The early reviews are in for “American Odyssey,” an NBC drama premiering Sunday night at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. Central) that tracks a female Army sergeant through a conspiracy-laden maze of big business, high treason, imprisonment and cyberwarfare. Sound complicated? It is — and that’s either good or bad, depending on the critic. Alessandra Stanley at The New York Times calls the series “an exhilarating thriller,” lifted by the special relationship between Sgt. Odelle Ballard (Anna Friel) and Aslam (Omar Ghazaoui), the Muslim teenager assigned to guard her after her capture when the rest of her unit was wiped out … by American forces.…
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The story of the first cultural support team member to be killed in Afghanistan will be brought to the silver screen with the help of an Academy Award-winning actress, Deadline.com reported earlier this week. Fox 2000 teamed with Reese Witherspoon’s Pacific Standard production company to secure film rights for the upcoming book “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield,” according to the entertainment-news website. The title references 1st Lt. Ashley White, who was killed in a roadside bomb blast in Kandahar province’s Zhari district on Oct. 22, 2011. White was part of…
Residents of Estonia, stirred up by instigators in that nation’s news media, told U.S. soldiers exactly what they thought about their presence Tuesday in the Baltic nation as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve: Their simple message: “Welcome.” Also: “It gets cold here.” Responding to a request from the Estonian TV news magazine “Prillitoos” — “Sunglasses,” according to Google Translate — viewers knitted socks and mittens for members of Iron Troop, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, who are training in the region. More than 120 pairs of homemade warmth were delivered, according to a Facebook post from the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn,…
Deployments can stop Army parents from attending a child’s rites of passage, everything from birthdays to graduations to recitals to touchdowns. Such milestones are the kinds of things that can’t tag along into a war zone. Well, most of them can’t. Master Sgt. Ronald Hoover was in Afghanistan when his daughter, Jessica Boughan, was slated for promotion to sergeant first class. Not only did the 26-year veteran get to see it, he got to do it — the ceremony took place Sunday at Bagram Airfield. “This is the first big event that he has actually been able to be at so it’s pretty great,” Boughan…
Given all the creative, often disturbing, ways people have found to be impolite to one another over social media, one might think that revisiting old, nonsensical battles like “jocks vs. the marching band” would be unnecessary. One would be wrong. Jim Rome, host of a long-running nationally syndicated sports-talk radio show and “Jim Rome on Showtime,” took to Twitter during the New Year’s Day onslaught of college football to post the following: “Is there anyone not in a marching band who thinks these dorks running around with their instruments are cool?” Reaction was swift, and among the bands and band…
First came a successful summer tasting. Then came the cans. Now, the former soldiers behind a Savannah, Georgia-based craft brewery have another reason to raise their glasses. Service Brewing Co., owned by West Point graduate and former Army Capt. Kevin Ryan, was named 2014’s business “Newcomer of the Year” by Business in Savannah, which profiled the brewery’s four-person team: Ryan, former captain and master brewer Dan Sartin, retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 and assistant brewer Jeff Hyatt, and Meredith Sutton, the creative marketing director and the only staffer without a military background. The local honor comes as Ryan continues his plans…
The story of the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor could hit movie theaters in 2016, with a director who’s no stranger to telling epic tales. Deadline.com reported last month that Mel Gibson, the action hero-turned-movie mogul-turned-controversy generation machine behind “Braveheart” and “Passion of the Christ” is in talks to direct “Hacksaw Ridge,” which would introduce modern movie-goers to Pfc. Desmond T. Doss, an Army medic whose service on Okinawa in the spring of 1945 is the stuff of legend. His Medal of Honor citation reads like a half-dozen citations pushed together. Among the highlights: As his unit reached the…
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…
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…
When retired Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry pinned the Bronze Star on retired Army Maj. Eric Phillips, it provided resolution to a long saga that began in Afghanistan in 2005. Phillips had waited years to tell Eikenberry his story, and he finally got the opportunity on Sept. 8 when both attended the screening of the National Geographic documentary “American War Generals.” In July 2005, Phillips was serving as commander of a convoy enroute from Kabul to Gardez when they ran into an ambush, he said. With his troops bogged down and taking fire, Phillips called in for air support. As…
