The War Horse

Decades after opening its ranks to women and minorities, naval aviation is still mostly staffed by white men. In interviews and documents reviewed by The War Horse, nearly two dozen current and former flight students and instructors painted the naval aviation training program as an environment that can be toxic for students who don’t fit a certain mold. They encounter a spectrum of discrimination—often by the instructors who grade them—ranging from biased assumptions to outright targeting. In the Marines, the least diverse of all the military branches, the atmosphere is particularly troubling.

Read the story here.

The War Horse

”Of the 335 Republican candidates on the ballot this November who have publicly denied or raised questions or doubts about the security of the 2020 election, 96 of them served in the military.

These veterans include high-ranking flag officers and decorated special operators, including Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and a Marine Raider, as well as Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipients. Some of them held up their military service as proof of their dedication to democracy, even as they questioned the legitimacy of the electoral process.”

Read the story & see the database here.

Photo: Senior Airman Donald Hudson/U.S. Air Force

Mother Jones/The War Horse

“‘They’ll kill you,’” Stanley says she was warned by fellow servicemembers who thought she might be at risk—because she is transgender.

It reminded her of conversations she’d had while deployed. “That’s the briefing you would get in Afghanistan or Iraq,” says Stanley, who served in Afghanistan in 2005. “I got it in Missouri.”

Read the story here.

Photo: Trish Alegre-Smith, courtesy of SoYourLife Photography.

The War Horse

"The military has relied for centuries on people born outside of the U.S. to fill its ranks. But there is no guaranteed path to citizenship for noncitizen immigrants who join the military. Veterans interviewed by The War Horse said that they had been told by recruiters their service would automatically confer citizenship.

That, Rudi Richardson said, is "a goddamn lie.""

Read the story here.

The War Horse

"What started as a quest for vengeance has erupted into a rank-and-file reckoning over how the military handles sexual assaults and who should drive the conversation about whether leadership is doing enough to address the problem.

"It’s just so pervasive," says Lindsey Knapp, a former Army victim advocate who now works with sexual assault survivors across all military branches. "And then once one person felt safe enough to whistleblow, they all just kind of—we finally hit the tipping point.""

Read the story here.

WIRED

“‘Beliefs can be hacked,’ Terp says. If you want to guard against an attack, she thought, you have to identify the weaknesses in the network. In this case, that network was the people of the United States.”

Read the story here.

Photo: Jovelle Tamayo

WIRED

“In early June, a member of the Russian dark web forum Exploit posted a message. ‘Selling access to a large hospital in the EU,’ the post read. The hospital had 5,000 employees and hundreds of servers.”

Read the story here.

Photo: Andrew Williams

The Outline

“In a parking lot in Allentown, Jason waited with her until a gray Jeep pulled up. He didn’t know who was inside. Ariel got out of Jason’s car and into the Jeep. It was the last time anyone saw her.”

Read the story here.

Inside Climate News/The War Horse

“Climate change makes everything the military already worries about worse. A shrinking polar ice cap doesn’t just mean thinking about polar bears. It means thinking about geopolitical dynamics and national security, as China and Russia build up their icebreaker fleet. It means thinking about humanitarian and environmental emergencies, as people move away from northern villages sinking into the permafrost and oil tankers start to transit through the Northwest Passage.”

Read the story here.

Photo: U.S. Marine Corps/Lance Cpl. Isaiah Gomez

WIRED

“Our immune systems and general well-being are shaped by the places where we spend most of our time. Even things that we might think of as mere annoyances—the drone of an officemate’s phone conversation, the light that won’t stop flickering—impact our health. There’s a reason they’re annoying.”

Read the story here.

The Verge/Topic

“In 2018, what is left to explore in the world? It seems unlikely, say, that humans might find an untouched forest to study, someplace that hasn’t been bulldozed and burnt and exploited within an inch of its life for precious minerals or virgin timber. But that’s exactly what happened this past spring.”

Read the story here.

The New York Times

“It was Charlie Bucket’s first trip to the movies, and he dressed up for the occasion. Looking sharp in a flowered bow tie, he glanced around the historic theater and took in his surroundings. Then, without warning, he tried to crawl under the stage.”

Read the story here.

The New York Times

“The night before the April 15 Patriots’ Day protest, Mr. Lawrence stayed up most of the night making sandwiches. Before he headed out to meet up with other anti-fascists, he grabbed a box of matzos, too — it was Passover. “

Read the story here.

Atlas Obscura

“The discussions at the meetings covered the minutiae of Helvetica Man’s many escapades as the designers placed him in the various situations needed to convey messages to travelers. His posture as he sits in a waiting room chair was of concern, and the notes on the Waiting Room symbol are filled with maternal chiding: ‘Make person sit up straight.’”

Read the story here.