KYIV, Ukraine — While interceptor drones have become one of the most sought-after commodities of the Iran war, Ukrainian officials and defense practitioners are cautioning allies to recognize that the pace of today’s battlefield requires them to buy into an entirely new system of production alongside the endpoint weapon.

“Expertise is not a drone, but a skill, a strategy, a system where a drone is one part of the defense,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Reuters on Monday.

Ukraine now produces roughly 1,000 interceptor drones a day through hundreds of vetted manufacturers, deliberately dispersed so that no single strike can cripple the supply chain, Zelenskyy reported last month. The country has the technical capacity to double that figure, he said, but lacks the budget to do so.

While Ukraine has built that infrastructure gradually over the last few years, most countries now trying to integrate interceptors into the air defense have not invested in building the necessary logistical framework needed to effectively build, arm or deploy the cheap flyers.

Some countries have already learned this lesson the hard way.

After some Ukrainian companies built interceptor drone factories abroad without state approval, multiple buyers complained because the drones were sold without the warheads or expertise needed to operate them properly, Zelenskyy said on Friday, per Ukrainska Pravda.

“They had also been sold a certain number of interceptors — again without explosives,” Zelenskyy said about a European country he visited recently. “And they asked me whether we could send more operators. I said no.”

The bottleneck isn’t the interceptor itself, but the logistics infrastructure to produce and sustain them at scale, officials said.

“It seems there is still a misconception,” Artem Moroz, head of investor relations at Brave1, wrote on LinkedIn last month.

Brave1, Ukraine’s defense-tech accelerator, has worked with more than 500 defense startups since 2023 and now serves as the primary gateway for foreign governments seeking access to Ukrainian drone technology and production partnerships.

“Many believe Ukraine could simply send a few hundred interceptor drones to the Middle East and stop the Shahed drones currently hitting critical infrastructure,” Moroz said. “Drone warfare is far more complex than that.

“Yes, hardware matters. And Ukraine knows how to build drones at scale. But the real advantage lies in the infrastructure behind them.”

Companies launch drone-production innovations

The gap between buying a drone and building the system to sustain it is the market several defense companies are now racing to fill.

A handful of defense companies from Helsinki to San Francisco are offering the production line, the detection system and the supply infrastructure compressed into a portable unit that can be shipped anywhere to produce up to dozens of drones a day.

Sensofusion, a Finnish defense company founded in 2016, sells a full-cycle drone production chain as one of the latest innovators in this arena.

The company’s $2.4 million (€2.1 million Euros) Tactical Drone Factory is a standard 20-foot shipping container equipped with industrial 3D printers, an electronics assembly station and enough spares to run around the clock with a crew of three, producing up to 50 interceptor drones a day, according to the company.

What sets the Finnish system apart from its competitors is that it’s not just a factory: It ships as a package with Sensofusion’s Airfence radio-frequency detection and tracking platform, designed to detect a hostile drone, cue an interceptor and guide it to the kill — a full sensor-to-effector chain in a box.

The company says each interceptor costs less than $580 (€500) and is built to chase targets at speeds up to 310 mph (500 km/h).

Although Sensofusion boasts some of the highest production numbers on the market, it’s not the first company to market the concept of a portable all-in-one drone production hub.

Firestorm Labs' xCell system, the most tested U.S. equivalent to Sensofusion, uses two containers and works at a significantly slower pace by producing roughly 50 drones per month. Its newly announced SQUALL airframe is the first drone purpose-built to come off a mobile factory line, according to the company.

Founded in 2022, Firestorm’s biggest selling point is its testing and validation. The company holds a $100 million U.S. Air Force contract, has run field exercises with Air Force Special Operations Command and the Air National Guard and raised $47 million in Series A funding.

Per Se Systems, a French firm, operates in a middle ground by building micro drone factories on trailers — instead of shipping containers — that produce up to ten drones per hour on a generator with 19 hours of autonomous operation.

Per Se has been field-tested with 12 French Army regiments and is embedded in four active development projects with the French military, according to Army Recognition.

The drawbacks of production containers

Some logistics and strategy specialists say the all-in-one package wrapped into the portable factory concept ignores some critical battlefield questions that could render the projects useless.

A container full of printers, raw materials, sensitive electronics and proprietary design files concentrates exactly the kind of capability an adversary would want to destroy or capture, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis that identified several strategic vulnerabilities in frontline drone production.

And the problems compound from there.

Airframes can be printed, but the motors, batteries, electronic speed controllers, radios and sensors that make a drone combat-capable cannot, and those components must be trucked to the container through the same supply chains the factory is supposed to bypass.

Quality control under field conditions remains untested. Vibration, temperature swings, dust and intermittent power degrade the dimensional tolerances that 3D-printed parts require, and no company has demonstrated sustained production outside a controlled environment.

“Industrial resilience is combat power,” the CSIS experts concluded. “The next war will not be won by who initially fields the most drones, but by who sustains building them at scale.”

Several countries are catching on to the growing need to invest in drone production logistics.

Five NATO nations — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Poland — launched a joint initiative in February to develop affordable interceptor drones within a year under a program called LEAP, explicitly drawing on Ukrainian battlefield know-how to do it.

Ukraine’s experts say they are ready and willing to share their hard-earned lessons with allies, including the strategies to build a new layer of defense alongside the new weapons themselves.

“What Ukraine has built is a deep operational ecosystem across multiple domains, designed for conflicts where entirely new types of threats appear,” Brave1’s Moroz said.

“And ecosystems like this are extremely hard to copy,” he explained. “Even investing hundreds of billions or a trillion today would not easily replicate the experience, integration, and speed of iteration built over years of real combat.”

His final words of advice to allies?

“Drones are the tool. The infrastructure is the weapon.”

Editor’s note: This report contains discussion of suicide. Troops, veterans and family members experiencing suicidal thoughts can call the 24-hour Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 and dial 1, text 838255 or visit VeteransCrisisLine.net.

A Department of Defense suicide report found that 471 service members died by suicide in calendar year 2024, down from 531 in 2023, according to the report released Tuesday.

In the Department of Defense’s seventh-annual report on suicide in the military, the department found that even though the total force suicide rate decreased by around 11% for 2024’s calendar year, suicide rates have gradually increased in the active component from 2011 to 2024.

The department began collecting data on service members’ suicides in 2011 when the Defense Suicide Prevention Office was established. After accounting for age and sex, the increase in active component suicide rates from 2011 to 2024 reflects the increase in U.S. population suicide rates, the report says.

“Overall military suicide rates have not differed meaningfully from those of the U.S. population for most years since 2011,” the report states.

“This result indicates that the military suicide rates resemble trends in the country as a whole,” the report continues.

Like previous years, the majority of the active-duty service members who died by suicide in 2024 were enlisted males under the age of 30 — making up 64% of the service members who died by suicide during that year, according to the report.

Even as the active component’s suicides have steadily increased since 2011, the rate has decreased by around 16% from 2023 to 2024, the department found.

While the Reserve suicide rate decreased by approximately 14%, the National Guard suicide rate increased by around 13%. Suicide rates for the Reserve component, including the National Guard, have remained stable from 2011 to 2024.

Divorces or separated service members had a higher suicide rate compared to the overall active component between 2022 and 2024, while female service members who were 30 or older or a warrant or commissioned officer had a lower suicide rate.

The report states that firearm usage was the most common death by suicide method in the active component, Reserve and National Guard in 2024 and in the U.S. population in 2023. Poisoning was the leading method for attempted suicides, the report says.

“Recognizing that every death by suicide is a tragedy, the Department will continue to take action to support our men and women in uniform and their families, promote the wellbeing and resilience of the force, and take steps to prevent suicide in our military community,” the Tuesday statement announcing the report’s results reads.

To help service members in need of support, the Department of Defense has expanded the availability of clinical services, like telehealth, and service members can also self-refer for mental health evaluations as part of the Brandon Act, the report says.

In its 2025 suicide prevention campaign, the department focused on building connections across the military and reducing stigma, while the Defense Suicide Prevention Office uses social media as a way to reach service members.

The Defense Department has paired with the Department of Veterans Affairs, among other federal agencies, to increase publicly accessible mobile app usage that supports mental health, like Virtual Hope Box and Breathe2Relax.

For veterans, there has been a downward trend in suicides since 2018, shown by the February release of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs’ suicide prevention report for 2023. Over 6,000 veterans died by suicide in 2023, with roughly 17.5 veterans’ deaths per day, last month’s VA report found.

Citing “increased force protection measures,” visitors to boot camp graduation and family days at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, can expect federal agents checking on their lawful immigration status, according to an announcement posted on the base’s official web page.

NBC, which first reported the news, confirmed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel would be posted outside the base, which trains about 20,000 recruits annually and holds about 40 graduation ceremonies a year.

Officials with Marine Corps Headquarters, Parris Island and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to Marine Corps Times queries about the move.

“Due to MCRD’s increased Force Protection Measures, Federal Law Enforcement personnel will be present at installation access points to conduct enhanced screening and lawful immigration status inquiries during Recruit Family and Graduation Days,” the Corps’ message read.

NBC published a confirmation from the Marine Corps that this is “the first time in recent memory that federal law enforcement agencies have supported base access operations,” as well as DHS statements saying ICE planned no on-site arrests as part of its work.

Notably, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, the Corps’ West Coast training base, has published no public statement or alert about a federal presence there.

This development comes amid national efforts to locate and deport immigrants without legal residency status, ushering mass deployments of ICE agents to cities including Minneapolis and Chicago and, most recently, ICE reinforcements at U.S. airports.

It also comes as bases shore up security in recognition of increased threats as the U.S. enters its second month of conflict with Iran. Earlier this month, for example, Fort Meade, Maryland, announced that it was ramping up vehicle inspections and closing the base off to rideshare and delivery drivers who didn’t have a Defense Department-issued ID card.

Some bases in the Pacific, likewise, have raised their alert status from Alpha to Bravo, indicating “an increased or more predictable threat of terrorist activity exists” in light of the Iran threat.

The move to check the legal immigration status of military family members contrasts with efforts of some to promote the military as a pathway for children of the undocumented to secure a safe haven for their parents. In January, the New York Times reported on an Oregon-based National Guard recruiter who promoted the unique DHS Parole in Place program — available to military family members — as a reason to join the military.

The program, as described on the DHS website, grants parole, or protection from deportation on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.” It’s specifically for family members of U.S. service members.

The Times reported that 11,500 military family members took advantage of the offer in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that he made a secret wartime trip to the Middle East to meet with American troops fighting in Operation Epic Fury.

Hegseth, speaking during a press briefing at the Pentagon, asserted that morale is high and service members are determined to “finish the mission.” He declined to disclose the precise location of the bases that he toured over the weekend.

More than a month into the joint U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, Hegseth warned that the coming days could prove pivotal, even as the broader course of the conflict remains unsettled.

“The upcoming days will be decisive. Iran knows that, and there’s nothing they can militarily do about it,” he said. “We have more and more options, and they have less.”

Pressed on whether the influx of newly arrived Marines and Army paratroopers might be used in ground operations on Iranian territory, Hegseth offered no indication either way.

“You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do, to include boots on the ground,” Hegseth said. “Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground and guess what? There are.”

