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US Military

A single counterfeit component in the supply chain is all it takes to turn a fine-tuned aircraft launching system from an asset to a safety hazard.

How Nanoscale ‘Signatures’ Could Keep Counterfeit Parts Out of Military Equipment

Navy scientist Alison Smith will describe her novel authentication system at Smithsonian’s Military Invention Day

Granville Coggs

Granville Coggs Fought Racism in the Military as a Tuskegee Airman

Coggs, who died on May 7, at the age of 93, was among the first black aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps

The 404th AFS Band pictured in Fort Des Moines

Seventy-Five Years Ago, the Military’s Only All-Black Female Band Battled the War Department and Won

The women of the 404th Armed Service Forces band raised morale and funds for the military, but they had to fight discrimination to do so

Alcatraz's recreation yard, where the structures were discovered.

Cool Finds

Radar Scans Reveal Traces of 19th-Century Fort Beneath Alcatraz

Before Capone took up residence, the island was home to military installation that guarded San Francisco Bay

An American infantry camp in Siberia, Russia, December 1918

World War I: 100 Years Later

The Forgotten Story of the American Troops Who Got Caught Up in the Russian Civil War

Even after the armistice was signed ending World War I, the doughboys clashed with Russian forces 100 years ago

Operation Ranch Hand has led to a multi-generational health crisis and an environmental catastrophe.

Trending Today

Court Rules ‘Blue Water’ Vietnam Veterans Are Eligible for Agent Orange Benefits

Sailors had long been excluded from health benefits related to the dioxin-tainted herbicide the military spread during the war

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America at War

This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism

The infographic reveals for the first time that the U.S. is now operating in 40 percent of the world’s nations

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Introducing Our Special Issue on America at War

The nation’s epic, expanding fight against terrorism overseas

Previously deployed service members raise their hands at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

America at War

New Poll of U.S. Troops and Veterans Reveals Their Thoughts on Current Military Policies

In a new Smithsonian poll, conducted with the help of Stars and Stripes, current and former members of the armed forces take aim at conventional wisdom

A patrol returns to Forward Operating Base Tillman, in eastern Afghanistan. It was closed in 2012, the year after this double exposure was made.

America at War

The New Archaeology of Iraq and Afghanistan

The once-fortified outposts that protected U.S. troops are relics of our ambitions abroad

A dog-tag memorial at Old North Church in Boston, which has honored service members killed in the Iraq and Afghan wars since 2006, making it the oldest such memorial in the country

America at War

How Should We Memorialize Those Lost in the War on Terror?

Americans have erected countless monuments to wars gone by. But how do we pay tribute to the fallen in a conflict that might never end?

Drawing of a helicopter on a wall of a house located at the first American helicopter crash site in Mogadishu. The Somali word on the helicopter's side, kulva, is an attempt to spell the word "Cobra," which was one kind of helicopter used to attack the village.

America at War

The Legacy of Black Hawk Down

Twenty-five years after the battle chronicled in the best-selling book, the author argues that we’ve learned the wrong lessons about fighting terrorism

Army Reservist Xiao Meng Sun, who left China six years ago, believes that military training teaches one to meet challenges.

Fighting to Be American

For centuries immigrants who served in the military could become American citizens. But are the women and men pictured here among the last?

Kristi Casteel holds her son Joshua Casteel's dog tags.

America at War

The Priest of Abu Ghraib

Inside Iraq’s most notorious prison, an Army interrogator came face to face with a shocking truth about the war—and himself

Dyngo served three tours in Afghanistan before retiring to Washington, D.C.

America at War

The Story of Dyngo, a War Dog Brought Home From Combat

I brought a seasoned veteran of the conflict in Afghanistan into my home—and then things got wild

A member of the U.S. Army 3/187th Scouts from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, takes a break at a bombed out building on April 12, 2002, at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan.

A Veteran Combat Photographer Recalls His Most Memorable Shots

Originally stuck in a darkroom, Jeremy Lock traveled the world capturing life on the front lines and the homefront

At Fort Sill, Oklahoma, you can see "Atomic Annie," the first and only cannon to ever fire a nuclear shell.

This Veterans Day, Visit America’s Top Military Sites

A new book offers a guide to the museums, bases and once-secret locations that reveal America’s complex military history

From left to right: Sgt. Harold J. Higginbottom, Brigadier General Amos A. Fries, 2nd Lt. Thomas Jabine

World War I: 100 Years Later

How Three Doughboys Experienced the Last Days of World War I

The end of the war was a welcome reprieve for these three American soldiers, eager to return home

View of the National Veterans Memorial and Museum from above.

A New Museum Honoring America’s Veterans Opens in Ohio

Personal stories take the place of military artifacts at the new National Veterans Memorial & Museum

In July 1942, the "Lost Squadron," a unit consisting of two B-17 bomber planes and six P-38 fighters, landed on a remote Greenlandic glacier

Cool Finds

The Wreck of a WWII Fighter Plane Will Be Unearthed from a Greenland Glacier

The P-38 fighter is a member of the famed Lost Squadron, which landed on ice caps after running afoul of poor weather in July 1942

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