afghanistan
Recession recruits
The most impressive aspect of the figures released this week was not the quantity, but the quality of recruits. The Army stopped issuing waivers to people convicted of assault, arson or robbery in April, and extended the period of ineligibility after a failed drugs test. Almost 96% of this year’s intake finished high school, compared with just 83% last year.
Frontline PTSD
“You have to understand how desperate a person has to be to seek help, leave, get a gun and go back to kill. It wasn’t on his mind when he went there to take somebody’s life, but something snapped inside of him to where his mental pain became unbearable and he thought that maybe lashing out at people would bring attention to the fact that he was injured.”
The Lost Veterans
Advocacy groups estimate that at least 1,500 veterans from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are sleeping rough in America’s cities. Have the lessons of Vietnam been learned?
Afghan films at Tribeca
This item was broadcast on BBC World Service radio, in April 2007.
The Tribeca Film festival, founded by Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal to regenerate Lower Manhattan following the September the 11th attacks, is in its sixth year. As ever, the organisers have tried to strike a balance between attention-grabbing blockbusters – such as the [...]
