An independent government watchdog found major issues in the way the U.S. Navy conducts fire safety prevention and contractor oversight for ships during maintenance periods.

Staffing shortages and ineffective tools for ensuring contractors comply with fire safety standards are the biggest hurdles for future fire risk aboard Navy ships, the Government Accountability Office warned in a Dec. 17 report.

Without addressing these issues, the service “risks creating an environment where unaccounted-for risks can accumulate in a manner that creates hazardous situations,” the report stated.

Between May 2008 and July 2020, there were 15 major fire incidents aboard Navy ships, thirteen of which occurred on those undergoing maintenance.

One of the worst fires occurred July 12, 2020, aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, when 11 of the amphibious assault ship’s 14 decks caught fire. As a result of the damage, the vessel was retired 17 years earlier than planned and the Defense Department incurred billions of dollars in damage.

After the Bonhomme Richard fire, the Navy implemented changes that helped protect the service from future fires aboard vessels during maintenance, according to the report.

The Navy rewrote its 8010 Manual that addresses fire prevention during ship maintenance. The manual, which includes training requirements for fire safety officers and information on fire protection systems, was updated to include reformed fire safety requirements.

The service also revised NAVSEA Standard Items, a set of requirements inserted into ship maintenance contracts that outline safety standards.

The Navy began establishing 11 Commander, Naval Surface Groups to lead emergency management efforts during safety incidents, an effort that was previously fractured across multiple Navy organizations. The groups will develop emergency response plans and help ship crews understand fire regulations, among other jobs.

Further, the service published a new Fire Safety Assessment Program policy that allows Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Naval Surface Force Atlantic officials to inspect ships undergoing maintenance without providing notice beforehand.

Despite the evident strides in remediation, however, the Navy failed to address some glaring problems, GAO found.

USS Bonhomme Richard failed on fire safety, documents show

As part of its audit, GAO met with officials at Navy maintenance centers around the U.S. and observed staffing at Navy offices tasked with enforcing fire safety standards during ship maintenance periods. It also analyzed documents the Navy had given contractors that outlined fire safety compliance.

The watchdog found that staffing shortages among organizations specifically tasked with enforcing fire safety meant that there were fewer individuals to assist with prevention and emergency management during fire incidents.

A lack of staff at key organizations, including regional maintenance centers, meant there weren’t as many people to work outside normal business hours.

This was problematic since 11 of the 15 fire events that occurred since 2008 happened outside normal business hours, GAO said.

But filling the vacant roles isn’t so simple.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a civilian workforce hiring freeze Feb. 28 and, as a result, DOD organizations tasked with fire prevention have experienced difficulty in hiring the number of staff they need, according to GAO.

The Navy requires fire safety officers for ship maintenance in fiscal 2026 and 2027, according to the report, but budget requests for those years don’t allot enough money to address the number of fire safety staff hires needed to ensure adequate safety during maintenance.

The Navy’s July 2021 Major Fires Review, which was conducted after the Bonhomme Richard fire, said that 11 of the 15 fire events it reviewed happened when there was reduced personnel during ship maintenance.

Because of a lack of civilian staff, the Navy has had to rely on Navy crews to address fire safety.

In addition to their full-time service duties, these crews have had to help ensure fire safety compliance.

The intervention of service members, however, doesn’t necessarily mean contractors will adequately comply.

A ship commanding officer told GAO that Navy crew members will inform contractors that they are not following fire safety standards, but that doesn’t mean contractors will listen.

Making sure they fix their mistakes requires fire safety officers from the regional maintenance centers, the GAO said, which there aren’t enough of because of staffing shortages.

The watchdog also found that the Navy’s enforcement tools for correcting contractors for their mistakes or noncompliance don’t yield the solutions needed.

The service can issue a corrective action request to a contractor, asking that they better comply with contractual requirements. And if enough requests are sent, the Navy can issue a letter of concern that points out specific instances of malfeasance and asks the contractor to respond with a plan of action to fix the issues.

But there are no monetary penalties for not complying with the request, which makes it difficult for the Navy to ensure contractors will correct their mistakes.

The Navy can also wield quality assurance surveillance plans, which set the ground rules for what specific aspects of the maintenance work can be assessed by the Navy to ensure everything is following contractual obligations.

But GAO found that the Navy doesn’t utilize these surveillance plans to assess fire safety compliance, a missed opportunity to shore up the service’s defense against fire incidents.

The Navy also currently pays contractors 99% of their owed payment during the maintenance period, and only withholds 1% of the payment until the work is completed.

This reduces the amount of recourse if a contractor doesn’t comply with standards outlined in the contract.

Lastly, ship contractors don’t face as much financial liability in the event of a fire as they potentially should, according to the report, because of a DOD clause that stipulates the government will cover the majority of the cost if damage occurs to Navy vessels during ship maintenance. This creates an environment of unequal risk sharing, GAO found.

To address the myriad issues, GAO recommended that Navy Secretary John Phelan create a mechanism to maximize resources for fire safety oversight. It also tasked the Navy’s Learning to Action Board, which helps implement corrective actions from reviews and investigations, with focusing more on contractor fire safety compliance.

The watchdog also directed the service to improve the corrective action request process, update the service’s quality assurance surveillance plan to include fire safety performance standards, examine changing the payment process for contractors and reassess the limitation of liability clause for contractors.

An Afghan national accused of shooting two West Virginia National Guard troops near the White House was charged this week in U.S. District Court with federal counts in connection with the Nov. 26 ambush.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was issued new charges of transporting a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to commit an offense punishable by imprisonment for more than one year, as well as transporting a stolen firearm in interstate commerce, according to a Justice Department release issued Tuesday.

Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, was killed in the shooting, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was critically wounded.

“The transfer of this case from Superior Court to District Court ensures that we can undertake the serious, deliberate and weighty analysis required to determine if the death penalty is appropriate here,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in the release.

“Sarah Beckstrom was just 20 years old when she was killed and her parents are now forced to endure the holiday season without their daughter,” Pirro added. “Andrew Wolfe, by the grace of God, survived but has a long road ahead in his recovery.”

Wolfe, who suffered a gunshot wound to his head, has made “extraordinary progress,” neurosurgeon Dr. Jeffrey Mai said earlier this month. He has since been transferred from acute care to inpatient rehabilitation.

In addition to the new charges, Lakanwal remains charged with first-degree murder while armed, assault with intent to kill while armed and two counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence, charges in violation of D.C. Code. There is no death penalty in D.C. Superior Court.

Lakanwal, who was also shot during the attack, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Lakanwal is accused of driving cross-country from his home in Bellingham, Washington, to Washington, D.C., to carry out the ambush.

He arrived in Bellingham in 2021 with his wife and five children as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a program that evacuated and resettled thousands of Afghans following the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

Prior to his arrival, Lakanwal worked with a CIA-backed Afghan Army unit known as a Zero Unit.

John Ratcliffe, the spy agency’s director, said following the shooting that the CIA’s relationship with Lakanwal “ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation” from Afghanistan.

The rumor began as an ember.

But such scuttlebutt, spread among the dense fog blanketing smoke pits and fanned by whispers of the E-4 Mafia and Lance Corporal Underground, is prone to sparking.

In mere moments, the falsehood became a conflagration of indisputable fact: Beloved pop icon Jennifer Lopez had passed away.

Marines deployed to far-flung theaters during the early years of the global war on terror were crushed.

Forget the anxiety of imminent combat, the heat, the intestinal issues stemming from MREs and the ammo crate toilets bearing the brunt of the fallout. To hell with the micromanagement of horseshoe haircut-adorned first sergeants or the indecisiveness of milquetoast officers who inexplicably outranked good brass.

Among a knuckle-dragging herd of testosterone-rich 20-somethings, J-Lo commanded attention. So indelible was the mark of her alleged demise that it made its way into “Generation Kill,” a seven-part HBO miniseries based on a book of the same name by Evan Wright, who accompanied the Marine Corps’ 1st Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

At the center of that 2008 on-screen adaptation, crafted by “The Wire” creators David Simon and Ed Burns, was actor James Ransone, who managed, among a versatile two-decade career, to take a seven-episode run and churn out a character so relatable that most Marines would bat nary an eye if informed he had previously been one.

The Baltimore native, who also starred as Ziggy Sobotka in season two of “The Wire,” among numerous other roles, died by suicide Dec. 19. He was 46 years old.

Years had elapsed since the last time I’d watched Ransone’s masterful orchestration of Marine Cpl. Josh Ray Person, who had as much a penchant for combat — because “peace sucks a hairy asshole” — as he did for quoting the great warrior poet Ice Cube or belting Wheatus’ “Teenage Dirtbag” during a convoy.

Starting the series once more this past weekend elicited renewed appreciation for his character — beginning with his concerns for J-Lo’s well-being — and its familial impression.

“Lieutenant, have you gotten any word?” Person asks Lt. Nathaniel Fick (Stark Sands) early in the series.

“I only get what’s passed on to me from Godfather, and the only word he gets is from the BBC,” Fick replies. “If we’re lucky, Saddam will back down, let the inspectors in and we can go home. The important thing is we are doing our jobs by being here. All of you should be proud.”

“Sir, that’s not the word I was asking about. I was — we wanted to know if you knew anything about J-Lo being killed.”

“Ray, the battalion commander offered no sitrep as to J-Lo’s status.”

The exchange was brief, but set a recognizable tone. Most Marines who deployed to combat will say they’ve known dozens of iterations of Ransone’s on-screen persona.

“We all sort of regressed into 11-year-old boys,” Ranson said about the filming process. “It’s very ‘Lord of the Flies’ at this point.”

Immense stressors are accordingly processed — and rationalized — through a lens of uniquely juvenile vulgarity that would result in instant termination in any civilian profession.

Every bystander within a 15-meter radius is subjected to scathing dismantling — about appearance, intelligence and, of course, the promiscuity of mothers.

Incessant comments about the dearth of first-world comforts — “the suck” — are articulated with such hateful eloquence as to warrant its own art category.

