By Alex Horton, Official VA Blogger
Rain had transformed Baghdad’s many unpaved roads into one giant muddy sinkhole, and the engine of a Stryker vehicle moaned in a failed effort to escape. The vehicle sunk under the weight of its armor and required a tow. The driver and vehicle commander leapt to the ground to attach towing …
The U.S. military and American society are drifting apart. It’s tough inside the civilian world to discern the drift. But troops in all the military services sense it, smell it — and talk about it. So do their superiors. We have a professional military of volunteers that has been stoically at war for more than a decade. But as the …
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The rates of suicide in the United States Army began to rise in 2004, and continued climbing until 2010. Then the suicide rate in the active duty finally started to level off, but continues to rise in National Guard soldiers. It remains twice as high as it was prior to the wars in …
Two Air Force researchers are suggesting it’s not the soldiers who kill themselves who should shoulder all the blame for their deaths. We – all of us, society writ large – may also be responsible.
“There appear to be systemic factors that play an important role in the rise in military suicides,” says George Mastroianni, …
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Friday is Veterans Day, and, like clockwork, the Pentagon has rolled out a 75-second video of new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta – an Army vet himself — thanking all who have served. Do these celluloid Hallmarks mean anything? Most troops I speak with never see them; this one had …
The military has been seeking the causes of a spike in military suicides for the last several years so it can begin knocking it down. New evidence just coming to light makes clear that the frequency of military deployments may play a role. John Nagl, of the Center for a New American Security, and I discuss this persistent challenge …
Only one in three military veterans wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq wars says he or she is getting the help they believe they need from the federal government. That’s the grim bottom line in a new report out Tuesday from the Pew Research Center:
Veterans badly hurt in the post-9/11 era also are more likely than other veterans,
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Last Friday marked the graduation from submariners’ school of the first women slated to board U.S. Navy submarines as official, full-time. members of their crews. They’ll start reporting to their subs as early as this week. Thank God we had the New London Day to tell us about it:
The women who are about to break through a
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Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, the days spent by U.S. troops in hospitals for alcohol-related problems have skyrocketed, according to a new Pentagon study:
The results of this analysis demonstrate the increasing medical burden that excessive alcohol use is placing on the military health system; this is especially
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The spectacle now infecting the Pentagon would be humorous, if it weren’t so serious. The notion that the military can cut $450 billion out of its next-decade budget of something like $7 trillion – but not a penny more – suggests an (artillery) shell game’s afoot.
The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction – the …
The problem of suicides continues to haunt Pentagon personnel officials. After 10 years of war, the suicide rate has climbed and remains stubbornly high despite numerous initiatives to bring it down. What’s behind the spike, and what — if anything — can be done to curb it? John Nagl, of the Center for a New American Security, and …
The public-health gurus of the American Public Health Association – all 13,000 of them – are meeting in Washington this week to figure out how we can all lead more healthy lives. It’s a noble pursuit, to be sure. Some of the studies and sessions investigate issues of interest to the nation’s troops. They may sound pretty …
The U.S. military likes to put a positive spin on even the grimmest news. In the summer of 2010, for example, both the Pentagon and the Army issued reports probing the rash of suicides in the ranks.
The Defense Department called its study
