On May 18, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the country’s deputy prime minister and national defense minister, attended a ceremony in eastern Poland related to the launch of a new engine servicing hub for the Polish fleet of Abrams tanks. The event, designed to highlight existing trans-Atlantic defense ties, was overshadowed by Washington’s recent order to halt a planned nine-month U.S. Army rotation to Eastern Europe.

“The United States military that is stationed in Poland, stationed in Europe, gives security guarantees,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said at the event. “On the other hand, we have not only a [U.S.] military presence, but also great, strategic purchases in the United States. And it is difficult to find in the world, not only in Europe, a second country that has invested so heavily in purchases of the best American gear for its own needs.”

Kosiniak-Kamysz referred to Poland’s numerous U.S. weapon purchases from the past years which, in addition to tanks, comprise procurements of fighter jets, helicopters, missiles and rocket launchers.

“More than fifty billion dollars is the sum of the purchases that we are implementing in the United States,” the minister said. “This is all a great investment in the Polish-American alliance”.

Polish officials say that, if the U.S. military presence is to be decreased in Europe, they expect the cuts not to concern the troops who are already deployed to Poland.

“We understand that there is a reorganization of the American military presence in Europe. But this reorganization cannot be made at the cost of the biggest ally of the United States in Europe,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said. “We invest around 15,000 dollars every year for the deployment of each [U.S. soldier], which distinguishes us from other European countries.”

Around 10,000 U.S. soldiers are currently stationed in Poland, the majority of which have been deployed to the country as part of a rotational presence.

Taking the stage at a rally for Ed Gallrein, Hegseth railed against Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican who has publicly feuded with Trump and is facing Gallrein in a contentious primary for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.

Hegseth’s support has sparked online condemnation as a violation of the Hatch Act, which bans federal employees from engaging in political activity while on duty. Pentagon officials and military leaders have historically avoided overtly partisan political activity to align with the armed forces’ nonpartisan identity.

Hegseth said he attended the event after awarding Purple Heart medals to soldiers but gave a perfunctory statement at the start of his speech in an attempt to distance himself from role as Defense Secretary.

“I have to say upfront, for the lawyers, that I’m here in my personal capacity as a private citizen, a fellow American, and a fellow combat veteran here to support Navy Seal Ed Gallrein,” he said.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell pushed back against accusations that Hegseth’s participation violated the neutrality of his role, arguing in a statement that the secretary’s attendance was “in his personal capacity,” and would not use taxpayer money.

“His participation has been thoroughly vetted and cleared by lawyers, including the Department of War Office of General Counsel, and does not violate the Hatch Act or any other applicable federal statute,” Parnell said.

Hegseth’s appearance came as the U.S. remains heavily embroiled in the war with Iran, a conflict that Massie has denounced. Massie has also broken with Trump on other issues, criticizing U.S. aid to Israel and spearheading legislation to release the Epstein files.

In his roughly 12-minute speech, Hegseth repeatedly chastised Massie, saying, “President Trump does not need more people in Washington who are trying to make a point, especially from his own party. He needs people willing to help him win and vote with him when it matters most.”

The secretary also railed against “woke trainings, political indoctrination, diversity quotas, climate seminars, pronouns [and] dudes in dresses,” before lauding Gallrein’s military service.

According to Gallrein’s website, he served for 30 years and deployed repeatedly as a Navy SEAL officer.

At a May 12 hearing of the House Appropriations Committee, Hegseth thanked Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nevada) for pushing legislation to override the Catch 22-type rules that have blocked veterans from getting the benefits received by Department of Energy civilians who also worked at the Nevada Test and Training Center (NTTR) north of Las Vegas.

“You have the authority to provide the [Veterans Affairs] with documents they need today to get those veterans the help they need,” Lee told Hegseth.

“Thank you for what you’re doing for those folks,” but “it’s not a situation I have all the facts on,” Hegseth told Lee, adding that he wanted an internal review before giving an endorsement. Hegseth also sought to assure Lee that he wasn’t stalling.

“I’m not talking about a full review, I’m just talking about a familiarization” on the issues that have blocked the NTTR veterans from receiving benefits and compensation under the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, or PACT Act.

At the same hearing, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs chairman, said he would press to lift the bureaucratic restrictions blocking the VA from granting benefits to service members who were stationed at the NTTR.

“You bet, Ma’am,” Caine told Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) when she asked whether he agreed that DOD personnel deserved “the same presumption of radiation exposure as DOE (Department of Energy) employees who worked alongside them.”

The issue for affected veterans, meanwhile, has remained that the VA requires documentation proving personnel actually served at the NTTR before they can be eligible for benefits.

That proof, however, cannot be released due to its classification under Cold War regulations, said former Air Force Sgt. Dave Crete, who previously served at the NTTR.

Crete said he founded The Invisible Enemy advocacy group with the sole purpose of getting previously denied health care benefits and compensation to “those who served on the range.”

The government acknowledges that the site is contaminated, but only for Energy Department workers who “get lifetime medical and compensation up to $400,000,” Crete said in a phone interview.

“That hasn’t happened for us,” he told Military Times. “The first thing that has to happen is to acknowledge that we were there.”

To attain that confirmation, Sens. Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto have sponsored the bipartisan Forgotten Veterans Act — Fighting for the Overlooked Recognition of Groups Operating in Toxic Test Environments in Nevada.

“It is unconscionable that one U.S. government agency (DOE) deems portions of the range as contaminated and their personnel exposed, while another U.S. government agency (DOD) does not,” Rosen said in a statement.

Currently, the NTTR consists of nearly three million acres of restricted land that includes the highly secret Area 51 site. The area makes up “the largest contiguous air and ground space available for military (training) operations in the free world,” according to a Nellis Air Force Base release.

The first atmospheric atomic bomb test at what would become the NTTR occurred on Jan. 27, 1951, during the “duck-and-cover” era, when schools nationwide would conduct air raid drills to guard against a potential Soviet attack.

The first atom bomb test would be followed by 927 others — 100 of them above ground. The last test in Nevada was underground and occurred on Sept. 23, 1992.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Dagvin Anderson, head of U.S. Africa Command, seemed concerned that the answer might be “no” when he testified to Congress last week.

Anderson said that Africa is the epicenter of global terrorism, but warned that a 75% U.S. force reduction over the past decade – coupled with a parallel drawdown of allied troops – has created “an intelligence black hole” on the continent.

“AFRICOM’s lack of expeditionary capabilities and diminished force posture compromise our crisis response,” Anderson testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, noting the command is operating with “minimum necessary resources.”

“Our reduced presence on the continent also allows disruptive actors to drive the agenda, undercutting American interests,” he said. “ISIS leadership is [in] Africa. Al-Qaeda’s economic engine is in Africa. Both of these groups share the will and intent to strike our homeland.”

Asked whether his command is capable of disrupting such threats, Anderson gave a circumspect response.

“That is very difficult for us to ascertain in the Sahel right now given our limited posture,” he cautioned.

The implicitly critical remarks came just before President Donald Trump ordered a strike that killed the Islamic State’s second-in-command in Lake Chad Basin. Additional armed actions in northeastern Nigeria followed soon after.

“At my direction, brave American forces and the Armed Forces of Nigeria flawlessly executed a meticulously planned and very complex mission to eliminate the most active terrorist in the world from the battlefield,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday night. “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”

Trump identified the target as Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, a top figure in ISIS who was labeled a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” by the State Department in 2023 during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

The joint commando raid was the result of extensive intelligence sharing and reconnaissance between the U.S. and Nigeria, according to the Nigerian Army.

The assault on al-Minuki’s fortified enclave in Metele, Borno State, commenced shortly after midnight and culminated in airstrikes on the site following a three-hour clash.

Several of the ISIS leader’s lieutenants were also killed in the firefight.

There were no American or Nigerian military injuries reported as of Monday, a U.S. official told Military Times.

AFRICOM, in a statement, said al-Minuki provided “strategic guidance to the ISIS global network on media and financial operations as well as the development and manufacturing of weapons, explosives, and drones.”

It added that he had a “significant history of involvement in planning attacks and directing hostage taking.”

Officials in Washington and Lagos announced on Sunday that the two countries conducted further strikes against ISIS in Metele in the ensuing days, resulting in the deaths of at least 20 militants.

The Islamic State has transformed the Sahel into a breeding ground for some of its most lethal affiliates, notably ISIS-West Africa, also known as ISIS-WA, and its rival, Boko Haram.

Both groups are especially active in the Lake Chad Basin, which spans Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

Myriad factors — including violent extremism, poverty, food insecurity, climate change and weak governance — have converged to make the theater the locus of one of the world’s most intractable humanitarian crises.

