By Helene Cooper / New York Times American military commanders with the NATO mission in Afghanistan told President Obama’s chief envoy to the region this weekend that they did not have enough troops to do their job, pushed past their limit by Taliban rebels who operate across borders. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in a village […]

By Craig Cole & Lynn Salsi In a May 2008 “Washington Post” article, “Official Urged Fewer Diagnoses of PTSD,” staff writer, Christopher Lee reports on the Veteran’s Administrations attempts to give less Post Traumatic Stress Disorder diagnoses to veterans in order to save money. (C. Lee, Washington Post) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is is […]

From FOX News In an effort to address the mental health problems of some combat troops, the U.S. Army wants all of its 1.1 million soldiers to start taking emotional resiliency classes. The new $117 million dollar program is based on the research of Dr. Martin Seligman, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology […]

By Rod Nordland / New York Times “Yes, we are in charge now,” said an Iraqi Army soldier, Sgt. Salman Fallah Jassim, as he led a mixed Iraqi and American patrol through the saw grass of a dried up irrigation canal, sweeping the ground in front of him with the long wand of a metal detector. […]

 By Noah Shactman / Wired The U.S. military is strongly considering a near-total ban on Twitter, Facebook, and all other social networking sites throughout the Department of Defense, multiple sources within the armed forces tell Danger Room. It’s the latest twist in the Defense Department’s tangled relationship with so-called “Web 2.0″ sites. But while earlier […]

By Walter Pincus / The Washington Post Outside the military, not much attention is paid to the personal problems of families caught up in the endless rotational deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan that mark serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Last Friday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates dealt with a handful of […]

By Greg Jaffe & Karen DeYoung / Washington Post Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that the Afghan security forces will have to be far larger than currently planned if President Obama’s strategy for winning the war is to succeed, according to senior military officials. Such an expansion […]

By Seth Robson / Stars and Stripes While the Army has been working to gauge the mental health toll of multiple deployments on soldiers, some Army leaders and spouses say the service is moving too slowly to address similar effects on military family members. Spouses face day-to-day pressure while soldiers are away and very little is […]

By The Associated Press The head of U.S. Central Command warned Friday that the thousands of American troops surging into Afghanistan’s turbulent Helmand province to battle the Taliban are in for a tough fight. Gen. David Petraeus, best known for coordinating the troop surge in Iraq that is credited with reducing that country’s violence, cautioned […]

By Gregg Zoroya / USA TODAY After seven years of war, most children of combat troops are showing more fear, anxiety and behavioral problems, according to the Pentagon’s most sweeping survey of the effects of war on military children. Six out of 10 U.S. military parents told researchers their children have increased levels of fear […]