Lots of people call Bowe Bergdahl, who has been held by insurgents on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier for nearly three years, a prisoner of war. Even his father, Bob, used the term for his son in a recent chat with Time’s …
People
2012 Military Spouse of the Year
Private Bradley Manning: Hero or Traitor?
Army Private Bradley Manning represents a Rorschach tests for many Americans. The Army arrested the 24-year-old two years ago after classified material he allegedly downloaded from a military intelligence network while serving in Iraq ended up being made public by WikiLeaks. His supporters laud him for exposing war-crime atrocities, …
Not (Just) Another Reading List
My Battleland colleague Nate Rawlings has done excellent work at keeping us all aware of trends in official Army reading lists. Like many veterans, I suppose, I have a shelf of books I own solely because some previous commander put it on his mandatory reading list. These lists are handed down as part of the boilerplate leadership …
SIOP’s Sire Dies
The Single Integrated Operational Plan — SIOP, for short — was the non-descript label the U.S. military assigned to its doomsday plan to wage nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Born in 1961, the many-layered targeting list died in 2003, after the end of the Cold War. A key developer, Air Force Lieut. General Glenn A. Kent, died …
To the Shores of Morocco…
Why Are Military Marriages So Strong?
There’s a head-turning article in the latest edition of the Journal of Family Issues (admittedly something rarely found on Battleland’s nightstand) about how well military marriages are faring after 10 years of war.
After …
“We were initially briefed there would be 10 to 15 possible insurgents in the area…And what we found out after the fact -- once we got back -- after analyzing the intelligence, that there was over a hundred that had moved into the area during the fight.”
Pentagon Contractor = Iranian Contractor?
Is a Pentagon contractor doing business with Iran, the North Star of the Axis of Evil (NSAE)? Former Time comrade Adam Zagorin probes the relationship among the Kuwait and Gulf Link Transport Company, Tehran, and the Pentagon. It’s an investigation for the Project on Government Oversight, an independent stone unturner. “Amid renewed …
Afghan Massacre Suspect: News From Home
Time’s Bonnie Rochman files from Seattle on Afghan massacre suspect Robert Bales:
In 2007, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales participated in a bloody, two-day battle in Iraq in which 250 enemy troops died. After the bullets stopped flying, he and his comrades pitched in to assist the wounded and their families. “We ended up helping the
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RIP: Magnificent Valor
In the spring of 1944, the focus of the American army in Europe was the fighting in Italy. Van Barfoot was a sergeant in the 157th Infantry, part of the 45th Division. The 25 men in his platoon, like the other 150,000 Americans on the beachhead, had been bombed and shelled regularly by German aircraft and artillery since they arrived …
Air Force Rocks
When Battleland thinks of an Air Force-related rock group, Jefferson Airplane for some reason springs to mind. But today’s Air Force isn’t relying on some psychedelic 1960s’-era band for its cred. Instead, it’s counting on Max Impact, made up of Air Force non-commissioned officers.
Granted, it’s not the Air Force Strings …
Top Brass’s Pensions Can Be Higher Than Their Pay
File under: Doesn’t make a lick of sense. Thanks to a change stemming from the 2007 defense authorization law, retired generals and admirals can, under the right circumstances, make more in retirement than they can while actually working for the military. USA Today’s Tom Vanden Brook has the scoop:
The highest pension, $272,892, is
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