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.
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting Washington to meet with President Biden and Congress on Wednesday. The trip comes as lawmakers are debating billions more in aid for Ukraine. -
For the past two weeks, thousands of Afghans have arrived in the U.S. Many have passed through a huge makeshift processing center in Virginia. NPR reporters got an exclusive look inside the facility. -
The U.S. military spent years training Afghan soldiers to fight insurgents. Yet in a matter of days, the Afghan National Army collapsed, and the Taliban captured the country. What went wrong? -
Afghan military officials say the U.S. left in secret and turned the electricity off on the way out. The Pentagon pushed back. It's yet another mishap in the rocky U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. -
The deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6 has forced military leadership to confront the threat of domestic extremism. Rioters that day included current and former service members. -
Troops will be sent to the northern and southern U.S. borders as the spread of the coronavirus grows. Last week, the Trump administration ordered partial closures of those borders. -
The U.S. considers deploying hundreds more American troops to Syria in the final phase of the war against ISIS — one that could reshape borders and relationships in the Middle East. -
U.S. military advisers sent to Iraq to assess the state of the country's military will find an army in far worse shape than the one they left behind in 2011. It lacks troops, training and leadership. -
Back in 2011, Iraq refused to grant American troops immunity, so the U.S. pulled out leaving no residual forces.
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President Obama says U.S. military personnel will advise Iraqi forces, not to serve in combat. But the proposal raises more questions: What are the rules of engagement? And how long will they stay?
