The “Summer Surge Incentive,” announced this week with other recruiting reforms, is open to current members who reenlist and airmen transferring from active duty or the Air Force Reserve.

The incentive, first reported by Task & Purpose, comes as other services are offering large bonuses to retain talent. The Army is offering bonuses exceeding $200,000 to keep aviation warrant officers in the ranks, and the Navy is offering up to $150,000 for select aviation roles.

In addition to the bonus, the Guard said that it is now sending its highest-performing recruiters to wings struggling to meet recruiting goals, rather than limiting them to their home states. Other initiatives include a 179% increase in local market funding and a social media collaborator program.

U.S. Air Force Col. Mark Williams, director of Recruiting and Retention for the Air National Guard, said the changes are meant to modernize the force.

“It is all part of an effort to continue reaching individuals seeking purpose, growth and the opportunity to make a lasting impact,” he said.

The Guard also instituted a policy allowing wings that maintain at least 90% manning strength to temporarily fill positions above their authorized numbers.

The change, according to Chief Master Sgt. James Chubb, chief of the Air National Guard Recruiting and Retention Accessions Branch, said was designed to prevent recruiting momentum from stalling once units reach their prescribed limits.

“One of our greatest challenges is balancing recruiting success with limited authorized vacancies,” Chubb said in the announcement. “As recruiters successfully fill formations, available positions naturally become scarce, creating an artificial ceiling on continued growth.”

For fiscal year 2026, the Air National Guard is looking to recruit 8,842 enlisted airmen, 1,123 line officers, 68 chaplains and 53 warrant officers.

The event, scheduled for Oct. 26-30 at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, will bring together military personnel, government employees, industry and academic partners and contractors supporting the government. Participants will choose one of two tracks: developing AI agents on the Defense Department’s GenAI.mil platform or advanced AI development using the service and school’s resources.

The hackathon’s intent, according to the message, is to “generate practical, digital solutions that solve registered requirements while accelerating the Marine Corps’ ability to integrate AI-enabled capabilities into operations.”

Participants will spend at least two full days hacking — at the unclassified level — before final presentations and judging on the fourth day.

Those interested must apply by Oct. 9. Chosen attendees will be notified by Oct. 16.

The military’s push toward AI and automation is being driven in part by the sheer volume of information expected on a future battlefield. During an exercise earlier this year, the Army found that a large-scale conflict could require troops to process as many as 1,500 targets a day, which is a workload far beyond what a headquarters staff could manage without automation.

Schiess will succeed Gen. Chance Saltzman, who has served as chief of space operations since November 2022 and is expected to retire later this month. Upon assuming the position, Schiess will be promoted to four-star general, becoming the Space Force’s senior uniformed officer and serving as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

President Donald Trump nominated Schiess in May following Saltzman’s planned retirement.

Schiess currently serves as deputy chief of space operations, a role in which he oversees the Space Force’s global operations, readiness, sustainment and training. Before joining the Space Force headquarters staff, he commanded U.S. Space Forces–Space, overseeing military space operations and integrating space capabilities in support of combatant commanders worldwide.

Earlier in his career, Schiess served as an Air Force missile officer and held assignments in military launch, GPS and satellite communications before commanding the 21st Space Wing and the 45th Space Wing. His 34-year military career also includes operational, staff and joint assignments supporting U.S. Central Command, U.S. Space Command and multinational operations.

During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in July, Schiess told lawmakers the Space Force must continue organizing, training and equipping Guardians to defend U.S. space capabilities, protect the joint force from space-enabled attack and deliver the capabilities needed to support military operations across the full range of missions.

Space Force must continue to rebuild civilian personnel staff after cuts, chief nominee says

“Our purpose is not confrontation, but deterrence, ensuring no adversary believes aggression against the United States will succeed,” Schiess told the committee.

He said he would work to ensure Guardians remain ready, the service’s capabilities remain resilient and its partnerships remain strong.

In written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Schiess said he would prioritize strengthening the connection between force design, acquisition programs and combatant commanders’ operational requirements.

He also said he would focus on expanding launch infrastructure, improving the Space Force’s testing enterprise and continuing efforts to strengthen the acquisition workforce needed to field new capabilities more rapidly.

Reuters reported this week that the U.S. Army had used up much of its global stockpile of long-range precision missiles during the five-month conflict with Iran, raising concerns about military readiness for future crises.

President Donald Trump on Thursday played down concerns over weapons shortages, saying the U.S. had an almost unlimited supply of some munitions while acknowledging stocks of others were tighter. He added that U.S. defense companies were expanding production capacity.

Rheinmetall signed a memorandum of understanding with Lockheed last month to jointly produce Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, at Rheinmetall’s Unterluess plant in northern Germany. Production facilities are due to be set up next year.

“Naturally, there will also be sufficient capacity to replenish the U.S. military arsenals depleted by the conflict involving Iran,” CEO Armin Papperger told Reuters in an interview conducted on Thursday but published on Friday.

“That won’t happen in two years. It will take much longer.”

Defense companies across the world are racing to meet a surge in demand as governments step up military spending amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and U.S. pressure for Europe to take more responsibility for its own security.

Helping build Europe’s defenses

Rheinmetall has been among the biggest beneficiaries of Europe’s drive to raise defense spending.

Europe’s largest ammunition maker has pursued partnerships and acquisitions to rapidly expand production capacity to meet growing demand.

The ATACMS joint venture still requires approval, but Papperger said the process was well advanced and had the backing of the U.S. government.

The partners intend to target the global market for ATACMS missiles, he added. “There will be a market for missiles for the next 15 years.”

Rheinmetall expects the joint venture to generate its first revenue in 2028, the CEO said.

Talks needed with new Leonardo CEO

Papperger said Rheinmetall remained interested in acquiring Iveco’s military truck business from Italy’s Leonardo, but future talks would depend on new CEO Lorenzo Mariani.

“I had a handshake agreement with his predecessor,” said Papperger. “Mariani can decide on new terms, and we will see if they remain attractive to Rheinmetall.”

The deal is not at risk, Papperger added, saying he hopes to meet Mariani after the summer break.

Boxer contract expected by year-end

Rheinmetall, which on Thursday cut its sales outlook after Germany canceled its F126 frigate program, also expects a multibillion-euro contract to supply Boxer armored vehicles to the German military to be signed by year-end, Papperger said.

“There is absolutely nothing standing in the way,” he said.

Rheinmetall’s share of the contract would be worth €12.4 billion ($14.3 billion), while the total value, including partner KNDS, is expected to reach about €25 billion.

In Wednesday’s announcements, the company explained that its Missionforce National Security platform received Impact Level 5, or IL5, authorization, meaning it is “trusted” to address the “most sensitive, unclassified missions.”

Kendall Collins, the chief executive officer of Missionforce and Government Cloud at Salesforce, said the platform is “modernizing government IT” and that they’re “building the trusted AI backbone for America’s national security.”

According to the announcement, Missionforce is the DoD-authorized variant of the commercial Agentforce platform, which is a network of AI agents designed to support analysis and decision-making.

This is the latest application of the technology since Salesforce won the $5.6 billion contract to build Missionforce in January. In early July, Salesforce said the Air Force deployed Missionforce with the 441st Vehicle Support Chain Operations Squadron to help manage its $13.5 billion fleet of over 84,000 vehicles across nearly 389 locations.

The company called the approval a “milestone” because it moves the national security and defense entities “beyond predictive AI and chatbots” and onto “autonomous AI execution.” The AI agents will have access to controlled unclassified information as well as unclassified National Security System data.

While Missionforce is tailored for government use, the underlying technology is based on Salesforce’s commercial Agentforce 360 platform, which the company introduced in late 2025.

Ryan Von, a writer for Salesforce Ben, a publication that covers the company’s products, described Agentforce as Salesforce’s “boldest leap into AI,” and called the latest 360 variant, “the most powerful version of the tool yet.” He said it’s marketed as able to deliver “accurate, context-rich responses across text and voice.”

In an early review of the commercial platform, Von said demonstrations were promising. Still, he suggested the AI performed best on routine, keyword-based requests while struggling with more complex questions, such as personalized recommendations.

For the Army HRC, the company said AI agents will “provide around-the-clock support, respond to routine inquiries, summarize case histories, and surface relevant policy and career information from approved Army sources.”

According to the company, HRC handles more than 1,500 personnel cases each day. Salesforce estimates the AI agents could save roughly $6 million annually while handling more than 55 million conversations a month.

