Insurgents killed Army Sgt. John Paul Castro April 22 in Afghanistan’s Paktika province. He was on his third combat tour — one to Iraq, two to Afghanistan — in his less-than-seven-year career. Castro’s last mission was “a fight that occurred at distances measured in hand-grenade range, within a complex environment of walled mazes …
Army
Chilling Tale from Afghanistan…
…will be on the cover of this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine:
“Ask them, ‘Do they understand why we shot this dude?’ ” the lieutenant told his interpreter. During their last patrol to Qualaday, soldiers in the platoon had attacked Mullah Allah Dad with rifles and a fragmentation grenade that blew off the lower halves of his
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Misery on the Home Front…
From an Army wife’s blog comes the downside of a decade of war. And no, contrary to her lede (as we spell it in the ink-stained wretch trade) she hasn’t killed herself. Not yet anyway.
Army Accessions Command, 2002-2011
The Army created its Accessions Command in 2002. On Wednesday, with encouragement from the Pentagon, it killed it. The U.S. Army Accessions Command was 9. The Army says it will shut down the command, based at Fort Monroe, Va., over the next 18 months. That will lead to the elimination of two general’s slots, 65 other military …
“And Don’t Let It Hit You On The Way Out!”
Colleague and columnist Joe Klein, over on Swampland, doesn’t like the way LTG Dave Rodriguez is being shown the door after his long service in Afghanistan.
Up-armored Jock Straps
Four Strikes
Cory Provus, a Milwaukee Brewers baseball team broadcaster (since when did that become a position on the diamond?) recently visited troops recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C.:
We met one young soldier from Staten Island, NY, that [hey -- he's a broadcaster] lost all 4 limbs while in Afghanistan. But there he was
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Army Mental Health: Better Screening Yields Better Results
Just how closely should the nation be screening its troops for mental fitness before they’re shipped off to war? We are seeing, again and again, that bad things — depression, divorce, suicide, murder — can happen in combat’s wake. If there is a way to weed out — that may not be the right word — the folks who might be driven to such …
Troops: Still Not Enough Time at Home
When Gen. George Casey stepped down as the Army’s top officer last week, he said his four years as chief of staff had been dedicated to rebalancing a force warped by 10 years of war. “We anticipate getting to a point by the end of this year where we will begin executing a more balanced and sustainable deployment tempo with a transformed, …
