First, watch the video. Then, get a good excuse ready in case somebody sees you starting to tear up. After that, some back story: http://vimeo.com/99466249 The video of Sgt. Joey and Michelle Johnson dancing at their wedding has been online since their summer nuptials, but it gained serious traction recently thanks to an ABC News report about the couple published on Veterans Day. The groom met his future bride at a country music concert in 2012, a few weeks after returning from a 10-month deployment to Afghanistan, ABC News reported. He injured his spine in a motorcycle wreck in August of that year, Michelle Johnson…
Author Kevin Lilley
Football fans at Fort Benning, Georgia, will have the chance to be a part of live NFL pregame broadcasts on Sunday from York Field, then stick around to watch the games on a jumbo screen. Fox Sports NFL reporter Jay Glazer tops the list of personalities who’ll broadcast live from Benning as part of the network’s salute to veterans, with segments airing on the “Fox NFL Sunday” broadcast that begins at noon as well as “Fox NFL Kickoff,” which airs earlier on the Fox Sports 1 cable network. Glazer’s no stranger to military outreach, having visited troops in Afghanistan, Qatar…
An airline apologized over the weekend after a flight attendant’s reported refusal to hang up a decorated noncommissioned officer’s dress uniform jacket because the NCO wasn’t flying first class. Passengers on the US Airways flight from Portland, Oregon, to Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday relayed details of the situation to Charlotte’s WSOC-TV and other media outlets. According to reports, 1st Sgt. Albert Marle accepted the flight attendant’s rejection quietly, but other passengers didn’t, including some in first class who offered their seats to the NCO. Marle, 33, a member of the Virginia Army National Guard, is a Ranger- and Special…
The team behind the canceled Fox sitcom “Enlisted” will trade in fictional Fort McGee for a super-sized keyboard and a coin-operated fortune teller. Kevin Biegel and Mike Royce will produce and write a TV adaptation of “Big,” the 1988 coming-of-age-in-a-hurry movie starring Tom Hanks, according to reports from Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter. The show reportedly would air as an “event series,” meaning it likely would have a predetermined end date — unlike the commotion that surrounded the pair’s previous project. The move comes after extensive, but ultimately unsuccessful, negotiations between 20th Century Fox Television and Yahoo to bring…
Despite continuing, stellar support from America’s high school guidance counselors, the U.S. Military Academy slipped seven spots on this year’s U.S. News Best Colleges rankings for national liberal arts colleges, falling out of a three-way tie for 17th last year and into a three-way tie for 24th with Macalester College of St. Paul, Minnesota, and Scripps College of Claremont, California. West Point finished second in the service-academy race, with the Naval Academy ranking 13th (down from 12th last year). The schools also finished 1-2 in selectivity: Annapolis accepted just 7.4 percent of its 2013 applicant pool, according to U.S. News, while…
At first look (and listen), Army football’s slick 2014 introductory video has all the standard fare of preseason hype, including in no particular order: Explosions. Players in a dimly lit studio modeling new uniforms and trying to look imposing. A head coach twirling a football on his finger and giving the camera a look that all but screams, “Are you sure I have to twirl this football? Can’t I just look imposing?” Assorted highlights, quick cuts and logos, all set to a powerful soundtrack. More explosions. An introduction from a famous alumnus. And that’s where the similarities between Army’s video…
Service members who joined up when the first full-length episode of “The Simpsons” hit the air have been eligible to retire for about five years. And while the long-running animated series rarely dabbles in military-themed humor, it’s tough for any scripted television to go a quarter-century without somebody stealing a tank, somebody else entering into a blood pact over World War II plunder, and somebody else becoming a red-team leader in an Army war game through a series of inexplicable circumstances. It’s simple math. FXX recently secured the rights to the show’s massive back catalog, and it’s celebrating by airing…
You’ve probably heard about the distinguished member of the Kennedy family who challenged a prominent politician, one who’s been frequently targeted by the military social media community, to dump ice water over his head as a way to support a worthy cause. If not, click here to read up, because this is something completely different: [HTML1] That’s UFC fighter, Texas Army National Guardsman and noted Internet thespian Tim Kennedy, taking what appears to be a cold shower and issuing a challenge to Jesse Ventura to “donate some money to the Heroes Project.” Ventura, whose logic-defying career arc already includes Navy…
First the video, then some backstory. Key quote: “It’s not as black-and-white as they said it was going to be.” [HTML1] “Camp X-Ray” will hit theaters Oct. 17, and despite multiple stories in the entertainment media praising star Kristen Stewart for this departure from the vampire-vs.-werewolf genre, the buzz hasn’t been particularly kind. The film is batting just above .500 with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with one asking whether stellar efforts from Stewart and co-star Peyman Maadi “outweigh a scenario that feels written by a politically outraged 12-year-old.” The above trailer, however, has drawn some interest — more than 3.5 million…
To say that the Miami Dolphins’ new team credo borrows slightly from a familiar Army ethos would be like saying the team had a bit of a locker room communication issue last year. But as part of the organization’s recovery from bullying accusations, suspensions and an 8-8 season, players have penned what The Associated Press called “a credo of togetherness,” which was emblazoned on some of the T-shirts being worn by Dolphins after a recent practice. As other websites have already pointed out, the credo clearly patterns itself after the Soldier’s Creed, including some passages lifted either directly (“I will never…