Bill Pessin, SVP of Missionforce National Security at Salesforce, said that the platform will allow the human staff to “focus more on the complex, career-defining decisions that directly affect the readiness and lives of our Soldiers and less on the mundane tasks that can be handled by AI.”

The airlifter, tail number 01-0194, assigned to the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, was parked overnight at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport in Texas on March 4, 2025, when severe storms and microbursts of up to 80 mph sent two private Bombardier Challenger jets careening into it.

Video shot that morning showed one of the business jets come to rest beneath the C-17’s wing. The same storm system damaged numerous aircraft at airports across the metroplex.

The collision damaged the C-17’s left-side door, fuselage and nose. The crew flew it home with a Boeing-qualified and Air Force-approved temporary nose panel and landing gear down.

Back in Ohio, maintainers repaired the door and fuselage but determined the left nose panel had to be replaced, which is where the job stalled.

Boeing was unable to find a vendor willing to build tooling for a single nose panel, according to the Air Force. After an unsuccessful repair attempt, the jet was looking at a year in storage followed by another year of repair work, sidelining one of only nine C-17s the wing counts as mission-essential.

The wing turned to the Air Force Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO), a Life Cycle Management Center division at Wright-Patterson that hunts for ways to fabricate parts the supply chain can’t deliver.

Engineers there deemed the panel a good candidate for incremental sheet forming, or ISF, in which a robot presses a flat metal sheet into shape a little at a time. Because the machine follows a digital path rather than a mold, tooling is unnecessary.

Working with the University of Dayton Research Institute, the team began production in January 2026. Boeing, along with maintainers from the wing, installed the finished panel in July, and 01-0194 took to the skies again July 30, nearly 17 months after the storm.

“This is a tremendous win for our maintenance group,” Col. Karen Gharst, the 445th Maintenance Group commander, said in a statement. “Using the ISF technology to rapidly produce an otherwise unobtainable part allowed us to avoid a prolonged work stoppage.”

The event marks the first incrementally formed part to fly on an Air Force aircraft.

Boeing closed the C-17 line in 2015, and the Air Force expects to fly the fleet into the 2070s, meaning this may not be the last time the service has to hunt for parts nobody makes anymore.

The RSO is currently working on parts for a KC-135 and an F-15.

The trial, known as the Psilocybin Intervention for Veterans Overcoming Treatment-Resistant Depression,” or PIVOT, study aims to include at least 240 veterans, all of whom have difficult-to-treat major depressive disorder and some who also have PTSD.

The study will take place at five VA medical centers through June 2031 and will assess patients’ levels of depression before and after treatment, side effects and overall response among participants.

“Far too many veterans are living with mental health conditions that don’t respond to available treatments,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “Under President [Donald] Trump, VA is pursuing all avenues to evaluate new treatments and offer meaningful relief for those who have worn the uniform. This clinical trial reflects another step toward this goal.”

Last month, researchers with Ohio State University’s Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education published the findings of a small, 12-person study on the safety of using psilocybin to treat severe PTSD in veterans.

After receiving eight hours of psychotherapy and two doses of synthetic psilocybin and integrative therapy, nine participants, or 75%, no longer met the clinical criteria for having PTSD.

According to the research, published July 30 in Communications Medicine, participants showed no serious adverse effects, including suicidal ideation or behavior. Non-serious side effects included headache, anxiety and dizziness.

“For a population with severe treatment-resistant PTSD, these results are striking,” said Stacey Armstrong, associate director and senior researcher at the center.

The PIVOT study will involve veterans with major depressive disorder who have not responded to current treatments, including those with or without a diagnosis of PTSD. In the double-blind, randomized trial, veterans will receive one dose of psilocybin or a placebo, along with therapeutic support. They will receive a second dose one month later, also with support, and will be evaluated two to four weeks following each session.

They also will receive follow-up six months after their participation.

VA officials said for the study, they will use pharmaceutical-grade drugs and treat veterans in a “safe, controlled, clinical setting.”

The five VA facilities that are slated to host the research include: the Birmingham VA Health Care System and Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center, Alabama; the VA Portland Health Care System, Oregon; Cpl. Michael Crescenz VA Medical Center, Philadelphia; and VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle.

Trump signed an executive order in April directing the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate the review of some psychedelic therapies to treat mental health conditions. The order also required the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the VA to collaborate on psychedelic research.

As a result of the order, HHS and the VA signed an agreement last month to increase coordination on research, including increasing clinical trial participation, training therapists, nurses and doctors to administer psychedelic medications if they are approved and collecting data and evidence to support patients, physicians and federal regulators.

According to the VA, its staff is involved in 20 current clinical trials focused on psychedelic treatments for mental health conditions, including MDMA and LSD.

Nearly 5 million veterans have used magic mushrooms, LSD or MDMA, study finds

Studies sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies have shown that 87% of veteran participants in a study on the use of MDMA — the chemical compound known recreationally as Ecstasy or Molly — had significant improvement in PTSD symptoms four months after receiving treatments, and 71% no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD at the end of the studies.

The advancement of MDMA as a treatment met a setback in 2024, however, when the Food and Drug Administration rejected an application to approve it as a PTSD treatment, requesting more research on its safety and efficacy.

VA officials said in a release on the PIVOT study Wednesday that they strongly discourage self-medication, and veterans should not “replace other mental health treatment options with psychedelics or any other unprescribed substances.”

“Proven, evidence-based treatments are currently available at VA facilities to treat Veterans with mental health conditions,” they wrote.

The official in charge of tracking the Navy’s finances mocked the smell, weight and appearance of subordinates and made hiring decisions that appeared to show bias in favor of other African American women, a new report from the Pentagon’s top watchdog finds.

The 42-page probe concludes that Donjette Gilmore, auditor general of the Navy Audit Service, made a habit of harassing and belittling subordinates, creating a hostile work environment and reducing some employees to tears.

Of 27 witnesses interviewed by the Inspector General, 23 said they had personally witnessed, experienced or heard about this behavior.

Specific comments alleged by witnesses included, “Oh, your perfume stinks. She stinks. You stink;” “Oh, my God, you look like a witch;” “No. Let’s take the stairs because [you need] the exercise;” “Your clothes are too tight;” and “You need to stop eating cookies [because] [y]ou don’t need to eat cookies,” among others.

Employees reported being berated and told to “shut up” in staff meetings and mentioned instances in which two single parents were targeted with derogatory comments.

“Nobody told you all to have kids,” Gilmore allegedly said.

Additionally, according to the report, she created a culture of fear around reporting alleged misconduct.

“Witnesses told us that they and their colleagues were afraid to file complaints against Ms. Gilmore and that no safe or effective channel existed to address their harassment allegations,” investigators wrote. “They believed that previous complaints were ignored and mishandled and that Ms. Gilmore would find out they complained against her.”

Eight witnesses also said Gilmore tried to hide negative feedback from command climate surveys administered in 2023 and 2024, ordering that specific comments be redacted on briefing slides.

This week, the Navy published new guidance on transparency in the administration of command climate surveys. Officials did not confirm to Military Times whether the guidance was linked to the IG report on Gilmore.

“A strong and positive command climate is the bedrock of our warfighting advantage. Because our people are our most valuable asset, a command climate that fosters trust, respect, and psychological safety is not a ‘nice to have’; it is a combat multiplier,” the Navy administrative message states.

The report also finds that Gilmore’s behavior in 17 different hiring actions showed a preference for external candidates and non-competitive practices and thus “created an appearance” of favoritism. Eight African American women were hired to fill 13 of the 17 roles, with some of them being selected for more than one position, the probe found. Nine of the hires were made without a competitive selection process.

Witnesses, who the watchdog noted included seven current and former Audit Service employees who are Black women, also alleged Gilmore made racially specific comments about hiring and employees, including stating “that she needed to keep an employee by keeping him happy because ‘he is white.’”

In addition, the report concluded that Gilmore misused her role in various ways, most notably by pressuring a subordinate to submit sexual harassment allegations as part of an extended effort to discredit another official, Ronnie Booth, who’d previously been selected over her in 2018 to become the Navy’s auditor general.

“Ms. Gilmore took other extraordinary steps in her efforts to discredit Mr. Booth,” the IG found. “Specifically, Ms. Gilmore:

• sent anonymous letters to other potential victims;
• solicited congressional support for her selection as AG in conjunction with the adverse information about Mr. Booth; and 
• coordinated her actions and shared information about the harassment allegations with a Washington Post reporter."

