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During its development in the late 1960s, the C-5 Galaxy was more than $2 billion over budget – more than $7 billion in today's dollars, and well more than the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The troubled program nearly broke the back of i…
The U.S. had laid a lot of plans for late World War II. After the fall of Italy and then Germany, America wanted to finally crush the empire of Japan and get final payback for Pearl Harbor. Luckily for the infantrymen and other troops slated to die …
During the Civil War, the Medal of Honor didn't carry the same weight it does among US troops these days. When it was first conceived in 1861, American troops getting medals for any reason was a new thing, even if it was for "personal valor." Mor…
On August 14th, 1945, as news of the Allied victory over Imperial Japan reached the United States, Life Magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt immortalized an unlikely pair in a photograph which has come to represent the jubilation and relief Amer…
Military dress and fashion have been linked for a long time. Bomber jackets were used to save pilots' lives in WWI. Then, in the 1990s, they were used by sitcom bullies on TV shows. US soldiers have been wearing BDU camo pants since the 1980s. Now,…
As of December 2018, nearly 430,000 Americans served in the US Army and Air National Guard, according to Department of Defense data.Guard members sign up to commit one weekend a month and two weeks per year for training — but are often aske…
A pinnacle of wartime technology, the HMS Trident was supposed to patrol the Atlantic, doing submarine things. Maybe sink a ship or two, enforce the blockade, and smuggle a reindeer from Russia to England. If that last part sounds …
Green Beret Travis Wilson is like most members of the Special Operations community. He normally looks at problems and sees two options: find a way around or blow your way through it. The latter worked for Travis downrange, but after multiple IED str…
Ah, the vaunted Blue Book, known throughout the U.S. Army for being the first drill guide for American land troops. It is more properly known as Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, and it wa…
A single weak link in your body can have dramatic effects on everything else you do. Even a poorly placed papercut can mess with your trigger, or gaming, finger. Imagine what could happen if your largest muscle group is weak and underdeveloped.
Please spare some sympathy for the member of the Special Operations Research Office who, in 1964, was ordered to take a good, hard look at the impact of "witchcraft, sorcery, magic, and other psychological phenomena" during the civil war in the Re…
Most of us know that protein is the building block of muscle. Our bodies break it down into amino acids and then use those amino acids for muscle repairing and rebuilding. But protein does a hell of a lot more than just build muscle. It is essential…
Yeah, yeah, yeah... Enemy artillery and bayonet duels and concentrated machine gun fire are all terrifying and all, but those are to be expected, and most people can develop fears of those things after watching a few movies about Vietnam. B…
The United States began registering men for the draft well before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (it's like they knew something was coming on the horizon). After all, you don't want to go to the mattresses without the men and material necessary …
It may surprise amateur historians to discover that wars can take a humanitarian turn. There are many, many recorded instances of exceptional displays of humanity, even during the most brutal fighting. Considering the Nazis' monstrous reputation, i…
As President Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam to defuse one potential nuclear showdown, America's perennial rival Russia is upping the ante on the new Cold War's latest arms race: hypersonic nuclear weapons.It…
The world is full of unwritten rules. Don't make eye contact over a urinal wall. Order your usual or cheaper food when a friend is picking up the tab. I before E except after C or when sounded as eh as in neighbor and weigh, or when its the word sc…
U.S. Army Sgt. Dustin McGraw is stationed with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the culmination of a life-long dream of being a paratrooper like the heroes of World War II movies that he watched as a child. But as he made his …
The first thing one might notice about the barracks at a military base is that there are a lot of nice, shiny, new cars parked there. It's not a secret that troops like to buy new vehicles when they join the military. When someone with a love for c…
It sometimes seems like military service grants you some sort of extra-sensory bullsh*t detection superpower. This is apparently true in Venezuela, where soldiers were forced to keep a close watch on one another to keep them from deserting as anothe…