The operation that killed al-Minuki was the most dramatic moment so far in the ongoing effort by the Pentagon to aid the Nigerian government in its quest to beat back insurgents.

On Christmas night, American and Nigerian forces carried out joint missile strikes in the Sokoto State. Trump said “ISIS Terrorist Scum” were the targets.

Soon after, the Pentagon deployed roughly 200 troops to the West African nation to assist in training the country’s armed forces as they battle an Islamist insurgency.

Dr. Oman Mohammed, a senior research fellow within the program on extremism at George Washington University, told Military Times that Africa has emerged as a focal point of terrorist activity since the collapse of the Islamic State’s territorial caliphate in 2017.

He said jihadist movements have expanded rapidly across the Sahel, in part through the recruitment of child soldiers who become more susceptible to radical recruitment amid destitution.

“Poverty is the reason that leads to child soldiers,” Mohammed asserted, adding that the Islamic State has infiltrated schools to create conditions in which indoctrinations begin early. “When there is no access to regular schools, imagine: Their teacher is an imam with the Islamic State teaching them how to be terrorists, promising them money. It makes it very concerning.”

According to the United Nations, violence has forced more than 1,827 schools across the Lake Chad Basin to close, depriving thousands of children access to education. Today, Sub-Saharan Africa remains one of the least educated regions on earth.

Mohammed argued that the U.S. must bolster efforts to confront the rise of terrorism in Africa, not scale back.

“Without continued pressure, terrorists will always find a way to plot against the United States, the West and American interests around the world,” he said. “It is their ideology that goes against everything civil and everything democratic.”

The aerial bomb is a winged but engineless weapon that drops from an aircraft at altitude, gliding to its target on the speed and altitude of release, steered by satellite guidance. It costs much less than cruise missiles per shot, carries much larger warheads than most drones and lets aircraft stay outside the densest air defenses.

“The first Ukrainian guided aerial bomb is ready for combat use,” Minister of Defense Mykhailo Fedorov wrote in a Telegram post announcing the milestone, noting the Ministry has already purchased an experimental batch and is gearing up to deploy the bombs on the front.

“Ukraine is moving from importing individual solutions to creating its own high-tech weapons, which systematically strengthen the Defense Forces and provide a technological advantage on the battlefield,” Fedorov said.

Until now, Ukraine had no domestic precision glide bomb. The country has relied on scarce Western donations for strikes beyond the reach of conventional artillery, like American-made JDAM-ERs and ATACMS missiles, British Storm Shadows and French SCALP-EG cruise missiles.

Cheap to produce and free of donor restrictions, the new bombs let Kyiv press the fight at mid-range and conserve scarce longer-range Western missiles for deeper targets — part of a broader Ukrainian push to use tech to change the mathematics of war in its favor after over four years of defending itself against a much larger and richer enemy.

“We are scaling up solutions that increase the range and accuracy of strikes and change the rules of modern warfare,” Fedorov said.

DG Industry, a little-known Ukrainian firm sponsored by the state-backed defense innovation cluster Brave1, started work on the munition 17 months ago, MoD said.

Ukraine had no guided aerial bomb. Now it does.

DG Industry, a Brave1 participant, has completed all required trials and declared the weapon ready for combat after 17 month of development. The bomb carries a 250 kg warhead, hits targets dozens of kilometers behind enemy lines,… pic.twitter.com/EXP0PiLOHl

— BRAVE1 (@BRAVE1ua) May 18, 2026

The team faced a challenging environment, requiring guidance that could survive Russia’s electronic jamming, an airframe that stays stable across release speeds and altitudes and an interface that integrates with whichever aircraft will carry it, according to Brave1.

The result is a system officials say is different from others in its class.

Russia’s UMPK-equipped FAB bombs, for example, are glide kits bolted onto Soviet-era bomb bodies that were never meant to glide. The Ukrainian weapon is purpose-built from the airframe up, not a glide kit.

“This is not a copy of Western or Soviet solutions, but a development of Ukrainian engineers for effective destruction of fortifications, command posts, and other enemy targets tens of kilometers deep after launch,” Fedorov said.

Glide bombs also offer another edge.

Released from standoff distance, they appear over the target only in the last seconds of flight, leaving traditional air defenses little time to react.

They can be harder to detect, too, flying at different speeds, arcs and altitudes than the threats most air defense systems are optimized to track, according to NATO’s Joint Air Power Competence Centre.

Russian Su-34s release the bombs from well beyond Ukrainian air-defense coverage, and once airborne, the bombs themselves are small, unpowered and hard to track.

Ukraine knows from experience how hard they are to stop.

Russia now drops an average of more than 250 guided aerial bombs on Ukrainian positions and cities each day, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Earlier this month, three FAB-250 strikes on Kramatorsk killed five civilians and injured 12 more, according to regional military officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has named glide bombs among Russia’s most dangerous weapons since Moscow began deploying them regularly in 2023.

And they cost far more to shoot down than to produce and deploy.

A UMPK-equipped FAB costs tens of thousands of dollars to manufacture, while a single Patriot interceptor capable of stopping one runs in the millions.

The new Ukrainian glide bomb is built to make that asymmetric cost ratio Russia’s problem, too.

“Soon, Ukrainian guided aerial bombs will be used against enemy targets,” the Ministry of Defense said.

The service commissioned the USS Cleveland during a ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio, the last of an LCS era that began on Nov. 8, 2008, with the introduction of the USS Freedom.

“Today we celebrate the sailors who breathe life into this ship,” said acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, who spoke at the ceremony. “To the officers and crew of USS Cleveland, today is your day.”

The Cleveland, which is the 16th and final Freedom-class littoral combat ship to join the fleet, is the fourth Navy vessel to be named after the Ohio city.

The first in its lineage was a cruiser commissioned in 1903 that served in World War I, followed by a light cruiser that earned 13 battle stars during World War II and an Austin-class amphibious transport dock that participated in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm between 1967 and 2011.

The Cleveland will now travel to its new homeport at Naval Station Mayport, Florida.

Littoral combat ships were designed to support asymmetrical combat operations, providing capabilities such as mine countermeasures, surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare.

But they have faced countless problems since their inception in 2001.

The U.S. Navy paused deliveries of the Freedom-variant in 2021, 13 years after the lead ship of the class was delivered, citing a design flaw with the ship’s transmission.

The US has counter-mine ships homeported in the Middle East. Are they effective?

The Navy later identified cracks in the hulls of six Independence-class littoral combat ships — beginning in 2019 — after the service noticed a structural defect in the USS Coronado, which was commissioned in 2014.

The problems affected the vessels’ ability to travel at certain speeds and prohibited the platform from transiting through waters with wave heights of eight feet or higher.

Beginning in December 2015, five littoral combat ships experienced mechanical issues over a 10-month span.

Concerns over the longevity of the small surface combatants were notable, considering they have a service life of 25 years.

The Navy eventually decommissioned the USS Freedom and USS Independence, the lead ships in both their classes, after the sea service said the ships needed significant upgrades that would cost too much to be worthwhile.

The ships had served for 13 and 11 years, respectively, before their early retirement.

Finances were also an issue. Each vessel costs roughly $500 million to manufacture, despite the Navy’s initial estimate of $220 million.

The Defense Department acknowledged the ship’s shortcomings, too.

A 2013 report from the Pentagon’s testing wing said that both littoral combat ship variants were “not survivable in a combat environment.”

The service has decommissioned seven LCS in total since the program’s launch, according to the Navy.

The service currently maintains 28 littoral combat ships, though the service initially sought between 30 and 60.

Several Independence-class LCS are outfitted with a mine countermeasures mission package that allows the vessels to deploy autonomous technologies for minesweeping.

Three LCS with the MCM mission package are currently home-ported in Bahrain, in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

The Pentagon’s testing wing published a March 13 report saying it could not determine the reliability and effectiveness of the LCS with the MCM mission package.

But scarcely any could be called heroic.

In the case of the F4F Wildcat, usually outnumbered and almost always outclassed by its opponents, an exception can be made.

Distinctive in that it was first designed as a biplane in 1935, the U.S. Navy soon realized that the first iteration, the XF4F-1, could not compete with monoplane fighters.

Modifications continued throughout the next couple of years until the XF4F-3’s debut, which first flew on Feb. 12, 1939, about two months after the first flight of the Mitsubishi A6M1 Zero prototype in Japan.

First combat with the Wildcat was not with any U.S. service, however, but with Britain’s Royal Navy. Its first victim was German. (The Royal Navy called the aircraft the Martlet until March 1944, when it adopted the Wildcat moniker.)

