Luke Ryan

When most people think of labor trafficking, they think of modern day slavery. They imagine that if a trafficker were to go to great lengths to secure human beings for illegal labor, they would work them as hard as humanly possible — and often a bit harder than that. This is true, and it happens […]

Brokering peace between the Taliban and the Afghan government has been a recent trend discussed by officials on all sides of the conflict in the Afghan war — the United States, the Afghans, and even the Taliban have all expressed some level of interest in this future. This is not a process that will materialize […]

He comes to the platoon, the first week on the job. He is five minutes late to a briefing with the 1st Sgt. since he was busy working out the logistics of the new truck he just bought (which has an APR that’s through the clouds). He’s not good at PT, but you think that […]

Mastung, Balochistan, Pakistan — Yet another explosion from a suicide bomber tore through Pakistan on Friday, killing scores of local Pakistanis. The death toll has currently risen to 132, a devastating blow to the entire country. Over 300 people are reported to have been injured. The attack occurred at a Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) rally […]

It was the end of my first deployment, and we had a certain number of materials that we needed to get rid of — among those materials were several types of explosives. We built a charge (an explosive) that would undoubtedly take care of every last piece of those materials, and we walked back two […]

If you haven’t seen the movie, don’t spoil it here — watch it first, then come back. When I heard that “Sicario” was getting a sequel, my first question was “why?” The first film was great, but was a sequel really necessary? “Sicario” had a pretty definitive beginning, middle, and end and was certainly not […]

Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Andrew Celiz, a U.S. Army Ranger from 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, was killed in action on Thursday. He died of wounds sustained by small arms fire in Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Sources say that there were approximately 40 enemy combatants killed in action on the objective. There they were “conducting operations […]

The Department of Defense has changed the stipulations in regards to transferring the GI Bill to the service member’s family members. In the past, the primary stipulation was that the service member had to serve at least six years before their GI Bill could be applied to their spouse or children. This has remained the […]

Propaganda has existed in countless forms throughout history, as those in positions of power have tended to try to sway the public opinion one way or another in order to achieve certain goals. This facet of human nature has not changed much in the last few thousand years, only their methods. People tend to argue […]

Human beings have used markings to denote ownership since before written language. They still use it on livestock, like a brand or a tag on cattle. Unfortunately, they have historically done this to other human beings as well — sometimes it’s in the form of brands or scarring, sometimes it’s in the form of tattoos. […]

Peshawar — A suicide bomb ripped through a political rally in Pakistan on Tuesday night. 20 people were killed, and approximately 63 were wounded. Among the dead was the politician Haroon Bilour, 47, of the Awami National Party. The Taliban in Pakistan (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP) have claimed responsibility for the attack. The Pakistan general […]

For those who have not yet heard: all the kids and their soccer coach have been rescued from the caves. All remaining rescue personnel have made it back to safety. The kids and their coach are now receiving medical attention, and all rescue operations are being broken down. The world basically just gave a collective […]