The Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy dies today. It’s an obit I never thought I’d write. It hardly seems possible — as one who covered the debate for close to two decades — that the ban on openly gay men and women serving in uniform is passing into the pages of history. What will military reporters bored with hardware and …
Troops
Carpe September 20th
The clock is ticking. If you are reading this, it means the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is no more. As of right now, I no longer have to hide in a web of lies about the details of my personal life. Throughout my time in service under DADT, a week hasn’t gone by where I haven’t been reminded of the policy. It …
All Systems Go!
Despite what Mark Thompson thinks, I am no flying monkey. Like most things in my life I am associating tomorrow’s impending lift of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to something pilot-related. Right now I’m running the starting-engines checklist and making sure my systems are all good before liftoff. The day after my debut flight in the …
It’s Official: Military Retiree Benefits on the Table
It’s a funny way to run a government, but things don’t float to the top in this town until they’ve appeared on the front page of the New York Times. The issue of cutting military retiree pay has been looming for awhile — like a shark just beneath the surface — but it finally crashes into public consciousness Monday when the …
Headin’ Home….
Hard to believe, but five years ago there was a chorus of calls for the U.S. to pull out of Iraq because American efforts there seemed doomed. That was before Army General David Petraeus led the “surge” of 30,000 troops into Iraq that – combined with the so-called Sunni “awakening” — led to a restive calm across the country. …
The Lessons of Ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”
There is going to be a fair amount of noise in coming days over the expected September 20 end — that’s next Tuesday — of the Pentagon’s 17-year old policy banning openly gay men and women from serving in uniform. Expect to see some gay service personnel emerge from the closet (most will stay there, some forever), and opponents …
The REAL Star Wars
Interesting hearing on Capitol Hill the other day on the continuing growth in generals and admirals relative to the number of troops they command. A picture — or at least a graf — is sometimes worth 1,000 words, so check out this one from the independent, non-partisan Project on Government Oversight:
Top Pentagon generals and …
For Conspicuous Gallantry and Intrepidity…
It was just over two years ago that Dakota Meyer formally became a hero. His Marines knew it then, and the rest of us will learn about it Thursday afternoon when President Obama presents him with the Medal of Honor. Here’s what he did to earn the nation’s highest award for valor. Semper Finest.
The Human Toll Taken by a Decade of War
Just how worn out are our troops because of non-stop combat since 9/11? To what degree has that contributed to problems like PTSD, family breakups and suicide in the ranks? This week, on Command Post, we discuss the tenacity of U.S. troops, as well as the cracks that can appear after a decade of fighting. Margaret Harrell, a
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Another Afghan War Expert Weighs In, Tet-a-Tet
Tony Cordesman, the resident military èminence grise at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, starts out riffing more optimistically than ex-DIA analyst John McCreary on what the Kabul attack means for Afghanistan. But then he details a daunting laundry list of things going wrong that must be reversed — soon — if …
Tet 2.0?
Astute longtime DIA intelligence analyst John McCreary reviews what happened Tuesday in Kabul and doesn’t like what he sees:
Three major Taliban attacks have taken place in Kabul this summer…One such attack is a perhaps good fortune. A second might have been a coincidence, but three is a strategic trend. Violent instability is
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“My Mom Deserves to Know the Truth.”
Since reporting Monday on Rep. Judy Chu’s revelation that her nephew, Lance Corporal Harry Lew, killed himself after being hazed by fellow Marines in Afghanistan, we’ve spoken to several people about the tragic case. It turns out it wasn’t so much tragedy as torment; some might even call it torture. “LCPL Lew was identified …
Clash of the Titans
Interesting chart from the Economist. I fear for national security if McDonald’s eclipses what the Britmag terms the US Department of Defence.