Free Republic

For more than a decade, Guy Shoemaker pitched military service to potential new recruits with one key promise: healthcare for life. “You’re going to have medical and dental for the rest of your life,” said Shoemaker, a retired Army sergeant first class and recruiter who spent a year in Afghanistan. “I used that phrase too many times.” That promise held up when Shoemaker, 64, of Fort Worth, Texas, was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2021. TRICARE — the military’s healthcare program for active service members, retirees and their families — covered the chemotherapy, radiation and years of follow-up care that...

South Korea sent more troops to join the Vietnam War than any other country other than the United States, and since has joined other U.S.-led conflicts in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq. South Korea has dispatched 57,000 troops to 30 countries at the request of the United States or the United Nations. A late 2019 poll—in the midst of a contentious standoff in burden-sharing negotiations—indicated that 92% of South Koreans supported the alliance with the United States. Together the allies maintain formidable capabilities. The ROK armed forces today total 599,000 active duty troops. In 2020, South Korea had the...

A billboard campaign has been launched promoting abortion to veterans in Georgia, New Mexico, and Virginia. Key Takeaways: * Vet Voice Foundation (VVF) partnered with The Brigid Alliance to place billboards near Veterans Affairs (VA) clinics and hospitals. * The billboards include messages like "We've got your six," and promise that the Brigid Alliance will handle all the logistics for abortion-seeking women. * The Brigid Alliance said the billboard campaign was launched in response to changes in abortion coverage through the VA. The Backstory: In December of 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) reversed a Biden administration rule allowing VA...

On his Facebook page, Elkins shared a picture of him with his eldest daughter as she ate a burger Saturday, hours before his rampage. “Lol!!!! Took my oldest on a lil 1 on 1 date had to catch her down bad ugh ugh,” the killer wrote, along with a string of laughing emojis. Two weeks ago, Elkins shared a picture of himself posing with seven children as he described taking them to church for an Easter service. “Happy Easter had a wonderful time at church for the first time with all my kids what a blessed day,” he wrote in...

One of Australia's most decorated soldiers, Ben Roberts-Smith, has been arrested and is expected to be charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.The Victoria Cross recipient was arrested at Sydney Airport's domestic terminal after a flight from Brisbane this morning.The former special forces soldier's arrest comes after a mammoth defamation trial against Nine Newspapers that in 2023 ended in a court finding that on the balance of probabilities, allegations he was responsible for, or complicit in the deaths of four detainees in Afghanistan were substantially true.There have been no findings of guilt against Mr Roberts-Smith to a...

Traumatic brain injuries are quickly emerging as the signature wound of the U.S. war with Iran so far, echoing a pattern of post-9/11 wars... More than 200 U.S. troops have so far been wounded in the war, and at least 140 of those were TBI-related injuries... It’s a surge being driven by Iran’s reliance on one-way attack drones and the concussive blasts they deliver in strikes against American troops in countries across the Middle East, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Symptoms of TBI can be subtle at first but often linger for years, or even a lifetime, ranging...

The Pentagon has added Operation Epic Fury to its casualty database, as of April 3 showing 365 U.S. troops wounded in action and 13 killed.The update follows weeks of rising casualty reports tied to the operation. On Friday and into Saturday, a search remained ongoing for one of two F-15E crew members taken down in Iran. U.S. officials said March 1 that three service members had been killed and five seriously wounded. By March 2, the number of those killed had risen to six.Military.com sought clarification on how the Pentagon defines those killed in action, died of wounds, or non-hostile...

The Friends of the Israel Defense Forces said that it is giving more than $430,000 to families of 118 fallen Israeli soldiers through its After the Shiva program ahead of the Passover holiday. The funds will support “ongoing financial needs, along with holiday shopping gift cards, personalized gifts and herb plants to help families prepare for and observe Passover,” the group said. Maj. Gen. (Res.) Nadav Padan, CEO of the group, stated that “supporting bereaved families is a sacred responsibility that reflects the deep bond between Israel’s supporters around the world and those who have made the greatest sacrifice on...

The community is encouraged to line the streets of Bardstown to help celebrate the life of “our local hero” Tech. Sgt. Ashley Pruitt as she returns home to be laid to rest, according to the Nelson County Sheriff’s Office. Pruitt, 34, was one of six service members killed on March 12 when a KC-135 aircraft crashed in western Iraq during Operation Epic Fury. A dignified transfer will be held when Pruitt’s remains arrive at Samuels Field Airport in Bardstown at 11 a.m. Thursday before her body is escorted to Houghlin-Greenwell Funeral Home. “Ashley’s life was one of purpose, courage, and...

There are no erasures or do-overs when it comes to waging war. Bush often described his role as that of “decider,” and there were no more consequential decisions during his presidency than the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq... Bush has said that the hardest part of being in office was reading the casualty reports and seeing the brutal consequences of his policy first-hand: placing calls to sobbing widows, looking into the eyes of Gold Star families, visiting injured soldiers at Walter Reade and Bethesda as they practiced using a prosthetic limb or struggled with PTS. (Bush does not use the...

