TOKYO – Marines from I Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, slog through wind and snow during a joint training exercise with Japanese troops at the Hokkaido-Dai Maneuver Area in northern Japan last week. The exercise took …
Disruptive Impatience
Most folks working for the Department of Veterans Affairs are good people dedicated to their mission. But not all are.
Come to find out, the same thing’s true of their patients, according to the charmingly-titled new report, …
The Art of the Possible: Moving Mountains in Afghanistan
Near the end of the summer in 1992, Lt. Gen. Gus Pagonis, the logistical wizard behind the overwhelming coalition victory in the first Gulf War, published a book called Moving Mountains. Part memoir, part leadership guide, the book described the gargantuan task of basically moving the population of Alaska, along with their stuff, halfway …
“These Budget Cuts Are Crippling Our Military.”
As they say in hockey: keep your eye on the blue line. Click on chart to enlarge.
A Military-Justice Immelman?
In flying, an Immelman is a kind of looping turn, popular during World War I, that sends an aircraft in the opposite direction.
Did the U.S. Air Force just pull an Immelman in the sexual-misconduct case of Lieut. Colonel James …
Hollywood Looks At Pivotal Moment In Postwar Japan
TOKYO – What with historical and territorial disputes with its neighbors and a rightward tilt in government, this might not seem the best time for a big-budget Hollywood production to come along and examine whether Japan’s …
Grounded: Blue Angels and Thunderbirds
You knew that was coming, right? Just didn’t think the Navy and Air Force would have enough sense of humor about it to make it effective April 1.
The Air Force Thunderbirds, here, are the precision flyboys who put their …
Seabees’ (for Construction Battalion) Birthday!
A Seabee uses an entrenching tool and backhoe to cut a cake in honor of the Seabees’ 71st birthday, Mar. 5.
Pentagon Malady: “Next-War-Itis”
I was approached by Foreign Policy magazine back in January to pen one of their “Think Again” columns, this one focusing on the future of war.
The notion was, now that America has disengaged from Iraq and is doing the same …
More F-35 Turbulence
There’s a new and disquieting Pentagon report on the troubled $400 billion tri-service F-35 fighter.
It includes stunning pilot comments about the aircraft’s survivability (“Aft visibility will get the pilot gunned [down] …
13,600
— The number of U.S. troops U.S. Central Command chief Marine General James Mattis has recommended remain in Afghanistan after 2014, when all U.S. combat forces are slated to be gone. That's 20% of the 66,000 now there. They would consist of trainers for the Afghan military and special-operations units designed to keep the Taliban in check. Mattis’ figure is now under review at the White House, which has made clear it wants fewer troops left behind. Mattis retires soon, but President Obama doesn’t, which suggests a smaller post-2014 U.S. footprint may be in the offing.
Soviet Soldier Found After 33 Years MIA: Missing In Afghanistan
A former Soviet soldier has been discovered hiding in Afghanistan under an assumed identity 33 years after going missing.
Bakhretdin Khakimov disappeared during the first months of the nine-year war that was sparked when …
Sequester? What Sequester?
One thing Battleland has learned over many years of trying to pay attention to Pentagon goings-on is that things aren’t always what they seem.
Outsiders tend to see plots and conspiracies, when in reality the U.S. military …