You can fly the nation’s hottest warplanes flawlessly for 1,462.6 hours. But modern warfare is unforgiving. So in your final 11 seconds of flight, and life – when night and dust storms blind you, turn headlights into stars, and …
Afghanistan
Navy SEAL Reportedly Set To Tell All About bin Laden Raid In New Book
We’ve been hearing rumbles for months that a SEAL involved in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden was working on a book. The New York Times is now reporting it’s coming out September 11 and will be called No Easy Day: The …
Air Force Heroes…And Heroines
Latest roster of Air Force heroes – or, as the service prefers to call them, “Portraits in Courage” – consists of 20 airmen who recently performed heroic feats, mostly in Afghanistan. They all make for inspiring reading, especially if you’re stuck behind a desk. Four of the 20 – 20% — are women. Females make up 19.1% of the …
Of “Green-on-Blue” Killings, and Army Suicides
Battleland was invited to be on Friday’s PBS NewsHour, but this invitation had a twist that made it different than all that had come before. Host Jeff Brown and his producer, Dan Sagalyn, wanted a two-fer: first, they wanted to …
Bigger Bang For The Buck
The Navy has just authorized full-rate production of the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, a laser-guided rocket system that manufacturer BAE Systems says costs only a third as much the Hellfire missile commonly …
“At a time when I am sure that there's an awful lot to be mad about, there's a lot to be proud of when it comes to our men and women in uniform.”
The Navy SEALS’ Dying Words
Monday, August 6 marks the first anniversary of the Afghan crash of a U.S. military CH-47 Chinook helicopter that killed 30 Americans, including 17 Navy SEALS. It was the worst single loss-of-life day for the U.S. in the war in …
Blue on Green: A Never Ending Trend
This weekend brought the sad news that two American and one British civilian advisors were killed by an Afghan policeman, one of the men they were training to take over security in the country.
Dust Wars
Army Major Casey Holler served as a company commander in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 2005-2006, and spent 2009-2010 in Afghanistan as a logistics planner at Forward Operating Base Salerno in southeastern Afghanistan.
Logistics – git thar fustest with the mostest, in the apocryphal words of Confederate Civil War General Nathan Bedford Forrest …
Why Building Stuff in Afghanistan Costs So Much
Here’s part of the reason we’re spending so much money in Afghanistan. Just take a look at some of the pieces of a solicitation seeking a Swiss-Army-Knife complex to house a Ministry of Interior Supply Point, Fire Department, and Uniformed Police District Headquarters, in Nimroz province in the southwestern corner of the …
Blast Effects
War is action v. reaction. The insurgents got the upper hand in Iraq with their improvised explosive devices. We countered with $40 billion worth of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. That worked for a while.
But the advantage is shrinking. Six U.S. troops, all inside a single MRAP, died Sunday in Afghanistan in the blast of a …
Building Bridges in Afghanistan
Major James Palmer liked to think of himself as a bridge builder when he was in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011…most likely because, as an Army engineer, he is a bridge builder. Anyone who has had to live without a bridge in his …
Name Game
game-changers, a new technology or tactic that will render war as we know it obsolete. Turns out they also embrace name-changers. Here’s a nifty little $17 million contract buried deep in the Pentagon’s Wednesday contract announcements. It’s to defend a U.S. forward operating base in Afghanistan.
The name of the company may not …