…this week in Time magazine, Battleland’s own Nate Rawlings joins forces with Time AfPak correspondent Aryn Baker to write the compelling story on Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army sergeant who has been held by insurgents along the AfPak frontier for nearly three years. In this video, Nate talks about the Bergdahl case, and why he found it …
Iraq
The Defense Build-Down is On, But Fantasies Remain
Marine General John Allen, commander of forces in Afghanistan, is planning for the end – the withdrawal of U.S. forces, expecting to leave behind a small training force, but saddling the U.S. taxpayers with at least $2 billion a year to pay for the Afghan security force. Better deal than we have now, at roughly $100 billion a year, …
Learning How to Say: “We Regret to Inform You That…”
The pain of war isn’t limited to the front lines. Sometimes it ricochets all the way back home. That’s what Army Major Brent Fogleman learned following a tour in Afghanistan. His next assignment was as rear detachment commander for the 4th Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, at Fort Richardson, Alaska, supporting those fighting in Iraq …
Private Bradley Manning: Hero or Traitor?
Army Private Bradley Manning represents a Rorschach tests for many Americans. The Army arrested the 24-year-old two years ago after classified material he allegedly downloaded from a military intelligence network while serving in Iraq ended up being made public by WikiLeaks. His supporters laud him for exposing war-crime atrocities, …
“A Moral Outrage”
The over-deployment of a too-small military since 9/11 has led to a peculiar situation where Congress and the nation feel a subtle sense of guilt over what they have put the nation’s young men and women in uniform through. It has warped military compensation and retirement policies, Lawrence J. Korb, Alex Rothman, and Max Hoffman write …
Highway (of Death) Robbery
You may recall the infamous “Highway of Death,” that stretch of six-lane Highway 80 from Kuwait City into Iraq and on toward Basra. The U.S. military rained firepower down on retreating Iraqi troops there in the late stages …
Depleted Uranium: Getting a 2nd Opinion
Remember the controversy over the Pentagon’s armor-killing depleted-uranium rounds that were widely used for the first time in 1991’s Gulf War? Many troops blamed them for the various ills that came to be known as Gulf War …
Rules of Engagement: In Fallujah…and in Florida
With George Zimmerman’s lawyers bailing on him Tuesday, the killer of Florida teen-ager Trayvon Martin seems to be a story that won’t go away any time soon. It also has triggered an interesting commentary from Jon Soltz, …
America’s Medicated Army, 2.0
The Los Angeles Times does a good job of refilling the prescription we first filled nearly four years ago:
The Times, over the weekend:
After two long-running wars with escalating levels of combat stress, more than 110,000 active-duty Army troops last year were taking prescribed antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics
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Meanwhile, Back in Iraq: I Came. I Saw. I Conquered. Iran.
Pair of disquieting stories in Easter Sunday’s papers, at home and abroad:
— The Pentagon’s official newspaper, Stars and Stripes, warns in a front-page analysis that Iraq is sliding backwards:
Iraq experts say that recent developments in Iraq and a growing Iranian influence are signs that America’s hopes are dimming for Iraq to
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Where Miracles are Made: An Inside Look at the Center for the Intrepid
When the war in Afghanistan began ten years ago, some of the most grievously wounded troops have come through Brooke Army Medical Center, a sprawling green campus less than 10 miles from downtown San Antonio.
BAMC, as the troops call it, has long been home to the Department of Defense’s top burn unit. Then 2007, 600,000 people donated …
In the Halls of DC, the Dark Cloud of Kandahar Lingers
In March, like everyone else operating in the mil-writer space, I decided it was my duty to God and to country to pen a piece on the maddening and tragic Kandahar massacre. So I did, and thanks to the fine people at …