Apparently war is an equal-opportunity destroyer, screwing up female troops’ minds as much — pretty much no more, no less — than those belonging to their male comrades. That’s the bottom line in a new study trying to contrast the mental wounds of war in both genders.
“Study findings suggest that both exposure to combat-related …
Recently there has been a lot of buzz in BattleLand about Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), like this first-hand account by Ron Capps, or any of Mark Thompson’s posts. Currently a huge campaign is going on in the United States urging those affected to seek assistance, complete with billboards, TV ads, and self-help …
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during his farewell tour in Afghanistan that troops there were poised to deliver a “decisive blow” against the Taliban.
I’m not sure why anybody would buy that kind of rhetoric at this late date, unless they had some reason to believe this decisive blow was somehow different from the “turning point” …
So 34 troops flying home from Afghanistan via Delta on Tuesday say they were forced to fork over $2,800 of their own money because the airline said they were carrying too many bags home from combat. Made a nifty little video about it mid-flight, complete with a barf-bag signoff. Gotta love their video-firing-for-effect (indirect fire …
One of the worst things about these Afghanistan reports is the part where the authors document billions of our tax dollars flowing to contractors that might be crooked, don’t finish the job, payoff the Taliban, and generally dump money into the black hole that is Afghanistan.
The new report from Democrats on the Senate Foreign …
The Senate Democrats on the foreign relations committee have just issued as report saying that the $18.8 billion — so far — U.S. effort to rebuild Afghanistan has had limited success and may not survive a U.S. troop pullout. U.S. development money — now some $10 million a day — is sucking Afghan workers into jobs with contractors …
When it was passed by the UN in 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was seen as a crucial step for nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Adding to the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 that banned testing in the atmosphere, underwater or outer space, the CTBT prohibits all nuclear explosions in all environments. The …
Rolling Stoned and former Army General Stan McChrystal is now leading the McChrystal Group, and has replaced defeating the Taliban with a new assignment: “McChrystal Group’s mission is to bring world-class leadership solutions to public and private organizations to help them solve problems, manage risk and be more effective,” …
Everybody thinks that the future is going to see fights over energy, when it’s far more likely to be primarily over food. Think about it: The 19th century is the century of chemistry and that gets us chemical weapons in World War I. The 20th century is the century of physics and that gets us nuclear weapons in World War II. But the …
(La Ciotat, France) — Inside Versailles on the Potomac, pressure is building on President Obama to reduce his promised withdrawal of combat troops in Afghanistan to a cosmetic level, and perhaps more to the point, to protect the defense budget from efforts to reduce the deficit. The two — i.e., perpetual war and the defense budget — …
News from the Pentagon Tuesday afternoon:
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a serviceman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. Air Force Capt. Darrell J. Spinler of Browns
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Spinning off Mark Benjamin’s Chinese posting: a couple of days after celebrating U.S. naval prowess in 1942′s Battle of Midway — widely seen as the turning point in World War II’s Pacific war between the U.S. and Japan — the guided missile destroyer USS Chung-Hoon is continuing further east as tensions rise between China and its …
In case you missed it, China just gave us the finger.
Anybody reading the Wall Street Journal last week was probably struck by the news that the Pentagon now considers computer sabotage from another country an act of war, and that the United States might respond with military force.
I was really glad when Battleland’s Mark Thompson …
