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14 hours, 18 minutes ago
US Senate joins House in voting to halt Iran war
It marks the first time both chambers approved directing a president to remove armed forces from hostilities since the War Powers Act was adopted in 1973.
The U.S. Senate backed legislation on Tuesday directing President Donald Trump to halt U.S. military action against Iran, the latest rebuke of the Republican president from an increasingly restive Congress.
The Senate voted 50-48 in favor of the war powers resolution, which passed the House of Representatives early this month, reflecting growing concern even among some of Trump’s Republicans about the unpopular conflict that began on February 28 when the U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran.
It was the first time both chambers of Congress had passed a resolution directing a president to remove U.S. armed forces from hostilities since the War Powers Resolution, more commonly known as the War Powers Act, was enacted in 1973.
While likely to remain largely symbolic, the vote was a setback for Trump, who until recently had enjoyed near-unanimous support from Republican members of Congress.
It also comes as the administration is expected to ask Congress to authorize tens of billions of dollars to pay for the war.
Trump’s Republicans hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House, but a few have broken with the president on a handful of issues ahead of mid-term elections in November, which will determine whether the party will retain control of Congress.
Some Republicans recently balked at Trump’s $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate political allies he says have been targeted by federal authorities and stalled a $70 billion bill to fund his immigration crackdown.
The Senate vote was largely along party lines, with four Republicans joining all but one Democrat in favor. Two Republican senators did not vote.
In a post late on Tuesday, Trump criticized the vote, calling it “poorly timed and meaningless” and accused those who voted in favor of providing “comfort” to Iran and making his job “more difficult”.
Constitutional uncertainty
Trump’s administration is working to negotiate a peace agreement with Iran. Support for the resolution in Congress is likely to put pressure on the president not to resume hostilities, something he has suggested he might do if negotiations falter.
Under the 1973 War Powers Act, the concurrent resolution - passed by both the House and Senate - does not go to the White House for Trump’s signature. In the 1973 law, Congress intended such resolutions as a mechanism for ending military operations.
But legal experts said the issue remains unsettled. No war powers resolution had previously passed both chambers of Congress and a 1983 Supreme Court ruling said such a measure must be submitted for a president’s signature or veto to have legal effect.
The White House has insisted the War Powers Act is not constitutional and thus not binding.
On Tuesday, a White House official said the Senate vote has no significance because the resolutions do not go to the president and have no force of law and the measure passed only because two Republicans were absent.
The official also said the resolution directs Trump to remove U.S. forces from hostilities, which the White House says were terminated with a ceasefire on April 7.
Experts say the constitutionality of the War Powers Act likely will be settled in the courts.
“The executive branch will likely ignore it on constitutional grounds, and it’s not clear who might have standing to sue to enforce it,” said Scott Anderson, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and senior editor of the online legal publication Lawfare.
Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, who sponsored the resolution in the House, said he viewed the resolution as binding and would pursue all legal avenues to ensure that the administration complies.
Democrats also noted that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the right to take the country to war. “Congress has to own this responsibility,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said in a speech urging support for the measure.
Slim, but significant, support
The resolution had also passed the House with slim Republican support. The tally there was 215-208 with four Republicans and every Democrat voting in favor.
In the Senate, the four Republicans who voted for the measure were Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Democratic Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted against it.
Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and David McCormick of Pennsylvania missed the vote.
Democratic lawmakers have promised additional votes on war powers measures, saying they want to force Republicans to go on the record about the war.
Additionally, Congress has the right to review and vote on any peace agreement with Tehran if it affects Iran’s nuclear program, under a 2015 law passed as then-President Barack Obama negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran and other world powers.
Senate Republican Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said on Tuesday he expected Congress would review and vote on an eventual Iran peace deal.
18 hours, 27 minutes ago
Marines expand use of Maven with new AI operational reporting tool
Officials say the new tool will move the Marine Corps from being data-rich but information-poor to a state of information superiority.
The Marine Corps will shift to a new AI-enabled reporting platform next month, replacing its manual process for Situational Reports, or SITREPs, and after-action reviews with a system designed to provide commanders with near real-time operational updates.
Beginning July 7, all Marine units must use the Operational Data Integration Nexus, or ODIN, to report operations, activities and investments, according to a Marine administrative message.
ODIN operates within the Maven Smart System, or MSS, the Pentagon’s flagship artificial intelligence and data platform designed to aggregate, analyze and visualize operational information.
“In practical terms, this means that the use of MSS can speed up targeting decisions without sacrificing analytical rigor or judgment quality,” the organization reported.
Lt. Gen. Jay Bargeron, deputy commandant for plans, policies and operations at Marine headquarters, described ODIN as “more than a reporting tool,” saying it is designed to reduce administrative burden.
“By automating the flow of data from the tactical edge to strategic decision makers, we are equipping our Marines with the near real-time information required to outpace our adversaries and fight effectively in a distributed environment,” Bargeron said.
Marine officials said units currently rely on a document-based process in which SITREPs are manually created, compiled and shared across commands. The service said the process consumes valuable time and slows decision-making.
Using ODIN, Marines will enter structured data points instead of narrative text reports. The system’s AI tools will automatically aggregate information into a centralized dashboard, providing commanders with a continuously updated view of operations.
Marine officials said the system will also improve data sharing across units by pulling information into shared databases accessible throughout the force. The service said that change should reduce administrative workload while aligning reporting with Joint Staff data requirements.
Last August, the service finalized its partnership with Palantir Technologies for Maven, roughly a year after the Defense Department awarded the company contracts totaling more than $1 billion to expand the platform across the military.
In March, the Army began integrating Maven into command-and-control training and education.
The service directed its Command and General Staff College to incorporate Maven into its core curriculum for field-grade officers. It also developed additional in-person and virtual training courses for professional development.
According to the message, Marine units will receive access instructions before ODIN goes live. Commanders are also required to activate MSS licenses and ensure key personnel do the same before the transition.
18 hours, 48 minutes ago
VA inventory report reveals 367 AI systems operating in healthcare, benefits and services
A recently released report catalogs AI uses across the VA, from clinical tools used during patient care to systems that help process benefits.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has disclosed 367 artificial intelligence use cases operating across the agency, including 215 classified as high-impact systems supporting healthcare, benefits processing, records management, communications and internal operations.
The recently released 2025 VA AI Inventory catalogs cases of AI use across the department, from clinical tools used during patient care to systems that help process benefits, automate records management and support customer service functions.
Among the systems identified is Ambient AI Scribe, a clinical documentation tool used during medical appointments.
According to VA, the technology listens to clinician-patient conversations and generates clinical notes, reducing administrative workload and allowing providers to spend more time focused on veterans.
VA’s disclosure also details widespread use — by more than 50,000 personnel — of commercial AI products across the department, including Microsoft Copilot Chat, Microsoft Teams Premium, Grammarly GitHub Copilot and other platforms for support tasks such as meeting transcription, document drafting, report summarization, information retrieval and software development.
Nearly Every Major VA Function Features AI
Health and medical applications represent the largest category of use cases, followed by systems supporting benefits administration, information technology, service delivery, financial management and administrative operations.
Applications identified in the inventory assist clinicians with imaging analysis and diagnostic workflows, identify disease risk, summarize records, analyze feedback, process forms and provide information through chat-based tools. VA also classifies its VA.gov chatbot as a high-impact use case.
VA says the chatbot is a tool that helps veterans locate information, complete tasks and access support services through self-service interactions.
Another high-impact use case, TERA Memorandum Automation, helps claims processors complete toxic exposure memoranda by pre-populating answers using information already contained in veterans’ records.
VA reports the system achieved a 98.12% accuracy rate and was used to assist with more than 181,000 forms, saving an estimated 54,581 work hours since deployment.
“VA is using artificial intelligence to improve how veterans access care, benefits and services, while also helping employees work more efficiently and effectively,” said VA Press Secretary Quinn Slaven in a statement to Military Times.
According to Slaven, the inventory reflects “steady growth, stronger governance and expanding real-world impact, particularly in health care, benefits processing and operational efficiency.”
Inventory Provides A Detailed View Of Governance Requirements
For currently deployed high-impact systems, the inventory tracks whether agencies completed pre-deployment testing, impact assessments, independent reviews, monitoring processes, operator training, fail-safe mechanisms and appeal procedures.
Individual entries also identify potential risks associated with specific applications. For several health care systems, descriptions note that inaccurate outputs could contribute to downstream clinical or operational impacts if not detected and corrected, while also stating that providers receive training and oversight intended to mitigate those risks.
VA says all high-impact systems are required to complete an AI Impact Assessment and Risk Mitigation Plan before being put to work.
“Deployed high-impact AI use cases are continuously monitored,” said Slaven. “And any use case that cannot be brought into compliance is discontinued.”
Some AI systems previously reported by VA are now classified as retired. Those systems include healthcare, training and operational applications. The inventory does not specify why individual systems were deactivated.
Performance Data Varies Across Systems
The level of detail provided in the inventory varies from one system to another. Some entries provide measurable performance outcomes, testing results or operational metrics. Others provide only basic descriptions of intended functions and governance requirements.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which developed an AI Accountability Framework for federal agencies, says meaningful oversight requires documentation that can be independently reviewed.
“GAO’s AI Accountability Framework highlights the importance of documentation and a paper trail that an independent third party can follow,” GAO officials told Military Times. “As AI inputs and operations are not always visible, a central tenet to oversight is, ‘Show me, don’t just tell me.’”
GAO said organizations should be able to demonstrate who is responsible for AI systems, how those systems operate, whether they rely on quality and reliable data and how limitations are identified and addressed.
The agency also emphasized the importance of monitoring metrics such as accuracy and error rates and establishing thresholds that help determine when corrective action or retirement of a system is warranted.
Veterans Advocates Want Human Accountability
Chris Macinkowicz, deputy director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Veterans Service, said the organization’s concerns focus less on whether VA should use artificial intelligence and more on how those systems are managed after deployment.
“AI needs to be a tool, not an employee,” Macinkowicz told Military Times.
He said human review remains essential, particularly when systems are involved in processes affecting veterans.
“We need to make sure human eyes are on it afterwards,” he said. Macinkowicz also stressed the importance of continued evaluation after deployment.
“We need to have assurances from VA that they’re going to go back after these AI agents are deployed to make sure that they’re still accurate a month down, six months down, a year down [the road],” he said.
GAO officials said organizations should establish metrics that help determine when corrective action is needed and when an AI system should be retired because it no longer meets its intended objectives.
As VA expands the use of AI across healthcare, benefits processing and other operations, GAO officials said meaningful oversight depends on agencies being able to demonstrate, through documentation and measurable performance data, that systems continue operating as intended.
19 hours, 58 minutes ago
Nearly 5 million veterans have used magic mushrooms, LSD or MDMA, study finds
The RAND study revealed confusion among veterans about the VA's policies regarding psychedelics.
An estimated 4.8 million U.S. veterans have used psychedelic drugs, but many are hesitant about discussing that use with their Department of Veterans Affairs providers for fear of jeopardizing their VA benefits, according to a new RAND study.
The research, released by the the Washington think tank Tuesday, examined veterans’ use of psilocybin mushrooms, LSD and MDMA, along with their levels of support for legal use of the drugs and their understanding of the VA’s policies on them.
The study comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has funneled funds into studying psychedelics as a form of mental health therapy, often promoting their potential to treat veterans, in particular. Despite recent support from the federal government, the study revealed confusion among veterans about the VA’s policies regarding the substances.
“VA policy around psychedelics remains unclear, and we found that about half of veterans were unsure about discussing them with a VA doctor,” Michelle Priest, lead author of the report, said in a statement. “That uncertainty matters, especially as veteran issues are prominently featured in policy conversations surrounding psychedelics, both at the federal and state levels.”
About half of veterans were unsure whether discussing their use of psychedelics with their VA doctors would risk their benefits. The VA issued a policy in 2023 that encourages veterans to discuss their marijuana use with their doctors — and specifies that marijuana use wouldn’t affect their benefits — but there’s no such guidance or guarantee for other drugs, RAND said.
Asked about the findings Tuesday, a VA spokesperson directed reporters to the department’s webpage, which states the agency “strongly discourages self-medicating or attempting to 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,” the VA website continues. “Veterans should always consult their health care providers before making any treatment decisions.”
About 27.5% of all veterans have used the substances, the study states. LSD was the most common, with veterans being more likely than the general population to have used LSD in their lifetime.
The study found that veterans were more likely to support the legal use of psilocybin mushrooms and LSD — 23% for mushrooms and 11% for LSD — but support for MDMA, at 9%, was about the same as the rest of the country.
Last year, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center received a $4.9 million Defense Department grant to fund a study of MDMA and its effects on active-duty soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Trump signed an executive order in April committing at least $50 million in federal funds to boost research on ibogaine, a powerful hallucinogen derived from the African shrub iboga.
During the signing ceremony, Trump said, “It’s for a lot of people, but it’s for our military in particular. The suicide epidemic among veterans is a national tragedy.”
Less than 1% of veterans have used ibogaine, the RAND study found. About 5% of veterans who hadn’t used it were willing to try it.
Following the executive order, which directed the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate reviews of certain psychedelic therapies, the VA announced its launch of a clinical trial to evaluate MDMA-assisted therapy on severe mental health disorders.
23 hours, 21 minutes ago
Gunfight at the Veracruz Custom House led to six Medal of Honor recipients
Six U.S. sailors and a Mexican naval cadet matched their heroism in an alley.
On April 9, 1914, amid the chaos of Mexico’s revolutionary conflicts, nine U.S. Navy seamen had been detained by the dictatorship of Gen. Victoriano Huerta. Although they were released on April 21, the United States learned that the steamship Ypiranga had entered the port of Veracruz with a cargo of German weaponry. In response, the U.S. Navy confiscated Ypiranga and landed an occupation force in Vera Cruz. Although the Americans hoped to avoid bloodshed, the city’s commander, Gen. Gustavo Maass had orders to resist foreign occupation. Consequently, the parties that came ashore on April 21 found themselves in an escalating urban battle.
One of the most dramatic events of that first day involved orders from the fleet commander, Rear Adm. Frank Friday Fletcher: “SEIZE CUSTOM HOUSE. DO NOT PERMIT WAR SUPPLIES TO BE DELIVERED TO HUERTA GOVERNMENT OR ANY OTHER PARTY.”
When the Americans advanced on the building, they suddenly found themselves pinned down by what an officer on the scene, Ensign George Lowry, described as “murderous rifle and machine gun fire.”
Not wishing to risk any more men than he had to, Fletcher called for a handful of volunteers. Five men from the battleship Florida — Harry C. Beasley, George Cregan, Joseph G. Harner and J. F. Schumacher and Joseph Sinnett — alongside Hospital Apprentice 1st Class William Zuiderveld, volunteered.
Setting out, Lowry planned to flank the Custom House and attack from the side. Hopes of a surprise assault did not succeed as planned, however. A bullet clipped a button off Lowry’s cap and another creased his right legging. Beasley was slightly wounded and Schumacher was struck in the head.
An Aug. 19 after-action report from Adm. Fletcher included a description of what followed:
“After the five volunteers from the First Company, Florida Battalion, had advanced with me under heavy fire along the narrow alley between the customhouse and the open warehouse, and Schumacher was shot in the head, I called down the alley for the ambulance party. Zuiderveld, W., Hospital Apprentice First Class, responded quickly and advanced up the alley in a heavy fire to the position occupied by the five volunteers. There kneeling in an exposed position and unaided, he bandaged Schumacher’s head to stop the flow of blood, while a steady fire was being maintained against the Mexicans in the doorway of the Oriente Hotel.”
Amid the shooting, one of the Custom House’s most spirited defenders was José Azueta Abad, a 19-year-old Mexican navy lieutenant manning a machine gun and inflicting casualties on the Americans, most likely Schumacher as well.
Lowry’s volunteers had their own ace in the hole, however: Boatswain’s Mate 2nd Class Joseph Gabriel Harner who had a reputation as a crack marksman.
Engaging Azueta, he severely wounded him at 300 yards. As the Americans closed in and fired into the customhouse, its garrison finally threw out their weapons and surrendered. After the exchange, the Americans found 12 bullet impacts in the vicinity.
Sadly, in spite of Corpsman Zuiderveld’s efforts, Schumacher died of his head wound. Nonetheless, Zuiderveld was cited for having “showed extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession.”
The Americans occupied Veracruz until Nov. 23, when they withdrew. After hostilities abated, Adm. Fletcher, after learning of Azueta’s valor at the Custom House, sent a message asking to visit him and pay his respects. Azueta’s purported response was: “If the American enters my house, I will either kill him or myself.”
Later, when Fletcher offered to put his own surgeon at his disposal, Azueta again declined, insisting on relying on a local surgeon, Dr. Rafael Cuervo Xicoy, who was handicapped by lacking the quality of equipment. Partly due to that, the young officer succumbed to his wounds on May 10. Promoted to captain by the President of the Republic before his death, Azueta has since been honored among Mexico’s heroes of Veracruz.
He was not alone. On Jan. 6, 1915, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels came aboard USS Florida in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to award Medals of Honor to Lowry, Beasley, Cregan, Harner, Sinnett and Zuiderveld.
Adm. Fletcher also received the Medal of Honor, as did his nephew, Lt. Frank Jack Fletcher.
In the inter-war years, Lowry held four destroyer commands. He entered the Reserves in 1927, but in 1940 he returned to regular service and in 1941 he served as operations officer in the Western Sea Frontier, for which he received the Legion of Merit.
Lowry retired as a rear admiral in October 1946. He died at Carmel by the Sea, California, on Feb. 5, 1978, aged 91, and was subsequently buried at sea.
1 day ago
Just one in four Americans believes the Iran war was worth its costs
Only 23% of Americans think the U.S. is now in a stronger position with Iran than before, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Just one in four Americans believes President Donald Trump’s war with Iran was worth its costs and a majority worry that a truce with Tehran is unlikely to last, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
The five-day poll, which closed on Monday, also showed the war weighing heavily on Trump’s popularity, with his approval rating dropping to 34%, a return to the lowest level of the Republican’s second term that was last touched in an April survey.
Only 23% of Americans — including just half of Republicans — think the U.S. is now in a stronger position with Iran compared with its position before the war, the poll found. Some 35% of respondents think it is in a weaker position. The rest said they were not sure or that the U.S. position was about the same as before.
Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a preliminary deal on June 17 that would reopen oil and gas shipping lanes that were frozen by the conflict, while easing U.S.-led economic pressure on Iran.
The deal has led to a rapid drop in global crude oil prices, although for most Americans the price of gasoline remains considerably higher than it was before the February 28 U.S.-Israeli strikes that started the war. Iran responded to the initial attack with strikes that shut down a fifth of the global oil trade and damaged energy facilities of U.S. regional allies.
Not worth the costs
Only 24% of Americans think the war with Iran was worth the costs, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. Half of poll respondents said the conflict was not worth it and the rest were unsure.
Some 63% of Americans think it unlikely that the deal Trump signed will lead to lasting peace between the two countries. About half of Republicans and eight in 10 Democrats said the deal was unlikely to deliver peace. Just 18% of Americans — including 10% of Democrats and 34% of Republicans — see lasting peace as likely.
Trump won the 2024 presidential election after promising to reduce inflation and keep America out of costly foreign wars. His political brand has long leaned on his background as a deal-making real estate developer and reality television star.
Trump’s approval rating on the cost of living, at 22%, was near the lowest level of his presidency and below the rating of his Democratic predecessor in the White House, Joe Biden, at the end of his presidency.
Midterms loom
Trump started his current term with a 47% approval rating, but his popularity has suffered amid high rates of inflation as well as controversy over his aggressive efforts to deport people in the country illegally, which have included deadly confrontations with pro-immigration activists.
His falling popularity could weigh on his Republican allies when they defend their congressional majorities in the November 3 midterm elections.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed just 37% of Americans approved of how Trump has handled immigration, the lowest of his term and down from 40% in the prior Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The latest poll gathered responses from 1,262 U.S. adults nationwide and its results had a margin of error of 3 percentage points in either direction.
2 days, 3 hours ago
The unlikely role of Operation Epic Fury in a Mississippi AI data center lawsuit
The lawsuit argues that the data centers are operating illegally and polluting surrounding areas, but the DOJ said they’re needed for national security.
A Defense Department official disclosed that U.S. forces used Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool to help deploy “over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets” during the first four days of combat operations in Iran.
The disclosure offered a glimpse into how generative AI is being used by the military. It came in a court filing supporting the Justice Department’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit targeting a Mississippi power plant, also owned by Musk, that supplies electricity to data centers used to run the AI system.
Cameron Stanley, the Defense Department’s chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, made the disclosure in a statement filed in support of the government’s motion. He called the example “a testament to the greatly increased operational efficiency made possible by the Grok Gov Model.”
He added that if the lawsuit succeeds in shutting down the power plant, Grok’s parent company, xAI, would lose capacity to train and develop future versions of the AI tool. “And if xAI is hindered from continuing to improve and upgrade Grok, including the Grok Gov Model, [the Department of Defense’s] ability to meet its national security mission and keep pace with adversaries will be impaired,” Stanley said.
Although Stanley did not elaborate on how military operators used Grok during combat missions, he instead described it as a “critical national security” tool.
“For example, it is deployed in Maven Smart Systems (MSS) to support vital national security missions, including targeting, intelligence, readiness, and recruitment,” he said.
Stanley explained that MSS users process nearly two billion tokens on the Defense Department’s top-secret network each day. Tokens are units used to measure AI processing. “This amount of AI usage is roughly equivalent to 1.5 billion words or up to 6 million pages of text being processed by the technology,” he said.
The Justice Department filed Stanley’s statement alongside its motion on June 15. In the filing, government attorneys argued the lawsuit “threatens American national, economic, and energy security by seeking to shut off the power supply for artificial-intelligence innovation that supports the Department of Defense’s military operations.”
The lawsuit, filed in April by the NAACP and its Mississippi chapter, alleges that xAI and MZX Tech failed to obtain required permits before installing and operating 27 gas-powered turbines at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, roughly 13 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.
The facility, known as the Colossus Gas Plant, powers two data centers — Colossus I and Colossus II — used to operate the Grok chatbot. The complaint said xAI also plans to build a third data center closer to the plant.
The organizations argued the turbines are operating without adequate pollution controls and are emitting harmful pollutants that pose risks to public health. They say the facility operates near an area with “tens of thousands of people” and has the potential to emit more than 1,700 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides.
They contend that a Clean Air Act permit would require the plant to use the “best available control technology,” or BACT, to reduce emissions to acceptable levels.
“Had Defendants obtained a permit, they would have been held to this standard,” the complaint said. “By simply not applying for — or receiving — a permit, xAI and MZX Tech have avoided subjecting these twenty-seven unpermitted turbines to a BACT determination.”
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said the Justice Department intervened because enforcement of federal law falls to the executive branch, not private interest groups. “The Department of Justice is committed to maintaining that constitutional order while protecting national security and promoting American energy and innovation,” he said.
Justice Department officials added in a press release that the state of Mississippi is charged with administering the permitting program and decided no permit was required.
Adam Gustafson, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, said the government “will not sit idly by while private organizations use environmental laws to undermine our national security.”
In a statement, officials with Earthjustice and the Southern Environmental Law Center, the legal groups representing the NAACP in the lawsuit, framed the motion as the Trump administration’s attempting to protect wealthy, well-connected companies from being held to account.
They noted that instead of disputing xAI’s permit violations and allegations of unlawful polluting, the Justice Department expressed “vague” concerns about national security.
“This isn’t about national security,” said Laura Thoms, director of enforcement for Earthjustice. “It’s a desperate attempt to protect wealthy corporations like xAI from obeying our bedrock environmental laws.”
Last year, the Defense Department awarded xAI — along with other AI companies — a contract of up to $200 million for developing “agentic AI workflows across a variety of mission areas.” Around that same time, the White House revealed its plan for integrating AI into workflows across the federal government.
Kym Meyer, SELC’s litigation director, said the motion contradicts “decades of well-established legal precedent,” and called it “an unprecedented attack on the public’s ability to defend themselves from illegal pollution.”
4 days, 20 hours ago
Highway patrol: US Marine F-35s conduct flight operations on Finnish roads
The first ever deployment of U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning IIs to Finland proved to be a memorable one.
U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning IIs made a historic first impression on Finland this month, when the service’s air crews conducted a series of unorthodox flight operations from a highway in Tervo.
The aircraft, assigned to the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing’sMarine Fighter Attack Squadron 224 (VMFA-224), became the service’s first to deploy to the Scandinavian country as part of the NATO-led Exercise Ramstein Flag 2026, according to a release.
The June 8-12 exercise featured 19 nations operating out of 15 locations, with the highway air operations involving the U.S. F-35s, Spanish EF-18s and Polish F-16s, according to the release. Finnish air force F/A-18 Hornets were also pictured on the roadway.
“Our mission is to ensure the joint force can fight and win,” Maj. Gen. Daniel Shipley, the commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa, said in the release. “Our participation in Ramstein Flag enhances the lethality of the Marine Corps, enables NATO success and guarantees our ability to deter and defeat sophisticated aerial threats.”
The non-traditional Finnish highway operation was designed to test combat adaptability in an increasingly contested Arctic, the service said, with air command and control of the highway operations — and other air missions — coordinated from NATO’s Combined Air Operations Center in Bodo, Norway.
“This iteration of Ramstein Flag stretches from the northernmost parts of Norway to the southern reaches of Spain, showcasing Allied Airpower’s 360-degree approach to defend every inch of NATO territory,” U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jason T. Hinds, commander of Allied Air Command, said in the release. “The scale of this exercise is a testament to NATO’s determination to counter modern and emerging threats through distributed operations across NATO’s Joint Operations Areas.”
4 days, 23 hours ago
‘Hell ship’ responsible for one of the largest single-day loss of Allied POWs discovered after more than 80 years
More than 80 years after its sinking, buried documents in both the American and Japanese archives held the key to locating the "hell ship” Hōfuku Maru.
More than 80 years after its sinking, long-buried documents in both the American and Japanese archives held the key to locating the seemingly lost location of the Japanese “Hell ship” Hōfuku Maru. Now, explorer Josh Gates, working with the Hellships Memorial Foundation, is taking viewers along for that historic journey in an all-new season of Expedition Unknown.
The first episode of the two-hour event premieres on Wednesday, June 24, at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on the Discovery Channel.
On Sept. 21, 1944, the Hōfuku Maru, alongside 10 other ships forming Convoy MATA-27, was transporting more than 1,000 Allied Dutch and British service members when it was sunk by American planes.
Among combatants on both sides, the Japanese alone refused to guarantee the safety of POWs at sea or mark their prisoner transports. Friendly fire accounted for a staggering 93% of the POW deaths on these ships, according to Gregory Michno, author of Death on the Hellships.
According to historian David Aquila, to add to the sheer terror of the experience, by 1944 these hell ships were carrying prisoners in numbers six times greater than what the Japanese had deemed acceptable at the beginning of the war. This practice, called chomansai, or super-full capacity, gave each man less than one square yard of space for voyages that lasted up to 70 days. The crowded, disease-ridden conditions, says historian Gavin Daws, were comparable to those on the slave ships of the 18th century.
One of the few survivors of the Hōfuku Maru sinking, Capt. Nigel Evans, later testified in British war crimes trials held in Singapore shortly after war’s end.
“Conditions on board became terrible,” Evans said. “It was a common sight to see prisoners of war eating their meals within six feet of a corpse being prepared for burial. On the day before we sailed, over a third of officers and men were unable to walk unassisted and there were a number of mental cases.”
Evans survived the sinking by boarding another Japanese ship and was taken to a POW camp in Taiwan.
By the end of the war, conservative estimates suggest that 50,000 Allied POWs boarded hell ships, and 21,000 of those men did not survive. That tally accounts for more deaths, according to Michno, than were sustained in combat by the U.S. Marines during the entire Pacific campaign.
The sinking of the Hōfuku Maru that September day marks one of the largest single-day losses of Allied POW lives.
Struck by an Allied torpedo, the vessel was split in half and went under the water in less than three minutes. More than 1,000 Allied POWs were still trapped in its hold. Due to incorrect U.S. records of the event, searchers were led too far north for decades.
That is until researcher John Duresky of the Hellships Memorial Foundation and historian Tim Beckensall stumbled upon a digitized Japanese after-action report written by officers on board the convoy’s lead ship. It contained a hand-drawn account detailing the location of each ship within the convoy and a note stating that the Hōfuku Maru sunk at 10:35 a.m.
But the revelations didn’t stop there. Hidden in plain sight was an aerial photograph captured by the lead American Curtiss SB2C Helldiver just moments before the attack.
“This is what they refer to in the business, guys, as a smoking gun,” says Gates.
“We were absolutely stunned that Japanese sources had information on where the convoy was attacked and what ships were hit,” says researcher Randy Anderson.
Beckensall shared his archival findings with the British Embassy, then the Dutch and Philippine military attachés.
After the compelling evidence, the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands agreed to fund an initial sonar survey and a preliminary dive mission to the site, which took place this past December and January, CNN reports.
But the dive mission initially hit a snag. Despite divers finding some kind of wreckage that pointed to the Hōfuku Maru, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo and the subsequent flood of volcanic ash threatened to engulf the wreck.
With the help of Calvin Mires, a maritime archaeologist for Marine Imaging Technologies, and Evan Kovacs, an underwater imaging specialist, hundreds of images were taken of the wreck and then turned into a 3D model via a technique known as photogrammetry.
Mires and Gates have dived the wreck several times, reporting that they encountered human remains on the deck. Neither went into the holds.
“This ship is a grave, and now that she’s been identified, the governments of the UK, the Netherlands, and the United States have been notified, and they’ll determine the next course of action,” Gates told CNN.
Using “a combination of navigation analyses and archival, cartographic, and archaeological evidence,” the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands confirmed on June 8 that the vessel is “most likely” the Hōfuku Maru.
“The pieces all fit,” states Beckensall in the release. “The vessel is the right size, in the right place and from the correct period. I am convinced this is the Hōfuku Maru.”
5 days, 4 hours ago
Bravery in Burma: Despite being rendered blind by the Japanese, this soldier fought on
Marching 200 miles inside northern Burma and determined to cut off the enemy, 1st Lt. Jack L. Knight made the ultimate sacrifice.
After the fall of Burma (now Myanmar) to the Japanese in 1942, the United States Army fielded a contingent to fight alongside the British and Nationalist Chinese aimed toward getting it back. Although generally outnumbered and handicapped by the mountain, jungle and disease on or over which they had to operate, resourceful units such as the American Volunteer Group, or “Flying Tigers,” and Maj. Gen. Frank Merrill’s 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), acquired a legendary status for courage and ingenuity that outlived the short time frames in which they actually operated.
Relative obscurity notwithstanding, less famous units, often as temporary as the Flying Tigers and Merrill’s Marauders, did their share of harassing the enemy and reoccupying Burmese territory. One, the 5332nd Brigade (Provisional), also known as Mars Task Force, was among the most unlikely regimental assemblies of World War II.
Consisting as it did of the Redesignated Infantry, the unit largely contained survivors from the Merrill’s sickly but highly experienced fighters; the 1st Chinese Regiment (Separate) and the 124th Cavalry Regiment of the Texas National Guard, activated in 1940 and re-equipped as infantry.
Strange though this fighting trio seemed, it, too, got the job done and one of its officers, 1st Lt. Jack L. Knight, made history as a U.S. Army member to be awarded the Medal of Honor in the China-Burma-India theater.
Born in Weatherford, Garner County, Texas, on May 29, 1917, Knight attended Valley Springs and Garner High School. When war broke out, however, he and two brothers enlisted in the Army at Mineral Wells, Texas, in October 1940 and were federalized in November at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Joining the 124th, Jack enrolled in Officer Candidate School at Fort Riley, Kansas, as did one of his brothers, Lloyd. A third brother, Curtis, declined OCS because he’d just been married. By 1945 Knight had risen to first lieutenant and commanded F Troop of the Mars Task Force, while brother Curtis served as the troop’s first sergeant. Lloyd later commanded a tank destroyer unit.
The force’s objective at that time involved marching 200 miles into northern Burma and cut the Burma Road 30 miles below its junction with the Ledo Road. As the unit advanced through the jungle and mountain terrain, first contact was made with Japanese troops on Jan. 19, 1945, and would continue in and around the area of Loi-kang Ridge over the next 17 days.
At 6:20 a.m. on Feb. 2, the 124th Cavalry advanced 1,500 yards through the Hosi Valley and up a 250-foot slope to take up positions on a strategically vital hill, which they reached in 35 minutes. As they did, Knight reconnoitered ahead and encountered two Japanese soldiers, who he killed with his M1 carbine. He then came upon three enemy pillboxes, at which he threw some of his grenades and then called out to his troopers: “Come on up. There’s a whole nest of them here.”
What Knight’s citation described on his conduct that morning was outstanding even for a battalion full of elite fighters:
Knight “Led cavalry troops against heavy concentrations of enemy mortar, artillery, small-arms fire, after taking the troops’ objective and while making preparations for a defensive, he discovered a nest of Japanese pillboxes and foxholes to the right front, preceding his men by at least 10 feet. He immediately led an attack, single-handedly he knocked out two enemy pillboxes and killed the occupants of several foxholes.”
While he was attacking out a third pillbox, a Japanese grenade landed in front of him. Although he stepped back, he was wounded by it. In spite of that, he rallied his platoon and told one of his officers, 2nd Lt. Leo C. Tyson, to bring up more ammunition. He then continued leading the assault on a fourth pillbox, which he engaged with a grenade and his carbine.
As he did, a Japanese soldier rushed him with his bayonet, but Tyson arrived back in time to kill Knight’s assailant. By then some of F Troop saw blood dripping down his face and even as he joined in the attack, he intimated to Tyson, “I can’t see.”
In spite of that, Knight was crawling up toward the enemy when a second grenade mortally wounded him. His brother, 1st Sgt. Curtis Knight tried to take charge, but was struck by a bullet under his heart. Miraculously, he survived the wound and the war.
After 17 days of fighting, Mars Force’s objective was secured on Feb. 5. Both the Burma and Ledo roads were securely in Allied hands. Leo Tyson later received the Silver Star for his performance in the struggle. As for Jack Knight, his contribution was concluded in his citation: “First Lieutenant’s Knight’s gallantry and intrepidity were responsible for the successful elimination of most of the Japs’ positions and served as an inspiration to officers and men of his troop.”
After learning of his actions, the commander in chief of the CBI, Lord Louis Mountbatten, named the site of F Troop’s late commander’s last fight “the Battle of Knight’s Hill.”
On June 6, 1945, Knight posthumously was awarded the Medal of Honor, which Maj. Gen. Bruce Magruder presented to the lieutenant’s father, Roy Knight, at Camp Wolters, Texas, on June 25. Knight’s remains now lie in Holders Chapel Cemetery in Cool, Texas.
6 days ago
VA eliminates gender-identity initiatives, reclassifies LGBTQ+ care coordinators
The VA is eliminating all activity geared toward veterans’ gender identities and reclassifying its LGBTQ+ care coordinators, an internal memo says.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is eliminating activity geared toward veterans’ gender identities and reclassifying its LGBTQ+ care coordinators, according to an internal memo made public this week.
Undersecretary for Health John Bartrum sent the directive to all Veterans Health Administration senior leaders, as well as directors of the 18 Veterans Integrated Service Networks and VA medical center directors.
“VA must ensure all veterans are treated based on their clinical needs and without discrimination,” Bartrum wrote in the memo. “This guidance ensures VHS will do just that.”
No VA funds, official time, facilities nor other resources should be used for meetings, trainings, working groups or activities “promoting gender-ideology or gender-identity,” Bartrum’s memo reads.
The memo also directs all of the VA’s LGTBQ+ care coordinators to be redesignated simply as “care coordinators,” who will be “dedicated to facilitating VA health care and benefits for all veterans, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, sex or sexual orientation.”
The VA employs at least one LGBTQ+ care coordinator for each of its 142 health care systems, according to the department. They’re responsible for creating a safe and respectful environment throughout each medical facility, spreading knowledge about LGBTQ+ services and educating and training staff.
“VA staff play a critical role in ensuring that LGBTQ+ veterans receive the care they need and have earned in service to our country,” the VA’s website still read Thursday. “LGBTQ+ veterans have faced bias and discrimination, which can affect health. At Veterans Health Administration, we aim to make sure that LGBTQ+ veterans know that they are welcome.”
VA leaders were given until June 26 to confirm the noncompliant activities had ended.
The memo was first obtained by The Advocate, a news outlet dedicated to covering the LGBTQ+ community. The publication spoke to VA medical center providers who were concerned the new guidance could end PRIDE in All Who Served, a support group for LGTBQ+ veterans, as well as CBT-PRISM, a style of therapy designed to meet the effects of stigma and discrimination on LGBTQ+ veterans.
In addition to the other changes, the memo says that employees’ uniforms must be in compliance with the two executive orders. The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing more than 300,000 VA employees, said the guidance “orders employees to adhere to uniform and attire standards that may not align with their identities.”
Overall, the changes set forth in the memo will result in LGBTQ+ veterans avoiding treatment, Tiffany McPherson, the union’s PRIDE chair, argued in a statement.
“Some will avoid treatment — especially mental health services — out of fear of being misgendered, stigmatized, or treated with disrespect," McPherson said. “For a community already facing higher rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide, those consequences aren’t hypothetical — they’re real, and the agency knows it.”
Last year, VA officials announced they would phase out all medical treatments for gender dysphoria, including hormone therapy and any surgical options for transgender veterans.
6 days, 4 hours ago
Vietnam War hero of Dong Ha Bridge to be awarded the Medal of Honor
President Donald Trump is set to posthumously award Marine Col. John Ripley the Medal of Honor on June 18 in a White House ceremony.
“Jesus, Mary, get me there. Get me there.”
More than 50 years after then-Capt. John Ripley rhythmically chanted that prayer for three hours as he swung back and forth under a North Vietnamese bridge to rig 500 pounds of explosives, the Marine is set to posthumously be awarded the Medal of Honor.
But for the Ripley family, June 18th is more than just the date of the White House ceremony.
“June 18, that’s the day my father’s brother, Mike Ripley, was killed,” Tom Ripley told Military Times.
After three 13-month tours in Vietnam Mike Ripley was back in the U.S. in 1971, when the new AV-8A Harrier jump jet he was test flying crashed into Chesapeake Bay, killing him instantly.
“Service is something that’s been a long tradition in our family,” noted Ripley. “I was a Marine, my brother was a Marine, obviously, my father was a Marine, my uncles, two of my nephews, my son is going into the Navy — he just graduated just a couple weeks ago from the Naval Academy. We love our country. We’re proud and honored to serve our country. It means the world to us to have the opportunity to stand ... with of these types of Americans.”
On April 2, 1972, Capt. Ripley, a senior advisor to the 3rd Vietnamese Marine Battalion, found himself on the south bank of the Cua Viet River in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, as the North Vietnamese launched a three-pronged assault with some 30,000-40,000 North Vietnamese Army regulars streaming southward across the Demilitarized Zone.
The so-called Easter Offense was to be the largest attack of the war and the first major assault since the Tet Offensive in in 1968.
One bridge, the Dong Ha Bridge, was the only crossing in the Quang Tri Province capable of supporting heavy armored vehicles. Elements of the North Vietnamese 308th and 304th Divisions, supported by tanks from the 203rd Tank Regiment, soon amassed across the river. Dong Ha Bridge was the only impediment between the North Vietnamese and rolling south.
The situation grew more dire still when Ripley noticed that the South Vietnamese engineers had not properly set explosives on the bridge.
Then the order came down. “Hold and die.”
Ripley didn’t hesitate.
“The idea that I would be able even [to] finish the job before the enemy got me was ludicrous,” Ripley recalled in 2007 in an interview with the U.S. Naval Institute. “When you know you’re not going to make it, a wonderful thing happens: You stop being cluttered by the feeling that you’re going to save your butt.”
“Then I began kicking my way through the anti-sapper fence.”
The fence that protected the bridge’s undercarriage was laced with steel-tipped razor wire that sliced into Ripley’s legs and backside as he attempted to traverse the barrier.
His uniform, already sodden from perspiration from three days and nights of nonstop fighting, quickly became blood-soaked.
Hanging from the steel girders Ripley began to haul hundreds of pounds of explosives across the bridge, hand rigging them while “.30-caliber messages” were being sent Ripley’s way by the North Vietnamese.
After achingly placing all 500 pounds of explosives along the 600-foot steel structure, Ripley finished the job by attaching the blasting caps.
“He had to bite down on the blasting caps to attach them to the fuses,” retired Marine Col. John Grider Miller, author of The Bridge at Dong Ha, told The New York Times. “If he bit too low on the blasting cap, it could come loose; if he bit too high, it could blow his head apart.”
Ripley bit just right.
For his heroism, the Marine was awarded the Navy Cross, the highest medal for valor behind the Medal of Honor. The famed Marine passed away in 2008, but tomorrow his family will be on hand as President Donald Trump posthumously bestows the nation’s highest award for heroism to Ripley.
“I hope what people will take away is the importance of living a life of honor,” Ripley’s biographer, Norman J. Fulkerson, told Military Times.
“The key phrase in the Marine Corps hymn is ‘keep our honor clean,’ and what you have in Col. Ripley is the man who embodied that. He’s a man who lived a life of honor.”
6 days, 6 hours ago
Senate advances effort to investigate use of JAG officers as immigration judges
A new measure would require an investigation into how roughly 600 military lawyers were used as immigration judges and special assistant U.S. attorneys.
An effort is advancing in the Senate to demand a probe into how Judge Advocates General were used by the Justice Department last year to serve as immigration judges and special assistant U.S. attorneys.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., introduced a proposal mandating the U.S. Comptroller General to carry out an investigation into how JAGs were reassigned to civilian jobs. The measure was adopted with bipartisan support by the Senate Armed Services Committee for its 2027 defense package.
JAGs are trained to administer impartial legal counsel and administer and try courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. However, starting in September 2025, around 600 military lawyers were authorized to act as immigration judges to help address a national backlog of immigration court cases.
Then in January, JAGs were put to work as special assistant U.S. attorneys “in cities across the country at greater numbers than before and in cases with no direct connection to the military,” reads the Senate Armed Services Committee report on its fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.
“Judge Advocates, I suppose, looked like a resource that [the administration] could tap into, that couldn’t quit if they were being asked to do things that they didn’t want to do,” Steve Lepper, a retired Air Force major general and JAG, told Military Times.
Lepper belongs to the Former JAG Working Group, created last year after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replaced the top lawyers for the military services. The group’s stated purpose is to communicate the effects of that decision on the rule of law in the military.
“That’s actually one of the reasons why I and my colleagues believe that it is so detrimental to the rule of law in this country to use judge advocates in those roles — they can’t say no,“ Lepper continued. ”They have to follow the lawful orders that are given to them, and they can’t simply walk away from the job if they don’t like, for any reason, what they’ve been asked to do.”
Warren’s proposal does not appear in the text of the Senate version of the NDAA, which the Senate Armed Services Committee debated in a closed session last week and was released to the public Tuesday. Instead, the measure appears in a committee report of the bill, which means it isn’t subject to debate either in committee nor on the Senate floor once the legislation comes up for a vote, Warren’s staff explained.
Under the proposal, the Government Accountability Office is expected to uncover the criteria under which the JAGs in question were selected; the extent of their training for their civilian roles; to what extent the DoD keeps information about the JAGs in question, including their related experience in their military roles and how long their civilian service is anticipated to last; and other issues related to JAG capacity within the DoD and the impact of the civilian mobilization on military justice and readiness.
The GAO must share the results of the investigation with committee members by April 16, 2027, the report states.
“Pete Hegseth is treating our independent military lawyers like pawns in [President Donald] Trump’s cruel immigration agenda, and it’s hurting our military readiness and morale,” Warren said in an emailed statement to Military Times. “This independent investigation is an important step to support our service members and hold this administration accountable.”
The probe doesn’t go as far as an amendment — proposed by Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., an attorney and former Army Ranger — to restrict JAGs from being assigned to roles “in cases without a direct military nexus.”
Crow’s proposal was struck down earlier this month during the House Armed Services Committee debate of that chamber’s version of the 2027 defense package.
“I think the GAO study is a half measure,” Lepper said. “What I and the group that I’m part of prefer is what we proposed at the beginning of the NDAA process, which was an outright prohibition.”
1 week ago
Has the military been miscalculating spouse unemployment?
A recent report suggests that the Pentagon has overstated spouse unemployment rates and obscured factors unique to a military lifestyle.
For decades, military spouse employment policy has revolved around a single, stubborn statistic: unemployment.
It’s the standard that leaders cite, programs are built around and progress is measured against. But a recently published report reveals that the Department of Defense has been calculating unemployment differently from typical benchmarks, overstating unemployment rates and obscuring how many military spouses may have stopped looking for work entirely.
A March 2026 report revealed that the DoD calculates unemployment differently than the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, counting some spouses as unemployed who would typically be seen as out of the workforce.
The Pentagon attributes these differences to unique military lifestyle factors. However, according to economist and professor Amy Burnett Cross, this difference in calculation “makes these measures not comparable.”
In fact, if the Pentagon mirrored federal standards, the military spouse unemployment rate would drop from roughly 20% to 14% — still significantly higher than the national average, but lower than the figure cited for years in congressional testimony, policy discussions and news coverage.
Cross believes this “structurally inflates” military spouse unemployment while simultaneously reducing the number of spouses categorized as no longer participating in the workforce, a group rarely highlighted in DoD programming efforts and reports.
“I remember penny pinching so, so much in those days,” recalled Army spouse Elizabeth Mays of her husband’s first duty station in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. “I ended up taking a job making minimum wage at Sears in the shoe department, just to help us make ends meet.”
This was the first of many times Mays worked outside her field to remain employed. Subsequent duty stations yielded similar employment choices.
“Between commuting and then the workday, you’re spending 13 hours a day away from your newborn baby, and your husband is deployed and not even there at all. It’s just me,” said Mays.
She did the math and realized that after child care and transportation costs, her income wouldn’t cover her expenses. In fact, remaining in the workforce would “cost” her family $50 a week. “Those decisions did not make sense, and that was the point where I chose family.”
“Anecdotally, I would say that we have a pretty large percentage of spouses that have removed themselves from the workforce,” said Eddy Mentzer, who oversaw child care family programs and spouse employment for the DoD. “They’re not captured in any way whatsoever.”
The lack of information on military spouses who have stopped looking for work may undercut the programs designed to help them.
Patricia Barron served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Military Community and Family Policy under President Biden from 2021 to 2025. Her office oversaw military spouse employment programming and collaborated with the Pentagon’s Office of People Analytics to survey military spouses.
“A question that I have always had to our researchers at DoD ... ‘Are we asking the right questions?’” said Barron.
The answer she often received was that changing survey questions would hamper the department’s ability to track trends over time.
“There’s always, I would say, good reasoning for the pushback [to update surveys], but it keeps us stuck where we are,” she said. “There’s got to be a new way to think about the [spouse survey], and maybe it’s time to blow it up.”
For many military spouses, cycling in and out of the workforce is expected, even if it isn’t clearly documented or understood.
Upon discovering she was pregnant with their first child, Navy spouse Melinda Estrada made a plan to navigate her budding career in tech. She would work on her graduate degree while staying home with her new baby.
“And then once that’s done, then I’ll jump from my graduate degree, hopefully, to a full-time position,” said Estrada.
Because her husband’s assignment to attend school in Monterey, California, was only supposed to last 18 months, she didn’t see a point in looking for a job only to have to step away without the accrued work time required to be entitled to maternity leave.
A second child and increasing demands from her husband’s job delayed her graduate degree further, extending her time out of the workforce.
Mays, too, struggled to reenter the workforce.
“In Germany, I tried to go back to work,” said Mays, whose husband received overseas orders in 2014, moving her and her two children, ages two and four, far from family and friends.
Because there were limited jobs available overseas, she applied for a job outside her field, at a bank on the installation.
“They told me that they chose another candidate because they were going to be there longer than me,” she said.
Undeterred, she applied to work in merchandising at the Army Exchange and was hired after having to wait 15 months for her daughter to be old enough to be eligible for a spot in daycare.
“I came back from my first day on the job with training, and my husband said, ‘So, I have news.’ Our favorite phrase,” Mays recalled. “‘I have been selected for a job in D.C., and we have to move in 90 days.’”
Mays wanted to work, but resigned the following day, exiting the workforce.
Historically, DoD surveys have asked spouses if they “wanted to work.” As of 2019, the vast majority of those spouses, 85%, responded yes, but only 43% were employed.
This question was not included in the 2021 or 2024 surveys. However, recent DoD surveys have asked why spouses are not looking for work, allowing them to select only one answer. The Number 1 answer (30%) cited child care responsibilities.
Child care scarcity is a reality for all Americans, and military child care is no different.
According to a 2025 report by RAND, military child care programs are not keeping up with demand, leaving tens of thousands of military families without care.
The availability of affordable child care has a significant impact on military spouses’ participation in the workforce. According to a 2016 Health and Human Services report, a 10% reduction in the price of child care could increase maternal employment as high as 11%.
Despite the documented need for improved child care access, most military spouse employment solutions have focused on reducing unemployment through personal development and employment partnerships.
“The DoD has thrown money at trying to find employers who are willing to hire military spouses because people don’t want to hire people who are moving all the time,” said Maria Donnelly, the co-founder of the Military Family Foundation, a nonprofit that has helped military spouses navigate federal employment policies.
Donnelly was referring to one of the DoD’s employment solutions, the Military Spouse Employment Partnership, or MSEP, a membership-based program that encourages civilian employers to hire military spouses.
Since MSEP was launched in 2011, “more than 220,000 military spouses” have been hired. While the initiative requires its partners to document those they hire and retain, this data has not yet been publicly reported.
Both Estrada and Mays reported taking advantage of DoD-sponsored career development programs and internships. Neither walked away with jobs as a direct result of participating, but both formed networking connections that ultimately led to employment. For Estrada, another workforce departure followed.
If experts are correct that the military is measuring unemployment differently than the rest of the country, it raises questions about whether current policies are targeting the right problem.
“I try not to should myself,” said Mays, who is currently employed by a military spouse-owned business that offers flexible remote work, a job she is thankful to have. “But I have this feeling and that I could and should be like at a director level or a management level, given my level of experience.”
Estrada is still looking for work.
1 week ago
Pentagon demands human performance data from services in fitness overhaul
The Pentagon has quietly set in motion a yearlong strategy to unify the military services’ approach to achieving what it calls “Total Force Fitness.”
The Pentagon has quietly set in motion a yearlong strategy to unify the military services’ approach to boosting human performance and reaching “Total Force Fitness,” emphasizing a data-driven approach to achieving the desired results.
Two Pentagon memos released in May and obtained by Military Times offer a roadmap for “Warfighter Performance Optimization,” culminating next year in the rollout of new programming, professional military education and the launch of pilot programs aimed at closing performance gaps.
The first memo, signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on May 6, directs Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata to deliver a report within 60 days that reviews and assesses existing warfighter performance optimization initiatives across the services, with action points “to equip our service members and leaders with the tools, data and resources necessary to meet and exceed readiness standards and to maximize their lethality and effectiveness.”
The end result, according to the memo, is a department-wide performance optimization action plan.
Among Hegseth’s goals in advancing a unified “Warfighter Performance Optimization” approach is accelerating the fielding of technology that improves performance — including wearable devices and other data analytics tools — and elevating “cognitive performance as a key to readiness.”
“The Department will establish cognitive performance as a core occupational readiness competency, measuring and managing it with the same attention and discipline we apply to our physical standards,” the memo states. “We will mitigate brain health risks that erode cognitive performance and leverage tactics, techniques, and procedures to train and optimize Warfighter cognition.”
A seven-page memo for senior Pentagon leaders and commanders of the U.S. combatant commands lays out a timeline for achieving Hegseth’s directives. It includes a June deadline for component heads to deliver data on “human performance capabilities and programs.”
“Information will include overviews, definitions, resource data, best practices, collaborators, coordination with clinical care, utilization of digital health technologies (e.g., wearables, mobile sensors), research priorities, and data capabilities,” the memo states.
Following the rollout of a WPO strategic plan in September that institutes department-wide performance goals and metrics, the Pentagon will launch new “human performance program enhancement activities” by January that establish standards and data management methods “to ensure consistent development, implementation, and evaluation using best available scientific evidence and applied best practices.”
Other plans include creation of a comprehensive WPO dashboard to aggregate military performance data in a single location, and identification of training gaps that detract from performance.
At least three pilot projects, to be launched by next July, will feature “innovative capabilities designed to address mission gaps.”
The new directives underscore the varied and sometimes disjointed approach the military services have taken to achieving the shared goal of boosting warfighter performance.
The Army has touted the success of its Holistic Health and Fitness initiative, which began a slow rollout around 2020 and emphasizes cognitive performance, nutrition and spiritual health as performance contributors.
The Navy is in the process of rolling out its own variation, the Human Performance Optimization program, "designed to enhance an individual’s physical, mental, emotional, and nutritional capabilities in order to maximize effectiveness, productivity, and overall well-being."
The Air Force this year broke ground on a new HPO facility at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, intended to strengthen the resilience of Air Force Special Warfare personnel, while the Marine Corps has its own human performance branch, with resiliency-focused centers on major bases.
A former military human performance official who spoke with Military Times on background said what’s been missing is a way to look at all these efforts in concert and determine what’s best worth the services’ time and investment.
“Hopefully this effort will find out what the best practices are, so those which stand out and can be done at scale while being compliant with different cyber security mandates,” the former official said. “Wearables aren’t the answer to everything. They’re complementary to a lot of the other practices, but we’ll see what the yield is.”
1 week ago
Fair winds, INDOPACOM: Pentagon returns command name to US Pacific Command
U.S. Pacific Command was the formation's official name until 2018, when it was changed to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Another Pentagon-led name change was unveiled Tuesday, when it was announced that the military’s U.S. Indo-Pacific Command would be dropping “Indo” from its name and reverting back to the long used U.S. Pacific Command, or USPACOM.
The move, according to a Pentagon release, “honors the command’s deep historical roots, fostering a sense of pride and collective spirit among all who serve in the Pacific.”
“From its critical role in establishing the post-WWII regional security architecture to its coordination of joint forces during the Korean War, the Vietnam War and countless humanitarian operations, the USPACOM namesake carries decades of military heritage and enduring regional partnerships,” the release states.
U.S. Pacific Command was the official name of the formation until May 2018, when, during the first term of President Donald Trump, it was changed to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command “in recognition of the increasing connectivity of the Indian and Pacific Oceans” and rising military and economic pressure emerging from Beijing, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said at the time.
The command’s top officer in 2018, Adm. Harry Harris, acknowledged then that the change reflected the return of great power competition as decades of combat in the Global War on Terror were winding down.
“I believe we are reaching an inflection point in history,” Harris said in 2018. “A geo-political competition between free and oppressive visions is taking place in the Indo-Pacific.”
The name change announced Tuesday, meanwhile, will have no impact on the command’s mission or areas of operational responsibility that were in place under INDOPACOM, according to the release.
The move is the latest in a series of rebranding initiatives launched by the Pentagon — from base names to the department itself — since Trump began his second term.
In recent weeks the House and Senate armed services committees voted to advance legislation that would ratify the rebrand of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
While the latter designation, which was the official department name from 1789-1947, has been used by Pentagon officials since September 2025, it has yet to be signed into law by Congress.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took to social media on June 5 to praise the recent votes, noting, “The Department of War will officially be restored soon.”
1 week ago
‘MUMS’ the word: Corps stands up first ever Marine unmanned maintenance squadron
The new detail is now the service's only aviation unit built specifically to bring unmanned aviation maintenance to forward deployed combat theaters.
The Marine Corps on Tuesday stood up the service’s first ever unmanned maintenance squadron in a ceremony aboard Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina.
A subordinate unit of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Unmanned Maintenance Squadron 14, or MUMS-14, is now the Corps’ only current aviation detail built specifically to bring unmanned aviation maintenance to forward deployed combat theaters, according to an announcement.
In that role, Marines will spearhead maintenance support for the service’s Group-5 unmanned aerial systems — namely, the MQ-9 Reaper — to enable multi-mission intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting across the Marine Air-Ground Task Force.
“Standing up this squadron marks a major step forward for Marine Corps aviation,” Lt. Col. Jeffrey F. Carben, commanding officer of MUMS-14, said in a service release. “Our unit ensures the Marine Corps will maintain a persistent, reliable, and expeditionary capability — one that directly strengthens deterrence and supports Marines operating forward.”
Carben assumed command of the squadron on Tuesday as part of the activation ceremony, with Sgt. Maj. Tavaris J. Douglas stepping in as the outfit’s first senior enlisted leader.
“The work done here will have global impact,” added Carben. “It takes disciplined, technically skilled Marines to keep these systems flying. Today’s activation is more than a ceremony — it’s the beginning of a new chapter of Marine Corps aviation. This squadron will help ensure Marines forward have the persistent eyes, ears and reach they need to compete and win.”
1 week, 1 day ago
Navy officer, 67, becomes oldest on record to earn Fleet Marine Force pin
Watching his son graduate as a U.S. Navy officer inspired Westerberg in 2022 — at the age of 64 — to also pursue a commission in the sea service.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. David Westerberg knows how to grin and bear it.
After a successful 38-year career in dentistry in Southern California, Westerberg wasn’t quite ready to put down his scalers. Watching his son graduate as a U.S. Navy officer inspired Westerberg in 2022 — at the age of 64 — to also pursue a commission in the sea service.
Now, at the age of 67, the naval officer has become the oldest recipient on record to earn the Fleet Marine Force qualification insignia pin, according to a recent release.
Attainment of the FMFQO designation signifies that a Navy officer has achieved a level of excellence and proficiency in Marine Corps operations and indicates a fundamental understanding of a Marine Air Ground Task Force mission effectiveness and command survivability, according to the Marine Corps.
The officer dedicated months of early mornings and weekends to studying for the exams and working on the paperwork that the FMF pin requires, a workload Westerberg shouldered despite seemingly putting the final touches on a long career. The dentist is preparing to leave the Navy later this year.
“The FMF pin helped me see beyond the dental chair,” said Westerberg. “Where my Marines are going, what they’re preparing for ... that made me better.
“I would encourage anyone to better themselves and always strive to do a step up from what your comfort level is. Be uncomfortable and take that step.”
1 week, 1 day ago
US won’t soften military posture in Middle East despite Iran agreement
Nearly 50,000 U.S. troops are positioned across the region, according to Adm. Brad Cooper, head of Central Command.
The United States will maintain its current military posture in the Middle East despite the electronic signing of a peace agreement between Washington and Tehran, a senior U.S. official said on Monday, indicating that any drawdown remains off the table for now.
“The plan is to keep to the current force posture during the succeeding negotiations,” the official said on a call with reporters. “We hope to draw them down, but we’re not doing that yet.”
“We want to see, again, that the Iranians do what they promised they’re going to tell us that they’re going to do,” the official added.
Although the text of the memorandum of understanding has not been made public, officials conceded that several major points of contention — including the future of Iran’s nuclear program — have been deferred. The hope is that those issues will be resolved during subsequent negotiations scheduled to take place over the next 60 days.
In the meantime, the framework’s opening phase extends a ceasefire between the two sides, reopens the Strait of Hormuz and lifts the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports.
Nearly 50,000 U.S. troops are positioned across the region, according to Adm. Brad Cooper, the chief of Central Command. Two aircraft carriers — USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush — anchor the deployment.
The Trump administration’s decision to preserve its military posture sends the message that a return to war is a possibility and underscores the provisional nature of the diplomatic breakthrough. Any retrenchment of American forces, officials said, would be contingent on a satisfactory final deal and Iran’s verifiable compliance with its terms.
1 week, 2 days ago
F/A-18 Hornet crashes in Washington state, wildfire subsequently reported
The pilot ejected and was taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
A pilot safely ejected from an F/A-18 Hornet on Saturday after experiencing an aviation mishap 55 miles southeast of Seattle, Washington, according to the U.S. Marine Corps.
The jet, assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 11, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, was conducting a routine training exercise when it crashed, the service confirmed.
“The cause of the mishap is currently under investigation,” the Marine Corps said.
The Yakima County Sheriff’s Office received calls around 12:15 p.m. involving a military plane that crashed into a mountain in the area of Rimrock Lake.
A law enforcement officer responded to the scene and helped transport a pilot who’d ejected from the jet to a hospital, where he recovered from minor injuries.
A wildfire was reported in the area shortly after, requiring intervention from the Naches Fire Department, which deployed a helicopter in tandem with the U.S. Forest Service in Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest to subdue the flames.
Local enforcement evacuated campers in the area after the fire broke out.
The 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing would not confirm that the aviation mishap was the cause of the fire.
The Defense Department released data in November 2025 that showed a sizable uptick in aviation mishaps.
The rate of significant accidents per 100,000 flight hours rose 55% in fiscal 2024 in comparison with the four years that preceded it.
Two years ago, Washington state was the site of another tragic military mishap.
In October 2024, two Navy pilots died when their EA-18G Growler crashed east of Mount Rainier.
1 week, 4 days ago
Only 1 in 4 F-35s is fully mission capable, GAO finds
The F-35’s readiness rates continued to decline through fiscal 2025, with the fleet’s full mission capable rate falling to 25%, according to a GAO report.
The mission capable rate, which measures the percentage of time aircraft can perform at least one of their tasked missions, dropped from 67% in fiscal 2021 to 44% in fiscal 2025, GAO found.
The full mission capable rate, the share of time aircraft can perform all assigned missions, slid from 38% to 25% over the same period.
Air Force officials attributed part of the fiscal 2025 drop to new jets that couldn’t perform their missions because of software delays, along with scarce parts and corrosion problems, according to the report.
“The F-35 is DOD’s most costly weapon system, but it hasn’t met performance goals and costs to sustain the aircraft continue to increase,” GAO wrote in a summary accompanying the report.
The F-35 Joint Program Office’s answer to the decline in readiness is what the office officially calls the Global Support Solution Reset. The strategy, launched in June 2025, aims for an 80% mission capable rate and a 65% full mission capable rate by 2030.
Getting there won’t come cheap: JPO estimates it will take $13.7 billion more than previously planned through fiscal 2031, money the services must request in their annual budgets.
The GSS Reset addresses concerns GAO has flagged for years, including spare parts shortages, maintenance problems and heavy contractor reliance, among other long-running issues.
Only about $2.2 billion of that total is for the GSS Reset, according to the report. The other roughly $11.5 billion covers the gap between what the services had budgeted and what F-35 sustainment actually requires.
JPO officials told GAO that readiness will likely worsen before it improves, and program documentation suggests improvements may not materialize until late 2026 or later.
GAO identified several risks that could keep the GSS Reset from succeeding.
“JPO will be reliant on the private sector to deliver more than $7 billion in additional parts and other material. But capacity constraints persist for key parts,” the report states.
A 2025 study by Lockheed Martin, which builds the F-35 and leads its sustainment alongside engine maker Pratt & Whitney, found 48 parts that the supplier base can’t produce enough of, including canopies, which GAO has previously identified as a top driver of grounded jets.
Costs keep climbing, too, threatening the services’ ability to pay for the Reset. By the mid-2030s, GAO projects the services will face a roughly $1.2 billion annual gap between what their F-35s cost to sustain and what they say they can afford.
Those estimates may understate the problem. GAO noted the fiscal 2027 projections were developed before Operation Epic Fury and may not capture the costs associated with additional flight hours.
From 2020 through 2023, the program office paid Lockheed more than $114 million of roughly $269 million in available incentive fees meant to improve full mission capable rates and parts supply, even as both metrics generally stagnated or worsened.
Lockheed’s incentive fees were tied to readiness thresholds. In 19 of 39 performance periods, the JPO and Lockheed adjusted the recorded full mission capable rate upward, citing factors outside the company’s control, such as service-caused delays, which qualified the contractor for higher payments. Had fees been paid on the raw rates alone, GAO estimated Lockheed would have earned roughly half as much.
Pratt & Whitney, the program’s other prime contractor, has met its engine sustainment targets since 2022 after fixing problems GAO flagged in earlier reviews, the report noted.
“Lockheed Martin continues to partner with the Joint Program Office and our industry partners to ensure we are delivering efficient and effective sustainment for the warfighter,” a Lockheed Martin spokesperson said in a statement to Defense News. “We have recently invested more than $2 billion in advanced funding to accelerate spare parts to increase readiness rates across the F-35 fleet.”
The F-35 Joint Program Office concurs with the report’s findings and fully supports its three recommendations, a spokesperson told Defense News.
“Through our Global Support Solution Reset initiative, the JPO remains focused on achieving our 2030 readiness goals and ensuring strict fiscal accountability for every sustainment dollar spent,” the spokesperson said.
GAO also found the F-35 JPO could not produce consistent records of its incentive fee payments. It calculated fees using a formula that differed from the contract without documenting the change, and over the course of GAO’s review, provided three different versions of its incentive fee spreadsheet.
JPO officials told GAO they abandoned the contracted formula because it overstated Lockheed’s performance, and the corrected formula they used paid the company an estimated $3.7 million less than the flawed one would have.
GAO found the incentive problems extend to the current contract, covering 2025 through 2028, which includes no incentives tied to full mission capable rates at all, instead rewarding parts supply metrics with targets GAO found fall below the program’s own goals.
“Until JPO ensures the future use of incentives better achieves desired performance, it risks rewarding contractor performance that does not help meet program goals,” GAO stated.
GAO wants the Pentagon to do three things: build risk mitigation plans for efforts like the GSS Reset, covering technical data access, industry capacity, affordability and alignment with service goals; rethink how it structures contract incentives, possibly including penalties for poor performance; and build a reliable system for tracking what it pays in incentive fees and why.
GAO has now made 46 recommendations on F-35 sustainment since 2014. As of March 2026, the Pentagon had implemented 14.
The Pentagon did not provide formal comments on the report but said in draft comments that it agreed with the recommendations, according to GAO.
Despite the program’s readiness troubles, the F-35 remains the backbone of America’s fighter fleet. The Pentagon operates more than 800 of the jets and plans to buy about 1,700 more by the mid-2040s, with lifetime U.S. sustainment costs estimated at $1.6 trillion as of 2024.
1 week, 4 days ago
‘Sounds like a mutiny’: Secret recording exposes claims of toxic leadership after a Marine’s suicide
A War Horse investigation points to systemic failures before and after the death of Cpl. Drew Mobley, whose suicide was the unit's third in two years.
Editor’s note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
This report contains discussion of suicide. Troops, veterans and family members experiencing suicidal thoughts can call the 24-hour Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 and dial 1, text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net.
“Who knows what was going on in Cpl. Mobley’s personal life?”
The question hung in the air.
“Who knows if he had a girlfriend, fiancée? Who knows if they were having relationship issues? Who knows if his parents were having relationship issues?”
First Sgt. Christopher Rushton fired off the list of“who knows”questions as members of the Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting unit at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia sat in stony silence.
“Who knows if his sister was having relationship issues? Who knows if his favorite dog died? Who knows if his favorite teacher just got in a car wreck and died?”
“Who the fuck knows that?” demanded Rushton, a former drill instructor. “Do any of y’all? So how are you going to sit here and try to tell me, or tell the CO, that this environment caused [the death of] Cpl. Mobley?”
On April 7, 2025, one of their own—Cpl. Drew Mobley—had taken his own life.
During an internal investigation after Mobley’s death, a number of his fellow Marines complained about the command climate, accusing leadership of ignoring Mobley’s declining mental health and tormenting him after an injury sidelined him from regular duty.
Now, three days after Mobley’s memorial service, the rest of his unit—known as ARFF— was getting grilled. Rushton and Col. Scott Warman had gathered the Marines, collected their phones, and were taking turns berating them. The closed-door meeting lasted more than two hours.
Secret audio recordings, later shared with The War Horse, reveal what happened inside.
A War Horse investigation into the events surrounding Cpl. Mobley’s death points to systemic failures before and after his suicide and an alarming disregard for protocols spelled out in 98 pages of Marine Corps Suicide Prevention System Procedures. After inquiries from The War Horse, the Corps said it is investigating.
In the secret recording, Rushton is heard reading aloud and mocking individual Marines’ written concerns with command leaders: “Oh, master sergeant yelled at me. I’m sad. Boo-the-fuck-hoo. You really think ISIS cares?”
At one point later, he tells them: “Call CNN. Call Fox News. See how that works out for you.”
And he insisted Mobley’s fellow Marines had no idea why he took his own life.
“He made a very personal decision,” Rushton sternly told the Marines, “to turn a temporary problem into a permanent solution. Very deliberate in what he did.”
“You can’t sit here and tell me that ARFF was the reason that he did what he did,” Rushton told them. “Do any of you have a suicide note from him?”
Again, silence.
“No, you don’t,” Rushton finally said. “You don’t know what was going through his head.”
‘Not Going the Way We Thought’
For years, the military has been struggling to come to grips with an alarming number of suicides among service members. Suicide rates have climbed in the military since 2011, but, in a glimmer of hope, declined in 2024, according to the most recent Defense Department report. Still, there were 471 suicides—more than one a day—in the U.S. military in 2024. And the Marine Corps has among the military’s highest rates. Studies and the Marines’ prevention protocols warn that exposure to suicide can lead to a higher risk for similar behavior.
In a social media post in February, Sgt. Maj. Carlos A. Ruiz, the Corps’ highest-ranking enlisted member, encouraged Marines to speak up if they are struggling with their mental health.
“This tribe demands that when you need help, you ask for help,” he said. “We bend together, and we don’t break together.”
Despite its ‘suck-it-up’ image, veterans interviewed for this story say the Corps has made strides in looking out for troubled Marines in recent years. But what happened at Quantico last April provides a rare and unvarnished look into a culture that critics say can persist on the inside when unit-level commanders think nobody else is listening.
Over four months, The War Horse spoke to six Marines who worked in ARFF with Mobley. In interviews, they described working long hours for an understaffed unit, missing time with their families, and toxic leaders who dismissed their mental health concerns. The Marines who spoke with The War Horse also noted that Mobley’s death was the third suicide in the Marine Corps Air Facility, which includes ARFF, in less than two years.
The Marines who spoke out had hoped their feedback would hold ARFF’s leadership accountable for their perceived role in Mobley’s death, which Michael Snell, a former ARFF unit member, calls “horribly preventable.”
“The maltreatment had been going on forever and was getting ignored, and by literally everyone in the command,” Snell said in an interview with The War Horse. “And we basically all got told that we’re committing acts of mutiny.”
“We kind of all knew the moment they said, ‘Everybody put your phones outside’—we were like, ‘Oh, this is not going the way we thought it was going to go,’” said Malakai Standifer, another former ARFF Marine.
The War Horse reached out multiple times over a two-month period to four members of ARFF leadership—Warman, Rushton, Master Sgt. Jerry Chapman III, and Gunnery Sgt. Brian Tabares. Rushton and Warman directed inquiries to the Quantico communication office. The others did not respond.
After The War Horse submitted more than a dozen questions, detailing the allegations and sharing a number of Rushton’s and Warman’s comments from the closed-door meeting, Capt. Michael Kennedy, a Marine spokesman responded: “This incident is currently under investigation and no details regarding the investigation can be provided at this time.”
Rob Bracknell, a retired Marine officer and judge advocate, reviewed the recordings of the meeting at the request of The War Horse. He was not involved in the investigation.
“Berating Marines weeks after the third suicide in two years—that just sounds like the worst possible way to handle this,” Bracknell said. “Your first instinct should be, pull those guys into your arms and go, ‘Hey, let’s take care of you.’”
‘Be a Marine and Protect Earth’
When Drew Mobley ended his life at 22, he was working at what was supposed to be his dream job.
He’d known it since he was just a third grader. At Wallace Elementary in North Carolina, an hour’s drive west of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, he wrote an essay on what he wanted to be when he grew up.
“I am going to be a Marine and protect [E]arth,” he wrote. “No one is stopping me until I die or end the war.”
His essay won a contest for the Duplin County School District.
More than a decade later, Mobley was at Quantico on a Sunday afternoon. He updated his life insurance policy in the ARFF rec room. He played basketball for a bit with a few of his fellow Marines. He went to a sporting goods store, where he purchased a gun, and another store to purchase hollow-point bullets.
Then, he drove his Hyundai Sonata to the parking lot of the C.F. Phelps Wildlife Management Area. Around 6:30 p.m., he messaged some of his friends on Discord, a social app he liked to use, telling them he’d be offline for a while. His internet search history shows he was on his phone until after midnight.
Then, sometime in the early morning hours, he shot himself.
A few Marines who were sent to check on him discovered his body after friends tracked his location on Snapchat.
His mother later pieced together the last hours of Drew’s life from his phone log, receipts, and accounts from other Marines. In the months leading up to his death, Mobley was struggling, fellow Marines say, but they didn’t know how bad it was. He started isolating himself. His hair appeared unwashed. He arrived late to his shifts. He stopped wearing cologne.
“The boy loved cologne,” said his mother, April Mobley. “And always wore it.”
They checked in regularly on the phone, but he never told her how much he was suffering.
“My son was not a complainer,” she said. “He didn’t share his feelings.”
She remembers him telling her, after two other Marines’ suicides, that he didn’t understand why they would take their own lives. On their last phone call, he told her he was worried about his friend Cole McEachern, another ARFF Marine who was struggling.
Drew Mobley felt like he’d lost his purpose on base, Standifer said. At first, he’d enjoyed his job, April Mobley said. He made friends and had earned a nickname, Horse, because he’d “kinda just roam and graze and do [his] own thing,” said Snell.
It was random, but stuck. When Mobley left work, the other Marines would joke that they were “letting Horse out of the stable.” Later, Snell got a tattoo of a horse and the date of Mobley’s death on his shoulder.
In Sept. 2023, a year and a half out of boot camp, Mobley broke his leg and tore his ACL while playing football during physical training. In Feb. 2024, he had surgery to repair his ACL, but his leg didn’t heal as expected. He was eventually placed on limited duty.
It kept him from the airfield, where Marines trained for and responded to aircraft emergencies. Quantico is also home to Marine One, the president’s helicopter.
He was assigned to dispatch duty, and around Christmastime 2024 he was sent up to the “tower.” The shifts were punishing—12 hours, sometimes longer—and indeed, Mobley felt punished, he told his mom. Typically, dispatch shifts rotated among unit members, maybe up to six shifts a month, Standifer said. Mobley had been left on them full-time for three months.
Standifer said he witnessed Chapman, the master sergeant who was named 2024’s USMC Executive Fire Officer of the Year, berating and belittling Mobley on a regular basis.
He’d get flak for attending medical appointments that took him away from work, Snell said. Toward the end, the abuse got worse, he said.
“Basically, he was in Master Sgt. Chapman’s office, like, every day, just getting torn down, berated, basically getting told that he was garbage because he couldn’t work normally, like everybody else could,” Snell said.
McEachern, another former ARFF member, was also on dispatch duty because of an injury, alternating 12-hour shifts with Mobley. “They treated our injuries like we chose to get them and treated dispatch as a punishment,” he said.
“You’re a guy all alone, separated from your friends and family,” Standifer said. “Then you get injured. You can no longer do the job you’re passionate about. The people above you are now reminding you every single day that … you’re a piece of shit, and you know they don’t want you there.”
“Why didn’t they just kick him out?” April Mobley asked. “Why keep doing that to him every day?”
‘Felt I Had Let Him Down’
Months before Mobley’s death, ARFF unit members filled out what’s known as a Defense Organizational Climate Survey. Congress mandated the annual surveys across the military to service members to provide what is supposed to be confidential feedback about their command. The War Horse submitted a Freedom of Information Act request on March 31 for ARFF’s surveys but is still waiting for a response.
In the survey, Mobley explained that he felt he was being treated unfairly and said his shifts were isolating, according to a friend and fellow Marine who read over his submission. Mobley wanted “to ensure it would be taken seriously by the command,” the friend told The War Horse. He asked not to be identified because he is still serving in the Marines and feared retribution for speaking to a reporter.
Marines who spoke to The War Horse said many of their concerns about leadership were glossed over.
“We all felt completely unheard,” said the Marine who advised Mobley. When nothing changed, Mobley, in particular, took it hard. “I felt I had let him down by saying that the command would take everything seriously.”
Within a few months, Mobley was dead.
His death rattled his family.
April Mobley wasn’t one to coddle her kids, she said. “I am the toughest mama that you can find.” But Drew was such a good boy, she said. An easy, likable kid. Always the first person to ask how you were doing, always the last person to complain about his own problems. The chaplain at Quantico told her that Drew would often stop by and ask how he was doing. Nobody else ever did that, the chaplain said. (The chaplain didn’t respond to a LinkedIn message from The War Horse.)
“To see how they just pulled the life out of him, the happiness,” she said, her voice quaking.
At Drew’s memorial, Gunnery Sgt. Brian Tabares approached his mother and told her they knew Drew was struggling, she said.
“They knew,” April Mobley said. But she was too grief-stricken to ask Tabares: Why didn’t anyone do anything to help him?
“I just, I can’t understand that,” she said.
‘Maybe Your Feelings Need to Be Hurt’
Unprofessional. Lacking values. A disgrace to the uniform.
These are among the insults Rushton and Warman hurled at ARFF just weeks after Mobley’s death. When the doors shut, and the meeting started, Warman, a first-generation Marine with two combat deployments, made it clear not everyone was on notice.
Some of you will do “great things,” he told the group. “There’s a great deal of you who have such amazing future potential, not just in the Marine Corps, but in life.”
His focus quickly shifted.
“Some of you are selfish. You’re entitled. And you’re the most disloyal people I’ve ever met.”
After Mobley’s death, several Marines had specifically called out Chapman, the master sergeant.
Chapman had a “tendency to pick certain individuals he deemed not to his liking,” Standifer wrote in a statement he provided to investigators and later shared with The War Horse. “No matter the skills or actual work the individual does, they will always be bottom-tier low-lives to MSgt [Master Sergeant].” Drew was one of these, Standifer wrote.
“Cpl. Mobley was verbally and publicly ridiculed for his inability to work shift due to a major leg injury,” Standifer wrote. This “caused him to get put in dispatch over and over, locked in a hole with only the occasional visits from shift members to keep him sane until he was pushed too far and ended his life.”
Another Marine was “constantly accused of using his mental health appointments to get out of work,” Standifer wrote.
These statements were supposed to be kept confidential, Marines said—they were told they’d only be shared with Warman and other officers involved in the investigation. But now, here they were. Less than three weeks after Mobley’s suicide, Warman and Rushton were sitting in front of the entire unit, reading snippets from those same statements.
Marines had complained about limited time with family. Some hadn’t seen their families in weeks, they said. In response, Rushton reprimanded them for not being team players.
“You don’t want to switch shifts, because, ‘Oh, my wife’s schedule won’t allow it,’” he said. “Nobody gives a fuck about your wife’s schedule. Sorry if it hurts your feelings—maybe your feelings need to be hurt.”
Some Marines complained that leaders discouraged them from attending medical appointments—including mental health appointments—during work hours. Rushton insisted these appointments needed to happen on personal time.
As for those who didn’t agree with him, Rushton said: “They’re being fucking lazy. … That’s you being fucking selfish.”
“How many of you’ve ever deployed to a combat zone?” asked Rushton, who shared he had been three times. “Do you really think ISIS gives a fuck about your feelings?”
Rushton scolded the unit for blaming Mobley’s death on leadership. “Stop blaming the chain of command over your own personal problems.”
One after another, he read aloud and rejected the criticism.
“The work climate at ARFF, and I quote, ‘Will not improve if Master Sgt. Chapman remains in charge. I respectfully and tactfully request a review of Master Sgt. Chapman’s leadership and its effect on the unit.’”
Rushton was having none of it: “Know what that sounds like to me? There’s a naval term that that falls under. … What term am I referring to? Mutiny. It’s a fucking mutiny.”
‘Every Marine Feels Supported’
Capt. Michael P. Kennedy struck a different tone in the Marines’ official response to The War Horse about the unit’s claims and the closed-door meeting.
“The loss of even one Marine to suicide is one too many,” he wrote in an email. “Our prevention and postvention efforts are applied with equal commitment and seriousness across Marine Corps Base Quantico. At Marine Corps Base Quantico, we are dedicated to fostering a community where every Marine feels supported and knows that help is always available.”
But an examination of the Marines’ official suicide prevention procedures calls into question the response before and after Mobley’s death.
The latest version of the document from the Commandant of the Marine Corps—coincidentally issued four days before Rushton and Warman’s meeting with ARFF—lays out procedures, from suicide prevention training requirements to dispelling the stigma of mental health care.
“Command climate is a critical aspect of suicide prevention in the Marine Corps,” it reads.
Leaders should be “involved with every aspect of Marines’ lives in the unit” and they should “facilitate the discussion of life stressors between Marines and leadership without judgment or stigma.” It lays out potential warning signs that might urge a commander to order a mental health evaluation for a subordinate Marine, including “significant changes in performance” and “behavior changes that appear to be unmanageable by the Marine.”
It also offers guidance for how to respond in the aftermath of a suicide. Those left behind might experience guilt, anger, shame, and betrayal after a suicide, it says. It’s common for those left behind to “seek answers and assign blame,” the document says. Leaders can help by “fostering hope” and avoiding framing that causes shame or guilt. Trust in leadership is key, the document instructs. “Ask other Marines how they are and actively listen.”
Leaders should “foster a positive, safe command climate that promotes healthy stress responses.”
After a suicide, other Marines can be “at high risk.” These efforts help survivors cope with grief and prevent future suicides.
Bracknell, the former Marine judge advocate who is now an adjunct professor at William & Mary Law School, said Rushton and Warman’s response to ARFF does not align with these guidelines.
“First Sgt. Rushton’s comments seeking to shift blame off the unit and pointing fingers at their ‘unprofessionalism’ in the wake of a suicide—that’s not the ‘positive, safe command climate’ the Commandant expected when he approved that guidance,” Bracknell said. “Instinctively, their reactions are the opposite of what any professional, caring, thoughtful, engaged leader would do in that instance.”
Retired Marine Col. Don Wogaman, who was not involved in the investigation, appeared visibly troubled after he reviewed—at The War Horse’s request—how command leaders rebuked the Marines for raising concerns after Mobley’s suicide.
The subject is painful for him. Wogaman remembers how a fellow Marine who served in the Gulf War took his own life while Wogaman was responding to his Facebook post. It “tears me up,” he said. He called Rushton and Warman’s response to the ARFF Marines “horrible leadership.”
In the Marines, Bracknell said, leaders often “fail to discern the difference between tough and cruel.” The skills hardened military commanders rely on to lead a unit are not the same ones needed to help them cope after a fellow service member’s suicide, he said.
But at times during the closed-door meeting, Warman softened his tone, sharing lessons on leadership, and living and dying as a team.
At one point, he became contemplative over the suicides: “If anybody’s responsible, it’s me,” he told the Marines. “And I accept responsibility for that, because I’m the commander, and it’s happened under my watch. I own that, and those are the things I have to live with the rest of my life—that I had three, three Marines take their lives under my watch.
“Never once in my 23-year career have I ever seen that. Ever.”
The Third Suicide
Mobley’s death was the third suicide in the Marine Corps Air Facility, or MCAF, in under two years. A senior enlisted Marine in the MCAF command died by suicide in August 2023, and an ARFF Marine took his own life about three months later. While The War Horse was reporting this story, another former ARFF member took his own life in Feb. 2026.
The War Horse was unable to contact family connected to the most recent suicide, but did reach the spouses of the first two Marines who died. In a Facebook message, one of the women said her husband “never had any issues with higher-ups or colleagues” and that command leaders were there for her after his death, “especially MSGT Chapman,” the master sergeant whom Mobley’s unit members criticized.
The other said in a phone interview that her husband had a largely positive experience in MCAF at Quantico. He suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which stemmed from personal childhood trauma as well as his experiences in Fallujah. MCAF was one of the most supportive units he was in, his wife said.
He took his own life a little over a week after receiving an official PTSD diagnosis, she said.
“He knew that [seeking mental health treatment] would be career-changing,” she said. He reached out to a counselor during his time at MCAF, but the counselor told him she would have to notify his command if he came to her for help, which scared him off.
Military culture dissuades people from seeking help, she said. “It’s kind of like—you should get help, and then just know that your career might be over.”
The Suicide That Didn’t Happen
In the weeks around Mobley’s death, there was almost another suicide.
The story of Sgt. Cole McEachern’s is similar to Mobley’s in many ways. During an aircraft emergency, he sustained a labral tear in his shoulder. Like Mobley, he was put on limited duty and 12-hour dispatch shifts. He and Mobley would alternate shifts, and sometimes spend extra time in the tower to keep each other company.
Unlike Mobley, McEachern wasn’t new to the military and had seen some violent things. On 12-hour dispatch shifts, he had “nothing but time” to think about these memories, he said. When he sought treatment for his nightmares and post-traumatic stress at the Quantico mental health clinic, he was told he had insomnia, and they couldn’t do anything for him, McEachern said.
That’s when he began self-medicating with cocaine.
The drugs fought off the nightmares. He’d stay awake for so long, that when he crashed, his sleep was dreamless.
Some days, McEachern would be driving to the ARFF station from the barracks, and he’d turn around, filled with dread at the thought of another day-long shift spent in solitude. Then, he said he’d think of Mobley—I can’t leave him there alone, he remembers thinking. He’d turn around again and make it to work, where he’d sit in his car, trying to psych himself up to go inside.
Around shift changes, when both he and Mobley were present, he remembers that Chapman would regularly show up to chew them out. They were the “trouble kids” because they were injured, McEachern said.
He talked to his dad Ryan McEachern on the phone nearly every day, and his father said he had noticed a shift in Cole’s demeanor. Cole was always frustrated, his father said, and he’d become more negative, more withdrawn.
“When he would call, he just kind of had this depressed vibe about him,” Ryan McEachern said. He remembers one call where Cole said a member of leadership had told him he was “a piece of shit” and that “they didn’t really want [him] around anybody else” because he was a bad influence. Cole took a lot of pride in his work, Ryan McEachern said, so that hurt.
“There’s just a meanness in people that do that, even in the Marine Corps,” said the father, a Marine Corps veteran himself.
Around Jan. 2025, Cole’s calls home became sparser, and Ryan McEachern could see on the “Find My Friends” app that Cole was keeping erratic hours, sometimes out as late as 4 a.m.
Then on April 1, 2025, Ryan McEachern received a call he’ll never forget.
“I fucked up, I’m a piece of shit, everyone’s going to f-ing hate me,” McEachern remembers his son saying. Cole confessed he’d done drugs the night before. “He spiraled into this, just, whole conversation about how horrible he was.”
“I’m panicking,” Ryan McEachern said. “I was like, ‘Dude, where are you right this second?’”
Cole told him he was on base in his truck.
“I need you to drive to the mental health clinic,” Ryan McEachern told his son.
Cole resisted—the mental health clinic on base hadn’t been helpful in the past, so why would he go back there?
“I said, ‘Do not hang up your phone,’” Ryan McEachern said, his voice shaking as he retold the story. He stayed on the phone as Cole walked into the clinic and approached the front desk. From the phone, Ryan shouted a message to the receptionist. “Before he can say a word, I’m like, ‘Don’t let this guy leave!’”
As the clinic staff started to handle the situation, the gravity of what had almost happened hit hard. “I was like, holy shit,” Ryan McEachern said. “I think my kid was about to kill himself.”
On April 11, Cole McEachern was eventually admitted into a month-long inpatient mental health program, just days after his friend Drew Mobley died. Cole missed the memorial service.
Ryan McEachern said he wished Drew would have made a similar phone call.
“I think about that constantly. That phone call sucked, but I was sure lucky to get it.”
‘Feel Like I Owe Them’
Drew has been gone a year, but for his mother April, the pain is still fresh. Her voice is still raw with anger and sadness. Sometimes, she trails off mid sentence, choked by tears.
Drew, who as a third grader wanted everyone to “pray to God for the Marines that protected us and were willing to die,” is still with her. Once, after she visited Drew’s grave, she got in the car. The clock had changed to military time. “Never done that before,” she said.
April stays in touch with other Marines. She feels responsible for them, she said. She calls them on holidays, invites them to her home for dinners, sends their kids Christmas and birthday presents.
“Every boy that calls me, I feel like I owe it to them,” she said.
“I prayed to God. Like, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to have a purpose in all of this?” she implores. “What is my path?
“I truly feel like at this point, it’s to make all of these boys feel heard. To make them feel like what they went through was wrong and [for] somebody to acknowledge that.”
On the first anniversary of Drew’s death, April took a trip to the Grand Canyon with her family. On the way there, they stopped at a convenience store. April wanted to buy a Coke, Drew’s favorite drink. She didn’t know why, she just felt like she needed to. At the rim of the canyon, as they took in the view, she placed the glass bottle down on a post.
On the post, she spotted a sticker, left behind by another traveler. Its message astonished her: “Drew’s Crew.”
This War Horse investigation was edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Video and audio editing by LiPo Ching.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that Christopher Rushton served as a drill instructor for about four years. The story has been updated to describe him as “a former drill instructor.”
1 week, 6 days ago
Trump vows to seize Iran’s Kharg Island
Kharg Island, the linchpin of Iran’s oil industry, has once more come under focus amid a fraying ceasefire.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to seize Kharg Island — the linchpin of Iran’s oil industry — as he escalated pressure on Tehran amid a fraying ceasefire.
In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote the United States would be hitting Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT,” adding that “at some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets.”
Kharg Island, located in the Persian Gulf, typically handles roughly 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. It has been central to the economic survival of the Islamic Republic for decades. A 1984 declassified CIA document called its facilities “the most vital in Iran’s oil system, and their continued operation is essential to Iran’s economic well-being.”
But Trump’s saber-rattling was quickly tempered by a note of caution. Speaking to the hosts of “Fox & Friends” shortly after his social media post, the president questioned whether America “has the stomach” for a larger military operation to take the island.
“I’m not sure the country has the appetite for it, as good as it is,” Trump said. “I think they’d like to see us come home.”
The White House told Military Times that all military options remain available to the president, including scenarios involving a significant number of ground forces occupying Kharg Island. On Thursday, however, Trump appeared to rule out that possibility.
“I don’t want to have boots on the ground. But if I wanted to, we could put a small group of soldiers and take over the whole place,” the commander in chief said, punctuating his remarks on Iran with “They’re finished.”
Trump’s political coalition has been riven with tensions since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Foreign policy hawks who insist Iran must be curbed are on one side, and isolationist-leaning, “America-First” voices are on the other. The latter group is vigorously opposed to the use of ground troops, fearing that such a deployment would pave the way for the U.S. getting sucked into a long and costly conflict, similar to those in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The proposal to seize the island and establish control over Iran’s oil sector also diverges from the four objectives that bolstered Operation Epic Fury in the first place. The Trump administration’s stated war aims were to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, inflict serious damage on its Navy and Air Force, prevent nuclear development and curtail its support for proxy groups in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
This all comes as hostilities between American and Iranian forces in the Middle East are on the rise, despite a ceasefire signed in April.
U.S. Central Command said that Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy assets conducted strikes Wednesday evening against Iranian military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites.
Trump, during his interview with Fox News, claimed the U.S. “dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night.”
Tehran — which asserts it has launched a series of retaliatory strikes against American bases in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait — cast the nearly two-month ceasefire as “practically meaningless.”
“The illegal and criminal attacks perpetrated by the United States in recent hours not only constitute a flagrant violation... but also render the ceasefire practically meaningless,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “Responsibility for the extremely serious consequences of the criminal act lies with the leaders of the United States.”
1 week, 6 days ago
Air Force cites DEI ban in cancellation of wreath-laying honoring women vets
An Air Force spokesperson acknowledged that the service “declined participation in compliance with Executive Orders … and DoW guidance.”
A 28th annual wreath-laying ceremony honoring women troops at a memorial outside Arlington National Cemetery was canceled earlier this month after organizers got word that multiple military services would not participate, with one citing Pentagon and White House guidance prohibiting “events related to cultural awareness months” and DEI programs.
The cancellation, first reported by Task and Purpose, was announced Wednesday by leaders of the Bipartisan Women’s Caucus in a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol.
Multiple Democratic lawmakers decried the circumstances, saying it was more evidence of attempts by the administration and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to minimize the service of female veterans.
“In plain terms, the very women the ceremony was created to honor were pushed out of it,” Rep. Emilia Sykes, D-Ohio, the caucus co-chair and vice chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said. “Honoring veterans should not be controversial. Recognizing the service and sacrifice of women who wore our nation’s uniform should be one of the easiest things for us to come together around. Yet, because of the decisions made by this administration, we are defending the basic act of honoring women veterans.”
A staffer for the Democratic Women’s Caucus told Military Times that the wreath-laying had been canceled June 10 after officials with the Department of the Air Force said they could not attend due to anti-DEI mandates published in January 2025, immediately after President Donald Trump took office.
An Air Force spokeswoman, Ann Stefanek, confirmed to Military Times via email that “The Department of the Air Force declined participation in compliance with Executive Orders … and DoW guidance.”
Officials with the Army and Navy declined to comment. But military sources with knowledge of planning indicated that the services were not coordinated in their response.
Sources claimed the Navy had been unaware of the event and their invitation to attend, while the Army faced scheduling conflicts related to Army birthday events following a rescheduling of the initial wreath-laying date. The Marine Corps did not respond to a query.
The caucus staff member confirmed the event had been rescheduled to June 10 from an earlier May date due to a conflict with votes. They also acknowledged that the Army had citing scheduling issues, but said Army birthday events had never been a problem in the past.
“The executive order and the DoD guidance, it’s for all the branches, so that’s ultimately why this event couldn’t happen,” the staffer said.
At Wednesday’s press conference, multiple speakers cited other recent moves they cast as diminishing the service of military women.
Kayla Williams, an Army veteran and former Department of Veterans Affairs official representing the Vet Voice Foundation, recalled Pentagon-driven directives that resulted in the services pulling down web pages honoring the achievements of women in uniform.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., a former Air Force officer, noted that her grandparents were buried in Arlington National Cemetery, which made the cancellation of the wreath-laying “so painful.”
“I keep coming back to a simple question for President Trump and for Secretary Hegseth and my Republican colleagues,” she said. “Which is, when did saying thank you to women who served their country become a controversial statement?
“Women have answered ... every call this nation has asked of them,” Houlahan continued. “They have flown combat missions, they have commanded troops, they’ve cared for the wounded, they’ve gathered intelligence and they’ve deployed into harm’s way alongside their fellow service members. They didn’t ask for special treatment, they earned our respect. And honoring their service should never be viewed as a political statement.”
1 week, 6 days ago
Veterans face higher hurdles in military sexual trauma claims, report finds
Veterans filing disability claims for military sexual assault or harassment face barriers to receiving compensation for their service-connected conditions.
Veterans who apply for disability compensation related to sexual assault in the military face higher standards for proving related injuries, resulting in lower approval ratings and increased risk of retraumatization, according to a new National Academies of Sciences report.
In a study examining the Department of Veterans Affairs’ handling of disability claims filed for military sexual assault, a panel of experts found that the agency’s dual standards for related disability claims — which allow evidence such as behavior changes and outside observation for post-traumatic stress disorder claims but require proof of the experience for other disabilities — “results in inconsistent decision-making” during adjudication.
According to the report, disability claims related to sexual assault or chronic harassment were approved at lower rates than combat claims, with an 18.2% approval compared to 27.6% across a five-year period. Approval rates were also significantly lower for men and Black veteran.
Under the VA system, veterans who file a claim for conditions stemming from sexual trauma have separate burdens of proof depending on their disability. Those who file for related post-traumatic stress disorder may provide observational evidence but those seeking compensation for other mental or physical conditions connected to the assault must provide proof of the event.
Given that “elements of the military context pressure service members not to disclose” such assaults, showing evidence remains a “major barrier” to substantiating such claims, the report noted.
In 2024, the VA received 39,711 claims related to military sexual trauma. Nearly two-thirds were approved with the average disability rating of 80%. According to the report, the average monthly compensation rate was roughly $2,500 a month.
Roughly 1 in 3 women and 1 in 50 men report having experienced sexual assault or harassment during their service in the military.
The panel, made up of academics, think tank analysts and VA researchers, recommended that the department consider allowing lay evidence and behavioral observation to support PTSD and non-PTSD related claims.
“Congress should enact legislation directing the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to accept evidence from lay persons or other sources as sufficient proof of service connection of any condition claimed to have incurred or aggravated by experiencing MST, regardless of whether there is an official service record of the MST experience or an associated condition,” said Dr. Harold Kudler, who is a retired VA psychiatrist and panel member now with Duke University, during a briefing Wednesday on the report.
The VA’s process itself for handling sexual assault related claims is problematic, the experts said, because claimants must fill out disability questionnaires and attend compensation and pension exams that often are conducted by people who lack trauma-informed training. The panel said the process — including the possibility of having a claim denied — can be traumatic.
They recommended reducing the number of compensation and pension exams veterans must attend, creating a more supportive exam environment and making sure the examiners were trained in handling trauma-related cases.
They also recommended that the VA develop a specific disability questionnaire for sex-related trauma claims.
“We hope that our recommendations will reduce harms to veterans and improve their experience when making [military sexual trauma]-related claims, modernize and strengthen training, and improve accuracy and fairness in the disability compensation process,” Committee Chairwoman Hortensia Amaro, a community health professor at Florida International University, said in a statement.
The National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine was directed to conduct the study by Congress in 2023.
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