In February, I traveled to Fort Lewis, Washington to write about the redeployment experience of the 2nd Battalion of the fabled 75th Ranger Regiment, just home from Afghanistan. Conventional Army units deploy for 12 months at a time before returning home for another year or so, but the Rangers’ rotations tend to last only 3–6
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Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates was justifiably proud of his $45 billion push to speed up delivery of some 27,000 Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The hulking troop-carriers have saved hundreds, if not thousands, of American lives. They roll as a rebuke to Don Rumsfeld’s …
Pakistan has let the Chinese study — and take samples from — the stealthy MH-60 helicopter used by Navy SEALs in their raid that killed Osama bin Laden May 2, the London-based Financial Times reported Monday:
“The US now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI, gave access to the Chinese military to the downed
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Just when you’re thinking the Army may have turned the corner on its troops’ killing themselves, a new number has surfaced that dashes those hopes. On Friday, the Army said it suffered a record 32 suspected suicides in July, the most since it began releasing monthly data two years ago.
The Army is waging war on suicide just as …
It’s kind of mind-numbing how we’ve become “used” to the historically small number of our troops dying in our recent wars. They tend to happen no more than a handful at a time, which I guess makes them easier to handle.
But every once in awhile you get a list like this, of those who perished early Saturday in the CH-47 …
As soon as we heard Marine General John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was going to brief Wednesday morning, we knew he’d have something positive to say: a U.S. F-16 terminated the Taliban who downed the CH-47 Chinook in the Tangi Valley over the weekend with extreme prejudice early Monday.
But as sure as day …
The Pentagon is fretting whether or not to release the names of the 22 SEALs who perished in the CH-47 crash in Afghanistan on Saturday. Ultimately, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, after hearing the concerns of commanders about releasing the names of special-operations troops, has decided to do so. Their names should be out by …
Why did the U.S. military agree to do the “heavy lifting” in the opening days of the war with Libya — launching long-range bombing strikes from the continental U.S., among other martial fireworks — before handing off the next nearly six months (and counting!) to our NATO allies? Is this a new way of waging war on the cheap for …
There is some good new in the world. This ain’t the biggest deal, but we’ll take it.
The Army will reduce the length of many combat deployments from 12 months to 9 months. This is also down from the height of the Iraq war, when many soldiers spent 15 months at war. The shortened tours don’t begin until early 2012 and don’t apply …
If press reports are accurate, the young soldier arrested for allegedly planning to shoot troops near Fort Hood was inspired by Major Nidal Hasan, who slaughtered 13 people at Fort Hood in November 2009. Pfc. Naser Abo, 21, also had in his hotel room bombmaking materials and a copy of an article from Inspire, published by al-Qaeda’s …
News reports suggest the Army private arrested in Killeen Texas for allegedly planning an attack on Fort Hood troops had a stash of guns and bomb-making components. Fort Hood was the location of the shooting massacre in November 2009, by a guy who was basically a terrorist. Just what was motivating this kid, however, is hard to fathom …
The immediate reaction from a lot of people when news first broke that a soldier shot up the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood in November 2009 was surprise that this kind of thing had not happened earlier. Many folks (including me) first assumed that this was the act of a soldier suffering greatly from combat stress after repeated …
House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee Chairman J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) held a hearing on the state of the military this week. The conclusion is stark: the U.S. military is at a breaking point. Today. Right now.
None of America’s armed forces can meet all of the global demands placed on them by commanders today. Were an …