“If Marines could get what they needed — when they needed it — we would be happy and wouldn’t be ready to kill people all of the time,” Person says in one episode. “The Marine Corps is like America’s pitbull. They beat us, mistreat us and every once in awhile, they let us out to attack someone.”

Despite the absence of luxuries, few would trade experiences in the suck for anything. Combat aside, bonds are forged in the mundane. And few demographics enjoy more of a love-hate relationship with it than Marines.

Discussing his portrayal in an interview with HBO, the real Josh Ray Person commented, “I know I probably come off a little cynical about even the Marine Corps itself.

“Even though I may seem cynical to a lot of the other guys, I loved them like [brothers],” he added. “I could say things and make fun of them, but the very second that somebody else does it that’s not in our group, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

It’s far too easy, amid today’s deluge of divisive online vitriol and corresponding doom scrolling, to lose sight of those bonds that once enraptured us — when primary concerns among a gaggle of acne-riddled young men were relegated to porno mags, Jody and subsisting on a diet of Copenhagen and Rip Its.

Thanks to Ransone, this past weekend allowed for a return to that period of my life, now 20 years on.

I’m not sure Ransone was aware of how much his performance resonated with Marines. If he was, it’s unfortunate more of us will never be able to tell him how easily his character still tethers us to simpler times.

Fair winds and following seas.

By 1942, as the United States plunged headlong into a world war, many men found themselves in far-flung places with names soon to enter the American lexicon: Guadalcanal, Anzio, Bastogne.

The logistics for transporting troops and war materiel was a dizzying hurdle to overcome for Allied leaders. So too was the ability bring the tastes and smells of home to millions of servicemen shivering in foxholes in Europe and sweating in the sands of the Pacific.

Today, the National WWII Museum is home to a myriad of ephemera showcasing the logistical feat of Christmas abroad, with special hand-printed and illustrated menus created by American POWs in Europe and the Pacific and those across the services.

The menus showcase traditional fares — such as turkey and potatoes (dubbed Snowflake Potatoes, which was a mixture of potatoes, cheese, sour cream, butter and chives) — and less traditional fares such as cigarettes and cigars.

Where one was stationed would also impact Christmas meals, where local elements were often included, according to Kim Guise, senior curator and director for curatorial affairs for the National World War II Museum.

“I was looking at a menu from Christmas 1941 in Hawaii, you know, just weeks after the attack [on Pearl Harbor]. Now, sometimes these menus were printed in advance… but one of the courses is pineapple, cheese and cold pineapple juice. So that’s not something that you would see in England.”

The power of a hot meal — and presents — could galvanize morale, something understood by Allied leaders from the top down.

“It’s interesting,” said Guise, “the power of certain things to transform and experience. People wrote about how receiving Christmas packages and mail, in particular, how that could make you feel.”

Many men brought back trophies of the war: flags, guns, different ephemera. But they also brought back playbills and menus.

“I think that in itself tells us something about that time,” said Guise. “Those were important moments, important meals that were treasured and thus the menus themselves were saved.

“The richest source of information about that time is correspondence, personal correspondence,” Guise continued. “Almost nearly every letter talks about food in some kind of way. They talk about receiving food from home, so that was one way in which people went off script, I guess, or supplemented what they were receiving [from the military].”

The menus and letters now in the museum’s collection showcase how people, even in the disoriented circumstances of war, hold on to fragments of normality.

And despite the omnipresent threat of death gnawing at soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, the societal pressure to uphold Christmas traditions — namely not opening presents until Dec. 25th — was still present, most of the time.

One soldier, Guise relayed, had received a package from home early, and was doing his best to hold out until Christmas morning.

The man was unable to hold off, writing to his family “the temptation was too great. I was in the mood for a midnight snack, so I opened one of the Christmas packages.”

Inside he found three cans of Vienna sausages.

“My face dropped to the floor,” he cheekily wrote to his family. “If there’s anything we hate over here besides SPAM, it’s Vienna sausage.”

During the war, families of service members were instructed to mail Christmas packages to their loved ones between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15, but, just like logistical struggles today, even that was no guarantee for delivery.

“Even now everyone’s familiar with the holiday rush and the mail, how that impacts transportation,” Guise relayed. “Think about that in wartime, in a global war. … Sometimes they would receive it in October and sometimes they would receive it in February.”

Yet despite the erratic timing of hot meals and goods from home, they played a crucial role in soldier morale.

The museum, according to Guise, has thousands of these festive moments recorded and remembered for posterity.

One airman, from the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, who had been shot down in Aug. 1943, and held in Stalag Luft 17, near Krems, Austria, wrote to his sister on Dec. 26, 1943:

“Another Christmas come and gone. Not much news today. Feeling fine, spirits high. No mail is yet from home. … I suppose you have your tree this year, with the kids having a picnic. I sure miss little Cookie. Tell everyone I said hello.”

Then, on Dec. 25, 1944, the same airman writes to his sister, alluding to delays in communication:

“Christmas number two has come again. I hope number three will be in CL [Center Line, Michigan]. I am still in good health. Hope everyone is likewise there. Please extend my Christmas greetings to all. Write with news when you can. Merry Christmas. Happy Easter.”

Another soldier wrote home that “considering the circumstances” he had had the best “Christmas possible,” gleefully proclaiming that he had received two “delicious” Pabst Blue Ribbon beers.

While the holiday season amplified the extreme deprivation, fear and loneliness for many, the brief respite shows, according to Guise, “how people in very difficult circumstances hold on to these little moments.”

About 450 U.S. Marines were deployed to the Joint Task Force-Southern Border in Yuma, Arizona, this month to boost security along the southern border, a task force spokesperson told Military Times Monday.

The move follows the Interior Department’s July announcement that it had transferred jurisdiction of around 285 acres of public land in Yuma County along the U.S.-Mexico border to the Navy Department for three years to establish a national defense area in support of border security operations.

The newly transferred Marines, from the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion garrisoned in Camp Pendleton, California, were assigned to the task force in support of the U.S. Border Patrol, the spokesperson said.

They will largely work on projects such as construction, barrier reinforcement, signage placement and road improvements, the spokesperson said.

The battalion is expected to be deployed for around six months, working along the entirety of the southern border.

JTF-SB assumed control of the southern border mission from Joint Task Force-North in March, overseeing the nearly 2,000-mile stretch along the U.S.-Mexico border from San Diego to McAllen, Texas.

The task force is headquartered at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, about 300 miles from Yuma, where this battalion of Marines is deployed.

“The transfer of authority and surge in deployed capabilities demonstrate the Department of Defense’s continued commitment to supporting DHS and achieving full operational control of the southern border,” the U.S. Northern Command said in March, announcing the move.

The transfer allows the Navy to help U.S. Customs and Border Protection in securing the border and reducing “unlawful border traffic and its adverse effects on natural and cultural resources,” the Interior Department said in July.

Deployment of Marines for southern border security is not new under President Donald Trump’s second administration.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration in January, The Defense Department made southern border security a priority following Trump’s late January “Protecting the American people against invasion” executive order.

There are currently approximately 8,500 total service members assigned to JTF-SB working along the stretch, the spokesperson said.

Before Trump’s order, about 2,500 service members were assigned to the southern border.

According to an August Customs and Border Protection press release, the zone’s designation as a national defense area allows military personnel to temporarily detain people who allegedly enter the restricted area unlawfully.

The detainees are to then be turned over to U.S. Border Patrol agents to possibly face criminal charges for defense property regulations, military property trespassing and other charges, per the August release.

This area in Yuma is similar to those already established in Texas and Mexico, the August statement says.

Since the national defense area designation, service members in different task forces have joined ongoing operations in the Yuma sector.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service, under the headline “Q&A: How Did the U.S. Patrol the Caribbean for Drug Smuggling Before It Started Blowing Up Boats?” Subscribe to their newsletter.

For decades before the Pentagon started blowing up alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, the Coast Guard tracked, intercepted and boarded the little skiffs that carried cocaine and marijuana across the Caribbean and eastern Pacific to the U.S.

The dramatic escalation this fall, which has killed at least 99 people as of Wednesday, including 12 this week, raises questions about the legality of the strikes — and also overshadows the strange reality that the Coast Guard is continuing its long-standing counterdrug patrols, making record cocaine seizures while often simply returning the crews of drug boats to their home countries.

The Coast Guard’s counternarcotics operations have always been seen as primarily law enforcement work, built on careful legal protocols and international cooperation. It’s a stark difference from the Defense Department’s new approach, which considers drug runners in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean to be “enemy combatants” and targets boats with weapons of war.

To understand what’s at stake — and just how much of a shift these airstrikes are — The War Horse spoke with several experts: Brian McNamara, a professor at Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement and a retired Coast Guard JAG officer; Mark Nevitt, a professor at Emory University’s School of Law and a retired Navy JAG officer; and Kendra McSweeney and Mat Coleman, Ohio State University geographers who have studied at-sea drug interdictions.

“The understanding was always that the Department of Defense would assist,” McSweeney says, “but never directly participate.”

Q. How has the US typically dealt with drug smuggling boats on the high seas?

A. Countering illegal drugs on the ocean has long been the Coast Guard’s job. The Coast Guard is a branch of the military, but it’s also a law enforcement agency — meaning it has the authority to board certain vessels and detain suspected drug runners.

Coast Guard teams receive permission through standing legal agreements to board certain boats, seize any contraband and transport suspected smugglers back to the U.S. for prosecution. It’s a well-oiled operation governed by longstanding legal conventions and international agreements — and honed by years of experience battling smugglers on the high seas.

“The Coast Guard was intercepting rumrunners out of Cuba during Prohibition,” McSweeney says. “[They’ve] been the at-sea police for a long time.”

Q. So the other military branches aren’t involved?

A. Until this fall, the rest of the military only played a supporting role in counterdrug work. The military, along with other agencies and partner countries, share illicit drug intelligence, and the Coast Guard uses that intelligence in its interception work.

