PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad — The government of Trinidad and Tobago said Monday that it would allow the U.S. military access to its airports in coming weeks as tensions build between the United States and Venezuela.

The announcement comes after the U.S. military recently installed a radar system at the airport in Tobago. The Caribbean country’s government has said the radar is being used to fight local crime, and that the small nation would not be used as a launchpad to attack any other country.

The U.S. would use the airports for activity that would be “logistical in nature, facilitating supply replenishment and routine personnel rotations,” Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. It did not provide further details.

Trinidad’s prime minister previously has praised ongoing U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

Only 7 miles separate Venezuela from the twin-island Caribbean nation at their closest point. It has two main airports: Piarco International Airport in Trinidad and ANR Robinson International Airport in Tobago.

Amery Browne, an opposition senator and the country’s former foreign minister, accused the government of being deceptive in its announcement.

Browne said Trinidad and Tobago has become “complicit facilitators of extrajudicial killings, cross-border tension and belligerence.”

“There is nothing routine about this. It has nothing to do with the usual cooperation and friendly collaborations that we have enjoyed with the USA and all of our neighbors for decades,” he said.

He said the cooperation with the U.S. takes the country “a further step down the path of a satellite state” and that it embraces a “might is right philosophy.”

The U.S. strikes began in September and have killed more than 80 people as the U.S. builds up a fleet of warships near Venezuela, including the largest U.S. aircraft carrier.

In October, a U.S. warship docked in Trinidad’s capital as the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump boosts military pressure on neighboring Venezuela and its President Nicolás Maduro.

U.S. lawmakers have questioned the legality of the strikes against vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean and recently announced there would be a congressional review of them.

The Iowa National Guard has identified two soldiers who were killed Saturday in an ambush by an apparent ISIS gunman in the Syrian city of Palmyra.

Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Grimes, were killed in the Dec. 13 attack, the Guard announced. Both soldiers were assigned to 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, which is currently deployed to the region in support of ongoing counter-terrorism operations.

Three additional Iowa National Guard soldiers were wounded in the attack, officials confirmed. In addition, one U.S. civilian, who Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said was serving as an interpreter, was killed. Their identifies were not provided.

Two of the wounded soldiers required medical evacuation but are now in stable condition, according to the release. The third service member was treated locally and is recovering.

Nour al-Din al-Baba, a Syrian Interior Ministry spokesperson, claimed the gunman fired at the soldiers at the entrance to a military post. A statement by U.S. Central Command following the attack said the ISIS gunman was subsequently “engaged and killed.”

“Today, we honor the memory and sacrifice of Sgt. Howard and Sgt. Torres Tovar by sharing their names with a grateful state and nation,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard, said in a release.

“They were dedicated professionals and cherished members of our Guard family who represented the best of Iowa. Our focus now is providing unwavering support to their families through this unimaginable time and ensuring the legacy of these two heroes is never forgotten.”

President Donald Trump took to social media in the wake of the attack and warned of “very serious retaliation.”

The Dec. 13 ambush marked the first combat deaths during Trump’s second term and the first such attack since the government of former Syrian President Bashar Assad was overthrown in December 2024.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a one-time al-Qaida-linked target who made a historic visit to the White House last month, led the forces that toppled the Assad regime.

Discussing the ambush with reporters at the White House, Trump noted that al-Sharaa was “devastated” and “extremely angry” about the attack.

The U.S. currently has hundreds of troops deployed to the region as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

A July 2025 assessment of the Islamic State by the United Nations Security Council estimated that “terrorist fighters at large in the Syrian Arab Republic are estimated at more than 5,000.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The little road junction of Wahlerscheid was a veritable German fortress. Large concrete bunkers and log-covered pillboxes dotted the landscape, while the forest trails and roads bristled with mines and machine-gun nests. Barricades of barbed wire, piled high and 8 to 10 feet deep, covered all avenues of approach.

Out in front of the bunkers, fields of fire had been cleared to provide yet another advantage to the defenders, while the thick trees and dense undergrowth further stymied attackers.

For 2 1/2 days the Americans had been stopped in their tracks, but by 0600 on Dec. 16, 1944, the Americans’ hold on the crossroads was complete, the mopping up finished.

Evidence of the effort expended to capture Wahlerscheid was plain to see — shattered tree trunks stood starkly against the snow-covered ground, and branches littered the forest floor. Large, deep holes made by every type of shell were evident in great numbers.

Telephone wire and other communications cables were strung out crazily. Ammunition boxes, empty bandoleers and clips lay all over the torn ground. Then there were the men, tired and disheveled.

Some walked around poking through the debris. Others stood smoking cigarettes, silent. Still others, laid out in neat, straight rows, did nothing.

The battle for Wahlerscheid was over, but soon the Battle of the Bulge would unfold, and the survivors would call it “Heartbreak Crossroads.”

Located inside Germany, across the German/Belgian border, the road junction of Wahlerscheid was a key piece of the puzzle. The Roer River dams, long a major source of irritation to Allied planners, had to be captured before an advance across the wide, flat Roer Plain could be attempted.

Once taken, Wahlerscheid would provide not only decent roads but also a good axis of attack toward the dams, which lay just a few miles to the northeast.

While the newly formed 78th Infantry Division attacked German positions farther north along the German border between Lammersdorf and Monschau, the task of capturing Wahlerscheid fell to the 2nd Infantry Division, a seasoned outfit that had recently been pulled out of the line farther south.

Assembled near the town of Elsenborn the first week of December, two of the 2nd Division’s three infantry regiments, the 9th and the 38th (the third, the 23rd Infantry, was held in reserve near Elsenborn), were trucked to Büllingen, then north to Rocherath and Krinkelt, two villages so close together they had been nicknamed the “Twin Villages.”

From there, the two regiments marched north for six miles along the only road to Wahlerscheid. This single road, the main avenue of approach, was the only route by which supplies and reinforcements could be funneled to the forward regiments from divisional headquarters at Wirtzfeld.

For two days the Germans fought with grim determination, until several members of a lone U.S. patrol cut their way undetected through one barricade after another until they were in the bunker line. They later slipped back to report the breach, and late on Dec. 15, first a company, then a battalion, and then another battalion had slipped through the opening in the wire. By early the next morning, the fight for Wahlerscheid was over.

A couple miles east of and parallel to the 2nd Division’s line of march, through a dense forest belt, lay the front lines of the green 99th Infantry Division. On the Continent for just over a month, the 99th held a line from Monschau, northwest of Wahlerscheid, to the border village of Lanzerath, southeast of the Elsenborn Ridge, a distance of nearly 19 miles. Except for the area around Höfen, a village located southeast of Monschau, the 99th’s front lay inside a thick, coniferous forest.

During the first week of December, the forward rifle companies, rather than presenting a solid line, were positioned just inside the forest and parceled out in platoon-sized outposts along the entire line, thus leaving numerous undefended gaps.

The longest section of the line ran parallel to a major road, dubbed the International Highway, from a point just west of Hollerath, Germany, south to the frontier village of Losheimergraben. Intersecting the front were two trails that led from the highway west, back through the forest, where they converged about 1 1/2 miles northeast of the Twin Villages.

The northernmost trail left the highway just west of Hollerath in an area covered by the 393rd Infantry Regiment. The southern trail entered the forest west of Neuhof, also in Germany, at a point just north of where the lines of the 393rd and 394th Infantry regiments met.

To support the 2nd Division’s attack at Wahlerscheid and to draw away enemy troops, the 395th Regimental Combat Team (RCT), composed of two battalions of the 395th Infantry Regiment and one from the 393rd, had initiated an attack on Dec. 13 against German positions about 1 1/2 miles southeast of Wahlerscheid. Progressing smoothly at first, the diversion began to bog down as German resistance stiffened on Dec. 14. Terrible weather soon brought it to a complete standstill.

First Army and V Corps Intelligence believed that a German counterattack would probably occur along the 99th Division’s front. For this reason, when an awesome artillery bombardment rolled over the 99th’s front to the south of Wahlerscheid beginning at about 0530 hours on Dec. 16, commanders up and down the line thought the Germans were merely responding to the breakthrough at Wahlerscheid.

To the southeast, along the International Highway, the 99th’s two southernmost regiments were shelled. A major in the 12th Volksgrenadier Division remembered, “We old soldiers had seen many a heavy barrage, but never before anything like this.”

The intensity and duration of the shelling came as a surprise to some of the GIs, as Army Intelligence had previously reported that the Germans had only two horse-drawn artillery pieces in the entire sector. Up front, at a forward battalion command post (CP), one of the 99th’s staff officers quipped, “Christ, they sure are working those two poor horses to death.”

The GIs had prepared their positions well, however. Deep, log-covered dugouts and foxholes provided good cover, and casualties from the shelling were notably light.

As the shelling stopped or moved on to the rear at about 0635 on the 16th, German troops charged. In the north near Höfen the initial ground assault against a battalion of the 395th Infantry Regiment was so intense that on at least three occasions the bodies of Germans shot at point-blank range fell into the foxholes on top of the defending GIs.

Along the International Highway where the 393rd was positioned, large numbers of German infantry from the 12th Volksgrenadier Division followed closely on the heels of the barrage. Sweeping from behind the bunkers of the West Wall (also known as the Siegfried Line), they streamed up the slopes, dashed west across the road and hit the 3rd Battalion especially hard. As one GI put it, “It seemed like they were coming right at us and for some reason ignoring everybody else.”

One company, positioned where the northernmost forest trail joined the highway, was nearly wiped out — only one platoon escaped.

When notified of the situation near the highway, the battalion commander ordered the remaining companies to fall back on the battalion CP, to prevent it from being overrun. Meanwhile, scores of Germans pushed on down the trail and by dusk had reached the Jansbach Creek, nearly halfway through the forest.

During the late afternoon, Maj. Gen. Walter Lauer, the 99th Division commander, ordered a company from the division reserve rushed to the 3rd Battalion’s assistance. That company fought its way east along firebreaks running parallel to the trail until darkness forced a halt to the fighting. Although the Germans had punched a sizable dent in the 3rd Battalion’s line, they failed to achieve the major breakthrough needed to clear the way for the tanks of the waiting 12th SS Panzer Division.

Just to the south, the 393rd’s 1st Battalion underwent the same punishment.

There, however, most of the foxholes were positioned on the very edge of the forest with clear fields of fire, and the GIs exacted a greater toll on the advancing enemy. The first wave of grenadiers broke, then fell back in disarray, leaving behind a large number of dead and wounded.

Shortly afterward, the second assault achieved several penetrations, forcing one American company to fall back some 300 yards into the forest. After being reinforced in the afternoon, that company counterattacked and pushed the Germans back almost to the original line.

By nightfall on Dec. 16, the 393rd’s line was for the most part intact, though holed in several places. German patrols of 50 or more men infiltrated through the gaps and probed the woods for American defenses.

South of the 393rd’s 1st Battalion, the 394th’s 2nd Battalion had been hit shortly after the barrage had lifted early on the 16th. There, the enemy force was not as strong, roughly equal to what the 2nd Battalion had on the line. The GIs fought off all attacks, including one in which the Germans used several self-propelled guns. The 99th’s supporting artillery laid on deadly fire that quickly put an end to attempts to break through.

Likewise, the 394th’s 1st and 3rd battalions in and around Losheimergraben had come under attack from several directions. Both units sat astride roads that had been designated as primary march routes for the 1st SS Panzer Division, commanded by SS Oberführer Wilhelm Mohnke.

The 1st Battalion’s lines crossed the main road, which branched off the International Highway at Losheimergraben and then wound westward through Büllingen and Malmedy. The 3rd Battalion, which constituted the division reserve, was in position near Bucholz and the little rail station there. Its lines stretched across the secondary road that led from Lanzerath through Bucholz to Honsfeld and eventually Malmedy.

Absolutely vital to the German advance, the two roads had to be captured quickly by German infantry, for just behind the foot troops several hundred tanks, halftracks and armored cars waited. Once the Losheimergraben crossroads was taken, the pent-up force of SS Col. Joachim ‘Jochen’ Peiper’s armored battle group (Kampfgruppe) of the 1st SS Panzer Division would rush through the breach and dash headlong for the Meuse River and beyond. The division’s ultimate objective was Antwerp.

Not long after the artillery barrage ended, German infantry at Losheim advanced toward Bucholz along the deep cut of the rail line. At about the same time, two other battalions of enemy infantry fought their way up to and then across the International Highway just northeast of the crossroads and forced a gap between two companies of GIs. Only the superb actions of the attached mortar platoons saved the tenuous American toehold.

As the attack from the northeast progressed, more Germans probed, then struck from the other side of the crossroads. The pressure against the 1st Battalion mounted on both sides of Losheimergraben, but with help from the 3rd Battalion the crossroads remained in American hands. However, the reinforcement of the crossroads left the American positions in and around Bucholz dangerously thin.

In the little hamlet of Lanzerath, just south of Bucholz, the 394th’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance (I&R) Platoon had been fighting all morning on Dec. 16. Charged with maintaining contact with the 99th Division’s southern neighbor, the 14th Cavalry Group, across the two-mile-wide Losheim Gap, Lt. Lyle Bouck and his handful of men had been battling paratroopers of the German 3rd Fallschirmjäger (Parachute) Division since before dawn.

Shortly after the artillery barrage ended, strong thrusts against the 14th Cavalry Group led to its withdrawal, and contact with the I&R platoon was broken. Members of a towed tank destroyer outfit in Lanzerath also retreated, leaving the little band of men to fend for themselves.

Occupying good defensive positions atop a tree-covered hill overlooking Lanzerath, Bouck and his men had watched in the pre-dawn darkness as a long column of enemy infantry marched up the road toward Lanzerath. Just slightly behind the main column, Bouck noticed three men talking as they walked along. Thinking that they must be the 3rd Parachute Division commander and part of his staff, Bouck ordered his men to shoot the three.

Taking careful aim, the GIs were about to fire when a little girl ran to the three men and pointed straight at the American positions.

One of the men yelled a command and the paratroopers dropped into ditches alongside the road. A fierce firefight erupted, but the I&R platoon kept the Germans in check all day long.

Then, after dark, the Germans worked around the flanks and overran the determined GIs, killing several and capturing the rest, including Lt. Bouck. At that point it was only the few men remaining in Bucholz who were keeping the Germans from rolling up the entire right flank of the 99th Division.

Early on the afternoon of Dec. 16, the 2nd Division’s 23rd Infantry Regiment minus one battalion was attached to the 99th Infantry Division.

The 1st Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. John C. Hightower, was ordered by Gen. Lauer to move to Hünningen, several miles northwest of Losheimergraben on the main road to Büllingen. Lauer hoped the move would shore up his flagging southern flank.

Pulling into position late in the afternoon, the 1st Battalion quickly established defenses south and southeast of Hünningen.

Meanwhile, the 3rd Battalion, under Lt. Col. Paul Tuttle, moved out to the north and east of the Twin Villages. Early the following morning, part of the battalion was to attack east and link up with the remainder of the 393rd’s 3rd Battalion, which was still positioned along the northern forest trail. The rest of the battalion was to take up positions astride the southern trail to provide backup for the 393rd’s other battalion.

However, by the time the 3rd Battalion arrived it was already growing dark, and little movement actually took place. A short time later, Tuttle received orders from Maj. Gen. Walter Robinson, 2nd Division commander, to stay put and establish positions across both trails.

As midnight approached in Lanzerath on Dec. 16, the Kampfgruppe of the 1st SS Panzer Division drove into the village. The commander, Col. Peiper, was furious. After being stalled all day at the rear of a long column, he had finally received orders to break out to the west any way he could. Pushing the men and equipment ahead of him off the road, he had finally reached Lanzerath — several hours later than scheduled.

Waiting for the 3rd Parachute Division to clear a path through the 99th’s lines, in addition to traversing broken terrain and mined roads, had cost him even more time — time that he feared he might not be able to make up. He was not in the mood for any more delays.

