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Military Mythology, Selective Remembrance, and the Sacrifices America Forgets

Decoration Day, 1917Public Domain

Every Memorial Day weekend, gyms across America fill with flags, sweat, and tribute workouts. People gather before dawn wearing weighted vests while patriotic music echoes across parking lots and pull-up rigs draped in oversized American flags. Hero WODs begin. Names of fallen service members are read aloud. Photos get posted online beside captions about sacrifice, resilience, and honoring the fallen.
And I believe most of them mean well.

Summary and Key Points: Russia conducted its largest nuclear force exercise in years from May 19 to 21, mobilizing approximately 65,000 personnel, more than 200 missile launchers, 140 aircraft, 73 warships, and 13 submarines, including several capable of carrying nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

-The Russian Defense Ministry said the drills rehearsed the preparation and use of nuclear forces in response to aggression against Russia or Belarus.

Summary and Key Points: France is building six nuclear-powered Suffren-class attack submarines — alternately called the Barracuda-class in English — to replace the Cold War-era Rubis-class one for one. The lead boat was commissioned in 2022.

-The fourth boat slipped into the water recently, and the sixth and final submarine is expected to enter service early in the 2030s.

-The class is built by Naval Group under a Direction Générale de l’Armement contract.

-Each boat carries roughly 24 weapons — about 60% the load of a U.S.

I have spent quite a bit of time looking at retired A-10 Warthogs, and I have the photos and video to prove it in this essay. The funny thing is, the A-10 just might never retire, at least it seems that way for the near future. It seems like the A-10 can destroy just about anything, especially tanks. But there is one combat story that proves the mighty A-10 might be truly the ultimate tank killer.

The Day Two A-10 Warthogs Killed 23 Iraqi Tanks — And Why The Aircraft Built To Stop The Soviet Army Is Still Flying In 2026

It was February 25, 1991.

Since the early 2010s, I have dragged my wife to just about every SR-71 Blackbird museum exhibit within driving distance, or sent my staff to take photos if they were close by, many of which are in this article. When you look at the Blackbird, it’s hard to think this Mach 3 marvel is anything less than perfect. But problems did happen, quite a bit. For example, on January 25, 1966. Edwards Air Force Base, California. Two men climbed into Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird tail number 64-17952 at 11:20 in the morning for a flight test that should have ended uneventfully.

It did not.

Fort Hood military police got into a shootout with civilians Saturday night, in an incident that left one person dead, the Army said on Sunday. At least two others were wounded during the fight at a recreation center next to the base, which is now under investigation. 
Fort Hood officials confirmed that multiple gunshots were fired shortly after 9 p.m. on May 23, after two military police officers from the base responded to a fight at the Belton Lake Outdoor Recreation Area. While trying to break up the crowd, gunfire broke out.

Four months after American special operations forces infiltrated Venezuelan airspace to raid its capital city, U.S. troops were once again flying over Caracas. This time, as part of an elaborate training exercise around the U.S. embassy.
Two Marine Corps MV-22 Ospreys flew over the capital of Venezuela on Saturday and landed outside the U.S. embassy as part of a “rapid response” drill, the U.S. embassy for Venezuela said in a social media post.

The Canadian Patrol Submarine Project, often referred to in shorthand as CPSP, is Ottawa’s attempt to replace the Royal Canadian Navy’s aged Victoria-class submarines with a significantly larger and much more capable submarine force. By Canadian standards, this project is significant. Ottawa would like up to 12 conventionally powered submarines capable of operating not only in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but also in Canada’s far north, in Arctic waters. It is that last requirement that has exerted a significant influence on the CPSP project.

Throughout all three of his presidential campaigns, President Donald Trump promised to avoid the kind of wars that defined the post-9/11 era. He has long criticized the Iraq War and “forever wars,” arguing that Washington wasted trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives on failed nation-building projects overseas.

The $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) cannot safely operate Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II fighters because the aircraft carrier’s flight deck was designed before the F-35C’s final heat specifications existed. The Pentagon calls it a synchronization gap. The Ford’s design was frozen on August 11, 2005, when the first steel was cut. The F-35C’s exhaust plume runs at 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to warp the carrier’s standard flight deck plating.