The defense secretary and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff presented the Defense Department’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell study Tuesday that found repealing it will have a minimal effect. Pentagon reporter Andrew Tilghman breaks down the study here. However, most of the talking points had been said before Tuesday afternoon’s Pentagon briefing and most of the study’s results had already been leaked. What hadn’t been heard prior to Tuesday, though, was Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ personal stance on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Sure, he has stated his support for President Obama’s position to repeal it and he should considering…
Author Mike Hoffman
Police shut down a portion of the Pentagon Metro stop Tuesday morning in Washington D.C. as officers inspect a suspicious package found in the station. This is not a rare occurrence as officers often shut down Metro stops when suspicious packages are found, but this comes weeks after bullet holes were found in the side of the Pentagon after a reported early morning shooting.
There are some mistakes so disturbing you have to laugh to avoid crying. I’d say when an unidentified man dupes the U.S. and Afghan governments into believing he is the Taliban’s deputy commander and proceeds to negotiate with diplomats to end a war that has cost thousands of soldiers’ lives, it falls under that category. Cue Late Show host David Letterman and his legendary Top Ten List. Here are the “Top Ten Signs The Taliban Leader You’re Negotiating With Is An Imposter.” [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm28MSTizcE[/youtube]
Two staff sergeants who fought alongside Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta said acclaimed author and filmmaker Sebastian Junger left out two of the three platoons fighting in the Korengal Valley when Junger filmed “Restrepo,” a documentary chronicling the fighting in the “Valley of Death.” Junger spent a year embedded with Second Platoon of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. His book, “War,” covers the brutal fighting as American troops tried to root out Taliban insurgents. The book describes the battle in which Salvatore’s heroic actions earned the Medal of Honor. However, members of…
A dog who saved dozens of soldiers in Afghanistan and even found her way onto the Oprah Show was mistakenly killed this weekend at an Arizona pound. Target and two other dogs befriended by an Army unit at a base on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border alerted soldiers to a suicide bomber who had walked onto the compound. The dogs blocked the bomber from a building holding dozens of soldiers before he detonated the explosive. The blast injured five soldiers but only killed the bomber and one dog. Target survived and was reunited with Army Sgt. Terry Young, an National Guardsman, in…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_JjNLO0R50&NR=1[/youtube] The much anticipated shoot ’em video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops” drops Tuesday. Some thieves in Maryland couldn’t wait to get their hands on the new game and robbed a GameStop stealing 100 copies Saturday night. Those willing to wait had their appetites whet with this commercial with the message: “There’s a soldier in all of us.” As you can it features non-soldiers in a combat setting firing off all types of weapons. It even has NBA star Kobe Bryant and late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel getting into the action. My favorite part is how “Mamba” is…
Former Green Beret Tommy Sowers lost to incumbent U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson Tuesday in the race for Missouri’s 8th Congressional District. Emerson earned 65.6% of the vote with Sowers in second with 28.8%. Sowers, who ran as a Democrat, acknowledged last week he was a long shot to unseat the 8-term Congresswoman, but he remained optimistic pointing to the gains his campaign had made with independent voters. In the end, the Republican wave that has engulfed this mid-term election combined with Emerson’s experience proved too much. The former special forces soldier and West Point instructor did catch the attention…
Because nothing ruins a day quite like a piece of shrapnel firing into your groin, a British company has created Kevlar boxers to protect troops from improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. Called Blast Boxers, the black and yellow shorts have Kevlar sewn in to protect a soldier’s genitals and femoral artery. Sold for $86, BCB International unveiled the Blast Boxers at the Association of the U.S. Army’s convention in Washington D.C. last week. Soldiers rarely wear the groin protector that hangs down from their body armor, saying it provides little protection. However, BCB International is betting that soldiers…
Tommy Sowers isn’t one to back down from a challenge. He finished first in his class of Green Berets and completed one tour in Kosovo and two tours in Iraq. The Army major even convinced West Point officials to fly a class of cadets to India to meet the Dalai Lama during his time as an instructor. The fight he’s found in Southeastern Missouri, though, might be his toughest yet. Sowers is running on the Democratic ticket to unseat an entrenched Republican Congresswoman who has held the seat since 1996. Sowers, 34, got out of the Army in 2009 and…
Welcome to Outside the Wire, the Army Times’ new blog. We are covering all things Army in time for the largest gaggle Army conference of the year — the 2010 Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington D.C. This blog is much more than a bunch of bureaucrats meeting inside the Beltway, though. We intend to cover everything from the new Multi-Cam uniform’s performance in Afghanistan to the best sights for your M-4 to Army leadership to the best way to get Copenhagen tins to a FOB. And everything in between. It doesn’t work without you,…