The DoD IG did find in 2021 that Booth had sexually harassed a dozen female Naval Audit Service employees over the course of more than two decades, engaging in a “pervasive pattern of sexual harassment and quid pro quo sexual propositions.”

Booth retired under the shadow of harassment allegations in 2019.

Gilmore, who previously directed the Navy’s public-private partnership housing reviews, became auditor general in 2022. Between May 2023 and June 2024, the Navy received six complaints alleging favoritism, harassment and misuse of her position.

In responses provided to the IG, Gilmore denied wrongdoing, at times claiming she did not recall specific alleged interactions and comments. She also told the IG that she couldn’t remember the passcodes to government-issued cell phones that were seized by investigators and that she didn’t know where a missing SIM card was, according to the report.

In a message to Military Times, Gilmore said that, on the advice of her attorney, she was unable to comment.

As of Thursday, Gilmore appears to remain in her position as the Navy reviews findings.

“We have received and are currently reviewing the DOW IG report,” a Navy spokesperson told Military Times. “We take all allegations of misconduct very seriously and are committed to workforce accountability. We have no further comment on the matter at this time.”

Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander of U.S. Southern Command, directed the activation Tuesday, describing Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, or JTF-WHEM, as a purpose-built joint task force that will provide unified command and control at the tactical and operational levels, while integrating military capabilities with the 18 partner nations of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, or A3C.

SOUTHCOM Media Relations Officer Steven McLoud told Military Times the activation of JTF-WHEM “represents an evolution from Operation Southern Spear,” reinforcing the command’s whole-of-government, multinational approach to defending the homeland while building on the successes of Operation Southern Spear.

McLoud said JTF-WHEM serves as SOUTHCOM’s “action arm,” focused on what he described as imposing “total systemic friction” against threats across the hemisphere.

He said the task force builds on Operation Southern Spear, which employed “precise kinetic strikes and maritime interdiction operations” to disrupt illicit trafficking and undermine entrenched criminal networks, by advancing efforts to disrupt, dismantle and defeat narcoterrorism networks.

According to McLoud, JTF-WHEM coordinates U.S. military actions targeting cartels and narcoterrorist networks while leveraging the commitment of Americas Counter Cartel Coalition member nations through expanded bilateral and multilateral cooperation in border security, countering threats and protecting critical infrastructure. He said enhanced cooperation and information sharing support the president’s national security strategy, the defense secretary’s national defense strategy and SOUTHCOM’s theater priorities.

According to SOUTHCOM, JTF-WHEM will serve as the command’s operational headquarters for executing missions across the region.

The command said the headquarters integrates intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, operational planning and multinational coordination while supporting intelligence sharing, combined training, interoperability, partner-capacity building and humanitarian assistance and disaster response.

SOUTHCOM said the task force is intended to increase operational effectiveness against transnational criminal organizations and other threats affecting the United States and partner nations.

“JTF-WHEM strengthens our ability to work alongside trusted allies and partners, synchronize military capabilities and apply sustained pressure against the networks that threaten our collective security,” Donovan said in a statement. “Together, we are increasing security across the hemisphere and protecting our homeland.”

Donovan also said, “Together with the 18 nations of A3C, we are changing the way we confront these threats.”

Gen. Donovan selected Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Kevin Jarrard to command the new task force. Jarrard most recently led U.S. military support to U.S. Department of State-led disaster relief operations following the June earthquakes in Venezuela.

Boeing’s BSU-111/B Payload Delivery Unit is a wing-and-turbojet engine kit that converts a 500-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) into a long-range JDAM (JDAM LR) dubbed the GBU-75. The result is a gravity bomb with the reach of a cruise missile.

Boeing said it has spent nearly $100 million of its own money on the program.

“Scaling production of the GBU-75 will provide the fleet with an affordable, sustainable solution designed to eliminate long-range land and sea-based threats to U.S. and international forces,” said Bob Ciesla, vice president of Boeing Precision Engagement Systems.

The BSU-111/B wing-and-engine kit is the latest modification to the JDAM family, which has previously seen the gravity bomb receive a tail kit that steered it roughly 15 nautical miles and a wing kit that further stretched that distance to 40.

The Kratos-designed TDI-J85 engine pushes that past 300.

The JDAM LR’s capabilities go beyond land strikes. The QuickStrike Long Range mining variant pairs it with a bomb carrying a ship-tracking sensor. Boeing has shown concepts loading large numbers onto Air Force bombers, though no Air Force buy has been announced.

The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, buys JDAM for both the Air Force and U.S. Navy. The first GBU-75s are bound for the Navy.

The Navy demonstrated the weapon back in April, when Super Hornets released two JDAM LRs over the Point Mugu Sea Range off California.

The April 1 round separated cleanly, fired up its engine and flew 34 minutes before landing within meters of its target. The April 3 round added altitude changes and maneuvering. Each covered roughly 200 nautical miles.

When announcing those tests in April, Capt. Sarah Abbott, the Navy’s Precision Strike Weapons program manager, emphasized the need to give the fleet’s JDAMs greater standoff range.

“As Naval Air Forces in theater continue to rely heavily on JDAM systems, the program recognizes a critical need to provide the fleet with greater standoff range,” she said. “This new capability allows pilots to engage targets from significantly safer distances, maintaining a tactical advantage in contested environments.”

Reusing existing infrastructure is a key aspect of the program’s appeal.

Navy budget documents describe JDAM LR as a modification to the baseline program, built on the existing production line and guidance hardware. Any jet that can drop a conventional JDAM can carry the new variant without modification, according to Boeing’s release.

The award, which had not appeared in the Pentagon’s daily contract announcements as of Aug. 5, is an undefinitized action, meaning Boeing began work before the two sides agreed on a price. The Government Accountability Office has long called these contracts risky because contractors are reimbursed for allowable costs, regardless.

Boeing’s release did not say how many GBU-75s the contract buys, how much they cost or when deliveries begin.

The fall lasted only seconds, but the consequences would span a lifetime.

Under the cover of darkness in Balad, Iraq, Army Sgt. Will Fisher was moving into position for an overnight mission. He fell roughly 40 feet and landed on his feet while wearing about 100 pounds of gear. The force of the fall crushed the talus bone in his right ankle and broke his back. He was medically evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

That fall eventually cost him his leg and his career — the latter more than a decade earlier than he had hoped, and five critical years short of his qualifying for a full military pension.

“I wasn’t planning to leave the Army,” he said. “The injuries made that decision for me, and that was it. The retirement I’d spent almost 15 years working towards was gone.”

Service members qualify for full pensions after two decades of service, but only 17% reach the necessary 20-year mark of eligibility, a 2011 Defense Department report found. An estimated 54,000 veterans sustain career-ending combat injuries before reaching that threshold.

Consequently, medically retired veterans lose part of their retirement pay because they also receive disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Last fall, those reductions averaged roughly $1,650 a month, or nearly $20,000 a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The Major Richard Star Act would change that. The bill — named after an Army major who was medically retired after being injured in combat — has backing from nearly 80 senators, more than 330 House members, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“It is unacceptable that tens of thousands of combat-injured veterans are denied the full military benefits they earned,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors, who characterized the offset as “one of the deepest injustices in our present veterans’ disability system.”

Some lawmakers support the bill’s premise, but worry about the cost: $78 billion over a decade, according to the CBO.

Sen. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, is one of them. In a statement provided to The War Horse, a spokesperson for Crapo said, “We owe combat-injured veterans nothing less than our full support when they return from their military service.”

But his office also said Crapo is concerned about the bill’s overall price tag and “remains willing to work with his colleagues to address cost-related concerns.”

The cost previously prompted Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., to block the legislation, arguing the long-term financial impact required greater scrutiny.

The cost question Congress hasn’t resolved

When it was introduced in 2023, the Major Richard Star Act applied only to those who were medically retired due to combat injuries and was estimated to cost about $10 billion to $13 billion over 10 years. Eligibility was later extended to an additional 255,000 medically retired veterans regardless of how they became injured, inflating costs nearly sevenfold over the same period.

In an effort to help it finally pass, lawmakers in June included the Major Richard Star Act as part of the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (TCAVA), a legislative package with more than 60 veteran-related measures. The version in that bill would again limit the benefits to only those 54,000 injured in combat, according to advocates and legislative language reviewed by The War Horse.

