Philipps's reporting in 2023 and 2024 focused on how firing heavy weapons, operating high-speed vehicles, and other routine training that the military for generations thought was safe was causing serious brain injuries that were often mistaken for PTSD.
In 2014, Philipps published for a three-day series "Other Than Honorable" in The Gazette of Colorado Springs on the treatment of injured American soldiers being discharged without military benefits.
[1] The series was awarded the Pulitzer for national reporting Philipps been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize three times, in 2009 for an investigation of violent crime in Colorado Springs by returning combat soldiers, in 2018 for breaking news coverage of a mass shooting in Las Vegas, and most recently in 2024 for an investigation showing soldiers were getting brain injuries from firing their own weapons.
His book, Lethal Warriors[3] chronicles how the 12th Infantry Regiment, stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, produced a high number of murders after soldiers returned from unusually violent combat tours.
His work gained attention in 2012 when U.S. Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar threatened to punch him for asking about problems in the department's wild horse program.