Author: Braxton Taylor

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, I’m joined by Derek Dixon to discuss how his year long thermal drone study has helped him better understand white tail deer behavior and how it’s debunked some of the conventional white tail wisdom that he grew up with. All Right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation Initiative. And today we have a very interesting different kind of conversation because we’re going to be looking at a number of you might call…

Moving to a new duty station is a hallmark of military life, but for families enrolled in the Department of Defense’s Exceptional Family Member Program (also known as “EFMP”), which supports service members with dependents who have medical, educational, or developmental needs, the process can feel overwhelmingly complicated. As someone who has navigated these challenges firsthand, I know it’s often far harder than it needs to be. Simple changes by the War Department and policy makers could make a big difference in easing the burden, improving the quality of life, and boosting retention rates among service members.Timing is EverythingThe core…

The New Iron Curtain: Why Poland’s Border with Belarus Matters to the U.S.Decades after the Cold War ended and the Iron Curtain fell, a new divide is emerging along Poland’s eastern border with Belarus. NATO’s most fortified border now faces joint Russian-Belarusian military drills just miles away, while Russian drones violate Polish and Romanian airspace, testing the alliance’s resolve. Just a few days ago, Ukraine talks with Russia paused, as Belarus launched major drills with Russia, while Putin urged Poland to reopen the Belarus border.For many, these issues conjure up memories of the Cold War. But the weapons have changed, the…

The State Department wants to have artificial intelligence agents that can take action for employees, the department’s chief information officer Kelly Fletcher said Wednesday. The department already has an enterprise generative-AI chatbot, dubbed StateChat, which it launched last year. That chatbot can help with translations or answer questions from the department’s foreign-affairs manual, Fletcher said at an ACT-IAC event Wednesday.Now the department is looking at “AI agents that will take actions for humans,” said Fletcher. “I want it to not only tell me, ‘How much leave do I have’ … but then I want it to put in my leave slip, which…

The most notable snipers in U.S. military history aren’t just legends – they include real soldiers, sailors and Marines who stood their ground with extraordinary courage.From battlefield snipers to record-setting, long-distance shooters, from war heroes turned public figures, these marksmen left a mark.US Marine Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Norman Hathcock IIHometown: Little Rock, ArkansasNickname: “White Feather”Years of service: 1959-1979Wars: Vietnam War, two toursConfirmed kills: 93 (unconfirmed believed to be much higher)One of the most legendary combat heroes was USMC Gunnery Sgt. Carlos Norman Hathcock II. His fame grew from countless acts of bravery on the battlefield. He was an incredible woodsman with…

After the Sept. 10, 2025, assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump claimed that radical leftist groups foment political violence in the U.S., and “they should be put in jail.” “The radical left causes tremendous violence,” he said, asserting that “they seem to do it in a bigger way” than groups on the right.Top presidential adviser Stephen Miller also weighed in after Kirk’s killing, saying that left-wing political organizations constitute “a vast domestic terror movement.”“We are going to use every resource we have…throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again,” Miller said.But…

Since its inception in 2014, SEAL Officer Assessment and Selection (SOAS) has served as an important step in screening potential candidates for Navy SEAL training.Conducted in three classes each summer, this intense three-week course includes Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) officer candidates, Navy ROTC midshipmen, Officer Candidate School (OCS) recruits and current active-duty members.This week’s question concerns the timeline to join the officer route and attend BUD/S training:What is the timeline between finishing SOAS, finding out if [you are] selected and attending BUD/S for the officer candidate who successfully gets selected? Thanks, NeilDepending on when you begin submitting your recruiting paperwork and where…

U.S. and U.K. leaders are aiming to formally sign an expansive technology partnership on Thursday as part of President Donald Trump’s state visit with U.K. leadership, according to sources familiar with the planning. The details of the Tech Prosperity Deal, published on Tuesday, note that three emerging technologies will shape the partnership: artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences and technologies, and nuclear technology. Major U.S. companies — namely NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI and CoreWeave — jointly committed 31 billion British pounds to support the U.K.’s AI infrastructure.Semiconductor chip manufacturing, quantum computer development and data center development are some of the core investments on…

This limited-production upper receiver from Foxtrot Mike comes built with the bare necessities for an AR-15 pattern upper receiver that will spend most of its life shooting with a suppressor. This includes a longer, rifle-length gas tube with a gas port sized to reduce back pressure and recoil when shooting with a suppressor. To keep costs down, Foxtrot Mike is not shipping these receivers with muzzle devices, bolt carrier groups or charging handles, with the idea that customers will provide their own parts that fit their specific needs. This is especially true of muzzle devices, as they’re crucial to the…

ZeroTech Optics just added a new first-focal-plane LPVO to its catalog, the new Trace ED 1-10×24 FFP. This new LPVO (low-power, variable optic) is built around a 6061 aluminum 34mm maintube and includes all of the features shooters expect in a high-end LPVO, including ED optical glass, but for a fraction of the price. In addition to the new ZeroTech Trade ED 1-10X having a first-focal-plane reticle, its illuminated RMG reticle is designed to dovetail smoothing between 1X and 10X magnification. On low magnification, the RMG reticle has thick, heavy pointed bars that the eye can pick up quickly in…