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Army Orders Soldiers to Shed Dragon Skin or Lose SGLI Death Benefits By Nathaniel R. Helms Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased...

Troop strength is a recurring topic of discussion regarding our difficulties in Iraq. Unfortunately, what began as cries of "not enough troops" from left-leaning political partisans eventually grew into a choir that included more credible individuals. Among them were people very familiar with the situation in Iraq: Anthony Zinni, Senator Joe Biden, Colin Powell, and Frederick Kagan, to name a few. It is disappointing that intelligent people who are well versed in military affairs are capable of seeing a forest but fail to recognize that it is composed of trees, with some trees bearing more fruit than others. To put...

If Drudge is right that the Pentagon is planning to dump more abuse photos from Abu Ghraib, there is no use --we should just surrender. If I had a loved one in harm's way, I'd tell them to desert. We can't win a war this way. Our media and governmanetal elites simply won't let us win this war. Bush is too weak and the Republicans in Congress are intimidated by the big Beltway Media. The grunt and the Average patriotic American doesn't have anybody fighting for them. There is no mass movement to defend the honor of the American military...

BAGHDAD - A funny thing happened on the way home from Iraq this week: I found myself scoffing at the rear-echelon soldiers for how little they knew about war. About the real war, the one I had experienced, with enemy AK-47 rounds buzzing over your head and the smell of burning flesh and metal filling your nose. About enduring four weeks on the front lines, sleeping in open foxholes you'd dug to avoid shrapnel in the night. About looking terrible, smelling worse, and seeing people die. Where were the headquarters Johnnies then, I smugly asked myself this week as I...

Ken Nichols O'Keefe doesn't fit easily into the stereotype of a peace activist. A decorated former United States marine and veteran of the Gulf War, he has the look and tattooed body of the infantryman he once was. But it's O'Keefe - self-described "world citizen" with the word "expatriot" etched into his right hand - who is leading a campaign against United States policy in Iraq by becoming a "human shield." He hopes his presence, along with dozens of similarly-minded war protestors, will prevent President Bush from engaging in a conflict that seems inevitable. O'Keefe and about 50 others left...

Retired U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO, is becoming an increasingly ubiquitous presence on television in the run-up to war with Iraq - even though he once criticized former high-ranking U.S. military personnel who hired themselves out as analysts and talking heads to television news channels. Some of his former colleagues in the military have been increasingly critical of Clark in recent days, especially after his speech to a Democrat fund-raiser in Washington, United Press International reported today. According to one in attendance, the former NATO commander aligned himself "100 percent with the liberal Democrats" on Iraq. Says...