A look back at the last 11 years of US military camouflage. Yikes!

The unemployment rate for Post-9/11 veterans fell dramatically in April, from 9.2% in March to 7.5%. The unemployment rate for all veterans also fell from 7.1% to 6.2%.

Although these drops are great news, they may be statistically invalid. The change in Post-9/11 unemployment shows huge gender differences (women dropped from 11.8% in March to 7.2%, while men went from 9.2% unemployment to 7.6%) that may reflect a small sample size of Post-9/11 veteran women, which would skew the sample results.

It's like trying to turn down food at your grandmother's house, it seems.

Senior Army officials have repeatedly turned down more M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks, but there is a bipartisan push to spend $436 million on tanks the Army said it doesn't need or want.

The reason, of course, is politics.

The Army's success at recruiting and the budget crunch caused by sequestration have reduced the MOSs that Army is offering enlistment bonuses to only two.

• MOS 09L - interpreter/translator with proficiency in Pashtun-Afghan. Enlistment bonus of $10,000-$40,000 for enlistments of three, four, five or six years.
• MOS35P - cryptologic linguist. Enlistment bonus of $10,000-$40,000 for enlistments of four to six years.

Although the White House says that top officials from every federal agency are already working on the huge VA backlog, they have said that they may also consider a presidential commission to help address the problem. Members of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America delivered a 34,000 signature petition to the White House last month requesting a presidential commission to deal with this issue.

If you are looking to enlist, one of the things you must do is take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB). This test is probably one of the single most important tests you'll take in the military, since your score determines the different jobs (or MOSs) that you are eligible for. This means that you should prepare in advance for the ASVAB - you only get one shot at the test in MEPS. Your recruiter will probably give you practice tests, which you should do (we also have practice tests on this site here and here) and you should also study.

The ASVAB consists of nine separate sub-tests of which four make up the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT). The AFQT is even more important than the ASVAB, since your score on these four sub-tests determine if you are eligible to enter the military at all. These four sub-tests are:

• Arithmetic Reasoning: This section consists of 30 multiple-choice math word problems.
• Word Knowledge: This section tests your vocabulary with 35 multiple-choice questions that ask you to pick the closest meaning to the highlighted word.
• Paragraph Comprehension: This section requires you to read various paragraphs and answer one to four questions on each paragraph, with 15 questions total.
• Mathematics Knowledge: This tests consists of 25 high school-level math questions.

That's it - your score on these four categories determine if you can even begin your military career. Now that you know what is riding on these four sections, let's take a look at a book designed to help you improve your AFQT score ASVAB AFQT for Dummies by Rod Powers.

Earlier this month the Pentagon revealed its new citation for the 21st century, the Distinguished Warfare Medal. This award is intended for drone pilots, offensive cyberwar personnel, and others directly involved in combat operations, but not physically in the combat theater of operations.

At the State of the Union address President Obama announced that this time next year 34,000 more US soldiers will be home - halving the 66,000 US troops in Afghanistan currently.

Although it's unclear how many US soldiers will remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014, currently the US and Afghanistan are negotiating over the size of the residual force that will remain in Afghanistan. According to a senior US official the Afghani forces are leading almost 90% of the operations across the county and by this spring they will be taking the lead, with US forces taking an advisory and training role.

With sequestration looming, the Army has released a document showing how the budget uncertainty will drastically impact the training and readiness of its soldiers.

When President Obama tapped Sen. John Kerry to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a strange word began to pop up that hasn't been heard in a while - bipartisan.

Several prominent Republican Senators, among them John McCain (Arizona) and Bob Corker (Tennessee), voiced enthusiastic support for Sen. Kerry, with Sen. McCain even introducing him at the opening of the confirmation hearings. This bipartisan support was more than just talk, with Sen. Kerry sailing through the confirmation hearings with only 3 "nay" votes.