The Weirdest Military News Stories of 2019

The Weirdest of the Weird

If you ask us, the whole concept of the reality TV program Dancing With the Stars has always seemed somewhat bizarre. That sentiment increased tenfold with the inclusion of this past season’s most talked about contestant: former White House Press Secretary, current commander in the US Navy Reserves, and two-time Emmy winner Melissa McCarthy.

Wait, no, not her. The other guy. The guy without the Emmys who then-Defense Secretary Mattis once threatened to “send to Afghanistan.” Sean Spicer, that’s him. 

When Spicer strode onto the stage and millions of TV sets around the world on a September night, clad in tight pants and a lime green ruffled shirt, no one really knew what to expect. And while assessment of his initial performance varied from sympathetic encouragement to loathing, our opinion was best summed up by the judge who said Spencer looked like he was being “attacked by wasps.” Big ones and lots of ‘em, in our opinion.

Still, audiences admired the plucky commander and kept voting to keep him in the running despite his continually less-than-stellar scores from the judges. He danced away eight weeks and was, by all accounts, a perfectly nice person behind the scenes despite his often prickly public image.

Oddly enough, the naval officer’s final performance occurred on Veterans Day. He actually received his highest score for that particular performance, but he still landed in the bottom two and had to bid the program farewell. We can only hope the skills Commander Spencer picked up during his run lead to him dancing his way down the halls as he attends to his new job, member of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors.

Other Weird Military News From 2019

• The US Navy confirmed that those crazy clips of UFO footage taken by several of their aircraft over the past few years are legit. No word on what, exactly, they might have captured on film. But the videos are real enough.
• The “plan” to storm the secretive Area 51 facility of the Nellis Air Force Base Complex quickly spiraled from internet joke to potential security issue. By the time the whole event fizzled out due to lack of structure and a change of venue, senior officers were conducting briefings on memes and “Naruto running.”
• We may not see the first case of a space court martial until the Space Force is fully up and running. But a US Army officer may have the distinction of committing the very first space crime.
• You’ve probably seen at least one article or video related to the dramatic mass arrest of Marines on human trafficking and drug charges this past summer. But it’s really worth learning all about every crazy detail of it. From the random arrests that started it to the fake award ceremony where NCIS agents swooped in, it’s all nuts. And the fact that it ended with most of the charges being dismissed is perhaps the most bizarre part.
• A still unknown Florida man threatened, over radio, to attack US Coast Guard aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Mexico. Which is weird for a bunch of reasons, least of all because the Coast Guard doesn’t have any aircraft carriers.