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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned on Monday that U.S. troops are “close to the breaking point,” after many deployments — and Congress risks worsening the situation if it doesn’t help the Pentagon with its budget. “Our people are strong and resilient after 12 years of war, but they are under stress — and so are the institutions that support them,” Hagel told the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the group’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky. “Last week at Fort Bragg’s Soldier and Family Assistance Center, I met a first sergeant who told me that in Afghanistan, he froze up and...

Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have joined an upstart effort to remove the chain of command from military sexual assault cases, POLITICO has learned. The tea party favorites give the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, critical conservative cover as she battles the Pentagon and hawks in both parties on her proposal to create a new prosecution system for major military crimes. Paul is scheduled to attend a press conference Tuesday in the Capitol with Gillibrand and other bill backers, including Sens. Chuck Grassley and Barbara Boxer, to discuss his new position, which inches the New York Democrat closer...

As the U.S. military prepares to send women into the toughest combat billets for the first time, Pentagon medical officers have just released data showing that while “battle injuries” were the leading reason male troops were flown outside Afghanistan for medical care, “mental disorders” topped the list for female troops. That shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. After all, women remain technically barred from the infantry and other units where close-in combat is the norm. But the data also show that despite the ban, women were medically evacuated from Afghanistan at a rate 22% higher than their male comrades.

The U.S. military has erected a 64,000-square-foot headquarters building on the dusty moonscape of southwestern Afghanistan that comes with all the tools to wage a modern war. A vast operations center with tiered seating. A briefing theater. Spacious offices. Fancy chairs. Powerful air conditioning. Everything, that is, except troops.

Hollywood is making another pathetic attempt to manufacture villains out of real Americans in its latest loud, dumb and explodey retread, White House Down. Surprise! The bad guys are, again, our military. Yet, bucking the trend, another big-budget film – the zombie apocalypse epic World War Z – not only depicts our American warriors as the heroes they are but even gives props to the Israeli Defense Force. I know - it’s easier to believe in zombies than in a major Hollywood movie where American and Israeli fighters aren’t the bad guys. My friend and Townhall columnist Lisa De Pasquale...

Pentagon's LGBT 'Pride Month' Comes With a Poster June 24, 2013 - 11:12 AM By Susan Jones (CNSNews.com) - On Tuesday, June 25, the U.S. Defense Department will give special recognition to "gay, lesbian and bisexual servicemembers" -- as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civilian workers -- for their "dedicated service to our country." And this year, "Pride Month" at the Defense Department comes with a poster: The red, white and blue poster -- designed for the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute located at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida -- includes the followiong quotation from President Barack...

Good Strategy, Bad Tactics: Ethical Considerations in ROE for Counter-Insurgency Warfare (original title) In recent times, in many countries around the globe, military forces have had to come to grips with the difficulties of waging a counter-insurgency war; battling an elusive enemy in a task made all the more difficult by the fact that these insurgent forces commonly utilise tactics that appear (at the very least) to violate all the accepted rules of warfare. Given how common such a situation is in the world today, it seems to me that it is extremely important for military and political leaders to...

Description: Writers/photographers in the Asia-Pacific region sought for website covering military issues. Focus is on stories involving China, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Burma and Cambodia. We prefer writers residing in those countries. If interested, submit resume or CV and three examples of your writing, especially stories focusing on the military. Correspondents who are accepted will be paid for stories/photos published on the website. Contact APDFstories@gditweb.com.

$65,000 Reward Offered for Information in Search for Bomber in 2008 Times Square Attack Bomber May Have Also Been Involved in Two Other Unsolved Bombings—One at the British Consulate in 2005, the Other at the Mexican Consulate in 2007 FBI New York June 18, 2013 SNIPPET: "Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department announced a reward of up to $65,000 for information leading to the identification, arrest, and conviction of the suspect or suspects involved in the unsolved 2008 bombing of the United States Armed Forces Recruiting Station in Times Square. Also released today...

The United States Army was established - as the Continental Army - on June 14, 1775.The Army Goes Rolling AlongThe 238th United States Army Birthday

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday said some military commanders can’t “distinguish between a slap on the ass and a rape.” Gillibrand made the comment during a hearing where military leaders made public their opposition to Gillibrand's legislation that would strip commanders of the power to decide where sexual assaults are prosecuted. The New York senator wants prosecutors to decide where such crimes are tried, not commanders. “While you are all so dedicated and determined, not all commanders are objective,” Gillibrand said. “Not every single commander necessarily wants women in the force. Not every single commander can distinguish between a...