Navy ships — both our Navy and other countries’ — have also traditionally supported the Coast Guard’s work. Because it’s not a law enforcement agency, Navy sailors cannot board another vessel at sea. But Coast Guard teams deploy aboard Navy ships and board suspected drug boats from there, using the Navy’s bigger footprint on the ocean to supplement the Coast Guard’s older, smaller fleet.

“The Navy [has] capabilities and frigates, destroyers and a whole slew of vessels that can sort of supplement and supercharge this mission,” Nevitt, the retired Navy JAG officer, says. “But the Coast Guard is taking the lead.”

Q. So can the Coast Guard just board any boat?

A. No. The ocean is a very big place, governed by a complex web of laws. The primary maritime agreement at play is the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which outlines what countries can and can’t do on the ocean, both in international waters — about two-thirds of the Earth’s oceans — as well as in territorial seas, which are closer to land and controlled by coastal countries. The U.S. isn’t a signatory of the convention, but it tends to follow the rules the convention lays out, considering it customary maritime law. The U.S. also has its own federal laws governing the Coast Guard’s authorities.

Those rules govern which boats the Coast Guard can and cannot board. It’s complicated, but basically the Coast Guard can board any boat in international waters that doesn’t claim a nationality — in effect, a “stateless” boat. The Coast Guard also has other international agreements and protocols that help it obtain permission to board boats in many other countries’ waters or certain boats flying other countries’ flags.

Q. How does a Coast Guard drug boat interdiction work?

A. Coast Guard ships, called cutters, patrol areas where drug smugglers tend to operate — like the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. They receive military intelligence, both domestic and foreign, to clue them in to the path of suspected drug boats.

“All nations will sort of work together to halt the trafficking of drugs,” Nevitt says. “It’s not just a U.S. problem, it’s a global problem.”

Once a Coast Guard cutter has identified a potential target, it turns to an escalating “use of force” protocol, using verbal warnings and warning shots before shooting out the boat’s engines and approaching with a boarding team. The intent is to stop the boat — but to avoid injuring the people onboard.

“There was a lot of training and competency development amongst all of the Coast Guard members who were involved in that kind of dance,” says McNamara. “[The smugglers] were more valuable alive than they were dead.”

Q. So who are those smugglers the Coast Guard picks up?

A. McSweeney, along with her collaborator Coleman, has built a comprehensive database of legal cases stemming from Coast Guard drug interdictions. They found that the drug smugglers the Coast Guard detains in the eastern Pacific and the Caribbean are typically running cocaine or sometimes marijuana — almost nobody is smuggling fentanyl.

“Fentanyl is a terrestrial product,” Coleman says. “It’s made on land and transported on land.”

Most drug boats are crewed by just three or four people, who tend to be pretty economically desperate, McSweeney and Coleman say. They’re often coerced into doing this work, running open-air pangas, laden down with multiple outboard motors, through heaving waves on the open ocean. Those who volunteer get only small paydays. And they’re not typically cartel members.

“They’re basically the Amazon driver delivering the package,” McSweeney says. “They’ve just been hired to drive the drugs.”

Q. Does the Coast Guard find drugs on every boat it boards?

A. No. Not every suspected drug boat the Coast Guard intercepts turns out to be smuggling contraband. In a memo from this past October, the Coast Guard commandant wrote that nearly one in five of the boats it boarded over the last year did not have drugs onboard. That number holds steady for boats intercepted off the coast of Venezuela — where several of the airstrikes have been focused.

Q. What happens after the Coast Guard detains a smuggling crew?

A. Until this year, the Coast Guard would often bring alleged smugglers back to the U.S. for criminal charges and prosecution. But the real value, McNamara says, was in the information these low-level operatives could provide.

“It helped the U.S. gather intelligence on who these drug smugglers were and helped build from the ground up a picture of what the cartels were doing,” he says.

But that changed this past winter. In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi released a memo outlining the Department of Justice’s priorities in investigating and prosecuting cartel operations, writing that the department would “rarely” prosecute low-level offenders — including those intercepted at sea — to free up resources for bigger investigations. The Coast Guard now typically returns them to their home countries.

Q. So has the Coast Guard stopped intercepting drug smugglers?

A. No. In fact, the Coast Guard has been surging its ships and aircraft to the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, leading to record-breaking drug busts.

“In cutting off the flow of these deadly drugs, the Coast Guard is saving countless American lives,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said after the Coast Guard announced it had seized more than 100,000 pounds of cocaine in the eastern Pacific between August and October this year.

Q. How are the smugglers the Coast Guard intercepts different from the alleged smugglers the Defense Department is bombing?

A. As far as experts know, they’re not. During the exact same time frame that the Coast Guard seized those 100,000 pounds of cocaine, the Department of Defense, through its Special Operations Command, began its airstrike campaign. After the first strike, State Secretary Marco Rubio said that Trump could have ordered the alleged drug boat be intercepted — but instead chose to bomb it.

“Instead of interdicting it, on the president’s orders, we blew it up,” Rubio told reporters.

Q. So what does this mean for the Coast Guard’s work?

A. In spite of Noem’s praise, President Donald Trump bluntly told reporters last month that the Coast Guard’s approach has been “totally ineffective.” A Department of Homeland Security Inspector General report from earlier this year found that the Coast Guard hadn’t met its own drug seizure goals in the past, in part because cutters were unavailable for patrols and seizure information wasn’t always accurately recorded.

This year, however, the Coast Guard announced it had seized more than 500,000 pounds of cocaine, well over three times the amount it usually intercepts in a year. But the experts we spoke with said that in the long run, the airstrikes will likely make the Coast Guard’s work more difficult. Countries that previously shared intelligence with the U.S., like Britain and Colombia, have said they will no longer cooperate on counternarcotics work over fears that the U.S. is violating international law.

The Coast Guard’s counterdrug approach was built on international collaboration, governed by legal agreements and mutual trust built up over decades, McSweeney says.

“That is literally being blown up with every strike.”

This War Horse news story was edited by Mike Frankel, fact-checked by Jess Rohan and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.

The signs appear positive for military recruiting in fiscal 2026, following the services’ success last year in meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals, defense officials said Monday.

Since the beginning of fiscal 2026 in October, recruiting efforts are “already off to a strong and promising start,” officials said, with the Defense Department meeting nearly 40% of its delayed entry program accession goals.

“This is a historic figure and a testament to our support from the president and the secretary, as well as the great work being done by each of the services,” said Anthony J. Tata, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in the announcement. “The department is on track to once again meet our recruiting mission.”

Since November 2024, the military has seen the highest percentage in meeting or exceeding their recruiting goals in more than a decade, officials also claimed in the announcement. According to DOD, the five service branches achieved an average of 103% of their recruiting goals for fiscal 2025, following recruiting challenges in recent years.

In early summer, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force announced they had already met their year-end recruiting targets.

All active-duty forces met their fiscal 2025 recruiting goals, according to DOD. Most of the reserve components also met their goals, with the exception of the Army Reserve, which met 75% of its goals.

According to DOD, the branches met the following recruiting goals:

• The Army achieved 101.72% of its goal of 61,000 recruits, recruiting 62,050.
• The Navy achieved 108.61% of its goal of 40,600 recruits, recruiting 44,096.
• The Air Force achieved 100.22% of its goal of 30,100 recruits, recruiting 30,166.
• The Space Force achieved 102.89% of its goal of 796 recruits, recruiting 819.
• The Marine Corps achieved 100% of its goal of 26,600 recruits, recruiting 26,600.

In the announcement, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell and other leaders attributed the success to several factors, including enhanced medical screening processes for recruits.

A medical records accession pilot program has cut down on waiting times between the time a recruit’s initial paperwork is submitted and when they are allowed to be taken in by their local Military Entrance Processing Station, officials stated. Reducing that wait time helps avoid potential recruits from losing interest in serving, officials said.

Other initiatives of the services that were cited in the announcement were preparatory courses to help recruits who are close to meeting enlistment standards improve their academic test scores and physical fitness.

A recent Defense Department Inspector General report found the Army and Navy had underreported the scores of recruits who went through those courses, failing to accurately calculate the number of recruits who scored low on their military aptitude tests. The services counted scores earned after completion of those preparatory courses, instead of scores the recruits earned when they first signed up.

Boosts in troop end strength

Meanwhile, the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act just signed into law by President Donald Trump boosts DOD’s troop end strength by about 26,100:

• 454,000 active-duty soldiers, an increase of 11,700 from fiscal 2025
• 334,600 sailors, an increase of 12,300 from fiscal 2025
• 321,500 airmen, an increase of 1,500 from fiscal 2025
• 10,400 Space Force guardians, an increase of 600 from fiscal 2025

The Marine Corps won’t see an increase over their 172,300 end strength for 2025.

As the U.S. military continues to build up forces to deter China in the increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region, a recent Government Accountability Office report claims that clear guidance on how it funds those deterrence efforts has yet to be provided.

Each year, the Defense Department selects programs, equipment, research and support initiatives to include in the annual Pacific Deterrence Initiative budget.

The PDI originated as a way for the government to gain insight into how DOD is distributing funds to counter evolving threats posed by the People’s Republic of China.

The GAO report analyzed the Defense Department’s annual PDI budget from fiscal years 2023 through 2025 and determined that there were inconsistencies within the program that do not “reflect department-wide priorities or requirements and present an inconsistent mix of programs and funding.”

One example, according to the report, was that the Air Force and Marine Corps sought funding for facilities sustainment programs, which identify and assess risks, while the Army and Navy did not.

The GAO report also identified that some DOD organizations included development programs that are unlikely to be effective within five years, despite the guidance’s near-term focus.

Additionally, there were select efforts that were highlighted as being geographically located east of the International Date Line, while the PDI guidance focuses primarily on efforts to its west.

“Inconsistent program selection has limited visibility and weakened the initiative’s value,” the report’s authors wrote. “These issues stem, in part, from DOD’s unclear internal guidance on how to select programs for inclusion in the PDI budget exhibit.”

The GAO went on to note that the programs and funding presented in the annual budget exhibit were different from those included in the Indo-Pacific Command’s independent assessment, which “is based on its strategy and assumes unlimited resources,” the authors wrote.

