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Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier charged with desertion after he was returned from the Taliban last year in exchange for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, is seeking to have the officer in charge of deciding his fate removed from the case now that he has been nominated to serve as the new Army chief of staff. Gen. Mark Milley is responsible for deciding whether to charge Bergdahl criminally for leaving his post in 2009 in Afghanistan. Bergdahl was captured and remained a captive of the Taliban for nearly five years.

A national defense analyst says it's a disgrace that U.S. military officers are not fighting an ongoing effort to put women in front-line combat units.The Washington Times recently reported that Congress is prodding the armed forces to develop a special combat boot for women to minimize stress fractures due to marching and training. Bob Maginnis, a senior fellow for national security at the Family Research Council, says the issue is about more than combat boots for women.It's about women are not men. Women are not little men either," says Maginnis, who retired from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel....

Full Title: Brian Williams pulls out of hosting awards show for military veterans and will be replaced by MICHELLE OBAMA NBC anchor, who was suspended after being called out by veterans for lying about his experience in Iraq, said he didn't want to be a 'distraction' First-ever Lincoln Awards features a concert by Nick Jonas, Gavin DeGraw and Jerry Lewis, which was filmed in January Ceremony, to air on PBS Friday, honors people who have helped veterans and military familiesDisgraced NBC news anchor Brian Williams, who was brought down when it was revealed he lied about his experience in a...

Uses his stardom to ‘do a little more’ Gary Sinise began providing free performances and dinners for Vietnam veterans — what he called “vets nights” — in the late 1970s, long before he was a household name thanks to his Oscar-nominated portrayal of the man who loses his legs in the jungles of Vietnam. Even before he portrayed Lt. Dan Taylor, the Vietnam commander saved by Forrest Gump from certain death in the 1994 best picture winner, the Chicago native and co-founder of the iconic Steppenwolf Theater knew he had to do something to give back to America’s heroes. “I...

Armed Forces Day honors the men and women who are currently serving the U.S. at home and abroad. The day, which falls on the third Saturday in May, is typically marked by events and ceremonies that observe the sacrifices made by those in uniform. The day was first observed in 1950 following the creation of the Department of Defense in 1949, which put all of the branches of the Armed Forces – the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy - under one department. In a speech announcing the first Armed Forces Day, President Harry Truman said the...

Washington (CNN)—Security conditions at U.S. military bases were raised Thursday night, because of growing concern of a jihadist threat in the U.S. It comes hours after FBI Director James Comey raised the prospect there are thousands of ISIS followers online in the U.S. "We have a general concern, obviously, that ISIL is focusing on the uniformed military and law enforcement," Comey told reporters Thursday. The order was signed by Admiral William Gortney, head of the command. "We have the same concern about the potential threat posed by violent homegrown extremists," said Captain Jeff Davis, spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command...

(CNSNews.com) - Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a group of ROTC cadets on Wednesday that sexual assault is a "particular challenge and a particular disgrace" to the U.S. military. He noted that last year, far more men (10,400) than women (8,500) "experienced unwanted sexual contact." "We've made some progress," Carter said. "We seem to have seen some decrease in the estimated number of assaults, and we seem to have seen some increase in those reporting an assault."But, last year, we estimated that at least 18,900 servicemembers -- 10,400 men and 8,500 women -- experienced unwanted sexual contact." Carter added that...

Making the general public aware about tough issues that need addressing is obviously a good thing. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about doing it. A Reddit post supposedly containing a message from the cellphone of a cadet has raised questions concerning an allegedly mandatory ROTC event. In the “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” event, cadets were required to wear high heels and march to “raise awareness of sexual assault against women.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey responded to reports that Ramadi, Iraq is on the verge of an Islamic State today by describing Ramadi as “not symbolic in any way.” In an open letter, Debbie Lee, whose son Marc was the first Navy SEAL casualty in Ramadi, responded to his remarks today. I am shaking and tears are flowing down my cheeks as I watch the news and listen to the insensitive, pain inflicting comments made by you in regards to the fall of Ramadi. “The city itself is not symbolic in any way” oh really are...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Surveys find that men in U.S. special operations forces do not believe women can meet the physical and mental demands of their commando jobs, and they fear the Pentagon will lower standards to integrate women into their elite units, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press. Studies that surveyed personnel found "major misconceptions" within special operations about whether women should be brought into the male-only jobs. They also revealed concerns that department leaders would "capitulate to political pressure, allowing erosion of training standards," according to one document.

