Blog Postings

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News WASHINGTON – A yearlong suspension of horse-drawn funerals at Arlington National Cemetery is expected to extend indefinitely as the Army faces old and new obstacles in improving horse care. Testifying on Capitol Hill, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said, “It’s surprisingly complex and challenging” to solve the problems that lead

The Press Club bar closes early now, to the regret of many of the dwindling number of old timers. The younger members were full of energy as they dashed out to begin a weekend of holiday parties. The bar emptied as quickly as if it were 40 years ago and a hot story just broke.

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News WASHINGTON – The board game Battleship, a favorite at the Pentagon, will learn Thursday if it makes it to the National Toy Hall of Fame. It is the third attempt for the game, where competitors each place five battleships on a grid marked with letters and numbers, then try

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News BRUSSELS — When Lloyd Austin was a general dealing with the morass in Iraq in 2008, he was given the unenviable task of bringing order and victory to military operations in Basra and Sadr City. He managed to accomplish both over a period of four weeks, surprising many and

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News NEVATIM AIR BASE, Israel  — Before you begin to wander about and explore this air base in southeastern Israel, they offer up a clear tutorial. If you hear the siren, you have 90 seconds to run to the shelter to avoid the incoming. This base, the hub for U.S.

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News TEL AVIV, Israel — Four stories deep underground, the war room in the Kirya — Israel’s version of the Pentagon — is buzzing. A few hours earlier, the Israeli government gave Palestinians living in Gaza 24 hours to move south for their own safety. How they were to do

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News WASHINGTON — As friends of Ukraine prepare for another NATO summit and another round of possible funding for Kiev, there are increasing warnings that the West is missing the larger picture of how Russian President Putin operates and how Moscow’s game plan is still afoot and pungent. “Our approach

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is upping its flow of land mine capability to Ukraine, looking the other way to the questionable use of land mines by both Ukraine and Russia in the current conflict. Cold War style anti-tank ladies are included in the latest military assistance package, $325 million, 

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News BRUSSELS – In 1914, as troops invading France moved through this very region, those in charge of the defense of Paris scrambled to rush men and material to blunt that offensive. They had little time to react and threw everything they could find — including taxicabs — to get

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News WASHINGTON — In a Defense Department world where a “readout” — the name of the staid press release that portends to describe in detail a meeting or event — can be written weeks in advance, the idea of journalists being accused by Pentagon officials of trying to parse words

By Tom Squitieri Red Snow News WASHINGTON — Top European defense officials — feeling the heat of being closer to the front line of the 21st century European war — have moved beyond fretting to deep concern about diminishing weapons stockpiles in their militaries. While the Russian bear has been smacked around for the past

Almost every refugee crisis can claim to be the worst. The truth is, they all are.  Yet the one now ungluing in Myanmar and Bangladesh has dwarfed most others, the result of sinister, racist corruption that has leveled the crisis of desperate Rohingyas into historic tragedy.   To those who are there, trying to help,