US Army

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A 1941 Army Base Lynching Remains Unsolved
A 1941 Army Base Lynching
Remains Unsolved
longform
Sep 9, 2016 1:05 PM CDT

A 1941 Army Base Lynching Remains Unsolved

Pvt. Felix Hall was found hanging from a tree at Fort Benning

(Newser) - On the morning of Feb. 12, 1941, Army Pvt. Felix Hall went to his job at a sawmill near Fort Benning where he was stationed. After his shift ended, he told friends he was going to the Post Exchange, the only place on the segregated Georgia base where a black...

Each Thought the Other Died in War. 47 Years Later, a Miracle

Herman Johnson and Fred Rivera reunited, and much more

(Newser) - Fred Rivera believed his best friend, Herman Johnson, died in his arms after a rocket hit them during a Vietnam War firefight in 1969. "Surviving comrades of that horrid day presented me a bracelet fashioned from the leather laces of Herman’s boots," Rivera writes of what followed...

New Miss USA Is Army Officer

DC's Deshauna Barber will take a break from the Reserve

(Newser) - The newly crowned Miss USA is a 26-year-old Army officer from the District of Columbia who gave perhaps the strongest answer of the night when asked about women in combat. "As a woman in the United States Army, I think ... we are just as tough as men. As a...

US Senate Approves Openly Gay Army Secretary

Eric Fanning's case was held up for 8 months

(Newser) - The Senate confirmed the long-stalled nomination of Eric Fanning to be Army secretary, making him the first openly gay leader of a US military service, the AP reports. The unanimous voice vote approval on Tuesday came after Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., dropped his opposition to Fanning after a senior Pentagon...

Female WWII Pilots Regain Right to Be Buried at Arlington

'I think that the WASP deserve to have that honor'

(Newser) - Female WWII pilots are once again allowed to have their ashes buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery thanks to legislation passed by Congress this week, the Los Angeles Times reports. More than 1,000 women flew noncombat and training missions as part of the Women Airforce Service Pilots program...

Army Count Reaches Low Not Seen Since Before WWII

But it's all part of the plan

(Newser) - In 1940, the head count for active-duty soldiers in the US Army was 269,023, a low that hasn't been reached since, the Army Times reports. But due to budget cutbacks, a drawdown plan announced last summer to whittle manpower by 40,000 troops has left the Army with...

Army Captain Sues Obama for Fighting ISIS

Nathan Michael Smith says he needs to honor his own oath

(Newser) - It's not that Army Capt. Nathan Michael Smith doesn't want to take out the Islamic State. It's just that he doesn't think President Obama has the authority to wage war against ISIS without Congress' OK. That's the crux of the 28-year-old intelligence officer's lawsuit...

Green Beret Won't Be Discharged for Attacking Alleged Child Rapist

The Afghan official allegedly kept a boy tied to his bed as a 'sex slave'

(Newser) - The Army has decided not to discharge a Special Forces soldier who beat up an Afghan police official he believed had been raping a young boy, CNN reports. Sgt. Charles Martland and Capt. Daniel Quinn claimed in 2011 that Afghan police commander Abdul Rahman had been raping the boy repeatedly...

Female Ranger Grad Makes History Again

Kristen Griest becomes first female infantry officer

(Newser) - She made history once. Now she's done it again. Kristen Griest, one of the first female soldiers to earn a Ranger tab , has become the US Army's first female infantry officer after the military overturned a ban on women in combat positions, reports the Army Times . "Like...

Humvees Fell From the Sky, Broke Into Smithereens

To the great delight of the guy filming the now-viral video

(Newser) - The US Army is investigating what went wrong during an April 11 training exercise, during which three Humvees fell from airplanes and smashed to the ground. No one was hurt in the April 11 incident, which happened at the Hohenfels training area in Germany, Army spokesman Maj. Juan Martinez tells...

Con Man Fooled Soldiers, Lived in Army Barracks for Months

He even assigned rooms and conducted inspections

(Newser) - The Fayetteville Observer has a crazy look at how a 20-year-old con man successfully lived in the barracks at Fort Bragg for months despite never having served in the military. His ruse was apparently so successful he even started assigning rooms to new soldiers and conducting room inspections. The information...

Army Announces First-Ever Female Combat Officers

They'll lead armor and infantry units

(Newser) - The Army announced Friday it has 22 women nearly ready to be commissioned as officers within its infantry and armor units—a historic first, USA Today reports. The Pentagon ordered all combat positions be opened to women three years ago, and that rule takes effect this year. The 22 women—...

4 Soldiers Hurt in Humvee Crash on NJ Turnpike

One had to be airlifted

(Newser) - Four Army Reserve soldiers are injured, two critically, after a Humvee accident on the New Jersey Turnpike, reports NBC New York . Police haven't determined what went wrong, though witnesses say a tire flew off the vehicle around 2:30pm Thursday, per the Courier News . They tried to lift the...

Pol: Army Tricked Taxpayers With 'Dead' $725M Program

Controversial program is actually still up and running and may even get more funding

(Newser) - Its name was the Human Terrain System, what USA Today labels a "controversial battlefield anthropology program" supposedly shut down by the US Army in 2014 after allegations of racism, sexual harassment, and funny business with time sheets, among other issues. Or so its demise was believed: The initiative—which...

Bowe Bergdahl Diagnosed With Schizophrenia-like Mental Disorder

'The ball was dropped'

(Newser) - For the first time, we know what "severe mental disease or defect" Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may have been suffering from when he decided to walk away from an Army base in Afghanistan in 2009, the Washington Post reports. The condition is known as schizotypal personality disorder. It's similar...

Female Army Recruit Called a Deserter

Pvt. Erika Lopez turned herself in Thursday night

(Newser) - The Army is investigating one of the first women to sign up as an Army combat engineer after she went AWOL last fall, Fox News reports. Pvt. Erika Lopez, who is married and has two kids, was the nation's fourth woman to register as an Army combat engineer. She...

For Gay Man Kicked Out of Army in 1955, Vindication

Ohio's Donald Hallman was discharged as 'Class II homosexual'

(Newser) - An 82-year-old Ohio veteran is receiving an honorable discharge more than a half-century after the Army kicked him out for being gay, the AP reports. Donald Hallman of Columbus requested a reversal of his 1955 undesirable discharge status after President Barack Obama repealed the military's "Don't Ask...

The Army Wants You ... to Eat MREs for 3 Weeks

Uncle Sam is looking for volunteers, paying $200

(Newser) - Uncle Sam wants YOU, but this time it's the US Army Institute of Environmental Medicine looking to improve its Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs)—not to tweak the taste, but rather to improve its impact on gut health. And they're willing to pay the 60 or so participants...

Bergdahl Heads for General Court-Martial, Could Get Life

Ruling general ignored recommendation Bergdahl go before 'special' military court

(Newser) - A lawyer for Bowe Bergdahl , the US soldier accused of deserting his Army post in Afghanistan in 2009 before being captured and held by the Taliban for almost five years, says his client will stand trial before a general court-martial, Reuters reports. Despite the advice of a preliminary-hearing officer that...

Army Making Rare Change to Its Iconic Dog Tags

It's the first alteration to the tags in 40 years

(Newser) - For soldiers, a dog tag "individualizes the human being who wears it, despite his or her role as a small part of a huge and faceless organization," CNN quotes the Library of Congress as saying. But few citizens probably realize the danger dogs tags can put soldiers in....

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