According to historian Bruce Crawford, the British had shown great interest in the Wildcat as a replacement for the Gloster Sea Gladiator, and the first platforms were delivered in late 1940.

On Christmas Day that year, the stubby plane had its combat debut when it shot down a Junkers Ju-88 bomber over the Scapa Flow naval base in Scotland’s Orkney Islands archipelago.

By the close of 1940, the U.S. Navy, perhaps recognizing the effectiveness of the pugnacious plane, awarded Grumman a contract for 600 Wildcats.

Their American debut was less than auspicious, however.

As morning dawned at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, 11 Wildcats were caught on the ground. Nearly all were destroyed.

It was the subsequent defense of Wake Island from Dec. 8 to Dec. 23 — by Marine squadron VMF-211 — where the Wildcat’s tenacity was first displayed.

A small, undermanned outpost 2,000 miles west of Oahu delivered what Maj. Gen. Thomas Holcomb described to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox as “A cheery note” from Wake.

The initial Japanese attack left seven of 12 F4F3s wrecked on the field, with 23 of the squadron’s 55 men on the ground killed and 11 wounded. Not a single aircraft mechanic escaped injury. According to Ian Toll in his Pacific trilogy, VMF-211 suffered 50% casualties in the first minutes of combat alone.

Despite this, VMF-211 fought on for nearly two weeks, using its three airworthy planes — described by Toll as Frankenstein’s monster, “rattling, bullet-ridden, patched-over amalgamations of parts” — to bomb and sink the Japanese destroyer Kisaragi and eventually repel the Japanese invading force.

The plane was neither as fast as the Japanese Zero nor as aerobatic, but it was sturdy, stable and able to take severe punishment.

“I would still assess the Wildcat as the outstanding naval fighter of the early years of WWII,” British test pilot Eric M. Brown wrote in his evaluation of the Wildcat. “Its ruggedness meant that it had a much lower attrition rate on carrier operations than, say, the Sea Hurricane or the Seafire, and although it had neither the performance nor the aesthetic appeal of the latter, it was the perfect compromise solution designed specifically for the naval environment, to such a degree indeed that it was easier to take-off or land on an aircraft carrier than a runway.”

“I actually flew one sortie of four-and-a-half hours in this fighter — and fine ditching characteristics, for which I can vouch as a matter of personal experience, this Grumman fighter was, for my money, one of the finest shipboard aeroplanes ever created,” Brown continued.

Despite the carnage at Pearl, enough Wildcats had been received by the fleet that as carrier operations began in February 1941, the Wildcat was ready and the plane’s latest iteration, the F4F-4, carried with it a new innovation: folding wings.

The new mechanism allowed for carriers to accommodate 27 of the fighters — nine more than before, but at a cost. The addition of two more machine guns caused a falloff in climb and maneuverability, and the .50-caliber machine guns fired for only 22 seconds before ammunition was expended, down from 40 seconds in earlier versions.

“That, in combination with the placement of the cockpit high on the fuselage to give good vision,” writes Crawford, “helped give the Wildcat its distinctive, pugnacious appearance.”

Nearly 85 Wildcats flew from Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet during Midway. And while it was the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber that made a name for itself at the historic naval battle, the stubby Wildcat continued to make significant contributions to the American victories at the battles of Guadalcanal, the Solomons and in the Battle of the Atlantic.

A large part of the Wildcat’s success was tactics.

“The agile Zero, like most Japanese army and navy fighter craft, had been designed to excel in slow-speed maneuvers,” writes Crawford. “U.S. Navy aviators realized early on that the Zero’s controls became heavy at high speeds and were less effective in high-speed rolls and dives.

“Navy tacticians like James Flatley and James Thach preached that the important thing was to maintain speed – whenever possible – no matter what the Zero did. Although the Wildcat was not especially fast, its two-speed supercharger enabled it to perform well at high altitudes, something that the Bell P-39 and Curtiss P-40 could not do.”

So rugged was the F4F that terminal dive airspeed was not redlined, meaning that the Mitsubishi A6M Zero’s 7.7mm cowl guns and 20mm cannons were only effective at point-blank range.

Conversely, the Wildcat’s .50-caliber wing guns were enough to cause the complete disintegration of a Zero.

By 1942, the F4F kill-to-loss ratio for air combat was 5.9 to 1; for the entire war, the ratio was 6.9 to 1, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. The impressive ratio was earned despite the Wildcat being the only carrier-based fighter operated by the Navy during the first half of the war in the Pacific. Forty-eight Marine pilots would become WWII aces in Wildcats.

Two problems would continue to plague the F4F throughout its life, however. The manual landing gear retraction mechanism required 30 turns with a hand crank to retract — with one slip resulting in a serious wrist injury.

It also, in the ensuing years, was unable to be modified to keep pace with wartime fighter development.

While the Wildcat continued to fly for the duration of the war, by 1943 it had become largely supplanted aboard carriers by the F6F Hellcat.

Yet the burly fighter had one more fight left in it as it helped contribute to eliminating the U-boat menace in the Atlantic as its ruggedness and range — enhanced by two 58-gallon drop tanks — continued to make it ideal for use off small escort carrier decks, according to Crawford.

By the numbers, the F4F’s kill tally was less than the Corsair and significantly less than the Hellcat. But in the early days of the war, when the Japanese’s march through the Pacific seemed unstoppable, it was the bite of the Wildcat — the rugged, unflappable fighter — that delivered moments of heroic victory to a beleaguered nation.

Changes to the process for airmen and guardians are vast and include items such as the termination of the Religious Resolution Teams and changes to the application process and military chaplains’ involvement, according to a Friday Air Force release.

“This updated guidance ensures a critical balance between accommodating the sincerely held religious beliefs of our airmen and guardians and maintaining the rigorous safety and readiness standards required for operational superiority,” Richard Anderson, assistant secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said in the release.

The Religious Resolutions Teams were previously used by the department to process, review and determine the result of a service member’s religious accommodation request.

Now, unit commanders will assess the requests without calling on a formalized board through acquiring chaplain, legal and subject-matter input, per the release.

In line with the March 11 Department of Defense memorandum, the DAF amended the application process to now require a sworn written statement from airmen and guardians that demonstrates that their belief is “sincerely held and religious in nature.”

Airmen and guardians have to describe their religious belief and explain how it conflicts with military duties or standards alongside supporting evidence, like personal testimony or statements from religious leaders, the statement reads.

Under the new guidance, military chaplains will no longer evaluate the sincerity of a service member’s belief or remark on possible impacts operationally.

Instead, military chaplains will only give advice on the “religious nature of the belief” and unit commanders are the ones required to comment on the request’s sincerity and operational impact through a written assessment.

“This includes specific evaluations of the members’ current and anticipated work environments, upcoming deployments, and the expected use of personal protective equipment, such as helmets and respirators,” the release says.

Airmen and guardians need to have their previously approved religious accommodations for facial hair reevaluated with regard to the DoD guidance or risk having their accommodation removed. The statement did not specify a timeline for reevaluation.

For facial hair accommodations, the decision authority now falls under the offices of Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower, Personnel and Services and Space Force Deputy Chief of Space Operations for Personnel.

The strike group was honored with the Presidential Unit Citation on the same day the USS Gerald R. Ford returned to Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, from a historic 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War.

“The personnel of Carrier Strike Group Twelve distinguished themselves by outstanding warfighting prosecution while engaged in sustained combat operations against a determined enemy,” read the official citation, signed by Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao.

“The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), Carrier Air Wing Eight, Destroyer Squadron Two, and USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) conducted continuous flight operations and maritime strike missions, delivering precise effects against enemy targets.”

The USS Gerald R. Ford returned to its homeport after 326 days, during which the crew conducted 23 replenishments-at-sea and sailed over 57,713 nautical miles, according to the Navy. Embarked Carrier Air Wing 8 logged more than 5,760 flight hours and 12,200 flight launches.

USS Gerald R. Ford air wing returns home after 11 months

The strike group participated in operations for Operation Southern Spear and Operation Absolute Resolve in the Caribbean Sea, as well.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth read from the citation at Naval Station Norfolk as he delivered the award to the returning sailors.

The Maritime Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance Cell helped the strike group target 125 Iranian warships, while the Launch Area Coordinator assisted in the launch of 207 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile strikes from nine surface combatants, the citation said.

Task Force 58 flew upwards of 1,700 combat air sorties from the Mediterranean and Red Sea, and launched strikes against 700 targets.

