Free Republic

In the wake of the shootings in Charleston, an amazing national groundswell of support has built for removing the Confederate flags that have flown from state capitals throughout the South. Businesses like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart have banned the selling of flags and flag-related material. The country's largest flag maker has said it will stop making the flag entirely. And guerrilla protestors around the country are starting to deface the statues honoring Confederate generals and politicians. But the reach of the Confederacy—and the almost-insane tone-deafness of organizations and politicians who celebrate its history—goes well beyond the flag and hides in...

I haven't seen Travis Mcgee for a while. His last post on FR was on 6/15, and his (Matt Bracken's) last Facebook posting was the same day. Anyone know the story?

Twenty-five army, navy and coast guard men -- the entire crew and passenger list of a converted Flying Fortress carrying the homeward-bound servicemen from Gander, Newfoundland -- were killed last night when the plane crashed against 1200-foot Mount Tom. Salvage crews summoned to the scene of New England's worst air disaster

See the inside of Fifi, the only B-29 Superfortress currently flying. It's part of the Aviation Museum of Kentucky's 20-year anniversary celebration.

The Pentagon’s new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is dead meat in a close battle against even a dated two-seat F-16D fighter jet, according to a scathing test pilot report War Is Boring obtained. Don’t sweat it, JSF-maker Lockheed Martin responded. “The F-35’s technology is designed to engage, shoot and kill its enemy from long distances,” Lockheed’s F-35 team wrote in a press release on July 1.

A Civil War-era Medal of Honor recipient forgotten in an unmarked grave for nearly a century finally got a funeral Thursday when he was given full military honors and reburied at a national cemetery. The Army gave Sgt. Charles Schroeter a rifle salute and a bugler played taps on the cloudy morning at Miramar National Cemetery. Scores of veterans from past wars ranging from Vietnam to Afghanistan attended the ceremony. Some dressed in uniforms and dresses from the Civil War era. Among the crowd were two Medal of Honor recipients. Schroeter was found thanks to efforts to locate all those...

I have seen multiple black SUVS in my area with blacked-out windows except for the windshield, which is a lighter sun shield but you can't see the occupants' faces. The license plates are regular Texas plates. I've seen just a few of these through the months, but seeing this many in one day...

Clay Bonnyman Evans was 5,000 miles from home, deep in a pit on the Pacific island of Betio, when he heard the words his family had awaited for so long. "It's gold," announced Kristen Baker. With a brush, the archaeologist gently swept the sand off an unmistakable shape: a human skeleton — with a mouth full of gilded fillings. "It's gold." Two words to end a 71-year wait. Two words to solve a mystery that had vexed Evans's family for four generations. Two words to give a long-lost war hero the happy ending he deserved. First Lt. Alexander "Sandy" Bonnyman...

A 55-year old novel is a rich evocation of small-unit esprit de corps and the moral crossroads of counterinsurgency warfare. “The Centurions” opens with a French battalion in captivity, taken by the Viet Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, which spelled the end of French power in Indochina in 1954. Capt. Jacques Glatigny, the hidebound commander of an overrun stronghold, is bewildered that his Viet Minh counterpart seems little more than a peasant. Soon he and his men are facing re-education by a propagandist known as the Voice, whose saccharine locutions press home the usual communist complaints about...

The bodies of 36 US Marines have been found on a remote Pacific island more than 70 years after they died in a bloody World War II battle, a member of the recovery team said. The remains of the men were discovered after a four-month excavation on Betio Island in Kiribati, director of US charity History Flight Inc., Mark Noah, told Radio New Zealand.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) will begin taking delivery in 2016 of about 30,000 new EF88 Austeyr 5.56 mm rifles under an AUD100 million (USD75 million) contract to be signed later this month, a Department of Defence (DoD) spokesman confirmed to IHS Jane's on 7 July. The contract, to be signed with Thales Australia, follows second pass approval announced on 6 July by Defence Minister Kevin Andrews for expenditure of AUD467 million under Project Land 125 Phase 5C.

