Afghanistan veterans frustrated by Taliban resurgence

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

With U.S. forces out and Taliban insurgents advancing across much of Afghanistan, Sean Maloney’s post on the Canadian Afghanistan War Veterans Association Facebook page was discouraging.

“Cell service in Kandahar is apparently down, not just intermittent,” wrote Maloney, who chronicled the war as the Canadian Army’s official historian across more than a decade of fighting and 11 trips to Afghanistan.

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Robert Morgan and the George Medal

Story by Sharon Adams

In 1955 Flight Lieutenant Robert Morgan and Leading Aircraftman Harry Waters were working with 439 Squadron at No. 1 Fighter Wing in Marville, France, one of a dozen fighter squadrons stationed in Europe at the time.

On July 21, an F-86 Sabre jet landed short of the runway and burst into flames. Morgan and Waters dropped what they were doing and raced toward the jet.

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Top general warns of civil war threat as U.S. troops exit Afghanistan

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

America’s top military commander in Afghanistan is predicting the country, already in its sixth successive decade of unrelenting conflict, could descend into another civil war as U.S. troops end their involvement in America’s longest war.

Approaching 20 years since coalition forces ousted the regime that harboured Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorists, General Austin S. Miller said districts around the country, some strategically important, are falling rapidly and warned that, with peace talks on shaky ground, militias could propel the country into civil war.

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Cracking the Enigma

Story by Sharon Adams

During the Second World War the Germans used a machine for sending coded signals.

The Allies called it Enigma (Greek for riddle). Each branch of the German services developed its own version, but at the heart of them all was a set of five to eight interchangeable rotors that continuously scrambled the letters of the alphabet. There were 103 sextillion possible settings—that’s 103 with 21 zeroes behind it.

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