He added: “If we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the President of the United States and this department. Or maybe we don’t have to use them at all.”

Limited missions, big risks: What a US ground fight in Iran could become

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced that B-52 Stratofortress bombers have begun conducting missions over Iran, taking advantage of U.S. forces gaining air superiority over the country.

Caine said the campaign remains focused on “interdicting and destroying the logistical and supply chains that feed” the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile, drone and naval production facilities, aiming to limit Tehran’s ability to replenish key weapons.

The Pentagon news conference began roughly one hour after President Donald Trump, in a post on Truth Social, lashed out at American allies for resisting his demands for help in the Middle East. He told nations who are facing fuel shortages to “build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT.”

The United States “won’t be there to help you anymore,” Trump said, adding that “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your oil!”

The de facto shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz since the conflict began has sent global energy prices soaring, imperiling supply chains that under normal circumstances transport roughly a fifth of the world’s oil.

Hegseth echoed the president’s message in his Pentagon briefing, calling on America’s partners — specifically the United Kingdom — to assume a larger role.

“There are countries around the world who ought be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well,” Hegseth said. “It’s not just the United States Navy. The last time I checked, there was supposed to be a big, bad, Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well.”

An ammunition technician specialist at the School of Infantry West stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, has been federally indicted for stealing Javelin Missile Systems, AT4 antitank weapons and ammunition “so lethal that the public cannot legally possess it,” the District Court of Arizona charges.

Andrew Paul Amarillas, a 23-year-old corporal in the Marine Corps, was stationed at Camp Pendleton from February 2022 through January 2026, during which he allegedly embezzled and stole U.S. military property and ammunition with the intent to resell them in Arizona, the district attorney charges.

According to a March 24, 2026, court filing, Amarillas has been charged with several federal crimes related to the theft and possession of government property.

Amarillas has been an active-duty Marine since 2021, joining shortly after he graduated from high school in Glendale, Arizona.

“Defendant is an active-duty U.S. Marine. But instead of faithfully serving his country, he has been stealing weapons and ammunition from the military base at which he was stationed for several years. … The full extent of how much Defendant stole, to whom he all sold it, and how it has been used is not yet known—though law enforcement is working feverishly to find out,” the Detention Memorandum reads.

Some — but not all — of the stolen material has been recovered.

Investigators say that Amarillas transported the stolen weapons and ammunition back to his home state, where he sold them to a network of co-conspirators who in turn resold the military-grade weaponry.

The court documents include text messages sent between Amarillas and his unnamed co-conspirators, with prosecutors noting that when police closed in on the Marine he “destroyed his phone (telling his parents he accidentally drove over it).”

In June 2025, after exchanging text messages about whom “‘Andrew’ was going to leave ‘that stuff with,’” two co-conspirators sent texts with an image of a rifle with a scope sitting on the top of a large, plastic crate, as well as a rifle with a scope sitting on top of a bed and two Javelin Missile Systems.

One of the unidentified co-conspirators noted, “Scope is on ready to go with ammo,” according to court documents.

Two months later, Amarillas texted: “Just [got] some javs and some other ones. [I] have 2 launchers that [I] think you’d like, if you want to take a look tomorrow.”

The Javelin Missile System, known as a “fire-and-forget” missile, is an anti-tank guided munition that can be carried and launched by a single person and used against a wide array of targets, including armored vehicles, bunkers and caves, according to Raytheon.

The weapons system is manufactured exclusively by Lockheed Martin and RTX Corp for the U.S. military and cannot be legally possessed or sold to members of the public unless explicitly demilitarized. According to prosecutors, the Javelin recovered in this case was not demilitarized — and its serial number matched one that Amarillas had signed out from the School of Infantry West, court documents show.

Prosecutors further allege that Amarillas sold M855A1 and M80A1 ammunition, as well as M855 “enhanced performance” rifle cartridges manufactured by Olin Winchester. While M855 rifle cartridges can be sold to the public, the Olin Winchester M855 cartridges sold to the U.S. military are packaged differently and cannot be resold or possessed by civilians.

November 2025 text messages show that Amarillas offered 30 cans of M855 ammunition, explaining to the co-conspirator that that meant 25,000 rounds.

Over the subsequent two weeks, the Marine stole 66 boxes of the rifle ammunition, with only a third being recovered — some purchased by undercover police officers, while others were seized.

Law enforcement traced the lot number on these cans from the Tooele Army Depot to the Ammo Supply Point at Camp Pendleton, according to court documents.

Amarillas was scheduled to leave Camp Pendleton for an eight-week training course in Quantico, Virginia, from January to March 2026, where upon completion, the Marine was set to deploy to the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar.

Law enforcement intercepted and arrested Amarillas before he completed that training.

On March 26, Amarillas pleaded not guilty to the charges in a Phoenix federal courthouse. If convicted, he faces up to five years imprisonment for a conspiracy charge and 10 years imprisonment for each of his substantive charges, according to the court documents.

U.S. troops are deploying to the Middle East by the thousands as the Pentagon weighs the possibility of ground operations in Iran. The movement raises a question: What would those missions actually look like on the ground?

Military analysts point to several possibilities, including coastal assaults, nuclear site raids or operations deeper inside the country.

Any one of these missions could unfold alone or evolve into something more broad. But across each scenario, U.S. forces would enter an environment where Iranian missiles, drones and ground units could begin targeting them as soon as they arrive.

A battle for the waterway

One version of the fight would likely unfold along the water.

U.S. forces could be tasked with seizing islands or coastal positions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a global shipping route that has been heavily disrupted by the war with Iran.

The mission could be a limited ground incursion, with Marines and airborne units deploying to seize important terrain, said Joe Costa, director of the Forward Defense program at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center.

President Donald Trump has publicly threatened Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub, which is located off the country’s coast.

In a Truth Social post on Monday, he said the U.S. would finish its “stay” in Iran, by “completely obliterating” Kharg Island.

Costa, a former senior Pentagon official who worked on U.S. war plans, including Iran, acknowledged speculation about Kharg, but also described a scenario in which U.S. forces would try to secure islands such as Abu Musa, Larak and the Tunbs, off Iran’s southern coast.

“This helps us take out Iranian reconnaissance units as we think of ways to reopen Hormuz. If you have the ability to secure some of the ports along the coast as well, you go a long way to supporting naval assets to start to open up the Strait,” Costa said, adding that the operation could rely on Marine units for the initial assault, with airborne forces supporting limited incursions and air assault operations — all under U.S. air superiority.

The USS Tripoli and embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit arrived in the region’s waters last Friday, and the elements of the 82nd Airborne Division are deploying to the Middle East, the Pentagon confirmed last week.

An opening fight would not be in isolation, Costa said, and though there are mixed reports about Iranian military capacity right now, the country still appears to have functional command and control and is capable of attacks.

The first waves of U.S. ground troops would undoubtedly face Iranian fire, Costa warned.

“We have overwhelming force and would likely be successful in securing territory, but at that point every commander will face the daily decision of assuming risk to troops or risk to mission — force protection becomes paramount, especially if we start to see casualties mount up,” he said, adding, “There’s a high risk of that in this operation.”

Targeting nuclear sites

A different type of operation would focus on Iran’s nuclear program instead of territory.

Instead of seizing ground, U.S. forces could be tasked with entering fortified sites and securing material, likely under fire and deep within Iranian territory.

An operation aimed at seizing enriched uranium would likely involve special forces at a nuclear site in Isfahan, a populous city in the center of the country, said Nicole Grajewski, an expert on Iran’s missiles and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Excavating nuclear material would require a myriad of support, from construction equipment to Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear assets, Grajewski, a professor at Sciences Po, said.

Ground forces would likely have to dig deep underground to access the highly enriched uranium canisters “and then go in there, excavate it, then get out of the country,” she added.

An extraction team would likely be met with force. The area is heavily trafficked, and the nuclear site in Isfahan is located near numerous military and missile facilities, making it exceedingly risky.

Grajewski described the operation as likely “one that the U.S. military has not really done before,” and said experts could only speculate on how it would be accomplished.

“I’m not sure how they’re thinking about doing it,” she said, pondering if “they’re going to fly in there and do this quick extraction under the guise of night?”

Iran’s response

Even targeted operations like seizing an island or extracting nuclear materials carry the risk of evolving into something larger.

Dan Grazier, the director of the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center, said the challenges U.S. forces may face goes beyond securing land or items. It centers on how Iran chooses to fight once American soldiers are on its ground.

“The Iranians are going to do whatever they can to kill and capture as many Americans as they can,” said Grazier, who is also a Marine Corps veteran, “for the propaganda victory alone.”

Rather than seeking decisive engagement, Iranian forces would likely avoid conventional confrontation and stretch the conflict over time, he said. Instead of defeating U.S. forces, he added, Iran’s objective becomes making the conflict costly and prolonged, forcing leaders in Washington to decide whether the fight is worth continuing.

Any sustained ground operation would also risk widening the battlefield, as Iran could activate proxy groups across the region to further target U.S. forces and partners.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies in early March estimated that the first 100 hours of the war cost billions of dollars, and experts warn that critical air defense interceptors could be depleted faster than the rate of replacement.

The human cost has also risen as the war enters its second month. Thirteen American service members had been killed and over 300 injured as of late March. A survey earlier in March found that a majority of Americans thought the war had gone too far, and a separate poll showed diminished confidence in the president’s handling of it.

“The Iranians don’t stand any chance of defeating the United States on the ground, I don’t think,” Grazier said. “They do stand a chance of defeating the United States politically back home.”

On March 8, 1965, 3,500 Marines of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade — the first combat troops in Vietnam — waded ashore to the coastal city of Da Nang.

Unlike their forefathers, who were met with lethal sprays of machine guns and shells on the shores of the Pacific and Europe during World War II, these Marines were, almost comically, met by the mayor of Da Nang with girls placing wreaths around the Marines’ necks. Four American soldiers met them with a large sign stating: “Welcome, Gallant Marines.”

“Garlanded like ancient heroes, they then marched off to seize Hill 327, which turned out to be occupied only by rock apes — gorillas instead of guerrillas, as the joke went — who did not contest the intrusion of their upright and heavily armed cousins,” writes the Council on Foreign Relations.

While the U.S. had been involved in Vietnam for over a decade, with the U. S. Military Assistance Advisory Group existing in Vietnam as early as 1950, the arrival of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade historically marks the Americanization of the Vietnam War.

Many in the upper echelons of American policymaking welcomed the landings. However, Maxwell Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam at the time and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed strong reservations. He predicted that it would be difficult to “hold the line” on further force commitments.

His fears would prove accurate.

By the end of 1965, 185,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam. Less than three years later, the city that welcomed the Americans with handshakes and leis had become the host to high-level U.S. and South Vietnamese operations, including the headquarters of I Corps, the military zone encompassing South Vietnam’s northern provinces.

March of Folly

From the moment he was sworn into the presidency on Nov. 22, 1963, Lyndon B. Johnson was hardened to the notion that he was not going to be the first American president to lose a war, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman in her book “The March of Folly”.

“Johnson’s idea was to fight and negotiate simultaneously,” she wrote. “The difficulty was that the limited war aim … was unachievable by limited war. The North had no intention of ever conceding a non-Communist South, and since such a concession could have been forced upon them only by military victory, and since such a victory was unattainable by the United States short of total war and invasion, which it was unwilling to undertake, the American war aim was therefore foreclosed.

