"Swim call" is a rare treat that can sometimes be experienced on deployments out at sea. The military tradition allows sailors to take a breather and enjoy the open ocean as their own private swimming pool. These clips show some of the swim calls enjoyed by the US Navy and Marines, including leaps from some of the top decks.
Produced by Justin Gmoser
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Thousands of transgender Americans serve in the United States military and armed forces, but until now, those in uniform served in secret. The Pentagon announced an end to the ban on transgender service members.
Produced by Jenner Deal
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In May 2015, Robert Kugler's dog Bella was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, an advanced form of bone cancer, and given three to six months to live after having one of her legs amputated. Today, she's kayaking on the Florida Bayou, frolicking across beaches on the Georgia coast, and leaving three-legged paw prints in New Hampshire snow.
Kugler, a Marine vet that had just finished school, decided to take Bella on the trip of a lifetime as a farewell after her diagnosis — but 14 months later, Bella is thriving. The trip has become an opportunity for them to focus on the present, spend time together, and take lots of adorable pictures.
The veteran has found that being around Bella aids his struggles with depression and suicidal ideation. "What I am doing, being with my dog and exploring life together, is saving my life," Kugler wrote on his blog on January 3rd.
So far, they've been all over the United States, hitting up the Northeast and currently splashing around on Florida's Gulf Coast.
Wherever these two go next, they'll always have each other.
You can follow their adventures on Instagram.
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The 1930s and 1940s were a time of upheaval for the US and the world at large.
Reeling from the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the world soon faced a greater disaster with World War II, which lasted from 1939 to 1945. Though the US did not enter into the war officially until after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the global war still affected the country.
The following photos, from the US Library of Congress, give us a rare glimpse of life in the US during World War II in color. They show some of the amazing changes that the war helped usher into the US, such as women in the workforce and the widespread adoption of aerial and mechanized warfare.
SEE ALSO: These amazing colorized photographs bring World War I to life
The human brain and body function differently under the extreme stress of combat than they do under normal circumstances. Former West Point psychology professor Lt. Col. Dave Grossman teamed up with the website Task & Purpose to explain how soldiers' bodies respond to the pressures of a war zone.
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For over 30 years, the M1 Abrams tank has been a staple of the US military's arsenal. It continues to be an unstoppable force on the battlefield.
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The commander of Marine units across the Middle East sees opportunities for the Corps to take on more missions in the region that would typically be tasks for special operations forces.
In a recent interview with Military.com, Lt. Gen. William Beydler, commander of Marine Corps Central Command, said there were multiple traditional special operations mission sets that competent Marines could take on, freeing up the forces for more specialized undertakings.
"I'm not for a moment suggesting that Marine capabilities and SOF capabilities are the same, that's not my point, but I do think, and I think that SOF would agree, that some of the missions they're executing now could be executed by well-trained and disciplined general purpose forces like U.S. Marines," Beydler said.
Marines maintain a constant presence in the Middle East between Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Central Command, a roughly 2,300-man unit that operates across six Middle Eastern countries with an emphasis on supporting the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
They also operate consistently in the region off amphibious ships attached to Marine Expeditionary Units, or MEUs, that routinely provide presence in the Persian Gulf.
Beydler, who assumed the command in October 2015, said these Marines could take on quick-response force operations, security missions, maritime and land raids, and ship visit-board-search-seizure operations, all of which Marines train to do as part of the MEU pre-deployment workup.
"There's a range of things Marines are especially well trained to do -- they can offer up capabilities that might free SOF forces to do other things," Beydler said. "We're not trying to encroach on what they do, but we think that we can be better utilized at times and free them up to do even more than SOF does right now."
Beydler said the Marine Corps was already stepping into some of these roles, though he demurred from specifics.
In one instance that may illustrate this utilization of conventional troops, Reuters reported in May that "a very small number" of U.S. forces were deployed into Yemen to provide intelligence support in response to a United Arab Emirates request for aid in the country's fight against Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
While the Defense Department did not identify the service to which these troops belonged, officials told Reuters that the amphibious assault ship Boxer -- part of the deployed 13th MEU -- had been positioned off the coast of Yemen to provide medical facilities as needed.
In a January fragmentary order, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller emphasized his desire to see Marines operate more closely with SOF troops and develop a deeply collaborative working relationship.
To this end, six-man special operations forces liaison elements, or SOFLEs, began to deploy with MEUs in 2015 to improve communication between Marines and SOF forces downrange and coordinate efforts. Beydler said professional rapport had increased as a result of these small liaison teams.
"A part of this is again developing professional relationships, developing professional respect and having SOF appreciate that which Marines can do," he said.
Currently, he said, the Marine Corps is considering creating SOFLEs for the Marines' land-based Middle East task force. While there is no timeline to test out the creation of new liaison elements, Beydler said the unit informally looks for opportunities to coordinate with special ops in this fashion.
"I think that we've valued the SOFLEs at the MEU level," he said. "We'll continue to work with SOF to see if we can't have more of these liaisons, more of those touch points."
SEE ALSO: US Army special forces accepts its first female candidates
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A Marine Corps pilot was killed Thursday when an F/A-18C Hornet went down during training near Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, Marine officials announced today.
The pilot and aircraft were attached to 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, out of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Marine spokesman Maj. Christian Devine said.
The identity of the pilot has not been released, pending a 24-hour period following notification of family members.
Officials said the cause of the crash is under investigation.
Speaking at a think tank event in Washington, D.C., on Friday, the Corps' top aviation officer, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, offered thoughts and prayers for the families of the pilot, adding that he didn't have all the details about the incident.
