12 Community News
The Recorder · October 8, 2015
Ponte Vedra YMCA launches teen leadership board
The Recorder
The Ponte Vedra YMCA announced
this month the creation of a new Teen
Leadership Board (TLB). Ten high
school juniors from the community
have been selected to be on the Board,
working to serve their community and
help the YMCA create more teen-targeted programs.
Benghazi
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also threatened the current Egyptian
Government after they arrested many
Muslim Brotherhood members and
their supporters who were guilty of
crimes. Obama and the State Dept.
partnered with some of those same
radical groups to overthrow the Libyan
Government giving them weapons
money and treating them like allies.
As soon as the bombing began
a Libyan Military Official got word
to Rear Admiral Kubic that Gaddafi
was willing to step down. He said he
would surrender to Military Officials
not a Diplomat, and wanted to discuss
the transition. Kubic forwarded that
offer to General Ham, Commander
of US Africa Command (AFRICOM).
Direct military to military contacts were
set up, but Gaddafi’s offer was not
accepted by us. Later Gaddafi sent a
different Military Officer to request a
72 hour cease fire, to see if terms for
his removal could be negotiated. Kubic
says Ham was glad to have a resolution
at hand, but later stunned, when he
was told to not communicate anymore
with Gaddafi.
The end result turned out that Gaddafi was killed on Oct. 20, 2011 by the
radical groups, and a smooth transition with a stable government did not
occur. Libya has been in a state of civil
war since that time. Conditions on the
ground in Benghazi and all over Libya
are often being controlled by the same
radical Jihadist that were once kept
down by Gaddafi. These radicals are
the people responsible for the assault
on our Special Mission Compound
(SMC) and Annex.
Why did we even have an Annex
and the SMC in Benghazi anyway? The
Special Mission Complex was set up
for the purpose of buying weapons
back from various groups that we gave
weapons to so that they could overthrow Gaddafi, as well as trying to buy
some of the huge Libyan arsenal that
those groups had captured during the
fight. The weapons bought were then
sent to the Syrian rebels trying to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. Many of those
weapons have now been captured
by ISIS again or bombed by Russian
aircraft.
We hired two groups to guard our
The goals of the Ponte Vedra YMCA
Teen Leadership Board (TLB) are to
provide local teens with leadership and
volunteer opportunities, plus create a
platform to make a positive impact in
the community. For the first year of
the program, the group will create and
implement two volunteer programs,
one to serve the YMCA community; the
other to serve the greater Ponte Vedra
Beach community.
Guided by PV YMCA Advisory Board
Members David Hummell and Rob
Ohno, and coached by YMCA Advisor
Dani Slader, the Teen Leadership Board
will work closely with PV YMCA’s Advisory Board to provide feedback and
direction for future, teen-oriented pro-
grams. The teens will serve a term of
1-2 years.
The Inaugural 2015 YMCA Teen
Leadership Board members are Garrett
Beckenbauch, Amanda Morey, Sophia
Bono, Sam Ohno, Brooke Cleary, Allison Perkner, Jack Hart, Katherine Scott,
Daniel Kessler and Evan Trimas
.
SMC. One group was The Blue Mountain Group, made up of former Libyan
militants and is a firm the State Department acknowledges is affiliated with
Britain. The other was the February 17
Martyrs Brigade, which ironically derives its name from Feb. 17 2006, when
thousands of Islamists stormed the
Italian Consulate in Benghazi because
the minister had the nerve to suggest
that free speech should prevail when
protests erupted over a t-shirt with a
picture of Muhammad on it.
Kris Paronto (Tanto), who was on
the ground fighting; believes that some
of the guards hired actually participated in the assault against the SMC
and the Annex. One thing is certain
when the assault started most of the
guards from both groups ran for cover
and did not help defend the SMC. This
was not the first time they failed to
do what they were supposed to do.
An incident occurred previously at a
roadblock, which one of the radical
groups set up, where they attempted to
rob Annex personnel. The CIA station
chief radioed Feb 17 Martyrs Brigade
for help, but they never showed up.
The soon to be released movie based
on 13 hours in Benghazi covers how
this turned out.
The radical groups we had partnered with to overthrow Gaddafi,
and who didn’t like us anyway now
had many new recruits, weapons and
money and they turned those weapons against us on September 11, 2012.
They amassed a large force outside the
SMC gate and walls; so Ambassador
Stevens contacted the Annex and the
State Dept. for help. He was used to
not getting help from the State Dept.
