Free Republic

Volunteers to the country’s territorial defense forces, reserve units of Ukraine’s armed forces, were initially assigned unglamorous but safe tasks in relatively tranquil regions like western Ukraine, where the Russians did not invade. But severe losses of manpower in the Donbas region, where Russia is grinding forward with ferocious bombing and shelling, has forced Ukraine’s military to draw reinforcements from the West. Many of the fighters like Mr. Brukhal, who had no previous military experience, are simply unprepared for that escalated level of fighting. And the training they receive is limited — sometimes two weeks or less. Colonel Kurko said...

WASHINGTON – The CIA has scrapped its ho-hum test that steered job applicants toward mysterious careers and devised one that's cloaked in jest. Invisibility or ESP? Jet pack or amphibious sports car? Walk the Great Wall of China or sip Champagne at a New York gala? The results from the CIA's personality quiz are just a few clicks away, diagnosing test takers as daring thrill-seekers, thoughtful observers, curious adventurers, innovative pioneers or impressive masterminds. The CIA wants to hire them all. The agency's online personality test is the equivalent of a help-wanted sign, posted on the closest thing the agency...

He calls himself Max Action and, as much as possible, he tries to live up to the name. He says he has climbed to the top of the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis, walked in underground rivers, wandered through abandoned mental hospitals and cartwheeled naked on the stage at Northrup Auditorium at the University of Minnesota. All in the name of urban exploration, an apparently growing -- and illegal -- subculture in the Twin Cities and around the country in which people break into and wander around forbidden or foreboding places in their cities. Urban explorers are secretive by nature...

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (Aug. 4, 2005) -- Imagine dangling from a helicopter, zipping along at more than 80 miles an hour, with a crystal clear view of the coast and Marines on the ground looking like ants. That’s how Marines with 1st Force Reconnaissance Company spent their day July 28 — literally hanging by a thread to brush up on SPIE-rigging (special purpose insertion extraction) and “fast-roping” techniques. The training was held to requalify those who train Marines in such skills. Fast roping is the “main means” of inserting Marines quickly when a helicopter can’t land, said...