The strike group endured the threat of drone warfare and missiles as it traveled highly contested seas in the Middle East.

“By their undaunted courage, aggressive fighting spirit, and total devotion to duty, the officers, enlisted personnel, and civilian employees of Carrier Strike Group Twelve reflected great credit upon themselves and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service,” the citation said.

To receive the award, military units must demonstrate a level of fighting ethos, tenacity and courage that sets them apart from other units, according to the military.

The amount of bravery required to receive the Presidential Unit Citation is the same amount required to receive the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military combat award underneath the Medal of Honor.

Smither, who recently retired as a professor of history at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was also the creator and director of the university’s Veterans History Project.

“I got a call from a fellow named Jeff Wilcox,” Smither told Military Times. “And he said, I’ve got a Vietnam story you’ve never heard before. And he was right.”

That story, the Battle of Fire Support Base Ripcord — the last major American offensive effort in the Vietnam War — would lead Smithers on a nearly two-decade research quest to write “The End of the Rope: The Ripcord Campaign and American Disengagement in Vietnam”.

What first began as a series of interviews quickly expanded as veterans began tracking down Smither to learn more about the campaign.

“I found the veterans were coming to me, asking me to explain to them what had happened to them,” said Smither. “My first reaction was, ‘wait a minute. You were there. I wasn’t.’ The response was ‘Well, we have our individual pieces of the puzzle. You’re looking at all of them.’”

From March 12 to July 23, 1970, the 101st Airborne Division — the only remaining full-strength American division left in Vietnam at that time — was tasked with regaining initiative of the A Shau Valley, strategic ground for the North Vietnamese Army.

The A Shau Valley is the same area where the Hamburger Hill campaign had occurred a year prior. It was a main supply and staging area that the North Vietnamese used for launching invasions toward the coast and into populated areas to the south, according to Smither.

The objective was to destroy as much of the NVA’s infrastructure as U.S. troops could while America — which had quietly started withdrawing soldiers from Vietnam in 1969 — still had the forces available.

Roughly 25,000 NVA soldiers began silently streaming into the valley, digging in deep to await the Americans.

But that wasn’t the only issue plaguing the campaign.

According to Smither, officer promotions were on a “different clock,” geared to “a different world.” After six months of combat duty leadership would shift midstream, even in the heat of battle, meaning “most of the time, the new guys don’t get much of a chance to learn the craft before they’re responsible for guys’ lives.”

The brigade commander who planned and led the early stages of the operation was rotated out in June of that year. Lt. Col. Andre Lucas, the commander of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, had no practical combat experience prior to Ripcord and had not been to Vietnam since 1963. Capt. Isabelino Vasquez, an experienced “hard as nails” commander was sent to the rear to be battalion supply officer. Vasquez was replaced by Capt. Thomas Hewitt who, at the time, had no combat experience.

Hewitt was killed on July 2, 1970, during the opening rounds of an early morning NVA assault after he inexplicably strung up his hammock between two tree stumps on the crest of a hill. When the rocket propelled grenade barrage began, he was killed instantly.

“I call the book the ‘End of the Rope,’ in part, because there’s a limit to what they can actually accomplish,” Smither said. “But it’s actually kind of worse than that, because they’re really put in a position where there isn’t any way to accomplish the mission they’re given. And of course, the commanding officers realize they have their six months to make their mark. If they fail, they might not get the next promotion. Lt. Col Lucas is determined to succeed without understanding what the men on the ground could do.”

Despite the “terrible hand they’re dealt,” stressed Smither, most of the men perform exceptionally well.

“Most of the officers turned out to be really pretty good, including some new guys who didn’t have a lot of experience until they were tested. The enlisted men, they’re mostly either draftees or people who enlisted to take get a step ahead of the draft. They don’t really want to be there, but by and large when they’re out in the field, they do the best they can with the knowledge and experience they have.”

From July 1-23, 75 U.S. soldiers were killed in action, making the Battle of FSB Ripcord one of the deadliest battles in the Vietnam War for the United States, according to the Army.

On July 22 alone, 14 Americans were killed and 56 were wounded. When the Americans were ordered to withdraw the following day, the total number killed had risen to 139 men over the four-and-a-half-month battle. Lucas was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, and names like Bob Kalsu, the only recently active pro football player to die in Vietnam, and Weiland Norris, the brother of actor Chuck Norris, were also killed during Ripcord.

Despite this, very little was known about the battle for decades and no comprehensive research has ever been done on the siege — until now.

Calling the book a “labor of love” Smither noted that the extended time he spent writing the book allowed him to grasp a complicated set of events that “you wouldn’t normally do if you’re trying to crank out a book in a year or so.”

“I promised them I would give them a book,” he said. “And so I did.”

The proposal, called Project Able Baker, would solve two problems, the Air Force said. First, the new Sea-Based Recovery Stations would offer a cheaper way of retrieving reusable heavy-lift rockets so they can be launched again. And, it would provide a new purpose and refurbishment for decommissioned oil platforms before they become environmental hazards.

“This approach aims to provide the U.S. Space Force and its commercial partners with a distributed network of recovery sites that enhance launch cadence, reduce sonic-boom exposure, and leverage existing maritime infrastructure to lower operational costs,” according to an Air Force solicitation posted through the Small Business Innovation Research program.

The Air Force sees these old oil platforms as an alternative to using ships to recover rockets — a method used by companies like SpaceX. One benefit would be “reducing dependence on expensive, custom-built drone ships and facilitating higher launch frequencies,” the solicitation says.

To accomplish this, old oil rigs must be strengthened to handle the “specific plume, vibration, and high-intensity point-load dynamics” of modern rockets, such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn, the Air Force said. The rockets are capable of sending heavy equipment into orbit.

Other desired features of the offshore oil platforms include “passive/active flame deflection, remote fire suppression systems, and precision navigation aids for autonomous landing guidance.”

In addition, these platforms should have “integrated barge or Vertical Takeoff and Landing systems to move boosters from the landing pad to transit vessels.”

The first phase of the solicitation calls for companies to establish the technical and economic feasibility of the concept. The focus is on “structural load analysis, environmental impact assessment, and the development of a regulatory roadmap for operations in federal waters.”

Companies may also be asked to identify at least three offshore platforms that can handle heavy-lift rockets.

Part of the assessment process should include the impact of sonic booms on nearby shipping and coastal populations, as well as the impact on the local ecosystem, the Air Force said. The platforms must align with the federal government’s Rigs to Reefs initiative to turn decommissioned oil rigs into aquatic habitats.

The second phase would involve fabricating and installing “a modular reinforcement kit on a representative deck section of an offshore structure to validate construction techniques and material resilience,” said the SBIR. Testing would use “inert-mass drops (10—25 tons) or static-fire simulations —to capture high-fidelity strain, vibro-acoustic, and plume-interaction data.”

The Project Able Baker SBIR has an unusually detailed list of potential dual-use benefits for the government and commercial sectors.

With the number of space launches and orbital satellites soaring in recent years, the Air Force envisions a series of converted oil platforms that can ease the strain on land-based sites to speed up the entire launch and recovery process.

“By repurposing legacy offshore assets, the system provides a strategic alternative to traditional coastal launch-landing operations, significantly increasing launch cadence while reducing acoustic and debris risks,” the SBIR said.

It would also enable Tactically Responsive Space capabilities “in deep-sea or high-latitude environments, critical for responsive space access.”

China is already building offshore platforms to recover heavy rockets.

Perhaps anticipating scrutiny from environmentalists, the Air Force emphasizes that the Sea-Based Recovery Station concept is an “environmentally conscious solution.”

There are “hundreds of offshore oil and gas platforms in federally controlled waters are reaching the end of their operational lifecycle,” the Air Force said. “Traditional decommissioning and full-removal processes are capital-intensive, costing upwards of $1.6 billion per platform, and often cause significant disruption to established marine ecosystems.”

Two E/A-18G Growler jets collided in mid-air two miles from the base during the two-day Gunfighter Skies Air Show, said Cmdr. Amelia Umayam, a spokesperson for Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The two jets with four air crew collided “while performing an aerial demonstration” at around 12:10 p.m. MDT as part of the air show, Umayam added, noting that all four crew members ejected safely.

“The incident is under investigation. More information will be released as it becomes available,” Umayam said.

The air show’s official site lists the U.S. Navy’s E/A-18G “Vikings” Growler Demo Team as one of the scheduled performers. The jets involved in the collision were assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron 129 from Whidbey Island, Washington, Umayam said.

A portion of State Highway 167, where the aircraft crashed, will remain closed for several days while the investigation continues, according to the 366th Fighter Wing, which is based at Mountain Home.

