Free Republic

A new book about a young, female Army officer who routinely accompanied Ranger units on raids in Afghanistan is shining a light on a select group of American women who have made history in modern warfare. "Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield" focuses on 1st Lt. Ashley White, an incredibly physically fit soldier who joined the Special Operations Command Cultural Support Team effort in 2010. The pilot program was designed to train women and have them serve with Army Ranger and other special operations direct-action units so they could gather...

An EU army is Germany’s ‘long term goal’ according to one of its ministers. Ursula von der Leyen called for defence cooperation to be strengthened so that the continent can respond quickly to international crises.

A group of women soldiers made history this week after earning a place in the first gender-integrated Ranger Course Assessment at Fort Benning in Georgia. The U.S. Army Ranger School at Fort Benning opened Monday to a class of 19 women and 380 men, according to Stars and Stripes. Over the last four months, 20 women had secured a spot in the course assessment after passing one of four sessions of gender-integrated Ranger Training Assessment Courses (RTAC). One female soldier chose to withdraw. Only eight women and 184 men successfully completed the first four days of Ranger School, after a...

As part of the Army’s mandatory Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention (SHARP) training, some units are requiring Soldiers to participate in a Walk a Mile In Her Shoes event, in order to bring awareness to rape and sexual assault, and “stop men’s sexualized violence against women.” Sounds positive, right? Well there’s just one little detail that is causing quite the controversy, as these male Soldiers will all be forced to cross-dress, wearing red high heeled shoes during the 1.26 mile walk. One cadet from Arizona ROTC said that any personnel who refused to participate in the event, would receive a...

snip And so it was when I drove onto the Army Reserve Center at Grand Prairie for a visit yesterday, I was met by a lone unarmed female contract security person who did not even take my ID and match it to my face. She came out of the shack and waved me right onto this military installation. Yes, the Army Reserve Center at Grand Prairie is a military installation. Not only is the Army based there but also a U.S. Marine Reserve artillery unit — and the majority of their equipment is located on this installation. But, as I...

A paratrooper who was preparing to leave the US army decided that he would make his last parachute jump more memorable by taking along a fish. The day before his final jump on April 11, Spc. Matthew Tattersall went out and purchased a Siamese fighter, which he called 'Willy Makeit'. He placed the fish in a water bottle and poked a few holes into it to allow air to get in. Then he hid the bottle in his pocket as he knew he wouldn't be allowed to jump from the plane with the fish. "That's my pet fish named Willy...

More than half of some 770,000 soldiers are pessimistic about their future in the military and nearly as many are unhappy in their jobs, despite a six-year, $287 million campaign to make troops more optimistic and resilient, findings obtained by USA TODAY show. Twelve months of data through early 2015 show that 403,564 soldiers, or 52 percent, scored badly in the area of optimism, agreeing with statements such as "I rarely count on good things happening to me." Forty-eight percent have little satisfaction in or commitment to their jobs. The results stem from resiliency assessments that soldiers are required to...

n addition to desertion, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl faces an unusual charge: misbehavior before the enemy. Of the two, it is the far more serious charge, carrying with it a maximum punishment of life behind bars, a dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank, and the loss of the tens of thousands of dollars of pay and benefits Bergdahl earned after joining the military over six years ago. The misbehavior charge is so rare that there aren’t many examples of how the military justice system has handled it in the past. The Army said that it had such a case in...

Remember that ending scene out of Indiana Jones where the Ark of the Covenant is boxed up and wheeled through an endless government warehouse? Did you know that that place actually exists? It is called the Center of Military History. It is located 30 minutes outside Washington, D.C., at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The building itself is very nondescript… The room consists of dozens of collapsable “hallways” filled with the richest American firearm collection on the planet...

A Swedish firm has successfully tested using an American SDB smart bomb fired from a MLRS (multiple launch rocket system). Called this hybrid weapon GLSDB (Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb) the rocket propelled bomb has a range of 150 kilometers. MLRS was designed to fire a 309 kg (680 pound) 227mm rocket. The latest version is (GMLRS) is GPS guided with a max range of 85 kilometers (and the ability to land within ten meters/31 feet of its intended target). The GLSDB guidance system was able to function despite the rapid acceleration of a rocket launch. The GLSDB provides more...

Over the past decade, Sgt. Shane Ortega has served three combat tours: Two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. Two as a Marine and one in the Army. Two as a woman and one as a man. Ortega is a helicopter crew chief in the Army’s 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. He was born female and would like to serve the rest of his career as a man. That would require a significant change in Pentagon rules, which require that transgender troops be discharged from military service, usually on medical grounds. Last summer, medical tests showed Ortega had elevated testosterone levels...

