Something has changed in the Marine Corps over the past generation. “We cost 5% of the DoD budget — a nickel out of the defense dollar,” General Carl Mundy, the Marine commandant, bragged to Congress in 1993. “In return, the …
Troops
Army Drill-Sergeant School Boss: Missing In Action
Is This Any Way to Run a Country?
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan…
We’ve spent a day noting the formal end to our nine-year distraction in Iraq. Now let’s return to our first post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, where this active-duty Army colonel doesn’t pull many punches. Paul Yingling writes …
Army Suicides: Monthly Toll Drops Sharply
Sure it’s a coincidence: the same day the U.S. military formally ends its military mission in Iraq, the Army releases the lowest monthly suicide number in recent memory. But there it was, late Thursday, in the standard suicide …
PTSD: Writer’s Un-Block
Battleland’s own Ron Capps has just been tapped to create a writing program to help troops wrestling with post-traumatic stress. The program will be part of the research and therapy at the National Intrepid Center of …
Political Squabbling Over Iraq: Can’t We Shut Up, Just for a Bit?
So President Obama visited Fort Bragg in North Carolina on Wednesday and thanked the troops there for a job well done as the nation wraps up its military presence in Iraq:
Tomorrow the colors of United States Forces-Iraq, the
…
Veterans: Two Good Pieces of News…in a Single Day!
U.S. military veterans don’t get an awful lot of good news, but a pair of good-news items was tossed over our transom on Tuesday. We felt they were worth sharing:
First, homeless among veterans is on the decline, falling by 12% during the year ending January 2011. Secondly, almost 30% of federal government hires in fiscal 2011 went to …
Is Leon Panetta the Right Man to be Secretary of Defense?
For several months, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been using extreme rhetoric to characterize cuts in the Pentagon budget beyond the $450 billion reduction over ten years he has already accepted. With the failure of the …
Capturing Saddam
Seems kind of funny that the same month we’re pulling out of Iraq, retired Army lieutenant colonel Steve Russell is releasing We Got Him! A memoir of the hunt and capture of Saddam Hussein. Russell, who served 21 years in the …
Burned by the Boss: How To Tell We’ve Been at War Too Long
There are lots of signs the nation, now amid its longest war ever in Afghanistan – and just finishing up a second lengthy military campaign in Iraq – has been fighting too long. Sure, the budget deficits are one sign. So is …
Collateral Damage
As the lobbying heavyweights gobble up newspaper pages and local airtime in Washington warning that impending budget cuts are going to send the U.S. into an economic and military tailspin from which recovery will be impossible, …
A Close Shave in Afghanistan
Friday’s roster of federal business opportunities includes this urgent request:
THIS RFQ [Request for Proposal] IS FOR 15,000 11oz cans, or larger, of aerosol foam shaving cream to be expedite shipped to Afghanistan.
Last …