Sunday marked the first Gunfighter Skies Air Show in eight years. A hang glider pilot died in a crash during the last show in 2018.

The Mountain Home Fire Department, Mountain Home Police Department and Elmore County emergency management coordinator did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The service, which will debut a mandatory three-event physical fitness assessment July 1, also plans to introduce a medal for those who receive top scores, said Capt. Chris Hulser, chief of staff and executive assistant to the commandant of the Coast Guard.

The test, which includes maximum push-ups in a minute, a plank for time and a timed 1.5-mile run or comparable cardio event, is relatively easy to pass, but challenging to max. For a male aged 17-19, getting a maximum score of 100 in each event requires 67 push-ups; a 3-minute, 24-second plank; and an 8-minute, 15-second run, or 5 minutes, 30 seconds per mile.

“What we wanted to do is introduce, ‘Okay, here’s what you’ll be held accountable for, but here’s where you can excel,’” Hulser told Military Times in an interview. “The Army actually has a ribbon and a medal for physical readiness excellence. We’ll have those things set up as well, just to try and get people to create a culture of winning.”

An upcoming all-Coast Guard message to be released next month will contain an illustration of the new award, he said, though it will probably be about a year in development, Hulser said.

The Army, the only military service that offered an award for fitness excellence, did so in the form of a physical fitness (or PT) badge granted to soldiers who scored a minimum of 270, or at least 90 out of 100 on each of three events on the old Army Physical Fitness Test.

The APFT was phased out in 2020 and replaced by the Army Combat Fitness Test, or ACFT, which will be replaced by the new Army Fitness Test in June. Updated PT badge criteria have not been published.

In 2015, Navy officials proposed a uniform-worn Outstanding Fitness Award to recognize high achievers on the Physical Fitness Assessment. Ultimately, though, the service never developed the award.

As the Coast Guard seeks to promote fitness excellence across the service, it may also combine the new twice-annual fitness testing regimen with body composition assessments, Hulser said. While other military services monitor body composition via height and weight or circumference measurements as part of their fitness program, the Coast Guard has treated body composition as an administrative function.

“When you think about it, why have we kept them separate? Well, because we haven’t had a physical readiness program,” Hulser said. “So we’ve only had half the pie there. I personally would like them to merge in the future, because if you want to look at someone’s holistic health, their weight … how much visceral fat they’re carrying is a big part of it.”

To prepare Coasties for the new test, the service has also shipped more than 1,000 pieces of cardio workout equipment to installations and built a new school for “physical readiness leaders” in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, Hulser said.

“We fielded 1,200 pieces of equipment … so rowers, treadmills, all within the last nine months,” Hulser said, adding that delivering rowing machines to Coast Guard Station Valdez, Alaska, for example, required airlift by C-130 transport.

“This isn’t trillions of dollars … this is millions of dollars. But the Coast Guard’s really putting an emphasis where it says it needs to be.”

The new training school, housed under the Coast Guard’s Athletic Performance Branch, has already churned out 1,500 physical readiness leaders, a newly created credential, Hulser said. By July 1, he added, the service wants to have minted 3,000 PRLs, out of a total force of roughly 50,000.

“These 3,000 people will be distributed across the Coast Guard, coordinating those activities, administering the PFT, and then also helping people remediate,” Hulser said. “Because this isn’t the type of thing where, if you fail, you’re separated from the Coast Guard the next day. We want to give people a lot of time to train to a standard so that they can be as healthy as they can be.”

According to a criminal complaint filed last week, Chuan Wang allegedly denied involvement in the production of military products during an interview with customs officers in 2023 when in reality he ran a company that designs and manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles and drones for the Chinese military.

According to the complaint, Wang entered the United States in 2012 on a visa for visiting students and scholars to conduct research on aeroelastic wing design at the University of Michigan. In his visa application, Wang wrote that he planned to develop a “radio-controlled model airplane with high aspect ratio” and conduct related “design, fabrication, test, flight and analysis.”

A few years later, Wang obtained a 10-year tourist visa, describing himself as a business student employed by a media production company. Federal authorities noted that the employment information Wang later submitted — which required biennial updates — changed multiple times.

In one filing, Wang identified himself as a technical engineer for Volition Innovations Science and Technology. In another, he listed his employer as his father, Zhi Yuan Wang. In a third, he identified Tianxun Chuangxin Tech as his employer.

Then, in July 2023, Wang was interviewed by Customs and Border Protection officers while attempting to board a flight to China from Detroit Metropolitan Airport. When officers asked Wang about Tianxun, investigators said he could not explain his engineering specialty and eventually stopped answering questions. CBP officers then searched Wang and his luggage and seized his phone.

By November 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had opened an investigation into Wang and Tianxun. According to the complaint, investigators found Chinese news articles, promotional materials and other online records as early as 2015 describing Wang as the co-founder of Tianxun, a drone manufacturer supplying the Chinese military.

Authorities also cited blog posts allegedly written by Wang discussing his success at Tianxun and how he developed a passion for drone design in high school. The posts reportedly included photographs of Wang presenting one of his drones to former Chinese air force general Xu Qiliang.

When investigators reviewed Wang’s cell phone, authorities say they found thousands of documents related to the design, manufacture and sale of unmanned aerial vehicles. In a message dated Sept. 13, 2022, authorities say Wang received confirmation of a bank deposit paid by the Chinese military’s Special Weapons Bureau.

Wang was reportedly the twelfth Chinese national tied to the University of Michigan to be charged in a federal national security case since 2023. In all, five were accused of smuggling research material: including fungus and roundworms; one allegedly voted illegally; and five were accused of photographing military equipment.

According to Wang’s online case docket, he has not yet been arraigned on charges for making false statements.

The new two-star command will combine the 7th Infantry Division and the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force, Army leaders announced during the 2026 Land Forces of the Pacific Symposium and Exposition in Hawaii.

Speaking to reporters at the symposium, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, commanding general of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, where the merging units are headquartered, lauded the change as a forward-looking departure from the days “when we’ve waited till all the equipment was produced and [then] created the formations.”

“We made the formations to test and integrate the equipment, and we’re adjusting,” McFarlane said. “We’re keeping an agile posture with making organizational changes.”

While McFarlane acknowledged the Army is still working through organizational details, he did note that the command would merge the 7th ID’s two Stryker brigades and a combat aviation brigade with a multidomain task force — or “forces,” he said — to share fires, space, electronic warfare, cyber and intelligence capabilities with other commands and services throughout the Indo-Pacific.

As part of the transition, which is slated to begin in mid-June, soldiers with the 1st MDTF will “re-patch” into the 7th ID.

The timing of the move, McFarlane added, is reflective of Corps-level successes during recent exercises and war games that replicated what a two-star merger might look like.

“We have opportunities to make sure we’ve got the right mix of capabilities with a two-star command,” he said. “The Stryker brigades obviously provide security on the ground, so it really becomes long-range sense and strike division. ... That’s important because [this command’s] effects can range the entire joint operational area versus just a corps-level battlespace. That’s exciting for the Army.”

The establishment of the far-reaching MDC-PAC, meanwhile, comes as Army leaders continue to hammer home the importance of Indo-Pacific collaboration to curtail emerging threats out of China and North Korea.

Speaking at LANPAC, Brig. Gen. William Parker, commander of the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, acknowledged that the U.S. military “can’t do any of what we do today without allies and partners.”

“We don’t fight alone, and we haven’t fought alone for a long time,” he said. “Our partners help us protect our critical assets and critical formations that we have within this theater.”

Days before the start of the symposium, the U.S. military wrapped up the 41st iteration of Exercise Balikatan, the largest annual bilateral exercise between U.S. and Philippine militaries.

This year’s 19-day exercise was also joined by Australia, Japan, New Zealand, France and Canada, the latter four of which put troops on the ground for the first time as part of the exercise.

“Balikatan 2026 marked a strategic evolution from a bilateral exercise to a full-scale, multinational mission rehearsal for the defense of the Philippines,” U.S. Navy Adm. Samuel J. Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said of the event. “That growth reflects the security environment. It reflects the sovereign choices of free nations.”

During a House Armed Services Committee hearing, lawmakers pressed Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve over the watchdog’s report that the DoD had proposed hollowing out civilian harm mitigation efforts while prematurely scaling back parts of the program across the military.

That move, the congressmen said, was against the law.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the committee’s ranking Democrat, addressed the Army leader about the program, saying, “As I understand it, the Department of Defense and Army has completely defunded that. You are in violation of the law right now on civilian harm.”

The Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan, or CHMR-AP, was launched in 2022 following scrutiny over civilian casualties from U.S. strikes and military operations overseas. The effort aimed to better track, investigate and reduce civilian harm during combat.

But the May inspector general report, released Wednesday, found that Pentagon and Army officials had proposed eliminating or significantly reducing major parts of the initiative, including the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, or CPCOE.

Pentagon taps official to oversee civilian protection in war zones

In May 2025, the report said, the DoD submitted a legislative proposal asking Congress to repeal the law requiring the center.

The watchdog also found that meetings had stopped, personnel had been lost or reassigned, and some funding was halted even though no formal decision had been made about the program’s future.

“As a result, the DoW may not comply with its civilian casualties and harm policy (DoDI 3000.17), a policy required by Federal law,” the report said, adding that Joint Staff and command officials had linked the program’s performance to mission success.

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., an Army veteran who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan — and a key supporter of the CPCOE — argued that the military’s long-term success depended on staying lethal and maintaining the local population’s approval, which was endangered when civilians died or were brutally maimed in combat operations.

“Over the course of those tours, what became very obvious to me is that what we did lack was a full understanding about how to win the support of local populations,” he said, adding later, “We ultimately lost the support of the people in Iraq and Afghanistan, who we were there to serve and to help liberate.”

Driscoll acknowledged the concerns and affirmed the Pentagon’s legal obligations. He also defended the Army’s handling of the program, arguing that the Pentagon remained committed to reducing civilian harm and suggesting that some of the disruption identified in the report stemmed from organization restructuring instead of an intentional effort to scrap the program.

Pentagon revamps how it prevents, handles collateral damage in strikes

Smith’s closing comments suggested he did not believe Pentagon assurances that the civilian harm efforts were being reorganized and not dismantled.

“I think a good number of members on this committee do not trust the Secretary of Defense on civilian harm,” he said, adding, “And we don’t trust the notion that it’s just being moved around. It seems like it’s being gutted, and that there is no focus on it whatsoever.”

The bill — advanced by Senators Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo. — would phase out the Selective Service System, citing its annual operating cost of more than $31 million per year. The senators argued that the agency has been largely defunct since 1973, the last time the United States conducted conscription.

“The Selective Service is an outdated program that costs millions of taxpayer dollars to prepare for a military draft that Americans don’t want or need,” Wyden said in a statement. “Our volunteer military forces are the strongest in the world, and there is no need to replicate the same draft that sent two million unwilling young men to war 50 years ago.”

Paul, in a separate statement, added: “I’ve long stated that if a war is worth fighting, Congress will vote to declare it and people will volunteer. This outdated government program no longer serves a purpose and should be eliminated permanently.”

In its 2024 annual report, the SSS acknowledged a recent decline in registration rates, but noted that an automated registration provision could help bolster future enrollment levels.

Congress later incorporated the rule change into the fiscal year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. The shift from a system of self-registration to automation is set to take effect in December, with noncompliance constituting a felony offense.

“This statutory change transfers responsibility for registration from individual men to SSS through integration with federal data sources,” according to its website. “SSS will implement the change by December 2026, resulting in a streamlined registration process and corresponding workforce realignment.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt also drew scrutiny earlier this year when declining to rule out reviving the draft following the launch of Operation Epic Fury, saying that “President Trump wisely does not remove options off the table.”

Over the course of the three-year framework agreement, Anduril will supply the Army with a minimum of 1,000 surface-launched Barracuda-500Ms per year, according to a company release.

“Long-range precision fires and stand-off strike weapons are fundamental to America’s ability to deter our adversaries, but existing solutions are too expensive, too exquisite and too hard to produce at scale,” the release states.

Meant for long-range strikes and designed for a variety of land and maritime targets, SLB-500Ms have a range of over 500 nautical miles and are equipped with a 100-pound munition payload.

The munitions are built into standard 20-foot shipping containers that can be loaded with up to 16 all-up rounds, per the announcement. It can then be transported and placed at the desired launch point, where an operator can use Anduril’s AI-enabled Lattice software or other fire control tech to select targets, munition combinations and coordinate launches.

The “simple” design of the missiles, meanwhile, permits a 30-hour assembly using only 10 common hand tools, furthering the ease of large-scale production, the release states.

Speaking with reporters this week at the 2026 Land Forces of the Pacific Symposium and Exposition in Hawaii, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Matthew McFarlane, commanding general of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, said that developing these types of low-cost munitions is vital to adapting to modern warfare.

“The massive drones we’re seeing be produced around the world — we need to drive down that cost curve so we can make sure we have the lethal means at a lower cost,” McFarlane told reporters.

Discussing the balance between costly Pentagon contracts and lower-cost, emerging technology, McFarlane said that the department needs to continue working with industry partners to drive down cost, emphasizing that the current price points “can only go lower.”

“We got to get it lower if we’re going to prevail against the numbers of things that we think will be thrown our way,” he said.

Anduril is expected to increase production to “single-digit thousands” of Barracuda-500s by the end of 2026, according to the release. Production of the munitions will soon commence at the company’s new 5-million-square-foot facility in Columbus, Ohio.

Alongside Anduril, defense companies CoAspire, Leidos and Zone 5 comprise the Pentagon’s Low-Cost Containerized Missiles program. The program’s assessment phase, which includes the purchasing of test missiles from the companies, is set for June, according to the Pentagon agreement with the four firms.

Through the LCCM program, the Pentagon is aiming to obtain over 10,000 low-cost cruise missiles from the four companies, according to a Pentagon statement.

Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve said in an Army budget hearing that the order to halt a planned 9-month rotation to Europe by 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division to Eastern Europe came from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

LaNeve and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said they were informed of the order and had been consulted, but they wouldn’t provide the exact timing of the decision. On May 1, the unit had cased its colors in preparation for deployment, dispatched its advanced team and launched its equipment overseas.

Soldiers began discussing the decision to scrap the deployment publicly early Tuesday morning; the order was confirmed Wednesday by Army Times and other news media.

LaNeve said the decision was made “in the last two weeks” by the Defense Department and Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, commander of U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

LaNeve and Driscoll downplayed the move as part of routine manning reviews conducted throughout the year.

“We are constantly in contact with [the Office of the Secretary of Defense] and the combatant commanders … and this is not meant to hide the ball,” Driscoll said during a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“This type of conversation is going on throughout the year, every single year, and the Army is always ready to move people and things based off combatant commander and Secretary of War preferences,” Driscoll added.

But lawmakers questioned the timing and the reasons, lambasting the order that Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said sent a “terrible message to Russia and our allies.”

Bacon said he had spoken with Polish leaders who were “blindsided” by the decision and understood that Grynkewich had expressed reservations to the order, saying that it was not without risk.

“This is a slap in the face to Poland. It’s a slap in the face to our Baltic friends. I think it’s a slap to the face in this committee, because we’ve put floors and restrictions on the Pentagon on further reductions in Europe because of what they did with Romania,” Bacon said.

CNN reported Thursday that Hegseth made the decision in relation to the administration’s efforts to pressure Europe to increase its own defenses.

CNN also reported that Hegseth’s order canceled a deployment of 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment to Germany later this year and a command that oversees long-range rockets and missiles will be removed from Europe.

The news follows an announcement May 1 that the U.S. would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany — a decision Pentagon officials said was made following a review of “theater requirements and conditions on the ground.”

But critics say the withdrawal is retribution for NATO countries deciding not to join the U.S. in attacking Iran. President Donald Trump repeatedly has criticized NATO countries for not investing more in their own defense and said in March that NATO would face a “bad future” if they didn’t help defend the Strait of Hormuz.

“If there’s no response, or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO,” Trump told the Financial Times.

Army leaders did not say how many soldiers were affected by the decision or provide the number of personnel in the advanced echelon that now must return to Fort Hood, where the brigade is based.

The order has upended the lives of at least 4,500 soldiers, however, many of whom made preparations to vacate homes and apartments, store belongings and relocate their families.

The order also cost money: in a text message reviewed by Army Times Tuesday, a brigade member estimated the cost and retrieval of equipment at $4 million.

Acting Pentagon Press Secretary Joel Valdez said Thursday the decision was “not an unexpected, last-minute decision,” but lawmakers pushed back on that assessment, with Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., saying he didn’t see how the “statement can be true.”

“These are major decisions that appear to many of the members of this committee to be last-minute decisions,” Scott said.

LaNeve and Driscoll noted that in their roles as chief of staff and secretary, their jobs are administrative and they have no authority in operational decisions.

LaNeve’s multiple references to the law that dictates the structure of the armed forces — and the pair’s lack of response — irritated several committee members.