“While some of the differences can be attributed to that assumption, there are also differences in the types of funded programs prioritized,” the report states. “This raises questions about the extent of DOD’s resourcing needs for the Indo-Pacific region.”

Together, the inconsistencies make assessing alignment between DOD resources and strategic goals more difficult, the report states.

“Unless DOD improves its internal processes and clarifies what the PDI exhibit is intended to convey, Congress will continue to face challenges in using it to assess progress toward deterrence and posture objectives in the Indo-Pacific region,” the report’s authors conclude.

“Addressing these issues would help ensure the PDI budget exhibit provides clear, consistent and credible information on how the department is aligning resources to increase capability and readiness in the Indo-Pacific.”

President Donald Trump has nominated Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Francis L. Donovan to head the U.S. Southern Command after the previous commander, Adm. Alvin Holsey, retired after 13 months, the Defense Department said Friday.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Donovan — currently the vice commander of U.S. Special Operations Command — is in line to be the next SOUTHCOM commander, taking over from Holsey, who relinquished his post overseeing military operations in South America Dec. 12.

Hegseth publicized Holsey’s departure in an Oct. 16 X post, saying Holsey would retire at the end of this year after 37 years of service, without further context.

A list of US military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels

The New York Times reported that Holsey had voiced concerns over lethal U.S. military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, in support of what the Pentagon has labeled counternarcotics efforts.

Other news sources have published reports that Holsey and Hegseth clashed over these concerns and that Hegseth grew frustrated with what he perceived as Holsey’s lack of aggression in combating the alleged narcoterrorists.

On the day that Hegseth announced Holsey’s retirement, the U.S. had killed 27 individuals after launching six military strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels.

A Sept. 2 strike left two survivors clinging to the wreckage of their boat after an initial strike. SEAL Team 6, operating under the Joint Special Operations Command, killed them in a subsequent double-tap strike.

The Washington Post first reported on that strike, raising questions over whether the survivors’ killing violated international and U.S. law, which dictate that combatants who are out of the fight, defenseless, or shipwrecked are not to be targeted or killed.

The legality of the second strike, as well as the strikes in general, has repeatedly come into question by members of Congress, as well as former and current military judge advocates general.

Hegseth told reporters on Dec. 16 that the Defense Department would not release a full video of the Sept. 2 strike. The Trump administration had released a snippet of the first strike on X the day it occurred.

A day later, Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who was JSOC commander during the Sept. 2 strike and ordered the killing of the two survivors, reportedly told lawmakers that it was possible to release portions of Pentagon footage of the strike without jeopardizing classified information.

If confirmed, Donovan would be at the helm of the controversial military strikes against the alleged drug-carrying vessels in the SOUTHCOM area of operations.

A Silver Star recipient, Donovan has served as commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division, assistant commanding general of JSOC and commanding general of Naval Amphibious Forces, Task Force 51/5thMarine Expeditionary Brigade, according to his Marine biography.

He has also held command positions with Force Recon, a battalion landing team and Marine expeditionary unit, among other assignments.

Jordan confirmed Saturday that its air force took part in strikes launched by the United States on Islamic State group targets in Syria in retaliation for the killing of three U.S. citizens earlier this month.

The U.S. launched military strikes Friday on multiple sites in in Syria to “eliminate” Islamic State group fighters and weapons in retaliation for an attack by a Syrian gunman that killed two U.S. troops and an American civilian interpreter almost a week earlier.

The Jordanian military said in a statement that its air force “participated in precise airstrikes ... targeting several ISIS positions in southern Syria,” using a different abbreviation for the Islamic State group. Jordan is one of 90 countries making up the global coalition against IS, which Syria recently joined.

The U.S. military did not say how many had been killed in Friday’s strikes. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based war monitor, reported that at least five people were killed, including the leader and members of an IS cell.

The Jordanian statement said the operation aimed “to prevent extremist groups from exploiting these areas as launching pads to threaten the security of Syria’s neighbors and the wider region, especially after ISIS regrouped and rebuilt its capabilities in southern Syria.”

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the region, said in a statement that its forces “struck more than 70 targets at multiple locations across central Syria with fighter jets, attack helicopters, and artillery,” with the Jordanian air force supporting with fighter aircraft.

It said that since the Dec. 13 attack in Syria, “U.S. and partner forces conducted 10 operations in Syria and Iraq resulting in the deaths or detention of 23 terrorist operatives,” adding that the U.S. and partners have conducted more than 80 counterterrorism operation in Syria in the past six months.

President Donald Trump had pledged “very serious retaliation” after the shooting in the Syrian desert, for which he blamed IS. Those killed were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the militant group. On Friday Trump reiterated his backing for Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, who Trump said was “fully in support” of the U.S. strikes against IS.

IS has not taken responsibility for the attack on the U.S. service members, but the group has claimed two attacks on Syrian security forces since, one of which killed four Syrian soldiers in Idlib province. The group in its statements described al-Sharaa’s government and army as “apostates.” While al-Sharaa once led a group affiliated with al-Qaida, he has had a long-running enmity with IS.

As well as killing three U.S. citizens, the shooting near Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed.

The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned while he was under investigation on suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Syrian officials have said.

The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has announced the start of an operation to “eliminate ISIS fighters, infrastructure and weapons sites” in Syria following the deaths of three U.S. citizens.

“This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance. The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people,” he said Friday on social media.

Two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter were killed Dec. 13 in an attack in the Syrian desert that the Trump administration has blamed on the Islamic State group. The slain National Guard members were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

Soon after word of the deaths, President Donald Trump pledged “very serious retaliation” but stressed that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops. Trump has said Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa was “extremely angry and disturbed by this attack” and the shooting attack by a gunman came as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

Syrian state television reported that strikes hit targets in rural areas of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa provinces and in the Jabal al-Amour area near Palmyra. It said they targeted “weapons storage sites and headquarters used by ISIS as launching points for its operations in the region.”

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that the attack was conducted using F-15 Eagle jets, A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations, said more strikes should be expected.

When asked for further information, the Pentagon referred AP to Hegseth’s social media post.

White House officials noted that Trump had made clear that retaliation was coming.

“President Trump told the world that the United States would retaliate for the killing of our heroes by ISIS in Syria, and he is delivering on that promise,” White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement.

Trump this week met privately with the families of the slain Americans at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.

The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed.

The shooting nearly a week ago near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded three other U.S. troops as well as members of Syria’s security forces, and the gunman was killed. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned because of suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba has said.

The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards.

Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut, Lebanon, contributed.

The U.S. military will stop its practice of shooting pigs and goats to help prepare medics for treating wounded troops in a combat zone, ending an exercise made obsolete by simulators that mimic battlefield injuries.

The prohibition on “live fire” training that includes animals is part of this year’s annual defense bill, although other uses of animals for wartime training will continue The ban was championed by Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican who often focuses on animal rights issues.

Buchanan called the change “a major step forward in reducing unnecessary suffering in military practices.”

“With today’s advanced simulation technology, we can prepare our medics for the battlefield while reducing harm to animals,” he said in a statement to The Associated Press. “As Co-Chair of the Animal Protection Caucus, I’m proud to continue leading efforts to end outdated and inhumane practices.”

Buchanan’s office said the Defense Department will continue to allow training that involves stabbing, burning and using blunt instruments on animals, while also allowing “weapon wounding,” which is when the military tests weapons on animals. Animal rights groups say the animals are supposed to be anesthetized during such training and testing.

The Defense Health Agency, which oversees the training, said in a statement Friday that the Defense Department, “remains committed to replacement of animal models without compromising the quality of medical training.”

The agency cited the establishment of its Defense Medical Modeling and Simulation Office as a testament to those efforts, which include “realistic training scenarios to ensure medical providers are well-prepared to care for the combat-wounded.”

Groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals declared victory, saying the change will spare the lives of thousands of animals each year and “marks a historic shift toward state-of-the-art, human-relevant simulation technology.”

It’s unclear how often the military uses animals for training. Previous defense bills and other pieces of legislation have sought to reduce their use for trauma training, according to a 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office, an independent agency that serves Congress.

The 2013 defense bill required the Pentagon to submit a report that outlined a strategy for transitioning to human-based training methods, the GAO said. A 2018 statute required the secretary of defense to ensure the military used simulation technology “to the maximum extent practicable” or unless use of animals was deemed necessary by the medical chain of command.

The GAO report stated the animals are placed under anesthesia and then euthanized.

“Live animals such as pigs and goats are used in trauma training because their organs and tissues are similar to humans, they have biological variation that can complicate treatment and provide opportunities to control medical conditions,” the report stated.

But groups such as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine say anesthetized pigs and goats do little to prepare medics or corpsmen for treating wounded servicemembers. They said the advent of “cut suits” that are worn by people are much better at mimicking an injured human who is moaning and writhing.

“The big argument is this is a living, breathing thing that they have to take care of and there’s this level of realism,” said Erin Griffith, a retired Navy doctor and member of the physicians committee. “But replicating what it’s like when their buddy is shot and bleeding and awake is very different.”

A U.S. Army Reserve lawyer detailed as a federal immigration judge has been fired barely a month into the job after granting asylum at a high rate out of step with the Trump administration’s mass deportation goals, The Associated Press has learned.

Christopher Day began hearing cases in late October as a temporary judge at the immigration court in Annandale, Virginia. He was fired around Dec. 2, the National Association of Immigration Judges confirmed.

It’s unclear why Day was fired. Day did not comment when contacted by the AP, and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined to discuss personnel matters.

But federal data from November shows he ruled on asylum cases in ways at odds with the Trump administration’s stated goals.

Of the 11 cases he concluded in November, he granted asylum or some other type of relief allowing the migrant to remain in the United States a total of six times, according to federal data analyzed by Mobile Pathways, a San Francisco-based non profit.

Such favorable outcomes for migrants have become increasingly rare as the Trump administration seeks to slash a massive backlog of 3.8 million asylum cases by radically overhauling the nation’s 75 immigration courts.

