Mark Thompson

After thousands of posts dating back more than two years, Battleland is calling it quits with this final item.

As journalism has evolved, the time spent producing this blog doesn’t make the sense it did when we launched …

For those of us of a certain age, there was a certain poignancy watching the last of the nation’s World War I vets – those who went to Europe in 1917-1918 to fight in the “war to end all wars” – slowly die off. Frank …

Earlier this year, a Navy ship, the USS Guardian, grounded itself on the Philippine’s treasured Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park. Eventually, the vessel had to be cut apart and removed, piece by piece. The U.S. Navy agreed to pay a …

Earlier this year, the Pentagon lifted the ban on women serving in U.S. combat units – including elite special-operations units like the Navy’s SEALs – if they can clear the physical and mental hurdles. While official …

Which of these, technically speaking, is not a musical term: scherzo, staccato, sequestrationo?

A decade of war does a lot to parents serving in the military…and even more to their children left behind at home.

Child Trends, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research center, has issued a report on the risks facing young …

David Cloud’s well-reported piece in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times on the well-appointed mansions that are home to our nation’s top military commanders is attracting a fair amount of attention.

Sure, it’s morbid, but there’s a fascination associated with figuring out just how many of your neighbors – along with you – would perish if a nuclear bomb went off down the street.

That’s the ghoulish tug of

The engineering students at Utah State University have come up with a backpack-portable bridge that recently captured first place in the Air Force Research Laboratory Design Challenge.

It’s designed to let military personnel …

Battleland, a one-time trumpeter and tuba-er, likes nothing more than the smart sounds of a squared-away military band.

Sure, there are critics, forever complaining that the U.S. military has more musicians than the State …

It’s one thing to see Detroit file for bankruptcy, as it did Thursday. At one time, it was the arsenal of democracy and the birthplace of chrome-plated dreams.

It’s quite another to see Andrews Air Force Base shut down …

The days of legitimate debate over the value of missiles defense seem to have faded into history.

The issue has become one of theology. Those involved are either true believers, or heretics. It’s like listening to a church …