Fire Watch

Marine Corps drill instructors represent one of the most legendary roles in the military. From the 1987 war movie "Full Metal Jacket" to their essential job of making new Marines at boot camp in 13-week cycles, the role has become iconic to the public and within squad bays alike. Last month, Military.com and The Washington Post  published a joint investigation into the mental health and personal s...

Since announcing his campaign for re-election, the public has weighed and dissected the merits and shortfalls of incoming President Trump's aims for the military. But what has been missing is how these promises or inferences might come to fruition and what challenges they may face on their way to implementation. In this episode, we spoke to two people with collective decades of experience in analy...

At its surface, Stolen Valor is a legal term used to describe people who claim gallant military awards -- like the Purple Heart or Medal of Honor -- they did not earn in an effort to gain money, property or other tangible benefits, according to a 2013 congressional act. But the phrase seems to have inhabited a broader meaning and gained a foothold in the public consciousness in recent years, one t...

The V-22 was a novel aircraft when it was conceived in the 1980s. Promising to give American service members an advantage on the battlefield, it was versatile. It could fly like a plane, but rotate its propellers to take off like a helicopter. Military services jumped on it, especially the Marine Corps.  But since 2022, Ospreys have crashed four times during routine training exercises, killing a t...

Last time, on Fire Watch, we took you inside Navy Boot camp. I was accompanied by Military.com reporter and Navy veteran Konstantin Toropin. And we came armed with a few questions: Is Navy boot camp different than veterans remember it? Is it still hard? And what do those changes say about the sailors joining the Navy today? In this episode, we're taking a closer look at those changes – ones that h...

On this episode we will be focusing on years of underreporting of child abuse at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California, one of the Navy's most sprawling installations which is located in the Mojave Desert.  This is a story about disclosure – or rather the lack of disclosure. In this episode: Drew F. Lawrence, Konstantin Toropin.  

In this episode we examine the history of the military, Hollywood and the veterans who brought real-as-can-be portrayals of that world to big and small screens. I interviewed some of the contemporary players – actors, advisors and writers – who made some of those portrayals a reality. In this episode: Jim LaPorta, Drew F. Lawrence, Caitlin Bassett, Capt. (ret.) Dale Dye

We're in a Norwegian valley, high above the Arctic Circle. It's late afternoon in early March and a group of over a dozen infantry Marines are standing around an American and Norwegian chaplain. It's windy, cold. The Marines hold laminated prayer cards in dense gloves, some are shifting back and forth to stay warm. A radio chatters in the background with reports from the front. "That symbol – that...

Since the COVID-19 pandemic four years ago, recruiting across the military services has been in crisis. Many recruiters lost access to schools that were shuttered. The military also has been increasingly the subject of political attacks – mainly from the right of the aisle condemning the services as "woke." We'll get into that in the episode. My colleague, Steve Beynon – an Army veteran and Milita...

The PACT Act, which was meant to help veterans receive care and benefits after being exposed to toxins and burn pits while serving their country, was billed as the most sweeping piece of veteran healthcare legislation ever passed. But for some veterans, like those exposed to things like the "black goo" and even cyanide at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, also known as K2 – it was not sweeping enough. Mil...

Note: This special Christmas episode originally aired on December 23rd, 2022. We thought it might bring you some holiday cheer again this year. Enjoy. When the red telephone began to ring, Col. Harry Shoup feared the worst. It was 1955, at the height of the Cold War, and Shoup was in the operations center of the Continental Air Defense Command in Colorado. CONAD, as it was known then, stood as the...

Pier 6 sits where the Elizabeth River and Chesapeake Bay meet at the largest navy complex in the world – Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia. It's Monday, windy and cold. Sailors, civilian contractors and dock workers, or stevedors as they're called on Pier 6 hurry to unload three enormous food trucks filled with hundreds and hundreds of pounds of Thanksgiving provisions for the USS Forrest Sherman, a...

