Operation Enduring Freedom began Oct. 7, 2001, when U.S. and British forces launched airstrikes against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan, less than a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command’s official account of the operation. This month marks 25 years since that first strike. The war it opened would become the longest in U.S. history, stretching across four presidential administrations before its final, chaotic weeks in August 2021. From Enduring Freedom to Freedom’s Sentinel Operation Enduring Freedom’s combat mission formally concluded Dec. 28, 2014, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command.…

The Pentagon’s new testosterone screening policy requires medical providers to ask a service member who is undergoing screening about plans for children before writing a single treatment prescription. If the answer is yes to children, or hasn’t decided, the policy bars starting standard testosterone therapy and requires an alternative drug that preserves fertility instead, according to the Defense Health Agency’s Clinical Practice Guideline for Testosterone Deficiency in the Male Service Member, dated Sept. 17, 2026. That requirement, not the widely reported 300 nanogram-per-deciliter threshold that triggers screening, is what a men’s health physician who closely reviewed the policy says matters…

A Philadelphia woman is safe and sound after police say a masked man smashed his way into her apartment early Wednesday morning. The alleged intruder, on the other hand, is neither alive nor well, thanks to the fact that the woman was able to defend herself with a gun.  According to Philadelphia police, the break-in occurred around 5 AM Wednesday at an apartment building in the city’s Frankford neighborhood. Investigators say a 29-year-old man wearing a ski mask shattered a second-floor window and climbed inside the apartment, where he was confronted by the woman who…

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When bullying happens to your child, you want something done about it. I tend to think an old-school butt-whooping from the victim does more good than anything, but I’ve been informed by more than one school administrator that such behavior isn’t acceptable. I’m just going to say, after the one where my kid had to be dragged off of the would-be bully, he never had a problem again. Anyway, it’s tough for a father to deal with it, because what was considered normal in our day isn’t today, and in some cases, the bullies are…

More than 21 million veterans and service members live in the U.S., but only about 6% of them bought a home using a VA home loan in the past five years. That percentage could be much higher. Eligible veterans often bypass the program for a number of reasons. First, they may not know all the advantages. Second, they may think getting a VA loan is an arduous process to be avoided. Last, some lenders don’t take the time to teach veterans about the program, or don’t know much about it themselves. The VA home loan is a program non-military home…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to announce Wednesday that he will cut general and admiral positions across the military by 20%, effectively doubling the reduction he ordered last year as part of a broader plan to reshape the senior ranks by Jan. 1, 2027. Hegseth is scheduled to lay out the plan during a “State of the Force” address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, according to Pentagon officials cited by several news outlets, including Fox News, which first reported it. Quantico is the same site where the secretary gathered the United States’ highest ranking generals and admirals…

Being a police officer is tough. I wouldn’t do it for three times the top-end pay for an officer, much less what they actually get paid. Growing up around the profession, I saw just what kind of toll it could take on a person, and that’s without losing a number of your colleagues in a single day. Just one was enough to rattle a lot of police officers’ families deeply. Officers in Charlotte, NC, dealt with that back in 2024 when four of their colleagues were gunned down by a convicted felon armed with a…

LONDON (AP) — The U.K. has “strong indications” that Iran played a part in the incident that saw five men arrested near a U.S.-run military air base in England late at night, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Wednesday. Burnham said U.K. and U.S. officials are carrying out a “complex and serious” investigation into how and why five men and three vans were near the perimeter of RAF Fairford, a base that has been used by American bombers striking Iran during this year’s war. Five British men in their 20s were arrested Sunday on suspicion of explosives offenses and planning an…

Can you be convicted of a crime when you act in self-defense but an errant shot strikes a home or another person? The answer may vary from state to state, and even from case to case, as the Ohio Supreme Court recently decided. This particular case involves a man named Timothy Bradley, who was originally charged with a variety of crimes after shooting a contractor named Zachary Burch at Bradley’s home in 2024. Bradley had hired, and then fired Burch, and the pair started arguing when Burch showed up to collect his tools. Video and audio…

Separating from the military sets off a series of financial deadlines that don’t run on the same schedule, and most of them aren’t automatic. Health coverage, life insurance, Department of Veterans Affairs disability filing and retirement account decisions all run on their own separate clocks, and missing any one of them can mean a gap in coverage or a benefit that closes for good. Here’s how the sequence goes, from before separation through the end of the first year. Before Separation: 90 to 180 Days Out The window to start planning opens well before your separation date. Veterans and service…

If you read my story about the Violence Policy Center’s so-called study, you had to know that sooner or later, the media would get hold of it. While I kind of expected the New York Times or someone to get hold of it and make a thing of it, I still knew someone would if they declined. And, sure enough, someone has.There’s this report out of South Carolina, and we need to talk about it.South Carolina’s rate of women killed by men remained above the national average in 2024, according to a nationwide study highlighted…