As part of that drive, the Trump administration has fired almost 100 judges viewed as too liberal and over the summer eased rules allowing any attorney, regardless of their legal background, to apply to become what recent recruitment ads refer to as a “Deportation Judge.”

In response, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in September approved sending up to 600 military lawyers to hear asylum cases. The goal, migrant advocacy groups say, is to redefine a judge’s traditional duties as a fair, independent arbiter of asylum claims into something akin to a rubber stamp in a robe for the White House’s mass deportation goals.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has decried the influx of military officers lacking expertise in immigration law, likening them to cardiologists attempting to do a hip replacement. But Pentagon and White House officials have defended the move, saying that a campaign to rule on pending asylum claims was something that all federal workers — as well as migrants sometimes in limbo for years — should rally behind.

So far, only 30 members of the military have been detailed to the immigration courts and for the most part appear to have lived up to the administration’s expectations. Nine out of every 10 migrants whose asylum cases were heard by such judges in November were either ordered removed or requested to self-deport, according to federal data. Overall, the military judges ordered removal 78% of the time compared to 63% for all other judges.

But those like Day, whose rulings countered that trend, are especially vulnerable if it is determined they violated their military duties, said Dana Leigh Marks, a retired immigration judge.

“It is hard to imagine someone being fired so quickly, after five weeks on the bench, unless it was for ideological reasons,” said Marks, the former head of the National Association of Immigration Judges. “It’s especially unfair to military judges because they don’t have the same civil service protections and could face severe consequences for failing in their assignment.”

The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which governs service members, forbids senior military leaders from interfering or retaliating against military attorneys for their actions in a military tribunal. Army regulations also require JAG attorneys to proceed with candor and honesty much like all licensed lawyers are expected to do in civil courts.

But whether those standards apply to military lawyers working outside of the normal confines of a military tribunal is untested.

Brenner Fissell, a Villanova University law professor, said that there are a number of personnel actions that can be taken — letters of counseling or reprimand — that, even if found to be baseless later, would affect one’s potential for promotion and impact their discharge. Appealing such decisions, he said, is a byzantine process that can take years and require hiring a costly lawyer.

“The process can be the punishment,” said Fissell, who helps run the Orders Project, which helps provide counsel to military personnel who believe they are being asked to carry out illegal orders.

A graduate of American University law school, Day has held multiple jobs in the federal government over the past two decades while simultaneously serving as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps. His last job was as an attorney for the Federal Communications Commission during the Biden administration.

Unlike federal judges, who have lifetime tenure, immigration judges are employees of the Justice Department, which runs immigration courts, and can be fired by the attorney general with fewer restraints.

That message was driven home during a two-week training course in October held for new judges, including those assigned by the Pentagon, according to someone who attended the training on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private sessions.

The Pentagon has offered extra incentives to military officers signing up for temporary detail on immigration courts. Those volunteering were promised their choice of assignments, according to an email sent by the JAG Corps leadership in the fall, a copy of which was shared with the AP. But if enough officers didn’t come forward, officers might be required to relocate up to six months away from home to fulfill the mandate, according to the email.

The U.S. Marine Corps is slated to implement a sex-neutral physical fitness test scoring system for Marines with combat military occupational specialties beginning Jan. 1, 2026, according to a recent service memo.

The physical fitness updates, which also include changes to the service’s body composition standards, follow a September memorandum from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that emphasized more strict fitness requirements for troops.

Starting Jan. 1, combat arms Marines will be required to attain a minimum PFT score of 210 points, or at least 70% of a perfect score.

If Marines do not meet the requirement by the end of the reporting period, they will either be assigned to remedial physical training, reclassified with a new MOS or restricted from promotion, the release said.

“Our combat arms MOSs require rigorous physical readiness for direct ground combat,” Col. James Derrick, director of the Marine Corps Training and Education Command, said in a release. “These changes ensure all combat arms Marines meet the same high sex-neutral standards.”

Non-combat arms Marines will continue to be tested with the existing sex- and age-normed standards, while all combat Marines, regardless of sex, will face male, age-normed guidelines.

In addition to the PFT, the Marine Corps is replacing its height and weight standards and tape test with a waist-to-height ratio methodology. Those changes, meanwhile, are expected to be phased in over time.

Service-specific body composition standards will be published once the defense secretary provides further guidance, the release stated.

Changes to the PFT are being made in accordance to Hegseth’s Sept. 30 memo “to ensure every service member meets the physical demands of combat and leads by example,” a MarAdmin released Thursday stated.

Speaking to hundreds of top military officials at Marine Corps Base Quantico in September, Hegseth emphasized that combat effectiveness “all starts with physical fitness and appearance.”

“Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops,” Hegseth said.

While the new PFT standards will go into effect in the new year, additional Manpower Information Systems updates are expected to be gradually applied over six to eight months, the release stated, with full installment expected within a year.

It was a miracle of deliverance.

Orders had gone out to military officers to collect “every kind of watercraft … that could be kept afloat and had either oars or sails,” to slip roughly 9,000 men across the water to safe harbors and away from a much larger, determined enemy.

Except this retreat was not in 1940. There was no Vice Adm. Bertram Ramsay feverishly stringing together Operation Dynamo to extract 338,336 soldiers — most of whom made up the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force — from ignominious defeat at the hands of the Germans at French port of Dunkirk.

The year was 1776 and the enemy was the British.

Wars are not won by evacuation, but Gen. George Washington’s decision to evacuate Long Island and retreat to Manhattan in August 1776 ultimately saved the Continental Army and the patriot cause.

Battle of Long Island

After its evacuation of Boston in March 1776, the British, as Washington accurately concluded, would set their sights on New York. The only question was when.

By mid-April, Washington had marched his 19,000 soldiers to lower Manhattan. And there they waited. Through the spring, and then into summer.

It wasn’t until early July that 400 British ships with 32,000 men commanded by Gen. William Howe arrived at Staten Island, according to Mount Vernon. When Howe offered a pardon to the rebels, Washington answered, “Those who have committed no fault want no pardon.”

Still, they waited.

While Washington was convinced that the British would attack Manhattan, he continued to fortify Brooklyn, just across the water’s edge.

“They mean to land the main body of their army on Long Island and make their grand push there,” Washington wrote to John Hancock.

Yet his failure to secure the rarely used Jamaica Pass to the east of Brooklyn Heights would prove a costly mistake as Howe plunged 10,000 men through the pass on the evening of Aug. 26 — attacking the Americans from a weakened rear.

“To my great mortification,” Col. Samuel Miles, who commanded the Pennsylvania militia rifle regiment above Flatbush, later wrote, “I saw the main body of the enemy in full march between me and our lines.”

The Americans, fighting a hapless rearguard action from hill to hill, writes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian Rick Atkinson in his trilogy series “The British are Coming,” had barely slowed the British assault.

By 8:30 a.m., Howe, Gen. Henry Clinton and Gen. Charles Cornwallis were a mere 2 miles from the main rebel defenses in Brooklyn.

“From this instant,” Clinton reported, “the enemy showed no disposition to stand.”

The Hessians, led by Gen. Leopold Philip Von Heister, had launched an assault against Gen. John Sullivan and his men to the south, while the redcoats, under Gen. James Grant’s command, attacked Gen. William Alexander, also known as Lord Sterling, in the southwest on the Heights of Guan.

The patriots, although fighting feverishly, were surrounded.

Upon realizing that the main British force had come through the Jamaica Pass and would soon surround him, Sullivan ordered his men to retreat to Brooklyn Heights before he himself was captured, according to Mount Vernon.

Stirling and his men managed to hold off the British for several hours but, like Sullivan, realized he was surrounded. Reduced to less than 1,000 men, Stirling detached 400 Maryland soldiers to fight as a rearguard, giving his remaining men a chance to flee.

It was at the Old Stone House, along the Gowanus road, that Stirling and his remaining contingent of men gave the British their fiercest fight of the day.

Fighting surged back and forth before Hessian and grenadier reinforcements obliterated the American line. More than 250 of the 400 men were either killed or captured, including the wounded, lupine Stirling who eventually surrendered to Heister.

According to Atkinson, Lt. Enoch Anderson of Delaware, who escaped by wading to his chin past a milldam despite a bullet wound in the neck, wrote simply, “A hard day this.”

Miracle of deliverance

Washington watched helplessly from the elevation of Cobble Hill as the carnage unfolded around him.

In the aftermath of the battle, a furious John Adams concluded in a letter to his wife, Abigail, that, “In general, our Generals were outgeneraled.”

He was right to a degree. According to a report from Howe, 1,097 Americans were taken prisoner, including three generals, three colonels and four lieutenant colonels, plus 32 cannons seized. Some 300 Americans had been killed, while 700 were wounded.

In contrast, the British and Hessians reported combined losses of 64 killed and 293 wounded.

In the weeks and months leading up to the battle, Washington had failed to recognize that the key to holding New York proper was through Long Island. A weak, divided army that lacked naval power could have never held its own against the British.

In fact, it was only through the divine fate of a northeastern breeze that kept Howe’s “men-of-war from sailing up the East River, where they could have butchered the rebel flank with broadsides,” writes Atkinson.

For their part, the British — on both sides of the Atlantic — were jubilant.

“If a good bleeding can bring those Bible-faced Yankees to their senses,” wrote British Gen. James Grant after the battle, “the fever of independence should soon abate.”

While American Lt. Col. Daniel Brodhead charged, “Less generalship never was shown in any army since the art of war was understood.”

The Americans were pinned to their last toehold in Brooklyn Heights with the British on three sides and the East River to their back. Roughly 9,000 men were packed within 3 square miles, encircled.

Howe, however, ordered a pause. He hoped to avoid a frontal assault against the cornered Americans, as the echoes of Bunker Hill played in his head. Assault trenches were ordered to be dug — less than 1,000 yards from the American encampment.

The eerie sounds of shovels and pickaxes being dug into the earth could easily be heard by the battered patriots, but the British did not yet come.

Washington was not about to miscalculate again.

