Free Republic

WASHINGTON — The Army, strained by unrelenting violence in Iraq and operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, is considering ways it can speed up the creation of two combat brigades while shifting personnel and equipment from other military units. Under the plan being developed, the new brigades could be formed next year and be ready to be sent to Iraq in 2008, defense officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans were not final. The Army's chief of staff, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, told a commission Thursday that he wants to increase the half-million-member...

WHETHER IN New Orleans or Baghdad, at home or abroad, the real workhorses of our post-9/11 military have not come from among the generals and colonels, or even the captains and lieutenants, but from the enlisted ranks of sergeants and corporals. As any West Pointer or Annapolis-educated officer will tell you, these noncommissioned officers — NCOs or noncoms in military lingo — are the heart and soul of the U.S. military, the repository of its culture and traditions. They are a poorly paid, blue-collar corps, many of them just high school graduates. Two-thirds of all Marines are noncommissioned and in...

How to address the recent spate of purple prose regarding the pros and cons of sorting out the Cons? You know the ones I mean; the neocons, the paleocons, even theocons and I suppose, some excons. For those of you outside the virtual Beltway, the 'cons' referred to above would be those who espouse conservativism, and the latest rage among liberals (and some cons themselves) is to pigeonhole its proponents. Yes Virginia, as strange as it may seem, there is Diversity amongst the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. And this seems to both surprise and elate its enemies.