“We have been very focused on this committee about force posture, and EUCOM in particular not being disturbed, particularly without — what the statute requires — is consultation with us, and we didn’t get that, so we don’t know what’s going on here, but I just tell you we’re not happy,” said Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala.

“It is a pretty dramatic decision to, at the last minute, pull a team that you’re trying to send over there,” agreed Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the committee’s ranking member. “If there’s some strategy behind it, then you guys ought to know, and you ought to be able to communicate it to us.”

The U.S. has roughly 80,000 service members in Europe.

European Command did not respond to a request for comment by publication.

The latest iteration of Project Flytrap, a multinational exercise to test new drone technologies in a realistic conflict setting, pitted U.S. and allied forces against each other in scenarios that featured drone swarms, jamming systems and counter-UAS defenses that continue to redefine modern warfare.

Army leaders have emphasized the need to integrate drones into doctrine and tactics, as they say the rise of inexpensive, mass-produced drones have forced the service to rethink everything from aviation to infantry patrols.

Project Flytrap took place in Lithuania, involved nearly 1,000 personnel and centered around pushing the Army’s technology to its limits amid variable weather and terrain.

Exercise leaders speaking during a Thursday roundtable said soldiers practiced massing unmanned platforms to test the limits of their systems and practice pinning down enemy forces, sometimes using tens of drones at a time.

Sgt. 1st Class Tyler Harrington, a platoon sergeant for Eagle Troop, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, led soldiers in developing counter-UAS tactics during the exercise. The proliferation of drones has changed the basics of soldiering, modifying even the way units conduct basic patrols.

“I’m out there doing my patrols and all of a sudden you hear buzzing. No longer am I just scanning to my 12:00 and around me at ground level,” he said. Now, his troops must look up.

They must also learn to listen.

“You have to now learn the sounds of the drones,” Harrington said, adding a chilling and provocative question, “does it sound like one of the one-way attack drones coming in our potential direction?”

During the roundtable, leaders also highlighted how units used additive manufacturing — like 3-D printing — to quickly create replacement parts and modifications for drone systems in the field.

For the first time, the Army applied testing standards established by Joint Interagency Task Force 401, or JIATF 401, as troops trialed and collected data on over 20 different systems, including drones not yet fielded to the ranks.

The task force, which was established by the Pentagon in 2025, consolidates drone-related acquisition and standards across the country in an attempt to contend with the rapid evolution of unmanned aerial technology in conflicts across the world.

Warfare — from Eastern Europe to the Middle East — has shifted as both state and nonstate actors have begun to attack with hordes of drones that are cheap yet advanced.

The Army is grappling with how to defend its soldiers against these new air threats and also procure and use similar weapons advantageously.

The U.S. and its allies in the Middle East have sought Ukraine’s advice in defending against Iran’s Shahed drones, weapons that the eastern European country has ample experience countering in its war with Russia.

The lessons gleaned from exercises like Project Flytrap tie into broader modernization discussions in Washington.

In a Friday House Armed Services Committee hearing, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said the service was racing to restructure how it fights in a drone-flooded battlefield, “where swarms of drones are going to be attacking an Apache.”

Discussing aviation modernization during budget testimony, Driscoll added, “if you look all over the world, there are not good solutions for that.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle announced during a House Armed Services Committee hearing that the USS Gerald R. Ford will arrive at its homeport of Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, this weekend after more than 320 days at sea.

“We’re going to give our heroes a welcome back on Saturday and it’s just an extraordinary ship, extraordinary crew, an extraordinary strike group,” Caudle said. “And the sailors, I could not be more proud of.”

The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group most recently operated in the Middle East in support of U.S. Central Command and Operation Epic Fury against Iran. Before that, the ship participated in operations for Operation Southern Spear and Operation Absolute Resolve in the Caribbean Sea.

Personnel from Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group’s Carrier Air Wing 8 returned to their home stations on Monday.

Future aircraft carrier Doris Miller delayed until 2034

The Ford began its most recent deployment on June 24, 2025, when it left Virginia for a regularly scheduled deployment to the U.S. European Command area of responsibility.

The carrier broke the record for longest post-Vietnam War deployment on April 15, when it surpassed the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln’s 2020 deployment of 295 days.

The carrier USS Nimitz was at sea for a record 341 days in 2020 and 2021, but part of that deployment saw the ship stationed ashore while it dealt with quarantine periods to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The carrier was forward-deployed in support of American security interests for only 263 days when factoring in isolating periods, according to USNI News.

The USS Midway still holds the record for longest carrier deployment, having spent 332 days at sea during the Vietnam War.

The Ford’s extended deployment, meanwhile, was not without its hiccups.

On March 12, the Ford experienced a non-combat fire in its main laundry room, injuring two sailors and sending another off the ship for further medical evaluation.

More than 600 service members lost access to their racks after some berthing compartments were tainted by the flames, according to The New York Times. Sailors reportedly slept on floors and tables in the aftermath of the fire, which took 30 hours to put out.

Reuters reported that about 100 sleeping berths were affected by the fire, which resulted in nearly 200 sailors needing treatment for smoke-related injuries.

The Ford arrived in Souda Bay, Greece, on March 23 for maintenance, then traveled to Split, Croatia, for further repairs before returning to sea on April 2.

The carrier also faced hefty plumbing issues that affected nearly 650 toilets on board.

Ford personnel have called for assistance with the poorly performing toilets 42 times since 2023, with 32 calls coming in 2025 alone, NPR reported.

The service’s fiscal 2027 shipbuilding budget estimate, which was released in April, shows that USS Doris Miller’s arrival was bumped from February 2032 to February 2034 due to “constraints” at Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard in Virginia.

That delay, however, is a result of issues with the construction of the third Ford-class carrier, the CVN-80, or USS Enterprise.

“The primary schedule driver for CVN-81 is the lack of available shipyard construction space for large assemblies due to delays on CVN-80,” a Navy official told Military Times.

The USS Enterprise is occupying the shipyard’s final assembly area, where large assemblies are required to take place. It is the only space accessible by a heavy-lift crane, which is needed for construction, the official said.

“The CVN-80 delivery date shifted from July 2030 to March 2031 due to delay in critical path construction required for launch of the ship,” according to the Navy’s budget estimate.

Equipment that the Enterprise needs for construction didn’t arrive on time, the Navy official said.

A representative from Newport News Shipbuilding provided clarification on the logjam.

“CVN-80 construction delays result from late arrival of large, sequence-critical equipment that hindered the initial structural build of the ship in the dry dock,” the representative said. “All of the delayed critical material has since arrived.”

The shipyard said it expected to begin construction of the USS Doris Miller later this year.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2026/05/14/lawmakers-push-for-domestic-shipbuilding-fixes-as-us-navy-explores-overseas-options/

The Enterprise has faced setbacks before.

Navy budget documents in July 2025 said that the carrier was delayed from September 2029 to July 2030 due to supply chain issues.

The Navy purchased the USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller under a two-ship buy, or two aircraft carriers acquired under a single contract, in January 2019.

Under the new manufacturing timeline, it will take 12 years to complete construction of the USS Enterprise and 15 years to deliver USS Doris Miller.

The Gerald R. Ford-class as a whole has faced significant delays.

The second Ford-class carrier, USS John F. Kennedy, which has an expected delivery of March 2027, has seen delays in order “to support completion of Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) certification and continued Advanced Weapons Elevator (AWE) work,” according to the Navy’s fiscal 2026 budget documents.

Its delivery was pushed back from July 2025, according to those documents.

The lead ship in her class, the USS Gerald R. Ford, was also delayed due to issues with its nuclear propulsion system and Advanced Weapons Elevators.

Previous Navy Secretary John Phelan told reporters in April that the service was reviewing the costs of future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carriers USS William J. Clinton and USS George W. Bush to “make sure that they make sense.”

The Navy was analyzing the price of building and maintaining future ships in order to make sure that they financially aligned with the Navy’s budget and future goals, Phelan said.

Held from Apr. 20 to May 8, Balikatan was a good testing ground for the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, or 3rd MLR.

This agile Hawaii-based unit possesses more than 2,000 personnel. Designed to operate at the tip of the Marine Corps, the MLR was created in March 2022.

1st Lt. Duncan Stoner, the unit’s director for communication strategy and, said his formation “is unlike any traditional infantry regiment in the Marine Corps. The key difference lies in our focus and our toolkit.”

To permit it to operate in dispersed locations, 3rd MLR’s headquarters oversees three subordinate elements.

