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Defense Secretary Ashton Carter tried to explain Friday how a U.S. soldier could die heroically in a combat raid he personally authorized in Iraq while the nation was still not involved in "boots on the ground" combat. Carter hailed 39-year-old Delta Force Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler as an exemplary hero who "ran to the sound of the guns" in the helicopter assault Thursday with Kurdish Peshmerga fighters that freed 70 ISIS hostages. He was the first U.S. combat fatality of the campaign against ISIS. "This is combat," Carter said of the raid on an ISIS prison compound east of the...

Now, that you’re gone Joe, I just wanted to say thanks for everything you’ve done for the country. You were around a long time, all the way back to 1775. You waged a lot of battles, fought plenty of bad guys and helped bring down evil empires. You crossed the Delaware with Washington, trudged endlessly through the steaming jungles of the South Pacific, climbed Pointe du Hoc to save the world and battled sandstorms and Jihadis from the 73 Easting to Tal Afar. As General MacArthur said so eloquently, “From one end of the world to another, you drained deep...

In 1971, Colonel David Hackworth was interviewed on ABC’s, “Issues and Answers.” During the interview, Hackworth, a career Army officer, stated in no uncertain terms that the Vietnam War was a disaster and unwinnable. Furthermore, he chastised his fellow Army officers for poor leadership and ineptness. Hackworth was a decorated combat veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, who had earned enough medals for a whole battalion. He was instantly ostracized by the defense establishment and forced to retire. Hackworth, who later went on to a distinguished career as a journalist was a polarizing figure who was hated by the...

The US Army continues to deny that any special treatment was given to the first two female graduates of Ranger School, Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver, and Friday’s female graduate, Major Lisa Jaster, a 37 year old mother of two. Congressman Steve Russell of Oklahoma requested the school records for Griest and Haver on September 15th and was stalled by the Army for three weeks until they informed Russell that some of the records had been destroyed. Meanwhile, the Army refuses to comment on the Ranger School policy for the storage and destruction of student records. They...

During the last two weeks, US Defense Watch has been reporting on Representative Steve Russell’s request on September 15th for the Ranger School records of the first two female graduates, Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver. It is not known whether or not Congressman Russell has asked for the records for Major Lisa Jaster, who graduated today from Ranger School. Russell’s request to Secretary of the Army, John McHugh, was at first delayed on September 24th, when McHugh asked for an extension, noting “privacy concerns” and time to compile the records together. Nearly two weeks passed without Russell...

Dakota Meyer is a Medal of Honor receipent and an American hero. He went above and beyond the call of duty while serving our nation. So when the Islamic State (ISIS) released a “warning” to Meyer and threatened his life, Meyer responded in an EPIC way! Watch (below) as Meyer pulls over his truck and records this video message for ISIS. He’s ready for Islamic terrorist thugs and knows how to fight. Incredible! Thank you Dakota Meyer for your service.

We should all want our troops in Afghanistan to intervene to stop the rape of boys, right? Surely, we don’t want our U.S. Army to act like morally neutered crew members of the Starship Enterprise from the famed "Star Trek" TV series. Those fictional time and space travelers had a Prime Directive that forbade them from interfering in the development of less technologically advanced beings they encountered as they went “where no man had gone before.” If our troops had been detailed to serve as observers with the British in India in the nineteenth century, would we have expected them...

For decades, DARPA, the secretive research arm of the Department of Defense, has dreamed of turning soldiers into cyborgs. And now it’s finally happening. The agency has funded projects that involve implanting chips into soldiers’ brains that they hope will enhance performance on the battlefield and repair traumatized brains once the fog of war has lifted.

The US Army has issued a new shoulder patch for the slightly more than 3,000 troops who President Obama has decided he can spare to fight the world’s most dangerous Jihadist entity, the Islamic State, which the US federal government still insists on referring to as “ISIL,” despite the fact that there are now Jihadi groups from West Africa to the Philippines that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Nothing illustrates better the institutional denial that we are saddled with as a nation in our fight to save Western civilization than our federal counter terror bureaucracy’s slavish attitude toward...

Way back in January, long before the first women attended the Army's elite Ranger School – one of the most grueling military courses in the world – officials at the highest levels of the Army had already decided failure was not an option, sources tell PEOPLE. "A woman will graduate Ranger School," a general told shocked subordinates this year while preparing for the first females to attend a "gender integrated assessment" of the grueling combat leadership course starting April 20, sources tell PEOPLE. "At least one will get through." That directive set the tone for what was to follow, sources...

