Military Glance
Female soldiers and others who served behind front lines have long complained about how hard it is to prove their combat experience when applying for disability due to post-traumatic stress disorder. That could soon change.
The Veterans Affairs Department has proposed reducing the paperwork required for veterans to show their experience caused combat-related stress. Even just the fear of hostile action would be sufficient, as long as a VA psychologist or psychiatrist agreed. The VA says the change would streamline claims and recognize the "inherently stressful nature" of war service.
The Veterans Affairs Department said Tuesday it plans to make it easier for Vietnam veterans exposed to the agent orange herbicide who suffer from certain medical conditions to qualify for VA benefits.
In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.
Women are far more likely than men to be kicked out of the military under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy against gays in uniform, according to government figures released Thursday that critics said reflect deep-seated sexism in the armed forces.
American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban.
Israel said Wednesday it would release 20 Palestinian women from its jails in exchange for a videotape of a captured Israeli soldier that would prove that he is alive.
The sick men are Marines, or sons of Marines. All 20 of them were based at or lived at Camp Lejeune, the U.S. Marine Corps' training base in North Carolina, between the 1960s and the 1980s.
