There can be no winners when a U.S. soldier comes home in a transfer case, draped with the U.S. flag. But one father refused to accept the official story of his son’s death in Iraq, and fought the U.S. Army to force it to acknowledge that perhaps his son didn’t need to die.
Battleland knows how tough it can be to fight the U.S. …
Army Major Michael Bugaj, a field artilleryman, had two striking experiences during his first tour in Iraq in 2005-2006: the gloom that permeated his unit when it learned its tour had been extended without notice, and what it’s like to come under fire for the first time.
Bugai, who has since pulled a tour in Afghanistan, spoke of …
Army Major Dortina Stephens was a logistics officer stationed in Iraq in 2007 and 2009 who helped train the Iraqi military. One of five daughters, she was the only one who followed their father into the Army.
Stephens spoke of her experiences in in this recently-posted April interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort …
Army Major Michael Yeager has deployed three times to Afghanistan and Iraq, most recently to Afghanistan in 2010 as a special operations planner for the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command.
But in this recently-posted March interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he spoke mostly about …
game-changers, a new technology or tactic that will render war as we know it obsolete. Turns out they also embrace name-changers. Here’s a nifty little $17 million contract buried deep in the Pentagon’s Wednesday contract announcements. It’s to defend a U.S. forward operating base in Afghanistan.
The name of the company may not …
Follow Marine veteran Matthew Litton as he hunts for work at a RecruitMilitary job fair in Philadelphia.
Picture a young man who joined the military shortly after high school. As an infantryman, he shipped out several times …
What’s worse – apparently cheating on your wife while based in Iraq as a key U.S. diplomat, or purportedly using your State Department email account to facilitate your alleged assignations with your paramour, supposedly a reporter for a top newspaper? Can’t decide? How about this: having those emails surface after the Obama …
Any soldier’ll tell you that mail from home – even in this day of cell phones and email – is a real morale-booster for troops on the front lines.
Army Major Peter Perzel pulled postal duty during his assignment in Iraq in 2008-09, before a second tour in Afghanistan in 2009-10. He shared some of what he learned in a …
We’ve had a flurry of books written by troops recounting their battles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now come the books detailing the battles fought once they got home.
Mike Scotti served with the Marines in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and saw war’s horrors up close and personal. When he came back home, he gradually felt himself being …
Some soldiers get along, and others don’t. It’s the latter that make for the most interesting tales when they speak of their time at war. Army Major Ryan Ussery is a logistician – the guy who keeps the beans, bullets and boots coming to the troops on the front lines (motto: Sustinendum Victoriam). He has pulled three tours in Iraq, …
Trash can be deadly. You can get a hint of that from the contract solicitation issued Tuesday by the Defense Logistics Agency’s European disposition office seeking “hazardous waste services in southwest Asia.”
Lord …
It’s tough for most Americans to learn much about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that the U.S. military has waged since 9/11. So it’s all the more important to pay attention when combat chronicles – and their impact back home – surface.
Anna Simon covered the 2004 death in Iraq of Kimberly Hampton for South Carolina’s The …
Hard to believe, but Battleland began covering this terrible story 25 years ago today:
28 KILLED ON U.S. FRIGATE USS STARK — DIDN’T USE DEFENSES — ‘DON’T KNOW WHY,’ NAVY OFFICIAL SAYS
WASHINGTON — The USS Stark, a
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