explosion

On this day in history: The Sultana steamboat explodes, killing over 1,500

April 27, 1865 — The Sultana was overcrowded with almost 2,000 recently released Union soldiers that had been held by the Confederacy. They were packed into the steam boat as it powered up a relentless spring-time flood on the Mississippi river, and though it was cramped, many were probably happy to be there. After the […]

Suicide bomber kills scores of civilians in Kabul

Kabul, Afghanistan — An explosion ripped through Afghanistan‘s capital on Sunday, killing at least 57 people and wounding over a hundred as they lined up to register to vote. Reports indicated the deaths of five children and 21 women, though specific numbers of casualties are still rising and remain unclear. A suicide bomber had placed himself […]

The JASSM-ER: A look at Lockheed Martin’s new missiles used in Syria

Along with 57 Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAM), 19 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER) missiles were fired into chemical weapons targets in Syria this week, in both Damascus and Homs. The JASSM was developed by Lockheed Martin and fielded in 2009 — the extended range varient came into play in 2014. Much of […]

Afghan airstrike on madrassa, dozens reported killed

The Afghani Air Force conducted a targeted strike on a madrassa in Taliban territory in Northeast Afghanistan, in the Kunduz Province. Current news reports are circulating of over 50 killed and 150 wounded, though the reports have been particularly conflicting as time goes on — this has sparked international outrage, as many of the victims […]

Watch: ISIS-K commander killed in US SOF raid

The DOD recently released footage of U.S. Special Operations Forces conducting a raid against ISIS-K in Mughul, Darzab district, Jowzjan province, Afghanistan. What appears to be a platoon of U.S. Army Rangers, they can be seen loading up onto the MH-47, landing on target, followed by several explosions. It is difficult to discern exactly what the […]

Bombing at the US Embassy in Montenegro ends with only the attacker dead

According to multiple reports out of the region, the United States Embassy in Montenegro was attacked by a lone bomber late Wednesday night, who died in the effort. No other injuries have been reported. At approximately midnight local time, an unidentified man was seen throwing an explosive device over the wall of the U.S. embassy, […]

Watch: Royal Navy detonates 500 pound WWII bomb found at London City Airport

Bomb disposal experts from the Royal Navy transported a large, unexploded bomb down the River Thames on Monday night, then detonated it at sea. Airport security the world over has changed dramatically in the years since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, particularly in nations with close ties to the United States like the […]

TBIs and PTSD: The conflation between the two

Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are often used in the same sentence. Most people understand that they are not the same thing, but with the overlapping signs and symptoms, the fact that the prior can lead to the latter, and simply the geography of both injuries (the head), makes them […]

The basics of blast TBIs

Sgt. Zachary Mayne, former team leader of 3rd Ranger Battalion, has suffered two separate combat traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) during his deployments to Afghanistan. In an interview with SOFREP, he said that, …my second blast TBI definitely shifted my views on the whole issue. I only had headaches for a few days from the first, […]

Russia: Explosion injures 4 at St. Petersburg supermarket

Russian news reports say at least four people have been injured by an explosion at a supermarket in St. Petersburg. Russian news agencies quoted St. Petersburg’s branch of the Emergencies Ministry as saying that a device containing 200 grams of explosives went off on Wednesday at a storage area for customers’ bags. No one has […]

Argentina’s Military of Defense Releases Timeline of Missing Submarine

The Ministry of Defense of Argentina released a more detailed timeline for their missing submarine on Tuesday. The military said that the captain of the vessel reported that water had entered thru the ship’s snorkel causing a battery to short-circuit before an explosion-like anomaly was detected underwater 10 hours later near the ship’s last known […]

Write it all down: a cathartic way to handle the after-effects of combat

Write it down. Not to sell–there are plenty of non-fiction veteran authors chomping at the bit to share their combat experiences with the world. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. The last mission of my last deployment was pretty hairy. Without getting into it, people died […]