"Hundreds of Polish residents took to the streets to give a hero's welcome to a convoy of U.S. troops who are driving through eastern Europe and deliver a damning message to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Children climbed on to Stryker armoured vehicles and even offered souvenirs to the troops, who stopped to pose for pictures in the main square of the eastern Polish town of Bialystok. Meanwhile other residents lined the roads and applauded as the troops from the 3rd Squadron of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment of the American Army passed by." "The scenes mirrored those in France after Paris...

A group affiliated with the Islamic State published a list of addresses purportedly belonging to about 100 U.S. service members late Friday night, calling for their beheadings. The self-identified “Islamic State Hacking Division” claimed to have obtained the information by hacking into military servers, databases and emails, The Blaze reported Saturday. The online document contains names and photos along with some of the addresses.

As the American military prepares to open all combat positions to women by 2016, a British report found that integrating women into combat would reduce effectiveness in battle and could harm unit cohesion. The British report, released in December, found that physiological differences put women at a disadvantage in both strength-based and aerobic fitness tests. Even women who are able to overcome the physiological disadvantage will likely get injured more easily or get tired quicker, making them easier targets and poorer marksmen in combat. “These are about biology rather than character,” the report states. The report found that some of...

The Times published a piece earlier this week by the same author. He argues that because the U.S. has 10 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, its Navy “is big enough.” If those 10 ships could remain on patrol indefinitely, this argument would carry weight. They cannot. They must return home so that crews can be rotated, equipment repaired, and eventually, nuclear fuel replenished. About three or four carriers are required to keep one on station permanently.

The U.S. military is shedding so many troops and weapons it is only “marginally able” to defend the nation and falls short of the Obama administration’s national security strategy, says a new report by The Heritage Foundation Tuesday. “The U.S. military itself is aging. It’s shrinking in size,” said Dakota Wood, a Heritage analyst. “And it’s quickly becoming problematic in terms of being able to address more than one major conflict.”

The Veterans Affairs secretary lied about serving in the special forces, a report in the Huffington Post alleges. "Robert McDonald, the secretary of veterans affairs, wrongly claimed in a videotaped comment earlier this year that he served in special operations forces, the most elite units in the armed forces, when his military service of five years was spent almost entirely with the 82nd Airborne Division during the late 1970s," the report reads. U.S. special operations forces (SOF) are composed of exhaustively trained and highly capable troops from each military service, including the Green Berets, Army Rangers, Delta Force and Navy SEALs --...

n outspoken wounded veteran from Tucson has caused a stir on social media over his objection to a flag he calls an affront to the American flag. Instead of red and white stripes, the flag flying recently at a home on Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base has stripes of rainbow colors -- traditionally used to show gay pride. Former Senior Airman Brian Kolfage, who lost two legs and an arm in an attack in Iraq, says the flag parodies the American flag. Kolfage says it's illegal and had no business flying on a military base. "I was cutting across base...

Center for Security Policy (CSP) official Tommy Waller, who fought against Islamic jihadists "on their turf" in Afghanistan and elsewhere, said his military training did not include instruction in the ideology of the enemy, a deliberate omission that puts America in "great peril." Waller, a Marine Reserve major, speaking via Skype at the National Press Club on Jan. 16, said he was speaking as an employee of the CSP, a conservative national security group in Washington, D.C., which released that day a new report, The Secure Freedom Strategy: A Plan for Victory Over the Global Jihad Movement. The plan, designed...

(CNN)—One military wife recalls staying up all night and deleting every Facebook picture of her children, every post that mentioned them or where they went to school. She Googled herself, trying to figure out how easy it would be to find where the family lived. In the morning, she went to her car and scraped the military decal off the front window. As the spouse of a Special Forces soldier, she's always tried to be conscious of how much she advertises that she and her three young children are a military family. "It's hard because I am so proud of...

The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win. In mid-September, while President Obama was fending off complaints that he should have done more, done less, or done something different about the overlapping crises in Iraq and Syria, he traveled to Central Command headquarters, at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida. There he addressed some of the men and women who would implement whatever the U.S. military strategy turned...