soldier

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Israelis Mass at Gaza Border After Fresh Strikes

Gaza death toll hits 300

(Newser) - Israeli troops massed at the border today as Gaza's death toll hit at least 300 following fresh Israeli air strikes overnight. Bombs decimated a mosque and family home—reportedly killing 5 children—as well as a university Israeli officials said contained explosives labs that aid Hamas' insurgency, CNN reports. Israeli...

Soldiers Who Survive War Are Less Intelligent

Records reveal that the smartest of Scottish regiments died on WWII battlefields

(Newser) - Soldiers who survived World War II were on average less intelligent than their fallen comrades, a study of British records has revealed. Researchers merged military records with an IQ test given to Scottish schoolchildren in 1932 and found that Scots who died in battle had an average IQ of 100....

Pentagon Kept Humvees Despite Known IED Threat

Officials delayed switch to safer vehicles: report

(Newser) - Military leaders knew before the Iraq war that roadside bombs would threaten troops, but they still dragged their heels on adopting vehicles more resistant to IEDs, a Pentagon investigation has found. In 2005 officials stopped processing an urgent request from field commanders for vehicles called MRAPs, whose height and hull...

Troops Run Amok in Zimbabwe Capital

Police, soldiers clash after unpaid troops turn to robbing, looting

(Newser) - Unpaid Zimbabwean soldiers battled riot police on the streets of Harare today, venting their frustration after waiting all day to withdraw money from a bank, the BBC reports. Dozens of troops ran riot before order was restored, robbing moneychangers, looting shops, and encouraging civilians to join them. Some passers-by threw...

Iraq OKs US Troops for 3 More Years

Pact gives Iraqis more oversight over American presence

(Newser) - Iraq's parliament today passed a security pact with the US that lets American troops stay in the country for 3 more years. The ruling coalition's Shiite and Kurdish blocs as well as the largest Sunni Arab bloc backed the "yes" vote, the AP reports. The parliament speaker said an...

US Soldier Among 9 Killed in Afghan Market

Attack brings year's death toll to 5,400

(Newser) - A suicide car bomber struck a US military convoy passing through a crowded livestock market in eastern Afghanistan today, killing an American soldier and at least eight civilians and wounding an additional 74 civilians. Yesterday, two British troops were also killed when their vehicle was struck by an explosive while...

US Agrees to Leave Iraq in 2011
 US Agrees to Leave Iraq in 2011 

US Agrees to Leave Iraq in 2011

Bilateral pact, which gives Iraq control over troops, must be approved by parliament

(Newser) - Iraq's government could soon be in charge of US troops for the first time, a prelude to their full withdrawal by 2011 under a deal now awaiting approval by Iraqi politicians, Reuters reports. The deal sets a firm timeline, and lets the Arab nation prosecute American soldiers for some serious...

Russia Lets EU Monitors Into Georgia Buffer Zone

Unarmed patrol allowed near, but not in South Ossetia

(Newser) - Russian troops allowed unarmed EU monitors into the buffer zone around South Ossetia for the first time today, after France helped negotiate a truce between Russia and Georgia. The blue-beret-sporting French troops spent 90 minutes touring the heavily guarded area, the Guardian reports. The EU will be sending its monitors...

7 US Soldiers Killed in Iraq Copter Crash

Military has ruled out hostile fire in the Chinook accident

(Newser) - Seven US soldiers were killed in southern Iraq today when their helicopter crashed, the AP reports. "At this time we are uncertain of the cause, but hostile fire has been ruled out," a military spokesman said. The crash occurred shortly after midnight in a desert under British military...

US Army Orders Mind-Reading Helmets
 US Army Orders 
 Mind-Reading Helmets 
glossies

US Army Orders Mind-Reading Helmets

(Newser) - The US Army has dished out $4 million for helmets that can read soldiers' minds, Time reports. The goal is to have commanders in the field think up orders that brainwave sensors pick up and distribute to troops. "It'd be radio without a microphone," says a neuroscientist in...