Inside a small cafe, he found the commander of the 9th Parachute Regiment, Col. Helmut von Hoffman, and demanded to know why he had not moved farther. More than a little intimidated by the SS officer, the paratroop colonel explained that his men had run into stiff resistance and that the woods and road ahead were packed with American troops and tanks.

Peiper asked if any reconnaissance had been conducted, and, as he had anticipated, the answer was no. Thoroughly disgusted, Peiper demanded that a battalion of paratroopers accompany his tanks. He was going ahead. Prisoner Lyle Bouck, lying on the floor of the cafe, watched as Peiper stormed out.

Around 0400 on Dec. 17, the lead tanks of Kampfgruppe Peiper left Lanzerath and rolled into Bucholz, completely routing the small American garrison there.

Only one man, a headquarters company radio operator, remained in the town, hidden in a cellar. He counted the number of tanks as they rolled by and relayed information to division headquarters until he was captured.

The Germans forged ahead toward Honsfeld. Just short of their destination, they came upon a stream of American vehicles, all headed west through the little village.

Rather than opening fire, the Germans, in the confusion and pre-dawn darkness, simply joined the convoy, pulling into line as breaks presented themselves. Once inside the village proper, the German tanks and infantry riding them opened fire with telling results. Honsfeld, site of one of the 99th Division’s rest centers, was crowded with men and equipment of all types, and retreating vehicles clogging the narrow streets added to the congestion.

As the Germans sprayed buildings and vehicles with tank and automatic-weapons fire, GIs emerged only to be killed or captured. In some instances GI drivers hastily abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot. In very short order, Peiper had control of Honsfeld and a supply of something else he desperately needed — gasoline.

His tanks refueled, Peiper proceeded toward Büllingen, just a few miles away. He was met by a hastily formed defense consisting of U.S. engineers, headquarters personnel and a few tank destroyers.

Fighting raged in and around the village throughout the morning, but the sheer weight of numbers on the German side finally forced the defenders to fall back. By late morning, a last-ditch effort to block the Butgenbach road took shape. Instead of forcing the issue and driving north, however, a move that would have most certainly trapped the 2nd and 99th divisions, Peiper’s battle group turned southwest, completely confounding the Americans.

As Gen. Lauer later commented, “The enemy had the key to success within his hands but did not know it.”

By late afternoon on Dec. 16, the 2nd Division commander’s feeling of uneasiness had turned to one of impending disaster.

Gen. Robertson had by then lost his division reserve to the 99th as well as a combat command of the 9th Armored Division, on loan to him to use when the Wahlerscheid breakthrough was completed. Most of his infantry and two divisional artillery battalions were well forward, which would make any withdrawal extremely difficult at best because only a single road led south from Wahlerscheid.

Earlier in the day he had requested permission from the First Army through the V Corps to call off the Wahlerscheid attack but was turned down. Since no one at First Army headquarters realized the scope of the German offensive at this stage, there seemed little to gain and much to lose by pulling back from the Wahlerscheid position.

Undaunted, Robertson personally called the regimental commanders at Wahlerscheid late that evening and ordered them to hold tight for the night; they were to continue the attack in the morning, but only upon his express order.

The Germans renewed their attack at Losheimergraben early on Dec. 17. Strong attacks from both flanks and the front failed to achieve any significant progress, but the thinly held American line was crumbling rapidly as the remnants of the 394th’s 1st Battalion were reduced to small groups able to offer little more than token resistance.

Compounding the Americans’ problems, German engineers had repaired a bridge along the Losheim-Losheimergraben road, and shortly before noon German armor made an appearance on the road, crawling slowly toward the disputed crossroads. As even more enemy infantry joined the fray, the few remaining GIs pulled back from the woods and took up positions in basements in the few buildings around a small customs house.

Around 1400, a withdrawal from the Losheimergraben area was authorized. Moving back through the woods, men of the 1st and 3rd battalions found themselves in Mürringen, due south of the Twin Villages and just north of Hünningen, where the lone battalion from the 23rd Infantry still held positions.

During the withdrawal, the 2nd Battalion clashed with a large group of Germans. With his ammunition dangerously low, the American commander was unwilling to risk another fight, and he led his troops into the woods southeast of Mürringen until a clear determination of friendly positions was made.

At Hünningen, Col. Hightower anticipated a major attack as the Germans moved past his rear. But what the 1st Battalion commander did not realize was that the enemy column (Kampfgruppe Peiper) was actually detouring around Hünningen, interested only in getting back onto its assigned route.

At 1600, the expected attack unfolded, but not from the rear. Heavy shelling preceded an infantry attack from around Losheimergraben. American artillery fire, called down by an observer in the church steeple, was highly effective in stopping the onrushing German troops.

But the enemy kept coming, the German commander sending seven distinct attacking waves during the afternoon and early evening. Several penetrations of the thin American line were made but at no time was the enemy able to take Hünningen.

Sometime during the afternoon, Hightower received a radio message removing him from the 394th and assigning him to the 9th Infantry Division headquartered in Wirtzfeld.

The message, from Col. Chester Hirschfelder, 9th Infantry commander, also instructed Hightower to “pull back to new positions or you will be cut off.”

By then, however, Hightower’s men were so closely engaged with the Germans that he was not sure if he could break off and move without great difficulty. Nevertheless, he called Col. Riley of the 394th and advised him of the change in plans. Riley was notably upset, for if Hightower’s men pulled out now, his entire right flank would be up in the air, and he still did not know the whereabouts of his 2nd Battalion.

A quick radio exchange with Gen. Lauer confirmed the order. Riley knew now that he had no alternative — with ammunition running out and enemy pressure increasing by the minute, he would also have to pull back.

Lauer agreed but insisted that any move would have to be coordinated with the 23rd Infantry. Riley spoke with Hightower again, and between them a plan took shape. The withdrawal from Hünningen and Mürringen would commence soon after midnight.

The men of the 393rd’s 3rd Battalion, meanwhile, had counterattacked east along the northern forest trail early on Dec. 17, in an attempt to regain their positions along the International Highway.

They drove the Germans back off the trail, but then ran into a reinforced battalion of SS Panzergrenadiers coming from the opposite direction and soon joined by the 12th SS Panzer Division.

Roving teams of GIs using bazookas managed to hold the panzers at bay for a short time, but the combination of armor and numerical superiority was too much for the defenders.

The GIs — critically short of just about everything by then — had to withdraw again.

At 1030, Col. Jean Scott, 393rd Regiment commander, obtained the OK to withdraw to a new line east of Rocherath. The 3rd Battalion slowly withdrew along the trail and firebreaks, eventually passing through the line established by the 23rd Infantry’s 3rd Battalion.

As they filed past, the men of the 23rd Infantry begged for any ammunition the others could spare, since they had been issued only the basic load, which would not last for long. At that point, although they did not know it, the few hundred men of the 23rd Infantry’s 3rd Battalion were all that stood in the way of the Germans’ cutting off all 2nd and 99th Division troops in the Wahlerscheid sector.

By late morning, the situation in the woods had deteriorated to such an extent that Col. Tuttle’s orders had been changed to “Hold at all costs.”

Unsure of what to expect, Tuttle called his company commanders together and passed the order to them.

Robertson had realized by daybreak on Dec. 17 that his division and the 99th were fighting for their very existence.

Finally receiving permission to call off the Wahlerscheid attack, he immediately began to implement the withdrawal that had been planned during the night. The plan, “skinning the cat” as Robertson phrased it, called for the most forward units at Wahlerscheid to pull back first, through those behind them.

This included the three battalions of the 395th RCT, which was now attached to the 2nd Division. Robertson’s plan envisioned the RCT pulling back along a trail that ran nearly parallel to the main road, before joining it about a mile and a half north of Rocherath.

Marching south along that trail, the RCT would provide a cover for the other battalions coming back south along the main road.

Waiting on the main road, Robertson met the first of the RCT members and directed the 1st Battalion to positions north of Rocherath, along both sides of the Wahlerscheid road.

The first of his own units, the 38th Infantry’s 3rd Battalion, came into view a short time later. As had previously been arranged, Col. Frank Boos, the 38th Infantry commander, had instructed his 3rd Battalion to proceed south past Krinkelt and establish a line south-southeast of the village to deny use of the roads in that area to the Germans.

In the early afternoon, the 9th Infantry’s 1st Battalion started south down the main road. The 1st Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. William D. McKinley (a grand-nephew of President William McKinley) was last in line. As they headed south, the men heard the sound of the battle through the falling snow.

East of the road, the battle in the forest reached a critical stage. Just after the survivors of the 393rd’s 3rd Battalion had passed, German tanks and infantry unleashed a torrent of fire against the 23rd Infantry’s roadblock.

Company I was hit especially hard but held its ground until ammunition gave out. Falling back to a firebreak just a few yards behind their original line, the Americans attempted to establish another defensive position, but the Germans, sensing victory, closed too quickly.

Two Sherman tanks positioned to back up the 3rd Battalion dueled with the advancing panzers in a gallant effort, but they were no match for the Tigers and Panthers and were quickly knocked out.

As they withdrew, the GIs came out onto large stretches of open ground that were raked by German artillery and rocket fire, adding to the confusion. Many men became separated from their units and made their way to the rear individually or were rounded up and captured by the rapidly advancing Germans.

At 1600, Robertson learned that the 393rd’s 3rd Battalion had pulled back from the woods and that his 23rd Infantry’s 3rd Battalion had been badly mauled. He realized that there was now no effective resistance to the east and that the Twin Villages and the Wahlerscheid road could be captured at any time.

Hurrying back along the road toward Wahlerscheid, he came upon Company K of the 9th Infantry’s 3rd Battalion. He quickly directed the commander to take his men southeast to Lausdell, a point where several farm roads and trails converged.

That done, he jumped back into his jeep and rushed north toward Wahlerscheid again. Just up the road he met McKinley’s badly depleted 3rd Battalion. Locating 10 trucks, Robertson instructed McKinley to load as many men as possible and have the rest follow on foot.

He then led the convoy to the Lausdell junction. Once there, he told McKinley to round up and take command of all the troops in the immediate vicinity, set up a defense around the junction and hold “until ordered otherwise.”

McKinley’s force — roughly 600 men — began the tedious but necessary task of digging in. As they began, survivors from the 23rd Infantry streamed back from the woods to the east. Seeing the friendly faces, one of the retiring troops asked which outfit was taking up the Lausdell position.

Through gritted teeth one of the digging men replied: “Ninth Infantry. It ain’t enough we attack for five f–ing days. We gotta turn around and take up somebody else’s defense."

By 1800, McKinley’s positions were fairly well-established, including some mines and a direct communications line to supporting artillery emplaced around Elsenborn.

At about 1830, one of the forward companies reported that tanks were approaching. By now it was pitch dark, and positive identification of the armor was impossible.

Forewarned that still more men from the 23rd, 393rd and 394th might yet come out of the forest, the GIs held their fire, and by the time anyone realized the tanks were German they had rumbled past the forward outposts and headed for Rocherath.

A short distance behind the front line, two GIs started on their way to verify the tanks’ identity. As they were standing alongside the road SS Panzergrenadiers walked right past the GIs, not paying them any attention.

Then the tanks came roaring by, and one of the commanders riding high in a turret gestured rudely at the two men as he passed. As the two men raced off quickly toward the CP to request artillery support, the Germans opened fire, killing one of them. The other made it to the CP, and soon mortars were falling, but just one tank was hit.

Meanwhile, more tanks and infantry appeared at the front. Realizing now that anything approaching along the road from the forest was German, McKinley’s men were galvanized to action.

A string of mines pulled across the road stopped two of the panzers, while daring bazooka teams accounted for two more. Along another road still more German armor appeared. Artillery fire took out four of those tanks, but several others ran the gantlet of fire and continued on to Rocherath.

Just a few minutes later, still more enemy tanks materialized on the main road, this time accompanied by a large number of infantry. The artillery liaison officer screamed into his radio handset for fire on the rapidly closing column, saying, “If you don’t get it out now, it’ll be too goddamned late!”

The response came a minute later in a deafening crash of exploding shells, and the German attack withered under the brutal pounding. When the shelling ceased, a silence described by one man as “almost frightening” fell over the battlefield.

While McKinley’s men were digging in, the last American troops left Wahlerscheid en route to the Twin Villages. Two battalions from the 38th Infantry were nearing an area called the Baracken Crossroads when German artillery began to fall on them.

The 1st Battalion, under Lt. Col. Frank Mildren, ran through the deadly fire, with two companies taking heavy casualties. Making his way to Rocherath, Mildren tried to locate his executive officer. He finally spotted him near the gray stone church that separated the two villages.

Mildren got a quick briefing, then made his way to the CP, a house just south of the church. Locating as many of his men as possible, he directed them into positions east and northeast of Krinkelt, placing one platoon farther out in front of the others to give the alarm if the Germans broke through. The 2nd Battalion, meanwhile, filtered into Rocherath to positions east and northeast of that village, almost directly behind McKinley’s positions at Lausdell.

West of Krinkelt, engineers from the 2nd Division worked feverishly to shore up the single dirt road between the Twin Villages and Wirtzfeld. It was along that road that Robertson planned to move the men from the two divisions as soon as a cohesive defense could be created along the Elsenborn Ridge.

That night, east of the Twin Villages, the roads and fields were akin to a scene from hell. Vehicles and buildings burned brightly, tracers skipped back and forth, and flares of all colors floated down through the inky darkness while artillery shells and rockets exploded everywhere. As one officer saw it, “The night was ablaze with more noise and flame [than he had] thought possible for men to create.”

In the Twin Villages, the tanks that had earlier gotten by McKinley’s men roamed the streets shooting at anything that moved. Near the church they encountered three Shermans. The ensuing fight was short and one-sided; soon all three American tanks were smoking hulks. Adding to the bedlam, German artillery bracketed the villages, setting more buildings afire.

Late on Dec. 17, two events occurred that would have an effect not only on the raging battle in and around the Twin Villages, but also, later, the defense of the Elsenborn Ridge itself.

First, the 1st Infantry Division’s 26th Infantry Regiment had arrived and taken up positions between Butgenbach and Büllingen. This took some of the pressure off the few remaining troops of the 99th Division south and southwest of the Twin Villages. It also strengthened the weak southern flank and alleviated some of Robertson’s concern about a thrust from Büllingen.

Secondly, the remaining men of the 394th’s 1st Battalion at Mürringen, as well as the 23rd’s 1st Battalion at Hünningen, gave up their positions. Adhering to Lauer’s orders, both units broke off contact and made their way to the Twin Villages. In the confusion around Krinkelt, many men became lost and separated, but the majority of the 394th made it through Krinkelt and Wirtzfeld to Elsenborn while those of the 23rd made it to Wirtzfeld, where they joined the 9th Infantry in establishing a defense of the village.

Throughout the night, artillery continued to pound the Twin Villages as German tanks prowled the streets in search of American positions. But more than a few panzers fell prey to teams of bazooka — firing GIs who stalked and then destroyed the steel behemoths in the narrow lanes.

In several cases when bazooka rockets ran out, GIs emptied gasoline cans over the often slow-moving tanks and lit them with thermite grenades. After losing their infantry support, three German tanks hid in the rubble and played dead, content to wait until daylight before resuming the attack. Farther east, throughout the night, the Germans funneled men and armor into the woods in preparation for an all-out assault at dawn.

At 0700, with thick fog and smoke obscuring the battlefield, the Germans sallied forth again, a heavy barrage of artillery and rockets preceding their advance.

Near Lausdell, McKinley’s men, fed and resupplied overnight, prepared to meet the challenge. They did not have to wait long — soon, hundreds of SS Panzergrenadiers supported by tanks loomed out of the fog. Letting the first wave of armor pass, the GIs rose from their foxholes and engaged the enemy infantry with any weapon at hand — guns, knives, even shovels.

“One man tried to stop a tank by jamming his rifle between the cleats of its track,” recalled an eyewitness. Bazooka teams crept up to the slow-moving armor and knocked out several, small-arms fire picking off any crewman who tried to escape.

Excellent shooting by American artillery finally broke up the savage attack, but the determined Germans were not finished. At 0830, after regrouping in the woods, they came on again in even larger numbers. This time, even with the deadly artillery fire right on target, the GIs around Lausdell were unable to stem the German tide. Several tanks broke through followed closely by German infantry, both headed for the cauldron that was the Twin Villages.

During the night, McKinley had received word that his men would be withdrawn as soon as the 38th Infantry’s 2nd Battalion had established its defense, but the Germans struck before McKinley’s men could pull out.

Via radio, McKinley told Col. Boos that he could not disengage unless tank or tank destroyer support could be found.

Suddenly, as if on cue, four Shermans appeared at the Baracken Crossroads. Asked if he wanted to fight, the tank platoon commander yelled loudly, “Hell, yes!”

The Shermans moved in quickly, firing at enemy armor between the front lines and Rocherath. In quick succession, they accounted for four knocked out German tanks.

The planned withdrawal commenced shortly after noon with the Shermans providing close support, as American artillery again rose to the occasion and prevented any interference by the enemy infantry. The last out of the CP, McKinley and his operations officer ran, heads lowered, towards the Baracken Crossroads, and as they fled they heard Germans shouting behind them, demanding their unit’s surrender.

Just a little over a day earlier, 600 men had gone into Lausdell; now only 217 came out. The magnificent stand by McKinley and his men was a high point seldom witnessed in battle. “You have saved my regiment,” Boos told him.

In Krinkelt, the men of Mildren’s 1st Battalion had been fighting tanks practically barehanded all morning long. Mildren had tried more than once to secure assistance from Boos in Rocherath, but to no avail.

As the morning wore on and more panzers appeared, Mildren directed one of his staff to call the CP again for armored support.

In short order, a junior officer was on the radio talking with Boos. “Sir, we’ve got to have TDs [tank destroyers]. We’re being overrun by Jerry tanks.”

Calmly, Boos asked, “How many tanks? And just how close are they to you?”

Just then, one of the German tanks roared by outside Mildren’s CP, shaking the house to its very foundation. The young officer then replied, “Well, Colonel, if I went up to the second floor, I could piss out the window and hit at least six.”

The savage fighting continued nonstop all day. Infantry and tank battles raged throughout the villages. The streets and lanes of both were filled with wrecked and burning tanks.

Bodies of American and German dead were strewn about everywhere, frozen into the grotesque positions that only violent death can fashion.

Men were captured, escaped and were recaptured. For hours GIs and grenadiers fought one another separated only by a narrow road. Word that the SS had been murdering prisoners and bayoneting wounded spread like wildfire through the American ranks and as the battle for Krinkelt and Rocherath continued — they neither gave nor expected quarter.

Near Mildren’s CP in Krinkelt, a Tiger tank was wreaking havoc. Lt. Jesse Morrow, Mildren’s communications officer, watched as the 60-ton monster rolled over a jeep, flattening it.

Grabbing a bazooka that had been flung from the jeep, Morrow aimed at the rear of the tank and fired. The tank rolled on a little, out of control, then careened into a house. A crewman stuck his head out of the top hatch, and Morrow fired his .45 at him until it was empty.

Just then a second jeep came toward the young officer. Spotting another bazooka in the vehicle, he stopped the driver, grabbed the weapon and leaped around the corner, ready to fire. Then he froze. He was looking directly down the tank’s cannon. The tank’s gunner fired, and the concussion from the shell exploding behind him knocked Morrow unconscious.

Coming to, Morrow saw the tank was a smoking hulk. He crawled back to the CP where Mildren, who had watched the entire scene unfold, could not believe that Morrow was still alive — alive, but not unscathed.

The 88mm round from the Tiger had grazed Morrow’s neck as it passed, and he was bleeding profusely. Mildren ordered him evacuated immediately to a field hospital. As he was being loaded into an ambulance, Morrow noticed three badly burned German prisoners.

A medic told him, “These guys were in the tank that shot you. A GI threw a thermite bomb down the turret.”

Smiling at the young American officer, one of the Germans asked, “Do you have a cigarette? Cigarette?” Morrow tried to get up. But with his fingers still clawing at the German, he dropped back, unconscious.

The plan for the withdrawal from the Twin Villages had been finalized by early morning Dec. 19. It was simple: units would be pulled out from left to right, or from north to south.

Gen. Robertson encouraged the officers who were actually leading men not to use the word “withdrawal.” This action was “a move to new positions,” and would be conducted in an orderly fashion.

The men would “walk, not run.”

About 1330, Col. Boos ordered all equipment that could not be carried out of the villages to be destroyed. The Germans, still unwilling to give up, attacked throughout the day, but not on the scale of previous days. This was partially due to the fact that the 12th SS Panzer Division had been ordered to detour south and bypass the bottleneck, and continue on to its final objective — the banks of the Meuse River.

Commencing at 1730, the 395th RCT fell back from positions around the Baracken Crossroads, withdrawing along a boggy trail toward Elsenborn.

The 38th Infantry’s 2nd Battalion was next, followed by Mildren’s 1st Battalion. Soon thereafter, the majority of American troops were gone, out of the charnel house that the Twin Villages had become. A rear guard consisting of infantry, engineers and some tank destroyers held the back door through Wirtzfeld open until early morning on Dec. 20.

Then they too made their way back along the muddy, deeply rutted road to Elsenborn.

After three long, difficult days of practically nonstop combat (seven days for most of the 2nd Division), the initial phase of the battle around Elsenborn Ridge was over. Although some units lost as much as 80% of their combat strength, the back of the German offensive in the Ardennes was effectively broken at the Twin Villages.

The continuing efforts of the 2nd and 99th divisions, in concert with the 1st Division to the south and the 78th Division in the north, near Elsenborn Ridge, would end all German hopes for a successful drive to the Meuse River and then the vital Belgian port of Antwerp.

Originally published by WWII Magazine, our sister publication.

It might seem inconceivable that the use of drones in future battles would have come to the forefront of discussions of NATO strategy in the 1950s, but that is exactly what happened when Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery delivered an address to the Royal United Service Institution in 1954.

Montgomery, who helped create the foundations of NATO and was then serving as its Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), gave a speech entitled, “A Look Through A Window at World War III,” which stirred up much controversy at the time.

Many of the thoughts Montgomery expressed regarding Western defense and the evolution of war are still highly relevant in discussions of defense policy today.

Here is a look at some of Montgomery’s thoughts on NATO and how technology would change future battles.

Airpower

Montgomery predicted that airpower would become the dominant factor in war, that large surface vessels would become obsolete and that unmanned aerial systems — known to us as drones — would become ubiquitous.

“Later on…the East may have developed means of delivering their weapons with accuracy, both short-range and long-range, which do not rely on piloted aircraft,” Montgomery said. “Our ability to counter that threat by both offensive and defensive measures will be much reduced, because the targets will be far less vulnerable — whether they are launching sites, or the weapons themselves actually in the air.”

He presciently remarked that technology would eventually enable aircraft to “remain in the skies for prolonged periods and in all weathers,” adding, “That time is not yet, but it will come.”

Montgomery noted that he believed that there would always be some tactical need for piloted aircraft to perform specific support tasks, although the role of human pilots would be reduced.

He said that air dominance was of critical importance for NATO, as he believed that the West would struggle to maintain air superiority as new weapons developed.

Montgomery said that in case of a surprise assault, it was vital to “be able to hold such an attack long enough to enable nations to… mobilize their collective strength,” and that a response from NATO needed to consist of “an immediate air offensive on the largest possible scale, directed at the enemy’s air forces and at his homeland.”

Above all, Montgomery stressed that NATO countries needed to guard against a surprise aerial attack. This reflection was based on his observations of how airpower evolved during and after World War II, and the rising industrial strength of Communist nations. He stated emphatically that a future war would not see NATO allies have from the outset the same advantages in air superiority that the Allies had from 1943 onwards.

“Absolute defense against air attack will be impossible in the future. A deterrent, the means with which to hit back instantly and to give more than you receive, is the surest way to make an aggressor think twice before he attacks,” he said.

“We must develop an effective, and global, early warning system in order to have some chance of being able to take the offensive in the air should we be attacked,” he said.

He stated that he believed that “vertical lift aircraft” would be essential to achieve air dominance as this airpower could be dispersed and not an easy target for enemy forces. An astute analyst of military technology, Montgomery did not specify helicopters, but his remarks indicate that he believed vertical aircraft could develop in different forms.

“There is clearly a tremendous future of vertical lift aircraft and it must be exploited for the benefit of land forces,” Montgomery said.

A Hybrid Third World War

Montgomery believed that a potential third world war would consist of distinct phases: a battle for control of the air and seas, followed by hybrid attacks that could involve nuclear weapons — rather than the popular concept of a single nuclear strike.

“Those who are inclined to believe that future wars will be confined to push-button activities would do well to stop deluding themselves,” Montgomery argued.

He said that new technology would necessitate shrinking of naval forces, with the seas predominantly being controlled from the air and greater reliance overall on undersea vessels and smaller craft. Remarkably, he said he believed the aircraft carrier — which had risen to the peak of prominence in World War II — would eventually become obsolete.

He regarded it as vital for Western navies to still maintain control of the seas but be able and willing to adapt to new capabilities. As with airpower, Montgomery regarded force projection at sea as of critical importance.

“The first task of the Western naval forces is to make certain that they can deal with any challenge to our control of the seas, and that we do not lose that control,” he said.

Rapid Integration

Montgomery also stressed that the West needed to phase out weapons that become obsolete over time as technology progresses, noting that “the solution should be on the side of the long-term new weapons.” He also called for Western allied nations to create more flexible forces with an unprecedented degree of cohesion and interoperability between the services. Bureaucracy and duplication of effort, he said, were impeding the ability of military forces to be able to work effectively and be prepared to respond rapidly to threats.

“We seem to have lost the art of command, other than by paper,” said Montgomery. “No ordinary man can read half the paper that is in circulation; I doubt if the other half is worth reading.”

Raising the specter of nuclear war, Montgomery said he believed that governments needed to have measures in place to prevent and mitigate the damage of potential nuclear strikes, and above all, build up viable deterrents.

“As time passes and the offensive capability between East and West levels out, the advantage will go to that side which has the greater defensive strength, which can protect itself against attack, and can survive to strike back,” he said.

Days after Pete Hegseth was installed as the Pentagon’s top civilian, some all-volunteer teams of service women working to address obstacles and improve policy became casualties of his war on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. But a provision tucked into the $900 billion defense policy bill would bring them back.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026, which passed the House Dec. 11, contains a provision that restores service-level women’s initiative teams.

The bill would require the service secretaries to establish one of these teams for each of the five services under the Defense Department within a year after the bill becomes law.

These teams, composed of women in uniform representing “a variety of ranks, backgrounds and occupational specialties,” are to be tasked with identifying and addressing issues that hinder women’s service; supporting recruiting and retention; recommending policy changes that support the needs of women in service; and fostering a sense of community, according to language in the bill.

The legislation requires the secretary of defense to submit an annual report for the next five years on the activities and progress of the women’s initiative teams, including a summary of their activities, assessment of the policy impact they’ve had and any recommendations for legislative or policy changes to further support their success.

The language restoring the women’s initiative teams originated with Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Pennsylvania Democrat who served as an Air Force officer on active duty and in the Reserves from 1989-2004.

Despite a contentious political climate and suspicion around policy specific to women in the military, Houlahan said she hoped that “common sense was the thing that won the day” in allowing the women’s initiative teams provision to make it into the final version of the NDAA.

“More importantly, it’s all about readiness for the military in general,” she told Military Times in an interview. “As we are 51% of the population and about 20% of the folks who serve in uniform, it’s important that that demographic, for lack of a better word, be supported.”

Houlahan said she believed that the teams were “just a convenient target from a new administration.”

“When cooler and calmer, more rational heads got in the game, and Congress did its job, we were able to bring it back to life,” she said.

The legislation would also make the women’s initiative teams consistent across the services.

The Air Force‘s team had been serving for nearly two decades when it was ordered to cease operations following President Donald Trump’s inaugural raft of executive orders in January.

The Navy’s team had been in service for less than a year and was not formally canceled by the service.

In the Marine Corps, female service members launched an unofficial WIT in 2020 to advocate for changes like better parental leave and adjustments to outdated body composition standards, always stressing they did not speak on behalf of the Corps or the Defense Department. This legislation would codify that team and put its membership and activities under the purview of the secretary of the Navy.

In the Air Force, WIT members have successfully advocated for uniform changes, including development of a two-piece flight suit and a system that allows women to relieve themselves more easily in the cockpit. The team also reduced restrictions that prevented shorter airmen of both genders from serving as pilots.

Other issues the WIT worked on, such as child care availability and parental leave, are relevant to the total force.

“What I hope is that this administration really understands [that] this is ops and readiness for service women to do our jobs,” former WIT member Alea Nadeem told this reporter in January. “We’re asking for your help to make us more lethal and more ready, and give us the equipment and resources that we need to do that.”

It’s not clear to what extent a congressional mandate will force action by the Pentagon. Hegseth in April announced he had “ended” the Defense Department’s Women, Peace, and Security program, despite its creation by Congress.

The program continues today, but at the minimum staffing and activity level required by law.

Houlahan said accountability was a key consideration in crafting the language of the WIT provision.

“In this particular situation, we see the legal language of ‘shall,’ which is statutorily pretty powerful; legislatively, very powerful,” she said.

“And you also see in this NDAA some guardrails being placed on the administration and on the secretary of defense,” she added. “I am really hopeful that the armed services committees on both sides of the Capitol are awakened, and I’m very hopeful that Congress itself is realizing that we really need to put our foot down in terms of our Article One responsibilities and obligations, and hold these guys to account in the laws that we pass.”

Ralph J. Osterhoudt, now 96, was 15 when World War II began. His family’s Hudson Valley, New York, farm was just a bicycle ride north of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Hyde Park estate, where Osterhoudt worked summers. Though a schoolboy, he stepped up to serve, first as a volunteer in the Ground Observer Corps, organized to alert military authorities should enemy aircraft penetrate American skies. Later — as a U.S. Army replacement rushed to Europe’s frontlines — Osterhoudt got a much more intimate view of the war when he fought through France and into Germany.

Describe your life before World War II.

My town of Staatsburg was very small: 500 people. The dirt road we lived on didn’t have electricity or telephone. The first 18 years of my life weren’t anything to brag about. Our 20-acre farm was for our survival. There was very little money. Mostly we bartered. But we ate well — we didn’t eat garbage. My father also worked for Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a gardener. Everybody worked. I had six sisters and five brothers. [Ralph and two sisters survive.] I went to work on our farm at 4:30 a.m. on school days. I milked 10 cows by hand. I’d come home at 3 in the afternoon and milk the cows again.

You also worked for the Roosevelts.

I used to mow the lawn and plant trees during the summer. One time I was on the mowing tractor when Eleanor came out with a metal pitcher of iced water. She gave me a drink, and we chatted.

In what ways did the war change things?

We were one nation. Everybody was in the war effort. My brother Irving was on the [battleship USS] Missouri for three years. My brother Richard went into the army for six months but was medically discharged. While I was still in high school, I did the ground observer lookout tower.

How did you get involved in that?

The government built this small place overlooking the Hudson River. It wasn’t much bigger than an outhouse, with a roof, a door, and a very small window. Maybe 20 students volunteered to be lookouts. Someone from the government came to the school and told us our responsibilities. You weren’t allowed to have newspapers or bring your homework, because when you’re reading, you’re not watching. Maybe they showed us sketches of what to look for, but we didn’t have to know what enemy aircraft looked like. If something was moving in the air or on the Hudson River, it wasn’t supposed to be there.

What did the work require?

Girls with good grades got permission to stand watch in the daytime. The younger boys — high school freshmen and sophomores — went from after school until dark. My hours were from 8 p.m. to midnight, five nights a week.

I lived 4 miles from the observation post. I rode my bicycle there on gravel roads in the rain, snow, whatever. Sometimes it got so cold I wore most of the clothes I had. The post had a telephone, a Coleman lantern, a straight-back chair, a tiny table and a kerosene stove for heat. We didn’t use binoculars. All the nearby homes had blackout curtains, so visibility at night was almost 100%.

When you spotted something all you did was pick up the phone. No dialing or nothing. I forget the name of the unit stationed in Roosevelt’s house [the 240th Military Police Battalion, according to the National Park Service], but someone from the unit picked up the phone. And they said to report and not worry if it’s a false alarm. Thank goodness they were all false alarms.

Did you serve throughout high school?

The Ground Observer Corps was deactivated in May 1944, and on May 29, 1944, I got my induction notice. Two weeks later I would have graduated. They did not let me graduate with my class, but that was okay.

Sounds like you wanted a change.

I could have been deferred — farm work was considered essential — but I didn’t like the farm at all. I went to school every single day and did well. But I used to get on the bus and watch my classmates playing football, baseball, while I had to go home.

Everybody was eager to go. Plus, if you were a male 18 years old and healthy, you couldn’t be seen walking the streets. I went from Fort Dix to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I was in the artillery — 240 mm M1 howitzers. We trained with the 82nd Division, but we were going to Europe as replacements for soldiers killed or wounded.

When did you deploy?

Six thousand guys left on the Aquitania [a former British cruise liner] that December. We went across in five days, landed in Glasgow, Scotland, then went by train to Southampton. We boarded amphibious craft, each of us carrying two gigantic duffel bags. It was snowing and cold crossing the Channel. We got dumped out in 2 feet of water on the coast near Le Havre in Normandy on New Year’s Day 1945.

First, we stayed overnight in a brick building with no heat. All of us were freezing wet from the waist down. Finally, somebody located some laundry tubs, filled them with gasoline and lit the fumes for heat. Guys stood around the tubs stripped from the waist down, trying to get their clothes dry. At about 3 o’clock the next morning, we hiked 2 or 3 miles to board a train of cattle cars. The cars had been used for livestock — you can imagine the smell. Someone threw in bales of hay before closing the doors. To keep the snow out, we picked the bales apart and stuffed straw into the big cracks in the floorboards and sides.

We received our orders when we reached a replacement depot just outside Paris. I got assigned to the 575th Field Artillery Battalion down in what was called the Colmar Pocket, in Alsace. Most people have never even heard of it: the French part of the Battle of the Bulge. The French were getting murdered; they didn’t have a piece of artillery.

On January 3, 10 of us got off a train on the outskirts of the Pocket. They took us in at night. The battalion had only been there a couple days before I arrived. They hadn’t even set up the guns. First, I was assigned to headquarters. I was pretty good at typing from high school; I knew Morse code, and I had trained on the German decoding machine at Fort Bragg. The soldier doing those things had been killed, so I got busy with that until I got wounded.

When did that happen?

A couple weeks after I got there. Five of us in a jeep were on reconnaissance, looking for a place to set up a gun. We went down a wooded road. The Germans must have been watching us: they put out a mine. We hit the tripwire when driving back. The blast blew the jeep 20 feet in the air, and when it came down, three of the guys were crushed underneath. The driver and I were thrown clear and survived.

That might have been your ticket home.

I was in a field hospital for two weeks. After that, I went full-time on the guns. I guess I did well because I wasn’t sent back to headquarters. Every two or three days, we moved to a different location, always traveling at night. Half the time you didn’t know where you were.

In February we started to get into mud. We had more trouble in the mud than we did in the snow. We had gigantic tracked vehicles called prime movers that we used for towing heavy artillery. Each gun weighed more than 20 tons. The vehicles were so heavy that when we eventually crossed the Rhine, we went across a pontoon bridge, driving between flags in two feet of water. We didn’t know where the pontoons were.

Once across the Rhine, where did your unit go?

We just went on to German cities like Mannheim, Stuttgart, Munich. Sometimes we were shelling cathedrals and churches — which I’m not proud of — but the Germans were using church towers for observation. War is war.

How long before you finally went home?

I was overseas a year and a half. When the war was over, Gen. George S. Patton wanted a headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany; I was in his headquarters in late 1945 when he got killed. I came back home, exactly to the day, two years from the time I was inducted. I hadn’t realized it, but they were holding a rural letter carrier job for me at the Staatsburg post office. I got home, I think, on a Friday. And Monday morning I went to work at the post office.

DAMASCUS, Syria — President Donald Trump said Saturday that “there will be very serious retaliation” after two U.S. service members and one American civilian were killed in an attack in Syria that the United States blames on the Islamic State group.

“This was an ISIS attack against the U.S., and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” he said in a social media post.

The American president told reporters at the White House that Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was “devastated by what happened” and stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump, in his post, said al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack.”

U.S. Central Command said three service members were wounded in an ambush Saturday by a lone IS member in central Syria. Trump said the three “seem to be doing pretty well.” The U.S. military said the gunman was killed.

The attack on U.S. troops in Syria was the first with fatalities since the fall of President Bashar Assad a year ago.

“There will be very serious retaliation,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, said the civilian killed was a U.S. interpreter. Parnell said the attack targeted soldiers involved in the ongoing counter-terrorism operations in the region and is under active investigation.

The shooting took place near historic Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which earlier said two members of Syria’s security force and several U.S. service members had been wounded. The casualties were taken by helicopter to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.

Syria’s Interior Ministry spokesman Nour al-Din al-Baba said a gunman linked to IS opened fire at the gate of a military post. He added that Syrian authorities are looking into whether the gunman was an IS member or only carried its extreme ideology. He denied reports that suggested that the attacker was a security member.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X: “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.”

The U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. Al-Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with Trump. It was the first White House visit by a Syrian head of state since the Middle Eastern country gained independence from France in 1946 and came after the U.S. lifted sanctions imposed on Syria during the Assads’ rule.

Al-Sharaa led the rebel forces that toppled Bashar Assad in December 2024 and was named the country’s interim leader in January. Al-Sharaa once had ties to al-Qaida and had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following the ouster of Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus.

IS was defeated on the battlefield in Syria in 2019 but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.

U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria — including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs — to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.

Mroue reported from Beirut and Seung Min Kim from Washington.

Editor’s note: U.S. Central Command said two U.S. troops and one U.S. civilian were killed in the attack, in addition to three service members being injured. Find an updated story here.

Shots were fired at Syrian and U.S. forces on Saturday during a visit by American troops to a historic central town, leaving several wounded, Syria’s state media and a war monitor said.

The shooting took place near Palmyra, according to the state-run SANA news agency, which said two members of Syria’s security force and several U.S. service members were wounded. The injured were taken by helicopters to the al-Tanf garrison near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

SANA said the attacker was killed, without providing further details.

A U.S. defense official told The Associated Press that they are aware of the reports and did not have any information to provide immediately. The official spoke on condition of anonymity for not being authorized to speak to the media.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least three Syrian security members were wounded as well as several Americans. It added that the attacker was a member of the Syrian security force.

The U.S. has hundreds of troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

Last month, Syria joined the international coalition fighting against the IS as Damascus improves its relations with Western countries following last year’s fall of President Bashar Assad when insurgents captured his seat of power in Damascus.

The U.S. had no diplomatic relations with Syria under Assad, but ties have warmed since the fall of the five-decade Assad family rule. The interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, made a historic visit to Washington last month where he held talks with President Donald Trump.

IS was defeated in Syria in 2019 but the group’s sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in the country. The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.

U.S. troops, which have maintained a presence in different parts of Syria — including Al-Tanf garrison in the central province of Homs — to train other forces as part of a broad campaign against IS, have been targeted in the past. One of the deadliest attacks occurred in 2019 in the northern town of Manbij when a blast killed two U.S. service members and two American civilians as well as others from Syria while conducting a patrol.

World War II spared no one and nothing — even American football.

In 1943, the AP Top 20 college football rankings were littered with the usual names — Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas. Yet hovering at the No. 2 spot is a team long-forgotten, even by most football fanatics: the U.S. Navy’s Iowa Pre-Flight team.

During WWII, military training camps fielded their own teams, writes The New York Times. The war had shuttered many university programs as service-aged men swelled the ranks of the military.

As service academies like West Point and Annapolis benefited from the influx of talent, so, too, did the training camp teams.

Older players, some of them former professionals from the likes of the Chicago Bears and New York Giants, suited up for teams like Great Lakes Navy, Del Monte Pre-Flight and March Field. By 1943, four of those teams were in the AP Top 10, beating out storied football programs.

Among the standouts was Iowa Pre-Flight’s fullback, Dick Todd, a four-year veteran of the Washington Redskins (now Commanders) who would go on to play for the team four more years after the war. The team’s halfback Frank Maznicki had played for the Chicago Bears a year prior, and college athletes who had previously played for schools such as Marquette, Michigan State, Iowa, Pittsburg and Illinois also suited up.

The team was so stacked that Perry Schwartz, an end for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1938 to 1942, never started a game.

While based at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Navy’s Iowa Pre-Flight was a separate team from the university’s own Hawkeyes squad.

Known as the Seahawks, the team was coached by former Missouri coach Lt. Don Faurot, originator of the Split-T formation. Bud Wilkinson, who went on to become a coaching legend at Oklahoma, was his assistant, according to the New York Times.

Late in the 1943 college season only two teams remained undefeated: Iowa Pre-Flight and Notre Dame. And as their November matchup loomed, the eyes of a weary nation focused, just for a moment, on a battle playing out stateside.

On Nov. 20, 1943, as Col. David Shoup was reporting on Tarawa, “Casualties many; percentage of dead not known; combat efficiency: We are winning,” No. 1 Notre Dame was suiting up to play the second-ranked Iowa Pre-Flight team.

Although a weaker schedule, injuries and the last-minute transfer of six players, including its starting quarterback, Jack Williams, to other bases had the undefeated Seahawks heading into the game against the Fighting Irish a 20-point underdog, Notre Dame head coach, Frank Leahy, was rightfully skeptical.

“Even though recent personnel changes have ruined the Seahawk line-up,” reads a 1943 New York Times article, “Frank Leahy sees nothing except fiendish specters of defeat.”

In addition, the pair of undefeated teams would also solve, wrote famed sportswriter Allison Danzig, “whether a top-flight college football team is in the same class with a crack professional club.”

“The laboratory will be the Notre Dame stadium,” Danzig continued. “The guinea pigs will be the Fighting Irish and the Seahawks of the Iowa Navy Pre-Flight School.”

From the jump, Notre Dame fought from behind against what Danzig termed “a thunderous onslaught [from] a combination of former professional and Big Ten college players.”

In the opening two quarters, the Seahawks took a 7-0 lead over the undefeated Fighting Irish, with seven first downs to the latter’s two.

The score evened after a 65-yard touchdown run from the opening kickoff, but from there the game stalled until the fourth quarter when the Seahawks, despite its quarterback suffering from a broken jaw, cashed in on a Notre Dame fumble.

A missed kick, however, put the game back within Notre Dame’s reach and they quickly capitalized on it, with Creighton Miller, one of the “chief artisans” of the victory, sneaking in from the Seahawk’s 6-yard line for a tying touchdown.

Kicker Fred Earley knocked in the extra point, sealing a 14-13 victory for Notre Dame.

“Any doubts as to the majestic stature of the Notre Dame football team of 1943 melted today in the crucible of one of the great gridiron games of this or any other season,” Danzig concluded.

Yet Notre Dame’s storied season would suffer a defeat in its final game at the hands of another service team, the Great Lakes Bluejackets.

The Bluejackets would ultimately finish No. 6 in the AP rankings for the season, due to its two previous losses. Notre Dame, with its one, hung on to its No. 1 ranking and eked out a national championship.

Iowa Pre-Flight would finish second in the rankings and by the end of 1945, all service teams were disbanded.

The team has been largely forgotten, but perhaps that’s fitting for the men, writes Danzig, who played “for the sheer enjoyment of taking and giving someone a physical going-over.”

The 2025 Army-Navy game kicks off Saturday, Dec. 13, at 3 p.m. EST at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, and will be broadcast on CBS.

The U.S. Military Academy and U.S. Naval Academy football teams will face off in their 126th matchup Saturday at this year’s Army-Navy game, a storied rivalry that always bring the fireworks and a competitive flare.

The Navy Midshipmen have jumped out to a 9-2 record, good for third place in the American Conference, while the Army Black Knights are hovering above .500, with a record of 6-5.

Regardless, the winner takes home the Commander-in-Chief Trophy, an accomplishment either side would love to flaunt in spite of the other.

But for either team to win, they’ll have to lean on their strengths.

Here are the keys to the game that will provide a route to victory for the Midshipmen or Black Knights.

Offense

The Midshipmen’s rushing offense is impressive, ranking first in Football Bowl Subdivision college football with an average of 298.4 yards per game. Their passing, however, ranks 132nd, with the team only accruing an average of 136.4 yards per game.

Meanwhile, the Black Knights’ rushing attack isn’t too far off, ranking 5th in college football with an average of 256.9 yards per game. The team accounts for far less passing yards than the Midshipmen, however, only throwing for 78.3 yards per game on average.

Both teams have a record of possessing the ball for long periods of time.

The Black Knights rank No. 1 in time of possession in college football with an average of 35:16 per game, while the Midshipmen rank 17th with an average of 32:20 per game.

It’s likely that whoever dominates the time of possession will hold a distinctive advantage over the other.

Navy pays homage to USS Constitution for this year’s Army-Navy uniform

Overall, the Midshipmen have a more experienced, balanced offense, with senior quarterback Blake Horvath — who led the Midshipmen to victory over the Black Knights last year in the Army-Navy game — leading the charge.

Horvath is the first quarterback in Midshipmen history to post back-to-back seasons with 1,000 yards passing and 1,000 yards rushing.

On the year, Horvath has rushed for 1,040 yards and 14 touchdowns, and passed for 1,390 yards with nine touchdowns and five interceptions.

Meanwhile, junior Army quarterback Cale Hellums — who only got the starting job in the sixth game of the season after Dewayne Coleman was sidelined with injuries — has impressed in his short time playing. At 5-foot-10 and 205 pounds, Hellums leads his team with 1,078 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns. He has thrown for 504 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.

Defense

Neither team has a particularly potent defense.

The Midshipmen’s overall defense ranks 92nd in college football — allowing an average of 398.7 yards per game — and 57th in rushing with an average of 143.2 yards per game.

Meanwhile, the Black Knights have a better overall defense, ranked 56th, but still give up an average of 357 yards per game. Their rushing defense ranks 63rd, allowing 147.1 yards per game.

An interesting wrinkle that will undoubtedly play out during the game — the Black Knights allow opponents to convert third downs 44.9% of the time, ranking 123rd in that category. That porous protection will have to contend with a Navy offense that converts 49.6 of their third downs, which ranks 12th in that category in college football.

What else to watch

Navy racks up a good amount of penalties, averaging 54.8 penalty yards per game, while Army is much more disciplined, netting only 24.1 penalty yards on average per game.

The Midshipmen’s star senior nose guard Landon Robinson, who was named the American Conference Defensive Player of the Year and a First-Team All-American by Sports Illustrated and USA Today, has had a monster campaign, totaling 54 tackles, 8.5 tackles for a loss, 6.5 sacks and seven hurries.

The Black Knights’ senior linebacker Andon Thomas is no slouch either, totaling 96 tackles this year.

Scoreboard

At the end of the day, all that matters for each team is notching more points than the other when the clock strikes triple zeros.

How the Black Knights or Midshipmen accomplish that feat is up to them, but it would appear that controlling the time of possession and running the ball as much as possible will net an advantage over the other.

The Army-Navy game kicks off Saturday, Dec. 13, at 3 p.m. EST at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, and will be broadcast on CBS.

DORAL, Fla. — A U.S. Navy admiral who oversees military operations in Latin America handed off command responsibilities Friday as scrutiny increases over the Trump administration’s deadly strikes on alleged drug boats in the region.