Fortuitously, the providential northeast wind did not abate, preventing the British from blocking the East River and severing the American line of retreat from Brooklyn.

At 5:00 p.m. on Aug. 29, Washington and eight of his generals unanimously concluded that an evacuation was the order of the day.

Orders swiftly went out to collect what “could be kept afloat and had either oars or sails,” all up and down the shores of Manhattan.

Within a few hours fishermen and civilian sailors answered the call: More than fifty rowboats, scows, periaugers, sloops and schooners converged along Brooklyn’s banks, joined by 10 flatboats, according to Atkinson. One grateful patriot described them as “hardy, adroit, and weatherproof.”

America’s “little ships” had arrived to ferry its standing army to safety.

The very night that orders went out to evacuate, civilian rescuers began rowing boatloads of weary, terrified soldiers to the wharves — and safety — around Fly Market wharf in Manhattan.

Their oars, muffled with rags to quiet their approach, churned against the temperamental currents of the East River.

Orders went out to not talk — or even cough — so as to not alert the enemy of their plan. Yet men, fearful of being left behind, began to crowd the riverbank, pushing to be among the first evacuees.

“An officer,” writes Atkinson, “later reported that Washington himself lifted a huge stone above an overloaded skiff and threatened to ‘sink it to hell’ unless order was restored.”

Control was roughly restored by the 14th and 27th Massachusetts Continentals, who began to methodically withdraw men from Brooklyn’s banks.

By early Friday, vessels were able to ferry 1,000 soldiers an hour.

At 2:00 a.m. an auspicious fog rolled in off the water, further concealing the American efforts.

“I could scarcely discern a man at six yards’ distance,” Lt. Benjamin Tallmadge would later write.

As dawn approached, the last of the regiments left Brooklyn Heights.

“We very joyfully bid those trenches a long adieu,” Tallmadge continued.

Just before daybreak, the British began to sense a change, noting that American sentinels had abandoned their posts.

Swiftly organizing a patrol, the British edged towards the American camp.

“I was the first person in the works,” wrote Capt. John Montresor, “but found the enemy gone except for some entrenching tools, a few cows and horses, and three plundering Yankees who had lingered too long in the camp.”

The last of the American boats, one of which was carrying Washington, was still faintly visible to the British through the morning fog. In vain, the British shot after them but they were no more than fruitless parting shots — by then the boats were too far out of range.

The 9,000-strong American army, despite being beleaguered and unorganized, had been, like Churchill would note in 1940, plucked “out of the jaws of death and shame, to their native land and to the tasks which lie immediately ahead.”

The Americans had lost the battle. They would win the war.

Sailors at 56 U.S. Navy installations will be the beneficiaries of about $375 million in barracks improvements projects to address “critical living conditions,” Navy officials announced Thursday.

About $300 million will go into major projects to benefit around 2,000 sailors and Marines at six bases with larger, more urgent needs.

The remaining $75 million has been identified for 95 smaller projects at 50 installations, including some overseas. They include projects such as kitchen modernizations; heating, ventilation and air conditioning system upgrades; flooring replacements and new furniture.

Officials said they received about $375 million in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for Navy unaccompanied housing work. The effort is driven by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Barracks Task Force initiative and the Navy’s “Sailors First” principle, officials said.

“Providing safe, comfortable and clean housing is not optional. It is a responsibility we owe to every sailor who volunteers to serve,” Vice Adm. Scott Gray, commander of Navy Installations Command, said in the announcement.

“This is not a one-time fix, but a sustained commitment,” Gray said.

“We are dedicated to continuous improvement and ensuring our sailors have the quality housing they deserve throughout their careers,” he added.

The six larger projects will focus on longer-term maintenance, restoration and modernization projects ranging from improving energy efficiency and renovating bathrooms to replacing HVAC, plumbing and electrical distribution systems.

Those six projects were prioritized based on “executability and impact for our sailors,” Destiny Sibert, a spokeswoman for the Navy Installations Command, said.

She said these improvements were largely identified after Gray ordered his regional commanders to personally inspect all unaccompanied housing facilities where sailors were living in their areas of responsibility last spring.

The six larger projects are:

• Naval Base Kitsap, Washington: Major repairs to Keppler Hall, which housed 304 sailors but is now uninhabitable after a fire and water damage in August. A contract has been awarded and is on a fast track to start, Sibert said.
• Naval Support Facility Indian Head, Maryland: Modification of a barracks occupied by an unknown number of Marines in the Joint Chemical Biological Incident Response Force. The project includes structural, mechanical and electrical upgrades and modernization of the fire suppression system.
• Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia: Complete renovation of student housing for 336 residents at the Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training. The project will include a new roof, as well as HVAC and plumbing work, mold remediation and flooring replacement, among other things.
• Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii: Full modernization of Building 1489, including HVAC, roofing, plumbing and electrical upgrades, renovation of shower areas, upgrading kitchens and other interior improvements and providing storage areas for the 96 residents.
• Naval Air Station Oceana Dam Neck, Virginia: Renovation of Building 550, which houses about 338 students in the Marine Corps Intelligence School. The project will include structural repairs, heating repairs, a new sewer system, new flooring, bathroom improvements, in-room refrigerators and microwaves.
• Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story, Virginia: Improvements at Shields Hall for the 638 residents, to include replacing the HVAC system and suspended ceilings, as well as other repairs.

A schedule for completion of the projects is not available because of the contracting process.

For years, troops across the services have complained about conditions in barracks, and the Government Accountability Office has reported on the poor conditions, lack of oversight and deferred maintenance that reached critical stages.

“For too long this department has neglected its responsibilities to set and maintain the appropriate standards for barracks, and that ends now,” Hegseth said in an Oct. 6 memo directing the formation of the Barracks Task Force.

A “warrior dividend” of $1,776 is on its way to service members, President Donald Trump announced in a speech Wednesday evening.

Because of money received from tariffs this year, along with the One Big Beautiful Bill, he said, “more than 1,450,000 service members will receive a special warrior dividend before Christmas.”

The $1,776 is “in honor of our nation’s founding” 250 years ago in 1776, he said.

“Nobody deserves it more than our military,” Trump proclaimed.

Information was not immediately available about whether the money will come in the form of checks, or whether it will be deposited directly into service members’ accounts, as their pay is.

CNN reported that a senior administration official said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered defense officials to pay out $2.6 billion as a one-time basic allowance for housing supplement to all eligible service members in pay grades O-6 and below.

Over the last several years, lawmakers and defense officials have taken steps to address some financial issues for service members, such as providing a massive targeted salary hike for about 500,000 troops E-4 and below in 2025 — increasing their base salaries by 10% above the annual military-wide pay adjustment.

The few and the proud just got a bit more debonaire.

For the first time since its authorization for wear in the 1800s, both male and female Marines whose rank or officer status qualifies them can wear one of the Corps’ rarest and most pricey dress accessories: the boat cloak.

That’s according to a Marine Administrative message published this month. According to the message, female officers and staff noncommissioned officers are now authorized to wear “either the boatcloak or the cape” with the evening and dress and blue dress Alpha and Bravo uniforms.

This decision, along with a raft of other tweaks to uniform policy, was made personally by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith at a meeting of the Marine Corps Uniform Board in October, according to the message.

The prospect of a unisex boat cloak was raised last year as one of a number of proposals presented to rank-and-file Marines in a survey to gauge their interest in changes — the first such survey since 2019, and the first conducted under Smith’s tenure.

At the time, Uniform Board Program Manager Mary Boyt told Marine Corps Times that any change would keep the boat cloak “an optional, special-order item,” but give more Marines the opportunity to wear it.

“Very few people actually buy the boat cloak, because it’s very expensive,” Boyt said at the time, adding that the item enjoys a “niche popularity, especially near Washington, D.C.

“So, this would just be giving the female Marines the opportunity to wear the same cloak that the males are wearing with their standing collar.”

However, the new authorization does not include one change Boyt predicted: there’s no language in the MarAdmin that would phase out the shorter dress cape that had been previously authorized for women. Thus, both options remain available to female Marines indefinitely.

A Marine Corps spokesman, Maj. Hector Infante, told Military Times Wednesday that the boat cloak proposal “was formally raised through official requests to the Marine Corps Uniform Board, reflecting interest and demand from the operating forces.”

The Uniform Board does not typically release data on voting or how many requests they receive about specific uniform matters.

Interest in broadening wear authorization for the boat cloak is notable because of how rarely seen the item is. Military Reddit forums and social media pages track sightings of the scarlet-lined cloak “in the wild.”

At a recent Marine Corps birthday ball attended by this reporter, a staff noncommissioned officer sporting the cloak was met with offers of free drinks.

The heavy, knee-length cloak, purported to weigh around seven pounds, is a vestige of history that has persisted even as other accessories have been retired. This year, Business Insider featured the story of a Marine Corps boat cloak that had been handed down through generations for almost 80 years.

Other items have not fared as well. The two-foot “swagger stick,” for example, approved as a dress item in the early 1900s and sported perhaps most famously by Army. Gen. George S. Patton, was formally discouraged by Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Shoup in an address to staff in 1960.

“In general I feel that a clean, neat, well-fitted uniform with the Marine Corps emblem is tops. There is no need for gimmicks and gadgets,” he said. He did, however, stop short of banning or retiring the item.

“If you feel the need of it, carry it,” he said, according to a transcript kept by Marine Corps University.

Handmade to order in dark blue broadcloth and scarlet wool, boat cloaks cost $850 new from The Marine Shop, edging out the ceremonial officer’s sword with accessories at around $770 for priciest uniform accessory. The Uniform Board did not consider ongoing demand for the item in its process, officials said.

“The Marine Corps Uniform Board does not track the sale or purchase of individual uniform items,” Infante said. “Sales and purchasing data are managed through supply and retail systems outside the Board’s scope.”

Other newly authorized uniform changes rolled out this month include permission for female Marines to wear black suede, cloth or leather pumps with the evening dress uniform, in addition to the standard patent leather; addition of the tan tanker jacket to the seabag of new Marines in addition to the All-Weather Coat; and updates to improve and simplify placement of medals and ribbons on the uniform.

Additional guidance on tanker jacket fielding is forthcoming, officials said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered an overhaul of the military’s Chaplain Corps in a Tuesday video message, saying he intends to “make the Chaplain Corps great again,” by restoring its focus on religious ministry.

“In an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism, chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers,” he said in the video, since posted on social media.

Hegseth railed against what he described as “new age notions” in the Army Spiritual Fitness Guide, saying, “it mentions God one time — that’s it. It mentions feelings eleven times. It even mentions playfulness — whatever that is — nine times.” In the video, Hegseth gestured air quotes when he spoke the word, “feelings.”

He said the guide “alienates” religious soldiers “by pushing secular humanism.” As a result, Hegseth said the Army will be “tossing it,” and said that he had a directive that would be signed that day to scrap the guide at once.

The Army’s guide was released in August 2025, and frames spiritual fitness as an important part of force readiness. III Corps pioneered a monthslong study to develop the 112-page document, according to previous reporting by Military Times.

“We are aggressively moving forward with Secretary Hegseth’s intent to discontinue the Army Spiritual Fitness Guide,” Army spokesperson Tony McCormick said on Wednesday.

Hegseth said other new changes include “simplifying the faith and belief coding system,” which he said has “ballooned to over two hundred overly complex faith and belief codes.”

More revisions are forthcoming, he emphasized.

“There will be a top-down cultural shift, putting spiritual wellbeing on the same footing as mental and physical health, as a first step toward creating a supportive environment for our warriors and their souls,” he said.

In response to queries about if the filmed statement constituted formal policy and what changes, if any, had been directed regarding the roles and responsibilities of military chaplains, the Pentagon’s press duty officer on Wednesday said the Pentagon had nothing to add outside of the video.

The Senate on Wednesday passed a major policy bill that authorizes the Defense Department to spend $900.6 billion in fiscal 2026.

The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House passed Dec. 10, will now head to President Donald Trump, who has pledged to sign it. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill 77-20.

The bill was praised by the top two senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who said it makes critical investments to strengthen the U.S. military.

“The bill sets us on a path to modernize our defense capabilities and augment our drone manufacturing, shipbuilding efforts, and the development of innovative low-cost weapons,” Wicker said.

The discretionary defense spending authorized in the bill would be $8 billion more than the Pentagon requested earlier this year, and fully fund major programs such as the Golden Dome for America missile defense shield and the F-47 advanced fighter, as well as providing the Navy funds to build more submarines and destroyers.

Wicker also lauded the bill’s provisions that seek to improve the Pentagon’s budget and acquisition processes. An executive summary of the bill said it adopted key provisions from Wicker’s Fostering Reform and Government Efficiency in Defense, or FORGED, Act that seeks to speed up development and production of new weapons by prioritizing commercial acquisition, slashing red tape and expanding the industrial base.

“In this NDAA, my colleagues and I have prioritized the structural rebuilding of the arsenal of democracy and returning the department to its warfighting mission,” Wicker said. “Crucially, it also contains the most sweeping upgrades to the Pentagon’s business practices in 60 years — a watershed moment for our military.”

The bill also seeks to reform the Joint Requirements Oversight Council by cutting “bureaucratic validation of service requirements,” the executive summary said, and instead focusing on fixing joint operational problems.

The NDAA authorizes funds to give troops a 3.8% pay raise, and would create a senior-level Defense Property Management Office to “fix unacceptable outcomes for military families during the moving process,” Wicker and Reed said.

“We face significant national security challenges, but this NDAA makes meaningful progress toward meeting them,” Reed said. “It enhances military readiness, supports service members and their families, modernizes combat platforms, and invests in critical technologies.”

The NDAA also includes a provision that would withhold 25% of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until he sends congressional committees overseeing the military “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations” in the Caribbean region. This is intended to push Hegseth to release more information on controversial strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats from Venezuela.

The bill would bar the Pentagon from cutting the U.S. military’s force posture in Europe or giving up the United States’ role in filling the Supreme Allied Commander-Europe position that commands NATO, until the secretary of defense assesses how those changes would affect U.S. and NATO interests and certifies to Congress that it would be in the national interest. It also would authorize a $200 million increase for U.S. European Command security assistance.

The NDAA contains provisions that seek to bolster allied and friendly nations against Russian aggression. It would establish a Baltic Security Initiative and authorize $175 million to “strengthen front-line deterrence against Russian aggression,” the executive summary said. It would also extend the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through 2028 and authorize $400 million in funding for 2026 and 2027. And it requires the secretary of defense to notify Congress if any decision is made to modify, restrict or terminate military intelligence, imagery intelligence or other such support to Ukraine.

It also fully funds the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, strengthens activities related to the AUKUS agreement between the U.S., U.K. and Australia and provides new authorities for cooperating with Taiwan.

The bill would also prohibit the Air Force from cutting its fleet of A-10 Warthog attack planes below 103 in 2026, and extend a prohibition on the Air Force retiring RQ-4 Global Hawk drones to 2030. And it requires the Air Force to keep at least 90 days’ worth of spare parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter by the end of September 2028.

The USS Nimitz aircraft carrier docked in its homeport of Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington, on Tuesday for what is scheduled to be its final visit there.

The world’s oldest aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1975 with a service lifespan of 50 years, is set to return to Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, in 2026 and be decommissioned.

The Nimitz returned from a nine-month deployment to the U.S. 3rd, 5th and 7th Fleets that began March 21 when it set sail from Kitsap.

“We have traveled more than two-thirds of this planet during this nine-month deployment, and I cannot overstate the positive impact Nimitz Strike Group has made as part of our mission to maintain peace through strength by sustaining credible deterrence alongside our allies and partners,” said Rear Adm. Fred Goldhammer, commander of Carrier Strike Group 11, according to a release.

During its final deployment, the Nimitz spent three months in the Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility and almost four months in U.S. Central Command.

In the U.S. 5th Fleet, the carrier helped set conditions that enabled the Iran-Israel ceasefire and helped strike Islamic State targets in Somalia, according to the release.

The Nimitz also supported operations in the U.S. 7th Fleet, providing deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and taking part in the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition.

Sailors aboard the Nimitz completed over 8,500 sorties, 17,000 flight hours, 50 replenishments-at-sea and sailed over 82,000 nautical miles combined, the release said.

USS Nimitz heading to Middle East, defense official says

Built after the Navy’s first nuclear-powered carrier, the USS Enterprise, the Nimitz became the flagship vessel of the ten Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carriers.

The storied vessel was named after Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, who served as commander in chief of U.S. Pacific Fleet during World War II.

The Nimitz first deployed July 7, 1976, to the Mediterranean, and then two years later, deployed to the Indian Ocean after Iran took 52 U.S. hostages in the wake of an attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran.

The warship participated in Operation Evening Light, which sought to rescue those hostages, but the efforts were unsuccessful after the mission was called off due to an insufficient number of helicopters to complete it.

The 52 hostages were eventually released and returned to the U.S.

The Nimitz also supported Operation Desert Storm in the Arabian Gulf in 1991 and Operation Southern Watch in 1993 and 1997.

The carrier was stationed at its homeport of Naval Station Norfolk for 12 years until it relocated to Naval Base Kitsap in 1987.

It relocated again in 2001 to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, California, from which it deployed in 2005 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the war on terrorism.

The Nimitz relocated in 2012 to a new homeport in Everett, Washington, deploying a year later in 2013 to support Operation Enduring Freedom.

The carrier also famously fielded the Navy F-35 Lightning’s first carrier landing at sea.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, the Nimitz began a deployment that would end up becoming the longest since the Vietnam War, clocking in at 341 days.

Adm. Daryl Caudle assumed the U.S. Navy’s highest post in August as the service’s 34th chief of naval operations.

Caudle subsequently outlined his priorities as CNO in his “Foundry, Fleet, Fight” initiative, one that, factoring in personnel, platforms and industry, aims to ensure maritime supremacy amid an era of rapidly evolving strategic environments and fierce competition by near-peer nations like China and Russia.

At the core of that relentless push are sailors, who in recent years have grappled with, among various challenges, new missions and readiness shortfalls while simultaneously being tasked with mastering tech developments that stretch human-machine integration far beyond what was once thought possible.

Caudle, who has continually stated that a sailor-first approach anchors his entire suite of decision-making, sat down with Military Times this week to discuss the myriad complexities of today’s naval warfare.

While addressing topics ranging from missions in the U.S. Southern Command area of operations to sailor quality of life and unmanned developments, Caudle expanded upon the principles of the “Foundry, Fleet, Fight” endeavor and what must transpire for the Navy to succeed in 2026 and beyond.

Watch the full interview here.

The life of movie actor Jimmy Stewart is inching closer to the big screen.

Set to debut in theaters Nov. 6, 2026, Burns & Co. Entertainment released the first look at KJ Apa (“Riverdale”) as the World War II veteran and famed “It’s a Wonderful Life” star, Jimmy Stewart.

The teaser trailer, which dropped on Dec. 17, opens with Apa performing Stewart’s famed monologue as forlorn George Bailey reaching his breaking point while sitting at Martini’s bar in the fictional town of Bedford Falls.

The trailer then spans to Apa, surrounded by flashing camera lights as the voice of Louis B. Mayer, played by Jason Alexander (“Seinfeld”), tells Apa “You are a star. And America needs stars right now.”

The movie will chronicle Stewart’s rise in Hollywood — including his Academy Award-winning performance in “The Philadelphia Story” — before his shock enlistment in the U.S. Army Air Corps in March 1941, shortly before the branch became the U.S. Army Air Forces.

For his part, Stewart’s fight began long before he entered the war. The 6-foot-3-inch Stewart weighed only 138 pounds, and the Army initially turned him down — something that the trailer hints at.

According to historian Richard L. Hayes, Stewart began eating “spaghetti twice a day, supplemented with steaks and milkshakes.” At a second physical in March 1941, he still had not gained enough weight to be eligible but he talked the Army doctors into adding an ounce or two so he could qualify, then ran outside shouting to fellow actor Burgess Meredith, ‘I’m in! I’m in!’”