Wounded warriors credit the Navy’s Wounded, Ill, and Injured Program (WII) with changing their lives. The Naval Medical Center San Diego honored volunteers, partners and donors for the WII Program Wednesday. The program provides therapy to sick and injured service members with activities including adaptive sports, community reintegration, exercise therapy and mind-body medicine. The special ceremony recognized those who donated money and bicycles to replace 16 bikes belonging to the Ride for Recovery program that were stolen last March. "We are blessed to live in a community that cares so much about our Wounded, Ill and Injured," said Kim Elliott,...

In a significant doctrinal shift, the U.S. military is relegating full metal jacketed (FMJ) pistol bullets to a training role, and will be adopting modern hollowpoint designs similar to those used by most domestic law enforcement agencies and citizens who carry handguns for self-defense. The stunning announcement was made at the U.S Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey yesterday during the military’s two-day “industry day” for the Modular Handgun System (MHS), which will conclude today. A military lawyer who made a presentation during the Industry Day noted that the United States is not a signatory to the Hague Conventions which...

In an anarchical system like international relations, military power is the ultimate form of currency. A state may have all the culture, art, philosophy, and glitter and glory in the world, but it’s all for naught if the country doesn’t have a powerful military to defend itself. Mao Zedong put it bluntly when he stated: “power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Of all the types of military power, armies are arguably the most important for the simple fact that people live on land, and are likely to continue doing so in the future. As the famous political...

Alejandro Martinez Lara, 19, is accused of killing Daniel Leonard in a shooting in Banning, Calif., on June 27, 2015Alejandro Martinez Lara, 19, was arrested at MCAS Miramar in San Diego on July 5, 2015. A young man accused in a deadly shooting in Banning, Calif., was arrested over the weekend at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar in San Diego after his family, who’s in the military, allowed him on base. Alejandro Martinez Lara, 19, was taken into custody at MCAS Miramar Sunday around 2 p.m. for the June 27 murder of Daniel Leonard, officials said. San Diego...

The two planes that collided Tuesday morning were an F-16 fighter and a Cessna 150, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which said it is investigating the collision. The accident occurred about 11 a.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. A spokesman for Berkeley County said the two planes collided over Lewisfield Plantation in Moncks Corner, a town about 45 minutes north of Charleston. The county government said it is setting up a command center in that town, which is near Lake Moultrie. Debris has been seen on land as well as in the water, officials said...

The aerial dogfight was not supposed to happen. On May 20, 1967, eight U.S. Air Force F-4C fighters were patrolling over North Vietnam when they spotted as many as 15 enemy MiG-17 fighters a short distance away. Fog and the MiGs’ low altitude had prevented the F-4s from detecting the North Vietnamese jets from farther away.

I spent much of this spring obsessed with a question: Could the United States and Russia stumble into war, perhaps even nuclear war? It was a concern I'd first heard in late 2014, shortly after Russia's covert invasion of eastern Ukraine and its military harassment of neighboring NATO member states, which the United States is treaty-bound to defend. As I spoke to analysts and policymakers, I found a growing and increasingly alarmed community, in the US and Western Europe as well as in Russia, warning that war has once again become a real possibility. They compare Europe of today to...

More HD combat footage from the war in Yemen surfaced. It is now more like an Saudi-Yemeni war since the battle was fought on Saudi soil as Houthi rebels attacked Saudi Arabian tanks and border posts with guerrilla warfare tactics using small rebels groups eqipted with small arms, RPGs and ATGM launchers to target Saudi tanks and border posts.

Video footage resurfaced showing Syrian rebels using the German Made STG 44 (Sturmgewehr 44) or also called MP 44 in fighting and firefights on the battlefield in Syria. Syrian rebels already claimed to have captured about 5000 of this automatic rifles from the Syrian army in 2012 but other footage now shows them using it in action during fighting with the Syrian army.