Candace Wheeler, senior director of government and legislative affairs at the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, said advocates ultimately focused on combat-injured retirees because broader proposals would “balloon the cost” and be harder to move through Congress. But after TCAVA failed to get a floor vote in July, its chances of passing this fiscal year are dwindling, leaving some confused about the status of the standalone bill.

According to congressional staff in Sen. Blumenthal’s office, lawmakers intended the amended Major Richard Star Act to extend eligibility to just 1,124 additional combat-wounded veterans, but the bill’s legislative language was interpreted by the DoD Office of the Actuary as applying to roughly 255,000 medically retired veterans, an estimate the Congressional Budget Office used in scoring the bill, accounting for the additional $68 billion.

However, Disabled American Veterans opposes the larger bill because of its funding mechanism, which would reduce future disability claims for some conditions, including tinnitus and sleep apnea. The group said the proposal asks one group of veterans to finance benefits for another and could set a precedent for future reductions in benefits.

“We would be 100% supportive without the poison pill,” said Todd Hunter, DAV’s deputy national communications director.

Currently, there are two similar bills before Congress: The original targeting combat-injured veterans only, and the expanded version that would apply to a broader group of medically retired veterans.

A career cut short five years before retirement

As lawmakers debate the cost, combat-injured veterans say they earned both their military retirement pay and disability benefits.

After serving eight years as a Marine and spending a few years as a civilian, Fisher joined the Army. He deployed repeatedly throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Panama, and elsewhere. Then, on Oct. 19, 2009, while serving as an infantryman with Task Force 16, 155th Brigade Combat Team, in Balad, Iraq, rotor wash from a nearby U.S. helicopter knocked him from a ladder during overwatch operations, ending his career.

For four years, Fisher lived with chronic pain, heavy medications, and repeated efforts to save his right leg. Eventually, he chose to have it amputated below the knee.

“The pain was unbearable,” he said. “The surgeries didn’t work, and I was exhausted from daily medications that I didn’t want to be taking, and after all that, my right ankle was dead.”

Two days after surgery, Fisher was back on his feet. Nine weeks later, he was fitted with a prosthesis and walking.

“I have more legs than I have shoes,” said Fisher, who now owns 11 prosthetic legs.

Within months, he was running. Eight months after surgery, he returned to service as a volunteer firefighter. Later, he became Fort Hood’s first amputee civilian police officer, a job that allowed him to work alongside soldiers and train others for duties he once performed himself.

But because he served in that role as a civilian employee after medical retirement, the work did not count toward the 20 years of military service required for a full military pension.

The retirement they wanted but never received

Fisher wanted so badly to stay in the military that when the war with Iran began earlier this year, he called the recruiter’s office to ask whether the Army was taking retirees. He wanted to serve as a military police officer again, this time on active duty.

When Fisher left the Army in 2014, he had earned a military retirement worth $2,166 a month. He has never received it. The Army assigned him a 40% disability rating during his discharge process, which made him eligible for about $2,700 a month in disability compensation.

Under a federal policy known as the VA Waiver, Fisher’s disability compensation reduces his military retirement pay dollar for dollar. Since his disability pay exceeds the value of his retirement benefit, his retirement check is wiped out. But if both benefits were paid, Fisher’s monthly military-related income would be nearly $4,900.

“My retirement pay was earned through my years of service,” Fisher said. “My VA disability compensation is because I lost my leg serving my country. Those are two completely different things, and I don’t think one should cancel out the other.”

Fisher also earns a salary from his full-time job as a logistics manager for an appliance company. But he said the offset still affects his long-term financial stability. With the extra money, he would have more flexibility.

“I’d pay off debt, save some money, and I could enjoy my family a lot more,” he said.

Naomi Mathis understands the strain.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the former Air Force staff sergeant’s convoy came under attack amid what she described as “total chaos.” Mathis witnessed the aftermath of multiple combat incidents, including the death of a fellow service member. After returning home, she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The condition led to a 100% disability rating from the VA. She was medically retired after serving 7.5 years, far short of her goal of serving at least 20 years and eventually becoming a chief master sergeant.

Like Fisher, Mathis said the loss was not simply financial. It was the loss of a career she intended to finish.

“My career was cut short,” she said. “I was not given the opportunity to serve out those 20 or 30 years. But I would have.”

Mathis qualifies for a special combat-injury compensation fund that partially supplements the offset. Even with that assistance, the shortfall still stings: nearly $800 a month less than if she received her full retirement and disability pay.

With three young children at home, Mathis said financial pressure forced her back into the workforce before she had fully recovered.

“I couldn’t pay rent or feed my kids. I needed a job immediately,” she said. “I wasn’t able to heal.”

Mathis now serves as DAV’s deputy national legislative director. She said she remains grateful for the life she built after military service, but still believes the country’s promise to injured service members should not end when their careers are cut short.

“I signed my name on the dotted line, and I wasn’t just under the impression — I was told — that the military would be there for me when I put up my boots,” Mathis said. “Well, they put my boots up for me.”

The warning envisaged attacks on the energy facilities, oil fields, refineries, electricity grids, water infrastructure, transport networks and other strategic assets of Washington’s closest Arab allies, according to a senior Iranian official.

The message, part of a broader Iranian effort to deter further U.S. military action by raising the prospect of severe economic disruption across the Gulf, was delivered through a flurry of high-level diplomatic contacts after Trump threatened on July 28 to strike Iran’s energy network and infrastructure, the sources said.

Two senior Iranian officials, two Gulf sources and a senior regional diplomat with knowledge of the discussions said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke with his Saudi, Turkish and Qatari counterparts, as well as Pakistan’s army chief. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Araqchi urged Washington’s Gulf allies to use their influence with Trump to dissuade him from launching renewed strikes, the senior diplomat said, warning that any attack on Iran would prompt retaliation against U.S. assets and critical infrastructure across the Gulf.

His message was consistent in every conversation, the diplomat said: “We’re ready to retaliate, but finding a diplomatic solution is the best way to avoid wider escalation and destruction across the region.”

“The Iranian warning was unequivocal: if America targeted Iran’s infrastructure, they would retaliate by striking Gulf energy facilities and other regional targets,” one Gulf source said.

The diplomatic campaign underscores how Iran is seeking to turn Gulf vulnerability into leverage, confronting regional governments with the prospect that any renewed U.S.-Iran confrontation could place the infrastructure underpinning their economies directly in the firing line.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman subsequently spoke with Trump, urging him to delay military action, return to negotiations, secure a ceasefire and pursue a diplomatic settlement, the senior diplomat and Gulf sources said.

The warning was intended for every Gulf state, another Gulf source said, but was conveyed primarily through Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In recent years, Iran has repaired ties with its Gulf neighbours, including its former regional rival, Saudi Arabia.

Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia have all urged Washington to resume talks with Tehran and avert renewed conflict amid Iranian warnings that another round of U.S. strikes could “turn the region into a fireball,” the second Iranian official said.

On Aug. 2, Trump said he agreed to cancel the attack on Iran “subject to being able to rapidly make a deal”.

THREATS OF WIDER REGIONAL ESCALATION

“Saudi Arabia believes further escalation will only bring more destruction,” the first Gulf source said. “That is why it urged Trump to give diplomacy a chance.”

While urging Washington to pursue diplomacy, Riyadh also made clear it would defend itself if threatened. The second Gulf source said Saudi Arabia warned that any attack on its territory would be met with a military response.

Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the Royal Court, said the kingdom’s assessment is that further escalation is unlikely to achieve the desired result.

“The Kingdom believes a combination of proportionate military responses and sustained pressure on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz offers the strongest path toward a practical diplomatic settlement,” Shihabi said.

Iran’s clerical leadership has repeatedly demanded the closure of U.S. military bases in the Gulf and called on Gulf Arab states to stop sharing intelligence with Washington, which Tehran believes has been used to facilitate attacks against it.

“They still remember Saudi Arabia’s Aramco,” he added, referring to the September 2019 drone and missile attacks on the Abqaiq and Khurais facilities that temporarily knocked out more than half the kingdom’s crude oil production and exposed the vulnerability of Gulf energy infrastructure.

“The enemy continues to threaten Iranian infrastructure. If Iran suffers damage, it will inflict far greater damage in return,” added the Iranian official who cited the target list including power grids and refineries.

From Tehran’s perspective, Trump now faces two unpalatable choices, the senior Iranian official said: escalate a conflict that could engulf the Gulf and disrupt global energy supplies, or accept a negotiated outcome that falls short of the decisive victory Washington seeks.

One of the principal obstacles to an agreement, the senior regional diplomat said, is Washington’s reluctance to allow Tehran to emerge claiming victory.

“The United States wants something it can present as proof that it won the war,” the diplomat said.

In addition to the removal, the service announced the establishment of the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Robotic and Autonomous Systems, aimed at correcting “years of fragmented requirements, resourcing, and acquisition practices that dispersed accountability, complicated industry engagement, and slowed delivery to the warfighter,” the memo states.

Christopher Miller was selected to serve as the acting DRPM RAS and will concurrently take over Gassler’s previous role as Portfolio Acquisition Executive RAS. He will report directly to William Toti, who is performing the duties of the under secretary of the Navy.

“We are at an inflection point in naval warfare, and the Department has been approaching robotic and autonomous systems through arcane processes that do not deliver capabilities at the speed our Sailors and Marines need,” said Toti. “Secretary Cao has directed us to replace that model with clear accountability, faster decisions, and a relentless focus on the warfighter.”

The move comes only weeks after the RAS unit was caught in the crosshairs of a federal lawsuit after the Navy tweaked the acquisition framework for the medium unmanned surface vehicle program twice within the past two years.

Two defense technology companies — Blue Water Autonomy and Saildrone — filed lawsuits in federal court on July 14 after being excluded from the U.S. Navy’s newest unmanned surface vessel acquisition program.

The two companies allege they were kicked out of contention for the Navy’s Medium Unmanned Surface Vessel Family of Systems program after the Navy failed to comply with its own requirements, among other errors.

2 defense tech companies sue US Navy after losing out on MUSV program

Blue Water Autonomy called the Navy’s decision to remove it from consideration for the MUSV request for prototype proposal “capricious” and not “in accordance with statute or regulation.”

Gassler was the first to serve in the portfolio acquisition executive role after the service strove last December to streamline its acquisition processes in an effort to purchase more drones and unmanned autonomous vehicles for the Navy.

Gassler concurrently served as the Deputy Director for Project Overmatch, a position she has held since her appointment to the Senior Executive Service in October 2024. In that position, she served across the Navy, Joint Services and with Coalition and Allied partners to design, develop and field the Naval Operational Architecture, according to her bio.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., has proposed barring the VA from collecting voluntary or involuntary separation pay from veterans who are approved to receive disability compensation.

The bill also would allow veterans who later qualify for military retirement pay to remit the net amount they received instead of the gross amount so they don’t end up paying more than they actually received after taxes.

Gallego, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, and Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla, introduced a similar bill in the House when Gallego served in that chamber, but the legislation never made it out of committee.

The senator said the legislation is needed because the money is paid out for separate reasons: disability payments are akin to workman’s compensation and separation pay reflects “time served” — an incentive tool used by the Defense Department to manage force strength and design.

“It is ridiculous to claw back money from a veteran who has put life and limb on the line, just because later in life they qualify for disability benefits,” Gallego said in a statement to Military Times.

From 2013 to 2023, the VA recouped $2.44 billion in separation pay and bonuses from 112,834 veterans under a law that the department cites as prohibiting it from paying disability compensation to those who received the pay unless the money is paid back.

The VA has been required to recover the money since the 1940s, and the Defense Department is required to inform transitioning service members of the potential for recoupment. Sometimes, however, veterans are surprised when letters announcing the recoupment arrive, sometimes decades after they left military service.

In one case, an Air Force officer received $30,000 in separation pay in 1990 and received a letter in 2024 telling him his entire disability compensation check would be withheld until the money was recouped.

The situation placed the veteran at risk for losing his living quarters and vehicle, he told Military.com at the time.

“I fail to comprehend how or why they intend to cut me off for several months without even negotiating a lesser but [survivable] monthly contribution. I also fail to understand why it took 34 years for VA to come up with this [scheme]. Why now?” retired Air Force Maj. Raymond Thomas, 75, told the publication.

By law, veterans’ monthly disability compensation can be withheld if they received readjustment pay, non-disability severance pay, disability severance pay, special separation benefits or involuntary or voluntary separation pay.

According to the VA, the recoupment effort hit a peak in 2018 with 17,066 veterans paying more than $396 million.

The Restore Veterans Compensation Act would also change the recoupment rate for retired military veterans who are required to make payments to 25% of their paychecks rather than the current 40% — an alteration that would lessen the financial impact of the recoupment.

When Gallego and Bilirakis introduced their bill in 2022, it drew the support of Disabled American Veterans who said the practice of withholding VA disability compensation because a service member received a separation benefit “must end.”

Sen. James Risch, R-Id. introduced a separate bill Wednesday that would limit the amount that veterans paid each month to the VA for recoupment.

Risch’s Veterans Earned Benefits Access Act would allow the VA to collect the separation pay but limit it to no more than 25% of their monthly disability compensation checks. Currently, the VA can withhold the entire amount of checks until the veteran pays back the government.

“My [bill] ensures that veterans can receive the disability benefits they need while repaying their separation pay,” Risch said in a release.

Under the settlement agreement, NCNG agreed to restore Timothy Stanhope’s access to its Facebook page and make reasonable efforts to unhide his comments.

The agreement also requires the Guard to revise its Facebook moderation policy. It can no longer block users or remove, hide or filter comments simply because they are deemed “inappropriate.”

However, comments will still be subject to Facebook’s community standards, and each side agreed to pay its own legal fees and court costs.

Michelle Scott, an attorney with the Center for Individual Rights, which represented Stanhope, called the settlement a victory for free speech.

“When a government agency opens an official page for public comment, it cannot treat that page as a one-way bulletin board where praise is welcome but criticism is censored,” Scott said. “Government officials don’t get to invite public comment and then censor the citizens who take them up on their invitation.”

In a statement about the lawsuit, CIR said the case was about more than “one person or one post.” Instead, it said, the lawsuit was about protecting the public’s right to criticize the government in online public forums.

According to the complaint filed in March 2025, Stanhope was blocked from NCNG’s Facebook page after years of commenting on its posts.

Although superior officers had confronted him about his comments while he was still serving, the Guard did not block him until after he retired in 2023.

The complaint said Stanhope frequently criticized what he viewed as mismanagement by Guard leaders.

In 2019, he commented, “so when do we get the results from the leader[’]s test?” in response to a post about a combat fitness test.

In 2021, he criticized what he described as the Guard’s “ill-conceived and hastily planned” deployment to Washington, D.C., following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In 2023, he responded to a post announcing an officer’s promotion by sharing the officer’s mugshot from a previous drunken driving arrest along with a news article about the incident.

The complaint also cited several posts Stanhope made on his own Facebook page that tagged NCNG, making them visible on the Guard’s page.

In a statement, Stanhope said the settlement affirms that “constitutional rights are not optional.”

“The right to speak freely includes the right to criticize the government, and that right doesn’t disappear when the conversation moves online,” he said. “Officials don’t get to pick and choose which opinions are allowed. I’m glad the Guard finally agrees.”

Nearly a month later, some military families say the changes have made it harder to find information about child care, community programs and installation services.

Army Directive 2026-17, Optimizing Digital Media, required many subordinate units and installation organizations, including Army Community Service, Morale, Welfare and Recreation, Child & Youth Services, military treatment facilities and other organizations to discontinue standalone Army social media accounts. Instead, those organizations are expected to communicate through higher-level command or installation accounts.

When introducing the directive in July, Army leaders said the changes would “ensure a clear, unified voice, reduce operational risk, and improve information access for Soldiers, Families and the public.”

During the first month of implementation, organizations across the Army, including Fort Bragg Army Community Service and U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria Family and MWR, notified followers that their standalone social media pages would be closed and directed audiences to installation-level accounts for future updates.

This week, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, known as The Old Guard, notified followers that its Instagram account would be managed by the U.S. Army Military District of Washington as part of its compliance with Directive 2026-17, reflecting the Army’s larger effort to centralize official communications.

Some military families said the transition has changed how they access day-to-day information.

LeAnn Nichols, an Army spouse, said the loss of organization-specific pages disrupted a network she relied on while searching for child care and staying connected with installation resources.

“Military families should never struggle to take advantage of the programs that are meant to support and empower our families,” Nichols said.

Nichols said that Army hospital and MWR pages had become one of the easiest ways for families to learn about available services and questioned why those accounts were removed.