“If this was recognized by some, it was not acted upon because no one was prepared to admit American failure. Activists could believe the bombing might succeed; doubters could vaguely hope some solution would turn up.”

As Johnson chose to fight and negotiate simultaneously, Operation Rolling Thunder began in earnest. The soon-to-be frequently interrupted bombing campaign had begun just prior to the sustained American ground campaign. The operation, which began on Feb. 24, 1965, had initially begun as a diplomatic signal to impress the North Vietnamese of America’s determination and serve as a warning that the violence would continue to escalate unless Ho Chi Minh “blinked.”

According to the Air Force Historical Division, Gen. Curtis LeMay argued that “military targets, rather than the enemy’s resolve, should be attacked and that the blows should be rapid and sharp.” When that outcome failed to arise after the first several weeks in March 1965, “the purpose of the campaign began to change.”

Throughout the next decade, more than 2.6 million U.S. servicemen and women eventually rotated through Vietnam. More than 58,000 of them died there, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Now, with President Donald Trump weighing his next steps in the war against Iran and thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division arriving in the Middle East, certain parallels have begun to emerge between the opening days of the wars with Vietnam and Iran.

Operation Epic Fury

Since Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28, over 11,000 targets have been struck.

“Targetry never makes up for a lack of strategy,” Gen. Jim Mattis, who served as Trump’s first defense secretary, cautioned in a recent interview. “By that I mean 15,000 targets have been hit. There have been significant military successes. But they are not matched by strategic outcomes”

Now, according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon is putting together plans for weeks of ground operations in Iran as U.S. forces amass in the region.

Citing multiple U.S. officials, the Post report suggested ground operations could involve both conventional infantry and special operations elements, but would not yet rise to the level of a full-scale invasion.

“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander in chief maximum optionality,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement provided to Military Times. “It does not mean the president has made a decision.”

The Post’s report comes as U.S. military assets continue to flood the region. On Friday, U.S. Marines and sailors assigned to the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group arrived in U.S. Central Command waters.

The Pentagon has also confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are deploying to the Middle East. Based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

The report also comes on the heels of an Iranian missile and drone attack on Friday that injured a dozen U.S. service members at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Two of the 12 injuries are considered to be serious.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command.

Jon Simkins contributed to this report.

Thousands of soldiers from the U.S. Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division have started arriving in the Middle East, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday, as President Donald Trump weighs his next steps in the war against Iran.

Reuters first reported on March 18 that Trump’s administration was considering deploying thousands of additional U.S. troops to the Middle East, a move that would expand options to include the deployment of forces ​inside Iranian territory.

The paratroopers, based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, add to the thousands of additional sailors, Marines and Special Operations forces sent to the region. Over the weekend, about 2,500 Marines arrived in the Middle East.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, did not say specifically where the soldiers were deploying to, but the move was expected.

The additional Army soldiers include elements of the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters, some logistics and other support, and one brigade combat team.

No decision has been made to send troops into Iran, but they will build up capacity for potential future operations in the region, one of the sources said.

Options for Trump

The soldiers could be used for several purposes in the Iran war, including an attempt to seize Kharg Island, the hub for 90% of Iran’s oil exports.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported there had been discussions within the Trump administration about an operation to take the island. Such a move would be highly risky, since Iran can reach the island with missiles and drones.

Reuters has previously reported the administration has discussed using ground forces inside Iran to extract highly enriched uranium, though that option could mean U.S. troops deeper inside Iran for potentially longer periods of time, trying to dig out material that is deep underground.

Pentagon reportedly preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran

The internal Trump administration discussions have also included potentially putting U.S. troops inside Iran to secure safe passage for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. While that mission would be accomplished primarily through air and naval forces, it could also mean deploying U.S. troops to Iran’s shoreline.

Trump said on Monday the United States was in ​talks with a “more reasonable regime” to end ‌the war in Iran, but repeated his warning to Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz or risk U.S. attacks on its oil wells ​and power plants.

Any use of U.S. ground troops — even for a limited mission — could pose significant political risks for Trump, given low ⁠American public ​support for the Iran campaign and Trump’s own pre-election promises to avoid entangling the ​U.S. in new Middle East conflicts.

Since operations started on February 28, the U.S. has carried out strikes against more than 11,000 targets. More than 300 U.S. troops have been injured and 13 service members have been killed as part of Operation Epic Fury.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division last month revealed the service’s new “Drone Killer Cartridge,” or DKC, a small-arms ammunition specifically designed to destroy small quadcopter drones.

In the announcement, Brian Hoffman, chief engineer of NSWC Crane’s Man-Portable Weapons, explained that the ammo works much like a shotshell in that it disperses a cluster of projectiles, but it’s designed to be fired from a service rifle or machine gun instead of a shotgun.

“The intent with our ammunition was to simply give operators a better chance of killing drones with cost-effective products that can be used in existing weapons,” Hoffman said in the release. “If you aren’t the world’s best shot or don’t have a lot of experience engaging aerial targets, your odds go up immediately with DKC.”

The cartridge’s design, coupled with the range and velocity of typical centerfire rifle ammo, increases the probability of “hit and kill” against drones, Hoffman said.

In a recent demonstration at Indiana’s Camp Atterbury, DKC achieved a 92% success rate.

Hoffman explained that the DKC product line is “already mature” and applicable for not just killing drones but also “home defense, personal protection and hunting.”

And if it sounds like he’s pitching the product line, that’s because he is. The other part of NSWC Crane’s announcement is that it’s looking for partners to manufacture DKC ammo.

The tech link

Hoffman explained that the Navy typically relies on the Army for small-caliber ammunition under the Single Manager for Conventional Ammunition directive. However, it procures ammo through government contracts with industry partners if not supported by the SMCA.

For that reason, NSWC Crane’s announcement was also featured on TechLink, a Defense Department-funded organization run by Montana State University that helps businesses license technology from federal laboratories.

Using the website, manufacturers can license and commercialize products, like DKC ammo, which have been fully developed and patented by the federal government. The intent behind the project is to help veterans, the military and small businesses.

As small drones are now seen as a common weapon on the battlefield, military and other agency leaders project needing millions of DKC rounds, Hoffman said.

“Ongoing conflicts abroad and operational requirements along the U.S. southern border highlight the immediate utility of DKC and its enhanced yet cost-effective capabilities,” he said in the release.

Exactly who is going to manufacture the ammo has not yet been announced. However, Hoffman added that NSWC Crane recently hosted a DKC-licensing event attended by several U.S. ammo makers, and they received even more interest because of the announcement.

Still, Hoffman said DKC ammo production will evolve in the not-too-distant future.

“Given projected requirements, meeting total DKC quantities will likely involve a combination of (Government‑Owned, Contractor‑Operated) production and licensed industry partners operating in parallel,” he said.

An Oregon senator has placed a hold on unanimous consent promotions for three military officers, citing behavior — including war zone misconduct allegations and a podcast with extremist language and viewpoints — that he says make the officers “unfit” for higher roles.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., placed a hold Wednesday on the promotions of Marine Lt. Col. Vincent Noble, Col. Thomas Siverts and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Thomas MacNeil, saying his objections to a process that would quickly approve the promotions as a bloc was based on “misconduct or concerning judgement.”

In responses provided to Military Times, Wyden’s office made clear that the holds were a direct response to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reported decision to pull two Black and two female military officers from a list of troops up for promotion to general or flag officer.

“Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have launched an unprecedented politicization of the military promotion process, most recently, reportedly blocking promotions for Black and female officers,” Wyden said. “I asked my staff to vet potential promotions, to ensure the Senate is doing its job to ensure the officers leading our armed forces continue to meet the services’ high standards.”

In the case of Noble and MacNeil, Wyden cited their proximity to highly publicized war crimes cases dating as far back as 2007.

Noble, then a captain, had been the leader of a Marine Corps special operations platoon deployed to Afghanistan in 2007 when the unit became involved in an ambush that left up to 19 Afghans dead and dozens more wounded.

The Marines were accused of war crimes, and Noble and another officer, Maj. Fred Galvin, were sent to a rare court of inquiry military proceeding back in the states. But ultimately, the government opted not to charge the men after a three-star overseeing the case determined they “acted appropriately.”

Military Times investigated the incident in 2015, finding through the examination of newly declassified documents that the Marines were unjustly held to account for what was a combat engagement.

Wyden described it differently in his statement Wednesday in the congressional record.

“Military investigations found that Lieutenant Colonel Noble’s platoon fired indiscriminately on civilians in Afghanistan in 2007, and he was disciplined for filing a false report and asking Marines under his command to lie about the attack, according to military records,” the senator said, though he linked to a New York Times report from the time that quoted a source saying neither Galvin nor Noble fired a weapon in the engagement.

Wyden’s office did not provide additional information or context when asked about the statements regarding Noble.

MacNeil’s war zone case, which dates to 2017, is linked to that of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was accused by his own unit of war crimes in Iraq, including stabbing a 17-year-old ISIS-linked prisoner to death. Gallagher was acquitted on charges linked to the death but found guilty of posing for photos with the prisoner’s corpse.

President Donald Trump intervened in 2019 to keep Gallagher from being stripped of his SEAL trident in the matter. MacNeil, then a lieutenant, testified against Gallagher in his trial but can be seen in a unit photo with him and nine other SEALs posing behind the corpse.

After Trump’s intervention with Gallagher, the Navy gave up efforts to strip MacNeil and two other SEALs of their tridents, and the matter was dealt with through internal “administrative measures,” acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly said at the time.

“While MacNeil was the junior member of his platoon and eventually testified against Gallagher, he exercised poor judgement as an officer and should not be promoted within the United States military,” Wyden said in arguing against his promotion.

The case of Siverts is different. Wyden highlighted appearances on a podcast, The Berm Pit, co-hosted by the colonel’s brother, Scott Siverts. The Anti-Defamation League, a global anti-hate organization, describes the podcast as far-right and antisemitic, and its social media feeds reveal re-posts of antisemitic memes and other offensive content.

The left-wing news outlet RawStory, which regularly covers extremism, previously reported that Siverts, who has served most recently with the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, had been reported to the Defense Department Inspector General for appearing on an episode of The Berm Pit in which one of the co-hosts joked about wanting to put “six bullets” into Hegseth’s head.

The IG opted not to open an investigation into the matter, and it’s not clear whether any administrative action was taken.

Wyden’s statement highlights a March 2023 appearance by Siverts on the podcast, since removed from the internet.

“Siverts’s participation in a podcast whose hosts espouse such bigotry raises serious questions about his character and professionalism, which are both relevant to his promotion to Brigadier General,” Wyden wrote. “To date, the Marine Corps has not provided me with a copy of this podcast episode to verify the nature of his participation in this podcast, nor has Siverts publicly apologized or expressed regret for his association with this podcast.”

A co-host of The Berm Pit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wyden told Military Times that he didn’t know how the nominations for Noble, MacNeil and Siverts made it out of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“The military should not promote officers who violate military codes, were involved in war crimes, or fail to live up to the U.S. armed forces standards. Our country is stronger and more secure when military leaders are promoted based on their qualifications and records, and held accountable when they fall short of those standards,” he said. " … I won’t shortcut the Senate process to help unfit personnel lead our servicemembers and degrade the fitness of our armed forces."

