Pentagon leaders announced last week that they were rescinding the 1994 Combat Exclusion Policy that kept women out of ground combat units, raising a host of questions about what will change for rank-and-file service members. This week, Marine Corps Times addresses many of those concerns. Our cover story is splashed across four pages inside the magazine, and includes interviews with Lt. Gen. Robert Milstead, deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Mike Barrett, and other senior leaders. By now, it seems safe to assume that nearly all of our readers are aware of the…
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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey announced yesterday that they were lifting the 1994 Combat Exclusion Policy that bans women from serving directly in the infantry and other ground combat units. The move has been greeted with mixed reaction, with some hailing it as a victory for equal rights and others saying it will weaken the U.S. military. I’ve spent most of the last 24 hours working on a full-length cover story that will be published soon addressing what the change means for Marines. In particular, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Mike…
It’s now widely reported that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will announce today that he is lifting the Pentagon’s ban on women being assigned to combat units. A briefing will be held with the media this afternoon, with Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, taking questions from the press. Make no mistake, women have served in combat for years. They’ve earned valor awards, led convoys through hostile countryside and given their lives at times in service to our nation. Still, there’s a variety of questions that must be addressed as the Pentagon and the individual branches of…
As you may have seen today in this story, Marine officials in Afghanistan released to me statistics outlining enemy-initiated attacks. The numbers compared 2011 and 2012 by district, shedding light on an interesting period of transition in southwestern Afghanistan. My story on the subject is posted here. We’ve also posted the whole slide that I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) released, so you can check out the details yourself. Among the details that stuck out for me: Sangin Lt. Col. David Bradney, head of 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, told me in an interview in October that his Marines had “punched them…
If you’re curious what a U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan looks like, search no farther than northern Helmand province. The region was once the site of massive fighting that killed dozens of Marines in Sangin district alone in fall 2010. Musa Qala, Kajaki and Now Zad districts also have seen their fair share of violence and casualties. Since spending a fair share of the fall in Helmand, the battalion in northern Helmand rotated. Second Battalion, 7th Marines, out of Twentynine Palms, Calif., replaced its sister unit, 1st Battalion, 7th Marines. Lt. Col. Donald Tomich discussed the battalion’s deployment with me recently,…
Ten years after the war in Afghanistan began, thousands of Marines pushed northeast from Sangin district up Route 611 in Helmand province in 2011 during Operation Eastern Storm. They tangled with the Taliban in a variety of areas of volatile Kajaki district that had rarely been touched by coalition forces, and engaged in a number of ugly fights along the way. That operation marked one of the last major offensives for the Marines in Afghanistan. As we reported while embedded last spring here, here and here, Marine officers transition within months of that operation to turning Kajaki over to Afghan…
Happy New Year, everyone. Now that it’s 2013 and many of us have completed family vacations, I wanted to share a recent TV segment I did for Marine Corps Times on This Week in Defense News with Vago Muradian. The show, airing locally in Washington and internationally on the Armed Forces Network, focused on scout sniper operations in Afghanistan and some of the other things I observed during my last embedded assignment in Helmand province. In particular, Vago wanted to talk about the weapon upgrades that scout snipers told me they wanted. Check it out here: Stories out of my…
I’ll admit it: When I first saw a headline hinting that a deployed Marine was from the North Pole, I assumed it was for a story on The Duffel Blog, the military’s Onion. Turns out there really is, though. The Marine Corps itself reports that Lance Cpl. Kody Broderick is from the town of North Pole, Alaska. He’s a machine gunner with 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, and was based at Combat Outpost Taghaz in Khanashin district when interviewed. From the Corps’ news release: When I tell people I am from North Pole, they think I’m joking,” said Broderick. “I usually…
Ever since U.S Marines killed three children in an airstrike in Helmand province in October, a debate has raged online: Is the U.S. deliberately killing kids in Afghanistan? It’s a frustrating conversation, fed in part recently by an inflammatory piece published by Robert Dreyfuss for The Nation this month. Taking an article I wrote with assistance from Army Times colleague Joe Gould out of context, Dreyfuss said a U.S. officer acknowledged “the military isn’t just out to bomb ‘military age males,’ anymore, but kids, too.” There’s a major problem, though: the officer quoted, Army Lt. Col. Marion “Ced” Carrington, never…
Three years ago this month, thousands of Marines were preparing for an all-out assault on Marjah, Afghanistan, a sprawling collection of farm compounds in Helmand province that had strategic importance to the Taliban. The area was a known command-and-control center for the insurgency, and a major supplier of poppy used to finance the Taliban. Dozens of Marines were killed in Marjah the following year, 2010, after U.S. forces rolled into the region heavy on Valentine’s Day weekend. The area has become progressively more peaceful in 2012, although violence does still occur — Lance Cpl. Anthony Denier, of 3rd Battalion, 9th…