He had previously asked for help many
times when threats were realized, but
no help was ever authorized by the
State Dept. He was told he had enough
security from the Feb 17th Martyrs Brigade, and Blue Mountain Group. Staff
at the SMC wanted Americans, who
were trained for that type of work, and
were not comfortable entrusting it to
a group of Islamic radicals. The only
Americans provided for security at the
SMC; other than the GRS at the Annex
where the Diplomatic Special Security
Agents (DSS), which fluctuated from 4
to 6 personnel.
Four to six DSS agents were not
enough for this Benghazi Special Mission, which was about to be attacked
as prior events revealed. Ambassador
Stevens was aware that on April 6th
an IED was thrown over the fence at
the compound, another IED left at the
gate on June 11, gun battles occurred
near the SMC, threats and attacks on
guards, and foreign service officers
had occurred, and grenades fired at
the Red Cross Outlet on two separate
occasions. He was aware that a threat
was made against him personally and
photos of him making his morning run
were posted online. An RPG is fired at
the British Ambassador’s convoy, and
SMC guards are told by their families
to quit their jobs, because an attack is
coming soon. Stevens numerous request for more security and his report
of those incidents, as well as others
resulted in no help from Secretary of
State, Hillary Clinton. What was she
thinking? Why did she deny adequate
security for a mission that clearly
needed it?
The assault begins and can be heard
at the Annex. GRS operators go to
the roof and realize that the attack is
occurring at the SMC, and notify the
CIA station chief. He tells them he is
aware it is going on, since Stevens had
already called him, and a call has been
put out to Blue Mountain Group, and
Feb 17 Martyrs Brigade for help, so
don’t do anything they will take care
of it.
The GRS Operators are emphatic
and tell the Station Chief they want to
respond, those are our people over
there and they need us. They are told
to stand down. The attack continues GRS asks again to be allowed to
respond, and are told by the Station
Chief I have clear orders from Washington to stand down. The radio is full
of calls from people at the SMC and
the message is the same help we need
help they are setting the buildings on
fire; we are all going to die if we don’t
get some help.
After asking the third time to be
allowed to respond Admiral Lyons
colorfully puts it best “they gave him
the official one finger salute got into
their vehicles and went to defend their
brothers anyway.” Tanto, who was
there and one of the GRS Operators
going to fight off the assault, said ‘we
didn’t give a one finger salute, but we
did use a hand gesture like a chopping knife, which means we are deadly
serious, and before the 6 of us left I
did grab one of the translators to take
with us.”
Fifty minutes had already elapsed,
and it took another 45 minutes to fight
through the road blocks, scale the
wall, and fight to cross the compound
grounds before getting into the building. Calls from inside the building kept
coming. Africom had been notified
as well as the State Dept. The GRS
searched the mission crawling on the
ground, because of all the smoke, as
they went through rooms searching
for the Ambassador. They found Sean
Smith, Communications Expert dead.
Shawn was with the Ambassador during the assault. After a lengthy search,
and tough firefight the GRS returned to
the Annex in order to work on finding
the Ambassador.
General Ham had a Delta Team in
Tunisia which could have been on
scene quickly. There were more Deltas,
and a 300 man Marine Brigade in
Sigonella Italy, as well significant air
support available that could be there in
time to help, and fast response teams
aboard vessels in the Mediterranean.
Two AC 130 Spectre gunships where
also in the area with one already in
the air on a training mission when
the attack started. General Ham kept
requesting permission to deploy the
Delta Team, but was told by the Pentagon that they had orders not to engage. Ham said he was going to send
help anyway, and within 2 minutes his
subordinates were instructed to arrest
him.
After much fighting, shredding of
classified materials, abandonment of
our facilities, and the Deaths of four
brave men, Ambassador Christopher
Stevens, Information Officer Sean
Smith, GRS Operators and former
Navy Seals Glen Doherty and Tyrone
Wood things are much the way they
were in Benghazi before we set up
our gun buy-back program. But look
on the bright side, since we changed
the name from consulate to special
mission, and since we didn’t draw
attention to it by sending a sufficient
security force, or assistance after the attack started perhaps Secretary of State,
Hillary Clinton, and Commander in
Chief Barack Obama can keep people
from finding out how incredibly inept
they are, and willing to sacrifice the
lives of other for their own ambitions.