SEALs go through their infamous Hell Week during their training, when physical stress amid mental duress and sleep deprivation breaks nearly all strong, smart men. This past week, it seems, we have all been through SEAL Week.
And it’s not over yet: Saturday morning the Navy will christen USS Michael Murphy, a guided-missile …
“With equipment that is falling apart and a war entering its tenth year, the strain on the troops–our most precious resource–can only be described as severe.”
In his May 5 speech at The Heritage Foundation, Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, made it clear that even with the recent …
President Obama is going to thank some of those involved in Monday’s mission against Osama bin Laden during his visit to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on Friday. Whether or not the SEALs will be there isn’t known: they’re based 500 miles away, at Fort Bragg, N.C. But some key enablers live at the Kentucky base: the Night Stalkers of Task …
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 …
This surprising chart is contained in a new Pentagon report. “Annual numbers of hospitalizations with primary (first-listed) diagnoses of suicidal ideation at discharge have steadily and sharply increased (from 5 in 2006 to 355 in 2010),” the Pentagon notes. That’s a 7,000% increase in patients who reported thinking of killing …
So now that Osama bin Laden has gone on to his just deserts, what impact — if any — will his demise have on the war in Afghanistan next door?
The military answer: none.
The political answer: accelerate that troop pullout.
Just over 31 years ago, a much bleaker dawn greeted Americans awakening and getting ready to go to work than was the case Monday morning. Back in 1980, the U.S. military had just been humiliated at Desert One, deep inside Iran, trying to rescue the 52 hostages that had been held by Iran for six months. The U.S. military was forced to …
When the President announced his new national security team last week most of the attention focused on David Petraeus at CIA and the problem of winding down the war in Afghanistan. Leon Panetta’s nomination as Secretary of Defense went almost unnoticed, by comparison.
But Panetta has the bigger challenge: how to manage a build down in …
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 …
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 …
We’ve reported on the problems IEDs can cause troops’ private parts when they detonate underneath them. Things have gotten so dire that the Pentagon is now skipping normal procurement rules mandating competition, to speed up the purchase and deployment of so-called “ballistic undergarments.” The justification for the no-competition …
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:
