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It seems the words of Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warning that “the world stands on the brink of conflict, the consequences of which are not foreseen... Not everyone in Europe is aware of this situation," are a little more real than some (US equity buyers) might suspect. As The Week's Crispin Black reports, at least 7,000 Polish workers in Europe have received call-up papers as army reservists in the last few weeks. Polish authorities dismiss it as "routine" but the men note this has never happened before. As The Week's Crispin Black goes on to note, At least 7,000...

Army Sgt. Ashley Randall never knew her grandfather, never knew of his heroism in Korea, until President Obama told her that she was next of kin to a Medal of Honor recipient. "I didn't know anything, not even his name," Randall said of her grandfather, Army Pvt. Demensio Rivera, who was killed at age 18 in Korea during an enemy assault. ~ snip ~ Rivera, originally from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, was drafted into the Army from New York City. He was an automatic rifleman serving with Company G, 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division, when his platoon's...

Robert Farley, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, wants to ground the U.S. Air Force, for good. In his book, Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the US Air Force, Farley argues the United States does not need an independent Air Force in order to effectively wield military air power. Farley, an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, came to his conclusion after studying the conflict between the Army and the Air Force over which military branch was primarily responsible for winning the first Gulf War. “I slowly became more aware that these...

The senior Army officer prosecuted in the military’s most closely watched sexual assault case, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair, has agreed to plead guilty to sharply reduced charges, including that he disobeyed a commander’s order, misused his government charge card and mistreated his former mistress, a captain. In exchange for those pleas, prosecutors will dismiss far more serious charges against General Sinclair, including that he twice forced the captain into oral sex and threatened to kill her and her family. General Sinclair is expected to enter the pleas, outlined in a document endorsed by both sides and distributed by the...

According to Swedish defense contractor Saab, the U.S. Army is planning to issue recoilless rifles broadly to regular units for the first time in more than 30 years. The decision reflects the service’s combat experience in Afghanistan. The ground combat branch had previously made a small purchase of recoilless rifles in 2012, but just for units in Afghanistan. All light infantry units may now receive them.

WASHINGTON — Confirming suspicions of Americans and Fox News contributors everywhere, Communist-in-Chief Barack Obama announced today that his plans to downsize the Defense Department in size and spending are singularly rooted in a heartfelt desire to allow the terrorists to win. “I’m doing this because I hate America,” Obama told reporters. “Plain and simple.” Indeed, last week, the president unveiled proposals that would shrink the Army to pre-World War II levels, slash a number of costly programs, and roll back some benefits to service members and their families. Speaking today from the White House briefing room, the president assured Americans...

Nearly 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers had a common mental illness, such as depression, panic disorder or ADHD, before enlisting in the Army, according to a new study that raises questions about the military's assessment and screening of recruits. More than 8% of soldiers had thought about killing themselves and 1.1% had a past suicide attempt, researchers found from confidential surveys and interviews with 5,428 soldiers at Army installations across the country. The findings, published online Monday in two papers in JAMA Psychiatry, point to a weakness in the recruiting process, experts said. Applicants are asked about their psychiatric histories,...

Results from a U.S. Army survey show that female soldiers are not enthusiastic about entering combat positions. Maintaining physical standards for soldiers regardless of sex is nearly universally supported. “Less than 8 percent of Army women who responded to the survey said they wanted a combat job,” reported The Associated Press, which obtained the results of a preliminary survey of 170,000 soldiers. The assessment was emailed last year to active duty, reserves and Army National Guard members to gauge attitudes towards women in combat. Only 2,238 of 30,000 women, or 7.5 percent, who responded to the questionnaire said that they...

"This is me laying back in my car hiding so I don't have to salute the 1700 flag," she captioned the picture. "KEEP ALL YOUR 'THATS SO DISRESPECTFUL/HOWRUDE/ETC.' COMMENTS TO YOURSELF cuz, right now, IDGAFFFF," she added, under her handle sheffeynation.

British soldiers are being banned by health and safety rules from training at a military base in the Arctic circle - because it's too cold. Locals at the Allied Training Centre in Porsanger in Norway said they were stunned that while Norwegian troops were out in -25C weather, the Brits were being kept in the warm because of the army rules. The base commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Trond Thomassen confirmed: 'British officers are not in a position to train with large divisions at Porsanger, where the temperature drops to 25 degrees below zero.

