On Combat

The USAF has approximately three hundred and fifty specially-trained snipers, many serving in “close precision engagement teams.” Close is a relative term for the USAF, which operates long-range strike aircraft such as the B-2, air-launched cruise missiles with hundreds of mile ranges. Precision is an appropriate term for a sniper due to the extreme accuracy […]

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Today I had the privilege of listening to Dr Stuart Rochester and Dr Frederick Kiley discuss their book Honor Bound: American Prisoners of War in Southeast Asia, 1961-1973. Dr Kiley recounted examples of duty and endurance under the harshest conditions. He described the brutality of the North Vietnamese torture and how American POWs found ingenious […]

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The transition between the world of war and the “real world” back home can be jarring. The US military has come a long way since Vietnam when American soldiers flew as individuals straight from the war back to civilian life. Today, the predominant experience is a communal one, unit rotations mean American servicemen rotate as […]

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As the volunteer US military is heavily deployed around the world fighting insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need to recruit and keep soldiers is getting more difficult. Organizational incentives are oriented towards each end of the motivation chain. At the front end, money and eduicational benefits are aimed at attracting potential recruits. At the […]

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Brigadier General Paul Tibbets died Thursday, 1 November 2007, age 93. He was the pilot of the Enola Gay and dropped the first atomic bomb. Tibbet’s passing gives pause to wonder: how were a few men able to apply such a killing force?
In a 2005 interview with The Columbus Dispatch (on the 60th anniversary of […]

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