Author Joe Gould

If you’re looking for a smart take on military sexual harassment and assault, as well as the awful recent sex scandal at West Point, look no further than Donna McAleer, the author of Porcelain on Steel: Women of West Point’s Long Gray Line. Today McAleer lectures on leadership, but she has worn many hats. She was a Cold War-era Army officer after graduating in 1987 as president of her West Point class, she ran for Congress in Utah in 2012 and she was a member of competed in trials for the United States Olympic Women’s Bobsled team. Leadership, unsurprisingly, is where she…

I remember thinking, “Fifteen minutes is a long time.” At least it seemed like a long time to be hooked up to a blue mask, make Darth Vader noises and lie alone in a room staring at the ceiling. In the middle of reporting from Aberdeen Proving Ground Md., on the Army’s wellness centers — where preventative health tips are dispensed to soldiers and civilian employees — I volunteered to be hooked up to the clinic’s metabolic testing machine. This was part an abbreviated version of a service available to soldiers and Army civilians. In an effort to cut the potential long-term…

[HTML1] Commander, yes. Commander-in-chief, no. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno said he won’t run for president or governor of his native New Jersey, citing his plans to retire from public life but not public service. “I’m not sure I would be best suited to serve in public office, but I — you know I might find different ways to stay involved after I retire, in order to continue to move forward with the issues that I think are important to our national security,” Odierno said May 1 at a town hall meeting with troops in Vincenza, Italy. It…

Army Secretary John McHugh said a congressman who got into a verbal confrontation with Gen. Raymond Odierno over soldiers’ access to intel analysis software was, “not correct.” “The example that was used was not correct,” McHugh said at a breakfast with reporters this morning. “The Army did not reject the operational needs statement referenced in the congressman’s comments. In fact, the commanding general ultimately withdrew it.” Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Odierno had gotten into an argument at a Capitol Hill hearing last week after Hunter asserted the Army has stifled requests downrange for a competing system offered by the…

An Idaho reservist and his dad plan to bike 1,800 miles to protest the Boy Scouts of America ban on gay members and troop leaders, according to a report by KIFI-TV News. Spc. Joe McGrath and his dad Dave, a former intel officer who served in Gulf War I, plan to bike from Idaho to the the scouts’ headquarters in Irving, Texas. Dave McGrath, a lifelong scout, told KIFI two of his six sons are gay, as his brother–a former Eagle Scout. “I love the Boy Scouts,” he said. “I wish them all the best, and yet they discriminate against…

As the same-sex spouse of the Army’s first openly gay general, Tracey Hepner’s attendance at the State of the Union address tonight as a guest of the First Lady will be the pinnacle of a long journey. “Less than two years ago, I couldn’t exist, and tonight I am an invited guest, to sit beside the first lady in her box and personally witness the message of her husband,” Hepner told Army Times. “It is incredible.” That journey includes Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal, implementation of that repeal, the launch of her organization the Military Partners and Families Coalition, and…

[HTML1] Medal of Honor recipient Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha’s son played peek-a-boo behind the president’s podium and eluded efforts to corral him in this adorable video. Or perhaps leadership is in his genes, and behind the podium was the natural place for him. His grandfather is a Vietnam War veteran, his great-grandfather is a World War II veteran who fought in the Battle of Normandy, and two of his uncles joined the military like his dad. [AP video via YouTube]