Here’s our final dispatch from Gayla Romanowsky, who has been filing to Battleland from the new Significant Others Support Group at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Her husband, Dave, served in Iraq, where he earned a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Gayla attended the sessions, funded by the non-profit Walter Reed Society, to …
Iraq
A “Gift of Desperation”: A Marine Reflects on Combat and bin Laden, Who Put Him There
Standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the honor graduates from our Officer Candidates School (OCS) class, I accepted my award from the Commanding General with a crisp salute. My transformation from a frat boy trolling Rugby Road at The University of Virginia to a man deemed worthy to lead Marines was finally complete. It was …
Painful Chopper Rides: Maintaining Your “Optimal Buttocks Reference Point” Can Kill Your Back — Failure to Do So Can Kill You
A decade of war certainly takes its toll on the brains and minds of those waging it. We’ve seen that in the numbers of troops returning with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. Pentagon leaders refer to them as the “signature wounds” of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because of their prevalence due to …
Afghan Air Strikes Up 5,800% Since 2004
The real surge in Afghanistan isn’t the 30,000 additional troops President Obama sent there last year, but the 400% hike in close-air support missions from 2004 to 2010. Over that same time span, the number of weapons deployed on those missions ballooned from 86 to 5,101 — a 5,800% increase. You can track the trend in the chart …
They Do Happen: A PTSD Success Story
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IONNS8IeJL8&feature=player_embedded#at=271]
Contaminated Dust Story Does Need that Question Mark Headline
Thanks to Ron Capps for highlighting the provocative story by Kelly Kennedy in USA Today about how contaminated dust in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait may have triggered high rates of respiratory, neurological, and heart ailments among U.S. troops. The dust is laden with toxic metals and bacteria.
I’m a genuine fan of the hugely …
As Cash Payments Disappear in Iraq, Militants Join al-Qaeda Again
A few years back I was having dinner with a former Special Forces soldier who had just recently returned from Iraq. This time he was working as a contractor there. It was sometime during 2008, because I recall remarking about how successful the surge of U.S. troops had been in Iraq. I had been extremely skeptical before the surge, I told …
National Shame: Fighting A War Overseas, Then Fighting For a Job Back Home
Powerful and poignant Time video piece by ace videographer Natasha Del Toro about the veterans coming home from America’s two wars — widely hailed as heroes, and praised for their service and sacrifice — and why they are having such a tough time landing jobs.
“Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have fought in the toughest parts of …
Commando Dogs: Going After bin Laden — And IEDs
The mystery mutt who accompanied the SEALs on their mission to Osama bin Laden’s lair is coming in for a fair amount of attention. After all, people love their dogs, and if one can help take out the world’s most wanted terrorist, all the better. Their noses know: the dog’s keen sense of smell, to sniff out …
More on Retired LTG Sanchez’s Possible Senate Run
…here, from TIME’s Hilary Hylton in Texas.
From Abu Ghraib to the U.S. Senate?
Ricardo Sanchez, who ran the ground war in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, is thinking of running for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Texas, McClatchy Newspapers report:
Democrats appear to have recruited retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to run for the U.S. Senate in Texas, setting the stage for a potentially competitive race in 2012
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