“Statistics show many military families don’t take advantage of programs that they are eligible for, and could really use,” Nichols said. “Now it will be even more difficult to find the information we need on a regular basis.”

Nichols’ concerns come as child care continues to rank among the most significant quality-of-life challenges facing military families.

According to Blue Star Families’ Military Family Lifestyle Survey, one-third of active-duty family respondents identified child care as one of their top concerns. Among respondents experiencing child care challenges, 67% cited long waitlists or a lack of available spaces.

Michael Hanson, an Air Force spouse living in an Army community, said the consolidation has changed how his family experiences installation life.

“The installation feels like it’s gone dark,” Hanson said. “It’s back to COVID times where we’re all living in isolation. But even in isolation, we had social media to stay connected. With the military taking us all over the world, how can we not rely on the social highway?”

Army Directive 2026-17 allows commanders to request exceptions when they can demonstrate a mission-critical requirement that cannot be met through existing communication channels.

Military Times asked the Army how it is measuring whether the directive has improved information access and whether it has collected feedback on implementation. The publication also asked whether any exceptions have been approved, what communication channels it expects families to rely on in place of organization-specific social media pages, and whether the Army has collected data on the effectiveness of the new communication model in its first month.

The Army did not respond before publication.

The Trump administration in December announced its intention to build a new class of large surface combatants, designated as the Trump-class guided missile battleship.

If built, the 35,000-ton nuclear battleship, according to the report, will be the most heavily armed surface vessel the U.S. Navy has ever built, possessing anti-air, land-attack and anti-ship missiles, hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, large lasers and a rail gun.

“If built to those specifications, the ship would be the largest surface combatant in the world and larger than any surface combatant built for the Navy since World War II,” according to the report. “It would be more than three and a half times the size of the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and more than twice the size of the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer.”

The Navy projects that between 2028 and 2056 it will build 15 Trump-class guided missile battleships, with the subsequent 14 costing $18 billion each. By contrast, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the U.S. Navy’s premier nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, cost approximately $13.3 billion.

By 2058, the total tonnage of “large surface combatants to be constructed would need to increase by 60 percent,” which the report notes “could be a challenge for the shipbuilding industry.”

The shift away from small surface combatants would mean that by 2035, shipyards would need to produce 12% greater tonnage under the 2027 plan than under the 2025 version, according to CBO’s estimation.

To keep pace with the service’s aims, the Navy would need to build a battleship about every other year from 2028 to 2056, the report notes, while continuing to produce two DDG-51 destroyers per year.

Last March, the Government Accountability Office released a report detailing nearly two decades of lackluster progress in U.S. shipbuilding. According to the GAO, not enough ships have been built, newly constructed ships are failing to function as expected and ships are being delivered up to three years later than ordered.

In a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Shelby S. Oakley, a director at GAO, said that unrealistic expectations of costs and timing have diverted resources and introduced delays in shipbuilding, with the result that Navy programs and shipbuilders have been “effectively made to operate in a perpetual state of triage.”

The report also notes that while the price tag will be immense up front, over time, by switching to nuclear power, it would reduce the battleship’s operating costs by eliminating the need to purchase fuel. The GAO did not provide an estimate of possible savings.

Since the December announcement, the cost of Trump-class battleships has been a moving target, with the updated $23.4 billion roughly six billion more than the initial Navy projection.

Firestorm Labs manufactured more than 1,000 parts and 12 of its proprietary 3D-printable first-person view Squall drones aboard the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Essex as it transited toward RIMPAC 2026 in Hawaii, according to a release.

“Every part xCell printed on deck is one that doesn’t need to be flown or shipped across contested waters — cutting the fuel, aircraft hours, and personnel it takes to keep a ship operational,” a social media release said. “Repairs that once meant days or weeks waiting on a resupply run can now happen in hours, on station.”

Firestorm Labs created the xCell as a factory-in-a-box that can be deployed aboard U.S. Navy vessels to churn out unmanned aerial systems and spare parts for expeditionary warfare.

As waves as high as 12 feet crashed against the ship, service members assembled drones that were later flown as adversary aircraft during a counter-drone exercise at RIMPAC 2026 in Hawaii.

The service members also helped print mechanical test components that assessed the efficacy of the 3D printer used for drone production and fabricated military repair parts that crew members of the USS Essex needed.

The Defense Department, and Navy in particular, is laser-focused on building out modular payload capabilities that can deliver mission-ready assets for the service.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle announced the “containerized capability campaign plan” in March at the McAleese Defense Programs conference.

Caudle outlined a vision in which transportable containers housing defense capabilities such as drones and weapons can be deployed to any region in the world.

In May, the Pentagon announced framework agreements with defense companies Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos and Zone 5 to acquire more than 10,000 containerized missiles over three years beginning in 2027.

The move signaled the launch of the “Low‑Cost Containerized Munitions (LCCM) program."

The 80,000-square-foot museum will highlight the maritime service’s mission, history and accomplishment across three exhibit floors, interactive displays and experiences, featuring more than 5,000 photos and 600 artifacts, including an MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter and the Medal of Honor awarded to Signalman First Class Douglas Munro, the service’s sole recipient of the honor who heroically led the extraction of Marines under fire during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday said the museum will be more than a collection of artifacts; it “will illuminate the hard-earned lessons of the sea.”

“This museum is a permanent tribute to the Long Blue Line—the generations of crews who have saved lives, defended our borders and maritime approaches, facilitated vital commerce, and responded to crises with little or no warning,” Lunday said in a news release Tuesday.

A national Coast Guard museum has been a goal for the service and its supporters since at least 2001, when officials said they wanted to build one in the historic Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London, a prime waterfront parcel slated for redevelopment by the city.

Coast Guard Swim Call Ends in Gunfire

But the land the service was eyeing had been seized by eminent domain and was involved in an extended legal battle that wasn’t resolved until 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city.

But the development never transpired. In 2013, the city donated a parcel of waterfront property for the museum, and the state of Connecticut pledged $20 million in funding to revitalize the effort.

In 2022, the museum received nearly $50 million from Congress, and a “keel-laying” ceremony was held to mark the start of construction of the main building.

At the time, then-Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan said the facility would be a place to “share our history and the stories with the American public.”

“Today was a beautiful day in New London and for the Coast Guard,” Fagan said

Last year, the federal government provided another $50 million to complete the facility’s construction.

With the exception of the U.S. Space Force, founded in 2019, the nation’s armed services will now each have their own national museums. However, the Navy’s is currently closed due to its location on an active military installation and aging infrastructure.

The National Museum of the Air Force, located in Dayton, Ohio, traces its roots to 1923 and is the oldest military aviation museum in the world.

The National Museum of the Navy was established in 1963 at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Fundraising efforts are underway to build a new state-of-the-art facility accessible to the public somewhere in the District.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, opened in 2006, while the National Museum of the U.S. Army, at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, opened in 2020.

Retired Capt. Wes Pulver, president of the museum’s association, said completion of the Coast Guard’s museum will represent “incredible dedication, vision and partnership.”

“We are deeply grateful for the Coast Guard’s steadfast support throughout this journey and look forward to continuing our collaboration as we build a museum worthy of the remarkable men and women who have served our nation. Together, we are ensuring their stories will inspire generations to come,” Pulver said in a statement.

The museum is slated to open to the public Aug. 2, 2027, with the dedication planned for Coast Guard Day, Aug. 4, 2027, the 237th anniversary of the establishment of the Revenue Cutter Service by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

“By bridging our rich history with the challenges of tomorrow, we are creating a dynamic foundation to inspire the next generation of leaders ready to answer our nation’s call,” Lunday said.

It was only a month after the roadside bombing. I was still in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, in June 2006, undergoing successive rounds of surgery. Rods protruded from my limbs, keeping the broken bones of my right forearm and left thigh immobile until the doctors could complete a series of bone grafts and insert the titanium screws and bars so that my broken extremities would hold on their own.

It was an exhausting and painful process, made easier by the hours of relief spent with my wife, Michele. Unfortunately, the peace between surgeries and checkups was sometimes interrupted by visitors. Privately, I was not enthused. I knew I should have been more gracious and appreciative that people cared about wounded soldiers and wanted to show their support. I was sure there were men and women who had suffered through extended hospital stays and could’ve dearly used some company.