Four IDF soldiers were killed while fighting in Southern Lebanon, the IDF confirmed on Tuesday. The military shared the names of the fallen soldiers: Captain Noam Madmoni, Staff Sergeant Ben Cohen, Staff Sergeant Maxsim Entis, and Staff Sergeant Gilad Harel. During the incident, two additional soldiers were wounded, one in serious condition and the other with moderate wounds.

The GoFundMe for a Trussville man killed last week during Operation Epic Fury has reached over $1 million in donations. Maj. John A. "Alex" Klinner, 33, was one of six killed in an incident involving a KC-135 and another aircraft. Klinner's sister-in-law set up a GoFundMe to support Klinner's wife, Libby, and the couple's three children. Within hours, the fundraiser reached its $150,000 goal, and it was increased to $1.5 million after donations poured in, surpassing $1 million. Among donors was billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, who gave $100,000. Two others killed in the incident were from the 99th...

Ari Kalker joins the show under heartbreaking circumstances to tell the story of Josh Boone, a lone soldier from Boise, Idaho, who became a decorated IDF sniper and a relentless “guardian of Israel,” logging an almost unbelievable 748 days of reserve duty before PTSD took his life. This episode pulls you past the headlines and into the hidden cost of a long war: how trauma shows up, why the “strongest guy in the room” is often the last to ask for help and what real intervention looks like when bureaucracy moves too slowly. You’ll also learn the crucial distinction between...

Six American soldiers who lost their lives over western Iraq while supporting a mission are being remembered and honored by the U.S. Senate. The lawmakers passed a resolution recognizing their bravery, service, and ultimate sacrifice. The resolution, introduced by U.S. Senator Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and co-sponsored by Senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), Jon Husted (R-Ohio), and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), passed unanimously. It honors Major Alex Klinner of Auburn, Alabama; Major Ariana G. Savino of Covington, Washington; Technical Sergeant Ashley B. Pruitt of Bardstown, Kentucky; Captain Seth R. Koval of Mooresville, Indiana; Captain...

Do politicians internalize the consequences of their war-related votes? A new paper published in the Journal of Political Economy finds that they do -- when their family is involved. In “No Kin in the Game: Moral Hazard and War in the U.S. Congress,” authors Eoin F. McGuirk, Nathaniel Hilger, and Nicholas Miller compare conscription-related voting records of members of Congress with and without draft-age sons. They find that legislators with sons eligible for the draft are 7-11 percentage points less likely to vote for conscription than their counterparts with daughters of the same age. The authors compiled a dataset of...

TONY™@TONYxTWOWhen Southwest Airlines announced an Honor Flight was approaching Gate 17 with 53 Veterans, a crowd quickly formed to honor them 🇺🇸🫡ransomnote: The clip is set to the music, Mr. Red White and Blue. I placed the relevant lyrics excerpt below.Mr. Red White and Blue LyricsWritten by Coffee AndersonIt's the guts and it's the gloryA hundred stripes a hundred storiesIt's the pledge of allegiance on the fourth of JulyIt's them hand written letters from homeIt's the sleepless nights aloneIt's his new born baby he left with his wife[Chorus](Mr. Red White and Blue) lay down his life(Mr. Red White and Blue)...

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced a major new step to protect Veterans’ Second Amendment rights. Effective immediately, VA will not report Veterans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System as “prohibited persons” only because they need help from a fiduciary in managing their VA benefits.This corrects a three-decade-old wrong that deprived many thousands of Veterans in VA’s Fiduciary Program of their constitutional right to own a firearm without a legal basis.After a thorough review, VA recognized that many Veterans had been deprived of their Second Amendment rights without hearings or adequate...

WASHINGTON — Veterans and their advocates slammed a new rule by the Department of Veterans Affairs for determining disability compensation, predicting it will lower their payments for service-related illnesses and injuries. The rule, effective immediately, states that a disability level must be based on how well a veteran functions while on medication and not on the underlying impairment itself. Titled “Evaluative Rating: Impact of Medication,” the interim final rule was published in the Federal Register and affects how the VA rates a veteran’s disability for new claims and when reevaluating disabilities through clinical

Bush’s second term in office ended in 2009, and he took up painting early on in his retirement, essaying his interest in portraiture with his depictions of world leaders. He then turned to his attention to war veterans. These newer portraits are thickly painted in the loose, vivid style Bush has developed since his early experiments with a more photorealistic technique. They were first shown at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas, in 2017. A book of the paintings, accompanied by the stories of the 98 men and women portrayed – their injuries, recoveries and lives afterward...

THE LEGACY OF THE WWII GENERATION Every day, memories of World War II are disappearing from living history. The men and women who fought and won this great conflict are now in their 90s or older; according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 45,418 of the 16.4 million Americans who served in World War II are alive as of 2025.