While Marine officials have testified this year that readiness challenges have resulted in significant reductions in flight hours for Marine pilots across nearly every aviation platform, Davis said he did not believe that was a contributing factor in the tragedy.
"I track [flight hours] each week. This particular unit was doing OK," he said. He said he did not believe that reduced flight hours had made squadrons less safe, but he said the Corps was "not as proficient as we should be" in its aviation component.
This is the second fatal Hornet crash for the Marine Corps in the last 12 months. In October 2015, a Marine pilot was killed when a 3rd MAW F/A-18C aircraft attached to Marine Attack Fighter Squadron 232 crashed near Royal Air Force airfield Lakenheath in England during a flight from Miramar to Bahrain.
SEE ALSO: Watch the Marines' F-35 fire an 80-round burst from its gun pod for the first time
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NOW WATCH: This video proves the US Navy and US Marine Corps have the best diving boards and swimming pools
Former Army Ranger Jack Murphy reveals the difference between covert and clandestine operations and how it relates to the raid that led to the death of Osama Bin Laden.
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Most people think of Air Force One when they picture the president traveling in style. However, President Obama himself recently stated in an interview with GQ that it may actually be Marine One, the Marine Corps aircraft, that he will miss most.
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The Marine Corps is actively testing a robotic system outfitted with sensors and cameras that can be armed with an M240 machine gun. It's meant to keep Marines safe, but can do a lot more.
There's also another big brother to this robotic system that's even bigger and can be equipped with a powerful minigun.
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Former Marine officer Elliot Ackerman is now an accomplished author living in Istanbul, but prior to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he considered himself a "fortunate son" of privilege who chose to serve while many of his peers did not.
"The best and the brightest didn’t show up for Vietnam. And I understand. I get that it was an unpopular war," he told photographer Brandon Stanton for his popular Humans of New York project."But they chose to not show up and there was a consequence for that. There were leadership failures. Standards were lowered and people were killed because of bad decisions."
He graduated from Tufts University in 2003 and decided to join the Marine Corps as an infantry officer. He was assigned as a platoon commander in 1st Battalion, 8th Marines.
"I was a fortunate son of this country," Ackerman told Stanton. "I went to a private school. I graduated from a great college. A lot of the guys who served under me didn’t have those advantages. They relied on me to make tough decisions in dangerous situations. And I’m glad I was there to make those decisions."
One of those tough decisions came in Nov. 2004, during the bloody second Battle of Fallujah during the Iraq War. He and his platoon of 45 men moved across a highway in the middle of the night on Nov. 10 to establish a fighting position in what they called "the candy store."
It was only about 150 meters away from the rest of his company.
"The guys were excited at first because the place was filled with chips and soda," he said. "And we were starving and thirsty. But all hell broke loose when the sun came up."
At dawn, the insurgents had figured out where they were and surrounded them, while opening fire on the platoon with everything they had. The Marines were getting razed by AK-47 and RPG fire from all sides, with every exit blocked.
"You couldn’t even poke your head out," he said. "We were pinned down all day. And suddenly my company commander is on the radio saying that we’ve got to advance. And I’m shouting into the radio over the gunfire that we're probably going to die if we leave the store. I’m shouting so loud and for so long that I lost my voice for four days. But he’s saying that we have no choice."
He repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire while trying to pull wounded Marines to safety, and coordinated four separate medical evacuations, despite being wounded by shrapnel himself.
In order to get out, he ordered his men to set up explosives on a back wall. Once it blew, he and his men — with more than half the platoon having been wounded — were able to escape, alive.
"Twenty-five guys were wounded, but everyone survived," he said. "A lot of that was luck. And a lot of that was our platoon and how good those guys were. But I also feel that my decisions mattered that day. And if I had decided not to serve, and stayed home, it could've ended much worse. So no, I don't have any regrets about going to Iraq."
He was awarded the Silver Star for his heroics in the battle, along with the Purple Heart for his wounds. He later received the Bronze Star for valor in 2008 while leading a Marine special operations team in Afghanistan.
Humans of New York is featuring a number of stories from veterans on its page, in partnership with non-profit The Headstrong Project (Full disclosure: The author is a friend of the executive director).
See more of Ackerman's story below:
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NOW WATCH: Watch the Marines' F-35 fire an 80-round burst from its gun pod for the first time
A.J. Tata, author of Three Minutes to Midnight, is a retired general in the US Army. He explains what kind of enemy attack would do the most damage to America.
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Retired Air Force Colonel JV Venable, author of Breaking the Trust Barrier, flew nearly 100 combat missions over Iraq in the F-16. He is a graduate of the elite Air Force Fighter Weapons School, also known as Top Gun. Colonel Venable explains what the movie got wrong.
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Everyone remembers the 1980s war movies with their action-packed jungle sequences and grunt lifestyle. “Full Metal Jacket,” “Hamburger Hill,” “Apocalypse Now,” and others were products of the most recent conflict at the time — the Vietnam War.
Today, movies like “Black Hawk Down,” “American Sniper,” and others represent the wars of this generation. It seems like the only jungle fighting Americans get into nowadays is in video games. But just because U.S. troops aren’t involved in a jungle conflict right now doesn’t mean its troops don’t train for it.
Armando Nava, a Marine and fitness enthusiast stationed in Okinawa, Japan, captured his jungle warfare training on his GoPro camera. The video, “Military Real Life FIRST PERSON SHOOTER | Jungle Warfare Experience,” is exactly what you’d expect.
SEE ALSO: The craziest small-arms maneuvers by South Korean SWAT, in 9 GIFs
