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There was a spate of print and TV stories over the holiday weekend telling us that Sergeant Major Jeffrey Mellinger — drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War and believed by the service to be the last draftee still in uniform — is going to hang up his fatigues for good later …
The military keeps talking about eliminating stigma related to seeking mental health treatment. Then why don’t they change the policies that promote it?
To decrease stigma, the Army now uses the term “behavioral health.” The Defense Department – of which the Army is a part — prefers “psychological health.” They have …
Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was a private. Most, if not all, of my leaders were Vietnam veterans. I remember seeing a picture of my platoon sergeant when he was an advisor to the ARVN. In the photo he had just been awarded a Silver Star for gallantry. He had a big smile on his face, the medal hanging from the pocket flap of …
Yesterday’s big Arlington National Cemetery story was that the FBI is investigating possible criminal acts at Arlington.
The other thing going on is that frustrated members of Congress are seriously considering yanking authority to run Arlington National Cemetery away from the Army and giving the cemetery to the Department of Veterans …
Two new voices here on Battleland — both important. Both historic. Both women.
Our newest Battleland crew member is retired U.S. Navy commander Darlene Iskra. Not only was she the first woman ever to command a Navy ship, she’s also been an answer — or is that a question? — on Jeopardy (check it out here — she’s the $1,600 clue …
The Boeing Company made around $13 million in windfall profits off of selling grossly overpriced spare parts to the Army for its AH-64 Apache and Ch-47 Chinook helicopters, according to a 142-page leaked “For Official Use Only” audit conducted by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG). Of $23 million Boeing …
Gallup is out with its periodic poll on which military service is the “most important” to national defense. Makes about as much sense as pointing to a toolbox and asking: what tool in there is most important? It all depends on the job at hand. A hammer makes little sense when you need to cut a 2-by-4. But common sense like that might …
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We’ve all seen the airplane-sized Predator and Reaper drones now flying and fighting over Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and Yemen. They’re fairly big (the Predator has a 48-foot [15-m.] wingspan) and costly ($5 million each). But there are fleets of smaller and cheaper man-launched …
The New America Foundation’s sponsored debate over defense spending showcased two schools of American political thought entirely comfortable with allowing American power and influence to decline on the global stage.
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Thousands of soldiers, gravely wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, become as much as they can be through months of rehabilitation in the Army’s Warrior Transition Units. Every once in awhile a story pops up about how things fells apart for a specific WTU …
The White House has announced that President Obama on June 22 is going to reveal the way forward in Afghanistan — which, boiled down, means how many of the 100,000 U.S. troops now there will be coming home in short order. Then, some 24 hours later, the Senate Intelligence Committee plans to hold a confirmation hearing for General …
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been a controversial diagnosis since its inception. Originally called by many names (“compensation neurosis”), it was not officially given the name PTSD until well after the end of the Vietnam War. By then, many veterans with PTSD also were bedeviled with substance abuse, joblessness, and …
Sure, guys claiming to have earned war medals but never served in combat are scum. So what do you call guys who never served in combat, claim war-hero status, claim they were disabled because of their service — and use those fake wounds to plunder $6.8 million from the Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business Program? Well, in …
