Battleland recently noted that Rep. Roscoe Bartlett – chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces subcommittee – has a strange fascination with survivalship (a word we just made up). We …
Pentagon
Military Affirming College Affirmative Action
Why It’s Time to Leave
One of the three Marine special operations personnel killed in Helmand Province by an Afghan police commander on August 9th was a friend of a close friend of mine.
“I don’t even know what to think about this,” was his gut …
$776,000,000
Three Crash Reports…
A trio of detailed reports on sad, and sordid, military misfortunes have surfaced in recent days. They make for great time-wasters at work. But here are the cases summed up in a nutshell:
— Regarding the crash of an Air Force …
Lucky Shot
Army General Martin Dempsey’s C-17’s fuselage got pockmarked by shrapnel from some overnight shelling while it was parked outside on the tarmac at Afghanistan’s Bagram air base north of Kabul. A couple of airmen were …
Fallout Shelter 2.0
You might think this story from Monday’s Washington Post is simply about some Maryland congressman who believes the end of the world may be drawing near and wants to be prepared:
The electrical grid could fail tomorrow, he
…
“We are transitioning to Afghan security. And for us to train them effectively, we are in much closer contact -- our troops are in much closer contact with Afghan troops on an ongoing basis. And you know, part of what we've got to do is to make sure that this model works but it doesn't make our guys more vulnerable...we are deeply concerned about this from top to bottom.”
How Drones Can Reinforce Failure
Gaeta, Italy — This report by independent journalist Gareth Porter is extremely important. Porter, one of our finest investigative journalists, highlights one of the central problems in drone warfare: how its imperfect …
Semper Infidelis
Of all the horrible “green on blue” killings that have happened recently in Afghanistan, perhaps the most horrific took place in Helmand province on Aug. 10. That’s when Aynoddin, who like many in that country goes by a single …
“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.”
Better Late Than Never
Interesting Pentagon contract buried deep in the long list it announced Friday. The Army awarded nearly $15 million to Jorge Scientific of Arlington, Va., to “provide for the modification of an existing contract to research and develop a methodology for counter insurgency operations. Work will be performed in Arlington and Afghanistan…”
One Concrete Thing
Years now. Almost 11 years into the war in Afghanistan, and with Iraq mostly behind us, we’re still unable to get our hands and our minds around the military suicide rate.
July marked the highest number of suicides among …