Marine Corps

The Pentagon has a time honored tradition of assigning PR nicknames to its aircrafts. The moniker of Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is "Lightning II," named after its glitzy but unsuccessful WWII fighter.

Many of us who served in Vietnam promised ourselves long ago that we would never again allow what happened to us in that war to ever happen again. We have an obligation to protest. To speak out.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon's personnel chief said Tuesday the military has completed its best recruiting year since 1973, meeting all its goals and bringing in a better educated group of young people.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps met goals for active duty and reserve recruiting during the budget year ended Sept. 30 – the first time that has happened since the all-volunteer force was established, said Defense Department head of personnel Bill Carr.

He told a Pentagon press conference that it's partly because of department spending on finding recruits, even as fewer civilian jobs were available due to the nation's economic problems. He also cited increases in military pay.

For the active-duty force overall, Carr said 96 percent of recruits had a high school diploma, the best showing since 1996. For the Army, it was about 95 percent, up 11 percent from the previous year. And 73 percent of Pentagon recruits scored above average on the military's math and verbal aptitude testing, the best showing since 2004, Carr said.

The military spends about $10,000 per recruit, taking into account advertising, recruiter time and office leases for recruiting stations, he said. Recruits are in the 90th percentile of earners for their education and time in the workplace, Carr said.

With troops in combat today, our servicemen and women deserve better than a debate about unproven technologies of the future.

While most eyes were on the then impending vote on Obama's economic revival program, the new president ventured out to the Pentagon for his first meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday.

The United States been stuck in a century-old military strategy, spending too much money for too little ability to wage a modern war, and why?

Barack Obama has never worn the uniform. Yet he has more rapport with the experience of the American veteran than the Republicans who are now in the process of relinquishing power to him and his allies.

When I joined the Marines, I didn't rely on the educational benefits advertised because I knew Congress hadn't fulfilled the promise of the G.I. Bill. It's disheartening to watch McCain cozy up to Bush at the expense of fellow veterans.

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent r...

SURE, HILLARY CLINTON HAS BEEN IN THE PUBLIC EYE FOR MORE THAN 15 YEARS, BUT YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW . . . 1.It's a story she seldom tells, not even in he...