Adm. Alvin Holsey has retired one year into a posting that typically lasts three to four years and transferred leadership duties to his top military deputy, Air Force Lt. Gen. Evan Pettus, during a ceremony at U.S. Southern Command headquarters near Miami.

In farewell remarks, Holsey did not mention the military operations or the reasons for his early retirement. But he urged his successor to uphold longstanding partnerships in the region by standing firmly behind the shared values of democracy and support for the rule of law.

“To be a trusted partner, we must be credible, present and engaged,” Holsey said.

Holsey’s shock retirement was announced by the Pentagon in October, over a month into the Trump administration’s strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed at least 87 people. With the campaign facing growing scrutiny by Congress, Holsey briefed key lawmakers earlier this week.

Long-term replacement for Holsey hasn’t yet been named

The ceremony Friday was more subdued than past retirements, held outdoors amid a small crowd of mostly Southern Command staff and without Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, because President Donald Trump has yet to nominate Holsey’s replacement.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made no mention of the military operations in Latin America as he thanked Holsey for his 37 years of service. Caine referred to Holsey as a “stoic” leader and “quiet professional” who always leads with his heart and head.

“It’s never been about you, it’s been about people, it’s been about others,” Caine said. “You’ve never said ‘I’ in all the conversations we’ve had. You’ve always said ‘we.’ … The impact you’ve had will last for a long time.”

Holsey is departing as Congress is scrutinizing the boat attacks, including one that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of an initial strike. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Hegseth and other top officials have given classified briefings on Capitol Hill this week.

Holsey also spoke this week to key lawmakers overseeing the U.S. military by classified video call. Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said afterward that Holsey answered senators’ questions but that “there are still many questions to be answered.” Reed later added that Holsey did not give a reason for his retirement other than saying it was a personal decision.

Boat strike scrutiny increases

Experts in the rules of warfare, human rights groups and even some of Trump’s allies in Congress have questioned the legality of the attacks on those accused of ferrying drugs. For decades, they were arrested at sea by the Coast Guard and brought to the U.S. for criminal prosecution.

The 22 known strikes against alleged drug-smuggling vessels are being supported by a giant flotilla of U.S. warships, attack helicopters, thousands of troops and even the nation’s most advanced aircraft carrier.

Trump’s Republican administration has defended its aggressive tactics, designating several drug cartels in Latin America as foreign terrorist organizations and declaring that the U.S. is in armed conflict with those criminal organizations, relying on a legal argument that gained traction after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The campaign has ramped up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the U.S. In a sharp escalation Wednesday, U.S. forces seized a sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration has accused of smuggling illicit crude. Sale of that oil on global energy markets is critical to Maduro’s grip on power.

Maduro has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office.

Holsey’s departure is the latest in a long line of sudden retirements and firings that have befallen the military’s top ranks since Hegseth took charge of the Pentagon.

A native of rural Fort Valley, Georgia, whose father and several uncles served in Vietnam, Holsey relinquished his command to Pettus to a soulful rendition of “Midnight Train to Georgia.”

Pettus, a fighter jet pilot with combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, had been serving as Holsey’s top deputy since late 2024. However, it’s unclear how long the Arkansas native will remain in the job. Whomever Trump nominates must be confirmed by the Senate.

The Defense Department should improve information sharing among different services and offices to improve the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft’s safety and reduce dangerous or fatal accidents, the Government Accountability Office said Friday.

In its report, “Osprey Aircraft: Additional Oversight and Information Sharing Would Improve Safety Efforts,” the GAO said Osprey program stakeholders — including its Joint Program Office and the services that fly it — have not routinely shared information on important areas, including hazard and accident reporting, aircraft knowledge and emergency procedures, and maintenance data on parts and components commonly used across the different types of V-22.

As a result, known problems with the Osprey have remained unresolved for years and in some cases at least a decade, the GAO said.

Without setting an oversight structure that clearly defines roles and responsibilities for fixing the Osprey’s known safety risks, the report said, the Pentagon cannot be sure those problems will be fully resolved.

The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy have a fleet of more than 400 Ospreys, which can take off and land like a helicopter, and then switch to forward flight like an airplane. This makes them ideally suited to take off and land from aircraft carriers, as well as for transporting special operations forces to and from austere environments where typical runways may not exist.

The aircraft has had above-average accident rates over the years, and some high-profile and tragic crashes that killed service members.

The GAO said the Marine Corps and Air Force rates of serious accidents in the Osprey over the last decade was, in nearly all years, higher than the services’ overall fixed-wing and rotary-wing accident rates.

That included four fatal accidents since 2022 that killed 20 service members, according to the report. The GAO said the Marine Corps and Air Force both saw serious accident rates in their Osprey variants rise in 2023 and 2024. Serious accidents are class A and B mishaps that result in death, permanent disability, extensive hospitalization, at least $600,000 in property damage or a destroyed aircraft.

Between 2015 and 2024, the only year serious Osprey accident rates were lower than average was in 2019, and even then only for the Marine Corps, the GAO said.

Most serious Osprey accidents were reportedly caused by airframe or engine component failure, or human error during flight or maintenance, according to the report. Materiel failures included problems with the Osprey’s proprotor gearbox clutches, which lead to lurching “hard clutch engagements” and could endanger flights, as well as vibration and chipping in the gearboxes and erosion of rotor blades.

The GAO said accident investigators concluded that in two of the four recent fatal Osprey accidents, a combined hard clutch engagement and catastrophic failure of proprotor gearbox components were factors.

Some Ospreys have also had problems with their engines rapidly losing or surging power during reduced visibility landings when flying over sand and dust.

In one instance, a Marine Corps Osprey crashed in Hawaii during a May 2015 training flight after sand was sucked into one of its engines while landing, causing the engine to stall. Two Marines died in that crash, and another 20 were injured.

But the GAO said the stakeholders charged with running the Osprey program, including the V-22 Joint Program Office and military services that fly them, have not fully identified or analyzed those problems, or responded with solutions to fix those procedural or materiel safety issues. The services and Osprey JPO had closed 45 risk assessments at the time of the GAO’s review, but 34 remained open, including eight serious — and potentially catastrophic — risks that had been open for a median period of 10 years.

Another 18 risks were deemed medium, and either potentially catastrophic or critical, and had been open for a median duration of nearly nine years, according to the report.

The GAO recommended that the defense secretary ensure the Navy and Air Force secretaries, along with the top generals in the Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy and Air Force Special Operations Command, work together to improve the joint Osprey program’s process for identifying, analyzing and responding to all safety risks.

This should include creating an oversight structure that clearly defines roles and responsibilities for resolving safety risks promptly and periodically reviewing efforts to fix them, the GAO said.

The GAO also recommended those top officials establish a routine system, such as a regularly occurring multiservice conference, to share information on the Osprey and emergency procedures. And the officials should conduct a comprehensive review of maintenance guidance and inspection procedures and update them as needed so Osprey units are using a system to track aircraft components, the GAO said.

The Pentagon agreed with the GAO’s recommendations and said it would take action to incorporate them into its Osprey policies and procedures.

On the heels of 12 major mishaps in the last four years, the military’s first tiltrotor aircraft program must take “immediate and decisive action” to avoid more loss and tragedy, a new comprehensive review released Friday by the U.S. Navy finds.

The V-22 Osprey, which the Navy uses for aircraft carrier onboard delivery missions, is overdue for a midlife upgrade, spending far too much on unscheduled maintenance and contending with undertrained maintainers — all of which spell increased risk for a platform that has faced intense scrutiny since its earliest days in the air. The 33-page review recommends the establishment of a readiness and safety steering board to report annually to top officials on the Osprey’s status; initiation of the overdue midlife upgrade; and changes to establish a “proactive safety system” to identify and address mechanical issues before mishaps occur.

“When the V-22 Enterprise does not actively manage risks with the potential for catastrophic outcomes, the risks compound, increasing the likelihood of a catastrophic event that, if left unaddressed, will ultimately occur,” the investigation concluded.

The Navy’s review — and a simultaneously released Government Accountability Office report — follow a November 2023 crash of an Air Force CV-22 Osprey that killed eight troops, ultimately attributed to a gear box failure. In the dozen mishaps since 2022 involving Marine Corps and Air Force personnel, four Ospreys have been destroyed and 20 personnel have been killed.

The review determined that the Osprey is “accumulating safety risk” due to lagging timelines to fix identified problems; failure to follow airworthiness and flight safety procedures; missing airworthiness standards for some risks; and challenges related to differing safety standards and priorities between the three services that fly the Osprey. It also found the Osprey has suffered in readiness due to a failure to implement best practices across the services, persistent “reliability issues” and challenges in managing and delivering aircraft and parts inventory.

While defenders of the V-22 have accurately pointed out that the aircraft, at least in the Marine Corps, has a lower mishap rate than fleet averages, the report highlights other concerning ways that the Osprey is an outlier. The V-22, it found, has the second-highest number of “catastrophic” risks of any naval aviation platform, meaning components at risk of failure with catastrophic outcomes. Parts at risk are also 70% older on the Osprey than on other Navy planes, it found.

“As the first and only military tiltrotor aircraft, it remains the most aero-mechanically complex aircraft in service and continues to face unresolved legacy material, safety, and technical challenges,” the investigation notes.

In maintenance concerns, the Osprey is again at odds with other platforms, requiring 100% more unscheduled maintenance than the Navy average and requiring about 22 maintenance man-hours per flight hour, compared with about 12 for other aircraft.

“Despite numerous initiatives aimed at improving procedural compliance, most efforts to date have not led to significant improvements in safety outcomes,” investigators found. “A critical gap remains in the form of specific, measurable, and enforceable action plans, complete with clear timelines and accountable owners, to address the root causes of non-compliance, improve procedural adherence, or mitigate the effects of non-compliance at the enterprise-level.”

Among recommendations already being implemented are a retrofit of prop-rotor gear boxes to address identified risks; the development of risk mitigation plans; and a midlife upgrade, which is listed as “in-work,” with no estimated completion date. Establishment of new proficiency standards for maintainers is also underway across services. Other recommendations, like the establishment of a readiness and safety steering board, have yet to be started.

Anthony Krockel, a retired Marine Corps colonel who flew the Osprey from 2010 to 2018 and came to its defense earlier this year, saying its record “was not a safety outlier,” told Military Times he saw additional problems contributing to the aircraft’s woes.

While he noted that the aircraft was full of sensors and that issues could arise from crews’ failure to address the equivalent of “check engine lights” on degrading parts, he also said the Osprey had a track record of parts that failed well before their anticipated service lives were up.

“If something was supposed to last, you know, 10,000 hours before it is being replaced, it’s lasting, like, 2,000 hours,” Krockel said. “And so that’s what’s driving these really high unscheduled maintenance rates.”

That, in turn, he said, had a “cascading effect” on maintenance backlogs.

“So now you have to spend time that wasn’t scheduled on the backs of these Marines to fix the plane and, oh, by the way, because these components are breaking more often, you’re depleting the spares inventory much faster than was originally anticipated,” he said. “And so now you don’t have any spares on the shelf because they’re being used systemically, higher than originally budgeted for.”

Krockel said he’d still like to see a thorough review take place of the top 10 “degraders to readiness” involving the V-22, including the parts that most frequently failed.

“Some of them are technically challenging to fix. Some of them are logistics challenges,” he said. “So there’s larger challenges, but if you get those top 10 degraders fixed and get the aircraft to higher mission capable rates, then everybody wins.”

Service members will see a 4.2% bump, on average, in their monthly Basic Allowance for Housing as of Jan. 1, defense officials announced Thursday.

The average increase for 2026 is lower than the 2025 average of 5.4%. Actual amounts can vary widely by military housing areas, and some service members may see a decrease in their monthly housing allowance. But in areas where there is a decrease, service members won’t be penalized. They’ll continue to receive the same amount they received in 2025 for as long as they are stationed there.

In their announcement, officials said they expect to pay an estimated $29.9 billion in housing allowances for about 1 million service members in 2026.

To set BAH rates each year, the Defense Department collects rental housing cost data for 299 military housing areas in the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. They calculate rates for each pay grade, both with and without dependents, based on housing choices of civilians with comparable incomes.

In Norfolk, Virginia, for example, according to the DOD BAH calculator, an E-5 with dependents will receive $2,430 a month in BAH, an increase of 4.5%, or $105, over the $2,325 a month received in 2025. An O-1 without dependents in that area would receive $2,022 a month, an increase of $45 a month, or 2.2% , received in 2025.

Troops can use DOD’s BAH rate lookup tool to search for their 2026 rate by their ZIP code and rank.

Setting BAH rates includes collecting information on rental prices and utilities, such as electricity, heat and water/sewer. Officials determine the costs for six housing profiles, based on the type of dwelling and number of bedrooms, in each of those housing areas.

Officials use data from the services and local military installation housing offices, commercial subscription rental cost databases, U.S. Census Bureau survey data, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index and online rental listing websites.

With questions raised about the calculation of BAH in recent years, Congress has weighed in on the issue, calling for more transparency and a study of alternatives such as using artificial intelligence and machine learning in calculating BAH.

In the proposed fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization bill passed by the House on Wednesday, and awaiting a vote from the Senate, lawmakers have included a provision requiring DOD to develop a clear, accessible document that explains how BAH rates are determined.

The proposed NDAA also would require DOD to enter into an agreement to study alternative methods of rate calculations, to include reviewing commuting times and distances service members face, and the affordability of housing in at least 15 of the 299 military housing areas. Officials would look at whether the monthly BAH rates accurately reflect housing prices, and whether it’s sufficient for military families to get adequate and affordable housing in those areas. The study would need to be completed no later than three years after DOD enters into the agreement.

Many service members have been hit hard by increased housing costs over the last few years. In 2023, defense officials increased BAH rates by an average of 12.1%, the largest year-over-year jump in BAH in at least the previous 15 years.

The Government Accountability Office has reported that the Pentagon needs to improve the way it calculates troops’ housing allowances. Defense officials have been reviewing those procedures.

Eligible commissary shoppers near an additional 62 military commissaries will be able to have discounted groceries delivered to their doorstep within a month, the head of the company that is to provide the service told Military Times on Wednesday night.

Defense Commissary Agency officials have awarded a contract for the delivery to OnPoint, a delivery service previously known as ChowCall, said Todd Waldemar, founder and CEO of the company. The 70 commissaries that are part of the contract include eight pilot locations that have been offering the delivery service since 2022. Waldemar said the remaining 62 stores will be offering the service by Jan. 11.

“These 70 include the largest military markets, so I estimate that they represent over half of the total [U.S.] military population,” Waldemar said.

A spokesman for commissary officials did not immediately confirm the award of the contract, and it had not been published on Sam.gov by the time this article was published.

The contract includes the flexibility to expand to the remaining 108 commissaries in the United States. That expansion to all 178 commissaries is optional and is up to the commissary agency, Waldemar said.

“But we hope to get delivery in all markets as soon as we can. I think it would be realistic to see all markets have delivery by the summer,” he said, emphasizing that he does not speak for the commissary agency.

Commissary officials are not considering doorstep delivery for overseas commissaries because of overseas regulatory constraints.

The initial contract award is for $14 million, Waldemar said. Delivery will be available within a 20-mile radius of the commissaries.

Commissary officials have provided an online, curbside pickup service for customers for a number of years, and have been working to find a way to provide the delivery service, too.

“We need this. Our customers want and need this contract,” John Hall, director of the Defense Commissary Agency, told a meeting in March.

“I’m really excited about this,” he said at the time.

Under the system, customers order groceries online, which are retrieved by store employees who pick the items and hand the orders over to OnPoint. OnPoint then delivers the groceries to the customer’s location. The delivery can occur as soon as three hours after the order is submitted, depending on the location, because commissaries need the time to pack the order.

