Get Task & Purpose in your inbox
LATEST NEWS
MOST READ
The Marine Corps is changing its online training after this 'nonsense' slide drew ridicule on social media
Editor's Note: This article by Gina Harkins originally appeared on Military.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.
Marines are known to take to social media to make fun of some aspects of life in the Corps, but in one recent case, it's affecting change.
Marine dies in training accident at California mountain warfare center
A 21-year-old Marine died Sunday, Oct. 20, while training at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Center in Bridgeport, California, Marine Corps officials said.
Marine Corps confirms two 7-ton trucks collided in August, sending 30 Marines to the hospital
Editor's note: This article by Gina Harkins originally appeared on Military.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.
On Aug. 16, two 7-ton trucks collided aboard Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California. Thirty Marines were sent to the hospital.
The US is plotting one of its largest European military exercises since the Cold War
A massive military exercise in Europe involving 20,000 U.S.-based troops will kick off in February of next year, the Army officially announced on Monday.
Approximately 37,000 total service members will participate in Defender Europe 2020, including 20,000 U.S. troops and additional personnel from 18 other countries. Lt. Gen. Chris Cavoli, commander of U.S. Army Europe, told Defense News it will be the third largest exercise in Europe since the Cold War.
Soldiers say the Army’s relentless push for readiness is ‘breaking the force’ in leaked documents
According to an internal Army document, soldiers feel that the service's overwhelming focus on readiness is wearing down the force, and leading some unit leaders to fudge the truth on their unit's readiness.
"Soldiers in all three Army Components assess themselves and their unit as less ready to perform their wartime mission, despite an increased focus on readiness," reads the document, which was put together by the Army Transition Team for new Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville and obtained by Task & Purpose. "The drive to attain the highest levels of readiness has led some unit leaders to inaccurately report readiness."
Lt. Gen. Eric J. Wesley, who served as the director of the transition team, said in the document's opening that though the surveys conducted are not scientific, the feedback "is honest and emblematic of the force as a whole taken from seven installations and over 400 respondents."
Those surveyed were asked to weigh in on four questions — one of which being what the Army isn't doing right. One of the themes that emerged from the answers is that "[r]eadiness demands are breaking the force."
US troops are increasingly falling to heatstroke during training as the military braces for rising temperatures
The military has a climate change problem.
As global temperatures rise, the number of heat-related illness diagnoses of active-duty service members is rising as well, according to military data.
Statistics show a 60% increase of heatstroke or heat exhaustion cases between 2008 and 2018, from 1,766 to 2,792. Over that same stretch of time, at least 17 troops have died from heat-related complications during training exercises on bases in the U.S.
