army
Army Ditches Berets
Max Read · 06/14/11 06:21PMAfter ten years of widespread bitching, the U.S. Army has changed its official combat uniform, replacing the black beret—which is hot and difficult to put on, not to mention very early-2000s—with the rather more fetching patrol cap, which was standard until 2001. The beret will still be a component of the service uniform, and units that wore berets before the change—Rangers (black or tan), Special Forces (green), Airborne (maroon) and Joni Mitchell (raspberry)—will continue to rock theirs. [Army Times; images via AP]
'Mess of a Child' Bradley Manning Should Never Have Gone to Iraq
Max Read · 05/28/11 02:45PMArmy intelligence analyst Bradley Manning has been accused of leaking thousands of classified documents obtained during his tour in Iraq. But according to an officer, and a confidential military report, Manning was so psychologically unstable he should never have been sent to Iraq in the first place.
The U.S. Army Will Tweet Its Way to Global Dominance
Adrian Chen · 05/25/11 05:38PMBradley Manning's Lost Facebook Page
John Cook · 05/24/11 10:20AMBradley Manning Threatened to Stab His Stepmother
John Cook · 03/29/11 11:40AMSoldier Sentenced to 24 Years for Murder of Afghan Civilians
Max Read · 03/23/11 08:01PMRemember Specialist Jeremy Morlock, the 22-year-old Alaskan who took horrifying photos of his own war crimes? He's now pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and has been sentenced to 24 years in jail; in exchange, essentially, for not getting a life sentence, he'll testify against the four other soldiers also accused of murdering Afghan civilians "for sport." He apologized in court to his victims' families and "the people of Afghanistan themselves." [NYT]
The Army Is Sorry if You Saw Those Photos of War Crimes
Max Read · 03/20/11 11:51PMThe German newspaper Der Spiegel somehow got its hands on photographs of U.S. soldiers posing with a corpse, and published them, and the Army wants you to know it feels really terrible. "Today Der Spiegel published photographs depicting actions repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards and values of the United States Army," spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said in a statement. "We apologize for the distress these photos cause." The photos apparently depict Cpl. Jeremy Morlock and PFC Andrew Holmes—both charged, along with three others, with killing Afghan civilians—posing with the corpse of an Afghan man named Gul Mudin (Morlock, in his photo, is apparently "smiling as he lifts the head of a corpse by the hair"). Well, no hard feelings, Army! Let's maybe just keep the war crimes to a minimum in the future, okay? [NYDN]
Wikileaks Suspect Bradley Manning Now Faces Possible Death Penalty
John Cook · 03/02/11 06:04PMThe Absurdly Racist Fax a Congresswoman Got for Bashing NASCAR
Adrian Chen · 02/17/11 11:34PMWhat's Next for Egypt?
Jim Newell · 02/11/11 04:25PMEgypt has finally dumped its arrogant, paternalistic dictator of three decades in the largest country in the Arab world. That's quite an achievement for a suppressive police state after only two to three weeks of protests that weren't very organized to begin with. But what comes next? Will pure democracy just kind of "appear"? Or does an impossible process of constitutional negotiations between the people, the army, the Muslim Brotherhood, business leaders, and foreign powers need to take place over the next year before anything even approaching a stable and responsive political system emerges? Unfortunately it's that second scenario, the "impossible process of constitutional negotiation" one, that's realistic.