Filmmaker Greg Lovett said he did not want to make a depressing movie about burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq. “I just wanted to present the facts, and the facts are depressing,” he said. During these conflicts, rather than dispose of waste safely, commanders ordered it to be burned in huge, open-air pits where the fires often raged 24/7/365. Jessey …

In a significant development for former Iraq contractors, an administrative law judge from the Department of Labor, which administers the Defense Base Act, ruled that there is a link between burn pits and lung disease. In a well-reasoned, 19-page decision, ALJ Christopher Larsen considered the claim of Specialist Veronica Landry. Between 2004 and 2005, she worked for a KBR division …

Although Vladimir Putin does not want people to know it, mercenaries fight for money in Syria, while contractors fight for America in Afghanistan. When Russian military forces arrived in the country in 2015 to prop up the pro-Russian strongman in a longstanding civil war, mercenaries arrived, as well. Officially, 28 Russian mercenaries have died in Syria during 2017 alone, but …

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is proceeding full steam ahead with the prosecution of several former Blackwater guards who served in Iraq, much to the chagrin of many people. Given the issues in the case and the somewhat political nature of the prosecutions, many hoped that Attorney General Sessions would at least order a review of the case. But that has …

The DoD’s heavy reliance on military contractors in places like Afghanistan is one reason why there are an estimated 44,000 troops deployed worldwide who are listed in an amorphous “unknown” category. 1.3 million active duty military personnel serve throughout the world, but this figure does not include military contractors, National Guard, or Reserve forces. In a press briefing unveiling the …

A newly-discovered treatment may enable injured brains to heal themselves after incidents in Afghanistan or elsewhere. High-resolution Relational Resonance-based Electroencephalic Mirroring (HIRREM) is essentially an acoustic mirror that gives the brain a chance to examine itself, according to Wake Forest Medical School’s Dr. Charles H. Tegeler. Dr. Tegeler and his team studied 18 symptomatic veterans who each received about a …

Most people regard the end of the Spanish-American War as the beginning of imperialism in the United States. The turn of the 20th century also provided Americans with the first glimpse of an anti-insurgency campaign, like the 21st century campaigns in Iraq and elsewhere. Rebels in the newly-acquired Philippine Islands, which had been opposed to Spain, simply turned their guns …

The Department of Defense wants Amazon to be its exclusive cloud provider and wants to pay the online retailer $5 billion to fulfill this role. This contract would have tremendous implications for military contractors in Qatar and elsewhere. After some considerable hand-wringing, the DoD finally concluded that it simply lacks the infrastructure to move to the cloud on its own, …

Anvil, a fictional private military contractor, plays an important role in the Netflix series The Punisher, but this company bears little resemblance to the ones that operate in Iraq and elsewhere. A warning to fans: This first section contains potential spoilers. Billy Russo, onetime Marine colleague of antihero Frank Castle, operates Anvil, a company that essentially hires ex-soldiers and sends …

To better understand and treat combat-related Traumatic Brain Injuries in places like Afghanistan, the U.S. Army announced that it would partner with a technology company to take a new look at these wounds. Zeriscope, a South Carolina-based company, received an exclusive contract to study heart rate variability, among other things. Researchers believe that HRV has a direct effect on attentiveness …

The human rights organization filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the federal government for information about the large garbage disposal pits that the military used in Afghanistan and elsewhere. To date, more than 100,000 veterans of the South Asian campaigns have complained of various respiratory illnesses, and according to AIUSA Security Director Daphne Eviatar, these individuals and their …

For many people, the excitement of traveling to a place like Japan, the opportunity to be immersed in a different culture, the substantial financial benefits, and some of the other perks are too good to pass up, so it seems like a great idea to take their skills overseas, and that typically is a good idea. Before you board the …