President Obama has finally laid out his strategy for Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he did so without using the word "veteran" and without articulating any back-end support for our returning troops. In typical fashion, we've heard the media's talking heads ask: Is Afghanistan Obama's Vietnam? Why only 30,000 troops? Will the exit...

It's time once again for that seasonal blend of gratitude and that deep longing for the familiar --family, health, pumpkin pie, turkey, and the Detroit Lions getting blown-out on National TV.

Eight years of war have brought tremendous challenges for our military, our veterans and their families. And just a...

Somewhere, high atop the mountains of Afghanistan, Marine Staff Sergeant Todd Bowers is smiling. He's not thinking about Cameron Diaz or all the Jack Daniels he'll consume when he comes home. Or at least not this minute. He's reflecting on a handshake, one that launched a historic campaign...

Last week, I heard a baffling statistic. More Americans followed news of the runaway balloon than coverage of the war in Afghanistan.  

With this noise clogging the media landscape, it’s hard to get the general public to pay attention to anything important, much less...

Since 2004, Rey Leal has been fighting. He's fought on the streets of Fallujah; for mental health care in south Texas; and in Washington, for a solution to years of late veterans' health care budgets.

Today, Rey and millions of veterans have won their fight.

When Rey returned...

When Sergeant Cara Hammer returned from her deployment in Iraq in 2005, she thought her days of fighting were over. But she quickly discovered that she had more battles ahead of her.

After surviving roadside bombs and mortar rounds in Iraq, Cara came home and realized that...

Every year, Congress needs to pass 12 appropriations bills by October 1st to keep the federal government up and running. If lawmakers don't meet this deadline, the government operates on temporary funding or shuts down.

And Congress rarely meets this deadline. In fact, 19 out of the last 22...

Courage, sacrifice, hero—three words thrown around carelessly these days. Politicians that cross party lines to force compromise on the divisive issues of our day are labeled “courageous.” A professional athlete that makes a bold play, leading his team to victory is deemed “heroic.” An actor who forgoes a big paycheck...

Do you remember where you were during our generation’s defining hour? When the towers fell and the Pentagon was ablaze, our nation took pause. Now eight years later, it seems that we are still standing still, frozen in time, and as a country, still waiting for the healing to begin.

For weeks now, health care reform has taken center stage in Washington, on every news program, and in contentious town halls across the country.  Not even the Army's troubling suicide numbers, the fate of the American POW being held by the Taliban, or the elections being held...

Somewhere high in the Afghan mountains, Staff Sgt. Todd Bowers is shouting for joy, dancing, and quite possibly, crying all at once. And I assure you, it’s not because Michael Vick is coming back to the NFL.

In less than five days, the Post-9/11 GI...

If you blinked, you could’ve missed it. With the media’s obsession over Michael Jackson’s death and Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings plastered across cable news shows, an important story might have skipped your radar.

This week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, released a stunning...

I'll never forget my Independence Day at war. On July 4, 2003, I was in Baghdad, preparing to return home with my infantry platoon after six months fighting Saddam's Army and an insurgency that was just beginning to exact its toll on coalition forces. On that day, however, my expectations...

John Hodgman was right. It’s the revenge of the nerds in America right now. These past few years we’ve seen self-proclaimed, highly-influential nerds using the power of online technology to play a huge role in driving public policy, political campaigns and organizing grassroots engagement. In the 2008 presidential campaign...

This week, we’ve seen Jon and Kate inch closer to divorce, the president stand trial in the court of public opinion for fly-homicide, and another Washington elite publicize infidelity via press release.  

Somewhere in-between these trivial water-cooler discussions, reality sunk in. IAVA’s Deputy...

Veterans have heard time and again about their fellow troops falling ill after serving near burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Dennis Gogel was stationed in Balad twice between 2004 and 2006. He said he was in housing just a few hundred yards from the [burn] pit and would often...

In March 2004, Sgt. Mike Krause returned home from two back-to-back tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. With his Army contract set to expire in less than a year, Krause could begin to plan his future, starting with earning his college degree. But after just three months at home with their...

Your weekend newspaper—assuming your town still has one—will be stuffed with pages of glossy advertisements for holiday sales.  Your local TV news will do a story on the folks waiting in line in the dark for your local mall to open its doors.  All weekend, people will be firing up...

Newsflash: Stephen Colbert is going to war. 

That’s no joke.  Comedy’s most serious satirist dropped yet another hint Tuesday night that he’s heading “somewhere in the Persian Gulf” soon to take The Colbert Report to the troops. In the name of operational...

Last November, on Veterans Day, I told you about IAVA’s groundbreaking national public service advertisement campaign to help veterans coming home from war reintegrate into their communities. You’ve probably seen the TV ad on ESPN, CNN, or MTV. (One good thing about this economy is that the ads are getting...