Joseph Trevithick
Task & Purpose
Alexandria, VA, United States
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Past articles by Joseph:
Navy sends guided-missile submarine into Persian Gulf in not-so-subtle message to Iran
The U.S. Navy has publicly announced the transit of USS Georgia from the Gulf of Oman into the Persian Gulf by way of the Strait of Hormuz. → Read More
When Richard Nixon Threatened to Nuke Vietnam
This story originally appeared on June 1, 2015. Washington now sees nuclear weapons as a last ditch resort … but it hasn’t always and the Pentagon has been more than happy come up with plans to lob the devastating bombs at America’s enemies. Sometimes, Washington used those plans to exert... → Read More
B.Z. Gas Rendered the Enemy Too Irritable to Fight
This story originally appeared on Oct. 27, 2014. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies could expect all sort of dangers if they ever got into a war with the United States—including nuclear weapons. The Pentagon was even prepared to deploy B.Z. gas. Sometimes read... → Read More
South Vietnamese Troops Almost Fought on Battle Bicycles
This story originally appeared on March 26, 2016. In early 1965, villagers across South Vietnam might have watched a curious military formation race through their hamlets. No, not heavily-armed troops shielded inside armored vehicles, but rural militiamen on bicycles. For nearly a year, authorities in Saigon and their American advisers... → Read More
U.S. Commandos Were Fond of Captured AK-47s
This story originally appeared on May 26, 2015. While the Soviet Avtomat Kalashnikova has become the iconic weapon of bad guys in Hollywood blockbusters and big-budget video games, U.S. commandos made good use of the rugged rifles in Vietnam. By the end of the conflict, the American military had reissued... → Read More
The U.S. Air Force Almost Sent ‘Starter’ Attack Planes to Europe
This story first appeared on Feb. 23, 2014. In September 2009, the U.S. Air Forces in Europe asked to host the first squadron of light attack planes that, at the time, were planned for purchase by a more ambitious and less cash-strapped Pentagon. The Light Attack/Armed Reconnaissance warplanes—LAAR for short—were... → Read More
NSA Spies Helped Save Drones From a Fiery Death Over Vietnam
This story originally appeared on Feb. 24, 2015. The Air Force unleashed its first major drone program during the Vietnam War. In short order, the North Vietnamese compromised the aerial spies’ codes and began blowing them out of the sky. An angry general, a group of NSA spies and a... → Read More
This Rocket Launcher Was the U.S. Army’s Last Flamethrower
This story originally appeared on April 27, 2015. To be on the receiving end of a flamethrower is surely terrifying, but man-portable versions have their limitations. The big one is that they essentially turn their users into vulnerable, lumbering gas tanks. Besides, the fire-spitting weapons have very short ranges, forcing... → Read More
There Was No Way a P-51 Could Replace the A-10
This story originally appeared on Dec. 17, 2014. The U.S. Air Force has a complicated relationship with its low- and slow-flying A-10 Warthog attack jet. And that’s putting it mildly. The flying branch has tried more than once to retire the ungainly A-10 in favor of speedier planes, only for... → Read More
American Hand Grenades Have Some Odd Connections to Sports
This story originally appeared on Dec. 29, 2014. Most people would probably agree that playing catch with a hand grenade is a bad idea. On one occasion in 2005, three young people died in Bosnia while horsing around with one of these small bombs, according to Reuters. But throwing is... → Read More
Spies Helped the USAF Shoot Down a Third of North Vietnam’s MiG-21s
This story originally appeared on Dec. 30, 2014. On Jan. 2, 1967, around 30 U.S. Air Force F-4 Phantom fighter jets flying from Ubon in Thailand shot down a full third of North Vietnam’s MiG-21s—for a loss of just one of their own. It was a strategic victory in an... → Read More
The U.S. Army Had a Whole Unit of Psychic Spies
This story originally appeared on Aug. 27, 2016. On Sept. 15, 1995, Army chief of staff Gen. Gordon Sullivan held a meeting with a colonel from the service’s top watchdog agency as well as with another colonel who had served as a psychologist at Army Intelligence and Security Command. The meeting... → Read More
Dated U.S. Army Manual Tells Female Troops to ‘Guard Against Rape’
This story originally appeared on Oct. 31, 2014. Decades ago, the U.S. Army offered sometimes degrading suggestions on how to avoid rapists, survive a sexual assault and what to do in the aftermath of an attack. Advocates for victims of sexual trauma say the Pentagon is still struggling to change... → Read More
The Air Force Can’t Quit NASCAR
This story originally appeared on Feb. 29, 2016. America’s most famous auto raceway looms large between a beach and a mall not far from the airport in Daytona Beach, eastern Florida’s self-styled “Spring Break Capital of the World.” From a distance, the Daytona International Speedway’s 10,000 red, white and blue... → Read More
Soviet Nuke Attack Could Have Cut Off U.S. Missile Submarines
This story originally appeared on Oct. 16, 2015. A key component of the U.S. doctrine of mutually assured destruction — commonly and appropriately known as MAD — was that American troops would still be able to retaliate if the Soviet Union launched a nuclear attack. But for a time, the Pentagon was... → Read More
The U.S. Army’s Failed Quest to Create Floating Tank Divisions
This story originally appeared on Feb. 1, 2016. Amphibious assaults are the domain of the U.S. Marines, not the Army. But there was a period in history when the Army tried to out-do the Marines in hitting the beach — including planning how to deploy entire divisions of amphibious tanks.... → Read More
Here Are the Leaflets the United States Dropped on Islamic State
This story originally appeared on Jan. 22, 2016. On Nov. 15, 2015, U.S. Air Force A-10 ground-attack planes and AC-130 gunships blew up a truck park near Abu Kamal, Iraq. The American pilots destroyed more than 100 tankers carrying oil that could fund the Islamic State. The Pentagon followed this up... → Read More
The Pentagon Dropped Billions of Leaflets
This story originally appeared on March 20, 2015. The United States and its allies dropped some 2.5 billion propaganda leaflets during the Korean War. But after the 1953 armistice which halted the fighting, the Pentagon discovered that few enemy troops ever read the messages, let alone understood them. One reason was that pilots rarely dropped... → Read More
In ’Nam, the U.S. Army Turned Truck Drivers Into Maritime Cops
The 458th Transportation Company wasn’t supposed to be the U.S. Army’s river police force. The soldiers were truck drivers America, and didn’t know much about patrolling hostile waterways. But the Army thought better — and in a maddening and unusual story from the Vietnam War, transformed the truckers into waterborne... → Read More
Mud Wars: How the U.S. Air Force Tried to Muck Up Vietnam
This story originally appeared on Jan. 19, 2014. It’s a safe bet to say most people outgrew their fascination with playing in mud sometime in elementary school. Perhaps even fewer would consider it a likely weapon of war. But in the 1960s, the United States began to look seriously at... → Read More