In 2006 and 2008, pregnancy accounted for the most hospitalizations among members of the U.S. military, with mental-health ailments ranked second. In 2010, those two swapped places: mental-health problems were the No. 1 cause of hospital stays for members of the U.S. military last year. “In contrast to recent prior years, in 2010 …
Pentagon
Navy Fires Third C.O. — This Week!
The Navy is on a tear: it has just relieved its third commanding officer this week. That makes 10 so far this year, putting it well ahead of 2010, when 17 were canned over the entire year. The latest man overboard (the ninth, in fact, was a woman, relieved last Saturday) is Commander Jay Wylie, captain of the destroyer …
Meet The New Boss. Same As The Old Boss.
I remember when Harold Brown was Jimmy Carter’s defense secretary. Heck, I remember when Bob McNamara was JFK’s defense secretary, so let me rephrase that: I covered Harold Brown as Jimmy Carter’s defense secretary.
There’s been a flurry of reports over the last couple of days about how the shift of Leon …
Skunk at the Garden Party, Sir!
Retired Army colonel Douglas Macgregor has always been a bomb-thrower. His 1997 book on the future of the U.S. Army, Breaking the Phalanx, was equally loved and hated by those inside the service. An innovative battle tactician who some saw as arrogant, he’s one of those guys who colors just a little too much outside the lines for the …
CBO Defense Option #5
The Congressional Budget Office says killing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in favor of buying more F-16s and F-18s would save $26.9 billion in outlays over the next five years. The F-35 is the biggest Pentagon procurement program in history, slated to buy some 2,500 planes for $382 billion over the next 25 years or so.
Purple Heart Clarity
Troops suffering from traumatic brain injury — one of the signature wounds of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — have long been eligible for the Purple Heart. But now the Pentagon is clarifying the rules:
End of the Line for the F-16?
There are reports from the subcontinent that India has eliminated the two U.S.-built planes from its $10 billion competition to buy about 126 fighters. Both the Lockheed F-16 and Boeing F-18 have reportedly been scratched from the list of candidates, in favor of a pair of European-built planes. The F-16 is built in Fort Worth. I was …
Panetta’s Pentagon Challenge
Over the past decade, the Pentagon has been run by a bully, a bureaucrat and, soon, a budget-cutter. Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and incumbent Robert Gates had their pluses and minuses, but neither could wield a budget scalpel like Leon Panetta, who President Obama is slated to nominate as the nation’s 23rd defense …
Chilling Tale from Afghanistan…
…will be on the cover of this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine:
“Ask them, ‘Do they understand why we shot this dude?’ ” the lieutenant told his interpreter. During their last patrol to Qualaday, soldiers in the platoon had attacked Mullah Allah Dad with rifles and a fragmentation grenade that blew off the lower halves of his
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Global Policeman
The last time the Government Accountability Office added up how much the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies were spending building police forces around the world was in 1990. The U.S. government spent $180 million that year. In a new report out today, that total has jumped to $3.5 billion, a nearly 2,000% hike.
Afghan Allies?
On Monday, about 500 prisoners, including more than 100 Taliban commanders, escaped from an Afghan-run jail in Kandahar. On Wednesday, a ticked-off Afghan pilot pulled a gun at Kabul airport, killing eight U.S. troops and a contractor before he was killed, news sources report from Afghanistan. The officer “opened fire on foreign …
CBO Defense Option #4
The Congressional Budget Office suggests combining the Pentagon’s separate grocery stores (commissaries) and department stores (exchanges) into one entity, instead of having four separate retail chains. Sounds like a no-brainer, especially given the domestic competition many of these outfits now face from places like Walmart. …
Libya: Alice in Wonderland, Meet George Orwell
Defense Secretary Robert Gates declared Tuesday that because Muammar Gaddafi’s residential compound serves as a command-and-control node for his military forces, it is a legitimate target for U.S. and NATO aircraft to attack. But the person who actually does the commanding and controlling? Not so much. “We are not targeting him …