The commissary agency will not subsidize the delivery costs for customers. The fee will be $17.75 for those within 10 miles and $31.25 for those within 11 to 20 miles. The commissary agency does not have the flexibility in pricing delivery fees that commercial retailers do, because of their limitations in marking up prices, for example.

Customers pay the delivery fee in addition to the cost of their groceries, the usual 5% commissary surcharge, and any tip for the driver.

Nationwide doorstep delivery getting closer for commissary customers

OnPoint has been gearing up for the expansion, and is also hiring delivery drivers in all 70 areas, Waldemar said. About 80% of their employees are affiliated with the military, as spouses or veterans, for example. They are paid according to the wage scale under the Service Contract Act, which varies from area to area, and also receive fringe benefits, he said.

ChowCall/OnPoint has delivered more than 40,000 loads of groceries since beginning commissary deliveries in June 2022, Waldemar said.

Customers using the current delivery pilot program range from active-duty families to troops living in barracks, retirees and disabled veterans and people who want to get a head start on shopping or a bite to eat while at work. The service can be especially helpful to young families of troops who are deployed, such as spouses with young children, Waldemar said.

More than 50% of customers using the delivery are within 5 miles of their commissary, he said.

Those eligible for the commissary shopping benefit include active-duty, Guard and Reserve members, military retirees, Medal of Honor recipients and their authorized family members. Veterans with any Veterans Affairs Department-documented, service-connected disability rating are now eligible for commissary shopping, as well as Purple Heart recipients, former prisoners of war and those who have been approved and designated as the primary caregivers of eligible veterans by the VA.

Waldemar said he has received positive feedback from customers about the delivery, including some disabled veterans who said they depend on the commissary delivery. One veteran who cannot drive called it a lifeline, Waldemar said.

“Our mission is to really solve this problem, and really make a big impact across the whole military for quality of life,” Waldemar said. His company has made over 2 million deliveries of food and merchandise to military bases for 15 years, he said.

“The problem as we see it, is that the delivery of goods and services is either nonexistent or minimal in most military markets,” he said. So those who live and work on military bases do not have as many options as everyone else does, he said, partially because access to military bases is harder.

“We want to solve that problem by giving more options to the military, more options to the dependents in family housing, more options to the young service member who doesn’t have a vehicle, stuck in the barracks.

“My son, for example, just enlisted in the Air Force. He’s living in barracks. He told me the other day, totally unsolicited, ‘Dad I finally understand what your company does,’ because he’s on a base where all he can get is pizza from the gas station down the road.

“That’s it. We want to totally change that. We want to have options, we want to have convenience for everybody that’s on bases.”

Alabama

• Fort Rucker (formerly Fort Novosel)

Arizona

• Davis-Monthan AFB
• Fort Huachuca
• Luke AFB

California

• Camp Pendleton MCB
• Miramar MCAS
• San Diego NB
• Ord Military Community
• Travis AFB

Colorado

• Fort Carson
• Peterson SFB

Connecticut

• New London NSB

Florida

• Eglin AFB
• Hurlburt Field
• Jacksonville NAS
• MacDill AFB
• Patrick SFB
• Pensacola NAS

Georgia

• Fort Benning (formerly Fort Moore)
• Fort Gordon (formerly Fort Eisenhower)
• Fort Stewart

Hawaii

• Hickam JBPHH
• Kaneohe Bay MCBH
• Pearl Harbor JBPHH
• Schofield Barracks

Illinois

• Scott AFB
• Great Lakes NS

Kansas

• Fort Leavenworth
• Fort Riley

Kentucky

• Fort Campbell
• Fort Knox

Louisiana

• Fort Polk (formerly Fort Johnson)
• Barksdale AFB

Maryland

• Andrews AFB
• Fort Meade

Mississippi

• Keesler AFB

Missouri

• Fort Leonard Wood
• Whiteman AFB

Nebraska

• Offutt AFB

Nevada

• Nellis AFB

New Jersey

• McGuire AFB

New York

• Fort Drum
• West Point Military Academy

North Carolina

• Camp Lejeune MCB
• New River MCAS
• Fort Bragg North & South locations (formerly Fort Liberty North & South locations)

North Dakota

• Minot AFB

Ohio

• Wright Patterson AFB

Oklahoma

• Fort Sill
• Tinker AFB

Puerto Rico

• Fort Buchanan

South Carolina

• Shaw AFB

Texas

• Fort Bliss
• Randolph AFB
• Fort Sam Houston
• Lackland AFB
• Fort Hood-Clear Creek location (formerly Fort Cavazos-Clear Creek location)

Virginia

• Fort Eustis
• Langley AFB
• Little Creek JBLCFS
• Norfolk Naval Station
• Oceana NAS
• Fort Belvoir
• Fort Myer
• Fort Lee (formerly Fort Gregg Adams)
• Quantico MCB

Washington

• Fort Lewis Main
• McChord AFB
• Whidbey Island NAS

Throughout its 135-year history, the Army-Navy game has featured hundreds of athletes who would later serve in combat, including the likes of Omar Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower in West Point’s Class of 1915, later known as “the class the stars fell on” for producing 59 generals.

However, less than a dozen cadets or midshipmen who played for their school have gone on to receive the nation’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor.

Six midshipmen who lettered in varsity football have received the honor, while five cadets from West Point — who played, albeit minor roles, on their teams — would go on the receive the award.

Four of those came prior to World War II, including three — Navy’s Allen Buchanan, Jonas Ingram and Frederick McNair Jr. — from the same Vera Cruz campaign in Mexico in 1914. (Ingram held the distinction of being the only player to score a touchdown during the 1906 Army-Navy game.) The fourth, presented to Carlton Hutchins in 1938, was a rare peacetime award.

Hutchins played for Navy from 1922 to 1925 and was awarded the peacetime Medal of Honor for remaining at the controls of his damaged PBY-2 seaplane during a tactical exercise and, according to his citation, “endeavoring to bring the damaged plane to a safe landing and to afford an opportunity for his crew to escape by parachutes.”

Here are some of the players from this storied rivalry who would go on to earn the Medal of Honor.

Rear Adm. Richard Antrim

Richard Antrim played football for the Navy’s Midshipmen football team from 1927 to 1930 before graduating the following spring. Taken prisoner by the Japanese after the 1942 Battle of Java Sea, he was held as a POW in the city of Macassar in the Dutch East Indies. During this time, according to his citation, then-Cmdr. Antrim:

“Acting instantly on behalf of a naval officer who was subjected to a vicious clubbing by a frenzied Japanese guard venting his insane wrath upon the helpless prisoner, Comdr. (then Lt.) Antrim boldly intervened, attempting to quiet the guard and finally persuading him to discuss the charges against the officer. With the entire Japanese force assembled and making extraordinary preparations for the threatened beating, and with the tension heightened by 2,700 Allied prisoners rapidly closing in, Comdr. Antrim courageously appealed to the fanatic enemy, risking his own life in a desperate effort to mitigate the punishment. When the other had been beaten unconscious by 15 blows of a hawser and was repeatedly kicked by three soldiers to a point beyond which he could not survive, Comdr. Antrim gallantly stepped forward and indicated to the perplexed guards that he would take the remainder of the punishment, throwing the Japanese completely off balance in their amazement and eliciting a roar of acclaim from the suddenly inspired Allied prisoners.”

Antrim survived the war and was presented with the Medal of Honor by President Harry S. Truman on Jan. 30, 1947.

Lt. Col. Harold Bauer

Harold Bauer, a three-year letterman at quarterback for Navy from 1927 to 1929, engaged an entire of Japanese squadron, alone, while out on patrol as a Marine aviator at Guadalcanal during WWII.

On Oct. 3, 1942, after an over-water ferry flight of more than 600 miles, Bauer sighted a squadron of enemy planes attacking the USS McFarland. Undeterred by the enemy’s show of strength, Bauer managed to shoot down four enemy planes and left a fifth one “smoking badly,” according to his citation. Bauer continued to engage with the enemy until his fuel ran out.

On Nov. 14, 1942, Bauer was forced to abandon his Wildcat fighter after shooting down two more enemy aircraft. He was seen in a life raft by other American pilots, according to the State Department, but was never found despite several days of rescue attempts. Bauer was initially listed as missing, but when the war ended, he was declared killed in action.

On May 25, 1946, the Medal of Honor was presented to Bauer’s widow and their son, Bill, by Maj. Gen. Field Harris at Camp Miramar, California.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur

The Army’s five recipients famously include Douglas MacArthur, who, while a cadet, served as the team manager during West Point’s 4-5 season in 1899.

Graduating in 1903, MacArthur saw combat in World War I — nominated for the Medal of Honor twice during the Great War and received four Silver Stars and two Distinguished Service Crosses.

His service during WWII would give rise to his legend, and he was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions defending the Philippines during the Second World War.

Lt. Col. Robert Cole

Robert Cole played for the Black Knights for all four years at West Point, graduating with the Class of 1939. As a paratrooper in World War II, Cole was among the first Americans to touch French soil, jumping into Normandy on D-Day as the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 502d Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne Division Regiment.

On the fifth day of fighting, Cole and his men, tasked with securing the last four bridges into the French town of Carentan, came under heavy fire from fortified German positions.

For over an hour Cole and his men were pinned down, sustaining numerous casualties from the enemy, a mere 150 yards away. Cole, observing “this almost hopeless situation,” issued his men to assault the enemy positions with fixed bayonets.

“With utter disregard for his own safety and completely ignoring the enemy fire,” reads his citation, Cole “rose to his feet in front of his battalion and with drawn pistol shouted to his men to follow him in the assault. Catching up a fallen man’s rifle and bayonet, he charged on and led the remnants of his battalion across the bullet-swept open ground and into the enemy position.

“His heroic and valiant action in so inspiring his men resulted in the complete establishment of our bridgehead across the Douve River.”

Cole would subsequently be killed on Sept. 18, 1944, during the second day of Operation Market Garden, the Allied invasion of the Netherlands.

Cole’s widow and 2-year-old son looked on as his mother accepted his posthumous award on the Fort Sam Houston parade ground just a few weeks after his death.

Lt. Col. Leon Vance Jr.

Leon Vance Jr., playing only one year of football in his freshman year, graduated in the Class of 1939 alongside Cole.

A command pilot with the 489th Bomber Group, Vance was flying with 66 Squadron lead crew on a pre-D-Day raid on the French coast when his plane was subject to a severe bombardment by the Germans. The flak instantly killed his pilot, wounded several members of his crew and took out three engines.

Vance, in shock, continued to lead his formation coaxing his B-24, “Missori Sue,” over the target and bombed it successfully.

Only then did Vance realize that his foot was attached to his leg by a few strands of intact tendons. Despite this and only one faltering engine left running, Vance successfully guided his B-24 back to the English coast.

After two months in hospital, Vance joined other badly injured personnel being evacuated stateside aboard a Douglas C-54 Skymaster.

Tragically, however, on July 26, 1944, the transport plane vanished somewhere on the Iceland-to-Newfoundland leg of its transatlantic flight. His body was never recovered.

On Oct. 11, 1946, Maj. Gen. James P. Hodges presented Vance’s daughter, Sharon, with her father’s Medal of Honor. She was just 3 years old at the time of the ceremony.

First Lt. Samuel Coursen

While never lettering, Samuel Coursen played football at West Point for his first three years. After graduating with the Class of 1949, Coursen was subsequently assigned to Company C, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, during the outbreak of the Korean War.

While leading his platoon in an assault on Hill 174 in Kaesong, North Korea, on Oct. 12, 1950, Coursen and his men came under heavy enemy small-arms fire. During the assault, one of his soldiers moved into what he believed to be an unoccupied emplacement, only to swiftly realize it was a well-camouflaged enemy shelter.

Seeing his soldier in distress, Coursen, according to his citation:

“rushed to the man’s aid and, without regard for his personal safety, engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat in an effort to protect his wounded comrade until he himself was killed. When his body was recovered after the battle, seven enemy dead were found in the emplacement. As the result of 1st Lt. Coursen’s violent struggle several of the enemies’ heads had been crushed with his rifle. His aggressive and intrepid actions saved the life of the wounded man, eliminated the main position of the enemy roadblock, and greatly inspired the men in his command.”

On June 21, 1951, Coursen’s 14-month-old son, Samuel, Jr., was presented with his father’s Medal of Honor award in a Pentagon ceremony.

First Lt. Frank Reasoner

This Marine-turned-cadet-turned Marine again has perhaps one of the more unique stories within the Army-Navy rivalry.

Shortly before his 18th birthday, Frank Reasoner enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he would serve for a year before his appointment to the U.S. Military Academy in 1958. Reasoner never played varsity football, but he did participate in the 150-pound football team — dubbed Sprint Football today — a full-contact, full-speed intercollegiate varsity sport that has been played by the likes of Jimmy Carter while he was attending the Naval Academy.

Reasoner graduated with the class of 1962 before returning to the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant, then first lieutenant following a promotion in subsequent years.

Assigned to Company A, 3d Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division (Rein) FMF, Reasoner was leading his platoon deep into enemy territory near Da Nang, Vietnam, on July 12, 1965, when he and his men came under intense enemy fire.

Pinned down by an estimated 50 to 100 Viet Cong troops, Reasoner continuously exposed himself to enemy fire in attempt to provide cover fire for his men.

After the wounding of one of his Marines, 22-year-old James Shockley, Reasoner leapt to tend to his injuries. Despite the wounded Marine’s pleas to stay away, Reasoner, according to the State Department, “pushed forward toward Shockley” before being hit at least once.

Shockley survived the firefight. Reasoner did not.

On Jan. 31, 1967, Reasoner’s widow received the Medal of Honor on his behalf from Navy Secretary Paul H. Nitze during a ceremony at the Pentagon.

The House on Wednesday passed a major defense policy bill that would authorize $900.6 billion in discretionary spending for the Pentagon in fiscal 2026.

The National Defense Authorization Act will now head to the Senate for final passage, after its 312-112 approval in the House.

The NDAA also aims to pressure Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release more information on controversial strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats from Venezuela, including video of the strikes, and the orders to use lethal force.

The bill would withhold 25% of Hegseth’s travel budget until he sends the House and Senate armed services committees “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations” in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility.

The administration has forcefully defended those strikes, which killed dozens of people, as necessary to halt the flow of illegal drugs to the United States. Critics, including multiple former military lawyers, have raised multiple alarms about those strikes and said they could amount to war crimes or even murder of noncombatant civilians.

The controversy boiled over in recent weeks after the Washington Post revealed the first such airstrike was followed by a “double-tap” strike about 45 minutes later, which reportedly killed two survivors clinging to their boat’s wreckage.

Lawmakers viewed footage — so far publicly unreleased — of that strike, and emerged divided on what it showed. Some Republicans said the video showed the second strike was justified, but Democratic lawmakers called it highly disturbing and said it requires more scrutiny.

Hegseth has demurred on releasing video of that “double tap” strike, though the Pentagon has released videos of multiple other boat strikes.

The NDAA also wants Hegseth to submit to lawmakers copies of each order to execute these lethal strikes.

The NDAA also wants Hegseth to submit a report, which the previous authorization act required, on how the Defense Department is identifying and implementing lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

The White House said in a Tuesday statement that President Donald Trump supports the bill, S.1071, and would sign it, lauding its codifying of more than a dozen executive orders and actions, including the Golden Dome for America missile defense program.

The NDAA would repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force that for decades was used to support U.S. actions in the Middle East. The White House said in the statement of administration policy that repealing those AUMFs supports Trump’s goal of “ending ‘forever wars.’”

The bill would also authorize the Pentagon to sign multiyear procurement contracts for critical munitions, which the administration said would save taxpayers money. Multiyear procurements are also intended to make it easier for defense contractors to expand their industrial capacity to make munitions, since they would be certain of business in years to come.

Another 81 women have joined a Texas lawsuit accusing an Army gynecologist of secretly filming them during invasive examinations, according to court documents provided by the victims’ attorney this week.

The civil suit alleges that Army Maj. Blaine McGraw “used his position of trust to sexually exploit, manipulate, and secretly record women under his care,” and the news comes after the Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel charged McGraw Tuesday with covertly recording at least 44 victims.