The first is the 3rd Littoral Combat Team that fires Naval Strike Missiles from NMESIS (standing for Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System) missile launchers. These assets are accompanied by infantry companies for security, and this year they received attack drones for the first time.

Next up is the 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion that handles air domain awareness and air defense utilizing TPS-80 radars and counter-drone systems.

Finally, the regiment possesses the 3rd Littoral Logistics Battalion to sustain operations in distributed, littoral environments.

This year’s exercise was the fourth time the regiment has participated in Balikatan, and Stoner told Defense News: “As the regiment continues to evolve, this exercise is where we validate our tactics alongside our highly capable regional allies and partners.”

Securing maritime straits

One of those tactics was maritime key terrain security operations, where the Marine Corps helped seize remote Philippine islands in the Luzon Strait. This included deployment of NMESIS sections with anti-ship missiles.

Yes, 3rd MLR deployed the NMESIS to the Batanes Islands in last year’s Balikatan, but this year that expanded dramatically to three separate islands. They inserted with the aid of Air Force C-130Js and Army LCU-2000 landing craft.

On May 2, Defense News visited one of those locations in Basco in the Batane Islands, which is closer to Taiwan than it is to the Philippine mainland.

A section comprising a single NMESIS launcher, command vehicle and leader vehicle – all based on the JLTV chassis – deployed to Basco for 72 hours and conducted simulated fire missions against warships attempting to pass through the Luzon Strait.

Staff Sergeant Darren Gibbs, a section chief in the MLR’s Medium-Range Missile Battery, described NMESIS “as an autonomous missile system that’s essentially used for protection of our straits and sea lines.”

He said “training in Batanes allows us a different environment than what we normally operate in, so it gives us unique opportunities to actually utilize the system.”

However, the NMESIS is yet to fire an actual missile in the Philippines.

Stoner explained that Balikatan is “a phenomenal opportunity to strengthen our partnerships, get reps in employing systems like NMESIS, MADIS and our sensing systems, and really exercise our ability to execute distributed command and control.”

Threats from the air

MADIS is short for Marine Air Defense Integrated System. Fielded by the Marine Corps last year, it comprises JLTVs fitted with various soft-kill and hard-kill counter-drone systems.

At an integrated air defense demonstration in Zambales on Apr. 28, Defense News saw a battery of MADIS vehicles take down various kinds of quad-copters and fixed-wing drones.

In that engagement, countermeasure seemed to miss more drone targets than it hit. However, Defense News learned that crews were deliberately practicing tracking the drones and perfecting tactics, techniques and procedures, rather than simply trying to blow them up.

Staff Sergeant Noah Konien, a platoon sergeant in the 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion, praised his crews: “They did an excellent job, focused on what they had to do and did the job very well.”

Being based on Oahu, MADIS crews face limitations when live-firing at home, so Konien was enthusiastic about the opportunity to fire rounds and missiles in the Philippines.

Regionally relevant

There are two MLRs in the Asia-Pacific region, the other being the 12th MLR stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

Stoner explained, “We’re a purpose-built, informed formation designed to operate and persist in contested littoral environments in tandem with regional forces. In real-world terms, our function is to enable and deliver multi-domain effects that expand the decision space for the broader combined and joint force in the region.”

Asked what direction MLRs will go next, Stoner responded that the Marine Corp is constantly evolving. “The MLR is truly an example of modernization in action.”

He added, “Regardless of specific systems, we’re continually experimenting with advanced sensing capabilities, exploring more survivable command-and-control tactics, and pushing the envelope on multi-domain operations to ensure we remain effective and ready in any situation with our allies and partners in the region.”

Unplanned maintenance — the inevitable surprises that are discovered when aircraft undergo scheduled work — are not being reflected in metrics that assess depot performance. The result is that the Air Force “is not reporting the full extent of depot maintenance challenges and may not be able to make accurate comparisons across the fleet,” warned the Government Accountability Office in a report released Thursday.

The question is how unplanned maintenance is recorded. When assessing whether depots are meeting their deadlines or experiencing delays, the Air Force is supposed to use the scheduled target date for completion.

But depots often discover unexpected problems with an aircraft, such as corrosion or stress cracks, that require additional time to fix.

“Air Force officials cited unplanned work as a major issue contributing to overall delays,” GAO said.

When this happens, depots often miss their deadlines.

“The depot planned to fix, say, 20 things,” Diana Maurer, a director in GAO’s defense capabilities and management team, told Military Times. But as far as the depots are concerned, “if it turned out that 30 things need to be fixed, that shouldn’t be on the depot.”

So, depots often file revised target dates for completing maintenance of an aircraft. The Air Force tends to use those revised target dates when assessing depot performance, as part of a system that tracks the reasons for delays.

However, regarding unplanned maintenance, “the system does not include it as a category, including delays obtaining parts and engineering reviews related to the unplanned work,” said the report. For example, “targets are often revised after maintenance is completed, leading to many targets being revised to match actual performance, thereby showing no delays in those instances.”

“Moving the target date makes it look like things are better than they really are,” Maurer said.

Depot maintenance performance varies widely depending on which metrics are used.

“More than half of the Air Force’s depot maintenance is delayed, and timeliness is worsening, according to the original target,” the report said. “However, according to the revised target, the Air Force completes more than half its depot maintenance on time and has improved in fiscal year 2024, compared with 2023.”

Nor does the Air Force always analyze the reasons for delays.

“We found root causes that are entered into the tracking system are not analyzed by AFMC [Air Force Material Command] to quantify the relative scale of delay causes and their trends across the depots,” the report noted.

GAO recommended that the Air Force use the original target date as its metric for depot maintenance performance. The watchdog also suggested that unplanned work be tracked as a separate cause for delays.

Burnishing numbers is hardly uncommon in the commercial or government spheres. Airlines, for example, are notorious for padding flight times to make their on-time performance look better.

But maintenance depots have been struggling for years, as they deal with aging aircraft and a shortage of skilled workers. In 2019, 31% of aircraft experienced delays in meeting their target maintenance date, according to GAO. By 2024, that figure had soared to 74%.

Masking problems with depots only complicates the search for solutions, GAO said.

“Without complete and credible metrics to understand the full extent of depot maintenance delays, decision-makers will not fully understand the sustainment challenges related to its aging fleet,” the agency concluded.

“Consequently, they will not have the information needed to determine the resources necessary to sustain the Air Force’s aging fleet and thereby be able to accurately plan for impacts on aircraft availability for training and operations.”

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on the DoD years-long struggle to produce a clean financial audit despite claiming around half of the government’s discretionary spending.

Congress passed a measure as part of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act that requires the DoD to produce a clean audit by Dec. 31, 2028. “Clean” means a clear enough accounting of the military’s assets, what was budgeted and spent, along with evidence and documentation, so that the Government Accountability Office can make an accurate assessment of the entire federal government’s finances.

The Marine Corps has been the only service to pass an audit since 2018, when it was first mandated to conduct a full audit. To date, the DoD has never passed a full, clean audit, according to the GAO.

Over the course of Wednesday’s hearing, both the members of the subcommittee on government operations and some of the witnesses had some concern about the department’s ability to pull it off.

“That’s a standard that every other large [government] agency is able to meet, and meet regularly,” Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., said in his opening remarks.

Knowing that the Pentagon has failed to deliver on that, Mfume said he could not vote for the proposed massive increase to DoD’s budget — from around $901 billion for fiscal 2026 to $1.5 trillion for fiscal 2027.

In 2024, the committee instituted a new system for the DoD’s auditing process, which follows a rubric or scorecard. Since that strategy was implemented, committee chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said, “Progress was made but not enough to ensure full financial transparency and accountability. Financial transparency and accountability are core principles of good government.”

The underlying problems, as both Sessions and Asif Khan, director of the GAO, pointed out, are the internal accounting, budget and expenditure mechanisms across the DoD.

This is not a new issue; in fact, it has been going on for 30 years, according to Khan’s pre-hearing witness testimony.

“In 1995, GAO designated DoD financial management as a high-risk area because of pervasive weaknesses in its financial management systems, business processes, internal controls, corrective action plans, acquisition management and financial monitoring and reporting,” the testimony reads. “In 2025, we expanded DoD’s financial management high-risk area to include fraud risk management.”

That potential for fraud rises with a budget increase like the one proposed, one witness said.

“Any time there is an influx of cash or funds into any organization, the likelihood of increased risk of fraud, waste, and abuse coincides with that,” Brett Mansfield, deputy inspector general for audit in DoD’s Office of the Inspector General.

“I’m not sure if it’s a one-for-one [but] there is definitely a positive relationship between an influx of funds and the increased risks,” he added.