Three service members received the Purple Heart earlier this month for injuries sustained during a Jan. 28 drone attack in Jordan, according to the Air Force.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael Byrne, Senior Airman Herland Antezana and Staff Sgt. Dustin Dinkelacker, all with the 129th Rescue Wing, were presented the honor on Oct. 5 at Moffett Air National Guard Base in California, where they’re stationed.

They also received the The Air and Space Commendation Medal for aiding their injured comrades after the attack.

All told, 38 National Guard members have received Purple Hearts for injuries sustained during the Tower 22 attack, according to a spokesperson for the National Guard Bureau.

Three Army Reserve soldiers were killed and 41 Guardsmen were injured during the attack, which the US attributed to Iran-backed militias.

That evening, the attack knocked each of the airmen unconscious.

After they came to, they began banging on doors to warn others at the base of another possible attack, according to the Air Force. They retreated to the safety of a bunker, helped administer medical assistance to service members in need and coordinated the evacuation of deceased service members.

US sees ‘footprints’ of Iran-backed group in Tower 22 drone attack

Each airmen acted without regard for their personal safety in an effort to help others, according to their award citations.

“We ran into the center of where it happened,” Byrne said in a statement. “At that point, we realized this isn’t a training thing. This is real life.”

Byrne credited his training for helping him respond in such a quick and efficient way. Just days before, the Guardsmen had rehearsed for the possibility of a mass casualty event.

In the attack’s aftermath, the three Guardsmen extinguished fires, saved those trapped in debris, and chose to focus on others’ injuries instead of their own until backup arrived.

“That’s when we realized what impact the [drone] made on us, when the adrenaline started coming down,” Antezana said in a statement. “We weren’t feeling well at that point.”

Eventually, their wounds were tended to and they each returned home safely in May.

“I can’t tell you how proud I am,” Maj. Gen. Steven Butow, commander of the California Air National Guard, said during the ceremony. “I hope you all wear this with great pride and honor.”

The tragedy was a difficult reminder for Byrne of his fallen comrades, but also of the meaning the military brings to those who join.

“For the longest time, I considered myself just a mechanic,” Byrne said. “Don’t downplay your job once you get in. Everyone is important.”

A National Guard helicopter attempting to deliver hurricane assistance to people in western North Carolina earlier this week instead blew away goods and resources with its rotor wash.

The North Carolina National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter attempted to drop off generators at a local civilian organization, according to the North Carolina National Guard, but as it hovered over a people-dense area, powerful wind from its propellers sent a flurry of objects below flying.

“The crew immediately identified the situation, aborted the landing for safety reasons, and departed the area,” the North Carolina National Guard said in a statement on social media Tuesday. The event is under investigation and the crew is grounded until the investigation is completed, the statement said.

The Guard said it was working with the civilian organization affected by the event to identify any damage that occurred as a result.

“Safety is the NCNG’s number one priority, especially with the high volume of air operations currently happening across the region,” the statement said. “While the NCNG strives for precision in every mission, sometimes things don’t go as planned.”

500 more active-duty troops to aid Hurricane Helene relief efforts

Videos circulating on local media outlets and online show a helicopter hovering loudly over what appears to be a volunteer supply area in a parking lot. The helicopter descends for several seconds before its rotor wash begins hurling debris from the site into the air. Large tents are flung through the air and people flee.

pic.twitter.com/tf652STBoT

— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) October 7, 2024

“That was a North Carolina National Guard helicopter, it’s under our command, and I’ll take responsibility for it and we own it,” said Maj. Gen. Todd Hunt, the adjutant general of the North Carolina National Guard, in an interview with reporters on Tuesday.

He said the helicopter abandoned the mission to deliver the generator after realizing there were too many people in the vicinity for a safe landing.

As of Sunday, 1,700 North Carolina National Guard personnel were assisting search and rescue efforts in the region, according to a press release from the office of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

QUANTICO, Va. – Former Marine Corps Staff Sgt. David McGrath hadn’t seen the vehicle he was blown up in years ago in Afghanistan until a recent Sunday at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

But here he stood next to the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected All-Terrain Vehicle that saved his life in Helmand Province.

The blast threw his turret gunner from the vehicle, ruptured everyone’s ear drums and gave them bloody noses. But everyone made it through.

“I remember it being an audible pop and seeing smoke everywhere,” McGrath recalled. “My first thought was, ‘this is gonna be hard on my kids.’”

McGrath last saw the vehicle when it was being stripped of gear to be hauled off the battlefield.

The details are exceptional, he said, but they’ll never capture that experience endured by thousands of Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan earlier this century.

There’s no hot oil pouring from under the vehicle, no clouds of “moon dust” filling the air.

“The violence of action that happens in a combat environment is not easily replicated,” McGrath said.

The Afghanistan section of the museum is part of 20,000 square feet of new galleries opened to the public recently, highlighting Corps history from the post-Vietnam era to today.

Its galleries are filled with the uniforms of fallen Marines, other personal effects and mannequins reenacting harrowing moments that were modeled and molded off real Marines, museum director and retired Marine colonel Keil Gentry told Marine Corps Times.

“These galleries pick up the story after Vietnam,” Gentry said. “Every artifact tells a story, otherwise it would not be here.”

And while the museum’s new galleries can never fully recreate the downrange experience, the Iraq gallery in particular seeks to put visitors on the ground there.

With a warning before visitors enter an Iraqi village, a “scent cannon” greets them, reminding Marines of the smells of burning garbage, plastic and cordite that characterized the scent of deployment for many of them, Gentry said.

The museum opened in 2006 and originally featured the history of the service from its inception in 1775 through the Vietnam War.

Saje Mrowinski, a Marine veteran who served on a Female Engagement Team during her Afghanistan deployment, told Marine Corps Times that one of the exhibits that brings back memories involves a Marine commander and his team meeting with a local village elder for a shura.

The shura was a meeting between leaders in the Afghan community and a common experience for many U.S. veterans of the war.

From the sweat on the back of the commander to the tiny teacups shown on the display, the visual reminded Mrowinski of her own experiences talking with female Afghans during such meetings.

Veterans in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, or those who know a veteran in crisis, should call the Veterans Crisis Line for confidential crisis support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year: Dial 988 then Press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or send a text message to 838255.

The Department of Veterans Affairs would be forced to overhaul an artificial intelligence program that helps direct suicide prevention outreach under a bill introduced late last month by Sen. John Tester.

Tester, a Montana Democrat who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, introduced the bill after an investigation by The Fuller Project and Military Times found the department’s algorithm prioritized white, male veterans. It also gave preference to veterans who are “divorced and male” and “widowed and male,” but not to any group of female veterans.

Military sexual trauma and intimate partner violence – both linked to elevated suicide risk among female veterans – were not taken into account. Tester’s legislation would require those factors to be incorporated within 60 days of the bill becoming law.

The most recent government data show a 24% rise in the suicide rate among female veterans between 2020 and 2021 — four times the increase among male veterans during that one-year period. It was also 10 times greater than the 2.6% increase among women who never served in the military.

“It is critically important that VA takes into account additional risk factors faced by women veterans,” Tester said in a statement. Tester, locked in a tight re-election fight that could determine control of the Senate, has touted his commitment to veterans over the course of his campaign.

Veteran suicide prevention algorithm favors men, investigation finds

VA officials have previously defended prioritizing white, male veterans for outreach. The suicide rate for female veterans may be rising faster, they’ve said, but the suicide rate for male veterans remains considerably higher.

Matthew Miller, the agency’s executive director for suicide prevention said in May that a history of military sexual assault or intimate partner violence were not among the 61 variables used in the algorithm because they were not among “the most powerful for us to be able to predict suicide risk.”

The VA says it is working to update the algorithm to include risk factors that disproportionately impact women independently of the proposed legislation.

VA press secretary Terrence Hayes said in an email Wednesday that the agency is weighing including pregnancy, endometriosis, ovarian cysts, intimate partner violence, and military sexual trauma, among other factors.

“VA continuously works to improve our programs,” Hayes added. “As we update the model, it will be evaluated for performance and bias before it is deployed.”

The VA said it hoped to update the algorithm in early 2025.

Veterans groups, who have pushed for the VA to update the algorithm, welcomed Tester’s legislation and said that though the agency has engaged with them it needs to move faster.

“We have seen promises,” said Naomi Mathis, assistant legislative director of Disabled American Veterans, which has made improved care for female veterans a priority.

Mathis, a former Air Force staff sergeant who deployed to Iraq, noted that in surveys, a third of female veterans tell the VA that while in uniform, they endured sexual activity against their will.

“You’re not seeing them,” she said.

The issue of algorithmic bias has gained traction in recent years, with researchers finding many AI systems systematically favoring white men in their functions.

Both Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden issued executive orders to promote transparency and accountability for AI products, a process that can be difficult given increased reliance by researchers on systems that ostensibly teach themselves and create their own processes that may not be explainable. The VA has identified more than 100 programs covered by those presidential decrees.

Aaron Glantz is a fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, where he is incubating an initiative to promote resilience among investigative journalists. Contact him at [email protected].

The headlines cover a variety of misconduct, but are all worded the same: A senior military leader dismissed “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his/her leadership.”

While used to explain the removal of leaders to the public in the vaguest of terms, the military’s use of such boilerplate raises questions and concerns about leadership conduct, even as most military leaders conduct themselves in a way that honors their nation and oath.

Those misbehaving leaders who earn their loss of confidence are often akin to the myth of Icarus, flying too close to a metaphorical sun, emboldened by hubris and overconfidence, ignoring warnings before their careers crash.

And for service members and the public, the lack of transparency or even a full explanation for these military firings can significantly impact public trust in the military, affect morale and damage the integrity of military leadership.

Vague explanations often lead to assumptions and mistrust, which can damage organizational readiness while missing opportunities to address and prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.

When explanations are too general, they can create an environment where speculation and distrust thrive, undermining the confidence that service members and the public have in military leadership.

However, full disclosures of details might compromise sensitive information, disrupt legal processes, and create further disruptions.

Striking the right balance between transparency and discretion is key to maintaining public trust, ensuring accountability and protecting operational security.

Key areas of concern

Service member morale: Mutual trust is vital to executing effective leadership, as emphasized in Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 6-0, Mission Command. Mutual trust between leaders, staff and subordinates is essential to building effective, cohesive teams that are successful. When leaders are dismissed with a catchall “due to loss of confidence,” this trust is undermined, creating an environment of uncertainty and doubts about the command structure. Without mutual trust, even strong teams will be hindered by individual performance and overall readiness.

Public trust: According to a Reagan National Defense Survey, Americans’ trust and confidence in the military fell to 48% in 2022, a 22% drop from the survey’s 2018 findings. Although several factors contributed to this drop, 52% of respondents cited the performance and competence of uniformed military leaders as the reason for their decreased trust in the military.

When leaders are fired — and the reasons are vaguely reported — it can create the perception that the military is avoiding accountability, further eroding public confidence. Over time, this erosion can impact recruitment and retention, as young men and women will be deterred from joining an organization perceived as lacking transparency and accountability.

Operational readiness: Senior leaders, chosen through rigorous selection and training, are crucial decision-makers. As stated in ADP 6-22, Army Leadership and the Profession, effective leaders set the example, reinforce a culture of trust, establish a professional climate, and ensure their organization’s readiness. When a leader is fired, it can disrupt the organization’s readiness by creating confusion, lowering morale and eroding trust. New leaders will need time to take accountability, gain the trust of subordinates and provide a new vision for the organization, which can temporarily hinder the unit’s effectiveness.

Organizational integrity: The “Battalion Commander Effect” demonstrates how the integrity and leadership of senior leaders directly shape the performance and culture of their units. Leaders must acknowledge their role in shaping the organizational climate, understanding that, whether implied or explicit behavior, impacts the behaviors of others and defines the organization’s culture.

Firing senior leaders without clear justification or explanation can disrupt ongoing training and missions, leading to delays, confusion, and lack of direction. Such disruptions impair the operational effectiveness as well as the overall integrity of the organization.

Recommendations for improvement

Targeted solutions can be implemented to address the challenges posed by vague dismissals of senior leaders and their impact on morale, public trust, operational readiness and organizational integrity.

Centralized bulletin for dismissals: Establish a centralized, national-level bulletin that concisely summarizes the dismissal or disciplinary action for field grade officers (CW3-CW4, O-4 and above) and senior non-commissioned officers (E-7 and above). This bulletin would look like other disciplinary blotters that identify service members and their actions while respecting the individual’s rights and due process. Implementing this allows leaders to restore mutual trust within the military, increase confidence in leadership and ensure clear accountability and expectations are communicated effectively.

Standardized dismissal process: Introducing a structured process for capturing and categorizing leadership dismissals is another recommendation to address how the military communicates about leadership changes.

A structured approach formally captures the circumstances of the dismissal and categorizes them (for example, misconduct, poor performance, leadership failure, disciplinary issue) into a more effective dismissal statement.

This communicates transparently that can meet the needs of the public. Internally, the affected unit should be provided with additional details explaining the situation to mitigate uncertainty and speculation while maintaining the trust and confidence of leadership.

Ethics accountability training: To have a high-performing team, there must be accountability, or simply leaders taking ownership of their decisions, while addressing and solving problems in their formations. Implementing an ethics and accountability seminar or instruction that includes lessons learned from past dismissals can help mitigate future dismissals.

In addition, providing leaders with such tools and strategies can reinforce ethical behavior and leadership. By integrating these components, this solution can help foster a culture of accountability, learning, and growth individually and throughout the organization.

As Simon Sinek writes in “Leaders Eat Last,” leadership isn’t about being in charge — it’s about taking care of those in your charge. True leadership requires not only accountability but clear and transparent communication.

While it may be challenging to fire a senior leader, it is important to be clear and transparent throughout the process to balance the individual’s rights and due process with the organization’s need to sustain trust, morale and operational effectiveness. When vague statements are made, they erode the confidence of service members and the public, disrupt operational readiness, and damage organizational integrity.

By adopting targeted recommendations, the military can enhance communication, bolster trust and ensure that leadership changes contribute positively to organizational health and effectiveness.

Capt. Jakob Hutter is a Kansas Army National Guard logistics officer currently serving as the Battalion S3 for the 169th Division Sustainment Support Battalion in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Hutter also serves as a troop command brigade training officer. He has a Master’s of Science degree in Organizational Leadership and received his commission from Kansas State University in 2016.

Geography is destiny, but when it comes to U.S. bases in the Middle East, it needn’t be. Our current basing structure detracts from our ability to deter Iran — the core threat — because it reduces our ability to fight effectively in a high-intensity scenario. We need to overcome the tyranny of geography.

In a full-blown war with Iran, these existing bases will be rendered unusable by sustained Iranian attack. The Iranians can see this and have created a large and very capable missile and drone force in part to exploit this situation.

Therefore, we need to reexamine where we are based in the region, both on a day-to-day and contingency basis.

Navy warships helped take down Iran’s attack on Israel, Pentagon says

Our presence at existing bases provides an important assurance mission to host countries. Thus, we are unlikely to permanently leave bases like Al Dhafra in the United Arab Emirates and Al Udeid in Qatar.

We should, however, work with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Egypt to identify bases as far to the west as possible where we can deploy aircraft, maintenance capabilities, refueling capabilities and weapons.

We have already done some of this work. The “Western Basing Network” was a joint U.S.-Saudi decision to evaluate bases near the Red Sea for use in times of war. Not as far advanced but still under consideration were basing concepts that included Oman, Egypt and Jordan. The U.S. Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid has also shifted some of its responsibilities to locations in the United States, significantly reducing air command and control vulnerabilities.

How does this approach, known as “agile combat employment,” work? Based on warnings and indications of war, land-based air assets would relocate to the western bases from their locations along the Arabian Gulf. The number of Iranian weapons that could reach them would be significantly reduced, warning times would be increased and the Iranians would have a targeting problem in ascertaining from which bases U.S. aircraft operated.

In the event of hostilities, these aircraft would launch from the distant bases, be refueled en route and conduct combat operations over Iran. Depending on how the fight was going, they could land and refuel/rearm at the existing forward bases on the Arabian Gulf, minimizing their time on the ground, and increasing their “cycle rate.” Regardless, they would return to the western bases to “bed down.”

However, access to these installations is not guaranteed. The necessary political decisions are not necessarily made quickly in this region. The facilities themselves range from “bare bones” bases to fully equipped ones. Nonetheless, this is something that is squarely in the best interest of all concerned.

There is a second component to this new basing construct, and it is the opportunity made possible by Israel’s 2021 entry into the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Area of Responsibility (AOR). It is now possible to consider basing in Israel in the event of a war with Iran. It has the same geographic advantages as basing in western Saudi Arabia or other Arab states. Additionally, Israel has a powerful, proven air and missile defense capability. The fact that Israel is now in CENTCOM also facilitates training, interoperability, and even maintenance. Israel should certainly be at the forefront of possible basing alternatives.

The third component to the basing solution also involves Israel, and it is the growing normalization of ties with Arab states. This was made diplomatically possible by the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020. It was made operationally feasible by Israel’s move into the CENTCOM AOR. It was further underwritten by Iranian malign behavior which has finally convinced the Gulf States that a collective approach to air and missile defense is necessary, practicable and achievable without sacrificing sovereignty. It is largely a matter of sharing tactics, techniques, and procedures and agreeing what sensor information to share, and how to share it, with the U.S. acting as the honest broker.

We have a clear-cut example of this concept at work. The Iranians’ large, complex attack against Nevatim Airfield in Israel on April 13, 2024, failed because of Israeli competence, U.S. and allied assistance and the cooperation and assistance of Arab neighbors. Information was shared; airspace was shared. In every measurable way, this was a remarkable success story.

Deterrence must be continuous; in the Middle East, it can have a very short half-life unless it is refreshed systematically. The events of the past two months clearly show that Iran can be deterred from undertaking irresponsible and deadly attacks in the region, but this requires resources, careful messaging and the demonstrated ability to fight and win if necessary.

We now need to move aggressively to develop basing alternatives that demonstrate that we are prepared to fight and prevail in a sustained, high-intensity war with Iran. Geography is destiny for some, but not for all. Being obviously ready to rebase rapidly, and frequently exercising the capability, will increase the chances of peace in the region, because Iran will be watching.

Gen. McKenzie, a retired U.S. Marine general, served as commander of U.S. Central Command from 2019 to 2022. He is the Hertog Distinguished Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and author of “The Melting Point: High Command and War in the 21st Century.”

MOSCOW — An American who spent three years behind bars in Russia before being released in a prisoner exchange has been convicted in absentia for fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Wednesday.

The committee, Russia’s primary criminal investigation authority, said in a statement that Trevor Reed was sentenced by a Russian court to 14-and-a-half years in prison.

Reed was injured in the fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2023 and treated in Germany. His whereabouts at the time of the sentencing were not immediately known.

Reed, a former Marine, was arrested in Moscow in 2019 for allegedly assaulting a police officer while heavily intoxicated. Russian authorities claimed he had grabbed the steering wheel of the police vehicle taking him to a so-called “drunk tank.”

However, police did not produce video evidence from the vehicle’s camera and Reed’s girlfriend, who was following in a separate car, said she did not see the vehicle swerve. The then-U.S. ambassador, John Sullivan, said the evidence against Reed in the trial was so preposterous that “even the judge laughed.”

Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was released in April 2022 in exchange for Russian drug smuggler Konstantin Yaroshenko.

He reportedly joined the Ukraine military as a foreign fighter in November 2022.

The announcement of Reed’s conviction came two days after a Moscow court convicted 72-year-old American Stephen Hubbard of fighting in Ukraine as a mercenary and sentenced him to nearly seven years. Hubbard was captured by Russia about two months after the February 2022 start of full-scale fighting in Ukraine.

First she became the Marine Corps’ first female East Coast assault amphibian officer.

Now, Capt. Stephanie Simon has earned the title of professional boxer as well.

Simon had her first pro bout on Sept. 27 in Atlanta, according a Marine Corps release.

Her interest in the sport began at the U.S. Naval Academy, where she was required to box and wrestle. Initially, she said, she had no intention of being a boxer.

But one thing led to another, and pretty soon, she was fighting while active duty, winning a Golden Gloves National Tournament for the II Marine Expeditionary Force’s boxing team.

After, as a reservist, she continued boxing and training for the Marine Corps.

“Discipline, grit, hard work” drives Naval academy boxers

Simon credits her boxing evolution to the grit she developed in the Corps, and in leading units that weren’t used to having a woman in charge.

“The hardest part of my Marine Corps career would be adapting to an environment where people around me didn’t look or think like me,” she said in a Corps release. “It was a very difficult time, because I was a minority and adjusting to a group of people that were new to having a woman in charge of them. It was very difficult.”

“We talk about having that mental toughness, we talk about having that character, we talk about having that will to win, all those characteristics that we learned in the Marine Corps,” she said. “They go directly into boxing.”

As she embarks on a new phase of her career, Simon said she is proud to represent the Corps in the boxing ring.

“I’m excited to share my story and really bring this element of leadership into the boxing community,” she said. “I believe that we are in need of it, and I want to be a good example for people all over the world.”

Anduril Industries has introduced Bolt, a new class of airborne drones that troops can use for surveillance or strikes.

The defense technology company, based in California, debuted two versions of the drone Thursday. The first is a baseline model able to perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations, known in the military as ISR. The other is Bolt-M, a version of the drone that acts as a munition.

This second model of the drone is under contract with the Marine Corps on its Organic Precision Fires-Light program, trying to deliver loitering munitions small enough for troops to stash in a rucksack. Aerovironment and Teledyne FLIR are also competing for the program, worth up to $249 million.

Anduril would not share further details on the contract, including the number of units ordered or dollar amount. A Pentagon notice from April said the deal came with a floor of around $6.5 million and was for an indefinite delivery and quantity of systems.

“We’re looking at the next six months for the immediate deliveries that we have,” said Chris Brose, Anduril’s head of strategy. Brose said further sales will depend on direction from the Marine Corps, which is testing several systems now and will decide on a purchasing plan this fiscal year, but that he hopes Bolt can also compete for Army contracts.

The Organic Precision Fires contract is one example of the U.S. military trying to bring online the kind of small drones changing how wars are fought around the world. In particular, the war in Ukraine has been a sandbox for soldiers testing and deploying such drones in high numbers — either to scout artillery targets or directly attack them with small warheads. American drone firms, including Anduril, have sent their systems to Ukraine and kept in close contact with its military to apply lessons from the war.

Like many of the firm’s offerings, Bolt has some level of autonomy. The drone uses Anduril’s Lattice software, and in a release the firm said troops can operate the drone with a touchscreen — picking targets, how far the drone should stay away from them and then what angle it should use to attack. The ability to perform such simple tasks on its own allows troops the freedom to multitask rather than piloting the drones the whole time.

Rather than opt for a fixed wing model, Anduril built the drone as a quadcopter, able to take off and land vertically. Troops can unpack and fly Bolt in less than five minutes, the firm said. According to the announcement, it can stay airborne for 40 minutes and has a range of about 12.5 miles.

The drone can carry a payload of up to three pounds, and can shift between warheads intended to strike personnel and equipment, designed in partnership with Kraken Kinetics, based in North Carolina.

“When we say target, we’re talking targets in all domains. Obviously the mind immediately goes to striking targets on land, but we also see counter-maritime applications” and counter-air targets as well, Brose said.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A U.S. Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a yearslong legal battle and raised alarms at the highest levels of government will remain on active duty.

A three-member panel of Marines found Tuesday that while Maj. Joshua Mast acted in a way unbecoming of an officer in his quest to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military.

Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan in 2019.

Mast and his wife, Stephanie, then lived in rural Fluvanna County, Virginia. They persuaded a judge there to grant them an adoption of the child, even though she remained in Afghanistan as the government there tracked down her extended family and reunited her with them.

Mast helped the family flee Afghanistan after the Taliban took over in 2021. Once in the U.S., Mast used the adoption papers to get the federal government to take the child from her Afghan relatives and give her to him. She has remained with his family ever since.

A five-day board of inquiry hearing held partially behind closed doors at the Marine Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune was administrative, not criminal, and intended to determine whether Mast was fit to remain in the military.

Appeals court voids Marine’s adoption of Afghan war orphan

Mast, 41, who now lives in Hampstead, North Carolina, denied the allegations against him, insisting he never disobeyed orders but was encouraged by his supervisors, and was simply upholding the code of the Marine Corps by working tirelessly to ensure the girl was safe. At the front of the room, he set up poster-sized photos of the child as a baby at Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield and as a smiling toddler in North Carolina.

But because the board substantiated misconduct, a report will be entered into Mast’s file, which could affect promotions and assignments, the Marines said Tuesday. The board’s report will be sent up the ladder to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, who will close the case against Mast.

The child’s fate, however, remains in limbo. The Afghan couple who raised the child for 18 months in Afghanistan is seeking to have Mast’s adoption of her undone. The U.S. Department of Justice has intervened and contended that Mast lied to the Virginia court and federal officials to justify taking the girl, and his actions threaten America’s standing around the world.

The State Department issued a statement Tuesday that said its decision to work with the Afghan government and International Committee of the Red Cross to reunite the child with her Afghan relatives “was consistent with international law and U.S. policy to take appropriate steps to facilitate the reunion of families separated during armed conflict.”

The statement reiterated that it has insisted the Virginia courts return the child to the Afghan family.

The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that the adoption should have never been granted but the case is stalled at the Virginia Supreme Court.

Lawyers for the Afghan couple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Much of the government’s case in the hearing was held in secret because lawyers were presenting classified information. Mast chose to make an unsworn statement in a closed session, which meant he was not subject to cross-examination.

But his wife, Stephanie, testified publicly, offering rare insight into the couple’s motivation for working so vigorously to bring the child into their home. The Masts have long declined to talk to The Associated Press about their actions and the Virginia court file remains sealed. The Masts, as well as the Afghan couple, are now barred from speaking to the media about the state court case.

Stephanie Mast wept as she described her husband’s decision to work to bring the girl back to the United States as exemplary of his commitment to Marine Corps values.

“It was very much an American response,” she said. “We value human life. As Marines, you serve and protect.”

The deciding panel of two lieutenant colonels and a colonel was allowed to ask questions, and one asked Stephanie Mast why she and her husband continued to try to adopt the girl even after she had been reunited with relatives in Afghanistan. They noted that multiple high-ranking officials, including then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a federal judge, told them to stop.

When she responded that getting the child to the United States was their highest priority, the board asked whether the assumption that a child would be better off in the U.S. rather than Afghanistan was a product of Western bias.

“They have a survival mentality,” she said of Afghans. “We believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we wanted her to have that.”

The amphibious assault ship Boxer and elements of the embarked 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit are now operating in the Philippines providing disaster relief assistance in the aftermath of Typhoon Krathon that devastated the islands last month.

The Boxer, which got underway in July from San Diego, is delivering supplies including tarps, shelter kits, and food packets to remote areas in the Philippines to support the U.S. Agency for International Development’s relief operations.

“The primary focus of our mission is helping the people of the Philippines recover as quickly and safely as possible,” Marine Corps Col. Sean Dynan, commanding officer of the 15th MEU, said in a statement. “Alongside the Armed Forces of the Philippines and USAID, our forces will help coordinate and transport relief supplies to those who were most affected in the Batanes Islands. Humanitarian assistance in an expeditionary environment is what we train to do, and it is one of the reasons we are forward deployed as an amphibious force.”

Marine promoted by identical twin brother while deployed with 15th MEU

The Boxer and the 15th MEU are working alongside the I Marine Expeditionary Force’s Marine Rotational Force – Southeast Asia to distribute these supplies.

Other U.S. forces sent to the Philippines following the typhoon include a Marine Corps KC-130J Hercules aircraft from Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 152, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, based out of Okinawa in Japan.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed off on providing aid to the Philippines, per the request of the island’s government.

Krathon struck the Philippines on Sept. 30 before moving on to hit Taiwan, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of families, the Associated Press reports.

The Boxer initially deployed in April, but was sidelined and returned to San Diego due to damage on its rudder. The ship got underway again in July.

Lockheed Martin is putting a software engineering specialist in charge of its F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program as the current director gets set to retire.

Chauncey McIntosh, currently a Lockheed vice president and its deputy on the F-35 program, will take over as the program’s general manager on Dec. 1, the company said Wednesday.

Bridget Lauderdale, who currently runs Lockheed’s F-35 program, will retire at the end of the year after 38 years with the company.

“Chauncey is an exceptional leader with distinct qualifications needed to lead the F-35 program,” Lockheed Martin Aeronautics President Greg Ulmer said. “Critical leadership appointments like this will continue to advance our 21st Century Security solutions to support our growing customer needs.”

21st Century Security is Lockheed Martin’s strategy for integrating physical hardware with digital technologies, and making defense supply chains more resilient.

McIntosh was previously vice president and general manager of integrated warfare systems and sensors for Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems. During that time, McIntosh oversaw software development for the Aegis Weapon System, as well as managing missile defense, radar, shipbuilding, directed energy, and combat system integration programs.

The F-35 program has struggled with its own software issues, which were a major factor in a recent year-long delivery halt. Beginning in July 2023, the Pentagon refused to accept delivery of new F-35s that were to include an upgrade known as Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3, which promised better displays, computer memory and processing power.

TR-3 had software problems and difficulty integrating with the F-35′s new hardware. This, along with hardware delays, prompted the delivery halt and caused dozens of fighters to be stored at Lockheed’s Fort Worth, Texas, facility.

Lockheed eventually developed a “truncated” form of the software that worked well enough for the jets to be delivered and to fly training missions. But those jets still can’t fly combat missions, and likely will not be ready for combat until 2025. The government is withholding about $5 million in payments to Lockheed for each jet, until TR-3′s combat capability is qualified and delivered.

Besides working with the F-35 and Aegis programs, McIntosh’s tenure at Lockheed has included time overseeing program and project management, software engineering, systems engineering and avionics design for the F-22 Raptor, C-5 Galaxy, P-3 Orion, and S-3 Viking aircraft.

The Army’s 18th Airborne Corps is for the first time using a battlefield capability to map road closures, cellular outages, supply needs and other data in real time to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Northern Command help people whose homes and communities were battered by Hurricane Helene late last month.

The Army is using its Maven Smart System to provide responders with the information needed to make quick, on-the-ground decisions, such as where to send medical supplies or how many truckloads of water to take into certain storm-ravaged areas, defense officials told reporters Monday.

Weeks after the deadly hurricane tore a path from Florida’s Gulf Coast into the Appalachian Mountains, some residents in the southeast are still sifting through the wreckage caused by floods and landslides that destroyed entire towns.

More damage is feared as Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida this week as well.

5,000 more National Guard troops mobilized ahead of Hurricane Milton

Maven is a data analysis and decision-making tool that takes in reams of data from multiple sources and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to visualize the information.

The Pentagon originally adopted Maven to use geolocation data and satellite imagery to automatically detect potential targets on the battlefield. Its use in responding to Helene is the first instance Maven has been applied to hurricane response efforts, defense officials said.

“We can get data out of these environments that have little to no communications capabilities back into the FEMA dashboard so they understand where they need to supply things,” said one defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I think being able to bring together this common operating picture gives us better situational awareness, helps us respond faster and facilitates getting support and supplies out quicker.”

The system eliminates the need for responders to read through spreadsheets to gather pertinent information. Instead, Maven pulls out the most important data for leaders to analyze, the official said.

The military used similar technology for disease surveillance during the Covid-19 pandemic and to track individuals during the withdrawal of U.S. forces and their allies from Afghanistan, according to officials. The operators of Maven are hoping to learn from their experience responding to Hurricane Helene, and want to hone the system for use in future natural disasters or national crises.

“That way, in an event like this, we can be part of the noble effort assisting the nation’s citizens in their most urgent time of need,” a defense official said. “We can create a platform that can be an enduring presence, ready to respond.”

Part of Maven’s job for the hurricane response is to track members of the National Guard and active-duty troops who have deployed to the areas hardest hit.

As of Monday, 7,600 troops from 18 different states had deployed to the southeast. They’re providing humanitarian relief, clearing emergency routes, assessing damaged water systems and restoring infrastructure. The Defense Department also provided hundreds of high-water vehicles and dozens of helicopters and rescue boats, Pentagon press secretary Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has established 12 emergency operations centers across the southeast, including three in North Carolina alone, Ryder said.

About 7,000 federal personnel, including FEMA staff, are deployed to the area. As of Sunday, FEMA had approved $137 million in housing and other types of assistance to more than 81,500 households in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. The agency also provided 15 million meals, 14 million liters of water and 157 generators.

As response efforts were underway, misinformation about FEMA’s work spread online. The high volume of false information sowed confusion among survivors and threatened response and recovery efforts, FEMA said. The agency created a webpage to try to dispel the rumors.

While the cleanup from Helene continues across the southeast, Florida was preparing Tuesday for another hurricane to make landfall this week. Hurricane Milton was expected to hit the west coast of the state on Wednesday as a Category 3, the Associated Press reported.

More than 5,000 Florida National Guard troops were mobilized Tuesday to prepare for Hurricane Milton’s arrival. Army officials moved additional personnel and equipment to Fort Moore in Georgia in anticipation of search and rescue operations.

This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to [email protected].

The Air Force announced seven potential landing spots on Oct. 3 for its newest refueling tanker’s main hub, and the service hopes to finalize a home base for the KC-46A Pegasus by 2027.

“One base will be selected to host the new mission pending a final basing decision, and the outcome of a planned environmental impact analysis anticipated no later than 2027,” the Air Force said. “The first of eight aircraft are scheduled to arrive in 2031.”

McConnell-based KC-46 completes around-the-world flight in 45 hours

The possible locations include: Bangor Air National Guard Base, Maine; Forbes Field Air National Guard Base, Kansas; Key Field Air National Guard Base, Mississippi; McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base, Tennessee; Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Ohio; Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; or Sumpter Smith Air National Guard Base, Alabama.

The Air Force plans to buy 179 KC-46A tankers in a $4.9 billion contract with Boeing, but the rollout has been bumpy. The first plane was delivered to McConnell Air Force Base, Kansas, in 2019, two years after it was initially slated to arrive. And the tanker has faced other issues as well, including a stiff fuel pipe that was unable to connect to and refuel A-10 Warthogs as recently as March.

Wherever the KC-46As end up, they are set to replace the aging KC-135 Stratotankers, which are scheduled to begin retiring in 2027.

Among their capacities, the tanker provides “boom and drogue refueling on the same sortie, worldwide navigation and communication, cargo capacity on the entire main deck floor, receiver air refueling, improved force protection, and multi-point air refueling capability,” according to the Air Force.

Editor’s note: This article was published as part of a content-sharing agreement between Army Times and The Fayetteville Observer. Military Times has edited the story for style and clarity.

In his first visit to Fayetteville in his bid to seek another term in the White House, former President Donald Trump told a crowd of more than 5,000 at the Crown Arena on Friday night that he would restore the name of the world’s most populated U.S. military installation.

Formerly known as Fort Bragg and named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, the home of the Army airborne and Special Forces was renamed Fort Liberty last June.

“We did win two world wars from Fort Bragg. … So, this is no time to be changing names. … We’re going to do everything we can to get it back. We’re going to bring our country back,” Trump told the crowd that roared with applause and chanted, “Fight, fight, fight!”

Fort Bragg officially renamed Fort Liberty

Ahead of Trump’s remarks, Sanford resident Chelsea Ruston said she is a military spouse and does not think renaming the installation was worth the money.

Ruston said she came out to support Trump.

“He cares for America, everything to make America great again, closing our borders. … I liked gas prices better (when he was in office). I liked that inflation was down and interest rates,” she said.

Trump’s visit to Fayetteville was a town hall, which lasted a little more than an hour, and included questions from several North Carolina residents.

Topics included what Trump and others have said was a lack of response to those affected by Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina, and illegal immigration, but the majority of the questions centered on military topics.

Dwight Francisco, a Marine Corps Vietnam veteran, who had presented Trump with a Purple Heart that Francisco had been awarded, said he was moved to see Trump stand up after being grazed in the ear by a bullet during an assassination attempt at a June rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Francisco also claimed that the homelessness rate of veterans under Trump’s administration was about 7% and has increased to 14%, asking Trump what he would do to help homeless veterans.

Trump said it upset him to see homeless veterans in front of hotels, while “illegal immigrants, many who are killers, drug dealers and terrorists” can walk into the same hotel and sleep there.

He said he would support border policies written during his last term and he would empower local law enforcement to arrest people illegally in the country who have committed crimes and claimed that 350,000 migrant children are missing under the current administration.

He also said the U.S. is sitting on “liquid gold” and said the money from drilling oil and gas would be used “to take care of our veterans properly.”

Trump was asked by John, who said he was a former Green Beret kicked out of the military over a COVID-19-vaccine mandate, what he would do to hold military leaders accountable over the former Department of Defense mandate for service members that Congress overturned.

Trump said there should have never been a vaccine mandate and that he would take care of the accountability.

“We lost a lot of great people — a lot of people were forced into doing things they didn’t want to do,” he said.

Austin, an active-duty service member at Fort Liberty, told the crowd he was at Friday night’s forum in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the Army or Department of Defense.

Austin asked Trump about Iran launching missiles toward Israel last week and what Trump’s thoughts were on the Iron Dome Missile System used to protect Israel and if America should have a similar system.

“We have to be totally prepared, and we have to be absolutely prepared … hit the nuclear and worry about the rest later,” Trump responded.

Trump said that World War III could start before the election and referenced the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

He said the attacks between Israel and Iran and between Russia and Ukraine wouldn’t have happened if he were president.

He said there were no attacks during his four years in the White House.

“We defeated ISIS. I rebuilt the military, and we have great generals,” he said.

Asked by a Marine veteran who said he is also a “Latino for Trump” about what he would do for accountability over the 2021 withdrawal in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 13 service members, Trump called the withdrawal an “embarrassing moment in the history of our country.”

Trump said that during his last few months in office troops were getting out of the Middle East and about 5,000 service members were in Afghanistan.

He said the U.S. should have never given up Bagram Air Base and said that no service members were killed during his last 18 months in office.

“Then we had the election, these guys took over, and it all started up again,” Trump said. “We lost 13 and left $85 billion worth of equipment behind. We left Americans behind. Everything was wrong.”

Trump said he would fire the generals involved. Former U.S. Central Command commander, Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, has since retired.

The last question of the night was asked by former Space Force Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, who sat on stage during the town hall along with Francisco and John, the former Green Beret.

Lohmeier said he was relieved of his command and lost his pension after he criticized DOD training on diversity, equity and inclusion.

“These trainings are still dividing our troops,” Lohmeier claimed.

He asked Trump if he would fire the “few woke generals” who are a problem.

Trump said he’d appoint Lohmeier to a task force to look into the matter if elected president.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at [email protected].

A member of the Oregon Army National Guard set the world record for the most ground-to-chest burpees in an hour on Saturday.

In the process of banging out 1,027 burpees this past weekend, Maj. Tommy Vu beat a previous record holder: Himself.

The officer previously set the record in March 2023, when he did 1,003 burpees.

But his record was subsequently bested in December, when another athlete outdid him by 7 burpees before Vu reclaimed the crown this weekend at a gym in Salem, Oregon.

Vu’s new accomplishment, which took place at a local gym, is still awaiting approval from Guinness World Records.

A Marine is Guinness world champ in burpees per minute

“I’ve got a really strong will and I just don’t know how to quit,” Vu said in a release announcing the feat.

Vu credited a new workout regimen with helping him reach new heights. The exercise routine began during the COVID-19 pandemic when Vu had to get creative after gyms closed down. He began training outside, running and intensifying bodyweight exercises.

Vu was cheered on by his wife, Linda, and son, Adonis, as he eclipsed the previous burpee number and reached the burpee mountaintop.

“He trains every day, seven days a week, for an hour after work,” Linda said. “We make sure someone’s watching Adonis at home so he can get his workout time in.”

Since he began training in 2020, Vu has broken multiple fitness world records.

He uses his platform to raise money for charitable causes and after his latest record, he is aiming to donate $1,027 to a fund helping his friend battle ALS.

Up next, the burpee star is planning to beat the eight-hour, 12-hour, and 24-hour burpee records.

“His dedication to both his military duties and personal goals showcases the work-life balance and drive for excellence we foster in our organization,” Brig. Gen. Alan Gronewold, the adjutant general of Oregon, said in a statement. “It’s this spirit of striving to achieve greatness that makes our Guard members exceptional both in and out of uniform.”

While there has always been a deep appreciation for the sacrifices and dedication of our uniformed services, national support for service members and veterans has been particularly strong in recent decades. Yet, full resourcing is always difficult, and the military is only one part of a limited national budget that must address a wide range of priorities. Even within the Defense Department, resources must be carefully balanced between modernization, training, operations and caring for those who serve and their families. Tough decisions are made with careful thought, but finding the right balance remains a central challenge.

Having managed the U.S. Air Force’s manpower and personnel portfolios, I understand the need to make difficult budgetary decisions, and I understood when we sometimes had to prioritize modernization and operational capabilities over legitimate people needs.

However, it is disheartening to hear decision-makers downplay and dismiss a clear priority — the fair compensation of our junior enlisted service members — when the real issue is insufficient funding and not a lack of need. Our junior enlisted personnel play a critical role in safeguarding our nation’s security, and their strategic importance in maintaining a strong, capable and ready force must remain a top priority.

Decision on junior enlisted pay boost not expected until November

In this context, the April 2024 report from the bipartisan Quality of Life (QOL) Panel for the House Armed Services Committee, led by Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., becomes particularly significant.

The report highlighted the substantial financial difficulties faced by junior enlisted members and made clear the need to improve their financial well-being to address systemic challenges that affect recruitment, retention, family stability and overall force readiness. The panel recommended a 4.5% pay raise for all service members and an additional 15% increase for those ranked E-1 to E-4.

The Military Officers Association of America and fellow military advocacy organizations embraced the move to support these young service members. But despite compelling evidence, opposition from the White House, DOD and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle dismissed these recommendations. Critics framed the issue as a false dilemma between funding new weapons systems or increasing pay, instead of making the case that both might be necessary.

Some examples of the flawed rationale:

• Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation: Some argued any pay raises should wait until the next Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation (QRMC) report is released. But QRMC members informed the QOL Panel’s findings, and waiting means no additional support for these families for years — likely until 2027.
• Pay compression: Others asserted a targeted raise would compress pay for midcareer personnel — in other words, service members would no longer receive appropriate financial reward for reaching beyond the junior pay grades. This argument failed to mention compression already exists within the current pay table at both the E7-to-E8 levels and E1-to-E3 levels with little impact. This argument also leaves out other components of full military compensation. Under the new tables, for instance, an E-4 with four years of service would receive an 8% pay raise when considering all base pay and allowances, which falls within the Society for Human Resource Management-recommended 7-12% pay increase when receiving a promotion.
• External factors: Critics have also suggested the pay raise wouldn’t solve recruitment and retention challenges. While pay is clearly not the only issue impacting recruiting, 51% of potential recruits cite pay as a primary factor influencing their decision to enlist. As for retention, with unemployment among junior enlisted spouses 10% higher than all other military spouses and DOD data showing up to 25% face food insecurity, junior members who have little or no economic margin for error can be forced to consider leaving the services as they stretch their income to make ends meet.

‘Generational investment’

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, rightly points out the need for a “generational investment” in the military to meet rising threats. A pay adjustment for junior enlisted personnel should be part of this broader investment, not an either-or choice.

The most junior of our uniformed services will carry the heaviest burdens for our nation in the years ahead. Investing in them now is essential. While the pay raise targeted by the QOL Panel would be well-deserved, I understand the full 19.5% increase might not be possible given the many priorities our nation must address. But ignoring and dismissing the clear indicators of need, doing nothing or simply deferring action should not be an acceptable option.

As Congress reconciles its annual National Defense Authorization Act, the Military Officers Association of America urges lawmakers to show the same dedication to those who serve as these individuals have shown to our nation and authorize additional funding at a level that makes a difference for those who we depend on and need the most.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Brian T. Kelly (ret.) is the president and CEO of the Military Officers Association of America, which advocates on behalf of all who serve and have served, their families and their survivors, regardless of rank or branch of service.

RE’IM, Israel (AP) — Israelis held somber ceremonies Monday to mark a year since the deadliest attack in the country’s history, a Hamas-led raid that shattered its sense of security and has since spiraled into wars on two fronts with no end in sight.

Hamas marked the anniversary of its Oct. 7, 2023, attack by firing a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv, underscoring its resilience after a year of war and devastation in Gaza. Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8 in support of its ally Hamas, fired more than 170 rockets despite its recent losses.

The conflict soon drew in the United States military as well, and troops levels there remain higher than normal in order to prevent a bigger war from breaking out.

A few weeks after Hamas’ attack, on Oct. 19, the Navy destroyer Carney became the first American warship to take out a salvo of drones and missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

That back-and-forth between the Houthis and the Navy has continued on a near-daily clip for the past year in the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman, and Navy ships have also played a role in shooting down Iranian missiles fired at Israel on two occasions.

U.S. ground forces have also endured months of attacks by Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, although the frequency of such attacks has lessened.

Still, a January attack on the Tower 22 base on Jordan’s border with Syria killed three U.S. troops.

They are Sgt. Kennedy Sanders, Sgt. Breonna Moffett and Staff Sgt. William Rivers.

Questions have also emerged about how long the U.S. military — and the Navy in particular — can keep expending finite resources in the region.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to press Israel’s campaigns on all sides, the military bombarded southern Lebanon with more than 120 strikes in an hour Monday, saying it was targeting Hezbollah positions. An earlier strike killed at least 10 Lebanese firefighters, the latest of dozens of first responders killed in recent weeks, according to Lebanon ‘s Health Ministry.

In a possible sign of the expansion of its campaign, the military said it would soon launch operations on Lebanon’s southern coast, telling residents to stay off the beaches and the sea for a 36-mile stretch along the Mediterranean.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli troops shot and killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy in a refugee camp, Palestinian health officials said. The military said it opened fire on Palestinians throwing stones at its forces.

A year since Hamas’ surprise cross-border attack, the war in Gaza rages on even as Israel is fighting a new war against Hezbollah, escalating its bombing campaign in Lebanon the past three weeks. There is also a mounting conflict with Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — that threatens to drag the region into an even more dangerous conflagration.

And within Israel, two main commemorations for the day underscored the country’s divisions. One was held by the government, the other in Tel Aviv by families of those killed on Oct. 7 and of hostages still held in Gaza who refused to join the official ceremony.

It was a sign of how Israelis’ faith in their leaders and military were shaken when the militants stormed out of Gaza, catching the country unprepared on a major Jewish holiday. The militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250. Around 100 hostages have not been returned, a third of whom are believed to be dead, and cease-fire efforts have ground to a halt.

What will the surge of US forces to the Middle East cost the military?

No formal commemorative event is planned in Gaza, where Israel’s assault since Oct. 7 has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, huge areas have been completely destroyed, most of the population have been driven from their homes and hunger is widespread.

At 6:31 a.m., four projectiles were launched from Gaza toward the same communities that came under attack last year, without disrupting ceremonies there.

The military said another five rockets were launched from the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis toward central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv. Two women were lightly wounded, according to first responders, and there was minor damage. The military said it struck the launch sites.

Sirens blared a second time in central Israel hours later when Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile. The military said the missile was intercepted.

All the Houthi-US Navy incidents in the Middle East (that we know of)

Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attack by launching one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history.

“We lost everything we have,” said Liyala al-Shanar, who fled her home in Gaza City. “We live in a tent that doesn’t protect us from the winter cold or the summer heat.”

Hamas’ fighters have repeatedly regrouped in areas where Israel carried out major operations. On Sunday, Israeli forces encircled the northern town of Jabaliya and launched another major operation there that the military says is aimed at rooting out militants.

The past year has seen a surge of violence in the West Bank, including Israeli raids on towns targeting armed groups, increased attacks by Palestinian militants and Jewish settler attacks on Palestinians.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has kept up its fire even after intensified Israeli strikes have killed many in its top command — including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah — and pounded large areas of Lebanon.

Israel’s strikes have killed at least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, and 1.2 million have been driven from their homes. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Monday’s strike that killed the 10 firefighters hit the municipality of the southern town of Baraachit just as they prepared for a mission. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel launched what has so far been a limited ground operation across the border last week. It says it aims to drive the militant group from its border so tens of thousands of Israeli citizens can return home.

Israel has also vowed to respond to a ballistic missile attack last week that Iran said was in response to the killings of Nasrallah, top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and one of its own Revolutionary Guard generals.

Hezbollah said Monday it would continue its attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza, saying Israel “was and will remain a deadly, aggressive, cancerous gland that must be eliminated, no matter how long it takes.”

The nonprofit We the Veterans is finishing its “Vet the Vote” campaign to recruit veterans and their family members to work the polls during the November presidential election after securing nearly 160,000 volunteers.

With only one month until Election Day, the group transitioned from recruiting election workers to trying to inform the U.S. population that veterans will make up a large swath of the volunteers at election sites this November. During a time when misinformation is eroding trust in U.S. elections, the group believes veterans are the key to quashing skepticism and restoring confidence.

About one out of every 10 election workers in November will be a veteran or a family member of a veteran, according to We the Veterans.

“Many of our poll workers for this current election are actually from the veteran and military community family. We are a very trusted population of Americans,” said Julie Hendricks, director of operations for Vet the Vote. “The big push from now on is making sure that as many Americans as possible know that this group of trusted individuals are there to make your vote count when you head to your local jurisdiction.”

Between 800,000 and 1 million temporary workers will be needed to staff polling locations across the country this November, said Thomas Hicks, chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Those workers welcome and check in voters, issue ballots and explain how to use voting equipment.

Vet the Vote tackles election misinformation with Super Bowl launch

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission acts as an independent agency that supports state and local officials to administer elections. The agency partnered with Vet the Vote to help boost the nation’s confidence in the November election.

“There’s been so much negativity about elections and the way that they’re run, and it should be noted that the people who are doing this are our neighbors,” Hicks said. “They’re the folks that are part of the PTA, people you’re seeing at church, and so forth. If you go into a polling place, you’re likely to know these folks. Know that they’re doing their best to serve the country and serve you.”

We the Veterans brought on other partners to help spread their message, including NASCAR, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, Microsoft and Walmart.

The group traveled across the country this year, hosting events to teach communities about the election process and recruit poll workers. We the Veterans worked with secretaries of state in New Hampshire, Montana, Rhode Island, Vermont and Michigan to host those events, Hendricks said.

“It’s really important that we were able to partner with the people in charge of elections in those states to show communities that elections are local,” she said. “Although we count numbers nationally and talk about poll workers nationally, this is hyperlocal and state regulated. Not everybody understands that.”

The group is holding another event in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday as a “thank you” to those veterans and military family members who are volunteering. Attendees will be able to talk to Florida and Georgia election officials and interact with ballot equipment to learn more about the voting process in those states.

This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to [email protected].

Former President Donald Trump claimed on social media last week that a law designed to ensure that service members and overseas Americans can vote via absentee ballot will be used by Democrats to “cheat” in next month’s presidential election, but experts knowledgeable about the process say that would be very difficult, if not impossible, given the nature of the system.

Trump’s allegations involve the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA, a law protecting the rights of such groups to vote in federal elections.

The Republican presidential nominee wrote on his Truth Social platform last week that Democrats are working to get millions of votes from overseas voters.

“Actually they are getting ready to CHEAT!” Trump wrote. “They are going to use UOCAVA to get ballots, a program that emails ballots overseas without any citizenship check or verification of identity whatsoever.”

Trump further alleged that Democrats “want to dilute the TRUE vote of our beautiful military and their families.”

Trump’s post comes amid Republican concerns that absentee voting allows the potential for greater voter fraud, and for ballots to be cast by noncitizens. Some critics have also questioned the verification process for absentee ballots.

No evidence has arisen of any widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, and some analysts warn that raising concerns about such systems without evidence decreases Americans’ trust in their elections.

When it comes to UOCAVA voters, experts say it would be practically impossible to alter the vote tally in any meaningful way.

While UOCAVA ensures the rights of overseas and military voters to cast their ballots, voter eligibility is determined by thousands of local election officials across the country who handle UOCAVA voter ballot requests and ballots separately.

A soldier with a home of record in Hennepin County, Minnesota, for example, must contact the Hennepin County election office to register and request a ballot. A sailor with a home of record in Cobb County, Georgia, must contact the Cobb County election officer to register and request a ballot.

As such, experts in the field say, any unified effort to steal or inflate the UOCAVA vote would be essentially impossible, given all the election offices involved.

“We’re talking about ballots that go through 7,500 jurisdictions, where election officials can pinpoint erratic patterns,” Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president and CEO of the nonpartisan U.S. Vote Foundation, told Military Times. “To be a fraudulent UOCAVA voter, you’d have to come up with an identity of someone who lives in a certain place at a certain time, and had an address and their identification.”

Absentee voting deadlines loom for troops and their families

The system for overseas and military absentee voting is so diffuse that any large-scale fraud couldn’t conceivably happen, she said.

Dzieduszycka-Suinat has worked in the field of overseas voting for years, and said she had never heard of a case where a UOCAVA voter who didn’t have identification was allowed to vote.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment this week regarding the Truth Social post.

Dzieduszycka-Suinat said there may be more attention on overseas voters this cycle because of the role UOCAVA ballots played in the close races in Arizona and Georgia in 2020.

On the same day that Trump posted about UOCAVA ballots, the Democratic Party arm for American expats noted that “votes from abroad ensured that both Arizona and Georgia went for Biden-Harris.”

Trump’s post is accurate in noting that Democrats have announced efforts to get out the overseas vote, saying there are 9 million eligible American citizen voters, far higher than government estimates of 2.9 million.

While there has been a significant rise in overseas citizen ballot requests for this election, Bob Carey, a retired Navy captain and former director of the government’s Federal Voting Assistance Program, or FVAP, said Democrats’ estimate of 9 million overseas voters is “unrealistically high.”

Carey, who has also worked on several Republican campaigns, said such an estimate makes it “understandable why people would be concerned.”

“But I still don’t think there will be widespread voting by noncitizens using UOCAVA,” he said.

Each local election jurisdiction has different requirements regarding what they will accept to determine an overseas or military voter’s eligibility and legitimacy.

“I think that election officials are exceedingly careful about who they approve when they come with the Federal Post Card Application, and they don’t give the voters an easy time,” Dzieduszycka-Suinat said. “They want to be sure it can stand up to scrutiny.”

“We’ve had situations lately where UOCAVA voters who didn’t have the requested ID are being turned down,” she added, pointing to three would-be UOCAVA Ohio voters and one Oregon voter who have recently been turned down because they didn’t have the requested ID, and Dzieduszycka-Suinat suspects there are probably more.

Amid the partisan rancor of American election season, Dzieduszycka-Suinat said she prefers to view Trump’s post as an indicator that the overseas vote is increasingly relevant to those back home.

“Maybe this informs people that they do have the right to vote and it’s all hogwash,” Dzieduszycka-Suinat said. “I can only assume the power of the overseas vote is growing. Why else would a candidate care?”

Deputy editor Leo Shane III contributed to this report

The number of National Guard forces mobilized to help with Hurricane Helene relief efforts could continue to grow in the coming days as the scope of the storm’s devastation becomes clearer, military officials cautioned Thursday.

Nearly 7,000 Guardsmen and another 1,000 active duty soldiers have already been sent to communities across the Southeastern United States to conduct search-and-rescue missions, clear damaged roads and transport aid to hard-hit areas.

Maj. Gen. Win Burkett, director of domestic operations and force development for the National Guard Bureau, told reporters that military officials are continuing to coordinate with state officials to best respond to their needs.

“As the states determine that they need more capability, or they need to start replacing some of the formations that they have, then we’re going to provide that,” he said. “We’re going to continuously look for solutions that would enable that as quickly as possible.”

Fort Liberty soldiers deploying to help with Hurricane Helene relief

Guard and Reserve forces from 16 states are involved in the response to the hurricane, which has killed at least 191 individuals in six states. More than 40 rotary wing aircraft and 600 military vehicles are assisting local emergency personnel with their work.

According to state officials, about 1 million homes are still without power, and many residents in mountainous areas remain trapped due to mudslides and washed-out roadways.

Officials in South Carolina are already expecting to need additional forces for relief efforts there. About 1,000 military personnel are currently operating there.

“The main effort right now has been debris clearing. … We work in concert with the power companies to ensure they can have access to the locations they need,” said Col. Jason Turner, director of military support for the South Carolina National Guard. “But clearing the roadways is the first and foremost priority for the state, and then establishing communications.”

Col. Paul Hollenack, commander of the North Carolina National Guard’s 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team, said forces there have delivered about 1 million pounds of emergency supplies in the week since the storm struck the state, and more than 500 people have been rescued by military specialists.

“And we are still doing significant flight operations in support of search and rescue at this point,” he said.

Burkett warned that additional bad weather could complicate those efforts and extend the domestic military missions.

“There’s another system that’s making its way into the Gulf now,” he said. “It’s not completely formed, and even if it doesn’t form, if it turns into a rain event, it could exacerbate the recovery operations.”

The Guard leader said he has been impressed by the military’s response thus far, but noted the level of destruction was unsettling.

“It’s a really dangerous environment,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that it was worse than what people thought was possible, but I think you really don’t get a feel for it until you get out and see it. That’s what makes every storm and every response unique.”

The head of American military forces in Japan has issued a directive curtailing public access to alcohol after a string of alleged sexual assaults by service members there earlier this year.

In a Sept. 16 liberty order, U.S. Forces Japan banned troops from visiting off-base drinking establishments and publicly consuming alcohol from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. every day.

The edict applies to all service members, regardless of age.

The rules went into effect on Tuesday, according to the order, and apply to any service members serving in Japan under U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

Japan protests sex assault cases involving US military on Okinawa

The memorandum calls upon military personnel to police both their own and other service member’s conduct, and report any lawlessness immediately to their superiors.

“Acts of indiscipline or misbehavior by U.S. military personnel adversely impact international relations, tarnish the image of the United States military, and affect our military readiness,” the order states.

