The U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003 without permission. But now that it no longer has approval from Baghdad’s post-Saddam government to stay beyond 2011, all U.S. forces will be pulling out by year’s end, President Obama said Friday. “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over,” Obama said at the White House. …
Military History
The Party
Only a month ago I was unable to disclose my status as a gay man in the military. Fast forward to Tuesday of last week, when I stood as a guest to a party celebrating the launch of the anthology “Our Time“, a collection of stories from other gay, lesbian, and straight servicemembers, negatively affected by the “Don’t Ask” ban on open …
Libya’s Lessons
Moammar Gaddafi’s death makes for an interesting punctuation mark in the ever-evolving U.S. approach to war. The key choice: should it be an exclamation point (“We got him! And not a single American died!) or a question mark (“Did we just get lucky? Is this a template for how the U.S. should wage future wars?”).
We shouldn’t …
Battleland on NPR
I know I’ve been radio silent for the past few weeks. I’ve been getting my ducks in a row for the post-DADT era. Here’s a look into an interview I had with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross on ‘Fresh Air’ which aired this Wednesday. In the interview, OutServe’s Josh Seefried and I discuss what it’s been like living under “Don’t …
Putting Women Aboard Subs…And Tweaking the Blueprints
I finally had the opportunity to tour a Trident-class submarine; you know, the large ballistic missile boats, four of which are soon to be home to several women officers. I was surprised at how big it was inside…yet not. Being a surface sailor, I was trying to visualize how this ship could be configured to accommodate enlisted …
Best Military Obits of the Weekend
Journalists tend to disparage obituaries because many of them had to churn them out as young reporters. But few forms of writing are so rewarding. After all, unlike many stories, obits have a beginning, middle and an end. They trace the arc of the subject’s life, and try to put it into some kind of frame and perspective. It was a great …
The General Who Lost Vietnam
Even now, the easiest way to get into an argument at a V.F.W. bar is to mention Vietnam. Seared into all who fought it — and many who merely lived through it — that conflict remains a bitter stew of second-guessing and recriminations. Historian Lewis Sorley — author of 1999’s well-regarded A Better War: The Unexamined Victories …
Bravo Zulu, Admiral Mullen
Adm. Mike Mullen turns over the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs on Friday, and the nation is poorer for his departure. As a surface warfare officer, Mullen knew what it meant to take the helm. After years of service in the middle of the ocean — where Navy regulations stipulate that a captain’s responsibility is “absolute” and his …
Ain’t Gonna Study War No More…
There’s a military-history professor down Texas way by the name of Joyce Goldberg who has given up teaching military history after nearly 30 years. Increasingly, she writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education, her classes have been filled with recent military veterans more interested in binding their own mental war wounds than …
“Is China Getting Ready to Try and Kick the U.S. Out of the Western Pacific?”
Continuing this week on Command Post, our tour of the national-security challenges associated with the Middle Kingdom. John Nagl, of the Center for a New American Security, and I ask if China, beginning to flex its military muscle, is readying to tell the Pentagon: the western Pacific is ours, so scram! We’re joined in the discussion …
The Death of Tradition?
Navy aviation is celebrating its 100 year anniversary this year, and there have been many celebrations throughout the aviation community. Women have been part of the naval aviation community since 1974. That’s 37 years, or more than a third of naval aviation’s history. They were restricted to so-called non-combat aircraft until …
Officer X: Behind the Mask
What a fascinating time to be a gay man in the U.S. military. This time last year, I was sure the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy was here to stay for the next 2 to 3 years.
These initial words from my first post on Battleland are as true today as they were when I first Photoshopped a hastily-taken picture from my iPad, …
Wars, Yesterday and Today
There’s a profound sense of deja vu among those of us who came of age — in uniform, at school, in politics — during the Vietnam war. So much of what is happening today resonates with that conflict in ways both good and ill.
Lee Barnes has just written When We Walked Above the Clouds about his experiences early in the southeast …