Armed Forces

Inside the tidy suburban St. Louis home of John and Linda Johnson, no photos of their eldest daughter grace the walls. Army Pfc. LaVena Johnson was just 19 when she died in Iraq in 2005; to this day her parents cannot bear to display reminders of her life. John Johnson does possess other photos of his daughter -- explicit color shots of her autopsy and death scene. He shows them to a visitor. They are horrifying: LaVena in a pool of blood. LaVena's corpse on a coroner's table.

Looking more like a student than a soldier, the young Indian in jeans and a T-shirt snapped his heels together and stood at attention in front of an American flag. He raised his right hand and pledged to defend the United States against all enemies. The enlistment ceremony earlier this month at a military center near Los Angeles International Airport took less than five minutes. With that, he became the 101st person in Los Angeles to join the Army under a program that significantly increases the number of immigrants eligible to serve.

Ben Cartwright has been a passionate advocate for gay rights for 12 years. He is a regular at gay pride marches, has a pod-cast and writes for a gay newspaper in San Diego. The last thing he expected was to have to put a part of himself back into the closet. But if the military were to find out about his love for a sailor, a man with years of honorable service would face a dishonorable discharge.

The road to Bala Baluk district stretches arrow-straight ahead, with heat-shimmered cucumber fields on either side. But determining exactly what transpired nearly two weeks ago in a hamlet called Garani takes a far more twisted path. A battle raged. Bombs fell. Afghan officials say at least 140 civilians died, two-thirds of them children and teenagers, in what may prove the most lethal episode of civilian casualties since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Days of interviews with U.S.

The accusation was damning: U.S. soldiers were said to have tossed a grenade into a crowd of Afghans in the eastern province of Kunar on Tuesday, killing two civilians and wounding five to 50 others. American public affairs officers previously have been slow in responding. U.S. military officials here complain that Taliban leaders are often better and faster at spreading their versions of deadly events.

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. Critics of the policy said the disparity reflects deep-seated sexism in the armed forces. Women accounted for 15% of all active-duty and reserve members of the military but more than a third of the 619 people discharged last year because of their sexual orientation. The disparity was particularly striking in the Air Force, where women represented 20% of personnel but 61% of those expelled in 2008.

U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have halted the practice of releasing the number of militants killed in fighting with American-led forces as part of an overall strategy shift that emphasizes concern for the local civilian population's well-being rather than hunting insurgent groups. The decision has triggered a quiet but fierce debate among military officers comparing the current situation with the U.S.

As American forces work to revive Iraq's tattered farming economy, they seem to have found an effective new weapon. Cows. At the suggestion of an Iraqi women's group, the Marine Corps recently bought 50 cows for 50 Iraqi widows in the farm belt around Fallouja, once the insurgent capital of war-torn Anbar province.