[ARCHIVES] Ambrose Bierce was an American Civil War veteran. As a Union soldier Bierce fought in many battles, was wounded, and went on to become a pioneer in the horror genre, helping introduce the psychological thriller to the American story. American tradition is steeped in rich horror and veterans like Bierce who have taken their experiences in war and service and twisted them into terrifying...

A few blocks away from Baltimore Harbor where many a sailor have made port and ships have launched for centuries, I walk into a tan and green-shingled building lined inside and out with tattoo memorabilia.  Snarling panthers, rickety ships, pin-up girls: slices of Americana-style ink hang over century-old tattoo guns as their modern successors whizz permanent art into the skin of ready and willing...

August 9th, August 9th, August 9th! If there is one thing you remember about this episode, it is that you should apply for your PACT Act benefits by August 9th.  August 9th – that's the date. If you are unsure what I am talking about, and why I am talking about it repetitively, I bet you have questions. Today, our guest will help us answer those questions. Joshua Jacobs is the Under Secretary of B...

The Islamic State's Khorasan Province, also known as ISIS-K, has rapidly become the new boogeyman in the Middle East -- specifically in Afghanistan, where the overall ISIS apparatus has spread its influence. The State Department has issued warnings about the group and has previously designated its leaders as top-priority terrorists. Over the last few years, top military generals have said that the...

Last week, my colleague Konstantin Toropin and I spoke to the Chief of Navy Personnel, Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, and his senior enlisted counterpart Fleet Master Chief Delbert Terrell. They are the senior leaders who run the Navy's personnel, manpower and training operations across the fleet. We had asked sailors to let us know what questions they thought the two should have to answer, receiving s...

Many Americans think of only one form of military heroism: the war hero. But there are many varieties of heroism -- yes, some that include acts of gallantry in combat, but others are performed by service members here at home. At least, that's what the United Service Organizations, or USO, has hoped to show over the last 20 years when it nominates its Service Members of the Year -- junior enlisted...

Nearly 60 years ago, now-retired Colonel Paris Davis did something remarkable. He was a Green Beret, one of the first Black officers to join the elite Special Forces. And on June 18, 1965 as dawn was breaking over the rice paddies of Binh Dinh province Vietnam, Davis, his Special Forces team, and an inexperienced company of South Vietnamese soldiers started taking heavy machine-gun fire from Viet...

Last week, Americans looked toward the sky … they were scanning for a 200-foot-tall white orb that traversed the entire country in less than two weeks. It stalked the Midwest and floated into the Southeast like an all-seeing eye. It was a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon or spy balloon, according to the Pentagon, and on the afternoon of Feb. 4, an F-22 Raptor ripped across the blue expan...

In 2019, when Gen. Milley marched his boots on Sesame Street, it was in April, the Month of the Military Child. What Gen. Milley, Elmo and the rest of the world did not know at the time was that in less than a year, the world would change. The experts and researcher behind the family-friendly fun on Sesame Street realized that kids were particularly affected by some of the consequences of the viru...

In late 2019, an explosion rumbled across a remote vista in Somalia, disturbing the low brush and red-brown dirt surrounding a lonely American airfield. It rattled the bolts of the decades-old base and buckled the knees of the National Guard soldiers tasked with defending it. Capt. London Nagai – the commander of the unit – and his Charlie Troopers knew the attack was coming. A truck, up-armored a...

When the red telephone began to ring, Col. Harry Shoup feared the worst. It was 1955, at the height of the Cold War, and Shoup was in the operations center of the Continental Air Defense Command in Colorado. CONAD, as it was known then, stood as the early warning system for a Soviet attack. So the ringing of the red telephone never meant anything good. What happened next launched the now-named Nor...

This episode contains descriptions of suicide. Listener discretion is advised. Traumatic Brain Injuries – the cost of the Global War on Terror is due – passed due – and veterans and families are footing the bill with their lives. Suicide is a complex issue. And as we are learning, TBIs add to that complexity. One university cohort study showed that veterans who experienced even a mild traumatic br...