Commanders retain the right to strengthen the policy when appropriate, as well as provide exemptions to the curfew, according to the order.

The restrictions come after several service members were arrested for sexual assault in the Okinawa region of Japan over the last six months.

US envoy expresses regret over alleged sex crimes by troops on Okinawa

The order also calls on commanders to refrain from granting liberty to service members “not in compliance with Service-specific and DoD directives regarding sexual assault prevention and response training.”

Commanders are also required to remain current on personal accountability training involving sexual assault and its prevention, according to the command.

50,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, with half of them in Okinawa, according to an earlier Military Times report.

Leaders of a Washington think tank urged veterans this week not to trust information posted to the fake news website “Not Our War,” which the group claims is attempting to stir up antidemocratic sentiments among veteran voters ahead of the November presidential election.

The website was one of nearly two dozen flagged in a recent report by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research group focusing on foreign policy and national security. The group warned that Iranian operatives were trying to pass off the sites as legitimate news outlets and use the content to cast doubt on America’s democratic process.

In addition to veterans, the sites target various minority groups, including Black, Spanish-speaking and Muslim voters, FDD reported.

“Not Our War” posts articles that disparage U.S. military operations overseas and criticize both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Many of its posts are written in a way to elicit strong reactions from veterans, and its homepage includes a tab labeled “Veterans,” said Max Lesser, a senior analyst on emerging threats at FDD.

“The broader aim of the website is to discredit US military actions across the board, but then there is another focus, which is targeting veterans,” Lesser said.

Disinformation creates ‘precarious year for democracy,’ experts warn

The cybersecurity company Mandiant warned of the same website during a briefing about election interference given to members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission earlier this year. The company, a subsidiary of Google, said the site praised the Iranian government and prominent pro-Iran political figures, denigrated the Israeli government, criticized U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and posted about divisive issues in the U.S., including the upcoming presidential election.

Experts have warned for months that U.S. adversaries — such as China, Russia and Iran — would target American voters with disinformation leading up to the election. Some of the messaging meant to sow division is reaching veterans by preying on their sense of duty to the U.S., some experts warned.

A 2017 study from Oxford University found Russian operatives disseminated “junk news” to veterans and service members during the 2016 presidential election. In 2020, Vietnam Veterans of America warned that foreign adversaries were aiming disinformation at veterans and service members at a massive scale, posing a national security threat.

“Conspiracy theories are a threat to vulnerable veterans, and they could drag your loved ones into really dark and dangerous places,” Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Military Times in May.

Microsoft reported in August that Iran had begun an election-interference campaign in the United States by setting up four websites that masqueraded propaganda as news. FDD used Microsoft’s findings to uncover other websites using the same web-hosting servers, it said.

Russian election interference scheme targeted US military competency

FDD released its report quickly after finding the other websites in an attempt to warn people they were fake before one of the posts gained significant traction online, Lesser said.

“We’re exposing it left of boom, before this network goes viral,” Lesser said. “That’s a note of optimism.”

Targeting veterans with disinformation isn’t a new tactic for Iran. Vlad Barash, a scientist at the social media research company Graphika, testified to Congress in 2019 that both Russia and Iran were trying to exploit veterans’ frustrations with the U.S. government by promoting the narrative that democracy was broken. At the time, Barash said such attacks “show no signs of stopping.”

In its report, FDD recommended the U.S. government sanction and indict the operatives running the websites. It also urged social media companies to monitor and block the domains. The FBI declined to comment Monday when asked whether it was investigating the websites.

Despite the room for improvement, Lesser said America’s response to election-interference campaigns has come a long way since 2016. He cited an increase in researchers uncovering disinformation attacks, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s regular warnings about election interference and efforts by the Justice Department to seize websites spreading propaganda.

“Yes, foreign adversaries are still launching operations targeting our elections,” Lesser said. “But I think as a society, we have become markedly more resilient in terms of exposing these operations and taking action against some of the operators.”

This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to [email protected].

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Military officials have released new video of a startling encounter between a Russian fighter jet flying near Alaska and a U.S. Air Force F-16 sent to intercept it.

In the video released Monday, the Russian plane comes from behind the camera and swoops by the U.S. jet, just feet from the aircraft.

The video release of the close encounter Sept. 23, with the U.S. pilot under the direction of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, comes after a series of Russian incursions into the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone just beyond U.S. sovereign airspace.

WATCH: US, Canadian jets intercept Chinese, Russian planes near Alaska

The interaction drew condemnation from NORAD’s top officer and one of Alaska's U.S. senators.

“The conduct of one Russian Su-35 was unsafe, unprofessional, and endangered all – not what you’d see in a professional air force,” said Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander, NORAD and U.S. Northern Command. The NORAD aircraft flew “a safe and disciplined” routine to intercept the Russian aircraft, he added.

A message sent to the Russian Embassy Monday seeking comment was not immediately returned.

The close pass of the Russian jet comes just weeks after eight Russian military planes and four of its navy vessels, including two submarines, came close to Alaska as China and Russia conducted joint drills.

None of the planes breached U.S. airspace. However, about 130 U.S. soldiers were sent along with mobile rocket launchers to Shemya Island, about 1,200 miles southwest of Anchorage. They were deployed to the Aleutian island for a week before returning to their bases.

In July, Russian and Chinese bombers flew together for the first time in international airspace off Alaska, a sign of cooperation that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said raised concerns.

In 2022, a U.S. Coast Guard ship about 85 miles north of Alaska’s Kiska Island in the Bering Sea came across three Chinese and four Russian naval vessels sailing in single formation.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, said the close pass of the Russian jet is another reason to build America’s military presence in Alaska and the Arctic.

“The reckless and unprofessional maneuvers of Russian fighter pilots — within just a few feet of our Alaska-based fighters — in Alaska’s ADIZ on September 23 put the lives of our brave Airmen at risk and underscore the escalating aggression we’re witnessing from dictators like Vladimir Putin,” Sullivan said in a statement.

An F-16C Fighting Falcon crashed off the southwestern coast of South Korea last December after a key instrument for measuring the jet’s position related to the horizon failed, an Air Force accident investigation found.

The F-16, whose pilot was assigned to the 35th Fighter Squadron of the 8th Fighter Wing at Kunsan Air Base, crashed during a training flight on the morning of Dec. 11, 2023, causing the loss of the $28 million fighter. The pilot safely ejected from the jet before the crash, sustaining no injuries, and was rescued by South Korean maritime forces.

The pilot was flying in formation along with three other F-16s as part of a defensive counter-air training mission, according to the report released Sept. 26. But the weather was poorer that day than expected, and the pilot flew through dense cloud coverage.

About 13 minutes into the flight, the report said, the jet’s attitude indicator stopped working due to the failure of its embedded GPS inertial navigation system. The attitude indicator is an instrument that tells the pilot where the horizon is relative to the aircraft.

US pilot safely ejects in F-16 crash off South Korea

The word “FAIL” appeared on the jet’s center display unit. The pilot switched to a backup attitude indicator, but that instrument was likewise glitching and yielding incorrect information, disorienting him, the report said.

That backup system indicated the fighter’s nose was high, but showed its altitude continued to decline. The pilot later told the investigation board he became “task saturated” — or overloaded with too much information to process and things to do at once — trying to keep the jet under control.

A wingman helped guide the pilot down, hoping to break through the clouds. But weather data later showed the cloud cover was so thick — as low as about 795 feet above sea level — that he would not have been likely to reach clear skies, the report said.

As the pilot reached 3,000 feet above sea level, he tried to level off but his disorientation became worse. As the jet neared the water, the pilot grew increasingly worried that his instruments were unreliable and ejected, 19 minutes after takeoff and 1,730 feet above sea level.

Little wreckage from the F-16 has so far been recovered, the report said. The jet’s black box containing more precise flight data was not found, nor was the Northrop Grumman-made GPS unit in the attitude indicator that is believed to have failed.

Investigators couldn’t determine why the GPS unit malfunctioned, the report said, but that it most likely lost power or experienced power fluctuations, as happened in other F-16 mishaps. That unit’s failure was the primary cause of the crash, the report said. The pilot’s need to rely on a backup attitude indicator that was also unreliable, and his disorientation, substantially contributed to the crash.

The 7th Air Force, which oversees Kunsan, said that the Air Force is working to limit the effects of temporary power fluctuations on F-16 flight instrument systems. Air Combat Command is also increasing its training to help pilots catch and fix problems with flight instruments during emergency situations, the 7th said.