The Washington Post headline says it all: “Obama Nominates the First Openly Gay Service Secretary.” According to the Post, “Obama, in a historic first for the Pentagon, has chosen to nominate Eric Fanning to lead the Army, a move that would make him the first openly gay civilian secretary of one of the military services. … Fanning’s rise to one of the Pentagon’s toughest and most prominent jobs also reflects the Obama’s commitment to diversity.” “Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to this new role,” said our nation’s worst-ever commander in chief. “I am confident he...

No matter the actual truth in the Bowe Bergdahl case, one thing is certain -- the Obama administration has made a complete hash of the matter, badly damaged the Army, American credibility, and security, and possibly Bergdahl himself. Bergdahl’s recent Article 32 hearing, and in particular the testimony of Major General Kenneth Dahl (who served as the investigating officer in the case) offers the public the first coherent account of Bergdahl’s side, other than the Administration’s line that he was captured while serving with “distinction and honor.” But whether one accepts Dahl’s evaluation of Bergdahl as a confused, poorly adjusted...

In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s...

Benavidez had a total of 37 separate bullet, bayonet, and shrapnel wounds from the six hour fight with the enemy battalion. He was evacuated to the base camp, examined, and thought to be dead. He couldn’t open his eyes because of the amount of blood that had dried over them. He couldn’t talk, because he had been hit in the mouth with a rifle butt and his jaws were locked. As he was being placed in a body bag among the other dead, he was suddenly recognized by a friend who called for help. A doctor came and examined him...

Obama Nominates Open Homosexual to Lead the U.S. Army By Julio Severo Eric Fanning, a longtime Pentagon official who is an open homosexual, has been nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to lead the U.S. Army. Eric Fanning “Eric brings many years of proven experience and exceptional leadership to this new role,” Obama said in a statement, the Washington Post reported Friday. “I look forward to working with Eric to keep our Army the very best in the world.” His words and actions are radically opposed to the words and actions of the Father of America. As recorded in...

President Obama, in a historic first for the Pentagon, has chosen to nominate Eric Fanning to lead the Army, a move that would make him the first openly gay civilian secretary of one of the military services.

For generations, freshmen cadets at the United States Military Academy have marked the end of a grueling summer of training with a huge nighttime pillow fight that is billed as a harmless way to blow off steam and build class spirit. But this year the fight on the West Point, N.Y., campus turned bloody as some cadets swung pillowcases packed with hard objects, thought to be helmets, that split lips, broke at least one bone, dislocated shoulders and knocked cadets unconscious. The brawl at the publicly funded academy, where many of the Army’s top leaders are trained, left 30 cadets...

Friday, August 21, 2015 06:32PM FORT BRAGG, N.C. (WTVD) -- The notice came overnight: Get ready to respond to a nuclear disaster situation in Southwest Florida. Be ready to deploy for a week. So early Friday morning, more than 300 20th Engineer Brigade soldiers prepped convoys. Over the next five days they will join more than 400 additional troops in an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise. The 18th Airborne Corps soldiers have a focus. "We're specially trained and equipped for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear hazards," said Colonel Jayson C. Gilberti, the Brigade's commander. While the soldiers may be called on...

The following was written by Rudy Mac, a Ranger-qualified, company-grade infantry officer serving on active duty in a light unit in the U.S. Army. By the time most of you read this story, 96 newly tabbed Rangers and their friends and families will be celebrating the completion of one of the most arduous and demanding courses that the Army has to offer. For them, this coming weekend will undoubtedly involve hours of some of the most satisfying sleep of their lives, interspersed with exorbitant feasts of all of the foods that they have been dreaming about, talking about, and listing...

For the first time ever, two women have successfully completed the Army's elite Ranger school, one of the toughest combat training courses in the world, the Army said Monday. The female soldiers weren't identified beyond being described as West Point-trained officers. They were among 96 soldiers who will graduate Friday at Fort Benning, Georgia, with the coveted Ranger tab, the Army said. (snip) Unlike the 94 men who will graduate Friday, the two women won't be allowed to apply to join the join the 75th Ranger Regiment, the elite Special Operations force. It remains closed to women.