In total, 82 plaintiffs, referred to in court filings as “Jane Does,” have joined the suit filed in Bell County, Texas, where McGraw is currently behind bars in pretrial confinement. Many of the alleged victims live in Texas, but others reside in over a dozen different states, from Hawaii to New Jersey.

In addition to the secret filming, McGraw’s accusers say he also subjected them to unnecessary procedures, inappropriate sexual contact and encouraged visits “off the books.”

Photos in the suit, provided by his accusers, appear to show McGraw providing medical care with his phone positioned in his scrub blouse pocket.

“McGraw would pretend to receive a call or engage in a brief phone conversation, then place his phone in his breast pocket with the camera facing outward,” victims allege in the suit.

“Once the device was positioned, he instructed patients to undress, reposition themselves, or submit to intimate examinations, all while the camera silently captured their exposed bodies.”

The suit alleges that McGraw conducted a rape kit on a 19-year-old soldier without a chaperone while on his phone. He also allegedly failed to document the examination.

While the suit says military officials repeatedly failed to protect McGraw’s patients, the Army said the provider was suspended the same day accusations came to light.

McGraw worked at Hawaii’s Tripler Army Medical Center before most recently practicing at Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, Texas. Both locations sent thousands of letters to potentially affected patients notifying them of the investigation.

The suit says that the Army has not reached out to possible patients at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where McGraw served as a physician’s assistant before attending medical school.

The Army did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation as to whether or not those patients had been notified.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division last week said it had been investigating both at Fort Hood and off the installation. The division said it conducted hundreds of interviews and reviewed “over half a terabyte of digital media.”

On Tuesday — the same day the Army announced charges against McGraw — Mike Obadal, the undersecretary of the Army, and the Army surgeon general, Lt. Gen Mary K. Izaguirre, visited Darnall Army Medical Center.

Izaguirre said the Army was reviewing possible changes to “maintain faith with soldiers and families.”

“We are looking closely at how training is conducted, how standards are enforced and how leaders ensure that policies are being followed,” she said.

When news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor reached Germany, its leadership was absorbed by the crisis in its war with the Soviet Union. On Dec. 1, 1941, after the serious defeat the Red Army administered to the German forces at the southern end of the Eastern Front, Adolf Hitler had relieved Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander in chief of the army group fighting there; the next day Hitler flew to the army group headquarters in the southern Ukraine.

Late on Dec. 3 he flew back to his headquarters in East Prussia, only to be greeted by more bad news: The German army group at the northern end of the Russian front was also being pushed back by Red Army counterattacks. Most ominous of all, the German offensive in the center, toward Moscow, not only had exhausted itself but was in danger of being overwhelmed by a Soviet counteroffensive. Not yet recognizing the extent of the defeat all along the front, Hitler and his generals saw their reverses merely as a temporary halt in German offensive operations.

The reality was just beginning to sink in when the German leaders got news of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. On the evening of Dec. 8, within hours of hearing about the previous day’s attack, Hitler ordered that at any opportunity the German navy should sink American ships and those of Central and South American countries that had declared their solidarity with the United States.

That evening, too, he left East Prussia by train for Berlin, but not before sending out a summons to the members of the German parliament, the Reichstag, to meet on Dec. 11 and, in a formal session that would be broadcast to the whole country, declare war on the United States.

Why this eagerness to go to war with yet another great power, and at a time when Germany already faced a serious situation on the Eastern Front? Some have argued that it was an irrational reaction by Hitler to his failure to take Moscow; some have attributed the delay of a few days to reluctance on Hitler’s part, when it had more to do with the fact that Japan’s initiative had caught the Germans by surprise; still others imagine that Germany had finally reacted to America’s policy of aiding Britain, even though in all his prior declarations of war Hitler had paid scant heed to the policies, for or against Germany, of the countries invaded.

Ideological considerations and strategic priorities as Germany saw them were always more important. The most recent case was that of the Soviet Union, which had been providing critical supplies to Germany until minutes before the German attack of June 22, 1941.

The reality is that war with the United States had been included in Hitler’s agenda for years, that he had deferred hostilities only because he wanted to begin them at a time, and under circumstances, of his own choosing, and that the Japanese attack fitted his requirements precisely. It had been an assumption of Hitler’s since the 1920s that Germany would at some point fight the United States.

Already in the summer of 1928 he had asserted in his second book (not published until I did it for him in 1961, as “Hitler’s zweites Buch”) that strengthening and preparing Germany for war with the United States was one of the tasks of the National Socialist movement. Because his aims for Germany’s future entailed an unlimited expansion and because he thought the United States might at some time constitute a challenge to German domination of the globe, a war with the United States had long been a part of the future he envisioned. It would come either during his own rule or during that of his successors.

During the years of his chancellorship before 1939, German policies designed to implement the project of a war with the United States had been conditioned by two factors: belief in the truth of the stab-in-the-back legend on the one hand and the practical problems of engaging American military power on the other. The former, the widespread belief that Germany had lost the First World War because of the collapse at home rather than defeat at the front, automatically carried with it a converse of enormous significance, and one that has generally been ignored.

The more credence one gave to the stab in the back, the more negligible the military role of the United States in that conflict seemed. To Hitler and to many others in Germany, the idea that American participation had enabled the Western powers to hold on in 1918 and then move toward victory was not a reasonable explanation of the events of that year but a legend instead.

Only those Germans who remained unenlightened by nationalist euphoria could believe that American forces had played any significant role in the past or would do so in the future. A solid German home front, which National Socialism would ensure, could preclude defeat next time. The problem of fighting the United States was not that the inherently weak and divided Americans could create, field, and support effective fighting forces. Rather it was that the intervening ocean could be blocked by a large American fleet.

Unlike the German navy of the pre-1914 era, in which discussions were really debates about the relative merits of landing on Cape Cod versus landing on Long Island, the German government of the 1930s took a more practical approach. In line with its emphasis on building up the air force, specifications were issued in 1937 and 1938 for what became the Me 264 and was soon referred to inside the government as the “America bomber” or the “New York bomber.”

The “America bomber” would be capable of carrying a five-ton load of bombs to New York or a smaller load to the Midwest, or of flying reconnaissance missions over the West Coast and then returning to Germany without refueling at intermediate bases. Several types and models were experimented with, the first prototype flying in December 1940, but none of them advanced beyond preliminary models.

Instead, Hitler and his advisers came to concentrate ever more on the concept of acquiring bases for the German air force on the coast of northwest Africa, as well as on the Spanish and Portuguese islands off the African coast, to shorten the distance to the western hemisphere. Hitler also held discussions with his naval advisers and with Japanese diplomats about bombing the United States from the Azores; but those consultations did not take place until 1940 and 1941. In the meantime, prewar planning had shifted its focus to naval matters.

Like the Japanese, the Germans in the 1930s faced the question of how to cope with the American navy in the furtherance of their expansionist ambitions; without the slightest consultation, and in complete and deliberate ignorance of each other’s projects, the two governments came to exactly the same conclusion. In both countries the decision was to trump American quantity with quality, to build super-battleships, which by their vastly greater size could carry far heavier armament that could fire over greater distances and thus would be able to destroy the American battleships at ranges the enemy’s guns could not match.

The Japanese began constructing four such super-battleships in great secrecy. The Germans hoped to construct six super-battleships; their plans were worked out early in 1939 and the keels laid in April and May. These 56,200-ton monsters would outclass not only the new U.S. battleships of the North Carolina class then beginning to be built but even the successor Iowa class.

The precise details of how a war with the United States would actually be conducted was not a subject to which Hitler or his associates devoted a great deal of attention. When the time came, something could always be worked out; it was more important to prepare the prerequisites for success.

When World War II began in September 1939, work ceased on those portions of the blue-water navy not already near completion; that included the super-battleships. The immediate exigencies of the war took precedence over projects that could not be finished in the near future.

Almost immediately, however, the German navy urged steps that would bring the United States into the war. Admiral Erich Raeder, the navy’s commander in chief, could hardly wait to go to war with the United States. He hoped that the increase in sinkings of merchant shipping, including American, that would result from a completely unrestricted submarine campaign would have a major impact on Britain, whose surface navy Germany could not yet defeat. But Hitler held back. As he saw it, what was the point of marginally increasing U-boat sinkings when Germany had neither a major surface navy yet nor bases for it to operate from?

The spring of 1940 appeared to provide the opportunity to remedy both deficiencies. The conquest of Norway in April immediately produced two relevant decisions: First, Norway would be incorporated into the Third Reich, and second, a major permanent base for Germany’s new navy would be built on the Norwegian — now German — coast at Trondheim. In addition, a large, entirely German city would be built there, with the whole complex to be connected directly to mainland Germany by special roads, bridges, and railways. Work on this colossal project continued until the spring of 1943.

The conquest of the Low Countries and France, soon after that of Norway, appeared to open further prospects. In the eyes of Hitler and his associates, the war in the West was over; they could turn to their next objectives. On land that meant an invasion of the Soviet Union, a simple task that Hitler originally hoped to complete in the fall of 1940. At sea, it meant that the problem of making war on the United States could be tackled.

On July 11, 1940, Hitler ordered the resumption of the naval construction program. The super-battleships, together with hundreds of other warships, could now be built. While that program went forward, the Germans not only would construct the naval base at Trondheim and take over the French naval bases on the Atlantic coast, but would push a land connection to the Strait of Gibraltar — if Germany could control Spain as it did France.

It would then be easy to acquire and develop air and sea bases in French and Spanish northwest Africa, as well as on the Spanish and Portuguese islands in the Atlantic. In a war with the United States, they would be the perfect advance bases for the new fleet and for airplanes that did not yet meet the earlier extravagant specifications for long-range flight.

These rosy prospects did not work out. Whatever Francisco Franco’s enthusiasm for joining the war on the side of Germany, and whatever his willingness to assist his friend in Berlin, the Spanish dictator was a nationalist who was not about to yield Spanish sovereignty to anyone else — neither in territory now held by Spain nor in French and British holdings that he expected to pick up as a reward for joining the Axis.

The fact that the German leadership in 1940 was willing to sacrifice the participation of Spain as an equal fighting partner rather than give up on their hopes for German-controlled bases on and off the coast of northwest Africa is an excellent indication of the priority that they assigned to their concept of war with the United States. Franco’s offer of the use of Spanish bases was not enough for them: German sovereignty was what they believed their schemes required.

When the Spanish foreign minister went to Berlin in September 1940, and when Hitler and Franco met on the French-Spanish border in October, it was the sovereignty issue that caused a fundamental rift between the prospective partners in war.

But it was not only the bases that proved elusive. As the preparations for war with the Soviet Union made another reallocation of armament resources necessary in the late fall of 1940, the construction of the blue water navy was again halted. Once more Hitler had to restrain the enthusiasm of the German navy for war with the United States.

The navy believed that in World War II, as in World War I, the way to defeat Great Britain lay in unrestricted submarine warfare, even if that meant bringing the United States into the conflict. But Hitler was doubtful whether what had failed the last time would work now; he had other ideas for coping with Britain, such as bombing and possibly invading it. When it came to taking on the United States, he recognized that he could not do so without a large surface navy. It was at this point that Japan came into the picture.

Since the Germans had long regarded a war with the Western powers as the major and most difficult prerequisite for an easy conquest of the Soviet Union, and since it appeared to them that Japan’s ambitions in East Asia clashed with British, French, and American interests, Berlin had tried for years to achieve Japanese participation in an alliance directed against the West.

The authorities in Tokyo had been happy to work with Germany in general, but major elements in the Japanese government had been reluctant to fight Britain and France. Some preferred a war with the Soviet Union; others were worried about a war with the United States, which they saw as a likely result of war with Britain and France; still others thought that it would be best to settle the war with China first; and some held a combination of these views.

In any case, all German efforts to rope Japan into an alliance actively opposing the West had failed. The German reaction to this failure—their signing of a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union in 1939 — had only served to alienate some of their best friends in a Japan that was then engaged in open hostilities with the Soviet Union on the border between their respective East Asian puppet states of Manchukuo and Mongolia.

In Tokyo’s view, the defeat of the Netherlands and France the following year, and the need of the British to concentrate on defense of the home islands, appeared to open the colonial empires of Southeast Asia to easy conquest. From the perspective of Berlin, the same lovely prospects lay in front of the Japanese — but there was no reason to let them have all this without some military contribution to the common cause of maximum looting.

That contribution would lie in pouncing on the British Empire in Southeast Asia, especially Singapore, before Britain had followed France and Holland into defeat, not after. It would, moreover, at one stroke solve the problem of how to deal with the United States.

In the short run, Japanese participation in the war would divert American attention and resources from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In the long run, and of even greater importance, the Axis would acquire a huge and effective navy. At a time when the United States had a navy barely adequate for one ocean, the Panama Canal made it possible to move that navy from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and back.

This was the basic concern behind the American desire for a two-ocean navy, authorized by Congress in July 1940. Since it would be years before that two-ocean navy was completed, there would be a lengthy interval when any major American involvement in a Pacific conflict would make substantial support of Britain in the Atlantic impossible. Furthermore, it obviously made no difference in which ocean American warships were sunk.

For Germany in the meantime, the obvious alternative to building its own navy was to find an ally who already had one. The Germans believed that Japan’s navy in 1940-41 was the strongest and best in the world (and it is quite possible that this assessment was correct). It is in this framework of expectations that one can perhaps more easily understand the curious, apparently self-contradictory policy toward the United States that the Germans followed in 1941.

On the one hand, Hitler repeatedly ordered restraint on the German navy to avoid incidents in the Atlantic that might prematurely bring the United States into the war against Germany. Whatever steps the Americans might take in their policy of aiding Great Britain, Hitler would not take these as a pretext to go to war with the United States until he thought the time proper: American lend-lease legislation no more affected his policy toward the United States than the simultaneous vast increase in Soviet assistance to Germany influenced his decision to go to war with that country.

On the other hand, he repeatedly promised the Japanese that if they believed war with the United States was an essential part of a war against Britain, Germany would join them in such a conflict. Hitler personally made this pledge to Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yosuke when the latter visited Germany early in April 1941; it was repeated on various occasions thereafter.

The apparent contradiction is easily resolved if one keeps in mind what was central in the thinking of the German leader and soon became generally understood in the German government: As long as Germany had to face the United States by itself, it needed time to build its own blue-water navy; it therefore made sense to postpone hostilities with the Americans. If, however, Japan came into the war on Germany’s side, that problem would be automatically solved.

This approach also makes it easier to understand why the Germans were not particular about the sequence: If Japan decided to go to war in the spring or summer of 1941, even before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, that would be fine, and Germany would immediately join in.

When it appeared, however, that Japanese-American negotiations in the spring and summer might lead to some agreement, the Germans tried hard to torpedo those talks. One way was by drawing Japan into the war through the back door, as it were. At a time when the Germans were still certain that the eastern campaign was headed for a quick and victorious resolution, they attempted — unsuccessfully — to persuade the Japanese to attack the Soviet Union.

During the summer of 1941, while the Japanese seemed to the Germans to be hesitating, the German campaign in the Soviet Union appeared to be going perfectly. The first and most immediate German reaction was a return to its program of naval construction.

In the weapons technology of the 1930s and 1940s, big warships were the system with the longest lead time from orders to completion. The German leaders were entirely aware of this and highly sensitive to its implications. Whenever the opportunity appeared to be there, they turned first to the naval construction program.

Once again, however, in 1941 as in 1940, the prospect of prompt victory over the immediate foe faded from view, and once again work on the big warships had to be halted. (But the Germans, despite their much-vaunted organization, failed to cancel an engine contract; in June 1944 they were offered four useless battleship engines.) Stopping the battleship construction only accented the hope that Japan would move, as well as the enthusiasm with which such an action would be greeted.

