Military

Marine veteran Michael Smith wept Wednesday when he heard about the death of Chester Nez, the last of the original Navajo Code Talkers. Smith, from Window Rock, who had met Nez several times, described him as a “quiet, humble” Navajo Marine. Smith said that the passing of Nez — the last of the first 29…

Cody Flora, as told to Logan S. Stark In the first three and a half months of our deployment to Sangin, Afghanistan it seemed like every day you heard about someone else getting shot or blown up. The IED (Improvised explosive device) situation in Sangin was a phenomenon in the worst way imaginable, not only…

It’s a warm November day in the Persian Gulf. The radar system of the USS Ponce detects an incoming vessel. An operator aboard the ship, working a controller not dissimilar to a PlayStation 4 handset, takes aim at the target using the Navy’s Laser Weapon System or LaWS high-aperture telescope. He sees a red, rigid-hulled…