COMBAT OUTPOST GARDA, WARDAK PROVINCE — Increasingly, coalition troops feel they cannot trust the Afghan soldiers and police with whom they live and serve. The increasing toll of “green-on-blue” killings drives a wedge of …
Military Training
Military Misbehavin’
Sexual Assault: The Danger of Isolation
The Pentagon announced Tuesday that there will be more training for commanders and senior leaders to help prevent sexual assault in the ranks. “The men and women of the U.S. military deserve an environment that is free from the …
What Crisis? U.S. Marines and Japanese Troops Train For War
APRA HARBOR, GUAM – Slipping off a warship in small raiding boats, some 60 Japanese soldiers and U.S. Marines came quietly ashore on an isolated beach here this weekend, looking to catch an unnamed enemy unawares. It was part …
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 …
Iraq: Will Over Skill
Army Major David Cutright served twice in Iraq – in 2003-04 with the 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, and in 2009-10 with the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, when he was in an advise-and-assist role to the …
Substance Abuse in Uniform: Some Good Outside Advice
“Green on Blue” Attacks Trigger Changes on the Ground
COMBAT OUTPOST GARDA, WARDAK PROVINCE — The jumble of Afghan soldiers stood in the shade of a wall, waiting for orders to prepare for drills from their American trainers. Suddenly the thump of an explosion sent them scattering. …
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 …
96 Seconds
It takes years to become an F-16 pilot, but only seconds to lose your plane – and perhaps your life – when things go haywire. On May 4, an Air Force pilot aboard a Viper during a routine war game over Utah ran into serious …
He NOEs What He’s Doing…
When helicopter pilots deftly hug the earth at treetop level, it’s called nap-of-the-earth – NOE – flying. It’s a technique designed to avoid enemy detection – flying under the radar, as it’s sometimes called.
It’s altogether something else to do it in a Navy F-18 jet fighter as in this video, anonymously posted on …
“Green-on-Blue” Attacks, From the “Green” Side…
There’s been a flurry of stories, largely out of Washington, about what the Pentagon is doing to try to cut down on the rash of insider attacks in Afghanistan. Here’s Time’s John Wendle reporting on them from Kabul, where …
Trimming the Training Mission
The headline in Sunday’s Washington Post was pretty stark:
Afghan Recruit Training Halted
…it said.
A quick read of the article offered the reader no clue that the halt affects only about 3% of the entire U.S.-led Afghan …