Just as the Germans had not kept the Japanese informed of their plans to attack other countries, so the Japanese kept the Germans in the dark. When Tokyo was ready to move, it had only to check with the Germans (and Italians) to make sure that they remained as willing to go to war against the United States as they had repeatedly asserted they were. In late November and again at the beginning of December, the Germans reassured the Japanese that they had nothing to worry about. Germany, like Italy, was eager to go to war with the United States — provided Japan took the plunge.

There were two ways in which the German declaration of war on the United States would differ from her procedure in going to war with other countries: the timing and the absence of internal opposition. In all other cases, the timing of war had been essentially in Germany’s own hands. Now the date would be selected by an ally that moved when it was ready and without previously notifying the Germans. When Hitler met with the Japanese foreign minister back in April, he had not known that Japan would dither for months; he also did not know, the last time Tokyo checked with him, that on this occasion the Japanese intended to move immediately.

As a result, Hitler was caught out of town at the time of Pearl Harbor and had to get back to Berlin and summon the Reichstag to declare war. His great worry, and that of his foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, was that the Americans might get their declaration of war in ahead of his own. As Ribbentrop explained it, “A great power does not allow itself to be declared war upon; it declares war on others.”

Just to make sure that hostilities started immediately, however, Hitler had already issued orders to his navy, straining at the leash since October 1939, to begin sinking American ships forthwith, even before the formalities of a declaration. Now that Germany had a big navy on its side, there was no need to wait even an hour.

The very fact that the Japanese had started hostilities the way Germany had begun its attack on Yugoslavia earlier that year, with a Sunday morning attack in peacetime, showed what a delightfully appropriate ally Japan would be. The American navy would now be smashed in the Pacific and thus incapable of aiding Britain, while American troops and supplies would be diverted to that theater as well.

The second way in which this German declaration of war differed from most that had preceded it was in the absence of opposition at home. For once the frenetic applause of the unanimous Reichstag, the German parliament last elected in 1938, reflected a unanimous government and military leadership.

In World War I, it was agreed, Germany had not been defeated at the front but had succumbed to the collapse of a home front deluded by Woodrow Wilson’s siren songs from across the Atlantic; now there was to be no danger of a new stab in the back. The opponents of the regime at home had been silenced. Its imagined Jewish enemies were already being slaughtered, with hundreds of thousands killed by the time of Hitler’s speech of December 11, 1941. Now that Germany had a strong Japanese navy at its side, victory was considered certain.

From the perspective of half a century, one can see an additional unintended consequence of Pearl Harbor for the Germans.

It not only meant that they would most certainly be defeated. It also meant that the active coalition against them would include the United States as well as Great Britain, its dominions, the Free French, various governments-in-exile, and the Soviet Union.

Aid without U.S. participation, there could have been no massive invasion of northwest Europe; the Red Army eventually might have reached the English Channel and the Atlantic, overrunning all Germany in the process. If the Germans today enjoy both their freedom and their unity in a country aligned and allied with what their leaders of 1941 considered the degenerate Western democracies, they owe it in part to the disastrous cupidity and stupidity of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

SANTA FE, N.M. — The Trump administration is adding another militarized zone to the southern U.S. border to support border security operations — this time in California.

The Department of Interior on Wednesday said it would transfer jurisdiction along most of California’s international border with Mexico to the Navy to reinforce “the historic role public lands have played in safeguarding national sovereignty.”

The newly designated militarized zone extends nearly from the Arizona state line to the Otay Mountain Wilderness, traversing the Imperial Valley and border communities including Tecate.

Since April, large swaths of border have been designated militarized zones, empowering U.S. troops to apprehend immigrants and others accused of trespassing on Army, Air Force or Navy bases, and authorizing additional criminal charges that can mean prison time. More than 7,000 troops have been deployed to the border, along with an assortment of helicopters, drones and surveillance equipment.

The military strategy was pioneered in April along a 170-mile stretch of the border in New Mexico and later expanded to portions of the border in Texas and Arizona.

The Interior Department described the newest national defense area in California as a high-traffic zone for unlawful crossings by immigrants. But Border Patrol arrests along the southern U.S. border this year have dropped to the slowest pace since the 1960s, amid President Donald Trump’s push for mass deportations.

“By working with the Navy to close long-standing security gaps, we are strengthening national defense, protecting our public lands from unlawful use, and advancing the President’s agenda,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a news release.

An emergency declaration by Trump has thrust the military into a central role in deterring migrant crossings between U.S. ports of entry. Legal experts say the strategy flouts a ban on law enforcement by the military on U.S. soil and thrusts the armed forces into a potentially politicized mission.

The new militarized zone was announced Wednesday as a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control of those troops to the state.

Trump called up more than 4,000 California National Guard troops in June without Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approval to further the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

Members of Congress are seeking to more closely monitor the Defense Department’s plans to modify or downsize military hospitals and clinics by requiring more oversight and adding years to a ban on reducing the services’ number of medical personnel.

The proposed fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act released this week calls for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and service surgeons general to review any proposed changes to military treatment facilities to determine whether they would affect military readiness.

Under the legislation, the Defense Health Agency director also will have to explain how service members, families, retirees and other beneficiaries would receive medical care if changes to military facilities affect their access to medical care.

In a statement accompanying the bill, House and Senate negotiators said they were concerned about the effects that downsizing facilities or personnel could have on operations.

“We expect that any proposed restructuring, realignment, or modification to military medical treatment facilities will be conducted in collaboration with the appropriate Department of Defense stakeholders … to ensure that operational readiness is not impacted by any proposed changes,” they wrote.

The provisions follow a flurry of questions from Congress this year over the Defense Department’s plans to reorganize the military health system, to include downsizing or modifying some military treatment facilities.

When the Defense Health Agency was created, it was given responsibility for managing the military services’ hospitals and clinics as well as the authority to reconfigure staffing and consolidate facilities.

The agency originally planned to realign 50 facilities, including 38 that would serve military personnel only, while the services aimed to cut roughly 12,800 military health billets. Under the plan, an estimated 200,000 active-duty family members and retirees were to be shifted to nonmilitary providers managed by the Tricare health program.

A list of the affected facilities was published in 2020, but the reforms were paused early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Later, the plan was adjusted to build capacity at some facilities by bringing back patients and improving training opportunities for medical personnel.

In 2023, another list was published of 32 facilities slated for realignment, and lawmakers have since raised concerns regarding several hospitals that weren’t on that list.

Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., said in July that Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point would lose its inpatient beds, downsized to a clinic.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., sought protections in the Senate defense spending bill for a full-service hospital currently under construction at Fort Leonard Wood following rumors that it would open next year as an ambulatory clinic.

And Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., demanded answers regarding the Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon amid concerns that it, too, was slated to lose its inpatient, emergency room and surgical services.

Ossoff wrote Dr. David Smith, acting DHA director, asking for more information on the organization’s plans for the hospital. Smith responded this month, saying the review is ongoing and no final decision has been made.

“There are significant pressures on the Defense Health Program for Fiscal Year 2026 and beyond,” Smith wrote in a letter published Tuesday by WRDW/WAGT in Augusta, Georgia.

“The Department as a whole is undertaking a comprehensive review of where to optimally assign its military medical personnel in order to achieve the best outcomes in quality, safety and readiness of the force and is working with the Military Departments to mitigate access to care and capacity challenges,” Smith wrote.

During a conference on military policy issues hosted by the Military Officers Association of America on Oct. 28, acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Stephen Ferrara said the review process is fluid.

“I think there is always a lot of rumors about whether there’s a report that’s going to come out, and that’s not the case. It’s like if you looked at any corporation that has 100 hospitals or stores, they should be looking at them to see where it makes sense to dedicate their resources,” Ferrara said.

As part of the reform process, the military services had originally planned to reduce the number of uniformed personnel serving in military hospitals and clinics. The proposed bill extends a restriction placed by Congress on this effort by five years, stretching it from 2027 through 2032.

In addition to the provisions addressing military health facilities, beneficiaries could see more money in their pockets regarding travel reimbursement for specialty care. Currently, travel costs are only reimbursed for those who must go 100 miles or more for care; the bill reduces the distance to 75 miles.

The bill also directs the Defense Department to reopen chiropractic clinics that have been closed on installations. While chiropractic care is not covered by the Tricare health program, some hospitals and clinics contained clinics that treated active-duty personnel. Congress wants the DOD to reopen any clinics that were closed and provided at least 400 appointments per month.

For expecting mothers who had hoped to see broader childbirth options, the final bill does not include a provision that would have let beneficiaries switch to Tricare Select when they became pregnant. It also dropped a pilot program that would have covered midwife services from providers who are not nurses.

In terms of service members’ health, the bill requires the Defense Department to conduct a study of cancers among rotary-wing pilots and air crew and a study on the psychological health of combat drone operators.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

Using U.S. forces to seize an oil tanker is incredibly unusual and marks the Trump administration’s latest push to increase pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States. The U.S. has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The campaign is facing growing scrutiny from Congress.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” Trump told reporters at the White House, later adding that “it was seized for a very good reason.”

Trump said “other things are happening,” but did not offer additional details, saying he would speak more about it later. When asked what would happen to the oil aboard the tanker, Trump said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.”

The seizure was led by the U.S. Coast Guard and supported by the Navy, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The official added that the seizure was conducted under U.S. law enforcement authority.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and produces about 1 million barrels a day. Locked out of global oil markets by U.S. sanctions, the state-owned oil company sells most of its output at a steep discount to refiners in China.

The transactions usually involve a complex network of shadowy intermediaries, as sanctions have scared away more established traders. Many are shell companies, registered in jurisdictions known for secrecy. The buyers deploy so-called ghost tankers that hide their location and hand off their valuable cargoes in the middle of the ocean before they reach their final destination.

Maduro did not address the seizure during a speech before a ruling-party organized demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. But he told supporters that the country is “prepared to break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary.”

Maduro, flanked by senior officials, said only the ruling party can “guarantee peace, stability, and the harmonious development of Venezuela, South America and the Caribbean.”

Maduro previously has insisted the real purpose of the U.S. military operations is to force him from office.

During past negotiations, among the concessions the U.S. has made to Maduro was approval for oil giant Chevron Corp. to resume pumping and exporting Venezuelan oil. The corporation’s activities in the South American country resulted in a financial lifeline for Maduro’s government.

The seizure comes a day after the U.S. military flew a pair of fighter jets over the Gulf of Venezuela in what appeared to be the closest that warplanes had come to the South American country’s airspace. Trump has said land attacks are coming soon but has not offered more details.

The Trump administration is facing increasing scrutiny from lawmakers over the boat strike campaign, which has killed at least 87 people in 22 known strikes since early September, including a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a boat after the first hit.

Some legal experts and Democrats say that action may have violated the laws governing the use of deadly military force.

Lawmakers are demanding to get unedited video from the strikes, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told congressional leaders Tuesday he was still weighing whether to release it. Hegseth provided a classified briefing for congressional leaders alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

It was not immediately clear Wednesday who owned the tanker or what national flag it was sailing under. The Coast Guard referred a request for comment to the White House.

Associated Press writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

The U.S. Navy on Friday salvaged an F/A-18F Super Hornet and MH-60R Seahawk helicopter that went down in the South China Sea on Oct. 26, the U.S. 7th Fleet said this week.

Task Force 73 — along with Task Force 75, Naval Sea Systems Command’s supervisor of salvage and diving and CTG 73.6’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit — recovered both aircraft from a depth of around 400 feet.

“Everyone involved brought critical expertise ensuring we could safely and successfully bring these aircraft back under U.S. custody,” said Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Andersen, the CTF 73 officer in charge of the recovery effort.

“This operation highlights the importance of naval integration, readiness, and the unmatched capability of our salvage and diving teams,” he said.

The retrieved aircraft are being sent to an unnamed U.S. Indo-Pacific military installation for further analysis.

Navy tries to recover helicopter, jet that crashed in South China Sea

The causes of the crashes are under investigation.

The USNS Salvor, a Safeguard-class salvage ship operated by Military Sealift Command, arrived Nov. 12 to conduct recovery efforts.

Both aircraft, which were assigned to the USS Nimitz, went down less than an hour apart while on routine operations.

The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group deployed assets to help rescue three members from the helicopter, which was assigned to the “Battle Cats” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 73.

The two crew members piloting the F/A-18F, assigned to the Strike Fighter Squadron 22 “Fighting Redcocks,” ejected before the crash and were rescued.

Canceled by President Grover Cleveland. Restored by then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt — the Army-Navy football game is in its 135th year.

The first game, played on the Plain at West Point on Nov. 29, 1890, set the tone for the rivalry, with both teams meting out heavy punishment.

Navy’s captain, Red Emrich, was knocked unconscious twice during the game but continued to play, while Army quarterback, Kirby Walker, was also knocked unconscious twice and had to be carried off the field.

A photo from the first #armynavy game in 1890 played at West Point. Navy won 24-0! #gonavybeatarmy pic.twitter.com/lNgei1Rxnl

— USNA Museum (@USNAMuseum) December 8, 2014

From there the intensity of the rivalry grew, coming to a head during the 1893 game. After the achingly low score of 6-4, the stands erupted into several bloody melees. To make matters worse, an incident between a rear admiral and a brigadier general nearly led to a duel after the Navy victory.

Amid the hubbub, Cleveland stepped in and banned the contest indefinitely, and for the next five years the rivalry was defused.

However, in 1897 Roosevelt deftly sought to bring back the match. In a letter to the Secretary of War Russell Alger under President William McKinley, Roosevelt wrote, “I should like very much to revive the football games between Annapolis and West Point.”

Roosevelt said that “if the authorities of both institutions agreed to take measures to prevent any excesses such as betting and the like, and to prevent any manifestations of an improper character — if as I say all this were done — and it certainly could be done without difficulty — then I don’t see why it would not be a good thing to have a game this year.” Alger and McKinley concurred, and the series resumed in 1899.

World War I would interrupt the rivalry twice — the games were suspended in 1917 and 1918. However, during World War II, the game itself interrupted the war. In 1944, after No. 1-ranked Army beat No. 2-ranked Navy 23-7, Army coach Earl “Red” Blaik received a telegram from the Pacific: “The greatest of all Army teams—STOP—We have stopped the war to celebrate your magnificent success.” It was signed “MacArthur."

So this year give thanks to the Man in the Arena — and whoever you’re pulling for, make sure to guard your goat, guard your mule.

The Army-Navy game will be held Saturday, Dec. 13, at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland, and will be broadcast on CBS. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. EST.

The U.S. Army on Tuesday charged a OB-GYN with secretly filming the medical exams of dozens of people.

“The U.S. Army Office of Special Trial Counsel preferred four charges and 61 specifications against Maj. Blaine McGraw,” the Army’s Office of Special Trial Counsel said in a statement, adding that the offenses occurred between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1, 2025 and that there were 44 victims.

Over 50 of the specifications were for “indecent visual record,” five were of conduct unbecoming of an officer, one was for willful disobedience of a superior officer and one was for making a false statement.

The Army said that the majority of alleged incidents happened during examinations with female patients at the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood, Texas, and that one victim — not a patient — was unknowingly recorded at a private home.

The doctor is currently being held in a Texas jail on pre-trial confinement after apparently “violating conditions of the commander,” the Army said in a separate statement.

McGraw was also accused of sexual misconduct, including the secret filming of a breast and pelvic exam, in a 13-page civil lawsuit filed in November in Bell County, Texas.

Protect our Defenders, a national nonprofit organization that combats sexual violence in the military, said in a Tuesday statement that it is representing victims in the case and provided a link for other potential victims to seek legal help at no cost.

Before he practiced at Fort Hood, McGraw treated patients at the medical center in Hawaii from June 2019 to June 2023. Tripler announced last month that it was planning to notify McGraw’s former patients about the investigation and about how to contact Army investigators and reach out to the hospital for support.

“Survivors of military abuse deserve justice, accountability, and independent support. The situation at Fort Hood is a sobering reminder that servicemembers can still face profound risks from individuals they should be able to trust,” said Nancy Parrish, the organization’s CEO.