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Contributors
In the U.S. Armed Forces, we don’t leave anyone behind. It’s one of the basic pillars of what the Army calls the Warrior Ethos: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.”
During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, several troops were captured and held prisoner. Some, like Jessica Lynch, were rescued quickly; Bowe Bergdahl has been held for three years. On April 9, 2004, an Army fuel convoy came under fire near Baghdad Airport, and after emerging from the chaos, the unit was missing nine people – two soldiers and seven civilian drivers. One of the soldiers was found dead, while Specialist Matt Maupin had been captured. A week later, Maupin appeared on a videotape that was broadcast by Al-Jazeera. Read More
Lots of people call Bowe Bergdahl, who has been held by insurgents on the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier for nearly three years, a prisoner of war. Even his father, Bob, used the term for his son in a recent chat with Time’s Nate Rawlings. But he’s not a POW, and never has been, at least as far as the Pentagon is concerned.
In fact, the Pentagon told Time on Wednesday – to the surprise of experts in the field – that it stopped using the term “prisoner of war” in 2000. That’s before 9/11 and all the legal debate over the status of alleged al Qaeda operatives at Guantanamo Bay (the Bush Administration ultimately termed them “illegal enemy combatants”).
“It is true that Sergeant Bergdahl is being held by criminal actors, and not a nation-state and signatory to the Geneva Conventions, but the POW designation was changed several years ago to `Missing-Captured,’” Commander William Speaks, a Pentagon spokesman, says. “The `POW’ designation has gone away completely.”
The pain of war isn’t limited to the front lines. Sometimes it ricochets all the way back home. That’s what Army Major Brent Fogleman learned following a tour in Afghanistan. His next assignment was as rear detachment commander for the 4th Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, at Fort Richardson, Alaska, supporting those fighting in Iraq in 2006 and 2007. He shared his experience in an interview with the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in hope of smoothing the way for future officers. But learning how to tell a family their loved one has been killed in combat never gets easier. Some highlights:
Q: You put together information packets for all the Soldiers and their families to keep in your office so you would have information you needed should you need to contact people for any reason…
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TOKYO – A shooting war with China may not be inevitable, but a dangerous arms escalation seems a dead certainty. That’s the take from a rare public discussion here this week among naval experts from Japan, the U.S. and China.
“Eighty percent of the population wants us to use the military,” says Yang Yi, former director of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in Beijing. “They’re asking, ‘Why are we so weak? Why are we wasting money on our Navy if we are not going to use it?’ Outsiders really do not appreciate what is going on inside China.”
Seventy years ago this month, the battles of Coral Sea and Midway set the United States firmly on course to become the world’s undisputed naval power. How long it will remain so and whether it matters are questions central to any debate about U.S. military spending. These questions should not be answered lightly. Few lessons from history have remained as incontestable as the importance of sea power to a nation’s political and economic standing.
Sea power has been the ultimate measure of global reach and influence since the Greeks stemmed Persia’s land conquests with a naval victory at Salamis Bay in 480 B.C. Despite having the largest and best-trained army in Europe in the mid-1700s, France lost its overseas empire, including Canada, to Great Britain because France could not support its colonies via the seas. Great Britain held onto a worldwide empire where the “sun never set” throughout the nineteenth century only because of the superiority of the Royal Navy.
Four of the top five non-combat medical conditions sending troops to the hospital in 2011 were mental ailments, the Pentagon reports:
“Substance abuse, mood, anxiety, and adjustment disorders accounted for 622 person-years of lost duty due to hospitalization, convalescence, and limited duty dispositions,” the summary of military hospitalizations concluded. “Mental disorders accounted for more hospital bed days than any other morbidity category and two-fifths (40.1%) of all hospital bed days.” (Check out the complete list here.)
You may have noticed that the Air Force’s prized F-22 fighter — the crown jewel of American air dominance — has had some negative press lately. The bad news peaked Tuesday when Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered flight restrictions on the $400 million warplane. Unfortunately for the F-22, the airwaves have been filled with flak capable of hitting and damaging even the nation’s stealthiest aircraft:
– On May 2, ABC News’ Nightline addressed the mysterious oxygen deprivation and/or toxins that F-22 pilots get from their “on-board oxygen generating systems” (OBOGS) and that cost one pilot his life.
– Then, on May 6, CBS’ 60 Minutes interviewed two F-22 pilots who refused—temporarily, it turns out — to fly the F-22 because of the serious safety problem. The troubles were widely reported in the press and summed up at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).
The F-22 quickly engaged its onboard defenses.
Nearly three years ago, Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, a machine gunner with the 4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, disappeared from his outpost in eastern Afghanistan. A short time later, the military learned that Bowe had been captured by the Taliban.
For every parent who sends their son or daughter to war, the ultimate nightmare is seeing a uniformed officer walking up to the house to tell you your child is dead. For Bob and Jani Bergdahl, the nightmare has no end, as their son has been held by the Taliban for nearly three years.
Late last week, I had the honor of meeting with Bob.
