying insects, have been presented to the public.

The fear kicked off in 2007 when reports of bizarre flying objects hovering above anti-war protests sparked accusations that the U.S. government was accused of secretly developing robotic insect spies.

Official denials and suggestions from entomologists that they were actually dragonflies failed to quell speculation, and Tom Ehrhard, a retired Air Force colonel and expert on unmanned aerial craft, told the Daily Telegraph at the time that 'America can be pretty sneaky.'

The following year, the US Air Force unveiled insect-sized spies 'as tiny as bumblebees' that could not be detected and would be able to fly into buildings to 'photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists.'

Around the same time the Air Force also unveiled what it called 'lethal mini-drones' based on Leonardo da Vinci's blueprints for his Ornithopter flying machine, and claimed they would be ready for roll out by 2015.

That announcement was five years ago and, since the U.S. military is usually pretty cagey about its technological capabilities, it raises the question as to what it is keeping under wraps.

The University of Pennsylvania GRASP Lab recently showed off drones that swarm, a network of 20 nano quadrotors flying in synchronized formations.

The SWARMS goal is to combine swarm technology with bio-inspired drones to operate 'with little or no direct human supervision' in 'dynamic, resource-constrained, adversarial environments.'

However, it is most likely the future of hard-to-detect drone surveillance will mimic nature.

Research suggests that the mechanics of insects can be reverse-engineered to design midget machines to scout battlefields and search for victims trapped in rubble.

Scientists have taken their inspiration from animals which have evolved over millennia to the perfect conditions for flight.

Nano-biomimicry MAV design has long been studied by DARPA, and in 2008 the U.S. government's military research agency conducted a symposium discussing 'bugs, bots, borgs and bio-weapons.'

Researchers have now developed bio-inspired drones with bug eyes, bat ears, bird wings, and even honeybee-like hairs to sense biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

And the U.S. isn't the only country to have poured money into spy drone miniaturisation. France has developed flapping wing bio-inspired microdrones.

The Netherlands BioMAV (Biologically Inspired A.I. for Micro Aerial Vehicles) developed a Parrot AR Drone last year - which is now available in the U.S. as a 'flying video game'.

Not so tiny but a good spy: A ShadowHawk drone with SWAT team members

Zoologist Richard Bomphrey, of Oxford University, has conducted research to generate new insight into how insect wings have evolved over the last 350 million years.

He said last year: 'Nature has solved the problem of how to design miniature flying machines.

'By learning those lessons, our findings will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they are as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings.'

The insect manoeuvrability which allows flies the ability to land precisely and fly off again at speed may one day prove a crucial tactical advantage in wars and could even save lives in disasters.

The military would like to develop tiny robots that can fly inside caves and barricaded rooms to send back real-time intelligence about the people and weapons inside.

Dr Bomphrey said: 'Scary spider robots were featured in Michael Crichton's 1980s film Runaway - but our robots will be much more scaled down and look more like the quidditch ball in the Harry Potter films, because of its ability to hover and flutter.

'The problem for scientists at the moment is that aircrafts can't hover and helicopters can't go fast. And it is impossible to make them very small.

'With insects you get a combination of both these assets in miniature. And when you consider we have been flying for just over a hundred years as opposed to 350 million years, I would say it is they who have got it right, and not us!'