Author: Braxton Taylor

Coast Guard Gunner’s Mate Frank DeVita crawled over the bodies of the dead who lay in the blood and puke covering the deck of the Higgins boat on Omaha Beach to save the landing craft during the first wave of D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.DeVita’s main job as part of the landing craft’s crew was to raise and lower the front ramp on orders of the coxswain, or boat driver, to allow more than 30 troops from the 1st Infantry Division, the “Big Red One,” to storm ashore, but the German MG-42 machine guns took their toll.In oral histories…

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday accused two military veterans of assaulting a soldier and stealing equipment from an Army special operations compound in Washington state, a brazen break-in that ended with a cache of weapons and Nazi paraphernalia discovered in one of their homes.State and federal police arrested Charles Ethan Fields and Levi Austin Frakes after executing a warrant Monday for alleged assault, robbery and theft of government property, according to the complaint shared with Military.com by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Washington.Prosecutors say Fields and Frakes entered Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Sunday evening through the main…

Congress is weighing potential reductions to the National Reconnaissance Office’s budget for acquiring commercial satellite imagery—a move that could set the U.S. remote sensing industry back significantly and provide China with an advantage in the influence domain and on the battlefield. The stakes extend far beyond any single contract. China is rapidly building out its commercial satellite imagery industry and aggressively seeking new clients. And though European countries are unlikely to become reliant on Chinese imagery, the same cannot be said for governments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. If China can offer comparable imagery at lower cost, Chinese companies will…

An Army brigade training in the Philippines has been able to 3D-print about 100 drones in the field, leaders told reporters Wednesday, in addition to sourcing and purifying their own water—all part of learning to better operate in the vast Indo-Pacific, where it’s not so easy to fly in supplies.The Hawaii-based 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, is one of the first Army units to join the Transformation-in-Contact initiative. Since March, the brigade has been in the Philippines, participating in Exercises Balikatan and Salaknib, as well as a Joint Pacific Multinational Training Center event.“All of the first-person-view drones…

Google Pla Apple PodcastsGuests: Col. Joshua Gaspard, commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza, Italy. Learn more about exercises Swift Response and African Lion 2025 here and here, respectively. Find a transcript of this conversation below.Watson: Army Col. Joshua Gaspard commands the 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Italy. They’re viewed as America’s rapid response force for the European region and beyond. They have an incredibly storied legacy, and back when I was in the Army, it was maybe the most coveted assignment for airborne-qualified soldiers. Col. Gaspard, welcome to Defense One Radio.Gaspard: Thanks Ben.Watson: So your soldiers recently…

Laser Ammo USA Inc. is launching the recoil-enabled 2011 Match King Laser Training pistol. Based on an AW Custom HX26 “Match King” Compact airsoft pistol, this new training pistol is modified by Laser Ammo to make it a Class 1 eye-safe laser-training pistol with recoil. The new training pistol uses a CNC-machined conversion barrel with a SureStrike laser and PST (piston) back cap. The laser is available in red or infrared, and the barrel conversion includes a windage and elevation alignment system that allows the user to align the laser for accurate training. The new Recoil 2011 Match King delivers…

Premier Body Armor has recently unveiled the new Everyday Armor T-Shirt 360 a snug-fitting garment that is an alternative take to the usual  concealable body armor vest. The Every Day Armor T-Shirt 360 consists of a “t-shirt” that accepts ultra-slim ballistic panels for discreet and low profile wear, and is meant to be worn as the base layer. Even though it has a low footprint design, the Premier Body Armor Every Day Armory T-Shirt 360 still includes lateral ballistic panels, not just the standard ones found front or back.  “Concealment shouldn’t come at the cost of complete protection,” said Alex Stewart,…

Training to run faster is a common issue for people serving in the military. The timed runs in semi-annual fitness tests are challenging, especially for military members who consider 1.5-2 miles “long distance.” This can include people with athletic backgrounds in sprinting (such as track or football) or those who do not run. How to train for these 1.5- to 2-mile fitness tests largely depends on the military member’s body type and athletic history.Here is a question about two such ways to train for running more miles:Stew, when it comes to running, is it mainly the volume of running (miles…

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is skipping the latest meeting of Ukraine’s allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels. That’s a first since the group was set up three years ago, the Associated Press reports. Hegseth will not join via video call-in, U.S. defense officials said. “It is the latest in a series of steps that the U.S. has taken to distance itself from the Ukraine war effort,” AP’s Lita Baldor writes. While Kyiv defends itself from three-plus years of gradual Russian military invasion, the Ukraine Defense Contact Group has provided Kyiv with an estimated “$126 billion in weapons and military assistance, including…

In the world of rifles, the .45-70 Gov’t cartridge might as well be a prehistoric behemoth that dates back to a time before dinosaurs roamed the earth. This straight-wall rimmed cartridge is a product of the early 1870s: 1873 to exact; the .45-70 Gov’t is old enough to predate the invention of modern smokeless rifle propellants. It was originally charged with 70 grains of black powder and a soft-lead 405 grain bullet. These days, the .45-70 Gov’t still enjoys relevancy as commercially produced rifle cartridge while also enjoying all the amenities of a modern existence including the latest in smokeless…