BattlelandKorea
NoKo Déjà Vu
The State Department declared Wednesday that Pyongyang has changed its stripes and agreed to suspend its nuclear activities and halt nuclear and long-range missile tests. If true, this is good news for the world and the North …
BattlelandMilitary Mental Health
Military Migraines
Combat gets blamed for all sorts of ills. Some are obvious, like physical wounds. Others are less visible, and range from traumatic brain injury to post-traumatic stress disorder. Well, “deployment to southwest Asia” – that would be Afghanistan and/or Iraq –apparently also triggers headaches.
“Factors that appeared to be …
BattlelandMilitary
A Bright Shining Line
Those of us of a certain sell-by date recall John Paul Vann’s searing tale of Vietnam in Neil Sheehan’s A Bright Shining Lie.
The title resonates in light of recent screw-ups by the U.S. military, with the addition of one …
BattlelandAir Force
“Other Than That, How Was Your Flight?”
Training for war – flying a jet fighter at low altitudes, for example – can be an unforgiving business. That’s the bottom line from an F-15 crash last October 24 in Nevada. The pilot wasn’t badly hurt, but the $32 million plane was totaled.
Accident investigators said they were unable to determine the cause of the crash, …
BattlelandWeapons
3. Finding the Right Targets
BattlelandAfghanistan
The Nearly $1 Million-a-Year Soldier
The Pentagon’s top bean-counter was ready when a senator asked him a simple question Tuesday: how much does it cost to keep a single American soldier in Afghanistan for a year? “Right now,” Robert Hale, the Pentagon comptroller responded, “about $850,000 per soldier.”
That’s akin to the $400-per-gallon cost of fuel, and $30-per-gallon …