(photo with article) Most Americans assume that the U.S. military is so vastly superior to everyone else that no other nation would ever dream of fighting a full-scale war against us. Unfortunately, that assumption is dead wrong. In recent years, the once mammoth technological gap between the U.S. military and the Chinese military has been closing at a frightening pace. China has been accomplishing this by brazenly stealing our technology and hacking into our computer systems. The Pentagon and the Obama administration know all about this, but they don’t do anything about it. Perhaps the fact that China owns about...

CARACAS — Two employees of the US embassy in Venezuela were shot and wounded early Tuesday in the capital Caracas, in a murky incident that local media and a police source said took place at a strip club. "We can confirm that two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington. "Medical staff inform us that their injuries are not life-threatening," he added, noting that they were hurt at "some sort of a social spot" but without specifying the venue or nature of their...

Chinese Hackers Have Stolen Plans For Pretty Much The Entire US Military Geoffrey Ingersoll May 28, 2013, 11:11 AM Hackers have accessed designs for more than two dozen major U.S. weapons systems, according to a devastating classified report from a Pentagon advisor shared with the Washington Post. Although the report from the Defense Science Board did not identify the hackers, senior military and industry officials with knowledge of the breaches say they come primarily from China, according to Ellen Nakashima of the Post. A public version of the report released in January warned of an "existential cyber attack" with "potentially...

False complaints of sexual abuse in the military are rising at a faster rate than overall reports of sexual assault, a trend that could harm combat readiness, analysts say. Virtually all media attention on a Pentagon report last week focused on an increase in service members’ claims of sexual abuse in an anonymous survey, but unmentioned were statistics showing that a significant percentage of such actually investigated cases were baseless. From 2009 to 2012, the number of sexual abuse reports rose from 3,244 to 3,374 — a 4 percent increase.

The level of sexual violence in the US military has dramatically increased, according to a Pentagon report that shows more than 70 assaults on service members a day.Around 26,000 members of the armed services are estimated to have been sexually assaulted in the last year, a sharp rise from 19,000 incidents recorded two years ago. The report by the US Department of Defense come days after a senior officer responsible for preventing sexual assault in the Air Force was arrested and charged with drunkenly attacking a woman in a Virginia parking lot. President Barack Obama called the findings an "an...

A high-ranking Coast Guard official said at a National Day of Prayer event that religious liberty in the U.S. military is being threatened and that service members are being told to hide their faith in Christ, according to a taped remarks obtained by Fox News. “As one general so aptly put it – they expect us to check our religion in at the door – don’t bring that here,” Rear Admiral William Lee told a National Day of Prayer gathering on Capitol Hill. “Leaders like myself are feeling the constraints of rules and regulations and guidance issued by lawyers...

According to Obama’s advisor on religious tolerance within the U.S. military, Christians sharing their faith, including chaplains, present “… a national security threat. What is happening [aside from sexual assault] is spiritual rape. And what the Pentagon needs is to understand is that it is sedition and treason. It should be punished.” “Criminalize Christianity” as an official policy of the federal government pertaining to military personnel? It is a short distance from that to jailing pastors, as they already do in Iran. Once the government grossly violates the 1st Amendment, preferring one group over another, it can prosecute anyone deemed...

PARRIS ISLAND, SC (WMBF) - The next war fought by American troops will be fought by men and women on the front line. Today, women are allowed - even encouraged - to serve wherever they're needed. And that has every branch of the military racing to develop a plan to make sure they are not only willing to fight, but ready for the job physically and emotionally. At Parris Island the new role of women in the Marine Corps is changing tradition and attitudes about training at one of the nation's premier boot camps. It has never has been training...

Last week we reported on the Army EEO briefing that described evangelical Christians and Catholics as “extremists” alongside the likes of the KKK and al Qaeda. That incident occurred in Pennsylvania. Today, Todd Starnes reports that an Army officer at Ft. Campbell, KY sent an email to subordinates using similar descriptions and epithets. “Just want to ensure everyone is somewhat educated on some of the groups out there that do not share our Army Values,” read an email from LTC Jack Rich to three dozen subordinates at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. “When we see behaviors that are inconsistent with Army...