The Bloody Battle for One Afghan Valley
 The Bloody Battle 
 for One Afghan Valley 
glossies

The Bloody Battle for One Afghan Valley

As the war gets bloodier, there's some hope of progress

(Newser) - As the nation's military focus shifts to Afghanistan, Sebastian Junger of Vanity Fair spends time with US troops fighting “ambush by ambush” in the 6-mile Korengal Valley in the tense northeast. The region, Junger says, is a “test case” for fighting insurgencies and a prime example of the...

Karzai Vows Punishment for Deadly US Raid

'Our relation with the foreigners got worst,' president says after 90 Afghans claimed dead

(Newser) - President Hamid Karzai vowed to punish those responsible for killing as many as 90 civilians in a raid last month by US and Afghan commandos, saying Afghanistan’s relationship with “the foreigners got worst,” the AP reports. The US and NATO claim at least 30 militants and no...

Bus Bomb Kills 12 in Baghdad
 Bus Bomb Kills 12 in Baghdad

Bus Bomb Kills 12 in Baghdad

Follows a series of bombings in the capital

(Newser) - Bombs ripped through a minibus this morning in Baghdad, reports CNN, killing 12 and injuring 22 after a string of similar bombings in the region. Two more roadside bombs injured nine near a hospital and two near a convoy of SUVs. Elsewhere, a soldier was killed in an unrelated accident,...

Uncle Sam Short on Sergeants
Uncle Sam Short on Sergeants

Uncle Sam Short on Sergeants

Automatic promotions are turning battlefield into a classroom, soldiers say

(Newser) - The US Army, plagued by a shortage of non-commissioned officers, has lowered the bar for promotion so much that it has produced sergeants who are not ready to lead, Salon reports in an investigation of a military stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In some cases, soldiers...

Ex-Beau Charged in Pregnant Soldier's Murder

Victim had ended affair with married man

(Newser) - The former boyfriend of a pregnant Fort Bragg soldier has been charged with her murder, reports CNN. Edgar Patino, 27, proposed to fellow soldier Spc. Megan Lynn Touma while the two were stationed in Germany, according to friends. But Touma, 23, broke up with Patino recently when they were transferred...

Feds Let Troops Fight, Won't Help Them Vote

White House, Pentagon, Dem-controlled Congress all dragging heels to make voting easier

(Newser) - The Pentagon has long dragged its heels on making it easier for US troops overseas to have their votes count back home, columnist Robert Novak points out in the Washington Post. There’s little appetite in a Democratic-controlled Congress to kick-start the process, Novak notes, as evidenced by the “...

Army Pig-Shoot Angers Animal Rights Activists

Porkers shot and revived for medical training

(Newser) - The Army is butting heads with animal rights activists over a planned drill that involves shooting live pigs. As practice for battlefield medical care, soldiers will fire at the pigs, then rush to save them. "It's to teach Army personnel how to manage critically injured patients within the first...

Did Iconic Photo Drive Soldier's Death?
 Did Iconic
 Photo Drive
 Soldier's Death? 
OPINION

Did Iconic Photo Drive Soldier's Death?

Photographer reflects on the power of a moment captured

(Newser) - A photo turned an American medic in Iraq into a hero, showing him carrying an Iraqi child to safety. But the photographer, Warren Zinn, wonders whether it also contributed to his suicide. Joseph Dwyer suffered post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from Iraq; Zinn worries, in the Washington Post, whether his...

Soldier Missing After Blaze in NC Apartment

24-year-old divorcing man she accused of domestic violence

(Newser) - North Carolina police are searching for a female soldier who disappeared yesterday, her apartment blackened by a fire police are calling an arson, the Fayetteville Observer reports. Holley Lynn Wimunc, 24, was in divorce proceedings with her husband, against whom she'd recently gained a restraining order after a domestic-violence incident....

Pregnant Soldier's Death Homicide: Cops

'Zodiac'-style letter claims responsibility for Touma's murder

(Newser) - Police say the pregnant soldier whose body was found in a North Carolina motel last week was murdered, the Fayetteville Observer reports. The Observer, meanwhile, received a letter from someone claiming to be the killer, which contains a symbol sources say was also drawn in lipstick in the room where...

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