Reporter Paul Szoldra broke a story about an insider attack in Syria that “the Pentagon denies ever happened,” and the DOD finally gave me a few pages of records on the incident over half a decade later.
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📑FOIA Dumps
Updated on July 30, 2025
Cpl. Cameron Halkovich (left), a combat engineer attached to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, assists another Marine up a steep hill during an urban assault May 16, 2017, at Range 200 aboard Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California. (Jesus Sepulveda Torres/U.S. Marine Corps)
Updated on July 28, 2025
Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Celiz helping clear debris with fellow soldiers following the aftermath of a hurricane. (Photo courtesy of Katie Celiz)
In 2018, the leader of a team of Army Rangers on patrol in southeastern Afghanistan used his body to shield a U.S. crew in the cockpit of a medical evacuation helicopter from enemy machine gun fire. It would cost him his life.
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Updated on July 28, 2025
Official Army photo of Sergeant First Class Johnnie Johnson. Johnson went missing after U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division questioned him about his university degrees in December 2015. (U.S. Army)
Things began to unravel in the summer of 2015, as investigators got wind of an alleged fraud. By that Christmas, Sergeant First Class Johnnie Johnson would be gone, never to be heard from again.
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Updated on July 28, 2025
Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee cradles an infant during the noncombatant evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, days before her death in an August 2021 suicide bombing. Gee was assigned to the Combat Logistics Battalion 24, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. (Isaiah Campbell/U.S. Marine Corps)
Phone calls—and donations—poured in to the nonprofit that flew Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee’s remains to Arlington National Cemetery after a since-discredited Fox News story prompted outrage.
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Updated on August 21, 2025
A Marine holds a urine sample during a II Marine Expeditionary Force-wide drug test at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. (Marine Corps photo/Daniel A. Wulz)
Army CID records seem to give us answers the spokespeople wouldn’t—proving yet again the incredible value of the Freedom of Information Act and other transparency laws.
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Updated on July 28, 2025
James Cockrill, a Navy recruit, plays "Valorant" against the Navy esports team, Goats & Glory, at an esports event during Kansas City Navy Week, June 29, 2021. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chris Williamson)
Navy documents, obtained under FOIA, reveal the service’s strategy for dealing with users trolling its eSports team on streaming services.
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Updated on July 28, 2025
Nigerien troops in first aid during Exercise Flintlock 2017 in Diffa, Niger. (Kulani Lakanaria/U.S. Army)
Awards records obtained under FOIA show the American soldiers were wounded in a June 2019 roadside bomb attack near a Nigerien weapons range, though officials initially said no one was harmed.
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Updated on July 28, 2025
U.S. forces practice convoy training with the Danab Brigade and the Kenya Defense Force (KDF) in Somalia, May 22, 2021. Special Operations Command Africa remains engaged with partner forces in Somalia in order to promote safety and stability across the Horn of Africa. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Zoe Russell)
Green Beret William Doyle is an impressive guy, to be sure. This week we got a glimpse of his combat leadership in a little-known battle in Somalia six years ago, thanks to FOIA records.
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