The Navy seems to have hit rough seas in recent years, repeatedly canning command officers who have fallen short on the job. To the Navy’s credit, it announces these ousters more loudly and clearly than the other services. But …
Troops
“I would like to highlight the remarkable difference between Afghanistan today vis Afghanistan under the Taliban rule. Today more than five times as many children are in school, roughly 85% of Afghans have basic health care within one hour of where they live, women represent 27% of the parliament, and 52% of the Afghan people believe their government is headed in the right direction.”
The Powers That Be
This Friday, the Air Force will award Francis Gary Powers – the pilot of the ill-fated U-2 spy plane shot down by the Soviets in 1960 and held captive for 21 months – a posthumous Silver Star. It’s the latest in a series of sorrys the U.S. has offered Powers’ family following his poor treatment at the hands of the the government he …
The U.S. Military’s Abortion Policy: Neither Fair Nor Equitable
Over the past couple of months, the military has upped the ante in its fight to reduce sexual harassment and assault through education and prevention programs. This is all good, but it will take time to see whether or not these initiatives actually work.
In the short run, women are still being assaulted, and some of those assaults …
Paying More for Vets Than Troops Starting in 2014
Thought-provoking chart from the Bipartisan Policy Center’s assessment of how sequestration, if it happens, is likely to affect the defense budget beginning Jan. 2. In fact, it warns, there’s trouble looming, regardless of the sequester:
Three main pathologies internal to the structure of the DoD budget are increasingly detracting
…
“Lights! Camera! GAO?”
Battleland recalls when Government Accountability Office reports were issued with light-blue covers, not the dark-blue ones they’ve been sporting for a couple of decades. And when G.A.O. stood for General Accounting Office, until Congress decided that sounded too meek (GAO works only for Congress; for years reporters called it the …
30,000
U.S. Military Suicides in 2012: 155 Days, 154 Dead
New Pentagon data show U.S. troops are killing themselves at the rate of nearly one a day so far in 2012, 18% above 2011’s corresponding toll. “The continual rise in the suicide rate has frustrated all in the military,” says …
Sequestration or Not, Defense Budget to Continue Its Decline
While many in Washington assume that Congress will solve sequestration by the end of the year–the problem Congress created when the Super Committee failed–recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) indicate …
Airborne Leap of Faith
Births of a Nation
Tents Aren’t Us
If there is one thing you’d figure the U.S. Army didn’t lack, it would be tents. But you’d be wrong.
The folks at Fort Carson are seeking “high-quality tents and accessories needed to make them operational” for …