But I just wanted to be left alone with Michele, whom I almost widowed a few days before. On May 25, 2006, an explosive force projectile hit the M114 up-armored Humvee I was in. It killed my commander, Capt. Douglas DiCenzo, and the vehicle gunner, Spc. Robert Blair, and severely wounded the driver, Spc. Matt Owens, and me.

For the first week or so, I put on an upbeat attitude for everyone who showed up. But soon I started asking the hospital staff to turn people away, no offense intended. Some were musicians I didn’t listen to or athletes who played sports I didn’t care about. Maybe even a couple of actors from shows I never watched.

I can only speculate as to their motives. The celebrities were not followed by PR teams or photographers; they weren’t trying to burnish their image. Rather, they appeared to be attempting something genuinely humane and patriotic. I bore them no ill will, but I’d always been ambivalent about pop culture icons on a normal day. The days in Landstuhl were far from normal. Being nearly incinerated pegged my natural introversion at 11 and broke the knob off.

Obviously, I couldn’t turn away senior officers, though I was not sure they even wanted to be there. My own division commander seemed eager to pin the Purple Heart on my pillow and get the hell out of my hospital room. Perhaps it was the smell—no one likes the stench of disinfectant masking the remnants of various bodily fluids. That early in the war, maybe he wasn’t used to being around the wounded. Regardless, he couldn’t wait five minutes for my wife to make it back from the cafeteria down the hall, so she didn’t even attend my “awards ceremony,” such as it was.

Conversely, some of the other officers were almost reverent. One lieutenant colonel’s eyes were dewy when he looked at me, and he spoke in a tone I would reserve for someone who actually did something impressive. I just … didn’t die.

It was odd treatment, to say the least, for a second lieutenant like me. I held the most awkward rank in the United States Army—allegedly in charge as a 22-year-old despite little life experience and a total lack of tactical expertise. If you overplayed your hand as a second lieutenant, you risked irrelevance by appearing heedless and failing to earn your soldiers’ trust. But if you underplayed your hand, you risked irrelevance as an empty uniform in the formation, effectively a sock puppet and paperwork rubber stamp for noncommissioned officers.

All this to say, just about nobody holds a second lieutenant in awe. Being subject to reverent, deferential tones from anyone else in a uniform from any rung below or above on the ladder was, to put it mildly, a culture shock.

That same misty-eyed lieutenant colonel wanted me to chat with his son, a high school senior who was applying to West Point. I was unsure of the assignment. Was I supposed to be an inspiration because I had put on a brave face despite being wounded? Or was I a cautionary tale to get the young man to consider the risks of service? The poor boy looked as awkward as I felt when he came to visit me, still a bit hazy from a recent surgery. Lord only knows what I told him.

I do not remember the officer’s or his son’s name. I sometimes wonder if that kid ended up going to West Point after all. If so, I hope he had a good career.

The respect felt unwarranted. Doug DiCenzo and Robert Blair deserve to be remembered as heroes. The infantrymen, medics, doctors, PAs, and nurses who saved my and Owens’ lives are heroes.

But all I did was survive. After the blast, I was lying in a crater, with a broken arm and leg, high on adrenaline. The most I managed to do was prop myself up enough to wave down the medic.

I didn’t feel even a bit heroic. I felt like a wreck being held together by duct tape and wishful thinking.

There’s one class of visitor I didn’t turn away, however: Vietnam veterans who came to chat with service members who had been medevaced. They handled the situation with the greatest ease. They had seen comrades mangled by combat, and all seemed to instinctively understand the inevitable conflicting emotions that those of us who survived contended with.

They also grappled with a war where strategic goals shifted amorphously over the years, and popular sentiment waxed and waned greatly from its onset to its height. In reality, all wars are full of moral ambiguities once you get past the surface, but Vietnam vets were handed a conflict lodged in the gray both in reality and in the public consciousness.

They did their duty despite getting screwed over at every turn. They often fought in conditions that made anything I endured in Iraq look tame in comparison. Sure, I got pretty jacked up in a war that is difficult to classify as an unequivocal victory, but at least my country loved me to pieces when I got home. My dad’s generation got no such support.

On May 28th, one year to the date of my commissioning, another Vietnam vet visited me. He also happened to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, who came with his wife. I was ragged, unshaven, and had a graduated jar of my own urine on a table between us because the doctors needed to measure my output for some reason or other.

“You look like you’ve been through it, lieutenant,” he said, good-naturedly.

“Well, sir, Baghdad isn’t Hue city, but it wasn’t exactly fun,” I responded.

Gen. Pace had given a speech during my senior year at West Point, and I remembered from his biography that he’d commanded a rifle platoon during the Tet Offensive in Hue. The city saw the most intense urban combat of the Vietnam War.

“Tet was rough, but at least we actually got to fight back,” he said.

With those words, Gen. Pace voiced a frustration that I and many veterans felt during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, which were dominated by improvised explosive devices. Killing the enemy isn’t fun or even gratifying, but it is cathartic to, as Gen. Pace put it, “fight back.” It was a catharsis that many soldiers, including me at that point in my career, were denied.

Of course, it was also a double-edged sword since some soldiers suffer moral injury from the act of killing. It’s not something I’ve personally struggled with, but I have friends who do.

The conversation flowed easily for more than two hours. Gen. Pace and his wife, Lynne, told us anecdotes of their early married life in the Marine Corps, which drew laughter from me and Michele. Despite the huge gap in age and seniority, the interaction felt natural; it was a sharp contrast to uncomfortable reverence or the disinterested box-check visit from my own division commander.

Gen. Pace had nearly four decades of service in the Marine Corps to my one year in the Army. The moment had an arc that somehow felt right amid all the wrongness. The torch passed from one generation to another sometimes illuminates a tangled morass, but it is passed down in good faith and allegiance, nonetheless.

In time, the surgeons completed their good work, and I was allowed to return to my quarters in Germany. In a stroke of divine providence, Michele and I occupied first-floor housing. I have no idea how I would’ve navigated stairs on the walker I still needed then. I was able to work with the rear detachment on limited duty in between the fiendish ministrations of the physical therapists.

I frequently returned to Landstuhl for follow-up X-rays and reevaluations. Every few weeks, they cut the casts on my arm and leg back a few inches. I learned to walk normally, then to jog, then to run and march under a ruck again. The unit returned from Iraq, and I was simply one officer among many in my battalion.

Even as we prepared for the next combat deployment, it was a relief to be out of the petting zoo and back with my fellow line animals.

Pvt. Guzman had hoped to become a Marine since he was 5 years old, inspired by his uncle’s service. However, after graduating from high school, his weight reached nearly 270 pounds, making that dream feel out of reach.

After praying for guidance, Guzman received a text message the following day from Staff Sgt. Luis Cervantes, a recruiter with Recruiting Substation Clermont, asking if he was interested in becoming a Marine.

“I took that as a sign,” Guzman said in a release. “Ever since then, my life has been transformed.”

Determined to earn the title of Marine, Guzman began running every morning, training in the evenings and eating healthier. He remained focused on his goal, even when it meant missing personal events. He said his family, especially his mother, kept him accountable, while discipline and consistency became the foundation of his training.

Recruiting Substation Clermont also became an important source of motivation. Cervantes and the Marines there regularly checked on Guzman’s progress and adjusted his training.

“It was constantly reminding him of his ‘why,’” Cervantes said. “Why did you want to become a Marine? Why did you come into this office? We just kept bringing him back to that.”

After months of training, Guzman lost enough weight to qualify for recruit training and was shipped to Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island on April 14, 2026.

Throughout recruit training, Guzman continued completing additional workouts on his own.

One day, his senior drill instructor stopped him and said, “I can’t call you Meatball anymore.”

During the Crucible, the culminating event of recruit training, Guzman found himself keeping pace with recruits who had been athletic their whole lives.

“I realized I was actually keeping up with people who had been athletic their whole lives,” Guzman said. “That was another moment where I knew I could do this.”

As recruits returned from the Crucible, Guzman looked up and saw the words, “We Make Marines.”

“I actually did it,” he said. “That’s all I could think.”

Graduating alongside his family, especially his uncle who inspired him to join the Marine Corps, “meant everything,” Guzman said.

Guzman will next attend Marine Combat Training before reporting to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for military police training. He said he hopes to become a Marine recruiter one day.

“I’m stronger than I thought I was,” Guzman said. “I always saw myself as the person in the background. Now I realize I can be the person I wanted to be. It’s not out of reach. You just have to push yourself.”