Defense: The U.S. withdrawal from global leadership continues as Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel proposes cutting the Army to its smallest size since before World War II, leaving no replacement except tyrants and chaos. The best analysis of the devastating military cuts ordered by President Obama came from former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday's "Hannity": "He would much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops." Considering the Obama administration has ignored or violated the Constitution in so many ways, we're not surprised that the imperative to provide for...

FORT EUSTIS, Va. — Only a small fraction of Army women say they'd like to move into one of the newly opening combat jobs, but those few who do say they want a job that takes them right into the heart of battle, according to preliminary results from a survey of the service's nearly 170,000 women. That survey and others across the Army, publicly disclosed for the first time to The Associated Press, also revealed that soldiers of both genders are nervous about women entering combat jobs but say they are determined to do it fairly. Men are worried about...

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is due to decrease the size of the U.S. Army to its lowest levels since before World War II, The New York Times reported on Monday. He’s due to unveil the new budget plan on Monday. Among his plans: Reduce the troop level in the Army from its high of 570,000 — the number recorded just after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on American soil — to 440,000 or 450,000, the smallest since 1940, The Hill reported. “You have to always keep your institution prepared, but you can’t carry a large land-war Defense Department when...

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel plans to shrink the United States Army to its smallest force since before the World War II buildup and eliminate an entire class of Air Force attack jets in a new spending proposal that officials describe as the first Pentagon budget to aggressively push the military off the war footing adopted after the terror attacks of 2001. The proposal, described by several Pentagon officials on the condition of anonymity in advance of its release on Monday, takes into account the fiscal reality of government austerity and the political reality of a president who pledged...

Remember that ending scene out of Indiana Jones where the Ark of the Covenant is boxed up and wheeled through an endless government warehouse? Did you know that that place actually exists? It is located 30 minutes outside Washington, D.C., at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The building itself is very nondescript…

A former Army historian who chronicled the infamous Battle of Wanat in Afghanistan, where nine U.S. soldiers died after their M4 carbines jammed, tells The Washington Times that his official account was altered by higher-ups to absolve the weapons and senior officers.

The ever-beleaguered Army has a reputation — not undeserved — for being bland, conformist, and bureaucratic, an organization where brilliant mavericks are forced to retire at colonel and the guys who make general don’t rock the boat. Just ask any of the long-serving and long-suffering officers convening here in Huntsville, home of the massive Army Materiel Command, for the Association of the US Army’s annual winter conference. But it looks like 12 years of war and three years of budget chaos may be able to shake things up. One sign of the times is that the Army plans to promote...

Gov. Scott Walker: It’s ‘Unfathomable’ That Nat’l Guard Member Posted These Photos Online Feb. 19, 2014 10:25am Dave Urbanski Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said it’s an “outrage” that a now-suspended National Guard member posted photos making light of military funerals online. Spc. Terry Harrison was suspended after posting photos making light of military funerals. (Image source: WISN-TV) “To me, it’s just completely unacceptable,’ the Republican governor told WISN-TV in Milwaukee. “It’s an outrage. It’s unfathomable to me that people who are not just service members, but who were picked to be in this highly specialized area, wouldn’t be sensitive enough...

**SNIP** In their 2012 appearances before parole officials, both men admitted their roles in killing officers Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones, 33. The officers were shot multiple times after they'd responded to a report of a domestic dispute at a Harlem housing complex on May 21, 1971. Prosecutors said it was a trap set by Bell and Bottom. "I began to see things in a way that I wanted to come clean," Bell said in 2012, according to a transcript. "I wanted to accept that fact that I committed this offense, I wanted to show remorse, but I didn't really...

In 2004, the Army decided to scrap the two traditional camouflage uniforms that had long been used by the military—one meant for woodland environments, another for the desert—and claimed to have come up with a universal pattern that could be worn anywhere and blend in with any environment. The $5 billion dollar experiment with the universal pattern is over as the Army is phasing out the uniform after less than a decade of use. But many soldiers and observers are wondering why it took this long and cost this much to replace an item that performed poorly from the start...