Free Republic

In what will undoubtedly be interpreted by many as an act of defiance against President Trump, the top Navy SEAL, Rear Admiral Collin Green, will notify Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher and three other officers that their case is being sent to a review board which could end in their expulsion from the SEALS. "This is a review of their suitability to be a SEAL," a Navy Officer said. The action would come less than a week after Mr. Trump intervened in the military justice case against Gallagher by ordering him restored to the rank of Chief Petty Officer, despite his...

It's been said that the military is always preparing for war. That is true. We prepare for combat every day. We ran 5 miles today to the rifle range and shot nearly 200 rounds a piece at targets and then ran back. However, we also pray for peace. I would love one day to be completely unnecessary. But alas, I am a realist, and I know that day will never come. The headlines of the last week have reminded me more of glimpsing at the S2 Daily Briefing Sheets while in theater or the Al-Jazeera than the NY Times or...

Aidan Delgado can be painfully earnest, about everything from serving in Iraq to choosing a pizzeria, but even his serious stories end with a pause, as if to check himself, and then a joke at his own expense. The more he talks, the more he laughs. He laughs about being a 23-year-old war veteran who still hears his mother's voice when he watches too much television. He laughs about the liberal parody that is New College of Florida, where he knows at least two students who've taken vows of silence. And he laughs about the political conservatives who compare him...

A US marine who disappeared in Iraq, was filmed being threatened with a sword and was later reported to have been beheaded is in excellent physical condition without a mark on him, according to doctors treating him after he reappeared at the American embassy in Beirut. Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, who is of Lebanese origin and was missing for 19 days, had lost 20lb and appeared to be exhausted when he arrived at Ramstein air base in Germany for the start of what promises to be a long debriefing. He told a psychologist at the base that he had slept...

Contrast the statements concerning Marine Hassoun's reasons for enlistment in the U.S. Marines. Then: NY Daily News article, June 28, 2004 "Hassoun, 24, is a devout Muslim who joined his family in the suburbs of Salt Lake City shortly before 9/11. His neighbors in Utah said he was so affected by the terror attacks that he enlisted in the Marines." And now... Associated Press, July 11,2004 BEIRUT, Lebanon - Relatives of a U.S. Marine who surfaced in Beirut nearly three weeks after an apparent kidnapping in Iraq appealed for understanding from fellow Arabs on Saturday, saying the Lebanese-born man emigrated...