U.s. Military, Afghan War | featured news

Soldiers who just returned from Iraq are among several thousand being ordered to Afghanistan in six months as part of a mission designed to beef up Afghan forces ahead of a planned 2014 U.S. military withdrawal, officials said.

Film star Mila Kunis has made good on her promise to a Marine who had been serving in Afghanistan. Kunis and Marine Sgt. Scott Moore attended the annual Marine Corps Ball on Friday in Greenville, N.C. The annual event marks the founding of the Marines in 1775.

For the past 10 years, the United States has engaged in constant warfare. Does that mean the next 10 years will be the same, even after U.S. combat troops are out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Put it a different way: We have spent trillions of dollars to create the most professional and powerful military force in the world to fight those wars. It continues to cost hundreds of billions more each year to help sustain this all-volunteer force.

Pakistan would not tolerate any incursion on its territory by U.S. forces targeting militant groups, the country's interior minister said on Thursday, calling for Washington to provide the intelligence Islamabad needs to take them out itself.

The U.S. military estimates that $360 million spent on combat support and reconstruction in Afghanistan ended up in the wrong hands.

General David Petraeus, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, handed over command of U.S. and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan on Monday, a day after a gradual process of transferring security to Afghan forces began.

Sen. John McCain said Sunday the Obama administration is taking an unnecessary risk in drawing down the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he will withdraw 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by year's end and a total of 33,000 by the summer of 2012.

Two failed marriages were the cost of war for Sgt. Jennifer Schobey. The breaking point in her first marriage came when her husband deployed to Afghanistan, the last in a long line of separations they had endured as they juggled two military careers. Schobey married another combat veteran, but eventually that union failed under the weight of two cases of post-traumatic stress disorder - his and hers. They are now getting divorced.

JP Morgan Chase & Co. has overcharged thousands of military families for their mortgages, including families of troops fighting in Afghanistan, NBC News has learned.