I didn’t know Neil Landsberg.
But I know many of the fine veterans who work for and volunteer with the organization that Neil clearly loved, Team Rubicon.
Neil was 34 years old when he took his life May 9.
By all …
Red, White & Dusk
Cavalry scouts with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment train at Fort Irwin, Calif. May 16.
“When GAO compared prices paid by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for a sample of 83 drugs purchased in the first calendar quarter of 2012, DOD’s average unit price for the entire sample was 31.8 percent ($0.11 per unit) higher than VA’s average price...”
— From a Government Accountability Office report, here, released Monday comparing how much the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs paid for the same prescription drugs.
The SEAL Sniper Killing, Revisited
The shocking and bizarre death of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle – at the hands of a fellow combat vet – in Texas last February was one of the saddest tales to come out of the post-9/11 wars on the homefront. Battleland was able …
S-O-S: Save Our Ship!
One of the world’s grandest ocean liners, built to move thousands of soldiers to distant battlefields, may face her final voyage.
Sorry, But Japan Still Can’t Get the War Right
TOKYO – After weeks of muddled statements, verbal gaffes and bungled photo ops, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made one thing unintentionally clear: He thinks Japan did little wrong in its years of war and colonial expansion, …
“A Better Return on Investment”
The folks at Georgia’s Fort Stewart Army post think they do a good job. Fact is, they think their work is good enough that it qualifies for a 2013 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Those are those annual …
“If a perpetrator [of a sexual assault] shows up at a court-martial with a rack of ribbons, and has four deployments and a Purple Heart, you know, there is certainly the risk that we might be a little too forgiving of that particular crime.”
— Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, explaining Friday why the post-9/11 wars may have shielded some troops from punishment for sexual assaults.
Climbing Season
A CH-47F Chinook ferries base-camp supplies Apr. 26 to the Kahiltna Glacier for climbers on Mount McKinley this summer.
Why the Rebels Aren’t Winning
The short message screeched over a walkie-talkie, prompting the half a dozen rebels in the room who had been lounging on flat mattresses and drinking tea to jump to their feet, grab their guns and run out of the door.
It was …
Overheard on the Flight Deck of the USS George H.W. Bush
SOMEWHERE IN THE ATLANTIC, Friday, May 17:
F-18 #1: You know, they say these things can really fly.
F-18 #2: Yea…you see ’em launch one a couple days ago?
#1: You bet…it was awesome!
[X-47B passes overhead with a
…
“People are always surprised that the reason I don’t like lobster is that I got tired of it on deployment in Kosovo.”
— Former Army medic Corrie Blackshear, in Parade magazine's Sunday cover story, here, on military cooks.
Biowelfare?
Ex-Navy secretary Richard Danzig, also an expert on bio weapons and adviser to Senator Barack Obama when the Illinois Democrat was running for President, has urged the U.S. government to spend millions stockpiling a drug to …