Military Health

Rhetoric Gone MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction)

Part of the reason that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta fears that sequestration – the budget axe slated to chop another $500 billion or so out of the military over the coming decade if Congress can’t get its act together – is how each side is welded to its will-not-budge goals.

Of course, he was speaking of his former comrades …

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 …

Dear John Letter 2.0

David Wood has done some of the finest reporting on the wounds of war, both seen and unseen. His latest lays bare the serious genital wounding of hundreds of U.S. troops that’s rarely acknowledged:

“Who’s going to want to be with me now?” wondered Marine Staff Sgt. Glen Silva, 39, after an IED blast shattered his leg, ripped open his

Alcohol In The Ranks

There are reports that alcohol illicitly consumed by Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales in Afghanistan a week ago may have been the final link in a chain of stressors that caused him to “snap” and slaughter 16 …

Life Inside a Baghdad ER

The war in Iraq is over. But the memories and recollections will be with us for decades to come. It’s nice, for a change, to focus on those who dedicated their time in country to saving, rather than taking, lives.

Dr. Todd Baker has just published Baghdad ER: Fifteen Minutes, about his tour as chief of the emergency section of …

Real Soldiers, Fake Pregnancies

Army combat vets – remember, they’re limited to men — are donning fake breasts and bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training. It’s part of the service’s Pregnancy Postpartum Physical Training Exercise Leaders Course.

“This whole thing is pretty uncomfortable,” Sergeant Michael …

The Pentagon’s New IED Report: Impressively Expressed Dawdling

IEDs are an interesting tool of war: they have accounted for nearly half of the U.S. KIAs in recent years, and their very simplicity is an erect middle finger to U.S. military might and technological prowess. The Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization has just issued its Counter-Improvised Explosive Device

A Two-War Hangover

The Pentagon brass are trekking to Capitol Hill this week to detail how they’re trimming their budgets now that all U.S. troops are out of Iraq, and have begun coming home from Afghanistan. But it’s important to remember that wars’ costs last far longer than wars’ duration.

Here’s a new chart from the Department of …

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