The Pentagon is putting together plans for weeks of ground operations in Iran as U.S. forces amass in the region, the Washington Post reported.

Citing multiple U.S. officials, the Post report suggested ground operations could involve both conventional infantry and special operations elements, but would not yet rise to the level of a full-scale invasion.

Decisions on whether or not to green light operations, which would put U.S. troops at substantially more risk to Iranian threats, now rest with President Donald Trump.

“It’s the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander in chief maximum optionality,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement provided to Military Times. “It does not mean the president has made a decision.”

The Post’s report comes as U.S. military assets continue to flood the region. On Friday, U.S. Marines and sailors assigned to the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group arrived in U.S. Central Command waters.

The group, which is led by the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli and includes the embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, departed earlier this month from its homeport of Sasebo, Japan.

The Pentagon has also confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are slated to deploy to the Middle East. Based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

The report also comes on the heels of an Iranian missile and drone attack on Friday that injured a dozen U.S. service members at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia. Two of the 12 injuries are considered to be serious.

The strike also reportedly damaged multiple U.S. aircraft, including an E-3 Sentry AWACS and multiple KC-135 tankers.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command.

Prior to Friday’s attack, 10 U.S. troops remained in serious condition.

U.S. Marines and sailors assigned to the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group arrived in U.S. Central Command waters on Friday, the command announced.

The group, led by the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, departed earlier this month from its homeport of Sasebo, Japan. Also included in the arriving force is the embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.

The Tripoli group began steaming toward the Middle East after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly approved a CENTCOM request for additional support to help curtail Iran’s regional attacks.

Announcement of the group’s arrival comes one day after a dozen U.S. service members were wounded in an Iranian missile and drone strike on Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal first reported. Two of the 12 personnel are in serious condition.

That strike, which reportedly damaged multiple U.S. refueling aircraft, comes as the U.S. military continues to pour assets into the region.

The Pentagon on Wednesday confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are slated to deploy to the Middle East. Based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the 82nd acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

The 31st MEU, meanwhile, includes a ground combat element, which features a battalion landing team — an infantry battalion and combat support elements — of around 1,100 Marines and sailors.

Also included is the MEU’s aviation combat element, which features tiltrotor and fixed-wing aircraft, transport and attack helicopters, ground support assets and air defense teams.

A combat logistics battalion with equipment and personnel capable of sustaining a MEU in austere environments for up to 15 days will also join the effort.

The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, part of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, has also been rumored to serve as a potential reinforcement. The group deployed in recent weeks and is currently operating in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations in the eastern Pacific.

The U.S. military on Saturday also announced that the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, which had been deployed in U.S.-Israeli operations against Iran, pulled into port in Split, Croatia, for maintenance.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command. Prior to Friday’s attack, 10 U.S. troops reportedly remained in serious condition.

Military Times reporters Riley Ceder and Eve Sampson contributed to this report.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, which had been deployed in U.S.-Israeli operations against Iran, anchored in Croatia’s Adriatic port of Split on Saturday for repairs and maintenance.

The Ford, America’s newest and the world’s largest carrier, was operating in the Red Sea in support of Operation Epic Fury when a non-combat fire broke out in its main laundry room on March 12, injuring three sailors.

Nearly 200 sailors were also treated for smoke-related issues, a U.S. official said at the time. The fire took hours to bring under control and had an impact on roughly 100 sleeping berths.

The warship has been deployed for nine ​months and also took part in operations against Venezuela in the Caribbean ⁠prior to arriving in the Middle East.

It has been plagued by plumbing problems during its deployment, affecting the nearly 650 toilets.

The Ford had temporarily stopped at Souda Bay on the Greek island ​of Crete. The government of Croatia, which is a NATO-ally of the U.S., approved its arrival earlier this week.

“During its visit, the USS Gerald R. Ford will host local officials and key leaders to reaffirm the strong and enduring alliance between the United States and Croatia,” the U.S. embassy to Croatia said in a statement.

The carrier, staffed by more than 5,000 sailors, has more than 75 military aircraft aboard, including fighter aircraft like the F-18 Super Hornet, and boasts a sophisticated radar system for ⁠air ​traffic control and navigation.

Editor’s note: This is a developing story.

A dozen U.S. service members were wounded Friday in an Iranian missile strike on Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal first reported.

Two of the 12 personnel, all of whom were reportedly inside an installation building at the time of the attack, are in serious condition.

Attempts to contact U.S. Central Command had not been returned as of publication.

Friday’s strike, which reportedly damaged multiple U.S. refueling aircraft and involved Iranian drones as well, comes as the U.S. military continues to pour assets into the region.

The Pentagon on Wednesday confirmed elements from the 82nd Airborne Division headquarters and a brigade combat team are slated to deploy to the Middle East.

The 82nd, based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, acts as the Army’s rapid-response force and is often among the first units sent to respond to emerging crises.

U.S. Marines and sailors with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which includes up to 5,000 personnel and several warships, are also reportedly heading toward the Middle East after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved a request from CENTCOM to help curtail Iran’s regional attacks.

The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, part of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, has also been rumored to serve as a potential reinforcement. The group deployed in recent weeks and is currently operating in the U.S. 3rd Fleet area of operations in the eastern Pacific.

Marines and sailors with the 11th MEU carried out a large-scale amphibious assault exercise on March 2 aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, prior to steaming toward open water.

Thirteen service members have been killed in action and nearly 300 wounded during Operation Epic Fury, a joint undertaking by U.S. and Israeli militaries against the Islamic Republic that began on Feb. 28.

The majority of the wounded have since returned to duty, according to U.S. Central Command.

Prior to Friday’s attack, 10 U.S. troops remained in serious condition.

Military Times reporters Eve Sampson and Riley Ceder contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service, and The Border Chronicle, which produces independent, investigative journalism on the U.S.-Mexico border.

On a warm, winter Sunday, the Playas de Tijuana in Mexico is filled with families picnicking.

The beach here presses right up against the border wall with the United States. Music blares, teenagers film TikTok videos next to the 30-foot high fence, which is covered in painted murals on the Mexican side—butterflies, faces, human hands reaching out.

Looking through the slotted wall to the American side, the beach is barren. On the other side of the wall is barbed concertina wire, and then another tall fence, also ringed with wire.

It’s a scene from a war zone, minus the war.

In between the two walls, white Jeep pickup trucks with U.S. Marines in full camouflage and battle helmets circle occasionally, watching the beachgoers; as the sun sets, a single Marine slowly walks toward the ocean and back, holding an M-38. But for the most part, the no-man’s-land between the walls is empty.

Days earlier, armed Border Patrol agents in military fatigues unleashed tear gas canisters on protesters in Minneapolis, 2,000 miles northeast from here. Both the Minnesota National Guard and active-duty troops were ordered to prepare to deploy to the city in America’s heartland.

“We all have been expecting this to happen,” said Jacqueline Cordero, who helps organize humanitarian supply drops in the mountains and desert east of San Diego. “Basically the border spreading to the rest of the country.”

It’s been a year since President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border, but amid far-flung domestic deployments, dozens of deadly Caribbean boat strikes and now a war in Iran, the U.S.-Mexico border has in many ways become a forgotten emergency — a military buildup that persists, as others have before it, long after public attention has turned elsewhere.

Trump campaigned on the southern border, painting a picture of a region overrun with violent criminals. On Inauguration Day in January 2025, he declared the magnitude of the crisis required a military response. The resulting deployment — more than 20,000 troops in the past year from the most expensive fighting machine on the planet — has no end in sight.

“Our job, our role here on the border, is to gain full operational control,” said Lt. Col. Max Ferguson, who directed Joint Task Force Southern Border’s operations through September of last year. “Detect, respond, interdict, and ensure that nobody is doing illegal crossings from south to north into the United States.”

So have they?

“Today, the number of illegals crossing into our country is zero,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in December, holding up his hand to make a “0” during a speech laying out the national defense strategy.

His math was off by thousands.

This February, the government recorded 9,621 encounters with people illegally crossing the southern border — an average of more than 300 a day. That’s still a 90% decline since President Biden’s last full month in office. But it’s about the same as it was in February 2025, the first full month after Trump’s inauguration — and has not changed dramatically in the months before or after the military deployment reached full capacity over the summer.

Click here if you can’t see the graphic above.

While most of the country has moved on, the unprecedented military response to Trump’s “national emergency at the southern border” has quietly continued in tandem with the Department of Homeland Security. The War Horse and The Border Chronicle teamed up to examine how Trump’s pledge to secure the border has turbocharged the militarization of the 1,954-mile frontier. In the last 14 months, the administration has:

• transformed more than 40% of the border from public land into no-trespassing military zones, with new additions as recently as February;
• expanded an invisible surveillance network that monitors the wilderness and border communities, and ramped up the Department of Defense’s sharing of military-grade equipment and technology with U.S. Customs and Border Protection;
• begun installing the first stretch of hundreds of miles of sensor-enabled orange buoys, each nearly five feet in diameter, to create a barrier dividing Texas’ Rio Grande;
• quadrupled the number of troops while freeing up federal border agents to shift their focus to America’s cities as the battle over what Trump has called the “invasion” moved to Los Angeles, then D.C., then Chicago, and Minneapolis.

Trump sent the military to the border to seal it, promising a show of force. But as deadly encounters over immigration enforcement ramped up in U.S. cities, many residents along the border said the military’s presence has been more “show” than “force.”

The rollout: ‘What is this, the Middle East?’

Jerry Pacheco remembers a year ago when the military first stood up Joint Task Force Southern Border to oversee President Trump’s military border buildup.

“I recruit companies from all over the world,” said Pacheco, who heads the Border Industrial Association, an advocate for manufacturers on the New Mexico-Mexico border. “I had a Polish EV battery company come down, and they’re looking at setting up over here. And they saw the Strykers, two military personnel attached to the Stryker, and they said, ‘Man, look at that. What is this, the Middle East?’”

Actually, it was just outside neighboring El Paso, Texas. The 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, had arrived from Fort Carson, Colorado, to help patrol the Border Patrol’s central sectors along the southern border, from Big Bend, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona.

The backbone of a Stryker Brigade Combat Team is the Stryker itself, an eight-wheeled armored vehicle, built to withstand mines and IED attacks as it carries infantry squads in combat at speeds up to 60 miles per hour. Now there was a Stryker parked on a landfill overlooking the Sunland Park Elementary School.

The military buildup at the border was swift. Two days after Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the Pentagon ordered 1,500 troops to deploy. That same day, it announced it would use military planes for deportation flights and quickly began ramping up airborne intelligence-gathering along the border.

Military police battalions from New York, Kentucky and Washington and engineering units from Georgia and Kansas boarded cargo planes to fly to the border. By the end of the week, Marines — some of whom had been helping to fight wildfires in California — were installing the concertina wire along the double fence between Tijuana and San Diego. About a month later, another 3,500 troops were activated.

Click here if you can’t see the graphic above.

