Something has changed in the Marine Corps over the past generation. “We cost 5% of the DoD budget — a nickel out of the defense dollar,” General Carl Mundy, the Marine commandant, bragged to Congress in 1993. “In return, the …
BattlelandMarines
BattlelandMarines
BattlelandWeapons
Godspeed, Mr. Withington
The last man present at the birth of the Air Force’s B-52 – which, God bless the BUFF, is still flying real-world missions nearly 60 years after its first flight – has died at 94. Not only did Holden Withington help create …
BattlelandArmy
Army Drill-Sergeant School Boss: Missing In Action
Is This Any Way to Run a Country?
BattlelandIraq
White House: We’ll Gloat If We Want
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mBGZiKi9yQ&feature=player_embedded]
When we suggested Thursday that it might be nice if people toned down their political rhetoric for awhile over the end of the U.S. military’s role in Iraq, we didn’t have President Obama in mind. Turns out, we should have.
BattlelandAfghanistan
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan…
We’ve spent a day noting the formal end to our nine-year distraction in Iraq. Now let’s return to our first post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, where this active-duty Army colonel doesn’t pull many punches. Paul Yingling writes …
BattlelandMilitary Justice
PFC Bradley Manning (cont.)
Army Private First Class Bradley Manning’s Article 32 hearing begins at Fort Meade, Md., Friday – 18 months after his arrest for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.
Because the …
BattlelandIraq
Iraq: Assessing Worth
“We’ve paid a great price here,” Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said as the U.S. wrapped up its mission in Iraq on Thursday. “And it has been a price worth paying.”
This led to a piquant …
BattlelandSuicide
Army Suicides: Monthly Toll Drops Sharply
Sure it’s a coincidence: the same day the U.S. military formally ends its military mission in Iraq, the Army releases the lowest monthly suicide number in recent memory. But there it was, late Thursday, in the standard suicide …
“Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., Sunnyvale, Calif., is being awarded modification P00001 under previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee, cost-plus-fixed-fee, fixed-price-incentive contract (N00030-12-C-0100) which is a combined definitized deployed systems support (DSS) contract and an undefinitized contract action award for TRIDENT II (D5) production.”
BattlelandProcurement
Bleak House
There are so many complicated, infuriating things that make smart Pentagon purchasing nearly impossible. Take this Government Accountability Office investigation, released Wednesday, into charges that a former (unnamed) Pentagon …
BattlelandIraq
So Long, Iraq: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
The good happened Thursday morning, as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta presided over the end of the U.S. military mission in Iraq, from a concrete courtyard at the Baghdad International Airport:
The cost was high — in blood and
…
BattlelandDevelopment
Why Is the U.S. So Good at Nation-Breaking And So Poor at Nation-Building?
As the colors are cased in Baghdad on Thursday, and U.S. military says its goodbyes, Iraq remains a nation with large, gaping wounds nearly a decade after the U.S. invaded. While the U.S. military remains the world’s best at …