Troops
Mail, Medals and Condolence Letters…
Army Major Kenneth Gettinger served as a planner with the 3rd Corps Support Command (COSCOM) at Camp Virginia, Kuwait, and Joint Base Balad, Iraq during 2003 and 2004, supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Such personnel are part …
Rescued on the 4th of July
Dancin’ Marines
These days, when troops get bored in the war zone – and there’s plenty of time for that to happen – they make music videos. Here’s the latest from the Marines (and some soldiers) at Kandahar airfield in Afghanistan, lip-syncing to what Battleland is told is Carly Rae Jepson’s summer hit “Call Me Maybe.”
Dan Lamothe …
Magic Carpet Ride
What Defense Cuts?
The fear-mongering about impending defense cuts is becoming deafening. Yet even if sequestration happens in January, the Congressional Budget Office says the Pentagon will still be spending as much as it did in 2006. While the cuts may be crude – that is how Congress wrote the law imposing it – they are not draconian.
Here’s a …
“We spend about $10 million per hour in the Afghanistan war and right now we are losing a soldier every day to suicide. Shifting an hour’s worth of war funding to the fight of preventing soldier suicides is the least we can do.”
Iraq: The Steaks Were High
Major Bryan Cecrie spent much of 2005 in Iraq’s “triangle of death” south of Baghdad. The horrors of war were real, and meals were supposed to be an opportunity to take the edge off, he told the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in this April interview:
The cooks always think they are doing you a favor when
…
Female Vets Running for Congress: Into Double Digits
Four months back, I wrote about four female veterans running for Congress. It turns out they’re not the only ones, by a long shot.
And boy are they needed: in the 112th Congress, women only hold 16% of the 435 House seats and 17 of the 100 seats in the Senate. Amazingly, there are only 92 veterans in the House of Representatives, …
Common Sense from an Enlisted Man
No, not just any enlisted man, but Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Roy, the service’s senior enlisted man. It’s unusual not only because it comes from an enlisted leader, but because it comes from the Air Force, …
$10 Million More for Military Suicide Prevention
The House approved an amendment to next year’s defense spending bill Wednesday night that shifts $10 million from training Afghan security forces to fighting suicide in the ranks of the U.S. military.
Veterans’ Mental Health: Can the SAMHSA Policy Academy Help?
In Washington D.C., as with most states, there are major disconnects between the public mental health system and the military and Veterans Administration systems.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is trying to bridge those gaps, through their Policy Academy. The goal is to go state by state, …
