A pair of UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters fly toward Kandahar, Dec. 16.
21st Century Military Pillboxes
Robert Gates famously complained that health-care costs “are eating the Defense Department alive” when he served as defense secretary.
And that was more than two years before Monday’s Pentagon announcement of a contract to …
A Glimmer of Good Gun News, for a Change
I was pleased to see the proposed legislation allowing commanders to ask service members about their personal firearms in the cases where commanders or physicians were worried about suicide risk. I have spoken and written about …
2nd Lieutenant Danny Inouye, 1924-2012
John Noonan is a one-time journalist who now toils in anonymity on Capitol Hill for Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, the California Republican who chairs the armed services committee.
But every once in awhile, he betrays his …
An Army Suicide’s Widow, and Mom, Ponders Newtown
On Friday I think I was in denial.
Like a beating drum, I kept hearing Mike’s words tap away in my mind. “What the heck are any of us fighting for if you won’t live like you are free?”
My soldier-husband, then on a …
Predatory Pricing?
Sheesh. It was only a month ago that the drone drivers at Battlespace Flight Services, a short walk from the Pentagon, landed a $950 million contract to keep Pentagon drones flying “at tasked locations worldwide” though March …
Lousy Monday Morning…
It’s tough getting up the week before Christmas to hear of those 10 young Afghan girls killed by a landmine Monday as they gathered firewood in Nangahar province in the eastern part of the country.
One of them reportedly …
A New Kind of Army Wife
“Where the Hell’s the MRAP When You Need it?”
Troops fire at the enemy during an Afghan-led security patrol in Farah province, Dec. 7.
$384,622
— The annual cost of an active-duty U.S. troop when all spending associated with fielding him or her – including weapons and operations – is factored into the bottom line. That's the number that the Reserve Forces Policy Board Cost Methodology Project Final Report comes up with (see page 17 of the report, here ). The Reserve Forces Policy Board – you know where this is headed, right? – says a reservist costs only $123,351.
Pentagon Word$mithing…
Words and phrases sometimes creep into Pentagon contract announcements that can be revealing, in a hocus-pocus kind of way.
On Friday, for example, the Navy announced a $127,740,214 “fixed-price-incentive-fee and …
Missile Launch Doesn’t Make NoKo’s Kim Jong-un a Dud
There’s a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Jack David saying latest North Korean missile launch proves Kim Jong-un won’t be a reformer and that — basically — anyone who still believes that is a dupe.
That’s specious logic in the …
General Disorder #1, General Disorder #2, &c.
When Marine General Anthony Zinni became chief of U.S. Central Command in 1997, he was stunned to find a Navy commander working for him dedicated to keeping track of Zinni’s schedule. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Zinni …