Not satisfied to simply sit stateside selling war bonds, Stewart fought for active duty and subsequently served as a combat pilot, flying 20 missions in Europe in a B-24 Liberator.

That experience would shape his life and his acting forevermore. Less than a year after his return home, Stewart famously starred in Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” delivering the now iconic, tear-soaked monologue: “God, God, dear Father in Heaven. I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there and you can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. I … show me the way, oh God.”

The moment had been spontaneous. When director Frank Capra tried to reshoot, Stewart looked at the director and said, “Frank, I can’t do that again. Don’t ask me.”

Stewart’s tears were not the product of acting — as talented as Stewart was — but that of a buried reservoir of emotions tied directly to his wartime experiences.

“Jimmy Stewart was an American hero,” Apa said in a Wednesday statement.

“He was among a certain breed of men who understood the true meaning of sacrifice by fighting for our freedom. He was also among the greatest actors of all time. … His story portrays the absolute best of what one human has to offer his country.”

Starring with Apa is Max Casella (“Boardwalk Empire”) as Frank Capra and Jen Lilley (“General Hospital”) as Gloria Stewart, Jimmy Stewart’s wife. Aaron Burns is both directing and producing the film, while Stewart’s daughter, Kelly Stewart-Harcourt, is executive producer.

“I am thrilled and grateful that Burns & Co. is making the film, ‘Jimmy,’ about my father, Jimmy Stewart. It highlights the part of Dad’s life of which he was most proud: his military service,” said Stewart-Harcourt.

“I have long thought that it would be hard to find an actor who could bring my father to life without doing an extended Jimmy Stewart impersonation. But that actor has been found and his name is KJ Apa,” she said.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Vietnam has revved up its land reclamation efforts in the South China Sea this year, beginning construction on eight previously untouched features in the Spratly Islands.

The hotly contested archipelago has been turned from a scattering of low-lying reefs and partially submerged rocks into weaponized artificial islands mainly by China and Vietnam.

Analysts say Hanoi’s island-building is a defensive response to Beijing’s militarization of its South China Sea outposts including those in the Spratly Islands, since 2013.

The South China Sea is a resource-rich waterway and busy shipping lane that trillions of dollars of trade passes through yearly. Six countries have overlapping claims in the sea that stretches about 1.4 million square miles but Beijing has the biggest presence and claims the majority of the territory.

Vietnam began its island building push in 2021. With just 11 islands that year, now all 21 Vietnamese-occupied rocks and low-tide elevations in the Spratlys have been expanded to include artificial land. Vietnam had created about 70% as much artificial land in the Spratlys as China had as of March, the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said in an August report.

This “all but ensures that Vietnam will match – and likely surpass – the scale of Beijing’s island-building,” the report said.

Hanoi’s foreign press office did not respond to requests for comment.

Alexander Vuving, professor at Honolulu’s Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, told Defense News the South China Sea is an “existential issue” for Vietnam – crucial to the country’s economy, security, and national identity.

“Vietnam right now is one of the major exporting nations in the world and 90% of Vietnam’s foreign trade exports to the world go through the South China Sea,” Vuving said.

“The South China Sea is also important to Vietnam securitywise,” he added. “The French came into Vietnam from the sea, and the Americans also came to Vietnam from the sea … now you have the Chinese threat.”

Weaponized islands

AMTI satellite imagery taken this year shows that Vietnam is turning five of its claimed features that previously housed only small concrete pillbox structures into military outposts.

These newly fortified reefs – Alison Reef, Collins Reef, East Reef, Landsdowne Reef, and Petleys Reef – now have munitions storage depots in the form of six containers surrounded and separated by thick walls. Militarization of Vietnam’s outposts also includes ports, harbors, and an 8,000-foot runway on Barque Canada Reef.

AMTI Director Gregory Poling said Hanoi nearing Beijing’s level of land reclamation matters symbolically but Vietnam will remain overpowered at sea.

“None of this means that Vietnam is actually capable of projecting power in the same way that China can. Nor does it mean that Vietnam is being as aggressive or as environmentally destructive as China is,” Poling said.

“Vietnam has never, as far as anybody knows, used forces deployed on these islands for aggression toward the other claimants, whereas China does so on a daily basis,” he said.

China’s South China Sea actions include using its maritime militia and coast guard to ram, swarm, and use powerful water cannons on foreign ships and to patrol inside other nations’ exclusive economic zones.

Beijing’s three largest artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago – Mischief Reef, Subi Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef – have antiship and antiaircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment, underground storage tunnels, and fighter jets.

Poling said Hanoi will likely aim to match Beijing’s ability to forward deploy its coast guard and aircraft to the islands and to improve its intelligence collection.

Construction is continuing on Vietnam’s artificial islands. A Straits Times report described nonstop cranking of towering cranes on South Reef. According to local media reports, soldiers stationed on South Reef are being encouraged to raise chickens and grow vegetables.

Nguyen The Phuong, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New South Wales focusing on Vietnam’s military, said Hanoi is taking a defensive stance.

“The ultimate goal is to be able to defend the islands under Vietnam’s jurisdiction better and to inflict some kind of maximum damage to China if the worst-case scenario happens,” Phuong said from Ho Chi Minh City.

“Vietnam doesn’t want to be embroiled in that kind of conflict but we have to be prepared,” he said.

Geopolitical implications

Hanoi has kept a tight lid on its island-building drive — wary of provoking its powerful neighbor or being seen as enacting the same kind of “bad” behavior as Beijing, according to Ray Powell, director of the maritime transparency initiative SeaLight at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University.

Powell, who was serving as U.S. air attaché to Vietnam when China kicked off its island-building in 2013, said the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi tried to discourage Vietnam from following China’s lead.

“We wanted to have this principled position that any changing of the [South China Sea] status quo was bad,” Powell said. He said he believes the U.S. stance has likely shifted.

“We, the United States, weren’t able to stop the madness when China did it and so now we’re going to go and tell Vietnam not to do it?” he asked.

Washington may even support the effort and see Vietnam’s land reclamation as making it “harder for China to take things by force at some point in the future,” he said.

The U.S. Embassy in Hanoi did not respond to requests for comment.

Although Vietnam’s navy wanted to start its island-building push as early as 2013, it took until 2021 to gather funds, internal consensus, and dredging technology, Phuong said.

Since then, Beijing’s response has been “low profile,” he added.

The Vietnamese sometimes “see Chinese vessels going around the construction site, or sometimes Chinese vessels blocked the movement of vessels transporting” goods for construction, Phuong said.

Van Pham, the Hanoi-based founder of the nonprofit South China Sea Chronicle Initiative, said Chinese vessels patrolling near Vietnamese outposts rarely appear in local media.

“Several years ago, Vietnam’s state media reported an incident in which a Vietnamese navy supply ship was obstructed by a Chinese vessel en route to a feature in the Spratly Islands. Such reports are rare given Vietnam’s quiet diplomacy; additional incidents may occur without public disclosure,” she wrote.

Philippine focus, Hanoi’s timing

Analysts see Beijing’s focus on the Philippines as an opportunity for Vietnam to expand its land.

Hanoi “also sort of had to wait for the right moment,” Powell said, adding that the current Chinese focus on the Philippines and its alliance with the United States “has given them that moment.”

“Everything the Philippines does is treated like the Philippines is just a sock puppet and that the Americans are pulling the strings,” Poling said.

However, he said it is likely that Chinese authorities have realized that as Vietnamese island building nears completion “they can’t just pretend it’s not happening.”

Vuving said he expects Vietnam’s island building is seen by most countries as a welcome counterweight to Beijing.

“China now has four big runways complete with deep-sea harbors and big artificial islands that can serve as dual-use military bases in the middle of the South China Sea. They can literally turn the South China Sea – a big sea – into a choke point,” he said.

“But Vietnam is now also building a lot of new ground in the middle of the sea and maybe also turning some of their artificial islands into runways and deep-sea harbors so it potentially can also correct the imbalance,” he said.

President Donald Trump is traveling to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday for a dignified transfer for the two Iowa National Guard members killed in an attack in the Syrian desert that is testing the rapprochement between Washington and Damascus.

The two Guardsmen killed in the attack on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment. A U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, identified Tuesday as Ayad Mansoor Sakat of Macomb, Michigan, was also killed.

The ritual at Dover Air Force Base honors U.S. service members killed in action and is one of the most solemn duties undertaken by the commander in chief.

During the process, transfer cases draped with the American flag holding the remains of fallen soldiers are carried from the military aircraft that carried them to Dover to an awaiting vehicle to transport them to the mortuary facility at the base. There, the fallen service members are prepared for their final resting place.

Trump, a Republican, said during his first term that witnessing the dignified transfer of service members’ remains is “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.

Remembered as ‘the best of Iowa’

The Iowa National Guard is remembering the two men as heroes. Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out,” noting that he had wanted to be a soldier since he was a young boy.

In a post on the Meskwaki Nation Police Department’s Facebook page, Bunn — who is chief of the Tama, Iowa, department — called Howard a loving husband and an “amazing man of faith” and said Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, would escort “Nate” back to Iowa.

Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” person who was family oriented and someone who always put others first, according to fellow Guardsmen who were deployed with Torres-Tovar and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.

“They were dedicated professionals and cherished members of our Guard family who represented the best of Iowa,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard.

Trump stands by Syrian leader al-Sharaa

On Saturday, Trump told reporters that he was mourning the deaths and vowed retaliation.

Trump said Monday that he remained confident in the leadership of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad, whose family had an iron grip on Syrian rule for decades.

The U.S. president welcomed al-Sharaa to Washington last month for a historic visit to the White House and formally welcomed Syria as a member of the U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State group. Hundreds of U.S. troops are deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

“This had nothing to do with him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “This had to do with ISIS.”

Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were injured in the attack. As of Monday, two were in stable condition and the other in good condition. The Pentagon has not identified them.

Trump traveled to Dover several times during his first term to honor the fallen, including for a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan and for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.