Kevin Knodell covers the military and veterans in Hawaii and the greater Pacific for Civil Beat as a corps member for Report For America, a national nonprofit that places journalists in local news rooms.
Kevin has worked for small town newspapers, national magazines and digital media startups. As a freelance journalist he has reported from the field on Northeast Syria’s Kurdish-led Rojava Revolution, reported on wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, explored Iraqi Kurdistan’s night life and interviewed refugees using art to fight extremist ideology.
His writing and photography have appeared at Playboy, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, Vice, The Nib, Crosscut and others. As a contributing editor at the digital conflict news collective War is Boring he spent as a year as the coordinator for the Iraq and Syria field team during the Yazidi Genocide and worked with the investigative news team.
Kevin’s most recent assignment before joining Civil Beat was as a correspondent for Coffee or Die Magazine in Iraq and Syria he where he covered the consequences of Turkey’s invasion of Northeast Syria in the fall of 2019, confrontation between U.S. troops and Iranian-backed militias and how the spread of COVID-19 has complicated both the political and humanitarian landscape of the region.
Kevin is a producer of the podcast Angry Planet, a weekly look at a world in conflict. He’s also the co-author of Machete Squad and The ‘Stan from Dead Reckoning Graphic Novels, was one of the lead writers of the War is Boring: True War Comics series and wrote the Acts of Valor comic series for the magazine Naval History with cartoonist Kelly Swann from 2017-2019.
Kevin has also worked as a comic shop clerk, a paint delivery driver, security guard, event photographer and various other odd jobs for beer and rent money. He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon and studied history at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. In his free time he is a mediocre illustrator and okay photographer.
Hawaii is a central hub for Navy and Marine Corps operations as tensions rise between the U.S. and China.
Native Hawaiians have fought in America’s battles from the War of 1812 to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The state hopes this alliance can leverage Pentagon spending to diversify Hawaii’s economy.
The six officers have new insignias but remain assigned to the Air Force Research Laboratory Detachment 15 at a military installation at Maui’s Haleakala Observatory.
Selena Roth was a former Army Signal’s intelligence specialist, an animal lover and was passionate about rights for military victims of sexual harassment.
Health care administrators argued the bill, drafted in response to the deadly outbreak last year at a Hilo facility, could make health care slower.
The USS Chafee had pulled into San Diego for training, but now several crew members are in quarantine.
The Family Advocacy Program is supposed to help military families experiencing abuse, but one Navy sailor’s experience shows its broad discretion in handling cases.
The troops are currently under quarantine after arriving back in the islands from helping provide security for President Joe Biden’s inauguration.