Military planners scrambled for places to house the incoming soldiers. Troops have stayed at hotels in small towns and crammed into run-down barracks at military outposts, like the Doña Ana Range Complex, where an Inspector General report detailed raw sewage leaking from the plumbing, and Fort Bliss, where inspectors found as little as 45 square feet of living space per soldier.

To officially stand up Joint Task Force Southern Border, the Defense Department called on soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division — a rapidly deployable infantry unit from Fort Drum, New York, trained in mountain and cold-weather warfare. By the summer, more than 10,000 troops were deployed to the border. About 9,000 remain there today, according to Joint Task Force Southern Border, despite the escalating number of conflicts and operations in the Middle East, South America and Africa.

Many Trump supporters point to the dwindling number of illegal border crossings as a sign of the mission’s success.

“If you got a cop sitting on the corner in a police car, nobody’s going to rob the bank,” says Frank Antenori, a county supervisor in Cochise County, Arizona, and former Army Green Beret.

But others like Pacheco worry the growing military presence sends a signal to investors that the area isn’t safe — even though migrant crossings have plummeted to near all-time lows.

“It’s pure political show for people that are not from the border,” said Pacheco, who failed to land the Polish EV battery company, though because of tariffs, not the military.

The Stryker near the elementary school outside El Paso remained parked there for months. Ferguson said that visible troop presence has been an important deterrent to migrant crossings, that someone seeing a military vehicle and choosing not to cross is a victory.

Between October 2024 and September 2025, immigration officials recorded about 92,000 turnbacks — instances in which someone enters the U.S. but then immediately turns around — at the southern border. That’s around 9,000 fewer than the previous year.

People in communities along the border say they are seeing far fewer migrants than they did before Trump took office. But they also say they’re not seeing many soldiers. The border is nearly 2,000 miles long.

“There might be people in fatigues eating at Burgers and Beer in El Centro,” California, said Kelly Overton, who runs Border Kindness, a humanitarian aid organization. “But does it feel like, ‘Hey, the military has come here and taken over’? No.”

The military has emphasized that its southern border mission is in support of Customs and Border Protection and says troops conducted nearly 3,000 joint patrols with CBP over the past year.

But as the military sent reinforcement troops south to the border, Border Patrol agents — led by Greg Bovino, the hard-line chief at the time of CBP’s El Centro sector, east of San Diego — headed north, away from the border.

“We’re taking this show on the road,” Bovino said in September, “to a city near you.”

National Defense Areas: ‘Declared a restricted area’

Of all the places one might expect to see the military, it’s in the town of Columbus, New Mexico, just north of the border.

Last April, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced it was turning over more than 100,000 acres of land in New Mexico along the Mexican border to the Department of Defense to create a “National Defense Area” — essentially an annex of a military base.

There, troops would be authorized to arrest migrants, or anybody else who happened to stumble into the area, bypassing the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from directly participating in civilian law enforcement.

Now Columbus is abutted by a confusing patchwork of new military-controlled land. But town leaders say they never heard from the Defense Department about what the nearby National Defense Area meant.

“Nobody’s really said anything,” says Norma Gomez, a co-chair of the chamber of commerce in Columbus.

Residents haven’t seen many troops. The only tank in town is a replica from the Mexican Revolution at Pancho Villa State Park.

“We’ve not really seen any evidence of anything out here,” says Phillip Skinner, the town’s mayor.

Occasional red-and-white signs near town are the only indication of a military takeover.

“WARNING,” they say in English and Spanish. “This Department of Defense property has been declared a restricted area. ... Photographing or making notes, drawings, maps, or making graphic representations of the area or its activities are prohibited.”

The New Mexico National Defense Area was just the beginning.

Click here if you can’t see the map above.

Over the last year, the Pentagon has established six separate National Defense Areas in all four border states, turning more than 800 miles of previously public land — about 42% of the U.S.-Mexico border — into military zones. Some are controlled by bases hundreds of miles away.

While the New Mexico National Defense Area stretches inland more than 3 miles in places, most of the other zones are just 60 feet wide, enough to ensure a migrant crosses directly onto military land, which carries additional criminal charges and permits soldiers to make those arrests.

But the U.S. government can already file misdemeanor charges for illegally crossing the border, says David Lindenmuth, a former federal prosecutor in South Texas, and it becomes a felony after multiple crossings.

“So why in the world are you going to do all this other mess just to get two other ways to prosecute the same person for misdemeanors?” The tactic, he says, is like “using a cannon to shoot at a mosquito.”

By the end of February, the Justice Department had lodged charges related to trespassing on military property in close to 5,000 cases. But as of mid-March, the Defense Department said that military troops have arrested only 68 people in National Defense Areas, meaning the vast majority of migrant arrests in the militarized zones have been by Border Patrol agents. Customs and Border Protection said it did not track arrests in National Defense Areas and could not comment on what happened on military property.

Attempts to prosecute people on the additional charges around trespassing on military land have struggled in courts, with judges in New Mexico and Texas throwing the charges out.

“The people being prosecuted there have no idea in most cases that this is going to be essentially a military installation,” says César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State.

The red-and-white signs that troops and military contractors have been installing near the defense areas are small, spaced far apart and sometimes only face Mexico. Otherwise, there’s little to stop someone from accidentally wandering onto a military base. And their locations haven’t always been exact: In November, the Mexican government announced it had removed six signs from a Mexican beach near the mouth of the Rio Grande that declared the land restricted U.S. military property.

While the boundaries of most military installations on U.S. soil are available on government maps, that’s not the case with National Defense Areas.

Reporters at The War Horse and Border Chronicle spent weeks being shuffled from agency to agency and from the military’s Joint Task Force Southern Border to individual branches in search of maps that no one supplied. To create maps of the National Defense Areas, we pieced together bureaucratic land-survey transfer notices in the Federal Register and information from the International Boundary and Water Commission.

James Holeman and Abbey Carpenter, who run Battalion Search and Rescue, a group that searches for lost migrants in the desert, say they’ve seen the signs as they work in New Mexico. They don’t always match the boundaries they’ve mapped out for themselves.

“We’ve had these arguments with Border Patrol where they are like, ‘This is the NDA [National Defense Area],’” Carpenter says. “And we’re like, ‘No, it’s not the NDA.’”

Other groups, like hunters and hikers, have also raised concerns. The starting point of the 2,600-mile-long Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches from the Mexican border to the Canadian border, now falls within a National Defense Area. For decades, hikers began the trek north by touching the border wall. The Pacific Crest Trail Association recently informed hikers that they could access the official southern starting point, a small gray stone monument. But under no circumstances could they touch the wall, just feet away and now ringed with concertina wire.

The military bases administering the defense areas say that hunters and campers can apply for permits to access the land. But Sherman Neal II, who helps run the Sierra Club’s military outdoors program, which works to bring veterans into the wilderness, says that’s not the point. The point of the great outdoors, he says, is to get away from it all.

“If I’m choosing to go recreate somewhere,” he says, “you know what, I probably don’t need to be in the vicinity of CBP, the Army, DHS.”

Blurring missions: From G-BOSS to drones

During the first Trump administration, the Defense Department funded most of the 458 miles of new wall and barriers that sprang up along the southern border. This time things are different.

Who needs the military when federal law enforcement agencies have military-grade equipment, military-style weapons, military-assisted surveillance capabilities, billions of dollars of funding and none of the prohibitions on policing civilians?

Despite the fanfare about the troops at the border, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill allotted the military a measly $1 billion for immigration, border operations and counternarcotics — less than 1% of the Pentagon’s budget.

Compare that with $46.5 billion that the Big Beautiful Bill gave Customs and Border Protection to build up to 700 miles of wall, 900 miles of river barriers and 600-plus miles of secondary barriers.

Click here if you can’t see the graphic above.

Still, troops deployed to the border have brought with them expertise in surveillance and unmanned aircraft systems hard-won on battlefields, supercharging a growing surveillance network that has long worried civil liberties experts.

On a recent January weekend outside of San Diego, past where the suburbs become empty hills, a pair of young Marines sat inside a white pickup truck.

Next to the truck was a high-tech camera system, equipped with infrared and radar, called a G-BOSS — short for ground-based operational surveillance system. It was originally designed to detect IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it watches the desert for migrants.

One of the Marines said it was his fifth straight day of eight-hour shifts monitoring a screen in the pickup truck in the blazing desert sun. “It gets pretty boring sometimes,” he said.

This is the reality of much of the military’s mission here: keeping an eye on systems that keep an eye on the border.

For years, Customs and Border Protection has been developing a vast network of cameras and sensors throughout the borderlands that alert agents to potential migrant movement. Fiber optic cables attuned to the softest footfall snake through the desert in regions where migrants are known to cross. Cameras are hidden in construction cones and abandoned tires. Automatic surveillance towers use AI to detect human forms.

Some of this technology has ended up in interior cities this year, like the mobile facial recognition apps that immigration agents have used on protesters in Minneapolis. But in towns closer to the southern border, this sort of surveillance has long been common.

In Columbus, New Mexico, where no military presence marks the new military zone, surveillance towers ring the town of barely 1,500 residents. At the town’s entrance, there’s a small white trailer that contains a license plate reader tracking anyone who enters.

“When we think of the border, we tend to think of it as a line or a very thin stretch of land, and it’s not,” says Marianna Poyares, a researcher at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law. “One element that folks don’t consider is that a lot of this apparatus is actually installed in neighborhoods, in actual American cities near the border.”

The Defense Department is increasingly working with DHS to integrate intelligence from this growing network of sensor and surveillance systems, adding its own assets that troops have brought to the border, like the G-BOSS and other high-tech imaging and radar systems. Military pilots are also now flying reconnaissance missions along the border.

U.S. Northern Command, which oversees Joint Task Force Southern Border, has capabilities and authorities as a combatant command that allow it to fuse military intelligence with law enforcement data, beyond what Border Patrol or the military branches alone could do, through its use of Palantir’s Maven system, the same AI-fueled intelligence platform reportedly used in military operations in Iran and Venezuela.

The military and border patrol are also collaborating on drone surveillance and countering drones.

Lt. Col. Ferguson says that cartels have increasingly been using drones to smuggle drugs and scout out law enforcement — though there is a debate among experts over how frequently.

An Army aviation officer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said that he has seen small drones operating on the Mexican side of the border.

“Probably the majority of it we see are cartel scouts,” he said. “They’re using a lot of small UAS [unmanned aerial systems] to kind of probe areas and see where it’s clear.”

The military is authorized to intercept or shoot down drones over certain military facilities — but whether that includes smaller, temporary structures, like ones troops have constructed along the border this year as they patrol, is unclear. This year’s defense authorization bill ordered a review of how military departments are interpreting the law.

The need is clear. In just over a two-week span in February, the military used a laser to shoot down what turned out to be a Border Patrol drone, and the FAA shut down the airspace around El Paso with no notice after the government reported Customs and Border Protection officers operating an Army laser counter-drone system had taken out a cartel drone.

“The threat has been neutralized,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on X.

But another explanation quickly emerged from multiple news reports: The incursion was a party balloon.

Buoys: A giant divider down the Rio Grande

Since October, small Coast Guard boats have been patrolling for migrants along 260 miles of the Rio Grande in Texas, from Brownsville to Mission: a stretch of river that has already been declared part of a National Defense Area.

They call it Operation River Wall — and it’s only part of the U.S. border’s growing floating blockade.