The Army recently established the 08H Army Equestrian military occupational specialty and Staff Sgt. Shawn Tabor and Sgt. Daimien Copeland, both assigned to the Caisson Detachment at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, are among the first soldiers to qualify for the new role after completing an 18-week horsemanship program.

“When the 08H opportunity came around, there was no hesitation; I immediately jumped on it. There was no second thought or doubt about doing it,” said Tabor, who has served in the detachment for eight years as an infantryman.

The 08H specialty replaced the “military horseman” identifier and, according to an Army release, is open to infantry soldiers in the grades of E5 to E9. It is a role the Army says contributes to recruiting, public outreach and military funeral honors.

During the initial 12-week program, soldiers learn grooming, groundwork and communication with horses in the Basic Horsemanship Course before moving on to horse driving and the Caisson Detachment’s distinctive postilion riding method during the Advanced Horsemanship Course for six more weeks.

Copeland, who has served in the detachment for four years, said that when he was in-processing, he was excited to learn about the opportunity to work with horses.

“During my time at Caisson, we had our first state funeral in more than 20 years for former President Jimmy Carter. Taking part in that funeral reinforced the importance of our mission and the honor of serving in a role that very few soldiers have the opportunity to experience,” he said in the release.

Previously scheduled to end, the Army in Dec. 2025 announced it was retaining military working equid programs — which include Defense Department horses, mules and donkeys — in Texas and Kansas.

The designation comes after the Army resumed limited use of horse-drawn caissons at Arlington National Cemetery in mid-2025 following a two-year suspension prompted by concerns over the welfare of the horses. The service halted the program in 2023 after two horses — Mickey and Tony — died in 2022 from colon impactions linked to substandard feed and living conditions.

According to the Defense Department, the Army upgraded equipment to replace wooden saddles with lighter, custom leather saddles. The service also decreased the caisson’s weight by over 1,000 pounds and made other adjustments to lessen the strain on the horses.

A 2025 release also said the soldiers’ training had “shifted from impromptu methods to a structured pipeline,” with the basic course — launched in 2024 — held at a private stable in Virginia and then a six-week camp located at an equestrian sports facility in Florida.

“We don’t get soldiers from horse backgrounds anymore,” said Army Maj. Wes Strickland, the 3rd Infantry Regiment public affairs officer at the time, said in the 2025 statement. “So, we teach everything — how to walk up to a horse, saddle it, clean a stall.”

The extension is in line with the Trump administration’s efforts to curb illicit narcotics flowing into the United States via alleged drug-carrying vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Since 2023, Saildrone’s USVs have worked in coordination with the U.S. Navy, supporting the Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-S) and U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. Navy Fourth Fleet, per the release.

“The continuity of Saildrone’s presence along the southern border for nearly three years demonstrates the strategic value we bring as the world’s most experienced operators of unmanned surface vehicles,” said Saildrone President VADM (ret.) John Mustin. “Our unmatched ability to remain on station and on mission in critical regions for months at a time is why our fleet serves as a powerful deterrent to bad actors. We look forward to continuing to partner with the Navy in its mission to secure the country’s maritime approaches and southern border.”

The 33-foot-long Voyager is designed for persistent surface and subsurface surveillance and can also conduct nearshore mapping missions and seafloor characterization, the release states.

Able to remain “on mission and on station” for months at a time, the USVs are “both a deterrent and an alarm” along the U.S.’s expansive southern maritime border, according to the company.

Since September 2025, the U.S. military has conducted strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in support of what the Pentagon has called continued counternarcotics efforts.

As of June 22, the Trump administration and U.S. military have disclosed 66 strikes, killing at least 196 people.

The Next Generation C-sUAS Missile project comes as the U.S. and other nations are pursuing lasers, microwaves and other alternatives to kinetic anti-drone weapons, such as missiles and cannon, which are seen as too expensive and in short supply.

The Army wants to quickly develop an “extended-range, quick-response missile to defeat Group 2 and Group 3 small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) threats,” according to the Army’s Sources Sought notice. The deadline is August 20.

The initial specifications are for a missile that can intercept a drone flying at 6 kilometers altitude, at a range of more than 16 kilometers. The ultimate goal is to destroy drones flying 8 kilometers high, at a range of more than 25 kilometers. Missile guidance would be via a radar seeker.

NGCM appears intended as a step up — but still compatible — with the Army’s Coyote C-UAS missile system.

“The Army is looking for NGCM to be produced and integrated into the existing Coyote Launch System to provide extended range, rapid launch time, and reduced time-to-target over current effectors,” the notice said.

The weapon is intended to stop Group 2 and 3 drones. Group 2 drones have a maximum gross takeoff weight of 21 to 55 pounds, fly below 3,500 feet and have a speed of less than 250 knots, according to the Department of Defense’s UAV classification system. This includes models such as Boeing’s ScanEagle. Group 3 drones, such as Insitu’s RQ-21 Blackjack, have a takeoff weight under 1,320 pounds and fly below 18,000 feet at a speed of less than 250 knots.

The NGCM missile should take less than five seconds to leave the launcher after the operator gives the fire command.

“The missile must be compatible with the Coyote Launcher with minimal to no modifications,” the notice said.

In addition, the missile must also fit with existing air defense systems, including the Sentinel A3/A4, LTAMDS and TPQ-53 radars.

The Army envisions the NGCM missile system in two versions. The fixed-site version would be equipped with a variety of sensors. A mobile version would be “mounted on tactical vehicles for employment at the halt and on-the-move, providing a scalable capability at the tactical edge.”

The Army is aiming for Technology Readiness Level 7 — prototype testing in the field — by the end of fiscal 2027. Contractors will need to have 50 missiles ready for operational assessment by the beginning of 2028.

Significantly, the Army desires missiles costing less than $150,000 apiece as part of a bulk purchase of 5,000 missiles. While that’s a bargain compared to a $4 million Patriot air-defense missile, critics may still question the economics: An Iranian Shahed-136 drone costs around $35,000.

That’s one reason for the drive to develop anti-drone lasers that, theoretically, cost only pennies per shot. On the other hand, missiles can function in bad weather that disrupts laser beams.

In a review of 9.9 million veterans in the VA medical system from 2000 to 2024, researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and elsewhere found that 14,419 patients had received an ALS diagnosis.

In the group with ALS, 46% were Army veterans – nearly the same percentage of soldiers in the entire patient cohort.

Using the rate of ALS diagnoses among Army veterans as the baseline and adjusting for sex, race, and ethnicity, researchers found that Air Force veterans had a 29% higher rate, former Coast Guard members had a 26% higher rate and Navy veterans had a 15% higher rate. Marines had the lowest rate, at 22% below that of Army veterans.

Overall, officers had a 64% higher rate than enlisted personnel, while women officers had a 72% higher rate. Differences among branches were more apparent in men ages 61 and younger and less evident among men older than 75.

“Our study looked at the rates of ALS among people in different branches of the U.S. military and found ALS rates varied considerably by branch and rank, with larger differences among younger veterans,” said study author Marc Weisskopf at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in a release.

ALS is a rare disease diagnosed in roughly 5,000 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A fatal illness most famously associated with baseball legend Lou Gehrig and British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, it is a progressive disease that affects the motor neurons, causing them to lose connectivity and die off.

There are two types of ALS: sporadic, meaning occurring without a known cause in the general population, and familial, likely the result of an inherited genetic mutation, according to the ALS Association.

While military personnel are diagnosed with ALS at nearly twice the rate of civilians, the cause has not been scientifically proven. The VA presumes the condition to be service-connected given the heightened occurrence in the veteran population.

Researchers have theorized that exposure to hazardous environments and substances, including burn pits, jet fuel, exhaust, heavy metals, dioxins and other toxic materials, may contribute, but no direct connection has been proven.

“Our findings suggest that officers and those serving in the Air Force, Navy or Coast Guard may have been exposed to military environments that increase risk of ALS,” said Weisskopf. “Future research should aim to identify these exposures.”

In the civilian population, some occupations such as airline pilots, truck drivers, metal workers and those who work with pesticides and other toxic substances are associated with increased ALS risk, according to a 2022 Columbia University study.

The authors noted that the likelihood of developing ALS is low, even in the U.S. military. Of the 9.9 million veteran records reviewed, less than 0.2% of patients were diagnosed with ALS, according to the study.

“It is … important to note that ALS is rare and the overall risk remains small, so even statistically significant increases associated with branch and rank represent only modest increases in risk among military personnel,” Weisskopf said.