If the Academy Awards can be said to register the cultural pulse of the nation, America clearly retains its uneasy …
Military Personnel
The Challenges of Raising Military Kids
This one-time military mom enjoyed last week’s Battleland Q&A with the authors of a new series of books on educating troops’ children.
Military children have always had to deal with the stressors of being the new kid on the …
Korresponts Koreedoor
We reported last month about the Defense Department taking down the sign honoring a Pentagon hallway as the “Correspondents Corridor” and replacing it with one highlighting “ASD Public Affairs.” ASD is Pentagon-speak for …
No More Bad Commanding Officers?
The headline in the June 18 Navy Times that arrived in my mailbox screamed NO MORE BULLIES, DRUNKS, & PLAYBOYS. It went on to detail Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert’s “tough new rules” for screening for …
Love Boats
A retired Navy captain is sounding an alarm over women serving on warships.
“We can’t have both chastity and mixed-sex complements,” Kevin Eyer argues in October’s Proceedings, the professional naval journal published …
Star Warriors
No Longer Alone…
As I lay out the clothes and review the checklist for our trip Friday, I can’t help but reflect on what TAPS — Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors — means to me and my children.
Not everyone finds TAPS right …
The Survivors Gather
This weekend, relatives of many of the U.S. troops who have killed themselves in the suicide epidemic gripping the American military are gathering in San Diego. They’re coming together to support one another and figure out how to move on with life. It’s the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors’ National Military Suicide Survivor …
Cultural Misunderstanding
Bobby Ghosh, TIME’s Baghdad correspondent for much of the Iraq War, once told me a story. Early in the war he embedded with a company of soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard. They had been given the task of patrolling a …
Military Misbehavin’
A Growing Constellation of Stars on Shoulders
Back in February, I noted that a second woman had been selected to wear the four stars of a General Officer. I also predicted that a four-star Navy admiral would be a long time coming. Well! The Navy is much closer to promoting …
Manning Unmanned Systems
Eyes glaze over when diving deep into Defense Science Board studies, those phonebook-thick reports (today more PDF than pdf) salted through with buzz phrases (potentially unlimited persistent capabilities, bounded autonomous …
“Tonight we pay tribute to the Americans who still serve in harm's way. We are forever in debt to a generation whose sacrifice has made this country safer and more respected. We will never forget you, and so long as I'm commander-in-chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known.”