Air Force Major David Castor did two tours in Iraq, basically ensuring everyone could communicate with everyone else. In this recently-posted July interview with the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, …
Iraq
Graduating Into War
The U.S. Naval Academy’s Class of 2002 was just beginning its senior year on September 11, 2001. Thirty-three of its 965 members this week will be publishing In the Shadow of Greatness: Voices of Leadership, Sacrifice, and …
Iraq: How the CIA Says It Blew It on Saddam’s WMD
Now that we’re out of Iraq, the CIA has come clean on how it came to be bamboozled about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) ferrets over at the National Security Archive (NSA) …
GOP Silence on the Wars 2.0
We were perplexed following Wednesday’s supposed “foreign policy night” at the Republican convention that scant mention was made of the nation’s wars and those who have fought, and are fighting, them: “It is amazing …
Wars? What Wars?
Wednesday night was supposed to be “foreign policy night” at the Republican convention in Tampa, and it was: the speeches were conventional.
Neither GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney nor his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan …
“I make no apologies for being on the ground in the Anbar province. We settled right in next door to our allies; more specifically, the United States Army. (Laughter.) And we fought there pretty hard. [Army chief of staff and General] Ray [Odierno], I didn't mean it to come out that way.”
An Iraq Vet Commanding In Afghanistan?
A new general’s name emerges in the Afghanistan context. Julian Barnes of the Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req.) that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has forwarded Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford’s name to the White …
$11,175,067
“I Didn’t Want Anybody to Go to Jail”
Army Major Stephen Bussell served as a personnel officer at Iraq‘s Camp Speicher north of Baghdad in 2004 and 2005. Once again, his recollection serves to remind us that the guys and gals running patrols “outside the wire” in …
For Want of An ROE…
Army Major Bryan Bowlsbey spent much of 2006 and 2007 in Iraq as a logistics officer with a unit from the Illinois Army National Guard unit. He became frustrated with the hidebound nature of a military force at war.
Bowlsbey spoke about his deployment in this recently-posted May interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort …
Mail, Medals and Condolence Letters…
Army Major Kenneth Gettinger served as a planner with the 3rd Corps Support Command (COSCOM) at Camp Virginia, Kuwait, and Joint Base Balad, Iraq during 2003 and 2004, supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Such personnel are part …
Iraq: The Steaks Were High
Major Bryan Cecrie spent much of 2005 in Iraq’s “triangle of death” south of Baghdad. The horrors of war were real, and meals were supposed to be an opportunity to take the edge off, he told the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in this April interview:
The cooks always think they are doing you a favor when
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Is Syria’s Civil War Leaching Into Iraq?
Vivienne Walt reports:
For months, Syrian opposition groups have smuggled weapons and fighters into the country across the borders of Turkey and Lebanon. Now another of Syria’s influential neighbors—Iraq—says its territory is being used as a base for al-Qaeda attacks against the regime of President Bashar Assad. Speaking to a
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