"Why Do So Many Dictators Use Scud Missiles?" by Brian Palmer - Slate.com

Good question, I'm going to guess it has something to do with them being cheap and also resistant to sand.

http://www.slate.com/id/2301847/

"Coming Together to Fight for a Troubled Veteran" by Erica Goode - NYTimes.com

A touching story from the front page of the Times. This ex-Marine basically tried to commit suicide by cop a while back, and could have gone to jail for a long time, but the cop he attacked, and his case judge and his lawyer figured out a way to get him the psychological help he needs instead of just giving him hard time. Now they're using his case as the legal framework to help out the thousands of GI's suffering from PTSD who are coming home by the plane load. Pretty cool.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/us/18vets.html?_r=2&hp

"What I Did on My Summer Vacation: Inside the Hunt for Ratko Mladic" by Scott Anderson - Esquire.com

This story is insane. A bunch of pretty serious journalists are all on vacation in Eastern Europe. One night they get drunk and decide to go catch one of the world's most wanted war criminals in his remote Serbian hideout where he is surrounded by 70 bodyguards. They have no guns. Or training. Or after too much of whatever the hell they call booze in Serbia, rational thought. Suffice to say, the CIA got involved. Quickly.

http://www.esquire.com/features/summer-vaction-1000

"A Year at War: The Chaos of War, Up Close" by James Dao - NYTimes.com

Wowowow. Just read this article after a Poopreader sent it to me. Great stuff. The bulk of the story is on soldiers wearing helmet cams during missions in Iraq and Afghanistan (complete with a really cool video of a firefight). But the good stuff--and by good, I mean dramatically good, there's nothing actually good about it--comes at the end. Read this article all the way through.

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/a-year-at-war-the-chaos-of-war-up-close/?partner=rss&emc=rss

thanks to Swankie

"Do I Have Knees?" by Brian Mockenhaupt - The Atlantic.com

Brian Mockenhaupt is a former U.S. infantryman who is now a pretty accomplished writer. He's always got unique angles on things, mostly because of his unique experience. Here he writes a haunting piece on a front line hospital in Afghanistan. Buckle up.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/04/at-frontline-hospital-afghan-wars-toll-is-deeply-felt/237787/

"Tim Hetherington's Last Interview" by Rob Haggart - Outsideonline.com

So as many of you have probably heard, sadly, award-winning photographer Tim Hetherington was killed in Libya this past week while taking photos of the uprising there. Hetherington was a rising star in his field and won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 2007 for the linked shot. He also co-directed the gripping Afghanistan war documentary Restrepo along with Perfect Storm author Sebastian Junger. Also, by all accounts he was an exceptional guy—one who was just out there taking big risks for big rewards, trying to peer into the soul of war fighters the world over with his camera.

Here is the last interview he did before he died.

http://outsideonline.com/adventure/travel-ga-tim-hetherington-last-interview-sidwcmdev_155784.html