Last year, we wrote about Navy Captain Holly Graf, and how she was found guilty of “cruelty and maltreatment” of her crew aboard the cruiser USS Cowpens. One year ago Saturday, a panel of three admirals recommended she be booted …
Troops
Afghanistan: Looks Like Victory From Here
Charts can make clear too often what words only obscure. Take this arresting graphic, contained in a new Congressional Research Service study made available by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists (CRS …
New, Improved Marine Targets
Targets have long been a low-tech item in the military’s hardware account. But that may soon be changing: the Marines are now testing life-size moving targets – mounted on Segway scooters – so its riflemen can practice against something more realistic. Bonus: once hit, the dummy falls down, as in this screen grab. Check out a …
Live: Pak Death Attack Scene
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Pakistan’s military has released video footage from the scene of Saturday’s mistaken nighttime U.S. air raid that killed 24 Pakistani troops. While U.S. officials believe Pakistan’s civilian government would like to get relations between Islamabad and Washington …
Photo Op: Picking Up the Pieces
Pentagon Considering Improved “Groin Armor”
We’ve reported on the nasty wounds that improvised explosive devices are inflicting on our troops. Not only do they lead to amputations, but they can damage the genitals, especially when troops are dismounted — out of their vehicles — and on foot when IEDs detonate, often beneath them. So it’s good news that the Pentagon on …
An Army Apart…At the Airport
Our troops deserve every good thing that comes their way. Yet the House vote late Tuesday – designed to whisk them through airport security, unlike their fellow citizens — is another wedge between the defenders and defended that we wrote about in a Time cover story a couple of weeks back. The House approved the relaxed standards …
Your Crunchy Military
Update: AfPak Attack
Saturday’s strike on two Pakistani military outposts by U.S. airpower near the village of Salala isn’t the first time such an attack has been carried out in response to fire from such Pakistani forts into nearby Afghanistan.
This from Pajhwok Afghan News in June:
Afghan officials said the [NATO helicopter] attack in Mohmand
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All Forklifted Up
The best thing about the military is the way young men and women in uniform get things done. What they get done, of course, isn’t always their choice. Take the airdrop mission flown last week by the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron out of the main U.S. base in Afghanistan at Bagram: the troops air-dropped a six-ton forklift to …
Air Force: Pagan Worshippers
You’ve got to feel a little bit sorry for the U.S. Air Force. First of all, their taxpayer-funded academy, out in Colorado Springs, Colo., gets rapped for being a hive of evangelical Christianity. The Air Force then earnestly tries to deal with – and encourage – religious diversity, and they get stung by stories like this in …
Controlled Blast, Uncontrolled Death
After we reported last March on the stupidity behind the death of Air Force Senior Airman James Hansen in Iraq, we spoke to his father. Like any Dad who sends his son off to war, he expressed something – let’s call it disillusionment and sorrow, more than anger – that no one had yet been held accountable for his 25-year old son’s …
The Festering Wound: U.S. Air Strike Kills At Least 25 Pakistani Troops
There is no well-defined border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and – all too often amid the fog of war and firefights – there is no well-defined difference between the Pakistani military and anti-American insurgents crowded along that rugged frontier. That’s apparently why a U.S. air attack early Saturday killed at least 25 …