Military: Task & Purpose

‘A huge morale hit’ — Army EOD techs are stuck between plummeting recruitment levels and skyrocketing workloads

For this article, I interviewed Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians about what it’s like working under the strain of both deployments abroad and domestic security missions at home, such as helping police departments and protecting VIPs. Due to a Pentagon loophole, there are too few techs to handle the growing number of missions, and the EOD community is feeling the hit.

‘I made promises to the people that I lost’— How the Iraq war forged a Navy SEAL’s path to Harvard Medical School and NASA

In early 2020, former Navy SEAL and Harvard Medical School graduate Lt. Jonny Kim made headlines by adding ‘NASA astronaut’ to his resume. Through this interview, I sought to understand how Kim’s Navy service shaped his life trajectory. Despite the media frenzy surrounding Kim at the time, he said the questions I asked were unique and profound. The story is now cited on Kim’s Wikipedia page.

‘It’s like our warpaint’— Why some Black Hawk crew chiefs paint their face masks something fierce

The idea for this exclusive story came from the fact that there are so many pictures on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service of Black Hawk crew chiefs wearing face masks painted with monster mouths. While this story could have been a simply photo gallery of those images, I decided to take it one step further by asking a former crew chief what gave rise to this trend, and why it’s unique to crew chiefs.

A former Army Guardsman is documenting the murals troops left behind during the Global War on Terror

This exclusive story was inspired by a visit to Reddit/Military, where a former guardsman had shared a link to his photo collection of murals left behind on blast-proof concrete T-barriers. These barriers, and the artwork left on them, are a ubiquitous feature of deployments throughout the Global War on Terror, so I knew readers would find it interesting and shareable.