This January, DHS began installing 17 miles of enormous buoys in the Rio Grande, 15-foot-long orange cylinders, designed to spin backward if anyone tries to climb on them, at a cost of more than $5 million per mile. While they look like a massive swim-lane divider slung down the middle of the river, the buoys hide acoustic and vibration sensors to alert nearby Border Patrol to unusual movements. The agency has contracts for 130 miles of buoys, with plans to eventually extend the barrier to more than 500 miles.

In recent weeks, it’s been dividing folks in South Texas.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott pointed to the border to whip up a gathering at the Smoke BBQ in Harlingen during a get-out-the-vote rally a day before the Texas primary this month.

“There are Democrats who support open border policies, and they must not be allowed to hold office in Texas,” said Abbott, who paved the way for the federal military buildup by launching Operation Lone Star in 2021, spending billions in state money to deploy the National Guard, state police, and build border walls.

But protesters just a week earlier rallied against the buoys in Brownsville at a park next to the Rio Grande. A century ago, a ferry here would make trips across the river to Mexico. But today, the gathered crowd can’t even access the water because of an 18-foot-tall black fence, erected more than 15 years ago.

“Whether you agree or not with open border policy, whether you think that there should be a reinforcement of the border, the way that this is being done has been a tremendous waste of time and money,” says Aaron Millan, owner of Brownsville Kayaks, who called the buoys an “ecological disaster.”

The buoy project has a military precedent: In 2023, as part of Operation Lone Star, the Texas National Guard began installing buoys in a shallow section of the Rio Grande, near the small town of Eagle Pass.

Those were 4-foot-tall orange balls anchored to the riverbed with steel cables, connected by weighted mesh underwater, to prevent people from swimming beneath them. Serrated metal plates between the buoys deterred would-be crossers from climbing over.

“It looks like a medieval torture device, truthfully,” says Bekah Hinojosa, an artist and environmental activist in Brownsville. “We call them murder buoys.”

Not long after National Guard troops installed them, authorities found a body stuck to one of the buoys on the side facing Mexico.

After the November 2024 election, Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, visited Eagle Pass, where the original buoys were installed.

“This,” he said, “is a model we can take across the country.”

A year later: How ‘sealed’ is the border?

Just inside the National Defense Area in California, across from where the bustle of Tijuana turns to dry mountains, the towering border wall gives way to a small barbed wire fence, the kind that sometimes keeps cattle fields separated. If you follow the fence into the mountains, you can see places where it’s been trampled down, with no troops or Border Patrol in sight.

It would be easy to step into the military zone and cross into Mexico. Or cross from Mexico into the United States.

Migrant crossings have plummeted since Trump declared the emergency at the border. Still, everyone here — from military commanders to human rights activists — knows the border is still not sealed.

Border officials have apprehended as many as 12,000 unauthorized crossers in a month since Trump returned to office. Most are quickly sent back. Another statistic is harder to interpret: Between October 2024 and October 2025, Customs and Border Protection reported more than 70,000 “gotaways,” or cases where they know people have successfully crossed the border without encountering Border Patrol or military troops.

Click here if you can’t see the graphic above.

While that’s a dramatic drop from previous years, CBP doesn’t publicize the number of “gotaways” by month, so it’s unclear how the military’s deployment has impacted the trend.

The rhetoric often doesn’t square with the reality either. In December, less than a week after Hegseth gave the keynote at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, declaring “zero” illegal crossings, the Department of the Interior transferred a 125-mile stretch of land along the California-Mexico border to the U.S. Navy. It was still at risk from the dangers of an open border, the department said.

“This corridor is one of the highest traffic regions for unlawful crossings along the southern border, creating significant national security challenges,” said the news release.

A week later, Trump awarded a group of soldiers and Marines visiting the White House the new Mexican Border Defense Medal, presented to troops who have supported CBP on the border for 30 days.

“They made me look really good,” Trump said from the Oval Office, flanked by military leaders. “We went from having millions of people pouring over our border to having none, in the last eight months. None.”

Thousands of miles away from the border, Bovino — whose former CBP sector lies in the new California defense area — and the Border Patrol were about to make headlines in Minneapolis. Federal agents’ killings of U.S. citizens Renee Goode and Alex Pretti would lead to a reckoning.

Back in Arizona, Frank Antenori, the Cochise County supervisor and former Green Beret, says there’s a price that’s worth paying for security. Like the Chinook helicopters that he hears flying troops back and forth to their outposts on the eastern side of the state.

“I served 21 years in the Army, so I love helicopters,” he says. “It’s a little bit of noise, kind of noisy, and [people] are crying about them flying at like 11, 12 o’clock at night, or 2 in the morning. But, you know, that’s the military. That’s what they do. The border now is technically a military installation. You know, they can do whatever the hell they want basically.”

James Cordero isn’t buying it. He and his wife, Jacqueline, have been leading hikes for years to drop food, water and supplies in the mountains east of San Diego. In mid-January, as the group hiked near the new National Defense Area, they saw a trampled cattle fence separating the U.S. and Mexico.

“They bring in the military. They say the border’s closed 100%,” Cordero said, “And that’s why Border Patrol can go into the interior.

“It’s the illusion of national security.”

This project is a collaboration between The War Horse and The Border Chronicle to examine the impact one year into the U.S. military buildup along the southern border. It was reported by Sonner Kehrt, Melissa del Bosque and David Roza; edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Graphics produced by Airwars and The War Horse’s Hrisanthi Pickett and Amy DiPierro. Dante Dallago, Aasma Mojiz and Joe Dyke provided research assistance.

The War Horse is a nonprofit, independent newsroom that focuses on the human impact of military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.

The Border Chronicle produces independent, investigative journalism on the U.S.-Mexico border. Subscribe to their newsletter.

This article first appeared on The War Horse and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The cherry blossoms are in bloom; glints of hope are still fresh in fans’ eyes; beer is flowing; hot dogs are being consumed at alarming rates— it’s baseball time.

But amid the festivities is a tradition, now in its third year, that intersects America’s favorite pastime and military service.

Ahead of Opening Day, Arlington National Cemetery placed official MLB baseballs — courtesy of the Nationals — on the gravesites of six men, all former baseball players turned citizen soldiers.

The baseballs were placed at the gravesites of:

• Luzerne “Lu” Blue: Blue, a D.C. native who rose to prominence under Ty Cobb’s Detroit Tigers. The first baseman had his career briefly interrupted in 1918 when he was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving at Camp Lee in Virginia until war’s end.
• Abner Doubleday: This Union general was among those who defended Fort Sumter during the 1861 bombardment, rose to fame for his gallantry at Gettysburg and — supposedly — invented baseball, writes Colleen Cheslak-Poulton for the American Battlefield Trust. While the claim is pure fabrication, it does make for an entertaining tale.
• William Eckert: Lt. Gen. Eckert, who at the time of his commission was the youngest three-star in the United States Armed Forces, became baseball’s commissioner following the recommendation of Gen. Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay.
• Elmer Gedeon: Gedeon was a player for the Washington Senators before his time in the league was cut short when he was drafted in 1941. Gedeon was shot down and killed on a mission over France in 1944. He and Harry O’Neill are the only two MLB players to have been killed during World War II.
• Spottswood “Spot” Poles: Poles, a Negro Leagues outfielder known for his speed and batting average — think .487 — served in the 369th Infantry Regiment, aka the Harlem Hellfighters, one of the most renowned Black combat units of World War I. The all-Black unit would go on to spend 191 days in continuous combat, more than any other American unit of its size. During that time, about 1,400 soldiers were killed or wounded, suffering more losses than any other American regiment during the war. In his own right, Poles earned five battle stars and a Purple Heart for his heroism.
• Ernest Judson “Jud” Wilson: Wilson, who grew up in Foggy Bottom, D.C., played for the Negro Leagues Homestead Grays in D.C. between 1931-32 and 1940-45. The third baseman served in World War I as a corporal in Company D, 417th Service Battalion and was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. He is a member of the Ring of Honor at Nationals Park.

Editor’s note: This is a developing story.

The U.S. military has fired over 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of war with Iran, burning through the precision weapons at a rate that has alarmed some Pentagon officials and prompted internal discussions about how to make more available, The Washington Post reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

“The U.S. military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and weapons stockpiles to achieve the goals of Operation Epic Fury laid out by President Trump — and beyond," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Reuters.

“Nevertheless, President Trump has always been intensely focused on (strengthening) our Armed Forces and he will continue to call on defense contractors to more speedily build American-made weapons, which are the best in the world,” Leavitt’s statement said.

Asked for comment, the Pentagon, which Trump has ordered renamed Department of War, said the military had all it required.

“The Department of War has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President’s choosing and on any timeline,” chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement to Reuters.

Sure, we’ve all heard the tales of George Washington’s exploits, Paul Revere’s famous “one if by land, two if by sea” ride, Benjamin Franklin’s role in well, just about everything. But what about the foreign fighters that served with distinction, nay, may have even saved the revolution?

Here are seven foreigners who freely joined the fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

1. Baron von Steuben: Fraud Turned Hero

The Prussian’s resume was impressive. America’s diplomats in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, claimed he was once the major general and quartermaster general in the Prussian army, as well as a one-time aide-de-camp to the legendary warrior-king Frederick the Great. But Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben, or Frederick William Augustus, Baron de Steuben, was a fraud. He had been none of those things.

And yet in America, he became a hero.

“[M]ore than any other individual,” writes historian Paul Lockhart, Baron von Steuben “was responsible for transmitting European military thought and practice to the army of the fledgling United States. He gave form to America’s first true army — and to those that followed.”

Despite his bolstered resume, the 47-year-old was a career soldier and did in fact have a keen military eye. He brought to the Continental Army a wealth of European military experience to rally an ill-clothed, starving and poorly trained army at Valley Forge into a professional force.

There, von Steuben introduced discipline, putting Washington’s entire army through Prussian-style drills. He noted to Washington that short enlistments meant constant turnover at the expense of order. There was no codified regiment size and different officers throughout the Continental Army used different military drill manuals meant chaos if other units attempted to work with one another.

“[It was] Steuben’s ability to bring this army the kind of training and understanding of tactics that made them able to stand toe to toe with the British,” historian Larrie Ferreiro told the Smithsonian.

Appointed inspector general of the Continental Army in May 1778, von Steuben’s methods categorically transformed the fledgling patriots before going on to write “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States,” the first military manual for the American army.

2. Casimir Pułaski: No English, all courage

“In the 13 months since the United States had declared its independence from Great Britain, the Continental Congress had been unable to develop an effective mounted force or find men who could organize, lead and train one,” writes Ethan S. Rafuse. Yet in December 1776, after numerous defeats and retreats, Gen. George Washington called on the Continental Congress to change that.

“I am convinced there is no carrying on the War without them,” he wrote to John Hancock, “and I would therefore recommend the Establishment of one or more Corps…in Addition to those already raised in Virginia.”

Enter Casimir Pułaski.

Born into Polish nobility, Pułaski had made a name for himself under the Knights of the Holy Cross — the military arm of the Confederation of the Bar that opposed Russian rule.

As a cavalry commander, Pułaski earned widespread acclaim for his 1771 defense of the hallowed monastery of Częstochowa against 3,000 Russians.

