Navy SEAL Reed Kitchen concludes that after 10 months in eastern Afghanistan last year, the U.S. military is using the wrong yardsticks to measure progress:
Let’s rewrite our metrics of success to reflect our effect on the
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Military
Jackpot!
Violence and the Military
The suicide rate in the Army is extraordinarily high. However, the Army is extremely good at tracking Soldiers who have committed suicides. There are rich data on these service members. Common factors are a relationship break-up, …
What the Wisconsin Recall Says About the Future of the U.S. Military
Governor Scott Walker survives his nasty recall vote earlier this month, a dynamic triggered by his brutal reshaping of Wisconsin’s public sector unions. Pundits are interpreting all this in terms of November and what it means …
BUFF at 60!
Dining in War Zones
When you’re far away from home, dodging bullets and humping a rucksack, meals loom as increasingly important reminders of home. U.S. Navy Lieutenant Andrew Sand has checked out what’s for dinner for the troops in Afghanistan for …
“Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Make Me a Map!”
Army Major Michael Yeager has deployed three times to Afghanistan and Iraq, most recently to Afghanistan in 2010 as a special operations planner for the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command.
But in this recently-posted March interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he spoke mostly about …
DoD DaDs…
The Department of Veterans Affairs is posting tributes to military fathers over on its Vantage Point blog (Sunday is Father’s Day):
Growing up with a military dad, all sorts of stereotypes come to mind: strict rules of
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No Love For The Marines’ V-22 In Japan
TOKYO – Pity the poor V-22. The Marines’ beleaguered tilt-rotor aircraft can’t get any love even overseas. Even before the crash this week of an Air Force V-22 in Florida, local leaders in Japan were lining up against plans …
“As a military force today, if you're in Afghanistan, you get up in the morning, you get in an armored vehicle, you go on patrol, and then you come back. You're heavily armored; you're heavily defensive; it's called an occupation force. Is that what we want for our military?”
Think-Tanked: Old Wine in Dark Bottles
Two of Washington D.C.’s most prestigious and well-funded think tanks recently published reports advising Congress and the Defense Department on how — and how much — to cut from the Pentagon’s coffers after November’s …
“I would like to highlight the remarkable difference between Afghanistan today vis Afghanistan under the Taliban rule. Today more than five times as many children are in school, roughly 85% of Afghans have basic health care within one hour of where they live, women represent 27% of the parliament, and 52% of the Afghan people believe their government is headed in the right direction.”