Joe and Jane American don’t buy warships, satellites, tanks and jet fighters. But they do purchase clothes to wear in a variety of colors and patterns.
That’s what makes Thursday’s story in the Washington Post on the …
“We have the M855A1, essentially a brand new 5.56 ammunition that we currently use in the fight today in Afghanistan. It provides incredible increased lethality over the normal 855 round, and the amount of lethality that it provides gets it very close to a 7.62 in terms of capability. Since the early days of the Iraq war, when you used to hear [that U.S. troops would] pull the trigger and…they'd keep coming -- with this round that essentially stops that. When you hit someone with this round they essentially go down.”
— Army Lieut. General William Phillips, military deputy to the Army’s top weapons-buyer, at a recent congressional hearing.
The True Kings of Battle
With apologies to the field artillery — who think of themselves as the kings of battle — that crown probably best sits atop the heads of those few commanders from long ago who could survey the entire battlefield, make a quick …
“We now have 265 victims assigned to special victims counsels. Our special victims counsels are busy enough that we have taken them off of all other duties. They are now completely dedicated to this particular task.”
— Air Force General Mark Welsh, the chief of staff, speaking Tuesday about the workload being handled by the service’s lawyers helping Air Force victims of sexual assault.
Second-Guessing the SEALs’ Deaths
Fear of Reprisal: The Quiet Accomplice in the Military’s Sexual-Assault Epidemic
An estimated 26,000 people in the U.S. military were victims of sexual assaults in 2012, a substantial increase from an estimated 19,000 in 2010, according to an analysis of a Department of Defense (DoD) survey (sexual assaults
…
Both Barrels
A pair of Rangers from the 75th Ranger Regiment readies for a night fight in Afghanistan April 22.
Rock Star
A U.S. soldier faces possible disciplinary action for allegedly throwing stones at a picture of Afghan President Hamid Karzai in an eastern Afghanistan province several days ago.
The provincial government investigated reports …
“One reason I am here is because I have pledged to the Foreign Service, as part of my campaign to be state vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, that none of us should ever again experience what we went through in Tripoli and Benghazi on 9/11/2012.”
— Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday. The panel is probing what happened in Benghazi last September 11 that led to the death of four Americans, including Hicks' immediate superior, Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Six Weeks That Saved the Nation
Steve Vogel takes on a critical month-and-a-half in U.S. history that he argues saved the United States. In Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks that Saved the Nation, out this week, the Washington Post military reporter dives …
“We'd like to think that the destructive power of our military forces, which is pretty significant, will resolve whatever conflict-of-the-day the nation faces -- end of destruction equals end of fighting, equals end of war, equals end of problem, though history -- and, of course, the last 12 years of war -- should teach us exactly the opposite.”
— Retired Army lieutenant general James Dubik, now a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, at a Center for Strategic and International Studies confab May 1 on the future of ground warfare.
Carrier Landings For Dummies
Landing a warplane on the deck of an aircraft carrier – especially one underway at night in rough seas – isn’t something for the fainthearted to try.
But imagine doing it without a heart of any kind inside the …
Big New Green Marine Machine
Marine HMX-1’s first V-22 at Quantico, Va. White House aides and reporters will fly in the tilt-rotor, but not the President.