“Who would want to steal a Purple Heart?”
— Joseph M. Ford Sr., of New Bedford, Mass., lamenting, here, the theft of the decoration commemorating the death of his son, Marine Lance Cpl. Michael L. Ford, in a 2006 IED blast in Iraq.
Tracking CINCellulite
The Pentagon has been complaining for years that the impending budget cuts – slated to return it to 2007 levels of spending – will cripple national security.
Kind of hard to believe there aren’t smart reductions yet to …
Japan Assault Fleet Arrives at Pearl Harbor…Just For Practice
TOKYO – Warships from Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force have been making stops at the American naval base at Pearl Harbor for more than two decades. But it’s going to seem strange, indeed, when Japanese ground troops …
How to End Sexual Abuse in the Military
Reassuring comments from President Obama and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel aside, the Department of Defense’s approach to preventing sexual assault is doomed.
It’s nice that President Obama “has your back” if you’re …
Swapping Silk for Khaki: America’s First Female Soldiers
Amid the bumper crop of tales of sexual assault in the ranks of the U.S. military, it’s refreshing to go back in time — 71 years ago this month, to be precise — when Army created the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps amid World …
The Shadow of Your Wile
Army Specialist Tyler Brewer inspects an RQ-7B Shadow drone pre-flight at Forward Operating Base Fenty, May 2.
Double-Secret Training For America’s Feuding Asian Allies
TOKYO – Even as Japan and South Korea engage in another round of trash-talk over historical issues, they are quietly – very, very quietly – continuing to cooperate on the high seas.
Japanese and South Korean warships …
The Roots of Sexual Abuse in the Military
Even before the Army confirmed a third military sexual-assault preventer had been implicated in sexual harassment in the past two weeks late Thursday – the charges ranged from sexual battery, to pandering, to stalking an …
$20,800,000,000
— The annual cost to the U.S. military of rust and other corrosion, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, here. As Neil Young once noted: “Rust never sleeps.” But the Pentagon’s problems go well beyond mere oxidation, and include pitting, galvanic reaction, calcium or other mineral buildup, degradation due to ultraviolet light exposure, and mold, mildew, and other organic decay. Still, $21 billion would buy a lot of Rust-Oleum.
“Chaos” Theory: In a Parallel Universe, Far, Far Away…
Marine General James “Chaos” Mattis, former chief of U.S. Central Command — and a Marine for 41 of his 63 years — walked out of the Pentagon for the last time Wednesday.
It is said the only possessions he took with him was a …
Bombs Away
“Afghan NDS [National Directorate of Security] units with allied partners have conducted over 60 high-profile arrest operations over the past six months in Kabul alone, including the spectacular interdiction of a 12,000-kilogram truck bomb on the outskirts of the city which resulted in five enemy killed in action and two captured.”
— U.S. Army Major General Tony Thomas, special-operations commander in Afghanistan, on Wednesday.
Bridge Amid Troubled Water
History was made in a flash earlier this week, when the Navy’s jet-powered X-47B drone flew off an aircraft carrier for the first time. The official Navy video of the event lasted all of 10 seconds.
But actual recordings of …