For the first time in the history of the Army’s Best Sapper Competition, two captains from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell won back-to-back years. U.S. Army photo by Amanda Sullivan. Two captains from the 101st Airborne Division are now the first two soldiers to win the Army’s Best Sapper competition two years in a row. Capts. Matthew Cushing and Joseph Palazini, both company commanders in the 21st Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team at Fort Campbell, outlasted teams from 3rd Ranger Battalion and two cadets from West Point to win the four-day competition ..read more

Aid to Ukraine could be loaded and moving by the middle of this week if the Senate approves a final air package. Air Force photo by Capt. Emma Quirk. Bullets and artillery shells from Germany could be first to go to Ukraine this week if a massive aid package is approved as expected.  The Senate was set to approve a $95 billion foreign aid bill Tuesday night or Wednesday once a series of procedural hurdles are cleared. The House of Representatives approved the new bill Saturday which includes military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine and Israel, among other areas. The House approval was a ..read more

Colombian police tracked down the two men and a woman who drugged two U.S. soldiers then robbed them in 2020 in Bogota. (U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Teddy Wade). Two U.S. soldiers looking for a drink and a bar in which to watch a soccer game in Bogata, Colombia instead ran into a ‘tomaseas’ scam — local slang for adding a drug to someone’s drink in order to rob them. Both soldiers ended up in the hospital when a Colombian couple slipped them a series of drugs over a night of drinking. The soldiers awoke the next day to four missing cell phones, a drained bank account and stolen credit cards ..read more

As the U.S. plans for a withdrawal of American troops from Niger, it's also facing calls from its neighbor, Chad, to remove its small contingent of troops. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Second Class Evan Parker). Days after the U.S. accepted demands to withdraw American troops from Niger, the U.S. is also facing calls from its African neighbor, Chad, to remove its small contingent of troops.  “We can confirm the beginning of discussions between the U.S. and Niger for the orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder tol ..read more

Former Army Capt. Nicholas Brooklier poses for a photo at Recruiting Sub-Station Killeen, Recruiting Station Fort Worth, Texas before shipping out to Marine Corps Recruit Training on Jan. 31, 2024. (Cpl. Jaiden O. Sangster/U.S. Marine Corps). A former Army officer has relinquished his captain’s bars to enlist in the Marine Corps. “I was kind of at a point in my life in the Army where I didn’t feel really fulfilled,” Nicholas Brooklier said in a Marine Corps news story. “So, it was either get out and go to the civilian world, and to be honest, I did not want to do that. I felt like my time in ..read more

FILE: U.S. soldiers stand near an armored military vehicle on the outskirts of Rumaylan in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province, bordering Turkey, on March 27, 2023. (Delil Souleiman /AFP via Getty Images). For the first time in more than a month, Iraqi militants fired rockets at U.S. forces in the Middle East. Five rockets were launched from inside Iraq at a U.S. base inside northeastern Syria, Iraqi security forces announced Sunday night.  The attack took place at roughly 9:50 p.m. local time, with the rockets fired from the town of Zummar, northwest from Mosul and relatively close to ..read more

Alaska Air National Guard pararescuemen assigned to the 212th Rescue Squadron, Alaska Air National Guard, conduct a freefall jump out of a of a C-17 Globemaster III assigned to the 144th Airlift Squadron, over the Pacific Ocean near Homer, Alaska, March 3, Air Force photo by Senior Airman Emily Farnsworth. The National Guard’s country-wide plan to level out personnel numbers is being pushed back a year for Alaska’s Air National Guard. Instead of going into effect this October, the National Guard Bureau will push implementing the new changes to Sept. 30, 2025. That delay, Alaska’s congressiona ..read more

The USS Higgins (photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Carla Ocampo/U.S. Navy). A sailor who previously served in Japan aboard a guided-missile destroyer was found guilty in a court martial of sharing classified defense information with representatives of a foreign government.  A military court found Chief Petty Officer Bryce Pedicini guilty on Friday, April 19, according to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. He was convicted on counts of attempted espionage, failure to obey a lawful order and attempted violation of a lawful general order. The decision came after a seve ..read more

'Civil War' (photo courtesy A24). Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is now in theaters and it’s one of most gripping and tense films of the year. Imagining the United States torn apart in a modern civil war, with the Western Forces, Florida Alliance and others fighting against states loyal to a dictator, it looks at the last days of the combat against the federal government.  It’s an intense and gripping film, showing the devastation of just what a modern civil war would do to the U.S., and what the possible endgame would look like if a dictator fell. Whatever a viewer might take away from the ..read more

Sgt. Colin Arslanbas (photo courtesy 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force). A Marine in to a specially trained Reconnaissance unit was killed in a training accident late Thursday night near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, the service said in a statement. Sgt. Colin Arslanbas, a Reconnaissance Marine with the Maritime Special Purpose Force, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, was taking part in a training exercise in Carteret County, North Carolina, just after 11 p.m. on Thursday night, April 18 when he died in what the Marine Corps said was a training accident. The accident is currently under investiga ..read more