As the Pentagon’s nuclear arsenal continues to shrink, so does the rationale for maintaining the Cold War’s nuclear triad that still has nuclear weapons spread among subs, bombers and land-based missiles. But as its components age, advocates come up with neat schemes to preserve their slice of the triad. If bombers are doomed, the …
Vietnam’s Lessons…and Afghanistan
Colonel Gregory A. Daddis is the author of No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress in the Vietnam War, published by Oxford University Press. Daddis teaches history at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York. He has served in a variety of Army command and staff posts around the world and in …
Leadership not Lexicon Will Break the Stigma of PTSD.
My colleague Mark Thompson has mounted three posts mentioning Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder today. I’m not shooting for the superfecta, but I do want to comment on a point Mark made
As I noted in one of my earliest posts here on Battleland, I have struggled with mental health problems. My PTSD diagnosis came in 2002 while I was …
Five U.S. Soldiers Die in Iraq, Part of a Disturbing Trend
There is a spreading rash of assassinations and bombings in Iraq from Baghdad up to Kirkuk. News clips say the so-called Sons of Iraq are drifting back into the ranks of al-Qaeda since they are no longer getting paychecks from the United States.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed late last month. Five died in this latest attack, a rocket …
Barking Up the Right Tree
With all the praise showered on Cairo, the still-hidden military working dog that helped the SEALs grab Osama bin Laden, it’s a great time to be a military mutt. No further evidence is needed than the fact that the Air Force has just opened a $1.6 million kennel for them featuring artificial turf, “green” construction techniques, a …
Great Moments in U.S. Military History
Sure, we are engaged in 2.5 wars. Sure, troops are dying overseas on a near-daily basis. Sure, budgets are tight and getting tighter. Sure, troops are coming home with PTSD — or PTS. Sure, military families are frazzled and stressed beyond all get-out. So why are the Army and Marines waging war over who gets to wear what kind of camouflage?
Afghani-plan
So the size of the U.S. troop pullout President Obama is slated to announce later this month now varies by an order of magnitude: those who want to preserve the gains earned over the past year are suggesting about 3,000 — of the 100,000 U.S. troops now there — would be about the right number to order home starting in July. But — …
Memorial Day in the Rearview Mirror: Soldiers as Heroes, and Victims
Elspeth Ritchie was on the front lines dealing with the military’s mental-health issues as an Army psychiatrist, including several senior positions following 9/11, for nearly a quarter century. She has studied and tended to troops’ minds on assignments around the world, including in Cuba, Iraq, Somalia, South Korea and Vietnam. She
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The Disappearing “Disorder”: Why PTSD is becoming PTS
For years, the U.S. military has referred to the constellation of anxiety, depression and anger many combat troops suffer when they return home as PTSD — Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But in recent months, senior Pentagon officials seem to have gone on a search-and-destroy mission to kill the D — Disorder — and now prefer to …
World Nuke Spending to Top $1 Trillion Per Decade
Having contributed to the two definitive studies of U.S. nuclear weapons spending (Brooking’s Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 and Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities) which found that the United States incurred a cost of nearly $6 …
Gay Jokes
I often get asked if gay jokes bother me in the work place. I can honestly say it’s rare for me to go more than a couple of days without hearing some sort of homophobic comment.
It’s no secret that you have to have thick skin to do this job. When it comes down to it, you can’t turn to your enemy and say “Stop shooting – …
Bradley Manning Revelations Raise Questions about the Army
An article and video from the Guardian explore whether alleged Wikileaker Pfc. Bradley Manning ever should have been deployed because of his fragile mental state. He was apparently such a mess he wet his pants. The piece also explores allegedly lax data security at Manning’s post overseas.
This doesn’t necessarily excuse Manning’s …
TM for PTSD
There are a host of new therapies being tried in the struggle against Post Traumatic Stress Disorder among U.S. troops back from combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. The latest is transcendental meditation, or, as its advocates prefer, Transcendental Meditation™. Pioneered by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1950s, a peer-reviewed …