However, the Pole was soon forced to flee and found himself in dire financial straits in France. He was soon offered a lifeline by Benjamin Franklin, who agreed to pay for Pułaski’s trip to America in June of 1777.

According to Rafuse, Franklin wrote to Washington lauding Pułaski as “an officer famous throughout Europe for his bravery and conduct in defense of the liberties of his country against the three great invading powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia” and suggesting that he might “be highly useful to our service.”

First an aide to Washington, Pułaski was soon made brigadier general in the Continental cavalry — where, despite not speaking a word of English, soon proved his mettle.

By 1778, Pułaski was awarded command of the “Pulaski Legion,” an independent cavalry unit composed of American and foreign recruits. The following spring Pułaski and his Legion made their way south to defend the besieged city of Charleston. In October that year, Pułaski was mortally wounded by a grapeshop while leading a cavalry charge during the Siege of Savannah. The 34-year-old’s heroic death established him among the American Revolution’s most famous foreign volunteers and earned him the moniker as the “Father of American Cavalry.”

3. Michael Kováts: Hungry for battle

While Pułaski might be known as the Father of American Cavalry, Michael Kováts de Fabricy shouldn’t be overlooked.

He arrived in America four months prior to Pułaski after declaring to Benjamin Franklin, “I am a free man and a Hungarian. I was trained in the Royal Prussian Army and raised from the lowest rank to the dignity of a Captain of the Hussars.”

“Kováts had an even more impressive military record than Pułaski,” according to Rafuse. “Born in Karcag, Hungary, in 1724, Kováts belonged to a noble family whose history of service to the Hungarian crown went back centuries. In Hungary as in Poland, cavalry was the most important element of the army, and for the same reasons: the country’s open plains and acquisitive neighbors — in Hungary’s case, Habsburg Austria and the Ottoman Turks.”

Kováts forged a fiercesome reputation as a brave and effective officer, declaring that he rose through the ranks, “not so much by luck and the mercy of chance than by the most diligent self-discipline and the virtue of my arms.”

As a mercenary soldier, Kováts found himself training participants in Poland’s nascent patriot movement, which included members of the Pułaski family. Like Pułaski, Kováts soon found himself in France and then on a ship to the fledgling nation of America to offer his services to the revolution.

Despite struggling to gain a commission, Kováts eagerly began training men within the Pułaski Legion in April 1778. In his new unit, writes Rafuse, Kováts “particularly emphasized the ‘free corps’ concept popular in Europe in the 1740s and 1750s. To preserve the strength of their rigorously drilled and tightly disciplined battalions of infantry, Eastern European military leaders began accepting into their service units of light forces to operate around the fringes of their armies.” It was here that, under Pułaski, Kováts was able to organize and train one of the first hussar regiments in the American army.

Kováts was mortally wounded by a rifle shot during a clash with the British on May 11, 1779, in defense of Charleston.

4. Tadeusz Kościuszko: Loser in love, winner in war

Commissioned a colonel by the Continental Congress in 1777, the 30-year-old Kościuszko soon established himself as one of the Continental Army’s most brilliant, and much needed, combat engineers — all thanks to an unsuccessful attempt to elope with a lord’s daughter back in Poland.

After discovering his brother had spent all the family’s inheritence, Kościuszko was hired to tutor Louise Sosnowska, a wealthy lord’s daughter. The pair fell in love and attempted to elope in the fall of 1775 after Lord Sosnowski refused Kosciuszko’s request. According to the Smithsonian, “Kosciuszko told various friends, Sosnowski’s guards overtook their carriage on horseback, dragged it to a stop, knocked Kosciuszko unconscious, and took Louise home by force.”

Broke, heartbroken, and perhaps fearing repercussions for his actions, Kościuszko set sail across the Atlantic in June 1776. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, John Hancock appointed him a colonel in the Continental Army that October, and Benjamin Franklin hired him to design and build forts on the Delaware River to help defend Philadelphia from the British navy, writes the Smithsonian.

The Pole oversaw the damming of rivers and flooded fields to stem a British pursuit following their victory at Fort Ticonderoga in 1777. This action bought time for the patriots to regroup and prepare for their first major victory of the war — Saratoga. Fortifying Bemis Heights overlooking the Hudson, Kościuszko’s design contributed to the surrender of General John Burgoyne and precipitated the French’s entry into the war.

From there, Kościuszko’s oversaw the defense of West Point, with his fortifications so thorough that the British never deigned to attempt an assault.

At war’s end he was promoted to brigadier general with Thomas Jefferson praising the Pole, “As pure a son of liberty as I have ever known.”

5. Johann de Kalb: Died doing what he loved — fighting Brits

Who hated the British most during this time period? The French yes, but Germans were a close second.

Born outside the Prussian city of Nuremberg, Baron Johann de Kalb entered the service of France and fought in the Seven Years’ War against the British. He eventually rose to officer rank and was made a Knight of the Royal Order of Merit, according to the American Battlefield Trust.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, the veteran soldier saw a chance not only to fight for the ideals of the Enlightenment but to strike a blow to his old foe the British.

Initially denied a commission, a furious de Kalb was making his way back to France when he learned that the Marquis de Lafayette had influenced Congress to appoint him as major general. De Kalb survived the infamous winter at Valley Forge with George Washington and Lafayette, before taking command of 1,200 Maryland and Delaware troops in the war’s Southern theater in 1780.

His command would, alas, be short.

On the morning of August 16, 1780, Gen. Horatio Gates deployed to meet Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis in the now famous Battle of Camden. When Gates and his inexperienced militia broke ranks and began to run only de Kalb was left to defend against Cornwallis.

De Kalb and his infantry refused to retreat. Yet somewhere in the midst of melee, de Kalb fell — downed by some 11 wounds, the majority from a bayonet. Taken as prisoner by the British, de Kalb survived for three more days before supposedly telling a British officer: “I die the death I always prayed for: the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man.”

6. Bernardo de Gálvez: Our Spaniard in Louisiana

A best friend is one with deep pockets — especially when you’re trying to win a war. And although Bernardo de Gálvez was never a soldier in the Continental Army, he certainly had the means to help supply the revolution.

As governor of the Spanish province of Louisiana, Gálvez, according to American Battlefield Trust, “began to smuggle supplies to the American Rebels — shipping gunpowder, muskets, uniforms, medicine, and other supplies through the British blockade to Ohio, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia by way of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.”

When Spain joined in the war effort against the British, Gálvez didn’t miss a beat and began planning a military campaign against the British where he eventually captured Pensacola, Mobile, Biloxi and Natchez — all four formerly British ports.

However, Gálvez is best remembered for his role “in denying the British the ability to encircle the American rebels from the south by pressing British forces in West Florida and for keeping a vital flow of supplies to Patriot troops across the colonies,” during the rocky beginnings of the war.

Gálvez was officially recognized by George Washington and the United States Congress for his aid to the colonies during the American Revolution and remains one of eight people in history to receive honorary citizenship.

7. The Marquis de Lafayette: You know this guy

Last but certainly not least, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette. The skinny, red-haired 19-year-old had a family tradition of fighting against the English.

Three hundred years before he was born, writes James Smart, “a Gilbert Motier had ridden beside Joan of Arc as a marshal of France. In 1759, when Lafayette was two, his father had been cut in half by a cannonball at the Battle of Minden during the Seven Years’ War. In the newly declared and still embattled United States of America, Lafayette probably hoped to run across William Phillips, the officer who commanded the artillery that killed his father.”

Despite a growing feeling of irritation among the Continental Congress due to the high number of French officers applying for commission, the wealthy Lafayette was willing to serve without a salary and pay for his own expenses.

Wounded while commanding a fighting retreat at the Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11, 1777, Lafayette soon earned the trust and admiration of George Washington.

In November of that year, Congress voted Lafayette command of a division, where the boy general served with distinction at the battles of Gloucester, Barren Hill and Monmouth.

Lafayette was instrumental in rallying crucial support in France for the patriot cause. By 1781, the then 24-year-old had grown out of his moniker as “boy general” and took command of an army in Virginia, playing a pivotal role in the entrapment of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, that eventually led to the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.

The general remains beloved in America to this day, with numerous streets, statues, and buildings erected and named throughout the United States in his honor.

NEW YORK — The United States has deployed uncrewed drone speedboats for patrols as part of its operations against Iran, the Pentagon said, the first time Washington has confirmed using such vessels in an active conflict.

The deployment of the vessels — which can be used for surveillance or kamikaze strikes — has not been previously reported. It comes despite a series of setbacks in the U.S. Navy’s years‑long effort to field a fleet of uncrewed surface vessels, Reuters reported last year.

Uncrewed vessels have risen to prominence in recent years after Ukraine used explosive‑laden speedboats to inflict significant damage on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Iran has used sea drones to attack oil tankers in the Gulf at least twice since the U.S. and Israel began strikes nearly a month ago. There was no indication the U.S. had used uncrewed vessels for offensive strikes.

In response to Reuters’ questions, Tim Hawkins, a Pentagon spokesperson for Central Command, said unmanned vessels built by Maryland-based BlackSea, known as the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, or GARC, had been used for patrols as part of the U.S. campaign against Iran, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.”

“U.S. forces continue to employ unmanned systems in the Middle East region, including surface drone assets like the GARC. This platform, in particular, has successfully logged over 450 underway hours and more than 2,200 nautical miles during maritime patrols in support of Operation Epic Fury,” Hawkins said in a statement.

Hawkins declined to name any of the other unmanned systems being deployed. BlackSea declined to comment for this story.

Navy struggles with drone boats

The U.S. has for years been trying to build a fleet of autonomous uncrewed surface and underwater vessels, as a cheaper and faster alternative to manned ships and submarines, particularly to counter China’s growing naval power in the Pacific. The effort, however, has fallen behind schedule and been dogged by technical problems, cost concerns and a series of testing setbacks.

Last year, Reuters reported the GARC, an angular speedboat about five meters long, was involved in multiple performance and safety issues, including one where it collided with another boat at speed during a military test.

In recent weeks, during another failed test in the Middle East, one GARC boat became inoperable, according to a source who was briefed on the matter.

Hawkins declined to comment on the testing setbacks.

“The GARC is an emerging capability and part of a fleet of surface drones operated by U.S. 5th Fleet to enhance awareness of what’s happening in regional waters,” he said.

The House Armed Services Committee voted Thursday to approve broad aviation safety legislation that includes a myriad of safety recommendations issued after a deadly 2025 midair collision between a regional jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people.

The legislation, known as the Airspace Location and Enhanced Risk Transparency, or ALERT, Act, would require the military services to adopt reforms put forth by federal investigators in an effort to prevent similar accidents. The committee voted 53-0 in favor of advancing the bill to the full House for a vote.

“Improving aviation safety and protecting our national security are not mutually exclusive,” committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said in his opening remarks Thursday, adding that “by taking our time and following regular order, we have produced a bill that does both.”

The bill would require all military aircraft to install crash prevention technology by 2031, with the exception of drones and military fighter and bomber aircraft. If enacted, the legislation would be implemented over several years, giving the services time to install new systems and update training protocols.

The bill also aims to balance safety requirements with national security concerns, making sure aircraft can operate without incident and without disclosing sensitive flight data.

