Tom Bowman
Tom Bowman is a NPR National Desk reporter covering the Pentagon.
In his current role, Bowman has traveled to Syria as well as Iraq and Afghanistan often for month-long visits and embedded with U.S. Marines and soldiers.
Before coming to NPR in April 2006, Bowman spent nine years as a Pentagon reporter at The Baltimore Sun. Altogether he was at The Sun for nearly two decades, covering the Maryland Statehouse, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the National Security Agency (NSA). His coverage of racial and gender discrimination at NSA led to a Pentagon investigation in 1994.
Initially Bowman imagined his career path would take him into academia as a history, government, or journalism professor. During college Bowman worked as a stringer at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass. He also worked for the Daily Transcript in Dedham, Mass., and then as a reporter at States News Service, writing for the Miami Herald and the Anniston (Ala.) Star.
Bowman is a co-winner of a 2006 National Headliners' Award for stories on the lack of advanced tourniquets for U.S. troops in Iraq. In 2010, he received an Edward R. Murrow Award for his coverage of a Taliban roadside bomb attack on an Army unit.
Bowman earned a Bachelor of Arts in history from St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont, and a master's degree in American Studies from Boston College.
-
Thousands of civilians, soldiers and police were killed this year in suicide attacks, bombings and airstrikes. The lives and deaths of three Afghan men shed light on the challenges the country faces.
-
The Army general has a voracious appetite for history — and Boston sports teams. If approved by the Senate, the 60-year-old Massachusetts native will take the helm next summer.
-
The request comes as the overall size of the military force at the border will be cut from around 5,900 personnel to 4,000, Pentagon officials tell NPR. The deployment may be extended through January.
-
The move would extend the rare deployment of active-duty troops at the U.S.-Mexico border, rather than only National Guard soldiers and personnel.
-
The Trump administration's military operations in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq have been relatively free of congressional oversight. That will change in the House when Democrats take control next year.
-
The troops are likely to be active-duty Army personnel. As U.S. troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement activities within the United States, they will be in support roles only.
-
Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Smiley was shot twice, according to the Pentagon, during an attack in Kandahar that killed the province's chiefs of police and intelligence and wounded the governor.
-
"What we found is children had been so traumatized, they couldn't even recognize numbers or letters," says a U.S. official. "We had to work through that before we could start educating them again."
-
About a year after the battle to force ISIS out of the Syrian city of Raqqa, a trip there shows progress in clearing the rubble but still great destruction and uncertainty.
-
Air Force officials say the service simply lacks the resources it needs to face all the jobs it is called upon to perform. The Air Force is proposing a 25 percent increase in the number of squadrons.