A 20-year-old Kansas man plotted to kill American soldiers with a vehicle bomb at the Fort Riley military base, an attack he planned to carry out on behalf of the ISIS terror group, prosecutors announced Friday. John T. Booker, also known as Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, was arrested as part of a lengthy FBI investigation. Federal authorities said he was arrested near the army base in Manhattan, Kansas, as he completed final preparations to detonate the bomb, which had, in fact, been rendered inert while he was under FBI surveillance. “As alleged in the complaint, John Booker attempted to attack U.S....

A former Green Beret officer who was stripped of one of the military’s top awards for heroism by the Army secretary will soon face a panel of officers that can throw him out of the service, according to the officer’s lawyer and Army officials. Army Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn will face an administrative hearing known as a board of inquiry the week of May 18, according to a memorandum sent March 26 by the panel’s top officer, Col. Stuart Goldsmith. It is believed the board will review evidence against Golsteyn in the 2010 death of a Taliban bomb maker that...

Six more female soldiers have qualified to attend Army Ranger School later this month after passing the same physical fitness standards as men, including six pull-ups, 49 push-ups in two minutes, 59 sit-ups in two minutes and a five-mile run in 40 minutes, Army officials said Wednesday. The six additional women, all of them officers, will join at least six other female soldiers who have passed the Ranger Training Assessment Course that qualified them to attend the first gender-integrated Ranger School course that will begin April 20 and last for two months.

Paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division will deploy to Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve this summer. About 500 paratroopers from the division headquarters will leave in June for a nine-month deployment, Fort Bragg said in a news release. Paratroopers will have a contingent in Iraq. Other paratroopers will be based outside Iraq in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. The division will serve as the Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command-Iraq and provide command and control of coalition troops who are training, advising and assisting Iraqi Security Forces. The 1st Infantry Division of Fort Riley, Kansas, is...

White privilege is not a thing.Mentioning those two words in a time when America is more diverse than it has ever been is a red herring. White privilege is a topic so easily defeated that liberals simply entertain the notion just to bring up how racist white America still is in their eyes.It’s a deflection of the real problems we currently face – illegal immigration, 93 million not in the workforce, Iran, etc.The left wants it to be true, but their failed attempts on the subject never manifest into coherent logic. It’s the victim mentality. “Oh poor me, I can’t seem to...

Some designs are just too good to die. The Hughes 369, or the OH-6 Cayuse when in uniform, is one of them. After 50 years of production, the “Little Bird” as it is known in Spec Ops circles, has reached a new level of capability with the AH-6i, which may soon get its baptism by fire at the hands of Saudi pilots in the skies above Yemen. The AH-6i is one smart, nimble, observant, and heavily armed little battle chopper. It takes the best parts of the AH-6M Little Bird operated by the 160th SOAR 'Nightstalkers' and infuses it with...

Chelsea Manning, the transgender Army private imprisoned for exposing national security secrets, has joined Twitter with the help from a communications firm. The company, Fitzgibbon Media, confirmed that it is handling Manning's account, @xychelsea, posting messages she dictates by phone and telling her about the responses. Her introductory post went up Friday afternoon. She finished the day with seven more, thanking friends and supporters, expressing the effort it takes to Tweet by phone from prison, and promising "I don't want this Twitter feed to be a one-way street/conversation." By Friday evening she had more than 20,000 followers. Manning revealed her...

If Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl were convicted of “misbehavior before the enemy” a century ago, he might also have been subject to a humiliating send-off. His sword might be broken or his insignia ripped from his uniform in front of his unit. Along with desertion, Bergdahl was accused last month of violating the little-understood Article 99 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice — misbehavior before the enemy — for abandoning his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and thereby endangering his unit. Although desertion cases are not uncommon, few military lawyers have ever prosecuted, or defended, a misbehavior before the enemy...

Hi everybody, I’m Bill Whittle and this is the Firewall. Let’s just assume for a moment that you’re a radical, left-wing zealot, who was raised by actual communists, and who, naturally enough views the United States military as the tool of capitalist exploitation and colonial racism. Now, further assume that through a perfect storm of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, fate, money, power and media bias somehow conspired to make you Commander in Chief of those same armed forces. What would you do? You couldn’t very well scuttle 11 carrier strike groups. You can’t just destroy entire...