Mark Thompson

Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Thompson has covered national security in Washington since 1979, and for Time since 1994. Follow him on Twitter at @MarkThompson_DC

Articles from Contributor

Battleland Battleland

Army Chaplain Dale Goetz, RIP

Captain Dale Goetz became the first Army chaplain to die in combat since Vietnam when a roadside bomb killed him and four fellow soldiers in Afghanistan on Monday. His is a passing worth pondering. Chaplains represent a special category of troop, especially in the lengthy wars the U.S. has been waging in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many Army …

Battleland Battleland

The 20 Years' War…and counting

“The American combat mission in Iraq has ended,” President Obama told the nation Tuesday night, but the 50,000 U.S. troops still on the ground there will continue to pocket combat pay of up to $680 a month. The troops are going to spend most of their time over the next 16 months training Iraqi security forces to fight. But in reality …

Battleland Battleland

Welcome to our country…

It was almost like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan — where every male is a suspected terrorist — had been plopped down just outside Washington, D.C. That’s because of what happened to nine senior Pakistani military officers Sunday. They felt mistreated at Washington’s Dulles airport, leading their government to …

Battleland Battleland

War's over, time to shop

Now that the U.S. officially has ended its combat role in Iraq — relying on Baghdad to wage its own wars from here on out — it’s time the Iraqis began buying U.S. weapons. That’s just what they’re doing, as U.S. officials report the still-struggling nation has some $13 billion of American-made military hardware in the pipeline (the …

Battleland Battleland

Air Force's latest foe: pasta?

Even as the Pentagon struggles to tighten its own belt, Air Force personnel in Italy apparently need to start doing more to tighten theirs, too. One in three at Aviano air base — 45 miles north of Venice — failed to pass the service’s ramped-up physical fitness test in July, the first month it was in place. And that was the good news. …

Battleland Battleland

"Star Wars" flying laser — 0-for-5 this month

It was the late Ted Kennedy who galvanized his fellow Democrats at their 1980 convention by pledging “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” Thirty years later, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency seems to have adopted those stirring words as its own. You may recall the Pentagon’s …

Battleland Battleland

Oorah! The commandant's prose, and Con-way…

General James Conway, the Marine commandant, told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday that his 202,000 Marines are “pretty macho” compared to the 1.2 million Americans in the other services. He might just as well have been speaking about himself and his willingness to say what he thinks. After all, the Marines are the smallest — and like …

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