US Army to teach combat lifesaving to new recruits

The Washington Post has an article about the US Army increasing the amount of first aid training that recruits are given during basic training. Previously only specially selected soldiers in each unit were given the training.

The new skill training is comprised of about one week of the soldiers' nine-week training program, and follows only rifle marksmanship and physical training in the time devoted to it.

Gays in British military not really news

The International Herald-Tribune has an article on gays in the British military. Homosexuals have been allowed to serve openly since 2000 and the article reports that no serious problems have been reported.

Nonetheless, the issue is extremely sensitive right now. The military does not want to be seen bragging about the success of its policy when the issue still can cause so much anguished debate in America.

The Modern Foreign Legion

The Washington Post as an article on the modern day French Foreign Legion.

Once an almost exclusively European force, the Legion now counts Asians and Latin Americans among its fastest-growing cadres of soldiers. Although French law forbids the Legion to actively recruit beyond French borders, the Internet has rendered the law almost meaningless.

COIN for beginners

The blog Black Five has a posting that explains counterinsurgency in terms that normal people can understand.

Profile of a cook

The Kingston Whig-Standard has an article profiling a cook serving with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. A former member of the infantry, Master Corporal Dave Dore has previously worked as a cook on the plane the military uses to fly the Prime Minister.

CSE in Afghanistan

The Torch has a blog post about the activities of the Communications Security Establishment in Afghanistan. The relatively unknown CSE is essentially the Canadian equivalent of the US NSA or the British GCHQ and is responsible for gathering intelligence by monitoring communications. The article describes their operations intercepting the communications of the Taliban.

Leave in the Canadian Forces

The Halifax Chronicle-Herald has an article about how leave works for Canadian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. Essentially each soldier on a six month deployment gets roughly 18 days of leave and C$3,145 to spend on travel. Many soldiers return to Canada during their time off but others travel to exotic destinations around the world.

Walmart has its own intelligence agency

According to this article in Business Week, Walmart is hiring intelligence officers for a unit in its global security office.

The job description includes collecting information from "professional contacts" and public data to anticipate and assess threats stemming from "world events, regional/national security climates, and suspect individuals and groups."

"Familiarity with a broad spectrum of information resources and data-mining techniques" is listed among the skills sought, along with a foreign language, preferably Chinese or Spanish.

via Global Guerillas