The Pentagon announced new rules this week that would allow women to serve closer to the front lines and will be implemented later this summer. The changes would allow women to serve in non-infantry battalion jobs, such as radio operators, intelligence analysts, medics, radar operators and tank mechanics. This could open up 14,000 new jobs to female troops, largely in the army and marine corps.  

After ten years of war and expanded spending, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta outlined a series of military budget cuts for the next decade totaling $487 billion. Among these cost-saving measures are limiting pay raises for troops, increasing health insurance fees for military retirees, and closing bases in the U.S. These proposed cuts would be in addition to a previously established drawdown of troops and army personnel over the next five years.

For the first time since the U.S. invasion there began in 2003, American troops in Iraq experienced no fatalities for the entire month of August. Officials credit this remarkable fact as the result of unilateral American action, and Iraq focusing its attack efforts on Iranian-backed Shiite militias. While this is unprecedented in the war, it may not signify the imminent arrival of a secure Iraq.

Sixty-six troops died in Afghanistan this month, making August the bloodiest month for the U.S. military this year. That number includes the helicopter crash on August 6, which claimed the lives of 30 American troops, most of them Navy SEALs. So far this year, 299 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan. Will this have any affect on President Obama's plans to drawdown the additional 33,000 troops he placed in a surge effort? 

Monday was the deadliest day of the year in Iraq. Insurgents waged 42 coordinated attacks across the country, leaving almost 100 civilians and security forces dead, and hundreds injured. The attacks came ahead of America’s planned withdrawal from Iraq. Can Iraqis handle their own security and should America focus on our own problems here at home? 

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for a helicopter crash on Saturday, which killed 30 American troops in the deadliest day ever for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The attack took place in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, to the west of Kabul, and illustrates how the insurgency is growing from its traditional strongholds and edging toward the capital city.

After 10 years of wars and repeated deployments, mental health statics on America's soldiers have seen dramatic rises in suicides, domestic abuse, and drug and alcohol addiction. Suicides among active-duty soldiers jumped from 138 in 2008 to 162 in 2009, according to the most recently available Army statistics. Cases of spousal abuse and child abuse or neglect almost doubled between 2004 and 2009. And referrals for alcohol and drug abuse rose from 15,000 in 1999 to 22,500 in 2009.

The head of China's General Staff of the notoriously secretive People's Liberation Army, General Chen Bingde, has confirmed that the country is building an aircraft carrier. The vessel, a remodeled Soviet-era warship, is expected to be ready for trials at sea later this year. The carrier is symbolic of China's expanding naval power, and possibly of pending territorial disputes in the country's surrounding seas. 

On Memorial Day, President Barack Obama announced his nomination for two top military positions. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey will replace Navy Adm. Michael Mullen as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dempsey would be joined in the Pentagon by Adm. James Winnefeld Jr., who would serve as his vice chairman. Also announced, Gen. Ray Odierno was picked to replace Dempsey as Army chief. These choices, especially Dempsey’s nod for the Joint Chiefs assignment, took many military watchers by surprise.

Writing for Rolling Stone, Michael Hastings says that the Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers to "manipulate visiting senators into providing more funding for the war." The senators knew that they were going to be spun, says Hastings, but the question is to what degree this was appropriate or legal. This group was under the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell in Afghanistan; when soldiers spoke out against the order, they were ignored.

Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock could potentially face a court-martial after becoming the first of 5 soldiers to face an Article 32 hearing – the equivalent of a grand jury – yesterday, on charges of murdering 3 unarmed Afghan civilians. 

Marcus Mabry, associate national editor for The New York Times, has been following this story and shares the developments with us.

Click after the jump to see a video of Morlock confessing to the murders.

In April of 2004, a tragic but inspiring story came back from the battlefields of Afghanistan. Pat Tillman, the professional football player who’d given up his career to join the Army Rangers, had been killed.

The official account of Tillman's death described him as single-handedly saving the lives of dozens of men during an ambush. His friends, family and nation grieved. The media and government propped him up as a symbol of courage and national pride. He was awarded a posthumous Silver Star for his valor.

But five weeks later, the story about Tillman changed. The military announced in a press conference that he had actually died by friendly fire, but reiterated that he was a hero nonetheless, and continued to depict him as a symbol of the war.

In June, 32 members of the U.S. Army took their own lives. That's a sharp uptick compared to the first five months of 2010, when the number of suicides in the Army was actually down thirty percent, from the same months in 2009. What happened in June? 

In 2009, the Pentagon lifted a ban that forbade members of the news media from covering the dignified transfer of the remains of U.S. servicemen and women at Dover Air Force Base. On April 5th, 2009, around forty reporters and photographers were present for the return of the remains of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers of Hopewell, Virginia.

But these days, there's often only one member of the news media present. Steve Ruark is a freelance photographer with the Associated Press. He has been to Dover for dignified transfers more than ninety times.

Over the past week, we have been talking to current and former servicemen and women. We reached nearly two dozen, and we asked them all the same question: Who are you remembering this Memorial Day?

We expected that no two answers would be the same. But in fact, two of them were. 

The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 16-12 on Thursday evening to allow the Pentagon to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell - the law that forbids gay, lesbian and bisexual servicemen and women from serving openly.