BattlelandPeople
Randy “Duke” Cunningham is “Free”
Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a Navy ace during the Vietnam war who became a congressman — before his conviction for accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes sent him to prison for 100 months — was released from federal custody …
Obama to Name Susan Rice National Security Adviser
President Barack Obama is expected to announce he’s naming United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security adviser.
Second-term teams are often about bringing in longtime friends, allies and appointees that …
BattlelandF-35 Price Fixing
The Deadly Empirical Data
Part 3 of 5
Because of the “learning curve” and other problems in the Pentagon’s Selected Acquisition Reports (discussed in my prior post), objective observers need to find better data for measuring the cost of an …
Why The Latest Doping Scandal Won’t Really Hurt Baseball
So, it looks like major league baseball is getting set to hand down a whole slew of doping-related suspensions — about 20, according to an ESPN investigative report.
Overhead Overwatch
A U.S. Special Forces sergeant pulls security during a U.S.-Afghan meeting in Zharay district, Kandahar province, May 21.
Sexual and Emotional Abuse Scar the Brain In Specific Ways
Why are you still at your desk? Why do you spend so many hours adding numbers to a bank balance?
Keeping Assad in Power
Boasting about one’s weaponry is nothing unusual in war, where there’s little way of confirming the veracity of the claim.
In that, Syrian President Bashar Assad was following a long tradition of wartime leaders, when he …
BattlelandTroops
How Military-Friendly Is Your Town?
San Antonio tops the list of the 50 most military-friendly cities in the United States.
The roster was put together by G.I. Jobs magazine from among the nation’s 381 metropolitan areas, meaning only 12.5% of the nation’s …
“The risks inherent to military service must never include the risk of sexual assault. It's a crime that demands accountability and consequences. It betrays the very trust on which our profession is founded. We are acting swiftly and deliberately to change a climate that has become a bit complacent.”
— Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He and the other chiefs pledged to do more to curb the growing epidemic of sexual assault in the ranks, including “a force-wide stand-down” this month where troops will be schooled anew on the topic.
The Whitey Bulger Trial: A Six-Point Primer
Jury selection for the trial of James “Whitey” Bulger, one of the most infamous figures in organized crime history, begins today in a Boston courthouse. The high-profile trial of the accused mobster is expected to bring out a …
BattlelandMilitary Spending
Marines’ $22.2 Billion Mistake?
It used to be the Marines were the most penurious of the military services:
— The Army replaced its AH-1 Cobras with AH-64 Apaches, but the Marines kept flying Cobras.
— The Army replaced its UH-1 Hueys with UH-60 Black …
Jersey Shore 2.0: An East Coast Missile-Defense Site
The House Armed Services Committee is set to write the annual defense authorization bill on June 5.
That means it’s showtime for all sorts of Republican craziness on nuclear weapons, missile defense, and related issues. In …