Armed Forces

In the summer of 2003, an Air Force pilot named Greg Harbin was doing desk duty at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. Day in and day out, Harbin sat in front of five computer screens, scanning photographs and video sent by unmanned planes flying 1,200 miles away, over Iraq and Afghanistan. His job was to take that information, along with reports from ground troops, and identify fresh targets -- Taliban fighters or Iraqi insurgents. But one thing puzzled him.

SAN DIEGO -- A Marine is on trial at Camp Pendleton on charges of committing adultery and then lying to investigators by saying she was drunk and had been raped. Under military law, adultery can lead to a bad-conduct discharge and a year in the brig. Although adultery has long been a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, cases of prosecution are rare, officials said. According to the official charge sheet at the special court martial, the defendant, a staff sergeant, had sex with another staff sergeant at or near Temecula on March 2 of last year.

The 2,500th member of the U.S. military killed in Iraq was Cpl. Michael A. Estrella, a 20-year-old Marine from Riverside County enamored of the military since his Junior ROTC days at Hemet High School. Estrella was killed June 14 by a sniper while on foot patrol in Haditha, in the insurgent stronghold of Al Anbar province. He was a field radio operator with the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, based in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Casting his vote Sunday in a Caracas slum, interim Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that if he wins Sunday's election he is prepared to reestablish relations with the United States “in terms of equality and respect.” "There are always problems because they are always conspiring," Maduro said of the U.S. During his campaign to succeed the late President Hugo Chavez, Maduro accused the U.S. of conspiring with...

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns. More than 180,000 civilians -- including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis -- are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Pakistani authorities today placed opposition leader Nawaz Sharif under house arrest, a day after putting the armed forces on alert amid an escalating power struggle with former allies. U.S. diplomatic efforts to defuse the political crisis intensified as the Pakistani government pledged anew to block a massive opposition rally in the capital on Monday.

Wilkerson is clearly mystified as to the reasons people enlist in the U.S. armed forces. Very nearly as mystified as he is in regard to what a college degree will earn him in society. College will always be an option for his former acquaintance; military service will not. As both an Army vet ('72-'73) and a Navy vet ('78-'82 and '89-'91), and with years of civilian business experience in between, I've lived what Wilkerson drones on about from readings, viewings and hearsay. I was a grunt.

Two Orange County legislators want to honor local men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces with a photo display at the Orange County Hall of Administration in Santa Ana. Assemblyman Ken Maddox and county Supervisor Jim Silva are asking families to send copies of photographs of loved ones in uniform. Photographs may be mailed to the Orange County Veterans Service Office at 1300 S. Grand Avenue, Building B, Santa Ana, CA 92705. Photos will not be returned.

Kyrgyzstan, alone among the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, is going to disband its armed forces, the president of the former Soviet republic said Friday. "In the last year and a half, we have cut (the military) in half, and in the next three to five years we will disband it entirely. And we will have only a National Guard whose functions will be the same as the National Guard in your states," President Askar Akayev said.

Premier Miklos Nemeth said today that Hungary will slash its armed forces by up to a quarter in the next two years, scrapping many offensive weapons and regrouping them away from its western frontier. He also announced a shake-up in defense command, replacing the army chief of staff and dismissing three deputy ministers.

BOGOTA, Colombia - Among the many thorny issues to be hammered out in peace talks beginning Wednesday in Oslo between Colombia's government and the country's largest rebel group is what sort of post-conflict political role will be afforded to the insurgents. Guaranteeing a political voice for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, is one of the five main issues in the talks, which are to begin in the Norwegian capital and then move to Havana. The other points to be negotiated are agrarian reform, victims' rights, an end to the rebels' alleged drug trafficking and logistics for stopping the conflict.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - “Wow!” said Elaine Brye of Winona, Ohio. “What's a mom like me doing in a place like this?” Brye was not planning a turn on stage at the Democratic National Convention when she sat down last December to write a Christmas card to First Lady Michelle Obama. It was “just a mom-to-mom note to say thank you for caring,” Brye said Tuesday night as she introduced Obama. “The first lady not only read my letter, she invited my husband and I to the White House. It was an amazing experience.

In the first of what is likely to be a series of confrontations between Egypt's new elected leader and the country's armed forces, President Mohamed Morsi has called for a parliament disbanded by the generals to return to work, pending the election of a new representative body under a yet-to-be-written constitution. As with much about Egypt's transition from autocracy to democracy, the controversy over the legitimacy of the People's Assembly is overlaid with legal issues. The Islamist-dominated assembly was dissolved last month by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, but the council acted pursuant to a finding by Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court that a third of the assembly's members had been elected illegally.

Egypt's progress toward democracy over the last 15 months has been raucous, colorful and inevitably complicated. Its dismantling has been dizzyingly swift. Two weeks ago, the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved the parliament, saying electoral rules had been broken. Then the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces exempted itself from civilian oversight and claimed a decisive role in lawmaking and in the drafting of Egypt's constitution. It also assigned a general to "advise" Egypt's new president.

From the moment it was announced that Egypt's authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak, was stepping down, experts in that country and abroad warned that the Egyptian military wouldn't be content with a limited and transitional role. That prophecy has come to pass, posing a challenge not only for democrats in Egypt and for its newly elected president but for its ally and benefactor, the United States. The Obama administration, which earlier this year waived congressional restrictions in order to keep sending military aid to Egypt, should reconsider that decision if the armed forces continue to thwart democracy.

The Marine Corps is moving to boot a Marine for having made "political statements" about the commander in chief on a Facebook page. Sgt. Gary Stein, 26, a nine-year veteran, put comments on the Armed Forces Tea Party page that said he would not follow unlawful orders from President Obama such as ordering the killing of Americans or taking guns away from Americans. The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits uniformed personnel from making comments critical of their chain of command, including the commander in chief.

The 250,000-strong military pledged loyalty to President Corazon Aquino's government en masse today as rebellion charges were lodged against 41 allies of ousted leader Ferdinand E. Marcos who staged a failed revolt against Aquino. Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and armed forces chief Gen. Fidel Ramos led the military in pledging allegiance to Aquino's interim "Freedom Constitution" in nationwide rites aimed at dispelling doubts about the military's loyalty to her government.

The Senate gave overwhelming approval Wednesday to the most far-reaching reorganization of the nation's armed forces in 30 years in an effort to ease interservice rivalry and to encourage cooperation in joint military operations. The bill, which was resisted by many Pentagon officials, was approved 95 to 0.

The walls are bare and the bedroom is still missing a television, but Thomas Simmons couldn't be prouder of his new home. "It's all mine," the 35-year-old says, looking around. "My couch, my bed, my gas stove. It's finally mine. " For nearly a decade, the veteran of Afghanistan lived in homeless shelters and in his car, wandering from Georgia to Nevada to California, his clothes crammed in his trunk and his life in disarray. He was among the estimated 7,400 veterans who are homeless in Los Angeles County — battling post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, alcoholism and mental issues.

The court-martial of Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich at Camp Pendleton for his role in two dozen civilian deaths in the Iraqi village of Haditha has highlighted a legal peril for modern military personnel: determining who is the enemy. Troops these days fight in tense, foreign enclaves where terrorists wear no uniforms and take cover among women and children. They are on a mission to engage the enemy but are expected to hold their fire against civilians, a sacred tenet of international law. Military and international law experts say the case against Wuterich has shown that some troops have little understanding of the laws of war and nagging mistrust of local townfolk on dusty streets and courtyards that quickly ignite into battlefields.