“The danger a lot of times is not that anybody is purposely trying to downplay challenges in Afghanistan. A lot of times it's just the military culture is: `We can get it done.' And so, their thinking is, `How are we going to solve this problem?' not `Boy, why is this such a disaster?'”
BattlelandMilitary Mental Health
Troop Mental Ills: Psychiatric or Organic?
There’s a continuing tension over whether mental disorders are “organic” or “psychological”. The first is easier to define — a brain injury caused by an insult, such as a bullet wound, blow to the head or bomb blast.
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BattlelandProcurement
“We Pause for This Commercial…Sale”
Legislators are fighting over every single dollar in this year’s defense budget, although saving billions could be as simple as changing a few words in a contracting statute. And believe it — or not — the Pentagon is the good …
Persian Sunset
$750 million
BattlelandAfghanistan
Only One Year of U.S.-Led Fighting Left
President Obama’s goal at the NATO summit this week is looking increasingly clear: wrap up U.S. troops’ combat role over the coming year, and get the allies to pay more money to enable the Afghan military to fill the …
BattlelandMissile Defense
House Pushes for East Coast Missile Shield
The House has approved a $643 billion defense-spending bill for 2013 that’s $3.7 billion more than the Obama Administration, and its Pentagon, is seeking. That’s just about the same amount the Congressional Budget Office …
BattlelandAuthor Q&A
Losing a Daughter in Combat
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 …
BattlelandMilitary Spending
The Pentagon’s “Washington Monument Strategy”
Whenever federal bureaucrats running the nation’s parks get antsy that their purse is likely to shrink, they roll out something long known as the “Washington Monument strategy.” That’s the tried-and-true technique of warning the …
BattlelandClose-up
Battleland Diary, May 11-18
TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures from the front lines and home.
BattlelandMilitary History
“Those Who Cannot Remember the Past…”
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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BattlelandTroops
Behind the Bowe Bergdahl Story…
…this week in Time magazine, Battleland’s own Nate Rawlings joins forces with Time AfPak correspondent Aryn Baker to write the compelling story on Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army sergeant who has been held by insurgents along the AfPak frontier for nearly three years. In this video, Nate talks about the Bergdahl case, and why he found it …
BattlelandChina
“Historic New Missions” That Aren’t New and Hardly Historic
Stop the presses! The Pentagon’s just-issued annual report on China says its military is expanding into “new historic missions” beyond its traditional role of self-defense. The press is already highlighting that alarming phrase.
Some are sure to see these as “new hysteric missions” and contend they require increased U.S. …
