Joshua Skovlund

The first Americans awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest U.S. valor award for combat, were two nurses in World War I.

Armed with a three-and-a-half-foot-long bamboo stick with a slit cut on one end, a 14-inch World War II Japanese bayonet, and a silenced .38 Special revolver pistol, Nicholas “Nick” Sanza was deep underground in the Viet Cong tunnel system. He was wearing the same black pajamas of his enemy, strictly ate their food, and used their skills to hear in the dark what his eyes could not see.

The Army wants to overhaul how soldiers go to chow with a new generation of dining halls that look and feel like college campus cafeterias. In the launch of a major overhaul that will hand control of dining facilities to private contractors, the Army released a Request for Proposals Tuesday that lays out what it wants its next generation of chow halls to look like.

Nearly all soldiers carry a spoon in their kit, but it's hard to imagine it could be useful in combat. But in 1943, Army 1st Lt. Dwight “Steve” Varner used a teaspoon to bamboozle German and Italian soldiers into surrendering during fierce fighting in Africa.

The 101st Combat Aviation Brigade will deploy to the Middle East in early February to support ongoing operations against the Islamic State group. Approximately 2,000 air assault soldiers will ship overseas to take over “all aviation-related missions for the Joint Task Force” already there. The elements of the 101st will replace those from the 10th Mountain Combat Aviation Brigade.

Law enforcement managed to locate the missing soft-sided Humvees, but a plethora of military gear and an up-armored Humvee remain at large.

As thick black smoke rises past their canopy, the crew of a California National Guard Chinook dives through a scrubby canyon, 500 feet over a line of flames. A cloud of water falls from a bucket slung beneath it, and a plume of white vapor signals to the crew that they've hit their mark.

The celebrity chef wants the Army to buy fewer rather than too many ingredients and take lessons from how colleges feed students.

As nicotine packets like Zyn replace dipping tobacco, the spitter bottles of GWOT — gross, simple, everywhere — are not forgotten.

Meegan, then a private with just a few months in the Army, was among a handful of other young soldiers training in a shoothouse during Ranger Assessment and Selection Program, or RASP, in 2010.