Word: pentagonal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...ground forces, stretching those serving in the Army and Marines and wearing out their gear at an unprecedented rate. So, it's no surprise that the nation's ground-pounders would be seeking the most from the ever-cooperative members of the House Armed Services Committee. For years, that Pentagon-pleasing panel has asked the services to send it a wish list - lawmakers prefer to call it an "unfunded requirements list" - of budget items they desire but which have not been approved by their penny-pinching civilian overseers, i.e. the Defense Secretary and the President...
...military is hardly starving. The Pentagon's proposed 2009 Defense Budget is twice the size of the budget President Bush inherited from Bill Clinton. Even without the nearly $200 billion for the wars, the $515 billion tab is on par with the defense budgets of World War II. "Today, free-flowing funding has fundamentally undermined all budget discipline in the Pentagon," says Gordon Adams, who oversaw military spending from a senior post in the Clinton White House...
...weeks after 9/11, TV broadcasters were beacons for edgy viewers. Few were more unflappable than former ABC News chief national-security correspondent John McWethy. After a plane crashed into the Pentagon, the Emmy-winning McWethy, then in the building, reported from a nearby lawn. Known for his fairness, wit, trove of sources and willingness to tell editors they were wrong, he counted among his admirers the most senior members of ABC and the Defense Department. McWethy, recently retired, died after sliding chest-first into a tree while skiing...
Just as the Pentagon failed to anticipate the duration and cost of the Iraq war, it has been woefully unprepared for the waves of wounded who return home needing care. Earnest, hardworking medical personnel haven't been able to handle the deluge. At Fort Knox, Cassidy and more than 200 other soldiers were placed in a newly created Warrior Transition Unit (WTU). The Army is spending $500 million this year on such units, in which troops operate as a military detachment and continue to be paid. After a 2007 Washington Post series focused attention on poor conditions at the service...
...some, such reforms come too late. Cassidy's death was the first in a string of at least three that led to urgent meetings at the Pentagon earlier this month on how to prevent them. They included soldiers who died in late January at WTUS in New York and Texas. Lieut. General Eric Schoomaker, the Army's top doctor, told TIME that easy access to drugs and lack of accountability played key roles in Cassidy's death. "If there's any good to come of this at all," Schoomaker said, "it's that we will work as hard...