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A look back at how filmmakers handled the Vietnam War, and how they worked with the military—or ignored their recommendations—to get them made: “In coming to the Pentagon with his plans in May, 1975, Coppola told Public Affairs officials that his initial script would need considerable work, especially the end, which he considered ‘surrealistic.’ While […]

[Fiction] A philandering husband’s next phase in life: “Horace and Loneese Perkins—one child, one grandchild—lived most unhappily together for more than twelve years in Apartment 230 at Sunset House, a building for senior citizens at 1202 Thirteenth Street NW. They moved there in 1977, the year they celebrated forty years of marriage, the year they […]

How the upcoming Mexican presidential election could impact the drug war in cities like Guadalajara: “Weary of pantallas, I tried to get to the bottom of a single bust—the ‘historic’ meth-lab raid in Tlajomulco that confiscated some four billion dollars’ worth of drugs. Were the drugs seized really worth that much? Well, no. The more […]

In 2007, Eric Fair wrote an article in the Washington Post describing his experience as an interrogator in Iraq. He has had trouble finding a way to move on. “I tell my professor I am sick. I put away verb charts, participles, and lexicons, board a train for Washington, D.C., and meet with Department of […]

Can we discover the impact of war on a soldier before they’re sent out to fight? And what does that mean for ethics and liability when it comes to addressing PTSD? “Brian had spent part of his career at nearby Fort Hood, and in 2007 he and Telch approached Army leaders at the base about […]

How Moammar Gadhafi’s regime built a surveillance network called the Electric Army that captured all Internet traffic going in and out of Libya, and how dissidents fought back. “Gwaider’s favored method, like that of Kevin Mitnick, the famous American hacker he admired, was “social engineering,” which meant tricking the victims into giving up access themselves. […]

Four Western journalists and a former Army Ranger-turned-counterinsurgency expert arrange a paintball game with members of the Shiite militant group, with the hopes of learning more about what motivates them: “It took nearly a full year to pull together this game, and all along I’d been convinced that things would fall apart at the last […]

[Fiction] [Not-single page] Life as a soldier in the Israeli Defense Force, and a trip to the tear-gas tent: “‘Do you love the army?’ my commander asks. “‘Yes and no, I mean I definitely believe that it is important in a country like ours to serve in the army, but I hope for peace, and […]

A family discovers new details about their son’s death in Iraq, and wonders why the U.S. lieutenant responsible was not punished: “A year after Dave Sharrett II died, his parents, Vicki and Dave Sr., were nearly at peace. They had come to accept the Army’s explanation of how it all happened in the ‘fog of […]

The evolution of how we recruit and train spies—starting with the OSS in the 1940s—and our changing expectations of what the job entails and what motivates those who sign up: “I remember him saying something like: ‘This is the only thing in the Army that you can volunteer for and then get out of if […]