As of Oct. 27, there were 245 recorded suicides of active-duty service members
Military Health
VA Gets a Thumbs-Up
There’s lots of grumbling about the Department of Veterans Affairs from veterans – and its own inspector general, who regularly turns out critical reports.
So it’s worth noting when someone seems satisfied.
It’s …
A Better Way Forward
The recent headline on the Drudge Report screamed, MORE AMERICANS NOW COMMIT SUICIDE THAN DIE IN CAR CRASHES. In a Wall Street Journal opinion article last week, we read about the life of Peter Wielunski, a veteran who, while …
“My Husband is a True American Hero”
My husband, Staff Sergeant Jeremy Breece, is a True American Hero.
In 2008, my husband and I thought it would be best that I separate from the Air Force because of two reasons. One being I was pregnant and two, my husband had …
Trainer Aircraft…With Training Wheels
It was one of the saddest stories Battleland ever did: reporting on the three cadets at the Air Force Academy who died, along with their instructors, in a trio of separate crashes of the T-3 Firefly trainer aircraft from 1995 to …
Military Technology: Improving Soldiers’ Lives…And Deaths
Checking out Pentagon paperwork sometimes leads to strange findings, like the pair of contract solicitations Battleland just came across. They seem especially apt given how the GOP basically drove by the war in Afghanistan at its convention Wednesday night in Tampa.
The American public wants nothing to do with the Afghan war. …
Another Reason to Live in the Sticks
If you’re a U.S. military veteran living in Waco, Texas – not that far away from the Army’s Fort Hood – you’re out of luck. Veterans living there wait an average of 403 days – that’s more than 13 months — for the …
“I am really thankful to Jay [Leno] for his willingness to put this little Italian car up for sale. As [Army General and Chief of Staff] Ray [Odierno] said, it's Odierno, it's Panetta, it's Leno, you better damn well bid on this Italian car and make it a good bid.”
The “Lukewarm LZ…”
Rescued on the 4th of July
Navy’s Scarecrow: “If I Only Had a Brain”
Battleland’s pop was in the trucking business. It was always a thrill for him and his younger brothers when Dad rumbled home in a huge Mack tractor that we’d drive around the neighborhood after dinner. We thought of that as we read this story about a Navy doctor who – while entrusted with a deceased service member’s brain en …
Captains Courageous
The two soldiers couldn’t have been more different. One was young and handsome enough to be known as “Captain Brad Pitt,” a 2007 West Point graduate trained to deliver ordnance from the Army’s most terrifying flying machine, an AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship. The other was a decade older, a bomb-squad grunt who high school …
The Nitty-Gritty of Women at War
What are the experiences of women at war, and what to tell clinicians about how to help? I have been asked to write a textbook on this subject, so have done another canvass of the literature.
What is striking is how little …