Capt. Stephen Hill became famous when he came out as a gay soldier during a 2011 GOP presidential debate. Here’s how he got to that point, and what happened after.

He was the poster boy for the movement to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Now Dan Choi is sleeping on a couch, smoking too much weed, watching TED talks and wondering what he’ll do with the rest of his life.

A technical explanation of the real program to sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Last fall, a team of American Special Forces arrived in Nerkh, a district just west of Kabul. Six months later, amid allegations of torturing and murdering locals, the team was gone. Shortly after they left, the remains of 10 missing villagers were found outside their vacated base. An investigation into a possible war crime.

Each soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan generated around 10 pounds of garbage per day. Most of that trash—along with used equipment and medical supplies and other wastes of war—was burned in open-air pits, emitting a toxic smoke that many soliders blame for their poor health today.

The life and death of a reporter.

A briefing on drone warfare.

Team America voyages to Jordan’s King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center to compete against top-seeded China and other squads in challenges based on counter-terrorism scenarios.

The story of the attack that killed U.S. ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, told from the persepctive of the security agents there to protect him.

After being fired from both Nirvana and Soundgarden, Jason Everman joined the Special Forces.

After two tours in Iraq, the writer returns to a volatile region of Afghanistan as an embedded journalist.

How General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, became the most powerful intelligence officer in U.S. history.

On decorated sniper Chris Kyle and the troubled young veteran who took his life.

The story of three peace activists — a drifter, an 82-year-old nun and a house painter — who penetrated the exterior of Y-12 in Tennessee, supposedly one of the most secure nuclear-weapons facilities in the United States.

On the drone strikes that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and his U.S.-born son.

A collection of war stories told by women who have seen combat while serving in the U.S. military.

The origin story of the C.I.A.’s covert drone war, which began with the 2004 killing of a Pashtun militant, the result of a secret deal for access to Pakistani airspace.

A profile of the deadliest sniper in American history, who was murdered last month by a fellow soldier.

On the legal and practical details of the drone strikes that killed New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki and later, accidentally, his sixteen-year-old Colorado-born son.

“It seemed like everyone gets raped and assaulted and no one does anything about it; it’s like a big rape cult.”

A profile of the Navy Seal who killed Osama bin Laden and came home to a life in shambles.

How the United States came to spend more on defense than all the other nations of the world combined.

How PTSD spreads from returning soldiers to their families.