Federal investigators found that a series of failures by both the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army contributed to the fatal Jan. 29, 2025, crash, to include an overburdened air traffic control system, congested helicopter routes and missed warnings from earlier close calls in the area.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued more than a dozen recommendations following the crash, including changes to training, airspace management and safety oversight.

Most Americans deem the United States military’s strikes on Iran excessive, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Wednesday.

The survey, conducted from March 19 to March 23, found 59% of respondents say the scale of Operation Epic Fury has gone too far, while 26% believe it has been about right. Only 13% think the campaign has not gone far enough.

A separate Pew Research Center poll released earlier this week showed low confidence in President Donald Trump’s handling of the conflict, with 37% approving and 61% disapproving.

Majority of American voters oppose the Iran war, poll finds

The public’s skepticism comes as Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of the U.S. Central Command, announced that American forces have struck more than 10,000 military targets across Iran since the operation began on Feb. 28. Cooper said the U.S. has significantly degraded more than two-thirds of the Islamic Republic’s missile, drone and naval production facilities and shipyards.

Trump, for his part, declared on Thursday that the war against Iran is “ahead of schedule” and going to “end soon.”

“It won’t be long,” Trump told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House. “It’s going to end soon. But we had to take a little detour, go to Iran, and we had to put out a fire, a very dangerous fire that could have blown up big portions of the world, if not the whole thing.”

The president reiterated that the Iranians are “begging to make a deal. Not me.”

Later in the cabinet meeting, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s peace envoy, said Washington has presented Tehran a 15-point plan to end the war in the Middle East. The proposal was transmitted to Iranian officials through Pakistani intermediaries.

“We’ll see where things lead if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction,” Witkoff asserted. “We have strong signs that this is a possibility, and if a deal happens, it will be great for the country of Iran, for the entire region, and the world at large.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon emphasized that its offensive in Iran would continue.

“We pray for a deal and we welcome a deal,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday. “But in the meantime, the Department of War will continue negotiating with bombs.”

It was perhaps the politest “battle” in human history.

Upon entering Guam’s harbor on June 20, 1898, instead of experiencing the expected whizz of bullets and the booms of a cannonade, U.S. Navy Capt. Henry Glass and his crew aboard the re-commissioned cruiser USS Charleston were greeted on the beaches by curious residents who mistook Charleston’s warning shoots as a salute.

No one had bothered to tell the residents on the island that they were at war.

The small, neglected island under Spanish rule hadn’t received a message from Spain since April 14, 1898 — a full month before hostilities broke out between their protectorate and the United States.

That did not stop the Americans from attempting to seize the far-flung Spanish holding.

MISSION TO GUAM

Earlier that month, upon receiving orders from Secretary of the Navy John D. Long “to stop at the Spanish Island of Guam … [and] use such force as may be necessary to capture the port,” the Charleston, with Glass at the helm, steamed toward the Spanish-held island.

One sailor recalled, “When the news of our destination and object was learned aboard the Australia there was considerable excitement, of course, and the cause of many pow-wows as ‘What about Guam and where is it anyway, and what do we want of it?’”

A POLITE DISCUSSION ABOUT WAR

Once they arrived in Guam, the Americans were hankering for a fight — Manifest Destiny on their minds — and soon began bombarding the fort at Santa Cruz.

Ironically, however, their act of violence was mistaken for a salute of respect, and the Spanish authorities on the island raced to obtain artillery to return the perceived salutations.

As Guamanian officials approached the Charleston by way of rowboat, they were shocked to learn that a state of war existed between the United States and Spain and that they were now technically prisoners of war.

Glass then dispatched Lt. William Braunersreuther to meet with governor Juan Marina Vega and collect the surrender of the small Spanish garrison.

According to Naval History and Heritage Command, Vega was taken aback that he had to go aboard the American vessel, as such an action was forbidden by Spanish law.

“I regret to have to decline this honor and to ask that you will kindly come on shore, where I await you to accede to your wishes as far as possible, and to agree to our mutual situations,” Vega responded.

Vega eventually acquiesced, along with surrendering his small Spanish garrison to the Americans.

LEFT IN QUESTIONABLE HANDS

Glass, eager to sail on to Manila posthaste to join Commodore George Dewey’s fleet, placed the island in the hands of Francisco Portusach, a 30-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen.

The former janitor was in the right place at the right time. Portusach’s only qualifying attribute was that he was an American, but that was enough for Glass, and he placed the island — and U.S. interests — in Portusach’s less than capable hands.

Unsurprisingly, after Glass’ departure, Portusach was unable to solidify his position as governor and was overthrown by Spaniard Jose Sisto, a former public administrator. Sisto, too, had a short reign and was quickly overthrown by the native Chamorro population.

The 1898 Treaty of Paris formalized the handover of Guam as a U.S. territory, which it remains today.

This story was originally published on HistoryNet.

Seventeen elite sniper teams put their skills to the test this month in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command International Sniper Competition at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The competition, which ran from March 15-19, is an international event designed to test combat readiness among elite, specialized snipers from across the joint force and partner nations.

“This competition represents the pinnacle of the sniper craft,” Army Col. Simon Powelson said in a release. “These competitors are not just here by chance; they are the product of intense and specialized training within their respective units.”

Participants included teams from the Army’s Green Berets and Rangers, Naval Special Warfare Command, Marine Forces Special Operations Command and Coast Guard units, as well as special operations forces from multiple allied nations.

At the end of the week, the Army Special Operations Command team took first place, followed by the Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group team.

Throughout the event, two-person sniper teams engaged targets at distances of up to 1,200 meters, using a variety of weapons, including sniper rifles, carbines and pistols.

Competitors completed both day and night operations, navigating challenging conditions. Rain, wind and cold plagued the event while adding realism to the exercises.

“The weather played a significant role,” Timothy Gozelski, sniper course instructor, mentioned in the release. “Being in sync with your teammate is equal in importance to communication. To be successful, the two have to talk and be on the same page in everything they do.”

Richard Cuza, another course instructor, added that communication in the harsh conditions was “beyond important; it’s crucial.”

The competition, now in its 17th year, was hosted by the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

Special Forces sniper course instructors and leadership constructed the challenges and acted as scorekeepers.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said U.S. military chaplains will no longer wear rank insignia, instead displaying symbols of their faith.

Chaplains will retain their rank, he said in a video announcement Tuesday, but the new directive will shift how they are identified in uniform. Hegseth added that he would sign a memorandum solidifying the change.

Before the change, a chaplain’s uniform carried their rank insignia along with a symbol denoting their religion.

The policy, he said, “speaks to the difficult balance of the duality of a military chaplain. A chaplain is first and foremost a chaplain and an officer second. This change is a visual representation of that fact.”

Hegseth also said that removing rank allowed chaplains to “be seen among the highest ranks because of their divine calling.”

The directive follows a broader effort by Hegseth to reshape the military’s Chaplain Corps. In a December message, he said he wanted to restore chaplains’ focus on ministry and argued that the role had shifted toward counseling and support functions in recent years.

He terminated the Army’s spiritual fitness guide and said he would simplify how the military categorizes religious affiliation.

In his most recent message, Hegseth said that the number of religious affiliation codes was reduced from over 200 to just 31. Military Times was unable to independently verify these numbers.

The military uses those codes to categorize troops’ religious beliefs.

The move “brings the codes in line with its original purpose, giving chaplains clear, usable information so they can minister to service members in a way that aligns with that service member’s faith background and religious practice,” Hegseth said.

The defense secretary added that the Pentagon was not stopping with the pair of changes.

“We’re not even close to being done,” he said.

Defense Department civilian employee satisfaction and engagement scores declined markedly in 2025, according to an independent survey released last week by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.

The Partnership’s Public Service Viewpoint Survey — conducted after the Office of Personnel Management canceled the statutorily required Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, or FEVS — recorded a government-wide Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Index Score of 32 out of 100. The survey was fielded from Nov. 10 to Dec. 19, 2025, and received 11,083 responses from employees at 17 large agencies and 13 midsize agencies.

Among major DOD components, the Army posted the highest score at 48.1, Air Force civilians scored 38.5, and Navy and Marine Corps civilians scored 36.4, according to the Partnership’s data dashboard. Those figures are down from 70.3, 67.0, and 68.1, respectively, in the Partnership’s 2024 Best Places to Work rankings.

The Partnership cautioned that “significant differences still exist between the PSVS and FEVS,” and that results “should not be directly compared with the results of previous federal employee surveys.”

More than 58% of respondents government-wide reported that their engagement had worsened compared with late 2024.

Only 9.1% of Army civilians agreed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s political leadership team generates high levels of motivation in the workforce. Just 22.5% of federal employees overall said they were confident they could report suspected wrongdoing without fear of retaliation. More than 95% of respondents said it remains important that their work contributes to the public good.

Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told Military Times that while DOD components posted the highest scores among large agencies surveyed, the results remain alarming.

“The scores were still alarmingly low, and uncover a workforce that has drastically less confidence in their political leadership and workplace performance compared to a year ago,” Stier said.

Stier added that the timing of the survey, which followed major 2025 workforce reductions, makes the findings more significant.

“This survey was conducted after the bulk of the federal workforce cuts had taken place, which makes the results even more disturbing,” he told Military Times. “It is likely that those who left were even more demoralized than those who stayed.”

OPM canceled the 2025 FEVS, the first interruption since the survey began in 2002, citing plans to refresh the questions and avoid prohibitive costs. The agency has said the FEVS will resume later in 2026.

DOD’s civilian workforce stood at roughly 694,000 people in early 2026, down from about 795,000 at the start of 2025, according to OPM data cited by Defense One. That included nearly 50,000 departures through the Deferred Resignation Program, with thousands more taking early retirement. About 30,000 positions deemed essential to national security were later refilled.

A Defense Contract Management Agency employee told Federal News Network that budget cuts and staffing shortfalls are undermining the agency’s ability to ensure weapons delivered to warfighters meet all performance requirements.

“We are asked to do more, but cannot,” the employee said. “Something will eventually fail and fail badly.”

An informal Federal News Network pulse poll of 141 current DOD employees conducted this month found rising strain as operational tempo increases. “Leadership has not shown leadership,” one respondent said. “The lack of morale will bite them if/when we need to go to a wartime pace. The workforce will not elevate the level of effort.”

Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson accused Defense One of cherry-picking data and described the Partnership for Public Service as anti-Trump, without specifying which parts of the survey would provide a more complete picture.

In response to the Pentagon’s characterization of the organization as anti-Trump, Stier told Military Times that over the past 20 years, the Partnership has helped leaders across the political spectrum to identify problems and track progress. It conducted the Public Service Viewpoint Survey to fill a “critical data gap on the federal employee experience” that was created with the cancelation of FEVs, he said.

“Good management shouldn’t be partisan. Every leader needs to understand their workforce, and federal agencies are no different,” Stier said. “DOD leadership should pay attention and act on to this very important and troubling data.”

In the Partnership’s press release, Stier said the findings are particularly concerning amid ongoing military operations: “Especially now as the U.S. engages in a new war with Iran, no government can serve or protect the public effectively with such rampant dysfunction.”

In response to a request for comment, the Army referred Military Times to the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Pentagon, Air Force and Navy did not respond to requests as of press time.