WASHINGTON, D.C.—In his 36-year military career, William Boykin captured a Panamanian dictator, chased a Colombian drug lord, tracked Bosnian war criminals, and hunted El Salvadorian kidnappers.

He also attempted to rescue American hostages in Iran and helped free trapped U.S. citizens in Grenada and Sudan.

That’s a military resumé perhaps worthy of a movie trilogy. But the two-time Purple Heart recipient and retired Army lieutenant general may be tackling his toughest challenge yet: Washington bureaucracy.

A year after opening some combat positions to women, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta thinks the fairer sex is ready for anything war can throw at them.

According to the Associated Press, an unnamed source revealed late Wednesday that Panetta plans to announce on Thursday his revocation of the military ban on women in combat. 

Suicides in the U.S. military hit a record 349 last year, far exceeding the 295 American combat deaths in Afghanistan. Experts believes the problem reflects strains on Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and societal problems, including difficulty finding jobs and relationship struggles.

In what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called an “epidemic,” the number of suicides in the military has increased since 2006, soaring to a then-record 310 in 2009. The number leveled off for two years before jumping to 349 this year, up from 301 last year.

Biography isn't policy. President Obama's choice for secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, former Nebraska Republican senator, has a resume most politicians can envy: a clean senatorial record, no ethical lapses, and two Purple Hearts from a war many opposed and many more tried to avoid.

A military chaplains’ advocacy group criticized President Barack Obama earlier this week for suggesting his administration might ignore provisions of a new law that offers religious liberty protections to service members.

The protections, approved by Congress as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, guarantee chaplains will not be forced to perform “marriage” ceremonies for same-sex couples or be punished for refusing to do so.

FORT BRAGG, N.C.—Four and a half months into his stint in Afghanistan as a Special Forces medic, Karl Holt had a hand in saving life and comforting the dying.

He treated a local man, carried in lying on a sheet of plywood atop a wheelbarrow, so mangled by an explosion that the then-32-year-old medic from Houston couldn’t tell bits of bone apart from gobs of flesh. Holt wrapped the man in blankets for warmth as he died.

A 24-year-old cadet dropped out of West Point this week, less than six months before graduation, saying he could no longer be part of the school’s Christian culture. 

In an interview with The Associated Press, Blake Page criticized the U.S. Military Academy, where cadets stand silently for prayers, basic training instructors refer jokingly to nonreligious cadets as "heathens" and one officer told him he'd never be a leader until he filled the hole in his heart.

To those who want the nation’s military to sever its ties to religion, Page is a hero.